The Department of Education is "discharging" an increasing number of students, who are not counted in the graduation rates but may have dropped out of school, according to report released today by the Public Advocate's office. Up to and above a quarter of all children of color and with special needs, including students who are English language learners, are documented as high-school discharges, as are 21 percent of students overall. That works out to one in five students who start high school and then are ostensibly 'discharged' to other schools or other locations, with little precision or transparency on causes and outcomes. These numbers are on the rise since a seminal report in 2002.
The Times offers a cogent analysis; internet education wonks will recognize one of the report's authors, Jennifer Jennings, as the "unmasked" Eduwonkette, whose anonymous columns, supported by careful, meticulous research, challenged the DOE on a regular basis.
One particularly troubling observation documented in the report is the high discharge rate for students in the first year of high school -- before they're 17, the legal age at which students may elect to end their public education and drop out. It is unclear what this surge represents, but the report charges that younger, struggling students are being pushed out of high schools that are trying to improve Progress Report grades. Without these students being counted, school statistics may increase, which offers schools "perverse incentives to discharge students," according to the report. Regardless, what is crystalline is that far too many kids are unaccounted for, and that graduation rate calculation and reporting is undoubtedly influenced by this practice.
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