Great work, guys! I love the words of the principal above, thanking the staff for making progress credit accumulation towards a better school grade. These are juxtaposed with Cerf’s comments to the right on how their school-wide bonus system “encourages school wide collaboration towards elevating student achievement.”
Congrats to the teachers who did not collaborate with the corruption that is encouraged in this bogus accountability system, but stood up for the truth.
Pogue
I’m shocked, shocked to find that grade changing is going on here! Welcome to the DOE under Bloomberg and Klein. Yup, our graduation rates are at an all time high! More kids are applying to CUNY schools than ever before! Just please, pay no mind to all the remedial classes the kids must take before they drop out because they can’t afford remedial and college credit courses. But, please, don’t be too harsh on Bloomberg, Klein, and Saraceno…they’re doing it “for the children”.
Keep `em moving, NYC.
http://sinksalive.blogspot.com KitchenSink
For once, sparring partners, your criticism is well placed. This is outrageous indeed.
I’m with you that the test accountability pressures are probably leading to much more widespread cheating than the public imagines. And I agree that the state test monitoring at the school level seems to have all but disappeared. When I was teaching, there were people from the city or perhaps SED walking the halls, looking into my classroom, checking up on things. Now? Nothing.
Of course, monitoring costs money, and post-NCLB, there’s a lot more testing going on than in the ‘benchmark grade’ days.
http://www.classsizematters.org Leonie Haimson
Why are principals allowed to change the grades of students? What is the supposed rationale behind this?
I noticed that…
As per the agreement between the DoE and UFT (Article 8D), principals who change grades in a given grading period must put it in writing. This is ONLY done after the principal and the teacher, who graded the student(s), have met to discuss those grades. When the principal puts it in writing, the teacher, who grade(s) are being changed, must get the reason for the change in ***writing***. It seems that Saraceno had Carte Blanche with those teachers’ grades. A Superprincipal does not mean that she is exempt from following rules, policies, and the Collective Bargain Agreement. There are too many administrators out there that think that they have this purported power of authority to do whatever they want. Shamefully, they are only defrauding the school system with these inflated graduation rates and bogus stats. Why hasn’t Bloomberg commented on this in public? Why hasn’t Klein put the Saraceno in the rubber room until the investigation is completed? Isn’t that what they do to teachers when they are being investigated or are principals exempted from being placed in there?
Justice
The only ones that could attest to the game of Ms Saraceno are Hanna Thacht and Dyanand Sugrim from Media Communication HS in Manhattan who aided her in changing the grades so much that in less than 4 years the Media Communication school’s grading went from an “F” school rating published in all of the Manhattan Newspapers to an “A” school. If the investigation system was a serious one, they should start by investigating those who worked with her previously and figure out many things that the rest of the world know…These two surpass Saraceno by far…not only altering grades, but in everything, everything…
http://sehacecamino.com Nancy
If investigators dug a little deeper, they would find that grade-changing is a widespread practice in city schools, along with Regents grade scrubbing, which I believe was covered by the media last year or the year before. Nothing new!
Jeff S
Nancy…
Be careful with accusations. Regents exam “scrubbing” as you call it is absolutely required by State Education Department regulations. Look, the way these exam are set up, there are many questions that are not simply multiple choice (and even sometimes with multiple choice questions, the preparaton of the exams or the wording of the questions is so inept that there is more than one possible correct answer)…in any event, two completely honest people can look at the same student response to a question and one can say it is worth 2 credits and the other 3 credits. It happens all the time. As a parent, you don’t want to see your child miss out on a cut off (honors or just passing) because his or her regents exam paper had the misfortune on one particular question to be graded by somebody who gave the 2 when the 3 might be just as appropriate. (Believe me, it’s not an exact science). So don’t you think that an exam paper which misses the cut off by 3 or 4 credits should be re-graded to make sure the student has received every conceivable benefit of the doubt? Believe me, that is not the same thing as taking a paper with incorrect answers and changing them so they are correct. I certainly do not suppof or accept that. But giving a student the benefit of the doubt, especially given the inept way these Regents exams are produced and the grading instructions, is certainly something that must be done in all fairness to everybody. That is what is meant by scrubbing……
Michael Fiorillo
Jeff S
The regulations concerning the grading of the English Regents were changed two years ago: revisiting graded exams is now explicitly prohibited.
Lisa
The scroll is really fast.
Chris
Grade changing takes place in every grade in NYC public schools. If they didn’t change the grades in first grade they wouldn’t have to change them in 12th grade. Tying a principal’s bonus to test scores and graduation rates will promote cheating. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a course on it in the Leadership Academy. All thanks to Doomsberg and Klein.
I noticed that…
Does anyone know if this is still being investigated? Or at least what was the outcome? Is it still ongoing? Since October 2009 and almost 7 months later, still waiting! Geezz, I know murder cases that were investigated and closed in less time.
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