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TO: Dr. Clifford Janey, Superintendent, D.C. Public Schools (Tabset: 0.25) CC: President & Members of the Board of Education, DCPS DCPS Teachers & Concerned Parents FR: Erich Martel, Department of Social Studies, Woodrow Wilson H.S. April 2, 2006 DO NOT IMPOSE CHANGES IN EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM OR TEACHING METHODS THAT ARE NOT SUPPORTED BY EVIDENCE OF THEIR SUCCESS IN CLASSROOMS SIMILAR TO THOSE IN DCPS.The following excerpts from the MEP do not describe evidence; they describe uncertainty:
DO NOT INCREASE GRADUATION REQUIREMENTSA. What evidence does the MEP offer in support of this proposed change?
B. An Increase in Graduation Requirements Will Not "Strengthen the Academic Core." It will increase altered transcripts and "Social Graduation"(Keep the Graduation Requirements at 23.5 Carnegie Units; the 0.5 Carnegie unit increase in social studies should be balanced by a 0.5 decrease in electives) Do Not Increase Math and Science Requirements to 4.0 credits, each.Many math teachers find that they need to spend lots of time reviewing subject matter that students should have mastered before taking the core content of the Algebra I or Geometry course. The goal of more students graduating with greater math and science competency cannot be achieved by mandating what cannot yet be achieved in all classrooms. The large numbers of failures in math classes means that students will have to retake them. They would, in effect, be forced to remain an additional year in senior high school with a partial schedule. Some will drop out. Courses will be watered down and more records will be altered. Here is a good example of how one high school, Wilson H.S., permitted students to graduate by evading existing math and science requirements: Woodrow Wilson H.S.: Summary of Missing Math and Science Requirements in the Academic Records of Class of 2001 Students (n=78) and Class of 2002 Students (n=15):
Do Not Require "Senior Composition Project," 0.5 creditsThis requirement is covered in the new English-Language Arts Standards: Strand 5: Research (Grade 12) - It belongs in the grade 12 English class.
C. DO NOT IMPOSE THE "AMERICA'S CHOICE" OR THE 4x4 SCHEDULE ON DCPS HIGH SCHOOLS.The MEP's High School Design Appears to Be Lifted Right from America's Choice.DCPS just discarded the incomprehensible standards based on the "America's Choice" (NCEE) theme-based standards. Then, you correctly put us through the long process of redrafting superior subject area standards based primarily on the Massachusetts standards. Why are we now being pulled into America's Choice? Have you evaluated its performance (since 1999) in Bell, Cardozo, Woodson, Dunbar, Evans MS, Kramer MS, MacFarland MS and Kenilworth ES? The following charts show SAT9 scores since 1999 in these schools. Here are some statistics from the APDS website; first the NCE average for reading (Note: the 2005 data are for grades 10, 8, 5 & 3 only):
Next, the NCE average for math:
These were or still are America's Choice schools. Those that were AC schools for only two years should have been able to sustain the improvement. It's not clear from the data whether how widely the program was used in the school. The data above show mixed results, at best. Where improvement occurred, it wasn't sustained. The 4x4 Block Schedule is not supported by researchThe 4x4 Block Schedule creates the appearance of more learning time, by cramming learning that should be spread over time into long, compressed blocks of time. It is particularly bad for courses requiring sequential build-up of skills and ongoing practice, such as mathematics and foreign languages. English skills also require continuous practice, correction and expansion. This is the realm of the English teacher, which other teachers can supplement, but none can fully replace. Is this why the entire "Unwrapping the Standards" process was aimed at all teachers, so that all high school teachers will become de facto English teachers for one semester each year? The 4x4 is an excuse to make it easier to increase graduation requirements.The following excerpt is from an extensive collection of articles criticizing 4x4 block scheduling. It could have been written with the MEP in mind: http://www.jefflindsay.com/Block.shtml
