NYC KidsPAC Parents and Advocates release Education report card for Mayor de Blasio

Media outlets that reported on our report card include News 12-TV, Wall St. Journal, NY Post, WCBS radio, and Epoch Times (in Chinese).  Please take a look at the grades we awarded the mayor on education issues below, and leave a comment on the blog.  thanks, Leonie 

For immediate release: April 19, 2015


Contact: Shino Tanikawa, 917-770-8438, estuaryqueen@gmail.com

Leonie Haimson, 917-435-9329, leonie@classsizematters.org

NYC KidsPAC releases Education report card for Mayor de Blasio

Grades range from As to Fs in many crucial areas

Today, Sunday April 19 at noon, in front of the Department of Education headquarters at Tweed, NYC KidsPAC released a report card for Mayor de Blasio, based on how many of his campaign promises he has fulfilled in the area of education policy after more than a year in office. NYC KidsPAC is a political action committee made up of parent leaders and advocates who work for better schools by issuing candidate surveys, informing the electorate about the results, and supporting candidates who have demonstrated a commitment to improving our city’s public schools.


NYC KidsPAC provided the DOE and the Mayor’s office with this report three weeks ago, and received no response. They will now provide the report to the leaders and members of the State Legislature, to help them decide whether to renew mayoral control.

In 2013 NYCKids PAC endorsed Bill de Blasio for Mayor, citing the hope he would “stop the rampant privatization of our schools and the overemphasis on testing, will listen more closely to the concerns of parents and communities, and will push for new investments in expanding preK, improving classroom conditions and alleviating school overcrowding.” We believe that De Blasio has a better understanding of the issues than the previous administration, and has made several positive changes, most notably the expansion of preKindergarten, but has yet to live up to his promises in other important areas.

The grades the Mayor received from NYC KidsPAC are decidedly mixed, ranging from “A” and “A-“ on cell phones, school closings, and arts education, to a “B” on testing, and a “D” on co-locations, space planning, parent engagement and input, special education and student privacy. He received an “F” on class size, transparency and accountability and diversity.

Shino Tanikawa, president of NYC KidsPAC and a Manhattan parent leader explained: “We thank Mayor de Blasio on his reversal of the cell phone ban and halting school closures, two issues that are important to many parents. We are also encouraged by his commitment to arts education. The Mayor expressed some very promising ideas for improving the governance of our school system during his campaign. For example, he proposed fixed terms for the Panel for Educational Policy members, and to ask Community Education Councils to vote on changes in school utilization including co-locations. Then PEP members would be required to refer to those votes in their decision-making. None of these reforms have yet occurred, and we have seen many damaging co-locations approved without reference to the priorities of parents in those communities. Our report gives him a “D” in the category of Co-locations, and an incomplete in Governance. Though we hope that he will deliver on more of his promises soon, we must oppose the renewal of mayoral control without real checks and balances and more decision-making power given to parents and community members.”

Eduardo Hernandez, a member of Community Education Council in District 8 in the Bronx, said: “NYC kids have just endured three strenuous days of ELA testing and will sit through another three days in math next week. We gave the Mayor a “B” in this category, because the DOE has acknowledged that parents have the right to opt out their children out of testing, and engage in another activity. However, the DOE has not publicized this sufficiently, and many parents remain unaware of their rights. The Mayor has neglected to reform the admissions process to gifted programs and to the five selective, specialized high schools under his control that still rely solely on test scores. Though when he ran for office, he pledged to make admissions to these programs and schools based on more holistic factors, they are still based solely on high-stakes exams with racially disparate outcomes.”

“Overcrowded classrooms and rising enrollments are pervasive problems that have plagued our children’s schools for far too long. We gave him an “Incomplete” because so far the de Blasio Administration has failed to act follow up on his promises to alleviate overcrowding by improving the school capital plan, which is months overdue. The current version of the plan doesn’t meet one third of the actual need, given existing overcrowding and enrollment projections, and without improvement, NYC kids are likely result to be subjected to even more crammed conditions in the future,” said Andy Lachman, head of Parent Leaders of Upper East Side Schools (PLUS).

As Gloria Corsino, president of the Citywide Council for District 75, pointed out, “Bill de Blasio gets an “F” when it comes to transparency and accountability. Our education budget is no clearer than under Bloomberg; huge consulting contracts are still approved by the PEP with little or no explanation, including a $1 billion contract that was awarded to a company that had engaged in a kickback scheme. Luckily, City Hall reversed that decision at the last minute, but this is a contract that should never have been proposed in the first place. Freedom of Information requests are responded to no more quickly, and the DOE still refuses to count all the kids in trailers, including hundreds of students with disabilities, and thousands of high school students. The recommendations of the Blue Book working group for improving the accuracy of DOE’s figures on overcrowding have still not been released to the public.”

