Graduation rates inflated, study says
By Maria Garriga, New Haven Register, June 4, 2007

NEW HAVEN — A national education research group has issued a report claiming graduation rates in Connecticut and the nation have been grossly inflated by under-counting dropouts.

The report was issued by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, an arm of Education Week, a national publication that covers the education sector.
A spokesman for Gov. M. Jodi Rell said the state plans to change the way it calculates graduation rates this fall as part of a national effort to increase accuracy in tracking graduation data.

Both the state and the Education Research Center used information from federal Department of Education Common Core of Data, but the state calculation uses dropout rates to calculate graduation rates. The research center used a cumulative promotion index which measures graduation by diploma counts and by averaging promotions from ninth to 12th grade in a four-year period.

Tom Murphy, a spokesman for the state Department of Education, called the center's measure flawed because it does not count students who transfer to other schools as graduates. Murphy said the state's graduation rates are more accurate than the think tank's estimate because the state includes students who transfer, who finish their education through alternative means or who take longer than four years to finish high school.

"We stand by our numbers, but there is room for improvement," Murphy said.

By conventional wisdom, a senior class of 200 with a graduation rate of 90 percent would translate into 180 graduates, but that is not the case.

Many students who transfer or withdraw to attend adult education classes, or take more than four years to finish high school, or even incarcerated do not get counted as dropouts.

Using a different calculation method, the center reported that West Haven's graduation rate is closer to 51.1 percent than 93.4 percent, a gap of 40 percent, for the class of 2003, giving West Haven the largest reported gap in Connecticut.

"The beauty of West Haven is that we have alternative plans for students to graduate. We have 47 languages spoken in West Haven, (and) some students need more time than others to graduate," said JoAnn Andrees, West Haven's new superintendent, who said she had not yet seen the report.

The report, called "Project Graduation," listed Wallingford as achieving an 80.4 percent graduation rate instead of the state reported rate of 96.8 percent. Derby had a 68.4 percent graduation rate instead of the state reported 83.9 percent.

"Project Graduation" claims numerous districts in south central Connecticut as having inflated graduation rates based on its calculation: New Haven had a 65.1 percent graduation rate instead of the reported 77 percent; East Haven had an 82 percent graduation rate, instead of 94 percent; and North Branford had a graduation rate of 86.7 percent, instead of 96.6 percent.

Educators protested any charges of grade inflation.

"Leave the educators alone, I think we have been trained well. Educators in general know what they are doing," said Al Martorella, assistant superintendent in East Haven. "Not all kids are equal. In my mind, we've raised the bar so high that we have trouble getting over it."

"You could use a variety of definitions as long as you use the same one over different populations," said Ansonia's Acting Superintendent of Schools Anne Giddings.

"Project Graduation" reported that Ansonia had a small reporting discrepancy. The center calculated a 76.4 percent graduation rate, less than 5 percent off from the official rate of 81.3 percent.
Education advocates say educators need to rethink the way they calculate graduation rates.

Marc Porter Magee, research director for ConnCan, said the state method for calculating dropouts fails to capture many students who drop out in ninth and 10th grades. He said more accurate data collection on graduation rates would give educators better tools.

Magee agreed with Murphy's claim that the cumulative promotion index is flawed, but said it captures more accurate information that the existing method.