A New Jersey Parent Nails It

Anthony Cody has been hosting a big, contentious discussion about education "reform" under a piece of his based on a controversial argument by Paul Thomas. I and many others weighed in, but my favorite respone is from NJ parent Tamar Wyschogrod, who runs NJ Parents Against Gov. Christie's School Budget Cuts.

Wyschogrod's response is so succinct, so insightful, and just so darned good that it deserves to be read far and wide in its entirety:

Much of what I described is not corruption, but hypocrisy of the sort often found among reformists and their allies. "No excuses" say the politicians who use the achievement gap as an excuse to deprive whole communities of the right to run their own schools, closing community schools against the will of the people and opening charters that increase segregation; "no excuses" say the billionaires and hedge fund managers who demonize unions and vilify teachers as they accumulate the lion's share of the nation's wealth, promoting education technologies and edu-businesses in which they are heavily invested; "no excuses" say the reformists who promote high-stakes standardized testing and everything that goes with it as real reform, but send their own kids to schools that eschew such measures in favor of more progressive education. Such is the nature of the education reform movement, in Indiana and elsewhere. I am one among many parents in New Jersey who says, "No thanks."

Perfect.

How To Break a Teachers Union

UPDATE BELOW

The Newark Teachers Union has apparently sown the seeds of its own destruction:

As Newark’s landmark teachers contract begins to be implemented, only about 20 percent of district teachers who can opt to earn bonuses for exemplary evaluations and service in hard-to-fill slots have actually decided to do so. 

"Opt" is the key word here. New teachers and those with only bachelor's degrees are automatically enrolled in the program -- defined in a new salary guide -- which pays up to $12,500 in yearly bonuses. 

Under the groundbreaking Newark contract, however, teachers with advanced degrees -- about half of the city’s teaching force -- can choose to stay with the traditional salary guide, which rewards teachers according to experience and academic degree. 

With the last of the selections completed at the start of the new year, district officials said this week that roughly 80 percent of those who could stayed with the traditional guide. [emphasis mine]

So 40% of the Newark teachers are now under a separate agreement than the rest of the workforce. What does that mean?

Joseph Del Grosso, the president of the NTU, also said that many teachers were sticking with the familiar as the new contract was being put in place with a host of changes, including a new evaluation system that incorporates peer review.

“I think they felt more comfortable on the traditional guide, and in some cases the raises were better,” Del Grosso said in an interview yesterday. “They made individual decisions based on their own finances.” [emphasis mine]

Which is exactly what the Broadie-infested NJDOE - and the corporate reformers who finance them - want: a union membership with differing interests. The teachers who didn't get to make a choice between the two systems will likely resent the teachers who did get to choose. The teachers who receive bonuses under the merit pay system (if there are any) will have a different attitude toward continuing the system than teachers who don't. Teachers who teach a grade or course that is subject to ratings based on standardized tests (Grade 3 through 8 math and reading) will have different interests than teachers who don't (everyone else).

To make matters worse, the union, which is supposed to represent the teachers interests, will also be helping to facilitate the evaluation system that determines some of their members' pay:

Among the next steps is putting in place the peer review process that for the first time will include teachers in the evaluations themselves and create teams of fellow educators to serve as “validators” in case evaluations are contested.

“We still need to decide what exact role they will play, whether it will be required that they observe or evaluate, and will they be those with credentials in administration and supervision,” Del Grosso said. “All of those things still need to be worked out.”

Yes, it's being worked out now - after the contract was signed and approved. As I said before, I think this is incredibly damgerous: there is a conflict of interest when a union is a facilitator of teacher evaluations and an advocate for the teachers who face sanctions under that system.

I am really worried about the future of the NTU following this contract. Powerful forces have amassed to take over the city's public school system and turn it over to private contractors. A disturbing "bended model" of charter school is taking root (more on this in a bit). California billionaires make all the important decisions and leave local citizens out in the cold. DOE Commissioner Chris Cerf and Governor Christie have unapologetically said they are looking to cut funds to the district.

One of the few groups that had the ability to stand up to this was the NTU. Now, it's being divided from within. I hope I'm wrong about this, and the union stands strong against the spread of the corporate reform virus in Newark.

But I'm afraid I'm not.

I'm invincible!

