It was so troubling to sit and listen to New Rochelle High School Principal — a man with a long track record of fabricating data files in SED reports — that I did not get around to posting my notes on his remarks so I am going to add them to the bottom of that post and add them here as a seperate post so readers do not miss them.
Consider this an update to this previous post: New Rochelle Board of Education “Solves” Declining Minority Graduation Rates the Old Fashioned Way — Ignoring Them
Some thoughts and questions…
1. If a student earns a grade below 65 but is close to getting a 65 (like a 62, 63, or 64) does the school “round up” those scores? In other words, does a passing grade really mean they got a 65 or better is “close to” 65 the standard? See if you can get Don Conetta on record.
2. Since Mr. Conetta said he was able to forecast the graduation rates for next year, ask him “What do you forecast the impact on next year’s certified graduation will have on the number of students walking in the June graduation ceremony next year?
3. Can the graduation rate data and the 3-8 ELA and Math Data be normalized over time so that the community can make apples-to-apples comprisons?
4. New York State requires 79% graduation rate or else school “fails”. Conetta said he was too busy preparing his presentation to look at what happens if he does not hit 79% graduation by August.
5. Of the enrollment/expansion programs described in the presentation, which were instituted in response to the news in March that graduation rates for 2009 had fallen dramatically?
6. Conetta says that letters are going out to the community inviting them to one-to-one mentoring.
7. In March 2010, when the latest graduation rates came out, Sara Richmond, the Board President, said the board was “disappointed” with the graduation rate data. She said that the Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak had been directed to come back to the board in May with ideas on how to address the poor results. In May, Ms. Richmond announced that the the presentation from Mr. Organisciak would be made in July. In July, Mr. Organisciak did not present at all. Instead, NRHS Principal Don Conetta presented.
8. Don Conetta is the person most directly responsible for the results at the high school he is hardly a disinterested party; he is basically passing judgement on his own performance. Not surprisingly, he found nothing at all wrong with his performance. The decline in graduation rates was only briefly mentioned and instead presented within the context of a disjointed, rambling, incoherent splattering of data, charts and tables designed to confuse not enlighten. For example, slides included references to gender performance, an issue not on the agenda at all. Mr. Conetta intentionally made the information confusing to discourage direct analysis of school performance.
9. It was never made clear why the data could not be normalized to make possible direct comparisons from one year to the next. Instead, the data was presented in a way intended to obscure. Given that Mr. Conetta claims to have forecast next years graduation rates by race and ethnicity, surely this sort of effort is possible.
10. The only new “idea” mentioned in the entire presentation was the “Freshman Watch List” which is used to provide information to house principals and teaching teams to inform them of students who are struggling. It was never made clear how this was different than the 9th grade, midterm report card for the 1st marking period which goes out to parents after the first 5-6 weeks of high school and is based on information provided by members of the teaching team.
11. Mr. Conetta concluded his presentation by saying that “all these things” is what contributed to success. If the purpose of the presentation was to respond to the Board’s request for ideas on his to fix the FAILURE of the high school how can “all these things” be said to contribute to the “success” of the school. There is no success. That was the whole point.
12. A parent spoke on a tangentially related topic. Alana Silverman spoke to ask that the school district change its policy so that summer school courses can be taken for a letter grade rather than pass/fail so they can count towards overall GPA. Perhaps that summer school is pass/fail explains why so many students prefer summer school.
13. Some interesting Cohort Data
Black 2000=825 2009=998 +21%
Latino 2000=664 2009=1213 +82%
White 2000=1355 2009=1094 -20%
DISCLAIMER: By previous written policy directive, Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak has ordered administrators and building principals in the City School District of New Rochelle not to respond to requests for information from Robert Cox and/or Talk of the Sound. Further that Robert Cox is banned from school property except for purposes of attending a public meeting or event or for matters related to a child enrolled in a particular school and that the school district refuses to comply with FOIL requests made by Robert Cox — both of which are violations of New York State law. Talk of the Sound makes a reasonable effort to get official, on-the-record comment from school officials but this is made all but impossible due to district policy.