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Snap Schott:
The Education Business:Teachers Missing at the Top |
Court Backs New Jersey Aid Revision: Less Focus on Poorest Schools
By WINNIE HU
The new formula was adopted by the state early last year in response to widespread complaints that the previous version, a two-tiered financing system, had concentrated education spending in 31 so-called Abbott districts, while shortchanging the state’s 584 other districts in suburban and rural areas. The new formula apportions money to all districts based on the characteristics of their students, like family income, language ability and special academic needs. In a 136-page ruling, Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote that the new formula was constitutional and that the state no longer had to provide supplemental money to the Abbott districts, which got their name from a long-running lawsuit about inequalities in school financing, Abbott v. Burke. But she also wrote that the formula must continue to be fully financed, and that it needed to be reviewed after three years. “It represents a thoughtful, progressive attempt to assist at-risk children throughout the state of New Jersey, and not only those who by happenstance reside in Abbott districts,” Justice LaVecchia wrote, describing the formula as “the product of years of work by talented educators, reviewed and reviewed again.” Gov. Jon S. Corzine said in a statement on Thursday that “the court has allowed us to focus in a unified and predictable way on meeting our obligation to all of our children, while in no way prejudicing those who have benefited from the Abbott rulings in the past.” But in some Abbott districts, educators and parents were sharply critical, expressing disappointment over what they saw as a major setback in their efforts to turn around troubled schools. “New Jersey used to be in the leadership of the move toward educational fairness,” said Tina Cintron, president of the Statewide Education Organizing Committee, which represents families in Newark, Paterson, Jersey City and Asbury Park. “Now we are seeing a drastic turnaround for the worse.” Irene Sterling, president of the Paterson Education Fund, a group of parents and community members who support the schools, said the district would have to cut back on programs and reduce staff to keep up with rising operating costs. “The children lost,” she said. “We were flat-funded last year, and we will be flat-funded for the next two years. It’s going to be a very constrained environment.” David G. Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center, which sued the state over the financing formula, said that his group planned to step up its efforts to track the impact of the formula on school districts. He added that the proposed state budget for next year did not pay for all the increases called for by the formula, which included an expansion of preschool programs. “We are deeply concerned that the new formula will quickly return New Jersey to the unequal school system of the past and undo a decade of measurable progress for our poorest students,” he said. Education Commissioner Lucille E. Davy said that the state was committed to financing the formula and helping all districts including the Abbotts use their resources most efficiently. Jack Raslowsky II, superintendent of the 2,600-student Hoboken district, said that concentrating money and resources in the state’s poorest districts brought about significant academic improvements, and that the new formula may dilute those efforts. Hoboken, as an Abbott district, received an additional $6 million a year to pay for preschool for 500 3- and 4-year-olds, two-thirds of whom qualified for free or reduced lunch. In coming years, Mr. Raslowsky said, the district will have to shoulder more of the cost, or cut back the program. “I think the ultimate goal is to level the playing field with respect to state funding for education so everyone gets a fair share,” he said. “But the Abbott needs are not changing, and we’re adding new needs to the pot, and the pot is not necessarily growing.” In Union City, an Abbott district that has nearly 12,000 students, the district initially received a $22 million increase in state aid for the 2008-09 school year under the new formula, or twice as much of an increase as the year before. The money was used to buy new school buses, upgrade technology and cover expenses for a new high school opening in September. But next year, the district will receive only a $7 million increase in state aid. Anthony Dragona, the district’s business administrator, said that the amount of state money fluctuated more under the new formula, while under the Abbott system, it grew steadily. “So doing our budget this year, we had to sharpen our pencil,” he said.
