User’s Guide to Computing High School Graduation Rates, Volume 2: Technical Evaluation of Proxy Graduation Indicators

This report examines the existing measures of high school completion and the newly proposed proxy measures. It includes a description of the computational formulas, the data required for each indicator, the assumptions underlying each formula, the strengths and weaknesses of each indicator relative to a true cohort on-time graduation rate, and a consideration of the conditions under which each indicator does or does not work.

This volume provides the technical information base used by Department policy makers in identifying an interim graduation indicator to use in monitoring progress under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.