More questions than answers about charter schools on the NY Times blog

See the extended commentary and answers from James D. Merriman IV, the chief executive of the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence on the NY Times blog.

Merriman goes on at some length about how disadvantaged charter schools are in terms of funding and support. I posted the following question:

Question: Mr. Merriman says that charter schools are seriously hampered by receiving less funding, but according to DOE budget documents they received more than $11,000 per student his past year, and are projected to receive $12,500 per student next.

Meanwhile, the school that my child attends receives about $7400 per student. Mr. Merriman also argues that charter schools don’t receive any funding for facilities — but why should they need to when the administration gives them prime real estate in our existing public school buildings, at the same time taking away valuable classroom and cluster spaces from the students at the existing public school?

Moreover, as mentioned above, charter schools have the most valuable advantage of all — the ability to cap enrollment and class size at any level they want.

My question is this: who pays for custodial services, lunch, and transportation services at charter schools that share buildings with traditional public schools? Does the DOE charge the charter schools extra for this, or is this also provided free of charge?

My question went unanswered.

Also, the following statement made by Mr. Merriman on the NY Times blog was inaccurate:

“What the chancellor has not done is move to close neighborhood zoned elementary schools and replace then with a charter school. If the neighborhood zoned elementary school is shut down, the chancellor has replaced that school with another zoned school—and everyone who was in the zone who was attending the old school has the right to attend the new one.”

To the contrary, the Chancellor closed down PS 101 in East Harlem – a neighborhood school that was in good standing with the state and federal government and that had just received a “proficient” rating on its quality review.

At the time, I found it very suspicious – and suspected that the real motivation for this action was so that its building could be given over to a charter school. Reporters asked DOE whether this would occur, but the administration denied this was in their plans.

Nevertheless, a few months later, it was announced that a charter school, another branch of the Harlem Success Academy, would open in the building of the former PS 101 at 141 East 111 St.

Teacher bashing in Denver; the new spectator sport

Lots of teacher union bashing at events in Denver scheduled around the Democratic National Convention – instigated and abetted by NYC folks like Klein and Sharpton and their so-called "Education Equality Project."

Amazing how trendy it has become to make teachers the scapegoats for the low-performance of city schools.

I don’t remember cops being blamed for high crime rates in urban areas.

Or for that matter, low-quality doctors being blamed for health problems among the poor and underinsured.

Eduwonkette revealed!

Eduwonkette revealed herself on her blog last night as Jennifer Jennings, a grad student in Sociology at Columbia University. See also this article in NY Magazine.

Jennifer is beautiful and brilliant and an expert in deconstructing the fraudulent statistics of the NYC Department of Education.

As one of the few individuals who has known her identity for many months, I must say it’s a relief not to have to keep it secret any more.

Jennifer also did the seminal study of the “bubble kids” in Texas, revealing the "educational triage" that high-stakes testing had given rise to; see her study here and her Washington Post oped summarizing the results.

There will undoubtedly be many more path-breaking studies to come – that is, if Bloomberg and Klein do not put out a hit against her.

Here’s hoping that this emboldens some of the other academics who in private, are extremely critical of this administration’s policies, to be courageous enough to speak out publicly themselves.

An open letter to Harvard's President about its support for large-scale experiments on urban public school students

See this Washington Post article about the large scale experiment that will pay 3,000 middle school students up to $100 per month for good attendance, behavior and grades; this experiment is being partially funded by Harvard Univ. and is directed by Prof. Roland Fryer, who is carrying out a similar experiment in the NYC public schools.

Cc: The National Science, Kaplan, Smith Richardson and Broad foundations.

Dear President Gilpin Faust:

I applaud your efforts to reduce class size, which according to the AP, led to Harvard regaining the top spot in the recent US News and World report. According to US News, 75% of Harvard’s undergraduate classes now have fewer than 20 students

At the same time, I want to protest Harvard’s participation, and that of the other foundations copied on this email, in financing the large-scale experiments in Washington DC, New York City and elsewhere that will pay cash rewards to high-needs public school students for high test scores. An article in yesterday’s Washington Post reported that approximately half the cost of a new $2.7 million experiment in DC schools is being covered by Harvard’s American Inequity Lab.

Roland Fryer, the Harvard professor and author of this experiment, as well as the experiment in NYC schools which gives up to $500 to middle school students who have high test scores and provides them with free minutes on their cellphones, claims that “Surveys of students and parents show support for the concept.”

To the contrary, our survey of over 1,000 NYC parents showed that over 70% strongly opposed paying students for good scores. Another survey done by EdWeek showed that an overwhelming majority (81%) of respondents were against schools offering cash rewards to students.

These views would matter less if the research indicated that such programs were likely to be successful. A similar NYC program that paid $2 million to reward students for high AP scores led to fewer students actually passing the exam. Numerous studies show that in the long run, cash rewards undermine the intrinsic satisfaction that otherwise results from positive behavior. This particular scheme is also likely to lead to increased economic disparities and resentment between those students who would do well in any case, and others who simply need more academic help and support.

