Current Issue # 4

50 New York Schools Fail Under Rating System

By ELISSA GOOTMAN and JENNIFER MEDINA
Published: November 6, 2007
Presented by: njeanjacques
Summary:
The authors state in this article that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel I. Klein praised the new rating system as an accurate measurement of good schools by identifying their weaknesses and strengths. According to the powers that control education, the system will be used across the country not only to evaluate schools but also to determine principals' and teachers' bonuses in the future.
The “A through F” rating system which uses a complicated and fuzzy calculation to assess individual student’s performance and progress in a year’s time. It also compares schools with "similar populations”. Schools that score a D or F risk closing or their principals could be fired.The results have surprised many parents in affluent neighborhoods in the city where popular schools that have played a pivotal role in the immediate real estate market had scored B’s and D’s.
People from different level of involvement in the issue have expressed their opinions, sometimes with anger.
Jan Carr, a mother whose son’s coveted school scored a C, blasted at the Chancellor, in a letter;” The way you treat our educators is part and parcel of the way you treat our students - … demoralizing them with meaningless scores.”
Anny Diaz, a mother of two children whose school received an F, said” get out, are you sure they didn’t make a mistake”.
The principals aren’t united on the issue. While some feel humiliated, others see it as a reward for their “ difficult work”. John Hughes, a principal at MS 201 in the Bronx that scores an F, declares that the grading system would force him to teach to the test. He will have to give the department what it wants: higher test scores.

Relevance to my teaching.
My school scores an A, as most empowerment schools do. I cannot say that we are better than those that score low, because our vision is for all schools and children across the system to succeed. Principals and teachers from failing and passing schools have the same dedication and goals. Some are working under dire circumstances to provide an education to their students. This grading system will not work in the best interest of the students; rather, it will destroy all the efforts to implement alternative teaching and assessment methods that are so important to children education in the 21st century. The Department of Education is functioning in the 19th century mindset of memorizing and pencil and paper tests that are so "Passé" and archaic. The implications from this fuzzy grading system will further exacerbate the situations at the failing schools which will lose funds as a result of students’ migration to other schools.

School Report Card
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/education/20071105_SCHOOLS_GRAPHIC.html