Debate over NYC performance & Ravitch rebuttal

1) Gee, what a shocker that Diane Ravitch would publich an article that was critical of Bloomberg and Klein -- as usual, selective picking a few statistics that present a totally distorted picture. 

Not every school problem can be solved by changes in governance. But to establish accountability, transparency and the legitimacy that comes with public participation, the Legislature should act promptly to restore public oversight of public education. As we all learned in civics class, checks and balances are vital to democracy.

As I've written in the past (see: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/10/hypocritical-critic.html, http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/11/feud-twixt-wylde-ravitch-laid-to-citys.html, http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/11/unfair-attack.html, http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/10/grading-tests.html, and http://edreform.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-i-resigned.html), Ravitch clearly has a personal vendetta and has gone on a crusade to attack Bloomberg and especially Klein, regardless of how inaccurate or misleading her attacks are -- and, ironically, how totally inconsistent they are with her previously articulated views, as Kathy Wylde so accurately pointed out in this 10/07 Op Ed: www.nypost.com/seven/10302007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/hypocritical_critic.htm. 

 

It's sad to see Ravitch, who was once such a powerful voice for reform, totally turn around and become one of the leading critics of some of the most bold and courageous reforms happening anywhere in the country, becoming in the process nothing more than a mouthpiece for Randi.

 

2) Here is Klein's letter to the editor in response to Ravitch's article:

To the Editor:

Re “Mayor Bloomberg’s Crib Sheet” (Op-Ed, April 10):

Diane Ravitch essentially proposes an independent school board that appoints the chancellor — and a return to the bad old days when divided decision-making and a lack of accountability produced decades of failure for students, particularly the poorest in our city.

3) Here's a letter Klein sent to all NYC principals last night via the Principals' Weekly newsletter:

Dear Colleagues,

As you know, the law granting the Mayor control of the schools expires at the end of June, and discussions about our governance structure are taking place throughout the City and the State. This is the right time to think about the past seven years—and to focus on the governance law and how it can best assure that New York City schools and students excel going forward. In that regard, a number of you have asked me about a recent Op-Ed by Diane Ravitch, which did not fully or accurately portray our record under mayoral control. I have asked the executive director of our Research and Policy Support Group, Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, to respond to the specifics in Dr. Ravitch’s presentation, and you can read her response here. It is important to correct the record so that our discussions may proceed on a firm foundation of fact.

 

At the outset, I’d like to emphasize three points:

The detailed rebuttal is posted at: http://schools.nyc.gov/NR/rdonlyres/360A5553-BEA6-4156-BA3A-4EC0B0A3665E/0/090428_jbe_response.pdf

 

In addition, I've posted a 24-slide presentation with further details about NYC schools' performance during the Bloomberg administration here: www.tilsonfunds.com/Personal/NYCresults-11-08.pdf

 

4) Finally, here is a letter from DOE Deputy Chancellor Chris Cerf to the Manhattan Institute's Sol Stern, addressing similar critiques:

Dear Sol:

 

It seems that when the press needs to find a negative voice about New York City schools, you have become a pundit of choice. Your writings often echo the same themes. I agree that our record of progress is not without setbacks and I’m all for balanced reporting, but your persistently one-sided perspective and refusal to recognize the improved outcomes of students during the past six years is over the top.

 

Consider what we’ve accomplished in the six years since Mayor Bloomberg won control of the school system:

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April 10, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor

Mayor Bloomberg’s Crib Sheet

By DIANE RAVITCH

www.nytimes.com/2009/04/10/opinion/10ravitch.html

ARNE DUNCAN, the secretary of education, has urged the nation’s mayors to take control of their public schools so that they can impose radical reforms. He points to New York City as a prime example of a school system that made sharp improvements under mayoral control.

Actually, the record on mayoral control of schools is unimpressive. Eleven big-city school districts take part in the federal test called the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Two of the lowest-performing cities — Chicago and Cleveland — have mayoral control. The two highest-performing cities — Austin, Tex., and Charlotte, N.C. — do not. Mr. Duncan came to New York City last week to urge the New York State Legislature to renew the law that grants control of the New York City public schools to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. That law, passed in 2002, will expire at the end of June.

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April 16, 2009

Letter

New York’s Schools: The Chancellor’s Report Card

To the Editor:

Re “Mayor Bloomberg’s Crib Sheet” (Op-Ed, April 10):

Diane Ravitch essentially proposes an independent school board that appoints the chancellor — and a return to the bad old days when divided decision-making and a lack of accountability produced decades of failure for students, particularly the poorest in our city.

The national tests she cites are not the measure of federal accountability, are given only to a small sample of schools, and are not aligned with New York State standards and therefore with what we teach in our classrooms. (That said, our fourth-grade scores on those tests are strong.)

New York City’s gains on state tests have substantially and consistently exceeded gains made throughout the rest of the state during mayoral control. Even if those tests have gotten easier, as Ms. Ravitch claims without evidence, they have gotten easier for everyone.

You cannot dismiss the gains New York City students have made on students elsewhere. By any measure, our graduation rate — after decades of stagnation — has gone up significantly during the last several years whether you use the city rate, which has been in effect since 1986, or the state rate, which started only three years ago.

The percentage of “discharges” has remained constant during this period, so that can’t explain the gains; nor is there any basis to suggest that improper credit recovery has affected these outcomes. To graduate, all of our students have to pass Regents exams in five subjects, which has long been the standard.

Just a few weeks ago, Chancellor Matthew Goldstein announced that under the mayor’s tenure, the number of New York City high school graduates going to CUNY increased by 50 percent, with more than 70 percent of the increase being Latino and African-American students.

