High School Graduation Rates Continue to Rise

       In the 2014 - 2015 school year, the high school graduation rate rose to 83.2% according to the National Center for Education Statistics.  This is modern day, national success story.  Twenty years ago, the national high school graduation rate was only 71% and it only rose a couple of percentage points from the 1998 - 1999 school year to the 2005 - 2006 school year (to 73%).  In the past ten years this important statistic has risen ten percentage points.  This is an amazing accomplishment!

       Our educational system is big.  17,000 school districts; 100,000 schools; 50 million students; and 3 million teachers.  This accomplishment isn't due to the effort of just a couple of school districts; or even just a couple of states.  This incredible increase says that we as a country have made it a priority to do everything we can to see to it that students graduate.  We understand that the world that our students will inherit requires an educated mind if we want these future adults to succeed.  We have heard this message and we believe it and we have taken steps in every school to make this happen.

       Even among our nation's poor students the high school graduation rate has risen to 76.1% -- which is a higher percentage than the graduation rate of the whole population of students in 1999.  Imagine the better life that will exist for these students in their future -- all because their parents and teachers and schools wouldn't allow them to drop out.

       So often we hear only bad news about our public schools.  We only hear about students who don't succeed and schools that don't have certain programs and teachers that don't have the tools they need.  We should celebrate the great successes we've had (such as the highest graduation rate ever) because they tell us that we are headed in the right direction.  They tell us that our efforts have paid off.  They tell us that we have achieved great success.  In the entire history of American Education we have never had a graduation rate this high.  This is something that all of us can be proud of because all of us have had a hand in helping this to happen.

       So thank a teacher, keep pushing your child to do well in school, and recognize that our nation's schools are working hard everyday to improve the lives of our students; your children.

I Shouldn't Be Here - Again

In preparation for my three-part series on the urgent need to improve the achievement of poor students in America's public schools, I am re-printing a blog post that I wrote in January 2014.

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I Shouldn't Be Here

     I am enjoying my 26th year working in education this year.  In that time I've been a middle and high school mathematics teacher, a high school mathematics chairperson and a district teacher specialist.  I've worked in the research and accountability office and I am now a supervisor of secondary mathematics--overseeing the mathematics program for 20,000+ students in my school district.  Still, had things worked out the way they were "supposed" to, I should have never done any of this.

     You see, I grew up in a lower-middle income family--which is an overtly nice and formal way to put it.  I have a brother and two sisters.  I was among the first generation to benefit from the Free and Reduced Meals program; a benefit I received from elementary to high school.

       When I was in 10th grade in 1980 the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) did a national survey of students from my class.  They followed up with us ten years later and this is what they found:  Only about 5% of the students in my economic family situation graduated from college.  (Good news: NCES did the same study with the 10th graders from 2002 and found that 14.5% of the low-income students from that class ended up with a college degree by 2012.  That's better than 5%, but still much too low.)

     So, had I followed the path that most of my peers did, I should have never went to college; and I certainly should have never graduated from college.  Which means, no teaching job, no promotions, and certainly no Master's degree later on.  Hence, I shouldn't be here.

     The reasons I AM here are many.  One of the biggest is simply public education.  My K-12 teachers never told me I couldn't go to college; they never told me I couldn't do whatever I wanted to do.

       I also had the good fortune of two wonderful parents who struggled to raise four children and to make ends meet while generally keeping a positive attitude.  I often say that "If we were poor, I never knew it."  Still, the ability of my parents to pay a greatly reduced price for lunch for four children was an incredible benefit to my family.  Who knows how much less my parents would have been forced to provide for us had this not been an option?

       And so, with help from my teachers in our (free) public school, and encouragement from home, I was able to attend college, graduate from college, and enjoy the occupational benefits of a college education--as is the case of my three siblings as well.

       Still, I always felt like I was one of the (extremely few) lucky ones.

We Must Do Better - Part 2

       This post is part two of a three-part series titled We Must Do Better.

       I love public schools; and there is a lot to cheer about when it comes to the ability of public schools to prepare students for their futures.  But there are three major areas in which public schools must improve if we want to see ourselves as providing a world-class education to our nation's children.

       1) We must raise the achievement of poor children.

       2) We must increase graduation rates.

       3) We must provide continuous, high-quality professional development to our teachers.

       It isn't that there aren't other areas that can and should improve in our public schools.  But improvement in these three areas are absolutely critical if we truly want our school system to be exceptional and of the highest quality for all of our students.

