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Wowzers. 
A whole 5%?  A whole third of the “school environment” score?  An entire half as much as the parent survey?
/sarcasm

Note that year-to-year comparisons have been just as problematic in past years in which the formula has been changed, or in years in which “progress” masked significant grade inflation correction on the state tests.

Going back about 5 years, I recall my jaw dropping, when, in response to parents like myself questioning the “progress” category outright, DOE RAISED the percentage of the formula pinned to “progress,” and then had the chutzpah to credit “input from parents.”

As of 2010-2011, the weight on “progress” was 60 (out of 100), and “performance” was only 25.  Not sure what’s pending for 2011-2012.  I’d still like to see my, and others’, originally requested shift AWAY from “progress,” as well as to a more balanced “peer”/”citywide” split.

And don’t get me started on the broken promise of using multiple years of data to reduce the annual pendulum swings.

My troubled school just dropped down to a “C”. That gives us even more of a reason to unite as a community and inquire “Where’s the support?”

http://www.occupywarrenstreet.org

Francesco Portelos
Parent
Educator
http://www.protectportelos.org

I believe the change only applies to MIDDLE school grades — NOT elementary school grades.

But this is to miss the forest for a few twigs.  The reports are still grossly flawed and should be TOSSED.

As you may have noticed, under the DOE’s method, your school missed a chance to score points in Math Progress, especially in the lowest third, or pick up bonus points in Closing the Achievement Gap.

And if the DOE’s method had weighted more on “performance” than “progress,” your school’s English scores within peer group would have helped the overall score.  But when there’s only 10 points out of 100 to be had for either english or math PERFORMANCE, you can share my conclusion that the reports are meaningless.
 
Note that if your school had only gotten 4.4 more points (e.g., on the Enviornment Survey, by encouraging parents to have given a half point higher on each of the judgment scales), I.S. 49 would have gotten a “B” overall, and landed in the 40th percentile.

But the parent survey results in no changes, no policy input, and just RANDOMIZES the Report grades.  Feh.

You might be right about policy input and randomization (though I’m not sure about that second one), but a lousy environment score absolutely gets attention from elected officials, school communities, and even the DOE. 

I’m making a fine distinction here: I’m not saying that this is a tolerable or optimal way for parents to have input, but it is certainly better than nothing at all, which is where we’d be if the reports/surveys were tossed.

This grading system does a lousy job of identifying the best schools based on academic achievement. That’s actually what parents want to know. 
According to these new results District 3 doesn’t have a single K to 5 elementary school worthy of an A! That’s ridiculous.  PS 9, PS 199 and PS 87 all receive the same overall B that other schools with much lower proficiency levels receive. 

It gets even better on the middle school level. MS 54 – Booker T. gets the same B as MS 860 – FDA II, which goes from an F to a B, even though MS 54′s peer index is 3.43 and that of MS 860 is 2.09. BTW, within the group of 6-8 middle schools MS 247 receives an A with a peer index of 2.36 as does MS 258 with a peer index of 2.16. 

The peer index for 6 to 8 Middle schools operates on a 1.00–4.50 scale and is calculated using the following formula: Peer Index = (Average 4th grade English and Math proficiency) – (Percent students with disabilities). 

If I’m moving to D3 in Manhattan from anywhere in the country, or the world, and I would use DOE’s Progress Report to get a quick overview of the best schools in the district, chances are very high that I would not get the information I’m looking for.

Why can’t a B be a real B?

I wish all schools would get a “B” so no one would attempt to use these ridiculous grades to assess quality.  With 85% based on one year’s worth of test scores, and a large part of that  gains or losses in scores from the year before, which are up to 80% random, these grades are so volatile as to be wholly unreliable.  Not to mention the DOE still has not figured out how to properly control for the student population, with schools that enroll large nos. of students w/ disabilities unfairly punished.  And to imply that rating middle schools on how many students pass their courses is somehow an improvement …absurd!  Instead, this is likely to lead to the same sort of grade inflation as it has occurred in HS across the city, where teachers are told to pass the vast majority of their students or else.  Check out my 2007 DN oped, which I wrote when the grades were first announced.  It continues to hold true today: http://shar.es/5qG1m 

Philissa, what’s with the Orwellian terminology in your score/grades shift story today? What you call “soft grading” on Regents exams, we teachers call tampering, a crime under state law, that everybody knows, including you, was the “dirty little secret” that DOE, UFT, and Regents covered up in their fashion for years and years. Cui bono?
There is one and only one reason for the rushed reforms in Regents test security–the Wall Street Journal’s devastating exposé  headlined “Students’ Regents Test Scores Bulge at 65” (Feb. 2, 2011). This story ripped the integrity of Bloomberg’s and Klein’s grad rate claims. Nobody at City Hall or Tweed dared to contest the paper’s findings. When the retired Chancellor Klein was asked for comment, he shamefully declined.
 
And now the DOE is shifting weight from state exams to course grades in progress reports. Isn’t that swell? Teachers and principals who cannot be trusted to be honest with their students’ Regents and credit recovery will get the last word, as they always have, with course grades. The new dirty little secret is pass quotas set by principals who will U-rate teachers who don’t go along. I missed Chancellor Walcott’s memo on that cheating trend. While preparing my first report card at Washington Irving in 2001, I was ordered to pass 80% of my Latin students. When I refused, I was fired on a trumped up corporal punishment charge which I forced Principal Robert Durkin to retract at a Step 2 grievance. The more things change …

I’m sorry, “power”?  Parents have all the power in the world to affect student scores.  Instead of spending all day coming up with excuses and teaching children to bash teachers, try the following:
1) Feed your children healthy food.
2) Make sure your children are getting sleep and not playing video games until 2 AM.
3) Make sure your children are properly clothed when you send them off to school.
4) Make sure your children read at home and learn to appreciate the power of literacy.
5) Make sure your children do their homework as instructed.  No, don’t do it for them.
6) Teach your children to respect knowledge and education.
7) Harass your mayor until he stops robbing schools of money and overcrowding classes.

These are the true foundations of power.  I promise that if every parent practiced them, the children would perform miracles.

“The DOE is increasing oversight of schools’ grading polices. Schools may be asked to provide documentation of grading policies for review to justify student course performance results.”
 
If students are given online credit recovery or they’ve been assigned to online learned such as “blended learning”, how does the DoE oversee this type of learning?  What are the standards and the rigors when students only have to guess the answers on their computer?  What is the grading policy when many students used the DoE’s “vendor-approved” Aventa?  Once again the DoE is talking out of both sides of their mouth!