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Gary Rubinstein: How Did Success Academy Students Perform on New York Regents’ Exams?

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2016 //
16

Gary Rubinstein has been tracking the progress of Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy charter chain. They get very high test scores. They have small percentages of students with disabilities (only the mildest disabilities allowed) and students who are English language learners. They have high attrition rates. They have high suspension rates, even for children of 5 and 6. But the hedge fund managers love the schools because results are all that matter, not how they are obtained.

 

So Gary decided to find out how SA’s high school students performed on the state Regents exams.

 

That turned out to be a challenging quest.

 

Gary writes:

 

Reformers are all about ‘outcomes’ and that’s why they love Success Academy charter schools. Year after year Success Academy students outperform the rest of the state on the 3-8 ELA and math tests.

 

For sure if there was a hospital out there that was claiming to have the ability to cure Cancer or something like that, there would be all kinds of independent investigations and different tests to see if their claims were for real. But when it comes to education, we don’t see this so much.

 

The oldest Success Academy students are now in 10th grade. They have had two different cohorts of 8th graders take the specialized high school test for admission into one of the 8 specialized New York City high schools. Amazingly, none of those students made it into any of the specialized schools. That is pretty unusual that a group of students does so well on one standardized test but does so poorly on another. Aside from knowing that none of their 8th graders made the cut score on that test, there are no other details about their specific scores.

 

But there are other tests those students have taken, namely the New York State Regents exams. Most advanced students take the Algebra I test in 8th grade and then various Regents in 9th grade, maybe Geometry and also a few others like Living Environment, Earth Science, and Global History.

 

I had not heard about how they fared on the Regents exams for the past two years so I went over to the revamped New York State data site. I went to the page for the school, Success Academy Harlem I, but could not locate the Regent scores. I did take notice of their enrollment by grade, however.

 

The first Success Academy cohort began as kindergarteners in 2006-2007 ago with 83 kindergarteners and 73 first graders. That group of 73 first graders had been whittled down to 26 ninth graders last year and who knows how many of those 26 are now tenth graders this year. So they have lost about 2/3 of them so far so we’d expect the Success survivors to be pretty strong academically.

 

So how did the SA students fare on the Regents exams?

 

I won’t give you the answer. To learn more about Gary’s search for the SA high school students’ performance on the New York Regents exams, read his post.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Harlem Success Academy, New York, New York City, Privatization, Testing

New York Legislature Perplexed About Fixing Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
April 22, 2016 //
30

When New York State won Race to the Top funding, the explicit agreement among the city, state, and teachers’ union was that test scores would be 20% of teachers’ evaluation. When the deal was done, Governor Andrew Cuomo insisted that testing count for 40%.When the unions did not support his re-election in 2014, he raised the weight of testing to 50% and inserted that requirement into the budget.

 

So without any review of research, the teachers of New York were saddled with an onerous and phony evaluation system, based on the governor’s whim.

 

Now legislators are are uncertain what to do. The opt out movement is not going away, and it has caught their attention.

 

This article appeared in Politico Pro; it is behind a paywall. It was written by Keshia Clukey.

 

 
By KESHIA CLUKEY

 
“ALBANY — State lawmakers are divided over how to handle the law linking teacher and principal evaluations with school funding, with a deadline approaching for school districts to put an evaluation system in place.

 

“Some legislators are calling for the law to be re-written, while others think it should be repealed entirely.

 

“The original evaluation system was the governor’s ill-conceived plan that was passed last year and now is wreaking all kinds of chaos in state education,” said Assemblyman Anthony Brindisi, a Utica Democrat. “Everyone is scrambling right now trying to correct what was an ill-complete plan to begin with. Many of us knew that it was unworkable then, and it’s unworkable now.”

 

“Brindisi said he would like to see the law — which was put in place to weed out low-performing teachers at a time when the state was implementing new, higher standards for students — repealed.
“Teachers are not the problem with education in New York State right now,” he said. “It’s the inadequate funding…that is impacting students’ ability to achieve.”

 

“If the districts don’t put the new evaluation system in place, they risk losing any increase in state aid from the recently passed budget. That includes the funding allotted to restore the Gap Elimination Adjustment, a formula established during the 2008 recession that distributed cuts to school districts as the state grappled with deficits. The budget for the 2016-17 school year fully restored the $434 million left in the GEA.

