What do the record high school graduation rates mean? Simply that more kids are staying in high school for four years. When unemployment especially youth unemployment is at record levels, what other options does a teenager have? Lack of jobs is also a major factor pushing up college enrollment. It's a way to postpone job hunting until the economy improves and perhaps improving one's prospects with a degree.
Higher graduation rates do not, unfortunately translate into a better educated workforce. Sitting in a classroom is not necessarily the same as getting an education. Yes, students take standardized tests in English and math early on in high school but they are not required to pass them to "graduate". They can graduate with a "waiver" and receive a diploma for sticking it out for four years. Or as Wendy put it a few years ago, "the tests are not an issue" keeping kids from graduating. In other words, any kid who doesn't drop out is guaranteed a diploma. The typical 50% remediation rate for college freshmen show what has happened to the value of that diploma.
All other things being equal, the higher graduation rates would be a good sign. But we'll have to see what happens when the economy recovers to see if the trend is real.
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The JG did have a small blurb at the end of their article this morning about the waivers be issued by the schools. Is there anyway one might find out how many waivers were issued by FWCS last year? I know a few years back Wayne and Southside were around 20%of their totals.
The percentages for each high school are given on the "report cards" on the state web site. They're above 20%south of Colisuem. Wayne is 27%. Snider is 13%. The year Wendy made that statment she also said that only one or two students who didn't pass the GQE (before the ECA's) failed to "graduate". Come to school for four years and you're guaranteed a diploma but they won't come out and say that directly.
So one out of four at Wayne couldn't pass a 10th grade test. Maybe Wendy should use a 8th grade test.
The GQE, given to high school sophomores was essentially an 8th grade test. The ECA which replaced it 3 years ago was a more difficult/rigorous test, at least initially.
High school diplomas, especially in urban districts have essentially become attendance certificates. When hiring hourly workers for our plant in Texas, we required either a two year technology degree or two years or more working through a temp agency before putting an applicant on the permanent payroll. A high school diploma meant nothing.
Here's a big surprise: The schools with the lowest graduation rates (like Wayne) also have the highest "mobility rates"...and all FWCS high schools have mobility rates higher than state average. Students counted in the mobility rate are removed from the school's pool of potential graduates, but in general, mobility rates reflect how much student movement there is in a school or district. FWCS serves some populations that have high mobility...a tough group to educate. Scariest part of the mobility group is the students who are considered "missing" - all efforts to contact them fail, and this often includes home visits.
Oops, all FWCS high schools except Snider have mobility rates higher than the state average.
In two or three years Snider will be with the rest of FWCS high schools. If you don't believe me look at Lane Middle School. Wendy killed Snider when she started sending half of the Geyer kids to Snider. Thanks Wendy.
I think graduation rate is overemphasised. There are too many uncontrollable factors involved. What's important is what they know when they leave school. If you want to look at graduation numbers, then factor in the waivers to see if they can at least meet a minimum standard.
It looks like exporting the south side's problems is putting a significant drag on the numbers at Snider and Northrop. How long are parents north of Coliseum going to go along with that?
This parent moved north of Dupont.
I hope, Anon, you are not saying those "Geyer kids" do not deserve the opportunity to go to Snider?
Siesta - I see "deserve" and "entilted to" used as a justification all the time. Like they "deserve air conditioning". What does that mean? (I deserve a Porsche by the way.) And why is going to Snyder an opportunity versus going to South Side. GiaQuinta himself said we have the "same magic" in all the high schools when they were closing Elmhurst.
And for those who "deserve" to go to Snyder and get to do so, what do they make of that "opportunity"? Do they do better than they would have at South Side (data please) or do they just lower Snyder's academic standing for the sake of making the district look more integrated?
How many kids living north of Coliseum take the "opportunity" they "deserve" to go to South Side?
Oh, and by extension they also deserve the opportunity to go to private school with a voucher. Right, or is that where the entitlement stops?
