GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

The city is keeping the principal of a Bronx high school in place, despite a report’s conclusion that she instructed her assistant principals to give teachers unsatisfactory ratings without ever watching them teach.

For public school teachers, an unsatisfactory rating on their annual observation can mean the beginning of the termination process. For Iris Blige, the principal of the Fordham High School of the Arts, “U” ratings were to be handed out to teachers she wanted to get rid of, regardless of how good they were in their classrooms.

A report by the Office of Special Investigations found that from 2007 to 2009, Blige told several of her assistant principals to give unsatisfactory ratings to half a dozen teachers before those teachers were formally observed. The report, which was completed last August, substantiates the claims of Blige’s current and former employees. Regardless, city officials have decided that Blige will keep her position and will pay a fine of $7,500.

According to the report, assistant principal James O’Toole told investigators that Blige told him to “get rid of” a certain teacher. O’Toole told investigators that he did not follow Blige’s request. (more…)

Following the retirement of Deputy Chancellor Eric Nadelstern, the Department of Education is combining the office in charge of helping schools improve with the office that holds their feet to the fire.

The Division of School Support and Instruction, which Nadelstern oversaw, will merge with the Division of Performance and Accountability, to create the Division of Academics, Performance and Support. Chief Academic Officer Shael Polakow-Suransky will oversee the combined divisions, a move that frees the department from having to replace Nadelstern and effectively doubles the range of issues that Polakow-Suransky is responsible for.

This is the second reorganization affecting the Division of School Support and Instruction in less than in a year.

Last April, the city folded the teaching and learning office into the school support office under Nadelstern. As a result of the move, Deputy Chancellor Santiago Taveras became the first-ever community engagement czar. He now manages how the department publicly presents proposals that are set to come before the city school board, known as the Panel for Educational Policy.

After nearly 40 years working in New York City schools, Deputy Chancellor Eric Nadelstern is retiring.

As a top aide to former Chancellor Joel Klein, Nadelstern was the architect of many of the city’s key initiatives, including the move to give principals greater freedom to run their schools as long as the schools met the city’s performance standards.

Nadelstern is the Department of Education’s most senior educator in an administration that has often been criticized for being filled with officials who lack experience in schools. He began teaching in 1972 at Dewitt Clinton High School, the high school from which he graduated, and has since worked at almost every level of the city’s education system.

Speculation that Nadelstern might leave the DOE has been mounting since Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he was replacing Klein with Hearst publishing executive Cathie Black. Nadelstern had been often suggested as a potential successor to Klein, and many observers thought he would be an obvious choice for the new Chief Academic Officer position created to secure Black’s appointment. That position went to a younger Klein deputy, Shael Polakow-Suransky.

It’s unclear why Nadelstern is leaving mid-year. In December, Nadelstern told a group of school network leaders that he planned to stay “at least through June,” which prompted speculation that he would leave at the end of the school year. (more…)

My students were taking their midline math assessments when I noticed that The Scowler, a struggling special needs student of mine, had answers remarkably similar to his neighbor. I’ve been known to lose my temper over copying, but it’s been a goal of mine lately to make interventions as quiet and personal as possible. A hard-line approach with this student in particular would only cause him to shut down.

I knelt down, and in a whisper I asked, “Are those your answers, or are those your neighbor’s?”

“Oh!” He looked surprised. In his disarmingly sweet way, he replied, “They’re his.”

“Well, I need to see your answers, so I know what you need help with.”

“But what if I get it wrong?” (more…)

• Appearing on “Inside City Hall,” Cathie Black said she also favors ending “last in, first out” rules. (NY1)
• Black explains her opposition to “last in, first out” by appealing to the mind and the heart. (Post)
• The Post says eliminating seniority retention rights is a sensible solution to the state’s budget crunch.
• The DOE’s data systems don’t always red flag improprieties and might even encourage them. (Times)
• Few schools earned bonuses last year, and the bonus program could be suspended. (GS, DN, Post)
• Michael Mulgrew says PS 114′s case is a clear example of the city putting charter schools first. (NY1)
• Both teachers fired after being caught canoodling in a classroom are suing the city. (Daily News, Post)
• A student at MS 246 was arrested after her teacher said she stabbed him with a comb. (Daily News)
• A former IS 120 teacher is selling baseball memorabilia to pay a student’s college tuition. (Daily News)
• A Brooklyn mom says bad schools should be replaced with better ones, even charters. (Brooklyn Paper)
• The founder of a nonviolence nonprofit says closing schools ignores the real issues. (Brooklyn Paper)
• Parents at MS 571 in Brooklyn are fighting closure and the arrival of a charter school. (Brooklyn Paper)
• One of Chicago’s mayoral candidates wants the city to seek corporate sponsors for schools. (Times)
• In San Francisco, just 2 percent of teachers were rated unsatisfactory last year. (Times)
• Nationwide, charter schools are flourishing as traditional public schools struggle financially. (AP)

• A group of moms wants to do something about too-freely-awarded credits. (Young Mothers’ Ed Policy)
• Miss Eyre explains why she won’t be joining Educators 4 Excellence. (NYC Educator)
• A reward is available to anyone who can pinpoint who named No Child Left Behind. (Flypaper)
• Aaron Pallas: Judge Kern’s rationale for releasing teachers’ ratings is all wrong. (GS Community)
• A Texas dad turned to homeschooling after his son was expelled from a charter school. (GQ)
• Steven Colbert has coined a new term to describe rising segregation: “disintegration.” (Colbert Report)
• A city teacher is giving his students better books in the hopes that they’ll care to read them. (Mr Foteah)
• High school final exams can be tough, and mom Liz Willen wants to help. (Insideschools)
• Most states are running out of education stimulus funds, but New York still has 41 percent. (Politics K-12)
• Andy Rotherham says there’s no reason for distress about Shanghai’s high PISA scores. (Time Mag)
• A guide for journalists just starting out on the schools beat. (The Educated Reporter)
• The city might invest in a new service to prevent school computers from becoming obsolete. (Observer)

The number of city schools whose teachers are taking home bonuses fell to just 26 this year, with many past winners falling victim to the citywide decline in test scores.

