When Did Our Children Become Commodities?

Balanced Literacy. Ramp Up. SAT’s. ACT’s. CTB’s. Riverside Tests. NCS. Whole Language. NWEA. Acuity. The list goes on…
LINK

Different year, different program, different method of assessment. As teachers we enter in September, only to learn that the program we used to teach our kids last year isn’t going to be used anymore.

This year, we have a better program! Forget the fact that you invested countless hours trying to train children in Balanced Literacy. Now, we’re going to use Read 180. It’ much better- all of the research proves it. So, we start all over again retraining ourselves and retraining children who haven’t had any consistency from day one.

And what about testing? Last year we used Riverside. Teachers went for training. Children’s schedules were disrupted because we had to scramble to schedule all of the testing within the ‘recommended’ time period. It’s worth it though, teachers were told. The data would be invaluable. Except for one slight problem… The following year, the test is replaced with ACUITY!

What is going on?

When experienced teachers are informed of a new, mandated program that is being implemented, they often roll their eyes and say, “for how long?” Newer teachers often don’t understand the cynicism, but after a year or two of spinning their wheels trying to constantly change the curriculum, they catch on.

The problem lies with the fact that the programs that are brought in are never given a chance to fail or succeed. Teachers are trained in the program. They, in turn, train the children. Before the program has any chance of having an impact it is replaced. The damage to children’s learning is irreparable.

The profits for the companies who create these programs are enormous. Many schools in the city use the Balanced Literacy program. The DOE provided schools with a budget for support services to help facilitate the training or to provide in class support. Support is a good thing, but one has to question the incredible charges to the school. Teachers College was charging 1,000 dollars a day for their reps to help with Balanced Literacy in schools. That number is staggering.

Rethinking Schools Online reports that states are expected to spend “$1.9 billion to $5.3 billion between 2002 and 2008 to implement NCLB-mandated tests.” This amounts to huge profits for educational testing companies. PBS online reports that from 1955 to 1997, educational testing companies saw an increase of 3,000 percent. I’m in the wrong business.

As a result, testing companies have stepped up their lobbying efforts on Capitol Hill. Stephen Metcalf, reporter for The Nation tackles this subject in his article entitled Reading Between the Lines. When discussing lobbying efforts by testing companies, he writes:

Bruce Hunter, who represents the American Association of School Administrators, says, “I’ve been lobbying on education issues since 1982, but the test publishers have been active at a level I’ve never seen before. At every hearing, every discussion, the big test publishers are always present with at least one lobbyist, sometimes more.

Who can blame them when such huge profits are up for the taking?

Now, many of us who are idealists have resigned ourselves to the fact that the corporate machine is here to stay. We’re tired of fighting the dominant belief system which stresses profit at any cost- but profiting from children? My God, do they have any conscience left?

I don’t know what it’s like in other parts of the country, but in New York City, the turnover for testing systems and educational programs is unbelievable. A professor in one of my graduate courses explained that is well known that New York City is a “testing ground’ for educational programs. Companies compete to ‘try out’ a new program in New York and then use the experience to obtain the credibility earned to obtain contracts in other regions.

Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein hand out contracts to educational businesses like candy. In the past few years, we have seen program after program being implemented; test after test being tried out, and support service after support service being offered.

Will someone please tell these two that, although changing methods and services may be the norm in the private sector, it’s incredibly damaging to children?

Our poor kids have been subjected to so many changes in their curriculum and assessment methods that it is amazing that they can function at all. Testing companies have lobbyists. Whom do our children have?

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Tags: education, NCLB, NYCDOE, standardized testing.
Filed under: Education in Chaos, Uncategorized, education, public schools | No Grievances »
“Be More Like Mice, Little People” - an article by Paul Street
Posted: April 11th, 2008, by A Voice in the Wilderness

Paul Street, well known author of several books including Empire and Inequality: America and the World Since 9/11 and Segregated Schools: Educational Apartheid in the Post Civil Rights Era addresses the “Who Moved My Cheese” topic far more eloquently than I do.

He describes the plot of the book and offers an analysis:

They (those in the maze) questioned authority and sought fairness, futile endeavors that prevented them from getting to the real and only thing that mattered: “finding new cheese.” They worried about the fact that they had purchased homes and built families and communities in the vicinity of “Cheese Station C.” They became concerned and anxious over the meaning of lost jobs/cheese for littlepeople in general.

They needed to be more like the mice.

They needed to abandon grievance, drop their crippling concern with justice. They needed to get off their fat littlepeople buts and realize that life and the maze aren’t fair. They needed to realize that the marketplace entitles you to nothing in the way of steady earnings, meaningful work, material security, and community. They needed to get back into the maze and find new jobs - any job, anywhere - as soon as possible for themselves.

