Several civic leaders, the school board chair and the superintendent recently went on a back slapping tour celebrating the 11-point gain in the graduation rate. They talked about all the hard work the civic organizations put in and how the city should be proud. Unfortunately where the graduation rate has gone up, the gains were built on sand.
At no point do they mention the slacker recovery, err grade recovery that 15,000 kids used to make up their classes, whether they deserved to or not.
They didn’t mention how teachers are regularly cajoled into passing kids whether they deserve it of not either. How much of the rise in the graduation rate is because of those two things?
But perhaps worst of all is they didn’t mention where the graduation rate has gone up 11 points over the last 5 years it has only gone up seven points over the last seven, the vast majority of which took place under the districts liberal to say the least, grade recovery program.
They left all that out and instead yelled look at me, look what we have done, when in reality all they have done is develop a system where yes slightly more kids are graduating but unfortunately these students aren’t prepared for anything.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
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