Gabe Pressman Supports Teacher Experience

The Kids Need Good, Experienced Teachers

By GABE PRESSMAN

Updated 6:00 PM EST, Tue, Feb 15, 2011

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A battle is going on across the country for the soul of public education.

I went to public schools in the Bronx. They provided a pretty good education. The public school system has experienced ups and downs since then--but  basic principles have remained intact: that every child deserves a good, free education, that teachers with experience are cherished, that parents should be invited into the educational process to work with teachers and administrators for the good of their children, that politicians and other outsiders have no business meddling with our educational system.

Today’s assault on public education is led by politicians across the country. Here in New York, Mayor Bloomberg and his advisers have far-reaching control over public schools. The mayor’s motives may be good but he is not an educator. And his main goals now appear to be to save money by eliminating veteran teachers [they get higher salaries than their juniors] and breaking the power of the teachers union.

Listening to members of the Bloomberg team talk, one might get the idea that the union members are horrible people who value their salaries more than the children they teach. As a reporter who has covered the public schools for many decades, I find that notion absurd. I also confess to a bias based on my life experience. I had three aunts who were teachers and I remember how dedicated they were to the kids and how they pursued courses to improve their ability to teach. And how they never lost their sensitivity to children nor their love of the teaching profession. 

City Hall’s actions are somewhat sneaky: helping charter schools in their competition with public schools, without letting citizens know about it. The Independent Budget Office has just disclosed that, in the last year, charter schools received $649 more per student than regular public schools. The Daily News reports that charter schools are getting a windfall increase of 9 percent in New York City even as public schools are cut by more than 4 percent. Clearly the point seems to be: help the charter schools by starving the public schools.

The people of New York have not voted for such a policy. Do the taxpayers count for nothing?

Leonie Haimson, a parent leader, is angry at the way matters are unfolding. “Parents count for nothing in the way our leaders are handling the educational issues,” she told me. “We’ve been completely left out of major educational policy decisions.” Recently, she attended a Congressional hearing on education and, she says, “four parents testified and not one was for public schools.”

Haimson and other parents are organizing a group called Parents Across America, “to represent mothers and fathers in many school districts across this country. I don’t think it benefits our kids to create a system where there are so few incentives to make teaching a life’s work.

It’s interesting that this debate is not going on in Scarsdale or on Long Island. They’re looking to get rid of senior teachers in our most congested urban areas. The twin objectives are solely to destroy unions and save money.”

What is so sad, as this debate continues, is that our political leaders seem to place so little value on the wisdom of experienced teachers. Good teachers are essential to educating our most valuable resource, our children. The politicians seem to think that saving money is more important than saving children.

District 6 Parent Advocacy Training Program

I have established a 10 week Parent Advocacy Training Program in District 6, northern Manhattan, to help build the next cohort of parent leaders.

This bi-lingual program, in conjunction with the Medgar Evers College Center for Law and Social Justice, attracted 35 people to each of its first two sessions. It has the support of both northern Manhattan City Council members, Robert Jackson and Ydanis Rodriguez.  It has been endorsed by the District 6 CEC, the Community Board Youth and Education Committee, and the full Community Board 12.  Attendees have included six CEC 6 members, the President of the Presidents Council along with a number of other PA Presidents, and emerging leaders from a half dozen district schools. Parents from numerous schools, who with the destruction of district structures no longer meet and interact with one another, will have an opportunity to share experiences and thoughts in order to build strength to confront the catastrophic conditions in District 6.  20 years after  initiating the Campaign For Fiscal Equity lawsuit,  we still have numerous classes with 30 students in almost every school, and at 30 District 6 schools more than two thirds of students are at level 1 or level 2, to which the Department of Education is giving a paltry extra $ 200 per student to remediate. Yet for many years there has been little parent mobilization in District 6, with many schools not even having functioning Parent Associations. 

The Center For Law & Social Justice of Medgar Evers College has conducted a Parent Advocacy Training Program in central Brooklyn and elsewhere for many years.  For 3 months last winter I attended their program in Crown Heights, Brooklyn to witness how they organized their sessions, in order to create a similar program in District 6.  What they have conducted (until they lost their funding this year), and what I have now imported to District 6, can provide a model for the kind of program promised by the still unrealized Citywide Parent Training Academy which was to have been established by the 2009 NYC school governance law passed by the NY State legislature that reauthorized Mayoral control of NYC schools. 

Establishing such a program is arduous and time consuming. It requires developing a comprehensive curricula, assembling reference materials for study and discussion, and inviting a roster of expert speakers to inform and stimulate.  In a district like mine it also requires hiring someone to provide simultaneous oral English-Spanish- English translation for all sessions, and finding people to translate into Spanish numerous data filled documents. Dinner must be provided to parents attending from 6:30 to 9 PM, and child care services offered, to enable those with young children to attend. A small grant promised by the two Council members has allowed me to provide oral translation and dinner for attendees, but this year I was unable to provide child care, thereby unfortunately excluding many more who would have enrolled in the program.

I have drawn on many prominent activists to give presentations in order to help direct the discussions.  Last week for 2 non-stop hours after I summarized the tragic performance statistics for District 6 schools, Jessica Garcia, former spokesperson for the Campaign For Fiscal Equity, and Sarah Morgridge, long time Chief of Staff for Council member Robert Jackson, led a discussion on the history of CFE, the fallacies of the Blue Book Capacity and Utilization formulas, and the loss of cluster room spaces in our District. The latter has occurred as schools are consequentially co-located when the DOE erroneously asserts that our schools are undercapacity, thereby maintaining the large class sizes and overcrowded schools which the CFE lawsuit was meant to eliminate.

Subsequent weeks will address:

--- Various models of Parental Involvement -- that of the DOE, the former United Parent Association (UPA), about which Jan Atwell will speak, the Coalition For Educational Justice (CEJ), presented by Ocynthia Williams, and the Parent Commission proposal for an Independent Parent Union/Organization to be presented by Warren Miner.

---- Deputy Chancellor Shael Suransky will present the DOE operating concepts pertaining to Teaching, Learning, & Accountability, to which teacher-activist Julie Cavanagh will be responding. 

