GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

I highly recommend reading the new report released by the New School’s Center for New York City Affairs on “Empowerment and Accountability in New York City’s Schools.” It is detailed, balanced, and extremely educational. Reviewers have focused on the report’s conclusion that the DOE’s grading system is “deeply flawed,” perhaps the report’s most important conclusion.

Within the report’s 68 pages, though, are some powerful reminders of our system’s recent history:

When I [author Clara Hemphill] visited 30 schools in District 7 in the South Bronx as a reporter for the Insideschools.org website early in Mayor Bloomberg’s first term, the schools, with a few noteworthy exceptions, were in a sorry state. I met principals who routinely called for an ambulance to take an out-of-control child to the nearest psychiatric emergency room because they didn’t know what else to do. The middle schools were chaotic, with children wandering aimlessly in the hallways as teachers lectured to half-empty classrooms. Some of the elementary schools were sweet, warm places with kindhearted teachers doing their best — but the children didn’t know how to read. While I saw pockets of good instruction, some parents complained to me that their children were taught mostly in Spanish for as many as five or six years, learning almost no English. Books and supplies were scarce.

Returning to a dozen of those District 7 schools recently, I found much has changed. Books and supplies are abundant. Most of the schools I visited were orderly, with children in classrooms rather than roaming the corridors. Instruction is mostly in English … Principals are now appointed from the applicant pool selected by Tweed, rather than by the district office. Some of these new principals have a wealth of talent and experience … The principals … say it’s easier to recruit and retain staff largely because teacher salaries are substantially higher than they were before the Bloomberg-era increases … District 7′s test scores started at the absolute bottom in 2002 and made some of the most dramatic gains of any large district in the state…

Looking even further back, the report tells of the dark side of past governance: (more…)

Back in April, I wrote a post about my efforts to get audited financial statements from the three authorizers that oversee charter schools in New York City: the NYC DOE, the State University of New York (SUNY) and the State Education Department (SED).  I noted that the DOE posted the statements on their website, while I had to use the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) to get the reports from SUNY and SED.

Things are looking better for the latest set of financials.  SUNY has created an excellent web page with the statements for all of the schools they have authorized.  (In general, SUNY’s charter school reporting is very good. I encourage people to check it out.)

I have been told that the DOE will update their website by mid-December. I had to FOIL SED once again to get the financials for their schools and they are looking into why the statements are not posted on their website.

SUNY writes on their website:

“Public funds must be spent appropriately and with ample transparency. Timely audits are an important part of this transparency.”

In my experience, most people from across the political spectrum agree with these statements. I hope we can unite to push for more timely, more comprehensible, and more comprehensive information.

To assist in reviewing the results for the latest math tests, I have gathered some data and compiled it into a single workbook that you can download here.  In addition to including some hard-to-find data, the workbook includes filters that allow you compare results based on whatever criteria you find interesting.  The results are sorted by grade and mean scale score.

Some notes:

1. I started with the workbooks provided on the DOE website on this page.

2. I added data from insideschools.org to note schools that are “gifted and talented”, “selective”, and “unzoned”.  Insideschools defines these terms as follows: (more…)

Using the same data set discussed here and here, I calculated the total expenses per pupil at 58 New York City charter schools for the 2007-08 school year.  Here is the workbook with my calculations.

The total expenses for the 58 schools was $236,230,149.  The total enrollment was 17,680.  This comes out to a per pupil calculation of $13,361.  The average school expenses per pupil was $13,520.  The median school was $12,948.  For the 2007-08 school year, the “base funding” per pupil, i.e. the fixed amount per pupil received from the DOE, was $11,023.  So spending on the average student was $2,338 above the base amount. (more…)

As I have written in the past (here and here), there is an excess supply of people that want to teach in New York City.  Back in November, on a panel at a Teach For America alumni summit, Vicki Bernstein, the Executive Director of Teacher Recruitment and Quality for the DOE,  confirmed this fact and pointed out the upside of the situation: schools could be more selective in future teacher placements.

For most traditional public schools, that upside disappeared yesterday.

As GothamSchools reported, Chancellor Klein’s latest memo instructs principals to restrict their teacher hiring to “existing DOE staff, as opposed to people from outside the system.”  This includes informal commitments already made to prospective candidates: “You should reach out to these people and tell them that they will have to wait; those jobs might not actually be there and that you are unable to hire them at this time.  We are making no commitment to candidates, including Teach for America and Teaching Fellows candidates…” (more…)

In an earlier post, I reviewed some philanthropy statistics for New York City charter schools.  The information came from IRS filings (“Form 990”).  However,  annual charter school financial audits are better and more timely sources for this data.  The audits are available about six months earlier than the Form 990’s.  Also, the audits present the information in a clearer fashion.

Thanks in part to the New York Freedom of Information Law, I was able to get copies of almost all of the financial audits for the school year ending in 2008.  The key page in the audit is called the “Statement of Activities”.  Here is a pdf with these statements for the 58 charter schools in my sample.  Here is a workbook with my calculations for these schools.

