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.”

Class Sizes Grew in City Despite Deal to Cut Them

By SHARON OTTERMAN, Published: November 17, 2010

Three years after a landmark agreement to cut class sizes in New York City’s public schools, classrooms are swelling across the city, a result of budget cuts and spending decisions that have reduced the teaching force.
According to the city’s Department of Education, elementary schools this year had the largest increases, with average class sizes growing to 23.7 students per class from 22.9 last year. In middle schools, class sizes climbed to 27 from 26.1; high school class sizes held at about 27.
Small classes are increasingly rare. Excluding special education classes, 22.4 percent of elementary and middle school students were in classes of 20 or fewer children two years ago. Now, only 13.7 percent are. Meanwhile, the percentage packed into classrooms with 28 students or more has jumped to 31 percent from 23 percent, according to an analysis by The New York Times.
The increases come despite a city commitment since 2007 to reduce class sizes across all grades in exchange for state money earmarked for that purpose. In January, the teachers union, along with civic organizations and local officials, filed a lawsuit to get the city to account for how the money, totaling $740 million, was being used. The city has argued that questions about the funds belong before the state commissioner of education, David M. Steiner, not in a court.
But the class size reduction plan assumed there would be much more additional money than ever materialized, which is one reason its targets have faded from reach.
According to the agreement, by 2012, the city’s kindergartens, for example, were to average less than 20 students. They averaged 20.7 students per class in 2007; this year, they had 22.
Over all, aid to schools across the state has been dropping. In the past year alone, city schools have had to absorb cuts of 4 percent.
State spending reductions are one of the largest challenges awaiting Cathleen P. Black, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s choice to be the next chancellor, and given that the state faces another large deficit, it is possible that class sizes will continue to rise.
City officials said Wednesday that given the cuts, class sizes actually rose less than they could have.
In February, the city appealed to the state to excuse it from its class size reduction targets due to the economic downturn. Mr. Steiner agreed to allow the city to focus its class size reduction plans on just 75 of its 1,600 schools, chosen because they were both crowded and low performing.
Advocates fighting for smaller class sizes said Wednesday that it was disingenuous of the city to blame the economy alone for the swelling classes, because the city never mandated that principals use the extra funds to reduce class sizes. The lawsuit charges that the city has at times used the money to plug other holes in the budget.
In general, the city permits principals to use the class size reduction funds for other purposes, including to pay for specialized teachers and for team-teaching. But the city also officially ended a separate class size reduction program in the early grades, with principals receiving a memorandum in June telling them they could now spend those funds as they wished.
Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, the teachers union, said that class sizes rose even when the economy was strong. “It’s clear that their intention was never to lower class size,” Mr. Mulgrew said. “They don’t believe in it.”
Overall student enrollment has remained relatively flat, at just over one million, but according to the union, there are 4,000 fewer teachers than there were two years ago, because many recent retirees have not been replaced.
At Public School 138 on Lafayette Avenue in the South Bronx, where class sizes now average 29 in fourth grade and 31 in third grade, Michelle Viera, a fourth-grade teacher, said that it was hard to even get the basics done. “Sometimes there’s just not enough materials,” she said. “We constantly have to copy things. There’s also a problem with discipline.”
Mildred Rivera, 39, said that her daughter Julianne, a second grader at P.S. 138, sometimes “doesn’t get attention from the teacher because she’s too busy with other kids.”
Other parents said they did not think the crowding was a problem, because their children’s teachers were good.
Perhaps the most influential study on class size, conducted in Tennessee in the 1980s, pointed to the benefits of small classes, particularly for poor and minority students. That study found that in kindergarten through third grade, students in small classes outperformed those in larger classes. But in the study, small classes were defined as those with 13 to 17 children — unthinkably small for most school districts.
Alan B. Krueger, a Princeton University professor who studies the economics of education, said he believed that there was evidence to support the benefits of small classes, even when those classes have more than 18 students. Plus, he said, class size reduction “is one of the few education reforms that I think we know what to do about.”
“The thing that’s in vogue now is to say, ‘We just need better teachers,’ yet no one knows how to screen to determine if someone’s a better teacher. No one knows how to train people to be better teachers.”
But Dan Goldhaber, director of the Center for Education Data and Research at the University of Washington, sees it differently, as do some other experts. “The effects of class size, if they exist, are small, and class size is really expensive,” he said.
When California embarked on a costly class size reduction effort in the mid-90s, Mr. Goldhaber pointed out, studies showed “marginal, if any, impact, and possibly some harm,” as many sub-par teachers were quickly hired to fulfill the mandate, and many well-qualified teachers left poorer urban schools for new slots elsewhere.
Part of the issue in New York is transparency in how the funds for class size reduction are being used, said Geri Palast, the executive director of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the organization that brought the lawsuit that led to the landmark agreement three years ago. While her organization has repeatedly asked the city for information about how much was spent each year on class size reduction, so far, she said, the organization has only been told what the city plans to spend at the start of each school year.
“We are concerned that there was money allocated for that purpose that was not used for that purpose,” she said.

