What A New IBO Study on Special-Needs Kids in NYC Says About Charter v. Public School Comparisons

Posted on January 11, 2014 by aagabor

A new study by the New York City Independent Budget Office offers fresh insight into thorny questions about charter school demographics and performance. The study compares student attrition rates at charter schools with nearby traditional public schools and finds that charter schools not only enroll relatively low numbers of special-needs students, over three-quarters of the special-needs kids who do enroll at a charter school in kindergarten have left by the third grade.

Across almost all demographic groups, kids enrolled at charter schools are less likely to leave during their first three years of schooling than are kids at traditional public schools, with one key exception: Students with special needs “leave charter schools at a much higher rate than either general education students in charter schools or special education students in traditional public schools,” the study found.

While 70 percent of the students who enrolled in a charter school in kindergarten were still at the same school in third grade; only 20 percent of special needs students from the same cohort remained at the same charter school for three years. By contrast, 61 percent of all students in nearby traditional public schools attended the same school three years after kindergarten; and 50 percent of special-needs students remained at the same public school for their first three years.

Attrition rates are an important indicator of how well kids will perform in school. Children who stay at the same school—whether charter or traditional public—do better on standardized tests than kids who switch schools. “The achievement gap between stayers and movers was considerably larger for those who left charter schools and the gap was larger in math than in reading,” the study found.

Equally important, the study suggests important questions about how the performance of traditional public schools are impacted not only by having disproportionately high numbers of special-needs kids, but also high numbers of special-needs transfer students—including those who started school at charters—who, according to the IBO study, are doubly disadvantaged: first because they have special needs, second because they have switched schools.

Consider what Stanford University’s oft-quoted CREDO study of charter school performance in New York City says about the performance of charter schools relative to traditional public schools and what it omits. When the CREDO study was published last February, headlines trumpted the study’s finding that, in reading, 22 percent of New York City charters “outpace the learning impacts”of traditional public schools, and 63 percent did so in math. By contrast, 14 percent of charters did significantly worse than traditional publics in math, and one-quarter of charters did significantly worse in reading, according to the study. [CREDO also made cautious—and much qualified—comparisons between the performance of special needs students at charter schools and traditional publics.]

But in evaluating the “learning-impacts” of charters and traditional publics, the CREDO study does not seem to take into account the significant discrepancy in the special-needs populations of different kinds of schools. While CREDO estimates that only 12 percent of charter school students are classified with special needs, 17 percent of traditional public school students have such designations. [Carol Burris, a respected Principal at a school in Rockville Center, L.I. finds other problems with the CREDO study here.]

Indeed, the CREDO numbers don’t tell the whole story. In Harlem, which has close to one-quarter of the city’s charter school students, and where charter schools showed some of the biggest learning gains, according to CREDO, the city’s public schools appear to have a disproportionate number of special-needs students. For example, Global Technology Preparatory, a Harlem middle school, opened four-years agowith a special needs population of about 30 percent. The schools special-needs population is now about 40 percent. The school, which was founded by educators who had a strong commitment to “mainstreaming” special-needs kids, takes kids who transfer in from nearby charters, including many kids with “IEPs” (individualized education programs). The school prides itself on integrating kids via so-called “inclusion” classes, which are taught by one general-education and one special-education teacher. Shael Polakow-Suransky, the city’s chief academic officer, has called so-called “self-contained” classes, which segregate special-needs kids from the general-ed population “an academic death sentence.”

Research has shown that kids in inclusion classes are much more likely to graduate than those in segregated classrooms, without adversely impacting general-education kids. Moreover, African-American boys are often over-identified as special needs because of behavioral problems, not because of learning disabilities. Some city educators argue that it is precisely kids with behavioral problems who are least likely to succeed in the no-excuses culture of charter schools.

