The answer to the question depends, in large measure, on who is asking it and for what purpose. If you are a DOE Administrator, the data is essential information: It enables the DOE to take corrective action on schools who have not met Annual Yearly Progress, and the data provides an empirical "public face" for the school's presumed value (as well as the DOE's definition of same). For this parent of a NYC public school student, however, the data is far less transparent. Even if the school scores well in the "progress report," the data does not indicate the instructional climate, leadership capacity, the overall skill of the teachers (test prep notwithstanding), the dispositions regarding curriculum, and school philosophy, among other items that are likely to impact on my child's education significantly. Granted, these cannot be easily quantified, but that's the whole point: To assert (as does the DOE and certain brands of education reformers) that it is possible to provide unassailable measures of school quality premised on comparatively few items of passable (at best) to questionable merit is a weak argument for determining quality (the same holds for so-called measurements of teacher quality, premised on standardized test score results). And so, as a parent, I look to other sources of information to determine value. It is good to take seriously the question of school quality, and to gather evidence of same; I hope that the definition of "quality" can include a broader array of empirical components, as well as qualitative measures that may be difficult to assign a number or letter grade.

I taught 5th grade at PS 277 from 2002-2007. This report is both heartbreaking and frustrating. My former colleagues at the school are among the most decent, caring, hard-working people I've met. Their efforts on behalf of their students are heroic and inspiring.

But the Teacher's College Reading and Writing Workshop, to which the school is wedded to, is what made me a curriculum activist. Its emphasis on process writing--small moments and memoirs--may be engaging for some students, but ultimately it does them a grave disservice. Children of poverty tend to come to school with smaller vocabularies and less general knowledge of the world that their peers in more affluent neighborhoods. These deficits lie at the heart of their difficulties in reading comprehension and other language skills. Thus the most important thing we can do as teachers is immerse children in rich content, across subjects--science, history, art, music--deliberately and coherently. The Teacher's College Reading and Writing "curriculum" (as one staff developer told me, "It's not a curriculum, it's a philosophy") does not do this.

With its relentless focus on student selected topics the writer's workshop has the unintended consequence of narrowing a child's field of vision to his or her immediate surroundings and experience. It is exactly the opposite of what we should be giving the child: access to the empowering world of knowledge and ideas that affluent children come to school with, not because they are smarter, but because they have enjoyed the benefits of travel, rich dinner table conversations with educated parents, outings to museums, etc.

Similarly, the readers workshop approach mistakenly assumes that comprehension is a transferable skill, a function of formulaic "reading strategies" and other how-to tricks. (cf. "Teaching Content is Teaching Reading" a YouTube video produced by Dan Willingham). Like the writers workshop, students read books that they choose themselves, thus minimizing the opportunity to build their store of background knowledge, and the context in which language and vocabulary growth occurs.

This curriculum may work on the upper east side and Park Slope, but it makes the "Matthew Effect," the deficits low-SES kids come to school with in language and knowledge, worse not better.

My heart breaks for my PS 277 friends and colleagues who are slavishly devoted to their students. The fault is not theirs. They are laboring under a humane, well-intentioned, but ultimately ruinous theory of learning and a curriculum that is deeply flawed and deleterious to the needs of their students.

It is fashionable to look at schools like PS277, label it a failure, fire the staff and "start fresh." That would be a tragedy. They do not need new teachers or leadership. What they need is a coherent, sequential curriculum.

I don't understand how so many schools that score low by the city do so well on their Quality Reviews. I worked for 5 years at a school in NYC which has very low scores year after year, yet their quality review always says they are "well-developed" - the highest rating. They are not well developed. For example, they always show the reviewers their AIS plans, groups and activities on paper - the program doesn't exist! If the reviewers interviewed students they would find out the truth about these programs. The Principal pays her friends per session to stay after school and perform administrative functions. The Principal shows off her "Teacher Resource Room" - funny, that the door is open only when reviewers are there - teachers aren't allowed to use the room with all the materials - same with the Library - only open when the visitors arrive. The Librarian only exists on paper; usually she is doing administrative paper work - never meets with kids or has the library open; same with Technology.

Seriously, any of us who are familiar with the entire framework for the letter grades and the 'quality review' of the NYC schools can tell you that most of the 'data' is really solely about the test scores. And, for educators, this scoring is the single most misguided factor for measuring students AND schools.

