How Making the Graduation Rate into a School Performance Measure Led to Credit Recovery (CR) and Undermined Teaching and Learning: Descriptions, Analysis, Accounts

How Making the Graduation Rate into a School Performance Measure Led to Credit Recovery (CR) and Undermined Teaching and Learning: Descriptions, Analysis, Accounts Nonpartisan Education Review / Resources



How Making the Graduation Rate into a School Performance Measure Undermined Teaching and Learning:
Descriptions, Analysis, Accounts


Erich Martel
June 2017


Zoe Kirsch, The New Diploma Mills, Slate 5/23/2017 (one of a series of Slate exposes)
Rushing to boost graduation rates, more school districts are relying on “online credit recovery”—a form of instruction that may be selling students short. https://tinyurl.com/kmwknrf (many links)

Thomas Ultican, Credit Recovery Scam Generates Spectacular Graduation Rates (blog post), 6/8/17
Ultican is a math and physics teacher in California. This article contains lots of links to related studies of credit recovery. https://tinyurl.com/ycxsqz83

Erich Martel, "'A' for effort shouldn't count" in Education Gadfly (Fordham Institute e-journal) 9/16/2010
This describes Michelle Rhee's introduction of credit recovery to the Washington, D.C. Public Schools in 2008 and greatly expanded in 2009. http://tinyurl.com/l8cjxac

Andrew Brownstein, Course Credits on the Quick: Controversial online recovery programs speed the path to graduation in the Harvard Education Letter. March/April 2012
He describes credit recovery in D.C.'s
Anacostia High School. https://hepg.org/hel-home/issues/28_2/helarticle/course-credits-on-the-quick_525

Jay Mathews, Teacher assails practice of giving passing grades to failing students, Washington Post, 5/17/2015
Describes math teacher Caleb Rossiter's book, Ain't Nobody Be Learnin' Nothin': the Fraud and Fix for High Poverty Schools, New York: Algora, 2015.
Rossiter describes his experience with credit recovery in DC's Woodson High School and his public resignation from Friendship Tech Prep Charter School when he was pressured to raise failing Algebra grades.
https://tinyurl.com/n5rctb3 (many links)

Rob Barnett, A D.C. Teacher's Bold Vision to Improve Scandalously Poor Student Performance:
Fixated on graduation rates, schools focus on passing students so they can boost numbers. Real learning has become a secondary goal. Washington City Paper, 5/18/2017 https://tinyurl.com/ya6z942e