Fundamental Truths in the Battle Over Girls Prep Charter School

I've been so busy following the wild debate, mostly between parents, over this post about Girls Prep charter school at Gotham Schools that I forgot to blog. There is some amazing stuff being said there with District 1 (lower east side) parents exposing the DOE tilt towards charters and the purposeful disempowerment of parents. One of our fave parent activists Lisa Donlan has been in the thick of it and her comments are required reading for the way they reveal the machinations of the DOE. Lisa is chairperson of Community Education Council (CEC) 1 and has come under spurious attacks while lots of others defend her passionately.

Ken Hirsh, who supports Girls Prep and Harlem Success Academy financially (and is also a major funder of Gotham Schools), has put up comments that are worth parsing. When I challenge him on the political agenda of charter schools he doesn't respond. On the surface he seems like a decent well intentioned guy. But when you read between the lines, who knows? His comments vis a vis Lisa and her responses are certainly interesting.

Go on and feast (and join in the fray.)

http://gothamschools.org/2009/09/30/girls-prep-charter-wants-more-space-but-doesnt-want-a-fight/

Is Arne Duncan Guilty of Murder? Will BloomKlein Be Next?

The violence around Chicago schools has received national attention. Today's Times has a major story, but as usual only tells half of it. "Derrion Albert, the 16-year-old who was beaten to death recently with wood planks after getting caught on his way home between two rival South Side gangs, neither of which he was a member..."

George Schmidt told a different story where he blames the corporate reform which closes schools, turns them into "reform" schools which only take select students and force thousands of students out of their own neighborhoods and into schools in hostile territory:

"It's just seven and a half days since Derrion Albert had his skull crushed in that now-world-famous gang fight on 111th St. in Chicago. And most people still don't realize that "turnaround" was a partial cause of that death.

And the White House is sending Arne Duncan and Eric Holder to Chicago next week to keep the cover up alive and well.

And most of Chicago's media will go along with that cover up, just as they've been cheerleaders for corporate school reform for 14 years now, since Mayor Daley became dictator over Chicago's schools.

But since Arne Duncan is going to force every state in the USA to do Chicago-style "turnaround" or lose stimulus money, let's take a close look at what just happened in Chicago. Not the hype. From the streets around Fenger High School I've been walking the past few days as a reporter, blacklisted Chicago teacher, and former "director of security and safety" for the Chicago Teachers Union. And, oh, as editor of www.substancenews.net.

"Turnaround" and a decade of corporate media manipulation in Chicago and now beyond Chicago's lies, hoaxes, and Orwellian nonsense.

I published the full piece over the weekend: 'Chicago Turnaround' the deadliest 'reform' of them all

Now, the amazing stuff Schmidt writes at Substance doesn't often get into the mainstream press, and of course the Times' article did not give a hint. I loved this opening about Arne Duncan's replacement, Ron Huberman:

The new chief officer of the public schools here, Ron Huberman, a former police officer and transit executive with a passion for data analysis, has a plan to stop the killings of the city’s public school students. And it does not have to do with guns or security guards. It has to do with statistics and probability.

It's just too funny to see how a former cop and transit executive is making educational decisions, just as Duncan and Paul Vallas before him created the Chicago ed deform movement called Renaissance 2000 something or other.

But low and behold, I am listening to a report on NPR this morning on the murder of Derrion Albert and they make exactly the same point George made in linking the gang violence to the forced evacuation of thousands of students from their own neighborhoods, even pointing to the fact that the local high school was turned into a military academy by Duncan.

Is Duncan guilty of murder? Maybe not. How about an unindicted co-conspirator along with Mayor Daley, Huberman and the rest of the ed deformers, which unfortunately includes our current president.

Happy Birthday, Evil Moskowitz

This evening was Evil Moskowitz' big birthday bash for Harlem Success Academy held at Roseland, with guests of honor Joel Klein, Michael Bloomberg, and Dracula.

I hear there was a loud group there to greet them. Here is a brief first report from a GEMer who attended:

PS 123 protested tonight at the HSA opening night dinner party. The picket line was predominantly made up of kids from 123. I think they may have made it a bit difficult for some of the people waiting on line to enjoy their party. They had to wait on line for a half hour listening to these kids chant and picket. I talked to one grandparent who said she was planning to leave HSA because "they never listen" to her concerns about her granddaughter's education. She said the teachers there cannot differentiate instruction.

I"ll add to this post as more pics and reports come in and I'll be following up with a piece on how HSA may be violating its charter.

Brooklyn middle school students squeezed out of study space by 3 charter schools sharing building

MS 126 is a school I knew real well as I did tech support there for about 5 years. First they had Bard HS take over the 4th floor, have the DOE (under Harold Levy) put a million dollars into the renovation, which cut classroom space in half, then move out to the lower east side, leaving room for the charter invasion.

This Daily News article is really an effective piece.

Example of the farce in this library sharing situation:

Period 1: Believe charter school teachers may utilize the left side of the library. The IS 126 library has sole use of the right side of the library.

Brooklyn middle school students squeezed out of study space by 3 charter schools sharing building

BY Elizabeth Lazarowitz <https://mail.nycboe.net/authors/Elizabeth%20Lazarowitz>
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Tuesday, October 6th 2009, 4:00 AM

At JHS 126 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, memo grants its three charter schools the lion's share of access to the library (below), which got an overhaul just last year.<http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/10/06/alg_eriksson_school.jpg>
Adams for News

At JHS 126 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, memo grants its three charter schools the lion's share of access to the library (below), which got an overhaul just last year.


Students and parents at a Brooklyn <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Brooklyn> middle school are fuming after they were pushed out of their newly spruced-up library by an expanding charter school.

Junior High School 126 kids have severely limited access to the cozy, mural-painted reading spot this year so the three charters sharing the Greenpoint <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Greenpoint> building can use the space for planning, meetings and small classes.

"It's unfair," said JHS 126 parent association President Janeen Echevarria <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Janeen+Echevarria> . "Kids need to get in there to get books out to do their reports, to read, to further their education."

Access to the library for more than 400 middle schoolers will be restricted to one side of the space for less than two hours each day, with an extra hour on Wednesdays.

Eddie Calderon-Melendez <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Eddie+Calderon-Melendez> , founder of the Believe High School Network, which runs the charters, said the use of shared space is negotiated every year.

"We figure out what's in the best interest of all the children in the building," Calderon-Melendez said.

While the charters are using the auditorium and the library this year, they gave up their half of the gym space, he said.

That's of little comfort to JHS 126 eighth-grader Ashley, who said she's been stuck with a fifth-grade-

level independent reading book because she hasn't been able to get into the library yet. She's also worried about completing final projects required for graduation.

"We have no way of researching," said the 14-year-old student. The area near the library in her Bushwick <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Bushwick> neighborhood is dangerous, she said.

"There's this whole library full of new books bought for our school, and we can't even use it," Ashley said.

Williamsburg Charter High School <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Williamsburg+Charter+High+School> , the first school to share the Leonard St. space, opened in 2004. This year, Believe opened two more charters - Believe Northside and Believe Southside - promising that Williamsburg <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Williamsburg+(Brooklyn)> 's upper grades would move to private space.

