How many students in your neighborhood graduate ready for college? Click to find out

A new report, “Is Demography Still Destiny?”, released today by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, a leading nonpartisan research organization affiliated with Brown University, reveals new evidence that after a decade of expanded high school choice—five hundred new small schools and one hundred new charter schools—New York City neighborhoods with the highest percentages of African-American and Latino residents still have lowest college readiness rates. Analyzing data from the New York City Department of Education and U.S. Census Bureau, the report shows that racial demographics and average neighborhood income are strong predictors of whether students graduate ready for college.

City Comptroller John Liu & former Comptroller and BOE President Bill Thompson

Outraged parents, elected officials, students, and community leaders gathered in front of Pace University to discuss the report and demand that Mayor Bloomberg and his Department of Education address this shameful failure to prepare students for college. Participants included City Comptroller John Liu, former Comptroller and Board of Education President Bill Thompson, City Council Education Chair Robert Jackson, college students, members of the Professional Staff Congress from CUNY, and 100 parents from the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice.

Parents held up 100 balloons, 13 green and 87 red, to visualize the alarming statistic of only 13% African-American and Latino students graduating prepared for college.

Also, the NYC Coalition for Educational Justice launched an interactive map that enables parents and other key stakeholders to track the percentage of students graduating college-ready in every neighborhood. The map is at www.nyccej.org/college-readiness.

Natasha Capers, parent from Brownsville, BK

“My neighborhood is 100% Black & Latino, and only 11% college ready,” said Natasha Capers parent from PS 298 in Brownsville, the neighborhood with the lowest college readiness rate in BK, “I’m angry that in 2012, the race and income of my neighborhood, still determines the chances of my two sons graduating ready for college—I’m fighting to make sure the next Mayor in 2013 finally implements successful models that will get my kids ready for college.”

“It’s clear from the report that school choice alone will not help youth of color achieve stronger educational outcomes. By failing to address existing patterns of inequality, we are limiting educational opportunities for those with the greatest need. We need to move the focus of our educational policy debates from structural issues and teacher contracts to more concrete ways of improving elementary and middle schools, and a greater role for guidance and counseling supports in the daily lives of our students,” said David Jones, President of the Community Service Society

Domingo Estevez, student leader at Borough of Manhattan Community College

“During my high school experience there was a total disconnect,” said Domingo Estevez, a student from Borough of Manhattan Community College, “instead of a supportive school with a relevant curriculum, all I found at the school were low expectations, test-prep drilling and an under-resourced school, all of which led me to drop out my 3rd year in high school. Now in college, I’m spending hundreds of dollars on remedial classes—I wish the high school I went to had made a real effort to keep me enrolled and get me prepared for college.”

City Council Education Chair Robert Jackson

Are you smarter than a gifted NYC kindergartener?

Parents, Advocates and Electeds Lead March Highlighting Abysmal School Opportunities for South Bronx Children; Demand Action Plan

Bronx, NY- Frustrated by a decade of ineffectual reforms, while seeing almost half of their schools on state lists for poor performance, Bronx students, parents, community advocates and elected officials, including Senator Gustavo Rivera, led a “Walk in Our Children’s Shoes” tour of District 9 schools on Wednesday.

Although already abysmal scores had nowhere to go but up when Mayor Bloomberg entered office, reading scores have barely budged—putting almost half the schools in District 9 on state lists of failing schools, more than any other district in the city. Only 28% of District 9 students are reading at grade level, and the percentage of 4^th graders passing the ELA exam has gone down since 2003.

To their children’s “path to nowhere,” District 9 parents and leaders made stops at the zoned elementary, middle and high school options for a 1-year-old child named Angeles who lives in Mount Eden, all of which are on the “priority” list of the bottom 5% of schools in the state. Angeles’ mother, Araceli Espejel, articulated her hopes and dreams for her daughters at the beginning of the march: “I am here, far from my parents, my family, and my roots, so that my girls can have a better future, a better education, so that they don’t have to emigrate to another country like I did.”

