New York Voices; 515; Making the Grade?, Part 1

[speaker]: We have, uh, this kind of pedagogical dictatorship forcing every teacher to teach in the exact same way with the rug in the middle, eliminating the blackboard and all that, uh, it's intimidating to teachers and it's demoralizing. [new speaker]: Consistency is one of the most important things for success and unless you have common vocabulary, common practices, predictability, young children in particular, but so far middle school kids as well, need predictability in their lives. [Narrator]: New York. One voice at a time. [another speaker]: New York Voices. [new speaker]: New York Voices is made possible by the members of Thirteen. Additional funding provided by Michael T. Martin, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown. [Pi Roman]: Hello and welcome to making the grade. A New York Voices special, I'm Rafael Pi Roman. You know 3 years ago when the New York state legislature voted to dismantle the Central Board of Education,

Michael Bloomberg became the first mayor in 33 years with broad control over the largest school system in the world. Mayoral control was intended to increase political accountability and bring real reform to a broken system. Over the next few weeks, your voices will look at how public education has changed since mayoral control went into effect and whether these reforms are improving education for 1.1 million students. Tonight we'll focus on one major aspect of the reform: the system wide implementation of new curricula. Before mayoral control, most schools were allowed to pick their own reading and math programs. But in 2003, the Department of Education adopted a uniform curriculum for elementary schools across the city. This change has led to an ongoing debate over the specific reading and math programs chosen by the Department of Education. Lorraine Skeen retired in 1998 as the principal of P.S. 171 in East Harlem. Which during her 20 year tenure, had become a top ranked school despite a high level of student poverty. [Skeen]: What we found

and what is tremendously encouraging is that in school, we can give a child what a middle class background gives that child. And it comes from rich curriculum and rich teaching. [Pi Roman]: In 2002, when Mayor Bloomberg was given control over the school system, Skeen was lured out of retirement. [Skeen]: We had a new mayor. He believed that he could make the schools better and he was willing to take on total responsibility for education. And I found that to be very inspiring. [Pi Roman]: She was hired as a local instructional superintendent to help institute the city's brand new standard curriculum. Which was one of the mayor's first steps at overhauling the system. Schools Chancellor Joel Klein had recently hired educator Deanna Lamb to select the new city wide curriculum. Lamb picked an English program called balance literacy that would be used in all elementary schools except the top 200. Balance

literacy is a program that provides a set of guidelines for teaching. It prescribes daily classroom activities such as a read aloud session and a period for free writing. Teachers are also asked to give 10 minute mini lessons that emphasize particular habits and strategies for reading and writing. Skeen says she immediately saw problems with this approach. [Skeen]: I visited schools and I visited classrooms and what I saw was that teachers were floundering. They had taken the books away from the teachers. They had taken the teachers guides. Okay. Children were not supposed to be directly taught only for a very limited amount of time. Because the way of teaching reading was so murky, It took teachers a much much longer time to teach even a little bit of reading. [Pi Roman]: But the balance literacy curriculum has broad support among the city's top education schools. Peggy MacNamara is the director of reading and literacy programs at Bank Street.

[Peggy]: I'm an educator over 25 years in the field. Working with a variety of children from diverse backgrounds, special needs to gifted children. I have observed that using a balanced approach to reading and writing is the approach that's most effective. [Pi Roman]: MacNamara's says that balance literacy takes less of a cookie cutter approach to teaching. [Peggy]: The goal in balance literacy is ultimately to teach kids how to be independent readers and writers. And so you need to have, in order to do that, you need to have flexible instruction so that you're paying attention to the kids in front of you. [Weingarten]: We've had balance the balance literacy approach in New York City for as long as I can remember. Umm, so it's not that the approach is wrong. [Pi Roman]: Randi Weingarten is head of the teacher's union. She says the problem is that balance literacy has been instituted in a way that micro-manages teachers. [Weingarten]: You can't be up at the blackboard, excuse me, the corkboard because there's no more

blackboards, for more than 10 minutes. If you do, then you may be subject to a disciplinary rating. You must have a period of time in an elementary school where your kids are sitting on a rug and you are sitting in a rocking chair and you are reading to them. The art of teaching is what's been micro-managed. The content which is what everybody else in the world says should be dictated, is what's absent. [Peggy]: Some of the professional development that has been given for balance literacy has been scripted. Principals have perceived of that as you do the script. I think it's a a misinterpretation and I've recently heard from a few professional developers in the reading writing workshop that they've stopped doing some of those scripts and they've um, there's lots of books out that are more like guides. [Pi Roman]: The reading textbooks that were chosen as part of the curriculum called month by month phonics have also been a point of contention. Critics say they weren't vetted properly. [Ehri]: Month by month

