Trying to Muzzle Arne: The Intersection of the Fight for a Health Care and the Race to the Top, Are Teachers a Key to Passage of Health Care?

 

 

Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod were sitting in the back room of their favorite Chinese restaurant, you can’t do “politics” in the White House. Scattered across the table were Kung Po Chicken stained sheets of paper. Some with “Definite Yes,” others “Definite No,” and other “Maybe.”

 

Rahm: “We need thirty or forty more votes, how can we lean on them …?”

 

David: “Nancy is doing all she can …”

 

Rahm: “We need phones calls, emails, visits to their offices, we need daily pressure … when they go home for the recess they have be under pressure each and every day…”

 

David: “Call Weingarten”

 

Rahm: “What can she do …?”

 

David: “Her members are in every congressional district, every precinct, every election district. They understand the issues, they’re articulate, they’re teachers … she can get them out on the streets, she can make all the ‘maybes’ squirm.”

 

Rahm: “Call her, call her now …set up a meeting, what are we waiting for …”

 

David: “You have to call Valerie first … she has to speak to Barrack … Arne has been bashing Randi’s people for months … “

 

Rahm: “What are you talking about …”

 

David: “This merit pay, pay for performance, lifting the cap on the number of charter schools, making it easier to dismiss teachers, threatening states over the Race to the Top funds … it pisses off Randi and it pisses off her members … you gotta get Arne to back off …”

 

Rahm: “Barrack loves Arne … if Arne pushes back Barrack isn’t going to lean on him”

 

David: “Does Barrack want health care? Does he want another term? Weingarten is the key to health care … make her happy and we’re over the top.”

 

Rahm: “Do what you have to do … make her happy.” 

 

                                                                * * *

 

I am constantly surprised that well educated Americans have such a high-minded view of the day-to-day politics that results in the passage of legislation. They bemoan the “deal-making” and yearn for the days when politics was pure. Days that never existed.

 

Thomas Jefferson hired James Callender, a “scandalmonger” to besmirch the reputation of his arch rival Alexander Hamilton over an affair, probably began for the sole purpose of collecting blackmail.

 

The election of 1800, the first truly partisan election makes the election of 2000 look fair and balanced.

 

Getting legislation passed involves building a constituency, and ofttimes trading one idea for another, frequently in unrelated bills.

 

The Assembly School Governance bill passed with, if I remember correctly with only 14 “no” votes. How is it possible? The blogs may have been totally on the ”no” side, many advocacy organizations were opposed to the bill, however, I spoke with a legislator and asked, “how many of your actual constituents, voters in your district, contacted you over the bill?” His answer, “none.”  All the emails and letters and visits came from partisans, none of whom voted for, or against him.

 

During the congestion pricing debate that same legislator, in spite of Bloomberg promises of perks for his community opposed the plan, he opposed it for a simple reason, he was overwhelmed by constituents,  ordinary voters opposing the plan.

 

During the mid-July AFT sponsored Washington Education Conference attendees visited their legislators. On Tuesday, July 28th the AFT sponsored a call your legislator campaign

 

 Thank you to everyone who has mobilized and urged your legislators in Congress to support healthcare reform. AFT members and activists like you have generated thousands of calls to Capitol Hill. Congress is taking notice.  

 

Lawmakers are in intense debate regarding what form the final healthcare legislation will take. We need to keep up the pressure!

 

Tomorrow, Tuesday, July 28, AFT and our allies, including HCAN (Healthcare for American Now), are having another national call-in day.

 The number to call is 877/264-4226. Press 1 to contact the U.S House of Representatives. When prompted, enter your 10-digit telephone number to be connected directly to your representative. Urge your member of Congress to support healthcare reform now.

 

Make no mistake: People who prefer the status quo and oppose healthcare reform have contacted Congress, as well. We cannot let those who support killing healthcare reform to succeed. There is too much at stake.

AFT members are supporting health care because their leadership thinks its the right thing to do. Rising health care costs are an enormous burden on local governments, who pay for teacher health plans. Rising health care costs make negotiating higher salaries more difficult.

We are currently in the “comment period” for the Race to the Top, and the AFT is submitting their views, as well as probably everyone else. The USDOE will publish final regs and the states will file applications … there are two tiers of applications, this fall and next spring. Among teachers, and some scholars, there is the nagging feeling that Arne just might be wrong, after all, in spite of the press releases, Chicago is not an educational miracle.

The health care bill is on hold until Congress returns from their August recess.

Let’s see who prevails, Rahm and David, or Arne …

 

 

Will Klein Implement the Expanded Role of Community Superintendents? Will Joel Comply with the Law? Can Principals Be CEOs and Partners With Parents and Teachers on Leadership Teams?

  The NYS Senate adjourned without passing the Assembly NYC School Governance bill. It looks like the Senate leadership, or one part of the leadership, has come to an understanding with the mayor.

 

The new governance law makes sweeping changes that have gone generally underreported.

 

Will the Klein administration fully implement the changes in the law, or, protect the current structure, and, perhaps, risk legislative retribution in the next session?

 

Section 2590 (f) of the bill completely changes the role of the current ambiguous position of the community superintendent. Under the Klein interpretation of the 2002 law the position of community superintendent was abolished. A law suit forced Joel to re-create the position, however, aside from their statutory role, rating principals, their job description was limited to serving as a Senior Accountability Facilitator (SAF), working with schools not within their superintendency.

 

Additionally, the chancellor unilaterally changed the role of school leadership teams to strictly advisory. A number of parents and the UFT appealed the regulation change to the Commissioner of Education who sustained the appeal  and the DOE issued a revision to the regulation.

