After 9 Years of Corporate Reform Schooling, New Yorkers Conclude Bloomberg Has Failed to Improve Education

 

Even with his own media empire to tout his puffed up edu-exploits, and even with a herd of imported thin-lipped British economists as edu-advisors, and even with a passel of lawyers led by Joel "McChoakumchild" Klein to put a choke hold on the NYC Department of Education, and even with an unending stream of philanthrocapitalist dough to push his pet projects, and even with his own appointed Board to rubber stamp his every edu-whim, and even with billions of his own cash to craft an image and buy the best Madison Avenue PR machine to lead an unending propaganda campaign, the Little Prince just could not pull it off. The business of education as a business just went bust!

According to a new poll that, by the way, mirrors a number of attitudes expressed in the latest PDK poll, 2 out of 3 New Yorkers say Bloomberg has not improved education in the New York City.  A big clip from the NYTimes:

New Yorkers are broadly dissatisfied with the quality of their public schools, and most say the city’s school system has stagnated or declined since Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took control of it nine years ago, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll.

Mr. Bloomberg has made improving the schools a focus of his mayoralty, seizing authority over the bureaucracy, doubling the budget and opening hundreds of additional, small schools. Still, even as his overall approval rating, 45 percent, is at a six-year low, considerably fewer residents — 34 percent — approve of how the mayor is handling education.

“What had been a signature issue for Bloomberg may not be the legacy issue he hoped it would be,” said Bruce M. Gyory, a political consultant and adjunct professor at the State University of New York at Albany.

In follow-up interviews, poll respondents expressed various reasons for their dissatisfaction, including frustration over the system of school choice, services for disabled children and the emphasis on standardized tests.

“Bloomberg treats the schools and the education system like a business,” said Liette Pedraza-Tucker, 41, a film editor from Brooklyn. “But schools aren’t a business. Kids need nurturing, not to be treated like adults.”

Robert Kemp, 74, a retired bank officer from Queens, said: “What they’re teaching is too narrowly focused. It’s all let’s pass tests; it’s not about turning out educated kids.”

City Hall played down the results. “The numbers we are focused on are the gains our students are making in the classroom, and by those measures, we have made historic progress,” said Julie Wood, a mayoral spokeswoman. “Graduation rates are at an all-time high and we are outpacing the rest of the state on test scores. But we have to keep raising the bar.”

The poll was conducted Aug. 9 to 15, with telephone interviews of 1,027 adults throughout New York City. Of respondents, 287 identified themselves as parents, and 167 said they were parents of a child in public school. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points for all adults, plus or minus six percentage points for all parents and plus or minus eight percentage points for public school parents.

Dissatisfaction with public schools in New York is longstanding. Through much of the 1990s, as well as in Mr. Bloomberg’s first years in office, few residents were satisfied, past New York Times/CBS News polls found.

As Mr. Bloomberg reorganized the system and poured money into it, satisfaction slowly grew. It appeared to peak in 2009, when nearly one-third of registered voters said they were satisfied with the schools, and 57 percent with Mr. Bloomberg’s handling of them, according to Quinnipiac University polls.

But in 2010, a recalibrating of state test scores sent the city’s soaring passing rates nearly back to 2003 levels. Then Mr. Bloomberg made what the public may have judged as his biggest gaffe, naming Cathleen P. Black, a publishing executive with no education experience, as the schools chancellor. Even though Ms. Black was dismissed in April after three months, the effects on public opinion linger, analysts said. Fewer people today approve of Mr. Bloomberg’s handling of education now than in his first years as mayor.

And Dennis M. Walcott, the longtime deputy mayor who replaced Ms. Black as chancellor, has not yet made a strong impression, with 53 percent of those polled having no opinion on his performance.

A year of political attacks on teachers and their unions nationally appeared not to have registered with New Yorkers. A quarter said they had a favorable opinion of the local teachers’ union, compared with 16 percent who had an unfavorable opinion. A majority did not express an opinion.

Among parents, 34 percent volunteered that teachers were the best thing about their child’s school, more than in 2004, when 22 percent said so. A plurality of parents said teacher quality was the most important thing to look at when choosing a school.

Crowding and class sizes, which are growing, ranked highest when parents were asked to name the worst thing about their schools, at 13 percent. It is an issue frequently mentioned by the teachers’ union and parents, but not City Hall.. . .

If the Public Mattered to Arne and the Reform Schoolers, What Might They Learn?

Last week the 43rd annual PDK/Gallup Poll was published, and never in the history of the Poll has the concept of "a public" been more threatened by a virulent form of corporatism that seeks to replace democratic institutions with unregulated profiteering by educons schooled in the virtue of selfishness and the worship of wealth.

I have pulled some of the findings from the Poll and pasted them below, along with few comments (click on any chart to enlarge).

 

Notice above the makeup of the respondents: mostly conservative, mostly above 40, mostly without public school children of their own.  Where once PDK was keen on minority, urban, and rural representation in their poll, the corporate reform schoolers who now hold sway at what was once a great organization don't even bother, anymore. 

 

A couple of points here.  The American public supports public school choice, even if housing patterns will doubtless assure continued segregation unless we have an active Federal commitment to diversity in schooling, which in itself is a stopgap until such time as we have a societal commitment to end poverty in America.  With Gates, Broad, and the Waltons much more interested in segregative charters than integrative magnet schools, resegregation will continue unabated until educators and parents reclaim the public schools. 

Point 2: By increasing numbers, the American public continues to oppose school vouchers, even as the corporate antiquarians and John Birchers continue to try to impose them.

 

Despite the Business Roundtable's, i. e., Arne Duncan's fixation on making teacher evaluations and teacher pay subject to student test scores, Table 12 shows that the American public, even this conservative cross-section, sees student test scores the least important of four factors asked about. 

