On Graduation Rates: Testimony for the Subcommittee on Elementary and Secondary Education Interim Joint Committee on Education Kentucky Legislature

Ladies and gentleman of the Committee, I want to thank you for the chance to discuss a very
critical measure of our education progress, the high school graduation rate. This statistic has not
been formally reported in Kentucky for many years, but the federal No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) legislation now requires all states to compute a high school graduation rate each year. I
am going to discuss some background and specific problems with the graduation rate formula the
Kentucky State Board of Education adopted early this year, and then I will offer a better
alternative.

I should add at the outset that the Kentucky Department of Education and the State Board are not
totally at fault for the problems we now face with the credibility of our adopted calculation. A
very disappointing lack of leadership from the federal Department of Education has created
confusion about graduation rate calculations throughout the country. However, I still believe to
maintain the credibility of Kentucky’s education system, and for the ability of policy makers to
reach informed decisions that we must insure that our graduation rates accurately reflect the true
situation in our public high schools. A clearly inaccurate figure damages credibility and may
hide situations that we could improve.