The Closing of Metropolitan Corporate Academy

Good comment from Leonie:
Must read- series about the shockingly awful conditions at one Brooklyn HS that the DOE wants to close; placed in a former Civil War infirmary, without a library, textbooks, even water fountains.



Unfortunately, the administration’s recklessness, broken promises, and lack of accountability as regards this school is typical of its approach when it comes to education reform.



This is just the kind of series that the NY Times should be running, but seems to have no interest in pursuing. Why? Who knows. Perhaps they are too busy writing about Gifted and talented programs.



When are the billionaires going to put funding into filming a documentary about a closing school like this one, that despite all the roadblocks put in its path, deserves to stay open?

Part 1: Did 'Failing' School Get Failed by the System?

Part 2: Champion Debate Team Rejects City's Verdict

Part 3: How Education Reform Can Turn Into a Shell Game

Part 4: When a School Year Ends in Purgatory

Did 'Failing' School Get Failed by the System?

Updated: 8 hours 54 minutes ago

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Dana Chivvis Contributor

AOL News

Part 1 of a four-part series about a small academy at the center of a national battle over the direction of public education in America

NEW YORK (June 22) -- The pink building that houses the Metropolitan Corporate Academy is a maze of caged stairwells and blue hallways, like many of the other 1,600 public schools in New York City. But MCA is different from most of those other schools. This high school in Brooklyn has no library, no gym, no cafeteria, no auditorium, no sports teams and no water fountains for its 385 students.

The administration takes money from its beleaguered budget to buy plastic cups so the kids have something to drink from during the day. Classmates share the few textbooks they have while at school but have to leave them in the classrooms at night. School lunches are sent in from a nearby school that has a kitchen. MCA does not have one.

Stephon Adams may understand why the city wants to close his school. What he and others don't understand is why it was never given a chance to succeed.

Dana Chivvis, AOL

Brooklyn's Metropolitan Corporate Academy lacks even basic facilities like a library, gym and cafeteria. It is one of 19 public schools slated for closure in New York City.

The conditions at MCA have "caused a lot of students to give up," said Adams, a 17-year-old junior. "Most of them have dropped out of high school because they feel people don't care. How am I gonna make it when I don't understand what I'm doing and what is my purpose here anymore?"

Adams has flourished at MCA, despite its meager resources. The small setting allows him to have plenty of one-on-one time with his teachers and open communication with the staff. He has been a member of the school's highly successful debate team since ninth grade. This year he and co-captain Devonte Escoffery, 18, won the inaugural New York City championship.

But success stories like theirs are not enough to keep the school open, according to the city's Department of Education. Chancellor Joel Klein announced in December that the school would be closed, along with 18 others marked by the city as "failing."

The announcement that 19 schools would be phased out led to public outrage across New York. At numerous rallies and hearings this winter, students, parents and teachers responded angrily to the plan.

They weren't failing the system, they said; the system was failing them.

"The real reason that these schools are struggling is not because the students can't be successful, and it's not because the teachers and the principals can't do their jobs," said 35-year-old Alex Jones, an 11th-grade social studies and history teacher and coach of the school's debate team.

"The systematic truth for all 19 of the schools that are struggling is that they have been underserved by the Department of Education, and they've gotten less support than they need to get these kids what they want, yet they're held to the same standard as schools citywide."

Battle Fought Across the Country

MCA is on the front lines of a battle raging in the United States over which direction public school education should take.

On one side are those who favor teacher accountability, test-based evaluations and charter schools -- like Chancellor Klein, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Obama administration. On the other side are those who think their approach ignores the realities of public school education on the ground -- people like MCA parents, New York City teachers and some education experts who say closing schools merely shifts the problem somewhere else.

The Education Department uses an inflexible system to determine school success. It is based on multiple factors, including graduation rates, external quality reviews and yearly progress reports. Schools aren't compared to all other schools in the system but to a grouping of similar schools the Education Department calls a "cohort."

MCA received a D on its 2008-09 progress report and C's the two years before that. Last year, the school's four-year graduation rate was 47.1 percent. The six-year rate was not much higher at 63.8 percent -- the same as the city's average four-year rate.

"If these schools are graduating less than one out of two students, then these schools aren't serving students," said Danny Kanner, a spokesman for the Education Department. "What you're seeing in this school is an inability to move kids forward."

The Education Department says it will replace failing schools with better ones that will offer much more to the city's students. Since 2002, the city has closed 91 schools and opened 417 new ones, including 82 charters.

Part 1: Did 'Failing' School Get Failed by the System?

Part 2: Champion Debate Team Rejects City's Verdict

Part 3: How Education Reform Can Turn Into a Shell Game

Part 4: When a School Year Ends in Purgatory

"Sending a new school there will create the type of culture and environment for the students to succeed," Kanner said. "When we know we can do better, we have to."

Principal Lennel George has been told that as MCA phases out, a school for 17- to 21-year-old males who are behind or have dropped out of high school will begin phasing into the small building, which already houses another school in addition to MCA. The Education Department did not respond to requests for information about what school would be phased in, citing pending litigation.

One of the major problems that MCA's administration has to deal with is how to get kids to come to school in the first place, let alone how to keep them there. Attendance rates at the school hover around 70 percent, while the city's average in 2009-10 was 85.4 percent.

"If you want them to be in school all day, you have to make a reason for them to be there, so you have to provide some comfort, you have to provide a quality of life for them to want to be there," said Debbie Nagel, an assistant principal at MCA. "I mean, they're fiending for basketball; these children only want a basketball. We don't even have a hoop."

Why No New Facilities?

When the school was founded in 1992, it was assigned its current location, an abandoned Board of Education building that was used during the Civil War as an infirmary. Nagel, who helped start the school, said she was told several times that they would be moved into a better building. When George became principal, he said he was promised the same thing.

"They came with specific addresses," Nagel said. She looked at different sets of blueprints and was even promised a parking spot. "And here's your office and here's this classroom, and this is gonna be a cafeteria, the library. So we've always hoped to move on."

But the move never happened. The buildings were expropriated for something else, a new school, according to George. MCA remained in the cramped, rundown building with no basketball court and no fields to play on.

"The kids should have a gym, they should be able to eat in a space that's, you know, a cafeteria, a real cafeteria. A library we don't have; these are things that I think would have made a difference," George said. "Just having those facilities would have made a difference."

MCA's student population is 96 percent black and Hispanic. It has Title I status, which provides extra funds to schools with the poorest student populations, with 61 percent of the students coming from low-income families. Special needs students make up 17.4 percent of the school.

"It's not a easy population," George said. "It's a population that's struggling."

School budgets are calculated based on the number of students at each school, or approximately $16,678 per student, according to a report by the city's Independent Budget Office. With only 385 students, MCA's budget is smaller than most, and already its budget for next year has been slashed by 4 percent. But at the same time, MCA students need more help than most, Jones said. "If students are struggling and schools are struggling, why are they not getting more support than the schools that are succeeding?"

