Ouch. That has to hurt. Amid all the recent Blue Ribbon School hoopla about yet another red zone school that has made stunning progress (we won’t mention the unusually high staffing helped used to achieve that–see the application) comes the news that, as my feed reader so nicely put it, “Montgomery Graduations Sink to Lowest Rate in Decade.”
Hmmm.
Montgomery County’s high school graduation rate has fallen to its lowest level in more than a decade, according to state data, continuing a trend of declines that county officials said they will investigate.
From a high of about 93 percent in 2003, the graduation rate had fallen to 87 percent for the class that graduated in the spring, according to state data released this week. The decline was most pronounced among Hispanic students, whose graduation rate was 88 percent in 2003 but 77 percent for the Class of 2009.
Montgomery ranked 11th among Maryland’s 24 jurisdictions. It placed behind neighboring Howard and Frederick counties, both of which are smaller, but ahead of similarly sized Prince George’s County, where the graduation rate was 85 percent.
(The Post article on graduation rates mentions a high school in my red zone area with a graduation rate below that of the state’s minimum standard. And yet you wouldn’t believe the heroic boosterism efforts by some of the parents in that school.)
The MCPS response? We’re looking at the data.
This comes on the heels of news this week that only 11 students in the entire state of Maryland did not pass the Maryland state mandated graduation tests, the HSA’s. Eleven!
Seems that NCLB predictions are coming true. Students who can’t take the higher standards (not that they are high at all) are dropping out. The MCCPTA president puts it succinctly: “If you’re increasing rigor on the one hand, what are you doing on the other side to make sure students are receiving their diplomas?”
What does this all mean from the GT perspective? Well, if you live in the “red zone” even MORE resources are going to be drained away from high achievers and GT education. Against the backdrop of the magnets being gutted, it’s looking grim for high achievers in this part of the county. Meanwhile over in the green zone, business as usual.
The attendance rate at that high school (first school) is 92.3%. The attendance rate at the high school (second school) that houses the Math, Science Magnet is 94.9%. Hmmm, it really doesn’t seem like a big difference, but it surely plays a role in the graduation rate difference. (oh, but it looks from Schools at a Glance, that the second school has a graduation rate of 89.1% and the first school has a graduation rate of 88%).
There are students in 9th grade that a teacher would say need special attention to keep them in school, keep them out of gangs and help them graduate. Those students aren’t getting that (not enough of them).
They need a special relationship similar to the one C. had at the love school. And there is no way to guarantee that for every student.
Did anybody bother to check whether the fall in graduation rates among Latinos might have to do with the changing demographics of the group? I know here in CA, we’re seeing a greater proportion of recent immigrants vs. American-born Latinos. Obviously, a kid who shows up from Mexico or wherever as a teen is not going to have the same chance of graduating high school as somebody who spent his/her entire life here in the U.S.
I would want to have more information before deciding what the fall in graduation rates actually means.