NJ Pays High Cost For Bad Teacher Evaluation

New Jersey's new teacher evaluation system -- code name: Operation Hindenburg -- is not cheap. Superintendents around the state have been warning us about this for a while: the costs of this inflexible system are going to impose a significant financial burden on districts, making this a wasteful, unfunded mandate.

But if you don't believe me, and you don't believe these superintendents, why not listen to a couple of scholars who have produced definitive proof of the exorbitantly high costs of AchieveNJ:

In 2012, the New Jersey State Legislature passed and the Governor signed into law the Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey (TEACHNJ) Act. This brief examines the following questions about the impact of this law: 

• What is the effect of intensifying the teacher evaluation process on the time necessary for administrators to conduct observations in accordance with the new teacher evaluation regulations in New Jersey? 

• In what ways do the demands of the new teacher evaluation system impact various types of school districts, and does this impact ameliorate or magnify existing inequities? 

We find the following: 

On average, the minimum amount of time dedicated solely to classroom observations will increase by over 35%. It is likely that the other time requirements for compliance with the new evaluation system, such as pre- and post-conferences, observation write- ups, and scheduling will increase correspondingly. 

The new evaluation system is highly sensitive to existing faculty-to-administrator ratios, and a tremendous range of these ratios exists in New Jersey school districts across all operating types, sizes, and District Factor Groups. There is clear evidence that a greater burden is placed on districts with high faculty-to-administrator ratios by the TEACHNJ observation regulations. There is a weak correlation between per-pupil expenditures and faculty-to-administrator ratios.

The change in administrative workload will increase more in districts with a greater proportion of tenured teachers because of the additional time required for observations of this group under the new law. 

The increased burden the TEACHNJ Act imposes on administrators’ time in some districts may compromise their ability to thoroughly and properly evaluate their teachers. In districts where there are not adequate resources to ensure administrators have enough time to conduct evaluations, there is an increased likelihood of substantive due process concerns in personnel decisions such as the denial or termination of tenure. [emphasis mine]

I need to clarify something here: TEACHNJ is the tenure reform law that says an "...employee [must] receive multiple observations during the school year which shall be used in evaluating the employee." No one has a problem with that; no, this issue is with AchieveNJ -- Operation Hindenburg -- which is the NJDOE's scheme for implementation of TEACHNJ. This innumerate, illogical disaster of a plan is the real problem - and it's going to cost your school district plenty.

It's important to understand why the NJDOE under Former Acting Commissioner Cerf went down this road. AchieveNJ is based on two premises:

1. There are hordes of bad teachers roaming the halls of our public schools, which explains both why there is an "achievement gap" and why, as the Former Acting Commissioner used to say, there are suburban schools that are "a little bit too satisfied with how they are doing." (The cure for this, of course, is to call up Cerf's new company and buy a bunch of tablets that have chargers that melt and cracked screens).
2. You can't trust principals and superintendents to do their jobs; therefore, you need a rigid, top-down evaluation system like AchieveNJ to force administrators to spend their time in ways that the NJDOE, and not the administrators themselves, see fit.

#1 is a transparently foolish positon, obvious to everyone except ignorant newspaper editors, ignorant Secretaries of Education, and executives in the education-industrial complex like Cerf's snake oil salesman boss, Joel Klein. When these people actually present some evidence -- not an economist's fantasy, but evidence -- that our biggest education policy problem is that we have too many "bad" teachers, give me a call.

#2, however, is the real issue with AchieveNJ as far as cost is concerned. Because the system is forcing administrators to spend their time in inflexible ways, supervisors of teachers must waste their time with the teachers they aren't concerned about, at the expense of time with teachers that they should be concerned about.

Imagine a principal with a staff that somehow magically matches the Hanushekian pipe dream of 5 percent "bad" teachers. That principal would love to spend her time with that 1 teacher out of 20 who really needs supervision, guidance, assistance, and yes, possibly removal. But she can't: AchieveNJ forces her to spend more time with #1 through #19, whether that is a good use of her time or not.

The only reason NJDOE wants this is that they don't trust administrators to identify poor teachers: somehow, scads of these losers are escaping the attention of these principals' feeble little minds. So everyone must be overly scrutinized, no matter whether they need to be or not.

AchieveNJ is a policy born of inherent mistrust: mistrust of administrators to do their jobs. And the price for this mistrust is inefficiency.

The authors of this brief are giving fair warning to us all about what's going to happen next:

The increased burden the TEACHNJ Act imposes on administrators’ time could

compromise their ability to thoroughly and properly evaluate their teachers. This is very troubling, given the fact that the law provides that evaluations will impact personnel decisions such as tenure denials and tenure terminations. Basing personnel decisions on evaluations that are not thorough or rushed raises substantive due process concerns under the United States Constitution. [emphasis mine]

When the first firings occur under TEACHNJ, watch out: the lawsuits will swarm like mosquitos on a hot summer's day. And all for a plan that has no evidence to back up the claim that it will help student achievement. 

Oh, the humanity...

AchieveNJ

code name: Operation Hindenburg

ADDING: As if on cue...

