Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Portelos goes where NYC Press corps fears to tread: Is Test Tampering Rampant in NYC too?

The DOE and UFT better get that boy out of the rubber room they "abolished" and back into a classroom before he has time to research all 1700 schools.

Oh, you will hear how the press can't afford investigative journalism. Here is a study of one school.

Imagine how many people were put on the Atlanta case. But not in Rhee's DC. And not in Klein/Walcott's NYC. And not in Duncan's Chicago. Only Beverly Hall will go to prison. Who is at fault here in NYC? Well, we know what is more important. Tracking down where Leonie sends her kids to school.

Time to shackle Rhee and Klein and send them away.

Meanwhile, check out the blog roll and listserves for the growing opt-out movement which will make some news today.

Is Test Tampering Rampant in NYC too?

By fportelos on April 16, 2013 in Uncategorized

The buzz on the street is that these high stakes tests are being tampered with and may be soiled with cheating.

Why would anyone want to cheat on a test? I mean don’t let the words high stakes fool you. It’s not like these scores are tied to graduation, promotions, termination and bonuses? Oh wait…yes they are.
Take a look at what I gathered, in five minutes, while playing with a spreadsheet I downloaded from http://schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/tools/report/default.htm and Excel. . I’m all about data and using it as long as it’s accurate. Maybe it’s the engineer in me.

I took the Progress Report Scores of every school in theNYC DOE from 2006 to 2012 (CLICK HERE FOR FILE) and I created the following formula. [=COUNTIF(datarange,"A")] It basically counts the number of “A”‘ scores in a column and spits out a number. I did this from 2006 to 2012 again using this file. The graph is quite interesting.

Interesting spike in A’s, correct?

“Mr. Portelos, What is that red dot on the graph?”
Well, it is interesting that you would ask. Look at this video below, that I stumbled upon, from the date depicted by that red dot. It’s a NY1 News video talking about the new 2007 CSA-DOE contract including….$25,000 bonuses for principals whose schools improve. Looks like that graph shows quite a number of improved schools, no? We must have done something right that year. It then poses the question, “Why didn’t we continue with what caused all those A’s?” Instead we closed more schools. Something doesn’t smell right here.

NY1 Coverage of 2007 NYC Principal’s Contract with bonuses from Mr. Portelos on Vimeo.

The video, coincidentally enough, shows my principal, Linda Hill, being interviewed about the contract and bonus. When I saw it I had to do a doubletake and rewind. What are the chances?

My school had a C in 07, a B in 08 and guess what we got after that contract with bonuses was approved…

No, seriously take a guess what my school, that is ranked 947th out of 1,059 middle schools, received as a grade….