Moreover, there are far more effective strategies to enhance student engagement and learning, particularly among low-achievers and in high-need schools. Many studies show that providing smaller classes narrows the achievement gap and creates more student engagement and focused learning in the middle and upper grades. See this recent study by Thomas Dee of Swarthmore and Martin West of Harvard, showing that smaller classes in 8^th grade are associated with significantly higher levels of student engagement and eventual earnings, with the expected benefit from reducing class size in urban schools nearly twice the estimated cost.

Prof. Peter Blatchford also recently released a detailed observational report, showing that when secondary students are place in smaller classes, much greater time is spent “on task” and focused on learning, with special benefits for low-achievers and twice as much negative behavior per student exhibited in large classes than in small.

Clearly, Harvard believes in the importance of smaller classes for its own students, having devoted considerable resources to reducing class size, and limiting the size of freshman seminars to 12 students or less.

Yet despite the abundant evidence, urban and minority students tend to be placed classes much larger than this. Indeed, more than 70% of middle school students in NYC are in classes of 26 students or more, and about 40% of eighth graders crammed into classes of thirty or more.

I urge Harvard, the National Science Foundation, and the other foundations that are supporting these large-scale experiments to instead shift their considerable resources towards research on the multiple benefits of smaller classes, and towards the effort to provide the same sort of individualized attention to public schools students that are currently enjoyed by students at our more elite private institutions.

I also hope that you make sure that the results of any experiments you help finance are fully evaluated by a completely independent investigator, not by the author of the experiment himself, and examine the long run as well as the short run effects.

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters

Please send your own letters to Harvard’s President and the other participating funders at the following addresses: president@harvard.edu; msantona@nsf.gov; info@kaplanedfoundation.org; jhollings@srf.org; dk@broadfoundation.org

Bloomberg on term limits

Check out Bloomberg yesterday at his City Hall press conference, signaling a change in his position on term limits, which previously he was vociferous in support:

"Term limits are term limits. I am in favor of them. What's an appropriate level? Whether it's one term, two terms, three terms? I think you can debate that."

Why not five or six? Especially if your name is Bloomberg and you’re one of the richest men in the world – clearly your earlier statements, public opinion and the law shouldn’t matter.

See Bloomberg Shifts on Term Limits (NY Sun); Bloomberg Supports Ending City Council Term Limits (NY1); and Bloomberg rethinks term limit law (Daily News)

Mayoral control as crony capitalism

See today's NY Sun about how the DOE has been shooting itself in the foot as regards the continuation of Mayoral control, by treating Legislators as badly as they treat everyone else and denying them input and information. Said Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer, a Queens Democrat:

"What kind of politics is he trying to take out of the schools?" she said. "Is it when maybe a politician calls and says, 'Gee, I'd love this kid in this class.' Is that what he's talking about? Or is it when I call and say, 'Gee, what are you doing with the extra billions of dollars that I gave you?'"

The only people outside of Tweed and the Mayor’s office who have any voice in this authoritarian system – the real stakeholders, as Gary Babad has written -- are the Gates and Broad foundations, private contractors, and the scions of billionaires who attend cocktail parties with Bloomberg and Klein, are encouraged to start charter schools and set them up in existing school buildings to save a few pennies, and as a result deprive other students of the opportunities given to their own .

In fact, the way Mayoral control has operated is unaccountable crony capitalism at its worst. Here's hoping it comes back to haunt them.

---

18 new charter schools: creating a separate and unequal school system

In today’s news, lots of feel-good spin from the Mayor about the eighteen new charter schools planned for this fall, and how they provide valuable “competition” that will drive improvement in other public schools. One out of every eight schools is now a charter school.

Yet for some reason, this announcement does not bring unalloyed joy to most public school parents. Why?

Each of these new charter schools will take resources and precious space from our regular public schools, taking away their opportunity to provide the same smaller classes that are the charter schools’ greatest attraction.

Indeed, every additional dollar spent on these new charter schools will come right off the top of the Contract for Excellence funds meant to improve conditions in our regular public schools, as a result of the CFE lawsuit. And every time the DOE puts a charter school in an existing building, this deprives students at the existing school of precious classroom space that could be used to reduce class size.

Only a few words of reservation in any of the articles:

In some places, parents have complained about the mayor’s policy of giving charter schools space in existing public school buildings and about the unfairness of their smaller class size, and have called them a diversion from his responsibility to fix the school system overall. (NY Times.)

See this strong statement from Randi Weingarten in the Daily News:

UFT President Randi Weingarten said that charters should operate in separate spaces or buildings than public schools to prevent overcrowding in the regular public schools. "They should have their own space and be as transparent and open as regular public schools in order to ensure a level playing field and avoid divisive situations where the needs of charter school students are pitted against those of other public school students," she said.

Watch the NY1 segment:

Some Bronx parents say that competition isn't the answer to the problems in their local school. One parent said Bloomberg needs to focus more on making sure that all schools have the resources they need to succeed, so there's no competition at all between neighborhood and charter schools.

