School of Blogger weighs in

I'm sure Chris will have much more to say about this article later (as well as responses by the Chalkboard, Alexander Russo, and Kevin Carey at the Quick and the Ed). I'll just leave it at wondering if any of the responders, the last one in particular, has actually read Rothstein's Class and Schools. Carey uses the same reductionist logic to indict Rothstein as he accuses Schemo of using.

Look, Chalkboard, Russo, Carey, Schemo: we all care about kids. We've all spent "even a little time in one of the deeply dysfunctional schools that many urban students are forced to attend," so stop accusing each other of not having done so. (Anyone who's read Kozol, for instance, could not possibly make that accusation of him.) It's obvious to all of us that schools can do better. However, it is also obvious to all of us that we can eliminate a good chunk of that achievement gap if we start talking about the real problems, the ones that are even harder to fix than poor schools and inadequate teachers. I'm getting bored with people trying to frame someone else as the enemy just because they feel the need to have an enemy. Nobody is the enemy.

Except for those voucher people -- they really don't care about kids!

Teacher professionalism vs. appreciation

I started to write all this in the comments section of this post, responding to comments by NYC Educator and Ed at AFT, but it got too long, so here we are.

I guess I wasn't referring so much to the massages and the gyms as to the stuff like what Explore Charter School is doing (see original Chalkboard post here). I agree that the massage idea is paternalistic and really isn't much different from traditional teacher appreciation efforts, which are often eerily similar to Secretary's Day and reveal how unprofessionally teachers are viewed in many schools. That's the kind of thing that really makes me think that these charter school operators are terrified of having another Williamsburg Charter situation.

I guess I was thinkking more along the lines of this book (which I posted about here). I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in both social justice and charter schools. Anyway, one of the schools profiled in the book (can't remember the name, but I think it's in Boston) is practicing real, true teacher professionalism -- massages and gyms aren't needed, because teachers are viewed as the professionals they really are. The entire faculty are teacher-researchers -- everything is about constantly examining your own teaching practice to make sure students are really learning, and then sharing your findings with others.

That's the kind of school where I hope to someday teach. That's the kind of teaching experience I want to have, and that's really why I want to be a teacher. Ed and Educator are right, no massage is going to replace that.

You can't dis Dewey!

New Old School Teacher making the bigtime as a guest blogger on Eduwonk. I have to say I've long thought of her as my blogging nemesis -- she, like I, is a candidate for a Masters/certification in social studies education at an unnamed education school in New York City. However, she, unlike I, is a bit of a right-winger. I admit to sitting in my classes, listening for tell-tale rightwinginess among my classmates, wondering if my one of them was my nemesis. (At some point I concluded that she must be a student at TC, not NYU, my unnamed school.)

Nemesis that she may be, I can't say that I am overly pleased with the program I'm in at my unnamed education school in New York City. (As I've expressed before here and here.) But at least I don't dis Dewey.

I'm not worthy

Joe Williams at the Chalkboard has some really great examples of how charter schools are working "to bring respect to the teaching profession other than old-school collective bargaining."

Worth wondering, however, how many of these schools would be working so far if it weren't for the threat of old-school collective bargaining.

Also worth noting that there are a lot of charter schools that do not treat their teachers this way. And finally, worth wondering if there's a correlation between how professionally a school treats its teachers and those test scores. (State ELA scores coming out on Monday.)

And even finally-er, worth wondering if I'm worthy of posting when my brain is fried by 100 degree heat.

The AFT on ELLs

I'm also a little late getting to this, but I really like the new AFT resolution about teaching English Language Learners (ELLs). I have a lot of problems with how ELLs are taught at my school, and the resolution addresses some of them directly. My after-school program has a higher percentage of ELLs than the general school population (which makes sense), and this year I was able to see how isolated these kids are. The kids are around other ELLs all day, and have very little interaction with native English speakers. This can be good - for instance, a lot of the kids make friends with immigrants from a different part of the world, and have to speak English to communicate. But from what I've seen, their English grammar isn't improving as much as it could be. That's why I like this part of the resolution:

frequent teacher-led, structured opportunities for ELLs to discuss topics that are directly relevant to their lives and for them to interact in the classroom with native English speakers;

The first part of that is also important - I helped a lot of ELLs this year on project after project about famous people and events they had trouble relating to. Obviously, they need to learn a lot of general American history to catch up with their classmates, but every time I was to compare a historical event to something from their country, their eyes would light up and they seemed to really understand. I think it is important not to treat ELLs like they are so hopelessly behind that teachers can never explain things in the kids' native language or relate lessons to something from a student's home country. One of the ESL teachers at the school does a really good job working with her kids to individually explain the lessons, but it isn't the case throughout the school.

Finally, this part of the resolution really makes me happy"

prescreening and ongoing assessment programs that determine students’ levels of English language proficiency separate from students’ content knowledge and that have the appropriate tools to distinguish between lack of linguistic abilities in English and learning disabilities;

I posted a while ago about a Dominican kid who should be in special education but ended up in ESL (and didn't get the help he needed until a teacher that worked with us took it upon herself to give him extra help) because the test the kid took confused his learning disability with a lack of English ability. This happens because the evaluations of immigrant kids aren't good, and it's great the AFT is going to be pushing for better tests and assessments.

So much blogging to do ...

So little time. In the next day or so I hope to have time to post about this, this (maybe Chris can tackle that one), this (scroll down to the bottom), and maybe a little more about this. Keep me honest, readers.

Yassky

Saw David Yassky in the Grand Army Plaza subway station this morning. Over the weekend his campaign posters were taken down on my block. There's an AP story out today on his campaign for a historically black seat in Congress.

Previous post about Yassky here. There's another one, I think, but I can't find it.

Charters in NYC

The NY Post printed a big story about a "bombshell state report obtained by the post":

The just-released study by state Education Department found students in 11 of 16 city charter schools outscored kids in nearby public schools on the state's fourth-grade English and math exams in 2005.

I'm trying to figure out what this report is. Anyone know?

For the bad idea files

One of the worst ideas I've ever heard. Holding families accountable for students' school attendance, fine. Increasing their risk of homelessness, really stupid.

UPDATE: Chris says, 'why not just give families a reduction in their rent if the students make it to school every day?'

Drama in the Bronx

Or, Why Teachers Need Unions, Cont'd

Almost better than "don't be evil" ...

I just learned about this really cool search engine called
.

I've been using it today to support Doctors Without Borders, but I also signed up the schools I work with so that people can start supporting them. Any nonprofit or school that has an EIN can sign up.

Graduation

I'm a little late getting to this, but I had a few thoughts about my kids' graduation from 8th grade two weeks ago. As Julie knows well, I'm not a big fan of making a huge deal out of graduating 8th grade (or any of the other big celebrations, particularly prom). Almost all of my 8th graders in the after-school program graduated, and I'm really proud of some of the kids that worked hard all year. I'll always remember a Dominican kid who told me that his teachers always told him that he wouldn't graduate and that he loved proving them wrong (he was held back last year but came to the program almost every day this year and worked harder than anyone else to get his homework and projects done, despite the fact that he really should be receiving extra help in school). There were a lot of similar stories this year, and I think the kids that exceed the low expectations that are too common in the school should be rewarded and made to feel like they accomplished something.

However, I have always thought that making a big deal out of graduation sends the wrong message to the kids. I know that a lot of my kids aren't going to graduate from high school (a really sad thought) and that it is nice to give them a ceremony, but it always seemed like the graduation confirmed the low expectations that we have of the school system and of the kids. In my middle class school, high school graduation wasn't a big deal because we were all expected to graduate from college. In my rather limited view of the school from the after-school program (I don't work with many high achieving kids), it has always seemed like low expectations are the standard (see a previous post on college).

Even with all my reservations, I enjoyed graduation. It was nice to see the parents all dressed up to support their children (a nice answer to those who say that low-income parents don't care about their children's education), and the principal focused on the future (and college!), which made the event seem more like a starting point than an ending. What really made it special were the big grins on the kids' faces throughout the ceremony. After a stressful year filled with tests and middle school angst, it was really nice to have an evening to make the kids feel good about themselves. I know it doesn't solve any of the problems the kids will face in high school, but we really should do more for their self-esteem.