NJEA President Wendell Steinhauer delivered a blunt warning to the State Board of Education today: “Take a stand in favor of doing evaluation the right way, before it collapses under its own weight because we insisted on doing it the fast way.”

To underscore the point, Steinhauer hand-delivered 1,037 letters from concerned educators and parents to a board hearing in Trenton. The letters, which detail problems ranging from the overuse of standardized tests to the bungled implementation of the new evaluation system and the Common Core State Standards, were gathered online over the past several weeks.

“These letters were submitted as evidence that the New Jersey Department of Education is rushing to do too many things at once and is failing to do any of them well,” said Steinhauer.  NJEA is calling on the Department of Education to slow down implementation of the new testing and evaluation systems in order to fix significant flaws and ensure that they work appropriately.

But... but... but... THEY PRAYED FOR CHRISTIE'S DEATH! AHHHHHH!!!!!

Chris Cerf's Final Spin: Mt. Olive

So yesterday was the first day of the rest of Chris Cerf's life: the former NJ Education Commissioner left his post to take a job at Amplify, the Rupert Murdoch-owned company run by former NYCDOE Chancellor (and Cerf's former boss) Joel Klein. Amplify sells tablet computers designed, among other things, to help districts prepare their students for the Common Core-based tests Cerf has pushed so vigorously.

This raised more than a few eyebrows in New Jersey, especially given all the troubles Chris Christie has been facing. How could anyone be sure, after all, that Cerf wasn't using his connections and influence as the outgoing commissioner to drive business to Amplify? Not to worry: Cerf himself said everything was just hunky-dorey:

Cerf said he doesn’t know of any specific contracts Amplify has with New Jersey schools, though he said the company has none with the state of New Jersey. "I can’t say with any measure of certainty now, but I suspect the answer is yes. They serve over 3 million students in 50 states," Cerf said.

Cerf said there are regulations in place that prevent him from trading on his connections, including soliciting business, and he pledged to follow them. But he scoffed at the notion he shouldn’t take a job in the private sector.

"McGraw Hill and Pearson and Apple and IBM have contracts," with school districts, he said. "That’s where the rules come into play." [emphasis mine]

Except, as I argued earlier, those rules are so lax and poorly enforced they may as well not even be in place. But let's leave that aside and concentrate for a minute on Cerf's contention that he's really not sure if Amplify is doing business in New Jersey: "I can’t say with any measure of certainty now, but I suspect the answer is yes."

Now, I haven't spent as much time zipping back and forth between the public and the private sector as Mr. Cerf. But it strikes me that if I was the commissioner, and a private company offered me a job, the first thing I'd do is find out what contracts they have with districts in my state. Especially if I was in protracted conversations with my future employer, which Cerf admitted to NJ Spotlight was the case:

“Frankly, this opportunity arose unsolicited, and I fended it off for quite some time, ” he added. And it just became increasingly intriguing for me, and fulfilled an objective I had for the last part of my career, which was to really think about ways to enhance public education through personalized learning and other solutions.” [emphasis mine]

So we are to believe that during this "quite some time" Cerf didn't bother to find out whether Amplify had business in New Jersey. That Cerf didn't know, as Bob Braun has reported, that the Newark Public Schools -- a state-controlled district -- has a multi-million dollar contract with Amplify. That he didn't know, as the Jersey Journal reported, that the Jersey City Public Schools -- another state-controlled district -- was conducting a pilot program using Amplify products. OK...

I suppose this was yet another oversight:

MOUNT OLIVE TWP. – The school district is continuing its inexorable march toward the time when books will be a quaint memory to students.

 

The latest technological advance involves the district’s purchase of 450 computer tablets for use by all freshmen and their teachers.

The tablets, made by Amplify of New York City, cost the district around $200,000, according to Schools Superintendent Larrie Reynolds.

 

“I can see the day when there won’t be any textbooks,” Reynolds said. “Everything will be on a tablet.”

Hamilton said Amplify will continually provide online and on-sight technical support. He said the Amplify system is the most advanced school system on the market.   

He said the district hopes to provide tablets to all students over the next three years.

[...] 

The tablets were first introduced at the 2013 South By Southwest EDU Conference in Austin, Texas. Mount Olive is the first district in the state to use the tablets. [emphasis mine]

This article is from back before the 2013-14 school year started. Mt. Olive is the first district in NJ to use Amplify products. And it just slipped Cerf's mind that Mt. Olive had bought the tablets, and was looking to purchase more -- even though Cerf has worked closely for years with Larrie Reynolds, the superintendent of Mt. Olive.

And, no, I don't mean they passed each other in the halls; I mean they've worked closely together in the past. Here's Bob Braun again, all the way back in 2011 when he was at the Star-Ledger:  

Public education in New Jersey has been roiled recently by conflicts over charter schools, vouchers and "virtual" schools — but, now, a new type of privatization is on the horizon: allowing public schools to contract with a private company to offer "alternative" education.

The idea has been promoted to school superintendents by one of their own, Mount Olive schools chief Larrie Reynolds. He says it could bring extra income both to cash-strapped school districts and to a private, Dubai-based company for which he works as a consultant.

Reynolds is a friend and former employee and business associate of acting Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf. Reynolds, who calls Cerf a "magnificent man," recently appeared with Cerf and Gov. Chris Christie on a panel to discuss school reform.

