NYC Gates-funded small schools enrolled fewer disadvantaged 9th graders than enrolled in large HS they replaced

Prepared by Jennifer L. Jennings, assistant professor of sociology at New York University, and Aaron M. Pallas, professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, in collaboration with Annenberg Institute research staff   

Over the last decade, the New York City public school system has sought to reform high school education by closing or downsizing large, failing high schools and opening new small high schools in their stead. This report explores whether these reforms altered the distribution of student characteristics across schools by comparing the demographic characteristics of students entering the new small high schools with those of students entering the large high schools that closed and with high schools across the New York City system.

The authors found little evidence of a fundamental redistribution throughout the system, but their data indicated that new small high schools located on the campuses of the large comprehensive schools they replaced enrolled much less disadvantaged ninth-graders than those who were previously enrolled in the now-closed large comprehensive schools. The authors recommend that the New York City Department of Education remain vigilant when opening and closing new schools, keeping in mind that the fortunes of one school can influence what happens to other schools. (October 2010)

I had conversations with Jennifer Jennings about this issue from the time I first met her in the early days of her research into small schools over 5 years ago. She told  me about a few of the schools - most cherry picked but one principal really tried to do it with the same kids -  his school had loads of issues because these kids just needed more resources. Now if he were given more teachers and more non-classroom resources, it would have been possible, but by no means a sure bet. But the ed deformers don't even want to go there, trying to make it seem it is only a matter of replicating successful models, quality teaching, etc.

Oh, how easy to be a higher quality teacher when there are kids with less needs - and that money spent the right way - let me say it again - money spent the right way - not on schemes like merit pay, or coaches, or ARIS and data and accountability - all the non-classroom accouterments that won't make a difference. See below for a prime example of waste: Hiring teacher effectiveness coaches who need no teaching experience.

Nothing surprising here. We know there are no magic bullets.

Pallas - Jennings report:

NYC Gates-funded small schools enrolled fewer disadvantaged 9th graders than enrolled in large HS they replaced. 

Findings appear to contradict DOE’s claims on this issue.

http://bit.ly/bt3eBn

News from the Annenberg Institute Do new small schools in New York City enroll more advantaged students than the city's other schools ? The New York City public school system has sought to reform high school education by closing or downsizing large, failing high schools and opening new small high schools. In a new report, NYU professor Jennifer Jennings and Teachers College professor Aaron Pallas explore whether these reforms altered the distribution of enrolling students’ characteristics across schools. > Read more and view the entire report

http://www.bridgestar.org/MyCareerCenter/PositionDetails.aspx?jobId=7679

 

Posting for NYC Department of Education
Position Details 

Position Title: TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS COACHES Function: Education/Training Position Type: Full-Time (Paid) Posted On: 10/5/2010 Job Description: DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

DIVISION OF TALENT, LABOR & INNOVATION
JOB POSTING

TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS COACHES

Position Summary:
The Department of Education’s (DOE) Division of Talent, Labor & Innovation is currently seeking multiple full-time Teacher Effectiveness Coaches to implement a talent management system focused on teacher effectiveness.  These positions offer the successful candidate the opportunity to assume a role in supporting school leaders in evaluating and developing effective teachers in New York City public schools.  The Teacher Effectiveness Coaches will be required to travel 4-5 days a week to New York City schools. 

Responsibilities:
These positions offer the successful candidate the opportunity to support school leaders in evaluating and developing effective teachers in New York City public schools.  Specific responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

Communicating the Teacher Effectiveness Program
• Create materials, agendas, and talking points to help principals have conversations with teachers

Determining Individual Teacher Development Needs
• Provide written guidance to principals on using data to assess teacher effectiveness
• Create tools to help principals diagnose teacher needs and choose appropriate interventions

Tracking Progress of Developmental Support
• Track teacher development needs and the delivery of interventions to establish school and project level patterns

Supporting the Completion of Teacher Evaluations
• Work with principals to improve use of existing evaluation tool, provide logistical support to ensure principals follow the evaluation process
• Track the alignment of evaluation rating to teacher effectiveness, as determined by the principal
• Provide logistical support to ensure principals make timely and informed tenure decisions. Qualifications: Qualification Requirements:
Minimum:

• B.A.
• Minimum four (4) years experience in human resources, talent development, performance evaluation, professional development, operations, public or education administration or a field applicable to the position, with at least 18 months of management experience or
• A satisfactory equivalent of post baccalaureate education and experience
• All candidates must have 18+ months of managerial/supervisory experience

Real Reform on Front Page of NY Times - HUH?

Yes, kiddies, on the very front page of the NY Times we see some example of Real Reformers at work at the giant Brockton HS in Massachusettes. (4,100 Students Prove ‘Small Is Better’ Rule Wrong.)

It took real teachers without interference from administrators. Union teachers who followed the contract to a tee. And one of these teachers became the principal instead of the 30 day wonders who know nothing about education. And it has taken over a decade.

What makes Brockton High’s story surprising is that, with 4,100 students, it is an exception to what has become received wisdom in many educational circles — that small is almost always better.
That is why the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the last decade breaking down big schools into small academies (it has since switched strategies, focusing more on instruction).
The small-is-better orthodoxy remains powerful. A new movie, “Waiting for Superman,” for example, portrays five charter schools in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere — most with only a few hundred students — as the way forward for American schooling.
Brockton, by contrast, is the largest public school in Massachusetts, and one of the largest in the nation.

Ooooh! Is that a smash mouth directed at Bill and Melinda?

At education conferences, Dr. Szachowicz — who became Brockton’s principal in 2004 — still gets approached by small-school advocates who tell her they are skeptical that a 4,100-student school could offer a decent education.

“I tell them we’re a big school that works,“ said Dr. Szachowicz, whose booming voice makes her seem taller than 5-foot-6 as she walks the hallways, greeting students, walkie-talkie in hand.

She and other teachers took action in part because academic catastrophe seemed to be looming, Dr. Szachowicz and several of her colleagues said in interviews here. Massachusetts had instituted a new high school exit exam in 1993, and passing it would be required to graduate a decade later. Unless the school’s culture improved, some 750 seniors would be denied a diploma each year, starting in 2003.

 Wow! Teacher driven. And the teacher who led it became the principal.

Fear held some teachers back — fear of wasting time on what could be just another faddish reform, fear of a heavier workload — and committee members tried to help them surmount it.
“Let me help you,” was a response committee members said they often offered to reluctant colleagues who argued that some requests were too difficult.

Brockton never fired large numbers of teachers, in contrast with current federal policy, which encourages failing schools to consider replacing at least half of all teachers to reinvigorate instruction.

You mean they didn't fire the entire staff? What would Obama/Duncan say?

Teachers unions have resisted turnaround efforts at many schools. But at Brockton, the union never became a serious adversary, in part because most committee members were unionized teachers, and the committee scrupulously honored the union contract.
An example: the contract set aside two hours per month for teacher meetings, previously used to discuss mundane school business. The committee began dedicating those to teacher training, and made sure they never lasted a minute beyond the time allotted.
“Dr. Szachowicz takes the contract seriously, and we’ve worked together within its parameters,” said Tim Sullivan, who was president of the local teachers union through much of the last decade. 

