Fifty new charter schools; where will they go?

See article from today’s NY Sun profiling the new head of the charter school office at DOE, Michael Duffy.

Duffy comes from Boston. As he says about NYC, “Having the support of the mayor and the schools in New York City…will be a relief.”

It’s clear from this piece that Bloomberg and Klein are among the very few officials in charge of running public school systems anywhere in the country who support the expansion of charter schools in their districts – since most superintendents believe that these schools draw resources and sometimes space from existing public schools.

To the contrary, the Mayor and the Chancellor pushed hard to allow the cap on charters in NYC to be raised so that they could create 50 more of these schools. Already, $60 million for charter schools has been subtracted from the state funds supposed to improve our traditional public schools in NYC, as a result of the settlement of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.

Moreover, charter schools have significant advantages that most public schools do not have --especially the ability to cap enrollment at whatever level that is desired to keep class sizes small, which is appealing to parents, but tends to create more disparities in the opportunities provided children who attend these schools compared to those in the rest of the system.

As to where all these new charter schools will go:

“Mr. Duffy said solutions he is mulling include securing longterm building leases for charter schools rather than making full purchases; renovating existing buildings, and delaying many charter schools' start dates until just before Mr. Bloomberg's term ends, September 2009, so that they have time to secure buildings. "All of the easy options for charter schools to locate in city space have been taken," he said. "We're going to have to get more creative about the locations for these schools."

Another challenge is a new requirement that charter schools hold a community hearing before opening. In the past, community members have greeted charter schools with skepticism.”

Yet the new requirement that founders of charter schools must actually present their plans to parents at Community Education Council meetings does not require that the locations of their schools be disclosed, whether they have secured financing for buildings, or whether, as many parents fear, DOE still harbors secret plans to jam them into existing already overcrowded school buildings, as was the practice in the past.

The location of any new charter school should be required as part of the application process – and reported to the public and to the Regents, before the application is approved. Without this information, it will be impossible to gauge the school's likely impact on existing schools.

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.”

Mayor Defends DOE Blackwater Security Contract

October 6, 2007 (GBN News): Mayor Michael Bloomberg today defended the no-bid contract given to Blackwater USA by the Department of Education to take over school security from the city Police Department. The Mayor said that the move was made in response to issues raised over the Police Department’s handling of school security by critics such as the NY Civil Liberties Union and NY Times columnist Bob Herbert. Nearly 2700 complaints have been received by the Police regarding school safety agents in the last five years, but the Mayor noted the success of other private companies such as Alvarez and Marsal in improving the efficiency of the school system, and said that he expected similar results from Blackwater.

Mr. Bloomberg said that President Bush himself had recommended Blackwater to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein during a meeting last week. The President was said to have told Mr. Klein that if Blackwater could take over the Iraq war so successfully from the US military, it could do the same thing for the NY City Police Department in the war against cell phones. Mr. Bloomberg told GBN News that while Blackwater security forces will not be encouraged to actually fire on students, their track record in Iraq will “certainly make those little buggers think twice before trying to bring their cell phones into school.”

In a related story, President Bush asserted yesterday that “This government does not torture people.” He went on to say that torture is a function he believes should be left to the private sector.

Those million dollar ads: are they true?

Probably you’ve seen one the many ads that are running on TV, radio and bus shelters – touting the great improvements in our public schools and telling us to “Keep the Progress going.” In one of these ads, a teacher claims, proudly, “our classes are smaller.” (See the ads here.)

Is this true? We can look at recent data from the IBO to determine the validity of this claim.

If you look at the citywide averages, class sizes appear to be shrinking by less than 1% per year. To be exact, average class sizes are declining by about .3%, (that’s point 3%, not 3%) in K-3 and in grades 4-8 by about .8% (point 8%) each year. This, despite the fact that enrollment is dropping much more rapidly – by 1.5% annually in K-3, and 3.1% in grades 4-8^th.

