Should Teachers Be Armed?

I must begin by saying this is satire.

If I don’t, some readers will take it seriously.

It was written by Paul Karrer, an elementary teacher in California.

He is responding to the demand from some quarters that teachers should be armed.

Read here and see what Paul thinks.

Why NYC Closes High Schools But Shouldn’t

The New York Times published a page one story about the closing of the Jonathan M. Levin High School in the Bronx. The school was opened ten years ago to commemorate the life and tragic death of a young teacher who happened to be the son of the CEO of AOL Time Warner. He was murdered by some of his students, who came to his apartment (he let them know that they were always welcome), murdered him, stole his credit cards, and his ATM card.

After a promising start, the school went into decline. As in most other closing schools, most of its students are black, Hispanic, poor, English language learners, and/or in need of special education. Where will these students go? If a school closes because it serves so many needy students, who will take them?

I received an interesting analysis from an educator in NYC.

He writes:

A story published on Thursday in the New York Times profiled the Jonathan M. Levin High School, a school in the Bronx that is about to be shuttered after being deemed failing. As is becoming more and more common in New York City, replacement schools are themselves being replaced. This school was established only ten years ago to replace a large comprehensive high school that was deemed failing. New York City education bureaucrats defended the decision by claiming that other new schools in the very same building supposedly have comparable student populations while “getting dramatically different outcomes.” They somehow forgot to mention that the school in the very same building with the most similar student population, The Academy for History and Citizenship for Young Men, is also being shuttered. That school has the lowest incoming students test scores (in other words the test scores of the students before they even entered high school were well-below grade level) of all the six schools in the building. Want to hazard a guess as to which school has the second lowest? Would it surprise you that the answer is “Jonathan M. Levin High School?” New York City also publishes a “peer index” for each high school, which is supposed to account for student demographic factors. Which schools do you think have the lowest and next to lowest “peer indexes” in the building? Would it surprise you to find out that it is the same two schools in the same order?

The New York Times kindly included some graphs that were supposed to show that the closing Jonathan Levin High School was failing while another high school in the building, Bronx Collegiate Academy, was succeeding with very similar students. But they somehow forgot to include a table showing student attrition at the “dramatically different outcomes” school. I will give those numbers (the underlying data can be found here): 134 students entered as freshmen in 2006, but there were only 84 seniors in 2010. Over 37% of the students were lost. 122 freshmen entered in 2007, but in 2011 only 85 seniors were left. Over 30% missing. 117 freshman entered in 2008, but in 2011 there were only 86 juniors.   Over 26% of the students disappeared in only 3 years. Another way to look at this is to realize that in 2009-10 the school should have had 496 students if they had actually held on to them, but instead had only 391. 105 students gone missing. You would be right to wonder who these students are and what happened to them, Want to bet that these were students who weren’t doing well? And that they were encouraged to go elsewhere. So instead of serving as evidence of a school doing better, the New York Times should have realized this is evidence of the con-games and deceptions schools feel forced to pull in this high-stakes accountability era to make their numbers look good. But there is no underlying educational improvement, just lots of data-driven gaming of the system. In fact, students from the failing school attend college at a 7% higher rate than do students from the “dramatically different outcomes” school.

Let’s look at the bigger picture. In 2003 Taft High School, a large comprehensive school in the Bronx was closed. 10 years later, out of the 6 schools that replaced the failing school: 1 is phasing out, 1 should have been closed already based on the official criteria after having received a “D” on 2 school progress reports in a row (officially a single D or F opens a school to closure), 1“is seen as being on its last legs” according to the New York Times story after having received 3 C’s in a row on its progress reports (3 C’s in a row being the other official criterion for closing a school), 1 school is a screened school and therefore only admits students that have performed at or above grade level in middle school, 1 school, as we have just seen, somehow manages to disappear huge chunks of their students, and the Jonathan M. Levin school is about to be shut down. Nonetheless, Mayor Bloomberg still plans on continuing this charade and his appointees in the New York City Department of Education pretend that closing and opening schools really improves education for students.

Let’s look at one more set of numbers to see how widespread such charades and games are in New York City. The high schools that New York City is in the middle of closing have, on average, about 25% special education students, 13% special education students with the most challenging disabilities, 2.40 Math/English incoming test scores (a “3” represents grade level), and a 1.46 “peer index” (to give some context, Stuyvesant High School has the highest “peer index” in the city of 4.01). Non-selective high schools in New York City as a whole have, on average, roughly 19% special education students, 8.1% special education students with the most challenging disabilities, 2.65 Math/English incoming test scores, and a 2.00 peer index. It is clear that, as has been pointed out again and again, failing schools are not really failing. They are, however, taking on challenges that other schools, supposedly more successful ones, are not. And what about the new schools that are replacing the failing schools? Are they as a whole working with the same challenges? The data suggests that the new schools have managed to employ and numbers dodge and are educating a relatively privileged group of students. They educate, on average, approximately 17.5% special education students, 6.7% special education students with the most challenging disabilities, 2.75 Math/English incoming test scores, and a 2.15 “peer index.” So the new schools as a whole have managed to avoid educating the students with the heaviest needs that the failing schools educate (approaching 10% fewer high needs students in every conceivable category). On top of that they have managed to select students who come in with less challenges than all other non-selective city schools as a whole. Yet the education reformers want us to believe that a charade like this represents genuine progress!

