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In New York, the Destruction Continues

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2012 //
7

New York state published a list of schools based on measures like test scores and graduation rates. At the top are “reward” schools. At the bottom are “priority” schools.

This is the amazing discovery. The schools that enroll mostly white and Asian students in affluent neighborhoods are doing a great job; they get a reward. The schools that enroll mostly black and Hispanic students in poor neighborhoods are doing a bad job; they are in line to get sanctions, interventions.

Bruce Baker did a statistical analysis, posted here. He called the state’s methods “junk science.”

New York City parent activist Leonie Haimson asked a question:

“Does anyone know if [state Commissioner of Education John] King looked at 5 year graduation rates as well as 4 year rates when putting together the focus/priority HS lists as he promised to do at the State Assembly hearings with the NCLB waivers?  

Many NYC high schools like Columbus etc. justifiably complained that they were being punished for taking in a lot of new immigrant kids who didn’t even speak English when entering the school.  Six years would be even better for schools with a lot of ELL kids.

 Of course nothing makes any sense here about “rewarding” schools that primarily are made up of wealthy white and Asian kids and/or require entrance exams so they can further replicate, like Anderson and Stuy.  Is that the federal/state answer to eliminating the achievement gap?”

Norm Scott, retired teacher, prolific blogger and lead producer of the film “The Inconvenient Truth Behind ‘Waiting for Superman’,” summed up this policy as “Insanity Reigns.” This policy, he writes, “will force the most struggling schools to focus resources on tests instead of doing what is necessary.”

Carol Burris reviewed the list and discovered only two charter schools in the state at the top and two at the bottom. She writes:

I have been perusing the Reward Schools List produced by New York State and was quite surprised to find how few charter schools are on it. There are two to be exact– Bronx Charter School of Excellence and Williamsburg Collegiate Charter School. To make the list, you must first be in good standing,  that is you must first make AYP. Certainly Ms. Moskowitz’s charters do that. See the link she posts here: http://www.successacademies.org/page.cfm?p=11

The schools cannot have growing gaps between groups and the performance index for those groups relative to comparative groups must be in the top 20%. Given that low SES students are compared with low SES students, I would imagine Success Academies do well, as indicated on their website. 

However, there is a final criteria to be a Reward school.  For the past two years, your students must show yearly growth that exceeds the median growth for students in the state. Growth scores are adjusted for poverty, ELL status and SWD status. You can find the requirements to be a high performing, reward school here: http://roundtheinkwell.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/rewardschoolsidentificationtechnicaldocumentation-2.pdf

 There are 53 New York City public schools on the Reward school list. Some are test ins, but others are neighborhood schools. Given all the hype about Success Charters and KIPP schools, wouldn’t you expect to see those schools on the list? Could it be that they keep kids at minimum proficiency but do not get them to grow?  I think these are questions worth asking.

 By the way, there were two charters on the priority schools list (the troubled schools list) as well.

Teacher Julie Cavanaugh teaches children who live in low-income housing projects. She wrote (on Norm Scott’s blog): “…cash rewards and options for opting out of some state regulations for schools that are doing great, which is correlated with population. More external pressure and “accountability” for schools that are not, which has to do w/ population, but no policies to actually help these kids…  as long as we are going by test scores the results of programs like these will be the same:  schools with highest concentrations of ELL/Special needs/and children living in poverty will be “low achieving” and schools with low poverty rates (or no poverty) and small numbers of ELLs and special needs students will be “high achieving.”

Here is the list of schools in New York state. Do your own analysis.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, New York

NCLB Waivers and Junk Science in New York

By dianeravitch
August 31, 2012 //
8

Bruce Baker has another brilliant analysis, this time gauging the validity of school ratings just released by the state of New York. A thumbnail sketch: New York is stiffing its neediest schools and districts.

Here are the takeaways:

1. The waiver process is illegal. It is not the prerogative of any federal official–not even a cabinet member–to decide to disregard a federal law and to substitute his own policies for the ones in the law. If the law stinks, as NCLB does, revise it. That’s the way our legal system works. Once the precedent is set, any future cabinet member may decide to change the laws to suit his or her fancy. That’s wrong.

2. New York state released a list of schools in relation to their “performance.”  Surprise, surprise! Here is what Baker discovered:

Notably, schools in “good standing” are lowest BY FAR in % of children qualified for free lunch, percent of children who are black, or Hispanic, and are also generally lower in percent of children who are limited in their English Language Proficiency. Race and poverty differences are particularly striking!

In short, the Obama/Duncan administration has given NY State officials license to experiment disproportionately on low income and minority children – or for that matter – simply close their schools. No attempt to actually legitimately parse “blame” or consider the possibility that the state itself might share in that blame.

