Johanna Garcia on the long, hard struggle for smaller classes

 I interviewed Johanna Garcia, chief of staff to Sen. Robert Jackson and co-chair of the Class Size Working Group, on my podcast, Talk out of School. She explained the legislative history and the larger context of the long and hard fight for smaller classes that grew out of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit. You can listen to the interview here or below.

Episode Notes

Chalkbeat, COVID guidance for NYC schools https://ny.chalkbeat.org/2023/9/12/23870420/nyc-schools-covid-guidance-2023-2024-testing-vaccines

UNESCO report, An Ed Tech Tragedy? https://www.unesco.org/en/digital-education/ed-tech-tragedy

NY Times article about the UNESCO report https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/technology/unesco-report-remote-learning-inequity.html

Class Size Matters presentation on the ways DOE is putting student privacy at risk https://classsizematters.org/the-many-ways-in-which-doe-is-putting-student-privacy-at-risk

Class Size Matters testimony on dangers of DOE plans to expand online learning and ed techhttps://classsizematters.org/testimony-on-the-dangers-of-doe-plans-to-expand-online-learning-and-ed-tech

FAQ on the new state class size law https://classsizematters.org/faq-on-the-states-new-class-size-law

Class Size Working Group (CSWG) public engagement sessions to present their proposals for feedback:

Tuesday, September 26th – 5- 7:30pm online (Manhattan/Brooklyn);
Wednesday, September 27th – 5- 7:30pm online (Queens/Bronx/Staten Island)
Monday, October 2nd –  5- 7:30pm in person at MLK Campus Auditorium, 122 Amsterdam Ave, Manhattan  (Citywide) .
Register for these sessions here: https://learndoe.org/class_size/

More information on the CSWG and their proposals here: https://infohub.nyced.org/reports/financial/contracts-for-excellence

Our class size lawsuit argued in the Appellate Court yesterday!

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit along with Sen. Robert Jackson and attorney Wendy Lecker

Yesterday, the class size lawsuit against the city and the state that we filed more than a year ago, along with nine NYC parents from every borough and the Alliance for Quality Education, was heard in the Appellate court in Albany.

Our pro bono attorney, Wendy Lecker of the Education Law Center, did a fabulous job, those of us in the courtroom agreed, which included two of the parent plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Litza Stark of Queens and Johanna Garcia of Manhattan, along with Johanna’s daughter Hailey, back from her first semester in college. NY Senator Robert Jackson, who spearheaded the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case, was also there to support us, as well as retired teacher Norm Scott.

A panel of five judges listened intently as Wendy related how the NYC Department of Education had violated the state Contracts for Excellence law passed in 2007, which specifically mandates that the city lower average class sizes in all grades over five years – but instead, class sizes had sharply increased so that they are now far larger than they were when the law was first passed.  In response, the attorneys for the city and state tried to argue that since the five years outlined in the original law had lapsed, there was no longer any requirement for the DOE to lower class size.

Yet as Wendy pointed out,  the state legislature renews and reauthorizes the C4E law every year, including its class size mandate, with no specific end point for when the city’s obligations would cease;  thus this is indeed a continuing requirement on the part of the DOE.

The attorneys for the city and state also claimed that the court has no jurisdiction over this matter, but that the Commissioner of Education has the sole power to determine whether the city had adequately complied with the law.  Yet as Wendy counter-argued, the court indeed has the authority to decide whether the Commissioner has accurately interpreted the language of the statute, and the court's authority to do so in regards the C4E law was specifically re-confirmed in 2011 by the Appellate judges in 2011. By essentially nullifying the city’s class size obligation under the law, Wendy said, the Commissioner had essentially usurped the legislature’s role.

Though one cannot predict how the court will rule, those of us in the room felt that Wendy’s arguments were far stronger than those of the city or state attorneys, who did not even try to dispute the facts in the case: that class sizes had increased sharply since 2007, and this had unfairly deprived NYC students of an quality education. 

In any event, the Appellate Court will likely not issue any decision until this summer at least, and we are not content to sit back and wait for this to occur.  Instead, we are urging the Mayor and the Council to put a down payment on the quality of our children’s education by allocating specific funding for class size reduction, starting next year in the early grades and in struggling schools.  More on how you can help with this soon.

NYC parents tell the Mayor to stop stalling and stop giving charter schools access to student information

Video and press release below about our press conference this afternoon.  Sorry for the low quality- it was broadcast on twitter live. 

For immediate release: April 15, 2019

For more information contact: NeQuan McLean, 347-470-4975, educationcouncils@gmail.com

NYC parents tell the Mayor to stop stalling and stop giving charter schools access to student information to market their schools

This afternoon, in front of the NYC Department of Education headquarters, NYC public school parents told Mayor de Blasio to stop bowing to the charter school lobby and halt the practice of giving charters access to student personal information to market their schools.  Instead, they said, he should listen to parents’ concerns, stop violating their children’s privacy, and cease this practice, which by helping charters expand, causes the loss of funding and space from our public schools.

In recent weeks, Chancellor Carranza has repeatedly promised parent leaders, both publicly and privately, that this practice would be discontinued, but the Mayor has yet to make a commitment to do so, and in the last few days he has said that he has not yet made a decision.  

Said Johanna Garcia, public school parent and President of Community Education Council in District 6 in Upper Manhattan:  “It is unconscionable that this practice continues. For more than a decade, parents and advocates have complained to DOE about the privacy violations incurred by allowing charters to access our children’s personal information without our consent.  I filed a FERPA complaint to the US Department of Education about this practice in November 2017.  Moreover, I am not aware of another school district in the country that voluntarily makes this information available to charter schools and undermines our public schools in the process."

