Merryl Tisch, Chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, has proposed that high-performing districts be exempted from the harsh and punitive teacher evaluation program proposed by Governor Cuomo and passed by the Legislature. This would create a two-track system: one for affluent districts, the other for the less fortunate.
Behind the proposal, I suspect, is a strong desire to defang the Opt Out movement. Divide and conquer. Mollify the angry suburban moms and saddle everyone else with a harmful regime.
Daniel Katz predicts that Tisch’s proposal would destroy the careers of large numbers of black and Hispanic teachers. The plan will devastate many teachers, wherever it is fully implemented. Why focus the harm on the poorest districts?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Meryl Tish wants to cover her tush. Parents in the most affluent school districts in this state are livid over this nonsense. Long Island, Westchester, and other regions are pushing back with raw emotion and unfettered determination (hell hath no fury like a parent scorned) and the resources that come with affluence and privilege. This is an act of appeasement pure and simple. And the stupidity of her proposal only trumps the idiocy of Cuomo’s agenda.
Question is, will it work? Will the Long Island and Westchester parents be mollified once their behinds (or their kids’ behinds) are no longer in the fire? Will they throw their less affluent counterparts under the bus or will they stand firm? If Long Island and Westchester go happily back to scheduling playdates and drinking martinis, it’s game over and Tisch/Cuomo win. Although I’d love to be proven wrong, I suggest this might have been a shrewd calculation on Tisch’s part.
It also depends upon whether the union locals in those districts will assist their sisters and brothers in other locales.
Sounds like the opt-out and outrage are actually being noticed and they feel the need to do something to mollify the upper middle class…the divide and conquer is purely political on their part…does not indicate any level of true understanding.
Consider though that the opt out movement itself is at least partially causing this divide. Most low income families favor the tests because they shed light on the poor performance of their schools and keep the achievement gap and related issues from being hidden as it was before NCLB.
Opt out is a bit of a luxury for suburban kids and parents who don’t have to worry about their schools. I’d love to see a chart of number of opt outs vs. school affluence. I’m confident it would show this pattern.
Why would the “top-performing” districts want to help lower performing districts (and I’d like to know what the criteria are going to be for this)? What’s in it for them?
What’s in it for them is that we all share this planet and this country. The more affluent folks oppress the poor, the more they oppress themselves. Until and unless we invent some kind of sustainable way to live in space, no one can truly shut themselves off from “those people”. The more “those people” are shut out, the more they react (rightly) and the more the affluent have to fear from them. IN a just world, people have little to fear from each other. I realize it’s not possible for humans to create a completely just world, but the harder we try and the closer we come, the better off we all are. It’s a very hard lesson for the affluent to understand, but oppressors suffer just as much as the oppressed.
“Will they throw their less affluent counterparts under the bus or will they stand firm?”
That (throwing under the bus) is what they’ve been doing all along. Those districts to whom the edudeform practice effects hit last, those supes who thought they’d be able to game the system would be more than willing to throw the others under the bus. They already have many times over. Now that the bus is barreling straight down at them they carefully parse their words so as to leave an escape route if the powers that be allow them an escape route a la Tisch’s weasel words.
I have little to no respect for the vast majority of these supposed “born again” supes whose only real concern is their own asses and by extension their districts.
If the edudeformers were wise, they’d immediately enact legislation that would shield the top districts, as they’ve done with charters, from scrutiny and they’d not get anymore complaints from these supposed “heroic for speaking out” supes.
John,
“the tests because they shed light on the poor performance of their schools and keep the achievement gap and related issues from being hidden as it was before NCLB.”
Horse manure! The tests, being invalid as they are, do not shed light on anything. If anything they obscure what really needs to be done.
Although I do agree with your second paragraph dealing with the relationship between affluence and opt out. It would be interesting to see.
Duane, even if you think they’re only measuring affluence, NCLB’s disaggregation of scores shed light on that issue, and opt out would tend to hide it again.
FYI John,
Parents in Newark, Paterson and other low income communities are opting their kids out. They are tiring of test abuse, school closings and teacher firings. Have any schools in the burbs been shuttered yet?
John: NCLB disaggregation of scores didn’t tell anyone anything that they didn’t already know. Besides, the NAEP scores already do this, and it doesn’t take testing every kid in every subject every year. Finally, what HAS the ridiculous testing accomplished? Even if it DID show information about the racial divide that wasn’t known through NAEP, there has been no help for those schools that are struggling. In fact, the opposite has been true–struggling schools have been stripped of money, denied anything that isn’t tested, and closed right and left.
NAEP is only useful for comparing states since it is just a sample. It does not help parents know whether how their school or student is doing.
I agree with the second part of what you said regarding what has been done with struggling schools.
Thanks, TOW. WE don’t need annual testing of every child to know that there is a racial gap. As you point out, NAEP documents the gap every two years. Why are we spending billions to find out what we know? Why not put those billions into reducing class size, funding the arts, ensuring universal pre-K?
Yes, and also, after more than a decade of all this data driven school reform, the US is still in the middle on the PISA international assessment rankings. Which is pretty much where it was when the politicians and businessmen started their style of school reform with NCLB. So if it’s not working, lets just do it some more.
Of course it will work. It already has worked. The silence from all the various “organic” advocacy groups is deafening. And while it is primarily a city vs. suburbs issue, there are also a handful of city schools, most of them selective exam schools or schools in non-integrated neighborhoods where discrimination and real estate screen out minority kids, that will be exempt from the evaluations rules as well.
People living in those towns and districts already had an enormous advantage in attracting the best teaching talent, in financing appropriate facilities, and in keeping class sizes reasonable. This is not to say that this edge means all well-to-do suburban districts are doing a good job–the packed parking lots at the local Kumon and the $200/hr tutors indicate that the parents know something isn’t quite right. But if Tisch’s plan is actually implemented, the gap between the wealthy and merely solidly middle-class and the rest of us will become insurmountably wide: they’ll have the best teachers, way more money, and vastly lower proportions of the kids who need the most attention.
This was never about equity, it was never about testing or test prep, it was never about Common Core. It was about people who feel entitled because they spent a lot of money to live in a place where “those people” can’t, and who felt their children’s privilege was threatened. If Harry Phillips’s polite but tragically wrong-headed message was “When you factor out poor kids, our schools do great,” this message is a lot less subtle: poor and minority students, drop dead.
To supplement the comment by dianeravitch, to wit, “Why are we spending billions to find out what we know?”—
From a piece by Alfie Kohn in MANY CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND: HOW THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT IS DAMAGING OUR CHILDREN AND OUR SCHOOLS (2004, p. 86):
[start quote]
1. How many schools will NCLB-required testing reveal to be troubled that were not previously identified as such? For the last year or so, I have challenged defenders of the law to name a single school anywhere in the country whose inadequacy was a secret until yet another wave of standardized test results were released. So far I have had no takers.
[end quote]
Yes. Why are we wasting billions to find out what we already know and have known for quite a long time?
Oh, of course, because those billions “shed light on the poor performance of their schools and keep the achievement gap and related issues from being hidden as it was before NCLB.”
¿😳? Please reread the excerpt from Alfie Kohn. Note the date. Now use logic and good sense.
A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
😎
“Tish Cover’s Tush” is too good a headline not to be used somewhere.
I’m concerned that this will make it even harder to get great teachers into low performing districts, which is where we need them most.
And yes, I agree this is clearly targeted at the opt out movement.
Hi John,
There are many great teachers in urban areas. I am proud to be one. Where do you teach?
Of course there are, and there are many who choose urban education precisely because it is challenging and valuable.
But, there are others who, given a choice between a suburban school with fewer challenges and no APPR, vs. an urban one with both, will choose the easier path.
Do you disagree?
