The
Des Moines Register is reporting that a DC based group,
The Education Trust has released a report that states that Iowa and other states are inflating their graduation statistics. I have no doubt that this is true. It is especially bad for black students:
Iowa reported that 89 percent of students who began as freshmen graduated in 2001, while the report says Iowa's rate is closer to 78 percent. Meanwhile, black students had a 48 percent graduation rate, according to the report, while Iowa reported a 71 percent rate. Iowa includes students in its calculations no matter how long it took to graduate.
The problem here seems to me not the precise formulas that Iowa or the Washington group uses to calculate the graduation rate. The problem here is that the story is about this little fight between agencies, and not about the fact that as few as 1 in 2 black students in Iowa are graduating high school in four years. We should not have stories like this anymore - we need to hear stories about how we are going to start spending more money on education, especially on schools that struggle. But no, we hear
this:
Witherspoon last month proposed closing six buildings and redistributing money from the local sales tax approved by voters in 1999. Under Witherspoon's proposal, 22 school construction projects would be delayed until additional money to pay for the renovations was available.
And this is good news.
Cross-posted from
14 Empty Mountain Dew Cans.