I completely agree that both South and Snider (and North, Wayne, Northrop, Leo, Carroll, Homestead,etc.) provide students the same opportunities to succeed and get a good education. I was simply responding to Anon who suggested Snider was being "killed" by "Geyer kids". I find that statement offensive...to all students in FWCS.
I'll let "anon" respond on his/her own behalf. Like him/her, however, I found a lot of students to be highly offensive during the six years I spent tutoring them on my own time in FWCS.
I do believe that Geyer students are hurting Snider's academic reputation. Ten years ago Snider was a thriving academic community, but now the scores are falling in line with the rest of FWCS. I wonder why Geyer closed? Oh no, let us make this about race.
Still wondering why Geyer closed? I wonder if it was due to a bad building. Maybe it was because the students along with a lot of their parents didn't give a damn about education. Unless the Geyer community starts caring it doesn't matter where they are sent because they will continue to underperform and hurt the school they are attending.
A recent study from University of Michigan and one by a Stanford professor claim that low income is now a greater contributor to the achievment gap than race. When I was tutoring freshman algebra at SSHS, Gyer had just been closed. It wasn't hard to tell which kids had gone (been socially promoted through) to Geyer. It wasn't their skin color.They were totally clueless in math.
I related my obesrvations at SSHS to a number of people inluding Geoff Paddock (then school board president) Principal Tommy Smith, Wendy, and later in a letter to GiaQuinta. They didn't want to hear it. They still don't.
I found that offensive.
Here is what I have observed:
1. FWCS, and a majority of other urban school districts, have teachers that blame the family, the community, and the child, everything but themselves. While teachers may not be to blame for everything, I think they lack in due diligence for the call to action. Take the example of homework: A FWCS teacher will not assign because it will not get done. Instead, of working with churches, parks and recreation, youth agencies, etc. to make sure all middle schoolers can get it done, in a safe place, FWCS' teachers just don't assign it. I have been told by a high school teacher at Carroll, teachers attribute the high GQE scores to middle school homework. (Side Note: I grew up in NWCS, in poverty/very working class family), and I recieved a solid, education.
2. Lane is the fault of the poor leadership! IF Lane would have a strong academic, disciplinarian leadership team, Lane would be ontop. However, the best and brightest teachers have quit within 2 years, and have pursuited other fields, including medicine.
3. Catholic schools have developed into a leader for poor kids. "Decades of research tell us that no system of schools – charter, private, or public – has demonstrated such proven effectiveness for the children most vulnerable to unsatisfactory schooling as Catholic schools. There is no other educational intervention with a track record like ours. We know that children who attend our schools are 42% more likely to graduate from high school, and 250% more likely to graduate from college." Before Benoit closed, it had a high number of impoverished kids, and yet they had a 100% pass rate on ISTEP. Explain that one to me.
BTW, I heard it through a Catholic rumor, that St. Patrick's may reopen. I wonder what would happen if FWCS would have to compete with a Catholic school for ESL students.
Funny. How are teachers suppose to get all of these organizations involved? It sounds easy to do, but it is really hard to do it in the real world. As far as discipline is concerned a teacher is not allowed to discipline students. A student can tell a teacher to fuck off and still be allowed to go to class. We all know that the vast majority of the problems have to do with liberals who will not allow bad acting students to be removed from school and put in a real alternative school until these students decide to try in school and follow the rules. Thanks for your input. Keep blogging.
Catholic schools work. My wife is Catholic (I'm not) so we belong to St.John's on Fairfied. I don't object to giving to the parish and the diocese because I want the their school to stay open. In fact I have freely donated several thousands dollars to FWCS schools that work, no questions asked, because I know and respect who's running them and I trust them to spend the money wisely. On the other hand I wouldn't willingly give a dime to the district as a whole because I have no respect for the people running it.
Eventually liberals, lawyers teachers' unions and education bureaucrats will figure out how they killed government run urban public schools. By then they'll be the education system of last resort for the worst of the worst. But perhaps in FWCS they can go down the tubes in air conditioned comfort.
