The Death and Life of the great American School System

Chapter 2

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Fourth, the mayor promised there would be greater parental involvement in the schools, but the new structure actually reduced parental involvement. With the elimination of local school boards and the central board, where each of the city"s five boroughs had a representative, parents found it difficult to contact anyone in authority about issues that affected their children. Local community education councils made up of parents replaced the community school boards in each district, but they were seldom, if ever, consulted about decisions that affected schools in their communities. Many parents became frustrated by their inability to influence decisions that affected their children or their school. Klein directed princ.i.p.als to hire a parent coordinator, but the coordinators worked for the princ.i.p.al, not for parents.

The reorganization was a corporate model of tightly centralized, hierarchical, top-down control, with all decisions made at Tweed and strict supervision of every cla.s.sroom to make sure the orders flowing from headquarters were precisely implemented. The general perception was that the mayor planned to run the school system like a business, with standard operating procedures across the system. Klein surrounded himself with noneducators, most of whom were lawyers, management consultants, and business school graduates. Many of the young aides to the chancellor were only a few years out of college or graduate school and had no experience in education but received six-figure salaries.9 The Children First reforms were introduced into the public schools in the fall of 2003. The mandated pedagogy was soon immersed in controversy. Many teachers complained of micromanagement, since they had to follow the new directives about how to teach even if they had been successful with different methods. They resented their supervisors" close scrutiny of bulletin boards in cla.s.srooms and hallways, as well as the requirement that elementary cla.s.srooms be equipped with a rug and a rocking chair, which were aspects of the Balanced Literacy approach.10 Despite frequent references by the mayor and the chancellor to a citywide uniform curriculum, there was no uniform curriculum, except in mathematics. Minimal attention was paid to science, history, literature, geography, civics, the arts, or other subjects. Instead, Tweed mandated a citywide pedagogy, which imposed a rigid orthodoxy about how how to teach. Eventually, in response to complaints from parents and civic groups about the lack of attention to non-tested subjects, the DOE developed a curriculum in science and in the arts, but the schools were held accountable only for test scores in reading and math. to teach. Eventually, in response to complaints from parents and civic groups about the lack of attention to non-tested subjects, the DOE developed a curriculum in science and in the arts, but the schools were held accountable only for test scores in reading and math.

The first major controversy for the Bloomberg administration occurred because of its choice of reading program. When the DOE mandated Balanced Literacy as its single method of teaching reading, seven prominent reading researchers from local universities wrote a private letter to Klein, warning that he had made a mistake. They counseled that this method was unproven and unlikely to succeed, especially with the neediest children. He replied a week later by releasing a letter in support of his choice, signed by one hundred education professors; the lead signatory to the letter was Lucy Calkins, a professor at Teachers College who would later receive large contracts from the DOE to train thousands of teachers in her reading methods and the Teachers College "workshop model."11 At the mayor"s insistence, a school was opened on the ground floor of the Tweed Courthouse, the headquarters of the Department of Education. The mayor believed that having children in their midst would remind the administrators why they were there. The DOE spent $7.5 million to create cla.s.srooms in its building. Called City Hall Academy, the school was not large enough to be a real school. Instead, groups of about one hundred students rotated in for a two-week period to study the city and then return to their regular school.

In the spring of 2006, the chancellor decided to reshuffle the school system yet again. The initial reorganization-with its ten tightly managed regions-included a pilot program for twenty-six schools (mostly small high schools)-called the "autonomy zone," where the schools agreed to meet performance goals in exchange for a modic.u.m of freedom from the system"s mandates. Now Klein invited additional princ.i.p.als to escape the micromanagement of the ten regions he had established and join this autonomy zone, which he renamed the "empowerment zone." About a quarter, or 350, of the city"s schools applied, and 331 were admitted. This was a prelude to even bigger changes.

A year later, in 2007, Klein launched another reorganization of the school system, the third in four years. He declared his earlier program of tight centralization a success, abolished the regions, and eliminated all direct supervision of the schools. Superintendents retained their t.i.tles but were not expected to visit schools unless directed to do so by the chancellor or in response to falling test scores. There was no public discussion or review of the sweeping changes in school governance. It was announced and done. To accomplish this reorganization, Klein relied on outside consultants, including Sir Michael Barber of England and the corporate restructuring firm of Alvarez & Marsal. Barber, who had been a key adviser to the government of Tony Blair in Britain, urged a strategy of top-down accountability, plus market reforms that included choice, compet.i.tion, school autonomy, and incentives. Alvarez & Marsal had previously managed the troubled St. Louis public school system, collected a $5 million fee, and decamped not long before the system was declared a failure and taken over by the state of Missouri.

In the new order, all princ.i.p.als would be "empowered" to take responsibility for their schools, which were part of a community district in name only. Every school would be "autonomous." The princ.i.p.als were directed either to affiliate with an internal or external "support organization," which would provide services to schools but not supervise them, or to join the empowerment zone, where no one would supervise them. Most princ.i.p.als chose to join support organizations led by experienced educators, while others joined with private agencies like New Visions for Public Schools or the City University of New York. Of course, the schools were not really autonomous, because Tweed still determined the examination schedule, still administered interim a.s.sessments, still controlled personnel policy, still issued detailed rules and regulations, still controlled admissions procedures, and still imposed mandates that affected daily life in every school. Moreover, after three intensive years of professional development devoted to the compulsory reading and mathematics programs of the first reorganization, few schools were willing or able to exercise autonomy on matters of curriculum and instruction.

