Bad News, Good News, “Bad” News PDF Print E-mail
Written by Mitch   
Wednesday, 02 April 2008 08:09

The bad news: Minneapolis has a horrible dropout rate:

America’s Promise Alliance ranks Minneapolis as 45th out of 50 cities in terms of graduation rates, putting the district’s rate well below the average.

The good news? It might just be bad statistics:

But Minneapolis Public Schools researcher David Heistad said not only are the numbers the report uses four years old, but they inaccurately consider students who transfer as dropouts.

“We have a lot more kids moving to charter schools and moving to suburban districts and therefore we had a decline in enrollment during that period of time. So it confounds dropouts with any kind of mobility,” Heistad said.

The “bad” news?

The district’s most recent official reports showed graduation rates of nearly 67 percent, more than 20 points above what the America’s Promise numbers show.

A fifth of the district’s students are seeking alternatives in mid-stream.

And at the end of that, you still have only 2/3 of your students graduating - according to the district itself.

Cross-posted at Shot in the Dark. Comments welcome.