UPDATE: I should say that I am still working out in my own mind the proper role of unions in peer evaluations. I remain convinced there is a conflict of interest here; I'm just not sure how to resolve it.

UPDATED: Rhee Can't Play Both Sides Anymore

UPDATE BELOW

Yesterday, we found out that Democrats are abandoning StudentsFirst, Michelle Rhee's right-wing, Republican money funnel that pretends to be a bipartisan education "reform" group. Among those leaving are Hari Sevugan, a Democratic insider who was serving as Rhee's communications director. According to Joy Resmovits's reporting, Sevugan and other Dems were leaving SF because "It gets tiresome to have to defend who we are." 

Well, it looks like Sevugan got nervous when this story starting making its way around the edu-blogosphere. When Diane Ravitch linked to Resmovitis's story, Sevugan rushed in to make sure he wasn't burning any bridges unnecessarily:

Diane – I’ve never posted a comment on your blog, but as one of the subjects mentioned in the article you have extrapolated from to make your point in this entry, I felt that I needed to on this occasion. I’m also writing this on my iphone, so please forgive me any wayward autocorrects. [emphasis mine]

Couldn't wait to get home to write this, huh, Hari? Were you nervous that this story was going to get out in front of you and paint you as a Democrat who had abandoned his party for the lure of StudentsFirst's tasty money?

You have often suggested, as you have here, that folks at StudentsFirst and more broadly the education reform community are working to privatize education and diminish teaching and teachers.

You afforded a story regarding my time at StudentsFirst enough validity to use it to criticize the organization. So, I hope you will afford my opinion based on that time the same credibility when I tell you this:

To suggest that folks working at StudentsFirst or in education reform are doing anything but working for the benefit of kids is plain wrong.

Everyone I worked with at StudentsFirst and in the education reform community was and is exclusively interested in improving the lives of children. They are not out to diminish teachers, but rather they recognize the importance of teachers in ensuring children have the best education possible. They are not out to destroy public education, but rather their fealty belongs to the public school students served by that system.

The thing is – I believe the same is true of teachers unions and many advocates, including you, who are opposed to education reform.

While I no longer work at StudentsFirst on a day-to-day basis, I will continue to work with them in other ways, as well as with other reformers, toward their goal of ensuring every child has access to high quality education.

Read the whole thing: it's a classic case of someone trying to play both sides of the fence. StudentsFirst is great! Unions are great! Everybody's so freakin' great! Can't we all just get along?

This is, of course, how the political consultancy class operates: you never know where your next gig is coming from, so don't piss off anyone if you don't have to. And Sevugan is quite the political animal : DS Wright reminds us of the announcement SF made when Sevugan first came on board:

Democratic National Committee national spokesman Hari Sevugan will move to a top post at the former Washington, D.C., school chief Michelle Rhee's new advocacy group, Students First, a move aimed at strengthening its hand in the complex and high-stakes politics of education policy.

Sevugan, 36, a lawyer and veteran politico who also taught for two years in a public middle school in Upper Manhattan, will serve as vice president of communications, a source familiar with the plan said.

But while Sevugan's role includes setting up a rapid response operation and press shop for a group that didn't have a full-fledged communications operation, the move also sends a political signal: Michelle Rhee's push to weaken the hold of teachers unions has won her enemies in the labor movement and among some Democrats, and allies on the Republican right, and Sevugan will aim to clarify her attempt to establish a bipartisan profile, the source said; he has already begun to reach out to some of the group's progressive critics.

The move is intended to bring "the reputation of the group back to a non-partisan place after being seen, undeservedly, as overly friendly with Republicans," the source said. "Students First has strong relationships with many Democratic establishment hands including [former White House Communications Director] Anita Dunn.. and has worked with Democratic and Republican officials on a number of issues. But because some of the more prominent work has been with Republican governors including scoring some stunning successes in unlikely states like Nevada, that partisan reputation has been thrust upon it," the source said. [emphasis mine]

Now, maybe some particularly gullible saps within the Democratic establishment bought this line back in 2011. They wanted to get their hands on some of that lovely billionaire lucre; if that meant screwing over the teachers unions, it would be worth it to them.

