We hear a lot about how American high schools are in bad shape -- not enough funding, not enough teachers, and too many kids dropping out. Do the numbers support the anecdotal evidence?
According to the U.S. Department of Education, 10.3% of high-school students dropped out in 2004. (Among Hispanic students, the dropout rate is a disturbingly high 23.8%.) Overall, the rate is trending downward. In 1995, 12% of all high-school students dropped out.
But pinpointing an accurate high-school dropout rate has proved to be something of a challenge. States use various and sometimes questionable methods to calculate the rate, and often report only the most favorable figure.
Amid all the variables, one thing is constant -- those students who choose to drop out face tough challenges in adulthood. A study by the Education Trust found:
The unemployment rate for high school dropouts is more than 30 percent higher than that of graduates. And when employed, dropouts earn close to 30 percent less. Dropouts are also more likely to end up incarcerated and rely on public assistance.
How are those for reasons to stay in school?
This study revises slightly the findings of my November 2001 report, High School Graduation Rates in the United States. In that study, I used an easily replicable method to estimate the percentage of public high school students receiving a high school diploma in the nation, each state and many of the nation’s largest public school districts. The same method was also used to estimate these rates for major racial and ethnic groups in each state and each of the districts examined.
I recently discovered an error in the calculations that were used to estimate the overall national and state rates. In my methodology, I estimate the graduation rate by dividing the number of public high school diplomas awarded in 1998, which is available from the National Center for Education Statistics, by an estimate of the number of students who would have received diplomas that year if graduation rates were 100 percent. I arrive at this latter number by taking the number of students enrolled in public schools in 8th grade in 1993 (also available from the NCES) and adjusting it for the percentage change in the overall student population between 1993 and 1998. The error stemmed from the inadvertent use of the percentage change in the overall population rather than overall student population between those years.
Recalculating the national rate to correct for this error, I now find that estimated national public school graduation rate in 1998 was 71 percent, slightly lower than the 74 percent originally reported. Since the overall thrust of my report was that public schools graduation rates are much lower than is commonly reported, this recalculation does not change the original report’s conclusion.
