Jun 17, 2008 - 04:06:36 CDT
North Dakota shows little change in its graduation rate, according to an independent analysis.The state graduated 79.2 percent of its students in 2005, down .7 percent from 2001, according to 2008 Diplomas Count, published by Education Week.
The annual report is sponsored by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center in Bethesda, Md., which publishes Education Week, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
In 2001, North Dakota had the second-highest graduation rate in the country, behind New Jersey. It is now ranked seventh.
"The 2005 data is fairly dated ... our Web site is the most current," said Greg Gallagher, director of standards and assessments for the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction.
The most recent data from the state is the graduation rate for the class of 2006. It was 86.2 percent. In 2005, the state reported a graduation rate of 85.9 percent, which is 6.7 percentage points higher than the one calculated in the Diplomas Count report.
The difference could be how it's calculated, Gallagher said. For the last three years, the state used a cohort model to calculate graduation rate. The formula looks at how many of the freshmen class graduates in four years.
While the graduation rate did not decline significantly in the independent report, five other states raised their graduation rates to surpass North Dakota. New Jersey still leads the nation, with 83.3 percent of its students graduating. Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Vermont and Nebraska surpassed North Dakota.
The state is above the national average of 70.6 and the median graduation rate is 73.2 percent. Nationally, the graduation rate increased from 2001 to 2005 by 2.6 percentage points.
Graduation rate is one of the indicators used to evaluate if a school district has met the requirements of No Child Left Behind. Under the law, a district or high school can fail to meet adequate yearly progress, which is whether a district is up to federal standards, if it does not meet the graduation rate requirement.
Last fall, the U.S. Department of Education took steps to calculate graduation rates uniformly across the nation. Previously, each state decided how to calculate its graduation rate, usually choosing a calculation that gave it a favorable rate.
With the change, the education department now publishes the state department rate alongside a rate that shows what the four-year graduation rate is, which would show how many students in a class start as freshmen and finish their senior year.
In addition to state graduation rates, Diplomas Count also provided district graduation rates. Bismarck Public Schools had a higher percentage than the state rate with 92.5 percent and Mandan Public Schools was below the state rate at 71.2 percent.
The number of credits is not a factor in state graduation rates. The most credits required to graduate is 24, which is required in Alabama, Florida, South Carolina and West Virginia, and the least credits required is 13, which is in California, Wisconsin and Wyoming. In North Dakota, the requirement is 21 credits. School districts can require more credits than the minimum for students to graduate.
By 2011-12, North Dakota will require 24 credits to graduate. Compared to the districts than already require 24 credits, its graduation rate is above those states. Those states range from 55.6 percent (South Carolina) to 72.8 percent (West Virginia).
At the other end of the spectrum, only Wisconsin has a higher rate of graduation at 80.5 percent. The other states that require 13 credits are at 70.1 percent (California) and 74.2 percent (Wyoming).
(Reach reporter Sara Kincaid at 250-8251 or sara.kincaid@;bismarcktribune.com.)
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