GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Teacher preparation programs long ago abandoned (if they ever embraced) theory-centric instruction in favor of research-based clinical methods. Further, they have championed a middle way independent of the changeable pedagogical and curriculum priorities promoted by individual districts and funders. While popular practices are often addressed, either unilaterally or in partnership with outside entities, education schools’ academic independence protects them from being swamped by political and financial forces driving others.

Now comes a pronouncement from the New York State Board of Regents and the State Education Department commissioner that higher education will no longer be the sole route to teacher and leadership certification. The Regents, who appoint the commissioner, are themselves appointed by our state legislature, that dysfunctional body more famous for patronage than policy competence.

Not surprisingly, then, the Regents have rejected the fundamental role of independent inquiry in professional preparation in favor of faster, cheaper methods based on proprietary ownership. Whether these programs are run by non-profit, for-profit, or school district organizations, their aim will be to brand grads with a particular skill set, antithetical to preparing able, agile, open-minded professionals for long-term teaching effectiveness. (more…)

We should rejoice when the judiciary checks illegal use of political authority. That’s what happened in Mulgrew v. Board of Education, which curtailed plans by the New York City Department of Education to close 19 schools it had identified as failing. The court ruled that the city violated notice and hearing requirements and that the DOE failed to “provide any meaningful information regarding the impacts on the students or the ability of the schools in the affected community to accommodate those students” as required by state law.

But the decision should also be greeted with sadness. That the city should so brazenly violate the letter of the law is contemptible. That the identified schools, hobbled by instructional incompetence or supervisory negligence, will continue to maltreat students is equally appalling.

Mulgrew will be difficult to overturn on appeal. The decision is squarely based on facts admitted by both parties and established law about Environmental Impact Statements, the direct legal precursor to the new requirement for Educational Impact Statements issued by the DOE to justify school closings. Again and again, the court castigates the DOE for its actions, finding “significant violations of the Education Law.” (more…)

The big questions about charter schools are not the real issue in current fights over co-location with traditional public schools. Charter schools with their own buildings are being left alone. Like most wars, the dispute is about territory, not policy. This is not about long-simmering disagreements about charters’ instructional strengths, whether they cream more able students, lack of services for English language learners and students with special needs, segregative effects, and other important if wonky questions. This is about real estate.

In its zeal to support charters and other small-school alternatives, the Bloomberg administration has opened the doors of neighborhood schools to entities without community roots, an imposition understandably resented by many already housed there. Though Department of Education capacity estimates tend to be wildly inflated and the space needs of current schools undervalued, there might very well be room for two or more coexisting programs in some buildings. But the mayor’s and chancellor’s heavy-handed actions, treating current occupants like squatters and shunting them aside in favor of preferred institutions, create unnecessary antagonism between students, parents, and administrators.

This resonates with the old New York story of class warfare engendered by developers and landlords clearing out tenants. In schools, issues of gentrification, perceived religious school encroachment on public school space, and redrawing of district and attendance boundaries have long set off political fireworks. There were only sparks when the DOE moved regular public schools into these spaces. But with charters, these sparks are fanned into flames because of their association with moneyed interests and managerial profiteering. (more…)

Our current education policy debates have me depressed.

“But there’s so much going on! Look at all the intersecting issues we’re juggling in New York:  school closings, small and charter schools opening or expanding, our Race to the Top application, the Regents proposal expand preparation options, eliminating the charter school cap, another DOE restructuring, teacher merit pay and tenure based on student performance! Isn’t this a great time for addressing the BIG ISSUES in education?!”

No.

Arguably, I feel this way because of deep flaws in most of the above proposals. But it’s not mere opposition that drives my ennui. (more…)

To write that I am a fan of closing failing schools is to fall into the same bombastic trap now enmeshing the Bloomberg administration. Before the Mayor took office, I wrote about the need to take forceful action against these educational mediocrities. But the wholesale closing and opening of schools that the Mayor has embarked upon is not the answer.

Replacing schools does not necessarily improve education. In the Mayor’s hands, it has become a shell game that defers instructional problems until they reappear elsewhere, to be met again with a similar reaction. Meanwhile, the often lengthy period of the schools’ decline — until so drastically and unconstructively arrested — has harmed thousands of students.

Until now, the Mayor’s strategy has been largely immune to public opposition. The Department of Education announced its hit list with little or no prior warning, the better to keep critics at bay. The new school governance statute, however, has created a process for notice and hearings that — while imperfect — will subject this year’s target list to formal scrutiny followed by likely approval by the mayor-controlled Panel for Educational Policy. Students, parents, teachers, and their supporters are organizing to reverse the DOE decree. (more…)

The lame duck is acting like a bantam rooster.