Which means that the administration has made absolutely no effort to keep classes small, but to the contrary is subtracting hundreds of classes -- and teachers -- each year. (You can click on the graph on the right to enlarge it.)

If we had class size goals similar to those that the state of Florida has achieved for nearly every school in the state, of 18 kids per class in grades K-3 and 22 kids in 4-8^th grades, it would take over 40 years to reach these goals in the early grades, and 19 years for 4-8^th grades. Unless of course, enrollment trends change over the next 40 years, which is quite possible.

Moreover, in more than half of districts, class sizes are actually increasing -- either in K-3, 4-8 or both.

The Fund for Public Schools is financing these deceptive ads – once a legitimate charity, established to provide extra services and resources to our kids in the public schools – but now is pursuing a nakedly political campaign to burnish Bloomberg's image and ensure that Mayoral control is kept intact. Their PR campaign is called “Keep it going” and it asks for donations, in part, by saying that contributions will offer families tools and resources to support their children's education."

But when you search for these tools and resources, all they appear to be providing is no-cost website advice, reused from other organizations, like a list of back-to-school supplies, including those all important No. 2 pencils. If we had ten million dollars, we could put on ads refuting DOE’s claims; unfortunately all we parents have is this blog.

The answer to the question, what ever happened to Robert Gordon?

I know you've all been dying to know.

Gordon, a former attorney and would-be educational reformer, spent a few months working at Tweed and doing a quick “hit job” on our schools by designing the fundamentally unfair “fair student funding” system. This system would have cut the budgets of half of our failing schools by over $400,000 if fully implemented– and still won’t give them a dime to improve conditions, whether that be reducing class size or doing anything else.

Now he’s back at the Center for American Progress – the supposedly liberal DC think tank which is led by lawyer John Podesta and where they have lots more lawyers who know nothing about education but are full of ideas about how to make poor urban schools even worse than they are. Interestingly, they never would conceive of the same solutions for the schools where their own kids go to school.

There's a new article by Robert Gordon in Slate on how to fix NCLB -- though he sees little to change. Here Gordon actually argues that improving our schools, is merely a matter of educators setting "clear and high expectations" for themselves and their students.” And we know what that means -- lots more testing, little learning.

He’s wrong on Texas by the way – studies show that the state's emphasis on high stakes testing did nothing to raise its students' test scores on the NAEP. Actually, the actual rise in achievement and the narrowing of the achievement gap came years before, when the state actually improved learning conditions by reducing class size in grades K-4 -- a reform proposed by a commission led by none other than Ross Perot.

Military to Recruit Rubber Room Teachers, ATR’s

October 3, 2007 (GBN News): The New York City Department of Education is embroiled in another military recruiting controversy today, this time over the solicitation of ATR’s and teachers assigned to “Rubber Rooms”. ATR’s are experienced teachers who have been excessed from their previous position. No longer given priority for another teaching post, they must substitute teach while trying to find a position on their own in what is termed an “Open Market” system. Teachers in Rubber Rooms have been removed from their classrooms after being accused of various and often unspecified forms of malfeasance. The recruitment of these teachers appears to be a marriage of convenience between the DOE, which would like to unburden itself of teachers that it considers a “problem”, and the military, which has had increasing difficulty filling its ranks during an unpopular war.

GBN news has learned that the upsurge in teacher recruiting by the military arose out of a meeting between Chancellor Joel Klein and President Bush during UN week. The Chancellor, according to GBN News sources, approached the President with an offer to allow military recruiters into reassignment centers, and to provide them with lists of ATR's. The President, reportedly impressed with Mr. Klein’s “patriotism”, even consented to raise the maximum enlistment age, in order to accommodate some of the more senior teachers who, the Chancellor is said to feel, are holding back his school reforms.

When reached for comment, Chancellor Klein told GBN News that the new recruiting policy should be “really popular with the teachers”, since it will “greatly expand their range of options under the Open Market system”. He also expressed the hope that being in the military will “straighten out those misfits” in the rubber rooms. The Chancellor even left open the possibility that, after completion of their military service, the teachers could be hired back as school security officers whereby they could “prove themselves useful by confiscating cell phones.”

