August 2, 2007 - Vermont is proud that their state rates fourth highest in graduation rates. In an Education Trust study, called "Graduation Matters: Improving Accountability for High School Graduation," Vermont scored 86.5, meaning Vermont graduated 86.5 percent of high school students in four years.
Not all states did so well, but a few did a fantastic job - well, if you believed the state's statistics.
Overall, Mississippi ranked 48 in graduation rates. Mississippi calculates their rate as 85.00% Mississippi's graduation rate was calculated by U.S. Department of Education at 63.30%
The entire report is online. Overall, the Education Trust report criticizes the No Child Left Behind Act for not setting higher graduation rate goals.
TT - The problem with this is that there is no meaningful way of measuring graduation rates unless states establish a tracking system to follow students as they enter school and at what stage they leave. At present, state calculations are haphazard and some are outright fraudulent.
Then, too, what does a high graduation rate accomplish except high turnover? Graduation rates are meaningless if students graduate without proficiency - (proficiency may sound like an impressive accomplishment but it means at grade level.) That was one purpose of NCLB - students were being graduated without demonstrable academic achievement. Urging higher graduation rates without accomplishment means social promotion. And wasn't that the problem in the first place?
The Education Trust report also includes this (on page 2.)
But data from Indianapolis give cause for concern. The state reported a 52 percent graduation rate for the district for 2005-06, but at the same time said that 33 percent more students graduated from 12th grade that year than were actually enrolled: 969 12th-graders and 1,281 graduates. (vi) While some students surely transferred into Indianapolis during their 12th grade, it’s improbable that transferin figures were so high. The Indianapolis school community cannotIndeed.
allow such dubious data to go unexplained—or unchallenged.
August 5 -TT - One response to the report came from Louisiana. The Education Trust report contained no data for Louisiana. Unintentionally, the story on the "missing data" confirms the uselessness of the Graduation Rate report because of lack of standardization in determining graduation rates.
