Bloomberg's damaging education proposals to cost $350 million per year

There's horrific news in today's Daily News: that NY State Education Commissioner King is likely to approve the mayor's proposal to fire half of all of  teachers at 33 struggling schools:"That's a pretty aggressive teacher evaluation system,” the state insider said. “We believe the switch meets all the federal requirements.”

Firing a fixed and arbitrary quota of  at least half of all teachers, regardless of their ability, is not a real teacher evaluation system; it's a meat cleaver approach. This proposal reveals Bloomberg's phony hypocrisy and any supporter who  claims to care about the importance of "teacher quality."

Moreover, the city is supposedly intent on pushing through this plan so they can get $60M in federal School Improvement Grants, but as more than 1700 teachers are involved, this will likely double the Absent Teacher Reserve pool and cost the city more than $100M, according to the Daily News.

And the mayor's pointless proposal for merit pay  -- to give $20,000 raises to those teachers rated "highly effective" -- which  has not worked anywhere it has been tried , including NYC, to improve student outcomes?  The Daily News estimates this would cost about $250M per year, for a total of $350M.

In contrast, DOE estimated in 2009 that it would cost about the same amount ($358 million) to reduce average class sizes across the system to the state-mandated goals of 20 students per class in K-3; 23 in 4-8 grade and 25 in HS.  Instead, class sizes have increased every year for the last four.

If they do manage to fund these new proposals, with a static overall education budget, this would probably require even more cuts in staffing, which will mean even larger classes in the future. In contrast, class size reduction is a program that has been proven to work through rigorous evidence, according to the federal government, and is the highest priority of NYC parents every year in the DOE's own surveys, but no; Bloomberg and his cronies would rather scapegoat teachers, fire as many as possible, and waste taxpayer money on policies that have been proven to fail. 

Meanwhile, the NY Times runs an editorial approving the mayor's  proposals, the link to which Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson tweeted to Diane Ravitch, Randi Weingarten, Patrick Sullivan and me last night.  (Way to go, Howard! Glad you're thinking of us  at 11:26 PM on a Friday night!)

The Times opines that the UFT "should meet Mr. Bloomberg’s challenge to help create a fair system for evaluating teachers to be used in providing extra pay as well as to claim more than $60 million in federal education funds that depend on having an evaluation plan in place."

I agree that would be a good goal. Only the mayor doesn't want a fair teacher evaluation system, he wants one that is based solely upon the views of principals  -- with no possible appeal to a more objective party, despite the fact that many NYC principals have been found to base their teacher ratings upon personal grudges and worse, and yet been kept on the job by DOE.

Moreover, built into the NYC school funding system is a poison pill called "fair student funding," which means that principals have to pay the full salaries of their teachers out of their individual school budgets,  which acts as a built-in incentive for them to fire experienced teachers to save money, especially as  budgets have been cut back harshly -- by about 14% -- over the last several years.

Our only hope is that these blustering and wasteful ideas will bite the dust, which has occurred to many of  Bloomberg's proposals in previous State of the City addresses  As the scorecard of New York Times reporter Fernanda Santos' reveals, very few of his promises have come to pass.

For example, in 2005, while running for re-election, Bloomberg promised to reduce class size in grades K-3 (which are now the largest in 11 years), and to "eliminate all pockets of overcrowding" in schools (last year there were waiting lists in one fourth of all elementary schools.) Other proposals, like increasing parent involvement while wreaking scorn upon them and disempowering them in every way imaginable, have died a similar, lonely death.  Let's hope a similar fate meets his latest, most reckless and wasteful education ideas ever.

Class sizes sharply rising & 7,000 violations this fall despite Bloomberg campaign promises

It’s been a busy week.  On Wednesday there was a spirited rally on the steps of Tweed to protest the continued cuts to school budgets, the loss of art, music & afterschool program, and the sharp increases in class sizes; a good summary of the event is on the  Ed Vox blog.  There were great speeches by parents and elected officials, and I met a large contingent from PS  217 in Roosevelt Island, protesting Kindergarten classes of 28 and 5^th grade classes of 34, even though there are empty rooms in the building.

 

On Thursday, I joined a UFT press conference at Murry Bergtraum HS, where Michael Mulgrew  reported  on the 7,000 classes that violate the union limits, with more than 250,000 students sitting (or standing) in these oversized classes during the first ten days of school.  (Contractual class size limits – already far too large – are 25 students in Kindergarten; 32 students in grades 1-6:  33 students in non-title I MS; 30 in Title I MS; 34 students in HS; and 50 students in gym.)

Most of the violations this fall, as usual, are in our large overburdened high schools; with classes of 35 students or more at Benjamin Cardozo (302); Long Island City (207); Lehman (270) Murry Bergtraum (104); and John Dewey (102).

But  there are many violations in elementary and middle schools as well, including Petrides in Staten Island with 44 classes over the limits; MS 210 in Queens with 43; Bronx PS 83 with 33; Brooklyn’s IS 318 with 31 and PS 169 with 24. The UFT also reported that there are 7,000 fewer teachers than in 2008 – despite increasing enrollment.

