Meeting in Queens: Mayoral Control is flawed

Check out this excerpt from an article in the Queens Courier, about the recent Town hall meeting in Howard Beach, with Council member Joe Addabbo, Assemblymember Cathy Nolan and other elected officials. (photo by David Quintana)

"The mayor’s control over the city’s public schools has a number of flaws, most notably too much power centered at the top, which has discouraged parental input. This is the main thing that educators and community members from Howard Beach and the vicinity expressed during a forum on mayoral school control….

“The almost seven-year experimentation with mayoral control is a failure,” said David Quintana, a member of the city group Class Size Matters and of Community Board 10’s education committee….

“To me, it’s almost like a dictatorship. The windows to the Department of Education are black; you can’t see through them,” said Andrew Baumann, president of Community Education Council District 27.

NYPD illegally arresting children in school

More than 300 New York City public school students were illegally arrested on school grounds between 2005 and 2007, according to NYPD data the New York Civil Liberties Union and American Civil Liberties Union obtained in a Freedom of Information Law request.

New York State law prohibits children 15 and younger from being arrested for minor, non-criminal violations like loitering. A child who commits a minor infraction at school may be disciplined, but the Family Court Act prohibits police from arresting the child.

The NYCLU and ACLU have sent Police Commissioner Ray Kelly a letter urging him to immediately end the practice of illegally arresting schoolchildren.

As appalling as these illegal arrests are, a look at school discipline practices in New York City public schools makes it clear how they were allowed to occur. Since 1998, mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg have assigned more than 5,000 school safety agents and at least 200 armed police officers to the city’s schools, making the NYPD’s school safety division larger than all but four of the nation’s police forces – larger than Washington DC, Detroit, Boston or Las Vegas.

The aggressive policing of New York City’s schools reflects a national trend that pushes students – overwhelmingly youth of color and students with special needs – from the education system into the criminal justice system. Arresting, handcuffing and hauling children out of their classes for minor infractions at school - in front of their teachers and peers - only stigmatizes and humiliates them.

Read about this story in The New York Times and the Daily News. Then read about the Student Safety Act – a commonsense first step to end the use of these overly aggressive police tactics in our schools. The act – Intro. 816 – is currently before the New York City Council.

-Jennifer Carnig, New York Civil Liberties Union

Tweed still on its non-stop spending spree

See another great column today by Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News, pointing out all the expensive hiring STILL going on at Tweed – despite projected budget cuts of nearly $200 million. Apparently the educrats at Tweed have invented a creative new meaning for the words “hiring freeze.”

"They're centralizing the entire bureaucracy, adding all these jobs that don't make any sense to anyone," said Leonie Haimson, director of Class Size Matters, an educational advocacy group. "They're growing like a cancer on the school system."

As for all the new job openings advertised on his Web site, Cantor sounded surprised when told that five new ones had been posted just this week.

"There is a hiring freeze," Cantor said.

"No one is hiring anybody. We had a partial hiring freeze and now we have a total hiring freeze."

He could not explain why so many job openings were being posted during a hiring freeze."

DOE is still adding an expensive new “knowledge management team” in the Accountability Office at $1 million plus. To add insult to injury, the two people running this team is supposed be in charge of telling principals and teachers how to improve instruction, despite having no background in education themselves (sound familiar?).

If you’d like to take a look for yourself at the ridiculously high salaries for Tweed's job postings, check out the DOE job hiring page. Scroll down and look at the section for Administrators and Central Employees. Under the heading of the Chancellor's Accountability Initiative there are currently 15 new postings, most of them extremely high paying, including a Director; Knowledge Management (5389) – who among other things, is supposed to “Oversee Knowledge Management budget of $1M+” and also “Work with the Office of Strategic Partnerships to procure private funds to continue the development of the system.” See also – Associate Director, Policy Team (5865): “Serve as a resource on statistics and research methodology for other members of the Policy Team and broader Office of Accountability.” All you need is a BA and some experience with statistical software. Probably the less expertise in statistics the better, if this individual is going to follow the lead of the current crew i. The listing should instead say, “be prepared to ignore the real meaning of statistical significance when the results come out differently than you would like.” In other words, be ready to make it all up as you go along. This gang are still acting like a bunch of high-spending financiers before the collapse on Wall St. – still paying huge salaries for more and more grandiose projects, and insisting on bonuses to principals, teachers and students for pumped up test scores, just like inflated stock prices – all based on smoke and mirrors, while intent on sucking our school budgets dry. Who will prick their balloon? When if any, will they be forced to re-anchor to reality? Who knows -- when no one seems to be in charge of the fantasy land in the land of Tweed.

