Question Value of Data: Claim Klein Grading Plan Misses Target

Question Value of Data
Claim Klein Grading Plan Misses Target

By HOWARD MEGDAL

Teachers' and school administrators' union leaders gave a yellow light to Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein's plan to grade the city's schools based on periodic testing, parent/Teacher/student surveys, and other benchmarks.

JILL LEVY: Data won't answer the 'whys.' The plan, with a cost estimated at $20-$25 million, calls for each of the city's schools to receive a grade of A, B, C, D or F measuring student progress over previous scores, along with a quality score determined by an on-site review by the Department of Education. Student growth will be measured by, among other things, still-to-be-developed tests in math and literacy to be given every six to eight weeks.

UFT Feels Test Stress

United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten criticized the DOE for emphasizing tests in an op-ed article in USA Today April 13.

"Educators throughout the system have worked hard with the kids to achieve more, and we hope to keep scores moving in the right direction," she said. "But mayoral control does not have to be a system that makes high-stakes testing the sole measure of achievement."

Though the Chancellor called the new system "a much more robust and informative set of markers" than previous efforts, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Jill Levy expressed concern over what the measures will not identify.

"We are encouraged by the efforts to accumulate data on individual students, but there is one piece missing: the data that will tell us why individual students are not reaching the goals we have set for them," Ms. Levy said in an April 11 statement. "That piece is key for Principals and their staff to make a positive impact on their students." Both Ms. Weingarten and Ms. Levy expressed frustration over being kept out of the planning for the latest DOE initiatives.

"It goes without saying that we are disappointed that Teachers who are in the classrooms working with kids every day were not involved in the planning process," Ms. Weingarten said in an April 12 statement. "Over the course of the next year it will be critical for Teachers to have a voice in the plan's implementation - and that's presumably why the system included a teacher survey. This is a complex plan with a great deal at stake for all our schools and students. Implementation - never an easy job - will be infinitely more successful if all parties are working together."

Another Slap

For Ms. Levy, whose members will be responsible for managing the data used to measure the schools, allowing parents to access 38 diagnostic indicators for their child in real time, the latest changes amount to yet another slap in the face for a union working under an expired contract since July 1, 2003.

JOEL I. KLEIN: 'More robust markers.' "At the same time the Chancellor is asking to hold Principals and other school leaders more accountable, CSA members are simply asking the Chancellor to be more accountable to them and provide them with an appropriate contract," she said.

The Chancellor emphasized that new training and support would be provided to Principals on "our nickel."

'A Two-Way Street'

"Accountability is a two-way street," Mr. Klein said. "We will be responsible to the Principals to provide the data necessary to implement this system."

But Ms. Levy asserted that these changes were far from a fait accompli, and needed to be negotiated with her members.

"I think that in doing this, Joel is going to alienate not only his current Principals and other supervisors, but potential Principals and supervisors in the City of New York," Ms. Levy said, referring to the proposed changes as "a sword of Damocles" hanging over her members.

The nature of that sword is still being finalized. "There's no exact formula yet," Mr. Klein said of determining the grading system. "What we have to do is get the experience of this year, plug that data in, and use it to determine what it will take to be an A school, a B school, and so on."

He did stipulate that schools will be measured against others with similar numbers of students who are black and Hispanic, receiving school lunch aid, and in special education or English Language Learner programs.

Those schools that score well under the new measures will receive additional funding, according to the Chancellor, while those that score poorly will be penalized, and even closed.

"We're going to reward those schools doing the good work," Mr. Klein said. "They will become sites that other educators can visit."