In a related story, President Bush announced a new health insurance plan designed to maintain health coverage for people who are excessed from their jobs. The plan would place all such former employees under the U.S. Armed Forces health plan, and would cover them at no cost to the employee. There would, however, be a work requirement similar to that for people on Public Assistance. Work assignments will be provided through a contract with Blackwater USA, and may require relocation.

Nolan and Gioia on toxic schools

See today's oped in the Daily News by Assembly member Cathy Nolan and City Council member Eric Gioia, responding to Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott piece last week --- in which Walcott defended the indefensible -- the opposition of this administration to requiring environmental and community review of toxic sites for leased schools. This is how the Nolan/Gioia oped starts:

“Deputy Mayor Walcott's "Be Our Guest" piece last week is a disingenuous public relations ploy to protect mayoral power and avoid accountability at the expense of the health of New York City's schoolchildren and teachers.”

The bill in the Legislature sponsored by Nolan would provide the most necessary basic rights of disclosure and City Council review for the SCA’s plans to lease buildings on contaminated sites:

“As a check and balance on mayoral control, communities must be given notice of plans to lease toxic sites for schools and the Council must be given the opportunity to vote on the appropriateness of a site.”

The administration’s dishonesty on this issue and their lack of concern about the health of our children matches their dishonesty on class size. For more info on this issue, see our previous posting here, about the contaminated Information Technology HS in Long Island City, and the New York Lawyers for Public Interest website here.

Spitzer on Bloomberg

"He is wrong at every level - dead wrong, factually wrong, legally wrong, morally wrong, ethically wrong." -- Elliot Spitzer on Michael Bloomberg, Sept.27, 2007

This quotation suggests that the mutual lovefest between Spitzer and Bloomberg may be over – which is important given the influence of the Governor over education funding and the future of mayoral control in NYC.

The context was Bloomberg’s opposition to Spitzer's proposal to grant driver licenses to undocumented aliens – but the same statement could be made of the Mayor's educational policies as well.

Stay tuned.

New York Tests Flunk!

Diane Ravitch has a great oped in today's NY Post about how the recent NAEP scores further undermine NY State’s claim of great jumps in achievement, entitled NEW YORK'S TESTS FLUNK. (See also Steve Koss’ earlier posting about this issue.) An excerpt:

The release this week of national test scores in reading and math was an embarrassment for the state Department of Education. Scores nationally and in many individual states showed modest gains from 2005 to 2007, but New York did not - even though the Education Department had trumpeted "gains" on its tests just weeks earlier.

Diane concludes that this disparity further points out the need for an independent auditor for New York State test results. For a longer version of Diane's op-ed, check out the City Journal.

Also, see this article in the NY Sun which points out how all the recent findings that the 2005 tests were easier in math and in reading have given strength to the call for an independent audit.

September PEP Meeting: Mayoral Appointees Reject Resolution on Military Recruiting

The Panel for Educational Policy meets monthly to review DOE policies and approve budgets. As the appointee of Borough President Scott Stringer, I represent Manhattan on the Panel.

At Monday's Panel for Educational Policy, I brought to the panel a resolution recommending measures to improve the oversight of military recruiting in schools. The resolution would also ensure that families could exercise their right to keep their personal information from being turned over to the military. We lost in a 6 - 3 vote with Chancellor Klein, the mayoral appointees and the appointee of the Staten Island Borough President voting against. The Queens and Bronx members joined me in supporting the resolution.

The impetus for the resolution was a report and student survey released by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Students or Soldiers Coalition.

