Even if I didn't believe that homework was necessary, it's completely absurd to propose that teachers should be micromanaged to this degree. Now you're going to tell me how much homework I can and can't give? That's insane. Like Vallone knows better than I do what the needs of my students are.
As to the issue of whether kids should have a lot of homework: not all kids are the same, not all groups are the same, not all schools are the same. I don't doubt that Vallone's daughter doesn't "need" to do a bunch of homework, but some of my students, who come to me multiple grades below grade level, certainly need to do homework if they are to catch up. It's a sad reality, but to legislate otherwise would be to codify the achievement gap.
Sol Stern on Bloomberg and micromanagement:
http://daily.nysun.com/Repositor...Ar00800&
Locale=
"This September’s re-education sessions for teachers drove home the party line relentlessly: Your students must not be sitting in rows. You must not stand at the head of the class. You must not do “chalk and talk” at the blackboard.You must have a “workshop” in every single reading period. Your students must be “active learners,” and they must work in groups. As one circular distributed to principals put it: Your teachers must transform themselves from the “sage on the stage” to the “guide on the side.”
Messrs. Bloomberg and Klein are basking in the applause of elite opinion makers who have no idea what is going on in the city’s classrooms. But it is now clear that there will be no improvement with Mr. Klein and Mr. Bloomberg’s progressive dictatorship. The system’s best teachers will resent being treated as if they were robots and are likely to leave, while the mediocrities will follow orders. But surely teachers treated like buck privates in boot camp will be reluctant to give up the protections of the current union contract.
The control of the schools won by Mayor Bloomberg, and entrusted to Mr. Klein, was meant to allow New Yorkers to hold a single person accountable if the public system fails. But there will be little consolation if we do find someone to whom we attach blame for this failure. It’s far more important to get Messrs. Bloomberg and Klein to change course before more of our children fail."
Thankfully, they're now devolving decision-making to the school level, by empowering principals. Such an important step forward.
I agree that Bloomberg's mandates are a failure. And many if not most city teachers still work under the same restraints Stern mentioned.
Bloomberg's NAEP results show no progress at all. Here's Stern on your "step forward."
http://www.city-journal.org/
2008...nal_reform.html
"Unfortunately, the Bloomberg administration and its supporters are pushing markets and competition in the public schools far beyond where the evidence leads. Everything in the system now has a price. Principals can get cash bonuses of as much as $50,000 by raising their schools’ test scores; teachers in a few hundred schools now (and hundreds more later) can take home an extra $3,000 if the student scores in their schools improve; parents get money for showing up at parent-teacher conferences; their kids get money or—just what they need—cell phones for passing tests.
Much of this scaffolding of cash incentives (and career-ending penalties) rests on a rather shaky base: the state’s highly unreliable reading and math tests in grades three through eight, plus the even more unreliable high school Regents exams, which have been dumbed down so that schools will avoid federal sanctions under the No Child Left Behind act. In the past, the tests have also been prone to cheating scandals. Expect more cheating as the stakes for success and failure rise.
While confidently putting their seal of approval on this market system, the mayor and chancellor appear to be agnostic on what actually works in the classroom. They’ve shown no interest, for example, in two decades’ worth of scientific research sponsored by the National Institutes of Health that proves that teaching phonics and phonemic awareness is crucial to getting kids to read in the early grades. They have blithely retained a fuzzy math program, Everyday Math, despite a consensus of university math professors judging it inadequate. Indeed, Bloomberg and Klein have abjured all responsibility for curriculum and instruction and placed their bets entirely on choice, markets, and accountability."
I agree that Everyday Math is no good, and is evidence of why these decisions need to be made at the school level. When Klein started out as Chancellor, though, there was ZERO curricular guidance or structure anywhere in the DoE. He was smart to add some until he could put in place a better system that gave the power to the principals, and the English curriculum and methods were actually good.
You offer no evidence this system is better. Stern's arguments and NAEP results indicate otherwise.
Wait a second. Over 10 years ago we were told by the then Bd. of Ed., that we should use the 10 minute formula. I have been using that formula and adding 30 minutes of additional reading (which is also required) for 10 years now. We were even given a homework rubric.
