A friend who loves to walk was visiting New York. As she walked across Brooklyn the neighborhoods change from Pakistani to Orthodox, to West Indian to Chinese to Russian, she could not believe that so many ethnic communities sat side by side.

“Do they get along?” she queried.

I smiled, “For the parents, benign neglect, for the kids, they sit next to each other in classrooms, for the rest of us, lots of ethnic restaurant choices.”

The strength of our nation, the future of our nation rests on the infusion of the collected knowledge of generation after generation of graduates with new ideas. As the 2013 CUNY graduates walk across the stage we note name after name from the far corners of the world. The winners of awards, the valedictorians, the salutatorians reflect the diversity of the city. We don’t know whether they are documented or undocumented, we know they are “the best and the brightest.”

To even the funding playing field at the federal and state level legislation provides grants and loans to students, except to students who are not documented.

New York State, for many years, has supported students in college through the Tuition Assistance Program, referred to as TAP, as long as the student is a citizen. For the one hundred thousand students in the state who are undocumented, TAP grants are not available.

On Monday the New York State Board of Regents convened a number of panels at their monthly meeting to discuss the inequity in the TAP law. Four panelists, all of whom came to the nation as young children, told their stories and the obstacles to achieve their dream, the American dream, a college diploma and a path to citizenship.

Under the proposed law,

To qualify for TAP under New York’s proposed Dream Act, undocumented students would have to either have graduated from a New York high school, which they attended for at least two years, or received a New York State GED. Applicants would have to apply to a post-secondary institution within five years of receiving their high school diploma or GED.

The New York State Higher Education Services Corporation (HESC), a state agency, clearly sets forth the requirement for TAP applicants. The opening sections:

• A United States citizen or eligible non-citizen (i. e., Green Card or equivalent)
• Be a legal resident of New York State

In order to remedy the flaw bills were introduced into the legislature, the Moya-Peralta bill.(read the bill here), On Tuesday, May 21st the Assembly passed the bill, the first step, hopefully, to create a law. “This legislation,” says the Assembly presser, “… would make New York one of only four states – including Texas, New Mexico and California – to offer state financial aid to immigrant students.”

All the Republican members of the Assembly voted against the bill.

On the Senate side the future of the bill is unclear. The Senate leadership is divided, the Independent Democratic Conference, led by Jeff Klein and the Republican leader, Dean Skelos, have expressed weak support but question the source of the funding.

Governor Cuomo has been totally silent, and, the interim report of the Cuomo Commission on Educational Reform made no recommendations. The clock is ticking – the legislature will adjourn around June 20th.

The Regents deserve accolades: the panels that they hosted both explained the details of the DACA (Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals declaration issued by President Obama, the plight of undocumented students and highlighted the successes in one sector of schools – the International High School Network and the Newcomer High Schools.

If high school graduation rates and College and Career Readiness rates are appalling for English Language learners in New York State, why are the International and Newcomer schools so successful?

The school and support organization leaders described a methodology: teams of teachers working in a highly collaborative setting with the authority to create curriculum, teachers who are partners in every aspect of the school, schools that design their own assessment tools, and, a not-for-profit support organization that both advocates for the schools, organizes and provides professional development,

In a school system plagued by top-down management, endless conflict between the school district leadership and the union, parents marginalized, a dysfunctional system that continues to disintegrate, islands of sanity survive and blossom.

Regent Cashin asked how the Internationals would tweak the Danielson Frameworks to address teachers in English Language learner classrooms. A simple answer: the teachers are working on an iteration of the Frameworks to make them relevant to the student they teach. Not consultants, not Tweed bureaucrats, teachers.

Regent Young mused whether the highly collaborative culture of the International Schools/Newcomer schools could be a model for all schools?

One can only hope that the next mayor and the next chancellor will create a culture of collaboration among all stakeholders, a culture that welcomes parents and respects teachers, a culture that honors and supports teachers and school leaders … a nirvana (In general terms nirvāṇa is a state of transcendence involving the subjective experience of release from a prior state of bondage).

The other day as we were riding down in the elevator, I asked,

“Who are you supporting for mayor?”

He mused for a while, “I guess Bloomberg, I know he screwed up the schools but overall he’s done a good job.”

I was surprised, “He’s not running,” I replied, “He’s term limited.”

“He can get around that, wasn’t he supposed to be term limited last time?”

“Yes, not this time.”

“I guess I have to pay attention to the pack – let’s see – the redhead, the one who just got married, Quinn, let me think, an Asian guy, a tall guy, a black guy and Weiner, the guy with the appropriate name.”

“Who you voting for?”

“I have no idea – it’s a long time till November, I’ll have to start paying more attention.”

“The primary is September 10th – are you a registered Democrat?”

“Good question, I don’t know – are their big differences between them – marriage equality, stop and frisk …?”

“Nope, nuances, not big differences.”

“Thanks.”

2,000 UFT members will have attended meetings and listened to the five announced candidates, the overwhelming number of potential voters barely know the names of the candidates. In my district, counting citywide and local candidates, there will be a dozen candidates vying for the Democratic slot on the ballot. The last week in August and the first ten days in September my mailbox will be filled with election lit – why should I vote for one candidate or why some other candidate is the sporn of the devil.

On September 10th about 700,000 voters will select the Democratic candidate for the November 5th election – unless a candidate does not reach the 40% cut off – if no candidate has 40% of the vote for a citywide office a runoff will be held on September 24th.

In 2001 785,000 votes were cast in a four-way Democratic primary and 1.5 million in the November general election.

In 2009 330,000 votes were cast in a 2-way Democratic primary and one million in the November election.

One of the primary rules of campaigning is: identify your voters and get them to the polls.

