Why Not Count Them All?

By Jim Hull

Before leaving office, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings issued last October new regulations for how states should calculate high school graduation rates under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. The regulations seemed simple: Take the number of students who graduated, then divide by the number of students who entered high school four years earlier. But what about those students who take longer than four years to graduate? How would they be counted? The short answer is, they wouldn’t.

The October 2008 regulations gave states the option of including “late graduates” in what the Department of Education called an “extended year” graduation rate. But the states would have to apply to the department to do so. Several states have, but confusion remains over how the separate four-year and extended-year rates should interact. ( “Rules Allowing Extended Time on Graduation,” April 1, 2009.)

Some educators express concern that allowing states to give credit to schools for late graduates will limit the incentives schools have to make sure students graduate on time. They cite research showing that those who graduate on time have better life outcomes than those who take longer. And...