There seems to be a belief that teachers write the rules and can decide what to teach and make the big decisions on what is going on in their schools. Of course this is not true. A FWCS middle school teacher can assign as much homework as he or she wishes, but if the kids do not do it the school corporation will not hold them accountable and hold them back from going to the next grade. I guess this too should be blamed on teachers and not the administration.
I am addressing this comment to the fellow that believes that Catholic schools will take a lot of ESL learners from public schools. Catholic schools do not want ESL students. Catholics schools want proven students that will not hurt their standardize test scores. Remember, Catholic charities sponsored the Burmese in Fort Wayne, but they did not settle the Burmese students in Catholic schools. These students went to East Allen public schools.
Posted by one of the Anonymous Posters.
Before Benoit closed, it had a high number of impoverished kids, and yet they had a 100% pass rate on ISTEP. Explain that one to me.
Pretty Simple, Mary Schreiber and her ability to inspire staff and students. Any district would have been lucky to have her, but her heart is always with the greatest need.
Seriously not that difficult, if some FWCSs have air conditioned facilities than ALL FWCS schools should have air conditioned facilities. Simple equality, my friend.
When you graduated SSHS in the 70s what sort of 'qualifying exam' did you have to pass, my friend? None, says you. Did you then basically graduate from that 'urban' school district simply because you showed up more often than not? Shame, shame...
Wendy Robinson is to Fort Wayne Community Schools what Peyton Manning is to the Colts. Evert, why are you not discussing this?
There were no state mandated test when I graduated in the sweltering sixties with no air, There was also no social promotion or diplomas given to semiliterates for showing up. I, along with apmost everyone else, took the PSAT the SAT and the Nationall Merit Scholsarship exams (I was one of 12 finalist in my graduating class. (I see SSHS has one last year and the entire.
district had 2, which is better than the usual 0). Feel free to check my SAT scores (GiaQuinta probably has them) or my transscripts fronm the Purdue School of Chemical Enigineereing.
Shame, shame for letting my former school and district turn in to a typical failing urban disaster. What I've seen in FWCS high schools in the last few years can't hold a canle to what it was in the pasr. Times have changed all right, for the worse.
The statement about Wendy came from Corona. Mr."proven experience" who's been sitting on the board for thirty years watching it go down the tubes. The drivel he puts out isn't worth a comment. At least try to figure outwhich schools are going to end up being closed before you air condition them, Steve..
Gotta kinda agree with Corona on this one... Payton Manning highest paid member of the Colts and didn't do a thing this year... I see the similarity.
Didn't Peyton get a raise too? Well at least he was calling the plays. The Cambridge Group and the IDE called the plays for FWCS.
Seriously, you really want to maintain that “…no diplomas given to semiliterates (sic) for showing up.”
“I, along with apmost (sic) everyone else, took the PSAT and the SAT and the Nationall (sic) Merit Scholsarships (sic) exams… “
Actually, stats show that fewer than 33% of high schools seniors sat for the SATs during that period. I attended SSHS from the late 60s to the early 70s and know that to a more accurate claim than “apmost (sic) everyone else” took those tests. Further, even if your readers accepted your estimate it remains irrelevant to the issue at hand: Those tests were not/are not graduating qualifying exams; rather, tests that ranked test takers and used only to predict college success. To be clear, in order for a student to graduate with a Core 40 diploma (the new standard diploma) they are currently required to pass ECAs in both English and Algebra. Unacceptably, closer to a majority of students have not /cannot pass those qualifying exams, in most case, through no fault of their own. (… years of social promotion policy, unfunded NCLB laws, decades of funding inequality, etc.)
“What I've seen in FWCS high schools in the last few years can't hold a canle (sic) to what it was in the pasr (sic).”
High school culture is unrecognizable to most attending pre Columbine era. Certainly, that fact has required a paradigm shift that FWCS has not yet completely achieved, of this we agree.
