Feds release new high school grad data using common yardstick; Georgia’s rate is 67 percent, putting us among bottom three.
Remember when Georgia used to say “Thank God for Mississippi and Alabama”?
With the release of new national high school graduation rates today, Georgia is now extending its thanks to Nevada and New Mexico, the only two states with lower graduation rates than Georgia.
Georgia has a 67 percent overall high school graduation rate, according to data released today by the U.S. Department of Education under a new nationwide measurement formula.
For the first time ever, the cohort method will allow apples to apples comparisons since every state is using it to calculate how many of their seniors graduate in four years.
And those apples aren’t pretty for Georgia, which is among the bottom three.
Among states, only New Mexico, 63 percent, and Nevada, 62 percent, posted lower rates. (Also below Georgia were Washington, D.C., 59 percent, and the Bureau of Indian Education, 61 percent.)
Prior to the cohort method being adopted, states used a hodgepodge of methods — and a bit of voodoo math – to calculate their grad rates, often favoring formulas that provided too glowing a picture of how many kids actually received diplomas in four years. Georgia was among them, touting a grad rate of 80 percent.
Georgia does not fare well compared to its Southern neighbors. For example, Alabama has a 72 percent grad rate, while Mississippi has a 75 percent rate and Louisiana has a 71 percent rate.
South Carolina has a 74 percent rate, and North Carolina has a 78 percent grad rate. Tennessee has an 86 percent rate, which puts it among the top performers in the country. Virginia has an 82 percent rate.
Here is a link to the list of states.
What hurts Georgia’s ranking is its acute failure to graduate students with disabilities and students with limited English. Only three out of 10 students in those two categories graduates, putting us well behind most of the nation.
If I were DOE, I would be looking for explanations for why Georgia does so poorly with these kids. Yes, they are among the most challenging students to educate, but other states are doing far better with them, so there must be strategies we ought to consider.
Here are the Georgia grad rates broken down by demographics:
Asians: 79 percent
Black students: 60 percent
Hispanic: 58 percent
Whites: 76 percent
Students with disabilities: 30 percent
Limited English: 32 percent
Economically disadvantaged: 59 percent
According to US DOE:
The U.S. Department of Education released data today detailing state four-year high school graduation rates in 2010-11 – the first year for which all states used a common, rigorous measure. The varying methods formerly used by states to report graduation rates made comparisons between states unreliable, while the new, common metric can be used by states, districts and schools to promote greater accountability and to develop strategies that will reduce dropout rates and increase graduation rates in schools nationwide.
The new, uniform rate calculation is not comparable in absolute terms to previously reported rates. Therefore, while 26 states reported lower graduation rates and 24 states reported unchanged or increased rates under the new metric, these changes should not be viewed as measures of progress but rather as a more accurate snapshot.
“By using this new measure, states will be more honest in holding schools accountable and ensuring that students succeed,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. “Ultimately, these data will help states target support to ensure more students graduate on time, college and career ready.”
The transition to a common, adjusted four-year cohort graduation rate reflects states’ efforts to create greater uniformity and transparency in reporting high school graduation data, and it meets the requirements of October 2008 federal regulations. A key goal of these regulations was to develop a graduation rate that provides parents, educators and community members with better information on their school’s progress while allowing for meaningful comparisons of graduation rates across states and school districts. The new graduation rate measurement also accurately accounts for students who drop out or who do not earn a regular high school diploma.
In 2011, states began individually reporting 2010-11 high school graduation rates, but this is the first time the Department has compiled these rates in one public document. These 2010-11 graduation rates are preliminary, state-reported data, and the Department plans to release final rates in the coming months. Beginning with data for the 2011-12 school year, graduation rates calculated using this new method will become a key element of state accountability systems, including for states that have been approved for ESEA flexibility.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
380 comments Add your comment
Taxpayer and Teacher
November 27th, 2012
9:43 pm
@E Child….Name calling will not get you anywhere. I am definitely not a moron. Now take your hoodie off and get some rest. You will need it for tomorrow when you go to teach on the South side. And by the way the sheets are to cover up with, not to wear on your head. Pleasant dreams! Please stay away from the Ghetto music. It’s starting to corrupt you…
EChild
November 27th, 2012
9:48 pm
Coming into GA and assuming you understand the culture and makeup of this state certainly won’t get you anywhere, especially when you have a racial chip on your shoulder and something to prove to everyone.
