Why such low high school graduation rates? (Portland, Eugene: school district, university)

[LongLeggedOne]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Call it whatever you want. Blame it on PERS or bureaucracy or salaries. But individual schools are not getting the resources they need. You can travel the state and find rural schools all over the place that completely lack resources from science labs to textbooks to computers to programs student's might find more relevant to today's economy. In addition to the shortest school years, Oregon also has among the highest class sizes in the country.

Frankly the reason why Oregon is somewhere in the middle of the pack in school spending is because so many other states, especially in the south, basically pay poverty wages to their teachers. It is most certainly NOT in the middle of the pack when it comes to actual dollars spent on students in terms of resources. Especially if Oregon is compared to states that Oregonians would view as "peer" states such as MN, IA, and MA rather than states like MS, and AL.

This data is a little old, but it is the best I can find. It shows graduation rates for every school district in the country. The contrast to TX is pretty stark. Which part of the country does OR want to be compared with? And honestl, WA doesn't look much better.

Ive learned since living in Oregon that this state is behind on a lot. I want to move to Dallas TX actualli and leave the Portland metro. The bad service, bad drivers, rude people, no great food, bad weather, bad economy motivate my decision. Lack of diversiti as well. I also need humidity.

[Beer_and_Sticks]

Wow, crazy.

Portland's weather is deal for my taste. The place is green year-round despite having all 4 seasons. The running gag is that it rains constantly here but it's an exaggeration. We don't really get much more rain here than many other places. At least it's not a dead ugly desert like the rest of the state

Portland is considered a foodie town, not sure how anyone can claim that PDX has bad food.

Lack of diversity? What does anyone's skin color have to do with anything? Better to judge based on the content of character and not the color of skin.

Portland does seem to have an over-abundance of Karens, though, so I'll give you the rude / bad attitude point

Except for the political extremists, Portland (especially a suburb) is a great place to live IMO.

[Transplant12345]

Originally Posted by LongLeggedOne

Ive learned since living in Oregon that this state is behind on a lot. I want to move to Dallas TX actualli and leave the Portland metro. The bad service, bad drivers, rude people, no great food, bad weather, bad economy motivate my decision. Lack of diversiti as well. I also need humidity.

Dallas isn’t humid. Try Houston. Besides for the traffic, it’s a nice enough place and checks all your boxes.

[bmlx]

Originally Posted by Transplant12345

Dallas isn’t humid. Try Houston. Besides for the traffic, it’s a nice enough place and checks all your boxes.

I would disagree on that statement. The Dallas-Fort Worth area does get pretty humid at times, such that dewpoints near or above 70F (which can feel oppressive) do occur with some degree of regularity in the spring, summer, and early fall. It's not as bad as Houston (being next to the Gulf of Mexico), but it can still get bad at times and interfere with outdoor activities.

Such high dewpoints in the DFW area in the transitional seasons (spring, fall) also acts as fuel for the severe thunderstorms and tornadoes that the area occasionally sees.

[Wintermomma]

That map is sobering.

[Cinema Cat]

Originally Posted by Transplant12345

Lakeridge High in Lake Oswego for example looks like a great school but has only a 94% graduation rate which is very low for a school that is highly ranked.

94% is low? Los Angeles high schools (the public ones) average a 50% graduation rate.

[Hemlock140]

Apparently you cannot trust graduation rates as a measure of success for a school or district, they are "cooking the books" to meet federal requirements.


https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalie.../#3c4f4486a7f4

[redguard57]

It's simple.

Compared to other states, Oregon has among the fewest calendar contact days in our school year and we have one of the highest absenteeism rates in the country because we have lax truancy enforcement.

Our kids are getting less instruction than in other states even if they attend every school day...but they are not. They skip a lot of school.

That's why. Mississippi increased their graduation rates by simply cracking down on truancy.

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

Apparently you cannot trust graduation rates as a measure of success for a school or district, they are "cooking the books" to meet federal requirements.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/natalie.../#3c4f4486a7f4

That article was talking about credit recovery courses. Which can be kind of a fraud, but no more fraudulent than any other kind of online learning. There are 100% online charter schools, for example. There is another entirely different sort of fraud I saw in TX where graduation rates are used to determine school accountability ratings and so districts have a big incentive to reduce them. It's called home schooling.

Say a student decides to drop out from HS in TX which is technically not legal before age 18. A counselor will visit with the student and parents and explain the following. "Technically it is not legal for you to drop out. But what students sometimes do in your position is withdraw in favor of home schooling. If this is the path you want to take then please sign this transfer form. The parent signs it and boom. Their HS dropout is no longer a dropout but classified by the district and state as a 'TRANSFER STUDENT' as if he/she had moved and transferred to another school district. And poof, that dropout is no longer on the home school district's books.

I remember one student I had who's withdrawal from my class was classified as "withdrawn for home schooling" on the official record. The next week I ran into him at Discount Tire and asked him how the home schooling is going. Big laugh. "I'm working here full time now. I gotta pay for my truck and help my mom with rent" Yeah, no home schooling was happening that's for sure.

I expect the same thing probably happens here, or most definitely will start happening if districts start being held accountable for their graduation rates.

[Guineas]

Texas clearly games their high school graduation rates. Anyone who has lived there knows very well the schools there are nothing special (with the exception of a few suburban power districts).