Still, Congress did not make dropouts a central focus of the law. And when states negotiated their plans to carry it out, the Bush administration allowed them to use dozens of different ways to report graduation rates.
As an example, New Mexico defined its rate as the percentage of enrolled 12th graders who received a diploma. That method grossly undercounts dropouts by ignoring all students who leave before the 12th grade.
The law also allowed states to establish their own goals for improving graduation rates. . . . Daniel J. Losen, who has studied dropout reporting for the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, said he once pointed out to a state official that, at that pace, it would take California 500 years to meet its graduation goal.
“In California, we’re patient,” Mr. Losen recalled the official saying.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Funny Line
From an article about high school graduation rates in America:
I was a dropout according to the statistics. Because I left at the end of my junior year with no record of where I went since I left the country.
ReplyDeleteMy principal worked so hard to try to get me to graduate that year and I didn't realize until later why. All because of how they figure drop out rates. It didn't matter than I didn't really drop out.
Dana
Principled Discovery