Paul Warren

Paul Warren
February 18, 2016

The federal Every Student Succeeds Deed, which was recently signed into law by President Obama, aims to offer states more flexibility in designing One thousand-12 accountability programs than they had under No Child Left Backside.

Only one of the law's lesser-known provisions – a requirement that states identify and assist high schools with graduation rates below 67 per centum – might force California to revise the way it deals with graduation rates at alternative high schools.

Currently, the California Section of Education (CDE) excludes students attending most of the 640 culling high schools across the state from its graduation charge per unit calculations.

Alternative schools – too known equally commune continuation schools, county customs schools and district and lease alternative "schools of choice" – are designed to help dropouts, students with behavior problems, pregnant or parenting teens, and truants.

Near 75 percentage of the students at alternative high schools are juniors and seniors, co-ordinate to state data.

Graduation rates in California have been calculated based on each school's 9th course enrollment and the number of graduates four years afterwards. The new federal constabulary requires states to calculate "cohort" graduation rates, which tracks students from 9th through twelfth form and assigns students to the last school they attended.

But the accomplice graduation charge per unit ways something different at alternative schools than it does for regular schools. Students oftentimes transfer to alternative schools because they are struggling in school. They attend culling schools for an average of less than iv months, according to state data. The data practise non indicate whether students return to their abode high schoolhouse, drib out, or transfer to a dissimilar alternative school.

Fifty-fifty so, the country assigns students who transfer to alternative schools to those schools' cohorts.

Since the country does not calculate graduation rates for most culling schools, 59,300 high school seniors, or 12 percent of the Class of 2014, are excluded from a school's graduation data. That is, these students are not included in an individual school'southward graduation rate. They are usually included in theirdistricts' overall graduation rates (unless they transferred to a county or charter culling schoolhouse).

At that place are ii master options for including all students in California's school graduation rates.

Outset, graduation rates for alternative schools could exist published, although it is likely that their rates would be much lower than those of regular schools, and would fall below the federal law'due south 67 percentage threshold.

According to PPIC calculations using state data, alternative schoolhouse graduation rates average about 37 percent, far below the statewide charge per unit of 81 percent.

The problem with this pick is that, given the role alternative schools play in helping at-risk students, these low rates do not necessarily mean that culling schools are underperforming.

A better option is to include near culling school students in the graduation rates of their "home" loftier schools. Afterwards all, students generally spend about of their high school years at their regular loftier school, attention alternative schools for brusque spells.

Exactly how the calculation would exist done would take some thinking through. For instance, alternative school students who have only spent a minor amount of time in their home loftier schools should arguably not be included in the revised graduation rate.

But it is clear that the current policy of excluding a large proportion of at-hazard students from the calculation of school graduation rates does not accurately represent the functioning of the land's high schools. Our judge using 2013-14 data shows that this option would reduce "regular" high school graduation rates an average of 6 percent.

The land's current graduation rate methodology appears to be at odds with the federal approach to accountability considering a large number of at-risk high schoolhouse seniors would be excluded from the minimum graduation rate exam of  the Every Pupil Succeeds Act.

It also makes it more than hard for educators, parents and other interested customs members to go authentic information near the success of local schools. Moreover, the methodology creates an incentive for educators to send depression-performing students to culling schools.

For these reasons, the new requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act should prompt the California Department of Pedagogy to revisit this effect.

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Paul Warren is a enquiry associate with the Public Policy Institute of California, where he focuses on K-12 instruction finance and accountability. He previously worked for the California Legislative Analyst's Office and the California Department of Education.

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