phonics is a program that doesn't incorporate some of the, uh, processes that we know contribute to beginning reading instruction. [Pi Roman]: Linnea Ehri is a distinguished professor at the CUNY Graduate Center and a member of the national reading panel. Which was convened by Congress in 1997, to study the most effective ways for teaching reading. [Ehri]: It's especially important when you're adopting a universal curriculum to select a program where there's strong evidence that it will be effective and there wasn't strong evidence in the case of month by month phonics. [Pi Roman]: In January 2004, the city was forced to replace month by month phonics in 49 low performing schools after the federal government threatened to withhold education funds because the program lacked an adequate research base. Three months later, the architect of the new citywide curriculum Deanna Lamb, was forced to resign on charges of nepotism and was replaced by career educator Carmen

Farina. Farina has kept balance literacy as the standard curriculum but she has made month by month phonics optional for principals. She's also introduced a new reading program called Fundations designed for struggling readers. The program is now being used in 2,000 classrooms citywide. Eileen Marzola, one of the Department of Education's top literacy consultant, was hired by Farina. [Marzola]: A growing number of schools are using Fundations. Others who have well-trained teachers who have comfortable with month by month phonics are continuing to use month by month ph- month phonics. But it's not mandated. So we're giving principals discretion. We're saying here are the possibilities. You choose what works in your school. [Pi Roman]: But despite that flexibility, Lorraine Skeen says the standard curriculum is still taking schools in the wrong direction and she has resigned from the system. [Skeen]: I decided to leave because it wasn't ethical. To force people to do what I knew was wrong

for children. [Pi Roman]: Whether or not this new approach puts the city on the right track, the administration points to the fact that last year, reading test scores made their biggest single year jump ever. And the city is betting heavily on the standard curriculum. [Marzola]: Our kids only get to go around once. We want to give them everything that we can, everything that we know about so they can be a successful productive adults. And it's a good start. I think we've made a good start. [Pi Roman]: Later in the program I'll speak with Deputy Chancellor Carmen Farina, who is in charge of instruction for the Department of Education. But joining me now to discuss the new standard curricula in reading and math are Sol Stern, an education expert with the Manhattan Institute and a critic of balance literacy, And Elizabeth Carson, the co-founder of NYC Hold. A coalition of parents, teachers and academics who have been critical of the new standard curriculum in math. Sol let me start with you. You don't agree with Eileen Marzola that the city has made a good start with the new standard, uh, curriculum, do you?

[Stern]: No. First of all I want to correct the misnomer here. Uh, it's not it's not a curriculum we're talking about. A curriculum is a body of knowledge that kids are supposed to attain at every at every grade. Uh, uh, th- this is not about a curriculum. This is about a standardized way of teaching, uh, that the teaching techniques in the classroom and on that count, I thi- I'm opposed to balanced literacy because I think the evidence is overwhelming in the national reading panel and the panel of the American Psychological Association, That for most kids, uh, teaching systematic phonics in the early grades is better than balance literacy. [Pi Roman]: So why'd they choose it? [Stern]: Why did they choose it? Because, uh, Chancellor Klein surrounded himself with a group of progressive educators who prefer balanced literacy as a philosophy as an approach to kids. Uh, it's warm, it's fuzzy, uh, it's nice to kids, kids wander around the classroom, teachers stand on the side. Uh, they don't lecture to kids. Uh, it sounds very nice and and it works for some kids. Particularly kids from middle class homes, uh, who have a tremendous

vocabulary coming into the school but it's not very good for kids from disadvantaged homes. And it's, uh, what's even worse than choosing this is the almost totalitarian way in which the department isn't enforcing it on every teacher in the system. [Pi Roman]: As we heard in the piece, you know, the standard or the traditional phonics is being implemented as the sole curriculum in many schools now or as a a supplement. And now month by month is becoming optional up to the up to the principals. Haven't they done what you wanted? Why aren't you declaring victory? [Stern]: Well to the extent they've adopted it in 40 or over 40 schools that was under pressure from the federal government and and and- [Pi Roman]: 2,000 classrooms they have- [Stern]: well you know anything they say when they give you a number about 2,000, uh, I I want to see evidence of it because they make a lot of claims, the Department of Education. And, uh, but there's no transparency in this department. There's no data that we can look at that check this is what they say. [Pi Roman]: So you don't believe them even if

