The Mayor commits educational malpractice, once again

Today, the mayor announced he would extend his grade retention policies to 4th and 6th grades -- meaning that all NYC students through 8th grade would now face being held back on the basis of a single test score. According to Gotham Schools,

Asked about researchers’ claims that retention policies can raise the dropout rate, Bloomberg said he was “speechless,” adding, “It’s pretty hard to argue that it does not work.” Klein said that since 2004, when the DOE ended social promotion for third graders, support for its end has been “unanimous.”

In fact, the consensus among experts is overwhelmingly negative -- that grade retention hurts rather than helps students and leads to higher dropout rates. When the City Council held hearings the first time the Mayor proposed this policy, they could not find a single education researcher who supported it.

Yet the mayor and Klein manage to inhabit their own universe of spin; reminiscent to the manner in which Karl Rove described the Bush administration:

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. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

See the 2004 letter, signed by over 100 academics, heads of organizations, and experts on testing from throughout the nation, in opposition to the mayor's policy, when he first proposed 3rd grade retention, explaining:

"All of the major educational research and testing organizations oppose using test results as the sole criterion for advancement or retention, since judging a particular student on the basis of a single exam is an inherently unreliable and an unfair measure of his or her actual level of achievement. ...Harcourt and CTB McGraw Hill, the two largest companies that produce standardized tests...are on record opposing the use of their tests as the exclusive criterion for decisions about retention, because they can never be a reliable and/or complete measure of what students may or may not know."

Among the letter’s signers were Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, renowned pediatrician and author of numerous works on child care and development, Robert Tobias, former head of Division of Assessment and Accountability for the Board of Education and now Director of the Center for Research on Teaching and Learning at NYU, and Dr. Ernest House, who did the independent evaluation of New York City’s failed “Gates” retention program in the 1980’s.

Other signers included four past presidents of the American Education Research Association, the nation’s premier organization of educational researchers, as well as three members and the study director of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Appropriate Use of Educational Testing, and two members of the Board on Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council.

According to Dr. Shane Jimerson, professor of Child and Adolescent Development at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of over twenty publications on the subject of retention,

“The continued use of grade retention constitutes educational malpractice. It is the responsibility of educators to provide interventions that are effective in promoting academic success, yet research examining the effectiveness of retention reveals lower achievement, more behavior problems, and higher dropout rates among retained students. It is particularly disconcerting that a disproportionate number of students of ethnic minority and low income backgrounds are retained. Moreover, children’s experience of being held back is highly stressful; surveys indicate that by sixth grade, students report that only the loss of a parent and going blind is more stressful. “

The second time the DOE pushed through this policy, for 5th grade retention, Klein agreed to commission an independent research study of the results. RAND has been analyzing the data since 2005 and has produced several interim reports which the public has not been allowed to see, as reported in a chapter in our book, NYC Schools Under Bloomberg and Klein: What Parents, Teachers and Policymakers Need to Know, by Patrick Sullivan, member of the Panel for Educational Policy:

"....the reports contained the results of extensive surveys with elementary school principals, summer school administrators, and Academic Intervention Services (AIS) specialists. Summer school leaders were coping with the latest DOE reorganization and complained they could not get any specific information on the students assigned to their programs. AIS leaders found that small class sizes were the most effective tool to help struggling students but less than a third of at-risk children had access to smaller classes. Principals felt the retention policy relied too much on standardized tests and was damaging to student self-esteem. Most troubling of all: none of these findings had been made public."

Now, as Patrick points out in Gotham Schools,

"When we voted on the 8th grade retention policy last year they said the release date for the RAND study was August 2009. Now it is “sometime this fall”. Would that happen to be “sometime after the election this fall?” What are they hiding?"

According to the DOE spokesperson, " Preliminary results of the RAND study, which looks at the performance of third and fifth graders affected by the Mayor’s promotion policy over time and will include data from the 2008-2009 school year, were delivered to the Department of Education last year...."

If Bloomberg and Klein were really so convinced that their retention policies have been successful, they should be obligated to release the RAND findings before the vote of the Panel to approve their extension to even more children.

More on the blogs re 8th grade retention

Check out what two expert researchers have to say about the know-nothing grade retention policies of Michael Bloomberg and Joel Klein.

Read Diane Ravitch here: Who's Failing Whom?

and Eduwonkette, Really!?! Joel Klein

(And I'm stealing Eduwonkette's idea for an illustration as well.)

