Welcome to New York, and Here’s a To-Do List

Two of your suggestions tend to obscure an additional one. Closing the achievement gap and ending segregation can both be extended to ending the highest quality high schools in the city. These schools are filled with high achievers. They are also somewhat segregated from school to school. When I was a boy they were filled with Jews. Now they are disproportionately filled with Asians. So be it. If you try to close either off these gaps by placing students in them who can't pass their tests, you will have trashed the best of what we have. My daughter is in Stuyvesant. She is not Asian. She went to a gifted and talented grade school which had all ethnicities. They had some terrible behavior problems. The worst was a white student who shouldn't have ever been there. None of this is about race. If we don't preserve our best schools we will make a huge mistake and we will all be the losers. Close the achievement gap with money and time and labor and professionalism. But don't take any shortcuts or we will kill the goose. And it's a good goose.

“A high-profile example of the problem is the lack of black and Latino students at the eight specialized high schools where admission is decided by a single test. ” Why is that a problem? Unless the test is designed to be racially unfair, ithe problem does not lie with the test but with the system that prepares kids before they take the test. The implication here is that the standards should be lowered to achieve greater diversity. I truly find that offensive.

I’m certain a one Michael Feinberg, founder of Kipp Schools, is ready for another chance to continue making positive change in inner city education. Whether in Chicago, New York or some other inner city Mr. Feinberg has proven at risk children can perform as well as if not better than affluent white children when given the proper direction, less time off, positive role models and other tools. He began proving his theories over 20 years ago when he bet on Dallas’s inner city kids over his Ivy League education. He recently left Kipp due to allegations of misconduct which he denies. When I read that story I felt badly for the hundreds of other kids whose lives might now not be changed as if Mr. Feinberg were given another chance. Society as a whole is harmed by continuing to shame and banish professionals accused of sexual or other harassment. As a victim of violent sexual assault I believe most victims only want a sincere apology and in cases of violent sexual assault and assault that the abuser gets help and isn’t given further opportunities to abuse. We do not want to ruin another person’s life. Until we forgive and look beyond the allegations and focus on the contributions these accused individuals already made, will continue to make, society suffers. We as a society must call out wrongs done by professionals but we must stop over correcting, be willing to forgive the many who honestly express regret and find opportunities for them to continue to make positive change.

Start by eliminating pensions for teachers and switch to a defined contribution plan. That will scare away the teachers who are in the system for a fat, wasteful pension. NYC needs teachers who care more about the kids and less about themselves.

How about providing some really good zoned middle and high schools in the Bronx? For which Bronx kids receive priority? How about letting Bronx kids test for Hunter, given that the Bronx has fewer well-performing schools than other boroughs? Or open it to all five boroughs - hey now THAT'S an idea! How about not hiding the existence of poorly-performing schools by gleefully offering parents CHOICE!! How about giving the Bronx a city-wide G&T? Had anyone done anything like this, we might still be living in NYC.

Translation: Please lower standards, because "equity" and "equality" are the paramount educational goals. (Kindly do not bother to explain to anyone what that supposedly means.) Please also ignore the success of Asian students who come from low-income, ESL homes. That's just inconvenient. Feel free to trot out "segregation", since the relative achievement of the small cohort of white students (see related comment) is of course to blame for the lesser achievement of the majority. Plus it's a good way to shame and intimidate them. Finally, demand more and more from the taxpayer, and always uncritically presume that more spending produces better outcomes.

The majority of kids at Bronx Science and Stuyvesant are Asian--62% at Bronx Science and 73% at Stuyvesant. Half are "economically disadvantaged." The test the kids take to get in doesn't know what race they are, or whether they come from a poor family, or what language is spoken at home (and man of these kids come from immigrant households). The top scorers get in. That's it. And I don't understand why a few of the many high schools in this city can't simply available for brilliant kids--who all take the same test--regardless of ethnicity.

What about a clear focus on students learning English while enrolled in schools that are designed for students,whose primary language is English. How will this be addressed finally, other than a program here or a program there. and good luck?

New York City’s Public Schools are neighborhood schools. Therefore, by design, segregated and representing the ethnicity of the community they serve. In addition, student who have been through the IEP process, and are determined to have a special need are integrated into the neighborhood School where feasible. New York City Public Schools are charged with a daunting task each and every day to educate one million plus students it is a due to remarkable staff at the school level regardless of who the Chanchellor is.

