Parking permits for teachers reduced by 82%

....63,000 to 11,000 this year, the largest amount in the city by far.

UPDATE:
From NY 1: Weingarten said she's relieved the number of available spots is staying the same. "I'm actually surprised at Ed for talking about it that way," said Weingarten. "Ultimately what has happened here is there are 25,000 parking spots right now in the city of New York for school teachers and as of next week there will still be 25,000 parking spots for school teachers."

Weingarten's numbers don't match - and we need MORE spaces, not less.

The ICE blog has a post with a letter showing the extent of the UFT sell-out. Why did they drop the grievance when this is clearly a reduction in working conditions?

Will the UFT and DOE solidify it's collaboration on merit pay to teachers whose kids score high by giving those teachers preferences for the permits?

We once had a teacher who on the first day had her car stolen. Someone at a school she had been at saw the car go by with someone driving it. She quit the next day.

This is a real hit in working conditions for many. For teachers, especially in elementary schools who do a lot of schlepping from far away, this is a major hit. If I had to take public transportation, my trip would have taken an hour and a half instead of 35 minutes.

And how about the high crime areas? I can't count the number of batteries, radios, broken windows, one alternator, a distributor cap with wires, that I lost right down the block from the school. There's nothing like trying to teach while worrying whether you will lose part of your day's pay for a ticket or worse, have no car left.

Every school seems to be short of spots. Watch the promises to get more go up in smoke. At PS 84K there was a major shortage of spots and the administration and UFT rep worked very hard to free up a few more spots from the dreaded alternate side rules - why not clean before or after school? We finally won a few but some months later the signs were changed back. Let's say the bureaucracy at the Dept of Transportation was not exactly cooperative, if not outright disdainful of teacher parking problems.

But it's not punitive that teachers took the biggest hit by far said a Bloomberg spokesperson who was just thrilled with the way the UFT collaborated :

the teachers union has been "very reasonable...a pleasure to work with" on the placard issue. Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, had been prepared to go to court to block the reductions but said she was relieved that the number of spots remains the same. It's simply fewer placards. "This was at least a rational way of dealing with this," Weingarten said. The principals and a UFT rep at each school will determine who gets the placards. - Daily News.

More stories in the NYPost, NY Times.

Unions stress over racism in the ranks

DENVER — Racial prejudice is being cited among senior union leaders to explain Sen. Barack Obama’s difficulty in winning over support from white rank-and-file members.

The Hill

Democrats: All On Board in Attack on Teacher Unions

Revised 8/26, 11:30 pm- for The Wave, School Scope column to be published Friday, Aug. 29.

We've been pointing out that when it comes to the ed reform movement, Democrats have not been all that far away from the Republican agenda. Joel Klein, Joe Williams, Al Sharpton, Cory Booker and the rest of the Educational Equality Project gang are Democratic Party (I won't call them democratic because they are in favor of dictatorship over the schools of poor minority kids while white suburban parents get to vote on school boards and budgets.)

A typical anti-union cartoon

The Bigger, Bolder approach would seem more in line with traditional values of the Party but as Phylissa Cramer and Kelly Vaughan have been pointing out at Gotham Schools, they may not be all that different. Are the EEP and Bigger, Bolder approaches all that far apart? Both call for accountability. But what does that mean? Where is the accountability on the part of politicians and the business community?

Kelly writes:

And as a society, it makes no sense to put the whole burden on schools. I will know that our nation really wants to leave no child behind when I see a complete package of funded legislation that takes on health care (physical and mental), housing, environmental justice, early childhood education, and a host of other issues that affect the development and opportunities of our kids. “Our schools are failing,” is nothing but an excuse when the rest is left unaddressed.

To me, it looks like common sense: no excuses schools in a no excuses society.

Let’s move beyond the “false choice” and explore what two-way accountability could look like in practice. Anyone?

When Randi Weingarten jumps on the one-way accountability bandwagon - "Yes, we do want to be accountable" - we know we are in trouble. I've been asking Randi for a decade, "Accountable for what and to whom?" Listen, I jumped on her from the day she first uttered her support for mayoral control in 2001 when I knew from the Chicago experience that the only answers politicians will have is to blame teachers and their union.

What I want my union leader to say is: We have always been accountable to our children and to our parents and to our principals. But to some federal, state and city government that raises itself above accountability? No way!

So yesterday she had a golden opportunity in her speech at the Democratic convention to make an important point for teachers. Naturally, she failed the test.

Chapter leader Lisa North commented on ICE-mail:

Wow, Randi's speech basically said nothing about education except that public education is important and too must testing is not a good idea. It seemed very weak.

Lisa, I didn't expect anything more. Like did you hear her mention class size and the studies that support it? Did you hear her call for full funding of education instead of wars and bailouts? Did you hear her call them on No Excuses - on their part?

Randi has always tried to play both sides against the middle by bending over backwards to try to show she is a reasonable union leader and "progressive" in a willingness to give up teachers.
To be perfectly fair, she is just following the trail blazed by Al Shanker back in the early 80's when he jumped on board the same bandwagon. (plug- plug - get a pdf of our review of the Kahlenberg book on Shanker.)

But what good as it done the AFT/UFT as they still keep coming under attack? Thus, read yesterday''s Michelle O'Neill report at Ed Week

Union Tensions at DNC

The education event that followed the NEA luncheon showed the growing tensions within the Democratic Party over school reform, and the role of teachers’ unions.

Though it’s no surprise an event sponsored by the Democrats for Education Reform would have a slight anti-union message; many of the speakers at the event took several shots at unions during the press conference announcing the Education Equality Project in June.

Today, the sentiment was strong and persistent at standing-room-only, three-hour forum called Ed Challenge for Change. In fact, some of the big-city mayors who participated predicted that had such a forum been held four years ago, a mere five souls would have showed.

Here at the Denver Art Museum, Democratic mayors from Newark, N.J., Washington D.C., and Denver joined education reform darlings including New York City’s Joel Klein and Washington D.C.’s Michelle Rhee. The group was referred to as the “misfits” of the Democratic Party by DFER's Joe Williams, a nod to their willingness to speak up against the influence of teachers’ unions, which have formed the backbone of the party.

The educators, along with the Rev. Al Sharpton, kicked off the event with a nearly hour-long press conference to tout the event. There, Rhee (who left early to catch a flight home; D.C. schools open on Monday), took the Democrats to task, saying the party is “supposed to be the party that looks out for poor and minority kids,” when that’s not actually happening.

The anti-union sentiment spilled over into policy forums that followed. The fight against the teachers’ unions and other special interests is a “battle at the heart of the Democratic Party,” said Newark Mayor Cory Booker. “As Democrats, we have been wrong on education. It’s time to get right.”

Even former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer, who has tried to avoid controversy in his position as the ED in ’08 leader, earned some murmurs from the audience when he said that reformers cannot be “wedded to someone else’s union rules and that politicians, practically speaking, need to work with unions even thought they are “wedded to the past.”

See more reports at Slate and Dana Goldstein at The American Prospect who says:

if ...teachers... embrace the Democrats for Education Reform agenda -- giving up tenure in exchange for higher starting salaries and merit pay tied to student achievement -- the unions will have to get with the program. If they don't, they'll risk becoming irrelevant to their own members.


