Education Law

When fewer ?factories? is a good thing

BoardBuzzcringes at the phrase ‘dropout factory’ but was glad to hear that there are fewer of these schools across the country according to a new report by Thomas West and Robert Balfanz (who, incidentally, coined the phrase) called Raising graduation rates.

You may be asking yourself, “What constitutes a ‘dropout factory’?” BoardBuzz has come to learn that these are schools where more than 40 percent of their ninth graders make it to twelfth grade in four years. Not a great percentage by any standard. Fortunately, with the decline in the number of ‘dropout factories’ 300,000 fewer students attended such schools in 2006 than back in 2002.

Although fewer students are attending such schools, the overall national graduation rate estimate remained relatively steady at about 74 percent. However, eighteen states were able to increase their graduation rates between 2002 and 2006. BoardBuzz found it quite interesting (not to mention encouraging) that states like Tennessee, Alabama, and New York were able to raise their graduation rates while also increasing the rigor of their graduation requirements.

But BoardBuzz wonders what the results would be if schools were given credit for students who took longer than four years to earn their high school diploma?  These graduation rates basically count such students as dropouts, although according to the Center for Public Education, these students are clearly better off graduating late than never. BoardBuzz sure hopes these students are counted as such in the near future.

 To find out more about the Raising graduation rates report check out this summary from the Center for Public Education. BoardBuzz also suggests you check out the Center’s Straight story on calculating high school graduation rates to find out why your state graduation rate may not be the same as the one you see in this and other reports.

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on March 24, 2009 (boomark / email).