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Running for: Mayor

Political Party: Democratic

Current job: Comptroller

Website: www.thompson2009.com

2. Have you received campaign contributions from the following education-related political action committees?

Democrats for Education Reform No
United Federation of Teachers Yes
Council of School Supervisors and Administrators Yes
New York Education Voters No
Educational Justice PAC No

3. Do you have children in the public school system?
No, but my daughter is a public school teacher

4. Do you support programs like Teaching Fellows and Teach for America? Yes

5. Do you support efforts to stop the growth of charter schools? No

6. Would you preserve school report cards as they are now? No

7. Do you believe test scores should be a factor in determining whether teachers receive tenure?
Yes, with reservations. The only fair and effective way to evaluate teachers is to use multiple measures. Test scores are one measure, but there are many others. I am very interested in a current study by the Gates Foundation — Measures of Effective Teaching — which is designed to help determine what good teaching is by looking at all the complex work going on in the classroom.

8. Do you support the 2009 law giving the mayor control of the public schools?
Yes, but there should be more checks and balances limiting the mayor’s power.

9. What letter grade would you give the City’s public schools right now? C

10. In the last eight years, have the City’s schools improved, stayed the same, or worsened? How?
Schools have worsened. New York City spends one of the highest amounts per student nationally, yet in terms of student achievement, ranks as one of the worst in the nation.

If children were really making progress — and really learning — there would be a connection between higher state scores and higher NAEP scores. The fact that NAEP scores are down, and three-quarters of New York City public school graduates fail their placement examinations at CUNY’s community colleges and require remediation, proves that we are just teaching to the state test.

Despite the great promise of mayoral control, our City’s education system has become less accessible to parents, less transparent regarding its expenditures, and less reliable concerning the measurement of its effectiveness.

The recently released “report cards” of our City schools are far too dependent on the results of the New York State tests for only one year. Eight-five percent of the score is based on test results.

And unfortunately, tests have become increasingly predictable and less rigorous. On the math tests, it has been shown that many of the questions are little changed from year to year, making it easy to use previous exams to teach.

Because New York City teachers are pressed to spend much of their limited class time teaching to the test, too little attention is paid to other subjects. Sadly, City students now rank near the bottom of New York’s school districts on the standardized science and social studies exams.

Independent experts are increasingly concluding that year-to-year changes in New York’s standardized test scores bear little relation to actual changes in students’ academic proficiency.

11. Do you support Joel Klein remaining chancellor of the City’s schools? If not, who should replace him?
No. We must hire a Chancellor who is an educational leader and who cares about what goes on in the classroom. It’s time to bring back an educator to our schools who can lay out an educational vision that goes beyond taking tests and creates opportunities for our children to be successful in life. Along with an educator, we must hire a Chief Administrative Officer who is focused on the administrative functions of the system, including transportation, food services and construction.

12. What’s an appropriate cap for charter schools, or should they exist at all (the current cap is 200 statewide)?
I have spoken out many times in support of expanding our City’s many extraordinary charter schools. I also believe, however, that first and foremost we must work to design public school choices that work. Rather than working to fix our City’s ailing public schools, the Chancellor has dismantled many of our large high schools and replaced them with smaller schools. These schools provide a solid option for many students, but they don’t work for all students, and charter schools often exclude special needs children.

13. What’s the best way to improve struggling public schools?
First, we must look to the Chancellor’s District program-which was established by former Chancellor Rudy Crew-as a model. The Chancellor’s District placed under Chancellor Crew’s direct supervision a group of low-performing schools from across the City. These schools subsequently saw the largest reductions in class size, from 23.2 students per class to 19.4 students per class. In these schools, the percentage of fourth graders scoring at the lowest level dropped most sharply, with those at Level 1 falling from 35 percent to 9.5 percent in mathematics and from 38 percent to 13.1 percent in reading in state examinations. In the spring of 2003, 322 New York City elementary schools made the state’s most improved list based on their students’ fourth grade scores.

Second, a successful school, like any thriving community, begins with the empowerment and participation of community members. Parents should be equal stakeholders in their children’s education, and must have a voice in their children’s education and future. Parents must not be shut out and should have an outlet to voice their questions and concerns. Options to encourage parental involvement should be streamlined, and the number of District Family Advocates must be expanded.

Our schools must be transparent by being accessible and accountable to parents. This transparency allows each school to directly meet the needs of each student, each community, and the future of our City.