Sec. Duncan: Districts Need to Rethink Class Size, Salary Structure

By Alyson Klein on November 17, 2010The dismal economic climate may well be represent "new normal" for schools, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said today at a forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank.
That means schools are going to have to make hard choices, Duncan said. And he's hoping they'll use the opportunity fundamentally rethink long-held ideas, such as the need for students to have a certain amount of "seat time" in each particular class, class size, and teacher pay scales that reward educators for getting advanced degrees.
Duncan is hoping that school administrators won't cut areas that directly impact the classroom, such as trimming instructional time, and scrapping art and music classes. And he doesn't want districts laying off "talented young teachers."
"Unfortunately this pattern of cutbacks has too often prevailed in the past," he said.
Instead, districts might want to look at rethinking transportation routes, and closing down schools that are under-enrolled, Duncan suggested.
And he urged districts to consider "modest but smartly targeted increases in class size." As a parent, Duncan said, he'd much rather have his kids in a class of 26 with a really excellent teacher, than in a class with 22 kids, lead by a mediocre teacher. And he said that in Asian countries that tend to do well on international benchmarks (like South Korea and Japan) average classes in secondary schools are 30 or more, as opposed to the U.S. average of about 25.
During a question and answer period, one teacher questioned that rationale, saying that if she took on additional students, that's asking her to do more for the same amount of money. Duncan said he'd like districts to consider reworking contracts so that effective teachers (particularly those who choose to work with more kids) can make a lot more money, say $80,000, or even $125,000.
I think there are lots of folks out there who would probably agree that is a good conversation to have. But I'm wondering if the economic downturn will make those types of discussions easier (as in, we have to cut costs anyway, so let's rethink salary structure) or much harder (since districts may not have the spare cash for huge salary increases to compensate good teachers for taking on more kids.) What do you think?
And what's your take on Duncan's class size comments?

Class Sizes Jump Again

Nov. 16, 2010
by Maisie McAdoo

The DOE put out its preliminary class size report for 2010-11 without so much as a whisper. OK, a PowerPoint, and data tables, that’s it. No press release, no discussion. Because the news is bad again.
Class sizes citywide rose a average 2 percent, or 0.6 student per class. The increases were especially large in elementary schools, up to 23.7 students per class from 22.9 last year, and middle schools, up to 27 kids per class from 26.1 last year. High schools had a small increase.
The 4.2% budget cut is to blame this year, but this marks the third consecutive year of increases. Through 2008, class sizes were decreasing — very slowly, but they were decreasing.  But since then they’ve been up in every grade every year. Since 2008, the average third grade class has swelled by 13 percent. The average first grade class is 9 percent larger. This wasn’t what the Campaign for Fiscal Equity decision was supposed to bring about.
Class Size Increases, School Years 2008 to 2011

GRADE	2007-08	2010-11	Increase
K	20.6	22.0	+ 7%
1	21.1	22.9	+ 9%
2	21.1	23.2	+10%
3	21.0	23.8	+13%
4	23.5	25.0	+ 6%
5	24.1	25.4	+ 5%
6	25.5	26.3	+ 3%
7	26.2	27.1	+ 3%
8	26.6	27.4	+ 4%
High school	26.1	26.9	+ 3%

In her book, chancellor appointee says she’s no data “whiz”

by Maura Walz

City officials’ argument to convince State Education Commissioner David Steiner that publishing executive Cathie Black is qualified to be schools chancellor is based on the idea that her managerial skills will be necessary during the coming years’ intense financial pressures.
But in her memoir-cum-business advice guide, “Basic Black,” the chancellor appointee describes her skills as far more attuned to sales and marketing than financial analysis. While she likes the operational side of business, she writes, “too much data and too many spreadsheets make my eyes glaze over.”
In a section of the book called “Power = knowing your strengths and weaknesses,” Black explains that knowing that she prefers broader strategy to rows of numbers has helped her decide which tasks to delegate:

Over the years I’ve taken care to work on that weakness — taking financial management courses, asking for help when I need it, and not being afraid to let the numbers folks do the thing they’re best at. It wouldn’t make sense for me to pretend to be a whiz where I’m not.

Black’s analysis of her own managerial strengths and weaknesses is one of many insights that her 2007 book gives into how she might approach her new job at Tweed Courthouse.
It also gives clues to why Black said yes to the job of schools chancellor. In a section on how to decide which job offers to take and which to pass over, she describes two separate instances where she was offered jobs outside of magazine publishing but turned them down. In one case, she declined an offer to become president of a well-known cosmetics company. She refused because, as she writes, they needed “someone who lives and breathes cosmetics,” and Black did not think she was that person.
Similarly, when she was offered a top position at a Silicon Valley start-up, she turned it down because she didn’t feel familiar enough with the field:

It would have been an exciting and potentially lucrative new field for me, but as I walked around the company’s offices, looking at the rows and rows of people silently tapping away at their computers, I just kept thinking, “I’m such a fish out of water here. What in the world do I bring to this party?”

