The Public school System is Not Responsive to the Thousands of Kids Who Flee Every Year, Every Day

May 15, 2004
More Youths Opt for G.E.D., Skirting High-School Hurdle
By KAREN W. ARENSON

The testing system created more than half a century ago to help World War II veterans earn the equivalent of a high school diploma has increasingly become a way for teenagers to short-circuit high school.

Roughly one of every seven high school diplomas granted in the United States in recent years has gone to someone who has passed the tests, known as the G.E.D. And the proportion of school-age students taking that route has risen sharply.

Nationally, teenagers accounted for 49 percent of those earning G.E.D.'s in 2002, up from 33 percent a decade earlier. Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts and New York were among the states where teenagers accounted for more than half of those earning G.E.D.'s. in 2002.

"The proportion of teenagers getting G.E.D.'s has doubled since 1989, while overall high school graduation rates have declined slightly," said Duncan Chaplin, an economist at the Urban Institute in Washington.

The growth has been especially pronounced in New York City. Last year, more than 37,000 school-age students were in G.E.D. programs run by the school system, up from 25,500 two years earlier.

Most educators view the G.E.D. as a valuable option for people who do not make it through high school, but they do not consider it equivalent.

"The G.E.D. was intended to be a second chance for adults; it was never intended to replace a high school education," said Anita Caref, director of the adult literacy program at Brooklyn College.

Experts attribute the flood of young people in part to the difficulty in finding a decent job without a high school diploma, and in part to the increased difficulty of earning a traditional high school diploma in many states. New York, for example, has made passing five Regents exams a condition of graduation, and no longer offers a lesser diploma for weaker students.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind law and state efforts to hold schools more accountable, schools have more incentive to discourage weak students from staying. Students who transfer to G.E.D. programs are usually off school rolls, but in many states are not counted as dropouts.

Mr. Chaplin, of the Urban Institute, said he had "found pretty strong evidence that the G.E.D. option has been encouraging kids to drop out of high schools nationwide."

"The rules governing the G.E.D. have become more lenient over time," he said. "Under No Child Left Behind, we're holding schools very strictly accountable for test scores, but barely holding them accountable for students who drop out or go into G.E.D. programs. It is like holding hospitals accountable for the condition of patients who leave, but ignoring the number who die. It's a perverse incentive system."

Strictly speaking, the G.E.D. is not an educational program but a set of five tests requiring more than seven hours and covering reading, writing, mathematics, social studies and science.

As with the College Board's SAT exams, students are not required to enroll in any classes before taking the tests, officially the Tests of General Educational Development, which are administered by the American Council on Education in Washington. But many students need help to pass the G.E.D., and a patchwork of programs has evolved to assist them, run not only by school districts but also by community organizations, universities and proprietary schools.

"There seems to be a whole shadow system of schools," said Elisa Hyman, deputy director of Advocates for Children, which has charged New York City high schools with pushing their weakest students into G.E.D. programs without proper counseling. "Thousands of kids are participating in this alternative diploma track that is clearly inferior to a regular diploma."

There are no counts of how many students are in G.E.D. programs nationwide, but G.E.D. directors say that their programs are overflowing and that the number of young people has shot up.

One sign of the increase is reflected in the number of young people who take the tests or pass them, although they represent only a portion of the young people in G.E.D. programs. In 2001, about 2.8 million students earned traditional high school diplomas, while about 648,000 G.E.D.'s were awarded, including 266,000 to teenagers.

With the introduction of a new, harder test in 2002, the number of G.E.D.'s fell to 330,000. But Joan Chikos Auchter, executive director of the G.E.D. Testing Service, and others predict that the numbers will bounce back.

G.E.D. preparation programs vary. Typically, classes are only a couple of hours a day, sometimes just two or three days a week. Often there is no standard curriculum, and there are no state licensing requirements for teachers. Many classes focus on the types of problems the students will encounter on the exam.

At the Jamaica Learning Center in Queens, one of the first things Arnold Smith does when he arrives at his classroom is to post fractured sentences, full of grammar, spelling and punctuation errors like the ones students will have to spot and correct on the G.E.D.

One morning in February, Mr. Smith's students were focused on this sentence: "Excited and anxious, the gift's was quickly unwrapped."

