Why the NAACP is Suing New York by Benjamin Todd Jealous - The Washington Post

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For 102 years, the NAACP has fought to ensure that all our children have access to high-quality public education. Our founders made improving education our primary strategy for improving America. They did so because they knew from experience that educational inequities are not only the product of broader inequalities and dangerous social tensions but also maintain them.

We believe that if we make all our schools great places to learn, we will have more than better institutions and better-prepared students — we will have a better country.

Toward this end, we filed a lawsuit last month on behalf of New York City’s public schoolchildren and their parents.

The NAACP has a long history in New York. One hundred years ago this month, our first local branch in the nation was founded in Harlem. Since then, thousands upon thousands of New York students, parents and grandparents have volunteered with the NAACP to end the mistreatment of schoolchildren.

This lawsuit was filed for the most common reasons we have sued boards of education across the decades: Students are being grossly mistreated, their parents are being deeply disrespected and the entire community stands to suffer.

There are two issues we are particularly concerned about.

First, the city has located charter schools under the same roofs as traditional public schools in a way that is unfair and unjust. Their poor handling has led to many complaints from our members and their neighbors, including:

■ Students in the traditional public school must now eat lunch at 10 a.m. so that charter school students can enjoy lunch at noon.

■ The “regular school’s children” had library access for a little over four hours so that the “new charter school’s kids” could have access for almost seven.

■ “Traditional school students” were moved to a boiler room to make room for their charter school peers, and teachers of the regular students were forced to teach in the halls due to lack of space.

We are asking that the court require the city to follow state law and handle these shared space situations equitably.

Second, inequitable co-locations exacerbate the problem created by the city’s persistent failure to follow the law and engage parents before making major changes. New York state law requires the city to involve parents before announcing its intention to shut down a school or make way for a charter to share a school’s space.

We filed suit against the city in February 2010. New York City’s Department of Education lost the case in March 2010 and lost its appeal in July 2010. Yet it continued to close schools without regard for the law or a court order enforcing the law. The lawsuit we filed last month asks the court to enforce its judgment requiring the city to collaborate with communities on efforts to support and improve local schools before it shuts them — something the city has failed to do time and again.

The city’s actions impede learning, increase tensions among students and tear at the fabric of communities. When one set of students is perceived as getting preferential treatment over another, or the city refuses to work with parents to fix problems at a school before closing it, the inequity leaves all our children suffering.

Some have criticized the NAACP for joining the teachers union in this cause. Unable to refute the facts of our case, these critics question our motives, apparently also unable to comprehend that we are independent actors.

We have always been clear that just as we praise teachers for dedicating their lives to a heroic profession, we have no tolerance for bad teachers or bad schools. To spur the changes needed to help students succeed, we even stood with many of these critics when a Rhode Island district fired all the teachers at Central Falls High School.

For a century, the NAACP has practiced the maxim that Shirley Chisholm often reminded us of: There are no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, just permanent interests. In this case, as with our past education cases, our permanent interest is clear: High-quality public education for all children and a stronger nation for us all.

The writer is president and CEO of the NAACP.

Community News & Notes from NYC Public Advocate Bill de Blasio...

STATEMENT BY PUBLIC ADVOCATE DE BLASIO ON MAYOR BLOOMBERG’S DECISION TO DELAY HIRING OF POLICE CADETS - April 13, 2011

“I strongly condemn Mayor Bloomberg’s decision to delay the hiring of over 500 police cadets, a move that will put the safety of New Yorkers at risk. This decision coupled with proposed budget cuts to the NYPD risks taking our police force back to the historic lows of the early 1990s. The progress we have made on reducing crime in the years since makes it clear that taking our police force backwards would be a dangerous mistake.”

STATEMENT BY PUBLIC ADVOCATE DE BLASIO ON DECISION TO HALT BAY RIDGE PARKWAY BIKE LANE - April 12, 2011

“I commend the Department of Transportation for responding to community concerns by halting its plans to install a bike lane in Bay Ridge. This was an important step forward that shows a willingness to respect the input of residents and community leaders. I challenge the Department to make listening to New Yorkers standard procedure and to be willing to incorporate community feedback into its projects.”

