Could the Growing Use of High School Credit Recovery Programs Work Against Our Retention Efforts?
I read with great interest the prior two Sunday ”Perspective” sections of the Albany Times Union. Each contained enlightening and somewhat critical assessments of the increasing use of high school “credit recovery” programs in an effort to bolster area school district graduation rates.
Having sat through countless discussions on this campus of the lack of preparation on behalf of many incoming students, and the resulting need for (expensive) remediation for a growing number of our students; it seems obvious to me that these ‘credit recovery’ programs may actually work against the academic skills preparation of a potentially large percentage of our incoming freshman class.
In an unofficial effort to identify how many local districts employ these programs (which essentially substitute for the completion of a required high-school course), I learned from Questar III that two different programs are in place, NovaNet, and Aventa; and that combined, these programs are used by fifteen of their served school districts. The larger (serving four counties) “Capital Region BOCES” also provides both options to their participating school districts, and defines the credit recovery programs as including “a variety of alternative academic programs used in schools to offer students a way to make up credits for incomplete or failed courses.”
Interested members of the academic community should make themselves aware of the growing use of these programs, the motivation for NYS school districts’ willingness to employ them, and the critiques of their integrity and oversight. I intend to survey my first year students this semester (six sections) to unscientifically determine how many of the incoming criminal justice students used these ‘credit recovery’ programs to bypass courses required for their high-school diplomas.
As we continually strive to improve our student retention initiatives, we should be aware of the dynamics working against our best efforts. It would be most interesting to know how many local school districts use these programs, and what percentage of our student body is directly impacted by them.
Sources worth a look:
- 7/15/12 Times Union: Anxiety rises with grades
- 7/22/12 Times Union: Real learning, or online scam?
- NovaNET
- Aventa Learning Credit Recovery
- Questar III: Credit recovery participating districts
- Capital Region BOCES service guide; listing NovaNET, Aventa Learning, and Plato Learning “credit make-up” options. (See page 54).
Published: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 12:30:19 +0000 by m.such