COMMENTARY | Thousands of American blacks held a rally in Harlem last week to protest a lawsuit filed by the New York chapter of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) which seeks to prevent the city from closing 22 of the state's worst schools. Additionally, should their effort fail, the lawsuit also seeks to block the city from giving charter schools space to operate in the buildings currently occupied by the failed public school system once they are vacated. Where this might seem like the perfect opportunity for the NAACP to come to the rescue of New York's black community, the New York state chapter of the civil rights organization has signed on as a second petitioner in the UFT's suit.
Members of the black community see the joint lawsuit as an effort to limit better educational options for low-income families who can't afford private schools or move to more affluent neighborhoods where better public schools exist. Where space is at a premium in New York, low income families fear that blocking charters from operating in public buildings will hamper charter growth and limit their access to better education for their children.
Parental protesters at the rally were joined by charter school operators like Geoffrey Canada of the Harlem Children's Zone. Despite demands that the NAACP withdraw from the suit, state chapter President Hazel Dukes remains unmoved. Using the same kind of language once reserved for white opponents of the civil rights movement, Dukes' message to black protesters who oppose the lawsuit is that they "can march and have rallies all day long. . . . We will not respond."
Two of the schools Dukes wants to protect are the Academy for Collaborative Education in Harlem and Columbus High School in the Bronx. The fact that only 3 percent of students at the Harlem school tested at grade level in English and only 9 percent in math last year is irrelevant to Dukes. That the four-year graduation rate at the Bronx facility in 2009 was 40 percent, versus a city-wide average of 63 percent, and that less than 10 percent of special education students graduated on time seems equally unimportant.
That the teachers at the schools are failing to educate the children is beside the point. What is of concern to the NAACP and the teachers union is they must keep these abysmal schools open to preserve jobs for their members.
Where individual states largely have control over their own education, President George Bush signed into law the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) to set national standards. According to the Department of Education website, "A glaring disparity exists in the achievement of Black, Hispanic, and students living in poverty when compared to white and more affluent students in the subjects of reading and mathematics." Therefore, the purpose of the legislation was "to eliminate the achievement gap that exists between groups of students within our nation's schools."
By an overwhelming bipartisan majority, NCLB was enacted by the 107th Congress in 2001 and signed into law in 2002. The law requires each state to set academic standards; to periodically test all students in science, reading and math in grades 3-8 and once in high school; and set annual accountability targets to be met by every school. The goal set by NCLB is that all students would be "proficient" in these areas by 2014 and requires states and school districts to intervene in schools that miss their annual targets for multiple years. This is the action being taken by city leaders in New York now, which the NAACP and the UFT are fighting to prevent.
To combat the failure of teachers to provide adequate education, schools are trying to boost student scores by lowering their test standards. Not only is this tactic ridiculous and stupid, it is an insulting effort on the part of teachers and their unions to hide their failures. Standards need to rise in order to help students compete with their national and international peers. Since 2005, more states have lowered their standards than raised them. Another problem children are facing is that state standards differ greatly; children may be considered proficient in one state and not in another.
What's peculiar is that while the No Child Left Behind Act aims to raise academic standards, states are trying to lower them. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said, "We're lying to our children when we tell them they're proficient, but they're not achieving at a level that will prepare them for success once they graduate."
However, 37 percent of America's schools today are not meeting the annual targets mandated by NCLB. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that number could more than double to over 80 percent of schools by the end of this year. According to the Obama administration, rather than continuing to demand that teachers step up their efforts to comply with the higher standards of NCLB, these statistics prove a need to "fix the law" and lower educational expectations.
While Senate Republicans advocate a $5 billion reduction as part of their proposed across-the-board $61 billion budget cut, according to the Pelican Post, President Obama insists he has no plan to reduce federal education funding. Instead, Obama called congressional leaders to revise No Child Left Behind and expand his new education plan, Race to the Top. Race to the Top differs from No Child Left Behind in that RTTT redefines a "failing" institution and places a stronger focus on persistently low-performing schools. RTTT also avoids placing sanctions on schools that fall short of federal standards, reports the Washington Post.
Instead of continuing with the current NCLB program, President Obama's plan will replace No Child Left Behind's high accountability system with lower, more achievable standards. Rather than holding teachers accountable to a program that establishes a national proficiency standard for all of America's graduating students, Obama wants to establish a new federal framework that allows schools to move away from a "one-size-fits-all approach" and enable students to progress and succeed at their own pace.
The Labor Department reported last month that, compared to a rate of less than 13 percent in May of 2000, the unemployment rate for students aged 16 to 19 was over 24 percent. Perhaps Obama's desire to establish a program that enables students to slack at "their own pace" rather than expecting them to step up to the expectations of employers in a strained and highly competitive economy is not the brightest of measures.
Additionally, rather than labeling more and more schools that fail as "failing" under NCLB standards, which are punished by cuts in federal funds, Obama wants to put the cart before the horse and pay incompetent teachers more money as an incentive to become better teachers, according to CNN.