Karen Sprowal, a parent leader in Upper Manhattan, gave some of the reasons why the Mayor received a “D” for Parent engagement: “It is very disappointing that parents have so little input under this administration. The Chancellor now claims in court that School Leadership Teams, composed of half parents, have only advisory powers, which is contrary to state law. The DOE revamped their parent survey without any input from parents, and took out what we considered the most important question, as to which improvement strategy we would most like to see in our schools, a question that has been asked by DOE since 2007. Too often at Town Hall meetings, the Chancellor responds to parental concerns with a dismissive attitude. Sadly, we have also heard from many CEC members that they still feel their views are not consulted before important decisions are made.”

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters, said, “The Mayor gets an “F” on class size, because he has fulfilled none of his promises on this critical issue, the top priority of parents according to the DOE’s own surveys. Despite his commitment to reduce class size significantly, and if necessary, raise funds to do so, class sizes remain at a fifteen year high in the early grades, and the administration has taken no action in this area or indicated that they intend to follow through in any way. In fact, the Chancellor has repeatedly ignored the concerns expressed by educators and parents, and has stated that class size is not a problem that needs to be solved, despite the decision of the state’s highest court that NYC children are denied their constitutional rights because their classes are too large. “

“NYC KidsPAC gives the Mayor an “F” for diversity, as the well-documented segregation in NYC schools has not been addressed despite his campaign promises. The administration has failed to respond to communities asking for district-wide solutions that have been shown to increase equity of access in numerous school systems across the country. Mayor de Blasio has failed to live up to his obligation to address this civil rights issue by amending the admissions policies that stratify our schools,” concluded Lisa Donlan, President of Community Education Council in District One on the Lower East Side.

The Mayor’s report card, along with an analysis of the Mayor’s performance on this and other issues, can be downloaded here and viewed below.  It is also posted at www.NYCKidsPAC.org

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Mayor Bill De Blasio's Report Card (Final)

What will Black's departure mean for our schools, and my most unfavorite memory of Dennis Walcott

I have mixed reactions to Cathie Black’s resignation. Though friends and colleagues from around the country emailed and called to say that I must be celebrating, I had to respond.... not exactly.

Most parents realized immediately that she was not qualified for the job, although it took the mayor three months of sinking approval ratings for him to appreciate that fact. When he saw the latest polls, with Black approval ratings at 17% and his handling of schools not much higher at 27%, despite millions of dollars spent of ads trying to convince New Yorkers otherwise, he must have figured out it was time to cut bait.

Clearly, Dennis Walcott has far more experience in public education that she did. But watching Walcott in action for the last nine years, I have no evidence that he is ready to take our schools in a new direction. He can hit the ground running; but will it be in the right direction?

Parents are fed up with this administration’s version of education “reform”: rising class sizes, school closings, harmful charter co-locations, rampant overcrowding, frequent budget cuts, excessive test prep, and stagnant achievement levels -- all countered with PR spin rather than effective policies.

We are also furious at the mayor’s proposal to cut 6,000 additional teaching positions, instead of cutting the bureaucracy, wasteful consultants and contractors, or raising taxes on millionaires. We are tired of having our views ignored and disrespected by educrats who think they know better than we do about what’s right for our kids.

I remember when the mayor decided to ban all cell phones from schools a few years back. Most parents felt then and still feel that cell phones are a necessary safety device, especially considering how many of our children are forced to commute miles to school each day. Of course, not a single private school in the city, including the school that the mayor's own daughters attended, would dare ban students from carrying cell phones.

The City Council proposed legislation that would allow students to bring their cell phones to school, which then the school could store for them, but would have to give back at the end of the day. This seemed to be reasonable compromise, given the mayor's insistence that cell phones disrupted classroom activities.

Dennis Walcott testified during the hearings, as Deputy Mayor, and said that it didn’t matter one iota if the Council passed this legislation , since the mayor did not intend to comply with the law. Robert Jackson, chair of the Council Education committee, pointed to a high school students watching from the gallery, and said, “This is terrible example of democracy for these students, the fact that you would calmly say that the city does not intend to follow the law.”

Walcott replied that “No, this is democracy because we are having this discussion.”

