High School Diploma and GED Attainment in Florida

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Abstract

This brief calculates graduation rates for the state of Florida using longitudinal data. We describe our measurement strategies and compare them with the state?s official measurement procedures. We calculate the diploma and GED attainment rates of six separate cohorts of Florida 9th graders who began high school between 1995/96 and 2000/01. We then present rates of both diploma receipt and GED receipt at four years and in later years. The results show an increasing trend in graduation rates in the state over the period studied and a substantial bump at five years, with growth flattening out after that time.

A high school diploma is an important signal of employability for those who enter the labor force without a college degree and is typically a required certification for those entering postsecondary schooling. More generally, high school graduation rates are a telling measure of a school system's ability to move students through to high school completion. In the context of No Child Left Behind, these rates have become central to state accountability systems. Yet measures of high school completion vary greatly across states, leaving policymakers uncertain about the status of this important education outcome.

Most states calculate graduation rates, with some minor refinements, on crude school-level enrollment counts: typically the ratio of 12th graders to 9th graders four years earlier. These enrollment-based estimates approximate the share of a 9th grade class that makes it through to graduation. The estimates have three major limitations. First, they do not account for students who graduate but for one reason or another do not do so in four years. Second, they do not account for flows of students in or out of the system. In short, the students included in the 12th grade count are not necessarily the same students as those in the 9th grade count. Third, the estimates do not account for students who passed a General Education Development (GED) test that, for some purposes, is equivalent to a high school diploma.

Statewide longitudinal administrative data systems can estimate graduation rates more accurately because they can calculate the rate based on a true cohort of students, tracked individually over time. Such tracking can show, for example, whether students who leave the school's rolls return and whether they later attain a diploma or its equivalent. The Florida state data system is one of the few data systems that allow such tracking.

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The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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