Archives for category: New York City
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Miami School Chief Will Be NYC Chancellor

By dianeravitch
February 28, 2018 //
20

 

According to Politico, Alberto Carvalho will be the new Chancellor of the New York City public schools. 

“Alberto Carvalho, who has led Miami’s public schools for the last decade, will be New York City’s next schools chancellor, Mayor Bill de Blasio will officially announce Thursday.

“Carvalho will replace Carmen Fariña, who has spent the last four years at the helm of America’s largest school system after de Blasio coaxed her out of retirement in late 2013. He will officially take over as chancellor sometime in the next month. The announcement was delayed because of the recent shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

“De Blasio’s requirements for the role of America’s second-most-important educator were largely unspoken, but obvious: a longtime educator with experience running schools for vulnerable children, a Spanish-speaking person of color, and a New York City outsider who is also considered a rising star in the national education world.

“Carvalho checks every box.

“The current Miami-Dade schools chief is a Portuguese immigrant, and came to America illegally as a broke 17-year-old who had saved up $1,000 for the airfare from Lisbon to New York City. After leaving New York for Ft. Lauderdale and later Miami, he worked as a busboy and a day laborer. Carvalho was the first person in his family to finish high school. Fariña, the daughter of immigrants from Spain, was the first person in her’s to earn a college diploma.

“Carvalho started his 20-year career in Miami’s schools as a physics, chemistry and calculus teacher at Miami Jackson Senior High, where he earned the nickname “Mr. Armani” for his sartorial presence. He went on to be an assistant principal and deputy superintendent. Along with his current superintendent duties, he’s the principal of two Miami schools. He helped earn his reputation for being a savvy political operator while serving as a communications officer and a lobbyist for Miami-Dade’s schools.”

Categories Miami, New York City

Peter Goodman: Does New York City Need an “Innovator” or a “Collaborator” to Lead Its Schools?

By dianeravitch
February 16, 2018 //
16

 

Peter Goodman describes a “debate” of sorts in New York City, whose mayor is searching for a new chancellor to replace Carmen Farina.

Does New York City need a disruptor, like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee, or a collaborator, following Farina’s tradition?

From what I read, the only voice in favor of a disruptor is a former official in the Bloomberg-Klein regime and the editorial writer of the New York Times.

Turmoil and instability and upheaval are not good for students, teachers, or learning.

I hope the next leader will be an experienced educator who has had experience in the classroom and as a principal and superintendent.

I hope it will be someone who knows the New York City public schools well and who is prepared to reach out to teachers and parents and students to build trust.

Please, no more disruption.

 

Categories Disruption, Innovation, New York City

Leonie Haimson: Why Success Academy Should Not Be Allowed to Expand Its School in Cobble Hill

By dianeravitch
December 28, 2017 //
12

In this post, Leonie Haimson calls on the charter committee at the State University of New York to reject Eva Moskowitz’s request to enlarge her charter school in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

If she expands, she will cause overcrowding and larger class sizes, Says Haimson. Cobble Hill is a mainly white, middle-class-affluent neighborhood, which is the target for expansion of a chain that prides itself on educating poor black and Hispanic students.

Success Academy has a bad habit of getting their foot in the door, then encroaching on their neighbors, eventually making a grab for the entire school. sA redefines the meaning of the term “the camel’s nose inside the tent.” Before you know it, the entire camel is inside, and everyone else is pushed out.

Categories Charter Schools, Class size, Harlem Success Academy, New York City

Leonie Haimson: Why New York City’s Renewal Schools Are Not Working

By dianeravitch
December 22, 2017 //
7

Leonie Haimson has long insisted that the single most effective intervention for children who are struggling in school is reduced class size. She has assembled an impressive body of research showing that class size gives teachers the time that they need for each child.

She has long been a critic of Mayor de Blasio’s Renewal Schools. The Mayor wanted to show that he could create a model of school improvement that differed sharply from the Bloomberg administration’s policy of closing schools in large numbers without any effort to help them.

Following the announcement that the city is closing or merging 15 of the Renewal schools, in addition to the 18 already closed, Haimson has written a scorching critique of the city’s refusal to reduce class size.

“Chancellor Fariña announced yesterday that the closure or merger of 15 more Renewal schools, to add to the 18 that were previously closed or merged.

“This means 33 Renewal schools of the original 94 have failed to improve sufficiently since the program began in 2014. Forty six of the Renewal schools will remain in the program for another year. The list of schools, including an additional five to be closed that were never in the Renewal program, is here.