Sweltering 60s?? You started school after Labor Day and probably ended by Memorial Day. Ah, the good old days...
No social promotion...who are you kidding? I graduated in the sweaty seventies and I can think of many classmates, some friends, who got by on the bare minimum and less. Now, and then, you get out of school what you put into it.
And I will add that I recently spent two years teaching at your "failing urban disaster" and in those two years I taught some of the brightest and hardest working students I encountered in my career. I had a Burmese student who never spoke but was a diligent and accomplished algebra student. She could not pass the English ECA and would probably struggle with the Algebra ECA because it requires reading directions.
Mary Schreiber for sainthood!
Siesta Girl....If you student was Bright, she could pass the test. I have worked with Burmese students, and they can learn, and yes, they can pass the test. Then, again, I increased ISTEP scores by 50%. FWCS did not want me, because I raised the bar, too high, too fast. Oh, well, I now make $90.00 consulting for Catholic Schools.
Well, duh, of course they can learn! In her case she was in her first year in the U.S. and English was still a struggle for her.
With your abilities I think you are vastly underpaid.
Siesta - well sorry but I didn't run into any of those bright students the year I tutored freshman algebra at SSHS. Out of about 120 freshman (and juniors and seniors who were just as as bad) I worked with there were two girls, Hispanic sisters who had trouble with Enlish but could do algebra unless it was a word problem. Other than those two I would have flunked every damn kid in those classes if I had been their teacher. But she wasn't allowed to flunk more than half of them without getting in trouble.
I never heard of social promotion when I was in jr. high school at Harrison Hill. I really didn't know of any kids who were having trouble academically getting through what is now middle school, but admittedly that was a long time ago. And although we now have a lot of them that do, in my opinion social promotion is a disgrace. Why have "promnotion" though grades when it means nothing. Hell why not just get rid of grades. Just do "promotion" by courses or by buildings".
Oh right, retention doesn't work. They might drop out. Supposedly kids' third greatest fear (after losing a parent and something else) is being held back. Fear can be a great motivator. Holding a few of them back, perhaps with parental sign off, might convince some others that they just might be held accountable. If it doesn't, they're probably a lost cause regardless.
I don't believe you will ever make real progress in the high schools until you quit "promoting" kids who aren't prepared. What you're doing now is turning them into remedial middle schools so kids can at least pass the ECA's before they get out. How many of those bright kids you point to, given a choice, are you going want to stay in that kind of system, a system that's turned the concepts of responsibility and accountability into a farce.
Anon - where did you get those statistics for % of kids taking the SAT? Are those the statistics for SSHS in the early sixties?
I apologize for the spelling errors, actually typos but here is my excuse. I never took typing lessons. I'm old and I've had vitreous detachments in both eyes. So I have a lot of stuff floating around in there in addition to the stuff floating around in my brain. I type this on a netbook which makes the print small and sometimes I'm just too lazy or impatient to make the extra effort it takes me for good proofreading.
On the other hand that makes me like a lot of kids today, so I look at it as a sign that I'm adapting to the times.
I meant an hour. Yes, $90.00 per hour.
Code Blue – I’ll be happy to link you to my 33% statistic if you link me to a/your ‘nearly all’ statistic. Although, my mine is easy to find via Google: “high school seniors taking the test hovered around 33%”.
Sorry about your developing disabilities, age has likewise inflicted me with several additional challenges I’d rather not have to offset daily, but then I remind myself of the actual alternative…
Anon, with your stated abilities you are vastly underpaid at $90 an hour
Just curious, anon, what is your source: "Decades of research tell us that no system of schools – charter, private, or public – has demonstrated such proven effectiveness for the children most vulnerable to unsatisfactory schooling as Catholic schools. There is no other educational intervention with a track record like ours. We know that children who attend our schools are 42% more likely to graduate from high school, and 250% more likely to graduate from college."
It is always easier to produce results like these when you can select and remove students at will.