As enrollment has increased, contrary to Ms. Ravitch’s suggestion, remediation rates have declined. Based on our results, last year we won the nationally recognized Broad prize as the most improved urban school district in America. A Brookings Institution report this year found that New York City ranked eighth out of 37 big cities on student achievement gains made largely during the period under mayoral control. Only one of the cities ahead of us had the same range of poor students, and none came anywhere near New York City in size.

Joel I. Klein
New York City Schools Chancellor
New York, April 14, 2009

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Dear Colleagues,

As you know, the law granting the Mayor control of the schools expires at the end of June, and discussions about our governance structure are taking place throughout the City and the State. This is the right time to think about the past seven years—and to focus on the governance law and how it can best assure that New York City schools and students excel going forward. In that regard, a number of you have asked me about a recent Op-Ed by Diane Ravitch, which did not fully or accurately portray our record under mayoral control. I have asked the executive director of our Research and Policy Support Group, Jennifer Bell-Ellwanger, to respond to the specifics in Dr. Ravitch’s presentation, and you can read her response here. It is important to correct the record so that our discussions may proceed on a firm foundation of fact.

 

At the outset, I’d like to emphasize three points:

 

Our students are making real progress. If you analyze all of the various measures of student performance, the strong positive trend is unmistakable. Many more of our students are meeting and exceeding State standards and graduating from high school. Our racial and ethnic achievement gaps are closing, as is the gap separating New York City students from their peers in the rest of the State. And New York City students are surpassing their peers in other big cities. More New York City schools are meeting the federal “adequate yearly progress” requirements than ever before.

When it comes to high school graduation, in particular, no matter how you measure it, substantially more students are graduating from high school today than when we started. In 2002, after a decade of stagnation, 51% of our students were graduating from high school in four years, according to the City’s traditional methodology, which has been in place for more than twenty years. In 2007, the most recent year for which there is reported data, our graduation rate rose to 62%. The State adopted its own methodology for calculating graduation rates a couple of years ago, and using the State’s calculation method, we have also made substantial gains, rising from a four-year graduation rate of 46.5% for the class of 2005 to 52.2% for the class of 2007. Our five- and six-year graduation rates are also increasing significantly. And, as our graduation rates have improved, we have seen the number of New York City students going to CUNY rise substantially, from approximately 16,000 in 2002 to 24,000 in 2008. These are major accomplishments.

Our record on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a national exam that is given to a small sample of New York City fourth- and eighth-grade students every two years in reading and math, shows strong progress in the fourth grade but not in the eighth grade. NAEP is not wholly aligned with New York State standards, and, as a result, our students don’t learn some of the information on NAEP by the time they are tested. In fact, neither our school system nor our students are held accountable for the NAEP results. We are instead held accountable for the requirements laid out in No Child Left Behind, and for those established by our own accountability system. Both require us to demonstrate progress measured against State standards, and, appropriately, that’s where our schools—and our accountability tools, which are designed to help our schools—focus. Thus, while NAEP is certainly an important measure, it is unreasonable to analyze New York City students’ progress solely, or even largely, on that basis.

 

We know that there is plenty of work ahead of us, but there is no question that New York City students have made real and sustained progress since the Mayor took charge of the schools. This progress is due to the hard work of the City’s teachers, principals, and other staff, as well as our students and their families. I want to thank them all for their conviction and for their dedication to our students.

 

Sincerely,

 

Joel I. Klein

Chancellor

------------------------

Dear Sol:

 

It seems that when the press needs to find a negative voice about New York City schools, you have become a pundit of choice. Your writings often echo the same themes. I agree that our record of progress is not without setbacks and I’m all for balanced reporting, but your persistently one-sided perspective and refusal to recognize the improved outcomes of students during the past six years is over the top.

 

Consider what we’ve accomplished in the six years since Mayor Bloomberg won control of the school system:

 

• Our students are making substantial, consistent progress in both math and reading. Since the start of the administration, the percentage of students in grades 3-8 meeting or exceeding standards in math has risen 37 percentage points. In reading, we’ve seen an 18.3 point gain. And we have been steadily closing the gap with the rest of the state – an indicator that controls for any fluctuations in the difficulty of the tests from year to year. In 4^th grade, the gap separating the City from the rest of the State has narrowed 18 points in math and 8.4 points in reading since 2002. In 8^th grade, the gap has narrowed 11.7 points in math and 2.7 points in reading.
• We are narrowing the racial achievement gap. Since 2002, the gap between African American students and their White peers has narrowed 12.5 percentage points in math and 6.4 percentage points in reading. The gap between Hispanic students and their White peers has narrowed 13.2 points in math and 3.8 points in reading.
• New York City’s graduation rate has risen 9 percentage points between 2002 and 2006 (the most recent year reported) and 6 percentage points between 2004 and 2006, whether you use the City’s or the State’s method of calculating it. By contrast, the graduation rate rose just one-tenth of one percentage point in the entire decade before 2002.
• We have created the most sophisticated accountability system in the country. Every school received a letter grade (A-F) this year based heavily on the progress of individual students from year to year. At the same time, we’ve empowered principals with the authority they need to help their students succeed. We’ve also given them the resources they need by redirecting millions of dollars from the bureaucracy to schools and creating a fairer, more transparent method of school funding.
• We’ve created new educational options for students. By the start of the 2008-09 school year, we will have opened 284 small schools and 78 charter schools during the course of this administration. Those schools are soaring.
• We’ve raised teacher salaries by 43% since 2002 and created innovative incentive programs to help us attract and retain excellent teachers, including one that will reward teachers whose schools meet student achievement targets. 
• New York City won the 2007 Broad Prize for Urban Education, the nation’s most prestigious education prize. According to the Broad Foundation, New York City is a “model of successful urban district school reform.”

