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| Richard Carranza [photo: Paul Martinka] |
What a disaster this year is for any student graduating in June from any grade in a New York City public school.
I'm not talking about the COVID-19 pandemic.
I'm referring to the unfair, unjustified mangling of student grades, attendance records, testing, and assessments that the NYC Department of Education is choosing to lay on the heads of parents simply in order to "spare" the kids who were supposed to take these tests and be graded, only to suffer the "heartache" of not measuring up to be the smartest and best. The NYC DOE under Mayoral control has micro-managed all the students in the system - all 1 million+ - into their own nameless and unlabelled whole, where everything is wonderful, all kids are perfect in every way, even if sometimes a child harms another child or adult. That's only a mistake, which can be fixed by removing the staff/educator who reported the crime, or some other adult in the classroom. The adult "miscreant" is then sent to a rubber room, even if they were not involved in the original sin.
In this utopia, no children are reported to the OORs system which is only for the misconduct of staff and teachers, whether the misconduct occurred or not. The truth doesn't matter, because any harm that occurs in a classroom is the result of an ineffective or bad teacher. The student cannot be blamed, they do not know better. No in-school violence goes to New York State's VADIR list because this will cause a funding problem in the school after parents take their kids out, in fear of harm from other students.
Now that so many kids are not appearing in schools throughout the city, all school budgets are in danger of de-funding. The first to go will be untenured first-year staff and teachers, then the most expensive tenured staff and teachers who will have to be charged with something so that they can be reassigned and terminated at a 3020-a arbitration. Schools are denying remote accommodations and FMLA leaves so that the employees run out of sick leave and are removed from payroll until - or if - the person fights back the right way, with a Court case.
And, programming ICT (integrated co-teaching) is easy, now that there is only one teacher in every ICT classroom. Oh - you say that is not in compliance with State law nor the rules and regulations of the NYC DOE? Sorry, but we have to bend in these hard times "they" say.
ICT classes rarely have two teachers in every classroom. This has been a fact for many years. Ask the teachers. They will tell you.
This is the way that so many educators find themselves declared incompetent - an administrator comes in for an observation on a day that the second teacher called in sick, or was suddenly pulled from the class to handle another class where there is no teacher, etc. The content of the excuse varies, but the goal is always the same. The teacher left alone is found to be incompetent, charged with 3020-a, and brought to a disciplinary arbitration to be terminated (NOT necessarily! read my blog posts). Now that many schools need teachers, the excuse for putting one teacher in a classroom with 40+ kids will be placed on the COVID-19 situation. More and more teachers are going to be ridiculed in the media for staying remote and not coming to the school to teach. As I have written before, the NYC DOE is weighed down by budgetary requirements that funds flow to a school from the data given for "seat time" - the number of seats filled by live students - except for graduating seniors.
The Department under Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza is a mammoth social-justice-for-all machine that really and truly believes that being extra smart is too smart, just as being part of a well-to-do family is too rich. No one can stand out. Everyone must be average, and get an average outcome for every class, whether the work is done or not. You pass. Thus we see the NYC DOE sabotaging the administration of the SHSAT test for the Specialized High Schools. Parents who want their child(ren) to take the test know what the NYC DOE is doing and are angry.
But this conflict ignores the excellent high schools which can be options for students who want a high-quality education. Ray Domenico wrote that the Specialized High Schools are not the only game in town, and we agree. High-quality, challenging high school curricula should be multiplied so that every child, in every NYC school district has the option to attend, in addition to the Specialized High Schools (where many students do NOT want to go anyway). The decision to cut the SHSAT so that no one goes to the Specialized High Schools is ridiculous and harmful to the truly Gifted who need the very challenging environment of those schools.
