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Dropout Rates Dropping, but Don't Celebrate Yet

While the U.S. high school graduation rate rose to 75% this year, the racial gap persists and some states lag behind.
Read more:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2033524,00.html

The Public School Bargain

Do you think Shael-Polansky will hold real power?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/opinion/30tue3.html?ref=todayspaper

Report Finds Low Graduation Rates at For-Profit Colleges

A report finds that for-profit colleges have lower 6 year graduation rates for bachelor degrees than public and private non-profit colleges. Additionally, students at for-profit colleges accumulate more debt.
To learn more, follow this link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/education/24colleges.html?ref=education.

Shael Polakow-Suransky Named Second-in-Command to Black

Shael Polakow-Suransky was named chief academic officer, second-in-command to Black.
Follow this link for more information: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/mayor-and-state-reach-deal-on-schools-chief/?hp

Polakow-Suransky has a long history of experience in education.
Follow this link for his educational background: http://gothamschools.org/2010/11/27/meet-shael-polakow-suransky-does-new-second-in-command/#more-50581

Do you think Polakow-Suransky will fill the gaps in Black's education leadership experience?

Parents Express Opposition To Schools Chancellor Selection

By: Lindsey Christ

As members of an advisory panel prepare to discuss Tuesday whether Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s pick for schools chancellor, Cathie Black, should be waived of the educational requirements and be allowed to take up the post, more protests are being held against her appointment.
A group of city parents gathered Monday at State Education Commissioner David Steiner's apartment to present a petition with more than 12,000 signatures opposing Black’s appointment.

The current law requires the commissioner to grant a waiver to any candidate for chancellor who does not have the traditional certification. The parents are asking Steiner to deny Black that waiver."The waiver should be denied. Clearly, there are people out there across America, who have actual experience running school systems," said Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters.
"It's an insult. She may be a great manager, but these are our schools, these are our kids and we need someone who can get in, who understands and who knows the difference between a kid and a widget," said District 3 Parent Council President Noah Gotbaum.
Meantime, the State Education Department has released Black's transcript from Trinity College as part of her process to become the next school's chancellor.
The transcript shows Black majored in English and took courses in Italian and theology, but what it doesn't show are grades. Because of federal privacy laws, no grades are provided and the city and state both say they won't disclose them.
The New York Times recently obtained current Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's college transcripts and wrote that he received high marks for the most part while attending Columbia and Harvard Law School.
From the beginning, there have been two major issues with Black's appointment. The first is whether she's qualified or not.
The mayor has stressed that the publishing executive is a great manager, but she has no experience and had shown no interest in public education before the appointment. The second issue is with the process. It seems Bloomberg made the choice without holding a single interview. And, if he consulted anyone, they're not speaking up.
Her selection has sparked a range of protests, petitions and proclamations. Now several legislators are now trying to rush through a law requiring Albany to vote on any candidate who does not have the educational qualifications.
"Now is not the time, after eight years of changes to the system, to appoint someone who admitted herself that she needs time to learn,” said Crespo. “We're not here for on-the-job training, we need someone with experience, we need someone, as the state law requires, with experience in education.”
“It falls into our lap to determine how to deal with a person who does not have the needed credentials to be the chancellor of the schools system,” said Adams. “And that is our responsibility, that's called legislative control."
The commissioner's office says the meeting between Steiner and the advisory panel will be closed to the public and press since it involves personnel issues.
It's not clear whether he'll make a decision before or after the Thanksgiving holiday.

At Chelsea High, Seniors Go Online to Make Up Classes They Failed

By Beth Fertig

Right now, just six out of 10 public high school students in New York City are graduating on time. In our ongoing series, “The Big Fix,” WNYC and the Web site GothamSchools are reporting on three troubled high schools that are trying to improve their graduation rates. One of them is Chelsea Career and Technical Education High School, in Manhattan. The school is now trying to get more seniors to graduate in June by letting them make up classes they failed with new, online courses.