 

The management of the NYC school system is based upon the writings of William Ouchi, expressed in his tome Schools That Work. Ouchi espouses that school leaders, not school leadership teams must bear final responsibility for the school. He believes that SBM-SDM diffuses responsibility. However, a recent study, while acknowledging the core role of the principal supports the SBM methodology at the school level.

 

There is a wealth of evidence supporting the importance of the role principals play in successful SBM programs. Briggs and Wohlstetter (2003) found in a study of the Chicago Public Schools SBM programs that the Chicago Consortium on School Reform (CCSR) concluded that principals are the single most important factor in promoting school reforms. Buchen (2003), in reviewing successful SBM programs, concluded that the focus of SBM reforms should be on the principal as the beacon for implementing SBM programs. In addition, research conducted by Ouchi (2006) on education decentralization in large urban areas concluded that the key to improving student achievement was turning over control of the school to the principal. According to Tanner and Stone in their 1998 SBM research study, they concluded that the role of the principal, “Is essential to any reform that is to be quick and lasting,” (Tanner and Stone 1998, 1). Finally, Cromwell (2005) concluded that a principal’s ability to lead and share power and responsibility is a key characteristic in a successful SBM program.

 

The NYS Department of Education believes that District and School Leadership Teams are a key component of the school community, and, the collaboration process among parents, teachers and the principal is essential for school planning and student progress. In 2002 an external review commissioned by the SED supported their emphasis on leadership teams.

 

The new governance law embeds Commissioner Regulations 100.11 (District and School Leadership Teams) and specifically outlines the roles/duties of the community superintendent in regard to the support and implementation of the school leadership team process

 

 

* “to supervise and evaluate, at least annually, the performance of principals … including promoting effectiveness of student achievement and parental involvement developing an effective shared decision-making relationship with the school-based management team … The Community Superintendent shall have access to all school records that he or she deems necessary and shall consider comments contained within an assessment made by the school-based management team …”

  

* “… principals must submit written justification to demonstrate that the proposed school-based budget is aligned is with the school’s Comprehensive Education Plan, and shall include a provision allowing for the school-based management team to respond to such justification. The community superintendent shall consider the principal’s written justification along with any response provided by the school-based management team, prior to making such certification.”

  

* “…establish a process that allows for school-based management team members, other than the principal, to dispute any decision made by the principal where such team members reach a consensus  that the decision is inconsistent with the goals and policies set forth in their schools existing Comprehensive Educational Plan, the community superintendent shall provide a written response to the school-based management team and the principal that includes the information reviewed, and the basis for the community superintendent’s decision regarding such dispute..”

  

* “To provide assistance and direct support to parents in accessing information, addressing concerns and responding to complaints relating to their child’s education that cannot be resolved at the school level.”

  

* “The community superintendent shall establish a central office within the district and hire and supervise sufficient staff to directly interact with parents, respond to information requests, receive input and comments … work to develop a cooperative relationship with parents and the school community.”

  

* “The chancellor shall ensure that community superintendents are assigned to tasks predominantly within their own community districts and  that in no event shall community superintendents be assigned to any task which would impair their ability to exercise the powers and duties enumerated ….”

  

While the law does re-create the community superintendent it does not envision the massive, dysfunctional district offices that were commonplace in the pre 2002 era. I strolled through too many district offices filled with political appointees, bureaucrats who sat behind desks and had little or no positive impact upon schools. Some staff members provided meaningful assistance to schools, and some offices limited their staffs and forced them to spend their time in schools, not behind their desks, they were the exception.

 

The new law supports state law/regulation and empowers the School Leadership Team.

 

The current DOE management system relies on support organizations, ranging from the 500 plus Empowerment Schools (EMO), divided into networks of about 25 schools each, the four large theme-based learning support organizations and the nine not-for-profits, all are “hired” by schools. There is no geographic continuity.

 

Superintendents, under the new law, will serve within the 32 community school districts, and geographic clusters of high schools, under the law supporting parents and leadership teams.

 

Integrated Service Centers, serving boroughs, provide budget, personnel and compliance support, they are devolving in Children First Networks (CFN), 13 members teams serving about 25-30 schools each .. working primarily at schools, building sustainability at the school level.

 

Ronald Ferguson, of the Achivement Gap Initiative at Harvard University, and one of the most well respected ed researchers in the nation scribed a compelling article in regard to the role of parents and pupil achievement.

 

 

 

 … in churches, neighborhood organizations, families and informal social networks, helping parents do their best needs to be as big a priority as achieving excellent schools.

  

This goes beyond public policies. I am talking about changes in mindsets and lifestyles in a national social and cultural movement to close achievement gaps between groups — a movement to achieve excellence with equity ….

 

 

However, life at home helps shape academic outcomes long before children begin reading books. Family-level supports in the first two years of life help predict achievement years later, in elementary school.  

 Community superintendents can lead the initiative, through the school leadership team process to, “change … mindsets and lifestyles in a national social and cultural movement to close the achievement gap.”

 

A combination of support organizations, superintendents and CFN teams can bring vitality to schools and networks of schools.

 

Opportunities are eroding, if the DOE decides to push back rather than seize the initiative we may lose another few decades.

What Does the Increasing Rate of Teacher U Ratings Mean? Has the Teacher Quality Bar Moved Up, or Are Principals Less Competent and More Vindictive? Teacher Quality and Ratings Must Be Carefully Studied.

 As reported in Gotham Schools the number/percent of unsatisfactory ratings handed out to teachers has increased, a little.