This is what a creepy "education equity for all" looks like. The Department says this is good, this is the American Way. I've stated my opinion before and will continue to do so. Chancellor Carranza and Mayor de Blasio rule with hate, and revenge/retaliation. I have seen it. See this:
DOE wants to move away from grades in determining class rank
New York City’s public school system is barely even pretending to teach
What is accepted is a gradeless, no ranking mess where kids can have the exact same outcomes for life, no matter what their race, abilities, or disabilities, are. The goal used to be to give all kids the same opportunities for life no matter what their race, abilities, or disabilities, are. Embedded in this latter "opportunities for all approach" is the belief that everyone is unique and has special abilities, and that individual ability and hard work deserves a place of prestige, awards, and acclaim. A virtual hug works as well, for any child who stays the course, works hard, and strives to reach their personal best, whatever that may be.
When Carmen Farina (former Chancellor of the Department of Education) was Principal of PS 6, my daughter was a student. We live on the upper east side but our zoned school was across the street, not PS 6. I had my daughter tested, and she did very well, so I applied to PS 6 for the G&T program. Carmen accepted her. At the time, late 1990's, the opposition to G&T and "white supremacy" was getting heard more loudly than ever before, and three years later Carmen ended the G&T program because "all kids can learn and achieve a 2-3(level) in achievement, rather than 1 or 4. I had my daughter test for the Johns Hopkins Center For Talented Youth and she got high scores so we had back up for the dumbed-down curricula now provided by very angry teachers at PS 6. Marielle wrote an essay that was published in the Riverdale Review on her dislike for TERC, and was immediately thrown off the Math Team. It's called retaliation. The Department saw "too many" middle-to-high income white kids get the most rewards because that fit their narrative. They chose to market this idea, even though there were, and are, fabulous programs and kids of all colors, religions, size, and shape in NYC getting wonderful resources for a top-level education. In fact, whenever the Department wants to change a school principal, mission, or staff, they always try the race card, i.e. the Specialized High Schools are too "white/Asian". This is "bad". And it is not, the Department states, the fault of the Department, but the fault of rich white parents having more resources to give their kids. These parents must be punished by being canceled and/or vilified. It's the parents' fault that their kids do well.
In 1999-2001 when I was President of the Booker T. Washington MS 54 on the Upper West Side of NYC, I read that people were angry that the SHSAT test was racially biased against Brown and Black kids. My oldest daughter was at Stuyvesant at the time, followed by another daughter, so I was there for 8 years. During this time I saw a very diverse population but few black faces. I wanted to find out why, so I did a small sampling in the UWS middle schools. I asked for parent volunteers who would go with me to all the middle schools in Harlem and District 3 and ask all the Brown and Black parents whether their child (or children) would be taking, or had taken, the SHSAT test for the Specialized high schools. 98-99% said no, they were not told that their child(ren) could take the test; they were told the test was not "for their child" by the social workers/parent liaisons; and other such nonsense.
In sum, a large number of Black and Brown students were blocked from signing up to take the test. Booker T. was one of those schools, and I fought to change that.
This so-called "cancel culture for white supremacy" garbage will, I believe, come back to haunt Chancellor Carranza and his highly-paid sycophants. College admissions Directors know exactly what the Department is doing, and are choosing fewer kids from New York City than ever before. They no longer trust the education the public schools are handing out.
We should all be accepted for who we are no matter what we look like, what culture or language we call our own, or what intellectual ability we happen to have.
However, we also need to give our diverse student population all the resources that exist in this City of everything, and not punish the child of any race, religion, socio-economic standing, gender, etc., who puts the hours of hard work into whatever they love to do and becomes the best and the brightest.
Here is the motto of Booker T. Washington:
Betsy Combier
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials
DOE postpones long-awaited admissions sessions day after announcing them
The Department of Education suddenly nixed a series of parent meetings on high school admissions Wednesday — just a day after announcing them.
Already frustrated by an ongoing lack of clarity on entry criteria for next year, parents said they were shocked by the postponement.
“This is sadistic,” said Deborah Alexander, president of Community Education Council 30 in Queens. “We have been waiting for eight months at this point.”