The move to a new Bushwick building was stalled this summer, Calderon-Melendez said. He said he expects the building to be ready next year.

That means about 1,400 kids are packed into a building made for about 1,320.

To accommodate the extra charter students, JHS 126 Principal Rosemary Ochoa <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Rosemary+Ochoa> opted to give up shared space rather than relinquish classrooms, said Education Department spokeswoman Ann Forte <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Ann+Forte> .

Students will get library skills lessons in their classrooms using laptops, she said.

"The principals have been able to work together to solve the problems on the ground," Forte said. "[The JHS 126 principal] is confident that the kids are still getting the access and the quality of library instruction that they need."

The space scuffle comes as Mayor Bloomberg <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Michael+Bloomberg> vows to double the number of charter schools in the city to 200.

Last year, the library got an overhaul, with volunteers painting the walls with a castle motif. Now, the 13 donated computers, comfy recliners and futon have been removed.

"It's a beautiful library; 126 should have first priority, and the charter school should wait or get their own building already," lamented parent Doreen Sudano <http://www.nydailynews.com/topics/Doreen+Sudano> .

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/education/2009/10/06/2009-10-06_kids_slam_library_land_grab_jhs_126_squeezed_out_of_study_space_by_3_charter_sch.html

<http://www.nydailynews.com/img/hdr_print.gif>

Girls Prep Charter Plays Bait and Switch

We've been reporting on the PAVE charter/PS 15 struggle in Red Hook. Today I stopped by the CAPE group table at the Atlantic Antic street fair in Brooklyn, where they were getting a great response calling on PAVE to adhere to their original agreement to stay at PS 15 only 2 years. (Check the CAPE blog for updates - CAPE'n the Atlantic Antic.)


Many of us view charters as a political wedge to undermine public schools. Girls Prep Charter, based at PS 188 on the lower east side may be a good school with dedicated people. But we have to examine charters as to how they function in the political context. If they use bait and switch schemes and manipulations to gain control over space in public schools, then they are working against the long-time public good. If that leads to a divided and balkanized system that is taken out of the hands of public management then we can’t just focus on whether they are “good” because they serve a small portion of the public.

Thinking ahead, is the goal to have 1500 schools under separate management using public money? Do we think that is a good thing? Especially since only urban school systems with their racial component are the ones affected, while the suburban schools will have few charters and function under public control?

A good discussion has been taking place at Gotham Schools over Girls Prep charter school. Ken Hirsh, a charter school financial backer (he also backs Gotham Schools) and Lisa Donlan, Chairperson of Community Education Council in District 1 had a rigorous back and forth. I have a lot of respect for Ken's passion about education despite the fact I disagree with him on most points. He brings a level of civility to the debate that I just cannot match. I tend to go along with Lisa on most issues and I extracted some of her comments focused on the bait and switch tactics of Girls Prep. Lisa provides the nitty gritty of many of the aspects of the public charter struggle, though I am leaving out her description of her struggle to get basic info from the charters in her district. I'll let her take over, but be sure to check the link to read what Ken and others wrote.

Comments by Lisa Donlan

GPC admitted 3 classes of 5th graders his year, one year after they moved into PS 188.
GPC had been “incubating” in nearby PS 15 since its inception in 2005, and had long outgrown the space there, necessitating a move.

Despite the agreement between the two schools whereby GPC was not to ask PS 188 for additional space beyond the agreed upon joint plan, GPC hired a Middle School Principal and admitted 3 times as many students as they had room for.

GPC had to rescind the extra 50 invitations to keep to one class, which is all they had room for.
GPC also got the names of all of the enrolled students in the district in ATS and used that enrollment information to send out glossy post cards recruiting kids and their parents BY NAME: “Last Chance to Apply! Girls Prep is FREE, all girls, and a proven success…” in English and Spanish, thus breaking the other ground rule for moving in to 188- no predatory marketing or recruiting away of the 188 students.

The SUNY Charter Schools Institute in a notice pursuant to ed law 2857(1) gave notice that the Board of Regents approved the charter renewal application on Sept 16th, 2008 for:
Girls Preparatory Charter School Of New York: Located at 333 East 4th Street, 5th floor, New York, NY, NYC CSD1; charter renewal commencing March 23 2009, and terminating July 31, 2010: proposed final enrollment /grades served- 248 students/K-5.

SUNY Trustees approved the same on June 9, 2008
This renewal was received on March 9, 2008.

On September 17, 2009 SUNY Trustees announced that Girls Prep had applied for a 5 year charter renewal commencing on July 2, 2010, with a proposed 1st year enrollment/grades/served-268 students/K-5; proposed 5th year enrollment /grades served -525 students/K-8.

Interestingly, in the charter application renewal questions, GPC states that it:” plans to open a Middle School in August 2009… to serve grades K-8 at full capacity.

…at full capacity, during the 4th year of the second charter term Girls Prep will serve 437 students in grades K-8, including approximately 242 students in grades K-4 and 195 students in grades 5-8.”

Let’s hope they teach math better than they use it!

At the CEC One meeting, OPD agreed that the targeted space Girls Prep had requested was for 3 classes of 25 students each per grade for grades 5, 6, 7, 8th or for 300 seats, and handed out a “fact sheet” that stated they would serve 300 students in grades K-5 at capacity.
Anyone not getting this new math????

The issue is not whether or not the 57% of students out of district and the 43% in district students who attend GPC on the LES deserve 300 more seats to create a middle school.

The question is who will need to give up what in order to make those seats available to this privately managed charter that serves no ELL’s (in a district that averages over 12% ELL), while 8% of their students have IEPS requiring SETTS, in a district with the same 8% average of SETTS IEPs, plus additionally 15% on average of our district elementary students requiring the More Restrictive Environments of either CTT or Self Contained classes, classes that Girls Prep does not offer, while in middle schools the district average is 21% of students requiring CTT or self contained classrooms.

Will GPC take in thsoe students with IEPs requiring those settings if they do not offer them?
Will more high needs students be pushed into the remaining schools in the remaining real estate?
Is this the way we want to make decisions about serving children? What happened to Children First?
It is starting to look a lot like private management first, or maybe certain children first….

On the OPD chopping block are:

PS 20 (w/ostensibly 19 spare rooms according to OPD)
PS 184 (w/ supposedly 20 unused rooms)
JHS 56 (on paper has 30 rooms over capacity)
PS 188 (that has 11 extra rooms)

These numbers are based on the flawed blue book and principals use survey that fail to take into account real capacity and use, as they are based on unreal constructs that don’t “count” cluster rooms used for art, music, dance, theater, speech therapy, counseling, OT, PT, administrative offices ( there are more offices in school buildings housing one or more schools), etc.

JHS 56 for example houses 3 separate schools (2 MS, and one 6-12) which all have administrative offices; the NYC DoE’s NASA space center; as well as the District Office (with full time employees: the CEC AA, the DFA and the district superintendent’s temp worker); but these rooms can not be part of the “footprint” since they are unique and not formulaic.

The 3 schools in the JHS building serve 27, 30 and 36% special education students requiring CTT or self contained class, respectively. Two school surpass the district average for ELLs with 15% of students classified as ELL’s, and one school is a Title III school.
In fact at one of the middle schools only 21% of the population is not either ELL or Special Education designated.

