City Council Speaker Christine Quinn focused on education and jobs in her State of the City speech, which was widely seen as an outline of her mayoral campaign.
Quinn was a close ally of Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the past and in January, she was one the only one of the four prospective mayoral candidates who did not criticize his education policy on which he stakes his legacy.
But on Thursday, she sought to distance herself from the mayor by outlining her plan for integrating teachers, community agencies and parents to provide a single experience for a child "a single journey from cradle to career." A pilot program will soon launch in District 30 in Queens.
She also wants to make kindergarten mandatory, extend loans to parents to help them pay for child support authorize $71 million more in funding to the CUNY system and increase after-school programs, which are usually high on Bloomberg's budgetary chopping block.
"Would you create a dozen separate agencies to oversee different parts of a child's life? Would you have government officials working in a vacuum?" Quinn asked. "Or would you build a system that recognizes and respects the role the whole community plays in educating our kids?"
Bloomberg clashed repeatedly against the large United Federation of Teachers union over closing schools, firing teachers and making tenure harder to get. He also rearranged education administration in the city to resemble corporate leadership, giving great leeway to the School Chancellors to act as they saw fit. As he leaves his post, the education question will be on the minds of teachers and parents.
In contrast with Bloomberg's top down style of governing, Quinn tried to cast herself as a receptive grass roots organizer who works with everyone.
'Now more than ever, we need to tap into the power of our communities,' said Quinn.
Quinn's likeliest opponents are Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and City Comptroller http://www.gothamgazette.com/campaigns/whosrunning.php?t=indiv&id=127">John Liu.
The speaker avoided criticizing anyone despite her statements a week ago taking Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly to task for the department's stop and frisk practices, which, critics say, disproportionately target minorities.
During her speech, she praised Kelly for making the city safer and also touted the Youth SHIELD program under which community leaders would coordinate with the task force on gun control to fix up areas which invite crime. The program will run with the help of the council's Task Force to Combat Gun Violence headed by councilman Jumaane Williams, a frequent Kelly critic.
Quinn also dedicated a large part of her speech to jobs. Even though New York City did better than the country in regaining jobs lost during the recession, employment remains a major concern for many New Yorkers. Income inequality is especially visible in New York City, home of Wall Street and birthplace of the Occupy movement, which Quinn referenced multiple times in her earlier fall speeches. She offered several ideas, both large and small.
Following Fashion Week's example, the speaker said that she is working on a Design Week that would showcase the work of the city's 40,000 designers of all stripes, to attract visitors and employers. She also talked about investment in tech companies in DUMBO, the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Downtown Brooklyn.
On a more local scale, Quinn said that the city will work with Kickstarter, an online fundraising platform to help raise capital for small businesses. Through Kickstarter, people can describe their project and solicit donations from the internet at large until they can meet their goal. Most Kickstarter projects are small but recently, an independent game production firm managed to raise $1.74 million.
The speaker praised Assemblyman Keith Wright's and State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousin's 2011 bills that would prevent employers from discriminating against unemployed job seekers and said that she would work to duplicate the process in the city. 'We won't wait for Albany,' she said.
Quinn also said that she's looking out for freelancers, who comprise 30 percent of the workforce, by helping the Freelancers Union open a clinic to offer cheap treatments to members.
Taking a page from her past as a housing advocate, Quinn said that she wants to extend the duration of house affordability from 30 years to 60 and then, indefinitely. She also promised to crack down on bad landlords, prevent them from flipping properties and making them fix the source of any apartment problem.
She also addressed homelessness, an area in which Bloomberg does not have high marks among homeless advocacy groups. Quinn proposed shifting resources towards subsidized housing units for homeless families which cost $800 per month compared to the $3,000 it takes to keep that family in a shelter.
Throughout her speech, Quinn repeatedly emphasized her focus on communities, sometimes with sentimental imagery of immigrant women pulling together and thriving. She positioned herself as an inclusive, bottom-up leader.
Quinn's rivals were generally positive about her speech with De Blasio saying that she had some good ideas. Stringer said she had a "solid" speech while Liu said the speech was "comprehensive and cogently delivered."
De Blasio and Liu are due offer their own state of the city addresses this week.
It does not take a crystal ball to know that many unhappy and angry people will gather in the auditorium of Brooklyn Tech this Tuesday and Thursday evening. Nor does a person need extraordinary powers to predict that most will leave disappointed, if not furious.
On those two nights the Panel for Educational Policy, the powerless body that replaced the former city Board of Education, will hear public comment and then vote on proposals to close some 24 schools across the city, all schools the Department of Education has determined fail its students and are so far gone they cannot be saved.
The votes on Monday and Wednesday represent the latest round in the Bloomberg's administration's drive to close poorly performing schools -- many of them traditional large high schools but middle and elementary schools as well -- and replace them, some with smaller schools, including a number of charter schools. Although the city started shutting schools years ago, the agreements over the efficacy of the policy in general and the closing of some specific schools has not abated. Like so much in education debates today, the dispute encompasses an array of issues including how to help the city's most disadvantaged students and the role of charter schools.
No one denies that the schools on the phase-out list have problems. They tend to have low test scores and poorer attendance and lower graduation rates than most city schools -- even similar schools.
The Department of Education believes closing a school and starting a new one in its stead can change the building's culture. Education officials also have concluded that many city teenagers fare better in smaller schools and so have shut large high schools to make room for the new schools, many of which have only a few hundred, as opposed to a few thousand, students and focus on a theme, such as arts or the environment.
Of course, the effort does not always succeed. In fact a few of the small schools turned up on this year's closure list. In general, though, schools Chancellor Cathie Black said in a recent appearance on Inside City Hall, the policy works. "When we re-do the whole structure -- the physical outside stays the same, new schools go inside -- this group of kids and this group of kids are performing better -- 20 and 30 percentage points better. Nothing has been changed on the outside except for the level of commitment and teaching and effectiveness that's going to hopefully impact that child in a positive way," Black explained.
P.S. 260 Breuckelen School ( Brooklyn)
P.S. 332 Charles H. Houston School (Brooklyn)
M.S. 571 Bergen Upper School (Brooklyn)
Frederick Douglass Academy III (Bronx). This proposal would close only the mddle school grades. The school would continue as a high school, with grades 9 through 12.
John F. Kennedy High School (Bronx)
Christopher Columbus High School
Global Enterprise High School (Bronx)
P.S. 102 Jospeh O. Loretan School (Bronx)
Performance Conservatory High School (Bronx)
Norman Thomas High School (Manhattan)
Beach Channel High School (Queens)
Jamaica High School (Queens)
The hearing at P.S. 30 on whether to close the school was canceled because of snow. As a result, the panel's vote on that has not yet been scheduled. The panel does not have to vote on the proposed closing of Ross Globalin Manhattan -- actually a revocation of its charter -- because it is a charter school.
For more on the schools slated for closing go here and here
Opponents of the closings, including the United Federation of Teachers, say the administration has burdened the schools on the closing list with some of the system's most difficult students -- the homeless, English language learners, student who have been left back one or more times and so on -- setting the schools up to fail. In addition, they charge, the new schools may not accept the kind of students who now attend classes at places like John F, Kennedy High School or Norman Thomas High School.
Many critics also see a hidden agenda. With publicly funded, privately run charter schools set for many of the buildings now occupied by endangered schools, they charge the school closings represent part of a larger strategy to privatize public education. The administration, though, counters that charters are public schools and provide choice to the parent who need them most -- the kinds of parents whose children now attend the schools the city wants to close.
Teachers union president Michael Mulgrew, an outspoken opponent of many school closures, has noted that the city has been shutting down bad school for at least 25 years. But during the Bloomberg administration, it became a cornerstone of city policy, with the chancellor -- as Mulgrew put it at a recent forum --- "trumpeting" the closing of schools.
Under Bloomberg, the city has shut more than 90 school and opened 335 schools, many small, both conventional schools and charters. And over time, the closings have become more, rather than less controversial, possibly because the schools shut in the policy's early stages were widely seen as awful. With fewer truly appalling schools left -- and with the city even shutting schools with decent ratings on their progress reports or report cards -- the schools on the closing lists are more likely to have loyal supporters.
Not all do. Last year when the city proposed shutting Kappa IIno one appeared at the hearing to defend it. This year there again seems little , if any, opposition to the move even though Kappa II will not even have the luxury of being phased out over a few years. If the panel approves, it will simply be shut.
By 2009, the closing policy had grown so controversial that it was one of the few aspects of mayoral control the state legislature decided to tweak when it renewed the school governance law. Under the new rules, the education department must prepare an impact statement on each proposed closure and hold public discussions on its plans. In addition the Panel on Educational Policy must approve any shutdown, phasing out or significant change in the use of a school building.
Last year, the city did not seem to take these requirements particularly seriously -- to its eventual regret. The teachers union and the NAACP filed suit, charging the administration had not complied with the state law. The courts agreed, infuriating the mayor and stopping some 19 closures in their tracks.
Undaunted, the city came back in December with 25 proposed phase-outs and closures, including one charter school, Ross Global) . Four schools slated for closing last year got a reprieve: Choir Academy of Harlem’s high school grades, Maxwell Career and Technical High School, the Middle School for Academic and Social Excellence, and Business, Computer Applications, and Entrepreneurship High School. Fifteen, though, were back on the list along with 10 new ones (see list above right).
To stay in the law's good graces, the Department of Education has offered a stream of paper to back up its plans and held hearing at schools, where, in contrast to their largely stone faced silence (with occasional glances at their Blackberries) in past hearings, school officials actually interact with and respond to members of the public.