To be sure, the gradient – while steeply up – experiences an occasional plateau. We are not making progress in 8^th grade reading at the same rate as we are for younger students. You point, correctly, to evidence of that on the most recent NAEP. But here’s what you don’t report about the NAEP:

 

• The percentage of New York City 4^th graders scoring at or above basic has risen 12 percentage points in math since 2003. Our 4^th graders are now just 2 percentage points behind the national average in math.
• Our African American 4^th graders have made even more impressive gains: 14 points in math since 2003 and 14 percentage points in reading since 2002. They are achieving at higher levels than their peers in large central cities and the nation as a whole, and they are first in reading and second in math among their peers in large urban districts.
• Because of a state change in testing requirements, the number of 4^th grade ELLs taking the NAEP nearly doubled between test administrations. Normalizing for that change, reading scores increased.
• While the NAEP is important evidence of progress, it is not “high stakes,” not based on state standards, and given to a comparatively small sample. At minimum, the significance of the NAEP needs to be considered in the larger context of state tests, which are high-stakes and are taken by all.

You frequently argue that the Mayor and Chancellor should not be given credit for the growth in achievement in their first year. To the contrary, they instituted important changes during that year. Obviously what happened in the past affected the results, just as our work will affect the results of the next chancellor, but that first year was on our watch. Had scores gone down, can there be any doubt that you would have attributed the decline to the Mayor and Chancellor? Moreover, our progress remains striking even if you measure from 2003. Indeed, the Broad Prize was based on our performance between 2003 and 2006, and the pace of our improvement has continued since then.

 

Finally – and I have to admit, this is my personal favorite – last month the State announced record gains for NYC and very strong gains across the state. By virtually every measure, this was a strong year for New York’s schools. Your response? The results are too good to be believed (a point you will need to take up with Commissioner Mills and the psychometricians who validated the test to confirm its year-to-year reliability).

 

Our schools today are at an entirely different level than they were in 2002. Achievement is way up, tens of thousands of students are on track to graduate who wouldn’t have been six years ago, and we have put in place a body or reforms that will continue the progress. This is a record that should give any objective education reformer a reason to smile.

 

Best regards,

 

Chris Cerf

Deputy Chancellor

A great WSJ editorial about TFA:

Here's a quiz: Which of the following rejected more than 30,000 of the nation's top college seniors this month and put hundreds more on a waitlist? a) Harvard Law School; b) Goldman Sachs; or c) Teach for America.

 

If you've spent time on university campuses lately, you probably know the answer. Teach for America -- the privately funded program that sends college grads into America's poorest school districts for two years -- received 35,000 applications this year, up 42% from 2008. More than 11% of Ivy League seniors applied, including 35% of African-American seniors at Harvard. Teach for America has been gaining applicants since it was founded in 1990, but its popularity has exploded this year amid a tight job market.

So poor urban and rural school districts must be rejoicing, right? Hardly. Union and bureaucratic opposition is so strong that Teach for America is allotted a mere 3,800 teaching slots nationwide, or a little more than one in 10 of this year's applicants.

----------------------------------------------------------------

• APRIL 25, 2009

Teach for (Some of) America

Too talented for public schools.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124061253951954349.html

 

Here's a quiz: Which of the following rejected more than 30,000 of the nation's top college seniors this month and put hundreds more on a waitlist? a) Harvard Law School; b) Goldman Sachs; or c) Teach for America.

Harlem Success lottery

I attended the lottery for the Harlem Success charter schools (the 5th school opens this fall) last week and, as in past years, it was packed with thousands of hopeful parents -- the great majority of whom (86.4% to be precise: 3,025 of 3,500) will go home disappointed, forced to send their children to schools where their odds of ever graduating from a four-year college are in the 10% range vs. the 70-80% I'd estimate for Harlem Success students.  What a complete, total, utter disgrace that so many people fight to prevent more schools like these from opening!  Obviously not all charter schools are of Harlem Success's caliber, but the solution to this is to close (or never grant a charter) to bad operators, but there should be unlimited expansion for proven CMOs (charter management organizations) like KIPP, Uncommon Schools, Achievement First and Harlem Success.  You can read more about the day and see a video of Klein speaking (kudos also to NY State Senate President Malcolm Smith) here: http://gothamschools.org/2009/04/24/political-parenting-strategies-align-at-harlem-success-lottery/

Political, parenting strategies align at Harlem Success lottery

by Philissa Cramer

A line of parents that wrapped around the block, blue and orange balloons, and a carefully choreographed program greetged hopeful families and political supporters last night at the admission event for the four Harlem Success Network charter schools. In addition to the main event, the naming of admitted students, the evening featured a barnstorming speech by Schools Chancellor Joel Klein (in the video above), a surprise announcement about charter school funding from State Sen. Malcolm Smith, and political exhortations from Eva Moskowitz, Harlem Success’s lightning rod CEO. 

“I wish we could open them faster and have spots for absolutely everyone,” Moskowitz said about her schools to the thousands of assembled parents. But she said, “There are special interests and even elected officials who don’t support the growth of charter schools.” Moskowitz has sparred for years with the teachers union over her aggressive school reform strategies.

For the thousands of parents in attendance, politics took a distant second to anxiety about whether their children would be among the 475 selected from the 3,500 entered into the lottery.

An 'Appropriate' Education

Speaking of great editorials, here's yet another one by the Washington Post:

THE SUPREME COURT will hear arguments today about the use of public money for the private schooling of children with special needs. It's interesting to note what's not at issue: namely, that when a public school system is unable to provide an appropriate education, it is obligated to pay the costs of private school. Too bad poor children don't have that unassailable right; if they did, there would be no controversy about the District program that gives vouchers to low-income children to attend private schools.

