I have been warning colleagues for months that bad news about graduation rates was on the way. Well, that day has arrived. According to a new report, "states are bracing for plummeting high school graduation rates as districts nationwide dump flawed measurement formulas that often undercounted dropouts and produced inflated results."

New Formula

The drop in the reported graduation rates is the result of the adoption of a new formula mandated by the U.S. Department of Education, which is similar to one developed by the National Governor's Association: the number of graduates in a given year, divided by the number of students who enrolled four years earlier.

Also, schools must document transfer students or they'll artificially deflate the graduation rate. In the past, many schools weren't required to document that transfers showed up somewhere else.

Of course, the offenders must be punished! Schools that consistently miss targeted graduation measures must face sanctions.

Declining Rates: "Modest to Massive"

Some states will see their rates drop by as much as 20 percentage points.

- Michigan had a nearly 10-percentage point fall when they made the switch in 2007.

- Florida's graduation rate "remained stable," at 79 percent, when it adopted the new graduation rate in the 2009-10 school year. "It would have been nearly two points higher if it had continued under the old calculation."

- Kansas expects the graduation rate to drop from 89 percent to 80 percent, with "one district in the state anticipating a 20-point drop."

- Georgia said its overall rate—now at 80 percent—could drop about 15 percentage points.

- Virginia's graduation rate dropped from 90 percent to 81 when the new formula was adopted in 2008.

According to the report, "experts hope the changes will draw attention to the dropout issue and lead to resources being focused on the problem."

Not for accountability purposes

While I fully support a uniform method for calculating graduation rates, researchers have warned policy makers not to use graduation rates for accountability purposes. One researcher told a group, of which I was a part, that 'if a school had more than a three percent mobility rate, the accuracy of the graduation rate could vary by as much a four to ten percentage points.' Of course, in their never-ending search for simple solutions to complex problems, the so-called experts are again ignoring the researchers.

Schools are not FedEx

One expert has publicly stated "if FedEx can track a package, we can track students." What he failed to account for is that every FedEx package has a bar code, but there is no national student identifying number. Therefore, if a student moves across the river into another state or returns to his or her country of birth, the school has no way of tracking that student if the student fails to report their previous school. Therefore, that student is a dropout.

A 2011 National Academies report titled High School Dropout, Graduation, and Completion Rates: Better Data, Better Measures, Better Decisions specifically states, “Our review also suggests that cohort rates based on aggregate data are not sufficiently accurate for research, policy, or accountability decisions.”

The rich get richer

What no one will admit is that the poorest schools with the highest student mobility rates will be unduly penalized by the new formula for calculating graduation rates. These schools, who already have the decked stacked against them, will report graduation rates that are actually worse than their actual performance.

The poor get poorer!

Teachers and principals will be fired. Schools will be closed on the basis of a flawed system for calculating graduation rates.

Five or Six Years, Not Four

If a student takes longer than four years to graduate, that student is counted as a dropout. ELL and special education students often take more than four years to graduate. Under this calculation, expect their graduation rates to plummet.

Colleges and universities, who select their students, use a six-year rate. High schools, who cannot select their students, are forced to use a four-year rate. This makes absolutely no sense.

A Complex Problem

As the National Academies report indicates, calculating a high school's graduation rate is a much more complex process than most policy makers comprehend or will take the time to understand. Graduation rate should be one of many metrics used to evaluate a school, but it is only one measure.

The report recommends the use of a more sophisticated combination of calculations in order to arrive at a more accurate graduation rate. Simplistic formulas will not solve complex problems.

This issue is important enough that we take the time to read the report before jumping to erroneous conclusions about high school graduation and graduation rates.