That though, has not silenced the debate.
Last year when the Panel on Educational Policy held its meeting on closing schools, the crowd fell silent when, Rebecca Freeman, a senior at Paul Robeson High School, came to the microphone holding her baby daughter and urged the panel to keep her school open. Bridling at charges that Robeson fails its student. Freeman declared, "I am not a failure and I will never be a failure. … And neither will my daughter."
Freeman attended a special program for students with children at Robeson. The school in Crown Heights, many speakers said, tried to help a very difficult student body.
Many other schools on the closing list could echo that claim. A report issued last week by the Independent Budget Office compared the schools on the closing list with city schools as whole and found, for example, that the high schools slated for closing had a far greater percentage of special ed students -- 18 percent compared with a citywide average of 12 percent -- and slightly more English language learners. While 52 percent of high school students citywide are considered low income, 63 percent of those in the endangered schools are. More than twice as high a percentage came in over age at the schools on the closing list, and they had lower scores on their eighth grade tests.
The differences for elementary schools were far less pronounced.
The city has said that, in deciding whether to close a school, it compares that school to other schools with similar student populations. Critics question that.
The critics also say the closings have a domino effect, putting previously well-functioning high schools at risk as the most challenging students from schools being shut go, not to the small themed high school now occupying the building, but to large high schools that essentially accept anyone. And so Beach Channel High School's fate, many believe, was sealed when the Department of Education shut nearby Far Rockaway High School.
Under Bloomberg, closing schools, "has become an educational shell game that defers instructional problems until they reappear elsewhere, to be met again with a similar reaction," David Bloomfield, head of the education department at the College of Staten Island has written
Meanwhile, the better students at the struggling schools may leave, preferring the smaller more selective schools now available to them. Last year, Christine Rowland, a teacher at Christopher Columbus and advocate for that school, said that Columbus' top students tended to enroll in new programs set up in and around that school. This left Columbus, she said, having to deal with classes that are "more challenging both academically and behaviorally."
Some warn, this year closings could topple more dominoes.. As large schools throughout the Bronx close, Mulgrew said last week, Dewitt Clinton High School has seen its special education population go up by some 37 percent and the number of homeless students double. "If the Department of Education does not intervene and help this school and support them in their challenges," it will be on a future closure list, he said.
The teachers and parents who come to the microphones at the public hearings often argue that the city should have done more to help the schools, rather than shut them down. The city counters that it tried but that in these cases, efforts to improve the school simply did not work.
While parents and teachers maintain the schools slated for closure have been starved of resources, the Independent Budget Office report tends to refute that. It found the closing schools -- at all levels -- had slightly more staff for each student than the city average and that, at the high school level, those teachers were a bit more likely to be "highly qualified' or to have graduate degrees.
At some of the schools, though, anecdotal evidence suggest the department could have done more to help. The most extreme case cited by some elected officials, as well as parents, is P.S. 114 in Canarsie. Certainly the school is hardly a model of academic excellence, with only a third of its students meeting standards on state tests and with parents and teachers giving it failing grades.
Many in the school though have told reporters and city official that the fault lies with the former principal Maria Penaherra, who according to an education department investigation, committed "serious misconduct," including faking financial documents and using school funds to pay for traffic tickets. She finally was removed, NY1 reported, "because one day when she failed to show up to work, a carbon monoxide alarm went off and students were kept in class. This, because the school had no safety plan and she had left no one in charge. She also left the school $180,000 in debt."
By then, though, the damage had been done, prompting the education department to propose closing it. But may supporters of the school question whether that is the proper response. "The solution is to fix it, not avoid it," the area's City Council member, Lew Fidler, has said. P.S. 114 "had been a terrific school in the past," he continued, "until it was shot in both feet by a DOE principal. This school should succeed. I know this city's agenda is charter schools -- but they sent one principal in to wreck it, one to chronicle it and one to close it."
To add to parents' dismay, P.S. 114's building, under the city's plans, will be occupied by a charter school -- one too small to accommodate all the kids who now go to P.S. 114.
The conflict over charter schools underlies much of the debate over the school closures. Not all of the phased out schools will be replaced by charters -- some will be home to regular public schools, and the plans for some have not yet been determined, or at least disclosed -- but charters will replace some of them, including P.S. 332 and M.S. 571, both in Brooklyn.
The challenge facing the city is clear: It supports charter schools but has problems finding space for them, a difficulty exacerbated by the high cost of real estate in New York and restrictions preventing charters from using public money to build facilities. To solve that dilemma, the city has put charters in regular public school buildings -- a practice that continues to cause battles among parents in some parts of the city -- and placed charters in phased out schools.
Two charters, created by New Visions, will move into the John F. Kennedy High School building in the Bronx, as that school begins its phase out. Community residents learned of this through a leak to the New York Times, even as city officials had been telling the area's elected officials they had not finalized plans for Kennedy. When the plan appeared in the Times, education department spokespeople dismissed it as just a draft. Now, though, New Visions Charter High School for Advanced Math and Science and New Visions Charter High School for Humanities seem set to open at Kennedy in September.
The maneuvering irritated even those who see reasons for closing Kennedy, such as Marvin Shelton, president of the District 10 Community Education Council. He told Manhattan Time News, department officials "just seem to shoot themselves in the foot … It may be a great product [coming in], but why do it this way?"
In a stagnant economy and a competitive job market, the prevailing wisdom tells unemployed workers to return to school to obtain new skills.
But in recent years, many New Yorkers have been punished for doing just that; namely, some of the over 130,000 who enroll in for-profit schools in the city each year.
A city government campaign called "Know Before You Enroll," sponsored by the Department of Consumer Affairs, the Department of Education, and Mayor's Office of Adult Education, aims to warn New Yorkers against the dangers of some such schools.
"I signed up for nursing school and paid $6,000," says 'Paula from Brooklyn' in one of the ads from this campaign, which is featured in subway cars, bus shelters, and newspapers throughout the city. "Ten months later, I found out the school wasn't licensed and the Attorney General shut it down. My dream is shattered and I'm in debt."
Just feet from these campaign posters appear ads for the very schools the city seeks to warn against. Combination GED and associate degree programs, unlicensed and unaccredited schools, and vocational courses that offer "guaranteed job placement."
For-profit schools in New York City cost attendees an average of $4,700, according to a survey by the Better Business Bureau.
But even though they're more expensive than their public counterparts, these for-profit or "proprietary" schools have become more popular in recent years.
“Unfortunately, difficult economic times sometimes draw out those who would take advantage of vulnerable New Yorkers,” said Department of Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jonathan Mintz.
Those vulnerable populations include low-income communities where language or literacy barriers obscure the processes associated with enrolling in school, Mintz said.
That is what happened to Garvin, a 26-year-old Brooklyn resident who attended a two-year Associate’s degree program that advertised on television. Only after completing that degree, to the tune of $25,000, did Garvin find out that his credits wouldn't transfer to the City University of New York, where he planned to finish his undergraduate education. To obtain his bachelor's degree, Garvin would have to start college all over again.
Schools like Garvin's Associate's program are deliberately misleading, and survive by preying on unsuspecting students.
But not all for-profit schools are predatory, Commissioner Mintz is careful to note. Defenders of for-profit schools praise their equal-opportunity accessibility; since many have little or no academic criteria for acceptance, they offer options for students who might not otherwise qualify for any sort of higher education.
"These schools exist on a spectrum," Mintz said. At one end of that spectrum, he believes, decent for-profit schools operate with proper accreditation, and bestow degrees and certificates of value. At the other, schools operate in a realm that is plainly illegal.
The programs in the middle of this spectrum pose the greatest challenge to regulators and students, he said.
"In the middle, you have schools that are licensed but aren't delivering what they're promising, aren't delivering value," Mintz said. "What they're doing is taking yet more dollars from people who are trying to better their situations."
The problem is, there's a pretty huge middle. To address the glut of these legal-but-not-quite-legitimate schools, the "Know Before You Enroll" campaign has set up a hotline to cull complaints from New Yorkers about specific schools and training programs. The city will forward those complaints on to the state Department of Education and the office of the Attorney General.
Any action taken against these predatory schools would fall to state agencies; when it comes to their regulation, the city has no authority. The same goes for reform. Stricter policies around licensing and accreditation, loans, and consumer protection, all rely on the legislature up in Albany.
In the meantime, the state has the power to shut down schools found operating without licenses. But that doesn't mean they always do. Like any state agency, the Department of Education, the State Board of Regents, and the attorney general's office all have to prioritize. This campaign may not top their lists.
But for what its worth, the city plans to help them raise some funds. "We're working with the state, helping secure them resources so they can investigate," said Tara Colton, the Executive Director of the Mayor's Office of Adult Education.
And for its own part, the City went the educational route, borrowing a page from its adversary's own playbook and plastering the subways with anecdotal posters that advertise a better, smarter way.
The campaign's main thrust boils down to a list of tips. In addition to the advice to be suspicious of employment guarantees, these include the classics: avoid unlicensed schools; do your research; don't sign up on the spot.
As for the unlucky New Yorkers who have already been prey to these "predatory" schools, there's a service for them too. The city offers free one-on-one financial counseling.
"They'll get on the phone with creditors and negotiate payment plans," said a spokesperson for the Department of Consumer Affairs.
So far, she said, those counselors have saved their clients over $6.5 million.
As someone who has famously proclaimed, "I am the government," Gov. Andrew Cuomo must find the governor's limited role in the state's schools particularly galling. So, for the last two weeks, Cuomo has made it clear he no longer will stand on the sidelines while others run education here.