Dr. Monica Henson
November 27th, 2012
9:48 pm
@mountain man, 2% of the 2.6 million high school dropouts a year is still 52,000 kids quitting school to care for family members. The actual percentage is estimated at about 22%, or more than half a million. You’d be shocked to know how many teenagers end up caring for younger siblings or elderly grandparents because Mom & Dad have abandoned the family.
Dr. Monica Henson
November 27th, 2012
9:48 pm
And by “caring for,” I don’t mean sitting at home watching TV. They go to work full time to put food on the table and keep the lights on.
Taxpayer and Teacher
November 27th, 2012
9:52 pm
@EChild no. 2 I am here because as someone stated earlier in the posts, you need a better group of more skilled, intelligent and talented individuals to assist in bringing your population to a competitive level. We are here to help you out. Goodnight!
EChild
November 27th, 2012
9:56 pm
Great way to avoid my entire point(s), which you have done from the beginning in a very cowardly manner. Now go to bed instead of saying “goodnight” over and over.
EChild
November 27th, 2012
9:59 pm
No, I have no idea what culture is, even though I have my EdS. But hey, they just hand those out in this state “taxpayer”.
Susan
November 27th, 2012
11:05 pm
Actually, I was educated by nuns. And those nuns didn’t care one lick what your home life was like or how well educated your parents were or the color of your skin (we had a lot of Hispanic migrant families in our school and every single one graduated high school on time). Today’s teachers need to and often do have that same attitude. Children come to them and they educate them from where they are. They don’t send home volumes of work for parents to tend to after a full day’s work. They don’t blame the failure of the students on their parents or their home lives. They simply put the tasks on the table and then expect students to perform – with the guidance and instruction of a good teacher.
I find it terrifying that people like EChild are not only (so they say) teachers – but that they are teachers of the poor, the oppressed, the struggling – and they have the audacity to be so cruel and callous as to call out those very children’s parents, home life and access to extra help and care (or lack thereof) as a reason for the teacher’s own failure.
Sister St. Rita would have never uttered words like the ones that I’ve read written by the person calling him or herself “EChild”.
GOOD teachers care deeply about their students – they love them and they do everything in their power to bring them into the world of enlightenment. We – as a society – need to support and embrace teachers in their efforts by providing the tools, the discipline, the environment and the financial support required to do the job right.
The alternative is more prisons – more poverty – more disparity – more anger. That is not a path that *most* of us care to walk.
Susan
November 27th, 2012
11:12 pm
BTW – AnonMom is telling the absolute truth in her comment above. I was there. No one was paying attention as we all tried to point out that the emperor had no clothes and that fully 1/3 of the freshmen were failing. Literally – no one cared. And this was a ‘high-performing’ well-known high school. They only want to ‘educate’ the gifted, from gifted parents. They secretly pray that the rest will quietly leave. And they go out of their way to let them know it.
Lexi
November 28th, 2012
4:07 am
Teacher and taxpayer:
November 27th, 2012
8:28 pm
“You are the only teacher that [sic] I know that [sic] actually got some “rest” last week.” It maybe that some folks only dream about your accomplishments, but others were taught that the quoted sentence requires the personal pronoun “who.”
You write that you are a “nationally recognized expert on literature.” Which nation?
Shouldn’t this blog be about ideas, rather than ad hominem attacks?
mountain man
November 28th, 2012
6:30 am
“You’d be shocked to know how many teenagers end up caring for younger siblings or elderly grandparents because Mom & Dad have abandoned the family.”
Sounds like a problem for society, but not something that the education system should be expected to fix. Same for poverty – I guess you could expect the education to fix poverty by handing out dollars to the poor people – but that is not the job of education.
mountain man
November 28th, 2012
6:38 am
It occurred to me that one of the best ways to make sure high schoolers graduate in 4 years is to not allow 8th graders to move into high school until they have mastered 8th grade skills. Social promotion again. How can a student master the high school material if they are still trying to learn to read and write and do arithmetic?
Dixie Rules
November 28th, 2012
8:19 am
EChild is correct!!!!!!!!!!!!! Most just can’t handle the truth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ColonelJack
November 28th, 2012
11:05 am
Heh…I thought Georgia’s motto was, “At least we’re not Mississippi.”
Ray
November 28th, 2012
11:07 am
Handle the truth of what how ignorant EChild is?
