Mississippi reported 87% graduation rate but a closer look shows that it is more like 63%.
Many states are coming up with different statistics on the dropout rates.
No Child Left Behind
States are to report graduation rates to Washington D.C. as part of No Child Left Behind accountability. Unfortunately, there is no standard method of calculating the data. Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education, is considering a federal formula that all schools would have to use for reporting.
Graduation Discrepancies
Keeping track of whom graduates is a complicated task. Students are mobile and in a large school with transient populations, the task of accurately keeping track of each student would be overwhelming. A common practice is to take the number of seniors, subtract the students that moved. On graduation day the difference is the percentage of dropouts, right? Wrong. Many students drop out in the junior year, sophomore year and even the freshman year.
A conservative research organization, the Manhattan Institute, did its own calculations of graduation rates. The institute went back to the nations 8th grade population and compared it to the senior year graduation rate five years later. It had been common knowledge that the graduation rate was around 86%. However, when Jay P. Greene at the institute calculated the data closely, he learned that the national graduation rate was closer to 71%.
2001 Law
While the academic scores of students were monitored with NCLB, graduation rates were not. Graduation rates were added but each state was given leeway setting goals and in how to report the data.
- New Mexico was allowed to report the percentage that received a diploma, which totally ignored students that may have dropped out in prior years.
- Nevada’s goal was to graduate half of the students.
- California set the goal even lower. One-tenth of 1% increase in graduation rates.
Raise The Scores
No Child Left Behind is all about proficiency scores. Students are to test proficient. Some educational experts suspect that some schools encouraged students to drop out that were not proficient. If they didn't take the tests, the school’s scores would improve overall and show a higher percentage of students proficient. After all, NCLB was not asking for statistics on percentage of graduates—only academic scores.
Get A GED
The same students that were encouraged to drop out were later encouraged to get a GED, General Educational Development diploma. In fact, some schools instructed the students on how to study for the GED successfully. By doing this, the student got a "diploma" but didn’t lower the school’s scores. Some schools were even counting students that earned a GED as graduates and including them in the graduation numbers. A California school, Bounce Back School, allows dropouts to return and get a diploma.
New Record Keeping System
The state of Mississippi is now in the process of refining a statewide record keeping system. Mississippi will be able to accurately monitor each school on the progress in the drop out rate. Initially, schools may look worse. But, once the new system is in place, accuracy will be the result.
Source: Sam Dillon, The New York Times, March 20, 2008
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Copyright article 2008 Barbara Pytel. All Rights Reserved.
