parents and the dropout rate

Contention one: Parents are key to high school success.
Contention two: Kids are less likely to graduate than their parents.
Satirical conclusion: Parents are secretly undermining their kids' chances.

In all seriousness, it's good to see major media reporting on the dropout rate, and why it, not standardized testing, is the central educational problem of our time.

smaller schools aren't better schools

On the heels of Ryan's series on diplomas comes this analysis of Oregon's small high school experiment. Backed by the Gates Foundation, districts created 400-student academies, hoping the smaller schools would cut dropout rates and prepare more youngsters for college.

Didn't happen.

In Hillsboro, Ore., Liberty High broke into small schools four years ago, but its dropout rate remains the highest in a district with three other traditional high schools. Despite progress in getting more students to take college-prep courses, three in five Liberty graduates fall short of entry standards for the University of Oregon — the district's definition of college-ready.

Twyla Baggarley, who graduated from Liberty this month, passed Advanced Placement calculus as a junior but worries that she might not be primed for college after a lackluster senior year. Tired of teachers who taught straight from the textbook, she chose to take just one full-year core course, AP English, and padded her schedule with photography and two periods of PE.

She and other students say administrators seemed so caught up in tinkering with the small schools' structure that they didn't pay enough attention to the quality of teaching.

It's the program's a-ha moment, but for me, it's a no-duh moment. Smaller schools, or, for that matter, smaller classes, make zero difference if the pedagogical model stays the same. Canned, derivative, disengaging teaching and curriculum will be as ineffective in a school of 400 as they are in a school of 4,000.

At least the foundation is learning from failure:

This fall, Gates probably will switch the focus of its grants for fixing high schools to target teaching and raise teacher quality, says Vicki Phillips, who directs Gates' education initiatives.

Repeat after me: there is no single panacea for education.

focus on dropouts

Didn't want this to pass by without comment: News Tribune columnist Peter Callaghan runs down the numbers, and they ain't pretty.

The state of Washington reports a graduation rate of just under 80 percent (the most recent numbers are for the Class of 2005). But a recent report by the Education Research Center tells a less encouraging story. Again, based on the Class of 2005, the center estimated that Washington graduated just 68.8 percent of the students who entered high school four years earlier.

That’s a tick below the national average of 70.6 percent. Black students graduated at just 51.8 percent, Hispanics at 56.9 percent and American Indians at 42.7 percent.

The report went on to project that the Class of 2008 lost 28,000 students – 39 each school day for four years. None is factored in when the state estimates WASL success rates.

Callaghan's advice: get the WASL extremists, both pro- and con-, out of the room, and let moderation and reason reign. The State Board of Education's "Core 24" approach seems to be a step in this direction, focusing on credits and flexibility, not just on assessment.

Dropping out sucks, not just for students, but for society. We have to do better to keep students on track.

WASL passage rate tops 90%

91.4% of the class of 2008 can sleep well tonight, glowing in the light of the WASL. (Well, at least since the math portion was dropped.)

I'm glad--well, not glad, but satisfied--to see KOMO getting the other, often unmentioned part of the story: that 15,000 students have already dropped out. That's about 18% of the original class of 2008, number about 82,000 in all.

If a few more drop because they can't get credits, and a few more because the WASL stumps 'em, then we'll be at near the historically high dropout rate. This, to me, is the most important issue we face in secondary education, WASL or no. I'm somewhat optimistic that the State Board of Education is serious about tackling it, with their revision of graduation requirements and talk of pathways, but... we'll see.

Oh, and: I totally called it.

Spokane Spokesman-Review: Education News Central

Not one, not two, not three, not four, but FIVE good articles on education from the Sunday Spokesman!

(Note: Because the Spokesman refuses to make their content free to non-subscribers, which makes them the only major daily in Washington to do so, I've tried where possible to link to the stories through other news outlets.)

Settlement Clears Way for EV Religious Meetings: East Valley High School caused a big ruckus this winter when the principal told a group of Christian students that they couldn’t hold a meeting at the school during school time. The kids sued for $1, arguing that it wasn’t money they were after but a restoration of their constitutional rights.