1. Fund raising: In New York City a campaign finance law sharply restricts and levels the playing field, all the current
Democratic candidates have committed to participate in the campaign finance program. You can track every contribution by candidate and by contributor on the website (http://www.nyccfb.info/).

2. Identifying potential voters: Prime NY, run by Jerry Skurnick, sells data disaggregated any way you choose. Read an excellent, brief explanation of how to breakdown key data here (http://gograssroots.org/files/analyzevoters.pdf). Who are “your voters?” Asian voters are likely to vote for John Liu – how many Asian voters are registered Democrats and how many are likely to vote? For Bill Thompson – Afro-Americans are a large potential block of voters. Thompson’s “stump speech” to Afro-American audiences references his grandparents as immigrants from the Caribbean and his 88 year-old father who still goes to work every day.

You may identify potential voters – how do you motivate them to go to the polls?

3. Endorsements. Some organizations can potentially “deliver” their members on Election Day. Unions, churches, environmental organizations, LBGT organizations, have loyal memberships who may abide by an endorsement, especially unions. Newspaper endorsements, NY Times, the Post, the Daily News and the foreign language press can influence voters, at the local level endorsement by civic or block associations, by a neighbor, the more local the better.

4. Communications. Getting out the message is a challenge … free “publicity” through press releases, appearances at events, Christine Quinn in her role as leader of the City Council has the opportunity to garner headlines, speaking at Columbia and disclosing her battles with alcoholism and bulimia, releasing her autobiography. Bill de Blasio attacking high stakes testing, as well as attacking Christine Quinn, John Liu, in his role as Comptroller issuing a range of reports, obliquely attacking the Mayor.

As the election nears the candidates will take to the airways – TV commercials, mailers, robo calls, flyers and social media.

5. Street Operations. You’ve identified your voters, you’ve made the phone calls, you’ve attended scores of community meetings, sent out letters and flyers as election day nears – and in the final week you put hundreds and hundreds of supporters on the streets – standing on street corners handing out campaign buttons or palm cards, ringing door bells, urging friends and neighbors and strangers to show up at the polls, and that last push – those “triple” prime voters – making sure they get to the polls.

Teachers are passionate in their dislike of the current mayor and their desire to elect the “anti-Bloomberg.” a mayor who respects teachers and will select a chancellor who will return sanity to the school system. Every municipal union is without a contract: which candidate will be most likely to negotiate a satisfactory contract?

Most New Yorkers are not passionate, the election hasn’t resonated – like my neighbor the election is far away, a candidate choice has not coalesced – the candidates are still “the redhead, the Asian guy, the tall guy and the black guy”

At the Brooklyn UFT candidate forum Borough Rep Howie Schoor asked each candidate what was their path to victory, they all answered: the UFT endorsement.

They’re probably right.

Read NY Times editorial (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/opinion/education-and-new-york-citys-mayoral-race.html?hpw)

Gotham Schools has been “collecting” statements of the candidates – with so far over 150 comments – an “issues tracker,” (http://gothamschools.org/2013-mayoral-race/)

The election wonks are predicting a 600-700,000 voter turnout for the September 10th primary. Who are the voters? Do the polls include new voters of color? Asian voters? How will the “outer borough” antipathy towards Bloomberg translate at the polls? Will endorsements translate into votes?

The huge voting blocks are teachers and parents, how will they vote

The UFT, the teacher union, is a “major player” because of the potential power at the polls – well over 100,000 registered democratic voters, and, how will a UFT endorsement influence parent voters?

At the April UFT Delegate Meeting members overwhelmingly supported making an endorsement at the June 16th meeting; the May 22nd Delegate Meeting will include a “speak out,” an opportunity for delegates to advocate for or against candidates.

In each of the boroughs the UFT is sponsoring candidate forums, and, asking UFT members in the audience to “vote” for their choice by a secret ballot before they leave.

At today’s Brooklyn forum over 200 union members packed the meeting space. It was a diverse group – by gender, by race, by teaching level and from different districts.

From a little after 4 PM until near 7 PM, no one left as Liu, Quinn, Di Blasio, Albanese and Thompson fielded similar questions.

There were no surprises, and not much of a difference in policies. Liu is an “old friend,” endorsed by the union as a City Council candidate and in his race for Comptroller. A product of the school system with a 7th grader in a public middle school he fielded question with ease.

UFT Borough Rep Howie Schoor reminded the audience that while Quinn supported a third term for the mayor and the council she is responsible for thwarting Bloomberg’s budget which would have laid off 7,000 teachers. Quinn skillfully answered questions and used the word “collaboration” many times.

Di Blasio, also a public school parent, continued to attack Quinn, over her support for a third term, and called her the “Bloomberg Lite” candidate.

Sal Albanese, a teacher for eleven years, as one teacher noted, seemed to be running for chancellor.

Bill Thompson thanked the audience for waiting and charmed with stories about his mother, a career teacher in District 16 in Brooklyn. A graduate of Hudde JHS and Midwood High School, both in Brooklyn, Thompson reminded the audience that he spent 55 of his 58 years in Brooklyn. Time and time again he rapped the Bloomberg administration and in the strongest terms said he would hire an experienced educator as chancellor. The audience applauded as he criticized Tweed, policies made by a staff without much school experience, and, “not a lot of diversity.”

Each of the UFT Borough Offices has, or, will be hosting the same type of meeting; a thousand or so union members, from every district and level, will be participating in the forums and casting ”straw” votes.

I think the final endorsement will be driven by the “straw votes” at the borough meetings and the attitude of the delegates at the May 22nd meeting.

Will the fund-raising convictions of Liu staffers fatally impact his campaign?

