{"id":487,"date":"2007-10-30T18:37:59","date_gmt":"2007-10-30T22:37:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/?p=487"},"modified":"2007-10-30T18:37:59","modified_gmt":"2007-10-30T22:37:59","slug":"dropout-factories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/?p=487","title":{"rendered":"Dropout Factories"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Associated Press released a hot story this week, claiming that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/21531704\/from\/ET\/\">1 in 10 US high schools is a &quot;dropout factory<\/a>.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Tonight though, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wate.com\/Global\/story.asp?S=7286283\">WATE<\/a> passes along the caveat that Roane County disputes the claim that Midway and Rockwood high schools are among those.&nbsp; From WATE:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><font><\/font><font size=\"2\" color=\"#000000\"><\/p>\n<p>State data shows Midway High&nbsp;has an 80% retention rate, not 56% as the AP claims. <\/p>\n<p>And the state&nbsp;says Rockwood High has a 75% retention rate while the AP claims the&nbsp;rate is 59%.<\/p>\n<p><\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><font><\/font><font size=\"2\" color=\"#000000\"><\/p>\n<p>I would add that the state&#8217;s figures are often misleading as well &#8212; and not in the schools&#8217; favor.&nbsp; The &quot;graduation rate&quot; measures those students who graduate in four years plus a summer, but does not include those who receive a special education diploma, who take an extra semester to graduate (for any reason, including illness or serious injury), who get a GED, etc.&nbsp; The &quot;dropout rate&quot; is a different number &#8212; not the difference between graduation rate and 100%.<\/p>\n<p>Even so, some students are miscategorized as dropouts, when they aren&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>To honestly address the problem, we must first honestly accept what the problem is, and <em>what it is not<\/em>.&nbsp; To be constantly fighting a public relations battle simply takes time and focus away from the real issues.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Associated Press released a hot story this week, claiming that 1 in 10 US high schools is a &quot;dropout factory.&quot; Tonight though, WATE passes along the caveat that Roane County disputes the claim that Midway and Rockwood high schools &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/?p=487\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.citizennetmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}