Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch Looks To Circumvent Mayoral Control, Force School Closings

Diane Ravitch:

Recently Mayor Bill DeBlasio and Chancellor Carmen Farina announced a plan to help struggling schools by providing extra tutoring, after-school programs, and other needed resources. They made clear that they wanted to support schools with low test scores instead of closing them. The mayor said he would invest $150 million in extra resources to the lowest performing schools.

However, Merryl Tisch, the chancellor of the state Board of Regents, said on a radio show that if the schools didn’t show progress by this coming spring,  she would move to close them and replace them with charter schools. The Tisch family, in addition to being generous philanthropists, are big supporters of charter schools.

Giving the DeBlasio plan only a few months to prove its success seems awfully unfair. Schools don’t get “turned around” in a few months. Surely Tisch knows that.

Indeed she does - but this is all about the power to fire teachers and close schools, as Tisch made clear in her statements.

So she doesn't actually care whether the de Blasio plan has enough time to succeed or not.

All Merryl Tisch cares about is making sure there is a precedent to break the teachers contract by giving the principals of these "failing" schools the power to fire teachers.

This isn't a fight over education or what's best for the kids.

It's a labor battle, with Tisch looking to help the privatizers by enshrining the right to fire teachers regardless of the contract between the district and the union.

So she's giving until spring for the de Blasio plan to show "progress."

It's November 17.

In short, Tisch has rigged it so that the plan cannot show "progress" and then she will move to have the schools closed and the teachers fired regardless of "mayoral control."

It's amazing how the reformers loved mayoral control when they had a mayor looking to destroy the system in power.

Now that there's a mayor who's a little less trigger happy about closing schools, they're going to circumvent mayoral control.

Funny how that goes.

Some Good News Out Of The Election - Race To The Top Is Probably Not Long For This World

A Republican-controlled House and Senate is almost certain to try and dump the Obama education agenda, including Race to the Top and the school turnaround program:

Conservatives will almost certainly use the budget process to try to eliminate the Obama administration's favorite competitive-grant programs, such as Race to the Top, Investing in Innovation, and the School Improvement Grant program. GOP lawmakers in the House have tried for the past few years to scrap those programs, but Senate Democrats have always championed them in budget negotiations.

Conservatives will undoubtedly push school choice and vouchers.

But we may also see a NCLB Jr. bill come to the president's desk that gets rid of some of the more controlling features of NCLB Sr:

 Alexander, a former U.S. Secretary of Education under President George H.W. Bush, has already laid out his education priorities, which include overhauling the NCLB law and tackling higher education legislation.

...

The starting point for Alexander would be a bill he introduced last year to renew the NCLB law. The plan garnered support from every GOP member of the committee, but didn't get a single Democratic cosponsor.

The measure would significantly scale back the federal role in K-12 policy, allowing states to devise their own accountability plans, among other things. As under the current law, schools would be required to test students in reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school, and report the results, including for subgroups of students, such as English-language learners and those in special education.

Obama won't want to sign anything like this into law even if it comes to his desk, so what we may end up with over the next two years is gridlock on these issues.

But if Lamar Alexander is going to push for more local control of schools, put a leash on Arne Duncan and his USDOE goons, scale back the accountability measures set by the feds and let states do some of their own setting, well, I'm all for that.

And if Alexander and his fellow Republicans kill RttT and the turnaround program, well, I'm all for that too.

The way politics works these says, especially around education issues, there's no red vs. blue dichotomy that works for me any more.

I may not support choice and vouchers as the GOP will push in this next session.

But I surely can support some of the other items on Alexander's list.

And if he goes after Common Core, well, I'm all for that too.

We'll see if these GOPers put their money where their mouths are on these issues.

After all, there are some corporations that stand to lose millions if education policy changes.

But if they do follow through on some of that stuff like getting rid of RttT and the turnaround program, I can get on board with that.

