Girls Prep Charter, Hedge Funds, and Space Wars in District One

Sunday's NY Times had an article called "Scholarly Investments" which talked about Hedge Fund millionaires and billionaires and the push for charter schools, mentioning some of the charter invaders we have been covering: Harlem Success, PAVE and Girls Prep.

The Tiger Foundation, started by the hedge fund billionaire Julian Robertson, provides a large chunk of financing for several dozen charters across the city. Mr. Robertson’s son, Spencer, founded his own school last year, PAVE Academy in the Brooklyn, while his daughter-in-law, Sarah Robertson, is chairwoman of the Girls Preparatory Charter School on the Lower East Side.

Ahhh, synergy. And good cash flow.

Still, Mr. Curry has been “knee deep in educational issues” since his 20s, he said. He co-founded two Girls Prep schools and is head of the board of the newer one, in the Bronx. The schools are “exactly the kind of investment people in our industry spend our days trying to stumble on,” Mr. Curry said, “with incredible cash flow, even if in this case we don’t ourselves get any of it.” The reference is to the fact that New York State contributes 75 to 90 percent of the amount per student that public schools receive.

Of course hedge fund characters love charters. We're paying for most of them and they get to raise private funding so they can pay Eva Moskowitz $370,000 a year. "These guys get it," said Moskowitz. They sure do get it. And Moskowitz makes sure to get her share. Why doesn't the reporter question the logic of us paying up to 90% of the costs and charters using the extra money coming in to pay such high salaries and who knows what other perks? These sharks aren't only in this for the kids. Edu-business, indeed.

The reporter, as we usually find, mentioned the tainted Caroline Hoxby (see Ed Notes' Nov. 13 Hoxby Hocked) study on charters in NYC outperforming public schools:

A study released in September by researchers headed by Caroline M. Hoxby, an economist at Stanford who is a fellow at the Hoover Institution, concluded that on average New York City charters outperform local schools. But another study by a different group of Stanford researchers last summer suggested that nationally the numbers are muddier.

What's muddy is the press' insistence on harping on Hoxby despite the flaws and questioning why the data munchers in hedge funds would be so enamored of faulty data.

Make a wish, Mike

And then there's this weak-kneed comment from our fearless UFT leader Mike Mulgrew:

“I think it’s all good and well that these people are finally stepping up to support education,” said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, referring to wealthy hedge funders. “But I would wish they would do it in a more foundational way, a way that would help all the children instead of just a small group.”

Mike has got to be kidding. Stepping up to the plate? Sure, to kill any remnant of teacher unionism.

Below find reports from parent activists Lisa Donlan and Leonie Haimson regarding Girls Prep charter school and the impact of its attempt to grab more space on the schools and students in District 1 on the lower east side. Sorry but the chart of D. 1 demographics did not come out and trying to fix it did not work. Email me if you want a copy.

From Lisa:

The hedge fund-spawned Girls Prep Charter in District One recently mentioned in a number of news stories wants to add on Middle School grades, by pushing 300 additional seats into one of the local "underutilized" ( offers small class size and more than 3 cluster rooms for enrichment for several hundreds of students) school buildings.

if we compare the demographics of GPC and the schools being targeted for space, it seems that the GCP is not equitably serving students in the local community despite the legal mandate to do so.

GPC serves NO ELL students, offers no CTT or self contained classes and serves no BOYS in a district whose students arew 12% ELL on average and 23% special education ( CTT/SC) and 8% SETTS ( push in pull out)

District One is an all choice district that allows any family to apply to any school in the district.

There are currently a dozen middle school options available to all District students, including the GPC students who are largely from out of district.

see below portions of the DoE's memo:

To: District 1 CEC

Fr: Community Superintendent and the Office of Portfolio Planning

Re: District 1 – Scenarios around Space Needs

Date: November 15, 2009

The following memo outlines the needs as identified by the Department of Education (DOE) in District 1 and the process by which the DOE has engaged with all schools to understand more information about school needs as well as the available space. The memo also outlines potential scenarios to meet these needs. This is a follow-up to the September CEC meeting which underutilized space was discussed.

