GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

This week, state officials released some grim statistics: according to measures derived from a study conducted by a state committee last summer, just 23 percent of city high school graduates are well-prepared for college.

But the college-readiness recommendations the City University of New York gives for its incoming students require even more achievement than the measures used by the state this week.  And the city is preparing to judge high schools on how well they prepare students for college on a range of standards that city officials claim are more robust.

For their data release this week, state officials examined students who earned at least a 75 on their English Regents exams and an 80 on their math A exams. Those cut-offs were based on an analysis of state test scores performed by Harvard University testing expert Daniel Koretz and assistant professor Jennifer Jennings last summer. That analysis predicted that students receiving those Regents exam scores would likely receive a C or higher in the college-level course.

CUNY officials also recommend that students enter their classes having received at least a 75 on the English exam and an 80 on the Math A test. But in addition, they suggest that students also have scored at least a 65 on the Math B, the next test in the math sequence. (more…)

Today’s the day that guidance counselors distribute envelopes to eighth graders with news of whether and which of the city’s top-tier high schools opened the door for them. But for minority students, the news continues to be grim.

Combined, white and Asian students account for 70 percent of the students admitted to elite schools like Stuyvesant, the Bronx High School of Science, and Brooklyn Technical High School. Hispanic students make up 6 percent of those admitted and black students 5 percent. The remainder, 18 percent, come from private or parochial schools and racial data for them was not available.

Despite repeated statements of concern from city officials about the tiny number of minority students earning entry to top high schools, the numbers have only declined in the last three years. In 2009, 744 black and Hispanic students earned seats at specialized high schools. This year, 642 made it in.

Meanwhile, the number of minority students sitting for the exams has increased. Black and Hispanic students now make up a greater percentage of test takers than they did in 2009. (more…)

Last week my assistant principal drew my attention to a table of my grade’s recent practice English language arts scores compared with our fall simulation. Specifically she pointed out that my class was the only one which failed to show progress. Ouch.

Over the weekend I sent her an e-mail which essentially thanked her for her support, apologized for missing the mark, and outlined my plan to get my students moving. This of course violated two cardinal rules of public school politics: 1) Don’t admit fault and as a corollary 2) Don’t expect a pat on the back for doing so.

Two days later, I met with my AP to discuss why things aren’t working in my classroom. For some reason I expected a little positive reinforcement, then a discussion of next steps. Instead, after 40 minutes of grilling on differentiation, lesson planning, and guided reading I felt exhausted, frustrated, and humiliated.

Why was I expecting anything different? It occurs to me I’m trying to have it both ways. (more…)

As Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Cathie Black are pushing to be able to lay off senior teachers on “merit” grounds, my experience at the Bronx High School of Science raises questions about how teachers’ ratings are handed out.

The national education debate has centered on how to increase “teacher quality.” New York City Chancellor Cathie Black, for example, has called for first laying off teachers who were given “unsatisfactory” (U) ratings (along with those in the Absent Teacher Reserve pool). But there are more than a few cases in New York City that make clear that U-ratings are not always an indication of teacher quality, but sometimes are a result of retaliation against whistle-blowers and union activists.

The recent disciplining of Fordham School of the Arts principal Iris Blige for ordering her assistant principals to U-rate teachers whom she had never seen teach reveals a few important things about the DOE’s process of determining merit. First, U ratings can be arbitrarily ordered by a principal. Second, the penalty from the DOE for doing so is a slap on the wrist — a $7,500 fine for Blige, the same amount charged to teachers who used sick days when they were actually on vacation.

I was unfortunate enough to have witnessed this process firsthand at the Bronx High School of Science. In the fall of 2007, the math department welcomed a new assistant principal, Rosemarie Jahoda. Soon, however, we found that the newer teachers in the department were being subjected to a level of scrutiny and paperwork that was excessive. As soon as I spoke up about the issue, which was my responsibility as a member of a UFT consultation committee that met with the principal, I immediately began receiving unjustified disciplinary letters.  These were quickly followed by groundless unsatisfactory lesson observation reports. I had had a spotless teaching record for my entire previous career, including at Bronx Science.

I was not alone. (more…)

• UFT chief Michael Mulgrew says the city’s layoff threat is overblown and agenda-driven. (Brooklyn Paper)
• A Brooklyn high school teacher explains her opposition to seniority layoff protections. (Brooklyn Paper)
• Education Reform Now is running an ad opposing “last in, first out” policies. (GS,Post)
• Erasmus’s basketball coach is retiring with a winning record of college attendance. (Daily News)
• The city is using celebrities to try to woo truant students. (GothamSchools, Post, NY1)
• The city hasn’t yet met the legal requirement for all charter schools to have parent groups. (GS)
• The parents who are challenging Cathie Black’s waiver officially filed their appeal. (Daily News)
• SUNY and CUNY are asking the state to let them mitigate budget cuts with private money. (NY1)
• The city is cutting more day care programs, with no end to the cuts in sight. (WSJ)

• NYC is using celebrities’ voices to get kids out of bed and into schools. (GS, NYT)
• New to the community section, the director of a college prep program writes about the SATs. (GS)
• For two years, a teacher tried to get his students to school on time with mixed results. (GS)
• A new education news criticism site may not offer the most practical feedback. (Educated Reporter)
• Math for America, a program to develop math-savvy teachers, is adding science. (EdWeek)
• A self-described “science fair geek” says we should do more to help schools hold them. (Eduflack)
• Rick Hess punches some holes in the new reports on Michelle Rhee’s scores. (EdWeek)
• Andy Rotherham examines commonly held views about Teach for America. (Time)
• A former TFA teacher explains why the program left him unprepared for the classroom. (EdWeek)
• A Pennsylvania teacher was suspended for trash-talking her students on her blog. (Courier Times)

Nearly nine months after Albany passed legislation requiring all charter schools in New York City to form parent groups, the city does not yet know exactly how many city charters are in compliance with the law.

