The EDifierJune 23, 2010 Newsweek made a common mistake in a recent article on high school dropout rates. The article used the inverse of the on-time graduation rate to come up with a dropout rate. Using the recent graduation rate estimates from Education Week’s Diplomas Count 2010, the article stated that dropout rates have risen for the second year in row. However, that is not what the data actually says.
As we explain in the Center’s Guide to Calculation High School Graduation Rates, a dropout rate is not the inverse of the graduation rate. The graduation rate used by EdWeek is a four-year graduation rate that only estimates the percent of 9th graders who graduate four years later. So the rate doesn’t count those students who graduate high school in more or less than four years, even if they earned the same diploma as their traditional four-year classmates.
As our Better Late Than Never report shows, those students who need more than four years to graduate high school fare much better in life after high school than their classmates who never earned a high school diploma or even those who went on to earn a GED. So referring to late graduates as dropouts is neither accurate or helpful.
I don’t mean to suggest that all is well and good with our nation’s high schools. The two-year drop in on-time graduation rates certainly raises a red flag. But let’s get the numbers right so we can do a better job pinpointing the problem. If we continually count late graduates as dropouts, we may be excluding many districts that have effective dropout recovery programs in place and are getting students who have fallen behind to graduate with a regular high school diploma in more than four years. These are programs that should be encouraged. The first step in doing so is counting such students as graduates, which they most certainly are. – Jim Hull
June 3, 2010 With high school seniors around the country counting down the days until they receive their diplomas, the U.S. Department of Education has released a report on how many students earned a diploma in 2007-08. According to the report, just under 75 percent of students graduated on time in 2008, which is up from 74 percent in 2007.
However, the rate varies greatly from state to state, ranging from 51 percent in Nevada to nearly 90 percent in Wisconsin. Furthermore, large gaps exist between groups of students, with 91 percent of Asian and 81 percent students graduating on time, while just 64 percent of Hispanic and 62 percent of Black students graduated on time.
Remember whenever reading about graduation rates that the inverse of the graduation rate is not the dropout rate. For example, the estimated national graduation rate is 75 percent, but this does not necessarily mean that 25 percent of students dropped out (as we discuss in our Calculating high school graduation rates report). This is because students who only earn a standard high school diploma within 4 years of entering high school are counting in most graduation rates.
So students who earn a certificate of completion, a special education degree, or a GED are not included. Nor are students who take more than 4 years to graduate high school, which, according to our Better late than never report, represents nearly 5 percent of high school graduates. So including late graduates could boost the national graduation rate to 80 percent.
Increasing the national graduation rate 5 percentage points doesn’t sound huge, but it represents over 200,000 students in 2008 alone. And when looking at individual schools, including late graduates could significantly increase their graduation rates, especially for those schools who excel at getting likely dropouts to persevere and graduate.
So next time you hear about the graduation rate in your state or your district, take a moment to look if it includes those students who needed more than 4 years to graduate. It can really change the way you evaluate your local schools. Because isn’t it more important that a student earns a diploma, no matter how long it takes, than for a student to drop out of high school altogether? We answered that question. The answer is a resounding YES! – Jim Hull
May 18, 2010 An article in the Houston Chronicle a while back reminded me of some of the frustrations I have with how much education reporting seems to be based on opinion and anecdote rather than facts. This article raised questions about Texas’ dropout rate and the number of home-schooled students. Its lead:
More than 22,620 Texas secondary students who stopped showing up for class in 2008 were excluded from the state’s dropout statistics because administrators said they were being home-schooled, according to Texas Education Agency figures.
But that’s where the scrutiny of this growing population seems to end, leaving some experts convinced that schools are disguising thousands of middle and high school dropouts in this hands-off category.
Now, I understand the dropout rate can be hard to calculate. See the Center’s report on dropout prevention to understand more about the subject. And I understand that the homeschooling population is also hard to track. They aren’t in the public school, so in many states, the state has little jurisdiction over them. Finally, I understand that a large part of the purpose of newspapers is to raise questions — investigative reporting.