NeQuan McLean, co- chair of the Education Council Consortium and the President of Community Education Council in District 16 Brooklyn said: “My mailbox is continually flooded with deceptive promotional materials from charter schools.  As a result of expensive marketing campaigns and the damaging co-location policies of the DOE, my district has been overrun by charters.  The Mayor repeatedly says he listens to parents; we are saying loudly and clearly that he should end this practice now.”

“Not only is personal student information unnecessary for appropriate marketing, providing access to it is an unacceptable violation of student privacy,” said Mark Cannizzaro, president of the Counselor of School Supervisors and Administrators.

Shino Tanikawa, the co-chair of the ECC and a member of NYC Kids PAC, agreed: “For years, DOE has ignored parents’ complaints about this practice, which started in 2006 when Joel Klein agreed to help Success Academy charter schools expand their “market share” as Eva Moskowitz put it in an email.  The result is that this year, more than two billion dollars has been diverted from our public schools. Why should our supposedly progressive Mayor continue this practice, when he promised parents he would defend our public schools in the face of charter encroachment? “

Leonie Haimson, co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, pointed out: “In Chicago, after student information was disclosed to charter schools by the district, resulting in parents receiving postcards urging them to enroll their children in their schools, this sparked a huge controversy and led to an investigation by the city’s Inspector General.  As a result, the staffer who released the information was fired and the district apologized to parents . Right now, in Nashville, their school district is defying a state law requiring districts to make parent contact information available to charter schools, and last week appealed a court order to do so.  NY State has no such law, and in fact, our state law bars the use of student data for marketing purposes.”

Naomi Peña, parent of four public school children and President of Community Education Council in District 1 in the Lower East Side, said: “For years, I along with other public school parents have been subjected to glossy flyers from charter schools, which have received donations from hedge fund billionaires to help them advertise in this way.  Charters also spend thousands of dollars on social media buys, TV and radio ads, and plaster their posters all over our subway.  Meanwhile, our public schools don’t have the funding to promote themselves in this way – and if they did, do we really want our public schools spending money on ads that should go to improving learning conditions for our kids?

###

Queens forum with AOC on how our schools must make every child feel like they matter

There was an amazing education forum yesterday with standing room only. Thanks to Jackson Heights People for Public Schools for organizing it. Among the wonderful speakers were Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents the district in Congress,  NY Senators Jessica Ramos and Assemblymember Catalina Cruz, who represent the district in the Legislature, as well as Senators Robert Jackson and John Liu.
Among the terrific education advocates who spoke were Johanna Garcia of NYC Opt out, Maria Bautista of AQE, Carol Burris of Network for Public Education, Diane Ravitch, Kate Menken  of the NYS Association for Bilingual Education and me. 

I was thrilled to be there and meet AOC, who spoke eloquently about how her family had moved out of the Bronx for good schools, and how no one should ever have to move from their home or to a charter school because the public schools aren't good enough.


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Jackson Heights education forum from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.


Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at the Jackson Heights education forum from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.

My presentation on the fundamental inequities of NYC schools and what we need to do to make every child feel like they matter by lowering class size is below.

News update on elections, federal investigation into DOE’s violation of student privacy and proposed capital plan – and how you can help!

Much has happened in the last week:

• Tuesday’s elections will lead to a real sea-change in the NY State politics.  We will be reaching out to the Assembly and the newly elected Democratic majority in the State Senate with proposals on how to ensure more accountability for charter schools and to reform Mayoral control by adding checks and balances. If you’d like to be part of this effort, please let us know at info@classsizematters.org

•  Last fall, parent leader and CEC President Johanna Garcia filed a FERPA complaint with the federal government about the DOE’s practice of allowing charter schools to access her child’s personal information so they could send her marketing materials and recruit more students.  Now the US Department of Education and the NY State Education Dept are investigating her complaint, as reported in the NY Post.  More about this on my blog – including the US Dept of Education's letter announcing the launch of this investigation, and an earlier letter from Council Members Dromm, Treyger, Lander and Levin to the Mayor and Chancellor, urging them to stop this practice, which not only violates student privacy but by helping charters expand, diverts more funding from our public schools. If you’d like to add your voice to this campaign, please send a message to the Mayor and the Chancellor now by clicking here.

• The new proposed five-year capital plan was released last week, and I was quoted in the Daily News and Wall St. Journal about it.  The good news is that it funds 57,000 new seats -- more than the last plan.  Thanks to all of you who signed petitions and sent letters about this. The bad news is that this will not fill the need, either according to DOE’s estimate last fall, or our more realistic estimate that more than 100,000 seats are necessary – considering  there are over 575,000 kids in overcrowded schools already. Moreover, spending on class size reduction in the new plan was cut from $490 million to only $150 million– far less than the $550 million to be spent on new 3K and preK seats, of which $472 million is proposed 3K students alone.  

Once again, the Mayor has made clear his priority is to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the further expansion of 3K and preK, rather than ensure a quality education for students in grades K through 12 – which would require considerably more space for smaller classes than he’s prepared to fund.

Will the Mayor and Chancellor halt the practice of allowing charter schools to access student personal information to market their schools, now that the feds and the state have launched investigations of how this violates student privacy?

If you’d like to add your voice, please send a letter to the Mayor and the Chancellor to stop allowing charters to market their schools by giving them access to personal student information.

 Yesterday, Sue Edelman of the NY Post reported that the DOE is under investigation by both the US Department of Education and the NY State Education Department for violating student privacy law by making student information, including their names and addresses, available to charter schools for recruiting purposes.  The letter in which Dale King, Director of the Family Privacy Compliance Office of the US Department of Education, announced the investigation into this DOE practice is posted below.