--- Similarly, DOE Charter School Division Chief Recy Dunn will present the DOE view on the value of Charter schools, to which Mona David will respond.

--- Melanie Reyes of the NY Immigration Coalition, and Patricia Connelly, Special Education consultant/advocate will speak respectively on issues pertaining to ELL and Special Education students.  The full schedule and curricula are attached at the end of this summary of the program. 

The purpose of the program is to provide a roadmap for parents --- to enable them to see a way from here to there, after first defining what the here and there mean for them:  Examining what kind of education parents want for their children, and exploring what currently is being provided.  Presently many parents struggle to do any of this -- understand the current system, articulate what they believe the system should provide, and assert what their role should be in the crafting of a different system, operating under different structures, provision of resources, and values.

This is intended to be a pilot program in my District.  Hopefully it will continue, so that after a few years, in time for the 2015 next round of School Governance legislative consideration, there will be 150 to 200 trained and motivated parents in District 6 who will provide leadership to mobilize our community for a different direction for educational policy. 

The District 6 program may also serve as a model for those of you in other Districts who may want to replicate such a program. With a committed leadership that is not hand chosen by the DOE and its allies, substantive District based Training Programs could help provide the foundation for engaging tens of thousands of parents in ways that has not occurred during the last 10 years.

Last year, The Medgar Evers Center for Law & Social Justice, led by its longtime activist Executive Director Esmeralda Simmons, Esq, submitted a proposal to the City Council for great expansion of its Parent Advocacy Training Program. It requested $ 250,000 to hire staff and develop liaisons in many communities. The City Council declined to act on this request.. 

Anyone interested in discussing establishing such a program in their District, or in developing a plan for reaching out to your local Council members to support funding of The Center For Law & Social Justice's efforts to establish such programs in districts in each borough, is welcome to contact me.  Anyone wanting to attend sessions of the District 6 program is also welcome to contact me. The sessions are conducted Wednesday evenings from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at 168th Street and Broadway.  The "A" and #1 trains stop right there.

Proposals for the next City Council budget cycle will be due within 6-8 weeks. 

So too for the State legislature, to compel it to act on its commitment for a Citywide Parent Training Academy, and to ensure that the activist community has a role in deciding its structure and leadership.

An Independent Parent Advocacy Training program is possible to establish in many Districts

Especially in this time of  municipal budget hardships we will need to act forcefully and with coordination if we are to be successful in extracting the requisite funding necessary to extending this type of program to other Districts, and to keep any such programs under the control of those who will truly engage parents in meaningful discussions and advocacy, now that OFEA has dropped any pretense of engaging in advocacy.

Josh

CURRICULA & SCHEDULE FOR DISTRICT 6 PACT PROGRAM 

DISTRICT 6 PARENT ADVOCATES COMING TOGETHER

Parent Training Program  CURRICULA

10 week program January – March 2011   Wed 6:30-8:30 PM

1)  Jan 12  Introduction    Esmeralda Simmons, Director of Center for Law & Social Justice                                                                                        Josh Karan. District 6 PACT Program Director

            What Kind of Education Are You Seeking For Your Child

            Goals of education; how determine;  how measure success; is this what is occurring in your school

2) Jan 19  State of District 6         Jessica Garcia, formerly with Campaign For Fiscal Equity

                                                            Sarah Morgridge, office of Council member Robert Jackson

            What Is The State of Student Performance At District 6 Schools

           Test Scores; ARIS; NCLB; Class Size/Overcrowding/ Campaign For Fiscal Equity (begun in District 6)

3) Jan 26 Parent Involvement     Rebecca Alicea    DOE District Family Advocate

                  Jan Atwell, NY City Council   former head of United Parents Association

                  Ocynthia Williams   Coalition For Education Justice

            How is the NYC School System Structured (Continued)

            School Governance & Parent Involvement

            PA’s, Parent Coordinators, District Family Advocates, OFEA, CEC’s, PEP

4) Feb 2  D-6 District 6 Test Results; New NY State Graduation & Curricula Standards 

                        Martha Madera   DOE District 6 Community Superintendent  

            How Is The New York City School System Structured:

            Schools, Districts, Network, Curricula, & Promotion Standards

                 CHOOSE ADVOCACY PROJECT --- OUTLINE GOALS & PLANS FOR PURSUING

            (Suggestions:  Developing your School’s Comprehensive Education Plan Or School Budget

             Increasing & Sustaining Participation in School Leadership Team, PA, CEC

            Strategies & Tactics For Being An Effective Parent Organizer – conducting meetings,  role of government officials & media

            Facilities Use of Your School Building – Capacity, Utilization, Footprint

                                               

5) Feb 9   ELL & Special Education   Melanie Reyes  NY Immigration Coalition

                                                         Patricia Connelly  Special Education advocate

           

            Percentage of students involved in each program; what programs are offered in District 6

            Are services satisfactory in type, quantity, & quality; how might they be improved

6)  Feb 16  Teaching, Testing, and Accountability

                        Shael Polakow-Suransky   DOE Deputy Chancellor    

                        Julie Cavanagh      PS 15 Elementary School Teacher &  Teacher and Parent Organizer

                                   

7)  March 2   Charter Schools   Recy Dunn, DOE Charter School Division

                                                      Mona David   NYC Charter Parents Association

  Charter Schools  --- An answer to what?  Goals & Realities

            Representatives from local Charter schools and from the NYC Charter Parent Association

8) March 9 – Conflict Resolution Skills    Lillian Castro    Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility

9)  March 23    Perspectives on Creating Great Schools For All   --- various views  TBD

10)   March 30   Presentation of Advocacy Projects Evaluation of Program;  Distribution of Diplomas

Film maker Michael Galinsky Begins to Look at the School Deform Movement

http://www.rumur.com/news/472/

To close or not to close

Posted by Michael on February 11th, 2011 Filed in Battle of Brooklyn, Docs, Rumur, school doc

 

This fall, as the pace of education”reform” in New York cranked up, I started to pay more attention to what was going on. With two children in my local public school, I quickly realized that the more I looked, the less I liked what I saw. I began to write about the subject to try to get my head around it, and eventually started to shoot video for a possible film about education.

