On Friday, an independent arbitrator issued a binding ruling to stop the “turnaround” of 24 schools, where some 3,500 teachers lost their jobs so that the city could claim federal School Improvement Grant funding. The federal program requires that the principal and at least half the teachers be fired; the school gets a new name, and voila! All is transformed, turned around due to the magic of mass firings.
But the arbitrator agreed with the union that its contract had been violated.
Mayor Bloomberg, however, is not one to be easily deterred. So he announced not only that he is suing to overturn the “binding” arbitration judgment, but he will ignore the arbitrator’s ruling because he only announced his conclusion, but not his reasoning!
Fortunately the school year is over because there is general confusion among the staff at the 24 schools. The teachers who were fired may retain their old jobs; many, however, have already found new jobs. Some of the principals who were fired will stay fired. No one knows for sure who will be working where when school starts, or for how long.
There is a literature about schools that says that schools do best when there is stability, collegiality and trust.
But not in these 24 schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
If ever there was a demonstration that corporate reform does not get education or care about education, it is the notion of the turn around school – re-package, re-label, new marketing strategy and a new school will succeed – based solely on this marketing strategy. Content, socio-economics, and trust and more irrelevant to them. It is nauseating and I savor every victory against it no matter how small or short-lived.
It may be instructive to look more deeply into this process in NYC public schools. Some of these schools are led by ineffective administrations and students are in classrooms with ineffective teachers. Is this a situation where the union is too strong and protecting ineffective teachers? What’s the long term effect of keeping teachers who are not doing their jobs. As a classroom teacher, I count on my tenure and my union, but only because I do the job my district pays me to do. This has nothing to do with high stakes testing. This has to do with building healthy schools. Diane, please check out the details. I’ll be very interested to know what you come up with. This struggle is at the heart of improving schools in urban areas. Your seat mate from NCTM.
Good question, but my understanding is that none of the teachers who were selected for ouster had a negative evaluation. If the school has an ineffective principal, isn’t the New York City Department of Education responsible for that? Isn’t it their job to select good principals and to remove bad ones? Is it necessary to fire half the school, sans evaluations, to get rid of the principal? It seems that the “turnaround” idea is like taking an axe to solve a problem that requires a scalpel. In most cases, the problem is not even correctly identified. In the New York City instance, we have a mayor who has had total control of public education for ten years. At what point does he take responsibility for dysfunctional schools? At what point is it his problem? The people appointed for the past ten years were appointed on his watch.
Agreed. The problem with schools across the country is the lack of good leadership and effective evaluation systems. Again, looking more deeply, why were ineffective principals allowed to keep their jobs? What was the quality of the evaluation process? There is a giant problem in educating low income students. It’s time to start looking at effective ways to have a positive impact. I’m not sure blasting all turnaround schools without digging into the details is useful. Suppose new leadership was put into a turnaround school, suppose administrators and teachers were interviewed by a committee of stake holders using questions about their practice and what comprises good teaching and learning, suppose those interviewed failed MOST of the questions. Is it in the best interest of the students to keep those admin and teachers or to let them go? There is plenty of blame to go around. How do we improve public education for all in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods?
Yesterday I made a sojourn into my school, one of the 24 closing schools. (I say my school because I was hired back although the bloodletting that followed the ridiculous interview process fills one with survival guilt.) I called first to make sure the building was open and was told “Yes” and headed in to feed my classroom fish.
When I arrived at school you would have thought I was trying to penetrate the Pentagon or CIA. I was told by people, first security, then 2 APs and a secretary I “cannot be in the building.” I kind of told them that I had called first and just kept on walking to my room. I half expected to be physically stopped although that did not happen.
Whatever the reason for making the building a no-fly zone, all the recent events have left me and many of my colleagues shell shocked. I am naturally cynical but not paranoid however this whole process has left many of very suspicious. The scars of these last few months will not be limited to teachers; the students will bear scars as well. A little paranoia and a distrust of people in suits may turn out to be beneficial in an evolutionary sense. Still, I wonder what directive they may have gotten from the Chancellor and what mischief the mayor may be cooking up to get out of this decision.
In the school I worked/used to work/work in there was a teacher that was “kept” and one that was “originally let go” both trying to gain entrance into the building, Neither was allowed in. By the way, I am just curious…to the other 23 schools, how many of the people directly involved in the union leadership were kept? In the building, I guess I am still officially associated with it was ZERO…all of the people in the union leadership team were not “retained” in the brief moment it was a “new school”.
Please read full article…link below:
Nadelstern designed the department’s network school support structure upon the premise that principals should mostly be left alone, as long as they deliver performance results. When he left, Nadelstern said he was confident that his deputies would carry on the work they had been doing with him.
But in a working paper published late last week by the Center on Reinventing Public Education, a research group associated with the University of Washington, Nadelstern says the department has lost its way. Instead of thinking about what would be best for students, officials have considered what would be best for Mayor Bloomberg, he says. Rather than trusting principals to make the right choices for their schools, officials are mandating instructional changes. The department is frittering away federal funds centrally rather than distributing them to schools. And instead of using the network structure to support schools, the department is using a “ruthlessly efficient structure for micromanaging” them, he writes.
http://gothamschools.org/2012/07/03/former-top-official-gives-scathing-review-to-does-current-state/
Dispatch from Hawaii:
This blog regarding Bloomberg’s bid for total control of NYC education, ignoring court orders, is devastating for all. Immediately, I began to connect some dots for what may happen in Hawaii.
Dot 1: Georgia and Hawaii (and some other states) are at risk of losing RTTT money due to issues with teacher evaluation models. While Georgia faces a partial loss of RTTT funding ($60 million), Hawaii is at risk of losing all of its RTTT grant funding (appx. $75 million) as, in addition to not meeting evaluation implementation model requirements, the state is struggling with little change in the data of under-performing schools in regards to AYP, academic improvement scalers, etc.
Dot 2: Hawaii’s governor, Neil Abercrombie (D) pushed legislation through the state house that gives the governor the power to appoint board members (Hawaii’s unique governmental structure allows state, city and county to seemingly act as a single entity).
Dot 3: All of Hawaii’s public schools are divided into “complexes” that operate under the state DOE, BOE, etc. While these complexes have some autonomy regarding benchmark testing, they are all now going into the Charlotte Danielson model of evaluation, experimenting with Tripod Survey, and are now subject to observation and evaluation by complex “leaders” who do site / classroom visits.
Dot 4: The governor has determined that a final “yes” vote by the state teachers union, HSTA, by way of re-vote, is statutorily voided. The two to three page “last, best, and final” offer from the state to the HSTA is now tied up as legal briefs have been submitted to the Labor Relations Board.
Dot 5: The burden is clearly now on Governor Abercrombie to either protect or lose $75 million for Hawaii’s schools.
Dot 6: Television advertising selling school “choice” for parents has recently been carried by local stations at an increasing rate.
Dot 7: Principals, especially those serving Title I and / or “low-performing” schools, are required to meet with TFA and consider hiring their “teachers” (based upon RTTT requirements).
Okay, enough dots. In my consulting work with Hawaii schools, I have had many teachers express their concerns and worry regarding additional changes (Common Core, additional testing beyond the annual Hawaii State Assessment testing now given, working w/o a contract, TFAs taking positions that have been traditionally filled with union teachers etc.). All of the above has the potential of creating a situation where Hawaii’s state run public schools might become low-lying fruit for corporate intrusion.