Here's an idea: why don't we declare that EVERY student who can't read properly entering 4th grade is automatically considered to be special needs and qualifies for a fully funded voucher.  Seriously: an illiterate 4th grader is a special needs kid by any common sense definition I can think of!

 

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An 'Appropriate' Education
A Supreme Court case highlights a question: Why deny D.C. children what special-needs students get?

Washington Post Editorial, Tuesday, April 28, 2009

THE SUPREME COURT will hear arguments today about the use of public money for the private schooling of children with special needs. It's interesting to note what's not at issue: namely, that when a public school system is unable to provide an appropriate education, it is obligated to pay the costs of private school. Too bad poor children don't have that unassailable right; if they did, there would be no controversy about the District program that gives vouchers to low-income children to attend private schools.

The case to be heard by the court, Forest Grove v. T.A., hinges on whether parents have to enroll a child with special needs in public school before the child can attend private school at public expense. Special-education advocates say students shouldn't have to waste time before being placed in a setting that best suits their needs, while school boards worry about a ruling that could amount to an unfettered right to private schooling at public expense. What strikes us about the emotionally charged debate is the acceptance by both sides that sometimes it is appropriate to use public money to pay for a child go to a private school. So, why all the hullabaloo about the approximately $14 million for a federally funded voucher program that lets 1,700 D.C. students attend private schools instead of failing public schools?

To hear critics of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program tell it, the use of public money for private schooling is as unprecedented as it is undesirable. But, as education think tank founder Andrew J. Rotherham recently wrote on his Eduwonk blog, "Public funds and private schools are plenty entangled now and the idea of bright lines is a rhetorical fiction." In addition to the billions of dollars spent annually on private school tuitions for students with disabilities, he noted, private schools get public money for books, technology, teacher training and Title I services. As long as the money is seen as benefiting the child, it is deemed a proper, even desirable, use of public dollars.

Don't get us wrong. We're not arguing for the unilateral right of parents to enroll their sons and daughters in any school they wish with the taxpayer picking up the tab. Abuse of special-education provisions has contributed to escalating costs that threaten to take needed money from general public education funds. Safeguards are needed. Public schools should be pressed to do a better job for students with disabilities and students without. But there are schools in Washington where statistics show that failure is almost guaranteed. If a school system can't educate a child -- whether because of acute special needs or its own historical failings -- why should that child not have options for a "free appropriate public education"?

HIDDEN TIES LINK RANDI'S REGIMENTS: UNIONS FUND ANTI-MAYORAL-CONTROL GROUPS

DFER's Joe Williams with a great quote in an article on how the teachers' unions cleverly fund other advocacy groups to advance their agenda:

Community groups aren't the only outsiders receiving money from the UFT and its state affiliate.

The union-backed Working Families Party received $1 million from New York State United Teachers for a media campaign last year. New Yorkers for Fiscal Fairness, a pro-union think tank and advocacy group, received $190,000.

"I would challenge anyone in New York to find when they [ACORN, the Working Families Party, and the Alliance for Quality Education] have opposed anything on the union's agenda," said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform, an advocacy group funded by proponents of charter schools.

"One of the ways the unions benefits is they effectively make it sound like there is a lot of support for their agenda."

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HIDDEN TIES LINK RANDI'S REGIMENTS

UNIONS FUND ANTI-MAYORAL-CONTROL GROUPS

 

By CHUCK BENNETT, NY Post

April 27, 2009

www.nypost.com/seven/04272009/news/regionalnews/hidden_ties_link_randis_regiments_166429.htm

Next week, a coalition of advocacy groups will bus an army of parents into Albany for a "lobby day" against mayoral control of the city's schools -- a prime example of how Randi Weingarten's teachers' union shapes public perception and policy behind the scenes.

The Manhattan Institute's Marcus Winters with an Op Ed in the NY Post on some obvious teacher comp reforms:

SCHOOL reform is back on the agenda. Here in New York, Albany is debating whether to keep control of Gotham's schools in the mayor's hands. On the federal level, Education Secretary Arne Duncan has pledged that he'll use his new pot of stimulus dollars to encourage reform. We need to think about the types of reforms likely to make a difference in students' lives. Improving teacher quality is at the top of that list.

Because empirical research confirms that teacher quality varies dramatically, our best means of reforming public schooling is adopting policies that lead to improvements in teaching. Any lasting solution to the teacher-quality problem must include revamping the absurd rules on paying and employing public-school teachers. There are some clear avenues for reforming these rules that if enacted would pay big dividends for students. New York has made some important strides, such as experimenting with a bonus program, but the teachers union and others have squashed efforts such as using test scores to help determine whether tenure should be granted.

Teachers' salaries are now based entirely on two factors unrelated to teaching effectiveness: years of experience and the number of advanced degrees held. Just about any teacher who sticks around for three years is granted tenure and its protections. (Last year only 0.02 percent of tenured public-school teachers in New York City were fired.) Teachers are paid equally whether they teach advanced calculus or gym, and whether they teach in schools populated by advantaged or disadvantaged students. The result is a system that doesn't reward excellence, protects failure and simply can't attract the talent necessary to prepare students for the global economy.

Some commonsense compensation reforms would dramatically improve the way teachers are recruited, trained, motivated and assigned to public schools:

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FOR BETTER SCHOOLS, FIX TEACHER PAY

By MARCUS WINTERS
April 23, 2009
www.nypost.com/seven/04232009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/for_better_schools__fix_teacher_pay_165721.htm

'Teachers are paid equally whether they teach calculus or gym.'

Good to see Georgia doing something sensible re. teacher comp.  Now how about every other state!?

