Erich Martel
An open letter to Dr. Clifford Janey: why you should withdraw your proposal to increase DCPS high school graduation requirements
February 6, 2007

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WHY YOU SHOULD WITHDRAW YOUR PROPOSAL TO INCREASE DCPS HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS 

• The Master Education Plan provides no explanation or justification;
• It is based on NO analysis of students’ actual performance and, therefore, does not describe the real deficiencies and learning needs of our students;
• It employs an important-sounding, but meaningless and deceptive phrase, “to master the academic core,” to give the appearance of a proposal based on educational research.
• It is apparently designed to force all high schools into 4x4 schedules, which cram year-long courses into a semester and semesters into an advisory by shortening overall class time.

Your proposal to increase DCPS graduation requirements from the current 23.5 Carnegie units (a measure that refers to a two-semester credit) to 26.0 credits will undermine, not improve, teaching, learning and measurable student achievement in our schools. The permissive atmosphere in many of our high schools will get even worse. The obstacles it imposes, especially the increases in both math and science requirements from 3 to 4 credits, will create more high school drop-outs. They will also make our high schools more unmanageable – and more unsafe – by increasing the number of “internal drop-outs,” students still enrolled, but truant, tardy, with incomplete schedules, cutting class and roaming the hallways and disrupting the orderly school atmosphere that learning and mastery require. These long-standing and serious student behavior problems that drive parents to charters and teachers to better managed schools are ignored in your Master Education Plan (MEP). 

Unlike the research and analyses of the 1989 COPE Report that led to an increase in graduation requirements from 20.5 to the current 23.5, neither the MEP nor the Board’s Draft Resolution provides an analysis of how well DCPS students are mastering each of the current requirements. Instead of a sound explanation linking the increase to improved student learning, it offers vague and misleading promise that is without educational merit: “To ensure all students have enough time to master the academic core, we will raise the requirements in math, science and world history.” 

If the obstacle to learning is not enough time “to master the academic core” of each subject, the solution would be to provide extra time within each subject, but that’s not what is proposed. Nor is it documented. Since you were responsible for the adoption of our long-overdue and superior subject area standards, which are specific to each subject, you should have used the term “subject standards” instead of the slippery term, “academic core.” At a quick glance, it appears to be a reference to our subject-specific standards. But, it really implies that there is a single “academic core” common to all subjects, that can be mastered in any subject. Were that true, the solution might be to add more requirements. 

The 23.5 Carnegie units that DCPS students presently need for graduation are more than 41 states require, yet DCPS is still dead last in achievement scores. No state requires more than 24.0 credits. Moreover, as the 2005 NAEP grade 8 math scores and minimum state graduation requirements (attached) show, there is no discernable correlation between number of credits required for graduation and average state achievement scores (Excel sheet 2 shows states sorted by these NAEP results).

There is, however, no single "academic core” that can be gradually mastered from one subject area or subject to the next, since each has a specific core of content and skills. This is true of sequential courses in math and foreign language as well as in other subjects. A passing grade, including D-, should mean that the student has mastered the minimum “academic core” or standards of that course and is prepared to meet the standards of the next level. But when a student is placed in Algebra II/Trigonometry prior to mastering prerequisite Algebra I concepts, he or she will quickly fall behind. The teacher is then forced to spend time on remedial instruction, thereby penalizing students prepared for Algebra II. 

This lack of clarity undermines course standards and gives administrators an excuse to pressure teachers to pass students who haven’t mastered minimum course standards. It emboldens social promotion. 

The proposed increase ignores the extensive evidence in DCPS students’ academic records, easily accessible to you and your academic staff, that students are not meeting the current standards. This evidence includes:

1. Students’ recent history of performance on standardized tests (SAT9, PSAT, SAT, NAEP). In most of our general high schools, over 90% of the students tested Below Basic on the SAT9 math tests (through 2005). 
2. Students’ recent history in meeting the present course requirements, esp. in math and science;
3. The extent to which students are certified for the high school diploma despite missing requirements: I gave you reports of deficiencies in the completion of graduation requirements from the following Wilson H.S. graduation classes: 
   1. 2001: 77 students improperly certified for the h.s. diploma;
   2. 2002: 15 students, followed by the review conducted by Gardiner Kamya & Associates of all DCPS high schools and concluded that 12 of the 15 I reported had not completed all requirements: http://www.dcpswatch.com/dcps/030922b.htm and http://www.dcpswatch.com/martel/031228.htm
   3. 2004: 10 students; (I gave you summaries & documentation of a, b & c in our Nov. 2004 meeting
   4. 2005: 1 student: the principal admitted changing the teacher’s grade;
   5. 2006: over 180 students of the 420 students on the June 5 graduation day program. 

   I gave you complete summaries and supporting documentation of a, b & c in our November 2004 meeting. At the July 20, 2005 Board meeting, I reported the details of d to you and Board Members along with supporting documentation. The reports of the Class of 2006 were sent via email. In July 2006, you engaged the Office of the Inspector General of D.C. to conduct an audit of this class.)

4. The forthcoming report of the DC Inspector General’s audit of the Wilson H.S. Class of 2006. 

This past June, I reported to you that over 180 of the 420 Wilson H.S. seniors listed on the Wilson H.S. class of 2006 graduation day program were missing one or more graduation requirements. The official “List of graduates” submitted to you by the principal reported only 311 “Total Graduates,” including 90 with reported deficiencies, five of whom are currently enrolled at Wilson. Since math is one of the subject areas whose requirements you are proposing to increase, it is also the subject area with the greatest number of deficiencies and F’s. 