The department said Wednesday that they scrapped the virtual sessions because they’ve yet to settle on admissions policies.
“Postponing these meetings until we have an admissions policy is common sense, and we look forward to holding them soon, once we have more information to share,” said spokesperson Katie O’Hanlon. “These meetings were organized earlier this year and will be rescheduled.”
Parents were especially taken aback by the move because the DOE sent out alerts for the meetings on Tuesday.
The DOE emailed flyers advertising 10 informational sessions for parents to be held between November 16 and December 19.
But families who clicked a signup link Wednesday were greeted with a message announcing their indefinite postponement.
“Thank you for your interest in an admissions information session,” the note read. “These events have been postponed until further notice and we will notify you once they are rescheduled. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
The message then advertised a series of online videos to help parents navigate the often byzantine admissions process.
“Good news!” the note exclaimed. “We made the information from these presentations available as a video series that you can watch anytime, from anywhere. These videos walk you through how to participate in the admissions processes for high schools and Specialized High Schools.”
But parents said DOE video clips won’t cut it.
“What have they been doing all this time that they don’t have this basic information?” Alexander said. “We need to give these kids some footing. We are talking about a lot of families here. This isn’t some niche group. This is all high schools.”
The DOE has not yet provided any specific information for screened school admissions for any grade level.
Parents said this void has made it impossible to begin the process of evaluating and applying for schools.
Screened admissions have become a contentious political topic in recent years, with critics arguing that they benefit kids of means and elbow out black and Latino applicants.
Backers counter that many top city schools with competitive admissions have high immigrant and low-income enrollment.
The DOE has said that it will tailor screened school admissions to account for the impact of the coronavirus.
Many traditional metrics like grades and standardized test scores have either been overhauled or canceled outright due to the pandemic.
Advocates rally in Bayside, calling for continuation of Specialized High School Admissions Test
by Jacob Kaye, QNS, November 13, 2020
Parents, advocates, and elected officials gathered outside of Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School in Bayside on Thursday, Nov. 12, to demand students be given the opportunity to take the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT), after the timeline for the exam was thrown into flux by Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza earlier this year.
“In September, we were repeatedly assured that by October they would tell us that the Department of Education would announce what the rules are, what the admission criteria would be for entry admissions in the fall of 2021. Guess what? It’s November and we still don’t know anything,” State Senator John Liu said.
Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, a notable critic of the SHSAT, delayed the test, as well as the entire process for applying to specialized high schools earlier this year due to COVID-19.
The original deadline to register for specialized high school admission was on Oct. 21 and the original deadline to apply to the city’s eight specialized high schools was Dec. 4. Not only have both deadlines been changed, but both processes haven’t even been opened.
The DOE hasn’t offered a renewed timeline to parents, schools, or students.
“For the past eight months, hundreds of thousands of parents and kids have been waiting anxiously for the department of education to announce the details on the admissions of high schools and specialized high schools and they are also waiting to sign up for the testing for the Gifted and Talented program,” said Phil Wong, president of the Chinese American Citizens Alliance of Greater New York. “When parents attempted to register for these information sessions when they visited the link, they were horrified to see a window informing them that those sessions have been postponed until further notice. Meanwhile, there is not a word on any dates on how to sign up for gifted and talented testing.”
Liu said he recognizes the pressure and logistical nightmare the DOE faces in trying to implement the test, which approximately 30,000 students take each year.
“We’ve been dealing with 2020, all the parents have been dealing with it trying to make sure their kids get the proper education all the while balancing their workdays,” Liu said. “The Department of Education, I’ll give them a little bit of credit for trying to figure out how to deal with a worldwide pandemic right here in the city.”
The test, which four of the specialized high schools must use for admissions in accordance with state law, has been the cause of conflict for years now.
