I love seeing the listing of where readers live outside the U.S.
Of course, I am happy to see friends in Australia, Canada, the U.K., and New Zealand.
But special greetings this evening to readers in India, Israel, Chile, Germany, France, the Russian Federation, the Philippines, and Chile.
Isn’t the Internet wonderful?
Diane
Jonathan Gray, Blackstone Group LP (BX) senior managing director, was at the IAC Building last night to fete Deborah Kenny, the founder and chief executive officer of Harlem Village Academies, on her new book “Born to Rise: A Story of Children and Teachers Reaching Their Highest Potential.”
“The idea of kids who live a mile north from my kids and have little educational opportunity feels wrong,” Gray said at the party hosted by Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg, with Donna Karan, Calvin Klein and Katie Couric in attendance.
Help goes beyond financial. Gray’s wife, Mindy Gray, is a Homework Helper. Jane Och, the wife of Daniel Och, who runs Och- Ziff Capital Management Group LLC, teaches bridge to students.
Tis the season for charter-school books. On June 14, the night of his run in the JPMorgan Chase & Co. Corporate Challenge in Central Park, Daniel Loeb, founder and CEO of Third Point LLC, co-hosted a party for Eva Moskowitz, founder of Success Academy Charter Schools, and Arin Lavinia, its director of literacy. They have written “Mission Possible: How the Secrets of the Success Academies Can Work in Any School.”
David Levinson, a real-estate developer, and Simone Levinson, vice chairwoman of the board of the nonprofit Turnaround for Children, opened their home for the event.
Michael Karsch, principal of Karsch Capital Management LP, attended both book fetes.
A reader in New York City writes to describe the closing scenes in a Turnaround school. I can’t help but think of the desk jockeys inside the Beltway, the gals and guys who pull down six figures to explain why “turnaround” is a great idea. And all those consultants ready to swoop in for half a million or so. Then then there are the public relations consultants who will tell the media that this wonderful plan is working. The think tanks will celebrate: the theory works! Who are those ants on the ground. People, you say? But they are data, not people. Remember, it’s all about the children!
No problem: Just fire everyone, and it’s time for a do-over. Start fresh!
From D.C. it looks good. But at the school, it doesn’t look that great. A community dies. People pack their things. Careers ended, a school has died. It hurts:
| Since you mention “turnaround schools,” I thought I would offer a glimpse of what is happening at the school I work at in Queens, NY that is undergoing turnaround. It is grim! The hiring process is awful. We teachers (and secretaries and paraprofessionals and guidance counselors) are asked a series of vague questions and then have four minutes to answer each of the five questions. The questions are insane for some teachers (like Phys Ed) to answer. One is “What are five ways you apply the common core standarsd to lesson plans so that they are scaffolded and differentiated and how do you know that you have differentiated and tiered these lessons correctly?” or something to that effect). Each question is at least a paragraph long.Teachers have been notified if they have been hired back and thus far, mostly younger, less experienced teachers have gotten rehired (or a letter of intent to rehire). Some of the best teachers in our school have heard nothing. You should have seen those teachers taking all of their belongings out of the school today. We are losing our best teachers. We are assuming that if we don’t hear that they want us that we are indeed unwanted.
Teachers are crying constantly. Constant breakdowns. So many teachers in my school are on anti-anxiety medication or on anti-depressants. The powers that be have succeeded in breaking the spirit of all the teachers in my school and I am sure in the other 23 schools in NYC. This is not how a hiring process should work. The union is not doing anything to help and I am worried how the school will function in September–actually, I know how it will function. It won’t. It will be crazy with so many (up to 50 percent) inexperienced, young teachers….. I was going to work for five more years. I am a science teacher who has certification to teach both chemistry and earth science. I had the highest ES Regents passing rate in the school, but when the hiring committee selected a younger, less experienced teacher and I heard nothing, I put in my retirement papers. I will not be humiliated like this and I will not be in the ATR. I am sure there are some who are snickering, “Welcome to the real world” or who are happy to see teachers publicly flogged, but the real victims will be the students. All the teachers in my school are disgusted with the UFT and their hands off approach (Yeah, they did file a grievance, but have been fairly quiet about it ever since….and everyone in my school expects the UFT to lose…and even if they don’t lose, there has been so much damage done to all the teachers’ sense of self-esteem and loyalty to the school and to the students that any UFT victory will be hollow. And, we feel so betrayed by our union. Where is Michael Mulgrew? Why hasn’t he ever visited any of these schools or spoken out more publicly and more often about this? This affects over 3500 UFT members and well over 40,000 students!) So, I am retiring–so are other talented and great teachers in my school…others are just resigned to be ATR’s and have no interest in working in our school again. They cannot face working for a new principal who found them inadequate. And the students? Nobody asked them what they wanted. I spoke to a few last week and they were so sad that their school, their second home, was being destroyed and that so many teachers who supported them and helped them and upon whom they relied would be gone. Is this sound educational policy? NO! Is this going to help a single student? NO! All this will do is help destroy teaching as a profession and public education more than anything I can imagine now. And please note that my school is a good school with a lot of immigrant students. We have great programs and have students who come with deficient skill sets. We all work so hard and have great successes with the students. Our graduation rate has increased steadily over the past few years and that it takes some of these students five or six years to graduate should not be held against them or us. But it is held against us and it is a lot easier to destroy something than it is to build something. The DOE and the Obama administration have created a policy that is destroying student lives. Shame on them and shame on the President whose change I no longer believe in. |
From a reader:
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Yesterday I wrote about Juan Gonzalez’s article on Success Academy, which was seeking a 50% increase in its management fee from the state, even though it has a surplus of $23.5 million and spent $3.4 million last year on marketing. The typical charter management organization in New York City has a management fee of 7%, but CEO Eva Moskowitz wanted to increase hers to 15%. Given her surplus, it is hard to see a case for “need,” especially in light of her fund-raising prowess and the presence of several well-heeled hedge fund managers on her board. Needless to say, she is handsomely compensated at a salary close to $400,000 a year.
