“Dead Prez,” Arrogance and Hubris versus the Lives of Our Kids: The Department of Education Is More Interested in “Legacy” Than “Reality.”

 

In the hallways, the [police] was always present

Searching through possessions

Looking for dope and weapons

Get your lessons

That’s why my moms kept stressing

I tried to pay attention but they classes wasn’t interesting

They seemed to only glorify the Europeans

Claiming Africans were only three-fifths a human being

School is like a 12 step brainwash camp

They make you think if you drop out, you ain’t got a chance

To advance in life, they try to make you pull your pants up

Students fight the teachers and get took away in handcuffs

And if that wasn’t enough, then they expel y’all

Your peoples understand it but to them, you a failure

They may as well teach us extortion

You either get paid or locked up, the principal is like a warden

Dead Prez, “They School,”

A gorgeous snowy morning and I trudged up to Lehman College for Dropout Summit II. Last year over 400 folks gathered to listen to a galaxy of luminaries discuss the dropout crisis. On Friday over 200 hardy individuals ignored the snow flakes to listen and discuss issues concerning our most fragile kids. Leading political figures addressed us:

Bill Thompson, the Comptroller, and a 2009 mayoral contender gave a major address.

* supporter of mayoral control

* but, parents were left out …we have to include them.

* expand universal pre-K

* strong supporter of art/music programs that have fallen victim to excessive testing

* expand of CTE programs, especially building trades.

Betsy Gotbaum, the Public Advocate:

* went through the data showing increasing numbers of dropouts each year … challenging the DOE numbers.

* strongly supported state certified CTE programs … (state requirements are much more rigorous than those of the DOE).

* challenged the DOE testing program as excessive.

Charles Rangel, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee:

* told his life story, a high school dropout, who reclaimed his life.

* explained how education is the underpinning of every other program.

* supports federal legislation to support a national dropout initiative.

* calls for more “outrage,” from the public.

The host, Cory Goodman, the Director of Directions for Our Youth, the Not-for-Youth that created the conference, introduced the “first lady,” Silda Spitzer and Manny Rivera, the # 2 guy in the NYS Education Department.

Elected officials from around the city were acknowledged and Bob Wise, the former Governor of West Virginia, and now the head of a major national advocacy organization explained the Graduation Promise Act, a bill to create a national dropout prevention program.

Dennis Walcott, the Deputy Mayor for Education. was the luncheon speaker. He announced he was discarding his speech … and gave a rambling speech defending the Bloomberg initiatives, emphasizing, “…we must put our differences aside.” 

Maybe a phone call from Mike to Joel is in order.

As reported in these pages the Department chose to boycott the conference, and backed off a little after a NY Sun article, sending two mid level administrators.

Missing in Action:

Cami Anderson, the Superintendent of District 79, the Department organization that runs the GED Plus program. Maybe she didn’t want to explain how the Department reorganized the entire GED program and “lost” thousands of kids. Or, why she is reducing the number of GED testing sites …

Joellen Lynch, the head of the Multiple Pathways program – that oversees the entire dropout prevention effort. Perhaps she was shy about answering data questions … how can graduation rates be rising when dropouts are increasing?

Maybe they didn’t want to listen to Leonie Haimson, from Class Size Matters, who was a panelist. She gave a detailed analysis of the DOE data … that effectively challenges claims of rising graduation rates and dropping dropout numbers.

Bill Okun in his NY Times blog says it all …

In too many schools we alienate and turn off kids … we beat them to death with test prep .. and “lockdown” classes.

In too many schools “command and control” is the educational philosophy.

In too many schools education has been reduced to “teacher-proof” mega programs …

Rather than engaging in a dialogue … among the Department, kids, parents, teachers, advocates and the public, who, after all, pays for public education, the Department raises the draw bridge.

They have sealed themselves into their Tweed Castle … with an army of publicists “spinning” their “successes” across the country.

Everything is a “success,” except for the kids, discarded by a school system more interested in their image and their legacy.

They are deaf to cries of the very kids they are supposed to serve.

Educational Ice Floes:Pushing the Neediest Kids Out the Schoolhouse Door

 

I’ve learned one inescapable truth … justice is a bitch.

Homicide: Life on the Streets

A couple of years ago the Department, under the guidance of Michelle Cahill, commissioned a costly study of “over aged,” “under credited” students, students that are well along the path to dropping out of high school.

The results were staggering, huge numbers of kids who had dropped out or were on the verge of dropping out of school. Michelle took the Report on the road, making the presentation around the city, a sobering, and depressing set of data.