District Needs:

1. Girls Preparatory Charter School of New York (“Girls Prep”), a charter school currently serving grades K-5 with two sections per grade, is in need of space for their middle school. The Girls Prep middle school will serve grades 5-8 with three sections per grade. Girls Prep is currently housed in M188. There is sufficient space for the K-4 elementary school in M188, but the current configuration of the building does not have enough space for Girls Prep to serve its middle school grades long-term. At scale, Girls Prep requires 10 sections for its K-4 elementary school and 12 sections for its 5-8 middle school (22 total sections).

Available Space

The original list of buildings discussed at the September CEC meeting was as follows:

· M015 (houses P.S. 15 and D75 program; hereinafter referred to by building code “M015”)

· M020 (houses P.S. 20; hereinafter referred to by building code “M020”)

· M056 (houses Henry Street School for International Studies, University Neighborhood Middle School, and Collaborative Academy of Science, Technology & Language Arts Education; hereinafter referred to by building code “M056”)

· M137 (houses P.S. 184; hereinafter referred to by building code “M137”)

· M188 (houses P.S. 188, Girls Prep, and D75 program; hereinafter referred to by building code “M188”)

Since September discussions were held with all principals, Network Leaders, SLTs, and building surveys were conducted of M020 and M137 to understand the space and the current situation in each of the building. Based on those conversations and surveys the following buildings were removed from consideration for having space:

· M015- Given the standard instructional footprint that allocates cluster space there is not additional space in the building for a new program or school

· M056- Due to the high need Special Education population located in the building and the existing programmatic needs in the building it did not make sense to add another organization into the building

Furthermore the following building was added to the list as potentially having space:

• M025 (houses School for Global Leaders, Marta Valle Secondary School, and Lower East Side Preparatory High School; hereinafter referred to by building code “M025”)

GIRLS PREP CHARTER

On its website, the school makes extraordinary claims regarding its success and rights to public school space:

http://www.girlsprep.org/

Girls Prep Closes the Achievement Gap for Latina and African-American Students! Number 1 school in District 1! The results are in! Girls Prep students excelled on this year's English Language Arts exams. 98% of our third graders and 92% of our fourth graders met or exceeded standards. These scores place Girls Prep as the second highest scoring charter school in New York City! We are thrilled that our girls scored so well on the assessment! These results are just one amazing outcome of years of collaboration, hard work and thoughtful planning. Parents, students and teachers, please take a moment to congratulate yourself, each other, and the third and fourth grade students. Save Girls Prep are parents and supporters of Girls Prep Charter School who believe every child must have equal access to a quality education. Girls Prep's ranks among the top 1% of NYC public schools, traditional or charter, in terms of the achievement of its students.
Save Girls Prep believe all children in District 1 should have access to a high performing school such as Girls Prep. Charter Schools are Public Schools and have every right under NYS Law to share space in a public school building.

On the website GPC also offers transportation to parents to the December PEP meeting to make a show of strength for their cause.

---

Let's repeat Lisa's statement we extracted earlier in this post:

Yet, if we compare the demographics of GPC and the schools being targeted for space, it seems that the GCP is not equitably serving students in the local communityt despite the legal mandate to do so.

GPC serves NO ELL students, offers no CTT or self contained classes and serves no BOYS in a district whose students arew 12% ELL on average and 23% special education ( CTT/SC) and 8% SETTS ( push in pull out)

District One is an all choice district that allows any family to apply to any school in the district.

There are currently a dozen middle school options available to all District students, including the GPC students who are largely from out of district.

DISTRICT 1 SELECT DEMOGRAPHICS 2009

	District One	P.S. 184	Girls Prep	P.S. 188	P.S. 15	UNMS	CASTLE	HSISS	P.S. 20
Total enrollment	11,653	640	263	400	235	180	292	525	590
% Charter Students	11%
SC Classes		0	0	1	3	2	2	3	3
CTT Classes		1	0	6	1	2	3	1	5
IEPS	23%(ES) /29%(MS)	2% = 11 stds	8%	21%		36%	27%	30%	16
SC/CTT	15%(ES) /21%(MS)	.7%= 5 stdts	0	15%	18%	20%	21%	22%	10%
% ELL	12	5%	0	16	21	15	7	15	18%
% Title One	80.1	77.8	68.0	92.6	96.5	89.6	80.8	69.9	97.1
#/ %STH	4%		4=2%	51stdts =13%	24stdts =11%	6=3%	3=1%	9=2%	3=.5%
% in district			43
% out of district			57
% Hispanic	48	5%		64	58	65	62.3	58	60%
% Black	19	6%		33	30	26	18.5	28	10%
%Asian	19	80%		3	8	2	15.1	10	26%
%White	13	7%		1	3	6	3.4	3	2%
%Am Indian	1	.9%		0.3	0.5	0.4	0.7	0.4	.7%

