EdVox

“School Closures: A Shell Game with Students” shows that lower percentages of high-needs students at Bloomberg’s new schools inflated performance. Click here to read the policy brief!  

(January 27, 2012 – New York, NY)  About a dozen elected officials joined the City’s largest public school and parent-led organizations today on the steps of City Hall to release a report with new statistics detailing the failure of Mayor Bloomberg’s education reforms—particularly his school closings policy.  The group demanded immediate action to suspend and reverse failed policies.

The report provides evidence that key Bloomberg “reforms” such as school closings have not produced the gains that the Mayor has claimed over the past decade.  Elected officials and advocates today called the closings policy a failed tactic that just moves low-performing students from one school to another instead of educating them, inflating the success of new schools.  These high-needs students – self-contained special education, over-age and other historically lower-performing students – make up a smaller percentage of student populations at many of the new schools founded by the administration.  After ten years of this failed policy, New York City is left with a huge college readiness gap by race, income and school, the report concludes.

The final argument against the mayor’s closing schools policy came this year, elected officials said today, when the City moved to close 11 of its own schools started under Bloomberg’s watch—schools that had levels of high-needs students comparable to closed and older existing schools.

“Mayor Bloomberg’s Department of Education should be ashamed of the true college readiness of the Black and Latino students it prematurely graduates from the New York City school system,” said Assemblyman Keith Wright of Harlem.  “When only 13% of Black and Latino students are ready for college after high school, the future is bleak for our communities. No longer will we allow this Mayor to crow about his success at managing our school system, the time has come for justice in the classroom and if Mayor Bloomberg can’t deliver, we need someone who can!”

“The question of achieving superior education is the question of the 21st century,” said Council Member James Sanders.  “We should not allow ideology, dogmatism, or plain stubbornness to blind us from the fact that the current system is failing far too many students in New York City.  Let us be bold for the sake of our children and take a closer look at all on the issues in play in New York.  Let there be no sacred cows, and no apologies preventing us from providing every student with a quality education.”

“Closing down schools does not solve our problems,” said Assemblyman Jose Rivera.  “You solve our problems by investing in our schools and most of all in our students.”

“When it comes to college and career-readiness, Mayor Bloomberg has failed us,” said Council Member Jumaane Williams.  “When it comes to closing the racial achievement gap, Mayor Bloomberg has failed us.  When it comes to keeping schools open in our communities, Mayor Bloomberg has failed us.  The successes he has had are hard to celebrate because of the arrogance of this administration.  It’s clear that the “Education Mayor” has not lived up to his self-appointed name, and it is also clear that mayoral control has failed.”

“The reality today is that a high school degree is not enough for the average student to compete for the jobs that are being created, especially as our city continues to attract more technology-based jobs,” said Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez.  “However, it’s not enough to just say ‘you need to go to college’.  If we really want young New Yorkers to have the opportunity to get these jobs, we have to make sure that our schools not only prepare them to enroll in college, but actually prepare them to succeed.”

“Mayor Bloomberg promised us time and time again that he will successfully revitalize and improve of our vast New York City school system,” said Council Member Letitia James.  “However, Mayor Bloomberg has managed to dismantle community input into school decision-making, increase the number of charter schools within the system while closing out numerous traditional schools, and decrease the administration’s transparency and accountability for major school changes while our students are left to fend for themselves.  We as public officials are charged with the duty to ensure a proper education for our children and Mayor Bloomberg has undoubtedly failed our youth.  I stand strong with my colleagues and school communities in bringing these failures to light for hopes of a better tomorrow.”

“Mayor Bloomberg has had a decade to improve our schools and make us proud, but the fact is that his policies have failed,” said Council Member Steve Levin.  “Now we know that these policies have done the most harm to the Black and Latino students in our City.  Thirteen percent is a failing grade and there’s no excuse for it.  Now this Mayor wants to close schools and fire teachers in schools that have been rated “A” and “B” schools by the Department of Education.  I join with my friends at New York Communities for Change in calling on this Mayor to face the realities of our school system.  We have good teachers and we have good students.  It is the policies of Bloomberg’s Department of Education that have let us down.  Now is the time for honesty.  Now is the time to get our schools and our students on the path to success.”

“I believe the Department of Education should make every effort to prevent schools from closing and provide assistance to every school so every student is fully prepared to attend college,” said Council Member Mathieu Eugene.  “Closing a school can cause major disruptions in the educational life of students and their parents, and the Department of Education should work collaboratively with all schools to ensure that students are ready for college.”

“The latest information available about the New York City public school system shows once again that the administration’s claims of success are greatly overblown and plainly misleading,” said Assemblywoman Vanessa L. Gibson. “Instead the data clearly documents the disturbing reality that children from families of color, particularly African-Americans and Latinos, remain at the back of the bus when it comes to educational achievement.”

