Report Cards on Schools Said Lacking
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The city Department of Education needs to improve its grade on the annual report cards it produces to evaluate public schools in the five boroughs, according to a study released yesterday by the City Council.
The study surveyed report cards from 30 randomly selected elementary, middle, and high schools. It found glaring omissions by the Department of Education on information such as the number of certified teachers on staff and number of students in each class.
“I see absolutely no excuse for the department not having this information in real time,” said the council’s Education Committee chairwoman, Eva Moskowitz, who produced the report.
Ms. Moskowitz, joined by a fellow Manhattan Democrat, Council Speaker Gifford Miller, accused the department of violating federal law by only making the report cards available online.
The city education department, which began publishing the report cards voluntarily in 1997, is now mandated like all other school systems to do so under the No Child Left Behind Act. That law states that posting report cards online is insufficient. The council’s assessment found the city was not doing further outreach such as distributing the report cards at parent meetings, mailing them to parents, or making hard copies available in schools.
School officials said yesterday the report cards are, in fact, available through team leaders and parent coordinators at schools. They are also given to parents looking for specific information, such as demographic breakdowns.
The department issued a statement saying, “We have been consistently working to provide, and, in fact, have provided student- and parent-friendly information and services in order to help families become more fully engaged in their children’s education. And we will continue to do so.”
The council looked at 21 categories on the report cards and compared New York’s system to 15 others nationwide.
The more significant problems the study found included a disconnect between the blurbs about academic performance and test scores; lack of information about school guidance counselors, psychologists, facilities, and parent coordinators; broad-brushed statistics on violence, and a failure to report any information in some categories.
In the case of South Shore High School in Brooklyn, for example, a report card said the school was recognized as a “school of excellence,” but test scores showed otherwise, and only 57.5% of students had graduated. The report cards also used vague terms for academics performance like “in good standing,” which the council members criticized as not matching reality and used insider acronyms, they labeled “jargon.”
“If a parent just saw ‘in good standing’ they might think ‘Oh, well this is a good school,’ ” said Ms. Moskowitz. “And yet if you look at the actual passage rate, there is clearly a problem.”
Ms. Moskowitz said the breakdown of crimes into three categories – major crimes, other crimes, and noncriminal police incidents – was a good start, but needed more specificity.