5 Matching Annotations
  1. Feb 2018
    1. Others include teenagers who “transfer” into home schooling late in high school.
    2. Kids dropped out, schools would code them as ‘whereabouts unknown,’ not as a dropout. No one knew, and no one cared.

      Another term to help parse the data is "unknown."

    3. 2 to 4 percentage points off the rates districts were reporting because they were improperly counting some types of students who shouldn’t be included, such as those who started home schooling in their junior year of high school.

      "Home School" at such beginning in junior year is the equivalent of "counseling out" students...

      2 to 4 percentage points adds up quick, even for smaller states since often those emerging adults would most likely have significant holes in knowledge and skills. Otherwise, why would 4% of juniors all-of-a-sudden decide to be "home schooled"?

    4. I feel that pressure in 3rd grade,”

      ... and there are 36,000,000 adults already reading under the 3rd grade level.

      Passing students on when they haven't mastered skills mastered in the 3rd grade unnecessarily create exponential problems for the student's future.

    5. U.S. high schools, and fueled nagging doubts that states’ rising high school graduation rates—and the country’s current all-time-high rate of 84 percent—aren’t what they seem

      WhyGogyUp: there are so many fundamental problems embedded in this statement:

      1) An "all-time-high" rate of 84 percent means that more than 1 in 10 students don't graduate - either in 12 or 15 years (if they stay in school until the age of 21.

      2) Those that have been "pushed through" the pipeline as well as those who haven't graduated are deprived of skills necessary to obtain living-wage work.

      3) If you're passed and given a diploma when you've been absent for weeks or otherwise haven't truly earned the credential with all the knowledge and skills it conveys, means you are:

      • placed in the position to either lie about your abilities to employers
      • have few any options to pursue those skills after your graduation.