Sources and References:

- DCEP 2009-10, p.5, author Sarah Kleinhandler, school district improvement liaison

- ‘Girls Prep at a glance’, author Miriam Raccah, executive director Public Prep

- 8/10/2009 ATS snapshot K students D1

- DOE D1 K-8 Special Ed Percentages base on 2009 projections (08/04/09)

- D1 poverty percentage, author Jean Mingot, budget officer Manhattan integrated Service Center 10/26/09

- School portals DOE website Aug. - Nov 2009

- ATS website 10/23/09

- STH report from ATS 09/22/09, author Cecilio Diaz, Office of Youth Development Manhattan ISC

Lisa Donlan

CEC One

Leonie follows up with: more reasons to reject expansion of Girls Prep: lack of space

More on District 1:

1. The total student population is growing faster in D1 Elementary school buildings between 2007 and 2008 than any other district in the city, according to DOE’s blue book data (which include charter schools already housed in their buildings).

Total student population in elementary school buildings is up 4.1% -- by far the fastest growth anywhere.

(Second fastest growth is D25 at 3.9%; D 20 at 3.2%; D 24 at 3%, D26 at 2.9% and D28 at 2.5%, all in Queens, then D31 Staten Island at 2.4% and finally D2 at 2.3%.)

2- Gened/CTT/G&T Kindergarten enrollment increased in D1 by 10.9% between 2008 and 2009 (not even including charter schools), according to the DOE class size reports. (They are tied with D5 as second fastest Kindergarten growth in Manhattan).

3- Kindergarten class sizes are up 22% since 2007 – probably the sharpest increases in the entire city. Now, more than 51% of Kindergarten students in D1 schools are in classes of 21 or more.

Their schools simply don’t have the space for this expansion, unless in the future they want class sizes to continue to increase even more sharply and/or kick out their preKs.

Meanwhile, the small classes and the access to preK were probably the main reasons that achievement in District 1 schools improved more than any other district in the state between 2001 and 2008, according to the DOE’s own calculations.

For the DOE power point showing this, check out http://www.scribd.com/doc/20954070/New-York-City-School-Performance-October-2009

Rather than further damage the opportunities of students in D1, the lesson should be that whatever D1 is doing, the rest of the city desperately needs: more space, so that schools can provide smaller classes and more preK, not less.

Leonie Haimson

Will Maxwell and Jamaica HS Announced Closings Lead to New UFT Policy?

Here is a link to a very effective piece at the NYC Parent blog exposing the failures of the BloomKlein administration:

Schools slated for closure -- resulting from the failure of the administration's policies

Interesting that some parents in NYC can be so much stronger, analytical and educational than the union supposedly defending educators.

The UFT/AFT, hungering for recognition as a "reformist" minded union over the last 25 years, has never taken a strong stand over the closing of schools. Oh you have heard stuff like "Let’s invest money and resources into our existing schools and make them better. It can be done." But it has all been lip service. No line in the sand demanding that things like reduced class size be attempted before closing schools and adding real support for kids who are struggling academically and personally.

The ATR situation (mostly created by closing schools), exacerbated by the UFT's abandonment of the seniority system and promotion of the Open Market System, along with the other attacks on teachers from all directions, has created an internal pressure cooker within the UFT.

The two most prominent school closing announcements this past week were those of Maxwell HS just a few blocks north of my alma mater, the now broken up Thomas Jefferson HS on Pennsylvania Ave in East NY and Jamaica HS in Queens, long in the news through the efforts of chapter leader James Eterno, who will be running against Mike Mulgrew for UFT president.

A few conspiracy theorists have linked the closing as a backroom deal between the UFT and the DOE to put Eterno in a position of having to defend his school instead of being out campaigning, but Eterno has consistently said that the UFT has been supportive in his efforts. I don't always agree with James on this point as I look for deeds more than words.

