New York Governor Cuomo wants a “death penalty” for “failing schools,”
He was referring to the public schools of Buffalo, which is one of the state’s poorest districts. He threatened state takeover, mayoral control, or charters.
None of his remedies has ever succeeded. But they will extinguish democracy. Democracy is not the cause of low achievement. If Cuomo ignores poverty and segregation, he will be spinning wheels. Prediction: he will ignore both.
More districts than Buffalo face the death penalty:
” Robert M. Bennett, a member of the state Board of Regents representing Western New York, as well as chancellor emeritus, said he thinks it’s likely that the officials in Albany will discuss “a limited state takeover for certain districts” during the next session of the Legislature. He also cited the possibility of mayoral control for some districts as well as charter takeovers.
“He pointed to Buffalo, Rochester and three districts on Long Island as being in particular need of dramatic change.
“The frustration level is extremely high about what should be done with a school that is persistently failing. It’s a very serious thing when you have so many schools that are on the state’s watch list,” he said. “It’s the right thing to debate how to turn schools around.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Suddenly our students’ lobbyist speaks about education.
He still hasn’t said a word about CCSS, has he?
Correct link to Cuomo’s ignorance about education policy: http://www.buffalonews.com/city-region/buffalo-public-schools/coumo-urges-death-penalty-for-failing-schools-20130829
Thank you, Chris. Here’s the video link, which is really chilling.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20130830/NEWS01/308300041/Andrew-Cuomo-New-York-failing-schools-education
So, what will the state do differently that will get the outcomes they want?
For that matter, if they turn it over to charters, what will they do differently?
Does churning charters make it so that the state is fulfilling its obligation to provide a solid education, or, does it give them an easy way to declare scapegoats, and flip schools forever – and how long will we let that go one before we realize that constantly changing schools will not fix the things that are wrong with our society.
If you want to see what will happen in Buffalo just look at Muskegon Heights, Michigan and the EAA in Detroit. Both are complete debacles. Also, charters will be allowed to open and drain money from existing schools. The children will have even less than what they had before. Cuomo is a bought out hack. What on earth will the state of NY do for these students? The schools will be ruined and the children will have even worse schools.
Cuomo campaigned as a progressive liberal and turned into an ALEC conservative upon inauguration. What should be the penalty for that #fail?
I think he was affected by Obama’s”success”…
What is the only thing that we can do? Not let him get re-elected. As at as I am concerned, all of the destruction of public education in NY falls on his shoulders. It’s understandable that we blame John King for the current destructive ed reform policies, but who put him where he is? Who has been silent during all of this? Governor Cuomo. He is slithering along behind the scenes allowing all of this to happen, hoping teachers will be stupid enough to vote for him again. I won’t make the same mistake that I did when I voted for President Obama the second time. This time I will campaign for whoever is his opponent.
Amen. I won’t make that mistake either.
Cam,
It’s not enough to simply vote for his opponent. That person could be as bad or worse. If we are serious about change, then those of us who support public education need to begin to recruit political candidates who support our goals.
My understanding is that it is the Board of Regents who appoints the NY State Ed Commissioner and the NY State Assembly “elects” the Board of Regents. What “behind the scenes” influence the governor has in that process is anyone’s guess.
Recruiting candidates for governor might be a little ambitious initially, but recruiting candidates to run for the NY State Assembly might be a place to start.
Carolyn McCarthy was a nurse who ran for Congress after her son and husband were shot by a gunman on the Long Island Railroad in 1993. She lobbied for gun control.
Governor Cuomo and the reformers plan to “execute” public education. Surely there are dedicated educators and parents who would be willing consider political service in order to prevent this.
I agree, the government is too far overreaching, but it’s these schools that need the help. It brings home the point that the districts that perform very well do not need any help (interference really). Resources could be better used to help underperforming districts!
I would like to know what some of the good things are that are going on in the “failing schools.” So, scores are low. What else? What is going on otherwise? Surely there is something positive.
?
Joanna Best: in the actual agenda of the leading charterites/privatizers—disregard their PR spin and disingenuous hype—“scores” are not just ‘every’ thing, they are the ‘only’ thing.
An unforgettable paragraph in the LATimes of 8-29-13, article by Teresa Watanabe entitled “Academic performance drops statewide, but LA Unified improves” with the subtitle “L.A. Unified posts the second-highest gain in academic performance among California’s 10 largest school districts.” Academic performance [or for that matter, any other admirable quality of teaching staffs, schools and public education as a whole] = higher test scores.
