Merryl Tisch Still Loves Common Core And Endless Testing

The Doyenne of Testing may be on the way out, but that hasn't stopped her from weighing on on how swell her education reform agenda is:

The state’s outgoing education policy chief on Wednesday implored Gov. Andrew Cuomo to preserve the state’s new tougher learning standards and exams, despite mounting opposition from parents and teachers unions.

...

Tisch said during a public radio interview Wednesday that Cuomo “believes in high standards, he believes in testing,” but he is also “hearing a lot of noise in the background” from Common Core critics. Calling the governor a “very important ally in the reform effort,” she urged him not to let the backlash steer him away from the standards.

“I understand that people are putting enormous pressure to roll back, to stand still, to do a moratorium,” she said on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show. However, she added, “I would just hope that when they push back, that no one panics.”

Tisch need not worry about Cuomo changing anything - his CCSS task force is doing all they can to limit attendance at their public hearings so as to not hear much of anything from critics of the reform policies the state pursues.

Just another sign that all we're getting at the state level is a "rebranding" of Common Core and the Endless Testing regime.

State pols and educrats have no intention of changing direction in policy.

Common Core (though perhaps by another name and with minor tweaks) and the Endless Testing regime will live on until politicians are made to pay  apolitical price for their support.

That means voting a few of these crooks out of office BECAUSE of their support for Common Core, the Endless testing regime and the corporate education reform agenda.

NAEP Scores Fall, Arne Duncan Says Nothing To See Here

Heckuva job education reformers:

For the first time since 1990, the mathematical skills of American students have dropped, according to results of a nationwide test released by the Education Department on Wednesday.

The decline appeared in both Grades 4 and 8 in an exam administered every two years as the National Assessment of Educational Progress and sometimes called “the nation’s report card.” 

The dip in scores comes as the country’s employers demand workers with ever-stronger skills in mathematics to compete in a global economy. It also comes as states grapple with the new Common Core academic standards and a rebellion against them.

Progress in reading, which has been generally more muted than in math for decades, also stalled this year as scores among fourth graders flat-lined and eighth-grade scores decreased. The exams assess a representative sampling of students on math and reading skills in public and private schools.

 And of course reformers have all sorts of excuses for why the scores dropped:

“It’s obviously bad news,” said Michael J. Petrilli, the president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a right-leaning education policy group in Washington. “We don’t want to see scores going in this direction.”

“That doesn’t mean we should completely freak out,” he added. “This could be a one-time variation, and maybe we’ll see things come back next time. But if it were the beginning of a new trend, it would be quite disappointing and disturbing.”

And:

“It’s not unusual when you see lots of different things happening in classrooms to first see a slight decline before you see improvement,” said William J. Bushaw, the executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, which sets policies and achievement levels for the tests.

Arne Duncan claims there's nothing to worry about here, that the scores indicate nothing about the efficacy of his reform agenda, that his education reform policies will eventually show big dividends on the NAEP in the "long term," but Carol Burris says he's wrong:

It is difficult to see any real growth across the board since 2011, with math scores backsliding to 2009 levels, eighth-grade reading flat for four years, and a small uptick in fourth-grade reading that is not a significant increase from 2013, which, in turn, was not significantly different from 2011.

Considering that the rationale for the Common Core State Standards initiative was low NAEP proficiency rates, it would appear that the solution of tough standards and tough tests is not the great path forward after all. For those who say it is too early to use NAEP to judge the Common Core, I would remind them that in 2013, Education Secretary Arne Duncan used NAEP increases to do a victory dance about the states that had already implemented the Core at that time—and I never heard any reformer complain.

Two years ago, Duncan attributed  Tennessee’s, Hawaii’s and the District of Columbia’s NAEP score increases to their enthusiastic adoption of Race to the Top. Likewise, he attributed increases in Kentucky, Delaware, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi and North Carolina to their early embrace of the Common Core.

This year, the District of Columbia and Mississippi had fourth-grade score gains in mathematics, but the rest of Duncan’s superstars had mathematics scores that dropped or were flat. All of Arne’s superstar states had eighth-grade scores that dropped or did not budge.

The District of Columbia, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina had score gains in fourth-grade reading this year, but so did states like Oklahoma and Vermont that have resisted Race to the Top reforms. And in Grade 8 reading, all of Duncan’s superstars had scores that were flat or took a dive.

Colorado, a state that recently received high praise from Bill and Melinda Gates for its implementation of corporate reforms, had reading scores that were flat and math scores that significantly dropped.

NAEP scores were not the only disappointment this year. A few months ago, we saw a significant drop in SAT scores—7 points in one year alone.

Although NAEP and the SAT were not designed to align to the Common Core, they measure what the Common Core Standards were supposed to improve—the literacy and numeracy of our nation’s students. Considering the billions of dollars spent on these reforms, one would expect at least some payoff by now.

As usual with education reformers, there is no accountability for the mess.

Falling SAT and NAEP scores - but hey, it's all good.

Just wait - you'll see improvement in another ten years or so.

Sure we will.

David Bloomfield: Time For Merryl Tisch To Be Held Accountable By Her Own Standards

David Bloomfield in the Daily News:

Tisch was appointed to the Board of Regents, which presides over the state Education Department, on April 1, 1996 — almost 20 years ago. She became vice chancellor in 2007, then chancellor in 2009, serving in that position ever since.

Upon taking the Regents helm, Tisch promised, “We will embrace innovation with a data-driven approach . . . to raise test scores, raise graduation rates, and finally close the achievement gap.”

By her own measures — and she’s had plenty of time to prove the wisdom of her approach — Tisch has fallen far short. Last month, statewide test scores showed a mere 31.3% of students proficient in English Language Arts and 38.1% in math on the tough, relatively new Common Core-aligned tests.
In June 2012, Tisch bemoaned that “nearly a quarter of our students still don’t graduate after four years.” That is still the case. For students taking up to five years to complete high school, the 2010 graduation rate stood at 77%. Today it is 76.4%.

Meantime, the achievement gap persists. Four-year graduation rates for 2010 and 2014 — one of the best apples-to-apples indicators we have — show exactly the same 25 percentage point difference between black and Hispanic students compared to white students.

Beyond the data-driven items, there is also this critique:

Less appreciated, but perhaps more important, Tisch’s unsuccessful focus on standards and testing has distracted the department from another major function, district oversight. The crisis in East Ramapo — where the school board has long plundered district funds to provide services to students attending yeshivas — is only beginning to be met with effective action.

Also for years, districts have denied adequate services to immigrant children and English Language Learners, yet sanctions were routinely delayed and sporadic.  

In New York City, state requirements for school librarians, physical education and more have been ignored. Of greatest consequence, the rampant racial and income segregation of the state's schools has been met with mere lip service from the person who should be New York’s leading voice and change agent on the issue.

Bloomfield concludes:

Tisch vehemently believes that poor performance should lead to firings and school closures. She argued that position in a letter to the governor’s office last December, stating in no uncertain terms that “if these schools cannot be made to perform, they must be closed and replaced.” She recently repeated the prescription, asking rhetorically, “How long do you stick with a failing school?”

It is time for Tisch to take the medicine she has advised for others. How long, indeed.

