After ten years of mayoral control of its public schools, New York City has only one strategy to “reform” the schools: Closing existing schools and replacing them with many new small schools.
You would think that after ten years with one person in charge, holding the unlimited power to do whatever he wants, the schools would now all be successful–that is, if he actually had a good idea about how to improve the schools.
But no, the game of closing schools continues, meaning that every year a new group of schools will be single out for a shutdown. As readers of this blog know, the New York City Department of Education (i.e., Mayor Bloomberg) decided to shut down 33 schools this year. When powerful politicians in Queens complained loudly, the closing list dropped from 33 to 24. When the city realized that it could scoop up about $40 million in federal funds by calling the schools “turnarounds,” rather than just closing them outright, the 24 became “turnaround” schools, in which at least half the staff was fired.
But an independent arbitrator ruled that the “turnaround” plan violated the teachers’ union contract, so everyone who was just fired got reinstated, unless they decided to take whatever job they had lined up in the meanwhile. At last writing, Mayor Bloomberg was steamed that he lost “binding” arbitration and announced his intention to sue to overturn the arbitrator’s ruling, which apparently is only “binding” if it goes the way the Mayor wanted it to go.
So here is an additional twist to this story.
The city’s dependence on closing schools and opening schools relies heavily on one study, which said that the city’s small high schools had a higher graduation rate. The brilliant Gary Rubinstein decided to take a closer look at this study and found it to be flawed. How sad that so many lives of students, teachers and administrators have been disrupted, how many careers ruined, how many communities fragmented, based on a theory that lacks evidence.
How sad too that this path of destruction and ruin is considered “reform.” No, not reform. Destruction, chaos, upheaval. And not in the best interests of students.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is going on everywhere–Chicago, New York, Providence, Boston…What are teachers doing about it? Well, what are WE doing about it? Why are we letting our profession, our students and our parents down?
People say if we feel so strongly about what is happening, why aren’t we out in the streets? We used to take to the streets–strikes, remember those? Those very affective ways to leverage our right to defend our profession? Chicago figured it out, figured it was the only way. But the rest of us have let it go on too long. I know, our unions won’t listen to us, they won’t strike. My union president said, no strikes, not on his watch. Who are this paternalistic figures that our putting another destructive layer between us and our work?
What about a one day strike this September? Not just Chicago, but ALL of us. Do you think the media will cover it??? Damn right they will, that’s all they’ll be talking about, and we will, then, get our message out. We can debunk the “studies” and they will have to listen.
We are not going to get anywhere with collaboration, with waiting for the courts do declare what’s right, there is too much collateral damage already. We must stage a wild cat strike if our union leadership won’t listen. When I read statements from the union leaders, at times, I can’t tell them from the reformers. Who are we waiting for? What are we waiting for? When is enough enough?
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This article covered the recent ruling and Bloomberg’s ploys. It is a rare article that criticizes him. Evidently, the websites for the old schools are down and the new ones up.
I don’t understand how he thinks he can ignore the decision or how he can overturn it.
None of this, absolutely nothing in the NY Times…pitiful.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gail-robinson/nycs-school-closing-gambi_b_1644758.html
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Well Teacher Out, one of the reasons some of us teachers don’t go out on strike is the fact that in Missouri we can’t (along with police, firefighters, nurses). It is illegal, the deck is stacked. That would easily be a career killer-good bye classroom. And the MNEA won’t do anything about it. Actually most of the teachers in MO have been conditioned to think that strikes would be “below them” or would harm the students-neither of which is necessarily true. You’re right about most of the professional associations, MNEA and MSTA and not as much the union-AFT in Missouri have fallen for the “schools are failing” meme and have not protested/fought the “data driven” dialogue that poses as public education “reform” here in the good ol Show Me State. MNEA has awakened a bit and is fighting harder the ALECization/Rheeification of public education in the last year or so.
How many teachers, administrators, students and parents do you personally know that believe NCLB and RATT are good educational policies? Probably less than the number of years of teaching experience that Rhee has. The only ones that seem to agree with said policies are those, who have a monetary stake in the game, those who stand to profit off the backs of the students and teachers.
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Strikes are illegal in Rhode Island too, but that never stopped us. In my 28 years of teaching, I’ve been involved in illegal strikes eight times. They can’t fire every teacher in the nation for a one day strike/ walk-out/sick-out, what have you. If we all get sent to jail, will we get much needed media attention to get our message out.
