THE PEOPLE VS.

THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION:

PARADIGM SHIFTS UNDER MAYORAL CONTROL, 2002 - 2011

by

Dmitry Gubin

© 2011 Dmitry Gubin

A thesis
submitted in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for
the degree of Master of Science
(Art and Design Education)
School of Art and Design
Pratt Institute

May 2011
 ii

THE PEOPLE VS. THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION:

PARADIGM SHIFTS UNDER MAYORAL CONTROL,
2002 - 2011

by

Dmitry Gubin

______________________________________ Date_______________
Thesis Advisor, Dr. Heather B. Lewis

______________________________________ Date_______________
Acting Chairperson, Professor Aileen Wilson
 iii

ABSTRACT

Gubin, Dmitry. The People Vs. The New York City Department Of Education:
Paradigm Shifts Under Mayoral Control, 2002 - 2011.

This thesis explores the recent rash of high school closings in New York

City based on local and federal accountability policies, against the historical

backdrop of the city’s school system and its comprehensive high schools. The

number of closings and the way in which they have been implemented has

provoked major public protest and multiple policy analyses.

This thesis argues that the policies and practices, together with recent

budget cuts, have undermined learning opportunities for the city’s most

disenfranchised students. In contrast, the school closings appear to be benefiting

charter school management organizations and their corporate backers whose

schools are co-located in many of the affected high schools. Grassroots resistance

to the increasing school closings, on the part of students, parents and teachers,

has escalated over the past two years as more and more schools have been closed.

The thesis considers certain aspects of this resistance and its effectiveness.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Heather B. Lewis, for

guidance, patience, and inspiration; my wife, Ebony Hatchett-Gubin, for her

indispensable emotional and mental support, assistance in the research, editing

the documentary footage, and for listening to me read various sections of this

work out loud. And a well-deserved thank you goes out to Adnan Lotia for his

assistance and guidance in the writing process.

I would like to express my gratitude to all the members of NYCoRE and

GEM for their dedication and openness in sharing their views and opinions with

me. I would particularly like to thank Norm Scott for his help, suggestions, and

for his openness in giving me valuable information. I would also like to extend my

gratitude to Sam Coleman for his patience and dedication in the struggles over

public education and for letting me in on his history and philosophy.

A very special thank you to Martin Haber, Terri Brenan, Leonard Warner,

and teachers, students, and alumnus of John Dewey High School for letting me

into their activism and for contributing their insight to this work. I would also like

to thank Norm Fruchter, of the Annenberg Institute on Education Policy Research

and other scholars, citizens, and activist groups of New York City for putting

themselves onto the front lines every day and for letting me document their

struggles on the issues of public education.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv

LIST OF FIGURES vii

CHAPTERS

I THE RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 1

Introduction
Methodology

II RELATED LITERATURE 8
Federal and Local Criteria for Determining
“Failing” High Schools
The National Picture
Social Policy and Equity
New York City’s Overcrowded High Schools
Conclusion

III CONTEXT 28
A Brief History of the New York City School System
Centralized Control
The Beginnings of Comprehensive High Schools
Forging of Alternative High Schools and Minischools
The Case of John Dewey High School
The Return of Centralized Control
School Closures

IV POLICY AND RESISTANCE 70

First Wave of School Closures – 2009
Federal Policies
Charter Schools
Funding Disparities in New York City Public School Budget
The Myth of Charter School Performance
The Gentrification of New York City’s Neighborhoods
Civil Rights Language
Union Issues
Town Hall Meeting – November 9, 2010
The New School Chancellor Controversy
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Educational Marketplace
Resistance
Local Organizing
Rally To Protest School Closings
February PEP Meetings
February 1, 2011
February 3, 2011

V CONCLUSION 151

REFERENCES 155
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LIST OF FIGURES

1 Figure 1. Leonard Warner taught in the Science Department at Dewey

for thirty years 54

2 Figure 2. A map of charter school locations throughout New York City

(Source: UFT) 92

3 Figure 3. A map of closed school locations throughout New York City
(Source: UFT) 93

4 Figure 4. The Regents Central Brooklyn Town Hall meeting at

Medgar Evers College 100

5 Figure 5. The Regents’ funding allocations to LEAs (Source: NYSDOE) 102

6 Figure 6. The Regents’ Strategic Plan. 9 Goals (Source: NYSDOE) 105

7 Figure 7. Martin Haber at John Dewey High School’s Fight Back Friday 115

8 Figure 8. The Real Reformers rapping during November 16, 2010

meeting of the PEP (Source: WNYC) 117

9 Figure 9. The Real Reformers’ first appearance at the premier of

Waiting For Superman in New York City (Source: New York Post) 118

10 Figure 10. Students of John Dewey High School during

Fight Back Friday event 120

11 Figure 11. Protesting students of John Dewey High School are

standing in front of the locked gate to their campus during Fight Back
Friday event 122

12 Figure 12. Teachers of the NEA at the steps of Lincoln memorial in

Washington DC during the 10-2-10 – a massive rally of unions
and laborers 124

13 Figure 13. Protesters interlocked hands and blocked traffic along

Chambers Street in Manhattan. 128

14 Figure 14. Some of the leading members of the Grassroots Education

Movement (Source: GEM) 131
 viii

15 Figure 15. Sam Coleman is one of the leading members of GEM and
NYCoRE 135

16 Figure 16. Rude Mechanical Orchestra at the rally on January 27, 2011 at
City Hall Park 143

17 Figure 17. Harlem Success Academy parents and teachers are being
handed pre-made signs and orange t-shirts by the charter school
representatives, outside of Brooklyn Technical HS building prior to the
start of the PEP meeting 145
18 Figure 18. The PEP members taking a vote during the meeting on
February 3, 2011 147
19 Figure 19. Students crowded in front of the entrance waiting in line
prior to the start of the PEP meeting 149
20 Figure 20. TV cameras making their way through a crowd of angry
protestors during the PEP meeting on February 3, 2011 150
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

The New York City school system is the largest public school system

in the United States and serves over one million students (NYC DOE, 2010). Some

of the schools within the system, mostly high schools, are considered failing by the

New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE, 2010). Recent administrative

policies seek to either change these schools’ leadership or close the schools by

“phasing” them out (DOE, 2007). I became interested in this process for my thesis

topic because I wanted to understand how these administrative actions influenced

student learning opportunities, especially those students who do not receive equal

learning opportunities. I realized that one of my first areas of exploration would

be to understand more about the official definition of a “failing” high school and

what happened to students who attended such a school.

The question of equality in education has personal connections to my

background as both an immigrant in the United States and a member of a

minority group in the country in which I was born. I was born in 1975 in the city

of Kharkov, present day Ukraine, or the USSR, as it was called then. My family

was Jewish and throughout my childhood, government-sanctioned anti-Semitism

restricted Jews from practicing their traditional customs and were deprived of a

Jewish education.
 2

Jews were forced to hide their identity in order to avoid harassment on

the job and in school. In addition, federal policies prevented millions of Jews and

other ethnic minorities from taking full advantage of higher education in the

country. This was managed through quotas set forth by the government, which

allowed only a small percentage of each minority group into universities and

colleges each year, the rest were forced into manual labor. Yet, on the surface, we

were told that everyone was equal, that education was of upmost importance, and

that we lived in the best country in the world. But despite these reassurances, I

personally experienced discrimination at school from schoolmates and teachers.

My father was denied entrance to college and held a number of manual labor jobs

to support his family.

In the late 1980s, my family was denied permission to leave the country. As

a result, my father, along with others in the same predicament, staged a protest

against the federal emigration laws. The KGB subsequently arrested all the men

who took part in the protest. It was only through a set of unusual circumstances

that he was released and my family was able to flee the country in 1989. We

eventually settled in New York where I attended middle school and high school.

But as a result of my experience in the USSR, I continue to question any official

doctrines and policies, no matter how socially beneficial they may appear to be.

So, when I recently discovered that the sixteen high schools scheduled for closure

by the DOE in 2010 were located in “predominantly people of color communities

that serv[ed] a disproportionate number of high-needs students” (Weil, 2010), I

became interested in exploring the topic further.

 3

Through some preliminary readings on the topic I discovered that under

the current school administration, which ultimately falls under the control of

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, there has been a surge in school closings. One way in

which the DOE addresses the issue of “failing” schools is by breaking some large

schools down into smaller ones and by replacing some public schools with charter

schools. This action has been addressed by some scholars (The Center for New

York City Affairs, 2009) and also drew a wave of protests from parents, teachers,

students, and some school administrators. One such protest took place on January

26, 2010 during the meeting of the DOE’s, Panel for Educational Policy (PEP).

According to an eyewitness account by Joel Shatzky, an English teacher who

was present at a rally held on January 26, 2010 during these hearings, there was

public resistance to the idea that the schools were failing. “These schools that are

being closed were an integral part of their communities. Such venerable names as

Columbus High School and - though much newer - Paul Robeson High School are

an important part of the identity of people whose schools will now be associated

with failure. And failure, as one eloquent young woman, holding her baby as she

spoke, insisted, is the one thing that is most resisted in minority communities

because our culture often tells them in one way or another that they are failures”

(Shatzky, 2010).

The main questions addressed in this thesis was: How does the New York

City Department of Education address learning opportunities for high-needs high

school students through its school closure polices? Who wins and loses in the

process? The following sub-questions were brought up in the process of research

 4

into the topic of administrative accountability in regards to the issue of failing

high schools. How does the DOE set its criteria for failing high schools? When

were these policies implemented? By examining pertinent policies and their

historical framework I thought I would be able to understand the broader context

for the actual implementation of such policies.

I asked the following research question: What are the opportunities for

students in the “failing” high schools to succeed? Is there a relationship between

failing schools and student demographics? I thought that the answer to the

latter question would help me understand why the schools on the DOE’s list of

failing high schools are located in poor minority neighborhoods or consist of a

predominately high-needs student body. I thought it might also reveal potential

ideological motives that seem to be connected to such administrative policies and

how these ideologies translate into policies. I developed these questions because

I thought they would help me understand the nature of the schools that are

identified as failing and also help me analyze the proposed solutions.

Methodology

To address my research questions, I employed an evaluative case

study methodological approach. In her book Qualitative Research and Case Study

Applications in Education, Sharon Merriam gives this definition of evaluative case

study: “Evaluative case studies involve description, explanation, and judgment”

(1997, p. 39). Additionally, according to Guba and Lincoln, the evaluative approach

appraises “information to produce judgment. Judging is the final and ultimate act
 5

of evaluation” (Guba and Lincoln, 1981, p. 375).

The purpose of this study was to identify DOE policies regarding failing

schools, how those policies were implemented, and who won and who lost in

the end. The complex nature of the problem required an in-depth look and in

this instance, as Merriam argues, “case study is best because it provides thick

description, is grounded, is holistic and lifelike, simplifies data to be considered

by the reader, illuminates meanings, and can communicate tacit knowledge”

(Merriam, 1998, p. 39). Approaching the topic through the common language of a

case study enabled me to present those findings to a wider audience more easily

(Merriam, 1998).

First Research Phase

My research into the problems of failing public high schools in New York

City was broken down into three phases. The first phase, which took place during

the fall of 2010, consisted of data gathering in order to establish a foundational

knowledge base for the research stages that followed. The sources for that

phase consisted primarily of scholarly journal articles and the results of studies

conducted by independent organizations. Those sources provided the following

information: official DOE definitions and policies relating to failing public high

schools; statistical information, including demographics and locations of failing

schools; causal factors such as overcrowding and admissions policies; and some

historical references. The identification of those sources was conducted primarily

 6

through library research. Simultaneously, I conducted some preliminary

interviews in preparation for the next phase of research.

Second Research Phase

The second phase of research was conducted during the winter and

the early part of the spring 2011. The research during this stage consisted of

interviews and documentations of street actions by teacher activists, students,

parents, and other concerned citizens. Also, hearings of the Panel for Educational

Policy were documented. Due to the multifaceted nature of the issue, I interviewed

individuals who represented various involved groups. Those individuals were

first-hand participants or analysts in the public debate about failing high schools:

primarily teachers, high school students, parents, and scholars and the interviews

were conducted through face-to-face meetings. Additional interviewees were

individuals that worked or studied within failing high schools, while others were

individuals whose activism was built around the issues of school closures. All of

the interviews were recorded on video camera, and were used for the creation of

School’s Out: Forever – a documentary that covers the issues of school closures

and the resistance by grassroots organizers.

In order to get inside information on the school closing procedures and

its effects I interviewed teachers, students, and alumnus of the John Dewey

High School in Brooklyn. This was one of three large Brooklyn high schools that

were placed on the October list of forty-seven schools that the DOE intended to
 7

close (Christ, 2010). Additionally, I conducted a photojournalist documentation

of the relevant public events – namely protests, rallies, and public hearings. The

photojournalist aspect was used for illustrative purposes for my thesis and may be

used, in the future, as part of exhibitions or publications pertaining to the subject

of “failing” high schools.

Third Research Phase

The third phase of my research took place during spring 2011.

During that final phase I analyzed the collected data and conducted additional

interviews and documentation. The findings were compared against the data

collected in the initial stage of research and combined for logical progression and

the results were supplemented by visual documentation. At the beginning of the

third phase I began the writing process, which continued until its completion in

early May.
 8

CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter contains a review of scholarly literature that focuses on the

issue of “failing” high schools in New York City. Also included is a review of

interdepartmental governmental memorandums and independent studies that

address the issue of “failing” high schools. The review focuses on the views of

scholars and research done by individuals and organizations outside of the DOE

who, through analysis of existing data or through first-hand research, have

provided evidence on the topic. Also included are documents published by the

DOE that define the official criteria for “failing” high schools. The multi-faceted

information has been divided into sections that correspond to the specific aspects

of the problem.

Federal and Local Criteria for Determining “Failing” High Schools

On October 5, 2010, the DOE released its new guide for evaluation of the

city’s public high schools titled Educator Guide: The New York City Progress

Report 2009-2010. The purpose of this document was to “set expectations for

schools Citywide and to promote school empowerment and accountability” (DOE,

 9

2010). The evaluated schools are then assigned a letter grade. According to the

DOE (2010), “This letter grade (A through F) provides an overall assessment of

the school‘s contribution to student learning in three main areas of measurement:

(I) School Environment, (II) Student Performance, and (III) Student Progress.

Schools also receive letter grades in each of these three categories” (p. 2).

Additional recognition is given to schools where students most in need of

improvement and need of attention demonstrate Exemplary Student Outcomes.

According to the DOE (2010), “The overall Progress Report Grade is designed

to reflect each school‘s contribution to student academic progress, no matter

where each child begins his or her journey to proficiency and beyond. Schools

are compared to all schools Citywide and to schools with student populations

most like their own” (p. 2). Each area of measurement contributes a percentage

to the overall school score. In the Educator Guide: The New York City Progress

Report 2009-2010, the DOE breaks down the overall school score in the

following manner: School Environment – 15%, Student Performance – 25%,

Student Progress – 60%. “In addition, schools can earn additional credit in the

Exemplary Student Outcomes category. Schools earn points here when their high-

need students make exemplary gains as measured by four-year diploma rates

and scores of 75+ on key Regents exams. This component of the score can only

improve a school‘s overall Progress Report Score” (p. 6).

Each measure that contributes to the overall school score also contributes

10-15 points toward School Environment points. To calculate these points the

DOE uses the results from its annual NYC School Survey completed by parents,
 10

teachers, and middle and high school students. “Each survey question informs

school results in one of four categories” (p. 7): Academic Expectations – “the

degree to which a school encourages students to do their best and develop

rigorous and meaningful academic goals” (p. 7), Communication – “the degree to

which a school effectively communicates its educational goals and requirements,

listens to community members, and provides appropriate feedback on each

student‘s learning outcomes” (p. 7), Engagement – “the degree to which a school

involves students, parents and educators in a partnership to promote student

learning” (p. 7), Safety and Respect – “the degree to which a school provides

a physically and emotionally secure environment for learning” (p. 7), and

Attendance – “includes the attendance for all high school students on a school‘s

register at any point during the school year” (p. 8).

Another measure of a school’s overall score is Student Performance.

This measure is also broken down into evaluative sub-categories that “focus on

the school‘s success in graduating its students and achieving more advanced

diplomas” (p. 8). The DOE identifies the subcategories in the following way: Four-

Year Graduation Rate – “reflects the percentage of students in the school‘s four-

year cohort that graduated with a Regents or Local Diploma” (p. 8); Four-Year

Weighted Diploma Rate – “assigns a weight to each type of diploma based on the

relative level of proficiency and college readiness indicated by the diploma type”

(p. 9); Six-Year Graduation Rate –“ similar to the four-year graduation rate, except

that it evaluates the percentage of students in a school‘s cohort that graduated

with a Regents or Local Diploma within 6 years of beginning high school” (p. 9);
 11

Six-Year Weighted Diploma Rate –“ similar to the four-year weighted diploma

rate, except that it evaluates the diplomas earned by students within 6 years of

beginning high school” (p. 9).

Student Progress measurement, which constitutes the majority of the

overall score, “evaluates a school‘s success in moving students toward graduation,

specifically credits earned per year and Regents passed. New York State requires

that a student meet credit requirements and pass five Regents subject exams

with a 65 or higher to graduate with a Regents Diploma” (p. 10). This measure is

broken down into the following sub-categories: Percentage of Students Earning

10+ Credits in the first Year 1 of High School, Percentage of Students Earning 10+

Credits in Year 2 of High School, Percentage of Students Earning 10+ Credits in

Year 3 of High School – these sub-categories “evaluate the percentage of students

at a school who accumulate 10 or more academic credits” (p. 10); Percentage of

Students in the School’s Lowest Third Earning 10+ Credits in Year 1 of High

School, Percentage of Students in the School’s Lowest Third Earning 10+ Credits

in Year 2 of High School, Percentage of Students in the School’s Lowest Third

Earning 10+ Credits in Year 3 of High School – “These metrics are the same as the

previous set of measures, except they measure only students in the school‘s lowest

third as determined by the average of the 8th grade Math and ELA proficiency

ratings” (p. 11); Average Completion Rate for Remaining Regents – “evaluates

a school‘s ability to help students progress each year towards passing the five

Regents subject tests required for a Regents diploma: English, Math, Science, U.S.

History, and Global History” (p. 11); 12 Weighted Regents Pass Rates – “measures
 12

evaluate the extent to which some high schools help their students meet or

exceed these expectations, while students attending other high schools fall below

expectations” (p. 12).

Additionally, the DOE provides additional credit toward its evaluation of

school performance - Exemplary Student Outcomes. “Schools can earn additional

credit based on their percentage of students in the Lowest Third Citywide earning

a 75 or higher for the first time on an ELA or Math Regents. 75 is the cut-off the

City University of New York uses to exempt students from having to take remedial

classes in college” (p. 14). The cut scores that “determine the top 20 and 40% for

each additional credit measure were established based on the performance of

schools during the 2008-09 school year” (p. 14).

According to the Independent Budget Office’s 2010 memo Comparisons

Between Schools Slated for Closing and all Other Schools written by James

Murphy, Annual Progress Report scores are one of the most important factors

used by the DOE for evaluating schools and proposing closures. Schools are

also given a separate letter grade for each of the three areas. The letter grades

are based on numeric scores for each area and are “calculated from the school’s

performance on a set of variables relative to schools citywide and schools

with similar student populations, its ‘peer group’. Particular weight is given to

performance relative to each school’s peer group” (p. 2). Although DOE considers

Progress Report scores important tools for evaluation, there are other factors that

help to identify schools for closure.

The Independent Budget Office (IBO) is an agency funded by public money

 13

whose role is to supply the public and their elected officials with nonpartisan

information about the budget of New York City. The information supplied by the

IBO includes: reviews, economic forecasts, and policy analyses in the form of

reports, testimony, memos, letters, and presentations. The IBO also publishes

guides to understanding the budget and provides online access to key revenue

and spending data from past years. The Comparisons Between Schools Slated for

Closing and all Other Schools review covers several years of data from various

sources. It analyzes the 20 schools included in the December 2009 proposal,

released by the DOE, scheduled to be closed beginning in the 2010–2011 school

year.

According to Murphy (2010), the New York City DOE has established a

new school closing policy, targeting schools performing in the lowest decile of

city schools — schools in the lowest 10 percent when ranked by performance

measures—for closure. Additionally, grades 6–8 at Frederick Douglass III

Academy were to be gradually phased out (p. 1). Taking into account the

various factors involved in the DOE’s decision making process and that many

of those factors are not quantifiable, IBO’s analysis is a snapshot of selected

schools proposed for closure and their characteristics across a set of metrics

that, although important, are not the only possible measures of school

performance. The IBO reviewed where the schools threatened with closure fall

in the distribution of various measures. The agency also compared some of the

characteristics of these schools with other schools in the bottom deciles that were

not included in this year’s list of schools to be closed.

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The IBO drew it’s the data for its analysis from the DOE’s 2009 school

Progress Reports and the State Education Department’s list of schools under

registration review. The IBO limited its consideration for this analysis to a

relatively small set of variables based on the DOE’s public explanations of the

proposed closings. The variables were divided into three groups: overall measures

of school performance, measures of school environment, and measures of student

academic achievement and progress.

The IBO’s analysis of several of the performance variables adopted by the

DOE and the New York State Education Department showed that while schools

proposed for closure are in fact in the lowest decile on many variables, they differ

in the consistency of their performance. For example, 12 out of 15 high schools

included in the DOE’s proposal fell into the lowest decile of Progress Report

scores. However, the IBO’s findings showed that in the more narrow measures of

school environment and academic achievement, (included in the Progress Report),

some of the schools proposed for closing performed better relative to other low-

performing schools. Additionally, while schools proposed for closure most often

performed worse than other schools in the lowest decile of Progress Reports, in

some instances they performed as well or slightly better than others in that group

(p. 3).

The IBO’s analysis concluded that while schools proposed for closure

are generally in the lowest decile for overall accountability measures, their

performance on individual measures of school environment and academic

achievement were sometimes better than others. Many scored in the lowest decile
 15

for at least one variable while few consistently fell in the lowest 10 percent for

many variables. Only 3 of the 15 high schools performed in the lowest decile for

three or more of the five environment variables while five did so for three or more

of the six academic achievement variables (p. 6).

The National Picture

In recent years the federal government has made attempts to improve

public education nationwide by initiating a number of policies. According to

Alliance for Excellent Education’s report Action Required: Addressing the Nation’s

Lowest-Performing High Schools published in April of 2009 many of the federal

policies were based on the “lessons learned from emerging strategies at the

state and local levels” (p. 1). The Alliance for Excellent Education is a policy and

advocacy organization based in Washington, DC, whose role is to improve national

and federal education strategies. The strategies it develops and implements

encourage effective high school reforms and increased student achievement. For

that purpose, the Alliance’s distributes research and information about promising

education practices. Working with educators, researchers, business leaders,

citizen groups, and decision-makers at the local, state, and national levels the

Alliance provides reliable, objective, and unbiased advice that informs decisions

about creation and implementation of education policies.

The ultimate goal of the Alliance is to generate high academic achievement

and high graduation rate for all students. The Alliance focuses on America’s six
 16

million high-risk secondary school students, particularly those who are most

likely to drop out of school or to graduate unprepared for a productive future, and

to prepare them for success in college, work, and citizenship.

According to the report Action Required: Addressing the Nation’s Lowest-

Performing High Schools (2009), “every school day, seven thousand students leave

high school without a regular diploma. The graduation rate for poor and minority

students hovers around 50 percent. In two thousand of the nation’s high schools—

known as “dropout factories”— dropping out is more common than graduating”

(p 1). While a high school diploma and a postsecondary education are increasingly

necessary to succeed in the workforce graduation rates among poor and minority

students are in crisis (p. 1).