We often get involved with documentary projects when we find that the information that we are getting from the media doesn’t match up with our own experiences. In the last year, with a powerful push from “Waiting For Superman”, there has been a loud drumbeat of “reform” in the mainstream press. I like reform as much as the next guy, but I was seeing, and hearing a lot about negative effects of the policies that were being enacted.

“Superman” illustrated that charter schools are wanted and desired, but severely glosses over the fact that only 15% of charter schools “perform” better than public schools. This figure also doesn’t reflect the fact that the charters that tend to show fantastic results also have much greater resources and the ability to “counsel out” less desirable students. It’s a compelling, professionally made doc, but I was more impressed by Diane Ravitch’s takedown of it than I was of the film.

As we conceptualize what a film about schools might look like I have also begun to shoot some video. These recent clips- and the following thoughts- are serving as part of my brainstorming process as I being to imagine how to put together a film on the subject.

I have to admit that when I went to see Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach For America, in conversation with Malcolm Gladwell at the NYPL last week, I was a bit skeptical. My own experience with the “reform” of public schools in NY has not been positive. Ms. Kopp is a seductive and thoughtful speaker though, and I was soon listening with a more open mind. She was introduced by Sam Cullman, who runs the The Cullman Center Institute for Teachers at the NYPL. He had high praise for great teachers and unveiled scorn for ones that were not so great. He lauded Ms. Kopp for bringing the best and brightest to the teaching profession. What’s not to like about raising millions of dollars in order to bring “the best and the brightest” to struggling schools? According to many advocates for teachers, there’s a lot to not like.

At the beginning of their discussion Gladwell joked that he wouldn’t be able to ask any hard questions but that he would try to, by channeling the thoughtful organizer of the events, Paul Holdengrabber who likes to lob challenging questions with a wily smile and a pause.

As the leader of an exponentially growing organization that recently raised $100 million dollars of financing, Kopp was very careful with her words. About halfway through the discussion the subject of schools in New Orleans came up. She glowed with enthusiasm about how the charter movement had created incredible gains in learning there. She talked about how the decimation of the schools by Katrina had created the opportunity for bold systemic change and how that change is a possible model for reforming other urban school districts. As you can see in the following clip Gladwell took great pleasure in discussing the idea of “blowing up the whole system”.

If there was anyone in this room crowded full of the best and the brightest, the intellectuals, and students, who didn’t think this was a good idea, they didn’t make themselves known. Not present was a parent from New Orleans, Karran Harper Royal, that I saw speak the night before. She was speaking at the launch of an organization called Parents Across America. The group was formed in response to a growing sense that none of the people interested in “reform” were listening to, or giving a voice, to parents.

A few days earlier I had filmed at a meeting where 22 schools were slated to be closed across all five boroughs. Thousands of parents and teachers came to speak on behalf of their schools, and every elected official who spoke urged, even demanded, that the schools be given more resources and not closed. One would think that if closing schools was good for communities then the elected officials would support the policy. In fact, there was not one local elected official representing the districts where schools would be closed who supported this idea. The parents fighting the closings knew that they would not be listened to, and after the first of nearly 400 scheduled speakers almost everyone in the room walked out. Those that remained spoke in support of the closings because the charter schools that they were involved with would be given extra space in the abandoned buildings.

A couple of weeks earlier I had attended a public hearing regarding one of my local schools. A few days before I had written about how the current department of education policies in New York City seem to be increasing division. A local politician echoed these sentiments during her comments.
http://vimeo.com/19236194

While I understand that these are complex issues it seems that when we take firm stances in one direction or another without listening to each other, we get very little positive movement. As we continue to think about what a documentary about School Reform in 2011 might look like we are trying to take all the voices into consideration.

Florida Welcomes Michelle "Tape Their Mouths Shut" Rhee

We are having a little fun at Michelle Rhee's expense in the Miami Herald today. Somehow the word of Rhee's lies about her student's test scores, her woeful inadequacies when she was dabbling in teaching for three years which went all the way to criminal child abuse, and the mess she made in DC that won't be straightened out for years, found their way to the Sunshine State. That damn Internet, Michelle!
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/13/2065253/star-educator-michelle-rhee-sparks.html

