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Why our kids don’t go to DISD

April 2, 2008

Public schools were a great option when I was growing up, but very few of my peers even consider sending their children to DISD. Why? There are a million reasons, but today’s news that DISD’s graduation rate is only 44% is simply shocking. What does it mean for our city?

Trey Garrison reminds us that the DISD’s superintendent’s salary is higher than the President of the United States. Do you know what he says? He suggests that the numbers are wrong and that the graduation rate is 93%. Guess we DON’T have a problem. The real reason our kids don’t go to DISD is management - or a lack of management. Where is Ross Perot when you need him? Would he consider taking over DISD? Someone make the call…

Written by Alexander Muse · Filed Under Blog ·

Comments »

clearly there’s a graduation problem - just saw similar stats in austin texas (i think the number there was higher, but it was still scary and low. but the official stats in austin weren’t 93%, something like 78% (a more realistic number, I think).

From prior experience, and reading these stats for universities, here are some of the things that matter:

1. how do you count a student that starts in your highschool but transfers to another school in your district?
2. how do you count a student that starts in your highschool but transfers to another district?
3. how do you count incoming transfers
4. how do you count people who take longer than 4 years (5, 6)
5. how do you count early graduates, people who take GED and opt out, etc.

it turns out, the biggest delta is usually on points 1,2, and 3. the school districts want to count all three favorably (don’t count the student against me if he/she leaves our district/school. i think the argument in austin was that the study you cite counted transfers against the school on the way out, and didn’t count them in favor on the way in.

I think if you have any friends in highschool, here’s the simple calculation you can do.

for any given highschool, what’s the # of students that are graduating seniors, and what’s the # that started out as freshmen. i would venture that the number at graduation is not 43% of the # that started as freshman. but you’d have to read more about the study to find out why the number is really so low. the school district would tell you that 93% number covers the % of students that go start-to-finish through their system (but they may be padding the # with incoming transfers that graduate).

note: universities do this same kind of fudging all the time with their graduation rates to goose them higher. i find it hard to believe that DISD really is only graduating 43% of the kids that enter the system at a highschool level.

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