Billionaires on term limits

Check out this new video on term limits from Billionaires for Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, the Working Families Party has gotten involved -- their new website is called www.ItsOurDecision.org

Here's a piece on the NY Times blog about the WFP involvement -- with a quote from Dan Cantor, the head of the party:

“This is not necessarily about where you stand on term limits or whether or not you think that Mike Bloomberg has been a good mayor. This about the rules of the game. And you don’t get to change them at the end of the fourth quarter just because your team wants to keep playing....The media and business elite in New York seem to not be willing to hear the voices of regular people," Mr. Cantor said, accusing the publishers — Mortimer B. Zuckerman, of The Daily News; Rupert Murdoch, of the New York Post; and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., of The New York Times – of trying to create “a 21st century Tammany Hall.”

And see this article from today's metro, showing that many members of the NYC Council are wavering, after receiving lots of phone calls from their constituents.

Make your voice heard; call your Councilmember; that is unless you want to leave it up to the Billionaires to decide.

Pork doesn’t stick to Teflon Mike

I’m reasonably good at keeping up with the news, so I'm puzzled that I seem to have missed this item, reported by Grace Rauh of the now-defunct NY Sun on Sept. 25th: “The mayor disclosed in May that he had been giving money to council members through a process somewhat similar to the one used on the other side of City Hall…” (emphasis added) Where was it reported, I wonder?

This past April, a brouhaha erupted over the at best opaque and sometimes downright fraudulent disbursement of member item funds by the City Council. The scandal was widely reported: by the Post and Daily News with their characteristically catchy headiness (“Let’s Butcher the Pork”; “Quinn Porks a Wallop”), and by the NY Times with in-depth articles discussing the origins and political necessity of the Council’s discretionary fund.

The Times noted that the mayor’s “near lock on power” as a result of the 1989 Charter revision left lawmakers “with few ways to wield influence, affect life in their communities or make a name for themselves.” However, the Mayor doesn’t quite have complete control (yet!): he still needs the Council to pass his budget. To smooth the way, he gives the Speaker a generous allowance ($360 million; up from about $15 million two decades ago) to distribute among her colleagues as she sees fit. The problem for Quinn was not that that this clientage system worthy of a banana republic is the “governmental lubricant” of the greatest city in the greatest country in the world; rather, it was that additional funds were held in secret accounts with odd names that should have tipped off the Mayor’s budget sleuths.

One would think the crack reporters at the NY Times would have sniffed out the story-within-a-story: while the Mayor curries favor for his budget by allowing the Speaker to dole out funds for member items, he personally hands out a few extra million on the side to his own special friends. Though the Daily News did mention the practice in a brief editorial, neither the NY Times nor the Post evidently believed it would interest readers.

And who were the beneficiaries of Bloomberg’s largesse? They include assorted Republicans, of course, but the largest single beneficiary (at $5.66 million) has been Simcha Felder—yes, the very same guy who is now running the Council committee considering the term limits bill. And—in case you still believe the cant about Bloomberg’s wealth allowing him to float above politics-as-usual-- consider this: the Mayor gave out the most money ($5.6 million) the year he was running for re-election. This is not his own money, of course—that would be bribery. But he can do that with our own money and we are silent?

Back in June, after some posturing about resisting the Mayor’s cuts to education by voting “no” on the budget, the Council gave up $129 million from its discretionary fund to keep our schools from sinking further into poverty. That this step, which robbed worthy community projects of much-needed funds without addressing the chronic underfunding of our public schools, should be hailed as a victory is a testament to the poverty of our political spirit. No one even asked the Mayor to chip in his own $20 million discretionary fund.

--Paola de Kock

Forum on Mayoral control: don't miss it!

Spotlight on Mayoral control:

Lessons from recent history

Friday, October 17 at 6:30 PM at Judson Church

Speakers include:

Councilmember Robert Jackson

Steven Sanders, former Chair of the NY State Assembly education committee

Parent leader Dorothy Giglio

Dolores Schaefer, former president of Community School Board District 1

Esmeralda Simmons, former member of the Board of Education and Mayoral appointee under David Dinkins.

sponsored by the Parent commission

Don't miss this one! Click on the image to the right for a flyer to post and distribute in your school.

Term limits: Time to storm the castle?

What is really sad is that we have to rely on the shifting views of one quirky billionaire to save us from the arrogant power grab of another billionaire.

Are we living in a democracy or an oligarchy? It seems as though ordinary citizens have no say and we are just as powerless as serfs during the Middle ages.

Latest quote from Bloomberg, all the way from London:

“"I think you can make a good case that he (Lauder) is right, this should be decided by the public, although at the moment, we just don't have the luxury," he said. “This financial crisis is here, and there's no ways to have a special election that would not be tied up in court for a long time."

In other words, democracy is a luxury we just can’t afford. At least there is now a website on this issue: https://www.biggerthanone.com

Time for the serfs to rise up and take the castle! Call your councilmember, before it’s too late!

