IES Blog

Institute of Education Sciences

New Report Highlights Progress and Challenges in U.S. High School Dropout and Completion Rates

A new NCES report has some good news about overall high school dropout and completion rates, but it also highlights some areas of concern.

Using a broad range of data, the recently released Trends in High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States report shows that the educational attainment of young adults has risen in recent decades. The public high school graduation rate is up, and the status dropout rate (the percentage of 16- to 24-year-olds who are not enrolled in school and have not completed high school) is down. Despite these encouraging trends, there are significant disparities in educational attainment among young adults in the United States. The report shines new light on these disparities by analyzing detailed data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

For large population groups, the report provides status dropout rates calculated using annual data from the American Community Survey (ACS), administered by the U.S. Census Bureau. For example, in 2017, some 5.4 percent of 16- to 24-year-olds who were not enrolled in high school lacked a high school diploma or equivalent credential.

For smaller population groups, there are not enough ACS respondents during any given year to allow for precise and reliable estimates of the high school status dropout rate. For these demographic subgroups, NCES pools the data from 5 years of the ACS in order to obtain enough respondents to accurately describe patterns in the dropout rate.

For example, while the overall status dropout rate for Asian 16- to 24-year-olds was below the national average in 2017, the rates for specific subgroups of Asian young adults varied widely. Based on 5 years of ACS data, high school status dropout rates among Asian 16- to 24-year-olds ranged from 1.1 percent for individuals of Korean descent to 23.2 percent for individuals of Burmese descent. These rates represent the “average” status dropout rate for the period from 2013 to 2017. They offer greater precision than the 1-year estimates, but the 5-year time span might make them difficult to interpret at first glance. 

 


Figure 1. Percentage of high school dropouts among persons 16 through 24 years old (status dropout rate), by selected Asian subgroups: 2013–2017

‡ Reporting standards not met. Either there are too few cases for a reliable estimate or the coefficient of variation (CV) is 50 percent or greater.
If the estimation procedure were repeated many times, 95 percent of the calculated confidence intervals would contain the true status dropout rate for the population group.
NOTE: “Status” dropouts are 16- to 24-year-olds who are not enrolled in school and who have not completed a high school program, regardless of when they left school. People who received an alternative credential such as a GED are counted as high school completers. This figure presents 5-year average status dropout rates for the period from 2013 to 2017. Use of a 5-year average increases the sample size, thereby reducing the sampling error and producing more stable estimates. Data are based on sample surveys of the entire population of 16- to 24-year-olds residing within the United States, including both noninstitutionalized persons (e.g., those living in households, college housing, or military housing located within the United States) and institutionalized persons (e.g., those living in prisons, nursing facilities, or other healthcare facilities). Estimates may differ from those based on the Current Population Survey (CPS) because of differences in survey design and target populations. Asian subgroups exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS), 2013–2017.


 

The 5-year ACS data can also be used to describe status dropout rates for smaller geographic areas with more precision than the annual ACS data. For example, the average 2013–2017 status dropout rates ranged from 3.8 percent in Massachusetts to 9.6 percent in Louisiana. The 5-year ACS data allowed us to calculate more accurate status dropout rates for each state and, in many cases, for racial/ethnic subgroups within the state. Access the complete state-level dropout rates by race/ethnicity here.
 


Figure 2. Percentage of high school dropouts among persons 16 through 24 years old (status dropout rate), by state: 2013–2017

NOTE: “Status” dropouts are 16- to 24-year-olds who are not enrolled in school and who have not completed a high school program, regardless of when they left school. People who received an alternative credential such as a GED are counted as high school completers. This figure presents 5-year average status dropout rates for the period from 2013 to 2017. Use of a 5-year average increases the sample size, thereby reducing the sampling error and producing more stable estimates. Data are based on sample surveys of the entire population of 16- to 24-year-olds residing within the United States, including both noninstitutionalized persons (e.g., those living in households, college housing, or military housing located within the United States) and institutionalized persons (e.g., those living in prisons, nursing facilities, or other healthcare facilities). Estimates may differ from those based on the Current Population Survey (CPS) because of differences in survey design and target populations.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Commerce, Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS), 2013–2017. See table 2.3.


