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9486 in the collection
In Brooklyn, Low Grade for a School of Successes
Mr Cantor, a spokesman for
the city's Department of Education, defended
the city’s new school report cards as “the most
sophisticated accountability system in the
country...."
So much for the growth model.
By ELISSA GOOTMAN
A respected Brooklyn Heights elementary school
so popular in its gentrifying neighborhood that
it has doubled enrollment since 2002 is set to
get an F in the second year of the Bloomberg
administration’s heavily contested system of
grading individual schools, renewing questions
about the methodology behind the grades.
The school, Public School 8, was once avoided
by the well-off residents of neighboring
brownstones but has been the paragon of a
turnaround tale in recent years, leading Mayor
Michael R. Bloomberg to declare in 2006 that if
the rest of New York’s schools made similar
strides, “the future of this city would be
assured.”
This year, at a July 29 news conference
announcing plans for an annex to accommodate
the flood of students wanting to attend P.S. 8,
a parade of public officials praised the school
and its principal.
Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein said, “You
have built a very successful school here,” and
Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott added, “You have
done a monumental job in both recruiting as
well as maintaining a school where parents want
to send their children.”
The letter grades are based on a complicated
formula that gives the most weight to
children’s progress from one year to the next
and compares the overall number meeting state
achievement standards to the number at schools
serving demographically similar populations. As
a result, the report cards can label even a
seemingly successful school as a failure.
When the first round of report cards was
unveiled last fall, there were some
counterintuitive results and many complaints,
but now, P.S. 8 could be the most highly
regarded and popular school to receive an F.
Last school year, 67 percent of its students
passed standardized tests in English and 83
percent in math, and many who know the school
said such a grade would be misleading and
preposterous.
“It’s a real indictment of the grading system
if it takes a school that is improving rapidly
and is already doing pretty well and brands it
with an F,” said City Councilman David Yassky,
whose district includes P.S. 8.
“It used to be that every summer I’d have
parents tell me they’re moving out because
there was no decent elementary school for their
kids to go to,” Mr. Yassky said. “Now they’re
staying in Brooklyn Heights at least through
the fifth grade. The resurgence of P.S. 8 has
kept a lot of young families in Brooklyn
Heights, and it’s been just a tremendous boon
for the neighborhood.”
Seth Phillips, who has been principal of P.S. 8
since 2003 and participated in a prestigious
fellowship program last school year for
outstanding principals at Columbia University’s
Teachers College, declined to comment.
Principals were notified of their expected
grades but were ordered not to discuss them
until they are announced, which is expected
next week.
David Cantor, a spokesman for the city’s
Department of Education, said P.S. 8’s grade
was based on its failure to move its students
forward over the past year at a pace
competitive with similar schools and the system
as a whole.
“The basic responsibility of a school is to
enable its students to master standards and
improve on their performance,” he said in a
written statement. “Although some students
performed well, P.S. 8 largely failed at these
tasks last year.”
Mr. Cantor defended the city’s new school
report cards as “the most sophisticated
accountability system in the country,” and
pointed to results of a parent and teacher
satisfaction survey, which counts for 10
percent of a school’s grade.
While parents’ responses on the survey at P.S.
8 were overwhelmingly positive, parents at
other schools were even more positive. Mr.
Cantor said the survey results showed that the
“community has significant concerns about its
learning environment.”
As for the chancellor’s comments during the
summer news conference, Mr. Cantor said: “Now
that he has additional information about the
school, his view has changed. The most
important things about a school are student
progress and performance, and in those areas
this school isn’t measuring up.”
The city’s grading system, which helps
determine staff bonuses as well as whether to
close schools or remove principals, was devised
by a team led by James S. Liebman, a Columbia
University law professor who serves as the
department’s chief accountability officer.
The system is markedly different from the
system used by the federal No Child Left Behind
law. That system looks at the portion of
students overall who are performing at or above
grade level, as well as within subgroups such
as race and special education, and it judges
progress by comparing this year’s third
graders, for example, with last year’s.
In New York City’s formula, the largest factor
in determining a school’s grade, 60 percent (up
from 55 percent last year), is based on how,
say, this year’s fourth graders did compared to
their third-grade scores, an analysis known as
a “growth model.” Student performance — median
scores and how many passed the test — counts
for 25 percent, but is calculated not in
absolute terms but by judging each school
against schools citywide as well as against 40
other schools with similar demographics. In
addition, 5 percent is based on attendance, and
10 percent on the surveys.
New York also gives credit to schools that make
progress with the lowest-performing students,
even if they do not succeed in bringing those
children up to standards, and examines whether
schools are moving the highest achievers to new
heights.
Last year, P.S. 8 received a C — which Mr.
Phillips, the principal, described as
disappointing in a letter to parents that took
issue with the grading system and schools that
emphasize test-taking over enrichment
activities.
“It is my professional and personal opinion
that this grade does not reflect our school and
the work we do,” wrote Mr. Phillips, 45. “This
grade will give us food for thought, but it
will not change the way we move forward into
the future or alter our core values.”
The main reason for P.S. 8’s poor grade is that
its year-to-year improvement on the tests,
fewer than two points overall, was far
outstripped by the gains in its peer group and
schools citywide. Across New York, the portion
of elementary school students meeting state
standards rose to 58 percent in 2008 from 51
percent in 2007 on the English test, and to 74
percent from 65 percent in math.
Also contributing to the F grade was P.S. 8’s
rapid change in population. A quarter of the
students now qualify for free lunch, compared
with 98 percent in 2002, and more than half the
students are white or Asian-American, up from
11 percent in 2002. Most of these changes are
happening among the youngest children, before
tests begin in the third grade.
Eighty-nine percent of last year’s
prekindergarteners at P.S. 8 were white, for
example, as were 60 percent of kindergarteners,
49 percent of first graders and 54 percent of
second graders. The test-taking grades — 3, 4
and 5 — were 27 percent, 31 percent and 19
percent white, respectively. Throughout the
country, there is an achievement gap between
black and Hispanic students and their white and
Asian counterparts.
As the demographics changed, test scores shot
up, but most of the change came between 2002,
when 32 percent of the students met state
standards in English and 26 percent in math,
and 2005. For the last three years, scores have
improved more slowly, with about two-thirds
passing in English, and 71 percent, 81 percent
and 83 percent in math.
Several P.S. 8 parents suggested that the F
said more about the grading system than the
school. They cited events like the annual read-
a-thon fund-raiser, an art program that
culminated in student work’s being showcased at
the Guggenheim, and the school’s recent
selection as Brooklyn’s Rising Star Public
Elementary School for 2008 by Manhattan Media,
a publisher of weekly newspapers.
“To me this kind of grading system seems
inadequate to express the education that’s
occurring within an entire school, and in fact
becomes quite detrimental to the education
process,” said Joanne Singleton, co-president
of the Parent Teacher Association.
“When you walk into P.S. 8, the children are
smiling, they are happy to be there,” she
added. “They are comfortable in the school
environment, they are comfortable interacting
with their faculty, and it is truly a community
of learning.”
Robert Gebeloff contributed reporting.
— Elissa Gootman
New York Times
2008-09-12
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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