Instead, as the 2009-10 school year comes to a close, MCA faces a possible end altogether, with the futures of its teachers and its debate team, which has provided opportunities to so many kids, hanging in the balance.

What Teach for America Spends

From Leonie Haimson:

New book on TFA;

By Barbara Torre Veltri, called Learning on Other People's Kids: Becoming a Teach For America Teacher.

by Teacher Ken here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/6/18/877196/-Learning-On-Other-Peoples-Kidsan-important-book-on-Teach-for-America

An eye-opening statistic:

Veltri provides a table using data from TFA, showing that in 2006-06 the 4,700 corps members were served with an operating budget of $39,500,000, while for 2009-10 the projected figures were 7,300 corps members with an operating budget of $160,000,000. Let's put those numbers on a per capita basis. In 2005-06 the cost per corps member was $8,400, while in 2009-10 it had ballooned to $21,917, or more than half what most teachers in this country make in their first year. I question whether that is money well spent. One thing is for sure; Wendy Kopp is incredibly gifted at raising money.

Boston Teachers Get a Dose of Ed Deform

Teachers, city reach extra-hour agreement

By James Vaznis

Globe Staff / June 21, 2010

Boston school officials announced yesterday that they had reached a tentative agreement with the teachers’ union on a plan to overhaul the city’s 12 underperforming schools, in a new state negotiating process that attempted to resolve a divisive battle over compensating teachers for working extra hours.

The agreement calls for having teachers work about an extra hour a day, equaling 190 hours over the school year, while paying them an extra $4,100 a year. The pay rate is less than half what the union sought, but greater than what Superintendent Carol R. Johnson initially proposed: no extra pay at all.

The agreement includes a number of other proposals, such as using MCAS results to financially reward teachers whose students raise their academic performance.

High school teachers will also be judged on student attendance and graduation rates.

Johnson and Mayor Thomas M. Menino issued statements praising the agreement as a strong step forward in overhauling the schools’ instruction and educational programs, with some of the changes taking effect as early as this summer.

“I’m pleased by the outcome of this joint decision,’’ Menino said. “This is an example of how collective bargaining units and the city of Boston can work together in meaningful ways to create positive change for the students of Boston.’’

However, Richard Stutman, the teachers’ union president, expressed disappointment with the rate of pay and other provisions in a message he e-mailed to union membership late yesterday afternoon.

Teachers are not opposed to working extended hours, he said in a statement issued to the news media, but they should be adequately compensated.

He noted t hat teachers already work extra hours at several schools across the city and are compensated.

“If the goal really is to attract and retain the best teachers to these struggling schools, it will not be achieved by requiring teachers to work hundreds of hours at a fraction of their regular rate of pay,’’ he said.

Reached by phone yesterday, Stutman declined to comment because the union’s lawyers are reviewing the agreement.

The tentative agreement was reached under a new state law that aims to accelerate the turnaround of chronically failing schools by giving school district leaders greater leverage to make changes to union contracts.

While district leaders must still negotiate changes, they do so within a shorter time frame outlined in the new law.

Should those tal ks break down, as they did in Boston, differences are resolved by a “joint resolution committee,’’ which consists of a union representative, a School Committee appointee, and an arbitrator.

The resulting agreement must be endorsed by the state commissioner of elementary and secondary education, who has not yet made a determination on the Boston agreement.

Boston school officials are the first to engage in union negotiations under the new law.

The process has been widely watched across the state to gauge whether school district leaders would lose ground in a joint resolution committee — a process the Legislature established to appease union concerns over due process when an earlier version of legislation would have allowed superintendents to impose contract changes.

Boston school officials won a number of victories in the agreement announced yesterday, such as mandating that all teachers and classroom aides master appropriate strategies to teach students who are learning to speak English.

Teachers will not be paid for this training, which will be separate from the professional development hours for which they are compensated.

But school officials suffered one key defeat: They failed to win approval to increase class sizes for students learning to speak English.

During the joint resolution committee negotiations, the union representative voted against several provisions, such as the pay rate for the additional 190 hours, which Stutman described in his bulletin yesterday as “substandard.’’

“This was not a fair process; it was not a give and take,’’ Stutman wrote in his e-mail.

“Paying professionals 20 cents on the dollar is not respecting us,’’ he concluded. “It’s exploiting us.’’

A spokesman said Johnson was not available for comment yesterday, but her statement said she was eager to enact the tentative provisions, particularly the extended school day.

Almost half of the additional time will go toward extending classroom instruction, while the rest will be devoted to teacher training, classroom preparation time, and student tutoring.

“This decision allows us to move swiftly to put the time, people, and resources in place that will directly impact the students of Boston,’’ she said.

James Vaznis can be reached at jvaznis@globe.com. Description: http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/File-Based_Image_Resource/dingbat_story_end_icon.gif

Mosaic Prep/HSA Charter Invasion Follow-up

Follow-up to this story on Ed Notes:

Eva Moskowitz Wants Mosaic Prep Academy- Hearing, Monday

There are hearings on this illegal expansion of Harlem Success 3 on Monday at 141 E 111 ST; come by 4;30 - 5 PM if you want to speak.

The below letter from Rose Jimenez is addressed to Jonas Chartock, the head of the SUNY charter institute, as well as Pedro Noguera, head of the charter committee for SUNY, which has to approve every charter authorized by SUNY, as well as any charter revision, which this is.

Dear Mr. Chartock and Prof. Noguera:

As a parent at Mosaic Prep Academy (PS 375) and a member of the Community Education Council in District 4 in East Harlem, I do not understand how the SUNY Charter School Institute could consider allowing Harlem Success Academy 3, a school that is co-located in our building, to revise its charter to substantially expand from 363 students to 468 students next fall.

Any such expansion would obviously require a significant change in our school building’s utilization, without any of the public procedures outlined in the school governance law having been implemented.

As I’m sure you are aware, the governance law, A8903, requires that any significant change in public school utilization in New York City must be preceded by an Educational Impact Statement issued at least six months before the start of the new school year, as well as a joint hearing of the DOE, the CEC and the School Leadership Team at the affected school; and finally, a vote of the Panel for Educational Policy.

None of these events have occurred in this case, and in fact, it is too late for the DOE or SUNY to allow any expansion of the school to occur without warning so late in the school year, unless these additional students would attend classes elsewhere in a non-DOE building.

A SUNY hearing on the expansion and charter revision of Harlem Success Academy 3 is due to occur this Monday, June 21, at 5:30 PM.

I would very much like to hear from you before that time as to how SUNY could countenance such a potentially illegal expansion.

Yours sincerely,

Rose Jimenez, CEC District 4 and PS 375 Parent Association President

Patrick Sullivan, Manhattan PEP rep, corresondence with Ralph Rossi of SUNY, supposedly the governing body for HSA appeals to modify the charter.