Does choosing an easier path make for a greater teacher? The vast majority would not last a day in my school. Maybe our society should shine some light on poverty, segregation and widening inequality between social classes. How would it be if the affluent paid the same percentage of their income in taxes as we do? What would our country be like if we closed the food banks and gave every American family three squares? Would our country be more admirable if no one were sleeping in Penn Station, or under a bridge?
I agree with you.
John,
I’m replying here so as to not totally stringbean this discussion.
“. . . even if you think they’re only measuring affluence, NCLB’s disaggregation of scores shed light. . . ”
No, I don’t think that, as I’ve said here many times the scores, by the fact that they are arrived at through error-filled, illogical processes that are lacking in any epistemological and ontological underpinnings, DON’T MEASURE ANYTHING. The disaggregation of corrupt data doesn’t measure and/or provide any substance for saying anything about the teaching and learning process.
Opt out should be seen as a political move/tactic to fight those in authority who choose to mandate educational malpractices without proper consideration of all the “players”-students, teachers, admins, parents, society in general. What is left to do for political action when the oligarchs/plutocrats/fascists attempt to control public education so as to steal, yes steal, from the commons (public school monies that should be used for bettering the teaching and learning process for ALL students not just the privileged few).
Duane, I’ve heard your argument and have read Wilson, but I can’t agree. What is your explanation for the consistent predictability of results based on family socioeconomic status?
And, if they don’t measure anything, they would be random, so one could expect all schools to average the same results over time.
I can acknowledge that it’s easy to disagree about *what* they are measuring, but I can’t buy that they’re not measuring anything at all.
John,
Standardized tests are a reliable measure of family income. Why is that so? Those who have better health care tend to have better attendance records. Those whose parents are college graduates have the advantage of the vocabulary they hear every day. Those whose families are affluent don’t worry about putting food on the table at night or homelessness or violence in the community. There truly are advantages to being a “have,” and disadvantages to being a “have not,” and the tests measure the advantages and disadvantages.
There is no doubt that academic achievement is very largely correlated with family income. Whether the scores measure one or the other or both is less clear. Do you have a resource to point me to that differentiates between the two?
And, if we look at change in scores over time, isn’t it just semantics to choose whether to say “this student has higher achievement” or “this student has achievement that is higher than is typical for their family’s socioeconomic status”?
Duane doesn’t acknowledge that they measure anything at all. It appears you disagree, as do I.
John,
Good we’re getting somewhere although that may not be easily discernible.
Please explain your disagreements with Wilson. I am quite open to hearing the particulars. I’ve been looking for a decade and a half for rebuttals and refutations and haven’t found a single one other than a few folks commenting that his treatise is “just a postmodern diatribe” and that doesn’t cut it as a critique/argument. So please expand on your disagreements. If you don’t want to do that in this forum, feel free to email me at dswacker@centurytel.net and I’ll be happy to respond.
Again, though in regards to what is a measurement, a measuring device, the measurement standard, etc. . . standardized tests certainly do not meet any of the logical criteria to be considered such so that yes, I do still contend that there is nothing measured by these educational malpractices. There is a lot of nefarious (and I contend unethical and illegal in regards to discrimination) sorting and separating of students causing much harm for many students.
Duane,
I appreciate the offer, but I don’t have a basis for arguing with Wilson. Given the small amount of time that I can afford to think about it, it just doesn’t seem to make sense to me given the strong correlation between poverty and scores, as DIane pointed out.
If you think it appropriate to address how something that doesn’t measure anything can appear to measure something so well in laymen’s terms, I’d be happy to see, as I’m sure would others. If not, I’ll just promise to look at Wilson again someday.
Diane,
“Standardized tests are a reliable measure of family income.”
No, they are not a reliable “measure” of family income”. I’d agree with:
“Standardized tests are a reliable CORRELATION of family income.”
Correlation is not a measurement just as it isn’t a causation. It is important to use the correct terminology in our explanations as confusing and conflating correlation with either causation or measurement only serves the interests of those who believe (edudeformers and GAGAers) that the teaching and learning process is measurable. If I may shout it out:
THE TEACHING AND LEARNING PROCESS IS NOT MEASURABLE ANY MORE* THAN WE CAN MEASURE LOVE AND/OR HATE. (or many other areas of human concern)
*double entendre intended in “any more”.
John,
“If you think it appropriate to address how something that doesn’t measure anything can appear to measure something so well in laymen’s terms, I’d be happy to see, as I’m sure would others.”
I am currently working on doing that. What seems so simple and unabashedly true to me, obvious isn’t that way for most, so it is up to me to clarify, expound, further discuss that point. “Educational Malpractice” is the tentative main title.
Sounds good. I promise to read whatever you write.
How do they come up with such bad ideas, one after another? My guess is they must have a bag of bad ideas that they choose from when they don’t like the public fighting back.
This is classic neoliberal/neoconservative divide and conquer strategy. Remember when Walker went after the unions in Wisconsin he exempted the police and firefighters. That’s boilerplate ALEC: separate the groups that would support each other. Oligarchs and fascists have used this tactic for a long, long time.
Not surprising when Andrew Cuomo is your political role model. His budget exempts NYS sales tax on yacht purchases (over $230K) but denies an increase in the minimum wage.
And purchase of planes. Don’t forget “dee planes”!
See NY Daily News Article for Cuomo spokesman response:
Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi rejected the idea, saying: “The law doesn’t allow different treatment for rich and poor districts.”
I suppose Mr. Azzopardi didn’t get the memo about certain people who have enough money to make up new laws as they travel about in their private planes and yachts.
So the schools that her heirs will attend will never be subject to the laws that she helped Cuomo enact. Whoops, my bad…..they attend those schools now!
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/regents-head-top-schools-exempt-teacher-evals-article-1.2171949
“The law doesn’t allow different treatment for rich and poor districts.”
Interesting word choice. Sounds like Cuomo’s flying monkey is admitting that affluence and school success are not just correlated.
Probably won’t take long for the correction:
“The law doesn’t allow for different treatment of successful teachers/schools and failing teachers/schools.”
“The law doesn’t allow different treatment for rich and poor districts.”
Right, just as the law makes no distinction between rich people vs. poor people sleeping under bridges.
Sometimes “equality” is exactly what makes the law inequitable.
The loss of minority teachers may be an unintended consequence of either draconian plan since larger numbers of minority teachers work in urban schools. This is what happened in New Orleans. This would be a terrible loss to students that often identify with staff members. The “deformers” have no understanding of the social-emotional aspects of teaching and learning. Would there any civil rights violations that could be challenged if significant numbers of minority teachers lose their jobs?
Unintended? Are you kidding? It’s not unintended. They are considered collateral damage and not worth worrying about since they aren’t the ‘kind’ of people who matter: white billionaires and Ivey league grads.
This.
It is a clearly intended consequence to “whiten” the teaching force.
It wasn’t unintended in New Orleans, either.
Gosh, not only whiten the teaching force, send in the clowns – TFA and TNTP to the rescue. The elite only care about the elite. Why should anyone else even have the RIGHT to an education, and a job? Why is it that middle and lower income kids who have finished college can’t find jobs, but the elites take care of the elites and shut everyone else out?
Top it off with the TFA elites taking jobs from the middle class and given preferential treatment and perks. I know it seems it always comes down, for me, to TFA, but good grief look at how Wendy Kopp and her ilk have dug so deep into the fabric of society to gut the middle class, and re-appropriate our tax dollars to her own kind?
TFA has so much money, yet our government not only funnels taxes to it via school district preferences given to TFA, but it GRANTS it millions at every opportunity. For crissakes, the government was shut down, and it gave money to TFA in the process!!!!!!! I want my money back.
I’m struggling to pay the mortgage on my meager home, no one wants to buy it b/c there are a glut of foreclosures, I’m paying my kid’s college education off, and I’m worried DAILY of losing my job. But, the elites take care of their own, and to hell with everyone else. Its a damned merry go round of abuse.
Not working, Meryl. I am a white, semi-suburban mom, and I am STILL ANGRY!