Psychologists describe this issue as ["Massed" versus "Distributed" Practice]. See UVA cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham's article in the Summer 2002 American Educator (AFT), http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/summer2002/askcognitivescientist.html D. DCPS H.S. SENIOR GRADUATION RATES IMPLY LARGE-SCALE ALTERATION OF ACADEMIC RECORD AND SOCIALGRADUATIONThree weeks ago, I received from the Board of Education copies of the "official" lists of Woodrow Wilson High School June graduates for the years 2000 through 2005. Although most people think that the "official list" of June graduates sent to the Board of Education is the same list printed in the graduation day program. They are two different lists and can differ from each other by as many as 65 names (2001) or as few (!) as 35 names (2004). Even these official lists are deceptive. In 2002, I reviewed the files of approximately 200 students whose names were listed in the June 11, 2001 graduation program. Seventy-seven had not legitimately completed Board of Education mandated requirements (altered grades, bogus). Sixty-eight of those names appear on the "official" 2001 graduation list that I saw for the first time three weeks ago, a "social graduation rate" of 34% (see Appendix for a description of the audit procedures employed, the variety of alterations and misrepresentations uncovered, and links to the news coverage). The cover page of each annual Wilson graduation list summarized the number of graduates reported by each DCPS high school. I compared the "official" number of graduates to each school's October senior enrollment count, located on the SEO website (www.seo.dc.gov). When placed next to each other (see Chart B, below, p. 8), the contrast is startling. Why? As my detailed, audit-level review of the Wilson H.S. Class of 2001 revealed, large numbers of students were certified for graduation despite failure to complete graduation requirements.
The Wilson H.S. statistics showed that 34% of the students whose names appeared on the "official" list of graduates were improperly listed as graduates, i.e. only 66% had legitimately earned the high school diploma (Note: The data I reported does not judge any teacher's grading policy. Were that the case, the percentage of legitimate graduates would be even lower than these numbers suggest.). The evidence from Wilson H.S. shows that a large number of students who were certified for graduation had not completed the Board's mandatory graduation requirements. Why can one assume from the Wilson HS evidence that this problem exists in other high schools? Denying teachers full read-only access to course and grade records conceals the most common violations. Teachers and the public mistakenly believe that altered grades are the main problem. In fact, fewer than 20% of the violations I reported were unauthorized grade changes, which a teacher is likely to notice and protest, except in schools where principals rule by intimidation. Like the hidden 8/9ths of an iceberg, most violations are "invisible" to the teachers, the ones most likely to protest. These "invisible" violations include:
As custodian of records, the principal has the authority to decide who can view students' records. Although the FERPA (Buckley Amendment) liberally defines who may review records,
E. Woodrow Wilson High School: Graduation Statistics, 1999 - 2005(Numbers of Seniors, Numbers of Students on the Graduation Day Program, Numbers of Graduates Sent to the Board of Education as the Official list of Graduates, and Senior Graduation Rate)
Note: The Official Graduation Lists Are Public Information Except for the 2004 "official" graduation list, the principal of Wilson H.S. did not make the graduation lists available to the staff. Specific requests for the 2005 graduation list were met with, "As I told you I will contact downtown to find out the publicness of the list" (6/28/05). Upon request, in late February 2006 the Board of Education staff sent me copies of Wilson H.S. graduation lists for 2000 through 2005. F. DCPS Individual High School June Senior Graduation Rates, 2002 - 2005(Senior Graduation Rate: Number of seniors in the October audit count divided by the number of June graduates on the "official" list of graduates sent by each school to the Board of Education.) "Graduation rate," as used by statisticians means the number of June graduates divided by the number of seniors in high school that year. The early October enrollment audit (conducted eight months prior to the June graduations by an independent contractor) dovetails with DCMR regulation requiring "Enrollment and regular attendance in the D.C. Public Schools for a minimum of eight (8) consecutive months prior to graduation" [5; 2202.1 (c)]. Although exemptions may be granted by the principal or Assistant Superintendent [2202.7], documentation should be in the students' cumulative records.
