The Disconnect Between Graduating High School And Graduating College - Case Study Newark, New Jersey.

The Department Of Education (DOE) in urban areas brag how their high school  graduation rate is increasing.  The problem is that most educators know that the high school graduation rate is bogus as it's artificially inflated by phony credit recovery courses, administrative pressure to pass undeserving students and grade fixing.  Of course when some of them end up in college, an unpleasant surprise often awaits them.  First, they are required to take no credit remedial courses.  Second, they quickly find out that college is a "sink or swim" environment with no hand holding by the professor.  Either you do the work or fail and many end up dropping out.

A case study is Newark New Jersey.  The data shows that Newark's graduation rate has skyrocketed to 73.47% .  Unfortunately, only 13.7% of those high school graduates actually got a degree of any kind, according to New Jersey's Open Data Network.  According to Chalkbest, 51% of Newark's high school graduates who went directly to college, did better but still disappointing with only 39% of them receiving a degree of any kind.

The Mayor's goal is that 25% of all high school graduates receive a college degree by 2025  he hopes to do this by adding "rigor" to the high school curriculum but if the high schools still use phony credit recovery and grade fixing, the Mayor's goal is simply wishful thinking.

Westchester Square Academy - Just Another High School Caught Using Bogus Online Courses.

A wanna be screened high school trying to keep their academic reputation intact has been caught cheating by giving bogus online causes to jack up their graduation rate.  The New York Post has exposed more phony credit recovery abuses, thanks to Susan Edelman.

The school is Winchester Square High School in the Bronx and it tried to pattern itself after the selective Brooklyn Latin.  However, no Latin is taught and the school could only attract a thin vernier of academically proficient students.  If you go to school digger you find that school doesn't do better the the District 8 average and well below the State.  You get read that Here.

Here are some of the disappointing statistics about Westchester Square Academy High School in the Bronx.

• Ranked 923 out of 1,221 NYC high schools or the lower 25%,
• Only 25% of the teachers trust the Principal.
• 23% of teachers feel the administration clearly communicates with them.
• College readiness is only 31%, below the City average of 49%
• The majority of teachers are untenured,
• High teacher turnover.

Here is the school's snapshot and you can see that the administration is lacking good judgement and fails to collaborate with the staff..

Ballou High School Where The Graduation Rate Was All Smoke And Mirrors.

Ballou High School in Washington D.C. is a school with a deep poverty minority student body and has historically struggled academically, with a low graduation rate.  However, in 2017 Ballou High School dramatically improved their graduation rate and every graduate was accepted to college.  The school's success became a national sensation of how real education reform can improve even the worst academically struggling school.  However, NPR did an expose of the 2017 graduation class and found some very disturbing issues that questioned that success.

Unexcused Absences:
The majority of graduating seniors in 2017 missed more than six weeks of school due to unexcused absences.   Moreover,  33 students had unexcused absences of 90 days or more ot of 180 school days.  Of the 164 graduating seniors in 2017, only 23 students had less than 30 unexcused absences. The Washington D.C. public schools policy is that if a student misses class more than 30 days, the student should fail the course.  If the District followed it's own policy than 141 graduating seniors should have failed the courses and not graduate.

High Teacher Turnover:
Ballou High School suffered the highest teacher turnover in the City with 25% of the teachers leaving the school by the end of the 2016-17 school year, many of them in the middle of the term.  Most of the teachers who left cited low morale, administrative pressure to pass undeserving students, and poor student discipline.According to an internal memo only 57 seniors were on track to graduate in April.  The remaining 107 seniors were given massive amount of credit recovery and projects to meet their graduation requirements, despite the fact that many students did not qualify for credit recovery since they didn't bother to show up to their classes.

College Ready:
While its true that all 164 2017 graduates were accepted to college only 16 actually enrolled.  The main reason was the dismally low test scores. Only 9% passed the English test and 0% passed the Math test. Even the students realized that they were unprepared for college.

The Principal of the school has been reassigned and the school district has launched an investigation but will anything change?  Probably not, once the media scrutiny disappears.  Ballou high school will continue to graduate unprepared students where the graduation rate is all smoke and mirrors.

DOE's Fake News When It Comes To Student Academic Achievement.

Since the election of Donald Trump as President, "fake news", is the news.  Be it from Trump himself , the Democrats, or the media, "fake news" is all the rage.  However, at the DOE, fake news has or misinformation has been the name of the game since the Bloomberg era and continues with Bill de Blasio.

