
From 'Dropout Crisis' To Record High, Dissecting The Graduation Rate - powertry
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/06/12/411751159/the-story-behind-the-record-high-graduation-rate?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social
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briankwest
I didn't graduate high school, go to college... or get any special vocational
training. I did how ever have an unhealthy fancination with computers at a
very early age. That has paid off for me. :)

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wooderson
How much money do you have?

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hga
In my home town, a good superintendent left for a bigger district with $50K
more salary, and was replaced with an insecure incompetent. Test scores
started dropping, but by relaxing requirements for minor details like homework
and discipline (bad behavior including assaulting a teacher was rewarded with
candy, I am not making this up), the graduation rate started going up. Then an
EF-5 tornado hit....

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snowwrestler
> The early 2000s were a dark time for state education statistics. States
> could report high school graduation rates any old way they pleased, and many
> did.

> It was only in the 2000s that most states acquired the technology to track
> individual students.

It's easy to miss the major progress that has been made--very recently--in the
basics of measuring education.

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Zelphyr
So its high, in part, because we're finally measuring it properly? Or am I
reading this wrong?

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happyscrappy
>Despite all the action that's been taken recently toward this goal, we have
to keep in mind the possibility that broader social forces are playing a
larger role than policy initiatives in influencing the percentage who
graduate.