PARENTS AT UWS HIGH SCHOOL SUE CITY TO STOP CO-LOCATION - April 10, 2011

Lawsuit over lost classrooms, programs has backing of all UWS officials, Public Advocate

Parents of students at the Brandeis Educational Complex have filed a lawsuit in State Supreme Court to block the NYC Department of Education’s proposed co-location of a Charter Success Academy elementary school in their building. Parents have the backing of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Councilmember Gale Brewer, Assemblymembers Linda Rosenthal and Danny O’Donnell, State Senator Adriano Espaillat, as well as Congressmen Jerry Nadler and Charles Rangel. Brandeis was recently reorganized from a single high school into four smaller, growing high schools. The plan to move an elementary school into the building would result in overcrowding and a loss of crucial science labs, classrooms, arts studios and music programs.

The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court on Friday, alleges that the Department of Education:

• Used inaccurate enrollment figures at affected high schools
• Wrongly categorized spaces like science labs and dance studios as ordinary classrooms
• Violated its own procedures for public notification and consultation
• Failed to assess the environmental impact of car and bus traffic from Success Charter Academy

“We believe that the Department of Education has not followed its own guidelines nor State charter laws in co-locating this elementary charter school in the Brandeis High School Complex,” said Lisa Steglich, Frank McCourt High School parent and lawsuit plaintiff. “A separate entrance, separate screening procedures, and a costly new and separate cafeteria for charter school students are not ‘comparable and equitable treatment.’ As parents of Frank McCourt High School students, we seek only to see that our children are treated fairly and are not relegated to second class status in their own school building.”

“After months of trying getting through to the Department of Education, these parents have only one option left: sue the City. As a public school parent and a public official, I wholeheartedly support the Brandeis community’s lawsuit. While it’s clear the Administration is bent on proceeding no matter what parents, teachers and leaders in this community say, I am hopeful we will find justice in the court system,” said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.

“I am fiercely and righteously opposed to the imposition of this charter school on our community,” said Council Member Gale A. Brewer. “This is not just another heated dispute about schools. It is a reprehensible land grab. Not only does this charter covet the new facilities that we created for our students at a cost of millions. They intend to divide our school and our community physically and culturally. It is morally wrong and bad school policy, but they think they will get away with it because DOE says they can. This court action is about stopping them.”

“We will show that the decision of the Panel for Educational Priorities was arbitrary and capricious, and should be declared invalid,” said Marc A. Landis, a Phillips Nizer partner and an Upper West Side parent-activist. “The Department of Education failed to meet its legal obligations when it overlooked the consequences of the proposed co-location on the existing high schools, failed to provide a sufficient educational impact statement, and failed to provide any environmental impact statement.”

“The voice of the people of our district is loud and clear: Success Academy does not belong in the Brandeis Campus,” said Ric Cherwin, Global Learning Collaborative Parent Association President. “Two of our schools have a very high proportion of special needs students who by law need extra space to be successful. With UWSA, these schools will have less space and their education will suffer. As has happened at other co-located schools with Success Academy, it becomes the haves vs. have-nots. Why would the DOE want to foster such a viral atmosphere?”

“The voices of the parents, students and community have been completely ignored throughout every step of this process,” said State Senator Adriano Espaillat. “A legal challenge is the final opportunity to ensure that these voices are heard, and provide the students at the four other schools of this complex an uninhibited educational experience, which must be our first priority."

“I stand in strong support of the students and their families who have filed suit against Success Academy Charter School," said Assemblymember Linda B. Rosenthal. “Since this process began many months ago, I, along with a broad coalition of elected officials, community activists and concerned parents, have argued that the PEP process was rife with inadequacies, and PEP approval was based upon incorrect information. School District 3 needs more elementary and middle school seats, not a charter school, but it looks as though Success Academy will go to any lengths to open a charter school in a district that does not want it, and certainly does not need it.”

“DOE has once again neglected to give the community a full, meaningful role in a local siting decision. State law, carefully crafted by my colleagues and I, intends that the community is fully notified and actively involved in these decisions from the beginning; this assuredly did not occur for this co-location proposal,” said Assemblymember Daniel O’Donnell. “Additionally, the students and schools currently at the Brandeis Campus must not be denied the opportunity to grow and thrive, to offer vibrant arts, science, and physical education curricula, and to creatively instruct. All of this is threatened by the co-location under consideration.”