They needed to stop worrying about any littlepeople other than themselves. They needed to stop wondering who runs and profits most from “the maze.”

They needed to move on.

He continues to offer some new titles for similar books including:

Too Bad For People Who Get Stuck in Floods and Don’t Move On: It’s Their Problem

Who Killed My Democracy?

Who Sent My Son Off to Get Maimed in an Imperial Oil War?

The adaptation of the “Who Moved My Cheese” philosophy by Micahel Bloomberg is extremely telling of the way that he and other corporate elitists view the average American-just shut up and take it. You’re lucky we let you find any cheese at all.

Evaluating Teachers With Test Scores Banned In NY

Empire State Becomes 1st In Nation To Eliminate Practice, Paving Way For Easier Tenure
Bloomberg Suffers 2nd Devastating Defeat In A Week
Reporting
Marcia Kramer, CBS News
(picture of Mayor Michael Bloomberg is at right)

NEW YORK (CBS) ― First it was congestion pricing, now there has been another big defeat for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. A bill making it easier for city teachers to get tenure was approved over the mayor's strenuous objections.

As CBS 2 HD has learned, New York is now the first state in the nation to ban the use of test scores in evaluating teachers.

Teachers will no longer be granted or denied tenure based on student test scores, something that has the NYC schools chancellor very concerned.

"I just think it's a mistake and it's putting the special interests ahead of our children," Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said.

Klein and his boss, Bloomberg, are furious over the state Legislature's action – the second time in a week Albany has thwarted NYC.

"It's a bill that's really designed to protect people who are not qualified and, frankly, before you make a lifetime commitment tenure should be earned. It shouldn't be assumed as it has for too long in this city."

But education experts, including teachers' union president Randi Weingarten, say evaluating teachers just on test scores is patently unfair and statistically inaccurate.

"There is no magic wand way of isolating the effects of individual teacher-on-student test scores," Weingarten said. "There's no way of doing it statistically."

Weingarten also worries that evaluating teachers solely on test scores will scare them away from accepting assignments to teach special education students or others with learning problems.

"How are we going to get the best and the brightest teachers to work with our most challenging students?" Weingarten said.

Parents agree, saying there are lots of factors that affect teaching.

"Class size does matter," said parent advocate Leonie Haimson. "Test scores alone do not tell you how affective and competent a teacher is. The problem with this administration is they can't be trusted to look at all those other factors at the same time."

The Legislature said it would revisit the issue in two years and it also established a commission to study the use of test scores in evaluating teacher performance.

Teachers in NYC's public schools now gain tenure on the first day of their fourth year of teaching. Officially, a "review" process ensures some degree of quality control. However, 99 percent of teachers who stick it out for three years win lifetime tenure, according to the NYC Department of Education.

Currently, tenure is awarded with little or no consideration given to the individual teacher's success or failure in the classroom.

The Pro-congestion pricing side

From respected site Gotham Gazette: (we are posting congestion pricing loss for Mayor Bloomberg because politically we see his bullying coming to an end as far as effectiveness -Ed. Betsy Combier)

Congestion Pricing
by Bruce Schaller, Gotham Gazette, Mar 2006
LINK

Most people would surely agree that the snail’s pace of traffic in the Manhattan central business district is a pain. But there is much disagreement over whether the benefits of speeding up that traffic are worth the costs, or even what the costs would be.

Although only one of many ideas to ease traffic, the flash point for this debate is congestion pricing. Many people in both London and New York view as a great success London’s £8 ($14) a day congestion charge for weekday travel in central London, which was instituted three years ago. When the idea was raised in New York City after the mayoral election in November, however, a Bloomberg administration spokesman said the administration wasn’t interested. Nevertheless, congestion pricing made headlines again in February with the release of two reports and continued mixed signals from Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Whether congestion pricing itself is ever implemented in New York, this debate may yet improve mobility in the Manhattan central business district (referred to as the CBD, and defined as from the Battery to 60th Street).

How Would Motorists Respond?

The core of the congestion pricing debate revolves around the question of how motorists would respond to a congestion charge. The Queens Chamber of Commerce released a report in late February titled, “A Cure Worse than the Disease? How London's 'Congestion Pricing' System Could Hurt New York City's Economy." The report estimates that with a congestion charge similar to London’s, 40,000 fewer people would enter the Manhattan central business district each weekday, resulting in a loss of $2.7 billion in economic output. The report says that working-class and middle-class car commuters from Queens and the other outer boroughs would be especially hard hit, as would small to mid-size businesses that need to go into Manhattan frequently.