Marky Markowitz and the funky bunch

Anyone else see Marky's fireworks last night? It was a celebration of the end of the school year, apparently. Anyone else get Marky's little newspaper in their mailbox today?

Drama in Williamsburg part II

Chris and I discussed this, and we concluded that the incident doesn't just show why charter schools need unions -- it shows why people need unions. Disclosure: both Chris and I have worked for unions. But the point is, when you have a union contract, there are clear and fair channels for being fired.

The Chalkboard doesn't think that "all charters need unions just because of one dude who seems to be on an ego trip." I disagree. Charter school leaders tend to be very strong personalities who decide to open schools because they think they know how best to run a school. For a lot of these leaders, not wanting to have unionized teachers is as much about cost saving as it is about not having another entity that teachers can report to. I know people like this, and my sources tell me that the WCS school leaders are of that type.

Chris says that this incident is why mandatory unions in charter schools are necessary. He says that unless businesses (like schools) are forced to have unions, you are always going to have things like this that are just not reported. The state should say you have to have unions, and if the teachers in a charter school want to negotiate their own contract they should be able to do that.

If the school's charter is revoked, it's going to be really bad for a lot of kids. I know that's what everyone says whenever this happens, but still. Also, there is a serious dearth of charter high schools in New York City. There are a lot of other good options for high schoolers here, but at this late date these kids are going to end up at their crappy neighborhood schools.

UPDATE: Ed at the AFT makes a good point here. Scroll down to the Update.

Williamsburg charter drama

A big story (I think) at Williamsburg Charter High School. Here's the NY Sun story; commentary later today.

The head of the city's teachers union is latching onto a recent spate of firings at a Brooklyn charter school to push Albany to make it easier for teachers at charter schools to join the union.

After the Williamsburg Charter School fired three teachers, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, stepped in. She fired off letters yesterday to the school's CEO, to the city's schools chancellor, Joel Klein, and to the state Department of Education.

In a letter to the school, Ms. Weingarten said that she was "appalled" that administrators would terminate the teachers' contracts after they attempted to organize to seek better wages and benefits.

Run as independent schools, charters are free of many of the rules, regulations, and union contracts that govern regular public schools. In New York City, eight of the 47 charter schools operate under union contracts. That includes a school run by the UFT, which opened its own elementary charter school in September and plans to open a middle school in the fall.

An English teacher at the Williamsburg Charter School, Nichole Byrne Lau, contacted the UFT when she was fired earlier this month. A few months earlier she had circulated a copy of the city's pay scale for teachers. While her $50,000 a year salary was on par with teachers at other public schools, several of her colleagues' salaries were not, even though they worked longer days and a longer school year than teachers at regular public schools, Ms. Lau said.

Ms. Lau formed a loose association with the other teachers to discuss how to advocate for higher salaries and benefits like maternity leave.

"When I gave them that scale, they could not believe that they were so underpaid," Ms. Lau said.

Hess speaks the truth

I never thought I'd be saying this about Rick Hess, but Amen to this.

Juvenile offenders in CA

Here's one group of kids that are not going to be the next frontier in No Child Left Behind, even though they are being seriously harmed by a system that is supposed to be helping them.

Last minute cap action

It's a fight to the finish as Pataki tries to slip in a last minute charter school cap lift on the last day of the legislative session. I would feel much more excited about it if I didn't suspect that it was one of several unsavory things Pataki's trying to slip in at the last minute for his own personal gain. I sort of agree with this sentiment:

Before a decision is made either way on the charter schools, more public debate is needed, one good-government lobbyist said.

"Trying to jam this through as part of a budget bill is a reprehensible way to do public policy," said Barbara Bartoletti of the state League of Women Voters.

UPDATE: Lest we think education is the most important item on the legislature's agenda, here's some perspective.

Too Dangerous for Soccer

Yesterday I took my kids over to nearby school for a soccer game. The kids were really excited to play against another team and had been talking strategy all week. A lot of the younger kids came to watch, and it was a great atmosphere. But after about 5 minutes we had to stop the game because of a potential gang fight in the park. Apparently some high school kids had gotten into it just before we got to the field and had gone to get a gun. The kids handled it really well and didn't complain at all. In fact, only a couple remarked about how awful it was that gangs would bring a gun to a playground with little kids (there was also a tennis program in the park). It was a sad day, and it reminded me again about how much these kids have to deal with on a daily basis.

El Jogo Bonito

I've been showing World Cup games all week after almost all the boys (and some of the girls too) in the after-school program told me they wanted to go home to watch. The Brazil game on Tuesday reminded me why I love soccer and the World Cup - all the kids sat together in front of the TV cheered loudly for Brazil the whole game, even though we don't have any Brazilians and the kids are from all over the world. The game was in Spanish (no cable at school), but it didn't stop the kids from North Africa and South Asia from really getting into the game.

The Mexico game on Friday was much more typical of the racial/ethnic tensions present in the school. All the Mexican kids stood up proudly and sang the national anthem (complete with the salute over the chest). Almost immediately after the game started, the kids divided themselves up into a Mexican table and mostly South American table. All the South American kids cheered for Angola, mostly to be obnoxious, and I had to break up a number of fights between the two groups. Some of the black kids in the program came over and said some anti-Mexican things (a few actually watched the Brazil game). The divide between the Mexican kids and everyone else seems to be surfacing a lot more after the national immigration debate, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better. I'm glad that the Mexican kids aren't backing down and I know that despite the portrayal in the media that soccer brings us all together, the World Cup isn't going to solve anything. It is just too bad that it takes el jogo bonito (the beautiful game in Portuguese) to bring the kids together.

SES for English Language Learners

Interesting report over at Advocates for Children on how ELL students are doing in New York City SES programs. The good news - SES enrollment is up among ELLs since 2002-3. The bad news - SES providers don't do a good job of providing services to students and families that don't speak English. I've seen a lot of this first hand at my school, where letters from the school continue to be sent out only in English despite the fact that most parents speak Spanish or another language. Actually, most of the SES providers here do a better job than the school with outreach to Spanish-speaking parents (the report shows that my region is actually one of the better regions in terms of ELL participation in SES, although it is still below 60 percent), but I'm still not impressed with the results. A lot of the kids that signed up don't go to tutoring sessions, and I stopped seeing most of the providers after their big registration push in October.

Class size does matter, but ...

Slow on the uptake again, but here's Class Size Matters' response to last week's NY Times article on charters in Harlem. The response points to some data on the supposed effects on class size of an existing public school when a charter school moves in. (Via Chalkboard.)

I just want to point out that in at least one case, these data are a little suspect. One school, listed as having opened in 2000, is compared to its co-locating school from school year 1999-2000 on. That school, however, did not move into that building until school year 2004-05. Comparing school year 2003-04 (pre-move) to 05-06, in only two grades did average class size go up at the non-charter public school, one of which went up by only half a student. In all other cases class size went down.

The point is, these charts are weird and don't account for all the many reasons class size can go up or down in a school.

Student protests in Chile continue

According to the BBC, Chilean students rejected this government offer (which promised to improve infrastructure but notably did not include free bus passes) over the weekend and are planning a national strike for today. One interesting note about the students' demands that I missed last week is the frustration with the decentralization of the education system in Chile. Students argue that local control leads to inequalities between schools, and want a return to centralized control.

I don't know much about Chile, but this aspect of the student protests is particularly interesting to me because of the debates over education I saw in neighboring Bolivia. A number of rural villages I visited had fought for local control over schools so kids could learn the community's indigenous language and have time off to help their parents during the harvest, things that never happened under centralized control that refused to value indigenous and peasant culture. Rural Bolivians seemed satisfied with the changes that local control over schools had brought, but the schools were literally falling apart and there was a big difference between rural and urban schools. Teachers seemed to be on strike every other month over wages. Again, I don't know what the issues are in Chile (there is certainly a much smaller indigenous population there) but the protests seem to show that without adequate funding, the benefits of local control over education are neutralized.

Charter school funding

I'm a little slow on the uptake, but this Albany Times Union column from 5/23 makes a good point:

We need direct state funding of charter schools, not financing that comes from traditional aid to the districts. Charters may be public schools, but they are redundant public schools. They're an experiment. Those advocating the experiment should find a way to pay for it that doesn't cripple the local taxpayer.