The main findings of the survey were:

1) One in five students reported that class time was being used by military recruiters.
2) 40% of students did not receive forms allowing them to opt-out of providing personal information to military recruiters.
3) One in five students did not believe anyone in their schools could advise them on risks and benefits of military enlistment
4) Half of the survey respondents did not know to whom they should report military recruiter misconduct

In light of these findings, we prepared a resolution with a series of recommendations for the Department of Education. We suggested a chancellors regulation be implemented to clarify the policy and require appropriate enforcement measures:

1) Use of classroom time should be prohibited and limits be placed on frequency and location of recruiter visits.
2) Opt-out forms should be distributed in multiple languages to all high school students. Other easy methods should as a website or check boxes on school forms should be employed.
3) Records of military recruiter visits should be kept and published.
4) School staff should be trained in the policies and a procedure established to report recruiter misconduct and all compliance with all policies should be monitored by the DOE.
5) In each school, appropriate staff members should be trained to advise students on military enlistment.

While Chancellor Klein agreed that many of the measures made sense, he was not willing to adopt the resolution, citing the burden the measures would place on the schools. I suggested that the DOE might manage aspects of the policy centrally, for example using the new ARIS database to send the opt-out mailings, thereby actually removing an administrative burden from principals. I also pointed out how expense and administrative effort seem to be of no concern when it comes to enforcing the mayor's ban on cell phones. In any event, we will continue to press the DOE to fulfill its obligations to our children.

Childrens do learn! But do the Mayor and George Bush?

Yesterday, President Bush stood in front of a group of New York City elementary school students with the Mayor by his side. He urged the renewal of NCLB by saying "Childrens do learn when standards are high and results are measured."

Then the President praised Bloomberg for "moving aside bureaucracy that will inhibit the people he has selected to achieve the goal."

Bloomberg used the occasion to defend high-stakes tests: "As they get into high school, they have to decide whether to hang out with a gang, whether to hang out with somebody who has a gun, whether to try drugs, whether to act responsibly when it comes to sex...They're faced with whether to get married, whether to stay in school. We are, our children are facing high-stakes tests all the time."

As many experts have noted, there are all sorts of tests in life.

So why should the only tests that count in our school system be those given on paper, with multiple choices? Shouldn’t other measures of achievement count for our students, as they do in real life?

Update: According to the NY Times, the official White House transcript of Bush's remarks corrected his grammar.

Our kids being cheated out of smaller classes, yet again

This week the NYC Independent Budget Office came out with new class size figures, showing that class size reduction has slowed to a crawl, due to the city’s refusal to maintain the number of classes offered in K-8.(Click on the graphs below to enlarge them.)

The figures also showed that last year there were nearly 170,000 students in grades K-3 (or 63%) in classes above the state goal of 20, and more than 60,000 students (22%) in classes 25 or above.

For 4-5^th grades, more than 76,000 (or 57%) students remain in classes of 25 or above, and nearly 22,000 (or 16%) in classes of 30 or above.

In 6^th through 8^th grades, the picture is even more dismal. More than 160,000 (78%) of our middle school students are in classes of 25 or above, and more than 80,000 (39%) are crammed in classes of 30 or more.

Clearly, the Department of Education has to work far harder to improve opportunities for our children, particularly in the context of the new state law that requires them to do so.

For seven years, the city has received almost $90 million in state funds, intended to reduce class size in the early grades to 20 or less. Yet a 2006 audit from the State Comptroller’s office criticized the DOE for only creating 20 extra classes in grades K-3 in the year 2004-5, instead of the 1586 classes the city had claimed. This new data shows that the situation has gotten much worse. Far fewer classes have been offered in these grades each year.

Last year there were 446 fewer classes in grades K-3 than before the state-funded class size reduction program began – and more than 2,000 fewer classes than DOE claims to have created with these funds.

The same is likely to occur with the new state funding that is supposed to be used to reduce class size in all grades, without much more rigorous accountability, oversight and compliance.

For more information and an excel file showing the class size averages in each school district in the city for the last two years, go here.