Then there’s the old standby . Prepare three letters , After the first crisis , this letter says I am new to job and will do better . After the second crisis , the letter says things caught me by surprise . Then the third crisis and final letter - prepare three letters.

Another chancellor. Seen more than a dozen in the last 30 years blunder through the system without success Chancellors are nothing but high paid bureaucrats who will take the lucrative salary, promise change and succumb to those who want to destroy public education; with endorsements of charter schools, specialized schools,and no support for UFT and their members. They hide behind the guise of wanting to improve the education of the children. This one will be no better than his predecessor puppets. He too will be unable to address the poverty/disparity in this city. Homeless children belong to homeless families displaced by gentrifying neighborhoods and joblessness. Children struggling to achieve scholastically due to basic need insecurities of of food, shelter and caregivers who are financially secure enough to invest in them. Charter schools for homeless kids? Merriman, who once worked for Walton Family Foundation (WALMART) sees this as an opportunity to direct funds in his direction. He is a CEO and will play any card to his advantage.

Eleanor Roosevelt is a top tier High School that does not admit based on the single admissions test and in fact has rejected students who have been admitted to the specialized schools. So rather than change the admission criteria for the specialized schools without at least examining whether the students’ score on the admission exam correlates with success at the schools ( ie the exam may be well-matched to the school), simply pushing aside students who excel on the exam and would have been offered admission and replacing them with others, why not create more high quality High Schools like Eleanor Roosevelt, which already employ the broader admissions criteria? The priority should of course be to give all highly motivated and talented students the best education we can. New York City should treasure and value all of its children.

Teaching quality? Unaggressive curricula? The lack of proper, objective assessments of teachers? Teacher's union that's a giant drain on resources? Their underfunded pension program which will cost taxpayers tons more cash than the system already drains because they're too scared to make material, fundamental alterations to a deeply flawed system?

Amazing the way the Charter School business is tucked away at the bottom.... This is almost certainly the MAIN issue a chancellor has top deal with -- and also the main THREAT to public education! "The Charters" are really the "Charters School INDUSTRY" (or Cartel, really)--they're NOT some cozy, informal batch of independent schools or school reformers as your Orwellian title seeks to suggest! HOW MANY are aggregated under one person, such as Eva Moskowitz, for the PERSONAL ENRICHMENT of a person, or the industry? And de Blasio's "administration has at times struggled to navigate its relationship with the city’s 227 charter schools"? Isn't that, logically, the other way around? Shouldn't a group of schools have to be the ones "to navigate a relationship" with the chancellor and the Mayor (elected by the people of NYC, not selected in some backroom by fat-cats!) Instead, the Charter cartel, drunk with money and power from the likes of Bloomberg and Cuomo "administrations," take both for granted and feel self-entitled (just like the Kushners!) Look Merriman's arrogant statement: “If he’s willing to meet the sector at that level and see us as full partners, he’ll find people on the other side, and together with philanthropy, we could do some interesting things.." In other words, the think the chancellor should dance to THEIR tune, because of THEIR MONEY! And that's just what Joel Klein did, making all sorts of backroom deals for PUBLIC school facilities

Public education in NYC is a disaster, as this article so clearly points out. The problems are far deeper than charter schools, homelessness, high school selections or any other of the numerous reasons for failure mentioned. The only improvement will come from a chancellor who is willing to dismantle the whole quagmire of bureaucratic stupidity that has been allowed to flourish and start over. Until then parents, well off or poor, will continue to send the children elsewhere.

How about keeping middle class children (the real nyc middle class - professional parents who are not hedge fund managers) from leaving the system? These initiatives disadvantage their children by focusing on serving groups like homeless children. While they need not be neglected their parents are unlikely to participate in the school community nor provide that community with sources of time and money. Further these families, who by the way represent every ethnic and racial category, are seeing their children’s needs marginalized when their families are the most mobile, being able to move to the suburbs or to the private schools. They will vote with their feet, as they say, leaving behind the crumbling underresourced schools their time and money largely transformed in the last decade.

