Joel Klein's resignation: it's about time

Many parents will be glad to see Joel Klein leave as chancellor, who had no respect for their views or priorities. In DOE’s own surveys, parents said that class size reduction was their greatest wish for their children, and yet class sizes have risen sharply under his leadership.

He also showed very little regard for the rule of law; and faced multiple lawsuits as a result, including one triggered by his refusal to reduce class size despite receiving more than $2 billion in additional state funds in exchange for promising to do so. He misspent that $2 billion, and stole our children’s futures.

Klein was also an extremely poor manager and kept on reorganizing the department into chaos.

He is leaving us with a legacy of classroom overcrowding, communities fighting over co-located schools, Kindergarten waiting lists, unreliable school grades based on bad data, substandard credit recovery programs spreading like wildfire, and our children starved of art, music and science – all replaced with test prep.

Instead of progress, NYC black and Hispanic students have fallen further behind their peers in all nine other cities tested since 2003 in the national exams known as the NAEPs.The achievement gap has not narrowed in any grade or category. And we are the only city in the nation in which non-poor students now have lower average test scores on the NAEPs than in 2003.

It would be a difficult hole for any successor to dig out of.

As for Cathie Black, it is unfortunate that once again, the mayor has chosen someone with no educational experience, except for sitting on the board of a charter school with teacher attrition rates of 42 -71%, and a student suspension rate of 62%.

Our schools need a chancellor who has a compassionate and deep understanding of how our children should be educated, and I hope that Commissioner Steiner thinks twice before granting Ms. Black a waiver.

Amidst the NAEP findings, hypocritical Joel Klein proves he still doesn't get it

In Jennifer Medina's NY Times story --"No Gains by New York Students on U.S. Math Tests, Unlike State Scores" -- she quotes Joel Klein as saying that, as she puts it, "the city has no choice other than to use the state exam to reward and penalize schools, because it is the only test that measures all city students."

Of course he has always had another choice, and that was not to "reward or penalize schools" based on a narrow, standardized, and predictable exam in which the bar for passing is being consistently lowered year after year.

To argue otherwise is no different than a street thug who murders an old lady for her handbag and defends his actions on the grounds that there was no one else around at the time for him to rob and there were no gas stations handy. It's the same sort of false dichotomy that Klein and Bloomberg have been practicing for eight years, the type first inspired by George Bush with his infamous, "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists." We're not talking terrorists any more, but Klein's policies have been, in their own way, nearly as devastating for our schools and children as terrorism.

Ms. Medina's article goes on to quote Mr. Klein's self-defense in light of the extraordinary embarrassment of the just-released NAEP results, the ones that show the world just what the emperor's new clothes have really been all along. “I have said many, many times that we should raise the bar,” Mr. Klein said. “The state’s definition of proficiency needs to be tethered to a more demanding standard.”

In these two sentences, the chancellor of over one million children in NYC's public schools proved just how badly he doesn't get it. Let's just leave aside for the moment the fact that over the past six years, Klein and Bloomberg have positively crowed over the grade 3-8 NY state exam results, preening like peacocks over the numbers without ever suggesting in those moments that they found fault with the standards or the exams or worried that NYC schools' extraordinary results might be overstating students' real gains.

Instead, they and their crony owners of the NY Daily News and NY Post have consistently used the results in furtherance of their own political careers and/or agendas at the expense of NYC's children and their families.

What Klein's statement above shows, most significantly, is that even at the height of his regime's biggest embarrassment to date, he's not calling for a rethinking of his strategy. Instead, he's essentially asking for more of the same, and simultaneously blaming unidentifiable others for his failure! "We just need to change the tests," he's implying. "Make them more demanding."

Never mind that his policies have subverted the educational process, converting classrooms into test prep mills and teachers into Kaplan-style advisors on test-taking-strategy, demotivating students and removing exploration and creativity from the classroom, narrowing the curriculum, shoving aside other subject areas like science or social studies (and art and gym) because schools are not measured on them and principals and teachers are not incentivized with bonuses on them, and threatening principals and schools with closure if they did not "get on board" with their exam scores.

No, if only the NY State exams were made a little more difficult, then all would be well and NY students would be champions on the NAEP and truly well-versed in their understanding and use of mathematics. Yes, that's it, it must be the tests that are at fault.

Clearly, this man does not, and never will, get it. Nor will he ever admit that, just maybe, he has been wrong.

If someone wanted to devise a strategy for destroying the efficacy of America's public education system, they could not have developed anything more devious than the one Chancellor Klein has imposed on NYC schools with Michael Bloomberg's blessing and the encouragement of many others who should have known better (and probably did). --- Steve Koss

Editor's Note: the line that Joel Klein used here, as echoed by Chris Cerf, Merryl Tisch and so many others in their pack is that the state exams should be made more demanding. But not once have any of them admitted what it is obvious -- that the state tests have gotten embarassingly watered down over the last eight years; so easy that now, a student can pass them through random guessing. Why? Because to do so would essentially destroy their claim to have improved student achievement during their administration -- which even now they continue to claim, based on non-existent evidence.