So long as the Educrats and the Tweed/Mayor Combo are at the helm of the largest public school system in the USA, we are just going to continue this crazy slide into testing, data collection and corporate 'accounting'...INSTEAD of real and valuable TEACHING AND LEARNING...

Measuring schools and teachers is all a great thought, but it has turned into little more than scoring tests which do not measure learning or thinking, and in a system with so many struggling students and families, the Mayor and his cohorts have simply missed the mark.

Incentives for Principals are based on test scores, not on actually running a successful learning community. Teachers are brought in throughout the city who have NO teaching experience, paid the least the city can manage, then when nearly 40% of them leave, new college graduates with no experience fill their classes.

Teachers are pushed to TEACH TO THE TEST, regardless of anything spokespeople will say from Tweed/DOE offices. At schools around the city, teachers 'simulate' test days for MONTHS before the tests, as though magically kids will LEARN all they need (ie multiplication and reading literacy) by moving their desks and using a timer!

This school in your story and many others deserve to be measured on real factors for learning, teaching and for school community. What a shame under the Mayor... what a mess the DOE in our fair city has become; it is truly NOT about our kids anymore at City Hall... and until that changes, until we remember what education is all about, it will continue to be a failing system.

I am a fourth grade teacher at PS 199 in Manhattan, a high performance school with overwhelming parental support. My school is located in the Upper West Side of New York, a very affluent and desirable place to live. We use The Reading and Writing Project curriculum for literacy and hold our students to lofty standards when it comes to their achievement. This past year, a colleague of mine and I took a “professional field trip” to PS 277 because of the work we heard that was being done under the direction of Cheryl Tyler. We spent the day talking to Ms. Tyler and visiting classrooms, watching in awe the meaningful work in which the students were engaged. Students were discussing the socio-economic levels of characters in various books and analyzing the illustrations and text in order to grow theories about the lifestyles of the characters. The students were very absorbed in this critical inquiry work, making close observations about information in their own books and trying to apply their ideas to the world. I was blown away by the students’ level of engagement and the sophistication of their responses. My colleague and I realized that the rigorous work at PS 277 was rivaling the work at PS 199 and that there was so much to be learned from the students and faculty at this gem in the Bronx. We continue to stay in touch with and learn from Ms. Tyler and her teachers.

I am writing in support of PS 277 and the exemplary work being done by the students, teachers and administration in that school. When I heard that PS 277 is faced with being phased out or conceding to new leadership, I was stunned. I wondered how those two options could possibly be presented as solutions? What would disbanding a school or replacing visionary leaders accomplish, other than disrupting the students’ feelings of stability? When many students in that school are from foster homes or shelters there is a greater need than ever to create a stable and safe school environment. Under the superior leadership of Cheryl Tyler and in the hands of very talented teachers, the students in PS 277 know they are supported and cared for and encouraged. What can they expect now?

I am urging the Department of Education to preserve the current leadership of PS 277 and help keep their doors open for many years to come. Most of the teachers in PS 277 have degrees in education and literacy from Columbia University, the staff presents at conferences and consults around the country, and the visionary Cheryl Tyler is devoted to supporting her students in every way she can. When she joined PS 277 five years ago and hired all of these talented teachers, Ms. Tyler faced the challenge of turning the tides in a historically impoverished community. Her school is making great leaps everyday and the students are more empowered because of it. Please help keep this model school intact and in service. The students require at least that much.

One thing most people are not aware of is that New York State's assessment of each school - the number that places schools on the SINI list (schools in need of improvement) - is a formula that counts 3s and 4s twice. It's 2s plus 3s plus 4s plus 3s plus 4s (1s count for zero). Therefore, schools that admit by test scores have enormous advantage of schools that don't. Ditto for schools with mostly middle class and above kids. A school teaching struggling students is always at risk for being put on these lists.... Fair?

As a parent of a 2nd grader at La Cima Elementary Charterschool. I must say that I completely agree with Ms. Zayas in saying that the childrens safety and curriculum goals are the first and foremost priority to all La Cima faculty and staff. I am appalled with the DOE's grading of the school as it is a complete misrepresentation of the school that both I and my childchild are so proud of. Keep doing th amazing job you are doing La Cima... Climb High!

I think that it comes as no surprise to teachers in the DOE that the Progress reports are biased against schools that service traditionally disadvantaged groups. Few schools that service the least disadvantaged face the kinds of struggles being faced at high minority and low income schools and this gives them a great advantage on statistical analyses. Although the Progress Report does something to alleviate this concern (namely the "peer group" comparison) the grades still also give weight to a City School comparison which greatly benefits those schools who have students who enter at or above grade level against those who enter school far below. The question then becomes, do these schools with advantaged students do a better job educating their students? I think the answer to this question is a resounding no.

