Aaron Pallas of Teachers College asks the question and shows that the answer is no.
Despite a decade of relentless emphasis on testing, accountability and choice, the achievement gap has barely budged.
Pallas writes:
“My conclusion? There’s been no shrinkage in the test score gap between 2006 and 2012, a period in which many of Bloomberg and Klein’s reforms have begun to reach maturity. If the only purpose of their reforms were to close the achievement gap, this flat-lining would indicate that the reforms were dead on arrival.
“That’s probably too harsh a verdict for a complex package of reforms, some of which may prove beneficial in the long run. And the point here is not a referendum on what’s happened in New York City as much as it is a demonstration that racial/ethnic group differences in test performance are stubborn, even in the face of efforts intended to minimize them.
“We are about to enter an era with a new set of Common Core curricular standards and new assessments designed to measure students’ mastery of those standards. The combination of a more challenging set of standards, a lag in the development of curriculum and the professional development that teachers need to teach to those standards, and assessments that are widely proclaimed to be more difficult than existing NCLB-style tests will likely result in plummeting rates of student proficiency in English and mathematics in the near future. Significant closure of the achievement gap may be beyond the grasp of educators who will be struggling simply to keep their heads above water in the next five years.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Last paragraph…hit the nail on the head….that IS the purpose of CCSS…create more failing schools….convince the public it is even worse than they were scammed to believe and now take over more “failing” schools to turn then over to the eduvultures who can continue to pick away at the carcass until the entire system has been destroyed.
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Pallas is too kind to Bloomberg who turned his back on one of the few methods that have proven to narrow the achievement gap, class size reduction. While spending billions on unproven policies, class sizes in NYC public schools are now the largest in 13 years in the early grades. As research shows, this will put kids on a damaging trajectory for years to come.
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How can a message get to King Bloomberg that his education policies are a disaster?
Does he not listen to anyone with opposing views?
Is it his money alone that draws all the sycophants?
Leonie, thank you for all you do. I follow you on a regular basis and I have learned much for your posts and commentary. You and Diane keep me going when I become exasperated.
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What’s really frustrating is the fact that we have the knowledge needed to improve education for our poorest children. Instead of proven measures such as low class size (15 or fewer) and high quality preschool, we have “reforms” that have been repeatedly shown not to work. What a terrible waste!
As for supposed improvements in test scores in New York, another test, sight unseen, will show that there has been little or no improvement for anyone.
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You are right!!! How sad!!!
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I have a lot of respect for Aaron Pallas, but I believe he is mistaken when he says that Bloomberg’s so-called reforms were intended to close the racial achievement gap.
They were nothing of the sort, with the empty rhetoric instead used to mask the fragmentation, destabilization and privatization of the public schools, and the re-ordering of labor relations and teaching as a profession, along lines friendly to a centrally-controlled management unaccountable to students, parents and teachers.
Of course the “achievement gap” – itself a rhetorical/ideological construct used to corral debate about schools and society – has not narrowed under Bloomberg’s regime. It was never intended to. In the eyes of Bloomberg and his apparatchiks, the children of NYC are little more than props for photo opportunities used to further the agenda – which is fundamentally about extracting public wealth and redistributing it upward, aka looting – of the Overclass.
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I am so afraid Bloomberg will use Sandy the same way Duncan used Katrina.
Evacuees in schools that are being used as shelters are experiencing horrendous conditions. Yet this was Walcott’s response:
Asked about conditions at Graphic, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said, “We are going to be addressing issues that are real or perceived to be real.”
Perceived to be real!!!! Like overcrowded schools are just a fantasy. And moving displaced students into these overcrowded schools is the only workable solution?? And not allowing their teachers to follow their class and instead use displaced teachers as ATRs?? Do I trust Bloomberg on this. And what is happening with charter schools? Are they being subjected to the same conditions as our public school students?
I know Leonie will be digging for the truth.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/hs-housing-evacuees-mess-classes-resume-article-1.1196087#ixzz2BB5i4KH6
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