“I am deeply concerned that the recent decision of the Department of Education to co-locate the Success Academy Charter school on the Brandeis Educational Campus was undertaken without regard for the problems this co-location imposes on both the young students who will attend the new charter elementary school and students at the five recently-established and impressive high schools on the Brandeis campus,” said Congressman Jerry Nadler. “As parents and students seek to prove in the lawsuit filed this week, it seems that the DOE failed in its duty to take this impact into account in making their co-location decision, despite repeated calls by parents, students and elected officials to do so.”

“The DOE needs to address the parents' concerns at Brandeis and elsewhere to ensure that every child has the full access to adequate classroom, arts and recreation space,” said Congressman Charles Rangel.

“Why is the DOE spending millions of dollars to squeeze in and to segregate four and five year old Success Charter students within a dedicated high school building? Worse, why are the DOE and Ms Moskowitz spending millions in taxpayer dollars bombarding Upper West Side parents with flyers and ads denigrating our local schools? It just shows that the Mayor’s and the DOE's priorities lie with the hedge-fund driven Charter schools rather than with the 96% who attend our traditional public schools,” said Noah E Gotbaum, President, CEC3.

The suit was filed by parents from the Global Learning Collaborative, Innovation Diploma Plus and Frank McCourt High Schools, who are being represented pro bono publico by Marc A. Landis, Jon Schuyler Brooks and Meagan Zapotocky of Phillips Nizer LLP. A court will hear the case on May 4th.

Fact-checking 'Waiting for Superman': Documentary or Urban Myth? byLeonie Haimson - The Huffington Post

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In the movie Waiting for "Superman," the following statement is made:

" ...in Illinois, one in 57 doctors loses his or her medical license, and one in 97 attorneys loses his or her law license, but only one teacher in 2500 has ever lost his or her credentials."

While looking for the source of this claim, which is repeated without citation in the movie and its companion book, I came upon a2007 newspaper article by Scott Reeder, of the Small Newspaper Group:

During the past six years, 1 in 2,500 Illinois educators have lost their teaching credentials through suspension, revocation or surrender. By comparison, during the same period 1 in 57 doctors practicing in Illinois lost their medical licenses and 1 in 97 Illinois attorneys lost their law licenses.

"Either Illinois teachers are 43 times better behaved than doctors or they are being held to a considerably lower professional standard than other professions,'' said Jeff Mays, executive director of the Illinois Business Roundtable and an advocate for educator accountability standards. "Just like doctors and lawyers, teachers are members of an important and demanding profession. It's time that they be held to the same professional standards."

Since the movie was released, these figures have been repeated frequently, taking up five pages in the Google search engine, and were cited in The New York Times review, the British Independent, as well as on the Brian Williams-hosted television program Education Nation on NBC.

But apparently not a single one of these news outlets, or the makers of Waiting for Superman, has ever bothered to check these figures.

In an effort to verify these claims, I first consulted the summary put out by the Federation of State Medical Boards.

In reality, only 121 doctors lost their licenses in Illinois in 2009, out of 43,670 physicians, rather than 1 in 57, as the movie claims. That means an average of 0.3 percent of doctors per year lost their licenses; or 3 out 1,000 per year - about one tenth of the figure claimed in the film.

Over the last five years, the number of Illinois doctors who have lost their licenses annually ranged from 99 to 173 each year, so the rate has not varied much over time. Similarly, 161 physicians in New York State lost their medical licenses in 2009, out of 64,818; about 0.2 percent, or 2 out of every 1,000 per year - an even smaller figure.

I also checked the figures offered in the film that 1 in 97 attorneys in Illinois lose their licenses annually. According to data reported by the American Bar Association, 26 lawyers in Illinois were disbarred in 2009, out of a total of 58,457 - in some cases, by mutual consent.

So the annual rate of attorneys disbarred in Illinois is about .04 percent -- meaning that approximately four out of 10,000 lawyers lose their licenses to practice, rather than one out of 97 as claimed in "Waiting for Superman." The number involuntarily disbarred was only ten out 58,457 -- approximately 0.017 percent, nearly a hundred times smaller than the 1 percent figure cited in the film.