Ponder the following:
“The achievement ratings, called the Academic Performance Index, are based on a 1,000-point scale and compiled from standardized test scores. They are widely viewed as a comprehensive marker of school quality, affecting property values and triggering penalties, among other effects.”
Link: http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-0830-api-scores-20130830,0,4317073.story
Such perspicacious admissions in the MSM are rare. Treasure this one. It’s worth remembering.
You inspired my post by the following: “So, scores are low. What else? What is going on otherwise? Surely there is something positive.”
“Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” [Voltaire]
Touché!
🙂
Several of the schools in danger of being closed have a large immigrant/refugee population with non-English speaking students. Up to thirty five + languages in one building. They also have numerous special education classrooms. The teachers are working hard teaching beyond the curriculum to compensate for cultural issues, but it is an uphill battle. The new rigorous tests, which even the suburban kids can’t pass, makes it impossible.
There is also the fact that there are several unique programs within the district which skim off the best students. Schools such as City Honors, Olmsted Gifted and Talented, and Hutch Tech, require entrance exams. There are several other decent programs such as Performing Arts, Emerson Culinary School, 2 schools associated with local colleges, and the Discovery School. The schools which are left are mainly filled with minority students, ESL students, special Ed students, mostly from very poor sections of the city.
If a middle class family can’t get their child into one of the top schools or afford one of the excellent private schools in the city, they move. I see my former students all the time at the middle school my grand daughter attends in Williamsville.
It is impossible to integrate schools when there is nobody left to integrate. The majority of Buffalo’s Charter Schools are made up of minority students from the same pool of kids that are in the failing schools. So the same results.
There is a lot of great stuff happening, but the emphasis is on the statistical data of an unfair, inappropriate test. Unless the state integrates the Buffalo School with the rest of Erie County, I don’t see
any way the results are going to drastically change . . .
Unless the Say Yes program works – where students graduating from the BPS system are guaranteed free college tuition from a non-profit agency to any NY State public school, (plus even some private colleges), – AND the middle class move back to the city as a way to help pay tuition.
Ellen:
Can you point me to some links that include the demographic and budgetary data on the BPS? I find the BPS site confusing and unwieldy. I think the demographics of the teachers by school may also be helpful.
What demographic of teachers are you referring to? Be specific please. Which attributes would you need to determine effectiveness?
Linda:
Any would be helpful. Apparently there was an earlier program in BPS where there was some forced reassignment of teachers. At that point the numbers of new teachers were listed for some of the schools.
The year the state offered an early retirement system, a large group of now eligible retirees decided to retire. Each year teachers in the BPS can ask for a transfer to a better school. The Superintedent decided to deny all transfer that year and so the new teachers got the open positions, many in the top schools of the city. The Union protested, was ignored, sued, and eventually the district had to reassign those jobs (2 years later) from ground zero. That was on top of the turnaround plan with half the teachers in a “failing” school being reassigned unless they were new. That is probably why so many new teachers are in the problem schools. (Obviously the energy if a brand new teacher is better than the experience of a veteran).
Bernie, the new stats for the BPS won’t be out for awhile since school starts on Wednesday and there are still positions to fill. On top of that, the Pinnacle Charter closed last week with 500 students, and is now a-to- be-determined satellite of another Buffalo school and has to be fully staffed from top to bottom with students who now must register and get bus assignments by September 9th. Whew! This one isn’t Buffalo’s fault. King should have been watching out for those kids instead of threatening others.
I suggest going to the Buffalo News Archives through newspaper databases found at your public library for all sorts of information about the BPS.
How convenient that NY has put 6-7th grade objectives into the 1st grade curricula. This should guarantee the “death” of many schools. Ask the impossible and you get failure. This whole thing gets more and more peculiar. And, some people do not believe that this stuff is going on. Heck for YEARS, parents have been confused about helping their kids with 3rd grade Chicago Math/ Everyday Math … what would these parents do with these ridiculously difficult objectives placed into grade schools. Someone needs to wake up. Fast.
Don’t you recognize “rigor” when you see it?
Or course we do! Thing of the pool game Marco Polo. You say rigor, we say mortis. Death will ensue.
I am so tired of hearing teachers talk about the fact that the standards are ok, There is nothing wrong with the standards or the common core. Have they seriously read them or had a class in child development? Thank you for putting this front and center…6-7th grade objectives in 1st grade is what we have. Let’s make birth standards, surely if we have the standard the babies will rise to the occasion.
