Mayor Bloomberg and his Chancellor Joel Klein released “school report cards†which gave 50 schools a grade of “F†(99 got a “Dâ€) The grades are based, almost entirely (85%) on a measure of how individual children improved (or didn’t) on two standardized given a year apart. Thus, the number of data points on which grade rests is really one. As a result of that one date point, children is “F†schools will be allowed to transfer out. In addition, “F†and “D†schools are at risk of being shut down by Mr Bloomberg & Mr. Klein [1] To get a feel for how careless the evaluation system is check out this Daily News article [2] about a school with very high scores which earned an "F"
As a result, of the paucity and unreliability of the data underlying the letter grades Leonie Haimson, writing at the Public School Parent Blog [3], of Class Size Matters points out:
But whether your child's school received an "A" or a "F", remember -- these grades are based 85% on one year's test scores alone . As such, experts say that the results are so unreliable as to be nothing more than a winning the lottery or a roll of the dice.
These grades are merely another simplistic, misleading attempt by this administration to look tough – and evade their own responsibility for the inadequacies of our schools
See Leonie's Daily News Op Ed for more. The Post has a pro-report-card piece [4] from a charter school operator -- odd since charter schools have been exempted from the report card evaluation process. [5]
How did you school child’s school do? Try here [6] or this NY Times searchable list [7] One parent, whose excellent middle school (Jonas Salk on Manhattan's East Side) got a "C" sent and posted this enraged letter. [8]
Want more? Gotham Gazette’s Wonkster [9] collects a few links and comments. Edwize (the UFT blog) has pre-release comments here [10]and the UFT post-release, press release is here [11]. For a fun and funny parody, try High School student Seth Pearce's post at The Albany Project [12] Some rather superficial reports of parent and realtor reaction is in the NY Times [13] and Daily News [14]
For some careful statistical analysis of the results try Eduwokette here [15] and here [16]. This sort of analysis, standard in social science and reportage, has not been published elsewhere so far as I know. The findings: "A" levels schools have much higher proportions of Asian students, lower proportion of low-income students and a lower proportion of black students than do schools with lower grades. Those results are not intuitively surprising and confirm other data. Much of the school progress report is an account of race and income inequality -- perhaps not about schools so much.
As I see it, the progress reports are a work in progress. They are flawed, based on inadequate data and not a basis for making specific decisions on education policy or practice for any school or child. But the progress reports are the right idea in general.
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