The major decisions of the school system that affected children"s lives were made at headquarters. For example, the DOE gave a $15.8 million no-bid contract for eighteen months to Alvarez & Marsal to devise cost-cutting measures. A&M executives rearranged the school system"s bus routes in January 2007, with disastrous consequences. Thousands of children were stranded without transportation to school during the coldest days of the year. Children as young as five were suddenly ineligible for school bus service and told to take a public bus; siblings were sent to different bus stops. The resulting confusion was not only a major embarra.s.sment for the DOE, but one of the rare occasions when Tweed was criticized by the city"s tabloid press.12 After the 2007 reorganization of the school system, no school-level supervision was needed, because the Department of Education intended to judge every school solely by its results-that is, whether it raised test scores. In 2003, Tweed thought it could get higher scores by micromanaging the schools. By 2007, administration officials decided they could get better results by replacing supervision with a tightly aligned accountability program of incentives and sanctions. At headquarters, new job t.i.tles proliferated, mimicking t.i.tles in the corporate sector. Instead of superintendents and deputy superintendents, there was a "chief accountability officer," a "chief knowledge officer," a "chief talent officer," a "chief portfolio officer," "senior achievement facilitators," and other corporate-sounding t.i.tles; most high-level officials at the DOE were noneducators.13 Large contracts were awarded to companies that specialized in test-preparation activities, such as Princeton Review and Kaplan Learning. Beginning in September each year, the elementary and middle schools dedicated large blocks of time to practice for the state tests that were administered in January and March. Once the tests were finished, there was time for other subjects, but it was difficult to maintain the same level of student motivation, because teachers and students knew the tests were the primary measures of their success or failure.

Test scores in reading and mathematics became the be-all and end-all of public education in grades three through eight. Reading and mathematics were the only subjects that mattered, because they were the only subjects that counted for city, state, and federal accountability. In 2005, the National a.s.sessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) survey of science found that two-thirds of New York City"s eighth-grade students were "below basic," the lowest possible ranking. Arts education suffered too. When the system was reorganized in 2007, Tweed eliminated a program that earmarked $67.5 million specifically for arts education, and the funds were released to the schools as discretionary. An official DOE survey of the arts in the schools in 2008 revealed that only 4 percent of the city"s elementary schools met the state"s requirements for arts education. By 2009, nearly a third of the schools had no arts teachers.14 Because accountability was restricted only to reading and mathematics, there was little reason for elementary and middle schools to pay much attention to subjects that did not count, such as the arts, physical education, science, history, and civics. Because accountability was restricted only to reading and mathematics, there was little reason for elementary and middle schools to pay much attention to subjects that did not count, such as the arts, physical education, science, history, and civics.

The Bloomberg-Klein reforms were part of the national zeitgeist. They embodied the same ideas as the federal No Child Left Behind legislation. The principles behind them-test-based accountability and choice-were exactly the same. Children First was the New York City version of No Child Left Behind, in spirit and in practice. The basic idea shared by Mayor Bloomberg in New York City and the George W. Bush administration and Congress was that a relentless focus on testing and accountability would improve the schools. Schools that failed to produce higher scores would suffer increasingly severe sanctions, their princ.i.p.als might be fired, and the schools might be closed. After the pa.s.sage of No Child Left Behind, President Bush saw the modest score gains on national tests as a major element in his legacy. Similarly, Mayor Bloomberg wanted to prove that his stewardship of the schools had produced dramatic results.

Although I initially supported the mayor"s takeover of the schools, I was increasingly disturbed by the lack of any public forum to question executive decisions and by the elimination of all checks and balances on executive power. In the spring of 2004, I joined with Randi Weingarten, president of the New York City United Federation of Teachers, to write an opinion piece in the New York Times New York Times decrying the autocratic nature of the school system. We said that under this new system, the public had been left out of public education. decrying the autocratic nature of the school system. We said that under this new system, the public had been left out of public education.15 It is true that decisions can be made more quickly when only one person is in charge of the schools. The mayor and chancellor staunchly maintained that any attempt by the state legislature to erode the mayor"s total authority over the schools or to reestablish an independent board-especially one where members had fixed terms-would destroy mayoral control. Chancellor Klein told a legislative hearing, "If you have divided authority, what you have is no one in charge. An independent board would return this city to the politics of paralysis."16 However, school reform without public oversight or review is contrary to basic democratic principles. In a democracy, every public agency is subject to scrutiny. Removing all checks and balances may promote speed, but it undermines the credibility and legitimacy of decisions, and it eliminates the kind of review that catches major mistakes before it is too late. While Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein are men of integrity, unchecked power in the wrong hands can facilitate corruption and malfeasance. Even officials of the highest integrity must be subject to checks and balances to ensure that they listen to those they serve. However, school reform without public oversight or review is contrary to basic democratic principles. In a democracy, every public agency is subject to scrutiny. Removing all checks and balances may promote speed, but it undermines the credibility and legitimacy of decisions, and it eliminates the kind of review that catches major mistakes before it is too late. While Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein are men of integrity, unchecked power in the wrong hands can facilitate corruption and malfeasance. Even officials of the highest integrity must be subject to checks and balances to ensure that they listen to those they serve.

The need for checks and balances surely occurred to the state legislature when it changed the legislation in 2002, because it preserved a board of education in the law, giving the mayor the power to appoint eight of its thirteen members, while the borough presidents appointed the other five. Mayor Bloomberg treated the board as an advisory group whose advice he never sought. The old Board of Education had been a powerful body, with the power to hire the chancellor, to veto his decisions, and to fire him. But the new Panel for Educational Policy was a rubber stamp for the mayor and chancellor.

Only on one occasion, in March 2004, did the panel presume to disagree with the mayor, over the issue of social promotion, the practice of promoting children to the next grade even if they have not mastered the skills and knowledge that they need to succeed in the next grade. When the mayor wanted to end social promotion in third grade, some members of the panel expressed their concern about the hasty adoption of this policy and the lack of planning to help children who were retained; on the day of the vote, the mayor fired two of his appointees and engineered the dismissal of a third, guaranteeing pa.s.sage of his proposal. The media called that evening the "Monday Night Ma.s.sacre." After the meeting, Bloomberg defended his actions. He said, "Mayoral control means mayoral control, thank you very much. They are my representatives, and they are going to vote for things that I believe in." The members of the panel appointed by the mayor never again objected to any mayoral priority.17 Over the next few years, the DOE ended social promotion not only in grade three, but also in grades five, seven, and eight, and eventually in all grades. However, the number of children actually left back under the new retention policy didn"t change from what was customary in the past. Surprisingly, even fewer students were retained than in the past. A 2009 study of the city"s small high schools by Clara Hemphill and Kim Nauer reported that "a huge proportion of students arrive in ninth grade with the skills that are two, three or even four years below grade level," an observation that raises questions about whether social promotion ever really ended.18 As it happened, the city"s policy of ending social promotion converged with the state"s unannounced decision to make it easier for students to reach level 2 on state tests between 2006 and 2009. The city used the results of the state tests to determine which students should be held back; any student scoring at level 1, the very bottom, was supposed to be retained. The state began annual testing of grades three through eight in 2006 (previously it had tested only grades four and eight).