AFTER ALL, NEW YORK STATE CONTINUES TO MAINTAIN ONE OF THE MOST REGRESSIVE STATE SCHOOL FINANCE SYSTEMS IN THE COUNTRY! 

The third takeaway is that the state violates its own funding formula and underfunds all schools, but especially the schools that enroll the neediest students.

“…the current New York State school foundation aid formula is hardly equitable or adequate for meeting the needs of children attending the state’s highest need districts. But to rub salt in the wound – FOR THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, THE GOVERNOR AND LEGISLATURE HAVE CHOSEN TO DISREGARD ENTIRELY THEIR OWN WOEFULLY INADEQUATE STATE AID FORMULA.

Even worse, when the Governor and Legislature have levied CUTS TO THAT FORMULA, they have levied those cuts such that they disproportionately cut more state aid per pupil from the higher need districts. As of 2011-12, some high need districts including the city of Albany had shortfalls in state funding (from what would be expected if the foundation formula was actually funded) that were greater than the total foundation aid they were actually receiving.“

Categories Budget Cuts, Cuomo, Andrew, Education Reform, Federal Waiver, New York, Race to the Top

The Ohio Voucher Program Grows

By dianeravitch
August 30, 2012 //
4

One of the model laws circulated and advocated by the rightwing group ALEC is a voucher program for students with special needs.

ALEC, you may know, represents many of our nation’s major corporations. It has about 2,000 conservative state legislators as members and a few hundred corporate sponsors. ALEC crafted the “Stand Your Ground” law that the shooter invoked when he killed Trayvon Martin last spring in Florida. ALEC also crafted model legislation for voter ID laws that are characterized by its critics as voter suppression laws.

In education, ALEC has written draft legislation for vouchers for all, vouchers for special needs, charters, alternative certification, test-based teacher evaluation, and anything else they could think of to transfer public money to private hands and to undermine the teaching profession.

Ohio recently expanded its statewide voucher program, which was written originally for students with autism; now it is for students with disabilities of other kinds. This is part of the ALEC game plan to erode public support for public education. Read the article from Ohio. It says that the private schools are not accepting the students with the greatest need, and that some students who never attended public schools are now getting public subsidy. All combine to reduce public funding to public schools.

The Florida voucher plan for students with disabilities is called the McKay Scholarship program. It was embroiled in controversy when an investigative reporter discovered that the program was unsupervised, that some participating schools had no curriculum, no educational program and were run by unqualified people. Which raises the question of whether the point of the program is to help the children or to dismantle public education.

New York state has a similar program for pre-K special education students. Although it is not called a voucher program, it is almost completely privatized (and it predates ALEC’s agenda). The New York State Comptroller recently released an audit showing the program to be rife with fraud, inflated enrollments, corruption, etc.  It is also the most expensive program for pre-K special education in the nation.

The private sector does not have all the answers. Neither does the public sector. Any program using public money should be carefully, rigorously supervised and regulated, especially when children are involved.

 

Categories ALEC, Education Reform, Florida, New York, Ohio, Special Education, Vouchers

Does New York State Welcome Performance Assessments?

By dianeravitch
August 29, 2012 //
4

Jennifer Borgioli, whom I met via Twitter and know as DataDiva, has sent me a post about performance assessments in New York. She is responding to an earlier post about the New York Performance Standards Consortium, which has thus far not gotten permission form the state to add 19 schools to its group. The Consortium many years ago won an exemption from all state standardized testing (except for the Regents ELA exam) and relies instead of performance assessments judged by teachers and others. The article cited in the earlier post indicated that the state was reluctant to allow other schools to escape the state testing regime, which Jennifer does not contest. She believes that the state is open to performance assessment within its testing regime.

In your blog, your last paragraph seemed to suggest that NYS wants to discourage the use of performance-based tasks when in fact, I don’t think that’s the case. I cannot speak to the reasons why there is hesitation to approve more schools for performance-based alternatives to Regents but I do know there is room for performance-based tasks for all schools in New York.  In effect, there are two types of performance tasks. The large-scale, long-term tasks as you described (portfolio assessments, etc.) that are used for exit criteria and reflect a deep understanding of the content and skills in a given domain or topic and then there are small-scale, shorter on-demand performance tasks that require students to follow a series of steps or tasks in order to generate a product or engage in a performance.

The NYS APPR guidance documents reference performance-tasks at least twice:

F5. We want to use locally‐developed performance tasks for a variety of grades and subjects that would be assessed using a rubric. Is that allowable?

Subject to local negotiation, locally‐developed performance tasks scored by a rubric could be used as a district, regional, or BOCES developed assessment wherever locally developed assessments are allowed as either a comparable growth measure or a locally selected measure provided that such assessments are rigorous and comparable as described above.

G4. Does vested interest rule apply to pre‐tests given to establish a baseline for a SLO?

