Fwd: [arn2-strategy] grad rate falls in LA in wake of grad test

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Begin forwarded message:

  From: "Monty Neill" <monty@fairtest.org>

  Date: Mon Jun 23, 2008 4:06:32 PM US/Eastern

  To: <ndsgroup@yahoogroups.com>, <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>, "ARN-L"
  <arn-l@interversity.org>, "arn2-strategy" <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>

  Subject: [arn2-strategy] grad rate falls in LA in wake of grad test

  Reply-To: arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com

  The CA graduation test is clearly implicated in the absolute as well as
  relative decline in the number of graduates in LA. This occurred before this
  year's requirement that students with disabilities must pass the exam - a
  barrier that no doubt will substantially increase the non-graduation rate.
  Monty

  http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-grads21-2008jun21,0,3489530.story

  From the Los Angeles Times

  Graduation rates declining in L.A. Unified despite higher enrollment, study
  finds

  Experts say the exit exam is having a huge effect on dropouts. The UC-led
  report showed that middle school experiences and teacher quality were also
  major factors.

  By Mitchell Landsberg

  Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

  June 21, 2008

  The number of students graduating from Los Angeles public schools has
  declined for two straight years even as enrollment in the 12th grade has been
  rising sharply, new state data show. The graduation slump began when
  California started requiring students to pass an exit exam before they could
  receive a diploma.

  The data caught educators by surprise after they were quietly posted on the
  state Department of Education website. Separately, new research released this
  week indicated that only 48% of students in the Los Angeles Unified School
  District graduate on time.

  The latest figures are sure to stir new concerns about the ability of Los
  Angeles schools to serve the needs of the majority of their students, and
  revive a debate about the wisdom of mandating an exit exam, even one that has
  been described as requiring only about an eighth-grade education to pass.

  The Los Angeles Unified School District officially declared a 64% graduation
  rate in 2005-06, the most recent year for which a rate is available. District
  leaders have long disputed studies that have shown the rate to be under 50%.

  But district officials did not reject the findings of the latest study,
  released Thursday by the California Dropout Research Project at UC Santa
  Barbara. Perhaps the most in-depth study ever done of Los Angeles dropouts,
  it examined individual student transcripts for the class that began ninth
  grade in September 2001 and should have graduated in June 2005.

  "It's a good methodology," said Esther Wong, L.A. Unified's assistant
  superintendent for planning, assessment and research, who reviewed a draft of
  the study. "It's certainly better than trying to calculate it and do a best
  estimate."

  Wong did question whether the study might have understated the graduation
  rate by not accounting for students who transferred to other districts. But
  Jeannie Oakes, a professor of education at UCLA who oversaw the research,
  said such students were removed from the count of incoming ninth-graders, so
  they could not have tainted the findings.

  The study concluded that the low graduation rate for L.A. Unified can be
  explained in large measure by the quality of students' middle school
  experience and the quality of teachers at their high schools.

  "We've learned from this that middle school is just hugely important," said
  Oakes, who runs UCLA's Institute for Democracy, Education & Access. Although
  the dropout project is based at UC Santa Barbara, it relies on researchers at
  several institutions, and the study was conducted at UCLA.

  The study found that differences among schools -- for instance, the
  percentage of highly qualified teachers, the percentage of English learners
  and the status of the school as a magnet -- played a stronger role in
  predicting whether a student would graduate than "student factors," such as
  race and socioeconomic status.

  Magnet schools had a major effect on success. Nearly three-quarters of the
  students attending an L.A. Unified magnet high school graduated on time,
  compared with just 45% of those who didn't. Magnet schools typically offer
  specialized, theme-based instruction and were mandated by a court order to
  attract students of different races.

  The dropout study and the recently released state data foreshadow the release
  of new and potentially explosive statistics on the state dropout rate that
  are expected in mid-July. Because California has begun assigning new,
  statewide identification numbers to all public-school students, the dropout
  data are expected to be far more accurate than in the past, when there was
  near-universal acknowledgment that the numbers vastly understated the
  problem.

  Statewide, 12th-grade enrollment has been rising for several years, the
  result of a baby boomlet in the late 1980s. Meanwhile, the number of high
  school graduates has stayed stagnant.

  In Los Angeles Unified, the rise in enrollment has been steeper than for the
  state overall, yet the number of graduates declined from 29,744 in 2005 to
  27,438 in 2007.

  The high school exit exam, often referred to by its acronym, CAHSEE, became a
  requirement for a diploma beginning with seniors who graduated in 2006. State
  and local officials widely agreed that it was the most likely cause for a
  decline in graduates.

  "I can't think of any other reason," said Keric Ashley, director of data
  management for the California Department of Education. "The CAHSEE does have
  some impact, not as much as some people thought it would."

  John Rogers, a UCLA professor who has studied the exit exam's effect on
  graduation rates, said he believes the state has downplayed its impact. The
  exam will hit the class of 2008 especially hard, he said, because for the
  first time, special education students had to pass the test.

  "In 2008, far fewer students will graduate than probably any year over the
  last 25 years," Rogers said.

  Figures for 2008 graduates aren't expected until next spring.

  Debra Duardo, the director of dropout prevention and recovery for Los Angeles
  Unified, said there were no surprises in the new data, and the dropout
  project study confirmed what district officials have assumed about the
  barriers that keep students from graduating.

  For instance, as others have done previously, the researchers pointed to
  algebra as a tripwire for many students.

  Seventy percent of students who passed Algebra 1 by the end of ninth grade
  went on to graduate on time.

  But the majority of students did not pass it in eighth or ninth grades, and
  roughly two-thirds of them failed to graduate on time.

  The study found that students who changed schools during either middle or
  high school had much lower graduation rates, including students who switched
  between the sixth and seventh grades.

  Duardo said the district is responding to those problems.

  She also said the study overlooked the district's recent success in keeping
  students in school, and on track to graduate, after they miss their normal
  graduation date.

  "If they don't do it in four years, maybe they can do it in five years," she
  said.

  mitchell.landsberg@ latimes.com

  Monty Neill, Ed.D.

  Deputy Director

  FairTest

  342 Broadway

  Cambridge, MA 02139

  617-864-4810 x 101;  fax 617-497-2224

  monty@fairtest.org

  http://www.fairtest.org

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