Perdue signs math, science bill

11:51 am April 22, 2009, by Aaron Gould Sheinin

A robot delivered Gov. Sonny Perdue the official copy of House Bill 280, which Perdue promptly signed into law to grant the state’s math and science teachers higher pay. 

The robots that frolicked in the Capitol’s north wing were created by Georgia students for a robotics competition this past weekend at the Georgia Dome. Those creations, Perdue said, are indicative of the need for the bill. 

HB 280 would encourage would-be educators to choose math and science tracks in college by automatically granting new teachers the pay-grade of a fifth-year instructor. Any current math and science teacher would likewise see a pay raise. 

The state has faced a shortage of qualified math and science teachers emerging from colleges. In 2007-2008, he said, Georgia produced 2,000 early childhood teachers but only one to teach physics, nine in chemistry and 140 in math.

A reporter for the Economist spent four days in NYC and wrote this report on the state of education here, concluding with a day at KIPP TEAM in Newark, which blew her away (as it does everyone):

I AM in Newark, New Jersey’s largest town and long a byword for urban decay. I’ve been invited by KIPP (the “Knowledge is Power Programme”), the biggest and best known of America’s charter-school chains, which has three schools in Newark, with a fourth to open this autumn. Founded by two Teach for America alumni (how familiar that story is getting) in 1994, there are now 66 KIPP schools nationwide, mostly middle schools (ie, with students between 10 and 14 years old). Oddly, none of Newark’s KIPP schools are called that: under the state’s charter law “brand” names are banned, which reflects early fears that big chains would come in and take over. Those fears have dissipated, and Cory Booker, Newark’s mayor since 2006, is a good friend of charters, and wants to see more of them.

I’m actually a bit nervous. KIPP has a fearsome and to my mind not entirely attractive reputation in England for a zero-tolerance approach to discipline—insisting that children keep their gaze on teachers who are speaking, and nod and say “yes” in response to teachers’ requests; giving detentions for minor transgressions; and “benching”—that is, seating naughty children separately in class and forbidding other pupils to speak to them during breaks. A certain type of English politician practically drools when talking about KIPP—the ones who, like many of their compatriots, dislike and fear children, and love all talk of treating them harshly. I’m half-expecting to find dead-eyed Marine-sergeant types with crewcuts barking orders at children one-third their size. If it turns out that the only way to maintain order and calm in a tough urban school is to run it like a boot camp, it will make me very sad.

I cannot remember when my expectations and reality last clashed so much: the day turns out to be the most fun I’ve ever had visiting schools. I’m shown around RISE, one of KIPP’s two middle schools in Newark, by Drew Martin, its principal, and Ryan Hill, the executive director of KIPP in Newark. Both had become head teachers by the age of 25 and both are TFA alumni—and although their desire to create great schools is real and serious, they have fun while doing it.

Teachers certainly control their classes, but they also crack jokes, and over coffee I’m told about the running mock feud between the English and maths departments, with offices dismantled and reinstalled on roofs and other undergraduate-style pranks. The pupils take part in the friendly rivalry too—which may be one reason that they have an unusually positive attitude towards maths, a subject that is generally badly taught and widely disliked, in both America and Britain. As I walk around the school I realise the consistency of the school’s approach to discipline frees the teachers to have fun with their classes.

This is a happy school, but I hear some very sad stories, of makeshift fostering arrangements with indifferent relatives, of siblings in the care system who are no longer in touch, of absent, drug-addicted parents, of children who routinely witness gang-related violence. One that sticks in my mind starts “She’s not being abused, but…” and doesn’t get better as it goes along. Quite a few of the pupils prefer to stay on after lessons—and this is at a school with 10-hour days, Saturday classes and short vacations. One girl tells me a teacher drives her home each week-day evening, at 9 or 9.30pm, after which she goes straight to bed. What does she do at weekends? A shrug: “I stay in my room.”

In the afternoon Joanna Belcher, principal of SHINE, the KIPP elementary school that will open this autumn, takes me to meet one of her future pupils. Ms Belcher is visiting every family, both to meet the parents and children individually, but also to sign, with them, the KIPP commitment to excellence: in summary, work hard and be nice and we will do everything in our power to ensure you go to college. Mother and father and Joanna sign in pen, the four-year-old future college graduate in purple crayon (her favourite colour). It’s a solemn moment. 

The day finishes with a chat with middle-school pupils. I ask each to give me one thought to take back to London. One tells me “Math is life”, a slogan I’ve heard repeatedly through the day; another speaks eloquently about the many meanings of “yet”, a word that for these teachers and pupils connotes effort and success—if not now, then surely one day, if only you keep trying.

A third tells me with considerable force and passion that no one should ever call a child “disabled”. I am taken aback until I hear about the foster parents who thought she was incapable of coping with a normal education, the social workers who read the forms and then never looked her in the eye—and finally, the adoptive mother who believed in her and let her apply to this school, her first mainstream one, where she is still behind her classmates, but catching up fast. It is just one of many moments in the day that brings a lump to my throat.

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Education in New York

Off to school

Apr 23rd 2009
From Economist.com

www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13519194&CFID=55270794&CFTOKEN=39538169#thursday

The state of education in America's biggest city

AS THE Economist’s education correspondent, I’ve been invited by Economist Conferences, one of the businesses in the Economist group, to chair a conference in New York entitled “Global Education 2020”. It’s just one day, but if I’m going to make the trip from London, I may as well stay longer and visit some schools. Those in the city’s poor neighbourhoods have long been known for having serious problems—violence, astronomical drop-out rates and abysmal standards of achievement—but in the last few years exciting things have been happening under Joel Klein, the chancellor of the city ’s department of education, and I want to see some of the success stories with my own eyes.

