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Latest Round of School Closings Sparks Heated Opposition


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Students, parents, teachers and community groups gathered at Maxwell High School last December to protest the school's closing.

Standing in front of a crowd at Abyssinian Baptist Church, Danisha Williams spoke about how she had continued on after losing her mother and father.

"The teachers at Maxwell said, 'Danisha, you're too strong. There's no such thing as giving up,'" she related. "It changed me from the clothes I wore, the way I spoke, the way I looked at things." And so, she said, "I did it."

To officials at the Department of Education, William H. Maxwell Career and Technical School is a place that receives D's on its progress reports and where only 43 percent of students graduate within four years -- in short a school that "had not made sufficient progress for its students."

The department has decided to close Maxwell along with 20 other schools throughout the city that, by the department's measures, fail to meet the needs of the young people they are supposed to educate. To some students, teachers and community residents, though, these schools, however poor their performance may look on paper, have changed lives and anchored neighborhoods.

On Tuesday, the city's Panel on Educational Policy will consider the closings and, most observers expect, approve them. But during a 45-day comment period, opponents have mobilized support, held demonstrations and lined up backing from elected officials.

The fight over these schools, in short, has shaped up as just the kind of messy public debate Mayor Michael Bloomberg hoped mayoral control could avoid.

A Platform for Protest

Since taking control of the city's school system, the Bloomberg administration has closed 91 schools. While protests, as well as legal challenges, occurred in the past, this year's criticism has been particularly vociferous.

The state legislature probably deserves much of the credit or blame for that. Under changes to the system of mayoral control adopted by the legislature last summer, the Panel on Educational Policy, the largely toothless body that replaced the old Board of Education, must approve any school closings. Given that the legislature left the board's structure intact -- the mayor appoints a majority of the members, and they serve at his pleasure rather than for fixed terms -- that change is unlikely to result in the rejection of any proposed closings. But it does provide opponents with a rallying point.

And they have seized it. Many of the critics see the closing as emblematic of what they do not like about Bloomberg's education policies: what they see as an over-reliance on numbers, a failure to consult with the community and neglect of some of the system's most challenging students. With the mayor seen as having lost some of his luster -- and with a new teachers' union president whose rhetoric, if not action, is more combative than that of his predecessor -- teachers, parents and some elected officials have been willing and even eager to speak out.

In response the Department of Education first agreed to move the Panel for Educational Policy meeting from Staten Island, where it was originally slated to take place, to Brooklyn Tech in Fort Greene. It then cleared many unrelated items off Tuesday’s agenda. Meanwhile, the United Federation for Teachers, which has come out against the closings, has scheduled a protest across the street.

The Price of Failure

The schools on the list represent a range -- they even include some small schools started under the mayor, such as Kappa II, an elementary school in Harlem, and Academy for Environmental Science Secondary School.

In the administration's view, they all share one thing: These schools, the administration says, have simply failed the children of the city.

According to the department, its criteria for closing schools is clear. Any school that received a D or an F on its most recent progress report or C's for three consecutive years is a candidate. The department says it also weighs the more descriptive quality reviews on culture and teaching practices as well as community opinion reflected in surveys and the number of students who apply to the school. And, according to Danny Kanner, a spokesman for the Department of Education, the department also speaks with people involved with the school and community.

So for example, Paul Robeson High School is on the closure list, Eric Nadelstern, chief schools officer in the Department of Education has written, partly because less than two thirds of its students said they felt safe there and its enrollment has been shrinking.

In discussing this year's list, Nadelstern wrote, "Some of these schools have storied histories and large numbers of faithful alumni. All have students and staffs who work hard and still believe in the school’s potential." However, he continued, as things stand now, "they are failing to educate most of their students."

In most cases, students already at the schools can finish out their educations there, as the schools are, in the administrations words, phased out. Meanwhile, one or more new schools likely will be launched in the existing space So far, most of those announced with be regular public schools although at least two will be publicly financed but privately run charter schools.

