Over the past few days, the New York Post (owned by Rupert Murdoch, who hates public schools and loves charter schools) has been flogging a scandal. The Post published a story by a young woman who said she got a high school diploma from a New York City public high school when she should have been failed. She hated school, she skipped classes, she should never have been allowed to graduate. Then the Post “discovered” that many students were graduating by taking “credit recovery” online classes, where they could make up for a failed course in a few weeks. In other words, the soaring graduation rates of which the Bloomberg administration boasted, are fake.
But the Post didn’t want to blame Bloomberg, whom they regularly hailed for expanding charters and cracking down on the public schools. They wanted to blame Mayor Bill de Blasio, whom they frequently ridicule as a hapless fool, and his schools chancellor, Carmen Farina.
Here is the sordid story, told by Perdidostreetschool blogger. The story is told by Harris Lirtzman, former Director of Risk Management for the New York City Retirement Systems in the NYC Comptroller’s Office from 1996-2002 and former Deputy State Comptroller for Administration from 2003-2007. Lirtzman was an untenured teacher in the Bronx from 2009-2012 and was pressured to pass unqualified students to boost the high school graduation rate to at least 70%. That was the target.
Credit recovery became widely accepted during the Bloomberg era as a way to raise graduation rates. The New York Post applauded Bloomberg’s reforms, especially charter schools, but they ignored the use of credit recovery to inflate the graduation rate. Many critics–such as Leonie Haimson–complained about credit recovery, but they were ignored by the Department of Education and the media. In 2011, she testified about credit recovery and other means of playing with data to make the graduation rate go higher. The New York Post didn’t report her testimony or show any subsequent interest in credit recovery. What the Post–or the New York Times– should do now is an in-depth investigation of credit recovery. When is it valid, when is it not? How many students rely on simple online courses to make up for semester-long or year-long courses that they failed? Which firms are profiting by supplying this quick fix? Some might justify credit recovery by saying that it is better for the student to have a high school diploma that was obtained through credit recovery than to be a dropout. If so, let’s have that discussion.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When everything is about stats, the stats get juked. It’s really that simple. It’s almost like those who worship at the altar of data don’t understand (or care) that the system can be gamed.
My school is under pressure to have our suspensions and detentions relatively equal in terms of ethnic groups. We were put on notice for disparities. Amassing tardies meant detentions. Now, we don’t use detentions for that. Tardies are the same but, hey, problem solved!
“When everything is about stats, the stats get juked. It’s really that simple.”
YEP, a big YEP that bears repeating YEP!!
If it would better for a H.S. student to have a diploma gained through credit recovery what would be the point of working hard for the diploma without relying on credit recovery? (High achieving students aside.) I witnessed students telling one another to not worry about failing a course since credit recovery would be MUCH easier being essentially a “gimme” credit.
I teach in SC and we have the same pressure. Credit recovery was sold on the idea that sometimes kids slip up and this would be a way to keep them from dropping out. What wasn’t said out loud was what everyone thought–that the recovery was more about our graduation rate (which impacts our “score” as a school and district) than about what was beneficial for the kids. Now several years in, the kids are savvy enough to game the system. They can only qualify for credit recovery (and make up a year’s worth of work in a couple of weeks online) if they have between a 60 and a 69 in the course. Amazing how many of them do. Hmmm.
“I teach in SC and we have the same pressure.”
Can we get 50 states chiming in???
I teach in MO and we have the same pressure.
I teach in ____ and we have the same pressure.
Will Murdoch’s Post publish the role of Bloomberg’s education Chancellors in this purported scandal? Let’s hear about Joel Klein, Cathy Black, Dennis Walcott, who presided over the New York City schools during this time.
I find irony from with the movement for tougher standards and the associated gimmicks like credit recovery to hide the result of these education reforms led by amateurs. The credit recovery scam is needed wherever advanced mathematics is now a graduation requirement.
tultican: the “no excuses” “rigor & grit” crowd using every excuse to avoid putting their shoulders to the wheel in order to provide genuine teaching and learning?
Say it isn’t so!?!?!?!
😱
Next thing you’ll be telling us that charters don’t all get 100% graduation rates and that Michelle Rhee didn’t take “her” students from the 13th to the 90th percentile and that VAM isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…
Could it be that “Campbell’s Law” isn’t “Campbell’s Conjecture” as Dr. Raj “VAMania” Chetty averred in the Vergara trial?
I feel like the entire moral foundation of self-styled “education reform” is crumbling as you write and I read your comments.
😎
Atlanta Public Schools has been exposed for changing 1000s of students’ grades, from failing to passing, in order to graduate. Mandated increased passing rates, increased graduation rates and blame teachers if their madates do not meet the unrealistic demands? Yes, that’s it!