But I think that articles like this one hurt the debate rather than push it forward. There really isn’t any data on home school students. There isn’t any proof of wrongdoing, either. There are just opinions from experts: “It [the number of home-school students] doesn’t sound very believable,” says one.
How, then, will this article help the education debate? It’s effectively started a rumor that school officials are deliberately falsifying their dropout rates. It offers no way to answer the question. All it offers are the incomplete facts it has, without pushing them farther.
Time after time I’ve read articles that consist mainly of expert’s opinions and anecdotes from parents. Without data to back their conclusions up, these articles do no more than rehash the conventional wisdom on a topic. In many cases, that means reinforcing fallacies — just look at our “Chasing the College Acceptance Letter” piece.
Dropout rates need to be pinned down. The dropout rates are unacceptable in many parts of this country. But articles like this need to do more if they want to help solve that problem. –Rebecca St. Andrie
May 4, 2010 The site “Inside Higher Ed” recently reported on community colleges’ pledge to boost student completion rates by 50 percent over the next decade. It’s one more sign of how college completion is becoming a hot topic in the education world.
I currently know several community college students, and I know that their paths to completion have often been difficult. I’ve seen them struggle with fitting classes in around work, getting back up to speed in math, understanding the idea of prerequisites and degree requirements, learning to persist, picking a major, dealing with family obligations and simply finding the money. I’m proud of all of them for persevering to get their degree. Many community college students are tackling a challenge no one else around them has ever taken on, and that takes courage.
So I’m interested to see how community colleges tackle the complicated completion-rate situation. The little research I know about points to remediation as a key hurdle for community college students. How could high schools and colleges work together to do this? Though community college students are incredibly varied, would dropout strategies make a difference or be informed by what research finds out about community college students? For example, one of the Center’s success stories highlights “middle colleges” in North Carolina, which place disengaged high school students in a college environment. Read it for a great story and some interesting ideas.
Where do you think the research should start? – Rebecca St. Andrie
April 28, 2010 For centuries, farmers routinely set aside a portion of their harvest to use as seed for the next year’s crop. Even when winters were the harshest and their families were hungry, they protected their seed corn and potatoes knowing their future depended on it.
I think of those farmers when I hear from school board members about budget choices they’re being forced to make, like these: do we cut our pre-k enrollments or eliminate middle school tutoring? raise high school class limits by 5 or get rid of arts, music, and foreign languages?
Judging by recent coverage, these are not isolated cases (for example, see the New York Times here and here). Let’s be clear: These choices aren’t about cutting out waste; the services at stake are fundamental to carrying out the school’s mission.
Obviously, this is an extraordinary time for our economy, and public schools aren’t the only ones to feel squeezed. State and local governments are having to make impossibly tough choices of their own in order to balance budgets, and the federal government is under pressure to do the same. But as hard as it is, we need to make a special effort to protect the services we provide children, especially for their education, because their future and ours depends on it.
We’ve written a lot about how much education means to young people (Defining a 21st century education, Better late than never). The more schooling an individual has, the more likely he or she is to earn good wages, have a job, have a job with benefits, own a home, stay out of jail, have healthy habits, volunteer in the community, vote … the list goes on and on.
These benefits add up to real dollars for communities. Several economists have crunched the numbers showing how much the public coffers stand to gain through investments in education. A recent report from the Alliance for Excellent Education , for example, shows that the nation would save billions if we were able to cut the dropout rate in half in our largest cities (check out the report to find specific savings in 45 metropolitan areas). Investments in high-quality pre-kindergarten can begin to pay off within just a couple of years by reducing the need for special education, ELL services and student retentions. Over the long term, every dollar spent on pre-k can yield $3 – $7. Not a bad return, even in a bull market.
One of my colleagues described the situation in his state as “broke and broker.” That pretty much says it for everyone right now. But we need to make a special effort to protect funding for public education. If we don’t, we’ll be eating up our seed corn, leaving us a whole lot of nothing to plant come spring. – Patte Barth
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