Civic Report No. 27 August 2002 High School Graduation Rates in Washington State Jay P. Greene, Ph.D. Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research Funding for this report was provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Executive Summary This study finds that: Only 67% of all Washington State public school students from the class of 2001 graduated from high school; This is significantly lower than the 82% graduation rate suggested by official Washington State statisitcs; Graduation rates are significantly lower for African-American students (53%), Latinos (47%) and Native Americans (47%). Graduation rates are higher for white (70%) and Asian-American (77%) students; Graduation rates vary widely by school district. Looking at the results for fifteen districts, graduation rates range from a high of 82% in Bellingham and Lake Washington to a low of 46% in Pasco; Graduation rates for some of the other largest city school districts include Seattle (71%), Spokane (71%), Vancouver (63%), and Tacoma (51%). About the Author Jay P. Greene is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research where he conducts research and writes about education policy. He has conducted evaluations of school choice and accountability programs in Florida, Charlotte, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and San Antonio. He has also investigated the effects of school choice on civic values and integration. His research was cited four times in the Supreme Court’s opinions in the landmark Zelman v. Simmons-Harris case on school vouchers.  His articles have appeared in policy journals, such as The Public Interest, City Journal, and Education Next, in academic journals, such as The Georgetown Public Policy Review, Education and Urban Society, and The British Journal of Political Science, as well as in major newspapers, such as the Wall Street Journal and Christian Science Monitor. Most recently he published a piece on vouchers and school integration in the Wall Street Journal,  analyses of problems with special education in Education Week, National Review Online and The Education Gadfly, and a defense of high stakes testing in Education Next. Greene has been a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Houston. He received his B.A. in history from Tufts University in 1988 and his Ph.D. from the Government Department at Harvard University in 1995. He lives with his wife and three children in Weston, Florida. Acknowledgements Funding for this report was provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Valuable research assistance was provided by Rob Fusco. Additional data, especially that broken out by race, was provided by Peter Bylsma, Director of Research and Education, Washington State Office of Public Instruction. Introduction Graduating from high school is an enormously important predictor of how students will fare later in life. High school graduates are almost twice as likely as dropouts to be gainfully employed. The salaries that working graduates enjoy are nearly twice as high as those enjoyed by dropouts who work.[1]  Students who fail to graduate from high school are also significantly more likely to become single parents and have children at young ages. And students who do not graduate from high school are significantly more likely to rely upon public assistance or be in prison.[2]  Given the importance of high school graduation in determining students’ prospects later in life, examining the percentage of students who graduate from high school is an important indicator of school performance. It is at least as important as the much more common practice of examining standardized test scores. Unfortunately, graduation rates are not widely publicized. And when they are found, they are often unreliable or misleading. A relatively simple and straightforward technique for estimating graduation rates is available, however, even when official graduation statistics are unavailable or suspect. This technique was used to produce last year’s Manhattan Institute report, “High School Graduation Rates in the United States,” in which the high school graduation rate for each state, the fifty largest school districts, and for the nation as a whole was calculated.[3]  Roughly speaking, this technique for estimating graduation rates involves comparing how many students enter high school to the number of graduates when those students should be receiving their diplomas, making some adjustments for population changes in the graduating cohort. If we see roughly twice as many students entering high school as we see graduates four years later and we do not see a large number of students moving into or out of the school, it is reasonable to infer that the school graduates about 50% of its students. Results Using this technique (described in more detail below) we find that 67% of all public school students in the state of Washington from the class of 2001 graduated from high school. For African-American students the graduation rate was 53%, while the figure for Latinos was 47% and for Native Americans was also 47%. The graduation rate for white students[4]  was 70% and for Asian-American students was 77%. (See Table 1) Table 1 Washington State Graduation Rates by Race Asian-American 77% Native American 47% Latino 47% African-American 53% White 70% Total 67% Looking at the results for fifteen districts in Washington[5]  we see a fair amount of variation, from a low of 46% in Pasco to a high of 82% in Bellingham and Lake Washington.[6]  The graduation rates for ethnic/racial groups within districts sometimes differed greatly. Bellingham, for example, had a graduation rate of 55% for Latino students, while it appeared to graduate 100% of its Asian-American students.