Dear Commons Community,

President Barack Obama visited New York City yesterday, more precisely P-Tech High School in Brooklyn.  The school, Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-Tech)  was touted by Obama in his 2013 State of the Union address.  P-Tech is  a collaboration between New York public schools, the City University of New York and IBM, where students will graduate with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree.  President Obama’s visit was described  by the New York Times:

“Mr. Obama, dressed in shirt sleeves, was showered with cheers by the visibly energized students and a cadre of New York politicians as he took the podium at Pathways in Technology Early College High School. “Hello Brooklyn,” he said, before starting into his argument for creating more schools like the one he was visiting, casting them as essential in preparing the next generation for competition in a shrinking world marketplace.

“This country should be doing everything in our power to give more kids the chance to go to schools just like this one,” the president said, calling the school, known as P-Tech, a ticket into the middle class.

“In previous generations, America’s standing economically was so much higher than everybody else’s that we didn’t have a lot of competition,” he added. “Now, you’ve got billions of people from Beijing to Bangalore to Moscow, all of whom are competing with you directly. And they’re — those countries are working every day, to out-educate and outcompete us.”

Mr. Obama’s wish list included preschool availability for every 4-year-old in the United States, access for every student to a high-speed Internet connection, lower college costs, redesigned high schools that teach the skills needed in a high-tech economy and greater investment in teachers.”

Without a doubt, P-Tech is a good model for urban school districts, however, it is but one of many small schools opened during Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor.  Bloomberg created 654 new schools — of which 173 were charter schools — and shuttered 164 schools for low academic performance. While many of the new schools have demonstrated improved student performance, many have also been the source of a good deal of community friction and distrust with the New York City Department of Education especially when new schools are co-located in the same buildings and take away space from traditional schools.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

New York State Education Department Commissioner John King announced yesterday that he would be proposing modest reductions in the number of tests required of K-12 students.  As reported in the New York Times:

“Under the plan, students struggling in English would be given exams in their native languages. A math test would be eliminated for some eighth graders. Students with disabilities would take tests matched to their level of instruction, not their age.

The proposals are modest, but they represent a rare concession from state leaders, who have faced attacks from parents and teachers in recent weeks over the rollout of a tougher set of standards known as the Common Core.

John B. King Jr., the state education commissioner, said that there was “more testing than is needed” in some districts and that some schools were too focused on rote memorization in preparing for exams.

“The amount of testing should be the minimum necessary to inform effective decision-making,” Dr. King wrote in a letter to superintendents and principals on Thursday.

Critics of high-stakes testing, however, said on Friday that the plan amounted to tweaks around the edges that would do little to change the culture of schools.

“It’s duplicitous,” said Monty Neill, executive director of FairTest, a group based in Massachusetts that opposes the use of high-stakes tests. “The political intention is to try to get students and parents to accept the bad system.”

Dr. King is also looking to eliminate some tests administered by local school districts. As part of the plan, the state would offer grants to districts to study the usefulness of exams and to eliminate redundancies.

The state would also seek to do away with a class of exams known as field tests, which are administered for the purpose of weeding out bad questions from future tests.

Elected officials and parents have denounced field tests in recent years, calling them unnecessary exercises that benefit testing companies and exhaust students. In New York City, a small number of families have protested field tests by boycotting the state exams.

In place of stand-alone field tests, the state would embed more field test questions into math and reading exams. That would require the Education Department to seek more money so it could print more versions of each exam. That could cost $12 million a year.

The department will pursue the changes over the next few months. In January, it will ask the federal government to allow English-language learners to take language arts exams in their native language; currently, students who have been in the United States for at least a year must take those exams in English.

The state will also seek permission for some 57,000 eighth-graders studying algebra to take a Regents exam in lieu of a traditional math test. Those students are currently required to take both.”

This is a step in the right direction but much more needs to be  done to remove the yoke of high stakes testing in New York that burdens schools, teachers, and most importantly, students.

Tony