Personally I'm of the opinion that all school funding should come directly from the state (outside of Title funding, etc.). But why not start with charter schools? I know there's some reason charter advocates give, I just can't remember what it is right now.

Student strikes in Chile

Interesting protests in Chile, where more than half a million high school students have been striking to demand comprehensive education reforms, including new curriculum and no exam fees. Hundreds of schools have been shut down by the strikes, and apparently hundreds of students were arrested or injured by the police.

"College isn't for everyone"

Last week my school had its Career Day, and one of the guidance counselors invited me to speak to several classes about my job in the after-school program. I had some really good discussions with kids about different kinds of jobs and the importance of knowing another language (I spoke to ESL classes and the kids really seemed to like the idea that they could get ahead by speaking and writing their language), but things got really interesting when I brought up college.

In the first class, the teacher interrupted me while I telling the kids about what they needed to do in high school to get into college to remind his class that "college isn't for everyone." I realize that the teacher was being realistic - a lot of the 7th and 8th graders who were in that classroom aren't going to make it to college (or even finish high school). I also understand that some people just don't do well in school and can excel in other areas (the teacher brought up a lot of trades that the kids might be interested in). But I was really surprised at how the teacher had already begun to lower the kids' expectations. One of the students actually tried to contradict him and said that her mother had told her about the importance of a college degree, and he just ignored her and kept telling the kids that it would be okay to settle for any job that would pay the bills. I don't disagree with the teacher for being realistic about his kids' futures, especially since he probably has seen a number of his former students fail in high school (a lot of kids from this school do), but it seems wrong to start closing off options to middle schoolers when almost all of them could turn it around in high school. I recognized a number of the "bad" or under-achieving kids in the class, and I couldn't help but wonder if rich kids or students in a high-achieving would have been told the same thing.

The extent to which a lot of people in my school (the staff in my after-school program, teachers, etc) have given up on most kids is more obvious as June is approaching, and it is particularly discouraging to me after watching a few kids in my program that everyone had written off do really well this year (one of my favorite kids came by last week to brag to everyone that he isn't going to summer school this year). All this particular kid needed was someone to believe in him, and even though that isn't going to help every student in this school (it didn't help everyone in the after-school program), it could go a long way for some.

I got a little cheered up by the next class, but it felt like it was in a completely different school. The kids asked interesting questions, and the teacher got really excited when all of her kids said they wanted to go to college. Expectations alone won't help the kids in this school overcome all the obstacles they face, and kids should know that they need to work hard to make it, but career day reminded me how important it is to let kids know that we believe they can do it.

Charter school politics in Minnesota

Eduwonk elucidates.

The Immigration Debate

I complain a lot about the 8th graders' lack of interest in current events, but the immigration debate in Congress and in the streets of New York has had a big impact in my middle school. Most of it hasn't been very positive. Yesterday a group of 40 Mexican kids showed up after school ready to fight with a group of black kids after one of the kids made a nasty remark about Mexicans during school (the wonderful security guard at the school, who is also Mexican, defused the situation by telling the Mexican kids that they couldn't play soccer in the mornings if they got into a fight). There is always a lot of racial tension in the school, but recently it all seems to be directed at Mexican kids. One of my kids has been talking with me about it for the past couple of weeks, telling me that all Mexicans should go home because they are taking his jobs. I remind him every so often that there are several Mexican kids that he likes, but after allowing that maybe they shouldn't go home, he retreats into these not so suble racist one-liners we hear coming from Washington everyday.

It's interesting that the immigration debate at my school only seems to concern Mexicans since most of the school's population are immigrants and there are a lot of Latinos from South America. Occasionally some kids move beyond the "us vs. the Mexicans" debate (an Egyptian kid yesterday expressed discomfort with the term "illegal immigrant" and felt that other kids were too mean to Mexicans) and I've heard some valuable discussions taking place about what it means to be an immigrant. But every time the tensions boil over like yesterday it seems more likely that things are going to get worse here before they get better.

Angry parents

Very interesting article today in the NY Sun about the UFT's secondary charter school's lottery, which was held last night. Here's the part that's really interesting to me:

Most parents left disappointed. "I don't like the way they did this lottery system," said Yolonda Orr, whose son Karron was not chosen. "It's like putting them on an auction block." She said that she will go back to applying to the better intermediate public schools, and hopes her son be accepted into one. She said she felt that many teachers "don't care, especially in our neighborhoods - just want a paycheck."

"I'm very disappointed that he wasn't chosen," Ms. Orr said on the subway home to Brownsville. "I wanted him to go to this charter school, and get a chance to start over with something new."

It's not news that charter school lotteries are often the scene of a lot of frustration, disappointment, and bad feelings. I think what's not being talked about is that a lot of those bad feelings are directed toward charter schools themselves -- or at least toward the lottery system. A colleague of mine is doing research on students who applied for our charters but were not selected through the lottery, and has heard a lot of very negative things from parents who feel that the system was rigged.

I'm not saying charter schools should give up the lottery system. I think maybe we should rethink the way lotteries are done. It needs to be clear to parents that the system is fair. And maybe making such a big spectacle of it, while exciting for schools and the parents that get in (and the media), isn't good for charter schools in general.

On the flip side of that same argument, there are a lot of angry parents out there who desperately want a better education for their children but who were not chosen in the lottery. What is happening to those parents? If they were to get together, go to Albany, and demand that the cap be lifted, I think it would carry more weight than a bunch of people like me doing the same thing.

It's their battle.

Read this and you'll know ...

... why I'm in love with Elliot.

HCZ on CBS

A colleague tipped me off to this 60 Minutes piece on Harlem Children's Zone that aired on Sunday. HCZ gets a TON of media coverage, and they deserve every bit of it. My only beef is with the teachers union bashing toward the end. It's this kind of thing that is standing in the way of a union-charter partnership.

Of all the bad arguments for vouchers ...

... this is the worst one. It goes something like this: Catholic schools are dying. We must save them! How do we save them? Vouchers!

Isn't the big idea behind vouchers to encourage free markets in education?

Regents

Interesting article in the NY Daily News about a poorly worded question on the Regents global studies exam. Especially interesting to me since I just finished up my methods course on teaching global studies (more thoughts on the Regents here), and we talked a lot about how to teach controversial issues like this. My prof's stance (and what seem to be the general NYU stance) is to teach the controversy, which sounds logical to me. I'm sure that when I actually start teaching it will quickly dawn on me that teaching the controversy won't always be the best idea.

Confused

Weird editorial in today's NY Times. The gist: weak charter school oversight makes weak charter schools. No argument there. The weird thing is that they draw from a study published a year ago by the Evaluation Center at Western Michigan, and don't even mention a more recent (albeit potentially biased) study on the same topic. (Thought I was always under the impression that the Evaluation Center was biased toward charter schools itself.)

The thing I really don't get is why the NY Times has suddenly become so frosty toward charter schools. Conventional wisdom around here is that there's someone within the organization that's pushing for a negative position.

This may be paranoid, but it almost seems like there's a coordinated effort to spread the idea that charter schools are private schools at the NY Times. Check out the last line of today's editorial:

To salvage the charter movement, the states will need to abandon the strategy, now discredited, that consists largely of giving public money to what are basically private schools and then looking the other way.

I really, really don't get it. Does anyone out there?

Shameless

My hat is off to Eduwonk for doing the impossible: I've been trying forever to figure out a way to somehow make American Idol relevant to education policy so that I could express the School of Bloggers' undying love for Elliot Yamin.

Elliot less resembles any recognizable education figure than he does a goat, hence the School of Bloggers' affectionate nickname for him: Goat Boy. Chris loves him because he is a true underdog -- afflicted with partial deafness, diabetes, allergies, among other things, he is a natural poster boy for a half dozen disease-related organizations. Also, he's a high school dropout who earned his GED after learning the value of hard work. I love him because he has a voice that makes me want to do this.

Unfortunately, if all the gambling experts are correct, this could be the last night for America to see Elliot. So if you love education, charter schools, or children, watch tonight and vote for Elliot!