By Helen Zelon When Mayor Michael Bloomberg was elected, he vowed to improve the city’s schools, initiating far-reaching overhauls that began with mayoral control: The demolition of the independent and often mayor-opposing Board of Education, the creation of a Department of Education, and the formation of the mayor-vetted Panel for Educational Policy. Critical to Bloomberg's vision was his appointment of Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, the former head of publishing giant Bertelsmann and U.S. Department of Justice antitrust attorney who sued Microsoft – and won. Historically, educators lead departments of education. But of the 16 individuals on Klein’s leadership team, only two are educators. In the Bloomberg era, lawyers and MBAs dominate: not only did Klein have a career in law, James Liebman, the Chief Accountability Officer who developed the school progress reports that now drive school survival and principals' job security, is a law professor at Columbia. Stephanie Dua, who heads the Office of Strategic Partnerships – and is CEO of the DOE-linked Fund for Public Schools – worked as a management consultant at the global business consultancy McKinsey & Company. Garth Harries, former Chief Executive of Portfolio now charged with reviewing special education services, came to the department via Stanford Law and McKinsey. Deputy Chancellor Christopher D. Cerf trained as a lawyer and worked with the Edison Learning Company, in 2006 the world’s largest for-profit schools network. Others come from the political sphere: Micah Lasher, the department’s chief lobbyist, founded the KnickerbockerSKD political communications firm, with clients including Caroline Kennedy, Andrew Cuomo and the Fund for Public Schools. Brian Ellner was a Bloomberg campaign staffer and one-time Manhattan Borough President hopeful who now serves as Klein’s director of Public and Community Affairs. “I was elected largely on the basis of my business background. I think New Yorkers expect me to run city government in much the same way I ran my company," said Bloomberg in his 2003 State of the City speech, with “the incentive and desire to do more, do it better, and do it with less.” Under his leadership, the art and practice of education has shifted perceptibly to the business of education – market-driven, "incentivized" and data-steeped. Enter the Microsoft slayer “It’s not an accident that the mayor selected the country’s leading antitrust litigator and not a teacher” to lead the DOE, says Eric Nadelstern, who holds the title of Chief Schools Officer. “What the mayor understood [is that] when you have a system with so much vested interest, somehow, you have to break through that.” Klein’s nomination as chancellor required special state waivers, to permit him to assume the post without advanced academic credentials in education or experience in education leadership. “You can make the argument that the head of the schools should be an experienced pedagogue,” Klein said at an education journalists' roundtable last fall. But fixing the schools posed “a massive management challenge," he said, and the mayor needed “to try outside strategies.” So Bloomberg “hired the Microsoft guy,” is how a former member of the DOE cabinet under Klein summed it up. “He’s a guy who breaks up monopolies. The problem was the problem of monopolies – the lack of competition, market failure. The whole thing had to be blown up.” Klein doesn’t disagree: “The DOE was fundamentally a monopoly,” he explained at the roundtable. “The mayor wanted someone who was not a career educator, not a captive to the organization.” The mayor got what he wanted – Klein's seven-year tenure is the longest chancellorship in memory. Product over process It's not as though the city's public schools were perfect when teachers rose to the highest levels of leadership. School quality and safety varied wildly by neighborhood. Local political clubs controlled school boards. Bureaucracy was impenetrable to all but the most crafty or connected. Teachers were grossly underpaid; their professional growth was hobbled. And most critically, students were failing by the tens of thousands: dropping out, or being neglected by low-functioning schools. Bloomberg spelled out the first phase of his school reform agenda in a major education address on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2003. “Woefully inadequate” public schools that failed too many students presented “the opportunity to rewrite that bleak scenario and chart a new course of success,” the mayor said. Primary among his goals was “ending the bureaucratic sclerosis” with “one unified, focused, streamlined chain of command ... freed from the dead hand of bureaucracy.” The chancellor sits at the top of that chain, Bloomberg said, and “will dictate the curriculum and pedagogical methods” for the city’s schools. He dismissed Klein’s inexperience in education, touting instead his legal prowess: “No one is better qualified to navigate the legal labyrinth that constantly frustrates change.” “Bloomberg came from Wall Street and the business community,” said the former DOE cabinet member, who, like many current or former educators interviewed, did not want to be named for fear of professional or personal retribution. “They think entirely differently about organizational structure and dynamics. They needed the market approach to shake things up. In that respect, Joel delivered exactly what he promised.” Yet the wholesale restructuring in 2003 that eliminated the city’s 32 districts, substituting 10 regions in their place, gutted existing structures for communication and professional development, say school leaders and education advocates. Reforms were needed, but went too far, spearheaded