At the end of last school year, I mentioned that Lincoln High School in Tacoma had the strange distinction of being both "highly competitive" and underperforming in graduation rate. Now, it appears they might be trying to improve their graduation rate by offloading underperforming students.
I don't revel in this....Indeed, I point, as I have before, to the strange incentive structures that all the rules and regulations create for educators. If you're going to be touted as competitive by your ratio of AP seats to graduates, then you raise your AP numbers (by adding more students, whether they're AP-ready or not), or you reduce the number of graduates.
Lincoln may have done both, and I observe this with the full knowledge that the demands, expectations, incentives, etc., confronting educators push and pressure them toward such dubious responses.
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