TUDA and the DOE Response [Updated]

When the results of NAEP’s Trial for Urban Districts (TUDA) were released last week, there was not much good news for city kids. TUDA measures student math and reading levels for eleven large city districts, including New York. Scores have not risen in New York City in three out of four categories (4th and 8th grade Reading and 8th grade Math) since 2003. In other words, they have not risen under Chancellor Klein.

In order to distract NYC and the country from the bad news, the Department of Education did what it always does. First it spun the scores. Then it blamed the teachers.

The DOE’s press release on NAEP is among the most misleading I have seen from them in the past five years. Touting “impressive gains” – especially for Black, Hispanic and low income students – Klein bragged that the NAEP results “confirm that our reforms have helped raise performance to an historically high level.” But, again, there has been no progress in three out of four categories during the Klein years.

What is more, even the one bright spot (4th grade Math) can’t be attributed to the chancellor’s “reforms.” Fourth grade Math gains for Black, Hispanic and low income children in the city are virtually identical to the gains in the rest of the state. A quick look at the change from 2003 to 2007 in the percentage of Black, Hispanic and low income students who are at or above basic achievement (below) shows virtually identical gains at the city and state level. Since that’s the case, it’s hard to see how Klein can claim credit.

Here is what I’d expect a public institution, whose business is to disseminate information and not to spin it, to have said: Gains for Black, Hispanic and low income children have kept pace with the rest of the state. According to NAEP, that’s significant, but much more must be done.

Instead, the DOE gave us spin. When the spin didn’t work, the DOE went to plan B: blame the teachers. Just as NAEP was released to the press, the DOE announced the creation of a special unit that would help fire teachers. The implication was obvious: teachers were standing in the way of progress on the scores.

Whatever else we can say about the scores, one thing is certain: they do not reflect the failure of our teachers. NYC teachers have been micromanaged to death, often forced to teach in ways they do not believe in, and buck dictates only at the risk of their career. I do not know that this micromanaged pedagogy and the test prep culture have contributed to the shabby showing on NAEP (though of course it may have); I do know that you can’t force people to teach in ways that go against their professional judgment and then blame them for the results.

But Klein knows that as well as you and I. And he knows that the problem with this system isn’t teachers.

Great leaders move organizations forward because they know there are deep wells of untapped talent in their employees. The trick is to create a culture where both the broad knowledge of the leader and the “in the trenches” knowledge of the individual employees are equally valid. That way, leaders and employees can not only identify systemic problems, but take risks to solve them.

Poor leaders work by negatives and fear. They fire, they blow things up and tear things down, they deconstruct. They make scapegoats of their own people. When employees are afraid, they do not take the creative risks that – at least in teaching – are at the core of great performance.

Klein and his DOE have chosen the leadership model of negatives, and his latest move against the city teachers will do far more harm than good. It will exacerbate the culture he’s created of systemic fear.

Until Klein and the DOE stop with the threats, punishments, shakedowns, and nonstop acts of destabilization, and then begin the much harder work of identifying patterns of systemic weakness (class size? discipline? the lack of a curriculum?), nothing will change for New York City’s kids. Meanwhile, wear your flak jackets and duck your heads. It’s open season once again on our teachers.

Speak out and join the candlelight vigil Monday, 11/26, at 5 p.m. outside DOE headquarters at the corner of Elm St. and Chambers St. to protest the establishment of the Teacher Performance Unit and call for respect for city teachers.

Update: To be clear, scores have not risen in 4th and 8th grade Reading or 8th grade Math. The only increase was in 4th grade Math, and these are the only scores depicted on the charts.