The Insidious Nature of Green's Sunday Times Article

UPDATED Mar. 8, 12 am with Aaron Pallas comment and you must read Jim Horn's piece at Schools Matter.
http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/03/teachers-are-built-non-school-of.html

I learned the most about teaching from other teachers. Duh!

BIGGEST SIN: CLASS SIZE ISSUES OFF THE TABLE

CHECK BIO OF MAIN CHARACTER DOUG LEMOV*.

CAN THIS GUY HOLD DOWN ONE JOB? LIKE ACTUALLY TRY TEACHING ON ONE PLACE FOR A LITTLE WHILE. GIVES YOU A BIT OF PERSPECTIVE, YOU KNOW. I THINK THAT PEOPLE LIKE LEMOV LEAVE TEACHING FULL-TIME BECAUSE THEY DON'T LOVE IT ENOUGH TO STAY.

Forgot test scores, measure the love quotient when you talk about teachers who can teach others.

There's a lot more than teacher methodology underlying Green's article which I talked about yesterday. It seem to look like not standard ed deform stuff by de-emphasizing incentives and firing teachers. But when you dig a little it is ed deform. The Times wouldn't print anything less.

A parent commented on the NYCEdNews list:

I thought the piece was generally valuable in looking at actual classroom practices and considering their relationship to content, and challenging the effectiveness of carrot-and-stick approaches to improved learning. But I was startled that she cited the "value-added" model several times without skepticism, particularly stating that teachers' stats for raising student performance are consistent over time. I thought that statistical argument had been debunked. Diane Ravitch makes a strong case in her new book that studies show that teachers' stats for improving student test scores fluctuate dramatically over time and are not a predictor of future performance.

Of course Green had to ignore the research that shows value-added is unproven because the rest of the thesis laid out doesn't work without it. The article is all about measuring by test scores. My favorite quote "he [Lemov} decided to seek out the best teachers he could find – as defined PARTLY [my emph] by their students' test scores [which can so easily be manipulated]..

Exactly what were the other PARTS than test scores?

A lot of the last part of the article is good touchy, feely stuff - good ideas for teachers to use. And we all can benefit. Talk of the video taping set me to chuckling. I was involved in a program to improve teaching by video taping lessons and cataloguing the kinds of questions I was asking - in 1969.

I learned so much of what is talked about in this article (which offers a blueprint of the high and mighty descending to give actual working teachers "The Word") by seeing experienced WORKING teachers (are there any left) in the context of working in their class - in action. I adapted their stuff to my personality and made a lot of it work. Almost every teacher I ever knew had mastered classroom management - at least 85% of them - or they left, often to become people who end up training other teachers.

What if every so-called great teacher who left to become some guru actually stayed in the classroom and taught for an entire career? Maybe close the achievement gap (that's a joke folks.)

"What makes a good teacher" asks Elizabeth? She asked all the wrong people.

She could have talked teacher quality with teachers in the trenches...

People like
Pissed Off
Chaz's School Daze
Under Assault
NYC Educator
Accountable Talk
Have a Gneiss Day
The Jose Vilson: The Blog

And the newer generation of teachers: It's Not All Flowers and Sausages

Mrs Mimi said the other day:

WHY ARE WE GIVING POWER TO EVERYONE IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER COME IN CONTACT WITH A SCHOOL OR THOUGHT ABOUT SCHOOL OR SAID THE WORD "SCHOOL" EXCEPT FOR TEACHERS???!?!?!

Riddle me that one.

Perhaps it's because we want them to remain Candidate Numero Uno on the old chopping block when it comes time to passing around some blame. Or keep them in our line of sight so that they are at a arms reach for some extensive finger pointing?

Instead Green spoke to:

Doug Lemov: "after a successful career as a teacher, a principal and a charter school founder."
Successful? Based on what? I love this: Lemov "set out to become a teacher of teachers [because] he was shamefully aware of his own limitations." So he left teaching. Nice.

And Deborah Loewenberg Ball, "an assistant professor who also taught math part time at an East Lansing elementary school and whose classroom was a model for teachers in training."

[Note this comment from Columbia prof Aaron Pallas:
Aaron Pallas said...

Norm,

You're a bit harsh on Deborah Ball, my former colleague at Michigan State. She was a full-time elementary classroom teacher from 1975 to 1988 before and during graduate school -- and continued teaching third and fourth grade mathematics for four years as an assistant professor. Not a dilettante by any stretch of the imagination.

- when people you respect speak, I listen so I take it back. 13 years is a serious amount of time in a classroom. I wonder though how views change in the midst of the ed deform movement. I'll try to say more about what I think it would take to upgrade teaching and also on the accountability question - I always felt my major accountability was to parents and students not bureaucrats.]

What about trying full time teaching, year after year, decade after decade? You gain a certain perspective and context when you talk to teachers. Then talk to us about training teachers.

In my 6 week summer of training to become a teacher in 1967, all my instructors were teachers, assistant principals and principals (in those years supervisors actually had to teach for a long time before rising up) and I learned more from them and my later colleagues than anyone.

What Green has done under the guise of what looks like a more genial approach than Joel Klein's "lets go on a witch hunt" using Lemov's "we can't replace them fast enough, so let's retrain those heathens" is to validate the ed deform model of blame the teachers.

Green's biggest sin: She used the words "reformers" and Michelle Rhee in the same sentence.


