Tyee Chin, Principal of Flushing High School Tries To Fraudulently Boost Graduation Rates. He failed To Get Away With This.

Principal Tyee Chin

Principal allegedly faked geometry classes for students who failed algebra exam​

By Susan Edelman

This principal didn’t do his math.

Tyee Chin of Flushing HS — a cornerstone of Mayor de Blasio’s limping Renewal Schools program — demands that teachers aim to pass 75 percent of their students, or else.

But his crackdown backfired. Hundreds of kids who passed their algebra classes flunked the Regents algebra exam required for graduation.

So Chin and a math assistant principal, in a “blatant disregard” of city and state rules, ordered that 254 students who had been bumped up into geometry classes be taught the algebra they didn’t learn the prior year, teachers alleged.

“They gave us these classes called geometry, but we were told to teach algebra,” an outraged teacher told The Post.

Students who did not learn geometry received geometry credits on their transcripts, staffers said.

“We believe that this is a deliberate attempt . . . to fraudulently boost graduation rates and meet the Renewal school benchmarks,” five teachers wrote last December to Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon. A copy was sent to Chancellor Carmen Fariña.

Condon referred the complaint to the Department of Education. A DOE investigation of Chin for “academic misconduct” is ongoing, officials said Friday. Chin declined to comment.

Flushing students are struggling. Of 586 who took the Regents algebra exam in January, only 31 percent passed, requiring 404 kids to try again.

While five math teachers taught algebra in classes labeled geometry, Chin and the assistant principal for math also ignored their duties to visit the classes to evaluate the instruction.

“They covered themselves. They never came to observe us,” a staffer said.

Chin, 41, who has led Flushing HS for two years, was recently reprimanded for violating a “code of ethics” for the DOE’s teacher surveys, officials revealed.

Last March, he ​warned his Flushing staff against making negative comments in the survey — which is meant to help rate the school — lest enrollment drop and teachers lose jobs. That fate​, Chin claimed,​ befell Wadleigh Secondary School for the Performing & Visual Arts in Harlem​, another Renewal school​, when he was principal.

Now Chin wants to jump ship. This month, he applied to become principal of Townsend Harris HS — one of the city’s highest-performing schools — where student reporters spotted him emerging from an interview.

The Flushing fraud investigation and survey tampering came out after The Post reported that high-profile Renewal principal Santiago Taveras was stripped of his post at DeWitt Clinton HS in The Bronx after Condon found he improperly fixed grades.

Mayor de Blasio is pouring an extra $754 million into the Renewal program, which started
in 2014 with 96 schools, but after closings will continue with 78 in the fall.

Flushing HS Principal Investigated By DOE

on: Queens Tribune, April 06, 2017

BY JAMES FARRELL
Staff Writer

The city is investigating the principal of Flushing High School following allegations that he instructed teachers to teach algebra to their students, rather than geometry, to boost graduation rates while they were taking classes that earned them geometry credits.

The city Department of Education confirmed that Principal Tyee Chin is currently under investigation by the Office of Special Investigation following a referral in December. Chin declined to comment until the investigation was complete.

A report in the New York Post outlines the allegations at the school, which is part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Renewal Schools Program” that aims to improve failing schools. That program has received scrutiny regarding efficacy and consequences.

According to the Post, Chin demanded that teachers aim to pass 75 percent of their students. But hundreds of kids who passed their algebra classes failed their Regents algebra exam—a requirement for graduation. According to the Post, five teachers alleged in a letter to the DOE’s Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon that Chin ordered that 254 students who had advanced to geometry be taught algebra during their assigned geometry classes.

“We believe that this is a deliberate attempt…to fraudulently boost graduation rates and meet the Renewal School benchmarks,” the teachers wrote in the letter.

“Ensuring academic integrity at our schools is critical and we investigate any allegation of academic misconduct,” said DOE spokesman Michael Aciman.

Chin’s investigation reverberated in another Flushing school this week—Townsend Harris High School, where students, parents and teachers have waged an ongoing battle to remove its interim-acting principal, Rosemarie Jahoda.

While principal candidates are typically kept confidential during the C-30 principal-selection process, student reporters at Townsend Harris’ school newspaper, The Classic, identified Chin as one of four candidates selected from a pool of 38 to receive interviews for the position. Chin is now the second of those four to be under investigation by the DOE at some point during the school’s principal-selection process. Jahoda, per a Classic report, was previously under investigation for allegations that she denied students mandated services during her tenure as assistant principal of mathematics at the Bronx High School of Science.

That particular investigation into Jahoda, however, has been closed, with no charges, said Aciman, who would not clarify whether any other investigations were being conducted on candidates for Townsend Harris, other than Chin.

There is no specific regulation precluding an applicant under investigation from being in the principal candidate pool, which the superintendent selects from a larger applicant pool for “Level 1” interviews with members of the school community. The superintendent makes the final appointment based on Level 1 recommendations. Before that final appointment, candidates’ names must be “submitted to the Office of Special Investigations, the Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation and the Office of Personnel Investigations for clearance,” per DOE rules.

Franco Scardino, a social studies teacher and United Federation of Teachers representative at Townsend Harris, serves on the Level 1 Committee. He could not speak about Chin or Jahoda directly, since Level 1 members are bound by confidentiality. But he shared general concerns about the process and argued that the DOE does not disclose investigations unless inquiries are made about specific allegations.

“It would seem to me that the system could have a mechanism where it can be reported to the superintendent that an investigation is open and ongoing,” he said. “You don’t have to reveal the nature of the investigation, but I think as soon as we know that being investigated ultimately disqualifies you from being appointed, why even consider someone who you may not be able to appoint?”

Elaine Lindsey, Townsend Harris’ superintendent, did not respond to a request for comment.