Archives for category: New York City
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UFT Leader Blames Mayor for Failure to Reach Deal on VAM

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2013 //
14

Apparently the mayor and the union in NYC did not reach a deal on teacher evaluation.

Too bad. VAM Is junk science. It should not be legislated or imposed anywhere.

Here is the UFT press release. Count on seeing the mayor blame the union for not accepting a lousy scheme that has no basis in evidence or experience.

STATEMENT BY UFT PRESIDENT MICHAEL MULGREW:

I am sorry to announce that I have notified Governor Cuomo and other state officials that — despite long nights of negotiation and a willingness on the part of teachers to meet the DOE halfway – the intransigence of the Bloomberg administration on key issues has made it impossible to reach agreement on a new teacher evaluation system.

It is particularly painful to make this announcement because last night our negotiators had reached agreement – but Mayor Bloomberg blew the deal up in the early hours today, and despite the involvement of state officials we could not put it back together.

Thousands of parents have gotten a lesson this week, as the Mayor’s “my way or the highway” approach has left thousands of schoolchildren stranded at curbs across the city by the school bus strike. That same stubborn attitude on the Mayor’s part now means that our schools will suffer a loss of millions of dollars in state aid.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, New York City, Teacher Evaluations

NYC Voters Want to End Mayoral Control of Schools

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2013 //
10

When Mayor Bloomberg was elected in 2001, his first priority was to gain control of the schools. At the time, the schools had a central board with seven members, two appointed by the mayor. Now the mayor appoints a majority and they serve at his pleasure.

In the last decade, the city’s schools have Ben subject to four major reorganizations and three chancellors. One of them lasted only 90 days, a record of sorts.

Now, voters and NYC public school parents oppose mayoral control. In a new poll, only 18% want the mayor to control them.

This is what the Quinnipiac poll showed:

“New York City’s next mayor should share control of the public schools, 63 percent of voters say, with 18 percent who want the mayor to keep control and 13 percent say the mayor should give up all control. Parents of children in public schools share those opinions. In fact, no group supports continuing mayoral control of the schools.

By a 53 – 35 percent margin, voter trust the teachers’ union more than Bloomberg to protect the interests of public school students.

Voters approve 45 – 34 percent of the job Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott is doing, his highest approval rating so far. Parents of public school children approve 51 – 34 percent.

“New Yorkers don’t like Bloomberg’s take-over of the schools. Most favor shared control,” Carroll said. “And never forget: it’s a labor town. Despite all the outcry against the teachers union, New Yorkers believe the union would do a better job protecting kids than Bloomberg.”

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Corporate Reformers, New York City

How Can Parents Fight School Closings?

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
14

Jersey Jazzman explains what is now obvious: School closings have a disparate impact on children and communities of color. Community schools are closed, destabilizing the neighborhood. Charter schools open, which choose and reject those they want or don’t want. Most charters don’t want the kids with the greatest needs.

A new parent group has formed in Newark, which has been a playground for the rich and famous, who move around Other People’s Children like pieces on a chess board. It has lodged a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

Will OCR find policies supported by the U.S. Secretary of Education discriminatory?

Let’s watch and see.

If that doesn’t happen, the parents should go to court. We still have an independent judiciary.

Categories Chicago, Closing schools, Detroit, New Jersey, New York City, Parents

NYC Parent Group Grades Michelle Rhee

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2013 //
44

A Néw York City parent organization has created a report card for Michelle Rhee. Good read.

Categories Accountability, New York City, Parent Groups, Parents, Rhee, Michelle

Jersey Jazzman Deconstructs Klein Record, Part 3

By dianeravitch
January 7, 2013 //
0

Jersey Jazzman decided to analyze Joel Klein’s claims of compelling progress in New York City during his tenure.

In this post, he takes a closer look at how New York City students fared on NAEP compared to other cities.

Some gains, but not as large as other, less heralded cities who took the same tests.

Categories Accountability, Klein, Joel, New York City

Peter Goodman: NYC Needs a Chancellor Who Can Lead

By dianeravitch
January 4, 2013 //
6

New York City has been swaddled in hype and spin for the past dozen years. The mayor gained control of the schools in 2002 and he appoints the chancellor. He also appoints a majority of the school board, who serve at his pleasure. He has appointed three chancellors in a row who were not educators.

