In this article, Joel Klein acknowledges that scores across New York state, obviously including New York City, will be devastatingly low.
He was in charge of the New York City public schools from 2002, when he was selected by Mayor Bloomberg, until January 2011, when he was succeeded by the ill-fated publisher Cathie Black.
During his tenure, Klein boasted every year of “historic gains.”
The mayor was twice re-elected because of those alleged “historic gains.”
Klein traveled to Australia and persuaded the Minister of Education Julia Gillard that there was a New York City miracle, and she fell for it. Now Australia is copying the New York City model of test, test, test, test.
Now, Klein tells us that the students for whom he was responsible didn’t learn much at all, and that the new test scores will show just how terribly they are doing.
Australians might well ask if they can abandon the Klein plan now that its failure is evident even to Klein.
Having failed to improve achievement in New York City over his long tenure in office, he has found the answer that eluded him: the Common Core standards.
This is the miracle cure we have all been waiting for.
Is there any evidence that the Common Core standards will improve test scores?
No, the evidence is that they cause test scores to plummet, as they did in Kentucky–by 30 points–and as they have in New York.
Will they lead to higher achievement in the future? No one knows.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Is this statement true – The majority of America’s high school students aren’t graduating with the knowledge and skills they need to compete in the global economy. Only 30 percent are prepared forcollege and careers, according to the US Department of Education’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP
Can the NAEP predict “college and career readiness” for 8th grade children?
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M: I don’t believe the statements to be true.
For example, we don’t even know what the occupations will be in the future economy….
Also, they are over generallzing from flawed data called NAEP. Italy has done studies on why the northern students do better on the tests than the southern students and they found it was an artefact of the tests (Cornoldi). Germany has done longitudinal studies on the students following trajectories of growth over a span of grades. This is research that is difficult and costly but it is to their credit that they are not taking NAEP or TIMMS or any test at “face” value… because they are concerned about the flaws in the testing and the lack of validity and reliability in data.The politicians and the corporate leaders take the headlines to beat up on public schools and they have been doing it since the 1960s but it has risen to a very high crescendo.
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NAEP does NOT predict college and career readiness.
NAEP standards are arbitrary, determined by panels of ordinary people who ponder what fourth and eighth graders ought to know.
Not teachers, people from different walks of life.
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Diane, I am finding that my husband, a researcher at the Thomas Watson research labs at IBM, does a great deal of interviewing and recruiting of potential candidates. He warned me 20 years ago that the U.S. has lost it’s competitive edge in the STEM programs. The TjWatson Research Center, once known as “the Think Tank” because of the cutting edge research that went on there, is staffed by Asians, and some Europeans, many if not most of whom were educated here in the US. He says that US students have not been majoring in the STEM fields. To counter this trend, IBM has developed a series of engaging, hands-on, team projects that are designed to introduce students to the problem-solving nature of engineering-related fields. Employees receive training and materials to bring to the schools. My husband has been going into our local schools for 5 years and has been well-received by students and staff. His question to me regarding the problems with testing, and the issues with Common Core is, “So what do educators recommend? The public’s perception is that the system is broken, and that all that the the teacher’s unions and education establishment offer is criticism. They haven’t presented an alternative.”. My husband is representative of many of his colleagues, also parents. My husband reads everything I show him on your blog and links and agrees with the criticism, but feels that he is not hearing what the alternative might be. He sees this as a major stumbling block for the education profession. What is your response to this viewpoint, and what can I and my colleagues, and teacher’s union do to address this? I live and teach in Westchester County, NY and have spoken with many parents who agree with my husband. They are not happy with the status quo, they agree with the criticisms they hear from educators, but they don’t hear any solutions. I think the AFT and NYSUT are clearly missing the boat on this. Randi Weingarten’s columns in THE NY Times do not inspire, nor do Dick Iannuzi’s column in the NYSUT journal. I am a second generation teacher with 21 years of service in New York State; my mother is a retiree with 35 years of teaching service. Educators need to seize the reins, but many of us feel that our unions are not responding effectively. Instead, they went along with Common Core, supposedly to show that we recognize change is needed, but it appears that they haven’t come out on top. There is a perception that they really didn’t have a response and were merely trying to protect themselves. I believe you are in a position to help all of us address this. How can we present an alternative vision of public schools?
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NPE, Our Positive Agenda..see link at the bottom:
The Network for Public Education has received a very positive response, and we are building alliances with grassroots groups across the nation. If you know of any who have not signed up, please tell them how to find us.
You know what we oppose: High-stakes testing; privatization of public education; mass school closures to save money or to facilitate privatization; demonization of teachers; lowering of standards for the education profession; for-profit management of schools.
Here is what we support:
We support schools that offer a full and rich curriculum for all children, including the arts, physical education, history, civics, foreign languages, literature, mathematics, and the sciences.
We support schools that are subject to democratic control by members of their community.
We support schools that have the resources that their students need, such as guidance counselors, social workers, librarians, and psychologists.
We support the equitable funding of schools, with extra resources for those students with the greatest needs.
We support schools that have reasonable class sizes, so that teachers have the time to help the children in their care.
We support early childhood education, because we know that the achievement gap begins before the first day of school.
We support high standards of professionalism for teachers, principals, and superintendents.
We support the principle that every classroom should be led by a teacher who is well educated, well prepared for the challenges of teaching, and certified.
We support wraparound services for children, such as health clinics and after-school programs.
We support assessments that are used to support children and teachers, not to punish or stigmatize them or to hand out monetary rewards.
We support assessments that measure what was taught, through projects and activities in which students can demonstrate what they have learned.
We support the evaluation of teachers by professionals, not by unreliable test scores.
We support helping schools that are struggling, not closing them.
We support parent involvement in decisions about their children.
