APS graduation rates, smoke and mirrors?

The industry of education creates a lot of data.  Some of that data is useful in determining whether a school district is more or less successful in their endeavor to prepare students for life after high school.

APS is pointing currently, to their graduation rates and how they're gradually creeping up.  The assumption is students who graduate are actually prepared for work, training or further education.

Some would argue, a better measure of APS' performance would be to look at graduate test scores.  There are problems for sure, with using test scores to measure performance, but if the tests are reliable and fair (therein lies the rub), graduate testing is arguably the best indicator we have.

Which leads us to an interesting report, link, from EduFact, link, about APS' declining scores on one of the leading measures of college preparedness; the ACT, wikilink.

It is a small wonder then, why APS and their friends at the Journal don't give as much play to APS graduates' declining ACT scores, as they do to APS' supposedly improving "graduation rates".

Update; in a review of posts gone by, I stumbled upon; Graduation rates increasing? or smoke and mirrors, link.  If nothing else, at least I'm consistent.




photo Mark Bralley