State Introduces New Calculation for Graduation Rates

Monday, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released high school graduation rates calculated using a new method.

With the change in the way the rate is calculated, most districts in the state have a much lower rate than in the past.

Under the old calculation method, University City High School had an 83.9 percent graduation rate in the 2010-11 school year. Under the new calculation, the graduation rate is 74.8 percent.

The new 2010-2011 graduation rate for Missouri is 79.8 percent. Using the old calculations, the graduation rate for the state is 86.4 percent.

Last week, University City Superintendent of Schools Joylynn Pruitt told University City Patch that, "It will appear as though everybody's graduation rate has dropped...but it won't mean that we have not graduated as many kids."

U City School District spokesperson Linda Russell Wesley told Patch, "It's not yet known what future impact this might have on the state standard for graduation rate that is reported in the Annual Performance Report (APR)."

"The U.S. Department of Education is requiring (states) to report the new four-year rate so we can compare how Missouri is doing to our neighbors in Kansas and Illinois," said Leigh Ann Grant-Engle, assistant commissioner for the Office of Data System Management. "It’s another way to help us look at students and see if there's anything we need to do to provide them to help them graduate in four years."

States are required to report graduation rate data to the U.S. Department of Education under the No Child Left Behind legislation, but in the past, states calculated the rates using different methods.

Now, the U.S. Department of Education is requiring all states to report the "four-year graduation rate" which measures the percent of students who complete high school in four years.

Missouri currently calculates the graduation rate by dividing the number of students who graduated in a given year by the number of graduates plus any dropouts from that class.

Moving to a uniform calculation method allows states to be compared to one another more easily.

In a press release, the U.S. Department of Education calls the new calculation rate "more accurate" because it accounts for students who drop out or don't graduate in four years.

Grant-Engle, however, suggested that the new rate is not a "correction" of the old rate, adding that it's not appropriate to compare the two numbers. For now, the state intends to publish both rates.

"I believe they are just two different rates," she said. "There are many students that it's appropriate for them to take longer than four years to graduate. I do think (the new rate) is an important rate because it allows us to compare to other states accurately."

The new calculation may help state and district leaders understand characteristics of students who may take longer than four years to graduate.

"It's another way to look at students and see if there is anything we need to provide them to help them graduate in four years," Grant-Engle said.