Yet no matter if I assigned 30 minutes or 50 minutes (plus the additional reading) depending on the grade, I would still have parents telling me the homework was either too little or too much. For most of the students it was just right.
My former principal would not allow homework on Fridays or over holidays.
The only time I would break that rule was before a major city/state assessment because I felt the review work was necessary.
Some students do go to extra activities like soccer, music, dancing etc. after school. A number of children including our 5-year olds stay until our 6pm afterschool. Those children attend one period of homework help. By the time they get home, it's dinner time and bed.
If I child doesn't understand a concept, it will show whether I give 10 questions or 10 questions. Right now the focus is on math--test prep--and trying to get everything in before the March exam.
Much of the math has been taught before, but I really think students don't retain because we give them too many topics rather than teach one topic completely the way China and Japan does. It's the old adage--Let's throw everything at them and something might stick.
Nothing this mayor has done has improved education. One test does not truly measure a child's ability.
Principals are now admitting his system does not work but are afraid to say so publicly. The only way Bloomberg has empowered principals is by fear rather than give them quality decision making practices such as collaboration.
I think it's better than that. According to Sorates, under the old system schools could do whatever they wanted and that was VERY BAD.
The new Klein system of using a method Socrates says is no good was a BIG IMPROVEMENT.
And now, the new system where schools can do whatever they wanted is VERY GOOD.
So anything Klein does is VERY GOOD, even if it's bad, and anything that came before was VERY BAD even if it's exactly what Klein is doing now.
This is not a complicated concept.
Yes, the difference is that before there was no accountability, so schools did whatever they wanted and got whatever results they wanted. Now they can do whatever they want but they will be evaluated based on outcomes.
When there's not a good system to evaluate outcomes you have to control the inputs as much as possible. Now that the accountability system is in place, they can evaluate the outputs and leave the principals and teachers to innovate ways of getting results.
Rather than empowering principals, too many of whom were of dubious quality in the classroom, the DoE should be empowering teachers to meet the specific needs of the kids who sit in front of them. If Klein does not feel confident in the professional quality of his 80,000 teachers than he has a problem akin to that facing those who want to halt illegal immigration have in how to deal with 12 million illegal immigrants.
Having taught for over 30 years in systems, public and parochial, urban and suburban, elementary to high school, I can count the number of truly enlightened and effective educators who have been my administrators on one hand. Some have been good managers of a building, some good with the kids in a disciplinary way, a few good with faculty rapport, but only a handful were true educators. The difference with now is they knew it and allowed the staff to find their own measure of comfort and effectiveness. The modern NYC administrator reads Janet Allen, Marc Tucker, or Lucy Caulkins and thinks they've found the Holy Grail from which ALL must drink.
You're absolutely right - we need to have good principals who deserve the authority Klein has given them. Fortunately, the administration took a huge step in the direction of having a much bigger pool of talented principals with today's announcement of the development of a far better hiring and evaluation process than they used to have. Now, principals will be evaluated twice a year, after going through more rigorous selection than has ever before been applied. Looks like your wish is Klein's command, xkaydet!
Interesting to see untested programs repeatedly touted as successes, particularly considering a record of almost complete failure.
It's funny how one person here loves to spin misinformation. Klein has not really empowered principals and the CSA has already said so. They should know!!!
Testing principals is not such a bad idea. But all principals will still use Test Prep over real education as long as that stupid School Report Card is in use. When the best schools receive bad scores because students are already achieving, it goes to the heart of what an idiot Klein and Company really are.
One education blogger just posted on how her school has changed for the worse since the Report Card. Now instead of a real education, children are forced to go into Test Prep classes.
That is not progress!
My sixth graders are well below standards. I give homework that I believe is meaningful and necessary to remediate deficiencies. My homework is differentiated (which adds an extra couple of hours per week to plan) and I is vital to help develop the habits of mind necessary to a successful life. But then again, my students don't play outside. Too dangerous.
Just for this, I'm giving more homework in protest ...
