The Gifted and Talented Charade: Education By Ukase Is a Farce. Creating Great School Must Begin With Parents and Teacher

 Last weekend and next the Selective High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) will be administered … for many kids, after months or years of practice and tutoring.

Specialized high schools are an alternative to private schools costing tens of thousands of dollars every year. Some parents can invest the thousands of dollars for prep classes and private tutoring.

Unfortunately, as a NY Sun op ed piece  so poignantly shows, too many children in inner city public schools, regardless of their ability, have no access to intensive tutoring and frequrently are unaware of the test.

The fractured nature of our school system steer principals to the sole measure of success or failure: Progress Reports.

Once upon a time the Board of Education funded Saturday SHSAT prep classes – middle schools identified kids and supported them … now …each and every school is on their own. In virtually every school there are a few kids who are exceptional, in spite of the surrounding neighborhood, the crime, the poverty, they are the “Talented Tenth,” that handful that are potential leaders.

Five years into Children First the Department is trying to establish an equitable grades K-3 Gifted and Talented Program  and guarantee seats to students who gain appropriate grades on recognized tests. Klein trashes current locally developed Gifted and Talented programs .

Of course before Klein demolished Community School Districts there were a range of programs around the city: the Astor Program in District 18, the Eagle Program in District 22, programs in Districts Two and Three in Manhattan and other programs in Queens and the Bronx. They were created due to bottom up pressures – the demands of parents to school board members to the superintendent. Other districts clustered Gifted and Talented kids in specific schools, PS 31 in District 7 and PS 20 in District 16 are examples.

The movement to mega-Regions and on to School Support Organizations and clear Tweed antagonism eroded these programs.

Many existing programs were far from perfect, criteria varies from District to District. However, many of the Districts provided extensive staff training programs – to create classes without providing ongoing training for teachers is not a program. Simply calling a class gifted and clustering kids does not make a gifted program.

The current administration has churned out idea after idea, program after program, devised in the caverns of Tweed. Holdings hearings after the program is established is typical, and, wondering why parents and teachers are upset and frequently hostile.

Yes, gifted and talent kids are shortchanged, especially kids in the lowest income neighborhoods. After destroying programs and ignoring the problem the Department is beginning to respond. To many it simply looks like a band-aid to resolve a political issue.

Leadership by ukase and press release has become the norm.

Empowering parents and the public school stakeholders in a public debate creates good schools . Magic wands only work in fairy tales.

Can Schools Alone Close the Achievement Gap? Is Poverty Inexorably Link To Achievement? Can We Re-Create an Education/Civil Rights Coalition? The Unintended Consequences of No Child Left Behind.

 To what extent, if any, is the Afro-American community responsible for  low academic achievement in schools, poverty and the ills of the inner city? Can we create “highly effective schools” for children of poverty without resolving the ills of poverty?

The new Bill Cosby-Alvin Poussaint book, Come on People: On the Path from Victims to Victors has been widely featured in the media here  and here  and here. Some in the Afro-American community are outraged while others reap praise on the book.

John McWhorter, a linguist and Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute has been writing for a decade on the same topics.

Richard Rothstein cogently points to a range of issues that impact schools; both non-cognitive behaviors and the disadvantages of the inner city poor. Rothstein’s work has been sharply criticized.

The current occupants of the Tweed Courthouse, have chosen to ignore this vigorous debate and pursue a “schools alone can succeed in raising achievement” agenda. An ostrich approach ignores that from California to New York schools are struggling to meet the 2014 goals of No Child Left Behind.

New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), the State Teacher Union convened 400 parents, teachers and public school advocates to listen to a range of “experts” and discuss the wider question of “Closing the Achievement Gap.” From Katy Haycock, the Director of the Education Trust to Pedro Noguera to Richard Rothstein and a range of others.

Some crucial queries:

* Can current “great schools” in high poverty neighborhoods be replicated around the country?

*  Was NCLB a Karl Rove scheme to create public/private competition and destroy public schools and public school unions?

* Has NCLB turned the focus away from “traditional” civil rights issues, i.e., health care, housing, living wages, teenage pregnancy, etc., and placed the burden solely on schools?

* Why has the Civil Rights coalition of minority organizations, elected officials, the clergy and labor unions been unable to re-create the coalition of the sixties?

The Closing the Gap Conference  begins a dialogue that will produce a White Paper later in the year … will it result in a coalition that will address these issues in a collegial fashion that will result in legislation … ?

Unfortunately very little will happen until after the 2008 elections … and only if parents, teachers and advocates hold elected officials “feet to the fire.”

Joel: “I Knew Al Shanker and You’re No Al Shanker”

 A response to Joel Klein’s “Pay for Performance” Op Ed piece in the New York Sun, October 23rd, 2007.

Dear Joel

After the release of the Al Shanker biography “Tough Liberal” everyone seems to be quoting Al. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen in the Dan Quail debate , “I knew Al Shanker and you’re no Al Shanker.”

It has been difficult to keep up with the twists and turns of your administration … from strong centralized top down control to “let a thousand flowers bloom.” From trying to dismantle tenure and a Robin Hood approach to school allocations to bonus pay.

Individual pay for performance, aka merit pay is quite different from school-wide bonus pay. I am gratified that you acknowledge that principal to staff and teacher to teacher collaboration is vital to student progress.

You are quick to pat yourself on the back … but have your programs, whatever they may be, succeeded? NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson questions the data.

High schools with 70, 80 even 90% graduation rates have 20, 30, 40% college readiness rates, using the CUNY college readiness metric. SAT scores are dismal.

Are kids making progress or are we seeing scores being pumped up by manipulations?

More importantly, are we following a path that evidence shows will achieve progress?

A recent McKinsey & Co. study  is fascinating:

“Begin by hiring the best … the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of it’s teachers.”

What is interesting is that teacher training institutions only pick the best applicants … rather than expanding the pool they limit the pool, and, because entry is fiercely competitive, teaching becomes a high status job.

Teacher Fellows are the right direction.

Secondly, teachers receive significant support, i.e., hundreds of hours of training, appointing senior teachers to oversee professional development in schools. “…when a brilliant American teacher retires, almost all of the lesson plans and practices that she has developed also retire. When a Japanese teacher retires, she leaves a legacy.”

The current NYC Mentoring Program, unfortunately, is a compliance-only program …

Finally, “… there is a pattern in what countries do once students start to fail … top performers intervene early and often.” In NYC we stand back and allow schools, and their students, to “sink or swim” and use the threat of a “poor grade” to motivate.

Joel, I’m a “glass half full” type of guy … maybe you have “seen the light …,” and the next two years will be characterized by a partnership with teachers and their unions …

I was speaking with a truly wonderful teacher, she lives in Waterbury Connecticut, leaves her house at 5 am and arrives in East New York at 6:30 am … she shrugs over the bonus idea … the “best and brightest” teach because it is a passion … dollars, housing, a pension, health plans enable them to exercise their passion.

I’m a teacher, I always believe I can make a difference, even in teaching a recalcitrant Chancellor.

Joe Torre, Randi Weingarten and Al Shanker: Partners in Refocusing the Incentive/Bonus Debate

Joe Torre reached the post season playoffs the last twelve years …for Yankee management it wasn’t good enough.  Steinbrenner and company offered him a contract with a substantial pay cut with performance incentives for reaching the post season.

Torre turned it down!

He especially objected to the incentives – the assumption that somehow he could coach better in the playoffs for monetary incentives. Incentives were an insult.

Torre has a lot in common with teachers – will teachers teach “better” when offered incentives?

At least for teachers salary is based on years of service and the newly agreed upon “bonuses” are over and above base salaries.

Actually the NYC Agreement, to a degree, mirrors what happens with post season money for baseball players. The players themselves decide how to divvy up post season dollars. The players determine full shares and fractional shares – for players, for players who only play part of the season, coaches and other staff.

Schools themselves will have to vote whether to participate in the program and elected representatives of the UFT Chapter, and Management, will have to agree upon the division of the bonus cash, i.e., shares.

There is a certain irony that the Randi Weingarten negotiated the bonus agreement as the Shanker biography, “Tough Liberal” is rolled out. The bonus plan is truly Shankeresque.

The drumbeat for merit pay, aka, pay for performance is resonating across the country, from the draft NCLB legislation, the foundations, the blogs and the NYC school leadership.

The NYC bonus plan moves the focus from individual teacher bonuses to school wide bonuses.

The individual pay for performance ideologues ignore the reams of research that point to collaboration as the key to increasing performance.

Perhaps, just perhaps school systems will begin to provide supports for teacher collaboration – the key to school improvement.

Equalizing Benefits: The 25/55 Pension Agreement Is A True “Family Value”

 In spite of the “family values” paean of the Right our society has always been hostile to working parents. Whether in the public and private sector employers have battled every step of the way: fighting granting working parents maternity and child care benefits.

After years of effort the AFL-CIO finally passed the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) – a law that gives limited rights to parents. In comparison to the rights of European working parents our laws are archaic.

In the 20’s a teacher who became pregnant was fired.

Even today parents who take child care leaves are penalized – in salary, in salary steps and in pensions.

A teacher who begins to teach right out of college and bears two children and takes two full child care leaves (four years each) misses eight years of salary, salary steps as well as pension credit. A colleague who did not take child care leaves will reach age 55 with 34 years of service and is eligible to retire.

