Or maybe it is the people inputting the data that do that.  This is a story about one of those amazing accomplishments where a Teacher or a School overcome the odds and turn everything around in a way that is both miracle and bullshit.

I finally had another realization after a sleepless night angry about another day at another school in Nashville.  That I am now just a compensated volunteer in these schools. That way here in the Volunteer state I could pretend I was there with no skills, no experience but just there to "help out." This way I could walk out at the end of the day and wipe this shit off me and have a better night where I was less angry, less afraid and just giving one shit less about what I am experiencing and witnessing.

Yesterday I was scheduled to be a SPED push in Teacher.  I managed to do so for an hour until I was put into another Teachers class as a sub failed to show.   I walked in after pushing in and watching a Math Teacher quasi berate and angrily and badly teach math.   He ignored me and in turn I expected that as that is the conventional resemblance of what defines hospitality here.   I looked around the room to see that his credentials were a year old and he had been teaching only for what it appears two years and is a Graduate of Lipscomb the Christian College that has given Tennessee its current Head of Education, a position that is clearly over her scope and scale with one testing scandal over another with regards to Title IX issues in 7 schools  (5 in Nashville, one at an elite private academy and the other I truly have no clue) and massive problems with charters across the state.

So I went back to the other class to look over the lesson plans, see what I could do to make them interesting for her scheduled class when the phone rang.  The Secretary asked where I was as they had been looking for me.  (I came home to find messages on my home phone as I don't use a cell phone in schools anymore as well it was stolen and again even if I did I am at work and should that not be turned off?)   Okay, so at one point did they not pull the Teacher's schedule to know whom she pushed in or well they could have used this thing called an Intercom to announce and ask where I was and to come to the office?  Was it not working, nope they used it several times that afternoon?  But again this is Nashville and stupid is a stupid does.   So as I came into the class that I had not signed up for I saw that it was some type of classroom. I had some sloppy desks, couches, bean bags, art supplies and nothing that screamed "MATH" class.  At least the new Teacher ironically across the hall,  had organization.  I spent the better part of the day attempting to ignore the kids as I sat there and read my paper.  And the standard took place, wilding is the best description. But the nice thing is that as this is an incredibly diverse school the behavior by the kids crossed gender and race lines and made me feel a little better about my current perceptions with regards to those issues.   But again, I truly see little comprehensive skills or actual understanding of many concepts, from reading to math, and it shows at every grade level. Some of this is explainable with children from immigrant families but many are born and raised here.  There is so much confusion about the subject matters and how to teach them it shows and it may explain the focus on tests as I suspect that is not only how they evaluate Teachers but devise curriculum.  Teach to the test.  Funny Betsy DeVos was here this week saying our schools are at risk. Tennessee is ground zero for Charters, Testing and Teacher Evaluations, Anti Union and other bullshit to hide systemic institutional racism, income inequality and the concept of choice as a way of defunding public education.  It is working out great here Betsy!

Now all of this while the Governor is on a major push to Drive to 55 and raise college graduates in the State with everything from free two years of community college and adult re-entry programs. These are in it's early days with only two years of mixed results and all of this in a waning Administration that after 2018 the new one may not have said program as a priority.  And given the history of this state I don't see change in that anytime soon regardless of said priority.  That is one subject here that we all can rely - HISTORY.

And then I read this story about the miracle school, or not.  Not surprising.  And another reason I am done with Teaching as a profession. Paid volunteer however.

What Really Happened At The School Where Every Graduate Got Into College
By Kate McGee • Nov 28, 2017
All Things Considered

Ballou High School, in Washington, D.C.'s Southeast quadrant, is located in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods and has struggled academically for years. An investigation by WAMU and NPR has found that the school's administration graduated dozens of students despite high rates of unexcused absences.

Brian Butcher, a history teacher at Ballou High School, sat in the bleachers of the school's brand-new football field last June watching 164 seniors receive diplomas. It was a clear, warm night and he was surrounded by screaming family and friends snapping photos and cheering.

It was a triumphant moment for the students: For the first time, every graduate had applied and been accepted to college. The school is located in one of Washington, D.C.'s poorest neighborhoods and has struggled academically for years with a low graduation rate. For months, the school received national media attention, including from NPR, celebrating the achievement.

