Today's Daily News praises the city's 70% Graduation rate. What a joke. It is a mystery to me and every other teacher why none of the so called reporters never bother to investigate why this graduation rate keeps going up. And, since they never report the truth behind these rates I will do so here.
Increased graduation rates work on the see saw principle, one side goes up while the other goes down. Put a heavy weight on the down side to keep the other rates up. Heavy cheating raises rates. Education in NYC high schools is becoming non existent. When a special education student with a kindergarten reading and math levels suddenly scores 80's on regents exams something is very wrong. A look into any community college will see too many classrooms filled with remedial students.
Cheating is rampant, not only in special education, but everywhere. Credit recover programs, boot camps and other nonsense programs raise percentages but do nothing for education. It is time for newspapers to look at why graduation rates are going up instead of praising meaningless numbers.
2 comments:
So sad that no one will step up to look at the reality of these numbers! Everyone know what is going on but teachers need their numbers for their own ratings and jobs. I work in a school where the passing rate for students with special needs has increased rapidly over a few years-does anyone do any math?
There is no way that the media will ever dig into these fake phony numbers. The various publishers, editors, and broadcast executives will never allow the legacy of their buddy Bloomberg to be tarnished.
This post about how the numbers are phony is dead on. This doesn't include the more subtle ways they pressure people to give out passing grades. For example, ten years ago when the analyzed your passing rates, LTAs & no shows were never counted against your "passing percentages". So, if you have a first period class, and you have 8-12 of these students, you're cooked. Even if you teach a PE class with 50 students, when are constantly pushing for a 75-80% passing rate, you can see the box you are put in, from day one. That doesn't include the kids who say, "it doesn't matter what kind of work I do, you have to pass me". If you think that this doesn't happen (even in the best of schools), you are either in denial, or a fool.
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