 

Not surprisingly the post resulted in a long string of comments.

 

Teachers serve a three year probationary period, if they receive a U (Unsatisfactory) rating the principal can also “discontinue” the teacher … fire the teacher. By DOE regulation and UFT Contract, that are unchanged for decades, the teacher receives a review before a tri partite panel that makes a recommendation to the chancellor. In the vast percent of cases the “discontinuance” is sustained.

 

Tenured teachers are also rated annually, either S (Satisfactory) or U (Unsatisfactory). U rating appeal hearings begin in the late fall. The U rating process is spelled out in detail … the principal must provide documents, letters in the file, observation reports, etc., for each area in which the teacher was rated unsatisfactory. The teacher can respond in writing. At the appeal meeting a union advocate represents the teacher, questions may be asked of the supervisors who were involved in the process, there are decades of case law. A single hearing officer hears the case and either upholds the appeal or sustains the rating. Once again, most U ratings are sustained.

 

The only impact of the rating is that the teachers salary step is frozen. Teachers can chose to apply for the Peer Intervention Program.

 

Tenured teachers can be “brought up on charges” under the State Ed Law, and performance, documents etc., over the prior three years are admissible.

 

Why have the number/percent of U ratings increased? Are the percents, about 2%, high, or low?

 

1. In the mid 90’s 17% of teachers were uncertified and the vacancies exceeded the job applicants. Substantial increases in salary, state requirements that all teachers must be certified and highly selective programs (i.e., Teaching Fellow and Teach For America) have resulted in many, many more applicants for each vacancy. Has the bar risen? Has the definition of satisfactory moved up the scale? We don’t know.

 

2. The DOE provides greater technology and support to principals (Teacher Performance Unit ) in the rating process. The ready access to the probationary status of teachers and the support in the paperwork process eases the rating process for the supervisor.

 

3. Leadership Academy principals, anecdotally, are giving more U ratings. Is it because they have made poor hiring choices? Or, is it their inability to work with senior teachers? Did they simply have higher standards? What does an increasing rate of U ratings mean for a school? Do schools with higher rates of U ratings also have greater transfer rates? Do numbers/percents of U ratings correlate to pupil achievement? Negatively or positively? Can the performance of a teacher be satisfactory in one school and the same performance unsatisfactory in another school?

 

4. How are professional development and teacher evaluation linked? Do principals demonstrate specific teaching skills to teachers? Are principals also master teachers? Do teachers have the ability to watch other teachers? Discuss practice with colleagues? As “critical friends,” are teachers offered the opportunity to observe and comment on colleagues performance? Do teachers participate in a peer review process?

 

5. In high U rating schools, perhaps 5% or more, how have the ratings impacted student performance?

 

6. Why have 20 year plus teachers received U ratings?  To show the staff “who’s in charge,” have the senior teacher skills eroded, retribution on the part of the principal, pushback to a principal who has higher standards resulting in conflict and retributive ratings?

 

While DOE press releases pat themselves on the back, looking at the increasing number/rate of U ratings as a positive … are they? Or, does it point to the inadequacy of newer principals?

 

Teacher quality is irrevocably linked to pupil performance. Hopefully every “entering class” of teachers is more qualified than the previous class, but, how can we assure that each year, each teacher, be it a first year or a veteran is getting better, is upgrading their skills?

 

What goes on in the classroom is at the core of education, unfortunately we are not taking that close look at teacher performance … just looking at “S” versus “U” ratings is a disservice to students and teachers.

A Letter from Mayor Bloomberg to the NYS Senate Leadership Re: School Governance

 

 

 

 

City Hall

Office of the Mayor

July 20, 2009

 

Dear Democratic Senate Leaders:

 

Let me first apologize for the salutatory, I would write to each of you if I could figure out who is the Democratic leadership …

 

You may be aware that the many stakeholders have spent a year discussing the renewal of the school governance law. The final Assembly bill was the result of these discussions, and, while all parties weren’t satisfied with all sections of the bill, it does include many of the ideas and suggestions of an incredibly wide range of voters.

 

The Senate chose to be aloof from these discussions.

 

In spite of the lengthy public debate, and, the fact that there are sufficient votes to pass the Assembly bill the “leadership” has refused to bring the bill to a vote. The “amendments” the Senate insists be added to the bill are inconsequential and inappropriate.

 

One Senator objects to police in schools, let her talk to the parents of children who were assaulted, robbed, intimidated and abused in school buildings.

 

Another Senator wants a council to encourage the teaching of the arts. State law requires the teaching of the arts.

 

A significant change in the Assembly bill requires that School Leadership Teams, the principal, parents and teachers, agree on the school Comprehensive Education Plan, and, if there are disagreements the Community Superintendent is required to intervene.

 

This change in the law empowers parents. The clique who have refused to pass this law clearly have no regard for parents.

 

While I have agreed to sign memoranda regarding these issues the “leadership,” at the last moment, demanded additional amendments.

 

I have decided that further discussions are futile.

 

The current governance, the pre-2002 law, is in effect. The Central Board has devolved total authority to the Chancellor. We have, in effect, mayor control, albeit without the input of parents and School Leadership Teams.

 

I realize that the Democrats on the Senate side are discouraged, the schools are no longer a patronage pie to be sliced up and converted to dollars and personal power, and, I also realize that the recalcitrance of the Senate has more to do with the mayoral election this November. Claims that Senators care about children is laughable … what you care is your own political power, i.e., the ability to dispense jobs, and the ability to distribute “member items,” dollars to your supporters, and, unfortunately, some of these dollars leak back to the Senators themselves.