See Chaz School Daze post and comments on the closing of Jamaica, where he, a former teacher at Jamaica says:

when I left the school was already struggling to survive the inept Principals running the school into the ground and their bosses who found any excuse to attack the school.

Only, James Eterno stood in the way between the dismantling of Jamaica HS earlier. However, unless Michael Mulgrew puts the power of the UFT into this fight, I hold no hope for Tweed reversing their decision.

we need to get rid of Leo Casey as HS rep. Many CL's have more serious school issues to deal with than hear from a union lackey with his double pension that supported the 2005 contract disaster and insulted critics who were proven right about he damage that contract did to us.

We already know that James Eterno is as good a chapter leader as you could find and we in ICE will do what it takes to assist him in this battle, which takes priority at this time over the UFT elections.

Ed Notes has been a persistent critic over the last 15 years of UFT policy towards closing schools and the entire baggage that goes with is: using test data to punish and reward and evaluate teachers and schools. I don't think the UFT can suddenly change its stripes and fight back in an effective way unless it mobilizes in a vast and consistent (no one-shot candle light vigils for instance) manner on all levels, including politically.

The Maxwell HS situation, where the activist Seung OK from GEM and ICE teaches, is an interesting case in point. It is one of the few vocational schools left and we certainly need these more than ever. Maxwell is the home of UFT District Rep Charlie Turner, one of the most despicable hacks in the union. We'll come back to that later.

The UFT has decided to make a big deal out of Maxwell, as indicated in this letter I posted on Norms Notes from special rep Anthony Sclafani that went out to chapter leaders cancelling their meeting this Wednesday and urging them to go to a rally at Maxwell instead. There is an urgency in the letter that might lead some to believe this is a sea change in how the UFT will respond in the future. I'm not so sure.

It begins with:

"Wednesday’s Chapter Leader Meeting is cancelled. That’s right. You have to feed yourself on Wednesday, December 9th."

That's a pretty arrogant way to start, with a demo of union hack resentment over having to feed people to get them to a meeting. But let's give Tony the benefit of the doubt and call it a bad attempt at humor. He continues:

The three of us, [Brooklyn HS District reps Charley [Turner], Charlie [Friedman] and I are taking this very seriously, especially Charley Turner since this is his school We are concerned about many things and some of these will affect you and your schools.

Well, now, Charlie Turner never seemed too upset when Tilden and Canarsie HS, not far from Maxwell and whose extra kids ended up putting pressure on Maxwell that may be a factor in giving the DOE an excuse to close it. But Turner and so many other UFT hacks never see a picture bigger than their next check. A teacher at Tilden left this comment at the ICE blog:

the staff fought back against the Principal and the D.O.E. but like Carnarsie H.S. where they kicked Charlie Turner out of the building when he came over there to comfort the Carnarsie Staff by telling them that you're lucky all you ATRS have jobs. "So what if they move you to another school which you have no choice in going and that it is usually an undesirable school. So what that you are forced to teach out of your licenced area! So what if you have taught at Carnarsie and Tilden for over 20 years. You're lucky. Randi and I(Charlie Turner) and her unity pals signed a great contract in 2005 so you still have jobs as ATRS. Well Charles Turner regretted those words and never stepped foot at Canarsie or Tilden again!

But let's get back to Tony's letter, which actually has nuggets of stuff that's pretty decent.

He defends Maxwell:

...statistically, Maxwell has been on a steady road to improvement over the past three years. We can prove that.....the grading system that determined this is flawed, as everyone in education agrees.

Then Tony asks the magical question:

where will the overflow go? Jefferson Campus? Madison? Wingate Campus? Transit Tech? School for the Classics? Lane Campus? Wherever these students go, it will have an effect on these schools since there is no one being admitted into Maxwell.

Yes, where will the overflow go? That question has been asked time and again but has been basically ignored by the UFT as almost all the large high schools in central and southeast Brooklyn have been closed down and organized into much smaller schools that can't or won't take the overflow.

Next, Tony hits another magic button

I believe that this closing is for one reason and one reason only – SPACE. Where else do we put those new Charter Schools? Or better yet, where do we create empty space to justify new Charters somewhere down the road?

