Is the New York City Public School System a Police State?

from BlackLikeMoi:

In this video, Dr. Boyce Watkins speaks with Professor Christopher Emdin from Columbia University. Dr. Watkins and Dr. Emdin respond to the recent report that one child per day is arrested in New York City public schools and 93% of those kids are black or brown.  The conversation (the audio is a bit choppy, but we’re working on that) focuses on black kids in the school system and why they are more likely to be punished by teachers.

The Resistance: Bronx Students Release 10-Point List of Demands to Reform NY Public Education

From Colorlines.com:

1. We demand free quality education as a right guaranteed by the US Constitution.
2. We demand the dismantling of Bloomberg’s Panel for Educational Policy. We demand a new 13 member community board to run our public schools (comprised of parents, educators, education experts, community members, and a minimum of 5 student representatives).
3. We demand quality instruction. Teachers should ethnically, culturally, and racially reflect the student body. We demand experienced teachers who have a history of teaching students well. Teacher training should be intensive and include an apprenticeship with master teachers as well as experiences with the communities where the school is located.
4. We demand stronger extra-curricular activities to help stimulate and spark interest in students. Students should have options, opportunities, and choice in their education.
5. We demand a healthy, safe environment that does not expect our failure or anticipate our criminality. We demand a school culture that acknowledges our humanity (free of metal detectors, untrained and underpaid security guards, and abusive tactics).
6. We demand that all NYC public school communities foster structured and programmatic community building so that students, teachers, and staff learn in an environment that is respectful and safe for all.
7. We demand small classes. Class sizes should be humane and productive. We demand that the student to teacher ratio for a mainstream classroom should be no more than 15:1.
8. We demand student assessments and evaluations that reflect the variety of ways that we learn and think (portfolio assessments, thesis defenses, anecdotal evaluations, written exams). Student success should not depend solely on high stakes testing.
9. We demand a stop to the attack on our schools. If a school is deemed “failing”, we demand a team of qualified and diverse experts to assess how such schools can improve and the resources to improve them.
10. We demand fiscal equity for NYC public schools: as stated in the Education Budget and Reform Act of 2007 by the NYS Legislature, NYC public schools have been inadequately and inequitably funded. We demand the legislatively mandated $7 billion dollars in increased annual state education aid to be delivered to our schools now!

The Bloomberg School Legacy

The Bloomberg School Legacy: 

Flawed Policies Poisoned by a Fatal Arrogance

by Mark Naison | special to NewBlackMan

It should surprise no one that only 34 percent of New Yorkers approve of Michael Bloomberg’s education policies, the policy area within which the Mayor most hoped to create a legacy. The Mayor not only introduced numerous questionable initiatives—ranging  from school closings, to preferential treatment of charter schools to attempts to rate teacher performance based on student test scores—he  did so with an arrogant disregard, not for the most experienced teachers and administrators in the system, but of parents and community leaders and elected officials who tried to make their voices heard in matters of educational policy. 

This top down approach to reorganizing New York City’s public school system not only reflected the ideology of the national School Reform movement—which  viewed public schools as corrupt institutions in dire need of the kind of competition and accountability allegedly characteristic of the private section—but  an egotistical effort to reproduce the success of Bloomberg LP by importing its management techniques into the Department Education.

Within weeks of taking office, the Mayor put his mark on the school system by insisting the central headquarters of the NYC Department of Education, as well as all of its district offices, look exactly like an office of Bloomberg Inc., with cubicles replacing offices. 

This astonishing reorganization, done without the input of  anyone in the system, was designed to show that this Mayor was determined to put his own personal stamp on the system down to the smallest detail, and a penchant for Mayoral micromanagement has been a characteristic of the New York Department of Education ever since.

Among the highlights of Mayoral Micromanagement have been:

*             Replacing four members of the Panel on Educational Policy, the major policy making body governing the Department of Education, when it refused to determine the promotion of third graders exclusively on their performance of standardized tests.

*             Publicly denouncing principals who questioned the school grades issued by the Department of Education after it became clear that the formulae used to compute those grades produced results that defied common sense, as well as school performance on state and national tests.

