GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

1. 

   Linda Silverman

   March 12th, 2010 8:56 pm

   Bloomberg might have increased graduation rates but he has also increased the number of meaningless degrees awarded. To quote a teacher in my school who is teaching a bunch of “should be seniors” in a special program “If they fart, they get a credit. We have to find a way to get them to pass.”

2. 

   i wonder

   March 13th, 2010 7:38 am

   That teacher should be ashamed if she said that. It is up to the teacher to have high expectations and have students meet those expectations through instructional rigor. And since you are a teacher, you are probably of the mindset that all reasearch based instructional strategies are baloney. Data driven instruction, differentiated instruction, etc. are a complete waste of time. Educators such as your self are the reason the graduation rate has been so low in the city. You want to blame the kids, the parents, the administrators, and everyone else but the teachers in the classroom. As long as they don’t infringe on your contractual time and leave you alone until retirement you really don’t care. The likes of you march up and down saying it is all about the kids, but really are nothing but a phoney.

3. 

   EFM

   March 13th, 2010 8:06 am

   To: i wonder,

   Are you in this universe? Anyone who is in any way involved with today’s educational system, be it as a educator, parent or whatever, knows how flawed and ineffectual some of these so called strategies can be.

4. 

   NYC Educator

   March 13th, 2010 8:23 am

   I always appreciate those who come to conclusions via mind reading. “Teachers like you think this.” “You must believe that.”

   Taking it yet another step, they accuse people of saying things they haven’t actually said. “You say it is all about the kids.” “You blame the kids.”

   It must be quite effective, in terms of time management, to be able to instantly arrive at such definitive conclusions. The best part about this method is you need not know anything whatsoever about your subject before doing so. There’s no inconvenient study of anything.

   And yet there you are–with no effort whatsoever, you know everything. It’s a time-honored method that’s worked for bigots and racists everywhere since time immemorial.

5. 

   Invictus

   March 13th, 2010 10:51 am

   I wonder, it is quite obvious at your hastily arrived conclusion, that you haven’t got a clue of what is happening in the NYC educational world. If there is any comfort, you can see the true “meaning” of increased graduation rates directly reflected in the remediation rates for NYC HS graduates enrolling in the City Colleges. I read that there is about 2-3 years that these so called graduates spend in remediation.

   Perhaps, then people with your point of view will begin to grasp at the false perception of achievement that these graduation numbers present. Honesty is the right policy in a sane world but it is academic honesty today usually equates to harassment in part of the students, the administration and what is used to label schools “failing.”

   If this madness continues, and there is little to point that things will go back to the reality based days, when those with your mindset will begin to disparage and denounce how our Colleges and their professors are “failing” these oh so successful students and then a new educational farce will begin, now involving higher education.

6. 

   i wonder

   March 13th, 2010 12:10 pm

   People with my point wonder how a teacher questions graduation rates when it is the teacher who awards credit and grades Regents Exams that a student needs to graduate. Are schools across NYC cheating to raise their graduation rates? Are teachers and administrators all over NYC accomplices to this great fraud? A student can not graduate H.S. unless he earns the required credits and passes minimum 5 Regent exams. A Guidance Counselor certifies the student for graduation and an administrator signs off on all graduates. Are we saying people all over NYC are cheating? That is what Ms. Silverman seems to be implying in her post. I know that teachers with integrity would not give a student a credit unless they have earned it. Is the school that Ms. Silverman works at cheating to raise their graduation rates? She should then blow a whistle on the principal much like they did at Lehman High School.

   Less than half of the states in this country have exit exams like NYS has. Are we cheating across the country to get kids out of high school. Has this country lost all integrity that no one wants to take responsibilty for 30% of our students becoming drop outs. Does anyone want to acknowledge that our educational system is antiquated and set up to prepare students for factory work that no longer exists in this country.

   I did not mean to insult Ms. Silverman or any of my colleagues but if her school is cheating then she should expose them for fraud.

7. 

