NYCDOE Purposely Underfunds And Under-Schedules Summer School Session To Promote Online Credit Recovery

From the NY Post:

Sloppy math by city education officials has left this year’s summer-school calendar four days shorter than needed — making each high-school course six hours short of a full credit, leaders say.

The abbreviated summer-school calendar has just 26 days for high-school students — down from the normal 30 — because of a later-than-usual starting date of July 8.

Even with scheduling overhauls, students could earn only credits in two courses over the summer rather than the typical three — despite the fact that many students need three to graduate in August, according to principals.

“It’s just completely being mishandled,” said one Bronx administrator. “Obviously somebody at Tweed [the old courthouse building behind City Hall in lower Manhattan, where the Department of Education is housed] — whoever did the calendar — made an error and nobody caught it,” the administrator added. “Now it’s their job to fix this.”

School leaders said extending the summer-school day beyond its normal 8 a.m.-to- 1 p.m. schedule is not an option because it would be prohibitively expensive.

Schools would have to serve lunch to all students and teachers — something they don’t currently do — as well as pay teachers for dozens of hours of added overtime.

Yet summer-school funding has dropped from $81 million in fiscal year 2007 to just $44 million this year, according to DOE documents.

“We don’t have money,” said a Queens high-school principal. “Summer school is so underfunded, it’s pathetic.”

DOE officials insisted the scheduling was purposeful. They pointed to online or credit-recovery courses as options for students who need the maximum number of credits.

I'm going to take DOE officials at their word - they purposely underfunded and under-scheduled summer school sessions in order to promote online credit recovery programs that make money for their cronies in the for-profit education world.

In addition, this sets up a wonderful model for coming years when they want to extend the school year.

One of the pushbacks on the extended school year is what wil lthey do about students who need to make up credits in summer school.

Now the DOE can say "Summer school?  What's that?  There's all-year round school and anybody who needs to make up credits can take the Rupert Murdoch/Joel Klein credit recovery program.

It's either that or, as Yoav wrote in the Post, somebody at Tweed screwed up.