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We Must Do Better

Part 2 - Increasing Graduation Rates

       Part 1 of this series was about the need to increase achievement among poor students.  I am going to begin this part by looking at the differences in high school graduation rates between poor students and non-poor students.  Take a look at this graphic from the organization America's Promise Alliance:

       This graphic shows that (in 2012) low-income students had a graduation rate below 80 percent in 41 states while non-low income students had a graduation rate below 80 percent in only 7 states.  As a nation, our graduation rate in 2012 was 81 percent.  (source: National Center for Education Statistics - The Condition of Education)  

       Our national graduation rate has been rising since the 1995 - 1996 school year when it was 71%. We are moving in the right direction as a nation, but we still have a long way to go.  Allowing 1 of every 5 students to leave school without a diploma has real and serious consequences.  These include:

• Higher unemployment rates
• Lower pay compared to people with high school diplomas
• Greater need for public assistance
• Greater chance of incarceration
• Less effective parenting skills

(sources: here and here and here)

       Public schools clearly have many responsibilities.  We must do everything we possibly can to get more students to graduate from high school--especially poor students.  In decades past, completing high school was arguably less important than it is today.  However, in today's world and in the world that our students will inherit, people without a high school diploma have a greatly enhanced risk of lifelong struggles to avoid poverty and to experience a middle-class lifestyle.

     As a graduate student, I questioned the difference between students who dropout of high school and students who graduate in the bottom 10% of their class.  I hypothesized that such students who barely graduate were no better off than students who didn't graduate.  Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, I discovered that weak high school graduates were still better off than high school dropouts.  That's right; even students who struggle to pass all of their courses in high school and eventually graduate are better off than people who never earn a high school diploma.  Why?  I think it is because there is something within these weak students that says, "This (schoolwork) is hard, and everyday I come to school I know that I am going to struggle.  But I am going to continue to come and to work and to finish high school."  I believe that students who (perhaps) hate school and always struggle academically AND still graduate have had a life experience that they carry with them in their futures struggles.

       This message of the importance of graduating from high school is logical and sensible to everyone working in education and probably to just about everyone outside of education.  But despite our best efforts, this message is not getting through to 19% of our youth.  And it is hitting particular groups of students worse than others.  Once again, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (see top of page 13):

Group                  Graduation Rate (2012)
Amer. Indian/
Alaskan Native                68%

Hispanic                           76%

Black                                68%

Poor students              well below the national average (see America's Promise)

     These focus areas will help to improve graduation rates among our most vulnerable groups of students:

1. Adress chronic absenteeism
2. Improve middle schools
3. Re-engage youth who have left school
4. Provide more and better adult and peer supports

       We must do better at raising the high school graduation rates of our students.  It is important to our nation; it is important to every young man and woman in our high schools.

The Value of National Testing

     Chapter tests, unit tests, and final exams have been around (seemingly) forever.  These are tests that happen in school.  But what about the nationwide tests that students take?  I'm talking about the SAT, the ACT, the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), and the new PARCC and Smarter Balance tests.  What is the value of these tests?

     Let's start with the SAT and ACT, because most people know about these tests.  The purpose of the SAT test is to reliably predict an individual's success in their first year of college (see report here); and the SAT does a pretty good job of doing this--particularly for mathematics.  The stated purpose of the ACT is:

     Your ACT composite score, together with your high school grades, indicates how prepared you are for   college. In addition, the scores from the various sections of the ACT will help your college place you in the right classes, matching your skills with course requirements. (citation)

     Of course, aside from these "official purposes", we know that lots of people attribute much more importance to these two tests.  And, to be fair, some colleges have "cut-off" scores; if you score below a cut-off score, then you won't be considered for admission.  Still, my feeling has always been that there are plenty of colleges in the U.S. and unless you are determined to go "ivy league", there is a college out there ready to accept your money...uh...uh...I mean...to accept you.  Also, I believe that the SAT/ACT do a good job of showing what you know and are able to do.  Let's face it, a lot of students are good at "playing school".  They know what to do to get an "A".  But some student get an "A" because they understand the material and other students get an "A" because they are good at "playing school".  The SAT/ACT helps to separate these two groups of students.

