Five Years of Jersey Jazzman! Thursday Throwback: The New Segregation in the New Newark

Celebrating five years of blogging this week. This isn't my best written piece, nor the most followed, nor the most insightful. But it remains one of my personal favorites.

*****

(Welcome Ravitch readers! Stay a bit, look around, leave a comment - no big whoop...)

This is a very important post; not because it's in response to me, but because it comes from a Newark parent - someone with his child's future on the line:   

Jersey Jazzman: Newark Will NEVER Have Control Of Its Schools

Thoughtful and angry counterpoint on state-appointed superintendent Cami Anderson’soverriding the locally elected school board’s vote against leasing school buildings to charter schools.

[...]

It’s true that there are a lot of mediocre and even ineffective charter schools in Newark. A search on GreatSchools.org, which evaluates schools on a one-to-ten scale based on standardized testing results, shows that there are, indeed, many charters that don’t do better than their public school counterparts. There are also public schools that are great—Ann Street school in the Ironbound has been a Blue-Ribbon winner in years past.

The challenge is to figure out how the effective models are scaled up across the city and the problem schools are either fixed or dissolved quickly. [emphasis mine]

Let's leave aside the closure paradigm for now (you know who deals with this with his typical perspicacity) and focus instead on this notion of "scalability." This is the reason I like this post so much: it cuts right to the heart of the problem in a way that so many reformyists don't understand (or pretend not to):

If we can't replicate the "success" of a "successful" charter school, what good does it do for everyone? Sure, we might "save" the kids who attend the charter... but what if the kids themselves are the independent variable in the equation? In other words: if "successful" charters are "successful" because they weed out the kids who can't be "successful," what good does that do for all of our kids?

This is the central question in the entire debate about charters and vouchers and "choice": are these market-driven reforms changing the practices of schools in a way that makes them better for all children? Or are we simply segregating the children who, because of the circumstances of their lives, can't keep up with children who are already primed to be "successful"?

Over and over again, I've shown how those who make the case that their charter/voucher/magnet school is "beating the odds" are doing nothing of the sort. What they are really doing are creating segregated schools: segregated by socio-econimic status, or learning disability, or parental involvement, or ability to follow a particular discipline code, or even by race.

Now it is true that some charters do seem to "beat the odds": they do better than expected given their student populations. But are the odds any better for charters - as a whole - than public schools? And can those high-flying charters scale their success to all students? Increasingly, the answer seems to be: "No."

In the case of Newark, I'm afraid the evidence is quite clear: "successful" charters are "successful" because they serve different student populations than the public schools surrounding them. TEAM has a different student population. North Star has a different student population. Robert Treat has a different student population. These are the charters we hear about; the ones our politicians and pundits love to brag on:

TEAM and North Star are two of the schools that Cami Anderson proposed Newark make room for after closing down "failing" neighborhood schools.

This is not a knock on those charters, their dedicated staffs, or the deserving children who are their students. It is a look at the facts. And the facts tell us that "successful" charters are often "successful" because they serve students who speak English at home, don't have as many special education needs, and don't live in severe poverty.

What's worse is that the schools that take the most difficult children - the ones we said we wouldn't "leave behind" - turn out to be the objects of derision and scorn. Some of those schools have been targeted for closure when the primary difference between them and "successful" charters is the amount of poverty among their students:

Closure elementary schools are indicated in Red, and charter schools in Green. District average (labeled Total – sorry) is in Black. In short, these are high poverty schools, with two of them – Dayton and Miller St having among the highest concentrations of low income children.

Is anyone prepared to deny that what I'm describing is exactly what is happening in Newark right now?

Which brings us back to our Newark parent:

As a Newark parent, I have skin in the game in this decision, something that most of the Star Ledger Editorial Board and, I suspect, Jersey Jazzman don’t have. My oldest is about to enter kindergarden, and it took us some time to evaluate the options and come to a decision—one I’ll detail in another post.

Newark schools need leadership that will make hard decisions, study successful trends, be willing to experiment, and use resources carefully. In those terms, I think Anderson’s decision trumps that of the board.

There may be something to the idea that prevention of returning control of the schools to Newark would be better for Newark kids.  But using this vote to make that argument is misguided.

Now we're having an adult conversation - good. It's damn well about time. And since we're putting all of our cards on the table, let's be clear about what is happening in Newark and, for that matter, the rest of the state (and, arguably, the nation):

We have a governor who has explicitly said that New Jersey's public schools spend too much money. He mocks Newark for spending what it spends to educate some of the poorest children in the state, despite the fact that there is a massive amount of evidence that New Jersey's commitment to school funding equity has produced real results for these very children.

This governor has mistakenly - deceptively? - insisted that the problems in New Jersey's schools should be laid at the feet of teachers:

Q. And is tenure reform the most important part of that?

A. I see tenure, merit pay and OSA as a bundle. I’d like to see them all go together. By repairing the tenure system, we’ll be able to get rid of some ineffective teachers, but then we’ve got to get effective ones in there and it’s going to be years and years. So that’s why I think OSA is such an important part, and increasing charter schools in urban areas, so that those kids don’t get lost while the fixes of tenure and merit pay are fixing the system in a 10-year horizon.

It doesn't seem to occur to the governor that Millburn, right down the road from Newark and one of the best districts in the state, has tenure and a unionized teaching staff and no vouchers and fought tooth-and-nail against charter schools. Are the teachers really that much better in Millburn? Is that the primary difference between the two school systems?

But rather than acknowledge the most obvious thing in the world, Chris Christie has hired an ACTING Commissioner of Education and a superintendent for Newark who share his vision: the dissolution of public, neighborhood schools in favor of a system of charters. This plan is being implemented with funds provided by Eli Broad, a California billionaire who serves as Cerf's patron and shares his vision. Mark Zuckerberg's grant is abetting their schemes.

