Archives for category: Graduation rates
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Ann Cronin on Connecticut’s Cliche Goals for Education

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2019 //
8

 

The Connecticut State Board of Education hired a new state commissioner who pledged to raise the graduation rate, close the achievement gap, and “Ensure that all students have increased access to opportunities and advantages that they need to succeed in life.”

What’s wrong with that? Isn’t that what every new commissioner promises? Has any new commissioner in any state achieved those goals?

Ann Cronin, veteran educator, explains why these are tired cliiches and what a visionary approach would look like. 

First, would be to change the term “graduation rate”  to something like the graduating of well-educated high school students. Currently, graduation rates make good headlines but can mean very little in terms of student learning.

“Credit retrieval” is a common practice in public schools with low graduation rates. “Credit retrieval” allows students to make use of often dubious computer programs that, in no way, equal courses in academic subjects, yet  the students get credit for the academic courses. In doing so, students increase the graduation rate for their schools but do not have adequate learning experiences.

Charter schools have another way to increase their graduation rates. They “counsel out” students who are likely to not graduate before they get to be seniors which leaves only a pre-selected group as seniors and, unsurprisingly, they all graduate. And lo and behold, the charter school has a high graduation rate. For example, one year at Achievement First’s Amistad Academy in New Haven, 25 students out of 25 in the senior class graduated, but 64 students had been in that class as ninth graders.

A visionary way to increase the number of students who receive a high school education is to not count the number of students who receive high school diplomas but rather count how many of the students who begin a school as ninth graders complete the coursework necessary for graduation. For example, some innovative public high schools hold Saturday classes with actual teachers instead of plugging kids into commuter programs. The applause should be given to high schools who deliver a quality education to all the students who begin their high school education in the school not to the schools who either give credits without the academic content and skills or who dismiss those who won’t make for a good statistic.

Read her essay to see her critique of “closing the achievement gap,” which is impossible when the gap is based on standardized test scores which are designed to have a gap.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Education Reform, Graduation rates, Real Education, Testing

The D.C. “Miracle” Disappears

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2019 //
69

I am reposting this post because the main link was dead and I fixed it. Also, it was originally titled “The D.C. ‘Miracle’ turns to Ashes,” and a reader said a miracle can’t turn to ashes. So it has a new title.

 

A year ago, reformers were touting D.C. as their triumphant example. Those graduation rates!

Unfortunately, like every other reformer tale, it was a hoax. The graduation rate was phony. Students were walking across the stage without the necessary attendance or credits. Metrics!

From PBS:

“Critics view the problems, particularly the attendance issue, as an indictment of the entire data-driven evaluation system instituted a more than a decade ago when then-Mayor Adrian Fenty took over the school system and appointed Michelle Rhee as the first chancellor. Rhee’s ambitious plan to clear out dead wood and focus on accountability for teachers and administrators landed her on the cover of Time magazine holding a broom. But now analysts question whether Rhee’s emphasis on performance metrics has created a monster.”

Ya think?

And the teacher-turnover rate is 25% a year! 

The national average? Only 16%. In fact, D.C.’s teacher turnover rate (across both traditional public and public charter schools) is higher than other comparable jurisdictions, including New York, Chicago and Milwaukee.

For both public and charter schools, the highest turnover is taking place at schools with the most at-risk students, with the rate pushing past 30% in Wards 5 and 8.

This is the fruit of Michelle Rhee’s work. A district that continues to have the largest achievement gaps of any urban district tested by NAEP, a phony graduation rate,  and a startlingly high teacher turnover rate. Another “reform” hoax.

Categories Accountability, Data, District of Columbia, Education Reform, Graduation rates, Hoax, Teachers

New Orleans: One of City’s Oldest Charter Organizations Closes Down Amid Multiple Scandals

By dianeravitch
July 20, 2019 //
7

 

The University of New Orleans was one of the first to jump into chartering after Hurricane Katrina, and it just announced that it is closing down its charter organization, New Beginnings, as a result of a slew of academic problems and malfeasance.

After allegations of grade-fixing and a major fiasco involving class credits that left dozens of students unable to graduate, the public charter board overseeing John F. Kennedy High voted Thursday night to surrender its charters to operate both of its schools.

The surrender of the charters, which will take place at the end of the 2019-20 school year, was approved unanimously by the New Beginnings Schools Foundation board.

The decision stemmed from a lengthy investigation into management problems at the charter network that led earlier to the resignation of its CEO, career educator Michelle Blouin-Williams, and the firing of five high-ranking administrators at Kennedy…

The problems leading to the collapse of one of the city’s oldest charter organizations first surfaced in February, when the organization’s data director, Runell King, alleged that other staff members had improperly changed grades for a group of seniors who had recently taken an Algebra III class. 

