EdVANTAGE Blog

The State Board of Regents meetings this week centered on issues related to high school graduation. One issue they will have to resolve in the months ahead is whether to revive the “local diploma” option, which ended for students who entered 9th grade after 2007-08.

The State Education Department released high school completion data for all schools and districts for the three most recent 9th grade cohorts.  Statewide, the four-year high school graduation rate has risen from from 65.8 for the cohort that entered 9th grade in 2001, to 70.9 percent for the cohort that entered 9th grade in 2004.

For the latest cohort, the graduation rate rises to 75.6 percent when students are tracked over five years.

The data sparked mostly positive headlines around the state.  Examples here, here, and here.

Commissioner Mills’ presentation to the Regents cited a few “bottom line” observations:

• Statewide graduation rates are steadily increasing overall, according to reports from school districts. However, overall rates are still too low.
• A fifth year of high school increases the graduation rate especially among high need students.
• The gap between Black and Hispanic students as compared with White students is narrowing.
• Graduation rates for English Language Learners and Students with Disabilities are far too low. This is a serious problem. (e.g., the four-year rates were 35.7 percent for ELLs and 41.5 percent for SWDs)
• Graduation rate growth and performance are too uneven among the Big 5.
• Among students who graduate, more are earning a Regents Diploma.

The Regents discussed many issues related to graduation rates, including whether to revise the state’s target graduation rate for No Child Left Behind Act accountability purposes, whether to use a four or five year graduation rate, and how to improve the reliability of high school completion data that is reported and compiled.

As noted, a key issue which the Regents will consider is whether to resurrect the local diploma option.  It was discontinued for students entering 9th grade last September and later.

The local diploma option allowed students to earn a high school diploma without passing Regents exams in five subjects.  It was phased out by reducing the number of Regents exams students could be credited with passing with scores between 55 and 64, starting with three for the 2005 cohort, then two, then one, then none for cohorts starting in September 2008 and thereafter.

Of students in the 2004 cohort who earned a high school diploma in four years, 16.2 percent earned the local diploma.  I calculate this as being more than 25,000 students who would have been affected had the local diploma option been eliminated earlier.

For some subgroups, the percentage of students earning the local diploma was much higher — over 50 percent of graduating students with disabilities received a local diploma, as did 39 percent of large city graduates.

As the Department’s news release make clear, the Regents discussed many other issues related to high school graduation, but this is one which very directly affects individual students.