This investigation follows from Johanna Garcia's FERPA complaint filed a year ago, which pointed

Johanna Garcia

out that the DOE allows charters access to student personal information to send families promotional materials via  the DOE mailing house, Vanguard Direct, without providing parents with the right to opt out, which would be required under the directory information exception to FERPA.

Instead, DOE wrongly claims the right to share this information with charter schools under the "school official" exception, which is reserved for vendors that are performing services on behalf of the district and need the information to carry out their contracted duties. Yet charter schools are not carrying out services for DOE.   In addition, the use of data for marketing purposes is specifically barred by the NY State student privacy law §2-d: "Personally identifiable information maintained by educational agencies, including data provided to third-party contractors and their assignees, shall not be sold or used for marketing purposes."

Here is the NY Post summary of the DOE claim, and our responses:


In response to Garcia’s complaint, the New York state and US education departments said they are probing whether the marketing deal violates FERPA — a federal law which requires schools to get parent permission before releasing student information, except in limited cases.

The DOE claims an exemption lets it give student information to outside entities to perform functions that its own employees would otherwise do. State law “permits outreach to make families aware of their educational options, including both district and charter schools,” Cohen said. 

But Leonie Haimson, co-chair of the national Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, said the reasoning makes no sense: “School districts lose funding and space when students enroll in charters. Why would the DOE use its own employees for that purpose?”

Garcia agreed. “Vanguard makes money. Charter schools make money. All on the backs of regular public-school students.”

The DOE long-standing policy of making student information available to charter schools started under charter-friendly Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein, in response to a plea from Success Academy CEO Eva Moskowitz that she needed to "mail 10-12 times to elementary and preK families so she could grow the "market share, " according to emails she sent to Klein and acquired through FOIL by reporter Juan Gonzalez in 2010. Five days after she sent her initial request,  Michael Duffy, then-head of the NYC DOE charter office, wrote back he was trying to "overcome the obstacles" of privacy laws and would do his best to make the mailing addresses of public school families available for this purpose.

The US Department of Education letter from Dale King that is posted below is dated Sept. 25, 2018 and demands a response from DOE within four weeks.  This deadline was October 25 – nearly two weeks ago, yet according to sources, the DOE has not yet responded. Dale King's questions include clarifying how DOE informs parents of their rights under FERPA, and to "provide this Office with information on the relationship between the District and the charter schools to which the District discloses information, particularly Success Academy."

Below the US DOE letter is another letter sent by Council Members, Danny Dromm, Mark Treyger, Brad Lander and Stephen Levin on August 8, 2018, urging Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza to halt this practice and pointing out how it not only appears to violate student privacy but also the administration's stated priority of supporting public schools rather than encouraging charter schools to expand and drain more funds from the system:

Next fiscal year, the charter sector in New York City is projected to cost the DOE $2.1 billion in annual operating funds and is taking up more space every year in our overcrowded school buildings. It is time to put our public-school students first and focus on improving their education and protecting their privacy.

Only after Sue Edelman began asking DOE about whether they had responded to this letter did the DOE respond to these elected members of the City Council, more than two months later.

On October 12,   Deputy Chancellor Karin Goldmark sent a letter to CM Dromm, in which she repeated the dubious claim that since the state law requires charter schools to enroll high-needs students, including students with disabilities and/or English Language Learners, this somehow exempts DOE from the countervailing restrictions of state and federal privacy law. Though the state charter school law does require charter schools to make efforts to recruit high needs students, this does not mean that DOE is authorized to help them do so by violating student privacy.  
 
Moreover, as Johanna has pointed out, despite multiple mailings, her family has never received a letter from Success Academy in Spanish, even though there are large numbers of Latino families in District 6 where she lives.  And as mentioned in her complaint, the only one of her children to receive Success marketing materials is the one child without an IEP.

A recent Bronx Ink article reports that only ten percent of NYC charter schools enroll  as many English Language Learners as the school districts in which they're situated, including few if any Success Academy charter schools.  The article focuses specifically on Success Bronx I in District 7, where the number of ELLs has fallen in half -- from 8% to 4% -- since being reauthorized by SUNY two years ago.  This percent is tiny compared to the overall numbers of ELLs in District 7 public schools, in which ELLs vary between 16% and 22% depending on the grade level.  So despite millions spent on marketing and mailings, the DOE claim that making personal student information available to Success and other charter schools somehow helps them enroll their fair share of high-needs students doesn't hold water.  

At a Harlem Town Hall meeting last week with Chancellor Carranza, District 5 Community Education Council members and PTA leaders vehemently objected to the supersaturation of charter schools in their community, that drains their public schools of students and funds.  In response,  Carranza insisted that their public schools needed to engage in improved marketing, and that parents should consider "what is the need that charter schools are answering."  (See the video from News 11 here.)

Yet few if any public schools have the resources to put into advertising and recruitment as Success Academy, which spent about  $1,300 for every newly enrolled student in 2011 on marketing.  More recently, Moskowitz had created what is described as a "full service, brand strategy, marketing, and creative division within Success Academy” called the "The Success Academy Creative Agency" according to the LinkedIn profile of its Managing Director, Meredith Levin.  In the previous version of her profile accessed last month, Levin described leading a  "group of over 30 creative directors, designers, copywriters, strategists, e-learning architects & project managers to develop, execute and optimize campaigns to recruit 1,000+ teachers, enroll families, donors, influencers, and cultivate community engagement."