“This record of failure is no surprise to many of us who have criticized the DOE’s plans for the Renewal schools since the program began in 2014. Despite the city’s promise to the state to focus their efforts on reducing class size in these struggling schools, only three of the Renewal schools capped class sizes last year at the appropriate levels designated in the city’s original Contract for Excellence plan — no more than 20 students per class in grades K-3, 23 in grades 4-8 and 25 in high school.

“Moreover, 70 percent of the Renewal schools continued to have maximum class sizes of 30 or more, and about half did not reduce class size by even one student per class. The DOE’s failure to take any demonstrable steps to reduce class sizes in the Renewal schools was cited in our class size complaint filed in July with the State Education Department, demanding that the CFE law be enforced…

“Instead of capping class sizes in these schools, the DOE spent about $40 million per year on consultants and bureaucrats to oversee the Renewal program, many of them with records marked by scandal and incompetence, as well as millions more on wrap-around services to create “community schools.” Though perhaps of value in themselves, these services do little to improve students’ opportunity to learn or teachers ability to teach…

“The contrast with an earlier NYC school reform effort is stark. When Rudy Crew headed DOE, he created a special program called the Chancellor’s district for the city’s lowest-performing schools. He consulted the research and used common sense by capping class sizes in these schools at no more than 20 students per class in K-3 and 25 in the higher grades, as well as taking other measures. The program was widely hailed as a success, but when Joel Klein took over as Chancellor, he disbanded the district. Lessons learned? Apparently none to this day– to the tragic detriment of NYC children.”

Categories Class size, Closing schools, New York City

White Billionaire Dan Loeb Accuses Black Deputy Mayor of NYC of Not Caring about Children of Color

By dianeravitch
November 22, 2017 //
48

White billionaire Dan Loeb likes to hector black people about their duty towards children who are black and brown. He is an exemplar of white privilege. He is chair of the board of Success Academy, which sifts and sorts the children it wants and tosses the others back to public schools. It has remarkably high scores because most of the children it accepts drop out or are pushed out.

Loeb likes to lecture black officials. He compared the black Democratic leader of the State Senate to the Ku Klux Klan and said she was worse.

Now it has been revealed that he has sent hectoring emails to a black deputy mayor in the DeBlasio administration, in a supercilious condescending effort to educate him about the superiority of charter schools. Loeb accused the deputy mayor of pulling strings to get his child into a popular neighborhood public middle school, a charge first leveled by Rupert Murdoch’s NY Post.

Loeb thinks the city should give Eva Moskowitz as many schools as she wants, rent-free. Loeb is contemptuous of the public schools that enroll 90% of the children. With his billions, Success Academy could pay its own way. It is a chain created for gifted children of color—willing to conform to SA rules without question—that dares to call itself a “model” for all public schools.

Dan Loeb has a problem with black adults. He likes to lecture them on their duties to their race. He is the personification of colonialism and paternalism. He is also a demonstration of why tax rates for the .01% are too low.

Sadly, the DeBlasio administration just gave Success Academy another 1,000 seats, expanding its little but well-funded empire.

The city public schools enroll 1.1 Million students. Success Academy will grow to 16,000 students.

And another billionaire, Julian Robertson, just gave the SA chain $20 Million to “share its lessons.”

Lessons: select the best, push out the rest.

I wish Success Academy would take responsibility for one very impoverished district in New York City—every student, no exceptions—and show everyone how to work its magic.

Categories Harlem Success Academy, New York City, Privatization, Racism

Mark Naison: The Genius of Luis Torres

By dianeravitch
November 20, 2017 //
43

Mark Naison salutes a principal in the Bronx, Luis Torres, who has overshadowed the Success Academy co-located in his Building because his school is more innovative, more dynamic than the test-taking machine at SA.

Mark calls him “a genius.”

“One of the most brilliant and important achievements of PS 55’s visionary Principal, Luis E Torres, is that through innovative programming and a relentless public relations campaign, he has totally overshadowed the Success Academy Charter School co-located in his building! Normally, Success Academy tries to humiliate and stigmatize the public schools it is co-located by pointing out how much better it’s performance is! Not at PS 55! Here, the action, innovation and excitement is all with the public school, whether it is the scientific and pedagogical innovations of the Green Bronx Machine, the school based agriculture program housed at the School; the full service Medical clinic Principal Torres has created; or the school’s championship step team and basketball team! People from all over the city and the nation come to see what Principal Torres has done; while Success Academy stays in the background.”