Update on Amadou Ly

The NY Times ran this article yesterday about the show of support for Amadou Ly, an undocumented high school student from Senegal on an award-winning robotics team. It's great to see stories like this about the impact of the broken immigration system in this country on the lives of hard-working immigrants, and it seems like a lot of people can be moved to do something about it, at least in individual cases.

A Day without Immigrants

Although it seems like the pro-immigrant rallies in NYC (NY Times article here) weren't as large as in other major cities (AP article via MSN here, LA Times article here), the impact of the "Day without Immigrants" was certainly noticeable at my school. The halls were pretty quiet all day long, and a number of teachers told me that most of their Latino students didn't attend school. A bunch of my kids (all Latinos) came to school but skipped after school to attend rallies with their parents or older siblings. They all called it a "huelga," or strike, instead of a rally or boycott, and seemed pretty excited to take part in it. One undocumented kid stayed in after school and told me a few too many times that he wasn't scared of immigration officials at the rallies. Even with the massive show of force by immigrants around the country in recent rallies, the fact that this kid was still scared shows how pervasive the fear is in some immigrant communities.

Interestingly, as the NY Times article points out, there was a real division among the different immigrant populations. Almost all of the South and East Asian students came to school, and most of the Asian kids I talked to didn't seem very interested in what was going on. This is probably a function of the organizing power of the Latino media and the fact that there are more Latino immigrants than other groups. Still, it seems like these rallies creating more of a Latino movement (and from what I can tell there are even divisions between recent immigrants from Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, etc and immigrants from the Dominican Republic) and not necessarily a movement that extends to all immigrant populations.

Robot Dreams

This article in the NY Times today about an undocumented immigrant student in an East Harlem high school makes a pretty compelling case for passing the DREAM Act, which would allow many undocumented students that graduate high school in the US to attend college and get on a path to citizenship. The article focuses on Amadou Ly, an undocumented immigrant from Senegal and a member of a robotics team that made the national finals against all odds. Amadou can't fly down to Atlanta for the competition because he doesn't have an ID to get on the plane, and he is worried about not getting into the building where the competition is being held for the same reason. And while the fact that this kid might be prevented from taking part in a robotics competition because of his immigration status is ridiculous, the really crazy part of the story is that he won't be able to attend college because he does not qualify for financial aid. He also might be deported, simply because he came here "illegally" with his mother. It seems like Amadou is exactly the kind of student that we should be encouraging to go to college (read the article for glowing reports from teachers and friends).

Amadou's story also shows how ridiculous the immigration legislation passed by the House, which would make the presence of undocumented immigrants a felony. I don't think we should be punishing immigrants for wanting to work and for doing jobs that most Americans won't do, and it is certainly wrong to punish kids that came here with their parents, especially ones that are completing high school and want to go to college.

A quiet 37.5 minutes

Another update on how the 37.5 minutes of extra tutoring is working at my school: I walked around yesterday looking for a few of my kids, and noticed that most of the classrooms were either empty or had only one or two students. It was the same today, and it was a little eerie to have the halls be so quiet (next to the windows was another matter, since most of the kids were outside fighting or cursing at each other). Since I complained about how crazy the 37.5 minutes has been, I suppose I shouldn't be upset about the calm that has come with the warm weather. Except for the fact that almost no kids are taking advantage of the extra time to get help from their teachers, which is not a good sign for a school where so many kids are failing. The more motivated kids (that actually need help with their schoolwork) in my after school program don't even seem to be getting anything out of these sessions, since I am spending several hours a day with them on projects, and they leave all their materials in my office. There is still a lot that needs to be ironed out with the extra tutoring.

Visiting Columbia

I took my 8th graders to visit Columbia University last week. I thought it would be a good idea to get them thinking about the importance of college and to let them know that I expect them to go to college. So many people at school (teachers, administrators and even the staff at my after school program) expect nothing from most of the kids, so it sometimes suprises me that more kids don't give up when they are constantly told they won't amount to anything. Now I don't think college trips are going to change very much - although the way the kids reacted to a visit by a Dominican friend of mine from the South Bronx was really great to watch. He was originally going to talk mostly about college, but the kids really connected with him and seemed to understand a little more about what it takes to succeed in high school and beyond. Even after the success of that visit, I wasn't sure what the kids were going to get out of seeing Columbia.

I was pretty sure that the kids wouldn't understand how good of a school Columbia is. But I think they figured out pretty quickly that they wouldn't feel comfortable there. What they really focused on was the fact that the students there were not like them (most of the kids were Latino or black). Several of the kids asked the tour guide if everyone looked like me, white and blond, even though I thought that the student body seemed fairly diverse. The kids also zeroed in on the buildings and how different they were from Queens. One asked why there weren't any fire escapes, and wanted to know how people got out in case of a fire. They also wanted to know right away about how much it costs to attend the university, and didn't believe me or the tour guide about the possibility of financial aid.

Maybe a little exposure to a world completely different from their own will help these kids be able to think about going to college, something most of their parents never did. But it was pretty obvious that they felt like there was no way that they could ever get to a place like Columbia. It's sad that kids who are just starting to make their way in life (they'll be in high schools all over the city next year) feel like so many avenues in the future are already closed off. I couldn't tell if it was the Ivy League atmosphere that made the kids uncomfortable since we visited Queens College during spring break and the kids couldn't get a good feel of the college, but I don't like it that the 8th graders are already deciding that some colleges are too good for them.

The Immigration Debate and Parent Involvement

An article from Education Week (subscription required) discussed the potential impact of proposed immigration legislation on schools. One particularly interesting point was how legislation that would give undocumented immigrants the chance to become citizens could help increase parent involvement in schools. I personally think the language barrier and the lack of translation services is a more important factor in the lack of parent involvement among immigrant parents, but there is no doubt that immigrants would feel more welcome in many parts of American society (and more likely to participate) if they had documents.

Representatives from the National Council of La Raza and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, said this week they support the Senate Judiciary Committee bill because it provides comprehensive immigration reform, rather than the House bill and a separate bill that has been introduced by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., both of which focus on enforcement.
They applauded the inclusion in the Senate Judiciary Committee bill of a provision that would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented youths who graduate from U.S. high schools and attend college or participate in military service for at least two years.
They also endorsed the part of the Senate Judiciary Committee bill that offers a way for undocumented workers to become legal.
Ms. Underwood noted that K-12 public schools are obligated under a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision, in Plyler v. Doe, to provide an education to children regardless of their immigration status. “From the school’s perspective of the primary mission of educating the kids, the immigration status of the parent is secondary,” she said.
Peter Zamora, a legislative lawyer for MALDEF, added that legalization for children’s parents could improve parent involvement in schools. “There’s a relationship between government and individuals in this community that is not based on trust,” he said. “Bring this population out of the shadows; have them participate in all facets of American society, including school.”

We are America

I'm back from a brief hiatus (spent visiting graduate schools and agonizing over the decision) and I'm excited about the huge pro-immigrant rallies taking place around the country. This Washington Post article seems to be pretty typical of the positive coverage that the rallies are getting in the national media. The bit about the shift on the part of organizers to include more American flags and less Mexican flags was particularly interesting to me. Even though many Americans seem to sympathize with immigrants families and reject harsh measures (the article says that three-fifths of the population wants to provide immigrants that have lived here for some time with a path to citizenship), there is still a lot of xenophobia, and the imagery of an "immigrant invasion" is all over in places like Fox News (during a 30 minute show that I saw last week, Sean Hannity showed a tape of Mexicans streaming across the border 15 or 20 times).

So although I think it is great that immigrants are standing up to the digusting and hateful bill passed in the house, I also think that a lot of commentators are going a little too far with their predictions that these rallies are the start of an immigrant/Latino political movement. Most of the immigrant parents in the night ESL classes at the school went to the rally in downtown New York yesterday (article here), but from what I can tell most of the immigrants around here are just plain scared of what is going to happen. And while the rallies are big enough that they can go without worrying about being deported, I just don't see the accompanying political consciousness that would turn these rallies into a powerful movement, at least in my little part of New York (it could be very different in a city with a more homogeneous immigrant population). I want to hear what my kids are thinking about all this (the youth movement is the most exciting part of this), and hopefully I'll report back with some interesting findings.

