An organization called The Education Trust says that high school graduation rates reported by the states show “rampant dishonesty.”

According to their new report “Getting Honest About Grad Rates,” 36 states report that 80% to 97% of their high school students graduate on time. Independent analysts believe the true rate is about 70% (for instance, see the table here). The U.S. Department of Education shows the same, lower result by comparing the population of 17 year olds with the number of high school graduates.

How do they do it?

North Carolina, for example, gets its rate by measuring the percentage of graduates who finish in four years. Under that method, the state reported a whopping 97 percent graduation rate. But because only graduates are reviewed, the state doesn’t count a single dropout. (AP)

And let’s not set those standards too high!

Under the (federal No Child Left Behind) law, schools must show progress educating all students to state standards in reading and math and must meet state goals for improving graduation rates. Most states have made a mockery of this requirement – setting graduation-rate goals that are lower than the current grad rates they already report to the federal government.

Even worse, despite the fact that the United States now ranks 17th in the developed world in high school completion rates, states have set extraordinarily low goals for improving graduation in the years to come. Most have declared that any progress at all is good enough. And two states, New Mexico and South Carolina, have decided that as long as graduation rates in their high schools don’t actually decline, schools have met the improvement goals of the federal law.

Wow. Now we know what line of work those “D” students who did just enough to avoid failing went into — they’ve bureaucratized just getting by. Perhaps these state education officials can sign up for the remedial college math courses needed by so many of their graduates that do make it on to college.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, June 23rd, 2005 at 1:21 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under (Un)education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.