 

For more information about high school dropout and completion rates, check out the recently released Trends in High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States report. For more information about the 5-year ACS datasets, visit https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/guidance/estimates.html.

 

By Joel McFarland

NCES’s Top Hits of 2019

As 2019 comes to an end, we’re taking stock of NCES’s most downloaded reports, most viewed indicators, Fast Facts, and blog posts, and most engaging tweets over the past year. As you reflect on 2019 and kick off 2020, we encourage you to take a few minutes to explore the wide range of education data NCES produces.

 

Top Five Reports, by PDF downloads

1. Condition of Education 2019 (8,526)

2. Condition of Education 2018 (5,789)

3Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups 2018 (4,743)

4. Student Reports of Bullying: Results From the 2015 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey (4,587)

5. Digest of Education Statistics 2017 (4,554)

 

Top Five indicators from the Condition of Education, by number of web sessions

1. Children and Youth With Disabilities (86,084)

2. Public High School Graduation Rates (68,977)

3. Undergraduate Enrollment (58,494)

4. English Language Learners in Public Schools (50,789)

5. Education Expenditures by Country (43,474)

 

Top Five Fast Facts, by number of web sessions

1. Back to School Statistics (227,510)

2. College Graduate Rates (109,617)

3. Tuition Costs of Colleges and Universities (107,895)

4. College Endowments (71,056)

5. High School Dropout Rates (67,408)

 

Top Five Blog Posts, by number of web sessions

1. Free or Reduced Price Lunch: A Proxy for Poverty? (5,522)

2. Explore Data on Mental Health Services in K–12 Public Schools for Mental Health Awareness Month (4,311)

3. Educational Attainment Differences by Students’ Socioeconomic Status (3,903)

4. Education and Training Opportunities in America’s Prisons (3,877)

5. Measuring Student Safety: Bullying Rates at School (3,706)

 

Top Five Tweets, by number of impressions

1. Condition of Education (45,408 impressions)

 

2. School Choice in the United States (44,097 impressions)

 

3. NAEP Music and Visual Arts Assessment (32,440 impressions)

 

4. International Education Week (29,997 impressions)

 

5. Pop Quiz (25,188 impressions)

 

Be sure to check our blog site and the NCES website in 2020 to keep up-to-date with NCES’s latest activities and releases. You can also follow NCES on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn for daily updates and content.

 

By Thomas Snyder

Higher Rates of Homeschooled Students Than Enrolled Students Participated in Family Learning Activities in 2016

About 3 percent of the school-age population—around 1.7 million students—was homeschooled in 2016. We know that homeschooled students have different educational experiences than students who are enrolled in public or private schools, and recently released data explore some of those differences.

The Parent and Family Involvement in Education survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) provides information on homeschooled and public and private school students based on a nationally representative sample. Parents provide information about their children’s formal education and learning activities outside of school.

The survey asks about six broad types of family learning activities that students experienced in the month prior to the survey. The 2016 results indicate that homeschooled students were more likely than their peers enrolled in public or private schools to participate in five of these six activities.

In 2016, higher percentages of homeschooled students than of students enrolled in public or private schools visited a library; a bookstore; an art gallery, museum, or historical site; and a zoo or aquarium in the month prior to completion of the survey (figure 1). A higher percentage of homeschooled students also attended an event sponsored by a community, religious, or ethnic group with their parents in the month prior to completion of the survey. The one activity for which there was no measurable difference between homeschooled and students enrolled in public or private schools was going to a play, concert, or other live show.

 


Figure 1. Percentage of 5- to 17-year-old students participating in selected family learning activities in the past month, by homeschool and enrollment status: 2016

 

NOTE: Includes 5- to 17-year-old students in grades or grade equivalents of kindergarten through grade 12. Homeschooled students are school-age children who receive instruction at home instead of at a public or private school either all or most of the time. Excludes students who were enrolled in public or private school more than 25 hours per week and students who were homeschooled only because of temporary illness. Selected activities with the child may have included any member of the household.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program (PFI-NHES), 2016.


