| Releases
& Statements
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jennifer Jennings
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Study Finds New York City High School Discharge Rate Increasing: Discharge Rate for First Year High School Students Doubles
Report Calls for Independent Audit of New York City Discharge and Graduation Data
Read the Report
NEW YORK, NY (April 30, 2009) -- A new report released today analyzing New York City’s high school graduation and discharge trends from 2000-2007 finds that NYC’s high school discharge system could be artificially increasing the city’s graduation rate by excluding at-risk students who leave school without diplomas. Co-authored by Jennifer Jennings of Columbia University and Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, the report is the first comprehensive analysis of city discharge data since 2002.
Discharged students are removed from the city’s enrollment rolls entirely; they are neither counted as dropouts nor included in the denominator when graduation rates are calculated. As the number of discharges rises, so does the graduation rate. Specifically, the authors found that:
• Since the 2002 Advocates for Children/Public Advocate report on “push-outs,” the number and percentage of high school students discharged have increased from 17.5 percent for the Class of 2000 to 21.1 percent for the Class of 2007. Between the graduating Classes of 2000 and 2007, a total of 142,262 students were discharged.
•Because discharges are reported without information indicating the reason for the discharge (known as a discharge code) and schools’ discharge records have not been audited by an independent agency, it is currently impossible to distinguish legitimate discharges, such as students who enroll in a degree-granting high school outside of the NYC public schools, from those who would be better understood as dropouts.
•According to data from the US Census American Community Survey and enrollment data from NYC parochial schools, recent increases in the discharge rate do not appear to be explained by increased student migration out of the city, increased international out-migration, or an increasing parochial school share of high school enrollments.
•The increase in the overall discharge rate has been driven primarily by a doubling in the discharge rate for students in their first year of high school. The explanation for this change is not clear, as students cannot be discharged from NYC public schools except in limited circumstances before turning 17.
•Graduation rates in New York City would be substantially lower if discharges were included in the calculation. We caution that these discharge-adjusted figures surely represent an underestimate of the graduation rate. Nonetheless, they point to the substantial impact that discharges can have on the graduation rate, and thus demonstrate the importance of carefully accounting for discharged students. While the city’s reported four-year general education graduation rate was 62 percent for the Class of 2007, the graduation rate would be 45.5 percent if all discharges were counted as dropouts, and 43.6 percent if students earning GEDs rather than high school diplomas were excluded. If discharges were counted as dropouts and GEDs were not counted as graduates, the African-American general education graduation rate for the Class of 2007 would fall to 44 percent, the Hispanic graduation rate to 39 percent, the male graduation rate to 42 percent, the ELL graduation rate to 21 percent, and the special education graduation rate to 6 percent.
•Discharge rates vary widely by race, gender, and language proficiency. More than one in five general education Hispanic students (23 percent) and African-American students (21 percent) in the Class of 2007 were discharged without graduating, compared with 19 percent of general education white students and 16 percent of general education Asian students. General education English Language Learners had an even higher discharge rate of 29 percent.
•Graduation rates for the Class of 2007 in approximately 1 in 3 NYC high schools would drop by 15 percentage points or more if discharges were counted as dropouts. 72 percent of these schools received As or Bs on their 2007 School Progress Reports. Discharge rates are especially high for schools that are in the process of closing; for example, the discharge rate for the final graduating class of Morris High School was 55 percent.
•Though the AFC/Public Advocate report drew attention to the large number of students pushed out of high school to GED programs, GED data reported by the New York State Department of Education for 2003-2008 demonstrate that the number of NYC school-eligible students under 21 taking the GED exam has not declined over time.
Of particular concern are a series of troubling findings regarding the discharge of special education students:
•The special education discharge rate, which is reported separately by NYC and includes only students in self-contained classes and in District 75, has increased over time.
•NYC currently maintains two sets of graduation rates. The first is for general education students and special education students in less restrictive environments, which is the group for which it reports its official graduation rate. The second is for full-time special education students. It appears that more than 1000 students were transferred to the full-time special education cohort in the Class of 2005. These students were then reported as having been discharged at the anomalously high rate of 39 percent.
•The Class of 2005 data raises a series of questions that deserve further attention. Among the areas that deserve review are a sudden spike in the size of the self-contained special education population, a sharp increase in the self-contained special education discharge rate, and a contemporaneous decline in the size of the general education cohort. Also requiring explanation is how these patterns relate to the re-release of Class of 2005 graduation rates after the February 2006 Mayor’s Preliminary Management Report initially showed a drop in the graduation rate. Yet to date it is not clear what errors led to the re-release and how they relate to the anomalous patterns described above.
“Our findings demonstrate the need for more transparency in reporting graduation and discharge rates. The DOE should report detailed discharge data disaggregated by discharge code and race, gender, age, ELL, and special education status,” said Jennifer Jennings, co-author of the report.
The other co-author, Leonie Haimson said, “The accountability system that DOE uses in evaluating high schools, including their Progress Reports and grading system, should be reformed. The DOE needs to incorporate discharged students into their evaluation of schools, so that they are obligated to provide at-risk students with the instructional and other supports they need to graduate, including smaller classes, rather than discharge them at no cost to their accountability status.”
Executive Director of Advocates for Children, Kim Sweet, said, "We are quite alarmed to see discharge rates actually going up, and the striking number of discharges for students in their first year of high school is disturbing, considering that schools cannot legally discharge students before age 17 except in limited circumstances. A thorough examination of these data is clearly required."
“The distressing findings of this report, especially the apparent irregularities in the reporting of special education discharges, call for a systematic audit of the discharge and graduation data for NYC high schools. This is especially critical for the Class of 2005, for which it appears that more than a thousand students in the general education cohort were re-categorized as full-time special education students and discharged at extremely high rates, substantially increasing the graduation rate that year. I have asked the State Comptroller to do the audit and he said he would.” said Betsy Gotbaum, the Public Advocate of New York City.
Dianne Morales, Executive Director of The Door, a youth development organization that served 11,000 young people last year, said, “Over the past four years, The Door has seen a marked increase in the number of young people coming to us for GED and instructional services, many of whom have been encouraged to do so by their schools. We specialize in meeting each young person where they are and providing the right combination of a safe and nurturing environment along with the academic rigor and drive necessary to help these youth succeed, even when so many others may have turned their backs.”
In addition to calling for an audit of graduation and discharge data, the report recommended that an independent research organization be commissioned to analyze the discharge data to make clear who the discharged students are, why they were discharged, why the discharge rate has increased over time, and why the discharge rate of students in their first year of high school has doubled.
The report can be accessed online at: http://www.pubadvocate.nyc.gov/new_news/documents/DischargesRevisited
###
|