For too long, the "accountability" has only gone one way - that's downward-driven, aimed at schools and educators.

The policymakers, the educrats and the nonprofits all skirt accountability no matter how often they fail.

Just look at John King and Joel Klein as primary examples of that.

So indeed, it is time for Tisch to go and with her benefactor Shelly Silver facing criminal trial and out of the speaker's office, I suspect she will.

Alas, she should take some of the blame for the mess that is New York's education system along with her because she has been around for many of the problems - from the test inflation to the CCSS mess.

Joel Klein Brought His Incompetence To News Corporation, Helped Rupert Murdoch Lose Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars

Buzzfeed with a post-mortem on Rupert Murdoch's Amplify digital education revolution:

Amplify, Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to disrupt the American education industry, had a lot going for it: a lot of hype, a lot of media attention, a lot of high-profile names, and a lot of money to spend. Then add to all that the fact that the education industry seemed especially vulnerable — dominated by big, cozy, slow-moving incumbents, just the way Murdoch likes it.

But none of that mattered in the end. As it turns out, Murdoch’s News Corp. couldn’t even make waves in the education world, much less disrupt it. During its short life, Amplify bled money, losing $193 million in 2014 alone.

On Aug. 12, News Corp. said it was in final talks to sell Amplify, had written down the value of the business by $370 million, and would wind down the education unit’s first and most ambitious project, a custom-made tablet computer that was supposed to revolutionize education technology. The venture lasted just three years at News Corp.

Amplify’s high-profile failure, despite the people and money backing it, is a sign of just how strange and difficult to navigate the education industry can be. The company underestimated almost everything about the industry: the deep entrenchment of the biggest players and the complexities of selling to school districts — not to mention the surprising political power of parents and teachers unions, who had a not-insignificant hand in the company’s troubles.

Amplify wasn't helped when news broke that their tablets set themselves on fire or broke when turned over.

Nonetheless, the Buzzfeed analysis is that Amplify thought they could "disrupt" the education world by going right at their competitors and getting districts to sign on to Amplify contracts but failed to grasp that they needed to build and develop relationships with districts and district personnel first.

Another reason for Amplify's failure?

Google beat them by offering cheaper hardware in their Chromebooks that came with built in keyboards (Amplify requires separate keyboards for the tablets) and offered more software  flexibility:

For one company, however, grabbing market share in the education business has been anything but slow. Google was hardly a blip on the education world radar in 2010, when News Corp. bought the testing company that it would eventually transform into Amplify. But more than half of all devices sold in education are now Google Chromebooks, outstripping even iPads in sales.

“Is the industry still ripe for disruption? Absolutely. The disruptor has been Google,” said Phil Maddocks, an industry analyst with Futuresource Consulting. “They’ve come from nowhere.”

Google Chromebooks had a lot of advantages over Amplify’s tablets. They are cheaper than almost any device on the market. They also come with keyboards — a necessity for many state tests, which are increasingly taken by computer, and a feature that is increasingly in demand for older students.

Chromebooks are also better suited to the “extremely fragmented” education market, where many districts and teachers prefer to piece together content and apps, rather than turning to one company for curriculum, apps, and devices. While Amplify’s tablet was technically “content-agnostic,” meaning it could run other companies’ software, it was envisioned as a “complete mobile learning system,” in the company’s words. It came designed to be bundled with Amplify curriculum, with hefty discounts for school districts if they bought Amplify’s content alongside it. That subscription cost an additional $99 a year.

“They were really offering only one solution,” Maddocks said. “In the past, when we’ve seen hardware try to link up with content, it hasn’t worked. It all comes back to the fragmentation of the [content] market — every district wants a different solution.”

Amplify also misread the competition - they thought Pearson and other textbook companies would be slow to move to digital.

They were wrong:

And despite how it had looked when News Corp. headed back into the education market in 2010, companies like Houghton Mifflin and Pearson were not as print-bound and slow to adapt as they had seemed. Houghton Mifflin, the biggest player in the elementary education space, made heavy investments in technology, and its sales are now mostly digital, though by a slim margin.

These were key mistakes that ought to cost Joel Klein his job at News Corporation, but as we see again and again, accountability is only for the little people.

Instead, they will cost other people at News Corp their jobs, even as Klein makes excuses for his poor leadership at Amplify:

In a long letter to Amplify staff announcing the company’s impending sale, Klein offered his own explanation. “Amplify’s work has been so innovative and transformative that we’ve been ahead of the market,” he said. “That, in part, helps explain what has happened with our tablet business.”

Ahead of the market?

Uh, uh - behind the market.

Chromebooks with keyboards are the way forward, not Amplify tablets.

Software flexibility potential is the way of the future, not "complete mobile learning systems" built into the hardware and available to access for a yearly fee.

The only way Amplify was "ahead of the market" is if you think that tablets that break easily are the way of the future.

More Klein incompetence, this time at News Corporation, but as is usual with Jeol Klein, there is no accountability for his failures.

Joel Klein keeps failing upward.

No Accountability Measures Or Expectations In Place For New Buffalo Schools Superintendent Kriner Cash

Once again we get an example of how accountability is only for the little people:

 The four-year employment contract for incoming Buffalo School Superintendent Kriner Cash makes him the highest paid leader of any major urban school district in the state, but does not lay out any specific performance expectations. Those will be set later. Moreover, Cash’s contract includes unusually specific communication procedures designed to prevent individual board members from telling him what to do without official board authorization.

Oh, the specific performance expectations will be set later.

How much later?

Undetermined performance evaluation: While some superintendent contracts provide explicit parameters for how a superintendent’s work will be judged, Cash’s contract includes only one sentence stating that the adoption of specific performance expectations and measures will be developed through a collaborative process by Sept. 30.

Hired first, performance expectations and measures later - this isn't sitting well with Crazy Carl Paladino:

Board member Carl Paladino, who served on the negotiating committee along with Sampson and board member Barbara Seals Nevergold, criticized the fact that Cash was given such a lengthy employment contract term without identifying specific performance goals. He was out of the country when the board approved Cash’s contract and said he attended only one meeting with the board’s negotiating team.

“There’s no standards set for this guy,” Paladino stated. “We’re telling him you’re employed for four years, and we’re not telling him what his job is.”

Silly Crazy Carl - expectations and accountability are for little people in the school district, not for the people who run it.

With Amplify A Financial Disaster That Loses Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars, What's Joel Klein's VAM?

From the NY Times:

Amplify, a much-heralded push by News Corporation into digital education, led by Joel Klein, a former New York City schools chancellor, is nearing an inglorious end.

News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said on Wednesday that it would take a $371 million write-down on the education division and would move to wind down the production of tablets for schoolchildren, a key part of the unit’s offering.

Moreover, News Corporation’s chief executive, Robert Thomson, said in an earnings call with analysts that the company was in an “advanced stage of negotiations” with a potential buyer for the remaining education business.

$372 million dollar write down on the ed division.

What's Joel Klein's value-added measurement for that?

While we're at it, what's his value-added measurement for the tablets that set themselves on fire or broke when they flipped over?

It's illuminating when you see this "accountability" people go through their own lives without any accountability.