• 59 had fewer than 3 credits in math and 48 did not have 3 science credits;
• 92 earned 3 or 3.5 math credits, but 36 included less demanding summer or night classes, sheltered special education classes or pre-Algebra remedial courses;
• These ineligible seniors received 172 F’s in math courses and 159 F’s in science courses. 

The following charts compare the performance in math and science of two groups of Wilson H.S. seniors in the class of 2006: 

• Group 1: 166 of the 221 students who met all 23.5 mandatory Carnegie units for graduation;
• Group 2: 166 of the 199 students who were missing one or more mandatory graduation requirements in any subject area.

As you can see, the difference is stark and unsettling. Most of the students who completed all graduation requirements earned 4.0 or more credits in both math and science. Those who had at least one deficiency in any requirement were seriously deficient in both math and science. This is because mathematics was the subject area with the greatest number of deficiencies. This second group’s performance is typical of that of the majority of our high school students in DCPS. 

CHART A: Wilson H.S., Class of 2006: Earned Carnegie Units in Math, by Group

“Earned Credits in Math” shows numbers of students, grouped by the number of math credits they earned: fewer than 3.0 credits, 3.0 – 3.5 credits, 4.0 credits, and more than 4.0 credits.
“F’s in Math” shows the number of students who received F’s in 1 – 2 math courses and in 3 or more math courses.

Charts B – D show the numbers of students, by grade level and by group, who completed (or failed) the three core math courses: Algebra I, Geometry and Algebra II/Trigonometry.

Chart B: # Students Pass (Fail) Algebra I, by Grade and Group

Chart C: # Students Pass (Fail) Geometry by Grade and Group

Chart D: # Students Pass (Fail) Algebra II-Trig by Grade and Group 

“Earned Credits in Science” shows numbers of students, grouped by the number of science credits they earned: fewer than 3.0 credits, 3.0 – 3.5 credits, 4.0 credits, and more than 4.0 credits.
“Failures by Science Course” shows the number of students who received F’s in the three core science courses and in other science courses. 

CHART E: Earned Carnegie Units in Science Courses, by Group

CHART F: Failures in Science, by Subject and Group (Note: Zoology, Human Anatomy & Physiology, and Botany area semester courses, 0.5 Carnegie unit; the others are year-long courses, 1.0 Carnegie unit)

Failures by Science Course

The Current State of Student Academic Achievement Calls for Better Management and Support for the Current Graduation Requirements

These increased requirements for the high school diploma are being promoted as the next logical step in the process of improving our schools’ academic rigor and the value of the high school diploma. As with earlier promises of distant, rosy, future success (Remember the 2001 Business Plan that promised an average 200-300 average increase in student’s combined SAT scores by 2006!?), this current proposal ignores: 

• Continued lackluster student achievement; 
• The failure to enforce standards of student behavior and personal responsibility;
• The many years of course content being watered down to substandard levels; 
• The pervasive and widespread policies of social promotion and social graduation. 

As every good parent, teacher and administrator knows, what matters is the content that that is taught in the courses that are required. In a school system, such as DCPS, with a long history of watered down course content, schools will respond to the increased demands by continuing to do as they have been doing. Nor does it help that DCPS officials have chosen elementary arithmetic and reading programs with poor histories of success in school systems, where most parents are unable to provide the home or tutoring support to make up for these programs’ deficiencies.

No State Requires More Than 24.0 Carnegie units!

DCPS already has more graduation requirements than 42 states, but is last in student achievement, e.g. the 2005 NAEP grade 8 math assessments. How will 2.5 more credits enhance improvement? 

Beyond obvious minimum subject area requirements, there is no connection between the number of required courses for graduation and improved student performance. According to the Education Commission of the States (http://mb2.ecs.org), no state presently – or for the class that graduates in 2012 - requires minimum graduation requirements (i.e. diploma eligibility) of more than 24.0 Carnegie units! Only eight states require 24.0. With its 23.5 CU requirement, DCPS is already in 9th place in minimum requirements for graduation – but last in student achievement!

In 2005, only four of the top18 states with the highest average scale scores on the grade 8 NAEP mathematics assessment required 22.0 Carnegie units (Minnesota, New Jersey, South Dakota & Virginia); the rest fewer. Does anybody believe that a substantial percentage of the present cohort of 8th graders will be ready, next year, to complete an Algebra I course containing content comparable to national expectations of what such a course should cover?

“All Students Must Enroll in Algebra No Later Than 9th Grade” - next September! What pre-Algebra courses will be available for students who are not ready for Algebra I?

And what about the many students who will arrive in 9th grade with minimal skills in math? What courses will be available for them? Why is Algebra I being promoted as the 9th grade entry level course? Why not define Algebra I and Geometry as two of the three courses that a student must pass prior to graduation? Wouldn’t our potential graduates be a lot stronger with a solid Algebra I and a rigorous Geometry course than a watered down sequence of impressive course labels. Exactly who will be fooled by this? Colleges? Employers? The military? 

When I met with you in November 2004, shortly after you became our superintendent, I provided you with details of altered academic records, ineligible students certified for graduation, and other violations. As is my responsibility, I reported subsequent violations to you. Although my reports are all documented in great detail, you have not taken the student and school performance data they represent into consideration.

There is no justification for increasing math and science requirements, when the vast majority of DCPS students are unable to meet the standards of these courses.