Related: South Bronx School blog does some research into Doug Lemov and why Whitney Tilson likes him and as he so often does, takes it over the top.
Whitney Tilson Is In Love With Doug Lemov

*Thanks to SBS for the bio:

.......Founder of School Performance, an Albany-based non-profit that provides diagnostic assessments, performance data analysis, and academic consulting to high performing charter schools. He is a founder and the former principal of the Academy of the Pacific Rim Charter School in Boston, regarded as one of the highest performing urban charter schools in the country. After leaving Academy of the Pacific Rim, Mr. Lemov served as the Vice President for Accountability at the State University of New York Charter Schools Institute, the leading authorizer of charters in New York, where he designed and implemented a rigorous school accountability system. He has since served as a consultant to such organizations as KIPP, New Leaders for New Schools, and Building Excellent Schools. Mr. Lemov is a Trustee of the New York Charter Schools Association and of KIPP Tech Valley Charter School. He has a B.A. from Hamilton College, an M.A. from Indiana University, and an M.B.A. from the Harvard Business School.

Let's see. When I was 42 years old, I had taught 17 years of self-contained grades 4-6 classes and one year as a special ed cluster, mostly in one school while getting MA's in Reading instruction and computer science.

Elizabeth Green's Front Page Sunday Mag Article on Teachers - I'll Hold My Congratulations

I've only read a third of the article, Building a Better Teacher, but I'm heading for the treadmill at the gym to finish it. So far I am not happy based on who is quoted - Klein, Rhee, Gates and Hanushek. It's all about the teacher. All other factors disappear in a sea of data. I saw so many things in the first 2 pages to criticize I could not go on.

This quote should get some people riled:

"A new generation of economists devised statistical methods to measure 'value-added' to a student's performance by almost every factor imaginable: class size versus per-pupil funding versus curriculum. When researchers ran the numbers in dozens of different studies, every factor under a school's control produced just a tiny impact, except fro one: which teacher the student had been assigned to."

Elizabeth's homework is to read the first week of posts from Eduwonkette, which dealt with the issue of teacher quality in depth. After I finish reading Elizabeth's article we'll decide if we should add Elizabeth the kick line.

EDUWONKETTE (JENNIFER JENNINGS)
Sunday, September 23, 2007

The Teacher Effectiveness Kickline

From Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg to George Miller and Checker Finn, we’re awash in chatter about measuring and rewarding teacher effectiveness. This week I’ll consider some of the problems with these proposals. What’s missing from this discussion, I argue, is a full exploration of their potential consequences for students, teachers, and schools.

Let me note that I am not opposed to measuring and rewarding teacher effectiveness in principle. But it’s more complicated than most commentators would like to acknowledge, and I hope this week’s postings will help us think about that complexity.

Monday: Tunnel vision syndrome - The teacher effectiveness debate focuses only on a narrow set of the goals of public education, which may endanger other important goals we have for our schools.

Tuesday: No teacher is an island - The teacher effectiveness debate ignores that teachers play many roles in a school. Experienced teachers often serve as anchoring forces in addition to teaching students in their own classrooms. If we don’t acknowledge this interdependence, we may destabilize schools altogether.

Wednesday: Ignoring the great sorting machine - If students were randomly assigned to classrooms and schools, measuring teacher effects would be a much more straightforward enterprise. But when Mrs. Jones is assigned the lowest achievers, and Mrs. Scott’s kids are in the gifted and talented program, matters are complicated immeasurably.

Thursday: Overlooking the oops factor - Everything in the world is measured with error, and the best research on teacher effectiveness takes this very seriously. Yet many of those hailing teacher effectiveness proposals missed out on Statistics 101.

Friday: Disregarding labor market effects - The nature of evaluation affects not only current teachers, but who chooses to join the profession in the future and where they are willing to teach. If we don’t acknowledge that kids that are further behind are harder to pull up, we risk creating yet another incentive for teachers to avoid the toughest schools.

Here we are at mile 26 of the teacher effectiveness marathon - the previous posts are all archived here.

One of the summer’s highlights was a talk at AEI by Chicago labor economist Derek Neal. (Footnote: AEI talks generally make me want to impale myself on a Powerpoint projector, but this one was exceptional.) For those who weren’t there, you can watch the video here.

Neal found that low-performing kids in Chicago got shafted when the Chicago accountability system went into place, and again after NCLB was implemented. His talk wasn’t about teacher labor markets, but he made a critical point in this area. If the measurement of teacher effectiveness doesn’t take into account that some kids start off further behind that others and I am labeled a bad teacher as a result, why would I teach in a low-performing school? We have a hard enough time staffing these schools to begin with, in part because of salary differentials but also because of working conditions. If these teachers feel disrespected as professionals because the measurement system doesn’t acknowledge that they have a tougher job, I predict that we’re going to have a harder time recruiting and retaining teachers in these schools. This is conjecture, I know – we really have very little evidence about such a system because no one has implemented a comprehensive teacher effectiveness plan yet. (If you know of any studies on this issue, please email them to me.)

The best part, I thought, was towards the end of the discussion, where Doug Mesecar (Asst. Secretary at Ed) and Neal go back and forth in response to Mesecar’s question, “Are you saying our teachers are not professionals?”, i.e. that they're not good enough to get everyone to proficiency no matter how far behind they start. Most folks back down when challenged with the “soft bigotry of low expectations” rhetoric, but Neal was having none of it.

That’s it for teacher effectiveness, folks – I hope that this week has made you think through some of the issues we don’t hear much about in this debate.

(Kickline roster (from left to right): Eli Broad (Broad Foundation), Kati Haycock (Ed Trust), Michael Bloomberg (NYC), Michael Petrilli and Checker Finn (Fordham).)


That's it for my blast from Eduwonkette past. Elizabeth Green is assigned to write each post 20 times on the blackboard. Or in Powerpoint.

Shouts at Rally on City Hall Steps: "Klein Must Go"

Just as Jitu Weusi is about to speak, Joel Klein goes by and gets greeted.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIN2ZtYJohs

More outrages: DOE advertising charter schools on its home page

According to DOE, 70 of the 99 charter schools are currently housed in DOE-provided facilities.

http://source.nycsca.org/pdf/capitalplan/2010/Feb2010-2014CapitalPlan.pdf


Leonie Haimson does a relentless job in ferreting out Tweed favoritism toward charters followed by Lisa Donlan's response.


