P’ville Super Challenges State Report on College Attendance
Pleasantville Superintendent of Schools Mary Fox-Alter last week disputed a state Education Department (SED) report revealing that a smaller percentage of the district’s high school graduates went on to college than the district reported.
According to the report “Where Are They Now,” only 84 percent of students from the 2012 Pleasantville High School graduating class attended some form of post-secondary education. Fox-Alter explained that the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents examined the local data and found a large discrepancy between the state’s statistics and their own.
Fox-Alter explained the council analyzed data from all but five of the 2012 graduates. For all school districts in the region, the state reported that 74 percent of students who graduated in 2012 are college students. Based on its research, the council found that number is actually 90 percent.
Following the report’s release, SED officials acknowledged there was a 3 percent discrepancy.
Fox-Alter said it was irresponsible for the state to release bad data, she said.
“That’s (16) points. There’s a big difference between that and the three points that the state Education Department said their data was off by,” Fox-Alter said. “We feel it’s a slap at our public high schools, a slap at public education.”
Data for the state report was compiled from information provided by the National Student Clearinghouse, a nonprofit organization that provides services to 3,600 universities and colleges in the United States. Data is not provided from all colleges and some students opt out of having their information shared, which automatically discounted those students.
Furthermore, some schools did not provide data for students who don’t receive financial aid. Fox-Alter also noted that the state report failed to count students who elected to attend college in another country. Two 2012 graduates went on to attend McGill University in Montreal and were, therefore, not included in the state report, she said.
Fox-Alter said she was appalled at the way the state report discounted students who chose military service. Students who opted to enter the armed forces should have been removed from the data; instead they were counted against the school’s statistics.
“If a student elected to join the armed services, or to give the ultimate sacrifice to join the military, that number should have been reduced from the bottom. Instead, it was included and looked at as a no-show,” she said.
Fox-Alter stated that the Lower Hudson Council has sent several e-mails to Ken Wagner, SED’s deputy commissioner for curriculum, assessment and education technology, to share their findings and request that he rethink the report. Their correspondences have been to no avail.
Despite the outcry, Wagner is standing by the report and asserting that the information is an important tool.
“Although there are reasons why the results for a particular school may be slightly higher than what is contained in the Where Are They Now reports, these reports can be an important tool to evaluate the effectiveness of student pathways through a K-12 course of study and beyond, and can supplement other sources of statewide information, such as the school report card, the graduation rate and aspirational performance measures,” he said in a released statement.
Examiner Media – Keeping you informed with professionally-reported local news, features, and sports coverage.