Seventeen-year old Anthony Ortiz says he knew he had the potential to be a good student.
"I’ve always been one of the smartest in the class and I have the ability to understand the work and do it," he says. "But then also I’m just, I guess naturally, I just wanted to clown around."
Anthony wound up at Chelsea two years ago after getting kicked out of his Bronx Catholic school. But his behavior didn’t exactly improve. He admits he was talking in class and didn’t do his homework. Then, last year, when he was a junior, he got disgusted when he saw his winter report card. "Horrible grades," he recalls. "Like speed limits. Fifty-fives straight down. But now this year will be definitely different, I’m reaching for honors."
Anthony’s grades went up tremendously last spring. But he still has three classes to make up in history and science. High schools typically let kids who fail their classes take them over again, or come to summer school. But the explosion in online learning offers a new approach.
At Chelsea, seniors who failed their classes can spend one or two periods each day making them up online. Two teachers are assigned to help as the students sit at computers and work independently. Some are taking science and English. Anthony is taking U.S. history. He’s just finished reading a section about colonialism and now he’s taking the test. He stares at the computer screen and reads one of the questions.
"Why did the colonists settle along the James River?"
Anthony's answer: "So they could defend by a foreign attack."
This test is all multiple choice though some exams have written sections. There are 33 questions and Anthony needs to get 70 percent of them right in order to pass and move on to the next section of the online history course. I ask Anthony if this feels easier than a regular class. He says it's not.
"Maybe even harder ‘cause during the quiz itself, you have to actually answer all the questions without looking at anything and make sure have everything memorized. Whereas for in another class you might have an open book quiz and you know you can look at it."

But in a regular history class, Anthony (photo right) would have a certified history teacher. The two teachers supervising these online classes normally teach biology and business. In this relatively small high school of about 550 students, they were the only teachers available. Biology teacher Stan Kwiatowski, who goes by Mr. K, is stumped when Anthony asks him about a history question.
"Who was sent to Jamestown to serve as governor?" Kwiatowski reads aloud, musing to himself. "Captain John Smith," Anthony interjects.
"I’m not sure," says the teacher. "No I would say John Cabot."
"You sure?" Anthony asks him.
"No I’m not sure!" Kwiatowski laughs.

Anthony is sure it’s John Smith. But that’s not one of the four choices on the test. So his teacher does the only logical thing: he Googles it. Kwiatowsi says he wouldn’t normally do this. But the teachers and students "found that there’s been some errors in the [software] programs." Sometimes the multiple choice options aren't correct.
This wasn’t one of those cases, however. While Captain John Smith established Jamestown, the question asked who was sent to govern Jamestown. (It was Lord De La Warr, in case you forgot.)
Anthony fails. But he can take the test over because he’s allowed up to five tries – with different questions drawn from the same material. Kwiatowski says these online classes can’t replace regular classes where kids interact with their teachers. But he thinks some students will benefit from working at their own pace.
"The fact that all of these students failed in the regular setting makes it, I think, a more positive way to approach the subject for them," he says.
There’s a term for helping students make up classes they’ve failed without taking them over completely: Credit recovery.  It’s a controversial topic. Some schools have been criticized for making it too easy for kids to pass by assigning a few essays or cramming sessions. The online courses at Chelsea are designed by Aventa Learning, which also offers Advanced Placement and foreign languages. Walter Da Luz, a representative assigned to New York City, says the credit recovery ones are new, but like all other Aventa courses they’re aligned with state standards.
"I would say the biggest myth out there about online learning is that it’s easy, it’s different, you just go to the computer and it gets done," Da Luz says. "Our program’s not like that."
In other words, it’s just like any other class. Kids have to show up, pay attention, and take notes. But they don’t always do that. When Da Luz visits Chelsea High, he meets kids who are frustrated. One of them is 17 year-old Mickel John. He was taking a physical science course until the software program lost his quizzes. "It’s like I’m basically starting the course again for a second time," he says. "Everything was erased."
Mickel shows the empty folder on his computer screen to Da Luz. The representative listens and apologizes. "I’m sorry that that happened for you," he says, looking over at Mickel's screen. "I will look into what caused that. Let me just take a couple of notes if you don’t mind."
During his visit, Da Luz also hears about students who have trouble logging-in. But many are absent. Few students take any notes. And one boy is asleep at his desk. Seventeen year-old Justine Bishop wants to know why she has to take quizzes in every section of her biology course plus a final exam. "Why can’t we just do the tests instead of having a final at the end?"
"Because this is just like a regular class," Da Luz tells her. "So just like in your regular class you can’t just tell the teacher I just want to skip all this stuff. Because it’s all about reinforcing what you learned."
Justine is taking notes on the questions she missed. The teachers handed out notebooks recently when they realized the students weren't writing anything down, because they presumed they could just read off the screen and then move on to the quizzes and exams.
Academics who have studied online learning in high school say it can be very effective for students who are highly motivated, such as those taking Advanced Placement courses. But the jury’s still out when it comes to struggling students who are making up credits. Experts say it can be helpful to let these students work at their own pace (since they failed in regular classroom settings). But they also need qualified teachers who can help them when they’re stuck.
Chelsea is one of ten city high schools this year in a pilot study using online courses to help students make up credits. The schools are trying different software programs at a cost to the city of $2 million. This is entirely different from the federal grant Chelsea received to improve teacher training and to extend the school day. The school is trying to raise its four-year graduation rate of 50 percent.
Between 50-60 students at Chelsea were assigned to online credit recovery classes. Kwiatowski, the teacher, says attendance is about 60 percent. By early November, he said six students had already completed an online class by putting in extra time on their home computers. They can now advance to other courses they need to make up.
But what if they’re just taking tests and not reading all the history or science material? Walter Da Luz of Aventa says that can happen in any classroom. And these kids don’t have time on their side.
"This is credit recovery," he states. "We’re not looking for every student to get an A. We’re looking at them to develop, to display a mastery that proves they can move on."
And with more than 130 seniors at Chelsea, many of whom are still missing credits, it’s all about getting them to graduate in June.

