How do you fix a failing high school? Change the grades.
Under pressure to boost student achievement, the state-designated “out of time” Automotive HS in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, has resorted to rigging Regents exam scores.
The failing scores of five students who took the Regents in January were switched to passing scores of 65 or higher on their transcripts, the city Department of Education has confirmed.
One junior saw his scores upped to pass two exams required for graduation — Living Environment (biology) and algebra — even though he had failed both classes. The student insisted he deserved a break on the exams because “I studied my ass off.”
In 2011, the state banned “scrubbing” — the practice of re-scoring tests that fall just short of passing. In 2013, the DOE tried to fire a teacher who raised the scores of five students on a Regents physics exam. In 2014, city scores plummeted after a new rule barred teachers from grading tests given at their own schools.
Now, the city has sanctioned it.
“This is Scrubbing Part 2,” a veteran educator said of the Automotive HS score changes. “The teachers used to do it. Now it’s the administrators.”
Automotive HS is one of the city’s 94 low-performing “Renewal” schools — which Mayor de Blasio showered with $31 million this school year and has vowed to revamp with $163 million next school year. The state Education Department has branded Automotive and seven other city schools “out of time,” meaning the schools require significant revamping or a shutdown.
Government schools in New York: America's most dangerous long term racketeering enterprise engaging in mail and wire fraud. Just a reminder: "progressives" consider this progress! To paraphrase Professor Glenn Reynolds, are you a bad parent for sending your child to government schools?