Whoa. Guess what two charter schools are within a stones throw of Maxwell? Both UFT charter schools, with the middle school based at George Gershwin (IS 166 - also my alma mata) possibly one day expanding to 9th grade and beyond. Could it, would it....nah, even in bizarro land we would never see a UFT charter occupying space in Maxwell.

Now Tony hits his stride with some really good stuff:

who’s next on the chopping block? Flawed data, fake reasons, a determined philosophy to close large comprehensive high schools at any cost – all these excuses can be used against anyone of you , even some of the smaller schools. Let’s invest money and resources into our existing schools and make them better. It can be done.

Yes, Tony, it can be done. But never without a union putting its full force behind the battle.

See the document Seung Ok put together to be used in the defense of Maxwell at the GEM blog. Download the pdf to share with your colleagues.

WH Maxwell VHS-Injustice of School Closures

Text posted at NYC Public School Parent blog:

The case for keeping Maxwell Vocational HS open

Postscript:
The actions of Unity Caucus hacks undermine the ability of the UFT to galvanize the support needed to fight these battles because without trust in the leadership to engage in a fair process, the most active members who are also critics tend to hold back their support.

Yes, democracy does count in building an effective union and until we see signs the internal battles will rage. Mulgrew has not only not shown signs of reigning in the hacks but there are indications he will go in the other direction. Let's see how dirty they get in the elections.

I'll write more about this soon because we see what seems like a seductive (to a few) New Action line that we all have to unite to battle the common enemy BloomKlein popping up. Many of us see the UFT/AFT more often lined up with that enemy than with the members. My simple response it to call on Mulgrew to begin a democratic reformation of the union in a show of faith. GEMers and ICEers will be holding discussions addressing the issue of what such a reform might look like in the next few months.

Fiorillo on UFT and Mulgrew: We Need More than Words

Read ICE's Michael Fiorillo's guest post at NYC Educator: We Need More than Words

Michael opens with:

So, Michael Mulgrew finally found the time to respond to Mayor Bloomberg’s - and, given Arne Duncan’s smiling presence on stage, President Obama’s – declaration of war before Thanksgiving. Bloomberg presented the full menu of the privateers who are busy cannibalizing the public schools: merit pay, high stakes tests as a weapon, attacks on tenure, seniority, ATRs, accelerated public school closings and charter school colonization. Mulgrew’s response sounded good: the language was strong, direct and missing the saccharine tone of Randi Weingarten’s old missives to the membership. Nonetheless, I’d recommend that everyone watch what Mr. Mulgrew does, rather than what he says.

And closes with:

As currently led, the UFT cannot be reformed or made into an effective vehicle for defending teachers, and is in the process of bringing its members, the public schools and ultimately itself down in the deluded thought that it can maintain itself by collaborating - their term, not mine – with people who seek to destroy it. Only a revolt by an informed membership, then to ally itself with parents and students to oppose privatization and corporate control, provides any hope of saving public education and teacher unionism in NYC.

But head on over to NYC and read the entire post.

Michael didn't mention the Unity collaborators, New Action, which were handed seats on the UFT Ex Bd by Unity endorsement in order to keep the ICE/TJC dissident voices like Michael off the Board.

Michael Fiorillo will be amongst the 6 ICE/TJC candidates in this year's UFT election, along with Francis Lewis HS CL Arthur Goldstein and 4 other strong candidates.

Imagine these voices, though only 6 out of 89 on the Ex Bd. A small step, but a beginning of, as Michael says, "a revolt by an informed membership, then to ally itself with parents and students to oppose privatization and corporate control, provides any hope of saving public education and teacher unionism in NYC."

If you are in a high school, it is especially important to get your colleagues to check ICE/TJC slate when they receive their ballots in March as that simple act will be a vote for all of the above plus people like James Eterno for president and other excellent candidates who will be revealed soon. ICE/TJC needs people to distribute literature in schools and help promote the election slate.