Palin Quits Ticket, Bloomberg Gets VP Nod

October 6, 2008 (GBN News): In a stunning new development, the McCain campaign announced today that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is voluntarily withdrawing her name from the ticket and will be replaced as Senator McCain’s running mate by NY City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The move came after a frantic late night negotiating session, whereby in return for the opportunity to replace Ms. Palin on the ticket, Mr. Bloomberg agreed to stake his considerable fortune on getting Ms. Palin elected Mayor of New York City in 2009.

Sources told GBN News that the deal arose out of the McCain campaign’s growing concern over declining poll numbers; numbers that are due in large part to public perception that neither Mr. McCain nor Ms. Palin is up to the job of dealing with the current economic crisis. It was felt that Mr. Bloomberg, whose multi billion dollar fortune and PR acumen have given him the reputation as an economic expert, would bring instant credibility to the ticket.

The trickiest part of the negotiations was apparently over what incentive could induce Ms. Palin to drop off the ticket. A direct payoff from Mr. Bloomberg was deemed too unseemly, not to mention fraught with political risk if it were publicly disclosed. And the Governor would have to be perceived as gaining more than she lost in the deal, or it could jeopardize her political future. In the past, almost any job in the country would have been seen as more important than that of Vice President. However, Dick Cheney’s influence has so strengthened the power of the Vice Presidency that the only political position in the country that rivals its power and lack of accountability is that of NY City Mayor.

In the end, according to GBN News sources, it was the total Mayoral control of the city’s school system that attracted Ms. Palin to the deal. She was won over by the prospect of bringing her own kind of homespun education reform to the system, and promised immediate results. “Just because some northeastern elitist teacher asks a question,” she said, “it doesn’t mean a kid has to answer it. Let him answer the questions he wants to, and you betcha those test scores will go up!”

Meanwhile, Mayor Bloomberg began working on a plan to boost the McCain campaign. Just as the Department of Education has used its own figures to show a rise in test scores even though NAEP scores for the city have been flat, Bloomberg plans to boost investor confidence by using DOE experts to come up with their own stock market figures to show that stock prices have actually been rising.

Rally to demand A Better Capital Plan

Thanks so much to all of you who were able to attend our rally on school overcrowding on Friday morning.

We filled the steps of City Hall, nearly 300 impassioned parents, advocates, children and elected officials.

Among those who spoke included Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Cathy Nolan of Queens, chair of the Assembly Education Committee, Assembly member Deborah Glick, Council Members Robert Jackson, chair of the City Council Education committee, Jessica Lappin, chair of the subcommittee on public siting, and David Yassky of Brooklyn. Rich Farkas, the VP of the UFT also spoke, as well as Manhattan BP Scott Stringer, who orchestrated the entire proceedings with his usual flair.

Special thanks to the 5th graders at PS 3 who brought wonderful signs, including, “Sardines have more room” and “Bloomberg: give kids more room to bloom!”

Here are just some of the news clips: NYC schools are packed beyond capacity (WABC- TV): New York City schools suffer massive overcrowding, statistics show (Daily News); Parents: NYC School Overcrowding A 'Crisis' (WCBS - TV); NY schools are packed beyond capacity (AP) New York City Parents Sound Off on Crowded Classrooms (WNYC radio); School overcrowding to go under microscope (Staten Island Advance); For Downtown Primary Schools, Ever Less Wiggle Room (NY Times); Parents, elected officials urge better education capital planning (Gotham schools).

Gotham Schools has photos of the rally and I have uploaded more here.

It was a day of both highs and lows, since the Council hearings that followed featured the usual DOE spin. Deputy Mayor Walcott, Deputy Chancellor Grimm, Garth Harries, and Liz Sciabarra were out to convince skeptical Council members that everything was rosy.

They kept on droning about “pocket” overcrowding, as though this problem was limited to isolated neighborhoods – rather than the systemic crisis revealed by their own data – showing that more half of million students are in classes exceeding the targets in their class size reduction plan, and according to the DOE "Blue book", 38 percent of NYC students attend overcrowded schools Not to mention that according to our survey, half of all principals say that the capacity figures for their own schools are inaccurate, and understates the extent of overcrowding at their schools.

Council members repeatedly tried to get real answers – or at least get them to concede that a serious problem existed, but no such luck.

Deputy Mayor Walcott testified that because of past mismanagement, 20,000 seats out of 60,000 seats in the previous five year capital plan were never built. He omitted the fact that nearly half of the 63,000 seats in the current capital plan will probably not be completed when this plan concludes in June.

When Garth Harries, Chief Portfolio Officer, was asked when they would be able to reduce class size to 20 in grades K-3 in all elementary schools – more than 60% of whom are still in classes of 21 or more -- as the city originally promised would occur by June 2009, he responded that he was unable to say.

