States Underreport Real Dropout Rates

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

GRADUATION STUDY SUGGESTS THAT SOME STATES SHARPLY UNDERSTATE HIGH 
SCHOOL DROPOUT RATES
New York Times -- September 17, 2003
by Diana Jean Schemo

Washington, Sept. 16  With a number of states reporting dropout rates 
in low single digits, a national study estimates that in fact, 3 in 10 
high school freshmen, and half of all black and Latino students, never 
make it to graduation.

The study, by Jay P. Greene of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative 
policy research group, contrasts sharply with the low dropout rates 
reported by a number of states and sometimes used in state rankings of 
district and school performance.

Moreover, while the study found that for the class of 2001, 72 percent 
of white students graduated from high school, only half the black, 
Latino and American Indian children left with diplomas.

The study found that at 56 percent, Florida had the lowest graduation 
rate in the country, followed by Georgia and South Carolina. The most 
successful states, according to the study, were North Dakota, where 89 
percent of high school students graduate in four years; Utah; and Iowa.

The study also examined the college readiness of students who complete 
high school, and found that about 37 percent of white students, and 38 
percent of Asian students, graduate with sufficient course work and 
grades to attend college. For blacks, Latinos and American Indians, the 
figures were discouraging: 20 percent of blacks, 16 percent of Latinos, 
and 14 percent of American Indians leave high school prepared to enter 
college.

"What we're trying to do is make graduation figures clear and useful," 
Dr. Greene said. In a logical system, he maintained, the graduation rate 
 the percentage of ninth graders who leave four years later with a 
diploma  would hover near 100 percent minus the percentage of students 
who quit school during those four years. But in many places, that was 
not so. "We're amazed at official statistics that look very far off from 
what the truth must be. We are seeing fudging in a lot of places."

State education officials attacked the study, saying it was unfair to 
compare dropout figures with graduation rates. In addition to the study, 
Dr. Greene had compiled a spreadsheet comparing the reported dropout 
rates in different states with their graduation rates. The gap was 
largest in South Carolina and Texas, both of which he said undercounted 
dropouts by roughly 30 percent.

"It's an apples and watermelons comparison," said Debbie Graves 
Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency. "It doesn't 
make sense to me at all." Texas' Web site shows an 81 percent graduation 
rate in 2001, and Ms. Ratcliffe said that was the figure Dr. Greene 
should have used for the study's comparison.

Texas ranks schools and districts in part on the basis of their 
graduation rates, and a recent audit found that 15 out of 16 middle and 
high schools in Houston were understating dropouts by 55 percent.

Texas, which served as a model for the federal No Child Left Behind Act, 
reported a 1 percent dropout rate last year, and a four-year dropout 
figure of 6.2 percent for 2001. It achieves these numbers in part by not 
counting as dropouts students who leave school hoping to earn high 
school equivalency diplomas, and calculating the dropout rate from the 
seventh grade, when relatively few students leave school.

In South Carolina, Calvin Jackson, deputy superintendent of education, 
said that officials had never claimed that the 3 percent annual dropout 
rate meant that the state had no dropout problem. Dr. Greene calculated 
a claimed 87 percent graduation rate for the state, while his study 
estimated the true figure at 57 percent.

Jim Foster, a spokesman for the South Carolina Education Department, 
said: "Somehow the implication is that we're trying to mislead the 
public, and we've been doing the opposite, saying we do have an abysmal 
graduation rate. For every 10 kids who start high school, 3 or 4 don't 
finish. That's terrible."

In a statement, Jim Horne, Florida's commissioner of education, praised 
his state's record in education and contended that graduation rates had 
"skyrocketed" under his administration, to 67 percent from 61 percent. 
He noted, however, that unlike Dr. Greene, the state counts as graduates 
students who get equivalency diplomas or enroll in adult education courses.

Dr. Greene reached his calculations by averaging the eighth-, ninth-, 
and 10th-grade enrollments, to smooth the bulge in ninth-grade 
enrollment common in many states, and comparing the figures with the 
numbers of graduates four years later.

Christopher B. Swanson, an education researcher at the Urban Institute 
who has also studied graduation rates, said Dr. Greene's estimates were 
close to his own, which use a different method. He, too, maintained that 
graduation and dropout rates should bear some relation to each other. 
"If we're going to have confidence in these numbers, they should all 
theoretically add up," he said. "If there's large disparities, we know 
something's wrong."