NY Times: P.S. 8 to Receive an “F”

By on September 11, 2008 11:06 pm in Brooklyn Heights, Government, Kids

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg will be announcing letter grades for NYC Public Schools next week according to the New York Times.  The marks are based on a formula that takes into account individual students year to year progress, the overall number of students meeting state achievement standards and how it measures up it to other schools serving similar areas.  The paper claims P.S. 8, a school that has been praised for its great progress and quality, will receive an F.  The school recently added trailer annexes in its schoolyard to address overcrowding.

Update: Principal Seth Phillips will hold a meeting with parents at the school on Monday (9/15) at 8 AM according to the Brooklyn Paper. NOTE: According to a P.S. 8 source the meeting is at 8 AM, not PM as reported in the B’Paper.

Update 2: The Times follows up on the F grade.

Update 3: WABC-TV report.

Update 4: 2003 NYT article on how P.S. 8 was set up to succeed.

New York Times: Low Grade…: When the first round of report cards was unveiled last fall, there were some counterintuitive results and many complaints, but now, P.S. 8 could be the most highly regarded and popular school to receive an F.

Last school year, 67 percent of its students passed standardized tests in English and 83 percent in math, and many who know the school said such a grade would be misleading and preposterous.

“It’s a real indictment of the grading system if it takes a school that is improving rapidly and is already doing pretty well and brands it with an F,” said City Councilman David Yassky, whose district includes P.S. 8.

“It used to be that every summer I’d have parents tell me they’re moving out because there was no decent elementary school for their kids to go to,” Mr. Yassky said. “Now they’re staying in Brooklyn Heights at least through the fifth grade. The resurgence of P.S. 8 has kept a lot of young families in Brooklyn Heights, and it’s been just a tremendous boon for the neighborhood.”

Seth Phillips, who has been principal of P.S. 8 since 2003 and participated in a prestigious fellowship program last school year for outstanding principals at Columbia University’s Teachers College, declined to comment. Principals were notified of their expected grades but were ordered not to discuss them until they are announced, which is expected next week.

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  • anon

    The report card only points out the idiocy of current policy at the DOE and the failures of a system in which schools are evaluated largely on standardized tests. PS 8 is a vital educational community, and one which has been evolving rapidly since our child, now a 4th grader, started attending in 2004. Seth Phillips and his staff are tremendously dedicated, and their standards for educational achievement far, far exceed the anemic standards published by the DOE. The school is a working laboratory for enrichment programs that complement and extend the standard curriculum. In every way, PS 8 is a model for a first-rate elementary school. I can’t think of a better reason to lobby for the reversal of mayoral school control. This F grade is a disgrace–but the disgrace belongs to the DOE, not the school.

    –PS 8 parent

  • a proud PS 8 parent

    This grade in no way reflects what’s really happened at the school over the last several years. There is a reason PS 8 is one of the most sought after schools in Brooklyn. It’s a real shame that the Department of Education can’t understand that. How much money have they wasted on this system that could have actually gone to help students in the classroom?

    Seth Phillips and his teachers are doing great work and I think my child is getting an excellent education there. Any failure here rests with the Department of Education.

  • nabeguy

    Couldn’t have said it better myself. The methodology of this grading system is flawed in that it ignores the overall level of a school and focuses narrowly on how much it has improved over the previous year in comparison to other schools in the district. Thus, an underperforming school that makes modest gains gets and A, while a top school that has little room to improve gets an F. As a PS 8 parent, I fully embrace Seth’s curriculum of enrichment programs and his reluctance to allow his students to be “taught for the test”. Let the bean-counting mentaility of the DOE have its say but I’m glad to stickwith PS 8..

  • sue

    Too bad this school wasn’t paid attention to in the 1990’s. It could have saved many people a lot of money in private school education.

  • jazz

    so in effect this is an F’n A?

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    The grading system is evidently designed to give principals and faculty at schools that are performing below standard a strong incentive to improve. It has the perhaps unintended effect of punishing schools like PS 8 that have already gone through a period of substantial improvement and reached a plateau. This is not necessarily because teachers and administrators have slacked off; it may simply be that a period of rapid transformation must be succeeded by one of consolidation of gains.

