GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Passing the state reading test might be even easier than recent criticism has suggested, a former Department of Education testing analyst is arguing.

Independent statistician Frederick Smith examined the way free-response questions were graded and found that virtually every student received enough points on that section to then pass the test by guessing randomly on the multiple-choice questions.

Smith’s finding expands on an informal study by a city teacher who concluded that arbitrarily filling in a pattern of multiple-choice answers and leaving the open-response section blank could yield scores high enough to promote a student to the next grade in New York City. That amounts to eight correct multiple choice answers on the fifth-grade English Language Arts exam.

Smith found that students who answered only 6 multiple choice questions correctly almost certainly would also pass the Level 2 bar. That’s because an overwhelming majority–99 percent–of fifth-graders who took the exam in 2009 received at least two points on the open-ended essay and free response sections, which would boost them to the eight-point cut-off level.

In addition, more than 97 percent of students received three or more points on that section, meaning that they would have had to answer just five multiple-choice questions correctly to receive a Level 2 score. (more…)

A frequent criticism of the Department of Education under Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is that it is run by lawyers and businessmen instead of by educators. In fact, the number of educators reporting to Klein quietly doubled in the last few months.

A recent issue of City Limits carried a story under the headline, “Teachers Missing at the Top.” Indeed, at the end of the last school year, just one quarter of the people reporting directly to Klein — two out of eight people — had extensive experience in city classrooms.

Now, after Klein replaced one top administrator with a former principal and added a new top-level position, four out of nine top administrators have extensive experience in city classrooms. The remaining five hold positions, such as in finance and legal affairs, that are unlikely to be occupied by educators in any school district, according to a department spokesman, David Cantor.

Asked about the shift by GothamSchools, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein called the new numbers “an interesting observation.” But he said he had not changed the way he chooses his deputies. (more…)

• A teacher who has long complained about being abused by her high school students has sued. (Post)
• A former student has nominated Giovanni D’Amato, his high school teacher, for an award. (Post)
• City Councilman Eric Gioia says he’s responsible for a pilot school lunch program. (Queens Chronicle)
• Gov. Schwarzenegger’s schools policy proposals exceed Race to the Top’s requirements. (L.A. Times)
• Chicago is causing controversy by directing students back to their zoned schools. (Chicago Tribune)
• NYC-export and Baltimore school chief Andres Alonso got a $29,000 bonus last year. (Baltimore Sun)
• Philly schools chief Arlene Ackerman says her reform won’t be like other cities’. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• The Post wants you to know it won a statewide writing award for an editorial “blasting the teachers union.”

• 2,000 needy Brooklyn students are going back to school with new backpacks, courtesy of the NAACP
• Tony Avella says he would eliminate the School Construction Authority.
• A teacher says the first days of school are exciting, but also “intensely painful and anxiety inducing”
• Another reports that teaching in a charter school means more work and less time to do it in.
• Gov. Schwarzenegger is suddenly rushing to make CA eligible for RttT money.
• Kevin Carey: if Ravitch thinks what Duncan is doing is illegal, she’s got it wrong.
• Eduflack analyzes the surprising choices the Gates Foundation made in narrowing its list.
• A study shows school budget cuts are prompting more parents to volunteer (via Insideschools)
• Have $10 left on your Target gift card? You can give it to a school.
• A former MIT prof. thinks Obama’s online course idea will make too little money go too far.
• Jim Calantjis explains how the new mayoral control law will affect school leadership teams.
• And if GS had a formal wish list, it’d probably look like Thompson’s.

Nearly two thirds of principals say the Department of Education’s $81 million online data warehouse could help improve teaching and learning at their schools. 

The finding is among the results of a survey conducted by Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum’s office, which released a statement today emphasizing that more than a third of principals did not think the system was helping their schools. In its coverage of Gotbaum’s report, the New York Times billed the system as being “supported by most principals,” And the city has said that its internal survey results show that most principals see benefits to the system.

ARIS’s solid approval rating doesn’t mean all of its kinks have been worked out. The Manhattan School for Children’s parent coordinator sent the following e-mail to parents last week:

ARIS and Classroom Assignments
It has come to my attention that the classroom teacher assignments have been posted on ARIS and I have been trying to unravel the mystery as to how these assignments came to be posted. I have also discovered that there are many mistakes. The official letters from MSC will be sent at the end of August. I am also out of town and cannot access the ID numbers that many parents are now requesting. Please double check the letters that you received from your classroom teacher. Both numbers were given out at the same time. Again, you will be notified about your official class by mail. Please do not rely on the ARIS site for this information.