Amy Wilkins of the nonprofit advocacy group Education Trust, said that NCLB is due for a face-lift and that the administration has learned that "you get more change if there is some competition," reports Politico. Where Wilkins likes to pretend her "nonprofit" efforts are "for the children," the Education Trust is partners with the American Federation of Teachers and a coalition of groups including the NAACP, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, and the AFL-CIO.
A 2010 federal study shows that nearly a third of the states lowered their academic proficiency standards in order to help schools stay ahead of sanctions under the No Child Left Behind Act. This study, the first by the federal Department of Education's research arm to use a statistical comparison between federal and state tests to analyze whether states had changed testing standards, found that 15 states lowered proficiency standards in fourth- or eighth-grade reading or math from 2005 to 2007, according to the New York Times.. Three states, Maine, Oklahoma and Wyoming, lowered standards in both subjects at both grade levels, the study said.
Charter schools are publicly financed but privately operated. Still, teachers in both systems are members of the United Federation of Teachers. Where enrollment in a charter school is open to everyone, acceptance is determined through lotteries because there are far more students who want to attend charter schools than there are seats available. Primarily, charter schools exist in the poorest neighborhoods and most charter students are black or Hispanic.
In 2010, students of New York's charter schools had higher proficiency scores than those of public-school competitors in their districts. In math, 81 percent of charter students scored higher in proficiency tests than those in public schools, with 61 percent of those scores being 20 percentage points higher. In English, 70 percent of charter schools beat their district competitors. Unfortunately, against the belief of the protesters in New York, not all charter schools are performing better than their public alternatives.
For example, the Equity Project Charter School received celebratory headlines and accolades when it opened in September of 2009 for its unusual plan. In addition to its plan of recruiting top teachers for a $125,000 salary -- substantially more than the average teacher salary anywhere else in the country -- it offers an additional annual bonus of $25,000. Against the excitement and anticipated success of this reward first - success later approach with excessive incentive pay for teachers, the test scores of their students did not match the hoopla.
When it came to testing students to determine the real achievement of the program, only 37.4 percent of the students were proficient in math and 24 percent were proficient in English. On average, students of public schools in Equity Project's Washington Heights district performed better.
While charter schools lost more ground than traditional public schools statewide when the state raised proficiency standards, founder and principal of Equity Project Zeke Vanderhoek was dismissive of their abysmal achievements.
"It's not unexpected" Vanderhoek told the Wall Street Journal in 2010 regarding community expectations that teachers actually deliver on their promises of higher performance levels in their first year. "I'm very confident in the vision of the school and the teachers we have, but we're not there yet."
In 2009, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, only about a third of fourth graders and a fifth of high school seniors scored at or above the proficiency level on a science test and one or two students out of every 100 displayed the level of mastery that the federal panel governing the tests defines as advanced.
"I was rather dismayed at the relatively lackluster performance at the top of the achievement levels," Alan Friedman told the New York Times in 2010. Friedman is a former chief executive of the New York Hall of Science and sits on the board that oversees the federal tests.
Isn't it strange how teachers unions and academic experts like Friedman and Vanderhoek blame low test scores on a student's inability to learn rather than the teachers' inability to teach? Isn't it awkward that civil rights leaders like Hazel Dukes and the NAACP will side with the objectives of powerful unions than with the powerless minority populace they claim they were established to defend?
Additionally, isn't it odd how Barack Obama chooses to cater to the UTF and other unions as we head toward the 2012 election cycle and isn't it infuriating how all of them are committed to the interests of each other rather than to the wishes of taxpayers who fund their paychecks?
Sources:
"NAACP vs. Black Parents", The National Policy Institute
"What is the Purpose of the No Child Left Behind Acts?", U.S. Department of Education
"States Lowering Standards Won't Improve Education", Education Today
"NAACP vs. Black Parents", Wall Street Journal
Robert Ross, "Obama to Overhaul "No Child Left Behind" and Expand "Race to the Top", The Pelican Post
"The Blueprint for Reform", U.S. Department of Education
Cynthia Gordy, "Do Obama's Education Policies Stack Up to His Goals?", The Root
Perry Bacon, Jr., "Obama pitches education ideas in Boston", The Washington Post
"Employment Situation Summary", United States Department of Labor/ Bureau of Labor Statistics
"Current Labor Statistics Monthly Labor Review May 2000", Bureau of Labor Statistics
"President Obama Calls on Congress to Fix No Child Left Behind Before the Start of the Next School Year" The White House
Becky Britain, "Obama pushes No Child Left Behind", CNN
Nia-Malika Henderson, "New course for No Child Left Behind", Politico
Rob Eno, " "It's for the 'children'" - MTA urges teachers to ditch class on April 4th to pressure lawmakers ", Red Mass Group
"Ed Trust, Teachers' Union Unite to Curb For-Profit Abuses", The Education Trust
"Mapping State Proficiency Standards", National Center for Education Statistics
Sam Dillon, "Federal Researchers Find Lower Standards in Schools" The New York Times
Barbara Martinez, "New Proficiency Standards Hit Charters" Wall Street Journal
"The Nation's Report Card: Science 2009", National Center for Education Statistics
There are no comments yet