Cerf says he knows Reynolds was "in the early stages of thinking about a program that would serve alternative education students drawn from multiple districts." He says he is unaware "of the specifics of his ideas." 

Cerf has known Reynolds for years — hired him twice — and the relationship provides a glimpse not just into the growing political brawl over privatization, but also into the network of entrepreneurs who use longstanding contacts in both government and the private sector to try to make money on what had been a public monopoly. 

Under Reynolds’s plan, a company he says that he represents as a consultant — GEMS Education — would help a school district apply to the commissioner to become a "district of choice" under a newly expanded inter-district choice law, allowing it to admit students from other communities. The law gives the commissioner the power of approval.

[...]

He also is president of Sangari Active Science, a subsidiary of Sangari Global Education, a company once run by Cerf. Reynolds also headed Newton Learning, a division of Edison Schools, a private education management company Cerf served as chief operating officer. 

[emphasis mine]

A little over a year ago, I wrote about the relationship between Reynolds and Cerf. It turns out the "alternative education" Reynolds wanted was a variation on the increasingly popular Interdistrict Choice program. The problem, according to a report in the Mt. Olive Chronicle, was that Reynolds plan fundamentally changed the purpose of Interdistrict choice, at least according to the legislator who wrote the law, Mila Jasey.

Mt. Olive eventually withdrew its application, and the district gave up potentially $2 million in revenue. Further: you won't find Mt. Olive listed as one of the participating choice districts for 2014-15, and Sunset Academy is now a twice-a-week after school credit recovery program (at first glance, that looks to be a good idea). So it appears that NJDOE bent over backwards to get Reynolds's program approved, but he didn't go through with it after all.

Maybe that's because Reynolds was so busy this year turning Mt. Olive into the poster child school district for Amplify:

Right from the district's website: "herald a new era of learning" and all that. You can scroll down and find Amplify promotional materials hosted on the district's own website -- not links to Amplify's servers, but the school district's. Of course, you can go over to Amplify's website and read all about the Mt. Olive program as well. I'd show you the picture of Mt. Olive's kids wearing Amplify t-shirts, but that might violate some intellectual property laws or something.

Let's stop a minute and regroup. There is nothing wrong with a school district giving a contract to a tech provider. There's a nothing wrong with using tech in the classroom; I do it all the time, and I'll be the first to admit it's the wave of the future. I don't know the Amplify products from squat: maybe they're fantastic (although I will always be wary of anything that comes out of the same corporate mothership as Fox News and the NY Post). But let's be clear:

Cerf, by his own admission, "fended off for quite some time" the offer to come to Amplify. Cerf and Larrie Reynolds have known each other and worked together for years. Reynolds's district, Mt. Olive, is the first in the state to use Amplify tablets. Cerf implied he didn't know specifically that the largest and second largest districts in New Jersey have deals with Amplify. Now he wants us to believe he didn't know about a similar deal with Mt. Olive, whose superintendent he has known and worked with for years and who calls him a "magnificent man."

Uh-huh.

Once again, The Asbury Park Press:

Let’s start with Cerf’s new job, as CEO of Amplify Insight, an education firm self-described as providing professional services to help teachers assess student needs and determine progress. Cerf has said that he doesn’t see any ethical conflicts and that he’s not even sure if his new company already is doing business with New Jersey schools. Fact is, however, that as commissioner, Cerf has been busy propping up the controversial new “Common Core” standards for testing students and evaluating teachers that many believe are being rushed into place, at high costs and with uncertain benefits.

If school districts struggle with the implementation of the new standards, and test results plummet as a result of a mishandled transition, guess which company would be able to exploit those struggles by offering its services? Amplify Insight. A two-year ban on Cerf and Amplify doing any business with New Jersey schools should be in order with Cerf on board.

Except it might be a little too late for Mt. Olive, Jersey City, and Newark...

We'll get to the incoming Education Commissioner, David Hespe, in due time. But let's take one last moment to appreciate the legacy Chris Cerf leaves behind here in New Jersey. Because I really can't think of a better story than this one to sum up the last three years.

All the best, Mr. Cerf.

Christopher Cerf, NJ Education Commissioner, 2011-2014.

Cami Anderson's Apologists' Ignorant Arguments

Sigh...

Remember when Facebook (FB) founder Mark Zuckerberg joined forces in 2011 with New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie and Newark’s Democratic Mayor Cory Booker to revive the city’s troubled public schools?

They ended up selecting Cami Anderson as the city’s superintendent of schools, and two and half year later she has had some successes. She closed nearly empty schools in a city that has lost 37 percent of its population since 1950. Last year she negotiated a landmark contract with the teachers unions enabling the district toaward the best instructors with merit pay. Fittingly, Christie reappointed Anderson last year to oversee the district, which has been under state control since 1995 because of its history of corruption and poor educational results. [emphasis mine]

Let's paused a sec and acknowledge a few things. First: it's not like there haven't been any school closings between 1950 and now; in fact, Anderson closed four K-8 schools and two 9th Grade academies in 2012. So that "37 percent" comment isn't much relevant to the discussion.