Indeed, how can traditional public schools be expected to compete on a level playing field, when they are deprived of the ability to cap enrollment and class sizes at reasonable levels? How does this promote equity?

The only question is why the administration is so averse to allowing all our schools to reduce class size, even in the face of a state mandate to do so, while encouraging this very same practice in charter schools.

Do the Mayor and the Chancellor actually intend to create a separate and unequal school system?

See this letter to the State Commissioner from 30 Community Education Council members and other parent leaders, protesting their lack of input into the siting of charter schools, and the way in which the administration ignores the impact of these schools in further depriving students at existing schools of adequate learning conditions. The letter was mentioned in an earlier NY Sun article here.

Al and Joel at the Olympics

Crack reporter David Bellel has obtained exclusive video from the Olympics -- the Education Equality Project taking their act on the road:

Ex Bear Stearns Exec to Rescue DOE

August 11, 2008 (GBN News): According to a story on NY1, the position of Chief Financial Officer of the NY City Department of Education, vacant since 2006, is finally about to be filled. The post will be given to George Raab, who was most recently a managing director of the failed Wall Street giant Bear Stearns. NY1 reports that Mr. Raab is being hired “to help the Department of Education manage its money during these uncertain economic times.”

GBN News spoke to noted financial analyst J. Fredrick Muggs, Dean of the Manhattan University School of Business, who saw the move as a logical next step for the DOE. “The man’s already had experience on a sinking ship,” Dr. Muggs said. “What better choice could you have to go down with another one?”

Sources at the DOE told GBN News that immediately upon taking over the CFO position, Mr. Raab plans to sell the DOE to JP Morgan Chase for $19.95.

No-bid contracts at DOE have reached $342 million

NY Post reports today that the $12.5 million DOE no-bid contract to All Kinds of Minds, founded by Dr. Mel Levine, trained fewer than 1/5 of teachers promised; more recently Levine has been accused of child sexual abuse.

According to the Post, since 2004, DOE's spending on no-bid contracts amounts to $342 M. (click on summary to the right, courtesy of the NY Post.)

More recently, the number of official no-bid contracts has lessened somewhat, to “only” $12 million last year, but one wonders if this is in name only. There is little or no accounting or explanation of the 944 contracts that last year that cost the taxpayer $1.9 billion. During the budget hearings, City Council Speaker Quinn asked the DOE to cut back or limit these contracts, but they continue to soar upwards each year.

For example, see the recent DOE announcement that the NYC Leadership Academy “was selected from among multiple vendors through a competitive procurement process” to receive a five year contract. Yet how competitive this process is questionable, given the fact that the Leadership Academy was founded by the Chancellor, is run by his appointee, and he was chair of the board until just weeks before he granted it this $50 million, five year contract.

Questions Raised Over McCain Use of ARIS Computer

August 8, 2008 (GBN News): Those who claim that NY City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has been trying to influence the Presidential election found some potentially damaging new evidence today, when it was reported that presumptive Republican candidate John McCain has been receiving computer training on the Department of Education’s $80 million supercomputer, ARIS. ARIS, the acronym for Achievement Reporting and Information System, has been used by the DOE to track everything from students’ test scores to bathroom visits. The computer, procured through a no-bid contract between the DOE and IBM, is supposed to be used exclusively by the Education Department. However, Senator McCain, who recently had to admit that he is not particularly computer literate, seems to have been granted an exception.

Mr. Klein, through his Educational Equality Project, has already made statements which some have interpreted as favoring Senator McCain. But allowing the candidate the use of ARIS will certainly lead to new charges of preferential treatment, and of inappropriate use of city property for political purposes.

When reached for comment by GBN News, Chancellor Klein denied any impropriety. “Senator McCain is simply taking advantage of our fine adult education program, just like thousands of other older adults throughout the city,” said the Chancellor. However, a GBN News spot check of a number of adult ed classes run by the DOE turned up none that used a computer anywhere near the capabilities, let alone the cost, of ARIS.

In a related story, reporters covering the McCain campaign have expressed concern over the Senator’s frequent references to their old high school test scores. While nobody has been able to offer any real evidence to date, some members of the press apparently fear that the candidate’s knowledge of such potentially embarrassing facts about them could have a chilling effect on their ability to report objectively on the campaign.

Fewer crimes at Impact schools? The real reason they don't want you to know....

See this NY Times piece, on the Mayor’s press conference where Bloomberg reported a sharp drop in crime in schools citywide and especially at the “Impact schools.” These are schools that have been flooded with police and scanners. Excerpt:

Last fall, City Comptroller William C. Thompson, a likely mayoral candidate, issued an audit showing that in a sampling of schools, several crimes that were recorded in school records were never reported to the state or the police.

Several crimes?

Actually, the audit from the Comptroller's office found that out of the ten sampled schools, 414 – or 21 percent– of 1,996 incidents went unreported – including a rape.

The Mayor’s press conference was held at the HS of Graphic Communication Arts, where the sharpest drop in reported crime this year occurred.