It’s an interesting case that touches on some of the big issues in school law.

Northwest Educators Discuss Dropout Rates: The UofW held a one-day conference on Friday to bring together educators from all over the northwest to talk about the dropout crisis; the take-home quote from the article:

A panel of educators told the educators that after years of talking about how students need to be properly prepared for school, it’s time for schools to start preparing for students.

I would challenge this. Too much of the “culturally responsive” teaching I’ve seen runs more along the lines of “You don’t have to learn this because of your culture!”, and that does no good for anyone.

Something New, Something Old: Students at Kamiakin High School in Kennewick are getting to participate in an archaeological dig with professors from Central Washington University. That’s fun experiential learning, right there.

Official Party Pooper Riles Seattle U. Students: Seattle University students who post messages about parties on Facebook are getting a knock on the door from school administrators, literally—they’re showing up at their apartments and telling them not to have the parties. The named administrator is Father Glen Butterworth, a Jesuit who lives on the campus. His “I get it! No, I don’t!” quote:

Butterworth said his intent is not necessarily to shut down parties: “I understand. I want to shake a leg, as well,” he said. “I am just hoping they will be responsible.”

Butterworth next intends to go after sock-hopping and milkshake-sharing epidemics. More from the campus newspaper here.

Most Young People Don’t Meet Standards for Military Service: This is the title of a commentary from the wonderfully named General "I Am" William S. Wallace of the US Army Training and Doctrine Command. Some stats he offers:

Many young Americans are willing to serve, but too little is made of the declining number of people who are qualified to serve. This is the real story and it’s a shocking one. Only 28 percent of the 17- to 24-year-old population qualifies to wear a military uniform. The other 72 percent fail to met minimum standards on education, character, and health. The problem gets worse. Of those eligible to serve, a significant part chooses not to for a variety of reasons.

Some day a candidate will come along who makes the financial and physical health of Americans a top priority. Until then, not much will change.

Good work, Spokesman. Just wish people could actually get the news off your website.

reassessing the WASL

Make it shorter, make it smarter, make it actually useful to teachers. Small changes, if legislators go along:

With a five-year testing contract set to expire this fall, state lawmakers are discussing adjustments that would address many criticisms of the WASL, which is given each year to students in third through eighth grades and grade 10.

Educators have long complained, for example, that the WASL eats up too many days of instruction, and teachers can't use it to figure out what help students need.

In her budget, Gov. Christine Gregoire included money to create short classroom tests that teachers can use to determine whether students are on track to pass the WASL, and another set to diagnose why they fail. She supports reducing the length of the WASL for students in third through eighth grades (but not grade 10), which would mean less testing time, quicker results — and cost savings.

She also proposes translating the math and science sections into six languages, so that many immigrant students can show what they know even if their English skills aren't strong.

In all, Gregoire is asking for about $38 million for the WASL program in the 2008-09 school year. That includes about $4.3 million in enhancements, and takes into account an estimated $12.5 million in savings from shortening the exam.

No proposed changes for 10th grade in Gregoire's / OSPI's plan. For those who think the WASL's too costly, and was never meant to track individual student progress, this news won't change a thing. But at least it's an admission that, from a teacher's and parent's perspective, the WASL as it stands isn't reaching the standard implied by the second letter of its acronym.

Meanwhile, trouble still brews in the 12th grade...

educational legislation: 2007 House Bills in review

In 2007, regional media types paid all kinds of attention to the fate of various Washington State educational laws. Joint Resolution 4204, which passed by a Gregoire-thin margin to allow simple majorities for levies, was probably the best-known, while HB 2079 was the most controversial. But lots more were passed. Here are the highlights from the House's year in educational legislation. (I've focused on the elementary and secondary level, with a few postsecondary bills thrown in there as they relate to high school instruction. If I've missed one, let me know.)



Kevin's Law: ESHB 1050
IEP students must be allowed to walk in a grad ceremony with their peers, even if all they receive at the time is a "Certificate of Attendance."