Is DiBlasio too far to the left? Will he “turn off” the middle of the road voters? Will he mobilize the business community to make an all-out effort for Lhota? (Lhota is about at the same level as Bloomberg was at this time in 2001)

Can Thompson capture voters of color: Afro-American and Hispanic? Are his middle of the road economic and safety views acceptable to a wider swath of voters?

And, the key issue: will the union membership follow the union endorsement?

Between the delegate meeting, the Spring Conference candidate forum and the five borough forums over 2,000 union members will have participated in the endorsement process.

The mantra from Michael Mulgrew has been – let’s not pick a winner, let’s make a winner.

With many opportunities to participate in the endorsement process it is likely that an enthusiastic, involved membership just may make the difference in September and November.

Otto Von Bismarck was the architect of the unification of the German nation. He was an apostle of “realpolitik,” (politics based on practical and material factors rather than on theoretical or ethical objectives), both reviled and admired as a master of international political wheeling and dealing.

Two provinces on the Denmark-German border, Schleswig and Holstein, were part of an extremely complex dispute.

Years later Bismarck was asked to explain the details of the dispute, he replied, “Only three people have fully understood the issues, one died, one is mad, and I’ve forgotten.”

I fear the New York State APPR teacher and principal evaluation plans (see all approved plans here) are so complex, that the implementation has so many moving parts; it is highly unlikely that mere mortals fully understand the plans.

* 20% of the plan is made up of NYS student test data – a Value-Added Model (VAM), measuring student growth adjusted for a number of variables (Disability, English Language Learners, Title 1 eligibility, etc.), well, not exactly – only 21% of teachers teach students who are tested – 79% of teachers are not impacted by state tests. Teachers in grades pre-K – 2, all elementary school specialty teachers, all middle school teachers other than English and Math and all high school teachers are not impacted by the state tests.

Additionally middle and high school teachers teach five classes a day across multiple grades – how do you “measure” teachers who are teaching multiple grades? Check out the “50% rule” on the EngageNY website. Think you’re principal will be able to figure this out?

* locally negotiated 20% depends on Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) – sort of a pre-test/post-test measurement of students that is highly subjective and in no way passes any test of “validity and reliability”

Once again, take a look at Student Learning Objective 101 on the EngageNY website. 70,000 teachers in 1600 schools creating SLOs to measure the progress of 1.1 million students, probably can knock it off in a prep period!! Or, hire a few hundred SLO Creation and Implementation Developers (SLOCID) to scurry from school to school…

* The 60% supervisory/peer assessment through classroom observations are the major section of the APPR. I doubt many (any?) plans include peers in the classroom observation section. In my random sampling of plans many call for “one announced and one unannounced observation per year” utilizing a scoring rubric approved by the bargaining agent, in New York City, the Danielson Frameworks.

The Danielson Frameworks 2013 are a 114-page document describing in minute detail classroom behaviors divided in Domains, Components and Elements. Last year I sat through two days of “training” on an earlier version of the Frameworks – we watched videos, discussed, took a “mini quiz,” and assessed lessons. I sat with six principals – we watched a video of lesson – “scored” the lesson, and compared our scoring – with wide differences among us. At the end of the session Teachscape made a pitch – for many thousands of dollars principals could buy software to train themselves and staffs – I was told more than half of the schools in NYC purchased all or part of the Teachscape package.

Danielson, strangely, is not a fan of standardized testing ,

I do understand the policy people desperately wanting to assure their public that they are paying attention to, not only what teachers do, which is teacher practice but to also the effect that their teaching has on student learning. I think that is a reasonable request.

I am not thrilled about saying that a teacher’s performance is a level 2 and not a level 3. However, we are in a world of high-stakes evaluation, and so it may be necessary to do so.

Can a teacher receive a high grade in one category and a low grade in another category, and, if so, what does that say about the system?

When New York City distributed scores to teachers, percentiles scores, they also gave the teacher a wide range – a standard error of measurement,

The standard error of measurement (SEM) is an estimate of error to use in interpreting an individual’s test score. A test score is an estimate of a person’s “true” test performance. Using a reliability coefficient and the test’s standard deviation, we can calculate this value:

SEM = s  1 – r), Where:
S = the standard deviation for the test
r = the reliability coefficient for the test

I’m sure your supervisor will have no problem working out the formula to assure that you fully understand your grade and the ramifications.

Do not fear: the folks at the State Education Department have provided a number of detailed reports and webinars – click here for “Resources about State Growth Measures.”

After you complete reading the resources an online test will be administered (only kidding!!)

Teachers complain that supervisors “walk-throughs” are “drive-bys,” implying that supervisors are using a few minutes to derogate the lesson. I demur: as you walk into a classroom sometimes the class is jumping with high levels of student engagement, other classrooms are boring, kids filling in worksheets or a teacher rambling, most classrooms fall somewhere in the middle.

After a presentation by Charlotte Danielson I asked, “Justice Potter Stewart in a Supreme Court decision wrote, ‘ …pornography was hard to define, but that I know it when I see it.’” Isn’t it the same with a good lesson?

Charlotte was not pleased.

An irony: Charlotte Danielson’s other book, “Talk About Teaching: Leading Professional Conversations,” 2009, discusses the conversations supervisors have with teachers after a classroom visit that are not intended to be evaluative.

Take six minutes and watch an excellent video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqeMKQhTcLQ).

Maybe we should just dump the entire APPR plan and coach teachers and principals how to talk with each other about teaching.

Since the 2008 burst housing bubble and the resultant “worst recession since the Great Depression” the Republican Party and their acolytes have supported steep deficit reductions: across the board budget cuts – from Social Security to Medicare/Medicaid to virtually every program in the federal government – with the Domino Effect rolling across the states.

