Inching toward education goals

For the fifth consecutive year, Georgia’s high school graduation rate improved. That is of course welcome news, especially since those five years of progress have all come since Washington started grading, so to speak, on a more exacting scale: In 2011, the federal Department of Education began basing graduation rates on students who successfully complete high school in four years, rather than just on the number of diplomas.

State Superintendent Richard Woods told the Atlanta Business Chronicle, “We have a goal of exceeding the national average graduation rate by 2020.”

Here in Columbus, that has already happened. As reported Tuesday by the Georgia Department of Education, Muscogee County exceeded the state rate, the national rate, and its own 2015 rate.

The report shows MCSD with a graduation rate of 84.6 percent, up 1.5 percentage points from last year. That compares to a state score of 79.2 percent and a national rate of 83 percent. (National rates are a year behind state and local statistics.)

Columbus public schools also scored higher on this metric than the other second-tier cities of Savannah (83.2), Augusta (76.7) and Macon (71.6). In the state’s capital and largest city, Atlanta Public Schools posted a graduation rate of 71.1 percent.

As noted in our Tuesday story, the Georgia DOE indicated that the state rate could be adjusted, because the department has not yet received complete figures from eight of the state’s 181 school districts, including MCSD. (Given that the one local school not yet officially included is Early College Academy, with a reported 97.1 percent 2016 graduation rate, it doesn’t seem likely to drag either the state or local average down.)

These reports are good news, but they are certainly not grounds for satisfaction or complacency (nor does anyone claim them to be). Dropout rates are still too high, too many scores in too many subjects still too low. Graduation averages, like all averages, take into account the failures as well as the successes, and there are still too many underperforming students and underperforming schools.

But we’ll take movement in the right direction over the alternative any day, or any year.

The ‘other’ other shoe

The Atlanta Falcons are getting an expensive new playpen, a big chunk of it at Georgia taxpayers’ expense. The formerly Atlanta Braves are likewise getting one, likewise with our unwitting help.

So some new digs for the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks (under, no doubt, the usually unspoken but always implicit pro sports threat of taking the franchise elsewhere) were pretty much inevitable.

Drop the “pretty much.” Mayor Kasim Reed announced Wednesday that the city of Atlanta will put up $142.5 million — the Hawks themselves a whopping $50 million — to renovate Philips Arena. (The venue, to be sure, is a multipurpose entertainment facility.)

At least in this case the tax burden will be borne by Atlanta instead of by Georgia — a rare but welcome instance of officials actually making the distinction.

This story was originally published November 2, 2016 at 5:07 PM with the headline "Inching toward education goals."