Washington DC public schools (DCPS) are going through a crisis as the reality of high school graduation standards hits home. For the 2017 graduation year, “900 of 2,758 students who graduated from a D.C. public school last year either failed to attend enough classes or improperly took makeup classes.” Eventually, the FBI along with the US Department of Education and the DC Office of Inspector General started an investigation into grade inflation and attendance because federal education funding is often tied to academic achievement and attendance.
Results:
On the other hand, nobody it seems was investigating DC charter schools, which are publicly funded, draw on the same population and educate 46% of DC public school students. This research looked at DCPS and charter school graduation rates over the past six years. In the chart below, each individual high school has its graduation rate over six years shown as a black line. Additionally, each school has been compared to other schools in its funding source, other charters in pink, other DCPS in blue. The colored line shows the average graduation rates for all schools of each funding type weighted by cohort size. The colored ribbon shows two standard deviations (representing approximately 95%) of the graduation rate, weighted by cohort size.
Discussion:
A few interesting things to note. Only three schools over the past six years that were below average climbed to above average in their graduation rates, Capital City PCS, Cesar Chavez PCS for Public Policy – Parkside, and H.D. Woodson High School. But most schools that were above average stayed above average and those that were below average, remained below average. With three schools that have improved graduation over an extended time, the public knows it can be done. This is an opportunity for other schools to learn what they are doing right and to also change the direction of graduation rates.
Successful Schools:
There are several high performing DCPS schools with graduation rates usually above 90%. These all have a special application process in addition to a random lottery. Benjamin Banneker High School which had a 100 % graduation rate five of the past six years is a magnet high school with an application process based on grades, test scores and recommendations; admission is not based on a random drawing or neighborhood residency as most of public school admissions are. Schools Without Walls, McKinley Technology High School, Phelps Architecture, Construction and Engineering High School also have an admission process based on academics, standardized testing and interviews. Duke Ellington School for the Arts requires an audition plus standardized testing, school records and interviews. DCPS does have high schools that educate students as well as any suburban high school, and they do it by cherry picking the students through an application process that leaves many behind in low performing neighborhood schools.
Low Performing Schools:
Unfortunately, there were several low performing schools, that had graduation rates at the bottom or even below two standard deviations. Ballou STAY High School was founded as an alternative high school and its motto is “It’s Never Too Late to Earn Your High School Diploma.” About 92% of its students are 18 years or older; it serves mostly students who have dropped out previously and are returning for a diploma, certificate or GED. Maya Angelou PCS High School was founded to provide a “holistic program to teens involved in the juvenile justice system.” Luke C. Moore High School, like all DCPS, publishes data that may hint at why its graduation rates are so low and headed in the wrong direction. Moore’s in-seat attendance is 55%, 78% of their students are truant, and students are clearly voting with their feet – the school’s reenrollment (do students come back the next year or choose another option) is 57%. A comparison of a handful of schools is below. Six years of previous data is not publicly available.
| In-Seat Attendance | Truancy | School Reenrollment | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anacostia High School | 63% | 69% | 76% |
| Cardoza Educational Campus | 75% | 62% | 83% |
| IDEA PCS | 88% | n/a | 73% |
| Luke C. Moore High School | 55% | 78% | 57% |
| Woodrow Wilson High School | 83% | 54% | 90% |
| Average | 78% | 54% | 84% |
Conclusion:
The table and chart show that there is good news and bad news for both DCPS and charters. DCPS does have successful schools, using a selection process that gathers the best students in special programs. Poor performing schools, like Anacostia, Ballou, Cardoza, and Moore, tend to have low attendance and engagement. H.D. Woodson shows that even traditional neighborhood schools can raise graduation rates significantly by making steady progress year after year. Cesar Chavez PCS for Public Policy – Parkside has also gone from below average to above average performance through consistent improvements, year after year. There are potentially many reasons why these schools have a different trajectory than other schools, different school leadership, new curriculum, changing school demographics, but additional study will be needed to uncover the factors that lead to these schools’ success.
Thank you to Reuben Levy-Myers and Julian Levy-Myers for their help and advice.
Notes:
The Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate is the number of students who graduate in four years with a regular high school diploma divided by the number of students who form the adjusted cohort for the graduating class. For any given cohort, students who are entering ninth grade for the first time form a cohort that is subsequently “adjusted” by adding any students who transfer into the cohort later during the next three years and subtracting any students who transfer out, emigrate to another country, or are deceased during that same period.