Overall, the total amount of philanthropic contributions for the 58 schools was $25,511,490.  The total enrollment was 17,680.  This comes out to a per pupil calculation of $1,443 (as compared to $1,175 for my 990-based 2006-07 calculation).  The average school philanthropy per pupil was $1,654 (as compared to $1,366).  The median school was $1,081 (as compared to $697).   (more…)

In order to learn more about charter school philanthropy and expenses, I needed to get copies of the annual financial audits that all charter schools are required to produce.  Charter schools send these audits to their authorizers.  For New York City schools, there are three authorizers: the NYC DOE, the State University of New York (SUNY), and the State Education Department (SED).

In this case, the NYC DOE has the good-government solution: all audits for DOE-authorized charter schools are available on the DOE website in PDF format.

SUNY and SED, on the other hand, do not have the audits available on their websites.  Luckily, the people I interacted with at the two organizations were professional and courteous.  They both gave the same advice: “You need to FOIL me.”  FOIL refers to New York State’s Freedom of Information Law.  As instructed, I sent an email requesting the documents, being careful to include the magic phrase “Freedom of Information Law”.  In both cases, after about a week and a half,  I received the documents.

SUNY gave me a link to a PDF file that I could temporarily access on their website.  SED, on the other hand, only has the audits in paper form, so they had to mail a copy to me.  Also, with SED, I had to pay 25 cents per page and they needed to receive a check before they could proceed.  I hope they use the funds towards the purchase of a scanner.

Two questions are raised by this experience:

1. Why don’t SUNY and SED simply put these files on their websites?

2. Why do SUNY and SED make people “FOIL them” for these documents?

For both institutions SED, it is policy to require FOIL requests for information that is not available on their website.  Apparently, it can be quite time-consuming to fulfill these requests, especially if the documents only exist in paper format.  The FOIL requirement can discourage some of these requests.  If people knew that a FOIL request is as simple as an email with the FOIL phrase included, they might not be discouraged.  One solution, of course, is for the organizations to put the files on their websites.  See question #1.

I will make all of these audits available online very soon.  My efforts, though, should not be necessary.

UPDATE:
I had a follow-up call with SUNY.  They pointed out three things:
1. I was the only person in at least the last three years to request copies of the financial audits.
2. SUNY is very proud of the extensive charter school reporting available on their website.
3. It is not SUNY policy to require FOIL requests for all information that is not available on their website.  Rather, in this case, they thought a FOIL request was the best approach.  (I corrected this in the original post.)

In my experience, SUNY’s online reporting is generally excellent.  (Check out their impressive website.) In the case of the financial audits, I think their reporting is lacking but the situation is easy to remedy.  I  hope they address this in the future.

Elizabeth Green’s story, “Teachers union sent scripted questions to City Council members”, may serve as a wake-up call. A friend called me and shouted “You’ve got to be kidding me!” about eight times. He got the wake-up call.

Others active in public education are surprised that people are surprised. That should be a wake-up call too. Perhaps this soft corruption exists in part because of a lack of public awareness. Perhaps if we better educate people about “how things work” (as Elizabeth subtitles her story), we will get better political outcomes.

All special interest groups use money and pressure to influence the political process. We hope that their methods don’t cross the line, but different people draw that line in very different places. Instead of changing human nature, here are four mechanisms to change government that might decrease the effects of inappropriate interest group influence:

1. Increase government transparency. We can’t oversee what we can’t see.

2. Simplify the role of government. We can’t oversee what we can’t understand.

3. Reduce the role of government. The greater the role of government, the greater incentive for inappropriate interest group influence.

4. Allow for private competition to serve as a check on government corruption. When the government is a monopoly provider, there is no competitive check on the inefficiency caused by interest group influence.

The New York City Department of Education produces an annual progress report for every school in the city for which there exists sufficient test data.  The DOE website gives a good description of the reports.  The DOE also makes available an Excel workbook with all of the results for the year 2007-08.

I compared the results for the 46 charter schools with the 1,307 traditional schools.  Here is the workbook with my additional calculations and results.

Some conclusions: (more…)

As we watch the KIPP/UFT battle unfold, one thing seems clear: we won’t see a union contract between the two organizations anytime soon.

The unionization process for KIPP AMP is governed by the Taylor Law and overseen by the Public Employment Relations Board (“PERB”).  If and when the PERB certifies the UFT to represent the AMP teachers, KIPP will be required to begin collective bargaining.  This won’t necessarily lead to a contract, though.  From a primer published by Atlantic Legal:

“In essence, collective bargaining is the obligation of the union and the employer to meet and confer in good faith concerning employees’ terms and conditions of employment.  Thus, a good faith effort must be made by both parties to seek agreement.  However, an agreement is not required or guaranteed, since neither side is forced to accept any terms it does not want.” (more…)