When Kathleen Grimm was asked when they would be able to eliminate trailers and TCUs, another goal they originally promised would occur by June, she replied that many principals like their trailers and didn’t want them removed. (!!) She also said that overcrowding at District 2 schools like Salk and Clinton middle schools were the result of their being too popular with parents– as though nearly every other middle school in D2 wasn’t severely overcrowded as well.

When Dennis Walcott was asked how many additional seats would be needed to meet the city’s goals in their state-mandated Contract for Excellence plan, (20 students per grade in K-3 and 23 in all other grades), he responded that this “depended on one’s mindset.”

When Walcott was asked about the results of our principal’s survey, which showed that 86% of NYC principals said that they were unable to provide a quality education because of excessive class sizes, and that 50% reported that overcrowding made it unsafe for students or staff, he shrugged this off, and responded that of course, all principals would like to have more room.

It was a typical administration performance, full of obfuscation and excuses, an attempt to define the problem away or blame others rather than confront the problems directly or provide any real answers.

Following several hours of this, MBP Scott Stringer finally got a chance to testify, as did State Sen. Liz Krueger, both of whom gave strong statements about the need to build more schools and reform the planning process.

Other speakers included Prof. Emily Horowitz, who summarized the results of our principal’s survey, and Doug Israel of the Center for Arts Education, who spoke about the need for more art and music rooms. I had to leave at 2 PM before the hearings were completed so I don’t have a complete list, but I know that other parent leaders testified as well.

Meanwhile, please see the press release along with the ABC letter, with its impressive list of signers -- including prominent advocates and elected officials from the city, state, and federal levels.

Here is also an updated copy of our principal survey report, as well as the CSM testimony, complete with charts.

Don’t forget to send a fax to the Mayor, demanding a better capital plan; just go to the UFT website today!

Bloomberg to Finance Massive Bailout

October 1, 2008 (GBN News): A source close to Mayor Bloomberg has told GBN News that the Mayor will soon announce what will be termed a “massive bailout” for elected officials. According to this source, Mr. Bloomberg is concerned over the number of Council members and other citywide officials who will lose their jobs next year due to term limits. The Mayor is prepared to spend “whatever it takes” of his own substantial fortune to prevent such public servants as Christine Quinn, William Thompson, Tony Avella and others from losing their livelihoods, and from having to compete for scarce jobs like "Mayor" in such difficult economic times.

The Mayor, according to this source, is so troubled over these impending job losses that he is willing to fund a massive effort to overturn term limits, even if it means that he has to sacrifice his own retirement and remain in office. “A lot of people are having to postpone their retirements due to the meltdown of the economy”, Mr. Bloomberg is said to have told his aides in an emotional meeting. “But just like them, I’m willing to suck it up and continue working.”

In a related story, Mr. Bloomberg is said to be planning to trim the city’s election budget by soliciting private funding to finance it. He is even prepared to pay for the election himself, sources say. However, critics are likely to contend that this does not represent any particular change from the past two Mayoral elections.

NY Times vs. Thomas Jefferson on Term Limits

The editors of the New York Times have taken the time to lecture us today on term limits, specifically how they are "profoundly undemocratic" because they interfere with the voters' right to choose. This right, they explain, is the "bedrock of American democracy". They ask the Council to abolish term limits. While term limits are not naturally the focus of an education blog, the concept of four more years of Joel Klein and autocratic rule over the schools is cause for concern.

Since it wasn't so long ago the same Times editors were saying the opposite on this topic, let's instead turn to someone with a more coherent viewpoint on the essentials of American democracy.

Writing in 1787, Thomas Jefferson expressed his two objections to the proposed Constitution in a letter from Paris:

I wish with all my soul, that the nine first conventions may accept the new constitution, because this will secure to us the good it contains, which I think great and important. But equally wish, that the four latest conventions, which ever they be, may refuse to accede to it, till a declaration of rights be annexed. This would probably command the offer of such a declaration, and thus give to the whole fabric, perhaps as much perfection as any one of that kind ever had. By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil, which no honest government should decline.

There is another strong feature in the new constitution, which I as strongly dislike. That is, the perpetual reeligibility of the President. Of this I expect no amendment at present, because I do not see that any body has objected to it on your side the water. But it will be productive of cruel distress to our country, even in your day and mine.

Jefferson saw Presidential term limits as equally important as the bill of rights. What Jefferson feared and what the Times ignores is the grave danger that arises from the intense concentration of power in one man. In our public schools the effect will be all the more profound as the current governance structure of mayoral control already gives the mayor and his chancellor autocratic control.

Any ability of parents or communities to influence the educational policies affecting their children was stripped away years ago. Now the combination of theses two measures, total mayoral control of the schools and what Jefferson called "perpetual reeligibility" of his office will mean every policy and every decision affecting the education of a generation of the city's public school children will be decided exclusively according to the agenda of one man. Nothing could be less democratic.