The problem is that StudentsFirst has now been through an election cycle, and Rhee's loyalties are crystal clear:

Rhee makes a point of applauding “leaders in both parties and across the ideological spectrum” because her own political success — and the success of school reform — depends upon the bipartisan reputation she has fashioned. But 90 of the 105 candidates backed by StudentsFirst were Republicans, including Tea Party enthusiasts and staunch abortion opponents. And Rhee’s above-the-fray bona fides have come under heavy fire as progressives and teachers unions increasingly cast the school reform movement, which has become virtually synonymous with Rhee’s name, as politically conservative and corporate-funded. [emphasis mine]

There is simply no way anyone in the Democratic Party can seriously consider Michelle Rhee an ally anymore. She gives the vast majority of her masters' money away to Republicans - including Tea Baggers - spreads money to Republicans in swing states, and pals around with Republican governors like Chris Christie and Rick Scott.

If that isn't enough, she stepped on eggshells after the Newtown tragedy in a way that would have made the NRA proud; she only came around after it was apparent her tone-deaf response was not playing well with both progressives and moderates:

Similarly, after the Newtown shooting, the group first told HuffPost reporter Dave Jamieson it declined to take a position on a Missouri bill that would allow concealed firearms in schools. The group then followed up with a letter from Rhee opposing the legislation.

"They were able to talk the talk that it is bipartisan," said Kombiz Lavasany, who directs strategic campaigns for the American Federation of Teachers, a union Rhee has sparred with. "But [after things like the guns episode] … I can see how it would be harder and harder for the Democrats to work there."

Rhee's flip-flopping on Michigan's right-to-work (for-less) laws similarly left a bad taste in many lefties' mouths. She's tried to play both sides, but she simply can't any more.

The evidence is in, and it's overwhelming: Michele Rhee is an ally of Republicans and an enemy of progressives and Democrats. She can pretend otherwise, but her record is clear and extensive.

So now Sevugan and others are going to try to come back into the Democratic fold. It will be easier for Sevugan to do so if he can maintain the illusion that Rhee is bipartisan. Perhaps he can con a few Democrats into believing it; the moderate wing of the party, including the president, will believe just about anything these days when it comes to education, so it's certainly possible.

I do find it curious that Sevugan made this decision just before a new Frontline special on Rhee is scheduled to air this week - a show that examines her record in Washington D.C., including the cheating scandal that has left a big, black cloud over her entire career (perhaps they'll get around to talking about her other serial exaggerations in the report).

Maybe Sevugan senses that Rhee is becoming damaged goods. Maybe he's come to the conclusion that the more the public sees of Michelle Rhee, the less likable she is. Maybe he thinks people are getting sick of her continuous schtick of bad-mouthing our nation's students. Maybe he wonders if the money will continue to pour in from the Billionaire Boys Club, when the best StudentsFirst can do to generate real grassroots support is to fertilize some AstroTurf with gift cards.

Maybe Sevugan, even as he keeps his options open, got out while the getting was good. Smart Democrats would be well advised to follow suit, because it's no longer possible for StudentsFirst or Rhee to pretend they are anything but right-wing partisan hacks. And we all know how much people love Republicans these days...

What's not to love?

UPDATE: Some commenters at Diane Ravitch's have made the case that StudentsFirst is bipartisan, because so many Democrats share their ideas about education "reform." Well, it may be that (unfortunately) "reform" is bipartisan, but StudentsFirst is not. Again:

But 90 of the 105 candidates backed by StudentsFirst were Republicans, including Tea Party enthusiasts and staunch abortion opponents.

You can't give so much money to Republicans and claim you are a bipartisan group. SF is a Republican money funnel; Rhee can no longer pretend otherwise.

Thanks NJEA For the Shout-Out!

I want to thank my union, NJEA, for giving this blog a nice shout-out in this month's NJEA Review.

One of the most important functions of public employee unions is to protect their members' right to free speech - especially political speech. I appreciate that NJEA protects my right, and the right of my colleagues, to express our views without fear of retribution at our jobs.

And thanks to NJEA for including me on a list with such luminaries as Diane Ravitch, Bruce Baker, and Valerie Strauss. It's high praise indeed to be named alongside with these great writers and education advocates. Same with NJ Spotlight, which remains the best reporting outlet on education in the state.

If you're just visiting for the first time, welcome; I hope you'll find the pieces here worth your time. If you've been reading for a while, thanks for your support!

