CCSD Ain't Good In Math

From the LVRJ: It was cause for celebration when Clark County School District officials claimed that its graduation rate jumped to 66 percent last summer.
Every high school improved, bragged then Deputy Superintendent of Instruction Pedro Martinez.
But the touted rise in students earning diplomas was inaccurate, according to information released this week by the Nevada Department of Education.
The district’s 2011-12 graduation rate stands at 61 percent, a 2 percentage point gain over the previous year, not the 7 percentage point stride repeatedly held up as a sign of progress by district officials, including former Superintendent Dwight Jones, who abruptly resigned in March for personal reasons.
When asked Wednesday about the inaccurate portrayal of the graduation rate, interim Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky said, “Our graduation rate is no longer about a number — it’s about individual students.”
Clark County graduated 652 more students in 2012 than it did in 2011, Skorkowsky continued, and that gives them a “brighter future.”
The claim of across-the-board graduation rate improvements at the district’s 49 high schools — made in June by Martinez who is now superintendent of Washoe County schools — is also wrong, the district conceded Wednesday. Clark County School Board member Lorraine Alderman was stunned by the inaccuracies.
“I know I saw a difference,” she said of last school year, taken aback at finding the gains were only marginal after significant resources were invested in pushing more graduates onto the stage.  http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/education/ccsds-initial-graduation-rate-claims-proven-inaccurate
I am a teacher in CCSD and some of the low percentage of graduates can be explained.
Every student in CCSD is required to pass the proficiency exams in Math, science, reading and Writing.  If you don't pass the proficiencies, you don't graduate.
So, about 20% of the students in CCSD are special education students and the vast majority of these students will never pass the exams, so, that explains about 20% of the failures.
You also have the kids who don't speak English and don't know how to write anything in English.  These guys will never pass the proficiency exams.
You also have a population that is highly mobile and moves around a lot. We have kids enrolling into our school in late May, just before final exams.  If your family moves from school to school several times during the school year, your chances of success are virtually 0.
And then you have the kids who just don't want to go to school.  Every school district has them and I m sure CCSD has a huge share of them.  In Las Vegas, you don't need a high school diploma to get a decent job in the gaming industry, be a stripper or work in the construction industry- when it was flourishing.
But the fact is, if you have a child within CCSD and they don't fit in the above categories, chances are they will pass the proficiency exams, especially with all the tutoring available to them.
So, going back to the story as to why CCSD lied about the graduation rates, maybe Jones knew he was on the way out, so perhaps he inflated the numbers, like many school districts around the country have done.
Or perhaps the people running the numbers at CCSD are graduates from CCSD and that's the best they can do.