Union rules strictly followed. My goodness.

So why not try a radical idea? See what students think:

..the school retained all varsity sports, as well as its several bands and choruses, extensive drama program and scores of student clubs.

Many students consider the school’s size — as big as many small colleges — and its diverse student body (mostly minority), to be points in its favor, rather than problems.
“You meet a new person every day,” said Johanne Alexandre, a senior whose mother is Haitian. “Somebody with a new story, a new culture. I have Pakistani friends, Brazilians, Haitians, Asians, Cape Verdeans. There are Africans, Guatemalans.

“There’s a couple of Americans, too!” Tercia Mota, a senior born in Brazil, offered. “But there aren’t cliques. Take a look at the lunch table.”

“You can’t say, those are the jocks, those are the preppy cheerleaders, those are the geeks,” Ms. Mota said. “Everything is blended, everybody’s friends with everyone.”

 So, let's sum up: unionized teachers, contract followed, experienced teacher in same school becomes school leader, takes a decade, teachers not fired but won over, large school with a full range of activities and services you can't find in small schools. And the kids seem to love it.

Now, here's my caveat. The article talks only about the narrow judgement through the lens of test scores and data. There's probably more to this story. I do believe it is possible to have an impact even when money remains the same. Due to the unique relationship between the teachers and the admin - one of them ended up leading the school - I believe it is absolutely crucial that teachers have a major role - along with parents - in choosing the school leader. As a matter of fact, though it is ignored in the article, it just may be the missing ingredient.

So, okay Bill Gates, let's funnel some of that cash for a true reform that would work- teachers and parents elect the principal.

Times Article on High School Grades Reveals Dark Underbelly of Large School Closures

Over the last three years, high schools that received the lowest marks from the city have been the ones with the highest percentages of poor, black and Hispanic students, despite an evaluation system that was meant to equalize differences among student bodies, according to an analysis by The New York Times of school grades released this week.

Blacks and Hispanics make up on average 77 percent of the student population in the 139 schools that received A’s this past year, compared with more than 90 percent of the schools that received C’s or worse. While the vast majority of A schools have a high minority enrollment, 14 of the 15 largest high-performing schools in the city have drastically lower black and Hispanic enrollment.

Thus begins the article in today's NY Times titled "Schools' Grades Reflect Persistent Disparity."
Of course, the Times won't clearly state what everyone has been saying for years: that the replacement of the large high schools by small ones and charter schools forced thousands of kids from the so-called failing schools who couldn't get into the new schools, to roam the city looking for the closest large school.

See Aaron Pallas, alias Skoolboy at Gotham:
Comparing Small Apples to Large Apples

Leonie Haimson commented:
Subtly suggested in this article is that the claim of increasing equity that the DOE makes was not borne out in reality. Finally, what we have been making for six years about the flaws in the implementation of the small schools initiative makes the NY Times.

Followed by Angel Gonzalez, whose semi-prose post, I took a bit of poetic licence with:

"High School Institutional Racism Reigns in NYC!"

What's the Obama Dept of Ed & the NYC DOE response to this historic institutional racist apartheid system of education? (read article below)

.......to the racist high stakes school/teacher/student rating/testing system?

Breakup the bigger Black & Latino public schools down into smaller schools. And set the stage for Charter privatization.

Overcrowd and Super-overcrowd the traditional public schools to create more disparate multi-tiers in the apartheid schooling.
Let the bigger Black & Latino schools continue to fester into the downward spiral.


Add more and more Test driven irrelevant pedagogy.
Add cutbacks to essential spaces, library & other support services.
Give the students, teachers and schools more negative ratings.

Negative data reports.

Blame the students.
Blame the teachers. Divide and conquer. Shut 'em down!



And again DOE sets the stage for closing them down.
Unleash the Charter floodgates.
Make everything "nice" for the charter-corporate private takeover of public education.
DOE (the Dept of Privatization) will make everything nice for the profiteers of Wall St.
Our Black & Latino parents & communities increasingly become the shock-troops for the charter-privatization of the all public schools, White community schools inclusive.


And in the final analysis, we all lose to the interests of capital. Our communities get The Wall St.school-venture-vultures public school takeovers...and all the while...the AFT AND UFT officialdom ferries in the charter school movement as its bell-hop enabler to this grand ripoff !


Our grassroots teachers and parents across NYC and the country are starting to get hip to this Madoff corporate scheme and are starting to fight back!


STOP OBAMA'S "RACE-TO-THE-TOP" PRIVATIZATION SCAM!



Angel Gonzalez



http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/18/education/18grades.html?hpw for full article

Rumor Mill: Upset at Canarsie High School

UPDATE: Link to the Canarsie Courier --- you got to read this! Including the student account of their counselor being excessed and other chaotic excessing.
http://www.canarsiecourier.com/news/2008/0925/TopStories/014.html

UPDATE 2 (from a Canarsie teacher):
As a result of a letter writing campaign by a couple teachers, and multiple correspondence to Randi, she (took time off her busy schedule and) 1) sent Charlie Turner, who got a hostile reception, then 2) came herself , and was not treated so badly, and 3) sent Leon Casey and Charlie Turner who came today (Oct. 8).

Our teachers are concerned that they will become ATRs and forced to take a no-paid leave after one year, and more so, in the next contract, ATRs will be sacrificed. Randi reassured them that job security is paramount, "over my dead body", and they made her promise to write those assurances in the NY Teacher.

[So many] voted for the '05 contract, so the "chickens have come home to roost."



Original Post (Oct. 7, 12 pm)
This came in over the transom. Canarsie high school is in southeast Brooklyn. Canarsie is one of the big schools that are closing or closed (Tilden, South Shore, Jefferson) in the area, putting tremendous pressure on the education system. A free floating pool of ATR's -teachers without positions in all the schools has paralled the free floating pool of students looking for places to land. The chaos of the shock doctrine of the BloomKlein reforms.

I'm hearing that something big has been going on at Canarsie HS. There are reports that Randi was there last Friday and again today to try and control things. They had a large number of ATRs this Fall.

A teacher told a friend a couple of excessed teachers had written an article that appeared in the Canarsie Courier, a real estate newspaper. She also mentioned that Randi had discussed the possibility of striking if there were layoffs. Maybe she's rehearsing a new line for next week's D.A.?

They ought to give Randi a fire hose. Gee, who is running the AFT? Jeff Zahler, I hear. (Having fun, Jeff?)

Randi use of strike statement interpreted (if she said that.)
Randi's use of the word strike is more of a threat to teachers - like - do you want to strike - over this? She knows full well the newer teachers would laugh at the idea. So would older teachers who would have more confidence in the US economy's recovery that they would in Randi's willingness and ability to run a successful strike.

Why Has the Education Press Missed the Boat...

...on the real story about small schools? Eduwonkette has some theories.

