Word Jazz served (mostly) daily. Education, politics, music, the arts, New Jersey, and whatever else strikes me.
"A widely read teacher blogger" - Jane Roh, Courier Post.
"One of my favorite bloggers" - Diane Ravitch
I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009
There's no point in my retelling yet again how much Diane means to the real reform movement for her tireless advocacy, her books, her speeches, her media appearances, and everything else she has done to turn back the billionaire-powered tide of reforminess. We all know what she's done; we all know what she means to us.
But I think it's worth giving Diane special praise for her blog. It's become the first thing I look at in the morning and the last thing I read before bed. I know that if anything essential has happened in the education policy world, Diane will cover it.
There are, of course, other disseminators of education news who are outstanding. Susan Ohanian is the godmother of us all, the first of us to understand the power of the internet in fighting back against reforminess; she remains essential. Valerie Strauss is also a critical resource and one of the few reasons left to have any faith in our corporate media. NEPC's Best of the Blogs is another great gateway; anything there is worth reading (even me!).
But I think Diane has somehow found the sweet spot: she's got a keen eye for finding the blog post or newspaper article or reader comment that isn't just important, but necessary. Her synopses always make me want to click through, and often make me want to come back and comment. (I always find it funny when she links to a post of mine and there are far more comments at her blog than at Jersey Jazzman.)
So thank you, Diane, for blogging. At the risk of sounding selfish: please don't stop.
The Newark Schools Advisory Commission this evening issued a unanimous no-confidence vote in the leadership of Schools Superintendent Cami Anderson.
The vote was 9-0.
The board earlier this month rejected the budget Anderson submitted, and tonight reiterated its assessment that Anderson has not fostered a relationship with board members.
The board again complained about what it cited as Anderson's lack of transparency regarding her proposed budget cuts.
Under Anderson - the state-appointed superintendent - Newark's scores on its review by the statehave gone backwards! The district, according to the state itself, is getting worse under Anderson! The question isn't why the advisory board voted "no confidence"; the question is why the state didn't!
I must confess, I love the idea of NJDOE Commissioner Chris Cerf trying to thread the needle here: in the next review, he's got to show Newark's made progress under Anderson - but not too much progress, or the district will revert back to local control. It will be a neat trick if he can pull it off, but I have every confidence in Cerf's ability to twist the numbers his way.
John Merrow, education reporter for PBS, has blown the lid off of the Washington, D.C. cheating scandal. It's quite clear that then-chancellor Michelle Rhee was informed that there were potentially large-scale problems across the district with test scores, and that she did little to address the problem.
Merrow is to be commended for his dogged pursuit of the truth; but it's also true that he, perhaps more than any other journalist, was responsible for turning Rhee into a national figure. His coverage of her was not all laudatory - far from it. But he did spend an inordinate amount of time covering her tenure in Washington, culminating in a Frontline episode this past January, The Education of Michelle Rhee.
The program appears to be, at least in part, a digest of Merrow's total reporting on Rhee, which he describes as: "... twelve (!) pieces about her efforts over the 40 months — about two hours of primetime coverage. That’s an awful lot of attention." It certainly is, and it begs a question: why did Rhee deserve all this reportage? Why, when there were literally dozens of other big-city district chiefs running larger systems, did Merrow choose to focus on Rhee?
Merrow himself pondered the question, albeit indirectly, in this blog post:
My question is about the public phenomenon known as “Michelle Rhee.” The one that’s has become America’s most prominent education activist. She’s loved by some, hated and/or feared by others. To her admirers, she’s a shining symbol of all that’s right in school reform. Her opponents see her as the representative of the forces of greed, privatization and teacher-bashing in education.
Who created that character, that symbol? I can identify four possible parents: She created herself. We created her. “They” did. U did.
"U" stands for "unions." Merrow makes the case that their "intransigence" was a contributing factor to the rise of Michelle Rhee: to make his case, he cites, as one example, an interview he conducted in 1996 with Jack Steinberg of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers:
She’s a social reaction to union leaders like Vice President Jack Steinberg of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. In an interview that is burned into my memory, Steinberg asserted that teachers can never be held accountable for student results. No teacher! Not ever! Jack was muzzled when he said that on national television in 1996, but he and his union have stayed on message.
Now, when I read that my blogger-sense went off: paraphrases of union officials saying outrageous things are the stock-in-trade of the education pundit, but many times, there turns out to be a lot more to the story. So I went back to Merrow's link; sure enough, Steinberg's comments were far more nuanced and complex than Merrow's paraphrase. Read all about it here: it's clear to me that Merrow, in his post, was leaving out some of the most important parts of his interview with Steinberg to paint a picture of the teachers union as a major obstacle to student success.
(Since that post, I've found further evidence that the PFT did indeed believe, contrary to Merrow, that educators should be held accountable for student achievement.)