While Kindergarten parents are put on waiting lists downtown and on the upper West side, our schools are being deliberately overcrowded and their budgets slashed to the bone, and many of them are being unfairly closed, the DOE’s relentless promotion of charter schools has not ceased. The following appeared on DOE”s home page today:

2010-2011 New York City Common Charter School Application Now Available

For the first-time ever, parents can now fill out one general application and apply to any of NYC’s public charter schools without having to visit each school for an individual application form! Applications, available in nine languages, can be downloaded on the NYC Department of Education’s Charter School page.

Which links you to this:

New: The 2010-2011 New York City Common Charter School Application is now available. You can download, print, complete and submit this application to one of our 99 charter schools citywide.

What is a Charter School?

Charter schools are publicly funded and open to all students in New York City through a non-discriminatory admissions lottery. Each charter school is governed by a not-for-profit board of trustees which may include educators, community members, and leaders from the private sector. Charters have freedom to establish their own policies, design their own educational program, and manage their human and financial resources [

Charter schools are accountable, through the terms of a five-year performance contract, for high student achievement.

Charter schools were established to:

• Provide families with an increased number of high quality school choices;
• Improve student achievement;
• Increase learning opportunities for all students, with an emphasis on at-risk students;
• Encourage use of innovative teaching methods/educational designs;
• Create new professional opportunities for teachers, administrators, school staff;
• Change from rule-based to performance based accountability

More Information:

For Parents

For Charter Schools

For Aspiring Charter School Leaders

Lisa Donlan's response:

Below (click here NYCDOE Charter School Forms) is the common application that is linked to the webpage Leonie posted.

I am hoping this is DoE's response to the unaudited, unsupervised, individual lotteries held in each Charter School that have resulted in "creaming" of students in charters and pushing the most at-risk kids into the DoE controlled schools.
The business model approach to obtaining necessary enrolled student dollars in charters seems to be essentially via Marketing and PR-
bend the Federal privacy laws to send current students and their families direct marketing mailings ( ideally 10-12 times!)
Flood the media with questionable studies and statistics to sell the idea that charter is better.

To avoid charges of creaming, charters are being encouraged to spread a wide net, and now to centralize admissions, ( I assume this is in addition to each schools individual "competitive" methods) and apparently to give admissions priority to "at-risk students.
At-Risk Categories: This information is optional but providing it may increase your student’s chances of admission to certain schools. Note: Different schools have different at-risk criteria. Please contact each school directly to find out what, if any, at-risk criteria the school may have and provide such information in the space provided on the application. You may also have to provide supporting documentation, if required by the school.

I would not consider these tweaks significant fixes to the admissions irregularities until:

1. The lotteries and waiting list methodologies and data are audited and documented.

Each schools admissions data would need to be reported out in terms of numbers and percentages of applications and admits and waiting lists by gender, district, income level ( including students in temporary housing), race and ability/special needs/language status.
Double, triple or other multiple applications from one student would need to be removed to accurately report number of applicants/students on waiting lists that I suspect are inflated by families that essentially hedge their bets with multiple lottery tickets.

2. Audited attrition rates and tracking of "discharged" students throughout the year (especially after the 11/1 funding date) would need to be reported rigorously- to report on demographic changes of markers such as gender, ability/special needs/language status, income, etc in each school.

3. Finally I am wondering if is it legal for schools to give priority to some at-risk categories as they decide/define as this application implies?

5. At-Risk Categories: This information is optional but providing it may increase your student’s chances of admission to certain schools. Note: Different schools have different at-risk criteria. Please contact each school directly to find out what, if any, at-risk criteria the school may have and provide such information in the space provided on the application. You may also have to provide supporting documentation, if required by the school.

What do others on this list think?

Lisa Donlan

Steve Brill Preparing Next Hatchet Job

Reports began surfacing that Steve Brill is gnawing around the charter school story – he was probably hired by the charter school crowd to do a hatchet job on the defenders of public education like he did on the rubber room (Steven Brill Leads Major Assault on ATRs ).

Angel Gonzalez found out later that he had been talking to Brill at the PS 30/Harlem Success Invasion hearing (Don't miss the great videos) last week.

Angel reported:

I hadn't realized that it was Brill that I was talking to at PS30 Hearing.

(Realized it was Brill that questioned me after doing a google image on him.)

As I confronted Ms Mockowitz on camera about her $370K, Brill interrupted and immediately started asking me (had gem button) "what is gem? where does GEM get its money, who pays for your blog?....Those were his immediate questions. I retorted that he could easily find out by going to our blog....and asserted that we were volunteers. Brill apparently can't fathom a solid persistent raucous army of volunteers.

He must think that gem is the left wing front of the UFT.

Brill seemed very chummy and cozy with Mockowitz (when I found them) so I very much suspect he is out to do reconnaissance for her Evildoers. Later, at the hearing, I gave him the Indypendent paper and told him to reprint the centerfold with the Naked expose' of those charter-capitalists/lovers. [see Ed Notes sidebar for links]

If the New Yorker lets Brill do another hack piece, I am going to use my copies for kitty litter.

Today's Political Scandals in NYC

There's so much incoming, here is just a taste of scandal city from NYCEdNews parent activist listserve. And these are only 2 out of gazillions.

