Civic Report November 2001 High School Graduation Rates in the United States WHAT THE PRESS SAID: Dropout Rate Is a Tragedy That’s Fixable The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN), June 6, 2004 In D.C., separate and better than equal. Washington Post 5-16-04 A lousy bet, Seattle Times, WA, Feb 29, 2004 Various Ways of Calculating Dropout Rate Leaves Subject Open to Much Interpretation The Wall Street Journal, December 18, 2001 City graduation rate surprises expert, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Dale Mezzacappa, 11-15-01 Hispanics graduating at low rate Chattanooga Times Free Press, 11-15-01 Dropout study paints worse picture than state; Criticized report shows just over half of DISD students graduate, Dallas Morning News, Joshua Benton, 11-15-01 Study: Graduation rates in district up Critics: Edison report doesn't mention it, Mensah M. Dean, Philadelphia Daily News, 11-15-01 Leaders call for unified school effort: Graduation-rate report spurs mayor to blast 2 board members. Sam Schulhofer-Wohl, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11-14-01 Private study warns state of school dropout rates:Oregon educators say the researchers’ numbers are faulty, Statesman Journal, 11-14-01 Report Hits City's Dropout Rate And Cites Race Divide Carl Campanile, New York Post, 11-14-01 Study: Graduation rates ‘implausibly high’ Cheryl Wetzstein, The Washington Times, 11-14-01 Area Schools Rank High In Graduating Minorities Jay Mathews, Washington Post, 11-14-01 Cleveland Class of '98 faced long odds Scott Stephens, The Plain Dealer, 11-14-01 State last in Latino high school grads James Salzer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11-14-01 City flunks dropout study: Columbus school officials say they're addressing the problem. Bill Bush, Columbus Dispatch, 11-14-01 Cleveland at bottom in rates of graduates Will Dunham, Boston Globe, 11-14-01 Dropouts: There aren’t as many high-school graduates as you think John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru, National Review Online, 11-13-01 One-third of teens in state don't graduate Bill Graves, The Oregonian, 11-13-01 Cleveland Worst in U.S. in High School Graduation Arizona Republic, 11-13-01 Report shows big chasm in graduation: State's high school rates are near the top overall, but last for black students Sam Schulhofer-Wohl,  Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 11-13-01 New report underscores Houston's dropout rate: Half of HISD students fail to graduate Mary Vuong, Houston Chronicle, 11-13-01

EMAIL THIS | PRINTER FRIENDLY BAEO Report PDF WHAT THE PRESS SAID CORRECTION TO JEFFERSON COUNTY NUMBERS: There was a data entry error that led to incorrect graduation rates for Jefferson County, Kentucky. Rather than recording that there were 2,197 African-American students in 1993-4, we recorded that there were 3,197 students. Correcting for this error yields a revised African-American graduation rate for Jefferson County, Kentucky of 49% and an overall graduation rate of 66%. One of the benefits of our approach to computing graduation rates is that the technique is transparent and the numbers are easily checked by others. In the unfortunate and rare event of an error this allows others to detect the error and allows us to correct it quickly. I apologize for the mistake. SUMMARY: This study uses a straightforward and reliable method to determine the percentage of public high school students in the United States who actually graduate. Using the class of 1998 as his test case, Dr. Greene determines that only 74% graduated nationwide. Furthermore, the study finds that only 56% of African-American students and 54% of Latino students did so. Moreover, the study further demonstrates that 7 states and 16 of the 50 largest school districts were unable to graduate more than half of their African-American students, while 9 states and 21 of the 50 largest districts were unable to do so for Latino students. The study’s graduation rates are also compared to equivalent statistics determined using other methods. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction to the Revised Report Executive Summary About the Author Author’s Acknowledgements Foreword Introduction Figure 1: Earnings and the Importance of a High School Education Calculating Graduation Rates Figure 2: Calculating the National Graduation Rate for the Class of 1998 The Results: Ranking the States Figure 3: National Graduation Rates for the Class of 1998 The Results: Ranking the Districts Comparing Graduation Rates to Other Dropout/High School Completion Statistics Advantages of Calculating Graduation Rates Dropout Statistics Reported by Districts and States Conclusion Appendix Table 1: Graduation Rate by State and Race Table 2: Ranking of Graduation Rates by State Table 3: Ranking of African-American Graduation Rates by State Table 4: Ranking of Latino Graduation Rates by State Table 5: Ranking of White Graduation Rates by State Table 6: Graduation Rate by District and Race Table 7: Ranking of Graduation Rates by District Table 8: Ranking of African-American Graduation Rates by District Table 9: Ranking of Latino Graduation Rates by District Table 10: Ranking of White Graduation Rates by District Endnotes