Up North Progressive

The Up North Progressive knows that Western Land Services Owner John Wilson reads this blog (Hello!). The anticipated reply to Friday’s article did not disappoint.

Oh good Lord!

Both G2S and Oaktree Academy are 501c non-profit educational institutions. We’ve invested $250,000 into South Hamlin School to rehab a school that was literally falling apart. Our goal is for all Mason County 4 year olds to have a preschool experience. When kids are kindergarten ready they have a better chance of reading by the 3rd grade. Last year 88%, this year 92%, hopefully we’ll reach 100%. We pay Ludington Schools annual rent of $60,000. That facility will never make any money, nor can it.

Wilson goes on to explain how Gateway To Success wasn’t even his idea, it was everyone else (Ludington Schools, West Shore ESD and MCC) who wanted the charter school; he just donated some money to help. So what about that conversation that happened in Arizona when Mrs. Wilson said G2S would never be for alternative ed?

Wilson then goes on to give everyone else (Ludington Schools, West Shore ESD and MCC) a black eye about the dismal 80 percent graduation rate they’re suffering.

We’re investing $3.5 million into raising our ESD’s graduation rate from its current 80%. When kids drop out of school no one gets their funding. That’s our target audience. If we can identify those kids before they drop out we’ll have a better chance of helping them graduate. Our current graduation rate of 80% is unacceptable. Too many kids are falling through the cracks. G2S is hoping to help give those those kids a better future.

80 percent is unacceptable according to John Wilson. Yes, that means out of 626 students enrolled in Ludington High School, statistically only 501 will graduate and 125 will not.

125 students by the way was the enrollment of Journey Junior Senior High School before it closed. Journey was the alternative education program shuttered to make room for Gateway To Success. What about the future that program offered students so they didn’t fall through the cracks?

Are Ludington Schools really so far below average they need this charter school to pick up the slack before the chaos of the uneducated reigns over the Mason County lakeshore? Just how far below the national average of high school students graduating is Ludington High School? The district must be in a free fall of panic dealing with the scandal of only graduating 80 percent of their total school enrollment. According to the United States department of Education, the current average nationwide is …. wait for it …. are you sitting down? …. 81 percent!

In fact, here is a quote from the US Department of Education’s own website about this “unacceptable” situation:

U.S. students are graduating from high school at a higher rate than ever before, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics. The nation’s high school graduation rate hit 81 percent in 2012-13, the highest level since states adopted a new uniform way of calculating graduation rates five years ago.

The current federal goal for graduating high school students is 90% by the year 2020.

But that may still be too low for John Wilson. He probably remembers a time when everyone he graduated from high school with graduated, and Ludington’s 80 percent graduation rate must be some all-time new low. John Wilson couldn’t be more wrong.

American public schools graduate more high school students now than they ever have in the history of the United States. In 1953 about 50 percent of our population graduated from high school. In the 1930’s it wasn’t even 30 percent. The GED program came about as part of the GI bill. The US Government offered to pay for WWII veterans to go to college, but most of them were so poorly educated, they didn’t have the basic skills to pass college entrance exams. In 1910, most school children were done with school when they reached the 8th grade.

In 1938, this article appeared in a late spring issue of my grandfather’s high school newspaper. He graduated from Henry Ford Trade School in 1940.

74 percent was astronomical in 1938. Notice no one called this school’s graduation rate “unacceptable.”

Jamie Vollmer said it best:

The golden age of America’s schools is a myth. For over two hundred years, America’s public schools have risen to meet every challenge posed by a rapidly-evolving society—an experiment in free-market, representative democracy that is unique in world history. The truth is that, each succeeding generation of young Americans has been better educated than its predecessors.

Ludington High School graduating 80 percent of their students means they’re right on track with the rest of the nation in education achievement. If they make it to 89 percent by 2020, the teachers and staff of Ludington High School deserve a pat on the back, not John Wilson’s condemnation that their efforts are “unacceptable.”

Your move, Mr. Wilson.