In 2006, significant numbers of New York City students scored at level 1 and were subject to retention. By 2009, very few students were at level 1. The number of students at level 1 dropped so low that level 1 could hardly be considered a performance level. In 2006, 70,090 students in grades three through eight were at level 1 in mathematics; by 2009, that number had fallen to 14,305. In reading, the number of level 1 students fell from 46,085 to 11,755. In seventh-grade math, 18.8 percent were at level 1 in 2006, but by 2009, only 2.1 percent were. In sixth-grade reading, 10.1 percent were at level 1 in 2006, but by 2009, only 0.2 percent were.19 Why did the number of students at level 1 plummet? Because the state lowered the bar and made it easier for students to reach level 2. On the sixth-grade reading test in 2006, students needed to earn 41 percent of the points to attain level 2; by 2009, students in that grade needed only 17.9 percent. In seventh-grade math, students needed to earn 36.2 percent of the points on the test to advance to level 2 in 2006, but by 2009, they needed to earn only 22 percent. The standards to advance from level 1 to level 2 dropped so low that many students could get enough correct answers to pa.s.s to level 2 by randomly guessing.20 So, while public declarations about ending social promotion sounded good in theory, in practice there was no change from before. Thanks to the state"s lowering of standards on its tests, it became easier for students to earn the score necessary to escape level 1. In the meantime, parents grew angry because their concerns were ignored. The "Monday Night Ma.s.sacre"-when social promotion was allegedly ended-spurred a parent rebellion against the mayor and the chancellor. Parents realized that there was no public forum in which their views would be heard or heeded.

Parent activists regularly expressed their frustration on the New York City Public School Parents"blog.21 There, parents complained about overcrowding, large cla.s.ses, the expansion of charter schools into public school facilities, the excessive time devoted to testing, profligate spending by Tweed, no-bid contracts, and changes in the policies governing the admission of children to kindergarten, gifted programs, middle schools, and high schools. Parent groups such as Cla.s.s Size Matters, the Chancellor"s Parent Advisory Council, the Coalition for Educational Justice, the Campaign for Better Schools, and community education councils (which were composed of parent leaders) wanted a greater voice in how the schools were run. But no one was listening. There, parents complained about overcrowding, large cla.s.ses, the expansion of charter schools into public school facilities, the excessive time devoted to testing, profligate spending by Tweed, no-bid contracts, and changes in the policies governing the admission of children to kindergarten, gifted programs, middle schools, and high schools. Parent groups such as Cla.s.s Size Matters, the Chancellor"s Parent Advisory Council, the Coalition for Educational Justice, the Campaign for Better Schools, and community education councils (which were composed of parent leaders) wanted a greater voice in how the schools were run. But no one was listening.

When mayoral control of the schools was set to expire in 2009, it was parent groups that were most vociferous in seeking limits on the mayor"s power to control the schools. But the mayor lined up overwhelming political support for continuing his control of the public schools, financed in part by millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation.22 The only group that might have stymied his goal was the United Federation of Teachers. More than 80 percent of its membership expressed strong disapproval of the mayor"s and chancellor"s approach in a poll taken in June 2008. But the union leadership was grateful to the mayor, because he had awarded the teachers a 43 percent salary increase and a generous boost to their pensions. Randi Weingarten, the union"s president, endorsed continuation of mayoral control. Despite the protests of parent groups and objections by state senators largely from minority communities, the state legislature renewed the mayor"s grant of power in 2009. The only group that might have stymied his goal was the United Federation of Teachers. More than 80 percent of its membership expressed strong disapproval of the mayor"s and chancellor"s approach in a poll taken in June 2008. But the union leadership was grateful to the mayor, because he had awarded the teachers a 43 percent salary increase and a generous boost to their pensions. Randi Weingarten, the union"s president, endorsed continuation of mayoral control. Despite the protests of parent groups and objections by state senators largely from minority communities, the state legislature renewed the mayor"s grant of power in 2009.23

THE ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT of the Children First agenda made only a pa.s.sing reference to charter schools, but they emerged as one of the administration"s signature initiatives. Charter schools are privately managed but receive public funding. Previous leaders of the school system had opposed charter schools, believing that they would drain away students and money from the regular public schools. The city had only a few of them when Klein took office. He energetically authorized new charter schools, and within a few years, the DOE reached the state-legislated cap of fifty charter schools. In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg persuaded the legislature and newly elected Governor Eliot Spitzer to permit New York City to open an additional fifty charter schools. During his reelection campaign in 2009, he promised to open another one hundred new charter schools, so that by 2013, 100,000 students would be in charters.

Once Tweed embraced charter schools, they received priority treatment. The chancellor placed many charter schools into regular public school buildings, taking cla.s.srooms and facilities away from the host schools and igniting bitter fights with the regular schools" parent a.s.sociations. In 2006, when Courtney Sale Ross, widow of Steve Ross, chairman of Time Warner, proposed to open a charter school, the DOE offered her s.p.a.ce in a successful public school for gifted children on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, called NEST+M (New Explorations in Science, Technology, and Mathematics). However, the school"s parent a.s.sociation led a noisy public fight against inserting the Ross Global Charter Academy into its building. Eventually Chancellor Klein abandoned his efforts to put the charter school into the NEST+M building. Instead, he ousted the celebrated City Hall Academy from the bas.e.m.e.nt of Tweed, relocated it to Harlem, and gave the coveted s.p.a.ce to Courtney Sale Ross"s charter school. City Hall Academy was quietly closed in 2007, and the Ross Global Charter Academy eventually moved to larger quarters.24 Klein frequently celebrated the successes of charter schools, appeared at their celebrations to praise them, and hailed them as superior to the regular public schools over which he presided. In announcing the authorization of additional charter schools in 2009, Klein said, "Charter school students" achievements are proof that all students can succeed given the right opportunity. I am thrilled that these additional charter schools will enable even more families to choose the rigorous education that these schools provide."25 He did not consider his comments to be a negative reflection on his stewardship of the regular public schools, whose test scores did not match those of the charters. Compared to regular public schools, the charter schools typically had smaller cla.s.ses and more resources, especially if they had philanthropic sponsors. He did not consider his comments to be a negative reflection on his stewardship of the regular public schools, whose test scores did not match those of the charters. Compared to regular public schools, the charter schools typically had smaller cla.s.ses and more resources, especially if they had philanthropic sponsors.