Was it competition that spurred Torres’ creativity? Or was he an exemplary principal who wanted the best for his students regardless of the competition?

Categories Charter Schools, Creativity, Education Reform, Innovation, New York City, Privatization

Dark Money Billionaires Lick Their Wounds after Defeat in Massachusetts and Look for New Targets

By dianeravitch
November 16, 2017 //
7

I was tempted to give an entire day to this post about the Dark Money group deceptively called Families for Excellent Schools.

The “families” are financiers, billionaires, and garden-variety multimillionaires. They enjoyed great success in New York, where they made an alliance with Governor Cuomo and launched a $6 Million TV buy to promote charter schools. Under pressure from Cuomo, the state legislature compelled the City of New York to provide free space to charter schools and to give Eva Moskowitz whatever she wanted.

Then, Families for Excellent Schools opened shop in Massachusetts, where they launched a multimillion dollar campaign to increase the number of charter schools.

Parents, teachers, the teachers unions, Rural and suburban communities turned against charter schools. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren joined the opponents of charter schools. Before the vote, the backers of Question 2 were revealed in the media (though not all of their names), and the referendum to expand the charter sector went down to a crashing defeat.

After the election, things went bad for FES.

“This September, the Massachusetts Office of Campaign and Political Finance fined Families for Excellent Schools a comparatively nominal $426,500. But it also forced the charter group to reveal its donors — a who’s who of Massachusetts’ top financiers, many of whom are allies of Gov. Charlie Baker — after it had promised them anonymity.”

In addition to the fine, FES was banned from the Bay State for four years.

One of the big donors to FES was the rightwing, anti-union Walton Family, which gave FES more than $13 Million between 2014 and 2026. The chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education gave FES nearly $500,000.

Now FES is trying to redefine itself.

Here is a suggestion: support the public schools that enroll nearly 90% of children. Open health clinics in and near schools. Invest in prenatal care for poor women. Lobby for higher taxes for the 1%.

Categories Accountability, Billionaires, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Dark Money, Democracy, Education Industry, Hoax, Massachusetts, New York City, Privatization

Arthur Goldstein: My Overcrowded School in New York City Needs a Plan: Help!

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2017 //
19

Arthur Goldstein teaches ESL at Frances Lewis High School in Queens, New York City.

His school was built to hold 2,400 students. It enrolls nearly 4,700 right now.

“How bad is it? Last week I counted 101 oversized classes. That’s better than the 268 I counted the first day, but hardly ideal. Ideal, and also mandated by union contract, by the way, is zero overcrowded classes. Every single teacher, as well as basic arithmetic, will tell you that the fewer students there are, the more attention individual teachers can give individual students.

“With new students walking in each and every day, and enrolling in the school, I’m not ready to celebrate just yet. The whole process fills me with something not remotely resembling optimism. I’ve counted classes of over 40 students. The city already has the highest class sizes in the state. Thirty-four, becoming the standard rather than the exception these days, is tough. Over 40 borders on impossible for a mere human, and is no help whatsoever for struggling students.”

“We have two rooms that are converted closets. They have no windows. Inside are indoor air conditioners and HEPA filters designed to make them more bearable. In practice, the A/C units are so loud that they preclude instruction. Some teachers turn them off whenever conversation takes place. Via inertia, they tend to remain off all the time. On sweltering days they must border on torture chambers…

“Just before we made our agreement with the city, when we were approaching the enrollment we now have, a reporter asked me what the breaking point was. I told her I didn’t know, but I never wanted to find out. Our agreement with the DOE enabled us to help make the number of students more closely suit the space in our building. A few years ago we had closer to 4,200 students with a goal of 3500.

“I’m a lowly teacher, and I saw this coming. It’s time for the important folks at Tweed to stop twiddling their thumbs and start earning their hefty salaries. Maybe their offices would be better used as classrooms. Or maybe they could rent space for us in one of the Marriotts.

“In fact, I’m told the city has a plan to reduce our enrollment by 100 students a year, beginning next year. That’s fine, but it’s too little too late. I don’t want to begrudge a single student a single place in a single school, but I also don’t want to find out what our breaking point is. I still don’t know what it is, and I still don’t want to know, but it doesn’t feel far off. If the city doesn’t want to know either, they’ll find us alternate space right now. Waiting is the worst idea and not an option.”

