In its zeal to close NYC’s high schools, the DoE like to point to the low graduation rates of particular schools. It is a number that plays well to the press. After all, who can argue in favor of, say, a forty-five percent graduation rate? The school down the block has the same kinds of kids, doesn’t it? And it has higher graduation rates. A low grad rate is a great sound bite, and it works.
But a closer look reveals that to a large extent the differences in school graduation rates are a function of a very specific demographic rather than a function of school quality. Joel Klein has concentrated high-need (self contained) special education students in fewer and fewer high schools because — for whatever reason — his new schools generally do not accept them. These are students who require very small classes and intensive academic, behavioral and/or emotional support. Those are just words to folks who do not teach, but to the schools that embrace these kids (and the closing high schools did indeed embrace them) they conjure up a world of challenges. These are the kids whom teachers wake up to worry about at 4 a.m., and sometimes the worry is that no one else will worry. For many teachers the idiosyncratic success of special education kids is deeply meaningful simply because every scrap of it is so hard-won. For many, success with self-contained special education is why they teach.
These students do not, however, tend to graduate with a diploma, on time.
When we look at high need schools as a whole, the differences in graduation rates generally track the differences in the rate of self-contained students. To exaggerate only slightly, show me a high-need NYC high school that is 10% behind its “peers” for graduation, and I’ll show you a school with 10% more self-contained students. To be more precise, the statistical fact of the matter is that in the relationship of the 190 schools in a composite of the DoE’s peer groups for the closing schools, there exists a significant negative correlation between the graduation rate and the percent of self-contained students in the school. As one number goes down as the other goes up:
So I ask two questions:
First, Tweed has said that one of its core goals in creating sophisticated accountability is to get beyond demographics to a true measure of the quality of the school. So, when will Tweed own up?
And second: What is Joel Klein doing for self-contained students in these schools?
I’ll answer that second question. What he’s doing is “incentivizing.” Next year, he’s giving schools a little more extra credit on their Progress Reports if they can move these kids along.
One might think Tweed would acknowledge that it had created a real problem: a separate and unequal school system that was being unfairly blamed for Tweed’s own mismanagement.
One might also think Tweed would have said, “Gee, maybe we need to think more about creating broader, academically diverse institutions; focusing our talents on research-driven coherent programs for high-need students; and ensuring that they are implemented with fidelity.”
But that’s not how Tweed thinks. There are some excellent instructional people at Tweed, but they don’t happen to have much power. Those in power decided that the problem for special education students is all a matter of incentives. So the prescription is extra points on Progress Reports for self-contained, backed by the threat of closing down the school.
Let the gaming begin.
[Sources for the chart are DoE HS data set for Progress Reports and 2008-2009 Special Education Delivery Reports found at each school’s Web site.]
Tagged: graduation rate, school closings
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9 Comments:
1 Christine Rowland
· Feb 5, 2010 at 5:31 am
Jackie – The ‘fix’ the DoE is considering implementing will have little effect for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it only impacts weighted graduation rate. This means that there is no change to the graduation rate they give to the school in sound bites to the press – the grad rate is still the grad rate.
Second – this population affects the entire progress report. They are less likely to pass exams, thereby impacting the weighted graduation rate, and they are less likely to make the targets for credit accumulation also. It means that all those chances for extra credit are also impacted by the high needs students. They impact most measures on the report and only one category is being minimally mitigated by the update.
2 gsh
· Feb 5, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Can you repost the graph with data points by percentage point? 2.1-10% is quite a large bucket. It would be more clear if the data was represented at each percent 0-14.
3 Jack Israel
· Feb 5, 2010 at 7:21 pm
When you incentivize the special education graduation rate, I believe that you missing the entire point which is to meet the needs of these kids, not just to have them graduate on time. I agree with Christine (as usual), since the special needs students are still less likely to pass standardized tests no matter what incentives are given to their schools. So, in turn, having a large percentage of special needs children will still hurt schools statistically. Of course this is only true only if their schools are being honest. It sadly sets up a scenario where many schools will push the kids through so that the school will accumulate it’s oh so precious report card points. Using the children as political footballs is par for the course at Tweed! We (UFT) must shine a light on this vile madness.
Jack Israel – UFT/AFT Delegate DWC
4 Phyllis C. Murray
· Feb 6, 2010 at 5:34 am
There are many special education students that are academically capable. Although these
students may exhibit emotional problems, given the correct setting( a 12;1:1 classroom), their performance is on par, if not better than, the students in a traditional classrooms. I have witnessed this first hand. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity, to give all props Ms Thera Erickson, a master teacher.
Ms Erickson teachers her students in a “penthouse” on the Fifth Floor. Her dedication and tireless efforts have created miracles in the classroom. She covers the entire curriculum.
Thus, we need to continue to enhance and support special education and the teachers who provide a quality education to the students in their midst. There are not shortcuts. And lest we forget, it is team work. All of the mandated services must be provided for these students on time.
One cannot prejudge the abilities of special education students. Assessments must be made. All students deserve a quality education. Let’s say farewell to the bigotry of low expectations. And let teachers teach!
Phyllis C. Murray, Chapter Leader P.S. 75X
5 Phyllis C. Murray
· Feb 6, 2010 at 9:19 am
Re Closing Schools and Graduation Rates
There are many special education students that are academically capable. Although these
students may exhibit emotional problems, given the correct setting i.e. a 12:1:1 classroom, their performance is on par, if not better than, students in traditional classrooms.
