A school district’s graduation rate is often used as the tell-tale sign the district is or is not making progress in educating students.

In the Renton School District a lot of numbers are cited as the graduation rate, without much explanation as to their significance.

The graduation rate most often cited by district officials is 94 percent for the 2010-2011 school year. This, however, is not the on-time, four-year graduation rate as commonly thought. It’s the rate for students who take longer than four years to graduate.

So, why does district tout this number?

The answer is complex, especially in light of new federal regulations that standardize how graduation rates are reported nationwide.

The Renton Reporter sat down with Renton School District Superintendent Mary Alice Heuschel to demystify the graduation rate.

The Renton School District’s adjusted actual four-year graduation rate for school year 2010-2011 is really 78 percent. This is the result from the new calculation the federal government is requiring states to report.

Regardless of the figures, Heuschel wants the public to know the district has made progress in graduating seniors.

During the past five or six years, the district has consistently increased the number of seniors it graduates.

Looking strictly at the on-time estimated graduation rates, the district went from a graduation rate of 75 percent school year 2005-2006 to 84 percent in 2010-2011. The on-time estimated graduation rate is the previous calculation all districts used.

But, to Heuschel the on-time estimate doesn’t tell the whole story of what it takes seniors to graduate in the Renton School District. This is why she has been citing the estimated extended graduation rate of 94 percent for the 2010-2011 school year.

The extended graduation rate, whether estimated or the adjusted actual rate, is a measure of the students who take longer than four years to graduate.

“Of course, we want the on-time graduation rate (to be) the best,” said Heuschel. “But, we care about all the kids earning that diploma.”

The superintendent said the extended graduation rate takes into account students with disabilities and English Language Learners, who enter high school not speaking the language and not really at their prescribed grade level proficiency or credit level.

The extended rate also includes students who may have made some huge academic mistakes their ninth grade year.

“So, we want the extended graduation rate, which Renton capitalizes on a lot, because we have kids who need the extra year,” said Heuschel.

The Renton School District, like others across the nation, is now complying with a new federal regulation designed to standardize how graduation rates are reported.

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s website, regulations to change the way graduation rates were reported were proposed in 2008. This new standard was established to bring a “more uniform and accurate measure of calculating high school graduation rate that is comparable across states; strengthen public school choice and supplemental educational services requirement and increase accountability and transparency,” the website reads.

In 2008 the New York Times in an article described how some state estimates seemed really high. It also found that states acknowledged without a clear mandate they didn’t feel compelled to make those estimates accurate.

Nathan Olson isn’t sure if this is the real reason why the federal government required the switch, but it does come to his mind. Olson is the communications manager for the Washington state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

“As far as which way is better, ‘adjusted actual’ is a better gauge because it points to real students and not estimates,” wrote Olson in an email. “I think part of the reason it has taken this long to get to this point is that only recently we’ve created data systems robust enough to handle all students.”

Washington now has a student identification system, developed since 2005, that tracks students in the state no matter which school they attend, according to Olson.

It’s called the State Student Identifier (SSID) and it is a six-digit identification number that follows students around from kindergarten through 12th grade, no matter which state school they attend.

“That SSID and the data system it ties into makes it possible to track individual students; previously we didn’t have that capability and thus had to estimate our graduation rates,” said Olson.

There was no record to follow a student who dropped out of ninth grade and entered another school. This is what the previous estimation was based on.

Heuschel says that this is a problem for the state in cases where students of migrant workers go back to Mexico after ninth grade. Then when the students come back to the state in 11th grade, for example, there’s no record of them going to school outside of the country.

“So, it ends up that, that’s counted against that district because our system show them as a drop out,” added Heuschel. “And, that student may not have dropped out.”

The only bad news about the new graduation rate system is that Heuschel does not feel that it is a good accountability system for meeting the needs of all students.

The new system puts students, regardless of how many credits they have, into their age-appropriate group or cohort grade-level.

This is a problem for districts with such a high mobility of students like Renton, Heuschel said.

She uses the example of students coming from Somalia and being placed in the 11th grade because they are of age, but not proficient in English or credits.

If those students don’t graduate between 11th and 12th grade, they are counted as not on time, Heuschel said.

“So I could identify the cohort for that student in the past and now I can’t do that anymore,” Heuschel said.