But Black says there are times when it makes sense to take a job that’s far afield from your interests and expertise —  when the new job may be a strategic stepping-stone to something else.
“Don’t be afraid to take steps in your career that are strictly for strategic purposes,” she writes. “Yes, you want to follow your dreams, but sometimes the path to your dreams involves a carefully thought-out detour.”
The book also gives clues about how Black may run the Department of Education’s central administration. Black has said that she intends to lean heavily on the team of deputy chancellors that Klein has put together — though one of those deputies quit almost immediately after Bloomberg’s announcement and it’s unclear whether others plan to stay.
She writes in the book that, unlike many executives arriving at a new company, she prefers keeping the old team in place rather than making drastic changes right away. When she was hired at Hearst, she writes, she began making changes so slowly that she attracted criticism from outside observers.
“We needed an infusion of new energy, and part of the reason I was hired was to provide it,” she writes. “Yet I didn’t storm in with bazookas blazing. The last thing I wanted to do was come in and shake things up just for the sake of shaking, which would have led to upheaval and mistrust on the part of Hearst management.”
In the book, Black describes how she approaches laying off staff, which she may be forced to do next year in the face of steep budget reductions. She explains how she made the decision to shutter a struggling magazine, experience that some have suggested might come in handy when the city tries to close as many as 60 schools this year.
Black also writes about her commitment to diversity in the workplace. The Department of Education and the Bloomberg administration have been criticized for their largely white, male ranks. Black writes that she has received criticism for hiring too many female executives; at Hearst, she dispensed with that idea by acknowledging it directly at an executive meeting, then asking all of the women in the room to stand. The women made up about one-third of the meeting’s attendees.
She writes that she prefers to hire employees of “different backgrounds, ages, temperaments, and experience” not just for ethical reasons but also because it makes good business sense.
“It’s best to mix it up, as hiring people like yourself simply brings you more of the same perspective and skills, rather than the diversity of skills that more often leads to success,” she writes.
Throughout the book, Black describes an approach to managing that is mostly personable but also direct and sometimes almost brusque. And she says she has a thick skin for hearing when people think she is wrong.
“You can take it or leave it, but don’t fear criticism,” she writes.

City news outlets join suit over teacher effectiveness scores

by Anna PhillipsFive news organizations have joined the lawsuit over whether the city can release teachers’ effectiveness scores, arguing that they have a right to see the data.
Lawyers for the New York Times, Daily News, New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, and NY1 have decided to intervene in the case, according to a spokeswoman for the city’s law department. They will file their own papers, but are taking the same position as the city’s lawyers, arguing that the data is not protected under the Freedom of Information law.
Reporters at each of the news organizations submitted requests for the data and the city planned to release the reports until last month when the teachers union sued to stop them.
In its lawsuit, the union’s lawyers wrote that the Department of Education should have denied reporters’ FOIL requests because the teachers’ ratings are exempt from disclosure. The suit also said that making the scores public would amount to an invasion of teachers’ privacy.
The release would cover all 12,000 city teachers who have value-added reports, which measure a teacher’s effectiveness based on how good she is at improving her students’ test scores from the beginning of the year to the end.
The reports are a relatively new way of measuring teacher effectiveness and have been criticized by some researchers for their wide margins of error.
To give the news organizations more time to join the lawsuit, the city has asked for the hearing to be postponed from November 24. Oral arguments are now scheduled to take place on December 8, according to a spokesman for the teachers union.
“Media outlets that made the FOIL requests giving rise to this litigation have retained counsel, who is moving to intervene in the matter,” said Jesse Levine, a lawyer for the city, in an email. “The adjournment permits all parties to brief the legal issues involved fully.”

Bloomberg Defends Black

By MICHAEL HOWARD SAUL

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday that an open search for New York City's new schools chancellor would have been untenable, as some parent groups and politicians intensified their opposition to the appointment.
By late Friday afternoon, 13 of the 51 members of the City Council had signed onto a resolution calling on the state education commissioner to deny a waiver to Cathie Black, the media executive tapped this week by Mr. Bloomberg to replace Chancellor Joel Klein. A spokeswoman said Council Speaker Christine Quinn has not taken a position on the resolution.
Ms. Black, currently the chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, needs a waiver because state law requires the chancellor to have education credentials and experience in schools; Ms. Black has neither, though she began serving recently on the board of a charter school and the mayor said the nation's largest school system needs, above all characteristics, an expert manager.
"Our children's education is too important," said Council Member Jumaane Williams, chief sponsor of the resolution. "Just as we seriously consider the backgrounds of leaders in the NYPD, FDNY, and other city agencies, we should use the same consideration for the chancellor of NYC schools."
With the Legislature handing control of the schools to Mr. Bloomberg in 2002, his chief power is the ability to pick the chancellor and, then, be held accountable for that selection. Denying the waiver would be viewed as a strong rebuke of Mr. Bloomberg.
On his weekly radio show, the mayor dismissed critics who are calling for the waiver to be denied. "It just goes to show they have no understanding of what the job is," he said.
A spokesman for David Steiner, the state education commissioner—who ultimately decides on the waiver—declined Friday to say whether Mr. Bloomberg or Ms. Black have spoken with Mr. Steiner about the matter. A spokeswoman for Mr. Bloomberg did not return repeated inquiries. The commissioner has yet to receive the mayor's formal waiver request, the spokesman said.
Mr. Bloomberg's announcement on Tuesday that he had selected Ms. Black to succeed Mr. Klein, who will be stepping down after more than eight years, came as a surprise. The mayor did not publicly announce the opening—or advertise it—as he did when he appointed Mr. Klein in 2002. "Nobody does a search in the open like that," he said. "You can post certain jobs and people can apply. But at a certain level, that's not just how anybody would do it."















The mayor said he keeps a list of potential candidates in his head for high-level jobs in his administration.
"We spent a lot of time looking around the world for the best people and we have a list of people in my mind," he said. "Always trying to think if any of our commissioners or deputy mayors…got hit by a truck—just as a euphemism—I know pretty much who I would make my first call to to see if we could get somebody to fill in right away."
In response to criticism from elected officials, parents and teachers, who have complained that they had no input into one of the most high-profile and influential positions in city government, the mayor said he is confident his selection process yielded the best choice.
"To go through a lengthy search process in the middle of a school years is just not something that is in our kids' interest," he said. "We got to keep going here."

