Thread: Survey says Oregon graduation rate not so high

Jun 4, 7:34 PM EDT


Survey says Oregon graduation rate not so high

By JULIA SILVERMAN
Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Ask Oregon education officials what the state's official high school graduation rate is, and they'll tell you that about 80 percent of recent senior classes got their diploma in four years.

Not so fast, says a new national survey that uses a different, and potentially more accurate, method of calculating graduation rates.

According to Diploma Counts 2008, a survey conducted by Editorial Projects in Education, publisher of Education Week, only about 70.4 percent of Oregon high school students graduated in 2005, the most recent year for which nationwide data was available.

The difference is in dropouts. Like 31 other states, Oregon measures those leaving high school with a diploma or a GED against those who have dropped out.

But Christopher Swanson, director of the Editorial Project in Education research center, said that numbers of dropouts are often undercounted, leaving states with artificially inflated graduation rates.

The EPE research numbers, Swanson said, are generated by multiplying grade-to-grade promotions for all four high school levels, so researchers can see exactly how many students left school after each year.

Top states in the survey were New Jersey, Iowa and Wisconsin, all of which had graduation rates that topped 80 percent. On the bottom were Louisiana, New Mexico and Nevada, with rates under 55 percent.

Oregon, Swanson said during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday morning, is an excellent example of a "cautionary tale" for the rest of the nation: Though that 70.4 percent graduation rate is about the same as his group's national average, that rate plummets for particular subgroups of students, especially among minority males.

"Things don't look so bad until you start to get under the surface," Swanson said. "There may be some real problems among disadvantaged minorities and students living in poverty."

According to EPE's numbers, just 42.7 percent of American Indians in Oregon are graduating from high school, below the national average of 50 percent. The state's African-American students beat that, but just barely, with a graduation rate of 44 percent, well below the national average of 55.3 percent. Rates among boys of both groups are even lower.

Pat Burk, deputy schools superintendent at the Oregon Department of Education, said Oregon has now collected enough data to start using a new method of calculating graduation rates next year. The state will be tracking individual students through four years of high school, a method currently used by 17 states and considered highly accurate.

The focus on high school graduation rates is expected only to intensify over the next few years, as Oregon phases in newer, tougher requirements for graduation, including higher-level math and science courses.

Later this month, the state Board of Education is also expected to decide on long-incubating plans to require students to pass one of three types of tests before graduating: either a national standardized test like the SAT, a state assessment test or a locally developed, state-approved alternative, like a work sample or portfolio.

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Never in my life have I seen so many students either dropping out or failing......think some brain child can come up with another "study" to declare that something is seriously wrong with our educational system?

In a school near here over 1/2 of the 8th graders couldn't do basic stuff to graduate to be able to go to high-school. Can't read, can't write, can't do basic math.......it's a disgrace. But I bet they can text like lightning and blast the heck out of any video game.