In short, unless Walcott (and the Mayor) change course, show that they are willing to follow the law, listen to parents and other stakeholders, and alter the policies that are damaging our kids, I don't believe that our attitudes towards this administration or the mayor’s approval ratings will increase substantially.

Also: see my contribution to the NY Times blog on what Black’s brief tenure reveals about whether business success is enough to run a school system. Please take a look and leave a comment! I was also quoted in the Los Angeles Times, Gabe Pressman’s column and DNA info.

Yet more evidence of Bloomberg's utter disdain for NYC parents

See the article, BLOOMY TO SCHOOL PARENTS: BACK OFF, in which the mayor insisted on WOR-radio that “parents should butt out of trying to dictate educational policy as the debate over mayoral control of the schools intensifies."

"You do not want parents setting educational policy. You do not want parents telling teachers how to teach. Teachers would not be happy about that," Bloomberg said on his WOR radio program. "That's what you have professionals for," he added.

What’s particularly obnoxious is that while Bloomberg is contemptuous of parents and says educators not parents should be in charge, the reality is that he has disempowered both parents and educators in his effort to privatize and corporatize the system. Indeed, only two out of twenty of the top bureaucrats at Tweed are educators. The truth is that Bloomberg wants to bulldoze over everyone who stands in the way of his destructive and inequitable policies.

His evident unconcern about the dangers to our kids from the swine flu and his refusal to close schools where up to half of the students are absent reminds me of his insistence on eliminating bus routes in the middle of winter two years ago; or his refusal to allow students to carry cell phones to school because, as he put it, all they will use them for is to call their parents to ask what’s for dinner.

Below are more comments from Steve Koss, public school parent and former teacher:

The level of contempt this Mayor has for public school parents -- and the citizenry in general -- would be astonishing in any public figure, but in a man who is ostensibly running in an upcoming election, it's simply extraordinary. Every time he opens his mouth, words come out that reflect a billionaire's arrogance, aloofness, and lack of empathy for and understanding of ordinary New Yorkers' lives.

The Mayor tells everyone not to worry about flu, that just because there are a few people sick, "That it doesn't mean you stop living." Until a beloved Queens teacher and assistant principal dies and the Mayor dismissively rationalizes continued school operation with 40-60% of the kids absent as a day care issue.

Norman Seabrook, union head for corrections officers at Rikers Island complains about the spread of flu among inmates there, and the Mayor's typically sarcastic response is, "If he is an epidemiologist, it's the first time I've heard of it." Nor, the last time I heard of it, was Mr. Bloomberg.

Parents want a meaningful voice in the policies affecting their children's education, and the Mayor tells them by radio interview to butt out, that they're neither needed nor wanted. And while he's at it, he reverts back to his usual scare tactics that any parental input is tantamount to destroying what he's built (such a bad idea??) and that it will automatically return NYC public education to "the bad old days."

It would be pleasant if just once, this Mayor at least acted like cares, even if inside he could care less. Of course, Mr. Bloomberg doesn't have to worry about offending parents or anyone else, since he has already haughtily subverted their will on term limits and bought and paid for both the City Council and the election itself.

If you think about it, it's simply astonishing to realize that later this year, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers will be voting for this bitter, intolerant, humorless, and affectless individual (I can't bring myself to use the words human being) as their Mayor for another four years. Or more, if Mike decides he wants to stick around. After all, what Mikey wants, Mikey gets, no more how much it costs him or how much pain it inflicts on the average New Yorker about whom he cares so little.

-- Steve Koss

News round up from first day of school

Stories in the NY Times, NY Sun, Post, and Daily News about the Bloomberg’s determination to do everything he can to renew Mayoral control – including helping to form a $20 million political action committee to lobby the legislature to renew it. Comptroller Thompson blows up at Bloomberg’s evasive statements about overturning term limits.

Yoav Gonen of the NY Post finds that the administration is now spending more than $16 million for surplus assistant principals – who can’t be fired. Instead, some principals appear to prefer to name inexperienced teachers, who most probably have to be paid less out of school budgets due to the administration’s crazy fair student funding scheme.

Add that to the estimated $19 million (according to the UFT) or $81 million (according to the New Teacher Project) in wasted taxpayer funds going to pay the salaries of more than 200 experienced teachers who are sitting in the Absent Teacher reserve -- and who instead should have been used to reduce class size -- and you have a mess of the costliest proportions.

