High School Dropout, Graduation, and Completion Rates Better Data, Better Measures, Better Decisions (2011) / Chapter Skim
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4 Current and Proposed Measures
4 Current and Proposed Measures
Pages 43-60
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From page 43... ...
How should a completion rate of between 69 and 73 percent be interpreted in light of a dropout rate below 10 percent? Why do estimates of the high school completion rate and the high school dropout rate differ so much from one another?
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From page 44... ...
For this purpose, the rates answer questions about individual students themselves; they measure how successful students are in progressing from the first day of high school to successful completion. If the goal of the rate is to describe the amounts of human capital in a population, the timing of high school completion -- how long ago or at what age people completed high school -- is not of critical importance.
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From page 45... ...
The latter estimate is clearly intended to describe the share of young people who are not gaining the human capital associated with high school completion. Presumably many of the 26.6 percent of ninth graders in fall 2002 who did not go on to graduate from high school with a diploma by spring 2006 were still enrolled or will compete high school later, via a GED or another alternative credential.1 Given the reported 9 percent dropout rate, one might presume that eventually about 91 percent of young people will eventually complete high school one way or another.
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From page 46... ...
In addition to the basic demographic and labor force questions that are included in each monthly administration of the CPS, questions on selected topics are included in most months. Since 1968, the October CPS has obtained basic monthly data as well as information about school enrollment -- including current enrollment status, public versus private school enrollment, grade attending if enrolled, most recent year of enrollment, enrollment status in the preceding October, grade of enrollment in the preceding October, and high school completion status.
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From page 47... ...
Longitudinal Sample Surveys Although a number of longitudinal sample surveys are used for constructing dropout and completion rates (e.g., the National Longitudinal Surveys) , the most widely used are those conducted periodically by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (see http://www.bls.gov/nls/)
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From page 48... ...
Despite the advantages associated with its longitudinal design, a number of technical issues raise questions about the accuracy of dropout and completion rates based on NELS (Kaufman, 2004) ; these issues also arise in the context of other longitudinal surveys based on samples.
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From page 49... ...
When high school dropout and completion rates are used for the purposes of describing levels of human capital in a population or for describing young people's success at navigating the secondary education system, this limitation is important. In 2009, 8.4 percent of secondary school students were enrolled in private schools (Snyder and Dillow, 2010, Table 55)
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From page 50... ...
7 We distinguish between cohort rates based on individual data (which we refer to as "individual cohort rates") and cohort rates based on aggregated data (which we refer to as "aggregate cohort rates")
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From page 51... ...
For instance, counties with high technology industries or large postsecondary institutions tend to have relatively low status dropout rates. This probably says more about the human capital of people who move to those counties than about the holding power of the schools there.
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From page 52... ...
estimates of status dropout and, perhaps partly for that reason, have received little public attention. Misinterpretation of event rates as cohort rates often leads people to believe that dropout rates are lower than they really are.
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From page 53... ...
Individual cohort dropout and completion rates that are derived from the NCES samples are typically intended to characterize large populations of students, such as all students or all African American students in the United States. Rates that are based on state administrative data provide an estimate of how well schools, districts, and states are "holding" their students and give an ultimate estimate of how many students are succeeding or failing in the jurisdiction.
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From page 54... ...
Researchers are also at liberty to use the data to construct cohort dropout and completion rates that suit their own purposes and that differ with respect to the technical definitions of both the numerator and the denominator. Finally, because NCES samples include students in both public and private schools, the findings generalize to all students, unlike administrative data, which are collected only for public school students.
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From page 55... ...
The resulting estimates of the graduation rate are in some cases upwardly biased and in some cases downwardly biased, and the extent of bias worsens when 10The adjustment procedures used by these rates are too computationally complex to explain in the body of this report. A more complete explanation of the procedures used for all four aggregate cohort rates appears in Warren (2008, pp.
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From page 56... ...
states. For any analyses of change in completion or dropout rates over time and/or across locales, aggregate cohort rates are all that are available.
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From page 57... ...
When these rates are used to make fine distinctions, such as to make comparisons across states, districts, or schools or across time, they may lead to erroneous conclusions. Three methods for calculating aggregate cohort rates -- the Promoting Power Index, the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate, and the Cumulative Proportion Index -- are commonly used and receive wide attention.
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From page 58... ...
These indicators should be phased out in favor of true longitudi nal rates, particularly to report district-level rates or to make comparisons across states, districts, and schools or over time. If additional information were collected through the ACS, it would be possible to calculate robust individual cohort rates nationally and for individual states.
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From page 59... ...
For instance, in 2008, it provided regulatory guidance about how the rates were to be calculated and reported to meet the requirements of NCLB. The National Governors Association's definition of graduation rates provides a good starting point for standardizing practice in the way that these rates are determined.
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