The total number of lawyers disbarred in the entire country, either involuntarily or by mutual consent, was 800 per year out of 1,180,386; which is about .07 percent per year, or 7 out of 10,000. The number of those involuntarily disbarred was 441 -- or about .04 percent or 4 out of 10,000 per year. This is about 1/100 of the figure claimed in the film. It is also far less than the figure inWaiting for Superman of one in 2500 Illinois teachers who lost their credentials.

I have tried hard to find independent verification for the number of teachers losing their credentials each year. According to theNY Daily News, over the past three years , 88 out of about 80,000 New York City schoolteachers have lost their jobs for "poor performance." This is an annual rate of about 30 per year out of 80,000, or .03 percent, about the same as attorneys who are involuntarily disbarred nationally.

According to the Houston Chronicle, over the last five years, 364 Houston public school teachers have been fired, out of about 12,000. "Of those, 140 were ousted for performance reasons, a broad category that generally covers teachers not fulfilling their job duties."

So the rate of teachers losing their license to teach in Houston is about 3 percent per year -- far higher than the rate of either doctors or attorneys in Texas removed from their profession each year. For example, in Texas, only 32 attorneys were disbarred in 2009 out of 75,087; an annual rate of .004 percent -- a rate nearly a hundred times smaller.

Moreover, many more teachers who are untenured and/or uncertified were removed from their jobs for poor performance. Roughly 3.7 percent of teachers in NYC were denied tenure this year, according to The New York Times.

The overall attrition rate of teachers is much higher yet -- many of whom would probably otherwise be cited for poor performance, but who leave the profession either willingly, or "counseled" out. In NYC, the four year attrition rate is more than 40 percent -- a mind-boggling figure.

In reality, one of the most serious problems plaguing our urban schools, along with excessive class sizes, overcrowding, and poor support for teachers and students, is the egregiously high rate of teacher attrition -- with the result that we have too many inexperienced educators entering and leaving our high-needs schools each year.

Can you imagine if 40 percent of physicians or attorneys left their jobs after four years? A national emergency would be declared, with a commission appointed to find out how their working conditions should be improved.

Yet instead of examining this critical issue objectively, Waiting for Superman cites false statistics in their effort to scapegoat teachers, unfairly blaming them for all the failures of our urban schools. The film features the views of Eric Hanushek of the Hoover Institute, a well-known conservative critic of equitable educational funding, claiming that the best way to improve our schools would be to fire 5-10 percent of teachers each year.

To the contrary, eliminating teacher tenure and seniority protections would likely produce an even less experienced and less effective teaching force -- especially in our urban public schools, which already suffer from excessively high rates of turnover.

As a parent, I support a higher standard for teacher tenure and more rigorous teacher evaluation systems. I have seen my own children suffer as a result of poor teaching, though this has occurred as often in schools without union protections as those that were unionized. An improved evaluation system would take into account not only test score data, but also feedback from other teachers, administrators, students and parents.

But at this point, we simply cannot trust the corporate oligarchy currently making policies for our schools to create a fair evaluation system, including those who backed Waiting for "Superman," given their proclivity to misuse and distort data, as shown by the egregiously inaccurate figures cited in the film.

Rather than a documentary, perhaps the movie should be re-categorized, with an appropriate disclaimer, as an urban myth.

Cathie Black Claims to Have Educational Experience with Charter School Board Post, But it's Moot by Meredith Kolodner & Greg B. Smith - NY Daily News

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Parents and school officials at the Harlem Village Academies School say they've had little contact with schools chancellor nominee Cathie Black.

City schools chancellor nominee Cathie Black insists she's connected to public education via a highly touted charter school - but a close look shows she's had no contact with students, parents or teachers there.

Officials at the Harlem Village Academies admit the school's National Leadership Board, which Black joined just five months ago, has never met.

That board "has no operational or governing authority" over the school and exists for "support purposes only," the school said in response to Daily News questions.

Black primarily advised the school's CEO, Deborah Kenny, on "management, leadership, and the development of a book" Kenny is writing, the school said.

