High school progress reports; more unreliable and unfair measures

Today the high school progress reports were released for 2009-2010; here is an excel spreadsheet.

Yet experts continue to have grave reservations as to their reliability, with DOE placing far too much emphasis on test scores and especially the "progress" component, which means one year's changes in test scores, credit accumulation, passing rates etc., which have found to be extremely erratic and statistically unreliable. For more on this see this study, and this previous posting.

We have also seen the extremely damaging effects of this high-stakes accountability scheme, causing principals to increasingly "game" the system, that is, encouraging their teachers to "scrub" the scores, and or raising the scores themselves to passing, and/or awarding credits to students who either didn't actually pass their courses or even take them. Two articles in the past few days have revealed this occurrence at high schools in Queens and Manhattan; these practices are disturbingly widespread, and often occur with DOE's knowledge.

Right now in the city's schools, under Bloomberg and Klein, there is a lawless atmosphere, with very little oversight. In this "wild west" environment, it is very easy to manipulate the data, especially since DOE officials do not appear to care how schools get results, as long as graduation rates and test scores improve

Finally, it is interesting to note that the twenty schools with the highest overall progress report scores had average class sizes of only 23.3 students per class, with only one of them averaging more than 25.7 students per class. Meanwhile, the twenty high schools with the lowest overall scores had an average class size of 24.9, with four schools averaging 29 students per class or more. (Click on charts to enlarge.)


As the controversial teacher data reports take class size into account as a limiting factor as to how much a teacher is expected to raise test scores; it would only be fair for the DOE to take this factor into account as well with the school progress reports, especially as many high schools are allowed to cap enrollment and thus class size at far lower levels than other high schools.

Gary Babad breaks his contract and is demoted to DOE's press office

In a violation of his exclusive contract with the NYC Public School Parent blog, Gary Babad has published a exclusive report on the Washington Post blog about the appointment of a new Superintendent of DC schools.



We dragged Gary out of obscurity and propelled him to fame and fortune, and this is how he repays us? (Okay, there was no pay involved, but still!)

Gary's photo is at right, at the Class Size Matters fundraiser in May, talking to famed attorney Norman Siegel and to me; an occasion in which he never even hinted at his future betrayal.



As punishment, we are sending Gary to the bowels of the Tweed building to head their PR department, otherwise known as the NYC Department of Education press office.



This department is short-handed because of much turnover in recent months; and it's obvious they need help with their spin control. (The new hires haven't even managed to subscribe to our NYC education news list yet, the first step in any genuine attempt to control the news.)



For example, last week, when a press spokesperson tried to explain the lack of action for five years in a DOE investigation into the misconduct of a principal, recently shown to have misused funds in an audit from the State Comptroller's office, the excuse was that "Our lawyers are very thorough."



More recently, a DOE press spokesperson fed the absurd line to an Ed Week reporter that the DOE "is poised to introduce online credit-recovery options for students this coming school year in 10 schools" and then, only when a teacher is present.



Meanwhile, we know from numerous news articles that credit recovery is pervasive throughout the city, and credits are being handed out like candy to students, through cut-and-paste online programs, even when they failed to attend their classes and had flunked their courses.

We also know through DOE's own job postings and RFPs that online "learning", as they call it, is being used in at least 42 schools this year, with a plan to spread the discredited practice more widely next year, through "multi-million dollar online learning technology development projects" to be utilized during and beyond the school day - from home, library, or anywhere students have access to online resources.""



And in today's Daily News, this is how the DOE press office explained their decision to grant tenure to a principal, two days after a girl had drowned on a field trip at his school, a trip which had occurred without adequate supervision and permission slips:



"In the heartbreaking days following Nicole's death our primary focus was not on the tenure status of Columbia Secondary School officials," said Education Department spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz..



As Steve Koss, contributor to this blog pointed out, "such a statement is ridiculous and belied by their own actions, since it certainly didn't take them long to focus on the employment status of the teacher (now fired) and the AP (now demoted from administration back to being "just" a teacher.)"



We're sorry, Gary, that we have to demote you to heading the press office at Tweed, but at least at DOE, you can be assured that poor performance and/or misconduct are not punished, but are rewarded with a higher salary and assurances of lifetime employment.

