Thursday, April 12, 2018

NAEP SCORES FLAT WHILE THERE ARE VERY FEW REPORTED INCIDENTS IN QUEENS HIGH SCHOOLS

Question:What do the latest National Assessment of Education Progress scores and the Queens High School incident reports for the last two years have in common?

Answer: They show more evidence, as if any further proof is necessary, that everybody should be skeptical about anything coming out of the NYC Department of Education or the New York State Education Department concerning test scores or incident reports or probably anything else.

From Leonie Haimson, the Executive Director of Class Size Matters:

1-This week marks the beginning of state testing for grades 3-8 in New York. Check out my blog post on why many parents are still opting their children out of these tests-- and why you should consider doing so as well. The exams have no diagnostic value, and have led to an era of damaging test prep, the false branding of too many kids as "failures" and in many schools, the loss of a well-rounded education. And despite the misinformation put out by some administrators, no child will have a lower score entered in his or her record for opting out and no school will lose funding as a result. 

2-Meanwhile, the scores of the more reliable low-stakes national exams called the NAEPs were released late last night --- showing that across the country, student achievement has been flat over the past decade, except for a slight increase in 8th grade reading, while test score gaps between low and high performing students have widened.

The results are a huge rebuke to wrongheaded corporate reform agenda of high stakes testing, charter expansion and Common Core standards that has prevailed over this period and that was supposed to lead to more equity and more learning.

Over the last four years, in New York state and NYC, the story is much the same. There have been no significant increases in any subject or grade since 2013, except for a sharp decline in 4th grade math of five points in NY State and seven points in NYC. You can check the NAEP data yourself here, or a summary here.

All this goes to show that my 2016 blog post was correct that the increase in state and city test scores over this period was illusory and that we had entered a new era of state test score inflation. Let's hope this puts an end to the endless Groundhog days of state and city officials holding self-congratulatory press conferences, and articles that assume the rise in test scores is real and could be due to charter school expansion or the Common Core. But I wouldn't count on it. It's too easy for educrats to manufacture signs of improvement when there are none.


Now we go to Gene Mann's The Organizer, where we can see the Queens High School Incident Reports from the last two school years.

I think the world of Middle College and it is a safe school but not one incident in two years? It's a little hard to believe. Same goes for the numbers from just about every school listed below.

From the Organizer:


Below please find the safety reports filed by Queens high schools for the past years. If the number of incidents reported doesn’t seem to match up with your own experience, you see what the problem is.
School
School Number
2016-2017
 2017-   2018
International High School for Health Sciences
236
0
0
Veritas Academy
240
0
0
Queens HS for Language Studies
241
0
0
Institute for Health Professions
243
0
0
Queens Preparatory Academy
248
1
0
Queens School of Inquiry
252
0
0
Energy Tech
258
0
0
Pathways College Preparatory School
259
0
0
Frederick Douglass Academy VI
260
0
0
Voyages Preparatory (South)
261
0
0
Channel View School for Research
262
0
0
Flushing International High School
263
0
0
Academy of Finance and Enterprise
264
0
0
Excelsior Preparatory High School
265
0
0
High School of Applied Communication
267
1
1
George Washington Carver
272
1
4
East-West School of International Studies
281
0
2
Preparatory Academy for Writers
283
2
3
York Early College Academy
284
0
0
World Journalism Preparatory
285
0
0
Young Women's Leadership School, Astoria
286
0
0
Civic Leadership Academy
293
0
3
Pan American International High School
296
0
0
Bard High School Early College
299
0
2
Academy for Careers in Television and Film
301
0
0
Queens HS for Information, Research, and Technology
302
0
0
Goddard
308
0
0
Academy of Medical Technology
309
1
0
Queens Collegiate
310
1
4
EPIC HS (South)
314
0
0
Business Technology Early College
315
5
4
Rockaway Park
324
0
0
Cambria Heights Academy
326
0
0
Eagle Academy III
327
2
12
HS for Community Leadership
328
0
0
EPIC HS (North)
334
1
0
Queens Satellite High School for Opportunity
338
0
0
Jamaica Gateway to the Health Sciences
350
0
0
Rockaway Colegiate
351
0
0
August Martin
400
0
1
Benjamin N. Cardozo
415
0
2
John Bowne
425
0
2
Francis Lewis
430
1
0
Martin Van Buren
435
3
1
Forest Hills
440
7
4
William Cullen Bryant
445
0
1
LIC
450
0
2
Newtown HS
455
0
1
Flushing
460
0
0
Richmond Hill
475
2
1
John Adams
480
1
0
Grover Cleveland
485
1
0
MAST
492
2
0
Bayside
495
1
2
Humanities and Arts
498
0
1
Frank Sinatra
501
0
0
InfoTech
502
1
0
Hillcrest HS
505
5
9
Middle College High School at LaGuardia Community College
520
0
0
Townsend Harris
525
0
0
International High School at LaGuardia Community College
530
0
0
Queens Academy
540
0
8
HSAB
550
0
0
Newcomers HS
555
0
0
Robert F. Wagner
560
0
0
Queens HS of Teaching
566
3
0
Academy of American Studies
575
0
0
Baccaulareate School for Global Education
580
1
0
Maspeth High School
585
0
0
Queens Vocational
600
0
0
Aviation
610
0
9
Thomas Edison CTE
620
4
9
High School for Construction Trades, Engineering and Architecture
650
0
0
Robert F. Kennedy
670
0
1
Queens Gateway
680
0
1
Queens Metropolitan High School
686
0
6
Queens HS for the Sciences
687
0
0
High School for Law Enforcement and Public Safety
690
3
1
Voyages Preparatory
744
3
2
Queens Transition Center
752
14
18
North Queens Community High School
792
0
0
The Young Women's Leadership School
896
1
1

Bottom line: There is plenty of underreporting going on with safety incidents and lots of grade inflation all over the place on state tests and course grades that was checked by the NAEP scores.

5 comments:

Harris L. said...

Unfortunately, Michael Petrilli's Herculean labors in his "summary" to find something, anything to pin the non-results on is embarrassing.

He thinks the scores have been flat in large part because fourth graders don't know how to use the tablets the exams were given on (which, though probably true, seems the thinnest possible reed upon which to hang some hope that ed reform really, really, really will result in something, someday) and because, well, you know, the Great Recession ten years ago just really sucked for schools (which, it did, but didn't we pour billions of dollars into Common Core, RTTT and testomania over the same period)?

Anonymous said...

Is Gene Mann honest? My experience says no

Anonymous said...

Come to Brooklyn, we are the kings of grade fraud.

Anonymous said...

Why would he make these numbers up?

Anonymous said...

Incident reports? This is hilarious! The kids walk in and out all day long. Hardly anyone even bothers about the door alarms bleeping. The hallways are filled with bathroom and roads scholars. The same children hang out in the same hallways and stairwells at the same time every day and no one bothers them! Cutting during pm homeroom is rampant. The principal has cut the number of deans and school aides to nothing, so there are no adults walking the halls. The prin patronage mill grows ever longer full of invented jobs and handsome extra pay for the boot lickers. Place is overrun with administrators and admin wannabees. Farina forgot to take her highly incompetent supt. with her when she left. Don't fail too many kids; your Danielson hating, excuse me, rating, will be in jeopardy. Oh yes, I nearly forgot the colleagues who teach not a single class...how do they keep a job, a rating, and a license??? When others teach anywhere from 160 to 300 children per day???