Despite worsening overcrowding, de Blasio's ten-year capital plan allocates less for schools than Bloomberg's

See  the testimony below that I gave today to the NYC Council on the deficiencies of the proposed Mayor's proposed executive and capital budgets for schools, which if adopted as is would lead to larger class sizes and even more overcrowded schools.

The school capital plan was released more than three months late, supposedly  to align with de Blasio's new ten-year city overall capital plan, which cuts back on education compared to the previous ten-year plan, developed under Bloomberg.

The new ten year plan has schools at only 28% of overall capital spending, compared to 34% in the Bloomberg plan, and cuts back the spending by almost $5 billion.  See the above charts to compare.

CSM Testimony Executive and Capital Budget 5.18.15

An open letter to CEC members in regards de Blasio's promises on co-locations

NYC KidsPAC is composed of a group of parent leaders and advocates, including several Community Education Council members.    A few weeks ago, NYC KidsPAC released an education report card for Mayor de Blasio, with grades ranging from “A” to “F” based on whether he’s lived up to his campaign promises after more than a year in office in many key areas such as class size, school overcrowding, co-locations and parent engagement. 

More specifically, de Blasio promised to have a moratorium on co-locations which never happened.  In response to the NYC KidsPAC candidate survey,  promised to ask Community Education Councils to cast advisory votes on all “major school utilization changes in their communities including proposed co-locations” and that “This vote will influence and provide insight to the Panel for Education Policy.”   

He added that he would “raise the level of significance of the CEC's. The Panel for Educational Policy must address the PEP's vote on major school utilization changes in their PEP meetings. They must state why they disagree with the local CEC and work with the local CEC for alternative solutions.” 

Yet this process has not yet occurred in the case of any co-location of which we are aware.  

We urge any and all CECs that are facing a proposed change in school utilization, including co-locations up for a vote this month and next (see list below), to consider passing a resolution, expressing your views on the proposal in detail – and then send your resolution to the Mayor’s office, the Chancellor and the members of the PEP, whose emails are here, with a cover letter, explaining that you expect the PEP to follow through on the Mayor’s campaign promises.  

Please copy KidsPAC and Class Size Matters in your emails at info@nyckidspac.org and info@classsizematters.org if you do. 

We have drafted a sample draft resolution below including some relevant bullet points.  Please feel free to alter the language and of course, you will have to add to it by explaining why your Council is taking this position on the proposed utilization change. 

Leonie Haimson, Executive Director, Class Size Matters 

Shino Tanikawa, President, NYC KidsPAC

·      

           Draft language for a resolution on co-locations 

       Whereas while campaigning to become Mayor, Bill de Blasio promised that he would be more collaborative and respectful of the input of parents and community members than the previous administration;

·         Whereas in his responses to the NYC KidsPAC candidate survey, in July 2013, he promised that Community Education Councils would be urged to vote on “major school utilization changes in their communities” and that “This vote will influence and provide insight to the Panel for Education Policy.” 

·         Whereas in the same survey, he pledged that as Mayor he would “raise the level of significance of the CEC's” and that “The Panel for Educational Policy must address the PEP's vote on major school utilization changes in their PEP meetings. They must state why they disagree with the local CEC and work with the local CEC for alternative solutions.”

·         Whereas the Community Education Council is [opposed or in favor of] the co-location of x school in the X building, to be voted on at the PEP meeting on x date for the following reasons….(add your reasons here)

·         Be it resolved that the CEC in District x is [opposed or in favor of] the co-location of x school for the reasons stated above;

·         Be it resolved that we will send this resolution to the Mayor, the Chancellor and to the members of the Panel for Educational Policy before their vote on this proposal on x date;

·         Be it resolved that if any PEP member should vote in contradiction to the CEC’s position , he or should be obligated to state why, as the Mayor promised would occur when he ran for office;

·         Finally, be it resolved that the PEP should work with the CEC on alternative solutions, as the Mayor also pledged.