Unions are already becoming irrlevant (how many vote in elections?) to their own members for the opposite reasons: capitulation to the BloomKlein Educational Equality Project agenda. Unfortunately, Randi Weingarten will not resist the "advice" Dana Goldstein offers and will continue to lead the teacher union movement into oblivion.

The Perimeter Primate Takes on George Will

Oakland parent Sharon Higgins left this comment on the Daily Howler critique of George Will I posted Sunday. It is worth sharing as a separate post. Her blog, The Perimeter Primate, touches on a number of important issues. Here, Sharon exposes the myth of charter schools - that they succeed with the same kids who failed in public schools.

photo from Sharon's blog.

The fluff about this school has been driving me nuts for years!

Here's what I wrote to George Will.

Dear Mr. Will,

In preparing your recent column in the Washington Post (8/21/08), "Where Paternalism Makes the Grade," you may have wished to take a look at the demographic changes over the past several years at the American Indian Public Charter School. I am certain that you were unaware of them when you wrote the piece, but their influence must be considered when discussing the changes that have occurred at this particular school. Otherwise, a true picture is not portrayed.

Dr. Chavis’ first year at the school was 2001-02. By the time he began his third year at the school, a new course for the school was in place—the acquisition of more students from the higher performing subgroups and a reduction of students from the lowest performing subgroups. Please note the changes in enrollment which occurred.

(Incidentally, the demographics of Oakland were not shifting in this same way. They have remained stable with the exception of an increase in Latino residents and a decline in African American residents.)

The percentage of the school’s students who were in the following subgroups: American Indian or Alaska Native, Pacific Islander, Filipino, Hispanic or Latino, or African American in the 12 school years from 1996-97 to 2007-08.

1996-97 = 100.0
1997-98 = 97.0
1998-99 = 93.8
1999-00 = 100.1
2000-01 = 97.0
2001-02 = 100
2002-03 = 98.7
2003-04 = 74.3
2004-05 = 55.4
2005-06 = 65.3
2006-07 = 51.1
2007-08 = 50.5

Here is the changing percentage of the school’s students who were in the following subgroups: Asian or White.

Please note the unusual increase in 2003:

1996-97 = 0.0
1997-98 = 2.9
1998-99 = 6.2
1999-00 = 0.0
2000-01 = 2.9
2001-02 = 0.0
2002-03 = 1.2
2003-04 = 25.72004-05 = 44.6
2005-06 = 33.7
2006-07 = 22.4
2007-08 = 38.4

This data was obtained from the California Department of Education @ http://dq.cde.ca.gov/dataquest/

In 2006, questions were being raised about the selectivity of students.
Suddenly, the school had an unprecedented number of students who were not specifying their subgroup. The percentage in this group had been nonexistent for 10 years. It suddenly jumped to 26.4 percent and has remained over 10 percent since. This certainly appears odd and would be one way to muddy the true demographics of the student population.

Sincerely, Sharon Higgins, Oakland parent
http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/

Eduwonkette Revealed - Phew, Now I Can Talk

Just a few weeks less than the first anniversary of the Eduwonkette blog, Diana Schemo in this week's NY magazine reveals Eduwonkette's real identity - Jennifer Jennings, a grad student at Columbia in the sociology department. Jennifer explains why she came out on her blog. Read her post and wonderful cartoon here.

And yes, I knew all along and am notoriously bad at keeping secrets, but she really scared the crap out of me - like if I squealed she would never work and I would have to send her money. Trying to keep a secret for almost a year for a yenta like me was torture.

She was a tough task master, making sure I didn't write anything too revealing. When we both attended an AERA event in March where Rotherham and Russo (and the Times' Jennifer Medina) were on a panel, we didn't sit together. She had to leave early and used some of my notes for her report. She was attacked by Rotherham for being connected to a crazy like me.

So let me say right here that though I've known Jennifer for 4 years that does not indicate agreement on her part with the stuff put out on Ed Notes.

Recently I spent an extended afternoon with Jennifer. Let me say this: there's no one in the education world where 4 hours of ed talk can be so enlightening - and mind wrenching - and thought provoking. One of the sad parts of our conversation was that her anonymity was interferring with her meeting too many people. It was clear she was planning an exit strategy from anonymity. The time frame seems to have been speeded up a bit.

There's a lot of areas where we agree and many where we don't. But don't be surprised if the crazies at the DOE who disparage Jennifer's exposure of their stats as biased go even further in attacking her for knowing the "wrong" people.

I personally pooh pooh research with an attitude of "Don' need no stinkin' research" to tell me what I instinctively know as a teacher. Like forget the class size research, even though the Tennessee study validates low class sizes. All teachers will point to class size as a major issue. But without research, what would all the researchers in education do? And all the pundits?

From the day I met Jennifer 4 years ago at a Walton HS (in the Bronx) press conference where the addition of small schools to an overcrowded building was an issue, I was impressed by the depth of knowledge of just about every ed issue out there. And the way she approached issues from the dual perspective of a researcher and a teacher.

She doesn't like to talk much about it but she did have some teaching experience in an urban setting and though brief, it was enough to inform her with a "teacher" mentality and that is how she approaches many issues. Thus, at no point will you find any hint of the teacher bashing that goes on amongst so many pundits. Maybe that is what upsets the DOE about her.

I remember telling people who bash the younger generation that with people like Jennifer there was a lot of hope. When I told her about ICE, she expressed interest in observing meetings as part of her research to see what it was all about. At that time ICE spent a lot of time debating education issues which many of us found more interesting than UFT electoral and caucus politics. She also recorded a special well-attended event we held at the old Stuyvesant building on small schools a few years ago.

Last September I had lunch with Jennifer on the day the Broad prize was announced as being given to Bloomberg/Klein at a "Pain Quotidienne" in the Village. She had been sending me some of the wonderful research she was into and it seemed a shame it didn't have a wider audience. (I had even spoken at PEP meetings using some of her research which I fuzzed up enough to keep her anonymous.) The Ed notes blog was about a year old at the time and I offered to publish some of her work.

She raised the idea of doing her own blog but also her reservations about it as she expresses in the reveal announcement on her blog. We talked about the idea of going anonymous as many bloggers do. We also spent a lot of time discussing the teacher effectiveness/quality issue that day. (We disagree in some areas.)

A few days later she sent me the prototype of her blog and and I was impressed. She went public a few days after that with a week long series on teacher effectiveness (worth reading again) that was very powerful.

I'm proud that Ed Notes was the first blog to announce her debut on her first day. Some major blogs plugged in the first day also. She got 300 hits that day.

By December, Education Week came calling with an offer to reach an even wider audience (she would not accept money.) There was never an expectation she would come under the kinds of attack she did for being anonymous." But the immediate impact she had was also unexpected.

Class Size Matters' Leonie Haimson is a good friend of Jennifer's and one afternoon after an event at Teachers College, I had the privilege of spending time with these two amazing ladies. Talk about brain power. Mine felt like a shriveling pea. When people ask why I am still doing this stuff 6 years after retiring, my answer is getting to know people like Leonie and Jennifer.

Leonie commented on her listserve soon after Jennifer's announcement:

Jennifer is beautiful and brilliant and it’s a relief not to have to keep her identity secret any more….She also did the seminal study of the “bubble kids” in Texas; see her study here and her WaPost oped here.