In his State of the State speech and in comments on Martin Luther King Day, Cuomo plunged into the school wars and poised himself to take on the state's teachers unions. He is expected to continue this campaign in his budget address today.
If the governor, who has a relatively skimpy record on education, gets more involved in schools, what exactly will he do? Who will benefit? And who will lose?
The governor heralded his entrance into education disputes in his State of the State speech two weeks ago. In that address, he announced he would appoint an education commission and that he would serve as a lobbyist for the state's children who, he declared have no one representing them.
Because of the timing, most attention focused on what Cuomo and his commission might do on teacher evaluations. The day before, State Education Commissioner John King had announced he would suspend federal funding for failing schools for districts that had not reached agreement on a new teacher evaluation system. This could cost New York City, one of the 10 districts affected, $60 million for 33 schools.
The U.S. Department of Education tightened the noose last week when it announced New York could lose its federal Race to the Top money because it lags behind in complying with the terms of its grant. " It faulted the state for lack of progress in instituting new methods for teacher evaluation and for delays in upgrading its data systems. These shortcomings, federal officials told Cuomo, mean the state could lose $1 billion in Race to the Top and other federal money.
As part of its application for the federal program, New York agreed to revise the way it evaluates teachers and to consider test scores in making its determinations. Under a bill passed in 2010, though, changes in the individual districts are subject to collective bargaining. That has proved to be a stumbling block. In New York City, negotiations appear to have broken down completely.
A week after Cuomo's speech, Mayor Michael Bloomberg all but threw down the gauntlet in his State of the City speech, which focused on education. In that address -- and in a letter to the state education department -- the administration claimed it could remove teachers at failing schools -- whatever the union might or might not say. Bloomberg also staked out other stands sharply at variance with those of the teacher's union, calling for merit pay, an increase in charter schools and shutting down more schools he considers failing.
Daring Cuomo to follow suit, New York Post publisher Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter to call Bloomberg's plans "bold … [and] terrific. How will chicken Cuomo respond?"
Cuomo has started to give his answer. In a statement last week, he called for districts and unions "to expedite their negotiations." And he assailed the legislation that made the evaluation subject to collective bargaining, saying that law "protected the teachers union at the expense of the students and instituted a system that was destined to fail."
On Martin Luther King Day, Cuomo said he was not gong to let the state lose its federal aid. "No evaluation system is in place because the bureaucracy doesn't want one," he said, adding, "We will put an evaluation system in place that represents the students first."
And today, according to some press accounts, he will get more concrete and tie a promised 4 percent increase in state aid to adoption of the teacher evaluation system put forth by the state Board of Regents last year. Fred Dicker of the Post reported that a "source" told him, "All the systems, including the New York City schools, will have until Dec. 31 of this year to adopt the teacher-evaluation systems or lose the money."
That system, which gave increased weight to test scores, was challenged successfully in court by New York State United Teachers.
In response a spokesman for New York State United Teachers, Carl Korn, has said, while the union is prepared to work with the governor and legislature on the issue, "the answer is not to start from scratch or to tie education funding to the teacher-principal evaluation process but to work collaboratively with the legislature and governor to try to move the process along."
No doubt the impasse over evaluations -- which could cost the state money and prestige -- angered Cuomo. He is not the first governor, though, to seek a greater role in education. "Governors have traditionally looked to wrench some of the power away from a historically and constitutionally independent education department, and whether that's the right thing or the wrong thing to do, Governor Cuomo sees the same need," Richard Ianuzzi, president of New York State United Teachers, said recently.
Under state law, the legislature appoints the state Board of Regents, which sets policy (testing, graduation requirements, standards, curriculum). The board names a commissioner of education to carry out those policies.
Whatever its merits might be, no other state has this system, according to a survey by the Education Commission of the States, a national group. In 36 states, the governor appoints the members of the state board of education (what we call the Board of Regents here), the chief state education officer or both. South Carolina is the only other state in which the legislature appoints the board, but the chief schools official is elected -- not appointed.
Overall, New York's system also is less democratic than those in much of the country. Residents of 22 states get to choose either the board or the person who runs the schools.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer, for one, tried to weigh in on schools by creating the post of senior education policy adviser -- dubbed "education czar" by some -- and filling it with Manuel Rivera, the Rochester schools superintendent who had been National Superintendent of the Year in 2006. In a kind of foreshadowing of the stand Cuomo would take five years later, Spitzer's office said at the time that his education policy would include "implementing sweeping reforms designed to improve accountability." Unlike Cuomo's plan, though, it also called for increased funding.
Spitzer's effort faded when he resigned.
Up until now, Cuomo has not focused on education. Even in his State of State speech, he devoted only a few lines to education. "We must make our schools accountable for the results they achieve and the dollars they spend," his written remarks said. From there Cuomo went on to call for "major reform in two areas": teacher evaluation and management efficiency."
In his 2010 campaign book, the New NY Agenda, Cuomo called for making schools more efficient -- notably by removing unfunded mandates, requirements the state puts on district but does not pay them to meet -- and for an increase in charter schools.
During his first year in office his efforts on education concentrated on funding. He and the legislature agreed to a cap on increases in the property taxes that fund public schools in much of the state. While Senate Republicans had pushed for this -- many of them represent suburban districts where property taxes have risen sharply -- teachers groups and many school boards worried it would force districts to cut programs and teaching staff. The cap will have little effect in the city, however.
Most significantly, Cuomo sharply reduced state education spending in his first budget. Rather than refiguring the state's education formula to spare its highest need districts, including New York City, Cuomo let the cuts take effect across the board. Critics charged this meant they had a greater impact in needy areas than affluent ones.
"We took a huge step backward in last year's budget. Billy Easton of the Alliance for Quality Education recently told AP. "The poorest districts lost not just the money but they lost the most in their classrooms."
While the Cuomo and Bloomberg administrations bickered for months over how much the cut meant to the city -- and whether it would force the city to lay off teachers -- the loss certainly was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
This year, Cuomo has said he will increase school funding by some $800 million statewide. It remains unclear how that money will be allocated.
In November, though, the governor announced that a far smaller pot of money -- $75 million over three years -- would go to schools that applied for it. In a move modeled on Race to the Top, he said the winning districts would be those that have "demonstrated the most success in increasing student performance, narrowing the achievement gap, and increasing academic performance among students with the greatest educational needs" or that "exhibit the greatest potential for continued improvements in student performance." (For one writer's explanation of how this might work, go here.)
The possible tying of all aid to the new evaluation system of course, enormously ups this ante.
As the debate over funding and evaluation continues, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will certainly play a key part.
The current system for naming the Board of Regents gives him enormous sway over the state's schools. Silver has support from the teachers union -- in 2008 he held his primary election victory celebration at the union's lower Manhattan headquarters. He also is seen as a champion of groups allied with the union, notably the Alliance for Quality Education, which enjoys funding from the union and has emerged as a particular target of Cuomo's.
If the evaluation issues becomes enmeshed in next year's budget, Silver could be torn between the popular governor -- and the push for an on-time budget -- and his allies in the teachers union. The fact that this is an election year could complicate matters for Silver -- and for many state senators from both parties who enjoy the union's support and campaign contributions.
Not surprisingly, Silver has been cool to Cuomo's entering the education fray. In a radio interview, Silver said he did was "not sure" he saw the need for the commission to intervene in the evaluation dispute. “John King, the commissioner, and the entire Board of Regents have been very focused on these issues and have been working hard to bring resolution about,” Silver said.
On the more general issue of students needing a lobbyist, Silver told a rally called by the alliance, "The most powerful lobbying group for our students is their parents. … When it comes to our state government, no group of leaders has been a more effective lobbying group for the children in our classrooms and for young children needing early education than … the members of the majority of the New York State Assembly."
A number of groups joined Silver to rebut the notion that no one speaks for students. "Teachers, in partnership with parents, have always been lobbyists for what children need," New York State United Teachers said in a statement.
The New York State Schools Boards Association also has expressed skepticism. "How he [Cuomo] is going to be a lobbyist for children remains to be seen," said Timothy Kremer, executive director of the association. "I think we do a pretty good job of this."
"The shocking thing is that no where in that long speech did he say the word 'parent'," Mona Davids of the New York City Parents Union told Gotham Gazette. "We are our children's lobbyists, we are our children's advocates."
Under the current system she said, parents do not have a voice. The Board of Regents, according to Davids, makes "things very difficult for the parent."
And, she noted, that while Cuomo said teachers and bus drivers had lobbyists, he did not mention hedge fund managers, representatives of testing and technology companies, and privatization advocates, all of whom have weighed in on education and who have lobbyists. Instead, she said, he singled out "working class people" such as bus drivers.
King, who could find the commission infringing on his turf has told reporters he has "no problem" with it. "There's plenty of work to do to raise student achievement. We're happy to have additional advice and input," King said
The final verdict, of course, will hinge on who Cuomo names to the commission and what type of commission he establishes. On this the administration remains tight-lipped. A number of people contacted said they had not received any indication from the governor of what he might do.
Kremer said the commission could help if it is "populated by people who are smart" and who will take an honest, objective look at what resources districts need, at performance measures and at some of the state's mandate that affect local districts. He also would like to see it "come up with ways to engage parents and communities."
Some predict Cuomo will look beyond the usual suspects for commission members. "It will be something that's quite national, people from outside New York," an anonymous source speculated to GothamSchools.
While Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said he wanted a commission that is "actually going to look at the research," on the other side of the ideological fence, Elizabeth Ling of Democrats for Education Reform told GothamSchools Cuomo "should select people who can move his agenda forward to make real progress on behalf of students, and not the hacks who have only thrown up roadblocks time and again."
Bob Lowry of the New York State Council of School Superintendents has said the governor should not dismiss insiders. "You also need to have people who know what things work now and what things don’t work now," he has said.
In their public responses this month, Bloomberg and Cuomo have generally praised the other's statement on education.
"Both the mayor and I agree that this starts with implementing a teacher evaluation system that holds teachers accountable for their performance
Asked about the governor's commission, Bloomberg said, "We could do a better job in New York City, and they certainly can do a better job in the rest of New York state. The state, taken as a whole, is not where we want to be. The country taken as a whole … is nowhere near where we want to be, and the governor’s focus on education is spot-on. That’s exactly what he should do, and any help he can give us we’d be happy to take the help."
Cuomo's language on Martin Luther King Day was reminiscent of comments Bloomberg has made in the past on education. Like Bloomberg, Cuomo invoked civil rights when speaking about schools.
“The great equalizer that was supposed to be the public education system can now be the great discriminator," the governor declared, "because if you happen to go to public school in a failing public school, you may never catch up. You may be left behind and never catch up."
He also vowed to put in place an evaluations system that represents the students first,” echoing Bloomberg who has called his agenda for public schools"Children First."
Supportive words aside, Cuomo and Bloomberg clashed repeatedly over education last year, notably on funding and on the mayor's effort to end last in, first out, which requires that seniority determines which teachers get laid off, with the most recently hired teachers the first to go. Altering that system requires state approval.
David Seifman of the Post has written that the single biggest cause of the yawning rift between Cuomo and Bloomberg was the dispute over teacher layoffs. According to Seifman, "The feeling among Cuomo loyalists is that the governor … was blindsided when the mayor asked him to obliterate the law in the face of fierce union opposition. ... The feeling among Bloomberg loyalists is that LIFO would be a distant memory by now if Cuomo did the right thing."
The issue this time around could again be whether Cuomo will take the fight against the union as far as Bloomberg would like -- and whether Cuomo has other targets as well.
While Bloomberg generally limit his brickbats to the unions, Cuomo has targeted what he calls "the education bureaucracy" -- including superintendents, principal, teachers -- and maybe bus drivers. It is too early to know whether that difference in rhetoric is just that -- rhetoric.
The issue of getting results commensurate with money spent could also prove problematic for the mayor. Education spending has increased substantially under Bloomberg -- from about $12.7 billion in 2002-2003 to an anticipated $19.5 billion in 2012, excluding pensions and fringes. The mayor would no doubt say this has brought major results -- he most frequently cites an increase in graduation rates, but critics point to indicators that would say otherwise, including relatively flat test scores and the small percentage of city graduates who are prepared to do college level work.
As he has in the past, Bloomberg once again sees his education goals and his fight against the teachers union in Albany's hands. With the mayor's power fading as his time in office draws to a close, he has reason to hope -- and now, maybe even expect -- that this time Cuomo will be on his side. The teachers union must hope with equal fervor that he won't be.
Gail Robinson, the former editor of Gotham Gazette, writes on education and other policy issues.
In recent years, Clinton Hill and Fort Greene schools have undergone the sort of transformation that eludes frustrated educators nationwide
Area parents of an older generation made escaping the local schools into an art. Some opted for private or parochial schools; some pursued charter schools with open-district lottery admissions; and some relocated to Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights when their children came of school age. Many more relied on a time-honored tradition: forging apartment leases to assume addresses in other zones.
But now, just a few years later, parents from around the district and outside it flock to Clinton Hill and Fort Greene schools. In fact, parents now forge documents to get in to this newly desirable zone.
P.S. 11, an elementary school on Waverly Avenue, exemplifies the area’s transformation. Once troubled by low test scores, poor attendance, and chronic tardiness, the school has improved in all of those areas.
Its enrollment has grown from 488 students to 602 since 2006, and its attendance rate has risen from 91.8% to 96% in the same time. Meanwhile, its academic rating based on Department of Education metrics has risen from 6.8 to 8.1.
An important element of this turnaround, parents say, is their own commitment to the school’s success.
Sheri Holman, a mother of three and a member of the P.T.A., considers herself a participant in P.S. 11’s transformation. She was among the first in a new group of parents who chose to stay within the zone, and commit to the local school.
“We figured, we owned property there, so if we didn’t step up, who did we expect to do it?” Holman said.
But for many of her peers, sending the children to the local school still represented a leap of faith.
“At that time, it was nerve-wracking,” Holman said. “They knew the schools in Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights, but P.S. 11 hadn’t proven itself yet.”
To prove itself, the school would have to rely on a specific pattern of parent involvement, according to Dr. Jennifer Stillman, a graduate of Columbia University’s Teacher’s College whose research coveres gentrifying school districts like Holman’s.
This pattern is one that Stillman observed in every neighborhood that has integrated whiter, wealthier parents into schools that were traditionally poorer and low performing.
The gentrification in Clinton Hill and Fort Greene is well documented. The median household income has increased by over $20,000 between 1990 and 2009, and the population of whites has almost doubled in the decade since 1990, according to Census numbers.
Clinton Hill’s crop of new parents is also highly educated, and they place a high premium on their children’s academic experience. Almost a third have bachelor’s degrees, twice as many as did in 1990. A quarter of them have a graduate or professional degree, compared with just one out of ten in 1990.
Parents like Holman, who took a leap of faith right into struggling schools, are what Stillman calls “the innovators,” the first parents to buck their peer group’s tendency to leave the zone to find good schools. The “early adopters,” are the next wave; they join in and provide momentum. A third wave — "what Stillman calls “the early majority”- holds off until success is apparent, and then provides critical mass.
Stillman’s research found that the successful integration — "racial, economic, and cultural" — of this new parent group into the existing schools and is key to a school managing the kind of “turnaround” many parents seek.
“There is a key moment in a school that successfully integrates, where the early majority decides to stay,” Stillman said. In unsuccessful examples, she said, the early majority leaves for a variety of reasons, most often because they realize that the school hasn’t changed quite as radically as they thought.
While cultural changes like policies allowing parents to walk their children to class each are seen as a serious accomplishment in the eyes of the innovators, they are not enough to satisfy the early majority. This wave may expect more dramatic “progressive” measures like cross-curricular and experiential learning taking the place of the traditional curriculum.
In the case of P.S. 11, the “innovators” and “early adopters” made a few early changes that proved crucial to attracting others. One, they say, was replacing Linda Nelson, an unpopular principal who parents described as divisive, defensive, and fundamentally opposed to parent involvement.
“We mounted a really active letter-writing campaign, and there was a lot of pressure from the parent organization to replace her,” said Holman. “It got really ugly, and a lot of parents left because they thought, — I can’t deal with this.’”
The principal soon retired, and parents suspected that their campaign forced her out. When new principal Alonta Wrighton arrived, they said, it made a world of difference. The new parents were able to implement new, school-wide enrichment programs, and raise funds to support them.
In doing so, the social capital of those new parents would prove invaluable to generating revenue for the school’s enrichment.
One parent was a grant writer, and used her expertise to help raise the money that would fund P.S. 11’s new enrichment programs. Several parents who are authors contributed their works, and their connections, to the school’s annual book fair fundraiser.
And when it came to making time to volunteer, it didn’t hurt that many of the new parents enjoyed flexible work hours. Self-employed adults, who often work from home, are now 14.6% of the neighborhood, up from 5.4% in 1990, according to Census figures.
"A lot of those parents are from the creative class, which means they freelance," said Tamara Brown, a Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and the author of Raising Brooklyn: Nannies, Childcare and Caribbeans Creating Community, published in January. "They might work for a few months heavily and then they’re off."
"It's totally a class issue, because the parents who stay at home can be more engaged," said Kiini Salaam, a parent who was generally pleased with P.S. 11 while her daughter attended the school. "For schools in neighborhoods where there’s not a lot of resources, it’s not gonna be one in two parents who can come in and help out."
Offering a variety of ways to get involved was important to increasing parental involvement, especially among those who worked full-time or more. The PTA sent surveys to parents’ homes to how they could best get involved, making sure to include a range of options that included things that could be handled online from anywhere, said Vanessa Barnett, the school’s PTA president.
The strategy paid off. Parental involvement soared.
"Even in March, which is sort of an off month, we now have 50 to 75 parents coming to PTA events," Barnett said. "Before, we had a hard time even getting a quorum of 20 people."
It didn’t take long, either. Among parents dizzy with the anxiety of choices that may affect the rest of their children’s lives, word quickly spreads when a school seems to be getting it right.
"Parents who don’t have access to a lot of options think, —here’s a public school that’s on the rise, getting better every year,’” said Sheri Holman. “There are so few schools like that, that they become very sought-after really, really quickly."
But while parent involvement was what turned P.S. 11 around, Vanessa Barnett claims that that involvement did not rely on a privileged class.
"Your passion for your kids and your desire to make an impact cuts across all lines," she said. “We couldn’t do it without some people having connections or some knowledge of the way events work, but you don’t need an MBA for that."
The Obama administration's Race to the Top contest set states and school districts around the country scrambling for ways to reorganize, restructure or reinvent themselves in order to qualify for federal aid aimed at reconstituting school systems in the image of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's educational reforms. Nearly all the carrots dangled by the federal Department of Education, as in New York, reward reforms related to standardized testing (merit pay, grade retention, school shutdowns) or to changes in school governance (mayoral control, school "restarts," school turnarounds, charter schools).