Trends: Non-educators Leading School Districts

By Daniel MasseyThe Daily News' front cover last Wednesday summed up the general reaction to publishing executive Cathleen Black's selection as city schools chancellor: “Huh?” In fact, choosing nontraditional professionals to run school systems has become more commonplace nationwide in the eight years since Michael Bloomberg tapped Joel Klein, an education outsider, to lead the schools here.
Challenging the status quo, this new breed has pushed reform agendas that stress measurable results. Individuals from outside education now lead 5% of the country's largest 200 urban school districts, according to the Los Angeles-based Broad Center for the Management of School Systems. In 2009 alone, 43% of the 28 vacancies in large districts were filled by graduates of the center's Superintendents Academy, which specializes in training leaders with unconventional backgrounds.
“There's a difference between being a teacher and leading an organization that's focused on teaching,” says Becca Bracy Knight, executive director of the Broad Center. “You can have someone running a great symphony who isn't a concert violinist. It doesn't mean the violinist isn't important; it's just a different skill set.”
At Ms. Black's introductory press conference last week, Mr. Bloomberg called her a “world-class manager,” and said that her ability to handle a budget and a staff trumped her lack of education credentials. “Our problem is making sure an organization with a $23 billion budget, with 135,000 employees, that has to deal with every level of government, that has to deal with all sorts of social problems, is able to function.”
As chairman of Hearst Magazines, Ms. Black oversaw 2,000 employees who produced over 200 editions of 14 magazines in 100 countries. The company's U.S. revenue fell 19% last year, to $1.8 billion, but there's no estimate of its international revenue, according to Ad Age. Supporters say Ms. Black's skills will be critical with budget cuts looming. They also argue that the foundation of reform is in place, and what's needed is someone who can complete it.
“The key now is to pull all the stakeholders together to get it implemented,” says Kathryn Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City. “That's a job that really requires the kind of management, communication and consensus-building skills that Cathie Black has.”

Finding support in the ranks

Mr. Bloomberg also pointed out that the chancellor has support from a team of eight deputies—most of them with extensive education experience. One, Photeine Anagnostopoulos, resigned within hours of Ms. Black's hiring becoming public, however, and keeping the others could prove a challenge. For example, Eric Nadelstern, Mr. Klein's top deputy, was passed over. That surprised insiders, who felt his four decades of experience in the system positioned Mr. Nadelstern to be the next chancellor.
Other outsiders who have taken over school systems say Ms. Black faces the challenge of a lifetime. Their advice? That she listen.
Jonathan Raymond managed a nonprofit with a $9 million budget before transitioning into education administration in 2006. In 2009, he was appointed superintendent of the Sacramento City Unified School District, which has 47,000 students and a $370 million budget.
Mr. Raymond said he visited all of the system's 82 schools in his first 110 days on the job. “As nontraditional leaders, we come in with a lot of the right skills on the business side, but what we often neglect in an effort to make change is the importance of building consensus,” he says. “I had to take time to really listen and learn from the community.”

Expectations not always aligned

Paula Dawning, a former vice president of sales at AT&T, led the Benton Harbor Area Schools System, one of Michigan's poorest and most chronically underperforming districts, for five years before retiring in 2007. In her first two years, fourth-grade reading scores doubled, and the overall dropout rate fell 20%.
Ms. Dawning warns that Ms. Black's job will be her toughest, with parents, teachers, the business community and government maneuvering for influence. “One of the big differences going from the private to the public sector was you had so many constituencies you had to respond to,” she says. “And their expectations are not necessarily aligned.”
Both Mr. Raymond and Ms. Dawning attended the Broad Center's academy, while Ms. Black is taking charge of 1.1 million students without any training. (Ms. Knight says the center will offer the new chancellor a “crash course.”)
While Messrs. Raymond and Klein and Ms. Dawning experienced success, outsider failures include Julius Becton, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who resigned after two years of struggling as head of the D.C. system.
Jeffrey Henig, professor of political science and education at Teachers College-Columbia University, says, “Lots of folks believe if you bring in a tough organizer and manager and array the right staff you can make up for lack of substantive knowledge, but the case for that hasn't been made.” Though it can be done, he adds, “it's just a harder row to hoe, and it's not clear to me why that would be your first choice.”
Ms. Black is expected to bring a less confrontational style to the job than her predecessor, but some experts doubt that, given her dearth of experience, Ms. Black will challenge Mr. Klein's policies.
“I will be very surprised if she turns out to be independent or concludes that some of the things Klein did were not so great,” says Sol Stern, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Do you think non-educators, like Black, are qualified to lead school systems?

NYC School Closings: What You Need to Know

Yesterday, BYMC staff attended a training on the NYC school closing process. Below is a summary of important information:

-New York City has accepted federal School Improvement Grants for high schools. These grants stipulate that the lowest performing schools can be improved in the following ways:
1. Convert to charter school
2. Close and open new school(s) in its place
3. Fire principal and at least half of teachers (this option cannot be done in NYC because of UFT regulations)
4. Fire principal and transform school (this option cannot be chosen for more than half of schools).

- Bloomberg has pledged to close 10 percent of the NYC's lowest performing schools. There is no formula to select these schools; they may be chosen on the basis of low test scores, low graduation rates, and lack of community involvement in making improvements.

-Both the NYS and NYC Department of Education puts schools on the closing list.

-If the school is to be closed, it will remain open until all current students have graduated.

