FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT DROPOUT STATISTICS

We have tried to anticipate many of the questions users may have about the Finish Line Calculator or about dropout statistics generally speaking. Feel free to add basic information here that may be of use to new wiki users or those just beginning to learn about dropouts.

Not every school district made it into the Finish Line Calculator due to missing data or large fluctuations in enrollment. The formula used to calculate the graduation rate requires data from two years for grades nine through twelve as well as graduation data. Missing enrollment data from one grade in one year makes it impossible to calculate the graduation rate for one year. At times the data for high school completers was missing or incomplete, in these instances we substituted the senior year enrollment for high school completers. We have footnoted the instances where this occurs. Please note that almost all schools have a lower number of completers than senior year enrollment, by removing completers from the formula we have effectively raised the graduation rate for that district. The amount by which the rate is raised will vary depending on the school and its enrollment figures.

In other instances there was a fluctuation in enrollment that was great enough to result in a graduation rate that made no sense. For instance, if a school has a high number of students transferring-in or –out this can make it appear that enrollment actually increased from ninth grade through graduation. As a result, the graduation rate would be over 100%. Reporting that number would make no sense to anyone so these results will no be displayed. It is important to note what we indicated in the “What do these numbers tell us?” section, the Cumulative Promotion Index (used in the Finish Line Calculator) works well for relatively stable enrollments but less well for enrollments with a great deal of fluctuation. The CPI is meant to be sensitive to changes in enrollment but this sensitivity can also mean that it is not the best method of measurement for all schools.

Sometimes the best way to learn is by doing. In this spirit we strongly encourage all wiki users to calculate the graduation rate for their own school districts and, where possible, their schools. This is especially important for districts that are not reported in the Finish Line Calculator. Here is a step-by-step primer for accessing enrollment data for your school district. Please note that MS Excel is required to complete this particular set of instructions. There are other methods for downloading and manipulating the data but we recommend Excel for ease of use.

Acquiring the data

1. Go to the Common Core Data webpage and choose the “Build a Table” option.
2. At “Select Row Variable” make each row a district
3. On the same page choose 5 consecutive years of data. Any more than 5 years will sometimes yield problems later in the process as you will have too many variables for the web program to download.
4. Click “Next” and agree to the data user agreement in order to advance to the next screen
5. Under “Select Columns” there is a dropdown box. Choose “Enrollment by Grade” and then click the boxes for every year next to 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students for every year.
6. In the dropdown box now choose “Total High School Completers”; click the boxes for each year next to “Diploma Recipients (District)”
7. Click “Next” to advance to the next screen
8. This next page (”Select Filters Page”) allows the user to choose whether they would like to examine districts from the entire country, from particular states, or individual schools. The options for states and the entire nation are found under “Row Variable”. If you only want data from a particular school district then choose “Agency Name” from the dropdown box labeled “Other Filters”. In the “Column Filter Criteria” box that appears make sure to choose “All Years” next to “Select Years” and type the name of your school district next to where it reads column “contains”.
9. Allow the page a chance to reset, then click on “View Table”. A graphic will appear letting you know it is processing the information. Then you will have a page for viewing your table
10. From the table view page click on the Excel link next to the text that reads “Output Table”. This will download an Excel spreadsheet with the data to your computer.
11. Note that you may have more districts than intended by choosing to filter your results by all records that “contain” the name of the district you entered. If this is the case, then note the name for the district used in the NCES table view. Then return to the “Select Filters Page”, enter the exact name of the school district as it appeared on the “View Table” page, and then return to step 9 to complete the process.

Applying the formula

There are dozens of ways to calculate the graduation rate, we will teach you how to calculate one of them. The Cumulative Promotion Index (CPI) uses enrollment data from two consecutive years to predict the probability that a 9th grade student will graduate “on time”.

It may be a little difficult to read the formula as presented here, we are limited in how we can display text on the wiki. Here is the CPI formula:

(Enrollment Grade 10 (2006)/Enrollment Grade 9 (2005)) X (Enrollment Grade 11 (2006)/Enrollment Grade 10 (2005)) X (Enrollment Grade 12 (2006)/Enrollment Grade 11 (2005)) X (Diplomas Granted (2006)/Enrollment Grade 12 (2005)) = probability that a 9th grader will graduate “on time”

To explain in a narrative format, the first term of the formula is the 10th grade enrollment from 2006 divided by the 9th grade enrollment from 2005. Move to the second term and divide the grade 11 enrollment in 2006 by the grade 10 enrollment in 2005. Continue until you have four terms. Multiply each of these four terms across the entire equation (Term 1 X Term 2 x Term 3 X Term 4) to get the probability of a 9th grader graduating “on time”.

In MS Excel the basic formula appears like this:

=(D6/C5)*(E6/D5)*(F6/E5)*(G6/F5)

The cell names (e.g. D6, C5, E5, F6) will change depending on where enrollment data for each grade and year appear in your spreadsheet but the basic formula will always look like this.