Exposing states’ dirty dropout secret

There’s a great article in the New York Times today that calls out what many in the ed community already know: Many states grossly undercount their dropout rates. And they don’t just fudge the numbers slightly—the gap between presented data and reality is huge.

States undercount their dropouts for a number of reasons. They define “dropouts” differently, they use different data systems, they want to show improvement under the No Child Left Behind Act, and sadly, some even want poorly performing students to get GEDs because they bring down test scores. But now, it looks like they won’t be able to hide behind flawed numbers any longer. Sec. of Ed Margaret Spelling is considering settling the debate once and for all and requiring states to calculate their grad rates according to one federal formula.

Fifteen states have already agreed to use a common grad rate formula to make their data more transparent and meaningful (although WA is not yet among them, it is currently taking steps toward implementation) so this sounds like a great idea to me. But what do you think?