Second: as I have said multiple times, the Newark merit pay program is a sham. Teachers are getting, at best, a small fraction of what they were promised, and highly-effective teachers are more likely to be found out of the merit pay pool than in it.

But the most illogical part of this is what I highlighted at the end: if the district has "poor educational results," isn't that the fault of the state, which has been running the district for nearly two decades? Doesn't it make sense that the good people of Newark would want control of their schools back, given the state's failure? Doesn't it make sense that they would reject the state's superintendent if there is a history of "poor educational results" under state control?

Of course, in a media outlet like Bloomberg Businessweek, we would never bother discussing the real reason that Newark's schools remain under control of the state:

I'll skip some similar ignorance in this piece and get to the heart of the matter:

Where are Anderson’s main supporters? Zuckerberg has been silent. Christie has apparently been too busy with the Bridgegate fallout to speak up. Even Booker, now a U.S. senator, has been uncharacteristically quiet.

There are reasons why it might be a good idea of them to keep their heads down: They might make things worse. Even before the bridge scandal, Christie was highly unpopular in Newark, which is a Democratic stronghold. If Zuckerberg were to speak up, it might fuel conspiracy theories that billionaire outsiders are scheming to take over the city’s schools. (Yes, people actually say that kind of thing in Newark.)

Golly, where ever would they get that idea...

via Mark Smith, aka MarkDCNJ

I mean, it's not like the Tisch family gave Cory Booker lots of dough to run for mayor while Andrew Tisch was chairman of a charter school management company! Oh, wait... (and in case you don't trust crazy teacher-bloggers, click here.)

That said, Devin Leonard -- almost in spite of himself -- makes a good point. The folks who are Anderson's biggest boosters have been pretty much mute during her current troubles:

Booker’s absence from the debate is more puzzling. He was elected overwhelmingly last year to serve the remainder of the late Frank Lautenberg’s senate term. Booker is in no danger of losing his seat when he runs for reelection in November. Surely, he could spend a bit of his political capital in defense of Anderson.

The truth is that these guys need to step up because, with the exception of the Newark Star-Ledger, nobody else is publicly defending Anderson. Their silence emboldens Anderson’s foes in their efforts to thwart her reforms. As Anderson recently pointed out, her initiatives are working: Newark’s graduation rate has risen 10 percent.

Folks, this is as good an example as you will find of how truly lazy the reformy punditocracy has become on education. Leonard uses Anderson herself as his source for the claim that the graduation rate rose 10 percent. But if he had bothered to read the post by Anderson he links to, he'd find she claims the graduation rates have climbed "10 points," not 10 percent. And that's actually not true, according to the NJDOE:

2013 Adjusted Cohort Grad Rate: 67.70%
2012 Adjusted Cohort Grad Rate:  68.72%
2011 Adjusted Cohort Grad Rate: 61.26%

Anderson was appointed in May of 2011; since that time, the graduation rate has climbed 6.44 points. OK, that's about 10 percent of 61.26% -- but's that's not what Anderson said. She said, "10 points," which is not correct.

But you know what? I feel silly quibbling over numbers like this anyway. Does anyone really think Cami Anderson put in place policies that made the graduation rate climb within her first year in office? Is there anyone out there that really believes Anderson hit the ground running so darn hard that she magically boosted Newark's graduation rates that much, that quickly?

Certainly not the Star-Ledger, which Leonard praises for defending Anderson:

The big jump in Newark’s graduation rate — from 61 percent to 69 percent — stood out in the state’s newly released statistics. It’s certainly cause for optimism.

But don’t break out those party hats yet. Because while there’s some evidence of improvement in certain low-performing city schools, this data was influenced by the district’s new, more accurate analysis methods. It’s still way too early to judge the performance of Newark’s turnaround schools.

A few things to understand about the numbers: The state has started using a new, federally mandated formula to calculate the percentage of students who graduate from public high schools. It better accounts for students who switch districts or move out of the country. And districts like Newark have become more adept at keeping track of those students, who shouldn’t be counted as drop-outs if they’re going to school elsewhere. [emphasis mine]

Uncharacteristically the S-L actually puts the numbers into context: yes, there may be reason for optimism, but it needs to be tempered. In other words: it's foolish to attribute the graduation rate change to anything Anderson has done. Hey, I'm all for increases in graduation rates -- hooray! But you can't just spit some numbers out there as proof that her "initiatives are working" without the proper context.

Of course, Leonard could have done some reporting on this. He could have tried to figure out why the numbers rose, and what Anderson has done to change them, if anything. He could have looked into whether this was just a cohort effect, or a real consequence of a policy change. But why waste your time with that when you can simply take a gratuitous swipe at teachers unions? That sort of thing is much more to Leonard's outlet's namesake's liking, you see?

Nice work, Dev!

No One Does Charter School Stupid Like the Star-Ledger

Oh, my stars and garters, this is so massively dumb:

A charter school in Hoboken, “Hola,” is doing a terrific job educating kids with an innovate dual-language program, and parents are lining up to compete for scarce seats. 

