PS 50M Hearing CPE1 Parents Read Letter From PS 50 Teacher

"Renewal dollars were not spent on what we needed and suggested like reading and math specialists to support our students." ... PS 50M hearing, Feb. 12, 2018

But why listen to actual teachers on the ground? Just spend renewal dollars on more PD.

Three amazing parents from CPE1 showed up at the PS 50 hearing to share the reading of a letter written by a teacher chronicling the intentional destruction of the renewal school. "Support" meant outsiders including highly  paid consultants walking around and giving next steps.... Support meant being sent to an abundance of PDs without being given time to absorb..." etc, etc etc. PS 50 was closed down at last week's PEP.

No support to reduce class size, of course. Farina doesn't believe in that -- PD = the problem are the teachers.

Like if I was in one of those schools with a masters in reading and say 15 years in the system I needed more PD instead of real assistance by allowing me more time with individual kids.

I spoke to a PS 50 teacher at the PEP last week and he said he couldn't speak for fear of retaliation. That many do not think the district UFT has their backs does not help.

By the way -- who did Farina put in charge of renewal schools? The awful former Brooklyn HS Supt Amy Horowitz who lied and misled people. The UFT people knew how awful she was but sat silently while she misdirected support for renewal schools I would bet to some of her pals who made a few bucks. Now she is going to run some other program at the DOE into the ground.



https://vimeo.com/258661827

Class Size Sellout as UFT Contract/Farina Endorse Continued High Class Sizes

Mulgrew claims to be against ed deform are smoke as the contract clearly supports the ed deform emphasis on PD while disparaging class size reform.

Video of Farina comments on class size below.
 
I'm home today and have many posts to go so take your time and read them all. With Ravitch having her knee replaced today  - did ed deformers CAP her?, I have to make up the difference. And good luck Diane. Use that new knee to good use. 


A YES vote for the contract is a vote for continued high class size. NYC teachers are working under class size limits - with loads of loopholes - that was codified almost 45 years ago. Under the last 20 years of BloomIani there was no chance of improving those numbers. And now with a more friendly mayor - supposedly -- the UFT had its chance to make a dent in these numbers. But instead it codified these class sizes basically in perpetuity. Shame on them. And on Farina, who has never been a big supporter of class size reductions, feeling more PD is the answer. Sure let's do PD with 80 in a class.

What a tandem -  it is not only the UFT/Unity Caucus leadership that feels class size is not an important enough issue to address in the contract but Farina too. Both entered into negotiations with no thought to class size but more PD instead.

When Unity people challenged me on my NO Vote stance I threw the class size issue back in their faces and they just shut up. Please use this point when they come a callin' to your school.

Fred Smith asks:

Folks,

Remember Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?  According to Wikipedia this is the title of several edutainment computer games... that teach geography and reference skills.

Based on Leonie's question about the Chancellor's acceptance of large class sizes--and our vigorous string of emails trying to nail down exactly what she said, I propose we keep chronicling remarks she makes at public forums (i.e., generalities and statements like: "We're looking into it."; "Give us some time."; and "We can't do that because we must follow state and federal mandates.") 

Let's put them together and follow up on them under the heading Where in the World is Carmen Farina?! 

I get the feeling we're all becoming exasperated by too much slipping and sliding on her part. Maybe this is a way we can pin her down.

Fred

Follow this thread from parents on the CTS listserve on Farina views on class size:

I read a tweet that in response to a parent’s concern about large classes at the d15 townhall, Carmen said that a 3rd grade class of 30 which includes special ed students is not too large. Janine, or anyone else who was there, can you confirm this?

I am so disheartened – the Council hearings yesterday about charters featured the same BS from DOE w/ no change in terms of increased transparency or honesty as far as I could see. Elizabeth Rose even said that it would be impossible to estimate the increased cost of busing charter students even though the IBO has already done this.

Please let me know what Carmen said.

===
I was there and heard this but it sounded so unbelievable that I assumed I heard wrong. I would triple confirm!
===
I was there too & she did say it. I think she made some casual remark that it's on the large side, but as though it was no big deal. In general, I thought she was minimizing things &/or saying Well we just don't have the money. One of her pro-test lines was one I particularly hate: kids are going to have to take tests sometime in their lives.... (So let's start assaulting them early?) How did the rest of us, especially us older farts, manage to survive & even thrive without being given standardized top-down tests when we were little?
====
unfortunately, what ch farinia says here is true. it is hard to find a school where class size is under 30. in fact, i find this is the norm. we now see 31, 32. this is because every student brings a little pot of $$ to the school. what is an admin to do when the budget cuts so deeply that this little pot of $$ is now how we fund things. this sucks, and this is what needs to be addressed. you cannot shrink class size w/o properly funding schools. period.
=====

Video by Michael Elliott re: Farina on class size question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPPqN0-ytq0&feature=youtu.be

Class Size and the UFT Followup: Historical Context

Loretta Prisco who was part of our activist group in the 70s fleshed out yesterday's post on class size.


Do you remember many years ago when the UFT was trying to negotiate that we be paid per kid?  I remember sitting at the DA and some guy saying "break down the wall, I'll take all they  they can shove in" - but it have must have been a Unity guy.  Most of us were appalled. I remember Gene saying "why not by weight?"
 
When we raised class size when talking about the contract at DAs, Shanker usually had one of 2 replies, "that is an education issue, not  a contract issue"  or "there is either money for class size or salaries, if we reduce class size, there won't be money for a raise".  I remember so clearly, because it is when I first realized that working conditions are learning conditions.  Teaching was tough, I would have rather been a successful teacher with smaller class size than one with a few extra bucks in my pocket. 
 
My daughter was at Vanderbilt in Nashville in the 90's and I remember reading about the Tennessee Star Study on class size in the local paper.  When I raised the issue here, no one had heard about it, and the response locally was "it is only one study" .

Loretta

The UFT/AFT Abandoned the Fight For Lower Class Size 40 Years Ago

Randi Weingarten/AFT - and yes, the UFT - on Class Size: fagetaboutit.

