Josh Eidelson explains in Salon.com what happened in Bridgeport, Connecticut, when the corporate reformers promoted a referendum to abolish the elected school boards and give the public schools to the mayor. Despite the active support of Michelle Rhee and a heavy infusion of money, the voters of Bridgeport decided they preferred to keep their right to choose those who control their schools.
Archives for category: Bloomberg, Michael
While I was watching the television coverage of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, an ad came on that was very upsetting. Sponsored by StudentsFirst ad, it was a typically deceptive TV ad depicting teachers and parents who demand that teachers be evaluated by test scores. It implies that teachers are slackers and need a swift kick to get to work. If they are evaluated, they claim, this will have a revolutionary effect on the schools.
Showing this anti-teacher ad at this moment in time was utterly tasteless. Just as we are watching stories about teachers and a principal and school psychologist who were gunned down protecting little children, we have to see this tawdry ad. Given the timing, it is political pornography.
The ad is meretricious. It does not mention that the city published the names and ratings of thousands of teachers a year ago, generating anger and controversy, not any wonderful transformation. The ratings a year ago were rife with error, but all that is now forgotten in the new push to get tough with teachers.
Who are those teachers and parents in the ad with no last names? Are they paid actors? If they believe what they say, why no last names? Why no school names?
Does StudentsFirst know that most of New York City’s charter schools have refused to submit to the teacher evaluation system? May we expect to see a TV attack ad demanding that charter schools adopt the same test-based evaluation system that Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg want? Or is it only for public schools?
Andrea Gabor wrote an excellent post providing the context for ad and the stand-off between the New York City United Federation of Teachers and the city (and state). She writes:
“Governor Cuomo has threatened to withhold funding if the city and the union cannot come to an agreement by January. And Mayor Bloomberg has said that he would rather lose the money than compromise on the evaluations.
“The StudentsFirst ad and the mayor’s tough talk highlight one of several problems with the teacher-evaluation debate. While employee evaluations work when they are part of a system-wide effort at continuous improvement, they are often counterproductive when used as a cudgel against employees.
The cheerful-sounding teachers in the StudentsFirst ad not withstanding, everything about the teacher-evaluation debate has been framed in punitive terms.”
Not only has the debate been framed in punitive terms, but as Gabor points out, VAM is rife with technical issues. As I have written repeatedly on this blog, VAM is so inaccurate and unstable that it is junk science. And as Bruce Baker has written again and again, teachers with the neediest students are likely to get worse ratings than those with “easier” students.
No wonder charter schools in New York City refuse to submit their teacher ratings.
The issue now is whether the governor and the mayor, with the help of StudentsFirst, can beat the union into agreeing to a process for evaluating teachers that is demonstrably harmful and demoralizing to its members, that does nothing to improve education, and that is guaranteed to waste many millions of dollars.
Frankly, StudentsFirst should have had the decency to stop their attacks on public school teachers until the public had gotten over the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. At long last, have they no decency?
*UPDATE: Micah Lasher of StudentsFirstNY informed that the organization asked the city’s television stations on Monday morning to pull the ad, in light of the tragedy. I saw it on CNN or MSNBC on Monday night. Someone goofed. I appreciate the clarification.
The New York City teacher evaluations were released, and there was nearly no media coverage.
Mayor Bloomberg noticed. Ad Peter Goodman points out on his blog,
“The mayor didn’t like the original law, didn’t like the law which protected teachers from the public release of the scores and doesn’t like the requirement that the details of the plan must be negotiated with the collective bargaining agent, the union.
“On his weekly radio program he made it clear – he has no intention of negotiating a plan – he’ll accept the $250 million cut in state funding unless the union succumbs to all his preconditions. Apparently he “forgot” that the current law prohibits the release of the scores.”
Goodman checked with principals and teachers and they seemed genuinely puzzled by the ratings.
They don’t know what they mean or how they are supposed to help.
“UFT President Mulgrew announced that 6% of teachers were rated “ineffective” and 9% rated “highly effectively.” In order to be charged a teacher must be rated “ineffective” on their overall score or on the VAM and “locally negotiated” section for two consecutive years. When we consider the “instability” of the scores – wide year to year variation – the percentage of teachers impacted will be quite low.”
So very few teachers will be found ineffective, and anyone who is discharged on the basis of these flawed metrics is likely to sue.
Think of the hundreds of millions wasted on this junk science and how the money might have been used to improve schools.
In his weekly radio interview, Mayor Bloomberg said that wants to hold teachers’ feet to the fire. He wants them evaluated by the scores of their students and he wants their ratings published. He is furious that the union has been unwilling to agree to a pact. He says he will cut the budget if they don’t comply.
This teacher read the post and replied:
“I can not believe his language. Evaluation is something every professional adult is subject to, provided that the evaluation is done in good faith, by a fair measure, by trustworthy evaluators. The minute you say you want to hold my feet to the fire, I know you don’t want to see whether or not I’m a good teacher, celebrate my skills and help me improve my weaknesses – you just want me out.
I can not stand another month of being beat up every time I open a newspaper, after spending hours (my own time) writing awesome and engaging lessons, and creating materials (since the DOE gives me nothing) that are specific and responsive to my specific and real population of students. Stay up til 1am planning lessons, read the newspaper, cry on my way to work, spend a day in my classroom trying to build confidence and faith that the world is open to them, that the system is not rigged, that if you work hard, go to college, grad school, pick a decent and socially responsible profession you will succeed, be fairly compensated, and respected. Go back, read the paper, cry again. It is really awful, Mr. Bloomberg. You have no idea.
