High Graduation Rates Manipulated with "Credit Recovery!" Reinventing Education with so many Bad Ideas.

When you hear someone claim, “Parents know better” when it comes to their kid’s education, they’re lying. There’s so much we don’t know (I’m a parent).

Like when we save money on K-12 schools by gaming a students education. In the end, taxpayers will end up forking over just as much money for remedial classes when those same students go to college.

It’s called “credit recovery.” It’s actually a good idea, but poorly executed to make the schools look good. Look at this example from the state of NY.

Edweek: "Credit recovery" education programs, are increasingly used at high schools across New York as a way for struggling students to complete coursework online. School employees who administer credit recovery programs and some graduates say many students simply Google the answers and fill in the blanks, because there is little adult supervision.  Students can open up a separate Internet browser on screen and look up answers to test questions … many are able to log on to the programs right at home.

And while it's an open secret in many districts, critics say credit recovery allows young people to cheat themselves out of an education while boosting a school district's graduation rate. Schools can also cut personnel costs because fewer teachers are needed when student learning is shifted online.

True costs are pushed to the future, when students arrive at public community colleges and can't do the work. About half of all students who enter the state's community college system need remedial and developmental education, which costs taxpayers some $70 million annually, according to the State University of New York.

Your jaw will drop at the justification given below:

The "Operation Graduation" program at Columbia High School has been lauded … Before, 44 students failed to graduate. After, that dropped to just 12. In their own news release (they had this quote by) one former student: "It was a shocker to learn what I could get done in a day." At Columbia, The district uses a credit recovery program called NovaNet and students talk openly about "novanetting" a class they're failing.

Instead of looking at the other great educating systems around the world, the U.S. for some reason has decided to reinvent the wheel so to speak, with broken programs and privatization. I’m mystified.