In March 2003, in response to reports of altered student grade records at Wilson H.S., an independent review of all 16 DCPS high schools' records was conducted Gardiner Kamya Inc. At Eastern High School (the MEP's proposed future Latin School), they reported:
Several months later (June 2003), according to newly released DCPS high school graduation reports (p. 11), Eastern reported 202 graduates, six more than the number of seniors on the October 2002 enrollment audit, an incredible 103% graduation rate! The "Independent Accountants' Report," released by DCPS in December 2003 (http://www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/030922b.htm), found student academic records in all 16 high schools "incomplete, inconsistent and unreliable [concluding that] tampering with respect to student grades may have occurred." The examiners determined that student records were "confidentially maintained," i.e. "only persons permitted by law to access the student's (sic) files were able to do so." This confirmed that the records were altered by those with authorized access, shielded behind the wall of student confidentiality. To this day, there has been no action taken to ensure that students' grades and the procedure for certifying students for graduation conform to the Board-Union Agreement (contract) and to Board rules (DCMR) governing graduation procedures. The August 2003 report of the "Student Records Management Review Task Force," set up to propose improvements in the integrity of student academic records, still awaits action by the superintendent. Its recommendation that each high school establishment of a teacher-elected academic records oversight committee is a key element to insure that grades and graduation will be secure against internal alteration. We are still waiting for the superintendent to implement its recommendations, especially one calling for the establishment of a committee of elected teachers with full read-only access to student grade records. This is the first line of protection against altered records and graduating students who have not met Board requirements. Failure to implement these recommendations should be understood as complicity with the violations of DCMR graduation requirements and the union contract. DCPS Enrollment Counts and Graduation Statistics, 1999-2000 through 2005-2006.Compiled from reports by DCPS and the U.S. Dept of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. DCPS ENROLLMENT NUMBERS BY GRADE LEVEL and SCHOOL YEAR The color coding allows one to follow a cohort of students (in this case, the size of the cohort) from one grade level to the next. Thus, for example, the number of students enrolled in DCPS grade 7 in SY1999-2000 (4,331), shown in black typeface, declined to 2,349 in grade 12 in SY2004-05. June Graduates - This figure represents the total number of June high school graduates reported to the Board of Education. Summer School graduates are not included. June graduates of Ballou STAY, Roosevelt STAY & Spingarn STAY are not included, since their ungraded results are not reported by grade level in the October audit.
Sources:"Public School Student, Staff, and Graduate Counts By State: School Year 2001-02"
October 5, 2001 Enrollment Audit October 7, 2003 Enrollment Audit
October 7, 2004 Enrollment Audit
DCPS, "Membership in the District of Columbia Public Schools By Grade, Race and Sex, October 7, 2003"
June Graduates: Board of Education of the District of Columbia, Statistical Summary of all DCPS June high school graduates (diploma recipients) for the graduating classes of 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005. SY2005-06 Enrollment data: DCPS, "All Students Succeeding" [MEP], February 2006; p. 18. ############### 1. "Report R325; [grade 12] Student GPA Ranking Report," 7/19/01"Rank for Seniors, 1999-2000," n.d.) 2. June 2001: 77 Students with missing valid requirements were listed on the graduation day program; 68 were listed on the official list submitted to the Board of Education. One additional student met graduation requirements, but had a grade of D altered to P[assing], in order to boost her Grade Point Average. 3. 363 - 68 = 295; if the approx. 188 unexamined student records had yielded a similar ineligibility rate, the number of seniors ineligible for graduation would have been greater than half the class. 4. June 2002: 15 Students were missing valid graduation requirements. 14 were listed on the graduation day program; 12 were listed on the "official" list sent to the Board of Education. The external review conducted by Gardiner Kamya & Associates, dated March 30, 2003, concluded that 12 of the original 15 did not meet graduation requirements. Of those 12 students, 10 were included on the official list of June graduates. 5. June 2004: 10 students' names were submitted to the principal; seven were allowed to graduate.
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