Noguera on BBA Report: Ed. "Reforms" in NYC, Other Cities a Wake-Up Call to Mayoral Candidates

The mayoral candidates are all clinging to mayoral control. Other questions remain in how the candidates stand on other educational policy questions.
Columbia University professor Pedro Noguera issued a press release announcing his outfit's study debunking claims as to various mayors' educational successes. The bold-italices are mine. This is a very important report, for it contains information on three "reform"-spotlighted school systems that debunks many tenets of education "reform".
Pedro Noguera, Top Expert: Report on Failure of Education "Reform" a Wake-up Call for Mayoral Candidates
NY, NY— In response to a new report called “Market-Oriented Reforms’ Rhetoric Trumps Reality,” Pedro Noguera, a leading education expert and co-chair of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education (BBA), released the following statement:
“This report is a wake up call for the public and New York City mayoral candidates. Mayor Bloomberg’s focus on high-stakes testing, school closings, and an expansion of charter schools has failed to produce gains that were promised and needed for the district’s students or schools. In some cases, the approach taken has actually weakened the quality of public education in our poorest neighborhoods. The implementation of the common core assessments without adequately preparing teachers and schools to deliver the standards is just the most recent example of the flawed approach under the current administration.
Policies like mass school closures create a vicious cycle: transferring low-income and minority students from schools deemed “failing” destabilizes other schools that often end up targeted for closure as well. In NY City, the poorest students of color have disproportionately been affected by this policy. The evidence shows that instead of receiving adequate support, many schools have been set up for failure. . . . .
The next mayor must move in a different direction in order to transcend the failures of Mayor Bloomberg's agenda. Real reform requires that we provide high quality support to the neediest students and the public schools that educate them. That takes a greater investment and emphasis on the supports that are necessary to insure equal opportunities. It also requires a focus on staffing high need schools with highly skilled teachers, targeted professional development, and the resources needed (e.g. social workers, counselors, etc.) to help schools provide an excellent education to all students.”
* * *
The BBA report was written by Elaine Weiss and Don Long. It section on New York City opens:

New York City: Nine years of market-based reforms failed to improve test scores or narrow achievement gaps
In March, 2012, Mayor Bloomberg repeated his claim that the achievement gap between white/Asian students and black/Latino students in New York City public schools had been halved between 2003 and 2011 (American University 2012). Actually, averaged across state reading and math test scores in the fourth and eighth grades, the achievement gap had stagnated; it was virtually identical in 2011 (25.8 percentage points or 0.73 of standard deviation) to its 2003 level (26.2 percentage points or 0.74 of standard deviation), and not statistically significantly different. 50 Indeed, Columbia University professor Aaron Pallas, who calculated the actual size of the reduction in the gap (of 1 percent), pointed out, “The careful reader will note that the mayor has thus overstated the cut in the achievement gap by a factor of 50” (Pallas 2012b).51 Another study that compared NAEP test score gains from 2003 to 2011 averaged across reading and math in fourth and eighth grades found New York City to be second to last, ahead only of Cleveland, among the 10 TUDA districts, as illustrated in Figure L, with a gain of only 4.3 points (Haimson 2012). The average large district gained 8.8 points over this period, with Atlanta gaining the most—15.3 points.

[Note 50:
The author explains why and how he converted what had begun as Standard Deviation differences into percentile change differences: “Given the mayor’s penchant for reducing complex phenomena to a single number … I have summarized the shrinkage in the achievement gap on the NAEP and New York State assessments as the percentage reduction in the gap. (For the technically-minded, this involved calculating group differences in citywide standard-deviation units, weighted by the size of the four racial/ethnic groups, for each grade and subject area, and then averaging those group differences, in both 2011 and 2003. The ratio of the 2011 group difference to the 2003 group difference indicates the extent of the change in the achievement gap over that eight-year period.)
“So here it is: Looking across ELA and math scores on state exams for New York City students in grades three through eight in 2003, the achievement gap separating black and Latino students from white and Asian students was .74 of a standard deviation. In 2011, the achievement gap was .73 of a standard deviation. This represents a 1 percent reduction in the magnitude of the achievement gap. The careful reader will note that the mayor has thus overstated the cut in the achievement gap by a factor of 50.” (Pallas 2012b)
Note 51:
Pallas also noted that, when NAEP scores were used to assess the validity of the same claim, the gap grew by 3 percent.
Note 52:
Assessments of gains (or losses) in test scores could also take into account the starting point for a city or district as, of course, those with higher starting scores have less room to grow. It is not possible, in this context, to compare starting NAEP scores of every large city, or even a smaller subset of them, and such an analysis also requires more than simple comparison to be valid, since many other factors should be taken into account. For the purposes of this report, the goal is to compare promised, and asserted, gains, against those actually realized, so only these basic comparisons are employed.]