How does the new governance law that requires local hearings and an impact statement (to be created by DoE) operate to take into account the kinds of students being served, how well they are being served and how best to use the limited space in public school buildings? What will be the value of “consulting” with the CEC or DLT in the case that the recommendations favored by the chancellor do not sway the elected local governing bodies? Keep your eye on cases like these to see how good the new governance laws are at providing transparency, accountability and community input and oversight to these thorny issues.

Lisa continues in another comment

The GPCharter folks were spinning/telling stories when they grabbed me after our CEC meeting to explain away the disconnect between the previous chartering info and the newest proposal.

Planning year snafu my…well, you know what!

I saw that: “ the school’s original charter application and charter originally granted authority to provide instruction in K through 5th grade.

The school’s decision planning year … the charter was amended in May 2004 and limited expansion to 4th grade.

I also learned that there have been several ”deviations from the design elements in the original charter:

From 8am to 5 pm to the current 8 am to 3 or 3:45 pm ( 3/4th grades)

Initiating Spanish instruction in 3rd grade instead of K

Increasing class size from 22 to 25

Reducing number of classes on each grade form 3 to 2

Reducing the school year form 200 to 190 days…”

Interestingly I learned that the school has been provided space at essentially no charge by the NYCDOE.

At PS 188 that translates into: 13 classrooms, 3 administrative offices, and shared use of the: auditorium, Library, Computer lab; Lunch room, Gymnasium, Yard provided at no coast by NYCDoE.

Let 'Em NOT Eat Cake - UPDATED

Updated: Oct. 4, 5pm

GBN News reports: Bake Sale Ban Leaves Thompson Without Dough

http://nycpublicschoolparents.blogspot.com/2009/10/bake-sale-ban-leaves-\
thompson-without.html

Lots of discussion about the Bloomberg ban on cake sales in schools and vending machine contracts.


Parents comment:

Patrick Sullivan:

It looks like the Chancellor's reg was updated to protect the firms getting the new vending contracts.

The timing is interesting. The reg was issued on 6/29/2009, the very day the old schools governance law expired. I would have thought all the legal people at DOE were busy preparing for the transition. Someone carved out some time to lay out new rules clamping down on bake sales.

Here is a link for the reg A-812

The contract with two vendors for snacks and drinks is described in the big document for the PEP approval. It is item 13: ftp://CPS:PASSWORD@MT2CPSFTP00.nycenet.edu/pep100709.pdf It says that new guidelines for snacks in schools were issued as part of the Request for Proposals and snack sales would be vended centrally for the first time.

I'll get the RFP and send that out.

Patrick

Steve Koss:
When I became involved as PTA President at MCSM high school in East Harlem, we took over a parent association that was dormant to the point of comatose, with about $300 in the bank and virtually no parent involvement. We used coffee and donuts (donated gratis by a local Dunkin Donuts shop) to help bring parents to our PTA table set up on Parent/Teacher Conference evening and days, and we used a cheesecake sale through Ashley Farms as one of our first halfway decent fundraisers. On those same parent conference nights, we'd see the cheerleaders with a table set up with homemade cakes/cupcakes, and the Advanced Science Research kids were doing the same thing upstairs on the building's third floor. Not to mention the various candy and other bake sales sponsored by the freshman class, the seniors, and various clubs.

These fundraisers not only bring in needed funds, they get kids involved working toward a common goal, and they usually end up integrating the parents into the activity in some way (if only by baking something at home). So as you've noted so well, this is just one more way for the DOE under Klein to assert control -- by removing it from parents and students -- under the absurd guise that they actually care about students' health. This is more than just government as overreaching mommy, it's a way to reduce local initiatives and parent involvement. It also perversely undercuts the various clubs and student activities that help make schools more than just educational factories and test prep mills, the things that differentiate schools from one another and make them attractive to parents. Why would we want public schools to look attractive when we have the choice of all these wonderful new, privately-operated charter schools?

The day will come when NY'ers will look back and wonder where their public school system went. By that time, we'll have McDonald's Elementary School and Nike High School.

Steve Koss

Dorothy Giglio:
It is very logical, this was one way the students/clubs and parent associations could raise money. If they can control all the money they can then control these groups. Not to mention bake sales are sometimes the first way you can get parents involved. It is something that brings them into the building and then they can be approached for other areas of involvement. If you stop them here you again diminish parent involvement. Very logical.

Leonie Haimson follows up:

Thanks Patrick; this brings up so many questions.

1- Why is the contract info only on a private intranet rather than the publicly accessible PEP webpage, like before? Do they not plan to make this available to the public beforehand?

2- So it is not only the case that Octagon received an inflated percentage for commission for selecting the vendor (was it 15-18%, I recall) but the vendor itself is provided with a monopoly of all snacks sold in schools, and thereby depriving students of a valuable source of revenue in the process? Not to mention the community building activities that Steve mentions below?

3- Was the regulation issued on the last day of the previous governance law so that it wouldn’t need to be approved by the Bd. Of Ed or a reconstituted PEP with new rules to approve regulations, in order to evade public scrutiny?

Also, though the snacks sold by the vendors are supposedly healthy, they cannot be bought any time during lunch or breakfast. For schools with extended lunch periods (like Francis Lewis, for example, where lunch starts at 8:15 in the morning) that essentially cuts them off during most of the entire day.

Schools seeking to use vending machines must use the DOE’s central contracts, which provide for machines equipped with timers.* The snack vending machine contractor will be required to set the timers to lock the machines during the breakfast meal and then again, during the lunch periods. Schools may not enter into vending machine or food and beverage purchase contracts with any other vendors. Snack vending machines may not be used in any schools serving grade levels pre-kindergarten (“PK”) through five (5).

See also:

Food and beverages sold in school stores must be purchased from the centrally approved contracts* and must come from the centrally approved list of food and beverage items that meet the food nutritional guidelines. School stores must not sell food items during breakfast and from the beginning of the firstlunch period until the end of the last lunch period.

These rules even restrict the PTA fundraising once a month that allows restricted food items in that this fundraising cannot occur until after the last lunch period – which again in many schools is very late in the day.

“However, the rule respecting the sale of non-approved food items may be lifted to permit the PA/PTA to raise funds using nonapproved food items once per month as long as the sale of the non-approved food items does not occur from the beginning of the school day until after the last lunch period.

Where is the list of approved food items?

The regulation links to the website of the Office of SchoolFood (“SchoolFood”) website: http://www.optosfns.org/osfns but I can’t find the list there.

Leonie Haimson

'Chicago Turnaround' the deadliest 'reform' of them all

Norm:

I'm posting this and thought you might like to share with New York friends. It's been very very busy here.

George Schmidt

October 2, 2009 

  
Colleagues:
  

  
It's just seven and a half days since Derrion Albert ha d his skull crushed in that now-world-famous gang fight on 111th St. in Chicago.
  

  
And most people still don't realize that "turnaround" was a partial cause of that death.
  

  
And the White House is sending Arne Duncan and Eric Holder to Chicago next week to keep the cover up alive and well.
  