Opponents of the test, including Carranza and Mayor Bill de Blasio, argue it widens the education gap between low-income Black and brown students and their peers. Students with access to more resources at a younger age perform better on the test and then gain access to even more resources while attending the specialized high schools, they say.
While no timeline on specialized high school admissions been given, the DOE has created an email list, where parents and students can receive updates.
“We appreciate your patience and will update this page with more detailed information and timelines as soon as we can,” the DOE’s website reads.
Additional reporting by Dean Moses
Selim Algar, NY POST, November 9, 2020
The Department of Education wants to lessen the impact of grades on class ranking amid the COVID-19 pandemic in favor of factors like “motivation” and “integrity.”
As part of new guidelines issued late last month, the DOE is encouraging principals to change the process that determines valedictorians and other academic honors.
Class rank has traditionally been established through grade point average with some additional weights for advanced coursework.
But citing the hardships on students imposed by the coronavirus, the DOE wants administrators to rethink that system and instead use other measures.
“Schools should consider factors such as equity, motivation, and academic integrity when considering whether to specify an individual student’s rank,” the policy states.
The DOE and Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza have said that any fundamental policy changes will be limited to the current academic year due to COVID-19.
But critics argue that the guidelines are less about the coronavirus and more about a pre-existing distaste for standardized tests and grading.
“We are moving farther and farther away from tangible metrics in all areas,” a veteran Manhattan high school teacher told the Post. “I understand that this is an unusual situation and that we need to make adjustments. But the danger, in my mind, is that these things sort of slide in as policy for the future.”
Class rank is often used by colleges in their admissions process.
“Schools are encouraged to move away from using grades as a means of comparative student recognition and instead celebrate all students for navigating the significant challenges during the COVID-19 crisis,” the DOE policy states.
Opponents of the traditional letter grading system argue that it is an unreliable mark of student ability.
Multiple measures, they say, provide a more comprehensive view of performance and expand opportunities for kids with lesser resources.
Critics argue that pivoting away from standardized assessments will make it difficult to appraise academic progress or hold teachers and administrators accountable.
DOE Guidelines for the current academic year have redefined the role of letter grades.
With parental permission, kids can now scrap an unwanted grade in favor of a pass or no pass format with no impact on their GPA.
Officials have also banned the lowering of grades for poor attendance or late work.
The DOE said that the move away from grades for class rank recognizes the impact of the pandemic on student performance.
“Our achievement standards are as high as ever, and as in prior years, school communities that choose to rank decide exactly how class rank is determined,” said DOE spokesperson Danielle Filson. “The only difference is that this year we’re encouraging schools to be responsive to the needs of their students who have undergone severe trauma due to the global pandemic.”
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Students line up to have their temperature checked before entering PS 179
elementary school in Brooklyn. [photo: AP]
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Selim Algar, NY POST October 27, 2020
Student accountability is becoming remote when it comes to Department of Education policy in the coronavirus era.
The country’s largest school system won’t lower grades for late work or lack of attendance this year, according to final guidelines provided to the Post.
“Schools must ensure that their grading policies and practices acknowledge the impact of remote and blended learning models on the ways in which students must complete their assigned work,” reads the document, which was emailed to principals Monday morning.
Citing COVID-19 disruptions, the DOE said schools “must adjust” expectations for timely work and are “encouraged to lessen or eliminate penalties for late work beyond these deadlines.”
Student attendance will not directly impact grades. The DOE guidelines state that “courses that currently include attendance as a factor in student grades must remove that factor completely.”
Like last year, city students will not be given failing grades and will instead be given opportunities to make up material.
In addition, parents will now have the option of scrapping any numeric grade this year and replacing it with a less exacting “meets standards” or “pass” mark that won’t count towards a cumulative overall score.
Individual schools will be allowed to determine how numeric grades are calculated and will be given wide berth in assessing student progress.
“This guidance is designed to promote equity, flexibility, and empathy in our grading practice for all students,” the DOE said.