Gates Foundation Supports Apartheid in Jamaica

....buzzards are us

The Gates Foundation and New Visions are certainly consistent. Like buzzards looking for entrails, they track large schools in trouble – trouble, by the way exacerbated by Tweed – and here conspiracy theorists and have a ball. After all, one of the basics of the phony ed reform movement is to close "failing" schools. But they don't talk about the no longer so secret part of the plan – close 'em to make room for the boutique schools that will serve a mere fraction of the population, and with kids that are not exactly the same.

Jamaica High School in Queens is a beautiful building that is way too nice for the kids who go there. Teachers knew they were in trouble when the buzzards showed up to measure the room while they are teaching. "Where are the outlets in here" the buzzards ask? "We have to put in new wiring for new computers." Only the best for the Gates kids. An application process for the kids. And lower class sizes. And non of those pesky ELA or special ed kids too. "These kids coming in do NOT look like our current kids," says a teacher.

They are calling it cultural apartheid.

Tonight, the parents, students and teachers at Jamaica are coming to the Panel for Educational Policy meeting at Frank Sinatra HS. They even got a bus. They will hold a demonstration outside before the meeting and then go in to speak to people with deaf ears – other than Manhattan borough rep Patrick Sullivan. (I will support MB Pres. Scott Stringer for any office he runs for because he had the guts to appoint Patrick.) Some ambitious reporter is missing a great story by not doing a profile of Patrick who has been the lone consistent voice on the PEP representing parents. (Oh, and QB Pres Helen Marshall has still NOT appointed anyone to the PEP.)

Victory at PS 84K: Tweed Backs Down

THANK YOU!

Please share with all of the people with whom you shared the earlier email to thank them. The support of the people on your e-mailing list was overwhelming, and the DOE officials acknowledged that “their phone was ringing of the hook all day.” They called it off. I had forgotten how many good friends I had. And, thanks for those, like Luis Reyes, who immediately defended the integrity of the movement when someone questioned it – as well as Mickey, Luis Garden, Angelo Falcon and Lillian.

-Jaime Estades

We just had a meeting with James Quail, Superintendent of District 14, John White, Chief Operating Officer of the DOE’s Office of New Schools and Portfolio Development, and Olivia Ellis, Director of School Support for DOE’s Office of Parent Engagement. John White began the meeting by stating that “there is not going to be a new school sited within P.S. 84 next year.” He went on to state that this decision does not mean that the Department of Education is giving up its belief that parents need to have more educational options within District 14, but that it is clear that there is not community support for placing the proposed elementary school within the existing PS84 elementary school’s building.

When White stated that he understood that PS 84 wanted “to protect the space within the school,” he was told by the parents that “we are not trying to protect the space, we are trying to protect our children.” He promised that there will be no new school sited within PS84 within 2008-09, but he would not promise that there would not be a separate program or school in 2009-10. We consider this a temporary victory. Olivia Ellis stated that because PS 84 is such a unique situation, with issues such as gentrification, such a proposal cannot be viable at this point, while alluding to Superintendent Quail’s agreement with the “gentrifiers”.

After being promised that there will be no school within PS 84, the PTA decided to declare a victory in halting any plans of a new school as planned by the “gentrifiers” and the Klein administration for the academic year 2008-09, taking into consideration that there will be a new mayoral administration which hopefully will be more sensitive to the educational needs of minority students not only in Williamsburg, but in New York City as a whole. The PTA emphatically requested that Superintendent Quail and Mr. White come to the school or provide a written apology to all of the parents of PS 84, particularly the 350 parents who met with Quail on January 24 when he described to them the plan for a new elementary school within PS 84. White and Quail refused to apologize.

The parents communicated to Olivia Ellis that an apology must come from the Department of Education to all the parents of PS 84, particularly to the more than 350 concerned parents who attended the meeting last Thursday and heard Quail describe a the plan to displace the children of PS 84.

THANK YOU AGAIN FOR YOUR SUPPORT! We received phone calls from CNN, Daily News, ABC, Post and others that I could not get because my battery wore out while I was in Albany today. There were many groups and organizations which knew about the issue and wanted to join us for the Press Conference on Wednesday. We are calling off the press conference based on tonight's agreement, and instead will have a celebration and full report to the parents next week.

Thanks again,

Jaime Estades

See ednotes' previous posting on PS 84 here.

Closing Schools, Shucking Responsibility

Updated Thurs Dec. 6 12am

When BloomKlein announce they are closing schools, there are shock waves, part of their "shock and awe" strategy in "reforming" the educational system. But when they close a school they are announcing their failure to fix it, while absolving themselves of responsibility. After all, they control the administrators and most of the teachers who are there. So what will change when they close a school? New admins, new teachers and mostly, new kids. Where will the ones denied entry into the new school go? To the next school to be destabilized?

The response of the UFT was tepid, at best. You see, they agree with the closing of schools. ICE tried to make resolutions calling for the UFT to take a stand on the closing of schools, but nada. You never see any sign of protest. All they say is they will protect the interests of teachers. Ha. ATRdom, here you come.

EBC/ENY HS for Public Safety and Law
EBC has had a rocky history and no one would ever accuse it of being a successful school. A few years back the school was placed on the SURR list, changed principals and worked its way off of the list. Last year it actually made AYP in English and math. The Quality Review showed some deficiencies but they were being addressed. The school received a D on the progress report. But just because the state said it was doing better didn't stop Tweed from closing it.

The school serves about 530 inner city minority youth with an improving graduation rate. They recently restarted the school newspaper and entered a Moot Court competition, for the first time in school history, where they were defeated by Madison High School in what the judges called a very close match. The students are excited about entering the Mock Trial Statewide competition and the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. The climate seemed to be changing as the school started to fulfill its mission, as suggested in the Quality Review.

A major factor in the decision to close the school may be that they are operating in leased space. The building is not maintained by the landlord. The roof is in bad shape. There was a major flood over the summer and one of the boilers is not working, leaving many classrooms so cold that the students called 311 to complain about the lack of heat. The lease expires next year.

To allow a school to exist in these conditions and then close it is part of the fabric of distortions of public education policy by Tweed/DOE/BloomKlein.

If you can't fix what's wrong without closing the school, then you have failed. Yet they get kudos for their failure. When will the press start telling the full story and call the DOE into full accountability for its actions?

Late breaking news:
Far Rockaway HS will close, thus putting pressure on the next target, Beach Channel HS.
I wrote a few column in The Wave when an attempt was made to reorganize Far Rock in 2005 which could have meant new leadership and did mean the replacement of most of the staff. It obviously was a failure if they are closing it now. Who was responsible if not the DOE? Why are they allowed to get away with blaming everyone and everything but themselves?
They are always talking about "no excuses" [read eduwonkette this week exploding that myth] yet they are the biggest excuse-makers there are. Again, SHAME ON THE PRESS IF THEY CONTINUE TO IGNORE THIS SHELL GAME GOING ON.

Francis Lewis HS, already severely overcrowded, recently got 50 over the counter registrations from Jamaica HS, itself a target for closing.

Beach Channel and New York's future

11/23/07

Colleagues and friends:

As we've been reporting in Substance for more than five years, the Beach Channel plan is typical of the way in which the general (i.e., community based) high schools are sabotaged under mayoral control.

