Corporate Reform versus Child-Centered Progress
by A Guest Columnist
Recent years have seen the growth in influence and power of
the corporate reform approach, part of GERM (the Global Education Reform
Movement), on education policy-making. It principles include a focus on closing
schools, test-based accountability, and building portfolio model district
offices. This approach tends to be favored by the elites of both political
parties, the wealthy, and well-funded conservative think tanks and is now the
status quo. It is often difficult to get behind the headlines and figure out if
there is any real evidence supporting this approach. As teachers know a good
example is often the best way to bring clarity to a difficult topic…
Suransky helped found the Bread and Roses Integrated Arts
High School in Harlem. The school is now being shuttered, labeled as failing a
mere 15 years later. A recent report by the Annenberg Foundation at Brown
University revealed that the number of “over the counter” students (that is
students who did not receive a spot in any other school through NYC’s match
process) sent to Bread and Roses High School increased from 15% to 22% between
2008 and 2011. At the same time the number of overage students at the school
increased by 5.3% and the number of students with special needs increased by
7.4%. Unsurprisingly, as the teachers and staff at the school worked to educate
students with greater incoming challenges, test scores dropped. As a result the
school’s Progress Report grade fell from a “B” to an “F.” This resulted in the
school being closed.
Bronx International High School, a screened school for
recent immigrants, was opened after Morris High School was shuttered. Suransky
was principal of the school for 3 years. The school is one of the hundreds of
small schools created under Bloomberg that have been touted as an amazing
success story. Once the Department of Education began to measure the college
readiness of students in 2011, questions were raised about the school’s success
in truly preparing students for college. It scored a “D” on college and
readiness the past two years and last year over 94% of the school’s graduates required
remediation when they went to college.
Suransky has written that “small schools of choice work best
for students, staff, and families.” In fact, the small schools as a whole do
not teach the most challenging students. Jennifer Jennings, a professor at New
York University, analyzed the differences in student population between Morris
High School and the schools that replaced it. She found “lower concentrations
of full-time special education students, students qualifying for free lunch,
students who were below grade level in reading and math, and English Language
Learners.” Specifically in the case of Bronx International High School the data
show that, as compared to Morris High School, it served 9% fewer part-time
special education students, 15.2% fewer full-time special education students
(Bronx International had 0.0% such students), 16% fewer students entering
overage, and 45.5% fewer free lunch students. The students at the school also
had an average prior attendance rate 10.8% higher and were 10.2% more likely to
have passed the 8
th grade math exam than the students Morris High
School served.
Similar
to the charter sector, the new small schools selectively choose which
children they educate.
In a system as vast as New York City’s shuffling students
around can create the illusion of progress. Under Bloomberg a specific group of
schools, usually the large comprehensive community high schools, were sent the
most challenging students. A different group of schools, usually the new high
schools created under Bloomberg, did not serve similar students. The privileged
schools were praised and the other schools (and the teachers in the schools)
labeled failures. The privileged schools were given extra resources, the other
schools were not. Bread and Roses High School got $5,821 per student from the
city last year in “Fair Student Funding.” Bronx International got $6,268 per
student. The school with the student body entering farther behind was given fewer resources to support them.
Another key component of the corporate reform agenda is
holding schools accountable. Suransky became the deputy chancellor in charge of
“performance and accountability.” At the release of the 2012-13 school report
card grades he told the New York Times “you can see that some schools are
beating the odds consistently.” The numbers tell a different story. Since
Progress Report grades began seven years ago, only 26 high schools earned an
“A” every year. What do these schools tell us about what it took to “beat the
odds” under the test-centered grading system? 25 of the 26 schools are screened
or selective schools. The focus on test scores has created a perverse system of
incentives. Schools don’t want to accept any students with academic challenges,
schools don’t want to accept students with special needs, and schools definitely
don’t want to accept students who have struggled with school in the past since
that would result in lower test scores. Instead of opening all schools to all
students a system was created where struggling students are hidden away.