But all the excitement and accomplishment couldn't shake one question from Butcher's mind:

How did all these students graduate from high school?

"You saw kids walking across the stage, who, they're nice young people, but they don't deserve to be walking across the stage," Butcher says.

An investigation by WAMU and NPR has found that Ballou High School's administration graduated dozens of students despite high rates of unexcused absences. We reviewed hundreds of pages of Ballou's attendance records, class rosters and emails after a district employee shared the private documents. Half of the graduates missed more than three months of school last year, unexcused. One in five students was absent more than present — missing more than 90 days of school.

According to district policy, if a student misses a class 30 times, he should fail that course. Research shows that missing 10 percent of school, about two days per month, can negatively affect test scores, reduce academic growth and increase the chances a student will drop out.

Teachers say when many of these students did attend school, they struggled academically, often needing intense remediation.

"I've never seen kids in the 12th grade that couldn't read and write," says Butcher about his two decades teaching in low-performing schools from New York City to Florida. But he saw this at Ballou, and it wasn't just one or two students.

An internal email obtained by WAMU and NPR from April shows two months before graduation, only 57 students were on track to graduate, with dozens of students missing graduation or community service requirements or failing classes needed to graduate. In June, 164 students received diplomas.

"It was smoke and mirrors. That is what it was," says Butcher.

Pressure to pass students

WAMU and NPR talked to nearly a dozen current and recent Ballou teachers — as well as four recent graduates — who tell the same story: Teachers felt pressure from administration to pass chronically absent students, and students knew the school administration would do as much as possible to get them to graduation.

"It's oppressive to the kids because you're giving them a false sense of success," says one current Ballou teacher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her job.

"To not prepare them is not ethical," says another current Ballou teacher who also spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"They're not prepared to succeed," says Morgan Williams, who taught health and physical education at Ballou last year. Williams says the lack of expectations set up students for future failure: "If I knew I could skip the whole semester and still pass, why would I try?"

Williams taught physical education and health at Ballou for two years. She says her students were often chronically absent, but the gym was always full. Students skipping other classes would congregate there, she says, and her requests for help from administrators and behavioral staff to manage these students were often ignored.

Williams, and other teachers we spoke to for this story, say they often had students on their rosters whom they barely knew because they almost never attended class.

Near the end of a term, Williams says, students would appear, asking for makeup work like worksheets or a project. She would refuse: There are policies, and if students did not meet the attendance policy, there was nothing she could do to help them. Then, she says, an administrator would also ask how she could help students pass.

At one point, while she was out on maternity leave, she says, she received a call from a school official asking her to change a grade for a student she had previously failed. "[They said] 'Just give him a D,' because they were trying to get him out of there and they knew he wouldn't do the makeup packet."

Williams says she tried to push back, but she often had 20 to 30 kids in one class. Repeatedly having the same conversation about dozens of students was exhausting. And the school required extensive improvement plans if teachers did fail students, which was an additional burden for a lot of already strained teachers.

Many teachers we spoke to say they were encouraged to also follow another policy: give absent or struggling students a 50 percent on assignments they missed or didn't complete, instead of a zero. The argument was, if the student tried to make up the missed work or failed, it would most likely be impossible to pass with a zero on the books. Teachers say that even if students earn less than a 50 percent on an assignment, 50 percent is still the lowest grade a student can receive.

During the last term of senior year, some seniors who weren't on track to graduate were placed in an accelerated version of the classes they were failing. Those classes, known as credit recovery, were held after school for a few weeks. School district policy says students should only take credit recovery once they receive a final failing grade for a course. At Ballou, though, students who were on track to fail were placed in these classes before they should have been allowed. On paper, these students were taking the same class twice. Sometimes, with two different teachers. Teachers say this was done to graduate kids.

Credit recovery is increasingly used to prevent students from dropping out, but critics argue credit recovery courses rarely have the same educational value as the original course and are often less rigorous. According to class rosters, 13 percent of Ballou graduates were enrolled in the same class twice during the last term before graduation. Often, teachers were not alerted their students were taking credit recovery. Many we spoke with say they didn't realize what was happening until they saw students whom they had flunked graduate. They say the credit recovery content was not intensive and that students rarely showed up for credit recovery.

