Graduation rates overstated by 16 percent
By Randy James, Republican-American, June 10, 2007

As parents cheer and teachers beam, thousands of capped-and-gowned seniors will cross graduation stages at area high schools this month.

But they're leaving many classmates behind. A new analysis of enrollment figures at public high schools shows on-time graduation rates are considerably lower than government statistics suggest.

Just 69 percent of Waterbury's high schoolers advanced or graduated in 2003-04, according to the Diplomas Count study by Editorial Projects in Education, publisher of Education Week. That means each grade shrank by an average of 9 percent.

Yet the state put Waterbury's graduation rate at 85 percent, 16 points higher.

In Watertown, the study found an 84 percent graduation rate--8 points below the state's figure of 92 percent. Naugatuck's figure was also smaller-than-advertised: 83 percent, versus a state claim of 87 percent.

The report, released Friday, is based on federal data from 2003-04, the most recent figures available.

It's difficult to overstate the importance of a high school diploma. An 18-year-old dropout will earn an average $260,000 less over a lifetime than a high school graduate, according to a Princeton University study.

Dropouts are also more likely to become single parents and unemployed.

Joseph Renzulli, an education professor at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, said the problem is worsening nationwide.

"The dropout rate is going up, and in some places it's really disastrous," he said, especially in urban areas.

Education officials claim their figures are more thorough than the study's numbers. But for many observers, the report confirms what they already suspected.

"Previous studies show Connecticut's official graduation rates probably overstate the actual rate by 10 percentage points," said Marc Porter Magee, research director at ConnCAN, an education research group. "The state numbers are awfully high."

The Diplomas Count report put Connecticut's statewide graduation rate at 80 percent, compared with an official figure of 90 percent.

The national figure was 70 percent, with rates for males and minorities trailing those for females and white students.

John Theriault, a commissioner on Waterbury's Board of Education, has conducted his own analyses and agrees the state's numbers often don't add up.

"Some of these things don't compute with me," he said. "I think they do everything in their power to make themselves look good."

Measuring graduation rates is a tricky task, as definitions vary and students can be difficult to track. Not all districts agree on how to classify students temporarily in jail, for instance, or those attending alternative education programs. And sometimes families simply disappear, making it impossible to confirm whether a student has re-enrolled in another school.

The Education Week report uses a simple method--measuring how much each grade shrinks in a given year. A school that loses 5 percent of students in each grade would have an 81 percent graduation rate.

"We think of it as the best common denominator," said Christopher Swanson, head of EPE's research center. "It's not perfect, but unfortunately there's no perfect answer out there."

Students transferring in and transferring out tend to balance over time, Swanson added, and he said the simpler method permits better comparisons between districts.

But education officials say the method is flawed. In a written statement, Waterbury school leaders called it "a crude measure" and noted it doesn't account for students who repeat a year or transfer to other districts.

State Department of Education spokesman Thomas Murphy said the state stands by its figures.

"They are the best we can do presently," he said. "It's not an easy data calculation, and a lot of people spend a lot of time on it."

Backers of the study, such as Magee, acknowledge the formula is imperfect but say it's probably more reliable than state figures.

The state plans to collect more accurate graduation figures beginning next year, Murphy said, now that each student has been assigned a personal identification number for better tracking.

Forty percent of Waterbury students who fell off track did so in ninth grade, the study showed, compared with just 14 percent in the 12th grade.

"They're kind of lost in ninth grade. It's the biggest hurdle," Assistant Superintendent Paul V. Sequeira said. "Once they pass that with confidence, then they're going to make it."

Tenth grade was the most common point for Watertown students to slow down or drop out, while more than a third of Naugatuck students fell off track in 12th grade.

Renzulli, of UConn, said boredom is one of the top factors leading students to bail out of high school. The recent emphasis on standardized test preparation has led to a new set of "Three R's," he said “Ram, remember and regurgitate.”

"Unfortunately a lot of kids are just getting unbelievably turned off by this," he said.