Analysis: How Alabama and West Virginia snagged the nation's highest graduation rates

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Analysis: Just a decade ago, Alabama and West Virginia were stuck behind most of their peers in public high-school graduation rates.

Now, they’re ranked first and third in the country. What happened? And what did data have to do with it?

washingtonpost.com
Analysis | How Alabama and West Virginia snagged the nation’s highest graduation rates
Just a decade ago, Alabama and West Virginia were stuck behind most of their peers in public high-school graduation rates. Now, they're ranked first and third in the country. What happened? And what...

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[ebbie15644]

1. Pay wall 😓

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. Try your library.

Sun Feb 13, 2022: How to get around the paywall at national newspapers

Because the Washington Post, like the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal., is a national newspaper, it is almost certainly available on your public library's database. As in, available for free, with no paywall.

You don't have to go to the library. Since you're reading this, you have access to a computer. Log into your account at the library and find the database of newspapers. The Post will be there. Ask your librarian for help if you need it.

{edited to add} The library doesn't have to be open. Its website is running 24/7, so you can log in at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday morning to read the newspaper.

Articles in the Cody, Wyoming, Enterprise; the Fairhope, Alabama, Times; or the Kodiak, Alaska, Daily Mirror might be just a bit harder to find.

I'll keep posting this as many times as I have to.

* Free, in the sense that you pay for it with your taxes. That kind of free.

[chia]

4. I'm a WaPo subscriber. Here's a gift link:

https://wapo.st/3tKWKNg

[ebbie15644]

5. thank you!

[JT45242]

3. Betsy Devos loophole...charter schools don't report

We used it as a teacher.

If you have a student who won't graduate, you bring in the parents and say.

"Johnny here only has 12 credits through his first three years of school. So, he can't graduate if he stays with us at his local high school. But, if you sign these two papers, we can withdraw him from our high school and enroll him in the online charter school where he can earn all the credits he needs to graduate by working at his own pace online and graduate this year."

We would do a LOT of this in September and January (and again March when it sunk in the kid wouldn't graduate) of senior year. The catch, all money for the kid for the entire school year went to the Devos family owned charter school even if you did this in May of senior year.

We did this with about 10 percent of our senior class every year. We had a 96% percent graduation rate this way. We literally never had a kid ho the online charter and get a diploma...but the charter schools don't have to report graduation rates.(they do provide profit/loss statement to investors).

Didn't read the article, because I know how the sausage is made. Because for twenty years I was in the room where it happened.

(Fyi .. our district actually planned on that loss of revenue when budgeting)