Posted on Sun, Feb. 13, 2011 'Star' educator Michelle Rhee sparks debate in Florida By Jeffrey Solochek St. Petersburg Times ALAN DIAZ / AP Michelle Rhee, left, former D.C. public schools chief, and Gov. Rick Scott prepare to tour a South Florida charter school in in Opalocka, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011. Rhee was on Scott's education transition team, and the new governor said she would continue to serve Florida as an informal education adviser. Florida's lawmakers were starstruck. Before them stood Michelle Rhee, the former Washington D.C. public schools chancellor recently featured on Oprah, on a Newsweek cover and in the documentary film Waiting for Superman. "I am here today to ask you to keep being a leader," Rhee said, urging members of two education committees to tackle one the few reforms that Florida has yet to achieve: a streamlined way to get "ineffective" teachers out of the classroom. "There is so much more to do." Senate Pre-K-12 committee chairman Steve Wise called her a movie star, and even Sen. Eleanor Sobel, a more skeptical Broward Democrat, gave a nod to Rhee for "bringing new energy to the education debate." But as he watched from the audience, the spokesman from Florida's teacher's union wondered why lawmakers were listening to her. "It's a little difficult to understand why she is given rock star status," said Mark Pudlow, of the Florida Education Association. Sure, Rhee might have the ear of the governor and the praise of the president. Sure, Rhee has made national headlines pushing through controversial measures relating to teacher tenure, evaluations and salaries in D.C. But Pudlow noted that Washington D.C. schools score at the bottom of the national Education Week Quality Counts ranking, while Florida rates close to the top. He observed that some of Rhee's controversial efforts to fire "ineffective" teachers have been overturned by an arbitrator after the Washington Teachers Union fought the effort. Valid concerns, said Rhee, an unpaid informal adviser to Florida Gov. Rick Scott. She suggested looking through a different lens for some perspective. "Over the three years that I was there, we saw really record gains in academic achievement on the NAEP examination," she said. "We went from being last in the entire nation to leading the entire nation in gains in both reading and math at both the fourth and eighth grade levels. And we were the only jurisdiction in the entire country in which every single subgroup of children improved their academic standing." The 75,000-student district still isn't the best, she acknowledged. Far from it, in fact. But Rhee proposed that the gains that D.C. schools made might be replicated if other school systems adopt some of the "drastic changes" that she pushed through. Her new national organization, Students First, seeks to get states to adopt similar changes. Rhee has made presentations to leaders in New Jersey and Indiana about these efforts, and she headed to Atlanta right after her Tallahassee stop to make a pitch to Georgia lawmakers. But she sees Florida as the logical leader for altering the teacher contract landscape, she said, because of its history of adopting school accountability measures and the willingness of its leaders to take on the tough challenges that lie ahead. She credited former governor Jeb Bush – with whom she has met – for starting the ball rolling and current Gov. Scott for taking the next step. Some of Rhee's points to Florida lawmakers last week: •  End the practice of relying on seniority to determine which teachers stay and go during layoffs. Reduce the length of time low-performing teachers get to improve, so children's education is not wasted. •  Separate teacher evaluations from the collective bargaining process. •  Eliminate "tenure" and related systems. House Rep. K-20 Competitiveness Subcommittee chairman Erik Fresen thanked Rhee for creating a national blueprint for education reform. "We have to start treating teaching as a profession," Fresen said. Some observers question whether Rhee's approach does that at all. Rhee has endured much criticism for her tough approach to the issue, where she didn't always wait for everyone to join forces with her before forging ahead. Some have contrasted her to Hillsborough County superintendent MaryEllen Elia, who is attempting to change the face of teacher evaluation with the local teachers union on board. Richard Whitmire, a former USA Today editorial writer who wrote Rhee biography The Bee Eater, said Rhee made things happen in a district that hadn't moved much before her tenure. Her relentless push for teacher quality won devoted followers, he said, but also had its fallout. "The pushback that sparked, especially around firing teachers, was the biggest reason Adrian Fenty lost his reelection bid as mayor and Rhee had to step down," Whitmire said. That's a lesson that Florida could draw from, Rhee said, acknowledging her own failure to communicate well with the public about her efforts. "I didn't do as good a job as I needed to, to proactively go out to the great teachers and say, `We're not talking about you. What I need you to do is stay. We want to recognize what you are doing. It's so important,' " she said. "You have to be careful not to send a message that you are blaming teachers or that you don't think teachers are good." In fact, she said, teachers are critically important to the success of any effort to improve education. The strong ones want the weak ones out of their schools, Rhee said, and students deserve nothing less. Wise stressed this point just before his committee passed its "teacher quality" bill on a unanimous, bipartisan vote. "We are not here to punish teachers," Wise said, adding that he wants to hear from more teachers, as well as parents and others in order to improve the measure before it gets to a final vote. Nathan Saunders, president of the Washington Teachers Union, said Florida lawmakers should think twice about heading down D.C.'s path. The full costs of Rhee's tenure have yet to be borne out, he said, but already they have begun to arise in the form of deficits and back pay for improperly fired teachers. Boiled down, Saunders had one simple message for Florida lawmakers: "Florida should not be listening to Michelle Rhee."

Merit Pay Doesn't Work, But That Was Never the Intention

Leonie,

The corporate reformers had long claimed that merit pay/bonuses would boost test scores; when it failed to do, time and again, they then said that they never expected merit pay to boost test scores, they expected it to restructure the teaching profession. Well, I guess we'll have to try it for 15 years and see how that works out.

Diane Ravitch


I reported on this study below, which received null results from teacher performance pay in NYC back when it was first released last June, in connection w/ a conference at Harvard:

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/pepg/MeritPayPapers/goodman_turner_10-07.pdf  

Now it has been published in EdNext.

Some proponents of merit pay as in this study argue that “whole school bonuses” may not work as well as individual merit pay, because it doesn’t reward individual teachers and doesn’t give them to same incentive to work harder or better; however individual merit pay did not work either in the Vanderbilt study.  http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2010/09/teacher-performance-pay/

So the corporate privateers, such as James Merriman of the NYC Charter Center at a recent panel discussion at NYU  now argue that they never expected improved results directly from giving merit pay to teachers, but that a  merit-based system would attract a better class of recruits to the profession – people that otherwise might be drawn to other professions  where their remuneration would be based more on performance (like the financial sector, to the evident detriment of our economic system, where short-term rewards were one of the causes of the economic collapse, but never mind.)

Yet this new hypothesis is not only untestable, as far I can see, but also quite unlikely, in my mind,  as most people who go into teaching in the first place are not attracted primarily out of financial considerations, unlike those attracted to work on Wall St.

Thanks, Leonie


Subject: [Bulk] Another study showing payment for performance does not improve outcomes

The right-wing Education Next reports on one more study that pay for performance does not lead to improved educational outcomes, according to this synopsis from PEN's newsblast. I doubt it will stop Ed Next's sponsors from continuing to support payment for student test scores, as Fordham Inst continues to promote (Fordham's Finn is also a key figure in Ed Next).

So much for the group huddle
A new study from Columbia University featured in Education Next analyzes a recent New York City Department of Education (DOE) policy that tested whether merit pay for all teachers at an effective school could increase student achievement. The city's School-Wide Performance Bonus Program, launched in 2007 and endorsed by both the DOE and the teachers union, was implemented in a randomly selected subset of the city's most disadvantaged schools. Researchers examined data from the first two years of the bonus program, in which teachers received bonuses based on overall performance of all tested students in their school, rather than just in their own classrooms. According to proponents, this design can minimize conflict and foster cooperation among teachers. In fact, researchers found little effect overall, positive or negative. (Also, over the period examined, all schools experienced increases in student achievement on the New York state test that has since been determined too easy, which meant 90 percent of participating schools received a bonus in the second year.) Researchers found some evidence, however, that the program had a positive impact in smaller schools, an environment in which it may be easier for teachers to cooperate in pursuit of a common reward. The study leaves open the question of whether a bonus program that rewards teachers for their own specific effectiveness would be more successful.
See the report: http://educationnext.org/does-whole-school-performance-pay-improve-student-learning/

--
Monty Neill, Ed.D.; Interim Executive Director, FairTest; P.O. Box 300204, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130; 617-477-9792; http://www.fairtest.org; Donate to FairTest: https://secure.entango.com/donate/MnrXjT8MQqk

NYCoRE's Second Annual Conference Whose Schools? OUR SCHOOLS!