I've not said that Zuckerberg or Broad have a personal financial stake in the privatization of Newark's schools; I don't believe they do. They have, however, drawn quite a few edu-preneurs into their worlds, people who stand to make a good buck off of the conversion of Newark's schools. And there are ancillary plans - Teachers Village stands out - that are contingent on Newark adopting a charter-based school system.

But I believe Zuckerberg and Broad's motivation is ultimately ideological. They really do believe that a "market-based" approach to education will magically wipe away the economic decay and lack of opportunity and racism that Newark suffers under every day.

The question, however, is not whether they are correct in their assumptions and prescriptions (it's obvious to me and others that they are not). The real question is: Who gets to make the decisions? Billionaires dumping small pieces of their vast fortunes on a community that they have no ties to? Or the people of that community themselves?

If the Advisory Board in Newark had acquiesced to Anderson's plans, they would, in effect, be endorsing the destruction of a system of neighborhood public schools, run by the citizens of their community. They would be agreeing that Newark's children cannot be educated unless they are segregated; again, not necessarily by race (although that is certainly part of it), but also by ability, or parental involvement, or educational need, or language, or socio-economic status.

They would be agreeing that it is acceptable to have some children enroll in charter schools that receive additional financial support, operate under a different set of rules, do not allow for meaningful parental or community input, and have different student populations.

But what's worse, they would be agreeing to live in the same state of denial as all the other reformyists: people who will not acknowledge the truth that the primary effect of an expansive charter system is to isolate different populations of children from each other.

Now, here's the thing: if we could get past this denial, we could have a serious conversation that's long overdue. Because we have big, big problems with segregated schools in New Jersey - problems only a few people seem to want to talk about.

Millburn is in the same county as Newark, but, for all intents and purposes, it may as well be on Mars. There is little to no interaction between the students or the parents in both communities. The funding systems are completely separate. Parents in Millburn pay a fortune to live there; I'm sure the houses are very nice and they've got that great downtown and a Whole Foods, but what they are really paying for is the school system.

That school system has great teachers and big athletic fields and lots of science labs and great music and art programs... but it is also filled with students whose parents can and do pay a large premium to get them into that district. Millburn is full of families who have segregated themselves by virtue of their means - and that contributes to their children's educational "success" far more than any other factor.

Is this "fair"? Were I a parent in Newark, with real "skin in the game," I wouldn't think so. Why should  my child be denied the chance to enjoy a peer effect of children raised in like-minded families? Peer effect is real and substantial; why should the benefits of it be granted only to those who can afford to move to communities with great school systems?

This is a hard question, and our current political environment has made it dangerous to discuss, for both sides. If reformyists agree that charters and "choice" are not bringing about substantial instructional change, but mostly just segregating children, they are admitting the problems go far deeper than anything that happens in our schools.

If, however, anti-reformyists like me believe that charters and "choice" are merely segregating kids, we have to face an uncomfortable truth: that segregation is already occurring on a large scale throughout the state and the country. We are already educating some of our kids at the expense of others.

New Jersey has attempted to ameliorate this disparity through the Abbott decision and the later SFRA law. Again, we've seen real progress. Is it enough? No. What should we do? I wish I had a perfect answer, but...

I'll tell you what we shouldn't do. We shouldn't strip power from communities to have a say in their schools. We shouldn't go backwards by taking away funding that's made a real difference in the lives of children. We shouldn't pretend that "choice" is often nothing more than segregation. And we shouldn't say, "Poverty is an excuse not to reform!" when the truth is that reform is the excuse we use to not deal with poverty.

Newark has a decision to make: is it going to divide up its kids into groups that are more easily educable and groups that are not? Is the city, in effect, going to track its kids, starting at the earliest grades? That's the real issue, as much as some will vehemently deny it. And it's an issue that should be - that must be - resolved by the people of Newark. Not by billionaires, not by bureaucrats, not by consultants - but by the people of the community.

In the end, all of this is academic for the parent of a child in a Newark school. No one should ever criticize any parent for doing what is ultimately in their child's best interest. If you think Robert Treat or North Star is the best possible choice for your kid, by all means, try to get them in. No child should ever be used to make a political point.

But we owe it to all of the children to be honest about what is going on in Newark and the rest of the country. We shouldn't pretend that this last vote was all about replacing bad schools with "remarkable" ones; it wasn't.

One last thing: you're right, I don't have a child in Newark's schools. But I am a New Jersey public school teacher, and the reformy arguments have real consequences for my work and my students. Every teacher and every parent should be aware of what's going on right now, because, like it or not, it affects us all.

ADDING: Just rereading; yeah, I went on a bit, didn't I? But I still want to add one thing:

I have relied heavily on the research of Dr. Bruce Baker of Rutgers here, as I do in many of my posts. I and many others are very grateful for what he does, but I want to be clear: these conclusions are solely my own. I encourage everyone to go to SchoolFinance101 and read for yourself what Baker has to say about these issues; you may arrive at a different place than I do.

If you do, come here and let's talk. That's how it should be.

Five Years of Jersey Jazzman! Wednesday Throwback: How the NJ Press Failed Us on Christie & Pensions

One of the most important functions of bloggers is to keep the mainstream press on their toes. Unfortunately, while there are good reporters working the education beat, both in New Jersey and around the nation, too often the narrative about education policy features "experts" who have no idea what they are talking about.

I've been particularly frustrated over the years with the pundits, opinion makers, and news reporters who have given Chris Christie a free ride (and, for their efforts, managed to procure literal free rides for themselves). One of the most egregious examples -- and one that is particularly relevant today -- is how the press let Christie get away with claiming he "saved" New Jersey's public employee pensions.