My superintendent in Clark County, Nevada, put it out front they we are now teaching third grade skills to kindergarten kids. He thinks this is great. So far, not a peep from the public. Teachers are like John the Baptist, a voice in the wilderness. Around here in Conservative Nevada it is just teachers whining. Once they have finished their destruction there may be no one left to pick up the pieces.
Seems to me that most schools in New Mississippi are failing schools according to the latest test scores.
Kill the schools, support a lawyer!
Great job Andy!
Diane, his choice of words is so disgusting I’m going to have a stroke if we don’t do something. The Badass Teachers are on this. The man is a shameless bully using education as a pawn for political gain. I’m so angry my head is going to explode.
Michael I feel so discouraged at this point. I have spent all of my free time this summer writing, and calling and reading about the CCSSI and CC Curriculum and now this…another round of letters and calls saying don’t allow yourselves to be bullied by Mr. Cuomo. It is never ending.
Pushing Cuomo on CCSS is what should happen. He would be forced to deal w the big ugly other than happy hedge funders, College Board & parents of enriched student who have enough knowledge about CCSS to know they are a plus for their children.
Enriched students can learn in any event if they want to. And their parents would most likely have money without CCSS.
The question is why have them at all.
And then look at it on another level — they’re front loading search engines w CCSS resources.
CCSS is the most pressing issue in NYS today.
It’s the most pressing issue nationally but Cuomo isn’t the president so I’m talking to our students’ lobbyist.
Michael, Cuomo is known to be a bully. He gets things done. Some of the new policies he has pushed through The legislature have been positive. Unfortunately, he’s on the wrong side of this issue. And he isn’t the only one in government listening to the wrong song.
It’s too bad that the true educator’s voices are not being heard.
The reformy crowd is so insular that it’s practically endogamous. It’s and made up, for the most part, of
a) people who are not educators and don’t pretend to be (politicians, pundits, and plutocrats, etc.); and
b) people who are not educators but who play educators on TV (e.g., lobbyists for testing companies, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee).
These people attend the same conferences, read the same marketing materials disguised as studies, and, importantly, feed at the same few troughs.
They dismiss reasoned critique and real evidence as coming from some sort of lunatic fringe. They don’t attend to opposing arguments at all. Instead, they simply hear their own positions parroted back to them again and again. I’ve come to think that “education reform” has all the earmarks of a cult–blind faith and group think, in particular.
I hope that a few members of this cult will, because of their respect for Dr. Hirsch, bother to read and think about what he has to say.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/e-d-hirsch-jr/common-core-tests_b_3824859.html
cxs to that post:
The reformy crowd is so insular that it’s practically endogamous. It’s made up, for the most part, of
a) people who are not educators and don’t pretend to be (politicians, pundits, and plutocrats, etc.);
b) lobbyists for testing companies; and
c) people who are not educators but who play educators on TV (e.g., Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee).
These people attend the same conferences, read the same marketing materials disguised as studies, and, importantly, feed at the same few troughs.
They dismiss reasoned critique and real evidence as coming from some sort of lunatic fringe. They don’t attend to opposing arguments at all. They pay attention only when their own positions are being parroted back to them by their pals in the movement. I’ve come to think that “education reform” has all the characteristics of a cult–blind faith and group think, in particular.
I hope that a few members of this cult will, because of their respect for E.D. Hirsch, Jr., bother to read and think about what he has to say here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/e-d-hirsch-jr/common-core-tests_b_3824859.html
One more version:
cxs to that post:
The reformy crowd is so insular that it’s practically endogamous. It’s made up, for the most part, of
a) people who are not educators but think they understand education better than do those who actually work in the field (politicians, pundits, plutocrats, etc.);
b) lobbyists for testing companies, charter systems, and other outfits that stand to make a lot of money from the reforms;
c) a few educrats; and
d) people who are not educators but who play educators on TV (e.g., Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, former D.C. Chancellor Michelle Rhee).
These people attend the same conferences, read the same marketing materials disguised as studies, and, importantly, feed at the same few troughs.
They dismiss reasoned critique and real evidence as coming from some sort of lunatic fringe. They don’t attend to opposing arguments at all. They pay attention only when their own positions are being parroted back to them by their pals in the movement. I’ve come to think that “education reform” has all the characteristics of a cult–blind faith and group think, in particular.
I hope that a few members of this cult will, because of their respect for E.D. Hirsch, Jr., which I share, bother to read and think about what he has to say here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/e-d-hirsch-jr/common-core-tests_b_3824859.html
I know I am going out on a limb here….. but is it just possible that the factors that lead a school to be a “failing school” cannot be FIXED just because gov’t mandates it?
