Columbus school officials say they're addressing the problem.
Columbus Public Schools had the fourth-worst high-school graduation rate among the 50 largest school districts in the nation, according to a new study.

Only 45 percent of the district's eighth- graders graduated on time, the study found, mirroring the results of a similar study released in January.

The latest study also said Cleveland public schools had the worst graduation rate in the nation at 28 percent.

Columbus and Cleveland were the only districts in Ohio on the list. They fared dramatically worse than the Ohio average graduation rate of 78 percent, which ranked the state 15th in the study.

"These numbers are very transparent,'' said Jay P. Greene, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, who wrote the study. "They're very easy to check, and they're easy to understand.''

In Columbus, there were 4,796 students in the eighth grade in the fall of 1993, and only 2,207 diplomas were awarded in the spring of 1998, or 46 percent of the students who started the eighth grade.

When Green adjusted for an increase in student population over those five years, the graduation rate fell to 45 percent of the number who could have received diplomas.

"Where did the rest go?'' Green said yesterday. "Where did the 2,600 go?''

Green said he thinks that most of them dropped out. Even if some transferred to other schools or graduated in following years, those numbers would be expected to be offset by new students joining the district each year, he said.

Columbus schools have been aware of the problem and have programs in place to combat it, spokesman Mike Straughter said.

"We must use all means possible to increase the number of students who graduate,'' he said. "It is an essential element of achieving the goal to be out of the state's academic emergency designation by the summer of 2003.''

Green offered no explanation for why some districts performed better than others. "The report really focuses just on trying to generate the facts,'' he said.

In a similar study by a Harvard University professor released in January, Columbus had the ninth-worst ranking nationally for "holding power,'' or the proportion of ninth-graders to 12th-graders four years later.

Eleven of 17 high schools in the district had a holding power of less than 50 percent, the study found, suggesting a large number of dropouts.

District officials did not deny then that they had a dropout problem, but said not all students who failed to receive a diploma dropped out. Many went into school-to-work programs, got an equivalency certificate or transferred to a different school, they said.

Green said that students who go into work programs or get equivalency certificates shouldn't be counted as graduating from high schools.

"A considerable amount of research on (students receiving) GEDs suggests their life outcomes are very similar to dropouts,'' he said.

Programs to increase the graduation rate include: Project GRAD, a kindergarten-through-12th-grade program with an aim of retaining students in school; Columbus Pathways Initiative, where middle-school students take summer courses to prepare them for high school; and Career Academies, where 10th- through 12th-graders receive a college-preparatory curriculum with electives focusing on certain careers.

Straughter also pointed to new truancy-intervention centers around the city and Project SMART, which is a collaborative venture of the schools and Franklin County Juvenile Court to curtail truancy, as ways to decrease the dropout rate.