Grouchy on vouchers this morning

Until now I was under the impression that Margaret Spellings was staying out of the voucher fray. But apparently she has been "sent by Bush" to "up the ante" in the "school choice battle" in New York.

Voucher proponents, like the New York Sun, love to conflate vouchers with charter schools as one big "school choice" movement. (Actually, their opponents do too.) This is useful when you either want to use one to build support for the other, or use one to do away with the other. But "school choice" is an outdated concept. Vouchers and charters have become two totally different "movements." Yes, there is some overlap, but it is mainly at the extremes, as charters have become much more mainstream.

In other bad journalism news, the headline of a somewhat anti-charter school piece in today's New York Times reads "Public vs. Private Schools: A New Debate." The print version of the headline is "Public vs. Charter Schools." Not sure which is worse -- the Times thinking that charter schools are not public schools or the Times thinking that they are private schools. And "a new debate?" As a colleague pointed out, the facilities issue is hardly a new debate.

Reaping what you sow

In this post a few weeks ago, I talked about Platform Learning's latest attempts to bribe students to join their SES sessions and predicted its failure. More than a few of the kids in my after school program signed up for Platform for the pizza party, but after two days in SES, they refused to go back (to be fair, the attendance is also lower in my program during the days when we run SES). Platform, instead of improving programming or attempting to get feedback from these kids, went after us because we let our kids come back to the program on those days after getting the ok from their parents. One of our coordinators was yelled at by a Platform representative, and the principal had to get involved. And this is after Newton Learning pulled out of the school because they couldn't get any kids to stay in their program (after bribing them with money). It's a mess and it is too bad that a lot of kids are not going to tutoring that could help them, but I can't say that these for-profit companies don't deserve it.

Sonny gets sonnier day by day

Update on this story: GA Gov Sonny Perdue's gonna sign that bible thumping bill into law.

Most inadvertently disgusting headline ever

The award has to go to this story.

BTW, I have one afloat in each of my two pools.

Students walk out

Chris is going to post more about this later, but I just wanted to say how much I love this story. It appeals to the youth leader in me, it appeals to the social studies teacher in me. And I love the quotes from Villairagosa and other officials -- they're old fogey hypocrites and they know it!

Update: In their own words.

Moskowitz Moskowitz Moskowitz

Damn, this event is getting a TON of press! I wasn't surprised to see it here, but when I saw it just now in a teaser for the 11:00 news (during a really awesome episode of LOST, by the way) I couldn't believe it. Is it just the Moskowitz factor? Or do they know something about the media that I don't know?

"We're losing control"

I've been meaning to blog about the how the 37.5 minutes of extra tutoring has been going at my school since my initial reactions about how crazy it was. It hasn't gotten any better. The time between when the kids are dismissed and 37.5 minutes later is absolute chaos most days at my school. I'm not sure how many kids are actually in the tutoring sessions since there seem to be so many wandering the halls. The administrators are in the halls everyday trying to get everyone into a room, but by the time this actually happens 15 or 20 minutes have gone by with no work being done. The kids who do go to tutoring complain that they aren't being helped, and every time I walk by classrooms nothing much seems to be happening.

A really troubling aspect is how the chaos caused by the extra tutoring sessions is limiting the ability of the school to protect its students. The security guards are outside watching the students that are supposed to go home, leaving the inside of the school to the troublemakers. No suprise that there has been a big increase in fights during that time. One of my kids got punched in the face the other day when he tried to stop a bigger kid from stealing his friend's IPod. In the buildup to another fight later on that week during the 37.5 minutes, I went looking for security and couldn't find anyone. The principal has recently been coming to the cafeteria (where the after school kids meet and where most of the fights have been taking place) to get a handle on the situation.

A dean told me that she thinks the extra tutoring will be gone by next year. She seems more exhausted than normal these days and told me that the staff is losing control of the school. I know that the craziness has something to do with the state math tests and the fact that a lot of kids are tired of school around this time of year, but the connection between the chaos in the school and the start of the 37.5 minutes seems too obvious to ignore. The system clearly isn't working here - kids that need help but don't want to stay are leaving and disrupting the tutoring sessions for those that do stay. There isn't enough security to control the complicated dismissal process or to prevent fights during it. The whole thing doesn't seem very well thought out, and it is unfortunate that something that the kids really need (extra help) really isn't helping anyone at all.

Platform Learning is at it again

After the Times and Post disclosed on March 8 that some tutoring companies (notably Platform Learning and Newton Learning) were paying off principals and teachers (and in some cases kids) in some schools in NYC to increase SES attendance, there was a lot of buzz around my school. A lot of the teachers (some who worked for those companies) expressed their misgivings with programs that basically bribe kids to come to tutoring. And it seemed like the DOE wasn't happy these practices, even though they weren't technically illegal.

Anyway, Platform announced a pizza party and a raffle for an IPod yesterday for kids that actually attend the program (very few have been coming), and a bunch of kids signed up. I think it sends the wrong message when companies pay kids to come to their program. Most kids at my school need individual help, and they know it. Whenever I can sit down with a kid one-on-one to work on something after school, almost every kid responds well and works hard to understand their homework, including the kids that teachers have written off. The fact that kids need to be bribed to attend free tutoring shows that SES isn't teaching the kids anything. A number of kids in my program signed up for Newton Learning at the beginning of the year to win $100, but stopped going after a few sessions because it was so boring. And this is going to happen to Platform in a few weeks. Policymakers really need to sit down and think about changing how SES is run (more oversight of these companies would be a great start) because what is happening now just isn't working.

We heart Bill Richardson

As part of the School of Bloggers' ongoing campaign to express our love for Bill Richardson and our hope to see him in the White House, I submit this for you to think about. He's right on early childhood education, he's right on the environment, and now he's right on charter schools.

UFT Charter High School

The "EIA" divulges more about SUNY's approval of a UFT charter high school and gives props to the union. Keep reading down to Leo Casey's response. He makes a good point at the end about Bloomy and Klein's push to lift the charter cap. (He also makes a good point about the charter schools I work with.)

Buffalo blues

More "Teachers vs. Kids" language in this Buffalo News editorial on the recent movement in the health insurance quandary the Buffalo school district's in with its teachers. (Previous post, with interesting comments, here.)

Also, if you haven't had enough of Buffalo, check out this review of a new book on abortion battles in Buffalo from the most recent The Nation. I know the guy who wrote it! (The review, not the book.)

A revelation

Since the School of Bloggers are facing a possible move to Minneapolis, I of course immediately went to look at the charter schools there. Warm-blooded southerner that I am, I was not expecting to find much to like about Minnesota. I was shocked to find out how COOL the charters are there! Look at this one! And this one! There are two charters for the Hmong community and at least two for American Indian students.

Why are charters so cool in Minneapolis? Turns out there's a reason.

Unscrupulous SES companies

Tutoring companies in NYC have engaged in a number of improper activities while trying to enroll poor students in Supplemental Educational Services (SES) programs, according to this NY Times article. I have no idea if some of the more aggressive companies working at my school have done anything like the examples in the article (both Newton Learning and Platform Learning are mentioned specifically in the city's report and are particularly aggressive in going after students and parents), but the atmosphere that these companies create in the school really poisons the whole process. A lot of parents have no idea what is going on and often don't know what they are signing, but they are really pressured by representatives of these companies at parent-teacher conferences and other school events to sign their kids up for SES.

Even though the recruiting efforts were stepped up this year, there hasn't been much difference in the numbers of kids enrolled in SES programs (it is still pathetically low). Most of my kids that signed up for other programs stopped going a long time ago, and it seems like the only ones that are really benefiting already have good tests scores and involved parents. If most parents don't understand the programs they are enrolling their kids in, how can schools expect struggling and disruptive kids to take it upon themselves to show up for tutoring on their own initiative? SES programs, at least at my school, are not serving the kids that need the most help.
I don't know what the solution is since the 37.5 extra minutes a day has been a nightmare so far at my school (more on this in the next post). The problems with SES can't all be blamed on tutoring companies, but I believe that a lot of them do start there.