The graduation rate statistic among high-need students has stimulated a

demand to improve the lowest-performing high schools. The No Child Left Behind

Act of 2001 (NCLB) leveraged the restructuring of accountability systems, for

the purpose of school improvement, to the top of the agenda on the federal level.

Federal policy-makers understand school improvement as a systemic process that

is led by states and school districts. The emerging consensus is that this process

should be tailored to meet the individual needs of students and schools and must

be based on detailed information about student and school performance (p. 1).

According to the report, “there is also recognition that success is dependent on

increased capacity— including skill, knowledge, people, and resources—at the

state and district levels to support, manage, and, where necessary, direct these

efforts” (p. 1).

 17

According to the Alliance’s report, the NCLB act “directs the current

federal approach to improving low-performing high schools through its provisions

related to the ‘school improvement process’ and its most intensive strategy

for the lowest-performing schools, termed ‘restructuring’” (p. 4). The NCLB

implementation of accountability policies have attracted some of the strongest

criticism in the public debate. According to the Alliance for Excellent

Education the NCLB outlines implementations “are not designed to successfully

address the lowest performing high schools” (p. 4). The NCLB uses the Adequate

Yearly Progress (AYP) mechanism to evaluate school performance. Alliance for

Excellent Education found a number of flaws in the design of the law, particularly

those pertaining to high schools. The Alliance, states that NCLB “is an ineffective

tool at the high school level” for a number of reasons.

First, “the definition of ‘low performing’ varies significantly across states

because of inconsistencies in the state-set standards, tests (in terms of content,

difficulty, format, and scoring scales), and proficiency targets (the percentage

of students who must score at the proficient level or above) that comprise

AYP” (p. 4). Secondly, while graduation rates are a key factor in determining

failing high schools a consistent method for calculating graduation rates

considerations for graduation rates of student subgroups, and requirements

for increase of graduation rates over time have been missing from the rules

that determine AYP. “As a result, AYP determinations have not truly taken

graduation rates into account, and some of the nation’s lowest-performing high

schools escape identification. For example, one analysis found that 40 percent of
 18

dropout factories made AYP—and therefore did not receive federally mandated

attention, intervention, and support” (p. 4). Third, there is a significant lack of

differentiation among low-performing high schools. “Regardless of the cause

of failure, the depth or breadth of challenges, or the solutions that might work,

the law’s strict approach requires that all schools suffer the same consequences

in the same sequence based solely on how many years they have failed to make

AYP. For example, of the schools that were restructuring in 2006–07, 63 percent

had low performance for all students (indicating that the school faces schoolwide

challenges in teaching and learning), while 13 percent had missed AYP for the

achievement of a single subgroup (indicating that challenges are limited to a single

subgroup of students)” (p. 4).

Another flaw in the AYP found by the Alliance for Excellent Education

is that “NCLB’s one-size-fits-all method of differentiating among schools’

performances and targeting the lowest-performing high schools is flawed” (p. 4).

Despite a variety of types of failure and challenges faced by high schools and the

specificity of the necessary solutions that might work, “ the law’s strict approach

requires that all schools suffer the same consequences in the same sequence

based solely on how many years they have failed to make AYP” (p. 4). The result

is that the extent of low performance varies significantly among schools eligible

for restructuring. According to the Alliance’s report, “Restructuring is not always

the appropriate remedy for all the high schools on the low-performing-school

spectrum” (p. 4).

The report also states that NCLB’s “intervention approach does not drive
 19

fundamental improvements to teaching, learning, and student outcomes in the

lowest-performing high schools” (p. 5). Although all public schools receive an AYP

evaluation, the school improvement system only includes schools that receive Title

I funding. Because of the weakness of the Title I formula and the freedom given to

local authorities to allocate the funding, only 9% of beneficiaries are high school

students. Therefore, schools that don’t receive Title I funding are not required to

be receive support and improvement.

In lieu of its findings, the report of the Alliance for Excellent Education

recommended that the national indicators for measuring high school

performance undergo a significant improvement; federal accountability and

school improvement system be replaced by “requirements and support for the

implementation of coherent and comprehensive state and district systems of high

school accountability and improvement” (p. 13); state and district systems of

accountability be redesigned to “prioritize and respond to the lowest performing

high schools” (p. 13); effective school options for students be included into the

research related to addressing low-performing schools.

Social Policy and Equity

The Center for New York City Affairs (CNYCA) is an institute of applied

policy research whose function is to improve the effectiveness of government

and other organizations in their work with urban families and communities. The

Center clarifies the real-life impact of public policy and politics in New York City’s
 20

neighborhoods.

The CNYCA examines and supports innovation in urban strategy and

practice through its journalistic research, analysis of policies, public dialogue,

strategic planning and building of coalitions that focus on ground-level

solutions that make a difference in urban communities. The CNYCA assembles

government officials, local leaders, journalists, researchers and community-

based practitioners to explore and discuss concrete solutions to pressing urban

problems.

The report of CNYCA titled How Small-school Reforms and School Choice

Have Reshaped New York City’s High Schools (June, 2009) looks at the two

initiatives, started by Chancellor Joel Klein, to open 200 new small schools and

expand high school choice have affected students who are most at risk of dropping

out of school. The authors examine the national education policies as well as

the New York City policies under the Bloomberg administration. In New York

City, for example, they argue that mayoral control of the schools has sacrificed

transparency, accountability, and democratic control to promote a model that

elevates charter schools over regular public schools.

Klein, who, before becoming chancellor, was best known for his antitrust

work against Microsoft as a Justice Department prosecutor, has long maintained

that competition is a fundamental tool for improving the school system. In his

seven years as chancellor, he has sought to break up the monopoly of large, zoned

high schools that served students from the city’s working-class and low-income

neighborhoods and replace them with a marketplace of small schools with a wide
 21

array of themes ranging from civil rights to environmental research, hospitality

and tourism, and medical science. He expanded the city’s already extensive

system of school choice, forced schools to compete against one another for

students and tested the idea that the best schools would flourish while the worst

would eventually close. Since 2002, he has ordered 21 large high schools closed for

poor performance and promised to close more in coming years (CNYCA, 2009).

For the purpose of their report, the Center conducted and eighteen-

month investigation and analysis of thirty-four large high schools in Brooklyn,

Manhattan and the Bronx. The reporters found that the reforms did expand

opportunities for many high school students, including those with high-needs.

However, reporters also found that “some of the early small-school gains are

starting to erode, and the core policies of school choice and large-school closings

have had a harmful impact on thousands of students, including many who

continue to attend large high schools” (p. 1). CNYCA conducted interviews with

165 parents, teachers, principals, guidance counselors, and other school officials,

and found that the design and implementation of the high school admission

process had serious flaws.

The analysis revealed that in the new small schools, gains for students

came at the expense of needier students at the large schools. When the lowest

achieving large schools were closed, thousands of immigrant and special-

needs students were shuffled to other large schools. Many of those schools

were not well enough equipped to provide adequate services to the large influx

of ELL and special-need students. The result was a significant decline in the
 22

graduation and attendance rates at the remaining large schools. Consequently,

the barely-functioning schools failed and were also closed. As a result, the report

recommended that any “gains of the small school movement must be weighed

against this collateral damage” (p. 3).

Twenty-six of the large high schools that were analyzed in Brooklyn,

Manhattan and the Bronx, and served over 1,400 students in 2007-2008 school

year, were found to have a significant jump in student enrollment; in some

schools, that increase was as much as twenty percent. The CNYCA identified

the closure of other high schools as the reason behind that increase. Nineteen of

the twenty-six schools a decline in student attendance and fifteen of the schools

experienced a decline in graduation rates between the fall of 2002 and the

spring of 2007. At the same time, fourteen schools saw both, their graduation

and attendance rates decline. According to the report, “the highly centralized,

computerized matching system—designed to spur competition and bring equity

to an inequitable system—has failed many of the very students Klein had hoped to

help” (p. 3).

Focusing specifically on the education of African American students, H.

Richard Milner IV of Vanderbilt University and Sheneka M. Williams of University

of Georgia, the authors of Analyzing Education Policy and Reform With Attention

to Race and Socio-Economic Status (Fall 2008), attempt to address two salient

and central questions concerning policy and reform discussions in education:

Does equity and equality mean sameness? Is student learning synonymous with

student achievement?
 23

Embedded throughout this discussion are issues of race and socioeconomic

status. That is, what role may race and socioeconomic status play in policies

and practices that contribute to the educational experiences and opportunities

of African American students? The authors also consider the following

recommendations for improving policy and educational reform efforts: recruit

and retain talented teachers from various racial and ethnic backgrounds;

implement sustained and meaningful professional development programs

that address policy, reform, and equity; make systemic changes in addition to

increasing funding; and develop stronger teacher education programs.

According to the existing literature, black students have been consistently

underserved and miseducated in P - 12 schools and in higher education. Teachers

often have low expectations for black students and as a result water down the

curriculum and plan inadequately to meet their needs. Additionally, black

students are grossly underrepresented in gifted education and overrepresented in

special education. Teachers in public schools often do not see brilliance in African

American students. Instead, because of their inconsistencies with the views of the

teachers, black students’ conceptions, beliefs, convictions, values, and behaviors

are labeled as wrong.

The authors suggest that in order to provide the most promising

educational experiences and opportunities for African American students,

districts and schools with large populations of these students should consider

developing policies that support the recruitment and retention of talented

teachers from a range of racial and ethnic backgrounds. The structure of schools,
 24

organization and development of curriculum, the methods and reasons for

assessment, and students and teachers support are systemic issues that need

continuous attention. Spending more money and maintaining the same or a very

similar educational system will result in the same outcomes. For that reason,

Milner and Williams suggest that, where applicable, some Title I funding may

need to be earmarked for professional development of teachers—professional

development that focuses directly on the nexus between culture and teaching.

Specifically, this professional development should assist teachers in more deeply

understanding students of color and/or students of lower SES.

New York City’s Overcrowded High schools

Another report, CFE Analysis of New York City’s Contract for Excellence

Projected Allocations 2008-09 (June 2008), compiled and published by The

Campaign for Fiscal Equity addresses another possible contributing factor to

school failures. This report analyzes overcrowding in city high schools, focusing

on differences in overcrowding between small and large schools over time and

uses the DOE’s Enrollment, Capacity, and Utilization data (commonly referred

to as the Blue Book). The purpose of the analysis is to show how overcrowding

has changed during the 2005-2009 five-year plan. This analysis is based on the

NYCDOE proposal that provides information on only $231 million in school

allocations. For the purposes of a more meaningful index CFE analysis separates

the elementary and middle schools, which use the ELA and Math assessments,
 25

from the high schools that use graduation rates for assessment.

The Campaign for Fiscal Equity, Inc. (CFE), is a non-profit organization

that was founded in 1993 by a coalition of concerned parents and education

advocates. Its mission is to reform New York State’s system of finance to ensure

the implementation of sufficient resources and opportunities for a sound basic

education for all students in New York City. During the first year of its existence,

CFE filed a constitutional challenge to New York State’s school finance system,

claiming that by underfunding New York City’s public schools it denies the

students their constitutional right to the opportunity for a decent basic education.

CFE is currently the leading non-profit organization working to ensure that

the court-established right becomes a reality for the public school students. This

entails that the Education Budget and Reform Act’s massive school finance and

accountability reforms are implemented. CFE ensures informed decision-making

on the important policy questions raised by the addition of new operating and

capital resources and accountability measures. For that purpose, CFE provides

the public, policymakers, and the media with in-depth, factual public policy

reports.

The Regulations of the State Commissioner specify that the cities with

a population of 125,000 or more shall distribute at least 75% or more of the

contract amount to the school districts in order to benefit students having the

greatest educational needs. The high-need students are defined as those students,

who are either living in poverty or those with disabilities, and students with

limited English ability or English language learners (ELL) and students with
 26

low academic achievement. “Students with low academic achievement means

students who are not performing at least at Level 3 on the following accountability

measures: (a) elementary/middle-level English language arts; (b) elementary/

middle-level math; (c) secondary-level English language arts; and (d) secondary-

level math; and/or did not graduate within four years of first entry into the ninth

grade, as determined for the latest school year” (p. 2).

According to the report, “NYC Department of Education (NYCDOE) is

required to put their proposed Contract out for public comment, and provide

specific information on how all these monies are allocated to schools and

programs. The current proposal violates these rules, and provides only a partial

look at the investments. This analysis is based on the NYCDOE proposal that

provides information on only $231 million in school allocations. According to

NYC DOE’s own numbers, they once again appear to violate the 75/50 rule by

allocating 41% of these hard-won dollars to low need higher performing schools”

(p. 2). Additionally, the DOE undermined the fundamental purpose of CFE’s

addition of new dollars to close the achievement gap for low performing schools.

The DOE accomplished this by holding back $63,000,000 for purposes of closing

gaps of their own budget cuts. The remaining dollars were allocated to various

purposes, some of which are inconsistent with the Contract Law and regulations.

(CFE, 2009).
 27

Conclusion

The issue of school closures has been addresses by various studies and

analyses over the past few years. Some of the literature addresses the policies

implemented by the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE), while

other focuses on the national policies of accountability measures. Furthermore,

literature demonstrates how the accountability measures, implemented by the

NYCDOE, plays a role in closures of large high schools and the effect of closures

on the students. The various aspects pertaining to school closures in New York

City provide insight into the multi-faceted nature of the issue.

 28

CHAPTER III
CONTEXT

This chapter will provide background history, and the current governance

of the New York City public school system in general and high schools specifically.

It will also provide some history of New York City high school reforms.

A Brief History of the New York City School System

New York City public schools have undergone many changes and

alterations throughout its history. Some of the most radical changes occurred

in the late 1800s through the early 1900s. Yet, perhaps due to human ignorance

of things that have come to pass, history has ways of repeating itself. The recent

restructuring of the public school system, including mayoral control of schools,

is not new at all - but instead a mere repetition of policies of the past. Even the

recent attempts at the privatization of the public school system by corporations

can be traced as far back as the mid 1800s in Brooklyn public schools. According

to Emerson Palmer (1905): “Nowhere else were the schools and the school

moneys, during a long course of years, placed under the control of a private

corporation, having no direct responsibility to the people” (p. 198).

This chapter will provide the reader with a basic understanding

of the cyclical patterns of policy changes in public schools in New York City. The
 29

public education policies have been marked by periods of centralization (1900s

to 1970s), where an appointed central board of education was in control of public

schools and decentralization (1970s to 2002), where elected community school

boards and an appointed central board of education controlled NYC public school

policies. In 2002, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Joel Klein once

again centralized the system. The policies under Bloomberg and Klein and their

affect on learning will be discussed in the third chapter. In an effort to deepen the

reader’s understanding of the cyclical changes in NYC public education policies

various connections between historical events and current situation in public

education will be drawn throughout this chapter.

Centralization / Decentralization

Over the course of the twentieth century the NYC public schools oscillated

between centralized and decentralized systems. The centralized system, which

began at the end of the nineteenth century, remained in place for over seventy

years. Under Mayor John Lindsay, in the late 1960s, the New York City underwent

a major change as communities fought for the control of public schools. The result

was a decentralized system that remained in place until the early part of the

twenty-first century when it was, once again, centralized under Mayor Michael

Bloomberg. This chapter presents some of the details of the cyclical changes in the

structure of the New York City public school system.

 30

Centralized Control

In the late 1800s and early 1900s the public school system of New York

City underwent dramatic changes. From 1873 to 1896, the Board of Trustees,

whose members were elected by the Board of Education, was entrusted with

management of schools in various wards into which the city was divided (Palmer,

1905). However, while the Board of Education often praised the work of the

Trustees, those New York City residents who were interested in the welfare

of schools criticized the Trustees for winning their seats through political

maneuvering. Among other criticism of the Trustees, the opponents stated that

many of the Trustees were not fit to run public school system due to their lack of

educational qualifications (p. 185) – a criticism also brought up against the recent

mayor-appointed chancellor Cathie Black. According to Emerson Palmer (1905), in

response to the criticism, in 1893 a Legislature was passed that stated that Mayor

Strong “should appoint a Commission to prepare and report to the Legislature, at

its next session, a comprehensive revision of the laws affecting common schools

and public education in the city, including such alterations in then existing laws

and such new enactments as might be deemed necessary and of advantage to the

schools” (p. 186). Influenced by criticism of the Trustees by education reformers

and certain members of his own office, on April 22, 1896, Mayor Strong signed

the bill of centralization of the school system of New York City (Ravitch, 2000). As

a result, according to Diane Ravitch (2000), “power over the educational work of

the schools was lodged in the hands of professional educators, and there it would

remain for almost seventy-five years” (p. 161).

 31

Decentralization and Reforms in the 1960s and 1970s

During the late 1960s and early 1970s the city, under Mayor Lindsay, saw

dramatic changes in the structure of the public school system. The communities

of color struggled against the teachers’ union and the city administration for

the complete control of the neighborhood schools. This section provides a brief

account of the struggle for decentralization and integration reforms in public

schools and the introduction of the new types of progressive high schools.

The Beginnings of Comprehensive High Schools

Comprehensive high schools were one of the results of radical innovations

in the public school system that took place at the end of 1960s under mayor John

Lindsay. The seeds of comprehensive high schools were planted in May 1964 with

the release of the Allen Report, named after State Commissioner James Allen,

Jr. (Ravitch, 2000). The report was authorized by Allen’s Advisory Commission

on Human Relations and Community Tensions and was prepared at the request

of the Board of Education. The Allen report criticized the Board of Education

for its ineffectiveness in regard to integration and according to Ravitch (2000),

“held that desegregation could be advanced by reorganizing the school system”

(Ravitch, 2000, p. 280).

Some of the Allen report suggestions addressed improvement of elemen-

tary and high schools located in the slums. Based on these recommendations a

new plan was implemented in the fall of 1964, at a small number of elementary
 32

schools. The new plan was called More Effective Schools and included a number

of innovations. Some of them, according to Ravitch (2000), were “small classes,

prekindergarten classes, team teaching, educational television, nongraded class-

es, intensive professional support services, and special programs for weekends

and summers” (p. 285).

The Allen Report also recommended that the Board of Education “intro-

duce a large scale program of construction and development of four year com-

prehensive high schools” (as cited in Ravitch, 2000, pp. 282 – 283). The compre-

hensive high schools would combine vocational and academic training and aim

to eliminate socially disparaged vocational high schools. The Allen Report also

recommended that placing the new comprehensive high schools in predominately

white areas of Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens would help maintain the schools’

desegregated status in the coming years (Ravitch, 2000, p. 283).

The Build-up of Tensions

In the late 1960s, public school system of New York City underwent a

major change as the decentralized system replaced the centralized model that

has been in place for almost 75 years. It is important to place that change within

the zeitgeist of that decade and events preceding the switch to decentralization.

Some of the motivating factors for decentralization were the general public’s

views, in the mid 1960s, that schools repressed individuality, served as to impose

white middle class views on the poor, did not center on community development,
 33

and did not take on the task of social change. While the decentralization of the

citywide school system did not take place until later in the decade with Mayor

Lindsay, the build-up began with a series of events that took place starting in 1961.

In that year the seeds of the public’s general disillusionment with the

existing centralized public school system in New York City were planted. In

1961, the Board of Education released the results of system-wide tests that

demonstrated that student performance levels had enormously and unexplainably

dropped from the previous year. According to Ravitch (2000):

Third graders were reading a month below national average, while sixth
graders were generally a month or two ahead in both reading and
mathematics. Only the year before, the same tests had shown all grades
ahead of the national average, some by as much as four to six months.
(Ravitch, 2000, p. 263).

1961 was also a year when, according to Ravitch, “the biggest scandal in

the history of the Board of Education diverted public attention from the schools’

other dilemmas” (Ravitch, 2000, p. 263). Namely, the scandal in which began

when state-led investigation revealed evidence of irregularities in school con-

struction funds that included bribes, payoffs, safety hazards, and structural de-

fects in school buildings. Several mid-level employees of the Board of Education

were charged with involvement. While none of the Board members were directly

tied to the corruption, the reputation of the Board of Education was undermined.

The result of the investigation was new state legislature that, through a recom-

mendation by State Commissioner of Education James Allen, Jr., revived local

school boards. Allen hoped that this way would enable to take active roles in the

governance of their city’s school system.

 34

For the next few years, as the Civil Rights Movement swept the country,

progressives called for integration of public school systems nationwide. In New

York City, this call resulted in massive boycotts of public schools in February and

March of 1964 that began with a militant thrust launched by school integration

activists in August of 1963 (Ravitch, 2000, p. 269). Throughout 1963 a year-

long series of negotiations by civil rights leaders and the New York City Board of

Education took place. Civil rights activists threatened a massive citywide school

boycott if the Board did not submit a timetable for full integration by September

1963. The leading figure in negotiations and boycott planning was Brooklyn Rev-

erend Milton A. Galamison. Galamison was the president of the City-wide Coor-

dinating Committee for Integrated Schools, which was an umbrella organization

for the NAACP, CORE, the New York Urban League, the Harlem Parents’ Com-

mittee, and Galamison’s own Parents’ Workshop for Equality (Ravitch, 2000, p.

269). Although the boycotts and civil disobedience by Galamison and the militant

Brooklyn CORE raised racial tensions, they did not result in integration within

the school system.

Mayor Lindsay

As the spirit of Civil Rights swept across the nation large cities were

flooded with acts of massive civil disobedience, protests, and riots. New York

City – the largest city in the country – found itself in the midst of some of the

greatest school reforms since the 1900s. The times were changing and the Demo-
 35

cratic control of New York City, in place since 1942, was shattered in 1965 as the

new mayor John Vliet Lindsay came into office. Backed by the Independent and

Republican parties, Lindsay broke the Democratic hold on the city. At 41 years of

age Lindsay, who came from an upper middle class family, was a graduate of the

St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire, Yale College, and Yale Law School;

while the population of New York City was mainly Democrat and Catholic, Lind-

say was a Protestant and a Republican (Ravitch, 2000).

Lindsay was inexperienced in municipal control and his initial attitude

was not very different from a typical Republican mayor in control of a Democratic

city (Ravitch, 2000). However, Lindsay differed from previous mayors in that

he vowed to place only the best men in his office. Additionally, the new mayor

showed great interest in all aspects of the city, using the media to communicate

with the people, initiating a television show, demonstrating his accessibility by

taking “walking tours” through the poorest areas of the city, and requiring that a

top-level commissioner to be on duty 24 hours a day in case of a crisis. According

to Ravitch (2000), “Lindsay’s passion for institutional reform and new approach-

es inevitably was directed at the educational system of the city. His campaign

statements on education gave no hint of the active role that he would later play in

reshaping the system” (Ravitch, 2000, p. 289).

Struggle for Decentralization

When Lindsay took office in 1965 the Board of Education was comprised
 36

of members that served under the previous mayor’s administration. While there

were no legal means for the mayor to replace the Board members during the

first year of his mayoralty, Lindsay found other ways that he could create change

within the system. In the summer of 1966, The Temporary Commission on City

Finances released a report that recommended the system be divided into five

boards controlled by the boroughs. Furthermore, the report showed that the city

was underfunded by the state as it considered the city’s five counties to be part

of one entity. To counteract the unequal distribution of state aid, Lindsay sub-

mitted a request to the state legislature to “consider the city school system as if

it were five separate districts, one in each borough” (Ravitch, 2000, p. 312). The

state legislature agreed to alter its position on the city as long as a decentraliza-

tion plan was submitted to them by December 1, 1967. Consequently, on April 24,

1967 a bill was signed into law that directed the mayor to prepare a decentraliza-

tion plan.