I have witnessed this first hand. I would like to give all props to Ms Thera Erickson, a master teacher. Ms Erickson teachers her students in a “penthouse” on the Fifth Floor. Her dedication and tireless efforts have created miracles in her special ed classroom. She covers the entire curriculum.
Therefore, we need to continue to enhance and support special education and the teachers who provide a quality education to the students in their midst. There are not shortcuts. And lest we forget, it is team work. All of the mandated services must be provided for these students on time as the IEP mandates. There are no excuses.
One cannot prejudge the abilities of special education students. Assessments must be made. IEPs should be read by the stakeholders at the schools. All students deserve a quality education. Lets say farewell to the bigotry of low expectations. Let Teachers Teach!
Props also to our Dynamic UFT Leaders: Carmen Alverez, UFT VP and Lisa Mendel, UFT
Special Education Liason to the NYC Board of Education. N.B. Everything you need to know about Special Education is only school visit away. Just call the UFT.
Phyllis C. Murray, Chapter Leader P.S. 75X
6 Jackie Bennett
· Feb 6, 2010 at 1:02 pm
First, I apologize for the typo in my first line.
GHS -What you ask for gets a little tricky, but I can break it down somewhat.
The problem is that unfortunately nearly half of the schools that our closing schools were unfairly graded against had 0-2% of these kids while schools like Columbus and Maxwell had 13-14%. That’s what makes the grading so unfair for closing schools; (see my other post “D is for Demographics” and “D is for Demographics Part II”)
Thus if I made the remaining buckets (a DOE phrase if ever I heard one) into smaller and smaller sections, we’d barely have tea cups. But I can break it down into 5% increments, and I’ll try to post that graph on Monday.
The smaller increments I will post follow the same trend as above.
One final note: let me be very clear — “self-contained” does not mean that a label is destiny. But DoE does need consistent focus on these students and needs to give our schools not only the monetary but also the curricular and other resources these students need. The top brains need to look up from their spreadsheets and check out the actual schools. That’s a lot messier than clicking around in the numbers and weighing and measuring, and awarding and punishing. But it happens to be what education is about.
Here are the post links for the explanation on how self-contained impacted the school grades:
http://www.edwize.org/closing-schools-d-is-for-demographics
http://www.edwize.org/d-is-for-demographics-part-ii-closing-schools-are-owed-an-apology-and-a-reprieve?comments=true
7 bronxactivist
· Feb 6, 2010 at 8:58 pm
What happens when students are special ed self-contained, ELL and have delays in speech/language, fine and gross motor skills. When they read at the 2nd grade or even 1st grade level and made it all the way to H.S.? I am not puting the students down but obviously their needs have not been met by the system.
When you look at the DOE website they applaud special Ed students gained points to reach 32 and 37 percent passing rate on the state test.
Students graduating with an IEP diploma are extremely low around 25 percent of students in special ed graduate H.S. Even in the press release for the graduation rates the DOE admits that great improvements are needed in special ed.
The biggest mistake the DOE made was allowing principals to spend special ed money into the general school budget. As opposed to the former system of only allowing special education money to be spent in special education.
I am a teacher in a Self-contained classroom and special ed classrooms are the ones with the least resources. Technology, academic programs are given to the self-contained classes last. Eventhough, special Ed allocations are higher per student principals tend to divert resources away from special education. Delivering the services are expensive and principals are hesitant to invest all their resources on students that traditionally have not performed as well on standardized test.
I have students at a 1st grade level, 2nd grade level and 3rd grade level in a 8th grade class. I have had students that are at grade level but after 3 years that is the exception not the general rule. The work is grueling and it takes a lot of dedication and planning on the behalf of the teacher. I teach three major subjects and receive minimum suppourt because none of the A.P.s or principals have special education experience or training. Yet this leads me to the second flaw in the system principals control not only the money but how special education is regulated within their school. The principals are overseers of complex laws and regulations that they do not have knowledge about.
So blaming the kids, blaming the teachers or even the principals for such an absurd system is flawed. Tweed should be blamed for not having a system in place to support the special ed classrooms.
Special Education teachers are often blamed for the flaws in the system as the bottom people in the chain. These teachers unfortunately have the lowest performing students in the realms of social, emotional, academic levels. Why not allow the educators to modify their instruction to not teach to the test but to adress the whole child.
I challenge president Obama, Governor David Paterson, all politicians including Mike Bloomberg/Klein, Tweed, administrators to spend one week in a self-contained special education classroom in a high poverty area on their own with no support and see if they change their policies after that week. I challenge all to dive into the realm of Special Education and see how hard teachers have to work on a daily basis to move these students forward. Let the numbers crunchers see how their numbers are humans that have feelings and are breathing with life. These children are special and deserve to be afforded a equal education to compete in socieity even if they have more challenges they have the ability to learn. It takes people with experience dealing with disabilities such as, parents and educators to have input into these children’s education as is mandated by the Federal IDEA legislation. Fix the system lets not play the blame game. Help the schools and especially the kids by servicing them and providing oversight, professional development to these struggling schools. address the shortage of special education teachers by working with the teachers already in the classroom so they can remail special education teachers and not switch to other areas within a school or the DOE because special ed teachers suffer from high burnout and turnover.
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