I made a mistake. When Betsy DeVos sent written testimony about the remarkable graduation rates of virtual schools, I said she lied.
Let’s say she offered “alternate facts.”
She listed several virtual schools where she said the graduation rate exceeded 90%.
However:
They’re wrong.
The Nevada Virtual Academy, for example. Its graduation rate for the class of 2015 wasn’t 100 percent. It was 63 percent, according to Nevada’s own school report card.
Ohio Virtual Academy’s 92 percent graduation rate? Try 53 percent.
Utah Virtual Academy’s 96 percent rate? Cut it in half.
You get the point.
Where did DeVos get these inflated numbers? Questions to the Trump administration went unanswered, but they appear to have been lifted verbatim from this report by K12 Inc., the for-profit company behind the online schools listed. DeVos herself was once an investor. It would not be the first of her answers to senators that appear to have been borrowed without citation.
None of it was true. NPR says it was a mistake.
So, Okay, I apologize. She didn’t lie. Betsy DeVos misspoke. She made a mistake. Has she corrected her error? I don’t think so.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
DeVos is in an alternate universe. What is the graduation rate for grizzly bears?
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No she Fknig lied, call a spade a spade. She lied to cover her azz and help her agenda. She gives AH’s and POS a bad name. Amway is one of the biggest scams in this country right up there with religion and her other 101 companies that have a direct connection to education including debt collection of student loans.
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Like!
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NPR doesn’t want to lose its hefty corporate and foundational funding. I am beginning to see a large shift in their willingness to underemphasize contradictions where they may lose funding. If NPR goes corporate then where will the rest go?
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YES. I feel personally insulted when watching the PBS Newshour or listening to NPR and I hear unverified educational “experts” go on and on about the wonders of school choice without statements and facts being directly challenged. Where is the JOURNALISM?
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JOURNALISM?? We don’t need no stinking journalism.
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Maybe ‘alternate facts’ are what we used to call ‘white lies’ – so still a lie.
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There was a very obnoxious pro DeVos ad on NYC’s channel 5, a Fox station. I guess the DeVosistas must be running scared that they feel the need to air these propagandistic ads in which the evil “liberal” is castigated and denigrated. How dare liberals challenge her highness.
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I just saw the commercial on NBC. Revolting!
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If Betsy the Charlatan believed those alternative facts that were based on misinformation or lies from the source she used, does that make her a liar by default?
I think the answer is YES.
Report by K-12 Inc filled with incorrect claims and/or lies.
Betsy the Charlatan uses K-12 Inc Report as her source without fact checking to make sure the claims were accurate.
She is guilty but not as guilty as K-12.
Was she just lazy or willing to use those lies because they supported what she thinks?
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Giving her every benefit of the doubt (whether or not she deserves it), & allowing that it was a totally honest, reasonable mistake, now that the correct figures have come out, if she doesn’t immediately acknowledge it & amend her statement (preferably with an apology for the “error”), she’s just as guilty as K-12. No, make that more guilty, as her perpetuating that falsehood has substantially more far-reaching & dire consequences. I like facts that didn’t get altered.
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What odds do you give that Betsy the Bungler will come clean and admit she was wrong and then publicly state the actual facts that will reveal her voucher agenda is already a total educational failure?
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Wait, I’m working this out on a spreadsheet. Hang on, it may take a while…
🙂
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Is there an specific algorithm that is mandated to be used in order to come up with the graduation rate to be reported for all schools that are mandated to report it?
Is there any independent audit that a school is reporting accurate numbers?
If not, then any school can be fudging their numbers….
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Graduation rates are one of the metrics states are required to collect and publish about schools. States that distribute significant funding based on enrollment usually have substantial student count auditing procedures, but as we have seen in the past, graduation rates can be fudged (Houston, for example). Virtual charters like those run by K12 were the subject of major scandals in Colorado and Pennsylvania, based in part on faking enrollment numbers (to get state aid). It also depends on definitions: their claimed graduation rates may represent students who stay in the program until the end of high school, and do not take into account attrition from original 9th grade enrollment (as the state metrics would).
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While what you say might be accurate, this doesn’t change the fact that the U.S. Census reports that more than 90-percent of American adults age 25 or more have a high school degree or its equivalent and that more than 40 percent of U.S. adults age 25 or more have earned a college degree resulting in almost 3-college graduates for every job that requires a college degree.
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Ok, let me try to rephrase my question.
Is there ONE specific formula that EACH LEA is supposed to use for calculating their graduation rate?
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There should be, but it will be determined by the state’s department of education. I’m not sure if Federal law mandates a particular method. My state calculates 4-, 5-, and 6-year graduation rates, based in part on a state database that can (mostly) track students even if they change districts.
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So that means there are lots of options for ALL schools to fudge their numbers.
If they all have different formulas, then there is no way to compare ‘apple to apples’ vs ‘apples to oranges’.
Hence all reports of graduation rates should be considered questionable.
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Why should schools be compared? The data are meaningless.
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