Messy measures of convenience
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Messy measures
- Which students are schools accountable for?
- How do you track students who move between schools and between enrollment and non-enrollment?
- What do you count, graduation or dropping out?
- What about different types of diplomas?
K-12 measures in literature
- "Holding power" (1960s): how many students persist through multiple years
- Graduation not a target
- Conflated by grade retention
- Conflated by transfers/migration
- "Event dropout rate" (1960s-1990s): what proportion of high school enrollment drops out
- Graduation not a target
- Identification of dropouts poor
- Subject to administrative fraud (e.g., Houston)
- "Status dropout rate" (1990s): what proportion of young adults are out of school without a diploma (based on Current Population Survey)
- Requires surveying population
- Not appropriate for small jurisdictions such as districts or schools
- Groups 18-24-year-olds together (GEDs change portrait for those in their 20s)
- "Graduation rate" (1990s): what proportion of young adults have high school credentials (based on Current Population Survey)
- Requires surveying population
- Not appropriate for small jurisdictions
- May conflate GEDs with standard diplomas if not small age intervals (i.e., 18-19 year olds)
- Grade-based graduation measures (e.g., U.S. Department of Education, Haney, Swanstrom, etc.) (Common Core of Data)
- Conflated by grade retention (for those with 9th grade as base)
- Conflated by migration/transfers
- Problematic data source
- Adjusted grade-based measures (e.g., Warren, Greene)
- Warren: 8th-grade base better
- Attempts to adjust for migration/transfers
- Still problems with Common Core of Data
- Not appropriate for small-area estimates (districts and schools)
IPEDS graduation rate (higher ed)
- Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) is a set of aggregate measures institutions report
- IPEDS graduation rates are based on program length (100% and 150% of nominal length), so a 4-year baccalaureate program reports 4- and 6-year longitudinal graduation rates
- Transfers out are never credited to the beginning institution
- Transfers in are also not credited to the graduating institution
- Part-time students are ignored by IPEDS graduation rates
Measures of convenience
- K-12 data reported by grade
- Most K-12 systems not capable of following transfers or even auditing reports of transfers
- IPEDS defined for so-called traditional-age students, with no assumption of transfers
- IPEDS is self-reported data