Paola de Kock

The NY Times reports today that, in an apparently unprecedented move, the commission charged with investigating the weighty matter of whether Patterson accepted or sought five tickets to a Yankees game and then lied under oath about whether he intended to pay for them, has now recommended the matter be referred to a prosecutor.
What an absurdity to see the governor of one of the largest states in the world's most powerful nation embroiled in a “scandal" over five lousy tickets! Consider what Paterson would be prosecuted for:

The commission charged Mr. Paterson with violating two provisions of the Public Officers Law, each carrying a maximum penalty of a $40,000 fine, and violating three sections of the State Code of Ethics, including a provision that bars the governor from using his official position to secure unwarranted privileges, which carries a $10,000 civil penalty.
On Wednesday afternoon, much of the reaction to the report focused on the accusations that Mr. Paterson had been untruthful when he testified before the commission. As the scandal surrounding his administration’s response to the domestic violence case widens, the governor’s statements about his own actions are being carefully scrutinized.
“It’s one thing to run afoul of the gift ban, a civil matter at best,” said Daniel J. French, a former federal prosecutor who served on the commission until late last year. “It’s quite another to have lied under oath, which, if proven, is a criminal matter with far-reaching implications to office and liberty.”

Watch government come to a standstill (questions over inability to govern tend to become self-fulfilling prophecies) as prosecutors plumb the governor's mind (because intent is the key element in any criminal prosecution) and possibly get him jailed …….. not for influence peddling, but for lying about whether he intended to write a check for a few hundred dollars before he actually got the tickets (since he did pay for them in the end).
Now consider the further absurdity that, while we’re supposed to worry about a corporate gift of 5 tickets to a Yankees game, the Supreme Court lifted all restrictions on corporate spending on elections. Every politician should state at the outset that he/she is in the pocket of every corporate interest that cares to contribute; as they would be telling the truth, they should be safe from prosecution. Moreover, in the Court’s twisted logic, this sort of disclosure is the only concession to the integrity of the political process-- should Congress bring itself to require it.
Paola de Kock

Steve Koss

Incredible -- $931 million already spent or projected still to be spent, but we can't afford to pay for the transportation to get our children to school everyon a day on a system that's already up and running.

I'd love to see a detailed breakdown of where that $931 million has gone/is going.

John Liu for Mayor, anyone?

Steve Koss

LIU TO BLOOMBERG: FREEZE OUT-OF-CONTROL CITYTIME “MONEYPIT”

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

NEW YORK, NY – New York City Comptroller John C. Liu called for Mayor Michael Bloomberg to immediately freeze all requests for contracts or payments associated with the CityTime project (CityTime) until the completion of his audit into the Office of Payroll Administration's (OPA's) oversight of the bloated project. CityTime is one of the timekeeping systems used in City agencies for employees, the cost of which has mushroomed by nearly eleven hundred percent with less than one-third of projected City employees actually using the system to date.

In a letter to the Mayor, Comptroller Liu urged the Mayor to stop "the hemorrhaging of funds that are still slated to be poured into CityTime", which to date is at $193 million. “The reality is CityTime was intended to save money by modernizing timekeeping systems," Comptroller Liu wrote. "Unfortunately the cost has mushroomed from $68 million projected at its onset to more than $738 million to date. At the same time, only about 45,000 of a projected 156,000 City employees actually use the CityTime system." The full text of the letter is below.

Comptroller Liu stated: “As our City is faced with ever expanding budget gaps and service cuts, each dollar of taxpayer monies spent warrants ever more scrutiny to ensure both wise budgetary decisions and safeguards against this type of bloated spending."

Despite OPA's projections that CityTime will be completed within a year, Comptroller Liu labeled the deadline as unrealistic, citing OPA's "past performance" and loss of credibility relating to the mushroomed project. Comptroller Liu has subsequently appointed Mr. Ari Hoffnung, Executive Director of Accountancy and Budget in the Comptroller's Office, as his new representative and thus co-Director of OPA; the Mayor's representative also serves as co-Director. The two co-Directors of OPA make recommendations on the agency's staffing and operations.

GEM's Message on National Day of Action Today

Quality & Equal Public Education - No to Privatized Charter Schools!

GEM's Message

Historical Perspective, 2003: On Closing Schools and High Stakes Testing and the UFT's Role

There was a lot of wallop packed into a few pages of Ed Notes when we published our second 16 page tabloid edition 7 years ago in Jan. 2003.

The incredibly perceptive John Lawhead [ICE-TJC candidate for the High School Executive Board] laid down some serious truths on testing and small schools and where Eric Nadelstern [now rumored to be Joel Klein's successor] was coming from at the time.

George Schmidt, sent John an email after reading his article, including this gem:
Most of the "small schools" research (at least the stuff around here, especially from William Ayers and Michael Klonsky of UIC) is also intellectually dishonest. Nailing Ayers 5 years before he became famous all over again.

Check out the ed deform disasters in Chicago and now New York today.

I had just met Lawhead in late 2002, and he proved to be one of a most perceptive analysts on the deep issues affecting education. In March 2003 John and I attended a meeting in Birmingham, Alabama with some of the leading Resisters to NCLB, high stakes testing, and all the ed deforms to come – such leading lights as Susan Ohanian, the late Steve Orel, Juanita Doyon, Bill and Joanne Cala and 20 others. I learned so much from these people and from John, one of the most widely read people I've ever met- code words for "I felt downright inorant." I learned in those days that John had been the administrative assistant to a lawyer at Columbia U who happened to be named James Leibman, who became Joel Klein's Chief Accountability Officer years later. Boy does the worm turn.

Nine months later John and I and a few others hatched the idea of an Independent Community of Educators (ICE) which has attracted some of the leading thinkers and writers in the UFT.

John's analysis is incisive. Teaching at soon to be closed Bushwick HS, he saw a copy of Ed Notes in his mailbox at school and sent in this article. After Bushwick HS was closed – and the process he lived through has given him enormous insight – he ended up a Tilden HS where he is chapter leader. Now Tilden is about to be closed as the Tweed tsunami sweeps through Brooklyn.

