Audit Report on the Department of Education’s Oversight of the Student Promotion Process

Executive Summary

The New York City Department of Education (DOE) provides education to over one million New York City (City) students—from pre-kindergarten to grade 12—attending more than 1,800 schools in 32 school districts. Chancellor’s Regulation A-501, which sets forth DOE’s promotion standards, states that students in grades 3 through 12 must meet rigorous academic benchmarks in order to be promoted to the next grade in preparation for, ultimately, college and careers.

DOE schools are responsible for setting benchmarks to measure students’ progress toward meeting the standards set forth by the New York State (State) Education Department in grades three through eight. In addition, students in grade eight must pass core classes in the subject areas of English, Math, Science, and Social Studies.

Within DOE, three entities were supposed to provide principals with the requirements, as well as guidance and support in relation to the promotion process during the two school years this audit covered, 2016-2017 and 2017-2018: (1) the Office of Academic Policy and Systems (OAPS); (2) DOE’s borough-based Field Support Centers; and (3) district superintendents.  Schools are required to record students’ final term grades in DOE’s citywide Student Transcript and Academic Reporting System  (STARS) and promotion-related actions in DOE’s separate citywide information system known as Automate the Schools (ATS).

According to the data we received from DOE, a total of 591,525 promotion decisions should have been made for students in grades three through eight during the two-year period this audit covered, consisting of 281,827 students in School Year 2016-2017, and 309,698 students in School Year 2017-2018, all of whom were subject to standard promotion criteria.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

DOE does not adequately oversee the promotion process for students in grades three to eight. Specifically, DOE has not established an effective control during the promotion decision process to ensure that principals and their designees adequately: (1) identify those students who fail to meet promotion benchmarks; (2) promote students only after determining that they have met the applicable benchmarks; and (3) enter timely decisions in ATS regarding the promotion or retention of each student for whom they are responsible. Consequently, DOE’s ability to determine the degree to which the education records of promoted students indicate that those students met their schools’ benchmarks for promotion is significantly hindered.

In addition, ATS is not programmed in a manner that requires the entry of data that aligns with requirements for the promotion process established by DOE policy. As a result, information for 13,634 (2.3 percent) of the 589,215 promotions made during the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 School Years is either missing from or incorrect in ATS.

The weaknesses summarized above, if not corrected, compromise DOE’s ability to be reasonably assured that school administrators promote only those students who have met the promotion benchmarks.

Audit Recommendations

To address the issues raised by this audit, we make five recommendations, including:

• DOE should require superintendents to supervise the implementation of the promotion policy in the schools in their respective districts and approve that each school has made its promotion determinations in accordance with Chancellor’s Regulation A-501.
• DOE should ensure that the functions within ATS are designed and updated in a manner that is reflective of DOE’s promotion policies, including enhancing ATS (e.g., add input controls, edits, and checks) so that principals or their designees must populate all fields that are critical to the promotion. In areas where the system cannot be remedied, DOE should design compensating controls.
• DOE should ensure that summer school guidelines are clear so that principals can use consistent criteria when promoting students who were retained in June.

Agency Response

DOE agreed to implement two recommendations, specifically, that DOE require superintendents to supervise implementation of the promotion policy (recommendation #2), and develop controls to monitor whether Field Support Centers carry out their responsibilities (recommendation #3), but claimed that since the audit scope period, the agency has implemented changes it its operations and that it is already in compliance with both of those recommendations. In addition, DOE agreed to review its procedures in response to recommendation #5 and identify opportunities for it to clarify summer school guidelines. DOE disagreed with two recommendations (recommendations #1 and #4); specifically, that DOE develop a process that would allow superintendents to assess whether schools adhere to DOE’s promotion policy in accordance with their schools’ benchmarks, and that it ensure that the functions within ATS are designed to reflect DOE’s promotion policies, respectively.