High School Graduation Rates Among Lowest in Nation

[stache]

June 21, 2006

New York City's high school graduation rates are among the lowest in the nation, according to a new report released Wednesday.

The report by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center says just under 40 percent of New York City students graduate from high school. That’s compared to a 62.5 percent graduation rate statewide.

Nationally, about 7 in 10 students graduate from high school.

The United Federation of Teachers says its members have excessive student loads. The union says the key to increasing the city's high school graduation rate is reducing class size.

From NY1 -

[antinimby]

While I can't speak for others, I was also a high school drop out and I can tell you that the class size was not the reason. The reasons were personal and had nothing to do with the school itself.

To make a long story short, eventually I got back on the right track and got myself a G.E.D., then went on to college and graduated with a Bachelor's degree. Anyway, I am happy to say that I've been doing pretty well ever since. :)

[ablarc]

Yeah, class size is a red herring; that's just the union making self-serving statements.

My folks saw to it that I attended good schools, kindergarten through graduate school. The best of them all was an underfunded rural grade school in which a dedicated teacher singlehandedly taught fourth, fifth and sixth grades --forty-nine students in one classroom. He had a pofoundly positive effect on us all, I'm certain.

[Ninjahedge]

Yeah, class size is a red herring; that's just the union making self-serving statements.

Bullsh*t.

Stop bringing Union bashing into this. Class size is not THE factor, but until you have to teach a class of 40 disruptive kids in a room that was only designed for 20, keep your comments about it to a minimum.

Class size and overall school crowding DOES have an effect, but not directly. Smaller class size makes you feel a bit more attended to, and makes it easier to keep track of everyone between classes.

You have a school with 4000 kids in it, it is awfully hard to keep everyone under tabs, but you make it so that the number is more manageable, especially for the facilities provided, and you have something.

My folks saw to it that I attended good schools, kindergarten through graduate school. The best of them all was an underfunded rural grade school in which a dedicated teacher singlehandedly taught fourth, fifth and sixth grades --forty-nine students in one classroom. He had a profoundly positive effect on us all, I'm certain.

Wow, isn't that great. 49 in one room, all three grades, in a rural environment?

You are bringing in a totally unrelated genre, situation and demographic. While the efforts of your teacher are laudable, if he tried to do the same in the city, or hell, even now, he would find it MUCH harder given the restrictions that teachers face in regards to controlling and disciplining the children.

You grew up in a time when the teacher sent a letter home, the kid got a talking to. Nowadays the school gets threatened to be sued.

The animal has devolved since we all went to school, and somehow we have to teach it to "sit" again.

[Eugenious]

While I can't speak for others, I was also a high school drop out and I can tell you that the class size was not the reason. The reasons were personal and had nothing to do with the school itself.

To make a long story short, eventually I got back on the right track and got myself a G.E.D., then went on to college and graduated with a Bachelor's degree. Anyway, I am happy to say that I've been doing pretty well ever since. :)

I did the same thing, basically what it comes down to IN MY BELIEF is
1) Lack of any sort of discipline in the school system
2) Lack of academic standards
3) Uneducated of poorly educated parents
4) Substandard facilities
5) Poor funding
6) Learning disability (Kids dont know how to study)

Thats just some of the reasons. Also I have to mention that yes, teachers are piss poor in public schools. I can say this as I went to a public school (not for long). I only got to experience GREAT teachers in College. Teachers often regard all the kids as a herd of animals who cants sit still and thus can be treating like dummies, which does wonders for their self esteem.

NYC should have the GREATEST school system in the world, the reason its not is because most people do not put much weight into education at all, most people regard education as something elitist and ultimately useless. There has been a great upsurge also in hatred of academia which I think permiated into the educational system which turned into an apathetic idiot machine turning out illitirate and forgotten kids who then have to catch up for the remainder of their lives. NYC business loves this though as it provides an ample supply of service sector minimum wage labor.

[Kris]

June 30, 2006
Graduation Rate Improving, Schools Chancellor Says
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

In signs that New York City's historically abysmal high school graduation rates are on a solid upswing, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein reported strong numbers yesterday for the senior classes at 15 of the new small high schools that are a centerpiece of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's effort to revamp the school system.

The chancellor also said that because of a computer glitch, last year's citywide graduation rate was five points higher than previously reported — the highest on-time graduation rate in more than two decades. Mr. Klein said that 58.2 percent of the class of 2005 graduated on time.

Graduation rates are a crucial but controversial measure of school performance and nowhere more so than in New York, where the city's official four-year graduation rate has long hovered at about 50 percent. State officials and some academics say even that number has been inflated by including students who earn equivalency rather than regular high school diplomas.

The 15 small schools posted 73 percent graduation rates this year, Mr. Klein said. He and other advocates of small schools cheered the numbers as a signal of better graduation results in the future as more than 150 small schools begin to graduate students.