Last night, Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters posted:


Randi's deeply flawed agenda for a quality education

Randi writes her rebuttal of Brill here:  http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2011/08/24/its-not-about-good-guys-versus-bad-guys which led me to the AFT agenda for a quality education which though very long, does not even mention class size - the #1 way that the vast majority of teachers believe would improve their effectiveness the most. People esp. teachers and members of her union should feel free to email her at Rweingarten@aft.org

http://www.aft.org/newspubs/press/qualityagenda.cfm

I posted the entire AFT statement on Norms Notes Randi Weingarten/AFT Forgets Class Size

Leonie's post got me to thinking about the 40 years I and others have spent trying to move the UFT to make class size reduction a priority item. Here is my comment on the NYCEdList serve:

All these years Ed Notes lobbed accusations that no matter the rhetoric the uft/aft didn't really care about class size and their petition campaigns which went nowhere was more about PR.

They gave up the class size ghost, oh, around 1970. Throughout that decade the group I worked with fought with the uft leadership over closing the wide CS loopholes. If they weren't going to reduce class size in the contract at least make that attempt. No interest.

In the early 90s the strategy of using the city council to force some class size reductions worked for grades 1-3. We brought up resolutions caliing for extensions to grade 4 and beyond but were ignored. Today even those city council limits are being ignored.
Over the last decade ICE and Ed Notes made repeated attempts to make class size reduction a priority contract negotiation at least to put it front and center to the public (as opposed to joining with the doe on merit pay and other money wasting schemes.)

So go ahead and email Randi. Maybe she'll take a minute from collaborating with the likes of Bill Gates to respond.

And for those who see the uft as somehow different from the aft watch the 800 UFT Unity Caucus delegates to AFt/nysut conventions (mulgrew amongst them) endorse every single Weingarten policy with enthusiasm.

Want to see class size on the agenda? The next time Mulgrew or another uft official comes to your school don't let them get 3 words out of their mouths before interrupting them with a class size question. Do the same at Delegate Assemblies. And maybe even at the uft exec bd. It is time to stop being polite to union officials who are so willing to go along with policies that harm teachers and students.

One more point. When Al Shanker signed onto The Nation at Risk in 1983 he set the teacher unions on the road to ed deform where we make an assumption that all it takes is better school management and better teachers to turn things around, thus minimizing class size. We in the opposition to Unity Caucus/Shanker in the 70's could see it coming because to the UFT/AFT leadership (once Shanker took over the AFT in 1974) it was more important to spend money on fighting communism around the world than full funding of an equitable education for all.

=================
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

Leonie Defends Class Size Reduction - Like the UFT Won't While Liu Rejects New Teacher Project Contract

UPDATED: Friday, March 11, 7AM

NYC Comptroller John Liu causes much joy in Mudville today with his rejection of the phony New Teacher Project 20 million smacker contract - to recruit new teachers - in the midst of the threat to layoff 4500 and lose another 1800 by attrition. Now Tim Daly may have to work for a living. And Andy Jacob too. Hey, guys, try teaching. In Wisconsin.

See NY Times article here. (Good to see you back safe from Cairo Sharon). And more links:
(GothamSchools, Post, Daily News)

Remember Liu's predecessor? Some guy who ended up running for mayor against Bloomberg? A guy who we later found out was Bloomberg's choice to run against him? A guy whose wife got lots of money goodies from Bloomberg for her museum? A guy who NEVER rejected these phony contracts?

------
While the UFT/AFT plays footsie with Bill Gates, Leonie goes into his own back yard and calls him out. Hey chickie, come out an play with Leonie:

1.    I will be on Seattle Public radio 94.9 FM tomorrow Friday March 11 at 3:40 ET (12:40 PT) debating class size.  

They are trying to find someone from the Gates foundation to debate me (but finding it hard).  This is Bill Gates’ hometown.

Listen live online and please call in!  http://www.kuow.org/conversation  with Ross Reynolds.

Live Call–in: 206.543.KUOW (800.289.KUOW); Email: conversation@kuow.org

2. For what Bill Gates said recently about class size (later echoed by Arne Duncan) check out my Huff Post column:  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/arne-duncan-and-bill-gate_b_829094.html
 

For what the Seattle Times reported about Gates’ hypocrisy on this issue, click here:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/dannywestneat/2014437975_danny09.html

Check out what students themselves said about class size on the NYT blog here: http://nyti.ms/g57JcR 

3.For my class size debate on Tuesday on the NPR Diane Rehm show, along with Diane Ravitch and Eric Hanushek, star of Waiting for Superman, see

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-03-08/class-size-and-student-achievement

Thanks,

Leonie Haimson

Executive Director

Class Size Matters

ON ANOTHER FRONT -

************

LIU STATEMENT ON DOE CONTRACT REJECTION

******************************************

NEW YORK, NY – City Comptroller John C. Liu stated the following in response to inquiries about his rejection of a $20 million teacher recruitment contract for the Department of Education (DOE):

“Twenty million dollars to recruit teachers as the DOE insists on laying off thousands of teachers seems curious at best,” said Comptroller Liu.

The five-year contract, with the “New Teacher Project,” was submitted in early February. The DOE was seeking the contract to “recruit, select, train and provide job search support to non-traditional candidates to become public school teachers.”

The contract submission comes at a time when agencies are being asked to cut services, including the DOE’s plan to lay off 4,600 teachers.

Cathie Black, Bill Gates and the Ed Deformer Assault on Class Size

I didn't see the quote myself but there were reports that Cathie Black said that teacher quality was more important than class size. Of course that would be her position since disparaging class size as a factor is a basic belief of ed deform – not really a belief since ed deformers full well know about the impact of class size since they either went to schools themselves with low class sizes (Black, Gates) and/or send/sent their own kids to private schools with low class size.

But ed deformers must focus their attention on the teacher not the conditions in their assault on the profession and the unions.