  
And most of Chicago's media will go along with that cover up, just as they've been cheerleaders for corporate school reform for 14 years now, since Mayor Daley became dictator over Chicago's schools.
  

  
But since Arne Duncan is going to force every state in the USA to do Chicago-style "turnaround" or lose stimulus money, let's take a close look at what just happened in Chicago. Not the hype. From the streets around Fenger High School I've been walking the past few days as a reporter, blacklisted Chicago teacher, and former "director of security and safety" for the Chicago Teachers Union. And, oh, as editor of www.substancenews.net.
  

  
"Turnaround" and a decade of corporate media manipulation in Chicago and now beyond Chicago's lies, hoaxes, and Orwellian nonsense.
  

  
Read on if you want some narrative fact. 
  

  
If you're waiting for all the "data" in this "data driven" age, I can't help you. 
  

  
I just posted another critique of Chicago's school "turnaround" craziness at www.substancenews.net and hope it will he lp people understand what we have been talking about from Chicago for the past ten years or more. "Turnaround" as applied to Chicago's schools has a specific meaning, and is largely unrelated to the buzzwords of corporate America. 

  
If you want to check out the mixed history of "turnaround" in corporate America, I urge you to Google Al Dunlap -- "Chainsaw Al Dunlap" prior to his nasty fall after destroying Chicago's Sunbeam corporation during the dot-com con. For the ten years prior to 2001-2002, "Cahinsaw Al" was a media favorite, and the public snarl of corporate "turnaround." His legacy was about to be poised into corporate "school reform" courtesy of Forbes magazine, which was about to nickname Paul Vallas "Chainsaw Paul" until Dunlap was exposed, top to bottom, as a fraud. They quickly withdrew the "Chainsaw Paul" sobriquet and went on to construct a new identity for Paul Vallas as he was leaving his mess behind in Chicago (after leaving CPS in June 2001) and continuing his corporate school reform work in Philadelphia. But that's another story for another time.
  

  
In public schools, as we've reported for years at Substance, 'Turnaround' is a Chicago process that is actually reconstitution. That is what the Chicago Board of Education approved on February 25, 2009, when it chainsawed Chicago's Fenger High School (the latest to be "turnarounded", as we put it here in Chicago). The vote of the Board was to do "turnaround," but Illinois state law doesn't have "turnaround" (yet) in its vocabulary, so the Board votes to do "reconstitution" (which all you ed researchers know has been a failure, at least as measured by any legitimate researchers and peer reviewed). 
  

  
But Chicago still does "turnaround." It's the flavor of the month from Chicago's Madison Ave. hucksters, David Axelrod at the White House and Peter Cunningham working on Arne Duncan's spin from the Education Department. With Barack Obama reading the scripts.
  

  
Now we have "turnaround" on brutal display, courtesy of the murder of 16-year-old Fenger student Derrion Albert last Thursday (September 24) while one of his fellow students made a video that is now on international display.
  

  
How does "turnaround" relate to the Derrion Albert murder?
  

  
In June and July, after being warned not to, the administration of Ron Huberman, who succeeded Arne Duncan as Chief Executive Officer of Chicago's public schools, fired all but seven or nine of the more than 150 staff (teachers, principal, custodians, lunchroom workers, etc.) at Fenger High School and brought in a newly trained "turnaround" team. In July and August, the new "turnaround" team (mostly white, replacing a mostly black staff at an all-black segregated public high school) prepared its lessons avidly and studied its scripts earnestly.
  

  
Then on September 8, the kids arrived.
  

  
The 10th, 11th and 12th graders were the same from last year. This is because for the first time since "turnaround" began in Chicago Chicago forced the school to keep all the previous students. A year earlier, at Harper and Orr High School, "turnaround" allowed the new regime at each school to dump the "bad" kids. But last year they got caught, not only by Substance (that's us) but by public radio. By the time WBEZ reporter Linda Lutton was done with the Harper story, anybody paying attention knew that Harper had dumped between 300 and 400 kids between June and September 2008, Those kids (whom Lutton and some friends of ours tracked) wound up at schools like nearby Robeson (that's Paul Robeson High School) where they were kept (vaguely) under control because Robeson had a strong veteran staff.
  

  
But over the summer of 2009, CPS ordered Fenger High School not to dump its "trash" (this was the term used by both charters and "turnaround" schools to describe the process) into nearby schools. So Fenger began this school year not only with its exotic collection of 10th, 11th and 12th graders (hint: more than 30 percent were classified "special needs" even under CPS negligent special ed department), but it also added a group of 9th graders that nobody else on the South Side had to take.
  

  
Result?
  

  
By September 14, the teachers at Fenger High School were under siege. The bad guys knew the new teachers were what are called on ghetto streets "Marks." The majority of the kids were caught in the middle. Gang fights every day; coverups in the media (except for us at substancenews) 14/7.
  

  
By September 21 (the first day of the third week of school) things were still escalating despite the addition (quietly; keep it out of the media) of several cops, and enhanced police patrols. At one point they called in police from two already overstretched south side police district.
  

  
The teachers (a) didn't know the kids (b) didn't know much about inner city teaching, except what they got in their summer "turnaround" lessons and (c) were scared to death (not all, just the majority) at the first sight of blood.
  

  
Flash forward to September 24, 2009.
  

  
By 10:00 a.m., one of the Fenger children had gotten angry and fired a weapon outside the building, roughly from the corner of 113th and Wallace. The police got the child, a 15-year-old. But the building "heated up" all day. 
  

  
At 2:46 p.m. (dismissal time) things were chaotic, except that Chicago had deployed at least eight squad cars around the building. 
  

  
Rather than fight adjacent to the building (which fills the entire two-block square space at 112th - 113th and Wallace; use Google Satellites to see from space if you don't believe me), the really bad guys took the fight a quarter mile north and east of the building, to 111th and "the tracks." (Everyone knows "the  tracks" except Chicago's "turnaround" geniuses; the tracks are where you find ammunition for a major battle, from huge rocks to throw to broken bottles to that 2 x 4s and 4 x 4s you can now see on display if you have the stomach for the video). 
  

  
So, at a little after 3:00 p.m.. while eight or more Chicago police squad cars huddled around the Fenger High School building, a major gang battle was beginning at 111th St. outside the now famous "Agape Community Center" (which, by the way, was securitized like a fortress even before it became part of an international news story). 
  

  
And one young lady turned on her phone camera and recorded the murder of Derrion Albert.
  

  
And a major commentary on "turnaround" in the real world.
  

  
Although that's still being covered up from the White House to 111th St. (where, irony of all ironies, young Barack Obama supposedly worked as a "community organizer" -- although don't try to find many people who remembered any impact he had on the public schools from Roseland and Pullman out to "The Gardens").
  

  
Anyway, that's all the time I have to share Chicago "turnaround" reality -- from "Chainsaw Paul" to Ron Huberman. And from Antwan Jordan (that's a kid I watched die with a bullet through his head outside Bowen High School in 1997 when I was "security coordinator") to Derrion Albert.
  

  
But if you  want to continue believing in fairy tales, I'm sure Oprah will be back in time to feed you a couple of dozen.
  