 

Whose Schools?
OUR SCHOOLS!

Conference Details:
Date: Sat., March 26th, 2011 Registration: 8:45am
Keynote: 9:30am

Keynote Speakers:
Bill Ayers and
Ryan Alexander-Tanner

Conference Location:
Julia Richman Education Complex
317 E. 67th Street
New York, NY 10065

To register, or for more information, please visit:

http://www.nycore.org/conference/
 

NYCoRE's Second
Annual Conference

Whose Schools? OUR SCHOOLS!
Saturday, March 26th, 2011

---

As you know, last year's conference was a huge success! Educators, parents, students, activists, and community members were able to network, inspire one another, learn from each other, and build a movement. We invite you to attend the 2011 NYCoRE Conference for more inspiration, knowledge building, and networking!

Registration is Now Open!

REGISTER HERE!

The challenges facing our educational system can be daunting and discouraging. Critical thought seems to be buried under the flood of calls for "accountability" and "increased test scores."

But in the face of all these challenges, educators are working together with youth and with parents to keep the fires of critical thinking and curiosity alive. Committed educators know that there is no silver bullet, no magic wand, and no place for rescue from above. We know that the true superheroes are those who work every day with dedication, creativity, and compassion. We know that we change lives not with promises of rescue, but by working in solidarity with youth and their families to be our own heroes and heroines.

We invite you again to join educators, parents, students, activists, and community members from across the city and beyond for a one-day conference focused on exploring the connections between education and social justice.

Hope to see you there!

ASSEMBLY STANDING COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING - Governance of the New York City School District

Norm,

Were you aware of these hearings?  I just found a link to them when I went to Daniel O'Donnell's Assembly site. I know most hearings are often pro forma but O'Donnell and several other members of the Education Committee have been critical of mayoral control and other ed deformer policies.  If you want to post this info on one of your websites, there is still time to have people testify at two remaining hearings.

 

ASSEMBLY STANDING COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING

SUBJECT:

Governance of the New York City School District

PURPOSE:

To review the impact of governance changes which granted mayoral control of the New York City school system.

QUEENS
Thursday, January 29, 2009
10:00 a.m.
Queens Borough Hall
Meeting Room 213
120-55 Queens Boulevard
Kew Gardens, NY

STATEN ISLAND
Thursday, February 12, 2009
10:30 a.m.
College of Staten Island Center for the Arts
Williamson Theater
2800 Victory Boulevard, Building 1P
Staten Island, NY

MANHATTAN
Friday, February 6, 2009
10:00 a.m.
Assembly Hearing
250 Broadway, Room 1923
19th Floor
New York, NY

BRONX
Friday, March 13, 2009
10:00 a.m.
Lehman College
Lovinger Theatre
First Floor Speech and Theater Building
250 Bedford Park Boulevard West
Bronx, NY

BROOKLYN
Friday, March 20, 2009
10:00 a.m.
New York City Technical College
Klitgord Auditorium
285 Jay Street
Brooklyn, NY

During the 2002 and 2003 Legislative sessions, the Legislature approved the most comprehensive governance changes to the New York City School District in over three decades. The mayor was provided control of the management of the City's schools through the ability to appoint the Chancellor of the City District and a majority of the members of the City Board of Education. This authority translates into power affecting city-wide educational policies including educational standards, curriculum requirements and mandatory educational objectives; the development of a master facilities plan and five-year educational facilities capital plan; administrative functions including accounting controls and internal audits; public employer responsibilities such as setting qualifications and performance standards for teachers and supervisory personnel; the development of a procurement policy for the public schools; and management over the budgetary process and school-based budgeting.

As the law is set to sunset on June 30th of this year, the Assembly Committee on Education is interested in hearing about the impact of mayoral control on the City's school system and how modifications to the law could address concerns and improve the current governance structure. For example, questions have been raised regarding the development and execution of a five-year capital plan that still leaves many schools overcrowded and New York City with some of the largest class sizes in the state. There has also been persistent concern about the lack of access to information by parents and the community. Mayoral control has also had an impact on many other areas over which it has authority, such as student achievement. Therefore, the Committee anticipates hearing testimony regarding the effect the change in governance has had on this area, including the delivery of educational services to English language learners and students with disabilities, as well as on the other areas that have been affected by mayoral control of the New York City schools.

In order to ensure that all interested parties are given the opportunity to present testimony, the Committee requests that each individual or entity testify at only one hearing and limit the duration of oral testimony to 5 minutes. Please also note if a witness wishes to provide written testimony only, it can be incorporated into the official record if it is received prior to 5:00 pm the day before the hearing.

Persons wishing to present pertinent testimony to the Committee at a hearing should complete and return the enclosed reply form as soon as possible. It is important that the reply form be fully completed and returned so that persons may be notified in the event of emergency postponement or cancellation.

Ten copies of any prepared testimony should be submitted at the hearing registration desk of the hearing at which testimony will be offered. The Committee would appreciate advance receipt of prepared statements.

In order to further publicize these hearings, please inform interested parties and organizations of the Committee's interest in hearing testimony from all sources.

In order to meet the needs of those who may have a disability, the Assembly, in accordance with its policy of non-discrimination on the basis of disability, as well as the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), has made its facilities and services available to all individuals with disabilities. For individuals with disabilities, accommodations will be provided, upon reasonable request, to afford such individuals access and admission to Assembly facilities and activities.