Mayor Bloomberg’s fuss-and-feathers over use of student performance data in teacher tenure decisions is a short-lived diversion, like his presidential run during a previous lame duck period. Legal authority for his position is questionable and of little practical consequence. At best, under current law, he has one year to try to work his will but no principal’s tenure decision will change based on this new edict. Weakened by his slim re-election margin, Bloomberg’s tantrum is an understandable political strategy to appear politically strong. But our education plight is too important to be distracted by this sideshow.

The mayor invokes that portion of New York State Education Law § 3012-b as added by Chapter 57 of the Laws of 2007 which permits principals to make teacher tenure determinations based on “an evaluation of the extent to which the teacher successfully utilized analysis of available student performance data” and the more elastic “assessment of the teacher’s performance by the teacher’s building administrator.” The law was clarified by Chapter 57 of the Laws of 2008 to prohibit use of student test scores to grant or deny tenure. But even if the earlier version is found to permit use of test data for current tenure evaluations, State Education Commissioner’s Regulation § 100.2(o)(2)(iii) appears to prevent this use unless included in probationary teachers’ “professional performance review plan,” a formal document that must be developed “in collaboration with teachers … selected by the [Chancellor] with the advice of their respective peers.” Collective bargaining issues also exist as a change in the terms and conditions of employment. As a result, it is doubtful that the mayor’s unilateral analysis has much legal weight.

Rather than hastening their exit, the mayor has created a legal loophole for ineffective teachers to remain in classrooms.  What the mayor has actually done is to hand every failing teacher, already on the chopping block based on principals’ prior determinations, a ready argument that his or her tenure was denied on illegal grounds. (more…)

At this point in the Mayor’s remaking of our school system, claims of dramatic academic gains seem built on sand.

Analyses prepared for Assemblyman James Brennan by legislative aide Shawn Campbell demonstrate that the Bloomberg administration grossly overstates the impact that the reforms have had on New York City’s student achievement. State test scores are tainted by the exams’ designed-in flaws.  Progress Reports’ school grades are malleable, rising or falling according to administration convenience. Graduation rates are untethered from college and career readiness.  They are the end result of suspect strategies called “credit accumulation” and “knowledge management,” not subject mastery and understanding.

But the Mayor has a renewed opportunity to value learning over his well-known data obsession. (more…)

With the mayoral election decided, it is time to speculate on Joel Klein’s successor. Yes, even with Mayor Bloomberg’s victory, the current Chancellor will soon be history.

This prediction probably assures Klein’s job into the next century (with serially-extended term limits and a hefty mayoral investment in cryogenics, it could happen!) but eight years seems enough for the Chancellor, who has a history of short-term jobs and immediate prospects as an internationally-acclaimed education consultant. Also, believe the rumor that Bloomberg traded the Chancellor’s head for the Legislature’s renewal of Mayoral Control and that a new Chancellor will help Bloomberg counter charges of third-term lethargy.

So, probably cursing the chances of anyone listed below (and I deny that intent), who are the likely candidates to become the next Chancellor of the nation’s largest public school system?

Paul Vallas: Vallas has headed school systems in Chicago, Philadelphia, and the Louisiana Recovery School District, where he now works. (more…)

What is the appropriate role for parents in New York City’s public school system? Parents often feel intimidated or marginalized by those in charge of their children’s education. Educators (and many students!) are oppressed by parents’ disinterest and over-interest. Politicians and policymakers, forever straddling the divide, have created myriad structure for parent inclusion, leading to complaints from all sides about pandering and bureaucratization.

A major criticism of Mayor Bloomberg’s schools leadership has been his failure to consult parents regarding his education policies or to revise those policies in the wake of parent opposition. According to a recent article in Downtown Express, “Bloomberg said parents need only be involved in the micro issues of their child’s education, like the child’s attendance, behavior and grades.” Beyond that, the Mayor suggested that parents could have “influence through the city councilmembers and mayor they elect.” Comptroller William Thompson released a report last May suggesting his own views on “Parent Influence on Local School Governance.”

Notwithstanding the Mayor’s remarks, a broad legally-mandated constellation of parent organizations exists to directly influence decision-making beyond the individual child. (more…)

Mayoral candidates Thompson and Bloomberg have so far avoided the most important failing of New York City’s public schools: Under new state standards, a third of today’s high school graduates will soon be ineligible for diplomas. The so-called Local Diploma, requiring a 55 on Regents exams, is being phased out and only Regents-endorsed diplomas, requiring a score of 65 or better, will be issued to the Class of 2012.

The graduation time bomb brings two issues into stark relief. The first, difficult enough to absorb, is that every year over 10,000 more New York City residents will enter the job market (college largely off-limits to them) without even the entry-level requirement accorded by a high school diploma. The second is the diminished meaning of current Regents standards and the political pressure for further decline in order to accommodate this explosion of almost-grads. (more…)