The Difference Between A Successful School District And The NYC Schools.

There is little doubt that the DOE is dysfunctional and rather than cooperate and support schools, they instead appoint and protect unqualified administrators.  Moreover, the DOE imposes top down policies that have little or no support by school staff.  Be it the unfair "Fair Student Funding" or the Charlotte Dainielson rubric.  Finally, the NYCDOE has a large legal organization, called the Office of Legal Services who's main job is to fire teachers through the 3020-a process.  Many educators call then the "gotcha squad".

Successful school districts have one very important thing in common, that's collaboration. From the Superintendent down to the novice teacher all employees support each other.  The school district usually goes out of their way to support the school and the classroom with adequate resources, a culture of cooperation, and an appreciation of all employees. These school districts might have one lawyer on staff or simply contract the few legal issues to an outside law firm.  3020-a hearings are a rarity and usually a fair settlement is negotiated.  Students need not worry that their teacher will suddenly disappears and they suffer academically for it.

By contrast. welcome to the bizzaro world of the NYCDOE.  The DOE is anything but cooperative.  Rather the DOE polices incentivizes principals to hire "newbie" teachers through their Fair Student Funding policy and encourages the pushing out of veteran teachers into either the 3020-a process or eliminate programs to dump them into the ATR pool.  To achieve this goal the DOE needs and employs a hundred or so lawyers and support staff to assist principals in getting rid of teachers and apparently money is no object.  For the 361 teachers, charged under section 3020-a in 2016, It costs an average of $215,000 to complete a 3020-a hearing, start to finish,  and while schools have recession era budgets and are only funded at 90% of what they should be, the bloated DOE Central Bureaucracy just gobbles up more money for themselves.

Every year or two the DOE has a new "flavor of the day" program or policy and pushes it on schools that end up not to work and wastes time and money to implement the failed program.  Moreover, NYCDOE appoints Superintendents based more on who they know and not what they know.  Teachers have little or no respect for these political appointees and the inferior principals they appoint.  Finally,  the DOE looks the other way when school administrators commit academic fraud and allows it to continue that allows students to graduate unprepared for the adult world.

In my opinion the NYCDOE practices policies and the disinformation that make the New York City Public Schools dysfunctional and only hurts teacher morale and adversely affects student academic achievement.

Why Aren't Parents And Students Held Accountable For Their Academics And Behavior?

It seems to me that in the age of "accountability" where teachers are evaluated on "junk science" and schools are rated on high stakes Common Core tests that are not grade appropriate, the students and their parents are given a pass.  In New York, The State uses the 6 day tests to determine 50% of a teacher's grade while the students scores are ignored for promotion decisions (however, these useless tests are used for student placement decisions).

The drumbeat of "accountability" is constantly brought up by the education deformer organizations and their media allies.  However, when you push through the "accountability" rhetoric you find that these education deformer organizations will ignore the two most important part of the "accountability"  equation, that is the parent and the student.  In the education deformer world the teacher is the most important part of a student's educational success.  To these organizations the fact that a teacher makes up only between 1% and 14% of a student's academic success is simply an inconvenient truth they choose to ignore.  In fact, one of their education deform heroes. Joel Klein and his allies hold teachers primarily responsible for the achievement gap between disadvantaged and middle-class children. In a 2010 “manifesto,” Klein and one of his protégés, Michelle Rhee, the former schools chancellor of Washington, D.C., summed up their campaign like this:

“The single most important factor determining whether students succeed in school is not the color of their skin or their ZIP code or even their parents’ income—it is the quality of their teacher.”

Joel Klein, as Chancellor, falsely claimed that he was able to narrow the achievement gap only to be canned as Chancellor by an embarrassed Mayor Bloomberg after it was shown that the income/racial academic achievement gap actually widened!

The frustration level of educators who suffer through disrespectful students, uncaring parents, and unrelenting administrative pressure and yet are blamed for a student's failure that they have little or no control over.  This is not just a New York problem but is found nationally as teacher shortages spread throughout the country.  Moreover, even in countries like Australia, teacher frustration has resulted in a school approving this message to parents (it may be a hoax) when they call the school  While I agree with the frustration of these educators, I don't agree with the messages conclusion and maybe they should be more understanding of recent immigrants to the school district.  Otherwise, I wish all schools would record similar messages and place "accountability" squarely where it belongs on the parents and the students and not scapegoating teachers.

Is This Another Regents Cheating Scandal Involving A School Under Superintendent Amiee Horowitz?

In the New York Post today an article by Susan Edelman has exposed a potential Regents cheating scandal that involved Automotive High School.  According to the article students who failed the Living Environment and Algebra Regents in January, were allowed to appeal their grades and 5 of the 9 students were found to have passed one or the other Regents.  While I'm sure that Regents grade appeals are very common throughout the City, the question is who where the educators that re-graded the Regents test papers?

My understanding is that any appeal of a Regents grade is done by outside educators who have no affiliation with the school or subject to pressure from the District Superintendent.  However, according to the New York Post article an insider claimed the re-grading was done by a select group of teachers at Automotive High School appointed by the embattled Principal Caterina Lafergola.  The article included the following:

Automotive insiders said Lafergola instructed several teachers to go into a room and re-score the January exams in March.

