Grading the schools

When Michael Bloomberg anointed himself the “Education Mayor” in 2002, it was generally agreed that something had to be done to clear the black cloud of neglect and failure that dogged the New York City public school system.

The Bloomberg administration’s Children First initiative has set its priorities on testing, accountability, smaller schools and even banning cell phones. But most parents are interested in other criteria, such as reduced class size, quality teachers and assessments that serve classroom work (as opposed to “teaching to the test”), according to a recent poll of 500 city parents and education activists conducted by Fordham University’s National Center for Schools and Communities.

As 1.1 million New York City children wake up, get dressed and head off to public school, TONY Kids takes a look at some of the recent changes in the city’s education system. We spoke to experts and dozens of moms and dads from all five boroughs—many of whom belong to the parent groups Class Size Matters and InsideSchools.org—about what they thought was and wasn’t working well. Though we can’t claim that parents have come to a total consensus on any topic (this is New York, after all), we did note definite trends. To find out what other parents think of some of the hottest of hot-button issues without making playground small talk, read on.

The subject: Testing, testing and more testing

If there’s one constant in school, it’s sharpening a No. 2 pencil for a looming quiz. Weekly spelling tests. History exams. And, later on, the dreaded SATs. But two years ago the mayor, determined to eliminate the practice of social promotion, raised the stakes for the long-standing third-grade citywide math and English Language Arts exams. Kids unable to attain Level 2 or higher risk being held back. (This has since been expanded to the fifth and seventh grades.) By objective measures, something’s working—test scores are consistently rising among grades 3 to 7, with the best performance levels ever reported for African-American and Latino students. Given such results, it’s not surprising that one of City Hall’s newest initiatives—empowerment schools, where principals are essentially handed the reins to their school, along with an extra $150,000 in discretionary funds—has a major testing component. “Interim assessments” (translation: copious testing) will occur at these 331 schools every two months or even more frequently.

Parents remain divided on the benefits of testing, with many lower income and minority parents supporting the measures, according to Sol Stern, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. “We need standardized testing,” says Vanessa Shannon Hampton of the Bronx, who has a junior at Lehman High School. “Teachers are forced to cover all the test material, and students are challenged to meet academic objectives and prepare for the following school year.” Still, many parents wonder whether the uptick in test scores comes at too great a cost: namely, eight-year-olds strung out by test prep. “I worry that getting kids ready for the tests is taking an inordinate amount of classroom instruction time,” frets Lower Lab School parent Debra Freeman. She has reason to be concerned: Half a year of reading-comprehension and math drills often comes at the expense of “secondary” subjects, like music and art. And some parents assert that the delivery date of the test grades—at the end of the school year, rather than at the beginning or middle—belies any individual diagnostic purpose.

Grade: c
Testing may raise the bar for basic skills like reading comprehension and math, but it narrows the scope of the classroom. In the DOE’s efforts to leave no child behind, parents worry they’re leaving behind discourse, creativity and the very things that lead to the daily classroom epiphanies essential to learning.

The subject: Listening to parents

Separation anxiety can be tough for toddlers. But just try taking the “lifeline” (a.k.a. a cell phone) away from a middle- or high-schooler—or her parents—and you’ll really hear some wails. No wonder the Bloomberg ban on cell phones in schools has caused so much ire. Many of the moms and dads TONY Kids spoke with feel that the administration’s deaf ear on the cell phone issue is emblematic of its approach to parents’ concerns in general. Take the furor over Chancellor Joel Klein’s unsuccessful bid this past spring to place a charter school inside the Lower East Side’s New Explorations into Science Technology and Math School (NEST), which offers kindergarten through 12th grade. Angry parents, who worried that the charter school would siphon space from NEST students, held rallies, printed stickers and filed a lawsuit before the Department of Ed blinked—and ultimately let go of the principal.

Upper East Side dad Patrick Sullivan argues that Klein’s modus operandi “may be a smart strategy for the boardroom” but it’s “just not the way to deal with parents who’ve poured their heart and soul into their child’s school.” But Greg Goldstein, a former PTA president at P.S. 87 on the Upper West Side, sees greater accountability. “Today, you can e-mail Joel Klein and get an answer,” he says. “When our school was going through a crisis with the principal, I asked for a meeting and he gave us a meeting.”

Grade: c-
It shouldn’t take litigation to make the administration respond, but some parents sense greater transparency.

The subject: Access to honors classes

In announcing new uniform standards and procedures for admission to programs for gifted and talented (G&T) children in 2005, then Deputy Chancellor Carmen Fariña nodded to the “wide array of gifted and talented programs in some districts” (that’s white, middle-class, professional nabes) while pledging to “increase opportunities for students in traditionally underserved areas.”