An August New York Times poll found that only 34 percent of New Yorkers approve of the mayor's handling of the schools. That has not stopped city schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott from announcing that he will "re-task" dollars to underwrite a new round of Race to the Top-style reforms. Focusing now on middle schools, the DOE will follow its strategy for high schools: shut down struggling schools and replace them.
If the federal or city department of education really wanted to turn around struggling schools, however, they would do far better to focus not on merit pay or governance structures, but on the struggling students inside those schools – in particular the four out of ten children who struggle with learning to read. In doing so, they would also find one of the major roots of the achievement gap. Proportions of struggling readers are the same in Scarsdale as in Harlem, in Oakland as in Marin County.What makes reading disabilities a root cause of the achievement gap between rich and poor districts are not governance structures, but whether or not struggling readers get appropriate help, and when.
In keeping with the "reading wars" of the past 40 years, deliberations about the best way to help struggling readers still focus too much on phonics versus whole language reading instruction. The discussion needs to move way beyond those polarities, however, if we are ever to ensure that each child in this country is truly reading. Full literacy cannot be guaranteed by ordering up the right phonics program from the right publisher, stocking classrooms with "leveled libraries," sitting every schoolchild down for 90 minutes every day for reading and writing "literacy blocks" and then testing them relentlessly, or even by having their parents read nightly to them from birth.
These strategies cannot help those four out of ten students who struggle to read. For one thing, of those 40percent of students, half -- fully 20 percent of our population – are dyslexic, according to the International Dyslexia Association and the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD.)
If 40 percent of children struggle with learning to read, and there are 1.1 million schoolchildren in the city's public schools, that amounts to 440,000 children. Half of those – or some 220,000 – are dyslexic.
In a jarring overlap of figures, that happens to be the same number of children Bloomberg cited as being in failing schools when he first took control of the public school system in 2002. Not all children in failing schools are dyslexic, of course; nor are all dyslexics in failing schools. The overlap in numbers, though, serves as a wake-up call. When the additional 20 percent of struggling readers are factored in, we are talking about close to half the children of any given school system or district who need extra help learning to read.
Most dyslexics in New York are not found in special ed. In fact, most are not found at all. Historically, to determine whether a child needs help with reading, special ed looked for a discrepancy between I.Q. and achievement level. Perversely, this assumed that reading problems would affect only high I.Q. children with low levels of achievement. However, people at any level of intelligence can have reading difficulties. This dilemma was forcefully addressed in a 2003 report by Kalman R. Hettleman titled "The Invisible Dyslexics"
In 2004 the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act scrapped the discrepancy model for learning disabilities with one that calls for Response to Intervention. This was based on the NICHD's recommendation that schools offer increasing levels of specialized, multi-sensory interventions to struggling readers until; they find the one that works for that particular child. These interventions can range in intensity from small-group instruction a few times a week with the regular classroom teacher, to full-time, one-on-one programs of four to eight weeks with specially-trained instructors. The Institute recommended that these interventions be tried before referring a student to special ed.
This reform has unleashed a further complication: schools or districts first direct families to whatever resources they offer to help with reading but do not necessarily provide what the struggling students actually need. In New York City, for example, principals are allowed to choose whatever services they want to offer. They usually pick one program, and if that one doesn't happen to work for every struggling reader -- which it surely won't and can't) -- many students will continue to struggle.
In her excellent book Why Can't You Teach Me 2 Read, WNYC education reporter Beth Fertig describes a typical scenario in which two schools are located in the same building. The principal of one selects a program that helps struggling readers, and the other chooses one that is not effective. Students in the second school have no access to the successful program in the first. Under the city's policy of "principal empowerment," unimproved reading scores of the second school's principal would ultimately result in his/her removal. But that could take years. Meanwhile a whole cohort of struggling readers will have passed through that school.
In short, the progression of ever-more-intensive interventions envisioned by the federal government for these children is not available in New York City, where full implementation of the Response to Intervention protocol is still two years away. Instead, parents have to doggedly extract these services from the Department of Education, often with a lawsuit. Even that usually comes at the end of a long, grueling road; for most parents, it can take a long time for them to find out why their children are struggling, much less what kind of help to ask for and how to get it.
What happens to struggling readers who don't get help? They are left in classrooms at every grade level with their bad spelling, illegible handwriting or uncertain reading skills to get by as best they can. Unsuspecting parents might exhort them to "work harder," or criticize them for "not focusing." Teachers often ascribe their reading or comprehension problems to laziness or lack of intelligence.
These children often develop strategies or subterfuges to help them get by in the classroom. Without the right interventions, though, many of these "invisible" dyslexics must repeat grades, sometimes multiple times. Little that is provided in the classroom, summer school or after-school tutoring programs for these students is going to help. Those programs simply provide more intensive or individualized versions of classroom instruction that has already not worked.
That is why the city Department of Education' practice of treating every reading and writing deficiency with even more reading and writing (much less endless testing of them!) is counter-productive. Such "hyper-literacy" leads, as one parent noted, "frustration for those who are not really reading, and tedium for those who are already fluent readers."
The hyper-focus on math and literacy in recent years has, moreover, crowded out social studies, science, the arts, and even physical education, which all offer plenty of opportunity for developing literacy and math skills, as well as ways to engage more f students, especially those for whom reading and writing do not come easily.
Can all of these children be helped? Yes, and at every grade level. It is unacceptable to keep writing off generations of students if they are not reading adequately by third grade, as has been the case for too long. It is also unacceptable that the task of finding and sorting through the available reading interventions is left to the vigilance of parents, leaving out those who cannot marshal the time, money, tenacity and emotional resources to ferret out such programs. Many of these interventions are used in school systems in other parts of the country. The fact that they are not available everywhere -- including New York -- is really more a matter of politics or ignorance than of anything else. Where they are not widely available, the students who get such help are largely those whose parents have successfully sued for it, or who pay for it privately – further evidence of the role this reading crisis plays in the achievement gap.
With so much research, so many solutions, and even federal dollars at hand, legislators and education officials have the opportunity and obligation to move decisively into the 21st century by first guaranteeing that the nation's schoolchildren have that most basic of skills: the ability to read. After all, if compulsory education forces children to attend school, shouldn't we guarantee that they are able to participate in what we are compelling them to do?
Discussion of solutions in education inevitably brings up that other major mathematical calculation: the cost. When it comes to literacy, consider that whether we spend the actual dollars or not, we pay -- either for a fully literate population or the societal costs of not having one.
Mayor Bloomberg is effectively recognizing the costs of illiteracy through his newly-established Young Men's Initiative. In short order, Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services Linda Gibbs, who is overseeing the program, found that many of the young men, who are no longer in the city's schools, but not in jobs either, were reading at elementary school levels. To that end, she has made improved reading skills the Initiative's first order of business. Now, if we could just get the city's school system to do the same! As the mayor himself said, in announcing expansion of the Young Adult Literacy Program to help the Initiative's young men improve their reading "Too many young men in our city are stuck in dead ends, and for many of them, the problem starts and stops with illiteracy. But here's the good news: this is a problem that can be overcome."
It can but the effort will need some serious "scaling up," of course. The city's Young Adult Literacy Program serves 1,000 struggling "over-age" readers in 17 locations. As we've seen, struggling readers in the schools number nearly a half-million, spread across some 1,500 schools. If our school reform money and energies were "re-tasked," however, from the ever-expanding focus on standardized testing and governance restructurings, and redirected to provide appropriate reading interventions for every child who needs it, overall total costs could well be no more than what is being spent right now. The only difference is that those four out of ten children in our schools who need that extra help would then truly be reading.
Susan Crawford is the director of the Right to Read Project
(This story was updated on Oct. 14, 2011, to reflect additional information and statements provided to Gotham Gazette by the Department of Education.)
At the start of NBC's Education Nation extravaganza last month host Brian Williams introduced and praised one of the funders of the event, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
For the reformers, teachers, parents and politicians at Education Nation, the refrain was a familiar one. The Gates Foundation, Williams continued, is "the largest single funder of education anywhere in the world. It's their facts that we're going to be referring to often to help along our conversation."
Indeed, with hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into our nation’s schools each year -- and plans for an addition $3.5 billion over the next five to six years -- Gates has funded an extraordinary amount. Other foundations, like the Broad Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation have also gotten in on the education game, but according to reformers and teachers, the Gates Foundation, with vastly more money than any of the other foundations, leads the way.
This is certainly the case in New York City where Gates money has fueled – and at times even directed – the education reforms of the Bloomberg administration. Over the last decade, Gates has given $175 million to $200 million to the city's public and charter schools, according to the foundation.
With their donations, the Gates have taken an unprecedented role in directing reform -- setting the agenda for education policy they help underwrite, supporting the organizations that advocate for those policies and, as Williams noted, providing the facts to back it up.
"The facts are coming from someone who has a very big agenda," said Anthony Cody, a teacher and education reformer from Oakland, Calif., whose criticisms of Education Nation were published in the Washington Post. Cody worked as a middle school teacher for 18 years before working on district wide reforms for another six.
In the past , Cody said, school administrators and teachers would instigate programs and reforms and then apply for funds from philanthropies or government on a project-by-project basis. Now, the impetus for reforms often comes from foundations, and school systems, eager for funds, adapt their programs to fit the philanthropies' agendas.
Chris Williams, the press secretary at the Gates Foundation, noted that philanthropies overall are evolving, not just Gates. "The intention is to be catalytic, to help spur change where other investments haven't been able to -- to take that kind of risk," he said.