The Dec. 4 edition of the NY Times had an article about how Bill Gates is funding new teacher evaluation projects supposedly intended to find the best teachers and practices, often by video taping lessons.

This really is a must read article because of what Gates won't fund as part of these studies.

First of all, a lesson doesn't exist outside of the results. My old principal Benjamin Bromberg who came up through the ranks of teaching used to say "Nothing learned, nothing taught." Thus, if you teach a lesson on the Pythagorean theorem you need some mechanism to see if the kids got it. And then a follow-up method of seeing if they still get it a week later, a month later and at the end of the year. And maybe next year too.

Second, can you place the blame solely on the teacher for those kids who do not get it? Did some not do any work at home to practice? What about the level of the kids coming in? What if a bunch had never learned or understood basic times tables? Can they really understand the theorem unless a good base has been laid?

And then comes the big enchilada - what is the impact on the lesson of the number of kids in the class?

So to do the full research, let's see the same teacher, same lesson, done in classes of widely varying class size with follow-ups to see which kids learned it and which didn't and the staying power of the lesson.

But Gates won't fund that as the results would show that the basis of the ed deform movement has no legs.

Afterburn
I know many excellent private school teachers who shudder at the thought of teaching in public schools and one of the main reasons are the high class sizes. Some think it is the kids they would have to teach that keep them away but they say they could teach anyone of the class size was reasonable.

I laughed at the idea of videotaping lessons since I was part of a similar project at PS 16 in my 3rd year of teaching - the spring of 1970. They set up a camera and videotape machine. The idea was that I would stay after school and watch the lesson with the idea of categorizing each question I asked the kids looking for the percentage of questions that just asked for facts vs those that made them think. It was time consuming but valuable. I wasn't uptight at them looking at my lessons - I trusted they wanted to help me be a better teacher. Not like today when they are interested in dumping people.

The UFT and Class Size: Thumbs Down

Once a union agrees that teacher quality is the  most important factor, class size gets moved so far down the line as a factor it become irrelevant.


No matter what the UFT says about class size, the reality is they gave up the ghost on this issue - like around 1971. Once the teacher unions began to buy into the idea that teacher quality is the key issue or that some schools can be way more "successful" than others with the same funding or demographics - all that has to be done is replicate, replicate, replicate - and do lots of professional development, class size faded. It has taken Class Size Matters' Leonie Haimson to keep the class size issue glimmer of a flame burning.

Defiling class size as a factor is a major attack by the ed deformers - thus they push teacher quality. We all know that at almost every level of judging teacher quality you want to use - there is a direct relationship between the number of kids in a class and the ability to be more effective as a teacher (and I'm not using the narrow test score but real effectiveness that works for kids). I know plenty of great teachers at elite private schools who taught in public schools and left over the class size issue. One friend told me he couldn't survive and ended up teaching for decades at a top private school.

Ed Notes and class size
I will take a bow for Ed Notes which consistently has raised that issue over the 15 years of existence (in my rush to do the Ed Notes history on Weds for the DA, I actually left it off my list which I updated  (I added some new material about the founding of ICE and GEM, so take another look.)

I printed a picture of a button in every issue that said "Class Size Matters". It certainly attracted attention. At one DA a delegate came over and said, "Is that connected to Leonie Haimson's 'Class Size Matters""? "Who," I asked? Thus I first heard about Leonie, contacted her and began to promote her work in Ed Notes.

Class size vs. toilet paper
Ed Notes brought the issue to the DA numerous times, calling on the UFT to make class size reduction a key contract demand. Those of us calling for this were called "stupid" by Unity. Why take money out of our salary pile? We argued that parents and other forces weren't going to fight for our salary but would fight for class size and the pile of money could be expanded. I used to tell them "I don't see you counter posing that money for toilet paper comes out of our salary." After all, if teachers volunteer to bring their own Charmin (which many do anyway), we could get another 50 cents raise.

In the fall of 2000 I brought a reso to the DA calling on the NY Teacher to print every year a list of every over class size so we could track them. At that point Randi and I were at the height of a friendly relationship. "Come on up here and make your resolution," she said, offering me the podium, something unheard of at the time. I used her mic - and caught her cold. After that it was all downhill between us. (The NY Teacher did follow the reso and print the lists - in 2001 and in 2002 after I raised a point of order - by that time Randi and I were no longer on good term.)

Remember those UFT class size petition campaigns which chapter leaders were asked to get loads of names on - twice. I heard that a million bucks of our dues were thrown into this ditch. Naturally, Ed Notes attacked. "You are always so negative," I was told. Sure I'm negative when I see another obvious scam. "MAKE CLASS SIZE A PRIORITY CONTRACT DEMAND and show us one positive result and I will be leaping for joy." Outcomes, baby, outcomes. Not PR.

How about those class size grievances?
I'm not even going there at this time but will leave it for ICE's James Eterno, chapter leader of the apparently doomed Jamaica High School, one of the 19 target schools from last year that Klein made sure would have as little incoming freshmen while the UFT sold them out with a deal allowing Klein to put a competing school inside the building - which has some lovely real estate for future charter, by the way.


Cross post from James Eterno at the ICE blog

CLASS SIZE ARBITRATION IS A JOKE

The UFT contract gives principals the first ten school days of a semester to lower oversize classes. After that, the chapter leader grieves (I filed for 83 oversize classes for Jamaica High School) and a month later there is a hearing at the American Arbitration Association in Manhattan. It would be easy to assume that a month and a half is sufficient time to reduce all classes in a high school to the contractual limit of 34 pupils in a class. Unfortunately, this didn’t happen at Jamaica or many other schools that were also grieving oversize classes.

At the hearing this morning, the principal, who is represented by a DOE lawyer, said he can't fix many of the oversize classes. I don't think there is enough space to start new classes in part because two new schools opened inside our building that now occupy many rooms. But that is not the argument administration made. The DOE lawyer asserted over and over the half class size loophole in the contract as justification for oversize classes.

