Sunday, April 11, 2010

Why The DOE Is Responsible For The Disconnect Between The Rising High School Graduation Rates And The Lack Of Academic Skills By The Graduates




Before Bloombeg and Klein took over the New York City Public School System, the high school graduation rates were lower but the students who did graduate knew if they worked hard they could legitimately attend college or join a job market where their education was a factor in being hired. However, along comes Bloomberg and Klein who have cheapened the high school diploma to the point employers find that many high school graduates have difficulty completing an employment application and that over 80% of the graduates who try college find they must take remedial courses because they were not educationally proficient for college work.

Why the disconnect between the improved graduation rate and the lack of readiness for the graduates in the business or college world? I believe you can trace this disconnect to at least three factors that have resulted in a student graduating high school without the necessary educational tools or skills to succeed in either the business or college environment.

First, one of the most common method to graduate students is for the Principal to change failing grades for seniors with and sometimes without the knowledge of the teacher. With principals given broad authority by the DOE to run a school as he or she pleases and with high school grades (maybe even bonuses) depending on the graduation rate, principals are tempted to improve their statistics. I wrote a post about this here and is a must read. Furthermore, principals have been accused of changing Regents grades and go unpunished since the investigative agencies have a different standard when investigating administrators. You can read it here as well.

Second, a significant rise in the "credit recovery program" for high school students during the Bloomberg/Klein Administration that are encouraged by the DOE and some of these "credit recovery programs" are as simple as writing a report over the vacation. Read here.

Finally, the single mindedness of Regents prep at the expense of a well rounded education is rapidly gaining favor in the high schools. Many high schools now put in Regents prep courses rather than giving students an option to take courses that could broaden their academic horizons. Is it little wonder that many of our graduates are deficient in academics despite graduating?

What ever happened to our mission to graduate well rounded boys and girls who would be a credit, not only to their family but the community as a whole? Now it seems that the DOE's mission is to get them out by any means necessary without giving them the proper tools and skills to succeed in the real world. Tweed's "children last" policy continues.

10 comments:

NYC Educator said...

It's kind of sad, but it's all part of the mission to dress up stats by any means necessary. And of course, any that don't measure up are entirely the fault of unionized employees.

And to read the papers, you'd know absolutely none of this.

Pete Zucker said...

Oh, oh. Bart is showing his butt. Anna Phillips will call you obscene.

Anonymous said...

Add to this a 4th avenue for this educational malfeasance, the on line courses the DOE will no doubt encourage or mandate for students to gain credit recovery.
P.S. Do you know about component re-testing?

Chaz said...

nyc educator:

Hugo Chavez would be proud of the new York Post and Daily News on how they give Bloomberg and Klein a free pass.

SBSB:

I am only obscene to the DOE and Leo Casey.

Anon: You have a good point and it would not surprise me if that become another avenue to push the students out of the high schools ithout being ready for the real world.

Anonymous said...

This was seen on the NYC public school parents blogsite.

Click the link on the right-hand side of the webpage - "What type of School Reform do we really want? 3/26/2010"
http://www.rfls.blip.tv/

Diane Ravitch re-emphasizes, with stronger than ever convictions, that the Billionaires Boys Club's goal is to privatize all the public schools across the nation.

It's a must see video.

We must march against these for-profit and for-nonsense rich, arrogant, selfish, ed deformers that will destroy public education.

NY_I said...

This trend is linked to the city's using various stratagems to give the cold shoulder to students that require more help for graduating. I've linked to the NY Post's expose of denial of services to English Language Learner students.
http://nycityeye.blogspot.com/2010/04/services-denied-to-nycs-ell-students.html

Anonymous said...

First, one of the most common method to graduate students is for the Principal to change failing grades for seniors with and sometimes without the knowledge of the teachers.". While I have seen this happen I can find no evidence to support that this is one of the most common methods to graduate students. Where did you get this data from?

Anonymous said...

It would be interesting to see if there is a study that follows these high school graduates to college. I wonder what the dropout rate there is for them.

Chaz said...

Anon:

In my school it has become more common and pissed off wrote about this about her Principal, Suit.

http://chaz11.blogspot.com/2008/11/phony-high-school-report-card-grades.html

Primadonna:

That does have a correlatiuon and I don't have those statistics.

NYC Educator said...

Am waiting for your analysis of RR deal.