Lindsay created an Advisory Panel on the Decentralization of New York

City Schools, which would be chaired by McGeorge Bundy, the president of the

Ford Foundation. The panel was nicknamed the “Bundy panel” and its staff was

to be headed by Ford Foundation’s Mario Fantini. Fantini negotiated with com-

munity groups, teachers, organizers, and the union to create a cooperative plan.

Harry Gottesfeld – a research associate on the staff of Massive Economic Neigh-

borhood Development (MEND), and Sol Gordon – Yeshiva University professors,

created a plan that offered something to all sides. The proposed plan was called

“Academic Excellence: Community and Teachers Assume Responsibility for the

 37

Education of the Ghetto Child.” Additionally, the plan was comprised of two

parts: the first was a board of governance of community-led IS 201 and its el-

ementary school feeders. The second was an educational improvement program,

based on the More Effective School Model. The proposal included a 17 member

governing board that included four community leaders, eight parents, four teach-

ers, and one supervisor. Conflicts within the group would be resolved by major-

ity vote. Additionally, everyone agreed, “if an impasse developed, any question

would be referred to a mediating body composed of a teacher, a community rep-

resentative and an impartial party acceptable to both the others” (Ravitch, 2000,

pp. 312 - 313).

Parents and teachers, although previously in separate camps on issues of

schools, looked forward to eliminating the hierarchal rule of the Board of Educa-

tion and agreed to compromise with each other. The teachers’ union, the United

Federation of Teachers (UFT), recognizing both the pros and cons of the plan –

supported it.

To the liking of the UFT, and in order to attain support of the Board of

Education, the plan was also built on the basis of radical academic changes:

The educational side of the program started from the base of an MES
program (small classes, team teaching, additional professional services)
and added to it a concentrated reading program; health services; a training
program for community workers; in-service training for teachers (as well
as an orientation course for professionals given by community leaders);
and measures aimed at enhancing the students’ self-image, e.g., emphasis
on “pride in one’s ethnic background (as cited in Ravitch, 2000, p. 314).

The Board of Education approved the new plan in April 1967, as Lindsay

prepared to appoint members of the Bundy panel. However, according to Ravitch

 38

(2000), “The Board stressed that it had approved only the ‘concepts,’ and that the

proposal developed in each district would be subject to subsequent review and

approval by the Board” (Ravitch, 2000, p. 316). The Ford Foundation, in order

to support the project, made grants to each district where the impact of the pro-

posal would be demonstrated. $51,000 went to the Community Association of

East Harlem Triangle, Inc.; Our Lady Presbyterian Church in Brooklyn received

$44,000; and Two Bridges Neighborhood Council Inc. received $40,000. Each

district’s planning group was comprised of parents, teachers, and community

leaders that took part in creating the proposal (Ravitch, 2000). Yet, the proposal

had a rough start as the Board of Education refused to give any additional funds

to the demonstration districts. Donovan, the Superintendent of the Board, argued

that the significance of the community’s role would be obscured if demonstration

schools received more money. He made the case that additional funds would un-

dermine the goal of the experiment: to see whether community participation had

an impact on achievement.

Attacks on Teachers

Attempting to avoid any delays, the community groups, who saw control as

a breakthrough, were ready to accept these terms. During this time, the UFT was

negotiating with militant community leaderships and the process was not going

smoothly. In the Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville areas of Brooklyn, teachers

were being harassed by the militant black organizations. Additionally, teachers

 39

and principals were singled out for removal by joint forces of community groups

and anti-poverty organizations. Some teachers found hate mail stuffed into their

mailboxes. The leader of Brooklyn CORE, Robert “Sonny” Carson, threatened re-

taliation if a written plan for bringing classes up to grade level was not submitted

to him.

In fear, teachers sought protection of the UFT whose leadership was more

liberal than its membership. Albert Shanker, a former mathematics teacher and

the president of the UFT at the time, was a socialist and came from a poor Jewish

family. Many of the UFT members were Jewish with immigrant roots in Eastern

Europe and formed cultural milieus where, according to Ravitch (2000), “union-

ism, socialism, anarchism, and radicalism were avidly discussed” (Ravitch, 2000,

p. 318). At a time when affiliation with organized labor was unpopular among

teachers in other cities, the unusual concentration of Eastern European Jews in

the ranks of New York’s teachers favored the labor movement. Historically, the

UFT fought for freedom of speech, equal right for female teachers, fair wages and

decent working conditions, freedom of instruction, and freedom from harassment

by the Board of Education.

However, the union was frequently under attack by blacks because, unlike

Detroit, Chicago, and Newark, 90% of New York City teachers were white and the

gulf between teachers and pupils was not seen as racial difference but rather as

class difference. As the violence against ghetto teachers escalated in the spring of

1967, the UFT was looking to ease tensions in its member schools in the ghettos.

The union requested that teachers be permitted to dismiss disruptive students

 40

from their classes. This request only further complicated negotiations with mili-

tant black organizations as it was interpreted as racism.

The next set of issues arose in the Ocean Hill-Brownsville area of Brooklyn

and was characterized by lengthy and dramatic negotiations between the UFT,

the Board of Education, and community boards. The Ocean Hill-Brownsville

community did not think that decentralization alone would improve its schools

and instead opted for total community control. In 1968, demonstration districts

created a consensus document that listed what would be necessary for local

control of the schools. Shortly thereafter, the community board appealed to the

residents of Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood claiming that they were being

deceived by the power structure that was aiming to take control of their public

schools. The drama reached its pivotal point as the legislature was on the verge of

approving a decentralization plan that granted partial community control to the

governing boards.

The community board of the Ocean Hill-Brownsville neighborhood lost

its patience and decided to disrupt the status quo. In April 1968, the neighbor-

hood governing board announced its plan to oust thirteen teachers, five assistant

principals, and one principal, who had not been selected by the governing board.

The board explained that the action was due to the community’s demand for total

control of their schools and that it was tired of constant opposition by the union,

the Board of Education, the State Commission of Education, and the Council of

Supervisory Associations. The board claimed that a small group of militant teach-

ers attempted to sabotage the project and that the decentralization program did
 41

not provide a procedure for removing teachers and administrators who were

openly sabotaging the project. The personnel committee stated that it wanted

to write its own rules and the enforcement of the rules was to be carried out by

the people of the community. Shorty thereafter, another nineteen teachers were

approved for removal by the governing community board. According to Ravitch

(2000), the decision to remove teachers and administrators “provoked bitter

struggle with the union which lasted for seven months and ultimately affected the

shape of the entire school system as well as the political life of the city” (Ravitch,

2000, p. 354).

The UFT was determined to return the ousted teachers to their class-

rooms but the governing board vowed to prevent those teachers from entering its

schools. Hundreds of police officers were sent into the area to maintain order and

to help teachers push their way through crowds of angry demonstrators. This re-

sulted in the shutdown of schools by the governing board. In turn, when schools

reopened, around 325 teachers walked out in support of reinstatement of their

comrades. The UFT announced that it considered the denial of admission to any

of its teachers to be a lock out of all of its teachers.

According to a notice sent to parents by the governing board Black and

Puerto Rican parents “cannot get rid of people who were messing up [their]

children by their racism” (as cited in Ravitch, 2000, p. 358). Rhody McCoy, one

of the top administrators of the district, brought charges against the dismissed

teachers on May 27. The Board of Education appointed retired Civil Court Judge

Francis E. Rivers to be the special trial examiner. During the trial, the govern-
 42

ing board dropped charges against the only black teacher in the group, while two

teachers and six administrators asked to be reassigned. The Board of Education

attempted to settle things with a compromise that prevented teachers with seri-

ous charges from resuming their jobs pending negotiations, and called for the

reinstatement of teachers with minor charges. However, the governing board

refused the return of any teachers.

During this stage of negotiations, mayor Lindsay kept his eye on the sta-

tus of decentralization legislature while attempting to find middle ground for

both parties involved in negotiations. He condemned the Ocean Hill-Brownsville

neighborhood’s actions against teachers, but blamed the Board of Education for

its “failure to define the duties and status of the local board” (Ravitch, 2000, p.

360). Albany’s decision on the future of decentralization was severely under-

mined when, within weeks of McCoy’s letters to parents, the accord on a powerful

decentralization bill collapsed. This, in turn, played into the hands of opponents

of decentralization and the result was the Marchi Bill, named after State Sena-

tor John Marchi of Staten Island, that postponed decentralization for a year.

However, on the plus side, the Marchi bill also temporarily enlarged the Board of

Education to thirteen members, allowing Lindsay to add supporters of decentral-

ization and recognized the three demonstration districts as regular school boards.

With that, the demonstration districts were promised a sympathetic Board of

Education that carried the authority to recognize many of their demands(Ravitch,

2000). Furthermore, the Ford Foundation granted almost $1,000,000 to the In-

stitute for Community Studies, and Ocean Hill-Brownsville Governing Board was
 43

earmarked to receive $275,000. Additionally, Urban Coalition, the City Commis-

sion on Human Rights, the New York City Council Against Poverty, State Com-

missioner Allen, Mayor Lindsay, and major civil rights groups backed the proj-

ects. A month after the expansion of the Board of Education a new revised plan of

decentralization was created. Although, the plan assigned power to local school

boards the districts that demanded full control were not satisfied. The UFT was

not contempt either as it felt that the new plan violated the union contract terms.

Strikes

A short-lived period of calm followed the Marchi as tensions and riots were

taking place in major cities across the country. Mayor Lindsay was determined

not to have any such things take place in the city, especially since any race riots

would affect the chances of his upcoming re-election. As the fall term was fast ap-

proaching McCoy announced that he had hired 350 new teachers that would re-

place the UFT teachers and that he was ready to violate the bylaws of the Board of

Education and the UFT. Just prior, Judge Rivers announced his decision to deny

McCoy’s requests for transfer of all 10 teachers. Judge’s decision was based on

the absence of evidence or witnesses to the charges of the teachers’ contribution

to the growing hostility between Blacks and Whites, and his view of the provided

evidence as hearsay. Based on Rivers’ decision, Superintendent Donovan ordered

McCoy to reinstate teachers to their positions. In response, the governing board

ignored Donovan’s order and instead issued a statement that was magnified by
 44

Jason Epstein of Random House:

The governing board has ignored these findings in the grounds that the
judge refused to hear important evidence and that the right to decide who
should teach in the schools of the district belongs to the governing board
and not to a retired judge (as cited in Ravitch, 2000, p. 365).
As the fall term of 1968 began both, the UFT and the governing board were

ready for a confrontation. However, the union’s hands were now tied in Ocean

Hill-Brownsville schools as the governing board replaced the UFT teachers with

its own and the union was ready to call a citywide teacher strike. Although Lind-

say announced that the strike was averted, McCoy issued a counter-statement

that stated that the governing board called for a reassignment of the UFT teach-

ers.

The result was a two-day citywide strike of 54,000 of 57,000 teachers and

ended with UFT winning extension and protection of union contract and citywide

bylaws; a back pay for 300 Ocean Hill teachers for the time they were on strike;

an order that assigned Ocean Hill teachers to return to their jobs; a requirement

of the local school boards to submit charges to binding arbitration; and protec-

tion of the union members from involuntary transfers. Yet, the local board re-

fused the terms of the agreement. The board’s refusal led to second strike that

lasted from September 12 to September 30.

During the strike Lindsay appointed three new members of the Board of

Education, thus gaining majority for his appointees (Ravitch, 2000). There was

also a new president of the Board, John Doar, who served as U.S. assistant attor-

ney general under Robert Kennedy and the federal chief civil rights prosecutor.

Additionally, Doar recently took over the presidency of massive anti-poverty ef-
 45

fort, Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. Although numerous attempts

were made by State Commissioner Allen to settle the second strike, they all failed.

In 1968, the union finally prevailed, teachers were reinstated into their previous

positions, and schools were officially decentralized. However, the union leader,

Albert Shanker was jailed for fifteen days in February 1969 for sanctioning the

strikes in contravention of the New York’s Taylor Law. The strikes also became

known as the John Lindsay’s “Ten Plagues” (Time, 1968).

Forging of Alternative High Schools and Minischools

One of the results of the decentralization, community control, and inte-

gration was the creation of new types of schools. The new schools, created under

Mayor Lindsay, were designed to address the needs of the students and the com-

munity. This section describes some of the features of those new types of high

schools, some of which still exist today.

The Creation of New Types of High Schools

The long struggle for decentralization and integration of public schools

was reflective of the zeitgeist of the 1960s era. In turn, alternative and compre-

hensive high schools, and minischools, created in the late 1960s and early 1970s,

were the answer to community’s demand to address racial and economic dis-

parities of public education. According to Larry Cuban (1993), alternative high

 46

schools were forged in the explosion of “student protest against university pro-

grams, Vietnam War and civil rights concerns, and in a mélange of other issues

that converged in the late 1960s. Protest filtered down to high schools” (Cuban,

1993, p. 173). Frustrated students expressed their concerns in boycotts, under-

ground press, school dropouts, and formation of new private and alternative

high schools. As their name suggested, the new schools served as alternatives to

the rules, behavior control, conventional methods of instruction, lack of student

decision-making, and irrelevant curriculum found in regular public high schools.

Alternative High Schools

The first alternative high school, Harlem Prep, opened its doors in 1967,

along with The Murray Road School in Newton, Massachusetts. The following

year two new alternative high schools were opened in Mankato, Minnesota and

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Some of the alternative high schools were called

“schools without walls” and used the city as their classroom (Cuban, 1993). Other

types of alternative high schools, according to Cuban (1993) were, “storefront

schools, minischools within a larger conventional high schools, theme or magnet

schools (e.g., specializing in science or the arts)” (Cuban, 1993, p. 173). While

there were many different types of alternative high schools they shared certain

commonalities: school as community, teacher served as an advisor, active learn-

ing, student participation in decision-making, and incorporation of students’

needs and experiences into the curriculum. The size, environment, teacher - stu-
 47

dent relationships, student decision-making in creation of elective courses, and

ideological commitment set alternative high schools apart from conventional

schools (Cuban, 1993).

Pedagogy and the School Environment

Since alternative high schools were not subject to standards of regular

schools, teachers were free to adopt situational methods of classroom instruc-

tion. According to Cuban (1993), the little research that has been done on the

pedagogy aspect of alternative high schools revealed a range of practices, “from

teacher-directed, programmed instruction to ‘relatively formless, collaborative

investigations and activities’” (Cuban, 1993, p. 174). Classroom instruction was

characterized by open talks, field trips, guest speaker visits, film screenings, and

collaborative group work. While most of the above instructional practices did not

veer substantially from those within regular schools, their combinations and fre-

quency of use made them radical in American education system (Cuban, 1993).

Alternative high schools also addressed individual needs of students by

tailoring each class to students of different abilities. Larry Cuban (1993) describes

a study of classroom practices in six different alternative high schools that was

conducted by Dan Duke:

Teachers used a variety of classroom groupings, with small-group and

independent study common to all but one of the schools. When he looked
at teaching practices he found that half of the schools had special rooms
set aside for students to work with tutors or individually…One high school
had team teaching and one used older students to tutor younger ones.
To evaluate student performance, three schools used fixed scales against
 48

which students were measured; however, far more stress was reportedly
placed on individual, noncompetitive grading. In reporting to parents how
their children were doing in school, four alternative high schools used
portfolios of what students had produced and held teacher-parent confer
ences. (Cuban, 1993).

Minischools

Another alternative to conventional high schools were minischools. Those

schools, whose classes consisted of fewer than 25 students, addressed the needs

of those who struggled academically, dropped out of school, or found it difficult

to adjust to the environment of regular high schools(Cuban, 1993). Minischools

offered informal environment and employed demanding teachers, who listened

to students. Additionally, minischools staff included “streetworkers” – staff mem-

bers that visited students at home or at work (Cuban, 1993).

Similarly to alternative high schools, classroom instructions at minischools

often consisted of debates and open discussions. In his book, Cuban (1993),

describes an account by journalists who visited over a dozen classes at 4 differ-

ent schools. While the visitors encountered a number of teacher-centered classes,

most minischool characteristically offered classes of the following nature: discus-

sion of drug use, peer pressure, and new state laws pertaining to drug pushers;

English class reading of Dorothy Parker’s story of a blind black girl, preceded by

an activity that consisted of students moving around the classroom blindfolded;

heated discussion of parts of a play by a contemporary black writer; and an as-

tronomy lesson that included discussions on astrology and horoscopes. Both,

 49

alternative high schools and minischools differed from conventional schools

“school size, class size, the informality of relations between teachers and stu-

dents, and frequent involvement of students in governance decisions” (Cuban,

1993, p. 176).

The Numbers

Following dramatic events that established decentralized school sys-

tem in New York City, the new chancellor, Harvey Scribner, was placed in

charge of 300,000 students who attended 100 academic and vocational high

schools(Cuban, 1993). According to Cuban (1993), the largest of those schools

- academic schools - consisted of enormous student bodies that ranged from

3,000 - 4,000 pupils, who were taught by a staff of 175 – 215 teachers. Vocational

schools enrolled an equivalent of roughly half of the number of students in aca-

demic schools, 1,500 – 2,000. The majority of students attending both types of

schools were white, 50.9%, followed by 29.5% black, 15.1% Puerto Rican, 1.4%

Asian, and 3.1% of students of other ethnic and racial groups(Cuban, 1993). Ac-

cording to Cuban (1993), while the reading proficiency of one third of all students

was below grade level, 80% of the graduates applied to colleges.

Poor academic performance and the needs of able students, who dropped

out of regular high schools, were addressed through privately funded storefront

schools in minority areas of the city. When the grants gathered from corpora-

tions and financial institutions by the NY Urban Coalition and the Urban League
 50

ran out, private groups negotiated with the Board of Education to turn storefront

schools into minischools within regular high schools(Cuban, 1993). The minis-

chools. Although the storefront school and alternative high schools began prior

to chancellor Scribner, their initiative expanded under his and his successor’s

governance. According to Cuban (1993), by 1975 eleven alternative and forty

minischools were established in the five boroughs of the city. While alternative

high schools enrolled 4,000 students and minischools enrolled 6,500 students,

by 1976 the total number of students enrolled in both types of schools was nearly

15,000, or 5% of total high school population (Cuban, 1993).

The Case of John Dewey High School

One of the new progressive high schools created in the late 1960s was John

Dewey High School in Brooklyn. The school, which is still in existence today,

was founded on the educational philosophy of John Dewey. The student-centric

school abandoned many of the pre-existing accountability standards and, instead

focused on hands-on learning and an environment that was conducive to high

academic achievement. This section provides a brief history and a description of

the special features of the school.

History

Along with alternative high schools and minischools comprehensive high

 51

schools were created in the late 1960s. One of the comprehensive high schools

offering the most radical approach to education was created in the late 1960s

and, despite a number of adversities it faced over the years; it is still in existence

today. Lodged between the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Coney Island and Gra-

vesend lays the campus of John Dewey High School.

Although founded in 1969, the concept for John Dewey High Schools

began earlier in the decade. According to Reilly (1970), “the original conception

for this unusual secondary school…dates from May 1963. At this time twelve

members of the city school system’s high school division met for a ten-day con-

ference in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The result was a 22 page report outlining new

approaches to high school education” (Reilly, 1970). The report stated that, with

the new comprehensive school, the committee:

Abolishes grade levels, discontinues the Carnegie Unit as a measure of

progress, breaks the five-period-per-week lockstep, abandons the distinc-
tion between major and minor subjects, provides instruction in practical
arts for college-bound as well as work-oriented youngsters, incorporates
extraclass activities into the curriculum; involves the classroom teacher
guidance, utilizes new methods and modern technology to supplement
conventional instructional procedures, and makes use of longer school
days (as cited in Williamson, 1974, p. 5).

Terri Brenan, the secretary of John Dewey Alumni Association stated: “It

was this committee that really felt that students need to own their education, and

that’s how the school was set up” (T. Brenan, interview, November 19, 2010).

Features

The committee’s plans that, according to Williamson (1974), focused on

 52

“educational needs of an ethnically, culturally, and economically diverse urban

population” (p. 5), resulted in implementation of the following seven unique fea-

tures at John Dewey High School, which are still in practice:

• Each school year is divided into seven-week cycles.

• Every student receives an individualized program five times a year

instead of traditional twice per year.

• Each day lasts eight hours and is divided into twenty-two modules, or
periods, of twenty-minute duration.

• A resource center is provided for each curriculum subject area. Each

curriculum subject area has its own resource center, complete with
books, documents, computers, and study cubicles. Additionally,
the resource center is constantly staffed with a teacher or a para-
professional who is available to assist students with their independent
projects.

• In any seven-week cycle students are able to take as few as six and as
many as eight subjects at a time. Additionally, students may choose to
go beyond the scope of regular classes by working independently and
are able to complete requirements at their own pace: some may take two
years while other may take up to six.

• Each student’s performance is evaluated every seven weeks with a grade

of M for mastery; MC for mastery with condition; MI for mastery in

independent study; or R for retention. With every grade of MC or R a
teacher prepares 3 copies of a prescription form, which indicate areas
in need of improvement. The student’s parents receive one copy; the
second is used for the school records; and third serves as a guide for the
next teacher to help that student with remedial work.

• With each program students receive independent study modules (IS).

Students who require extra help, tutoring, or are working on special
projects receive more independent study modules, while students who
are geared for more class subjects receive less IS time.

In fact, the IS feature of Dewey provides further opportunities for student

learning. According to Reilly (1970), “every student has full freedom to decide
 53

what to do with his I.S. time. Some sign up for advanced work, which involves

a DISK (Dewey Independent Study Kit)”. In an interview, Leonard Warner – a

retired teacher (Figure 1) who worked at Dewey from 1970 to 2000 as a DISK

coordinator and science teacher – described his first-hand experience with DISK

in the following way:

I had a kid who wanted to learn about sharks. So, there would be an In-
dependent Study Kit that the he would take out with readings,
assignments, and things to answer. The kid would go through the kit on his
own and, if he had questions, he would come back to the coordinator. He
can work back and forth, and at the end of that particular cycle he takes
one test. If he passed the test he takes a credit for it from that course. Now,
Dewey went a step further, Dewey actually had kids writing DISKs as well.
So, supposing you’re interested in whales and there’s no DISK on that
subject… then the independent study coordinator would say: “Here’s a
textbook, make the lessons with questions, go through the chapters, come
back to me - I’ll approve it if it’s good and you got the credit”. So, we had
kids create their own DISKs. Now, I had a kid create a DISK on parasitol-
ogy that was unbelievable. He was a really motivated kid, and eventually
became a doctor (L. Warner, interview, November 19, 2010).

Collaborative Environment

The unique features of the school’s collaborative learning environment

make Dewey a school where long-lasting bonds between teachers and students

are created. Leonard Warner excitedly describes that aspect of the school:

All features are geared toward having that wonderful interaction between
teachers and the students. That’s the heart and soul of the Dewey philoso-
phy as well, which always made the school a tremendous success. Once
the kids have the feeling of this comradeship between teachers and stu-
dents, they are in those classes and it’s just a friendship that builds up
(L. Warner, interview, November 19, 2010).