  
As Deborah Lynch reports in this morning's Chicago Sun-Times (reprinted right now at www.substancenews.net)...
  

  
"Turnaround is the deadliest reform of all..."
  

  
George N Schmidt
  
Editor, Substance
  

  
and 
  

  
www.substancenews.net
 
 

Loretta Prisco is Scratching Her Head

I'm Scratching My Head

Bloomberg says he is “fixing” schools.

Every school’s budget is cut, over 600 aides laid off,parents supplying paper towels, and the DOE pays $27,000,000 in bonuses for raising farcical test scores.

Charter schools pushing out traditional school students from their own buildings to save rent, and Eva Moscowitz (paid $371,000 annually) is throwing a cocktail party with free food and drink at Roseland for charter school families.

There are 1,126 classes without permanent teachers, while 1,583 paid teachers are in reserve, haven’t been assigned and new are teachers hired.

NYC unemployment rate is high, Bloomberg claims to be rebuilding the economy, yet 14 DOE computer specialists, earning an average annual salary of $65,000 are laid off , and a contract to a Florida company paying 63 consultants $250,000 each is extended, an 10 additional persons are hired. Nineteen of the consultants are working with H-1B immigrant visas.

The Mayor claims to have ended social promotion by holding over students who do not achieve a “2” on tests, and a reporter takes two tests, without reading them, guesses A,B,C,D. doesn’t answer the written component, and scores a “2”.

Loretta Prisco taught in the NYC schools for too many years to count. She has also been a mentor and teacher trainer. She is one of the founding members of the Independent Community of Educators (ICE.)

Does Girls prep function as a public school?

They keep repeating the mantra they are a public school at Gotham Schools. That's like Blackwater claiming to be a public agency because they get funneled billions of public dollars.

Are board meetings open to the public? Are all their stats listed in a way accessible to the public? Attendance figure, free lunches, ELL and special ed student numbers? Accountability to the public in all the ways public schools are?

Hasn't Girls Prep kept changing its charter? First a middle school. Then no middle school and an agreement to limit themselves to one class on the grade when they got space at 188. Now changing its charter back to wanting a middle school. Call it bait and switch. Public schools don't have these options but must jump through hoops at a DOE that clearly tilts towards charters.

Girls Prep agreed not to recruit when they pried their way into 188. They weren't there for more than 10 minutes before slick lit went out to hundreds of kids in the neighborhood based on data passed on to them from the ATS system through a third party by the DOE. Funny thing was how many boys got invited to sign up at Girls Prep. I know not a few who were ready.

A Message From Uncle Joel on Gates Teacher Quality Study

... and the wonderfully collaborative UFT. I can save them the money and predict the outcome. Just measure teacher quality based on test scores. And salary: lower = higher quality teaching. Joel uses his favorite expression, "research shows" without showing what the research is. Leonie Haimson asks:
"How much you want to bet that class size will be systematically excluded in this study, just as it was in the small schools evaluations funded by Gates?"

Dear Fools Who Sign Up For This Sham,

As you know, many factors contribute to student achievement. But research shows that teachers can influence student learning more than anything else in a school. We know this, but we still do not have a full range of reliable and consistent methods for assessing effective teaching to use in our classrooms. That is why the Department of Education is collaborating with the United Federation of Teachers on a two-year research project called the Measures of Effective Teaching study. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the study seeks to develop fair, accurate, and useful tools to determine what really contributes to effective teaching and learning. Participation in the study is voluntary, but if you are eligible, I strongly encourage you to sign up.

Over the next two years, independent researchers will be studying classroom practices here and across the country using a broad array of measures including video observations, surveys, and student growth. The goal is to capture the full range of what teachers do, and how they affect student outcomes, in order to create multiple measures of effective teaching.

You can learn more about the study and find out if you’re eligible to participate by clicking here. If you are eligible, you should complete the Principal Interest Form. You need to fill out this form to ensure that your school will be considered. Later this week, teachers will be invited to complete a similar form. The deadline to submit forms is October 22. If you are selected to participate, your school will receive $1,500 over the two years of the study, and each participating teacher will also receive $1,500.

We know that teachers teach best when they understand what’s expected of them, know how best to reach their goals, and feel assured that no single, snapshot measure will determine the course of their careers. That, and improving the likelihood of success for our students, is what this project is all about.

Joel I. Klein

Introducing "The Broad Report"

Hit the road Broad
And don't you come back no more no more no more

The Perimeter Primate has a new project on Broad the toad. PP writes:

I’m not the only one who is extremely bothered by what Eli Broad has been up to over the last several years. Since I started this blog in February 2008, I’ve been contacted by other people via private emails and blog comments. As it turns out, there are many other public school parents, public school teachers, and a variety of people all across the U.S. who are greatly disturbed by things that are happening to the public school systems where they live, courtesy of Eli Broad's "philanthropy." We certainly don’t feel like our communities, or our kids, are benefiting from his largess.

Because the dissatisfaction is definitely out there, I thought it was time to create a place where people could come together and share what they know. The result is a website I put together over this past weekend called The Broad Report.

Eventually, I plan to add more information about the Broad Residency, recipients of Broad Foundation grants, details about the individuals and all their connections, and other lovely tidbits. Grassroots contributions are most welcome. I'm most interested in accurate, verifiable information, so please include links when you can. I do realize that sometimes the reports may only be anecdotal.

Eli Broad is a wealthy and well-connected individual who has acquired an incredible amount of influence over a very important public sphere. He is also an unelected person who plies his trade in back rooms, or at by-invitation-only affairs. He never presents himself at truly public forums, thus conveniently protecting himself from any public response which would be negative. Those of us in the trenches are left to our imaginations to come up with strategies to counter what he's doing.

Behind Bloomberg Charter Announcement: Trashing His Own Record on Education

If you haven't gotten the message yet that Bloomberg's main mission has been to dismantle the public education school system, yesterday's announcement on charter schools should have made it loud and clear. But we'll leave that issue for later posts on how the DOE tilts in favor of charters every time.

Out focus of interest here is that Bloomberg has been running on his record on education, with all its lies and distortions. Yet in parsing his major initiative on charter schools, he basically trashes his own record.

Note this piece from the Bloomberg press release on the recent Hoxby study on charter schools, which has been criticized for its lack of academic rigor (here and here.)

Stanford University Professor Caroline M. Hoxby recently released a comprehensive study that found that students who were accepted into charters – who are more likely to come from poor families – performed nearly as well on state math and reading tests as students who attended school in the affluent Westchester suburb of Scarsdale. Professor Hoxby’s research found that it is the charter schools themselves – and not the pool of self-selecting students – that makes the difference. Students who gain admission to a charter school via the randomized lottery perform better than students who participate in the same random lottery, but do not get a seat due to oversubscription

In other words, Bloomberg is bragging about a study that shows kids in schools he doesn't manage do significantly better than in schools he has managed for 7 years. And he is running on that record. Brilliant. And the press will let him get away with it. Shameful.

I put up the entire Bloomberg press release for further parsing at Norms Notes.