There will undoubtedly be many more pathbreaking studies to come – that is, if Bloomberg/Klein do not put out a hit against her.

Let’s hope her unmasking does not negatively affect her academic future!


Amen! Jennifer's real concerns about her notoriety affecting her ability to work in the academic areas will be tested. My sense without knowing anything about that world is that she may find it helps. Plus, she has garnered enormous respect. (Jeez, the very idea that Leo Casey and I agree on anything is frightening.)

Eduwonkette is not all about dry research. Her cleverness, charm, and fabulous wit came along with it.

Leonie unwittingly played a role in introducing Jennifer to someone who became a good friend.

"Class size really DOES matter," Jennifer commented.

Why I Hate Teach for America

"Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a big fan of the New York City Teaching Fellows either. I’m not defending NYCTF for it’s faults, which include provided precious little support and training for their new teachers as well as frightenly high turnover rates. According to a 2007 Village Voice article, by their fifth year teaching, less than fifty percent of Teaching Fellows remain from a given cohort. But at least in NYCTF the high turnover rate is seen as a failure. In TFA, the high turnover rate is designed as part of the program. TFA members are expected to leave teaching after their two-year commitment is up, those who continue to teach are seen as the exception."

From Anna, a 3rd year NYC Teaching Fellow. Read full piece posted at Feministe.

Thanks to Voice

Howling at George Will Who Knows How to Close the Achievement Gap

This spot on selection from Friday's Daily Howler, bears reproducing in full. (There's more on journalism and politics. Here's the link.) The Daily Howler is a must read as it goes beyond education, though ya gotta love the way he has taken apart Wendy Kopp and Michelle Rhee over the past year (check the archives.)

No self-proclaimed ed policy pundit and empty suit, Howler Bob Somerby spent a number of years teaching in the Baltimore school system in elementary school. Sorry you high school teachers, I think elementary school teachers who get closest to the kids, their families, their homes, their neighborhoods, have the best take on what is really happening and the solutions that might work. And what won't work. And to expose idiocies from the likes of George Will and David Brooks (see our posts here, here, here) when they speak Eduese.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2008

GEORGE F. WILL, SLOW LEARNER: Is there any other subject where so many know-nothings pose as experts? Yesterday, George F. Will displayed his vast brilliance about the state of elementary ed. In the following part of his column, Will is discussing Benjamin Chavis, who runs a well-known public charter school in Oakland:

WILL (8/21/08): He and other practitioners of the new paternalism—once upon a time, schooling was understood as democracy's permissible, indeed obligatory, paternalism—are proving that cultural pessimists are mistaken: We know how to close the achievement gap that often separates minorities from whites before kindergarten and widens through high school. A growing cohort of people possess the pedagogic skills to make "no excuses" schools flourish.

That highlighted statement is simply astounding. And trust us: Will knows as much about this subject as you know about the space shuttle program. We know how to close the achievement gap! It’s amazingly easy to say—and many hustlers now constantly say it. For all we know, Will may be channeling Wendy Kopp, well-known biggest hack in the land.

Sorry, but no—we don’t “know how to close the achievement gap” at this time. When people parade about saying we do, they commit an unfortunate act. But then, every dumb-ass on earth seems to say this now—often on the flimsiest “evidence.” In large part, Will seems to be basing his uplifting claim on the high test scores at Chavis’ school (the misleadingly-named American Indian Public Charter School, which kids of all races and ethnicities). Many kids have achieved great success at the school. But does that mean we know how to achieve such success as a general matter? Will seems willing to say it does. But right at the start of his column, this “know-nothing know-it-all” dumbly describes one part of this school’s success:

WILL: Seated at a solitary desk in the hall outside a classroom, the slender 13-year-old boy with a smile like a sunrise earnestly does remedial algebra, assisted by a paid tutor. She, too, is 13. Both wear the uniform—white polo shirt, khaki slacks—of a school that has not yet admitted the boy. It will, because he refuses to go away.

The son of Indian immigrants from Mexico, the boy decided he is going to be a doctor, heard about the American Indian Public Charter School here and started showing up. Ben Chavis, AIPCS's benevolent dictator, told the boy that although he was doing well at school, he was not up to the rigors of AIPCS, which is decorated with photographs of the many students it has sent to the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. So the boy asked, what must I do?

We often deride “slow-learner” students. But could anyone show less capacity for learning than George F. Will, right in this piece?

Why does Chavis’ school send so many students to Hopkins? Duh. In part, because it picks and chooses the kids who attend! The 13-year-old whom Will describes is already “doing well at school,” we seem to be told. Not only that: He’s so motivated that he’s paying another student to tutor him—and he’s already purchased the uniform of a school which won’t let him in! We’ll applaud that student, just as Will does. But if Will would only submit to paid tutoring, even if he could probably see that public schools, as a general matter, don’t select their students this way. The average school must accept all the kids who arrive—not just the brightest, most determined students, the ones who “refuse to go away.”

Friends, for just $5 a month, you can provides books and equipment for Will. Won’t you consider making that small donation to give him the help he deserves?

And while you're checking out the DC scene, read this July 28 post on union busting from DC City Desk. Pro-Rhee teacher blogs have suddenly appeared, which we wrote about here and here.

Dorothy Brizill, DC 7/28/08

http://www.prorev.com/2008/07/dc-shorts_28.htm


Watch Now - the Fenty-Rhee-Reinoso team may be on a collision course with the council over the proposed contract that Rhee will submit to the Washington Teachers Union. Rhee is seeking to bypass WTU's Executive Board and Delegate Assembly and take her proposed contract directly to the union membership. To accomplish that goal, Fenty and Rhee have launched a public relations campaign, both nationally and locally, to discredit the union and badmouth Washington teachers. The contract is a real union buster, asking current teachers to give up job security in exchange for potential pay bonuses. The government will not fund the bonuses, however; Rhee and Fenty are seeking startup funds from foundations such as Gates and Broad and the District's business community, such as CareFirst and developers. As a result, funding for the possible bonuses will only be guaranteed for the first year of the contract, while teachers will have given up tenure and job security, both for themselves and all new hires, permanently. However, the council has traditionally been very pro-union, and if councilmembers don't come out against these provisions in negotiations with teachers they will signal to all government employee unions that they can't be trusted to support them against Fenty's future union-busting initiatives.

EEP Marches to Denver

The true agenda of the EEP revealed: It's all about politics, not education. Children First, indeed.

Schools in Washington and NYC are about to open. A major contract issue exists in DC. Yet the leaders of those school systems are in Denver trying to get the Democrats to endorse their program:

credit recovery
false graduation rates
over crowded buildings
rote learning
inflaming racial tensions

(thanks to Voice for the list and to David B for the graphic)

Welcome Back Voice

A Voice in the Wilderness has returned at Chancellor's New Clothes from her temp digs in Europe with some pithy new posts.

This one focuses on what she's found about the European vs. the American view or work, benefits, etc.

NYC Educator made some similar points in this post comparing Canada to the US.

