Arizona High School Graduation Rate Drops 7 Percentage Points
PHOENIX (May 13, 2008)— Newly revised data on the Arizona Department of Education’s state report cards show a seven percentage point drop in Arizona’s high school graduation rate — from its high of 77 percent in 2004 to 70 percent in 2006 (the most current publicly available data).
Until recently, Arizona was on track to achieve its 2012 statewide graduation goal of 86 percent. This goal was established in 2005 under the leadership of the Center for the Future of Arizona in collaboration with education, business and community leaders. The graduation goal has been endorsed by the Governor’s P-20 Council and the Arizona Department of Education.
The revised data were recently presented to the Data and Graduation Rate Committee of the Governor’s P-20 Council by Dr. Benah Parker, director of education policy and research for the Center for the Future of Arizona. Dr. Sybil Francis, executive director of the center, chairs the P-20 Data and Graduation Rate Committee.
The drop cannot be attributed to any specific ethnic group as it was experienced by all student populations except Asians/Pacific Islanders.
Statewide Four-year Graduation Rates
Source: Arizona Department of Education (ADE)
| 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | |
| All Students | 77 | 75 | 70 |
| African American | 73 | 72 | 69 |
| Asian/Pacific Islander | 87 | 86 | 87 |
| Hispanic | 67 | 64 | 60 |
| Native American | 63 | 59 | 51 |
| White | 84 | 83 | 79 |
The data support previous research by the Center for the Future of Arizona which found that the large proportion of ethnic minority students in Arizona schools isn’t the sole or driving factor contributing to the state’s low graduation rate.
The March 2007 research study “Everybody’s Problem: A Closer Look at Arizona’s High School Graduation Rate” found that high school graduation rates for all of Arizona’s ethnic groups, including the majority White population, trail those of comparison states such as Texas, which shares similar demographics with Arizona and many of the same challenges.
“A number of explanations suggest themselves but we really don’t know why Arizona has experienced this drop in graduation rates,” commented Francis.
“We considered AIMS as a possible factor since 2006 was the first year that passing the AIMS test was required for graduation, but ADE reports that only 132 students did not graduate in 2006 due to failing the AIMS test,” she said.
In 2006, students who did not pass one or more sections of Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards, or AIMS, were allowed to augment their scores with additional points derived from classroom grades of “C” or better. Approximately 3,000 students (six percent of the graduating class) who would have otherwise been ineligible for graduation because they failed at least one section of the AIMS test earned a diploma through this augmentation.
“Some might say we haven’t experienced a drop at all — that the state’s system of collecting and reporting data has been improved to such an extent that we now have a true picture of where we are with regard to high school graduation,” Francis continued. “If this is true, it simply means that previous years’ data were inflated and that we have not been doing nearly as well as we thought we were.”
Francis is calling for a thorough examination of the data behind the decline, including an assessment to determine how and why earlier data may have led to inflated graduation numbers. She urged all stakeholders to work together, including business and higher education, to develop collaborative solutions to get Arizona’s graduation rate back on track.
“Right now, we know we have a real problem for which we have no good explanation,” she concluded. “Low state high school graduation rates are not somebody else’s problem. They are our collective challenge. From new families getting established, to retirees — our economic well-being relies on a well-educated work force ready to engage the 21st century global economy.”
[NEWS]