GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Sure Klein’s reforms have worked – if you consider phonying up the test scores, dumbing down the tests, punishing schools for reporting crime so that the crime stats go down and handing out credit recovery diplomas as success.

Considering how corporate leaders have relied on phony balance sheets, company debt counted as assets, leveraging their companies 40 to 1 or worse on risky ventures so that they can write themselves 7 figure bonus checks and then going hat in hand to the government for bailout money when the Ponzi scheme known as the modern US economy fell to pieces last year, I’m sure they are very open to hearing about Klein’s “successful” reforms.

BTW, is “Statistic Manipulation” a full class these days in MBA programs or are they still teaching it as part of the “How To Get Around Ethics and Steal Yourself A Fortune” classes?

It would be interesting to see how the # or % of students in top schools has changed. Gotham- can we make that happen?

Apples to apples comparisons would require that we look at the comparative performance of counties around the NY State on the ELA and Math tests after controlling for students’ linguistic (ELL) and socio-economic (poverty) backgrounds. These two student demographic characteristics are strongly related to most measures of academic achievement, and are not equally proportionate around the state. When contrasting NYC schools with schools from the other counties in the state, what is your best guess as to which schools would be more densely populated with relatively poorer students with relatively less well developed English language skills? If your hunch ia NYC schools, then these demographic factors would have to be included in any reasonable comparative analysis.

I do believe that there has been improvement. I don’t know if I am totally respectful of the system’s statements about the leaps in numbers. In short, I am suspicious of any and all sudden great leaps…for man or mankind….that are so utterly earthbound That said, I still need to see figures on the improvement for students with IEPs. This is a data driven system with computerized IEPs. IEPs that purport to show yearly progress. The information is in the system. How can we pull it out?

Howard,
If you are suggesting there is a correlation between ELA and Math scores, you won’t get much argument here, but I’d love to see that issue analyzed.

If you are suggesting that the city’s MATH score improvement over time is doubly laudable given the number ELL kids in the city, on that, I’m not so sure I share your premonition, but again, I’d love to see it analyzed.

As to poverty… using D2 figures only, “Title 1″ / “free lunch” were NOT predictors of ELA and Math performance. (Ethnicity, ELL, and IEP WERE.) But again, I’d love to see it analyzed.

In the meantime, following your hunches through analysis doesn’t undercut the points I made, though if borne out by analysis, your theories might help explain why an apples to manzanas comparison ain’t so easy.

P.S. Are you suggesting that — looked at over time — the Math test is getting easier for kids who are NOT acing the ELA test? If so, NYC schools are weaker than appear even moreso; some of the improvement is due to the language hurdle being reduced.

My general point is we should be looking at performance, not just trajectory.

The only scores which the NYCDOE can’t cheat on because they’re graded by non-NYCDOE graders, are the NAEP and SAT scores. These have not significantly improved under Bloomberg/Klein.

I just sat down with the mom of a kid in one of the “wonderful” new, new small high schools. She was told by college admissions staff at schools to which her son had applied that many non-NYS colleges and universities will not accept NYC kids based solely on course grades and Regents exam scores. They insist on SAT or ACT scores … because kids’ NYCDOE diplomas, grades and Regents exam scores are wildly inflated and cannot be used to determine whether kids have really mastered any acceptable level of high school curriculum or not.

The business community may wish to make a good show of sucking in the Bloomberg/Klein manipulated numbers as part of the Bloomberg p.r. campaign, but when the rock hits the hard place, if you talk to them off the record, they’ll tell you – as they’ve told me – that NYCDOE graduates can’t read, write or do math well enough for entry level clerical-type jobs these days.

Michael M. I think the basis of your argument above is that you are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, like a lot of people (including the State assessment people) who think that state tests should be perfect predictors of graduation rates. This is a folly. There are multiple factors regarding why kids who may pass 8th grade assessments still may not graduate from high school (or require remedial work in college) so I think we have to end the fallacy that state assessments are predictors of high school graduation. And yes, even kids who graduate from suburban school districts sometimes require remedial work in college, so why is this such a big deal for NYC schools? As for Dee, I don’t know where to begin. Shame on you. I’ve seen this whole “yes urban kids are dumber than you think” argument on here before, but this time you’ve laced it with the baseless accusation that it is teachers statewide who are ginning up kids test scores when they grade the tests. Test scores have gone up in urban schools statewide, yet some just can’t accept the fact that this has also happened in NYC, just like it did in Buffalo, Syracuse, Yonkers, etc. albeit to a lesser extent. Urban kids are performing better. This is a reality for which we should all be proud. Yet, I didn’t see you around arguing that these tests were too hard when urban kids were performing miserably compared to the rest of the state. No, what you do is allege some stupid statewide conspiracy of teachers (presumably only in urban schools I guess) to cheat in favor of their student. For shame. Truly. For shame.

Michael M. correlation is not causation. The point you are trying to make about the percentage of NYC grads needing some remediation work masks the much more tremendous achievement that there are even thousands more NYC students enrolled in CUNY colleges to begin with as result of a higher functioning public education system. It’s not bad that these students required some remedial work. Indeed, that they are receiving these remedial services may mean that might actually finish college. I think again the steady-state argument that you come up with that entering college freshman should never require any remediation doesn’t exist in NYC, or NY State, or anywhere else in the country.

Another apples-to-oranges moment is here. Educational measurement experts have cautioned policy makers and others for sometime now about the drawbacks of combining or adding together average scores–e.g., combining ELA and Math scores. This is akin to adding height and weight when studying individual differences (or group differences) in overall health. The mean scores for ELA, as well as their standard deviations (i.e., the standardized amount of variance in the test scores) and the means and standard deviations of the mathematics scores are quite different. And, more importantly, the constructs measured by both tests are very different. It is important to keep these fundamental measurement issues in mind when reasoning from (drawing inferences) test scores.

That is a good point about the problems of combining ELA and math scores. It is also problematic to look at the progression from 2001 to 2009 without taking the various “rescalings” into account. The report points to 2006 as the time when the scores took a big dip due to “rescaling”–as though there were no other rescaling before or after. Also, NYC scale scores did not go up as much as scale scores in Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse, in either ELA or math, from 2006 to 2009. Buffalo scores in particular took a greater leap than NYC. (See the Power Point presentations for math and ELA on this page.)

MM,

LOL re your last point about Uber Chancellor Klein and how he led the rise of the Big 4. That accounts for it all so parsimoniously.

And your random plus 1 kicker was a gem. You definitely have demonstrated partial mastery of the learning standards. Nothing can hold you back.