Global Tech’s approach presaged special-education reforms in New York City, which were initiated about two years ago and intended to integrate more special-needs kids into regular public-school classrooms and to allow all but the most severely impaired children to enroll in neighborhood schools.  Having developed a reputation for being “good at” educating special needs students, says David Baiz, Global Tech’s new interim-acting principal who was also a founding teacher at the schools, Global Tech gets referrals from parents and even Department of Education headquarters.

Global Tech has won cudos for its innovative teaching methods. But when it comes to standardized tests, the measure used by most studies, including CREDO and IBO, public schools like Global Tech almost certainly can’t compare to schools with significantly lower special-needs populations. The IBO study helps explain why.

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When Schools Get Caught in the Red Tape of Education Mandates

Posted on December 18, 2013 by aagabor

As cities and states across the country scramble to adopt the latest education-reform remedies, including the Common Core State Standards and new evaluation systems that are intended to hold educators accountable for the performance of their students, schools everywhere are reeling.

The mandates are driven by strong federal incentives, especially Race to the Top, the Obama administration’s competitive grant program. A dozen states received Race to the Top grants to adopt the new teacher-evaluation systems, and the program provided incentives for the 45 states that adopted the Common Core.

Either mandate alone would be a heavy lift, education experts say. A recent government study, “States Implementing Teacher and Principal Evaluation Systems Despite Challenges,” found numerous problems with how teacher evaluations are working on the ground. Among the concerns were “ensuring that principals conducted evaluations consistently.” The report, released in September, also cited the challenge states were having in “prioritizing evaluation reform amid multiple educational initiatives.”

In this story, “Schools caught in red tape generated by new education mandates” for Al Jazeera America, I explore the impact that mandates are having on public schools, including two high-performing schools—one in New York City and one in Massachusetts—that have thrived on grassroots improvement efforts. These two schools suggest that some of the best “education reform” is happening at the grassroots level. They also raise the question: Does education need more grand ideas (and mandates) or practical ways to disseminate and grow what’s already happening in pockets around the country?

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A Bloomberg-Era Reform Worth Saving?

Posted on November 25, 2013 by aagabor

In the waning days of the Bloomberg administration, when many of the mayor’s controversial education ideas are once again under attack, one chief target of critics has been the school network structure, which broke up the geographically organized school districts and allowed principals to self-select into one of about 60 support organizations.

These days, just about everyone from the principals’ union (the Council of Supervisors and Administrators) to Merryl Tisch, Chancellor of the NY State Board of Regents, to Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio are targeting the networks for elimination. Tisch recently charged that the networks have “basically failed children” who are English Language Learners and have special needs. Last January, de Blasio said: “I am dubious about whether this current network structure can be kept.”

But now, a group of 120 principals has issued a plea, in the form of a letter, in support of the network structure. The letter, which is reproduced below, was sent to Mayor-elect de Blasio, the UFT, the CSA, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott and Shael Polakow-Suransky, the Senior Deputy Chancellor last Friday. It says the networks offer the following supports, which were not “necessarily” provided through other more traditional structures at the Department of Education:

1.      The gathering of schools of similar visions or purpose: the internationals, special ed reform focused, collaboratively structured, and schools committed to alternative assessment. This enables these schools to work more closely together and support each other towards better meeting their missions.

2.      Shifting the supervisory structure into an advisory and support structure. It makes all the difference in the world that the network leader and team members are not the principals’ rating officer. Our networks have been responsive to us and in many cases network principals have had a say in the selection of network staff.

3.      Networks support professional development that better meets the needs of the teachers, administrators, and other support staff in our schools and that allows for cross-pollination across our schools.

4.      Because of racial and economic segregation by neighborhood in New York City, geographic districts are often segregated as well. Self-selected networks offer the option of racially and economically diverse schools working together and benefitting greatly from this collaboration.

The networks go to the heart of what might be the most important education initiative of the Bloomberg years: An effort to turn principals into educational leaders by giving them both greater autonomy and support in exchange for increased accountability. Under the network structure, principals were no longer just accountable to superintendents. The networks represented a countervailing power designed to support principals—and, through them, the needs of students in each individual school—by providing information and advice on everything from budgets to professional development. Principals could—and did—vote with their feet if they were unsatisfied with the services they got from their networks.

