Education Dept. slow to upgrade reporting standards 
By Amanda Falcone , Record-Journal, June 8, 2007

Changes in the way the state Department of Education collects and reports data are coming soon.

This fall, the department plans to introduce a unique identifier system, a data collection system that will allow educators to track a student's academic career over time - regardless of whether students move and change schools.

In addition, the department has already started to collect data for a new way of calculating high school graduation rates, and expects to report the rates determined by the new formula in 2010.

While the department says establishing new systems and formulas takes time, an education advocacy group, Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now, is critical of the state for not moving fast enough.

"It's past time we developed a comprehensive and publicly accessible system for tracking the progress of every public school student in our state," said Alex Johnston, the organization's executive director, in a prepared statement. It also is time to modify the formula Connecticut uses to determine its graduation rate, he said.

ConnCAN uses data from the National Governors Association to prove its point.

Governors from each of the 50 states, including Gov. M. Jodi Rell, signed a 2005 compact that established a uniform formula for calculating graduation rates. Prior to the signing of the compact, there was no established standard for calculating rates.

Several states, like New York and North Carolina, already use the formula, which takes into consideration the number of on-time graduates, first-time ninth-grade students and students who transfer in and out over four years of high school.

Other states, such as Virginia and Rhode Island, are looking to use it within the next year or two. Connecticut, however, is not planning to report data using the formula until 2010.

"You can't do that overnight," said Department of Education spokesman Thomas Murphy.

Connecticut's formula for graduation rates is recommended by the National Center of Education Statistics and is part of the state accountability plan approved by the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

It uses the number of graduates in a given year and the number of dropouts over the four-year period. The statewide graduation rate for the class of 2006 is 92 percent, according to this formula, but ConnCAN says Connecticut's rates are overstated.

The group cited a May report by the trade publication Education Week that analyzed statistics for the class of 2003, the most recent national data available. Connecticut officials reported the state's graduation rate was 89 percent, but, using yet another formula, Education Week said it was only 79 percent.

Murphy described Education Week's methodology as unorthodox and superficial. It does not take into account students who transfer or graduate in five years, he said.

State Sen. Thomas P. Gaffey, D-Meriden, co-chairman of the General Assembly's Education Committee, cautioned against comparisons between disparate sets of statistics. Connecticut is a leader in education and gives more rigorous tests, Gaffey said.

"You can't compare us to any other state," he said.

It may be better that Connecticut is being thorough and deliberate when creating new data systems and formulas, Gaffey said. History shows that other states have misreported graduation and dropout rates, and Connecticut needs to get it right the first time, he said.

The governor also said she is satisfied with the progress the department is making, and her spokesman, Adam Liegeot, said Rell will be monitoring the situation closely in coming months.

"Governor Rell believes we should always be striving to improve all aspects of education in Connecticut," Liegeot said.

ConnCAN spokesman Marc Porter Magee knows everyone is working toward the same goal, but there need to be further discussions about high schools, he said. The percentage of students graduating is important, the numbers need to be more accurate and there needs to be a way to track students longitudinally, he said.

Murphy does not disagree, but says the department is working to make that happen.

"We are not as pure on this stuff as we should be," he said.