The educators as advantaged schools do far less work than their peers at disadvantaged schools. It is easier to manage the classroom. There is less likely to be distractions like gang violence. Students are much more likely to study outside the classroom and gain access to outside tutoring. Those of us who teach at disadvanatged schools know the difficulty of remediation with students who do not do basic things like homework, studying for exams or even have regular classroom attendance. The impact of having a college educated English speaking parent who can help explain or reinforce difficult topics is another one of the myriad benefits schools of advantaged students have that has little or nothing to do with how well the school is performing its job.

I think the dirty secret that those within the school system have known for years is that school accountability is more about closing schools that service the neediest children so that those children can be shuffled to different schools which will then under-perform and in turn be closed. Why does the system do this shuffle? It comes down to incentives. The incentives revolve around schools that can make students who are not performing well look like they are. Close schools and remove teachers who are making a heroic effort to actually educate children and replace them with teachers who understand the system and are willing to lie on their surveys, keep graduation rates high by passing students who don't even show up and most nefariously assist students on standardized exams by either cheating or inflating the scores when the teachers grade the exams. To those of us in the system it comes as no surprise that the high school with the HIGHEST grade in the city was also found to have abused the system and manipulated statistics. What is surprising is that the widespread nature of such tactics at all schools to varying degrees(especially those servicing the students that are the most disadvantages) has not been investigated.

Accuracy is perhaps not the strongest point of this type of reporting, but they can still reflect the truth closely enough, or at least raise significant red flags. In my school's report, (somewhere in Queens...) for instance, significant percentages (40%-50%) of teachers disagree or strongly disagree with statements like:
1) I trust the principal at his or her word.
2) The principal places the learning needs of children ahead of other interests
3) The principal is an effective manager who makes the school run smoothly

and no one is surprised about these results. So yes, to a large these reports can "speak the truth"

I know you're asking the questions, but ...:-)

Do parents receive notice of such flags? Do parents have a right to know how the DOE handles them? In the end, it just might be "teachers out to get the principal" but that's no so good news either.

Many thanks to WNYC and NYT for this schoolbook project!!

The New York Times lists this topic as "We Have Your Schools Grade" [sic] at http://www.nytimes.com/pages/.... Could you please add an apostrophe to the possessive form? The general decline in punctuation and grammar at the Times is depressing, especially in discussions of education.

These reports often reflect better who cheats or is unscrupulous then the honest effect schools have on their students I think they should be dumped. HS's even grade there own exams! Much of the other data collected is also a funtion of the school's gaming of the system than outside accountability. The school is measured by how many credits (passed courses) the students accumulate for example and yet it is the school that determines when students fail. You might have a 100% pass rate with a collection of students that can barely read.

I am not against accountability or providing the best possible education for inner city students. However, these reports are a poor reflection of what is really happening in schools. It is easy to manipulate data and make the numbers work for you. I also find it difficult to understand that there are schools that receive A's and B's on the progress report but do not meet the standards put forth by the State which puts these same schools on a list called "schools in need of improvement".

I would refer anyone interested in this topic to SchoolFisher.com: "The Department of Education’s overall progress report grade is completely unreliable and useless to you. For example, P.S. 288 in Brooklyn received an "A" so you might be tempted to send your child there. Big mistake. Only 21% of its students read "proficiently" according to state tests. By contrast, at Icahn Charter School 2, 80% of the students are proficient – about four times as many – but it got a "C", a worse grade than P.S. 288. The overall progress report grade is unreliable because it is based to a significant degree on how much the average student at a school has learned in the last year. This may sound like a good idea. However, in practice, it can mean that schools can get very good grades even if they are really quite weak. First, a school that has a really horrible year can get a terrific grade if it improves its program to plain old bad. In fact, it can get a better grade than a program that just stays great because staying great isn’t progress. Second, schools can get great grades if they have a really lousy program through third grade – resulting in really weak scores in third grade, the first testing year – and then finally focus in fourth grade and start showing improvement. It's like a political advisor setting low expectations for a candidate in a political debate so that he can turn in a good performance by not being as awful as people expected. (And, by the way, don’t think that principals haven’t figured this out when their jobs and bonuses are at stake."

