Claudio Sanchez in his NPR series on dropouts explains that some Baltimore schools "fudge" the numbers and "take attendance at 10 a.m. rather than 8 a.m. because they know if kids show up at all, they come in late and would be counted absent." Having seen those tricks to make data look less dire, I suspected that Sanchez would soon be telling worse stories. (In another report, Sanchez explained that Baltimore also has a