Of course, he did no such thing. Some of us pointed this out in real time; however, during the last election, when it mattered, it was clear that the press had no interest whatsoever in holding Christie accountable on this critical issue.

This post from May of 2014 recalls the New Jersey news media's utter failure to serve the public by simply demanding to know how Chris Christie was going to pay for his pension plans. Ladies and gentlemen of the press, you have got to start doing better.

*****

If you are at all shocked by this, you just haven't been paying attention:

In a stunning reversal, Gov. Chris Christie today announced plans to grab, over two years, $2.43 billion meant for public workers' pensions to balance New Jersey's ailing state budget. 

The plan threatens to derail one of Christie's signature accomplishments in Trenton — a series of reforms to replenish New Jersey's strained pension fund over the long term — but it would solve an immediate crisis for the governor, who has to find $2 billion somewhere to cover budget shortfalls for the current and incoming fiscal years. 

At a Statehouse news conference today, the Republican governor said his plan is to take $2.43 billion budgeted for the pension fund during this fiscal year and the next one. He ruled out alternatives such as raising the state income tax or cutting funds for schools and Medicaid. 

A payment to the pension fund scheduled to be made before June 30 will be reduced — from $1.6 billion to $696 million — via executive order, Christie said. 

To all my fellow public employees who voted for Chris Christie: I hope you're happy. This clown broke an explicit promise to you, and now he wants to take money out of your pocket and put your pension at risk. But, hey, he was such a straight shooter back in 2013, dontchaknow! And you just loved his no-nonsense style! Plus, he was with you on marriage equity/guns/abortion/insert-your-favorite-conservative-social-wedge-issue-here...

Honest people can debate any of those social issues. But I've never understood how a public employee could think any of them are more important than being able to take care of yourself and your family.

Of course, back in 2011, when Christie - abetted by his Democratic allies in the legislature -- forced us to pay more into our pensions on the promise the state would start meeting its obligations, he told us that he was "fixing these systems in order to save them." Plenty of suckers appeared to believe this; only snarky teacher-bloggers, it seemed, bothered to point out that Christie had never put forth a plan to raise the revenue his legislation required. Over and over, the warning signs were there: without additional revenue, the payments required by Christie's law -- the one he constantly touted across the country -- would not be made.

Flash forward to 2013 and the gubernatorial race: Christie still had not told us how he was going to come up with in excess of $5 billion by 2018. He refused to raise taxes on corporations or the wealthy, both of whom had making out like bandits under New Jersey's regressive tax regime:

This was Christie's signature legislation; his shining, bipartisan moment... but he still hadn't let us in on the plan. You would think someone -- anyone -- would ask him about this.

No one did.

Don't believe me? Here are the two debates from 2013 between Christie and his challenger, Barbara Buono. Number one:

And number two:



There were lots of serious questions about serious issues asked in the debates: marriage equity, minimum wage, gun control, property taxes, etc. There were also plenty of questions about issues that I think are far less important: Christie's political ambitions, the Christiecrats who endorsed the incumbent over Buono, Wawa vs. 7-11 (seriously), etc.

But pension underfunding cuts right to the heart of the fiscal health of New Jersey. If anyone cared one whit about whether New Jersey would weather its budget crisis, they had to be concerned about the pensions. Why didn't anyone bother to ask about the pension payments?

To be fair: Barbara Buono, who I like and respect, never bothered to ask Christie about this either. I suppose she avoided the question because she figured she'd have to admit that she would have to raise taxes to make the payments. From my perspective, she would have been better off doing just that... but that is, admittedly, Monday morning quarterbacking.

In any case, the press didn't need for Buono to bring up pensions; they could have addressed the issue themselves. Unfortunately, the editorial boards of the state's newspapers utterly failed in their obligation to get an answer from Christie on this most basic of questions.

For example: when Tom Moran, chief of the Star-Ledger's editorial board, famously published his mea culpa for the paper's endorsement of Christie, he couldn't bring himself to address the problem of the pension payments:

But there is more to it. Christie has made good progress on education with a focus on struggling cities, especially Newark and Camden. His pension and health reforms helped contain public costs that were spiraling out of control. [emphasis mine]

Dear lord, what an obtuse statement. There is no cost containment without the state making its payments -- and Christie never told us how he would make them. The S-L's original endorsement worried that Christie hadn't come up with the funds to pay for open space purchase and transit projects. But any worry about the pension payments? Nope: the pension bill was "important." Unfounded, but "important."

Let's be fair: the Ledger wasn't alone. The Philadelphia Inquirer said Christie put "pension funding on a better track." The Asbury Park Press editorial board said: "Public employee pension and health benefits have been reined in, with the largest impact on taxpayers still to be felt." The Bergen Record editorial board didn't even mention pension payments in their endorsement.

The Atlantic City Press, in their endorsement of Christie, proclaimed: "Whether those reforms succeed in shoring up the pension system will depend on the huge payments they require in future budgets, but this legislation, pushed strenuously by Christie, is a step in the right direction." But how could there be a "step" without a payment plan? Did it occur to the paper's editorial board to ask what the plan was?

Please.

Pension payments are the central fiscal issue in New Jersey, but not one editorial board in the state bothered to address it in the last gubernatorial election.

And so now here we are: Chris Christie has reneged on his promises, the state's bond rating is now in free fall, and we are no closer to pension"reform" than we were four years ago.

I want to be clear: there are some very good reporters in the state doing some very good work. But on pension payments, the punditocracy of New Jersey utterly failed their readers and viewers. What happens next is as much on their heads as anyone else's.

NJ's Editorial Boards take a stand on pension payments...

