Meeting of the Board of Regents | October 2010

THE STATE EDUCATION DEPARTMENT / THE UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK / ALBANY, NY 12234

TO:	College and Career Readiness Working Group P-12 Education Committee
FROM:	John B. King, Jr.
SUBJECT:	Reporting of College- and Career-Ready High School Graduation Rates – Part II: Planning for the Transition
DATE:	October 13, 2010
AUTHORIZATION(S):

SUMMARY

 

Issue for Decision

In order to give educators more information about how effectively they are preparing their students for college and careers, does the Board of Regents support the Department’s proposal to publish data for each high school and district showing what percentage of students are graduating from high school with a score of 80 or better on their math Regents exam and a score of 75 or better on their English Regents exam?  If so, when should this reporting begin? 

Proposed Handling

This item will come before a joint meeting of the College and Career Readiness Working Group and the P-12 Education Committee for action at its October 2010 meeting.

Background Information

The P-12 Education Committee asked that a transition plan be proposed to support the publishing of college- and career-ready graduation rates.  This plan also needs to prepare schools and the public for several changes that will take place in graduation rate reporting in 2010-11 and 2011-12.

New Cohort Definition

When report cards are released for 2010-11 school year results, the report cards will for the first time measure graduation rate using the United State Department of Education’s (USDOE) methodology that all states must adopt for reporting purposes.  In addition, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) requires that New York release graduation rate results using the new federal cohort definition by September 2011.  This methodology differs from how New York currently reports results at the district and school level in that:

• Currently, students who have been enrolled in a particular school or district for fewer than five months are not counted in the cohort for school and district accountability (although we do count those students in the statewide cohort) .  This exclusion will not be permitted under the new USDOE definition.

 

• Currently, New York State considers all incarcerated youth as transfers and, therefore, does not include them in the cohort and does not hold schools and districts responsible for those students.  The USDOE definition will only allow those incarcerated youth in programs that lead to regular high school diplomas to be considered transfers.

• Currently, New York State enters ungraded students with disabilities into a cohort based on the school year a student becomes 17 rather than when the student first becomes enrolled in a high school program.  The USDOE definition will require that these students be entered into a cohort based upon when they first entered a 9th grade program, as all other students are.  

 

Beginning with 2011-12 school year results, the USDOE graduation rate methodology must be used for accountability purposes and schools and districts must make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) with all accountability groups, not just the “All Students” group, in order to make AYP.  Later this school year, consistent with policy adopted by the Board of Regents at their October 2009 meeting, staff will propose to the Regents amendments to Commissioner’s regulations that will take effect for 2011-12 school year results and conform them to federal requirements, incorporate the use of a five year extended graduation rate cohort for making AYP graduation determinations, and establish new graduation rate progress targets for schools and districts.

Planning for the Transition to the USDOE Cohort Definition

In order to allow schools time to plan for the change to this more rigorous graduation rate requirement, the USDOE cohort definition will not be used for accountability purposes until the 2011-12 school year results are reported.  To allow schools and districts increased flexibility to meet this new requirement, the Department will ask USDOE to allow schools and districts to meet graduation rate accountability standards based on either four- or five-year cohort results.  This means that the USDOE definition must be implemented beginning with the group of students who entered grade 9 in the 2006-07 school year (the 2006 cohort).    

However, the 2006 cohort will also be reported using the current cohort definition (the five-month rule) for graduation rate reporting using 2009-10 school year results and accountability reporting using 2010-11 school year results. 

Therefore, results for students who entered grade 9 in 2006-07 will be reported two different ways for multiple purposes:

• 2006 cohort using the five-month rule will be reported and used as follows:
• • Graduation rate release (four-year outcomes) in December 2010;
  • Accountability determinations based on 2010-11 school year results in the Summer 2011;
• 2006 cohort using the USDOE definition will be reported and used as follows
• • Graduation rate re-calculated (four-year outcomes) to meet ARRA requirements in September 2011;
  • Graduation rate release (four and five-year outcomes) in December 2011;
  • Accountability determinations for the five year extended year graduation cohort based on 2011-12 school year results in the Summer 2012. 