What public school has the resources to compete with that?  And why should the DOE be helping Success Academy, which has repeatedly been sued for violating student civil rights and last year kicked out one quarter of their special needs students in self-contained classes, expand their "market share," especially when it involves violating the privacy rights of public school families?

Let's hope that the Chancellor and the Mayor reconsider this practice and reverse course before the charter schools send out marketing materials to DOE families this fall, via their access to personal student information provided by DOE.

Debate on high-stakes testing and opting out on today's Brian Lehrer Show

Check out today's interview with CEC District 6 President Johanna Garcia on the Brian Lehrer Show. Johanna did a great job of explaining why students should opt out of these unreliable exams and the negative impact of high-stakes testing on our schools and the quality of education in a debate with Richard Buery, former Deputy Mayor under de Blasio and now chief of public affairs at KIPP charter schools.  Please listen to the entire segment -- but for a quick recap, my tweets are below.  Rarely do real-life parents or education advocates get on this show, let's hope that Brian will do this more often in the future.




    

ATT Parents: Listen in @brianlehrer show w/ @JohannaG_NYC Garcia at 10:30 AM speaking on testing & #optout. Very rare for real parent leader or edu advocate to get on his show - listen in at https://t.co/xVesrFZgok or AM 820 cc @NYCOptOut @NYSAPE

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@JohannaG_NYC sez state tests are highly flawed, schls are becoming test prep factories & undermining real learning & critical thinking, harming communities of color most of all & used to close their schools. @RichardBuery sez tests working @kipp charter. https://t.co/y3ahlKmG90

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

Interesting only defender state exams on @brianlehrer show comes fr/ charter school sector; @JohannaG_NYC defends standardized testing via NAEPs but state exams aren't useful & aren't diagnostic. When curriculum teaches to test results lose significant - ie #campbellslaw https://t.co/dvMJ1vYWTH

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@JohannaG_NYC unsurprised charter schools like testing as their high scores are gateway to privatization - @brianlehrer asks @richardbuery whether isn't it true that charters' corporate/business model is based on high scores. Buery doesn't really answer. https://t.co/BSvsDBf8jQ

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

After repeated questions @richardbuery rejects premise that high scores are key to marketing effort of charter schools including @kipp network & others. Repeats false claim that "charter schools are public schools" simply allows entrepreneurs to "experiment" to improve education https://t.co/lW9USrtbPW

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

Parent caller: Schools are still described by their test scores & parents try to keep their kids out of schools w/low scores that are correlated w/students of color; which contributes to segregation. What else to look at for school quality? asks @BrianLehrer (I wd say class size) https://t.co/SAIChljoyi

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@brianlehrer isn't #optout movement mostly affluent parents - higher rates in suburbs? Actually that claim is disputed here: https://t.co/OuhxGbPkXP +there's less access to information in communities of color & more intimidation of parents in @nycschools https://t.co/XaKhF3CqZL

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

Wish also @brianlehrer wd address unreliability of state exams - results completely invalid as shown by NAEPs, not grade appropriate, & politically manipulated to see improvement where there's none https://t.co/hpsMPV5kSf

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@JohannaG_NYC sez there's a big language barrier & culturally, hard to challenge authority ; we tripled the # in last two yrs of #optouts in D6. (Also @NYSEDNews Dept. Chancellor admitted state exams useless for most ELLs - only tiny no. test proficient) https://t.co/QUTELsiwLP

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@johannaG_NYC Our public school students are competing vs charter students who have advantages - (w/far fewer ELLS and with special needs) https://t.co/3cCMLfClUy

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

In response to caller, @johannaG_NYC says This is not about participating for parents - #optout parents are among the most active at the school level; its about focusing on civics education, critical thinking https://t.co/h326jQfxh5

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

.@richardbuery says we need data for how well schools are doing & for equity - yet really, we've know about achievement gap for >30 years & yet gap has increased NOT decreased in @nycschools & elsewhere b/c high-stakes testing makes it worse not better. https://t.co/fVKF8fdD1X

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

Fallacy to claim we don't want objective info - these tests are completely flawed, they compressed 3 days into 2 days w/kids tested for 5 hrs; toxic tests, marginalize communities of color; don't provide equity -sez @JohannaG_NYC . https://t.co/IVwP6SaNYq

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

Bravo! @johannaG_NYC pts out state tests create zero-sum game where schools are competing for seats, creating losers & winners & hurting kids. Great job - hope @BrianLehrer show will now on hear from parents/advocates in exploring critical problems @nycschools cc @nycoptout https://t.co/QwCvYni01e

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 26, 2018

Why parents opt out of exams and what are the consequences for kids and schools

The tests are coming!  The state ELA tests arrive this week  for grades 3-8. The paper version of the ELA exam will be given in NYC on April 11-12 and computer-based on April 10-17.  Math tests on paper will be administered on May 1-2, and computer-based tests on May 1-8.

For the past three years, the statewide opt out rate has ranged from 19-21%. More than 90% of NY districts failed to make the 95% participation rate last year that the feds supposedly require.  No NY school or child has suffered because of opting out in the past, and this remains the case this year.

Schools will not be ranked lower in the state's accountability system for a high opt out rate or lose funding as a result, and children refusing to take the test will have not have low scores entered into their records.  LoHud News reports that the most serious penalty for schools with high opt out rates will be paperwork: "Schools that "persistently and substantially fail" to hit the 95-percent participation target will have to do a self-assessment of their failings and develop a plan to do better."  Newsday quotes the State Education Department spokesperson this way: “It’s up to parents to decide if their children should take the tests, and we want them to have all the facts so they can make an informed decision.”

So what are the facts?  The state exams have been shortened from three days to two, which is an improvement, and the state mandated that no child could be held back because of a low score on the exam, and no teacher judged on the results, as occurred during Mayor Bloomberg's administration.