[7]  In other districts the variation in graduation rates by race was less severe. Spokane, for example, had a graduation rate of 52% for Native Americans students and an 80% rate for Asian-American students, with all other groups having rates between these two figures. (See Table 2) Table 2 District Graduation Rates by Race District Asian- American Native American Latino African- American White Total Bellingham 100% INS 55% INS 84% 82% Enumclaw INS INS INS INS 67% 66% Everett 64% INS 27% 36% 53% 51% Evergreen 75% INS 64% 66% 63% 64% Kennewick INS INS 46% INS 81% 77% Lake Washington 87% INS 67% 65% 82% 82% Mabton NA NA 50% NA INS 52% Nooksack INS INS INS INS 66% 58% Pasco INS INS 31% INS 71% 46% Port Angeles INS INS INS INS 66% 63% Richland 74% INS INS INS 75% 74% Seattle 83% 56% 49% 63% 74% 71% Spokane 80% 52% 69% 55% 72% 71% Tacoma 58% 27% 34% 46% 54% 51% Vancouver 78% 46% 40% 36% 65% 63%               Washington State 77% 47% 47% 53% 70% 67% United States     54% 56% 78% 71%               INS = Insufficient student count for calculating graduation rate NA = Not applicable because there were no students of that race in the graduating cohort Comparing Results to State Figures In a report titled, “Graduation and Dropout Statistics for Washington’s Counties, Districts, and Schools: School Year 2000-01,”[8]  the state of Washington provides its own estimates for the graduation rate statewide as well as information that allows the same state method to be used to estimate graduation rates for all of the districts covered by this study.[9]  The state’s method simply involves counting the total number of students who officially dropped out of school across grades 9 though 12 in a given year divided by the total number of students enrolled in 9th grade in the same year, yielding what they call “the estimated synthetic cohort dropout rate.” For easier comparison to our graduation rates, the state’s dropout rate was converted into a graduation rate by subtracting it from 100. In all instances the state estimates are higher than the estimates produced in this report. The estimate from the state puts the statewide graduation rate at 82% compared to 67% according to our calculations. According to the method used by the state, the graduation rate in Seattle is 79% compared to our estimate of 71%. The state method yields a graduation rate of 84% for Spokane, while we put the figure at 71%. In Tacoma the state method yields a graduation rate of 84% compared to our estimate of 51%. The comparison of the state numbers and our estimates for all of the districts can be found in Table 3. Table 3 Comparison of Graduation Rates Using State Method and Using Report Method District State Method REPORT METHOD Bellingham 93% 82% Enumclaw 96% 66% Evergreen 84% 64% Everett 81% 51% Kennewick 87% 77% Lake Washington 95% 82% Mabton 75% 52% Nooksack 88% 58% Pasco 83% 46% Port Angeles 77% 63% Richland 87% 74% Seattle 79% 71% Spokane 84% 71% Tacoma 84% 51% Vancouver 82% 63%       Washington State 82% 67% Our graduation rates differ from the ones produced by the state method primarily because the state excludes students whose whereabouts are “unknown” from being classified as dropouts even though the state admits that many of these students are in fact dropouts. The state report recognized the limitations of this method, saying: “the rate underestimates the actual percentage [of dropouts] because it does not include some students who were listed as ‘unknown’ but probably dropped out of school at some point.”[10]  Only students for whom the paperwork necessary to withdraw from school has been completed are counted as dropouts in the calculating the graduation rate according to the state. Obviously many students who drop out of school do not bother to complete forms before they leave, leading to a great over-statement of graduation rates in the official numbers. If we assume that all of the students whose whereabouts are unknown are in fact dropouts, then the state graduation rates would be even lower than our estimates, in many cases. If we made the more generous assumption that only half of the students whose whereabouts are unknown are in fact dropouts, the state graduation statistics are much more similar to the ones we report. For example, if we assume that half of the unknown students are actually dropouts, the state’s estimated graduation rate would be 71% compared to our estimate of 67%. Making this “half-way” assumption would yield a state graduation rate for Seattle of 70% compared to our estimate of 71%. (See Table 4) But even counting half or all of the students whose status is unknown as dropouts still produces a higher graduation rate than our estimate in several cases. This discrepancy may be the result of erroneous reporting of the number of dropouts from the districts to the state. It may also be produced by the fact that some districts have a large number of students who are classified as “continuing” in school or who complete high school with a special education degree rather than a regular diploma. Table 4 Comparison of Graduation Rates Using State Method with Different Treatment of “Unknown” Students and Using Report Method   VARIATIONS ON STATE METHOD   District Assuming 100% of Unknowns are Dropouts Assuming 50% of Unknowns are Dropouts Using Graduate Rather than Dropout Numbers REPORT METHOD Bellingham 90% 92% 81% 82% Enumclaw 94% 95% 59% 66% Evergreen 54% 69% 63% 64% Everett 67% 74% 53% 51% Kennewick 81% 84% 77% 77% Lake Washington 91% 93% 79% 82% Mabton 33% 54% 56% 52% Nooksack 35% 61% 64% 58% Pasco 62% 73% 31% 46% Port Angeles 60% 68% 54%