Word is the response rate on the parent survey is so low that DOE will extend the deadline once again. They are now openly threatening principals that if they don't get parents to return them in greater numbers this may count against their schools in their grades, which in turn could put their jobs at risk. In turn, principals are begging parents to fill in their surveys and send them back.Here’s part of a desperate email that went out to parents at one school today:
May 31, 2007 (GBN News): The NY City Department of Education announced today what Chancellor Joel Klein called a “revolutionary new testing program”. Saying that the previous program, “Perpetual Testing”, was a “vestige of the past”, the Chancellor touted the new plan, which is to be termed, “Total Testing”. The program will make use of a new IBM supercomputer called ARIS II. Mr. Klein said that ARIS II is so powerful that it beat the original ARIS a thousand straight times in both chess and backgammon. Calling ARIS a “dinosaur” which has “long been in need of replacement”, the Chancellor said that the DOE has been working day and night with IBM to develop the new computer, for which the Department will pay $180,000,000.
As our blog discussed more than a week ago, DOE announced that McGraw Hill will provide the new periodic assessments -- the same company that came up with the infamous Brownie the Cow. According to the DOE, schools must give five assessments per year in grades 3-8 and four in High School in ELA and Math. More subjects will come later.
These tests will cost $80 million over five years and are separate from the state tests that are already required in grades 3-8. This, plus the cost of the ARIS supercomputer (another $80 million) could have paid for a whole lot of smaller classes. According to the New York Times,
“…few major cities administer standardized tests as frequently as five times a year, several education experts said, and the move instantly drew criticism from the array of groups that have mobilized against the growing reliance on standardized tests that has accompanied the No Child Left Behind law.
“It’s certainly more than any other city than I know of,” said
Randi Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, said in an interview that many teachers say they already spend at least one day a week preparing for standardized tests. “Our issue is, how much teaching time is this eating up?” she said. “You’re spending a lot of time doing test prep and doing paperwork associated with test prep instead of teaching.”
What’s the justification?
“I don’t think it means more pressure,” Mr. Klein said. “I think it means more learning.”
When did more testing become more learning? In the jargon of the Accountability office, more test results supposedly allows for more “differentiated” instruction “ which will lead to more learning.
Yet the smaller classes that would really make individualized instruction more possible are not considered. Instead, DOE has omitted the crucial step of improving classroom conditions – because mandating more testing will somehow substitute for everything else.
Apparently DOE could find only one principal in support of the new assessments: Elmer Myers, of PS/MS 194 in the
"This gives much more specificity from what I've seen for far, than what we've had in the past,” said Elmer Myers, a
According to the DOE, class sizes at the school range from 24.6 students in Kindergarten to 31.7 students per class in 4th grade. Sixth to eighth grade classes range from 27.4 to 29.8 students, with each middle school teacher usually responsible for five classes.
That means every middle school teacher has about 150 students, with charts to be analyzed for each class in different eye-glazing, color-coded categories five times a year. (See p.19 of this pdf file for an example of a class of only 17 students.)
Then, the revealed weaknesses of each of these 150 students will somehow addressed – that is, if the results are meaningful at all, which they won’t be, according to many testing experts and the record of the previous version from Princeton Review. And, of course, this will also depends on there being sufficient time in class to do so, along with all that test-taking.
Good luck to Mr. Myers, his teachers and most of all, the students at this school.
(For more information on the periodic assessments, see the DOE website here.)
Well we know where the priorities are. Between the $ 80 million dollars going to the interim assessments, and another $80 million for the supercomputer ARIS, with top level salaries totaling in the millions, and who knows what other wasteful contracts there are, we can now see where the Campaign for Fiscal Equity money will go. We fought so hard and yet I predicted that if the state did not put rules on the use of these funds this would happen -- and sadly once again I was correct.
Instead, the money could put toward more Art, Music, Drama, Science (not just test prep but real learning) ; a really solid enrichment program (as we had in my district until the regions took over) which includes off site visits to museums, with classroom instruction before and after.