Low Class Size is Precious

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

A Teacher Comments on Harold Ford Jr. as Ed Deformer

I received this email of outrage from a NYC teacher who is clearly making the connections between the ed deformers and the catastrophe public education is undergoing. Here it is, unexpurgated


Harold Ford Jr. former Tennessee Congressman and now head of the Democratic Leadership Council, co-wrote a piece of jive with Louis Gerstner and Eli Broad about the Race to the Top stuff at the WSJ on November 24. The piece contained the usual stuff - must add competition and accountability to education, data systems and tracking of student and teacher performance is essential to real reform. But Ford, who became a Congressman when his daddy retired from the seat, couldn't pass the most important standardized test he ever took in his own life - the Tennessee bar. To make matters worse, he referred to himself as a lawyer on the campaign trail when he ran for Senate in 2006. Now this shit burns me up - a hypocritical little wanker who has led a life of privilege and thinks he's pulled himself up by his bootstraps, now takes on education reform and pushes testing as the most important measurement of success, but couldn't pass his own fucking bar exam.

I called the DLC and left messages on two different lines. I was polite, asked nicely how Mr. Ford gained his expertise in education reform and wondered if his law professors should be fired because he failed his bar exams.

The bullshit coming from the neo-liberals on education these days - from Obama, from Duncan, from Ford and Bloomberg and Arianna Huffington and even comedians like Bill Marr and Jon Stewart, has me outraged. I have been dropping grenades at Gotham Schools every once in a while, but it just feels like the reformers are winning the message war and the real one too. I did like Diane Ravitch's last piece and Alan Singer has had some good push back at the Huffington post (surprised Arianna lets it go up - she's squarely in the "the AFT is evil" contingent), but otherwise it's all the Obama/Duncan/Bloomberg way in the media these days.


Here is Ravitch's piece referring to the little wanker Harold Ford Jr.:

One of the institutions that made this country a great haven for immigrants was its public education system.

Our public schools were never perfect. There was never a golden age when everyone graduated high school and learned to a high standard of excellence. Improving education and expanding equality of opportunity have been the slow, steady work of generations.

Yet now, we live in an age when it is the custom to bash the public schools, not to thank them for helping to build our nation. It has become commonplace for the president, the secretary of education, and the leaders of the business community to lament the terrible state of our schools and to demand radical, one might even say revolutionary, changes. We live in an age of data, and the data (they say) are awful. They look at NAEP test scores, international test scores, graduation rates, and anything else that is measurable, and they demand solutions, now.

Note that they never speak of the state of learning, nor even the state of education, because those words connote many intangibles that cannot be measured and converted into data. The politicians and business leaders do not speak about whether young people read in their spare time, whether their reading consists of good literature and non-fiction, whether they know how to write an engaging essay or a well-constructed research paper, whether they can engage in an informed discussion of history, whether they are knowledgeable about our governmental system, whether they perform volunteer service in their community, whether they leave high school prepared to serve on a jury and vote thoughtfully.

No, instead what we now hear from our business leaders is that the schools must be redesigned to function like business. They conveniently overlook the fact that business practices and the ruthless pursuit of a competitive edge nearly destroyed our national economy a year ago.

Last week, an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal by Harold E. Ford Jr. (chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council), Louis V. Gerstner Jr. (former chairman of IBM), and Eli Broad (founder of the Broad Foundations) enunciated the new wisdom about school reform. (Leave aside the fact that these three have never reformed a school; nonetheless, they know how it should be done.) Schools with low scores must be closed, and states must open the flood gates to unlimited numbers of privately managed charter schools. Schools must compete for students. Teachers must compete with one another for higher test scores. Everyone must be evaluated by those scores. Everything else is an "insignificant" idea.

Never mind that in many states the test scores are phony, doctored, and meaningless. We might start, for example, with New York and Illinois. The Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago released a report ("Still Left Behind") earlier this year that documented the lowered cut scores on Illinois's state tests, which gave the illusion of progress in Chicago. Chicago students are still far behind, and progress during Arne Duncan's tenure was meager. The report reaches these key findings:

"Most of Chicago's students drop out or fail. The vast majority of Chicago's elementary and high schools do not prepare their students for success in college and beyond.

"There is a general perception that Chicago's public schools have been gradually improving over time. However, recent dramatic gains in the reported number of CPS elementary students who meet standards on state assessments appear to be due to changes in the tests made by the Illinois State Board of Education, rather than real improvements in student learning.

"At the elementary level, state assessment standards have been so weakened that most of the 8th graders who "meet" these standards have little chance to succeed in high school or to be ready for college. While there has been modest improvement in real student learning in Chicago's elementary schools, these gains dissipate in high school.