May 20 vote

District 8: Proposed Expansion of Icahn Charter School 7 (84X362) in Building X093 and X893 with P.S. 93 Albert G. Oliver, Beginning in the 2016-2017 School Year

 

District 22: Proposed Opening and Co-location of Success Academy New York 10 (84KTBD) with Andries Hudde Middle School (22K240) in Building K240 Beginning in the 2016-2017 School Year 

June 10 vote

District 15:  Proposed Expansion of Success Academy Charter School - Cobble Hill (84K129) in Building K293 with Brooklyn School for Global Studies (15K429), School for International Studies (15K497), and a District 75 Program (75K368) Beginning in the 2016-2017 School Year

District 14: Proposed Expansion of Success Academy Charter School - Williamsburg (84K182) in Building K050 with J.H.S. 50 John D. Wells (14K050), Beginning in the 2016-2017 School Year

Why the Renewal program will likely fail, without attention to class size and space

The de Blasio administration and NYC Department of Education recently announced they would expand the community school system to 200 schools by 2017, by supplying them with a “suite of social services.”  Eighty-three of these “community schools” would be sited at the struggling Renewal schools, as already announced (though there are 94 Renewal schools, all of which were supposed to get wraparound services.) 

In addition, forty five “community schools” will be schools with low attendance rates; forty are already existing “community schools” (where?) and another sixteen are supposed to be new schools that are not low-performing.   
   

Yet there are many problems with this plan.  In many of the Renewal schools, the DOE is going ahead with co-locations, inserting new schools into their buildings rather than leaving them with the space needed for a counselor’s office, medical office, or other social services.  When Norm Fruchter, mayoral appointee to the Panel for Educational Policy asked about how co-locations threaten the space needed for community schools during a co-location vote at the February PEP meeting, Chancellor Farina responded that “community schools are a state of mind.”  

Of the ten schools targeted for co-locations and voted on during the April PEP meeting, five were Renewal schools.  And the problems don’t just lie in space for social services. Many parents and teachers at the PEP hearing talked about how class sizes were already too large, and that these co-locations would prevent them from being able to reduce class size, and that they feared class sizes would increase.  And yet all the co-locations were approved. 

The Success charter Academy Bronx 3 proposal was the most contentious, to be co-located in JHS 45 in the Bronx; where three Renewal schools are already located.   At JHS 145, there are many classes as large as 29, according to DOE data.  At Millennium Business Academy in the same building, many classes at 28 and 29 students, and Urban Science Academy many at 25-26 – both far above what would be optimal and the Contract for Excellence goals for 23 per class in the middle grades that the city promised to achieve in 2007. 

During the April PEP meeting, two other co-locations were voted on for Renewal schools:  P.S. 50 Vito Marcantonio with class sizes of 31 in 2^nd grade, and a seventh grade inclusion class with special needs students at 33.  At August Martin high school, many classes run as high as 34 or 35. 

And yet all of the co-locations were approved.   The vote on the Success Academy Bronx 3 co-location co-location to be inserted into the JHS 145 building was the closest, with 7-5 in favor.  

Voting yes were mayoral appointees, Isaac Carmignani, Roberto Soto-Carrión, D. Miguelina Zorilla-Aristy,  , Vanessa Leung,  Lori Podvesker, Kamillah Payne-Hanks - Staten Island Representative, and Ben Shuldiner (the new mayoral appointee who just a few weeks ago put his name forward for the NYS Board of Regents seat in the Lower Hudson region—where he claimed to be a resident.) 

Voting no – and to be applauded -- were mayoral appointees T. Elzora Cleveland, Norm Fruchter, and borough President reps Deborah Dillingham - Queens Representative , Robert Powell - Bronx Representative and Laura Zingmond - Manhattan Representative. (Fred Baptiste - Brooklyn Representative was absent.) 

These class sizes are simply unacceptable for struggling schools facing possible closure.  No matter what wrap-around services these schools receive – their academic results will likely falter with class sizes this large. 

Every year the DOE gets more than $500 million as part of the Contracts for Excellence funds from the state; in return they are supposed to be reducing class size.  Instead, class sizes have risen steadily since the program was introduced in 2007. 

In their response to public comments to the C4E plan this year, the DOE wrote in December 2014 that “To better align with the Chancellor’s priorities, C4E’s class size reduction plan will now focus on the 94 schools in the School Renewal Program. More information about the schools may be found here: School Renewal Program.” 

Yet on that page, and in the press release  in which the city announced that $32 million more funds would be allocated to the Renewal schools, there is no mention of reducing class.  

Instead, lengthening the school day, professional development and more counselors are cited, none of which are likely to have the same impact on academic achievement or student engagement in the learning process.  Instead the statement proclaims:  

 “Schools will be able to use the new funding to hire guidance counselors, bring on teachers for special academic intervention programs serving students who have fallen behind, extend the school day, or add advanced placement classes. To qualify for funding, schools must submit detailed plans for approval that demonstrate precisely how the new funds will be spent …” 

None of these measures are likely to have the same positive impact on academic achievement or student engagement in the learning process.  Yesterday, the DOE apparently raised the amount for the 130 struggling schools, presumably including the Renewal schools, to $50 million in 2016 and $76 million in 2017.   The Chancellor said again, the funds would go towards extended school days, guidance counselors and more teacher training,, but still has made no commitment to reduce class size.  

Our analysis shows that over 60% of renewal schools have at least some class sizes of 30 or more.  To punish students, teachers and schools for their huge class sizes without doing anything about this is simply unacceptable.

Class Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards Dinner

Leonie Haimson and Diane Ravitch,

Patrick Sullivan and Monica Major

Emily Horowitz, and Cynthia Wachtell

invite you to

Class Size Matters 7th Annual "Skinny" Awards Dinner

When: Tuesday, June 9 at 6:30 PMWhere: Il Bastardo/Bocca Di Bacco
191 7th Ave (21st St)
New York, NY 10011

A fundraiser for Class Size Matters

This year we are honoring the NY leaders of the Opt-Out movement:

Change the Stakes

NYC Opt Out

New York State Allies for Public Education

Please join us for an opportunity to enjoy a four course dinner to celebrate three organizations that led a historic movement resulting in 200,000 students refusing to take the NY state tests this year.

Ticket Information:

http://www.nycharities.org/events/EventLevels.aspx?ETID=8217

$250 - Defender of Public Education

$150 - Patron

$75 – Supporter

Thank you for your support and we hope to see you there!

If you can't attend, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Class Size Matters, to help support our work

Who to believe among "experts" on teacher evaluation at Albany Summit on teacher evaluation?

Today, from Albany NYSED is livestreaming what they call a "Learning Summit on Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR), the teacher and principal evaluation system.   The ostensible purpose of the meeting is to get input from experts, educators and parents about how to go about crafting their new teacher evaluation system that they are supposed to come up with by June 30, but that is severely restricted by the damaging rubric imposed by the Governor.

On the agenda from 1-2 PM, is a panel of  "National experts in the field on education, economics and psychometrics."  The invitees include:

• Thomas Kane, an economist from Harvard University who strongly supports test-based teacher evaluation and led the Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching study;
• Catherine Brown, VP of the Center for American Progress, which has published papers endorsing the use of value-added and has received more than $5 million from the Gates Foundation for its education work.  Brown is also married to Robert Gordon, formerly of NYC DOE, OMB and the US Dept of Education, who pushed test-based teacher evaluation in NYC and throughout the country.
• Sandi Jacobs, a vice president at the National Council on Teacher Quality which also strongly supports test-based teacher evaluation and has gotten more than $12 million from the Gates Foundation;
• Leslie Guggenheim of TNTP, an advocacy organization whose 2009 paper “The Widget Effect” promoted test-based teacher evaluation and has gotten more than $33 million from the Gates Foundation.

On the other side with a more skeptical view include academics who are not on the Gates payroll: Aaron Pallas of Teachers College, Jesse Rothstein of UC Berkeley, and  Stephen Caldas of Manhattanville College.

So here we have three representatives from inside-the-Beltway advocacy groups that collectively received more than $50 million to make the case for test-based teacher evaluation and one professor who led the $45 million MET project for Gates, vs three independent academic scholars.

Also  speaking at 4 PM is a parent panel selected by the NYS PTA, including a representative from NY State Allies for Public Education, a coalition of more than 50 parent and advocacy groups statewide (full disclosure: including Class Size Matters.)  NYSAPE has helped lead the anti-testing movement that garnered at least 200,000 students opting out this spring.  Also on that panel, strangely enough, is Matt Barnum, the policy director of Educators for Excellence, which has received  $4 million from the Gates Foundation.

Who to believe?  You be the judge.

Where in the world is the Smarter Balanced privacy policy?

A few weeks ago I was in Palos Verdes, a suburb of Los Angeles, where I gave a presentation for Restore PV Education, a parent advocacy group, on the Common Core, testing and data privacy.

I spoke about how the PARCC and Smarter Balanced Common Core consortia are collecting loads of highly sensitive personal student information along with test scores. Yet the PARCC privacy policy is remarkably weak, and the SBAC exam given in California and twenty other states has no privacy policy at all-- or at least one that has been made publicly available.

Subsequently, it was reported that more than half of the Palos Verdes High School students opted out of the Smarter Balanced exam the week following my talk. Another article reported that Larry Vanden Bos, the Palos Verdes School Board President, had called the California Dept. of Education to ask for the SBAC privacy policy and received no response:

Vanden Bos said school officials have contacted the office of the state superintendent of schools, Tom Torlakson, to inquire about the privacy policy regarding the SBAC test, but were unsuccessful in getting answers.“We can’t even find out what their privacy policy is,” Vanden Bos said.

