Separating the Wheat from the Chaff: Which Bloomberg Policies Should Stay and Which Go?

Mayor de Blasio selected a well-respected educator with decades of experience in the NYC school system, who, in turn promoted another long time NYC educator as her deputy and one of the senior high school principals to a key role. The mayor and the chancellor introduced the new hires at a principal’s meeting of the CSA, the supervisors’ union, and, announced principal candidates must have at least seven years of New York City experience to be eligible.

The mayor is currently examining the rushed decision of the prior administration to co-locate charter schools scheduled to open in September, 2014, in public school buildings.

Other major structural decisions will be on the table:

Should schools continue to be organized in the current system, non-contiguous, affinity clusters, called networks, geographic, contiguous districts, or some other configuration?

Principals are sharply divided with the principals who are satisfied with the network structure arguing to retain the structure. The teacher union supports a return to geographic districts led by a superintendent.

The current system, almost sixty networks is made of about 25 schools per network. The network vision statement, number and location of schools can be found here. Network leaders are evaluated annually by Progress Reports and Quality Review data, principal satisfaction surveys and the evaluations are public – see 2011-12 network evaluations here. The Department defends the network structure here as well as defining the roles and integration of networks/superintendents.

The Department also employees 32 Community Superintendents and 9 high school superintendents, the superintendents are required by state law and are the rating officer for principals; however, day-to-day school support is the responsibility of the networks.

A major flaw in the system, according to the critics of the network structure, is that principals are basically freed from day-to-day supervision. From the union perspective this leads to endless abuses, large numbers of grievances that should have been resolved by a phone call from a superintendent. The abuses at PS 106Q, the NY Post calls , “the School of No,” is a prime example, the absence of a superintendent with the authority to influence day-to-day operations resulted in too many instances of both abusive and ineffective principals. The only actual “supervision” are the data – the student test core-based Progress Report and the one-day Quality Review walk-through.

On the other hand principals cringe at the thought of the micro-managing superintendents of yore. “His office would storm through my building directing me to do this and that – it was stultifying – decisions must be made by teachers and principals at the school – not from some distant office. We know what’s best for our students.”

Passions are high.

Continuing the practice of principals’ “evaluating” the level of support from networks could be expanded to the role of superintendents, as well as involving teachers in the process – if collaboration is a goal, perhaps frame assessment questions around the level of collaboration at both the school and the district level.

Other principals, in transfer high schools, in schools with total English language learner populations, are currently in the same networks – schools with similar challenges, it would sense to continue to cluster these schools.

This is not as headline-grabbing as co-location of charter schools; however, the decision will impact every school in the city

How will the new administration deal with School Closings, School Choice and Progress Reports?

School closings is not a Bloomberg invention, the Department has been closing schools since the late eighties, almost all low performing high schools, Andrew Jackson, Erasmus, Eastern District, George Washington, Taft, Theodore Roosevelt and others were all closed and replaced by small high schools before Bloomberg. Why no screams from the union and the public? Teachers who were displaced from closing schools either ended up in the replacement small schools or in another school. The current system of forcing teachers to find their own job or idling away their time moving from school to school in the Absent Teacher Reserve (ATR) pool only began in 2005. The Bloomberg/Klein regency ratcheted up the school closings to include elementary and middle schools.

In the 80’s and 90’s the schools chosen for closing were among the lowest performing in the state. The Bloomberg/Klein policy closed schools as rapidly as possible – closing some schools that clearly were on the way to turnaround, Park West had already adopted the John Hopkins Talent Development Model and the state wrote a glowing report – too bad – the Manhattan location was too valuable and too much in demand by the small high school advocacy organizations.

Federal law and dense state regulations require that schools are identified for intervention – focus schools (bottom 15%), priority schools (bottom 10%) and persistently lowest achieving (bottom 5%). The state uses an algorithm – a Diagnostic Tool for School and District Effectiveness – site visits to the 700 schools in the focus, priority and PLA groupings. If a school fails to show progress the state must intervene – with school closing as the last step. This year the legally required time frame has passed – no schools will be closed in 9/14.