Education beat losing its best reporters...and now Elizabeth Green

We have lost several terrific reporters from the education beat recently. Erin Einhorn of the Daily News, perhaps the best investigative reporter on schools over the last five years, has moved on to covering City Hall.

Michael Meenan of NY1 has recently departed the station; Mike was the hardest working reporter I've ever seen, in terms of covering hearings, meetings, rallies, and doing his best to cover both sides of every story – including the deep dissatisfaction that many parents and other educational stakeholders have with the Bloomberg/Klein policies.

Today, the NY Sun is closing its doors, which will end Elizabeth Green's peerless education reporting for the paper.

In her short time at the Sun, Elizabeth had one scoop after another: The fact that the Department of Ed had been spying on Diane Ravitch and had enlisted Kathy Wylde of the NYC Partnership to smear her in an oped for the NY Post. That the DOE launched a "truth squad" to scan blogs and list servs for critical coverage. A big cheating scandal at the Ross charter school, founded by the multimillionaire Courtney Ross and located in the basement of Tweed itself.

She also produced a lot of great reporting on the city's vaunted test results, breaking the story that the state scores were likely inflated, according to experts, and that there had been an unusually high level of special ed accommodations in NYC on the national exams.

She led everyone on what will be one of the biggest political stories of this year, the fate of mayoral control of the schools. She was the first to report on the unusually high level of discontent among legislators with the Bloomberg administration's handling of education; and provided leaked testimony from some biggies to the Gotbaum commission studying the subject. Elizabeth was also the first to reveal the likely successor to Randi Weingarten as the head of the UFT, weeks before it was announced.

Many prominent commentators recognized her talent. Eduwonkette called her "the sharpest and most inquisitive education reporter in New York City." Eduwonkette's main rival, Eduwonk, entitled a post about one of her scoops: "Elizabeth Green Strikes Again!"

Alexander Russo, a well-known blogger, included Elizabeth in his 2008 national "Hot...For Education" list, and described her work as follows:

With ability (and ambition) to spare, the NY Sun's relatively new education reporter Elizabeth Green regularly breaks news and scoops her competitors. All the while looking snazzy. Watch out, big-time education reporters. Elizabeth is eating your lunch.

Elizabeth intends to keep reporting on education, and I have no doubt that given her talent, energy and ability to spot the big story wherever it can be found, she will land on her feet very quickly. But it is a huge loss nonetheless to have her missing from the daily education beat – especially now, when we need her most.

Teachers on absent reserve -- the shame of our system

Recent news reports have focused on the fact that over 1,400 teachers are sitting in Absent Teacher Reserve – paid their regular salaries but assigned to no regular classroom duties. These teachers have been "excessed" through no fault of their own, but because their schools have been closed or restructured.

This represents an incredible waste of millions of dollars – not to mention manpower. See these stories: Budget Bind Turns Spotlight on Reserve Teacher Policy (NY Times) and Union, City Dig In Heels Over Fate of Reserve Teachers (NY Sun).

Meanwhile, our students continue to be crammed into the largest classes in the state and some of the largest in the country. I received the following letter from a retired teacher: why not offer these teachers to principals, free of charge, to reduce class size?

Dear Ms. Haimson,
Your group is to be commended for seeking to lower class sizes.

The Department of Education is missing a golden opportunity to do this. Why not take the 1,400 excessed teachers and use them to lower class size? This would make a lot of sense. Instead, these people are being used as day to day substitutes. These teachers, many of whom are teaching for 20+ years, did not get master's degrees and give the best years of their lives in education to be relegated to substitute status.

At first, the public was lied to by the city. The public was told that these teachers were incompetent. This is not true. These teachers received satisfactory ratings and were excessed due to the drop in student population. Next, the chancellor has the nerve to chide these people for not looking for positions. They did look. No principal would hire them since their teaching experience would allow for them to be at a higher salary.

This refusal to do anything for these affected pedagogues is a disgrace beyond belief.

I am a retired teacher. It was my pleasure to have worked with 3 such people at IS 228 in Brooklyn, the school I retired from in 2001. These teachers were excellent. They are caring individuals who were held in high esteem by their administrators, other teachers and students alike. Now, they face a completely hostile working environment. They are being treated in a totally unprofessional manner by people who either rarely or never taught.

Shame on the New York City school system and the newspapers for allowing this situation to continue.

Ed M. Greenspan, retired teacher, Brooklyn

Tweed hires new ethics officer

NY Post points out that Tweed has hired Samantha Biletsky as the DOE chief ethics officer -- who held a similar job “with deposed, ethics-challenged former state Comptroller Alan Hevesi.”

Also: “Last month, the department hired a former divisional chief financial officer at Bear Stearns - the first of the major Wall Street banks to collapse - as its new chief financial officer.”

Way to go, guys!

