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A cornerstone of Chancellor Joel Klein’s reforms has been what you might call the principal-as-CEO principle, the idea that principals should have the freedom to run their schools as they’d like, in exchange for consequences if they falter. The change has transformed not just principals but also another familiar school leader: the superintendent.

Superintendents used to spend their days inside the schools in their districts, coaching and evaluating principals. They’re still legally required to rate principals. But under the Department of Education’s latest reorganization, they have much less time to do these evaluations. That’s because they’re also required to train and support people at schools in other districts. The job has changed so much that superintendents don’t actually have to visit the schools whose principals they evaluate.

Some principals have said they appreciate being free from micromanaging superintendents. But others are now saying that school leaders benefited from the day-to-day scrutiny that the superintendents offered.

“Most people do a little better when we know that we are accountable, not just in two years, but in the day to day,” Jeffrey Scherr, who recently retired from Queens’ Francis Lewis High School, said at an event last week at Columbia University’s Teachers College for members of a TC-based principal fellowship program. (I wasn’t at the event, but Insideschools‘ Crissy Strining was and sent me her notes. TC also posted a summary.)

“A level of expertise was taken away” when superintendents lost their supervisory role, a principal of a Brooklyn secondary school said at the event. (more…)

In his remarks before signing the $787 billion federal stimulus bill, President Obama today singled out New York City as a place where the bill’s effects are likely to be felt.

“In New York City alone, 14,000 teachers who were set to be let go may now be able to continue pursuing their critical mission,” Obama said. He mentioned only three other specific places where the stimulus will make an impact: Columbus, Ohio; North Dakota; and Colorado, where he was speaking.

Obama spoke in the conditional because it’s up to the state, which will disburse the stimulus funds, to help the city avoid layoffs. But city officials plan to push the state to roll back some of its proposed cuts. In a memo to the mayor today, his deputy in charge of operations wrote:

We are optimistic that by working with our partners at the State level, we can apply this funding to existing needs at the Department of Education so we can avoid the severe headcount reductions you mentioned as a possibility.

(Thanks to Liz Benjamin at the Daily News for pointing out Obama’s New York City reference.)

“Teaching to the Test” refers to the practice of teaching in a manner designed to improve test results at the expense of some superior form of learning.  Currently, the phrase is most commonly used as an attack on certain standardized tests.  In New York, for example, students take annual standardized tests in grades 3 through 8.

If the standardized tests are competency tests, which I think they should be, the risk of “teaching to the test” should be related to the treatment of slower students that are at risk of failing to reach measured competency unless the teaching methods are targeted to the particular testing content.  Then, for these students, the risk is that focusing on their ability to answer some form of basic competency questions is materially worse than educating them in some other manner that won’t allow them to best answer these same questions.  I have always been skeptical that the probability and cost of this scenario could outweigh the benefits of basic competency testing.

To better inform my opinion on this issue, I reviewed the New York 2008 math and ELA tests for grades 3 through 8.  I was surprised to learn that all of the recent tests are well-organized on the state website.  I randomly picked a few pages from each test and compiled them in two files (math and ELA).  To me, the questions seem to be fair and straightforward.  I have difficulty understanding what is meant by “teaching to the test” with these sorts of questions and how it could be damaging to the students.  So, I ask the reader: What are some examples of how someone might “teach to the test” with respect to these particular questions?  How would such a method be harmful to the student?  I would love to hear from teachers and school leaders in New York that are particularly concerned with the “teaching to the test” phenomenon.

What’s creaming, and why does it matter? This topic gained some momentum earlier this week in a comment by Seth Andrew, the head of the Democracy Prep Charter School, a relatively new 6-12 secondary school in Harlem, on a GothamSchools post on KIPP. Pointing to the use of standardized tests for admission to New York City’s citywide specialized high schools and citywide gifted and talented programs, he wrote, “traditional public schools are far more guilty of ‘creaming’ (both in terms of aggressiveness and quantity of students effected) than charters could ever be. We have a legal mandate to enroll by a random lottery.”