Follow Up on Leonie at NY Law and Exclusive Video Interview

UPDATED Sat, Sept. 18, 6am - info on Finland

There were some comments on the NYC Parent listserve about the actions of NY Law in relation to the Haimson/Suransky Smackdown. See my 2 previous posts if you missed them.

Leonie Smackdown Redux

Leonie Haimson KO's Tweed in a Knockdown

I'm printing the comments below along with a comment/correction Leonie left on my last post. And here's a link (NY Law School Ban on Taping) to the correspondence between NY1's Lindsay Christ and Nancy Guida (who I believe is the woman who gave me such a hard time) from the law school. Read in reverse order. Enlightening. [By the way, lots of people consider Christ one of the best ed reporters in town - did you know that she was a teacher for a few years before she got this gig? It shows.]

First, I have a bit of follow-up video I did with Leonie in her garden shortly after the NY Law appearance, which as you know they did not allow to be taped. We did it for the movie we are doing - The Absolute Truth About Waiting for Superman but this piece relates to some of the things she touched earlier that day - Finland, class size, teacher bashing - she calls teachers true heroes. Really eloquent stuff. It is a worthwhile 4 plus minute clip.

[Putting videos up seems to slow up this blog so I will leave it up here only for a day. Here is the you tube address if this gets slow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSg8myiMhR4]

{A Chapter leader sent this in after investigating ed in Finland. Info from Ministry of Ed}

1)  What is the average age of a Finnish teacher (elementary through secondary, not university professors)?

 female 44 and male 47

2)  What is the average number of years a Finnish teacher has been working?

see question 1 and 3: about 20 year

3)  What is the average age of a beginning Finnish teacher?

26

4)  Do the teachers in Finland belong to a union?

about 95 % teachers belong to  union OAJ  

5)  Do Finnish teachers receive a pension after retirement?

yes

6)  What is the average age of retirement for a Finnish teacher?

now its 60 but it will be 65-68.

7)  How many months throughout the year do Finnish teachers work?

teaching time is 38 week / year

8)  What other benefits do Finnish teachers receive? (like healthcare)

healthcare

Yours,

Vesa Ilves

Vesa Ilves
tutkija
OPETUSALAN AMMATTIJÄRJESTÖ OAJ

Comments:

Thanks for the kind words Norm; but one minor correction. I said there was no standardized testing in Finland; of course the schools there have regular classroom tests. Your point about the teacher's union in Finland is very interesting. Shael went on about how Finland was successful because it attracted the best students to teaching; I talked about how in Finland they give a lot of respect to teachers,and alot of autonomy. And I contrasted that w/ the total lack of respect that this administration gives teachers, and Klein's very low approval rankings in teacher surveys. I said if this administration and the Obama administration really respected teachers, they would listen to their prescriptions for education. Over and over in national surveys, teachers respond that reducing class size would be by far the best way to increase teacher quality and teacher effectiveness, over salary increases, teacher performance pay, more professional development, or anything else. And yet they don't listen, because they don't respect teachers or care what they think. Nor do they respect parents or care what we think either!

I don't see anything the least bit surprising in this, other than NY Law School's craven submission to the probable bullying from Bloomberg/Klein.

Leonie



For Klein & Company, It's all about controlling the message. THEY get to control the data, THEY get to decide how it will be spun, THEY get to control when, where, and how, and -- most important -- THEY get to limit or control, at least in their chosen forums, how much information is made available from "the other side." Knowing that they are probably well aware of Leonie's positions as well as her encyclopedic command of the facts and figures, they had every conceivable reason to suppress public distribution of this "debate." It would be OK for a few law school students to hear her side, but heaven forbid that it get out via NY1 or YouTube or EdNotes.

Just think about it for a minute. Had Shael been there by himself to make a presentation and do Q&A, does anyone honestly believe there would have been the least objection to it being taped by NY1 or anyone else? This was all about controlling the message and stifling the dissent -- nothing else. It's not rocket science, but it is smart, at least from their standpoint.

Steve Koss


New York Law School itself has a series of "Citylaw" breakfasts which are always taped for broadcast on cable TV--I forget at the moment whether it is on one of the City stations or CUNY TV (ch. 74 or 75 where I am in Manhattan). You can also access tapes of them at their website, www.citylaw.org. I just checked it and saw that, for example, the tape of Joel Klein's appearance there as featured speaker on 4/3/09 is still available, including the Q&A, where I successfully confronted him with several examples of how, given that he's essentially one of the Mayor's Commissioners, he does not have the ability or the inclination to stand up for the school system when other city agencies are pursuing policies that are harmful to the schools.

I bring this up to point out that it is curious that, in the case of yesterday, the School seemed so unwilling for a recording to be made.
richard


It was meant primarily for students, but the organizer (who was a student, but it was clearly taken out of his hands by the administration) had encouraged me to invite members of the public as well so I did. The moderator said they had never gotten so many RSVPs.

Check out Norm's column on how they were apparently pressured by DOE not to let the discussion be videotaped by either him or NY1.

I have never seen a PR person from an academic institution so nervous about getting publicity; usually they love the attention. First she said that taping was barred because they didn't get the permission from the participants; then she changed her story when I said that they had my permission, and that probably Shael would agree as well.

But in this case, Kathleen Grimm of DOE had apparently made their desires known strongly, behind the scenes to one of the deans. Whether another college or university would have reacted differently, and not given in so quickly, who knows.

The PR person came up to me afterwards, and demanded that I "remove" her email to Lindsey and me from the list serv about how they were barring any videotaping, as it was a private communication. I was astonished.

I said to her, not only do you want to keep the event private, but you also want to keep it secret that you want to keep it private?

If DOE didnt want Shael to be on a panel w/ me they should have asked him not to appear. But to prevent the wider public from being able to see the event is really shameful -- and I think it is esp. craven of a law school , that should be insisting on freedom of political speech to cave in this way..

