Critics claim that the "dropout rate" as currently used in Texas and other states captures only a snapshot of a group of students at one time. To expand ways of reporting school completion rates, detailed completion data were assembled for four cohorts of Texas high school students, the graduating classes of 1994 through 1997. Completion rates were analyzed using much the same demographic categories as used in the annual report of the Texas Education Agency. In the process, some trends and patterns were found that would not have been detected using annual even-based dropout or graduation rates. Actually replacing dropout rates with completion rates in the Texas Academic Excellence Indicator System would require a change in statute, but the additional information provided by cohort data suggests that a longitudinal perspective might be a valuable supplement to the more commonly used annual event-based analysis. For the new measures, the completion rate is the number of completers divided by the number of students in the cohort. The analyses show that completion rates for Texas high school students have climbed steadily over the past 4 years, with the greatest gains in the student populations that were most in need of improvement. An appendix contains a synopsis of student progress through high school over a 4-year period. (Contains 7 tables and 10 references.) (SLD)