At the same time the city has shut 90 schools, it has opened 325 small schools.

Does Size Matter?

The bulk of the schools this year are high schools, largely, Kanner said, because most elementary schools have done well on their progress reports. But the closings of so many large schools in combination with those shut in the past will continue the administration's move away from the large comprehensive high schools and toward smaller schools, many with a theme.

For example, according to an analysis by Gotham Schools, a new school called the Academy for Health Careers will set up in Maxwell. Two new schools -- the High School for Community Leadership and Hillside Arts and Letters Academy -- will occupy the Jamaica High School Building.

Kanner said the city does not plan to eliminate all large schools but it is, he said, committed to doing what works. "Our focus is on results for students," he said. "If it works, we're going to try it, and that's what we're doing."

The city thinks the small schools work. According to its figures, they have a graduation rate of 75 percent, compared to about 60 percent citywide.

Critics of the department say the administration has stacked the deck. At least in their early days, new small schools did not have to take any special education students or English language learners. Kanner said that this has changed.

However, by most accounts, the schools facing closure still have a disproportionate number of students who may need extra help, such as special education students and English language learners.

A study by Jackie Bennett found that students at the closing schools came in with lower achievement levels as measured by eighth grade test scores. The prevalence of homeless students is particularly striking. The number of these students more than doubled in 19 of the schools slated for closure, according to the Daily News.

The Department of Education denies it penalizes schools that have challenging students. Schools, Kanner said, are ranked not against a kind of platonic ideal or even a citywide or borough-wide figure but against a so-called peer group of 39 schools with similar student bodies. So, for example, 30 percent of students at PS 332 are in special ed, which presents a legitimate challenge. But, he said, others schools with so many special ed student are doing a better job.

The peer groups, though, are not adjusted every year, which could create problems if a school has a sudden and sizable influx of hard-to-teach kids.

The critics also dispute the administration's choice of and use of figures. For instance, said James Eterno, a teacher fighting the closing of Jamaica High School, the four-year graduation rate may not be a meaningful measure in a city where so many students come from other countries.

Recipe for Failure

Supporters of some of the schools on the close list say they almost were set up to fail. Jamaica High School has seen its "secretarial staff slashed from 35 to 5, insufficient guidance personnel and a relatively new principal," Eterno and Arthur Goldstein, both chapter leaders of the United Federation of Teachers, have written. Now, they say, the department plans to lavish money "on new schools that will take years to grow" and will be less likely to accept the "non-traditional 'over the counter' pupil that Jamaica accepts."

In fact, the administration's critics. charge some of the schools on the failing list are failing at least partly because they accepted students pushed out of other closed schools or who could not get into the newer and smaller schools.

Christine Rowland, a Columbus teacher and advocate for that school, said that Columbus' top students tended to enroll in new programs set up in and around that school. This left Columbus, she said, having to deal with classes that are "more challenging both academically and behaviorally."

Beach Channel High School's fate was sealed when the Department of Education shut Far Rockaway High School and many of its students turned up at Broad Channel.

By the administration's own figures, the new small schools will not have enough slots to accommodate all the students who once attended the larger school in the same building. The health career school at Maxwell, which currently has an enrollment of 985, will have 425 to 450 seats. Beach Channel, with 1,345 students, is slated to be the home of a school focusing on environmental sustainability with room for 400 to 500 students. Of course, the department could opt to add more schools in the future. But for some of the schools, such as Paul Robeson, the administration has not yet announced any replacement, fueling anxiety.

Under Bloomberg, closing schools, "has become an educational shell game that defers instructional problems until they reappear elsewhere, to be met again with a similar reaction," David Bloomfield, a professor of educational leader and law at Brooklyn College who supports taking strong action against poor schools, wrote recently. In the process, he said, it "has harmed thousands of students."

Kanner strongly disagrees. "There has been no evidence to suggest the closing of a nearby school negatively impacts the schools in the community," he said.