I think this NYT article on the latest NAEP scores is too negative about closing the achievement gap (the black-white gap closed in 4 of 6 areas, including, critically, meaningful improvements in reading among 9- and 13-year-olds), but there's no doubt that there's a ton of work left to do and much bolder reforms are necessary, which is why the reauthorization of NCLB is so important.

The achievement gap between white and minority students has not narrowed in recent years, despite the focus of the No Child Left Behind law on improving the scores of blacks and Hispanics, according to results of a federal test considered to be the nation’s best measure of long-term trends in math and reading proficiency.

Between 2004 and last year, scores for young minority students increased, but so did those of white students, leaving the achievement gap stubbornly wide, despite President George W. Bush’s frequent assertions that the No Child law was having a dramatic effect...

...But Margaret Spellings, Mr. Duncan’s predecessor under President Bush, called the results a vindication of the No Child law.

“It’s not an accident that we’re seeing the most improvement where N.C.L.B. has focused most vigorously,” Ms. Spellings said. “The law focuses on math and reading in grades three through eight — it’s not about high schools. So these results are affirming of our accountability-type approach.”

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April 29, 2009

‘No Child’ Law Is Not Closing a Racial Gap

By SAM DILLON

www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/education/29scores.html

The achievement gap between white and minority students has not narrowed in recent years, despite the focus of the No Child Left Behind law on improving the scores of blacks and Hispanics, according to results of a federal test considered to be the nation’s best measure of long-term trends in math and reading proficiency.

Between 2004 and last year, scores for young minority students increased, but so did those of white students, leaving the achievement gap stubbornly wide, despite President George W. Bush’s frequent assertions that the No Child law was having a dramatic effect.

Although Black and Hispanic elementary, middle and high school students all scored much higher on the federal test than they did three decades ago, most of those gains were not made in recent years, but during the desegregation efforts of the 1970s and 1980s. That was well before the 2001 passage of the No Child law, the official description of which is “An Act to Close the Achievement Gap.”

Apology to Robert Jackson; More on Ben Chavis's well-deserved RIPPING of Charles Barron

I owe NY City Council member Robert Jackson an apology for a case of mistaken identity.  After I heard he spoke out against mayoral control during the morning panel of the Eq Equality Day on Friday, when I saw a City Council member go off on a rant on the same topic during the lunch panel, I naturally assumed it was Jackson.  In fact, it was another City Council member, Charles Barron (I've never seen or met either of them).

 

Barron, by all accounts, is a true jackass -- he actually said during his rant that inner-city kids should be focusing on home ec and woodworking (this article by Elizabeth Green of GothamSchools.org on the idiotic things he had to say: http://gothamschools.org/2009/04/03/sharpton-cedes-time-to-barron-who-calls-for-klein-to-be-fired). 

 

Barron is also a bully and, like most bullies, a coward.  Here's more on the confrontation between he and Ben Chavis that I mentioned in yesterday's email, as recounted to me by Chavis and multiple witnesses:

 

Chavis observed Barron berating one of the conference organizers, bringing that person to tears, and didn't like it one bit -- he thought Barron was being a bully, so and went up to him and, face only inches from Barron's, started RIPPING him, saying (I'm not making this up): "You're a mother f-ing black pimp, you're f-ing our kids.  Come to the reservation and I'll beat your ass.  You want our kids to take Home Ec?  YOU should wear a dress!"

Barron replied, "Well we're here, so let's do it right now."  Chavis said OK and started heading for the exit.  Barron, seeing Chavis was dead serious about fighting him, quickly wimped out and instead threatened to having Chavis kicked out of the hotel.  They shouted obscenities at each other, with Chavis getting the last words as they separated, saying "You're a pimp!  You're a pimp!"

 

I LIKE this guy! 

 

Here's another story I heard about Chavis: when he became principal of the first American Indian Charter School, he went down to the street corner where the drug dealers were hanging out.  They said, "What the hell are you doing here, white man."  To which he replied, "I'm not white, I'm Indian -- and I'll pay you $5 if you bring back any of my students who should be in school."  They said, "Hell, for $5, we'll not only bring them back, we'll beat them up for you!"  "No need for that," Chavis replied.  "Just bring them back."

 

As I said, I LIKE this guy!  I'm not sure I'd recommend all of his methods, but they seem to work for him -- and, most importantly, his students!

KIPP concert photos and videos

I took my family to see the annual KIPP NYC concert yesterday.  As always, it was fabulous and inspiring.  Unfortunately my good camera is being repaired, so the seven photos I took are pretty lame (see below and posted at: http://picasaweb.google.com/WTilson/KIPPConcert), but you'll love the videos!

- The KIPP orchestra: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ2z1XhOWE8

- Dancing (including tap, capoeira and tango): www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE1NsNMtXvs

- The KIPP Infinity chorus singing A Pocket Full of Sunshine by Natasha Bedingfield: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzvYFveq5Zc

Council of Urban Professionals gala with Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee and MA Gov. Deval Patrick

Other than sending out the occasional email, I've been totally out of commission this year vis-a-vis school reform due to the crazy markets and equally crazy idea to write a book (More Mortgage Meltdown: 6 Ways to Profit in These Bad Times was sent to the printer yesterday; the first copy should be in my hands in less than three weeks and Amazon says they'll ship it on May 11th -- you can check it out and pre-order it at: www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470503408/tilsoncapitalpar.  As with Work Hard. Be Nice., if you can't afford $18.45 but want to read it, just email me and I'll send you a free copy.)

 

But after the last three days, I'M BACK!  (To borrow Obama's favorite campaign rallying cry: Fired up!  Ready to go!)