they say it's 2,000- [Stern]: I'm not sure. I'm not sure and in any event, uh, what the national reading panel and the the panel of the American Psychological Association found, is not that kids need phonics as a kind of emergency rescue system when after they're failing, they need it as a systematic explicit means of instruction from day one. [Pi Roman]: Okay. Elizabeth, you are one of the, um, most vocal critics of the math curriculum, uh, to use that word, uh, that they adopted everyday math. What's wrong with that? [Carson]: Well and again as Sol had said it's not a curriculum, it is a program. And the problem in the adoption of it to begin with was, the city did not take the time to develop a good curriculum that defined well what children should know and be able to do at each level through the grades in mathematics. So they adopted everyday mathematics, which is one of the very very popular, sometimes called progressive or constructivist, math programs for all the children in the city except for exempted schools. It is not a proven program. It has a philosophy that does not ask for mastery of the basic skills

of arithmetic. This is critically important to include and it is not in the program. It also emphasizes the use of calculators beginning in kindergarten. The children are exposed using calculators in the earliest grades and there is great evidence that the children quickly become dependent on the calculators. They do not learn the basic facts and basic skills that they will need to proceed into algebra. Now this is absolutely amazing that they would adopt a program unproven with such deficiencies that have been widely condemned- [Pi Roman interjecting]: By who? [Carson]: by mathematicians and scientists across the country as well as senior educators in New York City and the senior CUNY math department chairs and NYU mathematicians. Also this program does not in any way look like the mathematics programs in the highest performing nations. [Pi Roman]: But the fact of the matter is that, uh, everyday math or or programs like it are used across the country and in the top 10 percent of the schools in New York

City. If it's so bad how come it's adopted by so many people? [Carson]: Well if you recall there was the new math that swept the nation and we realized it was a terrible mistake. Whole language swept the nation and we realized it was a terrible mistake. Unfortunately this country has a pattern of radical reforms that are unbalanced, unproven, highly experimental and that almost in every case swing too far in one direction. This time it's too far in the direction of discovery learning and and not nearly explicit enough in what children need to know and be able to do. [Pi Roman]: Didn't we have the highest scores in most of the grades this year in reading and math? Isn't isn't that proof that these two curricular or programs, whatever you call it, are working? [Stern]: Not true. The key test were the state 4th grade and 8th grade test. Uh, they did a little better than they did before. But so did, uh, 4, the 4 urban districts in New York actually went up higher- [Pi Roman]: Rochester,

[Stern]: Syracuse, Yonkers, okay. So other cities that were not using balance literacy, not only did as well, did more. Like I said uh- first of all in absolute terms and they went up a higher degree. But let's take a look at the 8th grade and 8th grade is crucial because in international tests, the real problem for American students comes not so much in the 4th grade where they rank pretty near the top, um, but by 8th grade, American students in international comparisons are down around 19th among the, uh, uh, industrialized countries. So in 8th grade here, we went down. The students went down to 32 percent math. Only 32 percent of the 8th graders achieved, um, uh, uh, competency in an in 8th grade reading. [Pi Roman]: What about math? They improve there? [Carson]: Well, yes the scores are up, the scores are up on the state test statewide. And in fact, several of the other big 5 districts did better than New York City in terms of gains. The citywide test has serious problems and there have been 2 separate years where

separate grades had to be thrown out. One year they were thrown out- [Pi Roman]: So you're also you're also suspicious of the- [Carson]: I'm concerned about the test. But but aside from that fact, every day math has has not been fully implemented in many schools. Some schools are only beginning this year. This year- [Pi Roman]: So they can't take the credit? They can't take the blame? [Carson]: You can't no you can't tell much from these tests and testing experts will say that it's just simply too early and there are too many problems with the tests and also the fact that there's so much test prep going on that there are questions about whether or not even the scores, eh, eh, can fairly indicate what children actually know because when the test prep becomes to s- to such a great extent it almost invalidates the measurement. And we see this with the SAT, where there's a lot of prep and the students are doing very well too [Pi Roman]: Much ?inaudible? [Stern]: Coming into college unable to, uh, compute, yes. [Pi Roman]: Let me go back to what Sol what you were talking about earlier. About the fact of the of the authoritarian control of the teachers, what many teachers, uh, some teachers at least are calling micro-managing. Peggy MacNamara said, uh, in the piece that we saw

that this is a mistake. This is a mistake made by some principals and that assume the guidelines were strict rules [Stern]: Not so, not so. Uh, I've seen this summer's, uh, professional development guides and it's the same thing. They still have this concept in their professional development of certain non-negotiables. The very idea of that something is non-negotiable in an educational enterprise is just totally abhorrent. There's no openness. [Pi Roman]: What's the consequences of this where te- with the relationship between the teachers and- [Stern]: Well, one one one of the long term consequences is that we have a war between the administration and the teachers. Now a as you know I'm a critic of the teacher's contract and I'd like to get some reforms. It is an obstacle, the contract. But the teachers now have seen a Chancellor who's who's dictating everything they do in the classroom. They will never give him work ?inaudible? reforms at this point. He won't let em because he's treated them, uh, like just cogs in a machine. [Pi Roman]: Okay. So what do we have to do to turn this around? [Carson]: The first thing is, they need to go back to the table. The Department of Education needs to go back to the table

