CURMUDGUCATION: The Graduation Rate

CURMUDGUCATION: The Graduation Rate:

The Graduation Rate

If you want a quick, clear look at the story behind the awesometastic grad rate miracle rate of 81%,this NPR piece from Anya Kanenetz is a good place to start (it's also pretty).

Kamanetz boils down the possible explanations to three:

1) Intervention
2) Making it easier
3) Cheating

The intervention option is clearly the best one. But it is also expensive and time-consuming. So it's no wonder that many districts resort to 2 and 3. We don't have them in these parts, but I keep hearing about recovery credits, which sound suspiciously like cheap extra credit/makeup work projects that allow schools to say a student passed a course. Beyond the official institutional ways to lower the bar, most teachers have also encountered the unofficial approach-- the one where a guidance counselor or a principal or a special ed department head calls you in to explain why you need to offer some extra credit or make-up work or just plain re-compute your final grades in order to achieve the desired result for Chris McSadstudent.

The article also notes that Texas has miraculous improvements in graduation rate, which we can just add to the list of Texas miracles that aren't (like miraculous economic growth or their earlier education miracles). But many states have figured out how to make students disappear before they can hurt the numbers.

I don't dispute the value of graduation rate as a measure of How Well We're Doing. Well, I don't dispute it as long as we change one simple thing.

Four years.

Why, exactly, is the four year part important?

I have taught so many students sooooooo many students who struggled and finally got a handle on things or broke through to understanding or just plain grew up enough that after a tough start in high school, they finally graduated-- proudly and honestly. But they did it in four years. So they don't count.

Here's Pat, who was a hellion in ninth grade and couldn't focus and was defiant and tried to Teach The School a Lesson by flunking everything on purpose. And then sometime around birthday #16, Pat just settled down and figured it out. But by then Pat was a year behind. Pat graduates in five years. 

Here's Chris, who was basically homeless until age fifteen. Chris spent two years in ninth grade because there was nobody at home to get Chris to school more than two days a week. But Chris's mom finally got a job and a car and a stable relationship, and Chris did great work in 10th, 11th and 12th grade, graduating in the middle of the class. But Chris did it in five years.

Here's Sam, who decided that cyber school sounded pretty cool. Sam left for cyberia three months into tenth grade, and the entire rest of the year was a wash, and Sam was soon back in public school, where a repeat of tenth grade was necessary to get back to speed. Sam, now convinced CURMUDGUCATION: The Graduation Rate:

PA: The Big Bucks

Can you guess who the highest-paid educator in Pennsylvania is?

It's Abington School Superintendent Amy Sichel, who on July 1 will see her salary rise to a healthy $319,714. 

Sichel may or may not be worth it. Okay, no-- nobody's worth that kind of money. But Sichel is also not the standard issue shiny bump-and-run superintendent that we see in so many districts. She has spent her entire career in the Abington School District (north of Philly), and she has held the superintendent job for fifteen years (which is roughly 143 in superintendent years).

A profile from 2012, when Sichel was tapped to lead the AASA (the school superintendents association), included praise from the teachers' union and from the school board:

“Amy is a tough cookie and a strong personality. When she comes into the room, you know she’s there,” Debra Lee, president of the Abington Education Association, says. “She’s a no-nonsense person. She expects the most of everyone, but she also gives us the most. She is a wonderful leader, someone you want to follow.”

“She doesn’t beat around the bush with good news or bad news,” [Board President Raymond] McGarry adds. “She has no hidden agendas. She tells you what she expects in terms of behavior and achievement. I appreciate that. There is nothing worse than a leader with unclear goals.”

She has made some gutsy choices, like eliminating all but college-bound tracks. But I give her points for making her changes and then sticking around to see them through. This puts her in a different 

PA: The Big Bucks