2101 N. Main St
Nappanee, IN 46550

Phone: 574-773-4127
Fax: 574-773-4099

December 2010

Educational Review For Parents

December 2010

by Principal David L. Maugel

In the November 2010 Indianagram, Dr. Vic Smith, retired teacher and administrator, wrote an article questioning the validity of Dr. Tony Bennett’s statistics, “Waiting for Fact Checking: How many dropouts and failing third graders do we really have?”

Dr. Bennett’s August 23rd State of Education address expressed the following, “We must close the door on a system that allows 23,000 Hoosier students to drop out of high school each year. We must close the door on a system in which 25,000 third graders cannot read at grade level.”

I will focus this review on the high school dropout numbers. The IDOE reported data for the Class of 2009, and showed that 8.7 percent dropped out in the four years from 9th grade to graduation. This percentage reflects 6,600 dropouts compared to Dr. Bennett’s reported 23,000. Although looking at the Class of 2008 cohort, we find an increase to 10.3 percent, which relates to 7,997 students, it is still not the exaggeration Bennett reflects. The Class of 2007 cohort, reported by the IDOE, had 9,107 students dropout. While we all would agree that improving strategies and programs is a must to lower the dropout rates and increase success for all students, we also need to know accurate and credible data.

I would suggest that we all continue to challenge our state officials to demonstrate and document data used to make changes in public education and be sure it reflects the truth. NorthWood continues to address the issue with dropouts and has made some progress in the last three years. In 2007, 2008, and 2009, we have respectively improved from 9.6% (19 students) to 8.7% (18 students) to 7.4% (17 students). The data was found on the IDOE website for school data.

Mr. Maugel writes a monthly review of materials he has found from journals, magazines, or other articles that may be of interest to parents.