The most well-known example of foundation-fueled education reform is the small schools initiative.
In 2000, the Gates Foundation announced it would jump into education reform with a plan to create small schools. Over the next eight years, they paid districts to break up large public schools and create 2,602 schools in 45 states and the District of Columbia. In 2003, the foundation awarded New York City $51.2 million to create 62 small high schools, as part of the city's plan to shut large high schools it deemed failing and replace them with small, often themed schools.
In 2008, after investing $2 billion in the reform, the Gates announced that the program had not shown strong results, and the foundation would restructure its goals.
In some districts, such as Cody's this could lead to another change in course. Responding to budget cuts and poor reviews of the new schools, Oakland has been closing small schools and reforming large, more comprehensive schools in the last few years.
In New York, the small schools initiative has been credited with raising graduation rates, but a New School study in 2009, found that while graduation rates were up at newly created small schools, the numbers were somewhat deceptive. As small schools, which were able to select their students, reported relatively high graduation rates, some of the remaining large high schools saw surges in enrollment that created discipline and other problems. This in turn, led to a fall in the numbers of students receiving a diploma at these schools. Some of these high schools were then shut, creating even more problems for the big schools that remained open.
"While the [Department of Education] has trumpeted the success of the new small schools for at-risk students, the net gain for all high school students is much smaller because the majority of high schoolers still attend large schools," the study found.
The Department of Education itself, however, says the successes are just that and can’t be ignored: Over the last four years, graduation is up 20 points, according to department spokesman Matthew Mittenthal. "It's not just a number, but tens of thousands more students graduating and attending college" he said.
Mittenthal countered the New School study with another report, conducted by independent research firm MDRC -- which has received millions in funding from the Gates Foundation including money for this particular study -- that found that "by the end of their first year of high school, 58.5 percent of [small schools of choice] enrollees are on track to graduate in four years compared with 48.5 percent of their non-[small school} counterparts, for a difference of 10.0 percentage points. These positive effects are sustained over the next two years."
The study also found that by the fourth year of high school, the small schools "increase overall graduation rates by 6.8 percentage points, which is roughly one third the size of the gap in graduation rates between white students and students of color in New York City."
The critics, however, remain skeptical.
"Across the country, a lot of [small] schools are being closed -- they're incredibly expensive and inefficient -- but we're still creating more,” Leonie Haimson said.
Haimson is the executive director of Class Size Matters, a New York City advocacy group that promotes smaller class sizes. Having fewer students in a classroom, Haimson said is "one of the few education reform ideas that has been proven to work," but is not a part of the foundation's reform agenda.
It also has not been a priority for the Bloomberg administration. Class sizes in the city this year are the largest in a decade, a teachers union study found.
"There's never been a time in history when one foundation controls the narrative so much," Haimson said and criticizing the Gates for acting on policies that she says are based on "completely unreliable facts" that they have supplied themselves.
Williams explained that the Gates -- like most foundations -- has a "strong theory of action, of change. We make investments that align with it." But he denies there is no expertise to back up its philosophy. "Our education team is filled with former educators. these are people who have been in schools, who know how schools operate," Williams said.
And he said the foundation does adapt to evidence. "One of the things we learned from that experience is that school structure isn’t enough, the schools need really good teachers in the classrooms," Williams said. "It's an evolutionary process, [the small schools initiative] guided us."
As a result, the Gates' amended agenda focuses on accountability -- teacher accountability for their students' achievements, as measured by test scores. Numerous critics have lambasted the Gates for tying students test scores to teacher’s jobs, in the name of accountability. Tests of a third grader’s reading level is just that — a test of whether the third grader can read, not whether or not the teacher can teach, said Diane Ravitch, an NYU professor of education and frequent critic of Bloomberg education policies.
Last month, the city dropped its effort to rank teachers on the basis of test scores, saying it would leave devising a teacher evaluation system to the state.
The Gates agenda also stresses student choice, which allows children and their families to select their schools, with charter schools a major part of the mix.
Under Bloomberg, charters have proliferated in the city with the active encouragement of the Department of Education, which has gone so far as to give the publicly funded, privately run schools place in Department of Education buildings. About 45,500 students attend 136 charters in the city.
In New York City, though, choice goes beyond that. Students entering elementary school who do well on a standardized test can choose from a variety of schools, and the city to a great extent has eliminated neighborhood high schools, compelling eighth graders and their parents to choose school s and apply to them.
"More frequently, it’s the schools that pick the kids and they’ll avoid the kids with the lowest scores because they just can’t risk it. Some schools become dumpling grounds and then they are closed. You'd think after nine years of Bloomberg reforms, we wouldn’t be closing any schools, but we are," said Ravitch. "At what point do they begin to talk about adding some instructional plan? They don’t," Ravitch said.
At a forum at the New School earlier this year, many people criticized the school choice system for high school but said despite its many failings it represented an improvement over the days when students had to go to their neighborhood school -- and students in poor neighborhoods usually went to poor schools.
Of course many of the change in New York City have come about as a result of mayoral control -- and Gates has also been an enthusiastic supporter that. In 2009, as Bloomberg sought to get the legislature to renew mayoral control of schools, a group called Learn -NY popped up to lobby for the extension. While billed as a grassroots group, Learn-NY got $4.1 million from Gates – the man, not the foundation -- and millions more from another billionaire, Eli Broad.
The donations did not become public knowledge until after the legislature had granted Bloomberg's wish.
The Gates reform agenda has gained support not only in New York City, but on a national scale, too. The Obama's administration's funding competition for schools -- Race to the Top -- is notably in sync with the foundation's reform agenda of accountability and choice.
Last year, New York state won $700 million in funds from the Race to the Top program. For its piece of the pie, New York agreed to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores, as well as promising to make curriculum changes and develop a more reliable statewide testing system.
States that were interested in the funds had to submit lengthy applications detailing their educational policy. To help states tackle the 350-page application — a significant task for resource-strapped governments — the Gates Foundation gave 15 states "that have demonstrated commitment to the components of the foundation’s College Ready strategy” $250,000 grants to pay for consultants to write their applications." Other states interested in that sort of grant money had to agree to eight additional policy stipulations before applying.
"The situation that we have is that the entire public sector is being systematically starved of resources that are needed," Cody said. "In those situations, you make those institutions vulnerable to agencies that offer money." Over the last three years, the budget for the New York State Department of Education has been cut by 30 percent, according the then state's education commissioner, David Steiner, in December.
City school gave seen their budgets cuts as well, leading to fewer teachers, larger class sizes and the layoffs of some 670 aides and other school employees last week.
With billions spent on public education every year, a few hundred million expended nationally may seem small, but Ravitch said the relatively small amount of funds can drive reform because they are discretionary.
"Most money goes in the school is committed," she said. "There’s very little discretionary money."
So while the considerable public funds will keep the heat on, pay for pensions and employee health care, and buy textbooks, the money that for anything new comes almost entirely from philanthropy.
Williams agreed. "We can commit dollars where others can't," he said.
In December, New York announced that it would request another $18 million over the next four years from foundations to fund a fellowship of experts who would decide how exactly the state would use its $700 million Race to the Top. Of that, $3.5 million has already been raised, including $900,000 from the Gates Foundation.
Despite all of Gates' money, Williams sees a robust debate amongst education reformers, in New York and elsewhere. When philanthropies fund significant research, there is always reason to worry about the integrity of the findings, he said. But, he added, Gates works hard promote independent research.
Ravitch has her doubts. Because the Gates funds organization that advocate for Gates' policies, there is little discourse or review from the education community, she said, commenting, "They exist in an echo chamber." "They've been saying that this will be the solution to our problems for 20 years. We're failing and yet we're doing the same thing," Ravitch said before paraphrasing Albert Einstein: "I think that's the definition of insanity -- when you do the same thing and expect different results."
Luke was supposed to receive his high school diploma this year, but, like many others, he did not. A 16-year-old black student, he was placed in special education with a label of "emotional disturbance." Luke was attending a high school in District 75, the citywide district for special education, where students with disabilities are isolated from their peers without disabilities. It was not where Luke was supposed to be.
Luke's placement at the school set off a series of events that led to his being arrested and leaving school. While all students are different, Luke's experience reflects that of other students in New York City and across the nation who are pushed out of school by degrading learning environments, inadequate services and curriculum, and harsh suspensions, expulsions and arrests. Students are too often treated like criminals in a school environment that favors punishment and exclusion over providing the support and interventions needed to protect students' human rights to education and dignity.
The numbers give some indication of this. In New York City, for example, the number of zero-tolerance infractions in the Discipline Code has doubled since 2001, according to a report by the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the number of suspensions in a given school year has increased by more than 250 percent, reaching more than 73,000 in 2008-2009. Since 2000, the number of school safety officers, the report found, has increased from 3,200 to over 5,000, but there are still only 3,000 guidance counselors.
Luke, according to the Individualized Education Program that all special education students have, should have attended an inclusive high school, where students with disabilities learn in classrooms with other students. Studies have found that this generally leads to better academic performance and behavior. But at the last minute, the Department of Education informed Luke's mother that the school he was slated to attend was too crowded. The department sent Luke to the District 75 school, South Richmond High School on Staten Island, where he faced many difficulties. Rather than receive counseling and support, Luke encountered school safety officers who were derogatory and judgmental, and teachers who escalated conflicts rather than mediated them.