The report continues:

The gap failed to shrink partly because white fourth-graders gained three times as much ground as their black peers between 2005 and 2011, as shown in Figure M. Indeed, this gap grew by 6 percentage points during those years, versus a slight decrease in the same gap in large, urban districts overall. The income-based gap for that age grew by even more, also bucking both national and urban trends during the period.
Bloomberg made similarly exaggerated claims regarding the city’s public school students’ “proficiency” on state test scores. When the New York State Department of Education recalibrated the scores, however, the gains vanished, and the proportion of students passing the state reading test fell from 68.8 percent to 42.4 percent, and from “an astonishing 81.8 percent to a disappointing 54 percent in mathematics” (Ravitch 2010). Again, NAEP scores confirm unimpressive gains. Between 2003 and 2011, average NAEP math scores in New York City public schools rose 8 points in fourth grade and 6 points in eighth grade between 2003 and 2011, gains similar to those in the nation as a whole, and half the size, at the eighth-grade level, of gains in other large, urban districts that did not engage in similar reforms (NCES 2011a).53
As Figure N illustrates, New York’s eighth-grade students improved at rates similar to those of their urban counterparts in reading; between 2005 and 2011, the city’s white students gained just two points (versus three in large, urban districts on average), while the city’s black students gained seven points (versus five in large, urban districts on average). These gains slightly narrowed the black-white gap in the city, but not enough to counter growing gaps in other subjects and grades.
One definite bright spot in the New York City data come from graduation rates, which increased sharply under Bloomberg and Klein’s leadership, according to data tracked by the city. While just under half (46.5 percent) of the cohort of 2001 (class of 2005) graduated in four years, that share rose to just over 60 percent for the cohort of 2007 (class of 2011) (NYC DOE 2012). The most recent nationally collected data for New York City found similar gains, though the different method of calculating national data produced a lower overall percentage: 56.9 percent of the class of 2008 graduated, an increase of 11 percentage points from 46 percent for the class of 2005 (NCES 2005a and 2010a). It is unclear, however, what impact, if any, the Bloomberg/Klein reforms had on graduation rates. The National Center for Education Statistics tracks graduation rates for the 100 largest urban districts (some of which, such as Montgomery County, Md., are not cities). The 11 percentage-point average increase in New York City’s high school graduation rate from the classes of 2005 to 2008 is consistent with the 12 percentage-point increase in graduation rates for the 100 largest urban districts in the same period, and it still left New York City well below the 65 percent average class of 2008 graduation rate for those districts (NCES 2010b). It is also important to be aware of critical caveats pertinent generally to claims regarding high school graduation rates. Due to differences in definitions, graduation requirements, and data collection and calculation methods, such data are problematic, especially when used to make comparisons over time or across states and districts. For example, New York includes GED completers in its definition of a high school graduate, whereas the U.S. Department of Education does not, which is likely one factor in the difference between city and federal recorded rates. Researchers have also found that administrative data are often “jumpy” across the years for reasons that they do not fully understand (Roy and Mishel 2008). Other issues include disproportionate “discharges” by race that may inflate graduation rates by “pushing at risk students out of school” and not counting them as dropouts (Jennings and Haimson 2009).