Parents and Students have labeled Mayor Bloomberg as “Mayor 13%” for his administration’s failure to prepare 87 percent of black and Latino students for college.  Just one-in-four students overall are prepared for college under Bloomberg, and just 39 percent of public high school graduates last year reported they would be attending four-year colleges the following fall.

by Zakiyah Ansari

I understand the importance of successful performance for holding the bar high. My eldest daughter Anisah graduated high school with an Advanced Regents diploma, graduated from Baruch College Cum Laude, B.A. Sociology, and last year graduated from Hunter Graduate School of Social Work with her Master’s Degree. She will begin her PhD in Criminal Justice in March 2012. My daughter Aliyah graduated valedictorian from her high school also with an Advanced Regents diploma and last year graduated from NYU with a B.A. in Africana Studies.

My four eldest daughters’ educational foundation began with a great Pre-K program and an elementary and middle school experience where there was no teaching to the test. It included the arts, great after school programs, poetry, hands-on curriculum and so many other great things.

As we all talk about having our kids college ready, the $2.7 billion in cuts with which our schools have been hit over the last two years, is definitely not going to get them there. I have two daughters that attend a really great high school in Brooklyn. When my first daughter started attending there 4 years ago there was a 6 week summer bridge program that she had to attend. The school understood that if our children were going to be ready for college in four years, they would need to have to pass Calculus as well as have access to a well-rounded curriculum. The bridge program was for all incoming 9th graders. If they hadn’t taken and passed the Math and Science Regents in 8th grade this was an opportunity for them to study and take the test in August and hit the ground running and be on track for college. The bridge program created an opportunity for the students to know and get excited about their new high school, meet classmates, staff and teachers. It worked. My daughter finished taking all of her Regents in 11th grade and will graduate this year. Unfortunately, because of the cuts my youngest daughter who began at Banneker last year was only able to experience a 3 week bridge program and it could only serve 150 incoming 9th graders. It was like a race to ensure that she received one of those slots because I understood how important it was for her to attend. I sent a letter and called the parent coordinator and emailed the principal making sure I got her name in their quickly. My daughter got in. She was fortunate. But what about the students who didn’t get in? It wasn’t that the school didn’t want to offer the program for 6 weeks or to all kids but they couldn’t afford to. There is something horribly wrong with that.

The Executive budget falls short of the proposal the Board of Regents put forth to prioritize 73% of the school aid restorations to high and average need districts. Last year’s state budget promised an $805 million in school aid restorations for this upcoming year, but if $250 million is diverted into competitive grants this will leave only $555 million in allocated school aid. The $555 million proposed is only 2.86% restoration, not the 4.1% committed. This amount will not even keep up with inflation, so classrooms will see cuts once again.

A rural district such as Jordan-Elbridge in Onondaga County that lost $2052 per pupil over the past two years, would only get a $239 per pupil restoration. If the legislature does not fix this problem, once again the promise to our kids will be broken.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the $200 million added to the competitive grant program will mean that some of our children will be winners and some will be losers. Competition might be healthy if you’re training for a race or on a team but it’s not healthy or okay when you have rural parts of the state like Jordan-Elbridge competing with Scarsdale, or New York City competing with Syosset, or needy districts like Binghamton and Buffalo competing with each other for money desperately needed to ensure that all our children have an opportunity to learn. Test scores should not be used to determine whether or not students will receive the classroom resources they need to succeed.

I can’t imagine having my kids compete for dinner knowing that they are all hungry. It’s the same image; our children in these districts are in need of nourishment in the form of art, music, AP courses, after school programs, technology, etc. Who is going to choose which of them gets fed? Everywhere you turn people are talking about college readiness; these competitive grants will only ensure that SOME have the chance to be college ready. Healthy competition is when my youngest daughter who is in 9th grade asked my oldest daughter what her average was when she graduated from high school, and she said “I’m going to do better than that”. It is unhealthy when one or the other may be denied access to a guidance counselor because their school lost resources as a result of a competition.

As parents we have high expectations and dreams for our children — no matter if you are rich, poor, or an immigrant, we want better for our children than what we had. We want them to be successful, productive citizens and ultimately leave our homes and only come back to visit. Fact is, if they don’t get a good education, they won’t get a good job and if they don’t get a job, they are more likely to wind up in jail which the State always finds the money for.

We began last week by honoring the memory of Dr. King. I wonder what he would say if he knew we were considering making our children compete to get to the mountain top.

Zakiyah Ansari is the Advocacy Director of the Alliance for Quality Education

by Jazmine Miller
Student leader, New York Communities for Change
This blog post was originally published on the Huffington Post and can be found here.

In 2005, after a lot of hard work and sacrifices, I graduated from Herbert Lehman High School in the Bronx with a B average and an SAT score that made me and my family proud. I was ready for the next step, on track to get my college degree, and looking forward to starting a career.

Or so I thought.

Because when I arrived at SUNY Oswego that fall, I found out how unprepared I was.

At Herbert Lehman, I was used to picking up what was covered in class easily. Once I got to college, however, I struggled at retaining all the information we were taught. It turns out that high school in New York City taught me how to pass a test, but in college they wanted me to show my critical thinking skills. I had never encountered that before; I was never given the opportunity to develop those skills. Instead of teaching me how to independently function and succeed in society, I was treated as a padded statistic by the Department of Education.

