graduation rate numbers will soon appear to decrease “across the board” as states move to a uniform calculation that requires them to track each student individually, giving a more accurate count of how many actually finish high school.
via States brace for grad-rate dips as formula changes – CBS News.
This makes me wonder how states have been calculating graduation rates if they are uniformly inflated?
A Texas school district said that to 17 seniors who couldn’t seem to pull it together enough to pass the TAKS. The request was to withdraw and finish their H.S. educations online. This was in an effort to get those students a diploma not apparently to penalize them.
Here’s the kicker though:
Canutillo Superintendent Damon Murphy said all 17 students agreed to enroll at Penn Foster, but none was admitted because its academic standards were more rigorous than those of Canutillo.
They do have other options – not many and not so terribly attractive, but the Community College out in El Paso will take them, but they’ve still got to pass that TAKS to get an associates degree. They could get a GED without the test.
“That option, though, was not something my 17 kids could afford,” he said. “If we as a district don’t look for ways to try and get them moving toward graduation and into college, these kids would be lost.”
School districts in El Paso have strived to help their non-graduating seniors pass the TAKS during the summer.
In the El Paso Independent School District, all seniors who have completed coursework but need the TAKS to graduate are given the option of one-on-one tutoring during the weeks before the last administration of the exam.
Read the whole story from the El Paso Times. Canutillo students asked to withdraw. Strategy: to bypass failed TAKS for online diploma
According to the national education magazine, the state’s on-time graduation rate jumped to 66.3 percent in 2006 from 53.2 percent in 1996. The national average in 2006 was 69.2 percent.
The Palmetto State now ranks 37th among states and the District of Columbia, ahead of both North Carolina, ranked 42nd, and Georgia, ranked 49th.
Absolutely appalling!
Later in the article:
An acceptable graduation rate is 90 percent by the year 2020, according to a survey of S.C. parents, educators and taxpayers.
We put so much effort into education and we can’t get decent number of kids to finish. Why?
Jack Of All Trades 