Catherine T. Nolan
Member of Assembly
Chair
Committee on Education

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PUBLIC HEARING REPLY FORM

Persons wishing to present testimony at the public hearing on Governance of the New York City School District are requested to complete this reply form as soon as possible and mail, e-mail or fax it to:

Nicolas Storelli-Castro
Committee Assistant
Assembly Committee on Education
New York State Assembly
Alfred E. Smith Bldg., Suite 1147
80 So. Swan Street
Albany, NY 12248
E-mail: storellicastron@assembly.state.ny.us
Phone: (518) 455-4881
Fax: (518) 455-4128

In order to ensure that all interested parties are given the opportunity to present testimony, the Committee requests that each individual or entity testify at only one hearing and limit the duration of oral testimony to 5 minutes. Please also note if a witness wishes to provide written testimony only, it can be incorporated into the official record if it is received prior to 5:00 pm the day before the hearing.

I plan to make a public statement at the following public hearing on Governance of the New York City School District to be conducted by the Assembly Committee on Education:

Queens, Thursday, January 29, 2009

Manhattan, Friday, February 6, 2009

Staten Island, Thursday, February 12, 2009

Bronx, Friday, March 13, 2009

Brooklyn, Friday, March 20, 2009

I will address my remarks to the following subjects:

___________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________

I do not plan to attend the above hearings.

I would like to be added to the Committee mailing list for notices and reports.

I would like to be removed from the Committee mailing list.

I will require assistance and/or handicapped accessibility information. Please specify the type of assistance required:

___________________________________________________________________________________

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**** Click here for printable form ****

Closing Schools Have Most Challenging Demographics

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/schools-chosen-to-close-have-toughest-demographics/?pagemode=print

January 26, 2011, 2:16 pm

Closing Schools Have Most Challenging Demographics

By SHARON OTTERMAN

The 14 high schools that the city is proposing to close for poor performance have more homeless students, more special education students, and double the number of over-age students than the average city high school, and their share of such students has expanded in recent years, according to a new report from the city's Independent Budget Office released on Wednesday.
The findings broadly back a persistent criticism of the city's school closing policies - that the schools targeted for closure are faced with the most challenging student populations.
The study confirmed that the 25 schools proposed for closing, which include 11 middle and elementary schools, are among the lowest performing in the city. But it also found they are not universally the worst. For every low-performing school that is closing, there are schools with similar or even weaker records of student achievement that are remaining open, the report shows.
The city has closed 91 schools for poor performance since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took office - and the mayoral-controlled Panel for Educational Policy will vote in February on the latest round of closings.
But there is "no guarantee that a closing school will be replaced by a more successful one," the report states. Eight of the schools the city plans to close this year are new, small schools: "the replacement model that the Department of Education has favored for schools that have been closed in the past."
Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld, a city schools spokesman, said: "Our reform efforts are absolutely focused on our students that need the most help, and independent research shows new small schools that replace large failing schools serve more disadvantaged students on average and help these students graduate at higher rates."
Here are some of the specific findings:
- The special education population citywide remained flat at 12 percent from 2007-08 to 2008-09, but the percentage of special education students in closing high schools rose to 18 percent from 16 percent.
- The number of students in temporary housing, often one of the city's homeless shelters, quadrupled citywide during the economic downturn, from 1 percent of the total student enrollment in 2007-08 to 4 percent in 2008-09. But at closing high schools, 6 percent of students were in temporary housing in 2008-09. At four closing schools, 10 percent or more students were homeless: Public School 332, Paul Robeson High School, Middle School 571 in Brooklyn and Norman Thomas High School in Manhattan.
- Nine percent of students in the closing high schools were over age for their grade in 2008-09, an increase of 1 percent from the prior year. Citywide, the percentage of over-age students - who tend to perform poorly in school and are at high risk of dropping out - fell from 5 percent to 4 percent during that period.
- Student performance is generally among the city's lowest at the closing schools - their passing rate on high school Regents exams, for example, is 25 percent compared with 42 percent citywide. Yet most closing schools received a grade of 'proficient' on their annual quality reviews as of 2008-09 - the third highest score of five categories. One closing school ranked better ('well developed') and two scored worse ('underdeveloped').
The report is available by clicking on the following link: School Closing Jan 2011

Nine Years of BloomKlein Fail Another Generation of Students

All the fixes mentioned in the article assume that what happens in K - 8 doesn't matter.  Whether a student is college ready when she/he graduates from high school is solely the responsibility of the high school, not the student's elementary or middle school.  Never mind where she/he was academically when she/he entered the high school.  Another reason why closing low performing high school does not improve anything for anybody.
Shino

Most New York Students Are Not College-Ready

By SHARON OTTERMAN

Published: February 7, 2011Top of Form

Bottom of Form

New York State education officials released a new set of graduation statistics on Monday that show less than half of students in the state are leaving high school prepared for college and well-paying careers.

The new statistics, part of a push to realign state standards with college performance, show that only 23 percent of students in New York City graduated ready for college or careers in 2009, not counting special-education students. That is well under half the current graduation rate of 64 percent, a number often promoted by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg as evidence that his education policies are working.

But New York City is still doing better than the state’s other large urban districts. In Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse and Yonkers, less than 17 percent of students met the proposed standards, including just 5 percent in Rochester.

The Board of Regents, which sets the state’s education policies, met on Monday to begin discussing what to do with this data, and will most likely issue a decision in March. One option is to make schools and districts place an asterisk next to the current graduation rate, or have them report both the current graduation rate and the college ready rate, said Merryl H. Tisch, the chancellor of the Board of Regents. The move parallels a decision by the Regents last year to make standardized tests for third through eighth graders more difficult to pass, saying that the old passing rates did not correlate to high school success.

“With three through eight, we ripped the Band-Aid off,” Dr. Tisch said in an interview last week. “The thing we said then, in looking at the business world, is that if you sit on this, you become the Enron of test scores, the Enron of graduation rates. We need to indicate exactly what it all means, especially since we’ve already said that college-ready should be the indicator of high school completion.”

State and city education officials have known for years that graduating from a public high school does not indicate that a student is ready for college, and have been slowly moving to raise standards. But the political will to acknowledge openly the chasm between graduation requirements and college or job needs is new, Dr. Tisch; David M. Steiner, the state education commissioner; and John King, the deputy state education commissioner, said in interviews last week.

