Christopher B. Swanson, The Urban Institute
May 2003
The Urban Institute's Education Policy Center has issued a policy brief entitled "Caps, Gowns, and Games: High School Graduates and NCLB," based on a long paper entitled "Counting High School Graduates when Graduates Count: Measuring Graduation Rates under the High Stakes of NCLB." The main point of both is that, at a time when Uncle Sam requires states and districts to use "the percentage of students graduating on time with a regular diploma" as a key indicator of their academic performance in connection with NCLB accountability demands, it matters hugely what method states use to calculate those rates and percentages. Analysts Duncan Chaplin and Christopher Swanson say the NCES method (which cannot even be used in many districts and states due to data gaps) yields rates about ten percent higher than are produced by two other calculations ("cumulative promotion index" [CPI method] and "adjusted completion ratio" [ACR method]). For example, Connecticut's public high school graduation rate in 2000 was 85 percent under the NCES methodology, 76 percent using CPI and 70 percent using ACR. So it matters quite a lot, and the Urban Institute's authors worry that, in an era of high-stakes accountability, states and districts may choose methods that make them look good but understate the extent of the dropout problem. You can find the policy brief at http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/310777_LearningCurve_1.pdf and the long paper at http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410641_NCLB.pdf.