The comradeship, that Leonard Warner describes, also manifests itself in

 54

the comfortable way that Dewey students and teacher communicate with each

other. According to Reilly (1970), “there is no hesitation to comment on whether

a lesson was effective or not. Just as courtesy on the school’s two-way staircases

is spontaneous and easy-going, so is the criticism”. In such arrangement, teachers

are able to create courses, within their departments, that further student learn-

ing. Leonard Warner recalls his own experience as a teacher:

In my thirty years here I got to develop my own dreams as well. I was a

biology person and when I came in here my chairman convinced me to
develop an anthropology course, which I developed. And that led to arche-
ology and then, I was directing my own research and my own topics and, I
wound up for thirty years, teaching anthropology, biology, archeology, and
human evolution, evolution – going from subject to subject, to subject with
elective courses while I was teaching standard Regents courses as well
(L. Warner interview, November 19, 2010).

Figure 1. Leonard Warner taught in the Science Department at Dewey for thirty years.
 55

Student Population and the Admission Process

The original concept for comprehensive high schools, among other pro-

gressive educational improvements, included a plan for full integration of the

public school system in New York City. For that reason, John Dewey High School

was established to provide relevant curriculum to a diverse student body – a con-

cept still in progress today.

As a truly progressive school, Dewey does not have an admission process.

All that is required of prospective students is to have the school selected as their

first choice. This aspect of the school has recently changed as more and more kids

are transferred into the school from other schools that have been closed by the

DOE.

The Return of Centralized Control

In 2002, Michael Bloomberg was elected as the new mayor of New York

City. During his campaign he vowed to transform the public school system of the

city. For the purposes of fulfilling his vision the public school system in New York

City was, once again, centralized. This section gives an overview of the new evalu-

ation and accountability policies under mayoral control of Michael Bloomberg

and the school Chancellor Joel Klein.

 56

The New Boss

The current system of public school management began to take shape in

2002 with the election of billionaire and business magnate Michael Bloomberg

to the mayoralty of New York City. According to Lynn Olson, the author of “More

Power To Schools” published in Education Week on November 20, 2007, “in

2002, the state legislature gave the mayor unprecedented control over the 1.1

million-student school system, replacing what had been widely viewed as a con-

voluted and ineffective governance structure” (Olson, 2007). The new law aban-

doned the locally elected school boards that have been controlling the 32 commu-

nity districts since the 1960s and gave mayor Michael Bloomberg full control over

appointment of the school chancellor.

Additionally, with the new law, mayor Bloomberg was now able to elect 8

of 13 members of the central board of education, known as the Panel for Educa-

tion Policy (PEP). Borough Presidents appointed the remaining 5 PEP members.

With the new law PEP board was barred from managing schools on a daily basis

(Olson, 2007). Additionally, the pre-existing Board Of Education was renamed

New York City Department Of Education (2002), whose offices were then moved

from Brooklyn to Boss Tweed Courthouse, built and named by the notorious Wil-

liam “Boss” Tweed, next to the City Hall in downtown Manhattan.

Joel Klein and the Beginnings of Restructuring

Bloomberg’s choice for the new school chancellor was Joel Klein, a United
 57

States Attorney General under President Bill Clinton. Notably, Klein was the lead

prosecutor in the antitrust case United States Vs. Microsoft (“Joel Klein,” n.d.).

Due to the fact that Klein, a business lawyer, lacked educational expertise Bloom-

berg assembled a panel of 11 education experts from across New York state that

voted 8 to 3 to grant Klein a waver of credentials (Hernandez, 2010). The same

controversial tactic was later used with appointment of the next chancellor Cathie

Black in 2010, which will be discussed in Chapter 4.

Klein deemed the existing structure of the public school system in the city

incoherent and politically driven and, in collaboration with the mayor, began a

comprehensive reform agenda called Children First that was designed to dramati-

cally centralize school control. The first step of Children First was grouping the

existing thirty-two community districts into ten regional offices that were given

control over school support and supervision. All of the school districts adopted a

uniform curriculum in literacy and mathematics for grades K - 8. The agenda also

ended social promotion in key grades, meaning student transition from one grade

level to the next regardless of academic performance. Additionally, he created 150

small schools that would replace large schools that were deemed failing by the

NYCDOE (Olson, 2007).

Klein’s administration also invested heavily into centralized professional

development and support by supplying each school with literacy coaches and

parent coordinators. At the same time that aspect of Children First was being

implemented, student test scores on state exams have dramatically increased and

Klein administration was quick to take credit. However, in her article Lynn Olson
 58

(2007) writes:

The emphasis on providing direction and support from the center argu-
ably contributed to student-achievement gains on state tests that led the
New York City public schools to win the prestigious Broad Prize for Urban
Education this September. Though results from the National Assessment
of Educational Progress suggest that, at least in reading, those gains oc-
curred between 2002 and 2005, just prior to and during the early years of
the Children First reforms (Olson, 2007).

Leadership, Empowerment, Accountability

In 2004, NYCDOE launched a pilot program called Autonomy Zone.

Through the program 26 self-selected schools received an opportunity to gain

freedom from regional control. In exchange, those schools were required to meet

specific student-performance goals. Autonomy Zone was expanded in 2006 with

332 citywide school principals electing to turn their school buildings into “em-

powerment schools” (Olson, 2007).

In the fall of 2007, armed with a new catch phrase “Leadership, Empow-

erment, and Accountability” Klein and Bloomberg launched the second phase of

Children First agenda. As the new catch phrase implied, NYCDOE shifted control

over budgetary and instructional decision-making from central office to each of

1,456 New York City public schools. The new shift also allowed schools to select

their own school-support organization, like New Visions, that would serve the

needs of individual schools (Olson, 2007).

Yet, autonomy came at a high price as students were pressured to achieve

higher scores on frequent and stressful high-stakes tests. In turn, such pressure
 59

forced many teachers to limit their classroom time almost exclusively to test

preparations. According to Olson (2007), “the sharp turnaround in strategy has

generated enormous controversy, particularly among those who question the

strong focus on test scores and whether the curricular and instructional changes

undertaken during the first few years of Children First are rooted deeply enough

(Olson, 2007).

The test score data plays a major role in Annual Progress Reports (APR)

that are released each year. In 2006 Klein released a new accountability system

that assigns a letter grade A, B, C, D, or F to each school (“About Our Schools”,

n.d.). The grade is partially determined by the results of student test scores.

That aspect of APR has been sharply criticized for its discrepancies. For instance

some high-achieving schools receive failing grades of C and F for insufficient

increase in student efficiency within one year. At the same time, some schools on

the state’s failing list earn A’s and B’s. Opponents of this type of grading system

consider it to be too simplistic and have called for its abandonment. The letter

grade system has a devastating effect on high-performing schools as the NYC-

DOE has adapted an extreme way to deal with success or failure (Olson, 2007).

Norm Fruchter - the Director of Community Involvement Program of Annenberg

Institute at Brown University says that, “there’s a long argument as to whether

that system of accountability is actually accurate, useful, reliable, responsible and

valid. I think it fails all those tests and more. And basically it doesn’t do a good

job at all of identifying schools that are so poorly performing that they should be

closed” (N. Fruchter, interview, January 13, 2011).

 60

In fact, Children First Statement of Performance Terms (2007) NYCDOE

outlines its strict measures of reward and punishment. According to the state-

ment, schools with Progress Report grades of A or B and Quality Review scores of

Proficient or better are eligible to receive monetary compensation in the form of

additional discretionary finances for the school. However, the Chancellor would

consider any school with a Progress Report grade of F and a Quality Review score

of less than “Proficient” for immediate closure. Other schools that receive an

F on their Progress Reports or schools with a grade D, or C for three years in a

row, would be subject to target setting and improvement planning. In the event

that, despite an implemented leadership change, little improvement in student

achievement is made after the following two years, and Quality Reviews indicate

that there is little or no capacity for future improvements, the DOE would imple-

ment a school restructure, or closure. Additionally, the DOE states:

The Chancellor and the community superintendent or high school super-

intendent reserve the right to take appropriate disciplinary action at any
time for violations of any of the terms outlined herein, a lapse in profes-
sional judgment, insubordination, or any other reason authorized by law.
The Chancellor also reserves the right to close or restructure a school
where deemed appropriate (NYCDOE, 2007).

The NYCDOE has adapted a policy of “zero tolerance” as more and more

schools received failing grades. Despite its official promise of assistance to strug-

gling schools the city administration has earned a record of just the opposite -

rewarding high-performing schools and cutting funds from the struggling ones.

Norm Fruchter sees a major problem at the core of chancellor’s catch phrase:

Because the chancellor’s catch words for his school reforms are “leadership,
empowerment, and accountability” but not “school support,” a lot of things
that should happen – to try to intervene when schools are not only failing
 61

but are sort of slipping down hill in terms of performance - don’t happen.
Schools are essentially left to their own devices under this administration
and when this very quantifiably heavy accountability system says: “this is a
failing school” then, they simply sweep in and close the school (N. Fruchter,
interview, January 13, 2011).

The Tools

Full implementation of the new accountability system required a collection

of student achievement data. For that purpose, the City administration employed

a number of evaluation tools, one of which was a software system designed by

the International Business Machines (IBM). The software, called Achievement

Reporting and Innovation System, became the backbone of the Annual Progress

Reports. This section describes some of the key features of ARIS and other tools

employed by the DOE for the purposes of student and school evaluations.

Achievement Reporting and Innovation System

The driving force in the process of school evaluation, and some would say

the key factor in the wave of school closings, is the use of computerized system of

assessment. One of the first announcements of this system was in the article titled

Can An $80 Million IBM Deal Save New York City’s Schools? written by Mary

Hayes Weier, which appeared in Information Week on March 6, 2007. The article

stated that the NYCDOE was planning to purchase new computerized system,

called Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS), from the develop-
 62

ers of IBM. This system was to become a new tool for school and student evalu-

ation (Information Week, March 6, 2007). Although the problems of New York

City’s public schools were not very different from most urban school districts,

the city administration was paying IBM $80 million over the course of five years

to develop a business-based computer system that would track and analyze the

performance of schools and students (Weier, 2007). According to Weier:

The ARIS project is considered part of a program Klein and Bloomberg

jointly launched in 2003 called Children First, vaguely described on the
NYCDOE’s website as an overhaul of the school system that includes
changes in strategy, leadership, management, people, and programming.
It also describes Children First as “pursuing the spirit, as well as “the let-
ter” of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind school accountability law, a
subject of national debate and criticism since it was enacted in 2001 (Wei-
er, 2007).

Weier’s article also describes the official view on the workings of the new

intelligence system in a nutshell: “Think of a teacher trying to help a student

struggling with geometry, says Michael Littlejohn, VP of public sector for IBM

global services. The teacher could tap into the system and search for best prac-

tices on geometry instruction, and get contact information for teachers identified

as having strong skills in that area” (Weier, 2007). In the same article Joel Klein

was quoted claiming that the new system would arm parents with information on

their child’s performance and help teachers tailor material to the students’ needs.

According to the NYCDOE’s website (2007), Bloomberg stated: “With these Prog-

ress Reports, parents no longer have to navigate a maze of statistics to determine

how their child’s school is doing and how it compares to others. And our educa-

tors now have a new tool to help them see exactly where their school needs im-
 63

provement and find similar schools that could help them do it” (NYCDOE, 2007).

Yet, for the next five years, the administration and its decision to implement a

new system was to face massive protests from parents and teachers. As if antici-

pating a voice of opposition Weier states:

Still, the contract announced yesterday - and apparently quietly negotiated

between IBM and New York City’s Department of Education - will likely
face scrutiny as more details are revealed. IBM says ARIS will be a highly
secure system, yet it’s likely some parents and teachers will voice concerns
about a Big Brother approach to tracking the performance of more than
one million students, and even teachers, which total about 90,000 in the
public school system. (Weier, 2007).

The planned implementation of ARIS drew a wave of criticism from

the UFT. The union claimed that it was neither consulted nor educated on the

functionality of the new system at the time when the planned purchase was an-

nounced. Randi Weingarten, a UFT representative voiced her opposition to the

$80,000,000 purchase: “You can lower a lot of class sizes with that money - or

buy a lot of supplies” (Weier, 2007).

Shortly after the implementation of ARIS the NYCDOE released its first

ever Annual Progress Report in November 2007. The NYCDOE final criterias

for each school’s evaluation are split into three categories that comprise the final

grade for each school. At 55% “student progress” carries the heaviest weight, “stu-

dent performance” comprises 30%, while school environment contributes 15%

of the final grade. “School environment” grade is measured through results of

surveys taken by teachers, students, and parents during the previous spring term.

“Student performance” category is based on student outcomes. For elementary

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schools, the student outcome is measured through reading and math proficiency,

while high school students’ performance is measured through graduation rate.

“Student progress” – category with the maximum weight –because it measures

the school’s effort on improving yearly academic performance of its students.

In this category, elementary and middle schools are measured on reading and

math proficiency of the students. High school students’ performance is mea-

sured through credit accumulation and Regents exam pass rates. Also, the DOE

awards additional credit to schools that demonstrate exemplary job of closing the

achievement gap (NYCDOE, 2007).

In addition to the three criteria described by the NYCDOE two thirds

of the overall school score comes from a peer school comparison, when each

school’s results were compared with 40 “peer schools”. “Peer schools” are those

that:

Have served very similar student populations over the last three years.
Each school has a unique peer group. On the Progress Report, this is called
the “Peer Horizon.” The remaining one-third of the overall score in each
category is based on a comparison with all schools citywide that serve the
same grade level. This is called the “City Horizon” (NYCDOE, 2007).

The cyclical evaluation results of citywide public school assessment, that

comprise APR, are attained through ARIS. The Annual Performance Reports are

the driving force behind city administration’s decisions regarding school closures.

Incidentally, it was almost immediately after the release of the first APR in 2007

that the first wave of schools closures began. Of 1,224 schools that received Prog-

ress Reports in 2007, 279 (23%) earned an A, 461 (38%) earned a B, 312 (25%)

earned a C, 99 (8%) earned a D, and 50 (4%) earned an F (NYCDOE, 2007).

 65

Quality Review

In addition to using an $80,000,000 software, the NYCDOE employs a

supplementary way to calculate student and school progress. Every year, expe-

rienced educators visit each school to gather on-site information. The findings

gathered during a visit by one of these experienced educators comprise the final

scores of the Quality Review. This time, the DOE does not issue a letter grade,

rather the final score given to a particular school is one of these: Well Developed,

Proficient, Underdeveloped with Proficient Features, and Underdeveloped (NYC-

DOE, 2010). Quality Review scores are not added to the letter grade for each

school but instead, serve as a different, equally important indicator. The DOE

claims that the score based on the data gathered through this evaluation repre-

sents the following:

The quality of efforts taking place at the school to track the capacities and
needs of each student, to plan and set rigorous goals for each student‘s
improved learning, to focus the school‘s academic practices and leadership
development around the achievement of those goals, and to evaluate the
effectiveness of plans and practices constantly and revise them as needed
to ensure success (NYCDOE, 2010).

School Closures

The new accountability measures set in place, by Bloomberg and Klein,

deemed many schools to be under-performing. As a result massive schools clo-

sures began to take place citywide. This section describes the DOE’s school clo-

sure process and the waves of closures from 2008 to 2010.

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The Process

The results of Annual Progress Reports, which include the letter grade as

well as Quality Review scores for all schools in New York City, are used by the

NYCDOE to determine what actions to take toward a particular school. As stated

previously, one of the actions taken by the DOE toward a school it deems “failing”

is closure.

During the step immediately preceding school closure process, the DOE

issues a School Improvement Scenario. This recommendation is created for indi-

vidual schools and, although the details vary according to specific circumstances,

the core recommendations of the plan remain unchanged. Generally, the propos-

al recommends the following steps:

Keeping the school open and continuing to support it, but even more in-
tensively through:

• Staff replacement

• Leadership change

• Bringing in mentor teachers at higher salaries

• and/or Introducing new programs

Replacing the school by:

• Phasing out the school over time by not accepting new students

• Supporting current students through graduation

• and Bringing in new district or charter school(s) to gradually grow in

the building (NYCDOE, 2010).
 67

During this experimental process, the DOE conducts community meet-

ings, where community members are able to voice their opinion on the matter. At

the conclusion of this process the DOE issues an Educational Impact Statement

that includes available options for students at the school, new schools proposed

to move into the building, and a description of what steps the DOE has taken to

improve the school.

However, if the DOE decides those new teachers, staff, principle, and the

efforts of new programs and higher paid mentor teachers create little or no im-

pact on that school’s performance, school closure will be implemented. At this

point, the DOE arranges meetings with community representatives to hear their

reaction to the Educational Impact Statement. Following that step, the final step

in closure process is a public hearing of the Panel for Education Policy (2002).

During this hearing, a panel of thirteen members, eight of which are appointed by

Mayor Bloomberg and the remaining five are appointed by the boroughs (NYC-

DOE, n.d.), decides the fate of schools that are recommended for closure by the

DOE. The list is separated into sections corresponding to the grade level of the

schools. Prior to voting on each section, PEP allows community members two

minutes of time to voice their individual opinions. PEP’s vote determines the

future of the school and that school’s students.

Shuffling

In the event that the vote by the PEP announces a closure of a school
 68

that has been placed into a phase out stage or has been co-located with another

school, the remaining students are shuffled to another school. Norm Fruchter of-

fered his insight into the process:

What happens to those students is that they get shuffled-off into some of
the larger schools that are adjacent to them, which then destabilizes those
larger schools and they become candidates for closing as well. Essentially
the whole school closing process is simply a way to shuffle kids, who are in
failing schools, from one school that’s deemed failing, to a number of other
schools that will soon become failing. But the administration doesn’t see
the responsibility to intervene, to try to change the curve of achievement in
those schools rather than to simply come in and close them (N. Fruchter,
interview, January 13, 2011).

As described by Fruchter, multiple school closures under Bloomberg and

Klein, have resulted in a large number of students being transferred into schools

that become overcrowded. In recent years, as more and more schools are being

phased out or closed by the DOE, many of the students are transferred into large

high schools, like John Dewey, with dire consequences. According to Terri Bre-

nan, some of these new students at JDHS now have to travel from distant areas,

like Harlem – a one-and-a-half-hour subway ride – to attend the school, which in

turn, affects the school’s environment and performance rate:

I met a kid last week that travels all the way from Harlem. They’re sup-
posed to be in at about 7:30 am, chances are, he doesn’t make it on time
very often, and it affects the culture of the school and definitely its statis-
tics. The change was sending kids here that would normally have to apply
to come here. When Lafayette high school was closed a couple of years ago,
a good chunk of their incoming freshmen were sent here (T. Brenan, inter-
view, November 19, 2010).

According to Brenan, student shuffling and the new “no transfer” policy,

instated by the DOE, prevents students from making their own decisions regard-
 69

ing school transfer. So, any student who has been transferred from a DOE-closed

school to a high-demand school, like John Dewey, is prevented from transferring

to a more suitable school, regardless if he or she struggles there academically. In

these situations, students end-up falling behind on their credits, which in turn,

hurts the graduation rate and results in a less-than-pleasant school environment.

In 2010, the APR for John Dewey showed that the graduation rate at the school,

despite slight improvements over the past six years, has remained below citywide

average. The result was that in October 2010 John Dewey teachers and students

found their school on the DOE list of schools slated for closure. Unfortunately,

this process is repeated at many high schools across the city and results in mas-

sive school closures.

 70

CHAPTER IV
POLICY AND RESISTANCE

Massive school closures, teacher layoffs, corporate takeover of public

school buildings, and elimination of public voice in education policy changes have

marked the recent years of centralized public education, as instituted by Mayor

Michael Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein. The resistance movement of educa-

tors, students, parents, and concerned citizens has been forming over the past

two years and has gained tremendous momentum in 2010 as the wave of school

closings escalated. Many of the organizers see the corporate takeover of public

schools as a new wave of segregation and see parallels between their struggle and

the 1960s Civil Rights movement.

First Wave of School Closures – 2009

At the end of 2009 the fate of seventeen schools were slated for closure

and phase out. The total number of high schools on the list was nine and included

three that were opened under Chancellor Klein. According to Philissa Cramer

(2009), the slated high schools included: Paul Robeson HS, Jamaica HS, Beach

Channel HS, Metropolitan Corporate Academy HS, Choir Academy of Harlem

 71

HS, Christopher Columbus HS, Norman Thomas HS, New Day Academy HS, and

Global Enterprise HS. At the end of the fall school term the DOE added more

schools to the list bringing the total number of schools to twenty-one – fifteen of

them high schools. The new high schools added to the list were: Alfred E. Smith

HS, William H. Maxwell Vocational HS, Monroe Academy of Business Law HS,

School for Community Research and Learning HS, Business, Computer Applica-

tions and Entrepreneur HS, and Academy of Environmental Science and Renais-

sance Charter 410. This section describes the resistance and the law suits that

challenged the first wave of school closures and school overcrowding.

First Wave of School Closures and Subsequent Resistance

The resistance movement had a slow start in 2008, as the worst wave of

closings did not begin until 2009. Public school closures in New York City were

rare before the current mayor Michael Bloomberg took office in 2002 and re-

mained at relatively low numbers throughout the next seven years. But this was

to change in the late 2009 with the highest number of schools slated for closure

in years. By 2010, according to Sharon Otterman (2010), “the city has closed or

is in the process of closing 91 schools, replacing them with smaller schools and

charter schools, often several in the same building, with new leadership and

teachers” (Otterman, 2010).

 72

First Wave of Closures: Late 2009 – Early 2010

On a freezing Monday afternoon December 31, 2009, a group of twenty

teachers, students, and parents gathered in front of Tweed Courthouse – the

headquarters of the DOE – to protest the recently released list of proposed school

closures. The first wave of resistance had its start with that small group of ac-

tivists organized by Save Our Schools Coalition – a community-based group of

parents and teachers headed by a Queens parent William McDonald (Tarleton,

2009). Although humble in its beginnings, the SOSC-organized protest was a

precursor to mass protests that were to take place throughout 2010, as the pub-

lic’s resentment toward DOE would escalate with each massive school closure

announcement.

Most of the schools slated for closure in the late 2009 were located in

neighborhoods of color, according to Tarleton (2009), and many protesters ex-

pressed concerns that the planned closures were motivated by private interests

as the DOE was planning an expansion of privately-funded and managed charter

schools. The point was illustrated by the planned closure of century-old Jamaica

High School, which is located in the predominantly black and African-American

neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens. While schools in nearby whiter and more af-

fluent neighborhoods of Kew Gardens and Forest Hills have shown similar aca-

demic achievement, they remained unthreatened by the DOE (NYCDOE, n.d.).

The vocal opponents of proposed school closures on December 31, 2009 were

not the only ones to point out that the schools proposed for closure were located

in poor communities and communities of color. The Independent Budget Office

 73

(IBO), “a publicly funded agency that provides nonpartisan information about

New York City’s budget to the public and their elected officials” (IBO, n.d.), noted

similar findings. The agency’s report, published on January 25, 2010, indicated

economic, ethnic, and racial disparities between closing and non-closing high

schools: closing high schools in Brooklyn and Queens served greater popula-

tions of black or African-American and Hispanic students than the non-closing

schools; closing high schools consistently served greater concentrations of high

need, ESL (English as a Second Language), ELL (English Language Learners),

and overage students than non-closing high schools; closing high schools served

the greatest numbers of students from low-income families and those living in

temporary housing, (homeless shelters, transitional housing, and doubled-up

situations). Along with the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx, Jamaica High

School was cited as one of the schools that exceeded the median of ELL students

citywide (IBO, 2010, p. 9).

Class Size Lawsuit

Along with proposed school closures the New Year began with a class ac-

tion lawsuit filed by the UFT, the New York State Conference of the National As-

sociation for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the Hispanic Federa-

tion, Class Size Matters, the Alliance for Quality Education and parents of NYC

public school students on January 5, 2010 against the Department Of Education

and Joel Klein. Local politicians like NYC Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio and Man-
 74

hattan Borough President Scott Stringer expressed their support.