The Daily News had a far more skeptical account:

Last year, Controller William Thompson released an audit of 10 schools that found 21% of serious incidents weren't reported to the Education Department. The school where Tuesday's press conference was held - High School of Graphic Communication Arts - failed to report 13 out of 171 incidents in the 2004 to 2005 school year.

Several teachers Tuesday said administrators discouraged reporting incidents that might cause penalties for their school. "Everyone figured out that they only want good news," said a teacher at one impact school. "The principals are afraid for their heads."

This is Campbell’s law at work. No principal or teacher will report a crime knowing that this may land the school on the list, because most Impact schools start to lose students fast. And once a school loses students, it tends to be phased out or phased down, and people lose their jobs.

Once on the list, studies show, student attendance falls and most likely, achievement and grad rates as well.

Accordingly, of the 19 high schools on the Impact list in 2005, 15 of them have now been closed or are being phased out or "phased down" -- that is, with vastly smaller enrollments. This is as good way as any to guarantee that these schools will have fewer reported crimes -- especially if they no longer exist.

For more on the chronic underreporting of school crime, see this report from the Public Advocate’s office. And here is a story from NY1, detailing last fall’s audit and the fact that the HS of Graphic Communication Arts was cited as a chronic offender.

More statistical malpractice from Tweed: Joel Klein and his claims do not measure up

Check out Elizabeth Green’s article today in the NY Sun, in which she asked three academics to scrutinize the validity of the administration’s claim of narrowing the achievement gap between ethnic and racial groups.

See, for example, Bloomberg’s recent testimony before Congress, in which he said that “over the past six years, we’ve done everything possible to narrow the achievement gap – and we have. In some cases, we’ve reduced it by half.”

Yet the evidence for this is weak to non-existent. On the national tests called the NAEPs, there has been no narrowing of the achievement gap in any area since the Bloomberg/Klein reforms were instituted:

An analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics, the research arm of the federal Education Department, concludes that no achievement gaps have narrowed at all in New York City between 2003 and 2007. The only gap that moved in any significant direction is the one between poor students and the rest of the population, which widened slightly, that analysis said. The National Center for Education Statistics also concludes that upward trends in the reading scores of black and Hispanic fourth-graders lauded by Mr. Klein are not statistically significant.

In the article, Joel Klein reveals his statistical illiteracy:

“Those are just confidence levels. Nobody is saying this is a science," Mr. Klein said. He added: "If three points is flat, and four points is statistically significant, then what you're doing is, you're playing something of a game."

Chief press officer David Cantor called the memo from NCES "a politicized gloss.”

Instead, it is the DOE who insists on playing games – and politicizing the issue, by continuing to slander experts as somehow biased when they provide objective evidence that the non-stop PR spin issuing from Tweed has no basis in reality.

This is hardly the first time the DOE has revealed such statistical malpractice. Jim Liebman, law professor and head of the DOE accountability office, is a repeat offender. I recall one episode in particular when Liebman, testifying before the City Council, insisted that he wasn't basing school grades primarily on the results of a few tests, since each test was really "multiple assessments" given out over "multiple days," resulting in "multiple measures" of proficiency.

Another instance of this was the presentation of Jennifer Bell-Elwanger, head of testing for DOE, who was giving a power point presentation to the Panel for Educational Policy in late November, following the release of the NAEP results. She continually pointed out gains that, according to the NCES, were not statistically significant. Patrick Sullivan, Manhattan rep to the PEP and fellow blogger here, who seems to understand data better than anyone currently employed by the DOE, questioned her closely, saying, "But by definition these are insignificant gains, no?" Which she, of course, fervently denied.

Indeed, the memo from the NCES was prepared in response to a highly misleading email that Klein sent to nearly every NYC resident after NAEP results were first reported. In his email, he falsely claimed that the results showed “good progress that is consistent with the overall picture” and said that the NAEP showed a narrowing of the gap in nearly all areas, when the data itself revealed quite the opposite.

According to NYC’s results on the state exams, the situation is more complicated. The achievement gap is narrowing in some areas when one looks at “proficiency” levels, that is whether a student is at a level 1, 2, 3, etc., but not in terms of the actual scale scores.

Some testing experts consider proficiency levels less meaningful than scale scores, as they can be arbitrary, subjective and easy to manipulate. Daniel Koretz, a professor at Harvard and a national expert on testing, has just published the must-read book of the summer, Measuring Up: What Educational Testing Really Tells Us. Here is what Koretz has to say about proficiency levels:

….the percents deemed proficient [on state tests] are largely unrelated to states’ actual levels of student achievement…are also often inconsistent across grades or among subjects in a grade....[This system] obscures a great deal of information [because] of the coarseness of the resulting scale.

Even more importantly, why should we trust the state scores at all, when we know that the gains that they purport to show are not reflected in more trustworthy measures like the NAEPs?

The best thing about the Koretz’ book is his lucid explanation of why “test score inflation” inevitably occurs when you attach high-stakes to exams, and how this undermines the integrity and validity of the results; this has increasingly been the case throughout the nation as a result of NCLB, but even more here in NYC, as a result of the increasingly high-stakes policies of the Bloomberg/Klein administration.

