Each of New York City's 32 community school districts has something called a Community Education Council that consists of 11 voting members, nine of whom are parents of a student attending a school in the district. These councils are advisory to the Department of Education (DOE), as they replaced the old community school board for each of the 32 districts that had more governing power in the old school governance system, before mayoral control took effect in 2003.

Many a New York City politician has railed against mayoral control because the DOE has greater control over policy and appointments at the community school district and building level than under the previous, patronage-filled system. Moreover, the greater emphasis on education accountability has resulted in more city district school closures for poor academic performance, which raises the blood pressure of the teachers unions, parents and sundry groups wedded to their schools, irrespective abysmal student results and its tragic ripple effects.

Add to all of this the policy of locating new charter schools in district buildings, and you've got a whirlwind of opposition up against those parents seeking charter opportunities for their children. This has been manifested at contentious hearings of the city's Panel of Education Policy over use of district building space.

CEC Building "Veto" to Kill Charters
The latest effort to undermine mayoral control and charter schools was announced yesterday at a press conference by the city's United Federation of Teachers (UFT), organized parents and local politicians where they are proposing state legislation to block space-sharing between district and charter schools. The UFT president, Michael Mulgrew (around whom this all revolves), state and city elected officials, and parents want the community education councils (CEC) to have a veto over any space-sharing proposal by the department.

Now, with nine parents of district students sitting on each CEC, take a wild guess how those votes are going to turn out for charter schools?

That old cliche that education policy is about the adults rather than the children was on full display at this anti-charter school event.

Literally hundreds of city district schools "share" buildings right now. School buildings in New York City are quite large, so this makes sense - it's routine, in fact. Dozens of charter schools, close to 100, have the same arrangement since real estate in New York City comes at a cost premium.

Since charter schools receive no building aid, the only way they can expand this vital educational opportunity in a place like New York City is to make district space available to them. The UFT and its fellow travelers latest attempt to block space-sharing is all about stopping charter schools - period.

Charter Parents & Students are Part of the "Community"
For all the talk by the UFT about the interests of parents, what gets lost in their charade are the interests of parents who are seeking a better education via a charter school. Charter school parents and their children are part of the same "community," aren't they? Are not they entitled to have a roof over their heads?

The reality that flies in the face of this selfish CEC proposal to shut out charter school parents is that every time a new charter school opens or expands, it is instantly filled with applicants to the point of needing a lottery. Tens of thousands of students throughout the city end up on charter school waiting lists for admission every year. If school district buildings belong to the parents in the community (rather than Tweed Hall), that also should include charter parents in the same community.

The state legislation being proposed to give CECs control over co-locations is designed to undermine mayoral control of the city's schools specifically at the expense of public educational opportunities offered by charter schools. That charters remain in strong demand by thousands of parents in every "community" matters not at all. Instead, this proposal to give CEC control will render charter parents and their children as second-class citizens.

It would be nice to see cooler heads prevail so that children are put in the best public school arrangement possible in both district and charter school settings. Competition and turf issues will always be a challenge, but shutting down charter competition with this latest CEC gambit ultimately serves the UFT and adult interests - not the interests of students.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

The release last Friday of teacher ratings by the New York City Department of Education is yet another step in establishing greater accountability and transparency in the public school system. We heard a lot about accountability and transparency for charter schools from the state and city teacher unions about charter schools, but it has not been so well received when it comes to teacher ratings.

I can understand the concern that some teachers would be unfairly rated, resulting in their good names being besmirched by a misleading score, or an unfair rating system. All necessary efforts should be made to clear up such mistakes or flaws. By contrast, it is a good thing to see excellent teachers with high ratings get well-deserved exposure, including some celebratory news coverage.

Sharing Best Practices
It is those cadre of high-scoring, excellent teachers whom state Education Commissioner John King should fund extra for video-taping classroom instruction to share with teachers as part of professional development. At a recent panel on middle schools conducted during the annual conference of the state's Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus, the commissioner advocated the taping of excellent classroom instruction as part of sharing best practices with other teachers. He now has a rating system from which to select teachers, and he should propose a state program to pay such teachers extra for filming their work.

It remains to be seen to what degree faulty ratings are the exception or too common - as the latter occurrence would clearly indicate a flawed rating system. The head of the NYC United Federation of Teachers has been loudly critical of the rating system, and sought in state court to block the release of the ratings, to no avail. One of the nuggets I learned from the weekend's stories, however, was that Mr. Mulgrew's predecessor, Randi Weingarten, supported the ratings system as a tool to improve instruction.

To be fair, supporting a rating system to inform and improve classroom instruction and professional development does not mean having to support the public release of the ratings. The UFT naturally sought to keep them internal. However, for all the union's talk about the interests of parents and empowering them, the release of the teacher ratings helps to fulfill this very purpose.

It also should be noted those teachers with accurate low ratings do not appear to be in any danger of losing their job - at least regarding those teachers with tenure rights. The exposure may be unpleasant, but their job is not at risk under the current system. Instead, it's the students who lose out.