 

My rejuvenation started on Thursday night at the annual gala for the Council of Urban Professionals (www.nycup.org), which honored two people are the forefront (in very different ways, sadly -- more on this below) of education reform in the U.S.: MA Gov. Deval Patrick and Michelle Rhee, who was introduced by Joel Klein. 

 

CUP is a networking and advocacy organization for young professionals and entrepreneurs in NYC (quick plug: any person in NYC who meets this profile who is not a member of CUP is making a HUGE mistake; an Associate Membership only costs $250/year and just the value of the networking is 100x that amount).  I'm one of the founding board members of CUP and chair the education committee.

 

In introducing Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein was at his best ever (and I've seen him speak dozens of times).  He said he'd never seen such a large group of highly successful people of color, which inspired him -- but also underscored how far we have to go.  He said it took our nation 165 years to declare in 1954, in Brown v. Board of Education (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education), that it was illegal to send black children to different schools than white children -- yet here we are today, 55 years later, and the horrifying reality is that the color of your skin, the wealth of your family and your zip code in almost all cases determine that quality of the school that you will attend.  With 55 years already passed, he asked how much longer our nation would allow this shameful disgrace to continue and called on CUP members to join the fight to bring about change.  VERY powerful stuff.

 

He then turned to introducting Michelle and dismissed those who criticize her for not being nice enough and agreeable enough.  She's not willing to go along to get along because the children of Washington DC can't wait any longer.  The average poor black child in DC enters kindergarten at about the same level as the average poor black child in NYC -- but by the 4th grade, the DC children are TWO YEARS BEHIND their NYC counterparts!  (You could hear the gasp in the room)

 

Michelle was brilliant and inspiring as well.  The statistics she cited brought more gasps: only 9% of DC 9th graders will ever graduate from college; 92% of 4th graders are reading below grade level and 88% are below grade level in math.

 

Joel and Michelle are heros of mine.  Other than perhaps Obama, they have the two toughest jobs in America, are making enormous personal sacrifices and are knocking the cover off the ball (albeit in a frustrating three steps forward, two steps back manner).

Ed Equality Day

The next event that got me fired up was the Klein/Sharpton Ed Equality day I mentioned in my last two emails.  There was a who's who of education reformers there for three panels during the day, plus Vice President Biden spoke (in addition, Sec. Duncan spoke brilliantly on Thursday I heard).  Unfortunately I was only able to make the lunch panel, but I heard DFER ED Joe Willams was great on the morning panel, pushing back on the issue of mayoral control against Robert Jackson, who chairs the Education Committee of the NY City Council .

 

At the beginning of the lunch panel, I listened to another NY City Council member, Charles Barron, go off again with an incoherent rant against mayoral control, loudly applauded by two tables filled with what appeared to be AFT stooges -- Barron didn't appear to have any other support in the room, however, and Ben Chavis (more on him below) went up to him afterword and RIPPED him in words that I can't repeat here for being a "pimp" for selling out inner-city kids.

 

The other members of the lunch panel who spoke with Klein and Sharpton, mayors Fenty and Kevin Johnson (of Sacramento, the former NBA star who founded a charter school and who DFER supported), former Sec. Margaret Spellings, Michael Lomax, head of the United Negro College Fund (the first time I'd heard him speak -- he ROCKED!; see www.uncf.org/ceo/bio.asp).

 

I also had the pleasure of sitting at the table with most of the people who were on the afternoon panel : Ryan Hill (founder of KIPP in Newark), David Whitman (author of a great book, Sweating the Small Stuff: Inner-City Schools and the New Paternalism; www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0615214088/tilsoncapitalpar) and Ben Chavis (who runs five American Indian Public Charter Schools in Oakland).  Also on the panel were Kevin Chavous, Chairman of DFER and Chris Cerf, Deputy Chancellor of NYC schools.

Ben Chavis and the American Indian Public Charter Schools in Oakland

Ben Chavis is worth studying.  There's a chapter on him and the American Indian Public Charter Schools in Whitman's book and I found many articles with a quick Google search.  The title of one of them captures him well: Madman, genius or both? (www.insidebayarea.com/oaklandtribune/ci_6148011)  He's both, but that's OK with me.  His schools are grades 6-12 and his first group of 27 seniors graduated last year -- and 100% went to four-year colleges.  He's grown AIPCS from one school to five and all of them got API scores above 900 from the CA Dept of Education (scores range from 200 to 1000 with a statewide goal for all schools of 800; needless to say, nearly all other Oakland schools are nowhere near 900, much less 800).  He told me his black and Latino kids are outscoring white and Asian kids -- so much so that leaders of the Chinese community in Oakland asked him to open a school in their community -- and it's his lowest-scoring school (so far anyway)!  His brash, in-your-face style would make any reasonable person uncomfortable, but great leaders often have this trait (think Patton).  Here's what I know: if I had to send my kids to an inner-city school, I'd want them at one of his schools (if there weren't a KIPP nearby of course; interestingly, critics level some similar charges against KIPP as they do against Chavis: the discipline is too harsh -- oh boo hoo hoo...).

Rebuttal to Robert Jackson's argument for parental control of schools

I have to address one of Robert Jackson's main arguments for watering down mayoral control: that parents need to have a major role in how schools are run.  This is sort of like motherhood and apple pie -- who could possibly be against parental involvement? -- but let me take the other side of the argument.  First, let's clarify what we're talking about: everyone is in favor of parental involvement when it comes to getting their children to school on time, checking their homework, coming to parent-teacher conferences, working with the school to deal with discipline problems, etc.  The debate isn't over these things; rather, it's about MANAGEMENT issues: what reading curriculum should be used; is the principal doing a good job and, if not, what should be done; which teachers should be hired and fired; should a school be shut down; etc.?  When it comes to these key decisions, I think involving parents will result in WORSE, not better, outcomes.  I know for sure that I don't try to tell the head of my daughters' school how to run her business, nor does she tell me how to run mine.  Nobody thinks parents should have a say in how inner-city hospitals are run, so why on earth should they have a say in how inner-city schools are run?!