AnonMom
November 28th, 2012
11:15 am
ways to improve GA education: (1) only use curriculum that has been proven as successful elsewhere and don’t tinker with it — maybe common core will fix this issue — can’t make any headway with curriculum being changed every 3rd year; (2) use teaching standards that are working elsewhere — e.g. in a state ranked in the top 10 instead of using our own and then use what’s working there after they become teachers — for all things — pay, development, training, curriculum, autonomy, etc.; (3) stop testing all the time — test at the beginning and end and let the teachers teach as we allow with other professionals; (4) don’t allow social promotion and place new kids according to ability — language and otherwise — not according to age like was done 50 years ago — do it for their best interests and not to make them feel good; (5) get discipline back into the classroom (okay not whips and beatings but there need to be consequences for bad behavior); and (6) put the money in from the bottom up — I’ve concluded that the only way to do this is with vouchers — even if restricted to public schools — but putting money in at the top means that it is staying mostly at the top in administration — it needs to get back — by force — into the classroom for the benefit of the children.
Maureen Downey
November 28th, 2012
12:23 pm
@Kelly:
The Center on Education Policy, an independent nonprofit organization, has been conducting comprehensive studies of state high school exit exams since 2002. In its 2007 study, “State High School Exit Exams: Working to Raise Test Scores, (Zabala, Minnici, McMurrer, and Hill, 2007), the center reported on state high school exit exam implementation in 26 states.
3schoolkids
November 28th, 2012
4:01 pm
Thank you @Dr. Monica Henson, for calling attention to the issue of students as caregivers. I was talking to a teacher family member last week about that and the extreme growth in enrollment at online charters and she mentioned the possibility that entire families might enroll all their kids using the oldest as caregiver while both parents work. That is a troubling prospect given they don’t have the social/guidance staff infrastructure to handle that as an online school. Definitely an issue that needs to be addressed in helping students graduate.
GCAE President
November 28th, 2012
7:15 pm
Putting blame on teachers, parents, community, poor, diet, race, etc., will get us nowhere. The question is whether or not we are failing our children if they graduate in August, December or the next May, are they still failing?? As the statistical cohort is computed, It is a straight 4 year grad rate. No excuses. Has anyone asked what our policies are for our Students with Disabilities? So you realize we are allowed to educate these students up to the age of 23? Yet we are punished when they do not graduate in 4 years. How do the other states calculate what “grade” each student is in? What tests are their students required to take? How do the other states educate, house and work with their Students with Disabilities?
So to all public education critics, are we really comparing apples to apples? As a math teacher and a bit versed in statistics, are all the validity and reliability issues really being addressed??
I will continue to educate a student until they graduate, whenever that is. I know I am not a failure and they aren’t either!
joke on us
November 29th, 2012
4:05 pm
uh>
not to beat a dead horse; BUT GA does a one track graduation system
remember when you where in HS and there was some kids that could not do pre-Alegbra, well guess what there are still some kids that can NOT do pre-algebra but we are forcing them through Pre-Cal
duh.
Pride and Joy
November 30th, 2012
11:10 am
I agree with all the points in ANON-MOMs blog. Good job, Anon Mom.
Pride and Joy
November 30th, 2012
11:28 am
It is very disconcerting for people to assume that vocational and technical trades don’t require a high school education. My family is in the construction business and often hire carpenters. I’ve heard the stories over and over again how difficult it is to hire skilled tradesmen and tradeswomen.
For example, when laying brick on a window ledge, the hired so-called tradesman does not know what a 45 degree angle is or how to create one in the correct direction to allow water to run away from the window instead of towards it.
We don’t need two educational systems in Georgia; we NEED UNIONS. Unions provide the proper apprentice>journeyman>craftsman>skilled craftsman job skills and training.
No one high school can properly teach all the vocational and technical trades and educate the college-bound crowd.
I was one of three high school students out of a class of 150 to receive a merit scholarship. Based on my ACT score, my so-called “guidance counselor” stopped me in the hall one day and said I received a scholarship. That is the ENTIRE discussion and I never had a discussion with him other than that one. He was completely focused on votech training.
Sadly, my freshman class in the same high school had 400 stendents. By senior year, more than TWO-THIRDS of the class had dropped out of high school even though there was a big vo-tech training.
For everyone who cannot do work at the college level, we NEED UNIONS to ensure those individuals have jobs and to ensure we citizens have reliable, safe, skilled tradesmen and tradeswomen to wire our homes, plumb our homes, repair our cars and so on.
Pride and Joy
November 30th, 2012
11:35 am
GCAE President, I’ve never met a 23 year old senior. NOT ONE.
