April 2, 2008--Education Malpractice
Who’s a bigger misspeaker: a politician who makes up a story about her experiences in Bosnia or the year his father got a scholarship during the time of the Kennedy administration or a chief education officer who lies about his state’s high school graduation rates? And, in the scheme of things, which fabrication is of greatest consequence?
This is an easy one. In fact all 50 of our states’ highest education officials routinely make up the numbers when they are asked to report about how their public high school students are faring. For one obvious reason—dropout rates in every state are distressingly high and in the aggregate represent both a national disgrace and a danger to our competitive future. Further, this shameful failure of our schools is unnecessary since there are clear things high schools can do to make them much more effective.
All 50 states are allowed to determine how to keep score about their students’ progress, or lack thereof. None do it the right way—begin by setting up a numerical fraction and in the denominator write down the number of students who begin 9th grade in any given year and in the numerator place the number of those who graduate four or even five years later. Then turn this fraction into a percentage and you have your data about graduation and dropout rates. Simple.
But what do most states do? Take New Mexico as a typical example. So-called educators there know that if they did it the right way the numbers would be condemning. Thus they calculate high school graduation rates by counting how many students who enter the senior year graduate at the end of that year.
This of course leaves out all who dropped out before reaching the last year of high school. Most in fact drop out along the way and do not wait until they are seniors and thus are excluded from our denominator. As a result, New Mexico appears to have one of the highest graduation rates in the country. With an emphasis on the appears part.
Or it may be North Carolina that has the “best” numbers. Using similar shenanigans, until last year they reported a graduation rate of 95 percent. When they employed a more honest formula last year the percentage plummeted to only 68. I suspect it’s even lower than that. Perhaps competing for the bottom with Detroit which, when being reasonably honest, has a high school graduation rate of about 25 percent. Yes, 25 percent.
This education shell game is surfacing again because our Secretary of Education, after ignoring this fraud for four years is finally about to “require” all the states to report these critical rates in the same way. We do not know yet what she will require but it is likely to be in a version of the right way. (See NY Times article linked below.)
But before we get too excited that things are about to change, let’s wait to see how this goes. My own prediction is that a forceful coalition of state and local education officials, with the national teachers unions chiming in, will stall this until the Bush administration leaves office and hope for a better shake in 2009 with the next president who is likely to be more easily manipulated by the education establishment.
Why is this happening? Because none of our educators want to be held accountable for the results of their work. What if doctors could get away with the same thing—if we couldn’t sue them for malpractice? There would be as much medical carnage as we now have educational malfeasance.
I am intentionally using strong and angry language here because none of this is either necessary or inevitable. There are many examples of approaches that work at the public high school level that are replicable and capable of being brought to scale. Educators know about them but resist implementing other people’s ideas—they want to create their own models and then, untested or validated, implement them in their schools.
As one education leader in Atlanta confessed to me a few years ago when as an official of the Ford Foundation I told him about an tested and effective approach to reforming high schools and reducing dropout rates that we would be willing to fund, after hesitating before responding to my offer of lots of money and technical assistance said that if he “copied” that model and it succeeded he wouldn’t get the credit for it. The reform model would!
When I asked him about the students who were in his charge and dropping out in shameful numbers, he turned his back on me and walked away to refill his cup of coffee.
This is an easy one. In fact all 50 of our states’ highest education officials routinely make up the numbers when they are asked to report about how their public high school students are faring. For one obvious reason—dropout rates in every state are distressingly high and in the aggregate represent both a national disgrace and a danger to our competitive future. Further, this shameful failure of our schools is unnecessary since there are clear things high schools can do to make them much more effective.
All 50 states are allowed to determine how to keep score about their students’ progress, or lack thereof. None do it the right way—begin by setting up a numerical fraction and in the denominator write down the number of students who begin 9th grade in any given year and in the numerator place the number of those who graduate four or even five years later. Then turn this fraction into a percentage and you have your data about graduation and dropout rates. Simple.
But what do most states do? Take New Mexico as a typical example. So-called educators there know that if they did it the right way the numbers would be condemning. Thus they calculate high school graduation rates by counting how many students who enter the senior year graduate at the end of that year.
This of course leaves out all who dropped out before reaching the last year of high school. Most in fact drop out along the way and do not wait until they are seniors and thus are excluded from our denominator. As a result, New Mexico appears to have one of the highest graduation rates in the country. With an emphasis on the appears part.
Or it may be North Carolina that has the “best” numbers. Using similar shenanigans, until last year they reported a graduation rate of 95 percent. When they employed a more honest formula last year the percentage plummeted to only 68. I suspect it’s even lower than that. Perhaps competing for the bottom with Detroit which, when being reasonably honest, has a high school graduation rate of about 25 percent. Yes, 25 percent.
This education shell game is surfacing again because our Secretary of Education, after ignoring this fraud for four years is finally about to “require” all the states to report these critical rates in the same way. We do not know yet what she will require but it is likely to be in a version of the right way. (See NY Times article linked below.)
But before we get too excited that things are about to change, let’s wait to see how this goes. My own prediction is that a forceful coalition of state and local education officials, with the national teachers unions chiming in, will stall this until the Bush administration leaves office and hope for a better shake in 2009 with the next president who is likely to be more easily manipulated by the education establishment.
Why is this happening? Because none of our educators want to be held accountable for the results of their work. What if doctors could get away with the same thing—if we couldn’t sue them for malpractice? There would be as much medical carnage as we now have educational malfeasance.
I am intentionally using strong and angry language here because none of this is either necessary or inevitable. There are many examples of approaches that work at the public high school level that are replicable and capable of being brought to scale. Educators know about them but resist implementing other people’s ideas—they want to create their own models and then, untested or validated, implement them in their schools.
As one education leader in Atlanta confessed to me a few years ago when as an official of the Ford Foundation I told him about an tested and effective approach to reforming high schools and reducing dropout rates that we would be willing to fund, after hesitating before responding to my offer of lots of money and technical assistance said that if he “copied” that model and it succeeded he wouldn’t get the credit for it. The reform model would!
When I asked him about the students who were in his charge and dropping out in shameful numbers, he turned his back on me and walked away to refill his cup of coffee.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
2:17 PM
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