This may sound offensive to some, but I am surprised when people are, well, surprised that black educators in particular (often a majority female) are fired in large numbers where self-proclaimed “education reform” holds sway. And when those doing the firing are often black (and female) rheephormistas.
For those leading and benefitting from the “new civil rights movement of our time” this is a feature, not a bug, of their policies and actions. And it’s done without regard for best pedagogical practices because when you have a business plan (with worst practices) masquerading as an education model, the result is exactly what the owner of this blog and others have soberly pointed out and predicted—
A shamelessly open two-tiered education system.
How casually cynical and hypocritical can the rheephormsters be?
This blog, 3-23-2014, “Common Core for Commoners, Not My School!”
[blog posting
This is an unintentionally hilarious story about Common Core in Tennessee. Dr. Candace McQueen has been dean of Lipscomb College’s school of education and also the state’s’s chief cheerleader for Common Core. However, she was named headmistress of private Lipscomb Academy, and guess what? She will not have the school adopt the Common Core! Go figure.
[blog posting]
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/23/common-core-for-commoners-not-my-school/
To rub salt in the wound: then the rheephormistas complain that they’re the targets of harsh criticism.
Yes, the same folks that mercilessly beat down public school staffs and students and parents and communities while helping themselves to as much $tudent $ucce$$ as they can grab, bring out the fainting couch and clutch their pearls and want to be congratulated for ‘making the tough decisions’ and ‘taking the hits’ and ‘doing it all for the kids.’
Like that poor fella John Deasy who had to settle for a mere $60,000 as a part of his separation agreement from LAUSD and has now ended up working at the cash-starved Broad Academy. While that awful teacher Ms. Patrena Shankling is enjoying having her reputation publicly trashed after having been immorally fired by Deasy for doing a good job.
Yeah, sure, my heart bleeds for them.
Rheeally! But not really…
😎
Of course we want to throw “those” schools under the bus. They are fertile ground to launch charter schools. More chance to suck profits at the public teet!
Affluent districts are fighting charters tooth and nail.
The hidden agenda here involves privatizing the inner schools while allowing the more affluent schools to remain open. It decouples the inner city schools of NYC, Buffalo, Albany, etc. from the tony edifices in Great Neck, Scarsdale, etc. It paves the way for NYC schools to become another New Orleans, while affluent Long Island districts conduct business as usual.
We can have one set of rules for the rich and another for the poor. This also fits into another facet of the Reformers’ playbook; a return to the world of education in the late 1800’s. In the good old days of the Gilded Age education was only for the kids of wealthy families; not for the children of the working class.
The agenda is not hidden.
Amazing…you just can’t make this sh** up!
Social Engineering on the Fly.
Tisch better cover her tush.
Typicaly, teachers have no control over which school they are assigned to when signing a contract in a school system. Which also means they can’t pick the income level of the parents. But, systems place teachers according to their call.
Not too long ago <10yrs, an entire school system in ATL, was under years of a court order to desegregate kids & teachers. This order lasted longer than most systems in GA. POC assigned to the 'white schools' and white tchrs to the 'black schools'. This created huge problems for most because the school system was 80+ miles long with another school system in the middle, splitting north & south, and most teachers had to commute 40+ miles to a job. Telling you all this, preaching to the choir, it's a crapshoot if you are evaluated as an effective or ineffective teacher. SpEd & ELL teachers, start looking for a new career this week. Put a fork in it. It's done!
What an unbelievable insanity!
SpEd teachers will certainly have a lot of difficulty showing student growth in a population that by their own designation, are learning disabled. ELL teachers will probably have much better chance to show growth as this self-selected population has a sharp learning curve as it assimilates English.
All NY teachers need to be very concerned about the student “growth score” criteria established by NYSED. There has been no mention of pre-tests at the start of the year.
If they simply use performance on the previous years tests then we are all in trouble.
My own children scored very consistently on their NCLB tests as they progressed from 3rd grade to 8th grade. No significant growth at all as these tests measure test-taking aptitude and IQ as much as anything.
For example, if you are an 10th grade earth science teacher, your students will have to show growth on the ES Regents exam compared to their scores on the 9th grade Living Environment Regents (a much easier test).
The same applies to 6th to 7th grade right now in both Math and ELA, where the material becomes much more challenging and scores go down. Using year over year state test scores is very problematic.
I know most here don’t want any test-based accountability, but if it is going to exist, I hope they are able to negotiate something where the high stakes for teachers are based on something other than NYS tests.
I think norm referenced tests would be more appropriate given their emphasis on growth, identification of weak areas, etc. Hopefully, that would result in the state tests going back to being just the external benchmark that they were meant to be. Ideally, SED would agree to allow substitution of scores from one of these more valuable tests and allow elimination of the state test altogether.
BTW, regarding your own children, staying consistent is actually a good thing relatively as most scores go down over the years.
John – Norm-referenced tests by definition can’t show student “growth” (whatever that is anyway). Since all the kids are compared against each other, some scores will go up, some will go down, even if all the kids “grow”. Read Deborah Meier’s IN SCHOOLS WE TRUST for a more in-depth explanation.
Norm-referenced tests can’t show growth of an entire population, but they do in subpopulations. Nationally norm-referenced tests can show growth in states, schools, and students.
John,
“I think norm referenced tests would be more appropriate given their emphasis on growth, identification of weak areas, etc.”
There are no “norm” referenced standardized tests that do not suffer all the errors as proven by Wilson that render them COMPLETELY INVALID.
Pearson is developing purposely confusing above level questions. The adults I know who have attempted the practice tests have been baffled. The only aspect of the tests that is reliable and valid is the revenue stream it produces for Pearson.
The current measure for math and ELA compares the score gains of a teacher’s students with the average score gains of a student group with similar demographics.
It is pure voodoo VAM as you can guarantee that the differences are well within any margin of error. The apparent shift to a “growth score” model is even more dubious and will be make the VAM model look accurate and reliable.
No, John, norm-referenced tests cannot show growth. By definition, they only show performance against other students. Sure, one subgroup may “grow” in comparison to another, but there is no way to tell growth in absolute terms. Again, read Deb Meier.
They are intended exactly to show growth of one group as compared to another, or one student as compared to others, as you acknowledge in your second sentence. That is a contradiction of your first sentence, which says they “cannot show growth”.
Yes, nationally norm referenced tests cannot show growth nationwide, but they can be used to measure growth of subgroups, whether geographical, demographic, etc. I suggest that they make more sense than difference in criterion based tests for measuring growth in schools and students.
Maybe your point is that they are a “zero sum game”, which is accurate when looking at the whole population. If some schools, teachers, and students go up nationwide, a proportional number go down, by definition. So, if one were to use them, one would have to be cognizant that they will not show whether everyone in the nation is improving; that would have to be evaluated in some other way.
Essentially all that NRTs [Norm-Referenced Tests] will show is that test scores of a student or a group of students go up or down or stay the same in relation to others. It doesn’t tell us anything about what they learned or didn’t learn or how “hard” or “easy” the test was and whether the tests measured anything of substance or not—or, in fact, measured anything at all. And given the psychometricians’ own admissions regarding margins of error [both for individuals and groups], the numbers get even more pliable and squishy.
It literally abandons any effort to accurately assess genuine learning and teaching—a difficult and complex undertaking in any case—in favor of a summary statistic that is misleading because its seeming precision masquerades as a trustworthy accuracy.
I borrow from the psychometricians’ own lingo to describe the figures resulting from “performance” and “achievement” [again, their jargon] on their standardized tests as being like those “misleads” aka “decoys” aka “distractors” present in said tests.
Hoisted, I would say, by their own terminological petards.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
Special Ed teachers in my school were told that they cannot be rated highly effective because their kids do not perform well on standardized tests. Some of their kids do not take the tests depending in their IEPs.
IMO, these urban families *do* need different schools than their suburban counterparts, but only if we are willing to invest more money in them.
