GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• From Randi to Arne, a best-of list of quotations from the battle over teachers unions. (New Yorker)
• A young teacher describes her hopes and then disappointment with the PEP. (GS Community)
• Since the city offered pension boosts to get its failed merit pay trial, costs are ongoing. (Quick and the Ed)
• Tom Vander Ark: A national curriculum reflects old ideas about what classrooms look like. (EdReformer)
• But rejecting a national curriculum could mean embracing illiteracy. (Robert Pondiscio)
• On the benefits of making teachers easier to fire. (Megan McCardle)
• GothamSchools might be the only news outlet not to publish value-added scores when they come. (CJR)
• Not many schools have applied for President Obama’s “Commencement Challenge.” (EdWeek)
• Chicago Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s education transition team has some familiar names. (The 312)
• “Collective impact” can change schools if the effort is more substantial than a partnership. (Opinionator)
• A brother’s experience with zero tolerance informs one teacher’s thoughts on punishment. (Mrs. Ripp)
• Philadelphia wants to fire a teacher who let students out of class to protest against the district. (Notebook)

Albany lawmakers voted in three new members of the Board of Regents today and re-elected two others amid complaints from some legislators who called for more local power over state education policy.

In a joint session of the State Senate and Assembly, legislators voted to approve three new Regents: Kathleen Cashin, James Cottrell, and James Jackson. Cashin, whose nomination to the Brooklyn seat I wrote about last week, is a prominent former Department of Education official and a quiet critic of some of Mayor Bloomberg’s education policies. Cottrell, an at-large member of the Regents, is an anesthesiologist and a professor at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. Jackson, who will represent Albany and other towns in the third judicial district, is a former high school principal.

The legislature also voted to re-elected Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Regent Anthony Bottar, both of whom have been on the board since 1996.

Most lawmakers signed off on the new and returning Regents members, but some criticized the selection process through which a committee of legislators vet applicants before the entire body votes. (more…)

The city teachers union and Joel Klein’s education advocacy organization are engaging this week in a televised game of one-upmanship over layoffs, and the advocates seems determined to win the war for airtime.

Both the union and the advocacy group, Education Reform Now, debuted television advertisements this morning, and ERN just announced that it will begin airing a second commercial this week as well.

The union’s ad targets Mayor Michael Bloomberg, arguing that the mayor is pushing for layoffs while ignoring both parent wishes and the city’s financial realities.

“I don’t know what Mayor Bloomberg’s agenda is, but he should stop playing politics with our kids,” a Harlem parent, Candace Frazer, says in the ad.

The spot also argues that teacher layoffs are unnecessary because the city is carrying over a $3 billion surplus from last year. City officials dispute that figure, claiming that the rollover is not enough to cover the deficit caused by state budget cuts.

(more…)

The Department of Education’s decision to go through with its bid to take back some of the funds that principals save represents a “fundamental policy shift” in its philosophy of school management.

That’s the argument made by a principal who emailed us yesterday after the city announced it would cull just 30 percent of funds that principals set aside for next year, instead of half, as originally planned. Principals are still under the incentive to spend their entire budgets now, and that’s at odds with messages they’ve gotten in the past, the principal said.

Here’s the complete email from the principal, who also weighed in last week to lament losing his cushion for next year:

That the terms of the Deferred Program Planning Initiative were modified is a clear response to widespread frustration among principals, parents and elected officials. It also seems to reflect the Mayor’s reticence to support a policy which penalizes the city’s most fiscally responsible schools. The basic fact, however, remains. Schools which have been strategic in building reserves to offset future budget cuts will either hastily spend these on equipment and supplies or see their budgets cut more than schools which saved nothing. This is a fundamental policy shift with a clear message for principals: spend every last dollar each year regardless of immediate need or future budget projections.

Putting any significant surcharge on roll over funds removes the incentive to save and encourages irresponsible spending. Given the enormous long term costs of such behavior, I sincerely hope Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Black will reconsider.

I remember the feeling of anticipation that accompanied the subway ride to my first Panel for Educational Policy meeting Jan. 19. The panel meetings are places for public comment on the Department of Education’s proposals for significant change in school utilization, and they conclude with a vote on the proposals. I was in the heat of my first very active “school closing season” (as a member of the Grassroots Education Movement calls it) and I was feeling invigorated. GEM had been planning for the meetings, and we had a theme for the evening, fliers for the rally to stop school closings we were planning, and a plan of action for when we got to the microphone.

I knew what people said about the panel, that it is just a rubber stamp for the mayor’s policies and that its members wouldn’t vote against a proposal to close a school or colocate a charter school no matter the arguments or evidence presented. Nonetheless, I felt hopeful and optimistic that panel members would truly listen and might be convinced to seriously reconsider the options placed before them.

The major reason for this optimism was that I had attended a hearing a few days before at John Jay High School campus about the proposed co-location of Millennium II High School, which the PEP would be voting on that night. The hearing had been incredible; it was a Regents exam day so most students did not have to attend school, yet they came out in great numbers to protest the colocation, arguing that it would create separate and unequal conditions for students in their building, which already housed four schools. Park Slope parents had been asking politicians for “more options” for their neighborhood, and Millennium II is what the DOE offered. But the original Millennium High School, in Lower Manhattan, has a much whiter student body than the current John Jay student body and Millennium II would receive more per-pupil funding for various reasons, the students argued. At the hearing, principals and students spoke passionately about the impact of housing a “have school” with four “have not” schools. They told of repeated, longstanding requests for support from the DOE to make the schools more attractive to all parents and students by making capital improvements to the school building, providing funding for advanced courses, allowing the building to change its name, and removing the metal detectors —  requests that they said the DOE repeatedly ignored.

