Tinkering with the high school graduation rate
After getting kicked out of high school, Shawn Williams (l.) and Raynard Gillespie got a second chance at Camelot, a new alternative school. The two friends plan to attend college together and support each other.
When Chad Adams took over the helm of Sullivan High School last year, he found that records were in disarray and students who were desperately behind in credits lingered on the rolls.
Adams put together a list of over-age, under-credited students, pulled them into his office, and laid out their options: They could come to a full day of school, plus go to night school three days a week and to Saturday school to make up credits.
Or they could enroll in one of the new alternative schools opened by private, for-profit operator Pathways. Pathways only requires students to go to school for half a day and once students are used to the workbooks and online courses that are the staples of the curriculum, attendance is only required twice a week.
If the students went to Pathways, Adams monitored their progress. “The way that I perceive it, and the reason that it’s so important for me to know how they’re doing at that school, is I know they’re getting closer to graduation and that affects my graduation rate,” he says. “[But if] they stay here, they dig in a hole, get themselves in more trouble and then drop out."
Pathways is one of four companies that have opened up 15 new schools in Chicago in recent years amid a rapid expansion of alternative schools that will cost the district $50 million this year. The new crop of schools offer students a way to quickly earn credits—appealing to students who are far behind but raising questions about the quality of education they receive. Part 1 of a three-part series from a joint Catalyst Chicago/WBEZ investigation examined these questions of quality.
The schools, newly dubbed “options schools” by the district, are likely to play a major role as CPS aims to raise the graduation rate to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s stated goal of 85 percent.
CPS, unlike the state, includes students who complete an alternative school in its graduation rate. The alternative schools have played a part in recent improvements: Since 2011, the number of alternative school graduates rose by about 25 percent and the total number of graduates rose 10 percent. About 4 percent of the total graduates in 2014 were from alternative schools.
Yet it is debatable whether alternative school graduates should be included in the formula. Meanwhile, some educators worry that the new options schools create too much incentive toTinkering with the high school graduation rate | Catalyst Chicago:
