The corporate mindset at Tweed: a tale of two Sirs

See this recent BBC article, about a speech by Sir Richard Pring, who to terrific applause, lambasted the corporate mentality that has come to infect the field of education in Great Britain. Pring was presenting the latest report from Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education and Training, (in pdf) that examines how the aims and values of education have come to be "dominated by the language of management." Here is an excerpt:

When education is conceived in terms of inputs leading to measurable outputs, or in terms of targets which constitute the performance indicators against which learning can be audited, or when teachers are seen as curriculum deliverers, or when cuts in resources are referred to as efficiency gains, then education is being conceived very differently from how it was seen only a few decades ago. …. Change the metaphor, and you change the understanding of the aims of education and the values which such aims embody.

A similar perspective has invaded the management of NYC schools during this administration. Joel Klein tries to justify inflated salaries (and a huge PR staff) by saying that they are "running a $20 billion company" and could earn three times as much in the private sector. (Then send them back!) See also all the chief officers of this and that who inhabit the elegant halls of Tweed --a chief accountability officer (earning $196,000), a chief knowledge officer ($177,000), a chief talent officer ($172,000) and a chief portfolio officer ($162,000).

Many parents noted critically in our independent parent survey the way in which the administration viewed our schools as businesses rather than educational enterprises; in the words of one, children are "being treated like they are a business venture instead of like human beings." Now that we have a deficit, management is not surprisingly pushing most of the cuts to the lower level of the organization (in this case, our underfunded schools) rather than making the savings at headquarters, where there is alot more fat to cut.

The resemblance between the corporate mentality in the UK educational establishment and at Tweed is not coincidental; both have been heavily influenced by Sir Michael Barber, former efficiency expert who advised Tony Blair on education and subsequently became an adviser to Joel Klein.

The NY Times carried a puff piece about Barber in August; Sir Richard Pring wrote a famous but still unpublished letter to the Times in response, disputing the article's claim that Barber's advice had led to real improvements in the UK . Here is an excerpt from Pring's letter:

In the last few years, England has created the most tested school population in the world from age 5 to age 18. School improvement lies in scoring even higher in the national tests, irrespective of whether these tests bear any relation to the quality of learning, and schools which see the poverty of the testing regime suffer the penalty of going down the very public league tables. The results of the 'high stakes testing' are that teachers increasingly teach to the test, young people are disillusioned and disengaged, higher education complains that those matriculating (despite higher scores) are ill prepared for university studies, and intelligent and creative teachers incleasingly feel dissatisfied with their professional work. ...'What counts as an educated 19 year old in this day and age?'. The answers which we are receiving from teachers, universities, employers and the community would point to a system very different from the one which Sir Michael nurtured and is now selling to the United States.

What’s funny (or sad) is that few impartial observers in the UK think that the Blair/Barber reforms have been successful, just as there are extremely few in NYC who currently believe in the Bloomberg/Klein initiatives -- so much so that a recent article in Education Next was forced to quote a hedge fund manager who supports charter schools in their defense.

See this semi-amusing tidbit from an interview with Joel Klein published in the British Guardian in 2006:

Klein is a fan of Blair's education reforms and "learnt a lot" from talking to Sir Michael Barber, the former No 10 education adviser. "The UK is performing better on international tests and moving in the right direction," he says. "They have a lot of the challenges we have." He is surprised when I mention the sense of failure, especially in London. "The work just hasn't finished," he says, blithely.

But Barber cleverly keeps traveling to new climes, before his failures can catch up with him. He seems to continually find new people to pay him for his advice, as he merrily trips along. His motto? If "everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough.”

For the entire Pring letter, see Diane Ravitch's posting in the Huffington Post.

Why I resigned by Diane Ravitch

An article in the NY Sun reported on Wednesday that Diane Ravitch, eminent education historian and contributor to this blog, resigned from the board of Education Next, a journal that covers education research and policy.

Today, Diane herself explains in her own words in an Sun oped, Why I resigned. Excerpt:

…. I resigned because Education Next published a deeply flawed account of Mayor Bloomberg's school reforms. I resigned with regret because I admire Education Next. I have found it to be the most consistently interesting and lively publication about American education currently available.

That is all the more reason why I was surprised to read Peter Meyer's article, "New York City's Education Battles," which is a thinly veiled puff piece for reforms that have been both costly and ineffectual. As a member of the editorial board of Education Next and as someone who has written extensively about education in New York City, I was stunned that I did not see the article until after it was published.

The article treats school reform in New York City as a matter of conflicting opinions, of "he-said, she-said," rather than as a matter of verifiable fact, even when facts are available.