Policy Implications
The larger policy implications from the release of teacher rating data is not so much an undermining of tenure, or rapid removal of poor-performing teachers. Rather, the conversation needs to get much louder about instituting merit pay and bonuses, and pay scale differentials based on ratings instead of seniority and college credits that have no correlation to student acheivement. The uniformity of the collective bargaining agreements do not reflect the varied expertise required to teach different subjects, and certainly do not reflect ability. The teacher unions want it to remain so, which serves its institutional interests, but has the contrary effect on other, more important concerns. This should change so as to reflect the reality manifested by this rating system.

To the extent the city's teacher rating system can be improved, and a genuine teacher evaluation system can be implemented, instruction can be improved, low-performing teachers can helped to improve or be weeded out, and students will be better off academically.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

The state's new teacher evaluation system agreed to last week between Governor Andrew Cuomo and the state Education Department on one side and the state and New York City teacher unions on the other side pretty well concludes a long two-plus-year chapter in larger education accountability debate. All that remains is for the legislature to formally enact this agreement, which is assured since the teacher unions are part of the pact.

The implementation will raise another set of challenges, which The Chalkboard touched upon last week when the deal was announced.

The whole teacher evaluation saga was an important window into the political struggle over education accountability and results, which is why it garnered so much coverage here and in scores of media outlets for the last two years.

Voicing the Teachers Union
Perhaps the best summation of the two sides of this argument over teacher evaluations came from two commentaries published in the Albany Times Union. The first appeared last Sunday from regular columnist Fred LeBrun, who was strongly critical of Gov. Cuomo's intervention beginning last year, viewed his role as a "spinmeister," and the outcome as "a great piece of theater."

Mr. LeBrun represents the Times Union editorial board exceptionally well, with his extremely conventional, excuse-filled, don't rock-the-boat support of the educational establishment, especially regarding the hometown Albany City School District - no matter its record. Mr. LeBrun and the paper's editorials have, with rare exception, consistently attacked Albany's charter schools with abandon.

Mr. LeBrun's Feb. 19th column on the evaluation deal undoubtedly captured the sentiment from teacher unions on the evaluation issue. He freely assailed the governor in a way the teachers unions have avoided doing publicly, beginning with the Governor's intervention and his current linkage of state school aid increases to local district adoption of the new evaluation design. To Mr. LeBrun (and the unions) the teacher evaluation plan was going just swimmingly last year until the governor deigned to get involved. His column also echoed the union claim that little has changed from the 2010 agreement, which was another way of attacking the governor's motives in getting involved at all.

Cuomo Administration Response
Interestingly, Mr. LeBrun's column got the attention of the Cuomo administration from a high level. The Secretary to the Governor, Larry Schwartz (aka, the chief of staff), responded with a forceful column in today's Times Union. Mr. Schwartz effectively presented the other side of the issue, including the reality (ignored by Mr. LeBrun) that the original evaluation plan was insufficient and stalled at the local district level, and that the new plan is a tangible improvement in several key areas.

This tidy summation of the teacher evaluation debate represented by these two columns will not end the education reform debate, as it will take shape in other arenas to come.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

According to a recent draft study, discussed in today's Daily News (emphasis on "draft"), the existence of charter schools account for more than 37 percent of the drop in K-8 Catholic school enrollment from 2000 to 2010.

Of the more than 87,000 K-8 enrollment decline in Catholic schools throughout New York State, nearly 32,500 of those students have fled to charter schools, the study says. How it can make this assumption is a mystery. It goes on to estimate that more than 33,000 Catholic students have gone to district public schools, with more than 21,000 attributed to demographic declines.

The study was performed by Abraham Lackman, a former Secretary of the Senate Finance Committee and New York City Budget Director, who is a scholar-in-residence at Albany Law School and has his own consulting firm, Praxis Insights. Mr. Lackman is a respected veteran of government and finance, but his findings on this particular study thus far should be viewed with skepticism.

I have viewed only the power-point presentation of the study, since the finished product is not yet available; and I was not present during the round-table forum entitled "The Tension Between Catholic Schools and Charter Schools" at St. Francis College in Brooklyn earlier this month where the findings were presented. There is nothing yet available that explains the assumptions in determining the almost even split between former Catholic students attending charter versus district schools.

Cause v. Effect
The growth in charter schools does not by itself "cause" the enrollment decline in Catholic schools, or 37 percent of the decline, even if you accept the hypothesis that 32,500 Catholic students ended up in a charter school.

It is more dubious to suggest that charter school growth will lead to steeper declines in Catholic school enrollment over the next decade, as Mr. Lackman admonishes. Included in this assertion is that another 280 charter schools will open in the next eight years. This is highly unlikely since 230 charters remain, of which only 86 can locate in New York City. With just 50 charter schools approved for outside of New York City in the last 13 years, no one should expect a upstate spike in charter approvals.

If charter schools did not exist in New York State, would the decline in Catholic school enrollment be less? It is very unlikely the numbers would have changed much but no one can say for sure. Absent a detailed and expensive survey, it is a gigantic presumption that 32,500 Catholic students enrolled in charter schools in the last decade, and more unfair to suggest the presence of charter schools was the cause of this decline in Catholic school enrollment. More likely, most if not nearly all those students would have enrolled in a district school.

