Karen Magee: Parents And Teachers Have No Confidence In State's Education Reform Plans

From the "No kidding" file:

Constant changes to New York education policy and flawed rollouts have caused teachers and parents to lose trust in the State Education Department, said New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee.

Magee spoke about this lack of trust on WCNY’s Capitol Pressroom Tuesday. Teachers have lost confidence in any new plans coming from the department and feel their feedback doesn’t matter, she told Susan Arbetter.

Her comments come nearly one week after educators told members of the Assembly’s education committee that they’re worn out by all the new education reform legislation in recent years. At a public hearing on struggling schools last week, they said the constant changes have districts more caught up in compliance than actually improving anything.

“There continues to be an appearance that the plans have not been well thought out or well-developed,” Magee said Tuesday. “There’s no evidence of pilots happening…on a small-scale basis to identify what the strengths and weaknesses are, to bring in the professionals and all the stakeholders, including the community, to discuss if a plan is working. Get real feedback like you would with any other plan and then make modifications before you go for the all-across-the-state rollout. We roll things out in the state and then wait to see what the consequence are.”

Of course the lack of piloting or planning the reform changes is a crucial part of the education reform playbook.

This is shock doctrine stuff, not meant to improve anythnig at all - just cause "shock and awe" to the system, bring about chaos and calamity and ultimately help reformers in their privatization efforts.

Pity NYSUT and Magee won't say that and instead make as if Cuomo and his reformer buddies actually care about improving things as opposed to wanting simply to "break" the whole thing up.

Regent Tilles On NY Evaluation System: "Not Sure We Can Get It To The Point Where It’s Good."

The New York Board of Regents is meeting today to, among other things, discuss the new evaluation system.

So far, here's what I've learned, via Capital NY reporter Jessica Bakeman:

Here's the evaluation matrix that will be used in New York (page 2) http://t.co/tGPAacLgGV
— Jessica Bakeman (@jessicabakeman) April 13, 2015

To put it simply, the Regents are confused about and annoyed by the state budget
— Jessica Bakeman (@jessicabakeman) April 13, 2015

"I am willing to make this as good as we can get it, but I’m not sure we can get it to the point where it’s good." -Regent Tilles on evals
— Jessica Bakeman (@jessicabakeman) April 13, 2015

My response:

@jessicabakeman Love it. Great quote to use for evidence in inevitable lawsuits. Regents admit eval system isn't good.
— rbe (@perdidostschool) April 13, 2015

WSJ: Cathie Black Hired For School Closures And Employee Layoffs

Going to be ugly:

If closing failing schools is like closing failing magazines, then Cathie Black, New York City's next schools chancellor, may have some relevant experience.

Almost as soon Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his pick on Tuesday, critics seized upon Ms. Black's lack of experience in education as making her unsuitable to run the nation's biggest public-school system.

But the 66-year-old magazine executive's best-selling book, "Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and in Life)," offers some clues on Ms. Black's management style and how she might apply it to the Department of Education bureaucracy.

One of Ms. Black's biggest challenges will be to shut down schools that the department has determined are failing—an effort that was stymied earlier this year by the United Federation of Teachers in a successful lawsuit against the city.

In 2002, as head of Hearst Magazines, Ms. Black dealt with the poor financial results of Tina Brown's Talk magazine. In her book, Ms. Black describes knowing that Talk wasn't working out six months after launch. But she waited two and a half years to shutter it in the hope that the magazine could be turned around. After the experience, "there is one rule I've come to count on," she wrote. "Make hard decisions sooner rather than later."

...

At the time of the Talk shutdown, the staff was halfway through the next issue, and "weeping staff members" asked if they could finish it. "It was very tough, but I had to say no," Ms. Black wrote. "Two more weeks of work meant two more weeks of costs." She asked: "Did the staff hate me that day? …Probably….But, unfortunately, life as an executive is about making tough decisions, not about being popular."

...

Ms. Black faces a Department of Education that is accustomed to frequent changes and reorganizations.

Her book suggests that she is likely to try to make more changes.

When she first arrived at Hearst Magazines 15 years ago, she said she got "sick of hearing 'We tried that already' over and over again in response to ideas." So she instituted a fine of $10 for anyone who uttered those words, and soon the resistance fell away.

Ms. Black's book may offer some of the Department of Education's 135,000 employees a glimpse at her management style. When she led Ms magazine, she admitted her "direct, sometimes brusque, style grated on the staff" and within six months she faced a revolt, with the staff demanding: "Either you go or we go." The situation was somewhat diffused when she learned to back off a bit.

"I've always tended toward straightforward, unvarnished communication, which I know comes across sometimes as being uncomfortably abrupt," she wrote. "Though I don't take abruptness personally coming from others, I've learned over the years that many people do—so I've made a conscious effort to take the edge off."

An area that Ms. Black must focus on is the relationship with the city's nearly 80,000 teachers. The city and the union must hammer out a teacher-evaluation system that takes into account student progress as part of measuring teacher effectiveness, the result of a state law that was passed this year.

In her book, Ms. Black writes: "Anytime you shake up the status quo, you're going to face opposition. People don't like change, especially if that change involves undertaking new tasks without absolute certainty of success….Learn to ride out the flak you receive in the interim."

As I noted in this post on the day her hiring was announced, this will be her specialty - school closures and job cuts with a smile.

Make no mistake, the face has changed but the policies haven't.