In that same early 2003 edition, I ran an email sent by George Schmidt to John sharing his experiences with the small schools movement in Chicago (see below John's article), followed by my 2 cents at the time on the role the UFT was playing in the high stakes tests/school closing scenario.


Shhhhhhhhhh ... The Small Schools are Coming
by John Lawhead, Teacher, Bushwick HS
Jan. 2003

Teachers, let's repeat the mantra:

Change is never easy but it is necessary and good. Change is a part of life and it's a big part of a school system that feeds us.

Teachers know that change is also a godsend for those who can't finish what they start. Often the changes are meant to invite a kind of amnesia that will take us past whatever has previously been inflicted on the schools or promised but never delivered.

I belong to a pocket of teachers who are suspicious and combative about the new wave of small schools reform. Not everyone understands us. For instance, me and my complaints about the New York Teacher newspaper. What they put in and what they leave out.

Why be irritated over a paper that's mainly devoted to making teachers feel good about being teachers? On the days when it comes you can put your feet up and read about the fresh triumphs and "historic" accomplishments of our union.

The rub is that my Brooklyn high school is being phased out and September and October have passed without a word about any of it. Nothing about this year's opening of small schools and the phasing out of large ones in the Bronx. In the absence of clear statements suspicions turn to speculation.

My guess is that this is another issue, like high-stakes testing and teacher-proof curricula, on which our UFT leadership prefers to "deliver" a passive teacher constituency for its political bedfellows. Perhaps that's an overly subjective perception. I'll just leave it there and let's wait and see. {emphasis mine}

[Breaking up large neighborhood high schools into smaller theme-based academies is not something new. Perhaps that's why the current wave of small schools, officially called the New Century Initiative, rolled into the Bronx and now Brooklyn with almost no attention from the major media. The hiring of a staunch small schools proponent, Michele Cahill into the Department of Education's high command as well as comments by Joel Klein have been the more widely noted signals that small schools are the coming trend.]

As with any school reform there are reasons; and then there are reasons. Let's start with a big one. The City's Department of Education is operating under the pressure of federal mandates to demonstrate vigorous reform efforts and offer alternative schooling and other services to students in low-performing schools.

The small schools initiative which is being overseen by New Visions for Public Schools lets the city spend private money to close schools and open new ones in a time of looming budget crises. In this way, leaving aside the nature of the reform, the financially strapped school system is able to use tens of millions in foundation largesse (Gates, Carnegie and Open Society) to do something dramatic. Reason enough. Why debate the particulars?

Only that some fairly credible people are claiming it's all for the better. The plan calls for participants at the school and community level. Staff at schools slated for closing are being wooed as potential small schools designers.

The small schools proponents argue that size is the thing that matters. In the first place the smallness allows for greater familiarity among staff and students. Small schools foster a sense of community in which students thrive.

In discussing the positive effects of the smaller, more friendly environment the reform enthusiasts are often also quick to mention favorable data the show the superiority of a small school situation. If they are careful they will qualify the claim, that this data only pertain to "at risk" students. Sometimes people seem to take for granted that it's only Black and Latino that are being discussed. That's both understandable and alarming. The discussions have mostly revolved around the schools targeted for closing and so far those schools have only been in Black and Latino neighborhoods.

The other part of the pitch is innovation. "Why should students have to learn math inside a classroom?" asks Brooklyn High Schools Superintendent Charles Majors. This part of the argument seems to rely on suggestive appeal rather than achievement data.

The small schools initiative propelled two former small school principals into the role of district administrators. Eric Nadelstern [Ed Note: Now rumored to be Joel Klein's successor] and Paul Schwarz are the deputy superintendents for small schools in the Bronx and Brooklyn respectively. It has fallen upon them to field the most difficult questions. Paul Schwarz, for instance, is facing teachers in a district where a command-style of administration has been prevalent. In my school and several others students must learn math in front of a computer with a packaged curriculum that no one in the school asked for. The obvious question for those charged with small schools implementation, and perhaps for others, is why isn't more local autonomy, innovation and student/staff familiarity being advocated for the large schools?

As a newly minted administrator Schwarz pleads innocence regarding the neglect or abuse of the large schools. As to whether the district is a favorable environment for innovation he describes the coming wave of small schools as a "paradigm shift." Major changes are in the forecast but there aren't many actual guarantees yet. He does voice the suggestion that small schools reform will have an influence on the entire school system.

Eric Nadelstern pushes further in this regard. He's an ardent believer in the potential of small schools reform for everyone. In fact, Nadelstern calls for breaking up all the large schools including selective high schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science. As unlikely as that prospect might seem, the man seems to have chosen his stand with integrity. He is clearly for more than the phasing out of zoned schools in Black and Latino neighborhoods. He is adamant that all large schools are failing their students.

Nadelstern also expresses a crusader's zeal on another issue: the possibility that small schools would try to improve their data by gleaning students. He concedes that many school people believe the way to show improvement is by finding better students and turning away the worse ones. To prevent that he vows that the small schools will abide by what he calls "random selection." It's something of a paradox the way the man can display both small-scale idealism and an administrator's high and mighty scorn for those who cheat at the numbers game.

The test for such reformers is to what extent they can change the system versus what it does to them. There are, after all, two sides to the bargain. If the school system is only bent on the wholesale elimination of zoned schools in Black and Latino neighborhoods then the school reformers may prove more useful to the system than to their small-scale cause.

Both Schwarz and Nadelstern are advocating the formation of school communities within "choice schools." There's no support from them for neighborhood-based community schools and that's significant. For most of the kids involved small schools is going to mean commuter schools. It's really not hard to imagine what kinds of students will be drawn into the new arrangement and who will not.