If teachers pushed back against these practices, they say, administration retaliated against them by giving them poor teacher evaluations. Last year, the district put school administrators entirely in control of teacher evaluations, including classroom observations, instead of including a third party. Many teachers we spoke to say they believe this gives too much power to administrators. A low evaluation rating two years in a row is grounds for dismissal. Just one bad rating can make it tough to find another job. Teachers we spoke with say if they questioned administration, they were painted as "haters" who don't care about students.

"If they don't like you, they'll just let you go," says Monica Brokenborough, who taught music at Ballou last year. She also served as the teachers union building representative, responsible for handling teacher grievances and ensuring the school follows the district's teacher contract, among other duties. Last year, 26 grievances were filed by teachers at Ballou.

"Either you want your professional career on paper to look like you don't know what you're doing," says one teacher who asked for anonymity to protect her job. "Or you just skate by, play by the game."

Playing by the game can have financial benefits. If an evaluation score is high enough to reach the "highly effective" status, teachers and administrators can receive $15,000 to $30,000 in bonuses. D.C. Public Schools wouldn't tell us who gets a bonus, but teachers we spoke with did say the possibility of such a large bonus increases the pressure on teachers to improve student numbers.

Butcher, Brokenborough and Williams no longer work at Ballou. They received low teacher evaluations after the 2016-17 school year ended and were let go for various reasons. They believe they were unfairly targeted and have filed complaints through the local teachers union. Butcher and Williams found new teaching jobs outside D.C.; Brokenborough is waiting to resolve her grievance.

Who is responsible?

Ballou Principal Yetunde Reeves refused to speak to us for this story. But members of the school district office did.

"It is expected that our students will be here every day," said Jane Spence, chief of secondary schools at D.C. Public Schools. "But we also know that students learn material in lots of different ways. So we've started to recognize that students can have mastered material even if they're not sitting in a physical space."

This comes at the same time the district is publicly pushing the importance of daily attendance with a citywide initiative called "Every Day Counts!" City leaders have also made improving attendance a priority, strengthening reporting policies to improve accuracy. To be considered in school, students have to be there 80 percent of the day. If they are absent, parents have five days to submit proof they have an excused absence. Proof like a doctor's note.

Chancellor Antwan Wilson, the head of public schools in the District, says schools also can't ignore what's going on in the lives of students. Many students are managing effects of trauma, family responsibilities, a job — and, sometimes, all of the above. That can make it extra hard to show up to school every day. Federal data released in October found that 47 percent of D.C. students have experienced some kind of traumatic event.

And yet, how did all these kids miss all these days of school, apply to college and still graduate? As we repeatedly asked this, Wilson and Spence abruptly ended our interview.

After we reached out to the D.C. mayor's office for comment, the chancellor and Spence made themselves available for another interview. Ultimately, they stand behind the school's decision to graduate these students despite missing so much school.

When it comes to the district's grading policy, district leaders are quick to differentiate between a student who is absent from a particular class and a student who misses the full day.

"It is possible for a student to have 30 days when they are absent from school, but that doesn't constitute 30 days of absences from the course," Spence says. Still, she says high absenteeism is unacceptable and there's room for growth.

"Our students need to get here every day and we continue to ask our community and our families to partner with us to get students to school every day," Spence says.

She reinforces that many students are managing real issues that prevent them from getting to class and that schools need to find other ways to help absent kids succeed. She and Wilson say these policies, such as the makeup work and after-school credit recovery classes, can be part of the solution, if they're implemented with rigor. Wilson admits that is not happening at all schools.

"I think the issue we have is to fix at several of our schools, just to make sure that kids don't feel they can miss ... however many weeks and come in at the end and say, 'I'd love to get my makeup work,' " Wilson says.