Most charter schools were located in low-income neighborhoods, and their students were chosen by lottery. Critics complained that they were "enrolling only the best students and ignoring disadvantaged populations," since only the most motivated students were likely to apply for admission to a charter school. A state-funded group that advocates for the rights of homeless students complained that homeless families were shut out of charter schools, because they had difficulty meeting the deadlines and following through with the application process. Of 51,316 public school students in the city who were homeless, only 111 were enrolled in charter schools. In one impoverished neighborhood, where there were nine homeless shelters, the Achievement First East New York Charter School did not enroll a single homeless student.26 Another strategy the DOE enthusiastically embraced was small high schools. When the DOE was established, the system had about one hundred large high schools, some with enrollments as large as 3,000 to 5,000 students. It also had about seventy-five small high schools that had been created during the 1990s as part of the progressive small-school movement led by innovative educator Deborah Meier. Many of the large high schools boasted historic traditions as portals for immigrant children. They enrolled significant numbers of students who spoke little or no English and came from impoverished circ.u.mstances. Many of these high schools were extremely low-functioning, and in the era of high expectations, they were notable mainly for overcrowding, large cla.s.s sizes, poor attendance rates, and low graduation rates, as well as their deteriorated physical condition. It was not clear whether their low performance was due to their size, the learning problems of their students, the extreme poverty of the families they served, their instructional programs, their leadership, or neglect by central authorities.

Within the s.p.a.ce of a few years, Chancellor Klein had closed nearly two dozen of the city"s large high schools and opened two hundred new small high schools, funded by hundreds of millions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, and the Open Society Inst.i.tute. By 2009, these schools enrolled about 25 percent of the city"s high school pupils. The DOE reported that graduation rates and attendance rates were higher in these schools than in the large high schools they replaced. However, the new small high schools were permitted in their first two years to admit smaller proportions of special education students and English-language learners, as compared to large high schools; this contributed to their improved outcomes.27 The Department of Education clearly favored the small high schools it had created, and looked on the large high schools as relics. As small schools multiplied, the large high schools became more overcrowded and enrolled disproportionate shares of students with high needs. The more the large high schools struggled, the more they became candidates for closure. In 2009, the study by Hemphill and Nauer found that the small high schools eventually enrolled "roughly the same proportion of students" who were at risk of dropping out as other high schools; after a few years of operation, as their student population came to resemble those in other schools, their initially stellar attendance rates and graduation rates declined. The small schools, the authors said, experienced high teacher turnover and princ.i.p.al turnover-in some schools, nearly half the teachers quit in a one-year period, as did nearly half the 124 princ.i.p.als hired for the first group of small high schools. As compared to students in the large high schools, students in the small high schools were far more likely to receive a local diploma (which represents the bare minimum of state requirements) than a Regents diploma (which requires the student to pa.s.s five state examinations).

The small high schools, said Hemphill and Nauer, have strengths but also "significant limitations," including their inability to provide special education services, support for English-language learners, an array of courses in music and the arts, extracurricular and sports programs, advanced courses, and vocational programs. Nor did choice serve all children well. The authors noted that many thirteen-year-olds might lack the "good judgment or activist parents" to make wise decisions, and school officials routinely rejected requests to transfer once a choice was made. Hemphill and Nauer pointed out that "the gains for students at the small schools came at the expense of other students, some of whom were even needier than those who attended the new small schools." The authors concluded that "the small high schools are no panacea," and "school choice, by itself, won"t improve schools."28 A typical student entering ninth grade could choose from about one hundred high schools in his or her borough. Citywide, he could choose from more than four hundred high schools. Most of the new small schools were theme schools, centered on a specific profession or specialty. This produced some offbeat results, such as a high school for future firefighters; a school for the hospitality industry; a school for urban planners; a school for architecture; a school for the business of sports; a school for the violin; several schools for social justice, peace, and diversity; and other schools for the health professions, writers, leaders, the arts, law, technology, communications, journalism, and media. Adults like the idea of themes, but few children starting ninth grade are prepared to select a profession or career specialty.

As it elevated the concept of school choice, the Department of Education destroyed the concept of neighborhood high schools. Getting into the high school of one"s choice became as stressful as getting into the college of one"s choice. Should students apply to the school for peace and justice or the school for law or the school for stagecraft? Students were expected to list their top twelve preferences. Most got into one of the twelve, but thousands got into none at all. Neighborhoods were once knitted together by a familiar local high school that served all the children of the community, a school with distinctive traditions and teams and history. After the neighborhood high school closed, children scattered across the city in response to the lure of new, unknown small schools with catchy names or were a.s.signed to schools far from home. Hemphill and Nauer found that some students traveled up to ninety minutes to get to school each day. At Harry S. Truman High School, which is part of the nation"s largest residential development-Co-op City in the Bronx-with 55,000 residents, only 5 percent of its students live in Co-op City; 45 percent of its freshmen commute more than forty-five minutes to get there.29 Meanwhile, a sad story was acted out in one high school after another. As a high school for 3,000 students was closed down, it would be replaced by four or five small schools for 500 students. What happened to the missing students? Invariably, they were the lowest-performing, least motivated students, who were somehow pa.s.sed over by the new schools, who did not want kids like them to depress the school"s all-important scores. These troublesome students were relegated to another large high school, where their enrollment instigated a spiral of failure, dissolution, and closing. The DOE set into motion a process that acted like a computer virus in the large high schools. As each one closed, its least desirable students were shunted off into yet another large high school, starting a death watch for the receiving school.30 After the DOE turned to autonomy and choice as its main initiatives, it lost interest in the instructional reforms of 2003. The unifying idea of the new reform agenda was accountability. The DOE introduced a program of rating and evaluating every school. It surveyed parents, teachers, and students about their satisfaction with their school and their princ.i.p.al. The surveys usually revealed high levels of satisfaction because everyone knew the ratings would affect their school"s grade, its status, its potential bonuses, even its survival. The DOE hired a group of British educators to perform quality reviews of every school, but these reviews did not count in the school"s grade. Soon, everyone was rating and grading and evaluating everyone else, but little attention was given to helping schools do a better job. The bottom line of accountability was rewards (for higher scores) and sanctions (for not getting higher scores). The DOE offered incentives to improve test scores: There were bonuses for princ.i.p.als and teachers if their school"s scores went up, and there was even a pilot program to pay students to raise their test scores.