Recruiting, training and retaining high-quality principals continues to be a challenge for the DOE. But the concept of the Principal-as-CEO unleashed a kind of grassroots entrepreneurialism at the schools where it worked best, energizing teachers and benefiting kids. The pedagogical creativity that has flourished at schools like Global Technology Preparatory in Harlem, West Side Collaborative on Manhattan’s Upper West Side and the Staten Island School of Civic Leadership, which were led by a cadre of new, or newly empowered, principals, offers a powerful argument for betting on the ability of traditional public schools to innovate. These principals experimented with curriculum and sought input from teachers to develop creative new ways of teaching. They enlisted private-sector partners to help support everything from technology initiatives to after-school programs. And, along the way, they ignored mandates that they felt got in the way of their schools’ missions. I’ve written about some of these principals and schools here and here.

This is especially important at a time when privatization and the charter sector are being held up by many education “reformers” as the best way to transform education. Indeed, these schools generally offer a broader range of educational choices than do charters. And, in many cases, the schools have flourished with a much more challenging group of kids than neighboring charter schools. To name just one example, at Global Technology Preparatory, a four-year-old Title 1 school that has gotten only As and Bs on its school report cards and rave reviews from parents and students, 40 percent of the students have special needs, double the rate at nearby charter schools.

You do not have to believe that public schools are “broken” in order to acknowledge that every school (indeed, every institution) needs strong leadership and constant improvement. The only question is: Who is best equipped to drive that improvement—distant bureaucrats, a superintendent, or the schools themselves? One lesson of my favorite management theorist, W. Edwards Deming, is that improvement comes from those closest to the system. In the case of schools—from principals, teachers, parents and even students.

The network structure grew out of an experiment known as the Autonomy Zone (sometimes also referred to as the Empowerment Network,)  which initially included 29 schools. “We didn’t need to be told by the powers-that-be what the right thing to do is for kids,” recalls Julie Zuckerman, who was one of the original Autonomy Zone principals (at highly regarded Central Park East)—she recently launched the Castle Bridge School in the Washington Heights–and helped draft the letter in defense of the network structure. “We also disagreed with the punishment paradigm in supervision. It’s no carrot and all stick. And that is absolutely not what we think is good for kids, ourselves, our colleagues.”

Soon, in one of many Bloomberg-era reorganizations, every school in the city became part of a network.

The two most obvious benefits of the network structure was that “you could break through the old patterns of patronage and corruption that existed for years,” argues Eric Nadelstern, a long-time New York City educator-turned-top-Klein lieutenant who spearheaded the networks. Nadelstern, who is now a Visiting Professor of Practice at Columbia University’s Teachers College, notes that local politicians had, for years, used schools as a job bank for loyal constituents.

Then, too, by stripping away the bureaucracy, Nadelstern estimates that the DOE saved $565,000 per school through the network structure. In his recently published book, Ten Lessons from New York City Schools, Nadelstern estimates that school superintendents who managed 20 schools under the old district structure and employed 120 staff members, “skimmed” an estimated $650,000 per school in management fees. By contrast the networks, which work with 25 to 30 schools each and employ only about 15 people, cost about $85,000 per school. The balance of that savings has largely gone back into school budgets, says Nadelstern.

By giving principals power of the purse and allowing them to choose their networks–and switch if they weren’t happy—network leaders were expected to serve more as coaches than bosses. “Schools find this arrangement of working with other schools and building professional relationships much more useful than the old superintendencies,” says Nancy Mann, the principal of Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School in the Bronx, and one of the letter’s signatories. Mann also says she was able rely on network staff for technical help and advice, especially as budgeting has become “more complex”; but, she adds: “I’m the one who decides” how to allocate the budget.