We need funded pre-school for 3 and 4 years olds, longer school days and years and other solutions that can help student growth and give these students a chance to catch up from the deficits that they come into school with.
We also need different policies that make teaching in these schools more attractive to top teachers.
We can’t pretend that the same rules or schools that work in Scarsdale will work in Buffalo. The work is *much* harder, and still we’re not doing as much as we could or should be.
Typical rephormer talk. The schools in Buffalo and the schools in Scarsdale have been completely different since the inception of each. Do you think maybe we could try having the same rules and schools in Buffalo as they have in Scarsdale before you dismiss the idea?
What’s never pointed out is that there are several extremely successful schools in Buffalo, including City Honors which is nationally ranked as one of the best schools in the country. It is the neighborhood schools in high poverty areas that are on Cuomo’s “sh*t list” – (plus the school which specializes in refugees and other non English speaking students). These schools will always be in the targeted (and mandatory) bottom 5%. If these schools could be easily turned around, they would already be exemplary. The efforts have been heroic, but any method found worthwhile always seemed to cost more than the district could afford. Even recently, the turnaround plans prepared and submitted by the teaching staff of effected schools was rejected due to the cost factor.
My main point is that to expect failing schools to miraculously improve in one year is the definition of a stupid idea. Then appointing rotating “agencies” (because two years is also not enough time) to complete the assigned development is even “stupider”.
Ellen #TheyKnowNotWhatTheyDo
City Honors is a “test-based magnet school”. I don’t think one can call them “extremely successful” and the other schools not without looking at who attends them.
That’s the point. The selective schools are successful because the brighter students attend (and even City Honors has a large minority population and some special ed classes). Students apply to high school the same way high schoolers apply to college. There is a lot of joy or sadness when the results are given to the guidance office to distribute. The leftover high schools have much lower results since the better students go elsewhere.
However, City Honors is a Buffalo City School whose students out perform the rest of Erie County. That should not be discounted.
Yea, John, I don’t agree that longer days and years are needed, but I do believe that Pre-K is needed, and a proper student/teacher ratio, and care like vision and dental screenings, proper nutrition, nurses, libraries/librarians, physical education, recess, art, music, dance, play, and wrap around services – if wrap around services include tutoring and homework help, so be it if that is in the definition of “a longer school day” but barring that, extending the school day and year is for what?
Student who come in at a disadvantage need more time with core subjects to get to the point where they will graduate from high school and have options for what to do.
Many schools are reacting to this by cutting out many of the activities that you accurately point out are important.
A longer day makes this choice unnecessary. “tutoring and homework help” implies that it is a subset of students who need extra help, but in our urban schools, it’s pretty much everybody. IMO, distinguishing between class time, tutoring time, and extra help with homework time is a somewhat arbitrary notion that only makes sense when the school day ends at 3.
How can all the schools do better? A living wage for all. Health care for all. Quality day care for all. Safe housing for all.
We all deserve a life of dignity.
Tisch should talk with Cashin — can’t use tests related to CC for anything. They haven’t yet passed their own litmus test.
CASHIN:: “The American Statistical Association, the National Academy of Education, and the American Educational Research Association have cautioned that student tests should not be used to evaluate individual teachers.”…..
PERILS NOTED:
“The people that crunch the numbers will tell you you need at least three years worth of data to see if something is working or needs to be changed.” ….
“There are two things that need to be figured out, he said: Whether the standards are being taught correctly and whether the tests accurately measure what students are learning.”
http://archive.cincinnati.com/article/20140105/NEWS0102/301050035/3-years-later-Common-Core-working-Kentucky-
CASHIN: “Nor should these tests be used for student growth measures until there is clear evidence that they are valid and reliable.”
They are not, will not, or ever be: They are set to FAIL 6-7 in 10. Purposefully.
But, just for the Pro-Folk, Gates says it will take 10 years to know for sure. Soooooooo, it does appear Tisch is CYA-ing, Favors? Funding? Funny business? Favors to Funders, where their homes may be Found?
Surely sounds F’d. Surely she sees social justice in such steps. Surely seems like something under shoe.
Dienne, that sounds like the argument voucher proponents use: If only we could send all of the poor children to private schools.
if we’re trying to get similar outcomes at the end of high school, and we start with radically different preparation and continuously have radically different lives outside of school, the schools have to be even more different than they are today, not less.
Of course, I’m talking about more resources, not less, and many here think the point of difference would be to privatize and/or provide less resources. I understand that thinking given the “stick” approach that has been used to this point.
My hope is that we can reach some agreement whereby we move to using the “carrot”. More money in exchange for specific things that will improve results. Currently, it seems that one side wants to take away resources until the other side says “uncle”, and the other side wants more money, but isn’t offering any change or improvement plans in exchange for it.
In fact, it occurs that the “change for money” argument is what government is offering, though the changes required don’t look to good. I’d love to see teachers and the union offering their version of a “change for money” argument: what they would do to improve performance if given more money.
“if we’re trying to get similar outcomes at the end of high school,”
I would hope that that is not a desired outcome.
My definition of “similar outcomes” is that children graduate from high school and have choices about what to do next. Yes, I’d like to see that for all students.
A Special Education student in my school updated me on his choices; gang membership, drug dealing and prison. Can Pearson test that?
I want more autonomy not more money. I am sick of no nothings telling me what to do all day long. Throw out your stupid check lists. Stop micromanaging me. Let me teach.
I am a huge proponent of autonomy, especially at the school level. That autonomy is the reason that I started a charter school, and it enables us to offer many things to our students and families that we wouldn’t be able to do if we were micromanaged from above.
I think the only question here though is what the accountability should look like that comes with the autonomy. You really can’t have one without the other. Not to equate teachers with children, but to make a point: my children would like more autonomy as well, as I hear on a daily basis ;-). But, they will get it as they earn it, and will keep it as long as they continue to demonstrate that they responsibly use it.
For charter schools, the autonomy they are given is for 5-year (typically) periods, followed by (at least in my state) stringent evaluation and possible renewal. I don’t expect sympathy here, but it’s a hard path, though I hope you see that that autonomy is as important to us as it is to you, and therefore worth it.
I’d like to see a lot more autonomy in district schools, especially in the larger districts. I’d like to see the legislature keep out of micromanaging how things are done. But, what’s the accountability that can allow the legislature to fulfill their obligations (much as I need to fulfill mine as a parent)?
Too often, it seems like the voice from teachers collectively is asking “give us more money and leave us alone”. I think it somehow has to turn into “give us more money, here’s how we will improve, and here’s how you will be able to tell”.
Know nothings
How many expensive to educate special needs kids and ELLs do you have in your charter school? How many kids with challenging behavior issues have you counseled out mid year? They are all at my school. You can come and visit them. Next year, my district is planning to take children out of self-contained Special Education classes and include them in regular education classes. Their IEPs will be altered and they will receive less support. How would that work in your charter school John?
I’m not going to get into an argument about charters here, and you know nothing about my school. In NY, IEPs are set by the district and charters are legally obligated to meet them.
In my district, more than 20% of kids are classified, many inappropriately because of behavior issues or just because they were behind. Many of them belong in regular ed classes, especially if the regular ed classes are already doing large amounts of remediation and additional remediation time is available as a result of the longer day.
No John, of course we are not going to talk about your school. I did not ask for the percentage of Special Ed kids in the district. You brought up that you were affiliated with a charter school. I give you credit for skirting my questions when specifics are requested and retreating to your party line comfort zone discussion of accountability and great teachers.
I thought we were having a discussion about accountability. You apparently want to make it personal.
Very few here have any respect for charters and conversations about them quickly turn uncivil. I don’t want to waste my time or raise my blood pressure heading down that path with you.