To: Rossi, Ralph
Cc: mosaicparentassociation@univision.com; Charter Schools;
robertjacksonnyc@gmail.com; efox@council.nyc.gov;
classsizematters@gmail.com; MDuffy12@schools.nyc.gov; Erin McGill;
cec4@schools.nyc.gov; pednoguera@gmail.com; Joel Klein
Subject: Re: ILLEGAL CHARTER PROPOSAL

Mr. Rossi,

Ms. Jimenez refers to the schools governance law passed by the State
Legislature in August. As the Manhattan member of the city school
board ("Panel for Educational Policy") I can assure you that none of
the legally mandated process for such a significant change in
utilization of a public school building was followed in this case.
There has been no Educational Impact Statement, no joint hearing of
the Mosaic SLT with the Community Educational Council of District 4
and no vote of the Panel for Educational Policy.

I alerted DOE General Council Michael Best several weeks ago of the
need to follow the required process in this case and several others
involving SUNY chartered schools. I have been told DOE is looking
into the matter but there has been no response otherwise.

The SUNY trustees have a legal obligation to ensure all legally
mandated procedures are followed prior to allowing the expansion of a
SUNY chartered school. Expansion of HSA 3 in the Mosaic building
without adherence to the above process constitutes a violation of law
for which SUNY trustees must be held accountable.

Frankly, given that SUNY recently came very close to losing its
chartering authority, I am extremely disappointed that its first
instinct is to deny any responsibility for compliance with the very
clear guidelines under state education law. This law was implemented
to protect public school students from the very type of encroachment
now being attempted by HSA. Instead of washing their hands of the
very real issues facing Manhattan public schools in co-location
situations, I suggest the trustees begin to more seriously consider
their moral and legal obligations to help all our students.

Patrick J. Sullivan
Manhattan Member
Panel for Educational Policy
NYC Board of Education

On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 10:12 AM, Rossi, Ralph Ralph.Rossi@suny.edu wrote:

I am not in the office now but it is SUNY's understanding that all of the steps for the expansion took place before the passage of the amendments to the charter schools act. The hearing would NOT be co-location hearing by the NYCDOE or a SUNY hearing on facility. Rather it is a NYCDOE revision hering required by the charter schools act for a material change to a charter located in the district, in this case enrollment. The timing of the hearing is required by regs of the State Education Commissioner and based on notice by SUNY to the NYCDOE. You can direct any questions about the space process to the NYCDOE.

Robert Duffy and Mayoral Contol in Rochester

Resistance to Mayoral Control Continues Unabated

Mayor Robert Duffy recently said that he is going to put off seizing control of city schools until June 2011. He also said that he is not going to participate in any public meetings until that time.

There is general consensus in the community that Duffy has largely avoided broad and meaningful public engagement and that the battle for control of city schools is far from over.

Teachers, parents, students, college professors, religious leaders, city residents, and even some legislators continue to oppose or seriously question the mayor’s plan to eliminate elected governance and vest all authority in his hands. Widespread public opposition to Duffy’s takeover scheme has developed quickly in recent months and acquired sustainable momentum. Valuable lessons have also been learned from parents, teachers, students, and others who continue to resist mayoral control in NYC, Chicago, and DC and work to affirm their right to be the decision-makers.

The consciousness and organization built to date will be further strengthened in coming weeks and months as many in the community organize more united actions against mayoral control.

Signed,

Shawgi Tell
Nazareth College

William Cala
Nazareth College

Meg Callahan
Nazareth College

Hilda Chacon
Nazareth College

Sekile Nzinga-Johnson
Nazareth College

Ed Wiltse
Nazareth College

Cedric Johnson
Hobart & William Smith Colleges

Rodmon King
Hobart & William Smith Colleges


Jeffrey A. Liles
St. John Fisher College

James Wood
St. John Fisher College

David Hursh
The University of Rochester

Richard Ryan
University of Rochester




From D and C Columnist Denise Marie Santiago in yesterday's paper.

It's fuzzy now what
the mayor is
committed to

May 28, 2010

A few years ago, Mayor Robert "I'm not a politician"
Duffy was looking for good candidates who shared
his vision of change to run for City Council.

Duffy talked about it in a 2007 article in this
newspaper describing his considerable influence
during primary season. Duffy explained he was
recruiting candidates "who have a deep passion for
our city and our community, who are not looking
for a political career."

He said, too, in the same article: "I'm not looking to
build a political network for the future. I'm not
looking to enhance personal or political influence."

So explain why the mayor, just months into his
second term and in the middle of a lot of unfinished
business, would run for a statewide office that's
largely ceremonial — until the boss dies or gets
caught, say, doing something with someone for a
whole lot of money.

I have more problems with the Democratic ticket for
statewide seats other than Duffy's lieutenant
governor bid.

Take the candidate for governor himself, who
skillfully managed to run a campaign, raise money
and court supporters without once going on the
record as to what he would do to solve the state's
budget crisis or how he would get legislators to
change the rules that ensure their own re-elections.

It's almost as if Attorney General Andrew "Don't ask
me about Mario" Cuomo believed applying for the
job — in his case, publicly announcing his
candidacy — were just a formality because he knows
people.

And so does his dad, the former three-term
governor known to tie his endorsement of
politicians to their support of his son, according to
a recent piece in The New York Times about their
relationship.

Then there's the all-white Democratic statewide
ballot that shows just how committed the party is to
reflecting its members and the state. A third of New
York residents are minorities.

"We strive for diversity everywhere," the legacy
candidate told reporters on Wednesday. "Can you
always get all the diversity that you want at the time
that you want it? No."


But if there's not one African-American, Latino,
Asian or other politician of color ready to compete
for a statewide office in 2010, which I find hard to
believe, the failure is on the shoulder of party
leaders in not nurturing or promoting them.

Not all of us, after all, are born with a ballot in our
hands.

Cuomo points instead to the ballot's geographical
diversity, which is where Duffy comes in.

I get why Cuomo picked him. In addition to his
upstate pedigree, his boy-next-door aura sucks
people in. The question is, why did Duffy say yes?

Because after years of hearing the mayor eschew
politics, after meeting upon meeting listening to him
say all he cares about is getting the job done, why
is he leaving so much on the table?

Behar Claims Bundlers Offered $200k To Assembly Race To Switch Charters Position

Unfortunately, this is all too believable considering the huge money being contributed by the hedge fund operators and the concurrent switch of many legislators in Albany on this issue. - Leonie Haimson

http://www.cityhallnews.com/newyork/article-1337-behar-claims-bundlers-offered-$200k-to-assembly-race-to-switch-charter-position.html

By Chris Bragg

Steve Behar, an attorney mounting an uphill race in Queens for the seat of retiring Assembly Member Ann-Margaret Carrozza, claims that two pro-charter school bundlers have enough faith in his candidacy to have offered to raise him up to $200,000 in exchange for him changing his position on charter schools to support their expansion.

Many in what was a wide field of Democrats cleared out of the race at the end of last month, after Ed Braunstein, a staffer for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, received the support of the Queens County Democratic organization. Among those who did not is Behar, who lost another uphill primary battle for the Council eventually won by Dan Halloran, and has remained in the race.