Principals have always been evaluated. The question is who does the evaluation and who becomes a principal. How is the talent pool enlarged? Does Klein go out and recruit veteran teachers and pay for their Masters programs. (not the Leadership Academy nonsense where non educators with no knowledge of teaching get paid 90K to learn in 18 months what a you learn in a career)
As to school evaluation how is it that my school scored a solid B while becoming a school in need of improvement according to the state DoE and the measures and guidelines of NCLB? Does Klein say oops and change our grade to a D? We have a good shot at being labelled a SURR school next year so how objective will Klein's evaluators be when assessing our performance with the state results in their minds.? And if they do factor in state results that obviates the need for Klein's and Tweed's assessments.
Klein has bought a bill of goods from these vendors, test publishers, and school assessors. It's reminiscent of the efficiency expert craze in the late 50s and early 60s. Like McNamara's "whiz kids" who brought us such wonderful results as the TFX fighter, the original M16, oh and body counts as an indicator of who was winning the VietNam War.
Aside to NYCed. Sorry for the long winded rant, but I got on a roll
XK
The test is for aspiring administrators. The details will probably come out in tomorrow's papers.
However, I thought principals now choose. So however they chose would have had to pass the test.
This applies only to the city since the certification is statewide.
Sol Stern is a BloomKlein critic from the right. To brand their forced-down-the-throats curriculum as "progressive" only denotes Stern's long-time regressive attacks on teachers and the union as the main impeder of progress. He made a career out of blaming seniority rules for all the ills of the system. There are many teachers who are proud to call themselves progressive educators but horrified to have themselves lumped in with Klein's use of the Workshop model, which people do feel could work if teachers had the choice and there were low enough class sizes. But Stern is the phonics police. I like phonics too but it is just as bad to hae the Sterns force that down teachers' throats as to haev Klein force the workshop model on them. Like someone said. EMPOWER TEACHERS!
When given the chance, Randi seized on the oppty to ally with anyone who she could and Stern suddenly became a "friend" of the UFT. Note his criticism of Klein's alienation of the teachers is based on the fact that they are too suspicious to be willing to give up more of their work rules, something Stern would be very happy to see occur.
NCLB is based strictly on test scores, while the school report card brings into account other factors. That's why their scores are not always aligned.
Would those of you who hate all things testing rather go back to the era when schools could do whatever they want and were accountable for nothing? I agree that standardized tests should only be a small part of an evaluation, but I don't see any alternative means of evaluation out there. Do people on this site have any suggestions for how to hold schools, teachers, and principals accountable without using standardized tests, or do you just complain?
Hey, Soc...
As far as NYC public schools, only when system-wide disciplinary and student accountabilty issues are addressed will we be able to legitmately measure student progress and teacher effectiveness. One can assign and motivate students to work, but if the effort is weak or non-apparent, these city measurements are inadequate. How are teachers and principals measured in the suburbs?
Good teachers have few management problems, even in the worst of schools, and good teachers can get their kids motivated. That's our job. Granted, there aren't many good teachers out there, so the schools are chaotic, but I've seen plenty of teachers who get great results in part because they have great management.
I neither know nor care how suburban teachers and principals are evaluated. The kids I'm concerned for are in NYC. And the kids in NYC deserve to have principals and teachers who are rigorously evaluated, WITHOUT making excuses for why they can't get their kids to sit down.
there aren't many good teachers out there,
Yes or no--are you a New York City teacher? I am, I've taught in several schools, and I wouldn't be remotely prepared to make such a blanket statement. If not, where on earth would you get such information?
I neither know nor care how suburban teachers and principals are evaluated.
That's bizarre. Mayor Bloomberg knows how suburban schools work, and chooses penny-ante "reforms" rather than to emulate what works. That's why his first reorg failed, that's why his second reorg failed, and that's why his third will fare no better. That's why the Leadership Academy has been ineffectual, and that's why his new testing process will in all likelihood be as unsuccessful as everything else he's tried.
Suburban schools and urban schools can't go with the same exact model. So I over-stated my indifference to what they do. It's mildly interesting to me, but I'm pretty sure that if Klein chose to steal the ideas of the suburbs, his perpetual critics would be bellowing about how stupid that is, too.
Yes, some suburban schools DO hold their principals accountable in much the way Klein is proposing, and some of them don't. It's hard to ascertain the relative success of each approach in areas where the parents (or the tutors they hire) do the bulk of the educating.