Steve Koss has written about this eloquently on our blog, in relation to Campbell’s Law: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.”

I have tried to explain this phenomenon to many elected officials, staff, and reporters over the years, apparently with little success. I certainly don’t know a single NYC media outlet that has ever mentioned it, though Campbell’s Law was cited in some recent letters to the NY Times in response to the administration’s experiment to pay students for high scores.

I recall a lengthy discussion of this issue several years back with NY Times reporter David Herszenhorn while he was still on the education beat, to explain my opposition to the Mayor’s newly-proposed 3rd grade retention policy. One of the reasons I so vociferously opposed this policy, and still do, was not just that it was unfair to the student to base such a life-altering decision on the basis of one single, fallible test score, with such large margins of error; and not just that retention has been shown to have a racially-disparate impact and hurt rather than help most low-performing students.

My opposition was also due to the fact that the more significant consequences are attached to any test, the less its results can be trusted as a reliable gauge of real learning.

Since then, of course, the administration has piled on more and more high-stakes consequences -- for students, teachers, and schools – by adding fifth and seventh grade retention, awarding principals, teachers and students monetary rewards for high scores, and threatening to close down schools if scores don’t improve fast enough. The scores themselves have been rendered entirely meaningless as a result, as excessive test prep, teaching to the test, cheating, and other strategies to “game” the system has totally overtaken our schools.

Here is what Koretz has to say about this:

"One might expect that with the huge increase in the amount of testing in recent years, we would know more…Ironically, the reverse is true. While we have far more data now than we did twenty of thirty years ago, we have fewer sources of data that we can trust. The reason is simple: the increasing in testing has been accompanied by a dramatic upsurge in the consequences attached to scores. This is turn has created incentives to take shortcuts --- various forms of inappropriate test preparation, including outright cheating – that can substantially inflate test scores, rending trends seriously misleading or even meaningless.”

To the administration, all this appears acceptable, because as long as test scores go up, this justifies their policies; in truth, they don’t seem to care if the increases are meaningful or not.

Their laissez-faire attitude is revealed by the total lack of interest evinced in following-up on even well-documented cases of cheating. (See for example this story in the NY Sun, which though it says the DOE is “investigating” this will likely lead nowhere, as such stories have in the past.)

This “anything goes” attitude is also reflected in Klein’s remarks in a recent interview in the NY Post:

Q: What about complaints about the report-card grades for schools?

A: The report cards were probably one of the noisy periods. But . . . I can't tell you how many principals said to me, 'You know, chancellor, I didn't get the right grade but I promise you I won't get the same one next year,' so I think that had a big impact.

Here, Klein implicitly acknowledged that even while principals do not accept the fairness of these grades, based primarily on one-year gains in scores, he is content as long as they guarantee that they will get these scores to rise in the future, by any means possible.

GBN News Editorial – The Odd Couple

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein has adeptly managed to parlay the NY City schools’ lack of test score progress over the past few years, along with a widening achievement gap, into a growing national reputation as a school reformer. Recently, he has become part of a modern day “Odd Couple” with the Rev. Al Sharpton in jointly forming the Education Equality Project.

Perhaps by associating with Rev. Sharpton, a proven publicity draw, Mr. Klein feels he stands a greater chance of fulfilling his mother’s expressed desire to see more of her son’s name in the paper. However, this association raises some serious issues, and GBN News is concerned about the potential consequences of a partnership with someone:

Whose organization’s accounting methods and handling of funds have been questioned by authorities;

whose questionable charges of malfeasance have caused people to spend years trying to clear their names;

who has failed to pay out monies mandated by court decisions;

and who travels around the country promoting himself and inflating his own dubious accomplishments.

Due to the above concerns, it is the opinion of GBN News that, so as not to tarnish his own image, it is in Rev. Sharpton’s best interests to reconsider his involvement with Mr. Klein in the Education Equality Project, and to find someone more reputable as a partner.


Graphics by DB

Three amigos: deconstructing the Klein/Sharpton/McCain Alliance

Joel Klein and Al Sharpton have been traveling the country, wooing editorial boards and other assorted opinion makers with the message of their Education Equality Project, which isn’t really about equality at all, but about promoting a particular conservative agenda: the panacea of competition and charter schools, scapegoating teachers, and overemphasizing high-stakes testing in the form of merit pay.

John McCain recently signed onto these principles, which was easy enough for him to do as they are basically the same as the education agenda of the GOP. In McCain’s speech to the Urban League, posted here, he attacked Obama for not doing the same:

“… My opponent talks a great deal about hope and change, and education is as good a test as any of his seriousness. The Education Equality Project is a practical plan for delivering change and restoring hope for children and parents who need a lot of both. And if Senator Obama continues to defer to the teachers unions, instead of committing to real reform, then he should start looking for new slogans.”

