Statewide Real Transition to Adult Life

This graph compares the recently reported success rate of our high school graduates in going on to college and careers versus the much lower rate of success when we consider ALL of the students who entered high school with each graduating class.


Clearly, a lot of kids are being left behind once we consider EVERYONE.

For more details, check out this freedomkentucky.org article.

Lots of kids get left behind after graduation in Jefferson County

WAVE-3 TV reports that thousands of Jefferson County students are graduated from high school in 2010 and headed on to other life pursuits such as higher education or the workforce.

What WAVE-3 missed is the fact that new data from the Kentucky Department of Education shows that a chunk of last year’s Jefferson County graduates reported they didn’t head anywhere after high school – not to college, not to the military, not to tech school, not to the workforce.

And, we don’t know for sure what happened to additional thousands of Jefferson County students who simply dropped out before getting a high school diploma, but it’s a good bet most of them are in even more dire straights.

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WHAT!!! No high school graduation rate data?!!!

Why Not???!!!

The Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) just released new non-academic data for the state – sort of.

The problem is the most important information – namely Kentucky’s very first high school graduation rate data using a credible formula instead of inflated nonsense – is NOT included.

The news release excuses: “to ensure data quality and integrity, a thorough review of school and district graduation rates is being implemented. Graduation rate data will be released in August 2011.”

I’m sorry, but that excuse does not wash.

When you look at Kentucky’s deplorable history concerning graduation and dropout reporting, the KDE comes across as seriously unable to implement something that has been a known requirement for three years.

Along the way, the KDE unfortunately creates an impression that it is standing in the way of public transparency on an absolutely critical set of education data – data that is currently a hot discussion item even with the governor’s wife.

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National dropout conference meets as Kentucky debates dropout age

Too many Kentucky high schools graduate too few

Data implies Age 18 dropout age minimum doesn’t work

As our legislature debates the merits of raising the minimum high school dropout age in Kentucky from 16 to 18, a national conference is meeting to discuss the serious problem of dropouts across the nation. Along with other materials, a conference team from The Everyone Graduates Center has provided an analysis that has charts showing how many ‘Dropout Factories’ are found in each state. The disturbing finding, as of 2009 Kentucky had 22 high schools which meet the Johns Hopkins University’s criteria of less than 60 percent graduation success to be labeled as ‘Dropout Factories.’ The same web data provides some interesting new information regarding the attempt to raise Kentucky’s dropout age to 18. Earlier, I assembled a quick study in a blog that looked at trends in federally reported Averaged Freshman Graduation Rates for states that had an Age 18 minimum dropout age in place for at least four years. My study showed few of the 15 states with at least four years of Age 18 experience had a trend in graduation rate improvement that even matched the national rate. Now, using some of the data from The Everyone Graduates Center and Johns Hopkins University, I assembled the tables below which shows how Kentucky ranks for dropout factory performance against the same 15 states that have already shifted their minimum dropout age to 18. This first graph shows the percentage of high schools in the Age 18 states that are dropout factories. The schools with the lowest percentage of dropout factories rank at the top in this listing. Notice that even without a current age 18 limitation, Kentucky already ranks around the middle in this listing. Given the large variation in graduation rate performance shown in this first table, it is clear that a minimum dropout age of 18 provides no guarantee of good performance with the Johns Hopkins data. We can also look at the percentage of students in each state that are trapped in dropout factories. This next table looks at all students. On this metric, Kentucky looks even better compared to the states that already have moved to age 18. Finally, here is a similar table for minority students. Once again, Kentucky is already doing better than a notable number of the age 18 dropout minimum states. So, why would we want to emulate the general performance of Age 18 states? We already do better than many of them. The new Johns Hopkins data adds to the earlier evidence from the National Center for Education Statistics on Averaged Freshman Graduation Rates that I discussed in the earlier blog. The data indicates that an Age 18 dropout restriction, by itself, does not guarantee good graduation rates. Does Kentucky have a dropout problem? YOU BET! Will trapping kids in school until age 18 help? Probably not. Technical Note: You can access the data used to assemble the tables above by logging on here. This brings up a web page with the Kentucky data. Click on the graph in the lower right of the section near the top of the web page to find the graph showing “Number and Percent of High Schools with Weak and High Promoting Power Ratios.” To access the other states’ data, scroll to the bottom of the Kentucky page, where a US map allows selection of other state profiles. Then, click on the charts for that state to select the graph showing “Number and Percent of High Schools with Weak and High Promoting Power Ratios.”

Kentucky getting more detailed graduation rate reports, finally

Education Week reports that Kentucky will be one of the very last three states, along with Connecticut and Mississippi, to report graduation rate data broken out by subgroups such as races.

Education Week has the full story here (subscription may be required).

Kentucky dragged its heels for years on doing better graduation rate reporting and wound up way behind virtually all the other states on this important issue. I wonder if this played a part in our failure to get Race to the Top dollars. When it came to graduation rate reporting, Kentucky just made promises; other states made progress.

Commissioner’s blog lays out tough numbers about Kentucky’s education performance

Education Commissioner Terry Holliday and his staff are really starting to tell it like it is with Kentucky’s public education system.