The teacher who took two full child care leaves reaches age 55 with 26 years of service. Under the current law they can not retire with full benefits until they reach 30 years of service – and in the instant case age 59.

The newly negotiated pension agreement  will give the teacher referenced above the right to retire at age 55 – with 26 years of service.

It is an enormous step in the ongoing battle for parental rights.

In an age when two-salary families are the standard parents have to trade off salary versus the care of their children.

The 25/55 pension benefit is a major step in the fight for rights for working parents represented by the United Federation of Teachers.

From Idealist to Cynic to Survivor: The New, New School Leader

(The following is an amalgam of discussions with a number of newer Principals)

I was a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed new Principal … eager to become part of a new Children’s First driven school system.  It was amazing – I sent Joel Klein an email and, viola, the Chancellor answering my emails!!

In a few short years I have become that cynical school leader who loves his kids, respects his teachers and is just trying to survive.

What happened?

The Merry-Go-Round of School Support: If my “significant other” would check my email log they would think I’m having a relationship with two folk named Galaxy and FAMIS. Every year Tweed has changed the system and the people. By the time I begin to figure it out, they change it again. I survive because of the “Board of Ed in Exile,” those retirees, mostly pushed out before they were ready to retire, who are really, really good at this budget, purchasing, programming stuff … I hire them as consultants and survive.

Chancellors Invent, Principals Circumvent: In my first few years I thought I could run a highly successful school no matter which kids were sent to my school. Wrong!!  I love my kids to death, but, the big but, Joel has decided to measure me by the progress of my kids … and really, really, needy kids don’t accumulate credits and pass Regents in an orderly fashion. From September to November I spend every waking hour recruiting kids … The message from Joel was clear: he applauded successful Principals, who also had entering classes with most of their kids above standard!! The lesson: if I want to survive in the current environment I have to swallow my beliefs recruit, recruit, recruit …

Burn Out:  Every day I’m sitting at my desk as the sun rises … reading and answering endless emails, and the other mundane but essential administrative tasks. Can I do this forever? It’s decades until I can retire … I thought after a few years I would master the job and live a normal life … wrong! It doesn’t get easier … as I learn the job better I want to do more for my kids …

My Heroes: the teachers: Teachers are amazing … their dedication, caring and hope …I respect them and my success is based on their success … however …  in the wild, wild West of Open Market I spend the Spring recruiting and trying to convince current staff to stay. A few of my best teachers fled … to easier schools, to schools closer to their homes. I had a few “losers” that I encouraged to leave … I put myself in the “coverage” pool and teach a few class a week … keeps my head on straight.

The Union is Not the Enemy:  As a teacher I was happy that I had a strong union … I never needed them but it was nice to know the union was there … As a Principal I understand the need for rules … I work with my union rep … a few times I wanted to do something that the “union” said I couldn’t do … I knew there was a way to work it out but I had no way to speak to the union officialdom … bureaucracy is bureaucracy … As Joel continues to rap the UFT the more I wish Randi Weingarten was the President of my union.

Data and Survival: I am the CEO, the leader of my school and I’m measured by cold, cruel numbers. A bunch of “acronyms” wander by … but … I no longer have a “boss.” Does this students work qualify for an academic credit? Is this course remedial or creditable? Is this project rigorous? These are all my decisions and no one is looking over my shoulder. One Principal makes one decision, another Principal the opposite. As long as your data are good, no one cares … And, every decision that impacts school data impacts your evaluation … I fear that we are slowly “dumbing” down the work to improve our data … it is the world in which I live!!

Dancing As Fast As I Can: In spite of some urgings from Tweed I avoided the project that will pay kids to come to school … I carefully skipped around the pilot program that is the precursor to merit pay. I keep my CBO partner happy and I’m polite and respectful to my School Support Organization. I’m an expert on gang colors in their many manifestations. I’m an expert on the machinations of the juvenile criminal justice system and have a number of Probation Officers and key Police personnel on my speed dial.

I feel betrayed by Joel … I see the overwhelming burdens my kids face … the unfairness of the world … I can only do so much … who can find answers to no jobs, dilapidated housing, crime, ghetto-fabulous bling, and on and on … I don’t know …

I jog, I’m into meditation … and I survive.

NCLB:Trusting Our Founding Fathers, Again: School Improvement Most Begin With Teachers and Families, Not Imposed By Washington Pols

 Hamilton, Madison and their buddies were really smart guys … and the hot summer they spent in Philadelphia produced our founding document, the Constitution. The deliberations resulted in education not listed as one of the enumerated powers, delegating it to the states.

Considering the No Child Left Behind debacle … they were clearly right.