Alas, the small schools reformers may be surfing atop Microsoft millions but that isn't the only money in play. A trend in recent years has been the increased interest of upper middle class parents, mostly white, in having their children attend neighborhood public schools. Whites make up just over a third of school-age children in the city and roughly half of them go to public schools. The more affluent parents bring money and a willingness to pour some of it into the schools their children attend. They also bring political clout and one expects their wishes will tend to be met.

The most troubling aspect of the smalls schools reform is the distinct possibility that the school system values small schools for their weakness rather than their strength.

It hasn't been so long since their alternative assessments were defeated in favor of standardization by the State Commissioner of Education Richard Mills. Advocates for the Performance Standards Consortium had been adamant that a regime of regents exams would destroy their curriculum and their mission.

They also practiced a 'holier than thou' approach to the threat by declining to spearhead any larger challenge to high-stakes testing in the city. The court appeal of the Mills' decision was argued as narrowly as possible. It did not directly challenge the use of high-stakes testing in large schools.

So the question is this: If the well-knit alternative assessment schools could not mobilize enough parent or community support to defend what they claimed they needed, then what does that say about the strength of the new commuter academies that Black and Latino youth are being funneled into?

What happens to such schools when their school data shows decline for whatever reasons, including possibly, the honesty of the school staff? We can imagine they might easily be closed without much fuss from the local residents who might say: Who went to that school anyway?

And for the teachers: just another change.



School closings and "small schools" alternatives are epidemic here, too
by George N. Schmidt, Editor, Substance
(from email to John Lawhead re: Bushwick HS)

For several years, I've argued (against the Maoists, the old lefties, and the conservatives who've pushed "small schools") that "small schools" in urban contexts is the new face of Jim Crow.

The "best" high schools in Chicago's public school system (as measured by test scores and other measures) are selective enrollment schools with student populations of between 1,500 and 4,000.

The "best" high schools in the greater Chicago area are large suburban high schools with student populations of 1,500 to 3,000 (New Trier, Glenbard West, Hinsdale, etc., etc.).

The "small schools" people (and Gates money, which is fronting for dozens of other foundations pushing the same stuff) are pushing a new form of "separate but equal." We should point out that their program is an alternative to equitable funding for schools that serve mostly poor minority children.

Most of the "small schools" research (at least the stuff around here, especially from William Ayers and Michael Klonsky of UIC) is also intellectually dishonest. They do not have research to back up their claims, but simply assert those claims over and over based on anecdotes which, when checked out, turn out to be either half-truths or outright distortions.
George Schmidt

I also wrote an article on the UFT role in all this in that winter 2002/03 Ed Notes:

High Stakes Testing: Where the UFT Sits by Norm Scott

Want Higher Scores? Work ‘till midnight
UFT leader blames short day and poor teaching for low scores

An article in the NY Times this past summer [2002] pointed to the fact that “Yonkers far outstripped other large cities on the 4th grade test with 59.5% meeting standards, up from 52.7% last year and up from 33.6% four years ago.”

The article also stated that Randi Weingarten, president of the UFT, attributed the sharp gains in Yonkers to “higher teacher salaries than New York City” and “to an additional 20 minutes a day added to the school day in Yonkers.”

Let’s see. Our union leader is saying that higher salaries in Yonkers have attracted better teachers so the scores have risen. The corollary must be that lower salaries in NYC must have attracted lower paid and therefore less qualified teachers. Ergo, the scores have not risen as much.

Conclusion: New York City scores are lower because the teachers are not as good and don’t work a long enough day.

That’s a union leaders speaking boys and girls. It’s not the conditions in the schools or the difficult family life of students or poor supervision or poor management or political manipulation or waste, etc., etc.

So, let’s all roll up our sleeves and work ‘til midnight. Scores should go through the roof.

Note: The UFT leadership has backed and collaborated in the punitive closing of schools, in contrast to the recently elected union leadership in Chicago which led protest marches over such closings.

A Good Week for the Ravitches? - Updated

Updated: Mar. 3, 4pm

With rave reviews coming in for Diane Ravitch's new book and the news that Governor Patterson may be leaving the field for Diane's ex-husband, Lt. Governer Richard Ravitch, this is turning into quite a week for them.

Arthur Goldstein (running for HS Exec Bd on the ICE-TJC slate) was lucky enough to get a hold of a review copy of “The Death and Life of the Great American School System” - a further sign that Arthur has become one of the most respected commentators on education not only in the city, but nationally. His review is a rave:

It is, frankly, a revelation, and anyone interested in education, particularly New York City education, needs to read it right now.

For anyone who’s wondered where on earth Joel Klein dreamed up his “reforms,” look no further. A substantial source of inspiration appears to be a three-stage process — a New York City experiment that gave a false impression of success, a San Diego experiment that eluded success altogether, and a stubborn determination to replicate both in overdrive.

As both Bloomberg and Klein were business experts using business models, they used a “corporate model of tightly centralized, hierarchal, top-down control, with all decisions made at Tweed and strict supervision of every classroom to make sure the orders flowing from headquarters were precisely implemented,” Ravitch writes. It appears they didn’t squander their valuable time on troublesome input from teachers, parents, or any contradictory voices whatsoever. In fact, Ravitch points out that though the mayor had promised increased parental involvement, it was actually reduced. Parent coordinators were hired, but in fact, they actually “worked for the principal, not for parents.”

Read Arthur's full review at Gotham Schools Ravitch Reveals All

I just hope Richard R reads his ex-wife's book, takes heed, and swats the co-conspirator NY State Ed Department before it causes more damage. But I'm not holding my breath.


Sam Dillon the NY Times today has a BIG STORY on Diane's turn around from a leading conservative to a major voice battling the Ed Deformers.

Leading Scholar’s U-Turn on School Reform Shakes Up Debate - NYTimes.com

I can remember years of disparaging remarks toward Diane from the Resistance to the Ed Deformers I have been associated with for almost a decade. When she received the UFT's John Dewey Award, I received an email from Jerry Bracey, one of her severest critics, asking if we were throwing up a picket line.

