Date: Fri, 5 Aug 2011 20:29:29 -0400 (GMT-04:00)
From: Mia Munn
Subject: Graduation rates
There hasn’t been a press release from the district yet, but the 4-year and 5-year graduation rates have been posted
[url=http://www.chatham.k12.nc.us/central_office/instructional_services/accountability_ncwise/data/abcs_ayp/abc2010_2011/Cohort%20Grad%20Rate.pdf]http://www.chatham.k12.nc.us/central_office/instructional_services/accountability_ncwise/data/abcs_ayp/abc2010_2011/Cohort%20Grad%20Rate.pdf[/url]
I’m concerned by these numbers. In 2008, for the 4-year rate, Chatham was at almost 80%, 9.6% higher than the state average. Now we are at 74.3%, which is 2.6% lower than the state average. It is disturbing that our graduation rates are declining (this year was 0.1% higher than last year) while the state is improving. The 5-year numbers are similar. In 2008, for the 4-year rate, Chatham was at 77.8%, 6.0% higher than the state average. Now we are at 77.1%, which is 0.6% lower than the state average.
We can’t blame the economy and school funding on these decreases – every district in the state has faced the same state cuts, and most have had much larger local cuts than we did, but the state numbers increased significantly while Chatham’s decreased significantly. Something is different here, and we need to figure out what it is.
Northwood is the driver of this year’s decline in the 4-year rate, dropping 6.9% while the other schools increased (6.5% for Chatham Central and 7.2% for J-M). J-M and Chatham Central are the drivers of this year’s decline in the 5-year rate (J-M dropping 11.9%, Chatham Central dropping 6.9%, while Nortwood increased 1.5%). SAGE’s numbers are too small to affect the district rate much.