As the dictatorship creates more and more "choice" schools (selective enrollment, charters, whatever they are called), more and more of the "leftover" kids are channeled into the remaining general high schools. Then, because of "standards and accountability", the administration can prove that these schools are "failing" (and probably "persistently dangerous") to justify closing or flipping them (to charters or other privatization schemes).

In Chicago, this is the pattern that has been followed for more than a decade, with the ugliest examples coming forward within the past five years, since Arne Duncan began closing schools for "failure" in 2002 and converting them into something or other else.

So far, five general high schools in Chicago (all of them all-black) have received this treatment, and most of their space has now been taken away from their communities and handed over to the privatizers.

Collins High School (1313 S. Sacramento, West Side, North Lawndale) is now "Lawndale College Prep Charter High School."

Austin High School (231 N. Pine St., West Side, Austin community) now houses Chicago's "entrepreneurship small charter high school" (American Quality Schools); a thingy called the "Austin Polytechnic" (another choice school, but run by a group of "progressives"), and (soon) another small selective school.

Calumet High School (8010 S. May, South Side) is now "Perspectives Charter High School" completely exclusive (admission requirement; they can kick you out if your fail to follow your performance contract; etc.)

Englewood High School is graduating its last public kids in June 2008, while "Urban Prep" (a much hyped all-boys charter school, uniforms and all that) and "Team Englewood" (a different kind of something or other) are taking over the building where, among others, Lorraine Hansberry went to school.

If people are not organizing and publicizing these acts of sabotage as they occur, and challenging them when the next stage of privatization takes place, you will lose as completely as Chicago did. You are probably in a better position because your union leadership may be venal, but at least they are not dumb (as most of Chicago's are), because you still have competitive newspapers (and some other media) and because they haven't destroyed your infrastructure of union and community activists at the local school level.

Every day, I heard from someone at a general high school that's being sabotaged by corporate "school reform" in Chicago. And every one of those people is so frightened ("Look what they did to you..." is often part of the mantra, referencing the fact that they got away with firing me and blacklisting me from public high school school teaching, Chicago and suburbs) that he or she will not be quoted on the record.

Ultimately, "BloomKlein" will micromanage its media spin, right down to going after every individual who is quoted against their programs, whether at Beach Channel or elsewhere. I suspect that the principal and the UFT chapter leader at Beach Channel have already been warned in some fashion. By documenting and exposing every instance of that kind of stuff as it happens, you may be able to avoid the fate Chicago's general high schools have been suffering.

Otherwise, the script for your future has already been written here, and that story on Beach Channel is a prophecy of what the future holds for dozens of high schools that will be "stuck" with the "leftover" kids until the BloomKlein propaganda machine discovers (like that famous scene out of "Casablanca") that there is "failure here."

Well what did you expect, M______ when you sabotaged us for the last five years? Rhodes scholars and Mother Theresa?

George N. Schmidt
Editor, Substance

www.substancenews.net

BloomKlein to Reward Roving Bands of Student Disrupters

As Sam Freedman in the NY Times reported today in his column (posted on Norms Notes), Beach Channel, our local high school in Rockaway, has been disrupted by an influx of over-the counter students, many of them disruptive, gang members, in severe need of special services and other issues that can be used to close the school down. The closing of Far Rockaway, the other large high school in the area, in favor of small schools that do not have to take the most difficult students, has left them with few places to go. We made the same point when the closing of Tilden, Lafayette and South Shore in south Brooklyn were announced last year.

Leonie Haimson commented on her listserve:
Typical actions by DOE, diverting more “over the counter” students to Beach Channel HS, destabilizing the school and putting it on the impact list.

This was a school that was allocated over $1 million that it said would be used to reduce class size; and was expecting to lower class size, according to just-released DOE chart to lower class size to 27 from 29.5. Wonder if indeed that occurred, or if the additional students foiled those efforts.

SED took as a great advance, they told me, Tweed’s promise not to undermine any principal’s efforts to reduce class size by sending more OTC students.

Freedman wrote:
A certain cynicism [exists at the school] given the Education Department’s penchant for closing large high schools that can be depicted as failures. “I don’t know if the D.O.E. didn’t think about it,” [UFT Chapter Leader] Pecoraro... said about the effect of the involuntary transfers. “The worst thing is if they did think about it and they’re planning for the demise of Beach Channel.”

Bet on it Dave.

Ed Notes has discovered that in attempt to further the Tweed policy of promoting small schools while denigrating large high schools and closing them, BloomKlein will give cell phones and other incentives to the groups of students that can have the most impact on a school that can lead to its closing in the fastest possible time. Bloomberg is making a fleet of limos available to those students who cannot make it to school in the morning. The student winning team will be sent to Washington for a 2 week trial in disrupting Congress.

Nailing BloomKlein's Ass to the Wall

Leonie Haimson posted this on her nyceducationnews listserve yesterday (Friday). Read her and her band of merry men (and women) on the NYC Public School Parent blog.

Andy Wolf wrote a good column [Friday] on how the students accepted at the small schools compared to the large are very different, putting in question the administration’s claims of improving graduation rates by closing down the large schools and replacing them with small ones. He credits these findings to a recent Eduwonkette column and an earlier one on the UFT blog by Leo Casey from March 2007 here. Both were good analyses, and it’s good that this issue is finally receiving the attention it deserves, but it is long overdue.

Leonie points to some background material she has posted in the past:

In November 2005 I presented [a report] to the PEP and the UPA here: http://www.classsizematters.org/smallschoolsreport.html

Many of my observations were based on a report by Policy Studies Associates completed in March 2005, suppressed for many months by New Visions, and then leaked to the NY Times in Nov. 2005 – which had many of the same findings and facts and more, based upon background student data gotten directly from DOE.

The PSA report examined not just the new schools placed in Evander but throughout the Bronx. It also showed how the creation of the small schools had led to worse conditions and more overcrowding for all those students left behind in the large schools.

Here is an excerpt of the summary that I presented in Nov. 2005: http://www.classsizematters.org/smallschoolsreport.html

“By gaining access to student records, the analysis substantiates what DOE officials have long denied – that these schools recruit students with better scores, attendance, and overall records than the population from which they are drawn. See for example the recent NYC Partnership report -- which misleadingly compares NCHS students to the average student citywide.

As the Policy Studies report points out, "These citywide comparisons are of only limited usefulness, since [this] initiative is intended to improve education opportunities and outcomes for students who might otherwise attend some of the city's most troubled high schools." Thus their evaluation properly compares the earlier records of students at the new small schools to those attending neighboring or host comprehensive high schools.

The students at the small schools had eighth grade math and reading scores significantly higher than their peers in the comparison schools; and 97% of them had been promoted in the prior year, compared with only 59% of the students at the comparison schools. They had better attendance records (91% compared to 81%), and were less likely to have been suspended. They were much less likely to need special education services. Only six percent of Bronx NCHS students had IEPs, compared with 25% at the comparison schools; and none of the NCHS special education students had the most serious disabilities.

Indeed, teachers at the new small schools praised their principals for "recruiting more high-performing students".