For example, Mr. Meyer says that the New York Times reported "no significant progress in reading and math" between 2003 and 2007 for city students on the federal test called the National Assessment of Educational Progress and "little narrowing of the achievement gap." Mr. Meyer then quotes a hedge fund manager and blogger, Whitney Tilson, who said that the Times' story was "lousy" and that city students actually made gains in three of the four measures.

But the NAEP scores are not a matter of opinion; the facts can be easily checked — google NAEP TUDA 2007 and look at pages 50-51. Anyone who does check will learn quickly that New York City students made no statistically significant gains between 2003 and 2007 in fourth-grade reading, eighth-grade reading, or eighth-grade math. There were no significant gains for black students, white students, Hispanic students, Asian students, or lower-income students. New York City was the only city (of eleven tested) where eighth-grade reading scores declined for black, Hispanic, and lower-income students, and the achievement gap grew. Only in fourth-grade math did city students make statistically significant gains. If facts matter, Mr. Tilson's opinion is wrong.

…..I admire Mayor Bloomberg but I do not admire what he has done to the public schools. I hope that the state Legislature, when it reconsiders public school governance next year, abolishes the bumbling, tyrannical Department of Education and restores an independent Board of Education, appointed by the mayor.

The school system needs checks and balances. It needs a regular, independent audit of graduation rates and test scores. It needs a leadership in which education decisions are made by educators. Such changes won't solve all of our schools' problems, but they will end the pointless turmoil of the past five years, provide honest information about academic progress, and reestablish the role of the public in public education.

The article in Education Next by Peter Meyer that Diane refers to is here.

College Board Report on AP Exams in NY State Public Schools -- Are We Really Doing Better?

“Larger Share of Students Succeed on A.P. Tests,” the NY Times headlined its story yesterday, drawn from the College Board’s release of the 2007 results on Advanced Placement exams (see also AP Exam Grade Summary Reports by State). The NY Post seconded the Times. “The 23.4 percent of students who scored proficiently [achieving a 3 or higher out of a possible 5] on the exams is a full percentage point higher than in the previous year and an increase of 3.2 points over 2002....” The Post accompanied its article with an eye-catching chart featuring the increased percentages (20.2 in 2002, 22.4 in 2006, and 23.4 in 2007).

What was the message readers might have taken away from yesterday’s good news? At one level, the story is actually what it says: an increased percentage of NY State public high school seniors are achieving a 3 or better on at least one AP exam before they graduate. This is a commendable result in and of itself. As the newspapers left things, however, the inference is clear – public high schools appear to be doing a better job educating students. But is this the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

There are several ways a higher percentage of graduating students could be achieving proficiency on at least one AP exam:

1. Higher percentages of students may be taking AP exams;
2. Individual students may be taking more A.P. exams, thereby increasing their chances of passing at least one such exam with a 3 or better;
3. A change in the mix of tests taken may have fostered higher success rates; and/or
4. Students may be experiencing higher success rates in passing A.P. exams.

Consider the first option. From 2002 to 2007, the number of NYS students taking at least one AP exam increased from 42,365 (30.2% of public high school seniors) to 54,182 (35.5%). One could reasonably expect, all other things equal, that a five percentage point increase in participation rate should lead to a roughly three percentage point increase in students passing at least one exam (based on a 60% pass rate), and that is exactly what happened

How about the second option? In 2002, the average NY State public high school student was taking 2.84 A.P. exams. By 2007, this figure had increased 7% to 3.04 exams per student. Had the 2002 test-taking rate stayed constant, NY State graduating seniors would have taken over 11,000 fewer tests, with 11,000 fewer chances for some students to pass at least one exam.

How about the mix of tests taken? Are students declining Calculus, Physics, Computer Science, and Foreign Languages in favor of English, Economics, and Social Studies (even though one might fairly argue whether tests in these subject areas are necessarily easier to pass)? The College Board’s data suggests that this is indeed the case. In 2007, NY State graduating seniors had taken almost 44,700 more exams than their counterparts in 2002. Almost 34% (15,129) of these increased exams occurred in World History, U.S. History or U.S. Government and Politics, with another 5.9% (2,631) from Macroeconomics and Microeconomics. English Language/Composition and English Literature/Composition accounted for another 20.6% (9,214) of the increase. By comparison, Calculus AB and BC made up just 3.4% (1,534) of the increase, and even adding in Statistics (2,606) only brought the percentage up to 9.3%. Biology, Chemistry, and three different Physics exams suffered similarly, accounting for a combined increase of 5,694 exams, about 12.7% of the five-year increase.

Finally, we come to students’ success rates on exams. From 2002 to 2007, the number of students taking A.P. exams increased 27.9%, but the number of students reaching proficiency increased only 25.8%. Across all AP exams, graduating NY State public school seniors achieved a mean grade of 3.03 in 2007, down slightly from 3.06 in 2002, and pass rates dropped from 65.5% in 2002 to 64.2% last year. During that same period, the success rates of Hispanic students fell from 59.1% to 50.1% while that of black students dropped from 32.7% to 32.1%. White students remained largely unchanged -- declining from 68.4% to 68.3% -- while Asian students increased their success rates from 68.2% to 69.6%.