Congressman Paul Ryan and his fellow Tea Partyers cry: cut budgets, cut deficits and the economy will recover.

Stock prices and home sales increase while unemployment remains at high levels- the recovery is precarious. (Read “Where Have the Jobs Gone?”)

“Austerity, including sequestration, is the economic version of medieval leeching …Politically, as union power declined, the concerns of Democratic policy makers shifted from working-class issues like jobs and toward the concerns of upper-income constituents, like inflation, taxes and budget balancing.”

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist and NY Times columnist has bashed the Republican policies almost daily in his columns and blogs (see his latest, “The Chutzpah Caucus“

U.S. conservatives have long followed a strategy of “starving the beast,” slashing taxes so as to deprive the government of the revenue it needs to pay for popular programs.

To me, it sounds like a fiscal version of the classic definition of chutzpah — namely, killing your parents, then demanding sympathy because you’re an orphan. Here we have conservatives telling us that we must tighten our belts despite mass unemployment, because otherwise future conservatives will keep running deficits once times improve.

Paul Ryan, the intellectual Republican leader in Congress, “…has argued that any ‘pain’ suffered by working Americans—in the form of restructurings of Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, post office closures and cuts to state and local aid—was necessary in order to avoid an economic meltdown.” Turns out the Harvard Study that underpins the Ryan argument is based on flawed data. Krugman chides the Republicans, “… the really guilty parties here are all the people who seized on a disputed research result, knowing nothing about the research, because it said what they wanted to hear.”

In spite of the sharp criticism of a Nobel Prize winner, in spite of the use of flawed economic data, in spite of the views of the vast majority of economists the Republicans continue to support policies inimical to the nation, harmful to the 99% and supportive of the 1%.

On the education side the Obama-Duncan agenda is just as maddeningly foolish as the Republican push for austerity and bashing of economic stimulus Keynesian policies.

An OECD report, “Doing Better for Children,” 2009, compares child well-being in the 30 OECD nations, the report divides “child well-being” into material well-being, housing and environment, educational well-being and health and safety. Of the 30 nations the best we can say is “we’re better than Mexico and Turkey.” In three of the four categories the United States is near the bottom of the list.

Child well-being is defined as a “multi-dimensional construct incorporating mental/psychological, physical and social dimensions.”

The OECD reports percentages of child poverty (circa 2005):

Denmark 2.7%
Sweden 4.0
Finland 4.2
US 20.2
Mexico 22.2

In the wealthiest country in the world our child poverty rates are among the highest of the thirty OECD nations.

Nobel Prize economist James Heckman has researched and written extensively about the economic and social impact of early interventions in the lives of disadvantaged youth.

Heckman writes, “Early interventions promote schooling, reduces crime, fosters workforce productivity and reduce teenage pregnancy.” These are no off-the cuff pronouncements, they are the result of decades of deep research. For a detailed look at reams of research findings check out the “Heckman Equation” site, and click on the video link.

The winners of the Nobel Prize are an elite group, a very elite group. The winners are selected by peers and represent the most significant thinkers on the planet.

Sadly, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Barack Obama and Michael Bloomberg have chosen to ignore research findings that the Nobel committee has honored with their highest award. In “The Case for Investing in Disadvantaged Young Children,” Heckman tells us.

Life cycle skill formation is dynamic in nature … skill begets skill, motivation begets motivation, motivation cross-fosters skill, skill cross-fosters motivation. If a child is not motivated to learn and engage early in life, the more likely it is that when the child becomes an adult, he or she will fail in social and economic life. The longer society waits to intervene in the life cycle of a disadvantaged child, the more costly it is to remediate the disadvantage.

Billions of federal dollars are funneled to the national consortia (PARCC, Smarter Balance) and to states through Race to the Top to create high stakes tests, to drive teacher evaluation systems and data dashboards to collect tetra-bytes of student data – without a scintilla of evidence that these dollars will benefit students.

There is no comprehensive plan to address disadvantaged young children, whatever programs exist are fragmentary and primarily run by states and localities.

Why are the Tea Party Republicans and the education (de)formers so dismissive of the “best and the brightest,” American Nobel Prize recipients?

Clearly the wealthiest, the Gates, the Broads, the Koch brothers, the hedge funders, control the media message. Print media is disappearing while cable and social media flood the ethernet with messages – not news.

A half a century ago Michael Harrington on “The Other America” wrote,

… tens of millions of Americans are, at this very moment, maimed in body and spirit, existing at levels beneath those necessary for human decency….. They are without adequate housing and education and medical care.

The millions who are poor in the United States tend to become increasingly invisible. Here is a great mass of people, yet it takes an effort of the intellect and will even to see them.

The poor remain invisible as our nation becomes more and more segregated. How many of us have ventured into Brownsville or Hunts Point or South Jamaica, or journeyed down the dirt roads in the Adirondacks or Appalachia?

We are a nation with a long history of anti-intellectualism, and, unfortunately policy decisions have created an underclass – generations of poverty.

If Paul Krugman and James Heckman were the philosophical underpinnings of economic policy our nation would be far better off, and, hopefully, their voices are beginning to be heard.

Around the world schools are run by the federal or regional government authorities – with no parental or community involvement – maybe a school council at the school level. Curriculum are national, teacher union contracts are national or regional. In a French school, a lycee, the same lesson is taught on the same day throughout the country. High stakes tests determine placement in secondary schools and colleges.

Education in the United States is governed by 16,000 elected school boards under rules set by the states.