And if you're a teacher: be proud. You are America's last, best hope.

Democrats Wake Up About Rhee

Well, it's about time:

Michelle Rhee, the fiery former Washington, D.C.,school chancellor, has danced a tricky tango since starting her national advocacy and lobbying group, StudentsFirst, in December 2010.

Rhee purported to be the face of a bipartisan movement to "transform education," while simultaneously battling Democratic teachers unions and appearing chummy in photo ops with conservative Republican governors like Rick Scott (Fla.) or John Kasich (Ohio).

All the while, a small cadre of influential Democrats stood behind her, helping her craft messages on things like her positions on unions (that they are entitled to collective bargaining on salary issues), and trying to fend off attacks from the progressive community (one in particular thwacked her explicitly for her right-wing contacts). But in the last few months, these Democrats -- including the group's vice president of communications, Hari Sevugan, as first reported by education blogger Alexander Russo -- have left the group, ceding control to a group of new hires, including president Kahlil Byrd.

Dmitri Mehlhorn, the group's former CEO, has left to lead Bloomberg Law. Mike Phillips, who served as Rhee's chief of staff for communications, took a leave of absence this fall to work on Sen. Chris Murphy's (D-Conn.) campaign, but ultimately never rejoined. Tali Stein, a former Hillary Clinton fundraiser who led StudentsFirst's development, left two months ago to focus on other projects. Ximena Hartsock, a Democratic lobbyist, also left.

"There were known to be some significant differences on political strategy and policy matters, especially in StudentsFirst's approach toward unions and partisanship," said a source close to the education reform community who declined to be named in order to preserve working relationships. [emphasis mine]

Golly, you mean StudentFirst and Michele Rhee are hostile toward teachers unions?! Who knew?

Of course, anyone who's paid attention to Rhee knows she's in the tank for the GOP, especially when it comes to state-level races:

Rhee makes a point of applauding “leaders in both parties and across the ideological spectrum” because her own political success — and the success of school reform — depends upon the bipartisan reputation she has fashioned. But 90 of the 105 candidates backed by StudentsFirst were Republicans, including Tea Party enthusiasts and staunch abortion opponents. And Rhee’s above-the-fray bona fides have come under heavy fire as progressives and teachers unions increasingly cast the school reform movement, which has become virtually synonymous with Rhee’s name, as politically conservative and corporate-funded.

The notion that Michelle Rhee is bipartisan is laughable. Yes, she'll throw a bone every now and then to a Democrat if his or her election is a foregone conclusion; that's a great way to push vouchers or charters or other reformy nonsense. But the big bucks are flowing to the Republicans - especially Republicans who run races in opposition to Democratic candidates who are actually working teachers.

Students First is now a conservative, right-wing adjunct to the Republican party. Any Democratic support it gives is a cheap feint to keep suckers in the "moderate" wing of the Democratic Party on the leash, salivating at the thought of getting their chops around the tasty billionaire money Rhee has amassed to buy off legislators.

But the Dems who fall for this bait are idiots:

The departures from SF were followed by a series of confused public messaging. When blogger Russo asked about the group's position on Michigan's right-to-work legislation, a representative first responded by saying "the debate over collective bargaining is demonstrative of what's wrong with education policy generally -- it's focused on the needs and rights of adults instead of what's best for students." The group later sent Russo two updates, with one noting the former position.

Similarly, after the Newtown shooting, the group first told HuffPost reporter Dave Jamieson it declined to take a position on a Missouri bill that would allow concealed firearms in schools. The group then followed up with a letter from Rhee opposing the legislation.

Rhee's initial anemic response to Newtown was a disgrace. She couldn't even muster a single word of praise for the six educators who died trying to save the beautiful children of Sandy Hook Elementary; apparently, that's OK, while pointing out those courageous educators were unions members is not. Rhee's cautious words in the face of this tragedy spoke volumes about where her loyalties lie. I guess the progressives who had deluded themselves about what StudentsFirsts's real mission is just had enough:

"They were able to talk the talk that it is bipartisan," said Kombiz Lavasany, who directs strategic campaigns for the American Federation of Teachers, a union Rhee has sparred with. "But [after things like the guns episode] … I can see how it would be harder and harder for the Democrats to work there." 