State Senator Gustavo Rivera (33^rd SD) and a representative from Councilwoman Helen Foster’s office also addressed the crowd of over fifty parents. “The reason I’m here today is very simple: The way we start to deal with the problems in our schools is to actually come to the schools, walk with the parents and listen to the issues that parents and students have.” Parents and students speakers subsequently shared their concerns about community engagement in schools, the low numbers of students who are reading at grade level, and the lack of a college-ready curriculum for middle and high schoolers. Parent Juana Gonzalez worried that her 8^th grade son, a student at another “priority” school in District 9, isn’t being prepared for high school or college. “He isn’t learning to write or build his vocabulary,” she said. “He doesn’t write compositions: he just does multiple choice questions- test prep!” Parents closed the march by inviting participants to a parent summit to continue work on a community-driven district improvement plan for District 9.

The march was organized by the New Settlement Apartments Parent Action Committee, a multicultural group of concerned parents, guardians, and community members dedicated to improving the quality of education for all children in New York City, with an emphasis on District 9 in the Bronx.

A LOST DECADE IN DISTRICT 9

FACT: Fewer fourth graders can read and write on grade level today than a decade ago.

FACT: In the past decade, the achievement gaps between District 9 and the rest of the city have increased.

Sources:  NYC DOE, Results of the State and City CTB-Mathematics Tests; NYC DOE, New York City Results on the New York State English Language

FACT: District 9’s local high school, William H. Taft High School, was closed in 2006 and five new schools were opened on the campus. One of those schools is academically selective and is thriving. Here is how the rest of the schools are performing:

Speaking out against the film, parents walked their own red carpet, held movie posters with superimposed images of two of the film’s prominent supporters, News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch and Joel Klein, and celebrated real parent empowerment in the fight for community schools with a toast.

“I’m the real Maggie Gyllenhaal” said Tanya King, grandparent that led the fight to keep ABCD in Bed-Stuy from closing last year, “what we wanted was for the school system to stop neglecting us and invest in our struggling school as much as they invest in making charter schools work– however, our story didn’t have a Hollywood ending, as our school was closed, leaving many of our kids to be reshuffled into other struggling schools.”

Parents said the Parent Trigger law, drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), presents itself as legislation that empowers parents to take control of their local schools. The reality is that the law lets the school be turned over to private companies who are not required to include parent voices in the decision making process.

The film is being distributed by Fox, whose parent company, News Corp. has an education division headed by former New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein. News Corp has been a member of both ALEC’s Education Task Force and Communications and Technology Task Force. Wireless Generation, a for-profit software and testing is also a subsidiary of New Corp., whose founder, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, referred to education as a “$500 billion sector in the U.S. alone.” ¹

Maria, parent from Bushwick BK and member of Make the Road NY

“It’s a beautiful thing to see parents coming together,” said Juan Pagan, a parent leader with New York Communities for Change. “But what the movie doesn’t show you is what happens next — when a private company takes over the school and shuts out parent voices. We want community schools where parents, students and teachers are partners not corporate schools where companies like News Corp are calling all the shots.”

Joel Klein also sits on the board of StudentsFirstNY, a lobbying group that promotes the corporatizing market-based reforms behind parent trigger law. StudentsFirst has actively promoting Won’t Back Down, hosting screenings across the country including at the Democratic National Convention. StudentsFirstNY has set out to raise $50 million to influence education policy in the upcoming New York City mayoral elections and continue Mayor Bloomberg’s current education policies. Today, Micah Lasher, Executive Director of StudentsFirstNY, sent an e-blast supporting the film and promoting Parent Trigger legislation.

“I have two children, one in a charter school and one in a district school, and I have been involved with fights to improve low-performing Bronx schools for years. While school choice is important, charter schools aren’t right for every parent and child, and they can’t be the silver bullet solution to the hundreds of struggling schools in NYC,” said Lynn Sanchez, parent with the Coalition for Educational Justice and New Settlement Apartments. “Parents just want good quality schools in their neighborhood. And we want a say in those schools that goes far beyond just signing a petition – we want to be involved and heard in decisions about our children’s education all through the school year.”