-When a school is closed, new schools are started in the same building.

-Process of school closure:
1.  DOE posts School Improvement Scenarios of each school that it may close.
2. 4 community meetings are held at each school to get community imput.
3. DOE posts Educational Impact Statement, which includes alternative options for students, proposed new schools for the building, and a summary of what the DOE has done to improve the school before closing it.
4. DOE holds joint hearing with community representatives.
5. Panel for Educational Policy votes on the proposal.

-List of school closings:
The 16 schools that the city has placed on a potential closure list for the first time are:
BRONX
P.S. 50 Clara Barton, an elementary school
P.S. 102, Joseph O. Loretan, an elementary school
P.S. 107, an elementary school
P.S. 189, the Cornerstone Academy for Social Action, an elementary school.
M.S. 142, John Philip Sousa, a middle school
BROOKLYN
P.S. 260, Breuckelen, an elementary school.
P.S. 114, Ryder, an elementary school
P.S./I.S 137 Rachel Jean Mitchell, a K-8 school
M.S. 596, KAPPA VII, a middle school
J.H.S. 302, Rafael Cordero, a middle school
M.S. 571, a middle school
MANHATTAN
I.S. 195, Roberto Clemente, a middle school.
QUEENS
P.S. 40, Samuel Huntington, an elementary school
P.S. 30, an elementary school
P.S./M.S. 147, Ronald McNair, a K-8 school
I.S. 231, Magnetech 2000, a middle school

The additional 20 schools on the state’s persistently lowest achieving list that may be phased out and replaced with new schools are:
August Martin High School
Beach Channel High School
Christopher Columbus High School
Fordham Leadership Academy for Business and Technology
Grace Dodge Career and Technical Education High School
Grover Cleveland High School
High School of Graphic Communication Arts
Jamaica High School
Jane Addams High School for Academics and Careers
John Adams High School
John Dewey High School
John F. Kennedy High School
Metropolitan Corporate Academy
Monroe Academy for Business/Law
Newtown High School
Norman Thomas High School
Paul Robeson High School
Richmond Hill High School
Sheepshead Bay High School
W.H. Maxwell CTE High School

The rest of the 19 schools that got a reprieve last year and will most likely face phase-out are:
Frederick Douglass Academy III (middle school)
Global Enterprise High School
Monroe Academy for Business and Law
School for Community Research and Learning
New Day Academy
Academy of Collaborative Education
Kappa II
Academy of Environmental Science High School
Middle School for Academic and Social Excellence
Public School 332
Business, Computer Applications and Entrepreneurship High School
Choir Academy of Harlem High School

How Does the U.S. Compare?

By Amanda Ripley

Imagine for a moment that a rich, innovative company is looking to draft the best and brightest high-school grads from across the globe without regard to geography. Let’s say this company’s recruiter has a round-the-world plane ticket and just a few weeks to scout for talent. Where should he go?
Our hypothetical recruiter knows there’s little sense in judging a nation like the United States by comparing it to, say, Finland. This is a big country, after all, and school quality varies dramatically from state to state. What he really wants to know is, should he visit Finland or Florida? Korea or Connecticut? Uruguay or Utah?
Stanford economist Eric Hanushek and two colleagues recently conducted an experiment to answer just such questions, ranking American states and foreign countries side by side. Like our recruiter, they looked specifically at the best and brightest in each place—the kids most likely to get good jobs in the future—using scores on standardized math tests as a proxy for educational achievement.
We’ve known for some time how this story ends nationwide: only 6 percent of U.S. students perform at the advanced-proficiency level in math, a share that lags behind kids in some 30 other countries, from the United Kingdom to Taiwan. But what happens when we break down the results? Do any individual U.S. states wind up near the top?
Incredibly, no. Even if we treat each state as its own country, not a single one makes it into the top dozen contenders on the list. The best performer is Massachusetts, ringing in at No. 17. Minnesota also makes it into the upper-middle tier, followed by Vermont, New Jersey, and Washington. And down it goes from there, all the way to Mississippi, whose students—by this measure at least—might as well be attending school in Thailand or Serbia.
Hanushek, who grew up outside Cleveland and graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1965, has the gentle voice and manner of Mr. Rogers, but he has spent the past 40 years calmly butchering conventional wisdom on education. In study after study, he has demonstrated that our assumptions about what works are almost always wrong. More money does not tend to lead to better results; smaller class sizes do not tend to improve learning. “Historically,” he says, “reporters call me [when] the editor asks, ‘What is the other side of this story?’”
Over the years, as Hanushek has focused more on international comparisons, he has heard a variety of theories as to why U.S. students underperform so egregiously. When he started, the prevailing excuse was that the testing wasn’t fair. Other countries were testing a more select group of students, while we were testing everyone. That is no longer true: due to better sampling techniques and other countries’ decisions to educate more of their citizens, we’re now generally comparing apples to apples.
These days, the theory Hanushek hears most often is what we might call the diversity excuse. When he runs into his neighbors at Palo Alto coffee shops, they lament the condition of public schools overall, but are quick to exempt the schools their own kids attend. “In the litany of excuses, one explanation is always, ‘We’re a very heterogeneous society—all these immigrants are dragging us down. But our kids are doing fine,’” Hanushek says. This latest study was designed, in part, to test the diversity excuse.
To do this, Hanushek, along with Paul Peterson at Harvard and Ludger Woessmann at the University of Munich, looked at the American kids performing at the top of the charts on an international math test. (Math tests are easier to normalize across countries, regardless of language barriers; and math skills tend to better predict future earnings than other skills taught in high school.) Then, to get state-by-state data, they correlated the results of that international test with the results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam, which is given to a much larger sample in the U.S. and can be used to draw statewide conclusions.
The international test Hanushek used for this study—the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA—is administered every three years to 15-year-olds in about 60 countries. Some experts love this test; others, like Tom Loveless at the Brookings Institution, criticize it as a poor judge of what schools are teaching. But despite his concerns about PISA, Loveless, who has read an advance version of Hanushek’s study, agrees with its primary conclusion. “The United States does not do a good job of educating kids at the top,” he says. “There’s a long-standing attitude that, ‘Well, smart kids can make it on their own. And after all, they’re doing well. So why worry about them?’”
Of course, the fact that no U.S. state does very well compared with other rich nations does not necessarily disprove the diversity excuse: parents in Palo Alto could reasonably infer that California’s poor ranking (in the bottom third, just above Portugal and below Italy) is a function of the state’s large population of poor and/or immigrant children, and does not reflect their own kids’ relatively well-off circumstances.