After the speech, Klein and Sharpton circulated a joint statement, praising McCain for his enlightened support, and by implication, pressuring Obama to follow suit:

"We are gratified that Sen. McCain has endorsed the principles of the Education Equality Project, joining education, civil rights, and elected officials across America who are working together to bring meaningful reform to our nation's public schools. Education reform, like civil rights, is above partisan politics and must be embraced by all."

McCain then further circulated the Klein/Sharpton statement, while his campaign aides lit into Obama for supposedly playing the “race card.”

All this put Sharpton in a rather sticky position. One would imagine that it is somewhat dangerous for him to be seen as complicitous with the conservative opponent of the first African-American nominee for President. As Sharpton himself is well aware, polls show that among African Americans, Obama far outstrips him in popularity.

Perhaps recognizing his vulnerability, Sharpton quickly backtracked, issuing a second statement, in which he tried to distance himself from McCain. This one, unlike the earlier one, was not posted on the Education Equity website:

While I am gratified that Sen. McCain has joined us in endorsing the principles of the Education Equality Project, I do not want to see this endorsement used as a political weapon nor as an opportunity for Sen. McCain to use this as an attack on Sen. Obama…I disagree with Sen. McCain using the fight for education equality in a political way and I disagree with Sen. McCain's statement that Sen. Obama used the race card.

So what platform is the Klein/Sharpton (and now McCain) alliance pushing? Let’s deconstruct it a little. See this from the EEP website:

“The project will take on conventional wisdom and the entrenched impediments to real reform, focusing on teacher quality and pay; accountability for results; and maximizing parents' options..” [Read: let’s bash the teacher unions, and promote even more testing and charter schools.]

“It will also challenge politicians, public officials, educators, union leaders, and anybody else who stands in the way of necessary change.” [Read: Let’s ignore the experts who point out the negative effects of high-stakes testing, including the way in which it makes test scores unreliable; and let's deny the legitimate priorities of public school parents and other stakeholders, who recognize the need for improving classroom conditions. Instead, let’s slander them and anyone else who dares to oppose us as defenders of the status quo.]

“This means challenging laws and contracts that preserve a system that fails students.” [More union bashing]

The one measure of every policy, regardless of the depths of its historic roots or the power of its adherents, must be whether it advances student learning. [Right. So why does Klein himself continue to refuse to provide urban, high needs students with the uncrowded conditions and smaller classes that he ensured that his own child would receive?]

It’s not a big mystery why Klein should be pushing himself into the national stage; clearly the man has a huge ego and probably aspires to being the next US Secretary of Education. (It was reported today that his mom called the Palm Beach Post to complain that her son’s name had been edited out of a syndicated column by David Brooks; perhaps what he really wants to do is to please his own mom.)

A larger question is why Sharpton would put his own status and legitimacy on the line, by allying himself with such a controversial figure as Klein, who commands far less trust and respect in the minority community, especially in NYC. (Indeed, Klein continues to have high disapproval ratings among black New Yorkers – at 39%)

Until recently, Sharpton was under the cloud of numerous investigations. Most prominently, federal officials accused him of owing nearly $10 million in payroll taxes, and threatened him with criminal prosecution. According to news reports, “Sharpton’s civil rights group had failed for several years in a row to file income tax returns, obtain workers compensation insurance, or disclose how much it was collecting in donations or paying its top employees, as required by law.”

Just ten days after launching the Education Equality Project, Sharpton came up with $1 million, which he promptly handed over to the IRS as a downpayment; in turn, the feds agreed to drop criminal charges if he paid back what he owed the government over the next few years.

Still, according to the NY Post, the NY Attorney General is investigating Sharpton’s finances, his group, the National Action Network, and his other business ventures.

So where did he get the $1 million? As Sharpton explained to the Daily News, “"I make money, so I can pay."

Another mystery is who is funding the Education Equality Project. Until recently, David Cantor, the chief communications officer of the DOE, was listed as the main press contact on all its press releases; now they are being sent out without any names attached.

Is this effort being subsidized by tax dollars that should be going towards improving our schools? Or as Cantor recently announced to our list serv, is the source of funding an “anonymous” donor, but someone other than Bloomberg? If so, who might that be?

UPDATE: see this John McCain oped in the Daily News -- in which he argues for vouchers -- and criticizes Obama for not supporting them. Will Klein/Sharpton endorse that controversial position as well?

New report on special education and D75 schools

See this new report, "Improving Special Education in NYC's District 75," about the multiple problems with the separate special education district known as D75, which also reveals how dysfunctional the entire system of special education is in NYC public schools. The study was carried out by specialists and administrators from other large school districts, under the aegis of the Council of the Great City Schools, and recommends keeping the special nature and services of D75 intact, but integrating them into the rest of the school system more effectively and efficiently.

