Under current laws, states are allowed to lump in students who complete special education programs, night school, the GED, and virtual high school programs along with those who earn a traditional high school diploma. After removing students who complete these so-called “alternative diploma” programs from that pool, Chris West, of Johns Hopkins University‘s Everyone Graduates Center, estimates that the official national graduation rates will likely dip between 5 percent and 10 percent next year.
That doesn’t mean schools are doing anything differently or are graduating fewer students than in past years. The definition of “graduation rate,” will become standardized for the nation – the number of students who graduate high school in four years divided by the number of students who entered the school four years prior.
Presently, every state hasn’t been reporting graduation rates in the same way. According to the new way of measuring all states will be held to the same criteria.
In Florida, for example, about 8,000 high school students (approximately 5 percent of all graduates) received an alternative diploma from an adult education or special education program during the 2010-2011 school year, according to state Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson. “Surely there will be a drop next year,” Robinson says. The state will release adjusted numbers next month that will meet federal guidelines.