On Back to School night several years ago, when daughter Jessie was beginning her first year in middle school (she’s now in graduate school, but her sixth grade year was not as long ago as one might think), her new principal proudly announced that as a result of a reform of the school’s grading system the grades the preceding year had improved significantly. He acknowledged, however, that there was still much work to be done because the standardized test scores had not improved at all.
My wife and I cracked up, and pretty soon moved Jessie to another middle school, but I was just reminded of the principal’s unintentionally humorous remark when reading, here, about an effort of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Gates now operates 19 small high schools in New York City where graduation rates have improved dramatically, although test scores have lagged.
It’s plausible that graduation rates have increased because students are more inclined to stay in school, without actually getting much smarter. If anything, I’d expect that to drive scores down as the dumb kids who would otherwise drop out take the tests. It would still be a good thing in my book.
Just speculation, of course.
Bet their self esteem is better too.
Unfortunately for them, the Chinese or Indian folks they won’t be working for in 10-15 years don’t much care about self-esteem or graduation RATES. They’ll care only whether Johnny or Susie can do algebra, trig, and calculus. And when they discovery Johnny and Susie can’t, the job will go to Ichiro, Helmut, or Wang.
Sorry