The Queens Chamber of Commerce report came on the heels of a Transportation Alternatives report (conducted by me), titled, “Necessity or Choice? Why People Drive in Manhattan.” This report argued that very few people would stop coming to Manhattan with congestion pricing or other steps to restrict car use in the central business district. Many assume that most people who drive into Manhattan do so because of poor or nonexistent transit access. Yet Census data show that 90 percent of auto commuters have access to buses, subways and trains. Not even the length of the commute need deter auto commuters; 80 percent have a transit alternative that offers travel times within 15 minutes of their car trip.

The report also pointed out that London experienced only a two percent decline in the number of people coming into central London as a result of its rather steep charge. (The Queens Chamber of Commerce assumed, without explaining why, that 14 percent would be deterred from traveling into Manhattan.) In London, the number of trips taken in vehicles subject to the charge dropped by 31 percent, but the number of people coming into central London declined only slightly because most diverted auto users switched to transit, including expanded bus service.

For the Manhattan business district, congestion pricing would reduce congestion, speed bus and taxi trips, reduce noise, afford more space for pedestrians and make the borough a more attractive -- not less attractive –- place to work, live, shop and be entertained. That’s been London’s experience and there is every reason to expect it would be New York’s experience.
Benefit To Outer Boroughs

Not just Manhattan would benefit. The outer boroughs would benefit from beefed up transit service that could be funded by the congestion charge, as London has done. The outer boroughs would also benefit from less traffic passing through outer borough neighborhoods on the way into Manhattan. In Long Island City, 57 percent of traffic entering the area during the morning peak hour is bound for the Queensboro Bridge. Wouldn’t getting some of those cars off the roads be good for Queens? Likewise in Brooklyn, traffic bound for the East River bridges accounts for 43 percent of all vehicles entering downtown Brooklyn during the morning rush hour and 45 percent during midday.

Reducing traffic would also seem to benefit those small to mid-size businesses that need to go into Manhattan frequently. These folks presumably charge for their time and would benefit from having to spend less time in traffic. Given what they bill on an hourly basis, a plumber or electrician or computer repairman needs to save only a few minutes to recoup a congestion charge.

Recent comments by Mayor Bloomberg have been both hot and cold toward congestion pricing. The businessman in him seems to understand the logic of reducing traffic by charging for use of the streets. But the mayor has also become an astute politician. That part of him knows how he has been hammered on the issue each time it gets raised. Thus, after commenting in February that congestion charging “is certainly something that we should be looking at,” his spokesman said he was not “loosening or easing up” on the position he took last November.
Other Ways To Improve Movement

While discussions of traffic in Manhattan turn toward congestion pricing, in fact there are many ways to improve pedestrian, bus and bicycle movement in the business district. City traffic planners need to be freed from their fear of impinging on the prerogatives of that sacred cow, the American automobile. The city would then be open to dedicating more street space for buses and bicycles and wider sidewalks. Traffic might not improve – it probably takes pricing measures to reduce congestion. But the 86 percent of trips to Manhattan central business district destinations taken by modes other than the auto would be easier to make. That would make life more livable in Manhattan.

Different Kinds Of Congestion Pricing

There are also many different ways to institute pricing strategies. San Diego pioneered the so-called HOT lanes along one of the major highways leading into the central part of the city. Motorists have a choice: pay nothing and sit in traffic, or pay a toll and zip into town. Tolls are increased as traffic volumes go up in order to maintain free-flow conditions on the tolled lanes.

HOT lanes overcome people’s resistance to forcing everyone to pay while also using pricing to give those who are willing to pay a speedier option. The same concept could be applied in New York City by tolling selected lanes on bridges and selected avenues into the central business district. E-ZPass could be used to pay the tolls, avoiding the need to install the elaborate camera system used to read license plates in London.

Let’s hope that the debate over congestion pricing does not lead to another dead end for the goal of improving mobility into and within the Manhattan business district. Even if New York is not ready for a full plate congestion pricing, there are plenty of other effective ways to give a little relief to pedestrians, bus and bicycle riders, and even to motorists who would rather pay than sit.

Bruce Schaller, who has been in charge of the transportation topic page since its inception in 1999, is head of Schaller Consulting and a Visiting Scholar at the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University.

Throughout the New York City and Long Island Area Concern Increases Over Teacher-Tenure Laws

Alarm over planned changes to teacher-tenure laws
BY JOHN HILDEBRAND, Newsday.com, April 3, 2008
john.hildebrand@newsday.com
LINK

Long Island's school board leaders are raising alarms over changes in teacher-tenure laws now being negotiated in Albany - changes they say could potentially tie their hands in evaluating teachers based on students' academic performance.

