Ravitch Quits a Publication That's Boosting Bloomberg
By ELIZABETH GREEN
Staff Reporter of the Sun
February 13, 2008
Mayor Bloomberg standing atop Tweed Courthouse, the headquarters of his education department, in an the illustration for an art in the upcoming issue of a prominent education journal. Graphic by Dale Step
A prominent education journal will suggest in its next issue that Mayor Bloomberg's commitment to improving schools would make him a good candidate for president. But the idea is already running into resistance, with one of the journal's board members, the historian Diane Ravitch, resigning as a protest of what she called an effective presidential endorsement.
The article, which will appear in the spring 2008 issue of Education Next, opens with an illustration depicting a defiant Mr. Bloomberg standing atop Tweed Courthouse, the Lower Manhattan headquarters of the city Department of Education. He grips a long sword in one hand, carries a shield decorated with the New York City seal in the other, and is dressed in full knight's armor.
Headlined "New York City's Education Battles," the article describes Mr. Bloomberg's education plan as a victorious destruction of what had been a "personal patronage mill." It also says that the management changes have been a mixed bag for students, whose math scores the journal says are rising, while reading scores are flat.
It ends on a positive note, arguing that, despite critics' attempts to burst his bubble, "Bloomberg just may have outsmarted everyone."
The mayor's presidential potential is addressed in a sidebar, which concludes, "With all that cash on hand, why not go for the whole ball of wax? If he does, Americans might have a renewed opportunity to ponder the state of American education."
An editor's note by the magazine's editor in chief, the Harvard government professor Paul Peterson, also tackles the presidential question, applauding Mr. Bloomberg for tackling head-on a problem that he says the current presidential candidates have failed to address.
Ms. Ravitch, a professor at New York University who has followed the changes in the New York City schools under Mr. Bloomberg closely and has been a vocal critic, told The New York Sun that she resigned from the board of Education Next after reading the article. "How can a magazine with an editorial board endorse a candidate for president when no one on the editorial board was consulted?" she said.
She said she was also protesting inaccuracies in the story, which she said is "based on ideology, not evidence." Math scores have risen, she said, but only among fourth-graders. A respected national test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, last year concluded that New York City eighth-graders had made no significant progress on math and English since Mr. Bloomberg took control of the schools.
Mr. Peterson said yesterday that he had not received Ms. Ravitch's resignation letter, and he said he would be disappointed if he does receive it.
He said the article is balanced and an example of good journalism. He added that his personal opinion is that he would be happy to see Mr. Bloomberg jump into the presidential race.
"It would put education on the national agenda," Mr. Peterson said. "We would start talking about education policy, and I think that would be good. That would be good for our schools."
In an interview, the author of the main article, Peter Meyer, said he agrees with Ms. Ravitch that the city's education results during the Bloomberg administration have been minute. "It is pretty amazing that, six, seven years into this, we barely see a blip," he said, adding that had Ms. Ravitch been given an instructional role in the city schools there would have been more improvement.
But Mr. Meyer said of the mayor, whom he interviewed for the story, "I think he'd make a great education president."
He said Mr. Bloomberg's potential to elevate education as an issue is just one reason to support him. "He would make a great manager of the bureaucracy, I think as he has proved in New York," Mr. Meyer said. "I think he would be good for education and good for education reform."
The article describes Mr. Bloomberg as a compact man who "carries himself like a linebacker." It says the mayor was "sobered" by last year's NAEP test results. "Even though there was some progress in math scores for eighth-graders, overall the results for them weren't what we would have liked them to be," Mr. Bloomberg is quoted as saying.
Contacted yesterday, two other Education Next board members said they would not support a Bloomberg presidential run.
A professor of political science at Stanford who chaired Mayor Giuliani's education advisory team before Mr. Giuliani dropped out of the race, Terry Moe, said Mr. Bloomberg is a good manager but he should not run for president. "What's the point except to serve as a spoiler?" he said.
The president of the Fordham Foundation, Chester Finn, said he is leaning toward Senator McCain.
"We elect mayors to fix schools and such; we elect presidents to keep the nation safe in a dangerous world," Mr. Finn said. The Fordham Foundation led by Mr. Finn and Harvard's Program on Education Policy and Governance are sponsors of education next, which is sponsored by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Ravitch Quits Ed Next Board Over Lazy Bloomberg Puff Piece
According to this Elizabeth Green story in the NY Sun Ravitch Quits historian Diane Ravitch has slpit from Paul Peterson et al on th board of Education Next over a new article that to praise Mike Bloomberg's stewardship over the New York City Schools and endorsed his candidacy.
Maybe this is just Ravitch throwing a tantrum -- I'll be interested to see what others think -- but publishing a puff piece about Bloomberg seems like a tin-eared and a cockeyed move to me, given all the substantive and widespread criticism that his DOE has received, not to speak of the political moment having long passed.
Losing Ravitch and endangering Ed Next's reputation over a freelancer's article seems even dumber. The Ed Next folks had to know she'd have strong feelings about the piece, which upon first skim reads like it was written by someone new to the topic -- not in a good way (here).
It's full of first-person "I met Bloomberg" fluff, includes fuzzy snapshots that look like they were taken with a disposable camera, and ignores things like the high exclusion rates that made NYC's NAEP scores seem higher than they otherwise would have been, the zigzag path of the Klein reforms, the failed efforts at weighted student funding, etc. Several other recent articles about school reform in NYC have done a much better job (LynNell Hancock in The Nation here, Sol Stern in City Journal here, Elizabeth Green from the Sun here.)