Despite all the advertising, the cell phone experiment is a flop

Yesterday’s NY Times features an article about the new institute at Harvard run by Roland Fryer with Eli Broad’s money, which is going to evaluate the results of Fryer’s large scale experiments to pay students for good test scores, also backed with Broad money. For more on this shockingly conflicted enterprise, which appears to violate academic standards on research practices, see Paola De Kock's earlier entry here.

But the Times article also mentions in passing that Fryer’s cell phone experiment – in typical hyperbolic fashion, called “The Millions” -- has collapsed due to lack of funding:

"A separate Fryer initiative, which rewarded 3,000 New York middle school students with cellphone minutes for academic performance and classroom behavior, was discontinued because the city did not raise enough money from private donors to pay for it this fall."

This cell phone experiment got huge attention when it was first announced, and lots of people found it a ridiculous idea, given the fact that cell phones are officially banned in school through the fiat of Mayor Bloomberg. There was also much criticism about running ads by commercial vendors on these phones, that could lead to even more consumerism on the part of teenagers, as well as text messages from the likes of Jay-Z , urging students to work hard and stay in school -- especially given the fact that he was himself a high school dropout.

Yet I wonder if this is the whole story. Did the cell phone experiment collapse for lack of funding? Or was it canceled because the first year results were so poor? Clearly if this project had trouble getting second year funding, the results were probably dismal.

What’s amazing to me is that through the summer, even when Tweed must have known that the project was foundering, the PR office continued to put out one press release after another about it.

See this one released in June: DOE's Student Motivation Campaign Wins 2008 Cannes Lion Titanium Award:

The unprecedented initiative began operating in late February 2008 as a pilot program in seven City middle schools. Approximately 2,500 students received a free cell phone, known as the “Million” for the million-plus City students, that operates based on how well students perform academically. As the pilot expands, the phones will be used as a platform to communicate directly with students through a messaging campaign designed to “re-brand” achievement. Mentoring programs will cement core messages of the campaign while providing students with workplace experience, life coaching, and academic support. The Million concept was developed in collaboration with Droga5, with extensive input from students. The program is entirely privately funded.

But not, apparently, funded enough to continue.

Instead, the cell phone experiment turned out to be a flop -- falsely promoted as a great success.

Like his colleagues at Tweed, Fryer seems to be a terrific snake oil salesman --attracting attention and building support despite the fact that his there is no research to support his large-scale incentive experiments, which already have started, one by one, to fail.

Our Children--Only Pawns in Their Experimental Game

"We will have the willingness to try new things and be wrong — the type of humbleness to say, I have no idea whether this will work, but I’m going to try." --Dr. Roland Fryer; 9/24/08

Perhaps discouraged by the refusal of NYC children to respond to financial incentives by actually performing better as opposed to just taking more tests, Dr. Fryer is returning to Boston to head something called the "Educational Innovation Laboratory" (see the splashy EdLabs website).

Dr. Fryer laments that billions are spent researching drugs and developing airplanes, while little is spent “to scientifically test educational theories.” Thus his friend, Eli Broad, (see picture above) and the Broad Foundation are helping him with the first $6 million of a $44 million, 3-year, “research and development initiative” that will have EdLabs “partner” with NYC’s Department of Education, the Chicago Public Schools, and the District of Columbia Public Schools.

What does this “partnership” mean? EdLabs will “connect” top academics from various fields with its own “R&D teams that will be embedded in these three school districts.” (emphasis added). There, the EdLabs folks will “foster innovation and objective measurement of the effectiveness of urban K-12 school district programs and practices” and “quantify the expected "student return from an investment" (sic.) to help leaders direct their limited resources into high-return programs and initiatives.”

In other words, the cheerleader-in-chief for market-oriented education strategies will evaluate the results of programs devised by ideologically aligned education officials, his own teams or even himself (such as the preposterous scheme to reward student performance with cell phones, which apparently has collapsed.). This passes as “rigorous research.”

When a drug company funds research to study the safety and efficacy of its own product, we have no difficulty understanding that conflict of interest is a problem and means the results are suspect. Imagine what credibility a drug study would have if the research team actually included drug company personnel! And would anyone even entertain the suggestion that the head of Philip Morris USA’s Youth Smoking Prevention Program should be included in any study of teenage smoking?

The incestuous relationships in this new initiative would not be tolerated in a scientific study involving drugs or other products. That the proposal is made with a straight face by people who are smart enough to know better shows the utter contempt they have for our children. This is fundamentally a business enterprise, not a serious attempt to evaluate educational strategies by standards that are applied to scientific research. Calling it a “lab” and putting it at Harvard doesn’t cleanse it of this taint.

And here’s the kicker for all us parents and taxpayers. The Broad Foundation is committing a mere $6 million in “jumpstart” funds--where do you suppose the other $38 million will come from? Need I say it? EdLabs’ sources of support include “the three participating school districts.”