Teacher responses

When we asked Ballou teachers about the issues students are dealing with that make it difficult to attend school, they acknowledged the reality. But some say the school district uses these students' situations as a crutch to ignore larger unaddressed issues in the building, like in-seat attendance and student behavior. In-seat attendance is the percentage of time a student is actually in class. When it comes to attendance, teachers say many students are in the building, but they just don't go to class.

"Kids roam the halls with impunity," says another current Ballou teacher.

"The tardy bell is just a sound effect in that building," says Brokenborough, the former music teacher. "It means nothing."

Teachers say they are willing to help students who struggle to balance school and outside responsibilities like a job or child care, but Brokenborough says some students just simply do not want to attend class and come to expect makeup work. This puts teachers in a tough situation, she says, "because if you don't [give makeup work] and another teacher does, it makes you look like the bad guy."

Many students have figured out they don't have to show up every day.

"These students are smart enough to see enough of what goes on," Brokenborough says. "They go, 'Oh, I ain't gotta do no work in your class; I can just go over here, do a little PowerPoint, pass and graduate.' Again, this isn't about the teachers. What is that doing to that child? That's setting that kid up for failure just so you can showboat you got this graduation rate."

School district leaders, including Wilson, defend the use of makeup work, arguing they want to give students "multiple opportunities" to show they understand material. The teachers we spoke with say they feel the system ultimately reduces academic rigor, serving no one in the end. When these students leave Ballou and go off to college or the workplace, teachers feel they are not prepared to work hard.

One current teacher says, from the perspective of a black teacher teaching predominantly black students, graduating these students is an injustice. "This is [the] biggest way to keep a community down. To graduate students who aren't qualified, send them off to college unprepared, so they return to the community to continue the cycle."

"I came to school when I wanted to"

We interviewed four recent Ballou graduates. We aren't using their names to protect their privacy. Three are in college now, including one student who was absent about half the school year.

"I came to school when I wanted to," she says. "I didn't have to be there; I didn't want to be there."

Senior year wasn't easy for her. She says she wasn't living at home anymore and was working at a fast-food restaurant to pay rent. That need for an income made school even less appealing, "I felt at a point around getting toward winter, I ain't have to be there no more," she remembers. "I felt like I graduated at that point."

While she says she got calls and letters from the school about her absences, she wouldn't show up until they threatened to send her to court for truancy. "That's when I was like, 'Oh, let me go to school.' "

In D.C., students who miss 15 or more days of school without an excuse are supposed to be referred to court services. Last year, Ballou sent just 25 seniors to court services for truancy, but according to documents we obtained, all but 11 graduates should have had court services alerted about their absenteeism.

"Even then, you learn to work the system," the student says. When the school would threaten truancy court, she says, she would show up for a few hours, do her classwork and leave early. She believes it shouldn't matter if she showed up to class as long as she completed her work. Plus, she says, she knew no matter how much school she missed, she wouldn't fail.

"The thing was, they couldn't do that to me and they knew that I knew that."

According to a Washington Post article in May of this year, 21 teachers — more than a quarter of Ballou's teaching staff — left during the 2016-2017 school year, the most teacher resignations of any high school in the District last year. When those teachers left midyear, a substitute often took over, giving students even less motivation to show up to class. "What am I going to keep showing up to this for a substitute for? He ain't gonna teach nothing," the student says.

Another Ballou graduate also says teacher turnover was the biggest problem at the school. Often, teachers would leave without a backup teacher or substitute in place. He says many substitutes didn't know how to teach the content and students lost interest in learning.

"I'm not going to say I always went to class or I always was a good student because I wasn't," he says over the phone from his dorm room. He currently attends a four-year university outside D.C. But this student took honors courses and says he wanted to be at school. He knew college would be hard — he even enrolled in a summer program at his college designed to help low-income, underrepresented students prepare for their first semester. But he says when the fall semester started, "I had reality slapped in the face."

Both students say they are struggling in their college math classes.

With so many teacher vacancies last year, teachers we spoke with say they don't understand how some students passed classes they needed to graduate. Plus, many of the students who were in those classrooms were struggling academically. Last year, 9 percent of students there passed the English standardized test. No one passed the math test. The average SAT score last year among Ballou test takers was 782 out of 1600.