initially by consultants from McKinsey and later by Ron Beller, a former Goldman Sachs partner who was considered “their hit guy,” said the former DOE cabinet member, who worked with Beller during the reorganization. “There’s nothing like a trader at an investment bank for the sharp, bright edge of the marketplace – a brutal clarity, applied to the school system.” CEOs and investment bankers allied forces with Klein, as did business titan Jack Welch and high-profile management consultants like Noel Tichy, who with Welch created the GE corporate training center that later served as a model for the NYC Leadership Academy for school principals. Sir Michael Barber, former advisor to Tony Blair, also joined the effort, as did activist philanthropists like Eli Broad and later, Bill Gates. More than a dozen private-sector business leaders participated in the Klein-Bloomberg reform efforts, in a kind of “patrician liberalism,” according to United Federation of Teachers Vice President Leo Casey, citing a long American tradition “of elite reform from above” by individuals sincerely motivated to serve the greater good, but with little personal stake in the system, in the form of their own children in the public schools, for example. “Their theory of change is one that distrusts educators,” says Casey. “You don’t work with people in schools but impose various frameworks upon them and experiment. It’s a system designed for noneducators to be able to manage that system.” The new system focuses more on the "product" of greater efficiency, better graduation rates and higher test scores, than the process of teaching and learning. “For the longest time, the people who ran the education department were educators,” Casey says. “These folks aren’t educators. They don’t know how to have education conversations. They’re lawyers and MBAs who never spent a day in the classroom or running a school.” “When you have folks who don’t know or understand education, they think the union is trying to trick them,” says Casey. “What was a common language, and a common ground for conversation between the union and civic leaders, is not there.” Teaching and learning downgraded The 2003 restructuring centralized processes at the DOE, only to be undone in a second wave of reorganization in 2006. “Phase I involved depoliticizing the system, building coherence, and building capacity,” Klein said in September. Dissolving districts to create far larger regions shattered previous structures. Imposing a universal curriculum standardized content and teaching practices citywide. And developing like-minded teachers, principals and leadership expanded the DOE’s ability to bring its vision to the schools. “We built a system we knew would migrate to a very different state,” he added, which led to the second wave of reorganization at the DOE, in 2006, which decentralized power (in particular, the power of the principal’s pocketbook) out of DOE and to the individual schools, creating the empowered “principal as CEO” model that is the norm in schools today. “It’s a social-Darwinistic view of schools,” says UFT VP Casey. “They talk about 'empowerment.' A more accurate characterization is the devolution of responsibilities onto a school – if a school’s not functioning, it has to be the responsibility of the people in the school” and not the DOE. The position of Deputy Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, long a premier post in the education universe, has lost its luster and its strength in the Bloomberg-Klein reforms, critics say. “That position is the one that keeps turning over,” says Pedro Noguera, Professor of Teaching and Learning at NYU’s school of education, who also chaired a city task force on middle school performance. “That position doesn’t have a lot of power. It’s almost superfluous, now.” Turnover in the role has been steady under Klein. His first pick for Deputy Chancellor, Diana Lam, was forced to resign following an investigation for nepotism. His second nominee, Michele Cahill, was thwarted when the state denied her the same waiver of educational credentials that it had granted Klein. Finally the post went to Carmen Fariña, a respected longtime educator who rose through the leadership ranks. With nearly four decades of service in the city’s schools, Fariña brought enormous credibility to the position, and helped to advance and defend reforms like the universal curriculum and the DOE’s plan to end social promotion. Yet she did not participate in planning meetings, or help to develop the "blueprint" reforms she was asked to execute and present to the public. And she was discouraged from going out to spend time in the schools. Instead, Fariña was expected to manage Teaching and Learning from her desk at Tweed Courthouse. (As a local superintendent, Fariña routinely visited four schools a week.) “To me, the only thing I can judge is what you can see in the classroom,” said Fariña, who retired in 2006. “Schools doing excellent work in class instruction don’t always see it reflected in their Report Card.” Her successor, Marcia Lyles, recently accepted a position as head of a small school district in Delaware, leading Klein to appoint his fifth Deputy Chancellor in seven years: Santiago Taveras, who is considered "interim." (Leaders at a Manhattan high school where Taveras once worked have spoken of his shortfalls in curriculum planning, even with “a great deal of support.”) 