Critics of the new approach — which is being adopted in districts across the country — said it dilutes accountability for both kids and staffers.
“These kids are going to be thrown into life with no tools and no sense of accountability,” said Bronx mom Veronica Flores. “This is not how the world works. No one is going to hand you anything.”
Flores said she agrees that there should be more flexibility with remote learning and more latitude — but argued that the DOE is going too far.
“The have nots are being treated like can nots,” she said. “I get that this is motivated by sensitivity. But in the end it’s only going to further the divide.”
A Manhattan teacher said Monday that the rules shield administrators and DOE officials from scrutiny.
“How do we know if a school is educating their children or not?” the teacher said. “In the end, it just makes it difficult to know if a student is excelling or falling behind. I’m not sure if that helps them.”
But a Queens principal said that coronavirus turmoil necessitated the changes and that they are reasonable — at least for now.
He said that more “competitive” kids will still have the option of numeric grades while struggling students can accrue credits without falling behind.
“Now, everyone can see your home on Zoom, or you have to deal with a parent losing a job, or other things,” he said. “Be flexible.”
Meanwhile, the DOE reported an overall attendance rate of 85 percent for both in-person and remote learners Monday.
The DOE briefly posted an attendance spreadsheet (
Student accountability is becoming remote when it comes to Department of Education policy in the coronavirus era.
The country’s largest school system won’t lower grades for late work or lack of attendance this year, according to final guidelines provided to the Post.
“Schools must ensure that their grading policies and practices acknowledge the impact of remote and blended learning models on the ways in which students must complete their assigned work,” reads the document, which was emailed to principals Monday morning.
Citing COVID-19 disruptions, the DOE said schools “must adjust” expectations for timely work and are “encouraged to lessen or eliminate penalties for late work beyond these deadlines.”
Student attendance will not directly impact grades. The DOE guidelines state that “courses that currently include attendance as a factor in student grades must remove that factor completely.”
Like last year, city students will not be given failing grades and will instead be given opportunities to make up the material.
In addition, parents will now have the option of scrapping any numeric grade this year and replacing it with a less exacting “meets standards” or “pass” mark that won’t count towards a cumulative overall score.
Individual schools will be allowed to determine how numeric grades are calculated and will be given wide berth in assessing student progress.
“This guidance is designed to promote equity, flexibility, and empathy in our grading practice for all students,” the DOE said.
Critics of the new approach — which is being adopted in districts across the country — said it dilutes accountability for both kids and staffers.
“These kids are going to be thrown into life with no tools and no sense of accountability,” said Bronx mom Veronica Flores. “This is not how the world works. No one is going to hand you anything.”
Flores said she agrees that there should be more flexibility with remote learning and more latitude — but argued that the DOE is going too far.
“The have nots are being treated like can nots,” she said. “I get that this is motivated by sensitivity. But in the end it’s only going to further the divide.”
A Manhattan teacher said Monday that the rules shield administrators and DOE officials from scrutiny.
“How do we know if a school is educating their children or not?” the teacher said. “In the end, it just makes it difficult to know if a student is excelling or falling behind. I’m not sure if that helps them.”
But a Queens principal said that coronavirus turmoil necessitated the changes and that they are reasonable — at least for now.
He said that more “competitive” kids will still have the option of numeric grades while struggling students can accrue credits without falling behind.
“Now, everyone can see your home on Zoom, or you have to deal with a parent losing a job, or other things,” he said. “Be flexible.”
Meanwhile, the DOE reported an overall attendance rate of 85 percent for both in-person and remote learners Monday.
The DOE briefly posted an attendance spreadsheet last week but deleted it after being questioned by the Post.
That document showed wildly disparate data across the board.
The DOE numbers showed 59 schools reported in-person attendance under 50 percent, with PS 165 Robert E. Simon in Manhattan posting the lowest rate of 8.67 percent. The school had 86 percent online attendance, according to the spreadsheet.