To the extent practicable, districts or BOCES should ensure that any assessments or measures, including those used for performance‐based or performance task assessments that are used to establish a baseline for student growth are not disseminated to students before administration and that teachers and principals do not have a vested interest in the outcome of the assessments they score

In a number of regions across the state, teachers are working together to design performance-tasks that get to the most critical learning of their content area or course as determined by the New York State Learning Standards in a way that is authentic as possible. These are not large scale tasks full of student choice and authentic assessment but neither are they traditional, multiple choice tests. Their use reflects a commitment by the participating schools to minimize the impact of APPR regulations on students. These assessments are designed by classroom teachers and will be scored by them using rubrics they create. Though we do not have evidence of reliability yet, that will come after the administration of the pre-assessments and inter-rater reliability analysis this fall, there is every reason to believe that these assessments will generate results as consistent as those generated by a machine-scored, publisher-created multiple choice test.  

It’s a small move but it’s a start.

Categories Education Reform, New York, Testing

Future Meetings of the Cuomo Commission

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
5

Educators of New York state. Make time to attend a meeting of the Cuomo Commission. As reported here, the meetings in New York City and Buffalo were stacked with charter school advocates, TFA, and StudentsFirst. But as principal Carol Burris notes below, it is important that you are there. Sign up to speak. Who knows, you might be called to testify. Be there to witness. The future of the education profession and public education in New York is on the table.

Carol Burris writes:

Please attend future hearings. Although they provide the opportunity to testify, I cannot tell you based on my experience, that the selection process is fair.  I can tell you, however, it is worth the try AND it is worth being present.  Even if you do not speak, be there.  If you are allowed to testify, speak up for the profession that means so much to you and to the schools that mean so much to your children. 
 
Here is the schedule
 

 

 

 

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, Education Reform, New York, Principals, Privatization, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations

Another Way to Take a Stand

By dianeravitch
August 8, 2012 //
2

A group of principals in Long Island, New York, went to training sessions about the state’s evolving educator evaluation plan. When they realized that teachers would be graded on a curve and that half would be rated ineffective by design, they were horrified. When they realized that teachers who didn’t produce higher test scores would be rated ineffective no matter how highly they were rated by their principal, they were outraged.

And they wrote a petition to the State Education Department asking for a trial of this potentially injurious system.

Please sign their petition, no matter where you live:

1508 NY principals …over 1/3 of NYS, signed a letter, a detailed research based letter, against evaluating teachers by test scores. A few thousand teachers signed too. How about 1/3 of NY teachers signing?
Www.Newyorkprincipals.org

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, New York, Principals, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Another Phony Cuomo Commission Hearing

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
1

The Cuomo Commission held a “hearing” in Buffalo too.

And once again, pride of place went to charter school leaders and their supporters.

Charters enroll about 5% of the students in New York state.

Why does Governor Cuomo think they should own the agenda?

Why not  listen to public school principals and teachers?

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, New York

Andrew Cuomo, No Friend to Public Education

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
22

Principal Carol Burris is one of the co-founders of the Long Island principals’ revolt against high-stakes testing. When she heard that Governor Cuomo’s commission would be holding hearings in New York City, she joined up with fellow principal Harry Leonardatos and they headed for the hearings.

Read their gripping account of the proceedings, where the deck was stacked in favor of the corporate agenda.

They were among the first to register, but soon discovered that they would not be allowed to speak.

Who was allowed to speak? Campbell Brown, an ex-anchor for CNN who spoke about sex abuse in the schools (her husband is on the board of Rhee’s StudentsFirst, which she did not disclose); the TFA executive director for New York City; someone from the New Teacher Project (founded by Michelle Rhee); an 18-month-veteran of teaching who is now heading a Gates-funded group of young teachers who oppose tenure and seniority. “…they all represented organizations that embraced the governor’s policies, and they all advocated for the following three policies: state imposition of teacher evaluation systems if local negotiations are not successful, elimination of contractually guaranteed pay increases, and the use of test scores in educator evaluations.”

Although the two principals were told that the last 30 minutes would be reserved for those who signed up first–which they had–they were not allowed to testify. Instead the commission heard from the leader of Rhee’s StudentsFirst in New York. They thought they would be allowed to testify against the NY system of grading teachers on a bell curve, which guarantees that half will be found “ineffective.”

Please read this article. It is alarming. Governor Cuomo and his commission have aligned themselves with the enemies of public education.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Cuomo, Andrew, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Merit pay, New York, Principals, Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

Arne Duncan Says…

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
42

I hesitate to inflict this interview on my readers. You trust me to inform you and even on occasion to make you laugh with a good satire or parody. I try to shield you from pain and double-speak.

But I must share this with you.

