Graduation Completion Rate DescriptionsData :

Graduation Indicators Defined
In order to ensure all students are successfully completing high school and to identify strategies to keep students in school it is necessary to measure graduation rates. As the quality of Minnesota education data improves MDE is able to provide increasingly detailed information. Accurate end status information about students allows us to know each year how many graduated, dropped out, continued past their senior year, are unknown or stopped their education across any school in the state. For the Class of 2007 MDE is publishing four different graduation rates to allow educators and policy makers to view data from a number of perspectives.

National Governors Association (NGA) Graduation Rate
The NGA rate is a four-year, on-time graduation rate agreed to by all 50 states. The cohort is larger than the AYP rate used in previous years because in addition to grads and drops, it considers continuing and unknown students: these two additional groups add approximately 16,000 students statewide into the measure. For the Class of 2007, the cohort of students was determined by counting first time ninth graders in 2004 plus transfers into the group minus transfers out over the next four years. The NGA rate only considers students who graduate in four years. The number of four year graduates is divided by the total number of students in the cohort. The National Center for Education Statistics cites this rate as the NCES Exclusion-Adjusted Cohort Graduation Indicator.

This rate is lower than the AYP rates because it includes more groups of students and it only considers on-time graduates. It provides information about student success across the entire state and can be used to compare Minnesota to the rest of the country.

AYP Graduation Rate From 2005-2008
Minnesota has used the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) emulated cohort model to compute graduation rates for AYP requirements. The formal title of this rate is: Common Core of Data Graduation Leaver Indicator. This model creates a cohort group by identifying students who graduated in 2007 plus students who dropped out of school as ninth graders in 2004, tenth graders in 2005, eleventh graders in 2006 and twelfth graders in 2007. The cohort group is divided by the number of graduates.

This rate is much higher than the NGA rate as it only considers part of the available student group; those who were last reported as graduated and those reported as dropping out. It does not consider students reported as continuing their education or students whose end status is unknown. It also does not limit graduates to only those finishing in four years. Any student who receives a diploma in 2007 is considered a graduate regardless of the number of years spent in school.

Statewide School or District Completion Rate
This computation for the Class of 2007 shows what happened to students who started at the school or district in ninth grade in 2004 regardless of where they subsequently went to school in Minnesota. Students who left to attend another school or district in the state are included in this measure. As with the Original Ninth Grade Completion Rate, this measure considers only three of the five possible groups: graduates, drops and continuing students but like the NGA rate requires graduation in four years time. Compared to the Original Ninth Grade Completion Rate this rate shows more broadly what happens to students who move from school to school during high school. Original Ninth Grade School or District Completion Rate This computation for the Class of 2007 identifies students who started at the school or district in ninth grade in 2004 and were last reported by the same school or district. Students who left and enrolled in another school or district in the state are not included in this measure. This completion rate only looks at three of the possible five student groups: graduates, drops and students who continued beyond their senior year. Students who stopped their education or withdrew from school with no further information are not considered. At the state level these results are more comparable to the NGA rate as they reflect four-year on-time graduates. However, unlike the NGA rate it only considers students who were associated with the specific school or district during their years in high school.