GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• After refusing to hold an election, D.C.’s teachers union president has lost control. (Washington Post)
• Congress will investigate companies chasing school turnaround money. (Politics K-12)
• Frech preschools could be an inspiration for New York City school reform. (Psychology Today)
• Serial school reformer Paul Vallas is on the job in Haiti. (Times)
• New York State has many different models for Jewish day school success. (Jewish Week)
• The easiest test high schoolers have to pass are the state Regents exams. (Times Union)
• An arts advocate says the DOE isn’t interested in a productive relationship with advocates. (Dewey21C)
• Jay Mathews says colleague Dana Milbank is wrong on Obama and education. (Class Struggle)
• Liam Julian says Rick Hess is wrong to criticize the L.A. Times value-added expose. (Flypaper)
• Summer vacation for teachers means there’s finally time for a doctor’s visit. (Pissed Off Teacher)
• The hunt for school supplies and back-to-school teaching tips has begun. (Miss Eyre)
• Cincinnati announces it’s seeing improvement from its lowest performing schools. (Catalyst)
• Washington State pays math and science teachers less, on average. (Edweek)
• A PA school district won’t face criminal charges for using spy software on students. (Inquirer)
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Earning the most rigorous of the state’s diplomas just became a little bit harder for thousands of students.

To get a Regents diploma with advanced distinction, the gold standard of New York State high school diplomas, a student must pass eight Regents exams, including one in a foreign language. But earlier this month state officials decided to cut costs by slimming down its testing program. Among the casualties: the exams in Latin, German, and Hebrew, taken last year by nearly 4,500 public school students statewide.

Nearly 17 percent of last year’s city graduates, or 7,857 students, earned the advanced diploma, and the vast majority studied French or Spanish. But more than 11,000 city students took Latin (3,409), German (4,698), or Hebrew (4,287) classes last year.

They can still get credit toward the advanced diploma, but they’ll have to demonstrate proficiency another way, according to Jane Briggs, a State Department of Education spokeswoman.

“They’d follow the same procedures already in place for students who study other languages not tested by the Regents, such as Chinese,” she said. (more…)

The workbook assigned to fifth-graders at PS 19.

With summer vacation nearing its end, students citywide are sitting down to finish (or begin) summer homework assignments. Some of those assignments look a lot like test prep.

A soon-to-be fifth-grader at PS 19, a dual-language school in Queens, showed me his summer homework: Nearly 100 pages of reading, writing, and math worksheets in a book called “New York Kids Learn!” The book, produced by a California company called Teacher Created Materials, resembles an extralong state math and English language arts exam.

The student said his school gave him the book, which sells for $7, back in June and told him to bring it, completed, in September. Although the book is billed as a “parent-involvement resource” in the “Parents as Partners” series, he had mostly worked alone. Asked whether he had learned anything interesting, he shrugged.

Having help might have made the work easier: Some of the assignments looked confusing, particularly for students whose first language is not English. Two sample pages are below. One asks students to pair antonyms (“responsible” is shown as the opposite of “untrustworthy”) and the other instructs students to answer questions about a map but then doesn’t actually pose any questions at all. (more…)

The path toward teacher certification is laden with demands that prospective teachers prove that they’re sensitive, socially conscious, and self-critical. If a national group of education agencies has its way, those demands could soon extend throughout teachers’ careers.

Teachers and others would do well to look at the “Model Core Teaching Standards: A Resource for State Dialogue,” released in July for public comment. Developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers’ Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (InTASC), the new teaching standards (separate from the Common Core State Standards that have been in the news recently) retain much of the language of the 1992 teaching standards, with some reordering and rewording to match the “new times.” Whereas the 1992 standards were intended for beginning teachers (and adopted by 38 states), the new standards are for all teachers.

The ten standards fall into four categories: The Learner and Learning, Content Knowledge, Instructional Practice, and Professional Responsibility. Each standard is broken down into Performances, Essential Knowledge, and Critical Dispositions. Like the 1992 standards, the Model Core Teaching Standards downplay subject matter knowledge while emphasizing the social processes of the classroom and the attitudes that teachers should have. Because these standards come so soon after the Common Core State Standards, they might influence how the Common Core standards are interpreted and implemented.

The 1992 document devoted the first standard to content knowledge; the new standards address content in standards 4 and 5. Two standards devoted to content seem like more than one, but neither standard addresses the need for specific knowledge. (more…)

• Some of the principals up for removal from turnaround schools are highly rated. (Post)
• Parents in wealthier neighborhoods file for special-ed private school reimbursement more often. (WSJ)
• The city, state, federal, and nonprofit agencies working in Rikers Island’s school all want change. (NY1)
• Some at PS 149 don’t like Harlem Success Academy’s new field, Juan Gonzalez writes. (Daily News)
• Arts education is up to individual principals, and many aren’t investing in it. (Observer)
• Many school districts aren’t using edujobs money to rehire laid-off teachers. (Times)
• Stagnant ACT scores nationwide raise questions about whether high school reform has worked. (WSJ)