Certainly people will appear on Tuesday and contest that. They will also dispute figures. And most of all they will cite their allegiance to schools that, while by some measures seem to be failing, have proved successful for them. A school, said Christina Rowland, the Columbus teacher, "is so much more than statistics."

National Test Scores Renew Questions About Mayor's Education Reforms


The 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores for New York City students, released last week, demonstrate that there has been no notable progress in fourth and eighth grade math since 2007 and only moderate progress since 2003. There are massive discrepancies -- 45 percentage points for eighth graders and 50 points for fourth graders -- between the national results and our own New York State results in the percentage of students reaching proficiency. Those gaps demonstrate that the state's tests do not adequately measure student learning.

 

The scores also demonstrate that New York City residents need to discount much of the Bloomberg administration's self-congratulation regarding its "spectacular successes" with the school system. My office has issued six reports over the past year looking at the impact of the Bloomberg administration's public school reforms on New York City test score improvements. These reports serve a pathway toward a clear assessment of the impact of Bloomberg’s reforms on the school system.

They come to a number of conclusions. The first is that the mayor's accountability reforms are not the main cause of New York City student improvement on state tests. Second is that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein are exaggerating and misrepresenting the improvements to the general public. The reports did not state this but behind those exaggerations was clearly the motivation to re-elect the mayor and maintain his control of the system.

When Improvement Began

The first report, New York City Improvement Before and After Mayoral Reforms, is an examination of student progress before and after Bloomberg implemented his reforms in September 2003 and goes back to 1999 when the state began its current testing system. It turns out that students had already been gaining rapidly on English language arts and math tests when Bloomberg began changing the system. In fact, in the four years prior to the implementation of the mayor’s reforms, 1999 to 2003, students taking the fourth grade tests gained 20 points on the language arts tests and 17 points on the math.

The first report also determined that in 2006 the Department of Education switched its comparison year for test results in order to claim credit for improvements that occurred in 2003, prior to the implementation of their reforms. Bloomberg announced in January 2003 that community school districts would be closed in June 2003 and consolidated into 10 regions. A new curriculum was implemented in September of the 2003-2004 school year. Tests given in the winter and spring of 2003 (the 2002-2003 school year) were administered under the old system. Students gained six points on language arts and 15 points in math that year -- a gain that cannot be attributed to the mayoral reforms.

The test score gains that we do see have a much stronger relationship to massive statewide investments in early childhood education than to the mayor's programs. The most critical funding increases were in the universal pre-kindergarten program, beginning in 1998-99 along with a drive to reduce class size in the early grades. Enrollment in pre-kindergarten had tripled, and the first cohort of children benefiting from the pre-K expansion was entering the fourth grade by the time the mayor’s reforms were implemented.

These investments drove major spending increases in New York City’s elementary schools. From 1999 to 2006 spending per pupil in the elementary schools increased 79 percent. Clearly education was strengthened with statewide investments several years prior to the mayor’s reforms.

How the City Matches Up

Three of my other reports looked at New York City in comparison to: the rest of the school districts across New York State; comparable urban districts in New York; and the performance of comparable urban school systems on national assessments. The purpose of this review was to see if anything happening in the city was remarkable or unique and so would confirm that the Bloomberg administration's interventions had an extraordinary impact.

The report New York City and School Districts Statewide: A Comparisons of Test Score Improvement, looking at the city in relation to the rest of the districts in the state, acknowledged that the city students' comparative performance was positive, but far from spectacular. In fact, we looked at data for every district in the state from 2003 to 2008, the last year for which data for every district in the state is available.

It turns out that hundreds of school districts outgained the city school system in language arts improvement. New York City students were scoring in the lowest tenth of districts in language arts in the state in 2003, and were still doing so in 2008. For fourth and eighth grade math the city's comparative gains were stronger, but New York City students simply moved from the bottom tenth of the school districts in proficiency levels to the bottom fifth. Of course, the disparities between national and state results on the math tests give one pause before congratulating the city school system.