MAYOR BLOOMBERG ANNOUNCES HISTORIC EXPANSION OF NYC’S CHARTER SCHOOLS

Note this:

Partner with NYCHA to Provide Facilities and Property For Charter Schools
With severe overcrowding in so many Bloomberg controlled schools, he never sought a partnership with NYCHA to relieve that situation but is promoting this for charters.

Here is the link to the more thoughtful blog which analyzed the Hoxby study
http://morethoughtful.blogspot.com/2009/09/what-is-gold-standard.html

Related:
A nice touch on Bloomberg's record from themail in DC:

DC's mayoral takeover of the public school system is based on the New York City model advocated by Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg has repeatedly claimed that changes made under his direction have improved education. But the New York Post reported on September 9 (http://tinyurl.com/yjf5qux) that, “City and state scores on SATs spiraled downward for the fourth straight year, according to new data. Since hitting a peak in 2005, the city's average score on each 800-point section of the SAT has dropped by 13 points in reading, to 435, and by 18 points in math, to 459. Scores on the writing section, which was introduced in 2006, have dropped by six points, to 432.”

The excuse for the drop in performance was racially tinged: “City Department of Education officials said the dramatic drop was fueled by the substantial increase in low-performing students taking the test — particularly black and Hispanic students who may not have considered college in the past.” Education officials hail in increase in minority students taking the test, “

But the same data hailed as a positive trend also highlighted an increase in the achievement gap between whites and their black and Hispanic peers since 2005. That gap has stretched by about 20 points in both math and reading — with whites now scoring an average 108 points higher in math and nearly 100 points higher in reading than minorities.”

Check out 2 days of video of student protests on The Washington Teacher blog

Our rank & file rally has inspired a series of protests by our students. We had our protest on September 24 followed by a student protests on Sept. 28 and 29. I received a call from a young man who is organizing a 3rd student protest this Thursday on October 1 starting at 3:30 pm at the DCPS Central office located at 825 North Capitol St. NE where Rhee's office is. I hope you will check out the videos on my blog below starting with September 24. The latest blog entry are of the videos of the student protests.

Candi

Check out 2 days of video of student protests on The Washington Teacher blog.

You have to visit:
http://thewashingtonteacher.blogspot.com/

Click on both TV screens on the blog to view the video at Duke Ellington high school and the DCPS central office by our students in protest of teacher layoffs on September 28 and September 29. These students followed the lead of our rank and file teacher rally and are exercising civil disobedience in a peaceful way. You have taught them well !

Also check out our rank & file teacher rally video on my blog as well. Just scroll down to check it out.

Candi Peterson
WTU Building rep. for related service providers and itenerant teachers

National Parks are Just Big Guvment

I was outraged over the last few nights watching this national park program on TV to discover we have another big guvment boondoggle called The National Park Service. They even told how these liberal wonkies overrode the objections of the teabag predecessors a century ago who opposed this government takeover of our free space and stopped the possibility of turning it all over to private interests. Let freedom ring. Allow privatizers to turn the wasteful national park system in giant parking lots.

How a national park should look

Attention Drawn to Overcrowding at Francis Lewis a Tribute to Chapter Leader, REVISED

Updated, Sept. 30, 10AM
Since my column was due today for Friday's edition of The Wave, the Rockaway community newspaper, I rewrote this piece with that audience in mind. It should be easier to follow.


The NY Times Continues to Tilt Toward BloomKlein on Education

When Arthur Goldstein, an ESL teacher with almost a quarter century experience, took the giant step of running for chapter leader at Francis Lewis HS in Queens, one of the largest and most overcrowded schools in the city with 4600 students and 300 union members, he promised to focus his attention on the severe overcrowding at the school.

Goldstein has had first hand experience, having to teach in a dilapidated trailer for years. He has drawn attention to the shameful record of Tweed (for new readers, the headquarters, full of dungeons and dragons, of the NYC Department of Education) and the Bloomberg administration in short changing schools with good reputations like Francis Lewis through editorials at the Gotham Schools blog and the Daily News. Tuesday’s front page article in the NY Times focused on the situation at Francis Lewis. But as usual, the Times only told half the story. Or less.

Goldstein, in a recent Daily News editorial (My school is bursting with students, and Tweed is to blame), clearly places the blame where it is due.

His article closes with: ….the experts at Tweed are like doctors who diagnose a disease, then inject the patient with more toxins just to make certain they're right. No one can criticize their diagnostic skills. But if anyone's due a malpractice suit, it's the Department of Education.

The usual NY Times tilt towards the BloomKlein administration on education made no mention of the trailers or any of the dilapidated conditions of the school. Nor did it tie in with the Bloomberg claims to educational excellence and the ridiculous attacks on Bill Thompson over the conditions in the schools when Thompson held the almost powerless position as head of the old Board of Education in the 90’s. (If they want to play that game, speaking of conditions, I bet Francis Lewis was not nearly as overcrowded when Bill Thompson headed the Board of Education).

The Times' article had nary a mention of the conditions Goldstein describes, nor does it mention Goldstein who has used his bully pulpit as UFT chapter leader so effectively. My goodness, the union rep fighting as much for the safety of kids as for teachers? And to the usual charge that the union is only concerned with jobs, doesn’t Goldstein’s campaign to reduce the overcrowding mean less staff? Would reporting that the actions of the union teachers at Francis Lewis in standing up to BloomKlein on a situation that is dangerous for kids counter the anti-teacher and anti-teacher union propaganda that is so rampant? The Times doesn’t want to go there as it executes the Times Tilt toward BloomKlein.

I once challenged the Times reporter who wrote the article at a symposium that the rank and file teacher point of view is rarely presented (union bureaucrats don’t count). Her response was that teachers are afraid to talk, which I found pretty funny. There is not one quote from a teacher in her article, only from students, the principal and a school secretary. Yet there are over 200 teachers at the school, more than a few I have encountered who have no fear. Certainly Arthur Goldstein is one.

Before I go on, I want to mention my favorite whipping crew at the UFT, which only got involved when Goldstein, who ran with the Independent Community of Educators (ICE) in the last UFT election and will be running with them again in this year’s election, started agitating. (Full disclosure: I am also a member of ICE.) Francis Lewis has been under the control of Unity Caucus, which has ruled the UFT for 45 years, for decades and some of the Unity supporters did what they could to stop Goldstein from getting elected as chapter leader.

Getting back to the Times as whipping boy, the article made no mention of the insane conditions teachers must work under, focusing only on student travails. TILT

Goldstein has written that Francis Lewis was built to hold 1800 students instead of the Times’ figure of 2400, allowing Tweed to claim, "You see, the school is not even at 200% capacity." TILT

The Times’ article bias toward the DOE line is further revealed here:

Not far from Francis Lewis, two schools with lesser reputations, Jamaica and John Bowne High Schools, are below capacity. But education officials, wary of alienating middle-class parents, have been reluctant to shift students to even out the load.

The Times did not ask the DOE why these schools have lesser reputations and are underutilized. In fact, John Bowne is at capacity, but the DOE plays games with the numbers.