In addition to adding more G&T programs, the administration’s concept is simple: Give kids whose parents can’t afford pricey private test coaches (and don’t live near a G&T school) the chance to stand shoulder-to-shoulder at the G&T starting gate with their peers. Admissions criteria now accounts for a range of intelligences, like creativity or inquisitiveness—as well as the results of an IQ test. Mary-Powell Thomas of Boerum Hill, who has G&T children in Brooklyn’s P.S. 38 and M.S. 51, is all for broadening admission. “I look forward to everyone having a chance to get their kids into classes like this,” she says, noting that her two children’s classrooms “have a multiculti vibe but aren’t necessarily economically diverse.”

So it might seem less than charitable that many parents, particularly on the Upper West Side, where G&T programs are deeply competitive, feel bitter about the new admissions policies. One father worries that children whose families who live nearby and are siblings of already enrolled students may be turned away. Others insist that honors classes should be reserved for kids who are deemed high achievers in academics—period.

Grade: b
Ensuring that more kids get access to G&T classes is vitally important, but no parent wants to see her own child shortchanged.

The subject: Charter schools

Everyone pays for public schools, so they should be good enough for everyone’s kids, right? In theory, yes. But then there’s the reality of Nilda Rivera, for example, a Bronx mom whose visit to her local public school left her feeling unnerved. “It was very chaotic,” she says. Rivera tried to use a variance to get her son into a Clara Hemphill “Best” Manhattan school, to no avail. Then a newspaper article alerted her to KIPP STAR College Prep, a charter school in central Harlem known for its discipline, rigor and high test results—last year its students earned some of the highest exam scores in the neighborhood. “You can hear a pin drop in those classes,” she says happily of her son’s sixth-grade class last year.

Like Rivera, droves of parents are trying their luck at lotteries for these privately run, publicly funded schools. The hitch? You have to be among the chosen. Up from less than 20 charters operating in New York City in 2002, there are now 47 in the city (12 set to open this year), serving a population that’s about 90 percent African-American and Latino. The success rate is phenomenal; last year, charter-school kids in grades 3 to 8 outperformed community district students in math and English tests citywide, according to the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence—and Chancellor Klein is urging state legislators to raise the total state cap on charter schools over 100. However, there are issues still to be resolved, such as union representation (charters are not required to have unionized teachers or staff) and whether Klein will have unilateral authority to turn an existing public school into a charter without majority consent from enrolled students’ families.

Grade: c
Although charter schools can provide an excellent education, parents worry that they don’t solve the main problem: improving public schools.

The subject: Class size

“I am fed up with the fact that my son has to sit in an overcrowded class while the public school of my choice has space available,” says Joy Polanco of Queens Village. Last year, Polanco’s son was one of 27 first-graders in his P.S. 135 class. It’s a huge problem in Queens, but nearly all the parents TONY Kids spoke to agree that class size may well be the worst crisis schools face. Indeed, NYC receives more than $88 million annually in state funds earmarked for class-size reduction. An audit by State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, however, found that while class size has shrunk in the lower grades to an average of 21.3 students per class in 2004–5 (down from 24.9 students in 1998–99), classes remain larger than the mandated 20 students or less.

Some parents think that leasing space in preexisting buildings, and rezoning neighborhood schools to balance overburdened ones with their less-crowded counterparts, could help in the short run. Bloomberg’s answer, though, is building more schools, thereby adding 66,000 seats—and he has the money to do it ($11.2 billion from the state budget). That makes some parent-activists hopeful, even though it’s only a partial solution.“How do you expect to reduce class size without hiring more quality teachers or buying new books?” demands April Humphrey, a leading organizer for the fiscal advocacy group Alliance for Quality Education.”And without reducing class size, we’re not giving students a chance.”

Grade: incomplete
Signs are looking up, but the present situation for most students is inadequate.

The subject: Inclusiveness

Here’s a bright spot, say most parents. Children with learning disabilities—who total 135,000 students within the school system—are legally guaranteed a rugspot alongside their peers whenever possible. Since Bloomberg took over, more special-education kids are being integrated into general classrooms (an increase of about 8 percent). “It’s better socially for special-ed kids,” says Mellon O’Keefe of Carroll Gardens. “And making inclusion part of the school culture is a lesson in itself for the other children.” Her two (one is in special ed) are products of integrated classrooms in the Children’s School in Park Slope, where handicapped students learn side-by-side with often high-achieving kids.

Special-needs kids have long been neglected by the system, but Kim Sweet, an attorney at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest who works on these issues, believes the DOE and District 75 (the citywide special-ed district) have been very supportive of inclusion. Such classrooms are expensive, often led by two full-time teachers (one GE and one special ed) and a paraprofessional—but experts say they’re worth every cent. In the right setting, Sweet says, “these kids have done things no one imagined they could accomplish.”

Grade: a-
Special-education kids appear, at last, to be getting the attention they deserve.