 

And, hey Arne, the American public in not interested in your lockdown national curriculum, whether Republican, Democratic, or Independent.  Please see above!!

 

 Despite the relentless corporate hammering of teachers in the corporate media (see below), the American public is not fooled, as the figures above indicate.  In fact, the percentage of the public giving teachers an "A" has more than doubled from 27 years ago.

 

Just above, Table 26 does not surprise, given the large percentage of respondents who don't have children in public schools, but notice in Table 28 that the grading by parents who have children in public schools continues to go up, despite the corporate reform schooler policies aimed to crush them by making schools untenable test factories.  This represents nothing less than a remarkable example of persistence and hard work by educators determined to serve the needs of children in an era when it has never been so hard to be a teacher.  

 

Money continues to be the biggest problem for schools, based on the poll results.  And despite the conservative sample, and despite the demonization of public schools and teachers, the American public continues to believe in public schools and public education.

 

Finally, Table 23 shows clearly that the American public does not support the virtual ed vultures who see the solution to educating the poor as using 21st Century technology that mimics 19th Century parrot pedagogy.

ASCD Response to PDK Gallup Poll

The annual PDK poll is out, and if there is anything that stands out at first glance, it is how NCLB has been effective in smashing public confidence in the public schools. While 3 out of 4 Americans believe NCLB has done nothing to help their local schools, that does not alter the fact that NCLB is crushing public confidence, with 60% giving public schools a "C" or worse. From MarketWatch:

Last update: 6:30 a.m. EDT Aug. 21, 2008

ALEXANDRIA, Va.,, Aug 21, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Americans want educators, not politicians, to work with the new president to improve NCLB

According to a statement by Gene R. Carter, Executive Director of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, results from the 40th Phi Delta Kappa International (PDK)/Gallup Poll of the "Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools" send a clear message
about the need to improve U.S. education:

-- Fewer than 2 of 10 Americans believe No Child Left Behind (NCLB) should continue without significant change. Only 1 in 4 think the legislation is helping their local schools.

-- Americans fear U.S. schools are not keeping up in today's global economy. About half gave schools in Europe and Asia grades of As and Bs, compared with the more than 60 percent who assigned U.S. schools grades of Cs or below.

-- The vast majority of the American public--77 percent--feels the new president should rely on educators for advice about how to turn around our flailing education system.

The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) represents a wide spectrum of educators--classroom teachers, principals, district administrators, curriculum developers, college professors, and others--who know what's best for our children. Our members' on-the-ground understanding of how to improve student achievement is the basis of ASCD's policy recommendations for improving NCLB.

A cornerstone of NCLB is the assessment of students and schools. But the law's current assessment and accountability system relies heavily on standardized tests that provide just a snapshot of student knowledge and ability at a single moment in time. When the PDK/Gallup Poll asked Americans to choose the assessment method they believe provides the most accurate picture of student achievement, more chose examples of student work and teacher observations than test scores. And 80 percent of Americans think school performance should be measured by student academic progress instead of the percentage of students who pass a state test.

ASCD educators stand ready to help the new administration improve U.S. education policies. Will the next president work to recast the definition of a successful learner from one whose achievement is measured solely by academic tests to one who is knowledgeable, emotionally and physically healthy, civically inspired, engaged in the arts, prepared for work and economic self-sufficiency, and ready for the world beyond formal schooling? If not, he will jeopardize both our kids' future success in the workplace and our country's future success in the global marketplace.

For complete results from the PDK/Gallup Poll, visit http://www.pdkpoll.org. To access ASCD's 2008 Legislative Agenda, visit http://www.ascd.org/legislativeagenda.

Founded in 1943, ASCD, a nonprofit association, is one of the largest professional development organizations for educator leaders. It provides education information services; offers cutting-edge professional development for effective learning, teaching, and leadership; and supports activities to provide educational equity for all students. ASCD's membership of more than 175,000 includes principals, teachers, superintendents, professors of education, and other educators from 119 countries. The Association also has nearly 60 affiliates throughout the world.

SOURCE Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

 http://www.ascd.org

Public Attitudes Toward the Public Schools

Michael Martin's summary of the PDK/Gallup Poll:

* 67% of parents graded their local school an "A" or "B" in 2007 compared to 64% in 2006.
* 60% agreed "most public school students leave high school adequately prepared for college."
* The "biggest problem" facing schools is lack of funding.
* 40% had a negative view of NCLB, while only 31% had a favorable view
* Those claiming no opinion on NCLB declined from 69% in 2003 to 29% in 2007 with 27 of that 40 point change becoming negative.
* 48% are concerned that NCLB is reducing the teaching of "science, health, social studies, and the arts."
* only 27% supported "finding an alternative to the existing public school system."
* only 39% supported vouchers for private schools.
* two-thirds of the public and 70% of public school parents opposed having "private profit-making corporations" run local schools.
* 59% of the public and 57% of public school parents opposed having local mayors take over schools.
* 52% of parents felt "there is too much emphasis on achievement testing" in 2007 compared with only 32% in 2002, and 16 of that 20 point change previously felt it was "about right."
* 62% said that the current emphasis on standardized tests was a "bad thing" because it encouraged teachers to teach to the tests. Only 39% of parents were concerned about this in 2003.
* 82% prefer a measure of student improvement, rather than whether students pass a test, as the best way to measure school performance.
* 73% said they were "not willing" to have their child attend a virtual high school over the internet.
* 85% said it was important for children to learn a foreign language (but not necessarily in school).
* 79% think that English Language Learners should not have their scores counted in measuring school performance until after they pass an English proficiency test.
* 78% of public school parents said that Special Education students should not be required to meet the same academic standards as other students.

Michael T. Martin
Research Analyst
Arizona School Boards Association