Must see video: Regent Kathy Cashin and City Council Education chair Mark Treyger on the importance of class size

See the video of Regent Kathleen Cashin's observations about class size which she made during the City Council hearings on Feb. 28 about what happened when she lowered class size in the District 23 schools when she was Superintendent. 

As she puts it, when you reduce class size, the "whole world changes."  She explained how smaller classes are important both for students and their teachers, and leads to less teacher "burn out" and attrition.  "Poverty is a terrible teacher; and it drains anyone it comes in contact with.  But when children have that close connection to a teacher and can get that attention, it changes their life."


Chair of the Education Committee Mark Treyger agrees.  As a former teacher, he says he is well aware of these issues: "Teachers burn out, I burned out.  I was one of them, it was painful.  Those that left the profession, it wasn't that they gave up on the children, they refused to participate in a system that shortchanged them. I ran for Council to be a voice for kids and my colleagues.  I am here on a mission - we need to reduce class size to provide a quality education."

Below the video is Dr. Cashin's written statement. But please listen first to her and CM Treyger!

Dr. Kathleen Cashin from Class Size Matters on Vimeo.

Why other states are figuring out what Tweed cannot seem to grasp...

....that schools, teachers and students are more than just test scores.

Check out the recent stories about the research study being carried out by Tweed that will help them create a teacher evaluation program based solely on the test score gains of their students -- see NY Times article here; and the negative reaction of the UFT here and here.

For a video presentation from Jonah Rockoff of Columbia Univ. about this study, which has been posted online since late this summer, see here. (Why reporters are just catching on now, I have no idea.)

Meanwhile, just as North Carolina has begun to move away from an overemphasis on standardized test scores (see earlier blog entry here ) now it also seems that officials in Florida, “where a standardized test has been treated for nearly a decade as the only barometer of success” are also beginning to recognize the “need to look at a broader array of tools to measure school performance," according to an editorial in today’s St. Petersburg Times.

In North Carolina, this welcome development was prompted by the recognition that all this emphasis on testing and merit pay based on test scores had not improved schools and had instead led to a host of negative consequences – including making it more difficult to recruit and keep teachers at low-performing schools. (See for example, the paper by Charles T Clotfelter et. al. called "Do School Accountability Systems Make It More Difficult for Low-Performing Schools to Attract and Retain High-Quality Teachers?" from 2004, which showed increased teacher attrition rates at such schools after the new accountability systems had been imposed.)

In Florida, it appears that the new state Education Commissioner Eric Smith was reacting to the fact that teachers in most of the districts across the state had rejected a merit pay scheme based on test scores. Smith also was appointed by a relatively new Governor, Charlie Crist, who though a Republican is considerably less dogmatic than the previous guy in charge, Jeb Bush.

The St. Pete editorial, called "A welcome challenge to FCAT monopoly" ends this way:

When teachers turn down pay raises because they refuse to be judged by one standardized test, they are sending a powerful signal to the capital. Maybe now someone will listen.

Perhaps it is time for Jeb Bush's education buddies, Mike Bloomberg and Joel Klein, to take another look at this issue. One can only dream…

For an argument that the Rockoff/DOE study violates accepted ethical standards for academic research, by not obtaining the informed consent of the research subjects -- the teachers themselves --see Eduwonkette.

Meanwhile, the Union Chief Leader reports that the the principal's union has negotiated a better agreement with DOE in which school test scores will only be a part of their evaluation, along with other factors.

Teacher attrition up 80% under this administration

According to new UFT data, the attrition rate of teachers has risen significantly under this administration.

“City teachers are quitting in record numbers, according to data their union released Sunday. Teacher pay has increased by more than 30% since 2001, giving 83,000 city teachers salaries closer to their suburban peers. Still, the union says the number of certified teachers who left classrooms jumped 81% in the same period - to 4,606 in 2006, up from 2,544 in 2001. This does not include teachers eligible for retirement.

"People are saying, 'I give up,'" teachers union President Randi Weingarten said. She couldn't say whether these teachers quit the profession or moved to another district. But she blamed the exodus on large class sizes, poor teacher support and an administration at the Education Department that "doesn't listen to good teachers."

This is from a Daily News article -- here are NY Post and NY Times reports.

Chris Cerf of DOE denies the accuracy of UFT data and calls this a “stunt”. Cerf himself is perhaps not the most credible of sources as he has been pushing the company line that the stagnant NAEP scores released last week showed great progress for NYC schools.

See also NY Post today, detailing how new small schools formed with Gates funds are graduating students with a disproportional number of lower grade diplomas – diplomas that will be ruled out next year.

Why do teachers flee our schools?

Two articles about Ric Klass’s book about teaching in a large Bronx HS, “Man Overboard: Confessions of a Novice Math Teacher in the Bronx.” Ric, a former aerospace engineer and investment banker, decided what he really wanted in life was to teach in the NYC public schools, but lasted only one year, largely because of the problems he faced in reaching all his students in huge classes. See the Rye Record interview with Ric here:

“He does hold out some hope for schools that spend their money on smaller class sizes. “Given the discipline issues, the teacher will only get their attention when there are about 15 students in the class. Small schools, such as those being promoted by the Gates Foundation, are not the answer; it's smaller class sizes.”

And today’s Education supplement of the NY Times features a review of several teacher memoirs , including Ric’s and another by Dan Brown, a former filmmaker who was assigned to an elementary school in the Bronx, “The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle” to be published in August.

In both, the authors describe their unwieldy class sizes as their most insurmountable challenge. Both fled the public school system and are now teaching in elite NYC private schools where no classes are larger than 15 students.

Ric’s story, in particular, puts the lie to Klein’s claim that we cannot reduce class size because of the shortage of qualified math and science teachers. If we could provide them with smaller classes, more people like Ric – who had all the right credentials, including degrees from MIT and Harvard Business School -- would hang around longer and we’d have a more qualified teaching force. It’s the attrition rate – not the lack of applicants –that doom so many of our students to less effective and experienced teachers.

Here is an excerpt from the review:

“In practically all the foxhole memoirs there is a common villain: standardized testing, which the authors agree has been so overemphasized that it is now an obstacle to the very education it was supposed to measure. And there is a common, if nearly impossible, remedy as well: smaller classes, more resources. Mr. Klass stumbles on this partly by accident when he is asked to take over a group of special ed students and discovers that they do much better than his other classes, simply because he can give them more time.”

Apparently, even those who acknowledge that reducing class size is the key to improving our schools believe it to be a remedy that is “nearly impossible” to achieve, as in the case of the reviewer. This shows that the biggest challenge we face may be changing people’s minds about what is and what is not possible.