Victory (Kind of) at last for Immigrant Parents

Yesterday, Bloomberg and the City Council agreed to expand translation services to immigrant parents (Newsday article here, and DOE press release on the deal here). The increase in funds ($2 million will be added to the $10 million the city already spends) to Bloomy's Translation and Interpretation Unit will allow more school documents to be translated. The deal sidesteps a threat by the City Council to override Bloomberg's recent veto of the Education Equity Act, which would have mandated more comprehensive translation services in schools.

It will be hard to tell anytime soon if the extra money will change much in the schools and as the Newsday article points out, the provision that says services will be available to "the extent practicable" is worrying because schools may simply choose not provide the services since it often isn't practical for schools without resources to provide translation services to parents in a number of languages. Still, it is encouraging that something was done to reach out to immigrant parents and not treat them as second-class citizens simply because they haven't learned English yet. If these parents can become more involved in their children's education, I think the benefits to schools and communities will outweigh the costs of increased services. Language access doesn't guarantee parent involvement, but it is a good first step.

Update on the Education Equity Act

The Daily News reported on Tuesday that council members may be working on a compromise to increase translation services for immigrant parents in NYC schools. The City Council passed the Education Equity Act late last year, and Bloomy vetoed it, saying the bill would violate state law. Let's hope they come up with something soon - I spent last Thursday translating for dozens of Spanish-speaking parents at parent-teacher conferences in an ESL class, and most of the parents told me or the teacher that it was the first time they had been able to communicate with their children's teacher. Is it any wonder that most of the school's parents didn't bother to show up for the conferences?

Charters and segregation

Meanwhile, in other charter news, a new report has come out about how charter schools do nothing to desegregate schools in Michigan. From the co-director of the study's policy center:

"Parents are moving their students from racially segregated (traditionally public) schools to racially segregated charters."

There was another big study by these people a few years ago on the same topic.

My question is, were charter schools ever intended to be forces of racial desegregation? Yes, they should (and do) integrate students economically, but is it such a bad thing if minority parents decide to send their children to schools where the other students look like them?

I keep thinking of an article by Lisa Delpit where she discusses her own daughter's move from a private school in which she is the only black student to a largely black charter school. The effect on her daughter's self esteem was significant, and startling to Delpit. Charter schools are schools of choice -- parents choose to send their children there for any number of reasons. Is that really segregation?

I'm also thinking about the two charter schools I work with -- one had a Latina founding principal, and a large proportion of the faculty and staff there are Latino. At an event last night, graduates of the school greeted many of the parents at the door in Spanish, with kisses on the cheek. Is it any wonder that Latino parents would want to send their children there, and that 60% of the students are Latino?

At the other school, a large proportion of the faculty and staff are black. The school song is an African folk tune, and the school's culture feels distinctly black. Is it any wonder that black parents would want to send their children there, and that 90% of the students are black?

Finally, being a white woman I'm not sure if I should be offended by the idea of the "peer effect" for race. The Harvard Civil Rights Project makes the case that segregation is an evil in itself, but I'm not sure if I buy it, especially in the case of charter schools.

Touché

Eduwonk's guest blogger this week gets at the one thing that irritates my conscience when I advocate for charter schools.

The good book(s)

Bible thumping in my home state. From the Economist:

Bible Study

A bill that would allow for Bible classes in public schools was approved by a 50-1 margin by state senators on February 3rd. Regina Thomas, a Democrat from Savannah, was the lone dissenter. State Republicans had been trying to pass a version of the bill since 2000. The version that passed, sponsored by Tommie Williams, the majority leader, requires the state board of education to approve two new elective high-school courses (which are not required for graduation): one on the Old Testament and one on the New. The bill also requires that the Bible be used as a textbook.

A version of the bill sponsored by three Democratic members would have created only one course and would not have required the use of the Bible, but lack of support forced the sponsors to vote for Mr Williams’s bill. Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, observed that it was better to be seen “running and hiding in the rest room” than be accused of voting against the Bible. A spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, meanwhile, promised to watch the bill closely.

Meanwhile, in the "Humanities and the Social Studies" course I'm taking right now, we recently did a model lesson on the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Koran. (Students are required to know something about these books for the Regents.) We used literary analysis techniques to compare excerpts from the three books relating to certain topics (food, women, holy war, etc.). The lesson had its limitations, but it seemed like an interesting way to approach what is required material -- it completely steered clear from theology. (Though, even in my masters' level class of adults, it was not possible for everyone to look at the material objectively.)

The point is, holy texts do have a place in the high school classroom. But do they really need their own elective? Why single out the Old Testament and the New Testament for their own separate electives? This is a purely political bill that is meant to separate the bible-lovers from the god-haters in an election year (see the political scientist's comment).

My unending quest to find new sources of procrastination

Check out the blogs I have recently added to the sidebar:

Your Mama's Mad Tedious indulges my love of teacher narratives and Chris's obsession with baseball.

A History Teacher is my new eGuru.

Life in the Mobile Learning Cottage is written by a history/literature teacher who shares my fear of other people's vomit.

More on the new schedule

I talked to a lot of kids today about the extra tutoring sessions, and almost everyone hated it. I know that it's still being worked out, but too many complained about not doing anything (most were simply given a worksheet after everyone calmed down). A few other kids said that although they needed help in math, the work in the extra sessions was too easy. I originally thought that kids would be embarrassed about being required to attend tutoring, but it seems that because so many kids have to stay (I have about 5 students out of the 40 in after-school that don't have tutoring) it shouldn't be much of a problem. But it doesn't seem like the sessions are going to be an efficient way to help struggling kids.

According to this poll from Insideschools.org, parents are not happy with the new schedule either. A major problem seems to be that parents aren't getting enough information about what is going on. It doesn't seem like my school has done a good job informing parents, but it is also crazy to expect schools to successfully implement something this big in the middle of the year. Why not wait until next fall?

37.5 minutes of chaos

Yesterday the extended tutoring schedule went into effect and it was crazy at my middle school (it seems like it was a similar situation elsewhere, according to this NY Times article). Dozens of parents were calling the after-school office trying to figure out where their kids were, and it seemed like a number of students that were supposed to be in tutoring left the building early (I can usually tell by how many kids have McDonalds). Nobody at the school seemed to know what was going on. And the kids that went to tutoring were absolutely off the wall in after-school. I really hope this works itself out, but I'm not optimistic after yesterday.

A good dog.

We miss you, Ollie.

Musical Chairs

Not sure how I missed this, but the new chairman of the New York City Council's education committee is Robert Jackson. (I read it in this article.) I don't know much about him, but he appears to be quite a departure from his predecessor, Eva Moskowitz.

Thinking globally

In one of my social studies ed classes our first assignment of the semester was to take the August 2004 Global Studies Regents exam. My performance on that test was, shall we say, embarrassing to me and frightening to you whose children I'm going to teach someday.

Questions that stumped me:

7) Some historians suggest that as a result of the Mongol invasions of Russia, the Russian people were
(1) united with the Ottomans
(2) converted to Christianity
(3) freed from serfdom
(4) cut off from most of western Europe

22) One result of the Opium War was that China
(1) adopted democratic reforms
(2) gained control of Hong Kong
(3) regained control of Manchuria
(4) was divided into spheres of influence


Questions that I thought were really good questions:

39) The caste system in India and the feudal system in Europe were similar in that both
(1) provided structure for society
(2) developed concepts of natural rights
(3) established totalitarian governments
(4) promoted peace and prosperity

44) Which statement best describes an impact of the computer on the global economy?
(1) Countries can increase tariffs on imports.
(2) Companies now market more products worldwide.
(3) Wages have risen dramatically for most people in developing nations.
(4) Prices of oil and other resources have declined worldwide.


Softball question:

38 Which statement related to the recent history of Pakistan is an opinion?
(1) Pakistan gained its independence from Britain in 1947.
(2) The majority of the people who live in Pakistan are Muslims.
(3) Pakistan would be better off if it was still part of India.
(4) Mohammed Ali Jinnah was a major leader in Pakistan’s independence movement.

If you want to try the test yourself, you can get the answers here. Feel free to post your score in the comments section. I am sure it will be better than mine.