When asked about a potential switch in focus and messaging, Byrd said, "Our focus is to pass good laws and policy around the country."

But others were more blunt about the shift. "It gets tiresome to have to defend who we are," said a senior SF officer, who declined to speak on the record.

I would imagine it does. Good on the folks who are walking away from Rhee's partisan, conservative political machine. Let's see if Democratic politicians also wise up and see this woman and her right-wing lobbying outfit for what it really is.

Republican? Moi?

BTW: Kudos to Joy Resmovits for this reporting; more like this!

Joel Klein: As Excellent As He Says He Is? Part III

Joel Klein is one of America's foremost proponents of corporate education "reform." He asserts that public education is in such a crisis that it constitutes a national security threat - a threat that can be dealt with by buying technology from the firm he runs for Rupert Murdoch, Amplify. He also believes that the "reforms" he and Mayor Michael Bloomberg instituted in New York City - including mayoral control, school closings, charter expansion, and test-based teacher evaluations - should be replicated across the country, based on what he terms the "compelling" improvements made under his tenure.

But does the record support his claims? What is the legacy of Joel Klein in New York City? I'm looking at the evidence to see if the facts support Klein's boasts. Here's the series so far:

Part I: Joel Klein has no problem twisting the facts to suit his ends. Has he done the same thing when crowing about his "success" in New York?

Part II: When you break down national test scores by student subgroups, Klein's "success" in New York isn't very impressive; in fact, it's downright disappointing.


Once again, here are Joel Klein's claims about New York City's improvements on national tests under his tenure as chancellor:

Finally, on the federal tests — the National Assessment of Educational Progress — which are taken on a sampled basis every couple of years, the city showed improvement on each of the four tests — with significant improvement on three of them. 

Indeed, in the fourth grade, the city’s students today are about a year ahead of where they were in reading and math when Bloomberg started.

Now there are two things to consider here: first, is what Klein is saying true? Second, if it is true, does it matter? In other words, even if New York City's students made "significant improvement" on the NAEP, can those improvements be attributed to Klein and Bloomberg's policies?

In Part II of this series, I related an analysis of NYC's NAEP scores by Leonie Haimson and Elli Marcus that broke down the student population into several different subgroups and compared NYC with nine other large cities around the country. From this view, NYC's progress on the test is not very impressive; some groups, like non-poor 8th Graders, actually lost ground under Klein.

But what if we looked at the total average scores on the NAEP? Compared to other big cities, did NYC get better gains? Using the NAEP Data Explorer, let's take a look. The data tool allows us to compare NYC to the nine other large cities for which we have NAEP data going back to 2003.

We'll start with 4th Grade, where Klein claims students have made impressive gains:

Well, NYC started off as one of the better large cities, and ended there as well. Yes, there were some gains... but not really any better than any other city:

Was there a gain? Yes. Is that gain any more impressive than the other major cities? No, not really. It's important to understand that even poor old Cleveland made gains on this test; that suggests the gains New York City had can be attributed to national-level factors, and not to any specific policies the city implemented. Considering how mediocre NYC has been compared to its national sister cities, it makes no sense to me that Klein can claim "compelling" evidence for the success of his policies.

Let's look at 4th Grade reading:

Yes, some gains -  but anemic gains, as compared to other cities. NYC is not in Charlotte's league on overall scores, and not in Atlanta's league when it comes to gains.

I've got the charts for 8th Grade below, and they even more unimpressive. Yes, NYC made some gains, but they are even weaker, in comparison to other cities, than the 4th Grade gains.

Let's stop here and acknowledge something important: we don't even know if these gains are educationally significant. Yes, according to some, a 10-point gain on the NAEP is very roughly equal to a year's worth of learning (I have a problem with this assertion, but we'll save that discussion for another day). But demographic and other changes could be as responsible for score changes in New York as anything else. And there may be issues with the test itself and the way it's scored that lead us to believe the gains are smaller than what the test scores report.

This is a long discussion for another day. What clear from both my analysis and the paper by Haimson and Marcus is this: under Joel Klein and Michael Bloomberg, New York City's NAEP scores did not increase as much as in many other major cities in the United States.

Now, Klein may argue that he NYC shouldn't be compared to Boston or San Diego; a more apt comparison would be to the other cities in New York State. I'll tackle this topic next; until then, here are the 8th Grade score comparisons:

"Compelling"? Meh...

