Sunday, February 03, 2019

HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION RATE "UP" IN NYC

Teachers who work in New York City high schools are amused and simultaneously disturbed when NYC graduation rates are released to great fanfare.

We know the rates are bogus as in too many schools some, not all, of the diplomas are not worth the paper they are printed on. While a large number of the students are good kids who have earned a high school diploma, unfortunately, however, as the pressure to increase the graduation rates has reigned down on teachers, many students pass who do not deserve to.

On the same day as we received the graduation rate news, this email came in from a NYC high school teacher.

I just wanted you to know about the latest ridiculous trend that I've seen the last year as an ATR.  In my current school, kids are only allowed to get the following grades: 55, 65, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 91-100.  The principal has declared that grades must be rounded up to the next grade increment.  The lowest grade you can give a student is a 55.  (I even specifically asked her if a student averaged a 55.01 does that mean they get a 65?  She said yes.)  There are 3 marking periods and if a student hypothetically received a 55, 55, 65 then that student must receive a 65 as a final grade for the marking period since the average is above a 55 and that grade gets rounded up to the next cutoff mark.  What's even worse is that if a student doesn't show for 2 out of 3 of the marking periods, and gets a 65 in just the sole marking period he/she attends, that student has 1 grade to average in so he/she gets a 65 also.  Teachers that don't abide by this are told to resubmit their grades and explain why they deviated from the grading policy to the principal.
I worked in a different school last year that was mastery-based that was even more brash about it.  You were only allowed to give 4 grades to students- 1, 2, 3, 4.  You give a 1 if a student writes their name on their paper.  A 1 correlates to a 60% which means no mastery.  A 2 is a 74.  If a student is able to write a single cohesive statement related to your subject on an assessment, we were required to give that student a 2.  Over the course of a marking period, that meant that a student would just have to get a 2 once on an assessment to guarantee a passing grade under the exams portion of their grade.  (If they were able to be respectful and stay seated in the class, they would get a decent grade for the other categories and therefore easily pass the class).

Sue Edelman in the NY Post dug deep into the numbers this weekend and discovered problems such as falling scores on Math and English Regents Exams, low ELL graduation rates and more.

CUNY Professor David Bloomfield is quoted:

 “The lack of transparency and outright duplicity on levels of student achievement has led to a crisis of public confidence in graduation data,” said Brooklyn College and CUNY Grad Center education professor David Bloomfield.
Chaz is on the story for Queens High Schools. His metric comparing the graduation rate to the college readiness rate gives a generally accurate measure of the problem. 

Does anyone here have any graduation stories?

36 comments:

  1. In my school, if a student gets a zero on a test, we must give them 45%. If they don't do a HW, they get 45% for not doing it. If we give them a term project and they tell us to go fuck ourselves, they get 45% for not doing it. Then, we cant give less than a 55 on a report card, which means if they do a drop of work in the other two MPs, they will still get a 65 for term.

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  2. Do these grades match of with these comments?

    70? Missing instruction due to excessive latenesses and absences. Many assignments were not completed and student does not often participate in class. Student has potential but she is not putting in the effort. Check Jupiter every week and make sure you complete all assignments.

    70? Often late for class and comes in with food. Needs to focus more. Has the ability to do better.

    70? She has missed classroom instruction due to excessive latenesses and many assignments were not submitted. Check Jupiter every week and make sure you complete all assignments.

    70? Is late for first period every Tuesday and eats in class.

    80? Missed instructional time due to excessive latenesses. Student has shown improvement in her attendance as of last week. Let's make sure to keep this up.

    80? Often late for class and comes in with food. Needs to focus more.

    80? Missing instruction due to excessive latenesses and absences. Student has potential but she is often absent or coming in late.

    65? Student needs to make sure that she is on time to class, and she needs to make sure that she completes her classwork assignments.

    65? Missing classroom instruction due to excessive absences and latenesses. Many assignments were not submitted. Check Jupiter every week and make sure you complete all assignments.

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  3. How does a HS student who can't write a sentence pass English, and get an 80?

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  4. Most can't. Teachers don't give a fuck, they just don't want to be bothered. Everybody passes no matter what. Quite the scam. What teacher wants to go on the record about rampant fraud?

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  5. Years ago I would use the comment "Works to ability" for those who had 40 or 55, and yet still showed up thinking they would be passed simply by gracing the classroom with their nonproductive presence. Good times.

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  6. Where's the UFT on all this? Their silence could eventually be taken as collusion and has the potential to severely damage teachers, the profession and the UFT. Not to mention it's unethical and immoral. It also severely damages society as a whole and the student as an individual. If this crap is happening in every large city, the future is bleak.

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  7. Where is uft? Is that a serious question? Lol.

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  8. That's a sad commentary and not remotely funny. I guess we deserve what we are getting.

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  9. Yes, and most of us continue to pay dues and participate in fraud...And get abused.

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  10. So a kid does 0 work, must get a 55 on report card, and then does 60ish work, they get a 65 for term and credit for the class while have a 30 average.