Jamaica HS is a different story altogether. Chapter leader James Eterno, who is running for UFT president on the ICE/TJC slate against Unity Caucus' Michael Mulgrew, has written repeatedly about the intentional policies of Tweed in trying to force Jamaica's closing so it could be prime meat for future charter schools, even steering kids who want to attend away. James Eterno wrote a powerful letter to the State Education Commissioner pointing to the educational apartheid BloomKlein were perpetuating at Jamaica HS. (Read James' letter at the ICE blog: Letter to State Ed Commissioner: Stop Academic Apartheid)

The Times didn’t do any digging at all, just accepting the DOE line, as evidenced here:

Education officials say they are creating more schools that could eventually absorb some of the demand. Elizabeth Sciabarra, the director of the Department of Education’s office of enrollment, said that Francis Lewis had done a "pretty terrific job" of dealing with the overcrowding but that she could not say how many more students it could handle. "You have people who deliberately choose that school and live in the neighborhood because of that," she said, adding that the city had never capped enrollment at a high school. "Once you start to put a cap on, then where do you send those kids? I don’t see how we would be able to do that in a way that would be fair."

The Times neglected to ask Sciabarra why Tweed doesn't pour enough resources into Jamaica and Bowne to make them attractive enough so kids will want to go there. (For those who think that wouldn't work, look up the 1970's case of Mark Twain MS in Coney Island which went from worst to best in a blink, with pretty much the same teaching staff.)

The Times also neglected to read Arthur Goldstein's powerful piece at Gotham Schools, A Tale of Two Queens High Schools, where he compared the Jamaica and Francis Lewis situation and points to the Tweed complicity in turning people away from Jamaica. This is an important piece and example of real journalistic excellence.

For the times to make no connection to the Eterno and Goldstein pieces amounts to journalistic malpractice that rivals Tweed's educational malpractice. But then again, the Times and BloomKlein are on the same side.

TILT

Related
The Arthur Goldstein article at Gotham

A Tale of Two Queens High Schools

by Arthur Goldstein

Imagine there are two high schools in the same borough. One school can’t enroll enough kids to stay open, and the other is filled to 250% of capacity. What would you do? It might seem logical to even out the population of both schools, but that is not how New York City operates.

I’m in one of the most overcrowded schools in the city, Francis Lewis High School. Our building is designed for 1,800 kids, and last year we were up to 4,450. This year we hit 4,700, and the sky’s the limit. Where the extra kids will go I have no idea. I teach in a trailer out back, and you wouldn’t use it to house your dog if you had a choice.

In the trailers, you never can tell if there will be heat on cold days or AC on hot ones (and don’t buy a used car from anyone who tells you tin keeps you cool). The bathrooms are an abomination. Though school trailers are all the rage in New York City, you never see them on the news. If I didn’t visit one every working day of my life, I probably wouldn’t believe they existed.

On the other hand, James Eterno, chapter leader at Jamaica High School, has a completely different problem. Not enough kids are enrolling in his school. Could we help one another? That way, if, God forbid, there were ever a fire or something, perhaps more of us could make it out alive. How did things get to this point?

It’s complicated. Longtime teachers know that a lot of incidents routinely go unreported. The Bloomberg administration, early on, declared all incidents would be reported, and some administrators took those words to heart — as did those at Jamaica. The consequences are highly unlikely to encourage other administrators to do the same.

The city labeled Jamaica a “priority” school, and then an “impact” school. Ultimately, the state labeled the school “persistently dangerous.” Under NCLB, this triggered a letter home to all Jamaica parents, offering them an opportunity to transfer their kids to another school. Understandably, the school population dropped precipitously. Was Jamaica persistently dangerous, or was it just reporting more incidents than its neighbors?

Administration then began to move in the opposite direction. This resulted in the disastrous policy (by no means unique to Jamaica) of not allowing staff to call 911 without administrative approval. This was widely covered in the media, and likely resulted in even lower enrollment at Jamaica.

The DoE’s position was that Jamaica needed surveillance cameras, police, and metal detectors to improve. Eterno felt it would’ve benefited more from additional counselors, teachers, and social workers. But that was not to be the case. In fact, in 2008 Jamaica had over a dozen teachers, excessed due to declining enrollment, sitting in the school day after day, sometimes working as subs.

Why couldn’t these teachers have been used to decrease class sizes, and consequently give more attention to kids at Jamaica? The answer may be that the DoE had other plans for the space created by the exodus of local kids.

In 2008, Queens Collegiate, a school co-sponsored by the College Board, was placed in what used to be the social studies wing of Jamaica High. Jamaica’s social studies department was banished to an office in which they shared a single electrical outlet. Meanwhile, according to Eterno, Queens Collegiate rooms got paint, computers, smartboards, and everything else private-public ventures are entitled to in Mayor Bloomberg’s New York.

Additional schools create additional levels of administration and eat up classroom space, worsening overcrowding. Eterno asks, “Wouldn’t it be a better idea to fix a place like Jamaica?” At overcrowded Francis Lewis High School, I wonder the same thing. Why couldn’t the free space in Jamaica be used to help us, rather than a privately-sponsored school? Why doesn’t the city invest in technology, magnet programs, and better conditions to draw kids to Jamaica?

In fact, why don’t they offer prospective Jamaica students lower class sizes (which parents declared their number one priority on a DoE-sponsored survey)? Hasn’t Mayor Bloomberg accepted hundreds of millions of CFE lawsuit funds for that very purpose? Isn’t fixing schools for our kids, whether or not they win charter lotteries, whether or not they’re accepted into elite schools, worth a try?

Eterno says of the DoE, “If they perceive you as troubled, they don’t throw you a lifeline. They seem to say, ‘Good, you’re drowning. We hope you go under.’” But is that attitude unique to Jamaica? It doesn’t appear so. Our school is just a variation on a theme. They perceive us as successful, and seem to want to overcrowd us until we reach a breaking point — which is nothing short of inevitable.

It’s sort of a Catch 22 — struggle and you’re in danger of closing, but excel and you’re packed to the rafters and beyond. Why not give Lewis kids a real incentive to attend Jamaica, or any nearby school for that matter? Any time it felt like it, this administration could wake up and help me and James Eterno.

More importantly, it could help the thousands of kids we serve.

Eighty Percent of Teachers in DC Reject Rhee Management

"Any system that alienates 80 percent of its front-line workers is not just failing; it is dying."

"[Rhee] can't fire her way into a workforce that supports her; she can only bully her way into a workforce that dare not criticize her mismanagement."

An informal poll of teachers came up with these results. While this is not scientific, there is certainly a major loss in confidence in Rhee's management by a majority of the teachers.

From DCWatch: TheMail

Chris Lewis reports at City Desk (http://tinyurl.com/mc6sj8) on DC Voice's report on its interviews with over a hundred DC middle and high school teachers (http://www.dcvoice.org/pdfs/ReadyClassroomsReportFull.pdf): “There's lots of interesting stuff, but here's the whammy stat: ‘The teachers were asked if they like how the school system is run and to provide reasons for their answers. Eighty percent of the teachers replied no to this question, 8 percent replied yes.' The remaining 12 percent said they both like and dislike aspects of DCPS management. When the 80 percent were asked to explain their discontent, the most common response was ‘a lack of respect for and blaming of teachers.' Other frequent complaints are ‘poor communication between the District and local schools' and ‘a rigid governance structure' that ‘does not pay attention to what is happening in the classroom, nor allow for questions to be asked.'” Eighty percent of teachers dislike how the system is run. For the teacher-haters who want to see Chancellor Rhee run over teachers with a bulldozer, that's encouraging news, but for anyone who wants the DC public school system to work, it's disastrous. Any system that alienates 80 percent of its front-line workers is not just failing; it is dying.