With President Obama making college readiness and international competitiveness a top national goal, and federal and philanthropic money pouring into finding ways to raise national education standards, that equation is changing, they said. “It is a national crisis,” Dr. Steiner said.  Statewide, 77 percent of students graduate from high school. Currently, a student needs to score a 65 on four of the state’s five required Regents exams to graduate, and beginning next year, they will need a 65 on all five.

Using data collected by state and community colleges, testing experts on a state committee determined last year that a 75 on the English Regents and a 80 on the math Regents roughly predicted that students would get at least a C in a college-level course in the same subject. Scores below that meant students had to often take remediation classes before they could do college-level work. Only 41 percent of New York State graduates in 2009 achieved those scores.

In the wealthier districts across the state, the news is better: 72 percent of students in “low need” districts are graduating ready for college or careers. But even that is well under the 95 percent of students in those districts who are now graduating.

The data also cast new doubt on the ability of charter schools to outperform their traditional school peers. Statewide, only 10 percent of students at charters graduated in 2009 at college-ready standards, though 49 percent received diplomas. The state has not yet calculated results for every district and school.

State officials have also begun a series of meetings in local districts to introduce this data and ask local officials what they want to do about it. A common reaction, Dr. Tisch said, is shock and hesitancy. There are fears of plummeting real estate values, as well as disagreement, particularly in rural areas, with the idea that all students need to be prepared for college.

Jean-Claude Brizard, the schools superintendent in Rochester for the past three years, said that while he was surprised by the data, he welcomed the effort to move the conversation away from simply graduating. In an effort to improve, Rochester has closed half its high schools and opened new schools, including its first high school that allows students to earn credits at several local colleges.  “We are behind the eight-ball a bit, but we are pushing,” he said. “It’s shocking, I know. It’s low. But for me, it is going to support my initiatives.”

In New York City, roughly 75 percent of public high school students who enroll in community colleges need to take remedial math or English courses before they can begin college-level work. City education officials said the 23 percent college-ready rate was not a fair measure of how the city would do if graduation requirements were raised to a higher standard, because students would work harder to meet that new bar.

While it has not gone so far as to calculate an alternative to graduation rates, the city has already begun tracking how each high school’s students fare in college, and in 2012 it will begin holding principals accountable for it. “Last year, well before the state announced this plan, we told schools we would begin including robust college readiness metrics in school progress reports,” said Shael Polakow-Suransky, the chief academic officer.

One thing that is helping districts get over their shock, Dr. Tisch said, is the opening of a broad discussion about how to improve things. On their tour, which has visited Albany, Buffalo and Rochester and will visit New York City, Westchester County and Long Island in the coming weeks, officials are presenting a menu of options.

One idea is to simply report a college-ready graduation rate as an aspirational standard and leave it at that. Another is to impose tougher graduation standards — like requiring that all students in the state take four years of math and science, or permanently raising the passing score on high school Regents exams to 75 in English and 80 in math.

But they are also discussing increased flexibility for districts and students, so that they can spend more time on the subjects they are interested in. For example, students might be permitted to choose at least one of the Regents exams they must pass to graduate — currently all students have to pass math, English, science, global history and American history. Students might be able to substitute foreign language, economics or art for one of the five. Or students could replace one Regents with a vocational skills test in an area like carpentry or plumbing.

Alternatively, the state could grant flexibility to districts to give credits based not on how many hours students sit in a classroom — currently 54 hours per semester per credit — but on whether students show competency, based on examination or online course work.

To press their case, state officials said they hoped to get political support from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo. The political environment was particularly challenging now, because the state will roll out a new system in July to evaluate teachers that has the potential of strong opposition from teachers’ unions.

“I would consider it irresponsible, quite frankly, to hold back information at this point, considering that we have already moved in that direction on the three through eight,” Dr. Tisch said, adding, “The obligation at the end of the day is to make sure that when youngsters graduate, that graduation means something from New York State.”

Graduates, but Ill-Prepared

Big Disparity Reported Between Getting a Diploma and College-Readiness Rates

By BARBARA MARTINEZ

New York state high-school students' college and career readiness lags far behind the graduation rates that most school districts post, according to data from the state Department of Education.
Across the state, the graduation rate in 2009, the last year for which figures are public, was 77%. But only 41% of high-school students were prepared for a career or college, the state said. The state defines students as college- and career-ready if they score at least an 80 on the state's math Regents exam and at least a 75 on the English Regents exam. New York students receive a high-school diploma if they achieve a score of at least 65 on Regents tests.
The state education department said that in New York City, only 23% of graduating high-school students meet the college- and career-ready standard, compared with a graduation rate of 65% among general-education students.
Some ethnic and racial groups fared worse than others. While statewide the published graduation rate among black students is 62%, only 15% are considered college- and career-ready. In Syracuse, only 1% of Hispanic students graduated from high school at college- and career-ready level.
Charter schools in the state, which posted a 49% graduation rate, have a 10% college- and career-ready rate, according to the education department.
City officials said they are already ahead of the state in recognizing the problem. "Well before the state announced this plan, we told schools we would begin including robust college readiness metrics to school progress reports," said Shael Polakow-Suransky, the city's chief academic officer. In 2008, the city's DOE formed a partnership with City University of New York to track how its graduates were doing in city colleges, and began sharing that information with the graduates' high schools so they could address deficiencies.
Brian Rosenbloom, principal of Chelsea High School in SoHo, said he's all for raising the standards, as long as it doesn't happen overnight. "The kids can handle it," he said, "provided the adults can do it the right way."
The state changed third- through eighth-grade proficiency standards dramatically this summer, resulting in hundreds of thousands of children suddenly being deemed behind grade level. The number of third- through eighth-grade students in the state called proficient in English, for instance, fell from 77% to 53%.
At the high-school level, other major cities performed worse than New York. In Rochester, which posted a graduation rate of 47%, only 5% of students are considered college- and career-ready by the state's standards.
"College- and career-ready" have become national buzzwords since the Obama administration set them as the new goal that must be at the forefront of efforts to overhaul public education. Last summer, the chancellor of the New York Board of Regents, Merryl Tisch, said she envisioned the state providing two types of diplomas: one marked "college ready," and one that is not.