'Contempt for the profession' The DOE’s increasing focus on data management as an instructional tool, and as a tool to motivate and reward leadership, in the form of $25,000 bonuses for principals at the schools making the greatest gains on state standardized tests, means that teachers have become technicians, according to the founding principal of a highly regarded and high-performing elementary school in Manhattan. “Education is a communal effort – it’s a people business, it’s all about relationships. Data is one small piece of it,” said the principal. “The brightest college graduates” – the same students sought by Klein-favored teacher-training programs Teach for America and New York City Teaching Fellows – “don’t want to become teachers because it’s so scripted, so formulaic,” she added. “There’s too much structure; they’re expected to become technicians. Teachers want to be decision-makers, find the teachable moments, explore the big ideas. If you’re driven to follow someone else’s agenda, you’re not honoring the child. Eyes only on test scores means no eyes on the children.” “There’s not enough focus on access to good teaching,” said NYU’s Noguera. “Higher-order thinking, the ability to write well, the ability to read and analyze complex text. The real issue is how to make sure kids are getting good instruction. With pay pegged to [test] scores, the drive is to test prep. Assessment is a tool, not the solution.” The extent of the reforms, many say, is a direct reflection of the diminished role of educators in the upper echelons of the DOE. Consider the department’s endorsement of unconventional educator-training programs, for example, which one veteran high school principal says shows "contempt for the profession." Teach for America and the city's Teaching Fellows program both recruit top grads and career-changers and thrust them into the classroom while earning their Masters degrees in education. Many of these unorthodox recruits end up teaching only briefly, studies show, before going on to other career options. “The idea that teaching is charity work, where young people parachute in for two or three years – what does that do for children?” the principal asked. “They have no idea of the human relationships and of the community educators need,” said the Manhattan principal. “That’s not a business model. Business is about selling things, not about people.” “Klein’s vision of the public schools is not one of a lifetime career, where you work with children all your professional life,” says UFT Vice President Leo Casey. “It’s a Peace Corps mentality – you spend two years teaching, then you’re off to your ‘real’ career.” In fact, Klein himself did a brief stint as a math teacher, during a break from law school in 1969. He also has spoken out often on teaching reform – and recently shared with the New York Times his desire to “slowly, over time,” reduce the numbers of teachers by 30 percent, while raising teacher salary by 30 percent as well. (The teachers' contract will expire in October.) Klein recognized teachers as "welcome assets" to learning, but envisions an education world where students will “basically work it out on their own,” and where, in two or three decades, schools will be “a hybrid model where there is a physical school, a place where they go and have clubs and sports activities and drama, but then, for their academic course work, they might take most of it online.” “He is so enraptured with accountability, Report Cards, and driving the test scores up that he’s forgotten that the primal scene for all education reform is in the classroom,” said Manhattan Institute senior fellow Sol Stern, who writes frequently on local education. “It matters what you do in a classroom. Teacher quality and a curriculum stressing strong content knowledge are the keys to raising achievement.” Fewer teachers earning more may personify the business-efficiency model, but “teachers are not like lawyers or MBAs,” says Casey. “They’re not motivated by money or power. They want to make a difference in the lives of kids.” “Teachers are viewed by the chancellor as the problem, not the solution,” said a former Klein cabinet member. “He’s always been averse to having people with education experience around him. You don’t need teachers at the table to fix the school system.” But businesses have gone bust Mayor Bloomberg first took office in the city’s boom years, when business culture dominated. Now, as financial edifices topple daily, many ask whether the paradigm of competition, incentives, and free-market reform still pertains. “The Mayor’s alliances cross political lines, from corporate leaders, through the financial and publishing industries, real estate, insurance, technology. He relies on, and rewards, corporate leaders for education initiatives,” says one prominent scholar. “Why should we have such respect for the business model, given the chaos it’s created in the country at large?” “Bloomberg and Klein are geniuses at marketing their products,” says Stern, of the Manhattan Institute. “But then, so was Enron. If all these investment banks were cooking the books, it's becoming clearer to me that this is also happening in the education world.” “It is absolutely bizarre that the head of the DOE has no education background or experience,” said State Assembly Member Rory Lancman of Queens, sponsor of a bill to make the DOE a city agency subject to local laws, which do not now pertain to the mayorally-controlled entity. “No one would accept a police department head without a background in law enforcement. The Chancellorship should not be someone’s first job in education.” Klein’s long-term goal is a financial one, according to one veteran administrator: "Half the number of public schools, double the number of charter schools – there will be less people in pension plans, and less money spent per capita each time a charter school opens." “There is no other agency that’s so out of whack, in terms of who runs it and what the agency is for,” says State Senator Bill Perkins of Harlem, whose district has