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The DOE couldn’t perdict the grade inflation? Baloney. Maybe THEY couldn’t, or didn’t WANT to. It WAS predicted. Read up on the interaction — years ago in Fall 2007 after the first set of School Progress Reports came out — between me and Liebman at a CEC2 meeting in Beth Fertig’s new book (cheap at Strand), “why cant u teach me 2 read?”

“[Liebman] then proceeded to explain how the system would eventually include three years’ worth of data of every school , so teh risk of big fluctuations from one year to the next wouldn’t be such a problem. Then, just like a law professor, Liebman told Markowitz why “the main point you got an applause on was not correct.”
– Beth Fertig

Problem is… history not only proved Liebman wrong, the facts now show he didn’t even do what he said he would do. (Perspective: Professor Liebman deserves angel’s wings for his life work for death row inmates. But not on this subject.)

First, DOE did NOT use three years of data, even now in the third year of the report (when it total, four years of data could be used).

As a subset to that, on a number of internal metrics, a number of schools show scores outside the bounds of the prior year’s min-max range. Nonsensical. Why weren’t the ranges RESET, even if based only on the most recent year’s data?

Second, the wild fluctuations I predicted indeed happen. Regularly. Frequently. Often. Predictably. PredictED. The number of schools that bouce from C to A to F to A is inexplicable… if you think the teaching changes that radically, I have a bridge to sell you. The system is a “random letter generator.”

Third, this was all BEFORE the state tests getting dumbed down and the scores jacked up. Had anyone said in 2007 that the tests would get easier to pass, 100% of the schools showing nominal “progress” would have been a GIVEN.

And I won’t even get into what’s wrong with the “peer group” approach in this comment, or the increase after the inaugural year in weight on “progress” when many of us demanded more weight on “performance.”

Who could have predicted the Emperor’s New Clothes would be thread-bare in a mere two years? Well, a LOT of people who undserstand the scam, actually. (e.g., Aaron “Skoolboy” Pallas, Jennifer “Eduwonkette” Jennings, then-CEC2 President Matthew Levey, Class Size Matters’ Leonie Haimson, yours truly, and others.) Just none who work for DOE. Pronounced “DOH!”

Thanks to Councilmember Jackson for hosting this hearing — on the biggest fraud of the Kleinberg administration — on the eve of the election. Eight is more than enough.

Is our children learning?

Does our schools all gots A’s?

P.S. Will re-curving the high school grades reduce the number of grads who need remedial classes at CUNY? Moreover, why didn’t they re-curve the K-8 letters when they saw what they were about to release? This is no different morally than the Bronx Principal accused of changing grades. The Office of Accountability…. has itself never been held accountable. Irony is alive and well at Tweed.

You’re too kind.

I do it for the kids — as opposed to the cronies.

Throw out Darth Term Evader. Elect the man decrying the fraud.
Bill Thompson for Mayor.

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