Student Achievement: New York City and the Big Four looked at the mayor's boasts about how well the city was doing compared to other big cities in the state. The report found they were based on a comparison with communities facing mass poverty and economic stress. Child poverty rates in Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester were 15 to 20 points higher than the rates in New York City. The other major city in the state, Yonkers, had poverty rates comparable to New York City's, and not surprisingly, its test scores were very similar. Its language arts scores were comparable, and its high school graduation rates were higher, although its math scores were lower.

New York City Student Performance on National Tests during Mayoral Control reviewed how New York City students compared to students in similar urban systems in their performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests between 2003 and 2007. Looking at 2007 results for fourth and eighth grade language arts and math, the report found New York City students did not have statistically significant improvements in three out of the four test areas. Of the five other similar urban systems -- Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C. -- New York City actually showed the least progress in two of the four major test areas.

In addition, Bloomberg administration claims that it had reduced the racial gap by half on the state tests were belied by the national assessment results. In fact, the gap between white, and black and Hispanic students on these national tests actually increased in some test areas in New York City. The 2009 national tests showed little or no improvement in the racial gaps.

Managing the System

Our other reports put the Bloomberg administration’s claims of introducing accountability to the school system in perspective. In Accountability Reforms in New York City Public School Before and After Mayoral Control, we pointed out that the most powerful reform forcing New York City and every other school system in the nation to improve was the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which became law in January 2002. New York State blended its Learning standards from the 1990s into No Child Left Behind when the national law was adopted. New York City's schools would have had to respond to this new national structure and its demanding standards independently of whatever reforms the Bloomberg administration began implementing as the years progressed.

The city Department of Education's school report cards were a twisted copycat of No Child Left Behind. By 2009 the department was pronouncing that 97 percent of the schools were getting As and Bs in its report card system. In reality, in 2008 New York City students were still in the bottom tenth of the school districts statewide in proficiency levels in language arts in fourth and eighth grade, and the bottom fifth in fourth and eighth grade math. The department's system had become a self-serving report that is out of alignment with the state's testing regime.

Our review of the Bloomberg administration's changes to programs and policies showed a wide range of disruptions in special education, transportation, and the administration of pre-kindergarten, gifted and talented programs, and others. The Department of Education reorganizations had caused major service disruptions rather than improvements. Many of these problems and their steep costs are outlined in the Damaging Missteps and Wasted Funds report.

Our reports and the state Education Department have identified increased resources, universal pre-kindergarten expansion, and improved professional development, along with an alignment of instruction with the state's standards, for statewide improvement on language arts and math test results. Essentially the department affirmed the findings in our first report -- that increased spending, especially in the early childhood education, are the major cause of improvement. Given all the facts and circumstances, it is hard to see how the mayor’s accountability reforms were a significant cause of school improvement.

James Brennan, a Democrat, represents Brooklyn's 44th district in the state Assembly, where he serves on the Education Committee.

Seven Years of Mayoral Control


Photo (cc) dave_mcmt

As if anyone needed it, two stories last week demonstrated once again how difficult it is to measure the effectiveness of the massive changes in New York City schools over the last seven years.

On Tuesday, Marcus Winter of the Manhattan Institute issued a report concluding that children in conventional public schools benefit when they compete with charter schools. Everyone wins, Winter concluded, or, as he put it: "The increase in the number of charter schools is having a positive effect on student learning in its traditional public schools. Previous high-quality research has shown that students who attend a New York City charter school tend to benefit substantially."

Two days later, the Daily News reported on another study -- this one from the charter-friendly city Department of Education -- which it said concluded that by at least one measure students in charter schools do not do as well as their counterparts in conventional public schools on standardized tests. The charter students reportedly had higher scores on state standardized tests, but their scores did not rise as much as those of students in regular schools. The rate of increase is the measurement the department has said it values most.

