New GED Discourages Dropouts from Certification

When you think of the GED, what ideas come to mind? I remember the disaffected boys and pregnant girls in my high school classes and hope that somehow they managed to get a GED and further education after dropping out in the tenth or eleventh grade. More recently, I worry about students I knew who failed one or two senior-year courses and never went to summer school to finish.

Until I did some research, I didn't know that the GED was created for returning WWII veterans who had dropped out of high school. Prior to that, no such test purporting to represent equivalence to a high school diploma existed. Maybe it's time to get rid of it.

Now that Pearson has purchased GED testing (don't get me started), it costs twice as much, must be taken on computer, and is aligned to the Common Core (which dropouts were not exposed to)--all aspects turning it into a real money-maker for Pearson. Its customers are unlikely to be among our most affluent citizens.

Supposedly it now measures the "real-life" skills needed for further education. Gag me with a spoon.

Such a test does not measure the real life skills that determine a person's success in higher education. Motivation? Time-management skills? Personal problems? The very parameters that cause students to drop out will never appear on such a test. Instead, the new tougher GED practically guarantees failure and a large outlay of money for those trying to turn around the trajectory of their lives.

Since the "new" GED appeared, passing rates have plummeted.

A few states have rebelled against the Common-Core loaded GED. Since South Carolina's legislature rejected the Common Core, it should allow other tests as substitutes, especially the HiSET sponsored by ETS and the Iowa Testing Service. This test answers the objections above, and SC would not be alone in rejecting homage to Pearson.

Time for change.

Reading at Fourth-Grade Level? CCSD Welcomes You to High School

If you set the goal low enough, almost everyone can achieve it.

However, the Charleston County School District struggles to meet its own criterion that all incoming ninth graders will read at the fourth grade level. Despite focusing on literacy for the past few years, nearly 13 percent of the district's students read at or below the fourth-grade level. That would be bad enough if those students were spread evenly among CCSD's high schools. An additional problem is that they are clustered, often up to 40 percent of an entering class, in CCSD's lowest-performing schools. a

Below is an example of a fourth-grade reading worksheet. Remember that this is the goal for these students.

http://www.k5learning.com/sites/all/files/reading-comprehension-worksheet-grade-4-Washington.pdf

We don't know what percentage reads below the fourth-grade level. Here is third-grade level. Can you imagine this student reading a high school textbook?

http://www.k5learning.com/sites/all/files/reading-comprehension-worksheet-grade-3-rover.pdf

It's way past time to get serious about reading. If students reading on this low a level pass their freshman classes, what does that suggest about the difficulty of what they are learning? What percentage of these students will actually graduate?

Time to fish or cut bait. Either put all students reading at fourth-grade level or below in the same classes in the same school and keep them there until each reads at least on the sixth-grade level or distribute them evenly over the district's high schools so that students reading at grade level or above need not face a class with a majority of poor readers.

Moffly's Three Planks Make Sense for SC

Wishful thinking? In the continuation of the hard copy of  Thursday's paper, Elizabeth Moffly is labeled "ex-board member."

Perennial candidate Elizabeth Moffly runs again for the post of state superintendent of education. This is not an endorsement, but we could do worse. Moffly narrowly lost to Mick Zais last time around in the Republican primary.

1. Eliminate the Common Core standards. These were adopted willingly by our last Democrat State Superintendent in 2010. The costs associated with implementation are horrendous, from teacher training to new educational  materials to development of new aligned testing on computer. CC is a boondoggle for the edublob. Developed by business interests and the Gates Foundation, it won't deliver what it promises.
2. Provide a variety of diploma plans. Why do we go for one-size-fits-all? President Obama to the contrary, not every graduate should attend a four-year college. Think of all the outstanding student loans burdening non-graduates who cannot get a job. Many states already have several diplomas. Look at Texas; it has at least three. 
3. Change the grading system. What is the rationale for the standard A = 93 to 100 when other states use A = 90 to 100. If you haven't dealt with the numbers converting to a four-point system, you don't realize how our system hurts students applying to competitive colleges out of state.

Let's see how the other candidates respond.

Shock & Awe in CCSD: Close Burke; Put in 2nd Mt. Pleasant HS

It's brilliant! Whoever came up with this outside-of-the-box idea should be running the Charleston County School District instead of Nancy McGinley!

