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January 14, 2008
Making sense of high school graduation ratesBoardBuzz came across an interesting report on high school graduation rates that for some reason seems to have slipped under the radar screen of many in the education blogospheres. However, BoardBuzz is here to tell you all about it. It’s a report written by Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman that aims to provide a more accurate estimate of how many students graduate high school with a diploma.
You may remember the Center for Public Education's report Calculating high school graduation rates that helps readers understand how graduation rates are calculated and why they differ. Heckman's report delves deeper into how different graduation rates are calculated to provide some clarity in the debate over how many students are actually graduating high school. By adjusting various graduation rate calculations such as those reported by EdWeek, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the U.S. Department of Education so that they are making similar calculations on similar students, a more accurate graduation rate would be estimated. As the Center's report stated, most recent graduation rate estimates range from 66 to 88 percent. However, Dr. Heckman found that it is actually closer to 77 percent. Similarly, he also found that black and Hispanic students graduate around 65 percent of the time compared to some estimates of only 50 percent.
So, Dr. Heckman found that graduation rates were not as high as some had thought, but not as low as others. What was most interesting was that his report found that graduation rates have actually been declining over the past 40 years instead of increasing as BoardBuzz and many others had thought. BoardBuzz was particularly surprised to find out that the decline is largely due to the decline in the number of males graduating high school. Since the 1960's, the number of males graduating high school has declined about 7 percentage points, while the female rate remained relatively flat over that same time. This is a major factor into the growing disparity between males and females in college attendance.
Although a more accurate measure of how many students are receiving a high school diploma will not do anything to prepare more students for life after high school in and of itself, it does provide school board members and other policymakers with a more accurate assessment of the problem so they can develop policies to reverse this trend of declining graduation rates, especially for males and minority students.
For more information on Graduation Rates and other important educational issues of the day check out www.centerforpubliceducation.org.
Posted January 14, 2008 5:23 PM | Students
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