You have a bad link. I made a comment at Reversing the school-to-prison pipeline that appears to relevant to this thread. My comment pointed out that the relaxed discipline program at Broward County appears to have had some success. The goal of the relaxed discipline program was to increase high school graduation rates. According to Broward County Public Schools, this has happened" black graduation rates went from 61% to 75%; whites from 81 to 87%. (I am doing this from memory- the actual numbers in the link may have been somewhat different.)
I don't know if this was accomplished by also relaxing graduation criteria. School systems have on occasion, fudged data.
If the article I linked to is accurate, the relaxed discipline program for Broward County has been a mixed success- higher graduation and more discipline problems. Had Nikolas Cruz been arrested in previous years, there is a good possibility he wouldn't have gotten access to the gun that killed the 17 students.
Higher graduation rates have a self-defeating quality, in cheapening the value of the diploma. It's still better to have it than not, especially for those kids at the margin. But it has become a less valuable signal for everyone else.
It reminds me of the Far Side cartoon, of the fish who have escaped from a flaming water bowl, and one says "Thank God we got out of that! Of course now we are equally screwed."
You have a bad link. I made a comment at Reversing the school-to-prison pipeline that appears to relevant to this thread. My comment pointed out that the relaxed discipline program at Broward County appears to have had some success. The goal of the relaxed discipline program was to increase high school graduation rates. According to Broward County Public Schools, this has happened" black graduation rates went from 61% to 75%; whites from 81 to 87%. (I am doing this from memory- the actual numbers in the link may have been somewhat different.)
ReplyDeleteI don't know if this was accomplished by also relaxing graduation criteria. School systems have on occasion, fudged data.
If the article I linked to is accurate, the relaxed discipline program for Broward County has been a mixed success- higher graduation and more discipline problems. Had Nikolas Cruz been arrested in previous years, there is a good possibility he wouldn't have gotten access to the gun that killed the 17 students.
Higher graduation rates have a self-defeating quality, in cheapening the value of the diploma. It's still better to have it than not, especially for those kids at the margin. But it has become a less valuable signal for everyone else.
ReplyDeleteIt reminds me of the Far Side cartoon, of the fish who have escaped from a flaming water bowl, and one says "Thank God we got out of that! Of course now we are equally screwed."