The NY Times response, and my reply

See the response from the NY Times editor below to my critique of their test score article yesterday – and my reply. Read from the bottom up. See also this front page story from the Times from November 16, 2007 – in which, in opposition to the paper’s current stance, it was clearly stated that there were no significant gains in any area but fourth grade math since the Bloomberg/Klein reforms took hold:

“The national scores also showed little narrowing of the achievement gap between white students and their black and Hispanic counterparts. The results for New York and 10 other large urban districts on the federal tests, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, paint a generally stagnant picture for the city, although there are gains in fourth-grade math.”

Why have they changed their story now? If you’d like to chime in, please do! You can ask for a correction at nytnews@nytimes.com; write a letter to the editor at letters@nytimes.com, or email the public editor at public@nytimes.com

Amazingly, the same testing consultant who was quoted in yesterday's NY Times as saying the state tests are “about as good as we can build them” is quoted in today's Gotham Schools that "“It’s hard to trust the data right now."

____ ____ _____ _____

Dear Ian:

Thanks for responding. The broad evidence that the state test scores are inflated is clearly relevant to the Times reporting here and was totally glossed over.

Not one independent expert was quoted as to this issue – only those who have a strong interest in claiming credit for improvements, including the head of SED’s test advisory committee, the head of the Regents and the Chancellor himself. This is not balanced reporting. In fact, the headline that refers to “critics” is rather strange, when not a single legitimate critic is cited.

As I’m sure Elissa is well aware, there are many prominent administrators, researchers, teachers and principals who believe strongly that there has been rampant state test score inflation in recent years. Not only are huge jumps in the scores occurring in nearly all districts and in all grades– the middle grade increases last year were especially unprecedented -- but as has been widely reported in the Daily News and elsewhere, the cut scores have been lowered each year. To leave this out of your story seems negligent at best, especially given the room and the time your reporter had to expound on this issue.

Moreover, the lack of progress on the NAEPs in NYC provides a natural audit of the reported rise in state test scores.

As to whether or not the 2003 increases could be attributed to the leadership of Bloomberg and/or Klein, you are surely right that “It is not incorrect to say that fourth grade reading scores rose after the mayor took over. You are correct that some of the biggest gains occurred before his major reforms took effect, but we are not incorrect.”

But perhaps you might have mentioned the latter statement in your story!

Or, if you are implying instead that the increases in 2003 could be legitimately due to the Bloomberg/Klein leadership, as the administration is desperate to claim, the NY Times seems to have flipped positions. As was widely recognized at the time, by your own reporting staff, the 2003 gains were quite uncomfortable for Klein et. al. when they first occurred.

Let’s take a little trip back in time.As Diane Ravitch has recounted:

“The Legislature approved mayoral control legislation in June 2002, and Chancellor Klein assumed office in August 2002. He spent the next six months conferring with consultants. He and the mayor announced their plans and their pedagogical choices in January 2003. At that very time, students in the city and state were taking the state tests. The chancellor had done nothing in the schools prior to January 2003 to raise student achievement. His reforms were introduced into the schools in September 2003. Thus, it is inappropriate for Dr. Bell-Ellwanger [or any DOE official, as they have recently claimed] to take credit for any gains registered on the state tests that were administered in January 2003.”

This reality was well recognized at the time, by both the Klein administration and the NY Times reporting staff.

As David Herszenhorn wrote in the Times when the state ELA scores were first reported on May 21, 2003:

“The city's positive results come at a time when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, are trying to overhaul the public school system and impose a uniform reading and math curriculum at all but the highest performing schools.

City officials, who might otherwise have been jubilant about yesterday's results, offered a muted reaction, saying that the gains were not broad enough and that the school system as a whole was still failing at least half the city's children.;;

''Although we are pointed in the right direction, there is still a lot of work that needs to get done,'' said a deputy schools chancellor, Diana Lam. ''Even with these gains, we have one out of two students that are not fluent readers at the fourth-grade level.''

Experts said the sharp increase in test scores could prove problematic for Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein, since it is too early for them to take credit and sets a benchmark for next year that may be hard to match….

The higher scores, particularly at schools that have showed sustained increases since 1999, also gave new ammunition to critics of Mr. Bloomberg's changes, who said that they might do more harm than good by disrupting existing programs….

And he quoted some of these dissenters, which at the time included Norm Fruchter and Randi Weingarten, as saying that the scores instead resulted from the reforms introduced by the previous Chancellor, Rudy Crew.