 

I have to decided to fully support candidates who decide to run, in the 2010 primary and the general election, against the current incumbent members of the Senate, targeting the members who have been obstructionists. 

 

Enjoy the summer … see you in September (primary) and November (general election) 2010.

 

Yours truly,

 

Michael Bloomberg

Mayor of the City of New York

 

 

 

Sweeping Changes in Governance Law, Really!! A Law That Empowers School Leadership Teams and Superintendents Creates a Bottom Up Model … How Will the Chancellor React?

As the dust settled in November the Democrats emerged with a bare 32-30 majority in the NYS Senate and elected Malcolm Smith as their leader. The mischief makers, Espada, Monserrate, Diaz and Kruger threatened to move across the aisle and extracted “power,” positions that will  give them more influence and more dollars: leadership positions in the Senate, committee chairs and perks.

 

 

In June, Espado skipped across the aisle creating gridlock, and, last week Espada completed the triple cross and skipped back.

 

The new leadership in the Senate, Sampson, Espada, Dilan and Kruger are desperately trying to find some credibility, and do what they do best … seek power. They have decided to hold the Assembly School Governance bill hostage, demanding that the Governor, Assembly and Mayor Bloomberg agree to a number of amendments.

 

The Assembly yawned, they have no intention of agreeing to anything, and will return to Albany in September. 

 

The Senate can continue to obstruct by refusing to pass the Assembly bill, can pass a “one-house” bill or pass the Assembly bill.

 

On July 1 governance reverted to the pre 2002 mayoral control law, which basically gives the mayor, and his appointee, the chancellor, totally unbridled authority.

 

The Assembly bill, quietly, makes sweeping changes in school governance/functioning, changes greater than any law since the 1969 decentralization law.

 

The changes in the law, aside from the composition of the City Board, and the nature  of terms (fixed or not) have not been the subject of public debate, in fact most think the law was simply re authorized without change.

 

In fact this is a law that makes substantive changes.

 

The Functioning of the City Board (aka PEP).

 

*  ”The City Board shall elect its own Chairperson from among its voting members.”

 

* ” And Two (members) shall be parents of a child attending a public school within the City District.”

 

* ” The Chairperson of the City Board shall ensure that at every regular public meeting there is a sufficient period of time to allow for public comment on any topic on the Agenda prior to any City Board vote.”

 

* “…any member of the City Board may request that items be placed on the City Board’s agenda ….”

 

* “Hold a joint public hearing with the chancellor …, or in the case of a proposed significant change in school utilization the chancellor or his or her designee, and the impacted school-based management team regarding any proposed school closing or significant change in school utilization, including the phase-out, grade reconfiguration, re-siting, or co-location of schools, of any public school located within the Community district …”

 

* “There shall be a City-Wide Council on English Language Learners …” as well as a council on high schools.

 

The major change is that the chancellor will no longer serves as the chairperson and the functioning of the City Board (PEP)) will be transparent and the public will have full access to the business of the Board, including full opportunity for public comment. In addition school utilization, in its broadest sense, will be the subject of City Board, School District, School and public scrutiny.

 

The Role of Superintendents is Expanded and Clarified.

 

* “to supervise and evaluate, at least annually, the performance of principals … including promoting effectiveness of student achievement and parental involvement developing an effective shared decision-making relationship with the school-based management team … The Community Superintendent shall have access to all school records that he or she deems necessary and shall consider comments contained within an assessment made by the school-based management team …”

 

* “… principals must submit written justification to demonstrate that the proposed school-based budget is aligned is with the school’s Comprehensive Education Plan, and shall include a provision allowing for the school-based management team to respond to such justification. The community superintendent shall consider the principal’s written justification along with any response provided by the school-based management team, prior to making such certification.”

 

* “…establish a process that allows for school-based management team members, other than the principal, to dispute any decision made by the principal where such team members reach a consensus  that the decision is inconsistent with the goals and policies set forth in their schools existing Comprehensive Educational Plan, the community superintendent shall provide a written response to the school-based management team and the principal that includes the information reviewed, and the basis for the community superintendent’s decision regarding such dispute..”

 

* “To provide assistance and direct support to parents in accessing information, addressing concerns and responding to complaints relating to their child’s education that cannot be resolved at the school level.”

 

* “The community superintendent shall establish a central office within the district and hire and supervise sufficient staff to directly interact with parents, respond to information requests, receive input and comments … work to develop a cooperative relationship with parents and the school community.”

 

* “The chancellor shall ensure that community superintendents are assigned to tasks predominantly within their own community districts and  that in no event shall community superintendents be assigned to any task which would impair their ability to exercise the powers and duties enumerated ….”

 

Without equivocation, superintendents have been re-established, their role clarified, and, working with parents and community as a core function.

 

There is no mention of Support Organizations.

 

Workforce Diversity.

 

* “Adopt a policy proposed by the chancellor that promotes the recruitment and retention of a workforce at the City District, Community District and School Level that considers the diversity of the students attending public schools … City Board shall review the annual report issued by the chancellor outlining the initiatives taken to enhance diversity and equity in recruitment and retention and the impacts of such initiatives to the workforce …”

 

The percentage of teachers of color in the workforce, especially Black males, has been steadily declining, this section of the law requires the chancellor to address the issue and report to the City Board.

 

Transparency of the Contract Process.

  

There are numerous technical changes to the law that will require the chancellor to bring many more contracts before the City Board for scrutiny before approval.