As proposed, the legal changes would specify criteria for judging teachers' performance - for example, through reviews of their work by other teachers - without stating that supervisors could choose other criteria as well. School board members and administrators say this could lead to court decisions blocking their authority to use test scores as part of teacher evaluations.

"It takes away local control, and that's what scares us," said Stephen Witt, a Hewlett- Woodmere board member and former director of the New York State School Boards Association.

Teacher representatives deny this. Nonetheless, what began three months ago as a fight over teachers' job performance in New York City now has spread across the state.

"What concerns me is that this came up very, very quickly," said Dan Tomaszewski, the board president in Longwood. A former teacher himself, Tomaszewski says substantially more time is needed to debate the proposed changes.

Time could be drawing short, however. The tenure proposals are part of state budget bills including billions of dollars in school aid, and lawmakers are under pressure to act on those measures quickly because the April 1 deadline for approval has already passed.

Both the State Assembly and Senate have approved the tenure changes in separate bills but have not yet given their final OK. Lawmakers yesterday were reluctant to publicly discuss negotiations.

However, one Senate source said, "I think there's an intent to come to some sort of consensus now that will satisfy everyone."

Under current law, teachers typically obtain job tenure after three years' employment. Once tenured, they cannot be fired for cause without due-process hearings. Nearly 40,000 public school teachers work on the Island; several thousand obtain tenure each year.

The current fight started in January, when New York City officials unveiled plans to measure teachers' work through students' improvement on standardized tests. Teacher unions sought to block that move by seeking legislation that would specify certain criteria to be used in tenure decisions, while leaving the choice of other criteria to the state Board of Regents.

Richard Iannuzzi(pictured above), president of the New York State United Teachers Union, yesterday accused school board representatives of being alarmists, adding that they should be spending more time talking about financial aid to impoverished districts.

Said Iannuzzi: "To the school boards, the sky is falling."

Associated Press: School officials claim 'nefarious' effort would make teacher tenure easier. "What I'm reading between the lines here," Iannuzzi said, "is that the chancellor and perhaps the school boards would like is a cheap, quick method for making tenure determinations rather than a strenuous, comprehensive method. That's what applying an inappropriate test does -- it's cheap, quick and dirty."

NYSUT: Uphold high standards of tenure process
NYSUT Media Relations - Update April 2.

Statement by NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi

TAKE ACTION!
Fax your legislator now!

"NYSUT is on record supporting a rigorous, comprehensive process for granting tenure. Sadly, Chancellor Klein and the state school boards association made it clear today that they are pressing for a cheap, down-and-dirty process, rather than meeting their obligations to uphold the high standards this process deserves.

"Last year, the Legislature and the governor made a commitment to invest additional resources in the state's neediest schools. At the same time, they instituted new accountability measures - measures that NYSUT supports. The new accountability provisions include setting minimum (not maximum) standards statewide for the process of deciding on tenure.

"The current bill language on tenure isn't new; it delineates accountability provisions put into place last year by the Legislature and the governor.

"The intent was to standardize the statewide process by establishing a foundation for tenure determination, with local districts still free to negotiate requirements based on their own community needs.

"As part of tenure determination, teachers can be evaluated on how they use student test scores to adjust and improve instruction as one measure of teacher effectiveness - absolutely critical at a time when testing occurs at every age and grade level.

"Student tests are designed to be diagnostic, to identify students who need extra help and to help teachers plan instruction. These tests were never intended as a blunt instrument to evaluate teachers. In addition to being a use for which they were never designed, such misapplication would penalize educators who take on difficult teaching assignments and those who work in the neediest, most hard-to-staff schools.

"The process set by the Legislature last year also calls for peer review when possible - one of the highest standards available.

"As always, tenure decisions continue to be made at the district level by administrators, superintendents and school boards. In fact, the current bill language broadens the scope of administrative options.

"The standards established by the Legislature are part of the state's multi-year commitment to providing additional resources and quality instruction to close the achievement gap for students in need. The Legislature should be praised for raising the bar and following through on that commitment."

NYSUT represents more than 585,000 teachers, school-related professionals, academic and professional faculty in higher education, professionals in education and health care and retirees. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association and the AFL-CIO.

In Yorktown, Principal John F. Sullivan is Thrown Out

From the desk of Betsy Combier: the removal of Mr. Sullivan and the reading of the reasons given shows that the rubberization process is random and arbitrary, and needs to be changed. Mr. Sullivan is so popular that the 1,300 students at Yorktown High School walked out when he was fired.

