Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

“We Just Take What They Give Us”

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by

James A. Bacon
in

It won’t be easy upgrading Virginia’s educational system if we don’t know what needs upgrading. Everyone agrees, for instance, that the high school drop-out rate is too high. But ask them, “how high,” and they can’t give you a meaningful answer.

The reason is that public school systems use different formulas to calculate the number. Comparing graduation rates is like comparing apples and oranges, explains Cathy Grimes with the Daily Press, reporting on a meeting of the state board of education.

Virginia requires local school districts to report their graduation rates to the state, but districts need not use the same formula to figure out who earned a diploma and who did not. “We just take what they give us,” said Julie Grimes, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education.

Critics have argued that the lack of a uniform system means districts can inflate their graduation rates, making their high schools look better. Or they can mask or miscount dropouts and transfer students.

It would be really nice if the educational establishment could get the basic facts straightened out before barraging the taxpayers with requests for more money.

Update: Apparently, this discussion results from HB19, sponsored by Del. William H. Fralin Jr., R-Roanoke, and passed by the General Assembly this spring, that “directs the Board of Education to collect, analyze, and report high school graduation and drop out data using a formula prescribed by the Board.”

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4 responses to ““We Just Take What They Give Us””

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Well, this would not be a surprise if you paid a little more attention to what is going on nationally…especially since this cause was led and championed by Warner when he was governer.Check out the Data Quality Campaign. In 2005, Warner, the DQC, the NGA, and others got all governors to sign a commitment to develop and use a true graduation rate by 2009. By true graduation rate, I mean very similar to what we use in higher education where actual students are tracked.

    This work is underway and has been. However, this is one of the most significant problems in K12 – the lack of good quality data. The folks in VDOE are dinosaurs, but Billy Cannaday is already cleaning some of that up.

  2. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    Once again, there are no believable metrics.

  3. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    Another metric I’d like to see is the number of high school graduates by school district taking remedial courses in Virginia’s colleges and universities. I suspect that it’s much higher than any of us would expect or like to see.

  4. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Using different “metrics” was school systems favorite tactic before NCLB (No Child left behind) came along which imposed a STANDARD on all of them.

    No only do they have to keep track of grades but also graduation rates AND they have to keep track of whites, blacks, hispanics, economically disadvantaged and handicapped.

    I believe the graduation rate metric kicks in this year or next…

    The data, by the way, already exists.

    Standards and Poors has an excellent website called http://www.schoolmatters.com/

    and if folks go there.. you’ll see right off the bat that graduation rates for blacks and other minorities is substantially lower.. in a lot of school districts.

    Virginia’s SOLs – don’t tell this story. All they show is the AVERAGE passing grades for ALL students.

    NCLB makes them disaggregate them..

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