In 2007, the mayor negotiated an agreement with the United Federation of Teachers to award schoolwide bonuses to teachers in about two hundred schools if their school"s scores went up; he called it "merit pay," but the union insisted it was not. Merit pay, said the union, set teacher against teacher in a compet.i.tion for dollars. In a merit pay school, Ms. Smith might earn more than Mr. Jones in the cla.s.sroom next door. But in the schoolwide bonus plan, a committee at each school decided how to divide the bonus among all union members on the staff, including non-teaching personnel, and all might receive exactly the same stipend, if the school committee so chose. Or the committee might award bonuses to all the teachers or only to those teachers whose test scores were higher. The schoolwide bonus plan was not quite merit pay, but it was a significant step in that direction. It ensured that teachers would concentrate their attention on those all-important scores in reading and mathematics. In exchange for agreeing to the bonus plan, the union won a generous enhancement of teacher pensions, allowing teachers to retire five years earlier than before, at the age of fifty-five with twenty-five years of service. Prior to this agreement, teachers hired after 1973 had to work thirty years or wait until they were sixty-two to retire with full pension.31 The accountability movement entered a new phase in the fall of 2007, when the DOE revealed what it called progress reports for each school. Each school received a single letter grade, from A to F. This approach mirrored the grading system introduced in Florida by then-governor Jeb Bush a few years earlier. Most of each school"s grade was based on year-to-year changes in standardized test scores (its "progress"), as compared to a group of schools that were demographically similar; if a school"s scores went up, it was likely to win an A or B. If they remained flat or slipped, the school was almost certain to get a C, D, or F.

Some excellent schools, known for their sense of community and consistently high scores, received an F because their scores dipped a few points. Some very low-performing schools, even some schools the State Education Department ranked as persistently dangerous, received an A because they showed some improvement.

To add to the confusion, the city"s grades were inconsistent with the ratings issued by the State Education Department in accordance with No Child Left Behind. If schools failed to meet their adequate yearly progress goals under the federal NCLB law, they were called SINI schools, or "schools in need of improvement." If schools consistently performed poorly, the state called them SURR schools, or "schools under registration review." In the first year that school grades were issued, the city awarded an A or B to about half of the 350 schools the state said were SINI or SURR. More than half of the fifty schools that received an F from the city were in good standing with the state and the federal law. The next year, 89 percent of the F schools were in good standing according to NCLB standards, as were 48 percent of D schools.32 In 2009, the city"s accountability system produced bizarre results. An amazing 84 percent of 1,058 elementary and middle schools received an A (compared with 23 percent in 2007), and an additional 13 percent got a B. Only twenty-seven schools received a grade of C, D, or F. Even four schools the state said were "persistently dangerous" received an A. The Department of Education hailed these results as evidence of academic progress, but the usually supportive local press was incredulous. The New York Post New York Post called the results "ridiculous" and said, "As it stands now, the grades convey nearly no useful information whatsoever." The called the results "ridiculous" and said, "As it stands now, the grades convey nearly no useful information whatsoever." The New York Daily News New York Daily News described the reports as a "stupid card trick" and "a big flub" that rendered the annual school reports "nearly meaningless to thousands of parents who look to the summaries for guidance as to which schools serve kids best." described the reports as a "stupid card trick" and "a big flub" that rendered the annual school reports "nearly meaningless to thousands of parents who look to the summaries for guidance as to which schools serve kids best."33 The debacle of the grading system had two sources: First, it relied on year-to-year changes in scores, which are subject to random error and are thus unreliable. Second, the scores were hugely inflated by the state"s secret decision to lower the points needed to advance on state tests. Consequently, the city"s flawed grading system produced results that few found credible, while the Department of Education was obliged to pay teachers nearly $30 million in bonuses-based on dumbed-down state tests-as part of its "merit pay" plan.34 How could parents make sense of the conflicting reports from the city, state, and federal accountability systems? Should they send their children to a school that got an A from the city, even though the state said the same school was low-performing and persistently dangerous? Should they pull their child out of a highly regarded neighborhood school where 90 percent of the kids pa.s.sed the state exams but the city gave it an F? The city had no plan to improve low-performing schools, other than to warn them that they were in danger of being closed down. Shame and humiliation were considered adequate remedies to spur improvement. Pedro Noguera of New York University observed that the Department of Education failed to provide the large schools with the support and guidance they needed to improve. "They don"t have a school-change strategy," Noguera said. "They have a school-shutdown strategy." Chancellor Klein acknowledged that opening and closing schools was an essential element in the market-based system of school choice that he preferred. He said, "It"s basically a supply-and-demand pattern. . . . This is about improving the system, not necessarily about improving every single school." But there was no reason to believe that closing a school and opening a new one would necessarily produce superior results; in fact, half of the city"s ten worst-performing schools on the state math tests in 2009 were new schools that had been opened to replace failing schools.35 Having promised to make dramatic improvements in the school system, both Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein pointed with pride to the gains recorded on state tests, calling them evidence of historic change. When the mayor"s reforms were launched in September 2003, 52.5 percent of fourth-grade students were at levels 3 and 4 on the state tests in reading. By 2007, that proportion had risen to 56.0 percent, a gain of 3.5 percentage points (this was a much smaller increase than in the four years from 1999 to 2003, when the scores rose by 19.7 percentage points). In eighth-grade reading, where there had been no progress in the previous years, the proportion of students meeting state standards grew from 32.6 percent to 41.8 percent, an impressive improvement. In mathematics, the Bloomberg administration celebrated an increase in the fourth-grade proficiency rate from 66.7 percent in 2003 to 74.1 percent in 2007, a gain of 7.4 percentage points (again, this was a smaller gain than in the four years before mayoral control, when the number climbed from 49.6 percent to 66.7 percent, or 17.1 percentage points). Eighth-grade scores in mathematics shot upward from 34.4 percent meeting standards in 2003 to 45.6 percent in 2007.36 Laudatory articles celebrating the Bloomberg miracle appeared in Laudatory articles celebrating the Bloomberg miracle appeared in Forbes Forbes, The Economist The Economist, Time Time, Newsweek Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report U.S. News & World Report, and USA Today USA Today. The stories reported the remarkable transformation of the New York City public schools. And the city"s schools won the Broad Prize in 2007, because of the improved test scores.

