Teachers Unions - Outdated?

Graduation rates

In drafting NCLB, Congress recognized that holding schools accountable for their test scores could create perverse incentives to “push out” low-performing students; that is, the easiest way to increase test scores and meet progress goals could be to encourage or force low-performing students out of the school before they take the test. To ensure that AYP “shall not be met or exceeded based solely on increased dropouts,” 4 as noted in the Congressional Committee Report accompanying the law, the legislation was intended to require high schools to also meet state-set graduation goals to make AYP.

Unfortunately, there are significant flaws in the calculation, reporting, and role of graduation rates as implemented by the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) and the states. These flaws undermine the intention of the law, render graduation rate accountability virtually nonexistent, and dilute the usefulness of AYP as a tool for identifying low-performing schools.†

The first result: graduation rate calculations that fail to account for large numbers of students who left school without a regular diploma. As with the definition of proficiency, high school accountability is weakened by inconsistent and unsatisfactory state-determined definitions of graduation rates. On the surface, NCLB’s definition and requirements related to graduation rates seem rigorous enough to produce meaningful and comparable rates that would be useful to parents, educators, the public, and policymakers. Unfortunately, states proposed and the Department approved a range of methods—there are at least five different types of graduation rate calculations in use by states across the country—some of which are quite misleading. More than five years after the law was enacted, states are still using a variety of flawed methods and, in some cases, different methods for different subgroups of students, depending on the availability of data in that state. State-reported graduation rates differ from those rates reported by respected independent sources by an average of 11 percentage points and as high as 30 percentage points.5 Not only does this obscure the graduation rate crisis, particularly for low-income and minority students, but it also makes it impossible to compare graduation rates across schools, districts, and states. These misleading graduation rates also undermine the AYP system, by discounting its ability to accurately identify low-performing high schools.

Second, NCLB does not set an ultimate graduation rate goal; therefore, states are not required to set—and schools are not required to meet—meaningful progress benchmarks (annual measurable objectives) toward that graduation rate goal. While a few states have elected to set meaningful ultimate graduate rate goals, most have not. Only New Mexico, Ohio, and Tennessee have set graduation rate goals of 100 percent by 2013–14.6 Interestingly, thirty-three states set the same graduation goal for the impending year and for 2013–14. As a result, in many states, schools do not have to increase their graduation rates to make AYP. Only a handful of states have set graduation rates benchmarks that increase over time, but most actually allow schools and districts not achieving those targets to still make AYP if they meet a far less meaningful minimum requirement. (In most states, that minimum requirement is just 0.1 percent, or less.7)

Third, only aggregate (not subgroup) graduation rates are used in the determination of AYP—so graduation gaps and the low graduation rates of poor and minority students, students with limited English proficiency, and students with disabilities are not factored into AYP determinations. While NCLB requires states to report disaggregated graduation rates, most states received waivers on this requirement because they did not have the capacity to collect the data. In a controversial decision, the Department decided that graduation rates did not have to be disaggregated by minority subgroups for accountability purposes, except for the “safe harbor” provision (an alternative formula for meeting AYP for low-performing schools). This means that high schools can make AYP despite a consistent, or even a growing, graduation gap. As the well respected Civil Rights Project has noted, “In essence, by approving these permissive plans while holding firm on test-driven accountability, the Department has effectively allowed the incentives to push out low-achieving minority students to continue unchecked.”

I understand that due to generations of substandard educational options for certain racial segments, there remains a cultural bias in tests - but what would be a better way to make sure that all students of all races are ushered out in the world on a equal footing?

I agree with your analysis, Squinney. However, I interpret that as an indictment of the public school system itself. Instead of working to address the problem at hand - how to improve the academic performance of the poor & disadvantaged (often black) children for whom they are responsible, they shuffle kids from class to class and school to school in an effort to improve their statistics. - and thereby harm everyone.

I don't think using your short term knowledge to pass a multiple choice test to be "demonstrating competence".

I was reading the thread on disruptive children in the classroom, and have been participating in the NCLB thread under politics -and in an incredibly sad twist - just received word today that one of my seventeen year old students had been shot in the head and killed in Durham, NC on Thursday night.
I hadn't seen him in a year, because he had dropped out of school and I am in England at the moment. My reaction is beyond simple sadness. And despite the fact that all signs pointed to this as the likely outcome of his life - I'm so angry that I can't even cry.
My first big tussle with the administration at my school was over this boy. He was young for his grade, had never been retained, though he could barely read and write, and was up for re-eval.
I idealistically agreed that it should be done because I thought we were sincerely looking for fresh information that could help us make decisions about how best to help him.
His IQ and achievement tests came back without the fifteen point discrepancy that would qualify him as LD and eligible for services. Although his IQ was low enough (70) for a supportive program, his adaptive behavior scale was too high to allow him to qualify.
All services were withdrawn - he just didn't qualify I was told. I later recognized this as a pattern - when our special services administrator realized that we would be held accountable under NCLB for the performance of every single SS student, she decided that the effect of their failing score would be more easily diluted in the regular education population of 1500 than in the SS population of 150.
She began, rather ruthlessly, weeding out those who were least likely to pass, who were unfortunately, exactly those students who most needed the services.
This happened to Kashawn in ninth grade at the beginning of highschool when he was facing subjects like biology and algebra with fourth grade reading and math skill levels.
He hung in there for a year, I saw him at lunch and after school to try to help him on the side, but he eventually dropped out, got involved with a gang, and was shot point blank in the head and killed on Thursday night.
I know that people who read of him in the newspaper will think "Ahh, just another stupid, violent kid making the wrong choices, getting what he had coming to him. "
But I want people to know they would be wrong. I knew him to be a sweet, sad, confused boy who wanted to be able to read and write like everyone else and wished his life could be different. The last essay he wrote for me was about his brand new infant nephew. He wrote of being a good example for this child.
To me he was "Peanut" with an incredible smile, wit and charm and someone who didn't qualify for the help he needed from the adults who were responsible for providing him with an opportunity for an education. He's only one of the reasons why numbers, statistics, and results from standardized tests don't mean a thing to me.
People need to remember that these 'numbers' represent children. And a lot of them are no longer qualifying for what they need.

When workers are used and abused, unions are good, but when unions becomes too powerful, unions are bad, destructive and counter productive.

They are also standing up against those who wish to bring some performance measurement and accountability to our schools.