MaryEllen Elia Offers Counterattack To Hillsborough School Board Allegations Of Financial Mismanagement

The Tampa Bay Times reported last week that former Hillsborough School Superintendent MaryEllen Elia, now the new NYSED Commissioner in New York State, was accused by both members of the Hillsborough school board and the man who replaced her as superintendent of leaving a financial mess in the school district.

Elia, who couldn't be reached for comment by the Tampa Bay Times for two straight days before the original story ran, wrote an op-ed piece on Saturday to pushback against the allegations.

As is always the case with Elia, her pushback is a mix of aggression and diverted responsibility:

Former Hillsborough County school Superintendent MaryEllen Elia said Friday she takes full responsibility for the district’s depleted reserve funds, but that doesn’t mean she was the only one who knew the money was dwindling.

In an op-ed column appearing in Saturday’s edition of The Tampa Tribune, Elia shot back against accusations that she kept school members in the dark while more than half of the district’s $360 million reserve fund was spent in just two years. She insisted that her replacement, Superintendent Jeff Eakins, and school board members were “fully aware” of the state of the reserves.

“The same Board members who routinely micromanaged and overstepped their roles, showed a peculiar lack of interest and lack of understanding of the larger financial issues,” wrote Elia, who landed a job as commissioner of education for the state of New York after being fired from the Hillsborough district in in January.

“My most vocal critics routinely failed to show up or cancelled meetings with me. Their lack of accountability is astounding.”

Here's what some of the board members said in the initial Tampa Bay Times article about how Elia hid the true picture of the district's finances:

Some board members said the budgets that were made public were difficult to understand and they did not get clear answers when they asked direct questions of Saunders and Elia.

"I tried to dig for information," said Harris, who ran for her board seat in 2014 and cast the tie-breaking vote to fire Elia. "But unless you are an expert, it's impossible to get a real budget and real figures."

Stuart, who often asked questions about spending, said she was stonewalled, and despite all her questions was as surprised as the others to learn about the spending issue.

"We had no idea. We honestly had no idea," she said. "We never got the full picture."

Here's more:

Stuart and Harris, who was elected to the board in September, both said they had trouble getting budget documents from Elia and her staff.

“When I ran for office I tried hard to get a copy of budget, because on the website its hidden, and when I got elected I asked for it and was told by the superintendent at the time there would be workshops on the budget and I would get it later, like it was a sidebar,” Harris said.

“We need to be surrounded by experts who know the details and how to dissect our budget — not just one person but several people.”

We have a she said/she said here between the board and Elia over Elia's disclosure of the district's finances.

Let's say we give Elia the benefit of the doubt here, since she was at odds with the board and claims they were out to get her.

The man who took over for Elia as district superintendent, Jeff Eakins, was deputy superintendent when Elia was running the district.

What does he have to say about the matter?

Looks like he says he didn't know about the dire financial situation either:

The school district’s reserve fund sat at $360 million about five years ago and shrank to about $230 million last school year. Eakins said he was “caught off guard” when he stepped into Elia’s position in June and learned the reserve fund is now at $150 million.

...

Eakins said he and others on the staff were “absolutely involved” in the budget process but didn’t expect reserve funds to be drawn down as they were.

“Not only was that alarming to me, but I felt like based on what I saw, some of that $150 million could be reduced even more because it’s caught up in recurring salary expenses.

Eakins said the district is investigating exactly where the money went, but most seemed to pay for a new teacher salary schedule that went into effect halfway through the 2013-14 school year.

Elia claims the Eakins charge is jive:

Elia wrote that this claim is “disingenuous or shows a lack of understanding of the budget.”

About 400 of the highest-paid teachers are scheduled to retire this year, she wrote, which should relieve the strain on a reserve fund that was largely built by cost-cutting measures she instituted.

“These are the kinds of things you learn, develop and understand when you start at 6 a.m.,” Elia wrote. “Did my spreadsheet get lost in transition?”

Eakins, who hasn't attacked Elia personally over this matter and still says nice things about her, disagreed with her reasoning:

The retiring employees will certainly help, Eakins said, “but when you make a budget for a large organization like this you have to plan on other things, not just money saved from single-level employees.”

Teachers aren’t always hired on a beginner’s salary, and the district has more expenses now than it did even last year, he said. The district is facing a growing student population, new construction, increasing health insurance costs, and the end of a seven-year, $100 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

Elia’s severance package also cost an estimated $1.1 million in salary, benefits and unused vacation and sick leave.

...

Eakins said Elia is highly respected for her work in Hillsborough and New York, and is responsible for “many great things” in the school district.

He and the school board plan regular budget meetings with the finance staff to form a plan.

“All I can do coming in as a leader is address current challenges I have and move the district in positive direction,” Eakins said. “We’re facing a very real challenge — it’s not made up, it’s real — and we’re going to be very transparent, very proactive, and very clear on how we spend money moving forward. You aren’t going to see me pointing any fingers.”

There are two Elia allies on the board who backed her up, saying it was the board's fault for not investigating the financial matters more, not Elia's fault for putting forward budgets that ate away the district's reserves.

There's a lot of smoke in the story, with Elia and her allies claiming Elia's critics are full of crap and Elia's critics claiming she was disingenuous in her presentation of the district budget and financial matters, attempting to hide the details.

One thing we do know from this story - Elia remains a controversial figure in Hillsborough who responds to any question about her performance with aggressive counterattack (but only on her terms - notice she only responded with an op-ed but wouldn't give comment to the paper for the initial story) and as with the deaths of the students under her watch, she refuses to take any responsibility for the matter (though she claims otherwise, she spends a lot of time diverting responsibility for the financial mess by pointing fingers at others for being lazy or incompetent.)

One other thing we can anticipate from this story as well - when Elia is pressured here in New York, she will be quick to go on the counterattack and divert responsibility to others.

She did this with the death of the students under her watch and now she's doing it with the financial mismanagement allegations.

MaryEllen Elia Left A Financial Mess In Hillsborough School District

Tell me again why MaryEllen Elia was made NYSED commissioner without any public scrutiny of the pick?

TAMPA — In the last four years of superintendent MaryEllen Elia's administration, the Hillsborough County School District went on a spending jag, tearing through more than half of its $361 million reserve fund, officials revealed this week.

Left unchecked, the pattern would have resulted in another operating deficit this year — a $75 million hit that would bring the fund down near its legal minimum threshhold.

The situation has surprised Elia's successor, unsettled School Board members and put bonding agencies on alert, which could lead to the district facing higher interest rates when it has to borrow money.

Jeff Eakins, who took over as superintendent after serving as Elia's deputy, says he was caught off guard when he realized the district used $68.5 million in non-recurring funds to meet this year's payroll.

Some examples of Elia's financial mismanagement:

For example: Teachers were given pay raises in the summer after negotiations with their union. School Board members were told how much those raises would cost.

But those were estimates that fell short of the real number because they did not take into account a new pay structure offered under Empowering Effective Teachers, the system Elia initiated in 2009 with a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. That's because teachers don't decide whether they want to be included in the system until the fall — well after the contract negotiations — and many more opted to be in the system than the district anticipated.

A study is under way to calculate those extra costs, which could run as high as $50 million.

