It's Not Just The States

On the editorial page of the NY Times today was an article that described the fact that states are "cooking the books" to understate dropout figures in their public schools. Dropout figures are supposed to be part of the NCLB data that is provided by states to the federal government. All schools keep records of this kind, and then report them to the state, and the state then aggregates the data and reports to the federal government.

The NCLB statutes put a tremendous amount of pressure on states and local school districts to report increasingly positive numbers of all kinds from their schools. Given the inherent impossibilities of NCLB, is it any wonder that the data reported would be inaccurate? When states base local school district funding on per pupil headcounts, is it surprising that districts will do almost anything to try to maintain a semblance of high educational achievement so students will remain enrolled, or be drawn to their school system?

A real issue for anyone that is interested in school performance across districts within a state is comparative test scores. The MEAP test in Michigan is a prime example. Some districts have all 11th graders, regardless of readiness or educational background, take the test. Other districts have SOME 11th grade students take the test, and even covertly recommend to some parents that their children don't have to take the test! When the passing/failing letter grades for each school district are reported, the data is almost never discussed in the media, just a letter grade is reported. When that is the case, parents, community members, and others interested in school quality have less than a thumbnail sketch of what the actual testing results were for a given district, and almost no idea of the educational quality of the schools. A school that tests 20% of its 11th graders is compared equally to a school that tests 95%+ of its students. There is also usually almost no media discussion of the individual sub-population scores that highly influence the letter grade a district receives.

In short, education consumers are much better off going over to their local school and observing, or taking part in some activities to figure out how things really are at that school. It is unlikely that the average person will ever get an accurate interpretation of the hard data that schools report, or an effective instrument to evaluate one school's quality against another's.

Graduation '05

gradhaml05,
originally uploaded by jwoods11.

What a great day. It was a little hot, and I was concerned that I might melt in my nice, warm blazer, but I survived to see many great students reach the finish line of the Holland Public Schools.

There were so many fantastic students moving on to the next stage in their lives, and leaving HHS after a successful career as students. Congratulations to all of the new graduates! Your hard work and dedication will be rewarded in your future endeavors.

As you can tell from the photo, graduation day is a time for students to now step in and begin supporting the teachers, who are sometimes overcome by the heat, excitement, and emotion of the day.