That’s already what’s happened, John. Schools in poverty have been reduced to teaching ONLY the tested subjects–in some schools, they’re not even allowed to teach anything else. School days have been extended, and schools have turned into joyless test-prep factories. We should NOT expect different things for poor and rich schools. ALL schools should have what wealthy schools have–rich curriculum, good facilities, varied experiences. And then add wrap-around services for those schools with struggling populations.
But it will never happen. Many in wealthy districts have no desire to pay the money it would take to help those schools in poverty.
Yes, ideally they would get all of these things as well, but one person’s “narrowing of the curriculum” is another person’s “focusing on the most important skills”.
Perhaps we could agree that a longer school day and year would allow more of both?
And yes, agreed re facilities and wrap-around services. Those services should be provided to all students, whether the few in affluent areas or the many in urban, and should be funded without regard to local affluence.
My school has a longer day. It accomplishes nothing.
Wow, John, just wow: “but one person’s “narrowing of the curriculum” is another person’s “focusing on the most important skills”.
Yikes. Kids should not be expected to come to school for an extended day and year and 100% of the time be drilled to pass a test mandated by the government. Do you not get that? RECESS has been taken away, as has art, music, pays. ed. I don’t know ANY child who could sit still from 7:30 a.m. til 5:30 a.m. and focus, let alone solely focus on convoluted common core math and english.
Donna, the whole point of the extended day and year is to not have to choose between extra time on math and ELA and all of the other activities you mention.
Of course, no one will pay for this. Like in Chicago, teachers will just be expected to do extended days and years without any kind of raise or other supports.
“Dienne, that sounds like the argument voucher proponents use: If only we could send all of the poor children to private schools.”
Huh? No, it’s exactly the opposite. If only we could sent all of the poor children to public schools that are equitably resourced compared with public schools in affluent areas. Why do only affluent kids get good public schools? Why do only affluent kids get shiny new buildings, fully stocked libraries, up-to-date books, state of the art technology, gymnasiums, playing fields, auditoriums, swimming pools, music/art/theater programs, etc.? Why do only poor kids have to walk on a line in a “bubble hug” and “SLANT” during class and get detention or fines for having a shoe untied?
We agree that they need more resources, and I’m just arguing that they need more than just that.
John – the private schools don’t want these kids. They kick them out and send them back to the public schools.
“That autonomy is the reason that I started a charter school”
Would you mind filling us in on the details? If you don’t feel comfortable doing so in this forum, would you mind sending me information about your school? If you don’t mind email me dswacker@centurytel.net
Thanks,
Duane
emailed.
NJ Teacher,
That is an absolute shame. A longer day in itself doesn’t accomplish anything, but is a tool to allow great things to be accomplished. Our students get 90 minutes of Math, 90 minutes of ELA, skills building courses, study time, academically-focused extracurricular activities, normal and required amounts of art, science, phys ed, etc, plus time for social activities and fun. Between the extra time and more days, they get 60% more instructional time per year. Also, most of them would go home to empty houses or worse if they weren’t in school.
We also have after school programs. A lot of our kids are raising themselves and younger siblings.
Any extra time in a school day should be used for enrichment. There is only so many “paper and pencil activities” that will keep a child’s attention on any given day. And that’s for any location.
John, how do you get the kids to actually COME to school, every day, for a longer day and year? Cami Anderson’s attendance officers were fired. Cami Anderson boosts 100% attendance, but default, yet we know those figures cannot even approach veracity.
Recently, one child died of meningitis, and Anderson and her clowns determined that the child was NOT in school during that period of illness, despite the reporting to the State of NJ of 100% attendance. The parents in the school where this child died were astounded to find out that indeed, the child WAS in school, and then Ms. Anderson had the balls to file litigation against one of the board members who visited the school and asked why it had not been cleaned.
In Newark, NJ, where there are shootings daily, where just this week at 1PM a car was jacked not far from the court house, where some parents work 3 jobs and older siblings take care of younger, where some children are parentless, don’t speak English, live in awful apartments, or homeless shelters – how do you get those kids to school daily, and drill them relentlessly, so they can pass a test to, ultimately, keep their school open?
Does your charter school offer housing to its students and keep them there 24/7? Because otherwise, they’re going home to empty houses or worse, yes?
We work very hard at it and get 93-95%. Wish it was better, but as long as we keep it there, it isn’t to the point where it is very disruptive. I feel very sorry for anyone teaching at or going to a school with sub 90% attendance.
We do it by having as many rewards as possible tied to attendance and homework completion. We have some type of fun event every single Friday that you have to earn the right to be at. We’re also diligent about following up with families with attendance challenges, but I imagine most schools are.
I don’t think the longer school day or year has a big effect on attendance, but i don’t have data to back that up. Many parents/guardians choose the school because of the long day and not needing after school child care or leaving their child at home. Of course, this is only an option if siblings are in schools with similarly long days.
Also, I should add that my city is much smaller than Newark, and while there are plenty of challenges, the homeless population is much lower. The shelters are actually good partners at getting the kids to school.
John, be careful. All the schools try very hard to keep their attendance figures as high as possible, not just charters. Of course there are incentives, but it’s hard to combat the problems of poverty – shootings, parents in jail, homelessness, drugs, gangs, older siblings caring for younger ones, illness due to living conditions, feelings of hopelessness, etc.
When you make is sound like charters try harder than public schools (even unintentionally), the hackles go up. Inner city teacher have to try twice as hard to get half as far. Be careful not to disparage their efforts – They get enough of that from Cuomo.
flos56,
Yes, of course all schools try to improve attendance. I was responding to a question of how specifically we manage to keep attendance up in light of a longer school day and year.
I’ve never said charters are better at this than district schools. I didn’t even imply that my school did this better than any other school. I’m sharing information. If hackles get up over that, I think it’s the filter that it’s being read with.
You must have a lot of funding available, John. And that’s the point. The wealthy will give money hand over fist to charter schools for the “strivers,” but try to get donations for regular public schools. I’ve written some grants for my moderate-risk school over the years. We’re poor, but not “poor enough” to get a lot of grants, and we’re not a charter school, so we can’t get funding to save our lives. It’s really frustrating. I’m glad your school is successful, but you have to realize that a lot of us are simply not in the position financially.
Wish that were true. We’re in our 5th year of flat funding, and our total donations in a year are less than the cost of the one table at the Success benefit. We’ve had grant funding here and there too.
Threatened,
Check out the jingle for attending the Success Academy Charter School Spring Benefit. Can you believe $15,000 per table! And we’re stuck with bake sales.
And they run it for two consecutive weeks.
http://masterplanneronline.com/newyork/organization/Success_Academy_Charter_Schools_49912
I agree with you. Can you point me to the turnaround plans that the staff developed? I’d be curious to read them.
It should be pointed out that in even New York City’s highest-need “apartheid” schools located in entirely black and Hispanic neighborhoods, 51% of the teachers are white or Asian (who don’t live in the community). I suspect there are also large percentages of white teachers working in the most challenging schools in Yonkers, Buffalo, Rochester, Mount Vernon, Poughkeepsie, Newburgh, and so on. Tisch wants to fire teachers who work with poor and minority children, period.
Tim, for years Buffalo had a one for one hiring policy – a white teacher could only be “officially” hired after a minority teacher was hired. This created a whole subset of white temporary teachers who had to wait years for a probationary appointment (which led to contract (tenure) status). During this time there was also a residency requirement so that when a teacher finally received that probationary appointment they had six months to move in to the city. Temps were exempt from this requirement. Eventually the residency requirement was lifted for departments which had trouble finding teachers, such as mathematics, and then totally disbanded. The court mandated one for one hiring practice was also lifted when Judge Curtin determined that, voila, it was no longer needed.
In spite of all this manipulation, the majority of teachers in Buffalo are white.