"The mayor and chancellor lecture us incessantly on how charters are better than traditional public schools, yet DOE's own accountability data shows charters lag significantly in the metric they prize above all else: improvement in state test scores," said Patrick Sullivan, a member of the Education Department's central policy board.

Bloomberg's Top Priority

No issue has been more at the center of the Bloomberg mayoralty than education. Before being elected in 2001, Michael Bloomberg pledged to take control of the school system and told voters to hold him accountable for the system's successes or failures. Now running against the former president of the now defunct Board of Education, William Thompson, Bloomberg has used his vast resources to contrast his record on education with Thompson's -- sometimes distortingthe truth in the process.

While data is plentiful, conclusive evidence on what works and why remains elusive. Do test scores really serve as the best measure of schools? Which ones? Sliced and diced which way? A rising high school graduation rate should offer cause for celebration, but why are so many of those graduates unable to do college work without remedial help? Do scores of new small schools really benefit kids previously lost in large comprehensive high schools -- or are they simply a gimmick fueled by money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?

The dueling statistics on charter schools echo the debate on education in New York City. Earlier this month, New York's business community received a glitzy presentation by Klein about how all sections of New York City had registered more improvement on test scores than other counties in the state. Fans of Bloomberg said this offered solid evidence that, under Klein and Bloomberg, students were achieving -- not simply taking easier tests.

Within days, those figures were challenged by results of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Those numbers found that while the scores on New York's own tests have climbed steadily, New York State kids had not improved their performance on the national test. Critics of Klein and Bloomberg said this offered solid evidence that students were taking easier state tests -- not necessarily achieving more.

Winning Control

While the educational effects of Bloomberg's efforts on schools can be open to debate, his political successes in the area really cannot.

Although good schools existed before Bloomberg became mayor -- and sometimes test scores even rose -- the system, fairly or not, was widely seen as failing. Even if New Yorkers liked their local school or their child's teacher, their mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, constantly told them education in the city was a mess. In 1999, he went so far as to describe the system and the officials in it "as no good and beyond redemption" and declare that it "should be blown up."

"While Giuliani was the mayor, things did not improve," Carol Gresser, a former city education board president told the Los Angeles Times in 2007. "The system was denied the money it needed. I was on the board for eight years and it was constantly, 'Let's cut back on the school system.'"

While Bloomberg allies have faulted Thompson for not trying to get mayoral control during this period, no one seriously thought the state legislature would let Guiliani, who, at times called for bigger classes and less education funding, run the nation's largest school system.

Bloomberg immediately brought a new attitude. While criticizing the system, he was careful to say good things as well and to refrain from demonizing the city's teachers. Armed with that attitude and with public concern about education on the rise, Bloomberg promptly managed to win mayoral control of schools, something denied his predecessors. And he won a version of it that gave him more power than his counterparts in Boston or Chicago had. Responding to that success, a member of his administration, Alan Gartner, joked that maybe the administration could "declare victory and go home."

Seven years later, Bloomberg would win perhaps an even more impressive victory when he had to return to Albany and win renewal of mayoral control. Having lost several high profile battles in the capital and with his schools chancellor, Joel Klein, viewed with antipathy in state government, many experts predicted Albany would make major changes in the mayoral control law.

The mayor turned up the pressure. His allies launched a smooth lobbying operation fueled with money from fellow billionaire Bill Gates and led by respected educators -- many of whom also happened to get lots of money in city contracts. Rumors flew that the powerful teachers union backed away from calling for major changes in return for promises of a favorable contract. The mayor's usual allies on newspaper editorial boards and in the business community weighed in in support. Even though virtually no one wanted a return to the old system, the administration adroitly portrayed those who advocated changes in the governance system as wanting to do just that.

In July, the legislature, with a few tweaks, had essentially extended the status quo. Bloomberg remained in charge.