Five Years of Jersey Jazzman! Tuesday's Throwback: "Won't Back Down II - The Sequel"

I'm celebrating five years of blogging this week with a look back at some favorite posts (here's Monday's). I'll admit: the "funny" pieces don't always work; however, this one remains one of the most popular I've ever published.

It's not an exaggeration to say that Won't Back Down, the fictional movie that lionized the charter school movement, had many of us in the "real" reform camp worried. The premise was clearly ridiculous, but films like this are truthy enough that they can change public perception. That it was backed by the deep-pocketed and homophobic Philip Anschutz didn't help.

Luckily, Won't Back Down went on to have arguably the worst opening of any major commercial film in history. But that didn't stop me from imagining a sequel...

*****

Won't Back Down II: The Sequel

After credits roll, fade up on school office. A worker is taking down a sign that says "Adams Elementary" and putting up one that says "KKIP Super Success Academy." In walk Jamie Fitzpatrick (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and Nona Alberts (Viola Davis), smiling and chatting, clearly excited by changes in the school. 

They enter the principal's office, where they are greeted by the new school leader, Geoffrey Barth-Moskowitz (Anthony Hopkins). He stands and shakes their hands.

Geoffrey: Jamie, Nona, how good of you to come. Welcome to the KKIP Super Success Academy!

Jamie: Thank you so much, Mr. Barth-Moskowitz!

Geoffrey: Oh, please, no need to be formal; call me Geoff.

Jamie: The school looks wonderful, Geoff! I can't believe how many new computers you have!

Geoffrey: Well, that's all part of the generous funding we receive from the KKIP Foundation; we are able to spend more per pupil than Adams Elementary was.

Nona: Really? Why couldn't we get that money before when we were a public school?

Geoffrey: Oh, I think you'll find our funders are far more amenable to giving money if the schools match their ideological predilections. Now that you ladies have pulled the "parent trigger" and brought us in to take over this school, you'll find there are many changes coming.

Nona: Yes, well, that's one thing I wanted to ask you about. I figured that we would have a few computers in every classroom, but it looks like there are enough so that every child will have his or her own. Isn't that a little excessive?

Geofrey: Oh, not at all. You see, KSSA is now a "blended learning" school. We'll be delivering content to our customers... uh, sorry, "the children"... digitally, using software developed by K9 Inc. In fact, K9 Inc. will be running the entire school from now on.

Jamie: Wait a minute; this school is supposed to be non-profit. K9 is a for-profit company.

Geoffrey: True, but that was easy enough to get around. We merely set up a non-profit shell, with a board of directors sympathetic to our point of view. And the state and city politicians are all in our pocket... uh, I mean "on our side"... anyway.

Jamie: But that's not what we wanted at all! When we used the parent trigger, we thought we were getting a community-run school!

Geoffrey: Oh, Jamie, I'm sorry to tell you this, but all you did with the trigger was force a change. No one said you would have any say in what that change would be. No one made clear who would make the decisions about how the school would be structured or who would run it. No one had a procedure to appoint a board of directors. I'm sorry Jamie, but when you allowed this school to be converted to a charter, you gave up many of your rights as both a taxpayer and as a parent.

Jamie: Well, I'll go the local school board! They'll force this charter school to have parental involvement!

Geoffrey: My dear Jamie, you didn't think this through, did you? Charter schools offer you "choice"; they do NOT offer you "involvement." If you don't like the way we do things at KSSA, you can "choose" to leave; that's what school "choice" is all about. But your local district, even though it must give us money to run the school, has no say in how we run the school. We are, in effect, our own district now.

Jamie: Well, I don't like it, but it must be better than what we had before at Adams Elementary. So I'll just enroll my daughter and see how it goes...

Geoffrey: Ah, about that. I'm afraid I have some bad news: I've asked you here to help "counsel out" your daughter.

Jamie: WHAT?!

Geoffrey: Yes, unfortunately, your daughter has a learning disability, isn't that correct?

Jamie: Of course; she's dyslexic. That's the whole reason I organized the "Parenttroopers," because her needs weren't being served by those awful unionized teachers!

Geoffrey: Yes, it's funny that. Unions, like those in Chicago, have demanded that districts hire more special education teachers to serve students like your daughter. But they've been criticized for protecting those teachers from layoffs and evaluation systems that could penalize special education teachers. [Update: more here.] Ironic, no?

Jamie: Whatever. All I want to know is why you think my daughter won't do well here!

Geoffrey: Well, Jamie, we here at KSSA base our school on best practices. We look at the best charter schools: after all, Education Secretary Duncan himself has said we should close poor performing charters and emulate the best ones. New Jersey is leading the way with this line of thinking; look at this:

You see how the "successful" schools - the ones Governor Christie touts as exemplary - have fewer children with special needs? And fewer children who are in deep poverty? And fewer children who don't speak English at home? That's our plan as well; "counseling out" the children who keep our test scores low.

Jamie: But you can't keep my child out! The law says you have to accept every child!

Geoffrey: Every child who applies at the right time and right place, you mean. We've made that considerably more difficult.

Jamie: I don't care! I won't back down! I'll get her in this school, you'll see!

Geoffrey: And what then, Jamie? What happens if she doesn't fit in? If she isn't compliant with our strict disciplinary policies? If you can't contribute the significant "voluntary" parent contribution, or pay your child's discipline fines?

Jamie: But my child has an Individualized Education Program! You have to follow that!

Geoffrey: Yes - but we get to decide how to implement it. And if that means your child gets more suspensions than the other students, well...

Nona: Don't worry, Jamie, we'll work this out. After all, I'm the principal now...

Geoffrey: Yes, about that; I'm afraid there's been a change, Ms. Alberts. KSSA will not be requiring your services as an administrator.

Nona: WHAT?! 