 

“A spokeswoman for Gov. Andrew Cuomo Thursday backed the evaluation system saying it created a more accurate and fair measure of a teacher’s performance.

 

“While certain Common Core-aligned tests will not be counted for several years to address the botched Common Core implementation, the evaluation law remains intact,” Cuomo spokeswoman Dani Lever told POLITICO New York in an emailed statement. The state education department, she said, should work “with the districts to implement evaluation systems that can improve educational opportunity for our students instead of protecting the bureaucracy that has failed them for so long.”

 

“The evaluation system, which Cuomo pushed through in last year’s budget, relies heavily on the use of student scores on the state’s standardized, Common Core-aligned exams. The law also requires districts put new evaluation plans in place or risk losing state aid increases.

 

“The new system only created more contention among parents and teachers, who were already angered by the rollout of the Common Core learning standards. Last spring, a state-wide test opt-out movement blossomed, with more than 200,000 students refusing to take the state third- through eighth-grade exams.

 

“The state Board of Regents, tied by the prescriptive nature of the law, put in place a waiver system allowing districts to delay implementation of the new evaluation system through September 2016….”

 

“The Regents Monday questioned why districts should still have to put time, effort and money into putting in place a new system when it will be changed again in 2019-20.

 

“Democratic Assemblywoman Amy Paulin of Scarsdale agreed.

 

“It seems a little ridiculous to require the districts to change their [Annual Professional Performance Reviews] just to change them again,” said Paulin.”

 

 

 

Categories Education Reform, New York, Teacher Evaluations

Another Victory for the Opt Out Parents of Long Island: Kaminsky Likely Election Winner on Long Island

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2016 //
9

In a hotly contested election for the State Senate seat of convicted Dean Skelos, Todd Kaminsky appears to be the winner by a slim margin. The absentee ballots are not yet counted, but if Kaminsky’s lead holds up, he will be a member of the State Senate. StudentsFirst poured nearly $1.5 million into defeating him and trying to elect the candidate from the Republican machine. This election should make clear that StudentsFirst can be beaten and that they are a front for the Republican Party.

 

Kaminsky’s victory is a victory for the leaders of the Long Island opt out movement, who strongly supported his candidacy and the legislation he proposed as a member of the Assembly. Kaminsky wants to decouple test scores from teacher evaluation, which would reduce the absurd pressure to raise test scores and the time lost by the arts and other subjects. Parents want their children to have a well-rounded education, not a test-prep curriculum.

 

The parents of Long Island have become a political force to be reckoned with, and a shining example for parents across the nation. Parents united can never be defeated. Not even by big money.

 

 

Categories New York, Opt Out, Parents, Politics, Testing

Bruce Lederman: Successful Teachers Cannot Be Identified by Computer Algorithms

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2016 //
10

Bruce Lederman went to court to help his wife Sheri fight the rating she got from a flawed computer program in New York. Icky Sheri! No teacher could have paid for the legal bills required to fight the state. Bruce wrote this article in the main newspaper in Charlotte to warn North Carolinians to stop wasting time on computerized test-ASD teacher evaluations.

 

The Lederman case might turn it to be a landmark decision that puts an end to Arne Duncan’s worst idea: judging teachers by their students’ scores.

 

Why did Bruce publish this article in North Carolina? He and Sheri are appearing at the Network for Public Education annual conference in Raleigh to tell their story to activists from across the nation.

 

Wish you were here!

Categories Education Reform, Network for Public Education, Networkfor Public Education Action Fund, New York, North Carolina, Teacher Evaluations

Peter Greene: The Attack on Tenure in Minnesota

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2016 //
4

Peter Greene analyzed the lawsuit filed in Minnesota against teacher tenure, a copycat Vergara lawsuit.

 

The same arguments about lazy teachers, incompetent teachers, harm to minority children, etc. are offered in Minnesota, as they are in New York, and they are as groundless there as the court ruled they are in California today.

 

In California, the lawsuit was filed by “Students Matter,” an organization that consists of Silicon Valley zillionaire David Welch.