 Yet, after a decade of business-minded reforms, even the staunchest defenders of the networks concede that the going is getting tougher—because of the dizzying reorganizations and policy changes of the Bloomberg years, because of new government mandates and because of the centrifugal force of the DOE bureaucracy.

One key problem that has undermined the networks and principal autonomy is the Bloomberg administration’s failure to resolve the tension between its desire for fast-paced change and the reality that long-term improvement requires a measure of stability–especially for schools and kids.

The constant ferment of school reform has been exacerbated by the Bloomberg administrations penchant to distrust and devalue the expertise of educators, which was exemplified by Klein’s botched succession and the short-lived appointment of Cathleen Black, a Hearst executive with no education experience; the appointment of Dennis Walcott as caretaker-in-chief; and the exodus of key architects of the Klein reforms.

About a year ago, Walcott ended the practice of allowing principals to roll over money from one year’s budget to the next. The freedom to roll-over budgets was seen by principals as a key tool for forward planning; for example, money saved one year could help pay for a major technology purchase the next.

New Federal and state mandates, including new standardized tests pegged to the Common Core State Standards and a Byzantine new teacher-evaluation system, are giving principals less and less room to maneuver. In the process, the networks have become more focused on compliance than on helping principals solve problems. “The irony is that the vehicle used to decentralize the system proved equally effective when the folks at the top decided to recentralize,” says Nadelstern.

The far-flung networks, which sometimes bring together schools across different boroughs, also have come under fire for not being responsive enough to local community concerns. But Zuckerman says parents don’t realize that they can call on networks directly. A bigger problem, she says, is the DOE’s “patronizing and top-down approach” to opening and closing schools. “None of that planning begins in communities,” says Zuckerman. “No one has come out and said: What do you want and need? That’s not the fault of networks.”

Nevertheless, some principals have begun to lose faith in the networks’ ability to serve as a buffer against the bureaucracy. “The DOE system, as I experience it, represents a hierarchy that promotes the standardization of curriculum, teacher and student evaluations and school organization,” wrote Jeanne Rotunda in an email explaining why she declined to sign the letter in support of the networks. “The networks, while providing professional development and sympathetic ears, are increasingly pressed to keep their schools in compliance and ‘good standing’ based on test scores.  If we were able to return to the Empowerment Networks [aka Autonomy Zones] where principals had autonomy, while being held accountable, then that is a letter I would have signed.”

Meanwhile, Global Tech’s principal, Chrystina Russell, left the DOE this fall, citing the growing bureaucracy as one reason for her departure. Had she remained at the DOE, Russell says she would have signed the letter if only because “all of the energy put into changing the system will take away from pushing forward on the priorities within the schools that need to be addressed.”

Indeed, returning to the old power-structure will not be easy. The new administration might disband the networks and return the schools to district control. But if the de Blasio administration envisions restoring the power–and budget control–of the superintendents, the schools are sure to resist.

Here is the full text of the letter in defense of networks:

In support of the network structure option

 As people anticipate restructuring at the Department of Education in the next administration, we want to establish our support for keeping networks that work and allowing principals the choice as to whether they stay in those networks or not.

 Networks provide particular kinds of support for schools that many of us have found to be invaluable, and that were not necessarily provided through the district, region and ISC structures. These support features are: 

1.   The gathering of schools of similar visions or purpose: the internationals, special ed reform focused, collaboratively structured, and schools committed to alternative assessment. This enables these schools to work more closely together and support each other towards better meeting their missions.

2.      Shifting the supervisory structure into an advisory and support structure. It makes all the difference in the world that the network leader and team members are not the principals’ rating officer. Our networks have been responsive to us and in many cases network principals have had a say in the selection of network staff.

3.      Networks support professional development that better meets the needs of the teachers, administrators, and other support staff in our schools and that allows for cross-pollination across our schools.

4.      Because of racial and economic segregation by neighborhood in New York City, geographic districts are often segregated as well. Self-selected networks offer the option of racially and economically diverse schools working together and benefitting greatly from this collaboration.