Thus, more NY State students are taking A.P. exams and taking more of them each, and they are also shifting their A.P. focus increasingly toward Social Studies and English areas. All good things to the extent that schools are bringing students to a level of A.P. readiness. However, their exam success rates are declining slightly overall, with marked drops among black and Hispanic students who may be feeling pressured to stay abreast in the great A.P. race for college creds and college cred.

Net net, not a bad picture, but a bit more mixed than the rather simplistic takes offered by our local newspapers. The good news seems to be more about sheer numbers than student success rates, though.

Results of the independent parent survey

Class Size Matters released a report yesterday, exploring how New York City public school parents view conditions in their children’s schools and the system as a whole.

The official parent survey developed by the Department of Education had some glaring deficiencies. It omitted any questions involving the overall direction of our public schools and the key policies put in place by this administration, and relegated critical concerns of parents about class size, testing, and other issues into a catch-all question towards the end of the survey – in an apparent attempt to minimize their importance.

Class Size Matters decided to develop an independent, parent-driven survey with questions covering some of the key areas left out of the official DOE survey. Hart Associates used this survey to poll a representative cross section of 604 parents by telephone. More than 1,000 parents responded to the survey online. The latter group was unusually active, involved, and informed about conditions at their schools and system-wide, with half of them either active members or officers of PTA, School Leadership Teams or Community Education Councils.

Over 80% of both groups of parents said that overcrowding and class size had stayed the same or worsened over the last few years, and over 70% believed that class size reduction was the most important reform that should be taken to improve the public schools. On testing, over half opposed the DOE policy of holding back students primarily based on standardized exams, and felt that the emphasis on the results of such exams caused too much stress for their children. In the online survey, when asked about the new initiative that will pay students for high test scores, parents overwhelming opposed it.

A substantial majority of respondents believed that Mayoral control should be ended or amended by the State Legislature. Nearly 800 parents provided detailed comments on this issue, which clustered around several main themes: In the current system of governance, there was a lack of checks and balances, leading to almost dictatorial powers being exercised by the Mayor and Chancellor. The views of important stakeholders such as parents had been routinely ignored, and the school system had been run more like a business than an educational enterprise.

Other common criticisms revolved around what parents saw as the results of this unchecked, unaccountable power. The DOE had mismanaged finances and spent too much money on consultants and contractors, had embarked on too many confusing reorganizations, and had put in place the wrong educational policies. Finally, many parents expressed the view that schools and the educational system as a whole needed more separation from the political sphere and greater continuity than politics could provide.

When asked about the positive and negative aspects of their child’s school, more than one thousand parents responded in detail. Their comments on this question, as well as on Mayoral control, are a rich source of information about the views of New York public school parents, as well as some of our most engaged and active parent leaders.

For some comments from civic and parent leaders about the report, see the Class Size Matters website . See also articles in the NY Sun and Gotham Gazette about the results.

Public Advocate's Office Requests Data on Unannounced Scanning Program from DOE

A letter from Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum dated February 8, 2008 has been sent to Chancellor Klein expressing disapproval of the DOE's unannounced ("random") scanning program and requesting detailed information on the program's costs, impact on school attendance, and safety enhancement results. Ms. Gotbaum's letter argues that: "This program was implemented without any meaningful public discussion and continues despite growing public concern over the disruption it causes. The DOE has provided little evidence of the program's effectiveness, and there is reason to believe it has done more harm than good."

Ms. Gotbaum's letter continues by noting that "...rather than deterring students from carrying weapons, unannounced scanning actually deters blameless students from attending school...." She further states that parents who disagree or have complained about the scanning program "have been denied a meaningful opportunity to provide their input," and later adds that excessive absences on the days schools are subjected to unannounced scanning are "hardly an acceptable consequence of a program that purports to promote a school environment that is conducive to teaching and learning."

The Public Advocate's requests for information from the DOE are specific and comprehensive, including:

"-- A complete list of every school that has been subject to this program since it began;
-- The dates that scanning took place at each school;
-- A complete breakdown of confiscated and/or cataloged items from the inception of the program to the present including...weapons and other dangerous items...as well as cell phones, ipods, and other electronic devices;
-- The attendance rate at each school on the day(s) the unannounced scanning took place;
-- The attendance rates at each school the day before and the day after the scanning day(s);
-- The average attendance rate at each school where unannounced scanning took place;
-- A cost breakdown of the unannounced scanning program including...the number and cost of portable scanners; their maintenance costs; the personnel costs directly associated with scanning; the personnel costs associated with administration of the program and with other personnel who attempt to prevent children from leaving school grounds or hiding their belongings; and the cost of record-keeping, reporting, and program administration."