This type of enrichment could have been expanded to more children. Also, the creation of some programs for those kids that will never be able to get a Regents diploma and have no desire to go to college -- so they can use the talents they do have and get a diploma, instead of becoming a drop out statistic (or non-statistic with all the manipulation of the data.) They could get some form of job training that can afford them real opportunities in life thus building a real future for them.
I will say, however, on behalf of lower class size, I have had three sons go through the system. The youngest is a junior in high school; the other two have graduated college and in every, every instance when they were lucky enough to have a class of 25 or less, especially in Junior High school or high school, they did extraordinarily better than when their classes were 30 or more.
Even in college, my older ones have said that they did so much better in college because they had classes of 10. Teachers can get to know their students, their strengths and weaknesses. Students can build a rapport with the teacher. More than any other single change, lowering the class sizes, notwithstanding a good teacher, a mediocre teacher, a new teacher, a seasoned teacher, would raise the level of education for each child.
In a move called "revolutionary", Beth Fertig of WNYC did an expose of the pregnancy schools in 2004 -- and still nothing was done to improve or eliminate them. Even now, as pointed out by the NYCLU, there is little in the DOE press release about the closing of these schools about what will be offered in their place:
"The plan to close the 'pregnancy schools' must be accompanied by an aggressive strategy to change the culture hostile to pregnant and parenting students -- and a comprehensive plan to build active support systems that will help them stay in or return to regular schools. "
The other type of alternative schools to be phased out are the "New Beginning" centers, where high school students with a history of minor behavior problems or uneven attendance were often transferred. Of course, all of these programs were a godsend to high schools that wanted to get off their rolls any students considered marginal or troublesome.
Unnoticed in any of the articles reporting their elimination was that these centers were first established with great fanfare only four years before. Here is an excerpt from a 2003 press release from the Mayor's office:
The New Beginnings Centers enable the Department of Education to remove these students from the classrooms that they disrupt so that other students may learn there. Once removed, the students are placed in classrooms under the close supervision of an instructor using a specially-designed standards-based curriculum that allows students to earn credits towards Regents exams. Students are also provided with integrated guidance and supportive services.
A 2004 New York Times article featured an interview with Chancellor Klein, bragging about this particular reform:
Mr. Klein...praised the New Beginnings centers, 16 mini-schools for disruptive (but not extremely violent) high school students. The high schools that send students to the centers say they are also pleased with the program. As a result, four more centers are being created this spring. But some New Beginnings staff members say the program, like much else about the overhauled school system, is still getting its footing. Some sites have been sent students they are unprepared to handle, like violent or special education students.
Only this administration would claim "revolutionary" credit for getting rid of a failed program that had been created under its leadership, as well as schools for pregnant girls which lasted far longer than could be justified.
Still remaining, unfortunately, are the SOS suspension centers that the DOE has placed in the basements of community or drug treatment clinics, which provide little in the way of either education and/or counseling. The continued existence of the SOS schools continues to be a major scandal waiting to be told.
(For more on the dreadful legacy of the Pregnancy schools, see the 2006 NYCLU testimony to the Citywide Council on High Schools here.)
I urge you to rethink the decision to exclude parents of students with disabilities from the parent survey.The letter also points out the many other problems with special education under this administration: lengthy delays in referrals and providing necessary services resulting from the elimination of relevant staff in the district offices, hiring attorneys to contest parents in expensive and lengthy hearings , overstuffing classes so they exceed the size mandated by state law, and excluding special needs students from the new small schools for the first two years of their existence.
Furthermore, the justification for this exclusion, that District 75 students are "too unusual," attributed to school officials in recent published reports, is invalid and offensive. Parents of students in District 75 would be more than happy to participate in this survey and again in a survey specific to them next year.
