NYC Public School Parents: Many questions remain as to the reliability of the state’s new list of struggling schools and why some schools were taken off the list and others not

NYC Public School Parents: Many questions remain as to the reliability of the state’s new list of struggling schools and why some schools were taken off the list and others not

Many questions remain as to the reliability of the state’s new list of struggling schools and why some schools were taken off the list and others not

On January 17, 2019, Commissioner Elia released a new list of “struggling” schools under the new accountability system created by the state to comply with the Every Student Succeeds Act, that replaced NCLB in 2016.  As an article in Chalkbeat explained,

Eighty-four of the city’s schools are on the lowest rung — known as “Comprehensive Support and Improvement Schools” — and will be required to craft improvement plans approved by the state. The remaining 40 schools are only in need of “targeted” support and will face less intense oversight.

Yet the state formula used to develop this list of struggling or CSI schools is complex, confusing, and unreliable. Moreover, the Commissioner exempted certain schools that would otherwise have been identified as CSI schools through a decision-making process that is puzzling and obscure.

Thirty-eight in NYC and 84 statewide were designated as “good standing #”, meaning according to the spreadsheet that their “Accountability status is based on a finding by the Commissioner of extenuating or extraordinary circumstances”. Why certain schools were taking off the list of struggling schools by the Commissioner due to “extenuating circumstances” and others were not is nowhere explained.

There were at least two very controversial issues that repeatedly were raised by parents, teachers and advocates during the hearings and comment period that preceded the adoption of the ESSA state plan. First was how opt out students would be counted, which is an especially critical issue since about 20% of the state’s eligible students in grades 3-8 have opted out of the state exams every year since 2015.

NYSAPE, Class Size Matters and other groups opposed the state plan to count these students as having failed on the state exams – and instead proposed a different system, called Opportunity Learn index, which would measure whether schools provided their students with the conditions for success.
If test scores had to be used, as the federal law required, then we recommended that the scores of opt out student scores should be assumed as average for that school and their subgroup.

The state rejected our proposals, however,  and instead adopted a complex formula that incorporates two variables – one called the Weighted Average Achievement Index, which counts opt out students as having failed in terms of test score proficiency, and another called the Core Subject Performance Index, which removes them from the formula entirely.  These two variables are combined to create a Composite Performance Level, in a mathematical process that is difficult to understand. [See this memo that attempts to explain how the two variables will be combined.]

Sure enough, at least two highly regarded NYC schools, Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies (BCS) and Central Park East One (CPE1) both designated by InsideSchools as CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Many questions remain as to the reliability of the state’s new list of struggling schools and why some schools were taken off the list and others not