It was claimed that the administration violated its written agreement

to reduce class sizes following the ruling of the 2006 lawsuit against the state

by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, (CFE, n.d.). While the state had allocated

$760,000,000 to the city’s schools for the years 2007-2008 and 2009-2010, and

student enrollment had dramatically declined, class sizes across the city had in-

creased, some by as much as ten percent. UFT president Michael Mulgrew stated

that the city administration, “turned around and ignored its promise, saying that

school principals who supposedly work for the DOE simply decided to spend the

money on other things — among them, to replace funds lost to city budget cuts”

(as cited in Casey, 2010). High school classes increased to an average of thirty-

four students and some to forty or more. Title I – Education Act of 1965 – limited

class sizes in high need schools to thirty and in non-high need schools to thirty-

three (Casey, 2010).

It is safe to say that the dramatic increase in class sizes resulted in lower

standards of classroom teaching as with each increase in class size teachers found

it increasingly more difficult to teach the material. The result was a domino af-

fect as student achievement decreased; overcrowded schools received low grades

in the 2009 APR, and were subsequently proposed for closure. Many of these

schools were large high schools serving high need, minority, immigrant, and poor

student populations.
 75

Class Action Law Suit and Jamaica High School

One of the schools slated for closure at the end of 2009 was Jamaica High

School. The 100-year-old school has been catering to the needs of kids from the

black and African-American neighborhood of Jamaica, Queens, where the school

is located. On January 26, 2011 during a heated hearing, the PEP voted to ap-

prove the proposed closure of all nineteen schools. On the following Monday,

February 1, 2010, the UFT filed a lawsuit against the NYCDOE and the National

Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was soon to join

along with more than a dozen elected officials. This was the second lawsuit chal-

lenging the DOE proposed school closures. In April 2009 the UFT won a lawsuit

when the DOE announced its plans to close PS 194, 241, and BPS 150 – all locat-

ed in predominantly black neighborhoods of Harlem and Brownsville. Interest-

ingly enough, following the lawsuit, all three schools received “A” grades on APR

later that year.

The new lawsuit explained that the Department Of Education failed to ac-

count for the impact school closures would have on the community. According to

Sharon Otterman (2010), the UFT and NAACP argued that, “the city had failed to

comply with the mayoral control law passed last year, which required the Depart-

ment of Education to give detailed ‘educational-impact statements’ describing the

effect of each closing on students and surrounding schools”.

On March 26, 2010 Justice Joan B. Lobis of State Supreme Court in Man-

hattan issued her decision to block the closure of all nineteen schools. Judge Lo-

bis stated that the city administration failed to comply with 2009 mayoral control
 76

law that required the DOE to issue detailed educational impact statements that

describe how students and surrounding schools would be affected by the school

closures. The DOE was blamed for not involving the community in decision-

making process during the PEP hearing. Chancellor Klein responded by saying:

“I think the process was robust. We literally met with thousands of people who

expressed their views. We heard them, and in the end, we disagreed” (as cited in

Otterman, 2010).

Despite the successful conclusion of the class action law suit the DOE

proposed closure of Jamaica High School again in November 2010. The deci-

sion drew massive protests and community hearings at the school. In December

2010, students from the school, along with teens from Queens Collegiate High

School – the school that has been sharing the building with Jamaica HS – and the

help of Actor’s Workshop at Queensborough Community College, created a play

that brought the school’s fate into public spotlight. The play, titled “Declassified:

Struggle for Existence (We Used to Eat Lunch Together)”, was an adaptation of

classic Greek tragedy “Antigone”. In the new play, King Creon was replaced by

Chancellor Joel Klein and, who, instead of making a decision about which of his

two sons gets a proper burial, chooses to let Jamaica HS die and to be fed to the

birds while Queens Collegiate HS gets the better treatment. Naturally, the play

caused a lot of controversy and the DOE threatened to ban it. Yet, despite the out-

cry from the community board members, students, teachers, and local politicians,

the PEP panel voted in February 2011 to phase out the school.
 77

Federal Policies

Prior to 2008, many of the educational policies in New York City have

been based on the federal policies of No Child Left Behind. The Federal Educa-

tion Secretary, Arne Duncan, took office under the President Obama in 2008 and

in his new post, implemented a new educational agenda. The new agenda, called

Race To The Top, has been the driving many of the educational policies nation-

wide; this section provides a background and a description of its policies.

Arne Duncan

The New York City’s so-called reforms mirror Federal education policies

that began with the new Federal leadership. In December 2008, the newly elected

president Barack Hussein Obama announced his nomination of forty-four year

old Arne Duncan to the post of Federal Education Secretary. Duncan served as

CEO of Chicago Public School (CPS) system since 2001. Obama stated that his

nomination of Duncan to the post was driven by his interest to improve America’s

because the failing classroom instruction is “morally unacceptable to our chil-

dren” (AP, 2008). In turn, Duncan called education “the civil rights issue of our

generation” (AP, 2008). Yet, his track record as a CEO of third largest public

school system in the country demonstrates exactly where he truly stands on the

civil rights issue.

The mainstream media hailed Duncan for his success with improving Chi-

cago’s public school system through implementation of Renaissance 2010 in June

 78

2004. The plan followed the outlines of George W. Bush’s agenda No Child Left

Behind to the letter and involved frequent high-stakes testing. The mainstream

media presented the Renaissance 2010 as a radical school improvement strategy

that proposed to close sixty public schools and to open 100 state-of-the-art small,

charter, or contract schools. To implement the plan, Duncan’s administration

implemented the Mid-South Plan (the Plan) that “provides a blueprint for the re-

juvenation of one of the most historically important areas of the city of Chicago”

(IIT, n.d.).

In truth, according to Brown, Gutstein, and Lipman (2009), the Plan was

“designed to close 20 of its 22 schools, almost entirely African American, over

a four-year period, replacing them with Renaissance 2010 schools”. The local

communities warned CPS that the moves by the administration would increase

school violence as the kids from the schools that have been closed would have to

cross gang boundaries to get to their new schools. Unfortunately, when Duncan

and CPS ignored the community’s plea, the new schools were destabilized due to

a spike in student violence (Brown et al., 2009). Additionally, with the closure

of public schools and reopening of Renaissance 2010 charter or contract schools

marginalized many public school students due to complicated application process

and deadlines, limits of enrollment, informal selection of students, family re-

quirements, and informal selection process. The communities that housed “turn

around” schools– those going through mandatory administrative restructure

– have experienced massive economic losses as security personnel, custodians,

clerks, and paraprofessionals lost their jobs.

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Race to The Top

Following the Chicago career, Arne Duncan brought the school closure

and privatization experience to his new post as the Secretary of Education. Much

of what he learned in Chicago shaped the new Federal agenda called Race to The

Top (RTTT). President Obama and Arne Duncan announced the planned imple-

mentation of RTTT on July 24, 2009. The funding for the agenda comes from

the ED Recovery Act as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of

2009. Essentially, as its name implies, RTTT is a nationwide contest between the

states to see which of them would receive a portion of $4.35 billion allocated to

the agenda by the Federal government. The RTTT contest consists of two phases

and the winners of Phase 1 receive $20 - $70 million dollars, while the winners of

Phase 2 receive $350 - $700 million.

The selection process of RTTT consists of six categories, with each carrying

a certain number of points. The Executive Summary of RTTT (2009), describes

the them in the following way:

State Success Factors (125 points)

• Articulating State’s education reform agenda and Local Education

Authority’s (LEA) participation in it (65 points)

• Building strong statewide capacity to implement, scale up, and sustain

proposed plans (30 points)

• Demonstrating significant progress in raising achievement and closing

gaps (30 points)

Standards and Assessments (70 points)

• Developing and adopting common standards (40 points)

• Developing and implementing common, high-quality assessments (10
 80

points)
• Supporting the transition to enhanced standards and high-quality
assessments (20 points)

Data Systems to Support Instruction (47 points)

• Fully implementing a statewide longitudinal data system (24 points)

• Accessing and using State data (5 points)

• Using data to improve instruction (18 points)

Great Teachers and Leaders (138 points)

• High-quality pathways for aspiring teachers and principals (21 points)

• Teacher / principal effectiveness performance-based improvement (58

points)

• Equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals (25 points)

• Improving the effectiveness of teacher and principal preparation

programs (14 points)

• Providing effective support to teachers and principals (20 points)

Turning Around the Lowest-Achieving Schools (50 points)

• Intervening in the lowest-achieving schools and LEAs (10 points)

• Turning around the lowest- achieving schools (40 points)

General Selection Criteria (55 points)

• Making education funding a priority (10 points)

• Ensuring successful conditions for high-performing charters and other

innovative schools (40 points)

• Demonstrating other significant reform conditions (5 points)

While the outline of the RTTT agenda looks promising and optimistic it

has been subject of much criticism. Scholars and activists across the country
 81

have pointed to its corporate-based model for public education, impracticality,

contest-like approach, and privatization of public school systems through charter

school expansion. Many states have seen unequal distribution of state aid be-

tween public and charter schools as a direct result of RTTT competition. For in-

stance, the state of Illinois raised a cap on the allowed number of charter schools

and West Virginia included student achievement compensation in its calculations

for a merit pay system (Walsh, 2010).

Value-Added Modeling

The states that banned value-added modeling teacher evaluations were

ineligible to compete for RTTT money and some of them were forced to revise

their laws to qualify for the contest (Dillon, 2010). Value-added modeling, (or

value-added analysis and value-added assessment), is a method that measures a

teacher’s contribution for a particular year through comparison of test scores of

his or her students to the scores of the same students in the previous year (Dillon,

2010). It’s easy to see that the future of a teacher’s career under RTTT is deter-

mined by test scores; in order to retain their jobs or to earn a higher pay teachers

are forced to administer frequent tests to their students and to substitute educa-

tional instruction for test preparations. An economist Eric Hanushek first intro-

duced the idea for this type of teacher assessment in 1971 (Hanushek & Rivkin,

2010). Subsequent numerous studies, including those by Harvard University,

have shown consistent differences among teachers and the learning pace of the
 82

students (Murnane, 1975).

An August 2010 report by the Economic Policy Institute argued the value-

added modeling alone was not sufficiently reliable as a means of making “high-

stakes personnel decisions” based on student test scores. The EPI report recom-

mended that standardized test score measures be one factor among many that

should be considered to “provide a more accurate view of what teachers in fact do

in the classroom and how that contributes to student learning.” Edward Haertel,

the leader of the EPI research team stated that the RTTT-pushed methodolo-

gies placed “too much emphasis on measures of growth in student achievement

that have not yet been adequately studied for the purposes of evaluating teachers

and principals”. Haertel also called for a more thorough evaluation of the model

and recommended that it only be used “in closely studied pilot projects” (Baker,

Barton, Darling-Hammond, Haertel, Ladd, Linn, Ravitch, Rothstein, Shavelson,

& Shepard, 2010).

Charter Schools

Defines charter schools and how they are implemented through RTTT

agenda; policy that allows NYC allows charter schools to use public school space

for free; co-locations of schools in public school buildings. Also discusses charter

schools’ role in neighborhood gentrification.

 83

Background and Definition

The charter school idea originated in 1988 by Ray Buddle, a University

of Massachusetts Amherst professor and was implemented by Albert Shanker –

President of American Federation of Teachers (AFT) (Kolderie, 2005). Charter

schools came out of the progressive “small school” movement with the idea of

eliminating bureaucracy from public education. Yet, the original intention has

been replaced by the intent to privatize public education and to eliminate teacher

unions (Knopp, 2008).

The charter school or “schools by choice” movement gained momen-

tum under the former President George W. Bush administration and expanded

through Federal Race to The Top agenda under President Obama and Arne

Duncan. Since its inception, RTT placed great emphasis on the development and

expansion of charter schools nationwide. In lieu of the agenda’s concern to push

for more charter schools in every state, the nation has seen rapid increases in

charter school cap – state restrictions on the number of charter schools allowed

by each state. The National Education Association (NEA), defines charter schools

as “publicly funded elementary or secondary schools that have been freed from

some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools, in

exchange for some type of accountability for producing certain results, which are

set forth in each charter school’s charter” (NEA, n.d.). Officially, charter schools

are designed to create alternatives to public schools and, as such, are not allowed

to charge tuition. Some charter schools focus on a specialized curriculum, most

often arts or mathematics.

 84

The student enrollment at charter schools is determined through a public

lottery process and parents of a student only get one chance to apply. Charter

schools tend to house only a couple of hundred students and the lotteries for

school admission are highly competitive and often heartbreaking for the parents

of students who get bypassed. A 2008 survey of charter schools, conducted by the

Center for Education Reform (CER), found that fifty-nine percent of the charter

schools had a 198-person waiting list – that’s 365,000 students nationwide (CER,

2008). Norm Fruchter of Annenberg Institute believes that the lottery process

should be altered to create a less humiliating outcome for the disappointed stu-

dents:

I don’t see why it has to be public, it could be observed by neutral officials

to make sure it’s conducted correctly, not in public view. And as in the col-
lege application the family would get a letter saying “congratulations – you
are accepted” or “I’m sorry – you didn’t get chosen by the lottery, maybe
next time” but you wouldn’t have to actually have the public ritual in which
there are a few winners and an enormous amount of disappointed losers
(N. Fruchter, interview, January 13, 2011).

Similar to the way Health Management Organizations (HMO) oversee

healthcare providers, Educational Management Organizations (EMO) perform

the management of charter schools. Government entities, universities, and non-

profit groups sometimes establish charter schools. However, more frequently,

schools districts give corporations control and management of charter school

chains (Eskenazi, 1999). The corporate control of the charter chain does not affect

the non-profit status of the schools themselves and, as a result, allows for certain

leniencies. The corporate funding and, therefore, control, of education has en-
 85

abled big business to turn schools into moneymaking machines. Public education

is viewed as the biggest market opportunity or the “big enchilada” by the business

world (Kozol, 2007). The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Walton Family

Foundation, and Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and other for-profit entities

have all been accused of applying a “Business Model” to public schools for the

purpose of making a profit (Democracy Now, 2009). According to Kenneth Libby

(2008), the privatization of public education under the guise of democracy is part

of the grander plan:

The policies touted as educational “reform” by the New Democrats apply

the same neoliberal theories responsible for NAFTA, the WTO, and GATT
with the same results: the inequalities become greater while those in
positions of power receive even greater rewards. A two-tired education
system lurks in the distance, the result of neoliberal efforts to create
equality. The gradual privatization and outsourcing of public schools
represents a shift towards the voucher system, the ideal school system
envisioned by Milton Friedman and present-day neoconservatives (Libby,
2008).

Funding Disparities in New York City Public School Budget

In New York City, the goal of profit making becomes more evident through

the Independent Budget Office’s 2010 fund distribution comparison between

public schools and charter schools in New York City. Almost exclusive to New

York City, many charter schools are given space in public school buildings when

the DOE deems a public school to be failing. This factor has led many critics of

charter school expansion to believe that the number of school closures by the city

is directly linked to the charter school expansion. Based on 2008 – 2009 school

year, the IBO found that while the public support for charter schools in the city
 86

is significantly lower than for traditional public schools, in addition to charter al-

locations, the charter schools are free to seek private financial contributions. The

economic support gap between charters and public schools is eliminated when

one considers that two-thirds of charter schools in New York City are housed in

public school buildings, which makes them exempt from a number of significant

expenses. Ray Domanico and Yolanda Smith of the IBO stated:

We estimate that total public financial support in 2009–2010 for general

education services averaged $16,011 per pupil in traditional public schools,
$16,660 per pupil in charter schools housed in public school buildings, and
$13,653 per pupil in charter schools housed in private space. The reason we
calculate a higher funding allocation for charters housed in public school
buildings than charters in private space is the value of in-kind services
they receive due to their location: charter schools co-located in public
school buildings don’t have to budget for space costs and utilities, janitorial
services, or school safety agents. As of 2009-2010, two-thirds of the city’s
98 charter schools were housed in public school buildings (IBO, 2011).

The Myth of Charter School Performance

The myth that charter schools provide better education has been pushed

through by massive propaganda methods used by the corporations that control

the EMOs. Perhaps one of the most notable efforts by the school privatizers have

been the public release of films such as Waiting For Superman and The Lottery.

The two critically acclaimed films completely eliminated any mention of posi-

tive aspects of public schools or positive impact by the public school teachers.

Instead, they created a picture of the “evil” public schools’ failure. The propa-

ganda messages have been so widely spread by the corporate-owned mainstream

 87

media that pop icons, like Prince, without an extensive knowledge of the educa-

tion issues, have been spreading the charter school message at their concerts and

public events. The result of the propaganda machine’s efforts created an increase

in nationwide support for charter schools, particularly among minority and poor

populations, who have previously been generally opposed to the idea (Howell,

Peterson, & West 2011).

The reality is that the quality of education at charter schools is far from

being superior to public schools. In 2009 the Center for Research on Educa-

tion Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University conducted a study of charter

schools. Since its release, the report has been widely considered to be the nation’s

most authoritative study of charter school performance. CREDO analyzed 70%

of charter school children nationwide and compared it with students in nearby

public schools. Matching the demographics of charter and public school students

in the report, CREDO created the most accurate assessment. The results of the

report showed that only seventeen percent of charter schools reported academic

gains that were significantly better than traditional public schools; thirty-seven

percent of charter schools performed significantly worse than public schools;

and forty-six percent demonstrated no difference at all. Nationwide, charter

schools showed significantly greater variation in quality with many falling below

public school performance and a few exceeding them significantly. Additionally,

the variations among various demographic groups showed that Black and His-

panic students were not doing as well in charter schools as they would in public

schools; poor, brighter, and ESL students performed better in charter schools
 88

while average students performed worse (CREDO, 2009).

In January 2010, CREDO released a report titled Charter School Perfor-

mance in New York City. CREDO concluded that:

Charter schools in New York City have significantly less students eligible
for free lunch than public schools. Similarly, charter schools enroll less
than 4 percent of English language learners, while public schools enroll
a number almost three times more. In North-Central Brooklyn, charter
schools enroll 1.3 percent of English language learners, compared with 11.2
percent in public schools. As for special education students, charter schools
are enrolling 9.5 percent, while public schools enroll 16.4 percent.

According to Jim Horn, of Schools Matter blog (2010), on a school by

school comparison, the CREDO report showed that when it came to math fifty-

one percent of the city’s charter schools showed academic growth that was sta-

tistically higher than the students would have achieved in regular public schools;

thirty-three percent demonstrated no significant difference; and sixteen percent

demonstrated significantly lower learning achievement. The reading scores dem-

onstrated that twenty-nine percent of charter schools are showing statistically

better gains, twelve percent showed significantly lower gains, and the majority,

fifty-nine percent showed no difference at all (Horn, 2010).

According to numerous accounts by parents and some charter schools

teachers, the charters use a curriculum that is based on military and corporate

practices. Some teachers report that in their schools students are not allowed to

talk during lunch and must walk in straight lines in the hallways without talk-

ing. Many charter schools practice zero-tolerance discipline policies and many

students, especially those with behavioral disorders, get expelled for relatively

minor offenses. The charter school discipline is reminiscent of Arne Duncan’s

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campaign to promote Renaissance 2010 schools during his career in Chicago.

Duncan has been known for his favoritism of school choice, a.k.a. charter schools,

and military schools. In fact, in Chicago, all of the military high schools, with the

exception of one, are located in African American communities, and all of the

middle school cadet programs are in overwhelmingly black or Hispanic schools.

The rapid expansion in these programs occurred largely under Duncan’s control.

A November 2, 2007 issue of USA Today quoted him saying: “These are positive

learning environments. I love the sense of leadership. I love the sense of disci-

pline” (As cited in Brown, Gutstein, & Lipman, 2009).

It’s not surprising that charter schools, that tend to feature a military-style

discipline code, would have no place for high-need students with behavioral or

learning disorders. A recent article in The New York Post featured a story about

a twelve-year-old Tyrique Royal, who is facing expulsion from Fahari Academy

Charter School for launching pellets of paper across the classroom and having a

“spork,” (a plastic spoon / fork utensil), food fight with his friends during lunch.

He was suspended from the school in March 2011 and remained in that posi-

tion when The New York Post article was written on April 24, 2011. Tyrique was

diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. While traditional public

schools are not allowed to expel students under the age of seventeen and prin-

cipals are only allowed to suspend a student for no more than five consecutive

days. On the other hand, charter schools are free to write their own rules. Due

to that, charter schools expel twenty-three percent of their students annually

(Karni, 2011). Sam Coleman, a young public school teacher and a member of the
 90

New York City-based New York Coalition of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) and

Grassroots Education Movement (GEM) sees these types of actions by the charter

school administrators as typical of the corporate world:

If you have a privatized system you open it up to the corporations deciding

what goes on in the classroom. And, if you are a corporation and you want
workers for your company who are obedient, follow the rules, and know
their place ¬– you will create a curriculum that promotes that. If you are
a truly public system with the good of society at large, in general, as your
goal then, you create citizens who think critically and question authority,
question their own schools, and their own teachers. And so there’s a
dichotomy there – it’s not just about the profit, there’s also the control (S.
Coleman, interview, February 24, 2011).

The Gentrification of New York City’s Neighborhoods

In New York City, control of charter schools has become synonymous with

gentrification. Whenever the NYCDOE releases its Annual Progress Report and

deems a school failing the PEP votes for that school to be closed, phased-out, or

restructured, a charter school moves into the public school’s building. One glance

at the UFT’s maps of charter school (Figure 2) and closed public school locations

(Figure 3) show that the public school building takeover has been dominant in

Black and Hispanic neighborhoods citywide, chiefly in Harlem, South Bronx, and

Central Brooklyn (UFT, 2011). Currently, the total number of charter schools in

the five boroughs is 125, while 97 public schools have been closed and twenty-

seven are being closed in 2011.

The gentrification of Brooklyn, Harlem, and the South Bronx began when

public, private or non-profit, entities made significant investments into the neigh-
 91

borhoods’ vacant units or lots. According to Kalima Rose (2002), as the neigh-

borhoods became known for their low-cost housing and amenities their housing

costs increased. At that point, the landlords became aware of the rising market

values and began evicting long-time neighborhood residents in order to raise the

rent or to sell the properties at higher prices. As the process of massive displace-

ment began to take place and the more affluent newcomers began purchasing

properties with higher down payment requirements. As the neighborhoods be-

came more affluent, the commercial amenities and charter schools that cater to

the new residents’ needs began to appear.

When the increase in the income levels of the neighborhood became more

apparent, prices increased even more, and the result was an even larger displace-

ments of low-income residents. The new, more affluent residents, viewed the

preexisting social services, schools, homeless or low-income services, and other

industries as undesirable. As a result, the original residents, along with their

industries, stores, faith institutions, and schools, began to get displaced (Rose,

2002). Consequently, the bordering and more affluent neighborhoods began to

expand.

This sequence of gentrification is repeated over and over throughout the

five boroughs and has been greatly demonstrated by the rapid gentrification

of the historically Black neighborhood of Harlem, where twenty charter schools

have been placed in recent years under Bloomberg and Klein administration.

In Brooklyn, particularly Sunset Park and Clinton Hill, very few neighborhood

schools provide quality education to the low-income kids and the ones that do
 92

usually do so after the gentrification. The reason for that is that middle class par-

ents tend to be more involved in the school’s affairs and middle school kids tend

to do better on standardized tests, which it turn looks good on DOE’s APR’s and

shows that progress has been made. Middle class parents tend to push for more

progressive education, to raise money for the school through their companies and

foundations, and to volunteer their time to make sure that better quality educa-

tion is provided for their kids; better schools also mean better property values in

the neighborhood.

