APS and NMPED spar over who's to blame.

The Journal is following up on the dispute over APS' graduation rates, link.

In a nutshell; APS and every other school district in NM supply statistics to the NMPED, who then takes those statistics, plugs them into a "formula" and calculates a graduation rate.

When that calculation was first done, APS' graduation rate
was 46%. According to the Journal, Winston Brooks says
the recalculation will raise APS' graduation rate from 46%
to somewhere between 58-63%.

Even 63% would still be unacceptable.

The recalculation will be based on "corrections" APS has forwarded to the NMPED. APS maintains that the corrections were sent to the state well before the preliminary calculation was made that revealed APS' 46% graduation rate, but were not used in the calculation, causing an APS' reputation to be damaged by the inaccurately low rate.

According to the Journal, NMPED says, APS may have dated the corrections before the initial calculation, but in fact, did not deliver the 1500-1700 corrections to the state until August, well after the initial calculations were complete. Therefore, according to the NMPED, APS owns the error, not them.

See if you can keep your eye on this ball. The Journal reports;

"(NM PED Secretary, Veronica) Garcia, in a news release Friday, said the information APS supplied to her department was "poor," and that the district made more than 1,700 corrections to it after it was submitted.

"I am incredulous at the implication that somehow PED is responsible for the inaccuracy of the district's self-reporting and subsequent corrections."

Brooks fired back, saying Garcia's announcement of a 46 percent graduation rate had been harmful to the district's morale and reputation. (red herring; the supposed damage to APS' reputation, has nothing to do with who supplied what data and when)

"I'm absolutely amazed that the PED wants to take no responsibility for this ... I don't even know what kind of error to call it,"

"They want to take no responsibility, they want to point fingers, like a child, back at APS, as if it were our calculation. I'm just absolutely amazed." (more red herring; its not about the calculation or who did it, it is about the inaccurate data the was used, and about who owns the inaccuracy)

In short, the state says APS supplied faulty data and, APS' response is that the NMPED is acting childish for saying the faulty calculation was based on APS faulty data.

Lost in the argument over when APS sent it "corrections" to the NMPED, is the nature of the corrections. APS is correcting its statistics by among other things, eliminating from the data base, ninth grade students who are not in the ninth grade for the first time. Or in other words, by eliminating from the calculation of students who don't graduate, the students least likely to graduate; students who already failed the ninth grade.

Lost in the argument over who reported what, when; APS wants to drop the least likely to graduate from calculations of how many graduate.

At the same time, APS wants to add seniors who take two senior years to graduate to the calculation. I have no problem with that. While it would be better if they graduated in four years, five years is not completely unacceptable.

My issue is with adding students who need an extra year on the tail end of high school and, at the same time eliminating students who need an extra year on the front end of high school.

By what logic? exactly.