SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) -There’s a possibility Utah' graduation rates could fall, without any changes in the classroom.
The Federal Government is forcing states to calculate graduation levels using a new standardized method.
Under the new guidelines, y definition, students who take longer than four years, or receive a GED are not graduates. Drop outs must also be accounted for.
Emily Tew, a data manager from the Utah State Office of Education says a change in definition could lead to a change in graduation numbers. "The federal definitions for who counts as a graduate have changed sometimes dramatically from who we used to consider as graduates.”
Half of the states in the U.S. are using definitions that will no longer apply, and using the Leaver calculation method to determine graduation rates. So, if a school had 100 graduates, but ten students dropped out along the way, then 100 would be divided by 110, giving an inflated graduation rate.
Tew says Utah did not do that, but Utah was not counting students who simply disappeared from the system. "That’s going to be one of the greatest um, differences between our previous rate, our new rate and we will be including those students now into that cohort."
The new guidelines also require schools to be accountable for students that transfer to other schools. Tew says documentation can be labor intensive. "It might be that the district, with limited resources, hadn't had the time to follow up on where the student went."
She says that will change under the new standardized procedure. "Now they know they are going to be dinged they are of course going to be more and more accurate with where these students are going."
Even high school seniors like Tsivya and Sedona King recognize the importance of accurate data. "So some states can't make claims that they are doing a whole lot better than others." Sedona says.
The new calculation standard tales the number of graduates in a year and divides it by the number of students who were enrolled four years earlier. Schools document transfer students so the graduation rate isn’t artificially deflated.
The numbers will start being counted as part of No Child Left Behind benchmarks by the 2012-2013 school year.
