GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Dear Educators 4 Excellence,

As a middle school assistant principal, I was excited to read about your panel last week on the topic of teacher evaluation. The panel seemed to be made up of interesting educators who might spark some ideas in my own practice. I spent some time reading through the policy paper that your group prepared. I found it thought provoking; there were some ideas that I agreed with and some I disagreed with. In my school, we often wrestle with how to effectively evaluate teachers. It seems that nearly everyone, the UFT included, has concluded that the evaluation system is currently in desperate need of reform. The difficulty now is coming up with an evaluation system that is both fair and effective.

I think that any group has the right to engage in free and open debate about the direction of teaching evaluations. So I decided I would attend your event and went onto your website to register. What I was confronted with struck me to the core as an educator in America: In order to attend, I had to check a little box saying that I read your platform and I agreed with the principles of your group. Must someone who is a member of your group agree with every element in your platform? While I agree in principle with many of your ideas, I do not agree with all of them. For instance, without a better evaluation system in place, I do not believe that we should end the “last in, first out” policy of laying off teachers based on seniority.

Asking members of the public to agree with a platform before they can engage in debate and listen to the ideas of your members is wrong. I am a middle school assistant principal with 20 years of experience in education, and I am going to be the one doing much of the evaluating. But in order to attend a discussion about evaluation, I would have to surrender my conscience. I stayed home.

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• The city wants a 7 percent more funding for central Department of Education offices. (Daily News)
• Because the city will take back half of principals’ saving, many principals are spending wildly now. (Post)
• The teacher evals standstill could mean that $20 million spent on failing schools was squandered. (Post)
• The city is still lagging in completing special ed evaluations whose delay could be costly. (Daily News)
• Michael Goodwin: More and more teachers are coming to me with tales of social promotion. (Post)
• The state said a teacher who says he was fired because of his disability might have a case. (Post)
• Coney Island parents are suing to stop the city from opening a charter school at IS 303. (Daily News)
• Los Angeles teachers voted to accept a temporary pay cut in order to avert layoffs. (L.A. Times)
• A Stuyvesant HS sophomore was killed when a car hit the bicycle she was riding, in Bensonhurst. (Post)
• Seniors at Francis Lewis HS are headed to college, work, the military, and great things. (Daily News)
• A janitor at Boys & Girls HS forced local soccer coaches to pay him for field time, investigators say. (Post)
• The UFT and NAACP want school closure and charter school plans stopped now. (GothamSchools)
• The NAACP is taking a somewhat more active role in local school policy fights than ever before. (NY1)
• State Sen. Eric Adams voted to increase charter schools but this year is suing to stop their growth. (Post)
• The Post says low attendance at the NAACP rally shows that its lawsuit involvement has little support.
• Stanley Crouch: The lawsuit shows the NAACP “has fallen” since its civil rights heyday. (Daily News)
• Montgomery County, Md., has innovative teacher discipline policy but no Race to the Top funds. (Times)
• John Merrow: Whether you love or hate Joel Klein, you have to marvel at his influence. (Daily News)
• Class tension is on full view as Indian private schools must fill 1 in 4 seats with poor students. (WSJ)
• By this fall, six city schools will have French dual-language programs, thanks to a nonprofit. (WSJ)
• The closing of Brother Rice HS underscores the rapid disappearance of Catholic schools. (Times)

