The Graduation Rate Reality

During the 2009-10 school year, 52 percent of black male students graduated from high school with a regular diploma within four years. This is the first time that the graduation rate has been above 50 percent.  According to a study released by the Schott Foundation for Public Education, the achievement gap between white males and black males has closed by 3 percentage points over 10 years.

In other words, it would take more than 50 years for this gap to close.

The story for Hispanic males is not much better: the national on-time graduation rate for Hispanic males is 58 percent.

Match these dismal statistics with the graduation rates and college enrollment rates of private school choice programs:

• The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program has a graduation rate of 91 percent—more than 21 percentage points higher than those who were interested in the program, but did not receive a scholarship and more than 30 percentage points higher than the graduation rates of D.C. Public Schools.  Taking into account that 87 percent of this year’s participating students identify themselves as black and 11 percent identify has Hispanic or Latino, the graduation rates for students currently in the program will go far beyond the dismal national rates.

• In Milwaukee, a “gold standard” evaluation found that the on-time graduation rate for students in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program was 7.2 percentage points higher than the graduation rate of students in Milwaukee Public Schools.

• In a private school choice program in New York, African American participants were 24 percent more likely to enroll in college as a result of receiving a voucher.  In addition, African American enrollment rates in selective colleges more than doubled among voucher students, and the rate of enrollment in full-time colleges increased by 31 percent. 

This New York research is particularly poignant since the Schott Foundation’s report showed that New York has the worst graduation rate for black males—at only 37 percent.

The reality is that the graduation rates of minority children are far behind those of white students.  The answer is not to set low standards, but to offer educational options for students to access great schools today.

- American Federation for Children | Alliance for School Choice, MSG

A Tale of One City, Two Events

It might be August recess for Capitol Hill, but the rest of Washington, D.C. is abuzz with policy analysis.  And today’s topic is school choice.

The Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution and the Harvard Kennedy School on Program and Education Policy and Governance today released a study that shows that African American participants in a private school choice program were 24 percent more likely to enroll in college as a result of receiving a voucher.

This groundbreaking study, which used a randomized experiment to measure the impact of vouchers on college enrollment—joins a plethora of gold-standard research that has already demonstrated high graduation and parental satisfaction rates among private school choice participants.

“The Effects of School Vouchers on College Enrollment: Experimental Evidence from New York City,” which tracked participating students in New York City over a nearly 15-year period, was conducted by Matthew M. Chingos of Brookings and Paul Peterson, a longtime leading researcher on school choice programs and speaker at the AFC National Policy Summit held earlier this year.

Also among the findings:

• African American enrollment rates in selective colleges more than doubled among voucher students

• The rate of enrollment in full-time colleges increased by 31 percent

The data is consistent with results of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which found that voucher students graduate at a rate of 91 percent—more than 30 percentage points higher than students who did not participate in the program.  And according to the program’s administrator, in the 2009 and 2010 school years, 94 percent of 12^th graders participating in the program graduated from high school—and 89 percent of OSP graduates went on to enroll in a two- or four-year college or university.

D.C. and New York aren’t the only places where vouchers have been shown to be a success.  Similar students demonstrating increased achievement and parental satisfaction rates have been conducted in Milwaukee, Florida, and Louisiana.