The announcement of the six Catholic school closures on Long Island is a case in point. Only five charter schools exist between Nassau and Suffolk counties, with three of them fully enrolled for at least seven years. Did five small charter schools contribute to six Long Island Catholic schools closing? Perhaps some of those former Catholic school students may end up in the charter schools, but that hardly suggests the charters are the "cause" for the closures nor does it warrant "tension" between the two school sectors.

Catholic school enrollment has declined for many reasons including, but not limited to: attendance at Catholic churches has dropped steadily for decades; the economic situation since 2007, with a deep recession followed by slow growth; smaller Catholic families; and declining revenues all contribute to a drop in school enrollment. In addition, the overwhelming majority of charter school students come from households that qualify for the federal free and reduced-priced lunch program. Absent a scholarship or other assistance, most of these families are unlikely to have had a student enrolled in a Catholic school.

Stirring the Pot
The title of the St. Francis College forum, "The Tension ...," places a target on the backs of charter schools that is undeserved. Unless you start a count of how many charter students came from a Catholic school and why they departed, there is little else to inform this attention-getting title and conclusion. From several Albany charter schools I contacted, there are but a handful of former parochial school students. That is hardly scientific, but until such a survey is done--including the reasons any former Catholic student enrolled--charters should not be targeted like this.

Rather than stirring "tension," there are collaborative strategies that Catholic schools should consider with charter schools, as discussed in this report published last year by the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability.

I am very sympathetic to a declining Catholic school population, and struggling private and religious schools. They are important to our state, and more should be done to encourage their sustainability and expansion. With or without charters, religious school closures sadly are likely to continue, which will put a costly strain on educating those students in district schools.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

More than half way into the current school year, I'm at a loss why the Albany Times Union's Sunday edition placed as its lead story (page A-1, right column) the "clash of views" over Albany's public schools between the district and charter school sectors. Charters have existed in the city for a dozen years. Since last school year ended seven month ago, matters have quieted down considerably.

The Albany City School District has the largest percentage of district students attending charter schools--more than 20 percent--than any other district in the state. But that, too, isn't news, nor are complaints from the school district officials. The reason for this number is two-fold: the (mostly African-American) parents of the city have continuously enrolled their children in them, and a local organization was founded with the ability to support the creation of the charter schools. Until last year, the Brighter Choice Foundation that supports the city's eleven small charter schools was chaired by Thomas Carroll [see disclosure, below], who is featured in today's story (along with an adjacent profile), as is the school district's board of education president, Dan Egan.

While the story attempts to be even-handed, I was struck by some of editorial narrative, e.g., referring to a network of charter support organizations founded by Mr. Carroll as "attack dogs." The story recounts some of the efforts by the pro-charter groups, including one of them that opposed the school district's annual budget last spring. It was nevertheless approved by the city's voters.

Last Year's Funding Battles
Only toward the end of the story does it recount the reason for this combative stance: for the entirety of the 2010-11 school year, Mr. Egan and his pliant board of education illegally withheld the full amount of funding that belonged to the charter schools, which already start with $6,000 per pupil less than the district's schools. The school district was hoping to get the state legislature to substantially cut its funding for charters, and it secured a high-powered lobbying firm to accomplish this objective (the story omits mention of this). In other words, the district violated state education law in the hopes it would be changed.

The school district also got the City of Albany's Capital Resource Corporation to deny financing to two charter school buildings, even though the district had no financial connection or benefit from such a denial; just an illicit feeling of satisfactory spite.

The upshot is that last school year was not warm and fuzzy times between the Albany School District and its competitor charter schools. By last July, however, the financial struggles had been settled: the district finally paid the charters in full, and the two charter buildings got alternative financing.

The culmination of this financial squabble came in August when the Albany school district lowered its property tax rate for the 2011-12 year without the charter funding it sought. This event more than anything exposed the district's financial hoax and misinformation campaign about charter schools. It's been relatively quiet ever since, though the Albany school district is still trying to get the state legislature to cut charter school funding.

Other Article Nuggets
A couple of other points in this lengthy story are worth mention. One is the disparaging reference by the former superintendent (unnamed in the story) to charter school founders as "the white guys." This was Supt. Eva Joseph's silly attempt at stirring racial tension, which obviously overlooked the fact that she, too, is white, along with Mr. Egan and at least three of the last four superintendents of schools. The one non-white district leader, Supt. Michael Johnson, was run out of town after only one year on the job.

Stranger still, is why this story made mention of the pro-charter school groups and funders as "mostly white" and "conservative." Since when do the Times Union editors, led by Rex Smith, invoke the race of people in their news stories? And, how do they even know the race or politics of all the pro-charter people? The answer is they don't; rather, these assertions are pure, superfluous conjecture.

Despite the length of the article, nowhere is it mentioned that the charter schools had superior academic success for the city's students compared to the district overall, and especially compared to comparable neighborhood district schools, according to results on the state's assessments. In addition, while the article mentions that charters comprise $34 million from the district's budget of $214 million (not $200 million, as reported), unmentioned is the math that shows charter students get disproportionately far less funding than district students.

