Indiana Blog Review

Education Kick

RiShawn Biddle, always with smart commentary on education:

• "Are Public Schools Really Diverse?"
• An assessment of Superintendent H. Douglas Williams
• And the petty snubbing of a chart school in Gary high school sports

Graduation Rates

RiShawn Biddle was impatient for the numbers.  Now that they're out, Advance Indiana laments, and Abdul has a radical suggestion.  Mark Rutherford, "But at least we have palaces to house our failed government schools."  His suggestion for regional centers sounds promising.

Leo Morris says of the methodology, "Both ways of calculating the graduation rate are arbitrary, and you could make good arguments for either one . . . The important thing is to have a system everyone understands."

But Biddle counters that the new rate isn't arbitrary.  Both agree that greater transparecny will lead to new solutions.

Counting Noses

RiShawn Biddle:

How will school districts, after being forced by the state to report more accurate graduation rates, deal with the fact that they must admit by month's end that their graduation rates have been inflated for far too long. Judging from the responses so far, many will come up with seemingly reasonable arguments that fail to stand up to scrutiny.

Scandalista

FWOb asks, "How is Fort Wayne Community Schools like Nicaragua?"

Teach Your Children Well

RiShawn Biddle lobs a bomb at IPS.

Supersuperintendent Peterson

Abdul Hakim-Shabazz suggests replacing the IPS school board with the Mayor's office.

Green Wood

RiShawn Biddle:

For those who took offense when I mentioned Arlington High School Principal Jackie Greenwood's role in the dropout crisis that hurts young Blacks in Indianapolis -- and Indiana -- more than any other racial or ethnic group, here are some sobering numbers for consideration.

In Step ISTEP

Annette Magjuka:

The biggest problem with public education in Indiana is the focus on minimum standards. ISTEP standards are lower than national standards, yet passing ISTEP is seen as a goal rather than what it should be, the bare minimum.

Graduation Rates?

RiShawn Biddle fact checks . . . the Indianapolis Star:

Anyone reading Expresso or the Star Editorial Pages knows by now that Indiana's high school graduation rates are atrocious. Some 25,000 students drop out of Indiana's high schools a year, while the state's actual graduation rate -- not the official inflated version due to be replaced by year's-end --has hovered around 70 percent since 2001.

So you can imagine the interest I had in news-side colleague Staci Hupp's report on Monday that the Annie E. Casey Foundation, through its Child Trends survey, ranks Indiana as having the worst dropout rate in the nation. The problem is that the Casey study overstates the case by a country mile. Why? The statistical basis for its estimate has long ago been revealed as a poor measure of educational attainment.

Dropping Out

RiShawn Biddle:

But Carpenter and those out there who think as he does, will have a much difficult time arguing additional evidence -- this time from state education department data -- that there isn't a dropout crisis.