Leonie Haimson

UFT Will Ensure Class Size Limits Are Followed

From UFT Chapter Update:

Based on your reports, the UFT will be using the expedited grievance procedure in the contract to ensure that our class size limits are enforced.

It sure is good the UFT is doing this. I seem to remember the chapter leader at Francis Lewis HS filing 65 or more over size grievances last year. Even won most. DOE ignored many of the "wins." UFT response?_____

With the UFT "ensure" means they'll provide you the energy drink so you can handle all the extra kids.

Related: Class Sizes Rise: Will the NY Times likely notice what’s going on in their backyard?

Low Class Size is Precious

I saw the galvanizing movie "Precious" last night and it was riveting. I heard a lot about it but hadn't realized how much it was about teaching and education. Precious, a black teenager who had two children after being raped by her father and suffers from one of the most awful mothers imaginable (I saw a few myself- I'm working on one story which I'll post this weekend and link back here), is given an opportunity to go to an alternative school, where a dedicated teacher helps save her and her classmates.

Now we know all the ed deformers – and we have to make note that Oprah was a key person behind this film and her Chicago roots and attachments to Obama probably put her in that category – will make the amazing teacher, Ms. Blu Rain, the key element. But note how small the group she is working with and ask if she could do anything like that work with a full-size class. But just watch how this factor is ignored.

Contrast that situation to Precious' former school where her favorite teacher struggles to control a rowdy math class and is presented as being ineffective. But if he and Ms. Rain were to switch places, I wonder how things would work out? Would Ms. Rain be able to have 30 rowdy kids multiplied by 5 classes work on their writing and be able to read and comment on every one every day? Maybe. Maybe for a year or two before burning out. Could she take into her home the numerous kids in trouble she would face?

In all the hubbub over the film "Precious," don't forget one of the keys to the film is the extremely low class size and the support mechanism the school provides.

Think of the enormous effort on the part of one teacher to save this one child and add the multiplier effect. Too expensive will say the ed deformer Joel Kleinites as people like Christopher Cerf whine, "It has been shown that throwing cash at the problem doesn't solve it." Well they threw cash at GM, AIG, Bear Sterns, but alas not at Lehman Bros. The Precious people of this world apparently don't deserve to have cash thrown at an attempt to solve their problems by those deformers claiming to be fighting for civil rights.


The 4th season of The Wire also showed a troubled class of low class size and more than one adult in the room as being effective. Note how in all the discussion by the ed deformers for solutions to education, the idea of small groups is left out. Unless it involves charter schools, of course. BloomKlein with all the money they have been throwing around, never tried one case of inundating a poorly performing school with piles of teachers before closing it.

Expensive? Hell, yes. But they are throwing around 500 billion in stimulus money. Ask why they don't offer it to systems that figure out ways to reduce class size and you begin to understand how the true agenda is to move the control of schools out of public control and into private hands.

Leonie Slaps Flypaper Over Class Size

Is there not stopping this woman? Yesterday she takes down the NY Times. Today she wipes out the Fordham Institute.

Leonie Haimson reports on the NYC Ed News Listserve:

See this nasty column in Flypaper – put out by the right-wing Fordham Institute, attacking my Huffington Post column on Frank McCourt posted here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson/what-frank-mccourt-could_b_241331.html

Check it out at http://www.edexcellence.net/flypaper/index.php/2009/08/no-offense-frank-mccourt/ and please leave a comment.

The author actually argues that smaller classes are “unsubstantiated remedies….- Rather than adhering to rigorous research standards, we resort to sweeping generalizations and sentimental stories about children’s lives.”

Hogwash! Actually, the research is stronger for class size reduction than for nearly any other education reform – and certainly stronger than the favored remedies of the Fordham Institute crowd.

My comments are below.

Thanks,

Leonie Haimson

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leonie-haimson

I'm glad that my column is being so widely read and cited, even by hidebound contrarians.

Actually, the scientific and empirical research is so strong for class size reduction that it is cited as only four evidence-based education reforms that have been proven to work by the Institute of Education Science -- the research arm of the US Dept. of Education. You can check it out yourself by googling the title: "IDENTIFYING AND IMPLEMENTING EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES SUPPORTED BY RIGOROUS EVIDENCE"

There are literally scores of studies indicating that smaller class sizes lead to better results -- not just STAR, which was one of the few large scale, randomized experiments in the history of education reform -- the gold standard according to most researchers.

Over and over again, smaller classes have been shown to lead to fewer disciplinary referrals, more learning, more student engagement, and less teacher attrition. Class size reduction has also been proven to be cost-effective. A recent study showed that in terms of health care, the economic cost-benefits would be expected to surpass childhood immunization.

Alan Krueger, formerly of Princeton and now the chief economist of the US Dept. of Treasury, has demonstrated that the number of positive studies on class size reduction far outnumber the negative ones. The links you provide above do not show otherwise.

Why ideologues and zealots put so much energy into disputing the simple fact that teachers can reach their students better and students learn more in smaller classes is beyond me. Why anyone would seriously argue that only student load matters and not class size -- as though the only learning and personal connection between teachers and students happens outside of the classroom -- I cannot possibly understand.

And Frank McCourt was a huge champion of smaller classes, as evidenced by his frequent comments on the subject as well as his agreement to be honorary chair of the campaign to lower class size in NYC public schools.

Perhaps its because unlike their own favorite strategies, such as privatization, vouchers, the expansion of charter schools and/or teacher incentive pay, none of which has any backing in the research, class size reduction has been proven to work, over and over again. Thus it is the dragon that they are unable to slay.

If anyone would like some fact sheets on this issue, including recent papers with findings about the importance of smaller classes in the middle and upper grades, you can email me at leonie@att.net.

I just took a look at the three links above -- supposedly research studies that weakens the case for smaller classes. One of the studies contains the following statement:

"Studies that used high-quality experimental data have consistently demonstrated the positive effects of small classes on average student achievement-for all students....The findings also indicated that although all types of students benefited from being in small classes, reductions in class size did not reduce the achievement gap between low and high achievers."