In the late sixties urban policies advocated giving communities as much authority over schools as possible. If local voters and parents had “ownership” of schools communities would create policies at the local level to assure improvements in academic achievement. The decentralization law created 32 semi-autonomous school boards, elected in proportional representation elections with the authority to hire superintendents, hire principals and determine budget priorities. The seven-member salaried, staffed central board – one appointed by each borough president and two by the mayor selected a chancellor and set overall city policy.

By any measure decentralization failed in the poorest neighborhoods in the city – the neighborhoods that were supposed to benefit the most suffered from extremely low voter turnout – elections dominated by local electeds and special interest pockets – chaos and corruption in the poorest districts reigned while higher income districts thrived with high levels of parent involvement.

Esmeralda Simmons, a Dinkins appointee described borough president appointees who spent their time wheeling and dealing political “contracts,” a totally politicized board unconcerned with education policy.

Mayoral control began in the mid-nineties in Boston – a close mayor-superintendent (Menino-Payzant) relationship that was praised across the board

In an often-quoted State of the City speech in 1996, delivered in the auditorium of the troubled Jeremiah Burke High School, Mayor Thomas M. Menino challenged residents to “judge me harshly” if his overhaul of the city’s schools failed. It was one of the most passionate speeches he made in his two-decade quest to be known as the “education mayor.”

As Menino prepares to leave office next January, he can proudly point to an array of impres¬sive accomplishments: historically low dropout rates, skyrocketing standardized test scores in many grades, full-day kindergarten available for all 5-year-olds, rising college completion rates among Boston high school graduates, and ¬extended days in dozens of schools, to name just a few.

As the mayoral control system moved across the nation, in 2007, Kenneth Wong, a Georgetown University professor examined mayor control. In his book, “The Education Mayor” he concludes,

… although mayoral control of schools may not be appropriate for every district, it can successfully emphasize accountability across the education system, providing more leverage for each school district to strengthen its educational infrastructure and improve student performance.

In New York City, in 2013, mayoral control is associated with the unpopular policies and personality of Mayor Michael Bloomberg

Unfortunately the mayoral forum moderators do not follow up – a “sound bite” and applause is not a policy.

If you oppose mayoral control, what do you favor?

Should we move to the LA system – an elected board representing geographical areas?

In the current round of school board elections in LA millions of dollars are pouring in from around the country – most of the dollars from “pro- (de)form interests.

Should the Mayor appoint a majority of the seats? Should the City Council, the Borough Presidents and the Mayor appoint members with no group having a majority?

Would a divided board lead to internal wheeling and dealing returning to a totally politicized Board?

Should all appointees serve fixed terms?

Should we consider a CUNY, SUNY model?

A majority of the CUNY board is appointed by the Governor with the “advice and consent” of the NYS Senate – a minority appointed by the Mayor – the president of the Faculty Senate serves on the Board. The Board meets six times a year with duties specified in detailed bylaws. The Chancellor, Mathew Goldstein has sweeping powers. The SUNY board trustees are appointed by the Governor with the “advice and consent” of the NYS Senate, also meets six times a year with clearly enunciated powers and selects a chancellor, Nancy Zimpher (http://www.suny.edu/chancellor/. also with extensive powers.

Should a board select a chancellor and grant the chancellor wide authority, and restrict itself to policy decisions?

As SUNY and CUNY trustees, should the central board have extensive backgrounds in other leadership positions?

Comptroller and mayoral candidate John Liu in an excellent report, “No More Rubber Stamps” calls for a screening panel to vet candidates and limit appointees to those candidates.

With four months until the September 10th primary Christine Quinn leads, far below the 40% threshold,

• 26% Christine Quinn
• 15% Anthony Weiner
• 12% John Liu
• 11% Bill de Blasio
• 11% Bill Thompson
• 2% Sal Albanese
• 1% Other
• 22% Undecided

Among registered Democrats in New York City including those who are undecided yet leaning toward a candidate, if the Democratic primary were held today, here is how the contest would stand without Anthony Weiner in the race:

• 30% Christine Quinn
• 15% Bill de Blasio
• 14% Bill Thompson
• 11% John Liu
• 2% Sal Albanese
• 2% Other
• 26% Undecided

If no candidate receives 40% of the vote in the September 10th Democratic primary the top two vote-getters will “runoff” in an election held on September 24th.

New Yorkers have yet to focus on the election – in 2009 Bill Thompson was 20% behind the Mayor a month before the election and closed to 5%…

It will probably not be until the waning days in August and the days leading up to September 10th that voters will focus.

With an excellent chance of a September 24th runoff can the Democratic winner stumble? Not according to the current polling, however, if the Working Families and the Independence Parties supported other candidates – four names on the November 5th ballot, who can tell…

Remember what did Winston Churchill said about democracy, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others,” or, if you’re a little more pessimistic, another relevant Churchill quote, “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter,” then again maybe Abraham Lincoln got in right, “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts, and beer.”
― Abraham Lincoln

The word “Tipping Point” comes from the world of epidemiology. It’s the name given to that moment in an epidemic when a virus reaches critical mass. It’s the boiling point. It’s the moment on the graph when the line starts to shoot straight upwards. [in my example, downwards].

While the Common Core aficionados, the editorial boards of the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the NY Daily News laud the CCSS parents, principals and teachers are increasingly pushing back.

The parties responsible for providing the dollars, the electeds at the federal, state and local levels read the editorials and place that finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.

As Tip O’Neill so succinctly put it, “All politics is local.”

In July the test scores will be released and the attacks will resume – dramatic drops in scores and the consequences – angry parents, teachers and principals – next year the Regents exams will reflect the CCSS and the attacks will reprise as more kids fail Regents exams and graduation and college readiness rates plummet.