   Invictus

   March 13th, 2010 12:58 pm

   From my reading of your comment, I noticed, perhaps you might be genuinely unawares of what is actually happening across NYS and also the entire country when it comes to this sort of educational deceit. The DoE and also administration in many NYC schools are aware that they need to up the numbers, numbers means graduation rates. Graduation rates in NYC are directly tied with the passing of a certain number of regents, as well as credit accumulation.

   The only way students can accumulate credits is by being in class 1/2 of the time, and diligently working towards some sort of Regents passing, if the course of study dictates that there is to be a Regents. Nevertheless, if you see the attendance rate of many of these largely labelled “failing schools” they hover around 70%. So, in a good week, that might mean being present 3 out of 5 school days. But even this is deceitful. Attendance is taken at a certain period, period 2 usually and if the student is there for period 2, that student is marked present.

   Usually students have 8 period, either begin period 1 and end in period 8, or begin period 2 and end in period 9. So, you might assume that a student marked present for period 2 will need to remain in school for the rest of the periods to be classified as “present” but, the “present” criteria in NYC at least is being present for around 3 classes. So, out of the 8 period, 1=lunch, 1-Physical Education, the student has actually 6 academic classes. The student needs to be marked present in 3 classes only.

   For the entire week the students can be present, 6*3 days=18 period of attendance to be qualified present.

   Obviously, this is an ideal scenario where kids who come are “in” 18 out of 30 academic periods, but many are below even that sad attendance pattern.

   So, Johnny X attends 18 periods, perhaps he might pay attention to class and do what is told, practice his skills, bring homework the following day, but we forget that he might be absent the day after, losing one day of classwork.

   When Johnny X is in class, it would be ideal if he would be able to concentrate in class, but he might have the desire of seeing his buddies hanging in the hallway, as they cut class. He cannot stay put, regardless of the fact that he is told to be on task. Johnny challenges the instructor saying that he does not get it, it would have been helpful that he was in class yesterday, but he is entitled to be absent. And this pattern occurs over and over again.

   When the end of the marking period comes, Johnny is failing all assignments because he is unable to grasp the concepts in class, but because of his attendance rate, the teacher is grilled by the APs why he is not passing. According to admin, a student who is present 70% of the time is entitled to be passing and if he is not, it is because YOU, are not making lessons relevant and interesting. Admin asks you what have you done to contact the parents….Without not forgetting that YOU took the time to call Johnny’s phone, to find out that it is a non working number, that the number is good but parents answer and they say that he was not in school today because he told them that it was a “Half a day” or a parent tells you that she does not know what to do with him or YOU find out that the entire family is in a homeless shelter.

   So, Johnny X needs to be given a fair chance to pass, while you have high standards for students who come everyday, and are trying to learn while Johnny X feels that he is entitled to do as he pleases and to scream out his frustration on YOU.

   FF, June and Johnny needs to take his Regents and instead of having done, building up his expectations, his trove of knowledge, he misses Finals week, he is absent from the Regents review that Admin have spent $$$$$$$ to have teachers, teach a ghost class for students like Johnny X.

   Test day is here, 70% of Johnnys are there, of whom perhaps 70% where in class 70% of the tines. You can clearly tell the results that are to be gotten.

   School gets slapped with a warning that it is in need of improvement. APs are under pressure, they pressure the teachers and the guidance counselors, who themselves know if they do not produce, certify the graduation rates of their students who are in 70% of the time, that they could be looking for another job.

   This is all to be put lightly, and this is happening across NYC, NYS, and the entire country. The attitude of no excuses, production as the outcome, cheating or euphemistically speaking, profits and increased grad rates are basically that, a mirage of what people read in the papers.

   People clamor for change, without knowing that the politicians would given them what they want but not what they REALLY want, true change.

   Thinking how pathetically speaking, Bloomberg tried to assuage the downfall of his house of cards, this past December where his so tauted incredible Regents gains for the past 7 years in comparison to the Regents passing rates across NYS were dismantled, when comparing how NYC students were given NEA tests showing no “STATISTICAL DIFFERENCE,” between years 2002-2008? So, those 30-40% Regent passing rates increases meant nothing, in comparison to National Standards Tests. Bloomberg comes and says, “Nobody can say that a 3% increase (the Statistical Difference), is no progress at all.”