Students, teachers, and administrators whom I had seen speak at John Jay were already at the mic when I arrived at the PEP meeting. (more…)

Is teacher turnover the greatest challenge facing schools? Some don’t think so, but in the Community section today, Stephen Lazar kicks off a three-part series explaining why turnover is his school’s biggest problem.

Lazar says his school, Bronx Lab, works hard to develop new teachers, so when they leave, the school loses its investment and must start afresh. The phenomenon is not unique to Bronx Lab, but it is severe there, he writes:

When I interact with teachers at conferences and online, they’re shocked to hear my school has such high turnover. They’re shocked because we have such a good reputation, or we’ve had such strong results, or the economy is so bad. And I’m shocked they’re shocked. We all know 50 percent of teachers leave teaching within five years. Why would anyone be surprised that this hits the Bronx and other students in most need the most?

There are 40 adults who work at my school as teachers, administrators, or in guidance roles. This is only my school’s seventh year, and already, 76 different people have filled those positions.

Lazar’s data doesn’t point to a single reason that his colleagues have left. In the next post in the series, he’ll unpack some of the causes for departure.

At the Education Nation panel I attended last fall, AFT President Randi Weingarten begged the moderator, reporter Steven Brill, to ask me and the other teachers about the biggest problem we faced in our schools. Here is the answer no one else bothered to ask me to share:

The biggest problem my school faces in our efforts to reform education is not the students nor their poverty; it is not the union contract, the union, or the administration; it is not too much testing or too little accountability. No, the biggest problem in my school is the turnover of our pedagogical staff. If I could ask the education genie for one wish, it would be a group of teachers who would stay and serve our students for a career.

When I interact with teachers at conferences and online, they’re shocked to hear my school has such high turnover. They’re shocked because we have such a good reputation, or we’ve had such strong results, or the economy is so bad. And I’m shocked they’re shocked. We all know 50 percent of teachers leave teaching within five years. Why would anyone be surprised that this hits the Bronx and other students in most need the most?

There are 40 adults who work at my school as teachers, administrators, or in guidance roles. This is only my school’s seventh year, and already, 76 different people have filled those positions. Our current staff shares an average of 3.15 years at my school. The average number of years all teachers have spent at the school is a measly 2.84. The data by department follows at the end of this post.*

Why do people leave? Of the 36 people who have left my school: (more…)

• Hundreds of schools have new science labs but can’t afford the staff or resources to use them. (NY1)
• The city is considering a plan to replace the principal and half the staff at two Bronx schools. (Times)
• The Board of Regents is weighing an expensive plan to add four weeks to the school year. (Post)
• The city is turning Khalil Gibran Academy, the Arab-language middle school, into a high school. (NY1)
• A new study found no effect from the city’s merit pay experiment. (GothamSchools, Post, NY1)
• The DOE reduced its planned recoup from schools that save. (GS, Post, NY1, Times, Daily News)
• Both Education Reform Now and the UFT released new ads in the “last in, first out” layoffs fight. (Post)
• A film about water by students at Brooklyn’s PS 8 is a finalist in a conservation contest. (Daily News)
• The union says the teacher-eval sticking point is whether poor review in a teacher’s first year counts. (GS)
• Bronx high school students are competing in an international robotics tournament. (Daily News)
• PS 32′s autism program will suffer if a charter school moves in, its backers say. (Brooklyn Paper)
• The Daily News says the proposal for a national curriculum can only be good for American students.
• Costs threaten Arizona’s solid efforts to monitor its charter schools, a report finds. (Arizona Republic)
• D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray says he’s fine considering only one person for schools chief. (Washington Post)

• State Assembly Democrats are petitioning Gov. Cuomo to undo his school budget cuts. (City Room)
• A family in a high-pressure Maryland community didn’t pressure their kids at all. (Jay Mathews)
• Education experts, including a city teacher, weigh in on the question, “Why blame the teachers?” (Times)
• The idea that poor schools always have the most junior teachers isn’t borne out in NYC. (Edwize)
• Public Advocate De Blasio thinks Mayor Bloomberg’s layoff threats are empty. (State of Politics)
• New tenure and evaluation rules could turn people away from becoming teachers. (Ed in the Apple)
• The track team Collin started at his school foundered because it couldn’t compete. (GS Community)
• Fred Siegel and Sol Stern: Bloomberg’s school bubble has burst. (Post)
• The two transfer schools the city wants to close have high teacher salaries; is this a pattern? (Ed Notes)
• A national curriculum doesn’t mean every student will do the same thing every day. (Curriculum Matters)
• Mike Petrilli says he was wrong to blame teachers unions on a decline in arts participation. (Flypaper)

Teachers union officials fought back today against the city’s claim that they’re delaying negotiations over a new teacher evaluation system.

Responding to a story in the New York Post about the stalled talks over a pilot teacher evaluation program in 11 schools, union officials said negotiations were progressing smoothly until city school officials decided to turn one aspect of the evaluation system into a sticking point.

According to United Federation of Teachers Secretary Michael Mendel, when talks began last summer, he told city officials that the union would not agree to let teachers’ first evaluation under the new system affect their job security. But after the first year, if a teacher received two “ineffective” ratings in a row, the termination process would begin.

“I said we can’t attach any high stakes to the ratings in the first year because it’s a pilot, it’s a brand new thing,” Mendel said. “They [city officials] never said a word. We went along and negotiated under the assumption that they didn’t disagree,” he said. (more…)