with all of the experts that are necessary to decide what the best course of reform is in New York City. And in everyday math similar to the whole language approach, the teachers are have scripted lessons. The lesson guides tell them what they need to do at every single minute it's absolutely not going to work. They need to their classroom teachers and they need to listen to their math experts and there are many of them across the city willing to help. Until they do- [Pi Roman]: Any signs that they're going to be listening to them any time soon? [Carson]: I don't see any signs. They're not even willing to come to the table and speak to their critics person to person so I don't know that that's going to happen. [Stern]: They're not at the table here. [Pi Roman]: Right. [Stern]: They were they were supposed to be here and they're not here. [Carson]: I want to say though that everyday mathematics has already been rejected already replaced in the district that Chancellor Klein went to originally when he tried to decide what he wanted to do about New York City reform. So it's shocking that even in the best districts where every day math is alluded to is showing signs of success. We're seeing that those districts are replacing every day math. And so I I think we can see the writing on the wall.

[Pi Roman]: So what what has to happen to turn the system around? To make it work as you hoped it would when the, uh, reforms will first implemented. [Stern]: The experts have looked at this. The science is in favor of a systematic approach. Direct instruction works better than constructivism, the evidence is overwhelming. They have to open themselves up to the idea that there's evidence here and science behind, uh, the teaching of, uh, of literacy. [Pi Roman]: Sol thank you so much. And Elizabeth thank you. [Stern]: Thank you. [Carson]: Thank you. [Pi Roman]: Together the Department of Education's take on the curriculum debate, I spoke with Deputy Chancellor Carmen Farina who is in charge of curriculum and instruction for the city. I met with her at the Tweed Courthouse which is home to the Department of Education. Now the national reading panel found that systematic phonics is the best way to teach reading. But many of your critics including several members of the national reading panel, say that, uh, month by month phonics does not teach systematic phonics. Why was this curriculum chosen then? [Farina]: At the time that the Children First initiative came, um, there was a need to put something in place that would meet the needs of the kids immediately. And month by month phonics as what chosen in some

schools is now at this time, not the primary message that we're using in terms of out there. And we have develop what we call, Intervention Tool Kit, much of which has been supervised by people who served on the national panel. So now you have a more extensive use of programs. [Pi Roman]: Isn't that a tacit concession that perhaps your critics were right? [Farina]: If the only thing they had criticized was that one small piece, that I would say that we've come a long way in being able to say that maybe that's not the thing that we're doing the most of now, but everything else we're doing is showing in our test scores, in the amount of teacher applications that we have, uh, and the fact that these kids are getting ready for the real world and that students in District 2 and in District 5 which are polar opposites are both achieving at a certain rate. And I think that's where we want to be. [Pi Roman]: But what about the claim that balance literacy as a whole, lacks a structure? [Forina]: Oh, I disagree tremendously on that one. Uh, we have state standards. The state standards very clearly tell us what students should be able to do at any given grade. They tell us what the 4th grade sh- a 4th grader should be able to at the very minimum, write 4 paragraphs, paragraphs

should have few spelling errors. I mean, we know what kids need to be able to know in every grade. We now know that the kind of teaching tools we put in place with the assessments, with the units of studies that we have with the class libraries, are moving children in that direction. [Pi Roman]: Let's talk about everyday math. Some of the critics of that, say that there's not sufficient direct instruction and that ultimately the kids are not taught the basic fundamentals of mathematics. [Farina]: Well, I find that hard to believe because I'm a big believer in computation skills. I'm a, you know, basic believer in terms of skills that you need at your fingertips. But when was the last time that any of your audience did long division? Okay. We don't do it. We have calculators. We have different ways of d- it. And yet, when was the last time that anyone did estimation within our frame of reference. We estimate almost every second. I'm estimating- [Pi Roman]: Is that is that why you're introducing, as some critics say if it's the fact, uh, calculators as early as kindergarten? [Farina]: It's the way of the future.