My assertion that there aren't many good teachers was based on Pogue's comment and my general observations that the schools are out of control. On that, Pogue and I agree (not all of them, certainly, but the vast majority of them have major discipline problems). My point in saying that is that GOOD teachers can manage their classrooms regardless of the chaos of the school around them. So if most of the classrooms in most of the schools are out of control, then most of the teachers are not good managers. They might be good enough to manage a class in the suburbs, but they are not good enough for NYC. (No, I haven't seen enough schools to assert that all of them are out of control, or to guess at a percentage that are, but I've seen a large enough sampling that I am comfortable in making that claim. I'm happy to hear that your school is not out of control, but as you have said, your school is not typical.)
A bit more on emulating suburban schools: are you suggesting that Klein spend all his time trying to attract rich parents who can afford tutoring for their kids? Or maybe attract students to the city who were read to from birth? In my experience, the urban teachers and administrators are not much worse than the teachers in the suburbs, but to be successful in the city you actually have to be GOOD.
The elements of good schools are simple and universal.
Are you a New York City teacher?
If the elements of a good school are simple and universal (NOT TRUE, btw), surely the same can be said for truth in general. What does it matter if I'm a NYC teacher?
If the elements of good schools are universal (NOT TRUE, BTW), then surely truth in general is universal. In other words, why does it matter where I teach?
You don't appear to have any idea what goes on in city schools.
Are you a New York City teacher?
Yes, I teach in a really low-performing public school in NYC. So now do I know a whole bunch about what goes on in city schools? I think I do, and hopefully now that you know I teach in NYC you'll think I do, too.
Since you don't teach in a bad school, is it perhaps the case that YOU don't know that of which you so often speak?
If you teach in a New York City school, how is it that you regularly post during school hours from a Long Island IP address?
Not knowing much about how IP addresses work, I couldn't tell you. I assure you I'm not on Long Island. The public school in which I teach is in Manhattan. I also live in Manhattan. I haven't been to Long Island in probably 3 years at the least (unless Brooklyn counts).
Your IP address indicates you are posting from Hicksville, New York with Long Island cable provider Optimum Online.
Goodbye, Socrates.
People who post from NYC schools have shifting IP addresses because every time you log on the system assigns a new address from a list of ip addresses assigned to the school. The first bunch of numbers are the same but the last digits differ. Site trackers also tell you it is a public school and list the borough. Miss ya.
One of the measures in the report card is the Learning Environment Survey. In it the kids, parents and teachers rate the school the admin and the teaching staff. Our grade was materially lowered because the teachers who reponded had the nerve to say that our boss was essentially an autocratic bully.
You had to hear the reaction at our opening meeting this Sept. She thought she knew each teacher who sent in a negative report. She told us to use the Open Market if we didn't like her.
Now we get a notice as the QRT approaches that we shouldn't take our dissatisfaction with Kleinberg out on her and the school. Though she tried to say we were really hurting the kids.(I haven't figured out how that computes.)
But all this goes to show that these efforts at rating are exercises in rating the ummeasurable by the incompetent.
Finally, as to the power of the Principal, when this system was at its zenith in results the principal had very little say over who came into his building. People like Rufus Thomas at the Office of Staffing Services called you in and handed you an assignment based on your test score.All the principal could do was hand you the keys and point you toward your room. Yet the schools' record of success in those days was undeniable.
Shoot, it's a shame you got rid of the one dissenting voice on this forum. The debate was refreshing. As someone who is familiar with the use of Proxies and the like, it certainly seems possible that the address you found was somehow manufactured. Nor have you proved that Socrates is indeed a NYC-imposter. I don't see a reason for his or her banishment.
Maybe Socrates and friends are:
1. Tweed flunkies
2. Randi's gang (is that you Leo Casey?)
3. School administrators who have nothing
else to do.
4. Retired Unity gang bangers.
How about taking a poll of who they really are?
I say Socrates is a sales representative from Snapple.
Actually, if the principals allow chaos, the best teacher in the world will be less than effective, by far. You're just teacher-bashing if you think otherwise.
