CMS: The 99%
Or the 75 percent, or maybe the 53 percent – same difference, just a rounding error; could happen to anyone.
The uptown paper’s Ann Doss Helms unravels the numbers behind Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ flawed graduation-track data, while having to painstakingly explain – apparently repeatedly – to CMS officials the error of their ways before they finally conclude, “Oops, our bad.”
Chris Cobitz, the administrator in charge of the school progress reports that CMS released this week, initially stood by the calculations – that more than 99 percent of elementary and middle school students and 98.2 percent of high school students in 2010-11 had never been retained in a grade – despite a high school promotion rate of only 68 percent and a graduation rate just under 74 percent.
But after the Observer sent follow-up questions about contradictory numbers and posted an online story , Cobitz said that the numbers of students “anticipated to graduate on time” for virtually all schools are inaccurate.
He said the numbers came from the wrong column on a spreadsheet, but he could not immediately say what they actually represent.
“It appears to be a number that is somehow associated with the school but has been miscalculated,” he said.
The corrected averages for students who have never been held back in a grade are 92 percent for CMS elementary schools, 94 percent for middle schools and 76 percent for high schools, according to a revised report issued Thursday afternoon.
At some schools, the changes are dramatic. West Charlotte High, for instance, went from having 95.8 percent listed as on-track to graduate to 53.2 percent.
The problem, of course, is a lack of funding, as Cobitz notes that “the staff producing the reports has been cut been cut by five people this year.” So a few million more for CMS and problem solved.
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