"The elephant in the room is how these kids are getting through middle school and getting through high school," says a current Ballou teacher, speaking anonymously. "That's passing the buck and totally unacceptable, especially from a leadership standpoint."

The school district won't know how many Ballou graduates enrolled in college overall until May, a spokesperson says. We know of 183 students accepted to the University of the District of Columbia, the local community college. But only 16 enrolled this fall.

As the first semester of freshman year winds down, both graduates quoted in this story, who attend four-year universities, say they're trying to stick with it.

"Everybody say you're supposed to go to college for yourself, but I went to college for my family," says the Ballou graduate who stayed in the District for college. "I didn't go 'cause I wanted to. I don't want to. I could care less. But I am going to go ahead and do what I have to do because nothing feels better than going home to your family who look up to you. I got parents who look up to me."

She says she doesn't feel she was prepared for college, though she places some of that blame on herself.

Teachers at Ballou say pushing kids to see a future for themselves and to work toward that future is valuable. But encouraging them to pursue a future they're not prepared for and sending them off without skills is irresponsible. Instead, they say the school and school system need to better prepare students for the hurdles they'll face when they get to college, and they need to hold students accountable when they don't meet the requirements.

Seven months from now, Ballou High School will celebrate another graduating class. The current senior class is also working toward a 100 percent college acceptance rate this year.
Copyright 2017 WAMU 88.5. To see more, visit WAMU 88.5.

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

This is a story about an achievement that isn't all it seemed.

(SOUNDBITE OF PERFORMANCE OF EDWARD ELGAR'S "POMP AND CIRCUMSTANCE, OP. 39: MARCH NO. 1 IN D MAJOR")

MCEVERS: We reported in June about the graduating class at Washington, D.C.'s, Ballou High School. One hundred percent of the graduates had gotten into college, a big deal for the school's low-income neighborhood. Now an investigation by member station WAMU and NPR finds that many of those students shouldn't have graduated in the first place. WAMU's Kate McGee takes it from here.

KATE MCGEE, BYLINE: Ballou High School's 2017 graduation happened on a warm June evening on the school's brand new football field. This was a chance to celebrate that 100 percent college acceptance rate at a school with a historically low graduation rate. Friends and family were there by the hundreds. TV news crews came. I was there for NPR. The district's chancellor was there, even the mayor, Muriel Bowser.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MURIEL BOWSER: Be brave. Be bold, and be honest about your talents, your passions, your strengths and even your weakness.

MCGEE: The ceremony was bittersweet for Brian Butcher, a history teacher last year. As he watched students walk across the stage, he thought...

BRIAN BUTCHER: They're nice young people, but they don't deserve to be walking across the stage because you know that some of these kids who are graduating should not be here in the first place.

MCGEE: We began to reach out to teachers when a district employee shared private documents with us including attendance records, class rosters and emails. Hundreds of pages of Ballou's attendance records show half of the graduates missed more than three months senior year unexcused. Monica Brokenborough taught music at Ballou last year.

MONICA BROKENBOROUGH: And I've literally had students on my roster that I have never, ever seen because they've never come to class.

MCGEE: The documents we reviewed showed that 1 in 5 students were absent more than they showed up, missing more than 90 days of school. Here's the thing. District policy says if students miss a class 30 times in a year, they should fail that course. We talked to nearly a dozen current and recent Ballou teachers who say they felt pressured by administration to pass absent, unprepared students. And students knew school administration would do as much as possible to get them to graduation. One 2017 graduate we spoke to missed a total of about four months last year.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Laughter) My senior year, coming to school - I came when I wanted to. Honestly, I didn't have to be there, and I didn't want to be there, so...

MCGEE: Plus, she says, she was working full-time to pay rent. We aren't using her name to protect her privacy. She's in college now and says she's struggling in some of her classes. According to an internal school email, one-third of graduates weren't on track academically to graduate in April, but by June, they did receive their diplomas. Brian Butcher and other teachers say the message to them was, find a way for students to pass.

BUTCHER: It was a smoke and mirrors. This is what it was.

MCGEE: One way to pass kids - give students make-up work like worksheets or projects for lessons students missed. Morgan Williams taught health and physical education last year. She says this was an easy out.