Ya think? Given that the influence of social economic factors outside the school probably account for 2/3 of school outcomes according to current thinking, perhaps we ought to be looking at other causes for why some students perform poorly on standardized tests.
Only 5% of grade 3 – 8 students were “proficient” in math and ELA CCSS/Pearson tests this past April.
The US military failed to “fix” Iraq and Afghanistan. By Cuomo’s logic we must give it the “death penalty”. Why don’t we? Because most of us recognize that they’re intractable problems.
High-poverty schools present intractable problems, but KIPP and co. give the false impression that they’re not. So Cuomo feels justified in treating public school teachers as cretins rather than as the valiant fighters that they are.
Ergo we must attack the myth that KIPP has discovered a cure.
I also am not sure that the takeover approach is going to work since I have no idea of what issues are present at each school and there is certainly no evidence that Cuomo knows. What I do not see from commenters here are viable alternatives. Or perhaps there is a view that (a) there is nothing that can be done at the school building and district level and any outcome disparities, if they exist, are all about poverty and/or (b) if we give the educators in the schools and systems more money they will fix whatever issues exist. The former almost guarantees that no changes will occur, while the latter has not had a great track record. So the question remains what to do for school districts like Buffalo. You cannot beat something with nothing.
“I also am not sure that the takeover approach is going to work since I have no idea of what issues are present at each school and there is certainly no evidence that Cuomo knows.”
You only need to look at Paterson NJ, Jersey City NJ and Newark, NJ. Those districts have been run by the state for years. 24 in Jersey City, 22 years in Paterson and 18 years in Newark. Yeah the state was able to clean up some of the fiscal matters and create some magnet schools but are those cities’ schools any better? The answer is no. What is worse is that the people of the city have no say in their local schools and no hope of getting them turned back to the city. Not to mention the big increase in charter schools in the 3 cities.
Perhaps we should be looking at poorly performing schools as a symptom of larger societal problems rather than as a cause of them. That doesn’t mean we ignore the schools. It just means we have to look at them as part of a larger picture. If you know you are dealing with a district that deals with many harsh socioeconomic realities, then you have to pay special attention to how those factors will impact your schools and how you can ameliorate that influence. Obviously, the responsibility for these issues goes well beyond a school district. We also have to agree that while we want to be able to report immediate progress, we have to think in the long term and not just with statistics. Collecting numbers only tells us so much; narratives are necessary to a meaningful discussion of successes and/or failures.
OK, but what exactly should the Buffalo School District do?
Since I live about ten hours from Buffalo, the specifics are beyond me. I think I would start by sitting down with the stakeholders and ask them what they would do that they think would lead to improvement of the schools if money was no object and the whole community had some skin in the game. I would love to see students get into the act. What would they design? The state doesn’t get to pronounce from on high. If the problems are as urgent as the state claims, then they deserve more than the canned responses of the current gurus. Obviously, there is a lot of hard work to be done and a lot of hard choices to make. What do we truly value about education and what are we willing to do to guarantee it?
I do not disagree that this makes sense as first steps. However, what makes you think that this has not happened already? I suspect it has. The lack of perceived progress despite many earlier efforts may go some way to explain the radical if somewhat misguided moves that are now underway.
Seriously, Bernie? We’ve tried that already? My suggestions were really quite generic, possibly part of most strategic plans in some iteration or other, so there is no we tried that. It’s part of a review process you repeat periodically to establish or update a plan of action. There is certainly a lot more to it, but we already have plenty of examples of the failure of the current reform turnaround strategies.
Bernie, here are a few thoughts about how to help the kids in Buffalo: reduce class sizes; provide intense instruction; make sure that the kids are healthy and well-fed: send in more bilingual teachers. Make sure that the students have arts and physical education so that school lifts their spirits.
Why a death sentence? Why privatization? Why turn to failed strategies?
Diane:
Those all sound like sensible suggestions. I went looking for information on the BPS. It appears to be very disjointed and disorganized system. From the little I could gather, class size does not appear to be an issue. The teacher pupil ratios in the poorest performing schools were between 10 and 11 (2009). The numbers of beginning teachers in these schools, however, does look very high. For example I found data that suggest that at the Buffalo Elementary School of Technology, one of the poorest performing schools, that 11 of 57 teachers were beginners.
http://blogs.buffalonews.com/school_zone/2012/05/how-many-teachers-would-move-next-year.html
But as I said I could not find a concise and coherent description of the situation. Apparently there have been turnaround efforts underway since 2010, presumably with limited success. There certainly appear to be too many cooks in the Buffalo PS with time frames that are unrealistically short.
