As far as I can see, there’s been no elaboration from either Guilford County Schools or the local media as to why GCS’ graduation rate jumped from 63 to 74 percent over a week’s time. Considering the news — and controversy– surrounding state and local graduation rates, not to mention the new cohort system used to figure those rates, it seems like a more detailed explanation is in order. Perhaps they’re working on it.
The logical guess is that coding problems contributing to GCS’ initial low rate were related to students who transferred instead of dropping out. Believe it or not, many schools don’t have the ability to reliably track transfers from one school to the another and as a result, are counted as dropouts.
The issue of better data to help figure out why so many students are getting suspended came up during the Board of Education’s discussion of school resource officers, otherwise known as cops in schools.
One issue is how many students are being arrested for offenses committed at school as opposed to being arrested at school for offenses committed off-campus. Superintendent Terry Grier said the system is working with law enforcement officials to get that data, but the process has been slow.
The other issue, raised by board member Deena Hayes, was whether or not data could be collected showing if particular teachers are making more referrals for discipline than others, an implication that the teachers, not the kids, might be the problem. That’s Hayes’ educational philosophy: kids causing trouble in schools are simply misunderstood by the people trying to educate them.
How long has the educational bureaucracy been collecting data in order to more effectively educate kids? Quite some time now, so it’s a bit discouraging to hear that not only is existing data not accurate, but the system needs to collect more in order to do its job. If they say so.
