Independent Panel Members Call for Moratorium on School Closures

On Monday, March 11th, the Panel for Educational Policy will vote on Chancellor Dennis Walcott's extensive set of proposals to close public schools or cede space in public school buildings for privately-managed charter schools.   The mayoral bloc of eight appointees to the Panel is expected to rubber stamp the proposals.   These members are appointed to the Panel with the understanding they will support the Mayor's agenda or be terminated.   Four independent members of the Panel, representing the boroughs of Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn have jointly drafted the following proposal for a moratorium on these actions.   The meeting will be held at Brooklyn Tech HS.  Agenda and details can be found here.

Panel for Educational Policy (PEP) Resolution calling on the Department of Education to implement a moratorium on school closure, phase-out and school co-location proposals 

WHEREAS, the Panel for Educational Policy in accordance with its statutory obligation to advise the Chancellor on matters of educational policy and student welfare; 

WHEREAS, NYC DOE has issued Proposals for Significant Changes in School Utilization and Educational Impact Statements (EIS) for our schools that will, upon PEP approval on March 11, 2013 and March 20, 2013 dissolve schools, some with a proud history of achievements and neighborhood connections; 

WHEREAS, while the closing of a school may be necessary as a last resort, school closure has increasingly and improperly become the first and only policy employed by the DOE to address schools with large numbers of students with significant educational needs; 

WHEREAS, in hearings and meetings held subsequently, it has become clear that the Mayor's school improvement strategy may de-stabilize thousands of students in primarily large, comprehensive high schools, and — the replacement of teachers and principals according to rigid and fundamentally arbitrary criteria without offering ample professional development opportunities — penalize the very people who have made significant improvements in several schools; 

WHEREAS, the policy of school closures affects disproportionately students of color and communities affected by these policies in NYC have filed a Federal Title VI Civil Rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, citing the closing of schools and the criteria and methods for administering those actions as discriminatory toward low- income, minority communities ; 

WHEREAS, charter schools were originally intended as pedagogical laboratories for innovation in teaching to better meet the needs of all our students, but particularly those at-risk, and to improve public schools by collaborating with public schools and sharing best practices with public schools; 

WHEREAS, many charter schools in the City today are not pedagogical laboratories for educational innovation, do not serve students at-risk, and neither collaborates nor share best practices with public schools; 

WHEREAS, some charter schools have discharged struggling students to improve school-wide test scores; and 

WHEREAS, some charter schools have impaired parent participation by blocking the formation of parent-teacher or parent associations; 

WHEREAS, resources available to students in NYC public schools should be used to address the educational needs of public school students, rather than supplement the budgets of the large charter management chains which have accumulated substantial assets through both public funds and their unrestricted ability to accept private funding; 

WHEREAS, public school communities seeking to expand successful schools are routinely denied that opportunity by the DOE due to a purported lack of space for such expansion; 

WHEREAS, opposition to charter school co-locations is increasingly widespread amongst parents, teachers, elected officials, community leaders and members of the clergy as evidenced by demonstrations, petitions, public comment at hearings and litigation to block co-locations. 

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Panel for Educational Policy supports a moratorium on all school closures, phase-outs and charter school co-locations and calls upon Chancellor Walcott to:

1. 1)  Withdraw all current proposals up for Panel vote in March 2013 for Significant Changes in School Utilization.
   
2. 2)  Impose a moratorium on all school proposals until public presentations are made in every borough reflecting on how this method will raise student achievement in lieu of existing models.
   
3. 3)  Conduct school-by-school transparent reviews of our current school improvement strategies to assess which measures and programs have been effective or are showing promise in raising student achievement, while improving the school environment; these transparent reviews should include all stakeholders.
   
4. 4)  Examine school intervention plans that maybe in place, bearing in mind those improvement strategies contemplate multiyear plans and that none of the schools may have exceeded the time allowed under the federal guidelines.
   
5. 5)  Ensure that all struggling schools, whether or not they are undergoing federally specified reform plans, are given adequate support so that the students will not only graduate but receive the quality of education that will make them college- or career- ready.
   