Braunstein is likely to be backed by the generally charter-cool teachers unions, given that he has the support of Silver, an ally of the unions. But in a letter written to the website Queens Teacher, Behar claimed that he was being courted to come out against the charters.

“In the last few weeks two separate ‘political fundraisers’ promised to raise between $100K and $200K for my campaign if I changed my position to favor charter schools,” Behar wrote. “Since I’m running against a well-funded inexperienced and unqualified candidate (Ed Braunstein) who works for the Albany leadership and is in the pocket of the lobbyists and the special interests, that money would have really helped my campaign. However, keeping to my core beliefs, I refused to change my position and thus refused the money.”

In an interview, Behar said he turned the bundlers down on principle. He declined, however, to give the names of the two bundlers, citing concerns about scaring away future potential fundraisers and donors to his campaign.

All Behar would say is that one of the people he claims was involved approached him three weeks ago at the New York State Young Democrats convention, and the other approached him at a political event a week ago. When asked which event, though, Behar said he could not recall.

When told about the letter, Braunstein’s campaign blasted Behar for not disclosing who the bundlers were, and said he should report such incidents to the police, if they in fact occurred.

“If you’re running for a position of trust, you make a promise to uphold the law. If anyone ever approached Ed Braunstein and offered them something like that, he would pick up the phone and report that individual. They ought to be prosecuted and locked up,” said campaign spokesman Michael McKeon. “We need integrity in Albany, not someone who just wants to put out a press release.”

Behar fired back, pointing out that Braunstein’s uncle, Brian Meara, is a lobbyist well-known for his connections to Silver and Assembly Democrats.

Behar said it was absurd to expect that he report the bundlers to the authorities.

“I realize this kid just got out of law school, but if that’s true, then his uncle should be going to jail because he’s a lobbyist,” Behar said. “Isn’t that what lobbyists do: offer you support so you change your position?”

Also running in the Democratic primary are former Assembly Member John Duane and Whitestone lawyer Elio Forcina. Queens Republican Party executive vice president Vince Tabone and Rob Speranza are running in the Republican primary.

The $200,000 supposedly in play here would have increased the size of his war chest exponentially, many times over: according to Behar’s ActBlue fundraising page, he has, as of Thursday night, raised online only $1,015 from 13 supporters for the race.

Empowerment and Accountability in New York City's Schools

The Center for New York City Affairs announces the release of:

"Managing by the Numbers: Empowerment and Accountability in New York City's Schools"

New York has been the proving ground for a grand experiment in school governance since 2007, when Schools Chancellor Joel Klein replaced a tightly controlled top-down administrative structure with one that gave principals new powers to
shape the culture and practice of their own schools. The chancellor's "Children First" reform is designed to free principals from day-to-day supervision and allow them latitude in matters such as hiring, curriculum and budget. In exchange,
principals must demonstrate steady improvement in student performance as measured mostly by standardized test scores.

The Center's new report offers one of the first broad analyses of the Bloomberg administration's reorganization of school management. The new freedom for principals has allowed some schools to flourish, reversing decades of poor performance and
low expectations. At the same time, some principals are floundering without sufficient supervision. And the city's accountability system, particularly for elementary schools, is deeply flawed, sometimes rewarding mediocrity while failing
to recognize gains made by schools that are striving for excellence.

The study builds on interviews with hundreds of principals and school administrators, on-site visits to several dozen schools (with a special focus on District 7 in the South Bronx) and analysis of volumes of school performance statistics. The report also offers policy recommendations to the city's Department of Education and the Bloomberg administration.

The full report is available at the Center for New York City Affairs Web site, www.centernyc.org.

CORE Update: Emergency Board Meeting 6/15/2010

Emergency Board Meeting 6/15/2010

CPS called an emergency Board meeting on Tuesday, June 15 to pass a resolution that will drastically change our working conditions and the learning opportunities for our students. The resolution was passed unanimously at the meeting, in spite of every single speaker during the "public participation" portion urging the board members to vote "no." This resolution gives CEO Huberman permission to fire teachers and therefore raise class size up to 35 if he deems it "necessary" for budgetary reasons. It also gives him the permission to take out an $800 million loan, which he claims cannot be used to stave off the firings and ballooning class sizes.
This budget has still not been made public, in spite of Freedom of Information Act requests from CORE and various Chicago journalists. These firings will be based on Huberman's secret projections and without real budget numbers.
No announcement was made about how many teachers they will fire, if any. They claimed this was "just in case" they felt the need to fire teachers later.

Appendix H of our contract states:
Section I - Scope of Policy
Whenever an attendance center or a program is closed, there is a drop in enrollment,
the educational focus of the attendance center is changed such that available teaching
positions cannot accommodate some or all current regularly certified and appointed
teaching staff, or when an attendance center is subject to actions taken pursuant to
sections 34-8.3 or 34-8.4 of the Illinois School Code, tenured teachers will be
reassigned or laid off in accordance with this policy.

The contract states teachers have to be laid off according to seniority and tenured teachers get ten paid months to find a job. In those ten months, teachers are retained in the "reassignment pool" where they work as substitutes four days a week with full pay and benefits without a break in service.

Because the specific phrase "budgetary reasons" is not included in the "scope of policy", Huberman claims he can fire tenured teachers without giving them the 10 month bridge to continue employment in CPS.

CORE contends that none of this is necessary. Although there is no line-item budget available for the 2010-2011 school year, CORE's budget committee studied the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) and found millions of dollars in wasteful non-classroom spending.

The city's TIF (tax increment financing program) costs the schools $250 million in revenue, according to TIF expert Ben Joravsky, and verified by Cook County Clerk David Orr . This is money that normally would go directly to schools, but goes into the mayor's slush fund instead.

Many speakers at Tuesday's meeting spoke in favor of returning TIF dollars to the schools, but Huberman refused to speak to the issue.

It will save the CPS approximately $150 million a year if they raise class sizes to 35. Instead of lobbying the city to return TIF dollars, Huberman and the Daley-appointed Board passed policy to take out an $800 million dollar loan, raise class sizes, and possibly end the teacher reassignment pool. If it's a question of priorities, we question the board's.

Lois Jones, CTU High School Functional Vice-President-Elect, pointed out that 25 or fewer students in a classroom should be the first priority, before the board funds area offices, scripted curricula that don't work, and other costs we don't know about because we haven't seen the budget. Putting more students in a class is the LAST thing you should do if you have budget problems, not the first.

Teachers and students are the only ones asked to make sacrifices. This summer, it's crucial that we keep on top of the Board and continue organizing around budget transparency and quality education. With 30,000 united, the Board will have to change they way it does business.

Check out www.coreteachers.com for updates.

Class Size Versus Teacher Raises in Chicago

A parent leader in NYC wrote:

Rarely is the choice between salary and class size presented in such a stark manner.

I truly hope that the CTU rejects the raise in favor of sticking by class size limits that are still too large, but as many of NYC teacher friends remind me, I am not a teacher…. I would like to hear from teachers on the list about what they would choose if confronted with such a decision, and why.