The groundbreaking study  which is being emulated in Boston, Chicago and Portland, Ore.–was full of surprises. Among them was the sheer size of New York’s problem: 70,000 students from 16 to 21–more than one-fifth of the city’s high school population–were two or more years behind their peers in accumulating the 44 credits needed for graduation. An additional 68,000 had already dropped out. All told, New York’s 138,000 lost and vulnerable kids made up a population larger than the combined public high school enrollment of Philadelphia, Houston and Boston.

The Department’s response has been to create more transfer high schools, a good response, and reorganize the GED programs, basically abolishing Offsite Educational Services and recreating it as GED Plus, in effect creating havoc.

On February 22, a not-for-profit, Directions for Our Youth will be hosting the second Dropout Summit. The New York Sun describes how the not-for-profit and the Department are lobbing hand grenades at each other. The Department response is reflex, anything that emanates outside the walls of Tweed is, by definition, bad. Unless, of course, the “anything” fauns over Tweed initiatives.

The world of dropout prevention is a morass. Programs within the Department of Education, State Programs, not for profits, a range of programs all seeking funding and competing with each other.

What is especially depressing is that we know who is going to dropout many years before the kid is out the school door. A highly persuasive study from John Hopkins  identifies the kids and recommends a range of interventions.

The Department, of course, in the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” mode, and any ideas that don’t bear the imprimatur of Tweed are verboten.

Christine Quinn, the Speaker of the city Council created a Middle Schools Task Force, issued a Report with a range of recommendations, and, the Department adopted some of the recommendations.

These fifty targeted schools contain thousands of kids who are below proficiency, poor attendance, live in high poverty neighborhoods:  they fit the pattern of kids well along the dropout route. It is not surprising that six of the newly identified SURR schools are Middle Schools, and the seventh school is a transfer high school.

Under the current Department reorganization School Support Organizations may advise, recommend, suggest, but have no ability to actually demand. Superintendents simply review data. Who speaks for the kids?

I just visited a very, low achieving middle school with 450 kids … 25% Special Ed kids. Last June the outgoing principal excessed one of his two guidance counselors. The remaining counselor is in the triage mode … she can’t possibly provide all the mandated counseling, or deal with the myriad problems of the kids. She deals with the crisis of the moment, she cares, she cares deeply, does the Department?

In spite of the Department’s self congratulatory backslapping they are abandoning a generation of kids … like the Inuit’s of yore, who pushed the elderly and the disabled out to sea on ice floes, the Department has chosen to sacrifice our kids.

Blame the Unions!! Demogogues Looking for Scapegoats

We can all agree that our school should be showing better results.

Who is to blame?

We live in a society of blame placing … from sports analogies to election campaigns … we all like to point our finger at someone, or some policy, and place the blame.

In the world of education it has become fashionable to “point our finger” at teacher unions.

Whether it be the just released Fordham Foundation Report, or, the “Kill All the School Boards” article in the Jan/Feb issue of The Atlantic Monthly, unions take a pounding.

Unions reflect the opinions of their members … if not, union leaders would not be reelected. In fact, unions are the very essence of democratic organizations.  A bottom up democracy: teachers elect building representatives, monthly delegate meetings, and officer elections every few years. And, frequently, really hot contested elections, as is presently in progress in Los Angeles.

Vigorous opponents of unions include totalitarian regimes, China, Russia, Nazi Germany, and, oh yes, the far right politicians and think tanks.

Unions prevent bosses from acting like bosses. They force management to abide by negotiated rules, rules that labor and management jointed negotiated and placed into a contract.

What are these “union rules” that prevent schools from “achieving” better results?

Teacher union contracts establish pay scales, holidays, hours of work, class size, relief from lunch duty, discharge rules, health plans, and frequently require consultation, not approval, of policy issues. They basically are a framework.

You can’t fire someone without “just cause,” some assignments are rotated, some assignments must go to the senior “qualified” applicants.

Are these mutually negotiated rules onerous? autocratic? oppressive?

In fact, teacher union contracts frequently allow for school level modifications, with the approval of the staff and principal.

For too many the role model is Mel Brooks, in the move “History of the World, Part 1,” playing Louis XVI, Brooks glances at the viewer and avers, “It’s good to be the King.”

The attitude of the rich and powerful is wonderfully expressed in another episode from the Brooks classic – a must listen!

The 1.75% Solution: Nibbling Away at the Lives of Children

 

The recently announced school budget cut was 1.75% of their total allocated 07-08 tax levy budget. Half of the budget allocation has already been spent … the impact of the cut therefore is closer to 4 %.

Principals are rightly screaming foul … School after school reports cuts  that will seriously impact core education.