But I'll admit it - the interview got me hooked. Merrow's a good reporter and a good writer: he knows his craft, and I wanted to follow the story he was telling. So I got comfortable, cracked open a beer, and watched the entire program: all 19 YouTube clips, back-to-back, of Merrow's tour de force, The Toughest Job in America. And I'm glad I did, because I now know the answer to Merrow's question:
Who created Michelle Rhee? It's simple, John: you did.
* * *
The Toughest Job in America follows the career of David Hornbeck, the controversial superintendent of Philadelphia's schools from 1994 to 2000. What's astonishing about Merrow's coverage of Hornbeck, looking back after a couple of decades, is how closely it mirrors his coverage of Rhee. In many ways, The Education of Michelle Rhee is the sequel toThe Toughest Job in America: it is fundamentally the same story, told using many of the same techniques, and all based on the same narrative about American urban education.
Consider the parallels:
- Both stories have flawed protagonists: crusaders for "reform" whose personal deficits mar their attempts to fight the good fight. Hornbeck is ultimately done in, according to Merrow's narrative, by his political ineptitude. Rhee fails due to her hubris and willingness to overlook a testing scandal. Merrow's telling is practically Homeric: two heroes, fighting against the forces of complacency, ultimately done in by their personal flaws.
It's a great story, but telling it requires us gloss quickly over a serious issue...
- Both stories make poverty, economic inequality, and racism bit players. One of the most striking things about The Toughest Job in America andThe Education of Michelle Rhee is how little time is spent dealing with the reality of the lives of urban students. Yes, poverty is discussed in both: but in each program, the largest discussion of economic deprivation takes place when teachers describe the lives of their students.
I won't say that Merrow deliberately set out to make teachers in urban districts look like whiners - but it certainly comes across that way to me. The largest discussion of poverty in The Toughest Job in America occursimmediately following Merrow's introduction of "teacher accountability" into his story:
Here's the rub: go to about 35:30 into The Education of Michelle Rhee. Again, the issue of poverty is brought up by Merrow within the context of teacher accountability:
In both programs, teachers are the ones describing the lives of their poor students - after Merrow has introduced the notion of teacher accountability. How else are we supposed to interpret the role of poverty, other than as an "excuse," when Merrow sets it up this way?
There is one other time when Merrow adds poverty to the mix: when he explores the three-year teaching career of Rhee. Except we now know that Rhee, at best, way overstated her own teaching abilities - a fact that Merrow reviews quickly before moving on. Could that be because Rhee's manufactured tale about her own prowess in the classroom comports so well with Merrow's framework that "good" teaching can overcome student poverty?
- In both stories, the voices of children are largely missing. The most powerful moment, to me, of The Toughest Job in America is at about 2:40 in this clip:
This child - almost a woman - is crying on national television, leaving nothing back, telling Horbeck that she is tired of being "embarrassed." She is the most compelling person in this report - yet we never see her again.
Watching each program, it strikes me especially hard that Merrow does not spend any time following students outside of school to discover the reality of their lives living in poverty. We never see a child's home; we never talk to a child's parents; we spend a few minutes with some of the older children, but not nearly enough time to get a sense of their lives. I'm reminded of Jonathan Kozol, as quoted by Bob Somerby:
KOZOL (page 163):You have to go back to the schools themselves to find an answer to these questions. You have to sit down in the little chairs in first and second grade, or on the reading rugs with kindergarten kids, and listen to the things they actually say to one another and the dialogue between them and their teachers. You have to go down to the basement with the children when it’s time for lunch and to the playground with them, if they have a playground, when it’s time for recess, if they still have recess...You have to do what children do and breathe the air the children breathe.I don’t think there’s any other way to find out what the lives that children lead in school are really like.
Which brings us to...
- In both stories, the antagonists are the intransigent teachers unions and calculating politicians, both representing the "status quo." Repeatedly, Merrow describes the Philadelphia and Washington school systems as "failing." He simply accepts the position that children are capable of showing much better educational results merely through changes in the schools - changes that could occur were it not for politicians and teachers unions blocking "reform."
It never seems to occur to Merrow that he ought to explore this assumption; is it not possible that low test scores are indicative of low student performance, but not low school performance? Is it not possible that the lives of urban students are so fraught with challenge that the performance their schools do exhibit is actually indicative of academic achievement? Merrow seems uninterested in these questions.
- In both stories, a key, unproven assumption of Merrow's thesis is that there are hoards of bad teachers plaguing urban school systems, and that those teachers could easily be replaced by "better" teachers. At one point in The Toughest Job in America, a consultant bemoans the fact that only a handful of Philadelphia's teachers are ever fired; Rhee complains in The Education of Michelle Rhee that most teachers get satisfactory ratings.
Neither assertion is challenged, let alone explored, by Merrow. He does say, in The Education of Michelle Rhee, that his experience in the capital's schools with his own children aligns with Rhee's statement - but that is hardly proof worthy of a serious piece of journalism.
