Plunging Graduation Rates Signal Long Recovery | Sarah D. Sparks — Aug. 29, 2022

As a consequence of the pandemic, many students are facing difficulties earning sufficient credits and good grades sufficient enough to graduate. This is a helpful read on what different states are doing. 

I'm not sure how I feel about a 13th year of schooling since this could feel like a demotion for high school students. Volumes of research on grade retention should give us pause, especially since it coalesces around the best option of not retaining youth, but rather promoting them with resources. How about a stipend to attend a local community college and make that, in effect, their thirteenth year.

One could argue that this would encourage some students not to graduate so that they can get financial support to go to college, so this could get counter-balanced with other proposals incentivizing high school graduation.

How about, for example, allowing students to graduate early should they choose coupled with stipends for early graduates? The mix of options as covered in this piece opens up a rethinking of high school in imaginative ways.

For example, the idea of states moving more toward mastery- as opposed to seat-time based credit sounds promising for the long-term goal of academic recovery. 

Student portfolios and "allowing students to get credit for multiple content areas from the same course" as Ohio is currently pursuing is innovative and makes sense. Here's a link to the state law that goes into effect in January, 2023: https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-3313.603

One can certainly bet that Ohio's approach will feel more fair with students as opposed to any new ways our policy makers might devise to retain youth in grade. 

What needs to factor in the mix is that the pandemic didn't shut down students brains and they learned tons, like we all did, about the world, life, and their place in it. Many of us are already looking back and realizing just how much we learned about ourselves, our families, and values in the process. Acquiring a sense of what really matters, albeit frequently mediated through trauma, is nevertheless extraordinarily valuable. They just didn't quite learn all that schools taught. But they did learn. These were perhaps the most valuable, important lessons of their lives and that should count for something.

What the authors describe at the moment as a "long recovery" to dramatically lower graduation rates arguably holds possibility for constructive systemic change in the long run. All is not lost. We can and should be hopeful even as we collectively work to enact positive systemic change that works for teachers and teacher's work, as well.

-Angela Valenzuela

Plunging Graduation Rates Signal Long Recovery

By Sarah D. Sparks — August 29, 2022 | EdWeek

Marcia Oliveira, left, and her son Angelo, 18, talk with a graduation advocate in Charleston, S.C., about how to 

schedule credit-recovery classes around the new restaurant job Angelo had to pick up during the pandemic to 

help his family. Henry Taylor for Education Week

The last few years have presented a “perfect tornado of reasons” for 

students to leave high school, and states and school districts are starting 

to see the fallout. At least 31 states saw declining graduation rates for the 

class of 2021 overall, more than twice as many as in the previous year.

Low-income students and those with disabilities have been the hardest hit, with year-to-year declines for low-income students in 33 states and for students with disabilities in 22 states—more than twice as many as for the class of 2020, according to an analysis of state data by the EdWeek Research Center. The ongoing pandemic disruptions are rolling back years—and in some cases, a decade—of states’ progress in boosting graduation rates for students of color.

(A nationwide graduation rate total is not yet available. Though states are required to report disaggregated graduation rates to the federal government every year, many are behind, and full national data are not expected until next year. Not every state provided Education Week with data for all student groups in every year.)

Remote learning and repeated outbreaks and quarantines have led more students to miss school and fall behind in classes, while increased family illnesses and economic instability have given older students more reasons to leave school and start work early, according to Terri Martinez-McGraw, the co-director of the National Center for School Engagement, which studies and works with schools to prevent students from dropping out. At the same time, overwhelmed teachers and school staff have had less time and energy to track down students who are slipping through the cracks.

In the 2020-21 and 2021-22 school years, “kids have had a much longer time to be absent, fail classes and lose credits, have behavior problems,” said Robert Balfanz, the director of the Everyone Graduates Center at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education. “High schools tend to be pretty mechanical [in response]: You fail a class, you don’t get credits; you don’t have enough credits, you don’t get a diploma. So we are seeing the first downward trends in graduation rates in 15 years in 2021, and there’s a good chance that continues … because we know kids just still aren’t back.”

Graduation Rates Sink for Second Year, Especially for Vulnerable Groups

Graduation rate declines have accelerated in many states as the pandemic continued. An analysis of state data by the EdWeek Research Center finds 31 states saw drops in graduation rates for the class of 2021, compared to 14 for the class of 2020. 

At-a-glance: Public School Graduation Changes Between 2019 and 2021

Hover over bars to reveal data for each state.

Graduation Changes for Vulnerable Student Groups

The number of states that saw declining graduation rates for students with disabilities and low-income students more than doubled from 2020 to 2021. 