The graduation rates are publicly available from the DC Office of the State Superintendent of Education. To be included in this research, a high school had to have graduation rates for all of the previous six years. Capital City Upper PCS, Maya Angelou PCS – Shaw, Eastern, Springarn, IDEAL, KAMIT, William E. Doar Jr., Young America Works, Booker T. Washington, and Options were closed during the time period. BASIS DC PCS, Cesar Chavez PCS – Chavez Prep, Goodwill Excel Center, Perry Street Prep, SEED PCS, Paul PCS, E.L. Haynes , Richard Wright PCS all had fewer than 25 students and their graduation results were not publicly available for privacy reasons.
Kids that are attending the low performing schools need enticing incentives in order to help them improve and not skip classes anymore. If these kids find a reason to be motivated to stay in school and to perform better, that will help reduce the problem quite a bit.
Yes, indeed. Graduation is a final product of attendance and classroom education going all the way back to kindergarten.
This is terrifying news. The fact that fewer kids are graduating high school is a clear indicator that crime rates will only go up. There is no guarantee that an educated kid who always received good grades won’t turn to crime either. However, that is always the exception and not the rule. What can be done to improve this situation?
Really interesting point. California Attorney General Kamala Harris (now US Senator) made elementary school truancy an important issue of the California Department of Justice. Harris and her agency collected data on elementary school chronic absenteeism believing that stopping the problem of truancy early would help address the problem of teen delinquency later, a criminal justice issue. My previous post on California Chronic Absenteeism rates over the past four years uses that her agency collected and provided the public.
These stats are disturbing yet not all that surprising either. The better performing schools are likely in affluent and higher class neighborhoods. That said, the parents of these kids are able to afford homes in these areas. That’s because the parents themselves had an education. They instilled the importance of school to their kids since Kindergarten. Many parents in lower class areas were likely not educated themselves. Therefore, their kids picked that up since early on. And are following their footsteps. What are your thoughts?
I understand your sentiment, and it is often true statistically; however I am not as pessimistic about schools. I do believe that schools and education can make a difference in the trajectory of a child’s life. For example more attention on attendance and addressing frequent and occasionally absent students before they become chronically absent, could make a real difference in attendance, academic success and thus graduation.
This is quite discouraging. I worry for these kids because they are hurting their futures. How do you think they can encourage these kids to stay in school and take their education more seriously?
I also worry for these students. It is a complicated issue to get students to come to school every day, but school administrators, teachers, staff and others in the community have to focus on as it is such a important, fundamental in education. If students are not in school every day, they are not learning.
I have a cousin who went to Anacostia High School and she ended up moving away to somewhere better. I don’t remember what the name of the other school she moved to was, but it sounded like there was a better quality group of kids attending. From the sounds of it, it was not at all a good school. Based on what this says about it, it’s no wonder.
Thank you for your comment.
I’m actually quite glad that there is attention to this issue. That means there is hope that the lower performing schools will get better, and the kids will stay in school and graduate. That means a solution has to be made in order for that to happen.
Thank you. I also hope solutions can be found.
I would image the same applies to pretty much every school in any city. I know that the lower quality schools here in Vermont have the same issue. They are in areas that are not particularly safe, and the kids that have attended those schools are extremely troubled. It’s quite sad actually.
Research has shown that when students do not feel safe at school or getting to school (walking through a dangerous area) they are less likely to go to school leading to chronic absenteeism, which will affect negatively graduation.
What I am curious to know about is how long have all of these schools been around for? I can imagine that the now low performing schools were not always that way. It seems to depend on the quality of the neighborhood. If the quality of the neighborhood goes south, the same applies to the school. That said, the schools that are performing well now may not perform that well in the future. Again, it depends on whether the quality of the neighborhood remains the same or not.
Neighborhoods and their support for their local schools definitely can a difference, but neighborhoods are not relevant for charter schools which can educate students from anywhere in the district.
It seems to me that kids nowadays take education a lot less seriously than they did back decades ago. It also seems to me that fewer kids attend college than they did back in the day. The schools that are doing well seem to be in wealthy areas. But the majority are not, and if the kids are flunking out, then that means the parents are not encouraging them to stay in school either.
An interesting question that you bring up, have college graduation rates being going up or down. I had to check it out myself as I was not sure myself. I am not sure how far back you are thinking of, but according to the Department of Education since 1996 graduation rates have been going up for almost all categories except for-profit schools.
How unfortunate that the schools that are not performing well haven’t gotten better after making improvements. There needs to be more tweaking and let’s hope they get it right so these kids will stay in school and graduate.
Yes, indeed. School leadership can make a huge difference in getting students to come to school and graduate.