What do I mean by fake news?  The graduation rate which is easily manipulated and fails to show real student academic achievement  is what I call fake news..  Every year the City tells the world that the graduation rate increases from the previous year  The latest is 72%.  However, ask any business or institution of higher learning what they think of the academic proficiency of the New York City graduates and you get a near universal response of how deficient academically these graduates are. In fact,  78% of all New York City high school graduates must take no-credit remedial courses in college.  Furthermore, the average New York City high school averages 37%  "college and career readiness" of the high school graduates.   Not an encouraging statistic if you ask me.  Exclude the 45 top performing high schools, most of them screened or specialized and the remainder of the high schools average closer to 22% for "college and career readiness".  A study by StudentsFirst lists the lowest 72 high schools in the City,  based on the 2014-15 school year. While I usually ignore the education deformer group, their numbers show how bogus the graduation rate  is when compared to real academic proficiency. I also wrote about the "diploma mill" high schools Here and Here.

The City high schools are full of easy credit "credit recovery courses", online instruction without a certified teacher instructing students such as APEX or PLATO, and administrative pressure on teachers to pass undeserving students by imposing scholarship requirements.  The result is that these  "diploma mill" schools with there phony graduation rates is a disservice to the students.

When you read in the newspapers that the City is improving the academic ability of their student population, remember its all "fake news"!

The DOE Finds 36 High Schools Abuse The Credit Recovery Program. Or Did They?

The DOE's task force on cheating quietly found that 36 high schools abused the "credit recovery" programs but in typical DOE fashion, refused to identify any of the 36 high schools and protecting wayward principals from public scrutiny.

Apparently, the DOE wrote a report that identified 36 high schools that inappropriately used the "credit recovery" program and recommended corrective action be taken.  However, the report has not been made public and without a detailed review of the findings there is little way to know if the principals of these 36 schools were found to have inappropriately give out "free credits" or that the abuses were minor and did not significantly affect the credit accumulation of the students involved?

The problem is that the DOE has so far refused to make the anti-cheating task force report available to the media or general public.  Therefore, one must take the report's conclusion with suspicion.  Maybe, if an independent task force had prepared the report, I might believe it.  However, the DOE has time and again found nothing wrong only to find major problems that the DOE ignored.

The Deputy Chancellor claims they were proactive but without a detailed inspection of the report and the data that went into the conclusions, there is no way to determine the accuracy and truthfulness of the conclusions.

Closing Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein Showed Lower Regents Passing Rates And More Credit Recovery. What Else Is New?

In a too little, too late report.  The City's Independent Budget Office (IBO) released a damming report on the quality of student education at six closing schools in Brooklyn and Manhattan back in the mid 2000's, during the heyday of the Bloomberg/Klein administration.  The IBO report shows that students at these six closing schools were less likely to receive a Regents diploma, took massive amount of credit recovery courses, and when tested for the Regents or the RCT received the minimum passing grades of 55% or 65% to earn credit to meet the academic standards for graduation.

We educators didn't need to IBO study to tell us the obvious.  I have been writing about the phony academic standards for almost a decade now and listed at the bottom of this article  are some of those posts. What I find most interesting is that the IBO study waited two years after Mayor Bloomberg left office to publish a study that uses data that is almost a decade old.  It appears to me the the IBO knew all along that the students of these targeted schools for closing were getting an inferior education and had the IBO dug further, they would have found that the Bloomberg administration was dumping the "high needs" and low achieving students into these schools to ensure the high schools fair and be forced to close due to poor academic statistics.

It''s no secret that the Bloomberg/Klein administration wanted to close the large comprehensive high schools and replaced by them with the Bloomberg small schools.  Just read the JD2715 blog and see the article by ex- UFT Bronx Representative, Lynn Winderbaum who wrote how the Bloomberg Administration made sure the small schools would have superior stats by exempting them from taking Special Education and English Language Learners, for the first two years and received wavers for more years thereafter to exclude "high needs" and "self-contained" students, while dumping them into the remaining large comprehensive schools to expide their eventual closure.  Most interestingly was how complicit UFT leadership was with the DOE in helping with the transition, especially Leo Casey.

While the IBO report is not a surprise, this report, hopefully is the first of many future studies showing that Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein did not care about the students.  It was all about their ideology and that was what was most important to them.

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Why The NYU Study On The Closed Schools, When Replaced By Small Schools, Is Fatally Flawed.

This week, NYU released a study showing that students fared better with the closing of the many large comprehensive high schools and replaced by the Bloomberg small schools. The basis for the study's conclusion was the increased graduation rate from the small schools when compared to the closed schools.  However, the study is fatally flawed since the graduation rate is a bogus parameter and easily manipulated by the school Principal to allow students to graduate academically unprepared for college and career.  Let's look at how schools manipulate the graduation rate.

First, a little history.  During the 2002-08 time period the study looked at 29 closed high schools and the results for future students who instead went to the Bloomberg small schools which showed a 15% increase in the graduation rate.  However, the study admits that students who fled these closing schools did worse then the ones who stayed and graduated,  Moreover, these students who fled were academically behind their peers in the new schools they transferred to.

