GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

By refusing the church’s latest appeal in Bronx Household of Faith v. New York City Board of Education, 11-386, the United States Supreme Court today gave a final judicial green light to the Department of Education’s controversial ban on renting schools for religious services.

While only persuasive nationally, the now-final Second Circuit ruling settles matters for multiple states within this judicial circuit (New York, Vermont, and Connecticut) but only affects those districts that want to start prohibiting services (probably few, but includes New York City).

Haven’t we been here before? In 1998, the high court declined review of a similar Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling. And, despite these decisions and others along the way, since 2002 Bronx Household of Faith has been holding services in P.S. 15 in the Bronx. The DOE estimates that dozens of churches now rent space for Sunday services, despite courts approving Chancellor’s Regulation D-180, Section 1(Q), prohibiting the practice. Can this really be the end?

The DOE says so, releasing a statement from a senior city lawyer within hours of today’s decision that declares “Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012, is the last day that churches and other groups can use the schools for worship.”

I am taking that with a grain of salt. This controversy has raged for over a decade and most legal observers thought Bronx Household of Faith had a good chance of winning this latest round. Since the Supreme Court upheld the federal Equal Access Act in Good News Club v. Milford, 533 U.S. 98 (2001), public schools have had to treat secular and religious groups similarly in renting their facilities. As an extracurricular organization, the Good News Club was clearly conducting worship, much as a chess club would pursue its core activity, theorized the court, and, under the First Amendment, schools could not discriminate on the basis of this content.

The Second Circuit, which had sided with the district in Good News Club, clearly again fought against the tide in Bronx Household of Faith, arguing that the DOE could still decide against a church’s regular conduct of services on Sundays. Not that the DOE was required to bar the church, but it could if, in its judgment, the arrangement blurred the distinction between church and state: (more…)

Consequences are an essential component of accountability. Recent revelations of inflated state test scores require consequences, not just for those public officials responsible for false claims of math and reading proficiency but to make whole the students who for years were denied legally required help.

This case for reparations depends not only on elemental fairness and the oft-cited need for improved student outcomes but on mandated Supplemental Educational Services under Section 1116(e) of the No Child Left Behind Act and Academic Intervention Services required by New York State Education Commissioner’s Regulation §§ 100.1(g) and 100.2(ee). If children’s test scores had been properly determined, hundreds of thousands more students would have received extra help. It is insufficient to now say, in effect, “too bad.”

Students were denied their legal right to instructional services because of State policies that were known or should have been known to be deficient. Unfortunately, at least under No Child Left Behind, individuals do not generally have a right to sue the federal government, states, or school districts for noncompliance. But the federal government itself can sue the state, and the state’s attorney general can sue the State Education Department and districts to repair the harm. The state can also address the problem legislatively.

The recent movie “Waiting for ‘Superman’” argues that state governments and school districts constitute a “Blob” that cares more about adults’ concerns than children’s. In October, the State Board of Regents compounded its strategy of denial by voting to suspend its own requirement that districts provide remediation to students lacking academic proficiency. Once again, the State Education Blob undercut its own rhetoric about high standards leading to improved student performance by acting in a manner that subverts progress of our most vulnerable youth. When push comes to shove, the new education elite abandons its civil rights sound bites to reduce its tax bite.

There can be no clearer example of the Blob at work than denying instruction to needy students. The government is directly withholding instructional assistance needed to compensate students for past wrongs. Our children, our future, and our law demand that our leaders make good on their unfulfilled responsibilities to supplement the instruction of those students unfairly denied this entitlement.

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…)