Over the last 40 or so years, Burke High/Middle School has become a buzzword for failure. In hindsight, the die was cast when the powers-that-be determined under consolidation that the white High School of Charleston would close, and the black Burke High would take both black and white students, a tactic destroying any loyalty that white parents as graduates of the former would have for the new school district. Burke not only became the lone high school on the peninsula; it retained its name and loyal following. Probably this agreement was worked out between the fed's attorney, Gregg Meyers(later an influential member of the CCSD School Board), and the NAACP.

Superintendent McGinley's box of tricks that she learned at the Broad Institute have failed her and failed her. No one has confidence that Burke can become an integrated school under the present circumstances. By petitioning the constituent board for transfers, droves of parents have made the choice to send their children to high schools that have the advanced and career programs that all students deserve. As a result, about half of eligible students living on the peninsula attend Burke. It's easy to accuse these parents of racism, but the cause is one of district mismanagement after a stupid initial decision.

No one has confidence that Burke can even retain its recent standing as "average," a rating based largely on better record keeping and last-minute cramming. Other signs point towards the inevitable downward slide. The current principal, Maurice Cannon, does not sound as though he is a solution but actually part of the problem. His perception that Burke's students do not pay attention in class nor do their work because they don't like some of their teachers is asinine. The school clearly lacks good leadership; we all know who controls that variable: Superintendent McGinley.

When you have Arthur Lawrence, a Burke graduate and long-time community supporter of Burke, calling for the shut-down of the school, you know the situation has reached a nadir. Lawrence wants to close Burke and all its programs and take the overflow from Mt. Pleasant's overcrowded Wando High School into the building as a new Mt. Pleasant High School while the district builds the new facility for Mt. Pleasant. Why, look! That means that "Burke" will have an integrated student body and the programs that are impossible to sustain under the present structure.

Now, the NAACP won't like this because Dot Scott doesn't want an integrated high school; she clearly wants a de facto black high school on the peninsula. Of course, she lives in West Ashley.

Common Core: Child of the Edublob

Back in 2010, when Jim Rex was Superintendent of Education in South Carolina, the state adopted the Common Core Curriculum pushed as the answer to all things wrong with education in the United States. Now the state is in its second transitional year as it moves to the "new" standards.

If you peruse the shift from previous state guidelines in the "language arts," for example, you will discover that 80 percent (at least) are simply restated and reworded versions of the old. New additions are not an improvement, nor are they more rigorous. In the high school grades classic literature is downplayed in favor of "relevant" materials. The program is a fraud, perpetrated, as with most educational reform, by those farthest removed from the classroom.

Now teachers will spend hours learning that (made-up example) previous standard E4.16 should now be marked into lesson plans as ELA5.23a.  No doubt that work will contribute mightily to students' learning.

States (including SC) adopted the standards in the hopes that they would get more funding from the federal government, including Race to the Top funding, but the entity that really rakes in the money is the edublob. Imagine the financial opportunities for generating new teaching materials, new workbooks, new tests, new workshops, and other general accoutrement for administrative, teacher, and student readiness!

Don't you wonder how much your local school district has already spent on this exercise in wheel-spinning?

HSAP: High School Exit Exam Reveals Major Flaws in System

The heartfelt letter to the editor from the Rev. J.T. Williams of the Lighthouse Baptist Church in Summerville emphasizes the cruelties imposed on graduating seniors by their failure to pass the HSAP, or exit exam. How, he asks, could a student pass all of his classes, meeting all diploma requirements, and then be denied a diploma for not passing the HSAP?

Well, that's a good question. To put it another way, how could a student fail the HSAP when he or she has passed all required subjects to receive a diploma? Note that HSAP guidelines make adjustments for limited English proficiency, students with IEP's (individualized education programs), and disabilities. See http://ed.sc.gov/agency/programs-services/43/

Why have an exit exam at all? These tests appeared decades ago as an antidote to students' graduating from high school unable to read own their diplomas (at worst) or unfit for even the simplest of jobs requiring literacy and basic math skills. NCLB now requires testing as part of the law that enables the public to assess how well a school is educating its students.

The student who opens his diploma folder to find it empty should not be shocked. Students have multiple opportunities to pass parts of the exam for years prior to, and even after, graduation.

Some could argue that the topics covered by the HSAP go far beyond the original purpose of the test; however, nothing is tested that is not in the required curriculum for high school. Show me the teacher who has not been under duress to make sure that at least 80 percent of her students pass the course. What teacher has not pushed that persevering but unprepared (for the level) student over the line to 70?