    As I wrote here a year ago, it would be a great mistake for parents to rely on these letter grades in choosing where their children should go to school. Sometimes we find it comforting to have a canned “expert” evaluation to justify an important decision, and all the better if it takes the form of a supposedly “objective” letter grade or numerical score. However, in my view there’s no escaping the hard work of making up one’s own mind based on conversations with parents and students, teachers and principals, and seeing the school in action.

    That being said, I don’t think this grading business is sufficient reason to advocate an undoing of mayoral control. I like the accountability which mayoral control affords, while realizing that a side effect of accountability may be undue stress on metrics and a perceived need to show short-term gains. Those of us who, as parents, rely on the public schools, can offset this tendency by becoming more informed and involved.

  • nabeguy

    Undue stress indeed, Claude. Mr Phillips has already suffered one heart attack, and that was when the school was getting a C grade. The DOE might as well stick a stake in him if they want to punish him for underachievement.

  • esplanader

    I sense a certain level of defensiveness in these posts rather than a willingness to confront why the school seems to be doing so poorly. Doing well on tests is an important part of life. To get ahead in life you have to know how to take tests successfully. Complaining that the test is unfair is not going to cut it in our society. Shame on the school for not preparing the kids adequately to do well on the tests. Do you wish to tell the students in A and B schools that they are just lucky and do not deserve their outstanding grade? A good school teaches a child how to learn and how to use that learning to get ahead in life, which means doing well on tests!
    I am very disappointed. If this story is true the principal will have to go and a no-nonesense educator put in his place. I am sick to death of excuses from the teachers and some of the parents too.

  • lifer

    The so called defensiveness is coming from parents who are quite satisfied at their children’s growth. I think a parent is a better judge of what their kid is getting out of their school than a standardized test. Standardized tests in general have long been criticized as unfair, and untelling .The article questions the standardized tests, as well as describes the many achievements the school has made since Seth took over, maybe you should read the article.

  • esplanader

    I disagree that parents are a better judge than professional educators as to how well a kid is learning. You can’t become a doctor or a lawyer because your mom thinks you are “growing” ever so marvelously. Get real. The school flunked, it’s a disgrace, and the more excuses made by the neighborhood the worse it will be.

  • HDEB

    The N.Y.C D.O.E school grading system bases 60% of the score for a school on a “growth model”. In other words how much a class improves their test scores from the previous year.
    For example: If a fourth grade class averaged 90% on tests last year and this year they average 91% the school would receive a lower score than a school where the average test score improved from 55% to 65%.

  • DAB

    “To get ahead in life you have to know how to take tests successfully.”

    Number 1, the kids are in elementary school. They don’t need to be told that their future depends on performing a test. AP tests, SATs, yes. Some No Child Left Behind George Bush bull___, no. HDEB’s comments also make it clear that the grades are set up in such a way that even objectively well performing schools will score low marks.

    Whether this is inattention or design is another question. The mayor is–or recently was–a Republican, and they can’t be trusted to defend or believe in public schools, and hiring Bill Clinton’s antitrust lawyer to run the show is not a good sign, this being one area where competition policy, for all the wignut welfare think tank studies, just doesn’t apply. In other words — why assume mayoral control connotes accountability, at least accountability to you.

  • lifer

    You’re allowed to disagree, but HDEB’s explanation of the grading system shows the system’s flaws.
    Comparing a parent noticing their 4th grade kid’s development in reading and use of vocabulary from year to year , to an adult becoming a lawyer or doctor makes makes as much sense as the grading system, so where I understand why you think that way, I dont have to agree with you either. I’m not trying to change your mind, just give my opinion.
    To expect the neighborhood to walk around in shame, or call for the head of the principal (after what he’s done since being put in position, again, read the article if you havent) is the least productive thing to do, and will not improve anything.

  • esplanader

    flunking a test is flunking a test. I’m sorry. this principal has to go! Let’s get somebody who spends less time at Columbia University and more time on planet earth. The hardest part of all this will be convincing some of the parents who think that everything is peachy. Everything is NOT peachy.
    The parents who are disastisfied with the reading and math scores will need to get together to fight the “feel good” parents. Their children’s education is at stake!!!

