March 20th Meeting Between Representatives of PEP and the Board
As many of you know, for the past several months, The Parents’ Educational Partnership (PEP ) has been asking for a meeting with the Board of Education to discuss our schools’ performance data, which PEP made the focus of three Town Hall Meetings. On Sunday, March 20th, that meeting finally occurred, although not with the full Board, as we had hoped. We were told that the Board’s “protocol” precluded attendance by all 7 Board members, but that the Executive Board (the President and Vice President) would meet with us and then provide a report to the full Board. As a practical matter, because all Board members (other than Phil Silano) had attended at least one of the PEP Town Hall
As it turned out, only the Vice President, Dennis DiLorenzo, was able to attend on behalf of the Board, because the President, Joan Tiburzi, was understandably unavailable for valid personal reasons. Superintendent Lou Wool also attended. Six members of PEP actively participated in the meeting. We were pleased to note that Messrs. DiLorenzo and Wool were fully familiar with the data and slides PEP had disseminated, and referred to them frequently during our meeting.
Over the course of our 4-hour meeting, we discussed the data and issues that PEP has been highlighting, as well as many other issues. By the end of the meeting, we believe there was substantial agreement between the PEP representatives and Messrs. DiLorenzo and Wool that:
· Average SAT scores are unacceptably low, both standing alone and in comparison to those of other schools in its peer group.
· The percentages of students achieving the levels of “mastery” on Regents tests (a score of 85 or better; below that score is considered by the NY Dep’t of Educations to be less than “solid competence”) are unacceptably low, again on both a stand-alone basis and in comparison to other schools in the District’s peer group.
· The number of Advanced Placement tests that result in scores of 1 and 2 (48% of the total of tests taken) is unacceptable, although Mr. Wool claims that some of the “2” scores were actually “high 2s” and should therefore not be considered unacceptable. We also agreed that, whatever the District claims as the significance of the data, it should disclose full AP test results for each test, showing the number of tests that scored 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.
· The District should identify the colleges that accept Harrison students for admission in a way that does not count a student’s multiple college acceptances more than once.
We believe these are all substantial issues, and we were pleased to hear that the District agreed with us on all these points.
We also discussed at considerable length the District’s past achievements, plans for curriculum improvements, possible causes of the disappointing performance data and steps that can be taken to improve it. There were a number of points of agreement on these issues as well, but there were also some very fundamental areas of disagreement. Messrs. DiLorenzo and Wool were candid in stating that the approach the District has been taking, and plans to continue, is simply not driven by a goal of improving objective performance metrics, but rather by the “philosophical commitment” to providing opportunity for “all students.” In their view, the curriculum and other decisions that have been made over the past years have been “successful” precisely because they have been consistent with that philosophy.
We suggested that the District’s decision in 2002-03 to eliminate multiple levels of course offerings, and the completion of that purge in 2007, has actually had the opposite of their stated goal, that is, many students actually have fewer opportunities because of more limited choices along the spectrum of challenge in many course offerings. In response, Superintendent Wool agreed that perhaps the District needs to do more for “higher achieving” students than it has in the past. We certainly agreed with that, and also pointed out that “lower achieving students” seem to be equally disadvantaged. This is because the diversity of our community is reflected in the diversity of our classrooms, and despite the enormous talent and perseverance of our teachers, it is simply impossible to teach to 20 or so students in a single class with significant disparities in abilities and preparedness. Messrs. DiLorenzo and Wool disagreed. They insist that “differentiated teaching” is working just fine in the District, and that the poor performance data is unrelated to this virtually unique approach among school districts.
We concluded the meeting by agreeing on another important point: Despite the vitriol expressed in some quarters about the issues PEP has raised, the Board and Superintendent Wool agree that PEP has opened an important dialogue, and that the children in the District will benefit by continuing that conversation.
March 23rd Board Meeting
We were extremely gratified that at the beginning of the meeting, both Mr. DiLorenzo and Mr. Wool made the following comments about PEP (which it identified only as the “parent group” with which it had met the previous Sunday) that diverged significantly from accusations that had been made by many detractors, including members of the Board at its February 9th meeting: In particular, Messrs. DiLorenzo and Wool informed the community that:
· The performance data PEP had presented is accurate;
· PEP is not advocating a “return to tracking,” as Messrs. Silano, Curtis and Singer had inaccurately stated at the February 9th Board meeting;
· PEP is not critical of the teachers in the District;
· PEP is not “disparaging” the students in the District, as the Harrison Report quoted a Board member as having asserted;
· PEP is not viewed as an adversary of the Board, but rather as an ally in working to improve our School District . Superintendent Wool specifically noted: “I have to emphatically state that all of these folks are committed to the same thing you are, we are--improving opportunities for all of our kids.”