King, who was fired a month later in what he said was retaliation for reporting the alleged grade-fixing, submitted documents showing that F’s were changed to D’s and D’s to C’s, a move that ultimately could have helped the school bolster its graduation rates and, in turn, improve its performance score issued by the state…

By July, the grade issues along with other management problems resulted in a determination that more than half of Kennedy’s senior class of 177 students had not actually earned enough credits to graduate.

The seniors included 69 who walked in a graduation for 155 students, but did not actually qualify to graduate. They were given folders with no diplomas during the school’s May 17 graduation ceremony, and had college or other plans thrown into turmoil as officials tried to unravel how the problems had happened.

I wonder if the Education Research Alliance at Tulane University will revise its glowing report about dramatic improvements caused by market reforms, specifically its reference to increased graduation rates.

Perhaps an audit is needed to find out how many other charters falsified their data.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Fraud, Graduation rates, New Orleans, Privatization

Mercedes Schneider: All Student Records in NOLA Will Be Audited After Scandal

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2019 //
4

 

Mercedes Schneider reports a welcome development in New Orleans: in the wake of a grade-fixing scandal, all student records will be audited.

As she says, it is about time. After so much boasting from NOLA, it’s time to check the facts.

She writes:

This is a long time coming.

As a result of the grade-fixing scandal at a New Orleans charter high school– a scandal that resulted in 49 percent of the school’s Class of 2019 being found to lack credits and/or exit exam scores– Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB) superintendent, Henderson Lewis, vows a criminal investigation of that school, Kennedy High School (operated by New Beginnings Schools Foundation) as well as an audit of student records for students attending New Orleans high schools.

 

 

Categories Education Reform, Graduation rates, High School Graduation, Louisiana, New Orleans

Mercedes Schneider: 49% of NOLA Charter “Graduates” Lacked Credits to Graduate

By dianeravitch
June 23, 2019 //
6

Mercedes Schneider Reports the story of the New Orleans charter school that awarded diplomas to its seniors, but had to revoke 49% of them after a whistleblower pointed out that these students lacked the credits needed to graduate. 

She writes:

Just shy of half of the Class of 2019 at John F. Kennedy High School at Lake Area did not meet graduation requirements and are therefore not eligible to receive the diplomas that they may have expected to receive when they participated in a graduation ceremony on May 17, 2019. (I write “may have expected” because at the time of the ceremony, both students and the general public knew the school was under investigation for grade fixing.)

That’s 87 out of 177 graduates, or 49 percent (which, by the way, indicates a four-year graduation rate that is at best 51 percent.)

Scandals like this do not begin and end in a single year. And this scandal was not uncovered by state or district oversight. Like too many charter school scandals nationwide, revelation of what you will see described by the board president of the charter organization (New Beginnings Schools Foundation) as “malfeasance and negligence that had for years gone undetected” depended for its detection upon a whistleblower.

How sad for the students that no one warned them. Some will make up their credits in summer school. Others are so far behind that they will have to repeat the year.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Graduation rates, New Orleans

Gary Rubinstein: U.S. News Changes Ranking Formula for High Schools—Charters Tank

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2019 //
63

 

Gary Rubinstein reports that U.S. News & World Report altered the way it measures “the best high schools,” and charters suffered. Many got top rankings in the past despite their high attrition rates and demographics towards whites and Asians. The new formula is harder to game.

Gary knows that the annual exercise in ranking the best high schools is inherently fraudulent. What matters most can’t be measured, and what is considered “best” usually means having students from affluent families. What is “best” for some students is not necessarily best for others. The best high school may be the ones where students feel welcomed, inspired, learn to love learning, and are encouraged to do their best and care for others.

What do you think “the best high school” is?

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Graduation rates, Testing

Betsy DeVos Gave This Charter Chain $225 Million. It Doesn’t Pass the Smell Test

By dianeravitch
April 29, 2019 //
10

 

Betsy DeVos recently gave $116 million to the IDEA charter chain, mostly to expand in Texas. Previously, she had already given millions to IDEA, altogether this lucky business has received $225 million in federal funds.

In El Paso alone, IDEA will open 20 new charters. That’s bad news for the El Paso public schools, because IDEA is known for pushing out the kids it doesn’t want and sending them back to the public schools, which will have to slash their budgets to adjust to lost enrollment.

Veteran Texas educator Tim Holt says that this IDEA invasion doesn’t pass the smell test. Parents and taxpayers are being fooled. He wrote this before DeVos gave IDEA its latest plum, $116 million.

“In the next few years, IDEA plans to increase from one school today in El Paso to over 20, making them larger than either the Anthony, Canutillo, San Eli, Fabens, or Clint ISD’s in terms of number of campuses. (“IDEA’s big goal is to serve 100,000 students by 2022” in Tejas according to the IDEA website.