The parent who forwarded me the e-mail said the incorrect information has been removed from the system but new information hasn’t yet been uploaded. (The system opened to parents in May.) (more…)

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said today that he is working closely with New York officials on a Race to the Top application, a sign that he thinks the state has a chance to win the federal funds.

The city could have pursued the path forged by Los Angeles, which has petitioned the Obama administration to allow it to apply separately from California.

New York and California both face a possible shut-out from the Race to the Top Fund because of the grant program’s requirement that states allow teachers to be evaluated based on student test scores. Both states have laws on the books banning such evaluation that would seemingly render the states ineligible for the funds.

If the federal government accepts Los Angeles’s petition, New York City could reasonably make the same argument. But Klein, who has described himself as a friend of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, is instead trying to throw the city’s weight behind the state’s application.

“As I understand it, only states are eligible and so we are working closely with the state,” Klein said this morning after an appearance at an NAACP back-to-school event in downtown Brooklyn. (more…)

• Survey: The ARIS data system is winning principals’ support but still isn’t universally beloved. (Times)
• A teacher who inappropriately touched a student years ago is under investigation again. (Daily News)
• Out-of-work teachers lashed out at Chancellor Klein over the hiring freeze. (GothamSchools, Daily News)
• The Philadelphia schools have given Tony Danza the go-ahead to teach this fall. (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• A Bronx mom won $500 for back-to-school supplies from the Daily News.
• The girl who stopped a school bus after the driver died attends Joel Klein’s alma mater. (Daily News)

• Locke HS shows that turnarounds are too hard — it’s better to open new schools, Andy Smarick says.
• A closer look at Green Dot’s Locke scores. The picture is not pretty.
• President Obama is in a back-to-school motivational movie, alongside stars who didn’t go to college.
• Eduflack says Bloomberg is the “education mayor” just by boosting teacher pay by so much.
• The School of One is on to something. A federal study shows online education is often more effective.
• Here’s another account of today’s showdown between Joel Klein and an unemployed Teaching Fellow.
• Mr. Accountable Talk takes issue with the unemployed Fellow’s argument.
• The school year is beginning in D.C. and there still is no teachers contract, despite Rhee’s promises.
• From the Race to the Top guidelines, how the federal government defines an “effective teacher.”
• The Gates Foundation will help states fill out RttT applications, which could take up to 462 hours.
• Miss Eyre explains how new teachers can make nice and win autonomy from administrators.
• Enter pictures of your school into a contest about school buildings. Or send them to us.

The city is asking elected parent leaders to help it hold mandatory public hearings about school funding that should have happened in June.

The state requires all school districts to hold annual hearings about they plan to allocate Contracts for Excellence dollars, state education funds that can be spent only in certain ways. Other districts held their hearings in June, according to the schedule set out in the law. But New York City did not. (Remember, those were heady days for the city, with mayoral control’s expiration date rapidly approaching.) After Anna reported last week that the hearings hadn’t happened, state officials said they were merely being rescheduled.

Now we have a hint of when the hearings might be held. Martine Guerrier, head of the education department’s Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy, sent an e-mail to district parent councils today asking them to help run local hearings in September.

“We are committed to meeting our statutory requirements for Contracts for Excellence and ask for your support in partnering with the Department to hold public hearings on the 2009-2010 plan at the beginning of the school year,” Guerrier wrote. She said her office would help the councils hold the hearings either during one of their regularly scheduled meetings or at a separate time.

Guerrier’s full letter to district parent councils is after the jump. (more…)

An Australian teacher who recently worked in the Bronx said yesterday that she saw nothing in the New York City schools she wanted to bring back to the land down under.

Her comments came on the Australian television show “Insight,” which yesterday focused on the Australian government’s plan to adopt Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s controversial school progress reports. The episode featured Klein, who swapped visits last year with Australia’s education minister, Julia Gillard, via live video feed. (Watch the episode, or read the transcript.)

“There is nothing about classrooms in New York that I would like to replicate in Australian schools,” teacher Mary-Ellen Betts said on the show. Betts worked as a literacy consultant (presumably an AUSSIE) at a Bronx elementary school several years ago. She continued:

 The impact of high stakes testing which is what it becomes when you are threatening to close schools, means that the curriculum narrows. Children are forced into more and more repeats of the same thing. So that if your school is failing and if you’ve got a group of failing students, you bring them in for breakfast programs. You keep them after school for after school programs. So that children as young as 6 are at school from 7.30 till 4.30 — they are still failing.

A mockup of Australia’s school progress report is below. Compare it to city progress reports here. (more…)