What Does Promoting Power Tell Us About the Graduation
Gap?
Promoting Power compares the number of seniors enrolled in a high
school to the number of freshmen four years earlier (or three years
earlier in a 10-12 high school). It is currently the best available
estimate of school-level graduation rates that can be used to compare
high schools within and across states. For details see the Technical
Notes link (see below).
This data will allow researchers, legislators, policy makers, school
reformers, school district officials, social reformers, and the
public to analyze for each state, as well as the nation:
• How successfully the high schools in their state or the
nation are graduating their students
• How many high schools have high graduation rates and their
characteristics (free lunch level, minority concentration, size,
and location)
• The number and characteristics of the high schools that
produce many, if not most, of the dropouts in each state and nationally.
• The extent to which minority students attend high schools
with high and low graduation rates compared to non-minority students.
The following resources are available:
Graduation Gap Policy
Brief Summarizes what Promoting Power data tells
us about the number, location, and characteristics of high schools
with high and low graduation rates at both the national and state
level.
National Profile
(PDF) Shows how promoting power varies across the nation’s
high schools and by free and reduced price lunch levels, minority
concentration, locale, and size.
State Summary
Table (PDF) Shows the percent of high schools in each
state with different levels of promoting power and the number and
characteristics of high schools with low graduation rates in each
state. In addition, this table shows the extent to which high schools
with low graduation rates in each state serve high poverty populations
and are eligible for Title 1 funding.
Individual State Profiles
Details the promoting power levels of each state’s high schools
and how within each state promoting power varies by free and reduced
price lunch status, minority concentration, locale (urban, suburban,
town and rural) and school size.
County-level
Low Promoting Power National Map (PDF) Shows which
counties have at least one high school with low graduation rates
and which counties have five or more such high schools.
Technical Notes
Explains how promoting power can be used to estimate school-level
graduation rates, situations in which it is likely to under- and
overestimate graduation rates, and provides details on the sample
of high schools analyzed and the data sources used.
“Locating
the Dropout Crisis” (PDF) A recent paper by
Robert Balfanz and Nettie Legters which uses promoting power to
identify the number, location, and characteristics of the nation’s
Dropout Factories-the high schools that produce the majority of
the nation’s dropouts.
Many of these documents are in PDF format and require Adobe Acrobat
Reader. If you do not have the free Acrobat Reader installed on
your computer, please visit the Adobe downloads section to download
it by clicking
here.
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