There are all kinds of personal reasons why kids leave. There is no way for us to get a good handle on it.
As a society, we want a clean package. This (Manhattan) formula does not account for a lot of factors, either.
They assume if they did not graduate in four years in our district these kids are dropouts. Some of these kids don't finish with us, some go on to continuation school, some go to Mexico. The state wants accountability but does not know how to get it.
We suggested they only count kids who started as a freshman at the school and stayed until they were seniors to graduate.
The state is not giving us money to do any of that. But, even if we did put millions of dollars into it, I am convinced we would still not find them all.
The state needs to define these students not as dropouts or graduates but count them as a whole new group. They shouldn't count them against us, they should count them as a separate to be more accurate.
It's not a perfect number, but at least it's better than a four-year formula.
We couldn't give it away. Couldn't get any interest whatsoever. We tried again in 2000 ... nobody wanted it.
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