What is it about "scholarship" totals that educrats like Superintendent Nancy McGinley can't comprehend? I've blogged about this idiocy previously, but McGinley's latest letter (posted on the CCSD website) brings it to mind again.After parroting all of the usual platitudes regarding "Charleston Achieving Excellence" [sorry to nitpick, but shouldn't that be "Charleston's"? or "Charleston: Achieving Excellence"?], McGinley writes,
"Already, we are seeing results. We just got our scholarship information in, and the numbers are exceptional. CCSD seniors earned a total of $42,257,783 in scholarships in 2008. This was an increase of $5,934,282 over last year."I may be accused of beating a dead horse here, but this is a phony-baloney number in ANY year! The number is the self-reported sum times four of all money offered to students by every school the students applied to. For example, if a student applied to Charleston Southern and was awarded a package of $8000 for the freshman year (including loans and grants) because of financial need, that $8000 was multiplied by four and $32,000 was added into McGinley's total. The "scholarship" part of this merely is that the student was accepted at Charleston Southern. Now assume that the student applied to three such schools. That would make the student's total $96,000. Sounds good, doesn't it? Of course, the student may have decided to attend Trident Tech instead, meaning that all the money awarded from those three institutions became moot. As more and more students apply to multiple schools, the "scholarship" total will rise accordingly. The poorer the students are, the faster it will go.
Of course, some of the total represents real scholarship (that is, based on academics, not financial need), but in the last thirty years or so the bulk of money awarded has been based on financial need. If a student gets into Harvard and needs a "full ride" financially, that's what he or she will get; if the same student were very wealthy, he or she would get nothing. Does that mean the wealthy student isn't a scholar?
Look, McGinley knows these details full well. She and others like her quote such numbers to prey on the ignorance of the public at large. After all, $42 million in scholarships sounds great. Of course, the present superintendent didn't start this idiocy, but she could stop it.
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Shouldn't that number also represent the lottery funds that ANY student receives as long as they have the required GPA? That would really distort the number.........
Let's carry this idiocy a little further. If there were 1,800 graduates of CCSD high schools last year, that would mean each and every graduate would have received on average more than $23,000 in financial assistance to attend an institution of higher learning. That's only if every graduate applied to and planned to attend a scholarship granting post high school educational institution.
We must really look stupid if county school administrators expect us to take this as proof of the district's success. Yes, these really smart PhD's can add and multiply. The rest of us can subtract and divide, too. It would have been better to tell us, like the drop out rate, how many graduates plan to continue their education. They might also follow them by telling us in a few more years how many of these eventually complete their post high school education by receiving a degree or certificate. Now that would be a measure of success, if CCSD even dared to seek this out.
The really important number is the graduation rate: 45.3 percent - the lowest in the lowcountry.
I believe the graduation rate of 45.3 percent includes only those who finish high school in 4 years. Offical state and federal regulations may not account for this, but I'd be willing give CCSD the benefit of doubt and count those who finish high school in five years. At least a few more kids would be seen as having finished what they started. Even so, the real numbers, not the funny ones, would still show CCSD is failing our children miserably. I don't see how this won't become a major drag on Charleston's economy and quality of life for generations to come.
McGinley is doing the job of public relations, the same way all supers do it. Find whatever numbers you can and distort them to fool the public.
We are a nation in serious decline in a variety of areas and our leaders inability to do anything but attempt to fool us is unfortunately the only set of responses currently on the table.
Free-fall down with no plan for substantive positive change.
Obama's education adviser is Jeanne Century .. no plan for positive substantive change.
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