2008 OSPI Summer Institute

OSPI had its Summer Institute in Tacoma this past week. In previous years, there was more than one Institute; however, with the professional development associated with the new math standards, money was funneled toward that end.

Terry Bergeson spoke both Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Here are a few highlights from what she shared:

• The State Board of Education (SBE) is preparing some recommendations regarding graduation requirements (Core 24) for the 2009 legislative session. As part of this package, funding needs will be identified. If the legislature does not make the necessary financial commitment, SBE will not move forward with its recommendations. In other words, there will be no unfunded mandates for schools.
• Speaking of funding, Terry has been working with the Basic Education Task Force to shape reform in this area. Details were not available, but three key areas were identified. First, the formula for foundation support (transportation, teacher pay, instructional materials...) needs to change. There also needs to be identified funding for student programs and supporting educators. Stay tuned for more info in the fall. Terry is very keen on doing something about the need to match our resources with our values for schools.
  
• The full math standards (k - 12) have now been approved and preliminary results regarding the three curricula for each school level (elementary, middle, high) will be available mid-August. Information on supplemental materials will be available at some point in the near future. Terry is also asking for a budget package to support schools who will need to purchase new materials.
• The high school dropout rate in Washington has been ~21% over the last four years. Indications are that the rate will be about the same for the Class of 2008, even with all of the new graduation requirements. It appears that graduation rates will be improving in the next few years. Ninth grade is a pivotal year, and the rate has already changed from 5.1% to 3.7%. We are getting more students to the finish line---and with a more meaningful diploma in their hands.
• Native American students have the lowest graduation rate: only 48.9% are finishing high school (about 1500 kids). Asian/Pacific Islanders have the highest graduation rate with 76.4% completing high school. The average of all groups is 72.5%. This includes students who either finish early or finish late.

Considering all of the upcoming changes in math and science, possible credit requirements for graduation, funding needs (in a time of recession), and NCLB backlash, the next legislative session should prove to be a critical one for Washington schools. Hang on for a wild ride.

Diplomas Count, Part V: A Wrap Up and a Few Thoughts

(Part of a series looking at the 2008 Diplomas Count report from Education Week; you can find other articles here)

In a recent class on school communication I listened to a presentation by a teacher from Wilbur, Washington, which abuts the Colville Indian Reservation, talk about the dropout problems that his district has with Native American students. As minority groups go the Native American population has it worse than any other group when it comes to graduating high school on time.

It made me think of just how many variables go into figuring out just who is a graduate and who isn’t. “On-time graduation” is easy enough on it’s face—divide the number of graduates by the number of kids who enrolled 4 years earlier, and there you go—but even that figure is going to be colored by kids who move to Washington as 10th graders, or those kids who are enrolled here as Freshmen but leave before they are seniors.

Then consider overall graduation rate. Is a kid who drops out as a sophomore but goes back 4 years later and gets his GED a graduate? What of the student who drops out of a district (say, Vancouver), but re-enrolls in a different district’s alternative high school program (say, Portland) and graduates from there—a drop out, or not? How about the migrant student who goes back to Mexico after a semester in Sunnyside?

It’s a complicated metric, and the piece that I perceive that we’re missing is why these kids are classified as dropouts. The designation tells us nothing, really—it’s the story behind the designation that matters, and it’s that background that I think will best guide us towards fixing the problem in the future. We know where to go; it’s just a matter of finding the right way to get there.

Diplomas Count, Part IV: How Do You Tell the Truth and Lie at the Same Time?

You use statistics, of course!

(Part of a series looking at the 2008 Diplomas Count report from Education Week; you can find other articles here)

Towards the end of the issue they touch on the April pronouncement from Margaret Spellings that she’d like to see states adopt a uniform standard for measuring graduation rates, as opposed to the 50 different formulas that are used now. An interesting argument for this is a chart comparing the state-reported graduation rate to the graduation rate that Education Week (or EPE, for Editorial Projects in Education) uses for their figures.

The differences are pretty astounding. New Mexico is the worst of the bunch, reporting a statewide graduation rate of 85.0% when EPE says it’s 54.1%, a 30.9% difference that equals thousands of kids. Mississippi, Delaware, and the Carolinas are all at a greater than 20% difference. Two states are within 5% of the EPE figures (Arizona and Utah), while Alaska actually reports a graduation rate lower than EPE’s number.

And Washington? A state reported 79.3%, EPE 68.8%, a 10.5% difference.

If it means anything. Eduwonkette makes a case on her website that the data model EPE uses is flawed, and that's certainly what New Mexico would say. When your reality is defined by how you count, the way you collect the numbers is critically important.

Diplomas Count, Part III: Well, When You Look at it That Way…

(Part of a series looking at the 2008 Diplomas Count report from Education Week; you can find other articles here.)

The headline of one of the sections of the report reads, “US Public High Schools Losing 6,829 Students Per Day.” To get this figure they looked at the total number of students who enrolled as freshmen, the total number who graduated this year, found out how many disappeared, and divided that by the number of school days.

For Washington State, they say 28,001 students began as freshmen and didn’t make it to graduation. They then divided by 180 to get a figure of 156 students per day dropping out.

That’s a bit deceptive, though, because it assumes they all drop out the senior year. If this is the measure that they want to use it seems fairer to divide the number of dropouts by the total number of days in their high school career (720, or 180 times 4), which then changes the number to 44 students per day dropping out. Still a tragedy, but closer to true than what they reported.

When kids drop out of the high schools you know, is it a big deal (e.g., "Oh my God, Timmy's not here!") or does it mostly go unnoticed?

Diplomas Count, Part II: Change is Good

(Part of a series looking at the 2008 Diplomas Count report from Education Week; you can find other articles here)

In the report EdWeek chose to work with the 2005 graduation rate data, because it’s the most recent number that has been thoroughly vetted by research. In their overall look at graduation rates state-by-state they also include a look at the five-year trend, and Washington comes off well:

1. Tennessee, +7.9%
2. Florida, +7.8%
3. (tie) Kentucky and New York, +6.2%
4. (tie) Arizona and Washington, +6.0%

Top six, and a tie for Best in the West! Not too shabby. At least we’re not on this end of the scale:

50. Louisiana, -9.4%
49. Nevada, -9.3%
48. District of Columbia, -7.5%
47. New Mexico, -7.3%
46. South Dakota, -4.2%

Remember, that number above for Louisiana is pre-Katrina. Next year’s report will be even worse.

Diplomas Count, Part I: The Congressional Representative’s Perspective

In my mailbox today was Education Week’s annual report on graduation rates, Diplomas Count. They do an excellent job with their theme issues, and the neat thing about Diplomas Count is just how accessible it is; there’s something in here for everyone. I’ll be taking some time in the coming weeks to highlight the Washington State pieces from the report.

The first interesting bit is a way of thinking about things that had never occurred to me before: looking at graduation rates by congressional district. Most of the state does merely OK, in the 66% to 75% range on the scale that EdWeek uses, but we seem to have a problem on the coast and in southwest Washington: the 6th congressional district (the peninsula and Tacoma, represented by Norm Dicks), the 3rd (southwest, Brian Baird), and the 9th (Olympia and southern King County, Adam Smith) all trail the state average by falling in the 56%-65% range.

I’m sure there’s a reason for each of them to trail, but still.

A fun summer project for someone that's not me would be to break things out by county. I'd suspect that even though the overall picture looks good that the lowest graduation rate could be Adams, Stevens, or Ferry.