Do Graduation Reporting Standards Mean Anything?
Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings introduced new proposed regulations to help clarify how schools, districts and states implement policies and business practices under No Child Left Behind. Among these proposals, Secretary Spellings has asked that high schools be required to use graduation rates that track cohorts of students as they progress through high school. Schools would be required to publish graduation rates for their total student population as well as every group tracked under No Child Left Behind: minority students, economically disadvantaged students, English as Second Language students, and students with disabilities. Tracking a cohort group means that you take one group, for example ninth graders who entered high school in 2004, and track where the people in that group went: those who stayed on to graduate, moved away, dropped out, graduated in more or less than four years and so on. This sounds easier than it looks; you have to track those who left your school, a