States losing hard-won ground on diplomas

Graduation-rate progress held steady for the class of 2020, whose members had mostly completed their requirements by the time the pandemic began to shutter schools in March 2020. States and districts also offered broad flexibility to students in meeting credit hours and seat time, course and testing requirements, and other graduation requirements.

The graduation flexibility states provided in 2020 “held students harmless” for academic disruptions, but they also may have given educators a false sense of security with regard to high school students’ progress, Balfanz said. State flexibility was intended to be temporary, but students in the subsequent high school classes became more disengaged, not less.

“In Arizona, we’ve lost 10 years of attainment; there’s been such a huge slide,” said Stephanie Parra, the executive director of ALL in Education, an Arizona nonprofit that works with districts to improve graduation rates. “We are going into the third school year still navigating a pandemic, and now we do have clear data that schools are struggling and our students are definitely going to need a lot of support to bring them back.”

The Grand Canyon state saw the biggest graduation declines in the nation. It graduated only 75.7 percent of its students on time in 2020-21, less than it has at any time since the state began calculating four-year cohort data in 2011. The decline has hit students of color particularly hard; graduation rates have dropped 5 percentage points for Black students, 4 percentage points for Hispanic students and nearly 6 percent for Native American students since 2018-19. The state board of education also has found rising student mobility among schools since the pandemic.

Across states that provided data, Asian students were the only group for which fewer states saw declines in graduation rates in 2021 than in 2020. In the same time, graduation rates have declined for Native American, Latino, and white students in the majority of states, and for Black students in 24 states.

How Have Graduation Rates Changed in 

Your State?

More states saw drops in graduation rates for students of every race except Asian students in 2021 compared to 2020, according to an analysis of state data by the EdWeek Research Center. Below, see a breakdown of which states and demographic groups lost the most students. 

At-a-glance: State Graduation Changes, by Race

‘I didn’t really learn anything’: COVID grads face college by Collin Binkley, Aug. 9, 2022 | AP News

There is no question that there is going to be a marked impact of the pandemic on levels of academic preparedness for college students. I wonder if this is in part what's also contributing to historic low enrollment numbers into colleges and four-year universities this fall. As noted in a recent publication of the Hechinger Report:

"There are 4 million fewer students in college now than there were 10 years ago, a falloff many observers blame on Covid-19."

This is unfortunate, not just for the future of higher education, but particularly for young people that may be structuring themselves out of a college degree for reasons that could additionally include an actual or perceived lack of preparedness given the chaos that tended to accompany the pandemic for so many.

Clearly, as college and university faculty, we have to be sensitive to this and not make students feel badly about being underprepared. Surely, these youth still learned a lot during this "down time," just not what we might have wished for them to learn. 

Yet, what they have learned about themselves and the world throughout these many months of lockdown and uneven schooling is invaluable, an education in itself. Expressed differently, how the future plays out with this demographic entering our colleges and universities right now is in no small part also in our hands as college and university faculty. 

We should relax our presuppositions about what a prepared students looks and sounds like and get about the business of teaching. We'll get through this, but it'll require some shifts in focus and ongoing sensitivity that all is still not as things were prior to the pandemic. How we respond matters as higher education staff, faculty, and senior management matters so very much. 

I hope and trust that our educational leaders bring resources to the table for these youth so that a college education can continue being the positive, transformational experience that we know it can and should be.

-Angela Valenzuela

‘I didn’t really learn anything’: COVID grads face college

By COLLIN BINKLEY  Aug. 9, 2022 | AP News

Dear Texas Parents:

This would be the year for your child to opt out of standardized ("STAAR") testing. The test scores won't mean anything anyway.  Garbage in, garbage out.

Plus, I find this whole "learning loss" discourse to be deficit-oriented.  It's not like children haven't been learning throughout the pandemic. Perhaps some of the greatest, most enduring lessons in their lives will have been learned as a consequence of having gone through this character-building, upending experience. As per an earlier post, school administrators and teachers would do well to not only avoid deficit thinking, but to move forward in a constructive manner by instead asking the following:

“Instead of segregating these children and trying to give them what they didn’t learn, you say to yourself, ‘What must they know in order to stick with their peers and have access to next week’s lesson?’” said David Steiner, executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy and former education commissioner for New York state. “The key is you’re always asking yourself, ‘What do they need for next week?’ not ‘What did they miss?’”

One doesn't need to administer a test that still doesn't answer these much more important questions that teachers need to be asking. Plus, as Dr. David DeMatthews in my Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at UT-Austin who is quoted below, students should be evaluated holistically anyway. 