Gonen also finds that more than two years after the Mayor’s cell phone ban, and a year after cell phone lockers were supposed to be installed outside 16 city middle and high schools, not a single locker has arrived at any school grounds.

Read this Daily News oped protesting the administration’s latest plan to test Kindergarten students. And this Daily News article revealing that despite all the high stakes testing imposed in our schools, and all the claimed improvements, two-thirds of city high school graduates entering CUNY schools have to take remedial classes

DOE Announces Cannes Festival Lion Titanium Award

As the 2007/08 school year drew to a close, the DOE’s public relations machine churned out a little-noted press release entitled, “Chancellor Klein Hails Department of Education’s Student Motivation Campaign for Winning Cannes Lion Titanium Award for Best ‘Breakthrough Idea’ of 2008.” The “breakthrough idea” turned out not to be an educational initiative or new instructional technology, nor a new concept for school operation or administration. The “breakthrough idea” award was not even for the DOE’s pilot program to give free cell phones to 2,500 students in seven middle schools. Rather, the award celebrated the packaging concepts for the underlying “cell phone minutes as motivator" idea, and it was given not to the DOE but to its advertising agency, Droga5, for its Million Motivation Campaign and The Million cell phone.

The Million? That’s the ostentatious but quietly shepherded name of the DOE’s free cell phone. The name is apparently premised on the idea that the City’s one million public school students from Pre-K-12 (you have to include Pre-K to top one million students in the DOE’s official 10/31/07 register) are all potential recipients. Doubtless among that million are hordes of Pre-K to Grade 4 children whose parents relish the idea of cell phones in their wee ones’ hands, just as there are doubtless equal hordes of NYC high schoolers simply salivating over the prospect of a DOE-monitored and DOE–controlled, limited functionality cell phone.

Back to the award, though. The Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival is exactly that – an advertising industry awards extravanza. Winners are chosen not for the merits of their products or programs but for their promotional packaging effectiveness. Otherwise, the DOE’s free cell phone idea would certainly have difficulty standing next to some of its competitors this year: anti-smoking, homelessness, HIV testing, Down Syndrome, environmental awareness, and drinking water shortages in the less-developed world, to name several. Droga5’s, and by inference the DOE’s, Titanium Award was not granted by experts in the field of academics, but by experts in the arts of style over substance, of emotion and misdirection over logic and content. A truly fitting award, indeed, for the City’s current educational regime.

A look at Droga5’s video submission (it's worth watching the whole thing) to the Cannes Lion Festival makes it clear why the advertising industry was so enamored of their campaign. Yes, it’s graphically slick, as expected from an agency whose client list includes Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Adidas, ecko unltd., and MTV. Better from an advertising standpoint, though, are the prominent displays of the names Samsung and Verizon on the cell phone itself. Better still are the “rewards” programs, featuring among others AMC Theaters, Adidas, Apple Computer, Macy’s, Foot Locker, Sean John, Virgin Megastores, all members of an innocuously described “responsible, on-screen corporate partnership” whose participation ensures that “The Million pays for itself.”

What branded product executive wouldn’t positively drool at the prospect of reaching into the purported Million young minds every day through a free, school system certified, advertising message delivery system? No wonder the folks at Cannes handed The Million its Titanium award -- they could probably barely contain themselves over the prospect of a captive student cell phone rollout across America’s major urban school systems. In Droga5’s video, DOE’s Chief Equality Officer Roland Fryer was already alluding to inquiry calls from the Chicago and Houston public school systems. The video closes with gushing accolades from the education experts at Esquire Magazine (a Droga5 client), Conde Nast, and (wonder of wonders!) Bloomberg News.

The DOE also proudly announced that The Million program was piloted in seven middle schools this year (starting back in February). While those schools are seldom if ever mentioned by name, The Million’s own website identifies four of the seven as KIPP charter schools – Academy Charter, A.M.P. Charter, Infinity Charter, and S.T.A.R. College Preparatory. The remaining three are Ebbetts Field Middle School (K352), JHS 234 - Arthur Cunningham (K234), and IS 349 – Math, Science & Tech (K349), all in Brooklyn. All three of the non-charter middle schools received grades of B on their last year’s School Progress Reports. Although the cell phone rewards were ostensibly connected to positive student behaviors, all three schools declined from between 0.2% to 1.0% in attendance rate this year compared to last year. All three schools did, however, show positive increases in the percentage of students who scored proficient (3 or 4) on the Math and ELA exams despite noticeable longitudinal (cohort) declines from Grade 7 to Grade 8 in Math (-9%) and ELA (-12%) at Math, Science & Tech and a smaller decline (-4%) in Math from Grade 6 to Grade 7 at Ebbetts Field.

