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Is the New York Board of Regents Now Toast?

By dianeravitch
May 4, 2012 //
8

This is an interesting question: Is the New York Board of Regents now toast? Or is it actually chopped liver? Either way, it doesn’t matter. When Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed a commission and assigned the most consequential powers of the Regents to the commission, he neutered the Regents. Peter Goodman, a longtime observer of city and state politics, speculates on this question and leaves little doubt (http://mets2006.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/is-the-governor-firing-the-regents-andor-remaking-an-archaic-dysfunctional-education-policy-making-process-andor-running-for-the-white-house-in-2016-from-ed-in-the-apple/). Governor Cuomo has blatantly taken control of education policy, a function described in the state constitution as belonging to the duly appointed Regents.

Is this good or bad? I personally have never thought it problematic when someone says that a democratic body works slowly. That is the way democratic bodies are supposed to work. That is called checks and balances.. That is why we have not only an executive, but also a bicameral legislature and a judiciary system. Things done quickly and without thorough review are not necessarily better than those that must pass scrutiny.

I have not been a huge fan of the Regents, especially since they decided to go for Race to the Top funding and had the bad fortune to win. Various officials mistakenly thought that the $700 million from the Department of Education would help the state with its debt, but they didn’t realize that every bit of the $700 million had to be spent on Washington’s priorities, not New York State’s. And if New York’s experience is similar to that of other states, we will end up spending $2-3 billion because of having “won” $700 million, paying for the mandates and conditions to which we are bound.

And I am less than impressed by the authoritarian ways of the New York State Education Department. Our young commissioner, John King, who taught in charter schools, is certain that he knows more about how to reform schools and educate students than all the experienced principals and teachers in the state put together. I am too old to admire hubris. Pride goeth before you-know-what. King’s defensive response to Pineapplegate seemed immature, a harbinger of tough times ahead as the state begins imposing more of its mandates on the schools and districts.

But having said all that, I am nonetheless perturbed by the usurpation of the Regents’ authority by a commission composed largely of non-educators. All of them have day jobs. They are busy people. They will hold hearings. Who exactly is being asked to redesign education in New York State and what are their qualifications for doing so?

I dunno. It sometimes seems like education has become a hobby or a parlor game, and anyone can play.

Diane

Categories New York

Brave Principals

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2012 //
12

The principals of New York State are amazing. When the State Education Department began creating its “educator evaluation system,” it called together the principals and showed them what it was up to. It showed them a video of guys building a plane while it was flying. This was called, in self-congratulatory parlance, “building a plane in mid-air.” A few principals noticed that the guys building the exterior of the plane were wearing parachutes, but the passengers didn’t have parachutes. The principals realized that they, their staff, and their students were the passengers. The ones with the parachutes were the overseers at the New York State Education Department. For them, it was a lark, but the evaluation system they created was do-or-die for the hapless passengers.

The principals rose up in revolt, led by Carol Burris and Sean Feeney. They wrote a petition and circulated it to other principals. In a matter of weeks, they had the signatures of more than a third of the principals in the state. All objected to the test-score based evaluation, all objected to being the state’s guinea pigs, and all insisted that the state should do some pilots before imposing its best guess on the principals, teachers, and students of New York.

It took tremendous courage for principals to sign the petition. Sadly, they didn’t even get the support of the teachers’ unions of New York State. Indeed, NYSUT told its members not to sign. I can’t explain why. It made no sense to me. Why would teachers want to be judged by the arbitrary rise or fall of test scores.

The principals created a website, newyorkprincipals.org. Lots of people have signed their petition. I hope more do.

One of the brave principals wrote a letter to Commissioner John King yesterday. It was reported in the New York Times blog, Schoolbook. (http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/05/02/long-island-principal-decries-quality-of-state-exams/)

The principal, Sharon Fougner, said the following:

The tests contained:

Unfamiliar, untaught material

Deliberately misleading questions and answer choices

Ambiguous, poorly worded questions and answer choices

Inconsistent directions

Misplaced answer lines

Omitted directional cues

Multiple answers that could be correct

Inappropriately sized work spaces

Extended multiple steps (as many as 5 or 6) in single problems

Incomplete/missing information

Reading levels that are above grade

These errors by Pearson and the State Education Department have caused “confusion, anxiety, miscalculations, distraction, misuse of time, and fatigue.” The “inordinate length” of these exams, wrote the principal, is “beyond the stamina and attention span of eight to ten year olds.”

All of this together adds up to one single conclusion: The New York State Education Department is guilty of child abuse. Let me say it again, this time slowly: The New York State Education Department is guilty of child abuse. And incompetence.

Will anyone be accountable? Don’t hold your breath.

Diane

Categories New York, Principals, Teacher Evaluations

New York’s Bargain Basement Tests

By dianeravitch
April 28, 2012 //
13

When I read Gail Collins’ nifty column about the pineapple fiasco, I realized why New York ended up using a ridiculous story that was recycled from tests given in several other states. Wherever that pineapple story appeared on the state tests, the kids said it was a stupid story with stupid questions. Pearson didn’t listen and didn’t care. They just sent it on to the next state test. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/opinion/collins-a-very-pricey-pineapple.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general).

New York got the pineapple story because NY is paying Pearson only $32 million for five years of tests. Texas is paying Pearson $500 million for five years of tests. That means that Texas gets the shiny, new questions–the ones that make sense-and NY gets the recycled remainders, the ones that no one else wanted

You get what you pay for.