The Reverend Williams wants to see South Carolina drop its requirement of an exit exam, as in a bill passed by the state representatives last spring that will be taken up by the state senate in January.

Some have suggested that students take the ACT instead, with non-college bound students taking the ACT-WorkKeys. See  http://www.act.org/products/workforce-act-workkeys/ for a description. The former might annoy the college-bound with its higher levels of mathematics, but the latter testing seems to answer the original problem of employability. Certainly this switch would make the ACT organization happy!

If the exit test is not replaced by other measures, such as passing end-of-course tests, at failing schools standards will fall again.

Balog's Column Attacks Zais for Teachers' Union

Did you wonder what the "South Carolina Education Association" was when you read Melanie Balog's Thursday column attacking Mick Zais?

This Jackie Hicks,  whose opinions Balog treats as the gold standard, is president of what is called South Carolina's "union representing public school teachers in the state [which is] affiliated with the National Education Association" (NEA), an organization that never met a fiscal conservative it liked.

To say that Balog uncritically swallows the union line doesn't put too fine a point on it.

Apparently she's been taking lessons from Brian Hicks.

Just CCSD's Math, But What Does It Mean?

Seems rather startling, doesn't it?

According to the news emanating from the latest meeting of the Charleston County Schools District Board of Trustees, nearly one-third of all 2010-11 seniors did not graduate last June. Quoting from the P&C: "Charleston County graduated 67.9 percent of its seniors last school year."

If this sentence is to be believed, we are in far worse shape than we thought because the district isn't even counting those students who dropped out in the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh grades.

Say it ain't so, Joe!

Or maybe the reporter misstated the facts?

Vagueness on High School Diploma Credits

Instead of ranting against the reporters at the P&C, for a change I must take issue with one for the Associated Press. Never mind that the state legislative beat remains uncovered by our local rag.

A prefiled bill for the next House session creates a two-tiered diploma for South Carolina. One track would require 24 credits for those planning on college, and one require 20 credits for those not. Ostensibly, this is a cost-cutting measure, although it may turn out to be good policy.

So far, so good, as far as reporting goes.

But wait. Which four credits are deemed unnecessary by this bill? Nary a word. Is this a secret, or does the reporter (Seanna Adcox) show a remarkable lack of curiosity?

You decide.

Improved Counting Masks CCSD Achievements

No one should fault the principals, or even Superintendent McGinley, for their delight in CCSD's school report card improvements. Too bad most of the statistical improvements counted by the state did not reflect actual learning. [See School Grades Climb in Friday's edition of the P & C.]

A quick perusal of the PDF in the on-line edition shows that "improved growth ratings" were the best news to the district. Absolute ratings, while improved in some cases, were not as encouraging.

How would CCSD have fared if it hadn't improved its tracking of students in the system? How much of the improvement was due to "credit recovery" programs assisting the high school graduation rate?

So the district can tout its statistics all it wants, but are more students really graduating or are they merely being accounted for?

And are "credit recovery" programs truly educational, or are they simply a way to award (and count) a diploma that becomes more meaningless because of that process?

There is real academic news for Burke High School in one category, though: end-of-course test scores of 70 or better improved to 42 percent of test takers. That is progress, although I wonder what percentage of the test-takers who scored below 70 got credit for the course.

Common Sense About High School Reform

If you are as concerned as I am about not only dropouts but also their peers who finish high school not well prepared by the all college-prep curriculum, you really should read Jay Mathews's interview in the Washington Post with a California high school teacher who thinks outside the box, Class Struggle: Helping Kids Who Hate High School.

Wish this debate could occur in CCSD!

The Real Story on CCSD Summer School

"Enrollment dropped from about 525 students last year to 185 students this year" is the REAL story about CCSD's 2008 summer school. [See District Might Try to Eliminate Summer School to Save Money.] That's in ONE year. So what gives?

I've reached the point where I don't really put much credence in how the P & C handles stories like this one, especially the numbers they contain. For example, did the district expect to have the same numbers as in the past, or did the district's offering of not even half as many courses (11 instead of 25) in high school cause the drop? Was it in the summer of 2007 that the $100,000 overrun occurred? If so, does CCSD expect a cost overrun again this summer, or was the overrun an excuse or result of bad planning?

The article says that this "might be the last year of summer school for elementary and middle schools." CCSD's solution is to allow enrollment in the next grade while remediating the student for the previous grade. So how is the student supposed to be successful in the (presumably) more difficult subject when the student hasn't yet mastered the previous one?

