Governor Andrew Cuomo likes to say that the problems in New York are not about money, because the state spends enough already.
Governor, please read this analysis by Bruce Baker.
Despite years of promises, New York State has one of the most inequitable school finance systems in the nation.
We may be spending enough, but the funding is highly inequitable.
And the state’s neediest children have the least funding and the largest class size.
These disparities are inexcusable.
Who deserves credit for creating the anti-testing movement in New York State?
Governor Andrew Cuomo.
He is so devoted to standardized testing that students in third grade in New York will have “six straight days of tests, 90 minutes a day.”
Cuomo loves standardized testing and high stakes, though not for his own children, of course.
Mark Naison also credits State Commissioner John King, who shares Cuomo’s devotion to tests and punishments and regularly displays a “contemptuous attitude…towards parents, teachers, and principals who question the usefulness of so much testing.”
Friends, we do not have to tolerate what we know is wrong for children.
Opt out.
Here is a superintendent who is willing to raise his voice to demand that the Governor and Legislature fund New York state’s public schools. These days, there is so much fear in education, so many educators intimidated by get-tough, know-nothing politicians, that it is refreshing to encounter a superintendent who is willing to speak truth to power.
Superintendent Jeff Rabey wonders why citizens are willing to demonstrate for gun rights but not for their children’s schools. He writes:
Is it just me or do we have our priorities mixed up?
In response to the NY SAFE Act, “Angry demonstrators, at least 1,000 of them traveling from Erie County on 14 packed buses, showed their frustrations in colorful signs such as ‘Cuomo has to go’..” (Buffalo News 03/01/13)
Gun advocates rage against the trampling of their Second Amendment rights. Why don’t we rage at the profound trampling of our children’s Constitutional rights?
NYS’s Constitution guarantees children a fair and equitable education. Yet, for five years NYS has underfunded schools by $765 million. In 2009, when the courts ordered more equitable school funding, Foundation Aid was created to provide at least a 3% aid increase each year. Just one year later, Foundation Aid was frozen and the five-year “take back” of aid began. That “take back,” known as the “Gap Elimination” is decimating our public schools. Where are these 14 packed buses on their way to Albany?
Pounding another nail in the coffin, Albany passed the Tax Levy Cap, which further defunded schools and swept away school board control over local revenue. Heralded as a help to taxpayers facing soaring local property taxes, Albany looked heroic. Albany neglected to mention that local property taxes were soaring because local taxpayers picked up the tab for funding Albany took away … and for mandated expenses Albany won’t address.
The “Gap Elimination” take-back and tax levy cap have fast tracked schools to financial and educational ruin. Schools are cutting programs left and right to save costs. Our children’s transcripts will be too thin for entrance to our own NYS four-year schools. Where are these 14 packed buses on their way to Albany?
Finally, in an effort to grab $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds, Albany committed to transforming our educational system into one that promotes high stakes testing and linked those high stakes, unreliable assessments to teacher performance.
Albany swept away school board control over evaluation of their own teachers. Instead, that authority was given to a time-consuming, unproven system that dramatically escalates expenses for schools, pushing costs far beyond the initial Race to the Top funding. This at a time when Albany took away funding that was Constitutionally-guaranteed. Where are these 14 packed buses on their way to Albany?
Where is the outrage? The colorful signs? The microphones and cameras?
We need to take a lesson from the gun advocates and raise our voices in united outrage. Recently, in a letter sent to the Governor, which was initiated by Senator Gallivan and signed by 17 of his Upstate fellow Senators; the inequitable funding of schools was addressed. The letter urges the Governor to restore funding to low-wealth school districts that have been disproportionately impacted.
This is a start, but where are these 14 packed buses from Western New York on their way to Albany?
Jeffrey R. Rabey
Superintendent of Schools
Depew Union Free School District
Jersey Jazzman has been wondering whether governor Andrew Cuomo would copy the bullying tactics of New Jersey’s Governor Christie or would he adopt the collaborative style of Governor Jerry Brown.
Those of us who live in New York wonder why it took our brilliant friend in New Jersey to make his decision.
Governor Andrew Cuomo famously declared himself to be the students’ lobbyist.
Yet he frequently advocates policies that are not in the best interest of students.
If he truly wants to advocate for students, he should spend a day with Arthur Goldstein in his high school classroom in Queens. Arthur could help Governor Cuomo. He could help him understand what students really need. And that would make Governor Cuomo a better advocate for students, as he hopes to be.
No one has been more active in opposing untested evaluation methods than high school principal Carol Burris.
Burris was a key figure in organizing New York principals to oppose the state’s test-based evaluation system, which has never been validated or worked anywhere.
Burris has written articles frequently. She is tireless.
I visited her school, South Side High School in Rockville Center, Long Island. It is an excellent and beloved community school that serves all the children of the community. it has no tracking. It has a strong IB program.
Carol went to the first public hearing of the Cuomo commission, but was not allowed to speak. When the commission held hearings on Long Island, she got her chance. She got a standing ovation.
Please read her testimony.
Several readers, including parents in this district, have sent me a copy of this letter written by Don Sternberg of Wantagh Elementary School in Long Island, New York.
Sternberg wrote a letter to the school’s parents at the start of the school year telling them about how the politicians and bureaucrats at Albany were messing up their child’s education.
He wrote:
What we will be teaching students is to be effective test takers; a skill that does not necessarily translate into critical thinking – a skill set that is necessary at the college level and beyond. This will inevitably conflict with authentic educational practice – true teaching.
