Ed Notes Online: Flushing HS Report#1: Teacher Questions Principal's Grading System as Violation of DOE Rules

Friday, November 1, 2013

Flushing HS Report#1: Teacher Questions Principal's Grading System as Violation of DOE Rules

it is the right of the principal to set the grading policy for a school. It is common practice in high schools to establish 55 as the lowest grade awarded to students. .. Qns Dist Supt Juan Mendez

Teacher follows chain of command to Polakow-Suransky and Qns HS Dist. Supt. Juan Mendez

2nd email request: Principal James Brown's grading policy - Flushing High School to Suransky

Dear Mr. Polakow-Suransky,

This is the second request for clarification.

I am a teacher at Flushing High School and deeply concerned about Principal Dr. James Brown's proposed grading policy recently sent to the staff which will go into effect for the second marking period.

It not only mandates that the lowest grade given on the report card is a 55, but that this 55 must be calculated using the following formula (55 x 33 % = 18 points) towards the final grade. Dr. Brown offers no optional code for No shows such as 45 or NS.

This policy is not compliant with the DOE High School Academic Policy 2013 - which states that the numerical scale to be used is 1-100. By mandating that the lowest calculable numerical grade must be a 55 - without the option of putting another code or number to signify long term absences or cutting, Dr. James Brown is in fact creating his own scale of 55-100, which the DOE does not allow for.

With Dr. Brown’s policy, a student needs to only apply herself in one marking period with an 85 and completely disappear for the other two marking periods to achieve a final grade of 65 for the course. In essence 85% mastery for only one marking period equates to only 28% mastery for a full semester curriculum.

Not only does it fail to exemplify the rigor and college ready preparedness that the DOE is intending in the spirit of the common core, but it is grade inflation and possibly public fraud.

It misrepresents the performance of the students to their parents on the report card, who believe their child is just short of meeting expectations, when in fact, their progress and classwork may be far below that.

I have requested a meeting with Dr. James Brown personally which he declined. I have also requested a meeting with him and a DOE representative, which he also declined via email.

I am therefore going up the chain of command to address and clarify this issue.

Please advise on this issue or be kind enough to meet with both of us to address this matter on the validity of this proposed policy.

Find attached Principal Brown’s memo on the proposed grading policy.

Thank you in advance.

Mr. Seung-Yong Ok
Science Teacher - Flushing High School

From: Suransky Shael
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 12:54 PM
To: Ok Seung Yong (19K660)
Cc: Lack Joanna; Weiss Emily
Subject: RE: 2nd email request. Principal James Brown's grading policy - Flushing High School to Suransky

I got your first message – someone from my team will follow up

________________________________

From: Ok Seung Yong (19K660)
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 12:57 PM

To: Mendez Juan
Subject: RE: 2nd request for clarification. Dr. James brown's grading policy - Flushing High School

Dear superintendent Mendez,
This is the second request for clarification.

I am a teacher at Flushing High School and deeply concerned about Principal Dr. James Brown's proposed grading policy recently sent to the staff which will go into effect for the second marking period.

It not only mandates that the lowest grade given on the report card is a 55, but that this 55 must be calculated using the following formula (55 x 33 % = 18 points) towards the final grade. Dr. Brown offers no optional code for No shows such as 45 or NS.

This policy is not compliant with the DOE High School Academic Policy 2013 - which states that the numerical scale to be used is 1-100. By mandating that the lowest calculable numerical grade must be a 55 - without the option of putting another code or number to signify long term absences or cutting, Dr. James Brown is in fact creating his own scale of 55-100, which the DOE does not allow for.

With Dr. Brown’s policy, a student needs to only apply herself in one marking period with an 85 and completely disappear for the other two marking periods to achieve a final grade of 65 for the course. In essence 85% mastery for only one marking period equates to only 28% mastery for a full semester curriculum.

Not only does it fail to exemplify the rigor and college ready preparedness that the DOE is intending in the spirit of the common core, but it is grade inflation and possibly public fraud.

It misrepresents the performance of the students to their parents on the report card, who believe their child is just short of meeting expectations, when in fact, their progress and classwork may be far below that.