Ellen
John, the one turn around plan that was rejected was from Bennett High School in Buffalo. I’m not sure if it was published, although I do know that the teachers spent hours of their own time developing it. Now for the “rest of the story”
The Buffalo Board of Education planned to reject the turn around plans developed by the staff of identified failing schools without even looking at the document, but the public outcry forced them to agree to take a look. The Board Majority (led by Paladino) wanted to hire a local charter school, Tapestry, to turn around Bennett High School. Then one of the parents from Tapestry publicly stated that an administrator from Tapestry had assured him that they had no intention of letting any of those Bennett kids be a part of their program. There was an uproar. Obviously, the school just wanted the building, complete with the renovated All High Stadium, and had no intention of actually improving the lives of the current students. The Superintendent made his presentation and rejected both plans for Bennett. He explained his reasoning and although there was contention, his plan, including a one year extension to further study the options, was approved.
Interim Superintendent Olgilvie, the retired head of Erie One Bocces, is a highly respected member of the community. Although supposedly hired as a “poop boy” by the Majority members of the Buffalo Board of Education, he presented a thought out and reasonable proposal. He rejected turning any of the “failing” schools over to interested Charters, as “instructed” or “implied” by his appointment. As a man with integrity, he stood his moral ground. For his efforts, Paladino called for his immediate termination. The vote to fire Olgilvie failed, but he decided to take his own advice to other superintendents facing obstructive School Boards and announced his decision to retire at the end of the school year. He had planned on staying for two. There is no assistant superintendent (they were in the process of reviewing applicants) and now they need a Superintendent as well. (Anyone who applies should be immediately disqualified as a candidate with mental health issues).
Mr. Oglivie, if you read Diane Ravitch, I implore you to reconsider. We need you now more than ever. Please, “take one for the team”.
Ellen T Klock, an admirerer
John, there were other turn around plans as well. Perhaps some of the details were in the Board minutes. This all happened within the last couple of months.
Thank you for the details, and I’ll see if I can find the plans somewhere. Goings on like that are why I sometimes question the wisdom that publicly elected school boards represent democracy better than parental choice.
I asked you three simple questions John.
1) How many expensive to educate Special Education students are in your school?
2) How many ELLs are in your school?
3) How many children with behavior challenges has your school counseled out midyear?
You did not answer any of my questions. When I called you on it, I was accused of incivility and not liking charter schools. I would like charter schools a whole lot more, if the charter cheerleaders would step up to the plate and respond to queries.
I reply to plenty of questions like this in my community, but I see no reason to reply here. I didn’t try to compare our results to another school. I didn’t say charters were better than district schools. Therefore, I don’t think I have any obligation to provide the data.
You weren’t uncivil, but plenty here have been. My experience tells me that you won’t believe anything I say anyway. It’s just a losing proposition for me regardless of the answers to your questions.
I’ll answer your questions for charters in general, though I imagine you’re familiar with this already. Most charters have few, if any, expensive to educate SE students, though I believe that can be overused as a rationalization because they are typically a very small number even though quite expensive.
Most charters have fewer ELL kids, though very high variability exists in district schools as well. My district has an excellent language immersion (district) school, which results in all other schools here having lower than district average ELL populations.
I’ve heard lots of anecdotes about kids being kicked out mid-year, but seen very little data supporting it. Do you have any to share? Attrition is laid bare in charters that don’t back fill, but hidden in schools that admit year round in all grades.
I’ll acknowledge that differences between populations in charters and district schools make it inappropriate to compare results between them directly, and that attrition in both must be looked at along with any performance data.
But, this data is rapidly changing. The recent urban CREDO study (and I think maybe the NYC study, but I’d have to look at it again) shows parity on SE (though I’m sure still not the most expensive to educate) and ELL (though probably not the most challenging here either).
I hope charters continue to enroll more of both. Anyone who thinks charters are in it for the money or to inflate performance will believe this won’t happen, but the data shows that it is happening.
Also, you didn’t ask about students from economically disadvantaged families. It seems most charters have more, but have to continuously do outreach to avoid having this number creep down. Also, I’m confident that district schools have higher homeless populations.
John – the dynamics of charter schools are extremely varied. While some are trying to improve education others have been exposed as self serving. We shouldn’t paint all charters with the same brush, but there is a lot of guilt by association.
What can’t be denied is that the funding for charters takes away from the funding of public schools. My personal pet peeve is when the statistics are manipulated to show that the charters are so much better than other public schools when, in actuality, their results reflect their student population. For example, when Tapestry is compared to the Buffalo Public School average, they appear to be doing a fantastic job worthy of recognition. When compared to other city schools with a similar dynamic (such as percentage of reduced/free school lunches and number of minority/majority students), their results are in the middle of the pack. Not good or bad, just average.
If this is the way Taoestry represented themselves, I would be respectful. Trying to exaggerate their success subtracts from any bragging rights. And John, these exaggerations are what makes us dislike the charter schools.
I spent two hours last night with a Success Academy teacher. She told me many interesting things, confirming what most of us suspected. The pressure for test scores is unrelenting. They have been test prepping for weeks, getting ready for the state tests. Many kids break under the pressure. We agreed that charters would be less antagonistic if they stopping bragging about how they are better than public schools.
yes, the parents should pull the trigger and bring in your charter – the board members are morons…. in your world
I was referring to Board members screaming at each other, backdoor deals, etc.
I can see a new television show in next year’s line up – The Board – starring the Majority members – a mercenary former gubernatorial nominee, a foul mouthed former hockey team owner, a former private school official accused of mishandling funds, and a token white woman versus the sisterhood – three black women fighting for the students. On air every two weeks, watch the infighting, the back stabbing, the chanting audience, the threats, the kicked out dissenters, and the firings. Please note: This program may contain vocabulary and behavior inappropriate for children to view.
Donna, you must admit that Tapestry’s turnaround plan to kick out the current students and take over the building for their school was disingenuous at best. Even Cuomo wasn’t demanding this sort of takeover.
That’s fair John. I am at a renew school. We have a large Special Education population including many autistic kids. We also have a lot of ELLs many of whom do not live in the neighborhood. I know kids who used to go to charters. I do not have any data. It has been reported in the media that about one third of the children in Newark currently attend charters. It is my admittedly subjective perception that the more charters cream our population, the harder my job gets. I don’t know you personally, nor do I know where you are. All I can tell you is the job of urban public school teachers becomes more challenging day by day.
NJ teacher,
I’m in a smaller NY city. Maybe part of the issue is that my city is more mixed high and low income, so district schools tend to get the most affluent kids as well as the extremely challenging ones (unfortunately mostly in separate schools). So, we definitely serve an underserved population, but those who don’t choose charters are a mixed population, not a skewed lower one as it sounds like they are for you.
If it works in NJ as it does in NY though, each kid in a charter leaves more money to spend per student on kids who remain. Also, SE money follows the student, and doesn’t figure into determine charter tuition.
Re knowing kids who used to be in charters, almost all of the kids in my school used to be in district schools, so attrition isn’t a one way thing.
John, the money stays with the charter when children leave and return to the public school.
Diane,
In New York, this is simply not true, and I would think you would know that. All calculations are done per diem and reconciled at year end. In fact, our district has owed us hundreds of thousands of dollars at the end of each year because they routinely underpay.
If you believe money stays with the charter, please cite an example and/or point me to the place in state law or SED policy that that exists. Misinformation isn’t helpful to the conversations.
John, the school funding is based on the student population when the BEDS forms are completed in October, not the count from the end of the year.
flos56, that’s simply not true. Charter schools are reimbursed based on FTE (full time equivalents) based on each day that a student attends. It’s New York State law, regardless of what you’ve been told.
Here’s the calculation sheet: https://stateaid.nysed.gov/charter/. You can also search for the Comptroller’s office audits regarding charter billings.
Charters bill just for FTEs (though sometimes in advanced based on payment schedule), and there is a reconciliation at year end to ensure that each school only gets paid for the correct number of student-days by each district.
Please, if you’re not convinced, please call the State Education Department.
