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worst-of list
January 21, 2010
New York State places dozens of NYC schools on replacement list
The New York State Department of Education has singled out 34 New York City public schools, most of them large high schools, that it believes should be replaced.
Many of the schools are already on the city’s to-be-closed list and others have had poor reputations and low grades on the city’s annual report cards for years. Now that SED has designated which schools are the bottom five percent across the state, school districts will have to submit plans to Commissioner David Steiner detailing which of four federally mandated plans they intend to implement.
The plans are a menu of sorts: four options the U.S. Department of Education believe can transform “persistently low achieving” schools into success stories. Before the list came out today, state officials said they planned to replace many of the schools with charter schools, a proposal that could be severely delayed by the state legislature’s recent decision not to lift the state’s charter cap.
Long before the list came out, Chancellor of the Board of Regents Merryl Tisch said the state’s choices would not be controversial.
“There is not going to be a person in New York state who will be able to defend any of the schools that end up on our replacement list,” state Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said in October.
Yet parents, students, and teachers have been turning out in the hundreds all winter for large-scale protests of the Department of Education’s plans to close schools that are also on the state’s list.
Districts can choose to turnaround, restart, transform, or close their schools. The turnaround model has two versions in New York: in one a school is closed and replaced by a new school and in another the school’s structure and design is completely rehabbed. The restart model involves turning a public school into a charter school that serves a whole new batch of kids or one that serves the exact same student body. New York City does the former with some frequency, but the latter is unprecedented.
The last two options include transforming a school — allowing the school to remain open until it shows improvement — or closing a school.
Schools that appear onto SED’s list are Title I schools that have not met their Average Yearly Progress goals and have the lowest combined scores on the state math and English tests or the lowest graduation rates.
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January 21st, 2010 5:20 pm
NYSED’s list of flunking schools - just released today - includes the Roosevelt, LI district’s high school … which NYSED’s own appointees have been operating since 2002. Of course, NYSED has made its serious school improvement “experts” available to its hand-picked officials in this district … the same ones it will be making available starting now.
And Tisch/Steiner announce this list with pride, noting that the wonderful process they’ll be following in assisting these flunker schools is the process outlined in NYSED’s RttT application. Of course, given the rigor that Flunkin Duncan is requiring in RttT applications, there’s got to be a section in the application entitled “What We Did Wrong.” The problem is that Tisch/Steiner refuse to make the RttT application public, and so … we’ll never know just how incompetent they’ve been.
All this list shows is how much money NYSED and the Regents can waste. And since these schools have been on flunker lists for years, and NYSED’s extra money and services did zero good in terms of substantively improving them, NYSED will be making more money available so they can keep on doing … the wrong thing.
Race to the Flop.
Dee Alpert
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January 21st, 2010 5:56 pm
The state planned to replace most of these schools with charter schools.
Fire all the teachers at those schools.
Hire the McTeachers who teach at charter schools for a couple fo years before they get burned out and move on.
Saves on salary, saves on pensions.
Does it create a better education system?
They’ve been doing this in Chicago, Arne and Obushma’s hometwon for a while now, and the system just gets worse and worse.
Some schools that are being closed this year have been “re-engineered” twice before (i.e., staff and administrations have been rreplaced.)
Yet nothing changes at the schools - they still have low test scores and low graduation rates.
The fault of the schools and the teachers in them?
Or are deeper socio-economic problems to blame?
You can keep closing schools and firing teachers and blaming the education system for all the ills of the children in these schools, but eventually, after you close a school down half a dozen times and re-open it with new teachers and staff and STILL nothing changes, maybe people will see that there is more happening here than “bad schools.”
Oh, and where do they plan to dump the “at-risk” students from the schools they are closing? In other large high schools? Guess what will happen to the test scores and grad rates in those schools too.
A never-ending cycle that is designed to destroy public education, destroy the teachers unions and open up all the yummy yummy public education money to for-profit private school organizations.
Heckuva job, Arne! Heckuva job, Barack! Heckuva job, Paterson!
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January 21st, 2010 6:19 pm
So what are they going to do? Empty out the staffs of all these UNDERFUNDED and OVERCROWDED schools and create more than 5,000 additional ATR’s? Where are they going to find qualified teachers to replace these teachers? Could it be that these schools are underperforming for reasons other than the staff? Could it be mismanagement by the DOE? Perhaps they should replace Joel Klein and his staff as they can’t see to get things right (how many reorganizations has it been?)
Where is the UFT in all this? Will they just say something lame to the teachers like, “Don’t worry, you still have jobs…”
And what about these kids? Does the state realize that teachers have very strong bonds with these students and that replacing the teachers will create chaos in their lives and in the buildings? Look at what happened when they did that in Chicago!!!