So Hanushek and his co-authors sliced the data more thinly still. They couldn’t control for income, since students don’t report their parents’ salaries when they take these tests; but they could use reliable proxies. How would our states do if we looked just at the white kids performing at high levels—kids who are not, generally speaking, subject to language barriers or racial discrimination? Or if we looked just at kids with at least one college-educated parent?
As it turned out, even these relatively privileged students do not compete favorably with average students in other well-off countries. On a percentage basis, New York state has fewer high performers among white kids than Poland has among kids overall. In Illinois, the percentage of kids with a college-educated parent who are highly skilled at math is lower than the percentage of such kids among all students in Iceland, France, Estonia, and Sweden.
Parents in Palo Alto will always insist that their kids are the exception, of course. And researchers cannot compare small cities and towns around the globe—not yet, anyway. But Hanushek thinks the study significantly undercuts the diversity excuse. “People will find it quite shocking,” he says, “that even our most-advantaged students are not all that competitive.”
Reading the list, one cannot help but thank God for Massachusetts, which offers the United States some shred of national dignity—a result echoed in other international tests. “If all American fourth- and eighth-grade kids did as well in math and science as they do in Massachusetts,” writes the veteran education author Karin Chenoweth in her 2009 book, How It’s Being Done, “we still wouldn’t be in Singapore’s league but we’d be giving Japan and Chinese Taipei a run for their money.”
Is it because Massachusetts is so white? Or so immigrant-free? Or so rich? Not quite. Massachusetts is indeed slightly whiter and slightly better-off than the U.S. average. But in the late 1990s, it nonetheless lagged behind similar states—such as Connecticut and Maine—in nationwide tests of fourth- and eighth-graders. It was only after a decade of educational reforms that Massachusetts began to rank first in the nation.
What did Massachusetts do? Well, nothing that many countries (and industries) didn’t do a long time ago. For example, Massachusetts made it harder to become a teacher, requiring newcomers to pass a basic literacy test before entering the classroom. (In the first year, more than a third of the new teachers failed the test.) The state also required students to pass a test before graduating from high school—a notion so heretical that it led to protests in which students burned state superintendent David Driscoll in effigy. To help tutor the kids who failed, the state moved money around to the places where it was needed most. “We had a system of standards and held people to it—adults and students,” Driscoll says.
Massachusetts, in other words, began demanding meaningful outcomes from everyone in the school building. Obvious though it may seem, it’s an idea that remains sacrilegious in many U.S. schools, despite the clumsy advances of No Child Left Behind. Instead, we still fixate on inputs—such as how much money we are pouring into the system or how small our class sizes are—and wind up with little to show for it. Since the early 1970s, we’ve doubled the amount of money we spend per pupil nationwide, but our high-schoolers’ reading and math scores have barely budged.
Per student, we now spend more than all but three other countries—Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Norway—on elementary and secondary education. And the list of countries that spend the most, notably, has little in common with the outcomes that Hanushek and his colleagues put into rank order. (The same holds true on the state level, where New York, one of the highest-spending states—it topped the list at $17,000 per pupil in 2008—still comes in behind 15 other states and 30 countries on Hanushek’s list.)
However haltingly, more states are finally beginning to follow the lead of Massachusetts. At least 35 states and the District of Columbia agreed this year to adopt common standards for what kids should know in math and language arts—standards informed in part by what kids in top-performing countries are learning. Still, all of the states, Massachusetts included, have a long way to go. Last year, a study comparing standardized math tests given to third-graders in Massachusetts and Hong Kong found embarrassing disparities. Even at that early age, kids in Hong Kong were being asked more-demanding questions that required more-complex responses.
Meanwhile, a 2010 study of teacher-prep programs in 16 countries found a striking correlation between how well students did on international exams and how their future teachers performed on a math test. In the U.S., researchers tested nearly 3,300 teachers-to-be in 39 states. The results? Our future middle-school math teachers knew about as much math as their peers in Thailand and Oman—and nowhere near what future teachers in Taiwan and Singapore knew. Moreover, the results showed dramatic variation depending on the teacher-training program. Perhaps this should not be surprising: teachers cannot teach what they do not know, and to date, most have not been required to know very much math.
Early last year, President Obama reminded Congress, “The countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.” This September, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, visiting a local school on the first day of classes, mentioned Obama’s warning and smugly took note of the scoreboard: “Well,” he said, “we are out-teaching them today.”
Arne Duncan, Obama’s education secretary, responded to the premier’s trash-talking a few days later. “When I played professional basketball in Australia, that’s the type of quote the coach would post on the bulletin board in the locker room,” he declared during a speech in Toronto. And then his rejoinder came to a crashing halt. “In all seriousness,” Duncan confessed, “Premier McGuinty spoke the truth.”