     The NAEP, on the other hand, probably does the best job in determining what our nation's student know and are able to do.  This test is given to a sample of students in every state.  Colleges don't look at this test and parents don't get individual scores from this test--so it is a "low-stakes" test.  Students don't feel external pressure to do well on this test and nobody hires a tutor to do better on this test.  The PARCC and the Smarter Balanced tests--the new tests to be used to assess the Common Core standards--are supposed to be more like the NAEP tests.  Colleges aren't asking "What did you get on your PARCC Algebra 2 test?" yet, but I believe they will in the coming years.

     The value of these new tests are really the same as the value of the old SAT/ACT tests; they are supposed to show what students have actually learned in school.  We have to brace ourselves for students who get good grades in school and bad grades on PARCC and Smarter Balanced.  It will happen to the students who are good at "playing school" but not so good at learning.

     Students who do well on these tests should do well in their college courses.  Students who don't do too well will know where they stand and will enter college (I think) with a better idea of what they need to do to succeed.

     Sometimes I worry that the reason more than 50% of students that start college and never finish is because their teachers and school counselors and parents made them feel that their good grades in high school meant that they would be academically successful in college.  Their PARCC and Smarter Balanced grades may give them a different point of view--and that's OK.

     The value of national tests is an unbiased view of a student's academic ability.
          

Learning vs. Getting Good Grades

     In this corner, with hundreds of years of experience, The Edict of Education, the Natural Ability of Every Newborn Child; let's hear for Learning!

     And in this corner, gaining strength and popularity over the past few decades, the Beauty of College Applications and the source of Bragging Parents Everywhere; let's hear it for Getting Good Grades!

     Education faces a lot of battles.  One of the daily battles is Learning vs. Grades.  Teachers are on the side of learning and students (to be fair) are on both sides.  Some do their best to learn; and some are just doing it for the grade.

     I (sometimes) refer to this as "playing school". Some students just play the game.

1. Go to school.
2. Do what you are told to do.
3. Read the book.
4. Do your homework.

And Learning takes a back seat to just getting the grade.  Teachers are very familiar with this battle.  The best teachers engage their students--no matter the subject--and sometimes students discover that they like a subject that used to be just a "grade".

     In this battle, as is often the case in public education, it is the teachers who come to the rescue.  It is the teachers who instill a love for a subject.  Still, I would argue that we want support from parents too. 

     School can (certainly) be fun; but school shouldn't be a game to be won or lost.  All students can learn and all students can see the value of learning with the right incentives and with the help of caring adults--at school and at home.

     We know that students can graduate high school just by "playing school"; but those same students often struggle in college.  A recent report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) found that only 42% of students that went to college immediately after high school ended up earning a bachelor's degree within eight years of graduating from high school.   Another 11 percent had earned a Master's degree.  (See report here; go to page 3, third bullet)  What happened to everyone else?  And students that began college more than 13 months after high school had even worse results.

     So keep fighting the battle of Learning vs. Getting Good Grades.  Learning is the heavyweight champion of public education.

I Shouldn't Be Here

     I am enjoying my 25th year working in education this year.  I've been a middle and high school mathematics teacher, a high school mathematics chairperson and district teacher specialist, I've worked in the research and accountability office, and am now a supervisor of secondary mathematics--overseeing the mathematics program for 20,000+ students in my school district.  Still, had things worked out the way they were "supposed" to, I should have never done any of this.



     You see, I grew up in a lower-middle income family--which is an overtly nice and formal way to put it.  I have a brother and two sisters; all born within a six-and-a-half year timespan.  I was among the first generation to benefit from the Free and Reduced Meals program.  I was in 10th grade in 1980, and the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) did a national survey of students in my class back then.  They followed up with us ten years later and this is what they found:  Only about 5% of the students in my economic family situation graduated from college.  (Good news: NCES did the same study with the 10th graders from 2002 and found that 14.5% of the low-income students from that class ended up with a college degree by 2012.  That's better than 5%, but still much too low.)



     So, had I followed the path that most of my peers did, I should have never went to college; I certainly should have never graduated from college.  Which means, no teaching job, no promotions, and certainly no Master's degree later on.  Hence, I shouldn't be here.



     The reasons I AM here are many.  One of the biggest is simply public education.  My K-12 teachers never told me I couldn't go to college; they never told me I couldn't do whatever I wanted to do.  The ability of my parents to pay a greatly reduced price for lunch for four children was an incredible benefit to my family.  Who knows how much less my parents would have been forced to provide for us had this not been an option?  We always say that education is the gateway to successful, productive citizens.  There is no doubt in my mind that public, free education made a difference in my life.