NYS Education Department Spokesman Hears, Sees No Evil

Results from the recently released National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) put into doubt many NYS Education Department (NYSED) and NYC Department of Education claims of “substantial” student progress in fourth and eighth math and reading based on State-developed exams. This year’s NAEP announcement showed that progress in New York State has remained nearly flat in eighth grade math and both eighth and fourth grade reading, with a modest improvement only in fourth grade math.

According to the New York Sun, NYSED spokesman Tom Dunn defended the State's annual progress assessments by saying that concerns about lack of sufficient student progress suggested by the NAEP results are “flat-out wrong.” In fact, it is his arguments dismissing the apparent discrepancies between the NYSED exam results and those revealed by the NAEP -- that only about 2% of New York students in each grade take the NAEP exams and each student only takes a portion of the test -- that are flat-out wrong.

Apparently, Mr. Dunn has never heard of statistical sampling as a means of drawing inferences from larger populations. Perhaps he has is not aware that most surveys and polls are conducted in a similar manner. Maybe he has never read the small information boxes the New York Times inserts with its CBS News/New York Times surveys showing that statistically reliable national polls can be taken with fewer than 1,000 Americans. It could well be that he is also not aware that a random sample of just 1,200 – 1,500 people gives results which are mathematically provable to be well over 99% reliable. As a point of comparison, a mere 350,000 students across the U.S. participated in these most recent NAEP exams.

The NAEP tests, administered in all 50 States every two years, are the closest thing in America to national, standardized exams in math and reading. These exams are universally respected by educators for their consistency, reliability, and lack of an underlying political agenda. They are the only such exams immune from local gubernatorial, legislative, or mayoral pressures to "prove" the positive progress those politicians want. For Mr. Dunn to besmirch the NAEP and its national and state level testing methodology as somehow inadequate and unrepresentative demonstrates that even the NYSED can hide behind mathematical ignorance in order not to hear or see a problem. Then again, perhaps their goal is to render adults in New York State even more mathematically ill informed than they already are at the same time they are claiming such admirable improvements in children’s mathematical understanding.

A Free Ride for Bullies

Check out this NY Times oped -- by education advocates Neha Singh and Khin Mai Aung --pointing out that DOE officials have refused to enforce the anti-bullying law passed by the City Council in 2004, called the Dignity for All Students Act:

"The bill requires the New York City Department of Education to establish procedures to protect children. These include creating anti-harassment policies and communicating them to students, parents and administrators in several languages; reporting annually on incidents of harassment; and explicitly making harassment a basis for disciplinary action. "

Because of this refusal, the Department has given scant attention towards stemming the bullying of students from different ethnic and religious backgrounds; and no "tracking of harassment incidents, educational outreach and mandating meaningful annual reports on bias in schools."

This is yet another example of how the DOE sees themselves as above the law.

The op-ed relates the example of a Sikh student named Harpal Singh Vacher who had his turban forcibly removed and his hair shorn in a school bathroom.

"The department must do more to maintain an atmosphere of mutual respect in our schools. As a result, children like Harpal are suffering."

GBN News Editorial: Let Them Speak

September 25, 2007: Controversy swirled this week over whether it is appropriate to give a forum to illegitimate and dictatorial leaders, chosen by an undemocratic process, who are out of touch with the needs and wishes of the people they represent, who persecute their citizens with severe penalties for trivial offenses and who manipulate facts to serve their own ends. The idea of showcasing such leaders is certainly abhorrent, and it is understandable that people would be upset. GBN News shares these feelings, but nevertheless, we feel that in a free society, people should be allowed to express even the most offensive of ideas. Therefore, we feel that calls for the cancellation of the meeting between President Bush and NY City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein are not in the spirit of our open and democratic society, and the meeting should go on as scheduled. Their statements - whether about the illusory “improvement” in test scores or the illusory WMD; the purported commitment to working with parents or to working with Congress; or the rationalizations for failure to obey City law on the cell phone ban or international law on treatment of prisoners - should be laid out for all to see as the rantings of leaders near the end of their time in power; leaders whose policies and decisions are being discredited, and who will be judged harshly by history. Our willingness to allow the free and open airing of their views can only hasten that process.

