Newsday Editorial Says State MUST Get Kids To Take Their State Tests This School Year Or Else!

The shrillness of the deformers continues:

The U.S. Department of Education notified states last week of actions it may take, including financial penalties, if the percentage of students taking the tests falls below 95 percent. Of course, in New York in Spring 2015 that percentage fell to about 80 percent, and to about 50 percent on Long Island. The timing serves notice to those who have supported opt-out to oppose excessive testing and test prep and the fear they claim comes from tying student scores to teacher evaluations: students must take tests so that schools, districts and states can be assessed. Washington will not budge on this.

In New York, education reformers also have taken a huge step back, decoupling tests from teacher evaluations for four years and promising new achievement standards and better exams. Now the state must convince unions, parents and teachers that they have been accommodated as much as possible, and must get students to take the tests this spring. And they must get participation percentages up in districts that get little federal funding, because the whole state could lose funding if New York participation doesn’t reach 95 percent.

If poorer districts with generally low opt-out numbers lose federal money because richer districts with high opt-out percentages pull down the state numbers, Albany can and should make up that shortfall. It should take state aid away from high opt-out districts and award it to high-needs districts where nearly all the kids take the exams.

The threat that money will be taken away by the feds is as much jive this year as it was last year.

Does anyone really think that the Obama administration is going to take away school aid because of opt out in an election year?

Please...

The desperation of the deformers is clear as they use FEAR to try and stem the opt out movement.

The curtain has been pulled back on the Endless Testing regime and exposed for the empty compliance measure it is.

Deformers are desperately trying to get people back to believing that there's some meaning to the state testing regime.

If FEAR over their own kids won't work, then they'll use FEAR over the funding.

But given the political realities of the Obama administration thankfully sunsetting next year with an election held in November, their threats are empty ones.

That won't stop the fear-meisters at Newsday from trying to sow discord, of course.

But we can call this Newsday editorial what it is - fear-mongering - and the Newsday editors who published what they are - fear-meisters.

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.

Bloomberg Wants To Demolish Public Libraries Before He Goes

All in the name of "progress," of course:

Mayor Bloomberg refuses to adequately fund our public libraries unless they sell off assets including crown jewels of the system, a plan that is wrong-headed and counterproductive.
 
We are in a period of steadily increasing use of libraries by all sectors of New York’s population, attendance is up 40% and circulations are up 59%, while the amount required to properly fund libraries is a pittance compared to other city expenditures.   
 
Public libraries enrich their communities and are an important part of the tax base and a stable economy, providing jobs, community space and serving as a buffer against economic downturn.   They provide a safe haven for seniors during the day, teens after school, for parents with young children, for job seekers needing computers, for the growing number of freelance professionals, and for those needing literacy and technical skills.
 
Bloomberg’s plan would eliminate irreplaceable and historic crown jewels, such as the research stacks underneath the main 42nd Street library, and demolish Brooklyn Heights Art Deco style building, housing 62,000 square feet of library space replacing it with only 15,000 square feet of space in a developer’s high rise.  The removal of the Brooklyn Business Library from Brooklyn’s central business district in downtown Brooklyn, the hub of commerce, transportation, and next to universities is a travesty.  These are just two examples of a scheme to shrink New York’s public library system, eliminating resources that communities depend on.
 
We need to immediately halt real estate deals that involve selling any more branches to private developers until the libraries have been properly funded and until the needs of the public’s library system are the first priority.

Libraries should not be hostages for development.  The city should cease the practices of bribing the public into approving bigger and denser development and pressuring communities into accepting libraries housed in smaller spaces with fewer services.

Developer-driven partnerships that put developers in the driver’s seat and render competitive bids meaningless are bad public policy that must be avoided.  The practice of using developers who specialize in insider deals, who treat the communities poorly and have a record of failing to deliver promised benefit violates the public trust.

There should be no elimination or sale of irreplaceable assets such as the crown jewel research stacks under the 42nd Street main library or elimination of the Business and Career Center Library on the border of Brooklyn Heights and downtown Brooklyn.

There should be no premature library closings such as Donnell library, closed in 2008 and still awaiting a replacement.  Any library closing should have a binding contract for its prompt replacement with solid assurances, including full up-front payments and financing in place.
 
There should be no mass sell-offs of libraries.  Sales of library properties, if any, should be sequenced so that multiple libraries are not closed at the same time and only when it is in the best interest of the public's library system.

“The knowledge of different literature frees one from the tyranny of a few”
 -Jose Marti   Plaque on 41St Library Walk
 
New York’s libraries, the lifeblood of a democracy, have contributed to making our city economically vital and a cultural powerhouse.  We must not sacrifice it to shortsighted planning and the interests of powerful developers. We demand protection for public libraries, the city’s trusted place to learn, grow, be inspired, and connect with great minds.
 
Relevant articles:

• New York Times: Critic’s Notebook- In Renderings for a Library Landmark, Stacks of Questions, by Michael Kimmelman, January 29, 2013. 

• Wall Street Journal: Undertaking Its Destruction, by Ada Louise Huxtable, December 3, 2012.

• Noticing New York: New City-Wide Policy Makes Generation Of Real Estate Deals The Library System’s Primary Purpose, by Michael D. D. White, January 31, 2013.
 
• Center For An Urban Future: Report - Branches of Opportunity, by David Giles, January 2013

I tried to get a copy of Gone With The Wind at the NYPL last week - there were 55 holds on the four copies the NYPL still has in circulation.

That's right - 55 holds.

Not only does NYC have Third World income inequality, a Third World infrastructure and a Third World ruling class, we have a Third World library system too.


And if Bloomberg gets his way on the additional destruction before he goes, it will only get worse.

I put a hold on that book and I should be able to get it in a little under 42 weeks if all goes well.

And that's Gone With The Wind we're talking about.

Try finding a copy of something a little more obscure at the NYPL.

It's like trying to find a warm heart at Bloomberg LP.

Just another legacy from our Mayor of Money.