Data from the 2009-10 school year show that nonacademic indicators for Kentucky’s public school students remained at levels similar to those reported for the 2008-09 school year.

The overall high school dropout rate increased less than one-half a percentage point, from 2.89 percent in 2009 to 3.19 percent in 2010.

The school retention rate – the percentage of students held back a grade – decreased slightly, from 2.75 percent to 2.36 percent. School attendance rates also decreased slightly, from 94.18 percent to 94.05 percent.

The rate of successful transition to adult life decreased slightly from 2009 to 2010, but the percentage of public high school graduates who went on to college remained at about 56.4 percent in 2010.

NOTE: Graduation rate data are not included in this release. Kentucky is moving to a new formula to calculate graduation rates, and to ensure data quality and integrity, a thorough review of school and district graduation rates is being implemented. Graduation rate data will be released in August 2011. More information on the new formula is provided at the end of this news release.

COMPARISONS OF NONACADEMIC DATA – STATEWIDE RATES 

  2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Attendance 94.60% 94.18% 94.17% 94.18% 94.05%
Dropout
(grades 9-12)		 3.34% 3.17% 3.29% 2.89% 3.19%
Retention 2.92% 3.00% 2.55% 2.75% 2.36%
Successful Transition 96.07% 95.80% 95.27% 94.37% 93.96%

HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT RATES BY RACE AND GENDER 

  MALE FEMALE WHITE AFRICAN AMERICAN HISPANIC ASIAN AMERICAN INDIAN OTHER
2006 3.91% 2.69% 3.03% 5.45% 6.11% 1.11% 2.64% 3.67%
2007 3.69% 2.64% 2.94% 4.77% 5.46% 1.22% 2.45% 3.96%
2008 3.77% 2.79% 2.87% 6.14% 6.07% 1.82% 4.28% 4.09%
2009 3.26% 2.50% 2.60% 4.91% 4.06% 2.27% 3.04% 3.49%
2010 3.62% 2.74% 2.87% 5.52% 5.58% 1.84% 4.23% 0.95%

 

Background on the transition to a new graduation rate formula
Kentucky has used a “leaver” graduation rate that divides the number of on-time graduates with a diploma plus the number of graduates with a diploma that have extended time written into their IEPs by the total number of students who do graduate or would have graduated with a particular year’s class. Beginning with the 2010-11 school year and through the 2012-13 school year, the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) will use the Averaged Freshmen Graduation Rate (AFGR) definition from the National Center for Education Statistics for the calculation of graduation rates. Then, beginning in the 2013-14 school year, Kentucky will use a cohort graduation rate formula.

The AFGR will be included in federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) accountability beginning with the release of adequate yearly progress (AYP) data in late summer 2011 and continuing through the 2012-13 school year.

See details on the AFGR at this link: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2011012.