On Jan. 15, 2010, Luke had a verbal dispute with a student in class, and his teacher asked him to leave the room. On his way out, another teacher told Luke he couldn’t be in the hallway. Luke explained that he wasn't allowed back in class and tried to push past the teacher. Luke and his mother have said that the teacher then pinned Luke against the wall prompting a school safety officer to physically restrain and arrest Luke, leaving visible marks in the process.
After waiting nine months for his case to be processed in court, Luke was put on probation. Then a year after his arrest, Luke tested positive for marijuana, violating his probation, and was placed in a residential treatment center where he and his mother say he did not receive adequate services and support. This spring he was supposed to return to court for the probation violation, but for fear of being re-arrested, he ran away. He was missing for over three weeks, during which time the police refused to file a missing person’s report. Although his mother has since made contact, Luke continues to hide in fear.
"The school system provides no alternatives, they just lock these kids up, and this is not a solution. You're dealing with kids who have other issues and need support," Luke's mother said.
Schools often target students they deem "problematic" and repeatedly suspend them, even for minor infractions. The student then misses school again and again for extended periods of time, and if the underlying needs and sources of conflict are not addressed, falls behind academically. He or she is ultimately pushed out. In some cases, students receive long-term suspensions for up to 90 days at alternative schools and never return to a regular setting. In other cases a student gets so far behind that he or she simply stops coming to school, or a counselor or other staff member tells the student he needs too many credits to graduate and should just leave or get a GED.
This approach has the greatest effect on students of color with special needs, like Luke. In New York City, students with disabilities are four times more likely to be suspended than students without disabilities, the civil liberties report found, and black students, who make up 33 percent of the population, received 53 percent of suspensions over the last decade. In some cases, like Luke's, schools skip suspensions altogether and resort to arresting a student.
Many of these suspensions arise from zero tolerance policies or practices, some of which are in the Discipline Code, and others that schools put into effect themselves.. In these cases, schools automatically suspend or expel students for certain infractions -- fighting or drug use for example. The student has no opportunity to explain extenuating circumstances or to have his or her overall record considered.
A recent study by the Council of State Governments on school disciplinary practices in Texas underscores just how detrimental suspension and expulsion can be. Over 60 percent of all students between grades 7 and 12 in Texas were suspended at least once. Students who are suspended or expelled are six times more likely to be held back at least one grade, and five times more likely to drop out than their peers, according to the report. This study is consistent with dozens of others demonstrating that punitive discipline disproportionally targets students of color, students with disabilities, and gay and lesbian students.
When we consider alternatives to such draconian discipline we are talking not just about reducing suspensions and student arrests, but also about combating the school push-out crisis, eliminating discrimination, giving students every opportunity to succeed academically, shifting school culture altogether, and focusing on our students as human beings. An array of approaches, known collectively as restorative practices, is beginning to catch on across the country as a positive alternative.
Restorative practices include "fairness committees" and "restorative circles" in which students and educators trained in conflict resolution bring all the parties involved in a dispute together to discuss how each person was affected by an incident and to work together to identify a solution that will prevent the conflict from happening again. Solutions can include community service, mediation or attending conflict resolution workshops. This offers students a chance to take responsibility for their actions, restore relationships and repair harm done to the school community.
Schools across the nation have found success using restorative practices and other positive approaches, including Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports, a process to improve the school environment. In Denver, for example, after the schools integrated restorative practices into the district-wide discipline code, suspensions fellby 40 percent, and police tickets issued to students dropped by 68 percent.
Recently, due to the organizing and advocacy of communities across the country through efforts like the Dignity in Schools Campaign, the federal Departments of Education and Justice announced the Supportive School Discipline Initiative, an inter-agency effort to address the "school-to-prison pipeline" and support positive alternatives. Just two weeks later in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his Young Men's Initiative to improve opportunities for young black and Latino men, who are disproportionately undereducated, incarcerated and unemployed.
There are certainly many factors to consider in the fight to end school pushout, but the bottom line is that the school community, student behavior and academic success are inextricably linked. We must reduce suspensions and student arrests, and implement positive alternatives so that students feel valued and are not removed from school for extended periods of time.
No students should avoid school because they are afraid of going to jail, but that's exactly what Luke and many others must do. For Luke, what started as a verbal argument with a fellow student in class escalated into arrest and pushout. If Luke's underlying academic and behavioral needs had been met, and a conflict with another student had been resolved through a restorative response, he could have completed the school year, attended summer school and earned his diploma.
Emily Shaw and Refat Shoshi Chowdhury are with the Dignity in Schools Campaign – New York. Liz Sullivan is with the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative.
"Yeah, I know a few," said Louis Di Meglio, a former undergraduate and now graduate student at Brooklyn College. Without much pause he began talking about a fraternity brother who may need to drop out next year and another friend who had to delay her graduation because it was, as Di Meglio put it, "between her tuition and her brother's."
He spoke casually, and with graduation rates under 50 percent for most schools in the City University of New York, dropping out is common. Regardless of who one talks to -- a student, professor, sports coach or administrator -- chances are he or she knows at least one person who has left school without receiving a degree. And while the causes are many, chances are they will name money as the main reason. "I had a student who dropped out because her parents said it was going to be better if she worked in [the family] restaurant than if she went to school. They couldn’t afford it," said Kathleen Offenholley, an assistant professor of mathematics at Borough of Manhattan Community College. "She was getting straight A's. And I cried."
Now finances are likely to get even tighter for CUNY students. The state legislature approved a bill in July that authorized a tuition increase of $300 every year for the next five years, a plan expected to raise $50 million. With "the long-term trend in state support for higher education ... down for the last 40 years," Terry W. Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council of Education, has called it "an extraordinarily important step" for CUNY.
But the legislation poses a catch-22 for students. While they hope more revenue will reduce ballooning class sizes, save school programs and enable CUNY to hire more full-time faculty, for many students studying at a CUNY school, paying more could mean not attending at all.
CUNY was founded in 1847 with the mission of making higher education accessible for New York residents, and until 1975 did not charge tuition. Almost 165 years later, CUNY continues to reflect its original mission: 54 percent of its student body lives in a household with an income of less than $30,000 a year; 74 percent are people of color; 44 percent are first-generation college students; and 47 percent work full or part time in addition to attending school.
>The legislation follows a series of tuition increases at CUNY, beginning with a 15 percent increase in 2009. Two years later students faced another 5 percent increase effective spring 2011 and then a 2 percent hike for the fall 2011 semester. This brought CUNY tuition for full-time, in-state undergraduates to $4,920 at senior colleges and $3,360 at community colleges. Now, with five more years of tuition increases, higher education could become farther out of reach for New York's poorest students.
"Many [CUNY students] hold a full-time job while also going to school full-time. They are at their maximum stress point in terms of finances, and even $300 can be extremely prohibitive," said Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress-CUNY, the union for CUNY faculty and staff.
"I have students, some of whom are living in shelters, who qualify for food stamps," said Francesco Crocco, an assistant professor of English at BMCC. "We're throwing the burden of public education on the people who are least able to pay."
The impact on CUNY's six community colleges may perhaps be the most significant. With lower costs, increased flexibility and an emphasis on vocational training, two-year community colleges are a "pathway out of poverty," according to the Center for an Urban Future. But with higher tuition, a critical avenue into the middle class may become out of reach for an increasing number of New York's young people.
In a series of rallies in May many CUNY student spoke out against continuing budget slashes, tuition hikes and, on a broader note, what they see as an increasingly inaccessible education system.
"Public education is under attack right now in the sense that it's headed toward privatization," said Domingo Estevez, a student at BMCC entering his third semester. "It's going from a right to a privilege."
Many members of the New York State Assembly, however, hail the legislation as a resounding success. Speaker Sheldon Silver and Deborah Glick, chair of the higher education committee, have championed it as a means to bring stability to CUNY tuition.
"While it is unfortunate that tuition must be increased during these difficult economic times, this predictable tuition plan provides students and families the opportunity to plan for the costs of higher education," Silver said on June 24.
CUNY Chancellor Matthew Goldstein originally conceived of the plan as a means to reduce the university system's reliance on outside funding.
"In an era when public support for public higher education is hemorrhaging, New York state has provided predictability. … It's a bold move that will pay dividends for years to come. This is good for institutions, it's good for the families, and it's good for the state," Goldstein said in a press statement after the legislature approved the measure.
To address affordability, the legislation created a tuition credit to be provided by CUNY for in-state financial aid students whose tuition costs exceed the $5,000 ceiling set by the Tuition Assistance Program, or TAP, New York state's financial aid grant program. The plan hopes aid this will enable aid to keep up with the increase in tuition. Students who received the maximum TAP award, would receive $5,300 after the $300 tuition hike -- with the extra $300 offset by CUNY. A student who received a $2,500 TAP award would receive $2,650 -- or $150 in tuition credit – after the increase.
This provision, however, has not done much to dispel concerns for Estevez. Two of his acquaintances dropped out last year because they couldn't afford CUNY's 2010 tuition hikes.
"Financial aid is there, but not everybody qualifies for it. There are a lot of people being left out," he said.
According to Bowen, those most likely to be left out are part-time students, who must take a certain number of class credits to qualify, and students who technically are still their parents' dependent but do not receive financial support from their family. For students whose families make just above the $80,000 income ceiling for TAP, tuition increases could also prove overwhelming.
"Thousands of students already fall through the cracks in TAP, and many others may be discouraged from entering college by the escalating cost," Bowen said.