When a charter school came to Schenectady, they did not provide the public school system with accurate student counts. Oh…and it was an elementary school. The per student rate was based on the host district’s average per student cost. It costs much less per student for an elementary school student than a high school student. Oh…and school districts depend on demographics for planning. But the charter school numbers changed suddenly and didn’t hold steady. Hard to plan. So losing 200 kids to the charter school, coming from 10 elementary schools with no pre-planning didn’t allow the host district the opportunity to redistrict and reduce staff. It was purely a money sucking enterprise. Fortunately, the charter school collapsed and a replacement has been unable to get going.
I agree that a situation like that doesn’t allow the district to adjust, but that’s pretty atypical.
In the small urban districts, it’s completely typical.
I don’t get the part you wrote about the funding. It is my understanding that the money follows the student to the charter. What do you mean about money being left behind John?
The funding for students in NYS stays at the school they are enrolled in when the numbers are collected in the beginning of October. If they transfer to another school in November, the money remains behind.
The Buffalo News did a detailed study of Charter School attrition over a up year ago with an excellent break down of minority and majority populations and the percentage from each school which left (plus the given reason why). It was fascinating.
flos56,
I went looking for that and could only find this:
“The Buffalo Public Schools reported attrition data for 16 local charter schools for July 1 through Nov. 18, 2013. The average attrition rate was 6.8 percent. CHSAT posted the lowest attrition rate, at 2.4 percent; Tapestry reported the fourth-lowest attrition rate, 3.4 percent. The News also reviewed more recent attrition data from the district for last school year, which was not complete for all charter schools, but was complete for Tapestry and CHSAT and continued to show a pattern of low attrition.”
I don’t know what the general attrition rate in the district is due to mobility, but in mine, it’s about 10%, so these numbers seem exceptionally low.
John, students don’t usually move from school to school in Buffalo. Since the families move around so much, the particular location of a home doesn’t matter to which school is assigned, plus there are quite a few Magnet Schools. PreK to 8 are bused. High School students are given bus passes and transfer slips for the Metro Buses.
What was interesting about the report was the accompanying chart of the racial background of the children who left the school. Very few were listed as leaving through attrition, most left for other “reasons” and they were usually black.
flos56,
I tried to find it, but only managed to find a post where you mentioned it on another blog ;-).
Not sure what you mean regarding reasons students leaving for reasons “other than attrition”. Attrition just means the leaving. Maybe you mean other than moving?
John, I’ll save this comment and get back to you if I find the article.
Ellen
NJ Teacher: your three questions are reasonable.
I would add a fourth: name the school so folks can verify info for themselves.
They are not hard to answer. They deserve a direct and unambiguous answer.
Thank you for trying to make this an actual discussion.
😎
KrazyTA,
No, that would turn it from an actual discussion into a set of personal attacks and a witch hunt, as my past experience has shown. My understanding is this is a forum to discuss topics, not attack people.
I would think it equally inappropriate to pick apart a traditional school that one of you might work for. Needlessly personal when there is plenty of aggregate data about each.
When it comes to my specific school, I try to make every single decision based on what’s best for the students and families there, and I can see no way that getting into an argument about the school on an obviously anti-charter blog can remotely be in their best interests, and I can easily see how it would be detrimental.
Finally, the main reason I choose to be anonymous is so that I can discuss my city and it’s challenges precisely without calling out the city or the school district. Again, that would be needlessly antagonistic and create confrontation where I don’t want any and where it would be bad for my school and our relationship with the community.
I hope you’ll respect that I don’t want you to damage my school in the same way that you wouldn’t want me to damage yours. And, guessing a potential objection, please don’t tell me that “if you have nothing to hide…” as you and I both know that all of education is gray area and picking and choosing facts, especially by someone with an agenda, can make the best school in the world look bad.
flos, see my note to Diane. What you say about the money staying in the charter based on initial enrollment is simply not true. All calculations are based on per diem.
Regarding my comment about district schools having more to spend per remaining student when students go to a charter, it just comes down to charters being less expensive per student. In my district, about 20% of students go to charters for a cost of about 15% of budget. On a per student basis, charters get about $14000 and district spends about $20000. After about $1000 in services that the district provides to charter students, they still save about $5000 per student that goes to a charter, and are able to spend that on remaining students.
I acknowledge that districts can’t quickly adjust costs based on their enrollments, but over the course of a few years, they should be able to. Charters only cost districts money if the district continues to spend as if all of the students in charters were still in their schools.
John – Losing students to charter schools does not reduce the costs of the remaining public schools. The buildings still need to be maintained, staff still need to be employed, administrators still need to administer. Over time a school might close, but in a district with close to 400,000 students, a few thousands going to Charter Schools won’t reduce the cost of business.
flos56,
After some period of adjustment, that’s simply a rationalization. Districts still use that excuse when 20-30% of their students are in charters. They just frequently refuse to adjust costs, even over time, to reflect having fewer students. The total number of buildings, teachers, administrators, etc. in a city does not need to change because of charter schools. What does need to change is the resources used by districts with thousands fewer students than they had previously.
John – How’s this for adjusting:
Hire less gym teachers and have them split their time between schools. Since there are not enough gym teachers to cover all the classes, give exercise tapes to the classroom teachers to show to their students instead of going to the gym.
Ellen #TrueStory
In the linked post, Katz says “her statement demonstrates only a minor understanding of how to use data to leverage system wide change.”
“minor” to the point of “approaching zero”. 🙂
In their position paper on VAM, the American Statistical Association stated that
**In many cases, the supposed “relationship” is very nearly random (ie, poor or non-existent correlation with test scores) and VAM scores completely unreliable , as shown by Gary Rubinstein in his series of posts on VAM in NYC.
The current and latest proposed teacher evaluation scheme is almost completely focused on use of VAM for ranking individual teachers for high stakes decisions (firing, tenure, etc) rather than on improving “system-level conditions”.
That is just the inverse of what the ASA suggested and in fact, does precisely what the ASA specifically warned against:
People like Tisch, Cuomo and those in the NY state legislature who put together the latest teacher evaluation scheme have certainly not demonstrated with their words and policies even a “minor” understanding of how to actually improve the public education system.
Much more like a “major misunderstanding”.
..and of course, it is possible that the “major misunderstanding” is not really a “misunderstanding” at all.
just to be clear, the [and as pointed out above, do a poor job even of that] and ** footnotes were added by me (not in the ASA paper)
From what I’ve read, NYSED is tasked with developing criteria for “growth scores”.
VAM scoring is not the same as a “growth” model. Did I read wrong? Or is this just too confusing to make sense of?
VAMs are complex statistical models based on growth, so I think the terms are being used interchangeably here.
As Juilet (one smart cookie) said: What’s in a name, that which we call a VAM by any other name [“growth model”] would smell as sheet?
NY Sate uses VAMs for math and ELA* but since 2013 but has been calling them “growth models” for legal reasons (see State to use a “value-added” growth model without calling it that)
*for the subjects and grades for which it has state standardized exams (the plan is to use SLO’s for those that do not)
It’s critical not to lose sight of the central issue: that teachers will be evaluated largely based on “student growth” gauged by student test score changes, which, at it’s core, is what the ASA paper is about .
Replace VAM with “growth model based on student test scores” and ASA’s points stand.
In particular, their central points do not depend on the particular model used: “The quality of education is not one event but a system of many interacting components” and “the majority of opportunities for quality improvement are found in the system-level conditions.”
And their warnings about ranking individual teachers based on student test scores also stand.
This article will help anyone as confused as me about the voodoo math used to evaluate teachers based on student scores. It will behoove all NY teachers to require full transparency regarding the new “growth score” model developed by NYSED under a June deadline. The new system will have to be negotiated into all local contracts by November.
http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Policies/Measuring-student-growth-At-a-glance
Thanks NY. This link is above my pay grade. A close reading would result in a headache.
It will behoove all NY teachers to require full transparency regarding the new “growth score” model developed by NYSED under a June deadline.”