It was a shock, therefore, when the federal NAEP released reading and math scores for eleven cities, including New York City, in November 2007. The NAEP scores for 2003-2007 encompa.s.sed the first four years of the new regime and provided an independent check on the city"s claims of historic gains.

On the NAEP, students in New York City made no significant gains in reading or mathematics between 2003 and 2007, except in fourth-grade mathematics. In fourth-grade reading, in eighth-grade reading, and in eighth-grade mathematics, the NAEP scores showed no significant change. Nor was there any narrowing of the achievement gap among students from different racial groups. Except in fourth-grade mathematics, there were no gains for black students, white students, Asian students, Hispanic students, or lower-income students. The New York Times New York Times published a front-page story about the NAEP report, t.i.tled "Little Progress for City Schools on National Test." published a front-page story about the NAEP report, t.i.tled "Little Progress for City Schools on National Test."37 The New York City Department of Education responded to the stagnant results on the federal tests with a press release claiming that "New York City students made impressive gains" on NAEP. The flat scores on the national tests, the chancellor explained to reporters, reflected that students prepared for the state tests, which were aligned with the state standards. But both the state and the federal tests a.s.sessed generic skills in reading and mathematics, not specific content (such as works of literature); the skills should have been transferable. If they were not transferable and were useful only for taking state tests, then students were not prepared to read college textbooks, job-training manuals, or anything else that was not specific to the state tests.38 Using private funding, the city launched a publicity blitz to proclaim its increased test scores and graduation rates. The graduation rates were even more malleable than the test scores, as there were so many ways to adjust them up or down. It all depended on which students were counted or not counted. Does one count only students who graduate in four years or students who take more than four years? Does one count GED diplomas that students obtain outside of regular school? What about August graduates?

According to the state, the New York City graduation rate increased from 44 percent to 56 percent between 2003 and 2008. On its face, this was an impressive improvement, but the rate was inflated in various ways, such as excluding students who left city high schools without a diploma and were counted as "discharges" rather than dropouts. (Many discharges would be considered dropouts by federal standards.) The graduation rate was also artificially increased by a dubious practice called "credit recovery," a covert form of social promotion for high school students. Under credit recovery, students who failed a course or never even showed up for it could get credit by turning in an independent project, whose preparation was unmonitored, or by attending a few extra sessions. A princ.i.p.al told the New York Times New York Times that credit recovery was the "dirty little secret of high schools. There"s very little oversight and there are very few standards." that credit recovery was the "dirty little secret of high schools. There"s very little oversight and there are very few standards."39 Among those who did graduate, many were poorly educated. Three-quarters of the city"s high school graduates who enrolled in the two-year community colleges of the City University of New York were required to take a remedial course in reading, writing, or mathematics; this was an improvement over the statistics for 2002, before mayoral control, when 82 percent required remediation. But in the earlier period, no one claimed that social promotion had ended.40 Testing was always important in the New York City schools, but it a.s.sumed even more importance in the age of data-driven accountability. The DOE centralized admissions to gifted and talented programs, presumably in the interest of equity, requiring all applicants to take the same standardized intelligence tests; only those who reached the 90th percentile gained admission to a gifted program. But the new approach halved the number of children in such programs and halved the proportion of African American and Hispanic children accepted from 46 percent to only 22 percent .41 Any education researcher could have predicted this result, because children from advantaged homes are far likelier to know the vocabulary on a standardized test than children who lack the same advantages. Any education researcher could have predicted this result, because children from advantaged homes are far likelier to know the vocabulary on a standardized test than children who lack the same advantages.

Because of its concentration on raising test scores in reading and mathematics, the Department of Education consistently paid less attention to other subjects. The media, too, closely followed reading and math test scores but ignored such subjects as science and social studies, even though the state tested these subjects. When science and social studies were tested in 2008, twenty-eight of New York City"s thirty-two districts placed in the bottom 10th percentile of the state"s districts in science, and twenty-six districts were in the bottom 10th percentile in social studies. In fact, eighteen districts scored in the bottom 5th percentile statewide in both science and social studies. Not a single district scored at or above the 50th percentile in science, and only one (District 26 in Queens) exceeded the 50th percentile in social studies.42 This was a sobering reflection on the narrowness of what was taught in New York City"s public schools. But no one noticed or cared, because those subjects were not part of the city, state, or federal accountability programs. Thus, as the city concentrated intently on raising test scores in reading and mathematics, the other essential ingredients of a good education were missing. This was a sobering reflection on the narrowness of what was taught in New York City"s public schools. But no one noticed or cared, because those subjects were not part of the city, state, or federal accountability programs. Thus, as the city concentrated intently on raising test scores in reading and mathematics, the other essential ingredients of a good education were missing.