 

Greene finds a familiar lineup of groups and funders in Minnesota:

 

The anti-tenure lawsuit is funded by the usual suspects– the Partnership for Education Justice (funded by the Walton family and Eli Broad), and Students for Education Reform (an astroturf group used as a front by Education Reform Now, the lobbying brother of Democrats for Education Reform, an astroturf group of hedge funders which is also heavily funded by Broad and Walton)….

 

Look– there are plenty of legitimate conversations to be had about teacher job protections, hiring and firing practices, etc. But this lawsuit, like Vergara in California and Campbell Brown’s lawsuit in NY, is not an attempt to have that conversation. It’s simply an attempt to break the teachers’ union and destroy teacher job protections so that teaching staff costs can be kept low and teachers themselves can be cowed and bullied into silence and compliance.

 

Put another way, this is not remotely pro-student, and is strictly anti-teacher. It’s thick-sliced unvarnished baloney, and the fact that it is an attack on teachers is bad enough, but in attacking teachers, it also leaves unquestioned the attacks on student facilities, schools and resources, while trying to make conditions inside schools that much worse. It’s cynical, it’s destructive, and it’s just plain mean. Let’s hope this doesn’t drag over another few years to another lousy conclusion.

 

The “Partnership for Education Justice” is Campbell Brown’s organization, which rails against unions and tenure. It filed a lawsuit in New York as well. Brown has long contended that tenure and unions protect sexual predators in the schools, although state laws give grounds to remove sexual predators promptly.

Categories California, Minnesota, New York, Teacher Tenure

New York: Officials Considering Using SAT Scores and AP Exam Results to Evaluate Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2016 //
31

Here is one of the dumbest ideas of the 24-hour news cycle. In education these days, there are many dumb ideas advanced on a daily basis, so it is hard to pick just one as the dumbest. But this is it.

 

Officials at the New York State Education Department are considering using SAT scores and the results of AP tests to evaluate high school teachers. 

 

Since these scores, like all standardized test scores, are highly correlated with family income, those who teach in affluent districts will get the highest ratings, and those who teach students who live in poverty will get low ratings.

 

But also, the idea violates the basic rule of testing: Tests should be used only for the purpose for which they were designed. Neither the SAT nor the AP exams were designed to evaluate teachers.

 

Will the new leadership of the New York Board of Regents let a runaway officialdom at the State Education Department to push through this harebrained proposal?

Categories Accountability, New York, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

A Third Grade Teacher Reviews the ELA Test 

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2016 //
17

Once again, Pearson produced a test that was developmentally inappropriate, confusing, and an ordeal for children. 
This teacher in the New York City public schools sums up the flaws in the 2016 ELA tests here. The test reading passages were beyond the reading levels of most students. The subject matter and vocabulary was sometimes arcane.
The state commissioner MaryEllen Elia thought she could address the concerns of parents by making the test untimed. But instead of relieving stress, the children labored over the tests for hours. 
Parents will continue to opt out as long as this punitive regime remains in place. 

Categories Childhood, Education Reform, New York, Standardized Testing

New York: A Chance to Elect a State Senator Who Cares about People: Todd Kaminsky

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2016 //
5

If you live in the district on Long Island where there is an election for the vacated State Senate of Dean Skelos, who was convicted of corruption last year, I urge you to vote for Todd Kaminsky.

 

Kaminsky’s opponent in the race is receiving massive contributions from StudentsFirstNY and other supporters of charters and vouchers.

 

Kaminsky is a great friend of public schools and teachers. He has been endorsed by NYSAPE, the state’s leading opt out organization of parents and educators. As a member of the Assembly, he offered four bills to give permanent relief to students and teachers by decoupling test scores from teacher evaluations, by repealing the law that forces struggling schools into “receivership” (state takeover), shortening the time required for testing, and by creating career paths for students to get a diploma without passing five Regents exams.

 

Kaminsky was endorsed by the New York Times. This is what the Times said about this race:

 

In Mr. Skelos’s former district in Nassau County, the Democratic candidate is Todd Kaminsky, an assemblyman who, as a former federal prosecutor, seems miraculously well-suited for this moment. He understands Albany’s sick culture, having helped to convict many of the state’s most corrupt legislators before entering politics. One notable target was Pedro Espada Jr., the former senator, now in prison for stealing from a nonprofit organization in the Bronx. Mr. Kaminsky, who has also built a strong record advocating for Hurricane Sandy victims in Long Beach, his hometown, vows to be a full-time lawmaker with a keen focus on ethics.

