"If you absolutely believe that 100 percent of your students will go to college, they will"

[Hannah Bell]

(If you cheat to make it so, Tinkerbell)

Another ed deform "miracle" story:

Ms. Passarella started her career in the theater...With 11 years of teaching under her belt, she opened a small public middle school with a competitive theater program. She and her teaching staff made it TAPCo’s mission to prepare students for acceptance into New York City’s best performing arts high schools... in 2005, TAPCo expanded and added on a new high school. Its first class graduated in 2009 with 97 percent of students receiving diplomas.

In 2010, every single one of its graduates went on to college. Some received full scholarships to universities like Syracuse, NYU and Northeastern.

Asked to divulge the secret behind her school’s phenomenal success, Passarella is quick to answer:

“Doing this job is really, really hard, but the answer is really easy. If you absolutely, with every ounce of belief, believe that 100 percent of your students will go to college, they will.”

She explains that many principals and teachers in other schools don’t expect all of their students to be college bound. When school officials don’t dedicate themselves to pursuing that goal, students don’t either.

http://www.takepart.com/news/2010/11/23/the-cinderella-story-behind-nycs-best-public-high-school


And the backstory:

When report card grades were released in the fall for the city’s 455 high schools, the highest score went to a small school in a down-and-out section of the Bronx called Theater Arts Production Company School.

A stunning 94 percent of its seniors graduated, more than 30 points above the citywide average...

“When I interviewed for the school,” said Sam Buchbinder, a history teacher, “it was made very clear: this is a school that doesn’t believe in anyone failing.” That statement was not just an exhortation to excellence. It was school policy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/education/20grades.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print

The city's highest-rated school is being investigated for its "nonfailing policy" that makes it so easy for students to pass a class that kids say even a caveman could do it, The Post has learned.
The Department of Education is probing to see if the Theatre Arts Production Company HS in The Bronx attained its starred-ranking by fudging student grades.

"This week, my average is a 30; in three days I can bring it up to a 95," boasted one senior who didn't want his name published.

"The teachers will give you sheets that are already filled out, and you can just copy them. It's for the school so it doesn't look bad with failing grades."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/grade_fraud_sEpJqX8d5dg5l88B9S7RZJ#ixzz1BcYJiPYz

http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2011/01/next-big-thing-school-scandals-tapco.html

[dkf]

1. What do you think should be done?

[Hannah Bell]

3. #1: You should stop making disingenuous remarks.

[dkf]

9. I really am curious as to if you think these people should be blamed or not.

Should they be protected from consequences or not?

[saras]

2. I believe it

But that's because I'm over 50, in college, and looking at the incoming students.

No one is saying they belong in college, can do honest college-level work...

or will be required to do honest college-level work to get their degrees.

But they certainly can go to college.

[pnwmom]

4. If she absolutely believes that when they graduate from college

100% of them will end up in jobs that need college degrees, can she make that happen, too?

That would be quite a trick.

[MilesColtrane]

5. Clap your hands.

(And, alter those test scores.)

[madrchsod]

6. here in illinois they changed the grade points to assure..

a certain percentage received an A grade. if a certain percentage was needed changed it was changed from a 94 to a 92 or a 92 to a 90. funny thing is the colleges here never bothered to check what the letter grades really meant.

no one in illinois is that stupid to boast of "non- failing policy"

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. Grading by centile is an eminently sensible policy.

The big problem, of course, is standardising between schools with different intakes, but it's still better than blithly assuming that what one school deems to be worth a "B" is the same as what another school gives the same arbitrary letter for.

[WinkyDink]

8. Getting in isn't the whole story, now is it? Where are those "students" after four years?

[Brickbat]

10. The whole "everyone can/should go to college" crap distracts us from the fact that our manufacturing

base has been completely wrecked. Many people can't go to college, or don't want to, or aren't interested in it. In the past, there were excellent jobs available to them that they could work at and support a family with. But because so many of those jobs are gone, and HR MBA people have made up all sorts of requirements for college degrees for the jobs that do remain, this fallacy that everyone should go to college has taken over higher education.

It's a crock.

[Crankie Avalon]

11. I just read every word of every one of your links...

...and this school is EXACTLY like the NYC public high school my wife and I pulled our daughter out of at the end of the last school year. In every way. We had only ever heard great-sounding things about the school from all these measures and ratings we were reaserching, but it all turned out to be bogus. Students never got homework or had to do anything for grades. And the school turned out to be Stalinist in how everyone had to play along with the hygienic facade to keep it all going.

Our daughter spent her freshman year there. Apart from the lack of academic standards, it was a place where many of the male "students" couldn't keep their hands to themselves and the principal would constantly drag his feet and make excuses about why he couldn't do anything about it.

Somehow, students who want to transfer from this school to another NYC public high school are always mysteriously blocked. So for that and other reasons we had to make the big financial sacrifice (for us) of transferring our daughter to a Catholic college preparatory high school for her sophomore year. She's getting used to all the school work she has since been having to do, and is legitimately being prepared for college, now, thank God.

Sorry I can't post any brilliant insights on how to fix these types of Potemkin Village schools, since I don't have any. I'm not going to publically post the name of the high school I've been writing about, either. But if you happen to be a parent of a kid who is choosing which NYC public high school to attend and would like to avoid the mistake of having him/her end up in this particular one, PM me and I'll let you know that way.