American workers identify more with Donald Trump than they do with the immigrant worker taking care of their garden. Big mistake. "It's a free, democratic country and anyone can become a Trump," they have been led to believe. It's all about class and the Trumps and their ilk are in a class of a very small size. As people get squeezed economically, there may be a resurgence of American worker class consciousness. But look to the patriotic xenophobia of this country (what, Obama says we should speak TWO languages) to trump all.

Class Size and Charter Schools in NYC

Here are comments from 2 posts by Leonie Haimson on the NYCEducation News listserve.

Here is [my question/comment on charter schools] – posted on the NY times website yesterday. http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/answers-about-charter-schools/

(You can easily look up the funding your own school received last year on the DOE website, divide by the enrollment and check if your school got more or less than the $11,000 per student received by NYC charter schools last year.)

Question: Mr. Merriman says that charter schools are seriously hampered by receiving less funding, but according to DOE budget documents they received more than $11,000 per student this past year, and are projected to receive $12,500 per student next.

Meanwhile, the school that my child attends receives about $7400 per student. Mr. Merriman also argues that charter schools don’t receive any funding for facilities — but why should they need to when the administration gives them prime real estate in our existing public school buildings, at the same time taking away valuable classroom and cluster spaces from the students at the existing public school?

Moreover, as mentioned above, charter schools have the most valuable advantage of all — the ability to cap enrollment and class size at any level they want.

My question is this: who pays for custodial services, lunch, and transportation services at charter schools that share buildings with traditional public schools? Does the DOE charge the charter schools extra for this, or is this also provided free of charge?

thanks for the info in advance,

— Posted by leonie haimson

Harvard reclaims No. 1 from Princeton in latest U.S. News list and guess why?

Excerpt: So how did Harvard edge past its Ivy League rival? A comparison of last year's numbers points to one category where it moved ahead of Princeton — average class size. Harvard reports the percentage of students in classes under 20 students rose from 69% to 75% since last year's report, while the percentage in classes bigger than 50 fell from 13% to 9%.

Asked whether Harvard had made a particular effort to reduce class sizes, Mitchell said: "We have worked and will continue to work very hard to enhance the academic experience for undergraduate students." Since 2000, he said, Harvard has added 86 freshman seminars (which have fewer than 12 students), and more than 100 tenure-track faculty, while its student body size has stayed about the same.

So Harvard reduces class size for the highest achieving students in the country, including creating more seminars with fewer than 12 students; but somehow this administration can claim – with a straight face – that it doesn’t matter if some of our most disadvantaged NYC public school students continue to suffer in classes of 34.

How’s that for a double standard?

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iUunRem0s3dCln7_7jnuHGcfNg9wD92N7QVO7

Leonie Haimson

No Excuses for Schools...

....but for the rest of government, A-OK!

Accountability? Go find it

UPDATED 12:30 PM

See NYC Educator's excellent related post on conditions No Excuses BloomKlein allow to exist in schools. Readers of Pissed off teacher's blog know all about her lovely trailor. (I hope NYC doesn't mind that I stole his picture.)

An item in today's NY Times "Emergency Radio Network Fails Tests" is a prime example why I reject the No Excuses theme applied to schools. You know the mantra - "Since there's no funding for education, we have to fix schools the best we can and not use things like kids' lives, high class size, etc. as an excuse."

Gotham Schools' Phylissa Cramer likes the "no excuses schools" expression in a reasoned piece on what KIPP offers. But I disagree with the one-way accountability argument.

Here are just a few points on how this emergency radio failure strikes a chord. Like the $2 billion in the contract Gov. Pataki gave to M/A-COM (a subsidiary of Tyco Electronics) whose credentials were questioned at the time. But Pataki's close ally former Senator Alfonse D'Amato represented the company, so why quibble over potential lost lives because the emergency radio network doesn't work?

In my narrow reasoning, multiply this deal by hundreds. Thousands? Millions? Billions of dollars that no one is held accountable for.

So don't talk accountability and no excuses for underfunded schools.

No excuses allow the acceptance of this crap and allows politicians and the business community off the hook while defusing the struggle to do what's right for the urban school children of this nation.

One of the biggest failures of the UFT/AFT has been the acceptance of the accountability trap which has distracted the prime force that should be out there fighting for full funding into defending an increasingly narrowing turf.

That's the real civil rights struggle of our time.

UPDATE: An article on medicare fraud in the NY Times on Aug. 20 was pointed out to me as another example of No Accountability. But when you choose auditors who are themselves part of the game, what do you expect? I expect they all should be taken out of their offices with bags on their heads.

Medicare’s top officials said in 2006 that they had reduced the number of fraudulent and improper claims paid by the agency, keeping billions of dollars out of the hands of people trying to game the system.

But according to a confidential draft of a federal inspector general’s report, those claims of success, which earned Medicare wide praise from lawmakers, were misleading.

In calculating the agency’s rate of improper payments, Medicare officials told outside auditors to ignore government policies that would have accurately measured fraud, according to the report. For example, auditors were told not to compare invoices from salespeople against doctors’ records, as required by law, to make sure that medical equipment went to actual patients.

As a result, Medicare did not detect that more than one-third of spending for wheelchairs, oxygen supplies and other medical equipment in its 2006 fiscal year was improper, according to the report. Based on data in other Medicare reports, that would be about $2.8 billion in improper spending.

“This report doesn’t surprise me,” said Representative Pete Stark, Democrat of California and a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee. He has pushed to cut improper Medicare spending. “To look better to the public, you cook the books,” he said. “This agency is incompetent.”

Think $3 billion would help close the class size gap? If the agency were a school they would close it.

Last Chance to Meet Mr. Fry - Shades of the Sun - at The Fringe Festival

Anyone who saw Nilaja Sun's marvelous play "No child," - see our report on the trip we made with a whole gang from my former school back in Nov. '06, must race over to the Milagro theater (107 Suffolk St. between Delancey and Rivington St.) for tonight's (9:45PM) final performance of "They Call Me Mister Fry." ((Tickets can only be bought at the door starting at 9:30 and there will be enough seating.)

Unlike Sun who is an actress who spent time working with kids and teachers in various schools, Jack Freiberger has taught in various LA schools since 2001. His one man play takes you through the entire process of the pain and joy of teaching, from your first job interview to the total involvement in the lives of your kids that can come to dominate your personal life to the extent that your fiance has had enough.

See the real impact of No Child Left Behind on teachers and students as Mr. Fry is told to put away his balloon sabre in the interests of test prep. Can he be accused of violating a school's "no weapon" policy when you are pointing a balloon at someone? The ideal world under NCLB is for every child in the nation to be doing exactly the same thing at the same time.

Jack manages to find humor in many of the teaching situations, with critical letters from supervisors posted on the screen, along with letters from students. NYC teachers facing Leadership Academy principals will howl.

Jack vividly describes the experience of moving from white bread schools that work to the devastation of South Central LA. "Gee, this school must be safe. Look at all the police around."
Did letting a kid who should have been punished go to a game where his closest relative ends up stabbed to death mean Mr. Fry is a murderer?

Jack called yesterday to thank us for coming to the show (I went with a middle school Spanish teacher) and I urged him to turn it into a film. He will be putting up some video clips on his web site very soon. I asked him to send back reports on what is going on in the LA schools and the LA teachers union when he gets back there. Jack will be around town for a few more weeks and would love to meet with some teachers. I'll post a notice for those interested if that takes place.