 

Changes in School Utilization: Closing, Phase-outs, Re-siting, Sharing Space All Subject to Public Review

  

* “…prepare an educational impact statement regarding any proposed school closing or reconfiguration, re-siting, or, co-location of schools …such educational impact statement shall include:

   – The current and projected  pupil enrollment of the effected school …

   – The impacts of the proposed school closing or significant change … to any affected students.

   – An outline of any proposed or potential use  …

   – The effect of such school closing or significant change in utilization on personnel needs, the costs of instruction, administration, transportation and other support services.

   – The type, age, and physical conditions of such school building …

   – The ability of other schools in the affected community district to accommodate pupils following the school closure …

   – Information regarding such school’s academic performance  …

   – Such educational impact statement shall be made publicly available … at lease six months in advance of the first day of school in the succeeding school year.

   – No sooner than 30 days and no later than 45 days after the filing of the educational impact statement … the chancellor  … shall hold a joint public hearing  with the impacted community council and the school based management team … public may present comment …

   -All proposed school closings … shall be approved by the City Board.

 

Under the new law we have moved from reading about a school closing in a Tweed press release to a formal, detailed process with the opportunity for public comment and detailed info re the closing, reconfiguration. Charter school sited in public schools will be subject to the same intense public scrutiny.

 

The Roles of the Independent Budget Office and the Office of the Comptroller

  

* “To provide information, data, estimates and statistics regarding all matters relating to the City district as requested by the Director of the Independent Budget Office of the City of New York, in a timely fashion.”

 

* “The Independent Budget Office shall be authorized to provide analysis and issue public reports regarding financial and educational matter … including but not limited to,

   – student graduation and dropout data

   – student enrollment projections

   – school utilization, class sizes and pupil-to-teacher ratios

   – student assignment data

   – delivery of services to students with disabilities and English language learners ….

  

* “The Comptroller of the City of New York shall have the authority  to conduct operational and programmatic audits, in addition to financial audits, of the City District to the same extent as other city agencies.”

 

The IBO has an excellent reputation, the new law provides funding for the expanded IBO in the law, gives both the IBO and the Comptroller full authority to examine and comment on all data.

 

If the Senate continues to dawdle it will be impossible to implement the new law by September,

 

The changes embedded in the law, unless the chancellor attempts to avoid them, will create yet another model … a model that is built bottom up … while the mayor and the chancellor will control what happens on the City Board (PEP) the law devolves authority to School Leadership Teams in schools and Superintendents in school districts.

 

I am hopeful that we will see a new beginning, but I’m a glass half full kind of guy.

 

 

The Operation Was a Success But the Patient Died, The Collision of Teaching and Learning

I worked in the Garden of Eden, that was the year of two,
Joined the apple pickers union, I always paid my due;
I’m the man that signed the contract to raise the rising sun,
And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done.

Woody Guthrie

 

 

In the spring of 1969, after the September-November 44 days of teacher strikes, the reading scores were released and they dipped sharply. A reporter asked Al Shanker for a comment, he replied, somewhat facetiously, “Thank God.”

 

Teachers matter, the quality of teachers matter.

 

Hospitals are evaluated by the federal government based upon their data. Not surprisingly the rating of schools, the School Progress Report is similar to the metric used to rate hospitals.

 

Rating individual doctors is far more complex, and controversial. In the entrepreneurial world you can purchase books that rate physicians. You can access databases,

 

Move from compliance to high performance, with PeerScore^(sm) services from AllMed Healthcare Management.  PeerScore offers you an external peer review solution for focused and ongoing professional practice evaluations (FPPE and OPPE).  PeerScore ensures a proactive, systematic, and evidence-based evaluation of credentials, privileges, sentinel events and sensitive performance issues.

 

You can go to Angie’s List, and, Zagat is building a list of doctors and user ratings.

 

The interest in rating hospitals and physicians has expanded into the world of schools and teachers. The New York State Education Department has been identifying failing schools since the late eighties, designating the schools as Schools Under Registration Review, SURR schools. No Child Left Behind required states to rate schools based upon student achievement data, “troubled” schools are called Schools in Need of Improvement (SINI). New York City uses a more nuanced model, a growth model, which measures student progress from year to year rather than a “photograph” that is zip code driven. Next year the State Ed Department will begin to move to a growth model.

 

In grades 3-8 the New York State ELA and Math scores, next year to be offered in May, are the metrics, and in grades 9-12 Regents examination grades and graduation rates are the determinants.

 

Individual teachers are rated annually, Performance Reviews, and receive a grade of “S” or “U,” first year teachers may receive a “D.” The rating process has been unchanged since the neolithic era. The teacher observation process: supervisor meets with the teacher and reviews the lesson plan, observes the lesson, meets with the teacher after the observation and discusses, writes a report that is placed in the teacher’s file. The teacher may have a response appended to the report. 

 

In most schools the process is a ritual … a “dog and pony” show that has limited impact on the teacher.

 

Occasionally a school leader examines the broader definition of a lesson. What was the homework assignment? Did the assignment produce student work that exhibited knowledge of the previous lesson and preparation for the current lesson? Was the test appropriate to the skills taught? How did the teacher use the test results? An essential element of teacher evaluation must be the teacher’s use of data: homework, tests, classroom responses, etc.