"This is a hard one," Mr. Smith said.

A student responded, "No it ain't."

But it took some hints before the students could identify all the errors.

The students were mostly attentive. The pace was quick. And Mr. Smith was nonjudgmental and encouraging.

One student later praised Mr. Smith's method, saying: "Now I get it. I never got it before."

The Jamaica center sends about 300 students a year to take the tests, and about 80 percent pass. But hundreds more are not close to taking the test, and many drop out. Some are in basic literacy classes because they read below sixth-grade level. Some are in pre-G.E.D. classes, where the reading level is grades seven to nine. Only those reading at a 10th-grade level or above are put in the actual G.E.D. classes.

G.E.D. administrators say the teenage students bring problems that adult students do not have.

"Not only do the younger students arrive with academic deficiencies," said Carlo Baldi, director of the Adult Literacy Program at the City College of New York, "but they often come in with pretty serious deficiencies in life skills, too. Things like attendance, responsibility, maintaining communications."

Still, Mr. Baldi and others are reluctant to turn young students away.

"A high school diploma is a very important currency," said Leslee Oppenheim," director of curriculum and instruction at the City University of New York. "This opens all kinds of doors."

Even students who obtain a G.E.D., however, are not home free. They typically earn less than high school graduates, and are less likely to go to college. The Army limits G.E.D.-holders to no more than 5 percent of its enlistees, and they do not qualify for the same enlistment options, said S. Douglas Smith, a spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command.

But to many struggling high school students, the issue is not so much the future as the unhappy present.

Some students choose the G.E.D. on their own; others, struggling academically, are told by school officials that they would be better off in a G.E.D. program. Recent immigrants with weak English are frequently discouraged from enrolling in high school and pointed toward G.E.D. programs.

In one recent study, John W. Sipple of Cornell University and David H. Monk and Kieran Killeen of Pennsylvania State University "found evidence that teachers advise students of the G.E.D. option as early as eighth grade." Dr. Sipple declined to name any schools.

Many students say they know that the G.E.D. is viewed as a lesser degree, but that the atmosphere in G.E.D. programs is preferable to what they face in high school.

"High school isn't for everybody," said Abdullah Aminnullah, the 17-year-old son of Afghan immigrants, who entered the Jamaica Learning Center last winter. "You don't get as much attention in high school as here," he said, adding, "The teachers here really care and pay attention to you, and they really teach."

Mr. Aminnullah, who said he kept getting into scrapes and was suspended, said he chose the G.E.D. after learning that he had accumulated few credits toward graduation. But he had no problem passing the G.E.D. almost immediately.

His classmate Priscilla Catapano also saw the G.E.D. as a lifesaver. She enrolled at the Jamaica Learning Center last November, three months after her 17th birthday, when she realized that she could not graduate with her class.

She had cut classes in ninth grade - "It was stupid," she says now - and missed more classes later because of medical problems. She could not bear to be left behind, and passed the G.E.D. this spring.

"If you are just getting a job, you are not going to get the best job with a G.E.D.," Ms. Catapano said. She added: "I figured that once you are in college, who cares whether you have a high school diploma or a G.E.D.? And I'm confident that I will complete college."

In January, we learned that more than 1,800 children fled New York City schools from September to December!

1,800 fled scary schools

By CELESTE KATZ [Daily News, Jan. 22, 2004]

More than 1,800 students have gotten permission to transfer schools this year because they fear for their safety, according to statistics obtained by the Daily News yesterday.
Far and away, the highest number of students - 559 - were granted transfers in Region 6 in Brooklyn. Nearly half of those transfers were at the high school level; 103 were among elementary school children.

The region includes three of the "dangerous dozen" schools specifically targeted by Mayor Bloomberg in an anti-violence program announced Jan. 5: South Shore, Canarsie and Sheepshead Bay high schools.

Region 8, which covers part of western Brooklyn, reported the fewest transfers between September and January: 103.

"We need to evaluate the numbers. This is the first time we have collected the data centrally as part of our accountability measures," said Education Department spokeswoman Marge Feinberg.

An Education Department source said the numbers don't necessarily mean that violent incidents or dangerous schools are on the rise.

The department did not say how many transfer requests were made; statistics on previous years also were unavailable.