-- Paola de Kock

The need for a better capital plan; how you can help!

The lack of space in our schools – a problem that is getting worse every day in many neighborhoods -- is the biggest obstacle we have to providing a quality education for our kids.

Despite the worrisome economic news, we are going full steam ahead on our ABC campaign for a better capital plan for school construction, so that we can finally end school overcrowding and reduce class size.

On November 3, the Mayor is supposed to propose the next five-year capital plan, so we need as many parents, teachers and advocates as possible to get involved in this campaign – now!.

1- Click on this link and send a fax to the Mayor and Chancellor now!

2- Come to a rally at City Hall on Friday Oct. 3 at 9 AM -- with hearings to follow on school overcrowding. Here is a pdf flyer that you can distribute and post in your school; and here is a one-pager with more information on the need for a better capital plan.

3- There are postcards in every school for parents to sign; the UFT has distributed 63,000 to chapter leaders citywide. Please reach out to your PTA or SLT if you don’t know who the chapter leader is.

Our kids need more schools to learn and grow; and as a city, it would be disastrous to ignore this need, even in the current economic situation.

This principle has support from a surprising source --the Mayor himself. See this excerpt from last Sunday’s Meet the Press:

MAYOR BLOOMBERG: No, we're not going to make the mistake--the mistake that was made in the '70s is …we stopped supporting our cultural institutions and building parks and schools and all those kinds of things. We are going to go ahead and continue those things. …we are not going to walk away from our city. That's the prescription for disaster. When you do that, your tax base leaves, and the rest of this country, as well as New York, are going to have exactly the same decisions to make. The taxpayers are going to have to decide do they want to have a future or not? If they don't want to have a future, then they're not going to have to pay as much now, but if they want to leave a better world for their kids, they're going to have to pay the bills up front.

We want to hold the Mayor at his word. Please don’t allow our kids suffer just because Wall Street made a lot of bad loans. If we don’t build enough schools, this will not only damage our children’s future but the economic future of this city as a whole.

More info on our campaign is available on our new website: A better capital plan.

History of NYC governance and lessons for Mayoral control

Check out the first public session sponsored by the Parent Commission on School Governance and Mayoral control, about the history of NYC governance in our schools, held on September 17 at Murry Bergtraum High School.

On the panel was Diane Ravitch, eminent historian and critic, Jitu Weusi, former teacher and one of the organizers of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville events, Betty Rosa, former principal and superintendent of District 8 in the Bronx and now a Regent. The session was moderated by Pedro Noguera of NYU.




The introductions are a little lengthy (my fault!) but start watching at about ten minutes in and the rest is dynamite.

What's amazing is that these panelists, coming from very different backgrounds and with quite different political views, should agree so profoundly that the current governance system puts too much power into the control of two men, neither of them educators, lacks transparency and accountability, and should be significantly reformed by the Legislature when Mayoral control sunsets next spring.

The absurd NYC school grade system

There is now abundant evidence to show that the grades that DOE awards schools – their so-called “progress reports” -- are meaningless and rely on chance, like throwing dice, because they rely predominantly on whether a school’s test scores last year were above or below the year before.

Sixty percent of the grade depends on so-called “progress”, which means annual gains or losses in test scores, 25% on the test scores themselves, and only 15% on survey results. As a result, this year, many schools went from failing grades to grades of A , and just as occurred last year, some highly regarded schools received “Fs”.

Last year, in a Daily News oped entitled “Why parents & teachers should reject the new school grades”, I pointed out that research shows that 30-80% of the annual gains or losses in test scores are random – and sure enough, this is what the grades turned out to be. Last week, Daniel Koretz, professor at Harvard and national expert on testing, wrote:

”My advice to New Yorkers is to … ignore the letter grades and to push for improvements to the evaluation system…It does not make sense for parents to choose schools, or for policymakers to praise or berate schools, for a rating that is so strongly influenced by error.”

And yet according to the DOE, eighteen schools that received a D or an F last year have new principals this year – showing how lousy decisions are being based upon these inherently unreliable measures.

As Ellen Foote points out, the principal at IS 89, a school that received a “D” last year despite being selected as the only NYC middle school to receive an award for its achievements from the federal government:

“Last year’s grades often reversed the state’s opinion of schools… She knew of one District 2 middle school that got a B last year but was on the state’s list of schools that need improvement. Under No Child Left Behind, many students in that school transferred to I.S. 89, a Blue Ribbon school. That meant the students transferred from a B school to a D school. This year, both schools received an A.

Indeed, as Eduwonkette has written, the proportion of NYC schools receiving an “F” that are in good standing according to federal or state government standards is larger than the proportion of schools receiving an “A”.

