Gresham’s Law of Education: “Bad” Principals Drive Out “”Good” Teachers

The Gresham’s Law  of Education is: “bad principals drive good teachers out of schools.”

The Department vigorously pursued a change in the 2005 UFT Contract negotiations and hailed as a great success the ending of senior transfers. The Open Market  transfer system allows any teacher to move to any school without the approval of the “sending” school principal. There are no caps on the “sending” or on the ”receiving” school.

The original senior transfer plan was negotiated to prevent teachers fleeing from “difficult” schools to “less difficult” schools.

Half of all vacancies were posted for seniority transfers, no more than five percent of staff could transfer out of any school. If the “sending” and the “receiving” schools and districts approved teachers could move under an “administrative” transfer – however – the vacancy had to be posted for seniority transfer the following year.

About half of the schools had decided to opt out of the seniority transfer system and selected teachers by way of the School Based Option Staffing and Transfer plan, an interview committee made up of a majority of teachers interviewed and selected staff – with a “quick” arbitration to prevent bias or discrimination.

Only about 300 teachers availed themselves of the Seniority Transfer Plan – one half of one percent of teachers. Anecdotal evidence shows the prime reason for transfer was to move to a school closer to your home!

Klein’s screed that the Seniority Transfer Plan allowed incompetent, unsatisfactory teachers to move from school to school is urban myth. The Seniority Plan required a teacher to have three consecutive satisfactory ratings to be eligible to transfer.

As Klein basked in the glow of “success” the teacher union kept quiet. They established a members only “grapevine” so that teachers could “check out” schools.

Over 2700 teachers transferred last year under the first year of the Open Market system … the Department and the Union remain silent about the details of the transfers, i.e., who transferred where. The Department is silent because teachers fled from “undesirable” schools and the Union remained smugly silent because they snookered the Department.

Next week the new round of Open Market transfers will begin … principals are already scouring the staffs of other schools and “cherry-picking” the “best and the brightest.”

So, in spite of the protestations of Joel, he has facilitated teachers to move from the “difficult to staff” schools … especially schools with “undesirable” principals. Rather than encouraging teacher to work in the “neediest” schools his Milton Friedman approach to school transfers condemn schools to an endless round of new, inexperienced teachers practicing on the “neediest” kids.

Should the Plutocrats at Tweed Who Endanger Our Children Continue to Run Our Schools?

The folks at Tweed are all caught up in the whirlwind of the “next big thing.”  All 1450 schools will have to select a new management system: the third, or is it the fourth reorganization in the Klein era. The methods by which funds are allocated to schools  will change dramatically, in spite of criticism that the formula is untried and will have dire consequences  for many schools. Principals and schools will be evaluated in a new School Progress Report  that impossible to understand. The “backroom” operations will also be totally overhauled and rumor has it that the Department is also reorganizing the way Special Education services are provided to students.

For parents their number one priority is not the avalanche of “reform,” but, simply, can you keep my kids safe.

The answer is clearly, “No.”

The Department’s revision of student bus schedules in the middle of the winter has been a disaster. Thousands of children left standing on street corners day after day as Tweed fumbled the ball again and again. The leadership by fanfare hailed twenty-million dollars in saving, or is it five million, or did it actually cost more? We’ll have to wait for the next administration to dig out the Augean stables.

When the NYDaily News investigated real or imagined abuses on school buses  the Department tried to cover up and finally blamed and fired a low level administrator.

The recent riot at the Public School Athletic League (PSAL) high school basketball finals was especially distressing. New York City Public High Schools have a proud history of producing great basketball players. Teams provide opportunities for many of our kids to win scholarships and earn a college degree. Teams unify a campus. Cheer leaders, kids rooting for their team, it’s part of the high school experience.

Over the last few years high school basketball has been corrupted as the Department ignores PSAL coaches who are also salaried AAU coaches and paid representatives of sneaker companies. When a fight erupted at a Robeson-Jefferson game  the Department ended Robeson’s season and forced Jefferson to default on some games. Why punish the kids for the inadequacy of school leaders and/or coaches?