I mean we c- we are s- [Pi Roman]: Doesn't that take away our ability, I mean, that we depend on this machine? [Forina]: No, I think I think we use tools. I mean why would you have a phone in your house if you have a cell phone. I mean as we move forwards to the future, I'm not saying kids shouldn't know why they are doing long division, but we don't need to spend an entire mo- in my times as a 4th grade teacher, 5th grade teacher. Um, you know I would spend maybe a month on long division until everybody in the class got it. The reality is, that we have to move with the tools that we have and move forward. [Pi Roman]: What some of the critics say that mathematics is a linear process and that in order to get perhaps to the second rung, you have to learn the basics of the first rung. You have to learn the basics in order to even know how to use a calculator. [Forina]: Well I would I would not disagree with that. Um, I would certainly say the basics have to be learned. You know that's why we have the standards curriculum. The standards curriculum tells you very clearly and this is the state curriculum, what you need to learn in grade 1 and grade 2 and grade 3 and we are following that. We're not you know missing that step. But I also know that in many schools we spent too much time on the basic skills without applying them. And it's the application of the

facts that you learn that are gonna get you to the next level. [Pi Roman]: You mentioned the test. The fact is that other cities in the state, their test scores rose even higher than they did in the city but and they're not using the curricula that you're using here. So how can you attribute the higher test scores to the curricula? [Forina]: I would say that those very same critics would ask for my job, if my scores had gone down. So you can't play the same thing on both ends of the a- ya know the angles. They went up. We're very proud of the fact they went up. Uh, if you go into classrooms, you'll see a lot more writing. You'll see a lot more discussion. Um, we know we have a lot more work to do in our middle schools that is really where I'm focusing on this year. The reality is that the critics either have to give us credit or not. But you can't play it both ways. [Pi Roman]: One of the criticisms that you hear from the head of the teachers unions and some teachers is that they in fact are being micromanaged. There has to be a rug, that they have to do 10 minutes of this and 10 minutes of that and that they will be punished if they don't do that. [Farina]: I I think to a large degree when you start a new initiative, there's an overzealousness in certain

places, I will tell you right now I don't think you need to have a rug in the classroom to have good teaching. I walked as a principal into a school that was by itself successful on the surface. What I found is that I had 30 some odd classroom teachers all doing their own thing. Then every teacher had to reteach what they did because they didn't assume the teacher before them had put certain things in practice. And the one thing I learned more on the job than actually in any school, is that consistency is one of the most important things for success. And unless you have a common vocabulary, common practices, predictability. Young children in particular but it's so far middle school kids as well, need predictability in their lives. [Pi Roman]: So how do you how do you make sure that that consistency that you want doesn't turn into a micromanaging that that demoralizes the teachers? [Farina]: Well I think it goes you know learning you know on the job kind of thing, we've been doing as part of professional development. When I meet with local instructural superintendents and principals, I talk a lot about letting the teachers, you know, find their way. Teaching is an organic profession. You have to kind of work your way through it. Um, and I think people I I don't think you will hear the same complaints now that you may have heard, you know, in the very beginning.

[Pi Roman]: The critics say that perhaps one of the reasons that you're not hearing about the demoralization of some of the teachers in the classrooms is because, uh, an atmosphere of fear has developed here in the Department of Education where teachers cannot or are afraid to speak out. How do you respond? [Farina]: I just went to an open forum of 500 teachers. Uh, did my little thing and then did an hour and a half of questions from the audience. For the people who cannot do not wanna op- question and there were no administrators in the room and I don't know what schools they were in so it was a totally a a free discussion. I always give them my email, say e-mail me when there's a problem. I do PTA meetings, I'll do CEC meetings. If people have something to say, they'll say it. [Pi Roman]: You were scheduled to appear with us in our panel discussion along with your critics in the studio. The critics who were at the panel discussion immediately assume that you didn't show up because you didn't want to debate in an open forum because they claim neither you nor the chancellor ever debate your critics in an open forum. Is that so? [Farina]: On the contrary, um, one of the critics held an open forum in the

Bronx to which I sent my 2 top people. So we have been out there. Um, certainly the, uh, major critic in mathematics has had many opportunities both in terms of our head of math which is Linda Curtis-Bay, to debate the points. I think where I get a little upset about the critics is that they're not giving us the credit for the good things that we're doing and the things that ?inaudible?. So so to harp on 1 or 2 things that they don't like, my think like I would say to get over it. Move on. Go on to the next level. And that's really where I think we should be right now. [Pi Roman]: And that's it for this edition of New York Voices. For more on this or any other New York Voices program, log on to our website at Thirteen.org. And please join us next week when we'll look at another part of the mayor's education reform, the opening of 149 new small high schools. I'm Rafael Pi Roman Thanks for joining us. [music] [Narrator]: New York Voices is made possible by the members of Thirteen.

Additional funding provided by Michael T. Martin, The Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Elise Jaffe and Jeffrey Brown.