4. Who benefits from family literacy?

Children benefit. They demonstrate greater gains in vocabulary, literacy, logic, math, and other skills than children in child-focused programs. They are more likely to be successful in school right through high school graduation and less likely to be exposed to health risks or live in poverty.

Adults benefit. They improve their basic educational and job skills and are enabled to make self-identified changes in their lives that help them fulfill their personal goals. Parents whose first language is not English acquire communication skills to support their relationships with their children, school staff, co-workers, employers, and the community at large.

Schools benefit. Parents become full partners in their children's education through increased communication with school staff and active participation in school activities. They gain the skills they need to reinforce their children's school learning in the home.

Businesses and communities benefit. More educated parents are better prepared to enter the workforce and meet the performance requirements of today's businesses. As parents develop the skills they need in the context of their roles as parents, workers, and citizens, they become active contributors to their communities.

Community Challenge

Promise of Family Literacy

School Success:
Children living in homes with parents who have not completed high school and are unemployed are five to six times more likely to drop out of school than other children.

Family literacy enables parents to improve their skills to be more effective in their role as their children's first and most important teacher and enhance the value placed upon education within the family.

Employment:
High school dropouts are twice as likely to be unemployed and, when employed, earn only half of a high school graduate's salary.

Family literacy provides parents with the basic educational and job skills they need to complete a high school diploma and participate effectively in the workforce.

Self-Sufficiency:
Nearly one half of all heads of households receiving public assistance have not finished high school.

Family literacy reduces dependency on public assistance and significantly increases employment.

Health Care:
The most reliable indicator of family health is the educational level of the mother.

Family literacy provides opportunities for parents to learn about child development, good health, and proper nutrition.

Please 5. Who provides family literacy?

Any group with a mission of meeting the educational needs of adults and children in the context of the family can provide family literacy. In Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Family Network, Adult and Community Learning Services, Title I, libraries, and private funders provide family literacy.

Typically, programs are established through a collaboration of adult education, age appropriate education for children, and family support service providers, as well as libraries, community agencies, and businesses, to offer a comprehensive array of integrated family-centered services that assist the family as a unit.

This collaboration creatively combines resources to provide additional outcomes and benefits for families and communities. Information on individual Massachusetts communities is documented in the MFLC Community Needs and Assets Profiles.

address any questions or comments to MFLC@doe.mass.edu

6. How can I help start family literacy in my community?

You can take some initial steps in your community:

· Inventory resources and potential partners invested in the well-being of families.

· Develop a vision and mission statement that reflects a shared commitment to working in partnership to serve the multiple needs of families.

· Visit Resources for information on:

· MFLC Community Needs and Assets Profiles

· Adult Literacy Hotline

· Family Literacy Month

· Family Literacy Products

· Massachusetts Family Literacy Collection at the Lawrence Public Library

· Family Involvement Fact Sheet

· Adult and Community Learning Services at the Massachusetts Department of Education

· SABES (System for Adult Basic Education Support)

· Visit Links for additional state and national contacts.

Dropout Rates 2000 - 2001

Introduction

This report provides information on students who dropped out of Massachusetts public schools during the 2000-01 reporting year (July 1, 2000, to June 30, 2001). Dropouts are defined as students in grades nine through twelve who leave school prior to graduation for reasons other than transfer to another school. The Massachusetts Department of Education reports a dropout measure that was developed by the U.S. Department of Education. According to this measure, students who drop out during a particular reporting year, but return to school by October 1 of the following year, referred to in this report as returned dropouts, are not counted as dropouts. The dropout rate is the number of students who drop out over a one-year period, from July 1 to June 30, minus the number of returned dropouts, divided by the October 1 enrollment. This measure will eventually be adopted by all states, allowing for comparisons between states and with the national average.

Analysis of Dropout Rates

During the 2000-01 reporting year, a total of 9,380 ninth- through twelfth-graders dropped out of Massachusetts public schools and did not return to school by October 1, 2001. These students represented 3.5 percent of the 271,700 students enrolled in grades nine through twelve in the state's public schools on October 1, 2000. The 2000-01 annual dropout rate of 3.5 percent remained the same from the 1999-2000 reporting year.

