Pittsburgh High School Graduation Rate Study

John Engberg and Brian Gill:

Graduation and dropout rates are difficult to calculate. These difficulties arise because of both conceptual ambiguities and imperfect data. In this paper, the authors review some of these challenges, discuss how the challenges have been approached when using cross-sectional data, and describe a method that analyzes longitudinal, student-level data to provide an improved estimate of graduation and dropout rates. They then apply that method to estimate graduation and dropout rates for the Pittsburgh Public Schools district-wide and for each high school in the district.

Joe Smydo and Tim Grant have more:

City school board members angrily denounced a study that estimates 35 percent of high school students -- including nearly half of all black male students -- drop out of Pittsburgh Public Schools.

"It's very incendiary to put something like this out there when there's so much gray area and speculation," board member Randall Taylor said at a meeting last night. "For us to tell the city we are not graduating this many students, this is devastating to the city."

Andrew Rotherham notes that "It's the PR, Stupid"...... "The report also offers a nice walk-through of some of the issues surrounding calculating grad rates."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 13, 2006 9:37 PM
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