8th Grade Retention Vote at March 17th Panel for Educational Policy

On Monday, the Panel for Educational Policy voted to approve the Chancellor's plan to hold back children in the 8th grade based on standardized test scores. I voted against the policy and ended up being the lone dissenting voice. The statement released prior to the vote by Manhattan Borough President Stringer, who has appointed me to the Panel can be found here.

Like most people, I don't think we should push unprepared kids into high school. I don't support social promotion. Yet the proposal that Chancellor Klein put forward for approval had no plan to provide services to the retained children, let alone deal with the pervasive problems of middle schools. Panel members were asked to put faith in the "forthcoming" plan that DOE is developing to turn around middle schools. The end of the administration strikes me as an odd time to start working on a plan for the weakest part of the system, especially when federal NAEP tests have shown no progress in 8th grade under the current administration.

I've looked closely at all the research on these programs to hold kids back based on test scores and pretty much across the board the research says they don't work. A very comprehensive study in the Chicago school system showed that the retained children had higher drop out rates and overall the program did not help despite costing hundreds of millions to fund another year of school.

The DOE has contracted with a research and consulting firm, RAND, to study the implementation and success of its program yet no findings have been released to the public. I have been fighting over the last two months to have results released to Panel for Educational Policy members but we were only given the 479 pages of reports late Saturday, without sufficient time to review them prior to the vote. The DOE will not release any findings until August 2009 despite the fact that much of the information is complete and would be highly valuable to the various efforts focused on improving the middle schools.

As I've come to expect, the Chancellor's plan lacks any semblance of implementation planning. DOE believes somewhere between 5,000 - 18,000 additional kids will repeat 8th grade. Tweed has not explained where they'll put these kids in middle schools that are already overcrowded. We have severe overcrowding in many parts of Manhattan, especially in Districts 6 and 2 and increasingly 3. Class sizes of 29 or higher are already typical in 8th grade in contrast to 20-22 in the rest of the state.

Like many debates about school policy, the administration has framed it in terms of false choices: social promotion vs. retention. But social promotion is not the only alternative to the Chancellor's policy of test-driven retention. What we've been saying is to instead find these kids early and provide the remediation instead of waiting for them to fail. DOE has an $80 million dollar student achievement database and the most extensively tested student body in the free world yet they can't figure out which kids need help and give it to them?

Instead of paying to simply repeat 8th grade, we should invest in creating middle school environments that are more attractive for both students and teachers -- small classes, enrichment programs, the arts, sports, after-school programs and proactive interventions for struggling students.

Last night at Tweed

Monday night at the meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy, members voted on the new proposal to hold 8th graders back on the basis of their test scores. It was standing room only. About 50-70 parents and kids were locked out at Tweed ’s front door. We chanted from the steps, ”Let us in.” but they never did. Inside, more parents cried out “shame”, but to no avail. The Mayor, the Chancellor and their political appointees on the PEP have no shame.

From all reports, Patrick Sullivan, the Manhattan PEP member and fellow blogger here, was the hero of the night, aggressively questioning the rationality of this proposal. Read his account here. Patrick ended up being the sole vote in opposition, when the Bronx rep switched positions half way through. The proposal passed even though DOE admits to having no plan to improve the opportunities of low-achieving 8^th graders– which they say they’ll come up with sometime in the indeterminate future.

Several years ago, the research group RAND was commissioned to do a longitudinal study of the results of the administration’s promotional policies – the result of pressure from a previous PEP vote. Yet RAND's findings, including surveys of principals and others about whether holding back 3rd and 5th graders on the basis of their scores on two standardized exams is fair or productive, are not going to be released to the public until late in 2009. After some protest, PEP members were allowed to see the interim results, and at least one reporter was also allowed to view them – on the condition that they not disclose what they read.

This study is being paid for by our tax money, and it’s a disgrace that the public cannot have full access to its findings.

The results of our independent parent survey prove that Klein’s repeated claims that this policy has widespread support among parents are false. In our survey, a majority of parents opposed making the decision about a student’s promotion primarily on the basis of standardized tests. Here’s a typical comment from a Brooklyn parent: “No single test should ever determine a child’s future.” A Queens mom: “I graduated from sixth grade with a fourth grade reading level…I eventually caught up with my peers and now have a Master’s degree…under mayoral control I would have been left back.”

Grade retention based on test scores is a policy that has no backing in research, has been shown to increase dropout rates, and is a form of educational malpractice. The proposal being pushed through by this administration is yet another instance in which pure political muscle, ideology and PR spin wins out against research and sound educational practices.