That the education reformers are willing to gloss over the truth is somewhat understandable. They are driven by ideology and not facts. By dogma and not by empirical evidence of what works best for kids. But citizens have the right to expect that the Federal Government would serve as an objective check and look behind the smokescreen. Unfortunately, in the current political climate that is not happening.  The U.S. Department of Education is encouraging these sorts of tricks. Hopefully, in the near future, before much more harm is done to students, we will be able to focus on truly improving education for all children through genuine reform and not mere chicanery.

What Mayor Bloomberg Wants More Than Anything in the Schools

Mayor Bloomberg believes that having a high-quality teacher is crucial, and most people would agree with him.

Mayor Bloomberg also thinks that class size is unimportant, and most parents and teachers would disagree with him.

In the past, he said that he would be happy if he could double the class size and double teachers’ salaries, thus guaranteeing a “great” teacher in every classroom.

But here is the unknown: Would a teacher who is “effective” with a class of 24 be equally effective with a class of 48?

On his weekly radio show, he said today:

“I got in trouble every time I say this. But I would do anything to have better quality teachers, even if it meant bigger class size, even if it meant them standing rather than sitting. That’s what really makes a difference. That human being that looks the student in the eye, adjusts the curriculum based on instinct what’s in the child’s interest.”

So, his ideal would be a classroom so crowded that the children were standing because there were not enough chairs for them. And somehow, the teacher–with 48 or 60 or 70 or 80 children in her class–would be able to look every student in the eye and adjust the curriculum based on her instinct about what was in that child’s interest.

There is a disconnect here. The mayor, who is now spending big money to spread his educational vision to Los Angeles and Louisiana, does not seem to understand that having a super-large class makes it impossible for the teacher to look each student in the eye–even when they are standing, not sitting–and know what is in the student’s best interest. What he wants to happen is more likely to happen in a classroom with 20 or fewer students, not in an overcrowded classroom.

If only he had some experienced educators who were advising him!

Will You Say This to Your School Board?

John Stoffel went to his school board in Indiana and delivered this message. Would you do the same in your district?

Stoffel said:

A little over two months ago, tragedy unfolded at Sandy Hook Elementary.  By the next school day, my school had safeguarded every reasonable security measure.  Today, our district is still hammering out policy to best ensure our children’s safety.

In years of teaching elementary here, I have always believed our children are nestled safely inside the walls of our schools.  However, this year I have become greatly concerned that, while physically safe, we are suffocating each child’s innate curiosity and natural love of learning through excessive, high-stakes testing.

This exponential growth of high stakes testing has created a frenetic, stressful, and wasteful environment that is not conducive to learning.  For example, my students took two hours of interim, predictive tests over the last two weeks. By the time we get results and remediation could occur, the ISTEP applied skills testing window will already be upon us.  Further, even if remediation was possible, no research supports interim, predictive tests, except research done by the vendors who sell them. 

In fact, with the feverish pace we have started assessing our students; we have actually ignored sound research that the testing is harmful.

Last week I had to administer to students a test of 40, multi-digit multiplication problems which were to be attempted in one minute.  Brain research shows that these math tests actually result in the altering of neurological pathways as a protective avoidance to stressful, mathematical problems, even later in real life applications.  Still, the need to collect data trumped the maxim: “First, do no harm.”

Perhaps even more demoralizing, as a teacher, is that excessive testing has spirited-away the ability to meet the needs of the whole child.  Recess has been cut to a bare minimum.  Most social studies and science has been axed. Classroom meetings and current events have gone extinct.  Even reading aloud to students, with all its richness in virtue, cannot fit in to the demand of many testing or test-prep days.

Last fall, my school received a “D” rating from then State Superintendent Tony Bennett.   No one in Bennett’s Department of Education (DOE) could explain exactly how our school received a “D”.  Now, everyone from the statehouse to current State Superintendent Glenda Ritz has expressed the A-F grading system is flawed.

I have voiced my concern about the current educational practices to which our grade of a “D” has led. I have been told our school still must show evidence to the state that we are attempting interventions to improve ISTEP scores.

