While Mayor Bloomberg is insisting that, despite last week’s
progress on teacher evaluation negotiations, he will move ahead
with plans to close 33 public schools in the city, including eight
in Queens, and reopen them this summer with different names and
about half the staff replaced, students, educators and legislators
are fighting back and urging the city leader to think twice.
Last month, Bloomberg had said the lack of an agreement between
the city and the teachers’ union on annual evaluations prompted his
plan to implement what is known as the “turnaround” model, which
amounts to replacing much of staff at schools that are in a federal
improvement program due to low graduation rates and test scores.
The move, Bloomberg said, was an attempt to salvage $60 million in
education funding specifically meant for the 33 schools that the
state had withheld because of the lack of a deal on teacher
evaluations.
After Gov. Cuomo intervened, a major sticking point in the
negotiations on the evaluations was resolved last week — that of
the appeals process for teachers who receive low marks on the
assessments — and the state education commissioner said during a
phone call with reporters last Thursday that he expects the union
and mayor to soon reach a full accord.
But Bloomberg said the agreement on the appeals process, which
would allow for teacher evaluations to include an independent,
third-party validation of teacher ratings, does not stop his plans
for many, if not all, of the 33 schools, including John Adams High
School in Ozone Park, Richmond Hill High School, Long Island City
High School, Flushing High School, Grover Cleveland High School in
Ridgewood, Newtown High School in Elmhurst, August Martin High
School in Jamaica and Bryant High School in Long Island City.
“If they replaced the teachers, it would be very chaotic for
Grover Cleveland,” said Diana Rodriguez, the student body president
and a senior at the school. “The teachers who work at Grover
Cleveland already understand the problems the high school faces,
and, with our new principal and new academies, we already have a
foundation to build upon.”
In an attempt to increase graduation rates and test scores,
Grover Cleveland, which has been improving, launched small
academies for freshman and sophomore students that allow the pupils
to take extra classes in subjects that especially interest them,
like computers or art.
“If the mayor removes 50 percent of the staff and brings in new
teachers who are inexperienced, how will that benefit the
students?” Rodriguez asked.
Bloomberg did concede that the progress on the teacher
evaluations could mean that not all of the schools would sustain
the teacher replacements and that the city may not implement the
turnaround program in all of the schools, he he did not say that
was definite.
“Nothing in the deal prevents us from moving forward with our
plan to replace the lowest performing teachers in 33 of our most
troubling schools,” Bloomberg said at a City Hall press conference
last Thursday.
He said the teacher replacement would happen in “probably most
of them, certainly most of them.”
Alongside students, educators are also slamming the mayor’s
plan. Ernest Logan, the school principals’ union president,
recently wrote a letter to Education Commissioner John King Jr. and
said replacing half the staff would “cause a massive
school-by-school destabilization throughout the system, with scant
evidence of an ability to do more good than harm.”
City officials have said as many as 1,800 teachers could be
replaced — but the mayor is not allowed to fire them and many of
them would undoubtedly land in the reserve pool of teachers who do
not have permanent assignments. According to Logan, that would cost
the city about $180 million annually because the teachers would
still have to be paid. So, while the cost of the new teachers would
likely be covered in part by the federal funds, which are doled out
by the state, that still leaves a serious gap between the $60
million in aid and the amount the city would pay for the teachers
who are not permanently stationed at any school.
Legislators also slammed the mayor for not abandoning the
turnaround model.
“The city must roll back its disruptive plan to overhaul public
schools like Long Island City and William Cullen Bryant high
schools,” state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria said). “Our
children’s education should supersede political posturing that
would interfere with students’ ability to learn.”
Each of the 33 schools are in a federal improvement program
because of such issues as low graduation rates and test scores,
which forced the city to implement one of four federally required
programs at each institution.
Last spring, the city announced it would use models that would
not close the schools or replace teachers, but instead bring in
educational organizations that would work with the school
communities to improve graduation rates, test scores and morale.
Schools were told they would have three years to implement the
changes before the city would once again consider closing them.
“I think the Department of Education is going to go ahead with
their turnaround process, but I’m a firm believer that until
schools are actually closed that there’s a time the DOE could
consider otherwise,” said state Sen. Joe Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard
Beach), whose district includes John Adams, Richmond Hill and
Grover Cleveland high schools.
The city’s announcement on the progress on evaluations came at
the same time that Cuomo announced the state had reached an
agreement with the state teachers’ union on teacher
evaluations.
The state agreement on teachers, as well as principals, ends a
nearly two-year stalemate on the issue of evaluations and allows
school districts, such as the entire New York City system, to base
up to 40 percent of the review on student performance and state
standardized test scores. The current decades-old evaluation system
relies more on principals’ classroom visits and input from
colleagues.
Cuomo said the remaining 60 percent of the teachers’ ratings
will be based on their performance, as determined by principals’
observations, peer reviews and student and parent feedback.
The “agreement puts in place a groundbreaking new statewide
teacher evaluation system that will put students first and make New
York a national leader in holding teachers accountable for student
achievement,” Cuomo said at a press conference in Albany — from
which Bloomberg was notably absent. “This agreement is exactly what
is needed to transform our state’s public education system, and I
am pleased that by working together and putting the needs of
students ahead of politics we were able to reach this
agreement.”
But Queens educators were less than pleased with Cuomo’s
announcement.
Arthur Goldstein, an English as a second language and the UFT
chapter leader at Francis Lewis High School in Flushing, said the
focus on test scores seems especially unfair when it comes to
students just learning English.
“Someone who moved here from Brazil two weeks ago is judged on
the same standards as someone who spent their entire life in the
U.S.,” Goldstein said.
“I love to teach what kids need to know, and I love to make kids
love to learn English,” Goldstein continued. “This is a disaster
and is a stupid idea, and I believe it’s motivated by this hatred
for teachers.”
