News & video of yesterday's press conference, where NYC parent leaders demand a voice in selecting the next Chancellor, and the mayor's response (so far)

Yesterday's press conference where parent leaders from the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council and the Community and Citywide Education Councils demanded that the Mayor give them a seat at the table in selecting a new Chancellor was covered by the Daily News, the Wall Street Journal, Chalkbeat, and NY1.  (The WSJ article is posted in the comment section below.)

The Mayor's response, according to the Daily News?

"While parent and community input is an important part of our chancellor search, the decision is ultimately the Mayor's, who is a proud parent of former NYC public school students,” said De Blasio spokeswoman Olivia Lapeyrolerie."

What?  How is parent or community input part of the Mayor's search, when the search has been undertaken in complete secrecy, no one has been asked their views and potential candidates don't even know how to apply?  And the suggestion here appears to justify excluding parents , because de Blasio was once a public school parent himself, is very curious.  By the same token, one might argue that he shouldn't have had to be elected by voters for a second term, because he was once a voter himself.

Lindsey Christ of NY1 dug up the 2012 video showing when de Blasio ran for office originally, he described how he would select a Chancellor this way: 

"With a serious serious public screening. Cathy Black was pushed down our throats because of mayoral control gone to an undemocratic level.  No one said mayoral control meant a mayoral narrow inability to communicate, to give the public a role, to air ideas and decisions before they were made.  We need a more democratic small "d" version of mayoral control and we need a chancellor who is presented to the public not just forced down their throat."

Here is Lindsey's tweet today, with a response from Kim Watkins, CEC 3 President:

"A serious, serious public screening" is what @NYCMayor said in 2012 should happen with a Chancellor search. Now he says search will be secretive. We found the video of his 2012 comments. WATCH: pic.twitter.com/AuNDVYzxWt

— Lindsey Christ (@LindseyChrist) January 24, 2018

Great find, not just on the hiring of next Chancellor but on mayoral control across a wide array of school issues - see @CEC3NYC opinion @GothamGazette https://t.co/t3k8E34fq1 1.1 mil children system needs checks & balances not autocratic rule.

— kimwatkinsnyc (@kimwatkinsnyc) January 24, 2018

The Mayor's argument now seems to be that holding a public screening with parent input would discourage potential candidates .  But as David Bloomfield pointed out yesterday in Chalkbeat, this sort of public vetting goes on all the time in other districts across the country:

In those districts, community consensus is usually reached on a job description with desired qualifications. The post is widely advertised, often by a specialized superintendent search firm that conducts an initial review of confidential applications. A list of qualified candidates is presented to the Board of Education, which further culls the still-private list to arrive at three to five finalists.\\


After the candidates are given a chance to inform their current employers, they are publicly announced and interviews scheduled. In the ensuing weeks, the public and press explore finalists’ records. Members of the screening committee may even visit their home districts. Candidate interviews are often televised or streamed online. The position is then offered after a period of post-interview public comment and board deliberation.

Right now a similar process is occurring in Massachusetts, where three finalists who applied to be appointed State Education Commissioner are about to appear in public to answer questions:

The candidates were selected among 18 applicants by the preliminary screening committee made up of five board members who are voting members of the committee and 10 non-voting members from the public.  The education board will interview the finalists at a public meeting on Jan. 26, 2018 at the Omni Parker House in Boston.

This is far better than the haphazard process that brought us such Chancellors as Cathy Black in the recent past.  If candidates have the gumption to run the nation's largest school district, they should also have the confidence to appear before the public and explain what they would do in the job.

As David Bloomfield concludes,

A thoughtful, transparent process would be a win-win for the mayor, enhancing his progressive credentials while allowing him to remain in the driver’s seat. A public search would also be a win for the city and the next chancellor, who would arrive with more of a popular mandate than if she or he was vetted and hired behind closed doors...A public process makes sense, and the moment is now.

A video of  yesterday's entire press conference is below, thanks to Norm Scott. 

Parents Demand de Blasio Give Them Role in Chancellor Selection from MORE-UFT/GEM on Vimeo.

