Myra Blackmon, who writes a column in the Athens (Georgia) Banner-Herald, has discovered an amazing and well-hidden secret: Most of our nation’s dropouts did not drop out of high school. She looked at Georgia’s high school graduation rate and did some fact-checking. The graduation rate is supposedly 67%, but many students who did not drop out are not counted as graduates.
The first thing she learned was that the U.S. Department of Education considers anyone who did not get a high school diploma in four years to be a dropout. Students who took an extra year to graduate are treated as dropouts. Students in special education who need extra time to earn credits are counted as dropouts.
Manufactured crisis? Myra Blackmon reports, you decide.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not much different in NY.
That may very well be true, but do they count those who dropped out in middle school and never enrolled in high school? I heard that was another calculation error in dropout rates. Seems that education often tries to simplify things that are just not that simple.
Among people 18-24, the US Census reports that 90% have a high school diploma.
Benjamin Disraeli: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Remember the link Diane provided above and the quote by Disraeli the next time you hear the accountabullies wail and whine and gnash their teeth about the low graduation rates of public schools.
And also remember the kids who “disappeared” in El Paso, Texas to make the test scores and the bonuses for the Superintendent go up.
Sir Walter Scott: “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”
Looks like the webs are slowly coming untangled.
🙂
This is a great twist to the situation and it is legitimate factually. However, there is a real way to figure it out that they cannot get around and that is the difference between the 9th and 12th grade enrollments. We do not have the ADA/grade here in California that I know even though it should be listed. You take the 9th grade enrollment 4 years before the present 12th grade enrollment and you have your dropout rate. At LAUSD even the highest performing high school, Grenada Hills, has a 34% dropout. Now when you look at the students who do not come to school everyday you have a real tragedy. At LAUSD in 2002 when they had 156,000 more enrollment than recently only 14,500 or 2% did not come to school everyday. In 2011-12 it became, with 156,000 less students enrolled, over 115,000 did not come to school everyday. This cost the district in lost revenue over $1.3 billion in that year alone. And they have the nerve to call themselves “The Reform Board” I call them properly “The Deform Board” who also hired as superintendent John Deasy who has a phony PHD. Just look up John Deasy, University of Louisville. We were at Tavis Smiley’s premier for his recent special on truancy. He praised Deasy in this special. After the presentation I told him he needs to know who he is dealing with and did he know that Deasy had a phony PHD and told him where to look. When I told him this his eyes got as big as Pie Tins. A week or so later there is an article by Smiley praising Deasy. Hypocrite and unethical. I understand that previously he did not know. Then he did and still went ahead for his personal financial gain. No ethics. If I am ever in public with him again he will be sorry for doing that as I am quite good at embarassing people like him. Ask Steven Brill how pleasant it was the last time he was in L.A. I embarassed him. They kicked me out and then others did it to him at the book signing and he literally ran out of the place and to the limo and the limo screached out of the parking lot. I have friends who watched it all inside and outside. I drove home laughing at the reaction. The Zacala Foundation who put on and videoed the event erased my question to him and his answer from the video they put up on the web. What does that say about them? This is not a nice guys game if you want to win and effect them deeply. This guy is used to people bowing down to him not confronting him. They cannot take it. I have proven it over and over again to the highest levels.
Another thing that is not properly reported is students who attend technical colleges. I don’t remember the name of the database, but they do not count these students as attending post-secondary schooling. So here we go with the “not enough kids attain degrees or work skills.”
What we have to remember about data is first of all it has to be accurate (very difficult in many cases) and every data point represents a living breathing person with his own sense of what he values in life. It is not for us, or the billionaires, to decide how people should live their lives.
In Louisiana, we have students who drop out of school and make very good livings in the seafood industry (fishing, crawfishing), provide for their families and do not live off the government. They love what they do and work hard at it. We should honor their life choices and celebrate them. I know I do every time I eat the delicious seafood they catch!
Not all dropouts are in prison, on welfare, or losers. Dropout rates are just numbers. Let’s dig deeper and see what these people are contributing. And remember that not all people who “walk across the stage” (as they like to call graduates here in Louisiana) are productive citizens. Data just lumps people together. I say we look at individuals and see what schools can do to help make them literate, caring people.
What we do in education today is how society will be shaped in the future. It scares the heck out of me if we are producing (in the schools of the “haves”) more tfa-like young people who feel entitled, are all-knowing, are “self”ish, and who equate success and happiness with their bank accounts and job titles.
But I’m rambling…
“It is not for us, or the billionaires, to decide how people should live their lives”
Exactly. What many in public education believe is that we should tell people how to live their lives and if they don’t live it according to what those in power say then they are deemed deficient and bad parents.
What many want are “Stepford” teachers, “Stepford” students and “Stepford” parents.
No, you were not rambling. You told the sad reality as you see it.
So do many of the rest of us see too much of that kind of thinking. Being judgemental is another wonderful trait of many of these wonderkinds.
Beautiful words for a beautiful spring day.
Thank you Robert, for reminding all of us…… the journey of life is a shared one. Honoring the complexity and individuality of each we meet along the way, is a value that must be cultivated, nourished, and passed on by those who care.
Don’t forget that English Language Learners also take more than four years to graduate, because they are learning the English necessary to pass state exams.
No me digas. Eso no puede ser.
Eva is correct! Suppose an immigrant child enters grade 9 without knowing English. Texas expects that child to become proficient in English, pass 26 rigorous courses, AND pass 15 end-of-course tests with some mysterious cumulative average in only four years –or be counted as a dropout. Research says it may take 7years just to become proficient in a second language. What we do to kids is just criminal!
The important thing for long term tracking is a consistent measure, whether it is the wording of a survey question, that you know could be better worded, or the definition of “drop out.” There is another measure used of people who get a diploma or GED later, which is a measure of how well educated we are. “Drop out” is colloquial for fail to graduate on time,” and measures schools, society and parents effectiveness. It had been rising forever, and started falling about ten years ago. That means something.
Certainly, it is valuable for the reporter to have learned the real definition, to know what is being measured, but it does not mean it is flawed or should be changed. There is room for many measures. They help us learn were we stand.
The US Department of Education chooses to use the narrowest possible definition of high school graduate, which is the on-time four-year completion rate. It is a fact that some students graduate in August, and they are not counted. Some students take an extra year, and they are not counted. Some get a GED, and they are not counted.
The on-time graduation rate recently rose to 78.2%, a high point in our history. The graduation rate for 18-24 year olds is 90%, also the highest in our history.
The dropout rate is 8%, the lowest in our history.
Read my book that comes out in September.
It has all the graphs from federal government sources.