The Progress Report, the A – F grading system does not provide any surprises – most of the school grade is based on test scores and/or credit accumulation – the “C” “D” and “F” schools cluster in high poverty neighborhoods and the “A” and “B” schools in the more middle class neighborhoods. The Reports contain considerable disaggregated test score data – not helpful to a parent – and usually tells the school what it already knows; “smarter” principals target particular cohorts of kids to increase their grade (the extra credit categories), management of data over increasing instructional skills.

If you abandon the A – F grades, what is the replacement? What metrics do you use? Do you decrease the achievement emphasis and increase the growth emphasis? Under that system a low achieving, high growth school in Brownsville might get an “A” and a high achieving, low growth fully screened school a “C.” imagine the screams … Interestingly the state has not released data on teacher evaluation scores by district wealth, i. e., do high wealth districts have a higher percent of “highly effective” teachers and do low wealth districts a higher percent of “ineffective” or “developing” teachers?

Complex decisions that are better discussed openly – the best decisions are made in a transparent environment.

There is a tendency – more than a tendency – an obsession to rid the system of everything “Bloomberg,” without an assessment of the value of the idea/plan/initiative. Let’s not fool ourselves: in 2001, the year of Bloomberg’s election there were many, many high schools with graduation rates in the 30 – 40% range using the low skilled Regents Competency Diploma. As an example Taft had five, not 5%, five kids who graduated with a Regents diploma. The closing and the conversion of large high schools to “small schools of choice” has resulted in higher graduation rates and larger percentages of kids moving on to college.

The MDRC Study supports that “small schools of choice” (SSC) are showing better results that the large high schools. (non SSC high schools).

Jim Kemple, the leader of the NYC Research Alliance, in the The Condition of New York City High Schools: Examining Trends and Looking Toward the Future, 2013 (http://media.ranycs.org/2013/004)

...reports steady improvement across many indicators of high school performance and engagement, including attendance, credit accumulation, graduation, and college readiness rates. The paper highlights stubborn gaps in performance as well—between groups of students, and between current achievement levels and the aspirations that the public and school leaders have for New York City high schools.

Multiple schools in a building present management issues, commonly four, five or six schools in a building may also have three or four support organizations, leading to endless conflicts. Other schools have well organized campus councils with a wide range of campus-wide activities. SSC allow for personalization, teachers and administrations get to know every kid – kids don’t get lost as they commonly do in a 2-3,000 student school.

The “choice” element of Small Schools of Choice means that if you live a block away from a school you have no better chance of attending the school than any other kid in the city. The SSC program is the antithesis of a community school; schools should be part of a community – not an alien island in a neighborhood. Every school should have a geographic zone; neighborhood schools should give neighborhood kids a priority, as well as reserving seats for other kids.

The Bloomberg gamebook has created over two hundred screened programs – principals select kids – skimming the more able kids – the “3” and “4” kids further disadvantaging the remainder of schools. Scholar’s Academy, a 1200-seat fully screened 6-12 schools, located in Rockaway, is 39% white, 23% Asian and 15% Hispanic with less than 1% Special Education, other schools in Rockaway are all Black and Hispanic with between 15 % and 25% Special Education – you can find similar configurations around many screened programs.

de Blasio will have a major decision – does he continue supporting schools/program that segregate students by race, ethnic and ability, or, risk alienating whiter and more active parents by curtailing screened schools?

Hopefully his decisions will be better than his decision today to keep schools open.

Research Alliance for NYC Schools: Are Department Policies Improving High Schools? The Blurred Line Between Research and Policy

The recently restored Roosevelt House on East 65th Street now houses the CUNY Center for Educational Policy. Facing each other on opposite walls of the reception area are a portrait of a young doe-eyed Eleanor facing a dour-faced Sara, the mother-in-law, two women who despised each other fated to stare at each for an eternity. Does Sara look a little like Mayor Bloomberg? And, Eleanor, dedicated caring young teachers? Hummm.

While scholars debate whether or not the Common Core will erode the achievement gap and push the US up the PISA list of nations Michael Bloomberg hammers away at teachers and their union – and the union jibes back.

On the evening of March 27th at the Roosevelt House Jim Kemple, the Director of the Research Alliance for NYC Schools presented the first of a number of brief papers: the first is a look at high schools in NYC over the last dozen years. The three-year old Research Alliance is based on the 20-year old highly regarded Chicago Consortium on School Research (CCSR).