 

There are few things harder than running a school or school system, esp. an inner-city one, filled with the most difficult-to-educate students, the lowest-caliber teachers, the most militant unions and other entrenched interests, and the most corrupt (or bought-off) politicians.  The people who can make any difference at all in improving this system (which can best be described at a Mad Hatter's Tea Party) are a rare breed.  Why on earth would anyone think that a group of parents (often disorganized -- or worse yet, organized by the unions -- and often made up of the most militant, extremists with axes to grind) would help these great leaders do their jobs better???

Restore history test

Here are two examples of Gov. Patrick's lameness.  First, here's a Boston Herald editorial:

Gov. Deval Patrick is making available $168 million in federal stimulus money to Massachusetts public schools. If he can do that, there’s no reason he can’t find the $2.4 million the Department of Education needs to give the MCAS exams in history and social sciences.

A solid knowledge of our country’s founding and development is essential for every citizen. Assessments have been too long delayed.

The tests were to have been given this month as the final trial run before kicking in as part of graduation requirements for the class of 2012. In February, Commissioner Mitchell Chester persuaded the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to drop the tests as graduation requirements for the classes of 2012 and 2013 as well as the trial run because money was so tight.

The Patrick administration has given every sign that it wants to retreat from the high standards that MCAS represents. It organized a task force that advocated teaching “21st century skills,” which in our view is shorthand for content-free education.

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Restore history test

By Boston Herald Editorial Staff  |   Saturday, April 4, 2009 

www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/editorials/view.bg?articleid=1163331

Gov. Deval Patrick is making available $168 million in federal stimulus money to Massachusetts public schools. If he can do that, there’s no reason he can’t find the $2.4 million the Department of Education needs to give the MCAS exams in history and social sciences.

Boston teachers union rejects TFA

 The Boston teachers union is telling Teach for America to go jump in a lake -- ya can't make this stuff up!  And where is Gov. Patrick!?  It would be so easy for him to say he supports TFA coming to Boston -- yet he and his even lamer Sec. of Education, Paul Reville, are silent.

They come from places like Harvard, Yale, and Brown, inspired to share their energy and knowledge with public school children.

But the Boston Teachers Union has a message for those eager Teach for America recruits: Thanks, but no thanks.

With the first batch of 20 corps members scheduled to arrive in the fall, just months after probable teacher layoffs, the union has sent a letter to the popular program objecting to its help.

"We already have hundreds of good, 'surplus' teachers; we don't need [Teach for America] to provide us any additional help," Richard Stutman, the union's president, wrote in a letter sent this week. "By coming here, you will only make matters worse."

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Hub teachers reject public service corps

Possible layoffs cited

By James Vaznis, Globe Staff  |  April 3, 2009

www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/04/03/hub_teachers_reject_public_service_corps/

They come from places like Harvard, Yale, and Brown, inspired to share their energy and knowledge with public school children.

Exciting News from the Department of Education

Yesterday I also met Scott Pearson, the Chairman of Leadership Public Schools (www.leadps.org), which runs four charter high schools in the Bay Area.  Here's an email he sent to his board members with some great news:

Subject: Exciting News from the Department of Education

Dear Fellow LPS Board Members,

The Dept. of Education today took an important step today toward increasing pressure on states to permit more charter schools.

In the criteria released for the distribution of over $60 billion in stimulus funds to state education departments (intended to restore state and local funding cuts made due to the recession) the department specifically is asking states to report on their progress in lifting caps on the number of charter schools.  To get the first 2/3 of the money states just have to report on the current status of charter school caps, along with lots of other data around state standards, teacher quality, better assessments etc..  But the department is conditioning the last 1/3 of the money (in September), along with a further $5bb in competitive "Race to the Top" grants, on progress in these areas.

California currently has a very high cap that does not constrain the growth of charter schools, but legislation is frequently introduced to do so.  10 states (including Washington State - home of the Gates Foundation) do not permit charter schools.   Others, like Illinois (Arne Duncan's home), have halted new charters with numerical caps.

President Obama's first school visit as President was to a charter school.  He mentioned charters in his address to Congress.  And now we are seeing tangible steps by the Federal Government to incent states to permit more charter schools.  This is all very good news for the movement.

Once the state calculations are complete, Louise will report to us all the degree to which this stimulus money ameliorates the funding cuts we've been dealing with all year.

All the best,

Scott

Petition to restore funding to NY charter schools

I wanted to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently signed: "NYC Charter School Center: Restore Public Charter School Funding!"

www.ipetitions.com/petition/Restore_Charter_Funding

This is an important cause, and I'd like to encourage you to add your signature, too. It's free and takes less than a minute of your time.

Study Supports School Vouchers In District

An important study on the success of the DC voucher program (kudos to Lieberman!):

A U.S. Education Department study released yesterday found that District students who were given vouchers to attend private schools outperformed public school peers on reading tests, findings likely to reignite debate over the fate of the controversial program...

...Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), whose Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs has jurisdiction over the District, has said he plans to hold hearings on the program.

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Study Supports School Vouchers In District, Pupils Outperform Peers On Reading Tests

By Maria Glod

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 4, 2009; Page B01

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/03/AR2009040302987.html

A U.S. Education Department study released yesterday found that District students who were given vouchers to attend private schools outperformed public school peers on reading tests, findings likely to reignite debate over the fate of the controversial program.