Washington Post: Firing Teachers Hasn't Turned Around D.C. Schools

Here's something novel - the Washington Post reporting that school reform is more complicated than getting a broom and sweeping out all the so-called "bad teachers":

D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson called it a “fresh start” and a “momentum-shifter” for Cardozo Senior High last month when administrators removed nearly half the staff at the school.
Henderson had used her power to “reconstitute” the struggling school, requiring the entire staff to reapply for their positions. It is a dramatic response to chronically low achievement, built on a philosophy that has driven D.C. school restructuring in recent years, first under Michelle Rhee and now under Henderson: Clear out poor educators and handpick a set of new ones to transform a school’s culture and performance.

Federal policymakers also embraced this approach under No Child Left Behind, the sweeping 2002 law that named reconstitution as an option for turning around low-performing schools. But the District’s efforts to remake schools this way have largely failed to produce improved test scores, suggesting that replacing staff is not by itself a reliable route to addressing the challenges of high-poverty inner-city schools.

Rhee and Henderson have reconstituted more than two dozen schools in the past five years — including Cardozo, which was last remade in 2008. Of the 18 D.C. schools reconstituted between 2008 and 2010, 10 have seen their standardized test scores decline further. Two of the schools have closed. Six have improved.

While test scores can be a crude measure of progress, school and city leaders use them as a key metric in judging schools.

Teachers say the District’s mixed record with reconstitution is a sign that urban schools and students face complicated problems — such as rampant truancy — that can’t be solved by trading one set of teachers for another.

“It seems like we’re always being told it’s our fault, like we should be superheroes,” said one Cardozo teacher who was rehired in May and who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for their jobs. Reconstitution “doesn’t acknowledge the fact that there are a lot of issues outside the control of the teacher.”

Gee, more complex than just firing the teachers and declaring we're going to accept "No Excuses!" when it comes to achievement.

Who knew?

Good For The CTU And Chicago Teachers

That was a really great job getting concessions from Rahmbo on work hours, new hires and recalls.

But as CTU President Karen Lewis said:

"This is movement in the right direction, but let me make this very clear, this does not settle the outstanding and mandatory issues in the contract,” said Lewis. “In order to get us where we are today it took a march of nearly 10,000 educators, a strike authorization vote and a fact-finder’s report to get CPS to move on this issue. This is yet another example of the CTU’s determination and dedication to fighting for solutions that will strengthen our schools.”

Kudos to her and the CTU leadership for knowing that victories in small skirmishes do not mean the war is over.

Note to UFT: Turnaround school battle is NOT over.

Bloomberg, Walcott and the DOE are going to do everything in their power to destroy those schools before Bloomberg goes.

That means you guys have to stand up for those schools and make sure they are given the resources and support to survive and thrive.

How Will The UFT Pull Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory?

I am very happy that the UFT won its arbitration case against the NYCDOE over the turnaround firings.

Still, I feel unsettled.

We have seen the UFT "win" rulings over school closures before, then fail to follow up their "victories" by ensuring that the schools the NYCDOE had targeted for closure are given the support they need.

Ultimately this is only a UFT "victory" if the union leadership decides to a) force the DOE to provide the appropriate support and resources needed for staff and students at these schools and b) fights the NYCDOE every step of the way if and when they try and sabotage these schools and the teachers working in them.

One final thing: this is still a "loss" if the UFT agrees to a system-wide teacher evaluation system that enshrines dozens of "local assessments" all throughout the year as part of the "local" portion of the Cuomo evaluation system.

Remember, the reason Bloomberg targeted these schools in the first place was because the UFT wouldn't give him everything he wanted on the evaluation system late last calendar year.

If the UFT decides to cave on that fight and allows the NYCDOE to put some onerous and odious evaluation system that requires dozens of "local assessments" into place on top of the new state tests that are coming as part of the Common Core jive, then this will be a short-lived UFT "victory," since many of the teachers at these schools will end up fired with "I" ratings in a couple of years.

As will many of the rest of us.

That's what this fight has always been about and I wish I could say that I have confidence that the UFT leadership isn't about to win this battle over the turnaround firings and still lose the entire war over the evaluations.

But eleven years as a UFT member has taught me to never underestimate the UFT's ability to sell members down the river and pull defeat from the jaws of victory - time after time after time.