Diane

Categories New York, Testing

Take the Next Step, Governor Cuomo

By dianeravitch
April 26, 2012 //
1

I read in the Daily News this morning that Governor Cuomo will oppose the public release of teacher ratings (http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/teachers/gov-andrew-cuomo-approve-making-teacher-evaluations-public-article-1.1067628#ixzz1t98iGb9q). I am glad he realizes that teachers’ evaluation should not be published for all to see, but I wish he had taken the next step, which is to shield such evaluations as part of every teacher’s personnel file. No member of the public has the right to see the job evaluations of police or firefighters or corrections officers, yet their jobs are no less important than those of teachers.

The Governor’s position is that parents have a “right to know” the job evaluations of their child’s teacher. I disagree, and I’ll explain why.

The first reason that I think this is wrong is that the ratings themselves, as we learned when they were released by New York City, are inaccurate. Why should parents have the right to know a rating that is wrong? We saw examples of teachers who were assigned students they never taught; teachers who got ratings for years when they were on maternity leave. Given the city’s insistence that teachers be compared to other teachers and graded on a curve, half of the teachers fell in the bottom half of the curve, despite their qualities as teachers.

In one case, a teacher of gifted children was rated a very poor teacher—one of the worst in the city—because the children who started in her classroom gained only .05 of a point when the computer said they should have gained .07 of a point. This is not judgment, this is a mechanical calculation that is meaningless. Her principals says she is an excellent teacher but the computer knows best.

Then there was the New York Post’s “expose” of the woman they called “the worst teacher in the city.” The rankings showed her at the bottom. But the rankings did not explain that she teaches new immigrant students who cycle in and out of her classroom as they learn English. In other words, the rankings are bunk.

Aside from the question of accuracy—a very large question given the crudeness of the measures—there is an issue of practicality. What happens when the parents in a school learn that Ms. Smith has a ranking in the 12 percentile? Will they all go to the principal and ask to have their children transferred to a teacher with a higher ranking? If they do, will Ms. Jones have 65 children in her class, while Ms. Smith sits in an empty classroom? What will be their rankings next year? What will parents do with the inaccurate information the Governor wants them to have?

I suppose this will sort itself out and in time will come to mean nothing at all. One thing seems certain. This is not a method that will improve the teaching profession or improve education or give teachers the respect they now feel is sorely lacking.

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, New York, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

NY State Education Department is a Problem

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2012 //
3

Ten years ago, the New York State Education Department got embroiled in a very embarrassing scandal. A vigilant parent discovered that many passages on the Regents’ exam in English had been heavily rewritten to remove any references to race, religion, gender, sex, and a bunch of other topics. The parent’s discovery merited a front-page story in the New York Times and caused the State Commissioner of Education to promise that it would never happen again. (http://gothamschools.org/2012/04/23/states-promise-to-bar-edited-test-passages-repeats-2002-vow/)

Of course, it did happen again. On the very next administration of the Regents, there was a single stanza from Matthew Arnold’s famous poem, “Dover Beach,” not the full four stanzas of the poem. The last stanza begins, “Ah, love, let us be true to one another!” but the state changed it to, “Ah, friend, let us be true to one another.”

How soon they forget. Now with the Pineapple story, we learn that they never stopped meddling with the text of passages. They can’t help themselves. They think they can write better than Elie Wiesel, better than Isaac Bashevis Singer, better than Daniel Pinkwater.

I told Gotham Schools, trying to be charitable, that maybe they forgot the promise made a decade ago. But I was too kind. The NY SED just isn’t very smart. They send out tests with egregious errors, and the Commissioner blames the teachers who reviewed it. The math tests that will be given tomorrow has errors, but no one at SED will admit they are culpable. Stuff happen is what they say. Don’t blame us.

In 2010, the Regents commissioned a study of the state tests and independent experts said the tests had been dumbed down, the cut scores had been lowered in an effort to meet NCLB’s absurb target. So test scores across the state plummeted to reflect the reality that the SED had gamed the system. But was anyone at SED held accountable? Of course not.

The moral of the story: Accountability begins at the top.

Diane

Categories New York, Testing

Comment to a comment: why release test items?

By dianeravitch
April 24, 2012 //
9

A reader said it would be expensive to release all test items as the test publishers would have to spend lots more money creating new ones.

Actually there is another way to think about all this. Release all the items as a public bank of thousands of items. Each year’s tests can be reviewed and howlers would be omitted from future use. No student could possibly take or memorize every item. The bank of tens of thousands of items would make good fodder for test prep.

Let’s face it. The items are recycled now. It is a time-honored practice in NY state for teachers of Regents exams to use old versions of the Regents. Sometimes the old questions appear again–either in exactly the same form or so slightly modified that it doesn’t matter.

Why did Pearson charge NY $32 million for a lot of items that had been pulled out of its old testing bank, recycled from other states. The Pineapple story had been used and ridiculed in other states but Pearson didn’t retire it. Now they have pineapple juice on their corporate face. Why did Pearson charge Florida $250 million for a test that students took in two shifts, with no change in the items? Now Pearson will up their fee to pay themselves for test security.

At some point, the public will see all this as a great farce that takes money away from instruction and plows it into redundant and error-prone testing.

Diane

Categories New York, Pearson, Testing
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