The report reveals a far higher proportion of NYC special education students in separate, segregated settings than other districts throughout the state; pervasive conflicts between the principals of D75 schools that are located within regular schools over the way in which their students are deprived of access to essential facilities; how low-achieving students are referred to D75 placements as the time nears for state assessments grows near, so their school of origin won't be saddled with their test scores; how D75 students have few opportunities to be incorporated in the regular school’s classes or to interact with the rest of the student population, even when located in the same building; the way in which the new schools started by DOE commonly exclude and discriminate against D75 students; the manner in which Leadership Academy graduates principals with no apparent interest or training in improving outcomes for these students; the inappropriate practice of referring eighth grade students to D75 schools who have been retained multiple times, as well as high school students with few course credits, and students with “challenging behavior,” and the failure of DOE to include “anything in the accountability system pertaining to incentives or sanctions for the achievement of students with disabilities.”

Here's just one meaty excerpt, detailing yet another inadequate aspect of the school progress reports, as designed by Columbia Law Professor James Liebman, head of DOE's Accountability office:

Community schools can be recognized for the exemplary performance of students with disabilities (as well as other high-need students), but the process does not recognize the differences among students with disabilities ranging from relatively small-impact speech-language impairment to challenging sensory, emotional, or cognitive impairments.

A school can gain only three extra credit points on its overall score for exemplary gains among high-need students, such as those with disabilities.

• The Progress Report does not appear to take into consideration the extent to which students—

Are referred to other schools just prior to state assessments

Are enrolled by community schools following a District 75 placement

Are included and supported in the general education program

Are given access to general education programs and activities, if they are in District 75.

But check out the whole report; it is an excellent if rather depressing read.

Response to Mike Petrilli on technology and class size

Mike Petrilli, via Diane Ravitch, responded to my earlier comments on his post on moving beyond the debate on "teacher quality" this way:

I appreciate the feedback on my article, and am glad it resonates with many of you in NYC. As promised at the end of my piece, I'll flesh out my ideas for making average teachers into effective teachers in a future column. But yes, I think that technology-someday at least-will have the potential to help do exactly that. (Programs like K12.com- where I used to work- are already making average Moms and Dads into effective teachers.) So will a strong core curriculum. But I'm very skeptical about reducing class size as a viable solution. Of course it's popular with teachers (which is all the Public Agenda data can show), but the most rigorous studies demonstrate that class size has to be reduced dramatically in order to make a difference, and even then there's only strong evidence that it matters in the early elementary grades. Meanwhile, the U.S. has been reducing class size across the board for decades, which only makes the teacher quality challenge greater.

My boss, Checker Finn, once estimated that if the teacher ranks had grown proportionately with the student population since the 1950s, rather than at three times the rate, we could afford to pay the average teacher $100,000. Instead we've opted, as a country, to hire lots more teachers at lower salaries. Maybe that wasn't the best choice.

My response is as follows:

Michael: Urban high-needs school districts with large numbers of minority students still have far larger class sizes on average than the average middle-class or wealthy suburban school district, and of course any of the elite private schools. See the belwo chart from ETS, for example, in a report called "Parsing the Achievement Gap."

And while there has been a big change in the teacher/student ratio, much of that has gone to intervention specialists, pull out teachers, push-in teachers, etc. but not nearly enough to lower class size.

If we're serious about improving achievement and narrowing the achievement gap we need to prove it by creating the same opportunities that people with means demand for their own kids -- especially as the research shows that it is poor minority kids who benefit from smaller classes the most. Otherwise, there is a strong whiff of hypocrisy about the whole debate.

The Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the US Dept. of Education, concluded that class size reduction as one of only four, evidence-based educational reforms that have been proven to increase student achievement through rigorous, randomized experiments -- the "gold standard" of research. More technology is not included among them.

This combined with the fact that actual practitioners in the field, including teachers and principals, overwhelming respond that class size reduction would be the most effective way to improve the quality of teaching, makes it hard to understand why there continues to be so much intellectual effort expended in combating any attempts to achieve this.

I liked what you started to move towards in your comments on teacher quality -- and I loved your recent column on the importance of extra-curricular activities in educating students and expanding their leadership skills. (For more data to back up your argument there, see two Mathematica reports, "Expanding Beyond Academics: Who Benefits and How?" and "Valuing Student Competencies: Which Ones Predict Postsecondary Educational Attainment and Earnings, and for Whom?" both coincidentally co-authored by my brother.)

But if we really want to make teachers more effective, we should start listening to what they say will work best, rather than imagining that somehow we know better.

Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters

What do educators themselves say about the best way to improve teacher effectiveness?

See Mike Petrilli's post on the Fordham "Gadfly" about how we should focus more on making the teachers we have more effective, rather than continuing to search for the elusive "higher quality" teacher through strategies like eliminating tenure, pay for performance, or alternative certification.

While I agree with the thrust of his argument, his suggestion that one way of doing this through "augmenting technology" is bogus. No study has shown that technology improves teacher effectiveness or raises student achievement.

Instead, teachers themselves say that the best way to improve their effectiveness by far is to reduce class size. See the recent national survey of first year teachers from Public Agenda, called "Lessons Learned" .