   American society needs to look at themselves in the mirror and admit that it is not interested in real change, or else, no Johnny X would be allowed to be getting the “education” he is getting.

   To display another notion, graduation rates in older, traditional HS in the 1950s were in the 20-30% ranges, as historical papers have said. Drop out rates or students not doing well is nothing new.

   It is now that almost all sort of dummy jobs ask for a HS diploma that those students that would have once dropped out, are staying put and getting their diplomas, or else, things would have stay the same.

   Number tell what people who put them out what they to communicate. After all, I still remember my Professor of Physics in College, a number without a specific designation mean nothing.

8. 

   Michael M.

   March 13th, 2010 1:27 pm

   LS,

   Thanks for highlighting the oh-so-fine distinction between passing class — and passing gas — in the Kleinberg system.

   Cheers.

9. 

   i wonder

   March 14th, 2010 6:57 am

   to summarize; only show up 70% of the time and you are able to pass state exams?
   I doubt people pass students along because they fear for their jobs. Alleged Child Molesters have sat in the rubber for years without losing thier job and someone who disagrees with the Principal fears losing thier job? Please. More educator babble endorsing mediocrity using administrators as the scapegoat.

10. 

    Pogue

    March 14th, 2010 7:25 am

    And, the spirit of Morton Downey, Jr. lives on!

11. 

    Invictus

    March 14th, 2010 8:50 am

    pardon me, I wonder, I for one moment overestimated the naiveness of humanity while at the same time, overestimated their critical thinking capacity. The circus lives on.

12. 

    Citizen

    March 15th, 2010 7:44 am

    I wonder,
    Keeping your eyes closed does not alter reality!

13. 

    Michael M.

    March 15th, 2010 9:18 am

    Please don’t feed the trolls.

14. 

    Invictus

    March 15th, 2010 7:52 pm

    Thought trolls were fiction and integral part of the LOTRs trilogy. :O

15. 

    the solution?

    March 16th, 2010 6:17 pm

    I get it… feeble minds don’t like to be challenged. Your used to sitting in the teachers lounge griping all day without any push back.

    You are either part of the problem or part of the solution - Folks where do you stand?

    DROPOUTS EXPERIENCE HIGHER LEVELS OF JOBLESSNESS & LOW WEEKLY AND ANNUAL EARNINGS

    •
    More than half -¬ 54 percent - of the nation’s dropouts ages 16 to 24 were jobless on average during 2008. Black dropouts experienced the highest jobless rates at 69 percent followed by Asians at 57 percent and Whites at 54 percent. Hispanic dropouts had the lowest jobless rates at 47 percent, reflecting the higher employment rate of young Hispanic immigrants. In sharp contrast, only about 13 percent of young adults with a college degree were jobless on average in the same time period.

    • 40 percent of all dropouts in the country were jobless for the entire year.

    • Without a high school diploma, you cannot earn enough money to make ends meet and certainly not enough to reach the American dream of raising a family and buying a home. The mean annual earnings of the nation’s young people under 25 with a bachelor’s or advanced degree was $24,797 in 2007, three times higher than the mean earnings for dropouts of $8,358 (including zero earners).

    • The limited earnings potential of dropouts means many never leave their parents or relatives’ homes to form independent households. Nearly 37 of every 100 dropouts live in poor or near-poor families.

    • Over $292,000 is the cost incurred by taxpayers for each dropout over their lifetime in terms of lost earnings and therefore lower taxes paid and higher spending for social costs including incarceration, healthcare, and welfare.

    DROPOUTS MORE LIKELY TO BE SINGLE MOTHERS

    Nearly 38 percent of young female dropouts ages 16 to 24 were mothers, the highest percentage compared to their peers still enrolled in high school or college or with high school or college degrees. Young high school dropouts were nearly 9 times as likely to have become single mothers as their counterparts with undergraduate college degrees.

    Read the Report: http://www.clms.neu.edu/publication/documents/Executive_Summary_of_Consequences_of_Dropping_Out_of_High_School_Report.doc

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