Under those same pretenses, then, let me ask this:

Can you imagine a doctor diagnoses your child with cancer, though he has no evidence, then recommends and demands immediate, intense chemotherapy? Can you imagine being forced to purposely intervene with toxins to slowly poison your child even though you know the diagnosis is wrong?

Now, back to my school – how are we attempting to “cure” our “D” letter grade from the state? More testing.  More data-analysis.  As a teacher, let me assure you these interventions are toxic.

Current State Superintendent Glenda Ritz must adhere to the detrimental laws put in the books during Tony Bennett’s regime.  She has asked current legislators to rework these laws to makes schools accountable in a manner that supports, not forsakes, or schools.

Let me conclude with handing you a copy of a Resolution on High-Stakes testing, which appeals for a drastic reduction to high-stakes testing.  I would appreciate our school board’s consideration of such a resolution at some future date to send a message to legislators to work with our current state superintendent.  This would serve as the beginning point to eliminating all unnecessary testing as a means to improve our schools.

Thank you.

Join NYC Protest Against Closing Schools: March 3

Most of the public schools that are closed enroll disproportionate numbers of students who are black, brown, poor, English-language learners, and in special education.

These kids get pushed from school to school because schools are graded by their test scores and they don’t want to take risky students, if they can avoid it.

This is wrong!

Insist that school officials take responsibility for all children!

Hold school officials accountable!

Accountability begins at the top!

Insist on equality of educational opportunity!

These kids don’t need closed schools. They need small classes, extra resources, a full curriculum, experienced teachers, wraparound services, and a school system that cares about every one of them.

If you are in New York City, join the march and protest on Sunday in Harlem:

Senator Bill Perkins, 30th District
Invites You To a Coalition and Movement
Against Public School Closings and Charter School Co-locations

Senator Bill Perkins’ Coalition and Movement
March 3, 2013 (Sunday), 2:00 p.m.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, WE WILL BE HEARD!

Join us, your fellow supporters, parents, teachers and students
from districts 3, 4, 5 and 6 for this amazing opportunity to be effectively HEARD and to be UNITED

For questions/information please call Cordell Cleare @ 212-222-7315
Date: March 3, 2013
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Where: State Office Building
163 West 125th Street, Suite 912

Great News from San Diego!

The San Diego school board has selected a highly respected, successful elementary school principal as its new superintendent.

Cindy Marten runs a terrific school that is child-centered and community-centered.

It is an exemplar of the San Diego concept of community-based school reform.

When I was in San Diego last year, the superintendent Bill Kowba made sure that I visited Cindy’s school to see what a great school in a diverse neighborhood looked like.

Cindy is an inspirational principal and she is a great choice for superintendent.

She knows what schools need and how to support schools and encourage collaboration among students, parents, communities, and educators.

What a breath of fresh air!

An experienced educator as superintendent.

In these times, that is truly innovative!

Does Effectiveness Matter? Or Profit?

A reader in New Mexico shares this information.

If the state commission does a study of effectiveness, the virtual charter schools will never win approval.

Here is the comment:

I thought this might be of interest to you. I live in New Mexico and recently our Public Education Commission denied the charter application for a new charter that will contract with Connections Academy.

Our Secretary of Education Designate Hanna Skandera (she has held the position for nearly 3 years, but has not gained senate approval because she doesn’t actually meet the criteria set forth by the constitution) overruled that. It looks very much like she did that because of her connections with Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education which receives donations from Connections Academy.

Today, I learned that the Commission will appeal her approval and would like to stop any new virtual charters from opening until a study can be made on their effectiveness. State lawmakers are also looking into the legality of using state public education funds to pay for virtual charter schools run by out-of-state private companies.

More information can be found here www.abqjournal.com/main/2013/02/01/news/skandera-oks-virtual-school.html
and here:
www.santafenewmexican.com/Local%20News/02272013PEC#.US5gzjBNKSp

Oregon: Legislator and Teachers Speak Out Against High-Stakes Testing

When I was in Portland, Oregon, last year, I met a very impressive and thoughtful state legislator, Lew Frederick.

Please watch this video, which begins with Representative Frederick’s passionate plea for a new vision of the outcomes that matter most for students–not test scores on a single day–but the kind of person they are, the kind of lives they might live, the kind of contribution they will eventually make to society.

This is the text of the bill under consideration.

Representative Frederick is followed by teachers, who explain the time lost to test prep and how their students feel humiliated by the testing. Listen to the teachers who talk about how their students feel depressed, crushed, belittled, stigmatized. Listen to the teachers with classes of 40, struggling to teach each of them.

Listen to the last teacher. Listen to what she says about Calvin, who wants to know what he got wrong on the test, and she can’t tell him because she doesn’t know.

Listen to their voices. This will be a worthwhile 20 minutes for everyone who watches and listens.