One more thing for the list: Support public schools already doing a great job, especially high schools that aren't specialized. Resources get tighter and these schools get short changed - even though they educate most of the kids in the NYC DOE system. Theses schools are not Title I, but that still have large parts of student body who are "free lunch" (so 40%-50%) and most, at least in the outer Boroughts, are as diverse as the UN both economically and ethnically. Majority of kids in these schools are what used to be considered "typical" students who perform somewhere in B to A grade range, depending on subject. Many of these schools excel because of leadershp and dedication the educators and administrators there - as they watch resources and funding get cut year after year. Educating these kids and these schools deserves attention too. The educators shouldn't be underfunded and in constant struggle for resources and funding. On Charters - When accessible public school is failing, families are happy to have a better functioning Charter school to send their kids to. Fair enough. But the DOE still gives the Charter school finacial assist (e.g., reduced rent) and in so doing drains resources from under-funded public school system. Not fair. Let's fix the public schools and provide all schools adequate funding and resource before we give away to for-profit companies.

Dedication to the city's homeless children is critical. This is a heartbreaking tragedy. One paramount item inexplicably left off this to-do list is to try something - anything - to limit the on-going harm to children's education caused by the teacher's union.

We actually do have a few schools that serve children in poverty that are doing exceptionally well. Very often these schools are run by dedicated principals/leaders. The NYT has from time to time featured stories about these schools. In other words, we have examples of schools that work. Why not use these as scalable models?

Another 2nd rate chancellor looking for a bigger paycheck.

#1 Get cops out of schools.

Opportunity can be equalized to some extent but results will always vary. A child living in poverty, perhaps in a shelter, with a never married single parent and several siblings faces challenges of hunger and danger that are unknown to children living economically comfortable lives in safe neighborhoods with married parents. Middle class values and expectations are also variables. There are plenty of problems in non-minority non-poor families but there is more support and more second and third chances. Having moved to Silicon Valley I as a Caucasian woman am now in the minority. Public schools are competitive and suicide is a hidden problem. Expectations are high but nurturing is low. Or so it seems. I feel like the only “liberal artist” in the entire area. Good luck to my former colleagues in the east and to NYC’s new chancellor as they face the daunting task of solving an eternal problem- how to cure poverty immediately. Charter school with their cultures of rigidity and punishment are damaging to students and teachers. Perhaps there is no solution.

One more issue: expanding ENL/dual language SCHOOLS in the city. As an educator for over 6 years in the South Bronx, I know there is a dire shortage of qualified bilingual teachers, specifically in Arabic (which is one of the fastest growing languages in the DOE). This a pressing challenge. And to tack on to the segregation problem, I believe there is no real solution. The majority of my students do not have computers/internet access at home, so I do not assign online homework. However, in wealthier school districts, which assumedly people want to integrate these children into, online classwork and homework are par for the course. How do we handle a problem like this? Moreover, there is, sadly, a cultural...gap between, say, District 12 and District 2. When a child lives in a low-income neighborhood, where very few people have aspirations beyond a high school diploma, they simply mimic what they see. This life view is not conducive to a rigorous educational process.

An audit released last month by the State Education Department revealed that make-up and targeted recovery credit courses administered at John Dewey High School were not in compliance with state regulations and local education requirements. A sample of 280 makeup courses showed that 89% did not meet instruction hour eligibility requirements, 77% were taught by teachers that were not certified in the appropriate subject area, 96% of courses had credits awarded inappropriately, and 27% students would not have graduated if they had not been awarded credits for which they were not entitled.” The report further concluded that course credit was not awarded appropriately in any of the 66 courses sampled. At a time when the Mayor boasts of improvements in the city’s graduation rates, these findings -- which are probably the tip the iceberg -- demonstrate that his boasts are false to the facts. Eliminating these fraudulent practices and punishing the transgressors needs to be at the top of Carranza’s to-do list.

On the subject of integration, which the selective schools constantly receive more attention, the more important issue is the gerrymanding of school districts and the preference that district residents receive for high schools. I can understand wanting younger students not to have to travel long distances, but the high school preferences, given mostly by the D2 and D26 is unfair, and can be solved by NYC without any action by the state. D2 includes the upper east side, and snakes down to pick up Tribeca, neatly avoiding the lower east side. Students residing in Harlem are closer to Eleanor Roosevelt high, but wealthy kids from Tribeca get priority. Eleanor Roosevelt would be turning over in her grave. That the districts that effectively restrict their high schools to their residents are far more white and Asian that the average NYC district is no coincidence. If the new Chancellor is serious about a child's zip code not limiting his education, he needs to deal with these policies.