So when Leonie Haimson introduced me to Diane at the famous St. Vartus church Feb. 28, 2007 rally, I was a bit surprised. Diane joined Leonie's list serve and published some critiques on the brand new at the time NYC Parent blog. As I began to post her work on ICE mail I came under attack from some people on the list, who went after Diane. Over the past few years, she has won over more and more critics (some praise from Ohanian and Lawhead).

When I went to a Manhattan Institute luncheon honoring Chester Finn (who is mentioned on the Times piece) hosted by Diane, a close friend of his, I felt like a total outcast. Until Diane came by my table and whispered in my ear: Go Get 'Em.

I still line up more with Deb Meier on standards and the other issues she and Diane blog about (both are on Leonie's influential listserve and we get some special treats from their back and forth) but I have become a Diane Ravitch fan as much for qualities as a person as for her ideas.

Here is a link to a new radio interview:

http://radio.nationalreview.com/betweenthecovers/post/?q=ZWNkOGNjNTEyMzA2ZmI1ZTMzN2EyZjY1MmU2ZDM5Zjk

For a somewhat dissenting view from Jim Horm (thanks to Sharon Higgins) see:

Diane Ravitch and What's Underneath the Policy Makeover

Horn picks at the national standards issue that Diane supports and without going deep on my part, I tend to agree that if we end up where Diane wants us to, one day we will see a part 2 of her book.

The WAVE: The Joys of Aging

March 3, 2010, for publication in The WAVE, Mar. 5 edition

by Norm Scott

This column will be a shortie – Susan Locke (WAVE Publisher) is doing cartwheels. The 9am Wave deadline approaches on the day I begin Medicare and social security – and the most fun of all, the day I start to use my half fare Metro card – take that Jay Walder. My wife is waiting to take me shopping for my birthday gift, which she thinks should be an exercise ball instead of that 200 inch flat panel TV I really need. "But honey, shouldn't we also get that TV to go with the ball so I can see the video that comes with it really well?"

That's all I have to say about the aging process. I am hoping some extra aging is going on over at Tweed over the Daily News' Juan Gonzalez's exposure of the emails between Joel Klein and Harlem Success charter school queen Eva (Evil) Moskowitz (Mockowitz, Moskowitch - take your pick). The ed literati are howling with glee over the 70 pages of emails that reveal uncle Joel's predilection for charter schools over schools he is supposed to be running. Gotham Schools' Elizabeth Green had this tidbit:

April 16, 2009, was a hectic e-mailing day for the odd couple. First, Klein offers his frank thoughts on his new buddy Al Sharpton, after Moskowitz asks whether she should invite Sharpton to visit her school. He’s good on charters, but not on mayoral control, Klein says. But he is “working” on Sharpton. The same day, Klein lets Moskowitz know that Bill Clinton called him to say he’s upset about the teachers union attack on charter schools — “keep confi,” Klein instructs. Clinton apparently “wants to do an op ed.” Pretty sure this never materialized, though Moskowitz offered some talking points.

Always being focused on the UFT, I picked up this piece from Green's report:

WHAT RANDI SAID: In an Oct. 8, 2008, e-mail, Moskowitz claims that former city teachers union president Randi Weingarten, and her personal enemy, suggested that the duo write a thin contract together. Presumably that would mean that Harlem Success schools would become unionized, and the resulting work contract would have very few restrictions. Moskowitz said she would but only if Weingarten also agreed to a thin contract at half of all city schools. The union’s first thin contract, with the Green Dot charter school in the Bronx, landed in June 2009.

Could you just imagine the Randi/Mulgrew qvelling and distorting if they actually got Evil to go along with this? We've been predicting that the UFT moves to organize charters will be all about thin contracts with "very few restrictions" on the charter operators. Which will screw the teachers, of course. In ICE and GEM (the organizing groups I work with) we ask ourselves what to tell charter school teachers who might be interested in having the UFT organize them. My instinct is to say, "Try the exterminators union." But seriously, do you urge them to become part of an undemocratic, narrow, sell-out union?

Last week I got a call from a former student in my 6th grade class – from 1979. I haven't seen her since she was in high school. We're getting together for lunch. She's in her 40's. Now THAT makes me feel OLD. But I will feel much better after my yearly dose of Beef Wellington tonight at One if By Land, Two if By Sea.

Divide and Conquer: PS 30 VS Harlem Success Academy Charter School Invasion

February 22, 2010 was a volatile night at PS 30. The PS 30 community clashed with Harlem Success Academy II in what did not make for a pleasant evening. Harlem Success Academy II is looking for a home after the PS 123 community fought hard to get them out. The PS 30 community was brilliant in their defense of their school.

Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN0F5xWKF3I

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E9fnQCozB8

Moskowitz/Klein Emails Reveal UFT Intentions on Organizing Charters

I don't have the patience to wade through the emails (here's the link if you want to get your kicks), but luckily people like Elizabeth Green at Gotham did so (we've missed you, Elizabeth).

WHAT RANDI SAID: In an Oct. 8, 2008, e-mail, Moskowitz claims that former city teachers union president Randi Weingarten, and her personal enemy, suggested that the duo write a thin contract together. Presumably that would mean that Harlem Success schools would become unionized, and the resulting work contract would have very few restrictions. Moskowitz said she would but only if Weingarten also agreed to a thin contract at half of all city schools. The union’s first thin contract, with the Green Dot charter school in the Bronx, landed in June 2009.

Could you just imagine the Randi/Mulgrew qvelling and distorting if they actually got Evil to go along with this? We've been predicting that the UFT moves to organize charters will be all about thin contracts with "very few restrictions" on the charter operators. Which will screw the teachers, of course. In ICE and GEM we ask ourselves what to tell charter school teachers who might be interested in having the UFT organize them. My instinct is to say, "Try the exterminators union." But seriously, do you urge them to become part of an undemocratic, narrow, sell-out union?