Why did the Department schedule the PSAL championship game  for a Sunday night? Why did the Department allow the Garden to publicly sell tickets? The Department expected a few thousand kids and over 13,000 tickets were sold. Did “heads roll” at the Department? Of course not, their response was: we won’t schedule any more night games? (NOTE: Almost all PSAL games begin at 4:30PM).

If the plutocrats at Tweed can’t keep our kids safe what can they do?

Increasingly Tweed announcements on the “next big thing” sound like the announcements from the Bush White House.

Klein’s Legacy: Unifying the Public School Community by Creating A Culture of Opposition

Successful corporations are characterized by strong cultures – customers and employees that are proud of the “brand:” customers who return again and again to the product and employees who are loyal to the corporation. A NY Times columnist  writes about Starbucks, a corporation that grew from a handful of stores to over twenty-five thousand stores. The founder, in an interoffice memo bemoans the loss of some of the culture, the aroma of ground coffee and chitchat with the “barrista” as the stores become increasingly automated. However the profits continue to soar (read systemwide standardized test scores) and same store sales (read individual school scores) also continue to increase. Mega institutions are concerned with maintaining positive corporate cultures.

The Department of Education has attempted to follow the corporate model. They have automated many functions: budgets are transparent and online, job applications, transfers and communications are all online. The Empowerment initiative, breaking down the bureaucracy into networks of collaborative schools responsible for their own results is an excellent model. The problem: you cannot impose a culture.

Creating a culture of collaboration in a topdown authoritarian Maoist plutocracy is an oxymoron.

An example: Klein has attempted to separate teachers from their union … instead the Department has created a culture of opposition. They have driven teachers together into an intense dislike for Klein and his policies. In fact, in the upcoming union election Randy Weingarten will probably receive an enormous vote of confidence … a plebiscite on Klein policies.

Eric Nadelstern, who created the Autonomy Zone is a truly innovative and caring educator. His school, the original International High School “created” a school-based transfer plan that became the model for the city. Teachers, under Eric’s tutelage, not only selected their colleagues but also evaluated their colleagues in a peer-based evaluation plan. Eric’s leadership of Empowerment is a trompe d’oeil … a facade.

 Klein and company is obsessed with the belief that principals and teachers can be “beaten” into being more effective principals and teachers, or, through fear do “whatever is necessary” to show “results.”

New York State measures graduation rates and give NYC a 43% four year rate, Klein excludes data he doesn’t like (special ed kids) and includes data (GED) that the State excludes, compares “apples to oranges” and pats himself on the back. As Diane Ravitch  has clearly shown Klein is shameless in claiming credit that he doesn’t deserve.

The customers (parents and kids) and the employees (principals and teachers) rather than joining together in a culture of camaraderie are driven together into a combative stance: opposing Klein.

Scenario A: Meeting with the teacher union, parent, advocacy groups, elected officials and major corporations and gaining a consensus over the structure and direction of the million student Department of Education.

Scenario B: Ignore parents and disabuse the teacher union, advocacy groups and elected officials, “spin” numbers and “rule” by press release. Seek “solutions” (Weighted Student Funding, Milton Friedman market place competition, open market transfers and “carrot and stick” accountability) that play to the conservative anti union, anti public school crowd.

If the rules that govern full disclosure for corporations were applied to Klein he would be making small rocks out of large one’s in a striped suit in federal penitentiary.

Shrink-Wrapped Millions: Why Klein Won’t Help Johnny Read

With great fanfare the Department announced an 80 million dollar contract with IBM to create a database of pupil achievement information called ARIS (Achievement Reporting and Innovation System). Tweeds avers the system will “help schools analyze, report and manage information about student and school performance.”

 

Klein and Company have spent almost a year hawking a new School Progress Report, a system to rank schools and assign them grades. I was curious: how are the powers going to calculate the score that will determine the progress of schools.

 

Transparency is vital, if this system is going to be meaningful to parents, to teachers and supervisors it is essential that they understand the calculations. The following is the final section of a longer document explaining the new system:

 

Total Scores are calculated by weighting the values of the Proximity to City Horizon (x1) and Proximity to Peer Horizon (x2) measures for School Environment, Student Performance and Student Progress.  As these weightings indicate, Proximity to Peer Horizon counts twice as much as Proximity to City Horizon.  These weighted values are then averaged to create scores for School Environment, Student Performance and Student Progress.  The school’s Weighted Total Score (excluding additional credit for Exemplary Student Progress) is a weighted average of School Environment (weighted 15%), Student Performance (30%) and Student Progress (55%).

