Background
In Senate Bill No. 183 from the 1989 legislative session, Section 13 set up a program designed to evaluate the performance of individual schools and school districts in the state of Oklahoma. This program not only required multiple types of evaluation by the State Department of Education, but also required that the individual schools and districts be notified of these evaluations, and that the general public also be advised as to the “effectiveness” of individual schools or districts. In response to the directive of SB 183, the State Regents provide the following four reports; (1) High School to College-Going Rates for Oklahoma High School Graduates to Oklahoma Colleges; (2) Headcount, Semester Hours, and GPA Report; (3) Mean ACT Scores by Oklahoma High School Site; and (4) Remediation Rates for Oklahoma High School Graduates in Oklahoma Public Higher Education (beginning in 1995).
As part of the State Regents’ cooperative effort with the State Department of Education to provide measures or “indicators” of educational performance, has produced the Headcount, Semester Hours and GPA Summary.
Methodology
The data used to construct this summary come from two sources, the Oklahoma State Department of Education and the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. Data derived from the State Department are aggregate data, not individual student data, reported to the Department by individual high schools each year. The State Regents’ data are created from the Unitized Data System (UDS). The UDS contains a large number of distinct “units” of data for individual college students every semester. Because no comparable database exists for high school students, recent high school graduates are estimated by ages 17, 18, and 19.
These first-time-entering freshmen are the same students identified in the linear-rate in the most recent single-year section of the “High School to College-Going Rates of Oklahoma High School Graduates” report. The total number of first-time-entering freshmen will differ on these two reports because the “High School to College-Going Rates of Oklahoma High School Graduates” report accounts for both public and private institutions of higher education and this report accounts for only the public institutions.
The summary provides academic year headcount, semester hour, and cumulative GPA information on recent high school graduates as first-time-entering freshmen for each county, district, and high school site. The headcount and semester hours data are distributed by GPA ranges (0.0-1.6, 1.7-1.9, 2.0-2.9, 3.0+) numerically within each range.
Analysis
The headcount, semester hour, and grade point average (GPA) summary provides academic year headcount, semester hour, and cumulative GPA information for 2011 high school graduates as fall 2011 first-time entering college freshmen in Oklahoma public institutions.
Of the fall 2012 first-time freshmen (16,113), 53.7% (8,646) maintained a 3.0 or better GPA. More that 80% maintained at least a 2.0 higher during their first year in college.
Beginning in 2008, changes in reporting requirements to federal and regional entities necessitated updates to the Unitized Data System (UDS), the statewide data collection process. As a result, new procedures had to be developed to continue to provide quality data to the various education stakeholders. Therefore, comparisons of current findings to prior year reports are limited.
All high school graduate years can be viewed by selecting the appropriate links provided on the Oklahoma State Regents website.