Greene, Jay P., and Marcus A. Winters. Leaving Boys Behind: Public High School Graduation Rates. Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute, 2006. http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED491633.pdf.

This article was written in 2003, and at this time it was widely known that national graduation rate data was unreliable. Although government officials were working on improving this data, independent studies on graduation rates were still very important. This report uses the Common Core of Data to study public school graduation rates throughout the nation, focusing on both race and gender. The results will show the disparities that exist, if any do exist, for graduation rates among males, females, various races, and males and females of each race.

The research topic for this study is the disparity of graduation rates among males and females, with an additional focus on race. The questions the authors of this article set out to answer are: 1) Is there a difference between the graduation rates of white students and the graduation rates of minority students? 2) Is there a difference between the graduation rates of females and the graduation rates of males? 3) Is there a difference between the graduation rates of white males and minority males and a difference between white females and minority females?

To answer this question, the author looked at the public school graduation rates of each state published in the U.S. Department of Education’s Common Core of Data. These graduation rates are also separated by race and gender, and further separated by race and gender together, for example, white females vs. asian females, etc. To gather this data, the authors used the Department of Education’s Common Core of Data (CCD) for 2003, the most recent data available at the time of this study. They researched the reliability of the CCD versus other available data sets on graduation rate to determine that it truly was the best choice for data.

To analyze the data, the authors looked at rates (percentages) which are calculated as regular diplomas in spring of 2003 divided by the estimated number of students entering ninth grade in 1999 times one plus population change between fourteen-year-olds in the summer of 1999 and seventeen-year-olds in the summer of 2002). Because the data are given as rates, each number in the data set can be easily compared with all other numbers in the data set. The authors looked at these rates to determine patterns and disparities among various groups. In conclusion, they found that white students have a higher graduation rate than minority students, girls have a higher graduation rate than boys, and the gender gap in graduation rates is especially large for minority students. Overall, this research was well-done and led to some interesting conclusions, which could be used to determine what kind of changes public schools need to work toward in the future.