"You can't fire poverty"- Mrs. Mimi With Some Common Sense Outrage at Central Falls Firings

These 2 blogs from Ms. Mimi are in the "wish I had written them" category as she takes Obama, Duncan and the whole pack of ed deformers to task. (And not good news for them that Ms. Mimi, a published author, comes from the stock of teachers they view as golden.)

Yes, I'm Still Heated About This Whole Rhode Island Thing...

Why The Superintendent Firing All the Teachers in One School Should Be Ashamed Of Themselves...and Maybe Have To Wear a Scarlet D for Douch

PS 198, Lower Lab School - Inaccuracies in Thrasher Voice Story

If you read Steven Thrasher's Village Voice article

"Separate and Unequal: Whites in the front door, blacks in the back door" now in the Village Voice

there were some shocking revelations - or allegations to some. Ed Notes fave Patrick Sullivan came off as somewhat hypocritical in Thrasher's view. But knowing Patrick, it seemed there had to be another side to the story.

Leonie Haimson provides some enlightenment, followed by Patrick himself (both on the NYCEducationNews listserve.)

On Feb 25, 2010, Leonie Haimson wrote:

I believe that Tony Alvarado is responsible for the creation of this school and its placement at PS 198.

The uncomfortable but undeniable truth is that many gifted programs through the city are segregated; even G and T programs in regular public schools. The Chancellor’s policies of mandating that admissions be based solely on high stakes test scores has made this even worse; as has his extension of test-based admissions to many more high schools.

The reality is that NYC is a very segregated city and there has been no effort in recent years to integrate classrooms; in fact the reverse has occurred under this administration.

Lisa Donlan can tell you about how they have fought bitterly to try to keep D1 schools integrated; against fierce resistance from the administration.

It’s all very sad.

However, the picture the author gives of huge classes at PS 198 compared to Lower Lab is not true. According to DOE stats anyway, most classes at PS 198 still average about 20, while those at Lower Lab are 28 and up, including in Kindergarten, making teaching assts a very reasonable requirement

For a portrait of PS 198 the first year smaller classes came to NYC schools ten years ago, and the revolutionary changes it brought, you can check out the report I wrote in 2000, Smaller is Better at http://edpriorities.org/Pubs/Report/Report_Smaller.html

Patrick Sullivan adds:

As a PTA co-president at Lab, I imagine I'm on the hook to respond here. There are some very serious inaccuracies in the story. I've asked David Cantor to help set the record straight but as he is probably busy, I will get started myself.

Front door / back door: Everyone used to use the front door but that was kind of crowded so it was decided that Lab, as the smaller school would use the back door. The reporter got this backwards. Parents use whatever door.

Class size: Lab is 28 average, 198 is 23.

Funding: 198 gets about $2,700 more per student. Lab is one of the 10% of schools that is not Title I.

Lab parents have been actively looking to move. This article will only accelerate that. So what should replace it were Lab to go away? This building is at the north end of District 2. The local zone has enough kids to fill maybe a third of the school. Rezone? Charters? Keep in mind that removing G&T doesn't erase the racial differences between the 198 zone and the overcrowded zones around it.

PS 15 Charter School Suit Over PAVE

This may grow into a big story as the counter attack on the BloomKlein policy of inserting charter schools into public school buildings is getting some serious push back. If you've read our and other reports of the PEP meeting the other night it would appear the charter school movement is garnering lots of support and may be extended to other invaded schools. (See the video of the CAPE presentation at the PEP the other night.

Now I don't have much faith in the state ed commissioner Steiner since he was chosen by Bloomberg/Klein pal Meryl Tisch but the state ed dept is a political creation and this type of pressure might have a long term impact.

Check out the complaint itself, prepared by Advocates for Children, at Gotham. Leonie calls it "Very compelling stuff!"

P.S. 15 parents ask Steiner to intervene in charter siting dispute
by Maura Walz

Two parents at a Brooklyn district school who have strongly resisted the city’s plan to let a charter school extend its stay in the district school building are appealing to State Education Commissioner David Steiner to halt the plan.

The parents, John Battis and Lydia Bellahcene, allege that the city of violating state education law in its plan to allow PAVE Academy charter school remain in the same building as P.S. 15 until 2013. The citywide school board voted to approve that plan in its January meeting.

The appeal, which parents filed to the city today and expect to deliver to the state education department in Albany on Monday, claims that vote should be nullified because the city revised its timeframe for PAVE’s stay without having a second public hearing, as required if the city changes a plan for how a building will be used. It also argues that the city failed to give enough information about how the plan would affect students at both the schools.

Lawyers with the advocacy group Advocates for Children are working with Battis and Bellahcene on the appeal.

Julie C. of CAPE commented at Gotham:

Wanted to thank all of the posters so far for your supportive words; I also want to note the commitment of and thank, with the greatest pride, John and Lydia for taking the lead on this and showing what we can do when parents take the leap and get involved with education policy. We have been so fortunate in the Red Hook Community to have an amazing collective of parents and teachers who work together fighting for their children. John, Lydia, and other parents and teachers have sacrificed much in this fight, but it is all worth it to us; we know how important it is to protect our children and the public education they ALL deserve. I just want to note to one poster, PS 15 parents are not ‘fighting against PAVE parents’… we have kept the tone and tenor very much focused on the DOE and the PAVE founder and board. Their decisions and motives do not serve PS 15’s children, nor the children who attend PAVE Academy. The destructive policies of this administration, and those who have hijacked the charter school movement for personal gain and an ideology deeply rooted in a privatization agenda, are shameful. We will continue this fight and hope more parents, teachers, and policy makers get informed and get involved.