It is truly a shame that this administration repeatedly shows its lack of regard for our kids’ futures, as well as expert opinion by putting in place policies that have repeatedly been shown to fail, instead of those, like reducing class size, that have been proven to work.

Here are news stories about last night – NY Times, NY Post, Daily News , NY Sun , NY1 and WNBC news.

On the fourth anniversary of the Monday night massacre; what have they learned?

On Monday, the Panel on Educational Policy will vote on a proposal to hold back 8th graders on the basis of their test scores. Manhattan Borough president Scott Stringer, and his appointee to the Panel, Patrick Sullivan, just announced their opposition to this proposal, and Sullivan is expected to vote against it. Instead, Stringer recommends policies that have been shown to work to raise student achievement, such as lower class sizes and earlier intervention.

Tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the Monday night massacre, when Bloomberg fired two of his own appointees to the Panel right before the vote on the third grade retention policy. In their stead, the Mayor appointed two high level officials of the Health and Hospitals agency and the Housing Authority, who sit on the Panel to this day, neither one saying a word except to vote yes for every single administration proposal.

See this NY Times account the day after the Monday night massacre, in which Klein said: ''I think it is a legitimate vote,'' he said, adding: ''I don't think it was rigged.''

And he insisted the school system had proper checks and balances. ''The mayor has said when he runs for re-election that he should be held accountable,'' Mr. Klein said. ''That is the democratic way.''

Since then, test-based grade retention has been extended to fifth and seventh graders, and now is being proposed for 8th graders as well. According to the News, “only 1,300 out of 77,000 eighth-graders were held back last year, but nearly 18,000 would be in danger of failing under the new proposal.”

The News article also describes how yesterday, a group of parents stormed Tweed, demanding to speak to Klein about the policy: "About 50 members of the Coalition for Educational Justice rushed the front door of education headquarters and chanted "Let us in!" and "We want Klein!"

Grade retention is a policy that has absolutely no backing in research, and is commonly believed to be educational malpractice. Over one hundred academics, heads of organizations, and experts on testing from throughout the nation signed our letter protesting the grade retention proposal in 2004. It’s as though the Mayor and Klein had commanded all the city's public hospitals to prescribe some quack medicine for cancer -- it is really that bad.

Since then, there have been two authoritative studies, both conclusively showing that holding back kids hurts rather than helps them . See the Chicago Consortium report called Ending Social Promotion: The Effects of Retention, which shows that third graders who were held back did no better than those who were promoted; and that sixth graders who were held back did even worse.

Even more pointedly, check out Ending Social Promotion: Dropout Rates in Chicago after Implementation of the Eighth-Grade Promotion Gate which concludes that eighth grade students who were retained increased their likelihood of dropping out by 29%.

But by the time next year’s eighth graders drop out of school, Bloomberg and Klein will be safely out of office. What have they learned in four years? Apparently nothing.

Is holding back kids really the solution to our middle school problems, or is the Mayor running out of even bad ideas?

Last week, in his State of the City address, the Mayor announced that the Department of Education will now extend the policy of holding back students on the basis of their test scores to 8th graders, in addition to the third, fifth, and seventh graders who already face this prospect. This could mean the retention of an additional 18,000 students next year. Clearly, in terms of their educational policies, the administration has run out of even bad ideas.

As research and experience show, holding back kids doesn’t work. More than one hundred leading academics, researchers, and national experts on testing signed our letter opposing the administration’s proposal to retain third graders back in 2004, saying that basing promotional decisions on standardized tests is not only unfair, given the unreliability of a single exam, but also leads to lower achievement and higher drop out rates. (Check out a copy of this letter.)

Among those who signed our letter to the Mayor included Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, Dr. Ernest House, who did the independent evaluation of New York City’s failed retention program in the 1980’s, four past presidents of the American Education Research Association, the chair of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Appropriate Use of Educational Testing, and several members of the Board on Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council. Even the two largest testing companies are on record that the decision to hold back a child should never be based upon test scores alone. Indeed, the professional consensus is so clear about the negative effects of this policy on students’ academic and emotional health that it amounts to educational malpractice, according to Prof. Shane Jimerson of the University of California.

Nothing has changed since then.In fact, if this policy had worked, the administration’s policy of holding back third, fifth and especially seventh graders would have caused a rise in eighth grade achievement. Instead, as revealed by city’s results on the national assessments called the NAEPs, test scores in these grades have been stagnant or declining.

