One of the creative accommodations that has developed in this era of data-driven education is about to come to an end, and some city high schools and their students are making a last-ditch effort to take advantage of it.
The accommodation is known as “credit recovery” — described in earlier times as “make-up work” — and Gotham Schools reports that it is more popular than ever, now that the city is about to curtail the practice this summer.
Last month, city officials revealed the results of an audit of high schools, which found that 55 of the 60 high schools reviewed had problems related to graduation requirements, including the improper grading of Regents exams, the graduation of students who did not meet credit and testing requirements, and the awarding of credits for work not performed.
The city announced that it would crack down on the practice of credit recovery — allowing students to do extra work for classes they had failed. Under new Education Department policy, students will now be eligible to make up failed classes through credit recovery only if they attended two-thirds of the class, and they can earn a maximum of only three credits that way.
Gotham Schools said that those new rules were expected to take effect this summer, and that some high schools had been advising students — particularly those who will be seniors next year — that they had better get their failed courses made up now, or lose the opportunity. Reports Rachel Cromidas:
Teachers from schools around the city said they doubted they would be able to get students to graduation on time without allowing them to make up classes. The Brooklyn teacher said her school sometimes resorts to credit recovery because it would be near-impossible to re-teach course content to struggling students who have entered high school far below grade level. Schools are penalized on city assessments when students do not graduate in four years.
“It looks so bad, but the system is so gamed to begin,” she said.
Gotham does not identify most of the schools it says is scrambling to have students fulfill requirements for credit recovery before the practice is curtailed. But it quotes an unidentified Long Island City High Schoolstudent who says teachers told them that credit recovery was about to end, without advising them to make up credits now.
“They said, whoever is behind on credits isn’t going to graduate on time,” said the student. “They were just putting everybody down. Everybody was pretty ticked off about it.”
Gotham also quotes Ken Achiron, the union chapter leader for Long Island City High School, who said the new city policy had been a long time coming.
“Credit recovery has been an open door up until now to allow kids to work through graduation without having to worry about what they did in the classroom. It’s a sham,” Achiron said. But he also said teachers might have a good reason to try to juke their schools’ performance statistics: “Why would teachers be doing [credit recovery]? So that they won’t be put on a list saying that their school is going to close,” as Long Island City could at the end of this year, under a city proposal.
City officials told Gotham they wanted to end abuse of the policy.
Department officials said the new policies are meant to ensure that credit recovery is used only when it is in dire need or when students are working hard but need extra time to demonstrate understanding. A spokesman also said the department would root out schools that abuse credit recovery once the new policy takes effect.
“The letter and spirit of our new policy are clear, and we will be aggressively monitoring schools to make sure it is appropriately followed,” said the spokesman, Matthew Mittenthal.
Gotham Schools’ Rise & Shine morning post has a more complete listing of what’s in the news this Tuesday morning.
Here are some of the education-related events scheduled for Tuesday:
“The Brian Lehrer Show” on WNYC (93.9 FM, 820 AM) will be looking at the issue of school fund-raising from 10:41 a.m. until almost 11 a.m. His guest will be Kyle Spencer, a freelance education reporter and contributor to The New York Times, who will talk about herMetropolitan section article on Sunday looking into class conflict within New York City public school PTAs.
That article kicked off SchoolBook’s focus on school fund-raising, a weeklong attempt to figure out how much parents are spending to support their child’s public school education. Help our reporting by responding to our survey of parents’ spending on their child’s school and school-related activities. You can find the simple form below.
And parents, teachers and others, please spread word about the survey. It can be found at schoolbook.org/respond.
Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott was scheduled to appear on the “John Gambling Show” on WOR Radio at 7:40 a.m.
A bit far afield, but: early Tuesday morning, the Council of Foreign Relations will release a report and convene experts in Washington to discuss a task force report on education and national security. According to a news release, “The CFR-sponsored Independent Task Force on U.S. Education Reform and National Security asserts that fixing the nation’s underperforming education system is critical for strengthening the country’s security and increasing its economic competitiveness. The report offers guidance to policymakers and others on education reforms that will transform K-12 public school systems to ensure America’s economic and political growth and security.”
Speakers include Joel I. Klein, the former city schools chancellor, and Condoleezza Rice, the former United States Secretary of State. The event is at the Council on Foreign Relations, 1777 F Street NW, Washington.
The Academy for Young Writers in Brooklyn will hold its first Citizenship Night. Twelfth-grade students will present their works related to a range of civic topics. The event is planned for 5 to 6:30 p.m. in the cafeteria of the school, 183 South Third Street, Williamsburg.
At 1 p.m., the City Council Committees on Higher Education/Immigration will discuss resolutions on the Dream Act and Dream fund to provide financial assistance to illegal immigrants attending state schools.
And the Fordham Law Suspension Representation Project has organized an event featuring Prof. Carlos McCray, who will discuss school discipline. The event is scheduled for 5:30 to 6:30 pm. at the Fordham Lincoln Center campus.
If you have an event that you would like covered or listed in SchoolBook’s First Bell morning post, e-mail us atSchoolBook@nytimes.com. Or post information about events at your school on your school’s SchoolBook page. Just go into the “Start a Conversation” box and type or paste in the information, photos or video that you would like displayed on the page. Hit submit, and the information will be published for the greater school community to see.
