Experts Want Graduation Rate Accountability in No Child Left Behind
Feature Story by Robert Schwartz - 1/30/2008
At a January 24th congressional briefing held by the Campaign for High School Equity, an alliance of leading national civil rights and education organizations, education experts spoke of the need to include clear, consistent graduation rate accountability requirements in the reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.
Gary Huggins, executive director of the Commission on No Child Left Behind, said at the briefing that despite being a momentous step forward in education reform, NCLB still contained many gaps that needed to be filled, most notably provisions aimed at high schools. Currently, NCLB is targeted primarily at elementary education despite being an elementary and secondary school bill.
Huggins advocated for a consistent definition for calculating graduation rates that accounted for all students from the time that they enter high school, as well as a structure whereby schools and districts could be held accountable for student progress toward graduation. Currently only 53 percent of African-American students and 58 percent of Hispanic students graduate from high school on time, according to Editorial Projects in Education, compared to 76 percent of White students.
Joseph Garcia, vice president for advocacy and communication at the North Carolina New Schools Project spoke of the need for a "public demand" to bring specific measurements to NCLB that insured the "shell game on education" would no longer be played, especially in his home state of North Carolina.
However, despite discussing necessary improvements to NCLB, Garcia also made clear that steps had already been taken to improve the educational opportunities for children. Garcia said that in 2006 and 2007, North Carolina graduated about 69 percent of its high school students, which he considered a "step forward" for the state.
Like Garcia, Raul González, legislative director at the National Council of La Raza, spoke of his own experiences growing up as a minority in the American education system and the need for accountability, especially at a time where the American public education system struggles to graduate 40 percent of Black and Latino students.
In addition, Sen. Richard Burr, R. N.C., who hosted the event, focused on the importance of business reaching out to improve educational opportunities. He stated that, "K-8 doesn't buy the business community in…It buys the teachers, students and superintendents," and thus it is important as education activists to reach out to businesses and explain the importance of the "exponential changes that are going on globally" in terms of education.
Sen. Burr also said that there is a real need for sound, accurate calculations of graduation rates in order for 100 percent of American children to win and compete with children from across the globe for jobs.
The experts concluded that NCLB be reauthorized as soon as possible to include a greater focus on not only high schools, but also a concise method for calculating graduation rates. NCLB was supposed to be reauthorized in November 2007, however it was placed on the backburner after members of Congress decided there was not enough time to complete the work on the new legislation.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D. Mass., and Rep. George Miller, D. Calif., the chairmen of the Senate and House education committees, have stated publicly that they will work to create a responsible reauthorization package by early this year.
