Education Law

Diploma mania

BoardBuzz was interested to hear that 81 percent of Virginia high school students who entered high school in 2004 graduated in 2008. What is somewhat shocking about this stat is that it is the first time Virginia has tracked individual students, rather than guessing the graduation rate based on estimates. The story in the Washington Post caught our attention, for a variety of reasons.

First of all, Virginia is the first state in the D.C. area that is tracking individual students. Second, more time is allowed for students with disabilities and English language learners. And, not all students who miss the four-year, traditional high school graduation are labeled as dropouts. Our very own Center for Public Education has loads of data on high school graduation rates (as well as some other juicy info) and they point out that many states are adopting this model for studying graduation rates. In fact, Florida, Indiana, and Texas already follow individuals and all 50 states will follow the leadership of the National Governors Association compact which commits to a standard formula for calculating graduation rates.

So there's some good news relating to how we can study data for graduation rates in the coming years, but there's work to be done. According to the article in the Post, many minority and poor students continue to struggle. NSBA's Council of Urban Boards of Education (CUBE) focuses on the achievement gap as one of its core missions, and graduation rates are paramount. As a nation, we all need to focus on graduation rates. Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education says it simply, "Graduation from high school is the jumping off point for college and the workplace, if we can't document how a child finished, let alone if a child finished, we have real problems."

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on October 09, 2008 (boomark / email).