If Merrow is going to sell the story that the unions are protecting bad teachers, he has an obligation to demonstrate how widespread the problem of bad teaching truly is. It's not enough for Rhee or Hornbeck or anyone else to guess at the extent of the problem; Merrow should use his skills to back up these assertions. In my view, he does not.
Leonie Haimson has noted that the dismissal rates for teachers are not out of line with what we know about other professions. Agree or disagree, you can't deny Haimson has made a case. Where is the evidence in Merrow's pieces that "bad" teaching can be improved by removing seniority and tenure? I don't see it.
* * *
So, to my view, The Toughest Job In America is the template for The Education of Michelle Rhee. Even the programs' journalistic techniques are similar: excerpts of interviews with a central figure, interspersed with video of school life and interviews with allies and detractors. Both shows feature a writer friendly to the protagonist: Richard Whitmire for Rhee, and Dale Mezzacappa for Hornbeck (here's Mazzacappa's elegy to Hornbeck if you don't believe me). Each also takes a position that confirms Merrow's framework: unions are an impediment to "reform." They repeatedly reassert Merrow's contention that bad teachers plague urban districts without adding any confirming proof.
Are there differences between the two programs? Certainly, and some of them are quite significant. But the basic story remains the same: a flawed school leader, outraged at a school system that is "failing," fighting back against a "status quo" that does not put the interests of children first. Look at the description of The Toughest Job In America on YouTube:
Part 19 of the gripping story of one man's battle against an entrenched bureaucracy, a stubborn union, hostile politicians, budget deficits, and a deep-rooted belief that poor and minority children cannot achieve. Can he change the school system before it changes him?
It's a pleasing tale, lending itself to compelling storytelling. But it requires a star; like a Greek tragedy, someone must take on the role of the doomed hero.
Enter Michelle Rhee.
I wouldn't say that Merrow chose to chronicle the career of Michelle Rhee simply because he saw her as an easy analog to David Hornbeck. Certainly, there's much about Rhee that would attract any journalist to follow her, no matter that journalist's view on pubic education. Rhee was relatively inexperienced but coming into a big job in the nation's capital, outspoken, telegenic, and outrageous.
She was also happy to make a big noise about herself whenever she could. Why else would she fire a principal on camera? Why stage a press conference in a warehouse full of school supplies? Why have huge celebrations for test score proficiency rate changes? Rhee made herself a brightly colored target; no one can find fault that Merrow aimed his cameras at her.
No, the problem I have with The Education of Michelle Rhee - and, for that matter, The Toughest Job in America, and so much education reporting these days - is that it is built around a pre-existing framework that makes far too many assumptions.
It assumes urban schools are "failing." It assumes "bad" teaching runs rampant in urban schools. It assumes an entrenched status quo is keeping necessary changes from being made. It assumes test scores are reliable measures of student learning. It assumes poverty's effects on educational outcomes can be largely ameliorated with policy changes in urban school systems.
Folks, I've been doing this edu-blogging thing for three years now. I don't claim to have read everything, but I've seen the best arguments the corporate reform side has made, and I'm here to tell you: they have yet to prove that any of these assumptions are true. Nor do they have to: the media seems all too ready to accept these assumptions as received truths.
But these assumptions form the base of the framework Merrow and others have chosen to work with. And in order to tell his stories, Merrow needs school leaders who will provide him with the drama necessary to set off the conflicts his narrative requires. He needed a David Hornbeck in the '90s, and he needed a Michelle Rhee a decade later. They were the personalities around which he could build his case: a case, again, that makes far too many unproven assumptions.
Let me conclude with this: I think John Merrow is, in many ways, a very good reporter. His story on Rhee and the cheating scandal is the most important work in education journalism so far this year, because it calls into question the legacy of the woman who has become the face of corporate reform. Again, he is a good craftsman, both as a writer and as a broadcast journalist.
But he, and so many others in the press covering education, are trapped in a preconceived narrative about America's public schools. A narrative that inevitably turns school leaders like Michelle Rhee and David Hornbeck into crusaders against the status quo. A narrative that lays all of the problems of our country's underclass at the doors of our schools. A narrative that says you are either the saviors of poor children or their betrayers.
It's time to move beyond this type of storytelling. And the first step is to start demanding proof of beliefs that are being gussied up as facts. John Merrow has done this with the Rhee "miracle" of the rising test scores in Washington; that's important work and it's to be applauded.
But is John Merrow willing to take the next step, and challenge his own assumptions? Or will he simply move on to his next creation?
It's alive! And soon, it will run an urban school district!
Rockville Centre on Long Island had an unusually high number of students who skipped the exam, Superintendent Bill Johnson said. Mr. Johnson said 338 of the district's 1,650 third- through eighth-graders didn't take the test.
Mr. Johnson said he thought there were "serious problems" with the test, in large part because teachers are just beginning to learn the approach required under the new benchmarks, known nationally as the Common Core State Standards.
"We had a couple of kids who got sick, who started throwing up," he said. "We had one child who went to the bathroom and refuse to leave. We had a number of children who walked out of tests crying."
Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, who helps set education policy for the state, said she visited several schools this week, and students told her they found the passages interesting and engaging. She said she "only saw one kid crying."
Ms. Tisch said the boy was a "sweet" fourth-grader, and she and his classmates tried to console him. She told the student that many other students were also having trouble completing the exam.
"We have to address that issue about finishing," she said.
But she called it a "healthy problem." It would be worse, she said, if tests were described as unfair or poorly done. Last year, for example, the state had to toss out questions related to a passage that was widely ridiculed for being confusing. "I would be so bold as to say they were better than most people expected them to be," she said. [emphasis mine]
I'm sorry, but is the Chancellor seriously stating that it's "healthy" to have a child break down in tears over a test right in front of her?!
I'm sure the "sweet" nine-year-old really appreciated this strange lady trying to console him by telling him that there were plenty of other children who were also big failures, just like he was...
For that matter, what was Tisch doing in the classroom anyway during a testing session? Does she think it's helpful to have the Chancellor and her entourage come into a school to check up on the testing? Might she consider that distractions like this are the last things children and teachers under pressure need to deal with?
As to Tisch's contention that the tests were "better than most people expected them to be": how can anyone know that unless they are released to the public for vetting? When Gary Rubinstein took a look at the NY State math exams two years after they were administered, he found all sorts of serious problems with item construction. Is Tisch prepared to say these problems have been eliminated? Solely on the basis of talking to a few kids during the last week?
Merryl Tisch likes to pretend she understands the hell she is putting New York's kids and families through, but the sad truth is that she hasn't one damn clue. She attended a private school that downplays the usefulness of standardized testing; she sent her own kids to that very school, sparing them the grief New York's kids endured this week; and she did all of her teaching in private schools, so she's never had to worry about the effect of high-stakes testing on her own career.
Tisch is imposing a testing regime that is doing real harm to children - a regime she herself assiduously avoided. What's worse, when she is confronted with the consequences of her actions, she breezily dismisses the real pain of a child as "healthy."
Were I a New York State parent, I'd be demanding the removal of this woman from any position of authority over the public schools. She is clearly unfit for the job.
That looks like "healthy" crying and vomiting to me...
Public pension funds are frantically chasing higher yields to reduce their roughly $3 trillion in unfunded liabilities. But don't tell that to Randi Weingarten, the teachers union el supremo, who is trying to strong-arm pension trustees not to invest in hedge funds or private-equity funds that support education reform.
That's the remarkable story that emerged this week as the American Federation of Teachers president tried to sandbag hedge fund investor Dan Loeb at a conference sponsored by the Council of Institutional Investors. CII had invited Mr. Loeb, who runs Third Point LLC, to talk about investment opportunities and corporate governance. Ms. Weingarten is an officer and board member of CII.
But Ms. Weingarten's real concern is that Mr. Loeb puts his own money behind school reform and charter schools. In particular, Mr. Loeb is on the board of the New York chapter of StudentsFirst. That's the education outfit founded by former Washington, D.C., schools chief Michelle Rhee that is pushing for more charters and teacher accountability, among other desperately needed reforms.
Ms. Weingarten sent Mr. Loeb a letter demanding a meeting at the CII conference with her and "a small group of pension fund trustees," including "two funds that are current clients of yours." Her agenda? "These plans are concerned about their ability to invest with your firm going forward," Ms. Weingarten wrote, given Mr. Loeb's support for StudentsFirst and its "outspoken attacks" on defined-benefit pension plans. [emphasis mine]
First of all, let's acknowledge the especially obnoxious and vilifying prose that can only be found in the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal: "el supremo," "strong-arm," "sandbag." Is Weingarten a labor leader or a Latin American dictator?
The Journal apparently reserves these descriptions for people who have the temerity to point out that giving your money to people who are working against your interests is awfully stupid. Weingarten is doing what anyone with a lick of common sense would do in her position: demanding that the funds teachers are forced to contribute to these plans not be used to screw them out of the benefits they have been contractually promised.
Only a fool or a sophist would argue that this is "bullying" behavior. But the WSJ op-ed page is where fools and sophists live and thrive:
But no one should think that Mr. Loeb is Ms. Weingarten's only target. Her attempted ambush coincides with a new report that her union sent to pension trustees this week called "Ranking Asset Managers." Ms. Weingarten isn't interested in how they rank by return on investment.
Her "rankings" are all about politics. The union report says it wants pension trustees to "take into account certain collateral factors, such as a manager's position on collective bargaining, privatization [read: vouchers] or proposals to discontinue providing benefits through defined benefit plans."
The report adds the lovely threat that "The American Federation of Teachers is committed to shining a bright light on organizations that harm public sector workers, especially when those organizations are financed by individuals who earn their money from the deferred wages of our teachers."