"We are moving forward in a strong and positive way," Mr. Klein said at a news conference at the Education Department headquarters in Lower Manhattan. "I don't want to make too much out of first-year results in terms of graduation," he said. "But I think it augurs well in terms of the work we are doing with small schools."

Fourteen of the 15 small schools that reported results were created with financial backing from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and the Open Society Institute.

The Gates foundation, which has made small schools the javelin of its education initiatives and turned New York into a showcase by pumping more than $100 million into the city schools, also hailed the results yesterday. In a statement, Tom Vander Ark, the foundation's education director, called the New York results "an important milestone."

Critics of the Bloomberg administration's focus on small schools cautioned that it was far too soon to declare the effort a success. And other education watchdog groups warned that graduation rates were notoriously unreliable — as evidenced most immediately by the computer problems that led the city to underreport its own graduation rate for 2005.

The errors were discovered by school officials in March but first disclosed yesterday by the chancellor. Last year was the first time the city had assembled its graduation rates entirely by computer, and officials say they ultimately found two programming mistakes.

The tip that there was a problem came from individual schools disputing the 2005 graduation numbers. The city hired the accounting firm Ernst & Young to conduct an independent audit, at a cost of $68,000, that included spot checks of 324 students citywide.

The report in February that the city's four-year graduation rate had fallen to 53.2 percent from 54.3 percent drew muted reactions from officials including Mayor Bloomberg, who said at the time that many of his efforts would take years to produce higher graduation numbers.

Officials said the mayor was angry after learning of the mistake and intent on getting an accurate tally.

Critics of the mayor's small-schools effort said the graduation figures did not prove that smaller is better.

David C. Bloomfield, a member of the Citywide Council on High Schools, said the small schools might have higher graduation numbers because they enroll fewer special education students and fewer children who do not speak English.

But there was no dispute over the overall graduation numbers, which independent monitors of the school system said was consistent with their own analysis of graduation and dropout trends.

"We found more than a 10 percent increase in the number of students earning regular high school diplomas from 2001-2002 to 2004-2005," said Elisa Hyman of Advocates for Children, a nonprofit group that has repeatedly sued the city schools over its efforts to push failing students out.

Ms. Hyman said her group also found increases in the number of students graduating in five or more years and in the number of students remaining in school until the 12th grade. She called this increase a "positive trend" but said that the city needed more reliable data.

"The lack of accurate data," she said, "has long plagued the ability to evaluate education reform in New York City."

At least some improvement in the graduation rates seems to be the result of lawsuits filed by Advocates for Children that prompted the Education Department in 2003 to better account for students who leave the school system. Schools are now required to conduct exit interviews with students. As a result, more older students seem to be staying in school.

Michele Cahill, the chancellor's senior counselor for education policy, has also been working to create new programs to help older, struggling students earn diplomas.

Officials believe that these programs coupled with the vast increase in small schools will drive graduation rates far higher in coming years.

Robert L. Hughes, president of New Visions for Public Schools, a nonprofit group that has led the small-schools effort in New York City and has been responsible for administering the Gates foundation grants in New York, said the graduation rates were one of several rosy indicators.

"Small schools seem to be effectively addressing the needs of New York City public school students," he said. "It will take a lot of work to continue this upswing, but the magnitude of the upswing is enormously promising within the small schools."

A recent report by Policy Studies Associates, a research firm in Washington, examining 75 of the small schools in their first three years found that students were making better progress toward graduation than comparable students in bigger schools.

At Bronx Aerospace Academy, one of the 15 small schools whose results were announced by the chancellor yesterday, 93 percent of students, or 56 out of 60, graduated on time or early. One needs to pass a single Regents exam this summer , and the other three were already behind in their credits when they transferred into the school, said the principal, Barbara A. Kirkweg, a retired Air Force captain.

Captain Kirkweg, who cried all the way through the school's graduation ceremony this week, refrained yesterday from gloating about the school's high graduation rate, the best among the 15 schools. "I would prefer it to be 100 percent," she said. "I'm wondering what other things we could have done."

Elissa Gootman contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[Anarchy77]

NYC should have the GREATEST school system in the world, the reason its not is because most people do not put much weight into education at all, most people regard education as something elitist and ultimately useless. There has been a great upsurge also in hatred of academia which I think permiated into the educational system which turned into an apathetic idiot machine turning out illitirate and forgotten kids who then have to catch up for the remainder of their lives. NYC business loves this though as it provides an ample supply of service sector minimum wage labor.
My mother taught special ed in the nyc public school system. She retired in the early 90's. She said that at the time she retired, the school system started to get the first wave of children born to crack addicted mothers--the children were slow learners and very disruptive in class. This doesn't surprise me insofar as why the school system today is turning out so many poorly educated children.:(

[stache]

Plus the lead paint issue.