But students may not be the only ones dissatisfied with the new tuition credits. While the state pays for TAP, CUNY will have to cover the credits. This will force CUNY to funnel some of the money it gains from higher tuition into financial aid. With CUNY serving some of New York's poorest students, this could prove a substantial figure.
"If we need to increase tuition and then increase the amount we're giving in financial aid, I'm not sure what we're getting," said Cory Provost, chair of the CUNY Student Senate.
Goldstein, however, has remained optimistic, claiming that even after the tuition credits there will still be substantial revenue to invest in CUNY education.
The tuition increase comes in amid deep federal, state and city cuts to financial aid programs. Many of the safety nets college students relied on to finance their educations simply are no longer available.
On the federal level, the Pell Grant program, considered the pillar of the nation's financial aid to low-income undergraduate students, has come under a series of attacks. Potentially devastating cuts -- including a budget resolution passed in the House of Representatives this February that would have slashed the current maximum award of $5,550 by over $2,000 -- have largely been avoided. But with shaky economic times, the Pell Grant program is on a very uncertain footing.
While funding was secured for the 2011-2012 academic year in this month's debt agreement, the Pell program remains unpopular among many Tea Party Republicans, such as Rep. Denny Rehberg, a Montana Republican who called it "the welfare of the 21st century." Any cuts will be amplified by the fact that funding for the program over the past two decades has not nearly kept up with the ballooning costs of attending college.
Other federal programs have fared even poorly. This year the government eliminated the Academic Competitiveness Grant, the Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent Grant and the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnership program.
State funding has also been spiraling downward for the last 40 years. An indicative example is the Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge, or SEEK, program. The program, funded by New York state, supports disadvantaged students at CUNY through counseling, specialized academic courses, tutoring and limited financial aid. But SEEK, like College Discovery, Higher Education Opportunity Program, and a slew of other state programs, has for over 20 years seen its funding significantly outpaced by inflation. According to the 2008 state Commission on Higher Education Final Report, in real terms SEEK has faced a 19 percent reduction since 1994.
On the city level, this year's budget was set to slash a range of CUNY programs. While funding was at least partially restored for programs like the Black Male Initiative, the Hunter-Bellevue School of Nursing, and the Dominican Studies Institute, funding for the Peter Vallone Scholarship was not. The scholarship, which did not consider U.S. citizenship in student eligibility, was a major assistance for the more than 2,500 undocumented immigrants at CUNY schools. The scholarship was awarded to 14,000 students each year.
The shortfalls in funding show that the fight for public higher education is far from over," said Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez, who chairs the higher education committee.
There is, however, a silver lining. In light of tuition increases, the state government has agreed not to cut CUNY funding for the next five years unless facing the state faces a fiscal crisis. The city has made a similar pledge.
"The city is obligated to maintain the same budget [for CUNY schools] as last year or more," said Rodriguez. "For the first time the city made the commitment to bring responsibility, to put in the same amount of money."
But the budget crunch is far from over. According to Bowen, many CUNY schools lack the resources to provide "serious education." The consequences of decreased public funding have been overcrowded class sizes, out of date lab equipment, a shortage of computers and an overloaded faculty, she said.
"At a certain point it imperils the quality of education for the students," she said.
It seems likely that CUNY students will bear the burden of an ailing school system. And with scholarship and grant programs facing the ax, many worry that tuition could become a massive hurdle for accessibility in higher education.
"For my students, they can barely manage and here we are, in effect not giving them the opportunity they could have," said Offenholley from BMCC. 'We’re basically trying to fix New York City by taxing poor people more, by charging them more tuition. It's sad. It's wrong."
But Di Meglio remains surprisingly optimistic.
"You don’t need money, but you need to learn how to apply your resources as you have them… Brooklyn College has great resources, an alumni mentoring program, a lot of people here willing to help figure things out," he said. "The resources are there, you have to find them. That's how Brooklyn College is. That's how the world is."
Kelley Williams-Bolar and Tanya McDowell, the two mothers prosecuted this year for sending their children to out-of-district public schools, have plenty of company in New York City. Public school parents here have long relied on lax school policies and the generosity of friends to help them bend the city’s rules and land their children in desirable schools.
For parents in District 13, which spans Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Brooklyn Heights and includes parts of Park Slope and Bedford-Stuyvesant, the Williams-Bolar case underscored an age-old debate over school choice. That conversation has focused mainly on a question of stay, or stray: Should parents stick to their zoned schools and help to improve them where they are lacking, or should they exploit all feasible options to get a seat in the ideal school?
Ms. Jones (her name has been changed to protect her identity), a long-time Clinton Hill resident and parent, ascribes to the latter philosophy. Over the years Jones has added fellow parents, generally from Bedford-Stuyvesant, to her lease and utility records so their children can attend P.S. 11, a highly desired elementary school in the neighborhood.
"If I even told you how many parents I have on my address, you would be shocked," said the mother of two.
Jones understands that she's taking a risk by fudging these documents, but her priorities are clear.
"The law is the law, but our children come first," she said.
Parents who favor school choice avidly defend their right to make their own decisions about their children's education, and many consider out-of-zone schools as reasonable an option as any other. The paperwork is merely a formality.
Over the past several years, the city Department of Education has sought to expand the choices available to elementary school parents. High-scoring youngsters can choose from a spread of magnet schools, with "gifted and talented" programs for those who meet the requirements and the deadline. For other students, the administration repeatedly states that its push to expand the number of charter schools in the city is part of its effort to offer more choices.
But many New York City parents still feel stifled by their local options. Their children may not qualify for the gifted programs, or the neighborhood may not offer one due to a low number of children qualifying. Some areas don't have any charter schools, and in those that do, competition for a space is fierce. And the problems can be more abstract. In both local zoned and charter schools, everything from curricula, to disciplinary styles to school hours and dismissal procedure can create a school culture that certain parents reject. They may view a school outside their district as more in keeping with their attitudes.
These frustrated parents feel that the choices touted by the Department of Education do not offer them or their children an equal opportunity sort: Options are one thing, but access to them is quite another.
Ms. Lawrence (also not her real name), a Clinton Hill mother who used a friend's address to enroll her son in P.S. 11, said she felt guilty about lying, but considered it her only option. Her local school was considered sub-par, she said, and she couldn't stomach the thought of missing out on a better option.
"You really do get caught up in this hysteria, and you feel like all your chances will be ruined if you don't get in where you want to be," she said. "The quality of schools is so unfair in New York that parents really feel like they have to do this."
Attending play dates at the homes of P.S. 11 she came away with the clear impression that hers was not the only family cheating the system; some of the other children's homes, too, were outside the school's zone. But, she said, "It's definitely not talked about."
Leidy Diaz, a Bedford-Stuyvesant mother, was zoned for P.S. 3, a middle-of-the-pack elementary school on Jefferson Avenue. She was less concerned with her daughter's academic prospects than the route she would walk to and from school -- a walk that would take her daughter past a busy train stop on Fulton Street, a site sometimes abuzz with teenagers and adults shouting, swearing and drinking, Diaz said.
Meanwhile, the family lived only a few blocks from the better-rated P.S. 56 located on a residential street in Clinton Hill. Diaz wanted her daughter to attend that school, so she took matters into her own hands.
To enroll her daughter in P.S. 56, Diaz had to provide a lease and an electric bill, both of which her friend amended to include Diaz as a tenant. When the shared address sparked suspicion, Diaz's friend visited the school to confirm the documents' validity.
"She had to go with me in order for them to really take my word for it," Diaz said of the leaseholder.
Easy enough. In fact, the process was so easy and the practice so widespread among her friends and acquaintances, that it never occurred to Diaz to fear punishment for falsifying her daughter's records. She was shocked to hear that Williams-Bolar, an Ohio mother, was convicted of a felony and served nine days in prison for faking records to allow her two daughters to attend a better school.
"I never thought about the fact that they could do something if they found out that I was lying," Diaz said. "I never heard of the Department of Education taking action against someone that lied about their address."
But the Department of Education has taken action before. One of the most public cases involved Lee McCaskill, the former principal of Brooklyn Technical High School who was investigated by the department for sending his daughter to a Brooklyn public school when the family lived in New Jersey. McCaskill resigned days before the investigation could be completed, but reached a settlement with the city in which he agreed to pay $19,441 for four years of tuition.
Transgressions within the city or state don't generally have such a high price tag. In those cases, students found ineligible for enrollment are transferred to their zoned school, according to the city's regulations.
"Our goal is to make this process easy and accessible for the vast majority of families providing true information, but to create barriers and requirements for the small handful that try to cheat the system," said Department of Education spokesperson Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld.
"When you have a zoned school that's really popular, the families and children in those zones have first rights to those schools," Zarin-Rosenfeld said. "It wouldn't be right for someone to lie about their address in order to access those seats."
When suspicion arises about a student's address, the rules state, responsibility falls on the individual school to investigate, and not on the Department of Education.
Pamela Wheaton, a project director for the popular reference website Insideschools.com, said that such investigations are highly uncommon in most parts of New York; they happen almost exclusively at a few highly competitive schools in Manhattan. In those case, investigator "go to your listed apartment and check to see if you have toys there, if you're living there,"Wheaton said. "They ask the doorman."
Despite the potential consequences, parents who have lied on leases said they would do the same all over again.
"I'll do anything to get my daughter in the school where I want her to be," said Diaz. "If I have to lie again, I'll lie again. I don't feel embarrassed about that."
And Ms. Jones will continue to usher parents into her neighborhood school by way of her own home.
"Ultimately, we are not loyal to the principals or to our schools," Jones said. "We are loyal to our children. It's about giving them a choice."</P