Nevada gets poor grade on rate of graduates

By Emily Richmond

Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2003 | 11:39 a.m.

Nevada's high school graduation rate is among the worst in the country, according to a study released today.

The study says just 61 percent of the students in the Class of 2001 earned diplomas, below the national average of 70 percent, according to the Manhattan Institute, a New York group that advocates school choice.

The study ranked Nevada's graduation rate 47th in the country.

State education officials were critical of how the study compiled the numbers -- state numbers show a 62.5 percent graduation rate in 2001 -- but they said they know the state ranks near the bottom of the list no matter how the numbers come out.

"However you want to calculate it, we have work to do, and no one is disputing that," said Keith Rheault, state Education Department deputy superintendent.

The Manhattan Institute's findings mirror other studies that have given low marks to Nevada's high school graduation track record. Education Week, a nonprofit trade journal, listed Nevada in 45th place in 2000 for its graduation rate of 60 percent, compared with a national average of 69 percent.

School officials criticized the way the institute did the survey. The institute, a conservative think tank, advocates school choice and has been critical of programs such as affirmative action. Both the state and its 17 school districts use a combination of enrollment data and student tracking to determine graduation rates.

Clark County Schools Superintendent Carlos Garcia said all statistics -- but particularly those dealing with graduation rates -- should be approached with caution.

"Every state has its own way of determining graduation rates, so we're not talking about comparing apples to apples here," Garcia said this morning. "And you also have to look at how those statistics are being applied and in what context. What's the agenda of the person or agency using those numbers?"

The state's method for calculating high school graduates is the one recommended by the National Center for Education Statistics, an arm of the U.S. Department of Education, Rheault said. Special education students and GED diplomas, once counted toward the state's overall graduation rate, are now being tallied separately, Rheault said.

In 2002, Nevada's graduation rate was 72 percent, according to the Nevada Department of Education.

Clark County's graduation rate for standard diplomas -- which excluded GEDs and special education students -- was 76 percent in 2002, according to district records.

Clark County and state educators said Nevada doesn't get credit for the unique challenges its schools face. Nevada has one of the nation's highest student transiency rates, plus the fastest-growing population of students who aren't native English speakers, they said.

"These studies don't always take those things into account, " Rheault said. "I think when you start looking district by district, you'll see our outreach efforts are showing some gains."

Nationwide, minorities did worse than their white classmates in the study, with 51 percent of black students and 52 percent of Hispanic students earning diplomas.

In Nevada, 50 percent of black students graduated compared with 69 percent of white students, according to the study. Figures for Hispanic students in Nevada couldn't be calculated because of the tremendous growth in the population, said Greg Forster, senior research associate at the institute and the study's co-author.

"The number of Hispanics in this country is growing, but the number of Hispanics in Nevada is exploding," Forster said Tuesday. "When you have a population that mobile, our method of calculating graduation rates isn't going to be very reliable."

Forster, along with co-author Jay Greene, examined enrollment data for the class of 2001 going back five years. This is a more reliable method than the surveys used for the federal Census or the individual student tracking attempted by some school districts, Forster said.

"The problem with a survey is that there's still a stigma attached to being a high school dropout, so people aren't going to be honest when they're asked," Forster said. "The Census also doesn't include people incarcerated, and we know a disproportionate number of dropouts are in prison."

Tracking individual students also can lead to inaccuracies because districts often can't differentiate between students who drop out and those who move away. There's also too much room for schools to cave in to pressure to inflate graduation numbers, Forster said.

"When schools report high graduation numbers, parents are happy, voters are happy and elected officials are happy," Forster said. "When you report dropouts, it makes everyone look bad."

The study did not count GED recipients as regular graduates, Forster said.

"Properly speaking, GED recipients are dropouts from a high school who later decide to seek a credential," the study states. "Crediting the efforts of these GED recipients to the high schools from which they dropped out is a grave distortion of reality."

Clark County Deputy Superintendent of Curriculum Agustin Orci said encouraging dropouts to return for their degrees is a district-wide priority, and those students should not be left out of the equation.

Last year each of the five region superintendents was required to submit a plan for targeting the dropout rate, especially among students for whom English is a second language, Orci said. The district's alternative education program was also reorganized to focus more on independent study and distance learning, making the course offerings more flexible for students holding down jobs or family commitments, Orci said. According to the study only 32 percent of students in the United States left high school ready to attend four-year colleges.

The college-readiness rate for Nevada's students was 22 percent, according to the study.