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Lake Wobegon
September 2, 2009
Klein defends this year’s progress reports from renewed criticism
Number of schools receiving A-F letter grades this year
Defending this year’s school progress reports at a news conference this morning, Chancellor Joel Klein said the high marks given to an overwhelming majority of city schools did not mean the grading system had lost its value.
The reports, which the Department of Education began issuing two years ago, use a complex formula to assign each school a letter grade, allowing parents to compare schools and principals to see what areas need improvement. This year, the city gave 84 percent of elementary and middle schools A’s, while only 13 percent received a B and 2 percent received a C. A total of five schools were given D’s, and two were given F’s. (Philissa has some snapshots of the data here).
Last year, 38 percent of schools were given an A. In 2007, when the reports were first issued, 23 percent received that rating.
Responding to reporters’ questions about whether giving 97 percent of schools A and B’s had rendered the progress reports meaningless, Klein said that the grading system still served a purpose. He explained that the reports only measure whether a school has met the city’s goals for it, not whether it is above average.
“We want to make it clear that that [grade] reflects that they met their progress targets, not that they don’t have a lot of improvement ahead of them,” Klein said at a news conference held at P.S. 189 — a school that received an A this year and a B rating last year. “This school, even though it’s up considerably, still has a lot of work to do,” he added, referring to P.S. 189.
He added that next year, schools will have to work harder to receive A’s, as the city will increase the cut off scores for the progress reports and Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch has been outspoken about making the state tests more difficult.
The dramatic increase in the number of schools receiving A’s could be a double-edged sword for the chancellor. In previous years, the DOE has relied on the reports as one of several factors used in closing low-performing schools and swapping out principals. Klein said he planned to continue school closings this year, though only seven received D’s or F’s citywide and several schools that the city is fighting to close were given A ratings.
President of the teachers union, Michael Mulgrew, told reporters that this year’s reports showed that those schools — P.S. 194, 241 and 150 — should remain open.
Using this year’s reports could also prove difficult for parents.
The chancellor said that parents attempting to compare schools should look at the scores schools received, not just the letter grade. “There’s a big difference between a 68 and a 98. Parents will be able to make a determination,” he said.
Jennifer Jennings, an assistant professor at NYU whose analysis of state math tests showed that the questions have become repetitive and easier than in previous years, said the high number of A grades given out will make it more difficult for parents to differentiate among schools.
“The stated purpose was to give a strong signal of A to F so you don’t need the Excel file,” Jennings said. “It’s supposed to be a bright line kind of finding. Only some very interested parents will pull down that Excel file and think about that.”
Mulgrew said it was imperative that parents go beyond the progress reports and visit the schools in person. “You can look at the scores and all of that, but this is always our recommendation: go to the school. It’s about matching your child with the culture inside of a building,” he said.
P.S. 189’s principal, Theresa Luger, said she was proud of the school’s A rating, attributing it to increased individual attention and teachers using more informal assessments throughout the year.
An assistant principal in Brooklyn was less sure what to make of the grade. “We’re happy we got an A, we’ll be able to trumpet that A — but the fact that schools we know that aren’t so good also got A’s makes you think,” he said.
Cut scores (out of 100) for this year's letter grades.
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September 2nd, 2009 8:35 pm
OK, so Klein wants to grade schools per a “proficiency” model. Not sure I agree, but then how can he say that the A schools met the proficiency type goals the city set for it when its students themselves don’t get corresponding high proficiency type Level scores, and even those have recently been accused of being inflated?
Nonsensical.
Gives a whole new meaning to Race to the Top. How about Race to the Topped Out?
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September 2nd, 2009 8:42 pm
For crying out loud. When will Klein admit that this grading system has serious flaws? There is no shame in admitting that you were wrong. There is shame in denying it.
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September 2nd, 2009 9:32 pm
Interestingly, in our principal survey, 86% of NYC principals said that class sizes at their schools were too large to be able to provide a quality education. At the same time, according to Joel Klein, 84% of schools deserve an “A”. What’s wrong with this picture?
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September 3rd, 2009 2:19 am
A 97% success rate? That’s better than the Soviet Union!
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September 3rd, 2009 6:02 am
No admissions of being wrong about anything until Wednesday, November 4th.
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September 3rd, 2009 7:04 am
If the DOE intends these report cards, as Klein contends, to be of any service to parents, they need to compare schools in the same borough to one another (at the very least), rather than to merely compare them to alleged “peer horizon” schools. When parents choose middle schools, they usually look for somewhere nearby to send their children, not across town.
As for the report card grades themselves, how is it that a middle school that got a 60 percent B, 15 percent C, and a mere 25 percent A grade, gets a final, composite grade of A? Is this new math?
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September 3rd, 2009 8:20 am
They were meaningless before and they are even more meaningless now, these silly grades. If the unqualified, uncrudentialed Joel Klein who is unqualified to be a School Superintendent because he doesn’t have School District Administrator certification wishes to have internal reviews of schools and rate Principals, that’s fine (although of course because of his lack of certification, most of the ratings would be garbage), However, he never thought of the effects on kids (and their parents) when they were told their school was an F. Children kid each other, you know my dog is better than your dog, and would do it with these idiotic ratings. And even in the worst of schools, there are good students. What effect might designating a high school as an F have on a kid”s college applications…..the State Legislature had an opportunity to get rid of Klein and stop this madness when they renewed mayoral control. Why they didn’t, and in effect if Bloomberg wins an illegal third term, has condemned the kids of New York City to four more years of this incompetence.
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September 3rd, 2009 9:17 am
And on such a system America’s schools are to be reformed. All we gotta do is link results like these to teachers’s salaries, and you really gonna see progress! 97% A’s and B’s? That’s only the beginning!
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September 4th, 2009 9:07 am
Is it just me, or does something seem a bit strange about this distribution: 84% of schools received A’s, 13% received B’s, and 20% received C’s. That’s already 117% and we haven’t accounted for the D/F grades. What happened to 100% being the total?
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September 4th, 2009 10:13 am
John,
I believe you’ve miscounted somewhere. Ergo, there’s a job for you in Tweed. : - ) -
September 7th, 2009 8:03 pm
[...] in the best of all possible worlds,” after all, according to the Department of Education (http://gothamschools.org/2009/09/02/klein-defends-this-years-progress-reports-from-renewed-criticism…) 97% of all elementary and middle schools received grades of “A” or “B.” [...]
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