Tuesday, August 07, 2007


Aug. 7, 2007 (McClatchy-Tribune Regional News delivered by Newstex) --
One of the most difficult assignments for those in education -- or for those who judge those in education -- is determining how well our public schools educate our children. Do you judge by test scores? Do you judge by college-entrance exams? Do you consider long-range studies of schools' graduates?

Or do you use the cold, impersonal statistics that the No Child Left Behind legislation has made so common? If so, how do you spin those statistics?

That is where we are this morning. Monday brought the AYP results -- adequate yearly progress -- from the Alabama State Board of Education, and what we received was filled with some good, some not-so-good, and some that we're not sure what they mean. Hence, the confusion.

Seven Calhoun County public high schools -- Anniston, Jacksonville, Oxford, Piedmont, Pleasant Valley, Wellborn and White Plains -- were cited as failing to meet state accountability goals. All missed the mark on the graduation rate requirement. (Another county school, Anniston Middle, was cited for attendance.) Six of the seven public county high schools that were cited for falling short on the graduation rate requirement regressed from the year before. That's bad.

Only one Calhoun County school, Anniston High, failed to meet a state accountability goal on an academic requirement. That's good, considering the number of high schools, middle schools and elementary schools in the county. (Anniston missed the mark on the reading requirement.)

And on it goes. Statistics that make you cringe. And statistics that make you cheer.

Some school superintendents in Calhoun County aren't fond of the 'cohort' system to determine graduation rates. The system tracks students from when they enter high school, follows them for four years and penalizes the school if the students do not graduate. In use for only a second year in Alabama, that system is quite different than merely counting high school seniors at the beginning of the year and seeing how many walk on graduation night. It also seems hardly unfair.

These statistical reports can be interpreted any number of ways, and often can lead to mischaracterizations of our public schools.

But at least for graduation rates, this much is true: No Calhoun County public school has a graduation rate of at least 90 percent, the goal set by the State Board of Education and the level all schools must achieve by 2014 to fulfill NCLB requirements. Five county schools have graduation rates of less than 80 percent, four have rates below 75 percent.

Those statistics are crystal clear.


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