MORGAN WILLIAMS: And that's the mentality that they're setting for them. I could just skip the whole semester, get a packet, do the packet and go on about my business. And the packets that they were asking for were nowhere near standards.

MCGEE: She was on maternity leave the last term of the year. As graduation loomed, she says she got calls from school leaders asking her to pass a kid she previously failed.

WILLIAMS: Just give him the D because they were trying to get him out of there.

MCGEE: Another method to graduate kids - accelerated after-school courses known as credit recovery. These classes condense a year-long course into a matter of weeks. D.C. school policy says students should be placed in a credit recovery course after failing. At Ballou, students were put in these courses before they officially failed. Monica Brokenborough says she figured this out looking at the graduation program.

BROKENBOROUGH: I'm seeing names on here, and I'm like, oh, no, no, no, I know this person failed my class. This student maybe only came to my class three times. And no exaggerations - like, some absenteeism was that extreme at Ballou.

MCGEE: The teachers we spoke with say they know these kids are dealing with a lot outside of school. If a student is trying hard but family, life responsibilities or a job is getting in the way, they don't have a problem working with them to make up assignments. But teachers say sometimes students were in the building. They just wouldn't come to class.

BROKENBOROUGH: For you to say that I have to give them make-up work, those students would come to expect it because, like, if one teacher does it and then you don't do it, it makes you look like the bad guy.

MCGEE: Teachers say looking like the bad guy can cost you your job. Continuing employment depends on teacher evaluations, which are given by principals. A really good evaluation comes with a $15,000 to $30,000 bonus. It's unclear who, if anyone, received these bonuses at Ballou. The district wouldn't share that information. Brian Butcher, Morgan Williams and Monica Brokenborough no longer work at Ballou. They received poor teacher evaluations and were terminated after this school year for various reasons.

But they believe they were unfairly targeted for not passing absent kids and for their active involvement with the teachers' union. They're formally contesting their dismissals with the district. We did talk with six teachers still at Ballou. None wanted to speak on the record for fear of retaliation, but they told a similar story. Pass kids, or look like a bad teacher on paper. The school's principal, Yetunde Reeves, wouldn't talk to us, so I went to school district leaders and I asked this question.

I'm wondering how, with so many kids missing 30-plus days, how they passed their courses to be able to graduate.

JANE SPENCE: We've started to recognize that students can have mastered material even if they're not sitting in a physical space.

MCGEE: That's Jane Spence, deputy of high schools. She admits the best way to learn is to be in the classroom. Her boss, District Chancellor Antwan Wilson, chimed in.

ANTWAN WILSON: I think the real question to ask here is, what is going on in the lives of young people that leads them to find getting to school challenging?

MCGEE: But I wanted to know, based on what I heard from teachers about how these students advanced, is this the right way to graduate students? Before I could ask, Chancellor Wilson and Deputy Spence got up.

WILSON: I have to slide away.

MCGEE: So are you sticking around for more questions or...

SPENCE: No.

MCGEE: ...Michelle, I thought we said we had an hour.

MICHELLE LERNER: Yeah, I think we just had some scheduling problems, but...

MCGEE: That's communications head Michelle Lerner you hear at the end. Next we looked to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, but her office pointed us back to the school district. In our second interview weeks later, Jane Spence joined us by phone and acknowledged all these absences are a problem.

SPENCE: Our students need to get here every day. And we continue to ask our community and our families to partner with us to get students to school every day.

MCGEE: But she reinforced that many students have real issues that prevent them from getting to class, and schools need to find other ways to help absent kids succeed. She and Chancellor Wilson say these policies - the make-up work and after-school classes - can be part of the solution if they're implemented with rigor. Chancellor Wilson admits that's not happening at all schools.

WILSON: I think the issue that we have to fix at several of our schools - just to make sure that kids don't feel they can miss however many weeks and then just come in at the end and say, I'd love to get my make-up work.

MCGEE: Ultimately these district leaders stand by Ballou High School's decision to graduate these students. The current senior class, the class of 2018, is also working toward a 100 percent college acceptance rate. For NPR News, I'm Kate McGee in Washington.