Ms. Gotbaum's letter is a direct consequence of a posting on the NYC Public School Parents blog concerning the effect of random scanning at John Bowne High School on January 10 of this year. That posting, in turn, came about due to the past reporting of public school parents from Forest Hills, John Bowne, and Benjamin Cardozo high schools at the nyceducationnews Yahoo group (www.groups.yahoo.com/group/nyceducationnews). Many thanks to each of these parents for their timely news postings that enabled us to accumulate concrete information about the negative attendance effects of this DOE program. Thanks as well, of course, to Ms. Gotbaum and to Tomas Hunt in the Public Advocate's Office. We will hopefully have more to report in the coming weeks.

MBP Stringer on class size

Excerpt from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s State of the Borough Speech, February 11, 2008

For years, attempts to reduce class size have been at the heart of efforts to improve the public schools. And the job of school planning is only getting more difficult. With more and more families choosing to raise their children in New York City, and the City’s population on the rise, class size has become a moving target.

So, along with Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, and Patrick Sullivan, my appointment to the Panel on Education Policy, I recently convened a group of elected officials, parents, and community board members.

Their mission is to:

_ draw a sharper picture of the school needs we have today;

_ become smarter about the demands we’ll face tomorrow; and

_ get a handle on where school construction will do the most good.

Let’s put education experts and urban planners together in a room with one shared goal: to plan school construction before – not after – our children find themselves in overcrowded classrooms.

I’d add another point – we hope to devise policy and legislative solutions that will help to solve the crisis of school overcrowding citywide. Kudos to the Borough President for daring to help us tackle this problem.

The full speech will be broadcast on Time Warner Channel 34 and RCN Channel 82 on Sunday, February 18 at 8:00PM.

Mayor Mike talks about cutting carbon emissions while cutting school budgets

While Bloomberg was playing world leader, speechifying at the UN about global warming, the Daily News reported on the multi-million dollar costs of grading the state standardized tests.

Unmentioned is the cost of all the data-inquiry teams working overtime in every school, and the huge expense of time and money resulting from the periodic assessments, given five times a year -- with bubble sheets picked up to be scored and scanned by private couriers . Not to mention that multi-million dollar boondoggle, ARIS. The DOE accountability initiative, according to its czar Jim Liebman, is costing at least $100 million per year.

This is obscene, especially at a time when more than $100 million is being cut from school budgets in the middle of the year-- with an additional $324 million in cuts planned for next year.

Check out what principals are saying about the effects of these cuts at the InsideSchools blog.

East Harlem: Schools Closed and Replaced With No Input From Parents

Hector Nazario, President of D4's Community Education Council sent a long letter of protest today to senior DOE officials including Chancellor Klein, over their unlawful refusal to properly consult with the CEC in decisions over school closings and replacement with new schools, including charters.

Here is an excerpt:

...Although there is value in conversation there is greater value in conversations that are part of consultation. The recent series of conversations are about a year too late. The Office for Family Engagement and Advocacy (OFEA) took on the responsibility of organizing the discussions that have taken place thus far. As the department directly in charge of parent involvement, OFEA needs to get to know our district in depth and our parents in particular. It is clear to us that they are unaware of the key players in District 4. For example, 1) some community based organizations, with a long history of serving our schools, were left out of the discussion, 2) to date, there has been no parent representation from affected schools at the meetings, 3) meetings are poorly promoted, 4) some members of the District Leadership Team were not invited, 5) OFEA representatives were inexperienced, lacked interest and comprehension on the significance of the discussion, and lastly, 6) parent coordinators and district family advocates need to be kept informed on matters relating to the proposed school closures in order to address the concerns of parents.

Today, at what was literally the 11th hour, a member of the Office for Family Engagement and Advocacy called me and offered a breakdown of incoming schools. This disjointed effort at communicating is not working. CEC members and parents are not being served like this.

For the full text, click here.

The cell phone arguments by Ellen Bilofsky

Beginning last Thursday, when Justice Shirley Kornreich concluded that that the administration had illegally circumvented laws requiring public review when they tore up Randalls Island to create fields for private schools, then Tuesday, when judges criticized the manner in which Debbie Almontaser was fired from her job as principal of the Khalil Gibran school, and yesterday, when the parent lawsuit against the ban on cell phones was argued before the Appellate branch, the Mayor and Joel Klein have had a really bad week in court.

See this from NY Times article about the cell phone arguments:

One justice, David B. Saxe, remarked that if the chancellor, Joel I. Klein, had been more directly accountable to parents — instead of the mayor — he would probably be out of a job by now.