Hola’s innovation is to immerse kids in both Spanish and English instruction when they are young and their brains are wired to absorb new languages. In kindergarten, 90 percent of the instruction is in Spanish. By fourth and fifth grade, the split is about even. So kids become fluent in both languages, a big leg up in a country that is increasingly bilingual. 

Now Hola officials want to expand to the eighth grade, and the local superintendent, Mark Toback, is trying to stop them.

Oh, dear - why ever would the evil Mr. Toback want to do that?

 “The demographic differences are large, and that’s not how it’s supposed to work,” he says. 

The numbers are striking. Only 11 percent of Hola students are poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, compared with 72 percent in the city’s traditional public schools, according to state data. Given that poverty remains the most reliable predictor of student performance, Hola has a big head start over district schools.

Let's recap: there's a charter school that takes far fewer kids in poverty than the neighboring public schools. It does a "terrific job," but -- and this isn't me saying this, but the Star-Ledger itself -- that's only because the charter serves so few kids in poverty.

So it's not fair to compare Hola to the public schools -- again, even the S-L admits this -- because they don't serve the same children. And every dollar Hola takes away from the Hoboken school district is a dollar that doesn't go to children who live in poverty -- the children who are more expensive to educate than the children who, the S-L acknowledges, go to Hola. Everyone clear on this? OK...

Sit down, strap in, and stand by for quite possibly the stupidest thing ever put into print in a New Jersey newspaper:

But Toback’s response to that is dead wrong. The answer is not to slam the brakes on a successful school. The answer is to lure more poor students to Hola, something Hola is eager to do. “I myself have knocked on doors in public housing asking people if they want information on charters,” says Barbara Martinez, one of the founders. [emphasis mine]

Golly, it's just such a shame that poor people are too stupid to be "lured" into sending their kids to a school that is not answerable to their elected representatives merely on the say-so of a stranger knocking on their door...

I have little doubt that the reliably obtuse Tom Moran wrote this little exercise in reforminess. Tom, here's my question for you:

How do you know that a school can do a "terrific" job educating poor students when that school -- by your own admission -- never taught substantial numbers of poor children in the first place?!

It just so happens I know what I'm talking about: I wrote a policy brief about Hudson County's charter schools last December. From that report:

Certainly, there is no evidence within the NJDOE data to show that charters in Hoboken and Jersey City are engaging in a deliberate pattern of cream-skimming. That same data, however, is quite clear: the charter schools in Hudson County that have higher rates of proficiency and/or student growth do not serve the same percentage of economically disadvantaged students as their neighboring traditional public schools.

Further, there is a clear correlation between these charter schools’ test outcomes and the relative percentage of free lunch students they serve compared to their neighboring TPSs. The  correlation is much stronger for the county’s charter schools than its TPSs.

Hudson County’s policy makers, education leaders, and citizens need to ask themselves a question:

Are cream-skimming charters a good investment if their test score outcomes correlate closely with their disparity in serving economically disadvantaged children?

Take a look at this:

Do you see Hola, with it's 8 percent free lunch eligible student population -- a population way lower than Hoboken's "actual" free-lunch population (the proportion of students in both charters and public schools that qualify for free lunch) of 48 percent? Even with that advantage, Hola isn't higher in proficiency than many other schools in Hudson County with much higher rates of students who qualify for free lunch. Why is this considered so "terrific"?

But the stupid ain't going away yet, folks:

Remember, too, that the root problem is the failure of Hoboken’s traditional schools to attract a healthy cross-section of the city. Hola’s student body matches the demographics of the city pretty closely. It is the district that’s out of whack, thanks to the flight of affluent families.

So what the S-L and Moran are saying is that Hola "matches" the demographics of Hoboken; that only 11 percent of the total aged 5-18 population of the city is living at 185 percent of the poverty line or below (the qualification for FRPL).

Let's think what it would take to make the S-L's prediction come true -- all we need is a little algebra:

There are three charters in Hoboken: Hola, Elysian, and Hoboken CS (strangely listed as being in "Jersy City"[sic] in NJDOE data files, but whatever). If you added together all of the children in these three charters who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, then added the same children in the Hoboken Public Schools, you'd have 1,309 (out of a total charter/district population of 2,481). That's 53% of charter and district kids who are FRPL-eligible. With me so far?

Moran is saying that the "real" FRPL population of Hoboken matches Hola's 11% "pretty closely." Let's be incredibly generous and double Hola's FRPL population; how many kids who are not enrolled in the charters or public would there have to be in Hoboken -- assuming none of them are FRPL -- for Tom's claim to be accurate?

So, let's see... 1,309 divided by what equals 22%?... looks like 5,950... subtract 2,481...

There would have to be 3,469 extra students attending private schools or being home-schooled in Hoboken -- and none could qualify for FRPL -- for the city to have double Hola's FRPL rate. That would be a student population 40% greater than that of the charters and HPS combined.

According to the American Fact Finder at the Census Bureau, Hoboken has a 4,383 children between the ages of 5 and 19 living in its borders. Subtract the 2,481 we know go to HPS or the charters, and that leaves 1,902 children who are not in publicly-financed schools. Even if every one was of school age and did not qualify for FRPL, it still wouldn't be enough to make Hoboken's overall child poverty rate close to that at Hola.

