The Case for P.S. 35

On November 5 the Department of Education released single-letter grades for 1,200 schools claiming A's and F's would help parents make better decisions. Yet, all over New York, the grades have been either condemned or questioned, mostly because they rely too heavily on test scores, and do not even use that data well.

What has been discussed less, however, is the educational fallout from inaccurate grades. No good can come when schools that ought to be models for our city are labeled failing institutions.

A case in point is P.S. 35 on Staten Island. Parents love this school. Ninety-five percent of parents responding to the DOE survey said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their child's education. P.S. 35 is part of a community, it has a stellar reputation, and what's more, its roots go deep. Ask a neighbor if he can sing the Clove Valley Elementary song, and chances are, if he's lived here long enough, he can.

But that counts for little with the DOE, so let's look at the scores. In 2006, over 90% of poor children, as well as black and Latino students passed the state exams in math and reading.

In 2007, 98.3% of third, fourth, and fifth graders passed the math exam, and 86.6% passed the reading test. In fact, with about half its students eligible for free lunch, P.S. 35 has been among the top scoring schools in the city and the state for at least the past five years.

The DOE, however, gave this school an F.

How could that happen? With 85% of the grade based on test scores, one might expect an A. But the city used a one-size-fits-all growth model.

Growth models measure the difference in student scores from one year to the next. That's good, but the DOE measured only one year of growth, and that's not reliable. At P.S. 35, scores dropped a bit between 2006 and 2007, but in other years, they rose. And when scores are at the top, there's no room to improve. That hurts schools like P.S. 35.

That's a shame, not just for P.S. 35, but for the city, which could have learned from this school's success. Success at P.S. 35 is not an accident. The staff has worked tirelessly to get kids focused and then inspire them to learn. When it comes to discipline, they pay close attention to the small stuff, set clear guidelines, and follow up when children misbehave. And when it comes to instruction, P.S. 35 got a little lucky.

When the DOE began imposing lockstep instruction, it was among the schools exempted from the rule. Freed from the city's micromanagement, the school was able to keep its focus on history, science, and the arts.

Things are not perfect at P.S. 35, but this is a great school. Now, the DOE says something is rotten here, and my gloomy guess is they will want to set it right.

Like all failing schools, P.S. 35 must create an action plan for change. Rather than seeing its strong culture and curriculum flourish citywide, we are more likely to see it snuffed out in the name of improving a place that the DOE doesn't think works.

P.S. 35 is not the only city school that received a problem grade. On Staten Island alone several top scoring schools received either F's or D's. I.S. 34, one of the city's finest middle schools, received a D. Students transfer here from schools the state has labeled "persistently dangerous." But of the 11 schools so labeled, nine got higher scores than I.S. 34.

I know 20 schools on Staten Island. Most of the grades for those schools don't feel right.

Single grades for complex institutions rarely do feel right. At a minimum, the DOE must take into account data from several years.

More fundamentally though, parents and schools need to know what the DOE intended to provide — the information that will allow them to make informed decisions. Test scores are an important part of that, but only a part.

Parents want to know if kids are safe in school and if their classes are too big. They want to know about the chorus and the band. And finally, they want to know if this school will have the ability to think past the tests and broaden the universe of low-achieving, high-achieving, and all those middle kids.

P.S. 35 would have stood up well to exactly those questions.

Ms. Bennett, a New York City high school teacher for 18 years, regularly contributes to the blog edwize.org.