experienced conflict over the number of charter schools versus traditional public schools. “People with no credentials whatsoever regarding education are in charge of the system and telling people how it should be run.” - Helen Zelon Editor's Note: In preparing this article, City Limits spoke with former and current DOE staffers and cabinet members, former and current school principals, academics, and critics on the left and right of the political spectrum, nearly all of whom requested anonymity out of concern for possible detrimental consequences for speaking candidly on the record on a sensitive issue. “The incredible concentration of political and financial power leaves no room for dissent or difference,” said one person. Many expressed worry that their schools might suffer or their programs might be jeopardized, given the depth and reach of Bloomberg-funded civic and philanthropic projects citywide. The mayor’s broad and deep connections across political, financial, social and philanthropic networks limit comments to those kept off the record – and, critics say, strongly influence largely favorable coverage in the mainstream media. The DOE, despite prior verbal agreement to review and consider questions related to this article, declined comment, and would not address the near-universal desire for anonymity.
By DAN RING BOSTON - Facing fresh evidence of falling state revenues, Gov. Deval L. Patrick on Thursday submitted a new budget that further slashes local aid and other programs and nearly doubles the use of federal stimulus dollars to prevent even deeper reductions. Patrick's second budget, totaling $26.9 billion, closes an estimated $5.1 billion gap for the fiscal year starting July 1. On Jan. 28, Patrick filed a $27.9 billion budget that sought to eliminate a $3.5 billion hole. "This budget reflects the fact that revenues have continued to rapidly decline since we filed ... in January, forcing us to make another round of painful cuts," Patrick said in a prepared statement. Patrick's revised budget is less than the budgets approved by the House and the Senate last month. Patrick is calling for spending to drop by 4.5 percent from this year. The governor's budget doesn't include a hike in the sales tax approved by the House and the Senate, but has taxes that would be targeted for programs. As he did in January, Patrick urged approval of an expansion of the state's bottle deposit law to include water and certain juices, increases in taxes on restaurant meals and motel rooms to raise money for local aid and extending the state's sales tax to the sale of alcohol, candy and soda to generate money to promote efforts for improving health. Patrick's move comes as budget negotiators for the state House of Representatives and the Senate are set to meet for the first time Friday on Beacon Hill. Patrick called on legislators to adopt an order to consider his new spending plan in their negotiations. Sen. Stephen M. Brewer, D-Barre, said it's highly unlikely legislators will approve such an order. "If there are pieces of the governor's recommendations that are acceptable, we'll take a look at it," said Brewer. Legislators are attempting to send a compromise House-Senate budget to his desk by the start of the new fiscal year on July 1. During a press conference, Leslie A. Kirwan, secretary of administration and finance, reiterated that Patrick would veto an increase in the sales tax unless legislators first overhaul pensions, transportation and ethics in state government. Both the House and the Senate have voted to increase the state's sales tax by 1.25 percentage points to 6.25 percent. "The governor has been very firm in his demand that any broad-based tax increase be accompanied by significant and important reforms," Kirwan said. Before Patrick filed his new budget, the state Department of Revenue reported that state revenues in May plunged by $211 million, or 14 percent less than the same month a year ago. With only one month left in the fiscal year, total tax collections are down by $2.2 billion, or 11.5 percent less than the same period last year. Patrick closed the estimated $5.1 billion budget gap with $1.47 billion of federal stimulus aid, up from $711 million in his January plan, and $225 million from the state's rainy day fund, down from $489 million he proposed in January. He also calls for $2.4 billion in cuts, spending reductions and savings, $648 million raised from new taxes and $214 million in other measures such as canceling $150 million payment for school construction. While Patrick's new budget is replete with cuts, it also restores money for the state's Washington office and the governor's Western Massachusetts office on Dwight Street in Springfield. Both the House and the Senate killed funding for the Western Massachusetts office, meaning it could be closed in July. "The governor is dedicated to being the governor for the whole state," Kirwan said in explaining the decision to revive money for the Western Massachusetts office. Patrick reduced unrestricted local aid to $864.8 million, down 34 percent from the original amount for this year and down $73 million from his recommendation in his January budget. Patrick also abolished $50 million to reimburse cities and towns for the so-called Quinn bill, which provides salary increases to police officers who receive college degrees in law enforcement or similar areas. The governor also eliminated dental coverage for about 700,000 adults 21 and older who have MassHealth, the state's Medicaid program, or Commonwealth Care, a program that provides subsidized health care for low and moderate income people. He also restored money for state Commonwealth Care health insurance for 28,000 legal "special status" immigrants.