Diane Ravitch, in a NY Times op ed piece  skewers the underpinnings of the currents law.

The law, and the rantings of too many eduwonks, that a combination of sanctions and rewards will improve schools: the threat of school closings or the softening or elimination of tenure coupled with pay for performance (aka merit pay) will, miraculously, create better teachers and effective schools.

The current proposed legislation clashes with the major teacher organizations, the American Federation of Teachers  and the National Education Association, who both oppose major sections of the proposal.

The core of NCLB is testing … rewards and punishments stem from test results, however, the tests themselves are deeply flawed. Bob Herbert  and a recent Fordham Foundation Study (“The Proficiency Illusion”) proffer improvements in test scores are related to easier tests and, of course, school systems that simply figure out ways to “game the tests” rather than educate children.

Rather than dealing with what we know about “closing the gap” foundations, think tanks, bloggers and electeds espouse the “politically correct,” and wrong, solutions.

Start with what we know: we know that children from low socio-economic backgrounds enter pre-kindergarten with substantially lower vocabularies . A solution: federal funding to expand pre-kindergarten classes in low SES communities. It’s not rocket science!

The range of approaches to “gap” issues are complex, cut across the social services spectrum, and, may cost money. The New York State teacher union is convening a conference  with a range of national figures to discuss the issues and review current research.

Five years ago President Bush, Democrats and Republicans joined hands and patted themselves on the back over the passage of NCLB. Five years later their efforts have failed. The cure is much worse than the illness. NCLB has sidetracked and marginalized efforts to improve education, especially for inner city families.

A basic approach to a complex issue is to use NAEP  and widely advertise the scores. Allow States to design their own programs, and, require that all stakeholders, from elected officials to teacher, parent and community organizations participate in the design, implementation and evaluation of State and local initiatives.

Once again, we should listen to our founding fathers.

Closing the Vicious Cycle: The Chimera of the Magic Wand, Schools Alone Cannot Close the Achievement Gap

Seemingly for decades Jonathan Kozol has been the conscience of public education. For underpaid, frustrated, marginalized teachers Kozol was that voice in the wilderness – his plaints of dilapidated under financed schools resonate with those who ply their trade in the trenches.

His books are standard fare in education courses, teachers flock to his frequent appearances … and …I fear he is becoming increasingly irrelevant.

With the release of his latest book he has suddenly became the center of a maelstrom, many attacking Kozol more than his ideas. Sol Stern in the City Journal and a number of bloggers  go after Kozol, and, obliquely, his ideas.

Kozol bemoans the re-segregation of public schools  and the NCLB driven reliance on test prep and “dumbed down” education.

Unfortunately he is jousting with windmills …

Yes, we live in a segregated society – black and Hispanic inner cities and well as suburbs: segregation by class  and by race and ethnicity. The Civil Rights movement of the fifties and sixties defined many of our lives … the boycotts, the freedom rides, the March on Washington, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. Now, a half century later, to some, the victories have been eroded.

NCLB requires testing in grades 3-8, however, in New York this is nothing new. In the pre-NCLB days test scores were published in the NYTimes – low scores had consequences. Test prep was the norm from Christmas until the tests in April.

What is so disturbing is the belief that there is a simple solution. Even the perceptive columnist, Bob Herbert has a “magic wand” solution to educational issues. Wendy Kopp, the CEO and founder of Teach for American has a $120 million budget – to place “the best and brightest” into schools for two years … does her program improve student achievement? Not according to Linda Darling-Hammond … but Wendy is the favorite of corporate America …

If you spend any time in an inner city secondary school you see teachers struggling … and you confront a resistant student body: resistant to authority, resistant to doing homework, angry and rebellious, or, just alienated. Yes, great leaders and great teachers with proper resources and external supports, can, against the odds, succeed. But most of us are ordinary human beings who do the best we can … against seemingly overwhelming circumstances.

Orlando Patterson in a NYTimes  article points to a core issue:

The circumstances that far too many African-Americans face — the lack of paternal support and discipline; the requirement that single mothers work regardless of the effect on their children’s care; the hypocritical refusal of conservative politicians to put their money where their mouths are on family values; the recourse by male youths to gangs as parental substitutes; the ghetto-fabulous culture of the streets; the lack of skills among black men for the jobs and pay they want; the hypersegregation of blacks into impoverished inner-city neighborhoods — all interact perversely with the prison system that simply makes hardened criminals of nonviolent drug offenders and spits out angry men who are unemployable, unreformable and unmarriageable, closing the vicious circle.

It is easier to fund Teach for America or attack tenure or support or oppose some reading program … it is harder to confront the inner city culture that Patterson describes and we have created.

Until we confront these issues, our schools, our nation, and our children will flounder.