NY won the Federal Race to the Top money but except for a longtime Unity rep, the people aren't very happy over at Gothamschools.org. Most believe the funding will be used to further teacher bashing and I agree.
Diane Ravitch explained it all earlier this month.
Yesterday, Professor Ravitch kind of summed it up succinctly: "Gosh, as a result of Arne's largesse, NY will have many more charters, teachers will be evaluated by whether students scores go up, and many principals and teachers will be fired so their low scoring school can be turned around. Hasn't worked anywhere yet, but hey you never know!"
Diane
What do you think?
11 comments:
Why should lack of any scientific research be a concern? Meanwhile, Obama is starting to tone down the anti teacher rhetoric before the election. Maybe some policy changes on education are needed before we support the Democrats again.
So the NYC schools will receive around 300 million dollars. Compared to the total budget of more than 20 Billion this great RTT money comes to how much of the total spent on NY schools? For this amount the UFT gave in on test scores for evaluations and lifting the cap on charter schools. Consistent with the negotiating that the UFT has been involved in since the 05 contract. What exactly did the UFT receive for this capitulation?
UFT members get nothing. Who knows about the leadership?
Newsday has a very good break down of how the money will be allocated. NYC receives $326.6 million or 68.58 percent of the total awarded to NY State. Of the total State allowance of 696 million 219.7 will be spent on new standards and assessments, and revised curriculum. Hmmmm. got that right almost 1/3 of the total on allocations that will not reduce class size or offer real improvement for the classroom. Add to this 64.2 million on are you ready.....New data systems to track student performance or as I will refer to it the son of ARIS. For this the unions gave up tenure as is and opted for tenure based on student statistics. SOOOO, as me sees it a big chunk will be used to further destroy the teaching ranks. To heck with Obama,Duncan,Bloomberg,Klein.Tisch,Weingarten,Mulgrew,Steiner and the others whoses names I cannot recall oh yeah Moskowitz. All eyes should be on Chicago and the other locals and the NEA. Who knows, maybe Bloomberg will decide to have a Mosque built on the present site of the Tweed offices enough terrorists are there daily so it makes sense to me.
Marc Sternberg, Former principal of Bronx Lab HS (Evander Child Campus) is the new deputy chancellor of Portfolio Planning as of July 1st. He was also a TFA teacher who parlayed his three years of teaching to become a principal, a deputy chancellor while keeping his Vice President position of Victory Schools, an organization that launches and manages charter schools. Isn't anyone going to question this? The DoE continues to hire administrators that have ties to charter schools organizations. There's a fox watching over the hen house!
here's the link to the info:
http://www.bronx.com/news/usa/323.html
http://schools.nyc.gov/Offices/SCA/AboutUs/News/GoodLuckSharon.htm
Like I put on ED NOTES.
I want to thank ICE and GEM's efforts in getting our city the Race to the Top money. I was upset that there was no mention of ICE or GEM's work in any of the press conferences yesterday. This would not have happened without ICE and GEM. I hope the state allows ICE and GEM to continue to be a partner with RttT spending, making sure that all money goes directly to students.
The last comment makes absolutely no sense.
Greetings,
This is a Press Conference about NYS winning the Race to the Top Grant of $700 million from the Federal Government. As educators, we have to be aware this money represents a fishbone in our throat. Why? To win it, NYS had to vote a law linking teachers' evaluations to students' test scores, and increase the cap of charter schools from 200 to 460; this is significant because it means the ATR pool will continue to increase and more public schools will be on the chopping block. The money will be used in a way that favors charter schools and the continued privatization of public schools. All of those who were part of the team of the Race to the Top application are complicit in the demise of Public Education. If you care about the sanctity of public education, public schools and teachers, join the campaign to defend and improve the quality of the public school system.
Concerned Educators Network
One reason Louisiana lost out to the Race To The Top is that so few school systems statewide were willing to collaborate with the Louisiana Department of Education. Why? Because they have had an up-close view of what happened in New Orleans when the state took over the system and privatized schools, abolished democratic control of local schools, and replaced veteran teachers with temporary untrained teachers. New Orleans was a beachhead for the anti-democratic forces of privatization, and the market reformers who see democracy as an obstacle to progress tried to impose limits are board authority statewide. They also were more likely to see the research that shows virtually no change in the rate of student performance before and after the takeover.
Ultimately, Louisiana lost the Race To The Top because local schools officials learned from experience that trading democracy for technocratic top-down control is a bad deal.
Lance Hill, Ph.D.
Executive Director
Southern Institute for Education and Research
Tulane University
How about using some of that money to fund substitute teachers? We are being cut all over the city. Cutting school programs mean more ATR's and less substitutes. Nothing wrong with ATR's, they need their jobs back too!
Substitute person you are absolutely right. Problem is DOE will not spend money wisely. We all know this.
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