Comments on: Report on small schools finds more choice, but modest interest

By: Dee Alpert

Dee Alpert — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:29:14 +0000

If 9th graders thought highly of their first year high school experience, it is very likely that they would tell their friends, who would tend to be other kids in their neighborhood in the same age group, which would include 8th graders. So if 9th grade students in any particular school were having what they felt was a credible, stimulating, worthwhile educational experience, word would spread like wildfire, just like teenagers’ gossip does. The fact that these schools are getting a smaller proportion of applicants than larger, older ones speaks badly re what the kids in them think.

It’s interesting to note that the surveys done by the NYCDOE don’t ask important questions such as “would you recommend that a friend attend this school?” Kids can’t answer that question directly, since it’s not asked – but they can do it indirectly, by telling their friends and neighbors. Since the NYCDOE uses no. of applicants as one criteria for closing big, bad high schools, it’s only fair that the same criteria be applied to the new, new small ones as well.

By: Gideon

Gideon — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:22:23 +0000

It takes time for reputations to build and for new schools to graduate students who can speak to the value of their high school experience. I would suspect that over time more 8th graders will become aware of the small school options and increasingly apply to them.

By: Dee Alpert

Dee Alpert — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 05:35:26 +0000

Perhaps the kids applying to high school know something that these researchers don’t know. They apparently didn’t verify schools’ descriptions of their available courses and programs for truth and accuracy. I took a quick look a while ago at the environment reports to see whether kids in new, new small high schools with technology, science or math in their names reported being offered many technology, science or math courses during, before or after school. Turned out that the descriptions these schools wrote up for themselves sometimes varied – quite widely – with what their students reported was actually offered to them. I’m told that the NYCDOE doesn’t vet these recruitment/p.r. descriptions for accuracy. Unfortunately, if a kid does apply to a school which touts a great technology, science or math program and finds out that it was so much puffery, the kid’s out of luck. Transfers out of these schools are not easily secured and almost never on the basis of fraud in advertising.

Perhaps the kids applying use their noggins and actually talk to kids already in the new, new small high schools to see what they really have to offer … and then apply to large, old high schools which often have a much greater variety of courses and teachers who actually know the relevant subject matter? Could failure to really offer many courses in these areas be one reason why CUNY raised its senior college math and science admission requirements after the first wave of kids from new, new small high schools hit their freshmen year, and also flunked out of math and science courses in droves far greater than prior classes?

Caveat emptor!

By: Jessica Shilller

Jessica Shilller — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:10:20 +0000

I discovered similar findings in a study I did in 2007. You can find more information in my articles in the Urban Review and Education and Urban Society, or my website which is http://cuny.academia.edu/JessicaShiller/Papers.