Another example of the Deform Movement squeezing the play-dough and trying to hide, cover up, deny and punish anyone who is related to the play-dough squeezing through and out of the fingers – reality.
Insanity!
As a former teacher of said school and Harry’s colleague from the same school, the minimum passing rate was 80%. I still have the school’s policy handbook as proof. It was unbelievably shameful how administration pressured untenured teachers to pass students especially the ones that had excessive absences or did absolutely no work in class. Even tenured teachers compiled with the ridiculous passing rate out of fear that she would give them a u-rated observation report.
Kudos to Harry for his excellent post in exposing the “credit recovery” scam since Bloomberg was in office.
It is true that credit recovery was widespread under Bloomberg — and that the high-stakes accountability system has created pressures on schools to juke the stats. Nevertheless de Blasio and Farina have done very little to improve learning conditions in many of the struggling schools –which include very large class sizes in most cases; and have ignored the complaints of teachers about the substandard practices and fraudulent credit recovery that continues to this day.
oops typo. “compiled” should be “complied”
I can see the benefits of a “credit recovery” safety net but not for just any student and not with any change in content or requirements. I believe that most teachers know their students and know which ones have some serious risk factors or extenuating circumstances. Sometimes illness, natural, and personal disasters occur. It happens. What should be in place is a course that is as rich in content and as challenging in assignments for those students. Student who don’t give a flip about school or who just don’t want to be bothered with the demands of a course should not be candidates for the credit recovery courses.
As for Steve K’s comment above about discipline stats, there is a lot of that going on in my school system. Sadly, the problems only increase without consequences for inappropriate behavior and the folks who lose out are the other students and the faculty who feel beat down on a daily basis. Sigh, the good old days really were pretty good after all in some areas.
In Chicago, data and attendance manipulation occur matter of course, because as other commenters have noted, data is now relied upon to inform school ratings, which beget money, which beget bogus PDs and interventions,which beget staying open: http://windycityteachers.blogspot.com/2015/07/cps-grade-and-attendance-manipulation.html
Wall Street banking and investment firms rate stocks of traded corporations as buy sell or hold based on quarter-to-quarter targets. If a corporation exceeds expected earnings, its stock price rises while if the corporation misses its target growth, the stock will be punished with a sell-off that lowers the value of that stock. By 2008 high level corporate executives had run so amok in falsifying their quarterly earnings to avoid financial punishment that the American economy crashed. What did Bloomberg do? He instituted the same system of faulty accounting in education whose only outcome must lead to corruption of data and false accomplishment. Now the same methods are used around the country and the results are in: education has been reduced to a system of corrupt bookkeeping based on immediate results.
Credit recovery and the “something for nothing” culture that Bloomberg created in the NYC public schools is destroying the children. This is especially true for high school kids who have spent the entirety of their schooling under Bloomberg’s watch. Their expectation is that they get their credits no matter what, even if they haven’t done one stitch of work in any given class. Changing this will likely result a drop in the almighty graduation rate, and schools will close. I feel for the teachers and kids. They’re between a rock and a hard place.
I wonder how much that young lady got paid for her story and who paid her?
I have always resented that pressure to pass students. And there is a lot of it, esp in TX where there are no unions.
Maybe she should offer to give the diploma back and be honorable?
“a story by a young woman who said she got a high school diploma from a New York City public high school when she should have been failed. She hated school, she skipped classes, she should never have been allowed to graduate.”
Well, if that is the case maybe she should have done the ethical thing and refused that diploma. The blame also lies with the students not just the “system”.
Or is that asking too much of a student?
Credit Recovery online is a joke. It is not at all comparable to taking and passing the actual class. It allows school districts to tout high graduation rates.
I think the infamous Central Falls High School implemented credit recovery to make its draconian “reforms” look successful. There was an article written about it by a local paper. If I find it, I’ll link it.
And what may be the foundational problem here???
Perhaps the concept of “grading” students with “failing” being the bottom indicator???
Quit using grades and failing as an pedagogical malpractice and use a cooperative, cooperative and responsive evaluation/assessment system that includes the teacher and students analyzing the student’s learning.
Who appointed/anointed this absolutely illogical and invalid concept of “grading” students as if they were a chunk of beef or eggs or fruit??????
Insanity is as inanity does!
This is a rehash of an idea I proposed years ago: Maybe it’s time to get rid of the diploma altogether. How about a “Certificate of Completion instead”. Students are registered for the required courses and get grades from 0 – 100 based on their performance. Whatever the final average is, it is recorded as the grade without a pass fail breakpoint such as 65. This would eliminate pressure on teachers to “pass” students and also eliminate pressure on schools to increase their graduation rates. Students receive a completion certificate with their final average by subject area and a comprehensive average. That would provide much more meaningful information for colleges or employers about the students.