Figure 2. A map of charter school locations throughout New York City. The largest
number is located in Harlem, the South Bronx, and Central Brooklyn.
 93

Figure 3. A map of closed public school locations throughout New York City. The largest
number is located in Harlem, the South Bronx, and Central Brooklyn.

In her article titled Report Card: Reform via Gentrification (2011), Liza

Featherstone writes: “Parent involvement can’t fix schools where no one has

access to money and thus can’t fundraise. It can’t fix schools where no one has

time because everyone is poor. Poverty is time-consuming” (Featherstone, 2011).

According to Featherstone, many schools in low-income districts recruit more

affluent families specifically for the purpose of raising money and volunteering

at the school (Featherstone, 2011). Over the past few years, charter schools have
 94

been devoting a lot of time, money, and energy to recruit middle class families for

the same reason. For example, Eva Moskowitz – a former City-council member

and director of Harlem Success Academies Charter Network, with a reputation

for aggressive school takeover tactics – has been “working to set up shop on the

Upper West Side, and marketing her Success Academies to the middle class”

(Featherstone, 2011). In recent years, charter school organizations have figured

out that gentrification just may be the quickest way to achieve higher academic

performance and monetary support for their organizations.

The new charter schools opening up in the mixed-income neighborhoods,

like those of Clinton Hill and Upper West Side, have raised concerns among lo-

cal residents. One of the reasons for the large crowds at the PEP meetings where

school expansion and school co-location votes take place, is that the low-income

families are afraid that the middle class parents, whose kids attend the same

neighborhood school, will transfer their kids to the new charters. When that hap-

pens, the neighborhood schools lose parent involvement; experience a drop in

academic performance; school budget cuts and eventual closure. While one might

argue that gentrification is an inadvertent by-product of charter school expan-

sion, the following anecdote may shed some light on a more sinister aspect of that

expansion.

The principal of the Harriet Tubman School, PS 154, located on West 127

Street was ordered by Chancellor Klein to give up an entire third floor of the

school to the Harlem Success Academy charter school. Harlem Success Academy

was featured in “Waiting For Superman” and was founded by Eva Moskowitz,
 95

who purchased a $1,500,000 condo in the vicinity of the school. According to

Julius Tajiddin and Denise Saddler (2006), Harlem Success failed to provide

the reasons for sharing space with the high-performing Harriet Tubman School,

which had no spare space (Tajiddin & Saddler, 2006). A UFT Chapter Leader,

who was incidentally teaching at the Harriet Tubman, was able to prevent the

unconstitutional takeover of the school by organizing community advocates, local

officials, and parents. Tajiddin and Saddler describe dirty maneuverings by Klein

and Moskowitz:

Right before the mid-year school break Chancellor Klein told Eva
Moskowitz to look at school space in Harlem and whatever she decided he
would give it to her. So during the break she went to The Harriet Tubman
School when the principal and other administrators weren’t around and
asked a custodian to let her and her cohorts in to have a look. At first he
was reluctant because she had nothing from the principal but was finally
persuaded after some choice words were used. The principal became
informed after the fact. But the real parties affected by this method of
a taking – the parents - were not told at all - denying their right to due
process. That changed once the UFT’s chapter leader found out (Tajiddin &
Saddler, 2006).

Segregation

A study by the Civil Rights project at the University of California in Los

Angeles examined charter schools in forty states and the District of Columbia and

found that most charter schools are located in African-American neighborhoods

(UCLA/IDEA, 2009). The study also found that charter schools tend to be more

racially segregated than any public schools in urban districts. According to Nick

Anderson (2010), a staff writer for Washington Post, seven out of ten African-
 96

American charter school students attend “intensely segregated” schools where

90% of the students are “racial and ethnic minorities”. By contrast, black students

in traditional public schools constitute thirty-six percent of the high-minority en-

rollment schools and fifteen percent of the virtually all-minority schools (Ander-

son, 2010). According to UCLA, students of all races, including whites, are more

likely to be attending a racially isolated charter school than their peers in public

schools. In its conclusion, the UCLA study states: “As the country continues mov-

ing steadily toward greater segregation and inequality of education for students

of color in schools with lower achievement and graduation rates, the rapid growth

of charter schools has been expanding a sector that is even more segregated than

the public schools” (UCLA/IDEA, 2009).

A study by the Education and the Public Interest Center (EPIC) of the Uni-

versity of Colorado and the Educational Policy Research Unit (EPRU) of Arizona

State University found that nationwide, when compared to traditional public

schools, charter schools serve fewer special education students and ELL students.

“As compared with the public school district in which these charter schools re-

side, they are substantially more segregated, and the strong segregative pattern

found in 2001 is virtually unchanged through 2007” (Miron, Urschel, Mathis, &

Tornquist, 2010).

Perhaps these findings are not surprising, considering that advocates of

charter schools tend to side with proponents of the new voucher system – the

system that allows state administrators to issue vouchers that push minority and

poor students to attend private schools in place of public schools. According to

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Jonathan Kozol’s account, one of the most influential of the charter school advo-

cates –political propagandists John Chubb and voucher system advocate Terry

Moe, wrote in a right-wing policy review that under the new education market

system “constellation of ... different schools serving different kinds of students

differently would probably emerge”. Furthermore, Chubb stated that one of the

disadvantages of public schools is that they “must take whoever walks in the

door” and “do not have the luxury of being able to select”. In their book focusing

on expansion of private education markets, Chubb and Moe wrote that schools

“must be free to admit as many or as few students as they want, based on whatev-

er criteria they think relevant - intelligence, interest, motivation, behavior, special

needs” (Kozol, 2007). An NYC parent, who transferred her child from a charter

school into a traditional public school, had the following to say about the charter

selection process:

Charter schools manipulate the system by taking the best children and
weeding out the so call behavior children – they simple don’t want to
deal with them. I see many children dealing with ADHD, ADD, Trauma
etc. being throw out of schools instead of getting them and their families
the help that they need, unfortunately, we will have a generation of
uneducated, selfish, uncaring adults in the next few decades (E.M. Personal
communication, April 24, 2011).

Civil Rights Language

Adopting the language of Civil Rights, the advocates of charter school ex-

pansion cast confusing messages at the general public. Nelson Smith, the presi-

dent and CEO of National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, stated: “We actu-
 98

ally are very proud of the fact that charter schools enroll more low-income kids

and more kids of color than do other public schools. We’re happy to talk about

those demographic issues. We’re also happy to talk about how to increase diver-

sity overall in all facets of public education. The real civil rights issue for many of

these kids is being trapped in dysfunctional schools” (As cited in Nelson, 2010).

The “the civil rights issue of our time” statement by Arne Duncan was cleverly

adopted by the education business world. Sam Coleman of NYCoRE / GEM,

believes that the business world’s language has been affective in confusing the

public:

It’s very powerful and very subtle, but they have managed to convince a
vast majority of the public that charter schools are the response to the
years, and years, and years of racist education policies, when in fact, years,
and years, and years of racist education policies did, and have, in many
ways, made the school unattainable for many children in the cities across
the country with the current response of privatization. If you think that the
corporate agenda is the agenda that’s looking to help communities of color,
you just have to look at what’s going on in the rest of America and the rest
of the world (S. Coleman, interview, February 24, 2011).

Union Issues

Being managed by the corporate EMOs, charter schools hire mostly non-

union teachers. Recent attacks on the unions across the country that resulted in

the elimination of bargaining rights from the public service workers have spurred

a general outcry of protest. Recent events in Wisconsin that brought public work-

ers’ strikes and rallies into the mass media are but a sign of the times.

At least officially, charter schools in New York City are mandated to rec-
 99

ognize the union if the majority of workers demand it (Greenhouse & Medina,

2009). On average, teachers at charter schools, while receiving higher pay than

their public school counterparts, work longer hours, including some Saturdays

and must be available to the students at off hours. According to Victoria Dodd

(1997), “charter school teachers are even more likely than traditional public

school teachers to be beset by the burn-out caused by working long hours, in

poor facilities” (p. 109). According to a study conducted by Vanderbilt University,

teachers in charter schools are 132% more likely to leave teaching than their pub-

lic school counterparts (Stuit & Smith, 2009).

The concerns over high teacher turnover at Brooklyn’s charter school KIPP

AMP – Knowledge Is Power Program: Always Mentally Prepared – located in

Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood, drove the school’s teachers attempt to

unionize in 2009. The move was fought by the schools’ administration for two

years and, according to Anna Phillips (2010), in April 2011 KIPP cofounder David

Levin, also the superintendent of KIPP’s New York schools, decided to let go of

the majority of teachers and to replace the school’s principal. While Levin denied

that the school was letting go of the majority of its teachers by stating: “As we do

every year, in accordance with our policies, we are in the process of evaluating

our program and staff to ensure that we have a high-performing team of educa-

tors in our classrooms implementing the best program possible for our students”

(As cited in Phillips, 2010), a KIPP teacher said that the school’s leadership noti-

fied most of its teachers that they will not be returning to work in September.

Town Hall Meeting – November 9, 2010

 100

The New York State Board of Regents – the board responsible for supervi-

sion of all educational activities within the state – held a Town Hall meeting in

Central Brooklyn on November 9, 2010 – the first since the board’s founding on

May 1, 1784. The meeting took place at traditionally Black Medgar Evers Col-

lege. The chief reason for the meeting was a discussion of plans for distribution

of $700,000,000 recently received by the New York State when it was a finalist

in the Race to The Top contest and announcement of new strategies the Regents

planned to adopt to deal with low-performing schools.

Figure 4. The Regents Central Brooklyn Town Hall meeting at Medgar Evers College.

In the beginning of 2010 Mayor Bloomberg and the New York State char-

ter school advocates won a battle against the teachers’ union over the cap on the

maximum allowed number of charter schools in the state. According to Barbara

Martinez (2010), the cap on charter schools was raised from 200 to 460 specifi-

cally to qualify for the second round of Race to The Top contest.

During the meeting the auditorium of Medgar Evers College was only

partially filled by the audience that consisted mainly of teachers, parents, and a

handful of prominent local politicians (Figure 4). A number of State Senators and
 101

State Assembly Members were present at the meeting. Senior Deputy Commis-

sioner of the New York State DOE, Dr. John B. King Jr. and Regent at Large, Dr.

Lester W. Young Jr. chaired the meeting and presented the following key points:

High School Graduation Requirements, Race to The Top Initiatives, Common

Core Curriculum and NYS Curriculum Frameworks, and NYS Assessments in

Grades K – 12.

Race to The Top Fund Allocations

During the first half of the meeting, Dr. King and Dr. Young talked about

the Regents’ plans of fund distribution from the recent award of the Race to The

Top money. Dr. John B. King – Senior Deputy Commissioner of NYSDOE, who

also happens to be the former Managing Director of Uncommon School’s Excel-

lence and Preparatory Networks (Robin Hood Foundation, n.d.) – discussed how

the funds would be allocated to the LEAs.

Although the LEAs role in fund distribution is outlined in Race To The Top

agenda, the audience at the Town Hall meeting that day was not provided with

that definition. Additionally, the committee did not explain the reasons behind

RTT’s directives to have the grant money be given to the LEAs (Figure 5). The

dictionary defines LEA, or Local Education Agency, the following way:

The term “local education agency” means a public board of education or

other public authority or a nonprofit institution legally constituted within,
or otherwise recognized by, a State for either administrative control or
direction of, or to perform administrative services for, a group of schools
within a State (US Legal, n.d.).
 102

The New York State: Race To The Top: Selection Criteria and

Competition Priorities agenda document states that:

This agenda has served as the basis for legislation enacted on May
28th, 2010, that provides school districts with the ability to contract
with Educational Management Organizations (known in New York as
Educational Partnership Organizations) to implement a whole school
reform intervention through a restart model, requires that student
achievement be a significant factor in teacher and principal evaluations,
and increases the cap on charter schools (p. 236).

Figure 5. The Regents’ funding allocations to LEAs.

Under the State law, a for-profit EMO, under the umbrella of a larger

corporation, can make decisions on the educational policies of public schools and

to expand its own charter school network. Basically, the Race To The Top money

would go to these EMOs/EPOs, to spend the money any way they chose as long as
 103

it is for the purpose of “reform intervention”.

Under the State law, a for-profit EMO can make decisions on the educa-

tional policies of public schools and expansion of its own charter school network.

Basically, the Race To The Top money would go to these EMOs/EPOs, to spend

the money any way they chose as long as it is for the purpose of “reform interven-

tion”.

Low-Achieving Schools

Another section of the Regents Town Hall meeting, on November 9, dealt

with improvement strategies for low achieving schools. The board proposed an

implementation of statewide accountability system and incentives that would ac-

celerate intervention in the lowest-achieving schools. In order to reach that goal,

the Regents proposed several strategies:

• Build on lessons learned from past efforts by the State Education

Department and to continue building on those lessons

• Build a system that annually identifies persistently lowest achieving

schools and to support LEAs implementation of one of four intervention
models. According to According to Coalition for Educational Justice
(2010), the four intervention models are:

Restart: Convert the school to charter, or close and reopen it as a

charter school

Closure: Close a school and enroll the students in other higher-

achieving schools

Turnaround: Phase out the existing school and replace it with new
schools (NYC version of turnaround)
 104

Transformation: Replace the principal and redesign the school by

increasing learning time, reforming curriculum and instruction,
and increasing teaching quality

• Require each LEA to implement an appropriate intervention model

based on the needs of the school and support implementation of that
model

• Expand Partnership Zones, including NYC’s Children First Initiative

• Foster innovative schools and practices

When considering the implementation of “an appropriate intervention

model”, one must contemplate the partnership of LEAs with for-profit EMOs that

comprise the EPOs. With that in mind, it would be possible to conclude that, in

the case of failing or low-performing schools, the LEAs would, most likely, imple-

ment Restart, Closure, or Turnaround model in order to expand its own charter

school network. The likelihood of this implementation is further illustrated by the

Regents strategic plan for reaching the RTTT goals. According to its handout, dis-

tributed at the start of the Town Hall meeting, in order to fulfill the RTTT criteria

for “turning around low performing schools”, the Regents would adopt a strategic

goal of “replacing failing schools” (Figure 6).

For the teachers and the local politicians seated in the audience at that

Town Hall meeting the proposed actions by the Regents were especially relevant

in lieu of the October announcement by the NYC school officials. That announce-

ment by the DOE outlined its planned school closures for forty-seven schools –

the largest number of proposed school closures in the history of centralized pub-

lic school control under Mayor Bloomberg. The Regents’ proposals also coincided
 105

with the headlines of that morning’s newspapers that announced that Chancellor

Joel Klein would step down from his post and be replaced by the Mayor-nominat-

ed Cathie Black.

Figure 6. The Regents’ Strategic Plan. 9 Goals.

The New School Chancellor Controversy

The nomination of Cathie Black by Mayor Bloomberg has been one of the

most controversial moves by the mayor since he took office. The mayor’s appoint-

ment of the former Hearst Magazine chief executive came as a surprise to the

New Yorkers and to the staff at the mayor’s office. According to Andy Newman

(2010), of The New York Times, “aides were notified just before the press confer-

ence, and that Mr. Klein had not said anything to them about wanting a new job.

The staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that “top aides did

not know anything about Ms. Black”. It was later announced that Joel Klein was
 106

planning to take a position as Executive Vice President of the News Corporation

owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch – business associate of Michael Bloom-

berg in their joint Partnership for a New American Economy (HS News Staff,

2010). According to its website, the partnership “brings together a bipartisan

group of mayors from across the country and business leaders from all sectors of

the economy to raise awareness of the economic benefits of sensible immigration

reform” (Partnership for a New American Economy, n.d.).

Black’s nomination sparked public resentment when it was revealed that

she lacked the necessary credentials needed for the position as a New York City

School Chancellor. The New York State law requires that the chancellor have a

Master’s degree and have educational experience. As described earlier, Joel Klein

lacked similar credentials when he was nominated by Bloomberg in 2002 and re-

quired a special waiver from the NY State Education Commissioner. Black lacked

both requirements and in order to help the issue of her waiver, Bloomberg nomi-

nated Shael Polakow Suransky – a former teacher and founder of a small high

school in the Bronx – to fill the gap in the State’s requirements in his position

as Chief Academic Officer. According to Maura Walz (2010), contrary to Black,

Suransky held a Master’s degree in education and taught math and history for six

years. Black’s nomination was supported by a number of prominent figures like

Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Ed Koch, State Senator Malcolm Smith, City Council

Majority Leader Joel Rivera, and Oprah Winfrey (Lisberg & Monahan, 2010).

The waiver was eventually granted by State Education Commissioner,

David Steiner, who explained that under the state law, candidates lacking specific
 107

education credentials can be granted exemptions by the education commissioner

if they have “exceptional training and experience” (as cited in Fertig, 2010). The

waiver brought a wave of protests from community organizers, parents of public

school students, teachers, and local officials. The community saw the mayor’s

move as another example of his disregard for community’s role in decision-mak-

ing process. Activist organizations like the Grassroots Education Movement, Save

Our Schools, Parents United, the newly founded political party Freedom Party,

and many others that have been on the forefront of resistance to school closures,

added an anti-Cathie Black campaign to their agendas. They argued that any

public school teacher with a Master’s degree and years of public school teaching

experience could have been a better candidate.

Shortly after the waiver was granted, three separate lawsuits, initially filed

by parents of schoolchildren, child advocates, activist group Deny the Waiver

Coalition, Freedom Party, and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, were

combined into a class action lawsuit against the state. According to the New York

Daily News (2010), Assemblyman Jeffries, in reference to Walcott having to fill

the credentials gap for Black, stated: “The law only permits a waiver to be granted

to someone whose credentials make clear they can stand on their own two feet”

(Monahan & Kolodner, 2010). After the December 23 hearing, a judge of a lower

court decided that the waiver would stand (NY1 News, 2011). However, the first-

ever female Chancellor of NYC public schools was not to last in her new position.

During the brief career as a school Chancellor, Black earned a reputation in the

community as her remarks made it into the mass media. The first remark ap-
 108

peared in the New York Daily News in December 2010, when “Black called the

mayor’s secretive process for selecting her ‘irrelevant’”. In the same article she

stated: ““We’re all human beings…After all, it is about people. They can be little

people – as students, young students – or principals or teachers” (Monahan,

2010). Another public embarrassment occurred in January 2011, when the New

York Daily News stated that during a Task Force meeting Black said she had a

solution for overcrowding in Lower Manhattan schools: “Could we just have some

birth control for a while? It would really help us” (Monahan, 2011).

After much resentment by the community, daily protests on the steps of

Tweed Courthouse by the Freedom Party, numerous rallies by child advocates

and teachers, and a seventeen percent approval rating, Black resigned in April

2011 and was replaced by Dennis Walcott (Gootman & Barbaro, 2011).

Educational Marketplace

In recent years, large business conglomerates, such as Bill and Melinda

Gates Foundation and media moguls like Rupert Murdoch, have shown great

interest in public education by investing into the charter school expansion and

education technology. Those who have been following Joel Klein’s career were

not taken by surprise when Klein announced his resignation in early November,

to take a position of Executive Vice President at Rupert Murdoch’s News Corpo-

ration. On the day of Klein’s planned resignation, the News Corporation revealed

that he was going to serve as a chief advisor to Rupert Murdoch on business strat-
 109

egies for the emerging educational marketplace (Stelter & Arango, 2010). Accord-

ing to John Helleman (2010) of the New York Magazine:

In retrospect, there were incidents that might have been noticed by a

sufficiently eagle-eyed sleuth: the two seated beside each other and
chatting animatedly at a private screening of the education documentary
The Lottery last summer at MoMA; Murdoch’s naming of Klein as the city’s
most important person in these pages a few weeks ago (Hellemann, 2010).

On the same day that the resignation announcement was made, Murdoch-

owned New Corporation made a substantial investment into New York City’s

public education. According to the November 22, 2010 article in Business Wire,

the corporation announced its definitive agreement to “acquire 90 percent

of Wireless Generation, a privately-held Brooklyn-based education technol-

ogy company for approximately $360 million in cash. Upon completion of the

transaction, Wireless Generation will become a subsidiary of News Corporation”

(Business Wire, 2010). Wireless Generation is a key partner to the DOE on its

Achievement Reporting and Innovation System (ARIS) (Business Wire, 2010).

While some may have been surprised by Cathie Black’s appointment to the

School Chancellor position, others saw it as something quiet different. Accord-

ing to the International Students for Social Equality article (2011), “Black’s sole

connection with New York City schools was her membership on the board of the

Harlem Village Academy, a charter school, which was chaired by her former boss,

the right-wing media mogul Rupert Murdoch” (International Students for So-

cial Equality, 2011). Two years earlier, the Murdoch-owned New York Post pub-

lished an article announcing that, “at a star-studded benefit concert at the Apollo
 110

Theater, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch – owner of the New York Post

– made a surprise, $5.5 million donation to the Harlem Village Academy, a high-

performing school serving grades 5 through 10” (Greene & Gonen, 2008).

Murdoch has also recently invested into Teach for America – a company

that mostly provides teachers to charter schools and private schools in the pub-

licly funded voucher program (Borsuk, 2010). According to a staff writer of the

Washington Post, Valerie Strauss (2010), Rupert Murdoch stated: “When it

comes to K through 12 education we see a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone

that is waiting desperately to be transformed by big breakthroughs that ex-

tend the reach of great teaching” (as cited in Strauss, 2010). Whether Murdoch

is genuinely concerned with great teaching is unclear but the current reform

policies, based on a business model that focus on accountability and numbers,

haven’t shown significant improvements in public schools. The In the article,

she expressed a genuine concern that the non-profit and for-profit organizations

often don’t differ in the management and operation of public schools. According

to Strauss:

For-profit businesses can and do bring valuable products and services to

public schools. They make money by meeting demand, so, presumably,
they fill some perceived need in the system. But ultimately, the loyalty of
for-profit companies is to the bottom line and investors, not necessarily to
the general good of public schools and kids. And they get their return on
investment with public money. Allowing business people to drive education
policy is a very dangerous business. (Strauss, 2010).
 111

Resistance

The implementation of a new accountability system and subsequent school

closures, lack of the community’s participation in the decision-making, and the

appointment of Cathie Black drew an outrage from the activists, teachers, stu-

dents, and elected politicians throughout New York City. Many of the protests take

place when the fate of schools is decided by the vote of the Panel for Educational

Policy. The number of mass protests has been growing dramatically along with the

number of school closures. This section describes the some aspects of the grass-

roots resistance to the status quo.

October PEP Meeting

For the teachers, parents, and students of New York City the end of Oc-

tober 2010 was marked with a release of a list of planned school closures by

the DOE – the largest in its entire history. This time, the list consisted of forty-

seven schools, and included nineteen schools from previous year, twelve from

the state’s list of lowest achieving schools, and sixteen more announced for the

first time (NY1, 2010). According to Sharon Otterman of The New York Times,

“twenty-six of the schools…are high schools, including John Dewey High School

in Brooklyn” (Otterman, 2010).

On November 16, shortly after the release of the list and an announcement

of Cathie Black’s nomination, the Panel for Educational Policy held a hearing at

the Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene. Despite the significance of
 112

the meeting, the national TV networks showed no interest in the event coverage;

only the local media, particularly Channel 12 Brooklyn and New York 1 News

conducted interviews and filmed the event. According to the PEP’s agenda, the

hearing was held to vote on the proposed school closures, to hear comments from

the community, and to discuss a “resolution proposed by panel Member Sullivan

Regarding Role of Panel for Educational Policy in Waiver Process” (PEP, 2010).