I also pointed out that these schools did appear to be doing a better job keeping their students engaged – something ignored by the recent exposes – but not because of the small size of the schools, but primarily because of their smaller classes:

While the students attending small schools maintained their previously good attendance, even the subset of students who previously had good attendance who enrolled at the larger high schools experienced a 10% drop in attendance in 9th grade. And while 6% of NCHS students transferred schools, and 10% were discharged from the system entirely, the transfer rate among incoming students at the larger schools was 14% and the discharge rate was 20% -- showing that more than a third of these students departed from the larger schools each year. …

Why were the new small schools more successful at keeping their students engaged? Students reported that their teachers were able to know them well, give them individualized instruction and help, and provide lots of attention in and out of class. As one pointed out, "the teachers I have had at other schools never knew me." While class sizes at the larger high schools average 30 students or more, class sizes at most of the new small schools were between 13 and 20 students, as pointed out by the first year evaluation. 9 The fact that these schools provided much smaller classes was noted by students themselves in surveys as their most valuable quality.10 As a result, “Teachers listen to you and get your opinion.” “In a normal high school, they don’t talk to you when you have a problem. They don’t care.” Another student said, “Slipping through the cracks? Not at this school!” Indeed, without smaller classes it's hard to see how these schools could succeed in their mission at all. …

And what about the majority of New York City students, who will continue to attend our larger high schools?

In the recent New Visions interim report, there is a timeline in which by 2010, "innovative educational methods from NYC's small high schools" are supposed to "improve teaching and learning at the city's traditional high schools." 12 This is critical, since even if its ambitious goal is achieved of 200 new smaller schools, fully two thirds of NYC students will continue to attend larger high schools.

As the class size in the small schools appear to be their most successful elements, without a plan to eventually provide smaller classes and more individualized instruction to all high school students, it is difficult to see how this will ever occur. “

My more recent City Council testimony is here Feb. 16 2007 here, with updated info on how the new small schools not only exclude our neediest students, but also provide them w/ smaller classes -- and how the city has no plan to deal w/ the increasing inequities of the system it has created.

The Turnaround at Evander Childs: A NYC Small School Trick?

Eduwonkette nails 'em

Run, do not walk, right on over to eduwonkette. We told you from the first day there was dynamite on that blog.

Leonie Haimson writes on NYCEducation News Listserve
Check it out – strong refutation of the notion propounded by the DOE spin machine that they have engineered a real turnaround at the small schools – whereas much of their success is based on excluding the kids who are neediest and hardest to education. Much more material on the blog than included below

New York's Fund for Public Schools, which has raised substantial funds for NYC's reforms, has launched a new ad campaign called "Keep it Going New York City." One ad showcases the successful creation of new small schools within large high schools. Watch this ad called "Evander Childs Turnaround" - the main idea here is that Evander Childs, a high school in the Bronx, was failing, dangerous, and a poor environment for learning. Enter Bloomberg/Klein, the Children First reforms, and five new small schools, and Evander is reborn - teachers say it's different, students say they like going to school there, and a principal beams that the graduation rate has increased from 30% to 80%. Evander certainly has received a lot of attention - Joel Klein visited the school to deliver his spring statement on small schools' superior graduation rates. A NY Times Editorial praised new small schools for increasing graduation rates. The final line of the ad: "The building may be the same, but the school is very different." Should we be cheering?

Read more

Today's This & That - July 4, 2007

Happy Post July 4th

Rush on over to NYC Educator - DO NOT PASS GO - to read this week's Carnival of Education round-up of the blogs, where he features a few choice items from this abode. http://nyceducator.com/

There is an item from blogger and NYC teacher jd2718 "Do we really want Black and White kids to be educated not only separately, but differently?" that makes so many good points I wish I had written it myself as he analyzes some crucial issues related to the small school movement and how it has been implemented. As I pointed out in my post about how the DOE has a dog in the hunt, when it comes to this issue and will use every PR move to make sure their dog wins.

While I have had issues with jd2718 over his support for the role the former opposition caucus New Action has played with its total support for Weingarten and Unity, it was nice to see him at least raise the the possibility that the UFT should be taking more of a role on this issue besides passing resolutions and issuing reports - both PR moves from my point of view. I repeat uncle Normie's mantra: watch what the UFT leadership does, not what it says. jd2718's point below pretty much nails it:

"The United Federation of Teachers issued a report saying that we support a mix of large and small schools. But there is no mix. Some groups of neighborhoods have large schools. Some have good mini-schools. And some have ‘redesign’ and Gates mini-schools. Which groups of neighborhoods have a mix? The UFT’s resolution has never been acted on. We have never challenged in a serious way the Department of Ed’s willy-nilly opening of lousy mini-schools, or their disruption of larger schools. And today? Today the UFT is partnering with Green Dot to bring a small charter high school to…. the Bronx. We already set one up in Brooklyn. And Green Dot doesn’t have a pretend report about supporting a mix of types of schools."

I just hope New Action leader Mike Shulman doesn't get too much agita that one of his members might have gone too far to make Randi mad. Bet he gets a call from Leo Casey.

Jolanta Rohloff in today's Daily News:
"We're very pleased and relieved," said Lise Hirschberg, who heads East Harlem's Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics school's chapter of the teachers union. "Klein objects to moving bad teachers around the system, but that is apparently what they're doing in this particular case."

In her new $130,000-a-year job, Rohloff will be developing a new high school that she will run when it opens in 2008 - a job specially created for her, said schools spokeswoman Melody Meyer.

We're sure teachers will just be dying to work there. They'll probably have to hire them off the dead scroll list. Jolanta has already given U-ratings to 20% of the prospective staff before hiring anyone. Gary Babad of GBN News at the NYC Public School Parent Blog reports the real story behind the scenes and reveals who the other candidate for principal at Manhattan Center really is.


Check Samuel Freedman's article in Wed. ed section of the NY Times which I posted on the Norms Notes blog. Of note are the assinine comments of Andres Alonso regarding the overwhelming paperwork ESL teachers labor under. His blabber just reaffirms my post on my own brief experience with Alonso. I would love to hear from any teachers who actually worked with Alonso. I bet he had real disdain for his colleagues. As I said, "Good luck Baltimore."


In response to this post on ICE mail,
"I heard a rumor in the Unity grapevine that Randi is trying to set her table up for a possible nomination for Secretary of Labor should Hillary Clinton be elected President. Randi wants to appear more conservative and tougher on labor in order to have an easier nomination process before conservative Republican Senators. This could explain Randi's collaboration with BloomKlein."

Michael Fiorillo responded:
Well, if Randi wants to appear tough on labor, she's done a pretty good job by going out of her way to undermine the AFT local in Los Angeles. Her embrace of Green Dot, despite their maintaining a company union in LA, is a disgrace.

I had assumed that the green Dot ploy was her entrance onto the national stage vis-a-vis her expected assumption of the national AFT throne. Either way, duplicity and betrayal, in the guise of "new realities" and "cooperation" with management, is the order of the day.

