A new federal requirement is forcing states to use a uniform method to report their graduation rates. The new method was part of an update in 2008 to federal education rules that now requires states to report graduation rates using what is referred to as the ‘cohort method’. The new ‘cohort method’ follows a group of first-time freshman, tracking individual students over a period of 4 years and calculating how many receive standard diplomas at the end of the 4 year period. This year marks the first time that we have true ‘graduation-rate accountability’ since the update was made in 2008. One problem, however, is that the new reporting method is putting graduation rates, for some states, nearly 20% lower than in the past.
States are hesitant with the new data, given the new dramatically lower rates, even though the new ‘cohort-calculation’ is considered to be a more accurate way of tracking graduation rates. Ryan Reyna, a program director at the National Governors Association’s Washington headquarters, points out that “Cohort rate and calculation has helped in development of early-warning data systems. Reyna also adds that states themselves, pushed for the new rate in hopes that with the precision of the new data would come better interventions and improved outcomes. States have been making an effort to clarify to stakeholders, community members and the press, that the new lower rates are not a result of the state doing worse, but that we now have an accurate picture of what is really happening in terms of individual students and corresponding graduation rates.
While this new data is eye-opening, researchers warn that the new calculation method still needs improvement. States still have yet to agree on a completely uniform way of dictating who is a ‘drop-out’ and who is not. For example, in Kansas, students who leave school and transfer into particular home-schooling programs are recorded as ‘drop-outs’, whereas in a state such as Indiana, they are not. Nuances such as these, still have yet to be addressed, making it difficult to accurately compare graduation rates from state to state.
The good news, so far, is that we can now prove that drop-out rates are going down. It turns out that many students are, in fact, not dropping out, but are pursuing some kind of alternative education program. Researchers and education communities agree that there is still quite a bit of ‘fine-tuning’ that needs to be done to ensure that this data is collected and recorded accurately. Improving graduation rates will continue to be a challenge, no doubt, but with more accurate data and accountability controls, we are slowly but surely taking steps in the right direction.
