Michael (excuse me, "Mike") Bloomberg has made a big deal of how test scores for NYC schoolchildren have risen to seemingly astronomical heights. A closer examination, of course, reveals that while city tests -- the ones he and his puppet, Joel Klein, control -- seem to show significant gains, scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests show virtually no change at all over the past several years.

It would seem that when Michael Bloomberg writes the tests, kids show progress, but when someone else writes the tests the result is far different. This doesn't even take into account the fact that teachers are now wasting valuable class time giving practice tests; in theory, test scores should improve across the board if those practice tests are any good.

The anomaly to date has been state tests, given by the Board of Regents. Scores on these tests have risen statewide, and especially so in NYC. Michael Bloomberg doesn't control these tests, so he could claim that they are proof that his and Klein's methods work.

Until now.  read more »

(Note: The following is the text of my testimony to the New York State Assembly's Education Committee on the question of mayoral control of New York City's schools.)

In 2003, beset by anger over school board corruption, the state of New York gave virtually complete control over New York City's public school system to the mayor in a six-year experiment. As the end of that experiment nears, the question of how to move forward moves to the forefront.

By the time I graduated from high school, I had attended schools in seven different school districts in five different states. I therefore have a rare opportunity not only to compare and contrast different approaches to the many aspects of how a school, and a school system, can be organized, but also how well each separate aspect works and how well they work together.  read more »

(Note: Another cross-post from my website.)

For the past seven years, there has been a disturbing trend in the demographics of New York City. In each of those years, there are fewer children enrolled in our public schools than the year before. In the late 90s, student enrollment increased, but starting with the 2001-02 school year that trend was reversed. If the 2001-02 year were a blip, it could have been chalked up to the 9/11 attacks, but it turned out to be merely the beginning of a longer-term trend (see graph below).

According to Census Bureau estimates*, New York City's population increased by 2.6% from April 1, 2000 to June 1, 2006. Yet during that same time, student enrollment in our public schools declined by 4.4%. I'm not a statistician, but I'm pretty good with numbers, and that seems to me to be a significant difference.

Why is this a problem?  read more »

Board of Education Chancellor Joel Klein spoke last night at the Citizens Union annual meeting. It was a great speech. Unfortunately, his actions over the past six years have been diametrically opposed to last night’s words.

I’ll list three examples:

He started by talking about the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. Later, he returned to that decision. His words seemed to indicate that he felt it was a great decision. But recently, his new zoning and variance regulations and have led to more segregation in our schools, not less.

That’s right – this past year’s kindergarten classes were more segregated, thanks to Joel Klein. One prime example is P.S. 199 in Manhattan, a school where the older grades have a mix of minority students. The five kindergarten classes, however, contained not one African-American child among them, and few, if any, Hispanics.  read more »