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I applaud your dedication and hard work over the years fighting for your rights and also the students. You’re quite correct in what you say about a nation wide “strike”. Unfortunately, at my rural district I don’t think that there would be more than a handful who would walk, many for fear of losing their jobs. And around here I can guarantee the current make-up of the school board would ensure that those folks would be severely punished-I’ve felt the wrath myself when speaking out against some of the proposed policy changes. The attitude in MO for the most part is very anti-union, unfortunately.
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Another option is an after school informational strike.
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Thanks, I like that idea!
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Wow! So glad to see you heave some strong language at Bloomberg’s disastrous educational policies. A lot more of this is needed against the entire “reform” crowd. I sense you are making headway against the privatizers but what is really needed is the union leaders to follow your example.
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The exact same thing is happening in Newark, NJ. There has to be some legal way to stop this madness. At the end of the day it is a direct violation of human rights. Knowledge is a basic human right, it gives one the ability to provide for one’s basic needs (food, shelter, health, etc.). I believe this is a modern day genocide. I can’t get my son in school support for reading, I have been trying since the first grade. Now he is being promoted to the 5th grade reading @ a 3rd grade level. He received 2 D’s and 2 F’s, but somehow he ended up with a C as the final grade. Do they realize that these children are our future?
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With all these so called plans to reform or turnaround schools, I never hear about the affects all these ideas really affect the students. I agree that test scores are important but only to a point. To really create a transformation in our school systems, we need to consider more closely what positive or negative affects these reforms or whatever you call them have on the children and youth who are forced to go through all these changes. Otherwise, we are not really putting children first which is suppose to be the most important part of the equation. Throwing money around and feeding adult egos is not the answer.
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Pardon me for nitpicking, but Bloomberg’s turnaround plan does not violate the “teachers’ union contract,” Why? Because there is no such beast. There is a Collective Bargaining Agreement, signed by BLOOMBERG and the teachers’ union. The Mayor’s plan violates the contract HE agreed to, and he is now sore at the arbitrator that HE accepted to judge the case. A businessman like the Mayor ought to know that disputes about the application of contracts are not settled arbitrarily by whichever signatory screams the loudest; they are settled by judges or arbitrators, whose decisions are binding.
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Not sure where to post this, but Jim Horn posted a Washington Post article that linked this video. If this is how they are training teachers we shoud all be worried.
Scroll down to the Rigorous Classroom Discussion.
http://www.relayschool.org/videos
Sorry but that was not teaching and learning. That was following cult
Iike procedures. Why not put the kids in small groups and let them have the same
discussion? Then all are participating and all are thinking, from that clip only 2-3 were actually thinking and answering. All you know for sure is that the rest of them know when to wiggle and point – this is a rote skill, even a deaf kid could figure out what to do just by looking around the room. This video was embarrassing, but I wonder if these teachers even know any better…..rigorous classroom discussion should be called blatant classroom indoctrination…I would get my kid out that school very quickly.
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This article was describing a way to teach to charter school teachers which in many cases are not required to even have a teaching degree let alone be certified. That is the case in LA, thanks to the new charter school guidelines. God help us if it comes into play for actual teacher education programs.
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Here is the Washington Post article that embedded the video:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/is-filling-the-pail-any-way-to-train-teachers/2012/07/04/gJQADViVOW_blog.html
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Mini-school grad rates and data in NYC are so bogus they can make you laugh…or cry.
Students who either missed many classes and/or completed little work, are allowed to take “credit recovery.” These are basically open book units delivered on computer. The student is allowed to take a unit UP TO TEN TIMES ! This is THE ultimate social promotion. STILL some students here can’t or won’t pass!
The worst part of this, of course, that this completely undermines the value of showing up at all and completing work on time. A mini school degree in NYC is often a complete joke….meaningless.
This is the improvement Bloomberg, Klein, Gates, and Weingarten have brought to these schools? It’s hogwash.
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Boy that changes the old adage, if you don’t succeed, try, try again to guess, guess again. Credit recovery should be called credit forgery!
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Read this in a school matters email. New Jersey also rewriting the rules to fit what they want. Will try to cut and paste. I hope it is not too long.
Civilizations in the final stages of decay are dominated by elites out of touch with reality.