Commissioner King bravely defends the decision to dive into the CCSS.

As a state, the percentage of students scoring proficient or above will likely decrease as a result of the more challenging expectations of the Common Core around careful analysis of text, writing with evidence from sources, applying math skills to real world problems, and critical thinking. The results this summer will provide a new baseline against which we – parents, educators, and students – can measure our progress toward college and career readiness.

The current implementation of the CCSS angers the public, the specter of the Bloomberg fall from grace over flawed school policies will resonate among the electeds.

We are approaching a tipping point.

Presidential aspirant Cuomo will see the “handwriting on the wall,” as the voting public loses faith, as polls show their opposition, for Cuomo, blame has to placed.

AFT President Randi Weingarten in a speech this morning at the Association for a Better New York (ABNY) offers a way out. See NY Times article here and an excellent Huffington Post article here.

With David Coleman, the father of the Common Core in the audience Randi asked,

So, what if I told you there is a way to transform the very DNA of teaching and learning to move away from rote memorization and endless test-prep, and toward problem solving, critical thinking and teamwork—things I know many of you have been advocating for years? And what if I told you there is a way to do that not a generation from now, but for students today, who will be the employees you’ll hire tomorrow?

For Weingarten the CCSS is at a crossroads,

I predict these standards will result in one of two outcomes: Either they will lead to a revolution in teaching and learning. Or they will end up in the overflowing dustbin of abandoned reforms, with people throwing up their hands and decrying that public schools just don’t work. And the coming months will determine which outcome comes to pass.

The AFT President makes a simple suggestion – take a deep breath – declare a moratorium on the impact of high stakes testing – make 2013-14 a “save harmless” year – spend a year working out an implementation plan.

An implementation plan must include curriculum, professional development and time—but they aren’t sufficient. A high-quality implementation plan also means involving the frontline educators who are responsible for engaging students in critical thinking, problem solving, teamwork and the other skills expected in the Common Core. And the plan can’t just be imposed from on high. It needs to be designed with and by teachers—ideally through their collective bargaining agent. The only way this will succeed is if teachers have input and ownership. Teachers rise to the occasion. The more input and supports they have, the more confident they are about mastering these instructional shifts.

I fear the CCSSaphiles will push forward, continuing to test and punish, continuing to ignore the valid doubts of teachers and parents.

At the beginning of her speech Weingarten raised the thick volumes of the ELA and Math Common Standards – teachers envision emblazoned across the cover of the volumes the words of Dante, “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate” (“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”), the Core, rather than graduate students with college and career skills will be viewed as a punitive device, another way to punish, to humiliate, a “reform” that will fade and gather dust.

The clock is ticking.

Sitting in the audience: Chancellor Merryl Tisch, Cuomo’s Deputy Secretary for Education D’Shaun Wright, mayoral candidate Bill Thompson and a long list of “movers and shakers.”

After months of exemplary approval ratings Governor Cuomo’s ratings have plummeted from 74% to 59%. It’s only a matter of time before the backlash over high stakes testing will begin to splash the Governor.

Mayor Bloomberg, in his last year, his education approval ratings have dived,

… that 56 percent of registered voters in New York City say they trust the union more to go to bat for students. Less than a third, 31 percent, said they trust Bloomberg more.

The Common Core, to use a Gladwell analogy is ” a meme, [an] idea that behaves like a virus–that moves through a population, taking hold in each person it infects,” the Common Core will either be rejected as a terrible idea or accepted as a brilliant approach to changing education.

Tick, tock.

Read and/or watch Weingarten’s speech here.

The problem: the Common Core is not a curriculum, let me say it again, the Common Core is not a curriculum.

The Common Core, more accurately the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a set of skills; in the last wave of standards teachers were required in each lesson plan to include: Students Will Be Able To (SWBAT) and list the particular standard the lesson was addressing, some principals, once again, require the particular standards to be listed next to each activity in their lesson plan; a time-consuming, mechanical waste of valuable teacher time.

The current CCSS website advises,

The Common Core State Standards focus on core conceptual understandings and procedures starting in the early grades, thus enabling teachers to take the time needed to teach core concepts and procedures well—and to give students the opportunity to master them.

New York State has chosen to ignore the advice of the CCSS folk and push all students in grades 3-8 off the end of the pier at the same time. Some will sink, some will swim, some principals and teachers will be dragged under by the educational malfeasance of federal/state/city leaders.

Let’s take a look at the CCSS, the skills in a particular grade:

The ELA Common Core Reading: Literature Standards for Grade 8 are as follows,

Key Ideas and Details
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.1 Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.3 Analyze how particular lines of dialogue or incidents in a story or drama propel the action, reveal aspects of a character, or provoke a decision.

Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.8.10 By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6–8 text complexity band independently and proficiently.

In my view the CCSS are not unreasonable, teachers have been teaching many of the CCSS skills for years, the difference is the “one size fits all” nature of the standards, and the large number of standards, without a “content-rich curriculum.

What is the “content” in an 8th grade ELA class? Who decides the content? Is content determined by the books in the bookroom? Do uniform scoring rubrics exist? Do teachers within a subject area, on a grade, on multiple grades, in multiple schools have the opportunity to share rubrics and graded student work?

The answer: who knows? The Department abjures a focus on instructional practice; the “methodology” of the guys and gals at Tweed is the repetitive use of interim assessments which drives lessons to address “deficiencies” as identified by the assessment. The result is continuing deadening test prep.

The question of planning is left wholly to teachers, without the requisite professional development.

Effective lessons require effective planning.

Understanding by Design, by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, in my judgment is far more important than the dry and seemingly endless CCSS.