It is clear, Eakins said, that the district, which serves more than 200,000 children, is spending money to extend programs that were launched with temporary funding from foundations.

The Gates grant is one example, as it is in its final year of funding. Expenses anticipated for 2015-16 include $11.3 million for teacher peer evaluators and $6.1 million to pay mentors. Eakins said he will take a close look at these expenditures to see if they are worth sustaining, or if they should be reduced.

The consequences of Elia's mismanagement?

Class sizes will be increased.

The new superintendent doesn't want to do layoffs, but that could be another consequence.

It's pretty clear from the story that Elia hid the mismanagement from the school board:

Some board members said the budgets that were made public were difficult to understand and they did not get clear answers when they asked direct questions of Saunders and Elia.

"I tried to dig for information," said Harris, who ran for her board seat in 2014 and cast the tie-breaking vote to fire Elia. "But unless you are an expert, it's impossible to get a real budget and real figures."

Stuart, who often asked questions about spending, said she was stonewalled, and despite all her questions was as surprised as the others to learn about the spending issue.

"We had no idea. We honestly had no idea," she said. "We never got the full picture."

Elia, who's on her "I Talk Tough" tour of NY State, did not respond to the Tampa Bay Times for a comment either Monday or Tuesday.

Again I ask, why was Elia hired without any public scrutiny?

And let me add, why is Elia not getting any scrutiny from the New York press now?

There was her lack of transparency around the death of a special needs child on a Hillsborough school bus that led to the death of another child later on, her refusal to take responsibility for these incidents and now the news that Hillsborough was one year away from hitting its reserve fund minimum because Elia mismanaged the district finances.

Could there be any more red flags flying that the hiring of MaryEllen Elia was a disaster?

And yet, other than readers of the blogs and folks on the NYSAPE social media threads, who knows about any of this?

Cuomo Thinks Sheri Lederman And Teachers Like Her Should Be Fired

From the Capital NY Morning Education email:

—At a separate event on Wednesday, when asked about a specific lawsuit from a teacher over a relatively new performance evaluation system, Cuomo said he’s not surprised and expects there her case won’t be the last. “Basically the way the teacher profession worked was, you got a job, you got tenure and then you basically had total job protection for the rest of your life,” he said. “This system says we’re going to have an evaluation system and if you don’t do well in the evaluation system, you could lose your job, so it really is jarring.” Capital’s Jessica Bakeman [PRO]: http://capi.tl/1Q7q3BN

Lederman is suing not because she isn't a good teacher (she is - see the accolades here), she is suing because Governor Cuomo's APPR system found her ineffective on the test based component, giving her 1 out of a possible 20 points, but never explained why she received this score.

This is particularly important since her students passed their state tests well above the state average and her scores were similar to the previous year when she was rated effective on the test component:

The lawsuit shows that Lederman’s students traditionally perform much higher on math and English Language Arts standardized tests than average fourth-grade classes in the state. In 2012-13, 68.75 percent of her students met or exceeded state standards in both English and math. She was labeled “effective” that year. In 2013-14, her students’ test results were very similar but she was rated “ineffective.” The lawsuit says:

This simply makes no sense, both as a matter of statistics and as a matter of rating teachers based upon slight changes in student performance from year to year.

Lederman was deemed effective overall as a teacher because of the other 80% of her APPR rating, but under Cuomo's latest APPR iteration, the test component will weigh as much as 50% of a teacher's rating, meaning somebody like Lederman could have the overwhelming majority of their students pass the state tests with scores well above the state average, still get dinged as ineffective on the test component and be slated for firing in another year if they don't "improve."

I cannot tell you how angry the statement from Cuomo makes me, because it goes to show once again how deceptive and dishonest he is when it comes to teacher evaluations.

NYSED has yet to show why Lederman was rated ineffective on the test component, but Cuomo doesn't much care about the particulars here, only that the system dinged her and therefore she must be ineffective.

NYSED tried to get the case dismissed, arguing the "No Harm, No Foul" rule since Lederman was still found effective overall despite the ineffective test component rating, but thankfully a judge ruled that Lederman's case should go forward.

Now NYSED will have to defend the rating in court, something they have been loathe to do because they know it is indefensible.

But nothing is as indefensible as Cuomo's statement about Lederman and the evaluation system.

Here we have an APPR system that is as hidden from scrutiny as the Wizard of Oz, that inexplicably found her effective one year and ineffective the next with test scores that were essentially the same, yet Cuomo treats the rating as if it is objective reality.

He essentially said yesterday, "Sheri Lederman is a bad teacher" because his flawed APPR system said so.

Unfortunately for him the APPR system is going to go on trial and now NYSED will have to defend it.

Let's see how that court battle goes.

Merry Tisch Claims: "When People Push Back, I Listen."

Buried at the end of this Newsday article on a change the Board of Regents are proposing around graduation is this:

During the past year, the Regents have faced a rising tide of anti-test protests by parents and teachers unions who are angered by added pressures on students and on teachers, whose performance evaluations depend partly on test results.

On Long Island, protest rallies in Brookville, Patchogue, Old Westbury and Hicksville over the past week have drawn thousands of participants.

On March 10, state lawmakers led by Assembly Democrats responded to public anger by ousting two longtime Regents who had sought new terms.

Merryl Tisch of Manhattan, chancellor of the Regents board, who has led a drive for higher academic standards since 2010, said Monday she would resist any move to reverse course. Tisch acknowledged, however, that greater flexibility in graduation requirements is needed.

"When people push back, I listen," she said.

Sure you do.

Were it not for the Assembly ousting some long-time Regents like Bob Bennett, you wouldn't have cared a whit about the pushback.

That much was clear during the Common Core Tour you and former NYSED Commissioner John King took after King had his Poughkeepsie meltdown and railed at parents.

It was clear during the Common Core Tour that you were putting on a dog and pony show and planning no substantive changes as a result of the feedback you got from students, parents or teachers about the state's education policies.

Now after a couple of fellow ed deform shills on the Board of Regents get whacked, you're claiming to be responsive.

You fool no one with these claims.

Actions speak louder than words and your actions in support of a top-down corporate education reform model for the school system have been loud and clear.

Albany Pols Set To Impose So-Called Accountability Measures On Teachers - Where Is The Accountability For Them?

Governor Cuomo thinks there's not enough accountability for teachers and is pushing a "reform agenda" that looks to impose more - including linking 50% of a teacher's rating to test scores and forcing districts to bring in outside observers for classroom observations.

State Senate Republicans and their Independent Democratic Conference allies are expected to go along with Cuomo's plan, but Democrats and some Republicans in the Assembly were expected to mount an opposition to Cuomo's plan and fight it.

Alas, that was before the US Attorney Preet Bharara arrested Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver on corruption charges and threw the whole new legislative session into disarray.

In the last week Assembly Dems have been trying to rid themselves of Silver and get themselves a new speaker - something that seemed to have been finalized when it was reported that Shelly Silver would resign as speaker on Monday and Dems would hold a vote to elect a new speaker (expected to be Bronx Party boss Carl Heastie) a few hours later.

