Confusing Attendance and Graduation Rates with Learning

“When people talk about how education's getting better, they use words like 'growth' and 'progress.' They say things like ‘student engagement’ and ‘pathways to success,’ and let's not forget, ‘credit recovery,’ as if to say something was ‘lost’ in need to be rediscovered. These words sound good. Sometimes they are just used to avoid talking about whether students are really learning.”

By Don Allen, Ed.S., M.A.Ed. MAT

When people talk about education these days, they often throw around a lot of numbers. Attendance and graduation rates are usually the things they mention. You see these numbers at meetings in school newsletters and even on signs that say a school district is doing a great job with your child. The truth is, attendance and graduation rates do not really show how much a student is learning.

Many schools think that if students show up and graduate, they are doing their job. They do not really think about what students can actually do after they graduate.

Going to school is no question. Students need to be in school to learn. Just because a student is in school, it does not mean they are learning. A student can attend school for 12 years. Still not able to read, write, or do math when they graduate.

The same thing happens with graduation rates. Every year, schools announce that more students are graduating. They make graphs. Send out press releases stating that the education system is improving. The truth is, just because more students are graduating does not mean they are actually learning. In some schools, graduation rates are going up. Students are not actually getting a better education.

What are we really celebrating here?

A diploma is supposed to mean that a student has learned some things and has some skills. When graduation becomes more about meeting a goal than actually learning, the diploma does not really mean anything.

When people talk about how education's getting better, they use words like "growth" and "progress". They say things like "student engagement" and "pathways to success". These words sound good. Sometimes they are just used to avoid talking about whether students are really learning.

There is a difference between getting better and actually achieving something.

A school can say its students are getting better if they start with low scores and get a little better. That is not the same as really achieving something. It is not enough to say that students are getting better if they start with very low scores.

When students graduate without the skills, they have a hard time in the real world. They need to be able to look at data, talk to people, and solve problems on their own. If they do not have the skills, they will struggle.

This does not mean that attendance and graduation rates are not important. They are still important because they show that students are engaged and that the school is stable. They should not be used to measure whether a school is successful.

The real measure of a school is not how many students are there every day or how many diplomas they give out. The real measure is how many students leave school able to read, write, think mathematically, and be members of society.

Education should be about looking at what matters, not just what looks good. We should use data to tell the truth, not to hide it. We should tell the public what our students are really learning, not just how often they go to school and how many graduate.

If we want people to trust our schools again, we need to focus on what we're really teaching, not just how many students we have.

Going to school is the beginning.

Graduation is a milestone.

The real goal is what students actually learn.