July 30, 2008
Dear Board Members:
In the July 13, 2008, edition of The Sun Sunday, President Hess is quoted as saying “With CSSRP, our graduation rates have increased, our dropout rates have decreased, our HSA scores have gone up.” I was curious about the validity of that statement, especially regarding the dropout rate and the graduation rate, so I have been spending some time with the data at www.mdreportcard.org. I gave extra attention to the data for special education students and for African American students.
I should note that we have data for only one year of CSSRP (2007), even though the program has been in place for two years. The data for 2008 will not be reported for several weeks. While I found tables related to the dropout and graduation rates in the appendices to the report of your external reviewers (also from www.mdreportcard.org), I was unable to find any other mention of this information in their report.
The data for dropout rates is somewhat mixed, especially when one compares the dropout rate for 2007 with the average dropout rate for the previous four years. Compared to this four-year average, the 2007 dropout rate is greater for five high schools as well as for the entire county. The 2007 dropout rate for special education students is also greater than the four-year average for the county overall and for seven high schools.
My genuine concern is with graduation rates. When comparing the 2006 and 2007 graduation rates (before and after CSSRP) for all students, it appears the rate is improving. But when one looks at the graduation rate for special education students, one finds a significant decline in the county and in every high school but one. The same is true for African American students. (I should note, also, that several schools have outstanding rates of graduation and minimal numbers of drop outs. In particular, Harford Technical High School has consistently impressive results.)
I must share a related observation. When the state calculates graduation rates, the number of students who should have been eligible for graduation is determined. For special education students, this number is significantly lower in 2007 than in 2006 and than the average of the previous four years. What happened to the special education students?
There are at least two possible explanations for the reduction in the rate of graduation for special education and African American students from 2006 to 2007. Perhaps the numbers are incorrect. Perhaps a mistake was made in the numbers reported by HCPS to the Maryland State Department of Education. Hopefully that is not the case as schools are judged on this information and this is the kind of information that should never be reported incorrectly.
The other possibility is that between 2006 and 2007, something happened in nearly every school that had a negative effect on the ability of special education and African American students to meet their graduation requirements. The only system-wide change of which I am aware is the implementation of the Comprehensive Secondary School Reform Program. It might be worth considering the possibility that the Board has implemented a program that is detrimental to our most challenged students.
I am interested in an explanation for the reduction in the rates of graduation in 2007 for our special education and African American students. I suspect some members of the public would be interested, also. And I am looking forward very much to the state’s publication of the data for 2008.
I have included several tables with graduation and dropout rate information with this letter.
Sincerely,
William M. Ekey
c: Members of the Board of Education
Dr. Jacqueline Haas
Imagine that, that little vocational school has the best graduation rates and the lowest dropout rate. Maybe they should be focusing on steering more students towards the programs available at “Vo-Tech” instead of standing up magnets at each of the high schools?
Harford Tech has at least enough applicants to fill another technical/vocational high school. As a result, accepted students tend to have the highest middle school GPAs, which may explain the high graduation rates. But it also means hundreds of other students are turned away year after year.
We desperately need more vocational/technical offerings for our students. Options exist beyond buidling a new school, including re-purposing other buildings and part-time enrollment at HTHS.
This should have been at the forefront of high school reform. Instead we got the block schedule, LICW and forced “career pathways” for kids who have no idea what they want to do. The kids who apply to HTHS know what they want and we have no program for them. It’s a disgrace.
In the meantime, we had a prospective board member, Dr. Shahab, who was an expert on technical/vocational education, but the Governor decided for us that we didn’t need him in Harford County. The voters might have thought otherwise.
I think one of the other reasons that HTHS does so well is that much of the students’ education is focused on things they see as valuable. By the time an HTHS student is in 11th grade, almost half of his schedule is geared toward his technical area. While it is true that HTHS has some advantage in being able to select the students who attend the school, their success is due to more than that.
For most of the schools, however, the drop in graduation rates for special education students in particular is alarming. According to the numbers, of the 18 students who should have been seniors at Edgewood High and were identified as special education students, not one graduated. Of the 25 students at Aberdeen High who similary identified, 7 graduated. Of the 13 similar students at North Harford, 2 graduated. That has never happened before.
I think it’s ironic that it takes a high GPA to go to the school that evolved from the program that, back in the day, was for students who didn’t want to or couldn’t go to college. I am a graduate of Bel Air High and when my son expressed an interest in Harford Tech, I initially discouraged him, told him that he was “college material” and pushed him toward an academic high school. I did a little research and learned that Harford Tech is “not your father’s vo-tech program”. Fortunately, he was accepted and is now attending college with the advantage of having his vocational experience as a backup career choice.
Thank you for acknowledging a concern that many in my community have held for quite some time. If we had some input into the selection of our school board representative, we would have made our concerns known during the campaign process. This county and for that matter this state needs more technical/vocational education. If Harford Tech only accepts students with the highest middle school GPA’s, what are those students who have lower GPA’s to do? I thought (and perhaps I am mistaken) that vocational/technical programs were supposed to be available for those kids who were not going on to college could get much needed jobs skills training/education. I don’t know about any readers of the Dagger, but I haven’t had any “college educated” repairpersons working on or repairing anything around my home.
To his credit, Del Dan Riley has called for a Technical High School for the Southern end of the County-to no avail.