“I suspect that in a smaller school district, if the school superintendent tried such a ban, they’d probably fire the whole school board,” Justice Saxe said. But, he added, parents “can’t easily fire the chancellor.”

See below observations from Ellen Bilofsky, one of the parent plaintiffs in the lawsuit:

Oral arguments in the appeal of the cell phone lawsuit (Price v. New York City Board of Education) left parents and lawyers feeling hopeful that the five-judge state appeals panel might reverse the negative ruling in the suit to overturn the ban on possession of phones in schools. Although the five-judge panel lobbed some hostile questions at our lawyers, in the end they seemed to "get it": that banning cell phones outright is not about educational policy. For the DOE, it's about control and convenience, while for parents it's a safety issue and the right to promote our kids' well-being.

Justice Andrias commented that his son used to be gone from 8:00 in the morning till 8:00 at night and he never heard from him or knew where he was. (We all figured that Justice Andrias might not have known his son's whereabouts, but his wife surely did.)

But casual comments such as this one fail to take into account how much the world has changed since they--or their children--went to school. Most mothers are at work now, rather than at home keeping close track of their kids' whereabouts, so family arrangements are much more complicated. The advent of cell phones themselves means that there are few pay phones inside schools or on the streets for children to use. No Child Left Behind, among other educational trends, means that many more children of all ages are traveling far from their home schools on public transportation. And the events of 9/11, along with a number of school shootings, have increased parents' concerns about the inability of schools to keep their children safe in school, let alone before and after.

In any case, the other judges gave the DOE a harder time about what the basis for the policy was (the DOE said they didn't need to show any), whether they had looked for any alternatives (we know they didn't), and whether they had looked into policies in other districts.

Civil liberties attorney Norman Siegel waved his silenced cell phone to demonstrate that it was possible to possess a cell phone but not use it. The DOE's refusal to believe that public school students are capable of doing that (while private school students are accorded that right) is an insult to students and parents alike, he said. The lawyers also noted that the number of cell phone incidents the DOE had cited in their briefs amounted to less than two incidents per school per year--not much of a basis for banning them.

For more news on the arguments in court, see the AP story , Daily News and NY Sun.

More Editorial Nonsense in the Major NYC Newspapers

Can it be that a couple of major NYC newspapers have quietly been acquired by billionaire Michael Bloomberg and turned over to the DOE’s relentless PR machine?

Hard on the heels of recent editorials attacking the integrity of Diane Ravitch (NY Post) and proclaiming the wonders of charter schools (NY Daily News) now comes the latest barrage in these two newspapers' relentlessly right wing editorial assaults on public education. This time, the perpetrator is one Kevin Carey, identified as a research and policy manager at an education think tank called Education Sector.

In an outlandish and mathematically inept Daily News editorial, Mr. Carey regales Chancellor Klein as the education field’s revolutionary counterpart to professional baseball’s number-crunching hero, Billy Beane. To champion the Chancellor’s pilot program of evaluating individual classroom teachers through “value-added analysis,” Carey compares this data driven approach to the one successfully used by the Oakland Athletics’ general manager for assessing and acquiring baseball players. This comparison is fallacious on so many levels, one hardly knows where to begin.

As all baseball fans know, every pitch, swing of the bat, fielding play, and stolen base is a measurable event, now routinely cataloged and amassed in gigantic statistical databases that allow for ready comparison with other players (or with that same player himself) in similar game situations. What aspects of education can be so measured? A child’s asked question, an idea or answer ventured, a reading assignment completed and understood, a new fact integrated into a broader context, an “Aha!” moment of new understanding, a quiz or test passed, a lesson in tolerance, empathy, or social development achieved, an original homework submitted? Of course not. Learning – that is, integrating and imprinting intellectual information in the human mind – is not a visible activity in even the best circumstances. As Einstein reportedly observed, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

True baseball aficionados -- those familiar with the work of Bill James, for example -- also understand that these now-famous analytical models are almost exclusively multivariate regression models. In other words, baseball general managers like Billy Beane use mathematical models that predict a player’s value or performance from many different variables simultaneously, each variable clearly measurable and each contributing a portion of the total “value added.” These models are mathematically complex, fraught with issues of relevance, cross-interference among variables, and time series interdependencies (respectively called statistical significance, multicollinearity, and autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity) that must be carefully considered in their formation and use.

Contrast this approach with the DOE’s under Chancellor Klein, where a teacher’s ostensible “value added” is derived entirely from a single variable, standardized test scores, that is itself an arguably spurious measure. Imagine baseball owners paying their players on the basis of just one variable, such as number of home runs. Within a few years, it would hard to tell the New York Yankees from the New York Giants – every Yankee would be 6’6”, weigh 275 pounds, bench press 500 pounds, and hit 40+ home runs per year. With players judged and rewarded on any single variable, the game of baseball would be rendered unrecognizable, grossly perverted from the multiple-skill game it is today.