  • nabeguy

    Having lived across the street from PS 8 pretty much all my life, I don’t need the DOE to tell me whether or not it’s a success story. I only need to remember back to the 80’s/90’s, when it was literally out of control with little supervision and zero vision, and a enrollment that was declining so fast that it was in jepoardy of being closed. If it’s such a failure now, why is the DOE and its team of “professional educators” investing in its expansion?

  • DAB

    Yeah, people from Columbia are dumb.

    Usually, parents under-reacting to issues involving their children is not the issue. Maybe esplanader should talk to some St. Ann’s parents about their new neighbors and see how little they take things in stride.

    It’s a serious issue because you have a good school and if parents react to failing grades by abandoning it, just a few years after PS8 really go on track, what future is there for public education in the city?

  • parent in education

    I think the grading system has its flaws, but I have also seen some real truth these grades — and i visit alot of schools.
    The system does do a good job of showing schools that are making progress with kids that come from under-resourced homes. And that is really important in our public school system, where a huge majority are in that situation.

    The letter grade is relative to 20 other comparable schools — not the school system entirely. So frankly, why is PS 8 getting an F in comparison to its comparables? Who are the comparable schools? Are they really comparable? If they are, why is PS 8 doing so much worse? These are fair questions to ask.

    I have personally visited A schools where the teachers are heroic to me. But I wouldnt put my kid there because the kids are coming from under-resourced homes. I am not talking about schools where some kids are resourced but where most kids are not — where every kids is really coming got the deck stacked against them. But the school is getting a A because those teachers are doing amazing A work.

    From what I have seen the best schools that offer a mix of fantastic teachers, and peers that my child could learn from also are generally getting Bs. So if a school is in a well resourced neighborhood and getting an F .. something is wrong.
    Either the school has a real problem. Or the comparable group is wrong. So I have seen PS 8 and I know its much more economically diverse than its location imply. It may have kids with very different needs. Students that have been read to since they were six months old and others coming with almost nothing.

    The problem then comes with the fact the school is being measured on how it helps not all kids but sub groups as well.

    So the critical thinking skills ,project based, not back to basics (that the parents have already taught them) works great for some. But other kids may need something different. Those kids benefit from being in the same classes. All do. However some of the children need a lot more support to function and probably do need some limited test prep as well and more importantly foundation skills focus.

    So lets face it. Schools serving students with a lot of resources are much easier places to teach. The teachers are doing B maybe even C level of effort in comparison to the teachers working and succeeding in low resourced neighborhoods. The job in that neighborhood is 24/7. And its not that the teachers are not good, its just an easier job. And if you do it really well, the tests are not sophisticated to measure the gains of a teacher who teachers superior critical thinking skills. (most dont by they way– bc the test dont measure it anyway.)

    I would still send my kid to the B school instead of the A for the reasons mentioned..
    But an F is a signal that something is wrong. But it could be a signal that its not meeting the needs of those kids that are coming in at lower levels.

    commentary aside, ps 8 needs to tell us…

    1) who are your comparable schools
    2) Have you visited them to see if they are comparable for real or not
    3) if they are what are they doing well that you could learn from?
    4) are you sure you are not riding the backs of your kids that actually come in ready to learn.. and are you targeting your hardest cases adaquatley. The ones whose parents are blowing off the pta meetings.

  • esplanader

    “the basic responsibility of a school is to enable its students to master standards and improve on their performance. ….
    PS 8 largely failed at these tasks last year”
    – NY Times Sept.12, 2008

  • http://brooklynheightsblog.com Qfwfq

    esplanader, the problem is PS 8 has already jumped ahead of most NYC public schools. It’s got a much greater percentage of students passing the tests than the average. The city’s formula weighs heavily on growth…but if the school already experienced a growth spurt, it gets penalized for doing consistently well.

    Really, it seems there should be two metrics for measuring a school’s performance: a metric for year-to-year growth for those underperforming at certain level, and another metric for those who have exceeded that level and are only going to see moderate-to-slow growth in test scores.