The report says that New York City's "gains" were dependent upon unsustainable spending increases:

New York City: Reforms hinged on likely unsustainable spending increases
New York City has long been among the U.S. school districts with the highest per-pupil spending; it spent $19,597 per pupil in 2010, the most recent year for which data are available (U.S. Census Bureau 2012, 104). During Bloomberg and Klein’s control of the schools, spending increased at a far greater rate in New York City than it did, on average, across the 100 largest U.S. school districts tracked by the National Center for Education Statistics. In real dollar terms, New York City’s per-pupil education spending nearly doubled between the start of Bloomberg and Klein’s control of the district (2002–2003) and the 2008–2009 school year. The city spent $11,361 per-child in real dollars in 2002–2003 and over $22,000 by 2008–2009. As Figure S illustrates, this increase far surpassed that of the other reform cities and the 100 largest U.S. school districts overall (NCES 2010a).68 On average, including New York City (and the other two reform cities studied here), per-pupil spending in large school districts rose from $7,923 in 2001 to $12,572, a 59 percent increase. As demonstrated earlier, the added spending has not translated into improved student outcomes. New York City has, on average, achieved less than other large, urban districts whose students’ outcomes are reported, while outspending and out-reforming them. Nonetheless, in April, 2012, Klein and Rhee announced that their StudentsFirst New York chapter would spend $10 million a year for the next five years to sustain the reform model put in place by Mayor Bloomberg after he leaves office following the 2013 mayoral election (Fleisher 2012b).
New York City has also benefited far more in absolute dollars than any other urban district from private donations to its schools and education programs (Saltman 2010, 9).69 Under Mayor Bloomberg, the city created a Fund for Public Schools, which is described as “dedicated to improving NYC’s public schools by attracting private investment in school reform and encouraging greater involvement by all New Yorkers in the education of our children” (Fund for Public Schools 2012). Four foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and two corporations have each given $1 million or more, The Broad Foundation donated between half a million and a million dollars, another 19 forprofit and nonprofit groups have given between $100,000 and $499,999 each, and dozens more have provided smaller sums (Fund for Public Schools 2010). While reforms hew closely to the policy priorities of the larger donors, such as the Gates and Broad foundations, the Independent Budget Office’s analysis illustrates how little total outside donations account for in the system’s overall budget (IBO 2012a). Donors’ impact is thus hugely disproportionate, relative to that of the taxpaying public.

For the complete report, including the illustrations, inline references and end notes please go to the report Market-oriented education reforms’ rhetoric trumps reality: The impacts of test-based teacher evaluations, school closures, and increased charter school access on student outcomes in Chicago, New York City, and Washington, D.C. itself.

An Open Challenge to Michelle Rhee and the Corporate Education Zombies

An Open Challenge to Michelle Rhee and the Corporate Education Zombies Boycotting standardized testing in Seattle was a stand for students and a better education

by Jesse Hagopian

Maybe I shouldn’t have stood up and said, “Welcome to Seattle,” while wearing my Garfield High School hoodie when Michelle Rhee took the stage at a recent Town Hall event in Seattle. Students, parents, teachers and community groups protest outside a talk given by 'corporate education reform' darling Michelle Rhee last month in Seattle. The high-profile former DC school chancellor champions charter schools, high-stakes testing, and other corporate school policies but refuses to acknowledge the substantial damage being created by this approach. (Photo: greatschoolsforamerica.org)

Rhee, the prominent corporate education reform advocate, former D.C. Public Schools Chancellor, and CEO of the ironically-named “Students First” organization, now has Seattle in her crosshairs. In her March 5th op-ed for the Seattle Times, Rhee berated teachers at Garfield and other Seattle schools for their boycott of the district required MAP test.

She began her piece: “Seattle public school students should pay attention. They’re getting a front-row, real-world lesson in how the actions of adults can distract from what’s best for students.” But don’t get your hopes up—this wasn’t a long overdue acknowledgment of the events surrounding the testing scandal when she was commanding the DC public schools.