Of course, the DOE disputed the claim and said that no Automotive High School teachers were involved in the re-grading.  Maybe the DOE should supply the names of the re-graders and their school affiliation to put the accusation to rest.  However, the DOE has not done so further fueling speculation of another Regents cheating scandal.

As for Superintendent Amiee Horowitz?  This is not the first time she has been linked in a Regents cheating scandal.  Remember, the  post I wrote about her earlier this year?  That's right, while Superintendent of District 20, she not only failed to look into a Regents cheating allegation but tried to take the license of a untenured teacher who was the whistle blower that she discontinued after the teacher reported the Regents cheating.  Interestingly, SCI eventually did investigate the Regents cheating and substantiated the discontinued teacher's accusation which resulted in 3020-a charges against the educator who was involved in the Regents cheating at the school.

While there is no proof that Superintendent Amiee Horowitz condones Regents cheating but if these new charges prove to be true, her failure again to take appropriate action against school administrators who have been implicated in the Regents cheating is very troubling and makes me wonder if she is competent to be a Superintendent.  Then again under the disappointing Chancellor, Carmen Farina. its cronyism over competence, when selecting who should be a Superintendent under her administration.

Accountability Is Only For Schools And Teachers Not For The Government.

Accountability!  How many times do we hear the word when it comes to student academic achievement and when too many students fail to achieve the benchmarks, who gets the blame?  Right the schools , the teachers, and their unions.   If only we can simply fire them at will? Yet the real villains are the government bureaucrats who set unreachable goals, implement questionable policies and programs, and demand that the schools and their teachers be held accountable when they are not met.

During President Bush's tenure, he and Senator Edward Kennedy came up with "No Child Left Behind".  (NCLB) The final goal being that 100% of all cohorts be academically proficient by 2014.  Oops, we missed that one didn't we? Part of the NCLB was that every school has "highly qualified teachers" in every classroom.  However, thanks to Iowa's Democratic Senator, Tom Harkin, that was watered down to allow the two year wonders from "Teach For America" (TFA) to be hired for the classroom with all of a five week training regime.  The result was that the schools that struggled with academic achievement found themselves with inexperienced and TFA teachers and suffered the destabilizing effects of high teacher turnover.  Worse was both parties were being influenced by the education reform movement that blamed teachers and their unions for the lack of student academic achievement rather than the reduction of education funding, larger class sizes, and ignoring the effects of family and poverty as the main factors of poor student outcomes.  As education reformer and ex Chancellor Joel Klein liked o say "poverty is no excuse for student learning".  Boy, has he been proved wrong!  Were any of them held accountable for the failure to attain the unrealistic and every changing goals?  Of course not, just blame it on the teachers and their unions..

The blame the teachers theme continued under Barak Obama as he first blamed the teachers at Central Falls Rhode Island  rather than realize that the problem was the large immigrant population from Central America with little formal education and knowing little or no English. while living in poverty and without their parents  Worse, he then appointed his basketball playing buddy, Arnie Duncan who almost single handily, destroyed the Chicago Public School System, as Secretary of Education.  The very same Arnie Duncan who thought Hurricane Katrina was the best thing that happened to the New Orleans Schools and who can forget his quip on white suburban soccer moms when people complained about the badly flawed Common Core tests.   To get the States to implement the high stakes Common Core  tests Obama and Duncan bribed the States with federal money called "Race to the top" (Rttt) and threatened to withhold federal funds if states refused the offer.

At the State level Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed a Charter School advocate and education Reformer John B. King as NYSED Commissioner and he tried to force the badly flawed  Common Core high stakes tests and wanted it used to evaluate teachers and principals despite the "junk science" assigned to it by all  statistical associations. When parents, administrators, and teachers came out in droves to complain about the flawed incrementation, his response was that they represented  "special interests". while approving a carefully organized charter school rally to support him in a Manhattan meeting as representing the majority. John King was a lightning rod and ended up having NYSUT issue a "no confidence vote" against him.

The Regents is little better as non-educator Tisch wants to close schools and terminate teachers however, when it comes to her own accountability she blames it on others.  Take, for instance, the  22 year old Dr. Ted Morris issue in which the Regents approved him as a CEO of a charter school in Rochester and didn't bother to check his credentials. Here is the list Commissioner Merryl Tisch wants.

Finally, there is the good old Governor, who becomes more unpopular daily.  He has decided to veto his own bill that would give teachers a two year stay, until the teacher evaluation system is fixed.  He wanted a 10% ineffective rate as the Rttt suggested but ended up with a 1% "ineffective rate".  He now wants the entire teacher evaluation system strengthened to achieve his 10% teacher "ineffective rate" and wants more charter schools to appease his hedge fund contributors.

Let's not neglect Mayor Bill de Blasio who ran on lower class sizes, more funding to the public schools, and a change in tune for the teaching profession.  None of these have been realized to date. In fact his disappointing Chancellor, Carmen Farina has frozen school budgets in her first year and saw no reduction in class sizes or a more welcoming attitude in the classroom.

Accountability, is for teachers not for our politicians and their failed policies that have resulted in little or no student academic achievement.