While states have been competing for millions in Race to the Top funds, high schools have had their own contest for President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s attention.

Duncan announced today that Kalamazoo Central High School, a large comprehensive school in Michigan, beat out over 1,000 other high schools to have Obama as its graduation speaker this year. Schools that entered the competition had to show that their students were learning and that most, if not all of them, were going from graduation to college.

Hand picked by Obama from among three finalists, Kalamazoo’s school district runs a program called Promise that pays up to 100 percent of students’ college tuition for in-state schools.

No New York City high schools made it into the finalist round, but put your nominations of equally deserving NYC schools in the comments.

Harlem students who watched President Obama’s back-to-school speech today in their school auditorium could not detect anything to disagree with — except for one point.

“I disagree with Obama’s mom about waking him up at 4:30,” Klara Arnold, a 10-year-old sixth-grader at Democracy Prep Charter School, told her principal, who had explained that the speech initially sparked controversy and asked if students had any differences of opinion with the president.

The speech referred to Obama’s mother’s habit of giving him extra lessons to supplement his schooling while he lived in Indonesia.

Since district public schools won’t open until tomorrow, few New York City schools had to tackle the question of whether and how to air the president’s speech today. Democracy Prep Charter School, which opened for full-day sessions today after half-day preparation last week, did, along with other charter schools around the city.

The Harlem school’s solution was to have its students gather in an auditorium to watch the address via White House webcast, along with a pack of reporters photographing their every reaction, which ranged from dozing off to waving eagerly at Obama when he came on the stage. Then the school leader, Seth Andrew, led a discussion shaped around a worksheet — not the one created by the Obama administration, but one crafted by a former Obama campaign volunteer who now works as the school’s coordinator of civic initiatives, Jeremiah Kittredge.

One exercise had students imagine their own presidential speeches. “I’d thank all the people that helped me become president and get to that day — my mom, my dad, my teachers,” said Kanaya Orah, a sixth-grader who had her first full day at Democracy Prep Charter School yesterday.

Mayeli Martinez said she would talk about the challenges she had overcome. “When I was in kindergarten, I used to have 3′s and 4′s, but then my sister, she would be getting in trouble, and I always wanted to be a bad girl,” Martinez said. Now, Martinez explained, she is getting her act together.

Another discussion, about the “controversy” swirling around the speech, had students discussing the importance of drawing conclusions carefully, listening to diverse opinions, and debating whether presidents can ever be wrong. The consensus was that they can be wrong.

“Sometimes the president says something that we want to hear, but he’s not going to do it,” a boy said.

Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the Board of Regents (file photo)

Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch is challenging President Obama and his secretary of education to a verbal duel over New York’s access to a special pot of federal stimulus dollars for schools.

“I am willing to debate the president and Arne Duncan in public space at any time of their choosing on the impact of this law in New York State,” Tisch said in a telephone interview this evening.

Obama administration officials have said that states that ban the use of test scores to evaluate teachers will not be eligible for the dollars, called the Race to the Top fund. A New York law prohibits something very similar, using student test scores to decide whether teachers deserve tenure.

A nonprofit group, The New Teacher Project, today said the law should exclude New York from receiving Race to the Top funds. (Founded by Michelle Rhee, the D.C. schools chancellor, The New Teacher Project brings non-traditionally trained teachers into school districts and advocates for teaching policies that often clash with teachers unions’ positions.)

Duncan himself has suggested that New York’s law does not make the cut. “Believe it or not, several states including New York, Wisconsin, and California, have laws, they have laws that create a firewall between students and teacher data,” Duncan said at a June conference where he previewed the guidelines around the fund.

The administration’s aim is to spur states to change laws and policies it disapproves of. Duncan has vowed to dole out the dollars in two batches, one this fall and the next in 2010, in order to give state legislatures time to change their laws.

But New York officials, including Governor Paterson and Tisch, have refused to accept that the state might be disqualified. Teachers union officials, including American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who lobbied state lawmakers to pass the law last year, are also lobbying hard for New York not to be disqualified.

Tisch said that she has spoken personally to Duncan to explain the “the context of this law.” She said that New York’s law was the result of a personal dispute between the city schools chancellor, Joel Klein, and Weingarten, then head of the New York City union. That dispute should not overshadow the other ways in which the state is in line with the White House’s goals for improving schools, she said.