But now even that plan seems in jeopardy, as the NY Times published a look at Heastie that suggests he's got ethics issues of his own and was investigated by the Moreland Commission for his per diem expenses before it was shut down by Governor Cuomo in return for an on-time budget deal from Silver and State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos.

On top of that, WNBC 4 and the NY Post both reported that the US Attorney's office is investigating Dean Skelos for his outside income - the same issue that brought down Silver - and the second-in-command in the State Senate, Tom Libous, is under indictment for lying to the FBI.

It has further been reported that the US Attorney's office is investigating Governor Cuomo's sudden shut down of the Moreland Commission in return for a budget deal and while there has been no indication whether Cuomo is in Bharara's sights for corruption the way these legislators are, we do know that Cuomo had the Moreland Commission "pull back" subpoenas to his own donors when they were still investigating matters, so if the US Attorney's office picked up that string of investigation, Cuomo may be facing two separate criminal investigations (one for conspiracy for helping Silver and possibly Skelos cover up their crimes by shutting down Moreland, the second for covering up and obstructing investigations into his own donors.)

The politicians all talk about holding teachers and schools accountable while they steal themselves to satiation, gobble up millions in outside income, campaign donations, etc. in order to enrich themselves and enlarge their campaign war chests - all to maintain their power and privilege and impose their own agendas (really the agendas of their wealthy, powerful donors) on the people of the state.

Only in Governor Andrew Cuomo's New York can so many politicians either already under indictment for corruption or under investigation for said corruption talk with a straight face about holding other people accountable.

Does John King's Departure From NYSED Signal A New Era With Less Reforminess?

From the Politico Morning Education update:

Andy Smarick of Bellwether Education Partners noted that King is one of many education reform-oriented state chiefs to step down, like New Jersey's Chris Cerf, Tony Bennett of Indiana and Florida and most recently, Tennessee's Kevin Huffman. "He ... helped define this era of tougher standards, common assessments, rigorous educator evaluations, and new state-level accountability systems," Smarick said. "Their departures seem to be signaling the end of this period of bold state chiefs and major state-level reforms. If other states are a guide, we should expect King's replacement to be a non-controversial, known commodity in New York, possibly a current district superintendent." 

- "Increasingly, it appears that today's governors won't be hiring a new wave of prominent national reform figures to serve as state chiefs," Smarick added. "I'm concerned we're entering a period of reform retrenchment: The battles over Common Core, new tests, tenure reform, and more may have left today's governors with little appetite for a new round of K-12 fights."

I'm pretty sure that, given Governor Cuomo's promise to "break" the public school "monopoly" through charter school expansions and ever-more "rigorous" teacher evaluations tied to testing and Regents Chancellor Tisch's concurrence that she wants to see an "aggressive" expansion of charters in the state, we'll see a replacement for King who is as reformy as King was.

Quite frankly, I think King was pushed for the ineptitude he has shown over the Common Core roll-out and the tone deafness he has displayed in dealing with public criticism.

The last straw was when King's NYSED granted a charter school to a con artist named "Dr" Ted Morris Jr. who had lied about his credentials and work experience during the application process.

Chancellor Tisch didn't name King in her deflection when she said it wasn't her fault, but she prominently did name King's NYSED in that statement of her own defense.

So King's out less because of his reforminess (or notoriety for it) and more for the spectacular public failures he has had over the last year with Common Core (which Cuomo blamed him for), parent engagement (think Poughkeepsie) and the "Dr" Ted Morris Jr. fiasco (charter school to con man, NYSED refuses to take responsibility for the mess.)

They'll look to replace King with somebody who's on board the Reformy Express, they simply wanted to clear the decks of King and start fresh.

The new NYSED Commissioner may not be as prominent a reformer as John King was, but you can bet Cuomo and Tisch are not going to look for anybody who isn't on board with their "Break The Public School Monopoly" agenda.

Was Poughkeepsie The Beginning Of The End For NYSED Commissioner John King?

Poughkeepsie may have been the first ring of the death knell for King's career here in New York.

It was after Poughkeepsie that Regents Chancellor Tisch had to babysit him in future town halls and Governor Cuomo threw him under the bus when he criticized the NYSED implementation of Common Core that had so many parents, students and teachers around the state up in arms.

The "Dr" Ted Morris fiasco late last month, when it was revealed that King's NYSED gave a charter school to a con man who had lied about his credentials and work experience, may have been the last straw for King.

Regents Chancellor Tisch washed her hands of the mess and blamed SED fornot properly vetting "Dr" Ted and his false credentials.

There should be no tears for King, of course - he's failing upwards to the Obama administration where he and Arne Duncan will do their best to enshrine the Obama education reforms for the next decade despite an incoming GOP House and Senate hostile to that agenda.

After that, he'll cash in as a consultant for Gates, Broad, the Waltons or some other ed deform oligarch - maybe he'll even join Joel Klein at Rupert Murdoch's for profit education wing of News Corporation.

But make no mistake, King is being pushed out at NYSED, perhaps by Governor Cuomo alone, perhaps by Governor Cuomo, Regents Chancellor Tisch and Assembly Speaker Silver together.

It was first reported that he would be named deputy secretary to Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, but fearing a Senate confirmation battle, King will not be granted that title in the Obama administration.

He will instead be given the title "senior adviser" to Duncan, a job that does not entail confirmation.

It is possible it's just an accident that King is getting a title that skirts confirmation and accountability to the masses, but it's probably not.

Just as King saw himself above it all here in New York, he will be above it all in D.C. too.

No accountability for the Accountability Man.

In the end, his refusal to be accountable as NYSED Commissioner may have been the last straw for the people in power here.

They don't want to be held accountable any more than King does, but after a string of high profile screw-ups like the Common Core Core rollout Cuomo criticized, the Poughkeepsie meltdown and the "Dr" Ted charter school fiasco, sometimes somebody has to be the scapegoat.

King was low man on the power pole - so out he went.

Still, as I wrote about above, weep not for John King.

Say what you will about the education reform movement, but they always take care of their own.

Thus the gig at the Obama US Department of Education.

New York Charter Schools - Virtually No Oversight Or Supervision By The State Either Before Or After The Approval Process

Peter Goodman at Ed in the Apple, writing about the "Dr" Ted Morris and Steve Perry charter school approvals by NYSED and the New York State Board of Regents, notes this:

The State Education Department (SED) website has impressive requirements for applying for a charter as well as monitoring the entire process.

The application is detailed and the State Department of Education (SED) in their guidance document sets a high standard.

The Board of Regents will only approve applications that clearly demonstrate a strong capacity for establishing and operating a high quality charter school. This standard requires a strong educational program, organizational plan, and financial plan, as well as clear evidence of the capacity of the founding group to implement the proposal and operate the school effectively.

Once approved the SED retains the right to monitor the performance of charter school,

… the New York State Education Department, is authorized to oversee and monitor each charter school authorized by the Regents in all respects, including the right to visit, examine and inspect the charter school and its records.

Additionally the SED requires specific actions in an opening procedures document, a monitoring plan, a performance framework and a closing procedures checklist
 
Unfortunately the SED will tell you there is no way they can monitor charter schools in the detail that the regulations allow; they simply do not have the staff. Once a charter school opens there is virtually no supervision for the initial five years.

