Prove me wrong

October 11, 2007 6:07 AM

Are US high schools graduation rates for private, parochial, and target schools real?

Please prove the cynic in me wrong.

Anecdotally,
-My wife and I both went to separate catholic high schools, with everybody graduating.
-A colleague of mine who went to private school said everyone graduated.

The graduation rate at SuccessTech Academy in Ohio where there was a shooting, the graduation rate is 94% vs 55% for the districts it's in.

However, in my case the school expelled some people in their senior year for bad behavior.
In my wife's case, the school "requested" that certain students not come back for their senior year, for poor academic performance.

My BS detector tells me something is off. You have institutions that put forth graduation and attendance rates, students that go on to college, ect. as prime factors as to why the school is great. These same institutions have the ability to manipulate these rates. Then they are compared to public schools that do not have the same ability for manipulation.

Please prove me wrong.

posted by MrMulan to education (14 answers total)

By real, I mean the spirit of the word, not just the bare minimum, literal, technical definition.
posted by MrMulan at 6:14 AM on October 11, 2007

Public school also manipulate this data by only reporting how many incoming seniors graduate. They generally do not report how many students from the freshman class actually make it to graduation - which is the "real" graduation rate.
posted by jrichards at 6:16 AM on October 11, 2007

Public school also manipulate this data by only reporting how many incoming seniors graduate. They generally do not report how many students from the freshman class actually make it to graduation - which is the "real" graduation rate.

No, not really. Your "real" graduation rate would ignore students who died, who transferred to private schools (and then graduated from them), who moved districts (and graduated from their high school), etc. These are all substantial numbers to factor in.

The problem with tracking these statistics (and the same is true of college graduation and college retention numbers) is that the valuable question is, "How many people graduate from school?" not, "How many people graduate from this school?"

To get back to your specific question: There's no good answer. Some schools will report a number that represents how many students who walk through the door on the first day of their freshmen year graduate on the last day of school four years later. Some will report the graduation rate of the senior class, over just that single year. Others will be somewhere in between. The data is likely more useful in a relative comparison of like schools, or schools in a similar geographic area. If you're looking at schools for a child to attend, the best bet is to contact the school or the district and ask how their numbers are compiled.

And, as I noted, the most important societal question isn't really being answered at all through the reporting of data on an individual-school level.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:31 AM on October 11, 2007

The graduation percentage is meaningless anyway. If you graduate from a public high school barely literate without the ability to handle basic math, is that really any kind of success?

Private schools essentially are self selected groups of high achievers, are at least self selected groups of kids whose parents think they are high achievers. It makes sense they they would have near 100% graduation rates and college attendance rates. However, those kids would do the same in a public school, so the private school didn't necessarily have any impact on the fact that the kids graduated or went to school.

If a private school took kids that had failed in the public school system and turned them into successes, that would be impressive.
posted by COD at 6:54 AM on October 11, 2007

If you graduate from a public high school barely literate without the ability to handle basic math, is that really any kind of success?

I completely agree.

Private schools essentially are self selected groups of high achievers, are at least self selected groups of kids whose parents think they are high achievers.

Not necessarially. That ignores private schools that focus on students with learning disabilities, behavorial problems, cultural- language- or religious-focused or emphasis, and other special programs. Private schools allow the education to be focused on a specific topic, or to provide support, in ways that public schools can't.

Unfortunately, all too often, we say "private school" and think of a Groton or a Chote, and not of the overwhelming majority of private educational institutions that exist.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 7:06 AM on October 11, 2007

Private schools essentially are self selected groups of high achievers...

Not necessarially. That ignores private schools that focus on students with learning disabilities, behavorial problems, cultural- language- or religious-focused or emphasis, and other special programs.

You're right that "high achievers" aren't the only group, but those other groups are still self-selecting to a degree. If a child's parents are engaged enough to seek a school that address [insert your special need/motive here], then that would most likely indicate a parent that's dedicated to seeing their child graduate high school.
posted by mullacc at 7:27 AM on October 11, 2007

NotmMyselfRightNow is right. However, it is insanely easy to kick someone out of any private school. Basically, you just need to be patient and document things thoroughly (and avoid any appearance of discrimination by category).

Public schools are obligated to accommodate any student who comes through their door (baring criminal activity on campus).

And yes, private schools do absolutely manipulate their rates in the ways you described. They do, after all, have to sell themselves to parents, corporate underwriters, granting agencies, etc.

So you are comparing apples and oranges when you look at these graduation rates. No real comparison can be meaningful.
posted by OlderThanTOS at 7:31 AM on October 11, 2007

Sometimes public schools misreport their dropout statistics. I imagine that the graduation rates they report also need to be examined closely for the definition of what they are actually reporting and for general "truthiness."
posted by Robert Angelo at 7:45 AM on October 11, 2007

In my experience, the graduation rate of private schools is higher. mullacc is spot on that while all private schools aren't targeted towards high achievers, they are still self-selecting. Throw in the added element of paying thousands of dollars for your child's education, and the importance placed on graduating increases.

And yes, private schools do absolutely manipulate their rates in the ways you described. They do, after all, have to sell themselves to parents, corporate underwriters, granting agencies, etc.

Not all of them do. Don't cast a net over all private schools that they manipulate data.
posted by jmd82 at 7:51 AM on October 11, 2007

In fact, if you look at the most recent NCLB controversies, you'll see that public schools have begun manipulating any measures you plan on applying to them. It's like watching evolution in a petri dish. Everyone involved has an incentive to make sure that no meaningful comparisons are possible.

I'd agree though that the more important factor for graduation rates is the self-selection and parent-forced-graduation that happens.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 8:29 AM on October 11, 2007

Private school graduate here.

Based on my own experiences, I'd say that the rates are fairly accurate. Some kids do get kicked out, flunk out, etc. but not that many. A claimed graduation rate of 100% is probably closer to 90%-95%

At my school, the euphemism for expulsion was "not invited to return."
posted by jason's_planet at 8:38 AM on October 11, 2007

A claimed graduation rate of 100% is probably closer to 90%-95%

Just as a data point, this is not universally true. I went to a small private high school in NYC. During the 4 years I was there, nobody was expelled (nobody was ever caught doing anything to get anywhere near expulsion, either...) and we all graduated as a fully intact class.

The school was tiny, and we socialised with kids from a number of other private schools in the city. We inter-school gossiped incessantly, and knew virtually everyone at the schools around us; we would have know (and gossiped) about anyone who got kicked out.

So sometimes the 100% graduation rate is authentic.
posted by genghis at 9:32 AM on October 11, 2007

Another data point...small Catholic High School grad from West Virginia and 100% of my class graduated (and not all of them were high achievers).
posted by mmascolino at 9:56 AM on October 11, 2007

Just FYI, the graduation statistics for *public* high schools are rarely "for real" either. This is a widely discussed and documented issue. The same tricks used by private schools to inflate graduation numbers are used by public schools. I once proved mathematically that a certain school district in the south was understating its dropout rate by 40 percent. When I showed the math to a school board official, I was met with embarrassed acknowledgment and the withdrawal of my right to access any more of the non-public data I had based the calculations on.

When a public high school tells you it has a 10 percent dropout rate, the real number is likely closer to 15-20 percent. This is across the US.
posted by spitbull at 6:21 AM on October 12, 2007