• D.C.’s Michelle Rhee says she’d consider releasing value-added teacher data. (D.C. Schools Insider)
• Rick Hess on why the L.A. Times’ value-added analysis wasn’t ready for primetime. (EdWeek)
• Video from last night’s aborted Panel for Education Policy meeting. (Norm Scott)
• Patrick Sullivan says the PEP’s chair, not the DOE, halted the meeting. (NYC Public School Parents)
• Ruben Brosbe was satisfied to learn that his students didn’t do so well their state tests. (GothamSchools)
• A crossing guard from PS 282 rescued Park Slope’s mysterious “ghost stroller.” (City Room)
• Where does Kristin Davis, call girl turned gubernatorial candidate, stand on education? (Daily News)
• AFT President Randi Weingarten is sparring with D.C.’s union president. (D.C. School Insider)
• Newark leads the nation in graduating black males. (Jay Mathews)
• The winner in Pennsylvania’s teacher-with-a-stripper-on-Facebook saga is the ACLU. (AP)
• Canadian teachers want a two-year standardized testing moratorium. (Ottawa Citizen)
• A mom explains why she’s turning in her cattle prod and starting to homeschool. (Motherlode)

Add Michael Soet, the high school principal who paid teachers to attend holiday parties and recently allowed booze at prom, to the long list of principals who’ve had problems at Lafayette High School.

The large Brooklyn high school closed in June and it currently houses five new small schools, most of which have had their staff and students in the headlines. So far, only two schools — Expeditionary Learning School for Community Leaders and Kingsborough Early College Secondary School (which was not happy about moving into the building) — have managed to avoid public controversy.

International High School: In July of this year, a report by the Special Commissioner of Investigations found that principal Michael Soet allowed adults to drink alcohol at the school’s prom. He also paid teachers about $5,000 in overtime to attend the prom and, in previous years, had paid them overtime to attend holiday parties. Commissioner Richard Condon did not recommend that Soet be disciplined and Soet remains the school’s principal.

(more…)

Back in the wild days of New York City in 1974, as the city fell into debt and Phillipe Petit strung his tightrope between the Twin Towers, students at Greenwich Village’s PS 41 got a surprise visit from a giant celebrity.

Muhammad Ali, then heavyweight champion of the world, made an appearance at the school to film a segment of the proto-Punk’d practical joke television show Candid Camera. In the segment, several students are asked what they would say to Ali if given the chance. As they answer, Ali appears, clothed in boxing attire. The students’ expressions are priceless.

Now, producers from a British television network that’s putting together a Candid Camera special in honor of the show’s 50th birthday are looking for those students. I heard today from producer Catherine Crowe, who has narrowed down her search to 1973′s Class 3-313, taught by Mrs. Edgerly, and Class 4-306 from the 1974-1975 school year. Class pictures are below. If you can identify any of the students from the video, let us know.

Unfortunately, the producer could provide only a French-dubbed version of the segment, so if you know what’s being said, please translate in the comments. (more…)

While the precipitous decline in New York City test scores and re-widening of the achievement gap may have come as a surprise to some, it shouldn’t have shocked anyone who’s actually been in a classroom during the Golden Age of Accountability.  Reading The New York Times over the past few weeks has been both frustrating and redeeming, as it seems the truth behind New York City’s “miraculous” gains is finally coming to light. Today I finally had the chance to see how the new test scores affected my students and me personally. As you can expect, it wasn’t pretty, but then again, the truth often isn’t.

Before I talk about what the numbers mean to me and in general, let me first lay them out. Of the 18 students in my class who took the English language arts exam, six scored a 1 (below grade level), eight scored a 2 (approaching grade level), and four scored a 3 (at grade level). Of the 19 students who took the math test, five scored a 1, seven scored a 2, four scored a 3, and three scored a 4 (above grade level). That means 22 percent of my students who took the reading exam met grade-level standards, and 39 percent of my students met grade-level standards in math.

What do these scores tell me? First I will say that these scores are a much more accurate indication of my students’ performance levels than any scores I have seen before. While they are definitely lower than “expected,” those expectations were based on previous models of scoring, which as we now all know were deeply flawed. The scale scores and proficiency ratings are difficult to evaluate without any baseline assessment. Yes, there is Acuity data to compare them to, but those are far from a reliable assessment, especially for students reading two or more grades below level. Ultimately, I need to rely more on my own assessments like endlines, E-CLAS, and running records to determine my students’ growth. Except for a few surprises, the official test scores don’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.

What I do know is that at the beginning of the school year only two of my students were reading at grade level. According to this year’s assessment, four of my students met grade level standard on the reading test. That is an accurate assessment. (more…)

• Most students incarcerated on Rikers Island had school problems before being arrested. (NY1)
• The city wants to reform Island Academy by making it more than a GED program for jailed kids. (NY1)
• A protest halted last night’s school board meeting. (GothamSchools, Times, Post, Daily News, WNYC)
• The Charter Center’s test score report says the lower scores should spur schools to improve. (Post)
• A new report says New York City’s schools are among the worst for black males. (Daily News)
• A judge blocked the city’s plan to end some bus service on Staten Island. (NY1)
• Ed Sec Arne Duncan said he backs releasing individual teachers’ value-added scores. (L.A. Times)
• More than 100 charter schools nationwide have financial ties to a Turkish nationalist. (USA Today)
• Researchers say students just too young for school are often diagnosed with ADHD. (USA Today)