The DOE’s press release closed with the declaration that, “Pending available funding, the plot will grow to reach 10,000 students during the 2008-09 school year.” Funding from which corporate sponsor(s), do you think?

Jedi vs. the Sith at the December PEP meeting

Last night’s meeting in the Bronx was devoted to the DOE answering questions from members of the Panel for Educational Policy.

Patrick Sullivan, the appointee of the Manhattan borough president, had prepared questions on a range of important issues including class size, overcrowding, charter schools, special ed, low achievement in middle schools, cell phones, SLTs, and others. The responses to these questions and the ensuing discussions were surprisingly illuminating. There were also a few questions submitted by Brooklyn rep Wendy Gilgeous (who wasn’t there to hear the answers) and one from Mayoral appointee Richard Menschel. None of the other ten members of the panel bothered to submit a single question.

Neverthless, Patrick’s list was comprehensive, and he asked astute follow-up questions and debated the Chancellor and other members of his SLT (Senior Leadership Team) on several points. He effectively engaged with Chancellor Klein, Linda Wernikoff, Marcia Lyles, Chris Cerf, Kathleen Grimm, and Garth Harries. As my nine-year old son would say, he was like a Jedi warrior, fighting off a whole army of Siths.

Here are some of the highlights:

• In response to a question on class size, when Klein was droning on that what’s really important is teacher quality, Patrick pointed out that one of the main reasons qualified teachers leave our schools to work elsewhere is the fact that they can have smaller classes almost anywhere else, which deprives our kids of an experienced and effective workforce. Even Klein had to concede Patrick's point.

Though all the DOE officials had seen the questions in advance, Chris Cerf seemed especially shaky in his responses on the two questions that Klein sent his way.

• The first involved the new, somewhat bizarre new management structure, in which district superintendents have been instructed to spend 90% of their time on the road, coaching schools outside their districts on how to analyze and improve test scores. Patrick asked whether this wasn’t a violation of the consent decree in the Kruger/Sanders lawsuit, and whether it was a waste of valuable time, forcing them to spend hours traveling all over the city.
  

Cerf argued that there was no violation of the consent decree since supers still would perform all their statutory responsibilities, including appointing and evaluating principals, and fulfull their disciplinary responsibilities. (But how well? And based on what knowledge?) He also said that the fact that supers are working outside their own districts was based on their own preference, since they had said it would put them in an “awkward” position to evaluate the schools they were supporting (why?). He added that this redefinition of their roles was not necessarily permanent, and would be re-evaluated each year.

In response, Patrick pointed out that their new duties would make it impossible for supers to achieve their core mission, including grooming new principals, and that one could argue that the district superintendent's role was essentially eliminated. He added that he thought that this was a grave error, since many important problems are not getting resolved, but are “bubbling up into the political apparatus” – and that the whole structure doesn’t make any sense, even on a temporary basis. He compared superintendents to divisional regional VPs in the corporate world – and said that they should have a deputy to perform the sort of data analysis involved in the accountability initiative. Chris Cerf said that he “respectfully disagreed”.

• Patrick also asked him how many people were employed in the press office, what were their salaries, and why it was appropriate to spend taxpayer dollars having them tape Diane Ravitch and prepare a dossier against her, which smacked of a “Soviet-era approach to stifling dissent.”
  

Cerf said that there were only 12 members (!) of the communication office, with a budget of $1.3 million, which he argued was not excessive given a total education budget of $17 billion.

( But do any other city agencies spend nearly that much?)

Cerf also said it was totally “appropriate” to tape Diane (though he refuted that it had happened more than twice), and to prepare a document tracking her positions (though he said there was no dossier). Diane was a very prominent commentator, he said, and had supported several policies and then had seemingly turned against them once adopted by DOE. He said there were no other critics who were being tracked in this way, although Richard Menschel humorously suggested that the DOE should also be “keeping an eye" on Patrick.

• On the cellphone ban, Patrick asked the Chancellor why the Mayor was so condescending and dirisive to public school parents, in his suggestion that the only reason a child might want call home is to ask what was for dinner. Klein had no convincing response, except to say that the Mayor did not intend to be condescending.

There was a lot more said on both sides, and it is a pity there weren’t more people there to hear it.

A unique evening at the PEP, where, for once, the serious concerns of parents got equal time with DOE blather. Hats off to Patrick!