*             Appointing publishing executive Cathy Black as School Chancellor without the advice or input of anyone within the Department of Education, including outgoing Chancellor Joel Klein

*             Showing favoritism to charter school advocates who were personal friends of the Mayor, such as Harlem Success Academy director Eve Moskowitz, giving them license to seize facilities from existing public schools and discourage the enrollment of students who might lower their institution’s test profiles

It is one thing to try to convince educators and the public that schools, administrators and teachers should be evaluated regularly on the basis of student test scores, and that public schools would benefit from competition from charters, it is another thing to implement those policies unilaterally, from the top down, while stifling public discussion and trying browbeat and intimidate opponents.

Lost in the process were not only principles of democratic governance, but any kind of institutional way to subject Mayoral policies to external oversight, critical evaluation, or adherence to the most basic rules of evidence. Among the most damaging results have been, favoritism, cronyism, and corruption in the awarding of Department of Education contracts, and the creation of evaluation systems, first of schools, now of teachers, that are wildly inaccurate, and counterintuitive to what parents , teachers and administrators believe.

When you have a system without checks and balances of any kind and without any institutionalized or marginally respected input from the major stakeholders in the system- parents, students, teachers and administrators- don’t be surprised if you generate tremendous opposition.

What we have now in New York is a school system filled with teachers and administrators working under extreme duress, convinced the Mayor is their enemy, of students whose school experience is defined by one test after another, and of parents who feel their voices don’t matter.

This is Mayoral Control Michael Bloomberg style.

Many people in this city-teachers and principals foremost among them- will breathe a huge sigh of relief when his third term is finally up.

***

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930’s to the 1960’s.

Creating a “Surveillance State” in the New York Public Schools

Creating a “Surveillance State” in the New York Public Schools

by Mark Naison | special to NewBlackMan

Last spring, a former Bronx teacher named Janet Mayer published a wonderful book about her experiences called As Bad As They Say: Three Decades of Teaching in Bronx Schools. Most of the book was a tribute to the heroic students she had taught at Grace Dodge High School in the Bronx, who overcame incredible obstacles to achieve their goals; the last chapter was a devastating critique of “No Child Left Behind”, “Race to the Top” and Mayoral Control of Schools in New York City.

Teachers at Grace Dodge High School, whose unsung labors were honored, along with Dodge students, in Mayer’s book, tried to organize a book party for As Bad as They Say. Their efforts were vetoed by the principal, who was afraid that she and the school, would face retaliation from DOE officials if the Dodge community gave public recognition to a book which was critical of DOE policies.

Such is the state of Free Speech in the era of Mayor Control of New York’s public schools. But wait as minute you say. Isn’t the principal a member of a union? Aren’t the teachers? Won’t their unions support them if they hold a public event which takes a position critical of DOE policies, especially if it is done in a way that allow for expression of conflicting opinions? The answer, unfortunately is “No!”

In the last six years, an atmosphere of intimidation has been created in the New York City public schools, as the Department of Education, in the name of “accountability,” has created what amounts to a Surveillance State, if not an actual Police State, in which every teacher, school and principal, are being rated, and evaluated on the basis of student test scores. Instead of spies and informers, the DOE has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on information systems and consultants, which track student performance on the growing number of standardized tests the schools are being deluged with.

And these evaluations are not just informational, Based on the information accumulated, scores of schools have been closed, principals removed, and thousands of teachers reassigned, often against the protests of students, parents and community members in the schools targeted for such action.

These actions, and the arrogant, dictatorial spirit with which they have been enforced, have placed teachers and administrators under incredible stress, especially those working in schools which serve immigrants and children of the poor. With the threat of school closings and reassignment-- if not actual loss of employment-- hanging over their head, and with Big Brother Style Data systems quantifying every minute variation on every test they administer, few teachers or principals dare to question the overall policies which have swept creativity, initiative, and critical thinking out of their classrooms. The result is that the Department of Education, having smothered all internal opposition, has had carte blanche to spend expend extraordinary sums of money on consultants, data systems, and hiring of new administrators, that could have been used to reduce class size throughout the system.

Now, after six years of Mayoral Control, the public is finally waking up to how democracy has been smothered in the nation’s largest public school system, and how favored groups ( charter school administrators, test companies, information system providers) have been allowed to cash in during the creation of the DOE’s Surveillance State.

The gloves are off. All important stakeholders—teachers, students, parents, community leaders- must fight to insure that the free exchange of ideas, inside the classroom and out, is encouraged in the New York City public schools, and that a Police State atmosphere imposed in the name of “accountability” is an unacceptable violation of our liberties, and a terrible example to provide to our youth.

***

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930’s to the 1960’s.