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.

Former VP Quayle Named DOE Diversity Czar

September 23, 2007 (GBN News): The NYC Department Of Education announced today that former Vice President Dan Quayle will become the DOE’s new “Diversity Czar”. The position is being created to address charges that groups making up a major portion of school enrollment are vastly under-represented at the DOE. For example, there were reportedly so few Latinos in the Office of Parent Engagement that the DOE was said to have represented a native of Curacao, a Dutch territory, as a Latina because she spoke Spanish. Mr. Quayle admitted that simply speaking Spanish does not qualify someone to represent the Latino community, and the former Vice President pledged in a statement, “That’s why I’ll be looking far and wide to find people who actually speak Latin, to truly represent that community at the DOE.” A DOE spokesperson praised the new Diversity Czar, who as Vice President once said, “I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn't study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people”. The spokesperson said that Mr. Quayle seemed the obvious choice for the DOE due to his “longstanding experience in the area of cultural competence”.


Ed. Note: If this sounds far fetched, follow this link to a Word file containing testimony given before the NYC Council Committee on Education. A read of this devastating testimony suggests that a Quayle appointment such as the one suggested in the above parody would not be out of character for the DOE. As Mr. Melendez stated to the Council, “The DOE has demonstrated, not just in the Latino community, that it is well below standard in Cultural Competency”.

DOE to Kids: Shovel It

September 21, 2007 (GBN News): A controversial new plan by the NY City Department of Education to have children bury their cell phones outside before entering school buildings has been coming under increasing criticism. The DOE plans to engage an outside vendor to rent shovels to children for what it terms a “nominal fee” of $1 a day. Many City Council members and parent advocates termed the proposal “ridiculous”, but Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Mayor Bloomberg held their ground, so to speak. Mr. Klein acknowledged that the cost of renting shovels could be a burden for some families. The Chancellor told GBN News that the DOE is considering a compromise whereby the children would be allowed to provide their own shovels. However, he said that since the shovels are potentially “dangerous implements”, they could not be brought into the school buildings and would have to be buried alongside the cell phones.

Council Member Fidler Threatens Lawsuit Over School Cell Phone Ban

Today's City Council hearings on parent engagement went for many hours. One early development was the angry back and forth between council members and DOE over the cell phone ban. Council member Lew Fidler of Brooklyn finished one exchange by telling Deputy Mayor Walcott "We'll see you in court".

While the council has recently passed a law protecting the rights of students to carry phones to and from schools, they have previously not openly expressed willingness to fight the battle in court. That heavy lifting has been done by public school parents represented by Attorney Normal Siegel and law firm Morgan Lewis. Fidler's comment may signal that the Council will now step up to defend both its own legislative prerogative and the rights of families.

Earlier, Martine Guerrier, who heads the Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy (OFEA) and Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott had testy exchanges with Council member Peter Vallone. Vallone was frustrated that Guerrier endorsed the mayor's position on cell phones rather than advocate for the position even she admitted was held by an overwhelmingly majority of parents.

No “Wired” Kids on Subways

September 20, 2007 (GBN News): NY City officials announced today that all city subway stations will soon be wired for cell phone use. The plan, in the works for some time, was given new impetus after this summer’s severe flooding, which shut down the subway system and left riders stranded for hours. The move is designed to enhance the safety and emergency communication for all New Yorkers, except for schoolchildren traveling to and from school.

Asked why children, who are our most vulnerable city residents, are not being afforded the same safety opportunities as adults, Mayor Bloomberg was characteristically dismissive. “Subways are for studying”, the Mayor said. “If the train gets stuck, they should be concentrating on their math homework, not bothering their parents about whether they want beef or fish for dinner.”