Principal’s Fast Ouster a Mystery
By JOSEPH BERGER, NY TIMES, April 6, 2008

YORKTOWN

THIS is a story about principals and principles where a lot more than spelling is at stake.

With all the agony that schools put themselves through searching for strong principals, an education tenderfoot might think it would take some very grave grounds to dismiss one in midyear. But the superintendent and the school board of this town in northern Westchester, which has evolved from countryside to suburb in two generations, have dismissed John F. Sullivan, the principal of its high school, mostly for the following reasons, according to a letter he received from the superintendent:

¶He took a cellphone call during a staff meeting; the caller turned out to be his wife.

¶He did now show up for one school district cabinet meeting.

¶He did not complete nine of more than 100 teacher evaluations.

The superintendent, Ralph Napolitano, did not accuse Mr. Sullivan of stealing the bake sale money or slamming a mischief-maker against a wall or letting the SAT scores plummet. Nevertheless, the superintendent ordered Mr. Sullivan off school property and had the locks changed on his doors.

Mr. Sullivan was so popular with the school’s 1,300 students that they walked out en masse when they learned he had been suspended on Valentine’s Day. His dismissal — it became official Wednesday in a unanimous vote by the school board — is particularly perplexing because the board had essentially begged Mr. Sullivan to come out of retirement in 2004 to run its troubled high school, first as a consultant and then as a probationary principal. After he turned around falling attendance and lax discipline, the board asked him in 2006 to become superintendent, a job he turned down as too taxing.

He recommended that Dr. Napolitano become the superintendent. Mr. Sullivan’s supporters, suggesting that no good deed goes unpunished, noted that it was Dr. Napolitano who turned around and suspended him.

Mr. Sullivan, 66, is a principal from central casting. In an age where some administrators think nothing of running their schools in chinos and sandals, he wears a suit and tie. He is said by parents to be both firm and tender. He insists on orderly hallways, penalizes class cutters and shows up for assemblies to make sure students are respectful to guests, yet he greets students when they arrive and urges them to confide any problems.

So why fire him? In a brief telephone interview a few days before the board’s vote, Dr. Napolitano, 57, said: “I need you to understand that this is a personnel matter that is pending, and I’m not able to discuss that with you.”

David S. Shaw, a lawyer for the school district, said the reasons given for the suspension met the standards required for a probationary principal, which are not as difficult to defend as those for tenured educators.

But many parents here, including Patricia Faigle, a former teacher and former school board member, say they think the conflict is “a personal issue, not a personnel issue.” Ms. Faigle sees the dispute as stemming from two strong personalities, one of whom was in the superior rank of authority but felt threatened by the stature, self-assurance and experience (38 years as principal) of his subordinate.

Another possible explanation comes from Mr. Sullivan, who said in an interview and in a statement to a local paper that Dr. Napolitano, after becoming superintendent in January 2007, immediately had his eye on a favorite candidate to fill the high school job. Mr. Sullivan said Dr. Napolitano invited him to lunch and bluntly asked how long he planned to remain, adding, “When you’re ready to go, I have a good Christian man ready to replace you.” Dr. Napolitano would not comment on whether he made that remark.

Mr. Sullivan said he thinks that once Dr. Napolitano “realized I was going to stay for a couple of years, he seemed to be on my throat for everything.”

To many parents, the charges against Mr. Sullivan seem Captain Queeg-like in their pettiness, accusing him of the academic equivalent of stealing strawberries when weightier issues should be determinant. The correspondence between Mr. Sullivan and Dr. Napolitano suggests a fixation on having Mr. Sullivan get formal permission from him for extended lunch breaks and days off, with little mention of academic management.

“What they are charging him with does not warrant dismissing him so suddenly in the middle of a school year,” said Miriam Curtin, a parent of one current high school student and one graduate. “If he had done something horrendous, people would understand.”

Mr. Sullivan, who happens to be president of the Empire State Supervisors and Administrators Association, the union for 3,200 administrators, acknowledges that there was one time he crossed Dr. Napolitano, by challenging his veracity. He questioned why Dr. Napolitano told the high school faculty he was requesting $150,000 in state aid to renovate a special education classroom when Mr. Sullivan contended that earlier professional estimates put the figure at $50,000.

At the moment, the high school is being run by two assistant principals, a joint venture that is a recipe for creeping instability.

Mr. Sullivan, like his pugilist near-namesake, is a fighter, but he is upset that the charges have led some people to surmise he must have done something more sinister that the board cannot talk about. Such speculation blemishes his reputation.

“I see myself as being finished,” he said. “But bringing this kind of abuse to the public eye may prevent it from happening again.”

E-mail: joeberg@nytimes.com