Archives for category: NYC
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Is This “Irreplaceable” Teacher a Bitch?

By dianeravitch
November 13, 2012 //
6

This post was written by a young teacher in New York City. A law school graduate, she teaches special education in the Bronx in one of he city’s poorest neighborhoods. She requested anonymity, for obvious reasons.

She asks: Is it worse to be called a bitch (by a student) or to be treated like one (by politicians and bureaucrats)?

She is what The New Teacher Project would call an “irreplaceable.” When the New York City Department of Education released the names and ratings of thousands of teachers earlier this year, she was rated 99%. She was not at all happy. She wrote a protest against the whole rating system (which organizations like TNTP love). She knew that this year she might be on top, and next year at the bottom. And she knew that many of her colleagues with low ratings were hardworking teachers who did not deserve to be humiliated. When people wrote to congratulate her, she thanked them and said the ratings meant nothing.

Her new post expresses her outrage towards the system and the politicians who shortchange teachers and students.

She asks, Why do teachers have to buy their own supplies? Why must they beg or borrow the most basic resources?

She understands why a student may call her names, but why does society?

Categories Budget Cuts, NYC, Special Education, Teacher Evaluations

Don’t Forget the Hurricane Victims

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2012 //
7

Robert Pondiscio writes movingly about a school that was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy.

PS 333 was a Core Knowledge school, exemplary in many respects.

It was unprotected from the ferocity of the storm surge.

It had 578 students before the storm. It has 30 or so now, and they have been relocated to a school more than an hour and a half away.

The principal is distraught, while the city administration pretends that what matters most is to get back to the routines of preparing for the next test:

With the loss of instructional time, the lack of continuity, and the disruption wrought by Sandy, [principal Angela] Logan fears it will be a lost school year for many of her children, most of whom can ill afford it.  “How do you hold them accountable to sit there and learn when [the children are thinking] ‘I don’t have a house. When I go back home it’s freezing cold?’ Those kids are going to suffer,” she says.  Even after the all-clear is given and the school safe to occupy, there’s no way to know how many students will return. Some, perhaps most of the low-income families served by Logan’s school, will simply melt into the neighborhoods to which they’ve moved.  The scale of the dislocation is immense:  P.S. 333 is one of 11 schools in the Rockaways put out of commission by Sandy, and the smallest of them.  “No one’s talking about that right now.  What’s the reality for the kids that were on that Peninsula?”  She doesn’t know.

Logan is openly frustrated with city officials trying to give the impression that things are getting back to normal in New York City’s schools.  “You want to make it look good, but you’re not thinking about these kids,” she says.  That said, New York City is relocating more schools than Oklahoma City or Portland, Oregon has in total.

Categories Education Reform, NYC

The Lowdown on $tudents for Educational Reform

By dianeravitch
November 11, 2012 //
17

EduShyster has done the research and digging on Students for Educational Reform that has thus far eluded mainstream journalists.

(This should not be surprising since few journalists have paid much attention to Democrats for Education Reform, the Wall Street hedge fund managers group, which is able to direct millions of dollars to state and local political elections from a small number of very rich donors. Typically DFER is described in news stories as just another Democratic advocacy group interested in education reform rather than as a small group of billionaires who want to promote privatization of public education.)

EduShyster gives us insight into their $uccess, their board, their ties to the financial elites, and the current focus of their activities (demanding tougher teacher evaluations, a curious preoccupation for university students).

She invites readers to offer a slogan for them. One suggestion she offers: “Pawns of billionaires.”

Maybe you can think of others.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, NYC, Students, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

“Brooklyn Castle” on the Jon Stewart “Daily Show”

By dianeravitch
November 9, 2012 //
9

Jon Stewart is public education’s best friend in the media.

Maybe because his mother was a public school teacher.

Of course.

He interviewed the director/producer of the wonderful film “Brooklyn Castle” and one of the lead students on the school’s chess team.

It will be  your heart good to hear the student, Pobo, talk about how great his teachers were and why people shouldn’t pay any attention to the rating systems that label them “bad.”

He says, “I LOVED my teachers!”

Stewart asked why New York City was willing to cut the funding for the school’s championship chess team while not cutting the amount of standardized testing.

We all wonder the same thing.