EdNotes comment:
I totally disagree that Weingarten is interested in the Dept. of Labor position, since once out of that office she would not gain entrance back into the labor movement. Leading the AFL-CIO eventually is the perfect arc. But it all starts with the AFT presidency in July '08.


I was at a meeting last night with a bunch of people of various ages and experience in the schools who represent a wide constituency of interests in education. One of the article I read in prep was on Neo-liberalism as it relates to education by Lois Weiner. It nailed and tied together so many points related to privatization of schools, Eli Broad, the World Bank, standards, testing, etc. and the role the unions, in particular the AFT contrasted with the NEA, play in this scenario. We're working on a series of events addressing many of these issues for next year. We'll keep you posted.


I was at the annual July 4th party in Rockaway today - this is about the 30th edition we've been to - where we get to see people only this once a year. Naturally there were a bunch or retired or soon to be retired teachers. One of them works a few days a week doing PD in a small school - one of 4 or 5 occupying a large school that was closed years ago. She said that with each year things in these small schools get worse and in a few years the building will be as bad as the one that closed. She feels so bad for the newer, younger teachers and said their first year, one of the main things she does is pass out tissues. A lifetime high school teacher with an impeccable rep, she gave more insight into how the DOE has been able manipulate the grad rates through lots of subtle and not so subtle pressures to pass kids so they graduate on time. She points to the importance to the DOE of keeping students in their cohort - one of the major words we hear bandied about - and all sort of little tricks are used. Like a few days or even hours of summer school instead of a full course to pass kids for courses they have failed. And of course, teachers marking their own students' regent exams. She said she actually gets physically ill at some of the things she sees going on. There was more but it's midnight and time to go.

Small Schools: Bloomberg & Klein have a dog in the hunt....

... thus, politics takes precedence over education

Exploring some of the complexities of the small schools/large schools issue.

As Canarsie high school parents met with Region 6 Officials - sort of, we think - the press was banned - we noticed a poster on the door of the Region HQ at 5719 Flatlands Ave. says "Your voice counts. When one parent speaks schools listen." Sure.

On Monday, June 25, a group of parents and teachers and some students came to the Region 6 HQ in its final days to ask for a meeting to discuss the planned removal of principal David Harris. What they got was typical DOE mumbo jumbo. That, added to the fact that not all of them were allowed into the meeting. Lack of space or something like that. There must be special training sessions at Tweed on exactly what to say to people who demand answers.

It is certainly of interest that in their dying gasps, just days before they officially closed down the operation, officials of Region 6 chose to disrupt yet another high school with the removal of Harris, a popular principal who seems to have the support of parents, teachers and many students.

One teacher, just days away from retirement, said that Harris in his year and a half tenure had begun to change the culture of a school that has been under serious difficulty over a period of many years.

My guess would be that the removal of Harris is part to the overall plan to close down Canarsie to make room for a gaggle of charter schools by making it impossible to show any success.

In giving some background to a reporter from Channel 12, I talked about the political context of the action in Canarsie against the backdrop of the closing of just about all the other large schools in the immediate area – Jefferson, Tilden, South Shore, Wingate – leaving Canarsie as the last large school standing. When I and another teacher made some critical comments regarding small schools, the reporter said, "What's wrong with small schools?" We told her there is nothing intrinsically wrong with small schools, but when shoved into larger ones creating even more pressures leading their ultimate closing, they are being used as a political tool.

"Explain," she said.

If you start out with the idea that you are going to make the establishment of successful small schools one of the pillars of your national reputation as an educational miracle maker and stake your political bones on these grounds, then you have a political ax to grind to make large schools look bad and small schools look good. BloomKlein and their Tweedle Dees have a dog in that race and will manipulate stats to give their small school dog every edge they can. Note the extolling of grad rates in small schools and the concurrent attack on the stats in large schools. While the numbers have grains of truth in them, as usual there is a story behind the numbers.

See the accompanying piece at Norm's Notes where Diane Ravitch nails the details on the spinage spilling out of the mouths of Tweed on grad rates.

Since small schools in their initial years do not have the facilities to accept some of the more difficult students to work with, like special ed and students with language difficulties, these students end up gravitating to the nearest large schools still remaining open. This is moving pieces, which is all the children are to the Tweedles, around a game board. Or rearranging those proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic.

In fact there is a lot of information on the subtle creaming to skim the better students that goes on at these small schools. Klein denies it, pointing to the number of Level 1's and 2's and to the fact that 90% of the students are African-American and Hispanic (figures the DOE gives us no way to prove by withholding access to the actual data.) Because schools require an application process where a proactive parent must make an active decision, that alone is a form of creaming. Even low performing students academically, but with parents concerned enough to take action, are often not the kind of behavior problems and that make such an enormous difference in how a school functions.

I have no problems with the fact that these kids are skimmed and often saved by the attention they get in the small schools, one of their prime benefits. But I object to the way the policy is implemented in a way to harm way more kids than are helped. Plus the outright lies and distortions.

When I was a teacher and had difficult kids heading for middle school where I knew they would get lost, I hoped that such schools would exist. I even looked for one for an extremely difficult child who ended up dropping out in the 7th grade and was killed at 18 while selling drugs. So I absolutely support the movement to create small learning environments. But not in the way it is being done by BloomKlein, whose main purpose is political, not educational.

Let's at least be open abut what is going on. Any teacher or administrator will tell you that a fairly small cadre of difficult to manage kids can infect an entire school. These are kids who have parents that will not be out there looking for a small learning environment. In cases that they do and the kids end up in a small school that is in no way equipped to deal with the difficulties they present, in many cases the school does the kinds of things that will drive the kid to either drop out or transfer to a large school.

See examples of how schools do this in Jeff Coplon's New York Mag amazing piece "NEST+m: An Allegory" the most succinct account I've read of the manipulation principals engage in to drive students out. I had the opportunity to meet Jeff at a party last Friday night and told him this was one of the most perceptive pieces I had read and points to the serious lack of adequate reporting by the NYC Ed press. Jeff said it was his first ed piece. Kudos to him.

Most of these kids also want to be able to hang out with buddies, roam the halls, etc -- all the things that drive all schools, but especially the larger ones to distraction. They become an infection of sorts to the rest of t he kids. As to how to rescue these kids, we'll address at another time.

But the DOE shell game of moving schools around creates a class of nomad students not really wanted by anyone, but the large schools are forced to accept them and schools like Canarsie, which as we pointed out, will be overloaded with these super at-risk students who will be joined by many students who will not find room in the small schools in the neighborhood. That at a time of the massive reorganization and the expectation that with South Shore and Tilden not accepting 9th graders who will gravitate to Canarsie, the idea of not leaving Harris there as principal and bringing in someone new at this crucial point in time is insane. But this is the NYC DOE. I have an idea. Try Jolanta Rohloff who can deal with the situation by threatening teachers with u ratings. (One sidelight of Harris' removal was his refusal to come up with his quota of U-ratings.) Sorry, she's slated to destroy Manhattan Center for Math & Science.

