Graduation Rates and the Big Credit Lie

Thank you to a reader of the old blog who unearthed this lost post for me:


Small schools, the shiny new cadaver bones of a dismantled school, are lying about the credits that students receive. Recently speaking with a United Federation of Teachers Chapter Leader, they called the giving out of credits in small schools as an "epidemic". With no real regulation from New York State, school administrators and cooperating teachers/staff can be very creative about interpreting what determines credit for a class needed to graduate from high school. For example, to receive credit for gym class students participated in a "dance off" competition on the weekend. The last student standing received some points that contribute to fulfilling physical education requirements. Perhaps all of the grooving can be argued as a valid way to meet the standards, but this is a silly example in a practice that is steadily making a joke out of the teaching profession.

There are far more egregious examples I have been privy to. In order for a student to receive a foreign language credit they had to make a "Hispanic craft". This student was given beads the color of the flag of Ecuador and they made a bracelet. Hilariously, the student wasn't given all of the colors necessary to correctly represent the flag, but he did receive the credit. Another student seeking foreign language credit had to depict what a Latin American country looks like. This student cut out pictures of beaches and beautiful women in bathing suits and glued it to paper. In a case from another discipline, a senior student needed to make up English credits. They decided to do an independent project by reading the book Holes, which is juvenile literature and does not meet the standard at a 12th grade level.

Teachers of courses that grant the credits students need to meet graduation requirements are sometimes asked to put together credit recovery packets. In other cases, a cooperating teacher or other staff member will put together a packet they believe best satisfies the standards of that discipline though they are not expert or trained in that subject. With good intentions they "sign-off" on the credits without ever notifying the teacher certified to grant credits in the field. If someone that does not specialize in a content area has the power to grant credits for that subject, what does this say about teachers? Are we not really considered academics, just an accoutrement of a robotic system that pumps out data units? If this is how this country wants its young to be "educated", why not just fire all teachers and stick students in front of a computer screen? (Note: This is a good idea for a future blog.)

When looking into the ARIS system, a data-house of all students, the courses they've taken, state exams passed/failed, biographical information, etc. I've noticed that there are students that have been given credit for my class though I've never taught them. Conversely, though I have had that student, they are given credit for a class I didn't teach. I've been told by other teachers, not just in my school, that this has happened to them as well. There is no system to track the giving of credits and business is conducted very quietly. Teachers do not have a collective voice in this matter nor is there any accountability.

The implications for students are too great to be ignored. It includes not being prepared when they go on to college. Though only a handful of seniors from my school have been granted admission, we worry about their ability to be successful. A professor-friend of mine often comments how disgusted they are by the writing and reading abilities of their students. So while we push them out of high school to boost our graduation statistics, what happens to them once they are out of our care?

Despite what those achievement gap-closers say, there will be students who fail. In most cases they should be granted a second chance, albeit it should be done thoughtfully and with academic rigor intact. Many think credit recovery is a joke and that's the fault of those who are supposed to safeguard education.

Teachers and education activists speculate that students have to undergo credit recovery because of the failure of principals to appropriately program students so that they meet the requirements for graduation. Also, small schools are notoriously dysfunctional. To highlight how unorganized the administration is, last school year I received my teaching program the morning that classes were to start. Sadly, this is a common occurrence in small schools. Perhaps principals need help in programming and should attend professional development sessions to support skill development. Another solution would be to hire someone who knows how to do this very complicated task. Small schools find money in different budgets for various unusual titles, I am sure my school can cough up some change to make sense out of programming.

We won't know the answer to the credit recovery mess until there is an investigation by the state and honest discourse with educators. The push to grant students credits has obviously inflated the city's graduation rates, contributing to the false success of the mayor and supporters of the education reform movement at the expense of teachers and young learners. Until teaching is looked upon not as a job but as a respected and honored profession, I will continue "...hammering on cold iron".