| « New AFT PA Ad Buy: Spending On Hillary Reaches $2 Million | Teach For America Shows Promise In North Carolina » |
Graduation Rates: Are The Gloves Off?
04/01/08
07:33:20 am, Categories: Announcements [A] Margaret Spellings will announce today that she will begin taking steps toward setting a uniform standard for measuring high school graduation and dropout rates under the No Child Left Behind Act. With NCLB reauthorization effectively dead until 2009, this potentially will be the biggest - i.e., most interesting and contentious - federal education policy debate of the year. As the feds struggle with what to do, all of the issues in accountability, education policy, and educational equity will come into sharp relief. The problem with graduation rates is well documented. The best work in this area has come, arguably, from Jay Greene and his colleagues at the Manhattan Institute. The short of it is that states and school districts use a variety of statistical and methodological tricks to make things look better than they are. A basic rule of thumb: states are able to make their graduation rates look 10-20 percentage points higher than they actually are through statistical sleights of hand. In recent years, states have blamed the problem on NCLB’s vague standards for measuring graduation rates, just as they have blamed NCLB for virtually every educational challenge they face. But the graduation rate challenge, also like these other issues, precedes NCLB. And, while states say they want a fix - in fact, pledged to fix it themselves, via the NGA, three years ago - they haven’t done so. Failing to graduate is a social and occupational death sentence for young adults in U.S. society. And in failing to take decisive action on this issue, states and school districts effectively have sent a message to the federal government: "stop us before we kill again." The most important "take home" is that this will not be settled with Spellings’ announcement. This is the beginning, not the end, of resolving the problem. The key sentence from Sam Dillon’s piece today is this: "Senior Education Department officials said Ms. Spellings would publish the proposed graduation formula requirement in the Federal Register, opening a period of public comment that often lasts several months, before issuing the final regulation later this year." This means that the issue will be debated largely out of the public eye. Which is why the Department is unlikely to achieve an unqualified success. But there are some ways they can increase their odds. Defenders and enablers of the status quo have a much weaker arsenal with which to wage battle on graduation rates. They can’t demagogue about test factories, fill in the bubble, drill and kill, curriculum narrowing, etc. as they do on most accountability fights. (But look for them to get very creative). And the states are on record as saying they want the problem corrected, as is a bipartisan group of Congressmen.
Trackback address for this post
Trackback URL (right click and copy shortcut/link location)
5 comments
Greene's and Swanson's measures each have some problems; my preferred one is Rob Warren's, though his method is only usable at the state level.
So if you are against enabling and demoguaging about the staus quo, we could make a quick deal. Replace the current accountability system and the types of accountability that are being considered for NCLB II with the disinfectant of sunshine for both dropout prevention and increasing student performance.
The excellent Slate article makes essentially the same proposal. Use AYP for rankings as opposed to punitive measures. I've always advocated something that's almost the same, but his approach is better. When I say use testing for diagnostic purposes, I sound too much like a teacher, but putting that same approach in a ranking type format would sound tougher.
If you don't want some sort of compromise, then we progressivives can continue to fight each other, but I'd like different terms. Since NCLB accountability is the status quo, you should take the title of enabler and let us assume the role of demaguages.
I cautiously supported NCLB in the spirit of compromise after reading Al Shanker for years. I knew that even the bluff that was NCLB accountability would be destructive, but I had no idea of how bad it would be.
So why not learn the lesson of NCLB and give up the few little sanctions in return to real comprehensive accountability?
My assumption is that we need to face the hard truth that the graduation rate is dropping while we blog. Given the economic decline of the last few weeks, we should assume that students will be damaged by the economic decline and that more will fail to graduate. IN MY EXPERIENCE, all forms of educational dysfunction increase dramatically while the economists are trying to nail down whether we're in a recession. So if I were promoting NCLB, I'd anticipate two more years of stagnant student performance. Add that onto the very very bad year suffered by NCLB supporters, and I'd be looking for a way out of this mess.
Why not gamble on decision-making that uses honest data?
What "sanctions" do you want the feds to give up?
What would "real accountability" be according to you?
This post has 527 feedbacks awaiting moderation...
Comment feed for this postLeave a comment