Finally, the story has a mild obsession, reflective of some district officials like Mr. Egan, over the fact that Mr. Carroll does not reside in Albany. Unmentioned is that this is one of numerous examples of individuals who live outside the city who contribute toward its betterment through financial support or volunteer service on dozens non-profit boards. Moreover, one need not be a city resident to be employed by the school district.

Had Mr. Carroll set his sights on some other endeavor, no doubt folks like Dan Egan and Eva Joseph would be happier, while the lives thousands of children from minority families stuck in low-performing district schools would have been much worse off. Take a wild guess which is more important.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

DISCLOSURE: I have worked with Mr. Carroll, including guest blogging and research for the Foundation for Education Reform and Accountability and on various projects for the Brighter Choice Foundation. I also served for nine years as a fellow trustee on the Brighter Choice Charter School for Boys and Brighter Choice Charter School for Girls, and was a founding trustee of the Henry Johnson Charter School, each located in Albany.

I spent some time today in the Legislative Office Building across the street from the state Capitol in Albany to attend some of the policy sessions during the annual conference of the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Legislative Caucus. Most of my time was spent at the session entitled "Middle Schools: The Bridge That Fails," which was put together by veteran Queens Assemblywoman Barbara Clark, the chairperson of the education committee for the caucus.

The session's panel was an impressive line-up: state Education Commissioner, John King; NYC Schools Chancellor, Dennis Walcott; NYC United Federation of Teachers President, Michael Mulgrew; Regents Vice Chancellor Milton Cofield; David Banks, president of the Eagle Academy Foundation which supports a network of all-male middle and high schools; Ernest Logan, President of the Council of School Supervisors & Administrators; and Davia Franklyn, Coordinator, 21st Century After-school Program at Bank Street College.

Panelists seemed mostly to agree on the challenges facing middle school. Mr. Mulgrew said that most middle school students are "not ready for high school," which is all too true for urban areas, and that more support systems are needed, particularly guidance counselors. He also complained that teachers were too burdened with paperwork, including tracking assessment data, and that "crunching data will not help with instruction."

This latter point flies in the face of education trends seemingly everywhere, from individual charter schools all the way to being key feature of the Obama administration's Race to the Top program. I don't doubt that "crunching data" can be tedious to a teacher, but understanding how to use data to drive instruction and school decision making is essential to success. Perhaps what is needed is for school administration to have a better handle on this data support (including "crunching") to enable teachers to better handle and use data. Mr. Mulgrew, a former industrial arts teacher, is alarmingly missing the boat on this issue.

Agree or disagree, Mr. Mulgrew is worth a listen. Later on during the session he asserted that teacher education schools current do not prepare a teacher for the challenges of managing students, referring particularly to middle school, and that different ways of preparing teachers is necessary. While he's not the first to say this, this concern from such a top union official need to be addressed forthrightly by the state.

Mr. Logan, himself former middle school principal in New York City, spoke of the need to improve professional development that is more targeted to middle school challenges, and that too many students enter middle school not ready for more independent work.

Oversubscribing Special Ed for Middle School Students?
After the session, I spoke to him and Dr. Franklyn about this point, and how I believe one of the ways such unprepared students are dealt with is to assign them an individualized education program (IEP) by classifying them as "learning disabled" or "emotionally disturbed." Both acknowledged that such classifications increase noticeably in middle school years, and Dr. Franklyn suggested that an IEP can actually lead to greater structure and attention that such students need but are denied in regular education settings (though she was not condoning the practice of oversubscribing).

To provide greater structure to middle school students, Dr. Banks argued for scrapping stand-alone middle schools to instead have either have schools serving grades K-8 or 6-12. A middle school student's former elementary teacher, for example, could be another helpful influence, along with older high school students, he said.

Commissioner King related his own middle school experience and the strong, engaging impression that his social studies teacher in Brooklyn had on him. What is critical for successful middle school, he said, was that teachers need to learn from best practices that have proven successful by observing great teachers in person or from video. Identifying excellence with teachers learning from the best teachers, including the ability to engage the interest of students, must be scaled up.

The Proper Focus
Interestingly, during the question and answer period, the commissioner expressed the need to spend more time discussing "teaching and learning" and less time on "the politics of education." This middle school session was properly focused on the former, to the credit of all the participants. I suspect Dr. King's statement was more a reflection of the many hours he just spent with union officials behind closed doors negotiating the teacher evaluation system.

Caucus weekend in February contains much in the way of substance combined with celebration. With all that was spoken about middle school education, hopefully the policymakers in the room will build toward meeting the needs expressed; otherwise, we will be repeating ourselves in the years ahead.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa


FOOTNOTE: Regarding the politics of education, such was the topic in another panel session conducted by Assemblywoman Inez Barron next door at the same time as the middle school session. I'm told the panel's participants railed against mayoral control of New York City schools, which rings familiar though it could not block its renewal in 2009 by the state legislature (including by many, but not all, caucus members). Unfortunately I missed this theater of the absurd, but I suspect it will die out fairly soon with the expiration of Mayor Bloomberg's term of office at the end of next year.

Governor Andrew Cuomo's persistence paid off with yesterday's announcement of a new deal on implementing teacher evaluations. After accurate and forthright criticism of the feckless deal reached in 2010 during the prior administration, the governor now owns the current system.