The Research Alliance, housed at NYU is independent,

We are committed to regular briefings on the progress of our research with colleagues, advisory groups, and the NYC DOE. We want to ensure that these stakeholder groups have an opportunity to preview our findings before they become public, and have a “no surprises” policy with regard to the NYC DOE. At this same time, we carefully guard our independence and prerogative to publish the results of our work without restrictions from stakeholder groups, as long as our publications meet high technical standards and adhere to the requirement of data confidentiality. We produce reports, papers, policy briefs, and presentations that target a wide range of audiences.

In an era of advocacy research, research which attempts to support pre-conceived notions, are commonplace, research organizations must establish their independence to gain credibility.

The Kemple Report generally paints a positive picture of high schools: rising graduation rates, increasing college and career readiness, increases in subgroups; and also acknowledges wide gaps among subgroups.

Read Report here http://media.ranycs.org/2013/004

The conclusions/recommendations are straightforward and not controversial.

First, …develop more reliable early warning indicators that signal long term problems.

Second, …aligning performance standards, curricula and instruction with the skills students will need …

Third, NYC policy-makers should continue to forge multiple, high-quality pathways towards success for students who bring varying needs, ambitions, and strengths including those do not opt for a four year college … pathways combining solid academic preparation with work-related learning experiences.

The commenters and the audience questions cast some doubt on the context of the Report.

Davis Steiner, former State Commissioner of Education mused over the impact of credit recovery and teachers marking papers of their own students, items not addressed in the Report, although he was enthused by the results of the Report.

Shael Suransky, the Department Chief Academic Officer, not surprisingly praised the Report, and told us that in the last two years only 1.2 and 1.7 percent of credits were earned through credit recovery. The Department, faced with punitive actions by the State, restricted the number of credits earned two years ago, prior to the restrictions the percent of credits earned through credit recovery was probably in the 5-10% range.

Responding once again to threats from the State, the most predominant grade on regents exams was 65, clearly teachers marking their own papers impacted regents grades, last year the Department ruled schools could not longer mark their own papers. (Exams are exchanged with other schools).

The commenters failed to ask about the impact of the State reducing the English Regents from a two day six hour exam to a one-day three hour exam (scores soared) and the State setting extremely low cut scores to inflate the Algebra regents passing rate.

Perhaps the dependence on Department data alone and the failure to interview those not under the thrall of the Department skewed the Report.

Jeffrey Henig, a political scientist from Columbia University, laid out the political realities, the mayoral candidates will use reports of this nature to support or oppose policies that support their candidacies.

While the Kemple Report deals with a narrower issue the larger underlying unasked question: Is the Department-supported portfolio-management model (PMM) (school closings/new school creations/school choice/charter schools/data-driven student and teacher assessment), a successful tool to manage large inner city school systems?

The primary PMM strategy evolves from the work of Paul T. Hill of the Center on Reinventing Public Education and Research at the University of Washington, Hill, in “The Paradox of Public Education” proffers,

Public education struggles with two conflicting facts. First, public schools are small craft organizations that require close teamwork and constant adaptation to the unpredictable development of students. Second, they are government agencies always subject to constraints imposed through politics and legal processes.

Public schools have been subject to court orders about how particular students must be educated; federal and state regulations that dictate how money is used, students are grouped, and teachers work; and labor contracts that force schools to employ teachers who are poorly matched to the needs of students and the strengths of other teachers.

School leadership, personal responsibility, and accountability have been driven out of schools, especially in big cities where local politics adds to the burden of regulation.

Suransky suggests “look at the data – we are succeeding,” and hopes that whoever ends up in Gracie Mansion will be persuaded by the data, by the “evidence” that the PMM system is improving a once dysfunctional school system.

His problem is a Mayor whose obstinacy has motivated, has invigorated, has unified an opposition, what Hill calls “local politics.” In other words that pesky problem of democracy may derail a dozen years of forcing a PMM strategy down the throats of an increasingly resistant community, i.e., parents and teachers.

While Jim Kemple churns out research papers the candidates vie for teacher union and parent support. A year from now a new mayor will be grappling with what to keep and what to discard in the current system and the Alliance research will be part of the discussions.