{This conclusion, by the way, is not shared by other researchers -- who have shown that class size reduction narrows the achievement gap between racial groups by more than 30%.)

The second is an EdWeek summary of the first article.

The third, an unpublished "discussion" paper by Boozer and Cacciola, also does not dispute the effects of smaller classes, but appears to divide class size into direct and indirect effects, with some of the significant gains exhibited by students in smaller classes attributed to peer effects.

Thus students who are in classes with other students who are doing better because of smaller classes also benefit because their peers are doing better. At least that is what the article seems to conclude: "Small class type treatment induced not just potentially a boost in that child's test score outcome, but an indirect or spillover effect on the child's classmates through the peer group effect. This is what we mean by the feedback or social multiplier effect of the Small class type treatment."

There are many positive feedbacks that occur in smaller classes. The smaller the class, the more engaged are its students, and fewer disciplinary problems occur. The fewer disruptions, the easier it is for teachers to teach and low-performing students to focus and model their behavior on more engaged students. Also there is less stereotyping in both directions -- from teacher to students and students to teacher.

Teachers can figure out quicker who is or is not responding to a specific technique, style or approach, and alter their methods more quickly and effectively to reach specific students; and students feel as though their teachers understand and care about them more, and are willing to put back into the classroom their focus and energy.

None of this is surprising, and none of it is difficult to understand.

In any case, according to my reading of these articles, not one of them weakens the case that smaller classes leads to better outcomes.

Thanks,

Leonie Haimson
Executive Director
Class Size Matters
www.classsizematters.org
http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/

Please make a tax-deductible contribution to Class Size Matters now!

TQ and Class SIze

John Thompson has made some great comments at this debate at Gotham:

"I written about the mess four years ago when we became The Wire. How did we
solve it? We just hired more teachers the next year. All of a sudden, problems
that seemed impossible seemed manageable. Then when we we back to the normal
allotment, problems increased again."

I responded:
Just hire more teachers to solve basic problems, the notorious "throwing cash at the problem" we see debunked by the ed deformers. I wonder where you guys got these teachers from? Were they vetted for quality? This is what the deformers say- teacher quality is more important than class size. But what you did was raise the quality of all teachers because TQ does not exist in a vacuum.

When I raised this issue at a forum with Rotherham and Russo, Jennifer Medina from the NY Times, and Richard Colvin of the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media at Teachers College, Columbia University. Colvin was incensed when I compared class size in urban areas to suburban schools, saying how the cost was astronomical. "Some people drive Mercedes but not everyone needs to drive a Mercedes," he said. "You can still get around in a Toyota."

Of course, when the financial crisis hit and Bear Sterns and AIG needed enormous funding, all the money that would have enable urban kids to sit in a Mercedes magically appeared.

In NYC they supposedly cut crime by putting lots more police on the streets. They were not vetted for quality first. Some were good and some were bad, but their very presence as a resource had an impact. I say instead of using that stimulus money to reward school systems that kill tenure or expand charter schools, try a few experiments by inundating the very worst schools with masses of teachers, social workers and other services - sort of an expansion of the Harlem Children's Zone. But no one wants to try that. Better to target teachers and unions by using the "it's so hard to get rid of bad teachers" sob story as an excuse not to reduce class size.

Teacher Quality and Class Size

I have to go back to the Leonie Haimson well for this post. It's like I have all these thoughts incoherently wrestling with themselves. The price of aging brain cells. And then Leonie, like a cowboy with a rope, writes something that corals them into semi-rationality. I've been meaning to write about the heroic teacher concept you see plastered all over subway cars.

All you need is a quality teacher with proven high test score to handle this crowd.

Hey, I was one of these heroic teachers in my early years, devoting my entire life to the classroom. Then came the realization that there was a lot of socio-economic stuff going on - which led to the idea that becoming politically active was as important as the work I was doing in the classroom. But that's a story for another time.

In The myth of the great teacher, hopefully euthanized once and for all on the NYC Public School Parent blog, Leonie credits recent writings by Diane Ravitch and Skoolboy (Aaron Pallas) for taking apart those ridiculous Nicholas Kristof education columns.

Leonie sums up with

In fact, one study from San Diego cited by the report shows that “35 percent of teachers initially ranked in the top quintile remain there in the second year while 30 percent fall into the first or second quintiles of the quality distribution in year two. Apparently, even using different tests can affect the stability of estimated teacher effects.

Of course all the phony ed reform crowd cares about what can be measured like test scores. Read any teacher blog and you will see the ability to deal with kids' behavior effectively – and I mean going beyond simply controlling a class (some teachers I saw used to do it brutally) but with some level of humanity – is often considered by other teachers one of the highest levels of skills and probably a key indicator of teacher quality. But there is no way to measure this skill, so out the window it goes.

Now, this high level teaching skill is most affected by class size.

In the fall of 1979 we had three 6th grade classes, all with fairly low class sizes. As usual, they were grouped homogeneously. In my school traditionally, the administration (old hand teachers who rose through the ranks) made a conscious effort to keep class size in the more difficult classes to a lower number, enough of an incentive for some people to volunteer to take the position every year just for the low class size.

This policy changed in 1979 with a new test-driven politically appointed administrator with no teaching experience who ignored these finer points. But this was her first full year and she hadn't gotten total control yet.

Of course 30 years of fog clogs the brain but the numbers were from around 20 in the 6-3 class to about 27 in the 6-1. I had the 6-2 with around 22. The bottom class with the neediest kids was below 20. For all of us the situation was a unique opportunity and I would guess by any measure of Teacher Quality we were better than ever.

But being a doom and gloom guy, from the first day, I expected them to not allow this to continue and that they would cut one class. I had the lowest seniority, so I knew it would be mine.

The district made the decision to cut a position in December, of all times. The 3 classes were cut to 2 with each class having 35-37. (I had one student who 15 years later when she was a parent herself, used to complain about what happened - why did you get rid of me she used to cry?)