Peter Goodman, who writes a blog called Ed in the Apple, says that the next mayor should appoint a chancellor whom educators can respect. NYC has been subjected to an endless parade of reforms, initiatives, accountability measures, and reorganizations. Disruption has been the only constant. Teachers keep on keeping on.

And next year, when Bloomberg’s third term ends, a new mayor will have to figure out how to put the pieces back together again.

Categories New York City

A Newspaper with a Split Personality

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2013 //
18

Two days ago, the New York Daily News published a beautiful tribute to the heroes of Sandy Hook, both the dead and the living. The newspaper called them its Heroes of the Year. The editorial was written with such eloquence and feeling that it brought me to tears.

I admit I was surprised by this editorial because the Daily News is known for its stridently anti-teacher, anti-union editorializing. (On the other hand, its reporters are unfailingly fair, and the newspaper publishes the amazing Juan Gonzalez, whose column has exposed numerous scandals.)

Today, the New York Daily News resumes its regular flaying of teachers and their union with one of the world’s dumbest opinion pieces. This one was written by a teacher who belongs to Educators4Excellence. She says she moved from Denver, where test scores count for 50% of educators’ evaluations, to NYC because of the Big Apple’s reputation for innovation. The Colorado law was written by a young state senator who is an alumnus of Teach for America.

Based on this teacher’s opinion piece, we may safely assume that Denver was not innovative enough to keep her there nor was the lure of its fabulous teacher evaluation program.

She says that she really, really wants to be a better teacher but she can’t be unless she is evaluated by her students’ test scores. Does she not know her students’ test scores now? This is puzzling indeed.

Please, someone, send this young woman the report by the National Academy of Education and the American Educational Research Association on the inaccuracy of value-added assessment. Or the statement by leading researchers published by the Economic Policy Institute.

For the uninformed, here are a few details about Educators4Excellence. The organization is two years old. In its first year, it had grants and contributions of $339,031.00. That’s pretty amazing for a start-up.

Even more amazing, E4E had receipts last year of $1,926,028. About one-quarter of the total came from the Gates Foundation.

I wish E4E would share its secrets about how a small group of teachers raised nearly $2.4 million in only two years. Inquiring minds want to know. Think what we could do to support public education if we had their fundraising secrets.

Its mission seems to be to demonstrate–in testimony before legislative bodies, advertisements, and opinion pieces like this one–that teachers want to be evaluated by test scores, and they don’t want tenure. And above all, don’t pay any attention to experienced teachers. Listen to the kids who have taught for a few months or a few years. They know best.

Categories Colorado, New York City, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations

Jersey Jazzman Deconstructs Joel Klein’s Record

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2013 //
7

Joel Klein served as Chancellor of the New York City public schools for eight years. He had no previous experience as an educator. But he came to the job with a determination to reinvent the system and wipe out whatever he found. He has often boasted of the dramatic gains that occurred under his leadership, at the same time that he claims that public education is in terrible shape due to teachers’ unions and tenure laws that protect incompetent teachers.

Here Jersey Jazzman begins a multi-part dissection of Klein’s record as leader in New York City.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Klein, Joel, New York City

‘Twas the Night Before Testing

By dianeravitch
December 25, 2012 //
3

Fred Smith worked for many years for the New York City Board of Education as a testing expert. Now he is a watchdog to guard against the misuse of tests. He writes opinion pieces and advises parent groups about the excesses of the testing industry. For non-New York City folk, Tisch is Merryl Tisch, the head of the New York State Board of Regents, which never sees the harm in adding more tests. The Tweed Courthouse is the building that houses the leaders of the NYC Department of Education. Klein is Joel Klein, former chancellor of the schools. Walcott is Dennis Walcott, current chancellor. Polakow-Suransky is the deputy chancellor, once a progressive, who now oversees the city’s obsessive testing regime and answers very question with the promise that the Common Core will bring Utopia and an end to all concerns.

The Night Before…

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the state

Tisch was telling the Regents that she couldn’t wait.

The new year was coming, surely bringing the best;

Every school overflowing with test after test.

The Common Core Standards would arrive any day,

Educational nirvana was well on its way.

And in the Tweed Courthouse joy was also in season.

Tests, yet more tests on top of tests were the reason.

Dasher Klein passed the torch to Walcott, the Dancer;

Year-round testing, K-12 was the obvious answer.

