NY Times
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http://topics.nytimes.com/top/refere...samuel_g_freed
Several weeks into his first year of teaching math at the High School of
Arts and Technology in Manhattan, Austin Lampros received a copy of the
school's grading policy. He took particular note of the stipulation that a
student who attended class even once during a semester, who did absolutely
nothing else, was to be given 45 points on the 100-point scale, just 20
short of a passing mark.
Austin Lampros quit after a student he had failed was passed.
Mr. Lampros's introduction to the high school's academic standards proved a
fitting preamble to a disastrous year. It reached its low point in late
June, when Arts and Technology's principal, Anne Geiger, overruled Mr.
Lampros and passed a senior whom he had failed in a required math course.
That student, Indira Fernandez, had missed dozens of class sessions and
failed to turn in numerous homework assignments, according to Mr. Lampros's
meticulous records, which he provided to The New York Times. She had not
even shown up to take the final exam. She did, however, attend the senior
prom.
Through the intercession of Ms. Geiger, Miss Fernandez was permitted to
retake the final after receiving two days of personal tutoring from another
math teacher. Even though her score of 66 still left her with a failing
grade for the course as a whole by Mr. Lampros's calculations, Ms. Geiger
gave the student a passing mark, which allowed her to graduate.
Ms. Geiger declined to be interviewed for this column and said that federal
law forbade her to speak about a specific student's performance. But in a
written reply to questions, she characterized her actions as part of a
"standard procedure" of "encouraging teachers to support students' efforts
to achieve academic success."
The issue here is not a violation of rules or regulations. Ms. Geiger acted
within the bounds of the teachers' union's contract with the city, by
providing written notice to Mr. Lampros of her decision.
No, the issue is more what this episode may say about the Department of
Education's vaunted increase in graduation rates. It is possible, of course,
that the confrontation over Miss Fernandez was an aberration. It is
possible, too, that Mr. Lampros is the rare teacher willing to speak on the
record about the pressures from administrators to pass marginal students,
pressures that countless colleagues throughout the city privately grumble
about but ultimately cave in to, fearful of losing their jobs if they
object.
Mr. Lampros has resigned and returned to his home state, Michigan.
Mr. Lampros received a satisfactory rating five of the six times
administrators formally observed him. He has master's degrees in both
statistics and math education and has won awards for his teaching at the
college level.
"It's almost as if you stick to your morals and your ethics, you'll end up
without a job," Mr. Lampros said in an interview. "I don't think every
school is like that. But in my case, it was."
The written record, in the form of the minutely detailed charts Mr. Lampros
maintained to determine student grades, supports his account. Colleagues of
his from the school - a counselor, a programmer, several fellow teachers -
corroborated key elements of his version of events. They also describe a
principal worried that the 2006 graduation rate of 72.5 percent would fall
closer to 50 or 60 percent
unless teachers came up with ways to pass more students.
After having failed to graduate with her class in June 2006, Miss Fernandez,
who, through her mother, declined to be interviewed, returned to Arts and
Technology last September for a fifth year.
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