It seems to me that a stronger counter-argument to yet more change is to stop re-arranging all the deck chairs and to let some of the schools work through some of the recent changes – assuming that these can be identified and that they have not been in place for too long..
YES!!!
Bernie says, “The lack of perceived progress despite many earlier efforts may go some way to explain the radical if somewhat misguided moves that are now underway.”
“Perceived progress” is a weasel phrase, is it not? Cuomo has been building his bogus measurement case for the death penalty, and like the cheats and liars circling the Buffalo and Boston public schools, he isn’t interested in “perceiving” and progress.
Buffalo has tried numerous programs over the years.
Some of the schools with a high poverty level have special 2 hour after school programs with homework assistance, fun and enriching activities, and a hot meal before they are bused home.
One summer they offered a fully staffed whole day month long summer school for the elementary grades.I thought it worked, but they had to pay the teachers full wages so they came up with a different plan where teachers taught in the morning and support staff worked in the afternoon. The support staff would have combined groups of students. This did not work, but teachers only had to be paid for 3 1/2 hours so it was cheaper. They’ve also shortened up the Regents Review classes from 6 weeks to 4 weeks to 2 or 3 weeks and limited their selections.
It always boils down to not wanting to pay teachers full pay. In our district they pay “tutor rate” for summer school. And it is only for half days… In working 6 weeks in the summer you get $1000. And there is no compensation for the plan time and grading time just like a regular school year. And, for whatever reason, the supt didn’t get around to paying us until October! Plus I don’t think it worked that well. The ones who needed it the most didn’t show up half of the time. No requirements. And we had to furnish transportation. It isn’t easy to improve the kids’ academics when they prefer to be elsewhere.
We had afterschool also. But we weren’t allowed to tutor our own students because of the fear that we might deliberately fail to work with them in class in order to “get more money” by asking them to after school programs. Talk about trust and respect.
To me the only thing that wound turn things around is: smaller classes with one-on-one attention and an aide present. But the problem is always “money”. They find enough for computers though. Although it is often provided by grants. Why can there be grants written to use for lower class size in k-4?? There is always an excuse to make classes larger. Heck. A half day with 12 kindergarteners with a teacher and an aide woul be much better than a whole day with 25 kids and.one lon teacher if the issue is “space”. It always amazes me that districts can overcrowd a classroom without being fined for breaking local laws.
Ellen,
You obviously know your schools well. As I said to Bernie, I live about ten hours from Buffalo in another state, so I was talking in generalities. Of course, Buffalo has discovered successful programs, which are then cut because they cost too much or modified so much (for the same reason) that they then fail. We all know that the problems are bigger than the schools. Heaven forbid that we ever actually commit the time and resources to make a difference.
New York State took over Roosevelt HS on Long Island many years ago. Not sure how well this has worked out but mu guess is not so good.
NY teacher:
Reminding the powers that be about what has actually happened at Roosevelt HS would at least add substance and have a better chance of moving the argument forward.
Bernie, you say (again and again), “What I do not see from commenters here are viable alternatives.”
Alternative systematic approaches to the destruction of public education for low-income communities are being publicized and promoted by The Opportunity to Learn Campaign. I know I’ve pointed this Declaration out before:
http://www.otlcampaign.org/education-declaration
The public schools in Buffalo (Cuomo’s immediate target this week) have been offering specific “viable alternatives”, and defending their schools, students, and communities against Cuomo’s vicious and predatory attack for the past year, and community organizations have rallied to support their programs. Since you haven’t been listening to them up till now; it’s really dishonest of you to condemn community voices to which you’re deaf.
“You can’t beat something with nothing,” you say.
We’re going to defeat lies with the truth, whether you choose to listen or not.
chemtchr:
You maybe right and I am getting a bit repetitive. Actually this is the first time anybody has pointed me to your link. As to your link to An Education Declaration to Rebuild America I have two reactions. The first is that as a statement of principles it is hard to argue with. Second it seems to me that the BPS can be assessed against the policy imperatives that are part of the declaration, namely
• Early Education and Grade Level Reading:
• Equitable Funding and Resources:
• Student-Centered Supports:
• Teaching Quality:
• Better Assessments:
• Effective Discipline:
• Meaningful Engagement:
Perhaps there is someone who is familiar with the Buffalo School District that can provide an indication of where the schools stand in these areas. The one thing I think deserves noting is that Buffalo apparently has the third highest per pupil expenditure of large school districts in the country.
