Follow Up Schools Report: High School "At Risk"

NCUST's Devastating Follow Up Report:

School District Ignores Fix-It Recommendations At High School 

Just in time for the start of the new school year, Emery High School has received another failing grade according to a follow-up report released last week from the National Center for Urban School Transformation, an education center funded by San Diego State University Research Foundation, tasked with evaluating Emeryville's schools.  The report was meant to track implementation progress as a result of recommendations from an assessment report presented by the National Center last year.  That report, a sobering affair by any standards, showed a High School in failure on many counts leading to lowered academic results here at Emery.  As with last year's report, the NCUST assessment team this time also faulted mostly administrators.

The NCUST team now recommends the District explore alternate solutions such as transforming the school to what it calls the Emery Early College High School, a place where a high percentage of students complete one or two years of college credit by the time they graduate from high school or a Career Partnership Academy where students complete internships in local companies such as Bayer/ Novartis or Pixar. 

  

Dr. Joseph Johnson
Executive Director
NCUST

Same as last year, the assessment team was headed up by Dr Joseph Johnson, the Executive Director at NCUST.  Dr Johnson personally assisted in the survey conducted at the schools and the follow-up assessment report. 

The new report notes many areas of last year's recommendations that the School District ignored outright or failed to implement properly.  The report now ominously warns of collapsing enrollment as parents seek a higher quality school elsewhere, "We are suggesting that the school is at risk of suffering diminished enrollments until the school is not sustainable" the report warns.  

The new assessment calls into question the School Board's commitment to change they promised after last year's report.  School Board member Josh Simon called for an implementation program to facilitate the recommendations in the wake of that report.

Elementary School Praised

Emery's elementary school, Anna Yates, as a contrast, received generally high marks and is shown to be continuing to improve.  The areas of improvement called for are mostly minor and not systemic.  Both teachers and the administration were praised by the report.

High School Condemned
Of the ten identified areas of concern needing improvement at the High School, seven either failed utterly or didn't improve enough to satisfy the assessment team.  Two areas showed clear progress and one area was deemed "difficult to assess". 

Perhaps the most distressing assessment for School District officials is the observation that the Center of Community Life, a high concept "school as the hub of the community" and long held out by the District as the lifeline to the failing High School, will not be sufficient on its own to turn the culture around. 

The Center of Community Life 

"will not be sufficient" 

to fix the schools

The report was generally positive as far as teachers at the High School are concerned, finding the ongoing problems there mostly with an unsupportive administration disrupting an environment where teachers might be encouraged to improve.  From the report, "One teacher explained, 'It’s hard to become a better teacher if you have to hide your weaknesses to keep your job.'  Teachers were not particularly open or clear about the sources of this tension.  In addition to discussing their lack of trust with colleagues, teachers discussed their lack of trust in the superintendent. They described the reduction in force as a contributing factor. They perceived that the superintendent had assured teachers that layoffs would not occur. They felt betrayed when layoffs were announced."

"We are suggesting that the school 

is at risk of suffering diminished 

enrollments until the school 

is not sustainable."

Administrators were further shown to be operating in a crisis mode, "Administrators did not perceive that they had adequate time to visit classrooms, especially after March 15th when the reduction in force went into effect. We did not acquire evidence that teachers had experienced opportunities to provide feedback to or receive feedback from their colleagues" the report noted.

Bright Note

The assessment team found some improvement, notably a greater sense of orderliness over last year, "The number of suspensions has declined; on the day of our visit, fewer students were waiting in the office because of discipline issues; classrooms and hallways were more orderly; and students reported a greater sense of order throughout the school."  However the assessment tempered the observation with an admonition that student behavior is at a low standard, "While there is substantial evidence of improvement over 2011-2012, there are still classrooms where students are not expected to adhere to high behavioral expectation." the report adds.

The entire NCUST follow-up report may be read here:  http://bit.ly/PEThY0

New Report On Emeryville School Reveals Failure of Management

Points to "Lack of Efforts to Address Problems"

Independent Report: "Alarmingly High Percentages Of Students Are Failing" 

A May 11th independent audit of Emery High School performed by the National Center for Urban School Transformation  concludes that school management is failing on a number of critical fronts and they're failing to address the problems.

The Center identified a general "lack of standards-based instruction" at the school and students tasked with "busy work" with a "significant percentage of students [that] are being allowed to fail".  The audit, called the 'High-Performing Schools Audit Report', also concludes  that "trust levels among adults at the school are low" and reports the existence of "multiple cliques among the adults".

School board president

Miguel Dwin: Report 
merely shows "strengths 
and weaknesses"

School board
member 

Josh Simon: 
Report is 
"important"

School Board member Josh Simon, jarred by the audit, called for an implementation program to make sure the conclusions are properly addressed and not swept under the rug.  He told the Tattler that while the study compares Emery High with the best schools in the nation, a very high bar, certain intolerable inadequacies are highlighted that need to be corrected.  He called the study "important".  

School board president Miguel Dwin on the other hand seemed to take the whole audit with a grain of salt, "the report shows strengths and weaknesses at the school" he quipped.  He declined further comment.

50% Failure Rate

The auditors, Dr. Lynne Perez, Director of Research at NCUST and Dr. Joseph Johnson, the NCUST Executive Director visited the school and made observations as well as conducted interviews with teachers, students and parents.  

They found several classrooms where students were observed "sleeping, sitting with their backs to the teacher, or continuously engaging in off-task behavior"  Teachers were observed allowing this aberrant behavior "as long as the students did not interrupt them".

Dr. Joseph Johnson
Executive Director
NCUST

Teachers and administrators the report noted, expressed concern about "high course-failure rates that exceeded 50% at some grade levels".  This, the report concludes is a result of insufficient objectivity related to grading, leading to a "lack of clear, written, and enforced grading policy [that] is eroding parent trust".

Teachers also reported that often there is not a common understanding of critical course content resulting in a school that has no capacity, "no way" the report says, "to ensure that students are prepared to meet state learning expectations or to succeed in more advanced courses".

The report finds an "alarmingly high" percentage of students are failing classes, and concludes there is "no evidence of systematic efforts to address the problem".

Two Conflicting Studies

By coincidence another report recently made public is the "Self Study" of the High School; a periodic self examination of the school required for state accreditation.  This other report offers a detailed, if contradictory conclusion about the academic culture at the school.  The Self Study titled 'Focus On Learning', conducted by the school district as a self examination of academic achievement concludes the school is in much better shape than the independent audit surmises.  Noted in the Self Study is the finding that the school is an "orderly place that nurtures learning" and the existence of an "atmosphere of trust and respect in the school".

The Self Study finds "all course curriculums [sic] are standards-aligned", a direct contrary finding from the independent study.

School board president Miguel Dwin told the Tattler that the self study "shows strengths and weaknesses", the same as the independent study and was not impressed by the two inconsistent conclusions from the two studies.  He added, "No conclusions can be made, both reports are complimentary to each other, both show strengths and weaknesses at the school" noting no greater understanding flows from comparing the two studies.

The Self Study, 'Focus On Learning', was submitted to the Western Association of Schools and Colleges on April 11-13 for consideration to continue accreditation of the High School.

The independent audit report, called the 'High-Performing Schools Audit Report' was designed to identify how Emery High deviates from "high performing" urban schools in the nation, and was released to the public on June 27th.  The National Center for Urban School Transformation is a San Diego State University based public policy group.
The independent report is here:http://scr.bi/lG6bhe