The Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) today released its third annual comparison of official high school graduation rates calculated by the Connecticut State Department of Education and independent rates calculated by Education Week’s Diplomas Count project, finding gaps of up to 39 percent between the two.

Click here to download our district-by-district comparison of high school graduation rates.

The most accurate way to determine graduation rates is to track students on an individual level over a four-year period using a longitudinal database system to assess how many students actually receive a standard high school diploma. The Connecticut State Department of Education bases graduation rates on an older, less accurate methodology that relies on students to declare that they are dropping out and on districts to fully report these dropouts. The Diplomas Count methodology is the closest estimation possible without a longitudinal data system.

“Our hope is that this analysis boosts the effort to more accurately measure Connecticut’s graduation rates,” said ConnCAN Chief Executive Officer Alex Johnston. “We can’t fix Connecticut public education until we know what is broken, and we won’t know what’s broken until we measure it correctly.”

The Diplomas Count projects provides the most accurate rates possible today by capturing the four steps to graduation: three grade-to-grade promotions (9th to 10th, 10th to 11th, and 11th to 12th) and receiving a diploma. However, because Diplomas Count does not have access to longitudinal data for individual students, this method is limited because it cannot distinguish between students who drop out and those who transfer to a private or out-of-district school. This study is based on 2006 data, the most recent year available for this project.

In fourteen Connecticut districts the difference between the official and independent graduation rates is 25 points or more: West Haven (39.7), Region 11 (39.6), Bloomfield (37.5), East Haven (35.1), Hartford (34.9), Middletown (32.4), East Granby (29.2), North Stonington (28.6), Vernon (26.9), Groton (26.7), Windham (26.3), Manchester (25.8), Montville (25.2), and Ansonia (25).

In 2007, the state legislature allocated $6.4 million over two years for the Connecticut State Department of Education to build a longitudinal data system with the capability to develop graduation rates on a cohort basis – such as used in the Diplomas Count study. In the past, the department has indicated that its goal is to have such a system up and running by 2010, five years after Governor Rell first committed the state to implementing this system in July 2005 when she signed a compact with the National Governors Association.

President Obama’s education department is requiring states to certify that they are building this kind of data system in order to qualify for education stimulus dollars.

According to ConnCAN’s issue brief on the costs of low-performing schools, high school dropouts earn just 37 cents for every dollar earned by high school graduates and live nine years less. Every 10 percent increase in high school graduation rates is correlated with a 13 percent lower rate of auto thefts and a 20 percent lower rate of murders and assaults.

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The Connecticut Coalition for Achievement Now (ConnCAN) is an advocacy organization building a new movement of concerned Connecticut citizens working to create fundamental change in our education system.