Here is my semi-coherent stream of conscious reply:

Let's be careful here.

Incoming President from CORE Karen
"Lewis urged the board to first cut expensive curriculum created by outsiders, high-stakes testing and a long line of pricey vendors and consultants. "I would implore you to reconsider,'' Lewis said. "This is a nuclear option.''

Yes there are other choices and we must not let the people who have run these systems into the ground manipulate events to pit parents against teachers - the goal here.

Of course framing things this way puts the CTU - due to change hands on July 1 - between a rock and a hard place. If they accept this premise of givign up a contractual raise under such a threat it would be like cutting their throats in their first act. Sometimes a union must make its case that budgets are purposely manipulated to create this choice - remember that the people running Chicago are the same ilk as NYC. Do we trust BloomKlein?

IN Chicago I believe they can't negotiate class size in contracts and one of the planks of CORE is to get that right. Let's look into the future: CORE gives in now on the raise but loses enough internal power that the long-time fight for class size is harmed. I believe they are committed to fighting for salary and class size - not like the UFT - see below.

Do they really fear a strike? Would they in NYC from the UFT which would lose dues checkoff and everyone know they will never strike no matter what happens. Neither would the old guard in Chicago. But with CORE being more militant, there is some doubt.

We must be clear who is framing the choice. If a body like the DOE signs a contract and wants to get out of it the use the class size issue to turn the public against the teachers. BloomKlein tried to do the same thing here in not giving teachers a raise - but there is no contract so they can get away with it.

By the way - I got a call from Chicago yesterday and they tell me there is talk of furloughs - up to 10 days.

We can't keep falling for this tactic.

What is to stop them from making other claims? Books and supplies or class size?
Bus service or class size? It is extortion.

In NYC take the 42 minutes that many teachers think is a waste. Would they be happy losing the money if they cut these minutes?

Remember in NYC in 1975 they cut the school week by an hour and a half - 2 periods and the teachers gave up 2 preps a week in the fiscal crisis. Teachers also took a pay freeze for years.

We would hear screams of outrage. So why if Chicago teachers are due a 4% raise do we fall for this ploy?

We face a similar issue in the UFT when we want class size included in contract negotiations and the UFT always says it will come out of a raise. Now if we had a democratic union this issue would be debated and we would see where teachers really stand on the issue. UFT surveys often put the same issue in stark terms without nuance.

Subject: [nyceducationnews] Chicago choice between pay freeze and class size increases; what would you choose?

“During a dramatic emergency meeting, board members also blocked any chance of a teacher strike over pay by indicating they expect to honor the 4 percent pay raises promised to teachers and seven other school unions -- an increase valued at $135 million.

….Although the Civic Federation has questioned the board's decision to raise class size by five students to save $125 million rather than take on the union over pay increases, Bobins {Chicago school board president] said, "We signed a five-year contract three years ago. . . . I believe we must honor it…. Huberman [CEO of the Chicago schools] said, he could not risk any chance of a strike over the promised 4 percent pay raises. A class size increase that could displace 2,700 teachers and 300 non-teachers, Huberman said, was "not the first place we turned, it's the last place we turned.''

Rarely is the choice between salary and class size presented in such a stark manner.

I truly hope that the CTU rejects the raise in favor of sticking by class size limits that are still too large, but as many of NYC teacher friends remind me, I am not a teacher…. I would like to hear from teachers on the list about what they would choose if confronted with such a decision, and why.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/2397688,CST-NWS-skul16.article

Chicago School Board opens door to 35 in a class

Board expects to honor 4% raise, but hopes teachers union will back concessions

Comments

June 16, 2010

BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter

Chicago School Board members Tuesday tackled their worst fiscal crisis since Mayor Daley's 1995 school takeover by granting school officials the power to raise class sizes to up to 35 students for the next two years.

If Schools CEO Ron Huberman acts on that new power, he's sure to anger hundreds of teachers laid off in the process and potentially the parents whose children they serve.

» Click to enlarge image

Outgoing Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart (left) speaks Tuesday, joined by incoming president Karen Lewis.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)

During a dramatic emergency meeting, board members also blocked any chance of a teacher strike over pay by indicating they expect to honor the 4 percent pay raises promised to teachers and seven other school unions -- an increase valued at $135 million.

At the same time, the board agreed to give Huberman the authority to take out a line of credit of up to $800 million. The short-term bridge, Huberman said, is needed to cover more than $400 million in late state aid payments and pump up a reserve fund that will soon dwindle to the equivalent of one week's operating costs.

Facing a packed chamber, seven school board members unanimously approved every emergency measure brought before them to help plug an estimated $427 million deficit. Rookie School Board President Mary Richardson-Lowry called the moment "extraordinary.''

The veteran of the bunch, LaSalle Bank chairman emeritus Norm Bobins, said he was casting "the most difficult vote'' of his 15 years on the board.

Although the Civic Federation has questioned the board's decision to raise class size by five students to save $125 million rather than take on the union over pay increases, Bobins said, "We signed a five-year contract three years ago. . . . I believe we must honor it.''

Forgoing pay increases would only get the district a third of the way out of its financial hole, Bobins noted. Nevertheless, he said, "I hope we can come to some consensus with the union and meet each other halfway.''

Huberman cautioned that the board's budget was "fluid and changes by the day'' because of uncertain state funding, and he was merely asking for the authority to raise class sizes if needed.

However, Huberman said, he could not risk any chance of a strike over the promised 4 percent pay raises. A class size increase that could displace 2,700 teachers and 300 non-teachers, Huberman said, was "not the first place we turned, it's the last place we turned.''

It came after 800 nonunion workers lost their jobs, and those left behind endured pay freezes and furlough days that ate up 6 percent of their paychecks, Huberman said.

District officials have given the teachers union "a menu of possible concessions,'' and "we remain hopeful that [the union] will share in recognizing the challenges almost every district across the country is facing,'' Huberman said.

San Diego teachers, he noted, have agreed to five furlough days to avoid layoffs; Las Vegas teachers are swallowing a pay freeze and increased medical co-pays.

In an unusual display of solidarity, at one point both incoming Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis and outgoing President Marilyn Stewart stood together at the podium as Stewart railed against the class size increase, calling it "educational malpractice.''

"I am ashamed of the Board of Education,'' Stewart said. Lewis hugged her afterward.

Lewis urged the board to first cut expensive curriculum created by outsiders, high-stakes testing and a long line of pricey vendors and consultants. "I would implore you to reconsider,'' Lewis said. "This is a nuclear option.''

Afterward, Burley School parent Wendy Katten, who helped organize a parent rally against class size increases and the state education-funding system, predicted that North Side parents who have raised huge amounts of money for their neighborhood schools will bail out if their children wind up in packed classrooms.

"There are parents who are saying, 'I'm done working this hard when you're saying 35 kids,' " Katten said. "People are saying they'll sell their house at a loss. They are out of here.''

Daley tried to shift the political blame to Springfield, saying, "It's the state of Illinois that basically is cutting [education] funding . . .