So here is the update: yesterday, the SUNY Charter Institute gave her everything she asked for. Six new schools plus a 50% increase in her management fee, which will bring in many new millions of taxpayer dollars for her operation.
But there is more to the story. Today, the New York Times ran a story about the “co-location” of a Success Academy school with a New York City public school. (Co-location is a term of art that means that the NYC Department of Education gave free public space in a public school building to a private charter operator, saving the charter the cost of rent and utilities and crowding the kids in the public school out of their classrooms.)
The New York Times article is simply horrifying. The contrast between the Success Academy charter and P.S. 30 defines the meaning of “separate but equal” even though the kids may all be of one race. In one school, the kids get the best of everything. In the other, they struggle with whatever the NYC Department of Education is willing to supply. Some critics call the new system “academic apartheid.” The charter school has fewer students with disabilities. Its teachers work a 9 1/2 hour day, and they don’t last long. When Success Academy first arrived, P.S. 30 was making great strides and earning an A on its progress report. Now it has a D rating, a fact that Success Academy delights in retelling to the reporter.
This charter chain represents the competitive spirit that corporate reformers love. It flourishes by sucking the life out of public schools and killing them.
Diane
One of the readers of this blog is worried that teachers and their unions are teaching Marxism in their classrooms.
I often quote readers, because there are so many who have important things to say and stories to tell. But in this case, I am going to quote myself, a very odd thing to do on one’s blog.
The reader posted a video of two teachers in Los Angeles who were promoting Marxist views. One wore a t-shirt that said “Tax the rich.”
I replied as follows:
You know, there are teachers who are Marxists but I have never actually met one (no, I did meet one once).
I have met many thousands of teachers and they are no different from you and me.
They love kids, they love to teach, they love their country.
They are the salt of the earth.
Our society couldn’t grow and prosper without them.
I am amazed at how they are able to handle a classroom of 25 five-year-olds or 35 teenagers.
I have heard teenagers say the vilest things to their teachers, and they take it and keep teaching.
I think you are too smart to fall for this wacko claim that our teachers are teaching Marxism.
That is unfair, untrue, and damages the good names of millions of dedicated, hard working teachers who are doing God’s work.
Diane
P.S. I believe in taxing the rich, and I am not a Marxist! The degree of income inequality in this country is more extreme than at anytime since the 1920s. This is not good for America. Squalor is not good for America. Crushing the middle class is not good for America. People who are billionaires and multi-millionaires should pay a larger share of their income than people who are middle-class. That’s what i think, and I am not a Marxist.
We have known the old maxim for generations. It seems to be truer now than ever. Although maybe they thought that in the past. Remember Jimmy Stewart in the movie “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”? We need Senator Smith now.
A reader writes:
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I love Twitter for many reasons. I have met many friends on Twitter, some of whom I will never encounter in person. I learn from Twitter. People from across the country and even from other countries send me news stories, opinion pieces, blogs, ideas.
I received one this morning that I thought was, well, awesome.
On many occasions, I have had discussions with friends and allies and friendly adversaries about whether there is a middle ground between corporate reformers–the people who want to rearrange education so that it is based on incentives and sanctions, who believe that test scores are the best ways to measure the quality of students and teachers and schools, who see virtue in closing down neighborhood public schools, and who applaud the transfer of public schools to private management–and those who disagree with them, myself included.
Can’t we negotiate our differences? Can’t we all just get along, as the late Rodney King once memorably asked. We all know important it is to collaborate.
Why not collaborate with the people whose ideas you disagree with? Why not find a middle ground with those who want vouchers and those who think that teachers can be judged by the changes in their students’ test scores? Why be unreasonable?
The post I read this morning reinforced my sense that there are some things, some principles, some bedrock values that are nonnegotiable. When the other side wants you to do things that you think will cheapen and degrade education, how can you compromise? When they want you to do things that will humiliate teachers and lower the status of the teaching profession, how can you compromise? When they want to end collective bargaining rights, is there room for compromise? When they want you to turn education into a consumer product rather than a public good, is that negotiable?
