High schools in eight states, but not New York, will start letting kids graduate after 10th grade. (Times)
City Council speaker Christine Quinn will push GED improvements in a major speech today. (NY1)
The brand-new Hebrew Language Academy charter school has a diverse student body. (Forward)
Chicago won’t close five schools due to the gang conflicts doing so would cause. (Chicago Sun-Times)
The city’s Young Women’s Leadership schools are being exported to Baltimore. (Baltimore Sun)
One in five New Jersey schools have no poor students, giving the state the highest wealth gap. (Times)
A majority of California school districts have refused to sign the state’s Race to the Top bid. (L.A. Times)
http://nyceducator.com NYC Educator
They won’t close Chicago schools because of gang conflicts? Maybe NYC parents and teachers need to start gangs to save our schools. It’s pretty clear going through proper channels with Mayor Bloomberg’s rubber stamp PEP is a waste of our time.
QueensParent
Well that’s funny. What is the UFT but a gang full of people with education degrees? They certainly know how to protect their “members” interest over those of kids.
http://nyceducator.com NYC Educator
I’m always fascinated by those who indulge in idiotic stereotypes to get their points across.
http://southbronschool.blogspot.com Bronx Teacher
Quuens Parent: I have a good suggestion for you. First and foremost have facts before you decide to take fingers to keypad.
Ellen
If we continue to indulge in beating the straw man (UFT) we will never get to the real issues. Unions protect members. Given what is happening in our country and not being a union member, I can understand that role and be supportive of the members of a union.
As the parent of three boys it is my job, and my job only, to represent my sons. I did not appoint a teacher as a surrogate.
For me the issues are:
lack of leadership at the local level
overcrowding in schools
inadequate and antiquated funding sources that favor school districts out side of NYC
no bid contracts
high price consultants from other countries
ignorance of good education methodologies
confusion resulting from constant make overs, re-orgs and re-dos (not even Zsa Zas Gabor has had as many re-dos or make-overs as the DOE)
no parent/community voice in the policy making efforts
http://sinksalive.blogspot.com KitchenSink
Ellen, I like your laundry-list approach. We’ll never get to bottom-line change unless we get down to the core issues.
Here’s my take on your list: items 1 through 4, I certainly agree.
With regard to the high-priced consultants, I’m unclear whether you mean foreign consultants at the school-level (Aussies) or DOE-level (Sir Michael Barber from England, McKinsey from Corporate America). In either case, I think they can come off the list because (a) if the local level, the real problem is whether they fit into a comprehensive vision for school change and direction, and taking care of local leadership will solve that problem and (b) my understanding is that Klein’s $5 million consultants were funded with private dollars, who presumably wouldn’t give the same money for general operating DOE dollars but wanted to see a corporate analysis of how the school system is run. See the penultimate item on your list.
Ignorance of good educational methodology – Sure! You can start with “a coherent, school-level vision for curriculum and pedagogy.” I find that incredibly lacking in under-performing schools, but whatever it is – blue, purple, green or orange, many roads can lead to Rome – it’s the starting point for coherence, and without coherence you can have many smart educators running around bumping into each other and not helping anyone.
On make-overs and re-orgs: I don’t think this issue is really a problem. I would be curious to hear teachers and principals contribute how the re-orgs have negatively affected them. (Community piece, anyone?) I read that myspace is dying on the vine while facebook has thrived, partly because of facebook’s many makeovers. Annoying to users, but ultimately making it more user-friendly and efficient.
John Hancock
QP,
Even though you have never answered any of my questions, I have a strange attraction to asking you another (kind of like the strange attraction a person’s tongue has to a canker sore. You know you have one but you have to touch it to make sure) Your child’s teacher on average saw him/her more in a day that you do. Tell me three things he/she has done well to help better your child? I thought I could give you up for lent but I have failed.
KitchenSink,
I have not been clocking hours but to give you a rough estimate. My principal has spent about 10 days more out of school going to different meetings regarding re-orgs. Every second she is out of the building is less time she would normally be working with staff and in classrooms co-teaching and modeling lessons. I consider it a huge waste of time and have seen the negative effects of her absence. Like many of the great questions you have asked, I think a community piece is in order as well. I think you will find that re-orgs have done some serious damage many schools that had some consistency from the get go.
John Hancock
KS,
I would also like to just add that you should not make a comparison of a Social Networking System, that if it disappeared today would have little negative effect on things (except knowing what The Let-Me-Tell-You-Every-Detail-of-My-Day Bore, The Self-Promoter. The Friend-Padder, The TMIe and The Chronic Inviter are doing) with that of re-orgs and make-overs that have a serious victim at hand if it fails, that of the children.
CA Teacher
I think I love John Hancock.
I noticed that…
I like NYC educator’s idea.
I plan to call my gang of learners – the Mathmauranders!