Patrick Sullivan ¬– a panel member nominated by the Manhattan Borough Presi-

dent Scott Stringer – has been a long-time opponent of the Panel’s one-sided

votes to close schools. According to Beth Fertig (2010), Stringer supported Sul-

livan’s opposition to the waiver stating that the selection of the new Chancellor by

Bloomberg should be “beyond going through one’s personal address book” and

that New Yorkers should “get to know this chancellor up close and personal with

a full vetting process” (as cited in Fertig, 2010).

When the new Chancellor’s nomination was announced, Sullivan (2010)

wrote a letter to the State Commissioner of Education, David Steiner, requesting

that Steiner “withhold consideration of any request for a waiver for the position

of Chancellor of the New York City School District from the Bloomberg adminis-

tration until the board can convene and formally decide to make such a request”.

In the letter, Sullivan provided a list of reasons for denying Black’s waiver:

• She has no educational qualifications, lacking both teaching and

administrative experience. She has no academic credentials in the field

of education.

• She has no exposure whatsoever to public education. She was educated

in private schools and chose to educate her own children in private
schools.
 113

• She has no experience in the public sector.

• No search was conducted for candidates. Many in the public dismiss the
selection as simple cronyism.

• There was no consideration of internal candidates despite consensus

that some number of strong candidates is available.

• There was no vetting of the candidate. No one interviewed Ms. Black.

By her admission her first discussion of the position followed the offer
by the mayor (Sullivan, 2010).

The auditorium of Brooklyn Tech was only partially filled by community

members and teachers who took turns giving testimonies of their opposition to

school closures and Black’s nomination, during the mandated two-minute time

limit. One of the speakers was City councilman Jumaane Williams of Brooklyn

who stated that while Black’s resume was impressive from the business stand

point it was “a long list of nothing when it comes to the job she’s applying for

now” (as cited in Fertig, 2010). Despite the community’s protests the Panel de-

nied Patrick Sullivan’s request.

Norm Fruchter – the Director of Community Involvement Program of An-

nenberg Institute at Brown University – was not surprised at the PEP’s decision.

According to Fruchter, the PEP, with the majority of the members being appoint-

ed by Bloomberg functions only as a rubber stamp for the Mayor. Fruchter re-

ferred to the March 14, 2004 PEP meeting when the Mayor fired three members

of the Panel for not voting his way (Hentoff, 2010). Later, Bloomberg was quoted

in The New York Times (March 16, 2004), saying: “This is what mayoral control

is all about. They are my representatives, and they are going to vote for things

that I believe in” (as cited in Hentoff, 2010). While the official PEP role is to hear
 114

from the community members and to consider its views for the voting process,

Fruchter said: “People are less inclined to see it as an avenue for participation,

for grievance, for demand, for redress. So, what it forces people to do is to build

some kind of public platform in the street: in front of Tweed, in front of City Hall”

(N. Fruchter interview January 16, 2011).

Martin Haber

One of the teachers taking his voice of opposition to the street was Martin

Haber – a Special Education and Humanities teacher at John Dewey High School

(Figure 7). Haber was present at the PEP meeting to oppose the proposed closure

of John Dewey HS and the nomination of Black: “We are not for sale, we don’t

believe in this whole bulldozing of our schools – saying that there’s nothing that

can be done with big schools. It’s a big lie, it’s a corporate lie, as can be seen by

the appointment of this corporate puppet named Black” (M. Haber interview,

November 16, 2010). Haber has been teaching at John Dewey for twenty years

and said that the teachers’ union and its president Michael Mulgrew have been

absent from street protests: “Our union is just letting this happen. And I’ve been

feeling disgraced by the UFT to be honest. By the whole caucus of the UFT that

controls opinion. People talk big and do nothing. They won’t do a street action. ”

(M. Haber interview November 16, 2010). Haber said that the only way to resist

schools closures would be to rank-and-file people and “not wait for the corporate

union to lead us. We’ll just keep waiting until we are gone, it’ll never happen” (M.
 115

Haber interview November 16, 2010).

Figure 7. Martin Haber at John Dewey High School’s Fight Back Friday.

Martin Haber says that by bringing the issues of school closures to their

classrooms, teachers can contribute to a “deeper level of learning”. He believes

that being a teacher during this time is “historic” and that it’s a profession “that

means something”. He said that the only way to create conscious citizens is to

inform kids about sociopolitical issues from the time they are young. In his class-

rooms, Haber has been “talking to students about civics, about Human Rights,

about their legal rights as citizens of a city that’s becoming a corporate entity;

where they don’t really see a future unless they know that they have to fight the

powers that be on the issues of real estate, on the issues of school reform” (M.
 116

Haber interview November 16, 2010). According to Haber, “kids who have always

heard of what it means to be an activist, you know, going out with a sign saying:

‘Invest in us, don’t close us down!’ have found a new meaning in what it means

to be growing up in these treacherous times, that we are in” (M. Haber interview

November 16, 2010). As a result, he said that he noticed a significant improve-

ment in academic performance at the school.

Along with teachers and students of John Dewey High School Haber has

been taking part in rallies in front of his school every Friday morning since the

DOE’s announcement. The coordinated citywide rallies were called Fight Back

Fridays. The founder of Fight Back Fridays – teacher and activist Sam Coleman –

along with the NY Coalition of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) and the Grassroots

Education Movement (GEM) activist collectives, has been coordinating the rallies

with teachers at closing schools citywide.

The Real Reformers

Present at the meeting was a group of teacher activists that called them-

selves The Real Reformers (Figure 8). The Real Reformers were organized by the

collective of NY Coalition of Radical Educators (NYCoRE) and the Grassroots

Education Movement (GEM) and began with an organized protest at the release

of the film Waiting For Superman. The group’s name, according to Sam Cole-

man, was created to make a statement that the so-called “educational reforms”

implemented by the corporations are really “Deforms”; and experienced public

 117

school teachers are the ones who can create real reforms (S. Coleman interview

February 24, 2011).

Figure 8. The Real Reformers rapping outside of the Brooklyn Technical High School during
November 16, 2010 meeting of the PEP.

At its start, The Real Reformers set out to challenge the negative stereotypes

of public schools and advertisement of charter schools by the corporate media.

Their first protest took place during the premier of Waiting For Superman (Fig-

ure 9). During that time, the group members held signs saying, “Stop privatiza-

tion of public education!” and “Waiting for Superman: Teacher-Bashing, Union-

Busting Operation” and, having written new lyrics to the rapper Eminem’s hit

song, they chanted: “‘Cause we the reformers, yes the real reformers, all you other
 118

deformers are just speculating, so won’t the real reformers please stand up!” (as

cited in DeMarche, 2010).

Figure 9. The Real Reformers’ first appearance at the premier of Waiting For Superman in New
York City.

When asked to state the reason behind the group’s costumes, Sam Cole-

man said: “We’re dressed as Superman because the work of a public-school

teacher in New York is superhuman” (as cited in DeMarche, 2010). He stated that

for him personally, street theater is fun: “How many rallies can you go to, how

many times can you walk in a circle without doing something a little different

and make it more fun for people?” (S. Coleman interview February 24, 2011). The

costumes became a trademark of The Real Reformers, and made the group easy

to spot at every PEP meeting and GEM / NYCoRE organized protests.

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Fight Back Friday at John Dewey High School

The 1960s Civil Rights movement saw large numbers of students across

the country taking part in the struggles for equality. Now, forty years later, as the

privatization of the public school system has been sweeping the nation, students

once gain have joined the ranks of activists. The October 2010 announcement of

planned massive school closures by the New York City Department Of Education

has brought the student struggle to John Dewey High School in Brooklyn. As the

legendary school was threatened with closure, students, teachers, alumni, and

parents have all joined in weekly protests, called Fight Back Friday.

At 7:30 AM on Friday, November 19, 2010 around 150 protesters gathered

in front of the campus of John Dewey High School. Marching in circular forma-

tion and holding signs that read “Education Is A Right”, “John Dewey Is Not For

Sale”, and “Save Our Schools”, teachers, students, and alumni (Figure 10) chant-

ed: “We Are Dewey!” Many drivers of passing cars blew their horns in support.

Terri Brenan – the Secretary of the school’s Alumni Association –came to sup-

port the statement by the faculty and students: “Here we have current students,

alumni – John Dewey High School is something people have invested in for forty

years” (T. Brenan interview November 19, 2010).

Among the protesters was Leonard Warner – former teacher at John

Dewey High School, who began his career during the second year of the school’s

existence and retired in 2000. Warner recalled that this is not the first time the

school has been in danger from the City administrators. In 1995, during a city-

wide budget crisis, the school’s funds were cut and, as a consequence the school’s
 120

Resource Center was severely undermined. According to Warner:

The Resource Centers are, in my view, the heart of the school – everything
comes out of that, because that’s where you have the real chance of meeting
students on the one-to-one basis and sitting down with them, either to
tutor them, or to do remedial work; to do special projects that you put in
there; and you interact with them socially (L. Warner interview November
19, 2010).

Figure 10. Students of John Dewey High School are rallying during Fight Back Friday event on
November 19, 2010 to save their school from closure by the DOE.

Warner, as an active member of the UFT at that time, demanded that

the Board of Education return the funds to the school. His strategy included a

yearlong letter writing and phone calling campaign to the politicians behind the

Board. He also conducted a comparative statistical study of the school using the

citywide report cards the Board released from 1990 to 1995. For the purposes
 121

of thorough investigation, he focused on the poverty levels of every high school

in the city and selected ten schools that closely matched the level of Dewey. The

result, according to Warner, was that, “at every single category that was listed on

those report cards, like percentage of graduation, percentage of passing Regents

– in every category, Dewey far beat every other school” (L. Warner interview

November 19, 2010). The study also showed that the kids with special needs were

performing much better at Dewey than in any other city high school on the same

poverty level.

The results of the study were sent to the Board of Education, politicians,

and were posted all over the school and three quarters into the school year politi-

cians began to visit the school and to support it. However, according to Warner,

the cuts in funds have permanently altered the school’s environment as some of

its programs have been cut and the Resource Center time has been reduced to a

minimal half an hour per day. In addition to the academic and extracurricular

programs the DOE has closed the school’s campus. Terri Brenan said:

Over the course of the last couple years, they closed the campus to students
during the day. It used to be open anytime during the day, because we had
an eight-hour day, kids had free time built in; people were sitting outside,
studying, playing Frisbee, playing guitar, including the faculty, and it was a
very free, very independent way to run a high school (T. Brenan interview
November 19, 2010).

Brenan said that the “students used to come and go from the campus all

day long if they wanted to go and get a sandwich. Now, you can’t even sit on the

front steps” (T. Brenan interview November 19, 2010). On the day of Fight Back

Friday, Leonard Warner was shocked to discover the campus’ closure (Figure 11)

as well:
 122

Oh my God! For 30 years that I was here there was so much joy around the
school: in the back, on the side of the school, in front of the school. Kids
interacting with kids, teachers interacting with kids – it was unbelievable.
Just the fact the campus is off the ground for the kids today – it just blows
my mind, because it goes totally contrary to what the school was all about,
what the Dewey philosophy was all about (L. Warner interview November
19, 2010).

Figure 11. Protesting students of John Dewey High School are standing in front of the locked gate
to their campus during Fight Back Friday event on November 19, 2010.

To make matters worse, Dewey has seen an influx of students from other

schools that have already been closed by the DOE. According to Warner, those

students “have no orientation and therefore, they are not acclimating to the pro-

gram well, even though I heard it from some of the teachers, that they are making

headway with these kids. But there’s a tremendous abundance of them that have

been sent to this particular school. And it’s swamping the school” (L. Warner
 123

interview November 19, 2010). Terri Brenan said that the transferred students

struggle academically and it “hurts their statistics on being over-aged and under-

credited, it really hurts their four-year graduation rate, and it really contributes

to a much less-than-pleasant environment in the school – now there are metal

detectors” (T. Brenan interview November 19, 2010).

On November 16, 2010 the PEP voted not to close the school down. It was

unclear whether the vote was due to the Fight Back Fridays. However, in Decem-

ber, Martin Haber told me that “it’s probably worse for us, as this is pointing, in

many teachers’ eyes, towards the ‘Turnaround Model”, in which 50% of the staff

is removed, along with the principal. Older, higher-paid teachers will surely be

axed, yours truly included!!!” (M. Haber personal communication December 11,

2010). While the future of the school remains unclear, the struggles undertaken

by the school’s community have resulted in a sense of camaraderie among stu-

dents and teachers as they continue to fight for their future.

National Organizing

The John Dewey High School community is not alone in its struggle. All

across the country, as privatization of public school systems, attacks on the public

sector unions, and unemployment rates have increased – grassroots organizers

have undertaken a challenge to resist the efforts of corporate interests. Nation-

wide solidarity of teachers, blue-collar workers, their unions resulted in many

mass rallies in Washington DC, including the One Nation-organized protest on

October 2, 2010. Thousands of activists, including teachers of the American Fed-

 124

eration of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA), came to

the Lincoln Memorial (Figure 12) to bring their message to the national attention

during the “10-2-10” rally, named after the October 2, 2010 date on which it took

place.

Figure 12. Teachers of the NEA at the steps of Lincoln memorial in Washington DC during the
10-2-10 – a massive rally of unions and laborers organized by One Nation on October 2, 2010.

Recent attacks on the public sector workers, including teachers, by Scott

Walker – the Governor of Wisconsin, have spurred massive protests and boy-

cotts by 85,000 people in Madison that lasted for weeks. The Tea Party member,

Walker, and other Wisconsin State Republican politicians aimed to take away

bargaining rights from the unions in that state. Literally, closing the doors on

the public during the voting process, with insufficient public notice time, officials
 125

voted to create a law that, according to Scott Bauer (2011), would take away “col-

lective bargaining rights from public workers and also forces state employees to

contribute more toward their pension and health care benefits, amounting to an 8

percent pay cut” (Bauer, 2011). Numerous lawsuits by other Wisconsin State poli-

ticians, district attorneys, and private citizens that followed the vote challenged

the legality of the State’s actions on the grounds that “the state open meetings law

was violated in the process of passing the bill” (Bauer, 2011).

Local Organizing

In New York City a number of activist organizations have taken on a mis-

sion of resistance to educational policies implemented by the City administrators.

While there may be a difference in the specific missions of each organization their

overall missions are to address high-stakes testing, equality, and school closures

The following section describes missions and actions of some of the New York

City-based activist groups.

Coalition for Educational Justice

In New York City, a large number of activist organizations have shown

their support of the Wisconsin workers. Organizations like the Coalition for

Educational Justice (CEJ), the Grassroots Education Movement (GEM), the

New York Coalition of Radical Educators (NYCoRE), the Deny The Waiver Coali-

tion, the Parents United, the Freedom Party, and many others have been on the
 126

forefront of struggles against privatization of public education in the city. The

Freedom Party, with majority members being African-American and Hispanic,

organized daily protests on the steps of Tweed Courthouse – the headquarters of

the DOE – against Chancellor Cathie Black. The party also joined a class action

lawsuit against the State that challenged the State’s decision to grant a waiver.

Collaborating with each other and a number of universities, many organizations

have taken their struggles to the streets, classrooms, and numerous workshops

that center on education reforms and equality in education. CEJ – a citywide

organization of parents – has been working since the late nineties to improve the

quality of education for the city’s middle and elementary schools. The Annenberg

Institute For Education Policy Research at Brown University has been collecting

data and creating studies for CEJ’s campaigns.

Norm Fruchter of the Annenberg Institute said that the CEJ and the Insti-

tute have been pushing for a process of transformation “in which the school com-

munity sets about trying to understand the nature of its performance and its de-

ficiencies and then try to plan for improvement and get some help, support, and

resources to actually make that plan a reality” (N. Fruchter interview January 16,

2011). Fruchter said that because the DOE support resources have been depleted,

organizations like CEJ have to seek assistance from university education depart-

ments, support organizations like New Visions and Urban Assembly, and non-

profit organizations. Some of the campaigns created by the joint efforts of the

Annenberg Institute and CEJ have produced results for middle school reforms.

Middle school reforms by the DOE, according to Fruchter, have incorporated a

 127

lot of what the two organizations have been pushing. He added that a joint DOE

and City University of New York (CUNY) committee has formed to “develop new

forms of college readiness at the high school level that was actually in response to

a campaign that we pushed” (N. Fruchter interview January 16, 2011). However,

Fruchter said, “you have to work very hard and you have no guarantee that you’ll

ever get heard, let alone responded to” (N. Fruchter interview January 16, 2011).

Civil Disobedience Action

On February 7, 2011 the CEJ and a few other citywide activist groups co-

ordinated a massive rally in front of DOE’s Tweed Courthouse. During the rally,

a number of high school students, parents, and local politicians, like the Council

Member and the President of the Freedom Party, Charles Barron, created a civil

disobedience action. Blocking the street traffic on Chambers Street and Center

Street, protesters chanted: “Save Our Schools! Save Our Schools!” to the accom-

paniment of hundreds of supporters gathered behind a police barrier (Figure 13).

Although the civil disobedience action lasted only a few minutes, and ended with

arrests of everyone involved, the rally, with its massive numbers of students, par-

ents, and teachers was caught the eye of mass media networks. Television news

trucks of Channel 11, News 12, NBC, and others who were parked along the street

filmed and took photographs as those arrested shouted “Who’s Schools?” as they

were being put into police vans. This was the first time that I have seen the na-

tional television networks at the education rallies.

 128

Figure 13. Protesters interlocked hands and blocked traffic along Chambers Street in Manhattan.
The civil disobedience action took place right in front of the Tweed Courthouse – the DOE
headquarters.

As the New York Police Department (NYPD) Community Affairs officers

watched the arrests the Technical Assistance Response Unit (TARU) was film-

ing the crowd of supporters and participants. TARU officers, with their blue

polo shirts and blue jackets marked “TARU” are a regular presence at rallies and

protests. According to NYPD’s website, TARU “provides investigative technical

equipment and tactical support to all bureaus within the department, in addi-

tion they also provide assistance to other City, State and Federal agencies.” There

has been much speculation as to what purpose the videotaping of protests really

serves. For the most part of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s reign over the City, the

Handschu Consent Decree (Lee, 2002), used to restrict the NYPD’s videotaping

of public events. After September 11, 2001, the board enforcing the law was dis-
 129

solved and TARU was given complete freedom to videotape anyone they chose,

during political rallies.

Grassroots Education Movement

The public school privatization efforts by the NYCDOE have been met with

a strong force of organizers under the leadership of the Grassroots Education

Movement (GEM) (Figure 14). Defined on GEM’s website, it is “a coalition of

NYC groups that educates and mobilizes educators, parents, students and our

communities against the corporate and government policies that underfund,

undermine and privatize our public school system. GEM advocates both within

and outside the UFT for the equality and quality of public education services and

the rights of school workers” (GEM, n.d.).

The issues tackled by GEM include: the push for charter schools,

resistance to attacks on unions, the focus on high-stakes standardized testing,

school closures, and the failure to address the racism and inequality that exists

within public schools. GEM’s members advocate for a positive education reform

through collaborations with other activist groups, like the Concerned Advocates

for Public Education (CAPE), coordinate actions on the grassroots level with a

focus on school-level organizing (GEM, n.d.). The Real Reformers, created by the

members of GEM, proposed the following list of “Real Reforms”:

• Smaller Class Sizes

• Excellent Community Public Schools for ALL Children

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• More Teaching – Less Testing

• Parent and Teacher Empowerment and Leadership

• Equitable Funding for ALL Schools

• Anti-Racist Education Policies

• Culturally Relevant Curriculum

• Expand Pre Kindergarten and Early Intervention Programs

• Qualified and Experienced Educators and Educational Leaders

• Democratic and Social Justice Unionism

(Education Notes Online, 2011).

As a way of explaining the GEM’s mission it is important to expand on the

ten reforms proposed by the group. It believes that every child, regardless of race,

socioeconomic background, gender, neighborhood, and first language deserves

high quality public education and that the struggle for free quality public educa-

tion is a civil and human rights issue. This is furthered by the group’s belief that

every school needs full and equitable funding, especially the historically under-

funded urban schools. GEM believes in the role of every parent, teacher, and

student as a significant player in decision-making process that is at the core of

democratic school governance. For that reason, the group is completely opposed

to restructure, phase out, and closure of schools and believes that such solu-

tions have serious consequences for students, teachers and communities. Quality

education is only possible through small class structure, where students receive

individualized attention. Quality education is also created through positive learn-

 131

ing environment and GEM believes that the existing practices of school security

focus more of punitive control than trust, dignity, and sense of community.

As far as charter schools are concerned, GEM views them as undemocratic

due to their lottery-based admission process and private control despite being

supported by public finances. As teachers, GEM members understand the im-

portance of meaningful, relevant, and engaging curriculum that sparks students’

interest in learning. The test-driven curriculum, created to cater to higher test

scores, “dumbs down” the curriculum, and is counterproductive to creative and

critical thinking. For that reason, the results of the high-stakes tests are inad-

equate as measurements of student and school performance and the distribution

of merit-based pay. Instead of high-stakes testing GEM proposes a progressive

system of assessment, where teachers, being in the best position to do so, evalu-

ate their students’ performance.

Figure 14. Some of the leading members of the Grassroots Education Movement.
 132

GEM seeks a contractual seniority rights protection and to create guaran-

teed job placement for educators who have been displaced by program or school

closures. For that reason, the group is looking to create, at the grassroots level, a

strong teachers’ union with a democratically elected leadership that is truly ac-

countable to its members. Additionally, the new union would be built on a foun-

dation of an active, participatory, and mobilized rank-and-file.

Norm Scott

One of the longtime members of GEM is a retired teacher Norm Scott. In

2008, Scott helped establish the Grassroots Education Movement. He retired in

2002 after working in New York City public schools since 1967, spending thirty

of those years teaching elementary school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He has

been an activist within the UFT and outside of it, working with a variety of activ-

ist groups, and often criticizing the union’s policy, since 1970. Norm Scott and

others cofounded the Independent Community of Educators –a group within

the UFT. In 1996, Scott started a newspaper for teachers called Education Notes,

which was geared towards teachers attending the UFT Delegate Assembly. In

2002, Scott expanded the paper into a 25,000-copy tabloid. Eventually, in 2006,

Education Notes was turned into a blog called Ed Notes Online. According to the

website’s description:

EDUCATE! ORGANIZE!! MOBILIZE!!! These are the three pillars on

which Ed Notes is founded – providing information on current ed issues,
organizing activities around fighting for public education in NYC and
beyond and exposing the motives behind the education deformers. We
 133

are part of a tiny band of resisters. Nothing will change until you GET
INVOLVED IN THE STRUGGLE! (EdNotes, n.d.).

Currently, Norm Scott writes for the School Scope – education column of

The Wave – the Rockaway Beach community newspaper. Among various respon-

sibilities as GEM’s member, Scott creates films that support the group’s mission.

The group’s latest film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman,

gives a teachers’ and parents’ view on charter schools and is the group’s response

to Waiting For Superman. The film de-mystifies many allegations made by Wait-

ing For Superman, including the real motivations behind people like Geoffrey

Canada, who built a charter school brand called the Harlem Children’s Zone

(HCZ). GEM’s film reveals that HCZ “boasts surpluses of $200 million dollars, it

collects millions in public funds and real estate sweetheart deals, siphoning tens

of millions in taxpayer dollars and resources from needy public schools” (GEM,

n.d.). The film also reveals that Canada eliminated an entire class of children

from HCZ, phased out the middle school there, and restarted his program with

students who only follow HCZ from Kindergarten on (GEM, n.d.). Other issues

de-mystified by GEM’s film include the truth behind attacks on teachers’ unions

and the corporate picture that charter schools offer something more than their

public school counterparts.

