THE NUMBERS GAME: REPERCUSSIONS

THE NUMBERS GAME: REPERCUSSIONS

On June 14, 2015, I wrote a post about how some high school graduation dropout rates across the nation were not an accurate representation of the truth. (The Numbers Game)

I stated,  “The Department of Education has announced that the high school graduation rate is at 81%. That is the highest it has been since 1974.  That  would be laudable if only it were entirely true. To be fair, it may be true if the states and school districts are completely honest when calculating the numbers. On the other hand, we have seen, that because of national accountability in our schools, some factions found unique ways to misrepresent the numbers.”

The pressure of using  standardized tests for school and student accountability across the nation has led to innumerable cases of cheating and fraudulent reporting, not only for test results, but high school graduation rates.

Case in point: On October 20, 2015, Becky Vevea, an education reporter for WBEZ in Chicago wrote an article entitled, “Admitting Dropouts Were Miscounted, Chicago Lowers Graduation Rates.”  Vevea revealed that joint investigations by WBEZ and the Better Government Association under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act disclosed some startling facts.

After the investigation, Chicago Public Schools lowered its official 2014 high school graduation rate. It appears that, as far back as 2011, as many as 2000 students enrolled in 25 high schools have been reported as transferring to other areas outside of Chicago, to other cities or states. No  records of where these students went were ever produced.The bottom line is that these students were dropouts and never counted as such.

Do the Chicago Public School officials admit to playing with the numbers?  Of course not. Their Chief Education Officer  called the errors, “Concerning.”  District officials admitted having “problems” with the system's accounting. The Chief Accountably Officer, John Barker, announced that changes were being made. 

Barker said the district is, “still planning to train school clerks to count dropouts more accurately and has developed an internal system to flag misclassifications sooner.”

Yeah, let’s all blame it all on those poor underpaid school clerks. After all, the Chicago School District would never order such a dictum. Or would they?