Unfortunately, if educators want to survive in the new, Albany-created bureaucratic mess that is standardized assessments to measure teacher performance, paramount to anything else, we must focus on getting kids ready for the state assessments. This is what happens when non-educators like our governor and state legislators, textbook publishing companies (who create the assessments for our state and reap millions of our tax dollars by doing so), our NYS Board of Regents, and a state teachers’ union president get involved in creating what they perceive as desirable educational outcomes and decide how to achieve and measure them. Where were the opinions of teachers, principals, and superintendents? None were asked to participate in the establishment of our new state assessment parameters. Today, statisticians are making educational decisions in New York State that will impact your children for years to come.
Standardized assessment has grown exponentially. For example, last year New York State fourth graders, who are nine or ten years old, were subjected to roughly 675 minutes (over 11 hours) of state assessments which does not include state field testing. This year there will be a state mandated pre-test in September and a second mandated pre-test in January for all kindergarten through fifth grade students in school. In April, kindergarten through fifth grade students will take the last test [assessment] for the year.
Excessive testing is unhealthy. When I went to school I was never over-tested and subsequently labeled with an insidious number that ranked or placed me at a Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 or Level 4 as we do today. Do you want your child to know their assigned ‘Level’? What would the impact be on their self-esteem and self-worth at such a young age?
Inevitably, he said, teachers would look at students as more or less desirable because what the students do will affect the teachers’ evaluation scores.
He urged parents to do their part, but he laid the blame for this massive distortion of educational purpose where it belongs: on the State Commissioner of Education, the Governor, and the Legislature.
The new system is a mess. It is an outrage. It is a crime against education and against children. Parents need to know what the state (and federal government) is doing to their children. They need to know how good schools and good teachers are being demoralized.
Donald Sternberg is a hero of public education. He joins our honor roll.
If every principal explained to the parents what the state is doing to their children and the harm being inflicted on them, we would turn this nation’s failed corporate education policies around and let our educators educate.
Bruce Baker has another brilliant analysis, this time gauging the validity of school ratings just released by the state of New York. A thumbnail sketch: New York is stiffing its neediest schools and districts.
Here are the takeaways:
1. The waiver process is illegal. It is not the prerogative of any federal official–not even a cabinet member–to decide to disregard a federal law and to substitute his own policies for the ones in the law. If the law stinks, as NCLB does, revise it. That’s the way our legal system works. Once the precedent is set, any future cabinet member may decide to change the laws to suit his or her fancy. That’s wrong.
2. New York state released a list of schools in relation to their “performance.” Surprise, surprise! Here is what Baker discovered:
Notably, schools in “good standing” are lowest BY FAR in % of children qualified for free lunch, percent of children who are black, or Hispanic, and are also generally lower in percent of children who are limited in their English Language Proficiency. Race and poverty differences are particularly striking!
In short, the Obama/Duncan administration has given NY State officials license to experiment disproportionately on low income and minority children – or for that matter – simply close their schools. No attempt to actually legitimately parse “blame” or consider the possibility that the state itself might share in that blame.
AFTER ALL, NEW YORK STATE CONTINUES TO MAINTAIN ONE OF THE MOST REGRESSIVE STATE SCHOOL FINANCE SYSTEMS IN THE COUNTRY!
The third takeaway is that the state violates its own funding formula and underfunds all schools, but especially the schools that enroll the neediest students.
“…the current New York State school foundation aid formula is hardly equitable or adequate for meeting the needs of children attending the state’s highest need districts. But to rub salt in the wound – FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, THE GOVERNOR AND LEGISLATURE HAVE CHOSEN TO DISREGARD ENTIRELY THEIR OWN WOEFULLY INADEQUATE STATE AID FORMULA.
Even worse, when the Governor and Legislature have levied CUTS TO THAT FORMULA, they have levied those cuts such that they disproportionately cut more state aid per pupil from the higher need districts. As of 2011-12, some high need districts including the city of Albany had shortfalls in state funding (from what would be expected if the foundation formula was actually funded) that were greater than the total foundation aid they were actually receiving.“
This article was published last year. It was written by Marc Epstein, a social studies teacher and dean at Jamaica High School. Marc has a Ph.D. in Japanese naval history. Since he wrote this article, the New York City Department of Education closed Jamaica High School but a court stayed the closing. The city has already placed small schools in the historic building.
Educators of New York state. Make time to attend a meeting of the Cuomo Commission. As reported here, the meetings in New York City and Buffalo were stacked with charter school advocates, TFA, and StudentsFirst. But as principal Carol Burris notes below, it is important that you are there. Sign up to speak. Who knows, you might be called to testify. Be there to witness. The future of the education profession and public education in New York is on the table.
Carol Burris writes:
Please attend future hearings. Although they provide the opportunity to testify, I cannot tell you based on my experience, that the selection process is fair. I can tell you, however, it is worth the try AND it is worth being present. Even if you do not speak, be there. If you are allowed to testify, speak up for the profession that means so much to you and to the schools that mean so much to your children.Here is the schedule
- Wednesday, August 8, 2012:
Regional Meeting (Southern Tier)- Tuesday, August 14, 2012:
Regional Meeting (Central NY)- Tuesday, August 28, 2012:
Regional Meeting (North Country)- Monday, September 10, 2012:
Regional Meeting (Mid-Hudson)
- Monday, September 24, 2012:
Regional Meeting (Mohawk Valley)- Thursday, October 11, 2012:
Regional Meeting (Long Island)- Monday, October 22, 2012:
Regional Meeting (Finger Lakes)