More Departures Likely At DOE, Insiders Say

By: Lindsey Christ

The mood among many at Tweed Courthouse is said to be confused, even demoralized after this week's announcement that Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is stepping down.
And now, a new problem may be brewing if key members of Klein's team decide they don't want to work for incoming Chancellor Cathie Black.
Klein shocked his deputies with his resignation Tuesday and the mayor surprised them again by announcing a businesswoman will take over the system. She agreed with the mayor that the strong team would make up for her lack of public policy and educational experience.
"Well I think with the help of the eight deputies in the office, we will spend a good amount of time prepping me and making sure I understand the issues thoroughly," Black said.
But within a day, one of those eight had already left. Deputy Chancellor for Finance and Technology Photeine Anagnostopoulos, known as Photo, was in charge of the $23 billion budget. She resigned, effective immediately. And multiple sources within the department say they don't expect she'll be the last to leave.
They describe the atmosphere in department headquarters as traumatic, confusing and uncomfortable. Many were loyal to Klein, but feel the way the Mayor's office handled the announcements on Tuesday left insiders completely out.
"I did have a public search and I picked the best person, I considered as many different people, I talked to people for suggestions," Bloomberg said.
It's still unclear who else was considered and who was talked to, but several senior officials are apparently unhappy. It turns out Anagnostopoulos and Black have been neighbors in the same Park Avenue building. Anagnostopoulos hasn't commented on her abrupt resignation but a DOE spokesperson said, "Given the transition we are about to undertake, she felt it was the right time to move on. We wish her well..."
Experts say retaining other deputies will be key for Ms. Black.
"There are superb people in the leadership now I certainly hope she's able to keep. I am a little concerned because there are so many other districts who have caught onto the need for continuous improvement and are looking to New York for principals or for superintendents," said Paul Hill of the University of Washington.
The tenor of the transition may depend on whether the team at Tweed stays on or not.

Mayor Takes Idea of Education Outsider to New Level

By ELISSA GOOTMAN and JENNIFER MEDINA

Published: November 10, 2010

The notion of who can run a large public school system has shifted radically in the past decade, as lawyers, bankers and budget experts with little classroom experience — beyond sitting in one — have been tapped as superintendents and chancellors throughout the country.
The departing New York City schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, of course, is a prime example. But in the eight years since he was appointed, the education world has changed, and become fertile ground for a crop of would-be school executives with one foot in the world of business management and one foot in the world of school reform.
In choosing Cathleen P. Black as Mr. Klein’s successor, the mayor made a pointed choice to go outside that growing circle and appears to have taken the idea of the outsider-chancellor to a new level.
While Mr. Klein had previously served as deputy White House counsel and the nation’s top antitrust official, and even briefly taught in a public school, Ms. Black, the chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, has spent her career steeped in business.
Ms. Black has freely acknowledged her “limited exposure” to unions. She and her children are products of private schools, while Mr. Klein attended New York public schools. She sits on a charter school advisory board, but joined only a few months ago and so has yet to attend a meeting.
According to the city Education Department, Ms. Black’s other experience with public schools includes participating in a mentor day with Michelle Obama at a Detroit public school and, several years ago, serving as “principal for a day” in a school in the South Bronx.
“I don’t know how far is too far, but it’s certainly pushing the envelope,” Joseph P. Viteritti, a public policy professor at Hunter College, said of the mayor’s choice. “What lies ahead for her is as much political as it is managerial or education related.”
The issue of whether Ms. Black is qualified is likely to arise as the state decides whether to grant her permission to take the job. State law requires that all school chiefs have at least a master’s degree and a professional certificate in educational leadership, as well as three years’ experience in schools. Because Ms. Black has no such certification, she needs a waiver from the state Education Department, as Mr. Klein received.
The city will have to submit a statement explaining Ms. Black’s “exceptional qualifications,” along with a formal résumé and her academic transcripts. A committee will make a nonbinding recommendation to Education Commissioner David Steiner, who will make the final decision.
A refusal to grant the waiver would be a stunning rebuke to Mr. Bloomberg. Tony Avella, a former city councilman from Queens who was elected to the State Senate, sent a letter to Mr. Steiner asking that he deny the waiver. A similar petition that circulated on the Internet had garnered more than 900 signatures by 7 p.m. Wednesday.
“I believe the chancellor should be an educator, who understands what the students go through,” Mr. Avella said.
In 2002, Mr. Avella said, political leaders were more willing to give Mr. Bloomberg leeway.
“I think we’ve learned since then,” he said. “With hindsight we saw that lack of experience hurt his administration, which was much more bureaucratic than I had anticipated and run too much like a business.”
The state has granted several waivers and denied several since the law went into effect in 1970. In 1983, the education commissioner rejected Deputy Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr., whom the city’s Board of Education had chosen to be chancellor. In 2004, state education officials made clear that they would not grant a waiver to Mr. Klein’s choice for the deputy chancellor in charge of instruction, a job that also required certification, forcing him to appoint an educator.
Mr. Steiner declined to comment, but it is believed that the state will give much deference to the mayor, whom it has already given control of the city’s schools.
Stu Loeser, the mayor’s spokesman, said, “Over the last eight years we’ve assembled the best pedagogical team, and we picked someone who we believe can manage very well.”
Merryl H. Tisch, chancellor of the State Board of Regents, said that when the waiver discussions begin, “I am sure that one of the reasonable questions that people will ask is, as you bring in someone who is a manager without, frankly, much knowledge about the instructional core, how they plan to put that team in place.”
Ms. Tisch added: “This is a very smart woman. She knows what she knows, she knows what she doesn’t know, and I’m sure she will assemble a team that will make her comfortable in the role.” Asked if she approved of the mayor’s choice, Ms. Tisch said: “Obviously Ms. Black has extraordinary credentials as a manager. Obviously the New York City public school system is an extraordinary management challenge.”
Mr. Klein and others like him have inspired a new group of leaders in education, many equipped with business and law degrees rather than education school diplomas. Eli Broad, an influential philanthropist and strong supporter of Mr. Klein, has in recent years cultivated dozens of potential urban school leaders through his foundation’s fellowship and training programs. Mr. Bloomberg was apparently willing to pass over those new leaders.
“They are saying in black and white that it’s not important to have any connection to the education field to be chancellor of the New York City school system,” said Jennifer Freeman, a parent leader. “And I think that can’t be right.”
But Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a business group, said Ms. Black’s outsider status, coupled with her communication and marketing prowess, could make her an excellent fit for a job that is very much a hot seat: she will most likely have to battle with the teachers’ union over its expired contract and navigate the minefields of closing the city’s low-performing schools.
“What everyone in the education community has been complaining about is that they wanted a good listener and somebody that could build consensus,” Ms. Wylde said. “And I think on those two criteria, Cathie Black is an ideal choice.”
Deborah Kenny, founder and chief executive of the Harlem Village Academies charter school network, said Ms. Black had joined the schools’ national leadership advisory board in July. Rupert Murdoch, Mr. Klein’s new employer, is a co-chairman of the advisory board.
Ms. Kenny said that she first met Ms. Black several years ago, but that they got to know each other better after Ms. Black attended a panel on which Ms. Kenny appeared at a Sun Valley, Idaho, conference in 2008. Since then, Ms. Black has visited at least one of the schools “a number of times,” Ms. Kenny said.
“It seems to me that she has world-class leadership experience, and she engages people and she inspires people,” Ms. Kenny said. “Isn’t that what’s needed?”