“If the federal government wants to leave over 3 million youngsters in this country out of their ability to benefit by Race to the Top dollars because of a law on the books that is due to expire and a law that has not impacted one teacher or one youngster in New York State, then I am really living in an alternate universe,” Tisch said, her voice raised. “Because everything I hear them say is they want to help kids who are sitting in progressive classrooms across this country.”

She added, “And that’s the last I want to say about this tonight because I’m getting really aggravated.”

Tisch has also said previously that New York’s law does not disqualify the state because it has to do with teacher tenure decisions, not teacher evaluations. When I asked her how deciding whether a teacher deserves tenure does not constitute an evaluation, she replied, “What can I tell you? Then Arne Duncan should have that fight with Randi, okay?”

In another sign of New York’s commitment to winning the funds, Tisch said the state has appointed an outside consultant to head its efforts to apply for Race to the Top Funds. JoEllen Lynch, who formerly served as a top deputy to Klein, is working on a contract to head the project.

A spokesman for Duncan, Justin Hamilton, would not say whether New York will qualify for the funds. “Just as we’re not going to predict who will win the Race to the Top, we’re not going to predict who isn’t,” Hamilton said in a statement. “We have a process in place that allows everyone to put their best foot forward, and we encourage all states to apply.”

I just asked Hamilton for a comment about Tisch’s statements and will add that when it arrives.

Joel Klein. (File photo)

Joel Klein stayed positive about his reputation in an interview last night on NY1, even as host Dominic Carter played two different clips showing elected officials (both candidates for citywide office) criticizing the schools chancellor.

Klein chalked up any complaints he’s received to politics — and said President Obama is receiving the same kind of flak on the national stage, for implementing a similar education program.

“He’s putting those out there, and you know what’s happening? You get push back,” Klein said.

(I put in a call to David Cantor, Klein’s spokesman, and I’ll write to Klein too, because I’m curious what push back he’s referencing. Both teachers unions have largely supported the Race to the Top stimulus fund, if tentatively. Maybe Klein has in mind Diane Ravitch? Or could he have read Leonie Haimson’s Huffington Post piece yesterday, “Arne Duncan Has Become An Embarrassment”?)

Klein was particularly sanguine about the proposed extension of the city’s so-called “social promotion” ban announced yesterday. “When I came on here in 2004, when the mayor ended social promotion, you had the pictures — everybody was demonstrating, and all the noise,” Klein said. “Now it is 2009 and we have ended social promotion in every one of these grades, and you know what? You don’t hear noise any more, Dominic. You know why? People know what’s right for kids.”

“Everybody’s behind it now,” Klein said of the retention policy, which holds back students who don’t pass standardized tests.

There haven’t been protests in the streets, but we are hearing from researchers who argue strongly against the policy. And Carter, who hosts the nightly “Road to City Hall” program, played two clips — one of Bill Thompson the comptroller and mayoral candidate, and another of John Liu, the City Council candidate running for comptroller — denouncing Klein’s leadership. Thompson has promised to fire Klein if he is elected mayor.

Other highlights:

• Klein said that he hopes Bloomberg decides to keep him on board if he’s elected to a third term, as Bloomberg has promised:
  

  I’ve always said I serve at the mayor’s pleasure. I believe that the mayor is proud to stand on the record we’ve accomplished together, and I look forward to continuing to serve with him. But Dominic this is not about Joel klein. And Michael Bloomberg will decide what’s best for the city at all times. I hope his decision is that we continue to work together. I think we’ve done great work together. I think we have a lot more of it to do.

• Klein said that Liu was correct to criticize the administration’s re-writing of city school bus routes in 2007. But he said that he has made up for that cost in other ways. “This year, we had 50% more kids going to City University. So, when he talks about leaving a kid out in the cold, that’s a bad thing, but when you talk about thousands and thousands of kids for years — they were left out in the cold for life,” Klein said.
• Klein also declared that, “Last year was the best year we had in public education in this city. It was really in every dimension a great year.” He said that he’s spent his summer meeting with principals and disclosed that he plans to meet with a group of about 30 from CUNY today.