I’m going to hazard a guess that Andrew has a particular image of creaming in mind: the intentional and systematic use of selection criteria to choose which students attend a school. But there’s another view which I’d like to put forward: creaming is any selection process, intentional or unintentional, that results in the students within a school being more likely to succeed due to their differences from the broader population of students from which they were drawn. Andrew’s definition helps to illuminate the intentions and actions of school leaders; but I think mine is more useful in making comparisons among schools both in terms of the kinds of students they serve and their relative effectiveness in promoting student outcomes.

I’ll use Democracy Prep as an example, but want to make clear that I am not criticizing the school or its practices. Democracy Prep, like most charter schools, is staffed with talented, hard-working people who are trying to promote the best outcomes for their students, and they are doing so within the provisions of the rules governing charter schools. (more…)

“The News Media: Ally or Adversary?” will be the topic of a session scheduled for tomorrow in Texas, at a conference for people who are paid to do communications work for school districts (known in the business as “flaks”). The session description:

Working with today’s news media can be challenging with fewer experienced journalists and education beat reporters. With more sensational, negative and inaccurate stories, critical editorials, and reporters who are indifferent to or hostile toward your district, what do you do? This session will explore some strategies for resolving conflicts with reporters and developing a better working relationship with your local news media.

This kind of mirrors Chancellor Joel Klein’s perspective on press coverage of his reforms, as described recently by Richard Colvin: The reporters heard mainly from sources who weren’t Klein. As a result, they wrote very negative — and, according to Klein, inaccurate — stories.

Head New York City press flak David Cantor told me he does not belong to the New York affiliate of the national group, the National School Public Relations Association. “You never want to be in a club that would have you as a member,” he said as explanation.

Class sizes and student-to-teacher ratios went up this year, especially in the elementary school grades, according to data the Department of Education released today. This is the first time the Department of Education has reported an increase in class sizes since Mayor Bloomberg took control of the schools in 2002.

School officials blamed the economy for the rising figures, which come despite millions of dollars poured into class-size reduction over the last year. In a release, officials said budget cuts have prohibited some principals from hiring new teachers.

The data show that classes are slightly less crowded than a preliminary data set released to the City Council late last year suggested, but still more crowded than they were last school year. The average third-grade class, for instance, now has almost 22 students, up from 21 last school year. The biggest increases in class size came between kindergarten and fourth grade, where research is clearest about the benefits of reduced class sizes.

The average class size in high school is also up, to 26.2 from 26.1 last year. The department’s presentation argues that the change is due to a new form of reporting. Some classes with more than one teacher in a single room used to be treated as two separate classes, but this year the department counted them as one. Under the old form of reporting, the average high school class size would have dropped to 25.6, school officials said.

The rising class sizes come against a backdrop of big investments by the state into reducing class size. The DOE, in its release, says that schools where reducing class size was a high priority have seen lowered figures.

We’re still working on a deeper analysis. While we do that, please feel free to peruse the release — and send us tips for questions to ask.

Via Flickr.

Here’s a fact of interest in the KIPP vs. teachers union fracas, which looks increasingly like a war: The people who have been the charter school network’s major benefactors are also among the Republican Party’s most generous contributors.

Donald and Doris Fisher, the aging founders of the Gap clothing chain, each donated to George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004; maxed out at the $2,300 limit to Rudy Giuliani in 2007; made regular donations to Norm Coleman, the Minnesota senator Al Franken eventually (presumably) unseated, and poured money into the Republican Party war chest, recent campaign contribution filings show.

The Fishers did send some money to Democrats, too, including $5,000 to a group tied to Rep. George Miller, the chair of the House education committee and a supporter of No Child Left Behind and charter schools. But the overwhelming majority of their giving (especially their federal giving) went to Republicans.

