PS 321 losing its luster?
It scored less than PS 107? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/education/06reportcards.html http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/B17D43AA-FD6E-4C11-ADEF-5ACE8E355783/0/Progress_Report_Results_2007.xls
It scored less than PS 107? http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/education/06reportcards.html http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/B17D43AA-FD6E-4C11-ADEF-5ACE8E355783/0/Progress_Report_Results_2007.xls
These report cards are for staff and admin and not really for parents (altho they’re all OUTRAGED by it). While I would love for my kids to go to school where all the kids test at 100%, I wouldn’t expect teachers to get rewarded on that alone. Because most of the schools that test really well have a student body that would test well at any school. They showed up knowing how to read. The school board really needs to look at the kids who don’t. And need to be taught. It’s an extraordinarily hard job and moving from 40% to 50% is big and takes a lot of work. And to get to 60-70% takes even more.
I can see where the Board of Ed is going with these.
To find your zoned school, check this: http://maps.nycboe.net/ Note you must use IE as your browser.
My son raped your PS 321 honor student.
Personally I think this testing stuff is just a scam. This may be a way for the mayor to wrestle control away from the great schools by downgrading them in some way. This way they can make the rest of the schools look better at their expense. Reminds me of an old Kurt Vonegot book where the gifted people were forced to have handicaps to off-set their special abilities. Makes everybody feel better to bring the better schools down. Nice one Mr. Mayor!
i hope your crotch fruit doesn’t turn out as self righteous as you, 3:59.
2:28 here responding to questions…
To 2:40, The detailed reports were sent home with my child. I don’t know how you could get them, but you might try calling the school itself. Perhaps they’ll mail you a copy. Or try 311.
To 2:50, You probably are in district 15, but you should call 311 and ask them, as zones change. It used to be easy to find your zoned school online, but for some reason the nyc.gov site makes it difficult now. Call 311 – they can tell you what your zoned elementary school is when you tell them your exact address.
To 3:12, You might want to take a remedial course in reading comprehension, because you inferred something that I most definitely did not imply. And I will defend my use of the word psychotic – millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on this grading system and yet it has provided no real clarity and it is incredibly misleading – adding just more confusion.
To 3:23, Any applause for any school receiving an “A” may well be false applause – The point I made earlier is that these letter grades can’t be trusted. Your rebuttal is akin to someone saying: “But this meat must be safe to eat – It has a USDA label on it.” And, unfortunately, I believe that many people will take these letter grades as the final word.
What I find most disturbing is that these grades have the potential to negate lots of hard work while rewarding mediocrity.
To 3:46, Thanks, but don’t worry – I don’t feel bad. (My kid doesn’t either.) I feel bad for the principal and staff because they must be shellshocked by this – The grade doesn’t jibe with the written report, or with the assessment by insideschools.org which is basing their findings on several years of observations, or with my personal, hands-on assessment of the GREAT job that this school is doing. If this school wasn’t doing right by my kid, believe me – My kid would have been placed in private school long ago. That’s how impressed I’ve been with it.
And by the way, 3:46, your points are excellent and well said. Thank you!
2:28pm you shouldn’t feel bad your kids’ school got a C. The school my kids go to (PS 58) got a D, despite having very high test scores consistently (as well as just being a very pleasant place to learn).
But, according to the DOE, the school is essentially failing because the test scores of the 4th graders didn’t improve from the previous year, when they were 3rd graders. It doesn’t matter whether both years the school had fantastic results, since year 2 wasn’t better than year 1, the school failed. The fact that the kids got such great scores in 3rd grade because the teaching in K, 1st and 2nd grade was so wonderful doesn’t count one bit. In fact, the school would have received a far better “grade” from the DOE if that teaching in grade 1 – 3 had been a bit worse so the kids didn’t do quite so well on the 3rd grade test. That way, it would have been easier for them to show an “improvement” in 4th grade, which is what those grades measure.
A principal’s worst nightmare is to have the school teach the kids so well in the early years that when kids take the 3rd grade test, they are all performing to best of their abilities and the scores are amazing. Because then there’s nowhere to go but down, even if it’s only a fraction of a % point and your scores are still great by any standard.
Measuring progress in schools is important, but the DOE has spent $80 million dollars to design a statistical program that doesn’t take into account that the variance between 90% exceeding standards and 91% or 89% exceeding standards in a given year is not a material difference. But instead, that is the prime basis for how all these grades are awarded. The DOE would have been better off spending its money training some of its administrators in basic statistical analysis before letting them award big money contracts to corporations that are a giant waste of money.
3:24 … “crotch-fruit”
hahahahahahahahahahha
that was funny
I don’t really hear many people say that PS. 321 is the only good school around. People who know nothing about schools or don’t have kids say stuff about it, because they think it’s fun to make fun of Park Slope in general. Lots of bitter comments about the fact that prices are higher if a home is in ps. 321 district, etc etc, but those comments are generally not made by anyone who knows a thing about it.
While PS. 321 is well regarded, I hear good things about many other schools.