Categories Budget Cuts, Education Reform, NYC

See “Brooklyn Castle,” an Inspiring Documentary About Real Kids in a Real School

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2012 //
7

Tonight the director/producer of “Brooklyn Castle”–Katie Dellamaggiore–will be a guest on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central. One of the stars of the film, Pobo Efekoro will join her.

The documentary is about an amazing middle-school chess team in an inner-city school in Brooklyn that wins one title after another in national championships.

If “Waiting for Superman” and “Won’t Back Down” left a bad taste, see this film. It will remind you of how wonderful our students, our teachers, and our public schools can be.

And it shows dedicated parents and the pain of budget cuts to a fine program.

This is a feel-good film, and nothing in it is make-believe.

Find a hedge-fund manager or a high-tech executive or a foundation leader and insist that they watch with you.

See the trailer at the website here:

 http://www.brooklyncastle.com/

 
 

BROOKLYN CASTLE is now playing at the following theaters:

• New York, NY (Elinor Bunin Film Center – Lincoln Center)

• New York, NY (Landmark Sunshine)

• Los Angeles, CA (The Landmark)

• Pasadena, CA (Pasadena Playhouse)

• Encino, CA (Laemmle Playhouse)

• Irvine, CA (University Town Center)

• Chicago, IL (Landmark Century)

• Washington, DC (Landmark E Street)

• Portland, OR (Fox Tower)

• Atlanta, GA (Tara 4)

• Minneapolis, MN (Landmark Edina)

• Cleveland, OH (Cedar Lee Theatre)

• Austin, TX (Arbor 8)

• Charlotte, NC (Park Terrace)

• Denver, CO (Chez Artiste)

(check local theaters as today is the last day in a few of them)

BROOKLYN CASTLE opens tomorrow at the following theaters:

• Hollywood, CA (Chinese Theatre)

• Claremont, CA (Laemmle Claremont 5)

• Santa Monica, CA (Laemmle Monica 4)
• Las Vegas, NV (Regal Village Square)
• Knoxville, TN (Downtown West Cinema 8)

• Charlottesville, VA (Regal Downtown Mall 6)

• Seattle, WA (Harvard Exit Theatre)

 
Next week the film is scheduled to open in Boston, Philadelphia and more cities.
 
Updates on the theatrical release schedule will be posted here:
 
 
Categories NYC, Parents, Students, Teachers and Teaching

Did NYC Close the Achievement Gap in a Decade of Mayoral Control?

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2012 //
7

Aaron Pallas of Teachers College asks the question and shows that the answer is no.

Despite a decade of relentless emphasis on testing, accountability and choice, the achievement gap has barely budged.

Pallas writes:

“My conclusion? There’s been no shrinkage in the test score gap between 2006 and 2012, a period in which many of Bloomberg and Klein’s reforms have begun to reach maturity. If the only purpose of their reforms were to close the achievement gap, this flat-lining would indicate that the reforms were dead on arrival.

“That’s probably too harsh a verdict for a complex package of reforms, some of which may prove beneficial in the long run. And the point here is not a referendum on what’s happened in New York City as much as it is a demonstration that racial/ethnic group differences in test performance are stubborn, even in the face of efforts intended to minimize them.

“We are about to enter an era with a new set of Common Core curricular standards and new assessments designed to measure students’ mastery of those standards. The combination of a more challenging set of standards, a lag in the development of curriculum and the professional development that teachers need to teach to those standards, and assessments that are widely proclaimed to be more difficult than existing NCLB-style tests will likely result in plummeting rates of student proficiency in English and mathematics in the near future. Significant closure of the achievement gap may be beyond the grasp of educators who will be struggling simply to keep their heads above water in the next five years.”

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Education Reform, Klein, Joel, NYC, Testing

This Is What the Public Library Does in a Crisis

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2012 //
9

I recently met Tony Marx, the president of the New York Public Library (and former President of Amherst College).

As you know, New York City is in the midst of a terrible crisis following Hurricane Sandy. Hundreds of thousands of people are without heat, hot water, electricity, or food.

Guess where many are finding refuge?

I received the following email from Tony Marx just minutes ago:

“I am here at Mid-Manhattan [a major branch library] which like 61 branches is open for second day despite subway problems and no schools. You should see this scene: every chair and inch of floor and rug being used by rich and poor, black and white, young and old New yorkers to read and write and work. Admin staff volunteering to fill in for those who can’t get to work. Amazing. We did have to cancel our Lions gala as we don’t have electricity in the main building but we can donate all the food to folks in Staten Island, where the news is getting more grim, I am told.”

