7/13/2007 2:26:00 PM What the graduation rates aren't telling you
Larry Burchall
Initially, I was dumbfounded. Then I got really, really, angry. How could a system abruptly switch from years of depressing 45-55 per cent graduation rates to a sudden high of 82 per cent looking at a dizzying 98 per cent?
Was there honest improvement? Or, was there dishonest manipulation?
Answer? Dishonest manipulation. My anger was - and it still is - completely justified.
Between them, Cedarbridge and Berkeley must contain all of those fourth year high school students who are not in the private sector education process, not at school overseas, and who have not yet dropped out. Allowing for students in the private sector in Bermuda [by Year Four it's around 40 per cent], and allowing for students sent overseas [around 10 per cent]; there must be around 50 per cent of Year Four students still left in Bermuda's public education system. Year Four's graduating class of 2007 would have been born in 1990. There are around 850 male and female Bermudians in that age bracket.
Lop off the numbers in the private education systems, and you end up with around 425 students who should be in the public system. So there should be around 425 students in each of S1, S2, S3, S4. Even if there is a public sector dropout rate during the time that a public sector student moves from S1 to S4, it is still likely that the public sector S4 group will contain close to 400 students. If the S4 graduating class group is significantly smaller than 400, then this gives clear and early proof of an extremely serious dropout or waste-out problem. A drop-out problem so serious that good professional educators should be besieging the Minister, berating the Ministry, pleading with Cabinet; and screaming out to the general public that they are dealing with a horrendous student drop-out problem.
I've heard no screams! No shouts! No cries! Instead, I have heard and I have seen pronouncements that 173 students graduated. I have heard and I have seen headlines that boasted that these 173 gave an 82 per cent graduation rate that might later rise to 98 perr cent. My pre-calculator pencil and paper primary school arithmetic, taught over a half century ago at West Pembroke Primary School and Form One West at Berkeley, tells me that if 173 is 82 per cent, then 212 must be 100 per cent. Put another way, 173 is 82 per cent of 212. If there are only 212 students in the combination of Cedarbridge and Berkeley's S4, then what - WHAT? - has happened to the 188 other Bermudian children who are also in that S4 age cohort? They are alive.
Where did they go?
So they must be - they have to be - in the public education system somewhere. I accept that, by now, Principals and Ministry of Education administrators may be punch-drunk and reeling with criticism fatigue from having to absorb all the body blows of strong criticism bashed into their well-educated, well-paid, well-clothed frames.
Did they have to resort to statistical subterfuge? Were they trying to hoodwink a gullible public? Don't they have any professional pride? Do they think that the public is so dumb?
The public consumers of the public education system and the education professionals who work in the public system, must agree that all dealings must be honest dealings. Everyone must deal with fact as fact. Everyone must gather and use good information in order to forge ahead in search of better answers.
No one should resort to the intellectually dishonest practice of manipulating numbers and misrepresenting information. The matters to be addressed are far too serious. The fundamental reality is that education involves the development of human potential. If we fail to develop human potential, we are committing an ethical transgression that is worse than anything that might be uncovered at BHC. We are committing a crime far worse than did the jailed Terrance Smith and Harrison Isaac Jr. The $4,000,000 that those two got away with didn't cause any breakdowns in this wealthy community.
If our public education system goes on failing, we are simultaneously damaging precious human beings and adding explosive ingredients to a social time bomb. Exactly the same as their better-educated fellow Bermudians, under-educated Bermudians are competing, in Bermuda, with well-educated and often highly motivated 'guest workers' who, in our bustling economy, are now competing for jobs in all categories.
Under-educating any young Bermudian unfairly deprives him or her of a fair opportunity in life and work - and it builds a future social problem.
No more manipulating or misrepresenting. Just truth and fact. Editor's note: This column was written prior to Wednesday's press conference by Education Minister Randy Horton. See Meredith Ebbin's story on page one.
