THOMPSON ASKS: DID GRADUATES ACTUALLY MEET ALL REQUIREMENTS TO EARN THEIR DIPLOMAS?
-Blistering audit finds student transcripts did not have evidence supporting graduation for one out of every 10 students sampled-
- "Mayor's managerial style has created an incentive for schools to graduate students whether or not they have met the necessary requirements," Comptroller says-
New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. today charged that the Department of Education (DOE) is unclear as to whether all students who received high school diplomas actually earned all of the required credits or passed all required Regents examinations to graduate.
In a scorching new audit - launched in July 2008 amid mounting concerns about the accuracy of graduation rates trumpeted by the DOE - Thompson's team of auditors uncovered troubling lapses in the tracking of student graduation verification, raising red flags about the City's graduation rates.
"At a time when Mayor Bloomberg and the Schools Chancellor boast about graduation rates, this audit serves as a reality check: The Department of Education cannot demonstrate that all graduates earned their diplomas," Thompson said.
The audit - which you can read at www.comptroller.nyc.gov - exposed that:
- The permanent records of one out of every 10 graduated students sampled did not indicate that graduation requirements had been met.
- Schools routinely awarded students multiple credits for passing the same course two or more times.
- Many official grade changes took place just before or even after students graduated - and some schools circumvented the approval process for grade changes.
- The citywide dropout rate may be higher than officially reported by the DOE, because schools are given improper incentives not to classify students as dropouts.
Thompson's audit found that 18% (36 of 197) of sampled graduated students received credits for passing the same course two or more times. Also, some students were allowed to do this in lieu of repeating a course that they had failed.
"By simply passing the same course twice, instead of all the courses in the sequence, the student is not achieving competence in each major subject area of the curriculum," Thompson said. "Additionally, this practice allows schools to improperly pass students who otherwise might have failed."
Thompson also charged that the DOE has poor controls over grade changes. His review revealed that more than a quarter of sampled graduates' transcripts had been revised - many within days of graduation, or even after the students had graduated.
"Therefore, there appears to be a way for schools to add credits to student transcripts without being detected," Thompson said. "That the Department has failed to tighten its controls in this area is, quite frankly, inexcusable."
Thompson's audit found that not all grade changes made in the system were supported by change forms, which are required to be completed by teachers and an assistant principal or principal. Furthermore, some updates on students' transcripts did not have an audit trail recorded in one tracking system. As a result, the DOE was unable to demonstrate that all changes made to student transcripts were valid.
"When coupled with a managerial style that measures student achievement solely by easily-manipulated statistics, the Mayor has created an incentive for schools to graduate students whether or not they have met the necessary requirements," Thompson said. "This should raise a number of questions about whether the Department's touted graduation rates reflect an accurate number of appropriately graduated students, or if many were able to grab their diplomas without having earned them."
Thompson's audit followed a cohort of nearly 90,000 high school students from school years 2003 - 2007. To graduate from the City's 425 high schools, a general education student must earn 44 credits in designated subjects, pass five New York State Regents exams, and maintain a 90 percent attendance rate.
To track students, the DOE identifies a four-year graduation cohort with two groups, the General Education cohort and the Special Education cohort. A cohort consists of students who entered 9th grade in the same school year plus those who later entered the school system in the 10th, 11th, or 12th grade and were expected to graduate at the same time.
The DOE uses the High School Scheduling and Transcripts (HSST) system and the Automate the Schools (ATS) system to track student schedules, performance, and attendance. HSST is used to record students' schedules, grades, and transcripts. ATS records students' biographical information, admission and discharge data, attendance, and status. The two systems interface daily to regularly update data stored in both, and that data helps calculate the high-school graduation rate.
Two DOE units are involved in the graduation-rate calculation process: The Division of Information and Instructional Technology (DIIT) is responsible for HSST and ATS systems and compiles the student population database for the graduation cohort; the Research and Policy Support Group (RPSG) uses that database to perform graduation-rate calculations.
"Despite the breadth of these systems, our audit revealed that the DOE needs to institute stronger controls to ensure that official records corroborate the classification of students as graduates," Thompson said.
Thompson's review of 197 sampled graduates from the 2003-2007 cohort found that the transcripts for 19 (9.6%) of them did not indicate that students had the required number of credits overall, in major subjects, or whether graduates had passed all of the required Regents examinations needed to graduate.
Although the DOE did provide internal documents from the schools for these students, none of these were reflected in student transcripts or permanent record cards in order to indicate that the requirements for graduation were, in fact, met.
"In a number of instances one could not determine whether the documentation provided was actually reviewed by the schools at the time the decisions were made," Thompson said. "The failure of schools to ensure that student records support graduation decisions leads us to question whether schools are exercising proper care to ensure that students meet diploma requirements."
The DOE utilizes a policy called "annualization" - a process by which a student who fails the first semester of a full-year course, but passes the second, is allowed to get credit for both semesters - to help students reach course credit requirements. Auditors found that the DOE has delegated the implementation of this policy to the schools without overseeing how it is being administrated.
"Without the establishment of minimum standards, there is a substantial risk that this policy may be abused by some schools," Thompson said. "We found that schools did not properly update students' permanent records when credits were awarded through annualization, as well as instances where different schools had different annualization policies. It is vital that the DOE develop minimum standards with regard to annualization to level the playing field for all students and reduce the risk of abuse."
Finally, Thompson's audit indicated that
A review of 77 students in the cohort who were classified as still enrolled demonstrated that nearly 15 percent of them had not attended school since June 2007 or earlier. Of these, more than half did not attend school at all during the spring 2007 term. Thompson asserts that the classification of these students in the still-enrolled category artificially lowers the dropout rate.
"Students should be afforded every opportunity to be able to graduate from high school," Thompson said. "I firmly believe that every effort should be made by schools to meet with long-term absentee students and determine what can be done to bring them back to school. However, if after performing outreach efforts students decide to drop out, schools should appropriately designate the student as such."
The dropout rate is one of a number of indicators that is used in determining whether performance increases are awarded. In addition, according to Chancellor's Regulation C-33, which addresses the removal and transfer of principles for persistent educational failure, the four-year dropout rate is one of the indicators used in determining whether there is a pattern of poor or declining student achievement.
"Accordingly, schools have an incentive to ensure that the four-year dropout rate is as low as possible," Thompson said.
As a result of the audit, Thompson made 12 recommendations, including that the DOE:
- Ensure that HSST reflects whether a student has met graduation requirements before a diploma is given.
- Implement controls to ensure that school transcripts and permanent record cards of general education graduates reflect that they have accumulated the required number of credits overall and in major subjects, and that they have passed all required Regents exams.
- Ensure that all grade and exam score changes made to student transcripts are permanently traceable in HSST.
- Ensure that schools classify students as having been discharged only when the discharge has been appropriately documented, and ensure that it is properly recorded in ATS.
- Ensure that schools follow up in a timely manner with students who do not attend school.
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