I have requested a meeting with Dr. James Brown personally which he declined. I have also requested a meeting with him and a DOE representative, which he also declined via email.

I am therefore going up the chain of command to address and clarify this issue.

Please advise on this issue or be kind enough to meet with both of us to address this matter on the validity of this proposed policy.

Find attached Principal Brown’s memo on the proposed grading policy.

Thank you in advance.
Mr. Seung-Yong Ok
Science Teacher - Flushing High School

---------

From: Mendez Juan
Sent: Tuesday, October 22, 2013 2:23 PM
To: Ok Seung Yong (19K660)
Cc: DiMaggio Nancy; Brown James (25Q460)

Subject: RE: 2nd request for clarification. Dr. James brown's grading policy - Flushing High School

Dear Ok Seung,

I have reviewed your letter of concern regarding the proposed grading policy. I have asked Network Leader Nancy Di Maggio to review the grading policy with the principal to ensure compliance with DOE policy.

Please note that it is the right of the principal to set the grading policy for a school. It is common practice in high schools to establish 55 as the lowest grade awarded to students. As your school issues grades three times per term, each marking period could generate one third of the final grade.

Your recommendation to offer optional codes for “no shows” is well taken. The principal will take your recommendation under advisement.

Regards,

Juan S. Mendez
Superintendent
Queens High Schools
(Districts 24, 25, 26, 28, and 29)
30-48 Linden Place
Room 307
Flushing, NY 11354
Tel. 718-281-7696
Fax 718-281-7519

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: I commend this teacher for trying to get clarification on a ridiculous policy. However, I hope his job is not jeopardized by standing up for the truth.; Saturday, November 2, 2013 at 8:23:00 AM EDT
ed notes online said...: I asked him and he said go. Seung has never been afraid to stand up - when he was at Maxwell he also took on the corrupt union structure. He was one of key early organizers in GEM.; Saturday, November 2, 2013 at 9:46:00 AM EDT
Unknown said...: From this fraudulent practice of 55-100 student, attitude, performance and respect for education is destroyed.
Who could be to blame? Oh! the teachers are not teaching.
UFT you have done some job of screwing your teachers out of their jobs.
Stop worrying about the kids, the few with good role models will learn, the rest it doesn't matter
Remember Karate Kid(original) Miyagi: I teach karate, your part you learn karate, I say you do. That is it!; Wednesday, September 24, 2014 at 1:59:00 PM EDT

"A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

What media call "philanthropy" for the public schools are actually seed monies to establish a private "market" in publicly-financed education - an enterprise worth trillions if successfully penetrated by corporate America. Cory Booker, one of the "New Black Leaders" financed by the filthy rich, is key to creating a "nationwide corporate-managed schools network paid for by public funds but run by private managers.

"Ed Reformers" want to cash in on public education and to control its content and outcome, not improve it. Provide great education? Baby boomers had as close as this country has ever gotten to it when we were growing up. The Ed Reform Movement has no interest in seeing such a well-educated, democratically astute population ever again.

http://blackagendareport.com/content/cory-booker-clear-and-present-threat-public-education

History of the UFT Pre-Weingarten Years

This award-winning series of articles by Jack Schierenbeck originally appeared in the New York Teacher in 1996 and 1997.

Naturally, from a certain point of view. But, despite certain biases, Schierenbeck, a great guy, was one of the best NY Teacher reporters so this is worth reading. Jack suffered a debilitating stroke many years ago (I used to get secret donations to ed notes from him through a 3rd source.)

This chapter looks interesting:

Class struggles: The UFT story, part 3

“The schism in the union over radical politics [is] a major reason for stalling the growth of a teacher union for decades.” Revolutionary politics and ideology take center stage, as the original Teachers Union becomes a battlefield, pitting leftist against leftist and splitting the union.

Clarence Taylor's "Reds at the Blackboard" focused on the old Teachers Union which disbanded in 1964 after suffering from anti-left attacks.

Of course for another view, check out the review at New Politics of the Kahlenberg Bio on Shanker by Vera Pavone and me: Albert Shanker: Ruthless Neocon

Effective Union Organizing

A video series put together by Jason Mann from the British Columbia Federation of Teachers about social media and how to use it for effective union organizing.