"The Board of Education is not the enemy,'' Daley said. ". . . They don't want big classes. No one wants any big classes.''

Contributing: Fran Spielman

Pondering Legal Implications of Value-Added Teacher Evaluation

June 2, 2010

Pondering Legal Implications of Value-Added Teacher Evaluation

http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/category/race-to-the-top/value-added-teacher-evaluation/

I’m going out on a limb here. I’m a finance guy. Not a lawyer. But, I do have a reasonable background on school law thanks to colleagues in the field like Mickey Imber at U. of Kansas and my frequent coauthor Preston Green at Penn State. That said, any screw ups in my legal analysis below are my own and not attributable to either Preston or Mickey. In any case, I’ve been wondering about the validity of the claim that some pundits seem to be making that these new teacher evaluation policies are going to make it easier and less expensive to dismiss teachers.

=====

A handful of states have now adopted legislation which mandates that teacher evaluation be linked to student test data. Specifically, legislation adopted in states like Colorado, Louisiana and Kentucky and legislation vetoed in Florida follow a template of requiring that teacher evaluation for pay increase, for retaining tenure and ultimately for dismissal must be based 50% or 51% on student “value-added” or “growth” test scores alone. That is, student test score data could make or break a salary increase decision, but could also make or break a teacher’s ability to retain tenure. Pundits backing these policies often highlight provisions for multi-year data tracking on teachers so that a teacher would not lose tenure status until he/she shows poor student growth for 2 or 3 years running. These provisions are supposed to eliminate the possibility that random error or a “bad crop of students” alone could determine a teacher’s future.

Pundits are taking the position that these new evaluation criteria will make it easier to dismiss teachers and will reduce the costs of dismissing a teacher that result from litigation. Oh, how foolish!

The way I see it, this new crop of state statutes and regulations which include arbitrary use of questionable data, applied in a questionably appropriate way will most likely lead to a flood of litigation like none that has ever been witnessed.

Why would that be? How can a teacher possibly sue the school district for being fired because he/she was a bad teacher? Simply writing into state statute or department regulations that one’s “property interest” to tenure and continued employment must be primarily tied to student test scores does not by any stretch of the legal imagination guarantee that dismissal based on student test scores will stand up to legal challenges – good and legitimate legal challenges.

There are (at least) two very likely legal challenges that will occur once we start to experience our first rounds of teacher dismissal based on student assessment data.

Due Process Challenges

Removing a teacher’s tenure status is denial of a teacher’s property interest and doing so requires “due process.” That’s not an insurmountable barrier, even under typical teacher contracts that don’t require dismissal based on student test scores. Simply declaring that “a teacher will be fired if he/she shows 2 straight years of bad student test scores (growth or value-added)” and then firing a teacher for as much does not mean that the teacher necessarily was provided due process. Under a policy requiring that 51% of the employment decision be based on student value added test scores, a teacher could be wrongly terminated due to:

a) Temporal instability of the value-added measures

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1001266_stabilityofvalue.pdf

Ooooh…Temporal instability… what’s that supposed to mean? What it means is that teacher value-added ratings, which are averages of individual student gains, tend not to be that stable over time. The same teacher is highly likely to get a totally different value added rating from one year to the next. The above link points to a policy brief which explains that the year to year correlation for a teacher’s value added rating is only about .2 or .3. Further, most of the change or difference in the teacher’s value added rating from one year to the next is unexplainable – not by differences in observed student characteristics, peer characteristics or school characteristics. 87.5% (elementary math) to 70% (8^th grade math) noise! While some statistical corrections and multi-year measures might help, it’s hard to guarantee or even be reasonably sure that a teacher wouldn’t be dismissed simply as a function of unexplainable low performance for 2 or 3 years in a row. That is, simply due to noise, and not the more troublesome issue of how students are clustered across schools, districts and classrooms.

b) Non-random assignment of students

The only fair way to compare teachers’ ability to produce student value-added is to randomly assign all students, statewide to all teachers… and then of course, to have all students live in exactly comparable settings with exactly comparable support structures outside of school, etc., etc. etc. That’s right. We’d have to send all of our teachers and all of our students to a single boarding school location somewhere in the state and make sure, absolutely sure that we randomly assigned students, the same number of students to each and every teacher in the system.

Obviously, that’s not going to happen. Students are not randomly sorted and the fact that they are not has serious consequences for comparing teachers’ ability to produce student value-added. See: http://gsppi.berkeley.edu/faculty/jrothstein/published/rothstein_vam2.pdf

c) Student manipulation of test results

As she travels the nation on her book tour, Diane Ravitch raises another possibility for how a teacher might find him/herself out of a job by no real fault of actual bad teaching. As she puts it, this approach to teacher evaluation puts the teacher’s job directly in the students’ hands. And the students can, if they wish, choose to consciously abuse that responsibility. That is, the students could actually choose to bomb the state assessments to get a teacher fired, whether it’s a good teacher or a bad one. This would most certainly raise due process concerns.

d) A whole bunch of other uncontrollable stuff

A recent National Academies report noted:

“A student’s scores may be affected by many factors other than a teacher — his or her motivation, for example, or the amount of parental support — and value-added techniques have not yet found a good way to account for these other elements.”

http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=1278

This report generally urged caution regarding overemphasis of student value-added test scores in teacher evaluation – especially in high stakes decisions. Surely, if I was an expert witness testifying on behalf of a teacher who had been wrongly dismissed, I’d be pointing out that the National Academies said that using the student assessment data in this way is not a good idea.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act Challenges

The non-random assignment of students leads to the second likely legal claim that will flood the courts as student testing based teacher dismissals begin – Claims of racially disparate teacher dismissal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Given that students are not randomly assigned and that poor and minority – specifically black – students are densely clustered in certain schools and districts and that black teachers are much more likely to be working in schools with classrooms of low-income black students, it is highly likely that teacher dismissals will occur in a racially disparate pattern. Black teachers of low-income black students will be several times more likely to be dismissed on the basis of poor value-added test scores. This is especially true where a statewide fixed, rigid requirement is adopted and where a teacher must be de-tenured and/or dismissed if he/she shows value-added below some fixed value-added threshold on state assessments.

So, here’s how this one plays out. For every 1 white teacher dismissed on value-added basis, 10 or more black teachers are dismissed - relative to the overall proportions of black and white teachers. This gives the black teachers the argument that the policy has racially disparate effect. No, it doesn’t end there. A policy doesn’t violate Title VII merely because it has racially disparate effect. That just starts the ball rolling – gets the argument into court.

The state gets to defend itself – by claiming that producing value-added test scores is a legitimate part of a teacher’s job and then explaining how the use of those scores is, in fact neutral with respect to race. It just happens to have the disparate effect. Right? But, as the state would argue, that’s a good thing because it ensures that we can put better teachers in front of these poor minority kids, and get rid of the bad ones.