Deadlines in state government remind me so much of finals week in college, with all-nighters and last-minute scrambling to complete the task at hand. The state Education Department and New York State United Teachers obviously took the governor's deadline seriously, and the department certainly would not have agreed to something unacceptable to the Cuomo administration.

Tangible Improvement Over Existing Evaluation System
The outlines of the evaluation system indicate clearly that the current system will be strengthened very much along the lines of Gov. Cuomo's intervention last year via the Regents regulatory process. For example, student assessment results will constitute 40 percent of the evaluation divided between 20 percentage points based on state test results and one of three options chosen by the local school district which could include choosing the state tests, i.e., making those results count for the full 40 percent of the teacher evaluation.

In addition, though the assessment portion remains less than half the overall score, a teacher with a poor rating on this portion cannot still receive an effective evaluation based on the other 60 percent that involves classroom observation.

Another notable improvement in the evaluation scheme is that the Education Department will be given authority to disapprove a local evaluation plan that it deems insufficient which, according to the governor, will "add rigor to the process and ensure evaluation plans comply with the law." This matters greatly because of the myriad of implementation challenges.

Now for the Implementation
The state oversight of local evaluation plans and the governor's incentive to locally negotiate these evaluation changes or forgo a school aid increase will guard against the foot-dragging and resistance that made the previous 2010 evaluation deal ineffective.

Implementation risks, however, remain. Education is a very people-intensive business that does not operate like the military, nor should it; but it does mean that execution of this plan can be hindered in a way that still resists accountability absent the will of officials on the ground. Well-intentioned state (or federal) policy still may not play out accordingly at the school district or building level.

The teacher unions were dragged kicking and screaming to today's deal, so that alone is significant progress, but many superintendents and principals and individual teachers simply don't buy into the evaluation systems being discussed for the last two years, including the new and improved agreement. This article today by Gannett state reporter Cara Matthews is a good example of the doubts and hurdles confronting the effective implementation of the new evaluation system.

Governor Cuomo deserves enormous credit for stepping into the teacher evaluation fray, beginning last spring, and coming away this week with a stronger system. Absent his leadership, the whole program may have tanked and the federal money pulled. The new evaluation system will be enacted by the legislature as part of the budget - then it will be up to the thousands of administrators and educators to make it work for children.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

FOOTNOTE: Those working at the state Education Department better plan for some time-off before the summer. According to the new evaluation law, the 700-plus school districts and BOCES must submit their evaluation plans to the department, which has until September 1st to approve them, about 43 working days. While these district plans may end up as boilerplate that follows what is a prescriptive law, they still will have to be read line-by-line, one at a time. Those district plans that don't meet approval will take more time. Commissioner John King likely is going to need more warm bodies by summer-time to handle this workload, which means he'll need funding appropriated in the state budget to make at least temporary hires. The 21-day and 30-day budget amendments did not add any money for the department that I noticed, so this issue needs a good look before the state budget is completed.

Tomorrow's deadline is fast approaching for the state Education Department and the New York State United Teachers to negotiate a new teacher evaluation system that would effectively settle the ongoing lawsuit by NYSUT against the department's evaluation regulations.

A big part of the teacher evaluation problem was that the Education Department and the teacher unions were negotiating this whole deal in the first place, back in 2010 (see photo). There was no sign of the state's School Boards Association or the Council on School Superintendents which represent the the groups that would negotiate and approve district collective bargaining agreements with their respective union locals, and also be in charge of implementing the evaluation systems.

School Boards Association president, Tim Kremer, has an interesting article in today's Daily News that adds important perspective to this whole issue.

The Education Department obviously has ongoing lines of communication with the organizations representing the school boards and superintendents of schools. However, their absence from the negotiating table means the department is on its own to negotiate with the teacher unions who happen to be the largest contributors to state legislators who, in turn, appoint the department's boss, the Board of Regents. It's quite an arrangement, as it explains to at least some degree the weakness in the 2010 law that has come under such criticism by Governor Andrew Cuomo.

To be fair, the 2010 evaluation law was mostly viewed at the time as a major reform that would increase accountability in district schools (though one could suspect the opposite from the photo, above). The Education Department and Regents did everything they could to use evaluation to improve teacher quality and be rid of teachers who do not belong in the classroom. Turns out, they can only do so much from a political standpoint.

Ultimately, a stronger, more effective evaluation law will fall to the governor who is less susceptible to interest group pressure, specifically the teacher unions, than state legislators or the Education Department and Regents. Executive leadership, as The Chalkboard has stated many times, is the most important ingredient for genuine education reform to become a reality for students.

Gov. Cuomo previously displayed such leadership last year when he got the Regents to promulgate stronger regulations to implement a weak law. This was met by a subsequent lawsuit by NYSUT. The task will soon fall to him again.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

An interesting education issue got state attention last week in the Senate with that chamber's attempt to reverse the ban by New York City against religious congregations using school district building space for worship services.

For many years running, churches throughout New York City were meeting on Sundays in public school space. Today is the last day they will be doing so, as the city's Department of Education will be enforcing a ban on churches meeting in school district buildings. I've seen different numbers, but about 54 to 70 congregations will need an alternative meeting space.