A recent BHSEC graduate who now attends Williams College, Kesi Augustine, explains in a Huffington Post column what makes the small, super-selective school on the Lower East Side so special. (A replica opened last year in Queens.) It’s not just that students can earn as much as two years of college credits before graduating, she writes:

The most rewarding part of my experience at BHSEC, however, WAS more than just the Associate’s degree. The school introduced me to critical thinking and writing about my place in the world. Our teachers did not give us the recipe for performing well on state-wide tests and SATs, although we performed well in that respect, too. Rather, our small classes thrived on student energy in open seminar discussions and debates about course material. …

If we are going to strive for the educational equality Obama calls for, every American student should have the education I did. I was more than prepared for success in “real” college, largely owed to what I learned at BHSEC. As a rising sophomore at Williams College, I frequently refer back to my seminar experience at Bard. During my freshman year at Williams, I was not perfect, yet I knew how to approach reading a novel a week, how to write a formal 10-page paper, and how to ask for help when I needed it. I had professors from high school I could ask for advice. I was confident in my ability to survive a difficult class. In contrast, few of my new college friends had this advantage. Students at Williams have often said, “In high school, I didn’t even have to think. Now, it’s all about thinking. I don’t know if I even trust myself to come up with something good.” I wonder how much better they would feel about their schoolwork–and their selves–if their high schools had encouraged independent thinking and critical analysis as Bard did. 

In the same sentence of his speech, Obama also praised Medgar Evers College Preparatory School, a high school in Brooklyn with a program similar to BHSEC’s.

The statement inserts President Obama’s top education official even deeper into New York City’s debate on school governance. Duncan first voiced his support for mayoral control in New York City to the New York Post editorial board in March. He argued that giving the mayor full control over urban public schools is the best way to turn them around.

Many education advocates here, including the teachers union, have pushed for fixed terms as a way to eliminate the mayor’s right to remove any school board member at his pleasure. But the issue is facing opposition from Bloomberg and, most recently, from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose latest proposal has school board members serving at the pleasure of the mayor.

Mayor Bloomberg fired three of his appointees on the board, known as the Panel for Education Policy, in 2004 after they said they would oppose a policy he supported. Critics of the mayor call the event the Monday Night Massacre.

Bloomberg has vigorously lobbied against the idea of fixed terms for school board members. Most recently, the mayor personally reached out to Citizens Union members to urge them to reconsider a proposal that would have recommended fixed terms. The watchdog group is set to announce a new proposal today that does not include fixed terms, but does force the mayor to give 90 days notice before firing a disagreeable appointee, according to sources familiar with the watchdog group’s position.

Sources told me that the change of position followed an endorsement from Duncan as well as Bloomberg. But curiously, spokesmen for Duncan have so far not been able to locate the letter that I reported he sent to the Citizens Union. I’ll keep searching for it.

“While we both agree generally that the Mayor should retain control of the school system, I would caution against focusing too much on the data provided by the Department of Education,” Gotbaum wrote to Duncan in a letter dated April 27. “I have always said that it is a fundamental flaw that the current system gives the Mayor and the Chancellor an incentive to present information in a positive light.”

Gotbaum, who first reported the letter on her blog, enclosed a copy of the report on school governance that she commissioned and the accompanying book, which was published by the Brookings Institution.

For what it’s worth, a slightly curious thing about the visit to D.C. yesterday is that only three men entered the Oval Office with President Obama: the Rev. Al Sharpton; Newt Gingrich, the former House majority leader, and Michael Bloomberg. Joel Klein, who is a co-creator of the Education Equality Project with Sharpton, appeared later with the men outside the White House to speak to reporters, but he did not enter the Oval Office.

Gotbaum’s full letter is after the jump:

A spokesman for Chancellor Joel Klein, David Cantor, said that the group will discuss “education reform, in particular how best to address the racial achievement gap.”

The Washington Post reported that Sharpton, who along with Klein is a co-founder of EEP, requested the meeting.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said that Klein attended the meeting at the Oval Office. He did not, though he did appear with the group later outside the White House.

UPDATE: Ben Smith at Politico’s take is that the meeting is “a way for the administration to signal openness to a range of voices on the topic” of education. Seems to me it’s just the opposite, because — believe it or not — at this point Sharpton, Bloomberg, and Gingrich are actually on the same page about education.

All three men are strong supporters of the Education Equality Project, which is one of two dueling manifestos on the subject of how to improve America’s urban public schools. The other group, “Broader, Bolder,” includes a slew of academic researchers, but apparently a weaker relationship with the Obama administration and less political power, with the major exception of teachers unions.

