NYC Students Deserve Real Results, Real Reform, and Real Leadership
This a portion of the testimony delivered to the New York City Council on November 23, 2015. The testimony coincided with the release of a new report by StudentsFirstNY, The Hidden Truth: Massive Grade Inflation Conceals Underperformance in NYC Schools.
StudentsFirstNY is dedicated to improving the quality of public school offerings for children across this state, but it is in New York City where we have our most active and involved volunteer parent members. Across 16 chapters in New York City’s most underserved neighborhoods, our organizers meet regularly with our 13,000 active parent members to identify ways the system can serve students better, schools that need improvement, and policies that must be changed. We seek to elevate parents’ voices and support our members in holding leaders accountable for the education of their children.
We were not surprised last week when the Siena College poll found that 55% of New York City parents are dissatisfied with their public school offerings. Our community organizers hear complaints daily about the schools in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, East New York, Brownsville, Harlem, Jamaica, and the South Bronx. It is these individual stories that drive our passion to improve public school offerings.
Evelyn Rodriguez, the mother of a high school student at Automobile High School in Williamsburg, came to us when she knew something wasn’t quite right at school. She was proud that her son received an ‘A’ on his latest science quiz, but he had not been performing well on state tests and she didn’t know what to believe — the state tests that showed her son was not being prepared, or her son’s teachers who were sending him home with good grades. We asked Ms. Rodriguez to share some of her son’s classwork so we could help point her to the right resources, and what we found was that her 10th grade son was passing his work with flying colors…because he was being given 5th grade level work. Ms. Rodriguez is devastated.
Nakeia Porter, the mother of a 2nd grader at P.S. 305 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, said she’s being told her son is doing just fine in school and she has nothing to worry about. The problem is, only 3% of students in his school are passing the state tests and so Ms. Porter is right to be concerned that in all likelihood, her son is not on track. Ms. Porter would rather know now if there is a problem and doesn’t want her school to be presenting a falsely rosy picture.
StudentsFirstNY dug deeper and found that Ms. Rodriguez and Ms. Porter’s stories are sadly not unique. The de Blasio administration and its allies will likely present a case today that failing schools are few and far between, and improving quickly. We would all sleep easier tonight if the findings of this hearing revealed that Mayor de Blasio’s efforts to help struggling schools are sufficient. That is simply not the case and a failure to take bold action now will condemn a generation of students to life without opportunity.
StudentsFirstNY has released a new report that reveals rampant grade inflation within New York City public schools. While the majority of students are failing state tests, they are passing their schools’ coursework. At schools where fewer than 10% of students pass state tests, 85% of students are passing school coursework. Put another way, at struggling schools where 9 out of 10 students are below grade level, their school coursework makes it look like 9 out of 10 students are meeting grade standards. This is a phenomenon that extends far beyond failing schools — there is grade inflation going on across the board in the NYC public school system.
It will make everyone feel better to keep pretending that our students and our schools are on track but we cannot ignore this evidence of systemic abuse of parents’ trust. What is clear is that at the vast majority of schools across the city, students are either being given below grade level coursework or they are being given passing grades when the state tests plainly show they are not prepared.