This isn't going so well...

It's Official: Charters are NOT Public Schools

The National Labor Relations Board gives its verdict: charter schools are NOT public schools!

Teachers at a Chicago charter school are now subject to private-sector labor laws, rather than state laws governing public workers. The move could impact how public schools are run down the road.

The ruling, made by the National Labor Relations Board last month, said the Chicago Math and Science Academy is a “private entity” and therefore covered under the federal law governing the private sector.

The decision overrules a vote taken by teachers last year to form a union in accordance with the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act. At the time, two-thirds of teachers at the school approved the union and it became official under state law.  

But school managers wanted to follow federal labor law, which among other things would require a vote by secret ballot.

“This case was really about whether you organize via one method or another,” said Andrew Broy, director of the Illinois Network of Charter Schools. “It wasn’t about you can organize at all, whether you can bust unions, or anything like that.” [emphasis mine]

Oh, no, of course not! Everyone loves the teachers unions! It's not like reformies blame them for every problem under the sun or anything!

No, the issue here is that charter teachers are held to different labor standards than traditional public school teachers. But that doesn't mean that charter teachers aren't equal to public school employees! No, it just means that some public employees are more equal than others!

Still, the case was watched closely by unions and charter supporters across the country. Several groups, including the American Federation of Labor and the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools filed briefs.

That’s because charter schools are publicly-funded, but privately-run. The public-private, hybrid nature of charter schools creates a number of gray areas when it comes to accountability and governance.

In many ways, they are like government contractors, said James Powers, the attorney representing CMSA. A school district signs a contract with a private group, usually a non-profit organization, to run a school and allocates public money based on the number of students served.

No, they aren't "like" government contractors - they are contractors. They are no different than Halliburton, and they pay to manipulate policy and politicians in exactly the same way as defense contractors.

Apart from the legal ramifications, deeming a charter schools as "private" adds fuels to the debate over the future of traditional public schools. 

A spokesman for the Chicago Alliance of Charter School Teachers and Staff, which helped CMSA teachers organize, said they are still analyzing the ruling to determine what impact it could have on existing charter school unions and future organizing efforts.

Both sides said it's still a gray issue.

“This technical area of labor relations is one that’s developing,” Broy said. “This is a chapter of it, but it will continue in the coming weeks, and months, and years to be an issue, both here in Chicago and nationally.”

Sorry, but it's not gray in the slightest. Charters are not subject to the same oversight, accountability, and legislation as public schools. They don't have to take every student who shows up at their door at any time of year. They don't have to serve the same population of students as their neighboring public schools: often, they don't.

And now we know charter school teachers are subject to different laws - laws governing private companies - than public school teachers.

The next time some reformy charter cheerleader tries to tell you that charters are public schools, tell them the federal government already settled the issue:

Charters are not public schools.

The debate is over.

ADDING: Oh, my...

Boy, that privatization is working out so awesome, ain't it?

Millionaires' Spawn to Teachers & Cops: Suck It!

I just saw this about the latest fiscal cliff deal. And you people have got to be freakin' kidding me:

As for estate taxes, the rates will rise from 35 percent to 40 percent for estates valued at over $5 million dollars, however the Republicans did succeed in building in a provision which allows the amount of the exemption (currently five million dollars) to be indexed to the rate of inflation. [emphasis mine]

Because we have to make sure the spawn of our millionaires aren't paying more than they might owe due to inflation: that would be horrible!

Of course, middle-class retirees will have to take one for the team:

In a victory for Gov. Chris Christie’s pension revisions, a Superior Court judge has ruled that about 800,000 retired public employees are not entitled to increases based on the cost of living.

The ruling by Superior Court Judge Douglas Hurd in Mercer County affects all current and future retirees in pension systems funded by the state, including state workers and judges as well as local police, firefighters and teachers.

The pension law the governor signed last June says current and future retirees will not get any cost of living adjustments — better known as COLAS — until the pension funds become stable, which is not expected until at least 2040.

[...]