Here is the latest interview with the Secretary of Education. It begins with a stomach-turning but accurate admission that education is the one thing that President Obama and the teacher-bashing governor of New Jersey Chris Christie agree on. How’s that for a reassuring opening?

When asked why the evidence for the reforms he is pushing seems weak, Duncan replies it is because they are new and therefore don’t have a 50-year track record. Oh, please, they don’t have any track record at all, yet he is pushing these untested, invalid measures on schools across the nation. Of course, everyone wants great teachers and great principals and great schools, but nothing he is doing is producing those results.

The questioner gently asks why there were no “dramatic” improvements in New York City or Washington, D.C. or Chicago, where Duncan was in charge for eight years. The answer is so vague as to be indecipherable. Ten years of Duncan-style reform in New York City, six years in D.C., twelve years in Chicago, and nothing to show for it. Just have faith! Believe!

I can’t go on.

Maybe you can.

But isn’t it nice to know that Arne Duncan and Chris Christie and all the rightwing governors are on the same page about how to deal with teachers and principals and schools and education?

 

 

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Merit pay, New Jersey, New York, Teacher Evaluations, US Education

A Field Report on New York’s Educator Evaluation System

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2012 //
23

The principals of New York State have been up in arms in opposition to the “educator evaluation” system that the New York State  Education Department has designed. More than one-third of the principals across the state have bravely signed a petition in protest.

The reason for the evaluation system is that New York had the misfortune to “win” Race to the Top. The $700 million did not go to schools for urgent needs, but to meet the mandates imposed by the U.S. Department of Education. One costly mandate requires the state to evaluate principals and teachers, based in part on test scores. Despite the fact that no state or district has figured out how this will work or how it will improve instruction, New York is plowing ahead.

A reader describes his views of this new system:

Earlier this week, I spent two days along with 60 other school administrators (Superintendents and Principals) from the area districts to learn how to become a “Lead Evaluator” for the implementation of the new APPR (Annual Professional Performance Review).
This new law requires district administrators to conduct multiple evaluations on every teacher (60% of the score), then add the teachers’ students’ results (20%) on flawed state assessments (remember the Pineapple story?), and another 20% on the results from local assessments. This score will give each teacher a score based on a 100-point scale and determine whether or not they are “highly effective, effective, developing, or ineffective”. The state will be providing the scores to the districts because they are “secured tests”. Teachers will not be able to glean significant data from the tests to see how they can improve their instructional practice, because the state will not provide schools with the test questions to allow for detailed and accurate item analysis.
It is not difficult to see where this train is going. Teachers will be vying for students that would be considered to have a positive impact on their APPR score and praying that students deemed to have a negative impact will be placed in one of their colleague’s classes. When the scores of individual teachers are made public (parents will be allowed access to their child’s teacher’s score and will assuredly end up on Facebook before they hit the parking lot), they will be demanding that their child be placed with the teacher with the highest score. Teachers will be pitted against other teachers, students, and parents.
This system was put in place allegedly to make it easier to fire ineffective teachers. However, if one looks at the law, it is now much more onerous to terminate an ineffective teacher than it was previously. The law was also put in place in order to be a contender for the infamous Race To the Top (RTtT) money. NYSUT supported the initiative assuming it would infuse more money into a system that desperately needs it. However, the money did not go to school districts to offset the massive decreases in state aid, but rather to the BOCES across the state in order to implement the new APPR.
Mr. Cuomo and Dr. King have cited many “facts” leading up to these massive changes. One example they have used is: New York schools are “Number 1 in spending but 34 in terms of results”. However, this statistic has been discredited. Education Week, which publishes the annual “Quality Counts” guide, ranked New York State No. 2 in the nation in a comprehensive analysis of policy and performance. Other statistics used for US schools in comparison to other industrialized nations have us ranked quite low. For example, scores from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that US students ranked 14th in reading, 17th in science and 25th in math out of 34 countries. However, when one digs deeper, the “facts” change. Dr. Gerald N. Tirozzi, Executive Director from the National Association of Secondary School Principals dug deeper and found that in order to get a more accurate assessment of the performance of U.S. students would be to compare the scores of American schools with comparable poverty rates to those of other countries. He found that Schools in the United States with less than a 10% poverty rate had a PISA score of 551. When compared to the ten countries with similar poverty numbers, that score ranked first. That’s right folks, the United States ranked FIRST! Finland was second. As Mark Twain once said, “There are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies, and statistics.”As an educator for 20 years, I am proud of our schools and our teachers. They work hard and deserve our respect. Teachers and students should never be reduced to a number. It is bad for education and it is bad for our nation. APPR as it now stands should be repealed. For the sake of our children, please contact your state Assemblyman or Assemblywoman to get rid of this law. Our children deserve better.
Categories Accountability, Education Reform, New York, Principals, Race to the Top
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