 We are deeply committed to our networks and do not want ours to be dismantled because some are not working well for others. We can imagine some kind of hybrid system that allows successful networks to exist and offers more geographic-based structures for those who want that—more like the early days of the Empowerment Zone.

 

Robin Williams,  East Village Community School 01M315

Dyanthe Spielberg,  The Neighborhood School  01M363

Alison Hazut,   The Earth School  01M364

Mark Federman,   East Side Community High School 01M450

Laura Garcia,   The Ella Baker School  02M225

Erin Carstensen,   Essex Street High School 02M294

Brady Smith,  The James Baldwin High School 02M313

Peter Karp,   Institute for Collaborative Education  02M407

Alicia Perez-Katz,   Baruch College Campus High School  02M411

Stacy Goldstein,   School of the Future High School  02M413

Caron Pinkus,   Landmark High School  02M419

William Klann,   Vanguard High School  02M449

Herb Mack,   Urban Academy Laboratory High School  02M565

Jeannie Ferrari,   Humanities Preparatory High School  02M605

Lindley Uehling,   Central Park East I  04M497

Naomi Smith,   Central Park East II  04M964

Camille Wallin,   Muscota New School  06M314

Valerie Valentine,   Hamilton Heights School 06M368

Julie Zuckerman,   Castle Bridge School  06M513

Sue-Ann Rosch,   Community School for Social Justice  07X427

Brett Schneider,   Bronx Collaborative High School  10X351

Nancy Mann,   Fannie Lou Hamer Freedom High School  12X682

John O’Reilly,  Academy of Arts and Letters  13K492

Laura Scott,   P.S. 10  15K010

Rose Dubitsky,   P.S. 24 15K024

Rebecca Fagin,   P.S. 29  15K029

Elizabeth Garraway,   Maurice Sendak Community School  15K118

Maria Nunziata,   P.S. 130  15K130

Anna Allanbrook,  Brooklyn New School  15K146

Jack Spatola,   P.S. 172  15K172

Sharon Fiden,   P.S. 230  15K230

Zipporiah Mills,   P.S. 261  15K261

Elizabeth Phillips,   P.S. 321 15K321

Dawn Valle,   The Math and Science Exploratory School 15K447

Alyce Barr,  Brooklyn Secondary School for Collaborative Studies 15K448

Jill Smith,  Sunset Park Elementary School  15K516

Jennifer Spalding,   Sunset Park Prep  15K821

Celeste Douglas,   M.S. 57  16K057

Alexander White,   Gotham Professional Arts Academy 16K594

Courtney Winkfield,   Academy for Young Writers  19K404

Sarah Kaufmann,   School of the Future Brooklyn  19K663

Bernadette Fitzgerald,   P.S. 503  20K503

Donna Taylor,   Brooklyn School of Inquiry  20K686

John Banks,   Origins High School  22K611

Meghan Dunn,   Riverdale Avenue Community School  23K446

Kiersten Ward,   Riverdale Avenue Middle School  23K668

Isora Bailey,   NYCi School  02M376

Mandana Beckman,  P.S./I.S. 217 02M217

Monica Berry,  P.S. 87  03M087

Jenny Bonnet,  P.S. 150  02M 150

David Bowell,  The 47 American Sign Language & English Lower School  02M347

John Curry,   Community Action School  03M258

Judith De Los Santos,   Collaborative Academy of Science, Technology and Language Arts Education  01M345

Amy Lipson Ellis,   P.S. 175  11X175

Lauren Fontana,   P.S. 6  02M006

Nancy Harris,   Spruce Street School  02M397

Samantha Kaplan,  Yorkville Community School  02M151

Patrick Kelly,  Urban Science Academy  09X325

Marlon Lowe,  Mott Hall II  03M862

Dahlia McGregor,  Science Skills Center High School for Science, Technology and the Creative Arts  13K419

