With 22 percent of the LAUSD's high school students quitting before graduation -- enough to nearly fill Dodger Stadium every four years -- school officials are coming under increasing pressure to resolve the dropout crisis.

The Los Angeles Unified School District's four-year dropout rate is twice the state rate of 10.9 percent, and more than 7 points higher than the Los Angeles County rate of 14.6 percent.

Just last year, 10,706 high school students dropped out of the LAUSD. And consistent with a long-standing trend, black and Latino students leave schools in the highest numbers.

"It's generations of students who are being written off. You can't keep doing that year in and year out," said Hector Villagra, regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, a prominent nonprofit advocacy group.

Superintendent Roy Romer said the district isn't ignoring the problem. Numerous efforts are under way to improve student achievement, he said, citing initiatives to improve math and literacy, along with a remedial reading and writing program launched last year to help struggling high school students.

Recently, he unveiled a plan to break up large high schools into small academies of several hundred students, where they can receive a more personalized education and adult supervision.

"I am concerned about the high dropout rate," Romer said. "Part of the reason, a strong part of the reason, for my initiative on small learning communities is to reduce the dropout rate. I know youngsters get lost in these large institutions."

In smaller learning communities, he said, teachers would be able to keep better tabs on their students.

"They would have more contact with the teacher, who would get to know them. The motivation to go to school is, someone believes in them and knows them and somebody can support them when they need help."

Particularly troubling is the LAUSD's dropout rate for black students -- the highest in the district.

Nearly one in three leaves between their freshmen and senior years, according to the state's 2001-02 projection. While African-American students make up 12.1 percent of the district's enrollment, their dropout rate is 29.3 percent.

Sheri Osborne, president of Advocates for Valley African African Students, believes small learning communities might be the antidote to the dropout crisis.

On a high school campus of 4,000 or 5,000 students, Osborne said, the majority become faceless and disenfranchised.

"If you are not really bad or really good, you are just there and nobody knows it. How devastating is that? It's like you are going through high school as a tourist."

School crowding also exacerbates the dropout problem, Villagra said. Many schools are at or over capacity, operating year-round. While the district is undertaking a multibillion-dollar school construction program, it's expected to take years to build the schools necessary to relieve overcrowding.

"When you don't have enough space as it is, you don't have any incentives to keep the kids from dropping out," Villagra said. "You have nowhere to put them. That's the really sad fact about the state of education today -- that you may be put in a position where you may be glad to see students go because you don't have anywhere to put them."

While the LAUSD's dropout rate is considered alarmingly high, Villagra and others contend the actual number of students who quit school is higher than officially reported because of the flawed definition of "dropout" and problems with collecting data.

The state defines a dropout as a student who skips school for 45 consecutive days. But as long as the student does not miss consecutive days, he is not categorized as a dropout, even if his absences total more than 45 days in a school year.

"There is no doubt in my mind our dropout rate is much higher than what is reported. I hear it often," said school board member Jose Huizar. "When I am out there in the field and talk to principals and teachers, they give me a very different story from the numbers we give out officially in the district."

According to the state Education Department, the projected Latino dropout rate in 2001-02 was 23.6 percent, but Villagra said other studies indicate the number is as high as 45 percent. Because Latinos comprise nearly 72 percent of the LAUSD's 746,831-student enrollment, they account for the bulk of the dropouts.

But there are those who argue that the dropout rate is overstated because of the high transience rate among Latino students. If a student returns to his home country and does not inform the district, he might be categorized as a dropout.

With educators under increasing pressure from the state to raise test scores or face harsh consequences, critics say sparse attention is being paid to the dropout rate, and few resources are devoted to tackle the issue.

The highly publicized Academic Performance Index -- a key school accountability measure launched by Gov. Gray Davis -- does not yet take dropout rates into account.

"We need to get a dashboard of student achievement indicators that would let us know quarterly how we are doing. The dropout rate is one of the most important ones out there," said Huizar.

The district lacks a comprehensive dropout prevention program. Depending on a school's funding, it may not have a pupil service and attendance counselor -- essentially a social worker who conducts home visits and case management to ensure students stay in school.

Districtwide, there are an estimated 260 PSA counselors -- a ratio of 2,872 students to one counselor. The ratio of guidance counselors, who advise students on academic affairs, to students is also dismal -- as low as one counselor to every 800 students.

"If you have more than 200 students, how do you do any guidance or make any impact?" asked school board member Mike Lansing, who fought to improve the guidance counselor ratio to one for every 450 students.