Despite Oxford High School’s high marks when it comes to graduation rates, school board officials urged caution when examining the data which shows a decline.
For the 2006-2007 school year, Oxford ranked seventh out of the county’s 28 school districts with an 89.49 percent graduation rate. That’s down 4.87 percent from the 2005-2006 school year. In the 2004-2005 school year, Oxford had a 97.47 rate.
School officials believe that some of the numbers can be misleading and might not accurately reflect academic achievement.
Released by the Michigan Department of Education, the figures were made available at the Aug. 25 Oxford school board meeting. They are designed to measure Adequate Yearly Progress, a component of the federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
AYP measures year-to-year student achievement in the Michigan Education Assessment Program for elementary and middle schools and the Michigan Merit Examination for high schools. Michigan schools are required to graduate 80 percent of their students in order to make AYP guidelines. That number could increase in the coming years, but it’s unclear how much.
According to figures released by the Michigan Education Information System, many factors go into determining graduation rates. Graduates include those who received a general education diploma and those who completed an alternative program diploma.
Oxford Schools? Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum James Schwarz takes issue with how the students who fall into the ‘other? category are not officially counted in the graduation rates.
‘It (concerns) me that they’d count them as someone who’d count against your rate,? he said. ‘I think that piece needs to be looked at and I know other districts have issued same concern to the state. Hopefully they’ll hear that concern.?
The ‘other? category Schwarz referred to includes students who completed their general education development (GED) test, those who completed general education with another certificate (such as a certificate of attendance or a district competency test), students completing a special education certificate and those in special education who reached the maximum age and have left the school system.
Area students who moved out of state, are deceased, home schooled, or enrolled in non-public school are exempt from the count.
Those who’ve left school, been expelled and not readmitted, have joined the military or job corps without graduating, have been incarcerated and not in an education program, placed in rehabilitation program or left adult education are listed as dropouts.
Oxford Superintendent Dr. William Skilling said that the numbers are meaningless unless broken down by line items.
‘If you break it down and look at certain line items like dropout rates, then that’s an indication in terms of how we’re doing with the kids in terms of abilities and interest level,? he said. ‘If you take it in its totality, it doesn’t have much meaning. It can be so easily skewed.?
Skilling noted that a town in an economically-depressed area where families are moving and businesses and factories are closing would reflect negatively, statistically speaking, on the graduation rates in a misleading way.
Such hard times are not an indicator of how the schools themselves are performing, he said. ‘That’s why I don’t think it’s a very useful tool or measurement for how well schools are performing or not performing,? he added.