In an email received by accident today, and sent me by a friendly source, Joel Klein blasts the NY Times coverage of the test score scandal this way: “NYT is outrageous.“
Interesting how he says the Times article is “outrageous.” I thought today’s article was relatively mild myself. Or perhaps he meant yesterday’s piece?
In any case, Klein then adds: “There will be pushback (in addition to today’s DN edit) ahead but the oppos are trying to move their agenda with this.” You bet we are!
When the entire Bloom/Klein agenda has been revealed to be a failure, we’d be fools not to point that out.
The Daily News editorial that he is referring to is even more ridiculous than
ever. These guys have lost all sense of reality. Entitled Way to Go, Kids! it still maintains the fiction, with a straight face, that the progress under Bloom/Klein has been terrific, while ignoring how their house of cards has completely fallen apart.
Klein's email message is
addressed to Whitney Tilson. Tilson is a charter school/ hedgefund privateer, founder of the
pro-charter group Democrats for Education Reform, and writes one of the silliest blogs on the planet (amusingly lampooned by Billionaires for Educational Reform).
Here is their entire exchange.
__
JK wrote:
Put together stuff for him re scale score re ros, big 4 from 02, etc, s-chart stuff, the chart
showing whichever cut scores we moved up, and the naep stuff. Let me see.
From: Whitney Tilson [mailto:wtilson@t2partnersllc.com]
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 4:57 PM
To: Klein Joel I.
Subject: RE: test data
Thx for the heads up on the Daily News editorial – I’ll include it in my next email.
Please send me whatever you have on the results.
Thx!
From: Klein Joel I. [mailto:JKlein@schools.nyc.gov]
Sent: Friday, July 30, 2010 4:43 PM
To: Whitney Tilson
Subject: RE: YPO dinner on March 8, 9 or 10th?
Btw, thanks for the shout out today. NYT is outrageous. There will be pushback (in addition to today’s DN edit) ahead but the oppos are trying to move their agenda with this. If you ever want details regarding the results, including strong results in 3 or 4 naeps, i can get to you. Enjoy the weekend.
10 comments:
Nobody is shocked anymore at the whole idea that what NYC's schools chancellor spends his time on is advising charter school promoters how to spin test results.
The sad thing is, if Joel Klein spent half as much time on the traditional public schools as he spent hanging with his homey hedge fund boys and the charter school crowd, maybe our schools would be better and our children would be learning something more than how to slide by on a single annual standardized test. But the real work of improving real schools is not nearly the fun of schmoozing with the hedge fund thieves and showing up for John Legend charter benefit concerts.
why was Betsy fired?
with all the foreplay-and after play- reported by Inside the Unity Caucus---- going on at UFT headquarters during union time, arent any of "the boys" worried that they will leave a (H)ickey on someone's neck and their mistress's husbands or boy friends-or girl friends or the wives of the UFT big wigs- will find out?
Does Conrad Hilton know about this? Were UFT funds used for the Sixth Avenue trysts and covered up by Mulgrew and Weingarten and others?
How many rooms were reserved? Why was the abused woman given protection?
When will the other abused women come forward -some of them have tapes-to "expose" these Unity whore masters?
Steve,
By pushing charters and destabilizing the public schools, Klein is doing precisely what he was hired to do.
As someone who for virtually his entire working career showed no interest whatsoever in education, it's clear he wasn't hired for his concern about curriculum and pedagogy. No, he was hired to break up what the neocons and neolibs consider the "government monopoly" of education. In other words, he was hired to destroy the system.
And he's done a good job of that.
Michael Fiorillo,
I think you're right, but I also think that these guys don't quite see it in pure business and legal terms (Boy, let's not even get into legality), though that's their modus operandi and psychology. I think in some sense they are crusading nutjobs who WISH they were tilting at windmills.
What they tend to call 'pushback' is actually correction for reality.
Not the 'pushback' Klein uses for his own agenda, but the 'pushback' he has said they receive simply because their reforms are immense and unpopular.
Leonie you were great on Democracy Now. Your comments as well as Diane Ravitz's should be made available to every parent and staff member in NYC schools. Klein's e mail says it all what the real agenda is add in Moskowitz's e mail and you see the true intent of the so called reforms. Now that the fraud has been made public, how will groups such as your get the message out? I have little faith in the uft as Randi has set the agenda joining in with the reformers, so Mulgrew will just parrot the AFT party line.
Whitney? Who the hell would ever name their male child "Whitney"?
They must have hoped he would reverse the cotton gin and create wasteful fluff, which is part of what he's doing.
Anyone who teaches in a NYC public school, whether charter or not, knows that the NYS standardized tests are political tools. Historically, these tests are either "dumbed down" or "made harder" depending on the current political landscape. To hear our mayor, chancellor, governor, legislators, union officials, and self-serving education leaders talk of reform and our amazing progress turns my stomach. Just sit in a few classes! You'll be amazed at the level of student performance, and then be further amazed that these same students tested as proficient or above standards. Why not simply administer reliable grade-level exams to students? Don't parents have a right to know if their child is able to perform as well as students in more affluent neighborhoods? The truth is that, regardless of the self-serving political spin, it is next to impossible to serve students who are years behind in skills and knowledge and may have unidentified learning disabilities and/or second language challenges. Add living in a difficult home situation and you have the perfect storm! Let's be honest and figure out how to help these kids instead of manipulating the testing instruments. Luckily, there's no need to reinvent the wheel since tried-and-true effective instructional practices have been around for decades. Most educators understand that this will take years if not decades. Sadly, teachers and principals are simply puppets-on-a string awaiting the next wave of education "reform." Either get on board or risk losing your job or having your school closed. The result is yet another generation of barely literate young adults. The real problem is that politicians and their ilk have neither the courage or the foresight to tackle real reform. Gets in the way of their career-building egos and/or reelection campaigns!
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