All five FWCS high schools on academic probation

In addition to the charter members of the IDE's bottom category SSHS, NSHS and WAYNE, the other two remaining FWCS high schools, Snider and Northrop, joined them last year by going on academic probation. Naturally neither the district nor the JG deemed this piece of bad news important enough to talk about it publicly. No gushing Mark and Wendy news conference. No apologist wailing by Karen Frisco. They could have legitimately claimed that the new high school test, the ECA, was more difficult than the GQE it replaced, which is true. The ECA's at FWCS were about 6% lower than the GQE's, which mirrors the 6% drop statewide. But then they would have been caught in a trap on their "improvement" on the k-8 ISTEP scores.

The IDE's recent review of NSHS and SSHS noted that FWCS seemed to be serious about reforming their high schools. That may be, but at the end of the day, they can't make a real and lasting improvement in the high schools until they improve the middle schools. How will we know if the middle schools are improving? When the district stops blanket social promotion through the middle schools and quits sending kids into high school unprepared. ECA scores will fluctuate. The state may "adjust" the difficulty but it only matters how they do relative to the rest of the state, so that's how the scores have to be viewed.

Social promotion in the middle schools is an admission of FWCS' failure to prepare kids for high school. They may be serious about improving the high schools in the face of a possible state takeover. But nothing the Superintendent, the board or the JG says about progress can be taken seriously until blanket social promotion stops. It's just more hollow rhetoric for public consumption. If they want to show us they're serious, they have a way to do so.