But there are still many questions about the quality and usefulness of these exams. Here a third grade teacher points out how many of the reading passages continue to be far above grade level, and how the results fail to provide any useful diagnostic information to teachers about their students.  Many other educators have pointed out how the state exams are replete with questions like "What is the main idea" of a reading passage, while offering multiple choice answers that are confusing and ambiguous.

As Jeanette Deutermann of Long Island Opt Out points out, the overemphasis on high-stakes testing has caused schools to narrow the curriculum, focus on low-quality worksheets and eliminate project-based learning.  The exams also widen inequities and are toxic for students, as Johanna Garcia explains.  Chancellor Farina privately told a group of NYC parents two years ago that she herself would opt out of the test if she had an English Language Learner or special needs child -- though she  refused to admit this publicly.

The Common Core standards and exams have also promoted other damaging practices in schools, such as "close reading" strategies in which teachers aren't supposed to explain the larger context of passages, with students deprived of the background knowledge they need to fully comprehend assigned texts.  For the best and most concise critique of how this impairs learning, see a one minute video from Nick Tampio, professor at Fordham University.

Indeed, some Common Core proponents are now backtracking and renouncing the value of the current state exams, including Louisiana State Superintendent John White, (formerly Deputy Chancellor of NYC DOE) who now says that reading tests should be based instead on knowledge and a broad curriculum: 

The trouble is that by not requiring knowledge of any specific book or facts, reading tests have contributed to the false impression that reading is mainly about having skills such as being able to summarize, and not about background knowledge. Walk into many English classrooms today and you will see students capably identifying an article’s main idea. But you’re less likely to find students learning the historical context for a novel or discussing the novel’s broader meaning. By not requiring knowledge, tests create no incentive for particular knowledge to be taught. 

This is not fair to adolescents, who need knowledge to become effective adult readers. It’s particularly not fair to students from historically disadvantaged backgrounds, whose summer breaks rarely involve trips abroad or afternoons at museums, and who are thus at a disadvantage on any test that, whether it’s acknowledged or not, measures background knowledge. And it’s not good policy for a nation struggling with the influence of falsified news reports over its citizenry.

White has been congratulated for taking this position by many who formerly supported the Common Core, like Robert Pondiscio of the Fordham Institute and Larry Berger of Amplify, without acknowledging how this new stance is totally contrary to the current regime, which emphasizes "skills" in dissecting "texts" over content and background knowledge.   

Walter Isaacson, head of the Aspen Institute, which has received millions from the Gates Foundation for promoting the Common Core as well as other damaging experiments, congratulated John White this week in a speech before the Public Affairs Research Council, for being "incredibly experimental” and "willing to try new things but admit when something isn’t working and course correct", according to an attendee. 

Here are my responses to this on twitter:

Incredibly experimental is not a great compliment @walterisaacson if you have a child in the Louisiana public schools cc @deutsch29blog https://t.co/UQ7PQeMOHg

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 8, 2018

What right did @billgates and their facilitators and grantees like @aspeninstitute have to experiment on the entire nation’s public schoolchildren all at once by imposing flawed #commoncore standards and exams-@WalterIsaacson @LouisianaSupe @larryamplify @gatesed https://t.co/rpm8bCY9r0

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 8, 2018

Until you guys admit your complicity & arrogance in imposing your flawed vision w/o consultation & consent of those affected your second thoughts deserve no credit https://t.co/u2QRASF1i9

— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) April 8, 2018

Unless it can be shown that the New York state exams are high-quality, yield reliable and useful results, and encourage rather than discourage good teaching and real learning in our schools, parents not only have the right to opt out their children of these exams, they have good reasons to do so. 

As Chris Cerrone, a teacher and co-founder of Western New Yorkers for Public Education, writes:

The opt-out movement is not just about refusing to take a test, but, instead, offering a vision for public education that rejects a focus on assessment skills, workbooks and teacher-centered classrooms. Families who boycott yearly standardized tests instead advocate for student-centered learning and creative activities that include hands-on and real-world simulations. Imagine every classroom and school system engaging students, to promote imaginative, higher-order thinking that goes well beyond the narrow scope of a test-focused education system. These are the skills our children need to truly be ready and flexible to meet a rapidly changing world as they graduate.

Sample parent opt out letters are offered by NYS Allies for Public Education  and NYC Opt Out.

Powerful video with Johanna Garcia and Fatima Geidi speaking about charter abuses & DOE collusion

Perhaps the most moving of the panel discussions at our Parent Action Conference on Jan. 27 was the one that was held after the showing of the documentary Backpack full of Cash -- a must see film by the way.  Though Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa sent her regrets as she had a bad case of the flu, the conversation was powerful and important.

Public school parent and CEC District 6 President Johanna Garcia spoke about how our public school students are still being cheated of the education they deserve and their schools underfunded, while more and more space and funding is being peeled away by charter schools.  She also told how the DOE is illegally colluding with charters by making public school student personal information available to them for recruiting purposes, without parental consent.  Here's more about the FERPA complaint she filed in November.  She also spoke about how the only one of her three children to be recruited by charter schools was the one who tested gifted and did not have an IEP.  This puts at doubt the DOE claims that they only make student names, addresses and grade levels accessible to charter schools for their mailings. Others in the audience expressed similar experiences of their children being selectively recruited by charter schools.