Supporting Immigrant Parents

A quick update on the status Education Equity Act (in Spanish, Daily News article here), which is a bill passed by the City Council in December that would require the DOE to provide comprehensive translation services for immigrant parents in city schools. Bloomy vetoed the bill, saying that he already spends $10 million on translation through a centralized translation unit, and the City Council is expected to take up the bill again on Feb. 16. It originally passed with 35 votes and was veto-proof at the time, but the departure of 7 council members that supported the bill leaves the status of the Education Equity Act uncertain.

I strongly support this bill because much more needs to be done at schools to increase the involvement of immigrant parents. Bloomberg's translation unit is a good first step, but there needs to be a real effort to include immigrant parents in school decisions, especially since so many schools with large immigrant populations are having trouble. The immigrant parents at my middle school want to participate but are shut out of PTA meetings and other events because more often than not there are no translators present. These parents are trying to learn English (the ESL classes my program offers are full) and I really don't think this would change if the Education Equity Act passes, contrary to the arguments voiced by its opponents, but it is wrong to reject parents and endanger the educational future of their kids simply because they haven't learned English yet. Providing translation services doesn't discourage immigrants from learning English, but it is an incentive for them to participate more in American civic society and interact with their community members.

More SURR schools in NYC

The New York Post reported this weekend that more city schools were added to the state's failing list than were removed, reversing a recent positive trend. Ten city schools were added and only 3 were removed, bringing the total to 40. I haven't been able to figure out if my middle school is on the list, but most of the teachers I've talked to seem really worried. I'm just glad testing is over and the kids can calm down, because they have seemed really stressed out recently.

Media Matters takes on "Stupid" 20/20 report

I'm glad somebody did it. I did not watch the whole show*, but I did watch selected highlights of Stossel's report on American schools on ABC.com. The report is extremely biased and, as Media Matters reports, leaves out a whole side of the issue.

The most dismaying thing to me about the 20/20 report is that it is so mainstream. Stossel does not shy away from making very conservative statements about "government monopolies," and this is prime time network television. My worry is that this is just where the country is right now, and 20/20 is a symptom rather than a cause. Despite all the crap that's spinning madly from the fan about the lack of accountability in the private sector, and despite all my hope that the public is losing confidence in business, maybe people really do still believe that private is necessarily better than public.


*Actually I did try to watch the video of the 20/20 report since apparently the org that I work for was mentioned, but in typical Julie style I stuck the tape into the VCR only to have the VCR immediately eat the tape.

Welcome!

Two new blogs on the scene -- NY Daily News reporter Joe Williams is blogging over at our friends the NY Charter School Association, and the AFT has a new blog on NCLB.

Is it the apocalypse?

You know you're in trouble when the hippo lies with the tortoise and the snake lies with the hamster.

Houston to get merit pay

Full story here. Don't know much about it yet, but from the looks of it, unlike some really interesting merit-pay plans, this one is based on test scores alone.

ELLs and special ed

Interesting article in the NY Times today about a successful primary school in the South Bronx that was labeled as "failing" as a result of some bizarre calculations under NCLB. The state claimed that English Language Learners (ELLs) and special education kids did not make enough progress under the law, and the article really shows how crazy things can get when schools are dealing with ELL students. One problem that hurt the school in the South Bronx - putting immigrant kids that have trouble learning in ESL classes even when they speak English well - seems to happen at my middle school a lot.

Once the principal saw the names, he realized many did not belong on the list. Typically, they were Hispanics who were given bilingual services when they first
arrived. However, once they had been at P.S. 48, teachers realized their problem
was not English; it was that they were slow learners and needed special-education services. Most have not been in a language class for two to three years.

This reminds me of a very articulate Dominican kid in the after school program who was held back last year and continues to have trouble in school because he isn't getting enough help in ESL, which he really doesn't need. At least at P.S. 48 kids like these are getting moved to classes where they can get more help.

The DREAM Act

Here is a short column at the Gotham Gazette on the DREAM Act and various immigration reform bills in Congress.

Training Future CIA Agents

Yesterday Bush proposed a program to teach Arabic, Chinese and Farsi to American students. I'm all for teaching kids another language (the article says only 44 percent of high school students study another language), but the reasons behind the program - called the National Security Language Program - may be a cause for some concern. One spokesperson said the programs might involve a commitment to work for the government or military. It would be really unfortunate if programs like the Mandarin dual language program in Oregon (post here) tried to funnel kids to the CIA. But I do think the idea of teaching kids another language is a good one. Kids are often isolated in their own worlds in increasingly segregated school districts, and it's important for them to learn about other cultures and viewpoints through language, which can really make the learning stick.

Pondering a Takeover

According to the LA Times today, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa met with the superintendent of the city's schools, and they may or may not have discussed the mayor's potential takeover of the school district. I haven't heard much about Villaraigosa since he was elected (the Economist says he hasn't done much), but he seems determined to follow NYC's mayor on this one. I'm not seeing a lot of progress as a result of Bloomy's reforms, and I suspect that the upcoming middle school ELA tests will confirm at least the dismal state of the city's middle schools. Only a handful of my 8th graders have been able to write a coherent, gramatically correct article for the after-school's newsletter. And these kids are so tired of thinking and being pressured about tests all year that I think they won't even perform as well as they could.

In other voucher news...

NY Times: Florida Court Strikes Down School Voucher Program

National school voucher program passed

I don't know how I missed this story.

Actually, I do know how I missed it. It was attached to a defense appropriations bill and passed right before Christmas. I am disgusted.

My sentiments exactly

In his column today, Jay Mathews writes:

"In this new year for charter schools, we will be seeing more studies of average charter school results vs. average regular school results, each interpreted in a different way, each used to reach some political conclusion. I would prefer to keep visiting the schools themselves, in person when I can, or through good books like these when possible. Nearly every charter school is guided by experienced teachers' hard-won knowledge of something that works. They don't all get it right, but put the best parts together and we may get something we like."

Learning Chinese in Oregon

Very interesting article in the Washington Post today about a Mandarin dual-language program in Portland. The program, which is federally funded, starts in elementary school and eventually offers college scholarships for students to take classes in Chinese. It seems like a great idea to teach kids about another part of the world and get them ready to work in a globalized economy, and evidently the parents there agree - more and more non-Asian parents are signing up and there was a waiting list this year for the first time. It will be interesting to see if programs like these help kids do better in school.

A very untraditional public school in Oakland

The top-performing middle school in Oakland is the American Indian Public Charter School, a profile of which appears in today's San Francisco Chronicle. His style couldn't be more different from everything I've learned so far at NYU, and is basically the polar opposite of the charter schools I work with. There may be a lot of reasons this school is succeeding, and the back-to-basics and harsh discipline may not be the foremost among them. But it is an interesting article.

Key grafs:

Chavis admitted that he's prompted students to leave, saying that his method isn't for everyone. He said his target demographic is "ghetto, poor kids."

"I don't use that middle-class rhetoric. I don't believe in building self-esteem, fundraising, parent involvement," Chavis said. "My system is not for middle-class, upper-class whites."

Don't speak Spanish here

This is an unbelievable story out of Kansas City, Kansas, that I somehow missed last week. According to the Washington Post, a 16 year-old Mexican kid was suspended for speaking Spanish in the hallway of his high school. Even if you believe in English-only instruction at schools (I don't because I think schools should offer a variety of options to help all kinds of learners (including native English speakers that might want to be in a dual language class), and because I think it can be really valuable to teach immigrant kids that grow up here to read and write Spanish), this is crossing the line. Prohibiting the expression of some cultures even when it does not disrupt sends the wrong message to kids (that some cultures are not valued as much as others), and it is racist. Does anyone think that a kid speaking a European language in the hall would have been sent home? I try not to get too discouraged by all the anti-immigrant (really, anti-Hispanic) language being thrown around by Republicans in the House because I know that the reality on the ground is much more complex (Kansas allows undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition to local colleges, for example), but this kind of stuff is depressing.