Veronica Najjar,   P.S. 87  03M087

Tara Napoleoni,    P.S. 183  02M183

D. Scott Parker,   P.S. 452 03M452

Laura Peynado Castro,   University Neighborhood Middle School  01M332

Francesca Pisa,   New Design Middle School 05M514

Michael Prayor,   Brooklyn High School for Law and Technology  16K498

Mara Ratesic-Koetke,   P.S. 77 Lower Lab  02M077

Katy Rosen,   P.S. 199  03M199

Wafta Shama,   47 The American Sign Language and English Secondary School M047

Maggie Siena,  The Peck Slip School  02M343

Yvette Sy,   Pace High School  02M298

Cara Tait,  Frederick Douglass Academy VIII Middle School  19K452

Phyllis Ta,     M.S. 131  02M131

Stacey Walsh,   Brownsville Collaborative Middle School  23K363

Lily Woo,   P.S. 130 02M130

Paula Lettiere,  Fort Greene Preparatory Academy 13K691

Sarah Goodman,  Hunter’s Point Community Middle School  30Q291

Elizabeth Collins,  University Neighborhood High School  01M448

Henry Zymeck,  The Computer School  03M245

Keisha Warner,   The Cinema School  12X478

Elaine Schwartz  The Center School  03M243

Matthew Williams,   Bronx Design and Construction Academy 07X522

Jessica Long,  Crotona International High School  10X524

Bridgit Claire Bye,   Pan American International High School  12X388

Nedda de Castro,  The International High School at Prospect Heights  17K524

John Wenk,  Lower Manhattan Arts Academy 02M308

Peter Sloman,  The College Academy  06M462

Ruth Lacey,   Beacon High School  03M479

Donna Anaman,   P.S. 87  11X087

Jean McTavish,  West Side High School 79M505

Lisa Mandredonia,   P.S. 62  08X062 

Angelo Ledda,   Academy for Personal Leadership and Excellence 10X363

Eliamarie Soto,   P.S. 161  07X161

Rachel Donnelly,   P.S. 121  11X121 

Christine McCourt Milton,  Ampark Neighborhood 10X344

Sereida Rodriguez-Guerra,   P.S. 84 14K084

Rosa Maria Peralta,   P.S. 8  10X008

Carry Chan-Howard,   School for Global Leaders  01M378

Deanna Sinito,   Carroll Gardens School for Innovation  15K442

Janine Kieran, George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School 13K605

Lisa Reiter,   Peace Academy  13K596

Jillian Juman  School for International Studies  15K497

John Sullivan Coalition School for Social Change  04M409

Jodi Radwell

Mary Renny  P.S. 16  14K016

Lorna Khan P.S. 54  13K054

Annabell Martinez  P.S. 124  15K124

David Glasner Urban Assembly Academy of Government and Law  02M305

Mark Ossenheimer  Urban Assembly School for Wildlife Conservation 12X372

Carlos Santiago  Pelham Preparatory Academy 11X542

Daniel Nichols  World View High School 10X353

Matthew Mazzaroppi  Morris Academy for Collaborative Studies 09X297

Dyanand Sugrim  The Heritage School  04M680

Sandra Burgos  11X299

Francisco Sanchez 11X544

Evan Schwartz  Alfred E. Smith Career and Technical High School  07X600

Sarah Scrogin  East Bronx Academy for the Future 12X271

Annette Fiorentino  Bronx Latin  12X267

Jessica Goring  The Bronx School of Law and Finance 10X284

Ty Cesene  Bronx Arena  07X600

Sean Davenport  Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning and Social Change 05M670

Shadia Alvarez  Collegiate Institute for for Math and Science  11X288

LeMarie Laureano The Young Women’s Leadership School of the Bronx  09X568

 

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Talking About Turnarounds-Done-Right At Old-Fashioned Public Schools, EduShyster and I Chat on Bloomberg Radio