Completing High School at a Community College: HB 1051
The most concise summary comes from Governor Gregoire's partial veto:

Sections 1 through 8 of this bill provide for the development of two pilot programs at community or technical colleges. The programs are intended to support certain students as they work to meet the State's academic standards in reading, writing, mathematics or science. For these students, demonstrating proficiency in one or more of these subjects is the final step in meeting their high school graduation requirements and obtaining a high school diploma. The legislation outlines the student eligibility and program criteria, authorizes the financial support, waives student tuition and fees, and provides for a study of the program's results in two years' time.

Section 9 of the bill creates and recognizes a new state certificate for high school students who do not meet the requirements for a high school diploma, the Certificate of Academic Completion (Certificate). The Certificate may be conferred by school districts to students who meet all state and local requirements for graduation with the exception of passage of one or more of the high school assessments in reading, writing and mathematics. Our students are working very hard to achieve the skills necessary for success in their endeavors beyond high school. By creating the Certificate of Academic Completion we will be sending a message to these students that they do not need basic skills required for the high school diploma. This is wrong.

Get Students Involved: HB 1052
This little bill provides greater access for middle and high school students to the Legislative Advisory Council, plus grants for students to participate in civic education competitions such as Model UN.


Postsecondary Opportunities: HB 1096
Globalization, according to the legislature, requires need-based grants for workers to gain certification or skills training in "high demand occupations" from community or technical colleges.


Book Savings For All: HB 1224
Community colleges were added to the ranks of institutions that must pursue policies that keep book and material costs down, or, at the very least, make options and alternatives publicly known.


Cash for Computers: HB 1280
If I understand this correctly, this bill allows districts to pay for major technology upgrades out of existing "capital projects" levies, instead of having to run a special techno-levy. (Another minor bill, HB 2357, would allow districts to use timber money for capital projects, too.)


Service Credit for ESAs: HB 1432
Might as well quote the bill itself:

Beginning in the 2007-08 school year, the calculation of years of service for occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, audiologists, nurses, social workers, counselors, and psychologists regulated under Title 18 RCW may include experience in schools and other nonschool positions as occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech-language pathologists, audiologists, nurses, social workers, counselors, or psychologists. The calculation shall be that one year of service in a nonschool position counts as one year of service for purposes of this chapter, up to a limit of two years of nonschool service.

It's only for the salary schedule; retirement counts only school service.


Dealing With the Dropout Problem: HB 1573

Sections 1 through 7 of this bill provide for the development and implementation of a grant program that, through collaborative school district, family and community partnerships and services, support vulnerable students who are at risk of dropping out of middle or high school. The grant program will be called the Building Bridges Program.

This is perhaps the most ambitious attempt the state has made at reducing the dropout rate. I still see this as the problem at the high school level, come low or high WASL.


Defining a Counselor: HB 1670
Up until this year, for all legal intents and purposes, school counselors didn't exist. Now they do.


Agency Shop Fees Clarified: HB 2079
10 + 10 - 10 = 10. Now, which 10 is left? This bill says: not yours, shop fee payer, that the Supreme Court may be mollified. Whew. That was a dire emergency.


Add a Little Spice: HB 2154
Now ESD board members will come up for election in odd, rather than even, years. That oughtta bring out the vote.


Bonus Bonus: HB 2262
Become certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, collect $5,000--or more, if you teach in an impoverished district. For me, this was the incentive that tipped the scales away from ProCert to NBPTS. Apparently, a lot of other teachers feel the same way.


Investing in the Common Schools: HB 2396
On the same day she signed the Rainy Day Fund into law, Gregoire also allowed the state to invest its permanent common school fund in equities, in hopes that it would earn at a rate at least equal to inflation.


Killing Gainsharing: HB 2391
On that same day, gainsharing died, and teachers mourned.