Indulge me a bit more. Let's give the benefit of the doubt and say all 1,902 of Hoboken's kids not enrolled in charters or HPS live in families with incomes higher than 185% of the poverty line and are of school age; that's a big, big assumption, but play along. Again, 1,309 of the kids in charters and HPS are FRPL-eligible. That makes a city-wide FRPL rate of 30 percent. Hola's FRPL rate is almost one-third of Hoboken's, even under the most generous possible scenario.

(And don't even get me started about FRPL vs. just free lunch, a measure of much deeper poverty.)

So, no: there is no evidence that, "Hola’s student body matches the demographics of the city pretty closely." That statement, like so much in the Star-Ledger's op-ed pages when it comes to education, is a steaming load of dung.

But Tom Moran, once again, just doesn't care -- even as he wonders why his newspaper is dying...

The Star-Ledger Editorial Board, doing what they do best.

ADDING: According to the Common Core of Data at the National Center for Education Statistics, there were, in 2009-10, five private schools in Hoboken:

• ALL SAINTS EPISCOPAL DAY SCHOOL 
• HOBOKEN CATHOLIC ACADEMY 
• MUSTARD SEED SCHOOL 
• STEVENS COOPERATIVE SCHOOL 
• THE HUDSON SCHOOL 

In total, they enrolled 921 children. Of course, the thing about private schools is that they enroll across borders: I have no doubt some of the children enrolled in these schools were not from Hoboken, just as I'm sure there are Hoboken children who go to private schools outside the city limits.

So it's difficult to say, based on this data, just how many of Hoboken's kids go to private schools. The point of this post, however, is to show that even under the most generous possible scenario, Hola enrolls a disproportionate number of FRPL eligible students.

And yet Moran makes the confident claim that, "Hola’s student body matches the demographics of the city pretty closely." You'll notice that I give all my sources and methods, but the Star-Ledger gives none.

Is it possible that newspapers like the Ledger are dying because they provide an inferior product compared to bloggers like me and Bob Braun? That we are the superior journalists because we don't just throw dreck like this out into the discourse without actually verifying it?

Just a thought...

OUTRAGE: Cami Anderson to Newark: "Who Cares What You Think?"

I just received this press release about 10 minutes ago from the Newark Public Schools. Apparently, State Superintendent Cami Anderson, appointed by Gov. Chris Christie and unaccountable to the elected Newark Advisory School Board, can't be bothered with criticism from the public or tough questions from their elected officials [emphasis mine]:.

So, at the last possible minute -- I got the official email at 4:15 PM -- she's chickening out of tonight's highly-anticipated school board meeting:

February 25, 2014


An Open Letter to Newark Families,

The goal of our district is to work with families every day to provide students with a great education. From the daily conversations we have with families as they drop their children off at school, to regular parent/teacher conferences to discuss a child’s progress, and to community meetings to discuss Universal Enrollment options, we greatly value our interactions with parents and community members each and every day.  Newark Public Schools (NPS) is totally committed to your children and their education – it’s why we’re moving aggressively to increase equity, transparency and accountability throughout the system.

We have come to realize that one particular venue—the monthly meetings chaired by NPS’ School Advisory Board (SAB)—are no longer focused on achieving educational outcomes for children. The dysfunction displayed within this forum sets a bad example for our children, and it’s no longer a place where meaningful interaction and dialogue occurs between NPS and the public.  As a result, Superintendent Anderson and the NPS Leadership team will no longer attend these meetings until the SAB can commit to ensuring a space conducive to open dialogue with the community.

In light of this decision, NPS will redouble its efforts to ensure the community is informed about One Newark plans and other key initiatives.  NPS will continue to create community events and discussions throughout the city and publish the agendas and minutes of these events online and in schools.  We will also continue to meet with parent advisory groups and attend student leadership forums to garner feedback in order to ensure that your concerns are effectively debated and addressed.

Finally, NPS will videotape its monthly update, traditionally presented at the SAB meeting, and distribute it directly on our website - http://www.nps.k12.nj.us/ - and on Channel 77, the Newark community cable network. 

Dialogue with you is more important than ever before.  We look forward to continuing to implement our ongoing efforts and adding new options to facilitate greater access to information. 

Sincerely, 
Newark Public Schools

What this means, of course, is that Cami Anderson will now only appear in forums similar to the phony "town halls" her boss, Chris Christie, leads (paid for with our tax dollars).

No more questions from the public she supposedly works for; no more defending her policies to the parents she supposedly serves.

No more justifying her outrageous attempts to skirt the tenure law and the NPS teachers contract -- both negotiated in good faith by the unions representing NPS teachers, who, for their good efforts, will now be screwed over royally.

No more questions on the racially biased One Newark plan, which faces legislative investigation for, among other things, allegedly engaging in brazen backroom dealing.

Chris Christie and Cami Anderson are, as far as the people of Newark are concerned, one and the same. Neither gives a damn that democracy, free speech, and accountability is now only available to suburban parents, and not to working-class urban parents of color.

Fellow suburban parents and teachers, I will say it to you once again: if Christie and Anderson and the rest of the reformy types can take away their rights, what makes you think they can't take away yours?

"...I don’t care about the community criticism," Christie said.