The first series was called New Media For Union Activists Roadmap and it's still available on-line at:
http://www.newmediabootcamp.ca/welcome/
I watched some of them and need to rewatch as they are loaded with information.

The second series started last week and it's called "Online Campaigning for Union Activists"

You can sign up for this free series at :
http://act.bcfed.ca/online-campaigning-for-union-activists/

You Don't Have A Choice - Join the Revolt

Ex-Harlem Success Teacher Comments on Eva the Diva

Ex-HSA Teacher has left a new comment on your post "Fear and Loathing at Evil's Harlem Success Empire ...":

I am a former Harlem Success teacher. Not many people who work/worked for her like her very much. I once made the comment that she is very nice when I first was hired. Two of her closest colleague responded immediately almost in unison, "Eve is not nice!" Over time I realized that there was a lot of political games going on. Another colleague once said to me that he was tired of "being part of a political campaign." Sending out 15,000 applications for only 400 seats in a school is reprehensible. The money that paid for those mass mailings could have paid the yearly salary of another teacher not to mention the heartache of all those parents who applied but did not get a spot. She does good work trying to give disadvantaged students a quality public school education but at a great cost to staff AND the school's educational budget! school budget.

Davis Guggenheim Compared to Riefenstahl

“Waiting for Superman" is the second most intellectually dishonest piece of documentary work I have seen. It is surpassed only by Leni Riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the pro-Hitler propaganda classic, in that regard. Uses personal narratives of adorable children to create narrative suspense that overrides public policy discussion with pure emotion in unscrupulous attack on teachers and their unions, among others

Timothy Tyson
Professor of African American Studies and History
Duke University

How Teaching Experience Makes a Difference

Even as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michelle Rhee and others around the nation are arguing for experienced teachers to be laid off regardless of seniority, every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience, so that it’s ironic that these same individuals are trying to undermine both.
- Leonie Haimson on Parents Across America web site

Full article with charts here.

Weingarten/Gates Foundation announce drone-driven teacher evaluation

According to a press release issued by the Gates Foundation, the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, these three have entered a ground-breaking partnership to evaluate teachers utilizing the drone technology that has revolutionized warfare in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. A bird-size device floats up to 400 feet above a classroom and instantly beams live video of teachers in action to agents at desks at Teacher Quality Inspection Stations established by the AFT and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

When asked if the drones were authorized to drop bombs on teachers who exhibit inadequacy, Chester E. Finn, Jr., president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, replied, "Don't be ridiculous. Gates money puts other methods at our disposal."

Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5-million-member American Federation of Teachers said the powerful union has signed on to the drone project...

More at Substance

The Real Reason Behind Push for Standardized Tests: It's All About the Adults

On standardized testing in our schools

A must read article about the standardized test industry.
Written by an insider who has worked as a test scorer, the article outlines a multinational industry based on an army of temporary workers paid by the piece at $0.30 to $0.70 per test, translated in the need to grade 40 tests per hour to make a $12 salary. The article goes on to show how the companies gauge the grading "results" based on the need to ensure new contracts to continue profiting off of our youth. The original article is from Monthly Review. Here it is on Schools Matter blog.

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/12/on-growing-use-of-corporate-test.html

Parallels between America today and Germany in the 1920's and early 30's

"Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Published on Sunday, March 15, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

Chicago View of Unity/UFT on Charters

After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings — though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.

Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Ed Notes Greatest Hits: HSA Rally and Founding of GEM

SEE MY VIDEO ON HARLEM SUCCESS RALLY 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI

Angel Gonzalez and I attended that rally and used the footage to promote our conference on Mar. 28, 2009, which is where the concept of a group like GEM emerged. Until then we had basically been a committee of ICE working with the NYCORE high stakes testing group. The actions of Eva and crew helped spawn GEM. Mommie Dearest!!

I have more video somewhere. I was hoping to get Leni Riefenstahl to edit it but she died. We would have called it "Triumph of the Hedge Fund Operators."

Ed Notes Extended

Friday, November 1, 2013

Flushing HS Report#1: Teacher Questions Principal's Grading System as Violation of DOE Rules

3 comments: