Did GA Fail To Count Thousands Of High School Dropouts?

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newsjunky

Driving Instructor
The AJC did an indepentdent study and they say that the dropout rate is almost double that reported by school officials. Wow! Is it worse than we thought?

http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-failed-to-count-1502119.html
Using data for the Class of 2011, obtained through an open records request, the AJC found that 30,751 students left high school without a diploma, nearly double the 15,590 initially reported.

The discrepancy came to light because this year the federal government made all states use a new, more rigorous method to calculate graduation rates. Under the new formula, the state's graduation rate plunged from 80.9 percent to 67.4 percent, one of the nation's lowest.
 
Not only do we have an alarming drop out rate but dang the School Officials in Georgia are looking worse and worse every day. Cheating on standardized tests, providing false info on drop outs............why are they lying?? :tapfoot2
 
naturegirl said:
Not only do we have an alarming drop out rate but dang the School Officials in Georgia are looking worse and worse every day. Cheating on standardized tests, providing false info on drop outs............why are they lying?? :tapfoot2
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It all goes back to funding.
 
This is all very interesting to me because I am very involved in something that I hope will help with GED scholarships. It is amazing and staggering to see the true numbers.
 
One thought on this.
My son graduated from Youth Challenge. This is a program that kids can go to (most of the time it's the kids that are "problem" kids.) When my son went they tried to say he dropped out of school. We went round, and round to clear it up that he, and the other kids did NOT drop out. They simply took a better (for them) route to finish their education. When these kids graduate they have two diplomas, a GED, and an adult high diploma. They can go to college, armed services, etc. Just like they had graduated from a regular school.

This is a great program. Long story, short. My son was really too smart for his where they kept placing him. His test scores were always just on point off of being placed in the advanced classes. So he wasn't challenged. On top of the ADD. He did well in YCA, and graduated two years ahead of his class.
 
newsjunky said:
This is all very interesting to me because I am very involved in something that I hope will help with GED scholarships. It is amazing and stagering to see the true numbers.
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I've always believed the numbers were higher than reported, but you're right. These numbers ARE staggering. And we should all be outraged and motivated to find solutions.
 
It seems like the dropout rate should be easy to measure, but different states and schools have been measuring it differently. For example, some schools measure dropouts during senior year. Those during junior year are not counted. Some schools count students as dropouts even though they might have gone on to an alternative sort of school and completed their high school there.

Last year we had to count a student as a dropout because he moved to the area and never enrolled in school. He would have been a senior. He had nothing to do with us, but he still counted against us.

Another area of confusion has been expulsions. How should they be counted? What about students who don't drop out but just quit showing up.

What all of this means is that everyone will now be using the same system of measurement. For some schools the dropout rate will go up, for others it will go down. The benefit is that we are all now talking about the same thing and measuring by the same standard.
 
Sounds as if the school admin has taken a play directly from the washington fuzzy math dept., in order to promote themselves and/or their respective school system.
 
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