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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tonto who wrote (692926)	7/20/2005 7:35:34 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Nothing, why? (All I know is that the 50 states have not agreed to uniform methods for measuring 'graduation rates' --- a big recent push to get then to come to some sort of agreement was in the news last week, some 40-odd States are 'talking' --- which would appear to be some sort of prerequisite for effective administration and allocation of 'No Child Left Behind' funds, among other programs.) Apparently many States have been playing huge statistical tricks with their data to keep the 'graduation rate' they report to the feds high, so the statistics reported to the feds are an 'apples and oranges' situation. Many complaints have been made about Texas, for just one example, which apparently has a huge number of High School dropouts --- but it is alleged that in their final meeting with a school councilor prior to their leaving school they are pushed to 'sign up' as enrollees in various vocational schools. Despite the fact that the school system NEVER CHECKS to see if any of these kids ever show up at the vocational schools (huge percentages of them never do), they are STILL OFFICIALLY COUNTED AS 'GRADUATES' IN THE DATA REPORTED TO THE FEDS WHEN QUALIFYING FOR 'NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND' FUNDING. (Keeping their reported 'graduation rates' near the 'nineties, when, if the dropouts were counted, the grad rates would actually be in the 'fifties.) Garbage in, garbage out appears to be the rule. Apparently it is possible to make dropout comparisons within a State (comparing various periods of time), but comparisons BETWEEN various States may be worthless at the present time... the stats are too heavily cheated on.