WASHINGTON --- Your child is less likely to graduate from high school than you were, and most states are doing little to hold schools accountable, according to a study by a children's advocacy group.
More than half the states have graduation targets that don't make schools get better, the Education Trust says in a report released Thursday. And dropout rates haven't budged: One in four kids is still dropping out of high school.
"The U.S. is stagnating while other industrialized countries are surpassing us," said Anna Habash, the author of the report by Education Trust, which advocates on behalf of minority and poor children. "And that is going to have a dramatic impact on our ability to compete," she said.
In fact, the United States is the only industrialized country where young people are less likely than their parents to earn a diploma, the report said.
High schools are required to meet graduation targets every year as part of the 2002 federal No Child Left Behind law. But those targets are set by states, not by the federal government. Most states allow schools to graduate low percentages of students by saying that any progress, or even the status quo in some cases, is acceptable.
Why are states setting the bar so low?
Because they can, said Bob Balfanz, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University.
State and school officials are under pressure to improve test scores under the No Child Left Behind education law or face penalties. But they got a break on graduation rates: Schools must meet annual goals, but the government lets each state set its own goal.
The U.S. was slow to realize it was facing a dropout crisis. For years, researchers reported dropouts as the number of kids who quit school in 12th grade, failing to capture those who left high school earlier.
States and schools clouded the picture by using a variety of different methods to keep track of students who graduated, transferred or dropped out.
Then came the 2002 No Child Left Behind law, with its requirement that states meet graduation goals. In 2005, the nation's governors made a pact to adopt a common system of tracking graduation rates.
Now the federal government is poised to raise the bar on graduation rates. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is expected to issue new rules next week that will force states to use the common tracking system and will judge schools not only on graduation rates but also on the percentage of black and Hispanic students who graduate.
Among minority students, more than one in three students drops out of school.
Ms. Spellings proposed the new rules earlier this year.
Final rules might differ somewhat, but Ms. Spellings said earlier that states would be required in most cases to count graduates as students who leave high school on time and with a regular diploma.
GEORGIA PRAISED; S. CAROLINA CRITICIZED
The EdTrust report criticizes South Carolina's lack of accountability, while commending Georgia.
A South Carolina school, in theory, could never graduate a student and still meet federal standards, according to the state's plan under No Child Left Behind. To make adequate yearly progress, a school must at least maintain the previous year's graduation rate. A school that fails to graduate any students one year and fails to graduate any the next year would be considered to have made AYP.
"That's absolutely right," South Carolina Department of Education spokesman Pete Pillow said Thursday. "We don't require high schools to improve to make AYP. That's one of the things we need to look at."
A school also meets federal standards in South Carolina as long as the rate remains at or above 88.3 percent.
The Department of Education will review the issue when it asks the federal government to amend its AYP rules, he said.
Georgia was cited by EdTrust as being among the states that have set rigorous graduation standards and established accountability measures for ensuring graduation rates increase.
Georgia's No Child Left Behind plan sets a goal of reaching a 100 percent graduation rate for the 2013-14 school year. Each year the state goal for graduation rate will increase 5 percent.
Schools that don't meet the goal won't make AYP. Exceptions are made for schools that meet a minimum graduation rate and increase their rate by at least 10 percent from the year prior.
Both Georgia and South Carolina allow for fluctuations in graduation rates by accepting three-year averages of rates.
-- Greg Gelpi, staff writer
On the Net:
Education Trust: http://www.edtrust.org/
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