In a related story, the Department of Education announced today that the plan to install lockers outside schools, for children to store their cell phones before entering the building, is being dropped. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein told GBN News that the DOE was unable to find an outside vendor who could make a profit on the lockers. Instead, Mr. Klein said that all high schools and middle schools will provide designated outside garden areas for children to bury their cell phones before school. The DOE is soliciting bids from outside vendors to rent shovels to children at a nominal cost of $1 a day.

The DOE and the Parent Survey: A Case of the Blind Men and the Elephant?

Since the results of last June’s Parent Survey were announced, Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have repeatedly played down parents’ collective concerns over class size, as reported previously on this site. The DOE has not yet made a database of the survey results publicly available for comparative purposes. However, we now have enough information to take a closer look, at least for the Districts (1 through 6) that comprise the schools on Manhattan Island.

Here’s a summary of the results for the 266 elementary, middle, and high schools whose Learning Environment Survey Reports were posted on their DOE school web pages.

-- Parents in 46.6% (124) of the schools -- almost half!! --voted smaller class sizes as their most desired improvement. The next highest improvement choice was more or better enrichment programs, chosen by parents at 38.0% (101) of the schools.

-- Parents at an impressive 66.1% (37 out of 56) of the Manhattan schools with enrollments of over 700 students chose smaller class size as their first priority.

-- Parents at an even more remarkable 84.6% (22 out of 26) of the Manhattan schools with enrollments of over 1,000 students chose smaller class size as their highest priority.

-- Overall, 27.0% of Manhattan parents who responded to the survey chose small class size as their highest improvement priority (versus 24% Citywide reported by the DOE).

-- There was a noticeable statistical difference between schools whose parents chose smaller class size versus those that voted for enrichment.

Smaller Class Size
Number of Schools -- 124
Total Student Enrollment -- 88,551
% Manhattan Enrollment -- 58.0%
Average Enrollment -- 714
Median Enrollment -- 556

More/Better Enrichment Prog.
Number of Schools -- 101
Total Student Enrollment -- 45,057
% Manhattan Enrollment -- 29.5%
Average Enrollment -- 446
Median Enrollment -- 256

The conclusions are inescapable. Parents in just under half of all Manhattan schools cited smaller class sizes as their highest improvement priority, and those parents represented larger schools on average as well schools with 58% of the Borough’s student enrollment. Given New York Magazine’s recent real estate report citing city population growth projections of 200,000 in the next three years and 500,000 by 2020, suggesting that class size is not (or should not be) public school parents’ first concern is willfully manipulative of the facts. Or perhaps it’s just a case of the blind men and the elephant?

More on the Broad prize, our children's CFE dividend, and the parent voice

Although NYC did receive the Broad prize, as widely expected, our letter from parents protesting the award was mentioned in the NY Times today.

David Quintana, a parent whose statement we posted yesterday, and who participated in the focus group that met with Broad researchers, was quoted both in the Times and in today’s NY Sun .

In case anyone is wondering, none of us spoke out to deny NYC students their fair share of $375,000 in scholarships; (NYC was guaranteed at least $125,000 in funds as a Broad finalist.) God knows if these students got through our public school system alive – where fewer than 50% graduate in four years, they deserve it!

We knew our letter would have no effect on these scholarships. Eli Broad is a long-time supporter of many of the education initiatives of this Mayor, has given millions of dollars to DOE, and is in full agreement with the administration’s emphasis on corporate, top-down management, free market competition, and more charter schools. Indeed, we had heard months ago that the fix was in.

Instead, we were trying to ensure that the dissenting voices of parents would be reported along with the award, and to this extent we were successful.

In any event, the Broad award doesn't change the fact that DOE continues to misuse of millions of dollars of state class size reduction funds – in the process, depriving thousands of children of their right to smaller classes -- or the fact that thousands more students are forced drop out of school each year without getting a fair chance to earn a HS diploma, without their fates ever being reported in the official statistics. It is the ability of all these thousands of children to succeed in school and life that we continue to fight for.

$375,000 is a pittance compare to the more than $250 million in state funds that DOE is now putting at risk because of their stubborn refusal to submit a real class size reduction plan to the state.

