Post a comment about the budget cuts at your school on our interactive comment map. more »
GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools
breaking news
November 11, 2008
Gates: NYC grad rates are good, but students not college-ready
SEATTLE — One of the most interesting parts of the Gates announcement (detailed more in this Ed Week story that just went up) is not the new direction the foundation is taking, but the conclusions it has drawn about its old direction, which leaders are criticizing for not focusing enough on what happens inside classrooms.
What does this mean for New York City, where the explosion of small high schools has been largely bankrolled by Gates funding — and where efforts to improve the public schools have been focused mainly on structure, not curriculum?
Bill Gates suggested that the New York City small schools have been an exception to the overall disappointing results of small school projects, noting that in 2006 the schools’ graduation rates at small schools were 18 percentage points higher than the citywide rate. Then he thanked Chancellor Joel Klein, who was in the audience, and Mayor Bloomberg, who was not, for working with the Gates Foundation.
But just a few minutes later, Gates pointed out one major shortcoming of the New York City small schools: Students were just as unprepared for college as were students citywide. Less than 40% of graduates, he said, met the City University of New York’s standards for college readiness, giving them no appreciable advantage over graduates citywide. (I’m looking into what he’s referring to; my guess is that his evidence is the number of students who graduated with a full Regents diploma, versus the easier-to-attain local diploma.)
Later, announcing the foundation’s intention to improve teacher performance by exploring with merit-based pay systems, Bill Gates named three programs he sees as exemplary models — none of them New York City. (The three places were Denver, Prince George’s County, Maryland, and the charter school network Green Dot.)
-
November 11th, 2008 3:00 pm
Let’s be very clear what’s going on in the small schools: teachers are under intense pressure to pass kids who fail their classes. I’ve seen it. I’ve done it. I’m not alone. Is Gates too dumb to see the obvious, or is he playing politics?
-
November 11th, 2008 4:01 pm
Some small schools are good and some not so good. Mr. Gates’s contributions permitted the NYC small school movement to expand in 2003 just as Annenberg did in 1995. The differance between the 1990s and now is the emphasis higher test scores and graduation rates. The graduation rate cited by Mr. Gates and used by Mr. Klein and Mayor Bloomberg is statistically faulty. You cannot compare the graduation rate at a small school with 50- to 75 graduates to a large high school with 800 to 1000 graduates.
-
November 11th, 2008 7:46 pm
Smith - absolutely right….at best unethical, at worst criminal
F harry - a greek thing? small schools get to exclude students that would drag scores down.
gates - the devil is in the details….and in the DOE
-
November 12th, 2008 1:18 am
I am a product of one of the New Vision schools that was funded by Gates and proposed by Bloomberg, and I think its one of the few successful things Bloomberg has done. I am currently in college (Georgetown University) and believe that if it weren’t for my small school and the attention and ability to grow and gain confidence, I wouldn’t be able to be doing well now in school. Gates needs to look into certain aspects of the Education system that are working and further fund them and cut funds from aspects that aren’t working. Bloomberg should also look into more accountability as he has been moving towards.
-
November 12th, 2008 12:14 pm
Small schools get to exclude special education students, disabled students and english language learners so of course their graduation rates are going to be higher.
-
November 12th, 2008 2:57 pm
my small school has “special education students, disabled students and english language learners” and still has a 95-100% graduation rate…
instead of constantly remodeling the current system lets work with what we have and improve it. this constant alteration of the system confuses, administration, faculty and staff, parents, and more importantly the students. lets work on a more comprehensive plan that will deal with external issues that students face so that schools don’t become social work facilities and can truly be a learning environment.
Leave a Reply
Mapping the Budget Cuts
6 Comments
Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack