Chicago Public Schools officials claimed record-high attendance for the first day of the school year, even with the school funding boycott led by the rev. and state Sen. James Meeks.
But those numbers seem to be based on enrollment projections that drastically undercount enrolled students, Catalyst reports:
Instead of counting the number of students who actually show up out of those who were assigned or enrolled to a school, the district compares them to enrollment estimates made in February.
No-shows do not count against a school's attendance at all.
Enrollment estimates this year were too low--by a margin of at least one classroom--for 54 percent of the district's schools, and too high for 11 percent, according to a Catalyst analysis of school-by-school enrollment data. The rest were within range.
These skewed projections meant that at Englewood's Robeson High School, which had one of Chicago's worst attendance rates last year, 2008 first-day attendance was "more than perfect," according to Catalyst.
At Robeson, for instance, early estimates predicted 1,197 students. When more than 1,400 showed up on the first day, the district's official attendance rate was 117 percent. [..] James Breashears, Robeson's former principal who now serves as an advisor to his successor, shrugs off the Englewood school's over the top Day One attendance as a "fairytale."