"Its impact is not only on these existing retirees... but also on a huge number of future employees," said David Fox, an attorney representing the Probation Association of New Jersey, the Newark Firemen’s Union and other unions,

Fox said one of his clients, a retired Newark firefighter, was collecting a pension of nearly $23,000 when he ended his career with the department about 25 years ago. With cost-of-living adjustments, the retiree now collects nearly $48,000 annually. [emphasis mine]

There you go: millionaire rug-rats will get their exemption for estate taxes indexed to inflation. But cops and firefighters and teachers must surrender that indexing on their pensions, to which they were forced to contribute.

Welcome to America, ladies and gentlemen! A country where we make sure to look out for the interests of sperm lottery winners like Paris Hilton. But retired public employees who spent their careers running into burning buildings?

Suck it, leeches!

America speaks! Inflation adjustments for her...

but not for them.

What's that, George? You have something to add?



Yep.

Joel Klein: As Excellent As He Says He Is? Part II

So I was going to wait a bit before the next post in my series about Joel Klein's claims of educational success during his tenure as the head of New York City's schools. But then the terrific Leonie Haimson reminded me that her group, Class Size Matters, had already done an outstanding analysis of NYC's standing in national test scores last year. Let's get their work on the record before we proceed.

We'll start by going back to Klein's claims about how NYC did on the National Assessment of Education Progress, the "gold standard" for measurement of student progress. What does Klein claim as his legacy, as measured by the NAEP?

Finally, on the federal tests — the National Assessment of Educational Progress — which are taken on a sampled basis every couple of years, the city showed improvement on each of the four tests — with significant improvement on three of them. 

Indeed, in the fourth grade, the city’s students today are about a year ahead of where they were in reading and math when Bloomberg started.

Before I get to the analysis by Leonie and Elli Marcus, let's stipulate something important: it's not enough for Klein to show gains in NYC's tests to make the claim that his policies improved outcomes. If students across the country were showing gains, then there must have been changes at the national level that led to those gains (or changes in the tests). Klein can't claim credit for those changes: he should have to show that NYC's students did better than comparable students around the nation.

Did they?

Despite the DOE’s claims of great progress when the latest NAEP scores were released in December, our analysis shows that NYC came out next to last among the ten large cities tested over this period, plus the large city category (all cities above 250,000 inhabitants) when the gains of our racial, ethnic and economic subgroups are averaged and compared to their peers elsewhere. The only city to make less progress was Cleveland. 

The gains in NYC have been particularly minimal among White, Hispanic, and non-free lunch students, all of whom dropped in their relative position compared to these same subgroups in other cities – falling especially sharply at the 8th grade level. White students made the smallest gains compared to their peers in other cities in both 8th grade reading and math; Hispanics in 8th grade math. In fact, Asians were the only NYC subgroup to increase their relative ranking at any level, compared to their peers in other cities. 

The performance of non-poor students has been particularly disastrous. NYC is only city in which our non-poor students scored lower in 2011 than in 2003 in any category. The proficiency levels of NYC non-poor students also dropped sharply in both 8th grade reading and math. (This is the one point extracted from our analysis in today’s Daily News, though the article fails to attribute its source. The article also featured the DOE’s claim to have improved results for non-poor students; though this group also made fewer gains than their peers in many other cities over this period.) [emphasis mine]

Did NYC make improvements on the NAEP under Joel Klein? Sure. Were those improvements better - or even just as good - as improvements in other large American cities? No, they were not.

I urge you to click through and read this entire analysis. I ask you to pay especially close attention to this:

What else do our findings suggest? Clearly, mayoral control is no panacea, as the two cities that have made the least progress since 2003 on the NAEPs, NYC and Cleveland, both feature this governance system. Moreover, the administration’s free-market strategies of high-stakes accountability, school report cards, “fair student funding”, principal empowerment, and the closing of more than one hundred schools & the opening of more than 400 new schools and charters, while allowing class sizes to increase, have not worked to increase student achievement compared to cities elsewhere. [emphasis mine]

Too bad no one thought to mention this while Detroit, New Orleans, Newark - and New York City - suffer under a lack of local control...

I'll have more to say about Klein's claims of NAEP success in a bit. For now, Haimson and Marcus have shown quite clearly that Klein's claims are, at best, very overstated.

OK, I'll give you ONE point...

Joel Klein: As Excellent As He Says He Is? Part I

I and many others spent a good deal of time last year documenting the real legacy of Michelle Rhee. This is important work: Rhee occupies an outsized place in the current debate about education "reform," largely based on claims of her own success, both as a teacher and as Chancellor of Washington, D.C.'s schools.