Disclosure: I have written for Education Next in the past and could have written a much better article. Of course, I'll probably never be asked to write for them again.
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein says Brooklyn's Racial Quotas are Old School...
By CARRIE MELAGO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, February 13th 2008, 4:00 AM
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein is asking a federal judge to immediately remove 34-year-old racial quotas from seven Brooklyn middle schools.
The motion asked the judge to lift a 1974 desegregation order that calls for a 6-to-4 ratio of whites to minorities in the schools that house sought-after gifted and talented programs.
The order "has outlived its usefulness as a remedy for unlawful segregation that itself has long since disappeared," the motion reads.
The Education Department's motion comes several weeks after a student of Indian descent sued the city because she didn't get into one of the schools, Mark Twain Intermediate School, even though white students with lower test scores did.
McKinley Unique On Cell Phone Suspension
Buffalo, NY (WBEN/AP)--Districts around the nation are balancing security against disruption with a range of anti-cell phone policies, but few enforce things the way McKinley High School did, with the suspension of a student for talking to school board officials recently about the firing of a favorite coach.
A WBEN survey of area districts found most will not allow any student to use a phone during regular school hours, but few would suspend for a first offense.
A few examples:
In the Sloan, Depew, Lakeshore, East Aurora and Kenmore-Tonawanda districts, phones are not banned, but can not be used during the day.
In New York City, an outright ban on having cell phones in school has prompted a lawsuit by a parents group.
Several districts loosened their policy after the West Virginia shootings, as colleges move toward encouraging phones as a means of emergency text communication.
Some districts allow student use with prior permission from a teacher, usually only granted for calls to a parent or guardian, for special or urgent purposes.
Detroit bans cell phones, and a two-time violator will not get the phone back.
Boston relied on a school-by-school approach until recently, when it changed the policy to let students have a phone, but only if it is turned off and out of sight. Locally, Kenmore-Tonawanda is considering similar changes, to erase a school-by-school patchwork.
Los Angeles lets kids have cell phones, but they can use them only during lunch and breaks.
Kenneth Trump, president of Ohio-based National School Safety and Security Services, said his research indicates most schools ban the phones. Others require students to turn off the devices during school hours.
"It's really very simple," says Buffalo Teachers' Federation President Phil Rumore.
"You have to have strong rules and you have to continue to enforce them, otherwise kids will continue to get away with it," Rumore says, adding that cell phones have been used in bullying, gang fights, and planning an attack on teachers.
Yet McKinley's tough policy used recently against student Jayvonna Kincannon seems to be an exception to the regional rule.
"It would be progressive disicpline," says Jeffrey Rabey, Lakeshore superintendent.
"It would range from, if it were the first time incident, it would be probably a verbal warning, and if it's a continued issue, it could lead to confiscation of the cell phone with where they can get the cell phone back if the parent picks it up. If it continues it can be anything fom in school suspension to anything like -although I don't believe it has ever happened- an out of school suspension."
Adds Sloan Superintendent James Mazgajewski: "First offense it might be just a warning, the second time it might be detention. Eventually if it continues it may end up being a suspension, but it would take some time."
New York City Ban in Court
Elizabeth Casanola carries her cell phone everywhere — even through the metal detectors at her school.
The high school senior puts the phone under her pants by her waistline, where she knows she won't be patted down. Or she smuggles the phone into school in pieces — the battery separate from the main body.
A ban on cell phones in the nation's biggest school system is creating an uproar among parents and students alike, with teenagers sneaking their phones inside their lunches and under their clothes, and grown-ups insisting they need to stay in touch with their children in case of another crisis like Sept. 11.
Parents have written angry letters and e-mails, staged rallies and news conferences, and threatened to sue. Some City Council members are introducing legislation on their behalf.
But Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein have staunchly refused to drop the ban. They insist cell phones are a distraction and are used to cheat, take inappropriate photos in bathrooms and organize gang rendezvous. They are also a top stolen item.
Students have refused to give up their phones, saying the devices have become too vital to their daily existence and to their parents' peace of mind.
“My mother, she needs me to have the cell to call me and check up on me,” said Steven Cao, 16, a sophomore who lives in Staten Island and attends Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. He called the ban stupid.
Some parents would prefer a policy that lets students have cell phones but prohibits their use in classes.
New York's 1.1-million-student school system has banned beepers and other communication devices since the late 1980s. But schools have long used an “out-of-sight, out-of-trouble” approach. Then, late last month, city officials began sending portable metal detectors every day to a random but small set of schools to keep out weapons. And the detectors have led to the confiscation of hundreds of cell phones.
New York has one of the country's toughest policies on student cell phones. It also bans other electronic devices, such as iPods.
New York principals said the ban is tough to enforce, especially in large schools without metal detectors.
“Every kid today does carry a cell phone,” said Howard Lucks, principal of New Utrecht High in Brooklyn. “The kids keep them in their backpacks, their pockets. As soon as they see an administrator or teacher, they put it away very quickly.”
Even at schools with permanent metal detectors, students find ways to sneak the phones inside.
Once inside the school, another tactic is to hide the phone in a sandwich roll, according to one principal. Some students leave phones at nearby stores that charge small holding fees.
Yen Ramirez, a junior at Manhattan's Washington Irving High, said students need their phones for emergencies. The ban is a problem “because you never know what could happen.”
Students insist that most classmates use their cell phones responsibly, and they brush off criticism that previous generations got along fine without them.
"It's kind of ridiculous that we think we can't survive without a cell phone when people did it for thousands of years," said Elisa Muyl, 14, a freshman at Stuyvesant. "But now that they have this invention, we should use it."
