Audit Report on the New York City Department of Education’s High School Application Process for Screened Programs

The New York City Department of Education (DOE) has two different high school placement processes. The first process, referred to as the high school application process, is for eighth grade students applying for the ninth grade and first-time ninth graders applying for the tenth grade. There are seven different admissions methods that high school officials use to consider students for their programs: (1) test, (2) audition, (3) educational option, (4) limited unscreened, (5) screened, (6) unscreened, and (7) zoned. (For a description of the admissions methods, see the Appendix.) The second process, referred to as the over-the-counter process, is for (1) new students, (2) students returning to New York City public schools, and (3) New York City public high school students transferring between high schools.

According to records obtained from DOE, there were 284,513 high school students on register as of October 31, 2011. Of these, 215,556 students were placed through the high school application process and were still enrolled at the same high schools as of that date. The remaining 68,957 students were placed in their respective high schools through the over-the-counter process.

This audit determined whether DOE has adequate controls in place to ensure an accurate screening and ranking of students in the high school placement process. This audit concentrated on the high school application process for eighth grade students applying for ninth grade screened high school programs. We determined that the screened admission selection method posed the greatest risk of potential manipulation and accordingly concentrated our audit efforts in this area.

Audit Findings and Conclusion

DOE lacks adequate controls over the high school application process to ensure an accurate screening and ranking of the students who apply for admission to a screened program. Weaknesses include the lack of formal written procedures delineating the criteria and steps used by the high schools to rank the students; failures to maintain sufficient records to document the ranking processes undertaken; and the lack of oversight by DOE to ensure the fair and consistent application of each school’s ranking procedures. We also found that DOE failed to ensure that middle schools retained the original, hard-copy application forms documenting students’ high school choices, which prevented us from determining whether the high school choice data in DOE’s Student Enrollment Management System (SEMS) was accurate.

As a result of these weaknesses, we do not have reasonable assurance that the possibility of inappropriate manipulation of the student rankings, favoritism, or fraud is being adequately controlled. Our analysis of the ranking process for our sample of five screened programs found that 319 (8 percent) of the 4,075 students ranked by these schools did not appear to meet the selection and enrollment criteria (screen). Of these 319 students, 92 (29 percent) were eventually matched by SEMS to those screened programs and 60 (19 percent) were reportedly enrolled at those schools as of October 31, 2011. Conversely, we found that 1,946 (34 percent) of the 5,702 students who we determined did meet the screens for these programs were not ranked by the schools. DOE does not require the schools to rank every student who meets the screen. Nevertheless, many of the students who appear to have met the screen but were not ranked had higher scores than some of the students who appear to have met the screen and were ranked. By not ranking such students, the schools denied them an opportunity to be matched to these programs.

Audit Recommendations

Based on our findings, we make nine recommendations, four of which are listed below. DOE should:

• Ensure that the high schools comply with the New York State Education Department’s Records Retention and Disposition Schedule ED-1 rule. Specifically, it should ensure that the high schools are made aware of the retention requirement and retain the high school ranking documentation for a minimum of six years as required.
• Require the high schools with screened programs to document their ranking rubrics and processes and submit such documentation to a unit within DOE.
• Review the submitted ranking criteria and periodically evaluate the ranking practices of a sample of screened programs, especially those with high demand, to ensure that the high schools are appropriately ranking students in accordance with their stated criteria.
• Review the ranking practices of the four high school screened programs cited in this report for having a considerable number of questionable student rankings and ensure that the schools are following their stated screens and priorities and DOE’s student selection policy for screened programs.

Agency Response

In its response, DOE generally agreed with the audit’s nine recommendations.