Additional recognition for schools obtaining Exemplary Student Progress as defined above is then added to the overall index using the following formula: .03 is added for each qualifying population as to which the percentage of students making exemplary gains is in the top 20% of all schools within the City and .015 is added for each qualifying population as to which the percentage of students as to which percentage of students making exemplary gains is in the top 40% of all schools in the City. A school’s Weighted Total Score Plus Additional Credit is determined by adding these additional potential points, if any are awarded, to the Weighted Total Score.

 

Nothing like a simple transparent system that will allow the parents, school staffs and the public to readily view and understand school progress.

 

If I remember correctly the School Progress Report system will cost 25 million dollars to develop and implement.

 

Now the Department is passing out another 80 million … sounds a little like Richard Bremer’s testimony before a congressional committee describing the necessity to ship over a hundred tons of hundred dollar bills, packaged in plastic shrink-wrap to Bagdad to pay whomever …

 

Do we really need an 80 million dollar system to tell us why Johnny can’t read?

 

I asked a few teachers why kids are struggling in school, clearly anecdotal and without the aid of Alavarez and Marsal Consultants:

“He’s a Blood and only stays in school to recruit.” 

“She takes care of younger brothers and sisters …”

“He works at night and can’t stay awake in class.”

 

Do you think the ARIS System will help these kids?

 

Now fair reader I have confidence in your ability, so, a little contest:

Given that the Department has 80 million bucks to spend: how would you spend it?

Never can tell – maybe the powers that be will reach down and snatch up you and your idea … although I wouldn’t quit my day job.

The Dropout Summit: Why is Klein “Dissing” the Public School Community?

The Black, Latino and Asian Caucus of the New York City Council, Directions for Our Youth, the United Way and the National Dropout Prevention Center convened a Dropout Summit at Baruch College.  Christine Quinn, Speaker of the City Council, Robert Jackson, Chair of the Ed Committee, David Weprin the Chair of the Finance Committee and a host of other elected officials listened to keynote addresses by Jonathan Kozol and Congressman Charles Rangel and comments by Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott.

About three hundred scholars, teachers, parents, students and dropout prevention organizations participated in five forums.

Do you notice anyone missing? How about the Department of Education.

The folks who run the schools couldn’t be bothered about:

* 140,000 young people who entered high school in 1999 have already dropped out or in danger of dropping out. (Gates Foundation, October, 2006).

* Fewer than 1 out of 10 Black and Hispanic New York City public school students graduate in four years with a Regents diploma (NYTimes, 11/30/06).

* 37% of boys in New York City high schools graduated on time, according to NYS Education Commissioner Richard Mills (NY Times 2/14/05).

* 47 high schools reported at least 100 dropouts during the 04-05 school year.

It’s not like the Department isn’t aware of the dropout crisis, they commissioned the Parthenon Group to conduct a detailed analysis  of dropouts in NYC. The Report, that cost millions of dollars, in excruciating detail, paints a frightening picture of over 100,000 kids who are dropping out.

The Department answer of a program called Multiple Pathways , a collection of programs that the Department sharply cut when they assumed the throne and are now reconstituting. The programs, Young Adult Boro Centers (YABC), GEDs, Alternative Transfer Schools are fine, but these programs are designed for kids that are on their way out the door, and, too many excellent programs are simply ignored.

Are dropouts a “new” problem? No, the problem is that kids used to drop into an economy that absorbed them into jobs, frequently union jobs with benefits. Those jobs? Now in China and India and spread across the global economy.

What is so frustrating is that a recent John Hopkins University Study  identifies specific reasons why kids dropout and these kids can be identified before they enter high school.

Targeting dollars in middle school grades can stem the deluge of high school dropouts.

Instead the Department is as tone deaf and blind as the Bush administration. Their Carthaginian ideology, raze all that comes before them, has blinded them to the kids in their trust.

As three hundred caring adults and kids talked about a crisis that is condemning kids to lives of poverty Klein and Company were busy repairing their image … the Emperor still has no clothes.