 

The NHES data do not tell us why these differences exist, but parents’ availability of time and parenting style may be a factor. However, more research is needed to understand these differences.

A recent report, Homeschooling in the United States: Results from the 2012 and 2016 Parent and Family Involvement Survey (PFI-NHES:2012 and 2016), provides the full complement of data from the NHES about homeschoolers’ experiences in 2016. In addition to family learning activities, the report provides information about the following:
 

  • Homeschooler demographics

  • Reasons for homeschooling

  • Providers of homeschool instruction

  • Amount of time homeschoolers spent attending public schools, private schools, or college

  • Participation in local homeschool group activities

  • Homeschool teaching styles

  • Sources of homeschool curriculum and books

  • Online coursetaking of homeschool students

  • Homeschool subject areas

  • Parent expectations of homeschooled students’ future education
     

For more information on the National Household Education Surveys Program, please go to https://nces.ed.gov/nhes/.

 

By Sarah Grady

An Example of the Unquantifiable Effect of Research on Practice

At IES, we continue to think about ways to positively impact education practice through research. It is relatively straightforward to count and share the publications and research outputs produced by our grants. A bigger challenge is measuring the impact IES-funded research has on implementing evidence-based practice after the research project is complete. So we were thrilled when we received the following letter from Patrice Bain—a middle school teacher, author, education specialist, speaker, and consultant—who has worked closely with IES for many years.

I used to think of government agencies as impersonal bureaucracies often hidden from the public eye. One agency, IES, not only proved me wrong, it positively changed my life.

In 2006, Drs. Henry Roediger III and Mark McDaniel from Washington University in St. Louis obtained a grant from IES to research how students learn in an authentic classroom. The classroom where this research began was mine. And this is where the life-changing impact began.

The IES grant paid for technology to be used in my school’s classrooms and research assistants to aid our teachers. Heading up the research at my school was Pooja Agarwal, and this began a collaboration lasting over a decade.

In 2007, IES invited me to be the sole K-12 educator to co-author a practice guide. The large organization, to me, now had a face: Elizabeth Albro, who warmly welcomed me. I clearly recall sitting at a large table in Washington, DC, surrounded by my cognitive science superheroes: Drs. Hal Pashler, Mark McDaniel, Brian Bottge, Art Graesser, Janet Metcalfe, and Ken Koedinger. Each talked about important research that would impact learning in classrooms, and I knew my newly-expanded teaching repertoire now would be based in the science of learning. The final result of our meetings became the highly cited practice guide Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning. In addition, information from this guide was featured on the website Doing What Works.

As Pooja and I delved into how retrieval, spacing, and metacognition played a role in student learning at my school, I was contacted by REL Mid-Atlantic, a part of IES that offers research-based professional development in Delaware, Washington, DC, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Touting the benefits of teaching using the seven recommendations in Organizing Instruction and Study, I gave professional development presentations in the Mid-Atlantic regions with Drs. Hal Pashler, Ken Koedinger, and Nate Kornell.

Pooja and I also gave several presentations that included the research happening in my classroom. With IES funding, that research became a multi-year project involving over 1500 middle and high school students. With the passing of each year and research on learning becoming more defined, I was able to develop strategies utilizing retrieval, spacing, and metacognition. Pooja and I continued our collaboration. I was seeing success in the eyes of my students: I wasn’t just teaching content, I was teaching them how to learn.

A wealth of information on the science of learning seemed to be making a mark. Yet learning myths—those based on anecdotes and fads—were still circulating. To combat this, IES and NCER invited me to be on a working task group to tackle Neuromyths vs. Neurotruths. Once again, as I sat around a table in Washington, DC with learning superheroes, we explored how to begin to dispel prevalent myths of learning.

