By DUANE M. ELLING
Christopher B. Swanson has spent considerable time exploring the available data on graduation and dropout rates among high school students in the United States. And, in many ways, he’s alarmed at what he has seen.
Swanson, formerly a senior research associate at the Urban Institute, is now the director of the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center. EPE is a nonprofit organization -- and, like the Urban Institute, a Mott grantee -- that publishes Education Week, one of the nation’s key news sources on education-related issues.
Swanson’s concern stems, in part, from the disturbingly low graduation rates evident in many communities, particularly among poor and minority students. But he is also troubled by the often inconsistent and inaccurate ways in which states track and calculate those rates.
In the following Q&A, Swanson discusses the challenges and strategies -- as well as the vital importance -- of accurately tracking graduation and dropout rates in the U.S. The interview was conducted by Mott Communications Officer Duane Elling.
Mott: Researchers and advocates have referred to high school graduation rates in the U.S. as a growing national crisis. What are your thoughts on that description?
Christopher Swanson (CS): I believe it’s an appropriate one. Studies show that nearly one-third of all public high school students in the U.S. -- and roughly half of all African-American, Hispanic and Native American students -- fail to graduate in the traditional four years.
Some people may question why this is necessarily a “crisis” or why we should be concerned with students finishing high school on-time. After all, a young person who is held back a year can still go on to earn a diploma. Or, if a student does drop out of school, he or she can earn a GED [General Equivalency Diploma] or some other non-diploma credential.
The problem is that, unfortunately, many such young people don’t actually re-engage with their education. Kids who fail a year of high school are more likely to drop out altogether. And dropouts are more likely than those who graduate to be unemployed, living in poverty and involved with the criminal justice system.
By understanding dropout and graduation rates, as well as their consequences and the factors that impact them, we’ll be better equipped to identify and help those students who are at risk of leaving school without their diplomas.
Mott: Why else are these measurements so important?
CS: Education policy in this country, at all levels, hinges on statistics. Graduation and dropout rates, as well as other benchmarks, are used to determine the performance levels -- and, oftentimes, the funding decisions or sanctions -- for schools and districts.
Perhaps it isn’t surprising then that many states underreport the number of students who drop out. In some cases, it’s difficult to confirm whether a young person has dropped out of school altogether rather than having moved or transferred to another district. And, when such a question exists, they are often just classified as a transfer.
Furthermore, in many states, the data systems and resources devoted to tracking students just haven’t been up to the challenge, though we are seeing signs of improvement on that front.
However, those inaccuracies carry a significant price, in that they create a sense of complacency among educators, policymakers and the public about just how many young people are falling through the cracks of our educational system. And that, in turn, can result in fewer efforts to ensure that all children succeed.
Mott: How do these measurements factor into education reform, such as the federal No Child Left Behind [NCLB] Act?
CS: A positive impact of NCLB is that it focuses on graduation and dropout rates in ways that were never addressed before. It requires that states track and record the data, and use it to evaluate the accountability of schools and districts.
But the legislation, as it stands now, also gives states a lot of leeway in terms of what that accountability means. For example, each state can set its own goals for graduation rates and decide what constitutes acceptable progress towards those goals. As a result, in most states, a school with a very poor graduation rate can simply maintain that rate and be considered as making progress under NCLB.
The law does require that states monitor and report graduation data on such sub-groups as gender, race and so on. However, that data carries very little weight in the accountability decisions related to NCLB. As a result, significant differences in graduation rates among minorities, the poor and other underserved communities may essentially go unaddressed. In the end, those young people are at risk of being left even further behind their peers.
How the next generation of NCLB should handle the accountability for graduation rates is a major topic of debate among policymakers as Congress works to reauthorize the legislation.
Mott: How is the EPE Research Center helping to address these issues?
CS: One key way is through the development of accurate and credible data about graduation rates. We’ve calculated those rates -- what we call the Cumulative Promotion Index, or CPI -- for every school district in the country, based on student enrollment information gathered by the U.S. Department of Education. Basically, the CPI represents the percent of students entering the 9th grade in a given district and who complete high school on time and receive traditional diplomas.
The CPI is then used to evaluate trends in graduation rates in and among school districts, to identify points in a high school career when a student is most likely to dropout, and so on. And we’ve pooled all that information into EdWeek Maps, an online database that provides users with an at-a-glance idea of what’s going on in their district and in others around the country.
By providing rich, reliable data, we hope to help the public, educators and policymakers understand the reality of the dropout crisis in this country and the pressing need to do something meaningful about it.
Mott: What other trends are you seeing in terms of tracking graduation and dropout rates?
CS: There’s a lot of interest in developing high quality, computer-based information systems that can track individual students over time, including their attendance, test scores, academic progress, and so on. Those systems could have significant impacts on educational programs and policies.
For example, by linking those systems between schools and districts, we would know with much greater accuracy when a young person has transferred to another school and when they have dropped out altogether. And, by tracking a broad range of educational factors, we could better identify those kids who are at risk of dropping out. In both cases, we could then connect students with the resources that will help to keep them engaged in their education.
As data are collected we would also get a much more accurate sense of how many kids are actually dropping out, when those dropouts most often occur, and the groups most at risk of leaving the educational system. That information would be incredibly helpful in developing meaningful, systemic strategies for addressing the dropout crisis.
Of course, credible data systems and reliable measurements aren’t “silver bullets” for dealing with that crisis. But they are vital first steps to recognizing that a problem genuinely exists and that, for the sake of these young people and the future of the country, must be addressed.