Our Opinion
High school graduation is an important goal, but it becomes much less valuable when students graduate without adequate preparation for college. To ensure that these online programs are academically rigorous, schools should only use courses aligned with the Common Core standards. Additionally, schools should require students to not only pass the online courses, but also their the schools own tests based on the same material to acquire course credit. Finally, only teachers with backgrounds corresponding to the courses should proctor the online courses so that they can provide additional help to students.

What do you think of the upsurge in online courses? What is lost and gained by this type of instruction? Do you think they are a better credit recovery option than face-to-face classes?

Commissioner names panel of experts to screen new chancellor

by Anna Phillips

State Education Commissioner David Steiner has named the panel of education experts that will help him decide whether to allow magazine executive Cathie Black to become the next schools chancellor.
Without a background in education, Black needs a waiver from the state that will let her bypass the prerequisites: that she have a degree in education and several years of teaching behind her. Though the final decision rests with Steiner, the panel will play a role in reviewing the city’s case for why Black is qualified and making a recommendation.
Reviewing the list of panel members, New York University Professor Pedro Noguera said the commissioner had covered his bases.
“Steiner’s aware that this is very controversial,” Noguera said. “So if you think about it, instead of just him making the decision he can say, ‘Look, I got a group of very reputable people in education who agreed with me.’”
“That doesn’t mean he’s going to agree with whatever they recommend but he’s got a good group to back him up,” Noguera said.
That group includes the superintendents of two of the big-five school districts in New York State: Rochester and Yonkers. These school leaders will have the job of deciding whether Black can do without the same set of credentials that they had coming in.
Rochester schools Superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard is also among three panel members who have worked for Chancellor Joel Klein. The other two are Andres Alonso, now superintendent of the Baltimore public schools, who served in the early years of Klein’s tenure as chief of staff for teaching and learning, and Carnegie Corporation vice-president Michele Cahill, who was Klein’s senior counselor for education policy.
Cahill is someone who knows what Black is going through. In 2004, Klein wanted to promote her to the position of deputy chancellor, but state education officials warned him that if he asked for a waiver, they wouldn’t give it to him. State officials said that only chief school officers were eligible for the waiver, but deputies would have to meet the requirements, which Cahill couldn’t.
The panel also includes two people coming from teachers colleges. Susan Fuhrman is the president of Teachers College at Columbia University and Ronald Ferguson is a Senior Lecturer in Education and Public Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Kennedy School.
None of the panel members has a Masters in Business Administration or a background in business, though Alonso did work as a corporate lawyer in the 1980s.
State officials have not set a deadline for the panel to make its decision.
The full list is below:

Screening Panel

Andres Alonso
Dr. Alonso has served as the CEO of Baltimore’s schools since July 2007. He earned a B.A. Arts in history and English from Columbia University in 1979; a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1982; a Master of Education from Harvard in 1999; and a Doctor of Education from Harvard in 2006. Dr. Alonso worked as a corporate lawyer at Hughes, Hubbard & Reed in New York City from 1982 to 1984; a special education and English as a Second Language teacher in Newark, N.J. from 1986 to 1998; a superintendent’s intern in Springfield, Mass. from 1999 to 2000; chief of staff for teaching and learning at the New York City Department of Education from 2003 to 2006; and as Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning in New York City from 2006 to 2007.


Jean-Claude Brizard
Mr. Brizard serves as the Superintendent of the Rochester City School District. He holds a Master’s Degree in School Administration & Supervision from the City College of New York and a Master’s Degree in Science Education from Queens College, as well as a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry from Queens College. Prior to coming to Rochester, he served as a Regional Superintendent, supervising more than 100 K-12 schools serving over 100,000 students in three New York City geographic districts. Previous positions in New York City included: Executive Director for Secondary Schools; Region 8 Instructional Superintendent; high school principal; high school physics teacher; and junior high school science teacher. Mr. Brizard is a graduate of the Superintendents’ Academy of the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems. He is also an Executive Committee member of the American Association of School Administrators.


