How Low are High School Graduation Rates?

by David Safier

Colin Powell and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings have gotten together to say that high school graduation rates are too low, and they are lowest in cities with high rates of poverty.

Powell and Spellings are wrong so often, my first reaction is, “If they say graduation rates are low, they’re probably approaching 100%.” But even Powell and Spellings can be right sometimes. There’s no question, graduation rates are lower than we would like them to be, and they’re lowest where poverty is greatest.

But to understand the situation, we need a historical perspective. In 1910, about 14% of Americans had high school diplomas. In 1960, it was 40%, in 1980, 69%, and since 1995, the number has hovered in the middle 80% range. Whether these census-based figures are accurate or not, they show an undeniable trend toward greater high school completion. So if our current graduation rates are too low for our liking, from a historical perspective they’re remarkably high.

My question — and I don’t know the answer — is whether we’ve reached a plateau in graduation rates. The one constant in U.S. educational history has been a growth in the number of people in school and their educational attainment. It may be that we can’t expect to go much higher than we are now.

If we want to raise the graduation rates even a few percentage points, it will be a costly process. In terms of money, potential dropouts need lots of individual attention to stay in school, and that means an increase in our overall spending as well as our per-student spending. And there is a potential educational cost too. The students we try to keep in school are likely to cause more behavioral problems in class and possibly slow down the educational progress of the rest of the students.

Do we have the will to expend the money and effort to raise graduation rates? I think it’s worth the effort, but then, I’m one of those guys who thinks it’s OK to increase taxes to improve education. I doubt Powell and Spellings agree.

It may be that their “graduation rates are deplorable” cry is part of the continuing efforts by conservatives to “prove” that public schools are failures and funnel tax money into vouchers for private schools. I’m willing to accept the idea that Powell is once again being used. He may think he’s working to strengthen public schooling, but he’s proven himself to be a weak man who is easily manipulated. As for Spellings, she would gladly sell education to the highest bidder.

Consider the sources, then draw your own conclusions.