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June 28, 2005
More on graduation rates
No Child Left Behind does not threaten much action if states do not improve their graduation rates. But there is good news nevertheless, writes Jay Mathews of the Washington Post.
Mathews quotes this telling section of the Education Trust report:
"This year, states were required to report statewide graduation-rate data to the U.S. Department of Education. But in far too many cases, the information they provided is of little value to school-improvement efforts. In fact, three states reported no graduation-rate data at all. Another seven did not report data broken down by students' race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.
"Of the states that did provide graduation-rate information, most reported rates that look dubiously high when compared to the results of multiple independent analyses of state graduation rates. These studies estimate that nationally, almost one-third of all high school students don't graduate on time, with significantly worse rates for students of color. But in many of the state reports, these alarming numbers are nowhere to be found."
"States are not accustomed to having to defend their self-congratulatory statistical tricks," Mathews writes. "But the federal law has forced some of these maneuvers into the open, where curious outsiders can see what is going on. Maybe that will make them less likely to define dropouts completely out of their equations when the next reporting deadline arrives."
Posted June 28, 2005 12:00 AM
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