With only a little investigation of the news of the MAP test boycott, Rhee would have found that the Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) and the Associated Student Body Government (ASB) at Garfield High School—the school where the test boycott of the test began on January 10th—had voted unanimously to support teachers in the boycott of the MAP test. When the Seattle School District attempted to go around the teacher boycott of the MAP by forcing the school administration to pull kids out of class and march them off to the library to take the computerized test, hundreds of students showed letters from their parents opting them out, while many of the rest simply refused to participate on their own. Of the 810 tests scheduled at Garfield, only 184 valid tests were recorded.

In the end, the boycott of the winter round of the MAP primarily reflected the will of students and parents, who agreed with teachers that student time was better spent learning in the classroom, and that library computers were better used for student research and writing rather than testing. Had she acknowledged this, Michelle Rhee would have had some difficult questions to answer.

If students vote unanimously to boycott a test, is it still okay to put their demands and interests first, or does putting students first mean ignoring their democratic decision making?

If the parent organization at a school votes unanimously to support the teachers in boycotting a flawed test, is it okay for the parents to guide their children, or should students disregard their parents and instead follow an astro turf organization called “Students First”?

What happens when students, parents and teachers around the nation join together in common cause and protest for a meaningful education rather than the overuse of standardized tests? Is it okay to put “students first” when they agree with their teachers about what constitutes a quality education?

Rhee's inability to ask these critical thinking questions is a demonstration of the very cognitive problems that can arise from an over reliance on standardized testing.

The boycott of the MAP test has spread to five schools in Seattle with a dozen other schools actively supporting it. In Portland, students have initiated their own historic boycott of the standardized OAKS tests. In Providence, R.I., 50 high school students staged a "zombie protest" against high-stakes testing, marching to the state Department of Education, chanting "No education, No life." The New York State Principals Association recently issued a scathing letter, signed by 1,536 of its members, denouncing rampant state testing as a negative influence on the educational and emotional health of students. In Maryland, Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr has called for a three-year moratorium on standardized testing. More than 500 school boards in Texas have passed resolutions demanding a reduced focus on standardized tests and on February 23, an estimated 10,000 parents, students and teachers from around Texas marched up Congress Avenue to the state Capitol in Austin to oppose the overuse of testing.

This nationwide solidarity against standardized testing represents a high stakes test for Rhee, and perhaps the anxiety is interfering with her ability to think clearly. Rhee wrote in her Seattle Times op-ed, “We know standardized testing works. For example, look at the District of Columbia, where I was school chancellor.”

It’s almost impossible to believe, but she really did write those words.

Yes, let us take look at the standardized testing in D.C. when Rhee was chancellor. In a scandal now known as “Erasure-gate,” massive test cheating was uncovered by USA Today, along with the failure of then-schools chancellor Michelle Rhee to investigate. As USA today wrote,

“In just two years, Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus went from a school deemed in need of improvement to a place that the District of Columbia Public Schools called one of its ‘shining stars.’ …. A USA TODAY investigation, based on documents and data secured under D.C.'s Freedom of Information Act, found that for the past three school years most of Noyes' classrooms had extraordinarily high numbers of erasures on standardized tests. The consistent pattern was that wrong answers were erased and changed to right ones. Noyes is one of 103 public schools here that have had erasure rates that surpassed D.C. averages at least once since 2008. That's more than half of D.C. schools.”

Rhee went on to write in her Seattle Times op-ed, “Astronomically high dropout rates and subpar math and reading-proficiency levels in lower-income, inner-city schools ought to jolt us as especially immoral."

When Rhee refers to “inner-city” schools, she’s attempting to discuss Black students and other students of color. Yet she is scared to use the word “racism” because that would open up a conversation about the relationships between race, poverty and school performance. Rhee laments the educational outcomes of students living in poverty without ever questioning the causes of poverty. Perhaps that’s because her sponsors are the corporations and super-rich who profit from under-paying the poor for their labor, and whose policies perpetuate poverty. She is right about one thing--it’s appalling that low-income students have the worst outcomes in our schools. You won’t hear her say anything, however, about how corporate profits should be taxed to reinvest in our schools, or the fact that our nation prioritized finding trillions of dollars to recapitalize the same banks that sabotaged the global economy.