As John Elfrank-Dana chapter leader at Bergtraum explained, though the administration will eventually address some of these violations, these students will have been shuffled from class to class for weeks, losing out on a crucial period of time to engage in learning and bond with their teachers.  Moreover, some violations will remain, despite grievances.  In any case, class sizes will likely increase for the fourth year in a row, with children in grades K-3 suffering from the largest classes in eleven years – and research shows that these are critical years in which class size helps determine the trajectory of their academic achievement and future success in life.  In many schools, we are seeing class sizes in these grades jump from 21 or 22 to 30 or more – especially as the DOE refuses to honor the cap of 28 students per class in grades 1-3, which they did for many years.

As usual, Walcott and the DOE spokesman responded with their usual pablum about how they are focusing instead on teacher “quality”; but I pointed out that even the best teachers cannot do their best with class sizes this large.  I also provided a flyer from Bloomberg’s 2002 campaign for Mayor, showing how he promised to reduce class size, especially in the early grades, because, as it points out,

 “...studies confirm that one of the greatest detriments to learning is an overcrowded classroom. …For students, a loud, packed classroom means a greater chance of falling behind. For teachers, class overcrowding means a tougher time teaching and giving students the attention they need.”

In his campaign literature, Bloomberg concluded that “NYC families have been waiting long enough.” Our children are still waiting, many of them in even more overcrowded classes than when he was first elected, due to the mayor's negligence and the flawed priorities of those he picked to run our schools. 

(For more news on the class size violations this year, see GothamSchools, NYT, Daily News, NY1, WSJ, Fox News, DNA info, and  UFT.)

Bloomberg's original campaign promises: how'd he do?

Bloomberg recently claimed to have fulfilled nearly all of his original campaign promises when it comes to education.

But guess what? There are some promises he left out. Here are some he made when he first ran for mayor in 2001:

Better Teachers, Smaller Class Sizes and More Accountable Schools

Studies confirm that one of the greatest detriments to learning is an overcrowded classroom. ... For students, a loud, packed classroom means a greater chance of falling behind. For teachers, class overcrowding means a tougher time teaching and giving students the attention they need. Here are a few new ideas to improve schools and standards, and to reduce class sizes:

Hire more certified teachers to reduce class sizes — especially in the K-3rd grades.

This clearly hasn't happened. Numerous audits from the state and city comptroller have shown the administration’s misuse of hundreds of millions of dollars meant to reduce class size. According to the Times, there are 1600 fewer classroom teachers and more than 10,000 additional administrators, secretaries, and out of classroom personnel since Bloomberg took office. Last year, class sizes increased by the greatest amount in ten years.

Take full advantage of federally-funded class size reduction programs.

This hasn’t happened either; only God and perhaps Brian Fleischer, the DOE auditor, knows how the city has spent millions in federal class size reduction funds. I take that back; probably Fleischer has no idea either.

Free up more space for students in overcrowded schools by moving bureaucrats out.

Actually, the Department of Education did move some district offices out of school buildings the first year of Bloomberg's administration, but with the creation of all the new small schools and charters in recent years, more and more administrative offices have eaten up classroom space and contributed to the worsening overcrowding crisis in our schools. Now it is common to see special education and intervention services given in hallways, closets and stairwells.

Here are even more unfulfilled campaign promises from Bloomberg’s first campaign:

“Promise: Integrate and coordinate early child care and education system to foster the healthy development of all children, especially those children who are low-income and disadvantaged.”

Actually, this year the city eliminated 3,000 daycare slots, throwing thousands of new students into already overcrowded Kindergarten classes.

““We should build a major high school and university complex on Governors Island in partnership with one or more of our great private universities. The room is there for athletic facilities, laboratories, workshops, classrooms, etc. This would also free up many existing buildings in all boroughs for junior high school, elementary school and special education uses.”

One small high school is due to open next fall on Governors island, eight years later, and far smaller than the major high school complex originally promised.

“Have the Transitional Finance Authority sell bonds backed by the sales tax revenues currently committed to paying of the Municipal Assistance Corporation debt that ends in 2007 and use that money to build new schools.”

Never happened. Instead, the share of city's capital spending going to school construction is at a ten year low.

“Assemble city-owned land for private development to build large-scale housing developments, schools and hospitals.

Never happened.

And how about this statement made by Bloomberg , regarding the use of city funds to build stadiums instead of schools, as quoted in the Times shortly after he was elected?

“I think everybody understands we have to modernize our facilities,” [Bloomberg] said at a news conference, separate from one held by Mr. Giuliani. “We have to have the best facilities for sports, for entertainment. We have to have housing, we have to have schools, and there are conflicting needs.”

Mr. Bloomberg added: “I don’t yet know the numbers, whether you could justify stadiums at this time. Clearly we’re going into very difficult economic times, and we’re going to have to make some choices.”

About 50,000 seats have been created in schools over the last seven years, with more than twice that number in the heavily subsidized Yankees and Mets stadiums. I guess he made his choices after all.