Good luck to you and others with that.
While they should certainly release all details about methods (including computer source code) and data, I seriously doubt they will.
The answer “we can’t do that because then teachers and schools could game the system” is a fairly typical rationale.
Personally, I see it as a convenient excuse. Proper and adequate evaluation methods do not need to be hidden behind a veil of secrecy (and no real scientist engages in hiding detailed methods and data)
But as the ASA paper makes clear, the details of the model are not critical to understanding the folly of putting a lot of weight on a model that evaluates/ranks teachers based on student test scores in order to make high stakes decisions.
ASA warnings are not model specific and NY state and others can change around their student-test-based teacher evaluation models (and what they call them!) until the cows come home and it won’t address the fundamental issue.
As they indicated, their purpose was to inform, not to tell people what to do. But they were actually crystal clear in their warnings. Those who ignore them do so at great risk to students and teachers alike.
The quite reasonable expectation by ASA was that they would be dealing with reasonable (and reasonably intelligent) people and that they should not have to lead people by the hand and say “Now, Andrew, you should not be firing teachers based on student-test-score based model X”.
They were obviously wrong on the latter point.
Thanks for helping me see the forest through the trees. Too bad the reformers can see neither.
Many “reformers” (treeformers?) simply see the trees as raw material for Thneeds, “which everyone needs!”
Pretty soon there won’t be anything left but stumps.
Dr Seuss had these folks pegged decades ago.
It’s not just minority teachers. It’s going after high minority districts. This is blaming the teachers for dysfunctions in society and families. Poor people struggle more in school. So inner city school districts especially must be able to attract and retain innovative, resourceful and motivated teachers. Many teachers really want to work with disadvantaged kids. But how can inner city districts attract and retain such teachers if they may lose their jobs because their students don’t come to school with the basic skills to learn, or are distracted by their homes and street life? I personally think that the urban districts are targeted for charter school take overs because their populations won’t fight back, as suburban districts will.
Actually, Bill, the parents in Buffalo are fighting back. Not everyone in the city lives in poverty. There is a large cluster of affluent and/or professional home owners (don’t forget, at one time Buffalo was one of the top cities in the country). Also, due to the previously mentioned residency requirement, many of home owners are Buffalo Public School teachers with children who attend city schools. They are attending Board meetings, picketing, sponsoring speakers, and leading the opt out movement? That is why the School Board is having such a tough time switching failing schools into charters.
Unfortunately, there are two factions of parents who are fighting with each other – the haves and the have nots. The have nots are misinformed.
Ellen #NeverADullMomentInBuffalo
Thank you for your comments. I live in Schenectady, and my wife is a school board member. A charter school came in a decade ago in spite of local opposition and failed. The charter movement hasn’t tried again. Schenectady, like Buffalo, has many poor residents but also a significant and active middle class. But our test scores and graduation rates are low just like in other areas with poor populations. We have many great teachers. My two daughters got great educations in Schenectady. But the teachers are being targeted for society’s problems. We do follow the news in Buffalo to some degree. We’re fortunate that our Schenectady school board doesn’t have opposing factions and would oppose any effort to privatize part of the district. Yet Cuomo’s policies are trying to do just that.
Isn’t it over simplistic and condescending to say the “have-nots” are misinformed? Isn’t it more likely that their experiences and desires are different than those of the “haves”?
Keep in mind that they are”voting” with their children, not just pulling a lever in a voting booth. I’d like to think that both sides are thinking in the best interests of their own children, but they differ on what’s best for the community. The right answer might be that one size might not fit all.
John, normally I would agree with you, but this battle between parent groups is very complex and there is a lot of misinformation out there.
If the minority parents had gone out to vote, the school board would have a different membership. A small percentage of voters determined the outcome.
I can’t stress the absurdity of what is happening in Buffalo. Add in Cuomo’s influence and you have a trifecta of bizarro. Perhaps even a quartet. Make that a quintet. Everybody wants a piece of the action.
John, I assume you hire a private police guard for your home if you don’t like the police, and you have a private fire company too
Diane, I find that disingenuous as well. My kids go to an excellent traditional public school that we are very happy with. I had the luxury of choosing where we live, which unfortunately in this country largely determines the quality of schools.
My parents moved us from a city in NJ with poor schools to a suburb when we were kids, solely for that reason. The parents whose children attend my school don’t have that choice.
In case you haven’t noticed, many in the cities are none to happy with their police departments lately either. But, I’m sure police work is complicated and that nobody except a policeman could possibly evaluate whether they are doing their job appropriately. We just have to trust that they are adequately policing themselves, and leave them alone, right? (yes, tongue in cheek).
John: you are making the classic error of confusing the performance of a school’s students with the performance of the school. When parents with sufficient means move to a “better” district, they are actually moving to a district with more more middle class families whose children go to school with more of the tools that lead to learning. If you took the entire suburban school staff and administration and switched them with the inner city staff and administration, the results would not change.
Bill,
At the very least, there are peer effects to consider, which can be very strong. That includes academics, behavior, mobility, attendance, and more.
Differentiation of instruction is very challenging, so being in a a school where most students started at a deficit definitely has a negative effect on all students in a school. Focusing on the deficits can lead to narrowing of the curriculum as well.
There are also expectations to contend with, which studies have shown have a big impact on learning. For example, teachers who are told that specific students from a random sample are low performing will in fact grade them lower and expect less from them.
Finally, there is an unfortunate underfunding of many city schools, which might raise class sizes, result in poorer facilities, etc.
So no, I am not making an error. But, please note I didn’t say anything about teachers in one location being any better or worse than the other. Also, this is complex and depends a lot on the student and the family. Dropping a poor student into a suburban school can’t be expected to have a magical effect, and there are certainly students who do very well in urban settings.
In many respects though, it’s just easier for a student to do well in those settings.
John: your solution perhaps works well for a few kids. But we have to educate all of our kids. Charter schools, vouchers, etc., can help a few kids. But most of the kids remain in the same district which has now lost some of it’s more motivated families. Much of the funding goes with those kids who go to charters, in spite of the fact that as a whole, charters do no better (but that’s a different argument). I prefer solutions that work for all our our students.
Bill,
I also would prefer solutions that work for all students, but after decades of working with underserved kids, I got frustrated with a system that was very reluctant to change.
If you look at a chart of performance vs. expected performance for all public schools based on free and reduced lunch populations, you see what mostly looks like a linear correlation. However, there are exceptional schools that are getting much better results with challenging populations, both charter and district (interestingly enough, the same chart doesn’t show any exceptionally bad schools for high income families). We need to be focused on what they are doing differently and replicating it.
If you’re willing, please read at least the summary of the report at http://urbancharters.stanford.edu/download/Urban%20Charter%20School%20Study%20Report%20on%2041%20Regions.pdf before dismissing charters or their ability to prove what is possible.
Also, here’s an article on why charters are disproportionately represented in the top 500 high schools list: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/27/what-charter-schools-are-getting-right-and-why-they-top-our-high-school-rankings.html
Charters are given flexibility, and that results in a lot of variability. If you’re interested in (IMO) a good overview of what the best have in common (much of which could apply to any school), I’d recommend this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1476716455.
Schenectady’s one charter school was a mess, but as you pointed out, it was closed by its authorizer. There are a few excellent ones in Troy and Albany, but some there that have recently been closed as well as some given short term renewals. Closings cause lots of havoc, but the charter bargain is that you get results or get closed.
BTW, love to read stuff like this out of Schenectady: http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2013/jul/19/restructuring-credited-rise-schenectady-graduation/
Newark residents have been fighting
back for years to no avail.
But most, if not all “Newark residents” in charters are there by choice, true? I’m not a proponent of takeovers, but I really don’t like it when people try to shut down charters that other families want either.
People in Newark are fighting for local control of the district. The district has been under state control for twenty years. Parents have to apply for their children to attend charters.