LA Teacher Union Election

Eight seek presidency of United Teachers Los Angeles

Candidates have much in common, but one appears to be strongly favored by outgoing boss A.J. Duffy.

A.J. Duffy is the outgoing president of United Teachers Los Angeles. Eight candidates are in the race to replace him. In background is Julie Washington, who appears to be a frontrunner in that race. (Mel Melcon, Los Angeles Times / April 11, 2005)

By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

February 6, 2011

The eight candidates vying to be president of the powerful Los Angeles teachers union share a general belief that public education is endangered by malevolent forces outside and corrupt incompetency inside.

From their perspective, corporations seek to bleed dollars from schools and collude with powerful nonprofits, such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; a top-heavy, punitive school district bureaucracy stifles innovation while squandering or squirreling away millions; charter schools abuse teachers, drain public resources and take only the best students; and traditional schools need a lot more money.

The best weapon against these forces, the candidates assert, is the strongest possible, most combative union to serve as a last bastion against those who seek to do harm to students and teachers.

It's a traditional union outlook — especially in Los Angeles — but it's a harder sell outside United Teachers Los Angeles. Some critics contend that teacher unions are hindering educational progress. L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former UTLA organizer, has called the union "one unwavering roadblock to reform."

Labor relations expert Charles Kerchner said the union's habitual rhetoric undermines some legitimate substance. Teacher unions do face grave threats, including efforts to end collective bargaining rights, and union leaders have contributions to make on school reform, said Kerchner, a professor at Claremont Graduate University.

The mail-in balloting for union officers, which ends Feb. 17, coincides with multiple, serious challenges for the Los Angeles Unified School District and the union. A financial crisis could lead to more layoffs and pay cuts. Community leaders and public officials are demanding more and faster reforms. The district leadership is in flux, with a new superintendent taking charge in April. And the mayor and union are battling for control of the school board in the March elections, when four seats on the seven-member Board of Education are on the ballot.

Ongoing contract talks include a controversial district proposal to revamp teacher evaluations. The proposed evaluation would use a "value-added" measure to link teachers to their students' year-to-year growth on standardized tests.

Julie Washington, a UTLA vice president and a heavy favorite to win the union presidency, strongly decries unions across the country that have agreed to measure teachers, in part, by student progress on standardized tests.

"All of these unions have caved in," Washington said at a recent candidates forum at Taft High School in Woodland Hills. "We are the last-standing major union in this country that does not have the value-added model shoved down their throat.... UTLA has stood strong."

Among teachers, there's evidence of discontent with local union orthodoxy as well as a long history of widespread apathy to union participation. About one in five members voted in the last election for union president. Members of a recently formed splinter group, NewTLA, call for more openness to new ideas and more collaboration with other interest groups.

Still, the forum at Taft, in which seven candidates took part, suggests that there will be no sharp turn of philosophy at the top.

The real problem, said candidates, is that allegiance to traditional union approaches has lapsed. Except for Washington, who is part of the union leadership, candidates insisted that UTLA has become too weak, too compliant, too ineffectual, too willing to compromise under president A.J. Duffy, who is finishing his second and final three-year term.

"There is no more giving anything away," Matthew Ross, a teacher who works with underachieving students in several schools, said at the forum. "We're going to take every inch back.... I am going to fight like a tiger."

Said substitute teacher Linda Everhart: "The word is strike. Yes, strike. Have you been waiting to hear that powerful word?"

The candidates uniformly castigated the spread of charter schools and the district's policy of allowing them to bid for control of low-performing schools and new campuses. Charters are publicly funded, independently run campuses that are mostly nonunion and free of many district regulations.

"The district is being torn into shreds, cut into pieces, being sold off," said Warren Fletcher, a teacher at the City of Angels alternative school. He called for unionizing charter schools, as did other candidates.

Mat Taylor, the lead union representative for much of South Los Angeles, wants to rally against outside interests: "We need to make it clear we don't subscribe to the Bill Gates agenda on education and make it clear we're not for a superintendent who does."

He was referring to incoming L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy, who previously worked for the Gates Foundation, heading a research effort to improve teacher evaluations.

Despite similar world views, some internal divisions have percolated into the election.

Two substitute teachers joined the field in part over anger at Duffy for limiting their seniority protections. One of them, Leonard Segal, strayed somewhat from union dogma by asserting that the best minds, inside and outside the union, should come together to address problems.

Art teacher David Garcia called for internal accountability and belt-tightening, including a reduction in dues for non-tenured teachers — who lack full union protection — and a reduction in salaries for union officers. Duffy makes $99,385 per year.

Duffy hasn't endorsed a successor but has let Washington preside at recent press conferences and rallies, raising her profile inside and outside the union. Duffy also has barred the media from attending candidate forums — a ban not always enforced — and has refused to supply contact information for candidates to reporters, leaving only Washington easily accessible.

Internally, the process is more evenhanded, with the union paying for a one-time distribution of fliers, if candidates provide them, and publishing candidate statements online and in the union newspaper. Candidate videos also are online, including one from Franklin High instructional coach Ronald B. Conover, who did not attend three official forums.

Marshall High teacher Teri Klass, who is not a candidate, said she formerly paid little attention to union politics, trusting her representatives as she focused on teaching. She experienced an eye-opener last year, she said, when the union's House of Representatives resisted for months allowing teachers to compete with charter schools for control of struggling and new campuses. She said many of the activists who dominate the House are ideologically unyielding and out of touch.

Just as crucially, she said, the public is beginning to see the teachers union in a similar light. Klass, a member of NewTLA, recently won election to the House.

The candidates for president haven't given up on the old UTLA. They say that too much is at stake, for teachers and for students.

"We're going to have to redefine us in the media," said Washington, reflecting the views of other candidates. "Right now we're the big, greedy teachers.... We are not the villains in education; we are the saviors."

howard.blume@latimes.com