Sam Coleman

Sam Coleman (Figure 15), a thirty-six-year-old elementary schools teacher,

 134

sees teaching and educational activism as inseparable. When he began teaching

Spanish at PS 34 – a dual language elementary school in Brooklyn’s neighbor-

hood of Sunset Park, Coleman became an education activist. He was born in a

house on a quiet street of Prospect Park, Brooklyn and currently lives in the same

house. Activism has a long history in Sam Coleman’s family. It began with his

grandparents, who were organizers, trade union activists, and members of the

Communist Party in the 1930s and 1940s. Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, Cole-

man’s parents continued the legacy through organizing and activism.

Prior to becoming a member of GEM and NYCoRE, Coleman received his

activist training in Latin America and the Caribbean; three years were spent in

Nicaragua and the remaining three – in Cuba. He has great memories of Cuba,

where he felt totally supported by the government. According to Coleman, “very

different waking up in a place in the morning and to feel that sixty – seventy per-

cent of the government’s decisions for that day I would agree with. Whereas I

would wake up here, and at that time Bush was the president, none of the deci-

sions were things that I could agree with (S. Coleman, interview, February 24,

2011). Volunteering in Cuba, Coleman ran a writing workshop for elementary

school children. He says that it was impressive to see kids being extremely literate

and capable, even while living in the poorest conditions. Sam Coleman says

that the Cuban government’s priorities are the children:

You know, people are poor in Cuba but they are not starving, and they
are not homeless, and they have a decent education system. Everybody
in Cuba learns to read and write. And these 4th and 5th graders could
“outread” and “outwrite” New York City 4th and 5th graders “in circles” –
that was really an eye-opener for me. Just to see what happens when the
government’s priorities are its children. And for whatever else you think
 135

about the Cuban revolution and the Communist Party there – their priority
is the children of that country and you see it in every way, and it shows
when you work with the kids (S. Coleman, interview, February 24, 2011).

Figure 15. Sam Coleman is one of the leading members of GEM and NYCoRE.

Cuban society, according to Coleman, differs significantly from United

States in its attitudes toward education. While in the American media a trouble-

maker is portrayed as a hero, going to school and learning is not portrayed as

being cool, Cuban society views the smart kids in class as cool. He says that the

neighborhood people, in Cuba, seeing a kid wondering around, would tell him

to go to class. As a result of this attitude toward education, there is a “universal

support for education and for teachers, whereas here, in the US, the system or the

pedagogy is almost unimportant. It would be good if I could do things differently

in the classrooms but the society’s attitude toward education, and how important
 136

it is, changes what happens, changes how kids view themselves as learners” (S.

Coleman, interview, February 24, 2011).

GEM’s Role In Educational Activism

GEM is a venue for many individuals with their own interests and pas-

sions on the issues of public education. Sam Coleman sees an increased focus on

the union’s participation among many of the activist teachers and organizers.

He views the unions as the only venues for consolidation of power for the work-

ing people in the United States. One of Coleman’s roles as an organizer is to get

attention from the teachers in order to help them re-conceptualize what it means

to be a member of a union and “what it would mean to be a member of a social

justice UFT as opposed to the current ‘wishy-washy’ reform UFT that we have”

(S. Coleman, interview, February 24, 2011). Without active participation in edu-

cational struggles teachers can feel isolated and demoralized, especially in to-

day’s climate that blames teachers for everything. According to Coleman, school

administrators tend not to be supportive of teachers’ concerns and, at the same

time, talking to co-workers about politics is generally socially unacceptable. For

that reason, one of GEM’s roles is to provide a venue for teachers to express their

concerns, to get involved, and to feel empowered. Coleman says that whenever

GEM’s members are doing an action, whether it’s a rally, a song, or anything else,

the group is there to help people get a better grasp on the issues. For that reason,

and to reach wider audience, GEM takes an active role on social media websites
 137

on the Internet. The group frequently writes for the op-ed teachers’ blogs. Addi-

tionally, the group videos everything it does and then, puts the videos out through

YouTube.

GEM’s films, like The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman

(2011), also serve, as ways of reaching the general public, which otherwise, Cole-

man says, is difficult to reach without great resources. Reaching a wider audience

of public school teachers is also difficult; while the UFT has contact information

for over 80,000 members, GEM’s contact list consists of only a few thousand

individuals. Unfortunately, despite its resources of $150,000,000 per year and its

ability to organize its members and create activist workshops, the UFT chooses

not to take an active role, according to Coleman. For that reason, Coleman be-

lieves that the union leadership needs to be changed.

However, the opposition, puts out vast financial resources into furthering

its own agenda. According to Coleman:

Waiting For Superman is just a commercial for ‘education reform’. And

there are literally commercials for ‘education reforms’ and millions
of dollars going into the billboards, people receiving beautiful glossy
pamphlets at their house telling them that the union is destroying their
child’s education. That takes tremendous resources that we obviously don’t
have (S. Coleman, interview, February 24, 2011).

UFT’s Stance On Privatization Of the City’s Public School System

At the beginning of his teaching career Coleman was hoping to do social

justice work through his union. However, during the first year of teaching, he

was disappointed to discover that the union leadership was nowhere to be found.
 138

Instead of organizing its members, the UFT’s presence in schools did not go

beyond providing services to teachers. At that point, he realized that the union

needed a new direction and, potentially, a new leadership, particularly in its

response towards the Education Reform Movement. In Sam Coleman’s opinion,

progressive educators do not share the UFT’s stance on so-called “reforms” cur-

rently implemented in the City’s public school system. According to him, “every

time a demand is made they’ve made a concession; they never take a strong stand

against any of the “reforms” that, myself and many other educators, parents, and

students around the country see as what is destroying schools. We don’t see the

unions taking a stand against them (S. Coleman, interview, February 24, 2011).

According to Coleman, while the union is under tremendous pressure from the

Right, as a body that stands in the way of rapid implementation of educational

reforms, from the activists’ pint of view, the UFT is capitulating on every point.

In other words, while the union could be preventing the destruction of public

schools it is, according to Coleman, collaborating with the Right’s agenda.

Views On Privatization

Sam Coleman sees privatization as a global problem of Neo-Liberalism as

a piece of the Capitalist history. According Coleman:

It’s the kind of economic system we exported – starting in the 60s and 70s
to the developing world, where government gets smaller and smaller, while
the private industry gets bigger and bigger and takes over larger and larger
areas of human life. It’s gone through Africa, Latin America and Asia, and
everywhere else and now it’s coming back. It’s the economic policy that’s
good for the wealthy. So, it’s deep in the sense that it’s part of the problem
 139

that’s creating a larger distance between those who have and those who
don’t have. And the group up here is getting smaller and the group down
here is getting bigger and poorer (S. Coleman, interview, February 24,
2011).

As such, Coleman sees parallels between the privatization of public edu-

cation and the reforms in healthcare and prison systems. While healthcare is

considered by many to be a basic Human Right, in the US, through privatization

it has become a privilege. Similarly, the country’s prison system is rapidly becom-

ing privatized, which has resulted in multiple scandals and disaster. According to

Coleman, “in order to make profit the prisons need more prisoners so the govern-

ment responds by increasing things like the drug laws that are just increasing the

prison population – because the private industry and the government work hand

in hand. Think about what that could mean for education (S. Coleman, interview,

February 24, 2011).

In his explanation of privatization practices Coleman pointed to the prob-

lem of what he called “profit-making education corporations”. In his view, corpo-

rations like Edison and the like, would go into various cities around the country

and offer LEAs cheaper ways to run the public schools. By way of running schools

cheaper, Edison and alike, would cut costs by buying fewer books, hiring fewer

teachers, creating larger classes, and other means of cutting costs. Additionally,

according to Coleman, privatization would come with high-stakes testing. In turn,

Federal, State, and local governments would buy test preparation materials, from

companies like Edison, and use high-stakes testing and as much as possible, and

as often as possible, to, basically, pay the company. According to Coleman:

 140

You’ve got these high stakes tests and the schools are on the chopping
block along with teachers and principals – we’re all under this pressure.
So, if principals are now forced to choose between an art program and an
expensive test prep program, created by some for-profit company, they’re
going to buy the test prep program – the books, the videos, computer
programs, and everything that it comes with, instead of the arts program.
So, that is a piece of the privatizing puzzle (S. Coleman, interview, February
24, 2011).

Another component of privatization, according to Sam Coleman,

is control. The corporate ideology of control, through privatization, mani-

fests itself in writing of the curriculum, control of the teachers, and class-

room dynamics. According to Coleman, the privatization reforms are created

to serve the needs of corporations by creating curricula that are designed

to turn out corporate workers that are obedient, follow the rules, and know

their proper place. He says that by contrast, in “a truly public education sys-

tem with a powerful union, teachers will have a tremendous voice, parents

have a voice, and students have a voice about what goes on in a classroom,

the curriculum” (S. Coleman, interview, February 24, 2011). At its core, a tru-

ly public education system is interested in benefiting the society at large. As such,

it creates “citizens who think critically and question authority, question their own

schools, and their own teachers. And so there’s a dichotomy there – it’s not just

about the profit, there’s also the control” (S. Coleman, interview, February 24,

2011).

The Federal Race To The Top agenda, according to Sam Coleman, is be-

ing used to further the privatization schemes. One such way is computerization

of classrooms. Currently, the DOE, using the RTTT money is spending around
 141

$50,000,000 to provide each student with a computer in the classroom. By doing

so, students are individually cycled through the curriculum. So, the computers

determine where to send the child depending on right or wrong answers. Cole-

man says that the only way that privatization works is if education is made cheap-

er by reducing expenses, such are teachers. By creating large classrooms and

supplying every student with a computer, the need for teachers would be greatly

reduced. While he sees benefits in the use of technology in a classroom, from a

pedagogical point of view, Coleman sees serious issues when teaching is replaced

by computer instruction:

When you are educating a young child a good part of your job is
socialization. So, if you are sitting in front of a computer and you are not
talking to your classmates and you are not learning together, we know from
Vygotsky that learning is social – we are social creatures and we learn
socially. So, the computer eliminates that piece of education. And I don’t
know what kind of citizens we want: do we want citizens that can work and
talk together, come up with a plan, execute it, and create a project? Or do
we want the kind of citizens that can sit in front of the computer and follow
directions? (S. Coleman, interview, February 24, 2011).

Additionally, using the RTTT money, the New York State legislators are

creating an educational advisory group in the state’s capital, according to Cole-

man. Using millions of dollars from the State’s RTTT funds, the group, consisting

of around thirteen members, would serve as advisors to the Board of Regents.

Coleman sees a serious issue with the fact that this “think tank” would consist

exclusively of figures who have been working in the corporate fields, computer

technology industry, and designs of high-stakes tests. According to him, this

“think tank”, without parental or educator involvement, would be a “corporate

 142

powerhouse”.

For that reason Coleman believes that the current education battles are “

continuations of the Civil Rights movement” (S. Coleman, interview, February

24, 2011). He suggests that instead of privatization, public education can be im-

proved by giving control of the schools to the communities where the schools are

located. Additionally, in order to succeed, schools need to be adequately funded,

proportional to the poverty levels of the community. The curricula need to be

structured so as to be liberating for the marginalized communities.

Rally To Protest School Closings

On January 27, 2011, as school kids were home due to snow, activists,

teachers, students, and parents joined a rally at City Hall Park to protest the

proposed massive school closure. Despite the cold weather and snow around 300

people (Figure 17) came together under one cause and to the music of the Rude

Mechanical Orchestra (Figure 16). The rally was sponsored by GEM, NYCoRE,

The Ad Hoc Committee to Stop School Closings and Charter Takeovers, Coalition

for Public Education / Coalición por la Educación Pública (CPE-CEP), The Man-

hattan Local of the Green Party of NY State, Class Size Matters, UFT, and over

twenty other activist organizations. The rally was held in order to build support

for the upcoming February meetings of the PEP when the panel would vote on

the proposed closure of twenty-five schools public schools.

Representatives from across the city spoke of the mayor’s destructive edu-

cation policies. One point in particular, shared by all, was that the school closures
 143

would affect special-need and low-income students. Various speakers demanded

more resources from he city to help struggling schools. Special Program Coordi-

nator, Carson Chodos, said that, “there should be flexible schools and opportuni-

ties for a diversity of schools to meet all the needs of all the kids. So it’s not just

public option, a diverse public option with flexibility, and opportunity for anyone

to participate in whatever way they can”.

Figure 16. Rude Mechanical Orchestra at the rally on January 27, 2011 at City Hall
Park.

February PEP Meetings

In February 2011 the meetings of the Panel for Educational Policy took

place over the course of two days. The first meeting took place on February 1 when
 144

the fate of elementary and middle schools was decided. The second meeting con-

cerned high schools and took place on February 3. The February 1 meetings saw

a large number of charter school supporters, who were bused to the meeting by

the charter networks. By contrast, on February 3 one of the largest protests by

teachers, students, and parents was organized by the UFT. The following section

describes the February meetings and some of the tactics employed by the charter

school supporters.

February 1, 2011

In February 2011, the meetings of Panel for Educational Policy were sepa-

rated into two sessions. The first session was held on February 1 in order to hold

a vote on proposed closure of elementary and middle schools. The outside of the

school was crowded with a mixture of supporters of charter schools and pro-

testers of school closures. It turned out that the charter schools EMOs, namely

Harlem Success Academies Charter Network, brought busloads of students and

teachers to the hearing. As the teachers and students of the charter school net-

works disbanded from the buses, they were handed signs and bright-colored

t-shirts – signature color of the Harlem Success Academy (Figure 17). Everything

seemed to have been prearranged and planned. The orange t-shirts could be seen

everywhere in the auditorium. Most of the charter school supporters held pre-

made almost identical signs that read “Charter = Public”, “Bolder Faster Change”,

and “We Demand Equality” written by the same hand.

 145

One could get a sense that the difficulty of distinguishing between support-

ers and protesters seems to have been purposely created by someone using these

mixed-message signs. It seemed that along with the language, the charter school

advocates have also adopted the signs and slogans of the public school advocates.

One charter school student yelled: “What’s the difference?” to a public school

supporter who yelled: “Charter is not public!” as things were getting heated up.

Incidentally, this was the first time that the TV cameras of the Murdoch-owned

Fox News were seen at the PEP meeting.

Figure 17. Harlem Success Academy parents and teachers are being handed pre-made signs and
orange t-shirts by the charter school representatives, outside of Brooklyn Technical HS building
prior to the start of the PEP meeting.

At the beginning of the Panel’s voting process (Figure 18), panel member,

Patrick Sullivan made an official objection: “I motion to dismiss the list of pro-
 146

posed school closures”. When the Panel denied his request, Sullivan announced

that he will not be participating in the voting process and proceeded to walk off

the stage. Charles Barron and other politicians, along with parents and students,

voiced their opposition during the public opinion portion of the meeting as well.

Figure 18. The PEP members taking a vote during the meeting on February 3, 2011.

Meanwhile, a group of GEM and NYCoRE members, including Sam Cole-

man, waited in the hallway for their turn at the microphone. While waiting they

were dressing up into The Real Reformers costumes. When asked about the large

number of charter school supporters at the hearing, one of the GEM members

said that she did not blame them for being confused: “They were mislead and told

what to do by their school administrators”. During their turn at the microphone

the brave group of The Real Reformers sang a protest song called “Which Side

Are You On?” to the audience consisting mainly of orange shirts:

Gather round good teachers


Listen to my tale

Of how the ole DOE

Put our schools up for sale
 147

Which side are you on?

Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

In nations the world over


Teacher unions rise

Its time in NYC

To open up our eyes

Which side are you on?

Calling all stakeholders


Hold those stakes up high

Drive them right into the heart

Of the plan to privatize

Which side are you on?

Come down to New York City


And look us in the eyes

Either you want community schools

Or you want to privatize

They want to close our schools down

They say our time has come

We will struggle for our rights
Until the fight is won
(GEM, 2011).

Later that evening, the latest of Cathie Black’s blunders occurred. When

she said into the microphone: “I can’t hear when you are yelling”, the crowd

responded with sarcastic “Awww...”. In response, Black mocked the crowd with

“Ohhh....”. The large media presence that evening immediately caught it and it

was widely publicized in the next day’s newspapers and on news channels.
 148

February 3, 2011

On the following Thursday, February 3, 2011, another PEP session was

held. This time, the UFT had organized a massive rally outside of the Brooklyn

Technical High School. Hundreds of teachers listened to speeches from various

local politicians and the President of the UFT, Michael Mulgrew. Because of the

size of the audience, a live video feed of each speaker was projected onto large

screen. Hundreds of students and parents crowded around the entrance to the

school well before the doors were even open (Figure 19).

When the Panel’s vote began, the auditorium was filled to the brim with

around 2,000 protesters, many of whom were students of Paul Robeson and Ja-

maica High Schools – two of the twenty-five schools proposed for closure by the

DOE. Everyone knew what the outcome of the hearing would be (Figure 20) but

they came to show their outrage anyway. Dozens of TV cameras and photojour-

nalists were forcing their way among the crowd (Figure 20). Protesters chanted,

“Cathie Black must go”, “Save our schools”, “Black is wack”, rang cowbells, and

blew whistles. The audience’s anger was understandable, as despite popular de-

mand, the City administration continued to ignore it. Just when one thought the

volume couldn’t get any louder, Cathie Black walked onto the stage accompanied

by the PEP members. When Black started her opening statements, despite audio

speakers, the crowd completely drowned her voice. After the blunder on Tuesday

night Black simply sat stone-faced.

City Council member Charles Barron was one of 350 people that signed up

to speak for two minutes during the public opinion part of the hearing. During his
 149

Figure 19. Students crowded in front of the entrance waiting in line prior to the start of the PEP
meeting.

allotted time Barron said: “You will let us scream until we get hoarse, and then

we know what will happen — you’ll shut all our schools down”. Charm Rhoomes,

president of the Jamaica High School PTA, argued that instead of closing her

school, the DOE should give it better funding. She told a story of her son Shawn,

who attended an honors math class last fall, but after only one day, the teaching

position was eliminated and Shawn was transferred to a standard math class.

Rhoomes argued that Jamaica HS had a disproportionate share of students with

special needs, which skewed the school’s test results. The high school’s student

population included twenty-three percent of English language learners – much

higher than the three small schools co-located in the same building. Two of the

co-located schools, High School for Community Leadership and Hillside Arts and
 150

Letters, have only twelve percent of English language learners and Queens Col-

legiate only six percent. A New York State Senator said that he visited Jamaica

High School and was shocked because never before has he seen “a more blatant

example of racism”. Jamaica High School is severely underfunded while the DOE

adequately funds the three schools that share the same building.

Figure 20. TV cameras making their way through a crowd of angry protestors during the
PEP meeting on February 3, 2011.
 151

CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION

The New York City’s public school system, under Mayoral control, from

2002 to 2011, has seen rapid changes. To begin with, the current centralized

control of the schools, by Mayor Bloomberg, has implemented an agenda of

charter school expansion, co-location of multiple schools within the same build-

ings, and an accountability system that serves as the driving force behind massive

school closures citywide. Despite the reforms, created by the Reform Movement,

graduation rate for over 140,000 black students in New York City public schools

remains at a low fifty-seven percent. It seems that the historical lessons learned

from previous education policies have either been forgotten or purposely ignored

by the businessmen turned politicians. This fact has been evident in cyclical re-

structures of the citywide public school system from centralized to decentralized,

and back again, with no significant improvement in student achievement.

The Federal education policies of Race To The Top and No Child Left Be-

hind, that were designed, implemented, and maintained by those with interests

in profit making, have turned public education into an “education marketplace”.

Pedagogy, child development, and creativity have been replaced by systems of

accountability and high-stakes testing. Those systems, maintained through com-

puter technologies, are used to evaluate teachers, schools, and ultimately, student
 152

performance. While evaluations are necessary in order to create indicators for

necessary improvements, the fact that they are designed and implemented by for-

profit organizations and financial entities creates a conflict of interest.

While charter schools networks, like Harlem Children’s Zone, make mil-

lions of dollars in annual revenue, the most needy schools located in the poorest

neighborhoods of the city, are depleted of resources. In turn, the underfunded

schools produce poor performance evaluations on the Annual Performance

Reports. Those reports, created by IBM, are generated by software, which was

designed, requested, and operated by the business-minded city administrators.

Additionally, corporate figures have been placed, by their peers, into positions of

power and control over public education policies. Through those actions, for-

profit organizations that manage New York City’s school districts through Edu-

cational Management Organizations, or Educational Partnership Organizations,

seem to serve the interests of charter school expansions through public school

closures.

The Reform Movement, heavily funded by billionaires, like Michael

Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch, has produced massive advertising campaigns,

films created by Hollywood directors, and endorsements from prominent figures.

The Movement’s campaign has adapted the language of the Civil Rights advo-

cates and resulted in mass confusion over the issue of charter schools. Similar

to the way business and politics are no longer distinguishable – charter schools

have been presented as better alternatives to public schools. While the initial idea

behind charters stems from progressive thoughts, in practice, the publicly funded
 153

and privately controlled charter schools have adopted corporate ideologies that

deprive children of their individuality, their culture, and turn them into obedient

followers.

Additionally, charter schools have created inequality by eliminating high-

need students and special education programs from their institutions in order to

receive higher scores on the APRs. Rather than helping its most needy students,

charter schools in New York City have been expelling twenty-three percent of

their students for minor misbehavior or low academic achievement. Furthermore,

charter schools have produced higher revenues when they have greatly reduced

their expenses by being housed within public school buildings. Such profit-driven

approach to education is not only reactionary in nature but it also completely

undoes the work of the Civil Rights Movement.

The New York City parents, teachers, and students have been deprived, by

the mayoral control, of their voice in the decision-making process. While char-

ter schools replace public schools and neighborhoods are been altered through

subsequent gentrification, communities have been given no choice but to bear

witness to their demise. The Panel for Educational Policy, with the majority of its

members furthering Bloomberg’s agenda, acts as a rubber stamp for the Reform

Movement. Fortunately, activist teachers, parents, and students have refused

to remain silent in the process that furthers the corporate agenda of privatized

public education system. Groups like GEM, NYCoRE, CEJ, and many others have

been mobilizing mass protests and educating general public. Despite limited

resources activists’ efforts in New York City have been gaining momentum in the
 154

mass media and have contributed to the recent removal of Cathie Black from her

position as the School Chancellor.

The battles over privatization of education have become an extension of

the Civil Rights Movement. Once again, marginalized communities have become

victims of the wealthy and powerful, who place the bottom line over the needs

of public school students. The educational reforms implemented in New York

State and New York City mirror those at the federal level. Education has become

a new marketplace for the financial institutions, corporate conglomerates, and

those with some of the highest incomes in the nation. The ones profiting from

these new investments have also waged a war on the unions that have tradition-

ally protected workers’ rights. By purposely eliminating union leadership from its

charter schools, corporate EMOs have been subjecting their teachers to pressures

of high-stakes testing, longer working hours, and depriving them of active partici-

pation in decision-making process. Despite its victories in the late 60s and early

70s, and its vast resources, the United Federation of Teachers has been buckling

under pressure from those in positions of power. At the same time, many public

school teachers, who seek justice and equality in the public schools, have them-

selves undertaken a tremendous task of resistance against public school privatiz-

ers. And as long as there are those who are willing to put themselves on the front

lines – there is hope.

 155

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