So, on top of learning new material, I had to study how to think critically rather than just how to take a test and pass it.

I was forced to spend a semester taking remedial classes despite my good grades and high test scores.  These remedial classes were not covered by financial aid, so I ended up paying out of pocket to learn things I should have been taught in high school. The City ended up cheating both me and the taxpayers.

Recently, I found out that I am not the only New York City public school graduate who was cheated and entered college unprepared. In fact, only 13 percent of African American and Latino students who graduate from NYC schools are college-ready on graduation day. Thirteen percent!

You often hear the Department of Education brag about our improved graduation rates in NYC. But what good does it do to graduate more students if only a handful of them are prepared for the future and the rest will end up forced to pay out of pocket for remedial classes — or just drop out?

We needed smaller class sizes, better resources and more support for teachers and students alike.

But instead of fighting for more funding and using existing resources to improve our schools, the mayor and Department of Education dismantled our neighborhood schools and wasted resources by starting new schools from scratch.

The schools aren’t getting better. This year nearly half of the schools on the DOE’s closing list are schools that were opened by the Bloomberg administration. And students like me, who worked hard in school but weren’t given the education we deserve, continue to flood into college.

It’s time we take a stand against Mayor 13 Percent and his failed educational policies by stopping school closings and getting schools the resources they need to make sure that students who want to go to college graduate college ready.

Here on EdVox we’re excited to bring you the latest news about education issues and policies affecting our communities. It can be hard to keep up with all of the events and happenings, so – in case you missed it… Here is a recap of the latest stories in NYC education news, starting with the oldest (Tuesday, January 17th):

Just one-in-four City students and 13% of black and Latino students are prepared for college under Bloomberg Administration, according to recent data

(New York, NY – January 19, 2012) Fed up with abysmal college preparedness and attendance numbers under the Bloomberg Administration, the City’s largest student- and parent-led organizations decried the mayor’s failed reforms at a press conference on the steps of City Hall today, and called for specific changes to education department policies.

Parents and students have labeled Mayor Bloomberg as “Mayor 13%” for his administration’s failure to prepare 87 percent of Black and Latino students for college. Furthermore, his administration’s track record is as follows:

• Just one-in-four students overall are prepared for college under Bloomberg, and just 39 percent of public high school graduates last year reported they would be attending four-year colleges the following fall.
• There are 36 schools where more than half of students graduate ready for college and 306 schools where less than half do.
• There are 243 schools where less than 25% of students graduate ready for college and only 22 schools where more than 75% of students graduate ready for college
• The schools in the city with the fewest Black, Latino and low-income populations prepare students for college at more than four times the rate of our schools with the largest number of Black, Latino, and low-income students. 

“It’s a shame that, as a student, all my college support came from outside of the Department of Education,” said Belmont Preparatory High School senior Chima Agwu, 19.  “Even more shameful is that only 13% of Black and Latino students graduate college ready.  With the DOE grading and assessing schools based of how many students graduate college ready, it’s only fair that all schools get the resources necessary to ensure that all students get to college.  As much as I am thankful for the community organization that supported me through the college application process, it is the DOE’s responsibility.”

“New York City’s youth are facing a crisis,” said Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez. “If we’re not able to improve college readiness for our public school students, then we’re ensuring that these students will continue to be unable to compete for the new jobs being created in this city. I’m calling on everyone, whether they are from DOE, CUNY or the Board of Regents, to make a commitment to implementing a comprehensive college readiness plan, so that we can give every student the opportunity to succeed.”

The press conference was followed by a hearing of the Council’s education and higher education committees at which the Department of Education was asked pointed questions on their poor college preparedness and attendance records. Members of the Urban Youth Collaborative and Coalition for Educational Justice also testified.

Students and parents argued that DOE is now holding high schools accountable for how many of their graduates enroll in college, but that it has raised the standards and stakes without providing adequate funding and support to schools to meet this new mandate. In response, they made specific policy demands to improve college preparedness and attendance, including:

• College Counselors: There is currently no line in the NYC DOE budget for a college counselor, despite the abundance of evidence showing that they have a dramatic impact on college-going rates and financial support for college, especially for students who are the first in their family to go to college or are undocumented. Every school should have one well-trained college counselor for every 100 seniors, who starts working with students as early as 9th grade.
• Student Success Centers (SSCs) train high school students to help other students navigate every step of the college process, and have significantly improved college acceptances and financial aid packages. The SSCs have also played a critical role in creating school-wide “college going cultures” across the entire school campus and have effectively served undocumented students. The DOE must maintain support for the existing SSCs & launch additional ones at low-performing multi-campus high schools.
• Distributive Guidance is a proven model of teachers supporting students through the college process in advisories. The DOE must ensure that schools using this model provide teachers with ongoing training, adequate time to fulfill their college support role, and the necessary resources for the program.
• Centralized funding to help create these effective and comprehensive college access supports.