Dive Brief:
- Four Prince George's County, MD school board members are alleging “widespread systemic corruption” and are urging Gov. Larry Hogan to investigate an attempt to boost the system’s graduation rates, according to the Washington Post.
- Kevin Maxwell, the system’s chief executive, has touted the improvement in graduation rates since he took the helm in 2013. He asserted the allegations were "politically motivated," and said that he would welcome any state investigation into the legitimacy of the graduation rates.
- Additionally, Education Week reports that Alabama allegedly misreported graduation rates in the state by factoring in students with an alternative diploma, even though they had been warned by the U.S. Department of Education not to include those diplomas in grad rate statistics, according to a federal audit.
Dive Insight:
The two controversies in these states indicate that while outcomes like exam scores and graduation rates offer some benefit in terms of quantitative data to consider, such information is not immune from corruption or incompetence. Recent revelations that data analysts accidentally entered 350,000 more advanced placement exam scores submissions to California’s Department of Education than had been taken in 2016, changing the final analysis of student proficiency, flummoxed state education officials.
Though malfeasance is not alleged as it is in the case of Maryland and Alabama, school administrators in K-12 and higher ed should be wary of building the foundation of their school’s success on complementary quantitative assessments with the assumption that such markers are faultless. Officials in Maryland may or may not be guilty of corruption, but having markers of success that are touted independent of graduation rates and exam scores will help maintain credibility with parents, students, educators and lawmakers if those metrics come into question.