Vote on school assigning delayed
By James Vaznis Boston School Superintendent Carol R. Johnson and the School Committee agreed last night to wait several months before voting on changes in the way the district assigns students to schools, in a heated meeting that began with scores of protesters outside. Johnson said in an interview before the meeting that she is still committed to her proposal to shorten bus routes by scrapping the city's three sprawling school assignment zones in favor of five smaller geographic regions. But she also appeared receptive to change, saying she will analyze alternatives this summer that have been presented by residents and activists. The goal, she told the school board, is to deliver revised recommendations in the fall that with hope will appease public concern over equal access to quality schools. Those recommendations, she said, would include a detailed improvement plan for chronically underperforming schools along with a plan to pay for it. She will then follow up those recommendations in the winter with a multiyear strategy for implementation. Postponing the June 24 vote on the school zones follows months of controversy, including allegations that the proposal would lead to an inequitable distribution of potentially failing schools among the five zones, particularly in the neighborhoods of Roxbury and Dorchester. Concerns also have been raised about reduced access to popular programs, such as bilingual schools and advanced-work classes. The proposal was a response to Mayor Thomas M. Menino's directive last year to redraw the student assignment zones so $10 million can be eliminated from the district's skyrocketing transportation budget, which stands at about $76 million this year. As the city and the state grapple with a dire financial crisis, Johnson said yesterday that it is even more imperative that the school district find transportation savings, especially as multimillion-dollar budget cuts are shrinking programs and teaching staffs. "With limited resources we can't make the kinds of changes we need to make [to improve schools] if we continue to spend a disproportionate amount of money on operational departments as opposed to in the classrooms," she said. While critics welcomed the delay, many said they would not be satisfied until the proposal is dead. A contingent of parents, educators, school bus drivers, and elected city officials allege that the plan will resegregate the district because the racial and ethnic makeup vary greatly from one neighborhood to another. "It will revert things back to the way things were before the decision by Judge [W. Arthur] Garrity to institute busing," said Veronica Gross, a parent, referring to the judge who ordered the system to desegregate in the 1970s. About 200 adults and young children were bused from across the city to the school department's headquarters on Court Street last night. They joined a rally outside, holding signs bearing such messages as "Demand Equal Quality Education" and "No to Racism in Education." As they walked in a circle, a woman yelled through a megaphone, "The five-zone plan has got to go. Say No," while the crowd chanted back "Say no." Moriah Smith, the School Committee's student representative, addressed the racism allegations most directly in the meeting, stressing that the system wanted more money for teachers and school improvement. "Every parent and student deserves everything an education in Boston public schools can give them," she said, later adding, "We are not being racist or segregating your schools." She asked the crowd whether they would prefer more teachers or more teacher layoffs, which the superintendent had said would occur without busing savings. The crowd grew loud, disputing the assertion, prompting the School Committee chairman, the Rev. Gregory Groover, to calm the crowd. A police officer later arrived and stood behind the committee table. Controversy has been intensifying even after the ending of five community meetings last month. On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law of the Boston Bar Association delivered a report opposing the proposal, arguing it would "exacerbate existing and already troubling inequalities rather than reduce them." The report followed a Globe article this winter that revealed how two proposed zones that encompass many poor neighborhoods would have a disproportionate share of schools requiring overhauls under federal law. Last night marked the second delay of a vote and the first time the School Committee was supposed to formally voice their opinions. "The good news," Groover said, "is we have a golden opportunity in the next few months to get it right."