Because of IES and the opportunities I was given, I wanted to shout from a mountaintop that we can transform teaching. I’ve seen it. I’ve done it in my classroom. I realized a book started to brew within me. I’m not sure how the decision occurred, but I knew my collaboration with Pooja Agarwal was worthy of documenting. And so it began. We wanted to write a practical, evidence- and research-based book. Books had been written by cognitive scientists; books had been written by teachers. However, our book would be the first written by a cognitive scientist and an educator.

Powerful Teaching: Unleash the Science of Learning was released in June 2019. The ideas have resonated with educators across the globe. We are transforming education.

And it all started with IES approving a grant.

 

IES Celebrates Computer Science Education Week and Prepares for the 2020 ED Games Expo at the Kennedy Center

This week is Computer Science Education Week! The annual event encourages students from Kindergarten to Grade 12 to explore coding, with a focus on increasing representation among girls, women, and minorities. The event honors the life of computer scientist Grace Hopper, who broke the mold in the 1940s as a programming pioneer. Coding and computer science events are occurring in schools and communities around the country to celebrate the week.

This week is also a great time to highlight the computer science and engineering projects that are coming to Washington, DC for the 2020 ED Games Expo at the Kennedy Center on the evening of January 9, 2020. Developed with the support of the Institute of Education Sciences and other federal government offices, the projects provide different types of opportunities for students to learn and practice computer science and engineering skills with an eye toward examining complex real-world problems.

At the Expo, expect to explore the projects listed below.

  1. In CodeSpark Academy’s Story Mode, children learn the ABCs of computer science with a word-free approach by programming characters called The Foos to create their own interactive stories. In development with a 2019 ED/IES SBIR award.
  2. In VidCode, students manipulate digital media assets such as photos, audio, and graphics to create special effects in videos to learn about the coding. A teacher dashboard is being developed through a 2019 ED/IES SBIR award.
  3. Future Engineers uses its platform to conduct STEM challenges for Kindergarten to Grade 12 students. Developed with a 2017 ED/IES SBIR award.
  4. Fab@School Maker Studio allows students to design and build geometric constructions, pop-ups, and working machines using low-cost materials and tools from scissors to inexpensive 3-D printers and laser cutters. Developed with initial funding in 2010 by ED/IES SBIR.
  5. In DESCARTES, students use engineering design and then create 3-D print prototypes of boats, gliders, and other machines. Developed through a 2017 ED/IES SBIR award.
  6. In Ghost School, students learn programming and software development skills by creating games. In development with a 2018 Education Innovation and Research grant at ED.
  7. In Tami’s Tower, children practice basic engineering to help Tami, a golden lion tamarin, reach fruit on an overhanging branch by building a tower with blocks of geometric shapes. Developed by the Smithsonian Institution.
  8. In the Wright’s First Flight, students learn the basics of engineering a plane through hands-on and online activities, then get a firsthand look at what it looked (and felt) like to fly it through a virtual reality simulation. Developed by the Smithsonian Institution.
  9. In EDISON, students solve  engineering problems with gamified design software and simulate designs in virtual and augmented reality. In development with support from the National Science Foundation. 
  10. May’s Journey is a narrative puzzle game world where players use beginning programming skills to solve puzzles and help May find her friend and discover what is happening to her world. Developed with support from the National Science Foundation. 
  11. In FLEET, students engineer ships for a variety of naval missions, test their designs, gather data, and compete in nationwide naval engineering challenges. Developed with support from the U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research.
  12. Muzzy Lane Author is a platform for authoring learning games and simulations without requiring any programming skills. Developed in part with a Department of Defense award.

About the ED Games Expo: The ED Games Expo is the Institute’s and the Department of Education's annual public showcase and celebration of educational learning games as well as innovative forms of learning technologies for children and students in education and special education. At the Expo, attendees walk around the Terrace Level Galleries at the Kennedy Center to discover and demo more than 150 learning games and technologies, while meeting face-to-face with the developers. The Expo is free and open to the public. Attendees must RSVP online to gain entry. For more information, please email Edward.Metz@ed.gov.

Edward Metz is the program manager for the ED/IES Small Business Innovation Research program.

Christina Chhin is the program officer for the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education research program.