They took the top half reading scores and folded them into the top class, which turned heaven to purgatory. But for the teacher with the more difficult class, going from 19 kids to 35 was hell. But both of the teachers were extremely skilled in dealing with kids and they persevered.

I was placed in a special ed cluster position teaching 4 emotionally handicapped and one CRMD (mentally retarded class) a day. The class sizes were 10 with a para. It was my first experience with kids who could be so irrational or such slow learners, that someone like me with no training didn't have a clue how to teach. In the interest of full disclosure, I ended up there because the teacher with least seniority was bumped. (I know, I know, the attacks on union rules will be forthcoming but that I was an experienced teacher vs. a newbie even with training - I call it more than a wash.)

If someone checked my TQ factor they would have seen a serious drop from just a few weeks before. But being a prep coverage position, I was able to recoup after each class without too much damage and began to figure things out. The experience taught me that many of the techniques I had learned in over a decade of teaching needed modification.

Which goes to show that Teacher Quality is not an absolute, but a moving target that can change by the year, the month, the day, the hour. And in the 1979-80 school year, for me, by the minute.

I went racing back to regular ed the next year. It wasn't until the crack babies started filtering into regular ed a few years later that we all began to see that same irrationality of the kids. My 79-80 experience did make a difference.

Resources:
Skoolboy

Why Are People So Gullible About Miracle Cures in Education?The Miracle Teacher, Revisited

Nicholas Kristof column in the New York Times.

My last post NY Times Ends Black Out on Class Size - Sort Of
David Pakter left a comment with a list of private school tuition in NYC where parents pay all that money for low class sizes. He also sent it to the NY Times.

NY Times Ends Black Out on Class Size - Sort Of

Today's NY Times actually addressed the class size issue. That there is such a lack of unquestioning acceptance of Bloomberg's point of view is of no surprise from the Bloomberg News Service - er - the Times. We hear the "quality teacher vs. class size debate raised whenever the powers that be try to slip slide away. At least the Times does mention the famous Tennessee study, so ignored and intentionally misrepresented by the phony ed reform gang who try to paint teacher quality as digital - you are or you aren't a QT when in fact TQ is a moving target dependent on a number of variables, with class size being one of the keys.

The Accountable Talk blog, run by an actual NYC middle school teacher, takes Bloomberg to task in this post: Accountable Talk: Spot That Fallacy

the mayor presents the situation as an either/or, when it is nothing of the sort. Most Long Island districts, as well as many districts upstate and in Connecticut, have shown that you can have both low class size and pay teachers well. What makes Mr. Bloomberg's utterance a particularly good example is that he has utterly failed to do either one.

Yes, where are the calls in Long Island and Connecticut and Westchester for reduction in union influence and an end to seniority? Where are the calls for asking parents, who actually seem to have a say in who runs their schools, to make a choice between class size and so-called quality teachers?

Class Size Matters' Leonie Haimson's analysis on the NYC PS Parent blog is so cogent, it deserves to be re-posted far and wide. If there's a song to sing, it is "No Body Does It Better" than Leonie. Here's her post from her blog:

Bloomberg administration blames parents for larger classes

See the article in today’s NY Times, Class Size in New York City Schools Rises, but the Impact is Debated, a follow up to the article on Wednesday, Class Size Makes Biggest Jump of Bloomberg Tenure.

Though it is one of those typical “on the one hand this, on the other hand that” pieces– citing research that is either outmoded or easily refuted -- it is important because it is the first in-depth article in our paper of record to have dealt with the issue of class size in at least five years.

Indeed, the Times has had a “black out” on class size through most of the Bloomberg administration – as the former education editor admitted in June of 2006 – though at that point, she promised “to explore the class size issue” soon after -- which has not occurred until now, almost three years later.

This omission has persisted, despite the fact that our public school students continue to suffer from the largest class sizes in the state, smaller classes have consistently been the top priority of NYC parents, and in subway and TV ads, the administration has claimed to be reducing class size while being repeatedly cited for misusing hundreds of millions of dollars of state aid meant for this purpose.

In today’s article, the administration once again tries to evade its own responsibility for failing to reduce class size, despite a state mandate passed in 2007. In the previous Times article, Garth Harries of DOE attempted to blame the economy– even though the state provided an additional $400 million this fall, with $150 million of that targeted for class size reduction. He also attempted to shift the blame onto principals, which Chris Cerf tries again in today’s article, without acknowledging that it is the DOE’s duty to see that these funds are spent appropriately.

But now, even more outrageously, they are trying to blame parents – with Harries actually arguing that large classes are the result of popular schools where parents insist on sending their kids.

As I pointed out to the reporter, the vast majority of children attend their neighborhood zoned elementary and middle schools– and DOE entirely controls the admissions for high schools, so blaming parents for the systemic problem of large classes is entirely unwarranted. Who will they blame next – our kids?

Indeed, at the same time that the administration goes around claiming that mayoral control means accountability, they are quick to shift the blame on everyone else when they fail to create more adequate and equitable learning conditions for our children.

The article also repeats the administration’s canard that there is a trade-off between teacher quality and class size, when the two factors are actually complimentary. Indeed, the main reason we have such a high teacher turnover rate here in NYC is that our teachers so often leave for a new profession or to work in suburban or private schools -- because their excessive class sizes do not provide them with a fair chance to succeed.

In a recent national poll, 97% of teachers responded that reducing class size would be an effective way to improve teacher quality – far above any other strategy, including raising salaries, instituting teacher performance pay, or providing more professional development. Indeed, the only way we will ever obtain a more experienced and effective teaching force here in NYC is by reducing class size.

But the most ridiculous part of the article is the “evidence” offered by the administration that smaller classes don’t matter, by referring to an unpublished (and probably unpublishable) internal DOE study that purported to show that the grades schools received on the “Progress reports” weren’t correlated with smaller classes. No mention is made of the fact that most experts have found that the grades schools receive are mostly random – with almost no correlation from one year to the next -- as an article by the same reporter in the Times pointed out last year.

In contrast, the Institute of Education Sciences, the research arm of the US Department of Education, has concluded that class size reduction is one of only four, evidence-based reforms proven to increase student achievement. (None of the policies that the Bloomberg/Klein administration has introduced are on the list, by the way.)

In fact, the DOE has devised another formula – a “value added” model to evaluate teacher effectiveness, in which class size is included as a “predictor”, the ONLY factor included in the model under the school system’s control. This is an admission that the larger the class, the less a teacher is expected to raise student achievement. All the other factors in the model pertain to characteristics of the students themselves, such as economic status, prior test scores, absences, etc.

See the model here – which includes average class size at both the classroom and school level, showing that both should be taken into account when assessing a teacher’s performance. The DOE also states that the model used “draws on 10 years of city-wide data (test scores, student, teacher, and school characteristics) to predict individual student gains.”

Check out the accompanying FAQ:

Is the DOE’s Value-Added model reliable and valid?

A: A panel of technical experts has approved the DOE’s value-added methodology. The DOE’s model has met recognized standards for demonstrating validity and reliability. Teachers’ value-added scores from the model are positively correlated with both School Progress Report scores and principals’ perceptions of teachers’ effectiveness, as measured by a research study conducted during the pilot of this initiative.

Anyway, please send a letter to the Times at letters@nytimes.com with your name, address and phone number. Let them know what you think – and whether it’s fair to blame parents for the fact that NYC classes have remained the largest in the state, with no significant improvement under this administration.

Children Who Live in Public Housing Suffer in School

Where's the accountability?

The NY Times reports today on a study showing that "children in public housing perform worse in school than students who live in other types of housing even if they go to the same schools."They are "more likely to drop out of high school and less likely to graduate in four years than those who do not live in public housing.... fifth graders living in public housing did worse on standardized math and reading tests than fifth graders who lived elsewhere. Researchers found this disparity in fifth-grade test scores even when comparing students at the same school who shared similar demographics, like race, gender and poverty status."

Hmmm. With the city of New York being the landlord, shouldn't the accountability freaks in the world of BloomKlein jump all over this and fire all the housing execs? You, know you just can't find enough quality people to run public housing, which in their world (no quality teachers, no lower class sizes) should mean we have to shutter all the housing until the quality of the people running them improves.

Well, I guess only teachers and schools are held accountable. Even when studies show otherwise.

Bill Cala on Class Size...and Bloomberg's Reps Too

Any one who claims that class size doesn’t make a difference has not been in a classroom in the past 20 years.

- Bill Cala, most recently interim Superintendent of the Rochester School District in New York and a long-time Superintendent of three school districts, now retired.

I met Bill Cala and his wife Joanne in March, 2003 at an ACT NOW conference at the WOO (World of Opportunity) in Birmingham, Al., hosted by the late, great Steve Orel. With a cast of Susan Ohanian, Juanita Doyon, John Lawhead, and twenty other education activists from around the nation, that was one hell of a two days of intensive discussion on NCLB, high stakes tests and general education issues. Quite a few bonds were formed, especially at the anti-war vigil in downtown Birmingham, followed by a communal dinner.

I was shocked when I discovered that Bill was a school Superintendent in Fairport in upstate New York, the third district he has run. How could I be on the same page on so many issues with someone who runs a school district? Besides, he was a hell of a lot of fun to hang out with. Nowhere near the Supes I had run across in NYC.

We kept in touch and on a visit to NYC, he invited me to a meeting at the Urban Academy at the Julia Richman Educational Complex. That was the first time I met Ann Cook (co-director of the school and one of the true heroes of education) and the amazing Jane Hirschman (Time Out From Testing).

Bill retired from the Fairport school district a few years ago and he and Joanne started Joining Hearts and Hands, which promotes improved educational, health and economic conditions for African orphans and their communities by building schools, sponsoring health clinics, providing secondary scholarships, and nurturing sustainable development initiatives – all to promote dignity, opportunity and hope.

While I was sure of where Bill stood on class size, it is one thing to be use rhetoric (see one Randi Weingarten) and another to deliver when you have the power in your hands to do so.

Here is Bill's own words on class size:

While superintendent of Fairport, I initiated a long-term plan to reduce all primary classes to no higher than 17. For the most part, we accomplished that goal, reducing class sizes to that level K-3. In fact, in order to put meat on the bone, I had the board adopt a policy to that effect. In the intermediate, middle and high school grades, I brought class size down to the lowest levels in the school district’s history.


Any one who claims that class size doesn’t make a difference has not been in a classroom in the past 20 years.

Why do I bring up Bill's views on class size now?

Because on Nov. 19, I attended a panel on mayoral control at the Wagner School at NYU with

• Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters
• Richard Kessler, Executive Director, The Center for Arts Education
• Lesley Redwine, Director Of External Relations, Achievement First
• Fatima Shama, Senior Education Policy Advisor, NYC Office of the Mayor

Shama was a last minute replacement for the Tweed rep, Emily Weiss, who pulled out after hearing Leonie would be on the panel. (Tweedies are not good at actually having to face people who have real data.)

Shama was pretty smooth with the usual claptrap coming from the mayor's office on education. You know how closing the achievement gap is an ethical issue and inequality must be blah, blah, blah, blah.

So I asked her how come it wasn' t an ethical and equality issue for NYC students to have 25% higher class sizes than the rest of the state? Why the poorest kids in urban areas, who just happened to be mostly people of color, don't deserve equality with the richer kids? Why isn't this the civil rights issue of our time?

Shama's response was - now hold your breaths kiddies - was that class size doesn't matter.

The ideal class size in Bloomberg land.

There was an audible gaps from the audience of mostly education students about to become teachers (but maybe not in NYC now that they know the official policy.) Redwine, was quick to jump in and agree with Shama.

Now there's a pair for you.

For my money, Leonie kicked their butts all over the place.