The million program: DOE's new cell phone project as ingenious marketing tool?

See the article in Advertising Age, revealing a new twist in the DOE project, originally devised by Roland Fryer to offer cell phones to students, supposedly as an incentive to improve their academic performance.

It’s now being branded as “The Million program” – referring to the 1.1 million students in the NYC public schools. This proposal was originally described as an “experiment” but is now said to involve 10,000 to 11,000 students in its first year alone - and is apparently being pitched to potential sponsors as a way to market their products to all NYC students in the near future.

According to David Droga, an ad maven involved in the project, who revealed details to Advertising Age's Idea Conference last Thursday,

“There'll also be some room for advertising on the phone. After all, the phones, while provided for free to the students, won't be completely without cost. As such, marketers will be able to infiltrate the students' world through "responsible" sponsorships….There's lots and lots of brands out there that have a place in the students' lives," said Mr. Droga, who wouldn't disclose the specific advertisers because of ongoing negotiations.”

There may also be product “discounts” offered in text messages, according to Droga – a good way to sell more products.

So let me get this straight: this administration will continue to deny cell phones to students who need to communicate with their parents on their way to or from school, or in case of an emergency. But they will be offered as a way to sell them products?

This project is quickly turning into a potential goldmine for some lucky advertising agency as well as a host of possible commercial sponsors, and yet another opportunity to drain the pockets of NYC kids and their parents.

Bling instead of books: how low can they go?

Every time you think the DOE can’t stoop any lower they do.

Roland Fryer’s experiment, originally supposed to be small-scale and privately funded, has now mushroomed into an expensive project to provide tens of thousands of students with cell phones, free tickets to sports games, and text messages from famous athletes and rappers --– to “convince” them that staying in school and working hard is worthwhile.

Because the ban on carrying cell phones to school will continue, students will still be unable to communicate with their parents, or be alerted in case of an emergency , but celebrities will be able to text message them at home. See the Inside Schools blog on this:

This week's plan, according to the Times, is to have famous people, such as Jay-Z and LeBron James, send poor New York City kids text messages telling them to stay in school. Really. Because a rap artist who dropped out of high school and a basketball player who skipped college for a multi-million-dollar professional contract are the perfect figures to teach kids about the long-term benefits of doing well in school.

Here is an excerpt from the NY Times article describing the rationale for this project:

Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein said the project was the city’s first attempt to bring about change in the culture and behavior of low-performing students after years of efforts focusing on school structure and teaching.

“How do you get people to think about achievement in communities where, for historical or other reasons, there isn’t necessarily demand for that,” Mr. Klein said yesterday in an interview. “We want to create an environment where kids know education is something you should want. Some people come to school with an enormous appetite for learning and others do not — that’s the reality.”…. Dr. Fryer said he viewed the project in economic terms, arguing that while the administration’s previous efforts have focused on changing the “supply” at schools, this one is proposing to change the “demand” for education by making students want to seek learning.

“You can have the best product in the world, but if nobody wants it, it doesn’t matter,” Dr. Fryer said.

If Fryer thinks that NYC schools are the “best product in the world,” he must be blind. And Klein says there have been “years of efforts focusing on school structure and teaching”!

Just yesterday, the Daily News revealed the fact that at the ACORN high school, which received a “F,” every student is forced to share a text book with five others. Why don’t we start on providing kids with books, before we move on to bling?

I know Fryer just recently arrived from Harvard, but are the rest of these guys so insulated from reality in their chandeliered palace that they don’t know how overcrowded and deprived most of our classrooms really are?

Here are the words of Ms. Frizzle on the latest twisted scheme coming out of Tweed:

The blame here is so misplaced it is unbelievable. If motivation is the issue, perhaps the city would do well to take a look around the schools we ask poor children to attend. In mine, at least, a building that serves grades K-8, they eat in a nasty-smelling, ugly-as-hell cafeteria, learn in classrooms that are perpetually uncomfortable because someone cannot figure out how to heat our building properly (we’re talking upwards of 80 degrees with the windows open in the winter), … The school building - despite the efforts of those of us who work there - lacks the kind of magic that inspires, lacks the comforts that communicate care and importance - and let’s be frank here, the kids are needy as hell and there is never enough… never enough mental health services, never enough school supplies, never enough teacher attention, never enough paraprofessionals. Classes need to be smaller so each one of these kids can get the attention he or she needs to make up for very real challenges that accompany being poor in the richest city on earth. School buildings need to say “You are welcome and cared for here and will enjoy the time you spend here, and what happens here is our priority.” And then, when we’ve made our schools beautiful and filled with the talented people and plentiful resources to provide what children need in order to do well, only then we can turn our attention to whatever gaps in motivation might exist and start sending out edgy little cellphone messages about the value of education. Christ.