Michele Cahill
Michele Cahill is vice-president for national programs and director of urban education at Carnegie Corporation of New York where she leads the Corporation’s strategy to meet the twin goals of contributing to societal efforts to create pathways to educational and economic opportunity by generating systemic change across a K-16 continuum, and to create pathways to citizenship, civil participation and civic integration in a pluralistic society. Prior to rejoining Carnegie Corporation in 2007, she held the position of senior counselor to the chancellor for education policy in the New York City Department of Education. Ms. Cahill was a member of the Children First senior leadership team that oversaw and implemented the full-scale reorganization and reform of the New York City public schools. She played a pivotal role in the development of Children First reforms in secondary education, district redesign and accountability, new school development, and student support services. Ms. Cahill has a B.A. in Urban Affairs from Saint Peter’s College, a Masters of Arts in Urban Affairs from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and she pursued doctoral studies in social policy and planning at Columbia University where she was a Revson Fellow.
Ronald F. Ferguson
Dr. Ferguson is a Senior Lecturer in Education and Public Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also an economist and Senior Research Associate at the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. He has taught at Harvard since 1983, focusing on education and economic development. His research and writing for the past decade have focused on racial achievement gaps, appearing in a variety of publications. His most recent book is Toward Excellence with Equity: An Emerging Vision for Closing the Achievement Gap. He is the creator of the Tripod Project for School Improvement and also the faculty co-chair and director of the Achievement Gap Initiative at Harvard University. Ferguson earned an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and Ph.D. from MIT, both in economics.


Susan Fuhrman
Dr. Fuhrman currently serves as President of Teachers College, Columbia University. She earned a B.A. in History, with highest honors, from Northwestern University in 1965; an M.A. in History from Northwestern University in 1966; and a Ph.D. in Political Economy from Teachers College, Columbia University in 1977. Dr. Fuhrman’s research interests include state policy design, accountability, deregulation, and intergovernmental relationships. She has also conducted research on state education reform, state-local relationships, state differential treatment of districts, federalism in education, incentives and systemic reform, and legislatures and education policy. She is currently a co-principal investigator of a large project that studies high school response to accountability pressures and use of instructional assistance in six states.
Louise Mirrer
Dr. Mirrer has served as President and CEO of the New York Historical Society since 2004. She holds a Ph.D. in Spanish and Humanities from Stanford University and has over 20 years experience as an academic administrator, most recently as Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at CUNY. Dr. Mirrer has published widely on language, literature, medieval studies, and women’s studies, both books and articles, in Spanish and English.


Bernard Pierorazio
Mr. Pierorazio is Superintendent of the Yonkers Public Schools, the fourth largest district in New York State. Prior to becoming Superintendent, he served as the Deputy Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent, and Principal of Saunders Trades and Technical High School. Mr. Pierorazio is a graduate of the Yonkers Public Schools District, continued his studies at Central Connecticut State University, the College of New Rochelle, and Iona College, earning degrees in History, Special Education, and Administration and Supervision.
Kenneth Slentz
Mr. Slentz is the Associate Commissioner for the Office of District Services for the New York State Education Department. In that capacity, he oversees education design and technology, including the build out of the Board of Regents virtual school initiative; school district and Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) support and coordination, including the coordination of professional development; and school safety.  In his 17 years in public education, Mr. Slentz has served as a teaching assistant, teacher, curriculum director, principal and school district superintendent. He holds an AAS in Liberal Arts from SUNY Cobleskill, a B.A. in Political Science from SUNY Geneseo, and an M.S. in Education from SUNY Oswego.

Do you think Black is qualified?