Top DOE finance official resigns in wake of Klein’s departure

by Maura WalzThe city’s top finance and budget official is following Chancellor Joel Klein out of the Department of Education, officials confirmed Wednesday evening.
Photeine “Photo” Anagnostopoulos, Deputy Chancellor for Finance and Technology, submitted her resignation Wednesday, effective immediately.
“Given the transition we are about to undertake, she felt it was the right time to move on,” said DOE spokeswoman Natalie Ravitz. “We wish her well in her future endeavors, and are already beginning the process of identifying qualified candidates for her position.”
Anagnostopoulos’ departure signals that Klein’s resignation and the arrival of Hearst Magazines executive Cathie Black as chancellor will also bring a shift in power in the top circle of the DOE.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s announcement on Tuesday afternoon that he was replacing Klein with Black came as a surprise to many DOE officials, including some of Klein’s senior aides.
And while Black has indicated that she plans to rely heavily on the team of top officials that Klein brought together — especially Klein’s team of eight deputy chancellors — the willingness of some of those officials to stay on without Klein is far from certain.

Anagnostopoulos began at the DOE as the Chief Knowledge Officer and was promoted to Chief Operating Officer in the Office of Accountability in December of 2007. She held that job until last April, when the chancellor announced that School Construction Authority President Sharon Greenberger would take over the job of COO. Anagnostopoulos was named the Deputy Chancellor for Finance and Technology.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that some city officials believe Greenberger was placed in the job at Bloomberg’s behest and over the protests of Klein. The outgoing chancellor has denied those reports, but several officials told GothamSchools that Greenberger’s appointment was a sign of greater mayoral influence in the department.

Anagnostopoulos, who earned a business degree from Harvard, shares some of the same qualities that Bloomberg has praised in Black. But Anagnostopoulos has far more experience than Black in the education sector. Before joining the department, she had been the President of McGraw-Hill Digital Learning and a Senior Vice President of The College Board.

While working at McGraw-Hill, she oversaw the development of the company’s online learning programs, and at The College Board, she was part of the largest overhaul of the SAT, the college entrance exam. Before that, she was vice president of business development for Classroom Connect, which sells online professional development programs for teachers.

Anagnostopoulos’ move to a top position in the administration from McGraw-Hill, a company with an $80 million contract with the DOE, raised conflict of interest questions for some critics. She also has sparked anger from parents by defending the city’s decision to raise the class size goals.

For nearly three years, she has overseen the department’s finances in the midst of a financial downturn that has forced painful budget cuts to schools. While she has been credited with avoiding even deeper cuts, her DOE budget has also been routinely criticized for spending too much money on central administrative costs and misdirecting money intended for needy schools and students.

A year ago, before the mayor and chancellor began discussing the threat of teacher layoffs, Anagnostopolous was already making public statements about the need to cut back. “The stimulus is wonderful and it is great and it has saved jobs and programs, but we can’t kid ourselves,” she told the New York Times. “It didn’t cover everything.”