"The performance of Chicago's high schools is abysmal—with about half the students dropping out of the non-selective-enrollment schools, and more than 70 percent of 11th grade students failing to meet state standards. The trend has remained essentially flat over the past several years. The relatively high-performing students are concentrated in a few magnet/selective enrollment high schools. In the regular neighborhood high schools, which serve the vast preponderance of students, almost no students are prepared to succeed in college."

Similarly, the scoring of the state tests in New York was dumbed down dramatically from 2006-2009, and it became possible for students to reach Level 2 by random guessing. Proficiency rates on state tests soared dramatically at the same time that the state's scores on NAEP remained flat. As a result of the state's dumbed-down tests, New York City's accountability system crashed, and 97 percent of all elementary and junior high schools were rated A or B because of their alleged gains on the state tests. Having just launched its own "merit pay" plan, New York City was required to pay out more than $30 million in bonuses to teachers, triggered by the remarkable (and phony) gains on state tests. My friend Andrew Wolf, who wrote an education column for the now-defunct New York Sun, described the collision of the state tests and the city accountability system thus: "It is like two thieves trying to rob the same bank at the same time."

New York City and Chicago are two districts that adopted competitive business practices, aggressively closing down schools and spurring competition. What are the results? Grade inflation on state scores, but neither district saw significant improvement on NAEP since 2003. (NYC did get a gain for its 4th grade students in math in 2007, but not in 4th grade reading, 8th grade reading, or 8th grade math, and in 2009, the state's math scores were flat, which indicates that the city's were, as well.)

Living as we do in an age when test scores are so easily manipulated and so often fraudulent, we should proceed with caution before using them to determine the fate of students, teachers, principals, and schools. I give Mssrs. Ford, Gerstner, and Broad the benefit of the doubt: They think that school data are as meaningful as a profit-and-loss statement or a price-to-earnings ratio. Presumably, they don't realize that what is measured and can be measured may not be the most important things that happen in schools.

Where I do not give them the benefit of the doubt is that they assume that the Race to the Top is "enforcing academic standards." That is simply not true. In fact, it is sad or laughable, I am not sure which. The main themes of RTTT are privatization via charters and evaluation via phony test scores. How this translates into "rigorous standards" defies my understanding.

Nor do I admire their belief that schools will get dramatically better if they compete, just like businesses do. Maybe people in business win by competing, maybe competition produces better mousetraps, but that is not the way that schools function. Schools work best when teachers collaborate with one another to identify students who need extra attention or a different program or to mentor weak teachers; schools work best when they collaborate around common goals. Schools are not trying to build a better mousetrap. They are trying to educate our citizenry. Schools are not businesses, and we will continue to flounder so long as we put politicians and business leaders in the driver's seat on education policy.

Diane

Blogger "Under Assault" Takes Mulgrew to the Whipping Shed

UFT Prez Michael Mulgrew wrote us today about how terrible Bloomberg's recent speech in Washington was.

Sure enough, he talks a good line about ATRs, rubber rooms and test scores, but who can believe what these union managers say anymore?


When the ATR pool was created, he says, the union had "warned the DOE that faulty implementation of the process would leave hundreds or even thousands of teachers without permanent assignments."

There is no better example of the Department of Education’s mismanagement and failed leadership than this group of dedicated and experienced teachers.

Sure looks to me as if he's denying the union's role in negotiating a contract that handed us the ATR situation on a platter.

Let's be clear about this. Randi Weingarten, backed by her indefatigable Unity Caucus, signed a deal that gave principals the right to pass over any or all excessed teachers.
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Unity management works behind our backs and lies to us.

As nice as Mulgrew's letter sounds — and it does sound better than Weingarten's claptrap — I don't believe anything Unity says anymore. Not one word.


The above are excerpts from a superb piece that exposes Unity (and don't forget their allies New Action- see if any of their literature is in any way critical of the UFT on so many of these issues - and they joined Randi at her wine and cheese party screwing the ATRs as Under Assault refers to).

I agree that Mulgrew is skating on his use of less cloying language than Randi. But the ice is getting thin and do not expect him to deviate one iota from her policies. He will get away with this for a time, certainly through the upcoming UFT elections, where many Randi-haters will argue they should give him a shot.

They shouldn't.

Read the full piece: MM Pinocchio