The 1,800 transfers were buoyed by the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which allows transfers based on a school's safety record - not just because the student was a victim of violence.

Parent Lissette Martinez said she sought a safety transfer to get her 16-year-old daughter, Remi, out of Washington Irving High School in Manhattan after a day of violence. But the girl was so shook up and there was so much red tape, Martinez said, that she eventually sent the girl to school in New Jersey.

"After the incident, she never went back. ... She was really traumatized. She was so afraid, she wasn't eating, she wasn't sleeping."
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Advocates For Children, Inc. and New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum reported that an alarming number of NYC kids are simply being pushed out, with no where to go:

Pushing Out At-Risk Students:
An Analysis of High School Discharge Figures

A Report by: Advocates For Children and The Public Advocate for New York City

November 21, 2002
Executive Summary

An alarming number of high schools students are leaving New York City public schools without graduating. It appears that in some cases school officials are encouraging students to leave regular high school programs even though they are of school age or have a right to receive appropriate literacy, support, and educational services through the public school system.

This report explores data documenting students in New York City, who have been designated as "discharged" from the school system, an indicator that has received little public attention.

Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) and the Office of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum reviewed discharge data published by the New York City Department of Education (DOE) and found that over 160,000 high school age students were discharged during the 2000-2001, 1999-1998, and 1998-1997 school years.

Anecdotal evidence collected by both offices suggests than many of these discharges may be forced "push-outs" by school administrators of students, who have a legal right to remain in public schools. Both students and parents complained that there was no process for the discharge, that they were never informed of their rights to stay in school until the age of 21, and were not offered support services to improve academic performance or attendance.

A separate analysis of the Class of 2001 cohort – also included in the report – revealed that citywide, 79 out of 205 high schools and retrieval programs had exceptionally high discharge numbers: 31 discharged more 2001 students than they were graduating and 48 discharged more than half the number of students they graduated.

Discharge rates were also significantly higher than dropout rates. In 2001, more than 55,015 students were discharged, compared with 14,549 who dropped out from the same group of schools. What is alarming is that discharge rates may be used to mask potentially higher drop out statistics. It appears that many children are moving from schools that offer regular diplomas to programs that offer a General Equivalency Diploma (GED).

Recent school policy changes that created higher standards for graduation may be contributing to the discharge phenomenon. Students who are unable to pass Regents exams no longer have the middle option of attaining a local, non-Regents diploma, or graduating from an alternative school that uses portfolio assessments as graduation measures. Today, they either have to pass the Regents, or get a GED. Additionally, budget cuts may be impeding schools from providing supplemental educational support services to those students most likely to not graduate.

Many of the discharged students seem to be attending GED programs. Over the past 12-18 months, adult literacy programs have reported as much as a 30-40% increase in 16 and 17 year-old students applying for GEDs. Unfortunately, GEDs limit students' job prospects and diminish the intellectual capital in New York City.

Perhaps what is most disturbing about the data, is that the DOE does not have a breakdown of the discharge rates, including: demographics of the discharged students; information on how far they have come in completing the high school curriculum; reasons for discharge; whether they were disabled, English Language Learners (ELL), or students with other special needs. The analysis of such data is needed in order to understand the extent of the problem and craft appropriate solutions.

Advocates for Children and Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum recommend the following:

· DOE should conduct an extensive analysis of which students are affected, including a clear breakdown of all discharges and drop-outs for children ages 21 and under, and the reasons they are no longer in the public school system

· The DOE must issue directives on discharge policy and procedure and student rights to high school admissions offices, all principals, and superintendents

· Students who were improperly discharged, transferred, or were refused enrollment should get a letter from the DOE outlining their rights and a method of re-enrolling and obtaining services needed

· The New York State Education Department must determine whether City schools are "pushing" at-risk students out

· The DOE should ensure that all existing regulations comport with relevant state and federal law and, if not, revise those policies

Overview

The New York City Department of Education defines a discharged student as one "who left the school system primarily to enroll in another educational program or setting. This includes students who enrolled in a local private or parochial school, enrolled in a school outside of New York City or entered a non-Board of Education GED preparation program." Yet discharge numbers may actually be masking a real "push-out" problem.

