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Semipenultimate thoughts on graduation rates (includes Losen response to Mishel)

I’m acting one more (and last) time as a messenger/archivist for the discussion over graduation rates. Attached is a response by Dan Losen to Larry Mishel, after both of them (and Joydeep Roy) had commented extensively on a prior entry on graduation rates. Now that we’ve come to the end of this round of debate, […]

Questia spam!

I just received an e-mail offer that’s clearly spam: After reading your blog, it is clear that education is an issue you care about. As your commentary becomes a part of history, you are well aware that it is intrinsic to stay informed and up to date. This is where we come in. Questia provides […]

NYC graduation rates

In today’s NY Times story on school graduation rates by David Herszenhorn, there’s an important tidbit: the schools hired a firm to audit records. I didn’t know of that when I wrote that as one recommendation for Florida’s graduation-rate calculation, but I’m delighted to hear it now. A preventive step to ensure the accuracy of […]

Testing as technology

I’ve spent my book-time today pondering the nature of testing as technology. For the first time, I’m using concept-mapping software (CMAP), because, well, I haven’t been able to get my mind to think about this rigorously, and anything’s worth a shot. So it’s been fruitful. One thought in my head before today, which I knew […]

Florida graduation rates inflated

The paper linked from this blog entry describes how Florida’s Department of Education inflates the official longitudinal graduation rate by approximately 9-10% through two statistical definitions: It excludes from public-school responsibility all those dropouts who immediately enroll in GED programs. It includes GED and special-education diplomas in the general graduation rate. I have discussed this […]