Not only is the DOE excluding the parents of District 75 students from the survey, the DOE is also muffling the voices of all students with disabilities and their families.
announcement made by the two players, an
ad designed to persuade people to fill out school survey forms, which have been coming in at a slow pace. In the ad (see text below), entitled, “Just Take It”, Maine and Phelps are heard exhorting parents, teachers and children to “Just get it”, “just take it”, and “just end it”, and the two emphasize that being “busy” is no reason for failure to complete the form. The Chancellor liked their “no excuses” approach, and noted that Phelps in particular, having worked for George Steinbrenner, should have no trouble adjusting to the culture of the DOE.
Saved the Schools from Ruin”) Klein had another exciting day today making our city school system the finest that no-bid contracts can buy. The tandem, who have received accolades all over the world for bringing civilization to the city schools, had to practically fight off groups of parents just to reach their respective offices this morning, as the parents shook their fists at them in obvious adulation. For the Mayor, the high point of the subway trip to City Hall was when he personally confiscated three dangerous weapons (cell phones) from children who apparently intended to bring them into school buildings.
Jackson: You would agree that putting two teachers in a classroom is not class size reduction?When questioned, Klein could not say how much money was being directed to smaller classes or how he intended to achieve them, given the overcrowding that exists in many schools. His plan seemed to consist of little more than providing principals with more money, who he thought would probably hire more teachers if they had the space. As evidence he pointed to how Empowerment Zone schools hired more teachers with their funds in prior years. He did not, however, mention that many of those same schools were sent more children as a result.
Klein: No, I disagree.
I had just finished filling out my Parent Survey for the DOE, when I noticed that there were three pages of questions asking me to rate my son's middle school, but not a single question asking me about the DOE itself. What???Immediately, of course, I realized that this must be an oversight. Clearly some underpaid assistant had forgotten to attach the relevant pages!
Because I am confident that the DOE is as interested in how I think THEY'RE doing as they are in how I think my son's school is doing, I took the liberty of crafting my own set of survey questions and mailing them in with the pages they had provided me. A copy of my addendum is attached here.
Sincerely, Jan Carr, public school parent
**********************************************************************
THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
1. How much do you agree or disagree with the following statements about the DOE?
with the radical restructuring of the schools. Strongly agree
pitting schools against each other by issuing report cards to schools. Strongly agree
i. The DOE is misallocating scarce resources by lining the pockets
of its friends in the testing industry. Strongly agree
by issuing merit pay. Very unsatisfied
by requiring better scores each year over three years time
with punitive threat of dismissal. Very unsatisfied
for schools in the hands of independent contractors. Very unsatisfied
about the specifics of the new support organizations
they will need to choose among under the new restructuring plan. Very unsatisfied
attracting and retaining smart, qualified teachers. Very unsatisfied
and expertise to improve the quality of our schools Very unsatisfied
This survey will be balled up and thrown in the trash and the results will be ignored completely!
number of insurgent attacks, and number of weapons such as cell phones captured or confiscated. 85% of the total grade will be based on these measurable outcomes. The other 15% of the grade will be based on satisfaction surveys. Of these, 5% will come from the troops, 5% from Iraqi and Afghan civilians, and 5% from the insurgents. If there is no measurable improvement with each assessment, Mr. Klein will lose his job.
May 21, 2007 (GBN News): With the commitment by McGraw-Hill to do interim assessments in the NY City schools, and the forthcoming implementation of the ARIS supercomputer system, the NY City Department of Education today announced a new comprehensive evaluation program. The program, called “Perpetual Testing”, will involve frequent interim tests from the moment children walk into the school to the time they leave.
According to the blog Ed in the Apple, McGraw-Hill will provide the new interim assessments to be required in all NYC public schools every 4-6 weeks starting next fall. The company has “produced a web-based diagnostic tool” that it has been “rolling out” around town and “audiences have been applauding.”“The students can take the exam online or on a Scan-able form.….Mc Graw Hill will place servers around the City and will maintain the website. The Department deserves accolades: a useful tool that embodies 21st century technology.”
