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Dropout reporting standards going under federal control The federal government is going to make all the nation's school districts report dropouts using the same formula, and local superintendents say standardizing the process is a good idea. On April 1, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings said all states will be required to use the same federal formula to compute graduation and dropout rates. The requirement would be one of the most farreaching regulatory actions taken by any education secretary because it would affect the official statistics issued by all 50 states and each of the nation's 14,000 public high schools. Critics have long contended that various methods of computing dropout rates lead to skewed results, making comparisons among districts difficult. The adoption of a federal graduation formula would correct one of the most glaring weaknesses of the federal No Child Left Behind law. Although the law requires states and high schools to report their graduation rates to the federal government, it allows states to set their own formulas for calculating them. As a result, most states have used formulas that understate the number of dropouts, and official graduation rates are not comparable from state to state. "First let me state that I believe the federal government has little or no business regulating our public schools," said Louise ISD Superintendent Andy Peters. "The public schools of Texas constitutionally should be managed by the people of Texas; specifi- cally, the local folks. Local control in our schools has nearly vanished. The state and federal government control what food we serve our students, what courses "our kids" need to take, and how we punish kids. El Campo ISD Superintendent Mark Pool agrees with Peters that education issues aren't necessarily federal matters. "Although I believe that public education should be more of a function of the state than the federal government, as long as comparisons are going to be made between states and between high schools throughout the nation under the No Child Left Behind federal accountability system, then I believe that there must be a standardized way of calculating dropout rates," Pool said. "Until that happens, dropouts will continue to be under-reported because many states will adopt a system for calculating dropout rates that makes their rate look acceptable. Peters acknowledged there are problems with the current graduation and dropout data. "I am all about accountability and data. The businessman in me wants to see numbers," Peters said. "I just want the general public to not be confused when they see some numbers. "Texas, like most states, has a ridiculous way to measure dropouts and completers. It does not tell the whole truth… In my heart, I know the dropout rate is higher in many districts. The problem is schools are going to be judged based on what parents do - not on what they do. "I can't follow a student out of state to see if he is getting his education; or go home with them and make sure their "home" is schooling them. So, I'm punished as a district for a dropout that wants to be home schooled - yet I can't make him attend my school. Even this year, we had a student that enrolled in LISD, then took three months at "attempting home school" and is now back in LISD. That child is going to be reported on my TAKS rate - yet he missed a third of our school year." Pool said Texas moved away from reporting dropouts and now focuses on "completers," a term for students who finish high school in four years, no matter which public high school they attend. "However, this does not account for students who move out of state, out of the country, or students who transfer to private schools or who are home-schooled," Pool said. "Because there is no way to accurately track these students, they are simply dropped from the system." He, too, worries about some students who say they're leaving school to be educated at home. "These students are no longer accounted for because they are outside the system, but are they engaged in a legitimate homeschool program with a curriculum that prepares them for post secondary education, or did they in reality drop out of high school?," Pool said. According to a report issued last week by the Washington nonprofit America's Promise Alliance, 1.2 million American teenagers drop out of high school every year. The study indicated that Dallas had a graduation rate of 44.4 percent in 2004, a figure that was a fraction of the official graduation rate of 80.8 percent reported for that year by the state and school district. State officials attributed the huge gap to different methods of computing the graduation and dropout rates, noting the state implemented a more stringent data reporting formula last year. The new formula showed lower graduation rates of 68.8 percent for Dallas and 80.4 percent for Texas for the 2005-06 school year, the most recent year data are available. The Alliance study used a different method to calculate the graduation rate than that used by the Texas Education Agency. Using one method allowed researchers to compare "apples to apples" among states that calculate dropout rates differently, by using a cumulative promotion index, which multiplies ratios of students promoted each year by the number who received diplomas in 2004. The data came from the Common Core of Data, an annual census of public schools and school districts compiled by the U.S. Education Department. Pool said as long as schools have to answer to the federal government as to dropout rates, the playing field should be level. "If the dropout rate is one of the criteria that we will be held accountable for, then we must have a standardized way of determining who the dropouts are, so that the accountability system is fair and equitable," Pool said. "We have to compare apples-to-apples." Peters believes the solution to the accounting aspect of the problem is clear. "You can't play games with the numbers as I think our government is doing," Peters said. "Count the kids that come to school and then count the number that graduate. If there is a difference, that's your completion rate." Graduation rates low in urban areas
High school graduation rates in Texas' urban school districts all fall below the national average of 70 percent, according to a new study of large school districts released earlier this week. Here's how the state's big-city districts rank among 50 other urban systems nationwide, using data from 2003-04: |
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