Dan Brown, a DC charter school teacher, has written a scathing account of the DCPS teacher firings at The Huffington Post, “Mass Teacher Layoffs in DC Amount to One Hell of a Power Play by Michelle Rhee,” http://tinyurl.com/moft5g. The Washington Post's editorial board cheers on Rhee's war against teachers again today: “Critics of DC Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee say she is using the city's budget problems as a way to get rid of teachers she doesn't want. They're probably right” (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/22/AR2009092203476.html). But the Post pretends, with no evidence, that Rhee is firing bad teachers, when she is only firing the 80 percent of teachers who think she is doing a bad job running the schools. She can't fire her way into a workforce that supports her; she can only bully her way into a workforce that dare not criticize her mismanagement.

Earlier this year the city council passed a budget that included some additional money for the DC State Board of Education. Mayor Fenty, who wants to cripple the Board of Education and make it powerless, vetoed the whole citywide budget over this item. Last week, it looked possible that the city council would actually stand up to the mayor and overrule his veto, but instead it caved completely and surrendered to the mayor. The Washington Post's CityWire described (http://tinyurl.com/ms7rhq) the details of the agreement that the council is trying to portray as a “compromise,” and commenters on the CityWire site don't buy it, as they shouldn't.

Commenter candycane1 writes: “Ok if I read this correctly, they [the Board of Education] get to hire three people, not of their choosing but from a list given to them by the Superintendent, whose boss is the Deputy Mayor of Education, whose boss is the mayor. So basically, the hirees comes from the mayor. What a compromise.” The Board of Education won't even have the power to fire any of its new employees chosen by Rhee. So much for its independence.

And the Washington Times has an article whose title is self-explanatory: “Private Parts Made a Public Concern: DC High Schools Test for STDs as Well as College Aptitude,” http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/sep/23/private-parts-made-a-public-concern/.

Will the UFT Survey Principal and Teacher Cheating?

Philip Nobile asks this question and I would guess NO WAY. The UFT is very happy with inflated grades – see all their praise for Bloomberg on how wonderful he has made the schools. So the chance they would put their foot in this water is nil.

A lot of this stuff also went on in the 70's, 80's and 90's, so let's not put all the blame for test mania on BloomKlein and NCLB.

I would say that many of the people I knew did some level of cheating (including me). I used to save old exams and collect vocabulary words and math examples and use these as Do Nows in future years. Some teachers cheated during the actual exam by looking over kids' shoulders and nudging them. Others did the erasing bit after the exams. Some teachers cheat because they don't want to lose favor with the principal, or lose that merit pay bonus (the exact reason for merit pay schemes is to encourage cheating) or because they feel it would be unfair to leave certain hard working kids left back due to BloomKlein idiotic promotional policies. A friend recently told me how teachers in her school used to sit one smart kid in the middle of struggling kids and just didn't notice when they looked at his/her paper.

One guy I worked with got caught through one of these eraser examinations and his class has to be retested but nothing happened to him (he was the principal's lackey at the time). She was thrilled with people who cheated and many of us suspected that when she and the AP locked themselves in the office with all the exams for a few hours after the test was over there was something funny going on.

Here is Philip's email:

Grade changing is an occupational hazard in public schools. Every teacher knows it goes on and, except for the occasional whistleblower, nobody does anything about it. Obviously, management and unions are averse to admitting that their members routinely tamper with test results. As Steven Levitt wrote in Freakonomics, “teacher cheating is rarely looked for, hardly ever detected, and just about never punished.”

No longer in Chicago

During the summer the Chicago Teachers Union collaborated with a Chicago Sun-Times in a cheating survey of 1200 teachers. suntimes.com/news/education/1741991,CST-NWS-grades30.article# The results published on August 29 should be no surprise to inner city educators. The Sun-Times disclosed that “Nearly a third of Chicago public high school teachers say they were pressured to change grades this past school year. One in five report they actually raised a grade under such prodding.”

The pressure came from several directions—parents, peers, and principals. Here are some interesting passages from the paper’s “Watchdog Report”:

The findings raise serious questions about whether some of the data used to judge Chicago public schools has been inflated, artificially manipulated -- or in some cases outright altered.

The responses pulled back the curtain on the stress many teachers feel every time they sit down to issue grades.

"I am giving grades. Kids aren't earning them," said math teacher Bonnie Kayser.

'It's in the culture'

Teachers reported pressure from principals, "upset'' parents and even other CPS employees who were parents of their students. They said the squeeze was put on them to pass failing students, to give ill students a break or to help athletes. Some felt prodded to goose up grades to help kids graduate, avoid summer school or get into an elite high school.

Such heat was twice as common among teachers in high schools, where the push is on to reduce failure rates. Several such teachers said they felt pressured to offer last-minute deals to kids so they wouldn't fail. Another said her school lowered its grading scale and "still we are pressured to change grades.''

"That's all this district cares about -- how many kids are failing. Not how many kids are learning,'' said Kayser, who taught math at Fenger Achievement Academy last year.

Kayser said she was urged to assign make-up work, offer extra credit and stop giving zeros for missed assignments -- even for students who blew off most work or skipped tests.

Other survey respondents said grade-inflation is simply built into the high-school system.

"It's in the culture of the schools,'' wrote one experienced high school teacher who raised numerous grades under pressure -- and said at least one was changed without his approval. "You can't completely be honest in grading students, otherwise the failure rate would be off the chart.''

According to a September 1 follow-up, Mayor Richard Daley is taking action:

“Of those pressured, more than half pinpointed principals, but Daley focused on teachers Tuesday instead. ‘First of all, you have to find out who all the teachers are [who] would do that. That's No. 1,’ Daley said. ‘Then, they're gonna go and get those teachers, investigate those teachers and say, 'Why would you cheat a student?' . . . It all starts with the teachers.’ CTU President Marilyn Stewart said in a written statement that teachers should be ‘commended for shedding light on this very serious issue,’ and any investigation should begin ‘with those putting pressure on the teachers. . . . The teachers are not the problem; they are the victims.’''

What about cheating in New York’s public schools? Except for a five-year-old story in the New York Post (“TEACHERS CHEAT: Inflating Regents scores to pass kids,” Jan. 26, 2004), I am unaware of any public discussion of the problem in our system. Last spring I surveyed Chapter Leaders at meetings in Brooklyn and Manhattan—24 of 27 replied that scrubbing (defined on the survey as illegal tampering with Regents scores) occurred at his or her school. A UFT rep once told me that I “hated” children when I endorsed zero tolerance for tampering.

Will the UFT duplicate the CTU’s intrepid self-examination with a survey of its own or continue its indifference to the undoubtedly tainted numbers propping up the Klein regime? President Michael Mulgrew has been asked, but so far he has declined to answer.

Philip Nobile

Rubber Room

Chapel St., Brooklyn

Related:
Time to Re-Test and Review