Chris Hedges
Liars in NJ:
The corporate fascists will go to any extreme to make the numbers match their ideological agenda to destroy any remants of democratic public education so that their friends can suck every last dime and swoop down like vultures on the poorest and the most vulnerable. They are not out of touch with reality, the reality is they are greedy, power hungry bullies who believe they can get away with it. Here’s a press release from the Education Law Center in New Jersey, one of the last remnants of social justice and truth in a state that is sacrificing one of the most equitable public education systems in the country so the elites can rake in a few more bucks. Too bad the story won’t get much play in the corporate-owned media run by the media elites who have also lost touch with reality.
ACTING COMMISSIONER DRAMATICALLY LOWERS NEWARK’S STATE MONITORING SCORES
Newark Downgraded From High Performing to Failing in Less Than a Year
In a letter dated July 2, 2012, Acting Commissioner Christopher Cerf issued yet another round of scores on the Newark district’s performance under the State monitoring system of NJ school districts — the Quality Single Accountability Continuum or “QSAC.” The latest scores dramatically lower the district’s ratings in the governance, personnel, and curriculum and instruction areas of QSAC monitoring from the ratings issued by Mr. Cerf less than a year ago.
The new ratings come on the heels of the Acting Commissioner’s highly unusual decision to conduct a full review of Newark after certifying the district as high performing in four of the five areas of evaluation under QSAC in July 2011.
The Acting Commissioner is also making the new scores public just days before a deadline to answer a lawsuit filed by the Newark School Board and numerous community groups, parents and taxpayers seeking to overturn Mr. Cerf’s July 2011 decision not to return the district to local control despite the district’s high level of performance.
In his July 2nd letter to State Superintendent Cami Anderson, Mr. Cerf significantly downgraded the district’s performance from July 2011 as follows:
Governance dropped 34 percentage points, from 89% to 55%
Personnel dropped 46 percentage points, from 94% to 48%
Curriculum and Instruction dropped 30 percentage points, from 64% to 34%
Fiscal management also dropped 5 percentage points, from 93% to 88%, while operations remained the same at 83%.
Under the QSAC statute, a district scoring over 80 in any of these five areas is considered high performing and, for state operated districts such as Newark, the State is required to withdraw control over those areas. A district scoring below 50 is considered failing and subject to more in-depth State evaluation and oversight.
The legal appeal filed by the Newark School Board and community groups is a direct challenge to Mr. Cerf’s refusal to restore local control by withdrawing from the governance, personnel and fiscal management areas given Newark’s high performance in the July 2011 scoring. In 2009, the former Commissioner Lucille Davy withdrew State control over operations when the district scored over 80 in that area.
The precipitous drop in ratings from high performing in July 2011 to failing in July 2012 occurred under State Superintendent Anderson, hired by Mr. Cerf and Governor Chris Christie in June 2011 to lead Newark’s public schools. In announcing her appointment, Governor Christie hailed Anderson “as someone who knows how to execute a plan, and that’s what is needed here in Newark.”
ELC Executive Director David Sciarra noted that Mr. Cerf issued his new QSAC scores just days before the extended deadline for the State to answer the Newark Board’s legal appeal seeking local control. “The process, timing and results of Mr. Cerf’s actions call into serious question the credibility of, and public confidence in, the State’s monitoring of local school districts under the QSAC framework established by the Legislature,” Mr. Sciarra said.
Mr. Sciarra also noted that Mr. Cerf’s dramatic downgrade of Newark from high performing to failing in less than a year also raises concerns about the management and direction of Newark schools under State’s own leadership. “Mr. Cerf needs to explain why Newark’s quality review scores dropped so dramatically one year after bringing in highly touted new leadership, and why the State Education Department allowed the district’s performance to deteriorate so dramatically, so quickly,” he added.
On July 2nd, the same day that Mr. Cerf issued his letter downgrading Newark’s ratings in district governance, the State Superintendent vetoed the Newark Board’s decision to reject Anderson’s plan to close several Newark public schools and lease the buildings to charter school operators. The Board refused to sign-off on the school closings and charter leases after failing to receive assurances that the district had complied with State regulations governing school closures and state public bidding laws.
Education Law Center Press Contact:
Sharon Krengel
Policy and Outreach Coordinator
skrengel@edlawcenter.org
973-624-1815, x 24 815, x 24
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Exactly on target–Bloomberg had 10 years of unlimited power and unlimited funds to make public education a success and each of his imposed reorg’s only made things worse, from which I conclude that the project was actually one of sabotaging public education so as to enable and enforce the logic of privatization.
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