Oh, it seems like years ago, the school reform craze sweeping the country was something called, in hyphenated exuberance, school based management-shared decision-making or SBM-SDM. (Is there any field that loves initials more than education? Ah, yes, ICBM).
Then Chancellor Fernandez rolled out this reform (never mind its details) by inviting principals, chapter leaders and presidents of the PTA who were interested in finding out what SBM-SDM meant to meetings, conveniently held in every borough, during the school day. At these meetings two or three teams of principals, chapter leaders, parents and teachers would talk about how collaboration among all members of the school community had improved their schools. There were many problems with SBM-SDM, least of all its unpronounceable, unsettling acronym. But what I recall was Chancellor Fernandez thought that the best way to show what collaboration looks like was to have people who collaborate show how it’s done. Schools that were interested could apply to become SBM-SDM schools; there were no pre-selected schools or Broadway theatre tickets; the decision was, well, school based. If a principal, chapter or PTA president said, “no” then obviously there was no shared decision-making and that was that. As we know, with a nod to Ms. Ross and the girls, you can’t mandate love.
Compare that approach to the current Chancellor’s presentation of the jewel in the crown of his newest reorganization, The Empowerment Zone. It was designed in secrecy in the innermost bowels of Tweed by who-knows-who with no opportunities for anyone even remotely involved with schools such as teachers, students or parents to even comment on it or have a say about which school would enter the zone. Then information was released in a flurry of self congratulatory press releases and official statements that did little to hide the fact this is another top down decision. It’s also a 180° turn from the centralization and regional micromanagement of the past three years but that may not be so bad.
It’s unfortunate, though, that the Chancellor’s decision to follow his usual autocratic and secretive methods has already given the term “Empowerment Zone” the (not always deserved) stench that often fills the air at the mention of terms such as “workshop model” and “professional development.” Teachers in the 49 schools formerly known as the Autonomy Zone, a precursor to the Empowerment Zone (this will be on the high stakes test) that will now become schools in the Empowerment Zone (which cannot be given the EZ schools designation due to copyright infringement threats from the Bridge and Tunnel Authority) have said that the freedom from the bureaucratic, oppressive day-to-day minutiae and demands of the regional offices and their LIS/MIS/TIS denizens, has allowed them to, oh! my! teach. But the Chancellor’s disregard in the formation of the Empowerment Zone for the opinions of teachers and parents and even principals, the ones who will be “empowered” is consistent and regrettable. (I now officially banish the word “empowered” from my vocabulary, as I have done previously with “impact” “input” and “rigorous,” when it is used in the sense of demanding, rather than its true sense of inflexible or unyielding. (Rigor mortis, anyone?)
At a meeting yesterday here at the UFT the new CEO of the Empowerment Zone Eric Nadelstern spoke to chapter leaders of the schools that as of September 2006 will be in the zone. Eric is one of the people at Tweed with the decency to listen to the opinions of teachers without rejecting them out of hand by automatically ascribing them to “support for the status quo” or “fear of change.” He has the intellect to respond to those opinions honestly and thoughtfully, and the ability to make statements such as “in my 17 years as a principal…” And despite those 17 years, or maybe because of them, he still remains optimistic that SOBs may one day embrace SBOs when they see empowerment is not about the raw exercise of authority but helping kids learn.
Cynicism, get thee behind me!
Most of the concerns chapter leaders had involved the lack of consultation by principals with “the school community” as required by the Chancellor on page 5 of the principal’s performance agreement. Not a good start. But it’s not surprising, given the way the Empowerment Zone was designed, which is consistent with the corporate, uncollaborative, autocratic culture of Tweed. Why should principals consult when the modeling that comes from Tweed and the lessons taught at the Leadership Academy demonstrate just the opposite? I remain cautiously optimistic that many school communities in the Empowerment Zone will find that this opportunity helps them to soar and do what’s best for teachers and students, as those in the Autonomy Zone did–if the Chancellor is serious about “autonomy in return for accountability.” But then I remember the first question a chapter leader asked at the meeting, “Now that our school is in the Empowerment Zone will we be able to spread the 37.5 minutes throughout the day?” (On page 1 of the principal’s performance agreement is says, “As the leader of an Empowerment Zone school you are granted authority over key educational decisions….including…school schedule….” The answer was “No!” I feel that ol’ devil cynicism rising.
And, probably most important for members, the UFT contract remains in full force and effect. Just like Cato with his unceasing Carthago delenda est, chapter leaders in these schools must remind their principals at every opportunity, that the UFT contract remains in full force and effect.
7 Comments:
1 redhog
· Jun 19, 2006 at 9:50 pm
The Department of Education is expanding its so-called Empowerment Zone to include roughly one-fourth of the city’s public schools. This means that the principals of these schools, rather than the regional or central bureaucracies, will have new authority over key educational policies. In exchange for this they accept greater accountability for outcomes.
This initiative covers not only professional development and program support, but also the option of either implementing the DOE’s core curriculum, which critics contend it has in effect abandoned long ago in favor of test preparation, or proposing alternatives. The same choice theoretically applies to systems of assessment.
