Evaluations of national education policies are often related to the particularly crucial dimension of the early school leaving. Looking at the various reports, there is a great difficulty in comparing numbers and percentages because of both the dif- ferent ways of calculating and the diversity of constructs which often share, however, the same names. In particular, the syn- onymous use of “dispersion” and “abandonment” is not only a terminological issue. The ambiguity of the terms can in fact lead to a more or less realistic reading of the phenomenon, with the risk that it would limit the investments in terms of re- sources to counter the phenomenon itself. By comparing the latest institutional and non-institutional reports – at a national and European level, with local in-depth studies – the article intends to propose a reflection on the meanings to be attributed to the main constructs, with the aim of identifying those most suitable to guide appropriate preventive policies. Finally, the contribution attempts to determine a reliable estimate of the early school leaving in Italy.