Posted on October 22, 2013 by aagabor

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Jane Williams, host of Bloomberg EDU on Bloomberg Radio, together with Jennifer Berkshire, who is also known as Edushyster, an insightful education blogger and contributing writer to The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Our segment, which featured us as two “new voices” covering education and the often misguided corporate education-reform movement, followed an edifying interview with the actor Mark Walhberg, who only just completed his high school education; Wahlberg discussed why his “biggest regret” was not completing his schooling earlier. Among Wahlberg’s more important observations was the role that sports and other extra-curriculars play in motivating kids and keeping them in school. (Wahlberg’s school had no sports and very limited non-academic programs, such as art and music.)

EduShyster and I, meanwhile, discussed school turnarounds-done-right, including those at traditional public schools like Charlotte M. Murkland Elementary School and Brockton High School in Massachusetts, neither of which have received as much attention as they deserve. (To see what I’ve written on Brockton, please see here and here and here. Here is Edushyster on Murkland.) EduShyster and I share an interest in how you change school culture organically, from the bottom up and the inside out. As EduShyster put it, “We’re interested in slower moving, deeper investments in the teachers and staff, versus turning the school upside down, shaking it and hoping for the best.”

We talked about how many of the most popular strategies that education reformers are using today—including canned curricula (an assembly-line approach to education), favoring inexperienced teachers (deskilling) and punitive performance appraisals instead of those that help teachers improve–were discredited in the business world years ago. And we discussed how the best examples of school transformation and improvement are driven by consistent leadership, a clear and coherent strategy and teamwork. These are the management lessons that education reformers should be learning. To hear more please click here.

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inBloom, Education Technology and the Murdoch-Klein Connection: A Son-of-Frankenstein B-movie Sequel?

Posted on October 8, 2013 by aagabor

Last Sunday’s New York Times ran a fascinating story on the controversy surrounding inBloom, which promises to serve as a one-stop warehouse-in-the-cloud for student data, but which many educators and parents worry might compromise the privacy of kids in grades K-12. Like a number of major education-reform ventures, this one was launched by a group of funders led by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Now that most states have signed onto the Common Core State Standards, which will use computerized assessments, the allure of creating a central repository of student data is more compelling than ever.  The NYT lays out the potential benefits of the inBloom system, including the ability to store large amounts of student information and provide tools for analyzing the data–information that will be available not only to educators, but also to education-technology developers who can tailor products to student and school needs. The article also explores the privacy concerns raised by the easy access that large numbers of companies will have to a vast array of information, ranging from academic achievement to disciplinary problems, for potentially tens of millions of students.

The story touches, though only obliquely, on important questions about the balance-of-power between commercial vendors and public schools and school districts, which inBloom is supposed to facilitate.

But one of the most intriguing aspects of the story is one that the NYT does not address at all. No where does the NYT mention that the operating system for inBloom is being developed by the Amplify division (formerly Wireless Generation) of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. This is a striking omission given that that the NYT is the paper of record in New York City where the CEO of Amplify/Wireless Generation, Joel Klein, recently served as schools chancellor. And this despite the fact that New York is one of only three states out of an original nine that, according to the article, “continues to pursue the service.”

In a brief phone conversation, Natasha Singer, the author of the article, explained that the aim of her story was to focus on “one small district in Colorado” and how technology and privacy concerns associated with inBloom play out in an area with much fewer resources than New York City. She also noted that, as is often the case, much was cut from her original story during the editing process.

inBloom itself seems eager to downplay News Corp./Wireless Generation’s involvement, in the venture, even though it was a key partner in the Shared Learning Collaborative, which gave rise to inBloom. (inBloom was launched earlier this year with $100 million in funding.)  Although a March press release announced that Wireless Generation would be one of 24 software providers, the  “partner” and “provider” tabs on the company’s website lists 21 providers, but NOT Wireless Generation or Amplify.

