Was P.S. 8 Caught in an
Undeserved, Statistical Fluke?
By Mary Frost
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
BROOKLYN HEIGHTS -- It’s an Alice in Wonderland scenario: the faster you run, the behinder you get.
That’s the situation a public school in Brooklyn Heights, P.S. 8 – celebrated by the city, the Department of Education and neighborhood parents for it’s remarkable turnaround – finds itself in. The school’s failure to improve its test scores sufficiently – as compared to a theoretical “peer group” -- has led it to receive an “F” in the city’s much-disputed School Progress Reports grading system.
School Progress Reports, informally known as school report cards, are an assignment of a single letter grade based on a multitude of factors, but depend heavily on how much individual students’ test scores have improved since the prior year.
The DOE has not officially released the 2008 School Progress Reports to the city’s schools, but someone “leaked” P.S. 8’s failing grade to Elissa Gootman of the New York Times, and the firestorm of outrage is still building.
According to the Department of Education, schools that get low grades will face tough consequences, such as “leadership changes or closure.”
“The executive board of the PTA has already spoken,” said Joanne Singleton, co-president of P.S. 8’s PTA. “It’s very clear we stand behind Principal [Seth] Phillips, and we intend to make it clear to the Department of Education that he is the person to lead this school.”
P.S. 8 has been praised by the city’s Department of Education as a shining example of what can happen when parents, community and elected officials –and the Department of Education – work together to turn a failing school around – in short, an example of what DOE is doing right.
Just over a month ago, as the DOE announced that the city would build an annex to the wildly popular school, Schools Chancellor Klein told a crowd gathered there, “You’ve built a very successful school here.”
But that was last month. On Thursday, DOE issued this statement: “Principals will complete their internal review of the progress reports shortly and we will then release the reports. P.S. 8’s results will show that the school performed near the bottom of all schools citywide, particularly in the amount of progress made by its students over the course of the year. The school is sought after by many parents, but its scores also indicate that the community has significant concerns about its learning environment. The basic responsibility of a school is to enable its students to master standards and improve on their performance. Although some students performed well, P.S. 8 largely failed at these tasks last year.”
PTA co-president Tim Eldridge told the Brooklyn Eagle Friday, “Faced with a situation in which one of its best schools gets one of its worst grades, the DOE is electing to back its grading system rather than its school. That’s worse than pathetic -- it actually hinders progress.
“Now the school has a huge morale issue to contend with and hundreds of confused parents to deal with. This is actually taking time away from teaching our children.”
Statistical Fluke?
A school’s Progress Report is based on its score in three categories: student performance, school environment, and student progress.
Many parents across the city have long questioned the DOE’s methodology in computing the report cards. As student performance gets higher, the possibility of continuous improvement diminishes. One particular quirk of the grading system, in addition, may have been disadvantageous to P.S. 8.
DOE’s scoring method compares school performance to their “peer groups.” Peer groups are composed of schools that are similar based on the percentage of students at the school eligible for free lunch (the Title I poverty rate), student demographics, and other factors.
P.S. 8 however, being a school in transition, actually has two demographic groups: the older students who took the tests, and the younger students who flocked to the school after its change of administration several years ago. The older students have a higher level of financial need than the younger students, who mainly live in affluent Brooklyn Heights.
Brooklyn Heights resident Peter Flemming pointed out in an e-mail to the Eagle that while the DOE classifies P.S. 8 as a low-needs school, the older, tested grades at the school have a significant free-lunch enrollment.
This unusual demographic may indicate that the scores of P.S. 8’s high-needs children were being unfairly compared to the scores of a peer group made up of more affluent children.
A spokesperson from the DOE confirmed Friday that the demographics of all students at the school (not just the tested grades) were used to determine the school’s peer groups.
Many Doubts Raised About School Progress Reports
Last year many schools’ results were greeted with disbelief, as high-performing schools received mediocre grades on the report cards, and low performing schools received A’s. The Daily News noted one school — P.S. 35 in Staten Island — where 98 percent of the students passed the standardized math test and 86 percent passed the reading exam. Yet P.S. 35 received an F on the school report card because only a small percentage of the students showed improvement in test scores compared to the previous year.
At that time, DOE spokesman Andrew Jacob explained, “The schools that have a lot of students coming in at a high level are being compared with other schools which also have a lot of students coming in at a high level. There are very few schools where every student is at Level 4 in english and math. Most schools have room to improve.”
Oddly, the New York City school receiving the highest grade on last year’s Progress Report was Manhattan Bridges High School, on West 50th Street. Manhattan Bridges serves only immigrants recently arrived from Spanish-speaking countries who do not speak English. While only 39 percent pass the English Regents exam, the school scored an “A.”
Philissa, a commentor on the Inside Schools blog, agrees with the DOE’s emphasis on improvement. “Schools that are moving their kids forward despite starting at a disadvantage should be recognized for doing so. And schools that are ‘coasting’ because their kids are middle-class and school-ready should know that that’s not enough.”
But some worry that the high-stakes scramble for incremental improvement on the standardized tests could turn out to have negative consequences for schools already performing at a high level. Robert Pondiscio, a commentator on the Eduwonkette blog, says “It’s a virtual demand to eliminate everything but tested subjects from the curriculum.”
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© Brooklyn Daily Eagle 2008
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Just a reminder, though -- It’s not considered polite to paste the entire story on your blog. Most blogs post a summary or the first paragraph,( 40 words) then post a link to the rest of the story. That helps increase click-throughs for everyone, and minimizes copyright issues. So please keep posting, but not the entire article. arturc at att.net
