Updated: Gates grant to NYSED for more PR around standards, testing and data collection

Update, December 11: Nick Tampio had an oped in LoHud news which asks:what if a food conglomerate making high fructose corn syrup bankrolled a state campaign on benefits of sugar? Or if tobacco companies subsidized a government campaign to push teen smoking? Same will likely happen if the Regents accept this Gates grant to push flawed standards, testing and expanded data collection.  The Non-profit Quarterly also  covered the controversy: "perhaps the Gates Foundation might consider the time and energy parents and other stakeholders must spend organizing against Gates initiatives instead of for ones they can believe and invest in among the costs of its growing number of failed educational efforts."

There was a lively discussion of this grant and its potential consequences at yesterday's Regents meeting and whether Gates Foundation would "control the narrative."  Commissioner Elia said the reason for the state to expand its data collection from early childhood through higher ed was that  currently students applying to SUNY and CUNY schools can't have their transcripts sent on time, a claim that is hard to believe. Many questions were raised about the data practices and policies and who would obtain the data.  Elia promised "no outside company" will be given access to it.  The Board of Regents voted to approve the grant, with only Regent Cashin and Regent Oudekirk voting no.  In the end, this decision will likely backfire, causing parents from trusting NYSED even less than they do already on standards, testing and data collection, knowing that these communications are part of a PR campaign, financially supported by Gates.

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December 10, 2018

See how the Board of Regents are discussing tomorrow morning a $225,000 grant from the Gates Foundation to improve NYSED's "consistent and targeted communication " to parents and other stakeholders to help them "understand a variety of critical academic changes" regarding the state's learning standards, accountability initiatives (ie testing) and need for enhanced data collection "to connect early childhood, K-12, and postsecondary student information."   The proposal is posted here and below. 

One wonders if more PR is going to really help persuade parents who are already very distrustful of NYSED's insistence on imposing new standards that are little different from the Common Core.  There is still too much emphasis on flawed high-stakes state exams, and a lack of transparency about their design.  Finally,  NYSED still hasn't released regulations or enforced  § 2-d. regarding the unauthorized release of personally identifiable information , the state student privacy law that was passed in 2014 in the wake of the controversy over inBloom -- though the legal deadline for implementation was more than four years ago. 

Those million dollar ads: are they true?

Probably you’ve seen one the many ads that are running on TV, radio and bus shelters – touting the great improvements in our public schools and telling us to “Keep the Progress going.” In one of these ads, a teacher claims, proudly, “our classes are smaller.” (See the ads here.)

Is this true? We can look at recent data from the IBO to determine the validity of this claim.

If you look at the citywide averages, class sizes appear to be shrinking by less than 1% per year. To be exact, average class sizes are declining by about .3%, (that’s point 3%, not 3%) in K-3 and in grades 4-8 by about .8% (point 8%) each year. This, despite the fact that enrollment is dropping much more rapidly – by 1.5% annually in K-3, and 3.1% in grades 4-8^th.

Which means that the administration has made absolutely no effort to keep classes small, but to the contrary is subtracting hundreds of classes -- and teachers -- each year. (You can click on the graph on the right to enlarge it.)

If we had class size goals similar to those that the state of Florida has achieved for nearly every school in the state, of 18 kids per class in grades K-3 and 22 kids in 4-8^th grades, it would take over 40 years to reach these goals in the early grades, and 19 years for 4-8^th grades. Unless of course, enrollment trends change over the next 40 years, which is quite possible.

Moreover, in more than half of districts, class sizes are actually increasing -- either in K-3, 4-8 or both.

The Fund for Public Schools is financing these deceptive ads – once a legitimate charity, established to provide extra services and resources to our kids in the public schools – but now is pursuing a nakedly political campaign to burnish Bloomberg's image and ensure that Mayoral control is kept intact. Their PR campaign is called “Keep it going” and it asks for donations, in part, by saying that contributions will offer families tools and resources to support their children's education."

But when you search for these tools and resources, all they appear to be providing is no-cost website advice, reused from other organizations, like a list of back-to-school supplies, including those all important No. 2 pencils. If we had ten million dollars, we could put on ads refuting DOE’s claims; unfortunately all we parents have is this blog.

Chancellor threatens principals for poor survey response

Word is the response rate on the parent survey is so low that DOE will extend the deadline once again. They are now openly threatening principals that if they don't get parents to return them in greater numbers this may count against their schools in their grades, which in turn could put their jobs at risk. In turn, principals are begging parents to fill in their surveys and send them back.

Here’s part of a desperate email that went out to parents at one school today:

“Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has informed all principals that the surveys "are so vital that I have instructed the Office of Accountability to count low response rates in a school's Progress Reports".

Tweed puts together a lousy survey, they have almost no communication skills, they do little outreach except a terrible ad, they have alienated parents for six years and continue to ignore our views about the changes we'd like made in our schools – so now they will punish our principals for a low response rate?

Where's the accountability? When are the Chancellor and his inner circle going to recognize that it's not adult to blame everyone else for their own mistakes?

I bet if they had asked about issues that parents care about -- class size , testing, and the quality of leadership at the top, while offering just a hint of evidence that they actually care about what we think, rather than simply engaging in yet another empty exercise in PR, a lot more of us would have bothered to complete the surveys and send them back.