Grade tampering investigation prompts debate on measuring school success

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – A principal released and grades allegedly changed to meet graduation requirements: Wichita Southeast High School is in the spotlight at the state level as Kansas lawmakers address claims of grade tampering. The situation has also prompted a debate on how best to measure school success.

Following the report from Kansas’s largest school district, the state’s school finance task force dove into the issue.

“They were really promoting the idea that their graduation rates had improved by 5%. And then I go and look online to pull up that particular school’s results and they’re almost twice as bad as our state’s for the lowest category,” said Rep. Kristey Williams, R-Augusta, of Southeast High School.

The questioning follows Wichita Public Schools’ celebration of district-wide improvements for graduation rates, reporting the more-than 5% jump from 2023 to 2024. But with that celebration comes the investigation into grade tampering at Wichita Southeast.

In a statement Wednesday, Wichita Public Schools confirmed “less than 10 students’ records were changed and there is no indication of data inaccuracies in past years.”

The acknowledgement of grade tampering is enough to get Rep. Williams to question the use of graduation rates to measure student success.

“Graduation rates are not correlated at all. I mean, if we want to babysit, that’s one thing. We want to have a safe place for them, that’s one thing, but that doesn’t mean you’re learning anything,” she said.

Not everyone feels the same.

“I think when you look at any industry, including the legislature, there are bad actors that you have to do things around. That doesn’t mean you should throw out that metric altogether,” said Kansas State Department of Education Deputy Commissioner Dr. Frank Harwood.

Dr. Harwood said while graduation rates are the best indicator of economic drivers, there are other things to consider.

“We could talk to business and industry about what those things are,” he said. “When we have those conversations, it’s actually about character development much more so than many other things, so I mean if we’re going to talk about some of those things, employers are looking at character development much more than they’re looking at state assessment scores.”

Ultimately, lawmakers say that if a diploma is going to be used to measure success, then they need to define what graduation really means.

“I’m hearing some employers say for some reason, they’re getting the really great students coming out, and then I’m getting those that say, ‘Wow, they really aren’t coming out knowing or being able to do much,’” said Kansas Sen. Renee Erickson, R-Wichita.

Kansas lawmakers haven’t decided on how best to measure student and school district success, or whether they’ll change current practices.

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