 

In too many schools teachers battle principals over the core issue: instruction. An amalgam of a few discussions with UFT Chapter Leaders,

 

Our principal is in every classroom every day, he looks at student notebooks, stays a few minutes and later in the day offers suggestions. He taught a class and posted his lesson plans on the Internet and invited us all to observe him … of course the kids are behaved, he’s the principal … whether you’re a first year or a twenty year teacher he always telling us we have to strive to improve. I tell him we’re doing the best we can considering the kids we have … many students don’t do homework, misbehave and we don’t have involved parents. He tells us the kids are the kids … the kids we get are the roll of the dice … we can’t control it … we can control and improve ourselves … he’s a pain in the ass.

 

It is not surprising that when principals shirk their responsibilities and teachers resist getting involved in the instructional improvement process, the result may be unacceptable to teachers and principals, if you can’t change principals and you can’t get change to teachers, use the product of the process: student achievement data to assess and evaluate teachers and school performance.

 

At the NEA Convention Duncan made it abundantly clear that he intends to challenge core teacher union values,

 

“I believe that teacher unions are at a crossroads. These policies were created over the past century to protect the rights of teachers, but they have produced an industrial, factory model of education that treats all teachers like interchangeable widgets,” Mr. Duncan said. “When inflexible seniority and rigid tenure rules that we designed put adults ahead of children, then we are not only putting kids at risk, we’re putting the entire education system at risk. We’re inviting the attack of parents and the public, and that is not good for any of us.”

 

A House committee has approved almost a half billion dollars in the Teacher Incentive Fund … it sounds like merit pay because it is …

 

 At the national level the AFT has established a working group re: teacher evaluation. In New York City contract negotiations have begun, meaning the UFT has set up a negotiating committee and is building a set of demands.

 

Will the union attempt to regain issues lost in prior contracts, a seniority transfer plan, limitations on Open Market, extended school day, etc.,

 

Will the union confront the issue of teacher evaluation? Will they encourage peer review plans? Will they totally resist the use of student achievement data?

 

In the past few days, Mayor Bloomberg, responding to a reporter’s question about parent involvement in schools said, “Parents don’t run schools, principals and teacher do.”  A slip of the tongue or a sign to the union?

 

At the Working Family Party mayoral endorsement meeting the UFT abstained from a vote on the endorsement of William Thompson.

 

The ritual has begun.

 

Will the union tilt at Bloomberg windmills, or as the bulwark of the teacher movement use their contract to move into new, and, unexplored areas of negotiations.

 

If the union does not complete a pre-election day contract and the process drags into the winter the union could face a drawn out contentious battle with many issue at stake.

How Do We Define Parent Involvement? The Bake Sale Model versus the Parent As Advocate Model

 

  At the March 20th Brooklyn Assembly School Governance Task Force Meeting  Pastor David Brawley of the St Paul Community Baptist Church and East Brooklyn Congregations (EBC) strongly supported mayoral control,

 

We’re here to say to the State Legislature put children first. Put children first, not unions, political interest or employment-seeking adults. This is not about Bloomberg control, but Mayoral Control. For when everyone is in charge, no one is in charge.

  

surprisingly he wanted one part of the law changed, he advocated for an “independent parent advocacy center.”

 

We know that there are sincere parents, interested parents who are not connected to a power organization, and they have legitimate concerns and needs that have not been heard. We certainly do propose a parental advocacy center whereby parents can bring their concerns.

  

Another speaker, David Jones, the President of the Community Service Society and a member of innumerable mayoral task forces, also spoke to the importance of parent voice.

 

The other (issue) is parent involvement. The stories we heard could help me lose my hair. This is really a difficult system. It was a difficult system even if everything is working fine. We have heard from parents who were dealing with special-ed problems. Their children had been assigned to special-ed, they couldn’t get an answer why … They were put through a sort of process that made them feel that no one was listening … This was a bureaucracy that’s huge and where people, particularly individuals without power, get lost immediately. So we have to find mechanisms that are real ….

 

As the Senate moves closer to a resolution of their gridlock over governance of their own, the question arises whether the Assembly bill will be passed on the Senate side, or, will the Senate pass its own bill? The latest snippets hint that the Senate will pass the Assembly bill, but, may pass a “chapter amendment,” perhaps establishing/clarifying the role of parents. 

 

Mayor Bloomberg made it quite clear to a WNYC reporter that he does not support any additions to the law, and was unsympathetic to suggestions from Senator Sampson,

 

SAMPSON: We’re not trying to prevent the mayor from having control of the Department of Education because, as anyone else, if I was mayor of the city of New York, and I’m responsible for educating 1.1 million children, I, too, would want to have control over that.

REPORTER: Sampson says he and his colleagues want …  more training for parents, to get them involved in their child’s education, and more accountability. Mayor Bloomberg brushed aside those suggestions.

BLOOMBERG: I have no idea what he’s talking about. I think that’s the nicest way to phrase it …. I want the teachers and the principals to run the schools, not the parents.

Parent advocacy requires a definition: do we mean a Center that will listen to parents and serve as a conduit to the Department of Education to resolve/reply to individual parent issues, or an organization independent of the Department that trains parents to be advocates for their schools and their children?

The Annenberg Institute for School Reform has long experience in training parents as advocates and leaders. In a 2008 Study,  Annenberg makes a firm case that parent activism and school improvement are inexorably linked.

 Norm Fruchter in, “Urban Schools, Public Will: Making Education Work For All Our Children,” sees parents as equal stakeholders, sitting at the table with principals and teachers, as partners in creating schools that work for all children.

The National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE) serves as a national clearing house and supports the efforts of parent advocacy around the nation.

The Harvard Family Research Project and their Family Involvement Network of Educators conducts extensive research as well as bringing together thousands of educators nationwide.

