At In-Tech Academy, new technologies are changing how teachers and students work. (Riverdale Press)
Two math experts argue that the typical math course sequence in high schools is limiting. (Times)
Discrepancies between two laws allowed the DOE not to test PS 51 for toxins earlier. (Riverdale Press)
All but two D.C. schools are set to reopen today after checks for earthquake damage. (Washington Post)
ms. v.
Has anyone ever seen one of the test monitors that Walcott references? When I worked in a big school ten years ago, we heard about state/city monitors all the time, but I never saw one, and I haven’t since.
I noticed that…
My understanding of these monitors are people who still work for the DoE or they’re retired. So much for conflict of interest or the fox taking care of the hen house.
I noticed that…
Commissioner John King states that he would not allow a teacher to receive a positive rating when his/her student scored a zero on an exam. King, how many years did you teach in an inner city school? Teachers who have taught for many years do not want their students to score poorly on state exams nor do they want their students to do poorly in school. However, I cannot control poverty, or a student on drugs, or parents on drugs or in and out of jail, or a student on her 4th abortion and missed school again, or a student just released from prison for the 2nd or 3rd time. Teachers love to teach. They want the best for their students. The evaluation that the state wants to use is a biased, unfair, and punitive in its method of assessing teaching. How can this evaluation be fair when students in specialized high schools pass every state examine and students in other high school brings so many challenges, especially since they are 2 to 3 levels behind their peers and come to school with so many emotional, personal issues.
As long as students or parents are not being held accountable for their action, then the SED will continue to see zero scores. Teachers should receive a positive rating for trying to do their best in situations that King or Tisch would not want to be in because they would be evaluated unevenly. I suggest that King and Tisch step in a classroom, pick up a piece of chalk, and teach to those students who come to school, but are more focused on their survival of the hood and on education.
I noticed that…
correction: but are more focused on their survival of the hood and not on education.
Tim
Who do you want to monitor the state tests, the National Guard? Someone from the UN? Amnesty International?
I continue to be discouraged and depressed by some of the responses to the issue of cheating on state tests. If we can’t make a good-faith assumption that 98 or 99% of teachers, admins, central office folks, etc. are trustworthy and making the best interests of children their top priority, I’m not sure where you go from there.
Drockeducation
Perfectly stated!
enpassant
The Chancellor is concentrating too much on organized cheating on a school wide basis. I have never heard of teacher having prior knowledge of exams or organizing conspiratorial cheating parties. However, if the Chancellor believes that cheating is not pervasive, particularly on the elem level,,,he is wrong. When I was a teacher in middle school, students from one particuar elem school would ask me if I was going to “check” their answers! This same elem school produces all level 3 and 4′s from their learning disabled population. If a student is LD and is scoring a double 4, that just screams something is
terribly wrong. The problem comes when such pressure is put on teachers to achieve scores, the door to their classroom closes on testing day and human nature takes over.
Philip Nobile
Whom is Walcott kidding? Every principal and teacher knows that the DOE has encouraged, covered up, and refused to punish Regents tampering forever. Responding to a 2005 New York Post exposé, Klein vowed to stop Regents cheating. Yet he did the opposite. A perfect example: in 2007, Klein endorsed an incontestably corrupt SCI investigation that dismissed allegations of Regents tampering and cover-up at the Cobble Hill School of American Studies in Brooklyn despite (a) five incriminating eyewitness teacher statements, including three detailed, mutually confirming confessions; (b) a 97-7 “65 bulge” on Social Studies exams that SED concluded “goes beyond any dispersion, magnitude or directionality that is likely to be attributable to chance;” and (c) the admitted failure of Principal Lennel George and LIS Kathy Pelles to report the allegations in violation of city law and SCI’s own reporting obligations.
Although Walcott’s credibility on cheating is already shot, here are three coup de grace questions he will never answer:
1 Did the DOE control for Regents tampering before claiming an “historic” four-year 2010 graduation rate of 65%? If not, why not?
2 This week the Special Commissioner of Investigation revealed the existence of approximately 1,252 cheating complaints between 2002 and 2010. SCI probed merely 62. The rest were referred to the Chancellor’s Office of Special Investigations. What are the results of these referrals?
3 You told the New York Times (Aug. 23): “I have not seen one iota of fact about systemwide cheating in New York City—this is not Atlanta.” But why should anyone believe you? How do you know NYC is not Atlanta if you don’t look, deeply and transparently? Granted the drip, drip, drip of evidence of cheating—the “65 bulge,” the 5 to 10% tampering estimate on 2009 Regents by Columbia University professor Jonah Rockoff, SCI’s 1,252 complaints, and serial anecdotes on the ed blogs—would you support an independent investigation like Atlanta’s. If not, why not?
Fsmedu
When Bloomberg and Klein repeatedly vilified teachers in the ATR pool in the media despite the active safeguards of zero tolerance against incompetence built into the New York City School System for decades, Chancellor Walcott as deputy-mayor didn’t say that “Baseless smears cheat our students” and irresponsible? Why?
I noticed that…
Here’s my question to Walcott: Does cheating have to be system-wide first before those few schools are finally caught in the act? Or is the chancellor stating that cheating for a few are allowed but once it goes system-wide then it must stop. Cheating and not having a school closed or principal losing his/her job go hand in hand.
