Schools race to bottom
NOT so long ago in New York, teacher evaluations were the hottest button in public education. Gov. Cuomo was the chief proponent, arguing that up to 50 percent of teachers’ grades should be based on how well their students did on standardized tests.
These days, nobody, including Cuomo, even talks about teacher evaluations. Instead, thanks largely to Mayor de Blasio and his chancellor, Richard Carranza, (pictured) racial quotas are the new hottest button.
As Carranza recently declared at Al Sharpton’s headquarters, “We’re not about improving the system. We’re about changing the system.”
The implications involved in this change of focus are enormous. Most important, the results of imposing a radical race-based social-justice experiment on schools could be tragic for thousands of children and their families.
The concept of linking teacher evaluations to student performance was a reform idea of its time pushed by then-Mayor Bloomberg and others who were searching for ways to measure the impact of good and bad teachers. It was aimed primarily at improving failing schools in the poorest neighborhoods because many were dumping grounds for the worst teachers.
A linkage between teacher quality and student outcome is such a no-brainer that it quickly went mainstream. President Barack Obama’s administration supported it, despite the fact that he and other Democrats counted on the political backing of teacher unions.
The unions fought back. Constant in their commitment to pro- tect every teacher from firing, including those facing serious criminal charges, they wanted to keep the lopsided system where virtually every teacher was rated “acceptable” even when as few as 15 percent of students were reading at grade level.
The unions succeeded when the entire political establishment of both parties surrendered. Teacher evaluations and student performance are now effectively seen as separate issues in New York.
The one thing that hasn’t changed is the student performance gap between racial and ethnic groups. A report last year from the city’s Independent Budget Office that followed 71,000 students starting in 2008 found that black and Latino students started third grade behind in math and reading comprehension, and the gap grew by the time they reached eighth grade.
And the dismal results released last week from state tests showed a similar pattern, with just 30 percent of Latino students and 25 percent of black students proficient in math in grades 3 through 8. Asians and whites average about 70 percent in English and 65 percent in math.
In short, little has changed — except de Blasio and Carranza are giving up on helping failing students and fixing failing schools in favor of blaming everything on racism, including test results. It certainly makes their jobs easier and helps them with their progressive pals.
It is also cruel to both good and bad students. Depending on the program, from one-quarter to one-half of the seats at some highly ranked schools will be reserved for failing students.
That means some good students will be denied the best schools. It also means students who are the least prepared will be thrust into the best schools.
Race, ethnicity and lotteries will replace merit in many cases.
Those failing students who get plunked into Stuyvesant or Bronx Science high schools will have little chance of succeeding because they are simply too far behind to catch up to their classmates. While there will be some exceptions, most of those students are likelyikely to fail.
There is, of course, another option:ion: charters. Most specifically, Successuccess Academies, which again posted extraordinary scores in thehe latest state exams.
With the city averaging 46.7 percent proficiency in English andnd 42.7 percent in math, Success studentstudents scored 91 percent in English and 98 percent in math.
About 93 percent of those studentsdents are nonwhite, proving that “children from all backgrounds canan achieve exceptional results when given access to great schools.”chools.”
That’s how Eva Moskowitz describedcribed the results. She’s the CEO and founder of Suc-Successess Academies, which now operates 47 schools with 17,0007,000 students, andnd should be thehe chancellor.
Year in, year out,ut, her re-resultsults prove thathat the slowlow start off at-risk students can be overcome and the racial and ethnic achievement gaps can be erased.
She is also proving that de Blasio and Carranza are headed in the wrong direction, one that will be a dead end for education. Nonetheless, they will go on with their racial bean counting because, in an upside-down world, it’s a good career move for them.
Parents and children are out of luck.