Read Jim Callaghan's Mr. Fry Teaches a Lesson in the Back-to-School section of the August 7, 2008 edition of the New York Teacher. (I can't find it on the UFT web site.)

How Serious Are These Conversations on Ed Policy....

.... if they leave out class size?

UPDATED: Friday, Aug. 21, 8AM

Philissa Kramer over at Gotham Schools writes:

If I hadn’t been battling illness all week, I would have beaten Kevin Carey over at the Quick and the Ed to the punch on Good Magazine’s current cover story, “School Wars,” by progressive educator (and blogger) Gary Stager. Though his criticism could have been gentler, Carey nails the big point: There are serious conversations going on right now about the source of trouble for urban schools and the best strategies for how to address them; these conversations have very real policy implications, but sentiments that, like these concluding Stager’s apparently interview-less piece, ignore both policy-level and day-to-day realities, just aren’t constructive.

No Philissa. The big point is this:

The “serious conversations” taking place often don’t include teachers who would in most cases say, “Don’t talk seriously about urban education until a real attempt is made to invest in a massive campaign to give urban kids the kind of education people like Kevin Carey would want for their own kids.” Note how often the Carey and other ed policy wonks supporting the Joel Klein/Al Sharpton EEP and leave out class size as anything more than an attempt by teacher unions to swell their ranks. The next thing out of their mouths are the magic words, “teacher quality.” As if massively lower class sizes would have little impact on TQ.

I don't necessarily agree with Gary Stager (who I first met in LOGO workshops decades ago when he was teaching computers in New Jersey) that the answer is parent activism. It would take a parent movement for sure but we also need to create a progressive teacher union movement that would fight for the resources to make this a battle for a true Marshall plan for ed reform. The current AFT/UFT and to a great extent the NEA try to straddle the "we want to be accountable" EEP position while having one foot in the Bigger, Bolder approach. They cannot have it both ways, as we in NYC have seen with such disastrous consequences.

Kramer and Carey nit pick while ignoring the big ideas in Stager's piece:

Traditionally, corporate philanthropy in education consisted of a speaker on career day or sponsorship of a softball team. I’m all for generosity, but I’m also for accountability. And I wonder, to whom are the Gateses and the Broads of the world accountable? They were not elected or even appointed, but their money is changing the ways public schools operate. They may do this for altruistic reasons, but what is a citizen’s recourse if their ideology harms children? And, worse, what happens if a billionaire finally throws up his or her hands and publicly exclaims, “Even I can’t fix the public schools”? Our schools may not be able to survive the sudden cash withdrawal—or the backlash.

One way to navigate this new era of “giving” is by asking a simple question: Would these folks send their own children or grandchildren to their “reinvented” schools? Is a steady diet of memorization, work sheets, and testing the sort of education the children they love receive? Of course not. If affluent children enjoy beautiful campuses, arts programs, interesting literature, modern technology, field trips, carefree recess, and teachers who know them, I suggest that we create such schools for all children. What’s good for the sons and daughters of the billionaires should be good enough the rest of the children, too.

A perfect example is James Eterno's fabulous letter to Richard Mills "Stop Academic Aprtheid at Jamaica HS" (posted today at ICE) where he points to the shortchanging of students at the bigger high school, while an elite small school gets preference. James writes:

According to the New York City Department of Education Website, Queens Collegiate is starting up with 81 students in the fall. They will receive $884,544 to run their school for 2008-09. Meanwhile, Jamaica is projected to have 1,484 pupils and was slated to receive an allocation of $11,636,267 this year. After extensive lobbying by the Jamaica High School community, our budget has recently been increased to $12,263,497. While we acknowledge the Chancellor and his financial officers for increasing our allocation, a huge per pupil spending gap between Jamaica and Queens Collegiate remains.

When the supplemental allotment is included, Jamaica, a traditional comprehensive high school that has many more high needs students, will be funded at $8,264 per pupil while the new selective school, Queens Collegiate, will be funded at $10,920 per pupil. This means that per student expenditures will be $2,656 greater at Queens Collegiate compared to Jamaica High School. This amounts to 32% higher spending for a Queens Collegiate student. Even taking into consideration start-up costs for the new school, this still adds up to separate and unequal schools within one building.

The promotional literature being produced by Queens Collegiate advertises lower class sizes. If Jamaica had a per pupil allocation similar to Queens Collegiate, we could easily lower class sizes to under 23 instead of having class sizes as high as 34, the level that we are currently projecting; we certainly could improve the student to counselor ratio and enhance other support services as well.

Despite the clear need for smaller classes, and the new state mandate to achieve them, particularly in low-performing schools, Jamaica High School In addition, valuable classroom space that could be utilized to provide room for this is being taken away from Jamaica to house the new school. is being denied the funding that would make this possible.

Gary Stager, (read Gary's entire piece at Susan Ohanian) like James, expresses the passionate anger that progressive teachers feel about these phony conversations that leave out real solutions. These are the true serious conversations that are taking place, not what Kevin Carey thinks they are.

Richard Rothstein has been putting his ideas out there for a long time on how to attack the problem and even has conjectured as to what it would cost. Seriously less than $20 billion for Fannie Mae, or billions for Bear Sterns. And need I mention Iraq?

"Serious" conversation over.

Candidates for Sale - Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

Updated: Aug. 20, 8am

See Obama do the same old, same old "corporations before the rest of us."
Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone on donors to McCain and Obama.
Guess what? They're the same.
A scary must read.

Guess who owns America no matter who wins?

Jose Vilson has some on the money comments at his blog.

"It’s not enough to just vote. We need to organize in our communities and educate in whatever capacity possible. Because if our own elected officials won’t look out for our interests, we’ll need to fend for self."

You see. It's all about one way accountability. The business and government community (one and the same) blames schools, teachers, students but expect to escape any real scrutiny while attacking those who want full funding of education as liberal big spenders.

Check out this from Susan Ohanian on corporate accountability. Or the lack thereof. Susan comments: "Teachers, start fighting back. Pass on this commentary."

Teachers and schools are being held accountable. It's time to start holding corporations accountable, too. We must demand that they contribute to the health and well-being of the country by paying their fair share.

Accountability Meets the Corporate Achievement Gap

By Peter Campbell

from the blog Transforming Education, Aug. 15, 2008.


The Associated Press ran a story on August 12, 2008, citing a report from the Government Accountability Office that revealed that two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005. About 25 percent of the U.S. corporations not paying corporate taxes were considered large corporations, meaning they had at least $250 million in assets or $50 million in receipts. And, according to the report, about 68 percent of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes altogether over the same period.

How ironic in the age of No Child Left Behind that the GAO - the Government Accountability Office - would be the one that would point out corporate America's lack of accountability when it came time to paying the bills in this country.

In his amazing book Class and Schools, Richard Rothstein wrote:

All told, adding the price of health, early childhood, after-school, and summer programs, (the) down payment on closing the achievement gap would probably increase the annual cost of education, for children who attend schools where at least 40% of the enrolled children have low incomes, by about $12,500 per pupil, over and above the $8,000 already being spent. In total, this means about a $156 billion added annual national cost to provide these programs to low-income children.

