College Attendance Reporting Gap
The media recently reported concerns about a gap that appears in published records of recent college attendance numbers between those quoted by the New York State Education Department and corresponding numbers by the National Student Clearinghouse. For Garden City, for example, in 2012 the district reported to the state on the required Annual Graduation and Post-Graduation Plans Report that 306 students graduated and 276 of those intended to attend a four-year college. Twenty-five planned to attend a two-year college, two were enlisted in the military, two were attending other post-secondary institutions, and one was seeking employment. Total: 306. The state education department reported 305 in the 2012 report, but while the 25 attending two-year colleges remained the same on both reports, the National Clearinghouse noted that only 240 Garden City graduates were attending four-year colleges in 2012 “anytime within six months of high school graduation.” The difference: 36 graduates. This difference downgraded our four-year college rate as reported by Newsday (11/18/14, pgs. A4 and A23) from 98.1 percent to 88.7 percent.
It’s not clean data – there is not a high degree of validity,” explained Dr. Rita Melikian, director of technology, the administrator responsible for reporting the student data to New York State. “We went through the lists, student by student, and found quite a few students missing. We know from personal information that these ‘missing’ students are in college. We looked at the Clearinghouse’s information for the Class of 2010, for example, and found that almost 80 Garden City students were missing. For the highest authority of education policy in the state to present data knowing it is not accurate is not helpful toward the issue they are trying to highlight. The numbers are wrong, and to draw the conclusion that the differences in numbers are because students are not ready for college is a stretch. There is no correlation, much less a proof of causation. When the discrepancies were noted, follow up research should have been done before publication.”
Director of Guidance Gina Christel added, “We’ve known for two years that this data is incorrect. It’s just bad data. Can every school district be wrong?”
So, what are the reasons for the discrepancy? Lacking comment from a Clearinghouse spokesperson, we posit several possibilities:
• Under current law, if a student does not apply for federal financial aid, the federal government cannot use that student’s name;
• A student attending a college outside the U.S. is not counted;
• The college may not have reported all attendees;
• A student may have elected not to be “tracked” and opted out upon enrollment;
• A student taking summer courses at a different college can be dropped from the count for his/her primary college.
“Although there maybe an example of a student that changes his/her mind or transfers to another school, most Garden City students expend much energy in finding the ‘right fit,’ and frequently report back to our counselors and teachers about their college experiences,” added Christel.
“We are disappointed that the state and the National Clearinghouse released these data, even though they knew they were incorrect,” commented Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Feirsen. “We hope that the state and the National Clearinghouse follow up quickly with some information that corrects the misleading assumptions implicit in the release of this data.”
Submitted by Garden City Public Schools