See for example, these dynamite charts, prepared by the Annenberg Institute for a new report called "Our Children Can't Wait" about the problems of our middle schools. (Click on the graphs to enlarge them). The one below shows that NYC had the largest decline in 8th grade ELA scores of any urban school district tested. The one above shows that NYC is the only city where this decline occurred among both black and Latino students over the last four years.

In reality, nearly every parent (or teacher) who's looked seriously at NYC middle schools realizes that their number one problem is huge class sizes.

In these grades, we expect a lot from our students. We expect them to learn how to read and analyze complex literature, to write essays and research papers, to master computational skills and begin algebra. All this, when their bodies, their relationships, and their sense of self are in rapid transition. Yet our schools offer none of the intellectual or emotional support that students need during this crucial time.

Instead, our middle schoolers are crammed into the largest classes in the state, and some of the largest in the entire industrialized world. Class sizes average 26-27, and one fourth of students are in classes of 31 or more – even in many failing schools. As a result, teachers are simply unable to provide these students with the support and attention they need, either in class or with their homework.

Even those who were thriving and motivated up to this point begin to become disengaged, disillusioned and fall behind. Here are the words of one parent:

“For both her elementary and middle school years, my daughter had wonderful and dedicated public school teachers. At one of the better middle schools in the city, she had 38 kids in her class. Each teacher taught four classes. With almost 150 students, how can one teacher be expected to prepare lessons, teach class, grade papers and have time left to focus on the individual child? My daughter's grades weren't the highest or the lowest. She fell into the vast middle, as do the majority of kids.”

“At her middle school, my daughter was utterly lost and very unhappy. She was forgotten. No not forgotten, never known. It is a crime that at this crucial turning point, when adolescents are searching for an identity to call their own, they are tossed into huge classes with no one who has the time to see them as individuals.”

Yet this administration refuses to take affirmative steps to make sure that our middle schoolers are better known to their teachers, even in the face of a new state mandate to reduce class size. Instead, the new policy to hold back more 8th graders will likely cause classes in this grade to grow even larger, as students are increasingly stalled at this level, prevented from moving on into high school. Frustrated by their lack of progress, and by their inability to get the help that they need, many will eventually drop out.

It’s a shame that this administration won't act to improve the opportunities for our children to succeed, but rather insists on increasing the chances that they will fail.

The untimely life and death of the City Hall Academy

The life and death of the City Hall Academy, as so poignantly told by the NY Times, is emblematic of the story of this administration. Here is an excerpt from the original press release which announced the program's beginning:

“The opening of City Hall Academy demonstrates our commitment to excellence, achievement, and innovation in the public school system,” Mayor Bloomberg said. “City Hall Academy will provide New York City children and their teachers a unique opportunity to study and participate in the cultural and historical fabric of the City."

The idea of bringing 3rd and 4th grade students into the DOE headquarters for two weeks to learn about the city's history through an interdisciplinary approach was a good one; for one thing, it allowed students to actually experience the spectacularly beautiful environment of the Tweed building, and not restrict that opportunity to the highly paid bureaucrats at DOE. One teacher on the NYC education list serv recounted how "Some of the students actually cried when their time was up."

The Mayor's interest in providing this sort of enriched learning experience was quickly supplanted by subsequent priorities --most prominently his 3rd grade retention policy – in which children would now be held back on the basis of their scores, and succeeding on the standardized tests became all-important.

Then, the school was supplanted by the administration's craze for more and more charter schools -- and the need to find space for them. The first of these was the Ross Global Academy, the charter school founded by Bloomberg’s fellow billionaire, Courtney Sales Ross, who one would think could have afforded to buy any building she wanted to house her school.

When the administration's attempt to place this school into the building of the NEST school on the Lower East Side was blocked by Speaker Silver, the Ross charter school was placed in Tweed, and the City Hall Academy was moved uptown to Harlem.

In their unrelenting drive to base all educational decisions on high stakes tests, and to recklessly expand the number of charter schools without requiring that they find their own space outside the already overcrowded infrastructure of our traditional public schools, the effects of the administration's policies on the overall educational experience and opportunities of our public schoolchildren have been ignored.

Just as the City Hall Academy’s first home in Tweed was given over to the Ross Charter; its second home, in Harlem, was taken over by yet another charter school. For some reason, the online version of the article is missing the last paragraph of the story in the printed version:

“The building that most recently house the academy is not closed. It is home to the Harlem Link Charter School. When a young man answered the phone there recently, he was not surprised to learn the caller was looking for the academy. He said nonchalantly: “Year they’re not here anymore. This is us now.”