Since there will never be enough room in the very cost-intensive small schools where the Bill Gates money runs out after 4 years and these schools begin to face some of the downhill slides if they cannot attract enough students who can perform well academically, the people at Tweed ought to invest the capital necessary to attempt to fix the large schools instead of throwing up their hands and saying it is no use.

The attack on large schools, using the buzz words of "we need to change the culture" is an attempt to replace a teaching staff that is often more knowledgeable about their union rights - in effect a union-busting tactic. In essence, they want to change the culture on the backs of young, inexperienced teachers who will be often be burned out after just a few years and replaced.

When I attended a luncheon at the Manhattan Institute for Christopher Cerf, he said throwing money at educational problems doesn't automatically fix them. I raised the point that the DOE under BloomKlein is willing to throw all kinds of money at consultants, expensive computer systems and all kinds of pet programs, but not at schools. I asked, "Why not at least try throwing money at schools like Tilden and Lafayette instead of closing them? Try putting enormous amounts of personnel to provide guidance, social workers and a drastic reduction in class size." He had no response. But that's expected when you have a dog in the hunt.

Bloomberg and Klein's dog (undoubtedly a lap dog) is proving one of the underpinnings of their restructuring of the NYC school system - the success of the small schools - will be hammered home again and again even at the expense of the overwhelming majority of students remaining in the large high schools. To them, the collateral damage to an entire generation of students is a small price to pay. If there were truly an educational pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, we could at least say their motives were pure. But every day they reinforce the idea that it's all about politics, not education.

Canarsie High School Rallies for Principal David Harris...

.... Monday, June 25th at 4 PM.

at Region 6 Office
5619 Flatlands Avenue
(Between East 57th and East 58th Streets.)

Seventy five parents, teachers and students attended a preliminary rally on Sunday at 11am at Canarsie HS to defend David Harris, their principal for the past year, against what they say is his unjust removal by the Region 6 officials, especially since the Region and the people who made the decision will no longer be active in the affairs of Canarsie HS after this Wednesday when all Regions will be abolished. The letter to remove Harris was signed by Wendy Karp, who will have a new position in Queens under the DOE reorganization.

Today's rally is expected to be considerably larger with most of the school staff, many students and an organizerd group of parents joining in. That an entire school community would rally for a principal is somewhat remarkable in today's world of DOE political maelstrom. Canarsie is the only large school left standing in southeast Brooklyn after it was announced that Tilden, South Shore, Jefferson (sadly, my alma mater) and Wingate have, or are in the process, of being closed. It is expected that Canarsie will get many of the more at risk students who will not be accepted to the new small schools being opened in these buildings.

Canarsie is a School Under Registration Review (SUR) and the Registration Review prepared by the state ed department recommended that Harris be allowed a few years to turn the school around, a fact many of the protesters claim has already began under Harris' brief tenure. When informed of his removal, an anonymous State Ed Department official expressed surprise and dismay that the recommendation to retain Harris was ignored.

Contacts:
Teacher Thea Platt 917-754-0171
PTA President Reginald Murray 718-809-6529

Testimony of John Lawhead

New York Immigration Coalition Panel

Oversight Hearings on the DOE's Small Schools Initiative

New York City Council Education Committee

February 16, 2007

Good morning. I'm John Lawhead and I'm a teacher of English as a Second Language at Samuel J. Tilden High School in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. I've been a teacher in city high schools for eleven years. I want to thank Chairman Jackson for holding these hearings and the New York Immigration Coalition for inviting me to join their panel. I'm here to discuss how immigrant teenagers in my school community are being affected by the Department of Education's small schools initiative.

Tilden has a large population of recently arrived immigrants. We have students from Latin American, the West Indies and West Africa. The vast majority of the students in our school who are learning English come from Haiti. In the months since the current school year began Tilden has taken in between 75 and 80 teenagers newly arrived in the country. In school jargon they are called “over the counter” students. A major part of my teaching schedule is spent with these students.

A couple of days ago at the start of one of my afternoon classes I observed a group of Haitian students standing by a window. They were completely entranced as they watched snow falling into the street outside. Their sheer awe and the silence in which they stood watching the event amused me and I started to joke about their innocence. One boy protested, stepped away from his classmates, and said that he'd already seen snow -- sometime last week.

Yesterday the mood had changed. The students were sullen about the weather. They were surprised at how quickly the snow had turned hard and ugly. There was even the sense of a general disaster. During the morning, Nancy and Jude, a brother and sister in the same class, arrived very late and out of breath. There were wearing visitors' badges from Kings County Hospital. Their mother had left for work early yesterday morning and she fell on the ice and broke her leg. I savor knowing these kids and sharing the ups and downs of their early days in the U.S.

I'm not here to complain about the bad weather my students are experiencing. They are living the brave life of immigrants. I want to speak about the kind of educational welcome they receive in this city and how the new schools initiative that is being implemented at Tilden shows an abhorrent lack of planning to meet their needs.

The planned phase-out of Tilden High School will bring to an end to one of the last Haitian Creole bilingual programs remaining in New York City. According to the current directory of high schools¹ there are only three other bilingual programs for Haitian Creole speaking students. The other high schools where Haitian Creole programs are offered, Midwood, Clara Barton and John Dewey are all severely overcrowded. Midwood, which is the closest in proximity to Tilden is presently about 180 percent over capacity. John Dewey, is similarly stressed and according to a recent press report,² is expected to be put on the DOE's list of impact schools in the near future.

Tilden itself experienced the effects of other large schools closing and the deflection of incoming 9^th graders to neighboring zoned schools. Some of our current students come from neighborhoods where other bilingual programs were dismantled, such as Wingate and the Erasmus campus. A few years ago Tilden made news when its population increased by 20 percent as it accommodated students from other parts of Brooklyn.

What does it mean to lose bilingual education? By this approach recently arriving immigrants benefit by learning new subject knowledge and skills in their native language while also learning English for a substantial part of the day. Bilingual education puts students' previous knowledge and reading skills to ready use. Research has shown that when students are receiving good instruction in their native language, they get new background knowledge that helps make the English they hear and read more understandable. As a result the use of the students' first language accelerates their learning of the type of English they need for school.³

For adolescent youth bilingual programs provide a basic psychological support. On a personal level they are gratified to be able to use their native language for academic purposes. It allows them feel more like the adults they are becoming rather than babies who must grope for basic words and structures of English the entire school day.

Teenagers who have recently immigrated need such support. Adolescence is typically a difficult stage of life. Young people experience many new inner conflicts during their teen years as they strive to develop integrated personalities. They have a need to share what they know and who they are fluently. Granted this is not always possible for immigrant children of every language background. But it makes no sense to destroy a program that does provide such opportunities and support, especially when nothing even remotely similar has been proposed to take its place.

Immigrant teenagers need stable schools with caring teachers. They also benefit from the cross-cultural experiences that are possible in a large school. I'm glad to have my students in a school with students of different language backgrounds, include many native-English speakers. Tilden affords them the chance for social interaction with American-born peers in many settings.