“We won’t back down when it comes to the misuse of high-stakes standardized tests to assess student learning and teacher performance, just like we won’t back down as corporate profiteers try to take over public education” said Janine Sopp, Brooklyn parent and member of Change the Stakes, “Like the main characters in the film, we simply want a rich curriculum for our kids and small classes so they get the quality education and individual attention they deserve”

The event, organized by New Yorkers for Great Public Schools Coalition, Coalition for Educational Justice, New York Communities for Change, Alliance for a Quality Education, Make the Road NY, Class Size Matters, Change the Stakes and Parent VoicesNY, is part of an ongoing campaign to reject to policies of corporate education “reform” groups and support community schools and real parent engagement in all schools.

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1.)

http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/09/11763/wont-back-down-film-pushes-alec-parent-trigger-proposal

Last April, the New York City Working Group on School Transformation issued a report examining the impact of the school closing policy of the city’s Department of Education (DOE). The Working Group’s report argued that by closing schools instead of helping them to improve, the DOE was abdicating its responsibility to support struggling schools. The Working Group’s report called on the DOE to develop a Success Zone to help struggling schools improve, and to build instructional capacity across all the city’s schools so that many fewer would need to be closed.

The Working Group presented the following evidence that specific DOE policies  exacerbated the problems of struggling schools:

• The schools the DOE has closed since 2002 had significantly higher percentages of incoming 9^th graders with below-level 8^th grade math and reading scores, as well as significantly higher percentages of English Language Learners and students with disabilities, than the school system’s averages.
• In the five years before many of the system’s struggling schools were targeted for closure, the DOE significantly increased the percentages of students with low-level 8^th grade math and reading scores at those schools, and also increased the percentages of English Language Learners and students with disabilities.
• In the five years before many of the system’s struggling schools were targeted for closure, the DOE significantly increased the assignment of over-the-counter students in many of those schools.
• This increased concentration of high-risk, high needs students at schools the DOE targeted for closure runs counter to the advice of the Parthenon Group, whose study advised the DOE to decrease concentrations of high-needs students in specific schools because that concentration would lower school-level graduation rates.

When the Working Group’s released its report in mid-April, the DOE dismissed the report’s arguments and questioned the accuracy of its data. But in early July, a Gotham Gazette article reported that the DOE had promised the NY State Education Department (SED) that it would reduce the concentration of high-risk, high-needs students at schools it targets for closure.  The DOE also pledged not to concentrate over-the- counter students at such schools.  Those DOE acknowledgements of how its policies have intensified the burdens of struggling schools were included in the city’s request to approve federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) funds for 24 schools the city was trying to place in the federal school turnaround program.  (An arbitrator and a state Supreme Court judge have put that effort on hold.)

According to the Gotham Gazette article, the city’s letter disclosed that,, “over the past 18 months, NYC has been working with the New York State Education Department to address its concerns about situations where our choice-based system may be leading to an over-concentration of students with disabilities, English language learners, and/or students that are performing below proficiency in certain schools.”  According to the Gazette, the city’s letter “also provides data to show that students at most of the SIG high schools entered ninth grade performing below the average of other students in their boroughs on state tests. Many of the SIG middle and high schools also enrolled a higher percentage of special education students and English language learners than the average for their districts.”

So in spite of its initial denials, the DOE has ultimately vindicated the Working Group’s report about how the DOE policies exacerbate the challenges struggling schools face,  and ultimately close the schools thus targeted. Such policies must end because they punish schools rather than help them improve. What struggling schools need are interventions and support that build their staff’s capacity for improvement.

(Full disclosure – the author was a member of the NYC Working Group on School Transformation.)

