NY Schools getting more A’s

I came across an article from the NY Times and it was titled, ” New York School’s Get A’s”. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/nyregion/17grades.html

It sparked my attention and made me wonder how these schools were getting more A’s. What the article had started to say was the with Mayor Bloomberg’s signature accountability program, grades have improved since last year in the New York area.

The article continues on by stating that “between federal and city assessments — 30 percent of the schools deemed failures under the No Child Left Behind act earned A’s from the city on Tuesday, while 16 of the city’s 18 failures are in good standing under the federal guidelines. And again, schools that had enviable reputations received less than enviable grades, like Public School 8, a respected and popular Brooklyn Heights elementary school, whose F stunned parents”.

Mr. Haney, a college professor, said that it was “likely that relatively small schools — of which there are an increasing number, because of the Bloomberg administration’s breaking larger schools into smaller thematic programs — would show the most change, since any fluctuation in performance among even a few students would have a sizable impact”.

This article sparked my interest for a few reasons. I found it kind of ironic how these New York schools were doing so much better grade wise since the previous years. While i was reading to find out about more i realized that the same schools that were recieving A’s were categorized as failing schools under the No Child Left Behind Act. This shows the problem with the NCLB act and how unclear it is to many readers who do not understand the act. Federal and City/State assessments are set at differing levels which make it very inconsistent and very confusing in terms of school’s and student’s progress. There has to be a better system for evaluating students and tweaking the flaws from the NCLB might be the final solution to such mess.

Under Mayor Bloomberg’s new signature accountability program, many student’s and schools seem to be doing better. Is that because the assessment of the school is easier than the federal assessment? I wonder how other major cities would compare to New York if they all implemented an assessment that made thier cities look just as good as New York.

Maybe i’ll read one day….. Detroit school’s get more A’s????