1) District of Columbia $25,802
2) Newark, NJ $24,540
3) Buffalo, NY $23,907
4) New York, NY $23,649
5) Pittsburgh, PA $22,625
6) Jersey City, NJ $21,854
7) Rochester, NY $20,039
8) Cincinnati, OH $18,963
9) Boston, MA $18,702
10) Montgomery Cnty, MD$18,200
Clearly this is a pretty gross measure, but it does suggest that whatever is or is not happening in Buffalo it is not a lack of financial resources per se.
Bernie, did you miss Ellen Klock’s post up there? She teaches in Buffalo, and she outlines the distribution of students in the Buffalo schools. She says City Honors, Olmsted Tech, and the GATE program require entrance exams. The remaining students will never demonstrate the statistical profile demanded on tests, and so corporate poverty pimps (like the ones now affiliated with Johns Hopkins) can demand the right to seize their school and shut it down.
They’ve just shut down a charter school,and returned it to public control, for the crime of teaching this same, unworthy stratum of students.
That can be made to sound benign, until you hear the hatred and contempt in Cuomo’s actual voice as he calls for the legislation to impose his own death penalty on the schools of communities whose children don’t meet his required demographic profiles.
Survey the coverage of yesterday’s speech on line. Commentators “defend” the schools by railing against the poor parenting and low ethics that must characterize children who score so far from a test score target. That target was generated by a political and industry collusion, with proprietary algorithms and corrupt manipulations, precisely for children to fail it.
High cost per pupil is typically associated with a high % of special needs and/or ESL students.
Bernie, you are right, we do need solutions. The history of the BPS parallels the history of Buffalo, once top notch, now at the bottom.
The reason the cost per child is so high is because of the special services needed by so many of the children. You have an extremely large special education population, quite a few due to lead poisoning from substandard housing, as well as crack babies. Most schools have over 90% of the student population on free lunch which indicates the poverty level. Then there is a large Hispanic population which only speak Spanish, not limited to Puerto Rico. On top of that, Buffalo is a designated location for refugees, who come from varying educational backgrounds,none of who speak English or are accustomed to Western ways ( meaning they don’t know how to use a flush toilet, etc). They are given a year to assimilate into the culture, learn English, and catch up on their studies to grade level so they can pass the assessments. The government gives them 90 days of relocation/assimilation help. Several of these low performing schools are filled with the above students. They get a lot if services, but it is ridiculous to expect that the majority of them will pass an ELA or Math test that are challenging to American born students.
Bernie – that is just the tip of the iceberg. Solution?
First, small class sizes (say 20 instead of 30+) with teacher aides in the elementary grades. Second, get rid of some of those downtown administrators and supply assistant principles to all the schools. Third, the buildings have been renovated, some technology has been purchased, so hire computer teachers to work with students and faculty to improve everyone’s skills. Fourth, more communication in a more timely fashion from the Superintendent’s office (I.e. everybody do your job). Fifth, provide more staffing so that a student doesn’t have 2 or more study halls a day.
That’s a start.
Bernie, Part 2
From your above list I can tell you that the majority of kids are not on grade level. They actually need to start school at age 3 since their language development is already far behind even at this early age. I have been in their homes and people on welfare are poor. Yes, we hear about the exceptions, but poverty leads to more poverty. Our transportation system is not as comprehensive as in NYC so it is harder to get around if you don’t have a car. Their life consists of their neighborhood. They aren’t exposed to the same experiences because they don’t know any better. They do their best, but the school needs to do the rest. So yes – start early, but no guarantee they will be able to pass a test geared to rural or suburban America (I’ve read the reading passages on the ELA exams – they rarely are relevant to their life experiences).
Discipline is another issue. Many of these kids live with violence – family members shot or incarcerated, drugs on the street corner, prostitution, etc. I’ve seen that too often as well. Some of their anger stays with them and they act out, sometimes violently. The reason cell phones are not to be used in schools is because the kids call family and friends to jump an intended target who dissed them in some way. Sometimes weapons are involved. As a teacher you are in danger. I tutored a kindergartener who punched his teacher in the stomach. Unfortunately, the kids use suspension as a way to get out of school. The principals can suspend a student for a few days, but a formal suspension goes to a downtown hearing. These kids are them offered two hours of instruction after school. So if you hit your teacher, after 6 weeks you come back to the same school, the same class, the same teacher. This is not a good message. The kids can be disrespectful, rude, and belligerent. The teacher is told to call home and tell the parent about their child’s disruptive behavior. They might not have service ( many of the poor have cricket phones and they can pay by the day). If you send a letter, they might have been evicted or moved in with some relative. I’ve seen it. And even if you talk to the parent, they might not be supportive. As teachers, we used to say we were more afraid of the parents than the kids. Hopefully you had a good principal to back you up when the parent came to school to belittle and swear at you. Discipline is a major issue. These kids need more help than the schools alone can provide. Here is where the city and state can make a difference.