About 200 schools with many high-needs students are eligible for annual bonuses if their progress report scores increase sufficiently. Schools meeting their target score increase receive up to $3,000 per teachers union member, which a team of teachers and administrators decide how to distribute.

In 2009, when progress report scores skyrocketed, teachers at 139 elementary and middle schools — 91 percent of those eligible — took home $27.1 million in bonuses. Staff at 20 high schools were awarded bonuses of $3.5 million.

But after last year’s precipitous test score drop, the total number of schools earning the latest round of bonuses is just 26, Department of Education Officials announced today. The awards range from $48,000 to teachers at the tiny High School for Violin and Dance in the Bronx to more than half a million dollars for staff at PS 77, a Brooklyn school for severely disabled students.

The city did not announce which principals would take home performance bonuses, but the bonus program for principals has in the past awarded up to $25,000 to principals whose schools ranked in the top 20 percent citywide. (more…)

What counts as a “fact”? New York State Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Kern’s ruling on the release of the New York City Teacher Data Reports reflects a view very much at odds with the social science research community. In ruling that the Department of Education’s intent to release these reports, which purport to label elementary and middle school teachers as more or less effective based on their students’ performance on state tests of English Language Arts and mathematics, was neither arbitrary nor capricious, Kern held that there is no requirement that data be reliable for them to be disclosed. Rather, the standard she invoked was that the data simply need to be “factual,” quoting a Court of Appeals case that “factual data … simply means objective information, in contrast to opinions, ideas or advice.”

But it is entirely a matter of opinion as to whether the particular statistical analyses involved in the production of the Teacher Data Reports warrant the inference that teachers are more or less effective. All statistical models involve assumptions that lie outside of the data themselves. Whether these assumptions are appropriate is a matter of opinion. Among the key assumptions that are necessary to make inferences about teacher effectiveness from student performance on the state tests are the following:

• The tests are valid measures of students’ mastery of English Language Arts and mathematics.
• A student’s performance on the test, which is taken on a particular date, reflects how that student would perform on the test on other dates.
• The student, classroom and school-level variables taken into account in the value-added model underlying the Teacher Data Reports are appropriate for inferring that a particular teacher caused the test-score gains experienced by that teacher’s students.
• Test-score gains observed on tests administered in the middle of one year and the middle of the following year can be properly apportioned to the prior-year teacher and the current-year teacher.

The fact that reasonable people might disagree about these assumptions makes clear that they are a matter of opinion. (more…)

A week after Chancellor Cathie Black made headlines by joking that more birth control would solve the problem of overcrowded schools, the furor is beginning to dissipate. But one parent who attended the meeting where Black made the controversial remark said it was blown out of proportion from the beginning.

Shino Tanikawa, a member of the Community Education Council for District 2, which is home to many of the city’s overcrowded schools, told GothamSchools that she’s no fan of Black. She sued the state for giving Black a waiver to become chancellor. But the chancellor’s birth control and Sophie’s Choice comments didn’t bother her. What she found disturbing, she said, was Black’s “total lack of vision or priorities” for the school system.

Tanikawa’s full response:

I think the remarks are diverting our attention away from more important issues.  The birth control was clearly a joke — I perceived it as her sincere effort to break the ice even though I agree that it’s not exactly appropriate given the setting (a Task Force of an Assemblyman — Speaker to boot — with a group of highly involved and concerned parents).  I am also more forgiving regarding “Sophie’s Choice” — I thought it was her way of telling us how seriously she took her decision making responsibilities. (Disclaimer: I am one of the petitioners who sued the State Education Department over her waiver — I am no fan). (more…)

• The city is investigating grades at TAPCO, which posted the city’s highest progress report score. (Times)
• After criticizing the city pension system, Joel Klein will collect $34,000 annually in benefits. (Daily News)
• The city Department of Education wants $4.4 billion more for construction and technology. (Post)
• Cathie Black’s first Panel for Educational Policy meeting was a doozy. (GS, DN, NY1, WNYC)
• The panel approved a controversial plan to open a new Millennium High School in Park Slope. (Times)
• PS 114 in Brooklyn is paying now for years of mismanagement by its previous principal. (NY1)
• Some Brooklyn parents are looking forward to a Success Charter arrival but not its location. (Daily News)
• In his State of the City address, Mayor Bloomberg vowed to fight “last in, first out” rules. (GothamSchools)
• School crowding activists say Black’s birth control gaffe has been good for their cause. (Tribeca Trib)
• Fred Smith writes that even with toughened cut scores, state tests are still way too easy. (Post)
• The son of a Russian “grizzly father” says immigrants get that school isn’t meant to be fun. (Daily News)
• The AFT wants a 100-day window for teachers accused of misconduct to be disciplined. (Times)
• A transition team will run Newark’s schools in the absence of a superintendent. (Times)
• Paterson, N.J., is the latest city to try to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone’s approach. (WSJ)