I remain skeptical, having seen the highly flawed ELA exams prepared by the same company. Remember the 4th grade standardized test featuring the notorious Brownie the Cow? Yes, that mind-bendingly absurd test was produced by McGraw-Hill.
A few years ago, due to scoring errors by CTB McGraw-Hill, 9,000
Of course, all the new testing will only further diminish the amount of time available for actual teaching and learning.
Finally, as many teachers point out, given their huge teaching load and class sizes, especially in middle and high schools, even if they had the time to analyze all the results for each one of their 150 students every six weeks, they will have little or no opportunity to address their specific deficiencies.
Since the whole point of the new costly and time-consuming interim assessments, according to DOE, will be to facilitate “differentiated” instruction, one wonders why at the same time, this administration is so resistant to providing the smaller classes that might actually make this possible.
May 18, 2007 (GBN News): In what was termed a “warning shot across the bow”, NY City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced today the firing of 48 “empowerment” school principals. The Chancellor cited their schools’ “inadequate progress” in the two days since they opted to join the “empowerment zone” and trade increased funding and autonomy for more accountability.
35% of schools decided to enter the Empowerment Zone, Judith Chin’s LSO (Learning Support Organization) came in second at 27%. Of the PSOs, (private Partnership Support Organizations) the losers were AIR, Success for All, and WestEd, none of which received enough votes to “remain eligible providers of support,” according to
The belle of the ball with the fullest dance card among the PSO's was New Visions, chosen by 5% of schools. No doubt the fact that they will continue to be able to hand out hefty Gates grants made them even more alluring than they otherwise might have been.
Updated: Here's the full list (in Excel) of schools by borough, and their SSO's.
May 17, 2007 (GBN News): In what is widely viewed as an attempt to bolster his foreign policy credentials in advance of a possible Presidential bid, N.Y. City Mayor Michael Bloomberg today wrapped up a surprise whirlwind tour of Iraq. With Schools Chancellor Joel Klein in tow, the Mayor spent much of the time visiting the country’s schools.In today's Gotham Gazette there's a column by Emily Jane Goodman, a New York State Supreme Court Judge, about the recent decision by Justice Lewis Bart Stone that upheld the Mayor's cell phone ban. What’s startling is how openly critical her tone is. The column features a lengthy and very sympathetic description of the parents' plight in trying to secure the safety of their children.
She also points out, quite caustically, that Stone is only an “acting” justice, who “normally hears criminal cases.” His decision, she writes, "made numerous references to infractions, discipline, security, magnetometers and cited his own experiences" as well as “expositions on procedural technicalities and personal philosophy along with a section labeled, "What is a cell phone?"
Two additional points:
1- Stone is the same judge who ruled against the UFT and our class size coalition that there could be no citywide referendum on class size. He went to great lengths to argue that the state did not mean to give the city enhanced powers over education when Mayoral control was established – which is why city voters could not have a voice on this issue, an argument which appeared to fly in the face of legislative intent.
In the cell phone case, again, he came out strongly in favor of upholding DOE’s prerogatives to ignore parents and unilaterally make decisions as regards our kids. He also rejected an amicus brief from the UFT, which supported the parents' position, though he accepted an affidavit from Randi Weingarten. As described in the column, he called those who submitted such briefs really “enemies” rather than “friends" of the court, and complained that the obligation to read them was overly burdensome . A Pataki appointee, Justice Stone has also told people his idol is Judge Scalia of the Supreme Court.
The story of the widely criticized Bloomberg plan to partition playing fields on Randall's Island has seen new media coverage lately. A well-researched article in Time Out New York Kids explains how an elite group of 20 private schools will be granted exclusive access to 2/3 of the the 65 new and refurbished fields during the best playing hours, while all our public schools will have to split the rest. Click here for the article entitled "Field of Schemes".
Chancellor was said to feel that paid actors, trained to take direction and beholden to the DOE, would be more compliant than actual parents and would help the DOE give its programs a more positive spin.