“Hold my feet to the fire”. What are you threatening with budget cuts? I already pay for all my own school supplies. I buy class sets of text books. I haven’t had a nickel raise in three years, even as my rent goes up and the subway fare raises again. You’re going to make this worse for me somehow? You want me to quit?
After you’ve completely destroyed the professionalism of teaching, once you’ve rallied the press to declare that anyone who goes into teaching is corrupt and suspicious, lazy and stupid – what kind of amazing self-confident and self-respecting recruits are you hoping to replace me with?”
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided that rating teachers by their test scores and publishing their names in the paper is the last hill he will stand on in his struggle to establish a legacy. He says it is time to hold teachers’ feet to the fire. He would rather cut the budget than let teachers “off the hook” on teacher evaluations.
The mayor is a busy man. We can’t expect him to know anything about education research. He is making his judgments based on his gut instincts. It’s a shame that no one at the New York City Department of Education will tell him that what he believes in doesn’t work. The teachers of English language learners, special education students and gifted students are likely to look like bad teachers. I’m guessing no one at Tweed has the nerve to speak up. They are all in awe of him.
As his third term dwindles down to its closing days, the public has lost confidence that he can reform the schools. In the latest poll, only 25% approved his stewardship of the schools.
I wish he would call me. I could help him.
A high school for at-risk students in Manhattan, now located in a beautiful state-of-the-art facility, will be relocated to make room for Eva Moskowitz’s charter empire to grow.
The students at Innovation Diploma Plus high school will be relocated to a 90-year-old school with no science labs or gym.
Success Academy recently raised its management fee to $2,000 per student. It has a wealthy and powerful board of directors. The city gives the charter chain free space in public school buildings wherever it wants, despite community protests. Success academy (formerly known as Harlem Success Academy) has recently expanded into middle-class and gentrifying neighborhoods, like affluent District 2 in Manhattan , Cobble Hill and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, and the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
The Bloomberg administration continues its path of closing schools rather than helping them.
Read more here on the New York City parent blog.
Only 13 years ago, DeWitt Clinton High School was rated one of the best in the nation. It was once an honored school, home to great teachers and students.
But now, going into the 11th year of mayoral control, it is overcrowded and on the chopping block.
The Bloomberg administration’s Department of Education demonstrates yet again that it has no idea how to improve schools. It just demolishes them.
In time, the small schools that replace DeWitt Clinton will also close.
And then?
Gary Rubinstein has produced a stunning analysis of New York City’s high school report cards, its so-called progress reports.
He asks: “Why does the ‘worst’ NYC high school have higher SAT scores than the ‘best’ one?”
This is what Gary found: the SAT scores of the city’s highest-rated high school are lower than those of its lowest-rated school.
Read that again.
Maybe you don’t think much of SAT scores. But then look at those report cards again, and you will see some very unimpressive high schools–by any measure–ranked far above the city’s top high schools.
What a fraud these report cards are.
Joanne Barkan has written an excellent summary of how public education fared in the recent elections.
Barkan knows how to follow the money. Her article “Got Dough?” showed the influence of the billionaires on education policy.
She begins her analysis of the 2012 elections with this overview of Barack Obama’s embrace of GOP education dogma:
“Barack Obama’s K-12 “reform” policies have brought misery to public schools across the country: more standardized testing, faulty evaluations for teachers based on student test scores, more public schools shut down rather than improved, more privately managed and for-profit charter schools soaking up tax dollars but providing little improvement, more money wasted on unproven computer-based instruction, and more opportunities for private foundations to steer public policy. Obama’s agenda has also fortified a crazy-quilt political coalition on education that stretches from centrist ed-reform functionaries to conservatives aiming to undermine unions and privatize public schools to right-wingers seeking tax dollars for religious charters. Mitt Romney’s education program was worse in only one significant way: Romney also supported vouchers that allow parents to take their per-child public-education funding to private schools, including religious schools.”
Barkan’s analysis shows significant wins for supporters of public education–the upset of uber-reformer Tony Bennett in Indiana, the repeal of the Luna laws in Idaho, and the passage of a tax increase in California–and some significant losses–the passage of charter initiatives in Georgia and Washington State.
The interesting common thread in many of the key elections was the deluge of big money to advance the anti-public education agenda.
Even more interesting is how few people put up the big money. If Barkan were to collate a list of those who contributed $10,000 or more to these campaigns, the number of people on the list would be very small, maybe a few hundred. If the list were restricted to $20,000 or more, it would very likely be fewer than 50 people, maybe less.
This tiny number of moguls is buying education policy in state after state. How many have their own children in the schools they seek to control? Probably none.
The good news is that they don’t win every time. The bad news is that their money is sometimes sufficient to overwhelm democratic control of public education.
Murray Bergtraum High School is literally within view of City Hall in New York City. Just cross a busy intersection and there it is.
It used to be a good school with a good reputation. Sitting in the center of New York City’s financial and governmental activity, it prepared young people for business careers.
No longer. The Bloomberg administration has a policy of preferring small high schools and charter schools. It’s policy for large high schools is, at best, benign neglect, but more often, dumping ground.
Bergtraum became a dumping ground for students who couldn’t go anywhere else. In ten years of Bloomberg-Klein reforms, it went from a good school to a holding pen.
Since NYC’s miraculous test score gains collapsed in 2010, you don’t hear much boasting about the scores.
But you will hear boasting about the graduation rate. You don’t hear much about the credit recovery programs on which the grad rate data rest.
But when you think of Bloomberg and Klein and Eric Nadelstern (quoted in the article), remember Bergtraum.
Diane Ravitch's blog 