Test score gains do not always last. In 2005, when test scores rose sharply across the city on state tests (as they did in other urban districts in the state), Mayor Bloomberg "trumpeted the results as an election-year affirmation of his stewardship of the public schools," as the New York Times New York Times described it. The mayor and Chancellor Klein made "a triumphant visit" to P.S. 33 in the Bronx to praise the school"s astonishing gains. The proportion of fourth graders meeting state standards on the reading test more than doubled, rising by a staggering 46.7 points in a single year to 83.4 percent. The mayor lauded the good work of the princ.i.p.al. Soon after the princ.i.p.al"s star turn, she retired with a $15,000 bonus, which added $12,000 a year for life to her pension. The following year, P.S. 33"s astonishing gains evaporated. The meteoric rise and fall of test scores at the school was mysterious. described it. The mayor and Chancellor Klein made "a triumphant visit" to P.S. 33 in the Bronx to praise the school"s astonishing gains. The proportion of fourth graders meeting state standards on the reading test more than doubled, rising by a staggering 46.7 points in a single year to 83.4 percent. The mayor lauded the good work of the princ.i.p.al. Soon after the princ.i.p.al"s star turn, she retired with a $15,000 bonus, which added $12,000 a year for life to her pension. The following year, P.S. 33"s astonishing gains evaporated. The meteoric rise and fall of test scores at the school was mysterious.43 Psychometricians are generally suspicious of dramatic changes in test scores. New York University"s Robert Tobias, who was testing director of the New York City schools for thirteen years, was skeptical about sharp gains in test scores and their relation to test-preparation activities. At a City Hall hearing in 2005, Tobias criticized "unhealthy over-reliance on testing as a facile tool for educational reform and political advantage" and said, "Much of this test preparation is not designed to increase student learning but rather to try to beat or game the test."44 In the future, it is certainly possible that test scores and graduation rates will continue to rise. Or maybe they won"t. Of course, it is better to see scores go up than to see them fall. But when the scores are produced by threats of punishment and promises of money, and when students cannot perform equally well on comparable tests for which they have not been trained, then the scores lose their meaning. Scores matter, but they are an indicator, not the definition of a good education.

Mayoral control in New York City had a mixed record. State test scores went up, and spending went up even faster. From 2002 to 2009, the overall budget for public education grew from $12.7 billion annually to $21.8 billion.45 With such a huge jump, New York City"s successes may have been a testament to the value of increased school spending. Did mayoral control bring greater accountability? No, because there was no way to hold the mayor or the chancellor accountable. Standing for reelection once every four years is not a sufficient form of accountability for the mayor, especially when there are so many other issues for voters to consider. The chancellor answered only to the mayor, so he could not be held accountable either. When there were major foul-ups, such as the misrouting of school buses by Alvarez & Marsal in the dead of winter, no one was held accountable. With such a huge jump, New York City"s successes may have been a testament to the value of increased school spending. Did mayoral control bring greater accountability? No, because there was no way to hold the mayor or the chancellor accountable. Standing for reelection once every four years is not a sufficient form of accountability for the mayor, especially when there are so many other issues for voters to consider. The chancellor answered only to the mayor, so he could not be held accountable either. When there were major foul-ups, such as the misrouting of school buses by Alvarez & Marsal in the dead of winter, no one was held accountable.

Mayoral control is not a guaranteed path to school improvement. On the 2007 NAEP, the cities with the highest scores were Charlotte, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas, neither of which had mayoral control. And two of the three lowest-performing cities-Chicago and Cleveland-had had mayoral control for more than a decade. Clearly many factors affect educational performance other than the governance structure.

No governance reform alone will solve all the problems of the schools. A poorly constructed governance system, as New York City had during the era of decentralization from 1969 to 2002, can interfere with the provision of education. But absolute control by the mayor is not the answer, either. It solves no problems to exclude parents and the public from important decisions about education policy or to disregard the educators who work with students daily. Public education is a vital inst.i.tution in our democratic society, and its governance must be democratic, open to public discussion and public partic.i.p.ation.

CHAPTER SIX.

NCLB: Measure and Punish.

THREE DAYS AFTER HIS INAUGURATION in 2001, President George W. Bush convened some five hundred educators in the East Room of the White House to reveal his plan to reform American education. The plan, which he called No Child Left Behind, promised a new era of high standards, testing, and accountability in which not a single child would be overlooked. It was ironic that the Bush plan borrowed its name from Marian Wright Edelman of the Children"s Defense Fund, who intended it to refer to children"s health and welfare, not to testing and accountability. Edelman"s fund trademarked the slogan "Leave No Child Behind" in 1990 as a rallying cry for its campaign to reduce the number of children living in poverty.1 The White House meeting was a thrilling event, as are all events at this grand and glorious mansion. Visiting the White House always gives me goose b.u.mps. I went to the White House for the first time in 1965, when Lyndon B. Johnson was president, for a formal state dinner honoring the president of a small Caribbean nation (I was there because my then-husband was active in Democratic politics). Dressed in a long evening gown, I was escorted inside by a stiff-backed Marine in full dress uniform. Nearly a decade later, I was invited to discuss education issues at a small luncheon with President Gerald Ford, along with sociologists Nathan Glazer and James Coleman. In 1984, I was one of about forty educators invited to meet with President Ronald Reagan in the Cabinet Room. A couple of times, when I was an a.s.sistant secretary of education, I met President George H. W. Bush (at our first meeting, in an irreverent mood, I pulled up a chair next to him behind his desk in the Oval Office so I could get a great picture, and he cheerfully obliged me). During the Clinton years, I was invited to the White House on several occasions to discuss Bill Clinton"s education initiatives. I once was invited to watch him address hundreds of high school students in Maryland, and he had them cheering as he urged them to do their homework, study harder, and take tougher courses. It was an amazing demonstration of personal charisma.

So, on January 23, 2001, when the new President Bush presented his plans for school reform, I was excited and optimistic. The president pledged that his focus "would be on making sure every child is educated" and that "no child will be left behind-not one single child." No doubt everyone in the room agreed with that sentiment, though no one was quite certain how it would happen. The president described his principles: first, that every child should be tested every year in grades three through eight, using state tests, not a national test; second, that decisions about how to reform schools would be made by the states, not by Washington; third, that low-performing schools would get help to improve; and fourth, that students stuck in persistently dangerous or failing schools would be able to transfer to other schools.

