Yesterday’s Star-Ledger has a piece about Newark’s high school graduation rate, and New Jersey’s lack of any standard formula for calculating this data. According to the Star-Ledger,

the National Governors Association developed a standard method to determine the number of students who successfully complete high school in a four-year period. Governors from all 50 states signed the association’s Graduation Counts Compact in 2005, and agreed to start using it as soon as possible.

Excellent. We applaud statistical integrity. As Commissioner Lucille Davy says in the article, “Measuring apples-apples is always important.” However, for reasons that remain murky, New Jersey won’t begin using this standard method until 2010.

The superintendent of Newark public schools, Clifford Janey (recently in the news for the gasps inspired by his $300K+ salary), is impatient and will therefore implement the National Governor’s Association’s rubric this year. But here’s the rub: last year’s graduation rate for Newark was 87%. The new formula brings it down to 63.4%.

Says the Ledger,

For the past few years New Jersey has ranked at the top of the nation when it comes to graduation rates. If Newark’s fall means anything, the state average could drop once every district begins using the new formula.

Hmmm. On the one hand, the State DOE seems to be feeling quite leisurely about implementing the Governor’s Association’s formula for calculating graduation rates, a change that will, at least judging by Newark’s results, radically reduce an important measure of success for NJ’s public high schools.

On the other hand, the State DOE is so eager to adjust the way districts calculate Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) that just this summer, after all standardized tests were taken, they changed the scoring rubric, causing many more schools to fail to make the cut-off and making administrators and school boards apoplectic.

Who’s running the fruit stand? Can we speak to the manager?