76% of teachers overall said that reducing class size would be "a very effective" way of improving teacher quality, and 78% of teachers who work in high needs schools. 21% of teachers said reducing class size would be "effective", for a total of 97% -- far outstripping every other strategy mentioned, including :

Increasing teacher salaries (57%), increasing professional development opportunities (54%), making it easier to terminate unmotivated or incompetent teachers (41%), requiring new teachers to spend time under the supervision of experienced teachers (35%) requiring graduate degrees in education (21%), requiring teachers to pass tough tests of their knowledge ot their subject (21%), tying salaries to principal or colleagues assessment (15%) tying rewards and sanctions to student performance (13%), eliminating tenure (12%), reducing regulations for teacher certification (8%), and relying more on alternative certificaiton (6%)..

(In each of the categories I have put in parentheses the percent who said this would be a "very effective" way to to improve teacher quality.)

By the way, these views about the effectiveness of reducing class size to improve teacher effectiveness are shared by more experienced teachers and most principals as well.

See this 2006 public agenda survey of teachers and school administrators, "Is Support for Standards and Testing Fading."

"If the public schools finally got more money and smaller classes, they could do a better job." 88% of teachers agreed with this statement, and 85% of superintendents and principals, far outstripping any response.

Compare how many teachers, superintendents and principals agreed with this statement: "More testing and higher standards will ensure kids will master the skills they need": 1% (teachers), 7% (supers); 10% (principals).

If we really respected the opinions and views of the professionals who work in our schools, we would do everything in our power to reduce class size.

NY City to Sell off School Buildings in Budget Crunch

August 1, 2008 (GBN News): While Governor David Patterson is deciding whether to sell off State facilities to raise cash in response to the current budget crisis, Mayor Bloomberg is not waiting to make up his mind about selling NY City properties. At a City Hall press conference, he and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced that a deal has been made with Bill Gates and Eli Broad to sell all New York City school buildings to the two billionaires’ respective foundations. The deal will be worth in the neighborhood of $2 billion, and, according to the Mayor, “will go a long way towards insuring a manageable Department of Education budget for years to come.”

The deal reportedly calls for the Gates and Broad foundations to replace every one of the hundreds of City schools with a small charter school in each. Chancellor Klein stated that, “Parents should be thrilled with the new arrangement. The schools will each have far fewer children than before, upgraded facilities, and smaller classes.”

Critics immediately pounced on the plan, contending that with the limited number of children that can be accommodated in the smaller charter schools, the rest of the students will be squeezed into smaller space with larger classes. But the Schools Chancellor was ready with a response. “What smaller space?” he asked. “The charters are taking over the whole buildings. There is no more space. But the beauty of this is, the rest of the kids can be home schooled. And you don’t get any smaller class size than that.”

C4E Redux: Manhattan

The present observer had thought that long exposure to NYC C4E hearings had dulled her to lofty sentiments arising therefrom, but last night’s hearings in Manhattan were unusually substantive and sometimes downright inspiring. Parents, teachers, and other citizens from across the borough seemed somehow to have managed to study the dense and extensive documents in the few allotted days and come forward with an unusually cogent and consistent critique, ringing various compelling changes on a few central themes. Debra Freeman, Irene Kaufman, and I read testimony on behalf of Class Size Matters, and submitted a list of forty reasons why the state should reject the city's Contract for Excellence proposal.

- There was a resounding endorsement of the idea that smaller class size is essential to improving educational outcomes in NYC; and that smaller classes cannot be achieved without more capital investment; and that the NYC C4E does not take the necessary steps to make smaller class size a reality;

- There was rejection, on several grounds, that CTT programs, though desirable and welcome in many respects, constitute a class size reduction regime; indeed, DOE’s approach to CTTs seems to be having the effect of increasing class size for many students;

- There was an argument that ELL students were not receiving their share of the funds that they were drawing in from the state;

- There was a call for greater transparency and more comprehensive reporting, and a claim that a failure specifically to account for the dispersal of C4E funds had led to supplantation of tax levy spending;

- The Leadership Academy and the Teacher Performance Pay initiative were challenged as neither new nor expanded programs qualifying for C4E funds;

- There was a call for more funds directed at special education programs.

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, City Council Education Chair Robert Jackson, Campaign for Fiscal Equity Executive Director Geri Palast, City Councilmembers Rosie Mendez and Gale Brewer, Douglas Israel, director of Research and Policy for the Center for Arts Education, UFT Vice President for Special Education Carmen Alvarez, CB 7 Chair Helen Rosenthal, and many really well informed and well spoken parents and teachers gave terrific testimony, some of which we will make available to you below.

There is still, until August 27, time to submit testimony to DOE directly, by emailing ContractsForExcellence@schools.nyc.gov. Tell them how much class size means to you, and whether you think DOE is using vital C4E funds as they were meant to be used.

See this report on the Manhattan hearings, and articles on the hearings in Queens and Staten Island.

Here is testimony from Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, Council Member Robert Jackson, Council Member Rosie Mendez, Luis O. Reyes, Josh Karan of CEC 6, Jennifer Freeman of CEC 3, Doug Israel of the Center for Arts Education, and John Elfrank-Dana, teacher at Murry Bergtraum HS.