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January 21st, 2010 6:52 pm
John Dewey High School? How can that be? Is that part of the fallout from the closure of Lafayette?
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January 21st, 2010 8:04 pm
A “turnaround model” can be closed and replaced by a new school? how does that differ from the option of closing a school? And what reforms are cited to improve schools? SED seems as clueless here as the US Ed Dept.
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January 21st, 2010 8:28 pm
Holy crap, Diana, that article is less than 2 years old. You must be right.
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January 22nd, 2010 6:46 am
[...] in New York, the state education department has named 34 New York City schools that should either be overhauled, shut down or doe-see-doed, [...]
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January 22nd, 2010 7:56 am
How many of these high schools received A or B? Hw many were considered proficient by their “Quality” reviews?
And luckily for the staffs they have the law behind them so they can’t be simply terminated without the proper hearings. So guess what…..more for the ATR pool. And there is no way the two incompetents, Mike and Joel, will ever get the ability to terminate those in the ATR pool if they can’t find a job after a year or whatever. If I were a teacher, and they did this to me, I would simjply smile and sit in the ATR pool until the day I am eligible to retire and sing the Dolly Parton song to them…you know the song that goes, “Take this job and shove it.”
It;s one big joke.
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January 22nd, 2010 12:26 pm
8 years in charge and the first thing these two incompetents do when students and schools are struggling is to close them. They have no other plan? After 8 years in charge? Have they learned nothing? There are problems with our NYC school system and they’re called Joel Klein and Michael Bloomberg! How many more students need to be displaced, disenfranchized and disrespected before we put a stop to their brand of madness? If I were a struggling student in their system, I too might drop out. It is clear that the City of New York no longer wants the job of educating students with great needs. The evidence is indisputable and students now know this to be a fact.
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January 22nd, 2010 7:11 pm
I work in one of the schools on the list. Every school around us has been closing. When a school closes near us we get some of their students. If you keep sending these “failing” students to other schools of course it will cause more schools to fail. Also does anyone take into account the number of ESL students that we have? ESL kids, special ed. kids and general ed. kids take the same exams and are held to the same standards. How come no one ever blames the kids or the parents that raised them? These charter schools will pick and choose who they will accept and their stats will be great as a result. I look around my building and I see a dedicated staff. Where will we all find jobs? They’re just trying to break apart the union. Right now we don’t have a contract and they want to do away with ATR’s in the new contract.
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January 23rd, 2010 11:01 am
WHAT A JOKE! Why do schools fail? Not be cause of teachers or administrators. The answer is simple. Parents! Many of the parents of students at these schools are NOT true parents. They are biological parents and that’s it!
Let’s fix the system, hold student and parent responsible!
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January 23rd, 2010 12:04 pm
Mary, according to the DOE and almost the entire US society attitude towards education is that, the “failing” student is a fiction, that it is as mythical as the Yeti.
While many people in the eschelons of power know that a “failing school” has more to do with under served populations and specific segments of society, they use the public “anger” at “failing schools” to push their agenda, to privatize and profiteer at the expense of naive tax payers who do not clearly “see” what is happening.
STEPH, in an age of gutlessness of lack of integrity, no politician worth his/her “hide” would dare point at their constituencies to declare that “they” are not educating their little Einsteins and geniuses.
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January 23rd, 2010 12:07 pm
That list of schools that are permanently under performing and are slated for closure/replacement in NYC gives us a glimpse of the next schools under closure/phase out targets.
They will more segregation, overcrowding and upheaval in NYC public schools, especially those in Queens county.
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January 24th, 2010 5:33 pm
Every teacher in those schools (on the new list) has to be shitting bricks–especially knowing that ATRs are doomed in the next contract, since the UFT grows weaker each time Bloomberg opens his mouth. The UFT, once the richest and strongest union in the country, is now Bloomberg’s whipping boy. Pathetic and weak!
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January 26th, 2010 8:21 am
I am so tired of people blaming teachers for low test scores. Do any of you have any idea as to what it takes to be a teacher? Teachers wear many hats, work ridiculous hours, and are subject to abuse from 8am to 3pm (and longer depending on how long he or she remains in the school building). The classrooms are overcrowded with children who are not on grade level. Many teachers sacrifice a personal life due to the excessive demands that are required of them. Teaching is not a 9 to 5 job. Many teachers work after hours in the school building or end up taking their work home with them. TEACHERS ARE NOT COMPENSATED FOR OVERTIME.