But, the problem is that the significant body of research on non-random assignment of students and its effect of value added scores indicates that it’s not necessarily differences in the actual effectiveness of black versus white teachers, but that the black teachers are concentrated in the poor black schools and that student clustering and not teacher effectiveness is leading to the disparate rates of teacher dismissal. So they weren’t fired because they were precisely measurably ineffective, they were fired because they had classrooms of poor minority students year after year? At the very least, it is statistically problematic to distill one effect from the other! As a result, it’s statistically problematic to argue that the teacher should be dismissed! There is at least equal likelihood that the teacher is wrongly dismissed as there is that the teacher is rightly dismissed. I suspect a court might be concerned by this.

Reduction in Force

Note that many of these same concerns apply to all of the recent rhetoric over teacher layoffs and the need to base those layoffs on effectiveness rather than seniority. It all sounds good, until you actually try to go into a school district of any size and identify the 100 “least effective” teachers given the current state of data for teacher evaluation. Simply writing into a reduction in force (RIF) policy a requirement of dismissal based on “effectiveness” does not instantly validate the “effectiveness” measures. And even the best “effectiveness” measures, as discussed above, remain really problematic, providing tenured teachers reduced on grounds of ineffectiveness multiple options for legal action.

Additional Concerns

These two legal arguments ignore the fact that school districts and states will have to establish two separate types of contracts for teachers to begin with, since even in the best of statistical cases, only about 1/5 of teachers (those directly responsible for teaching math or reading in grades three through eight) might possibly be evaluated via student test scores (see: http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/pondering-the-usefulness-of-value-added-assessment-of-teachers/)

I’ve written previously about the technical concerns over value-added assessment of teachers and my concern that pundits are seemingly completely ignorant of the statistical issues. I’m also baffled that few others in the current policy discussion seem even remotely aware of just how few teachers might – in the best possible case – be evaluated via student test scores, and the need for separate contracts. But, I am perhaps most perplexed that no-one seems to be acknowledging the massive legal mess likely to ensue when (or if) these poorly conceived policies are put into action.

I’ll save for another day the discussion of just who will be waiting in line to fill those teaching vacancies created by rigid use of test scores for disproportionately dismissing teachers in poor urban schools. Will they, on average, be better or perhaps worse than those displaced before them? Just who will wait in this line to be unfairly judged?

For a related article on the use of certification exams for credentialing teachers, see:

Green, P.C., Sireci, S.G. (2005) Legal and Psychometric Criteria for Evaluating Teacher Certification Tests. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice. Volume 19 Issue 1, Pages 22 – 31

Attack of the hedge-fund managers

http://www.uft.org/news/teacher/top/attack-of-the-hedge-fund-managers/

Attack of the hedge-fund managers

by Maisie McAdoo

Jun 3, 2010 12:11 PM

Why do they care about schools? It’s all about money

Education Reform Now, which spearheaded a $2 million media campaign to lift the charter school cap without reforms, paid for this mailer attacking the UFT.

Who paid for the recent mass mailing of the glossy flier attacking the UFT? In two words: hedge funds.

In the corner of the back page of the flier is the note “Paid for by Education Reform Now” and a Manhattan return address.

Education Reform Now is an arm of Democrats for Education Reform, started by former Daily News education reporter Joe Williams and boasting a board of major hedge-fund managers. Education Reform Now also promotes charter schools, mayoral control of schools and school choice (including vouchers for private and parochial schools) in New York, Michigan, Rhode Island and several other states.

But what they have is a business plan, not an education plan.

Who’s who?

John Petry, a partner at Gotham Capital Management, chairs the board of Education Reform Now. Petry’s Gotham Capital LLC, founded in 1985 with $7 million from junk-bond king Michael Milken, is a privately owned hedge fund that manages investments for wealthy clients, investing in equities as well as spin-offs, restructuring and takeovers.

The other board members are Sidney Hawkins Gargiulo of Hawkshaw Capital, founded in 2002 by a former Lehman Brothers analyst; John Sabat of SAC Capital, a Stamford, Conn.-based private investment firm; and Brian Zied of Maverick Capital, a Dallas-based investment advisor managing hedge funds and private investment funds.

Tracing their philanthropic interests leads quickly to New York City’s charter schools. Petry and Gotham Capital founder Joel Greenblatt fund Eva Moskowitz’s Harlem Success Charter Network and paid her $371,000 salary in her startup year. Goldblatt is chairman of Harlem Success’ board as well as chair of two of her individual schools. Petry sits on the boards of the Harlem Success Charter Network plus two schools. SAC Capital’s Sabat is a board member of two Harlem Success schools, Hawkshaw’s Gargiulo is a member of another, and Maverick Capital founder Steve Galbraith chairs yet another.

Education Reform Now spearheaded a $2 million media campaign this spring to try to lift the New York State charter cap without reforms. Its chapter in Milwaukee is lobbying for a mayoral takeover of the Milwaukee schools and for the survival of that city’s school voucher program. And the group recently campaigned for a slate of school board candidates in Buffalo pushing a charter school agenda.

The money trail

The latest public filing available for Education Reform Now shows it received contributions and grants of $1.3 million in 2008, up from $173,500 the year before. (Without doubt, the level of donations has skyrocketed since then.) The filing does not list the group’s benefactors, but one is the Robertson Foundation, the private foundation of Julian Robertson, the founder of the Tiger Management hedge fund.

The Robertson Foundation, which has assets in excess of $1 billion, gave away $71 million in 2008, including $250,000 to Education Reform Now, $1 million to the Achievement First charter network, $2 million to KIPP charters, $3 million to the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence, $7.1 million to Teach for America and $200,000 to the New Teacher Project, along with large grants to conservative churches.

In the process, hedge fund executives have become, in the words of The New York Times, “perhaps the first significant political counterweight” to teacher unions.

Why do they care?

Hedge funds follow different investment strategies, but one thing that unites them is the absence of virtually any public information about them. Hedge funds are open only to select investors who can put up sizeable funds, and they are exempt from many financial regulations. The latest best guess is that they manage more than $2 trillion in assets exclusively for wealthy investors.

What gets hedge fund managers involved in charter schools and school reform? “Charter schools appeal to the maverick instincts of many who run hedge funds,” speculates one blog post on The New York Times website.

By tapping into this instinct, Williams has helped make charters the “hot cause,” in his words, for hedge funds. He has harnessed their anti-regulatory instincts to oppose teacher unions and advocate for private management of public schools.

The hedge funds are perverting charter schools for the purpose of attempting to privatize public education. There is already close to $2 billion in public funds in the charter school system in New York State, and the hedge funds are angling to control a chunk of that money.

The political agenda

Democrats for Education Reform is part of a Wall Street effort to influence the Democratic Party. Williams and his colleagues see trade unions, a traditional backbone of the party and defender of workers’ rights, as bureaucratic stumbling blocks to the privatizing reforms they advocate.

What’s wrong with the picture is that it excludes most teachers’ views about how to fix public schools.