Fatima Geidi spoke about the abuse her son suffered when he was enrolled at Success Academy charter school, abuse that he still has not fully recovered from, including being suspended  more than 30 times when he was in the first grade.  After Fatima was interviewed on the PBS News Hour about how her son was treated, Eva Moskowitz, Success CEO, retaliated against her and her son by releasing his disciplinary file to the public, full of trumped up charges.  (Just recently Fatima was informed that Success charter schools is now being investigated by the US Department of Education for violating federal privacy laws.)  Fatima became understandably emotional recounting her experiences,  and we did too.  Take a look.  (video thanks to Norm Scott.)

KidsPac Class Size Matters Conf Afternoon Panel Jan 27 2018 from MORE-UFT/GEM on Vimeo.

DOE and Success Academy respond to Johanna Garcia's student privacy complaint

Johanna Garcia

Last night, Chalkbeat reported on Johanna Garcia’s complaint to the US Department of Education about DOE’s ongoing violation of student privacy rights by releasing her child’s personal information to charter schools, including Success Academy, for the purpose of sending multiple mailings of marketing and recruiting materials. Johanna's FERPA complaint makes the legal arguments clear.

Though the DOE claims they can disclose this information without parental consent under the “school official” exception to FERPA, because it has an “educational benefit” in their eyes, they fail to explain how charter schools can be defined as school officials.  Federal law and guidance reserves this term for school or district staff, volunteers, or contractors who are under the control of the district and perform an institutional service or function for the district. How charter schools can be seen as under the district's control or to be performing a service for DOE is impossible to maintain.

And while DOE and Success Academy claim they only receive student names and addresses for this purpose, they don't explain how charter schools are apparently able to differentially recruit students according to their academic records, as Johanna reported from her own experience, with charters sending her masses of pamphlets and flyers, urging her to enroll one of her three children, but none sent in the names of her other two children, who have IEPs.

The Chalkbeat article cites similar controversies over the non-consensual release of personal student information to charter schools for recruiting purposes in Chicago, Nashville and Memphis, but omits these facts:

• In Nashville and Memphis, elected school boards are refusing to provide student information to charters, despite a state law passed this summer which ordered them to do so.  Even after the state launched a lawsuit against them, they are standing fast, and their attorneys argue that the privacy protections and district authority outlined in FERPA supercede the state law. In any case, here in New York, there is no such state law and our state privacy law bars the release of personal student information for commercial purposes.

• In Chicago, after public school student information was disclosed to Noble charter schools without parent consent, resulting in parents receiving postcards urging them to enroll their children in their schools, this sparked a huge controversy and led to an investigation by the Inspector General.  As a result, the Chicago staffer who released the information to Noble was fired and the the district apologized to parents in mailings paid for by Noble.  And this occurred in a city where the Mayor controls the schools and is openly pro-charter.

Here in NYC,  we also have mayoral control, but with a newly re-elected progressive Mayor, who claims to be focused on improving the opportunities of public school students over the interests of charter operators.  Yet for some reason, DOE officials are intent on continuing this practice voluntarily, even if it violates federal student privacy law. 

That the DOE seems intent on continuing this practice though it began under the previous  Mayor is also hard to explain, given how it is aimed at helping the charter schools to expand their “market share” as Eva Moskowitz put it in emails to former Chancellor Joel Klein, which will inevitably lead to further diminishing the funding, space and stability of our public school system.

The release of this information without parental consent also violates specific promises Bill de Blasio made to parents when he first ran for Mayor.  See his responses to the NYC Kids PAC 2013 survey here, as recorded by his campaign manager Emma Wolfe, in the midst of the controversy over inBloom:

 

If the DOE and the de Blasio administration were wise and respected children's right to privacy, they would immediately cease this practice and apologize to parents, as Chicago officials did.   At the very least, DOE should be obligated to ask parents for their consent before releasing their children's information to  charter schools.  Unfortunately, their response to Johanna's FERPA complaint as reported by Chalkbeat signals otherwise,  that they intend to dig in their heels and continue to violate the law.

FERPA Complaint to US Dept of Education that DOE violates student privacy by disclosing personal student information to charters without parental consent.

Today's press release is posted here.

See the FERPA complaint below to the US Department of Education, filed on Monday by Johanna Garcia, President of Community Education Council in District 6, challenging the DOE's  right to provide her child's personal information to charter schools without her consent for the purpose of recruiting and marketing their schools. 

In her complaint, Johanna questions whether charter operators are receiving students' test scores, grades, English learner and/or disability status from DOE in addition to their contact information,  based on her personal experience with the selective charter recruitment of her three children. More evidence for this possibility is also implied by an email that I received from the DOE Chief Privacy Officer Joe Baranello, in response to my inquiry about the legal status of these disclosures.

DOE has voluntarily supplied the contact information for students and families without parental consent to Success Academy and other charter schools since at least 2006 and perhaps before, as revealed in emails FOILed by reporter Juan Gonzalez in 2010 and cited below.   

As Eva Moskowitz wrote Klein in December 2007, she needed this information to "mail 10-12 times to elementary and preK families"  so that she could grow her "market share."  Attention has been paid recently to Moskowitz' current goal of expanding to 100 charter schools, and her aggressive expansion plans will be facilitated by SUNY's recent agreement to change their regulations, exempting her from teacher certification rules and allowing her to hire teachers with just a few weeks of training to staff her schools. 

Just as critical to her plans for rapid expansion is her ability to send multiple mailings to families for recruiting purposes. In 2010, it was estimated that Success Academy spent $1.6 million in the 2009-2010 school year alone on recruitment and promotion costs, including mailings and ads, amounting to $1300 for each new enrolled student.  The need to do a massive amount of outreach to fill seats is intensified by the fact that only half of the students who win Success Academy admissions lotteries actually enroll in her schools, according to a new study.