Credit Recovery:
During the time period the study covered there was an explosion of credit recovery courses that artificially increased a struggling student's credit accumulation.  Even the State finally saw the abuse of the credit recovery system and required the City to put an end to it in 2012.  The primary beneficiaries were the Bloomberg small schools who needed to have a high graduation rate to show how successful they were.  Therefore, they gave struggling students loads of "credit recovery" courses, many of them were bogus.  You can read some of the stories, Here, Here, and Here.

Principal Pressure:
The Bloomberg small schools were notorious in hiring "newbie teachers"  and since these teachers lacked tenure, they were pressured to pass along the school's struggling students.  Teachers who failed too many of their students were discontinued due to scholarship issues and were banned from working at the DOE.  This message resonated loud and clear with the inexperienced staff and resulted in high graduation rates despite these students academically unable to succeed in college or careers.

Student Selection: 
To ensure the Bloomberg small schools would succeed they opened with some very significant advantages like excluding many ELL;s and Special Education students the first few years of their operation.  Further, they limited "high needs" students (namely level 1's) and were given 110% of the resources allocated to the school of similar size and student demographics.   These significant advantages were, in contrast to the higher levels of "high needs" , ELL's, and Special Education students that were in the soon to be closed large comprehensive large schools.  Moreover, these soon to be closed schools were starved for resources and averaged 80% of what similar large comprehensive schools received.  The Bloomberg small school I am in for this year is a prime example as they were once a high achieving school in the mid 2000's, when it first opened.  and now they struggle to get even mediocre, students to go to the school as their funding advantage disappeared and they could no longer exclude students. The resulting influx of "high needs" students has destabilized the school environment.

When you put the three aspects together, the bogus "credit recovery" programs, Principal pressure to  graduate academically unprepared students, and the deliberate advantages that the Bloomberg administration bestowed on his newly created schools, you basically are getting a higher graduation rate at these small schools, when compared to the closed large comprehensive schools.  However, what's more telling is the low college and career readiness scores that show that many of the Bloomberg small school are graduating students who are unprepared for college or careers in the adult world. That's why the NYU report is fatally flawed.

The DOE Claims That Credit Recovery Credits Are Awarded Less Often. Do You Believe Them?

The DOE has found itself on the defensive as the abuse of the "credit recovery" program resulted in schools ignoring the stringent requirements and offering students an easy way to accumulate credits known as "easy pass".  After denying schools were committing academic fraud, the DOE, under intense media pressure, finally admitted that some schools were not following the rules. The Chancellor, clearly embarrassed after claiming that the accusations at John Dewey High School were unsubstantiated, only to admit that she was wrong, set up a group of her cronies to investigate the use of "credit recovery" and to take action if necessary.  Now it seems that the DOE claims that there is less "credit recovery" credits being awarded by the schools.   Do you believe that?  I don't and here's why.

The DOE press release omitted the fact that their statistics were based on schools "self reporting".  That's right, instead of the DOE requiring schools to report their "credit recovery" statistics and the type of "credit recovery" programs they used, the DOE only requested that schools voluntarily report the information.  In the DOE's age of accountability and data mining that has resulted in a bloated Bureaucracy, yet the DOE did not even bother to use their staff to audit the schools for the amount and type of "credit recovery" used.

The question is why didn't the DOE use its vast resources and expertise to determine the extent of the abuse of the "credit recovery" program?  The answer is simple.  The DOE choose not to know.  In other words they were able to use the "plausible deniability" defense when allegations were pouring in about the academic fraud used  to  raise the bogus graduation rate. Better to claim that there is no problem if you ignore the issue.  For the DOE it's not "children first" but to raise the graduation rate by any means possible and if that means academic fraud, so be it.

The Corrupt Investigations Continue.

Throughout the New York City high schools the pressure by school administrators to increase the graduation rate has resulted in academic fraud by graduating academically unprepared students by any means possible.  This is not an isolated problem identified in John Dewey and Flushing high schools but is widespread throughout the New York City school system.  Despite the more stringent "credit recovery" rules that the State requires and the DOE promised to implement, the DOE looked the other way as these abuses continued.

Even when, under media scrutiny,  the DOE will drag their feat in investigating "credit recovery" fraud.  Worse, is what's happening at Richmond Hill High School.  After the DOE was caught in a blatant lie that no teacher of the school was allowed to re-grade the Regents, it turns out that the school administration hand-picked some teachers to re-grade the Regents with predictable results.  What did the DOE do?  They sent SCI investigators into the school on the pretense to gather evidence to the potential cheating scandal but quickly morphed into a "witch hunt" to identify the whistle blower(s) who dared embarrass the DOE and even sent them to their homes!

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case, both OSI and SCI are really not interested in investigating administrative misconduct and many of their investigations seem to morph into identifying whistle-blowers with evidence obtained against the teacher used for disciplinary action.  To see how the two agencies work look at my corrupt investigations posts.