So let me get this straight: if I don't want to give my money to people who are trying to screw me out of my compensation, I'm a bully? Does the WSJ think I shouldn't smack a purse snatcher upside the head if he tries to make off with my wife's handbag? Maybe I should, instead, hand the guy my wallet before he runs away?
What's really angering the Journal here is that unionized middle class workers are getting together and beating Wall Street at its own game. Corporations throw money around all the time to get what they want: around Washington, around the statehouses, and especially around the media. The minute unions do the same, however, the mouthpieces for the plutocrats get very, very nervous. And they will drag out any stupid argument they can think of to try to stop it:
The other issue raised by this union bullying concerns fiduciary responsibility. The main obligation of pension trustees is to ensure the retirement security for their members. These pensions are financed primarily by taxpayers, not by employee wages, and the funds are under no obligation to protect union interests or to promote Ms. Weingarten's pet political causes. To the extent that her causes interfere with getting higher returns from the best-performing investment funds, the trustees would be violating their duties and the law to take her bad counsel.
That is the kind of patronizing crap that makes me insane. Let's get this straight once and for all: public employee pensions are deferred compensation. The pensions are not "financed by the taxpayers"; they are financed by public employees who defer pay in a deal that is good for the taxpayer.
It is obnoxious beyond belief that the WSJ would pretend that I and every other public employee receiving a pension didn't earn that compensation. And we have every right to demand that our money not be used to undermine our profession. That's the real "fiduciary responsibility" of the unions.
(By the way - notice how Loeb's largess toward StudentFirst is "his own money," while teachers' mandatory pension contributions are "financed by the taxpayer"? Speaks volumes, doesn't it?)
You know, I'm so old that I remember when "fiduciary responsibility" was used to justify investment in South Africa. The Journal was happy to find any excuse to support the Botha regime; leave it to them to continue to play the race card until this very day:
And this is the real source of Ms. Weingarten's union fury. She knows unions are losing the moral and political debate over reform, as more Americans conclude that her policies are consigning millions of children to a life of diminished opportunity.
So now she stoops to bullying pension trustees to bully hedge funds to cut off funding for poor kids in Harlem. Every time we wonder if we're too cynical about unions, they remind us that we're not nearly cynical enough.
Man, it takes a special kind of gall to print a statement like that. Somehow, Loeb's support of StudentsFirst has morphed into "funding for poor kids in Harlem"; as if funding Michelle Rhee's astroturfing was incontrovertibly to the benefit of "poor kids in Harlem."
John Merrow, education reporter for PBS (and funded, in part, by the Gates Foundation), has done some extraordinary work lately in uncovering the burgeoning cheating scandal in Washington, D.C. Merrow's reporting now calls into question the entire legacy of former Chancellor and current Queen of Reforminess, Michelle Rhee. Ironic, as Merrow is as responsible as anyone for catapulting Rhee into the national spotlight.
My question is about the public phenomenon known as “Michelle Rhee.” The one that’s has become America’s most prominent education activist. She’s loved by some, hated and/or feared by others. To her admirers, she’s a shining symbol of all that’s right in school reform. Her opponents see her as the representative of the forces of greed, privatization and teacher-bashing in education.
Who created that character, that symbol? I can identify four possible parents: She created herself. We created her. “They” did. U did.
I'll have more to say about Merrow's thesis in a bit; for now, read these excellent commentaries from Diane Ravitch, Fred Klonsky, and Anthony Cody.
Until then, I'd like to focus on one particular part of Merrow's post - a part that provides an excellent example of the serious failings with our media's reporting on education:
And finally U created her. “U” is my shorthand for teacher unions. This is simple physics: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The “Michelle Rhee” phenomenon is the inevitable product of, and reaction to, intransigent teacher union policies like the ones that produced New York City’s famous “rubber room,” where teachers who couldn’t be fired spent their days reading, napping, and doing crossword puzzles–on full salary and with the full support of the United Federation of Teachers, the local union. (See Steven Brill’s Class Warfare.) She’s the inevitable reaction to union leaders who devote their energy to preserving seniority at the expense of talented young teachers, not to mention children. She’s the product of the California Teachers Association, which I recall was willing to sacrifice librarians’ jobs in order to preserve salary increases for teachers. She’s a social reaction to union leaders like Vice President Jack Steinberg of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. In an interview that is burned into my memory, Steinberg asserted that teachers can never be held accountable for student results. No teacher! Not ever! Jack was muzzled when he said that on national television in 1996, but he and his union have stayed on message. [emphasis mine]
Wow: one vice-president in one teachers union said one thing that sounds bad. Of course, this was 17 years ago - maybe, John, you could have found a more contemporary example? No, of course not: it's "burned into" Merrow's memory, like it happened yesterday!
For those of us not blessed with Merrow's photographic recall, we can instead click on the link he provides. The quote in question comes from Merrow's PBS report, The Toughest Job in America, a documentary about the tenure of former Philadelphia schools superintendent David Horbeck. Here's a clip, with my transcript of the relevant section below:
(2:30) MERROW: If I'm a teacher, and I set out to teach the kids long division, and they all learn long division, did I do a good job?