In addition to the 9,380 dropouts, another 1,598 students dropped out of school during the 2000-01 reporting year and were not in school at the end of the year but returned to school by October 1, 2001. These students, referred to in this report as returned dropouts, represented 14.6 percent of the total number of students who dropped out during the 2000-01 school year. The Department does not collect information on students who drop out of school in a reported year but return before the end of the same school year.

Based on the annual dropout rate for each grade level, it is projected that 13 percent of the students who entered ninth grade in the 2000-01 reporting year will have dropped out by the end of their senior year in 2004. This statistic, known as the projected four-year dropout rate, is an estimation of the cumulative effect of four years of students dropping out of school for the class of 2004. The projected four-year dropout rate of 13 percent for the class of 2004 is the same as the projected rate for the class of 2003.

The statewide dropout rate masks the wide disparity in individual school rates and the persistently high rates at some schools. Among individual schools the dropout rate ranged from a low of zero percent to a high of 50 percent . Sixteen schools reported no dropouts in 2000-01 and another 67 schools reported dropout rates of one percent or less. Twenty-one schools reported dropout rates greater than ten percent. These 21 schools comprised 4.9 percent of the state's grade nine through twelve enrollment, but accounted for 20.7 percent of the state's dropouts.

Table 1. Dropout Rates: 2000-2001

		Enrollment	Number of Dropouts	Annual Rate	Projected Four-year Rate*	Returns as % of Dropouts**
Total, Grade 9-12		271,700	9,380	3.5%	--	14.6%
Grade
	Grade 10	69,447	2,419	3.5%	--	14.6%
	Grade 11	64,689	2,580	4.0%	--	14.7%
	Grade 12	57,994	1,769	3.1%	--	15.7%
Gender
	Male	133,778	5,479	4.1%	15%	17.7%
	Female	137,922	3,901	2.8%	11%	16.7%
Race/Ethnic Group
	African-American	23,346	1,421	6.1%	22%	12.0%
	Asian	12,323	482	3.9%	15%	20.1%
	Hispanic	26,095	2,079	8.0%	28%	13.2%
	Native American	711	23	3.2%	12%	11.5%
	White	209,225	5,375	2.6%	10%	15.2%
Vocational-Technical Schools***		33,182	1,081	3.3%	13%	13.9%
	City/Town	8,395	568	6.8%	24%	15.0%
	Regional/County/Independent	24,787	513	2.1%	8%	12.6%
* Percentage of ninth graders (class of 2004) projected to drop out over a four-year period
** Percentage of 2000-01 dropouts who returned to school by October 1, 2001
*** Figures do not include vocational-technical students enrolled in comprehensive high schools

Table 2. Annual Dropout Rates: 1997-2001

		1996-97	1997-98	1998-99	1999-00	2000-01
Total Dropout Rate, Grade 9-12		3.4%	3.4%	3.6%	3.5%	3.5%
Total Number of Dropouts		8,453	8,582	9,188	9,199	9,380
Grade 9-12 Enrollment		246,757	252,633	258,026	265,795	271,700
Grade
	Grade 9	2.8%	2.7%	3.1%	3.1%	3.3%
	Grade 10	3.8%	3.6%	3.8%	3.7%	3.5%
	Grade 11	4.0%	4.2%	4.3%	3.9%	4.0%
	Grade 12	3.2%	3.3%	3.1%	3.1%	3.1%
Gender
	Male	3.9%	3.9%	4.0%	4.0%	4.1%
	Female	3.0%	2.9%	3.1%	2.9%	2.8%
Race/Ethnic Group
	African-American	5.6%	6.1%	6.7%	6.1%	6.1%
	Asian	2.7%	3.5%	3.6%	4.0%	3.9%
	Hispanic	8.2%	8.2%	9.8%	8.2%	8.0%
	Native American	6.0%	5.3%	4.0%	4.2%	3.2%
	White	2.7%	2.6%	2.5%	2.6%	2.6%
Vocational-Technical Schools*		3.2%	2.9%	2.9%	3.2%	3.3%
	City/Town	6.1%	4.9%	4.9%	5.5%	6.8%
	Regional/County/Independent	2.6%	2.4%	2.4%	2.6%	2.1%
* Figures do not include vocational-technical students enrolled in comprehensive high schools