We were also pleased that the presentation included some items that PEP had specifically stressed in its Town Hall meetings and in its data presentations, including:
· The highly controversial practices of “universal acceleration” “differentiated learning,” which this District has pursued far more comprehensively than all the higher performing school districts in its peer group, and indeed more comprehensively than most other school districts in the state and the country.
· The issue of offering more options to our students beyond a choice of Regents-level courses that may not be challenging enough and college-level AP courses for which they may not yet be adequately prepared.
· The need for the District to devote greater resources and attention to higher performing students by, among other things, ensuring that “flex time” is used for enrichment for those students needing greater challenges than are afforded in the classroom.
· The controversial practice now followed in the District of having all or almost all students take the 9th grade Integrated Algebra Regents exam in 8th grade and the 11th grade ELA Regents in 10th grade, versus having students of differing abilities take that test at a time in their educational journey when they are properly prepared for it.
For those who were unable to attend the March 23rd meeting, we urge you to access it on Channel 74. It will be available until March 29th. Because of the length of the meeting, the broadcast is being offered in two parts. Part One is aired at and , and Part Two is being aired at and . The positive comments about PEP and the constructive nature of its efforts occurred in the first 10 – 15 minutes of Part One the meeting. The Power Point slide presentation given at the meeting is available on the District’s website. The link is http://www.harrisoncsd.org/pdf/boepre032311.pdf.
The rest of the meeting was a bit more disappointing, at least in part. The Superintendent presented an avalanche of data (75 Power Point slides about the trends in then District’s performance and the curriculum changes planned for the future, including the launch of the International Baccalaureate (IB) program. Although parts of the presentation were helpful in understanding the state of the District, we were disappointed that in other aspects of the presentation, more was concealed than revealed. This was perhaps most glaring in connection with Regents scores.
The District limited its comparison of Harrison’s performance to that of other schools in its peer group in two significant ways: first, rather than comparing Harrison’s results to that of each of the other peer-group schools, Harrison’s scores were compared only to the average (or the “mean,” as it was described in the presentation) scores of the 18 other schools in the peer group. Although the slides confirmed that Harrison performed somewhat below the average, the use of a single average made it impossible to determine where Harrison ’s performance ranks within the overall group.
The second, and far more troubling, aspect of the presentation is that the comparisons were limited to “proficiency” level scores, with no comparative data about “mastery” level scores. As noted above, the NY Dep’t of Education considers scores below 85, which is the threshold for “mastery” designation, to be an indication that “solid competence” has not been achieved. In contrast, the label “proficiency” is accorded to tests that merely achieve a passing grade of 65. Not surprisingly, given the modest level of challenge offered by Regents exams, the average level of “proficiency” achievement for the schools in Harrison ’s peer group was at or above 95% for most tests. But even here, there were instances where Harrison ’s proficiency levels lagged disturbingly behind the average for all other schools in its peer group.
The data PEP accumulated by reviewing the publicly available data for each school district in Harrison ’s peer group presents a very different, and a far more disturbing, portrait. A copy of that data is attached to this email and will shortly be made available on PEP’s website. The link is http://harrisondata.blogspot.com/
The Future
At both the meeting with PEP and at the March 23rd Board Meeting, Superintendent Wool rejected the notion that high failure rates in AP scores is indicative of a fundamental flaw in the thrust for “universal acceleration,” insisting instead that taking the challenging courses is a success in itself, irrespective of the scores achieved. We intend to continue to press for considerably more balance between this view and the contrary view that thrusting students into college-level courses for which they are not yet prepared creates its own set of educational issues and problems.
The one area in which there was total agreement is that the college admission data is indeed a valid and important metric of success. On that basis, we have asked the District to provide data regarding college acceptances over the past 10 years. The District used to provide data showing the schools who had accepted graduating seniors for admission and the number of students accepted into each school. More recently that data has either not been presented at all or it has been presented in a form that makes comparisons with other school districts impossible. We intend to continue to press the District for meaningful data regarding this important issue.
Superintendent Wool also promised at the March 23rd Board Meeting that he would have one or more additional presentations that focus on the following important issues of particular concern to PEP :
o Differentiated learning
o SAT scores
o College Admissions
We believe that PEP has made a good beginning. Much more needs to be accomplished. The Board’s response to our actions has moved from oppositional to cautiously attentive. We need a majority of the Board to move beyond that, to a proactive and energetic commitment to lead our school district to what we believe is its proper place in the upper echelons of then 19 schools that comprise the Westchester High Performing School Systems, rather than at or near the bottom of the rankings in virtually all categories. The members of PEP intend to work diligently toward that goal. Please join us in doing so. Your comments to this email will be appreciated.