For those who haven’t been following along, there are two basic differences between the groups. One is that Bloomberg’s set argue that schools alone can cure the achievement gap, while the Broader, Bolder group says schools must be improved alongside social services, health care, and anti-poverty programs.

The other difference is each group’s position on the kind of education policy needed to improve schools. While Bloomberg, Sharpton, and Gingrich support No Child Left Behind-style policies of test-based accountability, Broader, Bolder members are skeptical of some elements of the law. A school is failing? The Klein/Bloomberg take is to close it down and fire the staff; their critics say, fine, fire some staff, but don’t just abandon the school. Bring in new programs, better curriculum, and more money first.

WASHINGTON, D.C. —  Jon Schnur, the education policy expert who has been working as an advisor to President Barack Obama and played a pivotal role in writing the federal stimulus plan for schools, will not serve in the Obama administration. He will instead return to running the nonprofit principal-training program New Leaders for New Schools group that he co-founded, according to an e-mail he sent recently to members of New Leaders.

Schnur is one of the most high-profile members of the next-generation “reform” camp of Democrats, who push for dramatic changes in public schools, including strong accountability measures. He had been named as a likely chief of staff to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and was serving as a senior adviser to Duncan, helping him craft the education part of the stimulus bill.

Schnur’s close role in the administration had been seen as a signal of its direction on education, suggesting that the president was siding with the camp of education advocates that includes Schnur (and for which we singled Schnur out as a spokesman), rather than with the camp that is more skeptical of recent accountability efforts.

As word of Schnur’s plans spread around Washington, D.C., the major question I’m hearing people ask is why he is not entering the administration — and what that says about the administration’s direction. (I am in D.C. for the annual meeting of the Education Writers Association, where I am becoming a board member.)

Duncan addressed the divide obliquely last night in a speech to EWA members, saying that he wants to work with reporters to break through divides and talk about “facts.”

In the e-mail he sent to New Leaders members, which I obtained through a source and which is included in full at the end of this post, Schnur said that he is “excited” to return to the organization. He said he believes the most important work for education advocates right now is to prove that children in poverty can exceed:

…there is nothing more important in  American education right now than to demonstrate how the breakthrough results that have happened in individual classrooms and schools can happen at unprecedented scale (in hundreds of schools and indeed across entire school systems) for children in poverty.  I believe more strongly than ever that we as a community of leaders can and will demonstrate this kind of dramatic student achievement in schools across our country.

I’ve reached out to Schnur for comment. Schnur sent me this comment in which he explains his decision not to seek a position in the federal Department of Education:

President Obama and Secretary Arne Duncan are extroardinary champions and leaders who are helping our nation invest in our future and dramatically improve education. I have been so honored to advise and support them over the past several months during my leave of absence from New Leaders. This experience has confirmed for me what drove me to create and lead New Leaders in the first place. First, that breakthrough success in education is urgently needed and possible. Second, there is nothing more important in education than demonstrating and codifying how the breakthrough results that have happened in individual classrooms and schools can happen at unprecedented scale for our students in greatest need. I have decided to return to New Leaders for the same reason I chose to leave the Clinton-Gore White House to found New Leaders a decade ago: to help a community of results-oriented principals and leaders drive dramatic improvements in our schools for hundreds of thousands of students nationwide, demonstrate that success is possible at scale in American public education, and leverage the knowledge we create to change education nationwide.

I am so confident in this Administration and its outstanding education team’s commitment, readiness, and ability to lead dramatic improvements in education. And I look forward to contributing to — and one day celebrating — the results that all of us in education will help achieve for our children and society.

Here’s Schnur’s full e-mail to members of New Leaders:

To the New Leaders Community -
 
I hope that you, your teams, and your students are having a good, productive school year, and that you and your families are doing well.
 
As you know, I have been on a leave of absence from New Leaders since September in order to advise the Obama for America presidential campaign, serve on the Presidential Transition Team, and serve as a senior policy advisor to Secretary Arne Duncan.  I am so excited to see the growing potential – in our nation and in the New Leaders community – to achieve our mission of high achievement for every child.
 
