2010 forum: Public Education Under Attack!

Check out the flyer for Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats for Sunday, Oct. 17 event by clicking on the image to the right.

Feel feel free to download the flyer, post and distribute in your schools.

CAMPAIGN TO STOP K-2 TESTING IN OUR SCHOOLS

Parents - Did you know that the DOE plans to bring standardized testing to our youngest children? If this happens, curriculum will be drastically altered because teachers will be pressured to teach to the test. There will be precious little time for art, music, science, drama, and creative play. Experts agree that testing young children is highly unreliable due to the uneven development in early childhood. Additionally, standardized tests have a long and notorious history of misrepresenting the intellectual capabilities of young children based on race, class and immigrant status. And during this period of severe budget cuts, it would be a waste of money to spend millions of dollars on such an irresponsible testing policy.

Time Out From Testing is organizing a citywide referendum to stop K-2 testing. Please go to our website at www.timeoutfromtesting.org to sign the online petition. In addition, next week are elementary school parent-teacher conferences during which you can set up a table to gather signatures of opposition. Please download the "Letter for Parents" from our website, make copies, ask parents to sign, collect all the letters and return them to us. (You will find the address at the bottom of the letter.)

Want to get more involved in this campaign? Email us at info@timeoutfromtesting.org

Many thanks! Jane Hirschmann

List of cuts to Tweed proposed by education advocates, UFT and Speaker Quinn

Elizabeth Green of Gotham Schools reports that the UFT has signed onto a letter, drafted by Time out from Testing and the Center for Immigrant Families, calling for a hiring freeze at Tweed, and cuts to the Leadership Academy and the Accountability office to save about $60 million a year -- before any of the millions in proposed mid-year cuts to school budgets should be contemplated.

This letter was also signed onto by Class Size Matters, the Working Families Party and others. As she notes,

On the chopping board would be the annual letter-grade progress reports for schools; the quality reviews that supplement the test-driven progress reports with observed details; all standardized tests for children between kindergarten and second grade; the Leadership Academy, the nonprofit organization that trains principals; the periodic assessments that are supposed to help teachers prepare students for state tests; and ARIS, the data warehousing program contracted to IBM that has so far been a flop.

That’s not the entire Joel Klein agenda. But it’s a lot.

In a speech to the Citizens Budget Commission, City Council Speaker Quinn proposed yet another list of non-classroom savings of $150 million, including $13 million from cutting the Data Inquiry Teams in every school:

"Thus far, we’ve identified at least $150 million in specific, non-classroom cuts to the Department of Education budget. These include a range of cuts from slowing the pace of school restructuring, to scaling back employee recruitment contracts.

There are scores of pilots, new initiatives, and program expansions in the Department that may be well intentioned -- but -- that in this climate, are luxuries that we just can’t afford.

Just one example is the $13 million “Data Inquiry Teams.” Let me read you the DOE’s official description of this program: “The Inquiry Team process is geared to assist schools in data-driven decision-making by integrating the components of the Accountability Initiative into the life of the school.” DOE gives every school eight to ten thousand dollars a year for this.

We think that this is asking principals and their teams to review and analyze student progress and class-work, isn’t that what a school and its staff is supposed to do anyway.

That’s $13 million annually that we could cut -- to keep $13 million in the classroom.

Add your suggestions for cuts in the comments section!

State Assembly Members Appear at Council Hearings to Blast DOE While Accountability Czar Liebman Flees from Parents

There was high drama today at the City Council hearings on the DOE's new Progress Reports. In an unusual occurrence, two members of the State Assembly appeared in person to testify against the "A-F" letter grading system. Assembly Member Mark Weprin of Queens was scathing, saying parents needed to know the system was "irrelevant nonsense". He complained the DOE's testing regime was "turning schools into Stanley Kaplan centers" and "sucking all the arts, fun and interest out of schools".

Assembly Member Jim Brennan of Brooklyn said the State Education Department should have reviewed the Progress Report grading methodology but still has not been given access to the underlying statistical methodology used to assign the grades. He pointed out how the results are often inconsistent with existing state and even city evaluations. He said "my core concern is that the system may have no validity whatsoever".

The Assembly members testified after the Council finished questioning DOE Chief Accountability Officer Jim Liebman. Parent supporters of Time Out from Testing were waiting to provide Liebman with petitions containing 6,700 signatures of parents opposed to the Progress Reports. Liebman slipped out a side door but was chased by parents lugging the boxes of signatures, followed by the press.

UPDATE:

More details have emerged on today's events. Council Education Chair Robert Jackson asked parents to present their peition to Liebman outside the Council chambers. Instead of accepting the petition, the crafty Liebman fled through a side door normally reserved for Council use. Undeterred, parent volunteers led by Time Out From Testing director Jane Hirschmann fought a running battle with Liebman's security detail as they tried to present the petitions to him. Check out this account of the fracas at InsideSchools and video footage captured by NY1.

A good day for headline writers: NY Times: "Defending School Report Cards, Over a Chorus of Boos" , Daily News: "Escape from NY Parents" and Post: "Advocates Cut to the Chase".

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.

Stop the new grading system! petitions and fact sheets available

Each school’s grade and “progress report” will be distributed to parents at the parent/teacher conferences next week.

Time Out From Testing has put together excellent petitions and fact sheets, calling for a halt to the school grading system, showing how it is likely to further degrade the learning conditions at our schools. It would be very helpful if parents set up tables at their schools next week, and collect signatures.

• Download the fact sheet
• Download the petition

I have also posted an easily downloadable copy of my Daily News oped to hand out, with more information about why the grading system is inherently unfair and destructive. Petitions can be returned at the address below and I will get them to Time Out from Testing. thanks!

Class Size Matters, 124 Waverly Pl. New York, NY 10011

See also the many letters to the NY Times today -- all protesting the many inadequacies of the formula and the grading system itself.