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idonojacs
Joined: 07 Jun 2007
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 Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:43 am Post subject: No Child Left Behind -- except dropouts |
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Killer article on skyrocketing dropout rates in the U.S., and how states keep double books on the statistics:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/education/20graduation.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
No Child Left Behind actually creates an incentive for schools to encourage kids to drop out, to increase the school's test scores -- and meet NCLB's stiff requirements.
Seems no one thought of this in the Bush Administration when they created this plan.
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The No Child law is also at fault. The law set ambitious goals, enforced through sanctions, to make every student proficient in math and reading. But it established no national school completion goals.
“I liken N.C.L.B. to a mile race,” said Bob Wise, a former West Virginia governor who is president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, a group that seeks to improve schools. “Under N.C.L.B., students are tested rigorously every tenth of a mile. But nobody keeps track as to whether they cross the finish line.” |
When are they going to just slit the throat of this turkey?
One way schools get around reporting a kid as a dropout is listing them as having transferred to another school or state. But more importantly, unless the school system tracks a kid from start to finish, they simply cannot calculate accurate dropout rates. Often, all they know is how many kids leave a school each year, and maybe where they go.
Think about it: Theoretically, the dropout rate essentially equals the number of kids who enter first grade minus number of kids who don't graduate high school. Not so easy to figure these days with so many families moving around, etc.
You would think if there is ONE statistic the people running the schools would need to know to judge the effectiveness of their programs, it would be the dropout rate.
But they don't want to know it.
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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. Many set them low. Nevada, for instance, pledged to get just 50 percent of its students to graduate on time. And since the law required no annual measures of progress, California proposed that even a one-tenth of 1 percent annual improvement in its graduation rate should suffice.
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.
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RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 12:59 am Post subject: |
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| I guess nobody in the Bush administration ever watched Pump Up the Volume. |
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yawarakaijin
Joined: 08 Aug 2006
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 2:02 am Post subject: |
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It's kind of hard to imagine but starting the fiasco in Iraq is the only chance in hell this president had of ever remaining popular. If you were to judge this administration merely on his domestic achievements.....well.  |
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justagirl
Joined: 17 Jan 2003
Location: Cheonan/Portland
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 5:02 pm Post subject: |
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I teach at a public school in the States, so I'd like to clarify this a bit:
Part of NCLB requirements is a certain percentage of the students in your district have to graduate from high school. Therefore, the idea of kids dropping out to raise scores really isn't much of an issue. If the graduation rate is below a certain percentage, your district won't meet NCLB standards anyway.
Also, every grade level that tests has to have 97% or more of their students test in order to meet NCLB standards. So again, attendance is one of the standards that has to be met for NCLB.
If you have any sub-group in your district, they also have to meet the same requirements as the main groups. For instance, if you have 40 ELL students, they have to meet the same scoring percentages as your "white, English-speaking" students. Same for special education, boys, girls, etc. There are a lot of different subgroups counted in the totals in order to be in compliance with the government.
This is the most ridiculous part of NCLB, if you ask me. If we have a certain number of special ed students, they have to score at the same levels as non special ed students.
Hope this helps a bit. |
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Khenan
Joined: 25 Dec 2007
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 9:58 pm Post subject: Re: No Child Left Behind -- except dropouts |
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| idonojacs wrote: |
You would think if there is ONE statistic the people running the schools would need to know to judge the effectiveness of their programs, it would be the dropout rate.
But they don't want to know it.
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Actually, most principals in the States are very well aware of what their dropout rate is. They just don't go around reporting it to the Feds. |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Thu Mar 20, 2008 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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counting good things have such nicer results if bad things aren't counted.
so...
drop outs aren't counted in graduation rates.
people without jobs aren't counted in unemployment figures.
see, accounting is fun. |
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idonojacs
Joined: 07 Jun 2007
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 6:21 am Post subject: |
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April 1, 2008
U.S. to Require States to Use a Single School Dropout Formula
By SAM DILLON
Moving to sweep away the tangle of inaccurate state data that has obscured the severity of the nation�s high school dropout crisis, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings will require all states to use one federal formula to calculate graduation and dropout rates, Bush administration officials said on Monday.
The requirement would be one of the most far-reaching regulatory actions taken by any education secretary, experts said, because it would affect the official statistics issued by all 50 states and each of the nation�s 14,000 public high schools.
Ms. Spellings will announce her action at a so-called dropout prevention summit in Washington on Tuesday, the officials said. The summit is organized by a group beginning a national campaign intended to reduce dropout rates.
�In the coming weeks, I will take administrative steps to ensure that all states use the same formula to calculate how many students graduate from high school on time � and how many drop out,� Ms. Spellings said in remarks prepared for delivery on Tuesday and made available to The New York Times.
Ms. Spellings�s statements underline the rising urgency among policymakers and corporate leaders to address the nation�s dropout epidemic, as well as the administration�s growing sense that efforts in Congress to rewrite the law this year may not succeed.
The adoption of a federal graduation formula would correct one of the most glaring weaknesses of the federal No Child Left Behind law. Although the law requires states and high schools to report their graduation rates to the federal government, it allows states to set their own formulas for calculating them. As a result, most states have used formulas that understate the number of dropouts, and official graduation rates are not comparable from state to state. The No Child law establishes no national school completion goal.
Michael Cohen, who was an assistant secretary of education under President Clinton, said the proposed measure would be considerably m....
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More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/education/01child.html |
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mistermasan
Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Location: 10+ yrs on Dave's ESL cafe
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| Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 3:43 pm Post subject: |
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| but, if there are no drop outs who'll carry the guns? |
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