6. 6)  Provide a full accounting as well facilitate independent research of the educational outcomes of students remaining in previously phased out schools.
   
7. 7)  Fully cooperate with any investigation of Title VI civil rights complaints as filed with US DOE Office of Civil Rights.
   

NYC parents sue DOE for failure to comply with public feedback required aw

The Campaign for Fiscal Equity and the Education Law Center have filed a lawsuit on behalf of New York City parents against the NYC Department of Education for failing to hold the Contracts for Excellence borough hearings required by law, and for scheduling the Community Education Council presentations late in the year after much of the C4E funding has been spent. Here’s an article in the Daily News about the lawsuit; the legal papers are posted at the Albany Times Union website. 

The CEC meetings that the DOE claims as substitutes (though both borough hearings and CEC meetings are required by law) are often scheduled at the last minute, are scantily attended, and feature sketchy presentations by District and network staff who are unable to answer questions.   This year many of the CEC meetings are being held after the deadline for public comment is past, which is March 18.

While the Governor and the State Education Commissioner have been insistent that their arbitrary deadlines must be met for a new teacher evaluation system, or they will punish our kids with budget cuts, they have ignored the fact that the DOE has missed deadlines for years in implementing a real public process and coming up with a real plan to reduce class size.   Meanwhile, Judge Manuel Mendez also blocked the Mayor’s attempt to cut the budget of schools mid-year based on the Governor’s threatened cuts.  Our press release is below.

Several New York City public school parents have filed suit against Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott and the NYC Department of Education (DOE) for ongoing and persistent violations of New York’s Contract for Excellence Law (C4E). The Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE), a project of Education Law Center, is representing the parents.

The goal of the C4E law is to promote public transparency and accountability by requiring districts receiving additional funding under the State Foundation formula to spend the money on programs to improve student learning, such as small class size, full-day kindergarten and pre-kindergarten.

A key component of the law is the mandate that districts develop an annual C4E spending plan through a public process. The law requires districts to publish their proposed plans for comment and hold public hearings. In New York City, those hearings must take place in each borough.

Parents have long charged the DOE with engaging in a pattern of flagrant violation of the C4E law, most notably the failure to hold public hearings for years.

“The State intended meaningful public engagement as part of its Contracts for Excellence. The DOE evades both the spirit and the letter of the law – by failing to hold borough hearings, by scheduling hearings long after budgets are allocated and spent so that public comment has no impact whatsoever on the allocation of resources, by failing to respond to or answer points raised in the hearing process, by omitting the detail level specified in the law and showing the public only generic power points. The audience at the hearing for my local school district was even told that no questions could be posed – only comments were permitted. This is simply wrong,” said NYC Council Member Robert Jackson, Chair of the Council Education Committee.

“Clearly, the DOE does not want a true dialogue to improve a student’s education,” Councilman Jackson added. “I’m grateful that the Campaign for Fiscal Equity is taking legal action that would hold DOE accountable in getting meaningful public input. Enough is enough!”

The lawsuit filed by CFE charges that the DOE, in the current 2012-13 school year, posted its C4E plan five months late, in mid-February, well after much of the C4E money was spent. The lawsuit also claims that DOE has still not scheduled any borough-wide hearings, even though it has set a March 18 deadline for public comment.

“The DOE’s failure to hold borough hearings for their C4E proposal is an example of their fundamental disregard for the views of parents and the law,” said Leonie Haimson, Executive Director of Class Size Matters. “The mandated borough hearings have not occurred since 2008, despite the fact that the C4E law requires this as part of a rigorous process of public feedback.”

“The fact that the DOE hasn’t held any of the required C4E hearings since 2008 is an example of how they continue to dismiss parent input when formulating their policies and violate their commitments to our children,” said public school parent Karen Sprowal, who is a petitioner in the lawsuit.

CFE is asking the court to compel the DOE to schedule borough-wide hearings and extend the deadline for public comment to give parents a genuine opportunity to participate in the C4E process.