Geoffrey: Yes, well, I'm afraid that when K9 Inc. was given the contract to become the school's charter management organization, all personnel matters fell to them. We have decided we need a truly transformational leader, so we are bringing in a young graduate of our KKIP Leadership Academy. Don't worry, he has nearly two years of experience in the classroom...

Nona: But I was going to run this school! The parents love me! I'm the best teacher at the school!

Geoffrey: That may be true, Ms. Albert, but I'm afraid their voices are irrelevant here. In any case, a blended learning environment keeps costs low by cutting staff; someone had to go. Now, if you'd like to reapply for your job as a teacher here, we'll see what we can do. Of course, you'll have to take a pay cut...

Nona: A pay cut?! I just got a divorce; I can't afford a pay cut!

Geoffrey: Ms. Albert, you're asking me to put your interests above the students; even worse, you're asking me to put your interests above the interests of K9 Inc.! If you're not prepared to work longer hours for less money, I don't see how you will fit in here.

Nona: But I have years of experience! You need people like me on the staff!

Geoffrey: Actually, experienced, overpaid teachers are the last thing we need. Churn-and-burn is now how we roll. We need teachers who can put in long days and longer school years.

Nona: But I have a son with a brain injury at home! I can't work longer hours than I already am!

Geoffrey: My word, what a selfish attitude. I can see you don't have the proper love of children it takes to work at this type of successful school.

Jamie: "Successful"?! You're counseling out students who are difficult to teach, burning out your staff, putting resources into corporate profits instead of the classroom, disempowering the community - and you dare to say you're "successful"?!

Geoffrey: I think our test scores will speak for themselves - especially after we have the students drill-and-kill on them...

Nona: Well, we're not standing for this! This isn't what we wanted when we pulled the trigger!

Geoffrey pushes red button on his desk.

Jamie: We won't back down! We're going to take back our school, again!

Two very large men enter.

Geoffrey: These ladies were just leaving; escort them off the premises. If they attempt to reenter the grounds, call the police.

Nona: You can't do this! This is our school!

Geoffrey: Not any more. 

Jamie and Nona are dragged out, yelling. Barth-Moskowitz turns and looks at camera...

Fade to black.

ADDING: Darcie reviews the original. It ain't pretty.

ADDING MORE: I was all excited to get my $19 million check for this script from anti-gay, environment-raping, Won't Back Down producer Philip Anschutz. Then the box office figures started coming out for the weekend; it looks like WBD is on track to have one of the worst openings in Hollywood history.

Damn. I guess I better cancel that order at the Maserati dealer. Well, babe, that's showbiz...

Five Years of Jersey Jazzman: Throwback Monday

Today is the five year anniversary of Jersey Jazzman, America's premier source of education policy snark, Chris Christie invective, default-colored Excel graphs, and teacher-bashers bashing.

People ask why I started this thing. Aside from the vast power and riches that come to one from writing an education policy blog, it was a matter of sanity: I was literally yelling at the radio almost every day. I felt like my grasp on reality was slipping every time I read the Star-Ledger op-ed pages: how could the editorial board of the state's largest paper get education so consistently, embarrassingly wrong? It's actually possible this blog saved my marriage, as Mrs. Jazzman was growing increasingly sick of my dinner table ranting.

Jersey Jazzman, in the end, is an exercise in preserving my mental health. In an innumerate, illogical world that shuns critical thinking, I always know I have a place to throw opprobrium at the reformy folks who so richly deserve it.

This week, I thought I'd look back at a few highlights from the last five years. Let's start with the post that is likely the first statement of the entire thesis of this blog, from December of 2010. I think this is the first time I made the explicit connection between advocating for "reform" -- charter schools, test-based teacher evaluation, eliminating tenure, merit pay, vouchers, etc. -- and justifying the underfunding of schools. It's also one of the first times I cited Bruce Baker, intellectual godfather of this blog.

More throwbacks to come...

*****

Bruce Baker Twitter-points (hey, I invented a verb!) to this article from the LA Times questioning the reasons behind seniority-based layoffs.

Bruce neatly dispenses with the notion that the LAT's vaunted Value Added Modeling (VAM)-based approach is appropriate for high-stakes decision making like who gets laid off. So I need not comment on that.

I'll also skip past the disturbing bias that pervades this sorry excuse for journalism. I've dealt before with the complete lack of ethics the LAT has shown in this entire affair - an affair of their own creation.

Instead, let's focus on how the LAT completely refuses to question the premise of the entire article:

The issue has gained momentum as tens of thousands of teachers nationally have been dismissed without regard to their abilities and research has established that veteran instructors on average are no better or worse than their less experienced colleagues.

From Washington state to Arizona to Rhode Island, seniority-based cuts have turned some young teachers against their own unions and fueled efforts — mostly unsuccessful thus far — to revise seniority rules. In California, two bills failed this year in part because of opposition from the California Teachers Assn.

At L.A. Unified, outgoing Supt. Ramon C. Cortines said he believes it is time to consider other factors besides seniority during cutbacks, including performance measures such as attendance and parental feedback. He said he favors capping the number of layoffs at a single campus — an approach similar to that proposed in a pending legal settlement involving Liechty and other schools. [emphasis mine]

Um, excuse me for pointing this out, but:

SHOULDN'T WE BE ASKING WHY WE ARE LAYING OFF SO MANY TEACHERS IN THE FIRST PLACE!?!? 

Where in this article is there any questioning of why the students of LA should have to suffer from fewer dollars allocated to their education just because they happen to be going to school during the Great Recession?

What does it say about us as a society that we can continue to find plenty of money to fight wars of choice that have no clear end in sight while simultaneously accepting cuts in education with a yawn?