These are 2003 - 2004 data, and they're probably not completely accurate. But these numbers at least give you an idea of what it might take to actually close the educational achievement gap. They give you the sense that closing the educational achievement gap might actually be something that could be done.

But before we can close the educational achievement gap, we must first close the Corporate Achievement Gap.

Read the entire piece at Peter Campbell's blog.

Digging at the Underbelly of Teacher Unions

The stuff going on in Washington DC with new teachers attacking career teachers for not going along with Michelle Rhee's offer to end job security for more money may just be the war for the future of teacher unions. This is a complex issue that requires more analysis than I'm willing to give it right now. The attacks on DC union Pres. George Parker for sending out a reminder to teachers that they are not required to go into school early are pretty astounding. Check out this blog and some of the comments - a comedy routine can be written. George Carlin, where are you?

The real underbelly of most teacher unions is that they are truly undemocratic. We've seen that in places like our own UFT and in Chicago, where cooperative, collegial, and collaborative unions have gone along with the corporate plan. Are they worried about an attack of youthful Teach for America zombies out to cut the guts from the union? Is this a cadre being egged on by the EEP thought police?

My guess is that the DC (and Denver) scenario will start playing itself out in urban unions, which are mostly AFT. Don't discount Randi Weingarten's nimbleness in making all sides feel she agrees with them. But the long-time prospect for teacher unions to withstand the onslaught from without and within is not looking too well. Oh, the undemocratic leaderships will consolidate power and do what it takes to keep control even if it takes giving them what they want. But the rank and file is looking mighty ill these days. See New York City.

For progressive, career oriented teachers who have a full understanding of what is going on, yet are also opposed to a dictatorial union, there has to be some level of ambivalence.

"The Deciders" at the Fringe

On Saturday, I was asked by Tati Sena from the Fringe to videotape an event at the Fringe Festival after the show "The Deciders," a rock musical with a strong political message about the war in Iraq.

The Deciders web site proclaims: "Patriotism! Power! Paranoia? A driving rock score reveals in song and satire the secrets, dreams, motives and misinformation of those who make the decisions and those who live with the repercussions from the Washington Power Elite to Baghdad and beyond."

The event featured Cindy Sheehan who became a leading anti-war activist when her son Casey was killed. Her daughter Carly's poem "A Nation Rocked to Sleep," was a key song in the production. Cindy and Carley met with the cast and audience at a reception room in the MIchael Shimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University after the show. Among the audience were some parents who had lost a child in the war.

Here is a photo from the The Deciders web site taken after the show.


[Saturday] The Deciders debut at The Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University finished with the cast and band meeting Cindy and Carly Sheehan. A very special experience to also honor Cindy’s son and Carly’s brother Specialist Casey Sheehan killed April 4th 2004 in Sadr City and Carla Euphrates Kelly’s brother Sgt. Clarence LaVon Floyd killed December 10 2005 in Taji, Iraq. Both soldiers were awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star for valor in combat. Pictured above from left to right is Mitch Kess, Carly and Cindy Sheehan with Carla and her parents.

http://www.thedecidersmusic.com/blog/index.php


Unfortnately, I couldn't get there in time to see the play. So, Sunday night we went back and saw it. We ended up sitting directly behind Cindy and Carly, which made the play evenmore poignant as we noticed a tear or two wiped away.

George Bush - Dubya- played perfectly by Erik Hogan - comes up with a great idea to solve the war in Iraq: Turn the country back to Saddamn ( one of Saddam Hussein's doubles who took his place when the original Saddam died of cancer). (Don Imus suggested that many years ago.) The only problem is that Saddamn insists on having a musical (an updated version of Springtime for Hitler and Germany?) produced on Broadway. Dick Cheney (John Stillwagon) is not happy and manipulates strings on both Condi (the power voiced Carla Euphrates Kelly- who lost her brother in Iraq) and Dubya. The press (Fox) is skewered and the voices of Iraquis are heard through a fictional blogger. Cindy Sheehan (Amber Carson) belts out "The Devi's Place" and "Collateral Damage" loud and clear.

Heck, I'm not a reviewer, so check out Alyssa Simon's fabulous review at Theatre.Com posted at the Deciders web site.

There are 3 more performances: Tues 8/19 2:30, Thurs 8/21 5:30, Fri 8/22 8pm

Some backgound from the web site:
We’re so excited that Cindy got on the ballot in San Francisco and is celebrating with her daughter Carly with a weekend in NYC attending the August 16th premiere of The Deciders. Show creator, Mitch Kess, met Cindy Sheehan last summer during a rally in Union Square where the lyrics of her daughter Carly’s poem, “Nation Rocked to Sleep,” was heard for the first time put to music by Mitch Kess. Now a featured song in the production performed by Amber Carson. Dubya “Tries” to give news conference New York - As Dubya begins to address the audience at The Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University, a group of protesters interrupt his speech with their songs “Free” and “A Nation Rocked to Sleep.” Even “Dick” and Condi couldn’t contain the rebels with keeping to the “talking points.” It seems Bush & Co. need to come up with some answers.

One more sidelight.

After the show I heard my name called. It was Linda, whose son Michael Ruocco, played Rooster in Annie at the Rockaway Theater Company in May. He played the judge and camerman. Brooklynite Michael, now 18, in his statment in the program says, "After being part of such a wonderful cast and crew his view on the war in Iraq has changed and he believes it will change for you as well." We're looking for some big things from Michael in the future.

Creating 5th Columns Inside Teacher Unions

The next wrinkle in the assault on teacher unions and public education will be to create a 5th Column* of teachers within unions that advocate for the end of tenure in exchange for higher pay. Job retention would be based on student performance on high stakes tests.

Though some are anonymous, I would bet that many of these teachers have connections to Teach for America and have no intentions of staying in the system for any length of time. They have also been inculcated with a bias against career teachers.

Thus, the wars begin. Right now the chief battleground is Washingon DC, where TFA alum Michelle Rhee, who formerly worked for Joel Klein in NYC, is leading the assault. Internal battles are also taking place in Denver.

But don't expect any of this to occur in the UFT because the leadership itself functions as a 5th column and there is no need to create a divisive group there since they have functioned in a collaborationist manner. Thus the opposition, who are branded as divisive by the leadership, has consisted of people calling for a stop to the givebacks.

I remember issuing a challenge to find NYC teachers who support the policies of BloomKlein. Where are the blogs of support while there are so many blogs out there that are critical? Many of these bloggers are career teachers who demonstrate in their blogs indications that they are supremely dedicated to their students and to teaching.

At one point a someone who left comments under various names like Socrates claimed to be a NYC teacher who defended the entire TFA/KIPP/BloomKlein package but was so clearly a phony, he was soon exposed. He even ran a blog briefly and left comments at many ed blogs. Many suspected he was being paid.

But why pay a phony teacher when you can find teachers without a career perspective to lead the fight for the corporate privatizers and anit-unionists within their own unions?

Not that there are not a number of new teacher blogs in NYC, many of them from TFA and Teaching Fellows. But they have not generally been political, but more directed at the teaching experience.