In response to questions on class size, Joel Klein likes to rhapsodize about his great lecture courses in college. See this interview for example:
“When you enter college, when I went to college, you took some lecture courses, right, that were phenomenal, and they weren't 20 or 25 kids. And I think we should have a much more, if you would, a kind of mix tapered to the needs of the kids and what the class is trying to do.”
Recently at
"There were people here at
Despite the fact that the analogy between Ivy league college students and the high needs (and much younger) population in our public schools is rather farfetched, I remember few great lectures in college. Instead, I recall dozing through all too many.
Now even Harvard has issued a new report that reconsiders the value of lecture courses. In an article in today's NY Times , Eric Mazur, a professor of Physics recounts how he
“...threw out his lectures in his introductory physics class when he realized his students were not absorbing the underlying principles, relying instead on memory to solve problems. His classes now focus on students working in small groups. “
“When I asked them to apply their knowledge in a situation they had not seen before, they failed,” Professor Mazur said. “You have to be able to tackle the new and unfamiliar, not just the familiar, in everything. We have to give the students the skills to solve such problems. That’s the goal of education.”
May 10, 2007 (GBN News): According to GBN News sources, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to forego a presidential race due to his concern about publicity generated by a group called, “Cell Phone Users for Truth”. The group purports to have direct knowledge of the Mayor’s past use of cell phones which could be potentially embarrassing and might even discredit his strict ban on students’ possession of cell phones in schools. The Mayor is reportedly afraid that revelation of this information could damage a prospective Bloomberg candidacy. Moreover, the Mayor is said to feel that the cell phone ban is so crucial to the success of his educational reforms that he is reluctant to jeopardize those reforms by risking exposure by the group.
May 8, 2007 (GBN News): Emboldened by yesterday’s court ruling upholding the NY City Department of Education ban on cell phones, the DOE today expanded the ban to include virtually all electronic and mechanical devices. A DOE spokesperson told GBN News that while the ban covers devices of any kind, the main target of the new ban is wrist watches, which the DOE considers “disruptive” and “a safety issue”.
Today, Judge Lewis Stone issued a negative decision in the cell phone case. NYC parents had sued the Department of Education so that their children could carry cell phones to school, to ensure their safety and to communicate with them before and after school. An appeal is likely.
Nothing reveals the flawed priorities of this administration more than the fact that almost twice as many new seats in sports stadiums will be created over the next five years as new seats in schools. See this chart – with 117,000 new seats projected for the new Yankees, Mets and Nets stadiums, with only 63,000 new seats in our schools. Meanwhile, new development is springing up all over the city, and will likely cause even more overcrowding in our schools.
Recently, the Mayor assembled a sustainability task force to come up with proposals on how to serve a population that is expected to grow by a million residents by 2030, to deal with the increased pressure on housing, energy, sewage, transportation, parks, playgrounds, and other infrastructure.Yet this task force was explicitly instructed to leave schools out of their considerations.To add insult to injury, the only mention of schools in the 160 pg. report, aside from opening up school playgrounds for more hours, is to use school buildings for more housing!
The report uses as a model PS 109 in East Harlem, and how the school is going to be converted to artist housing: “By working with HPD and the Department of Cultural Affairs to open new affordable spaces for artists, we can not only preserve our physical city but also its essential creative spirit.“
The authors go on to describe the battle of community activists residents who fought for the school building to be preserved – without mentioning that what they really wanted was for PS 109 to be a school again!
The problem is put in further relief by the fact that the DOE is now obligated by state law to submit a five year plan to reduce class sizes in all grades by July 1 – and the regulations specifically require that the city's capital plan be aligned with this proposal.
And this is why we must ask our elected officials to require that schools be incorporated in all large scale residential and commercial developments – and not just small schools with 500 seats, when the need is more than 1,000 new seats, as generated by the Atlantic yards project. And why we need a better capital plan -- one that provides at least twice as many seats as the one currently proposed by DOE.