Participating principals have been given new discretion over funding sources, prioritization, and spending. Restrictions on their existing budgets are relaxed as well. They must consult, but don’t require the consent of teachers and parents. Union contracts stay in force.
Eric Nadelstern, the former principal of a charter school, is the Chief Executive of the Empowerment Zones schools.
How will these schools, formerly known as “autonomous,” be evaluated? Basically they will live or die based on test data and measures that the Department of Education continues to select from non-bid contractors. There is typically no independent oversight from researchers or experts from outside the tightly controlled system.
This lack of transparency is a stubborn problem under Chancellor Klein. It has been identified as such by thinkers on all sides of the ideological spectrum.
Careers will sink or swim based on doubtful tests and dubious statistics gathering. Certainly tests can be a logical way to judge whether things work. But it is more urgent that students learn than that they be tested, especially since learning is for the sake of children and the view of most educators is that testing, as it has been morbidly imposed under Chancellor Klein, is for the sake of his public relations team.
Test preparation has already usurped instruction as the activity of record in the classroom.
Tests are a valid tool when they are the right test given the right way for the right reason, not when they fail to measure what is relevant or measure what is not.
Principals who seek some professional liberty and relief from some of the massive micromanagement that has enslaved them in recent years, have no choice but to sign the Empowerment School Performance Agreement. This spells out “leadership changes” that result from two consecutive ratings of “undeveloped,” a highly inexact category, on their school’s annual “progress report.”
A principal stands to lose his job if the flow chart doesn’t look pretty. Imagine the pressure on them and, realistically, the trickle-down stress on children. Perhaps that is the cost that must be paid to achieve a significant educational purpose. But is it?
Interestingly, the answer may have come more than once from Mr. Nadelstern himself.
Just a few years before he parlayed an earlier passion into a career move made possible by adopting a contradictory conviction, he wrote to the New York Times on February 7, 2000: “ Replacing the joy of learning with test anxiety simply hastens the premature end of childhood. That is too high a price to pay in the service of questionable assessment practices and misguided educational policies.”
Back to the future, Mr. Nadelstern?
2 institutional memory
· Jun 20, 2006 at 8:48 am
EMPOWERMENT? YEAH, RIGHT.
The name “Empowerment Schools” alone should set off alarms. It’s reminiscent of “Operation Iraqi Freedom” or “Mission Accomplished. A more truthful title would be “The McGraw-Hill Test Prep Zone.”
It’s all a regrettable scam, another cynical attempt by Tweed to impose their arrogant and ignorant will on a once-proud school system.
Any principal who voluntarily signed on to this Titanic of a plan has been bamboozled.
It’s become increasingly difficult to write about the DOE without sounding like an alarmist, but this is truly alarming.
3 jd2718
· Jun 20, 2006 at 6:37 pm
Here! here!
Institutional Memory is dead on. I’ve been nervous about the lack of details from the beginning. Sounded like they were selling something at a carnival….
And again, I even hate their language. i.m. is 100% on that, too. I’ll take it further. I make kids spit out gum or remove hats before listening to anything they said. Until they are appropriate, we don’t talk. Now, let’s think about how inappropriate the title CEO is. You know what we should recommend.
Jonathan
4 institutional memory
· Jun 20, 2006 at 6:41 pm
Thanks, Jonathan.
How come everyone doesn’t realize what scoundrels these guys are? It’s so painfully obvious.
5 R. Skibins
· Jun 20, 2006 at 8:10 pm
I have been told that if scores go down, not only does the principal get the sack, but the teachers as well. If this is true, then the chancellor can make sure that the higher-functioning students are siphoned-off, and special education is further cut, leaving the lowest functioning in the school.
6 jd2718
· Jun 20, 2006 at 10:07 pm
Being well-meaning and being a teacher-unionist are different things. Sometimes people confuse them, and get involved in ’school reform’ projects from a well-meaning rather than a teacher-union point of view.
But that’s not enough to explain why so many people seem confused by the Empowerment game.
Jonathan
7 Runcinate
· Jun 21, 2006 at 10:09 am
Empowerment for whom? CEO Nadelstern is the same individual who declared at a staff development training several years back, ‘look at how standards improve, when we get rid of standards,’ and ‘all of us sacrificed careers in corporate America to really help kids.’ That he now advocates a system of small schools under a new assessment standard and holds a corporate moniker appropriate to the business world should give us pause. Our skepticism is reasonable. Fortunately for him he led a school for seventeen years that exempted themselves from enrolling special needs students, allowed teachers free rein to create whatever maverick curriculum they wanted, and maintained graduation rates among the city’s highest only to look away once their students reached college. (International students fair no better than any other NYC high school student in college success). He also benefited from modest parent input since as immigrants the parents of his students spoke little English . His title surfaced around the time of a job offer by the Las Vegas Central School District to run their schools. Having never been a superintendant, the offer is curious. After he declined, Nadelstern appeared clothed in his new and present identity.