Assistant Principals (AP) have been reviewing data to help standardize the teaching and grading policies among classes.
Coordinating classes within a course can ensure that students are not placed at a disadvantage because of their teacher, in terms of both learning the curriculum and the grade they are given. Without a standard grading rubric, grades can become more subjective.
The administration asked last spring that department heads review Regents exam scores. This year, Principal Stanley Teitel asked that the APs cover a broader range of data.
This year the physics department gave two diagnostic tests covering different aspects of the curriculum. AP Physics and Chemistry Scott Thomas prepared a graph showing the average grade of each class and distributed the data to Regents physics teachers, labeling only the recipient’s classes. In this manner, teachers could see how their classes performed in comparison to the average, which was in the high-seventies, and to each of the other classes.
Mathematics Coordinator Maryann Ferrara said she will review the scores on the final exams. The tests, which will be uniform within most courses except single class electives, were each created by a committee of teachers that teach the course.
The math department reviewed test scores last year for Regents math courses. “Now we’re expanding it,” Ferrara said.
The math department plans to begin using a new computer program that allows teachers to choose questions for in-class tests from a single database of questions. This program will help ensure that tests among various classes within a course, though not exactly alike, will cover similar topics. It may also push teachers to teach the curriculum at a similar pace.
Unlike in previous years, AP Social Studies Jennifer Suri also created a uniform final exam for the freshman and sophomore global history, American history and economics courses.
Without final exams from which to gather data, the English department is looking at the curriculum and grades. AP English Eric Grossman has been collecting copies of English teachers’ assignments over the last three years.
“It’s not just supervising,” Grossman said. “It’s a way of sharing practices.”
Grossman also gathered the second marking period grades for each class within a course and distributed it to teachers in the same fashion as was done with the physics diagnostics.
Last year, the English department also began distributing a grading rubric to all English classes that described what each letter, percentage or one-through-six-format grade represented.
“I want us to be consistent so that students understand what the grade means,” Grossman said.
Standardizing exams can help “the teachers to focus on the curriculum, pace themselves better, finish on the same point,”AP Biology Elizabeth Fong said.
“It depends on the goals of the department,” Fong said.
This move towards standardization is part of a citywide trend. The policies of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Department of Education (DOE) have focused around using data to determine problems and find solutions.
“One of the things the Chancellor wants me to do is use data,” Teitel said. “It’s a matter of us helping both the teacher and the student.”
Teitel said he is focusing the effort on the science departments “because our regents have not been good. We are well off the 90/90 goal.”
The administration has aimed to have 90 percent of all physics students receive a 90 or above on the physics Regents. In June 2007, 47.3 percent scored at least a 90.
“I’m hoping we can improve,” Teitel said.
The administration created a breakdown of grades by department, which Teitel declined to provide to The Spectator.
“While individual teachers may vary, overall the big departments are consistent with each other,” Grossman said. “Now the goal is to do the interdepartmental stuff. It’s harder.”