Dave Levin, a KIPP co-founder who got flak when he and students appeared on stage at the 2000 Republican National Convention, said the donations have no bearing on KIPP. “The Fisher’s political activities and their philanthropic involvement in education and KIPP are independent of each other,” he wrote in an e-mail message. (more…)

FROM NEW YORK CITY:

• There are problems with Mayor Bloomberg’s parochial-to-charter conversion plan. (Times)
• A Brooklyn bishop donated to a relative of someone who will decide about the conversions. (Daily News)
• The stimulus money should prevent teacher layoffs in NYC, but what else will it do? (WNYC)
• One advantage of later state tests could be using the results to evaluate teachers. (Post)
• In some schools, the NYPD will replace safety agents’ metal handcuffs with Velcro ones. (Daily News)
• Parents say a Staten Island principal is out of control. (Staten Island Advance)
• A Queens teacher says she was excessed after announcing her pregnancy. (Post)
• Kids in Queens take Korean classes. (Daily News)
• Upstate, some people think New York City schools underreport violence. (Daily Gazette)
• Chancellor Joel Klein was the keynote speaker at a conference at Yale. (New Haven Register)

AND BEYOND:

• The Harvard Crimson takes a look at Ed Sec Arne Duncan, Class of 1987.
• Duncan’s newly enormous discretionary budget introduces opportunities and risks. (Times)
• The cellphone industry says phones make good learning tools. (Times)
• The contemporary school librarian has a difficult and tenuous job. (Times)
• In Paris, preschoolers learn to eat well. (NPR)
• Nicholas Kristof: Education, not health care, is actually “our greatest national shame.” (Times)
• Randi Weingarten makes the case for national standards. (Washington Post)
• Teachers tell Jay Mathews how to make schools better without spending money. (Washington Post)

• Arne Duncan is getting $650 million in discretionary funds, way more than any ed sec has ever had.
• Check out Alexander Russo’s Twitter feed. He thinks Joel Klein should have gotten Duncan’s job.
• Why would a school take a field trip to Toys ‘R’ Us? NY Teacher doesn’t get it either.
• A lawmaker wants all parents to chat with their kids’ teachers or pay up.
• Everyone knows it takes food to make teenagers want to work on the weekends.
• JD2718 adds a middle school to his list of schools that are no fun for teachers.
• An Insideschools poll finds that parents wish high school admissions letters were mailed home.
• Down in Philadelphia, there’s a new schools blog online, courtesy of The Notebook.

GothamSchools' new Community section.

In time for Valentine’s Day, we’re getting a little makeover! You can find the changes both above, on the new tab called Community, and below, in the comments section. Both changes are designed to give more voice to you, our impressive and awesome readers.

In the Community section, we’re publishing voices other than our own, so that now we offer not just reporting but informed opinions, commentary, and pictures from inside schools. We have three Community posters to start: Aaron Pallas is a professor at Columbia Teachers College who also blogged with Eduwonkette under the name “skoolboy.” Jason Levy is an educator with 16 years of experience who is now the principal at CIS 339 in the Bronx, an innovative school that I profiled in the Village Voice. He blogs here, and we’ll be cross-posting with that site. Ken Hirsh is an education philanthropist and advocate who holds famous barbecues. He just started a blog with which we’ll be cross-posting.

For now, we’re starting with just these three white guys, but we plan to expand. Send us recommendations if you know someone whose insights ought to be aired.

The changes in the comments section give readers more of an identity. We’re asking every commenter to define him or herself by one of six roles: citizen, parent, student, teacher, principal, and wonk. (All comments made prior to now are being retroactively categorized as “citizen.”) We’re also now using avatars, images that represent who you are. Sign up for one here; if you use the same e-mail address at the Gravatar site and when posting at ours, the image you upload will appear. We don’t want to force anonymous people to unmask themselves, but we think knowing a little more information will enrich the conversation.

Please let us know what you think of the changes. As a reminder, our e-mail addresses are listed here. Braver and bolder folks, leave a comment!