I am writing you today to provide an update on my plans.  As I shared with the New Leaders staff earlier this month, I am excited to share with you the news that I have decided to return to New Leaders.   I will begin to re-engage as an active board member in May (including participating in our spring Foundations in New Orleans with our 130+ member Cohort 8), take some long-overdue vacation time with Elisa and our kids, and return full-time into my role as CEO later by the end of June.
 
It is an honor to help a new President and Administration leverage what has been learned in schools and classrooms to drive dramatic achievement gains for all students.   The past seven months have confirmed for me two core convictions that have driven our community for the past nine years.
 
First, that quality education for all children is achievable, essential, and urgently needed to create a better future for our nation and world.
 
Second, there is nothing more important in  American education right now than to demonstrate how the breakthrough results that have happened in individual classrooms and schools can happen at unprecedented scale (in hundreds of schools and indeed across entire school systems) for children in poverty.  I believe more strongly than ever that we as a community of leaders can and will demonstrate this kind of dramatic student achievement in schools across our country.
 
In order to act on those convictions, I am excited to return to New Leaders to help drive these changes deeply in our schools and school systems as we support each other and rigorously analyze and share the practices that are and aren’t driving big improvements in student success.  I am also excited to leverage our shared learnings from the New Leaders community to drive even broader impact in our communities, states, and nationally.
 
I am so grateful for what you do every day – for your commitment to children, for your leadership, and for the results you are making possible for our students.   And I am so grateful for the outstanding leadership and management that my partner LaVerne Srinivasan, our New Leaders management team, and our entire organization have provided over these past months and will continue to provide as we move into this vital next phase of our work together.
 
Meanwhile on the personal front, it is with great joy that I share that Elisa and I are expecting our third child this fall.  Elisa, Matthew, Elizabeth and I are very excited – and welcome the good counsel and advice from those of you who have parented three small children.
 
I look forward to reconnecting with the New Leaders community in the weeks ahead, learning deeply from you and your experiences, and celebrating the results of your hard work as they pay off in significant ways for our students.
 
With respect and admiration for all that you do each day – now and in the marathon that we are in together on behalf of every child,
 
Jon

Klein agreed, calling the evaluations “a general requirement for states to get the stimulus money.” Pressed for specifics on how that would affect the city schools, the chancellor hedged, saying he’s waiting for more details from the Obama administration.

In fact, a spokesman from the U.S. Department of Education told me that states will receive the stimulus funds regardless of their willingness to evaluate teachers using student test scores. “We’re encouraging states to do merit pay,” he said. “But to get all of the stimulus money you don’t have to do merit pay.”

The notion that there are strings in the main pot of the stimulus money is not entirely off base. The federal DOE is asking states to pledge to do a list of four things with the money before they get it (an occurrence that’s scheduled to happen next month, a spokesman told me). Two points on that list also seem to add up to merit pay, or at least provide the ingredients to make it possible — one asking states to improve “teacher effectiveness” and another asking them to create data systems to track students’ progress. And President Obama did, just this week, signal his interest in seeing federally funded merit-pay programs expand to 150 districts from a measly 34.

Finally, there’s another $5 billion pot of money in the stimulus, the “race to the top” fund, that states will have to apply for the use of — and which is dedicated to “innovative” programs that could include performance-based pay.

Here are the four criteria states will have to promise their stimulus funds will meet, cribbed from these federal DOE stimulus guidelines:

1. Making progress toward rigorous college- and career-ready standards and high-quality assessments that are valid and reliable for all students, including English language learners and students with disabilities;
2. Establishing pre-K-to college and career data systems that track progress and foster continuous improvement;
3. Making improvements in teacher effectiveness and in the equitable distribution of qualified teachers for all students, particularly students who are most in need;
4. Providing intensive support and effective interventions for the lowest-performing schools.

They made the remarks in a school library alongside Deborah Kenney, the founder of the Harlem Village Academy charter school network. Among the city projects they said they feel Obama endorsed: the city’s effort to pay teachers based on their school’s performance; projects that give students feedback on their academic performance through regular tests; work improving poor-performing schools by starting new small schools and improving transfer schools; and their efforts to expand parents’ options with charter schools.

Neither Philissa nor I could be there this morning, so we don’t have the full account. But Klein praised Obama’s education speech as “bold” and “visionary” in an interview with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer this morning. His comment:

I think his speech was bold, and I think it’s visionary, and if you look at the various components, Brian, I think it echoes a lot of what the mayor has done in the city. But more importantly [it] charts a way for the nation to deal with both the global achievement gaps that we’ve talked about many times and the racial and ethnic achievement gaps. So it’s a serious and important speech.