The Lions gala is the library’s biggest annual fund-raiser. How wonderful that the food that was destined for that lavish event will feed people in Staten Island, which was the borough that was hardest hit by the hurricane.

Just a reminder of how valuable our public libraries are.

Categories NYC

NYC’s Disrespect for Its Teachers and Principals

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2012 //
13

A reader in NYC writes:

Diane,

People in Staten Island, which is the borough with the greatest loss of life, is getting very little assistance compared to lower Manhattan. Some areas are not getting food or water. Those people are desperate. When Bloomberg said yesterday that temps in the low 50s is not cold, I wanted to slap him through the TV since this is the same man who had a window-sized air conditioner installed in his SUV so the interior can remain cool during the summer when it’s parked outside City Hall. But the marathon will go on. I suppose if people from around the world and other parts of the US are already here, then maybe it should. But I worry for the people in our city who need the assistance of the police department. Looting is on the rise.

But I think you should know how heartless the DoE is being. Today teachers are to report back to work. The fear is that it’s for useless PD which I hope is not the case. But many are without gas and transit is still running slowly and the crowds are huge.

So what did Walcott do??? Late last night, when most people are asleep or not checking their DoE email, he announced a 10am arrival time.. I am sure the majority of teachers did not see that notice. This late start time could have been announced yesterday or the day before. It made perfect sense given the overcrowding on highways, buses and trains. The lack of common courtesy and respect for teachers is so evident. I wonder if Walcott informed his own daughter??? Walcott does not act without the mayor’s permission since mayoral control. This was a deliberate slap in the face to teachers, many of whom have lost property, living without hot water and electricity, or stuck in their high-rise apartments. Many of whom cannot find enough gas to get them to and from work. There was nothing to “prepare” for. Teachers know how to conduct a lesson on a hurricane and its aftermath. I just hope the teachers who show up today are given the courtesy to decide for themselves what needs to be done since report cards are soon due, along with any other paperwork for the ending of the first marking period, parent-teacher conferences, and of course preparing their classroom for November which usually requires new bulletin boards.

I sincerely hope they take the time to find out if any other staff or members of their school community need assistance and what they can do to help. Common Core and testing be damned!!

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Bloomberg, Michael, NYC

Should NYC Marathon Proceed?

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2012 //
15

Mayor Bloomberg told President Obama not to visit NYC because he would be a distraction.

But he has given approval to the annual NYC marathon, which attracts thousands of runners from around the world and requires hundreds of police to supervise.

The borough president of Manhattan Scott Stringer has called for the cancellation of the marathon.

Justin Wedes of Occupy Wall Street has an even better idea. How about directing the energy of he runners to bring relief supplies to the communities that are suffering?

This is the message Justin sent on the NYC Parent website to Scott Stringer:

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer calls on Mayor Bloomberg to cancel the #NYCMarathon http://ow.ly/eY98f

Patrick — our hurricane relief coalition is interested in working with orgs/the city to develop an alternative Sandy Marathon of relief support that will visit most affected neighborhoods and get support/aid to them. Could you put me in touch with any interested parties?

-justin

—
Justin Wedes
Educator & Activist
Co-principal, Paul Robeson Freedom School

Twitter: @FreedomSchoolBK
Facebook: facebook.com/Education4Liberation
Web: http://paulrobesonfreedomschool.org/

Categories NYC

Where Should We Look for School Leaders?

By dianeravitch
November 2, 2012 //
1

Andrea Gabor asks whether Brockton High will do a better job in the selection of a successor than Mayor Bloomberg.

Brockton High is a large high school in Massachusetts that successfully turned around its performance through teamwork and coloration, not punishment, closing and privatization.

Now that the principal is retiring, Gabor hopes the successor will be a knowledgeable insider, not a “star” intent on rocking the boat.

Gabor contrasts the steady progress at Brockton High with the upheavals in New York City, where the mayor replaced Joel Klein with a novice who failed.

I question her claim that Klein and Bloomberg “decentralized” decision-making. For the past decade, every important decision in New York City regarding education policy has been made in City Hall, not the schools.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, NYC
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »