To hear the magazine Education Week tell it, South Carolina’s on-time graduation rate has magically jumped by double-digits, catapulting our state from the bottom of the national rankings to a comparatively respectable 37th out of 50 states.
Or did it?
The ranking came out of nowhere, is at odds with previous data released by this same publication, and was greeted with an uncharacteristically muted response from State Superintendent of Education Jim Rex, which leads us to believe that something other than the graduation rate is “up.”
“Improved numbers are always positive, but we can’t be satisfied with where we are because our current graduation rate is still far too low,” Rex said yesterday in a statement.
Wait … that’s his statement? This guy is a PR genius who never misses an opportunity to
Like we said, something is “up.”
Indeed, in 2007 this same publication ranked South Carolina’s graduation rate of 53.8% as the worst in the nation, while last year’s rate of 55.6% was also the nation’s worst.
So how in the world did South Carolina register a 66.3% rate for 2006?
We have no idea – nor do we know what the graduation rate is for minorities because the State Department of Education has never provided that data.
We do know that such a huge jump in graduation rates would be at odds with recently-released ACT data, which rose by a meager two-tenths of a point (for white students) last year, as well as SAT scores, which fell last year for public schools.
The data also doesn’t seem consistent with our state’s growing achievement gap and expanding failure collaborative.
Even if you accept this data, though, we’re still talking about over 21,000 South Carolina students who failed to graduate.
“21,873 students in the class of ’09 failed to graduate this year,” said Randy Page, President of South Carolinians for Responsible Government. “That’s tragic and calling it ‘acceptable’ or an ‘improvement’ is an insult to parents.”
Stay tuned as we dig around on this story …
By baker June 9, 2009 at 1:57 pm
If I understand the issue correctly, graduation rates have been notoriously difficult to pin down. There are various ways of measuring it, and I’m not sure that any is without problems. It can involve finishing “on time,” or with one’s class from entering ninth grade. It can account for students who may take a fifth year to finish, or for those who have moved on to adult education.
In any case, it’s very much a problem in South Carolina, and an issue that is going to take some innovative approaches.
Obviously, the problem starts very early for many kids: they fall behind in reading in the early grades and don’t catch up. We need to look at rigorous reading curricula — at least at various grade-level intervals — for students who are significantly behind. Certain interventions, of course, do take place, but I would guess they clearly aren’t enough. I would argue in favor of even taking students out of the regular scene for a year to focus on nothing but reading until skills are significantly improved.
For kids who make to high school and are still academically at-risk and somewhat “lost”, we do need additional choices: more and better vocational courses, “alternative” schools and school hours for kids who just can’t or won’t deal well with the traditional school setting.
By James the Foot Soldier June 9, 2009 at 5:25 pm
“notoriuously difficult to pin down”???
WTF
Did the dufus get a fukin diploma after 4 years or not??
How fukin’ hard is that?
For math-challenged educrats trying to spin shitty news into a turd sandwich it is harder than chinese ‘rithmatic – just ask those morons at Lex-Rich $5 how their enrollment projections went from “skyrocketing” to “plummeting” in just a few weeks time.
By baker June 10, 2009 at 9:08 am
James, James. Please be nice. Four-year graduation rates are ONE measure, and a perfectly fine one. But if a kid does happen to finish in five, or even six, years — probably not all that uncommon among some segments of the population — should that child be counted as a DROPOUT?
By Dewey June 10, 2009 at 12:08 pm
A factor that affects the different calculations in drop-out rates is related to when you begin counting students that drop-out. The state uses 8th graders but I believe you should use 9th graders because historically there has been a larger number of 9th graders in public schools than 8th graders. It seems that this happens because a significant number of students who are in private schools or home-schooled go to public high school.
Let’s look at the 12th grade class in 2006-07 (data from http://ed.sc.gov/agency/Accountability/Data-Management-and-Analysis/old/research/DailyMembership.html) The state’s “Average Daily Membership” for that 12th grade class was 41,605. When this class was in the 8th grade (02-03) there were 54,935 students; however, the next year (03-04) there were 68,225 9th graders. So if you base the drop-out rate on the total number of students in the 8th grade, the drop out rate would be 24% (13,300 students lost divided by 54,935 students); but if you base it on the 9th grade class the drop-out rate would be 39% (26,620 students lost divided by 68,225). These rates are probably underestimated because probably there were less than 41,605 students who graduated and the number of students moving into the state was probably less than the number moving out-of-state.
Sorry this post is so long but I hope it sheds some light on how the SC Dept of Education calculations are deceitful.