Thanks to the close scrutiny of Gary Brandenburg, Bob Somerby, Matt DiCarlo, Dana Goldstein, Diane Ravitch, USA Today, and others, we now know the true story: Rhee was never a miracle worker. She was, at best, an average new teacher (meaning she had a long way to go) and a mediocre large-city superintendent when judged by student achievement (when judged by other criteria, she was clearly a trainwreck).

It's important to get this on the record, because the anti-teacher and anti-union "reforms" Rhee implemented in D.C. - the very ones she wants to impose on the rest of the country - did nothing to affect large-scale changes in educational outcomes. Rhee's argument for "reform" is, in fact, undercut by her own history.

I say that it's time to start applying this same level of examination to other prominent members of the corporate "reform" movement. When they make claims of big successes, those claims ought to be vetted very carefully: after all, why should we listen to what they have to say about holding educators accountable if they aren't held to account themelves?

Which brings us to Joel Klein.

Klein was Chancellor of the New York City schools under Mayor Bloomberg from 2002 to 2010. He is now running Amplify, the education arm of Rupert Murdoch's corporate empire. His resume has given him great influence in the media as a spokesman for corporate "reform," which, in Klein's view, should include buying his techie edu-products.

Klein has an unfortunate habit of twisting the facts to suit his fancy:

- This past year, Klein co-wrote the infamous report on education for the Council on Foreign Relations with Condoleezza Rice. The two attempted to make the case that America's public school system posed a national security risk; they conveniently downplay the United States' 22 percent child poverty rate as the true cause of inequitable educational outcomes. Reportedly, Klein stacked the deck for the report, vetoing Diane Ravitch as a member of the task force turning down a suggestion that Ravitch testify before the task force*.

- Klein gave a presentation to potential investors in Amplify where he conflated data on school spending with educational outcomes. As I showed, his presentation was totally phony. Klein tried to show that American gains in reading and math were flat while spending was on the rise:

Using the exact same data, I reconstructed his chart to show exactly the opposite:

This is a shameless abuse of statistics and speaks volumes about Klein's willingness to twist facts to meet his own ends.

- In a stunning personal embarrassment, esteemed education researcher Richard Rothstein showed how Klein has dissembled badly about his own childhood and schooling. Klein uses his personal story as "proof" that poverty does not matter in educational outcomes, and that bad teachers are far more responsible for the "achievement gap" than socio-economic factors. Rothstein shows that, in fact, Klein grew up in middle-class surroundings with educated parents and a public education system that served him well.

So we know that Joel Klein is happy to take a spin when it suits his purposes. That gives us more than enough reason to take a look at his claims about his legacy in New York City. Fortunately - and thanks to a heads-up from the great edublogger Gary Rubinstein - Klein has put those claims together in a piece that appeared in the New York Daily News this past fall:

Critics are entitled to their opinions. But they are not entitled to their own facts. The results under Bloomberg are irrefutably and demonstrably strong. 

Independent studies by respected researchers like Caroline Hoxby and Margaret Raymond at Stanford, James Kemple at the Research Alliance and the independent public policy institute MDRC all support this conclusion. So do the numbers, which the critics conveniently ignore. 

There are three sets of relevant systemic metrics: high school graduation rates, state test exams in grades 4 and 8 for reading and math and federal exams for the same grades and subjects.

OK, then: the gauntlet has been thrown. Do Joel Klein's claims stand up to scrutiny? Did the policies he implemented in New York City lead to improvements in graduation rates, state test scores, and federal test scores?

Two things before we get started:

1) Klein himself is setting the standard for "relevancy" here. I frankly think there are many other things we should look at besides these three metrics, but let's leave it at these for now.

2) It's not enough, in this challenge, to show that New York City made gains. If NYC got caught up in nationwide or statewide trends that led to better outcomes, Klein shouldn't be able to take undue credit for them. The real question is whether Klein's policies in NYC led to more gains than in other jurisdictions.

So those are the conditions. It's going to take a few posts to put this all together. Ready? Stand by...

Bring it on...

* A correction: Ravitch wasn't suggested as a member of the task force, but a member did suggest she testify. Klein said no.