As part of an effort to reduce high school dropout rates in large city school districts, Phi Delta Kappa, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the Council of Great City Schools, and a group of large city school districts undertook an effort to determine baseline statistics in high schools in large cities by using standardized definitions and procedures for identifying students who dropped out of school by name and characteristics. This paper describes some of the problems and accomplishments of that effort in several large city school districts. Eventually, information was obtained for more than 50 city high schools. It was entirely possible to obtain this information, although a number of problems, including discrepancies in definitions and dropout counts and a reluctance on the part of local educators to focus on dropouts, did surface. Among the accomplishments was the downloading of information from each district's centralized computer system to a file for comparison with a derived school holding power index. This information may become the basis of efforts to increase support for schools and educators in their attempts to reduce dropout rates. An attachment describes the data transfer approach. (Contains 16 references.) (SLD)