More on the bogus school bonuses

All three dailies are onto the absurdity of the DOE granting huge bonuses to staff at low-performing schools that received "C" and "D" on their progress reports – including, according to the Daily News, at least one school that is closing.

The bonus program will eat up almost $40 million in precious education funds this year. Despite all the budget cuts already enacted at the school level, and more to come, leading to layoffs, larger classes, the loss of after school and enrichment programs , the DOE insists that these indefensible bonuses will be continued (NY1).

"It's always cited as one of the most novel, exciting programs. And I think New Yorkers want results. We are paying for results," said Schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

Yes, results based on inflated test scores, credit recovery, and widespread tampering with student test scores.

From the Post: “Somebody has to be complicit in this robbery -- it cannot be that DOE can simply appropriate public money as it sees fit," said Paola de Kock, whose son graduated in June from Stuyvesant HS in Manhattan.

Unfortunately, they can and they will continue to waste our taxpayer money -- as far into the future as the eye can see. Unless the City Council stands up for our children and stops them. Don't hold your breath.

See also the article in the Times.

Bloomberg and Klein's personal credit recovery program

See the presentation given by Klein to business leaders yesterday. Some news accounts here: Times, GothamSchools, NY1, Post, Daily News.

As usual, the Chancellor tried to take credit where no credit is due -- for big increases in test scores that occurred in the winter and spring of 2003, despite the fact that his policies were not implemented until the following fall. Perhaps these retroactive claims are Klein and Bloomberg’s personal credit recovery program.

In fact, DOE officials and the mayor were quite subdued when there were big test score gains in 2003. For more on this, see our blog here.

As the Times pointed out when the state ELA scores were first reported on May 21, 2003:

“The city's positive results come at a time when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, are trying to overhaul the public school system and impose a uniform reading and math curriculum at all but the highest performing schools.

…Experts said the sharp increase in test scores could prove problematic for Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein, since it is too early for them to take credit and sets a benchmark for next year that may be hard to match….

The higher scores, particularly at schools that have showed sustained increases since 1999, also gave new ammunition to critics of Mr. Bloomberg's changes, who said that they might do more harm than good by disrupting existing programs….

This is how the state math gains were reported when they were released on October 22, 2003:

“Fourth graders across the state made stunning gains in their math scores last spring, with even sharper increases in New York City…In the city, news of the gains, which were particularly pronounced in the Bronx and in some of the poorest-performing districts, elicited cheers among teachers and principals. But not everyone greeted the news so enthusiastically:

The suggestion that city schools were on the upswing put Chancellor Joel I. Klein, who is overhauling them, in a tricky position. While the chancellor’s critics pounced upon the higher scores as evidence that the school system did not need such an overhaul, some of his allies acknowledged that he would now be under even more pressure to show gains next spring.

A more accurate and fair analysis would look at data only from 2003-2008; instead of claiming credit for gains that occurred before the Bloomberg/Klein policies were put into place.

2.. None of these gains is meaningful given the evidence of the NAEPs, which shows no significant progress in NYC since 2003 in any grade or subject except for 4th grade math. We know that the state tests have been inflated, and there’s been terrific amount of test prep in NYC and teaching to the test, unrelated to any real gains in learning.

3. See slide 13: as of 2004, still only 55% of NYC eighth graders who make a 700 --level 3 – graduate in four years. (not even counting the discharge rates which would bring their actual graduation rate even lower. ) This is a huge repudiation of the quality of our high schools. Even the fact that only 87% of 8th grade students who hit level four, the highest level, graduate on time is pretty awful.

4.No info is offered on the results of the science and social studies exams – which are low-stakes tests, like NAEPs, and thus more reliable. Unlike math and ELA scores, for which the DOE offers financial rewards to teachers, schools, and kids, with little or no protections against cheating, these are the exams where we could expect less distortion in results.

NYC continues to have some of the lowest scores in the state in those subjects, even in the largely middle class districts. 28 of 32 districts in NYC were in the bottom 10% in the state in Science; 26 of 32 districts were at the bottom 10% in the state in Social Studies.

I’m sure there’s more deception and spin in these slides; please take a look and leave a comment on the comment page!