This isn’t right.

Charter schools are not crowded.

Why the crowding in public schools?

Categories Class size, New York City

William Doyle: Yes, There is a Finnish-Style Public Elementary School in New York

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2017 //
31

William Doyle was a Fulbright Scholar in Finland, and his child attended the local school. When Doyle returned to New Tork City, he went in search of a Finnish-style public school and found it. It is called The Earth School.

“My child now goes to PS 364, also known as the Earth School, a little-known gem of a public K-5 elementary in the East Village.

“The student population is some 50% black and Latino children. Half the students qualify for free and reduced priced lunch, and 23% of students receive special education services.

“If American teachers built a school, instead of politicians and bureaucrats, it would look a lot like this. Founded as an experimental program in 1992 by a group of New York City teachers who wanted, in the words of the school’s website, “to create a peaceful, nurturing place to stimulate learning in all realms of child development, intellectual, social, emotional and physical,” the Earth School is guided by the values of “hands-on exploration, an arts-rich curriculum, responsible stewardship of the Earth’s resources, harmonious resolution of conflict and parent-teacher partnership.”

“While “working rigorously in literacy and math” the students are encouraged “to explore, experiment, and even sometimes make a mess in the pursuit of learning.”

“The atmosphere of the school is one of warmth and safety. Teacher experience is prized here — the principal, Abbe Futterman, was one of the founding teachers of the school a quarter-century ago, and many other staff members have worked here for at least five or 10 years.

“Children at the school are assessed every day, not primarily by standardized tests — the majority of parents opt their kids out of state exams — but by certified, professional childhood educators who provide the ultimate in “personalized instruction”: the flesh-and-blood kind.

“Children at the school learn in part through play in the early years. They are encouraged to ask challenging questions and think for themselves. They are encouraged toto be creative and compassionate, and to make their own decisions. Children get unstructured, free-play outdoor recess in the big play yard most days.

“Like employees at Google who are given 20% of their time to devote to projects of their own choice, children are given a free afternoon every week to pursue their own self-chosen “passion projects.”

“In a striking innovation I especially appreciate, parents are actually invited into the school and directly into the classrooms for the morning drop-off, and given a room in the heart of the schoo, to relax, chat and plan much-needed school fundraisers.

“The school is not perfect, and it is not for everybody. If you’re looking for universal iPads, data walls, digital learning badges or boot-camp behavior modification in your child’s classroom, you won’t find them here.

“But somehow, this oasis of child-centered, evidence-based childhood education has managed to survive and flourish for a quarter-century in the heart of the New York City public school system.“

If it can happen in New York City, it can happen everywhere. If we ever get over our love affair with testing, anything is possible. Even a normal childhood.

Categories Childhood, New York City, Play, Real Education

Walton Family Foundation Planning to Move into Middle-Income Districts in New York City

By dianeravitch
September 27, 2017 //
17

Time for a friendly puff piece from Inside Philanthropy about one of the nation’s most malevolent foundations: The Walton Family Foundation.

Walton has two goals: privatizing education and eliminating teachers’ unions.

It pledged to spend $1 billion to achieve those aims.

It subsidizes many mainstream media, even NPR and Education Week, to make sure that it gets favorable coverage for its nefarious goals.

And now, Inside Philanthropy reports that the Waltons have decided to plunk a couple of million dollars down in New York City and spread the wealth so that some of it goes to traditional antagonists, like Teachers College, Columbia University.

Who funds Inside Philanthropy? I can’t tell from its website. I did notice an earlier article about the Waltons, which claimed that individual members of the Walton family were reaching out to what appear to be liberal organizations, like the Center for American Progress. The writer didn’t even think to ask whether the Walton family members were purchasing the voices and independence of those groups they subsidize.

The Waltons noticed the research about the importance of economic and social integration so they have decided to open seven new charter schools in New York City that will lure in middle-class kids. Thus, in the name of integration, they can both promote privatization of public dollars and do their union-busting at the same time. Why should only poor kids go to charters? Think of the possibilities as Walton millions open charters for middle-class kids too!

Give them points for cleverness.

The Waltons earned their place on this blog’s Wall of Shame, and there is no reason to see anything coming from a family of billionaires that fights unions in their own stores and fights paying a minimum wage and subsidizes the evil American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is devoted to destroying democracy.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, New York City, Privatization, Wall of Shame, Walton Foundation
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »