Friday, May 29, 2009

Oregon Joining States with Honest Graduation Rate Reports

– Meanwhile, Kentucky’s reporting founders

Oregon just announced improved high school graduation rate reporting next year.

Once that starts, an Oregon Department of Education spokesperson admitted the state’s high school dropout rate will probably rise dramatically, but Oregon is clearly intent on joining other states like California that are getting honest about this important information.

Meanwhile, here in Kentucky, we are supposedly years away from a similarly accurate system. In fact, the computer program needed to generate high quality graduation rates is having all sorts of problems.

The state is even dragging its heels on adopting a better short term estimation formula for graduation rates called the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate, not promising that for two more years although it looks like we have all the data needed to calculate it already.

Say what you will about KERA overall, when it comes to area of accurate reporting about graduations, other states are leaving us in the dust.

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