I do not or cannot trust these investigations and neither should you. You should never willingly talk to these people without a lawyer if its SCI and a union advocate if its OSI because whatever you say will be used against you since its not about the truth.

Academic Fraud Is Common In The New York City High Schools.

I once wrote about how few students were "college ready" especially in poor and minority communities and was criticized by some for using a metric that really didn't determine the academic abilities of the students and their school.  While they may have a point the reason I used the "college and career readiness"  metric is because it cannot be easily manipulated by school principals unlike the graduation rates and credit accumulation metrics, the hallmark of the Michael Bloomberg era.  It seems now that Mayor Bill de Blasio has replaced Michael Bloomberg as Mayor of the City, the media has decided to question the "credit recovery" and graduation rates as if this was only an issue in the last two years and under Mayor Bill de Blasio.  Be it that it may, academic fraud has been around for the last decade when it came to the New York City high schools.

Its common knowledge that many of the New York City high schools have been using "credit recovery" programs that lacked "rigor" and even real instruction to pass along students and give them easy credits.  In fact, the State was so appalled by the bogus "credit recovery" programs the New York City high schools were using that they forced Chancellor Walcott in 2012 to make significant changes to the "credit recovery" programs and the abuses were to stop.  Remember this outrageous action?  how about this one?  And who can forget this? Of course the DOE looked the other way when schools apparently ignored the new standards. The result was many academically unprepared students were graduated despite not having the skills to succeed in the adult world.

In school after school I hear stories of undeserving students being graduated out by the use of bogus "credit recovery", Principal pressure, grading policy, and manipulating attendance.  Many "Leadership Academy Principals" demand an 85% passing rate, including students on a teacher's roster who refuse to attend class.  When the teacher objects, he or she is refused tenure or is given poor observation grades.  Moreover, attendance figures were manipulated in such a way as to show the student attended class when the student did not.  Finally, many principals require a minimum grade of 55% this ensures that if a student can pass a marking period, they can receive a passing grade for the entire year.  Its a wonder that the New York City High School graduation rate is not higher?

In today's New York Post we find another instance of the DOE looking the other way when it comes to Regents cheating and again Superintendent Amiee Horowitz is linked to having a school's teachers regrade the Regents.  After denying that a school's teachers were regrading the Regents, an email was published showing that at Richmond Hill it directed three teachers do do just that.  The DOE response?  Dead silence.  Is it any wonder that 78.3% of the students who go to CUNY have to take remediation?  What about the students who were pushed through without even the opportunity to develop the academic skills necessary to be productive adults?  To me this is academic fraud and the administrators involved should not only be fired but go to jail.

Academic fraud will continue in the New York City high schools regardless of who is in charge of the New York City schools until more stringent and academically appropriate rules are implemented in the future.

Chancellor Carmen Farina Fails Yet Again.

With much fanfare, educators in New York City looked forward to a new era now that Michael Bloomberg and his non-educators no longer were in charge at the DOE and installed policies that made teaching in the New York City classroom a more hostile environment.  Unfortunately, very little has changed when Mayor Bill de Blasio placed Carmen Farina in charge of the New York City schools.  Ms. Farina has basically followed the Bloomberg era policies and the few things she actually changed, like the elimination of the Children First Networks, and criteria for the Leadership Academy were the ideas of her arch nemesis,  Eric Nadelstern, who allegedly pushed her out and into retirement back in the early years of Chancellor Joel Klein's tenure.  When it came to other Bloomberg era policies, like the ATR crisis, fair student funding, education on the cheap, and large class sizes, nothing changed.  Yes, she gave Superintendents back their authority but some of her picks smacked of cronyism and not competence.   One of her primary goals was to remove the 400 principals she believed should not be running their schools.  However, saying it is one thing, doing it is another and in this she has failed miserably.

Take the latest travesty, the removal of Principal Kathleen Elvin of Dewey High School in Brooklyn.  Despite pleas from Dewey staff and allegations of credit accumulation fraud that resulted in a suspected large increase in graduation rates, Chancellor Carmen Farina failed to remove the Principal.  Interestingly, Principal Elvin was selected by then Superintendent Amiee Horowitz, who apparently ignored complaints by Dewey staff about Principal Elvin and her questionable policies before she moved on to head the renewal schools program.  Yes, the same Amiee Horowitz that discontinued a highly competent Science teacher who reported Regents cheating at her school.  The story is Here.

As far back as when Carmen Farina took over as Chancellor, she was apparently informed of the problems at John Dewey High School but chose to ignore it.  Instead, it was the John Dewey staff that contacted SCI, who dumped it to OSI for review.  OSI apparently sat on the case for over a year as the DOE was hoping the issue would blow over and let the Principal continue her reign of terror on veteran staff and the bloated graduation rate that made the DOE look like their policies were successful.  However, the Dewey staff, sensing that little was going to happen if they let OSI sit on the investigation, took it to the WCBS-TV and the New York Post who blow the phoney "credit recovery" program wide open.  The "credit recovery" scam was known as "easy pass" by students and staff alike and was a joke.