Norm Fruchter is a senior policy analyst at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform

Tafadar Sourov is a senior at Belmont Preparatory High School on the Roosevelt Campus in The Bronx and he writes:

My school administration loves enforcing zero tolerance policies, going after students for wearing hats and not wearing uniforms. They create an atmosphere that anticipates the criminality of the youth, while dehumanizing us and reducing us to invisible faces and unheard voices since there can be no justice for us in this system. They don’t stop there either, they go after teachers who they can’t subjugate, and have scared quite a few into resigning. I’ve been organizing in my school for the last year and a half, working with young people who were hurt by these policies, but never expected it to touch me this much.

One day, I met up with a visitor to my school to interview members of our student union.  The schools security let him in as I was in class. When our principal saw the visitor, he kicked him out of the building and suspended me for “bringing an unauthorized visitor to school without permission”, despite us having had visitors before without anyone getting in trouble before. Although I didn’t even escort the visitor in, I missed out on five days of instruction and had to work three times as hard to catch up when I got back, and was treated like a criminal by adults who I’ve known and gotten along with for many years. To this day I maintain that my suspension was political in nature, an attempt by the school to take out a union organizer. 

I think that this could have been handled differently. A simple conversation with me or a meeting with the guidance counselor would have been enough.  Instead, the school used a suspension that took me away from class time.  I thought the point of school was to keep students in class and educated.  Why is it then that the first response the administration used was a suspension?  Our education is not a game, suspending students has serious implications.  Us students of color are disproportionately feeling the burnt of the Department of Education’s harsh discipline practices.  This is not right!  My suspension is just one of the 74,000.  This crisis needs to end now!

Members of the Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York (DSC-NY), a coalition of students, parents, teachers and education advocates, held a rally and press conference, together with local lawmakers, at the Department of Education hearing at Stuyvesant High School to challenge the latest draft of the NYC Discipline Code. The DSC-NY says the new code does not go far enough to address the racial disparities in suspensions and is calling for systemic changes to significantly reduce the more than 73,400 suspensions issued last year, and to require the use of positive alternatives to suspension, like restorative approaches and positive behavior supports, proven to create positive school climates and improve educational outcomes.

“The suspension rate is too high! The point of school is to keep students in school and educated. Suspensions do the opposite, they push students out of school and we lose class time,” said JoMark Ramos, a 15 year old student at Morris Academy for Collaborative Studies and a leader with the Urban Youth Collaborative. “We need restorative approaches to discipline, like the ones in my school. Peer mediation, conflict resolution, learning circles, guidance interventions all work! We need them in all schools!”

The DSC-NY recognizes that the new revised code takes some positive steps to limit the use of suspension, but still lists 25 infractions for which middle and high school students can be suspended for an entire school year.

“I encourage the Department of Education to listen to what our communities are saying and that these changes take place, so that our children can receive a quality education in a safe and positive environment.  Guidance-based interventions foster positive behavior and encourage the developmental growth of our students.    No two people or schools are alike! By having different templates for support and a progressive disciplinary process, it may lead to effective behavioral improvements and a decrease in suspensions.  When students are suspended, they are more likely to drop out of school! In order to prevent this, we have to help them manage their behavioral issues in a productive way and supply them with the support they need,” says Council Member Robert Jackson, Chair of the Education Committee.

DSC-NY is calling for a 50% reduction in suspensions by September 2013 and for the DOE to:

1. End all suspensions for minor behavior infractions, like defying or disobeying authority, shoving or pushing, that are listed in Levels 1-3 of the Discipline Code.
2. Require that schools use positive interventions before they can suspend a student, including for behaviors like fighting listed in Levels 4-5 of the Discipline Code.
3. End long-term suspensions of more than 10 days.
4. Fund and implement positive school-wide approaches to discipline in 10 high need schools, and in each of those schools designate and train a Restorative Discipline Coordinator.