We support the idea that students’ confidential information must remain confidential and not be handed over to entrepreneurs and marketing agents.
We support teacher professionalism in decisions about curriculum, teaching methods, and selection of teaching materials.
We support public education because it is a pillar of our democratic society.
http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/about-npe/our-positive-agenda/
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Karen, I hope you will read my book when it comes out in a month. That will answer many of your husband’s questions. There is an enormous amount of false information in circulation, much of it written to disparage teachers and American schools, and much of it is baseless. The system is not broken, but our society may be. That’s not very encouraging news, but it is true. There is far more income inequality in the US than in other nations and far more child poverty. Teachers are doing the best they can to handle the social burdens of children who don’t speak English, who live in dire poverty. Our politicians, instead of addressing the root problems, attack teachers. That makes no sense.
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Karen, I many people stopped going into STEM when they saw their jobs taken away by H1B workers. If you look to the past you will find people who lost their jobs, had their pay weakened and benefits reduced. People don’t trust the system and are wary of choosing certain professions that were once desirable. I think many in the business fields have turned their backs on American workers to find a cheaper source of labor. I don’t see the lost “edge”. The US is still creating innovative products etc.
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I would like to edit my comment to delete some identifying statements, is this possible?
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Karen, tell me offline what you want to delete or tell me if you want to delete the whole comment, and I will take care of it.
Diane
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This post by Joel has conflict of interest written all over it. He heads Amplify an education company, owned by the parent company of the Post; and that has millions to gain from the magnification and exaggeration of test results and the frenzy that will ensue. He headed NYCDOE and now does business with them (a business that will now likely increase to his profit) with many top DOE leaders appointed when he was in charge, now running DOE. He stands to gain too much for him to be writing promotional pieces on a paper who also stands to gain. And this on top of falsely touted score gains during the decade of his administration….
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I emailed to the Mayor and the Governor (on their web forms; the Mayor’s was too short to fit it all in)
Joel Klein quoted in the Wednesday press: quote:
“Kentucky has already taken new, Common Core-aligned state assessments and has seen its scores drop as much as 33 points, or 50 percent. New York leaders have said repeatedly that they expect similar results here……we must see it for what it is: a necessary hardship on the path to academic excellence. ”
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This is unacceptable.
Klein is spinning the facts so that he will cover up his previous errors. It is not appropriate education. Boston hospitals cannot say “we have new machines and new lab tests and 1/2 of our patents will now fail” because at a hospital the consequences are much more obvious like die…. have to take 15 new medicines. This is absolutely taking the U.S. schools backwards into the 1900s. My aunts and cousins took the regents as did my niece and now her children. The regents have always been an acceptable standard in my mind; the difficulty is that students who don’t take regents programs miss out and they were mostly the children from poverty or from low-income areas that didn’t have the wherewithal (i.e., social capital, resources, equity in funding formulas) etc.
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The management of NYPD has also been harmed by the overuse of quota types of “systems” and data-driven surveys and imperatives, installed by fancy management consultancies hawking the latest academic snake-oil. So the “NYPD Tapes” scandal would suggest.
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Joel’s path, goal and objectives are clear…. his logic and design model will be
merchandising.
quote: “According to estimates unveiled during the presentation, Klein views the education market as lucrative, with over $700 billion up for grabs. Seventeen billion of that is available in the K-12 market in which Amplify expects to compete most aggressively. – See more at: http://www.educationnews.org/technology/at-ces-joel-klein-sees-technology-as-future-of-education/#sthash.9LdyQtxG.dpuf“
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Let’s say that other than those who can benefit financially, very few of us actually care what Joel Klein thinks and says.
Why is he an authority on anything related to teaching and learning?
Think of Coleman…..no one gives a $hit what you think, Joel.
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I love the end of your post, Linda! it is one of the few times that Coleman’s statement/belief is fitting.
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Steiner (former commissioner) is supporting Klein’s views.
David Steiner is the Dean of the School of Education at Hunter College, Director of the CUNY Institute for Education Policy at Roosevelt House, and former New York State Commissioner of Education.
his blog entry first appeared on the website of the CUNY Institute for Education Policy.
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I agre about the negative impact of testing, testing, testing; of the use of tests to judge the effectiveness of teachers; of the dangers of privatization; of the blindness of closing poorly performing schools instead of mending them.
But Karen’s argument is important. This group must provide a positive alternative that is concrete. All well and good to favor a rich curriculum. But what should the curriculum consist of? Should it be left to each individual teacher to decide on the curriculum for her class each year? What should be the teaching goals for the year?
In earlier comments critics lambasted E.D. Hirsch’s curriculum for the early grades without indicating what it consisted of. I suggest readers consult an article in the AFT journal American Educator, Fall 2012, entitled “More Than Words” to learn the contents of that curriculum and its impact on schools in New York City that have introduced that Core Knowledge curriculum. Then we may have a more serious and concrete discussion of core standards and their merits or demerits. But not just the same repeated criticisms that we know in advance.
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How nice of Mr. Klein to now reflect on his massive misjudgments from his stratified perch, now making millions working for Mr. Murdoch.
Isn’t it apparent that these “ed reformers” care NOTHING for the students that they are purport to be serving, only THEMSELVES, and lining their OWN pockets?
SHAME on all of you, and mostly those of us that fall for their lies for believing them.
My two cents…….
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Recall the story of the “Emperor and His Clothes”. During the tenure of Klein, and the insufferable “education Mayor”, Herr Bloomberg, I have to wonder WHY so much of the public went along with the farce of believing that these two were TRULY effecting improvements for the students of NYC.
After all, aren’t these “politicians” supposed to be serving us, the public that elected them? WHY do we stand for their lies and duplicities, and not just throw the bums out?
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