To single out one instance, some of my students and former students are on Tilden's varsity football team. Sidney Lowens, Kerby Janvier and Lominy Pompee formed part of starting offensive line and special squads last fall. Lominy also served as kicker. Their great blocking and hustle helped carry the Blue Devils into the city playoffs under their coach Peter Waterman. There are other students in the football program of Haitian and West Indian background. The three I named are recent immigrants with low to high intermediate-level proficiency in English. I believe it's safe to say that until a few short years ago they had neither watched nor played American football. At some home games I found the bleachers crowded with other Haitian students who watched the games. Many were on their way to play soccer afterwards and had yet to fully grasp even the point of a football game. Yet they appreciated it as a school event involving classmates and friends.

The interaction of students and school community is a two-way street. As students who often have a strong intrinsic motivation to learn recent immigrants provide a good influence for other students in the school. I'm often stopped by teachers of the mainstream content areas who tell me what great contributions the former ESL students are making in their classes. At Tilden the ESL students participate in book clubs, art exhibits, dance shows and science fairs, collaborating and sharing their talents with American-born students.

Our school benefits students who are learning English in many ways which the city doesn't bother to track or elicit views about. There is much available data collected by the school from the moment families arrive with over-the-counter students. Parents and guardians of students identified as English Language Learners are given a mandated orientation that requires they view a video presenting both bilingual education and the English immersion approach. The parents are then given a survey to confirm their preference of instructional approaches. These steps were established under Chancellor Harold O. Levy and were meant to gauge the extent to which bilingual education might be substituted for by English immersion. Each year the parents of new students at Tilden have been unanimous in choosing our bilingual program.

The plan to phase-out Tilden beginning September 2007 shows an marked indifference to available DOE data with regard to the success of Tilden's bilingual program. The recent School Quality Review described a school with a new principal that was making great strides in improving the school. They praised the principal for her good use of data to adjust and change the schools academic programs. They also noted that the school was meeting New York State Standards for English Language Learners as shown by scores on the Regents exams that were 16 percent better than the citywide average. As noted above, there are also many other indicators of success that could be found in a careful evaluation of the school.

It is clear that given the overcrowding of many neighborhoods New York City needs more high schools. It also is seems evident that in a city that has become fixated on short-term goals there must be a redesign of education to better meet students’ needs. I would applaud the efforts of small schools planners to design schools where students' interest in real learning can be rekindled. Our schools should once again embrace such goals as civic participation, research projects, creativity in art and music, cross-cultural awareness, good habits of mind, vocational training with experts from the trades, and all the things that can make the school experience a joy but have been undermined by the current emphasis on pressure, fear and achievement scores.

But these newly designed schools deserve their own buildings. It is sad the way small schools planning teams are being used as pawns in a process to close large schools. It is time to question what the real agenda of the small schools initiative is. New Visions for the Public Schools which has overseen the funding of the small schools initiative claims that “local partnerships” are an essential component of successful new schools. In fact, not only has there been no community input into the decision to phase-out Tilden, there was not even any planning for such participation. The date the announcement was made to close Tilden followed by a week and a half the deadline for submitting proposals for the new schools that would replace it. Since 2001 New Visions has shown itself to be a conduit for private corporate funding always and a seeker of community partnerships seldom or never.

This is not a grassroots process. Finding such community partnerships would first of all involve honesty and plain speaking. It would require a thorough evaluation of what is working or not working in existing schools, not blanket condemnation and unsupported promises of sudden success. It would above all necessitate a close examination of the school’s population and its needs.

Instead, the discussion of the reasons for the closing which followed the announcement of closing has been a one-sided promotion of the small schools approach to education, and very selective results, anecdotes and testimony. The Office of Small Schools chooses not to showcase other less flattering aspects of the small schools initiative such as the rampant turnover of the principals and staff of small schools. One press report recently found a small school in which 80 percent of the staff were in their first year. In other words, most of the teachers in that school were still learning how to teach. Instead, it chooses to trumpet preliminary conclusions from a study funded by same organization that brought the small schools initiative to the city in the first place, the Gates Foundation.

All this hype and fanfare brings to mind the Haitian proverb, Move dan gen fos si banan mi. Even rotten teeth can feel mighty when they sink into a ripe banana. In recent years the large high schools have been served a much coarser fare than soft fruit. The larger schools have been burdened with overcrowding, split scheduling, oversized classes, inadequate facilities and budget cuts. They are assigned students with long-term absences, learning disabilities, emotional impairment, borderline intelligence and low English proficiency. In exchange for their effort to educate a broader population these school face official disparagement of their progress, a kind of disownership really, as the mayor and chancellor describe them in the most general terms as inherently unmanageable, complacent and impersonal while this same leadership relentlessly promotes its own pet projects, corporate-style school leadership, small schools and charter schools, which it subjects to minimal scrutiny.

Closing large schools means closing the books on accountability. It means closing the books on the DOE's broken promises to our students that they come first. It lets the DOE distract attention and escape from having to own up to the results of its policies of neglect, which include abysmal citywide drop-out and graduation rates.

My colleague, Deycy Avitia, in her testimony⁵ to this Council will quote a recent speech by Chancellor Klein in which he rejects “incrementalism.” He suggests that tinkering with programs and looking for gradual improvement is too timid an approach. Instead, he demands bold leadership that makes all the improvement a matter of one fell swoop.

Such a viewpoint is anathema to the work schools do. It demonstrates a lack of interest in finishing what has been started or evaluating what is working and what is not working in the new initiatives. School improvement like real learning is a gradual development.

At Tilden we are committed both to students who thrive at once in our school and also to the late-bloomers who will require more than four years to graduate. “Late bloomer” is educational term and a long-standing concept. It suggests than learning is in many ways a natural process that every human being is endowed with. The buds of flowers do not just open upon command. Educators much have patience to watch them open. As teachers we tend to the flowers and do our best to provide space and appropriate nutrition for young intellects. The real learning that we believe in is not merely a set tricks that one performs for someone else. It's what you do for yourself.

There are teachers at Tilden who believe in real learning and real school improvement. That is the reason we are fighting this arbitrary and devastating plan to phase us out. We have spoken out at many forums across Brooklyn and also in Manhattan and the Bronx. Last week we held a well-attended Town Hall meeting to discuss the closing of Tilden and its impact on the school community.⁶

Mr. Chairman I urge you to support the efforts of the parents, students and educators at Tilden High School. We intend to finish what we’ve started with all of our students, including the city’s newest immigrants.

References

1. 2006-2007 Directory of the New York City Public High Schools, Department of Education of the City of New York.

2. Dewey H.S. Teetering on an Uncertain Future,” Bay News (2-8-07).

3. Stephen D. Krashen, “Bilingual Education Accelerates English Language Development,” 2006. http://www.sdkrashen.com/articles/krashen_intro.pdf

4. “Readin’, Writin’ and Rookies. Inexperienced Teachers Fill City Schools,” New York Daily News (1-29-07).

5. Testimony of Deycy Avitia, Educational Policy Associate, New York City Immigration Coalition to the City Council Education Committee (2-16-07).

6. See also www.allout4tilden.com for links to news reports of Tilden High School parents and teachers speaking out.

Posted by Leonie Haimson on nyceducationnews listserv, Feb. 19, 2007