Education Must Increase High School Graduation Rates Along with Reading, Math and Science Scores

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education act regardless of whether you like or hate it has accomplished at least one thing right by forcing school districts to report accurate graduation rates. Given the billions of dollars invested in public education through the taxation (income and personal property) along with the enormous amount of research again much of which is funded by taxpayers' dollars, a reasonable personal would think that high school graduation rates should be no lower than 90%. However, many U.S. taxpayers are reading about graduation rates of 30% to 60% within their respective communities.

For example, the Indianapolis Star in November of 2006 attempted to lessen the outrage from the poor results being achieved through taxpayers' dollars when reporting current high school graduation rates. The new formula courtesy of NCLB places the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS) graduate rate at 48%. This much more accurate Indiana graduation rate reflects earlier findings from the Indiana Government Efficiency Commission. In 2004 the Commission reported:

• Of every 100 Indiana 9th graders, only 68 graduate from high school, 41 go on to post-secondary education, 31 persist to their second year and 21 graduate within six years.

Nationally, in June of 2006, the Editorial Projects in Education (ED) Research Center projected that 1 in 3 high school students in the Class of 2006 will not graduate in 2006. This report painted a bleaker picture for urban school districts from 21.7% in Detroit to 43.8% in Cleveland from the 2002-03 year. Even the best high school districts such as Fairfax County Va and Wake Conty N.C. graduated only 82% of their students during this same time frame.

Unfortunately, the adage figures don't lie, but liars figure appears to be the guiding principle. In the past graduation rates were calculated from those entering the 12th year and those receiving a diploma 9 months later. From earlier decades when there were less student movement from district to district to more homogenous communities, this process to calculate graduation rates was more acceptable, but still not accurate. However in the 21st century between the consistent movement of the students to the increase in drop out rates from earlier grades, using this formula for calculating high school graduation rates is no longer acceptable.

The importance of these results is two fold:

• First, taxpayers are not receiving a return on their investment. Currently, each publicly educated student costs taxpayers $10,000 a year. Using national figures provided by NCES, a student who drops out in 2006 after 10 years of education is an initial lost investment of over $60,000. This loss only continues to grow if the young person fails to become a positive contributor to society.
• Second, US public education is not achieving significant progress given the billions of dollars funded by the hard efforts of taxpayers. Since 1969, the National Assessment of Educational Progress has been a consistent monitor of student achievement. What is interesting to note is that despite all the increased in funding actual scores per subject and per age have remained relatively flat and not near the levels necessary for sustainable economic progress.

From 30 years from 1969 to 1999, in reading the results were:

• 9 year old students moved from 208 to 212 a growth of 4 points or less than 2%
• 13 year old students moved from 255 to 259 a growth of 4 points or less than 2%
• 17 year old students moved from 285 to 288 a growth of 3 points of less than 2%

Mathematics average scale scores showed similar results:

• 9 year old students moved from 219 to 232 a growth of 13 points or less than 6%
• 13 year old students moved from 266 to 276 a growth of 10 points or less than 4%
• 17 year old students moved from 304 to 308 a growth of 4 points or less than 2%

Science faired the worst with:

• 9 year old students moved from 225 to 229 a growth of 4 points or less than 2%
• 13 year old students moved from 255 to 256 a growth of 1 points or less than 1%
• 17 year old students moved from 305 to 295 a decline of 10 points or a decrease of less than 4%

As a business owner or even someone looking to invest their hard earned dollars, would you consider investing in any organization that delivers less than a 4% return over the course of 30 years? Until American business owners and taxpayers demand higher and sustainable results from these public education institutions, the future of America as we know it will become much less bright.