For more on this more important “prize’ – which represents our children’s CFE dividend, and should be spent responsibly, rather than wasted on more consultants, “data inquiry teams” and testing, see this entry and the NY Sun article from yesterday.

DOE Announces Criteria for Broad Scholarships

September 19, 2007 (GBN News): Having won the Broad Prize for Education, the NYC Department Of Education has announced the criteria for students competing for $500,000 in scholarships, which will be funded by the prize. Not surprisingly, the requirements will closely parallel those of the Broad prize themselves.

Foremost among the criteria for students will be, of course, their test scores. Students will be expected to demonstrate consistent improvement in scores from year to year. Extra credit will be given to students who took tests that became progressively easier each year.

Just as importantly, students must demonstrate proficiency in public relations, to better “sell themselves” to the scholarship committee. While students can, if they wish, take responsibility for their own PR, it is strongly recommended that they hire high priced consultants so as to put themselves in the best possible light.

Finally, students must demonstrate a familiarity with the scholarship committee. Prior personal and professional relationships are a must. The committee is free to ignore the evaluations of any others, including teachers or school personnel, who might have actual knowledge of the students’ work.

The committee, which has already chosen the scholarship recipients, will announce the awards in January.

Bloomberg Administration Intransigence on Contract for Excellence Undermining Support for Mayoral Control

While the mayor and chancellor were being lionized in Washington yesterday by the Broad Foundation and Bush Administration, back home some key stakeholders in public education were not so flattering. In this article by Elizabeth Green in the NY Sun, Queens Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette expressed his frustration over the Bloomberg Administration's failure to submit an acceptable plan to spend new state funds:

Assemblyman Ivan Lafayette, a Democrat of Queens who is the deputy speaker, said he is concerned that the city might not agree to revise its plan. "We're offering all that extra money, but the city refuses to use it as they're requested to do," he said. "They're like petulant children."

Mr. Lafayette said the resistance has convinced him that his support for mayoral control of the schools was a mistake. "The one nice thing we did about this turning the power over to the mayor is that it sunsets in '09," he said.

The article goes on to quote Regents Vice Chancellor Merryl Tisch who also made the misbehaving-children comparison.

Several members of the Board of Regents, the body that governs state education policy, said they have been assured that the city will add a five-year plan to reduce class size and revise its distribution of funds among schools.

"If you don't like the rules, you just don't pick up your marbles and walk away," the Regents vice chancellor, Merryl Tisch, said. "The mayor and the chancellor are such responsible leaders that they would never adhere to ‘I'm picking up my marbles and walking away,'" she added, referring to Mr. Bloomberg and the schools chancellor, Joel Klein.

Earlier coverage of the Contracts for Excellence controversy can be found here and here.

Yet another contaminated high school?

Fox News carried a very scary story last night, about the toxic contamination at the Information Technology HS in Long Island City -- and the lack of action by the DOE to do anything about it.

$20 million of our tax dollars went into converting a former metal-plating factory into this school– with the building still being leased from its owners at more than $1 million per year.

Through documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, Fox News found out that the contraption built to vent the toxic fumes outside the school (see the white tent-like object at the right of the school in the photo above) is actually bringing more contamination inside – and consulting engineers on the project have advised officials to shut it off. Yet the Dept. of Environmental Conservation and the School Construction Authority refuse to address this issue.

The building also houses a school for special needs children.

As Dave Palmer of NY Lawyers for Public Interest writes,

"This disturbing report suggests what many of us have feared: that DOE and SCA are incapable of ensuring the safety of children, teachers and community residents when they choose to build schools on contaminated sites....This should not be allowed to happen."

The administration's chronic and apparently deliberate practice of siting schools on contaminated sites, with no public review or oversight, has been noted previously on the blog, here and here.

Hopefully, this will strengthen the position of Dave and other environmental advocates who who have been pressing for more community and City Council review of leased school sites.