• To boost quality, urban schools are focusing on “strategic hiring” of teachers. (Ed News Colorado)
• Jonathan Alter attacks Diane Ravitch, a critic of Mayor Bloomberg, on Bloomberg‘s news site.
• A collection of impassioned defenses of Ravitch from ed experts and city parents. (NYC P.S. Parents)
• City schools are so full of new technology you’d never know there was a budget crisis. (Brooklyn Rail)
• The UFT doesn’t seem always to advertise stories about persecuted chapter teachers. (Ed Notes)
• A guide to getting a great high school arts education completes a series that starts early. (Dewey 21C)
• Downtown parents are upset about the Department of Education’s school siting priorities. (DNAInfo)
• What a teacher never expected he’d feel about teaching. (The Reflective Educator)
• Retired tennis star Andre Agassi is going to help urban charter schools get buildings. (AP)
• Tension over testing between the state and local levels, as seen in NYC, was inevitable. (Teacher Beat)
• Teachers who collaborate well are being split apart next year, one of them reports. (Tween Teacher)
• Following up with the handball prodigy twins who were banned from school play this year. (Times)
• Eighth-graders at a city private school have designed the classroom of the future. (T Magazine)
• A teacher describes the experience of being bullied by her colleagues. (Connected Principals)
• To which a city teacher responds with encouraging words, and a call to action. (Mr. Foteah)
• Thank you for your thank you, Brent. We love linking to thoughtful pieces by city teachers. (Brent Nycz)

UFT President Michael Mulgrew speaks at an NAACP rally Friday morning. The organizations are the primary plaintiffs on a lawsuit against the Department of Education.

Seeking to force an immediately halt to the city’s plans to close 22 schools and co-locate another 19 charter schools, the teachers union and the NAACP filed a temporary restraining order against the Department of Education on Thursday.

A panel discussion that featured officials on each side of the teacher evaluation stand-off was halted abruptly last night after a disagreement escalated. The disruption did not stem from the teachers union and Department of Education official on the panel, but from a small group of audience members protesting the event itself.

“Okay, I’m going to cut it off,” said moderator Evan Stone, following a crescendo of interruptions that built up for nearly five minutes. Stone is a founder of Educators 4 Excellence, which hosted the event. “Clearly, we’ve broken a lot of norms of respectability.”

The interruptions came from at least three people in an audience of more than 100, most of them teachers. They began in response to Stone’s handling of the panel and then escalated into an airing of grievances that targeted Educators 4 Excellence and its teacher evaluation recommendations, released yesterday, which the protesters said did not reflect their views.

“I am a teacher and I have never been asked what I thought,” yelled out Stuart Kramer Kaplan, one of the protesters.

(Click here for video of the exchange.)
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• Mayor Bloomberg’s layoffs motivations aren’t clear, but he must have reasons beyond money. (Times)
• A judge said the city can bar religious groups from school buildings. (Times, Daily News, Post, WNYC)
• The city-union fight over teacher evaluations could jeopardize the city’s Race to the Top funding. (NY1)
• Some students assigned to high schools in the extra round aren’t happy with their matches. (Daily News)
• The local branch of the NAACP is rallying to support its involvement in the UFT lawsuit. (GothamSchools)
• The principal of a charter school whose opening is threatened criticizes the NAACP. (Post)
• The Washington Post calls the NAACP’s decision to enter the closure suit “almost incomprehensible.”
• A group of young teachers wants peer and student reviews in their evaluations. (GothamSchools, Post)
• The athletic director at Erasmus HS was arrested for attacking a safety agent there. (Post)
• Students and advocates protested funding cuts to a relationship abuse course taught in schools. (NY1)
• A Chicago mentoring program focuses on improving boys’ skills and self-confidence. (Times)
• Sociology professors say evidence shows students who are obese in school suffer for life. (Times)
• The federal government has much less funding for school district innovation grants this year. (AP)

• Joel Klein will host a Republican presidential debate on the future of education. (Politico, Ad Week)
• The NAACP’s national office is jumping into the fight led by charter school parents in Harlem. (Observer)
• Denver teachers’ evaluation report thinks about how to account for school environment. (Ariel Sacks)
• A teacher describes her students’ anguish at the elimination of the January Regents. (NYCPSP)
• “No year in recent memory” has been so good for voucher advocates, they say. (The Nation)
• A 1993 Casey Foundation report reminds of the wisdom of patience in change efforts. (Ferlazzo)
• A former DOE attorney responsible for teacher discipline defends seniority-based layoffs. (NYT)
• Scrutinizing the arguments defending charter schools’ enrollment differences. (School Finance)
• Are you also obsessed with the Gates Foundation’s new headquarters? A virtual tour! (TechFlash)
• A nomination for new voices to join Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier’s conversation. (Jay Mathews)
• A teacher’s happy realization that more than some of education is about students. (On the Plate)
• Mitt Romney hasn’t been recorded saying anything about NCLB in the last six months. (Campaign K12)

In advance of an event tonight about the future of teacher evaluations, an organization of young teachers has outlined how its members would ideally be measured.