Schools that manage to keep struggling students away or transfer them out are
said to beat the odds.
The economic and other struggles of students and their
families were ignored. In a letter to the New York Times, Suransky wrote “I
contest [the] calculation that “schools with wealthier students are three times
more likely to get an A than schools serving the poor.” In fact, schools with
large concentrations of impoverished students were
three
and half times less likely to get an “A” than schools serving more
privileged students.
The obsession with test scores and short term gains on tests
resulted in absurd uses of data. Suransky defended the grades two very similar
schools in the Bronx received. One, PS 30, got an “A.” The other, PS 179, got an
“F.” He wrote that “the city’s Independent Budget Office [IBO] recently found
that progress reports do a better job controlling for student demographics than
any other system in the United States.” The report actually said that “the
method of calculating the continuous metrics on which final progress report
scores are based may not fully control for confounding variables. All other
things being equal, a school with a higher percentage of black and Hispanic
students or special education students is likely to have lower performance and
progress scores than other schools. (page 12)”
Based on math test scores at the two schools he wrote that
the “difference in student progress is huge and has great consequences for
students’ chances of graduating ready for college, justifying the schools’
respective grades.” Looking beyond the results on a single test in a single
year the data do not support this argument. In 2 of the 3 prior years students
at the F-rated school had a higher Math proficiency average score than the students
at the A-rated school. In 2 out of the 3
prior years, the F-rated school had a higher % of students scoring a level 3 or
4 on Math than the A-rated school. Looking at the same math test data broken
down by grade level the F-rated school had a higher % of 3rd grade students
scoring a level 3 or 4. The F-rated school also had a higher % of students scoring
at levels 2, 3, or 4 in both 3rd and 4th grades.
The data did not support grading PS 30 an “A” and PS 179 an
“F.” The only significant difference was PS 30’s growth for 5th graders. But to
quote the IBO report the “student progress sub-score is less stable from year
to year” than other elements of the Progress Reports (page 7). Predictions of “great
consequences” for “students’ graduating ready for college” were not supported
by a wider look at the available evidence.
Other factors important to the quality of a school, such as
the rate at which students are suspended or the rate at which teachers are
retained, show that PS 179, the F-rated school, came out ahead of PS 30, the
A-rated school. The school rated as failing suspended many fewer students than
the “A” school. The school rated as failing retained more of their teachers
than the “A” school. Student suspension rate: PS 179= 1% in 2008-09 and 4% in
2009-10. PS 30=11% in 2008-09 and 5% in 2009-10.Teacher turnover rate: PS
179=12% in 2008-09 and 14% in 2009-10. PS 30=21% in 2008-09 and 18% in 2009-10.
These two schools provided evidence that the city’s grading
scheme penalized educators who teach students with special needs. PS 179
educated 5% more students with special needs than PS 30 (25.7% as compared to
20.7%). For this PS 179 was rewarded by the city with an “F.” Random
fluctuation in test scores from a single year is certainly not sufficient justification
for an “F” grade. In fact since the letter the F-rated school proceeded to get
an “A” in 2011-12 and a “B” in 2012-13. The A-rated school got a “B” in 2011-12
and a “B” in 2012-13 (with an “F” in the performance subcategory).
In addition to the questionable use of data, Suransky’s
office at Tweed failed to develop a curriculum for teachers to support the
roll-out of the Common Core. Instead schools were given lists of materials to
order that often turned out to be
poorly
designed test prep workbooks that are
full
of errors. Teachers in New York City are still waiting for a complete
curriculum that is rigorous and engaging for students and that includes
supports and interventions for students who are currently below grade level in
literacy or numeracy skills.
The path forward is clear: The focus must return to
supporting the work of teachers in the classroom. Through rich curriculum,
professional development, and expanded student support services all of New York
City’s children can have access to a great education. The data games and the
testing obsession must end. A child-centered collaborative approach to
improving education for every single child in the city must begin.