 

Reporting College- and Career-Ready High School Graduation Data

The Department proposes to publish college- and career-ready graduation rate calculations that show what percentage of students are graduating from high school with a score of 80 or better on their math Regents exam and 75 or better on their English Regents exam.   Schools and districts will be able to evaluate this information in combination with the grades 3-8 math and English proficiency data to better determine how effectively they are preparing students for college and careers. To facilitate comparisons, the college- and career-ready graduation rate data will be published alongside actual graduation rate data. 

The reporting will only be informational, as these score thresholds currently do not carry any consequences for students, schools, or districts in New York’s educational accountability system.  

To fulfill federal requirements, Race to the Top Scope of Work plans have been distributed to districts and charter schools and posted on the Department’s website.  It should be noted that these work plans include the district-wide percentage of students in the 2005 cohort after four years who have earned a score of 80 or better on their math Regents exam and 75 or better on their English Regents exam.  This information is necessary for districts and charter schools to establish annual performance targets (percentage point gains) for the 2010-11 through 2013-14 school years as part of their Scope of Work for Race to the Top funding. 

The information contained in the Race to the Top work plans differs from what is proposed above, however, in that the work plans contain district-wide percentages calculated for all students in the cohort.  In contrast, the proposal under consideration is to publish college- and career-ready calculations by district and school for graduates, which will allow a side-by-side comparison between actual graduation rates and the calculated graduation rate using a college- and career-ready standard. 

Recommendations and Communication Plan

In order to avoid the release of one more set of numbers for the 2006 cohort, it is recommended that the Department first report college- and career- ready graduation rate calculations beginning with the four-year outcomes of the 2007 cohort during the graduation rate release that occurs after the conclusion of the 2010-11 school year.  This timeline will allow the Department to develop new reports that display college- and career-ready graduation rate calculations.  Schools and districts may preview and use these reports prior to the graduation rate release.   

In advance of the release of these data, the Department will reach out to stakeholders to explain that college- and career-ready graduation rate calculations are aspirational targets for information purposes only, and are intended to allow stakeholders the information necessary to predict, based on research and experience, whether students are adequately prepared to succeed in the first year of college without remediation or enter a career that requires college-level entry skills for success.  During these outreach efforts, an emphasis will be placed on the fact that these aspirational targets may not predict college and/or career success for individual students, but rather should serve as general guides for goal-setting and planning.  For this reason, we recommend that these data be reported only at the aggregate level (i.e., not at the individual student level). 

 

When the new USDOE cohort data become available at the conclusion of the 2010-11 school year, it is recommended that school districts and charter schools be provided with this new information so they may modify their Race to the Top annual performance targets for graduation rate (using the 2006 cohort with the USDOE cohort definition as the new baseline) and college- and career-ready performance (using the 2007 cohort with the USDOE cohort definition as the new baseline).

            If these recommendations are accepted, the timeline for the release of graduation rate information will be as follows:

 

December 2010

• Release the graduation rate (four-year outcomes) for the 2006 cohort using the current five-month rule. 

 

Winter 2011

• Revise school and district verification reports for 2010-11 school year data so that schools can view graduation rate results for the 2006 cohort using both the five-month rule and the new USDOE cohort definition. 

 

Summer 2011

• Release accountability decisions based on 2010-11 school year results for the 2006 cohort (four-year outcomes) using the current five-month rule.

 

September 2011

• In order to meet the ARRA requirement that New York publicly release graduation rate results using the USDOE cohort definition, re-calculate and release the graduation rate (four-year outcomes) for the 2006 cohort using the new USDOE rules for cohort membership (one-day enrollment), transfers for incarcerated students, and grade 9 entry date for ungraded students. 

 

November 2011

• Provide data preview reports to schools that display college- and career-ready graduation rate calculations for the 2007 cohort using the new USDOE cohort definition.

 

December 2011

• Release the graduation rate - five-year outcomes for the 2006 cohort and four-year outcomes for the 2007 cohort - using the new USDOE cohort definition.  This will be the last time the five-month rule will be released (six-year outcomes for the 2005 cohort). 

• Release college- and career-ready graduation rate calculations for the 2007 cohort using the new USDOE cohort definition.

 

Summer 2012

• Release accountability decisions based on 2011-12 school year results, with flexibility that the graduation rate requirement can be met based on either the 2007 cohort (four-year outcomes) or the 2006 cohort (five-year outcomes) using the new USDOE cohort definition.