“That would make them larger than Ft. Worth or Austin ISDs, which each have about 88,000 students each.) Of course, local districts are concerned because they get funding based on the number of students attending. Less students means less money. Even if it is for a year or so, as parents find out IDEA is not such a good fit for their kids. Less funding means more crowded classes, elimination of popular programs (say adios to that Mariachi band your young Vicente Fernandez wanna-be is in)…

“Public charter schools like IDEA use a combination of taxpayer funds, grants, and large-scale private donations to operate. Like public schools, they are accountable to meeting standards, but unlike public schools, they are businesses, beholden to those with a financial vested interest in their success or failure.

“Did you get that? They use your taxes to fund their business. You are paying for them whether they last a year or a decade. They can, as a business, pick up and leave at any time, shuttering their doors with no notice as many charter schools have done across the nation. Nothing prevents this.

“And like any business that needs to grow to get money, they have to advertise. Check out the slick work of this ad agency on behalf of IDEA.

“Smelly.

“Public schools in Texas have locally elected officials, that are responsible for watching the checkbooks of the districts. Don’t like the way money is being spent? You can vote them out and replace them. Not so with Public Charter Schools like IDEA. The Board of Directors of IDEA schools are mostly made up of well-to-do east Texas business people.

Think your kid is represented at the table? Check out the IDEA Board. Look like people from El Chuco? Yeah, maybe a meeting of the El Chuco Millionaires Club, but other than that, no, they are not your type. Unless you think that Dallas and Houston millionaires are your type.

Stinky.

“IDEA schools have a model of teaching that looks something like this: Curriculum is canned, pre-scripted and designed in such a way that even non-teachers can conduct classes. It is designed solely to focus on the standardized tests, that all students must pass. It is homework-heavy even though study after study has found that a heavy homework load is probably overall detrimental to students learning. Failure on tests mean dismissal from the school.

“Sorry kid, we don’t take no dummies.

“Since it is a scripted curriculum, IDEA can hire non-teacher teachers, ones that do not have any kind of education experience or degree. Think about that: Anyone that can read a script can teach at IDEA. That is perfect for young, inexperienced Teach-for-America rookies, from where IDEA likes to recruit their teaching ranks. Less experience equals less expensive to pay.

“Less pay means the chances that the teacher can deal with “non traditional” or troubled students is low. Want something for your kid that is innovative? Don’t bother enrolling at IDEA. Success is measured by how many pages the teacher can plow through in a week on the way to the test.

“Smells bad…

”Now consider this: On top of the millions in Federal funds that the State has awarded to IDEA, if they achieve their goal of having 100,000 students, that means, that every year, $915,000,000 will NOT be going to Texas’ traditional public schools, your neighborhood school, but into the hands of for-profit businesses that have little to no local accountability.”

Well, it’s a terrific article. Read it all.

And don’t believe those pundits who say that Betsy DeVos is so hemmed in that she can’t do any harm. Her $225 million gift to IDEA will eventually cause Texas public schools to lose nearly $1 billion a year, every year.  Really good for the IDEA bank account.  Terrible for the millions of children in Texas public schools.

That really stinks.

 

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Funding, Graduation rates, Privatization, Texas

Education Week: Charter High Schools Have Lower Graduation Rates Than Public High Schools

By dianeravitch
March 7, 2019 //
52

 

 

Education Week conducted a survey of graduation rates and discovered that charter high schools have lower graduation rates than public high schools.

Of course, charter apologists had many explanations and excuses but they apparently forgot their original claim that they would be far, far better than public schools.

A story by Arianna Prothero and Alex Hardin begins:

”At nearly 1,000 U.S. high schools, the chance of students graduating on time is no better than the flip of a coin. And charter schools—which were born to create more options for students—make up an outsized share of the number of public schools persistently graduating less than half of their students.

“An analysis of federal data by the Education Week Research Center identified 935 public high schools with four-year graduation rates of less than 50 percent in 2016-17, the most recent year available. Of those, 54 percent are charter schools. That’s one-quarter of all U.S. charter high schools, and nearly 3 percent of all public high schools.

“These numbers aren’t just a one-time blip. Many charter schools have suffered from chronically low graduation rates of below 50 percent since 2010-11.

“And the number of charters with low graduation rates could be even larger than the Education Week analysis reveals. That’s because some charter schools were excluded from the federal data set due to student privacy concerns. For its analysis, the Education Week Research Center also removed all schools labeled as “alternative” in the federal data.

“The data undercuts the idea that charters are a better option,” said Robert Balfanz, a Johns Hopkins University researcher who is a national authority on graduation-rate patterns. “If kids go to a charter high school where the norm is not to graduate, it’s not delivering on the promise of creating better, more successful schools for kids in need.”

