Tweed Doesn’t Care: The Fallacy of Equity

To flack Bronx Aerospace for their high graduation rate is akin to praising Stuyvesant for high graduation rates. Schools that “select” their entering students, either through testing, or interviews, or portfolios can be expected to be successful.

The key data is found in the DOE School Report Cards – the description of the entering class. The Report Card lists:

percentage of part time and full time Special Ed students
percentage of entering ELL eligible students
attendance of students in the eighth grade
percentage of students entering who are overage
percentage of entering students who have met ELA and Math Standards

The DOE has been lobbying for the use of a six year time span to calculate graduation rates. As Sheila Evans-Tranumn, the Associate NYS Commissioner of Education so aptly stated at the UFT Spring Conference the State Ed folk will not consider this as long as the DOE creates schools for level ½ kids and other schools for level ¾ kids. And while Eric Nadelstern, the leader of the ES initiative, is a strong advocate of equity, the DOE has been busy creating two categories of schools, and patting themselves on the back for the success of schools with level ¾ kids.

This is not a large school/small school issue. There are plenty of small schools with entering classes that include high percentages of Special Ed and ELL students, kids with poor middle school attendance, overage kids and students who have not been succeeding in middle schools.

Some schools with challenging entering classes are successful: the International High Schools are a prime example. They only accept kids who have been in the country for four or fewer years and many of their kids are overage with severe academic deficiencies.

Why are these schools successful?

The school leaders are “home grown,” they come from out of the International High School network. Teachers are selected by teachers; many principals don’t even sit in on the interviews. The educational programs are designed by the staffs, altered by the staffs; the schools are examples of true collegiality. Notice that Tweed rarely mentions what is probably the most successful network in the system.

WATCH and PATHS, two second year small schools on the Jefferson campus are also doing well, once again with a challenging student body, and, once again school leaders and teachers who work together as a team.

Columbus High School, a large high school in the Bronx, with an extremely challenging population is succeeding in spite of the odds, through the existence of a vital UFT Teacher Center.

The sweet irony is that these schools are succeeding not due to Tweed interventions but in spite of Tweed interventions.

Jim Leibman, the new Accountability Czar avers that schools will be evaluated based upon how students improve, not simply based on test results.

Excuse me if I am cynical.

So-called “innovations” created by lawyers and MBAs do not have a good track record.

One of the few encouraging initiatives in the initial DOE reorganization was the creation of the Office of Student Placement, Family and Student Support Services. A range of key student support services were placed under the direction of a staff of folks located in each regional office although reporting directly to Tweed. Attendance, guidance, students in temporary housing, suspension and a range of other key services that are especially important to the neediest of our kids was given a high profile.

Lester Young, the first Director had decades of hands-on New York City experience, was replaced by Michelle Cahill, an education policy person with no in school experience, and now the entire enterprise is being sharply downsized. Each office will now service over 200 schools!

The bottom line: the Tweed leadership simply doesn’t care about kids!! Especially the neediest kids.

A process by which principals, teachers and parents can choose to become an Empowerment School makes educational sense, allowing principals to hijack their schools is senseless.

City Hall and Tweed are desperately seeking educational successes, as defined by positive articles in the NYTimes and furtively seeking to destroy the union.

What is especially sad is that yet another generation of our kids is suffering due to the arrogance and political ambition of a few rich guys whose own kids never set foot into a public school.