Hopefully, school administrators and teachers will remember to ask and keep asking and discovering—and having students reflect on and write about—what this epic COVID experience of storm, stress, and survival meant for them, their families, and community.

Sadly, even though this testing regime robs students and teachers of precious instructional time, I would still ask them to not squander this opportunity for us to learn from our youth. This is a time to care for, and not judge, them with this over-played, de-humanizing instrument of policy. 

-Angela Valenzuela

#OptOut #STAAR

Texas students can only take STAAR tests in person. These families plan to opt out.

Test results aren’t worth the anxiety of an on-campus exam, some parents say.

By Emily Donaldson

5:00 AM on Mar 1, 2021

Mack and Elizabeth Simpson pose with their daughter Carson Simpson, an eighth-grader at West Junior High School, outside their home, Friday, February 26, 2021 in Richardson, Texas. The Simpsons are choosing to not have Carson take the STAAR test this spring due to COVID concerns. Mack, who is immunocompromised, called the prospect of Carson taking the test in person “a bridge too far.” (Jeffrey McWhorter/Special Contributor)(Jeffrey McWhorter / Special Contributor)

Dan Cooper’s grandson spent the last year as a boy in a bubble.

The eighth grader deals with respiratory health issues, uses two inhalers a day and occasionally requires a nebulizer. He is one of the few students at his Hill Country-area middle school who has remained a remote learner since the pandemic hit last March.

The Ingram school district Cooper’s grandson attends made a push for all in-person learning earlier this school year. After some cussing and raising of hell, an exception was made for the eighth grader to remain at home. And that’s not going to change because of STAAR, Cooper said.

This week federal officials told states that the Department of Education wouldn’t waive assessment requirements as was done last year after COVID-19 suddenly forced campuses to shut down. Texas schools will begin administering the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exams in late March and early April, but the tests will be offered only in person at schools or alternate sites.

But Cooper’s grandson — and thousands more like him — won’t be there as they opt out of STAAR.

“The concerns are fairly obvious,” Cooper said. “There are health risks during a pandemic to go on campus, particularly when you’re accustomed to not being there. It creates certain anxiety levels that adds to the pressure of test taking.”

“The concerns are fairly obvious,” Cooper said. “There are health risks during a pandemic to go on campus, particularly when you’re accustomed to not being there. It creates certain anxiety levels that adds to the pressure of test taking.”

Educators and a large group of lawmakers have called for the state to shelve the exams in recent months because of the pandemic’s disruptions and the related stress students and teachers are experiencing. Education Commissioner Mike Morath, however, maintains that the state needs the tests to identify how much learning loss students face after such a disruptive year.

Federal officials gave similar reasons for wanting such assessments to continue but did give states the flexibility to adapt exams –– tests can be shortened, offered remotely, or delayed into the summer or the beginning of the next school year.

Texas did not announce plans to implement any of these flexibilities for STAAR in updated state guidance released Thursday. The state did extend the testing window for English language learners taking Texas’ alternative exam for such students.

In-person exams level the playing field so students all have the same testing environment, state officials said. If students took the exams from home, they might have to deal with internet outages, distractions or varying levels of help from nearby adults.

Schools are preparing for testing days by creating more space on campus so students can be spread out, said Melissa Steger, Grand Prairie ISD’s chief data and information systems officer. Campuses also have the option to send students not testing to learn from home.

Still, districts expect some students to opt out of the exam altogether.

“Obviously we’re going to do everything in our power to get as many of our students to come and to participate,” Steger said. “We know what we’re up against, and we know that much of the state is up against the same struggles.”

With STAAR tests rapidly approaching and more than 40% of students still learning remotely, participation will likely drop.

Wylie ISD students Sydney Sanders (right), 13, and her brother Jacob (left), 16, with their parents Justin (center left) and Shari at a park near their home in Sachse on Friday, February 26, 2021. (Stewart F. House/Special Contributor)(Stewart F. House / Special Contributor)

Data and equity

Both federal and state officials say tests are necessary to ensure equity for students — essentially, if you don’t test everyone on the same material, you can’t ensure each student learned the same thing or was held to the same standards.

Morath pitched the exam as a helpful tool to diagnose students’ needs during a turbulent academic year.

“If we don’t know where [students] are, then how do we know how effectively to support them?” Morath said in a recent Texas Tribune interview. “How do we know to make these grand sets of changes that we will need to make to honor our moral commitment to children?”