Here’s the full press release from City Hall:

MAYOR BLOOMBERG AND CHANCELLOR KLEIN DISCUSS HOW NEW YORK CITY’S CHILDREN FIRST INTITIAVES ARE REFLECTED IN PRESIDENT OBAMA’S NEW EDUCATION REFORM AGENDA

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein today described how the Administration’s core education reforms are reflected in the agenda advanced by President Barack Obama in his first major education address, which he delivered on Tuesday before the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington. President Obama challenged states and school districts to create improved standards and assessments, reward outstanding teachers, reduce student dropout rates, and promote innovation through initiatives such as charter schools. All of these have been critical goals for New York City public schools under the Mayor and Chancellor. The Mayor and Chancellor were joined at the Harlem Village Academy High School in East Harlem by school founder and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Deborah Kenney, Principal Nick Timpone, and Social Studies students to discuss how the City’s education reform initiatives that they have been a part of since 2002 reflect and align with President Obama’s own education reform priorities.

“President Obama hit the mark earlier this week when he said that economic progress and educational achievement are linked,” said Mayor Bloomberg. “In New York we know that the students of today are the workforce of tomorrow. This is why we challenged the status quo on education in New York City, which for decades was a broken public school system. Today, we offer parents more choices, hold schools accountable for results, and reward excellence. It’s working—our students are doing better in reading and math, and graduation rates are at historic highs.”

“Our successes in New York City illustrate how important it is that schools embrace the innovations championed by President Obama,” said Chancellor Klein. “Today, more than 50 years after we banned unequal schools, African-American and Hispanic students are still far too likely to be deprived of the education they deserve. Education is our foremost civil rights issue and a fundamental economic issue. No one knows that better than the President, who wouldn’t be where he is today without his first-rate education.”

Developing Standards and Giving Teachers the Information They Need

President Obama called on states to develop standards that will prepare students for college and successful careers and to give teachers the information they need to ensure their students are on track to meet these standards. In New York City schools:

·       Students take regular diagnostic assessments, which schools can customize to fit their curriculum. Teachers can view the results of these assessments online five school days after giving them. Teachers use this information to tailor their instruction to the specific strengths and weaknesses of their students throughout the school year.

·       The ARIS data system allows teachers to view all the important information about their students—test scores, grades, attendance, parent contact information—in one place, from any computer. Teachers can also quickly analyze the performance of entire classes to determine the areas in which students are struggling or to assess whether students are improving. Through this same system, teachers can form online communities to share ideas and resources with colleagues across the City.

·       All schools receive a letter grade, from A to F, based on the progress their students are making. This ensures that schools are accountable for holding every student to the same high standards.

Rewarding Effective Teachers

President Obama also stressed the importance of rewarding effective teachers. In New York City schools:

·       Teacher salaries have increased by 43 percent since 2002. Innovative programs offer talented experienced teachers additional compensation if they mentor their peers or move to a high-needs school from another district.

·       A groundbreaking program negotiated with the United Federation of Teachers rewards teachers at high-needs schools that significantly raise student achievement. Last year, teachers at about 120 schools earned bonuses totaling $20 million.

Turning Around the Worst Schools
Also in his speech earlier this week, the President called on students to stay in school, and stressed to lawmakers, parents, and teachers that turning around the worst schools is critical to reducing dropout rates. In New York City:

·       Since 2002, nearly 300 new small schools have opened – many in buildings where large, failing schools have been closed because of poor performance.

·       Small secondary schools created since 2002 are graduating 76 percent of students on time, compared to 62 percent citywide.  Traditional schools replaced by new schools graduated 35 percent in 2002.

·       More than 8,500 struggling students who had fallen behind in traditional high schools have graduated from transfer high schools and young adult borough centers and completed General Equivalency Diploma (GED) programs since 2005.

Increasing Parents’ Choices and Schools’ Autonomy, and Trying Other Innovations

Like many school reformers, President Obama highlighted innovations—like school autonomy and longer instructional days—and the choice provided by charter schools. In New York City:

·       Principals are more empowered than ever to make choices about how they structure curriculum, how they spend their budgets, and what supports they want for their school. In exchange for this autonomy, principals are held accountable for student learning.