What does it say about our commitment to democracy when the very wealthiest are richer than they've ever been while teachers are laid off by the thousands?

Talk like this is normalizing the defunding of education, and it should not go unchallenged. In fact, I would argue that any discussion of VAM or merit pay or charter schools or unionization or pension reform or whatever should always start by challenging the notion that we have to cut that amount of money available to our schools.

Because, as I've pointed out before, the 'formers keep giving away the endgame. The LAT makes quite clear where they want this to head:

Far fewer teachers would be laid off if the district were to base the cuts on performance rather than seniority. The least experienced teachers also are the lowest-paid, so more must be laid off to meet budgetary targets. An estimated 25% more teachers would have kept their jobs if L.A. Unified had based its cuts on teachers' records in improving test scores.

Translation: Keep the CHEAPER teachers. They're just as good as the more expensive ones.

Well, what happens when the word gets out that you will never make more teaching in your first few years than you will in your last few? Does that sound like a career for the best and the brightest?

Oh, you want to keep paying them more as long as they're good? Great! But you want a great teacher in every classroom, right?

So where are you going to get the money for that?

Folks, when it comes to the 'formers, we're really down to two choices:

A) They haven't thought this through.

B) They are willing to throw up incoherent arguments to mask their real agenda: cutting funding for education.

If anyone has an alternative theory, let's hear it.

Once Again, It's the Poverty, Not the Stupid

Ani McHugh put down the baby for a few minutes and put a couple more corporate education reformers in their place:

I’m not sure whether Dana Egreczky and Melanie Willoughby–co-authors of a pro-PARCC opinion piece published yesterday on nj.com–are parents of children in New Jersey’s public schools, but I do know that they’re not educators: the bio at the end of their piece lists Egreczky as a Senior VP of Workforce Development at the NJ Chamber of Commerce and Willoughby as a Senior VP at the New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

The bio fails to mention, however, that Egreczky is also a member of the Governor’s Study Commission on the Use of Student Assessment in New Jersey.  (How’s that for objectivity? I wonder what Egreczky will contribute to the Commission’s final report–and whether her staunch support of PARCC, including her organization’s membership in We Raise NJ–should preclude her from having input into it. Let’s not forget that David Hespe, Chair of the Study Commission, published a similar defense of PARCC on February 24th. But I digress.)

According to Egreczky and Willoughby, New Jersey employers have been increasingly plagued–specifically in the past decade–by high school and college graduates who are “underprepared for the workplace.” The solution, according to Egreczky and Willoughby, is clear: Common Core and PARCC.

But even a cursory reading of this piece exposes the many problems that arise when people who have no understanding of the intricacies of K-12 education drive reforms that reshape it–particularly when such reforms are met with overwhelming opposition from parents and educators. Some specific issues:

Ani dispatches our PARCC cheerleaders with her usual aplomb, so I'll leave you to read the rest. I did, however, want to make an additional point:

From Egreczky and Willoughby's piece:

We tend to think that millennials, who currently make up the youngest generation in the workforce, are highly advanced because they grew up immersed in transformative technology. However, this is not the case. According to a new report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), millennials in the United States rank near the bottom of all workers around the world in skills employers want most: literacy, practical math and even a category called "problem-solving in technology-rich environments." The report is based on a test designed to measure the job skills of adults, aged 16 to 65, in 23 countries.

Wow -- sounds serious. We can't even compete in "problem solving in technology rich environments"! Never mind that we actually have an overabundance of qualified candidates for many jobs in technology... clearly, Poland is on the march! Bring on the PARCC!

Except...

No one has actually shown that the PARCC measures any marketable job skills in students; frankly, we have no idea what predictive validity the PARCC may have.

But we do know that the children in the countries that are "beating" us on tests like the OECD's PIAAC -- the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (as reported here by ETS) -- are far less likely to live in poverty than children in the United States:

Here are the average scores on the PIAAC's PS-TRE -- the "technology rich environment" test -- plotted on the Y-axis against the percentage of relative childhood poverty for each country, which is on the X-axis.

Look at the red line: see the tilt downward? As a county's childhood poverty rate increases, its test scores decrease.

Finland doesn't give its students tons of standardized tests; instead, according to Pasi Salhberg, the country strives for economic justice, a strong program of human services, and equality of access to education. Finland also treats its teachers like professionals, paying them well, holding them accountable, and allowing them the freedom to teach.

If Egreczky and Willoughby really wanted to bring the USA to educational prominence, they wouldn't waste their time cheerleading for a test no one has ever shown to have any positive benefits for students. Instead, they'd be demanding that the United States lower its disgusting childhood poverty rate, which is clearly having a debilitating effect on our ability to provide equitable education opportunities.

Why don't the mouthpieces for America's business community demand an end to child poverty, rather than the expansion a failed regime of standardized testing?

Why don't these people insist that the United States properly fund programs to end childhood hunger and give all children access to great medical and dental care? Why don't they advocate for living wages? Why don't they insist on a surge of investment in our cities' infrastructures, creating both good-paying jobs and sustainable communities?

The evidence from the rest of the world is clear: poverty matters. Why don't these spokespeople for corporate America acknowledge this simple truth?

Thinking...

"Nice work, Egreczky and Willoughby!"

NJDOE, Hespe Turn Blind Eye to Segregating Charter Schools

I've said before that Hoboken, NJ is one of the most interesting case studies of charter school expansion in the country. Charter school parents have amassed significant amounts of social, political, and financial capital for their children's schools, making them equivalent, in my view, to New Jersey's high-performing yet segregated suburban schools.

Keep this in mind as we look at the latest charter school news from Hoboken:

HOBOKEN -- The Hoboken Board of Education’s legal fight to block the expansion of a local charter school hit a new snag last week. After resolving to reconsider its approval of Hoboken Dual Language Charter School’s expansion to seventh and eighth grade in November, the state Department of Education issued a letter on March 20 upholding the school's expansion.

