Atlanta grad rate doesn’t add up, By Alan Judd and Heather Vogell
, August 15, 2010, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Thousands of high school students vanished from the rolls of Atlanta Public Schools in the past eight years, often with few hints to where they went. Schools recorded many of them as “transfers” to other systems, at times without proof that the students hadn’t dropped out altogether. In 2008, a consultant to the district estimated recently, school officials couldn’t document the whereabouts of more than one-third of the district’s departed students. The mass exodus from Atlanta’s high schools may be the primary reason for one of the district’s proudest academic achievements: a dramatic increase in its graduation rate, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows. District officials boast that the rate of students getting diplomas within four years has risen 30 percentage points since 2002. But the rate’s only surge, from 43 percent to 72 percent, came between 2003 and 2005, the Journal-Constitution’s analysis of state data found. During that time, the district removed from its rolls about 30 percent of all pupils in grades nine through 12 – roughly 16,000 students…”
Day: August 16, 2010
Achievement Gap – New York City
Triumph fades on racial gap in city schools, By Sharon Otterman and Robert Gebeloff, August 15, 2010, New York Times: “Two years ago, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, testified before Congress about the city’s impressive progress in closing the gulf in performance between minority and white children. The gains were historic, all but unheard of in recent decades. ‘Over the past six years, we’ve done everything possible to narrow the achievement gap – and we have,’ Mr. Bloomberg testified. ‘In some cases, we’ve reduced it by half.’ ‘We are closing the shameful achievement gap faster than ever,’ the mayor said again in 2009, as city reading scores – now acknowledged as the height of a test score bubble – showed nearly 70 percent of children had met state standards. When results from the 2010 tests, which state officials said presented a more accurate portrayal of students’ abilities, were released last month, they came as a blow to the legacy of the mayor and the chancellor, as passing rates dropped by more than 25 percentage points on most tests. But the most painful part might well have been the evaporation of one of their signature accomplishments: the closing of the racial achievement gap…”
Unemployment Safety Net – Denmark
Denmark tightens its generous jobless benefits, By Liz Alderman, August 16, 2010, New York Times: “How long is too long to be paid to go without a job? As extended unemployment swells almost everywhere across the advanced industrial world, that question is turning into a lightning rod for governments. For years, Denmark was held out as a model to countries with high unemployment and as a progressive touchstone to liberals in the United States. The Danes, despite their lavish social welfare state, managed to keep joblessness remarkably low. But now Denmark – which allows employers to hire and fire at will while relying on an elaborate system of training, subsidies for those between jobs and aggressive measures to press the unemployed into available openings – is facing its own strains. As a result, it is beginning to tighten up…”