Wow! Our per pupil expenditure here in SW Ohio is less than $8000 per student! We have the lowest per pupil cost in the area, yet we have had great scores. We were the top in the county again this year. When PARCC goes into full force, we will likely fall a bit more. But I don’t think Ohio would even consider a curriculum like the one we seen for NY.
To think that the Democratic governor of my state said that ANY school should get the death penalty is chilling to me. I already work non stop to get the word out to parents as to the goal of our politicians and privatization of our public schools. Now I have more drive than ever! I truly hope that Richard Iannuzzi, the president of our union calls Mr. Cuomo out on this heinous use of words.
Iannuzzi is the one person at NYSUT responsible for selling us out on CCSS/APPR. Don’t hold your breath.
He should know this Italian saying: “U pisci feti da testa e no da cuda.” (The fish stinks from the head, not the tail,” i.e., Corruption begins at the top). How can he blame Buffalo when Buffalo is under NYSED, which is under him? He’s just upset because Buffalo has told him where he and his department of education can go.
My bedtime smile. Thank you mbruno. 🙂
Between this and the safe act, he has just assured he won’t win by a larger margin than his father. Anyone else looking for the other Syth lord? Never in my life did I think I would see this in NY. Quick, Canada, occupy upstate.
I’m thinking he can be defeated, Sheery. For one thing, this story got traction today, and Cuomo now owns the “death penalty for schools” solution. When I first found it, 24 hours ago, there were two sources. There are now thousands.
In other news today, the secretly-funded business PAC that’s lobbied for Cuomo’s agenda disbanded itself, in the face of new transparency rules, rather than disclose its donors.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/pro-cuomo-lobbying-group-disbands-article-1.1442079
Hmmm. That implies the donor list is politically toxic, I’m thinking, and may well include some of the very vultures circling our public schools. Can somebody leak us some emails on this?
The link leads to this: Oops! The page you are looking for could not be found.
Cuomo have it taken down?
If the paper changes some detail of the story, they can give it a different URL. Chris posted a working link to the Buffalo News story.
I think they might do it sometimes to give a sitting governor time for damage control. The video link is the most important, because it has the whole text, in order, coming out of Cuomo’s own mouth.
This is the best one, with embedded video, on the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (a Gannet paper)
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20130830/NEWS01/308300041/Andrew-Cuomo-New-York-failing-schools-education
Cuomo starts out by hailing the teacher evaluations and measuring tools he’s been installing over the past three years, and claiming to be able now to identify failing teachers and schools.
Diane, do you think you can plug that link for the broken one on the blog?
Since it’s universally accepted that having the state run schools yields better results than local run, then having the U N run the Buffalo schools would seem like the obvious step to get even better gains.
LOL
Governor Cuomo complains that New York spends more per child than any other state. He advocates data driven instruction. Here are two pieces of data that our esteemed governor should consider before he “executes” failing schools and fires teachers based on unproven standardized tests.
Average cost per year to educate a child in New York State – $18,618.
Average cost per year to incarcerate a prisoner in New York State – $60,000.
http://schoolsofthought.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/21/which-places-spent-most-per-student-on-education/
http://shnny.org/research/the-price-of-prisons-what-incarceration-costs-taxpayers/
It sounds like you are in danger in New York of adopting another one of those crude Chicago Boys scams — “turnaround” experts. Since 2003, Arne Duncan and his successors have pushed “turnaround” against so-called “failing” schools here. The “Turnaround” experts (in this case a corporate outfit called AUSL, the Academy for Urban School Leadership) take over the school, fire everyone (including the lunchroom and engineering/custodial staff) and then do a deep purging of the kids as well.
The purge of the kids is very similar to how the charters do it. Pressure on the kids who will bring down test scores, beginning as soon as “turnaround” takes over. At Orr High School the last time CPS did a changeover there (Orr got all the corporate reform nonsense, beginning with Reconstitution in 1997, small schools a few years later, and then “Turnaround”) the new administration had a list of the kids who had been trouble, and instead of allowing them to begin classes the first week of school, they made them sit in the auditorium. The “bad” kids had to wait until their “parents” (or other adults) could come to school and register them, along with promises to march along like charter kids, etc., etc., etc.