One particular example of this genre that we should expect to see a lot more of is D.C. Teacher Chic in Washington. The blog has been out there for 2 years and promised an insight into a classroom in a DC school. But there are precious few posts giving us these insights while the overwhelming majority of posts fall into a political area, mostly in support of the Michelle Rhee agenda. There are also a bunch of supporting blogs out there with lots of attacks on senior teachers for not being willing to go along with the program.

But the DC teachers union is so weak from previous scandals, it shouldn't take much to undermine it. If any of these teachers were to stay in teaching, which I believe they won't, it wouldn't be shocking to see an opposition come together to challenge the union leadership on the grounds it's not willing to give up hard won teacher rights.

Teacher unions seem outflanked and outspent by a sophisticated corporate attack. A basic lack of democratic input and leaderships out to serve themselves rather than the members leave them extremley vulnerable. The UFT, which has been considered the most powerful, is already basically a head without much of a body. As long as dues flow in to keep them in power, expect then to compromise and collaborate. Only the growth of a serious opposition movement can put a check on these trends. And if such a movement ever got started to be a serious threat, watch whoever is in charge of the DOE do whatever it could to aid and abet keeping Unity Caucus in control. But we're a long way from that.

Here are some articles and blog pieces worth checking out from DC and Denver where groups of teachers are calling on the union leadership to agree with the so-called "reforms" that would lead to the end of a real teacher movement.

Bait and Switch In DC

Teacher John Thompson writes at A. Russo's TWIE

What could be wrong with Michelle Rhee's proposed $70,000 per year teacher pay increase, in return for a year of probation? Lots, as it turns out. First off, the plan doesn't include a neutral party in the due process role, which could endanger teachers. Second, it would undercut contracts throughout the country. Last but not least, there's no guarantee the resources would last. And then what? Would Rhee perpetually pass the hat for permanent wage increases? Bonuses and salary increases for teachers have a strange way of drying up after a few years. --

John Thompson

Teachers to March on Union Offices

Washington Post, Aug 13

A group of D.C. public school teachers who want Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee's salary proposal to come to a union vote say they will demonstrate outside of Washington Teachers' Union headquarters at 9 a.m. tomorrow. The protest is being promoted on the blog D.C. Teacher Chic, and several teachers have told The Washington Post of their plans to participate.

The teachers are upset by reports that union president George Parker is opposed to a provision of Rhee's plan that would require instructors to go on probation for a year and risk dismissal in order to remain in the top tier of proposed salaries and bonuses. The pay schedule could yield more than $100,000 annually for teachers with just five years of service.

Teachers also have the option under Rhee's system of taking less money and retaining tenure protections.

The union has been battling internally over Rhee's proposal, with some members initially upset that Parker would consider negotiating away seniority protections. They criticized the president for being too chummy with the chancellor. Tomorrow's protest will reflect those teachers who believe Rhee's proposals present an opportunity rather than a threat.

Holes in NEA’s Denver Doughnut Diplomacy

The Denver Classroom Teachers Association is in a contract dispute with the school district. It is gaining national attention because the major point of contention involves the future of the city’s unique performance pay program.

That’s the standard plot you’ll find in any story about the dispute. But there’s a subplot as well. It involves a group of teachers who think their own union is being obstructionist on the contract. They have set up a web site, and have 287 teacher signatures on a petition calling for a settlement.

Teacher Jessica Buckley says the union is reacting to the opposition. “I honestly felt very intimidated,” she told Rocky Mountain News reporter Nancy Mitchell. Mitchell explains that Buckley “cited the presence of the National Education Association and envelopes of cash given to schools as ‘incentives’ for teachers to pass out fliers explaining the union’s side of the dispute.”

Mike Antonucci's Intercepts.

*a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group to which it is expected to be loyal, such as a nation. - Wikipedia

Sol Stern misses the boat...

...in his Marshall Plan for reading in K-3 as he turns to a narrow view of reading methodology as a solution to whatever gap is being discussed. He talks about decoding and pushes his beloved "Success for All" program, a rigidly defined program that allows little flexibility for teachers.

I mentored Teaching Fellows who used this program and what it was really about was reducing class size by taking the entire school's resources - all out of classroom teachers - and for an hour an a half a day cutting the size of reading groups into more manageable chunks.

Reading doesn't just start with phonemic and phonic awareness but with speech - lots of it. And having stories read to kids an an early age.

The concept of balanced literacy which he is so critical of, actually has some sound theory behind it in addressing some of these issues but was implemented by Klein's non-educators in a destructive way. It also requires small, manageable classes, something Klein doesn't believe in.

Another factor was their rigidity - kids that did need phonics were denied it in the early years. I was in one class where one of the children was not able to function in the BL program and kept the teacher preoccupied while she was clearly needed to be circulating to make it work for the rest of the class. As her mentor I recommended she give him some kind of workbook so the other kids wouldn't lose out. "We're not allowed" she said. Okaaay!

I agree we should have a Marshall Plan for the schools. But covering only up to the 3rd grade (don't we see the enormous slippage between 4th and 8th grade scores) will be a drop in the bucket.

It is good to finally see Stern acknowledge the benefits of lower class size, which he used to pooh pooh. But if he thinks starting a reading program in kindergarten will do the trick, he is mistaken. By that time many kids need one to one assistance (Reading Recovery addresses some of this).

Open up schools for parents to bring their 2 year olds to be read to. Strengthen local libraries and run programs for very young children. Arrange for trips. It is the bigger bolder approach to the whole child before they enter school. Any Marshall Plan should attempt to diminish the language gap by pre-school.

The key ingredient in reading improvement is getting kids to enjoy reading. No easy task, especially when programs like Success for All and test prep often end up making the reading experience akin to taking a daily does of Castor oil.

NY Sun Speechless Over NY Times Editorial

A remarkable editorial appeared in the NY Sun criticizing an editorial in the NY Times. Leonie Haimson's reaction was like mine:

"I’m speechless as well; NY Sun criticizes the NY Times editorial board (read Brent Staples) for refusing to acknowledge the watering down of NY State testing standards, while pointing out the phenomenon in general."

And the editorial didn't even mention credit recovery where a student failing a course has to fog a mirror - faintly - to pass. One principal tells the teachers to consider "seat time" - when a student occupies a seat even without doing any work.

The true ed reform community in NYC has been beyond speechless at the shameless NY Times pandering to BloomKlein and Ed Notes has done a bunch of pieces pointing this out. The NY Sun has been a pleasant surprise as one of the few media sources to take a good hard look at Tweed, mostly by ace reporter Elizabeth Green and by columnist Andy Wolf. the Sun also had some independent analysis done on the data being spewed out by the State Ed Dept.

Here's the complete editorial where you can note how Bloomberg can't fathom that Green would ask him a question about these shenanigans. I wonder if Bloomberg pays people in his company for seat time.

Speechless
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/speechless/83870/


Forgive us, but what was the New York Times thinking when they wrote that editorial this week about No Child Left Behind? They wrote about every way states are making a mockery of the law's high standards — from watering down tests to quietly lowering the pass-rate — without once mentioning their home state of New York, which just happens to be Exhibit A in this entire debate.

It was New York that gave special accommodations to more fourth-graders taking the National Assessment of Educational Progress than any other state in the union — so many that some experts told our Elizabeth Green the state's results should be thrown out entirely. It was New York where a top adviser to the state Education Department argued the state should scour its test results for evidence of what the psychometricians call "score inflation," in which test scores rise regardless of whether true learning has occurred.