·       The school day includes 37.5 additional minutes of instructional time per day compared to 2002. Teachers use this time to work with struggling students in small-group settings.

·       Only 17 charters were operating in New York City at the start of the Bloomberg Administration. Today, 78 charter schools serve 24,000 students, and 25 more charter schools are approved to open in the five boroughs as soon as September, making New York City the most charter-friendly district in the country.

That’s what her national union, the American Federation of Teachers, did today, by way of a press release from Anderson, Indiana. Yeah, I’ve never heard of Anderson either, but apparently teachers there passed a program that will mentor struggling teachers — and give evaluations that point out their strengths and weaknesses.

“PAR is an example of an innovative, successful union-led education reform,” said Dal Lawrence. “It shows just how inaccurate the stereotype is that teacher unions are anti-reform or anti-accountability.”

Here’s the full release, which is from the Anderson union but was sent to me by the national press shop:

Anderson Federation of Teachers
422 West Ninth Street, Anderson, Indiana  46016
(765) 643-5432 •  (765) 643-5743 (Fax)

For Immediate Release                                                                     Contact:
March 11, 2009                                                                                  Rick Muir                                                                                                                                                                   765/643-5432

Anderson Teachers Union and School Board Vote
For Indiana’s First Peer Assistance and Review Program

Anderson, Ind.—Union and school board members voted to pass Indiana’s first peer assistance and review (PAR) program, a teacher evaluation program that will provide new teachers, and those who are struggling, with intensive mentoring, evaluation and support.

“The peer assistance and review program will do more to benefit the teaching profession in Anderson than any other education reform that our union has brought to our schools,” said Rick Muir, president of the Anderson Federation of Teachers.

The Anderson Federation of Teachers, in collaboration with the school district, developed the Anderson Peer Assistance and Review Program. Expert or consulting teachers will be selected and assigned to mentor and evaluate teachers based on specific criteria and the Anderson school district performance standards. Teachers’ strengths and weaknesses will be identified. After receiving help in such areas as teaching strategies, communication and working with peers, teachers will be evaluated and recommendations will be made about retaining or dismissing them.

“PAR is a high-quality program that will fairly and fully evaluate teachers, and help us to provide a world-class education for the Anderson public school students,” said Philip “P.T.” Morgan, an Anderson school district board member.

The PAR concept was developed nearly 30 years ago by the Toledo Federation of Teachers with its school district. It has since been replicated in other Ohio school districts as well as in California, Maryland, Minnesota, New York and elsewhere. Dal Lawrence, past Toledo Federation of Teachers president and architect of the Toledo Plan, helped craft the Anderson PAR program.

“PAR is an example of an innovative, successful union-led education reform,” said Dal Lawrence. “It shows just how inaccurate the stereotype is that teacher unions are anti-reform or anti-accountability.”

The PAR program that the union and school board approved is part of a package of contract items. The PAR program will be implemented in the fall of 2009.

Carole Greenwalt, a 5th-grade teacher from Forest Hills Elementary School, said that she is looking forward to PAR because it will help her become an even better teacher.

Mark Finger, principal of Highland High School, said he visited Toledo to see PAR in action. “What I saw there convinced me that PAR not only is an effective evaluation system but is a safety net for new teachers who need the extra support as they get started in their careers.”

# # #

Deborah Meier, the respected small schools pioneer, said President Obama’s appointment of Arne Duncan as education secretary “leaves me sad.” Today, Diane Ravitch, the NYU historian and Meier’s blogging partner, described Duncan as “Margaret Spellings in drag.” “This is not change I can believe in,” she wrote in Politico. And on Saturday, Ann Cook, another small-school movement doyenne, said she is also concerned about  Obama’s choice of Duncan.

All three women sympathize with the “Broader, Bolder” manifesto, which argues that schools alone cannot be expected to close the achievement gap and whose members are more suspicious of popular innovations such as charter schools and test-driven accountability systems. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein leads another camp, which strongly supports test-based accountability, the No Child Left Behind law, and charter schools. Klein’s Education Equality Project circulated a rival petition.

Obama made a point of not selecting a side in the debate. He chose two top education advisers, one from each camp. And he touted his chosen education secretary, Duncan, who had signed both petitions, as a pragmatist. But in the last few weeks, concerns about Duncan have begun to surface.

