The New York Times published a page one story about the closing of the Jonathan M. Levin High School in the Bronx. The school was opened ten years ago to commemorate the life and tragic death of a young teacher who happened to be the son of the CEO of AOL Time Warner. He was murdered by some of his students, who came to his apartment (he let them know that they were always welcome), murdered him, stole his credit cards, and his ATM card.
After a promising start, the school went into decline. As in most other closing schools, most of its students are black, Hispanic, poor, English language learners, and/or in need of special education. Where will these students go? If a school closes because it serves so many needy students, who will take them?
I received an interesting analysis from an educator in NYC.
He writes:
A story published on Thursday in the New York Times profiled the Jonathan M. Levin High School, a school in the Bronx that is about to be shuttered after being deemed failing. As is becoming more and more common in New York City, replacement schools are themselves being replaced. This school was established only ten years ago to replace a large comprehensive high school that was deemed failing. New York City education bureaucrats defended the decision by claiming that other new schools in the very same building supposedly have comparable student populations while “getting dramatically different outcomes.” They somehow forgot to mention that the school in the very same building with the most similar student population, The Academy for History and Citizenship for Young Men, is also being shuttered. That school has the lowest incoming students test scores (in other words the test scores of the students before they even entered high school were well-below grade level) of all the six schools in the building. Want to hazard a guess as to which school has the second lowest? Would it surprise you that the answer is “Jonathan M. Levin High School?” New York City also publishes a “peer index” for each high school, which is supposed to account for student demographic factors. Which schools do you think have the lowest and next to lowest “peer indexes” in the building? Would it surprise you to find out that it is the same two schools in the same order?
The New York Times kindly included some graphs that were supposed to show that the closing Jonathan Levin High School was failing while another high school in the building, Bronx Collegiate Academy, was succeeding with very similar students. But they somehow forgot to include a table showing student attrition at the “dramatically different outcomes” school. I will give those numbers (the underlying data can be found here): 134 students entered as freshmen in 2006, but there were only 84 seniors in 2010. Over 37% of the students were lost. 122 freshmen entered in 2007, but in 2011 only 85 seniors were left. Over 30% missing. 117 freshman entered in 2008, but in 2011 there were only 86 juniors. Over 26% of the students disappeared in only 3 years. Another way to look at this is to realize that in 2009-10 the school should have had 496 students if they had actually held on to them, but instead had only 391. 105 students gone missing. You would be right to wonder who these students are and what happened to them, Want to bet that these were students who weren’t doing well? And that they were encouraged to go elsewhere. So instead of serving as evidence of a school doing better, the New York Times should have realized this is evidence of the con-games and deceptions schools feel forced to pull in this high-stakes accountability era to make their numbers look good. But there is no underlying educational improvement, just lots of data-driven gaming of the system. In fact, students from the failing school attend college at a 7% higher rate than do students from the “dramatically different outcomes” school.
Let’s look at the bigger picture. In 2003 Taft High School, a large comprehensive school in the Bronx was closed. 10 years later, out of the 6 schools that replaced the failing school: 1 is phasing out, 1 should have been closed already based on the official criteria after having received a “D” on 2 school progress reports in a row (officially a single D or F opens a school to closure), 1“is seen as being on its last legs” according to the New York Times story after having received 3 C’s in a row on its progress reports (3 C’s in a row being the other official criterion for closing a school), 1 school is a screened school and therefore only admits students that have performed at or above grade level in middle school, 1 school, as we have just seen, somehow manages to disappear huge chunks of their students, and the Jonathan M. Levin school is about to be shut down. Nonetheless, Mayor Bloomberg still plans on continuing this charade and his appointees in the New York City Department of Education pretend that closing and opening schools really improves education for students.
