Barbara Morris: When the media reports about the graduation "scandal" were confusing to me, I reached out to T. Carter Ross, a Hyattsville PGCPS parent, to whom we in Hyattsville turn for facts about PGCPS, administrative procedures, and education law -- he frequently even includes the legal citation information or the location of the PGCPS administrative procedure when he answers about various matters. We in Hyattsville had once lobbied that he should be the parent representative appointed to the school board. I'm not sure who is currently the parent representative appointed, perhaps Mr. Valentine, who also seems to work very hard toward improving conditions for our students -- while we in Hyattsville and District 3 still have Mr. Ross continuing to assist us when matters get beyond our understanding.
T. Carter Ross @TCarterRoss: "Much of the discussion around the PGCPS graduation audit performed by Alvarez & Marsal Public Sector Services LLC for the Maryland State Department of Education focuses on one number: “one third.” The way that “one third” statistic has been thrown around has unfairly called into question the validity of a large number of PGCPS graduates’ diplomas, which is unfair and inaccurate.
So what did the audit look at? The audit covered the 2016 and 2017 graduating classes. That was a total of 15,215 students. Of those, 5,496 students had late changes to their records that made them eligible for graduation. In and of itself, this is not necessarily a problem. There are credit-recovery programs in place that allow students to demonstrate they have sufficient mastery of the material to earn a passing grade, even if they have deficiencies in their coursework. Late changes could also be due to extra credit, teachers being late in grading, or a variety of other reasons. The important point is that 9,719 students in those two graduating classes did not fall into the population with late records changes. This 64% of students without late changes in their records should not have their diplomas questioned. As the audit report itself clearly states: “These findings cannot be assumed to hold true to the larger population of 15,215 students in the graduating classes of 2016 and 2017.”
For its sample, the audit pulled the records of 1,212 students with late changes. Of the sample, which can be considered statistically valid across the population of students with late records changes, 297 had insufficient documentation for the changes. This means they may or may not have met graduation requirements; the audit could not determine. Only 59 students, according to the audit, clearly graduated when they should have been deemed ineligible to graduate. This is about 4.9% of the sample.
Since the sample is statistically valid, it is reasonable to assume the same percentages apply to the whole group of students with late record changes. That would mean that 4.9% of the 5,496 students with late record changes should have been deemed ineligible to graduate, which is 269 students. That is unacceptable, but it equates to only 1.77% of the 2016 and 2017 graduating classes.
Similarly, the 24.5% of the student records in the sample with limited or no documentation of their grade changes, and thus the auditors were unable to determine their graduation eligibility, works out to 1,346 students, or about 8.8% of the entire graduating class.
It should also be noted that more than 70.6% of the sample had properly documented changes. This means that in all nearly 90% of 2016 and 2017 graduating seniors’ diplomas should never be in question. Unfortunately, all too much of the discussion and media reporting has added the 4.9% and the 24.5% to imply that about 30% of students' eligibility for graduation was in question. There has been little to no differentiation between the sample, the students with late records changes, and the entire graduating class.
That nearly 9% of students across those two graduating classes are lacking full documentation of grade changes is a serious problem, as is that 1.77% of students should not have been allowed to graduate without additional school work. Those failures in recordkeeping and adherence to school policies around credit recovery (as well as the practice of manually tallying graduation credits instead of having in place a computerized system for tracking graduation eligibility) need to be addressed and corrected. However, what should not happen is for all of our students to be unfairly tarred with the idea of their diploma not having been earned."
T. Carter Ross @TCarterRoss: "Much of the discussion around the PGCPS graduation audit performed by Alvarez & Marsal Public Sector Services LLC for the Maryland State Department of Education focuses on one number: “one third.” The way that “one third” statistic has been thrown around has unfairly called into question the validity of a large number of PGCPS graduates’ diplomas, which is unfair and inaccurate.
So what did the audit look at? The audit covered the 2016 and 2017 graduating classes. That was a total of 15,215 students. Of those, 5,496 students had late changes to their records that made them eligible for graduation. In and of itself, this is not necessarily a problem. There are credit-recovery programs in place that allow students to demonstrate they have sufficient mastery of the material to earn a passing grade, even if they have deficiencies in their coursework. Late changes could also be due to extra credit, teachers being late in grading, or a variety of other reasons. The important point is that 9,719 students in those two graduating classes did not fall into the population with late records changes. This 64% of students without late changes in their records should not have their diplomas questioned. As the audit report itself clearly states: “These findings cannot be assumed to hold true to the larger population of 15,215 students in the graduating classes of 2016 and 2017.”
For its sample, the audit pulled the records of 1,212 students with late changes. Of the sample, which can be considered statistically valid across the population of students with late records changes, 297 had insufficient documentation for the changes. This means they may or may not have met graduation requirements; the audit could not determine. Only 59 students, according to the audit, clearly graduated when they should have been deemed ineligible to graduate. This is about 4.9% of the sample.
Since the sample is statistically valid, it is reasonable to assume the same percentages apply to the whole group of students with late record changes. That would mean that 4.9% of the 5,496 students with late record changes should have been deemed ineligible to graduate, which is 269 students. That is unacceptable, but it equates to only 1.77% of the 2016 and 2017 graduating classes.
Similarly, the 24.5% of the student records in the sample with limited or no documentation of their grade changes, and thus the auditors were unable to determine their graduation eligibility, works out to 1,346 students, or about 8.8% of the entire graduating class.
It should also be noted that more than 70.6% of the sample had properly documented changes. This means that in all nearly 90% of 2016 and 2017 graduating seniors’ diplomas should never be in question. Unfortunately, all too much of the discussion and media reporting has added the 4.9% and the 24.5% to imply that about 30% of students' eligibility for graduation was in question. There has been little to no differentiation between the sample, the students with late records changes, and the entire graduating class.
That nearly 9% of students across those two graduating classes are lacking full documentation of grade changes is a serious problem, as is that 1.77% of students should not have been allowed to graduate without additional school work. Those failures in recordkeeping and adherence to school policies around credit recovery (as well as the practice of manually tallying graduation credits instead of having in place a computerized system for tracking graduation eligibility) need to be addressed and corrected. However, what should not happen is for all of our students to be unfairly tarred with the idea of their diploma not having been earned."