“The DOE’s actions with regard to the Contract for Excellence make a mockery of the public process provision of this important law,” said Wendy Lecker, CFE senior attorney. “Parents and community members have no opportunity to provide meaningful input on how these vital education dollars are being spent and no ability to track where the money is going.”

Opt out letter for parents who do NOT want their children's confidential info shared with private corporations, and our follow-up questions to NY State

1.      There is an article in today’s Reuters about the Gates-funded database called inBloomInc. that is collecting all the most private, sensitive, and confidential student data from New York and 8 other states, and plans to place it on a vulnerable “data cloud” and make it available to commercial vendors:

“In operation just three months, the database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school - even homework completion.

As the article makes clear, this company plans to share this information “with private companies selling educational products and services.  Entrepreneurs can't wait.”  All this is happening without parental notification or consent. The chief product officer of inBloom Inc., a woman called Sharren Bates, worked for Gates and before that, headed up the ARIS project for DOE, the $100 million boondoggle that made the same sort of ridiculous promises to revolutionize instruction in our schools and was a complete bust.

But this project is a million times more dangerous.   Here is a factsheet and a sample opt-out letter you can send to Commissioner King; please follow up with phone calls to his office if he doesn’t respond within five business days.

Below are  my follow-up questions to the NY State Education Department.  Through an intermediary in the Governor's office, NYSED officials originally agreed to meet with us and respond to our questions, as long as we didn't bring our attorney, Norman Siegel. We agreed to that condition, but then they changed their minds, and said they would respond to written questions within five days.  Then after we sent them the questions, more than a week ago, they reneged again on their promise and said it would take them longer but have not specified when they will respond.

Since most of these questions are purely factual, one would think it would not be so difficult...but  transparency has never been a hallmark of the State Education Department, that is, unless transparency means their intention to share our children's most  confidential information with vendors without our consent.

Questions for SED about sharing of confidential student data

1.  Was NYC student data transmitted to the Gates’ SLC and/or inBloom Inc. already?  

2.  If not, when do you plan to transmit it?

3.  If so, was it transmitted by SED or the NYC DOE?

4. What exact data was already shared with the SLC? 

5. If the data has already been transmitted, what exact information did this include?  

6. Is this the extent of the data to be transmitted or do you intend to share more in the future?

7.  Has any of this data yet been shared with third parities outside of the SLC or inBloom Inc. already?

8. Have you put any limitations on the type of data that you will include in the future? 

9. Was the data of charter school students transmitted, or will it be in the future?  If not, why not?

10. Are you aware that, according to the Gates Foundation, inBloom Inc. will be financially independent by 2016 of philanthropic support, meaning that states, districts or vendors will have to pay for its maintenance and upkeep?  If so, do you intend for this to come out of state taxpayer funds?

11. Are you concerned that this highly sensitive data will be put on a cloud, and that 86% of IT experts say they do not trust clouds to hold their organization’s sensitive data?

12.   Are you aware that inBloom Inc.’s privacy policy says it will use only “reasonable” safeguards rather than state of the art security protections against data breaches, and that they “cannot guarantee the security of the information stored in inBloom or that the information will not be intercepted when it is being transmitted.”? What specifically is your understanding of what "reasonable safeguards" consist of?

13.   Are you concerned that NYS or NYC may be the subject of multi-million dollar class action suits if and when the data leaks out, especially as you have not given parents the right to consent before sharing their children’s confidential info?

14.  What specific section of FERPA do you rely on in your claim that parental consent is not required?  Please quote and cite the exact section of the law.

15.  Do you consider that NYC or other districts will have to give parental consent before allowing their student data to be shared with third parties outside the SLC/inBloom Inc.?

 16. Are you considering sharing the student and teacher data of other NYS school districts other than NYC, and if not, why not?  [UPDATE: the Reuters article says that NY student data from the entire state is being shared with inBloom Inc.]

The mayor's ignorant remarks today on class size

The mayor was at it again today, in his ill-considered and ignorant attack on class size.  On his radio show, he apparently said:

"I got in trouble every time I say this. But I would do anything to have better quality teachers, even if it meant bigger class size, even if it meant them standing rather than sitting. That's what really makes a difference. That human being that looks the student in the eye, adjusts the curriculum based on instinct what's in the child's interest."

