Getting Honest About Grad Rates: How States Play the Numbers and Students Lose

Document Number: 6294

Getting Honest About Grad Rates: How States Play the Numbers and Students Lose - This brief examines the graduation-rate data all states were required to report to the U.S. Department of Education by January 31, 2005, and the implications of the states’ annual graduation-rate targets and the data reported. According to the analysis, three states and the District of Columbia provided no data at all, and an additional seven did not report the disaggregated data required by the department. Many more states did not offer data for certain student groups. The report also compares states’ self-reported 2002-03 graduation rates with those calculated using the Urban Institute’s Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI) mechanism. Disparities in percentage points between the two rates range from 1% in Idaho to 33% in North Carolina. The author likewise indicates the 34 states whose reported graduation rates for the Class of 2002-03 are higher than their graduation-rate goals, and the 37 states that have set low graduation-rate progress targets that compromise the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act. (Daria Hall, The Education Trust, June 2005)...

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