(2016-03-14) PTech Turmoil

*By this coming fall, there will be 60 PTech schools in six states, with 200 different industry partners, offering a range of technical degrees in areas like advanced manufacturing and health information technology.

In fall 2014, P-TECH told NPR, 21 percent of grades earned by its students in (CUNY) college courses were D's and F's.

"We do students no favors if we create an environment that isn't what students think it is, which is college expectations," says NancyZimpher, the chancellor of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, speaking in favor of these policies. "We can't compromise on the quality."

The percentage of D's and F's earned by P-TECH students in college courses has dropped, from the 21 percent reported in fall 2014 to 14 percent in fall 2015.

By June 2016, IBM says, about 1 in 4 of the original P-TECH students should have an associate degree. That, after five years, already beats the national graduation rates for poor community college students of color. But the goal, on P-TECH's own website, isn't 25 percent. It's 100 percent in six years. And the school is being replicated quickly, in the bright glare of publicity, before the kinks have been worked out and the model has been proven sustainable.*