And if the number of students who enrolled this summer in high school courses was much lower than the district expected, what change does THAT suggest? You got it. The number of students who failed courses needed to graduate is down. Why, that MUST be a result of the superintendent's mantra that excellence is our standard. Not.

Also, how much do these online courses cost? Are they aligned with CCSD's course offerings? Having investigated online remediation for another school several years ago, I know that these courses can vary in quality from a joke to a rigorous learning experience.

Gee, I wonder why Berkeley County and Dorchester District 2 aren't having these problems.

Dumb and Dumber: Graduate at 16

Would someone please throw Gov. Sanford a lifeline? He's gone off the deep end again.

Beyond the occasional genius, usually a genius at math, no teenager needs to enter college early. So when I saw the headline in Sunday's P & C, Educators split on cash for early grads,
I cringed. Apparently it's not enough for Sanford that today's colleges and universities have multiple remedial classes for students who can't handle college-level curriculum, now he wants South Carolina to encourage students who are not mature enough to handle the peer pressures of college life to march happily off to Columbia or Greenville or wherever, out of sight of parental control, straight into the arms of the anything-goes cultures that roam our campuses looking for victims.

What is he thinking? Probably not much. Then, Superintendent Rex chimes in to agree, proving that brain cells have not been put to work: "Jim Rex, a Democrat, said he's on board with the governor's idea as long as minor questions are addressed, such the impact on the state's on-time graduation rate. "'On the surface, I really like it,' Rex said. 'I think the concept is a good one.'"

What a self-serving statement! "Surface" is right. Does it occur to anyone else that Rex knows nothing about education? I had seen rumors that he views the post as a stepping-stone to running for governor. Now I believe them.

CCSD Superintendent McGinley was mainly concerned with district's finances: [her] main concern . . . was whether the college scholarship money would come out of the kindergarten through 12th-grade budget." Well, that's where her priorities lie.

To give the devil his due, so to speak, at least CCSD's Janet Rose made noises about the effects of such a goal on the students themselves, saying "it's not in kids' best interest to leave high school early." And "Berkeley Assistant Superintendent for Learning Services Mike Turner said district principals are unanimous in their opposition."

Well, duh.

And the incentive to make a choice that could haunt both student and parents for the rest of their lives? A mere drop in the bucket in the sea of college expenses--either $1000 or $2000. Does Sanford think our colleges and universities still act in loco parentis? Or that all of these younger students will live at home with parents? Or that students who are mentally advanced are always more emotionally mature?

What planet is he on?

Updating the Old as the New Year Approaches, Part 1

What ever happened to. . . LaRon Dendy?

[See June 7, 2006: "Forward to Pickens" for previous details about this Clemson recruit.]

After some confusion about his credits and whether he would attend another diploma mill this school year, LaRon is back at Greer High School, where he started. He's also taking another year to graduate. He may not think it so, but this is probably the best outcome available!

It's 1958 at the National Governors Conference!

"No easy fixes for states: Education," by Diette Courrege, front page of The Post and Courier, Monday, August 7, 2006.

Yes, it is true that when the U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik (I heard about it at a friend's house in West Oak Forest when the story broke), a vociferous hue and cry emerged to get students into science. And a generation of astrophysicists (none from the Charleston public schools that I know of) emerged (although many through necessity have now transferred to other scientific fields), but to suggest that America's inability to "attract and graduate students in science" constitutes a new phenomenon is just plain wrong. And, poor preparation in math and science at the high school level has always been the cause!

The Newsless Courier's take on a Sunday session at the National Governors Association meeting might as well have been printed for the 50th meeting in 1958 as for the 98th this weekend! Who knows, maybe a bit of digging would show that the same comments and solutions recommended in 1958 have been re-proposed in 2006.

The reporter states that "[it's] a complex problem," probably mirroring the comments of the attendees. The complexity comes from how schools are controlled. States now (and have always) determined their own standards. That's a minimum of 50 sets of standards. "Think tanks and foundations" can propose national academic standards until the cows come home, or the next "Sputnik" appears, but as long as students are captive to attending the nearest public school that is captive to nonpartisan school boards and liberal state bureaucracies, standards, regardless of how high they are set, will make no difference.

Here's the statement that set my teeth to grinding:
"South Carolina has gotten a bad rap for achievement, but education officials point to studies that show that the Palmetto State's academic standards are higher than those in some other states."