The proposal from Educators 4 Excellence signals a departure for the group, which formed last year to lobby against seniority-based layoffs that would put many of its 2,500 members at risk of losing their jobs. E4E enters the teacher evaluation debate as the city and teachers union are locked in negotiations to hammer out evaluation rules. Their standoff could cost the city millions of dollars in funds for low-performing schools.

E4E’s proposal builds off the state’s new teacher evaluation law, which requires districts to evaluate teachers using 20 percent state test scores, 20 percent local assessment results, and 60 percent subjective measures such as observations and surveys. The proposal recommends that administrators, colleagues, and “outside master observers” all assess teachers, using formal rubrics that E4E sketches out, and that results of student surveys and “support of the school community” be factored in to teacher evaluations. (more…)

Curtain call at the final dress rehearsal

What follows is the saga’s final chapter: a steady crescendo of logistical challenges, costume malfunctions, police confrontations, cast-member meltdowns, parental confrontations, laryngitis attacks, and other behind-the-scenes drama — all leading up to a show that, while it may not win us any Tony Awards, nonetheless confirmed my belief in the transformational power of making art with young people, obstacles be damned.

28 days until opening night

We’re missing 30 percent of the cast yet again today (SAT prep, Regents prep, storytelling workshop, talent show rehearsal, baseball practice, didn’t-read-rehearsal-schedule, dentist appointment, forgot, mom-won’t-let-her-come-because-she’s-on-punishment, remembered-but-skipped-anyway, on-probation-for-skipping-yesterday, on-probation-for-grades, on-probation-for-being-disrespectful-about-being-on-probation). The only upside is that dedicated fifth-graders like set crew member Aminata get to step in as understudies and show off their acting chops.

25 days until opening night

Can’t use the stage again this afternoon because we got bumped by the talent show folks. After half an hour of looking for a space during which a substantial portion of the already-diminished cast scatters and has to be rounded up by a crew of high school helpers, we cram into a vacant vestibule with a boom box. By the time we buckle down to work with 15 minutes left to rehearse, I’m wiped out. Granted, no one put a gun to my head and demanded I direct a full-length Broadway show with a huge cast in a space-challenged school while six months pregnant. That one’s on me. (more…)

Pushing back against criticism of its involvement in a lawsuit that could negatively affect charter schools, the NAACP has announced plans to stage a rally of its own tomorrow.

The historic civil rights group and its supporters plan to rally tomorrow morning outside the offices of the Success Charter Network. The charter school chain’s CEO, Eva Moskowitz, was a leader in galvanizing parents to protest the NAACP’s involvement in the lawsuit.

The NAACP’s rally, which will feature elected officials named as plaintiffs in the suit, is the latest episode in a dust-up that makes race a central issue in the ongoing battle over charter school co-locations.

Since the NAACP signed on last month to a union-initiated lawsuit to stop 22 school closures and prevent 17 charter schools from opening, moving, or expanding, charter school parents and advocates have been battering the group. Black parents whose children attend charter schools are questioning why the NAACP, which has long fought for education equity for black students, would stand in the way of their interests. They held a 2,500-person strong rally against the NAACP in Harlem last week and yesterday appeared at the Midtown office of the group’s New York leader, Hazel Dukes.

Last week, Dukes told me she joined the lawsuit for the same reason that the NAACP brought the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, which ended “separate but equal” schooling based on race. “Co-location is not the answer,” Dukes said. “We are setting up separate and unequal education.”

“Because of the NAACP’s stand for all children, they are being criticized by those who seek to only divide our community, pitting parent against parent, and distorting the facts about the lawsuit against the NYC DOE,” states a press release about the event tomorrow.

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