First, is there some distribution list where you right-wingers get sent links to this particular right-wing UK tabloid? It just seems unlikely that you all happen to be avid readers of the gossip papers overseas. I'm wondering what the distribution path is. Does Breitbart direct you there when they feature a right-wing-friendly story? Whatever it is, it appears to work well for the Daily Mail, just judging by the fact that a nominally UK newspaper spends so much time reporting local US news stories with Republican spin.
Anyway, as for your take on the story, it's obviously not supported by the story. You're suggesting that lower dropout rates are attributable to lower attendance. There's nothing in there to suggest that attendance fell. It's just a measure of where it stands today. Schools might be more or less tolerant of absenteeism than in the past. Nothing in the story provides any guidance of that. The closest we get is that out-of-school suspensions are down 20 percent from two years ago (which means LESS forced absenteeism), and this:
If you're not there, you don't learn, and then you fall behind, you don't pass your classes, you don't get the credits in high school and that's what leads to dropping out
So, if he's right, and absenteeism leads to dropping out, and dropping out has been declining, what does that suggest about absenteeism?
We can also test the idea by looking at test scores. As you probably are aware, NAEP scores have been rising for lower grades in recent decades, and have held essentially steady for upper grades. That's what we'd expect if the quality of education were improving, but dropout rates were also falling (meaning in the upper grades you're testing a less and less elite group each year). It's not what we'd expect if people were in class less and less often.
Now that you see your errors, would you like to revise your post?