JACK STEINBERG, PHILADELPHIA FEDERATION OF TEACHERS: (pause) Yes. Now what if they didn't...
MERROW: Wait... OK...
STEINBERG: What if they didn't learn long division?
MERROW: Did I do a bad job?
STEINBERG: Let's say you teach three classes. And in one class they could do it, and one class they couldn't. Are you doing a good job or a bad job? Or are...
MERROW: How about a good job in one class and a bad job in the other?
STEINBERG: But you did the same job in both classes. What's wrong?
DALE MEZZACAPPA, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: Somehow, teachers have to be held accountable - not just teachers, but teachers have to be included in this - for whether their students achieve.
STEINBERG: And if you're asking: "Can you evaluate a teacher on the performance of the students?"
MERROW: Yes. Yes or no.
STEINBERG: No, you cannot.
MERROW: You cannot evaluate a teacher on the performance of his or her students?
STEINBERG: Right. Right.
MEZZACAPPA: One thing that the PFT has succeeded in doing over the 30 years that it's had collective bargaining rights in this town is insulate teachers from any responsibility whether students learn.
MERROW: I just want to know where you draw the line. If I set out to teach long division...
STEINBERG: Alright.
MERROW: ...and not a single kid learns long division - it's the right age to teach long division and learn it - not a single kid learns long division, did I do a bad job?
STEINBERG: (pause) I don't know. I really don't know because there are too many variables.
Is Merrow's characterization fair? Does Steinberg say anything that can be plausibly interpreted as: "teachers can never be held accountable for student results. No teacher! Not ever!"? That is, of course, a matter of opinion; what is quite clear, however, is that Steinberg said far more in this exchange than what Merrow is now recalling.
Merrow's truncated description leaves out a point Steinberg made that is not under dispute - even by the most hardcore adherents of "reform." Everyone agrees that teachers cannot be evaluated on the learning of their students unless you take the characteristics of the students themselves into account.
The entire premise of VAM-based teacher evaluation is that students aren't all the same, and that must be taken into account when evaluating teachers. Even Rhee's StudentsFirst argues that raw test score data is not a good measure of a teacher's worth.
What Steinberg is saying here is pretty much the same thing. His very first example - a teacher with two classes: one learning, one not - is an illustration of that very point. Merrow's silly attempt to deflect Steinberg's argument - "How about a good job in one class and a bad job in the other?" - ignores the fundamental issue: that you must take into account student characteristics when evaluating a teacher on her performance.
It's quite telling to me that Merrow cuts away to Mezzacappa when Steinberg retorts: "But you did the same job in both classes. What's wrong?" It's obvious that Merrow has no answer to Steinberg's argument. He wants to pretend that Steinberg is being ludicrous, but Steinberg reiterates his point right at the end of the segment: "there are too many variables." Again, this is an argument that is not under any dispute.
Keep in mind that this conversation dates back to 1996, long before Value Added Modeling and Student Growth Percentiles and test-based teacher ratings were part of the education conversation. So Steinberg was not even arguing against (failed) VAM-based evaluation; he was saying teachers can't be evaluated on student "results" because there was no way to account for the students themselves.
I find it grossly unfair of Merrow to characterize Steinberg's comments in this way; at the very least, Merrow should have included a summation of the argument Steinberg was making. But that would shatter Merrow's worldview: that teachers unions are "intransigent" and push their policies "at the expense of talented young teachers, not to mention children."
Which is why this is such a great example of how our media fails our education system so regularly. Merrow is locked into a narrative; consequently, facts and opinions that run counter to this narrative must be shunned, mocked, or ignored. If Steinberg's argument is far more complex and nuanced than necessary for Merrow to tell his preferred story, it simply must be altered. Throw away the larger context, throw away the gist of the counter-argument, and instead focus on the preferred story: teachers unions are bad.
All this said, I'm glad Merrow included this link in his post. Because The Toughest Job in America makes the answer to Merrow's question quite clear:
Who created Michelle Rhee? You did, John. More in a bit.
The head of the Newark Teachers Union, Joe Del Grosso, is not very happy these days
Six months since Newark and its teachers union agreed to a historic new contract, the president of the NTU has publicly blasted Superintendent Cami Anderson over the district's finances.
“Since we came to an agreement on a contract for the teachers, aides, and clerks, we have experienced very serious and disturbing problems regarding the finances of Newark Public Schools,” the letter read.
Calling for an external audit of the district’s books, Del Grosso cited plans for laying off about 120 administrators, 60 attendance officers, and possibly others, and what he called an air of secrecy in the district’s central offices.
Wow - where's all the money going?
The district posted a $995 million budget last week for next year, which represents a $30 million cut from this year‘s $1.03 billion. Part of the new budget is an additional $30 million slated for the city’s charter schools.