Wiggins writes ,

How teachers plan – I think this is one of the more interesting ‘black boxes’ in education. There are few studies of it, yet it is clearly one of the most vital elements of the enterprise….

• What content standards and program- or mission-related goal(s) will this unit address?
• What kinds of long-term, independent accomplishments are desired (transfer goals)?
• What thought-provoking questions will foster inquiry, meaning-making, and transfer?
• What specifically do you want students to understand? What important ideas do you want them to grasp? What inferences should they make? What misconceptions are predictable and will need overcoming?
• What facts and basic concepts should students know and be able to recall?
• What discrete skills and processes should be able to use?

An example of a suggested Wiggins planning templates.

(http://www.squidoo.com/lesson-plan-template)

The current network system was originally designed to allow principals (initially with their staffs) to select a network that matched the instructional philosophy of a school community. For a few districts Wiggins-McTighe, Understanding by Design, was the core of lesson preparation within schools. Individual teachers, group of teachers, by subject, by grade, had the opportunity to attend workshops, network leaders provided training, others moved in a different direction, aping the Tweed test prep loop.

Brave principals lead, cycles of professional development addressing the skills of teachers, content-rich curriculum, frequent principal classroom visits with meaningful feedback, and a laser focus on collaboration, among students, teachers and the school community. Too many principals “drink the cool-aid” and hammer staffs with cycle after cycle of data collection/analysis, dull teaching and re-teaching of “skills” absent a curriculum.

In eight months we will have a new chancellor, a well-respected educator who can lead,

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”

Albert Einstein

Some years ago The Department of Education, with fanfare, and an 80+ million dollar price tag, announced the creation of the Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS)”… a single place where educators can find important information to use to accelerate student learning.”

“ARIS,” the Department gloated, “… provides New York City educators with a secure online platform for:

• Exploring data they can use to improve student outcomes
• Sharing what they have learned by publishing documents and taking part in discussions and blogs
• Finding other educators facing similar challenges
• Creating collaborative communities to solve problems together
• ARIS Parent Link

I sat at an ARIS training session a few weeks before the rollout run by a training company – we got to play around with a beta version of the final product – it was cool! The “one-stop” stopping was useful – the collection of a number of systems on one site, the promise of a platform on which teachers can post and discuss and blog.

The promise was not the reality, the Department realized that “discussions” and “bulletin boards” and “blogs” on a Department site had to be curated and the Department did not have the will or the capacity to curate a site with tens of thousands of users.

Today ARIS “clicks per school” by teachers are meager, the goal of a “data central” that would drive instructional practice and invigorating conversation has morphed to a convenient site to access student bio-data.

The answer to a key questions is embarrassing: do “high-click” schools show higher student growth? How do end users utilize the ARIS data?

The answer, I am told, there is no correlation between the use of ARIS and pupil achievement growth, and, the use of ARIS is overwhelmingly not for instructional purposes. (Commonly checking attendance and bio-data)

Sadly, over 400 schools in New York City purchase a proprietary product, DataCation, which principals find far more useful. You will note I write “principals,” not teachers.

The State Education Department is in the midst of creating its own version of ARIS, called an Education Data Portal (EDP), a tool that was in the Race to the Top application is under construction, at a cost well north of 50 million plus.

“The EDP,” says the state, “will help educators, students, and their families improve student outcomes by:

• Providing tools to accurately monitor academic progress and other indicators, such as attendance.
• Providing access to curriculum and instructional resources aligned with standards, including curriculum modules and teacher practice videos.
• Bringing all of these resources together on one site that can be enriched with additional local school and district data and curriculum resources to support data driven improvement to practice.

Sounds just like the ARIS campaign.

The State Ed dataphiles have joined a Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC), run by InBloom, a not-for-profit funded primarily by Gates-Murdoch dollars.

Shared Learning Collaborative (SLC) – a not-for-profit, state-led effort created to help states, districts, schools and teachers more easily and effectively personalize education for students through open and non-proprietary standards and services.

SLC work will allow SED, school districts and schools to build or buy technologies that work on open, non-proprietary standards and services so that fiscal resources can be used to provide the most educational value and choice at the lowest cost for teachers, students, and their families.

A State Ed generated power point attempts to answer the many, many criticisms of this data-sharing collaborative.

While InBloom is a not-for-profit the data they collect and the tools they create will be for sale around the nation. Why doesn’t New York State share in whatever dollars are generated by the tools?

When the dust settles, a year or two down the road school districts will have a vast array of tools, if they wish to expend local dollars; however, will the tools make John Doe and Linda Smith better teachers?

The answer is no. The tools will enable superintendents to produce glossy power points, not help the folks in classrooms.

Currently principals can use state testing results without these new tools – download and disaggregate the scores by question – create an error matrix and ask teachers to address deficits in lessons.

The most common use of technology by teachers is Dropbox and Google.Docs, free available apps that allow teachers within or among schools to collaborate.

The feds, state departments of education and school districts use data – simple uses like creating report cards or student scheduling or tracking lunch forms – all necessary – the tools are not driven by the needs of the end users – the classroom teachers, in fact, the endless data entry and report creation adds needless complexity to the lives of teachers.

“Data-envy” is an infatuation, a compulsion, we lust after each new tool, perhaps we need a “twelve-step program” to cure this compulsion which is wasting hundreds of millions of dollars, endless energy and alienating end users.

Mike Schmoker in Focus makes a simple proposal:

There will be no more initiatives – at least for a time. Instead we will focus only on what will have an immediate and dramatic impact on learning in your classrooms: ensuring implementation of a common, content-rich curriculum; good lessons; and plenty of meaningful literacy activities (such as close reading, writing and discussion) across the curriculum. What is essential? Three simple things: reasonable coherent curriculum (what we teach), sound lessons (how we teach) and far more purposeful reading and writing in every discipline (authentic literacy).