No less is true in NYC public schools, where absurdly disingenuous arguments by faceless “experts” are routinely being foisted upon an unsuspecting public by dressing them in pseudo-intellectual clothing. In reality, such notions merely support the gradual perversion of public education into a form few of us would recognize from our school days. Instead of oversized, home run swatting baseball players, our teachers and schools are increasingly being pressured by this Mayor and Chancellor to produce one-dimensional, steroid-charged test takers otherwise devoid of the broad skills, experiences, and enthusiasms we used to recognize as desired products of public education. Worse, what teacher (in the classic, Socratic sense of the term) is willing to commit to a 20- or 30-year career in such a stultifying environment?

Note also that on the very same day (February 6) of Mr. Carey’s editorial, the Daily News ran a separate piece lionizing the accomplishments of P.S. 62 in Richmond Hill. The secret of Principal Angela O’Dowd’s success? The Daily News knows the answer, and they feature it right up front, in just the story’s third paragraph where it will most likely be read. “We teach them the tricks and the tips of test-taking,” says Ms. O’Dowd.

As if that wasn't already enough, another Daily News piece, also on the same day, described how students at 23 Brooklyn schools are now being "paid to perform" on Citywide reading and math exams -- "up to $500 for seventh-graders and up to $250 for fourth-graders."

Would somebody please pass me the steroids?

Bloomberg Beaten by East Harlem PTA Presidents and Community Activists in Randalls Island Lawsuit

In a rare legal defeat for Mike Bloomberg's administration, State Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich voided his brazen attempt to hand over the Randalls Island playing fields to a consortium of 20 private schools via an invitation-only long term contract. The judge ruled the city will have to follow the land use review process required by the city charter.

See Associated Press coverage in Newsday here ,New York Times here and Daily News here. Our prior coverage here.

Statements from plaintiffs and supporters:

Eugenia Simmons-Taylor, former president of the Presidents Council in D4 in East Harlem which was the lead plaintiff: "This is a great victory for public school children as well as the community as a whole. I'm thrilled that we were able to stop this unjust deal before it went through. Now the community and our elected representatives will have a chance to have their say."

Matthew Washington, a member of the Community Board 11 in East Harlem and another plaintiff: "We're happy to have an opportunity to do the right thing for all the children in this city."

David Bloomfield, a member of the Citywide Council on High Schools, also a plaintiff: "The sad lesson of the Randall's Island litigation is that elites have no business making decisions for those with less money or influence. From the first, the city and the Randall's Island Sports Foundation should have included parents, schools, and the community at the negotiating table. Instead, the courts have been forced to ensure these rights and in so doing have made sure that there will be quality recreational facilities for all children."

Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer, the sole member of the Franchise & Concession Review Commission to oppose the original contract: "I applaud today's decision," Stringer said. "The judge's order will insure that the project gets the full public review and input it needs to become a fair deal for the community, the City and for private and public schoolchildren alike."

Geoffrey Croft, President of NYC Park Advocates, "We are delighted at this outcome, but this deal never should have been allowed to go forward in the first place. I hope the city doesn't appeal the decision. It would be a waste of taxpayer money and would violate the important principle that public parks should be for the public and not for private interests."

Next Up, Grading Parents. A Parody -- Or Is It?

In the midst of a celebration of the City’s five Intel finalists at Stuyvesant HS (where he repeatedly refused to acknowledge a reporter’s question as to why the number of Intel semifinalists has crashed to barely half its former level since he took charge of the public school system), Chancellor Joel Klein stunned the crowd with his latest announcement on data-driven assessment.

“Beginning in September 2008,” Mr. Klein stated, “The ARIS reporting system will be expanded to track parents’ performance in assisting their children’s education. Now that we are tracking and incentivizing the performance of principals and teachers based on student test results, we see this as the last piece of the puzzle. For years, educators have agreed that parent involvement is a key to student learning; now we’re going to put part of the burden back where it belongs.“

“Some of you may ask how we can track parents’ behavior with their kids. Hey, these are the days of the Patriot Act – nothing is private any more. So to begin with, we’ve contracted for a $32 million extension of ARIS to interface directly with Time Warner Cable and Direct TV, so we’ll know what every student’s family is watching and how much. We’ve also created an $8 million interface to EZ Pass and a $93 million interface to AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Mozilla, Internet Explorer, Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, and Friendster. Oh, and those cell phones your kids keep bringing illegally to school? You got it – we’ll know the minutes and text messaging on those, too.”