Interestingly, the DOE leadership kept the Principal in place, despite the media onslaught and Chancellor Carmen Farina even said that most of the accusations were unsubstantiated!  However, the media pressure was unrelenting from both WCBS-TV and the New York Post and OSI had no choice to complete and publish the investigation.  What was their conclusion? That much of the "credit recovery program" was a sham with no instruction and work that consisted of packets that in many cases were not completed.

Confronted with the overwhelming evidence of "credit recovery" fraud, Chancellor Carmen Farina changed her tune and now says that she has removed Principal Elvin and will fire her..  It only took eighteen months after the Chancellor was informed for Farina to very reluctantly remove Principal Elvin.  If she was a teacher how long would it have taken to remove her?  Probably one day.  As we see the DOE "double standard" remains alive and well under the disappointing Chancellor Carmen Farina who protected the Principal for eighteen months as too many students were graduated, unprepared academically and shows once again that she has failed the students of the New York City schools.

The John Dewey Easy Pass Saga Continues As Students Graduate Unprepared Academically.

After a year and a half OSI investigation of grade fixing and phony credit recovery courses at John Dewey High School in Brooklyn.  The investigation is still ongoing which is very puzzling to me.  In fact, according to the Daily News, Chancellor Carmen Farina claims that the OSI investigation has failed to substantiate many of the allegations logged against Principal Kathleen Elvin and her administration but that the investigation is still ongoing.  I guess the ten teachers who cooperated in the OSI investigation exposing the grade fixing and phony credit recovery is not proof enough that academic fraud is being perpetrated to artificially increase the school's graduation rate at the expense of the student's education.

It seems that the school's "easy pass" system is geared to give struggling seniors essentially free credits so to graduate them despite being academically unprepared.  Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News exposed this in his article back in April and showed massive fraud when it came to awarding credits.  I also summarized the problems at John Dewey High School in my May post as well.  Since then the local CBS affiliate has reported that the DOE has decided to "circle the wagons" and protect the school's administration while allowing their highly questionable credit recovery system called "easy pass" by critics to artificially inflate the graduation rate. In fact, the local CBS affiliate has claimed that the Chancellor refuses to talk about why she has failed to remove the school's Principal and has now employed a personal bodyguard to shoo away their reporters who wanted her to explain her decision to leave the school administration in place.

It seems that the Principal Kathleen Elvin is very vindictive and according to the New York Post retaliated against staff by giving half the school's teachers failing grades.  Of the 101 teachers on staff, 16 were rated "ineffective" and 35 were rated "developing".  By contrast, only 8% of the teachers citywide were rated "ineffective or developing".  Interestingly the school was rated "effective" on the State tests but the terrible observation reports lowered the teacher evaluation grades.  One teacher was quoted that "She has a personal vendetta against the teachers and is using the observations as a weapon against the teachers to force them to leave or retire".  Interestingly, in the school snapshot a majority of teachers do not believe that the Principal is an effective manager and the union grievance director called the poor rating a "red flag".

This is just another case of a bad Principal being protected by the DOE and a Chancellor that can't see the forest for the trees as the OSI investigation drags on with no report of the alleged educational fraud at John Dewey High School in Brooklyn..

When It Comes To Credit Recovery, It's Still The Same Old DOE.

I have been following the disgusting "credit recovery"  saga at John Dewey High School in Brooklyn where another terrible "Leadership Academy Principal" , Kathleen Elvin, has been abusing her authority and has a bogus graduation rate.  Despite an OSI investigation that has been completed,  the DOE has done nothing about disciplining the school's administration. The school came on the radar after the New York Post wrote an article questioning the significantly higher graduation rate at the school.

Now it turns out that the Principal and her administration has been graduating students who didn't even bother to go to class and violated the "credit recovery" requirements that the State and City agreed on back in 2012.  A prime example was "student King"  (not his real name) who Juan Gonzales of the Daily News wrote about in his article.  The student, who apparently never went to many of his classes was allowed to graduate by taking massive amount of "credit recovery" online courses, all at the same time!   This violated the State and City "credit recovery" requirements that limited students to only three credit recovery courses in the core subjects during their high school career. What did the Principal do that violated the "credit recovery" rules?  Let me count the ways that "student King" was allowed to graduate without showing that he obtained adequate academic skills.

• Failed to attend class but was still allowed to take online credit recovery courses.
• Did not have teachers licensed in the subject area he was allegedly supervised in.
• Never was tested to show mastery in the subject as required.
• Took 7 "credit recovery" courses in core subjects just in the Spring.of 2014.
• Took 11 "credit recovery" courses while also carrying a regular load of 9 other courses in the last school year.
• Received credit for 5 courses in the same "0" period, with no teacher.
• Received credit for 6 courses after school in the same Spring semester.