Moreover, Rhee has no understanding of the history of standardized testing or its contribution to the reproduction of inequality. As University of Washington education professor Wayne Au has written, “Looking back to its origins in the Eugenics moment, standardized testing provided…ideological cover for the social, economic and education inequalities the test themselves help maintain.” The stability of testing outcomes along racial lines, from the days of Eugenics until today, demonstrates standardized testing has always been a better measure of a student’s zip code than of aptitude. Wealthier and whiter districts score better on tests. These children have books in the home, parents with time to read to them, private tutoring, access to test-prep agencies, healthy food, health insurance, and similar advantages. Standardized testing has from the very beginning been a tool to rank and sort people, not to remove the barriers needed to achieve equality.

The Seattle boycott of the MAP test opened up our understanding of how the test exacerbates inequality:

English Language Learners and special education students are the populations pulled out of class most often to take the MAP. On average, each test taker loses 320 minutes of instructional time. MAP tests are administered on computers. Our computer labs are commandeered for weeks for test taking. Students can’t access the computers they need for research projects, which especially hurts students without computers at home—predominently low income and students of color. The Seattle NAACP supported the boycott because the MAP is used to track students into the city’s Advanced Placement Program—a program overwhelming made up of white students. The Superintendent’s Special Education Advisory and Advocacy Committee for the Seattle Public Schools supported the boycott, too, saying, “…our children are regularly denied their accommodations for the MAP. How does MAP testing somehow take precedence over the necessary accommodations on the IEP?” Rhee says the MAP boycott is a play by teachers to avoid accountability. Teachers and their unions, though, are simply fighting for the same kind of schools that the wealthy enjoy. Elite private schools do not inundate their students with standardized tests. What they do offer are great enrichment programs in physical education, drama, art, music, and field trips. They enjoy low student-teacher ratios, and a curriculum that stimulates students' interests and creativity.

If Rhee truly believes in the innate value of standardized tests, she should protest the fact that expensive private schools have been boycotting the MAP test for a long time.

Can you imagine Rhee (the self proclaimed “radical”) standing outside Lakeside, Bill Gates’ high school alma mater, chanting “1-2-3-4 your child IS a score! 5-6-7-8, standardized testing is really great!”?

Lakeside doesn’t march their students off to the library to take the MAP three times a year. Still, it’s a pretty good school. The student/teacher ratio is 9 to 1. Average class size is 16. The library has some 20,000 volumes, and is open until 6:00 pm. There’s a sports facility with a hydrotherapy spa. The service learning program has taken students to India, Peru, and China, and the School Year Abroad program enrolls students in their junior year to such programs as Mountain School, the Rocky Mountain Semester, the Maine Coast Semester.

Washington State ranks first among states in the number of standardized tests our K-12 public school students take. Besides the district’s MAP test (administered up to three times per year), the state mandates five additional standardized tests (but not for private school students). Our state spends more than $100 million on standardized tests, yet ranks 42nd in the nation in per pupil spending and its class sizes are among the largest in the country. These are the intolerable conditions that provoked educators in Seattle to put their livelihoods on the line and boycott the test.

The destination at which Seattle’s students, parents and teachers want to arrive is not on the MAP. Our desired destination is graduating students who demonstrate creativity, social responsibility, critical thinking, leadership, and civic courage. Seattle’s teachers are not afraid of assessment, but many of us know that to reach those goals, we will need to venture off the well-worn and narrow path of selecting from answer choices A, B, C, or D.

Michelle Rhee, I’m afraid you are lost. Come debate me in public, and I can help you find your way.

Jesse Hagopian is a public high school teacher in Seattle and a founding member of Social Equality Educators (SEE). He is a contributing author to Education and Capitalism: Struggles for Learning and Liberation and 101 Changemakers: Rebels and Radicals Who Changed US History (Haymarket Books). Hagopian serves on the Board of Directors of Maha-Lilo—“Many Hands, Light Load”—a Haiti solidarity organization. He can be reached at: hagopian.jesse@gmail.com or you can follow him on Twitter.