Bloomberg Beaten by East Harlem PTA Presidents and Community Activists in Randalls Island Lawsuit

In a rare legal defeat for Mike Bloomberg's administration, State Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich voided his brazen attempt to hand over the Randalls Island playing fields to a consortium of 20 private schools via an invitation-only long term contract. The judge ruled the city will have to follow the land use review process required by the city charter.

See Associated Press coverage in Newsday here ,New York Times here and Daily News here. Our prior coverage here.

Statements from plaintiffs and supporters:

Eugenia Simmons-Taylor, former president of the Presidents Council in D4 in East Harlem which was the lead plaintiff: "This is a great victory for public school children as well as the community as a whole. I'm thrilled that we were able to stop this unjust deal before it went through. Now the community and our elected representatives will have a chance to have their say."

Matthew Washington, a member of the Community Board 11 in East Harlem and another plaintiff: "We're happy to have an opportunity to do the right thing for all the children in this city."

David Bloomfield, a member of the Citywide Council on High Schools, also a plaintiff: "The sad lesson of the Randall's Island litigation is that elites have no business making decisions for those with less money or influence. From the first, the city and the Randall's Island Sports Foundation should have included parents, schools, and the community at the negotiating table. Instead, the courts have been forced to ensure these rights and in so doing have made sure that there will be quality recreational facilities for all children."

Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer, the sole member of the Franchise & Concession Review Commission to oppose the original contract: "I applaud today's decision," Stringer said. "The judge's order will insure that the project gets the full public review and input it needs to become a fair deal for the community, the City and for private and public schoolchildren alike."

Geoffrey Croft, President of NYC Park Advocates, "We are delighted at this outcome, but this deal never should have been allowed to go forward in the first place. I hope the city doesn't appeal the decision. It would be a waste of taxpayer money and would violate the important principle that public parks should be for the public and not for private interests."

Update on School Report Cards and Testing

The DOE's school report cards, called "Progress Reports" continue to be the focus of sharp criticism.

Writing in the Gotham Gazette, David Bloomfield, of the Citywide Council on High Schools points out how the administration has not convinced us they have a credible system for rating schools. His article is titled Report Cards Flunk the Clarity Test. Here's an excerpt:

Klein and Bloomberg have arrived at a highly individual definition of a "good school," without any social consensus on that definition. No matter parents are confused. None of them would have mixed the ingredients in just that way were they to evaluate the school. So none of them should rely on the mayor or chancellor to determine where they send their children or how they behave toward poorly (or, for that matter, highly) graded teachers and administrators.

Also in the Gotham Gazette, Richard Kessler of the Center for Arts Education, explains how the Bloomberg administration's mania for testing harms arts education. Click here for his article.

Time out from Testing continues to gather signatures against the Progress Reports and the increased testing required to compile them. They are looking to complete their petition this week. Add your name here.

letter to Mayor from David Bloomfield about the school grades

Dear Mayor Bloomberg:

Sufficient questions have been raised regarding the grading of New York City public schools (except charters) that it is time to rescind all recently issued letter grades. The system's unreliable data; the subjective, crazy-quilt method of computation; and the politicization of scores make useful judgments about school quality impossible.

Further, the grades bear little or no relation to other evaluations of school quality, sowing confusion rather than clarity among students, parents, educators, public officials and the general public. Perhaps you want to see this as a noble experiment gone bad. Fine. Whatever the rationale, as today's New York Times editorial suggests, it is time to replace this system since it has so obviously failed any reasonable measure of public or professional confidence.

David C. Bloomfield
Program Head, Educational Leadership at Brooklyn College
NYC public school parent and member, Citywide Council on High Schools

Parent Opposition to Restructuring

Tuesday's Daily News editorial contains more of the same anti-teacher and anti-parent ranting we’ve come to expect from the News editors. As an alternative viewpoint, we thought parents should hear from an elected parent leader. Below we offer some insights from David Bloomfield, President of the Citywide Council on High Schools. From David’s testimony on the restructuring before the City Council:

Many, many questions exist regarding the recently-announced restructuring of our public schools. All we have are speeches and press releases from which to divine the new direction. And surely there is much to look forward to in a system that promises accountability, principal discretion, central support rather than micro-management, assurances of greater teacher quality promoted through rigorous tenure review, and funding equity that encourages enrollment of students who might otherwise be marginalized. I and many others might get behind these changes if they were more thoroughly explained, if weaknesses were discussed in good faith, and if we thought this restructuring was more than the reform-of-the-day. The caprice with which these changes seem to have been formulated and peremptorily announced leaves many stakeholders on the sidelines when our hearts and minds are needed to move the system forward.

