Legislators came up with way this year to lower the state’s high school drop out rate by using new math.
Some legislators wanted to stop counting as drop outs students who transfer to community colleges, colleges or universities to enroll in adult high school or GED programs.
Sen. Jean Preston, the Carteret County Republican who sponsored the bill, said students who use alternatives to traditional high schools should not be considered drop outs.
The proposal came close to becoming law. Preston’s bill passed the Senate and made it to the House floor. Then, legislators had second thoughts pulled the bill from consideration and decided to study the issue.
More after the jump.
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Education reformers criticized the idea, saying the proposal would give a false impression of public school and student success by artificially depressing the drop out rate. The change may have encouraged students to pursue GEDs, which are worth less in the job market than high school diplomas, critics said.
“There are some folks who are opposed to the bill,” said Rep. Marvin Lucas, a Spring Lake Democrat. “That’s putting it mildly.” The bill got through the House Education Committee, which Lucas helps lead.
More than 22,000 students quit high school in North Carolina last year, the largest number of dropouts in the state since the 1999-2000 school year.
For the second year running, schools reported that more students said they were dropping out to continue their education at community college.
Enrolling in community college is not the same as finishing a diploma program, said John Dornan, executive director of the Public School Forum of North Carolina, an education think tank in Raleigh. The law would count alternative-program enrollees, not how many finish.
“It is so easy to say they’re enrolling in a GED program, and in six months we don’t know what ever happened to them,” he said.
State School Superintendent June Atkinson said the state should not send students the message that GEDs and high school diplomas are interchangeable.
“We really want a high school diploma for every student so they really can be prepared for the next step,” she said.
The state does not now have the ability to determine whether students who leave traditional high schools finish alternative diploma programs, Atkinson said.
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