Simplicity always trumps complexity.

UPDATE: See just released reserch paper “If You Build it Will They Come? Teachers’ Online Use of Student Performance Data,”

Pedro Noguera, Peter L. Agnew Professor of Education at NYU asked a simple question,

“Where are the policymakers?”

The core decisions driving education policy are made by Bill Gates and Eli Broad, the playbook, developed in April, 2009, “Smart Options: Investing the Recovery Funds for Student Success,” lays out the policies that drive education policy from Washington to the mean streets of the South Bronx.

Take a look at the Report: http://www.broadeducation.org/asset/429-arrasmartoptions.pdf, especially the list of the report writers. No teacher union reps, no principals, no teachers, no academics, the “Klein Crowd,” Michelle Rhee and a long list of the think tankers from the right: the market-driven approach to schooling.

While the Report supports, “Create fairer, more accurate and more useful teacher evaluation systems, developed with teachers and their unions,” and “Train teachers, unions and school leaders in the new systems” it excludes the very same people from the table.

The “Broad/Gates” playbook is not based on peer-reviewed evidence, not based on the experience of classroom teachers or principals or deep thinkers in the universities, it ignores the representatives of communities of color, it represents a 21st century “noblesse oblige,” perhaps harsh, it reeks of rich and powerful white guys deciding what is best for the poor, powerless communities of color.

Back to the panelists:

Professor Okhee Lee, an expert on English Language Learners, an English Language Learner herself, a member of the just released Next Generation Science Standards(NGSS) team strongly advocated,

“…having students develop models, construct explanations, and argue from evidence enables these diverse learners to understand core ideas within science while acquiring technical aspects of language like vocabulary or sentence structure … this is extremely important since the Common Core State Standards are moving more heavily towards building content standards across academic disciplines for all students.”

The policymakers in Albany, the State Education Department have been fumbling with Part 154, the regulations governing instruction for English Language Learners in NYS, regulations that are basically unchanged for thirty years, regulations that may protect jobs but certainly do not drive instructional practices that are both effective and evidence-based. While English Language Learners are stumbling across the state there are exceptions – a handful of schools are in agreement with Professor Lee, and the results are impressive, yet the policymakers diddle, again, politics trumps what has been developed at schools by teachers and principals.

Randi Weingarten, President of the AFT chided the Obama administration, 350 million to develop tests and zero dollars to develop curriculum, as well as Kentucky and New York State for “pushing off the diving board” approach to the Common Core, creating both high stakes evaluation of ill-prepared students and hostile and suspicious principals and teachers, is fool hearty.

The April 2009 Gates/Broad Report, four years down the road has been disastrous. The Broader, Bolder Coalition’s in-depth analysis exposes deeply flawed policies,

Top-down pressure from federal education policies such as Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind, bolstered by organized advocacy efforts, is making a popular set of market-oriented education “reforms” look more like the new status quo than real reform. Reformers assert that test-based teacher evaluation, increased access to charter schools, and the closure of “failing” and under-enrolled schools will boost at-risk students’ achievement and narrow longstanding race- and income-based achievement gaps. This new report from the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education examines these assertions by comparing the impacts of these reforms in three large urban school districts – Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago – with student and school outcomes over the same period in other large, high-poverty urban districts. The report finds that the reforms deliver few benefits, often harm the students they purport to help, and divert attention from a set of other, less visible policies with more promise to weaken the link between poverty and low educational attainment.

The last audience member standing at a floor microphone was David Steiner, the former Commissioner of Education, current Dean of the School of Education at Hunter College and leader of the new Education Policy Institute at the Roosevelt House.

Steiner was an unusual choice for State Commissioner; after all he hadn’t been a superintendent who worked his way up through the ranks. Each May the UFT convenes its Spring Conference – a couple of thousand teachers pack the Hilton to attend a number of timely panels, listen to a policy address by the union president, give an award to a public figure, and, for me the best part, have the opportunity to meet and engage with someone in the limelight at Operation Soapbox at the breakfast session.

In his first year as commissioner David Steiner connected with the audience – he may have a bit of an upper class British accent, I think he favors the philharmonic over a Jets game – he understands teachers. Many Operation Soapbox participants defend and deflect, David Steiner listened and engaged; it was clear that the Commissioner and Union President Mulgrew actually liked and understood each other. I had the feeling he could be the guy teaching down the hallway. (“Dave, have any ideas on an Aristotle lesson?”)

When Steiner suddenly departed two years ago I was saddened and not too surprised. Commissioners are battered by the winds of politics: a governor running for president, a mayor desperately seeking a “legacy,” superintendents wanting policies to increase graduation rates and decrease costs, agendas that may have nothing to do with the lives of kids and their families.

Steiner began by explaining that he does not comment on his successor, and told us that his successor was deeply committed to supporting the neediest children, sort of “damning with faint praise.”

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.
– “Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot” by Alexander Pope (1688–1744)

Agreeing with Weingarten (and Sol Stern and others) how can we rush forward without a curriculum, without agreed upon “domains of knowledge”? Late in the process the state has purchased and placed online a number of curricula, has begun to train district teams, Steiner reminded us that “retooling” is enormously expensive, the efforts; however, are faltering at best and fail to assuage deep suspicion on the part of teachers and principals.

The Commissioner emeritus ended his remarks by referring to Cuban/Tyack in “Tinkering Toward Utopia,” who reviewed a hundred years of school reform efforts and concluded that unless teachers and parents are on board the reform efforts are doomed.

Didn’t George Santayana remind us,

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.

To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.