Please don't insult our intelligence! Nameless "education officials"? Such as our State Superintendent, who apparently to this day still believes that Wisconsin high school graduates need only 13 credits versus South Carolina's 22?

If South Carolina's academic standards are higher than any state that you know of, I'd like to know it so that I can send that state a condolence letter.

Fifty-first out of Fifty--Now That's Progress!

"Reports fuel graduation rate debate: State puts priority on getting students through high school," by Diette Courrege, the Post and Courier, June 21, 2006.

This banner headline appeared in Wednesday's Local and State section above the fold.

Now Guess: how many paragraphs does the reader need to wade through to get to the "reports."

Well, we know from paragraph 2 that they are "independent,"but it takes NINE more (and shuffling to page 5B with the Obituaries) to find out what the reports said! Those intervening paragraphs essentially lay out the state Superintendent's arguments that the "reports" should be dismissed.

Is it my overactive imagination, or is the reporter an apologist for the Superintendent?

But...Surprise! Surprise! The "debate" is NOT about how South Carolina underreported its graduates. No, shocking as it may seem, South Carolina underreported its dropouts! Whereas SC reported last year that ONLY 25 percent of its students were not graduating, that figure turns out to be more like 40 to 47 percent. For Charleston County the dropout rate (let's call it by its name) is 54 percent.

I'm not making these statistics up for dramatic effect. They're real.

Charleston County's Academic Officer "said she didn't want to argue about where the state or school district ranked." She characterized the rankings as being "in the bottom half." How about the bottom ONE PERCENT? A mathematical reality check here.

If the Post and Courier took itself seriously in reporting NEWS, a banner headline on the FRONT page would have read, "Future looks dim for Charleston County: More than half our children drop out." What do you think would have been the reaction if it had?

By the way, the reports came from Education Week, a national educational publication, and from the U.S.Department of Education.

And what were the Superintendent's points? Her ace-in-the-hole is that SC requires 24 credits for a diploma, "3.5 more credits than the national average." As Tenenbaum says, "'You can imagine how [states with lower totals] rates are going to be higher. We're proud that a high school diploma in SC means something.'"

As opposed to one from New Jersey, the state rated first? This is such a specious argument that I hardly know where to begin, but I'll try.

1. Everyone agrees that most dropouts occur on the ninth-grade level. You mean, a 14-year-old looks at the requirements and says to himself, "Wow, I can't get more than 20 credits [the national average], so I might as well drop out now."
2. The number of credits required does not affect the dropout rate in any meaningful sense. That would be only for high school seniors who do not pass enough courses to get the diploma and do not go to summer school.
3. The total of credits does not reveal how difficult the courses are to pass, nor does it reveal what core requirements are included. Apples and oranges again.
4. Tenenbaum does not seem to know that the lower total credits number does not reflect requirements added by local districts in states where local districts have more control. Case in point: Wyoming ( which along with California and Wisconsin) requires 13 credits to graduate. The Wyoming deputy state superintendent of public instruction "said the report is misleading because...each district imposes an additional 12 to 15 credits." That means Wyoming's graduates have earned MORE credits than SC's, while the state ranks 22nd instead of last and has a gap of only 3 percentage points between its own calculated graduation rate and that of the report. SC's gap was more like 20 to 25 percentage points.
5. New Jersey, the highest-ranked state, also requires more credits than the national average, 22 on the state level. Surely Supt. Tenenbaum does not suggest that those two credits make up the difference between first and last places? And, since I have lived and taught in New Jersey, I know that many districts do the same as those in Wyoming--add additional requirements.
6. Being fifty-first out of 50 states means that all of the usual suspects--the District of Columbia included--are doing a better job. Back in the dark ages, when I was in high school in Charleston County, at least we could count on Mississippi or Georgia to be worse off! No more.
7. Blaming the community is no excuse. Calls for "collective ownership" of the dropout rate will go unheeded as long as bureaucrats gloss over the problem and newspapers bury embarrassing statistics with the obituaries. New Jersey has Newark, Elizabeth, and Camden--big cities with big problems, not exactly garden spots of the Garden State in any way. It also copes with more immigrants speaking more languages than the average person can list, not merely Spanish. It's first. Seriously, how many people think that "the community should be empowered and assume some responsibility...when they see a 13-year-old in the mall" that should be in school? Are truancy laws enforced? Are parents held accountable?

No true progress will be made as long as we pretend the elephant is the size of a mosquito.