It’s kind of startling, the amount of effort, time and money going into this “rebranding” campaign – but I guess when you’ve given up actually trying to improve schools, as they seem to have done at Tweed, what’s left? If you run Tweed via PR, you think that’s PR is all that exists.

It’s like Karl Rove, who said: ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out.”

So which students at which schools are going to be offered the thousands of new tickets, cell phones and the rest? Those attending KIPP and New Visions schools. I thought these schools were already so expert at motivating students…but I guess not. If nothing else, this will probably lead to a surge of applicants, so they can even more effectively skim off the top.

And I guess we’ll just continue to disregard all those hundreds of thousands of students, left attending our large, overcrowded high schools, in classes of 30 or more, with not enough books, not enough desks, and not enough attention from their teachers. In time, they will eventually figure out that nobody in power real cares enough about the quality of their education so they might as well drop out or in other ways disengage. But it won't be the fault of those at Tweed, because as Eli Broad, Bill Gates and every other billionaire knows, NYC schools are already the best product in the world.

Why our kids need their cell phones by Dorothy Giglio

I recently received notification from my elder son's college that they were setting up an "urgent notification system" which would allow them to send out emergency information to students, faculty & staff in a variety of ways, like text messages, phone calls and instant messages.

This system was set up as a result of the Virginia Tech shootings and the recent gun incident on St. Johns Campus. The school recognized that we live in difficult times and that it was their responsibility to see that their students and staff were protected to the greatest extent possible.

While our colleges recognize the dangers today and the manner in which modern electronic communications can be used to try to minimize them, It is unconscionable that our Mayor and Chancellor continue their irrational ban on cell phones. It is not, as they are so fond of stating over and over, that parents just want to discuss with their children the dinner menu each day.

Though I pray that we never have a real crisis in any school, even for the purposes of the citywide train delays and shutdowns from flooding as occurred recently in Queens, or the gas line explosion in Manhattan over the summer, large number of traveling kids could certainly benefit from a message warning them of these emergencies.

We have tried so many ways, through the courts, the City Council, etc. to overturn the ban. Though our colleges and universities and private schools are all taking steps to ensure the safety of their students, the people who should most care about the welfare of our public school children seem to not care at all.

Dorothy Giglio

Co President James Madison HS
Former President President Council Reg 6 HS
Former President President Council District 22, Brooklyn

City Council hearings on parent involvement

The hearings on parental involvement before the City Council on Thursday offered some fireworks -- and real insights. Because there was no media coverage of these important hearings, here is a detailed account.

Full disclosure: I wasn't there the whole time, so have cobbled together this report from some trustworthy sources who were. I have also posted links to the full written testimonies for those that we have available.

As usual, DOE got the prime morning slot, and Council members grilled Deputy Mayor Walcott and Chief Family Engagement officer Martine Guerrier for several hours.

The Chair, Robert Jackson, started off by mentioning that the only office in DOE that has no website link was the Office of Family Engagement. He said that he had two staff members try to get in touch with the Office by calling 311. In both cases, operators told them that there was no such office and directed them to old regional office phones that were disconnected. Walcott gave him a cursory apology and said he would make sure that 311 operators knew where to direct parents from now on. Guerrier commented that they are still working on a webpage for the OFE and that it should be working soon.

Jackson also said that the new parent brochure—“The NYC Family Guide” -- came out on September 18^th, nearly two weeks after the beginning of the school year. It was later noted that there is no phone number for Guerrier’s office in it —only for the district offices. In the section “How Families Find Answers,” parents are instructed to call the school parent coordinator first (appointed and accountable to the principal, of course) and, if they cannot get their problem answered there, to call the district offices and ask for the District Family Advocate.

Guerrier testified that she was convinced of the "sincerity on the part of the administration” to change the tone of their interaction with parents. Her five goals by July 2008 are that all PTAs should have elected officers, all School Leadership Teams will be “functioning”, all Community Education Councils will have full membership, and that the DOE parent survey will receive a greater response rate. (Her powerpoint presentation, with more information, in pdf , is here.)

