Eight Queens high schools identified by New York state as “persistently low-achieving”— Flushing, William Cullen Bryant, Long Island City, Newtown, Grover Cleveland, August Martin, Richmond Hill and John Adams — in September 2011 were given three years under city Department of Education restart and transformation models to raise graduation rates and test scores. These goals were to be accomplished without any of the schools being closed or undergoing changes in administration or faculty.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg in his January 2012 State of the City address proposed a “turnaround” model for these schools as a way to keep $60 million in federal funding. Under the “turnaround” plan, the high schools would be closed and then reopened in September 2012 with new schools operating in the existing buildings. New administrations and staff with no more than onehalf of the personnel from the school’s previous incarnation would be in place. Teachers not selected would go into the Absent Teachers Reserve (ATR) pool of teachers without permanent positions; principals at a particular school for more than two years would also be replaced; those who arrived at their schools three years ago as part of a previous improvement plan would be exempt from replacement. Curricula would also need to be revised.
Bloomberg and the DOE opted for the turnaround plan instead of a transformation plan because under the turnaround plan the city would not be required to reach an agreement with the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) union on a new teacher evaluation system, the deadline for which agreement was Jan. 1, 2012. When the DOE failed to reach an agreement with the UFT on new teacher evaluations by Jan. 1, 2012, the city replaced the transformation model with the turnaround model to retain eligibility for certain funding, which amounted to $1.8 million for Bryant H.S. and $1.55 million for LIC H.S. The state teachers’ union (NYSUT) and the state announced an agreement on teacher evaluations in February, which apparently had no effect on the turnaround plan juggernaut.
We fail to understand the rationale behind replacing a plan to improve ostensibly failing schools barely six months after its implementation with another that would result in total upheaval. The only merit to the turnaround plan is that students would not have to leave the schools they now attend. Further, the turnaround plan seems to us to place the blame for a school’s failing performance on the faculty, staff and administration. The last time we looked, students and their parents were a part of a school community and, indeed, its reason for being. Any number of factors may individually or in combination play a part in a student’s ease or difficulty in mastery of subject matter, even as many factors may play a part in a teacher’s conveying information in a way that some students in his or her class may comprehend more or less readily. The turnaround plan apparently fails to acknowledge that students are also a part of this picture and should be taken into account when evaluating a teacher or a school as a whole.
The schools which were put under the transformation plan in September 2011 had barely gotten started in bringing about the changes that the plan required and had expected to have another two years to show results. It makes no sense whatever to uproot the process barely six months after its inception. The turnaround plan will accomplish nothing but chaos.
Public hearings for the high schools affected by the turnaround plan will be held during the first half of the month of April. We urge all parents and concerned citizens to attend. This borough’s public high schools are its future. They cannot be left to arbitrary decisions that do not meet the needs of the students they were created to educate and the communities they serve.
