Graduation rates are to be considered more of a factor in the new NCLB school assessment. Here are the flaws.
1. Schools currently make every effort to take in students who are likely to graduate and push away students who need us the most and they are rewarded for this by great assessments. I have seen that in action.
2. Once students are in the school, the easiest way to bring up graduation rates is to dummy down the letter grades. Remember, a student only needs a D- in every subject to graduate, and what have they learned? Grades are not consistant and are definitaley not valid. Students can get any grade their teachers and / or administrators want. A good example was when I was an assisstan principal at a Milwaukee High School, we would watch athletes grades from other schools move up right before the mandatory date to determine eligibility.
What if students moved up based on proficiencies demonstrated rather than letter grades? And what if they were assessed based on those demonstrated learnings rather than a bubble test? And what if individual student gain was the indicator of asuccessful school?
3. Here is a true story. In my middle school I had a special needs student we will call Toni. Toni went into high school and attended for 3 years. I maintained contact with her sister who raised her and discovered she had stopped attending school her 4th year. I went to the graduation ceremony that year to watch my other former students graduate. And low and behold, walking across the stage, diploma in hand, was Toni. To give a child a diploma when the child didn't even attend the last year of school is a practice that is not unique. It accomplishes two things. It increases the graduation rate and it gets the special needs student off the records of that high school.
What is the solution?
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