Comments on the petition website of Education Reform Now didn’t exactly parrot its suggested message. One person replied, “Workers organize themselves to protect themselves from folks like you. Playing politics with teachers is what hurts the kids, not seniority.” And another: “Please, even I know it takes years to become a good teacher. Removing experienced teachers so that you can save inexpensive teachers is not going to help.”

Maybe Education Reform Now could direct some hedge fund money to prevent layoffs instead of exploiting teachers’ fears about losing their jobs to further its own political agenda.

Some educators question if whiteboards, other high-tech tools raise achievement

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/10/AR2010061005522.html

Some educators question if whiteboards, other high-tech tools raise achievement

Senior Bertrand Ngampa gives a presentation on an interactive whiteboard at W.T. Woodson High. (Dayna Smith/Post)

By Stephanie McCrummen

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 11, 2010

Under enormous pressure to reform, the nation's public schools are spending millions of dollars each year on gadgets from text-messaging devices to interactive whiteboards that technology companies promise can raise student performance.

Driving the boom is a surge in federal funding for such products, the industry's aggressive marketing and an idea axiomatic in the world of education reform: that to prepare students kids for the 21st century, schools must embrace the technologies that are the media of modern life.

Increasingly, though, another view is emerging: that the money schools spend on instructional gizmos isn't necessarily making things better, just different. Many academics question industry-backed studies linking improved test scores to their products. And some go further. They argue that the most ubiquitous device-of-the-future, the whiteboard -- essentially a giant interactive computer screen that is usurping blackboards in classrooms across America -- locks teachers into a 19th-century lecture style of instruction counter to the more collaborative small-group models that many reformers favor.

"There is hardly any research that will show clearly that any of these machines will improve academic achievement," said Larry Cuban, education professor emeritus at Stanford University. "But the value of novelty, that's highly prized in American society, period. And one way schools can say they are 'innovative' is to pick up the latest device."

The appeal

Federal dollars for educational technology, minuscule until the mid-1990s, grew to more than $800 million last year, and industry analysts estimate that federal, state and local expenditures will total $16 billion next year. Money that once bought filmstrips and overhead projectors has spawned a thriving industry of companies that pitch their products as a way to help schools meet the federal priorities of the day. Glossy brochures that claimed whiteboards would help teachers reach Bush's No Child Left Behind goals, for instance, now say the devices will help schools win "Race to the Top" grants from the Obama administration.

Nancy Knowlton, the chief executive of SMART Technologies, said that schools are desperate to find ways to engage multi-tasking, tech-savvy kids, who often play video games before they can read and that some "strictly gathered research data," along with anecdotal evidence, show that her company's products work.

"[Students] are engaged when they're in class, they are motivated, they are attending school, they are behaving and this is translating to student performance in the classroom," she said. "Kids want an energized, multimedia learning experience. . . . When you ask them to shut off when they enter the classroom, that doesn't really work for them."

Fairfax County public schools began installing interactive whiteboards several years ago, one of which landed in Sam Gee's classroom at W.T. Woodson High School. On a recent morning, the popular history teacher dimmed the lights, and his students stared at the glowing, $3,000 screen.

As he lectured, Gee hyperlinked to an NBC news clip, clicked to an animated Russian flag, a list of Russian leaders and a short film on the Mongol invasions. Here and there, he starred items on the board using his finger. "Let's say this is Russia," he said at one point, drawing a little red circle. "Okay -- who invaded Russia?"

One student was fiddling with an iPhone. Another slept. A few answered the question, but the relationship between their alertness and the bright screen before them was hardly clear. And as the lesson carried on, this irony became evident: Although the device allowed Gee to show films and images with relative ease, the whiteboard was also reinforcing an age-old teaching method -- teacher speaks, students listen. Or, as 18-year-old Benjamin Marple put it: "I feel they are as useful as a chalkboard."

On its Web site, Smart Technologies cites more glowing testimony, quoting a former Fairfax high school teacher saying that after the whiteboards arrived, he saw "significant" increases in student performance "across all grade levels."

Such statements reflect the fact that many teachers love whiteboards -- industry groups say one in three classrooms will have the device by 2011. They also reflect the relationships that ed-tech companies cultivate with school officials to market their products, underwriting major education conferences and sponsoring professional associations. After the Montgomery County school system signed a $13 million deal with Promethean to lease 2,600 whiteboards in 2008, for instance, its technology director, Sherwin Collette, spoke at Promethean events during several major education conferences. A district spokesman said Collette was not "promoting" the products per se, but speaking about technology generally.

Last year, the Arizona attorney general criticized Tucson Unified School District officials for accepting rooms, meals, an open bar and free iPods at a resort conference paid for by Promethean after the district spent $2.1 million on products. Mark Elliott, president of Promethean North America, said the company has since revised its ethics policy. But he and others said such events help the industry "keep its finger on the pulse" of what schools need.

"The private sector engagement is a good thing," said Doug Levin, executive director of the State Educational Technology Directors Association, which lists Promethean, SMART Technologies and Apple among its $30,000 platinum sponsors. "It is the [job] of the public sector to evaluate claims of these vendors."

The reality

But according to many academics, industry claims about whiteboards are not based on rigorous academic studies. One frequently cited study, conducted by Marzano Research Laboratory and funded by Promethean, surveyed 85 teachers who volunteered to teach a lesson of their choice to two classes, one with the whiteboard, one without. The teachers then gave a test of their own design, with results showing an average 17-point gain in classrooms with whiteboards. "It's a suggestive study -- you can't conclude anything," said Steve Ross, an education professor at Johns Hopkins University. "And that's being generous."

Even the study's author, Robert Marzano, noted that 23 percent of the teachers reported higher test scores without the whiteboard, and some reported lower scores using it. "It looks like whiteboards can be used in a way that can lull teachers into not using what we consider good instructional strategies," Marzano said in an interview.

After using an interactive whiteboard for a year, William Ferriter, a sixth-grade teacher in North Carolina, came to a similar conclusion, deciding the whiteboard was little more than "a badge saying 'We're a 21st-century school.' " He spent weeks trying to devise collaborative lessons that he knows engage students. The best one, he said, brought kids to the whiteboard, where they used their fingers to sort words describing metamorphic rocks, as a video played to the side.

"It just allows you to create digitized versions of old lessons," he said. "My kids were bored with it after about three weeks."

Chris Dede, an education professor at Harvard University, said whiteboards are popular precisely because companies designed them to suit the old instructional style with which teachers are most comfortable.

"No one should be beating up on these companies," Dede said. "They're just doing what a capitalist society tells them to do."

One recent morning, an amiable corporate salesman in a dark suit wheeled into a Maryland classroom the latest high-tech device -- a $6,500 table with an interactive touch screen that allows students to collaboratively count, do puzzles and play other instructional games. "We had a first run and boom! They sold out," Joe Piazza said in his presentation to administrators at Parkside High School on the Eastern Shore. "It was kind of like the iPad."

In the cinder-block classroom, a few kindergartners sat around the fancy table, working a digital puzzle as blips and canned applause encouraged them. The school officials seemed pleased.

"So," the district's technology director asked Piazza, "do we just call you for pricing?"