Is the rise in high school graduation rates real? High-stakes school accountability and strategic behavior

Abstract

We show that publicly reported U.S. high school graduation rates have increased by 10-18 percentage points over the past two decades. Using national difference-in-differences analyses of state- and district-level variation in graduation rates, we also find that graduation accountability from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was likely a principal cause. Additional analysis of high school graduation exams, GEDs, credit recovery, and high school exit codes suggest that strategic behavior is not a primary explanation. This provides some of the first evidence to date that federal accountability has substantially increased the nation's stock of human capital