State Education Departments support federally funded Parent Information Resource Centers (PIRC) around the nation, and there are sites around New York State and within New York City.

Will the Bloomberg/Klein views of school and school district leadership accept that a key component is the real involvement of parents, perhaps a conservative mayor who was the Secty of Education to a conservative governor paraphrasing Joel Klein’s favorite school thinker will resonate,

 In 2005, Richard Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor who was Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first secretary of education, evoked Professor Ouchi’s work when he wrote, “If you made a list of people’s silver bullets for public education — smaller classes, better pay for teachers, more phonics, longer school years, no social promotions — the concept of changing governance structure would be near the bottom of the list. None of the favorite silver bullets is going to work, though, unless principals are empowered and can in turn empower teachers and parents.”

 

“If They’d Only Leave Me Alone and Let Me Teach,” Are Teachers Willing to Take Responsibility for Themselves and Their Colleagues?

 “If they’d only leave me alone and let me teach.”

 

I have heard that over and over again from classroom teachers. Who is the “they”?

 

The “they” are the supervisors, the bureaucrats, the chancellors and the mayor, but, also include parents and colleagues who are all measuring our work product. The summative assessment is the School Progress Report A-F grade and the State Assessments (levels 1.0 to 4.5) that can be disaggregated from school to grade to child.

 

Teachers “test” children on a daily/weekly/monthly/yearly basis: classroom assessments through questioning, homework, completing “examples” at the board or in peer groups, projects measured by rubrics, teacher designed tests, predictive assessments (ACUITY) and State designed assessments/Regents exams. Teachers adjust, modify, tweak, to use the term of art, differentiate instruction to respond to those daily assessments. Teachers are the writers, directors, actors and, hopefully, the reviewers of a play (i.e., the lesson) with a run of one day.

 

To what extent are teachers responsible for a child’s success or lack thereof?

 

Teachers say, “Of course I’m responsible for childrens’ achievements.”  When you follow up and ask, “Are you also responsible for their failures,” teachers have a difficult time responding.

 

The first response is usually to point to factors beyond the scope of the classroom teacher : poor attendance, lack of parental support, health issues, lack of proper instructional materials, class size is too large, discipline failings in the school; the pathologies of poverty (detailed discussion in Summer Edition of American Educator here)

 

In spite all these factors some teachers get their kids to outperform other classes, year after year.

 

In NYC, with the increasingly robust “data warehouses,” it is easier to make these comparisons, i. e., Teacher Data Initiative.

 

For the purposes of this blog let’s say we can identify teachers whose kids, over a period of years perform more than one standard deviation above the mean ( top 16%), and more than one standard deviation below the mean (bottom 16%).

 

What next?

 

Should we pay the top achieving outliers more? Would paying them more encourage other teachers to upgrade their skills?  Is there a downside? Would merit pay schemes discourage collaboration?  The bottom line is we don’t know. The Obama/Duncan merit pay push falls into the “seems like a good idea” compartment. The free marketeers love it and to the public it appears to make sense.

 

The “Lead Teacher” initiative in NYC was an attempt to identify exemplary teachers and use them in a modeling/coaching professional development plan. Lead teachers are paid $10,000 above their salary schedule pay. The contract provision is here  and testimony before the City Council here.The DOE has largely abandoned the program and Duncan seems disinterested.

 

What happens to teachers whose kids constantly perform below other classes over a period of years, the bottom outliers. Peer intervention and support programs, closer supervision, counseling, perhaps leading to counseling out or discharge.

 

Ultimately the question comes down to: do “carrots” and “sticks” improve teacher performance as measured by pupil achievement?

 

Will “carrots and “sticks” attract the “best and the brightest” and rid teaching of the ranks of the unsuccessful?

 

How do “carrots” and “Sticks” impact the vast middle, who are teaching and will remain as teachers?

 

Have supervisory observation reports made you a better teacher? Have principal presentations at faculty conferences impacted your instructional methodology?

 

The Klein iteration of the William Ouchi  model, in my view, has alienated not empowered teachers,

 

Every principal is an entrepreneur. Every school controls its own budget. Everyone is accountable for student performance and for budgets. Everyone delegates authority to those below. There is a burning focus on student achievement. Every school is a community of learners. And families have real choices among a variety of unique schools.

 

Decisions about teacher compensation, hiring, professional development and, yes, peer review are best made by the supervisors and teachers at the school site. The writings of Peter Senge, widely adopted on the corporate side are just as relevant within schools,

 

… learning organization practitioners … are people drawn together by the idea of a “learning organization”: an organization focused on marrying the development of every member with superior performance in service of that organization’s purpose.The more the organization’s members increase their ability to learn collaboratively, the more they can accomplish, the higher their performance, and the more effectively they can hope to change their organization, and the world, for the better.

  

Teachers, as a community, must take responsibility for their practice. The bureaucracy, whether Tweed, or the central union, or the city fathers, must provide the supports at the school level. The “they” must become the “we.” 

 

 Solutions, be it merit pay or easier dismissal or whatever, blared from claxons by the mujahadeen, will not change schools, only teachers can change schools, child by child, class by class, lesson by lesson.

Teachers Need Heroes:Who Will Stand Up to Barack and Arne and Mike?

I applaud the teachers at the NEA Convention who booed Arne Duncan … he deserved to be booed. And, unfortunately I am beginning to have my doubts about President Obama. I don’t fully understand how “cap and trade” will improve the environment and the trillion dollar Obama health care plan is faltering. I do know that the Obama/Duncan education plan  is a fiasco, worse, it is a thinly disguised assault on teacher unions and their contracts.