The core of the school board’s legal argument was that HoLa’s admission policy has a segregative effect by drawing white students out of the district at large. The DOE said it took up the case in order to “more closely inspect the demographic statistics surrounding the relevant community in this matter and how HoLa’s admissions policy may involve that community.”

But on Friday, education commissioner David Hespe said the data showed no segregative effect caused by HoLa and Hoboken’s two additional charter schools. Though HoLa has a much lower percentage of black and Hispanic students than the traditional schools in the district, the percentage of black students in the district hasn’t changed since HoLa opened in 2010, and the percentage of Hispanic students has actually fallen.

“The data points towards an overall population shift in the last 10 years in the City of Hoboken,” wrote Hespe, in an apparent reference to the trend of gentrification and rising rents. (emphasis mine)

You know, up until the last few months, I had been giving David Hespe the benefit of the doubt. I'd heard he was a rational, reasonable guy. I'd understood that he knew how politics worked, and that while he would always have to represent the interests of his boss, Chris Christie, first and foremost, he wasn't an ideologue who would ignore the evidence right in front of his face.

But it's clear now the NJDOE is as off the rails under Hespe as it was under Chris Cerf, a true believer if there ever was one. And if the reappointment of the disastrous Cami Anderson as State Superintendent of Newark, or the department's failure to monitor her One Newark plan, or the department's absurd claims about the PARCC, or their response to the #PeepingPearson controversy doesn't convince you that Hespe does not much care about reasonably weighing the evidence...

The approval of HoLa's expansion should.

Let's start by laying out the facts, which are not in dispute: Hoboken's charter schools, and HoLa in particular, serve a very different population of students than the district schools. The charters, proportionally, have far more white students than HPS schools:

They also have far fewer students who qualify for the federal school lunch program, a proxy measure of economic disadvantage:

The charters also have very few Limited English Proficient students (LEP). The special education percentages are actually close -- with the exception of HoLa, the Hoboken Dual Language Charter School:

HoLa serves a very small population of special needs students.

All of this by itself ought to be enough to show how absurd Hespe's claim is. Of course HoLa has a segregative effect: just look at the numbers!

However, the Hoboken charter school community, along with Hespe himself, continue to spin this data in some really shameless ways. In the statement above, Hespe claims the historical trend backs up the notion that the charters don't have a segregative effect. But, when comparing all the publicly financed schools over the last decade, it's clear that's just not true:

Here are the historical percentages of white students at all publicly-financed schools in Hoboken over the last fifteen years; the charters are the red lines. Only one HPS school comes close to meeting the percentage of white students at the charters: Brandt, a Pre-K/K school that is clearly not representative of the older student population.

Here is the historical record for free-lunch eligibility:

Look at the downward trend for the charters over the last fifteen years. These are the children who are in deep poverty: less than 130% of the federal poverty line. Any implication that Hoboken's charters are simply following citywide demographic trends is just not reflected in this data.

"But wait!" say the charter cheerleaders! "You have to consider the entire city! Including the private school population! That's the only fair way to compare us!"

This argument is utterly bogus on its face: the charters, who insist that they are "public" schools, want to be held accountable for their diversity through a comparison with private schools? The segregation of Hoboken's private schools justifies the segregation of the charters?

This is so ridiculous that it doesn't deserve a serious response. Nonetheless, I did respond regarding socio-economic segregation a while ago, and proved that even under the most generous scenario, the charters absolutely do not serve the same population of students as the city as a whole:

In the face of this, however, Hespe offers one bit of data. I've received a copy of his March 20 letter to HoLa: here's pretty much the entirety of his argument that HoLa reflects the demographics of the city as a whole:

Since nearly 6 in 10 children under 18 in Hoboken are white, the charter schools must reflect the city as a whole. Right?

No. 

Understand: this would bolster Hespe's claim that HoLa reflects the community if it actually reflected the school-aged population of Hoboken. But Hespe's figure includes children too young to attend school. Look at the title of the graph: "17 & Under," which includes the Hoboken pre-school population.

Why does this matter? Here's a graph I posted before, breaking down the ages of Hoboken's citizens:

9 percent of Hoboken's total population are between 5 and 19 years old. But 7 percent are under 5 years old. Hespe's number includes all these children. And the under-5 population is disproportionately large compared to the total population of children: the tots are 44 percent of the total under-19 population.

I can't find census data to explore this further, but I think there is good reason to suspect the under-5 population of Hoboken does not reflect the rest of the city's children. Unless there has been a huge demographic bubble, what's likely happening is that a significant number of young couples are getting married, having young children, then leaving the city as they approach school age. There is at least some evidence this is a trend in American cities.

This is how much Hespe is willing to strain and twist and bend the facts to give the politically connected Hoboken charter school parents what they want: a charter school with a student population that does not reflect the public schools, paid for with taxpayer funds. Clearly, the charters don't reflect the demographics of the district. Clearly, the charters don't reflect the socio-economic profile of the entire city. And there is no good evidence the charters reflect the racial profile of the city's school-aged children.

But Hespe, apparently, does not care. In his letter, he conflates the district's total student population -- private, district, charter, and home-schooled -- with the district's public school population. Here's the administrative code relevant to Hespe's role of overseeing the effects of charter schools on districts:

On an annual basis, the Commissioner shall assess the student composition of a charter school and the segregative effect that the loss of the students may have on its district of residence. The assessment shall be based on the enrollment from the initial recruitment period pursuant to N.J.A.C. 6A:11-4.4(b). The charter school shall submit data for the assessment: 1. In a format prescribed by the Commissioner; and 2. No later than 4:15 P.M. on June 1.