In a normal year, participation rates top 99%, Morath said at a Feb. 22 Senate committee meeting. Texas won’t get anywhere close to that this year, he noted.

Many states will grapple with uneven participation rates, Chris Domaleski said. Domaleski is the associate director for the Center for Assessment, a nonprofit that helps states and districts design and implement assessment and accountability programs.

The variation in who and how many students take exams will make comparing results from this year to previous ones a challenge.

“Reporting in context becomes particularly important,” he said. Education agencies should note factors like the learning method a school or student operated in for the majority of the year and the number of students who tested, he said.

David DeMatthews, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s department of educational leadership and policy, predicted that the turnout of the state’s most vulnerable students could suffer.

“It’s not exactly clear who’s going to be missing … but it’s likely that the people who are most affected by COVID and people who are experiencing poverty in some ways, they’d be the ones that are least likely to attend,” DeMatthews said.

Other ways to assess students provide a more holistic picture of performance, the UT professor suggested. Some North Texas parents agree.

Richardson ISD parent Elizabeth Simpson concedes that her eighth grade daughter’s STAAR results typically align with her favorite and least favorite subjects. However, she doesn’t believe it is a great benchmarking tool compared to others.

For instance, several districts conducted MAP, or Measurement of Academic Progress, testing this year, creating a baseline for students and families to understand academic performance. The test is administered online and adapts questions based on the students’ knowledge and skills.

MAP results showed Dallas ISD leaders that half of students experienced learning loss in math and one-third lagged in reading.

If students could take STAAR online, Simpson’s decision would be different, but because the tests are only available in person, she feels her choice is straightforward.

“We’ve been declining to send her in person all year, and we don’t feel like the STAAR test is a compelling enough reason to send her,” Simpson said.

Wylie ISD parent Shari Sanders hasn’t wavered in her decision to keep her eighth and 10th grade students at home for the remainder of the school year.

Sanders doesn’t buy the argument that the exams are necessary to evaluate students. The time and resources necessary to bring in remote learners for in-person exams could be used to catch kids up, she said.

Plus, schools “will try to put as many safety measures in place as possible but when you get the kids who aren’t used to being in person, they don’t know the routines,” she said. “I think there are some additional risks that aren’t necessary.”

High stakes removed?

Opting out of the exam during a regular year brings consequences for many students. This year, the state removed almost all of the high stakes associated with the exams.

Students in fifth and eighth grade who normally have to pass their STAAR tests to advance to the next grade level won’t face the same requirement because the governor waived it. Texas also won’t assign campuses or districts letter grades for academic accountability that are largely based on student performance.

New TEA guidance notes that districts may be subject to agency review if there are “excessive absences.” Excessive was not defined in the document.

The only remaining stake impacts high school students, who have to pass three of five end-of-course exams to graduate. If they don’t pass these tests, they are ineligible for graduation.

The state assumed every high schooler who passed their class last year passed their exam. But the same provision is not in place this year, and Morath doesn’t have the power to waive the requirement, he said. The governor or lawmakers can remove this mandate but have yet to do so.

By senior year, most students have already taken all of their end-of-course tests. That means that younger high school students could be most impacted by delaying their end-of-course tests until months or years after they have taken the associated class, Grand Prairie’s Steger said.

Some parents, like Tamala Daniels, see the fear surrounding in-person learning as its own high stake.

Daniels’ son Louis is an eighth grader in Troup ISD and one of a smaller group of students still learning remotely in the district located south of Tyler. Louis doesn’t want to be around others at school after witnessing several relatives contract the virus and his campus close for three weeks because of COVID-19 exposures and a substitute shortage.

When Troup Middle School required Louis to come onto campus for some tests earlier this year, Daniels said, she told Louis “keep your mouth closed, stay away from others, don’t talk to anybody. Just go in there, take your test, and call me when you’re finished.”

That’s what he did, but still, Louis was scared he was going to get sick.

Seeing her son respond with fear made Daniels’ decision clear. For Louis, taking the STAAR isn’t worth it.

The DMN Education Lab deepens the coverage and conversation about urgent education issues critical to the future of North Texas.

The DMN Education Lab is a community-funded journalism initiative, with support from The Beck Group, Bobby and Lottye Lyle, The Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, The Meadows Foundation, Solutions Journalism Network, Southern Methodist University and Todd A. Williams Family Foundation. The Dallas Morning News retains full editorial control of the Education Lab’s journalism.

Emily Donaldson, staff writer. Emily is an education reporter for Education Lab at The Dallas Morning News.

emily.donaldson@dallasnews.com emilyjdonaldson