Adding to the discord, the local board rejected the budget outline earlier this month, a largely symbolic act for a board that has no legal power in the state-run system. Three seats on the advisory board are up for election this coming Tuesday.
In his ninth term as president of the NTU, Del Grosso faces his own internal conflict after approving a contract that was not universally endorsed by his members. The contract includes the state’s first large-scale use of performance bonuses for teachers. [emphasis mine]
And guess what - those merit pay bonuses will be given at the sole discretion of the very administration Del Grosso says is "dominated" by "secrecy." How confident is the leadership of the NTU that the merit pay bonuses are going to be awarded in a fair and transparent manner when they have such a big problem with the Anderson administration over the budget?
As I said before members voted on the contract: if Del Grosso and NTU believed this was the best deal they could get for their members (and I believe them when they say it was), they had an obligation to put it before their members. But part of any negotiation is knowing who you are dealing with: if you can't trust these people with the budget, how are you going to trust them with teacher pay? Too many details were left to be ironed out later...
Well, now it's later. And NJDOE is unveiling a teacher evaluation system so illogical, innumerate, deceptive, ill-informed, and frankly bizarre that the prospect of a fair merit pay system looks increasingly remote.
Joe Del Grosso is a hero in the American labor movement and has my respect. He is to be commended for taking on the Anderson administration, the NJDOE, and Chris Christie over these cuts to Newark's schools.
I just wish he had been a bit more leery of these people back when it counted...
NJ's new teacher evaluation system: Operation Hindenberg
Governor Christie’s proposed FY14 State Budget contains a special “assessment” or tax on 493 school districts that wipes out the small aid increases many of those districts were initially notified they would receive.
The Administration’s special tax is contained in language buried deep in the Governor’s budget. According to the Governor’s proposal, any district “that received their State support for approved [school construction] project costs” through the State Schools Development Authority [SDA] “will be assessed an amount that represents 15% of their proportionate share” of the principal and interest payments for State-issued school construction bonds. The State will not collect this special tax but will deduct or withhold the tax from the districts’ state school aid payments.
Though the administration hasn’t publicized this tax, districts and school supporters have not been fooled. Many complaints about this “debt service assessment” were lodged during recent Senate and Assembly Budget Committee public hearings on the FY14 proposals. Legislators joined district representatives and advocates in questioning the legality of the tax and chastised the Governor for touting aid increases to districts that in fact would be eliminated by the tax.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that's your straight-shootin', no nonsense governor: screwing over school districts in his base so he can steal their money to help pay for an election-year income tax cut. He quietly picks the local districts' pockets, then gives away what he stole and pretends it's the result of his awesome leadership. To top it off, he then points the finger at the local districts and blames them for high taxes.
Neat trick, huh?
An ELC analysis [To access charts, click the sixth tab, entitled “FY14 Debt Service Assessments,” located above the title, “Governor’s FY14 State Aid.”] of the Governor’s proposal shows that the special tax will be withheld from 493 districts, reaping a total of $34 million for the State Treasury. The tax withholding ranges from $49 to $1 million per district.
In 294 districts, the amount of tax to be withheld will exceed the state aid increase they are slated to receive under the Governor’s FY14 school aid proposal. Of those districts, 157 are middle income, 102 are higher wealth, and 15 are vocational districts.
How many of those districts will go Christie's way in November? All because they've bought the lie, sold by a credulous press, that this little sneak of a man is making "tough choices"?
Suckers.
Never mind what I'm doing! Mind your own business!
Demonstrating the Christie Administration’s strong support for increasing the number of high-quality school options for New Jersey students, the Department today approved 9 charter schools to open in September, bringing the total number of charter schools in New Jersey to 86. In addition, the Department continues to improve oversight and accountability for charter schools by instituting new Performance Frameworks that will set clear expectations for charter school performance and will serve as the basis for school evaluation, monitoring, and intervention.
“We are deeply committed to ensuring that every student in New Jersey has access to a high-quality public school option that is a good fit for them, no matter whether that is a district, charter, magnet, or vocational school,” said Acting Commissioner Chris Cerf. “We are confident that the charter schools we approved today will provide great options for the children of New Jersey.” [emphasis mine]
NJDOE had actually granted 100 Legacy an extra year of planning just to make sure they were ready to hit the ground running in the fall of 2012. The department had bragged about strengthening its approvals process for charters through a partnership with the National Association of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA); they were "approving only high-quality new school applications" from now on.
The state Department of Education yesterday released its letter to the 100 Legacy Academy Charter School in Newark, informing the school that its state charter had been revoked after just seven months of operation. The April 11 letter cited a number of violations and findings concerning the school’s instructional programs, financial viability, and general operations. [emphasis mine]
Just seven months in, and the school is shutting down. The hundreds of families who enrolled their children in the charter - confident that NJDOE's approval process had thoroughly vetted the school - will now have to find other "options" for their children, who basically wasted a year:
First probation: The middle school opened in August, 2012, with roughly 270 students, part of a partnership with the 100 Black Men of NJ organization. But by January it was placed on probation, after review found the school in violation of state statute in several areas, including special education and required criminal background checks of staff.