Back to the homework discussion, from here in the Land Between the Coasts, let me just say: As class lengths become ever shorter so we can offer more classes, homework becomes more necessary. And homework WILL take longer if you're IMing your friends and listening to music and watching TV and eating. So time isn't the best indicator.
I really don't understand how any teacher, especially one who claims to teach in a NYC public school, does not support smaller class sizes, and strong discipline.
If a principal lets kids get away with bad behavior, then the teacher, and even an excellent teacher, lacks the support needed in order to do the job.
Why doesn't "he" give examples of why his principal is so great.
It is sad that the DOE and Bloomberg don't see that test scores and graduation rates would go up if discipline issues were treated more seriously to provide a calmer and more productive environment. As it is now, all this PD means nothing without better school building and classroom atmospheres.
Pogue,
I don't know if this will help, but here's the advice I'd give if I were a principal:
http://nyceducator.com/2006/08/s...artup-
tips.html
Well, I certainly am a New York City teacher, and I agree with Socrates, and think it's a shame he was run off for going against the grain on this site. Do you all really think that anyone who disagrees with you is an employee of the DOE?
I agree with Socrates that teachers whose classrooms are undisciplined are not good teachers. Socrates said nothing about not liking discipline - if anything, it sounded like he was claiming to have good discipline in his own class, and that those who don't, he considers bad teachers. Seems like a pretty reasonable assumption to me.
No, he missed the point. This site has always maintained that teachers who cannot control their whole class should never have received tenure.
The point the rest of us are trying to make is that it can take one unruly child to spoil a whole class. And, even the best teachers in the world can't always get through the emotional factors.
If principals did their jobs in the first place and supported the teacher, teachers would be able to teach and students able to learn.
Unfortunately, there are more principals out there who turn a blind eye and deaf ear and leave it up to the teacher to do the impossible. That is not good leadership.
Empowering principals is not the answer. Empowering the collaborative process is. How can anyone who claims to work as a teacher not want to have input? What are we? "Potted plants".
And, Schoolgal, when you add "Insta"-Leadership Academy Principals with a hiring of young, brand new teachers, en masse, sprinkled a large dash of "let's keep a lot of these 'incidents' under the table", you get conditions that are chaotic, unproductive, and something that the general public knows very little about.
And, thanks, NYC, I remembering printing and sharing that classroom mangagement blog with several other teachers.
"...sprinkled WITH a large dash of..."
sorry
The problem, my children, is that you fail to consider the logical explanation. Socrates is a fine boy, and is loath to raise the electricity bill of the New York City school in which he works. Therefore, when he reads the comments, he runs from his school to the garage where he parks his car. He then drives to Hicksville to post comments so as to save valuable tax dollars. While his classes may be left unattended for a few hours, his integrity is sound. At night, in order to maintain perfect consistency, he once again reads the comments in Manhattan, but drives to Hicksville to comment. He then reads the responses and drives back to Hicksville when he wishes to answer.
Why would you assume he actually lives and works in Hicksville when there's a perfectly logical alternate explanation? The boy is so tired from driving he may take to drinking hemlock. By the way, I'm a teacher and I'm writing this on a Dept. of Ed. computer. I have a class soon and I don't know anyone in Hicksville. I do like going to IKEA sometimes, though.
Even if Socrates were logging on from Hicksville, which we do not have ample evidence to conclude, I still don't get why we can no longer hear his arguments. In order to have a good debate, we must have people who actually disagree, no? It's not like he or she was flaming people or name-calling.
I do agree that principals should be responsible for maintaining schoolwide discipline. But you can't saddle someone with responsiblity on the one hand and take away their ability to do it on the other. So principals need freedom from bureaucratic constraints. Now, a good principal will give his or her teachers freedom as well, and promote the collaborative process, as you rightly request, but if they don't, there should be accountability systems in place to replace the principal. If collaboration really does get the best results, and if principals have been given a lot of autonomy in exchange for accountability, they will have an incentive to promote the collaborative process.
Posting from the heart of Manhattan.
Excellent points all. It also occurs to me now that perhaps he simply hardwired computers in his school and home and then ran 25 mile long cable to Hicksville. You can buy that in IKEA, I think. You have to consider all the possibilities, my children.
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