By conducting a preliminary examination of discharge data published by the New York City Department of Education (DOE), Advocates for Children of New York (AFC) and the Office of Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum discovered that over 160,000 high school age students were discharged during the 1997-1998, 1999-2000, and 2000-2001 school years. In all, over 55,000 were discharged in 2000-2001. To give a sense of how large these numbers are, the entire graduating class of 2001 totaled 33,520 students . For example, Martin Luther King High School discharged 730 kids out of 2510 in '00-'01. In some cases, schools discharged more students than the number of students who received diplomas.

Coupled with anecdotal information, this data suggests that in New York City, students who are at-risk, or who will need extra years to graduate, may be encouraged to leave regular high schools or be "pushed out." A combination of recent factors may explain this, including: budget ´d÷w-ÄÉCP'þè÷ãP+™üÊ_ïstandards; the No Child Left Behind Act (where students may leave failing schools); and merit pay for principals with successful schools.

It appears that new policies and laws designed to help at-risk students may be working against them. First, more stringent graduation requirements set by the New York State Regents have raised the bar for high school graduation. Second, although the state has targeted low-performing schools for reform for several years, the federal No Child Left Behind Act has now raised the stakes considerably, putting more pressure on superintendents and principals to meet higher standards. Schools that do not demonstrate that students are meeting standards are designated as low performing. Schools with disciplinary incidents are labeled as unsafe. Such schools are at serious risk of being taken over and reorganized.

While historically the pattern was often to keep at-risk and low-performing students in school, these increased pressures may be creating an incentive for New York City high schools to discharge students, counsel them, leave regular schools, or to prevent low-performing students from attending schools at all.

Our findings also suggest that students and parents may not be provided with sufficient information about the right to remain in school or the right to receive support services necessary to help their children meet the new standards. New York State law requires all students 6-17 to be in a regular school; allows all students to stay in a regular high school until the age of 21; and prohibits almost all involuntary discharges and transfers without due process.

A study conducted in 2001 for the New York State Education Finance Resource Consortium supports our anecdotal data. The Study found that in order to keep performance levels up, principals across the state were employing a variety of strategies to "push" at-risk or low performing students out of school and into General Equivalency Diploma (GED) programs. While this study did not include New York City, there is growing anecdotal evidence that many New York City students under the age of 21 have been discharged and denied the education, which they are entitled.

Additionally, a recent report by the New York Citywide School to Work Alliance recognized that over the past 12-18 months the adult literacy programs have reported "a significant increase in the number of younger adults, 16-18 years of age" applying for GEDs. This report also questioned whether student advisors, who are encouraging students to leave school and enroll in GED programs, understand the competency required to earn an equivalency diploma or the actual value of this diploma.

Advocates for Children and the Office of the Public Advocate recognize that a number of students are legitimately discharged from high schools each year. Many families move from borough to borough or out of the City entirely. Some students transfer out of the public system into private schools. But the sheer volume of recent discharges demands analysis of where students are going and whether the numbers mask a growing trend to "push-out" students. We also recognize that some students need more academic services in a system that often does not have enough resources. However, pushing students out through the discharge process is not the answer.

This report also suggests that DOE reporting must be modified to include information about types of discharges. Since not all schools are reporting discharges, it is important to know the citywide discharge numbers for all schools. It is also necessary to know the demographics of discharged students and where they are going after they have been discharged. We must understand the disparity in discharge rates among schools and the breakdown of the number of students who earn regular diplomas compared to those who earn GEDs or are enrolled in GED programs. Incorrect discharges also raise the question of school access for older students. Are they being allowed to re-enroll in regular high schools, as is required by law, or are they instead directed towards GED classes?

DOE data deficiencies notwithstanding, it is clear: significant numbers of New York City students are leaving the school system without receiving regular high school diplomas.

The report is divided into four sections. Section I provides a summary of available data, as well as some anecdotal reports received by our agencies. Section II contains an overview of educational law governing the right to school access in the State of New York. Section III provides available alternatives to the traditional high school and the implications of new graduation requirements on these alternatives. Section IV presents recommendations for addressing these issues.

I. Analysis of Available Data

What constitutes a discharge? The answer varies based on the documents reviewed.