“While the new draft of the discipline code features new sections on progressive discipline and restorative approaches, the DOE does not mandate these practices, nor does it provide information about how schools can implement them,” said Sarah Arvey, a 7th grade teacher at a Queens public school and member of Teachers Unite. “If teachers can’t get training and support for this work, it will fall by the wayside, and students will continue to be suspended in record numbers.”

Visit http://stopstudentsuspensions.blogspot.com/ to read suspension stories posted by DSC-NY. Every day that we wait for the appropriate changes to the Discipline Code, 260 students are suspended.

The Dignity in Schools Campaign-New York is a coalition of students, parents, educators, civil rights, students’ rights and community organizations, including: Advocates for Children of New York, Brooklyn Movement Center, Center for Community Alternatives, Children’s Defense Fund-New York, Coalition for Asian American Children and Families, Coalition for Gender Equity in Schools, Desis Rising Up and Moving (DRUM), Future of Tomorrow, Make the Road New York, Mass Transit Street Theater, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI), New Settlement Apartments Parent Action Committee, Pumphouse Projects, Sistas and Brothas United, Teachers Unite, The Sikh Coalition, Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC), Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice, Youth on the Move, and Youth Represent
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Here on EdVox we’re excited to bring you the latest news about education issues and policies affecting our communities. It can be hard to keep up with all of the events and happenings, so – in case you missed it… Here is a recap of the latest stories in NYC education news, starting with the oldest (Tuesday, May 29th):

MONDAY

• Mayor Bloomberg sarcastically chided the UFT for blasting a lawsuit alleging President Michael Mulgrew had sex in a Brooklyn school, saying he was “glad” that the union “suddenly opposes” frivolous lawsuits: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bloomberg-mocks-teachers-union-sex-lawsuit-article-1.1082058
• The attorney who filed the suit against Mulgrew was once fined $21,000 for pushing a case “without any bases in law or fact”: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/uft_boss_is_under_fire_BP7z4Cl99Jj59iAr8oPC0H

TUESDAY

• A Times report showed a shift in student demographics in the decade following the end of open admissions at CUNY, noting a drop in the overall population of African American students and a rise in Asians: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/nyregion/at-cunys-top-colleges-black-and-hispanic-freshmen-enrollments-drop.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

WEDNESDAY

• After a series of high-profile errors on the latest state exams, there is a movement among parents to opt their children out of new question “field tests” by testing company Pearson: http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/05/23/more-parents-are-saying-no-to-pearsons-field-tests/?partner=rss&emc=rss
• A number of parent leaders in the community-based schools movement are eyeing runs for elected office: http://gothamschools.org/2012/05/23/sensing-political-possibility-parents-prep-campaigns/
• The Panel for Education Policy approved a DOE plan to incentivize schools to move special education students out of separate classrooms and educate them alongside their peers; some critics said the new policy would trip the overall special ed budget at the expense of those students: http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/05/24/city-panel-approves-special-education-inclusion-plan/?partner=rss&emc=rss

THURSDAY

• Mitt Romney proposed a significant reduction in the federal government’s role in education, and, potentially, a major shift in government funding of private schools: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304065704577422630944335606.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5
• Advocates are asking the State for more time and support before requiring high school graduates to qualify for a Regents diploma this year: http://gothamschools.org/2012/05/23/advocates-seek-last-minute-extension-of-less-rigorous-diploma/

FRIDAY/WEEKEND

•  The City and unions agreed a speedy arbitration process was important to determine whether or not plans for “turnaround” at 24 schools would move forward, resolving to settle their dispute by the end of June: http://gothamschools.org/2012/05/25/turnaround-arbitration-to-take-place-with-uncharacteristic-speed/
• The one-two punch of State education cuts and the new 2% property tax cap have had such adverse effects on local school districts that many cities and towns do not even have the option to fix, according to Alliance for Quality Education head Billy Easton: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/26/opinion/the-danger-in-school-spending-cuts.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
• The Times Michael Winerip questions Bloomberg’s logic (and seriousness) behind his plan to eliminate after-school programming: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/28/nyregion/new-york-after-school-programs-may-face-trims.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss