SOS Tilden Rally - Feb. 6, 2007

Pictures from the rally.
See commentary posted on this blog below in "Deconstructing the System, School by School"
Check out http://www.allout4tilden.com/



John Lawhead on the right presents reasons Tilden should remain open.







School psychologist Kimberly Partington























Principal Diane Varano

Another ICE'er in the Times

One of the best things about being associated with ICE have been the phenomenal people I've had the chance to work with. It is no accident that so many ICE'ers have appeared in the news over the years based on engaging in activities in their schools related to improving the educational environment for their colleagues and their students.

Jeff Kaufman was punished for assisting an incarcerated student at Riker Island with getting his college credits. Maria Colon for exposing changes in Regent scores by the administration of Kennedy HS. Today, James Eterno is quoted in the Metro section of the Times condemning Jamaica High School's being named an Impact School by the DOE. Another Surge by the DOE.

John Lawhead also appeared in Sam Freedman's column in today's Times. Unfortunately, little of what I am sure John told Freedman about the closing of large schools appeared in the article. (As I've written before, hanging out with John after I met him through Ed. Notes, made the idea of getting a group of similar people together. ICE was the result.)

While Freedman makes some very valid points, the article leaves out so much. John (who has had the most impact on the positions we in ICE have taken on the large school controversy) has been on the small schools/large schools issue for many years, having experienced the closing of Bushwich HS and now Tilden. He wrote an article on the issue for Education Notes as far back as 2002.

The quote used below -- the only one from John in the article --

“Education involves trade-offs; it always does,” said John Lawhead, who has taught English as a Second Language at Tilden for three years. “But those trade-offs, in breaking up the big high schools, should be discussed publicly so you know what’s being lost as well as what’s being gained.”

leaves out all the great stuff John has to say about these tradeoffs. John as part of SOS Tilden is trying to save the school and there is not a hint of that signficant movement in the article. With so many immigrant students who will now have to float around as nomads there will be a massive impact the closing of these schools will have on whatever large schools are left in the area, the DOE version of the domino theory.

Basically, the article endoses the small school policy but is crtical of the way they are going about it. If the DOE hadn't put Roholff in as principal of lafayette and supported her through gaffe after gaffe, the school might have been changed.

Why can't there be a system where Steve Chung could have set up a program within the structure of Lafayette? The DOE (and unfortunately the UFT which basically endorsed the closing of the school and is miffed that the DOE which was supposdly working with them to set up the small schools, reneged) has control of these schools but gets away with saying "we can't fix what we control and the only way to fix it is to destroy it."

The answer is the DOE feels they have to empty out the teaching staff and the students and start all over. It's like old construction where you have to work around things vs tearing it down. It is difficult but doable. (It wan't fun when I had a new kitchen installed but I didn't tear down my house and new people move in.) The DOE doesn't want to do the hard stuff -- only things they can show as PR.

I was in Clinton HS recently - vastly overcrowded and supposedly they are doing small learning communities there now. These are unadvertized options. Small can be good but it can be done in the context of large. I don't see them breaking up Stuvesant and I bet these kids would also benefit from smaller environements.

Some stuff on John on this blog which also includes information from George Schmidt on the Chicago experience with mayoral control and small schools - useful stuff in seeing the big picture -- it's not just BloomKlein but a national movement.

NYC Educator, as usual, hits the nail on the head: Mr. Bloomberg Vs. the Aliens

Leonie Haimson also makes some great points on the article in a much more coherent manner than I do. I am posting them on the blog I set up to archive some of the work being done on her listserv.

Why use such a large picture when so little of what John has to say is part of the article. John comes out looking great but I would have used part of the space to use more of what he had to say. Style over substance.

Tilden has John's back in this photo

On Closing Large High Schools

From Leonie Haimson listserve:

The Comptroller has received several calls from other elected officials concerned about the closings of these schools. We are interested in finding out if anyone can tell me if the DOE did any outreach at all to parents or the effected communities prior to making this decision….and if they have any plans do so now with respect to the next steps they will take re: the creation of new schools/programs at these site.

Comments from Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters on Dec. 12:

The pattern that we have repeatedly seen of closing failing large high schools down and opening up new small schools in their place sounds good; but in the end, it often hurts rather than helps our neediest students, leading to even higher discharge and dropout rates.

For example, Tilden HS has 300 special ed students and at least 300 ELL students, many of them sent there originally because other large high schools nearby were closed in recent years, like Bushwick, Prospect Park, Wingate and others.

Why? As we know from recent reports from the CCHS, Immigration Coalition and NY Lawyers for Public Interest, most of the ELL and special ed students will be excluded from whatever new small schools are formed in their place.

When a school is being phased out, no one cares about the students who still go there – they no longer count in terms of any accountability system. This may be one of the reasons we’ve seen a steady increase in discharged students over the last four years. In many cases, these students are denied the classes they need to graduate, even if these same courses are being given at the small schools opening up in the same building.

If they don’t manage to graduate in the few years that their original school continues to exist – and many won’t – most of the lowest-performing students will be discharged to “alternative” or GED programs, or transferred to other large high schools. These schools in turn will likely become even more overcrowded than before – and in many cases, destabilized.

In either case, many of the students at the schools that are were announced today as closing will likely end up as dropout statistics, or even worse, if “discharged” they will be expunged from existence, and not even counted as dropouts.

Today I spoke to a teacher at Tilden HS, one of the schools being closed down; he told me that school has never been given the resources or programs it needed to improve. He has many ELL classes that have 30 students or more – classes that should be no larger than 20.

Four of these five schools also had principals who graduated from the Leadership Academy. What this shows is that leadership alone does not help, unless classroom conditions are also addressed.
Until this administration has a plan to improve opportunities for all our students, including providing them smaller classes no matter where they go to school, we will continue on in this cycle of failure, far into the future.

Lafayette, South Shore, Tilden to Close - UFT Goes Along for the Ride

From Lafayette HS:

"It's official now. Lafayette will have no freshman class next year, and three to four new schools will start moving into the building. UFT VP for HS Frank V. and Dist. Rep Charlie F. were there to answer questions. 50% of new school positions are guaranteed to Lafayette teachers, we were told. We were also told South Shore and Tilden will meet he same fate. Even though the announcement by the DOE was not unexpected, we are stunned by the news."

The DOE attack on large schools continues. Instead of putting in the resources necessary to fix these schools, the DOE will allow 4 schools to compete for resources, the most precious to them being kids who can perform. And 3 more schools full of teachers being thrown under the ATR bus.

The role of the UFT reps seems to be to smooth the way and answer questions instead of fighting like hell to keep this from happening.