The city's ban on such worship services was litigated beginning in the mid-1990s, and the final straw arrived two months ago when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a federal circuit court ruling, Bronx Household of Faith v. Bd. of Education of New York, from last June that upheld the city's ban. Importantly, the circuit court stopped short of mandating such a ban; rather, it merely upheld the city's policy to institute a ban. In other words, allowing churches to utilize city district school space on Sundays was not in violation of the U.S. Constitution's first amendment establishment clause, nor did violate the "separation of church and state" (which, fyi, is not actually found in the constitution), though clearly the court was sympathetic to such concerns.

The circuit court drew a distinction between religious groups using district school space in ways similar in nature to secular groups and clubs doing the same; and the the use by churches for weekly worship services which it described a the "conduct of an event or activity" that would "create a very substantial appearance of governmental endorsement of religion" that gives the DOE a basis for instituting the ban.

Religious groups cannot be discriminated against in terms of using public school space, the Supreme Court has ruled in Good News Club v. Milford Central School District (in upstate New York). But, the Sunday worship issue was viewed is another matter since it is a specific type of activity such as a martial arts or other category of event. In effect, the high court upheld this judicial distinction by the federal circuit court by its refusal to hear the appeal of that court's ruling.

State Senate Seeks to Reverse City DOE
In response to all this, last week, the New York State Senate passed a bill (S.6087-A) on a bipartisan vote of 54 to 7 to reverse the ban on church services by city Department of Education. Interestingly, all but two of the Senate members of the Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian Caucus voted to reverse the ban. That matters since it is the caucus in particular that would be key to pushing their fellow caucus members in the state Assembly to demand a vote on this bill. The office of Assembly Speaker, Sheldon Silver, is otherwise disinclined as a spokesman told the New York Times that they are leaving it to the city's determination who uses its facilities, in accordance with federal case law.

In other words, the Senate bill is pretty much D.O.A. in the Assembly, at least for now.

This issue fascinates me on several levels, beginning with the confusion expressed by the city's DOE spokesman that renting out school buildings to churches on Sunday's would somehow "subsidize worship." Of course, if the district charges rent for the use of the facility, than that alleged concern disappears. Note also that while the city forbids churches from using its space, the city itself rents church-owned space during the week to house public schools, e.g., PS 133 in Park Slope. No "separation" problem there; no "endorsement" of religion going on, either.

As for any "establishment of religion" concerns, that would only plausibly enter into the discussion if the city leased space only to a particular denomination. It obviously has not. Perhaps the city wanted to avoid some kind of unfair advantage by leasing to one church group against those that already built and paid, or are paying, for their own facilities.

New York City is home to many beautiful church buildings, including Saint Patrick's cathedral, Saint John the Divine, and Abyssinian Baptist (all three in Manhattan). But for many residents desiring worship, an affordable facility is no easy task, and not every one can access a wealthy benefactor like Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who essentially built Riverside Church.

The Downside?
This is not to imply that the city school district is under any obligation to make space available for any congregation, regardless of faith, to use for weekly or regular worship. That is not why the district schools exist. However, I see little downside in doing so, especially if there is no cost to the school district and there is no constitutional restriction. The city schools have attempted one policy after another to fight social ills that affect students, from sex-ed to feeding them at least twice daily. Enabling weekly worship services for the community may help, too.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

FOLLOW-UP: New York Post columnist Michael Goodwin wrote on this issue in his Wednesday column, and took Mayor Michael Bloomberg to task for his "confused" understanding of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as it applies (or doesn't apply) to allowing worship services in school space.

Dr. Pedro Noguera sent an "open letter" to the New York Times School Book blog to explain his resignation from the SUNY Board of Trustees and by it, his role as chairman of the trustees' committee on charter schools.

Though his letter attempts a balanced view of charter schools, it's a bit too much in some areas. Even schizophrenic.

Dr. Noguera sought the committee chair's position because he believed in the "original idea" that charters could serve as "educational sites" for innovation to benefit children in public schools and models of best practices. After four years of approving about 50 more schools, he's now come to realize it "hasn't turned out that way" because "politicians in New York and Washington are far more interested in competition between public and charter schools than they are collaboration."

Dr. Noguera's choice of words is no accident. It's easy to blame "politicians in New York and Washington," for blunders, which echos the "Occupy" movement, though people of all political stripes do similar. As for the "original idea" of charters, in fact they were not meant to be isolated "sites" here and there; rather, charters were established to be "competition" with district schools ("Competition is good," Gov. Cuomo, a New York politician, has said).

Charter Expansion and Competition Well Established
The Charter Schools Act adopted in 1998 established 100 charter schools, not a small number. This cap was doubled in 2007 by the state legislature at the behest of then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer because they had shown comparatively favorable academic results and were in strong parental demand, particularly in New York City. This new limit of 200 occurred a full year before Dr. Noguera was appointed to the SUNY Board and voluntarily took the helm as charter committee chairman.

As to the issue of "competition," the funding formula for charter schools from the outset requires the school district of the charter student's residence to pay the charter a subset of what it spends per pupil from local, state and federal revenue sources. Money following the child is all about competition, and this funding scheme has remained to this day. School districts have never liked it because it is competitive in nature.