"We run the school district in Newark, not them."

Here's the rest of the press release:

Statements from NPS Leadership regarding recent decision to create alternative engagement venue:

“I am an educator who believes that we must all serve as models for our students.  No one wins when personal attacks are allowed to seep into discussion.  There must be a way where we can have rigorous debates and disagreement -- even vociferously -- but remain respectful and focused on business," stated Superintendent Cami Anderson.  

As a veteran educator with two masters degrees -- one in the subject I teach, another in how to teach it -- I am more than a little cheesed that anyone with two years teaching experience, no degrees in education, no building-level administrative experience, and no standard certifications issued from the State of New Jersey would call herself "an educator."

“We witnessed a series of concerning actions last month at the SAB meeting that simply undermine the definition of a public event. For years, fair and agreeable rules have been followed in SAB meetings to ensure decorum and the strongest possible voice for the public. In my judgment, we have now reached a serious threshold of disorganization. We simply cannot continue to have dysfunctional meetings.  It is vital to remember that the true purpose of this meeting is to both inform and provide an opportunity for community input. In this environment we have lost the ability to advise the public, and we must look for ways to keep them informed,” stated Valerie Wilson, NPS’ School Business Administrator.

Ms. Wilson, with all due respect: that is not your "judgement" to make. If you don't like the way the SAB runs the meetings, resign your position. I'm sure there are many districts that could use your skills. You serve them, not vice versa.

"Since late fall, NPS has hosted over 100 community meetings with families, community members, clergy, and elected leaders. Last week alone, NPS had 10 family meetings focused on universal enrollment options for students.  On a monthly basis, we meet with students, advocates, families, and faculty," stated Ruben Roberts, NPS’ Executive Director for Community Affairs and Engagement. "Debate has occurred in these meetings and ideas have been challenged, but there has always been a sense of community and a focus on our students.  Our top priority must be to ensure that information is shared and questions are addressed and my team will continue these efforts -- and the Superintendent, who is particularly focused on these conversations -- will continue to attend."

Mr. Roberts, with all due respect: your "top priority" should be to serve the children and parents of Newark. If things get a little too hot for you at SBA meetings, maybe it's time to ask yourself if, perhaps, the good people of Newark don't think as highly of your efforts as you seem to.

I wonder: how long do you think the good people of Millburn would put up with this sort of talk from their school district administration? How do you think they would feel if they their superintendent decided not to attend their school board meetings anymore because his feelings might get hurt?

Cami Anderson: So vociferous!

Education "Reform": The Endgame

"What, in your opinion, is the endgame with all this?"

A veteran educator with years of experience teaching children in New Jersey's urban areas asked me this Saturday during my talk at the Abbott Leadership Institute. I had just gone through an explanation of the analysis I did with Bruce Baker of the One Newark plan, State Superintendent Anderson's controversial scheme to close, restructure, and give away schools to private charter management organizations (CMOs).

I've summarized our analysis before, but the main points are this:

• Black children are more likely to see their schools undergo radical transformation under One Newark.
• Black children are more likely to see their schools given away to CMOs under One Newark.
• The data does not support any of these plans: specifically, there's no reason to believe CMOs will do better with the children in NPS schools, because the charters are not currently educating the same types of kids.

I also presented some new information that we will release soon about the staff consequences of One Newark; in my opinion, it's disturbing. And I talked about the racial bias in local control, the bizarre implementation of NPS's vaunted merit pay plan, and how data is regularly abused by both NJDOE and NPS to justify their policies.

All well and good -- but ultimately we can't understand what's happening in Newark, in New Jersey, and in the rest of the country without asking where this is all going. What are these radical superintendents and state leaders -- trained by Eli Broad, Teach For America, and New Leaders for New Schools, among others -- trying to accomplish? What is the goal for the reformy, self-appointed, corporate foundation-supported education policy mavens? What do the big money donors to the reformy cause -- Gates, the Waltons, Broad, Zuckerberg, Arnold, Tepper & Fournier, Rock, the Koch brothers -- want? What is the endgame?

It's a difficult and complex question, and the data doesn't really give us an answer. The best we can do is speculate, but there's a problem with that: in my opinion, these people are highly self-conflicted when it comes to their goals. I don't believe that Bill Gates really thinks it's OK to see good teachers inadvertently fired because of an innumerate, illogical evaluation system that uses Value-Added Modeling. I don't think Michelle Rhee really wants children and parents wasting time on test prep. I don't think Arne Duncan really believes that children in poverty aren't at a disadvantage when gauging their academic outcomes.

However...

They all still keeping advocating for reformy policies that not only are premised on these beliefs: they also have little if any evidence to back them up. They engage in some of the most twisted logic imaginable to avoid dealing with their own cognitive dissonance. They cherry-pick research to support their ideology -- for example, using outliers to "prove" poverty doesn't matter -- while ignoring copious evidence for policies that don't fit their agenda -- for example, the effects of class-size reduction on student learning.

The only reason they would do this is that there has to be something in it for them. There has to be a reason they continue to believe what they believe, in spite of the piles of evidence, research, data, and analysis that do not comport with their world view. They must have something to gain from all of this.