Gates Urges School Budget Overhauls

Bill Gates, the founder and former chairman of Microsoft, has made education-related philanthropy a major focus since stepping down from his day-to-day role in the company in 2008.
His new area of interest: helping solve schools’ money problems. In a speech prepared for delivery Friday, Mr. Gates — who is gaining considerable clout in education circles — plans to urge the 50 state superintendents of education to take difficult steps to restructure the nation’s public education budgets, which have come under severe pressure in the economic downturn.
He suggests they end teacher pay increases based on seniority and on master’s degrees, which he says are unrelated to teachers’ ability to raise student achievement. He also urges an end to efforts to reduce class sizes. Instead, he suggests rewarding the most effective teachers with higher pay for taking on larger classes or teaching in needy schools.
“Of course, restructuring pay systems is like kicking a beehive” — but restructure them anyway, Mr. Gates plans to tell the superintendents in his talk to the Council of Chief State School Officers, which opens a convention in Louisville on Friday.
“Rebuild the budget based on excellence,” Mr. Gates says.
Teachers’ unions defend giving raises to teachers as they gain experience and higher education.
“We know that experience makes a difference in student achievement — teachers get better,” said Bill Raabe, director of collective bargaining at the National Education Association, the largest teachers’ union. “And additional training, too, whether its a master’s degree or some other way a teacher has improved her content knowledge, we think it ought to be compensated.”
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said of Mr. Gates’s speech: “He is proposing to change one of the things that parents count on — small class sizes to differentiate instruction. There’s a mountain of solid research and common sense showing smaller class sizes benefit students.”
States and local school districts are headed toward what may be painful budget decisions because two years of recession have battered state and local tax revenues, and the $100 billion in stimulus money that has been pumped into public education since spring 2009 is running out.
New Jersey, for example, faces a $10 billion deficit, and Gov. Chris Christie has clashed with superintendents over his efforts to cap their pay.
In several other states including Ohio, which faces an $8 billion deficit, newly elected governors are scrutinizing school spending as part of a broad review.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan delivered his own speech in Washington this week, titled “Bang for the Buck in Schooling,” in which he made arguments similar to those of Mr. Gates.
School officials should be using this crisis to “leverage transformational change in the education system” rather than seeking to balance budgets through shorter school years, reduced bus routes or other short-term fixes, Mr. Duncan said.
Mr. Gates accepted an invitation to speak to the council, he said in an interview, because many of the key decisions in America’s decentralized education system are made by state superintendents and local school boards.
“These are the leaders,” he said.
Steven Paine, the West Virginia superintendent who is the council’s president, said the group invited Mr. Gates because “he has a perspective that we need to consider.”
“He’s been fairly successful in the business arena,” he added.
After reading an advance copy of Mr. Gates’s speech, Mr. Paine said, “We all want to transform our education systems, but when you’re falling off that funding cliff it’s difficult to do.”
In the speech, Mr. Gates says that improving student achievement is a central challenge, and that budget crises are making change necessary.
“You can’t fund reforms without money,” he says. “And there is no more money.”
The only way out, he says, is by rethinking the way the nation’s $500 billion annual expenditures on public schools is allocated. About $50 billion pays for seniority-based annual salary increases for teachers, he says. The nation spends an additional $9 billion annually to pay salary increases to teachers with master’s degrees, he says.

Do you think class size matters?

Mayor’s early budget calls for 6,100 teacher layoffs next year

by Anna Phillips

Mayor Bloomberg called for over 6,100 teaching jobs to be cut from the city’s public schools next year in a new austerity budget released today.
The preliminary budget, which tries to close a massive gap left by the end of federal stimulus funding, will leave the Department of Education with a total deficit of $435 million. The department was spared a more brutal cut by the mayor’s decision to shift funding from other areas into the school system, partially filling the hole left by the loss of $853 million in stimulus funds and $350 million in budget cuts.
Folded into the city’s calculations is the assumption that another 1,500 teachers will be lost through the attrition schools experience every year. It also assumes that schools will bear the full brunt of the $435 million cut, though a spokeswoman for the DOE said officials have not decided what, if any, cuts will be made to the central administration.
“Right now, the City is facing unprecedented budget conditions and we recognize that everyone will have to make some very tough choices in the coming months,” said Department of Education Chief Operating Officer Sharon Greenberger in an email.
“While this is a preliminary estimate of what next year’s budget will look like, we are already identifying ways to reduce the financial impact on our schools and students,” she said.
Last year when the mayor announced his preliminary budget, he described a doomsday scenario that included cutting 8,500 teaching positions. Two months later, that number shrank to 6,400 — 4,000 of which would have come from layoffs, and the rest from attrition. Finally, the mayor rescinded the threat of teacher layoffs entirely, saying that the city would cover the deficit by eliminating a two percent raise teachers were expected to get.
Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew said he was hopeful that with a new chancellor coming into Tweed and a new governor in Albany, he and elected officials would be able to lobby for more state funding.
Incoming governor Andrew Cuomo “keeps saying he’s going to cut things, but once he gets into office and sees the realities he may think differently,” Mulgrew said.
“In these tough times, the money has to go to the classroom,” he said. “I think we have some things we can cut out of the central Department of Education. Then you have to look at what’s going on in Albany and hopefully we’ll have a better session this year. It was craziness last year, but there are opportunities this year.”