Dr. Noguera's became SUNY's charter committee chairman long after the established policy by the New York City mayor and schools chancellor to share district space with charter schools. After four years of approving 50 new charter schools, most of which were operated by charter management organizations and located in New York City, Dr. Noguera decides to move on, even as he acknowledges that SUNY has been approving schools designed to educate more "hard to serve" students.

Dr. Noguera performed exceptionally well on the SUNY Board overseeing charters, and he courageously took undeserved abuse by charter school opponents upset at the thought of school district space had to be shared with other public school students who happened to be in charter schools. There's nothing wrong with him wanting to move on from being in the middle of such rancor since it can wear on anyone. But his assertion that a "proliferation" of charter schools (many of which he approved) is "undermining" for the public system in various locations ignores the reality that charters are part of the public system, parents are enrolling their children, and many of those district schools supposedly being undermined do a poor job educating students.

Special Needs Students
It's unfortunate that Dr. Noguera is now accusing charter schools of "under-enrolling the most disadvantaged children" (i.e., students with disabilities and English language learners). Were that really true, he could have had made an example of investigating the malefactors, put some on probation or closed those found guilty. Every charter up for renewal is examined for this alleged malpractice, and it almost always comes up unfounded or conditions are stipulated to accommodate more students.

There are several reasons for this percentage disparity between charter and district schools in certain categories of students. They include the fact that charters are schools of choice (you can't make a parent enroll their child); the charter and district have a dual responsibility to serve students with disabilities; and that charters have more effectively taught behavior and literacy in lower grades that results in fewer students being given an IEP for "learning disabled" or "emotionally disturbed" when they age into middle school years. Moreover, charters are not deserving of criticism for school districts that teach English poorly, thereby keeping students as ELL for too long, and oversubscribe students as having a "disability" when they can't read at grade level.

Bridging for Collaboration
What becomes clear from Dr. Noguera's open letter is that he has a larger problem with education policy emanating from all levels of government that is demanding more from public schools, including school closures. The closure issue in particular he has never been comfortable, even to the point where he opposed closing the long under-performing New Covenant Charter School in Albany, the existence of which that school district hated.

With Dr. Noguera back full-time to his studies of urban schools at New York University, perhaps he can foster more "collaboration" between charter and district schools. It's a worthy but challenging endeavor since the opposition stems always from the district side. His credibility on both sides of this competition perhaps can bridge some of the divide.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

The Chalkboard's update last weekend on the anti-charter school saga continuing in Mount Vernon illustrates the ongoing challenge of reforming education in New York.

Charters have rarely been welcome by school districts in the state, but for the long interlude of Mayor Bloomberg's administration in New York City (which ends in fewer than 23 months). Charters rightly have a claim on public education funding, which does not belong to the school district, but exists to educate children, including those enrolled in a charter school.

Charter schools are not the only reform issue in play, as teacher evaluation has long been bringing headaches to school districts, particularly teacher unions that oppose the assessment component of evaluation; and school administrators that share the proverbial same bed and don't want to play enforcer.

The larger challenge for school districts is not the presence of a charter school(s), or a new teacher evaluation system or the legal mandates for school "turnarounds." Rather, it is finding ways to make more students college and career ready instead of opposing every idea that arrives. Fifty percent graduation rates for the state's largest urban school districts are bad enough; the high number of graduates that are not college-ready and require mediation will be a problem for years to come.

Mount Vernon Typical?
Which brings us back to the Mount Vernon City School District, in Westchester County bordering the Bronx. While the district wages war on its only charter school in its first year, the district has much larger, more important problems, beginning with its low student academic performance (which is the biggest reason the charter was approved).

The district is without a permanent superintendent since its board of education suspended Welton "Tony" Sawyer last November without public explanation (perhaps Dr. Sawyer advised the board to obey the law and pay its charter school?). It's been three years since the district got a budget passed by the few voters that show up. The nine-member board of education is best described as dysfunctional, with meetings that run for hours, and is under heavy influence from the teachers union local that influences low-turnout elections.

Like many school districts around the state, Mount Vernon's is the largest employer in the city, and acts more like an adult employment agency rather than an educator of children, considering the academic results and the animus for the charter that deigns to improve the situation.

School districts like this one, and there are not a few in the state, do not have high prospects for implementing reform. At a minimum it will take committed leadership. Who, for example, would want to be superintendent in a place like Mount Vernon? Whoever eventually does should wear a helmet to work.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

The Mount Vernon school district board of education just can't let go of its obsession against the Amani Charter School.

The latest twist in the school district's sordid behavior comes from its filing another lawsuit last week, this time demanding the court to order the state Education Department to stop enforcing state education law. Specifically, the court is being requested by the school district to order SED to stop intercepting state aid payments on behalf of the Mount Vernon's only charter school in response to the district's refusal to pay Amani for its resident students. For real.