How can David Hespe possibly read this and think his charge is to allow the proliferation of segregated charter schools? How can he possibly believe there is no effect on the "district of residence" when the charters clearly don't serve the same population as HPS?

I've said it before and I'll say it again: if Hoboken's charter school cheerleaders were upfront about what is happening in their schools and their city, they'd have every right to point their fingers at suburbanites like me and call us out. The truth is that many of these parents could afford to move to the 'burbs and send their kids to schools that are even more segregated than Hoboken's charters. But they choose to stay in the city; that, arguably, makes the city more diverse.

I'll even concede there is an argument to be made that the charters deserve some -- some -- of the Adjustment Aid that is denied to them through the charter school funding process. Of course, these schools make up for this loss in private fundraising; are the charter school cheerleaders willing to share this pot of money with the district if they get more aid?

In any case, the charter school community's claims to the moral high ground are null and void when Hoboken's charter school expansion is based on the distortions found in Hespe's letter. He and his department have turned a blind eye to the real and serious effects of the charters on the city's school district.

In doing so, Hespe and his top brass at the NJDOE show they are ideologues, uninterested in a rational assessment of the consequences of their policies. And, again, it's not just charter schools: PARCC, One Newark, the state superintendents, and all the other issues before this department are not being evaluated with rigorous, evidence-based methods.

I had high hopes for David Hespe; they have now been dashed. Hunker down, New Jersey: when it comes to the NJDOE, things won't get better before they get worse.

The NJDOE evaluating Hoboken's charter schools: twisted.

BREAKING: Feds Monitor State-Run Jersey City Schools for Civil Rights Violations

Last night, the president of the Jersey City Education Association, Ronnie Greco, posted this on Facebook:

JCEA is the local union and the largest affiliate of the NJEA.

A knowledgable source in the Jersey City community tells me this is in regards to dual language programs in the district. Apparently, the charge is that these programs are available to some demographic groups within the city, but not others.

This is part of a pattern within the state-run urban districts of New Jersey. Back in July of 2014, the feds confirmed they were investigating a civil rights complaint about One Newark, State Superintendent Cami Anderson's school reorganization plan. As Bruce Baker, Joseph Oluwole, and I showed, there is reason to believe One Newark has a racially disparate impact on both students and staff in Newark.

And so, once again, we are confronted with the question: why do Newark, Jersey City, and Paterson remain under state control after decades? What benefit has there been to taxpayers or students for schools that serve many economically disadvantaged children to be governed by undemocratic, unresponsive, and often incapable leadership?

More to come...

Is the PARCC Really Worth All This Bother?

There's a good discussion of PARCCgate, based on my post from Saturday, going on at Blue Jersey (which regularly reposts my stuff --thanks Rosi!). Bob Braun also expands on his original post, the one that started all this, with a new story from East Hanover. Turns out Pearson Education, the  company that makes the PARCC, is at work across the state, monitoring and reporting on student social media activity that they believe compromised the security of their test.

One thing that's been left out of the discussion is just how big a change PARCC is for New Jersey High Schools. Prior to this year, students only had two state tests to take between their freshman and senior years: a Grade 9 biology exam, and the HSPA (High School Proficiency Assessment), a Grade 11 general test of knowledge.

It's safe to say that for college-bound New Jersey students, the HSPA was considered to be a bit of a joke. I've heard stories over the years of kids playing games with the tests, like trying to get as many flavors of ice cream as possible into your writing example ("Life may have many rocky roads..."). But there are so many other measures of high school performance -- graduation rates, SAT/ACT participation rates and scores, AP rates, etc. -- that HSPA performance was not a big worry for suburban schools.

PARCC, however, is now a required test for students in high school algebra, geometry, and English language arts. Some districts have stopped giving their own final and midterm assessments in place of the PARCC; however, I'm hearing some schools aren't using the test scores as part of the grade for the student. So it's likely that the motivation for students to do well is all over the map, making meaningful comparisons between schools impossible.

I don't see how PARCC at the high school level can be considered a valid assessment of school or teacher or even student performance given these realties. Which gets us back to the core question in all this: is PARCC worth all this bother?

We're now at the point where a private, foreign-owned corporation is actively monitoring students and colluding with a governmental agency to prompt school districts into punishing students if they discuss test items or post picture of them on line. This is going to require an active, on-going system of monitoring students' social media use, plus the acquiescence of parents in suppressing the free speech rights of their children.

Schools are now going to have to mete out punishments for activities that were largely considered innocuous just a few years ago when they took place away from social media. I always used to ask older kids about the finals for classes they took the previous year: "No, he won't test you on that, but you have to know this." Teachers themselves often use last year's tests as practice exams, or give examples of exemplars for homework assignments.

Isn't this what we want? Don't we want the kids talking about their learning? Obviously we don't want them Instagramming pictures of tests before everyone has taken them, but what is wrong with doing so afterward? Why wouldn't we encourage this?

If you're Pearson, the answer is obvious: it affects your bottom line. You can't reuse questions after they've been published, so you have to spend more money to create more items. But where is the evidence that their tests are any better than local assessments anyway? I haven't seen it; in fact, even the PARCC people admit they don't know if the results of their tests vary with the quality of instruction students receive.

We know that high school grades do as good a job in predicting college success as any standardized test. So why do we need the PARCC to be given 12 times during a high school student's career (and that number will probably go up), accompanied by an intrusive security protocol? Why not use standardized tests appropriately as accountability measures, with correct sampling techniques and as measures that inform, as opposed to mandate, decisions?

Why are we making life so complicated for our schools and our students when it has never been shown that there are any benefits from administering the PARCC?

Thinking...

Pearson stock price, one-year span.