What does that mean?  That kids can learn just as well when it’s so overcrowded they don’t have a seat?  What universe does the Mayor live in that he thinks this is acceptable?

Would he send his own children to a school where they had to stand in their classroom because it was too crowded?  No, his daughters went to Spence where the average class size is  16-18 students. 

What the Mayor is ignoring is that when a teacher has 25, 30 or more students he can’t possibly “look” each student in the eye and “adjust” the curriculum to fit that individual child’s needs, no matter how brilliant a teacher he may be. 

The whole point of smaller classes is to allow teachers to provide personalized support, to create an effective feedback loop so that they can respond to each child as individuals rather than data points. 

And there is NO trade-off between quality teaching and class size.  In fact, the two are complimentary.  Only with smaller classes can we reduce our huge teacher attrition rate, and ensure that all NYC kids have an effective, experienced teacher as well.

Now, it’s no surprise that Bloomberg might want to devalue the importance of class size, as class sizes have increased every year for the last five and are now the largest in 14 years in the early grades, despite the fact that smaller classes are the top priority of parents on the DOE’s own surveys every year they’ve been given. 

Class size reduction is also one of only a handful of reforms shown to lead to more learning through rigorous evidence, according to the Institute for Education Sciences.  The Mayor’s statement today disputing the importance of class size is consistent with his arrogant disregard for the views of parents and his refusal to listen to the findings of evidence-based research, a hallmark of his education policies.

Kari Steeves comments to DOE about class sizes in NYC schools and C4E

This excellent letter is from Kari Steeves, public school parent in District 6 where the CFE lawsuit began.  Send your message today!  The official deadline for public comments on the Contracts for Excellence is March 18. Another sample email is posted here.

From: Kari Steeves
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 9:55 AM
To: contractsforexcellence@schools.nyc.gov
Cc: jking@mail.nysed.gov
Subject: Adherance to the CFE

To whom it may concern at the Contract for Excellence division of the New York City Department of Education,

Every year since my first child started public elementary school in 2005, class sizes across New York City and in his school have increased, despite that a lawsuit found that New York City's egregiously large class sizes were depriving our children of their constitutional right to a sound, basic education.  I spend time every week in at least one classroom at my children's school.  I see first hand how important it is for children to receive one-on-one attention daily, to work in a gently buzzing room with minimal discipline distractions, and to know they are safe, well cared-for, and part of a well functioning classroom community.  When those conditions are met, children learn well. 

When the ratio of students to teachers increases, even the most magical teachers cannot possibly create the kind of atmosphere the student, you, or I would need to work, concentrate, and learn.  Large classrooms are not safe.  They do not provide for the basic needs of the people in them.  They are loud, crowded, and full of distractions.  Do you work in a small room with 28 other people, 10 of whom have self-control issues?

First and foremost, New York City has an obligation to its children to make sure their environment is conducive to learning and to provide decent quality of classroom life.  (I'm speaking relatively.  I'm not so utopian that I'd hope we reach the private school levels enjoyed by the children of so many of our elected officials.)

Instead the DOE has systematically implemented policies that have increased our class sizes, including decreasing staff size, co-locations, cutting school budgets, placing special needs children in general education classrooms, writing ridiculous school utilization formulas, poor capital planning, relying on union contracts to dictate classroom levels (which are far too high), and producing no targeted programs to reduce class sizes.  Your current proposals do not redress any of these misguided policies.  Rather than pointing the finger at "ineffectual" teachers, the DOE should be providing the kind of conditions that allow our teachers to be effectual and our children to succeed.  The CFE gives very clear targets.  It is the DOE that has been ineffectual at its job of meeting those targets.

At every school tour, parents ask about student/teacher ratios.  It is our first priority and it is our children's constitutional right, because it impacts on safety, quality of life, and quality of learning.  As required by law in 2007, please reduce class sizes in New York City (all of them!) to at or below CFE levels. 

Sincerely,

Kari Steeves, parent District 6