Is Floridas graduation rate too good to be true?
The answer is yes. And so are the rates around Tampa Bay. The 2009-10 rates, announced with much fanfare by Gov. Charlie Crist a few weeks ago, are at least 6 percentage points too high, according to some Gradebook number crunching. Meanwhile, the graduation rates in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties are fluffed up by even bigger margins. The reason: A quirk in the state’s graduation rate formula (critics call it a loophole) that allows districts to exclude students who transfer into adult education programs. This is wonky as all get out, but for calculation purposes, those students are removed from their cohorts and subtracted from the denominator. They’re simply out of the picture, whether they succeed in adult ed or not. Put those students back into the formula, and Florida’s official 79.0 percent graduation rate drops to 73.2 percent. …