 

Pretty much all you need to know about Mr. Kaminsky’s opponent, Christopher McGrath, is that he was handpicked for this race by Joseph Mondello, boss of the Nassau Republican Party, the tainted machine that spawned Mr. Skelos. Mr. McGrath, a genial lawyer who has never run for office before, talks about ethics reform, but it is impossible to take him seriously, given the team he is playing for. He opposes, for example, strictly limiting outside income, so that lawmakers would focus on serving the public interest, not their own. This should be a red flag to voters who remember that lucrative side careers were how both Mr. Skelos and Mr. Silver so easily abused their power and enriched themselves.

 

My endorsement is personal, from me, not the Network for Public Education, which does not endorse candidates in New York state.

 

I urge you to vote for Todd Kaminsky, and to encourage your friends to come out and vote.

 

 

Categories New York, Politics

A Test Pep Rally at a New York Elementary School

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2016 //
35

This video was posted on YouTube. It shows a pep rally to prepare children for 4, 6, even 8 hours of testing. The school is in an urban district, not Néw York City.

I wonder if the teachers know that the test was designed to “fail” the majority of children? Every year these Common Core tests have been administered, 65-70% of the children “failed.”

They didn’t fail because they are dumb or their teachers are ineffective, but because the test makers aligned the passing mark with NAEP “proficient,” which is out of reach for most children. The NAEP scores of American students have been reported state-by-state by “achievement levels” since 1992. No state but Massachusetts has had as much as 50% of students reach NAEP proficient. In other states, 30-40% of students have registered scores that reach NAEP proficient. This reflects 25 years of NAEP testing.

The children pouring their hearts into the rally don’t know that most are expected to fail. They don’t know that more than 90% of children with disabilities and English language learners have failed on previous Common Core tests. They don’t know that more than 80% of black and Hispanic students failed on previous tests.

They don’t know that the deck is stacked against them. The adults in Albany and D.C. Rigged the game against them.

Categories New York, Standardized Testing

Students in Bronx Charter School Protest Visit by Ted Cruz

By dianeravitch
April 7, 2016 //
16

Students at the Bronx Lighthouse College Preparatory Academy wrote a letter objecting to a visit by Republican Presidential candidate Ted Cruz, and the school canceled his visit.

 

Cruz, no doubt, hoped to use the charter school as a photo-op for his New York campaign.

 

The students, however, had other ideas.

 

They wrote:

 

 

A group of students will be leaving during 4th period, as act of civil disobedience in regards to the arrival of Ted Cruz to BLCPA. We have all considered the consequences of our actions and are willing to accept them. We respect you and all the staff at BLCPA as well as the expected guests. But we want you to understand that as passionate students, we have ideas and principles that should be heard and respected. This walk out isn’t a reflection of our discontent with BLCPA but our opportunity to stand up for our community and future. This walk out is taking place because we as students all share a common idea.

 

The presence of Ted Cruz and the ideas he stands for are offensive. His views are against ours and are actively working to harm us, our community, and the people we love. He is misogynistic, homophobic, and racist. He has used vulgar language, gestures, and profanity directed at a scholar and staff members, along with harassing and posing threats to staff and scholars according to the Disciplinary Referral slip. This is not to be taken kiddingly or as a joke. We are students who feel the need and right to not be passive to such disrespect.

 

One commenter said the students were censoring Cruz; others congratulated them. Civil disobedience is an honorable tradition. Cruz has many other opportunities to speak. Bravo to the students for not letting themselves be used to prop up the Cruz campaign. He needs to learn about what he disparagingly called “New York values.”

 

Last December, something similar happened to Rahm Emanuel, when he tried to use Urban Academy charter school as a prop to burnish his reputation after the bad publicity associated with the shooting of Laquan McDonald. Students interrupted him by repeatedly shouting “Sixteen shots.”

Categories New York, Politics, Resistance
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