Anon - I'm relating my recollections from a specific high school in the early sixties. There were about 500 kids in my graduating class and we were alphabetically organized into home rooms of 25/30 kids where we spent the first 20 minutes of the school day. Almost all the kids in my home room were on the "college preparatory" track which meant they took the SAT at some point.
There were still some teachers at SSHS when I subbed there in 2002 who had been there since the late sixties. They thought the culture started to change drastically in the early 70's. My sister taught French at SSHS after graduating from IU in 1968 and couldn't stand it. She quit after 2 years.
I was told when I came back to Ft. Wayne in 2000 that Wendy's predecessor, Fowler-Finn instituted a policy of no retention which has not been changed. I have talked to middle school parents who asked that their kids be held back who were told that wasn't possible. I don't know if previous regimes had the same policy. If it hade been a policy when I was in school, it would have been common knowlegde. I don't doubt kids who didn't deserve it were promoted through grade inflation or regardless of their grades even in my day. I just believe it reflects badly on my district and my school to make that a blanket (if npublished) policy.
Research comes from:
Loyala/LAMax, Notre Dame ACE program, etc.
Research comes from:
Loyala/LAMax, Notre Dame ACE program, etc.
Research comes from:
Loyala/LAMax, Notre Dame ACE program, etc.
FWCS removed kids at will, and sent them to Harding. Now Harding is gone? FWCS does not have a spot to put them. Hmmmmm.........
I don't believe FWCS removed students and sent them to Harding. Harding was not part of FWCS and thus FWCS could not have sent them there. Plus, FWCS would not have sent them to another school district because they would have had to send the $9,000 with them. It is all about the money.
However, no matter, as my point was that neither you nor I had to take/pass any sort of ‘qualifying exam(s)” in order to earn a high school diploma.
Equally important, our earned diplomas did not distinguish one group of graduates from another, unlike today’s Core 40 versus the General Your recollections of SSHS rings true with me save your memory that “almost all students” took the SAT. Diploma graduates. While that may seem an insignificant or even an agreeable change to you, that change has nonetheless harmed students for simply electing not to pursue higher education. In addition, it seems to me that it has also tagged /diagnosis said students with character flaws (i.e., lazy, irresponsible, unaccountable, stupid) which simply are not true. Not to mention the likely weaken their future employment and wage opportunities...
Katie
BTW, another interesting fact I stumbled upon when tripping down Archer Lane was the realization that your 1959 class at SSHS included teachers who had earned their degrees at such prestigious universities/colleges as: Yale, Columbia, North Western, Syracuse, DePauw, Western Reserve, Oxford, and Purdue to name but a few!
Katie
Code Blue - Too, I agree that the cultural shift had started in the high schools around the early 70s, which likely coincided with highly qualified graduates choosing not to enter the teaching profession. Columbine marked the tipping point, but certainly was not the first such mass murder to happen on a school campus. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster a blood bath set off at an elementary school by a taxpayer upset over a tax increase needed for the construction of a new school. This isn’t to deny there is wasteful spending of educational dollars happening today…
Katie
Sorry -- the post at 12:40 PM was meant to read:
Your recollections of SSHS rings true with me save your memory that “almost all students” took the SAT. However, no matter, as my point was that neither you nor I had to take/pass any sort of ‘qualifying exam(s)” in order to earn a high school diploma.
Equally important, our earned diplomas did not distinguish one group of graduates from another, unlike today’s Core 40 versus the General Diploma graduates. While that may seem an insignificant or even an agreeable change to you, that change has nonetheless harmed students for simply electing not to pursue higher education. In addition, it seems to me that it has also tagged /diagnosis said students with character flaws (i.e., lazy, irresponsible, unaccountable, stupid) which simply are not true. Not to mention the likely weaken their future employment and wage opportunities...
