What is with the Clintonistas? Is getting caught really the only sin? If so, they’ve committed it:
Chicago school officials are taking steps to make sure dropouts aren’t being mislabeled to make the city’s graduation rates look better.
The action comes after WBEZ and the Better Government Association reported widespread problems in how student were being classified when they left high school. Thousands were labeled as leaving the city, but then supposedly enrolled in GED programs. State law and policy dictate that students who leave districts to go to GED programs are dropouts.
In other words, there may be less to those reports of improved on-time high school graduations in Chicago than met the eye. They may just have been changing the numbers.
First, the homicide statistics. Now on-time high school graduations. You don’t make things better by changing the statistics. You just make them look better, easing your way to the next election.
In fairness it might be the case that the CPS has been cooking the books on graduations long before Rahm Emanuel was mayor. For decades even. It’s an amazing coincidence, though.
I’m not quite sure the exact incentives for mislabeling dropouts under No-Child-Left-Behind, but they sound punitive. If concealing dropouts prevents sanctions against the school which will harm students, it might be quite understandable, even laudable.