WAKE UP PEOPLE! The problem with the school system are the parents. I understand parents work long hours and have bills to pay. That should have been thought about prior to deciding to become a parent. I’m not trying to belittle anyone. I’m looking at the facts.
You close the school and restructure it………………….no improvement
You change the administration and teachers……………no improvement
You add more funds and programs……………………….no improvementThe school system has tried everything except hold parents accountable for their childs behavior and performance. There are many parents who do not check to make sure their childs homework is done every night. There are parents who do not make appointments to go up to the school or call their childs teacher to check on the performance of their child. There are many parents who do not participate or inquire about the PTA. Some parents only visit their school when its parent teacher conference, their child is at risk of suspension or when their child is mistreated. My point, schools lack good parental support.
CHILDREN NEED THEIR PARENTS….NOT TEACHERS
A teacher is with a child for atleast one year. After that, they move to another teacher. They have the same parent their entire life.
PARENTS BE ADULTS. STOP BLAMING THE SCHOOL SYSTEM BECAUSE WE ARE NOT TAKING CARE OF OUR RESPONSIBILITY. REMEMBER, YOU ARE YOUR CHILDS TEACHER.
School should be seen as a place of employment for a child….they EARN a grade they way adults EARN a paycheck. As parents, we should not tolerate our children disrespecting us. Therefore, we should not allow them to disrespect anyone else. Yes, we are the protectors of our children. However, we also have to be ‘discipliners’ as well.
Again, I do not mean to offend anyone with what I’ve said. I’m just tired of excuses. We are losing our children. When are we going to get them back?
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January 26th, 2010 9:28 am
Amazing rant or discusion above, yet I find nothing new besides finger pointing between the educators and parents. I’m glad to see that these moves toward change have left people feeling emotionally charged and perplexed by a problem that has been persisting for way to long. This is a systemic problem, and outdated educational system for a more advanced, quicker paced, student body that has the attention span of about 30 seconds. Parents will always exist. The intellectuals are on the decline in this country, take a look at our last president for an example of intellectual deficiencies. Today more than ever we must promote a total revamping of the way we educate the children in our communities, we must return to values and principles and not just authority based on fear, guilt or other forms of coersion. The subsequent generations will not fall for the contrived education we are feeding them.
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January 26th, 2010 12:20 pm
It takes a village….
I agree….Parents arent the only problem with the education system. I responded to a few of the responses that I’ve read. I see both sides of the situation. I have seen teachers give their students there all and have parents (as well as administrators) tell them they’re not doing enough. I have seen teachers being abused emotionally and physically by their student, parents and administrators when they are trying their best.I understand that I may appear to be one-sided, but trust me I’m not. There are some teachers who are in need of improvement themselves. I just feel instead of bashing them, help them. Teachers can not do it alone. Parents can not do it alone. Administrators can not do it alone. However, we need to stop blaming each other and get to the root of the problem. Losing teachers isnt the answer. Overcrowding the classrooms isnt the answer. We need to support our teachers so that they could do their job. I believe teachers are unappreciated by practically everyone.
WE ALL NEED TO LOOK AT OURSELVES….PARENTS, TEACHERS, PRINCIPAL, BOARD OF EDUCATION MEMBER..ALL OF US. I responded the way I did because I’m tired of hearing people bashing teachers. I’m simplying saying we need to look at parents as well.
Truth be told, we also need to pay close attention to those who are making decisions about our children yet their children attend a private school which doesnt have the struggles our schools have. Parents, teachers, all of us need to come together and decide about whats best for our students. Its interesting even with this discussion right now (and Im guilty as well)…..no one that I’ve read responded from a students point of view. Students have alot on their plates as well. They also have a right to voice their opinion about the quality of the education they receive. It’s their future.
Personally, I believe children are expected to learn way too much in a short amount of time. We need to go back to teaching for comprehension at a reasonable pace verses teaching to meet a quota. Schools need to be an institution where children ‘want to’ attend verses ‘have to’ attend. In short, WE need to look at the whole picture and stop fixing bits and pieces. Lets stop talking about the problem and fix it.
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January 26th, 2010 6:58 pm
I am a second-career teacher. When I started teaching science six years ago I was amazed that parents were not taking any blame for the poor progress of their children. I thought of it as an”Emporor”s New Clothes” phenomenon. We can all see the obvious condition, but the politicians are unwilling to voice it in the public arena. When I received my training a few years ago, I came across an interesting document called “No Excuses” . Here is the link:
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/16/29/fa.pdf
The author takes into account parental involvement as well as other factors needed to turn schools around. We will not be able to change anything until the public debate is open and honest. -
January 26th, 2010 7:06 pm
oops! I meant “Emperor’s New Clothes” /spelling lol!
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