The Buffalo New's Mary Pasciak finally got New York Education Commissioner John King to explain his demand that teachers be held accountable for the test score growth of chronically truant students. King accepted the obvious - "that attendance is not solely the responsibility of educators." But King said that educators, who are only one factor in regard to the attendance rates, must be accountable for the test score growth of students who they do not see in class. King forgot that growth targets are largely set by the test scores of students who come to class regularly. He did not mention a way for make those targets fair for teachers in high-poverty neighborhood schools. He did not say how he would determine how much responsibility each teacher has for chronic truancy. King is the former principal of Roxbury Prep, and commenters suggest that he is an idealist who is over his head and who thinks that his selective school faced the types of problems that neighborhood schools face. Tom Hoffman, at Tuttle SVC, responded by digging up the attendance policy from King's charter schools. Roxbury Prep's rules say, "Unexcused absences are never acceptable and may result in at least a .25% reduction in the student’s final grade for each class missed. More than three unexcused absences in a trimester may result in no credit and a zero percent average in each class for the trimester. More than seven unexcused absences in a school year may result in no credit for the year." - JT (@drjohnthompson) image via.
I'd like to see the attrition rate at King's Roxbury Prep.
Posted by: CarolineSF | May 03, 2012 at 09:43 AM
A difficult issue and one that tends to divide those of us who've been in the classroom from well-intentioned idealists. A policy that dings non-attendees on grades obviously assumes students who are motivated and concerned about their grades. But what seldom gets discussed is how putting the onus for attendance and motivation exclusively on schools tends to incur an opportunity cost: if you run the school and plan your lessons for the benefit of the least engaged students, that may not create an environment conducive to high achievement (unless you define "high achievement" as "showing up," which I don't).
Yes, yes, I know. Differentiated instruction. See my comment about classroom experience vs. well-intentioned idealists above. I don't begrudge charters their ability to "counsel out" those who aren't down with the program. But it's clearly unfair and not sensible to hold teachers and schools for outcomes that are beyond their direct control.
Posted by: Robert Pondiscio | May 03, 2012 at 10:30 AM
You don't have a problem with the fact that charters counsel out those who aren't down with the program and then the charter sector denies that constantly, @Robert? Well, I guess I admire your forgiving spirit. But I don't share it.
KIPP is proposing a high school here in San Francisco. So I'm collecting the attrition stats for the two existing KIPP middle schools, and comparing them to the (non-)attrition stats of demographically comparable SFUSD middle schools, for what that's worth -- for my 2 minutes of public comment at the BOE meeting. That's what I'm working on while the New Schools Vulture Fund folks are holed up in an airport hotel just south of here right now, plotting more attacks on our kids and schools.
Posted by: CarolineSF | May 03, 2012 at 14:26 PM
Caroline,
I agree with Robert in that KIPP's counseling out of students is not high on my list of complaints. If KIPP doesn't suit them, and it sure would not have suited me, there are other charters that have other advantages when competing with neighborhood schools. My complaint is the transparently false claim that KIPP and other selective harters compete on a level playing field.
I'd agree with you, however, that their spin has risen to a level of "plotting" against neighborhood schools, and those plots that are designed to defeat the "status quo" also damage kids left in schools with greater concentrations of generational poverty.
Robert, the unfairness goes even further. We in neighborhood schools are often told that it would be illegal to penalize a student's grade due to unexcused absences. Personally, I don't favor that rule, but it is just one of the parts of the Roxbury policy where they had powers that were far beyond those granted to regular schools. We could not dismiss a student, for instance for a handful of unexcused absences. We can drop a student after ten consecutive absences, but we the have to reinstate him if he wishes. In theory, our parents have to bring in an excuse after one week, not one day, but in reality absences are dropped on a widespread scale months after they occur. Our teachers are required to allow the unlimited "working off" of absences, and the administration can always use a bogus credit recovery scheme to "pass on" truant students. Combine all of the above, and more, and the history of rational expectations, and it is clear that teachers in schools with chronic absenteeism can't meet the growth targets set by test score growth models. Its hard to believe that an educator who has actually been in neighborhood schools would even think that we might be able to.
By the way, under NCLB, our schools aren't held accountable for kids after ten consecutive absences. What would have happened if schools had been held accountable in the way that King wants to do for teachers.
Posted by: John Thompson | May 03, 2012 at 15:02 PM
If we hold schools accountable for too much we risk demoralizing them; if we hold them accountable for too little we reduce their incentives to look for creative solutions for the neediest students. To stay with the example of students who are chronically absent or tardy, in addition to arriving at a number of days they have to be present to make their achievement count it makes sense to ask, Did the teacher send work home? Try to contact the parents? Notify social workers? Look up best practices for supporting chronically absent children?
Posted by: Art | May 03, 2012 at 22:26 PM
Art,
Teachers should be held accountable for that. And in my experience, we always had to keep records documenting those efforts. If teachers didn't, and management had time to notice, it was easy to document and write a reprimand. I've got no problem with firing a teacher who doesn't follow those procedures.
But how can you hold teachers accountable for raising the test scores of chronically absent students enough to meet your growth target? For instance, a student becomes chronically absent after burying one or more close family members. Who could estimate how much that student's performance should suffer? What happens in classes where multiple students face tragedies every year? The idea that these value-added models can control for that shouldn't pass any smell test.
Posted by: John Thompson | May 03, 2012 at 22:46 PM
It sets up a system in which students that struggle with home life or illness are treated unfairly, in my opinion. Pushing a student through for the sake of improving your school’s pass rate, independent of actual knowledge gained, is the kind of ignorant style of things NCLB has left the world with.
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