Despite an OSI investigation that was completed last school year, the DOE and the disappointing Chancellor, Carmen Farina, has taken no action and remains silent on the apparent abuse of the ":credit recovery" rules.  This  brings into question the graduation rate of the school and the methods used by the Principal and her administrators to increase the phoney graduation rate of the school. Worse, despite the end of the Bloomberg era, when it comes to DOE policy making, its still the same old DOE, complete with their "double standard".

Here is what one student thinks of Principal Kathleen Elvin on Ratemyteacher.com.

Why The NYC Graduation Rate Does Not Reflect Real Academic Achievement.

With much fanfare, Mayor Bill de Blasio and his disappointing Chancellor, Carmen Farina, took credit for an almost 3% increase in the high school graduation rate.  The graduation rate has improved from 61.3% to 64.2%.  Statewide, the graduation rate was 76.4%.  Sounds like we are on the right path in improving student academic achievement? Wrong! the graduation rate is being manipulated and this is reflected by the college readiness scores, be it the State or City definition of "college and career readiness" (Citywide college ready is 32% and lower if you use the State's college ready scores).  How is the City's graduation rate manipulated?  Let me count the ways.

Credit Recovery:  This is one of the best ways schools have used to add empty credits to a failing student's transcript.  While the State forced the DOE to crack down on the awarding of credit recovery courses, the abuse continues throughout the system. 

Principal pressure:  In most every school I go to teachers complain that the Principal demands a passing grade for 80% of the students on the teacher's roster.  Otherwise, the teacher will be rated poorly.  I personally experienced it at Flushing High School in 2012.  Moreover, a school's grading policy allows a student to fail most of the year but pass the class at the end if they get a passing rate in any one period by limiting the failing grade to 55 and no lower. Remember this attempt?  Take a look at the 65% bulge at a school and the bigger the bulge the more likely the students who were granted a passing grade were academically unprepared for the adult world.

Alternative Settings: Many struggling students who are in danger of dropping out are sent to alternative settings such as transfer schools, YABC programs, and massive online courses through APEX or Castle learning.  These settings are simply used to give students who would otherwise have not graduated an opportunity to graduate.  While I understand the need for such programs, it does devalue the education requirements.  Moreover, that doesn't make them academically prepared for the real world of a career.

It's nice that the graduation rate is improving but when it comes to real academic achievement I have my doubts that many of these students graduating are academically ready for either college or a career. The pushing out of academically unprepared students by giving them phony diplomas and expect them to become positive role models for the next generation that desperately needs them is wishful thinking and a failure to properly address the issues of poverty, family, and community that's the major problem in our City.

Another Reason Why The Bloomberg Graduation Rate Is Bogus. - Grade Inflation

Most real educators snicker when Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Dennis Walcott, and the news media brag how the graduation rate rose over the Bloomberg years.  The truth is that the graduation rates rose not because the students were getting a better education but because of artificial means used by the DOE and principals. While most educators point to the extensive use of bogus "credit recovery courses " and the poor "college and career readiness rates" of these high school graduates, one thing that does not get enough publicity is "grade inflation".  Yes, many principals not only pressure teachers in passing students who don't deserve to pass by requiring their teachers to have a minimum class passing rate of 80% or higher but require teachers who do fail a student to limit the failing grade to an artificially high value.  A prime example is the often maligned Flushing High School.

On the Ed notes Online blog a Science teacher Mr. Ok  Seung Young  has published his three letters of complaint to top DOE officials who have refused to take action against Principal James Brown's outrageous grading policy.  Yes, the very same James Brown who was cited in the New York Post and my blog for his misconduct, including charges of "sexual harassment" and was found guilty of the misconduct by a jury in court but seemed to get a job with the DOE anyway. These letters can be found Here, Here, and Here.

According to Mr. Ok Seung Young, Principal James Brown has decreed that no student can get a grade lower than 55, even if they don't show up!  In addition, the grade is worth only 33% of the final grade which can allow the administration wiggle room to use "credit recovery" and other dubious methods to artificially raise the failing student's grade to passing by year's end.  In other words, the student need only show up for one of three marking periods and do the required work and get a passing grade along with some artificial grade inflators, unbelievable!

If Principal James Brown's bogus grading policy is allowed to stand, which seems to be in violation of the New York State grading system, then what kind of education are these students actually getting?  That's right its "junk education"!  What kind of message are we sending to employers allowing students who fail to show up and don't do the necessary schoolwork by giving then a bogus diploma.  Is it any wonder that New York City employers complain that many high school graduates lack the proper skills and work ethic to succeed in the adult world? If you are a employer, would you hire a Flushing High School graduate knowing that the awarding of the diploma may be tainted? It's a real pity that the Bloomberg administration is more interested in the bogus graduation rate than the real education necessary for our students to prepare for the real world.