I think you are exaggerating to make your point, which is to avoid blaming those responsible for the debacle that is Georgia education.
Georgia is bottom three. Even if you took into consideration every nuance of a difference between the students and circumstances in Georgia (poverty, race, etc.) NO ONE can say that Georgia is even in the middle of the pack of successful education systems in the U.S.
So if you argue that the 23 year old students are holding back Georgia’s statistics…what would that make Georgia? 46th instead of 47?
OWN IT.
No matter what excuse you provide, regardless of the poverty, race, special needs, etc., Georgia is still in the bottom of the barrel in education.
Own it. Then FIX IT!
Pull My Finger
November 30th, 2012
2:15 pm
Buzz, you concentrate on getting your sissy little girl football team off of probation and into a bowl game with a winning record………and furthermore, give Flagboy a kiss for me!! Go Dawgs!
Ole Guy
November 30th, 2012
5:32 pm
67%…wow…that good…consider me impressed…impressed by the undeniable knowledge that somebody…parents, teachers, the Easter Bunny, the good humor man…somebody…had better start taking positive action in restoring education so that we don’t have a generation of imbeciles and morons at the helm of civilization. Come to think of it, I believe that human yardstick has already arrived.
Maureen, you can cite all the stats about poverty and the parental role in kids’ success rates in the world of academe; the facts won’t change. Piss poor graduation rates, both in high school and college will remain at the dismal rates which all but guarantee third world status for the Red White and Blue in the very near future. Short of wringing our collective hands in an all’s lost gesture of hopeless dispair, SOMEONES gotta take command of the educational circus; provide the positive guidance and leadership which has all but vaporized on the educational front. Despite huge expenditures and politicians’ happy talk, the end result appears to be nothing short of futures of dispair…at best…for all; most-certainly for the kids and the 20-something crowd which, following college graduation, face the up-hill struggles of paying off loans which probably should have never been taken out in the first place.
All the issues we discuss within these pages cannot be resolved in piecemeal fashion. My generational leaders were those who, following WW II, the “birth” of the age of atomic energy, space exploration, and the wide array of technological discovery, had the forsight to foster education so that a generation(s) would be prepared to meet, head-on, the challenges. They are now either all gone or soon to be. Whonhell’s gonna replace em’?
Those within the educational camp, as I see it, have absolutely no interest in stepping out; in taking command of the process. Sure, you can cite poor parenting skills, poverty, etc, etc, ad nauseum, but…you know something…all that is nothing new…probably much more prevalent, but not entirely new. What is new are educational philosophys which promote the easy painless way of gaining an education. No educator, who spends any time at all in front of a class of kids, will deny that this generation is not receiving anything resembling a real education; one that has any real value beyond providing that warm an’fuzzy feeling of having been entertained to a suitable level. True success stories are too few and too fleeting; with a 67% grad rate, the high numbers of HOPE scholars 1) taking remedials and 2) flunking out, the big question remains:
WHO’S KIDDIN’ WHO??
I will only repeat my oft-mentioned mantra…somebody…a teacher, a business leader, a leader in the scientific community…somebody had better step out.
AnonMom
December 1st, 2012
10:38 am
Thanks — Pride & Joy — and yeah, I agree with the points about tracking — and most of the half of the freshmen who were “lost” from my oldest’s freshman class from his “top” public high school left long before they reached age 23 so I don’t really believe that’s what’s going on. Personally, (don’t throw darts…) that unions once served a great purpose — but you only have to look at what happened to Eastern Airlines and at Hostess to fully appreciate that they’ve, perhaps, outlived their usefulness…. I do think we need some apprenticeship programs in place — in the schools or elsewhere…. once upon a time there was a very solid way for ‘kids’ and ‘teens’ (who were really treated as adults — and who had — and still have — adult harmonies — ) to learn real lift adult, productive skills with which they could earn livings as carpenters, mechanics, plumbers, etc. Society still needs these trained workers but we don’t seem to be giving kids this “path” to success — this is what, once upon a time, formed our middle class. In GA — especially Atlanta — we seem to have a “college,” “McDonalds” or “prison” option for our kids and I don’t think this is wise or tenable in the long run… Where I grew up — up north — we had terrific VoTech programs, beginning in 9th grade (I think kids should, perhaps be peeled off beginning in middle school once it’s very clear they are not on grade level) to learn some skill …. this would not preclude college — but could provide skills — many of these skills could lead to college-degrees with the interest but could lead to small business skilled jobs if not…. better than prison or Micky Ds.