Let's Have a Poet Laureate: HB 1279
Why not? By the way, it's Samuel Green.

focus on the dropouts

The other day Ryan looked out nationwide dropout trends. What about here in the Evergreen State? David Marshak seconds what I've been saying for a couple years now:

If we take 84 percent — the passing rate — of the 72 percent of the students included in Bergeson's count, this means that only about 60 percent of the original members of the class of 2008 have passed the WASL.

When you have 40 percent of your kids failing, it's hard to see why Bergeson is claiming victory. Forty percent of our kids failing is very bad news indeed.

Bergeson's tactic of ignoring the entire class of 2008 — and focusing only on the 70 percent or so who made it to the 12th grade on time — unfortunately is typical of too many chief state school officers. Massachusetts claims a 95 percent passing rate on its graduation tests, even though 30 percent of its kids drop out. Texas has claimed 85 percent passing, even though its most recent school attrition rate is 34 percent.

Standards-and-testing — the Essential Academic Learning Requirements/WASL system — was supposed to deliver "world-class schooling" for all kids. That was the original promise. Then Bergeson amended it to only 80 percent of the kids. Now she's claiming victory even though only about 60 percent of the kids are likely to pass the WASL and graduate on time.

Is this really a great achievement after 14 years and who knows how many hundreds of millions of dollars spent on testing? And, are our schools not pretty much where we were in 1992 before we started with this unproven yet very expensive obsession with standards and high-stakes testing?

If we aren't helping more students graduate, then WASL reform is no reform at all.

Signal

From the Associated Press, a sad trend in California that might be the future of Washington:

The number of California high school dropouts spiked in 2006, the first year seniors were required to pass an exit exam to graduate, according to a report presented Wednesday to the state Board of Education.

The analysis found that 24,000 high school seniors dropped out in 2006, about 10,000 more than just four years earlier.

The information could give ammunition to lawmakers and others who have criticized the exam, as well as those who have lobbied for alternative assessments.

The firm that prepared the report, Human Resources Research Organization of Alexandria, Va., made several recommendations to the board, including a suggestion that California explore other ways for high school seniors to demonstrate proficiency. In Massachusetts and Washington state, for example, students can be judged on a portfolio of their high school work.

Jack O'Connell, superintendent of public instruction, has consistently opposed such an option. His chief deputy, Gavin Payne, told the board that the superintendent thought all but one of the recommendations were "extremely good."

The report's findings validate the argument that the test is hardest on students who do not have access to good schools or good teachers, said Liz Guillen, director of legislative and community affairs for the nonprofit law firm Public Advocates. That applies mostly to poor and minority students, she said.

Most students are able to pass the exam in time for graduation, although critics note that as graduation day approaches more students drop out of school and stop being counted.

In the class of 2007, for example, 93 percent of the senior class had passed the test by last May.

Students begin taking the test during their sophomore year and have multiple chances to pass the exam, which measures English, math and algebra skills.

The most recent exit exam results showed that more than 88 percent of black and Hispanic students passed the test, with both groups increasing their success rates but still lagging behind whites and Asians.

That’s the double-edge sword of the standards movement: the higher the standard, the higher the number of kids who won’t reach it. Talk about “no child” aside, simple statistics and observation tells us that not every kid will reach any standard we set, no matter where it falls on the difficulty spectrum.

Then, when you tell a student that they can’t graduate, is it really any surprise that some will quit?

There’s a real possibility that we’re at the trough stage of a new dropout crisis that will show itself as the graduation requirements amp up. The question of what to do about it is the tough one.

In other dropout news, the National High School Center has released a report called “Approaches to Dropout Prevention: Heeding Early Warning Signs With Appropriate Intervention” that argues we can identify those kids at risk of dropping out as early as 6th grade. They recommend paying close, close attention to the data to see who’s at risk. The Alliance for Excellent Education looked at dropout statistics for 2007 and came to the conclusion that the economy lost a potential $330 billion dollars because of those kids not finishing school.

No one can say that the dropout problem hasn’t been studied. It hasn’t been fixed—it may not be fixable—but it sure has been studied.