Principals Abuse The Credit Recovery Program To Achieve Artificially Higher Graduation Rates The Data Shows.

The Department of Education released figures on how much "credit recovery" increased the citywide graduation rate.  According to the DOE the graduation rate increased by 1.7% due to "credit recovery" (Gotham Schools found it to be 2.6% for schools who had a credit recovery program}.  However, a closer look at the numbers showed that dozens of high schools had over a 5% increase in their graduation rates due to "credit recovery". 

One of the most egregious examples of the abuse of the "credit recovery" system was at the Mott Hall V in the Bronx that reported that an astounding 46% of the credits earned by the ninth graders in 2011 came from "credit recovery" and in the latest data from 2012  an astounding 26% of the school's high school students obtained credits from "credit recovery" programs, third highest in the City. The Principal blamed the budget for not having enough teachers to give the students the classes and students abusing the system to earn easy credits.  Maybe had he tried to hire experienced ATRs rather than the "newbies" he so dearly loves to employ and whom ended up leaving the school during the school year, it might have been different but that's a story for another time.

Since the 2012-13 school year "credit recovery" has been restricted and under the new regulations the principals can no longer abuse the program, or so they say (seeing is believing).  Is it little wonder that the college remediation rate is so high for our students and what value is there for a New York City diploma for those schools where "credit recovery" artificially boosted a school's graduation rate and  where credits only required a student to sit on a computer for a week and answer some multiple choice questions?

Will these principals be punished for abusing the credit recovery program?  Don't bet on it.  It's "children last"....Always.

There Are No Excuses For The Continued Educational Failue By The Bloomberg And Walcott Administration As New York City SAT Scores Fall.

Hammer another nail in the coffin of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's claim that he is the education mayor as NYC student SAT scores fall while the State showed marginal gains.  According to the New York Post the SAT scores dropped from the 2011 scores.   While the drops were small, it proves that the Bloomberg/Walcott education policy has been a failure since New York City significantly lags behind the State when it comes to SAT scores.  These 2012 SAT score comparisons are listed below:

........................Reading..............Writing............Math.........Total
NYC...................434....................430................461..... ....1,325

STATE...............518.....................490................518..........1,510

Nationally 43% of the nation's students achieve SAT scores of 1,550 which is the benchmark to be "college and career readiness".  New York State students appear to be slightly above the national average.  However, the New York City student "college and career readiness" number is an abysmal 20.7% and the SAT scores seem to support that number.

Let's see all the educational failures that the Bloomberg/Walcott Administration occurred under their tenure.

• Flat or falling SAT scores.
• Falling "college and career readiness" values.
•  Suspect graduation rates that required State oversight
• Bogus "credit recovery programs" that required a more rigorous procedure and use.
•  An unacceptably high College dropout rates.
• An unusually high College remediation rate.

This ignores the selective starving of some schools of adequate resources and funding to feed the Bloomberg small schools which have a ridiculously low "college and career readiness' rate of 11% and are nowhere close to being successful..

It is very obvious to any independent educational observer that the Bloomberg Administration is a failure when it comes to improving education.  Worse, when Dennis Walcott became Chancellor he promised parents that he would include them in the process, unlike Joel Klein..  However, the result is quite the opposite and parent voices and concerns are actually being ignored by the Bloomberg/Walcott Administration.  The latest is allowing selected schools to give out injectable birth control to girls (plan "B") as young as 14 years old without parent approval or knowledge. I guess the DOE is just waiting to pay out large sums of money when the first 14 year old girl dies or is seriously injured by being injected without parental consent.

Overall, the Mayor and his pet poodle, the Chancellor will go out with an educational policy a failure and we can only hope that the next Mayor and Chancellor include teachers and parent6s in the process if there is to be educational improvements. Top down imposed policy has shown not to work and a more inclusive process with wraparound services is the key, especially in an urban area where 30% of the students come from poverty and an additional 50% come from low income households.

More Proof That The Bloomberg/Klein/Walcott Administration's Education Policies Have Failed The Students.

New York State released last year's graduation statistics and it was not good news for the Bloomberg Administration as the bogus four year graduation rate actually dropped, despite the continued use of phony "credit recovery programs".  The actual graduation rate slipped a tenth of a point to 60.9% in 2012 from 2010.  By contrast the other major urban areas in New York State saw a 6% increase for 2011!  What is worse for the Bloomberg Administration is that the more accurate "career and college readiness rate" actually went down significantly, from a terrible 21.4% level in 2010 to an even more terrible 20.7% score for 2011. Worse yet there was a lower black graduation rate which dropped two tenths of a point to 60.4% while all other groups saw slight rises in their graduation rate this year. So much for narrowing the student academic achievement gap.