This gang of learners may get somewhat irrational when they try to get the sqrt of 2, but that’s how radical they are!
I plan to supply them with weapon of math destruction – such as calculators, protractors, and compasses – and the school will have students of this nature in the neighborhood!
I would liket to see the mayor and Klein close us since the school might be an impact school of students wielding their rulers! Watch out!!!!
Invictus
QP, as always there is not one day where people show their lack of creative thinking and choose to beat the dead horse to death…BTW, be aware that that dead horse is already rehashed and recycled as the safe, non toxic glue that is on the shelves of the dollar store.
BTW, the views that you so eloquently defend are typical of what I happen to read in the comments sections of the so called dailies in NYC.
http://www.sinksalive.blogspot.com KitchenSink
Thanks for the comment, John H. I’m surprised (and yet not surprised) to hear about the meetings, because I thought much of the philosophy behind the re-orgs was about delegating authority back to principals, and that meant sheltering them from going to too many off-site day-long meetings. At least, that’s what I was told when we (as a charter) were pitched to join the Empowerment Schools expansion.
And I think quite a bit of the organizational leadership behind social networking or other industries transfers to running the country’s largest school system. At its core, there are some basic elements of running a business that you can’t get away from when you are the head of a large organization, whether you are in a municipal field or not. I had your same reaction the first time I heard about Roman Catholic leaders applying business practices to running their parishes and dioceses; “It’s religion, you can’t treat it that way!” But my reaction was wrong; the bishops and monsignors that did it well ended up with more resources than they started with to improve their parishes and did it without sacrificing the services they provided to their parishioners.
John Hancock
KS,
The thing is your reaction was also right. What made you change your mind? There is a big difference between philosophy and the real world practice of that philosophy. I went to a small Jesuit University with strong ties to the community and an amazing relationship with the RC leaders in Rome. The priests, nuns and higher clergy did what they did well but I also noticed a shift for them. Many of my former professors (fathers and sisters) did not adjust to the new system and yet were still asked to “improve” based on a model handed down to them of which they were not part of the process in creating. You say “the bishops and monsignors that did it well ended up with more resources” but what about the ones that did not “do it well” but did before the changes. How is the lack of that business practice effect them? I cannot compare the two.
I have no doubt that MANY schools need better resources and better avenues to them, but in many cases the new resources have created busy work for schools that had previously adequate services in place. I feel like my school and a few I have worked with have become watered down versions of their former selves due to these “new practices” I miss calling the District for certain budget question and having an experienced person give me the “ins and outs” of what it is I really needed to do and how to do it effectively. Now I have to call a Support Service Specialist who is also busy following a new system and cannot keep up with it. What is missing is the expertise. What is missing is the prior knowledge. I miss knowing pretty much the exact number of children coming into our school from feeder schools based on a model that worked. Now, the “New System” cannot make proper provisions because they scrapped many of the things that did work. I am guilty of many generalizations and I try to be specific whenever possible. In the case KS, we will have to agree to disagree.
http://nyceducator.com NYC Educator
Mayor Bloomberg’s methods and reorgs have certainly not resulted in more resources for my school. Under Mayor Bloomberg, we’ve sacrificed not only every available inch of space, but also the ability of our kids to attend after-school activities. Many kids have also lost the apparent privilege of eating lunch after 9 AM. As I watch them in their shorts running around the track in the cold and in the dark, as I observe them in windowless classrooms, as I watch dozens of classes become oversized beyond the UFT’s contractual limit of 34, I am curious where those alleged additional resources are. I’m in every day, and I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of them.
However, if Bloomberg’s management style somehow benefits the Catholic Church, I’d gladly support any bid of his to run for Pope.
jacob
I noticed that…. thank you for the best comment I’ve ever read on Gotham Schools. You’re my hero
I noticed that…
Jacob, You are very welcome.
If you don’t find humor in the way the edubrats at Tweed are morphing our school system to the 100th degree, I would be in a corner crying and trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
jodama
The reorganizations have not really changed anything. I lived in Italy for a long time and the reorganizations remind me of what happens each time the Italian government falls. All the same players remain in the game but get switched around; so the Prime Minister becomes the President of the Republic and the President of the Republic goes to the Ministry of Defense, etc. In the end, the way the government functions (or some would say disfunctions) doesn’t change. That’s what has happened during all the DOE reorgs. All the same people remained in the game albeit in different management positions. Supreintendents became LISes and LISes became RISes and nothing fundamentally changed. The only substantive change I’ve seen over the last 13 years of my teaching career is a rise in class size. I started out with 20 kids in a class and I am now up to 30 kids in a class. I can tell you, it has made a huge change in the way I teach. I have to take a much more traditional approach. Also I ask kids to write less because I cannot give them timely feedback. There is a big difference in grading 80 papers versus 120. There’s no point in giving them a long writing assignment that I can’t get back to them within a week or two.
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