In a copyright story by the Albuquerque Journal, the headline read “State: Almost Half of Class of 2008 Didn’t Graduate” and was followed by “Roughly half the students who should have graduated with the class of 2008 failed to do so, prompting a call to action by the state’s education secretary.”
While the headline is alarming, the data underneath it is suspicious.
How do I know? I worked as a consultant a couple of years ago on an education study for a developer to understand what was gonig on with APS enrollment.
In meeting wiht APS staff demographers, it came out that they didn’t track APS students once they left the system. So if you move to Los Lunas, you didn’t graduate, if you change schools to St. Pius, you didn’t graduate, if you move to Boston, attended and graduate from M.I.T., negotiate world peace, and win the Nobel Peace Prize, yes, you guessed it, APS believes you “didn’t graduate”.
Assuming 5% of all American’s move in any given year, and a four year high school attendance, fully 20% of the APS students could have “not graduated”.
Maybe its time for APS to spend some time and money and track its most precious resource, its students…