Of course, Klein and company are now quite eager to take credit for these 2003 gains – which as regards the 4^th grade ELA NAEPs, show the only significant improvements since Bloomberg took office. But this revisionist history is hard to square with your paper’s own past reporting.

Let's see how Elissa Gootman herself reported the state math gains when they were released on October 22, 2003:

“Fourth graders across the state made stunning gains in their math scores last spring, with even sharper increases in New York City…In the city, news of the gains, which were particularly pronounced in the Bronx and in some of the poorest-performing districts, elicited cheers among teachers and principals. But not everyone greeted the news so enthusiastically:

The suggestion that city schools were on the upswing put Chancellor Joel I. Klein, who is overhauling them, in a tricky position. While the chancellor’s critics pounced upon the higher scores as evidence that the school system did not need such an overhaul, some of his allies acknowledged that he would now be under even more pressure to show gains next spring.

''While I am gratified by the test results released today for fourth and eighth graders in New York City, I must emphasize that it is hard to tell the true significance of any one set of results in isolation,'' the chancellor said in a statement. ''We must always look at results in comparison over a number of years. Only through comparison can we truly measure the progress we're making.''

That’s true of course. And there has been no significant improvement in the NAEPs in the years since – except in 4^th grade math [in which there was a 25% exclusion rate].

Since the NAEPs are widely seen as the gold standard “audit” test, admitting that you didn’t see the need to report in any depth on NYC’s lack of progress on the NAEPs is like saying you can report a story on the DOE’s finances without seeing the need to mention any of the numerous audits from the State or City Comptroller’s office that reveal widespread waste on the part of DOE, including misappropriation of state class size funds, huge growth in private contracts with 20% going over budget, and repeated awarding of no-bid contracts, without registering or documenting their rationale.

But that’s another story…..perhaps you might look into the no-bid contracts for Agudath of Israel, with the amounts awarded the organization by DOE dwarfing what the Times’ political reporters wrote about today in relation to the Mayor’s use of his discretionary funds.

Thanks, Leonie Haimson

---

From: Ian Trontz [mailto:trontz@nytimes.com]
Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 6:20 PM
To: leonie@worldnet.att.net
Subject: test score article

Ms. Haimson:

We appreciate the attention you've given to this story, as much as we've appreciated your being a source for us over a number of years.

We do not, however, think that your email points out any inaccuracies. It is not incorrect to say that fourth grade reading scores rose after the mayor took over. You are correct that some of the biggest gains occurred before his major reforms took effect, but we are not incorrect.

Indeed, there are many interesting and important ways to look at the NAEP results, but the NAEP comparison was one small part of this report; we could not devote unlimited space to it given the parameters of this article, which is about the city’s performance on state tests. We therefore included a very broad, basic summary of the NAEP results.

We also, unfortunately, do not have the most recent NAEP results, but you can be assured that we'll report them in full when we get them.

As for whether the tests themselves are deficient, I think the article discusses that, perhaps not with the depth you are seeking, but as with the NAEP, we cannot go down every road.

Ian Trontz, Assistant Metro Editor/Education

Cheerleading for NCLB

I guess my reaction to today's Washington Post shout out to No Child Left Behind ("'No Child' in Action") from former U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is a question: "If NCLB's accountability alone is such a silver bullet, then how come test scores at the high school level didn't improve?"

Although Spellings mentions that NCLB requires math and reading tests in grades 3-8, it is quite disingenuous of her not to mention that such tests were also required in high school. If the achievement gains aren't sustained through high school, what real difference does it make?

The wise Aaron Pallas offers his take on this issue ("Wishful Thinking"), calling into question Spellings's claims:

But what portion of those trends can be attributed to NCLB? Margaret Spellings refers to changes since 1999, which is convenient for her story, because there were sharp increases in grade 4 reading between 2000 and 2002, and in grade 4 and grade 8 math between 2000 and 2003. But NCLB was signed into law in January, 2002; the first final regulations dealing with assessment were issued in December, 2002; and initial state accountability plans were approved by the U.S. Department of Education no later than June, 2003. The 2003 main NAEP was administered between January and March of 2003. Is it realistic to claim that NCLB affected scores before the 2003 NAEP administration? I, and a great many other analysts, think not.

Only in Margaret Spellings’ world can NCLB affect NAEP scores for the four years before the law was passed and implemented. Now that’s wishful thinking.

UPDATE -- Diane Ravitch comes to similar conclusions in her blog post.

Thus, when one looks at the patterns, it suggests the following: First, our students are making gains, though not among 17-year-olds. Second, the gains they have made since NCLB are smaller than the gains they made in the years preceding NCLB. Third, even when they are significant, the gains are small. Fourth, the Long Term Trend data are not a resounding endorsement of NCLB. If anything, the slowing of the rate of progress suggests that NCLB is not a powerful instrument to improve student performance.

Caveat emptor.