....AND GROWS (Updated 10:30 AM)
Is Tweed a kudzu mutant?
What the face of EEP ed "reform" really looks like
What's another million that could have gone to the classroom? The "No Excusers" always find excuses not to cut class size. I echo Leonie. Gee, they're going to train 25 teachers to differentiate instruction - WITH 30 KIDS? And of course, teachers who somehow can't manage this will be vilified. Put any private school teacher where people pay $30 grand a year into this situation and check the results. (Talk to some of them and they roll their eyes.)
Want to beat the odds? Try JUST A FEW SCHOOLS with drastically lower class size. That so many apologists for EEP teacher bashing keep raising red herrings is a clear sign that they know we will that is the most effective way to reduce all kinds of gaps – well, maybe not the Grand Canyon, which will be closed before the Tweed credibility gap.
Tweed sure is reducing bureaucracy
Oh, and if you want to apply for a job in the Accountability Office, see the jobs available below. Wouldn't you just love to be a "Summative Assessments Product Manager"?
From Leonie Haimson to NYC EDNEWS Listserve:
Just as we’re struggling with overcrowded classes with insufficient resources, and a large number of District family advocates laid off, the Accountability office is continues to grow like a cancer that won’t stop.
Remember how there was supposedly a hiring freeze at Tweed to save money?
Newest finding: there’s a new ten person team at DOE, costing a million dollars, headed by a “director of knowledge management” in the Accountability office. Meanwhile, Jim Liebman is still heading the office while ostensibly full time teaching at Columbia. Wonder if he’s getting paid twice.
One of the projects they’re in charge of will supposedly “show teachers at 25 middle schools how to tailor their lessons for each student.”
How about beginning by cutting their class sizes? With classes of 30 or more, and a teaching load of up to 150 students, it’s a bit difficult to individualize instruction for every student.
Of course, that’s advice they refuse to listen to even though it doesn’t cost them a penny.
$1M SCHOOL 'THINK' LINK
By YOAV GONEN, Education Reporter, NY Post
September 11, 2008
The Department of Education is assembling a million-dollar team charged with getting schools to learn from one another how best to educate their students, The Post has learned.Need a job?
The 10-person team will have a budget of more than $1 million and will be headed by a "director of knowledge management." The initiative will create a computerized "warehouse" that will allow schools to share ideas about organization, scheduling and other aspects of educating kids.
"It's just spreading out knowledge or learning or innovation horizontally from almost 1,500 schools to almost 1,500 other schools," said Jim Liebman, the DOE's chief of accountability. While much of the information-sharing will be done online, schools struggling with similar problems will also form real-life networks.
Education officials are planning to link poorly performing schools with a "beat-the-odds" school that has overcome similar hurdles, and they've started two related two-year pilot programs this year. One will help about 20 schools learn how to pinpoint concepts students are struggling with, and the other will show teachers at 25 middle schools how to tailor their lessons for each student.
Chancellor's Accountability Initiative
Analyst; Research and Policy Support (5182) $46,004 +
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 04/25/2008
Community District Assistant (4821) : $29,804+
New York, NY, US. - 11/05/2007
Community Superintendent (5344) Up to $170,000 Salary
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 06/09/2008
Data Analyst-Consultant (4504) $250.00 - $300.00 per day
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 09/14/2007
__
Deputy Director; Knowledge Management (5412) Salary: $95,000+
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 07/18/2008
Director of School Quality (5373) up to $170,000 Salary Commensurate with Experience
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 07/28/2008
Director; Knowledge Management (5389) ; Salary: $111,000 - $170,000
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 07/09/2008
Implementation Manager, KM Initiatives (5552) $65,120+
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 08/29/2008
Instructional Design Manager, KM Educator Support (5553) $65,120 +
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 08/29/2008
KM Domain Leader for Leadership & Organizational Management (5507) $111,000 - $170,000
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 08/11/2008
KM Domain Leader for Literacy; English Language Arts; & Social Studies (5508) $111,000 - $170,000
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 08/11/2008
KM Domain Leader for Mathematics & Science (5506) $111,000 - $170,000
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 08/08/2008
Senior Achievement Facilitator (2880) Up to $170,000
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 06/19/2008
Senior Analyst; Assessment (5346) $63,301+
NEW YORK, NY, US. - 06/11/2008
Summative Assessments Product Manager (5232) $81,000
UPDATE from Leonie:
More evidence of the unreliability of the school grades in the NY Times today.
Remember IS 89, that as one of the best schools in the country-- the only NYC middle school to do so-- and yet received an "D" ?
Or the "F" given to PS 35 in Staten Island, PS 35 - where more than 95% of students met standards in math and ELA?
Well, PS 8, most visited school in Brooklyn by top DOE officials -- who have repeatedly lauded it as one of the most improved schools in the entire city -- got an "F" in this year's report cards.
Experts say that year to year changes in average test scores at the school level are 34 to 80 percent random. And yet school grades are based 85% on these test scores.
I wrote an oped for the Daily News on this issue last year -- posted here:
http://www.nydailyn
The school grades were devised by Jim Liebman, a man with no expertise in education, testing or statistics, and who is still running the doE Accountability office full time despite also being full time Columbia law prof. He is spending hundreds of millions a year, and the office is still growing in leaps and bounds, despite budget cuts to other areas, including school supplies, special ed transportation, and many District family advocates who have been laid off. Instead, it is the entire Accountability office that deserves an "F" and should be cut, and Liebman and his other top staff should be sent back to school where they belong -- to take a basic course in statistics.
In Brooklyn, Low Grade for a School of Successes
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