On top of that, it was New York where officials this year lowered the passing score on an Algebra exam required for graduation to just 30 points on an 87-point score. And it was also New York that high schools looking to varnish their statistical profiles were found to be quietly bidding farewell to teenagers who appeared likely to fail, without reporting their departures to the state. One potential outcome is that graduation rates could skyrocket and the dropout rate could disappear.

How these local developments could have escaped the attention of the Times is beyond us, especially considering that the newspaper from which we drew our final example in was theirs. Perhaps in their coverage of the No Child Left Behind law the mandarins of Eighth Avenue have fallen victim to the law of Not In My Backyard. They'd certainly be in good company.

Announcing the latest graduation rate results, Mayor Bloomberg could not for his life fathom why our reporter Elizabeth Green might inquire as to his opinion on the charge that graduation rates are inflated by schools trying to put on a good face.

"I'm sort of speechless," the mayor said. "Is there anything good enough to just write the story?" Well, it's the mayor who has traveled the country decrying lower academic standards for poor and minority children as a shameful practice we should immediately end. So the point is not to embarrass him or his chancellor or the Times. But the mayoral control of the schools is up for renewal in Albany, and one would think that both the mayor and the Times would want to be seizing the lead on the standards issue by setting an example here at home.

Tyranny of the test: One year as a Kaplan coach in the public schools

A fascinating article at Harper's by a former NYC teacher on the Kaplan and test prep scan. Long, but worth a read as the author, Jeremy Miller (who will probably never be asked to work for Kaplan again) spent serious time at a bunch of NYC schools, including Wadleigh, Truman, John F. Kennedy HS, and the George Washington HS campus.

Excerpts illustrating the true purpose of NCLB, which could have been designed (and probably was) so companies can gain maximum profit follow. Read the entire piece at Harper's.

...failing students become trapped in a foundering system, and the schools where students land en masse are left to carry out the test-heavy requirements of NCLB. For the New York schools “in need of improvement,” this means preparing students—many of whom are utterly lacking in basic academic skills and subject knowledge—to pass a battery of standardized exams.

Toward this end, it also means paying money to outside entities (often private companies such as Kaplan, the Princeton Review, and Newton Learning) up to $2,000 per student for courses focused not on improving content knowledge or on intensive educational counseling but on strategies for a “particular testing task.” (The total annual government expenditure per student in New York City is $15,000.) The failure of schools serving low-income students has been a windfall for the testing industry. Title I funds earmarked for test tutoring increased by 45 percent during the first four years of NCLB, from $1.75 billion in 2001 to $2.55 billion in 2005. With the ever growing stream of funding flowing through the nation’s schools, the number of supplemental-service providers nationwide has exploded. In New York City, the number of providers approved by the state’s department of education jumped from forty-seven in 2002–2003, the first full school year of NCLB, to 202 today.

The company’s revenues have jumped from $354 million in 2000 to more than $2 billion today, and it is now the most profitable subsidiary of its parent, The Washington Post Company, accounting for almost half of the conglomerate’s income. More telling are the margins: in 2003, Kaplan posted a loss of $11.7 million; in 2007, the company reported a $149 million profit.

Kaplan hired former N.Y.C. Chancellor of Education Harold Levy as an executive vice president and general counsel, and in 2006 relocated its headquarters for Kaplan K12, the division of the company that works in schools, from Midtown Manhattan to luxury offices downtown. According to Crain’s, the company made the move “to be closer to the New York City Department of Education.”

“Customization” and the educationally in vogue “differentiation” are two of Kaplan’s professed guiding principles. But Kaplan’s boilerplate assignment sheets and teaching materials hardly reflect the particulars of each of its customers.

I tell Ms. Semidey [who is supposed to be observed] I can teach the class tomorrow, since I’m scheduled to be in the school for two days. A little smile returns to her lips. “I’ve worked my ass off on this lesson,” she says. As I turn to leave, I am met by a small, perky woman. “Are you Jeremy?” she asks. It is the assistant principal, Ms. Campeas. She listens as I explain the conflict and the proposed resolution. “No,” she says. “This is Kaplan day. We will do the observation another day.” She calls Ms. Semidey over and firmly tells her the same. [So much for consideration for a teacher who has prepared for an observation.]

I find myself desperate. I can’t accept that I have not reached a single student in the program. Kaplan was being paid $1,200 per student (attending or not) for a job it knew from the outset it couldn’t complete. The money could have been used for an ESL or special- education teacher. Instead, I was receiving an entire day’s wage for each hour I sat in a nearly deserted classroom.

Kaplan coaches are taught to handle the strangeness of each new workplace by falling back on their highly scripted lessons and by quickly identifying school faculty as one of several possible archetypes; e.g., whether they are “trailblazers” within their schools or dreaded “saboteurs.”¹1. Kaplan’s handbook for coaches suggests that saboteurs be dealt with in a counterintuitive, Sun Tzu-esque way: by keeping them “on the inside where they can be watched rather than on the outside where they can cause trouble without it being detected until their effects are felt.”

I was cut off after I asked the teachers what the SAT was designed to do. It was a lame question, I admit, but the vehemence it unleashed surprised me. “It’s designed to keep people in their places,” a teacher shouted from the back of the room. “It serves the status quo.” There were approving snickers.

Yet as I came under attack at Truman, I found Kaplan’s training reflexively surging into my chest. We had been told in practice seminars to diffuse criticism by acknowledging complaints and then responding with an array of talking points intended to play on teachers’ anxiety over metrics and accountability. As a kind of disclaimer, we were to emphasize our transient and limited role in schools: We, Kaplan, could not ultimately be held accountable for whatever inadequate form of instruction was taking place at the school.

Bushra Rehman

I was hanging out at Teachers Unite Sally Lee's office yesterday and Sally introduced me to her friend Bushra Rehman, apparently a writer of some note. I had never heard of her, but why would I be familiar with that genre? Serendipity. I'll make sure to check her out. As someone who has found fiction writing to be extremely difficult, I am very impressed by successful writers. http://bushrarehman.com/.

Still Campaign '08

Maybe I was wrong. It is not campaign '12 but still campaign '08.

I am on the mailing list for some reason of a North Carolina Democratic party organization in which the entire newsletter focuses on atacking Obama and pushing Clinton with the hope that they can get enough delegates to switch votes in Denver.

Read this and see if you think Obama has a chance.

Do I think the Clinton machine has drummed up much of this? Hell yes. They never give up.

I posted links to one blog - with comments to give you a flavor at Norms Notes.

Fred over at Prea Prez also has some interesting thoughts.

Hillary Clinton is caught on video telling supporters she wouldn’t oppose her name being placed in nomination in Denver.

Her key adviser Howard Wolfson suggests that if the creepy (”my wife’s cancer was in remission”) philandering John Edwards had not been in the race in Iowa, Clinton would have won the nomination.

Billary appears to have bullied their way into speaking two nights at the convention. Will you be watching? I’m hoping the Cubbies are on at the same time.

Does Hillary Clinton still have dreams of grabbing the nomination? Or is she working to sabotage Obama’s campaign, hoping he loses so she can run in four years?