The reason that the progress reports do not give an accurate picture of a school is because schools are graded against their peer group and not against the whole city. Because of this practice, the grades are misleading. Lower performing schools are able to get higher grades than some high performing schools. I think that the grades should be qualified to make this clear.
Also, if the department of education is going to claim that all students are capable of achieving equally regardless of their economic status, than all of the schools should be judged as a part of one large pool and not divided into peer groups based in large part on their economic status.

If you compare Progress Reports in Bayside and Brownsville the fallacy of the Reports becomes evident (http://mets2006.wordpress.com...) ... poverty plays a significant role which is ignored by the spinners.

No. PS 196 The Grand Central Parkway School has a "silent lunch," neighborhood parents tell me. That is in no way, shape or form a "good school" regardless of any test scores anywhere at any time.

No need to add much more, everyone has made the case...No. The school grading system not only paints an inaccurate picture, it harms whole communities in bold, technicolor, 3D by labeling them "failing."
As an advocate for at-risk schools in New York City, I've witnessed first hand the fallout of this "system." The only people it works for work at Tweed; how does that put children first?

Robert,
I've worked with high-poverty NYC schools for the past 9 years. Your analysis of the TC curriculum/philosophy is the most spot-on I've ever read. I too have grown incredibly concerned over the years about the emphasis on "small moments," "text to self" and "self-selected independent reading" as the primary vehicle of reading instruction. While I agree we need to provide mirrors into students lives, we need to provide windows to the outside world too.

Thanks for responding to my piece about P.S. 277, this is a really great discussion.

I learned a lot about this debate over reading when I wrote my book a few years ago. But the question remains - and I'll put this out there for Robert and Amelia: Why do other schools in very high-poverty districts do well with the same TC program used by P.S. 277? I was going to explore this in the report on 277, but it's really a whole other topic. I'm glad it's provided a launching pad for some discussion here, that's what Schoolbook is for.

There are educators who would argue that when it comes to curriculum, it's really all in the implementation. And the staffers at P.S. 277 told me they were trying to address content knowledge - and grammar and other basics - within their framework.

So I'll toss out these questions:

Do we really know that one curriculum, or approach to teaching, is the "right" one with a certain demographic? And doesn't any program need to be customized to meet the needs of a particular school?

Thanks for all the insightful comments!

A wise friend on Twitter this morning posted, apropos of this thread, "Time to look much harder at the education kids receive & not so much at those who deliver it."

To which I can only say, amen. Success with struggling inner city school is seldom attributable to a single factor. If a school is successful with TC Readers and Writers Workshop (as evidenced by state test scores), I'd want to know more about the other factors that might contribute to that success, i.e., a commitment to content and enrichment in other parts of the school day.

The best argument I can make for why content is essential to reading comprehension is a well-known study that was performed some years ago: researchers looked at junior high school students who were either "good" or "poor" readers based on standardized test scores. In both of those groups, there were some kids who knew a lot about baseball and some who knew little. All of the kids were given a passage describing a half inning of a baseball game and as they read, they were asked to move players around a model baseball field to illustrate the actions they were reading about.

If reading comprehension were a transferable skill that could be taught, practiced, and mastered—-the way we teach it and test it-—then the students who were "good" readers should have had no trouble outperforming the "poor" readers, right? Either you’re a good reader or you’re not. And once you become a good reader, you’re always going to be a good reader, no matter what. Right? So what did this experiment reveal?

“Good readers” who didn’t know baseball got 18.8 out of a possible 40 items correct. “Poor readers” who knew baseball: 27.5 out of 40

You read that correctly. The poor readers with high content knowledge outperformed good readers with low content knowledge. Put differently, knowing a lot about the subject MADE them good readers. Knowing this, it makes no sense to separate content knowledge from reading. If you want to achieve broad, general competence in reading, you must have broad general knowledge.

Teaching content IS teaching reading.

Now let's go back to our kids at PS 277 who read books they choose based on their own interest, and write about topics they find appealing. We teach such children the techniques and habits of good readers so that they might learn and practice those techniques:

“Good readers ask questions”
“Good readers create pictures in their minds”
“Good readers make connections when they read”

If you are reading about unfamiliar topics (such as those you might encounter on a state reading test) how will these strategies help? In the research referenced above, how does it help to "create pictures in my mind" of a baseball game when I know nothing of the game?

In short, it is not enough to teach children what good readers and writers DO. We must also teach them what good readers and writers KNOW.

Thanks Ms. Wood for your insights. I hope the DOE listens