 

Duncan’s claims of a Chicago education miracle have been challenged by a local business group in a just released report . Why should we think his Washington agenda is any sounder?

 

Merit pay, easier dismissal procedures and the war on tenure have nothing to do with improving instruction … they have everything to do with garnering public support and forcing unions to make concessions. After all, where can teachers go? to Sara Palin?

 

A scant year ago Obama was our hero, taking on the Rush Limbaugh/Fox Network crowd. With soaring , lyric speeches he spoke to us … we flocked to his campaign, we did the “dirty work” of politics, making phone calls, licking envelopes, knocking on doors, texting, traveling to other cities and canvassing … the person to person, door to door campaigning that wins elections.

 

Our hero has deserted us.

 

Yes, there are great teachers and “schleppers,” to use a sports metaphor,  Albert Pujols and the .220 hitter. The same applies in all professions, medicine, law, engineering, we just hope that our doctor or lawyer is in the higher cohort, and that marginal engineers didn’t design the plane we’re flying on.

 

The bell shaped curve of life.

 

Agreed, we need more great teachers, and the recession/depression will retain teachers and drive more able candidates into teaching. The Great Depression of the ’30s drove would-be doctors and lawyers and college professors into public school classrooms.

 

The whining about union assisted teacher incompetence is a charade. Schools systems and principals, not unions, hire teachers. School systems and principals, not unions, decide who stays and who leaves.

 

There are 700 teachers in the rubber rooms around the city, not because, as Klein would want you to think, union rules. There are 700 teachers in rubber rooms because Klein hasn’t hired the investigators, the lawyers and the arbitrators to expedite the process. For Klein, it’s simply good politics, to allow teachers to molder and slam the union.

 

Teachers don’t embrace merit pay, or easier dismissal rules because teachers don’t trust Joel Klein and his principals. How many teachers are in rubber rooms because they voiced their disagreement with the principal? In a Brooklyn elementary school nine teachers received U rating from a first year Leadership Academy principal because, basically, they disagreed with her.

 

Teachers admire Randi Weingarten because she fought for us, she became our hero.

 

I first met her when she was the union lawyer working for Sandy Feldman. I was trying to fight a predatory principal who targeted young female teachers. When I confronted him he scoffed and complained that due to his arthritis he was in constant pain. A complaining teacher, a first year teacher of Caribbean lineage told me, “He should have the arthritis in his dick.” 

 

A new Chapter Leader was elected who was passionate, we worked with Randi, and in a few months the principal was forced to resign. Randi became my hero.

 

We would have liked to see her take on Bloomberg, his braggadocio TV commercial lauding his educational achievements chaff. 44% in salary increases, restoration of 25/55 pension benefits ease the aggravation, and if Randi’s backing off on governance results in a fair contract teachers will understand, it will tarnish her image, but they’ll understand.

 

Heroes for teachers are in distressingly short supply.

 

Ralph Hinkley, a teacher in the 1981-1984 TV sitcom “Greatest American Hero.”

 

Alex Jurel in the 1983 movie, “Teachers,” and that spectacular final scene.

 

 

 

NICK NOLTE (TEACHERS 1983) FINAL SCENE

 

 ”Jurel, they know you’re crazy … I know, I know, what can I tell you, I’m a teacher, I’m a teacher.”

The Board of Education, a US Senate Seat and Racial Politics: Mike Bloomberg’s Dilemma

The Albany Senate pas de 62 gives a good game, charades, a bad name. Can’t you imagine Gilbert and Sullivan turning the Senate into a wonderful opera-comique.

 

The resuscitation of the Board of Education remains securely in the hands of the Mayor, three of the appointees are deputy mayors, reports NY1 after an 8 am Wednesday meeting.

 

Three deputy mayors and the Staten Island appointee gives the Mayor his majority, although one could argue that deputy mayors assuming the position of board member are “double-dipping,” since board members are salaried. (see here)

 

BPs Helen Marshall (Queens)  and Marty Markowitz (Brooklyn) will be elected for their third, and last term in November … lame ducks more interested in life after borough prez and their next job.

 

Scott Stringer, Manhattan BP is interested in the Maloney seat in Congress, she has almost declared for the Hillebrand US Senate seat. Two local electeds, Micah Kellner and Liz Kruger would have to give up their Albany jobs are possibles, and let’s not forget Eva Moskowitz.

 

Stringer would not have to abandon his BP seat to run, and keeping on Mike’s “good side,” i.e., his appointee vote on the new Board of Education, could result in wooing Mike to his camp.

 

The actual meeting today at noon gives rubber stamp a bad name, a rubber stamp is a useful tool. If you want to view four minutes of the eight minute meeting click here. After continuing Joel Klein in office they adjourned until September … hoping against hope that an Albany solution will put them out of office.

 

The key player these days is a relative unknown, Senator John Sampson, representing the Canarsie community in Brooklyn. Sampson has made it abundantly clear that the Assembly bill needs adjustments. Sampson favors fixed terms for PEP members, although the word “fixed” is vague (four year terms as specified in the law, or two year, or one year terms), an independent parent advocacy center, that is also strongly supported by one of Mike’s allies, EBC (East Brooklyn Churches), a coalition of churches lead by Reverend Youngblood, and giving parents a clearly defined role in the principal/superintendent selection process. See bill here. 

 

Will Bloomberg go to war with John Sampson, a highly regarded moderate black legislator, and risk mobilizing the community of color, or, back off and include the Sampson proposals in a final bill?

 

Aren’t politics wonderful?