And they do. I break it down into a hierarchy -- from the most obvious to the most subtle:

1) There's good money to be made in being reformy. It's been a while since I updated this:

The fine, reformy folks who love to claim that they don't have any skin in the game -- the ones who either implicitly or explicitly call out unions and teachers for acting out of self-interest -- seem to do awfully well for themselves. Why, there's Eva Moskowitz, brave crusader against the terrible teachers unions (according to the bible of the ruling class, the Wall Street Journal), pulling down nearly half-a-mil a year even as she decries the "bullying" UFT. There's Chris Cerf, off to greener pastures at Rupert Murdoch's Amplify after sending NJ's schools down the reformy path. And there's Joe Bruno, pulling down more than $400K for arranging financing for charter school construction.

All of these people are making salaries that principals and public school superintendents can only dream of, let alone teachers. You can live a very comfortable life if you're willing and able to toe the reformy line. But, good as it is, the big money's another level up...

2) There's big money to be made behind the reformy scenes. Down in South Florida, the Zulueta brothers, according to the Miami Herald, control a $115 million real estate empire, financed with public monies, and tax-free because it houses charter schools. Andrew Tisch's K12 Inc. is looking to expand into Newark, managing virtual charters for profit in a market they hope to see expand enormously. Investors are gathering big piles of money to invest in charter school expansion, using new markets tax credits to practically guarantee a return. Charter operators have essentially bought themselves state-level politicians and rewritten the laws to rake in piles of cash for their schools as public districts wither and die. Even the "noble" CMOs have back-channel real estate deals brewing.

I could spend all day providing links to stories like these. Anyone who denies that the "reform" movement isn't abetting a wholesale transfer of public monies and property to private concerns is either corrupt or willingly obtuse.

3) Reform =  Union-Busting. The erosion of teacher workplace protections runs parallel with the erosion of union power. Bob Braun's latest report about the betrayal of Newark's teachers is simply the latest assault on the collective bargaining rights of educators.

In North Carolina, the destruction of teaching as a profession continues apace. The war in Chicago between the plutocratic backers of the insufferably smug Jonah Edelman and the Chicago Teachers Union continues to rage. The kangaroo court Vergera trial in Los Angeles, funded by wealthy tech barons, is an outright assault on workplace protections for teachers. 

The Waltons, of course, have a huge vested interest in destroying unionism in all its forms. But all aristocrats benefit from a wage market that favors the capital holders over labor. Breaking down the teachers unions is simply good business.

So we've got three concrete reasons for "reforminess." But there's one more: far more subtle, but, in the end, far more pernicious.

4) The owners of this country do not want a population of citizens capable of critical thought.

Our current economic system -- which has become a parody of capitalism -- can't survive unless it has workers who have been trained to think it's the natural course of events that a tiny few keep all the money for themselves while everyone else scuffles. Our bread-and-circuses media is tasked with keeping us fixated on peripheral nonsense like "social issues" and meaningless scandals, all while the wholesale transfer of wealth in this country from the working poor and middle-class to the rich takes place with barely a peep of dissent.

Our education system is continually being aligned with the economic priorities of the ruling classes: preparing students for a society where they should be "college or career ready," as opposed to "citizenship ready." Training them to think convergently instead of divergently. Evaluating them on whether they get the same answer as everyone else, not on whether they can see more deeply and find the hidden patterns that make our country tick. Ranking them with standardized assessments that consign them to both economic and social castes.

Bill Moyers hosted an essay this week from Mike Lofgren, a former Congressional staffer, about the "deep state": a shadow government hidden by a phony partisan debate where corporate interests have essentially commandeered our public institutions for their own ends. Lofgren's theory is solid, but incomplete, because he doesn't really offer an explanation for why the public allows this state of affairs to continue.

Again, the media plays a part -- a big part. But so does a public education system that increasingly makes common cause with wealthy corporate interests. That system, more and more, has inculcated a value system in its students and parents that places consumerist choice over democratic values like self-rule. It ranks and sorts students at the earliest ages into various socio-economic classes, then pretends that it offers class mobility. It devalues creativity and critical thinking in favor of lower-order thinking skills.

And it is a system the ruling class does not allow their own children to participate in: they either send their kids to private schools, or suburban public schools so segregated and well-resourced that the accountability measures imposed on the districts of the working poor and middle classes are little more than an annoyance.

That is the real status quo: a socioeconomically stratified society, largely (but not entirely) divided along racial lines, that is first and foremost interested in its own reproduction. And public education, as dictated by the reformy plutocrats, is a primary means of maintaining that status quo.

That is the "end game." Right, George?

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying -- lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want -- they want MORE for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They DON'T want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that, that doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting ****** by system that threw them overboard 30 ******' years ago. They don't want that. You know what they want? They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. OBEDIENT WORKERS. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly ******** jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. 

The Jazzman Speaks! This Saturday, 2/22, Rutgers-Newark

Hey, check out this guy:

Saturday, 2/22/14, 10 AM, on the beautiful Rutgers-Newark campus. Free admission, real talk, good times. Sleeping in is overrated anyway...

Thanks to Kaleena for making this happen, and to Junius Williams for the invitation. Hope you can make it.