The Myth of Graduation Rates

Dear Chancellor Klein,

I've had a very fortunate career in that I've taught predominantly at schools with high graduation rates. This has been a blessing because, in all except one very important instance, the schools' graduation rates helped secure their futures. I've also felt very good during one special night in June every year.

And I've also felt guilty.

The students I have taught, no matter whether they have been at schools with outstanding or deplorable graduation rates, have had exactly the same sets of skills. The ranges of SAT scores and Regents scores were not any better. The intensive need for remediation once New York City High School graduates reach the college level bares witness to this.

What helps a school to have a higher graduation rate with these same weak students is
a) if these students can come to school often enough to earn credit in their coursework
b) if these students will go to summer school and eek out a passing grade on the Regents
c) if there is an overall philosophy at the school which weighs effort as strongly as skill
d) if you praise and honor students with "A" averages, but SAT scores well below the national average. I never knew people scored in the 300's on sections until I worked at a school with an amazing graduation rate.
e) And this is not bad -- if you encourage all of your students to keep going in education and help show them that there is a future for them. This includes the ability to place them either in community colleges with welcoming atmospheres and/or one of the hundreds of four year colleges which accept students with score in the 300's.

I'm not ashamed of any of the work I've done, but what I'm trying to say is that students graduate because they believe in themselves and their schools accept that this self-confidence ad persistence will eventually help them to really have skills.

The schools which do not graduate students en masse are sometimes places where the teachers cannot accept that their students don't need MORE TIME to learn and are unwilling to pass them on and make them someone else's problem.

I wonder, if you asked someone teaching a Remedial English class in college how he/she felt having a dozen students from the same school who graduated on time. What would he/she think of the fact that getting the student out in four years was more important than getting them ready for college?