More recently, David testified on the Empowerment Schools aspect of the restructuring:

In their zeal to wring quick rewards from worthwhile reforms, the Mayor and Chancellor do themselves, their initiatives, and students great harm. To prevent organized opposition, they shut out parents and the larger community. They deride cautionary advice from educators as incrementalism. They do everything in their power to evade checks and balances, whether it is sole source contracting or telling this very body that it has no power to legislate on education.

Parent leaders like David are deliberately ignored by the editorialists at the News and Post, whose agenda is merely to blame the teachers union for everything wrong with our schools. For David's full testimony see these links on restructuring and empowerment schools. The CCHS passed this resolution in opposition to the restructuring on March 14^th.

High School Parents Reject DoE Restructuring Plan

The Citywide Council on High Schools (CCHS), the elected representatives of parents and the entity mandated to advise the Schools Chancellor, passed this resolution March 14th in opposition to the proposed restructuring:

WHEREAS, having considered and reviewed the Department of Education’s Children First restructuring and Fair Student Funding Plan;

In view of the fact that the proposal focuses on overall structure rather than proven initiatives that directly impact the classroom, such as smaller class size;

Given that many details of the plan are still being determined;

Bearing in mind that the pilot Empowerment Zone is less than a year old and there has been no evaluation of the impact of creating Empowerment Schools on students’ academic achievement or on the funds available in these schools for teachers and academic programs;

With concern that restructuring of the entire school system following so soon upon the restructuring of 2003 will create destabilization and hardship for parents and students trying to obtain services similar to the chaos experienced at that time;

Noting that weighted student funding, as constituted in this plan, will create competition for scarce resources in the schools such that schools will have an incentive to hire lower-paid, inexperienced teachers and that other implications of the plan for schools’ budgets are not clearly spelled out;

Noting with regret that there was no input from parents or teachers in the planning of this proposal;

Therefore, be it RESOLVED that the Citywide Council on High Schools rejects the DOE Children First Proposal and calls upon the Mayor and the Chancellor to postpone implementation of this plan and immediately call public hearings on the priorities for education spending and restructuring of the New York City Public Schools.

Council Hearing on Empowerment Schools

The City Council Education Committee held a hearing yesterday on empowerment schools with testimony from Eric Nadelstern, CEO of Empowerment Schools. Under questioning, Nadelstern, a veteran NYC administrator, resorted to the familiar DoE tactic of laying down a smokescreen of obfuscation. Today's NY1 and NY Times coverage give some sense of the Council's frustration but leave out important points made at the hearings.

Councilmember John Liu was the sharpest in his criticism. Nadelstern, despite assertions that empowerment schools have much better results in terms of graduation rates, dropout rates and college placement than other schools, couldn't say whether those schools were better before they joined the empowerment zone. Liu's response: "How can say you don't know these numbers when you testify they are improving?" and again "We never get straight answers." Councilman Dan Garodnick, one of the more lucid of the city's politicans, asked a simple question about what distinct services would empowerment schools provide compared to the two other support models being offered to schools, Learning Support Organizations and Partnership Support Organizations. In response, Nadelstern droned on and on, never answering the question. After two more attempts at asking the same question, Garodnick gave up.

Most ominously, David Bloomfield, President of the Citywide Council on High Schools, and himself a parent at an empowerment school, testified on the weaknesses of the DoE plan. Ten years ago, working with the NYC Partnership and the School Governance Task Force, he helped draft a plan that is conceptually very similar to the empowerment initiative. The key difference is that the task force report called for "real authority" to be vested in school leadership teams. Yesterday, David testified on how that essential ingredient is completely missing from the Empowerment Schools we have today: "Parent after parent after parent after parent has complained that Empowerment Schools lack functional School Leadership Teams."

Update: Councilman Garodnick's office shared his excellent letter to the Chancellor.