Mount Vernon school district filed suit last year to block the charter from opening based on the absurd claim that the state Board of Regents violated the law by approving it. On a small technical issue, the court found an oversight in Amani's approved application and "remanded" it to the Regents to reconsider. In October, the Regents reapproved the charter school as it had been operating for nearly two months. Kudos to the judge for refusing to close the charter school on such specious technical grounds. With legal and litigious abuse like this, it's a wonder if the department and Regents will demand more teeth to prevent school districts from treating charters this way.

Previous Chalkboard posts on Mount Vernon's first and only charter are here and here.

Frivolous Claims
Still, the district won't let go, and now has accused the Regents of acting in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner and committing "abuse of discretion and/or violation of lawful procedure." After a dozen years of approving scores of charter schools, who but the Mount Vernon School District knew how "arbitrary and capricious" the Regents were behaving?

The school district's lawsuit claims that the existence of Amani Charter School will cause its remaining students in district schools to be "irreparably harmed," though it provides zero evidence to substantiate that claim. The harm that the district is attempting to the students at Amani Charter School by refusing to pay for them is the obvious hypocrisy in this whole case.

Mount Vernon is not the first school district to complain about the presence of a charter school, and no district outside of New York City enjoys paying for their students to attend them, even though their costs are offset in part from state aid for those charter students. It's called competition. Amani has only 80 students out of the 8,600 public school students in the district - less than one percent - meaning, school district officials are blowing smoke with this lawsuit. The fiscal impact of the charter school is so puny as to be a rounding error on the school district's $200 million budget.

That same budget has allowed the school district to run up thousands of dollars in litigation costs in trying to close a small charter school. At this point no one outside the district's administration knows how much since it refuses to respond to a freedom of information request for the amount of its lawyer fees to kill Amani Charter School, but that's another story.

The Albany City School District, only slightly larger than Mount Vernon, has been cruising along very well financially with its eleven charter schools and a $15 million surplus that enabled it to cut its property tax rate this year. Albany also refused to pay for its charter students in full for all of last year, but even that district gave up eventually and has since complied with stast law.

End it, Judge
Amani Charter School is surviving on the state's intercepts of school district aid until the district stops its Captain Ahab imitation of pursuing a lost cause in such obsessive, mean-spirited fashion. In fact, the school's enrollment is at capacity and already well on its way to full enrollment next year with an added grade level. Meanwhile, the Regents need to keep the pressure on low-performing school districts like Mount Vernon, including pursuing new chartering opportunities for children who need them. It also is time for the court to toss this frivolous, waste-product of a case.

This latest legal case from Mount Vernon school district officials should be laughed out of court once and for all, except it's no laughing matter when obsessive adults continue in pursuit of ending the dreams of children and families for a better educational opportunity being offered by Amani Charter School.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy26
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa

Wall Street Journal education reporter Lisa Fleisher blogged late today that SUNY Trustee, Dr. Pedro Noguera, has resigned from the SUNY Board of Trustees "over philosophical differences on charter schools," as described by Ms. Fleisher in an earlier tweet.

Dr. Noguera will be missed - not because he was the most enthusiastic charter school supporter (he wasn't), but that he was knowledgeable, challenging and interesting on education issues as a whole.

What prompted this resignation after four years of chairing the SUNY Board's committee on charter schools? It appears he's had enough of the political pushback, particularly in New York City, over space-sharing and got tired of representing the charter side.

Chairing a SUNY committee is a choice of the trustee; it's not forced on you. He obviously was willing to assume such a role, continue it for years, and approve dozens of new charter school along the way. No longer.

The final straw appears to be the approval and space-sharing arrangement for the Success Charter Network school in a district school in Brooklyn's Cobble Hill neighborhood, a more middle class area. Indeed, some neighborhood residents and others egged on by the city's organized charter opposition opposed the charter school's location, which bothered Dr. Noguera. Yet, hundreds of other families supported the school and are lining up to enroll their children. Yup, the middle class also is entitled to choice from charter schools for which the state's Charter Schools Act provides. For the families sending their students to the Cobble Hill charter, that's a good thing.

Charter Connection Doesn't Sit Well with Many
I suspect Dr. Noguera's discomfort level with charter school politics had been bubbling up for some time. Case in point was his appearance at the "Miseducation Nation" event in New York City last September which he participated as a panelist. The groups behind this event despise charters and education reform as a whole and they let him have it with a proverbial two-by-four. It didn't matter that Dr. Noguera's background and knowledge went far beyond charter schools, or that he had common ground with this crowd on many areas of education. He's connection to the state's charter schools was all that mattered, and it earned him scornful treatment.

Dr. Noguera's concern about deep divisions over charter schools resulting from the space sharing in district schools is not a reason to oppose them. A worse problem is the widespread educational malpractice in too many of the city's district schools. The response should be to enable charter schools to finance their own buildings through building aid, which they do not receive. Considering both the need and parental demand for better schools, the next best thing is to put high quality charters in available public space, even if the usual suspects have a turf issue.

Being tied to charter schools does not garner a courteous reaction in traditional education circles, nor does it win you many popularity contents. Competition in public education often elicits confrontation. Looks like Dr. Noguera had enough.

Live long and prosper.

Peter Murphy
for The Chalkboard
Twitter: @PeterMurphy
Facebook: Chalkboard Nycsa