Ole Guy
December 1st, 2012
7:09 pm
Mom, don’t go beating up on unions too fast. To be sure, the history of organized labor is not always too…pretty. Neither are the historys of the horseless carriage…that which we know as the modern motor car; neither is the track record of booze within modern civilization. These institutions, much like the institution of organized labor, have left much destruction in the wake of mankind. However…not unlike organized labor…these two “vices” have become an integral component of society; one without which our very civilization would be very different, and probably not very pallatible. Our propensity toward (let’s call it) social awareness…not to mention the law…allows us to employ these two institutions (among many more) in a manner which (in tenuous manner) makes life what it is.
The educational system, particularly in non-union states, needs organized labor for two broad reasons:
1) it is no mystery that Georgia teachers have become nothing more than handmaidens of the whims of those who have little-to-no knowledge of the educational process. Teachers have become the sacrificial lambs of political expediency within the upper echelons of (ahem)…leadership.
2) the “foot soldiers” of education…the classroom teachers…need, no, make that DESPERATELY need a collective rally point. Many years ago, during my short forray into the educational camp, it was plainly clear that teachers were, overwhelmingly, individuals; not proud members of a profession, but mere individuals. This was during a period of social prosperity (the days of wine and roses, as it were) where the travails of the teacher could be couched, if you will, in the warmth of job security and the false notion of success bolstered in the equally false belief that kids, armed with greatly-inflated grades, were all headed for “the good life”.
What a great fairy tale! And…it was reasonably presumed…all would live happy forever and ever.
Enter the social dragons of fiscal misadventure at the governmental levels, and the onset of the harsh reality that these kids were, in no way, prepared for life, and who was the first to catch hell?
TEACHERS! With absolutely no collective voice in the matter, all the teacher corps could do is (collectively) bow heads in shame and accept the “beatings” of public disdain…from parents, from government, and most-certainly from the kids who, after finding themselves as young 20-somethings with either a truck load of post graduate debt (brought on, in no small part, by the over-expectations of those earlier psuedo successes) or, in too many cases, abject failure within the collegiate pressure cooker.
The new social phenomenon known as “failing schools” has been none other than a reflection of the weaknesses within the teacher corps, where, once again, the leadership (if one might be so charitable) has placed the teacher corps on the chopping block of political expediency. If you ask me, there simply ain’t no such damn thing as failing schools. These are schools where simple modest teachers were denied to ply their trade AS THEY SAW FIT…AS THE DICTATES OF THEIR PROFESSION WOULD DEMAND.
THIS is why these teachers MUST organize. If no one can see this, you and your kids richly deserve what you get.
Prof
December 2nd, 2012
9:28 pm
@ Ole Guy. How can teachers organize unions in Georgia when it’s against the law?
Don't blame the parent
December 4th, 2012
9:23 am
I am very involved with my special needs child’s education. I’ve fought with the county to set typical grade level standards for him and made them accountable. And he was a one out of 3 SWD children who passed the CRCT while 25 failed. But don’t blame these students on why the school did not make AYP that year. The 60% of regular ed also failed. Having 4+ hour meetings and having to pull out Fed Regs to make sure that my child is getting what he is legally entitled to is something I’ve done for years. Finally threw my hands up this year as the county and teacher quality and apathy was too much in Cobb. He’s loving his new private school and succeeding.
Lynn Frickey
December 5th, 2012
1:50 am
What if schools were accountable for knowing, and growing, student engagement-which ultimately drives everything related to school success? What is being done now is not working to identify students at risk of dropping out. We need a new paradigm-STUDENT ENGAGEMENT! The bottom line is any student who does not graduate is a travesty as earning a high school diploma is a life-changing event! We can give our at-risk students a voice by tapping into the reasons “why” a student becomes disengaged and provide interventions to support students to reengage or increase engagement to pursue an educational goal.
I have been a teacher for 28 years and I’ve developed the Scale of Student Engagement/Disengagement (SOS ED), which empowers students to self-identify their level of school engagement by responding to items that are scored and converted into an engagement score. In a university research study, the SOS ED was reliable and valid in identifying student engagement levels. Please check out the video explaining the SOS ED and how it works http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1BbJQRyoGY and visit http://www.scaleofstudentengagement.com Please email me at: lfrickey@scaleofstudentengagement.com for more information.