Using the Power

From the beginning the mayor has had no qualms about wielding the power Albany has given him. Once he gained the authority to singlehandedly name a chancellor in 2002, Bloomberg selected Joel Klein, an attorney with essentially no education experience.

Changes came rapidly.

The Department of Education closed what it viewed as failing schools across the city and opened dozens of small high schools. It encouraged and aided the establishment of charter schools. Accountability became a watchword, linked largely to standardized tests. A reshuffling eliminated the new "education regions" and put greater authority in the hands of individual principals.

The circle of those making education policy tightened dramatically. Community school boards were gone, replaced by Community Education Councils selected under an arcane process. Those councils, along with School Leadership Teams, saw their powers sharply restricted. When the Panel for Educational Policy, which supposedly replaced the Board of Education, had doubts about letting standardized test scores determine whether students would be promoted, Bloomberg engineered the ouster of three members.

In education, as in so many areas, the mayor clearly preferred the top down approach. Critics decried that so many voices had been shut out. But Bloomberg argued the old system, with competing voices and centers of influence, had led to paralysis and dysfunction.

At the same time, the administration, blessed with a relatively healthy economy for much of its tenure, poured money into education. In his first five years, Bloomberg increased city education spending by $7 billion or about 50 percent. With the settlement of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity Suit, more state money came to the city as well. The administration used the money to bring in high-priced leaders -- many not educators -- at the Department of Education and to boost teacher salaries. It also spent money on tests, prepping for tests, a centralized computer system and other things linked to its accountability efforts. It did not, by and large, spend money to cut class size.

Measuring Results

So what did all this accomplish?

To the administration, it has sharply increased test scores, helped to narrow the gap in achievement between races within the city on the one hand and between the city and the rest of the state on the other. With police and metal detectors in many schools, the city boasts that schools are safer. And it says the high school graduation rate is higher than ever.

If many of its claims of success are pegged to test scores, that's fine, the administration says. "Test scores are a reflection of what goes on in the classroom," Bloomberg said at a recent mayoral debate.

"The past seven years have given me reason to believe that we are making real progress. Test scores are up, graduation rates are at an all-time high and crime in schools is down. There is no denying we have come a long way," Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone wrote recently.

Some would disagree. The gains, they say, while impressive on first glance, do not reflect real improvement in learning, comprehension and creative thinking.

Underlying much of this debate has been a growing sense that New York state has dumbed down its tests. Concern over inflated scores reached a peak in August when the city released its progress reports -- a.k.a. school report cards -- that rely heavily on state test scores. It reported that 84 percent of elementary and middle schools got an "A."

Diane Ravitch, a leading education historian and assistant secretary of education in the George H.W. Bush administration, has emerged as a skeptic of the scores and perhaps the administration's most prominent critic. Writing in the Times last spring, she questioned the test results, pointing to the lack of any increase in city students' scores on national tests. She raised doubts about the city's method of computing the graduation rate and the values of the diploma. "Three quarters of the graduates fail their placement examinations at the City University of New York’s community colleges and require remediation in basic skills," Ravitch said.

Recently the new leader of the United Federation of Teachers sarcastically voiced his doubts. While no one familiar with the schools can deny that there have been improvements, Michael Mulgrew wrote in a union newspaper, "The combination of phony claims, greater principal accountability and tighter budgets is a potentially explosive mix. The administration has created a Potemkin Village of false facades and fake accomplishments while driving the workers behind the scenes harder and harder to maintain the illusion. It is a dangerous game to play. The truth would serve our kids far better."

Thompson has said, if elected, he would go beyond test scores to look at curriculum and to "let teachers teach" in an effort to encourage more creative thinking on the part of students.

And if Thompson becomes mayor, he would have a chance to do that. After all, whether Thompson wins on Tuesday or Bloomberg does, whoever is sworn as mayor on Jan. 1 will be firmly in control of the city's schools -- a legacy, for better or worse, of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.



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