Today's JG article about the high school ECA's, coming well after the elections naturally, is pretty much on target about the miserable state of our high schools. The high schools are at the end of the line, where the rubber meets the road, so to speak and show the effect of socially promoting half our students through middle school. What the article didn't contain were the individual scores. Although no FWCS high school looks good, the LEAD schools are awful especially in Algebra I, where NSHS LEADs with 32% passing, followed by Wayne at 20% and SSHS at 19%.
In FWCS' defense the ECA's are harder than the GQE's they replaced (just as the spring 3-8 ISTEPs were easier). The state dropped 6% in both math and English vs. the GQE's, but even after adding 6% to FWCS scores they would still be bad. Well at least we won't have to endure another unctuous press conference, just the usual blather by Krtista Stockman.
We have two new board members now, Julia Hollingsworth and Lisa Olinger who actually know what's going on in our classrooms. Whether they can bring the rest of the board into reality remains to be seen. And the reality is that, even if everything went well at lower grade levels, it would be a decade or more before the LEAD high schools would come back. If I were GiaQuinta, I would be begging Tony Bennett to take them off Wendy's hands.
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Equally apparent is the social promotion policy that continues throughout the high school years. Having recently read that 6 out of 10 North Side High School students pass their math/Algebra I course, it was infuriating to read here that only 32% actually pass the Algebra I ECA—that ‘other’ graduation requirement! Compounding the stupidity of that policy is the total lack of remedial classes designed to retain and enhance subject knowledge prior to retaking failed ECA requirements—another set-up for failure.
Course grades don't mean anything and are routinely inflated to get kids to "pass". That's why we need the standardized tests. The course passing % should match the ECA %, but principals won't let teachers flunk too many kids, because it doen't look good. They matched up better with the discontinued GQE but it was easier, so now they have to readjust the grading. Too bad they can't readjust the kids' performance.
I've tutored in algebra classes where I would have flunked every single kid in the class. But it wasn't my class.
I didn't heat that ECA's were a graduation requirement. The GQE's were supposed to be but kids who couldn't pass them graduated on "waivers".
I was told by NSHS guidance that ECA waivers will not be given as previously allowed, period. Instead, students pursuing a Core 40 diploma (the new standard) can retake ECAs—without remedial help, mind you—until one "acquires" senior class status or drops-out of the process.
Yes, grades are routinely inflated; though, it’s my understanding that it’s done in order to keep costs down. It costs more for a student to retake a class, or for that matter to be given a remedial class, than it does to allow them to retest.
I is my understanding that beginning with the class of 2012, students must pass the algebra and English 10 ECAs to graduate. No waivers? That is a step in the right direction. On the topic of remediation, I know that geometry students at NS who did not pass the algebra ECA are in a computer lab twice a week to improve their algebra skills (well, not all students, just the "bubble students").
you can read more about bubble students at http://hollingsworthforschoolboard.com/?m=201010
GQE waivers (yesterday’s stopgap) would have been an effective means to the intended end IF social promotion had been concurrently stopped. That was not the case and the result was disastrous.
Allowing students to retake ECAs (today’s stopgap) without concurrently providing automatic remediation for every student is another set-up for failure. (I’ll skip expressing how obscene it is to learn that some students will be given essential remediation while others are deemed expendable… )
When a school's existence and possibly your job depend on test scores, administrators cook up some crazy things.
Noting that Wayne was suppose to have the super bright kids, in their New Tech program, one has to wonder why their scores were the lowest, with only 1 out of 5 passing. Seems to me New Tech is just a waste of money!
There are only 200 kids in Wayne's New Tech program. Their test scores may be higher than the rest of the student body, but not enough to bring the whole school up.
Kids were allowed/required to take the GQE five times to get them to pass. In the schools south of Coliseum 20% of the "graduates" never passed it and were given an "alternate path to graduation" (waiver). A couple of years ago Wendy told a reporter that passing the GQE was "not an issue" for any students. Sounded like Mayor Daily was back.
I'm told that "New Tech" has no prerequisites. So a kid who can't read or do math will still get in. I've also heard that teachers will do the work for them. But the district can't afford to admit failure here. It looks good when the governor come around.
Maybe most of the "super bright" New Tech kids took algebra in 8th grade? If so, their scores would not show up in Wayne's results.
This is a problem for which the state as of yet has not found a solution.
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