Jackson challenged Guerrier on how her office might also help ensure that DOE policies actually begin to take into account parental concerns. Jackson, Vallone, Liu and Ignizio addressed the Department's chronic neglect of the problem of class size, and DOE's attempt to manipulate the parent survey results. Walcott smoothly responded that they are reducing class size and that the results of the survey are out there for anyone to see. He also claimed that "the Mayor's doors at City Hall are and always be open to parents." (!!)

The other two areas of major attention were the cell phone ban and the administration's proposed revisions of the regulations concerning School Leadership Teams (SLTs), which will eviscerate their authority to provide real input into school budgets. Fidler was especially aggressive on the lack of input that parents have on school closings and the installation of charter schools in their communities. He also threatened a lawsuit if DOE doesn’t abide by the Council legislation on cell phones.

When the two DOE officials departed, so did as usual most of the Council members and the media. Finally, the rest of us got a chance to speak our minds. (It is ironic that Council members who are so vehement about the fact that DOE doesn’t listen to us almost uniformly are absent when any parent testifies.) Only Robert Jackson stayed on to listen.

Joan McKeever Thomas, UFT parent liaison, said that the Chancellor's proposed changes to the SLTs, in which these teams of parents and staff will compose comprehensive education plans only after the principal has already unilaterally decided on the school budget, would render them essentially meaningless. They would become "redundant organizations, talk shops with no direction or larger purpose."

Patrick Sullivan, Manhattan representative on the Panel for Educational Policy and a fellow blogger here, agreed that the new regulations would disempower parents, and added that "Parents are marginalized by the manner in which the PEP public meetings are structured: all public comment is relegated to the end of the session after all voting has concluded...[This] makes it painfully obvious that parental input is not being taken into consideration on the most important issues facing our school system."

Kim Sweet, Executive Director of Advocates for Children pointed out that now, parents who have concerns or complaints about their schools are being directed by DOE to the Office of Family Engagement, which lacks any ability to address these problems:

"District Family Advocates and their supervisors have no authority whatsoever over the principals; they are not even in the same chain of command. ... Parents with complaints are being funneled to the District Family Advocates, rather than to DOE officials who have the authority to respond to their concerns. This structure does not promote parent engagement; it promotes parent disenfranchisement."

Shana Marks-Odinga from the Alliance for Quality Education said that the recent borough hearings on the Contracts for Excellence were rushed and without parents being provided with enough details to be able to give sufficient input. She recommended that “Public engagement around the 2008-9 Contract for Excellence should begin in October 2007 to ensure a meaningful process" and that a parent complaint process be instituted, according to the new state law.

Miguel Melendez, Latino activist and former DOE employee, pointed out that there were no Hispanics in the inner circle at Tweed or among the top level of the Office of Family Engagement; this is unacceptable considering that Latino students make up 40% of the system. He also revealed that “On four separate occasions (May 24th, 30th, July 2nd, and August 2nd, 2007) the National Institute for Latino Policy has requested Equal Employment Opportunity data only to be denied each and every time.”

Ellen McHugh of Parent to Parent noted that there was no information for parents of special needs children in the DOE family guide. Jim Devor, acting president of the Association of CECs, pointed out that while it was commendable that DOE had instituted a 30 day public comment period for the proposed revision of the SLT role, under the new system, “most of the major decisions regarding school policy will have already been made (without meaningful input by parents)" before the process of writing the schools’ CEP has begun.

Several representatives from the Chancellor’s Parent Advisory Council testified. Tim Johnson, CPAC chair, reiterated that parents continue to be left out of the loop as to major policies adopted by this administration. David Quintana, CPAC rep from D 27 in Queens, said that parent coordinators were being used to deflect the concerns of parents away from principals.

Then I spoke briefly, pointing out that the peculiar structure imposed by the recent reorganization further puts parents at sea – since District Superintendents no longer spend any time supervising the schools in their own districts. This means parents have no place to go to when they have problems with their children’s schools. I also discussed out how the recent DOE parent survey was designed specifically to minimize parental concerns with both class size and testing, and that even when smaller classes came out as the top priority of parents, the DOE still tried to manipulate the statistics by making it look otherwise – showing their utter disrespect for our views.

Susan Shiroma, the new president of the Citywide Council on High Schools, complained that with the recent elimination of the regions, there were no longer any HS Presidents Councils in existence – rendering the job of the CCHS to gather input from HS parent leaders throughout the city almost impossible.

Sadly, as mentioned above, there were no stories in any of the media about these hearings. For more coverage, check out the InsideSchools blog entries for Sept. 20.