What is disturbing is that the SED does not adequately vet the applicants, the members of the charter board.

The Regents and NYSED have given charter schools to a con man ("Dr" Ted) with a trustee board with no experience running a school and a guy (Steve Perry) who has threatened physical violence on his detractors.

Clearly there isn't much to the vetting process for charter school approval in New York State.

That SED freely admits they don't have the staff to monitor charter schools once they're opened makes the poor vetting before approval even worse.

There's a reason charter school operators don't want to be subject to auditing by either the state or the city comptroller but would rather be subject to NYSED/Regents accountability.

That's because they know there is no one at NYSED or the Regents who is going to hold them accountable.

After the "Dr" Ted fiasco, the director of the NYSED charter office went into hiding, refusing to publicly comment on the mess.

When the guy at the State Education Department who's supposed to hold charters accountable refuses to be held accountable himself, we've got major problems.

The only solution here is to ensure that a thorough auditing and monitoring of all charters, both single schools and chains, be conducted by the comptrollers at the state and city levels.

We know from a recent analysis of audits conducted by the state comptroller's office or NYSED of charter schools since 2002 that violations and/or financial mismanagement are found 95% of the time.

No wonder the charter operators don't want to be subject to auditing - it's the Wild, Wild West in the charter sector and audits have a way of taming it all.

Eva Moskowitz successfully sued last year to make sure that couldn't happen.

Since then, Governor Cuomo gave charters in NYC free rent courtesy of the NYCDOE but subject them to auditing by the comptrollers.

It is essential that these audits must be conducted.

It's clear that the Board of Regents and NYSED are neither prepared to hold charter schools and their operators accountable before or after the approval process.

John King: Student Surveys Need To Be Part Of APPR Teacher Evaluation System

From LoHud:

Classroom observation, including feedback from students, will a “central issue” for the state Legislature to consider next year as it seeks to fine tune controversial teacher evaulations, state Education Commissioner John King said yesterday as he visited a school in Putnam County.

King observed classrooms at the Putnam Valley Elementary School, and then told reporters that it will be important to have multiple measures to evaluation students to ensure there’s evidence of student learning, the Journal News reported today. He suggested student feedback could be one option.

“There are districts around the state that are piloting the use of surveys and asking for feedback from students and parents about teacher performance,” he said. “As the evaluation system progresses, it will continue to evolve over time.”

"Fine tune" the evaluation system by adding student surveys?

Please...

This piece of garbage needs to be thrown out:

Leaders of a regional school superintendents group are calling on the state to scrap its much-debated teacher-evaluation system, contending that a new study proves that the system is irreparably flawed.

The study, released Friday, found that the state formula for calculating evaluations forces school districts to inflate classroom-observation ratings so teachers do not get poor overall scores.

If districts were to give more accurate grades to teachers after classroom visits, the study found, many teachers would "unjustly" receive overall ratings of "developing" or "ineffective." Such districts would "end up looking like they have an underperforming workforce," the report said.

"This is not something that can be fixed; the state Education Department needs to start over," said Louis Wool, Harrison schools superintendent, who was president of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents when the group commissioned the study last year.

Of course King, Tisch and the Cuomo administration won't take responsibility for the evaluation mess any more than they would when NYSED and the Regents handed out a charter school to a con artist.

In fact, the NYSED charter director went into hiding to avoid public scrutiny for the mess.

It's amazing how these accountability-meisters are happy to hold teachers accountable to garbage evaluations but refuse any accountability for themselves.

Hey, let's fine tune garbage with student surveys...

U.S. Department Of Education To Investigate NYSED, Board of Regents Over Funding Inequity

From Dan Clark at State of Politics:

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights will be investigating complaints brought forth by two New York school districts that say the state’s funding structure for public schools discriminates against districts with high concentrations of people of color, students whose first language is not English, and students with disabilities.

...

The complaints were originally brought forth almost a year ago by the superintendents of Middletown City School District and Schenectady City School District.

The OCR first responded that they could not go forward with an investigation because it did not have jurisdiction over some of the parties involved in the complaint. The complaint is against New York state, the state legislature, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the state Board of Regents and the state Education Department.

Now, the investigation will move forward, focusing on the Board of Regents and the Education Department, since the OCR has jurisdiction in those areas.

The Schenectady City complaint is here.

The Schenectady City superintendent says he can't believe any independent entity could look into the funding in New York State and see it as anything other than a problem:

"Yes, I'd say it's ground-breaking," Superintendent for Schenectady City Schools Larry Spring said. "I was cautiously optimistic that OCR would open it and investigate. It's the right thing to do. Hopefully, change will result from it."

According to a press release from the Schenectady School District, when Spring and Middletown Superintendant Kenneth Eastwood met with the Department of Education, the federal agency told them these complaints will be the first of their kind the Office for Civil Rights has investigated. A similar complaint was filed in Texas but was withdrawn to pursue the issue in court.

The release states that Schenectady and Middletown schools are among the 8 percent of schools in the state with minority-as majority student populations and are also shorted funding they are owed through the Foundation Aid Formula, which is funding required under the Campaign for Fiscal Equity court decision, which states that schools must be funded sufficiently to provide a sound basic education.

"It's a fact that school districts with higher concentrations of minority students are systemically underfunded," Spring said. "I can't see how any agency will investigate this and find it acceptable."

It's a shame that Cuomo and the legislature aren't a target of the investigation, since they're really the people behind the funding problems, but we'll have to take the investigation into NYSED and the Board of Regents for now.

NYSED Charter School Director In Hiding Over "Dr" Ted Morris Jr. Charter Fiasco

Well, Dr Ted's charter school is no more:

Greater Works Charter School will no longer open in Rochester in 2015, part of the continuing fallout over lies in the resume of its 22-year-old founder. 

Ted Morris Jr. represented himself to the New York State Education Department as a precocious businessman and educational advisor with bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees earned mostly online. In fact, he has no college degrees and scant professional experience.  

He resigned Nov. 25, the day most of the misrepresentations came to light and just a week after the school gained approval from the state Board of Regents. At that point, both Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Peter Kozik, who took over as the school's trustee chairman in Morris' wake, said the school would open as planned without him. 

But a NYSED spokesman said Monday that the department had asked the board of trustees to rescind its application, and the trustees complied in a letter dated Nov. 29. They are also asking the Board of Regents to take back its approval.

You'd think NYSED would take responsibility for this mess now that they've admitted there was a problem by asking the board of Greater Works to rescind the charter application.

But you'd be wrong about that:

In response to questions about how the charter was approved in the first place, given the holes in Morris' resume, NYSED spokesman Dennis Tompkins said: "We don't grant charters to individuals. We grant charters to boards based on the application." 

NYSED would not make Bill Clarke, its charter school office director, available for an on-the-record interview, and did not respond to specific questions about Greater Works, but spokesman Tom Dunn said the department is reviewing its charter school application process. 

That the charter school office director at NYSED is in hiding from the press says volumes here.

It's a shame the accountability people at NYSED don't like to be held accountable themselves.

But that's par for the course when it comes to the education reformers at NYSED - or education reformers in general.