And sign a voluntary withdrawal form in advance so that if the kid screwed up he “withdrew” from the school.
What happens in these schools is that they get an impressive “bump” in test scores the first year or two, and then, slowly, the test scores (which are their only measure of anything — at first) level off. Unless they continue to pre-select their kids, their “miracle” performance ends as is statistically and historically predictable by the third of fourth year. But by that year, the headlines are being touted for the newest “turnaround” schools, and none of the corporate reporters are looking (or allowed to look) at last year’s miracle.
For AUSL in Chicago, they also get a lot of perks, especially during the first year. At least $300,000 more (for smaller elementary schools) up to $1 million (for a high school) that they devote in part to local school stuff and in part to executive pay (outside the school).
For a long time, AUSL schools were the non-charter locations for the dog-and-pony shows showing off Chicago “reform.” That’s an AUSL classroom (at the so-called “Dodge Renaissance Academy”) where Arne Duncan and Barack Obama posed in December 2008 when Obama announced that Arne would become U.S. Secretary of Education after the January 2009 inauguration.
At times like that and in schools like that, the Potemkin Village approach is almost hysterical, if it weren’t so historically silly.
One decent thing here in Illinois. By law, the thing is still called “Reconstitution.” So every year when the Chicago Board of Education attacks another group of “failing” schools to push more fodder into the maws of AUSL, the public relations version talks about “turnaround,” but when the day comes for the Board of Education to vote, the official legal report the Board votes to approve (and they always approve it, since the version of “failure” presented in the Power Point is so melodramatic) is “Reconstitution.”
This particular scam can’t be blamed on Rahm Emanuel, either. It began during the second year of corporate reform here in Chicago — 1997. Richard M. Daley was mayor and the first iteration was “reconstitution”. A few years later, they began using the corporate jargon and calling it “turnaround.” (I suspect that’s so that a few corporate hacks can sell themselves and their methods as a form of special expertise and garner the extra dollars as well…). Chicago has had “turnaround” under four Chief Executive Officers — Arne Duncan, Ron Huberman, Jean Claude Brizard and now Barbara Byrd Bennett. And under two mayors: Richard M. Daley and Rahm Emanuel.
The script is pretty much what you are hearing about Buffalo. Welcome to the Wonderful World of the Chicago Boys.
Vallas is finally under some serious scrutiny in CT. Maybe he’ll land in Buffalo next after he is run out of here (declaring success as he goes).
Buffalo has enough problems, we don’t need to “import” additional ones. Thank you, but no thanks.
George, thanks for your work on Substance News over the past years. There’s been nothing like it here in Massachusetts, but your work helped me see through the smoke and mirrors here, too.
Thanks to all of you, we now have the historic depth and specific analysis we need to carry this story to the American people.
Once again, many thanks to George Schmidt for his perspective.
I am appalled and disgusted that Cuomo would speak in terms of a “death penalty” for schools. It is so naked, so harsh.
I shouldn’t be surprised, though. These people are the spiritual descendants of slavers, mercenaries, pinkertons, etc. Their policies have been rehashed and refashioned from the social hygiene and eugenics programs of the past.
In Buffalo, at the turn of the last century, viewing the public hangings at the waterfront was a favorite activity. Maybe Cuomo wants us to go back to our roots.
So when they wave their magic wand, all the bad kids disappear. Couldn’t the a public alternate learning program have accomplished the same thing?
Couldn’t a public school ALP program accomplish the same thing?
As a taxpayer, I want a “death penalty” for failing state governments.
I second the motion.
And the “death penalty” for governors failing schools too.
VOTE OUT CUOMO next Nov.
To buttress George Schmidt’s argument that kids = scores: our middle school just had a huge bump in scores. Guess why? It was the first year we had a famously intelligent group of sixth graders enter our school. At the same time, scores at the two feeder elementary schools dropped –in one case, precipitously. Overnight we went from a mediocre school to a good school by getting rid of a group of average eighth graders and taking in a group of above-average sixth graders. Suddenly we’ve gone from being bad teachers to good teachers.
A group talented students will make almost any teacher look like a genius.
Reminds me of the story of a teacher kicked out of one school because her kids weren’t passing the Earth Science Regents, ended up at City Honors, and miraculously became a master teacher in 1 year when they all passed. Wow!
Is anyone observing the bullying and demeaning behavior of the Commissioner of education John King being demonstrated toward Buffalo,N.Y. Given the student achievement must increase but can the corrective action be done in a more humane manner? Please ,someone of recognized educational status ,investigate these actions and assist in ending this chaos in the district.