Lies, Damn Lies and Then There Are Statistics

On vacation, listening to my husband snore away and I am still agonizing over my crappy geometry regents results. Statistics can be played with many ways and finally I decided if I look at them from a different angle they might not look so bad.

1. 97% of my students showed up to take the exam--even the two kids who had been absent almost all term. I'm proud of them for making the effort and attempting the exam. Other teachers might have discouraged them, I didn't.

2. 87% of my class in June was the class I started with in September. I held on to almost all, in hopes that they would make it through.

3. 50% of the kids that should have been dropped passed the regents. That makes 10 more kids on their way to an advanced diploma, kids that would not have made it if I went for the higher statistics and dropped them out.

4. 55% of the kids cared enough to spend the entire day in school the Saturday before the regents reviewing for the exam.

5. 67% would have passed if I did not inherit kids other teachers did not want.

6. 82% would have passed if I had dropped out the kids that were failing in January.

I could figure out the percentage of the class that never legitimately passed algebra and passed geometry, I could figure out the percentage of the class that managed to get a 65 by coming to tutoring every day, I could figure out stats tons of ways but nothing matters. The bottom line to all of this is that no one cares about anything, except the end product, unless of course you are the Mayor and you can use the stats anyway you like. President Obama would strip my tenure if he could. My stats sucked and I will just have to live with it.

You will never be able to hear that pin drop in my classroom and being able to hear that sound will not change anything one bit.

I Finally See The Light

It's official. I am the worst teacher in the department. I just received this e-mail from Mr. AP and he confirmed it. Our regents results were on it and he made sure to let me know where my classes came in.

Dear POd,

How are you? How is your summer so far? I finally figured out the stats and I would like to share it with you.

The last five teachers on the list had MG22R and MG22D class, mostly. [even one regular or honor class would have improved stats. All mine were R classes.] We know the kind of students you all had. I would like to thank you for working with each and everyone of them.

In September, we will work on how to get more of them to pass the Regents exam and more of them to pass with a grade of 85 or higher. We have to begin by making sure that one can hear a pin drop when you teach.

Regards to your family and enjoy the rest of the summer.

Code Rank Teacher Passing % % >= 85 Rank

MG33H 1 100.0 94.8 1.0
2 100.0 80.0 2.0

MG22C 96.7 34.4 1.0

MG22 92.9 33.3 2.0

MG22D 84.8 2.2 4.0

MG22R 76.0 6.0 3.0

1 100.0 57.1 1
2 98.3 48.7 2
3 96.7 34.4 3
4 91.4 25.0 6
5 90.8 31.6 5
6 88.2 32.4 4
7 85.7 20.0 9
8 80.1 24.1 7
9 79.6 23.9 8
10 69.3 8.0 10
11 60.6 1.5 11
12 60.0 0.0 12

Overall P % 82.4 31.3

Well, if Obama gets his way, I lose my tenure.

Too bad these result don't show seven or eight kids that were removed from other classes and put in mine because of conflicts with their teachers. Too bad they don't show the kids that should never have shown up to take the test, but did anyways. Too bad they don't show the kids that should have been dropped but were kept in the hopes of getting them through and the success many of them had.

So now that I officially suck as a teacher, it is understandable why I would be so against merit pay. So be it. I'll be gone before it is instituted in New York.