Debate Over Dropouts Renewed as Scholars Issue Dueling Reports

Depending on which of a pair of new think-tank estimates you believe, the nation’s high schools are graduating only seven out of 10 of their students or as large a share as 82 percent.

The conflicting reports, issued last week by the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute and by the New York City-based Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, continue a long-running debate over the best way to track high school graduation rates.

Discontent with the perceived inaccuracy of traditional methods of counting dropouts has led the nation’s governors, federal officials, and experts to adopt newer approaches that essentially divide the number of diplomas awarded in a given year by the estimated number of 9th graders...