These four principles, described in a concise 28-page doc.u.ment, eventually became the No Child Left Behind legislation, a doc.u.ment of nearly 1,100 pages. NCLB, as it came to be known, was the latest iteration of the basic federal aid legislation, known originally as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.

Large bipartisan majorities in Congress approved NCLB in the fall of 2001. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances, Republicans would have opposed the bill"s broad expansion of federal power over local schools, and Democrats would have opposed its heavy emphasis on testing. But after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress wanted to demonstrate unity, and the education legislation sailed through. The Senate pa.s.sed the law by a vote of 87-10, and the House of Representatives approved it 381-41. Senate Democrats voted 43-6 in its favor, and House Democrats endorsed it 198-6. Senate Republicans voted affirmatively 44-3, as did House Republicans by 183-33.

The legislative leaders of both parties stood proudly with the president as he signed NCLB into law on January 8, 2002. Democrats liked the expansion of the federal role in education, and Republicans liked the law"s support for accountability and choice (although the law did not permit students to take their federal funding with them to private schools, as many Republicans wanted). Republican John Boehner of Ohio called the law his "proudest achievement." Democratic senator Edward Kennedy of Ma.s.sachusetts called the legislation "a defining issue about the future of our nation and about the future of democracy, the future of liberty, and the future of the United States in leading the free world."2 In retrospect, NCLB seems foreordained, because there were so many precedents for it in the states and in Congress in the previous decade. In the 1990s, elected officials of both parties came to accept as secular gospel the idea that testing and accountability would necessarily lead to better schools. Of course, testing was necessary to measure student academic performance and to determine whether it was moving forward, sliding backward, or standing still. At the time, few realized that the quality of the tests was crucial. Elected officials a.s.sumed the tests were good enough to do what they were supposed to do-measure student performance-and that a test is a test; they did not give much thought to such technical issues as validity or reliability. Everyone, it seemed, wanted "accountability." By accountability, elected officials meant that they wanted the schools to measure whether students were learning, and they wanted rewards or punishments for those responsible.

School reform was a politically popular issue. In 1988, President George H. W. Bush said he wanted to be the "Education President," and many governors in the 1980s and 1990s claimed the mantle of "Education Governor." Among them were James Hunt in North Carolina, Bill Clinton in Arkansas, Lamar Alexander in Tennessee, Richard Riley in South Carolina, George W. Bush in Texas, Booth Gardner in Washington State, and Roy Romer in Colorado. Some governors made their mark as education reformers by expanding funding for pre-kindergarten or raising teachers" salaries (or both), but most of the time their reforms consisted of new requirements for testing and accountability.

In Washington, the calls for testing and accountability grew louder during the 1990s. The first President Bush released his America 2000 program in 1991, recommending voluntary national standards and voluntary national testing, but it was never authorized by the Democratic majority in Congress. President Clinton came to office promising to create a system of national standards and national tests, but he was stymied by a Republican majority in Congress. Clinton"s Goals 2000 program, enacted before Republicans took control of Congress in the fall of 1994, encouraged states to develop their own standards and tests. It became a ritual for Republicans and Democrats alike to bemoan the lack of accountability in American public education and to grouse that no teacher, princ.i.p.al, or student was held accountable for poor test scores.

In that light, the large test score gains in Texas over the previous half-dozen years must have impressed Congress. Not only were increasing numbers of students pa.s.sing the state tests, according to the Texas state education department, but the achievement gap between white students and minority students was steadily shrinking, as was the number of students dropping out before high school graduation. So when President George W. Bush arrived in Washington with a plan based on what appeared to be a successful model of accountability in Texas, members of both parties were willing and ready to sign on, so long as they could add one or two or three of their own priorities to the bill. Almost everyone wanted an accountability plan, and almost everyone embraced the main elements of the one President Bush set forth.

A few scholars had warned in 2000 that the gains in Texas were a mirage; they said the testing system actually caused rising numbers of dropouts, especially among African American and Hispanic students, many of whom were held back repeatedly and quit school in discouragement. These scholars insisted that the state"s rising test scores and graduation rates were a direct result of the soaring dropout rate: As low-performing students gave up on education, the statistics got better and better. In separate studies, Walt Haney of Boston College and Stephen Klein of RAND maintained that the dramatic gains in Texas on its state tests were not reflected on other measures of academic performance, such as the SAT and NAEP, or even the state"s own test for college readiness. Haney argued that the Texas high-stakes testing system had other negative effects. As teachers spent more time preparing students to take standardized tests, the curriculum was narrowed: Such subjects as science, social studies, and the arts were pushed aside to make time for test preparation. Consequently, students in Texas were actually getting a worse education tied solely to taking the state tests.3 In its eagerness to endorse education reform, Congress paid no attention to these red flags and pa.s.sed a program that was closely aligned with the Texas model.

NCLB was complex and contained many programs. Its accountability plan included these features: 1. All states were expected to choose their own tests, adopt three performance levels (such as basic, proficient, and advanced), and decide for themselves how to define "proficiency."2. All public schools receiving federal funding were required to test all students in grades three through eight annually and once in high school in reading and mathematics and to disaggregate (i.e., separate) their scores by race, ethnicity, low-income status, disability status, and limited English proficiency. Disaggregation of scores would ensure that every group"s progress was monitored, not hidden in an overall average.3. All states were required to establish timelines showing how 100 percent of their students would reach proficiency in reading and mathematics by 2013-2014.4. All schools and school districts were expected to make "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) for every subgroup toward the goal of 100 percent proficiency by 2013-2014.5. Any school that did not make adequate progress for every subgroup toward the goal of 100 percent proficiency would be labeled a school in need of improvement (SINI). It would face a series of increasingly onerous sanctions. In the first year of failing to make AYP, the school would be put on notice. In the second year, it would be required to offer all its students the right to transfer to a successful school, with transportation paid from the district"s allotment of federal funds. In the third year, the school would be required to offer free tutoring to low-income students, paid from the district"s federal funds. In the fourth year, the school would be required to undertake "corrective action," which might mean curriculum changes, staff changes, or a longer school day or year. If a school missed its targets for any subgroup for five consecutive years, it would be re

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