Let’s look at one more set of numbers to see how widespread such charades and games are in New York City. The high schools that New York City is in the middle of closing have, on average, about 25% special education students, 13% special education students with the most challenging disabilities, 2.40 Math/English incoming test scores (a “3” represents grade level), and a 1.46 “peer index” (to give some context, Stuyvesant High School has the highest “peer index” in the city of 4.01). Non-selective high schools in New York City as a whole have, on average, roughly 19% special education students, 8.1% special education students with the most challenging disabilities, 2.65 Math/English incoming test scores, and a 2.00 peer index. It is clear that, as has been pointed out again and again, failing schools are not really failing. They are, however, taking on challenges that other schools, supposedly more successful ones, are not. And what about the new schools that are replacing the failing schools? Are they as a whole working with the same challenges? The data suggests that the new schools have managed to employ and numbers dodge and are educating a relatively privileged group of students. They educate, on average, approximately 17.5% special education students, 6.7% special education students with the most challenging disabilities, 2.75 Math/English incoming test scores, and a 2.15 “peer index.” So the new schools as a whole have managed to avoid educating the students with the heaviest needs that the failing schools educate (approaching 10% fewer high needs students in every conceivable category). On top of that they have managed to select students who come in with less challenges than all other non-selective city schools as a whole. Yet the education reformers want us to believe that a charade like this represents genuine progress!
That the education reformers are willing to gloss over the truth is somewhat understandable. They are driven by ideology and not facts. By dogma and not by empirical evidence of what works best for kids. But citizens have the right to expect that the Federal Government would serve as an objective check and look behind the smokescreen. Unfortunately, in the current political climate that is not happening. The U.S. Department of Education is encouraging these sorts of tricks. Hopefully, in the near future, before much more harm is done to students, we will be able to focus on truly improving education for all children through genuine reform and not mere chicanery.
With just a few notable exceptions, this blog among them, media coverage of education truly exists in an alternate universe.
By what conceivable standard of governance, after closing over 120 schools they’ve been responsible for over more than a decade, can these people’s record be considered anything other than a failure of historic proportions? Yet, the so-called reformers are still allowed to control the narrative. Their overwhelming, catastrophic failure is touted as their success.
It’s time not to just speak of arrogance, incompetence and misguidedness – there’s plenty of that – but of venality and malevolence expressed through institutions that have been taken over by people who seek, with faux progressive rhetoric crafted in PR shops, to monetize every child/ data set, control every classroom, and appropriate every nickel from the schools.
Just as the most fevered paranoia about the financial industry was shown to be understatement over the past decade, so too will corporate, so-called education reform be revealed as the plunder and class antagonism it fundamentally is.
Don’t know where to insert this comment… We should be clear on some terms here. “Community-based Education Reform” should be what we’re all about. This is in contrast (and in opposition to) “Corporate-based Education Reform”. I don’t like to give people the impression I am against, “education reform” because I’m not. We can’t let the corporate reformers, however, co-opt that term.
So in short, the press needs to know that “education reform” by itself doesn’t mean anything, as the “movement” has split into two: the “Corporate Reformers” and the “Community Reformers”.
Sound good?
Yes, it sounds good, Joan. Anthony Cody kicked off the new year with a column analyzing the differences, “The Education Reform Dichotomy: Big Choices Ahead.”
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/01/the_education_reform_dichotomy.html
There’s a funny back and forth in the comments about what the corporatists want to be called.
I agree with you, Joan. That’s why I consistently refer to them as “so-called reformers,” although “usurpers” is probably a better term.
Diane recently asked what we thought we should be called, to distinguish ourselves from corporate sponsored “reformers” ,and there were a lot of great responses, but I really like this the best. It’s such an important distinction and one that I think we should all try to make, so it reaches the popular press and they start reporting on the actions and differences between the two camps using distinctive names for each group.
I do have one concern though. “Corporate Reformers” sounds like people who are out to reform corporations. I know, like that’s ever going to happen… But, it could be confusing to the masses, since the common terms “Education Reformers” and “School Reformers” imply some like this. Thus, I would prefer “Corporate Sponsored Reformers” to describe them and “Community-based Reformers” to describe us.