Table 3. Projected Four-Year Dropout Rates: Class of 2000-2004

		Class of 2000	Class of 2001	Class of 2002	Class of 2003	Class of 2004
Total		13%	13%	14%	13%	13%
Gender
	Male	15%	15%	15%	15%	15%
	Female	11%	11%	12%	11%	11%
Race/Ethnic Group
	African-American	21%	22%	24%	22%	22%
	Asian	11%	13%	14%	15%	15%
	Hispanic	28%	29%	33%	29%	28%
	Native American	23%	21%	17%	16%	12%
	White	10%	10%	10%	10%	10%
Vocational-Technical Schools*		13%	12%	12%	13%	13%
	City/Town	22%	19%	19%	21%	24%
	Regional/County/Independent	10%	10%	9%	14%	8%
* Figures do not include vocational-technical students enrolled in comprehensive high schools

Table 4. Distribution of Annual Dropout Rates: 1998-2001

	Number and Percent of Schools*
Annual Rate (%)	1997-98		1998-99		1999-2000		2000-01
	#	%	#	%	#	%	#	%
0	13	4	19	6	18	6	16	5
0.1 - 1.0	69	22	63	20	67	21	67	21
1.1 - 2.5	89	29	93	30	103	32	92	29
2.6 - 5.0	93	30	83	26	72	23	93	29
5.1 - 7.5	26	8	28	9	30	10	21	7
7.6 - 10.0	7	2	12	4	9	3	9	3
10.1 and above	14	5	19	6	18	6	21	7
Total Number of Schools	302		311		317		319
*Excludes schools with enrollments fewer than 75. Percent of schools may not total to 100 percent due to rounding.

Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium

Our vision is successful families. Our mission is successful partnershps.

Massachusetts Community Needs and Assets Profiles
(Enhanced and updated community profiles on our development site will replace these community profiles later this year.)

In order to demonstrate how important family literacy services can be for children and their parents, the Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium has developed individual profiles of community needs and assets for each of the 351 cities and towns in our state.

An estimated 877,000 Massachusetts adults do not possess functional literacy and another 1,162,000 are literate, but lack the skills expected of a high school graduate. These statistics, however, mask significant variations from community to community. The needs and assets profiles were created to document such differences using indicators of individual and family need, as well as assets communities have available to respond to these needs with respect to education, employment, poverty, social, and health characteristics.

The Community Needs Profiles provide a snapshot of education, family support, and general economic conditions using Census and state data. Data, including income, unemployment, dropout, poverty, and teen birth rates, is available for communities to use when holding forums, building coalitions, and advancing their efforts on behalf of integrated family literacy and family support services.

The companion Community Assets Profiles highlight selected resources related to family literacy and support including funding provided by agencies such as: the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Children's Trust Fund (CTF), the Department of Public Health (DPH), the Department of Education (DOE), and the Office of Child Care Services (OCCS). They can help facilitate the identification of stakeholders invested in the well-being of families and the creation of opportunities for leveraging federal, state, and local resources.

When parents need literacy services for themselves, it is difficult for them to support their children's learning. Thousands of Massachusetts families led by undereducated and/or limited English proficient parents stand to benefit from an awareness of the value and benefit of family literacy programs and collaboration in support of family literacy. The MFLC provides these profiles to assist communities in helping family literacy grow and thrive. The well-being of our Commonwealth rests on our ability to create student, family, and community success -- together.

Data Sources for Community Needs Profiles
Data Sources/Contacts for Community Assets Profiles

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More information regarding PDF documents is found on this page

NOTE: The Massachusetts Family Literacy Consortium used the latest data available to the Massachusetts Department of Education (DOE) with cooperation and support of MFLC partners. In some cases, the information dates back to the 1990 Census. The DOE will update these profiles as information/data becomes available.