In stark contrast to DOE's voluntary and continuing practice of helping charter schools recruit students by providing them with the personal information of NYC public school students, the Nashville school board has recently refused to provide their students' contact information to charter schools, prompting a lawsuit filed against them by the State Education Commissioner.  The Commissioner cites a Tennessee law passed by the Legislature in August that she claims requires the district to share student contact information with charters.  

In response, Nashville attorneys argue that the release of information to charter operators for the purpose of marketing their schools to families is forbidden by FERPA, as this would be a commercial use of the data.  Last spring, a Nashville charter school agreed to pay parents $2.2 million to settle a class action lawsuit against them for spamming them with text messages urging them to enroll their children in the school.

 

In Memphis, the district made robocalls to parents, informing them of how to opt out of potential data-sharing with charter schools for the purposes of recruitment, and 7,700 did.  Last week, their school board voted to join Nashville anyway in defiance of the state's demand, and to deny this information to charter schools for the purposes of marketing and recruitment. 

There is no state law in NY that would require NYC DOE to provide this information to charter schools, and Johanna's FERPA complaint argues that both state and federal privacy law bar this practice without parental consent. Yet DOE has continued to violate student privacy to help charter schools cannibalize our public schools by allowing them to absorb an increasing amount of resources, space and students.  Last year, the DOE budget allocated more than $1.8 billion of operating funds on charter schools, not counting lease costs or space taken up by co-located charters in our increasingly overcrowded school buildings.  

Let us know if you would like to file a similar FERPA complaint against the DOE's practice of supplying your child's contact information to charter schools, by emailing us at info@studentprivacymatters.org 

--Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters and co-chair, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy

___

 November 6, 2017

Family Policy Compliance Office

U.S. Department of Education

400 Maryland Avenue, SW

Washington, D.C. 20202-8520

By email: FERPA.Complaints@ed.gov

My name is Johanna Garcia.  I am the mother of two children who currently attend NYC public schools; my third child attended a NYC public school until this year. My daughter is named [removed] and is in the sixth grade at [removed] in Manhattan.

Each year my family receives in the mail a large number of pamphlets and flyers from charter schools, promoting and marketing their schools and urging me to apply for my daughter.  Most of the flyers are from the Success Charter network, and some of them are addressed to me as her parent and some in Alexa's name.  I have received these flyers ever since my daughter was in second grade. 

It has been the practice of DOE to provide mailing labels to charter schools, and to allow them to target specific students by grade and neighborhood since at least 2007 and perhaps before. For evidence of this fact, see the December 2007 communications between former DOE Chancellor Joel Klein, Eva Moskowitz, CEO of Success Academy charter schools, and Michael Duffy on p. 24-25 of the FOILed document here: http://tinyurl.com/yap5bsg8

According to the document above, on December 21, 2007, Ms. Moskowitz emailed Chancellor Klein, asking for the ability to access the mailing addresses of students other than merely first graders attending NYC public schools, which was apparently allowed her at that time, and to send out mailings more than once a year: "As I believe you know, I have tried in the past to get the DOE to fully institutionalize one of your significant innovation, namely allowing charter schools to make school choice a reality by using DOE's mailing labels.  Unfortunately to truly market to families, we need to be able to mail 10-12 times to elementary and preK families."

Ms. Moskowitz requested the ability to access the names and mailing addresses of public school students in many different grades, to target them geographically, and to "mail multiple times from Tweed [the DOE headquarters.]"  Limiting her to one mailing per year and to students in only one grade "makes market share significantly more difficult," she wrote.

In response, on December 26, 2007, Michael Duffy, then Executive Director of the DOE Office of Charter Schools, wrote the following:

In recent years, I had assumed that the DOE had determined that the "hurdles" of privacy law could be overcome through the Directory information exception in FERPA, as charter schools would not fit under any of the other FERPA exceptions for nonconsensual disclosure.

Yet never have I received any notice from DOE of my rights under FERPA, including my right to opt out of the disclosure of this Directory information, as the law requires. Nor have I been told which categories are considered Directory information by DOE, as is mandated if a district utilizes this exception for non-consensual disclosure of personal student information according to FERPA.

More recently, however, I was forwarded an email from the NYC Department of Education Chief Privacy Officer, Joseph Baranello, claiming that instead, DOE allows charter schools to receive this information from DOE without parental consent as a result of the "school official" exception under FERPA.  In an email sent on Nov. 3, 2017, to Leonie Haimson, co-chair of the Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, Mr. Baranello wrote as follows:

" ...with respect to your inquiry concerning mailings related to charter schools, the DOE discloses mailing addresses of DOE families to its contracted vendor under FERPA’s “school officials” exception. As you know, under this exception FERPA permits the DOE to share personally identifiable information with outside parties performing institutional services or functions for which the DOE would otherwise use its own employees.  In addition, this exception requires that there exist legitimate educational interests in the information. The educational interest in this case is the need to inform families, especially those who are hard to reach, of available enrollment options."

Under FERPA, the "school official" exception is defined as an employee of the educational agency or a contractor or vendor to whom the school has outsourced institutional services or functions that it would otherwise perform for itself.

While the mailing house could be designated as a "school official" and receive student personal information, this would be allowed only for the purpose of sending mailings on behalf of the district.  It would be impermissible under FERPA for a "school official" to perform these services on behalf of another vendor or organization, as is occurring in this case.  Under the same specious argument, DOE could rationalize providing students' personal information via a mailing house to a private school, a tutoring company, or a company that produces educational software or sells textbooks for them to use to send marketing or promotional materials to parents, which DOE might argue could have an "educational interest" for this information.  This would be a clear violation of FERPA's intent.