“But some charter advocates and experts argue that it’s unfair to compare how charter high schools stack up against their traditional school peers when it comes to graduation rates…

”Charter schools were created more than 25 years ago as an alternative to the traditional school district system. Since then, the charter sector has slowly grown to about 7,000 schools educating 3 million students in 43 states and the District of Columbia.

”Underpinning the entire charter movement is the idea that with flexibility to innovate and compete for students, charter schools will deliver a superior education—one that’s tailored to the individual needs of students and parents.

“But with nearly a quarter-million students enrolled in charter high schools with an on-time graduation rate below 50 percent, it calls into question whether the sector is delivering on its mission.”

Well, yes, it does raise that question.

The Edweek coverage was funded by the Walton Family Foundation, which has claimed credit for opening one of every four charters in the nation. The Waltons will not be happy with this story.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Graduation rates, High School Graduation, Privatization

New York: The Mysterious Decline of Graduation Rates, Five Years Afer Start of Common Core

By dianeravitch
January 18, 2019 //
27

An article in The Hechinger Report puzzles over the mysterious decline of graduation rates in New York, after five years of Common Core.


A student in a high school just outside of New York City. Jackie Mader/The Hechinger Report
Back in 2013, when New York was one of the first states in the nation to adopt Common Core standards and administer tougher tests, children’s test scores initially plummeted. Then, as teachers had time to develop lesson plans and adjust to new curricula, student performance began to improve. A similar pattern seemed to be emerging among the state’s high school students, who are required to pass a series of exams, called Regents, to earn a diploma. After an initial drop in pass rates among eighth and ninth graders on a Common Core algebra exam in 2014-15, scores improved.

But now, after five years of high schools teaching to the Common Core standards (now slightly revamped and called Next Generation Learning Standards in New York), there’s a sudden spike in the high-school failure rate. More than 13,000 more students failed the algebra Regents exam in the most recent 2017-18 school year compared to the previous year, pushing the failure rate up from 25 percent to 30 percent, according to a December 2018 report by education policy consultant David Rubel. In the English Language Arts or reading exam, the number of failing students grew by more than 12,000 students, increasing the failure rate from 16 percent to 21 percent.

“It’s odd that there would be a decline at this point,” said Morgan Polikoff, a professor at the University of Southern California’s school of education and an expert in assessments. “Most often the trend is that a new exam is implemented, there’s a ‘dip’ in performance. I don’t like calling it a dip because it’s a different test so it’s not really comparable. And then scores gradually increase over time.”

A puzzle indeed. It can’t possibly be anything wrong with Common Core or the Tests. It must be the kids. Too many ELLs.

Or there’s always this hope:

Low-achieving children who are exposed to Common Core instruction from the start in kindergarten may test better in high school in the years to come. Perhaps this problem will be a transitional one that will work itself through the system in the next five years.

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Reform, Graduation rates, New York, Testing

Nashville: Is It Fair to Make College Acceptance a Requirement for High School Graduation?

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2019 //
16

A number of charter chains have bragged that 100% of their students are accepted into four-year colleges and universities. What they don’t acknowledge is that they have set a requirement that students cannot graduate unless they have won acceptance into a four-year college or university.

The issue came up recently in Nashville.

Metro education officials are reminding one of the largest charter schools in Nashville it can’t make college acceptance a high school graduation requirement.

LEAD Public Schools brags all seniors in its first five graduating classes at LEAD Academy had been accepted into a four-year college. Part of that could be due to the fact that college acceptance was a requirement in its original charter application.

The office in Metro Schools that oversees charters is still consulting legal experts on whether mandating college acceptance is illegal.

What happens to the students who don’t get accepted into a four-year college? Do they stay in 12th grade for years, or do they drop out or return to the public schools?

There are other charter chains who set this as a requirement? Why? It enables them to brag about their success.

Are these graduation requirements serving the students or burnishing the reputation of the charter chain?

The same question came up recently when José Espinosa, superintendent of a school district in Texas, complained that a charter chain was misleading the public with its claims of a 100% college acceptance rate. He said this was misleading advertising. He wrote:

While 100 percent of charter seniors get accepted to college as required, the public has a right to know the percentage of charter students who didn’t make it to their senior year.

Ed Fuller, Pennsylvania State University professor, found in one of his studies of a particular charter network that when considering the number of students starting in the ninth grade as a cohort, the percentage of charter cohort students who graduated and went on to college was at best 65 percent.

In other words, 35 percent of ninth-graders at a charter network didn’t make it to their graduation….

A correspondent in Texas informed me that there are four charter chains with higher graduation requirements than the state:

BASIS
Great Hearts
Harmony
YES Prep

Setting rigorous standards and requiring acceptance into a four-year college weeds out the students who struggle and need extra help.

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Graduation rates, High School Graduation, Privatization
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