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    Replies
    1. Zero work and showing up in middle school equals a 70

      Delete
  11. They would rather a black male teacher make up handshakes with each student as they enter the room instead of proving a student can write a coherent sentence.

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  12. Because then everyone would fail, and the scam would be ruined. There can't be any real measurement, as said above, because it would be clear that graduating high school seniors can't write a sentence without including 20 errors in that sentence.

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  13. If any outside, fair-minded person or group saw what was going on, it would be the joke of the century. Just keep telling these kids that they are really smart...

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  14. But true, clearly 100% true.

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  15. Have you ever heard of a teacher getting yelled at for passing too many students? Questioned? Of course not, even if passing grades are fraudulent.

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  16. If you stop paying dues, that won't stop grade fraud.

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  17. Good point. So where is the uft on all of this?

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  18. I informed the administration of my high school of a 1981 decision of (then) Commissioner of Education Gordon Ambach in Matter of Caskey (21 Ed Dept Rep 138).

    The decision is available under the New York Freedom of Information Law from the NYS Education Department or can be found in Volume 21 of Education Department Reports in a law library, court library, or main branch of a public library.

    In brief, students’ grades have to be reflective of students’ academic achievement.

    The Caskey decision was cited in the following letter to the editor of The NY Times:

    www.nytimes.com/1986/02/18/opinion/l-don-t-slam-the-school-door-in-the-face-of-returning-absentees-752686.html

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  19. Yeah, sure. Try that. You will get ineffective the next day and they will call you racist.

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  20. Have the NY post ask a random hs student to write a paragraph on anything...Maybe get 3rd grade work.

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  21. How are students in AP English who can't write a proper sentence? AP for all

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  22. HS Diplomas for All.

    I think we are just preaching to the choir.

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  23. This would prove, one again, that minorities are far behind, and are really just getting free passes and diplomas,while being completely unable...

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  24. Democrats invited illegal immigrants to the State of the Union address.

    President Trump invited the family of Gerald and Sharon David, who were tragically murdered in their Nevada home by an illegal immigrant in January.

    Remind me again who’s putting the American people first.

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  25. Apparently Senator Kamala Harris does not want to neutralize Mexican cartels - judging by her head shaking.

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  26. They won’t applaud 5 million people lifted off of food stamps.
    They won’t applaud historically low black unemployment.
    They won’t applaud historically low Hispanic unemployment.

    Democrats need minorities to need them.

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  27. Women applauding women jobs. Low black and Hispanic unemployment not so much. Intersectionality is fun!

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  28. Typical de blasio, this is why we back him...Protect a gang killer...He’s an MS-13 gangster and illegal immigrant accused of murdering a rival on a subway platform — but you wouldn’t even recognize him on the street if the NYPD had its way.

    Cops bent over backward Tuesday to shield alleged killer Ramiro Gutierrez from public scrutiny after his arrest for Sunday’s broad-daylight slaying in Queens — going so far as to feed reporters bogus information about his whereabouts and claim ignorance on his illegal status hours before President Trump’s State of the Union Address renewing his request for a border wall.

    Gutierrez, 26, has been in custody since Monday for the execution-style killing of Abel Mosso, 20, in front of horrified straphangers.

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  29. As a middle school teacher, I can honestly state that we are flat out told,’pass everyone. Let the high schools sort out the morons. They have the resources and half the kids won’t make it past 9th grade any way. We can’t have them in middle school as 16 year olds.’

    I actually agree with the philosophy, too.

    Honestly, if the elementary school teachers and parents did their jobs, then jhs and Hs teachers wouldn’t have it so hard.

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  30. See the 25th comment (next to last as of this time) on the following post on Chaz's School Daze:

    http://chaz11.blogspot.com/2018/06/academic-fraud-is-common-in-new-york.html

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  31. And, again, what is being done? We get blamed. Mayor touts great grad rates. Nobody can write a proper sentence. Behavior is awful. Principals running around with fake numbers. Expose it...

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  32. To 7:44, I taught elementary school and now I am in a middle school. The elementary school teachers do the best they can with what they have. The fault for having so many troubled children who lack basic skills is the breakdown of the family. The ridiculousness of public school system begins with the corrupt politicians and streams all the way down to the fraud and corruption that goes on in each school.

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  33. 559,

    I have worked in a k-8 school and do not envy elementary school teachers. However, the lack of discipline and the ‘special snowflake’ mentality in elementary schools needs to stop.

    You are right. It is not all the fault of the teachers. But elementary school teachers represent the biggest number of teachers in the doe and if they joined together and made some noise and did not bow down to administration the system would be better.

    Part of the reason we have 4 parent teacher conferences is bc elementary principals were having a back to school night. Elementary teachers bought into this and now the result is 4 parent teacher conferences.

    I have seen elementary teachers stay 15-20 minutes after dismissal waiting for parents when they are not contractually obligated to stay.

    Like I said, I do not envy the job of elementary school teachers but combine the mindset and the admins and lack of parent involvement and it’s an explosive situation.

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