There is something wrong when a report card grade comes as a surprise to a student. If a teacher has been doing his job properly, providing his students with a clear account of how their work will be assessed and with appropriate feedback on the work they have submitted, his students will have a very good idea of the grade they will receive.
It was telling, therefore, that when the Department of Education issued its School Progress Reports last fall, so many schools — and not just the schools with poor grades — were taken by surprise. The metrics were a mystery, even to those with a background in educational measurement, and the grades appeared as revelations. It was if Tweed wanted schools and the public to take the single letter grades on faith, without any questions.
In the unveiling of the school progress reports, Tweed provided all sort of assurances that it had used the most sophisticated statistical methodology, controlling for the vast differences in student demographics found in New York City public schools. These were progress reports, we were told, which measured how far a school took its students academically, and not just their absolute level of achievement. If a school taught students facing greater educational challenges, they would receive extra credit for the success of those students.
But when you peer into the black box of the school progress reports, a rather different story emerges.
We compared the special education populations of high schools which received ‘A’s, D’s and ‘F’s. The database hyperlinked here shows the current special education populations of those schools, as published on the Department of Education’s website yesterday, Sunday February 3: COMPARISON OF SPECIAL EDUCATION POPULATIONS IN HIGH SCHOOLS RECEIVING ‘A’s, ‘D’s, and ‘F’s ON THE SCHOOL PROGRESS REPORTS. Column C has the percentages of special education students in the least restrictive environment, Column D has the percentages of special education students in the most restrictive environment and Column E has the total percentages of special education students in the school.
What is remarkable is that on average, high schools receiving ‘F’s had 220% as many special education students as high schools receiving ‘A’s, and high schools receiving ‘D’s had over 180% as many special education students as high schools receiving ‘A’s. Even more telling, high schools receiving ‘F’s had on nearly 4 1/2 times as many of the special education students with the more severe learning disabilities [those in the most restrictive environment] than high schools receiving ‘A’s, and high school receiving ‘D’s had over 3 1/2 times as many of those special education students as the high schools receiving ‘A’s.
While the dramatic contrasts in the numbers of special education students is revealing, since we know that there is a tipping point at which sheer numbers of the neediest students overwhelm even the best of staffs, it is only half the story.
An important component of the progress report grades for high schools is the graduation rate. But the DoE excluded IEP diplomas in its calculations of the graduation rate, so high schools with greater numbers of special education students — especially special education students with more severe learning disabilities — were at a significant disadvantage.
It is also worth pointing out, as we have done here in the past, that the DoE has given its new small high schools waivers from accepting special education students and English language learners in their first two years. This policy places those schools at a significant advantage: note that there are a number of zeros that appear among the ‘A’ schools.
Outraged yet? Well we saved the worst outrage for last. Remember last year’s controversy between the NYC Department of Education and the New York State Education Department over how to count the high school graduation rate? It seems that when Tweed reported its graduation rates to the state, it included IEP diplomas. But when it comes to its own high schools, it had a different set of books — and IEP diplomas were excluded.
Tweed made high stakes decisions about the future of schools based on these progress reports. In the spirit of a single standard, maybe it is time to start making some high stakes decisions about Tweed’s future.
Tagged: progress reports
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4 Comments:
1 jd2718
· Feb 5, 2008 at 12:39 am
Leo,
Nice work.
Notice that excluding Special Ed students from small schools effectively concentrated them in some of the larger schools, brining into play the ‘tipping point’ you mentioned.
Look at my old school, Columbus: 22% Special Ed including 15% in the most restrictive environment (MRE).
(MRE and LRE refer to self-contained classroom vs inclusion? lousy abbreviations, since MRE sounds like a hospital setting)
Anyway, look at the 4 small schools Columbus shares space with: they have Special Ed populations of 10%, 7%, 16%, and 13%, and MRE of 1%, 3%, 4% and 4%.
There’s your tipping point…
Jonathan
2 publish.nyc.indymedia.org
· Feb 5, 2008 at 1:54 pm
[...] Edwize: Inside Tweed’s Black Box Of School Progress Reports [...]
3 MichaelB
· Feb 6, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Building on Jonathan’s point: Do we have any data about the change in special ed populations at large high schools over the last few years, particularly those that received low grades?
4 Cindy. R
· Dec 2, 2009 at 9:10 am
The newly created small school reforms by the Bloomberg administration were created to reduce the sizes of large failing schools, to provide both an innovative learning environment and to better the safety conditions for all students. However, once the plan took into effect and large public high schools became greatly effected by the situation, which included the taking up of essential space, the lack of funding and the competition evolved from being in different school creating hostility amongst faculty members and students, the whole idea of a safe and innovative environment where all students will be given the attention they deserve according to the child First reform, only became an image left in writing for us to read. Although, I believe that some of the positive ideas taken by the earlier small school were intentionally great. It was not thought out as well as it should have been and was not given the slow start to test whether it will work in one school before opening a hundred more right after. It has also failed to include all students in all of the schools. This defies the purpose of the reform because they were not considerate in the effect of placing the Ells and special needs student in large schools as it has been as oppose to also allowing them to benefit from the smaller class settings. Furthermore, the students of these large schools are forced to accept the limited resources and lack of attention from the still largely populated building transformed into other small school with the same problems.
Although, the media’s coverage of small schools claims that they have had great success with attendance rates and apparently graduation rate, recent information provided by a few articles and blogs such as the one above proves otherwise. In fact, it has been discovered that the reason why these school produced such great results was because they did not have a large scale of students to begin with and they were not required to mandate the regent’s diploma. In addition, they are discriminating against Ell’s and special education students, who deserve the same quality education as the rest of the student population during their start-up years because they fear their test scores would decrease. Nevertheless, the DOE favors those particular schools and only provides those schools with more funding because of there earlier improvement scores on their annual report as oppose to providing those schools struggling to improve with more resources. This has become a major problem for many large New York City schools that do not have enough funding to maintain extracurricular activities, services, and to pay their teachers. Therefore, instead of fixing the problems of larger schools, the problem enlarges. Eventually, this misdistribution of funds and resources also becomes a problem once the small school success becomes short-lived after they are also oblige with the mandated requirement in which all New York City schools must follow, such as state exams and more inclusion of Ell’s and special education students, which they had avoided in the start up years. Thus, this creates various other dilemmas with the school system. It becomes evident that there is no effective longevity of the small school within these already overcrowded and failing schools and ultimately it will impact student success. Therefore, in order to create an effective reform an end to the opening of more small schools and closer observation at the core of the problems of all schools should be taken into concentration.
A school must be a place where all students can learn and feel they can succeed with the support of their teachers. It should not be a place of disorganizations, a place that lacks the ability to maintain its teachers and administrators, a place where there is constant competition as oppose to unity. In addition, all students should have the opportunity to attend a small school and its purpose is to try to educate low-level student, which it has been found that it has not done so or has failed to provide equal distribution of fund amongst all needy schools. What I find troublesome is that there was once a clear initiative about small schools, when they first opened in the early 1990’s. What I do not understand is the recent change of it through the Children First reform, when it had worked well in the past and also the rapid changes amongst the large schools, when what it strongly needs is solid and more gradual changes within its structure. The gradual change should take place as oppose to a rapid change of dividing the schools. It is unclear how the reform will benefit the existing failing schools without diagnosing the major problems of it first. Therefore, the problems will continue and instead of being one large problem in one school it will be the same constant problem.
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