As I reported recently, this month’s meeting of the Kentucky Board of Education contained lots of hard-hitting facts about where the state really stands in making education progress.

Now, Commissioner Holliday adds to the candor with more sobering facts about education in Kentucky. His blog from August 13, 2010, “The Class of 2010, What Does Their Future Look Like?” uses the most recently available data on high school graduation rates and college success rates to project what will happen to Kentucky’s new group of graduating students.

This table summarizes Dr. Holliday’s sobering projections for this group of students.



To learn more about the disturbing numbers in this table, click the "Read more" link below.

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New high school graduation rates are out

Kentucky actually shows slight improvement using credible formula

But, Kentucky’s current, non-credible formula shows decline

If the headlines confused you, don’t feel too bad.

Computing credible trend lines for high school graduation rates and dropout rates has been an issue for decades. I have been complaining about the problem for about 15 years.

The official high school graduation rate formula currently used by the Kentucky Department of Education in their new nonacademic data report was shown to be notably inflated back in 2006 in a major federal study. That study urged all states to adopt a new formula called the Averaged Freshman Graduation Rate (AFGR), which is explained here.

Sadly, Kentucky won’t finally come on board with the AFGR until next year, making it one of the last states to adopt a more credible graduation rate formula.

While we still must wait for better graduation rate data from the KDE, federal research shows an old formula called the “Freshman Graduation Rate” works far better than the “Leaver” rate the KDE is still using. Furthermore, the Freshman Graduation Rate can consistently be applied to Kentucky’s available data way back into the 1980s, as I have done in this graph.


By the way, I also ran an approximate calculation of the AFGR for 2009 using an average of 8th, 9th and 10th grade enrollment for the denominator and the total of NCLB creditable diplomas (those regular or governor’s diplomas earned within four years plus those regular diplomas earned by learning-disabled students within five years).

That AFGR for 2009 was 76.7 percent. This is still slightly high because I didn’t make another necessary correction for the number of disabled students who are not assigned to a specific grade. The federal formula actually requires that correction, which I estimate would drop the “on-time” AFGR to about 75.7 percent, within two points of the 2009 Freshman Graduation Rate shown in the graph above - and FAR lower than the 83.91 percent rate that the KDE just officially claimed.

Anyway, the good news is that using the fairly accurate Freshman Graduation Rate, our high school graduation rate has finally risen above the previous peak set back in 1993, shortly after KERA was enacted.

The bad news is that we are still losing about one in four students prior to graduation. After 20 years of very expensive education reform efforts, that is simply unacceptable.

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Someone else has figured the high school dropout rate business out

"Clearly no one wants to talk about this, but in Kentucky's current assessment and accountability system schools actually benefit from young people dropping out rather than having them perform at a low rate on the tests," he said. "No one wants to admit that's a problem, but it is a problem."

Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates

Quoted in “Kentucky slips in six key areas,” Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, June 12, 2008 as provided by Kentucky School Boards Association News Service (subscription required).

When Kentucky's CATS assessment starts to really penalize schools for dropouts (right now, the penalty is trivial), maybe this will stop. By the way, Mr. Brooks, I have criticized this problem in CATS for years. Glad you are now on board on this important issue.

Grad Rate Reporting Nonsense

In a nice bit of timing, the new “Graduations Counts 2008” report from Education Week newspaper issued less than a week after the Kentucky Department of education released its own “Nonacademic Data Report” for Kentucky’s public schools. The new Education Week data exposes some very disturbing holes in what we are being told about the performance of our schools.

For example, the Graduations Count Web articles include a special Kentucky section that allows us to answer the question about how well Kentucky’s education leaders really inform us about a critical issue – high school graduation rates. Unfortunately, the answer is – not well at all.

The official report from our state educators claims the statewide high school graduation rate for Kentucky’s Class of 2005 was 82.86 percent. Education Week’s Kentucky section has a sort of “lie meter” on Page 7 that shows the real rate was much lower – over 11 points lower – at just 71.5 percent. Nationally, Kentucky ranks below the median in 29th place among the 50 states.

There is more interesting information from Ed Week.

While the national spread between graduation rates for boys and girls is 7.5 points in favor of the ladies, here in Kentucky the spread is notably higher at 9.8 points. Why is KERA less successful with boys than girls?

And, KERA is really unfriendly to American Indians in Kentucky. Their graduation rate is a depressing 21.8 percent here as opposed to a national rate of 50.6 percent.

Hispanics in Kentucky also do much more poorly than the national average with a graduation rate disparity of 49.4 percent versus 57.8 percent.

Kentucky’s whites also graduate at a rate 5.2 points below the national average of 77.6 percent.

Only Kentucky’s blacks do slightly better than their national counterparts, but their graduation rate of just 58.2 percent is hardly a testament to KERA.

Not surprisingly, you won’t find these minority graduation rates in the state’s Nonacademic Data Report. You have to go to more honest sources like Education Week if you want that information. Here in Kentucky, our educators prefer to continue using data that has been officially audited and found unreliable -- which is how Kentucky comes up with an inflated 82.86 graduation rate in the first place.

Richard Innes