People will take unethical steps if their livelihood heavily depends on it.
My understanding is the fact that ALL chancellors under Bloomberg’s regime must control the situation until the mayor’s image on a lofty pedestal can no longer stand on it.
Fsmedu
Correction
When Bloomberg and Klein repeatedly vilified teachers in the ATR pool in the media despite the active safeguards of zero tolerance against incompetence built into the New York City School System for decades, Chancellor Walcott as deputy-mayor didn’t say that “Baseless smears cheat our students” and irresponsible.Why?
Wondering….
In the Daily News op-ed about what Chancellor Walcott says about cheating, is buried a statistic (6th paragraph from the end):
“In a system with 1.1 million students, 75,000 teachers and 1,700 principals….”
Does this mean that the NYC DOE has a systemwide ratio of 635 students per principal, 70 students per teacher, and 44.1 teachers per principal.
This does not ring true to me. Any other opinions about these numbers?
Unfairly blaming the teachers
The article about the cheating conveniently does not address other kinds of cheating which are prevalent in the NYC schools (and this is only a partial list!):
–High School Regents results (as Philip Nobile already mentioned)
–Wildly-Inflated Attendance figures, especially at the high school level
–Use of “Credit Recovery” scam programs
–Questionable allocation of school funds* by “school leaders”
–Use of the teacher evaluation process as an instrument of teacher harassment (constructive dismissal) instead of as a tool for professional development
All of these kinds of cheating are rampant in the system here in the five boroughs. And they surely do cheat our students, as well as our taxpayers. Mr. Wolcott, this isn’t just “baseless smears” or “a few bad apples”.
——————————————————————————-
*For example, the principal taking a group of students on a midwinter-break field trip to Europe, while claiming to have no money to install the already approved and purchased exhaust hood in the science lab. This “leader” also somehow had plenty of funds to purchase and install a state of the art kiln in the art department, even though firing of pottery is something that can be outsourced, unlike science lab activities. But don’t get me started….
A better way
Walcott has never spent time in a low performing high school grading open ended questions for the Regents exam. If he did he would realize the desperate measures that teachers and administrators go through to push their low level students over the passing line. I sent an email to Walcott about this particular issue in a school I was teaching in and did not receive any response other than one that it will be forwarded to the proper channel.
It’s too hard to admit that the school system is failing so many students. It’s much easier to hold the carrot up to administrators and turn a blind eye as to how the miracles occur in school systems where small schools start up and suddenly turn around a poor performing population.
There is no miracle to education. It’s hard work, focus and social services for students and their families to help them cope with the stresses of living with no money or time for their kids in this big city. The city does not have any solution at this point so they will continue to pat themselves on their backs.
Philip Nobile
Thanks to Unfairly Blaming Teachers for expanding the discussion of cheating to malfeasance of other kinds like credit recovery.
As the Mayor’s and Chancellor’s denials mount, teachers need to come forward with their tampering tales, to blow the system’s dirty little secret once and for all. While scrubbing Regents preceded Klein, it will not end until SED removes the growing temptation. By hinging job survival on tests that teachers happily grade themselves, the DOE begs for inflation. I heard a Brooklyn high school chapter leader boast at a meeting this year that he would not hesitate to pass a failed Regents exam, if supporting his family depended on it.
Our collective voices, one iota at a time, may be the only means to lift the curtain of the culture of cheating in our schools. What if GS set up a page for named or anonymous cheating anecdotes? That would advance the story and challenge Walcott to open his eyes and smell the corruption.
I noticed that…
If all the teachers and principals worked in one building, then I can understand the ratio. But, the reality is that there schools with 15 teachers per principal and there are schools (large comprehensive high schools) with 200 teachers per principal. Using the mean/average will not explain the cheating that’s occurring at several schools.
On the verge of poverty.
i am a per diem sub. am i still going to have a job? if not, will i then be able to file for unemployment? i am 27, career change, looking to go to grad school for education, and hoping to eek out a living as a sub in the meantime. am i out of luck? a $24 billion dollar department and they have to cut my $154.97 a day?also, under the new agreement, wouldn’t ATRs be doing the same exact job that i do at $154.97 a day for $65,000+, plus benefits? get these ATRs out of the system. either fire time or hire them to a full time slot.
Guest
The cheating in Washington and Atlanta was discovered with erasure analysis. Its pretty funny for Walcott to claim that we have higher standards than those states while simultaneously claiming that erasure analysis is a waste of money.
NYC
As a parent I am shocked and saddened by the comments. I have two amazing daughters(age 14 and 22) who have been raised in NYC their whole lives and I feel it is important for them to understand these two worlds “the system” and “the educators”. I agree that the NYC educational system needs to desperately change, but I also think that there are some extremely dedicated educators in that system. There is not an overnight solution to what needs to be done, although I do feel that everyone’s voice is needed and standing together for what one believes in and for what is right is equally as important. I am sure that many people are not realizing that these “students” who seem to be the ones paying the biggest price for our decisions, will be the same ones who one day will make the important decisions for us.
Absent
Do we really think allegations have not surfaced before…. Not the first sadly not the last…
Regents scandals, test tampering—
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