In no manner could charter schools be defined as “school officials” themselves, and be eligible to receive non-consensual disclosure of personal student information from DOE, because they perform no functions or services for the district.  In fact, quite the opposite, as charter schools divert resources and students from the district.

In addition, according to FERPA, whoever is designated as a "school official" by DOE and thus eligible to receive personal student information without parental consent must be under the "direct control" of the district, meaning that there must be a written contract, service agreement or terms of service that explicitly restricts the use of the information for a specified purpose.  Charter schools are decidedly not under the "direct control" of the district, and there are no such contracts or written agreements between DOE and charter schools restricting the use of this information, as far as we know.

Finally, a district that allows third parties to obtain access to personally identifiable student information under the "school official" exception must include in its annual notification to parents of their FERPA rights its criteria for determining who constitutes a “school official” and what constitutes “legitimate educational interests." 

The annual notification of a parent's rights under FERPA to NYC parents is ostensibly provided in a booklet that was sent to principals at the beginning of the year, called “Achieve NYC: A Complete Guide to New York City Public Schools,” though many parents say they never received the booklet nor any notice of it, which in itself represents another violation of FERPA.

This 46-page booklet, found at http://schools.nyc.gov/ParentsFamilies/AchieveNYC/default.htm  says the following on p. 42 about who the district defines "school official" under FERPA, and thus eligible to receive personally identifiable student information without parental consent:

People whom the DOE engages to perform services or functions for which

it would otherwise use its employees. These include (a) contractors, (b)

agents, (c) consultants, (d) employees of other government agencies

providing DOE-related services or functions, (e) parents, students, or

other volunteers assisting another school official in performing his or

her tasks. Such people are required to be under the direct control of

the DOE with respect to the use and maintenance of personally identifiable

information from education records. Direct control is achieved in various

ways, including but not limited to by written agreement.

There is nothing mentioned in the booklet that would specify that charter school operators could be defined as "school official', as they are not DOE contractors, agents, or consultants, nor are they government agencies providing DOE-related services.  Nor is there any mention of DOE's apparent claim that a mailing house designated as a school official could then in turn use that information on behalf of a non-school official, and redisclose it to a charter school for the purpose of sending their recruiting and marketing materials to parents.

What is especially troubling is that according to FERPA, under the "school official" exception, unlike the "Directory information" exception, an education agency is allowed to non-consensually disclose any detail in a student's educational records, including their test scores, grades, or disability status, to a third party presumed to need access to that information.   

In the continuation of the email quoted above from the NYC DOE Chief Privacy Officer to Leonie Haimson, Mr. Baranello wrote the following:

"The educational interest in this case is the need to inform families, especially those who are hard to reach, of available enrollment options.  This is also especially important given the Education Law's emphasis on charter schools recruiting and serving students with disabilities, English Language Learners, and students who are eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, to help ensure that charter schools are not selective in whom they provide their applications to." (emphasis added.)

This implies that the DOE may not only be providing the names, grades and addresses of public school students to charter schools, but also identifying which of them may have disabilities, are English Language Learners, or receive free or reduced-price lunch, which would be an even more serious violation of their right to privacy.  

While I have three children who currently attend NYC public schools, I have received mailings from charter schools only in the name of my daughter, who is the only one of my three children whose test scores qualified her to enroll in a citywide gifted program, though she did not enroll in one. I cannot conceive of how the charter school could distinguish between my three children unless they also received information from DOE about their test scores, including that my daughter scored high enough to qualify for a gifted program, or that my other two children have IEPS, which would essentially allow them to recruit students according to their academic ability.

In any case, the ability of charter schools to access the personal information of public school students without parental consent would be illegal and particularly egregious, given the manner in which charter schools are governed by private corporate boards that resist any efforts to make their practices transparent and accountable to the public.

I also believe that the DOE's nonconsensual provision of students' personally identifiable information for the purpose of allowing charter schools to send promotional pamphlets and marketing materials to their families violates NY state privacy law, § 2-d. Unauthorized release of personally identifiable information.  This law, passed by the Legislature in 2014, bars schools and districts from releasing "a student's personally identifiable information ... for any commercial purposes."  Disclosing a student's name, grade and address to charter schools for the purpose of sending promotional literature to their parents and thereby enabling them to expand their "market share" would be a commercial purpose, and thus barred by state law. 

In addition, the DOE booklet posted online and quoted above does not link to the current list of personal student data elements that the district discloses to the state, as required by state law, but a different list of data elements collected in 2014, shortly after the law was passed.

Thus, I am copying this complaint to the Chief Privacy Officer of the NYS Education Department urging her to take action as well.

Please inform the NYC DOE that they are in violation of federal law, since charter schools cannot be defined as "school officials" eligible under FERPA to receive personally identifiable student information without parental consent, either directly from the district or through a third-party mailing house.  The DOE must immediately cease providing personally student information to charter schools for recruiting and marketing purposes, without first receiving their parents' consent. 

DOE must also inform parents of their FERPA rights, and to be informed of the list of personal data elements that the district currently discloses to the state, as required by state law.

The Chancellor of the NYC Department of Education is Carmen Farina; her address is 52 Chamber St., New York, NY 10007

Yours sincerely,

Johanna Garcia

[address, phone, email removed]

I certify that the information I have provided is true to the best of my knowledge and belief.

Cc: Privacy@nysed.gov

Temitope.Akinyemi@nysed.gov

CPO@mail.nysed.gov  

data‐security@schools.nyc.gov

Info@studentprivacymatters.org

Regent.rosa@nysed.gov

Commissioner@nysed.gov

ddromm@council.nyc.gov