Well, Eduwonkette called it last Monday (and even had fun with a stats results pool): The DOE has delivered 2008 School Progress Reports cards to the city's schools, far earlier in the academic year than the November 2007 release. (Nomenclature alert: Progress reports are DOE measures; school report cards are products of the NY State Dept. of Education.)
Elissa Gootman's Times story leads with a failing grade for PS 8 -- the same school that Bloomberg praised when the DOE committed to building a new, multimillion-dollar annex to accomodate all the students flocking to the now-thriving school. The school's current F (after last year's C) highlights what critics call the Progress Reports' greatest flaw: More-than-majority weight on student academic progress -- measured by standardized test scores -- means that schools that start with more kids on or above grade level can show less 'progress' than more challenged schools. The reports weigh other factors, including parent and teacher satisfaction, but a 60% weight on progress could clobber other, quality-of-school-life measures.
The apparent contradiction -- major capital investment in an F school (which, if rules are followed, could risk eventual closure) -- forces the question: Don't the various departments of the DOE talk to each other? Parents have to wonder how a school can be rewarded and punished by the same hand. Parents who want to see scores for their child's school have to wait -- the 2007-08 scores are not yet posted on the DOE website.
Update: DOE sources say that someone in the school "apparently leaked" the score information. The 2007-08 Progress Reports will be released sometime next week. Stay tuned...
Please post comments