  • parent in education

    Sorry hit sumbit before spell checking.

    Comment from parent in education
    Time: September 12, 2008, 1:25 pm

    I think the grading system has its flaws, but I have also seen some real truth these grades — and I visit many schools.
    The system does do a good job of showing schools that are making progress with kids that come from under-resourced homes. (not just schools that need to make improvement.)

    And that is really important in our public school system, where a huge majority are in that situation.

    The letter grade is relative to 20 other comparable schools — not the school system entirely. So frankly, why is PS 8 getting an F in comparison to its comparables? Who are the comparable schools? Are they really comparable? If they are, why is PS 8 doing so much worse? These are fair questions to ask.

    I have personally visited letter A graded schools where the teachers are just frigging heroic. But I wouldn’t put my kid there because way too many of his peers are coming from homes that are too under-resourced. Concentrated poverty — not diversity in any sense.

    But the school is getting a A because those teachers are doing amazing A work. By A I mean working their butts off — success by any means necessary.

    From what I have seen, the best schools that offer a mix of fantastic teachers, and a mix of peers that could benefit my child child are generally getting Bs.

    So if a school is in a well resourced neighborhood and getting an F .. something is wrong.
    Either the school has a real problem, or the comparable group is wrong. So I have seen PS 8 and I know its much more economically diverse than its location might imply. It may have kids with very different needs. Students that have been read to since they were six months old and others coming with almost no early support. And we all know what happens from 0 – 3 shapes what is even possible going forward.

    The problem then comes with the fact the school is being measured on how it helps not all kids but the sub groups as well.

    So for some kids you can focus on teaching critical thinking and higher order thinking to the exclusion of basic skills, but other kids may need something different. Those kids benefit from being in the same classes. However some of the children need a lot more support and probably do need some limited test prep as well and more importantly foundation skills focus. And in fact they often need other things like, how to behave and function in a class setting, how to concentrate, how focus and pay attention, how to monitor their own learning, respect, eye contact.. the list goes on and on. A+ teachers and schools in New York often do what parents didn’t get to. Hence why the charter schools focus on character as much as tests and why they are successful.

    So lets face it. Schools serving students with a lot of resources are much easier places to teach. The teachers are doing B maybe even C level of effort in comparison to the teachers working and succeeding in low resourced neighborhoods. The job in that neighborhood is 24/7. And its not that the teachers are not good, its just an easier job. And if you do it really well, the tests are not sophisticated to measure the gains of a teacher who teaches superior critical thinking skills. (many dont by they way– bc in fact there is no useful standard ways to measure it.)

    I would still send my kid to the B school instead of the A for the reasons mentioned..

    But an F is a signal that something is wrong. But it could be a signal that its not meeting the needs of those kids that are coming in at lower levels.

    commentary aside, ps 8 needs to tell us…

    1) Who are your comparable schools?
    2) Have you visited them to see if they are comparable for real or not?
    3) If they are what are they doing well that you could learn from?
    4) Are you sure you are not riding the backs of your kids that actually come in ready to learn.. and are you targeting your hardest cases? And by that I specifically mean the ones whose parents are blowing off the pta meetings — bc those are the
    ones that a teacher cannot only be teacher, but in fact a hero.

  • esplanader

    Dear “Parent in education”: you didn’t have to post twice because of mis-spellings, this is a blog, typos are part of the stew and no one reads long posts that carefully anyway. But your comment that an “F” does mean something has to be wrong is well taken. Many of my neighbors are in complete denial judging from these posts. Blaming the “F” on everything from the Republicans to the fact that the school is TOO good.

  • sue

    DAB- The mayor is a Republican like Guliani is a liberal democrat.

  • Bart

    I grew up in Brooklyn in the 70’s and 80’s. The rule of thumb was that if you could afford private school, you would never send your kid to a public school.

    As a parent of two now, I send both of my kids to St. Anns. There is way too much riding on their future for me to wonder whether a public school can provide them with an education that will allow them to get accepted and thrive in a top notch private liberal arts university. The world is much more competitive now. And for a child to succeed in tomorrow’s world, he or she needs the cumulative benefit of years of excellent education, not just a good education.