Cuomo Wants APPR To Play Role In Hiring, Firing, Tenure Decisions

Behind a paywall at Capital NY, but State of Politics has this summery:

At a private Forbes magazine-sponsored discussion forum in June, Gov. Andrew Cuomo told an audience of wealthy philanthropists that state-mandated performance evaluations should be the basis for hiring, firing and tenure decisions.

No surprise that's what he told his hedge fundie and Wall Street criminal friends back in June.

With one lawsuit against APPR already working its way through the system and with more and more of the NYSED data under attack for large margins of error, it will be interesting to see how he argues APPR is sacrosanct.

But you can bet he will.

It's up to us to point out again and again that the data APPR is based on is suspect at best, phonied up or worse at worst.

The nonsense with "Dr" Ted Morris Jr. last week doesn't help the case of Cuomo or the state when they try and push themselves as the "adults" in the room simply looking to add much-needed accountability to the school system.

As we saw when the Regents and SED dodged blame for "Dr" Ted and Cuomo's outgoing lieutenant governor made excuses for "Dr" Ted's fraud, the system that really needs accountability is the one supposedly holding the rest of us accountable.

Charter School Shills Pass The Buck

We hear so much about holding teachers accountable these days.

Business leaders, politicians, members of the media, celebrities who have nothing to do with education or schools - they all want to talk about how teachers need to be held accountable for their performance, for their students' performances, for the performance of their schools, even for the economic performance of the nation as a whole.

We're often told that charter schools are just the thing to hold teachers and public schools accountable - in fact, Governor Andrew Cuomo told us this right before the election and Regents Chancellor Tisch stated something similar on the radio a couple of weeks ago.

That's why it was so ironic when the story broke this week that the New York Board of Regents and the New York State Education Department signed off on a charter school with a lead applicant who lied about his credentials and his work experience.

22-year old "Dr." Ted Morris Jr.. the lead applicant for the Greater Works Charter School in Rochester, claimed to have a BA, an MA, a Ph.D and an MSW as well as experience starting three non-profits.

All those claims turned out to be lies.

We still don't know if Morris has even a high school diploma - the online school Morris admitted attending after another lie he told about graduating from Rochester's School Without Walls was exposed as fraudulent still hasn't acknowledged whether Morris actually graduated from it or not.

In any case, this was the perfect "accountability moment" for the charter school movement, a great opportunity for both charter backers and the politicians and political functionaries who support them to show the rest of us that accountability isn't just for public schools and public school teachers, it's for charter schools and charter school staff too.

Instead the politicians and the political functionaries fell all over themselves to pass the buck - Regents Chancellor Tisch blamed NYSED and the local Regents who signed off on Dr. Ted's school application (Andrew Brown and Wade Norwood), the local Regents Brown and Norwood said the paperwork was all fine so how were they to know Morris was a fraud and no one at NYSED could be reached for comment.

Later former Rochester Mayor and current Lieutenant Governor Robert Duffy called Dr. Ted's misrepresentation of his credentials and work history a "mistake," minimizing a fraudulent act that, if it were perpetrated by a teacher on her/his teaching application, would subject her/him to loss of job, loss of teaching license and possible legal action by the state.

This was the perfect opportunity for the accountability-meisters to show that accountability is not just for the public schools and public school teachers by taking a strong stand on the Morris fraud, and pull the approval from his Greater Works Charter School, which will continue to open despite the fiasco involving "Dr." Ted and his ever-changing credentials and work history.

At least they could have said, "You know, we're concerned that a guy who lied about his credentials and his work experience somehow got approval for a charter school and we're going to review that application again, as well as the board of trustees Morris got to sign on to it, and we're going to review our charter approval process overall to make sure that every application truly gets a rigorous vetting by NYSED."

But they did neither of those things.

Instead we were told that the Greater Works Charter School will still open, though the lead applicant is now an education professor from Keuka College, not "Dr." Ted (who resigned from the board after the Democrat and Chronicle exposed his lies), nothing was said about the charter approval process overall and all the people responsible for this mess - the local Regents, Regents Chancellor Tisch, NYSED and the Cuomo administration (in the figure of the outgoing lieutenant governor) did their best to pass the buck and make excuses for it all.

None of this is a surprise, of course.

For a long time now, it's been obvious that the charter school shills at the Regents, SED and in the corridors of power are not interested in holding the charter school sector accountable for anything.

As my friend Fake Merryl Tisch said when it was revealed NYSED was using data with a margin of error as high as 27% to grade schools for "college readiness":

Meh. Accountability is for the little people. And also the unionized people. @perdidostschool @Stoptesting15 @JohnKingNYSED
— Fake Merryl Tisch (@FakeMerrylTisch) November 23, 2014

Why Is "Dr" Ted Morris Jr's Charter School Still Taking Applications, Opening In September?

"Dr" Ted Morris Jr might have been exposed as a fraud lacking the Ph.D, MA, BA and (perhaps high school) degrees he claimed to have, but his Greater Works Charter School is STILL opening.

If you're in the market for a charter school for your child up in Rochester, the application link for Greater Works is here, along with the rundown for what the school will provide:

Greater Works Charter School is currently accepting applications for 9th grade students for the 2015-16 school year. The deadline for the receipt of student applications is April 1, 2015. Parents/families are encouraged to apply as soon as possible!

The mission of Greater Works Charter School is to prepare students to be self-sufficient citizens. GWCS will accomplish this mission by providing a high-quality education in a safe and supportive environment that provides students with the academic and technical skills necessary to earn a NYS Regents diploma and to succeed in college and today's workforce.

*At this time, a location for the school has not been announced.* We are working to finalize the selection of a building as soon as possible.

If you have any questions, please contact the school by phone at (585) 568-7833 or by e-mail at info@gwcharterschool.org

Now I don't know about you, but I have plenty of questions about the school, starting with how it is no one at the Regents or SED looked into the 22-year old "Dr" Ted and his credentials or the other board members he found on the Internet.

Next question I have is, why is this school STILL being opened after Morris was exposed as a fraud?

Justin Murphy at the Democrat and Chronicle reports no one in leadership is taking responsibility for giving a charter school to a con artist like "Dr" Ted.

Regents Chancellor Tisch deflected blame onto the local Regents and NYSED, NYSED couldn't be reached for comment because of a couple of inches of snow in Albany on Wednesday and the local Regents who gave the okay to Morris and his charter said "It's not our fault because Dr. Ted lied to us."

Ah, yes - accountability is for the little people.

In addition, NYSED said the charter school is going to open despite the Morris fiasco.

Another member of the board of trustees - which Morris reportedly found on Craigslist and LinkedIn - is going to take over as lead applicant for the charter school:

Peter Kozik, a Keuka College professor and fellow trustee will take over as lead applicant.

...

Kozik was circumspect about the situation and declined to say whether the revelations were new to the trustees but said they "took it under advisement" when they heard about them Tuesday.

The trustees still plan to open the school in fall 2015 as scheduled. Kozik said he discussed the issue with the state education department Tuesday and came away with the impression that the plan can go forward.

"The plan's outstanding; the board's outstanding," he said. ""Life can be difficult for sure. This is not the first parting I had. ... We need to move ahead and help educate the children of Rochester."

The board's outstanding?