Well, that’s why we have a long-form and a short-form. The latter is for people who already know what you are talking about. The long form above was, “Community-based Education Reform” and “Corporate-based Education Reform”. This will get shorted to “Community vs. Corporate”…
Sounds great. It’s a good dichotomy to take back the term reform. Good job.
Thank you for doing that statistical work to see if they were telling the truth or not. They do this because, in my opinion, no one checks and they can just say anything. You are doing a great job of bring a taste of reality to the discussion which has nothing to do with where they are coming from.
Every time I hear about “failing schools” or “education reform” my head starts to pound. I saw this train wreck coming when they were laying the tracks 20 years ago. It started with the big lie: all kids are created equal, only the teachers are different.
In addition to the “peer index” being so high for Stuyvesant High giving them a huge advantage, there is also the widespread cheating that was reported last year. Seventy-one students were caught cheating on the NY Regents exam and many current and former students acknowledged its existance. A 2010 graduate, who gave her name, stated that cheating is a “necessary evil.” So, coming from an advantaged socio-economic status isn’t enought?
“The numbers don’t lie”.
No, they don’t. It’s the people who manipulate them that lie.
Shameful manipulation by NYC BOE and NYT.
Worse, what happens to the students? After all, this is all supposed to be for their benefit, right? What happens to these kids who are pushed out, counseled out, or whose school evaporates under their feet?
I teach in a Campus building with four magnet high schools, and now two of them are being phased out. These schools replaced Andrew Jackson High School in Cambria Heights, another failing high school. More than 80% of the students are reading at Level 2 and doing math at about the same level or worse. They come here with few skills and little proficiency and then we are expected to make them college-ready.
One of the soon-to-be-closed schools is a Law magnet. At one time it offered Moot Court, mock trials, hands-on forensic lab, and trips to governmental agencies. It attracted good students with a desire to be in law enforcement, and some actually went on to law school. Due to lack of funding, however, these non-Regents courses have been cut and the result was a lack of students selecting this magnet. So the school was re-populated with students who weren’t accepted anyplace else, the kids just out of juvie, and the recent immigrants with language issues. Is it any wonder it’s closing.
The Business magnet is going to close as well. Though they have an excellent program on paper — Virtual Enterprise (which won national contests), business accounting, computer skills, business management — their quality of student is so poor that their graduation rate is 47%. Like the Law magnet, Business served as a dumping ground for “unwanted” students.”
One school that is not closing, but has gotten a C two years in a row is the Math magnet. Because of unhappiness with the new Principal, two social studies teachers quit their jobs after the 2nd marking period — in the middle of the semester — and the Principal cannot find replacements. Ten social studies classes (or about 70% of our student population) have been without regular instruction for the whole 3rd marking period (though they will eventually get course credit). But they have learned nothing. Just yesterday I found out that another teacher has “walked out” and two more have decided to retire early. Guess what’s going to happen to this school.
The one school that is almost thriving is the Humanities magnet and there are good reasons for that. Though the student population is the same as in the other schools demographically, as well as in terms of reading and math levels, what the school offers allows it to attract a different kind of student — the touchy-feely ones who like to act, sing, dance, draw, paint and create. This school is requested by many students and the Principal gets to choose who attends — after all, It’s more than readin’, ‘ritin’, and ‘rithmetic. These students are better behaved, get into fewer fights, and actually make it to graduation. Credit has to be given to the outstanding faculty and a Principal who really nurtures her teachers. This school received a B two years in a row.
Did I mention fights? Because of the poor academic performance of the great majority of the students in the Campus, because of a lack of understanding of the importance of their education, and because they come from a culture that breeds violence, fights are a common occurrence. The building has been on Impact twice, and after being off it for two years, is now going back on the Impact list. The violence here is overwhelming and the suspension list if two pages long.
And Bloomberg, and his toadie Walcott, think that closing the schools and opening two new ones (yes, that’s what they’re doing) will fix the problem. There are none so blind as those who will not see.