    Granted there are some highly motivated students, with parents who care; these students would excel in any school, public or private. But the idea of a New York City public school (excluding perhaps Stuyvesant) is kind of like using a public defendant. I would never use a public defendant if I could afford a private lawyer. Ultimately you get what you pay for.

    Bart

  • nabeguy

    Gee, I went to P.S. 8, Saint Ann’s AND Columbia College. I wonder how I fit into Esplanader and Bart’s picture.

  • esplanader

    nabeguy, wherever you went to school, you need to improve your reading comprehension skills because my posts have nothing in common with Bart’s post. The latter is obviously a snob who doesn’t like public school. I attended public schools and know how important it is to do well on standardized tests. My main point is that something is wrong at PS 8 and I don’t know what it is but I am not kidding myself into thinking that it is just dandy-fine.

  • http://www.brooklynbackstretch.blogspot.com BKBS

    I am not well versed enough in the metrics used or PS 8 to argue whether the grade is fair or not. But I am a teacher, and to say that one’s success in life depends on taking a test is simply wrong. More and more institutions of higher educations are eschewing standardized tests as a determinant of admission because they recognize the tests’ inherent bias toward white, affluent kids. And when was the last time that any professional had to take a test to succeed in her job on a daily basis?

    Tests are simply an easy way to try to measure a certain limited type of knowledge; they reveal little about a child’s intelligence or capacity to learn, or how a professional will act in a given situation. Lousy doctors and lousy teachers get certified, and some of the best teachers I know have never been certified.

    Maybe PS 8’s failing, maybe it’s not. But test performance is certainly not the way to determine it.

  • http://brooklynheightsblog.com Qfwfq

    For those who may have glossed over the article: for PS 8, 67 percent of its students passed standardized tests in English and 83 percent in math in 2008. The city-wide average for 2008 is 58 percent in English, 74 percent in math. That means PS 8 is a better than average school. The largest reason why it got an F, is because between 2007 and 2008, the already higher than average test-passing rate improved only slightly.

    For comparison, in 2002, PS 8 had 32 percent passing English tests, and 26 percent passing math.

  • nabeguy

    I’ll brush up on mine when you do likewise. Simply because I mentioned both your names in one post doesn’t mean I was linking your views as common. My point was that, having attended both public and private schools, I have a perspective from both sides of the fence. Perhaps if you read Q’s last post, you’ll get the point of those people who argue against the way these grades are arrived at. Quoting from a person inside the system, as you did earlier, is not going to otherwise convince anyone who questions the methodology to begin with. .No doubt PS 8 can improve, but this grade is meaningless as far as I’m concerned, especially as it doesn’t measure the skill sets of the pre-K through 2nd grades, where much of the new growth has come from.

  • ps8 parent

    “Let’s have a mathematical model by which to assess elementary schools.”
    “Good idea. We’ll need data. There’s seven grades. Only three do tests.”
    “Oh. Well just ignore the four grades that aren’t tested.”
    “Fair enough.”
    “Also, the curriculum includes art, dance, music, drama, gym, math, English and social studies and most of them have no tests.”
    “No sweat, just ignore the ones that don’t have tests.”
    “But that means we’ll end up ignoring most of the kids and most of the curriculum.”
    “Never let small details get in the way of a big idea.”

  • here since 89

    I was shocked when I read today’s NY Times piece on PS 8. It was not good for the neighborhood. Obviously the older minority students in the school are failing. Is the principal afraid to push them and challenge them for fear of being politically incorrect? Are they lost in a pseudo-St Ann’s of ubber-whiteness? Whatever the reason, we are failing the black students miserably. I blame the principal. This is a disgrace whether we like it or not. Our public school got an F. Not a C…not a D… but an F! do we really think that the test was specifically designed to make brooklyn heights look bad? I think there should be more soul-searching and less chest-thumping. We have failed our students especially the poorest ones. I do not care what propaganda the PTA or the BHA puts out in the coming days and weeks -covering their posteriors- this is an unmitigated disaster, heads need to roll. It is not enough to say “the white kids are doing OK”.

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