Didn’t get better: The state followed up in early February. According to the letter from assistant commissioner Evo Popoff, “This visit confirmed that school conditions had indeed deteriorated, putting at risk not only the safety, well-being and academic progress of students, but also the overall viability of the school.”
And again: The school submitted a remediation plan in late February, including pledges to improve its programs. But state officials said further visits found that “classrooms instruction had not sufficiently improved,” read Popoff’s letter. “Students were observed with their heads down, disengaged and frequently disruptive.”
Finally: The school submitted a long-term plan in March, and the state rejected that as well. “The department has no confidence that, given more time, the school will be able to improve its performance to the high standard the Department maintains for all charter schools.”
Less than a year ago, the NJDOE was so confident in this school's viability that it granted 100 Legacy its final approval and let the parents of 270 kids put their children's lives into the school's hands. But now the department is saying they have "no confidence" in the school.
The people who should have "no confidence" are the parents of Newark: they should have "no confidence" in the NJDOE's ability to properly vet charter applications.
Oh, am I being unfair? Was 100 Legacy's application so strong that this failure comes as a shock? Were there no clues that the school's prospects were not good?
100 Legacy, it turns out, had teamed up with a for-profit charter management organization, Victory Educational Partners, to help open the new school:
“Newark is in the midst of a historic reform of its school system, and the development of high quality charter schools is a crucial element of this turnaround,” said Victory Education Partners’ Director of School Development and Partnerships Aquila Haynes. “We are confident that this partnership between the school’s Board and 100 Black Men of New Jersey will result in a tremendous education for hundreds of young people in Newark and Irvington through 100 LEGACY Academy Charter School.”
Maybe the politicians finally understand. Last week the SUNY Charter Schools Institute, which makes recommendations to the New York State Department of Education, decided not to support a charter school proposed by Victory Education Partners in Brentwood. According to a report in Newsday , the superintendent of Brentwood schools "applauded the state's decision." The district is already financially hard-pressed. It lost $40 million in state aid during the last two years and was forced to lay off about 100 teachers.
SUNY officials told "Victory" that it was not satisfied with proposals for the school's "governing structure, academic program and accountability platform."
Unfortunately "Victory," a profit making business, is not good at accepting defeat and plans to revise and resubmit its proposal, for Brentwood or perhaps for another Suffolk County community. Victory Education Partners advertises itself as an educational management company. For ten percent of state and local funding for a school, it group provides teacher recruitment, administrative coaches, accounting work and other services. The company would have made about $2.2 million over five years for its services to a Suffolk County Prep Charter School. [emphasis mine]
I've not seen the application for 100 Legacy, but this report begs a question: how much taxpayer money was Victory paid to start up this educational failure in Newark? And how did 100 Legacy ever get approved in the first place when it had a clear record of failure in New York State?
The reality is that Victory Education Partners has been associated with a series of education failures. The New York State Regentsshut down Victory's New Covenant Charter Schoolin Albany in 2010. Two of the high schools it provides management services for in New York City, Lehman in the Bronx and August Martin in Queens are on theRestart List. Its show place charter school,Sisulu-Walker Charter Schoolof Harlem, received the 15th-lowest score on the 2010 city progress report cards, ranking in the bottom one percent of all schools. It received "F' grades in the school environment and progress categories. Most of the school's teachers reported problems with order and discipline and they recently voted to unionize.
Boy, you'd think that last phrase would have reallycaptured the NJDOE's attention! Again: how in the world did this charter ever get approved? Well, long time readers at this blog will not be surprised:
The secret to "Victory" approach is its CEO,James Stovall, a personable African-American lawyer who is primarily a salesman. He uses his own success story to sell private charter management to poor minority communities. His supposed educational experience was anEli Broad Foundationresidency but, according to the foundation's alumni website, what Stovall actually did during his residency was act as "general counsel for Victory where he oversaw and directed the company's legal, compliance and regulatory activities." [ed: update link to Stovall profile at the Broad Center here.]
The Broad Foundation, you may remember, donated $140,000 to the state to "bolster the state’s oversight of charter schools." That donation was made June 6, 2012; the state announced Legacy 100's approval on July 16, 2012. Quite the coincidence, don't you think?
Is this how the Broad Foundation "bolstered" oversight of charter in New Jersey? By getting NJDOE to grant charters for schools, managed by Broad alumni, that fail within their first year?
Let's be very clear about this: 270 students had a year of their education ruined because the NJDOE didn't properly vet the track record of a company with strong ties to the Broad Foundation. This is an unconscionable failure and a blatant violation of ethics.
Who's going to answer to the taxpayers for this? Who's going to answer to the children who were so poorly served? Who's going to demand that the circus that is New Jersey's charter school oversight and approval system finally be brought to account?
