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February 27, 2013

Great gains in high school graduation rates

 

Great news!! The U.S. is on-track to have a 90 percent on-time graduation rate by 2020 according to a new report from America’s Promise Alliance.

Such news should be plastered all over the newspapers and lead the nightly news. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. But it is news worth celebrating nonetheless.

Specifically, the report found:

 

  • As of 2010, the national on-time graduation rate is 78.5 percent up from 71.7 percent in 2001, a 6.5 percentage point increase.
  • The graduation rate has increased by 5 percentage points between 2006 and 2010.
  • Due to this increase, nearly 200,000 more students graduated in 2010 than would have if the rate remained the same as in 2006.
  • If this annual improvement is maintained over the next decade the U.S. will have a 90 percent on-time graduation rate by 2020.
  • Hispanic and African American graduation rates made significant rains during this time period.
  • Two states, Wisconsin and Vermont, already have achievement a 90 percent on-time graduation rate.
  • Over one million (1.1 million) fewer students attended so-called ‘Dropout Factories’ in 2011 compared to 2002. Such schools graduate less than half of their incoming 9thgraders within four years.
  • The percent of African American students attending dropout factories declined from nearly 50 percent in 2002 to just 25 percent in 2011.
  • Hispanic students were also less likely to attend a dropout factory, where the percent of Hispanic students attending such schools declined from nearly 39 percent to 17 percent over the same time period.

Of course, there is a lot more work to be done but our schools should be given credit where credit is due. For decades our on-time graduation rate stubbornly hovered around the 70 percent mark with no signs of budging. And now it is closing in on 80 percent and heading towards 90 percent by 2020.

Our teachers and administrators should take pride in making such progress and policymakers should support them with the resources they need by investing in early dropout warning systems and high quality dropout preventions as well as ensure all students have access to effective teachers and a rigorous curriculum. These are tools our research shows have helped move our on-time graduation rate to nearly 80 percent and will be vital in graduating 90 percent of students by 2020.

Filed under: Graduation rates,High school,Public education,Report Summary,research — Tags: — Jim Hull @ 7:35 am




February 14, 2013

What is the economic benefit of vouchers?

A recent study of the Washington, DC voucher program purports to show that the voucher program yields a whopping 162 percent rate of return because more students graduate due to the voucher program than would have without the program in place. Not too shabby. However, a closer look at how they came to this number raises some serious questions about such large rates of returns.

When it comes to calculating the economic benefits of the voucher program the study does use a similar methodology as other studies that have calculated rate of returns on other education policies such as high quality Pre-k and dropout prevention programs, among others.

In this, as well as, previous studies the economic benefit was based on the increased wages and lower unemployment rates of those who graduate high school compared to dropouts, so more high school graduates means more tax revenues.

Moreover, high school graduates tend to require fewer government services so they will use less taxpayer money as well.  While there is certainly room to disagree with the accuracy of these measures, they do provide some estimate of the economic benefit of such education programs. So the question is not how much students benefit from the program.

The big question is actually how many students benefit from the voucher program. The economic benefits may be large but if very few students graduate high school due to the voucher program then it doesn’t matter how great the economic benefits are. So the larger question really is whether the voucher program improves graduation rates as much as the report states it does?

To determine how many more students graduated high school due to the voucher program, the report used the official evaluation of the voucher program which found graduation rates were 12 percentage points higher for those students who used the voucher and those students who entered the lottery but did not receive a voucher. According to the study, if this rate held true more than 400 students per year would graduate high school due to the voucher program.

However, I’ve looked over the report and while its methodology is sound, there are number of issues that raise the question whether the increase in graduation rates can really be attributable to the voucher program?

A major issue to keep in mind is that the voucher evaluation was about determining the impact of having a voucher system not about whether students were better off using the voucher. In fact, the majority of students who were offered vouchers never used them. They either attended a charter school, remained in their traditional public school, or attended a non-participating private school.

Moreover, half of the students who entered the voucher lottery but did not win a voucher (control group) went on to attend to a charter school or a private school. So the 12 percentage point increase in the probability that a student will graduate is based on whether a student was ‘offered’ a voucher, not whether the student actually ‘used’ the voucher.

What the evaluation actually found was simply offering a student a voucher— even if they remained at their local public school or charter school— improves a student’s chances of graduating high school. I am a strong believer in the ‘invisible hand’ and the power of competition. However, this just doesn’t make sense to me. If the evaluation was simply measuring the impact of vouchers to create competition then that impact should be felt by all students even those who didn’t enter the voucher lottery.

This makes the claim that vouchers increase graduation rates 12 percentage points quite suspect, especially since the same evaluation found that the voucher program had no impact on student achievement. One reason this may be the case is that test scores are objective measures provided by the schools. However, the graduation rates of those students who took part in the voucher program are based on parent responses to follow-up surveys.

It could be the parents of students who were offered a voucher, claimed their child graduated but did not. Also, we don’t know if students who graduated from private schools were required to meet as rigorous requirements as students in public schools.  So, it really is questionable whether the DC Voucher program has produced more high school graduates prepared for the real world.

What this new study shows is that any program that increases high school graduates will yield significant economic benefits in the form of additional tax revenue and less demand for government services.  But whether the DC voucher program does actually increase the chances a student will graduate high school is still not known, as the original evaluation failed to isolate the impact of using a voucher. Without an accurate measure of the number of students who graduated high school due to the voucher program it is impossible to say that the DC voucher program provides a 162 percent rate of return.