We reviewed discharge and dropout data contained in the Class of 2001 Four-Year Longitudinal Report and 2000-2001 Event Drop Out Rates published in March 2001 ("2001 Longitudinal Report"). This report publishes four-year outcomes for the class of 2001 on a citywide and school specific-basis. It also contains drop out rates for the class of 2001 as well as total drop out numbers for the city and the schools. In this report, "discharges" are defined as students who left the public school system in New York City to enroll in another educational program or who outgrew the system at age 21.

We also examined 2000-2001, 1999-2000, and 1999-1998 data from School Profile Reports that provide a three-year listing of student mobility rate (admissions and discharges during the school year). Like other data included in this report, this data is not broken down by type of discharge. In some cases, we compared data from the 2001 Longitudinal Report with the School Profile data. In contrast to the discharge figures, the "drop-out" figures for the schools, whose School Profile reports we reviewed, amounted to only 14,544. .

While the 55,000 discharge figure is very large, it does not represent the true number of citywide discharges, since many schools and programs did not produce discharge numbers. For example, the Department reports that there are more than 19,000 students on register at "Retrieval" programs (programs designed for older students which may be GED based or provide the opportunity to earn accelerated credits), but these schools do not produce discharge reports. Moreover, the Department does not provide data regarding the number of disabled students who are discharged from District 75, the centrally operated, 20,000-student special education district for moderately to severely disabled students.

A. School Profiles

Drop out rates are frequently criticized as disproportionately high, yet they pale in comparison to the discharge figures outlined below. These discharge figures may actually mask even greater drop out rates.

The high school mobility figures for 2000-2001, 1999-2000, and 1998-1999, show that more than 160,000 students (or at least 20%) were discharged: 55,015 in 2000-2001, 60,403 in 1999-2000, and 55,773 in 1998-1999. Each high school superintendency reported individual discharge numbers. We compared these to the official "drop out" figures for 2000-2001.


2000-2001 # Discharges # Drop Outs
Bronx 11,078 3,012
Chancellor's 746 157
Alternative 4,288 1,443
Queens 13,948 4,054
Brooklyn 9,289 2,362
Manhattan 7,736 1,947
BASIS 7,208 1,574

For the prior two years, most districts reported approximately the same numbers, except in the 1999-2000 school year, in which the Chancellor's district discharged 1,432.

We conducted an analysis of the discharges for the 2000-2001 school year including discharge rates for every high school for which there was a report (Appendix A).

The report also looks at five schools in each high school superintendency that had the highest discharge rates.

Manhattan
Name of School Peak Enrollment (00-01) # Discharges % Discharges Total Drop Outs 00-01
Norman Thomas 1952 418 21.47 104
Park West 2199 604 27.47 167
Seward Park 2175 629 28.92 257
MLK 2510 730 29.08 136
Louis D. Brandeis High School 2828 867 30.66 274

Other Manhattan schools also reported large numbers of discharged students, including: Washington Irving (436 discharges but only 151 drop outs), Murray Bergtraum (366 discharges but only 111 drop outs), and Graphic Communication Arts (339 discharges but only 50 drop outs).


Queens
Name of School Peak Enrollment (00-01) # Discharges % Discharges Total Drop Outs 00-01
Flushing 2536 589 23.23 186
Beach Channel 2084 496 23.80 117
Far Rockaway 1377 359 26.07 105
Franklin K. Lane 3444 959 27.85 299
Springfield Gardens HS 2089 584 27.96 144

The following Queens schools also discharged noticeably high numbers of students: Newtown High School (937 discharges but only 312 drop outs), John Adams (919 discharges but only 335 drop outs), John Bowne (857 discharges but only 237 drop outs), and William Bryant (755 discharges but only 221 drop outs).

Brooklyn
Name of School Peak Enrollment (00-01) # Discharges % Discharges Total Drop Outs 00-01
Thomas Jefferson 1646 456 27.70 80
George Wingate 2567 743 28.94 264
Bushwick 1843 541 29.35 168
Erasmus Hall: HS for Science/Math 759 228 30.04 38
Prospect Heights 2006 612 30.51 185

The following Brooklyn schools also discharged large numbers of students: Sheepshead Bay (656 discharges but only 136 drop outs), FDR (624 discharges but only 146 drop outs), John Dewey (600 discharges but only 150 drop outs), and South Shore (575 discharges but only 129 drop outs).