Cook’s remarks came at a panel discussion in the East Village, where she used a question and answer session to raise two concerns about Obama’s education policies. One was Duncan’s remarks at a press conference in Brooklyn last week in favor of testing. The other was the Obama administration’s support for adding funds for education data systems into the stimulus package.

The Obama administration has made other moves to signal this preference. Duncan selected the man I identified as a poster boy for the Klein camp, Jon Schnur, as his close adviser. He praised Klein on a trip to New York City last week. The administration also pushed for adding funds for programs favored by the group to the stimulus package. And a spokeswoman of the opposing group, the Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond, recently announced she will not join the administration.

In an interview just now, Cook said that her concerns don’t negate her support for Obama. To the contrary, she said, she feels compelled to voice her thoughts because she supports the president:

“It’s easy when you’re dealing with somebody like Bush to sort of launch a campaign. But it’s equally important when people are so supportive of the president, which I am, to make sure that you don’t let things slide because you think he’s a good guy. It puts more of a responsibility on us to remain watchful. And that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Meier also said she’s reserving judgment. “Maybe he’s ‘purple’?” she wrote, saying she’ll reserve final judgment until Duncan announces his staff.

“It would be a whole lot more useful to students if they would focus on tests like SAT’s and ACT’s, more college-oriented things, rather than an end of year test that’s not used by colleges or even hardly looked at by colleges.”

Malika Evans, an Urban Academy senior here in New York City, wants Obama to end military recruitment in high schools:

“It gets harassing, they keep calling…School is for education and education only, and students should be worried about going to college after going to school.”

At Vanguard High School in Manhattan, two students ask for better environments for gay and lesbian students:

“There is a lot of high schools that don’t approve of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and queers….In school, it should be a safe place, it should be like a second home. Nobody should be put down because of their sexuality.”

With all due respect, Mr. President, this is the problem with public officials sending their kids to private schools. The real story in Washington this year was how D.C. public schools, usually spooked by a light dusting, didn’t close after Tuesday’s snowstorm, thanks to the tough-it-out policies of Chancellor Michelle Rhee. This is a longstanding gripe of mine, how private schools, even ones located in D.C., following the weather guidelines in Montgomery County, Md., as if they float above the actual city.

UPDATE: As a commenter points out below, Sidwell Friends’ lower school, where Obama’s younger daughter Sasha is in second grade, is in Bethesda, Maryland. So it kind of makes sense for Sidwell to follow the Maryland schools. Also, having gone to Maryland public schools K-12, I have to say that I fully support snow days.

Mike Petrilli says this reflects the divide inside the Democratic Party on education issues, and it’s hard to argue against that. The question I’d like answered is, which bill did the Obama administration have the most say in writing?

Update: As Leonie points out in the comments, I originally said Senate where I meant House and vice versa. House version has the reformier stuff.

People at Educon in Philadelphia (via Flickr)

Last week, I chronicled an academic discussion on the subject of where school reform should go under President Obama. Over the weekend, a bunch of tech geeks had a conference on the same subject — and their ideas will probably end up being just as important to the future of schooling.

The conference, called Educon, attracted members of the increasingly large but sorely underlooked education movement called Learning 2.0, the MySpace/Twitter-inspired approach to school, in which technology facilitates extra interaction between students and teachers (and students and students and teachers and teachers). Among the people gathered in Philadelphia was at least one group from New York City: 20 staff members at CIS 339 in the Bronx, a middle school whose approach to technology I profiled in the Village Voice a few months ago.

You can read 339 Principal Jason Levy’s takeaways from the conference at his Principal 2.0 blog, here, including notes from the panel he ran, on what to do if your principal says no to a new idea. (One apparently good consideration is “The ‘Media’ Test:  Where in the NY Post will this story end up?”)

David Warlick also provides good notes from a panel discussion on the direction President Obama should take education. The conference’s convener, Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, made the case that “accountability has to be a richer more complex conversation.” Another person talked about making accountability more “intelligent” with tests that assess for deeper learning, not just memorization.

Naturally, Warlick communicated his own takeaway via Twitter:

I just twittered: “The point of ed reform is having classrooms where it just doesn’t matter if kids are getting tested — to them or the teachers.”