June 1, 2009 A NEW STUDY marking 15 years of education reform points to tough challenges in cities and towns with burgeoning enrollments of low-income students and those lacking English skills. It's a sobering report. But it's not intimidating. Education reform in Massachusetts has always been focused on elevating students in hardscrabble communities. Lawmakers understood in 1993 that students in Chelsea, Lawrence, Holyoke, and other poor cities couldn't compete for academic honors with their suburban counterparts. But the Legislature could equalize average spending per student and ensure that every school district had sufficient resources to implement the state's new academic standards. Fifteen years later, the study, by the think tank MassINC, finds that an achievement gap still exists between middle-class and low-income students. But the authors conclude that the gap would be wider without education reform. And many students in poor communities hold their own in a state that leads the country in performance on national standardized tests. Given the low starting points in the early 1990s, the impact of education reform in poor communities has been nothing short of "striking," says the report. Last year, 74 percent of African-American 10th-graders passed the high-stakes MCAS exam in math and English on their first try, compared with just 37 percent in 2001. Public education remains one bright spot in a state where so many are frustrated by weaknesses in other systems, from pensions to the MBTA. The study notes sharp increases over the past 15 years in the number of low-income students in Randolph, Everett, Brockton, and other communities increasingly abandoned by the middle class. Immigrant students with limited English skills take the empty seats. But the arrival of newcomers with lower incomes doesn't have to translate into poorly performing schools. For example, smart school systems recruit internationally for teachers capable of working interchangeably in English and a foreign language. And smart lawmakers will provide funding for such efforts. The strategies to improve student achievement in poor communities are largely understood. Unknown is whether today's lawmakers will show the same resolve as their earlier counterparts who committed at least $1 billion in additional funding each year for K-12 education. Extending the school day with academic and enrichment programs works wonders in low-income schools. But the state Senate's current budget plan shortchanges that effort. The state still needs an incentive plan that places the most effective teachers in low-income districts. And teachers unions need to drop their outmoded resistance to merit pay for top teachers. In a soft economy, the kids aren't getting any richer. But they can get smarter.
June 2, 2009 Educators Say that Singing in a Choir Can Enhance Academic Success and Social Development in Students That’s good news because singing in one of the 270,000 choruses in the U.S., such as a community chorus or a school or church choir, is strongly correlated with qualities that are associated with success throughout life, the study finds. Greater civic involvement, discipline, and teamwork are just a few of the attributes fostered by singing with a choral ensemble. Chorus America first evaluated the benefits of choral singing and its impact on communities in a 2003 study. The results from this latest research support and advance earlier findings that choral singers exhibit increased social skills, civic involvement, volunteerism, philanthropy, and support of other art forms, when compared with non-singers. “The prototype of a choral singer is how Americans aspire to see themselves today: as active, involved citizens with a broad range of creative interests and concerns for their communities,” says Ann Meier Baker, the President and CEO of Chorus America. Adults who sing are remarkably good citizens.