A little background: PARCC, the other major Common Core exam consortium,  approved an extremely porous privacy policy in Dec. 2013. I wrote about that policy here. At the time that PARCC released its policy, Smarter Balanced announced they would negotiate separate privacy policies with each of the SBAC states, according to EdWeek:

Smarter Balanced developed a brief data-privacy principle that guides its handling of student data. But beyond that, the consortium will create separate data-privacy agreements with each of its 25 member states to allow each to customize its practice in light of state law, regulation and practice, according to spokeswoman Jacqueline King. Those agreements are expected to be completed in the first few months of 2014, she said.

Yet to this day no parent in any of the SBAC states that I know of has been able to get their hands on such a policy or agreement.

Through the advocacy of Oregon parents, we have received copies of three relevant SBAC-related documents:

1- An undated SBAC “Data Privacy Agreement Communications Toolkit” that appears to have been created in Feb. 2014.
2- The AIR/Oregon contract, dated April 2014. (AIR is the major contractor for SBAC.)
3- The MOU between Oregon and SBAC/CRESST (the institute at UCLA that appears to be collecting, reporting and analyzing the data), from Aug. 2014.

The SBAC Data Privacy Toolkit contains several documents, including:

a) A set of talking points that states are advised to send out to parents who ask about data privacy;
b) A sample press release that states can release if and when they agree on a privacy policy with SBAC;
c) An FAQ with more information;
d) A sample Stakeholder letter;
e) A “resource” page with links to the Gates-funded Data Quality Campaign and US Department of Education documents.

The talking points include the following statement:

“Protecting the privacy, security, and confidentiality of student data is a responsibility we take seriously. And with Smarter Balanced, our state retains control of student information. That’s why [INSERT STATE] developed a written agreement regarding the collection and use of personally identifiable student information.
• This agreement ensures that any organization working on the Smarter Balanced assessments will adhere to strict guidelines to safeguard student information.
• [INCLUDE ADDITIONAL DETAILS OF AGREEMENT AS APPROPRIATE]” etc.

The sample press release includes the following draft language:

SAMPLE STATE PRESS RELEASE
Contact: [INSERT CONTACT INFO]
[INSERT STATE] Approves Student Data Privacy Agreement for Common Core Assessments
Agreement Will Safeguard Student Information, Ensure [INSERT STATE] Maintains Control of Data

The FAQ part of the package includes this:

What type of information WILL Smarter Balanced collect?

• An identification number (the Consortium recommends that this be different from the state’s official unique student identifier so that only the state can link back to a student’s official education record);
• Race/ethnicity, gender, grade level, school attended;
• Student eligibility for English language development services, or special education services provided to the student;
• Student eligibility for Title I compensatory programs;
• Smarter Balanced test scores, achievement levels, and responses to test questions.

If a state elects to have Smarter Balanced generate reports of student assessment results, the consortium also will collect student name and date of birth. States may choose to manage that function through another organization. In either case, states can impose guidelines to safeguard those data.

What information won’t Smarter Balanced collect?
Smarter Balanced will never collect identifying information (such as student name and date of birth) unless specifically directed to do so by a member state. Further, Smarter Balanced will not collect information unnecessary to the assessment system, such as:
• Names of parents;
• Student or parent email address;
• Telephone numbers;
• Student or parent Social Security numbers;
• Parent or student addresses;
• Parent or student medical information.

It also says the following:

Smarter Balanced will not release personally identifiable information. Under limited circumstances, such as for research studies deemed important by states in the consortium, Smarter Balanced may provide access to student data that have been altered so that students’ identities cannot be recognized. Requests for this type of information will be reviewed by member states and each state must individually approve any release of data.

The states of Washington, Nevada, Illinois and others reproduce many of these same talking points but none of them so far have made their privacy agreement with Smarter Balanced public or available to parents upon request– as far as we know.

If you are from one of the SBAC states, please let us know if you've seen it by emailing us at info@studentprivacymatters.org.

If not, I suggest parents should ask their State Education Departments for it and/or FOIL it.  Here are the SBAC contact names and emails in each of the 21 participating states, plus the Virgin Islands and the Indian Bureau of Affairs.  Here are sample Freedom of Information letters for every state and instructions.

The powerpoint I gave to Palos Verdes parents with one slide added is below.  thanks, Leonie

Palos Verdes Presentation Final Revised