But in every dispute, there must be a middle ground, right? There must be a way for reasonable people to agree, right?
The blog I read earlier today, written by someone I do not know, spoke to this issue of when it is wrong to negotiate.
The first thing that got my eye was that he wrote about the choice facing a young person who wants to find a career in the world of education policy. Face it, there are two sides, and one side has all the money and projects political power and has lots of organizations that need to be staffed. He writes:
“Most of the money in education policy is on the side of organizations like Stand for Children and Democrats for Education Reform. If he ever wants to work in education policy, the good jobs are all going to be on the side of the pro-privatization reformers. Pro-privatizers have done a good job of conflating being against their version of reform (e.g., being with parents and teachers) as being pro-status quo. It’s the surest way to keep yourself out of the education policy job market to be on the side of the straw man status quo.”
Who are these powerful groups? He answers: “Notoriously funded by tiny groups of immensely wealthy people, with no control by or buy-in from communities, no democratic structures that allow for parent participation, and in fact nothing other than the whims of their millionaire funders, these groups have unilaterally decided they deserve a spot at the negotiating table. They bought their button, in other words.”
And why should they not be in a position to call the shots? They are the reformers, and those who don’t agree with them represent, in their words, “the status quo.” Yet teachers, school board members, parents, principals, administrators, etc. are in awe of the reformers. And this is who they are and this is why they have a seat at the table and determine what happens to your school, your job, your children:
“…although we don’t live in your community, don’t send our children to school there, don’t vote there, don’t have any meaningful membership there and, to what degree we do have some supporters there, they have no meaningful say in how we as organizations make decisions, we are rich. In other words, we are not rooted in your communities at all; we have no stake in the outcome of our programs and policies insofar as they don’t materially affect us; nobody in your community has any say in how our organization is run; but we, for no reason other than our wealth empowering our speech, deserve a seat at the table and you must negotiate with us, or you–not we–are “politicizing children.”
And you must negotiate with them because they have so much money and they bought a seat at the table! Or did they buy the table?
What are their goals? “liquidate teachers’ ability to collectively bargain and privatize enough the school systems to reduce the public schools to last-resort catchalls, not unlike public County Hospitals. Use unreliable but easily consumed standardized test scores and fluidly defined “graduation” rates to allow parents to choose a school from a menu, encouraging competition.”
But can you negotiate with them?
“Parents and teachers see, in the middle distance, the death of public education as the incubator of civil society with the goal of equality, in the form of neoliberal privatization reform. Who says you have to negotiate with death to be reasonable? You don’t negotiate with death. You fight death to your dying breath.”
Diane
Arne Duncan has promoted the idea that the way to turnaround schools is to fire the principal and at least half the staff or to close the school altogether and replace it with a new school, or some variation thereof. It is basically a “wipe-the-slate-clean-and-start-over” approach.
Why not think about how that might be applied in other areas of our life.
If a family is dysfunctional, perhaps you could fire the parents and hire some new ones.
if children misbehave, ship them off to someone else and bring in some new ones.
What do you think?
Here are suggestions from some of the readers of this blog:
One reader says that since American education has not improved in the past three years, it is time for a turnaround plan for the US Department of Education:
If he likes it so much, perhaps we should try it for government. Let’s fire Duncan and half his staff, and turn around a department that relies on untested and/ or failed nonsense to educate our children.
Another turnaround idea:
| Evidently the banking industry and Wall Street need turnaround models too. Read Matt Taibbi’s newest piece in Rolling Stone Magaizine. I say bring in BFA..Bankers for America….maybe it can be all the fired and laid off teachers from Louisiana.http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/education/louisiana-illegally-fired-7500-teachers-judge-rules.html?_r=4&ref=education |
A reader sent this comment:
| n Huntsville, AL, the Broadie superintendent, Col. Casey Wardynski, has contracted out services for behavior problem and homebound students to a private corporation, The Pinnacle Schools. The contract includes five places in the “teepees” at Pinnacle’s Elk River Wilderness Treatment Program, one of those remote, secured boarding school/mental hospital/detention centers for students hand-selected by Wardynski. Stays there are of indefinite length: “Those who do not comport themselves according to the regulations and rules of Pinnacle Schools will find themselves living in a teepee. And they won’t be coming back until they can behave. And if they can’t behave, they won’t be coming back to our schools.”I can’t begin to imagine how this is legal, but there you are: http://abouthcs.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/theres-no-mention-of-teepees-in-the-2011-2012-hcs-handbook/ |
According to the link, the students get no legal representation. Apparently the superintendent wants to scare them so much that they dare not fight in school or exhibit any behavior that might lead to extreme punishment.
Is this supposed to be preparation for incarceration as an adult?
Does it save money?
Does it create a desirable climate of fear in the schools of Huntsville?
I wonder how parents feel about having their son or daughter sent away to live in a teepee for weeks or months.
There must be a reason to deal with adolescents with such a heavy hand.
What do you think it is?
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 