The 2009 study included a new component that explicitly examined the effects choral singing has on childhood development. The results show children who sing in choirs display many of the enhanced social skills found in adult singers, substantiating earlier conclusions that singing in childhood is likely to have an enormous influence on the choices individuals make later in life. Additionally, both parents and educators attribute a significant proportion of a child's academic success to singing in a choir. Children who sing in choruses have academic success and valuable life skills. Several of the study's major findings for young singers include:
The decline in choral singing opportunities for children is of concern. A conclusion of the 2003 study was that choral singing is an accessible entry point for arts exposure, with fewer barriers—economic, cultural, and educational—than posed by other art forms. This is still true today, suggesting that the decrease in choral singing opportunities in schools and communities is a missed opportunity for bolstering student achievement and engagement in their schools. “The data in this report suggests that it would be a mistake not to leverage the benefits that choruses bring to children, adults, and the communities they serve,” observes Todd Estabrook, Chairman of Chorus America. “Simply put, if you’re searching for a group of talented, engaged, and generous community members, you would do well to start with a chorus.” A large percentage of the American population appears to be drawn to choral singing and the desire to participate in the communal expression, creation, and performance of beautiful music. Whatever motivates choral singers to sing, the data indicates that choral singing is a thriving and growing form of artistic expression in America, and can be acknowledged not just for providing great musical performances, but for advancing many of the positive qualities associated with success in life both for children and adults. Chorus America’s mission is to build a dynamic and inclusive choral community so that more people are transformed by the beauty and power of choral singing. Chorus America strengthens choral organizations and provides their leaders with information, research, leadership development, professional training, and advocacy to help them deliver the best possible contributions to their communities and to the choral art. Chorus America provides invaluable news, resources, and expertise delivered in myriad accessible ways, and its programs bring professionals and volunteers together to learn and collaborate in a friendly, supportive environment that promotes networking, information exchange, and shared goals. Chorus America speaks with a strong and unified voice to increase recognition of choral singing as an essential part of society. More than 1,600 choruses, individuals, arts organizations, and businesses are members of Chorus America. The 2009 Chorus Impact Study was produced with funding support from The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, an anonymous donor, and The National Endowment for the Arts. The full report and an executive summary are available online at www.chorusamerica.org.
June 3, 2009 – Newark, NJ The Education Law Center (ELC) is calling on Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to reject New Jersey’s application for federal education stimulus funding because the State does not propose to fund increases and “equity and adequacy” adjustments in its new school funding formula. New Jersey’s amended application is dated May 28, 2009, and requests an initial allocation of State Fiscal Stabilization Funds under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Today, ELC sent Secretary Duncan a letter detailing defects in the State application. “The ARRA is quite clear on how stabilization funds are to be used for fiscal years 2009 to 2011,” said David Sciarra, ELC Executive Director and author of the letter to Secretary Duncan. “New Jersey does not intend to fund state funding formula increases, including ‘equity and adequacy adjustments,’ as the ARRA requires.” In an earlier letter to Governor Jon Corzine, ELC noted that the proposed state budget for FY2010 does not fully fund the School Funding Reform Act (SFRA), the State’s school aid formula enacted in January 2008. The under-funding of formulas enacted prior to October 1, 2008, is contrary to express provisions of the ARRA. The letter to Secretary Duncan also notes that, according to New Jersey’s application, the state plans to spend almost 80% of its stabilization funds in FY2010, “leaving only $239.5 million to address formula funding in FY2011.” “Most importantly, the State’s application provides no assurance, or any other information, on how New Jersey will meet the formula funding requirements of ARRA in 2011,” Sciarra writes, “particularly when the SFRA will generate further equity and adequacy increases for New Jersey’s at-risk students and school districts.” ELC also notes that the State’s application contradicts the May 28 NJ Supreme Court decision in the landmark Abbott v. Burke litigation. This decision allowed the State to implement the SFRA, but conditioned on full funding of the formula. The Court noted that federal stabilization dollars provide a “substantial cushion” to allow the State to fund the SFRA formula through 2011. Read the full text of the ELC letter to Secretary Duncan and New Jersey’s May 21, 2009, ARRA Application and May 28, 2009, Amended Application.
On June 2, 2009, the CAYL Institute hosted a "Statewide Open House Day for Family Child Care Programs" from 10 AM - Noon. Massachusetts families, advocates, and legislators are invited to visit high quality, exemplary family child care providers in action across the Commonwealth.
Dr. Sherri Killins, Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care Commissioner, visited the Funtimes Family Child Care in Watertown (pictured).
State Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz spent the morning with a family child care program in Jamaica Plain (pictured).
For more information, background materials, and photos and video (coming soon), please visit: http://cayl.org/fccpolicyforum The Policy Forum is sponsored by the Nellie Mae Education Foundation and the Schott Foundation for Public Education.
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The Snap Schott is distributed by the Schott Foundation for Public Education. For more information, please visit www.schottfoundation.org. |
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