High schools have been using online credit recovery (OCR) to inflate graduation rates, writes Jeremy Noonan. His former district, Paulding County, Georgia, lets students cheat.
During the pandemic, students were allowed to take OCR courses at home, he writes. Some districts -- including some of Georgia's largest school systems -- still do.
Students get a low-cost, low-value diploma. Schools get to claim a higher graduation rate. Nobody's held accountable.
Noonan was assigned mid-year to oversee OCR. Some seniors "never showed up for class and were taking their course at home so they could graduate on time." He was told to let them access Edmentum tests on the course provider's teacher platform. "Knowing that the answers to the test bank were posted on third-party websites in a massive crowd-sourced cheating effort," he refused and launched a campaign to end at-home OCR.
Noonan failed. "In response to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article and video based on his experience, he was put on paid administrative leave in order for the district to conduct their own ethics investigation into his use of student data." He resigned from the district.