Jersey's high rate of graduation is about to decline U.S. revising way it counts school dropouts Wednesday, April 02, 2008 • BY JOHN MOONEY • Star-Ledger Staff Long touted for one of the nation's loftiest high school graduation rates, New Jersey may soon see itself knocked down a peg or two. U.S. Education Secretary Mar garet Spellings yesterday announced plans to standardize how states crunch the numbers, and New Jersey would likely see its rate drop a few points from the 90-plus percent now advertised. Spellings said details would be released in the coming weeks, but in the past she has endorsed a method backed by the National Governors Association -- one that would drop rates in some urban New Jersey schools to as low as 50 percent to 60 percent. "One reason the high school dropout crisis is known as the silent epidemic is the problem is frequently masked or minimized by inconsistent and opaque data reporting systems," Spellings said at a Washington news conference. "For example, in some districts a student who leaves school is counted as a dropout only if he or she registers as one," she said. "With such loose definitions of what it means to graduate, it's no wonder this epidemic has been so silent." Spellings announced the change with the unveiling of a national report that showed 17 of the nation's 50 largest cities had high school graduation rates below 50 percent. She stressed the new standards would also require states to publish each school's rates by gender, race and socioeconomic standing. The dropout rate has long been controversial, with many states and districts under fire from critics who allege they vastly inflate graduation rates to minimize their dropout problem. Even the new proposal would likely miss many students -- such as ones who leave school be fore 9th grade. Some states currently count only those who drop out their senior year. New Jersey tries a little harder, adding up every student who officially withdraws over all four years of high school to come up with a graduation rate of 92 percent last year. The new federal standard is ex pected to follow a method proposed three years ago by the governors' association, which simply divides the total number of graduates by the number of students who entered high school four years earlier. In New Jersey, that method would produce a 2006 graduation rate of about 88 percent, based on the latest available state data. The number is starker in some urban districts; the graduation rate in Elizabeth, for example, would drop to about 59 percent, Trenton about 47 percent, according to the data. New Jersey officials have already backed the governors' proposal and said yesterday they are moving to put it in place by 2010. They also said a new student data base allowing them to track individual students should provide an even clearer picture of who graduates or not. "We are supportive of efforts to move to uniform definitions and following cohorts of students from middle school through the high school pipeline," state Education Commissioner Lucille Davy said in a statement. Others who have been critical of New Jersey's current system also applauded the coming change. "We need some way to compare evenly how a kid in California is doing against a kid in New Jersey," said Derrell Bradford, deputy direc tor of Excellent Education for Everyone, a Newark-based advocacy group. "Making that meaningful comparison is not something people have been willing to do." John Mooney may be reached at jmooney@starledger.com, or (973) 392-1548. © 2008 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with permission.