Bronx
Name of School Peak Enrollment (00-01) # Discharges % Discharges Total Drop Outs 00-01
Adlai E. Stevenson 2878 826 28.70 201
Evander Childs 3443 1009 29.31 265
Theodore Roosevelt 4166 1297 31.13 413
Morris 1788 571 31.94 134
Taft 2493 1018 40.83 369

The following Bronx schools also discharged large numbers of students: JFK (955 discharges but only 204 drop outs), Christopher Columbus (890 discharges but only 189 drop outs), Dewitt Clinton (708 discharges but only 201 drop outs), and Herbert H. Lehman (663 discharges but only 199 drop outs).

BASIS
Name of School Peak Enrollment (00-01) # Discharges % Discharges Total Drop Outs 00-01
Lafayette 2347 525 22.37 129
Boys and Girls 3360 788 23.45 167
Automotive Trades 824 209 25.36 42
Harry Van Arsdale 1430 384 26.85 101
John Jay 2502 798 31.89 237

The following Basis schools also discharged large numbers of students: Fort Hamilton (587 discharges but only 170 drop outs), Abraham Lincoln (551 discharges but only 147 drop outs), and Tottenville (478 discharges but only 101 drop outs).

Alternative High Schools
Name of School Peak Enrollment (00-01) # Discharges % Discharges Total Drop Outs 00-01
Vanguard HS 330 75 22.73 12
Legacy School 295 73 24.75 19
CPESS 313 79 25.24 19
New School for Arts and Sciences 357 98 27.45 18
Monroe Academy for Business/Law 516 162 31.40 35

Alternative Transfer High Schools
Name of School Peak Enrollment (00-01) # Discharges % Discharges Total Drop Outs 00-01
Street Academy 485 208 42.89 134
Pacific HS 372 171 45.97 28
Concord 201 96 47.76 26
HS Redirection 855 462 54.04 155
Phoenix Academy 390 278 71.28 69

The following alternative schools also discharged large numbers of students: City-as-School (364 discharges but only 50 drop outs), Lower East Side Prep (227 discharges but only 77 drop outs), and University Heights (169 discharges but only 54 drop outs).

Incomplete DOE Data
These discharge profiles do not tell a complete story of all high-school-age students who are leaving the city's high schools because the profiles do not include students who were discharged from auxiliary programs and District 75 programs and schools. According to DOE data, there are more than 40,000 students in these schools.

B. Cohort Data
The "Class of 2001 Four Year Longitudinal Report and 2000-2001 Event Dropout Rates" report released by the DOE earlier this year shows that approximately 14,101 students in the 2001 cohort were discharged between the period of 1997-2001. The 2001 cohort consists of all students, both general and special education, who entered ninth grade in the fall of 1997 and were scheduled to graduate by summer 2001.

We conducted an analysis of the discharges from each high school superintendency. The charts show schools where a greater number of students were discharged than graduated or where the discharge level was more than half of those graduating.

Citywide
Citywide, 79 out of 205 high schools and retrieval programs had exceptionally high discharge numbers: 31 discharged more students than they were graduating and 48 discharged more than half the number of students they graduated. In addition, 52 out of the 79 schools and programs had significantly higher discharge numbers than dropouts.

Manhattan
Name of School # Discharges # Graduated #Dropped Out
Seward Park 175 135 124
Park West 126 117 124
MLK High School 109 154 84
Leadership Secondary School 17 14 9

Of the 35 schools in the Manhattan high school superintendency, seven schools had high discharge numbers. Three discharged more students than they graduated. Four discharged more than half the number of students they graduated. Six out of the seven schools had higher discharge numbers than dropouts.

Bronx
Name of School # Discharges # Graduated #Dropped Out
John F. Kennedy 273 325 124
Taft 253 123 157
Evander Childs 224 162 138
Thedore Roosevelt 211 139 155
Christopher Columbus 211 267 85

Of the 22 Bronx high schools, 13 had high discharge numbers. Five schools discharged more students than they graduated. Eight schools discharged more than half the number of students they graduated. In thirteen schools, the number of students discharged was significantly more than the number of dropouts.

Brooklyn
Name of School # Discharges #