These are the people Morris found on the Internet, so I'm sure they've all been held to the same rigorous examination of their credentials and appropriateness for the board as Morris was, which is to say no one's looked into them at all.

But even if all these people are on the up-and-up, what does it say about them that they all thought Morris was a swell guy to be the lead applicant for the charter?

These people either suspected (or knew) Morris was a huckster and didn't care enough to do anything about it or didn't know he was a fraud and huckster, in which case they don't have the judgment to be on the board of a school.

Either way, the board of trustees, including new lead applicant Kozik, are suspect at best.

As for the "outstanding plan" Kozik says is in place, it's full of the usual ed deform claptrap - extended time, emphasis on technology, endless professional development for teachers and other tenets of the 21st Century Ed Deform Movement.

Here is how the plan is described on the Greater Works Charter School website:

 A Focus on Self-Sufficiency – Preparing students to be self-sufficient citizens is at the core of GWCS’s mission. The founding group defines a self-sufficient citizen as an individual being college and career ready and needing no outside help in satisfying basic needs. It is our intent to create a safe and supportive atmosphere where students can earn a NYS Regents diploma, prepare for and succeed in college and today’s workforce, and thereby achieve self-sufficiency. Citizens that are self-sufficient are crucial to a thriving community. Being able to take care for one’s basic needs decreases unemployment rates, need for public assistance, and contributes to economic development. We believe that self-sufficiency also encompasses college and career readiness.

 Advisory - Each student will be assigned a teacher advisor who will work with them throughout their high school journey at GWCS. The teacher advisors will meet with their assigned students daily (Monday through Friday.) During the daily advisory period, students will work with their advisor to create goals, and review goals and progress made toward achieving those goals. Teacher advisors will be able to use the daily advisory period to offer motivation, feedback, and guidance to students.

Individual Learning Plans (ILPs) – Teacher advisors will work with each student to create an individual learning plan to guide instruction. This will allow teaching staff to build lessons that explore and strengthen each student’s skills, interests, and dreams. When students attend the summer bridge program (starting in Year 2, orientation will take place in Year 1 instead), they will take assessments and work with an advisor to create the ILP based on the number of credits needed for graduation, reading and math grade-level scores, and social/emotional needs. The ILPs will be living documents that students and teacher advisors refer to-, and update on a regular basis.

 Longer Instructional Time – GWCS will provide a longer school day (9:00am to 5:00pm) and school year (193 days, not including the summer bridge program for 9th and 10th grades which will be an additional 19 days) than traditional schools. 

Blended Learning – GWCS realizes that technology has the power to move education toward a student-centered model of learning where students can learn at their own pace to boost learning outcomes. A learning environment enhanced with technology allows for seamless targeted interventions and flexible groups, as well as real collaboration among students. Students at GWCS will take courses that are infused with technology and that are co-taught by our NYS certified and experienced teachers. Using the Odyssey Ware curriculum, which features an engaging, media-rich curriculum that sparks student interest with 3-D animation, video clips, audio files, and educational games; teachers will be able to provide a high-quality learning experience to students. As cited in the U.S. Department of Education’s recent “Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies” (Revised September 2010), “Students in online conditions performed modestly better, on average, than those learning the same material through traditional face-to-face instruction” (p. xiv) and, notably, “Instruction combining online and face-to-face elements had a larger advantage relative to purely face-to-face instruction than did purely online instruction” (p. xv). GWCS will incorporate blended learning as per the Commissioner’s policy on blended learning.

 Co-Teaching - Courses at GWCS will be co-taught by a content area teacher alongside a special education teacher or teaching assistant. Having two high-quality educators facilitate classroom instruction will allow them to connect with different student personalities. Co-teaching allows more opportunities for small group and one-to-one learning, and stronger modeling during lessons. The co-planning process encourages two teachers to bounce ideas off each other in order to deliver the strongest, most creative lessons. Co-taught courses are structured to meet the needs of all students and will allow an opportunity for reinforcing key points of a discussion through repetition or restatement. By employing this approach, students are able to benefit from the knowledge and skills of each professional as they master the key concepts (Robinson & Schaille 1995; Bess 2000).

Teaching Assistants (TAs) – GWCS will hire teaching assistants from local graduate colleges of education (such as Roberts Wesleyan College, University of Rochester, SUNY Brockport, Keuka College, St. John Fisher College, and Nazareth College, etc.) Teaching assistants will work with teachers to provide students with an engaging and supportive learning environment. Teaching assistants will support teachers in the Guided Learning Process and provide academic support to students as they progress through their coursework. Uncommon in high schools, teaching assistants at GWCS will provide students with additional academic support. TAs will provide instructional, behavioral, and organizational benefits to the GWCS model.

 Professional Learning Community (PLC) - GWCS will provide a professional learning community that supports GWCS’s instructional staff. In the first year, teachers will meet on a regular basis (8 a.m. – 9 a.m. daily on Monday-Friday and in the summer for two weeks) to receive teacher mentoring, professional development, and peer coaching. Teachers will also be able to use this time to create lesson plans with the support of other teachers, the Principal, and the Director of Curriculum and Instruction. A regular focus during these meeting times will be on the local and formative assessment of students as GWCS year progresses. GWCS will have strong instructional leadership which, though challenging, will advance teaching and learning for students and teachers alike. There will be weekly and quarterly professional development and yearly professional development (two weeks in August 2015 and for one week in July every year thereafter.) 

All that sounds swell, except that the school has raised little money of its own, so all of that is going to have to come off the public's dime - the building for the school (which they don't have yet), the staff willing to work the extended time and days and suffer the endless professional development, the TA's they say they want to hire from local colleges, the technology and the blended learning programs.

And of course it matters just who you hire to implement this stuff, which brings us back to the problem of the board and their judgment (or lack thereof) over Morris.

Who do they hire as school leader to get this thing going, particularly after the school has become tabloid fodder and will be Exhibit A in the battle in the spring when the charter school criminals look to have the charter cap eliminated completely?

I dunno about you, but I see nothing "outstanding" in that plan that isn't "outstanding" in a thousand other charter school "About Us" sections.

There's nothing unique about the plan other than it was partly put together by a con man who may be lacking his own high school diploma.

I get that Regents Chancellor Tisch, NYSED Commissioner King and their merry men and women in reform in Albany want to open lots of charters so that they can come up against the charter cap as soon as possible and get it increased or lifted completely.

What I don't get is, why are they so adamant about making sure Greater Works opens as planned?

Given that the lead applicant was a fraud, given that his "outstanding board" was found on Craigslist and LinkedIn, given that the "outstanding plan" is the same ed deform claptrap you see in thousands of other charter school plans, given that the school has raised only $10K and will have to rely completely on the public dime to run, given that the publicity around the school has been embarrassing to say the least and isn't going to get any better as charter opponents use Morris and his Greater Works Charter School fraud as a great reason why SED and the Regents shouldn't be given more charter slots, I'd think Tisch, King and the merry reformsters would just as soon want this story buried as soon as possible.

But it sounds like Greater Works Charter School is going forward and given what a sham it's been so far, it looks like it is going to continue to be the gift that keeps on giving for charter skeptics and opponents.

Remember "Dr" Ted and Greater Works!