“How do you reconcile those discrepancies?” Foote said. “How do parents make sense of that? It just is all over the place — it’s such a disservice to schools and to parents…. It’s so simplistic at best and confusing and probably invalid at the worst, at a very high cost in terms of money, resources and morale.”

The smaller the school or number of students tested, the more likely annual gains or losses are invalid; and as this post in Gotham Schools reveals, the smaller the school, the more likely it received an extremely high or low grade this year.

In response to this sort of criticism, Jim Liebman, the head of the DOE accountability office, said last spring that this year’s progress score would be based on two years of data instead of one year– which would have improved its reliability, yet for some reason, he went back on his word.

Why? To my knowledge, the DOE has never explained.

Rather than making things better, Liebman made the grade even more unreliable by increasing the importance of the “progress” score to account for 60% of a school's grade, an even larger percentage -- up from 55% last year. Why? Again, this has not been explained.

Was this to take advantage of last year’s anomalously high increases in scores? Were Klein and Liebman themselves gaming the system to ensure that 80% of schools would receive “A”s or “B”s --so that they could claim great credit for their so-called but illusory improvements? Who’s to know?

The idea that 80% of NYC schools could be rated “A” or “B” is in itself absurd, given the fact that our school system has among the highest class sizes in the nation and among the lowest graduation rates. This is grade inflation of the highest order, apparently crafted so the administration can pat itself on the back.

I wish those reporters who uncritically reported on the $20 million teacher bonus program on Friday – which also rely on improving a school’s score in the unreliable progress category – would now dig a little deeper, to examine how these cash rewards were likely awarded randomly as well.

the response to our letter from the President of Harvard

In response to my letter to Harvard and other foundations about their support for the controversial large-scale experiments in NYC and DC, being carried out by Roland Fryer, to pay students for test scores, good behavior and the like, I received the following email today:

From: Drew Faust [mailto:president@harvard.edu]
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 10:24 AM
To: Leonie Haimson
Subject: RE: re paying for high test scores vs. reducing class size

Dear Ms. Haimson,

Thank you very much for your email and for taking the time to share your concerns with me. I appreciate your candor. I must tell you, however, that academic freedom on university campuses, which serves us all well, includes the freedom to express controversial views, with which others may disagree. The views held by Professor Fryer are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Harvard University.

With my best wishes,

Drew Faust

What do you think, folks? Does this response invoking academic freedom get Harvard off the hook? And what about allowing Fryer to evaluate his own experiment and not requiring an independent assessment of the results -- which is contrary to accepted practices and was not mentioned in her reply?

Post-9/11 Effects on Children – No Concern to DOE

According to the online newspaper Metro NY, a psychologist, Michael Cohen, was brought in by NY City in 2001 to study the effects of the 9/11 attacks on city school children. He found “significant mental health problems among students citywide”. Now, he reports that the city has refused his proposals to follow up on the study to see what ongoing effects the disaster may have had. Says Cohen, “I think the concerns about academic performance and outcomes overtook everything.” The only Department of Education response: “This is baseless.”

Meanwhile, a recent study finds that “35,000 to 70,000 people developed post traumatic stress disorder” after 9/11. The study encompassed largely adults who were directly exposed to the tragedy – people working in the area, rescue workers, and the like. But we know that there were numerous children exposed to it as well, at the very least those who attended schools in the area.

These were the ones most affected. But those of us in New York who lived through the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, even those who did not witness it directly, can attest to the fact that we were all profoundly affected by the events of that day. And in many ways we continue to experience, to one extent or another, a heightened anxiety that, while perhaps not reaching the level of PTSD, lingers as a daily reminder of what could happen again.

As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, I can professionally attest to the effects of anxiety on families and children. It can interfere with anything from physical health to emotional development to school performance. And as a parent of two, I can attest to the anxieties that my children, my wife and I have felt since 9/11; anxieties that still linger eight years after the event, and that I know are shared by countless others across the city.

Whether people are suffering from PTSD, from other anxiety disorders, or are simply just not functioning up to par, one would think that a study on the effects of the 9/11 tragedy on our school children would warrant a follow up by the city and the DOE. But they seem no more likely to do this than they are to obey City Council law and allow children to carry cell phones to and from school so that parents and children could maintain this vital lifeline and provide some measure of safety and reassurance in this post 9/11 world.

The city could probably be sued for failure to follow the City Council law, or for policies or decisions that damage children’s mental or physical health. Perhaps someone will eventually bring such a lawsuit. But in the absence of legal action, these folks are only likely to change their policies if they have a real stake in that change. If, as Mr. Cohen postulates, their academic concerns are paramount, someone will probably have to prove that the exacerbation of children’s post 9/11 anxieties is leading to lower test scores. It’s not so far fetched, and unfortunately, based on their track record so far, it will be that, and not a concern for our children’s safety and well being, which would bring about such a change.