We continue to have this back and forth about which process will yield the “best” candidate(s) for our School Board. Well, I for one am looking for someone with some commonsense to fill the school board seats. I am not a subject matter expert, but even I know that not all children are college material. And if they are not college material-then what do we expect them to do? What kind of a future do we expect them to have with out jobs skills training? The education system (not just here in Harford County) has as much do do with crime as parenting. Children don’t decide who their parents will be, but we can certainly decide who governs our school system that educates them.
Could the lack of vocational/technical education opportunities be a contributing factor to the dropout rate and high crime rates?
My unscientific theory is that these block schedule classes are just way too long, for High School students, particularly for those who are academically struggliing and have a time focusing for that long period of time.. Not all students are engaged and not all subjects or teachers are engaging. Once the student falls behind, which can happen for a number of reasons and not always the fault of the student, grades suffer, interest is lost, and there is a bit of hopelessness, so why continue on. The CSSRP review even noted that the classes were too long and perhaps 60 minutes may be a more appropriate time frame. Private and catholic high schools still do the 45 minute classes and they seem to have a high graduation rate. What has become of the recommendations of the CSSRP review? Silence on the HCPS website.
Carl:
Your theory isn’t unscientific. There are many studies about attention, retention, etc. pointing to the fact that most kids (and adults) can’t pay attention that long and for retention purposes, shorter frequent meetings are much better. Harford County tried to use the rationale that they are trying to get kids ready for college (at age 14 mind you) and that is why they needed these longer classes. Amazingly, most of the freshman at 4 year schools are enrolled in classes that are 55-60 minutes long. That is right … the colleges don’t have these long classes so there goes that excuse. When the Board implemented CSSRP, they said they were going to look at after ONE YEAR!!! They looked at it and then looked the other way. Even when they got a survey that gave them information about changes that needed to be made, they ignored it.
I hope the new Board members look at this information with fresh eyes and an open mind.
At Fallston, Joppa and Edgewood HS, the graduation rate for African American students was down 10 points and down in every other high school except North Harford (where the drop-out rate spiked instead). The drop-out rate also went up for African American students in 5 out of 9 high schools. This is alarming. The administration surely has an explanation and a plan.
Maybe someone from the Board – the new president? the new members? – will find out what it is (if they don’t already know) and respond to Bill Ekey, who raised these concerns again in public comments at the Board meeting Monday night.
I’m a little new / inexperienced with this area of discussion (I’ve been a resident for less than 2 years and none of my kids are school age yet) but are the graduation rates of special education students really a valid measure of anything?
I know in Pennsylvania, Children with disabilities have the right to stay in school until they turn 21 years old, or until they graduate—whichever comes first. If a child accepts a high school diploma prior to age 21, the student cannot continue to receive free special education services. If a student does not graduate but turns 21 during the school term, the student can continue to receive educational services until the end of the school term.
Moreover in Pennsylvania, a special education student can get a diploma without actually reaching the level of standards as regular education students as long as they do meet the goals set by thier individual education program team.
If Maryland is anything like this (again, I’ve been a resident for less than 2 years and none of my kids are school age yet) then the special education graudation rates are more a function of how many of these seniors and super-seniors turned 21 in a given year without previously finding something better to do with thier time than it would be a measure of teacher/administrator achievement. At a minimum, I would argue that there is certainly not enough information from the numbers presented to be considered statistically significant or worth drawing any sort of conclusion from.
My concerns are limited specifically to the special education numbers and any conclusions or comments made from those numbers. The data and concerns raised about African American student graduation rates may be valid.
Not saying teachers and administrators should not be held accountable for the performance of special education programs. I only question if graduation and dropout rates are the right way to measure success in this area vs some sort of aggregate measure that focuses on IEP attainment rates year over year.
If you review the data over the past five years, you’ll find that the rates of graduation for special education students have always been significantly lower than the rates for non-special education students. For example, the average graduation rate for all students from 2003 to 2006 was 87% while the average for special education students in that same period was 76%. In 2007, the graduation rate for all students was still 87%. The graduation rate for special education students was 50%. The next lowest rate of graduation for special education students was 75% in 2003 and 2005.
The point is that the Board of Education implemented a new high school program in the 2006-07 school year. In that year, significantly fewer special education students graduated. And while not as significant in numbers, fewer African American students graduated in 2007 than in past years. There is a real possibility that the new high school program was the major factor in these changes.
Having been a Harford County high school principal from September 2003 to December 2006, I can state with some certainty that there was no other program or initiative during that time which would have resulted in these declines.
I think the real test will be the numbers for 2008 which should be available in the next few weeks. If the low rates of graduation are still evident, it is very strong evidence that the new high school program is detrimental to our most challenged students. If the rates return to their historic levels, then some other explanation is likely.
Mr. Ekey:
Who provides the numbers and is there a possibility that the numbers can be massaged to make them favorable? or are they confirmed by anyone independently? I’m not really getting into the veracity of the data, but stranger things have happened to make stats work.
Carl – Good question. The numbers are provided by the Harford County Public Schools to the Maryland State Department of Education. MSDE goes through a rigorous process to verify that the students reported by each school system actually exist and belong to that system. An initial data file is provided to the state in the summer, and it is reviewed and finalized in November. These are the numbers on which state funding is based, and the state conducts audits periodically. In my experience, the system has appropriate safeguards and the numbers reported are an accurate reflection of the reality in the school system and in each school.