Battle over In-State Tuition and Immigrants in California

The LA Times reports that a group of out-of-state students are suing California's public universities over the policy that lets undocumented students that attended high school in California pay in-state tuition. Of course, the anti-immigrant Federation for American Immigration Reform is behind it, but a similar lawsuit filed by the group failed in Kansas a couple of months ago, so hopefully this won't go anywhere. The number of undocumented students actually taking advantage of the in-state tuition in California is very low, and it makes no sense to me to bar bright immigrant kids from college just because their parents came here illegally. But then again, many Republicans in the House seem to be poised to end birthright citizenship in order to "crack down" on undocumented immigration. If they are serious about doing something to fix the broken immigration system, they should start listening to their buddies in big business.

Native Americans were . . .

I came across a display by the after school program at the community center where I work occasionally. The kids, who are 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade, created a mini "museum" on an American Indian tribe for thanksgiving. I was standing there thinking how nice it was for the program to have the kids think about the outside world for a change (I find that a lot of my kids rarely leave New York or even Queens) when I noticed that all the "facts" about the American Indians were in the past tense - "Native Americans were connected with nature" was one of the worst. I have a big problem with the tendency to romanticize American Indians because it leads to stuff like this - the complete removal of Indians from the present day. It's particularly bad because New York City has the largest concentration of American Indians in any city in the United States. There are a couple of nice art exhibits by New York American Indians at the Smithsonian downtown, and I really wish I sent my kids there during the field trip to the Staten Island Ferry.

6 new charters to be approved

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Regents to OK 6 charter schools

Friday, December 9th, 2005

The State Board of Regents is expected today to approve six new charter schools - leaving only eight more slots in the state for charters.
Mayor Bloomberg, Gov. Pataki and other charter supporters have called on the Legislature to eliminate or raise the 100-charter-school cap - a move that Albany insiders say is in the works - but the issue remains controversial. Detractors say charters draw resources from regular public schools.

Charters are taxpayer-funded schools that operate outside the regular public school system. In New York City, there are 12,000 kids in 47 charters.

Students in many of those schools have earned higher test scores than their peers in regular schools, generating interest from parents and enthusiasm from educators.

There are 20 charter applications now vying for the eight remaining slots. Dozens more are in the works across the state. The Regents will select four of those schools. The State University of New York will choose the other four. Both votes are expected in January.

The six charters expected to be approved today include two in Harlem, two in Brooklyn, one in the Bronx and one in Buffalo.

Erin Einhorn

"We're all the children of immigrants"

So says James Oddo, a Republican Councilmember from Staten Island, explaining his opposition to the Education Equity Act, which would mandate the Dept. of Education and schools to translate for non-English speaking parents. Oddo, and a few other councilmembers that oppose the bill (the NY Sun article below reports that it will almost certainly pass soon), argue that such a bill would take the incentive away from parents to learn English.

I've written about the Education Equity Act a number of times before, but this line of reasoning really makes me mad. I have a number of parents from the after school program that are taking ESL classes at night (after working all day), and I can guarantee that they would still be there even if trying to talk to a teacher or school official about their kid wasn't a nightmare, which it is right now despite Bloomberg's Translation Unit. These parents do want to participate in their child's school, but they also want to help their kids with homework, deal with everyday issues and get better jobs, and this won't change if the Education Equity Act passes.

Council Translation Services Effort Faces Education Dept. Opposition
BY DEBORAH KOLBEN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
December 7, 2005

A $20 million plan to mandate translation services in eight languages for parents of immigrant children in New York City will be opposed by the city's Department of Education if, as expected, it passes the full City Council this month.

The bill approved by the Education Committee and known as the "Education Equity Act," has been welcomed by immigrant groups as a matter of "civil rights." They say parents are being shut out of their children's education because they cannot understand report cards, parent teacher conferences, and other school meetings. Some opponents of the bill have criticized the cost and say that it provides no incentive for parents to learn English.

Now the Department of Education has warned that the City Council could be stepping outside its jurisdiction. Under state law, only the Department of Education or Albany can legislate matters that are "educational or pedagogic," a spokeswoman for the department, Kelly Devers, said.

"While we agree with the goal of effectively communicating to non-English-speaking parents, and believe that the bill is aligned with our recently announced expansion of efforts in this area, we have serious concerns with the practical implications of the bill, including its funding," she said.

Andrew Friedman, the director of a Brooklyn immigrant advocacy group, Make the Road By Walking, argued differently: "These are parents who have a ton of desires to see their children succeed academically; and they really had the schoolhouse door slammed in their face." The law would require translation and interpretation services in the top languages spoken in New York City, including Russian, Haitian Creole, Urdu, Arabic, and Chinese. More than one in three New Yorkers are foreign-born, according to 2000 census data.

Last summer, the city established a new $10 million translation unit for schools to pay for interpreters and translation of some documents. Half of the funding is given directly to schools.

The Education Equity Act would go further in specifying when and for what meetings schools would have to provide interpreters and what materials they would have to translate.

Schools with growing numbers of immigrant families have been struggling to reach out to parents. At P.S. 226 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, many parents speak only Russian, Urdu, Hindi, or Chinese. The principal, Stephen Porter, said that this year the school received about $27,000 to provide translation and interpreters. He has often had to rely on students to translate for their parents, but that is less than ideal: "When a child is interpreting; you don't know if
they're telling the truth or if they're bending it to their benefit."

The three council Republicans are leading the charge against the Education Equity Act. Mayor Bloomberg is likely to veto the bill if it passes.

The Republican minority leader, James Oddo, sent out letters yesterday along with seven other council members encouraging their colleagues to vote "no." The letter includes a quotation from a 1999 State of the Union address by President Clinton about the importance of immigrants
learning English.

"We're all the children of immigrants," Mr. Oddo told The New York Sun. "I understand the importance of parental involvement, but not at the expense of the English language."

Preschool is cool

Out of hibernation to give you a link to this article about the Perry Preschool study.

Key paragraphs:

The landmark study of Perry Preschool tracked a group of poor African American youngsters from when they attended pre-kindergarten in Ypsilanti, Mich., in the early 1960s until they were well into middle age.

The findings are astonishing: a $17 return to the individual and society for every dollar spent on their early education. Those who went to Perry were considerably more likely than children who didn't attend preschool to have graduated from high school and married, significantly less likely to have gone to prison multiple times and to have been on welfare. They're earning an average of $20,800 a year. That's 25% more than similar children who lacked the preschool experience — enough of a difference to lift them above the poverty line.

It's not looking good for my 8th graders

The NY Times reports today that fewer than one in 10 black and Hispanic kids in NYC graduate with a Regents Diploma. I'll try not to think about that while I'm helping my kids (almost all of whom are black and Hispanic) fill out their applications today and tomorrow.

Real Solutions on Immigration

Great common sense op-ed by Douglass Massey in the Washington Post that everyone should read now that Bush and some Republicans seem determined to make immigration a wedge issue.

High Expectations

As part of the after school program for 8th graders, I've been trying to get the kids (and parents) to take the high school application process seriously since September. I've had a couple of workshops, taken trips to local high schools and have spent a lot time talking about it with individual kids, but it wasn't until this week (applications are due this Friday) that everyone seemed to find the high school book. So it's been crazy this week talking to dozens of kids that want to go to a good high school but really have no idea what they're doing. The process of choosing a high school is incredibly complicated for a good student, and most of my kids are LEP or have really bad grades and test scores from 7th grade (which is what the high schools look at).

So instead of telling my kids that they can go to the really nice high schools, I'm forced to find ones that take students with lower test scores. New York seems to provide options to kids like this because of all the small schools that are opening up, but it feels terrible to dissuade them from applying to wonderful schools like Townsend Harris (I do have one girl who might get in, which would be really great). I just finished reading Kozol's "Ordinary Resurrections" about the South Bronx and he discusses the problems he has with the more realistic expectations held by educators and social workers that he respects. He feels like even though many kids in poor neighborhoods won't make it to college, it's wrong to limit their opportunities by assuming that they can't be doctors and lawyers (for example). I agree with him, even as I find myself succumbing to the same pressures. I know that going to a neighborhood school isn't the worst thing in the world for my 8th graders, and I'm getting ready to take them on college visits to show them that I expect them to be serious in high school. But I also know that going to college from some of these high schools will be tough for them. It's a tough battle, but hopefully some of these kids will find their way in whatever high school they get into.