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My blog post got a couple of similar repsonses from David Cantor.

Its a shame because in 2012 NYC graduates will have to meet higher standards when the Local Diploma is ended. They should be learning from the audit.
If these exchanges keep up long enough, David might get around to presenting the evidence that he says the DOE has, and which he indicates was included in the audit, but which was not. Or, he might continue the pattern of the DOE shifting its arguments as the debate unfolds. In fact, the audit said that that was the reason why one record was rejected. They received two different explanations from the DOE and didn’t know which to believe.

In fact, that is usually what a careful reader would take from the audit and the responses. It would be ridiculous to conclude that all of the DOE’s explanations were “innately illegitimate,” (which was a charge that Cantor threw at me) just like it would be unbelievable that all but three were proper. In most cases outsiders can’t gauge the accuracies of the audit’s or the DOE’s evidence and “he said, she said” narratives. Enough of the DOE’s explanations were not credible, however, that it is fair to describe the patterns.

The main pattern illustated by the audit was that the “combination of policies like ‘annualization,’ the nonenforcement of the attendance policy, awarding multiple credits for the same course, repeatedly changing transcripts, playing with the definitions of ‘still enrolled,’ and setting their own rules for “discharges,” not to mention ‘credit recovery’” indicates that something is “terribly wrong.”

Yes, the DOE responded to the charges that 39 students in the sample received multiple credits. But the DOE’s responses in the audit were different than the DOE’s response in Cantor’s subsequent statements. The DOE said that majority of the multiple credits involved PE, band, yearbook, or advisory, (which the audit says is false) but it only responded specifically in three cases. Only one was mentioned as having more credits than necessary. The DOE also argued that the actual courses weren’t repeated but the course’s codes were misunderstood. The Comptroller replied, that the “DOE provided no evidence to support its claim that these instances were repeated course codes rather than repeats of the same course.”

In cases about the process where it was the auditor’s statements versus the DOE’s without either offering definitive evidence, outsiders should remain silent. I’ll admit that the auditors’ dry “nothing but the facts” presentation seemed more credible than the DOE’s repeated attacks on the auditors’ integrity. I know that the Comptroller is a candidate for mayor, but that doesn’t mean that his professional staff compromised their integrity. And I sure don’t believe that I’ve compromised mine.
The audit’s account reporting dropouts explained then students are over the age on 17 and miss all but a few days in the spring semester, then the schools are supposed to make the outreach interventions required by law, and document them, and then declare the student as a dropout. Presumably, the school can then engage in recovery efforts and document them. Following mandated procedures does not mean that schools have to give up on the student.

The DOE said that the outreach interventions were made in the spring of 2006-07, but the audit said that no documentation of those interventions was made. The DOE said that some students were dropped on the first day of the fall of 2007-08, also after making the interventions and documenting them. The audit questioned how the interventions could be done when the students were dropped on the first day of school, it denied that evidence was presented regarding interventions in the fall, and it provided circumstantial evidence that there was not an expectation that dropouts would be reported retroactively as claimed by the DOE.

Cantor attacked me for using the words “after the fact” and retroactively” when describing the ways that the DOE responded to the draft audit. For these and other reasons, I’m sticking with my words of “after the fact,” and “retroactively.” The audit, for instance, said that at the time of their school visits 14 of the 80 discharges did not have documentation, and that the subsequent information came afterwards. Also, the fall semester comes “after” the spring, and changes in grades that were made were just before graduation were made “after”grades that were assigned originally. Exculpatory information was provided “after” the draft was written. And, the DOE also indicated that retroactive changes in transcripts were good because it shows that administrators were working hard to help students. The DOE, itself, wrote “the school is expected to enter the dropout retroactively.”

Lastly, the point of my post and comments was not to show fraud, but to show how the NYC administration has a) compromised standards, and b) been hypocritical about it. Joel Klein and others can be awfully strident when criticizing urban teachers for not having high expectations and lowering our standards. But when the best reading of the evidence is that his schools have done the same thing, and have not kept the records required for data-driven accountability to work its miracles, the DOE attacks the integrity of its critics.
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