Katie
My characterization of today's FWCS high school students comes from watching them in class for 5 years. They did no homework. With the 90 minute block scheduling (now gone) they got a half hour at the end of class to do their "homework". They freely admitted they never took an algebra book home. Half of them didn't read well enough to be able to study a book on their own. If they didn't learn it in class, spoon fed by the teacher (and me) they didn't learn it and didn't much seem to care! And blamed the teacher for their failure. That's the kind of accountablity we teach them with social promotion.
Apart from SAT score consider some of the family names in my SSHS graduating class (of 62)- Waterfield, McMillen, Hagerman, Irmscher. Those families would be sending their kids to private school today, if they were still in the district, like the fork tongued president of our school board did.
Code Blue - I totally agree with you; there shouldn’t be social promotion or grade inflation policies at FWCS. What confuses me is how you can grasp that concept yet continue to blame the educational shift on the students. Where exactly do you think those students—and, yes, their parents—got the idea that they would not be held accountable if they acted irresponsibility. (And don’t even get me started on the lessons taught the huge influx of students caught up in those ‘special education’ programs.)
Katie
I'm blaming it on both the students (and parents) and the system. The students (and parents) don't want to be held accountable and the system accomodates them with their policies. The schools, which are supposed to instill a sense of responsibility are caving and taking the easy way out. Their mission has changed from education to survival and preservation of the staus quo (their jobs).
The people who are in the best position to change it are the teachers who know what's going on in the classrooms and their unions. But they won't do it because it will be painful for many of them. But like you said, don't get me started on that one.
Katie said...
Code Blue - Agreed, the best ones to fix the problem are those that perpetuate the problem. Which in my opinion are definitely not the students or parents, nor necessarily the teachers or unions—rather, the policy makers and the administrators who do their bidding
Evert,
How are teachers going to change it? I always hear how it is the teachers fault for not doing more. Tell me how teachers can change schools.
Harding had a number of transfers from FWCS before they closed. Keep in mind FWCS takes a number of students from NWACS, mostly minorities, who struggle at a school with a high percentage of whites.
Teachers would have to change it through FWEA. Doesn't that "E" stand for education? If the teachers and FWEA's "leadership" don't speak out and tell the board and community what's going on in their classrooms, nothing will change except by edict from the state. Honesty may be painful but the pain will come eventually.
Do teachers believe blanket social promotion is right? Do they believe adjusting grades to improve the passing percentages is right? Do they think giving dipllomas with vaivers is OK? Is being cussed out by students OK but cussing out a student is not?
That's really the only hope I see for bringing the distrct back short of a state takeover. My perception is that teachers don't really believe it can be fixed. They feel trapped but they're the only ones who can set themselves free..
Evert,
Do you know of any teachers that have tried to change the system, or are all teachers just in it for the money and the free summers?
Yes, I do know of one or two who have tried speaking out, but they got nothing but grief for their trouble. And nothing changed. They can't accomplish anything individually within the system. To have an impact, their union has to take the lead.
It must be nice to have the summers off though.
I wish a bunch of FWCS teachers would speak about what is going on in their schools, but if they do under the new evaluation system they can lose a point on their job performance. Isn't America grand. Any room in Holland Evert. Ironic I would want to move to a country where my father and uncle helped free so many years ago. Sad indeed.
Recent GOP backed legislation now specifically limits teacher collective bargaining to wages and some benefits negotiations. FWEA primary function has always been to enhance employment compensation and circumstances for their members, not make policy.
Policymakers and school administrators are perfectly aware of what is going on in the schools. They would have to be utter nincompoops not to know… They alone are responsible for the state of public education and they alone hold the power / responsibility to make it function properly.
The voting public needs to prioritize their concerns, educate themselves on who has, will and is capable of fulfilling that responsibility and vote accordingly.
Until the system is fixed, no one should be advocating that students be punished for the failure of the adults to get it right, IMHO.
Holland is too crowded and the climate sucks. Even worse, there's no AC.
The new law limiting collective bargaining seems to give administrators more power to make changes. We'll have to see how they use it. Union resistance may no longer be an excuse for inaction.
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