On Bloomberg’s A team was no reindeer named Cupid,

But Polakow-Suransky was left to play stupid,

Explaining how tests were mere all-purpose tools

For holding back kids, judging teachers and schools:

If test prep and drilling took the entire school day,

Such a sacrifice was but a small price to pay.

If History was lost and Music and Art,

Well, you know everybody has to do their part.

If kids are nervous and are sick or are stressed,

That’s kinda sad, but the state and Fed say we must test.

When tests make special need and ELL kids feel dumb and sob,

Again, blame the Fed, we’re only doing our job.

If teachers feel pressured and are tempted to cheat,

We’re sure that’s so rare it’s not worth a tweet.

When teachers are rated by tests that won’t let them teach,

Hmm. I’ll get back to you soon. That’s not part of my speech.

If teachers don’t add value and their names make the press,

I really don’t like that either, I must confess.

When teachers quit because they can’t stand the grinding,

We’ve not done a survey that proves what you’re finding.

And so on and so forth on this Christmas Eve.

Here’s a list to check twice of things I believe:

If children come first, then parents come second.

That’s a clear truth that never gets to be reckoned.

So Albany and Tweed, you must let in the sun;

You and the privateers are not Number 1.

And that goes for Pearson and all of the charters;

We’ll call you if we need you! How’s that for starters.

Don’t keep parents in the dark about testing you’ve planned.

And spring tests on our children with your high hand.

Inform us of field tests and all other exams;

We’re not here to be led around like little lambs.

Let us decide to opt out or give our consent,

If we think taking these tests is time that’s well spent.

Be sure to assess what’s important to measure,

The work kids can do and the growth that we treasure.

Not the bubble sheet tests sold by grubby green vendors

To the grinches on Tweed Street—education’s pretenders.

That’s the kind of New Year that I hope will be seen;

Merry Christmas to all and Happy 2013.

~fred

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Categories Common Core, New York, New York City, Testing

Inflated Claims of Charter Success in NYC

By dianeravitch
December 20, 2012 //
8

A regular reader in New York City is a data hound. He gets annoyed when he sees the media repeating things that are factually wrong. Recently he noticed the repetition of inflated claims of charter success. Here, he goes to the sources to set the record straight.

A recent series of articles in the New York Times’ SchoolBook site examined charter schools in New York City. While the series was more honest than most reporting on charter schools, charter school advocates were still able to get away with untruths and the media reported them as the truth.

Throughout the series charter advocates claimed to be preparing students for college. Does their rhetoric match their results? The data suggests not. The average SAT score for charter high school graduates in New York City was 430 in reading and 438 in math versus the national average of 497 in reading ad 514 in math. Less than a quarter of their graduates earned a passing score on the state exams in Trigonometry or Physics or Chemistry, and only 8.4% of their graduates earned a score of 3 or above on an AP exam. This would not strike anybody as a result that can be truthfully called “students prepared for college.”

In another story in the series Democracy Prep, a charter organization, acknowledged that their policy of holding many students back “drove some families away.” If only they copped to this fact when Mayor of New York City praised them for taking over and turning around a failing charter school. The truth is that they accomplished this by threatening to hold back about 100 of the 247 students in the school according to the Wall Street Journal and, as a result, only 70% of the students returned. The test scores then went up 30%, but they got rid of 30% of their struggling students. Not a great model for improving a school. Brings back memories of the Vietnam-era idea that it made sense to destroy villages in order to save them.

One KIPP school was said to have “a greater share of students with special needs than the citywide average.” The citywide average of students with special needs in middle schools is 18.8%. In the KIPP school, 18.6% of their students have special needs. In what should come as no surprise, the school has only 2.5% of students with the highest level of special needs as opposed to 9.1% in the average New York City middle school. So the truth is that the KIPP school actually has fewer students with special needs and a lot, lot fewer students with the highest special needs than the average city middle school. The KIPP school also accepts many, many fewer students with incoming math scores in the lowest third than the city middle school average (14.3% at KIPP vs. the 38.3% public middle school average). Believe it or not, this KIPP school is accepting more disadvantaged students than the other KIPP schools in New York City, so you can imagine what the average student profile at the other KIPP schools is like. It would appear despite the charter school claim to make “no excuses” they have plenty of excuses for not educating the same students as their public school colleagues.

Categories Charter Schools, New York City, Privatization
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