The 2011 numbers include the last group of seniors who can graduate with a local diploma which means that the four year graduation rate is expected to go down by 10% or more for this year's high school graduates.who must pass the Regents.  Moreover, with New York City also making "credit recovery programs" much more rigorous and limit the amount of courses allowed, that should allow an even further drop of the four year graduation rate for next year (2013) to below the 50% threshold.  Just in time as the Bloomberg Administration leaves office with a deteriorating school system and lower student academic achievement.

The DOE attempted to spin the disappointing data by claiming that more students achieved the more prestigious Regents diploma and that the newer schools had better graduation rates then the schools that they replaced. However, based upon the 2010 statistics the "college and career readiness scores" were lower than the large schools the are replacing.  The UFT's Jackie Bennett in her December 7th, 2011 article showed how poorly the new small schools (opened since 2003) prepared their students for college.  The analysis by Ms. Bennett was startling with all the small schools lagging behind the large school in their "college and career readiness scores".  Can you imagine if the small schools took their fair share of self contained special education and English Language Learners what their already low scores would be?

As for the better graduation rates at the small schools?  Of course it's better because of the massive amount of phony "credit recovery courses" that their students take and let's not forget these school's failure to take the most needy of students (self-contained special education and English Language Learners) and counsel behaviorally and/or academically challenged students out of their school by claiming a lack of resources for the student.

Overall the 2011 student data just shows that the flawed Bloomberg education policy is a failure.  Way to go Bloomie in your "children last" policy.

It Is Not Only in New Your City That Bogus Credit Recovery Programs Artificially Raised High School Graduation Rates.

On Wednesday I was watching the PBS "Education Nat6ion" in which Shelbyville High School in Indiana improved its graduation rate from 75% to 90% and proudly claimed a success.  How did the school, who was featured in Time magazine's dropout nation", do it?  Better course selection,  smaller class sizes, encouraging students to stay in school?  Well, it was none of them.  It turns out that students who didn't want to go to school was offered a "credit recovery program".

While some "credit recovery programs" have rigorous requirements and are limited to one or two courses yearly, many of the "credit recovery programs" lack such rigor and in many cases is bogus when it comes to student academic achievement.  At Shelbyville, they interviewed one student who, by his own admission got "F"'s throughout his high school career.  Now he goes to the local community college when he feels like it and takes all his courses online.  He just loves it, no seat time, no teachers, and he can take the online test as many times as he likes until he passes the course.  How long does it take him to finish a course that is supposed to represent a year of learning?  How about a few days!  It is no wonder he loves the online course alternative to school.  Another teen, a single mother who had a baby at 13 also was interviewed and bragged how she can go at her own time and finish a course in a week going part time.  When the interviewer asked the Director of the program he claimed it took two months to complete an online course.  Who do you think I believe?  Not the Director.

Yes, "credit recovery programs" may artificially improve the graduation rate of the school but what of the graduates who exclusively used "credit recovery" to obtain their phony diploma?  What the interviewer didn't ask was "credit recovery" the reason for the 15% increase in graduation rates? Probably.  Better yet, what happen to these "credit recovery" students once they received their bogus diplomas?  Did they go to college?  I highly doubt it, did they achieve a high paying job so they can raise a family? Doubtful, or did they continue to struggle and blame society to their own failures. You can guess what I think their future will be.

The New "Credit Recovery Rules" Should Result In Schools Releasing More Realistic Graduation Rates" Starting Next Year. At Least I Hope So?

Quietly,during winter break, the DOE released new rules on the "credit recovery program". These rules will put a major crimp in many schools who rely on their bogus "credit recovery program" that result in an artificially high graduation rate.

Thanks to the always informative Jeff Kaufman, the actual rules are found on page 23 in the Feburary 23, 2012 DOE paper. I have been told the revised "credit recovery program" has three major components that schools failed to apply when they offered "credit recovery" to just about every student they can push out of the school. The three major changes are as follows.

• Students must have at least a 67% subject attendance rate to qualify.

• Teachers must recommend the student for the "credit recovery program".

• Students can only earn three credits in core courses based on the use of "credit recovery".

Furthermore, the "credit recovery program" must consists of real instruction not the phony three page essay or a trip to a museum, with no proof that the student actually went. Remember this story? If that doesn't outrage you, How about this story? More recently, is the story of ex-Principal Sharron Smalls. Now "credit recovery" will consist of intensive and targeted instruction by a teacher and online courses must come from an approved DOE vendor that demonstrated the online course is rigorous and meets State and City educational requirements. It still is possible that a school committee could overrule a teacher's recommendation but must document why and put their own positions at risk if the students should not have received "credit recovery".

I believe that this is what a real "credit recovery program" should be. However, many principals will do whatever it takes to artificially increase the graduation rates by any means possible. Remember this outrageous action by the Jamaica High School Principal? Therefore, the only problem I see is what happens when school principals ignore the new DOE rules and allow for the bogus "credit recovery program" to continue? Will the DOE actually enforce the "credit recovery rules" and punish the principals? Only time will tell.