Harlem Village parents and former employees had little knowledge of Black, who is expected to get a state waiver that will allow her to take the job despite having almost no education experience.

"No, no, no, she's not with us," said the parent of a sixth-grader. "She's not on our board. We have a lot of people who give money, lots of very famous people come here. That could be what it is."

A second parent added, "I've heard of Cathie Black from the papers, but she's not part of this school."

Black's link to Harlem Village appears to be her only connection to New York public schools.

She went to Catholic school, sent her children to a Connecticut boarding school and spent her career in the publishing business.

Far from the average school

A former Harlem Village employee said Black visited the school in 2009 at Kenny's invitation as a possible donor. After that, the former employee never saw Black again.

Harlem Village officials said Black started on the board in July, a month after she lost her job as president of Hearst Magazines.

It's not clear when Mayor Bloomberg first approached Black with the idea of becoming chancellor.

Whatever Black's role there, Harlem Village has little in common with the average public school.

Kenny, who oversees 450 students, is paid $442,000, including a $140,000 "bonus" and $27,780 in "other" expenses.

The schools chancellor gets $250,000 to oversee 1.1 million students.

Many charter schools have a parent representative on their board. Harlem Village does not.

Bloomberg has called the school a national "poster child" for school reform. Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch gave $5 million toward construction of the new high school.

The school has been lauded nationally for its high test scores, including for pushing 100% of its eighth-graders to pass state math tests.

A look at the overall scores tells a different tale. In the last round of tests, like schools across New York, numbers dropped precipitously after the state made the tests tougher.

Schoolwide English test scores fell from 81% passing to 41%, while math dropped from 91% to 71%. And by eighth grade, the number of students taking the tests is a small fraction of the earlier grades.

The eighth grade with the 100% passing rate in math had 19 students.

'Why do they keep kids back?'

An unusually high number of younger students either drop out or are held back. In school year 2003-04, the year the school opened, only 48 of 73 fifth-graders made it to sixth grade. In school year 2006-07, 46 of 68 moved on; in 2007-08, just 40 of 76 fifth-graders made it to sixth grade.

Several parents praised the school for improving test scores and enforcing discipline but questioned why so many students were held back repeatedly.

"The school is good in some ways, but I don't like how they keep making so many kids stay back," one parent said. "There's a lot of pressure. If the school is as good as they say, then why do they keep the kids back?"

Higher grades fared better, although only 31 of 43 of the seventh-graders in 2006-07 made it to eighth grade and only 24 of that class went on to ninth, records show.

Harlem Village officials called the drop in overall test scores "irrelevant" because the school takes in low-performing students whose scores rise the longer they're at the school.

They also said the academy's high school students outperformed their public school peers, with 97% passing all Regents exams compared with 66% in public schools. They did not mention that the high school serves 163 students in ninth and tenth-grades only.

The middle school teacher turnover rate at Harlem Village Academies is also high: more than 50% of the teachers left or were fired in both the 2006-07 and 2007-08 school years. In 2008-09, the turnover was 25%; in 2009-10, the rate was up to 39%.

School officials said the reasons teachers leave are "wide-ranging," including teachers who "move out of state or become full-time mothers."

The school also punishes students at an exceptionally high rate. Harlem Village suspended half its students in school year 2005-06, 44% in 2006-07 and 62% in 2007-08.

By comparison, nearby Public School/Intermediate School 210 reported suspension rates of less than 5% in 2006-07 and 2007-08.

School officials said 95% of the suspensions were for "nonviolent behavior," including "teasing, cheating or disrespect."

Calls For Cathie Black Public Hearings - Good Day, New York - Fox 5

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Bill de Blasio, the New York City public advocate, is calling for public hearings on Cathie Black- Mayor Michael Bloomberg's choice to head the city's public school system.

A growing chorus of opponents say Black's lack of experience in the education field is reason enough to make her unqualified to become the next schools chancellor.

Public Advocate de Blasio told Good Day New York on Thursday that he'd like Black to answer questions from teachers, parents and others about her qualifications in a public forum.

Public Advocate de Blasio and Deborah Kenny, founder of Harlem Village Academies where Black serves on the advisory council, spoke about the Black appointment."