Giving Compass' Take:

• Julie Sugarman share insights and information about the graduation rates of English Learners and how graduation accountability requirements may impact this group. 

• How can funders support the needs of English Learners? Who makes up this population in your area? 

• Read a guide to finding and understanding English Learner data. 

High school graduation is both a personal achievement for students and their families and an important bellwether of the effectiveness of a school system and the economic prospects of a community. Together with measures of academic achievement and school quality, high school graduation rates have been used to evaluate school effectiveness and impose consequences on struggling schools under federal law for nearly two decades. For English Learners (ELs)—who make up almost 10 percent of U.S. schoolchildren overall and 4 percent of high school seniors—graduation rates have risen from 57 percent in school year 2010–11 to 67 percent in 2015–16, but they still fall far short of the rate of 84 percent for all students.

The adjusted cohort graduation rate (ACGR) is used by all U.S. states as part of their school accountability systems under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 (ESSA). To calculate the ACGR, schools assign all students starting ninth grade for the first time to a cohort and report the proportion of that cohort that graduates four years later. Students new to a school are added to a class cohort based on the grade at which they enter; students can only be removed from a cohort if they transfer to another school or educational program leading to a regular diploma, emigrate to another country, or die. Only students who receive the standards-aligned diploma given to the majority of students in the state (or a more rigorous, honors diploma) may be counted as a graduate. The four-year ACGR must be reported for all students and for student subgroups (including ELs) for every high school, and it is incorporated into the annual calculation of how well each school met accountability benchmarks. States may supplement the calculation of the four-year ACGR with an extended-year rate (what share of students graduate in five, six, or seven years), and most do so to some extent. This can paint a more complete picture of whether and when students graduate, including those—such as ELs—who may require additional time or support to complete their studies. However, the 16 states plus the District of Columbia that chose not to include an extended-year ACGR in their accountability systems serve 60 percent of the nation’s ELs.

English Learners Benefit from Extended Time to Graduate:

The exclusion of the extended-year graduation rate from state accountability systems is a concern because ELs are more likely to graduate after a fifth or sixth year of high school than other student subgroups. Comparing 23 states that reported five-year rates for the class of 2015, the greatest increase from the four-year to the five-year rate for all students was 6 percent; meanwhile, the largest increase for ELs was 13 percent. In 12 of those states, six-year rates were also reported, showing up to 2 percent of all students graduated in their sixth year, while up to 4 percent of ELs did so.

Which ELs Drop out and Which Persist?

Researchers have studied high school dropout rates for decades, documenting the characteristics of the school environment and the external pressures (such as needing to get a full-time job) that may lead students to leave school early. This research has helped educators understand the warning signs of students at risk of dropping out (or needing additional time to finish), with many schools tracking early warning signals (such as 9th grade outcomes) in order to target interventions to these students. Less is known about the specific experiences of immigrant and EL students that influence dropout and resilience, although studies have increasingly pointed to obstacles in ELs’ access to rigorous, grade-level content and shortages of well-trained EL specialists as widespread problems.

Unintended Consequences of Tying Accountability to Graduation Rates: 

The stakes associated with the use of graduation rates for school accountability are high—including risks to educators’ reputations and employment. In this environment, warning signs that students might not graduate in four years, such as EL status and interrupted formal education, can create perverse incentives for high school administrators to turn away recent immigrants before they have a chance to enroll.

Such circumstances might explain the string of media reports during the early- and mid-2010s of older immigrant and refugee teenagers being turned away from traditional high schools and told to enroll in adult or alternative education programs—despite laws in most states allowing young people without a high school diploma to enroll in free, public schools until the age of 20 or 21. Administrators are unlikely to confirm on the record that they erect barriers to enrollment to avoid potential accountability penalties, but many educators report that such practices take place. Despite states gaining greater flexibility in how they design their accountability systems under ESSA, half plan to use system improvement strategies that could result in job loss for administrators whose schools fail to meet benchmarks.

The Need for Policies that Can Balance Protection and Flexibility:

There is no question that ELs have historically been underserved—especially at the high school level— due to underresourced schools and low expectations. Federal accountability regulations implemented over the last 20 years attempt to close those opportunity gaps by requiring states to hold schools responsible for helping all children reach the same performance standards and making failure to meet those expectations publicly transparent. However, ELs’ long-term English proficiency and academic achievement might be better served by allowing the one-size-fits-all accountability system to make some reasonable exceptions.