“But those things are just child’s play next to our biggest and most revolutionary innovation, conceived by our consultants from Alvarez & Marsal. Beginning next September, the DOE will install hi-tech video surveillance systems in the home of every public school student from Grades 1 – 12. All non-private home activities will be coded and cataloged by Wipro and Infosys in Bangalore, India and fed back to the expanded ARIS so we can generate parental report cards. Parents who receive passing grades will be rewarded with Blu-ray hi-def DVD players and movie discs, while those with D’s or F’s will face mandatory parent training sessions every weekend for three months.”

“No more free rides: no more not reading to your children, no more not helping them with their homework, no more letting them study with the television on while they text message on their cell phones with iPod earphones stuck like cotton in their ears. Did anybody think we were just going to give away money for coming to a Parent Teacher Conference, getting their kid a library card, or taking them to the dentist? Get real, folks. Woody Allen may have said that 80% of success is just showing up, but he’s not a parent in my school system!”

When reminded by an anonymous voice in the crowd that the public schools are not “his” system, the Chancellor puzzled bystanders by channeling his inner Pee Wee Herman and snapping back, “I know you are, but what am I?”

Children handcuffed in school; what is going on?

Two recent incidents provide yet more evidence that the situation with cops in the schools has gotten completely out of control.

Twelve days ago a ten year old girl was handcuffed on a school bus, and on Friday, a five year old boy was handcuffed at his elementary school and taken to a psychiatric hospital -- even after his babysitter came to pick him up. Both these children had serious disabilities which required more sensitive interventions.

According to the Daily News, the Kindergarten student, who suffers from attention deficit disorder, speech problems and asthma, has had nightmares ever since and will start seeing a psychologist soon.

The NYCLU and other advocacy groups have documented in detail repeated abuses of the police and safety agents in our schools-- whose number has grown until they now constitute the tenth largest police force in the country. Several times, even principals have been arrested for coming to the aid of students after they had been manhandled by safety agents.

In 2005, the DOE suspended more students than the entire student population of New Haven.

New legislation has been proposed, called the Student Safety Act, which would provide more transparency and oversight as regards disciplinary and security policies in our public schools. For more on this important issue, see the NYCLU website here.

The truth behind DOE's high ratings in the principals' survey by Diane Ravitch

Last week, the NYC Department of Education released its survey of principals, showing that more than 70% were satisfied with the support that they receive from the DOE. This was good news for the Department, and they were able to wave these numbers as “proof” that the leaders in the field are satisfied.

As it happened , I was the keynote speaker on Saturday January 26 at the annual meeting of the New York City Elementary School Principals’ Association at the Brooklyn Marriott. Before I spoke, I had a candid conversation with some principals. I heard some of the usual complaints about how out of touch the DOE is, how outrageous is the flood of tests, how heedless the DOE is about the real needs of students and teachers, etc.

So naturally I asked why the principal survey showed such high levels of satisfaction with the DOE. Weren’t the responses anonymous?

I was told, by people who for obvious reasons I cannot name, that principals understand that there is no such thing as anonymity when corresponding by email with the DOE. Principals assume that anything sent to the DOE, even if they do not sign it personally, has the school’s ID. Given what they believe is the “vindictive” spirit of Tweed, most dared not take the risk of expressing negative views.

In the world of interoffice electronic communication, there is no such thing as a secret ballot. Or so they believe. And they were afraid to speak up.

---Diane Ravitch

Four things to hate about the Spitzer education budget

1- He would give about $100 million less than he pledged last year to NYC schools. These funds are their due from the settlement of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit.

2- The limited amount in additional operating aid he gives with one hand, he takes away with the other, by delaying reimbursement for school construction – which is the last thing we need, when the city has to be encouraged to build more schools more quickly to alleviate overcrowding and reduce class size. This will give them all the excuses they need not to improve the capital plan.

3- The promise of transparency and stability that was supposed to come with a new school aid formula -- one that would be less prone to political manipulation year after year and that would more equitably fund NYC schools -- has entirely vanished.

4- Last but not least, the extra operating aid would come in the form of an unrestricted grant – with no strings attached, unlike the portion of the CFE settlement called Contracts for excellence -- that was actually supposed to be directed to specific programs that research shows actually work, like class size reduction. With this money the city could instead spend it on more testing, cash rewards tied to test scores, more consultants, higher salaries at Tweed, or really any new fad that strikes their fancy.

Paul Francis, Spitzer's director of operations, told New York Sun that the governor's decision to give the city much of these funds in the form of a unrestricted grant was the result of a compromise "between the desire of the city to have unrestricted funds and the desire of the advocacy community to have all the money subject to the Contracts for Excellence."

To the contrary, we need more accountability, not less, with these precious funds. This money belongs to the children of NYC, not to the Governor, the Mayor or Joel Klein; and it must be spent in a way that gives them their constitutional right to an adequate education – including smaller classes in all grades.