More on the Dropout Crisis

The Alliance for Excellent Education has released a neat report about the impact of high school dropouts on a states economy. Some stats they provide for Washington:

• If the nearly 30,000 high school dropouts from the Class of 2007 had earned their diplomas instead of dropping out, Washington’s economy would have seen an additional $8.0 billion in wages over these students’ lifetimes.
  
  
• Washington spends over $125 million each year to provide community college remediation education for recent high school graduates who did not acquire the basic skills necessary to succeed in college or at work.
  
  
• Were Washington to increase the graduation rate and college matriculation of its male students by only 5 percent, the state could see combined savings and revenue of almost $111 million each year.

Definite food for thought.

(Hat tip to Jenny D. for a link to the story)

Dropout Factories

There's a name that you don't want associated with your school, but 22 Washington schools have gotten the appellation. From the Seattle PI:

It's a nickname no principal could be proud of: "dropout factory," a high school where no more than 60 percent of the students who start as freshmen make it to their senior year.

That dubious distinction applies to more than one in 10 high schools across America, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University, who analyzed Education Department data for The Associated Press.

A handful of Washington's 290 high schools -- about 22 -- would be included on the list. Those 22 schools are spread throughout the state, but are found mostly in poor rural and urban school districts.

Every comprehensive high school in Tacoma made the list, but none in Seattle or Spokane.

Later on in the article names are named:

The list of 22 schools included some alternative schools, which often educate the students who have the hardest time in classes. It also included schools whose students often have parents in the military or who are migrant workers -- both groups that move frequently.

The complete list of the 22 high schools: Arlington; Chelan; Clover Park; Cusick Junior-Senior; H.S. Truman, Federal Way; Washington, in Franklin Pierce School District near Tacoma; Grandview; Evergreen, in Highline School District; Tyee in the Highline District; Hoquiam; R.A. Long, Longview; Oak Harbor; Pasco Senior; E.B. Walker, Puyallup; Foss, Tacoma; Lincoln, Tacoma; Mount Tahoma, Tacoma; Stadium, Tacoma; Wilson, Tacoma; Toppenish; Davis, Yakima; and Eisenhower, Yakima.

You can find an earlier, 2004 version of the report here; a longer version of the PI article is at Yahoo.

More local coverage (this is the big education story in the newspapers today) can be found from the Everett Herald, talking about the Arlington High perspective, The News Tribune for Tacoma, the Longview Daily News for R.A. Long High, and a rather funny "Hey--not us!" article from The Olympian.

The question is what to do.

dropouts, the WASL, and a number massage

Sure, 84% of seniors are on track to graduate, thanks to passing the WASL.

But what about students who are behind in credits, and thus don't show up in the official statistics? And what about dropouts?

Bergeson's office this year didn't count all the students it has counted in the past. For the first time, it looked only at seniors who've passed enough classes to be on track to graduate this June. That left out 5,457 members of the class who are considered juniors or sophomores because they're behind in credits.

When those 5,457 students are added back, the passage rate drops from 84 percent to an estimated 81 percent — leaving about 15,000 students who still need to pass reading or writing on the WASL, or an alternative. When dropouts are considered — which some argue they should be — nearly a third of the class of 2008 has either left school or has yet to pass WASL reading, writing or both.

I've noted this several times in the last few years: in our WASL frenzy, we're losing focus on the bigger picture. WASL progress hasn't led to progress in the state graduation rate. Slowly, the media is catching on.

dropout rate rises beyond 2004 level

Nearly three years ago I wrote:

Let's forget about the success stories and the belated-success stories in the latter two statistics, and look at that first number: 24.3 percent of our students are dropping out, statewide.

Ouch.

Once the WASL is required for graduation, I wonder what'll happen to that number.

The answer:

The percentage of students who dropped out of high school increased during the 2005-06 school year both statewide and in some local districts, figures released last week show. The state's extended graduation rate dropped four percentage points to 75 percent that year.

Three more years of WASL pressure and full-bore ed reform, and students are still dropping out at a slightly higher rate. Worse, any progress we made in the interval has been erased.