State and city officials breathe a sigh of relief with $696m in sight

finish line

August 24, 2010

State and city officials breathe a sigh of relief with $696m in sight

by Anna Phillips, at 4:41 pm

L-R: Education Commissioner David Steiner, State Sen. Suzi Oppenheimer, Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, State Sen. Malcolm Smith, Gov. David Paterson, UFT President Michael Mulgrew, Assemblyman Sheldon Silver

State and city officials reacted to news of New York’s Race to the Top win with many I-thought-this-day-might-never-come jokes and one off-script moment from the governor.

Speaking at his midtown offices, where he was joined by state legislators and education officials, Governor David Paterson said the win vindicated the work of those who pushed the state legislature to pass new laws on teacher evaluation and charter schools. Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch described the state’s $696 million dollar win as a “gift,” and State Senator Malcolm Smith referred to it as a “big slab of bacon.”

“I’m actually a rabbi’s daughter, so I’m not bringing home the bacon,” Tisch corrected him.

State Education Commissioner David Steiner, looking tired, said the announcement marked the beginning of years of work.

“It is a very, very good moment,” he said. “It is only the start.”

More than half of the state’s winnings will be distributed among school districts, Steiner said. The remainder will fund work done centrally by the State Education Department. New York City will receive between $250 and 300 million dollars and city and state officials will have to negotiate how that money is spent.

“For the first time, federal dollars are actually going to buy real deliverables,” Tisch said, adding that some of the money will go to improving the state’s lowest performing schools. “The tough work now begins,” she said.

http://nyceducator.com NYC Educator

Ms. Tisch’s concept of a gift is flawed. In my world, you don’t follow a list of rules to get a gift. Furthermore, once you unwrap them, there are no more strings.
http://www.SpecialEducationMuckraker.com Dee Alpert

USDOE’s rules for its RttT application reviewers required that they only look at the SEAs’ applications and not outside information. Thus the reviewers were ignorant about our current whopping NYSED testing scandal. NYSED didn’t update its RttT application with the truth. Similarly, the new Schott Foundation report on black male graduation rates and the gaps between them and other groups reports that:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20100824/NEWS01/8240316/1003/Rochester-has-one-of-the-lowest-black-male-grad-rates-in-U.S.

Rochester has one of the lowest black male grad rates in U.S. … and

New York came in last among states, with 25 percent of young black men finishing high school compared to 68 percent of white male students. New York had the largest gap between black and white male students in the country.
State rankings

These are the 10 lowest-performing states for black male students.
New York: 25 percent graduation for black male students vs. 68 percent for white male students.
Florida: 37 percent vs. 57 percent.
South Carolina: 39 percent vs. 58 percent.
Louisiana: 39 percent vs. 59 percent.
Nebraska: 40 percent vs. 83 percent.
Ohio: 41 percent vs. 78 percent.
District of Columbia: 41 percent vs. 57 percent.
Indiana: 42 percent vs. 71 percent.
Alabama: 42 percent vs. 60 percent.
Georgia: 43 percent vs. 62 percent.
Source: Schott Foundation for Public Education

Looks like NYSED is in good company – as long as you like the South. Duncan knew all about this report before the awards were publicized today even if his RttT reviewers did not. I think it’s fair to conclude that politics played a far greater role in this award than did reality, unmanipulated data and, of course, integrity.

No fear. In 3-4 years we’ll have NY’s NAEP and SAT scores showing the results of this largesse and … it’s pretty clear we’ll that there have been no significant improvements in NY’s non-manipulated metrics. In fact, I’m willing to bet on it.
Michael Fiorillo

The states, school systems and unions have all been played for chumps: the mandates that follow from this money will cost far more over time – to say nothing about the insidious and pedagogically invalid premises upon which they are built – than what is being received from the federal government.

Which is precisely why Obama and Duncan played it this way: coercive corporatism at its worst.
http://www.queensteacher2.blogspot.com Queens Teacher

I totally agree Michael. However, no one realizes the implications. A decade from now, we’ll be saying “I told you so” when it’s of course too late.
cory

Michael,I dont think the union has been played; Randi and MM know excactly what they are doing; they just dont care so long as the dues keep coming in. They will eventually care when the number of teaches shrink because that will lead to less dues lining their pockets. Of course when that happens they will retired and living large, so it wont matter to them anyway.
Mustafa

Patterson called it RttC?!?! That’s hysterical! Watch Tisch’s face when he says it.
Teacher

LOL I can’t believe he called it Race to the C*ck! Tisch looked like she was having a really hard time containing herself after that. lol
Akademos

It IS RttC, Race to the Crap.

What an embarrassment that on top of not knowing anything real about education nor attempting to truly solve problems, or at least get a bit closer to the bottom of them, they’ve made a GAME out of education reform. This is a disgraceful joke.

The fact that it has succeeded with its sick agenda in so many states is a testament to our corrupt and egoistic politicians and officials, including union leadership!

Oh, and this concept isn’t new. Contests, privatization, data. It’s as old as big business.
I noticed that…

I would like to share this with my colleagues. Last night I was watching Councilman Robert Jackson, chairman of the committee on education, as he questioned the new deputy chancellor, Marc Sternberg, and the director of OSEPO (forgot her name) about student placement especially at the high schools with respect to the ELLs and Special Needs students. So I did a google search on Marc Sternberg and here’s what I found.

Marc Sternberg, Former principal of Bronx Lab HS (Evander Child Campus) is the new deputy chancellor of Portfolio Planning as of July 1st. He was also a TFA teacher who parlayed his three years of teaching to become a principal, a deputy chancellor while keeping his Vice President position of Victory Schools, an organization that launches and manages charter schools. Isn’t anyone going to question this?

The DoE continues to hire administrators that have ties to charter schools organizations. There’s a fox watching over the hen house! The 460 charter schools cap came with an affiliation to those people who will work in Tweed to squeeze in their preferred charter schools.

here’s the link to the info:
http://www.bronx.com/news/usa/323.html

http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/SCA/AboutUs/News/GoodLuckSharon.htm

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finish line

August 24, 2010

State and city officials breathe a sigh of relief with $696m in sight

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