Speaking to a meeting of the New York Charter Parents Association on January 20, the director of the Department of Education’s charter school office, Recy Dunn, told parents that the city was just beginning to monitor schools’ compliance.

“I don’t have the answer on how many charters currently have PTAs,” Dunn said. “Would I like to find out? Absolutely.”

In September, the DOE directed all city charter schools to launch parent groups by October to comply with the law, and report back to the city with their progress by that time. City officials said today that many of the schools did not respond to that directive and that they had not since followed up with many of the schools.

Officials said that going forward they would check if schools have parent groups when they make their annual site visits to each school they authorized. They’re also including the question on a survey that it sends to each school in the city.

“We’ve informed charters of the legal requirement and asked them to confirm that they have a parents association,” said DOE spokesman Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld. “We’re now in the process of following up with them, and expect that they’ll all make the necessary arrangements.” (more…)

Last year, the city launched a campaign to reduce absenteeism with a letter home. Today, it’s following up with a phone call.

Students from 25 schools who have missed 10 or more days this year will soon start receiving early-morning wake-up calls from celebrities such as Magic Johnson and the rapper Big Boi, the city announced today. The calls, which city officials say will eventually be made to frequently absent students in all schools, mark the second phase in the city’s push to boost attendance.

The first phase, which launched in August, marshaled resources from across city agencies to target the most frequently truant students at the 25 schools. Extreme absenteeism is down at those schools, the city said today.

The attendance initiatives follow a 2009 report by Center for New York City researchers that revealed that the city’s 91 percent average attendance rate masks chronic absenteeism among a fifth of students.

The pitfalls of tardiness are explored in two pieces in the GothamSchools Community section today, coincidentally enough. Collin Lawrence, a former teacher who has been recounting his four years working at a small high school in Brooklyn, writes that no one seemed to care that few students got to school when it started.

And launching a new column, Bronx high school college counselor Brendan Lowe describes waking up at 5:30 a.m. last month to call students scheduled to take the SAT.

Lowe writes:

Crazy? Perhaps. Did we help our students? In a short-term sense, absolutely. Last year, 40 of 59 students (67 percent) failed to show up for their first sitting of the SAT, thereby wasting one of two possible fee waivers. This year, 57 of 60 students — 95 percent — actually took the test.

The city’s complete press release is below: (more…)

Education Reform Now — the advocacy organization now chaired by former Chancellor Joel Klein — unveiled a TV spot today that shows relatively senior teachers arguing against seniority.

The ad’s debut corresponds with Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s escalating campaign against the “last-in, first-out” law that requires the city to lay off teachers according to their seniority. It shows three city teachers with between four and 21 years of experience in the New York City schools saying that if the city has to lay off teachers, it should do so based on merit. The ad doesn’t say how the city should define merit, or what constitutes a great teacher, questions that the city will have to confront if the law does change. It also doesn’t name the city’s teachers union, like its previous more aggressive ads. (more…)

Collin Lawrence is a former New York City teacher who is recounting his four years working at a Brooklyn high school. Read Collin’s previous posts.

My morning routine never wavered during the years that I taught at the Brooklyn Arts Academy. I woke at 6:30 a.m. and was out the door at 6:45. I walked briskly to the 110th street 1 station, took the downtown local two stops, transferred to the 2/3 express to Broadway/Nassau, and then switched to the A/C into Brooklyn. This put me at school around 7:40 a.m. with time enough to make copies, prepare my white board, and hopefully have a few precious minutes for breakfast and the newspaper before it was go-time.

Despite having one of the longest commutes, I was invariably one of the first people in the building, often arriving to empty hallways and a dark, locked main office. Most teachers and staff arrived around 8 a.m., with a few notoriously late exceptions. Students were not allowed in the building until 8, but few came this early anyway. Early birds mainly consisted of students who came for free breakfast, who wanted to escape from home, and/or scholarly types, who came to study in the peace and quiet of a sparsely populated cafeteria.

First period attendance was an intractable issue. There were days during my second year when I would start my 8:30 a.m. class with as few as four students present. Most of the other students would trickle in throughout the period. A few never made it at all. Even after shifting the start time to 9 a.m. in subsequent years, a clear majority of our students were tardy for their first class.

Our school had no official lateness policy. Staff called the homes of consistently late students, and the grades of those students suffered, but there was no rule about only being allowed to come late X number of times. A student could come late every day and still pass the class. Some of mine did. (more…)