Filed under: Charter Schools,Graduation rates,Public education,research,vouchers — Tags: , , — Jim Hull @ 7:45 am




January 25, 2013

Our rising graduation rates

Earlier this week Allison— CPE’s latest and greatest intern— wrote about our rising national high school graduates rates. She made an excellent point that just because more students are receiving high school diplomas doesn’t mean more students are leaving high school more prepared for life unless the diploma represents that student is ready for the rigors of college— be it a two- or four-year college— or the highly competitive labor market.

Unfortunately, we don’t know for sure whether more of our students are graduating from high school ready for college or a career. The good news is if the Common Core standards live up to expectations than we can be relatively certain that those students who earn a high school diploma are indeed ready for college or the workforce since the Common Core standards were designed specifically to keep students on track to be college and career ready after graduation which is not the case for most state standards as currently implemented. So if the current trend in rising graduation rates continue well after the Common Core standards have been implemented there will be little doubt the more students are graduating high school not only with a piece of paper but with the knowledge and skills they need to either succeed in college or the workplace. That would definitely be something worth celebrating. – Jim Hull

Filed under: college,Graduation rates,High school,national standards — Jim Hull @ 10:00 am




January 23, 2013

Celebration of Increased Graduation Rates Should be Mitigated with Realities of Unequal Rigor

Yesterday the Washington Post reported that the Class of 2010 had more on-time high school graduates than any high school class in almost 40 years.  For those of us who’ve followed an unending stream of dire news about America’s public schools, yesterday’s headlines were a welcome change.

The data comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, and in the report there are a whole host of things to feel great about such as: 1) 78% of students in the Class of 2010 earned a diploma within four years of starting high school, 2) the percentage of Hispanic students graduating on-time increased 10 percentage points in a mere five years, and 3) graduation rates improved for every race and ethnicity in 2010.

However, while we as a nation should certainly take pride in the fact that the year 2010 ushered in a greater percentage of graduates, such celebration shouldn’t eclipse the reality that increasing the number of diplomas without knowing the level of rigor those diplomas represent could be a fool’s errand.

In my seven years teaching high school students, I had the opportunity to work in a variety of schools.  When I moved from teaching in a low-income school to teaching in an affluent private school, I was blown away by the different levels of rigor in the curriculum of each.  Curriculum that might have been part of a twelfth grade honors class in my previous school was the level of rigor expected in an on-level ninth grade course.  Ninth grade courses in my previous school read a few novels, many with reading levels below ninth grade, and focused almost exclusively on writing formulaic paragraphs.  In contrast, the freshmen private school students read a plethora of novels, short stories, and essays and composed fully developed, non-formulaic writing in all genres.

The rich, challenging curriculum at this private school mirrors the curriculums of many of this nation’s  public schools, and certainly the public school I attended, but it isn’t a reality for every public school student.  While there are certainly deeper questions about the correlations between income level and achievement in our schools that cannot be ignored when we compare curriculums from schools with students from different socio-economic backgrounds, this doesn’t mean we can simply ignore the reality that the level of rigor in schools nationwide is uneven.  These differences can and do play themselves out when students leave high school to move on to college, with many unprepared students unable to complete college-level work.  As CPE found in our Setting up Students to Succeed report, in 2009 only 57.8 percent of students enrolled in a four-year college graduated in less than six years, and only 32.9 percent of students in two-year institutions graduated in three years.

More students are graduating with a diploma, and that’s a good thing. But the question remains what those diplomas represent.  If more students are graduating, but graduating from schools with watered down curriculums that require little critical thinking, writing, and reading, is there really much to celebrate? On the other hand, there would be much to celebrate if more students graduated high school after completing a rigorous curriculum that prepared them not only to get into college but also for success in life.  – Allison Gulamhussein

Filed under: CPE,Graduation rates,High school,standards — Allison @ 12:09 pm




December 5, 2012

Getting back on top of the college attainment rankings

Have you seen the headlines claiming the U.S. has slipped to 16th in the world in college attainment? Do you wonder where the data came from or whether this was true or not? Or asked yourself does it really matter? If so, check out CPE’s latest report Getting Back to the Top: An international comparison of college attainment which answers these questions and more.

To answer these questions I examined college attainment rates for 41 countries and came to three conclusions:

  • The U.S. is among the world leaders in the college attainment of adults 25-64. For example the U.S. ranks 2nd in the world in adults ages 25 to 64 with a 4-year degree.
  • When comparing the college attainment of just young adults the U.S. ranking drops considerably. For example, the U.S. ranks 11th in the percent of 25 to 34 year olds with a 4-year degree.
  • The U.S. can make significant progress towards regaining the global lead in college attainment by focusing on 2-year degrees. Just 10 percent of young adults in the U.S. have earned a 2- year degree which ranks 18th globally. If the U.S. could just increase the graduation rates of students who enroll in 2- year institutions from 30 to 60 percent (the 4-year college graduation rate) the U.S. would rank among the world leaders in college attainment.

While colleges and other factors certainly play a large role as to whether students go on to earn a degree, our K-12 schools can certainly help. According to our recent report on college persistence students who go onto college are more likely to succeed if they complete a rigorous curriculum and are provided counseling on how to navigate the college-going process before they graduate high school. Furthermore, our K-12 schools should collect and examine data on whether their graduates are going on to have success in college to determine if they need to adjust their curriculum and supports to ensure that their students not only get into college but go onto to earn a college degree.

Not only will focusing on 2-year degrees help get the U.S. back to the top of the college attainment rankings but as the Center for Public Education’s report on a 21st century education found, there will be a great demand for so called ‘middle skills jobs’ that will require some college after high school, although not necessarily a 4-year degree. So not only will focusing on two-year degree completion help put the U.S back on top of the world college attainment rankings it could also have a significant impact on our unemployment rate and our economy as well.

Filed under: college,Graduation rates,International Comparisons — Jim Hull @ 4:27 pm




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