Elementary school in the Bronx: We have been cut $104,000 for this school year with another $300,000 slated for next school year. Frankly the $104,000 right now will be worse than the $300,000 in the fall. As it should be, we spend the bulk on our money at the beginning of the school year on academic support personnel (part and full time), instructional coaches, and new curriculum materials. We have no “extra money” sitting in our budget for superfluous items. Thus we will operate for the rest of the school year without the support personnel and assistance that renders our school of 1,040 K to 8th graders safe and supportive for staff and students. We will have to cut back to $0 the substitute coverage budget. This means our teachers will have to cover each other for absences, thereby receiving no preparation period for the day. Or students will have to be split among the other grade level teachers pushing class size beyond 35 and 36 in many instances. We will have to shorten the term of the part-time academic support and teacher support personnel, leaving our most at-risk students in the lurch and our new teachers without support at the crucial end of the school year. We will have lunch periods covered by administration and teacher volunteers because the four substitute school aides will have to be let go for lack of funds.

School after school is scrambling … cutting mentoring, after school, summer programs, and on and on.

A coalition of unions, electeds, parents and advocates are planning to fight back.

 

Can the folks most impacted by the budgets be able to fight back? Will the Bloomberg/Klein media machine overwhelm the pro child lobby? Will the national campaigns of Clinton/Obama/McCain focus on education?

 

Next year the Mayor has announced $300 million in additional cuts to the Department of Education.

 

In 1975 the City, on the verge of bankruptcy, laid off over 10,000 teachers … all elementary school teachers with less than six years of service were laid off. Not surprisingly, no one at Central Headquarters was laid off.

 

Rule # 1: The primary role of the bureaucracy is to protect and maintain the bureaucracy.

 

Tweed is busy burnishing their edifice … the Bloomberg/Klein national model … they have successfully convinced the foundation establishment, and come hell or high water, will do nothing to erode what they have created.  The boatloads of dollars used to create ARIS or interim assessments or Support Organizations are untouched … the dollars are ripped out of the hearts of schools … out of the programs that directly impact the lives of each and every child.

 

Legislation in Albany is already beginning to nibble at the edges of Mayoral control and the City Council, the Public Advocate the teachers union (UFT) are holding hearing.

 

Will the Bloomberg/Klein edifice glimmer across the nation or crumble into the ashes of history?

The Soylent Green Approach to School Reform: Why Tweed Abandons the Most Vulnerable

In a virtually incomprehensible press release  the State Education Department (SED) announced the latest round of Schools Under Registration Review (SURR) schools. In the 700 plus school districts, the many, many thousands of schools, these are the lowest achieving schools in New York State.

In the current Soylent Green  world of the Department of Education the newly identified SURR schools are recycled cadavers, bearing new “numbers,” housed in the same buildings, they are recidivist SURR schools.

Once upon a time: SURR schools were removed from school districts and placed in the Chancellor’s District  and, in close collaboration with the teachers union, implemented a highly structured program utilizing nationally recognized tools, that worked.

It is no surprise that most SURR schools are located in the poorest areas of the City. High numbers of student living in temporary housing, in foster care, in Special Education classes, namely, the most vulnerable children.

The typical SURR school has an inexperienced principal and many new teachers: a formula for failure. What is so sad is that neediest kids are paired with highly dedicated, motivated teachers who lack the basic classroom skills. Some give up after a few months, others struggle through the year and fall by the wayside, and another cohort takes advantage of the Open Market Transfer Plan  and move along to better run schools with fewer needy children.

The losers are the kids and their families.

Tweed is the antithesis of the Chancellor’s District. The Department has essentially left the education business and entered the field of marketing and referral. The entrepreneurial principal, purchasing services from an alphabet soup of support organizations and outside vendors. If s/he fails, pick another principal.

The kids are pawns … sacrificed for the greater good of “value-added,” merit pay, pay for performance, etc.,  … the initiative “du jour.”

What is so distressing is that the Klein “formula” resonates: at the 2007 NEA Convention candidate Obama supported merit pay, the Aspen Institute, the National Association of Governors  all support some form of merit pay or pay for teacher performance.

Sitting in some soigne country club the self described elite muses,” … taxes are out of hand … especially for schools filled children who will never amount to anything … these kids will never succeed … why pay teachers higher salaries … pay for performance will be much cheaper … will weaken unions … the marketplace, not school boards or elected officials will determine the success or failure of schools … it shouldn’t be “our fault”  … whether rich or poor … you should be responsible for your own future … and

 besides … they’ll be more maids and chauffeurs available.”