New York Times Article about Houston schools

August 28, 2003
For Houston Schools, College Claims Exceed Reality
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO


OUSTON — At Jack Yates High School here, students had to make do without a school library for more than a year. A principal replaced dozens of experienced teachers with substitutes and uncertified teachers, who cost less.

And yet from 1998 to 2002, Yates High reported that 99 percent to 100 percent of its graduates planned to attend college.

Across town, Davis High School, where students averaged a combined SAT score of 791 out of a possible 1600 in 1998, reported that every last one of its graduates that year planned to go to college.

Sharpstown High School, a high poverty school that falsely claimed zero dropouts in 2002, also reported in 2001 that 98.4 percent of its graduates expected to attend college.

"Absolutely, positively, no way," said Larry Blackmon, a Yates parent and alumnus who knows graduates without the means or plans to go to college. "You'd get more of an accurate count asking elementary kids if they plan to go to college."

The glowing figures on students who plan to further their education are part of a broad set of statistics Houston school officials submitted to state authorities, figures that painted a wildly optimistic picture of what has been going on in Houston schools over the past few years.

A recent state audit of the Houston schools found vast undercounting of high school dropouts. The figures on college plans suggest that on yet a second measure, Houston put forth data that bear small relation to the hard reality most students face.

The college data, unlike the dropout data, does not affect the Houston school system's performance rankings. It is used largely for research purposes. But critics say that like the dropout data, it reflects a tendency to inflate success by the system that sent Rod Paige, its former superintendent, to Washington, where, as education secretary, he is now the nation's top school officer.

At Davis High, for instance, comparison with test scores and records from the Higher Education Coordinating Board, which tracks students who enroll in public colleges and universities in Texas, suggested that not 100 percent, but less than half of Davis's 1998 graduates enrolled in the state's two- or four-year institutions of higher education, which generally absorb the great majority of college-bound graduates, particularly from poorer high schools.

In a written statement, Terry Abbott, a spokesman for the Houston school district, refused to explain the high numbers of students reported to be planning to go to college and said only that the figures came from "surveys of students." Requests for interviews with principals and with Kaye Stripling, the current superintendent, were refused. Dr. Paige also declined to answer questions.

Some former principals in Houston said they did not know why the data was collected, while others thought, mistakenly, that it was used by parents shopping for schools for their children. Given the emphasis here on judging school performance by statistics, principals said, underlings most likely made up the figures to look good — without fully understanding their use.

"I'm very skeptical of 99 to 100 percent," said Robert F. Worthy, who stepped down as principal of Yates this spring, after four years. "In fact, I'm almost certain we didn't have those numbers."

Another former principal, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals, contended that lower-level administrators inflated their figures in the hope of attracting the children of active, involved parents. More students also mean more money from the state. On paper, her school claimed that almost all of its graduates were headed for college. In fact, the principal said, most of them "couldn't spell college, let alone attend."

Not all schools submitted numbers that strain credibility, and some have put forth more modest estimates after years of sky-high claims.

Parent advocacy groups contend that the district's statistics on college plans — however they are gathered — should rely on some indicator, like transcripts requested or students taking college entrance exams, to have any meaning.

But George Scott, an online education columnist who has written widely about Texas, said the soaring numbers were no accident. He said claims that most students planned to attend college were of a piece with another claim the state makes — that the majority of Texas high school graduates are ready for college-level work.

"Why would any self-respecting person allow this to go out when it's clearly not true?" Mr. Scott said.

To gauge the disparity between the portrait painted by Houston and the reality graduates face, The New York Times compared the district's figures on college plans with test scores and state data on college enrollment.

While Yates, for example, said all of its graduates in 2000 planned to attend college, only a third of its seniors took the state's most popular college entrance exam, the SAT, reaching a combined average score of 763. According to the state's Higher Education Coordinating Board, fewer than 50 percent of Yates's graduates that year took any credits at state colleges or universities.

Matthew Rivera, a 1999 graduate of Worthing High School here, said that most of his classmates probably hoped to attend college. But for many of them, the encounter with higher education proved brutal.

"Getting into college is not hard at all," Mr. Rivera said. "Staying in is hard." Mr. Rivera and two of his friends, Worthing classmates, began college in 1999. Only one graduated this spring.

A look at scores on tests other than the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills suggests that Mr. Rivera and his friends were not alone in their lack of preparation.

The year they graduated, the average combined SAT score of Worthing's seniors was 794. When in the 11th grade, the class of '99 scored in the bottom 40 percent of students nationally on the Stanford 9 achievement test in virtually all subjects .

According to state figures, 143 graduates from Worthing's class of 1999 enrolled in public colleges or universities in Texas; 166 did not. That year, however, Houston reported that 95 percent of Worthing's students planned to go to college.

Mr. Rivera plans to attend vocational courses in radiology this fall, which he hopes will help him land stable employment at a decent salary. He now holds down three jobs, one as a waiter.

Ashleigh Blackmon, a graduate of Yates in 2002, said she did not for a moment believe all her classmates were planning on college but was not sure her school's claims did any harm.

"It doesn't mean anything, because who cares?" she said, and then paused. "But it could mean they lie about a lot more of other things."