We have a lot of work to do, with both the state and the city, to ensure that the promise to our children of smaller classes embodied in the 12 long years of the battle for education equity is actually fulfilled. Stay tuned.

NY State Math A Regents Exams – The Soft Bigotry (and Political Payoff) of Lowered Expectations

I taught high school Math at NYC Lab School in the mid- to late-1990s, during the days of Sequential Math I, II, and III – before the advent of the soon-to-disappear Math A and Math B. Having spent time in the last 2 –3 weeks helping my 10th grade son prepare for his January Math A exam, I was appalled by the degree to which expectations for high school mathematics competency in New York State (and consequently NYC) has been diminished. The phenomenon President Bush often cites about “the soft bigotry of low expectations” has indeed become a reality in New York State.

The Math A exam consists of 30 multiple choice questions, each worth two points, plus nine extended answer questions variously worth 2, 3, or 4 points. The maximum possible score is 84, but conversion to a 100-point scale is done by a test-specific conversion chart rather than a strict percentage basis. On the June 2007 exam, for example, a student needed to earn only 35 of those 84 points (41.7%) to earn a passing grade of 65. On today’s January 2008 exam, the cutoff dropped again, to 34 out of 84. In other words, 40.5% is now the new 65%.

But wait, it gets worse. Suppose a student knew the answers today to 13 of the 30 multiple choice questions and blindly guesses at the other 17 (assume for the moment that he or she cannot answer any of the extended answer questions). This student has a 1/4 chance of guessing correctly on each of those 17 remaining multiple choice questions, so on average he or she can get 4.25 more questions correct by just guessing. Seventeen correct answers (13 known + 4 guessed) yields 34 points, and that converts to a 65 final score. Yet the student only really “knew the math” for 13 questions (good for 26 points). The 8 points received from guessing represented 23.5% of his or her passing grade total of 34. Meanwhile, the student’s “knowledge level” grade of 31.0% (26/84) has netted him or her a 66. So a paltry 31% is the new 65%.

Compare this to the pre-NCLB days of Sequential I, II, and III exams. Those tests contained 18 short answer questions (2 points each) and 17 multiple choice questions (2 points each), from which students were required to choose and answer 30 questions. A series of extended answer questions accounted for 40 more points. On those exams, scaled to 100 points, students were required to earn 65 points to get a 65. A student forced to guess on all the multiple choice questions could expect on average to get 4.25 correct (1/4 of 17), good for 8.5 points. Blind guessing would then, on average, gain the student just 13.1% (8.5/65) of his or her passing grade. Compared to the Math A student who could pass today’s Regents exam with a knowledge level grade of 31%, the earlier Sequential I student needed on average a “knowledge level” grade of 56.5%, a level 82.3% higher than today’s students.

This lowering of the mathematics bar for New York’s public high school students offers yet one more example of how standards and expectations have been dropped as a result of No Child Left Behind. In fact, the difference is so substantial as to call into question any claims by the NYSED or the DOE about increases in the Regents mathematics pass rates and, by extension, State and City graduation rates. A look at the Math A grade conversion charts since 2004 further substantiates this view.

Raw scores (out of 84) needed for a passing grade of 65%

--------------------------------------2004--------2005---------2006---------2007--------2008
Math A – January exams -------- 37 ----------- 34 ---------- 33 ----------- 35 ---------- 34
Math A – June exams ------------ 37 ----------- 36 ---------- 35 ----------- 35
Math A – August exams --------- 36 ----------- 34 ---------- 34 ----------- 34

Math B – June exams ------------ 45 ----------- 48 ---------- 47 ----------- 47

Where it took a raw score of 36 or 37 (out of 84) to get a 65% final grade in 2004, it now takes just a 34 or 35 (with a low of just 33 in January 2006). By comparison, the raw score cutoff for passing the Math B exam, where there is far less pressure related to State graduation requirements, has remained virtually unchanged over four years. Any system that allows government to decide where they will set the bar on each exam and then take political credit for improved performance must be inherently suspect.

Subjected to the same competency standards as students were a decade ago for Sequential Math I, a sizable percentage of today’s high school students would likely fail to meet the mathematics portion of their graduation requirements. We’re not necessarily educating better, just lowering the bar. The New York miracle in high school mathematics is just as ethereal (and phony) as George W. Bush’s now discredited “Texas Miracle” when he was that State’s Governor.

[Admittedly, this discussion ignores the Part 2, 3, and 4 extended answer questions. More on this aspect of the Math A exams in another posting. Note, however, that multiple choice questions (generally less demanding, amenable to guessing, and more easily copied or otherwise communicated from student to student) constitute 60 of Math A’s 84 points (71.4%) compared to, at most, 34% (34/100) of the earlier Sequential Math I exams.]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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