Rethinking High School Graduation Rates & Trends (Economic Policy Institute, Mishel and Roy, March 2006)

Lawrence Mishel and Joydeep Roy dispute the conventional numbers cited by Swanson, Greene and others. Mishel and Roy use data from longitudinal studies instead of the Common Core of Data, which they say is a "national dump" without an effective level of quality control. The study examines both the number of students who earn regular diplomas and the high school completion rate, which includes regular diplomas and GEDs. Based on longitudinal surveys, they found:

• the graduation rate is about 82 percent for all students and about 74 percent for both Hispanic and black students;

• graduation rates for blacks and Hispanics are much higher than estimated in other reports, although (similar to other researchers) Mishel and Roy, too, found performance gaps existed; and, 

• Mishel finds that the dropout rate for black students is about 25 percent and that roughly half of those students eventually obtain a GED, which allows entry into postsecondary education, the military and other second-chance systems.

Mishel and Roy have engaged in several debates with other researchers about their new research and contend that the dropout rate has been greatly exaggerated. Table 1 presents a side-by-side comparison of the Mishel/Roy methodology with the Swanson method.