For New Yorkers, inBloom may seem like something of a son-of-Frankenstein B-movie sequel (non-New Yorkers will want to know why…) inBloom traces its roots to a technological lemon. Several years ago, IBM and Wireless Generation developed ARIS (Achievement Reporting and Innovation System), a portal for the New York City Department of Education, which was widely seen as a failure.

Then Cisco began building a rival prototype portal that the company offered to the NYCDOE and that many teachers and principals said was much more useful than ARIS; but the city killed the project in August of 2010.  At the time, officials at the NYCDOE said that when work on the Cisco portal fell behind schedule, the education department pieced together an in-house version and took over the professional training that Cisco had been providing for schools that were part of the much ballyhooed innovation-zone (or izone) initiative. More recently, NYCDOE insiders have said that the department pulled the plug because of investments it had already made in ARIS, which came to total about $100 million.

The Murdoch connection, then and now

 In 2011, The Daily News disclosed that Wireless Generation was poised to win a no-bid $27 million contract to build an ARIS-like portal for New York State as part of the requirements for the state’s Race-to-the-Top bid. Joel Klein had just left his post as schools chancellor to become CEO of Wireless Generation. (The company noted that it had been in talks with the state long before Klein officially departed the NYCDOE for News Corp. in November of 2010.)

Following the hacking scandal at News of the World, a News Corp.-owned British tabloid, New York State declined to approve the Wireless Generation contract.

But by then, the Gates Foundation had already announced plans to help fund and develop the data-collection platform that would become inBloom and that would have a Wireless Generation-developed operating system. At the time, Sharren Bates, the official who had “launch(ed)” and “led” NYCDOE’s ARIS, was working as a Senior Program Officer at the Gates Foundation. Earlier this year Bates became the chief product officer for inBloom.

Much of the NYT’s story focuses on the privacy concerns of both Coloradans and New Yorkers (including the indefatigable Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, one of the leading crusaders for children’s privacy rights) about inBloom’s plans to store student information in the “cloud” (on Amazon’s cloud servers, it turns out, though this is not mentioned in the NYT) and to allow private companies access to that data.

These concerns include the fact that new laws no longer require states to obtain a parent’s permission before sharing information in a child’s records:

“Recent changes in the regulation of a federal education privacy law have also helped the industry. That law, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, required schools to obtain parental permission before sharing information in their children’s educational records. The updated rules permit schools to share student data, without notifying parents, with companies to which they have outsourced core functions like scheduling or data management.”

Then, too, there’s the question of what kind of data inBloom encourages schools to collect. It’s not just grades and attendance, but disciplinary records and family arrangements. Says the NYT:

“InBloom seems designed to nudge schools toward maximal data collection. School administrators can choose to fill in more than 400 data fields. Many are facts that schools already collect and share with various software or service companies: grades, attendance records, academic subjects, course levels, disabilities. Administrators can also upload certain details that students or parents may be comfortable sharing with teachers, but not with unknown technology vendors. InBloom’s data elements, for instance, include family relationships (“foster parent” or “father’s significant other”) and reasons for enrollment changes (“withdrawn due to illness” or “leaving school as a victim of a serious violent incident”)

“Ms. Barnes, the privacy lawyer, said she was particularly troubled by the disciplinary details that could be uploaded to inBloom because its system included subjective designations like “perpetrator,” “victim” and “principal watch list.” Students, she said, may grow out of some behaviors or not want them shared with third parties. She also warned educators to be wary of using subjective data points to stratify or channel children.”

Public-private partnerships are a much-touted way to infuse the public sector with both private-sector money and know-how. As ARIS’s history shows, quality problems can plague both public- and private-sector projects (more on this below). Moreover, not only are there serious balance-of-power issues in such arrangements, as inBloom illustrates; the power of private-sector partners creates challenges that, in the rush to adopt online technology and ed-reform, many localities have not adequately grappled with.

Taking a page from Apple’s itunes…

The publicity surrounding inBloom suggests that its platform will make it almost as easy to find customized software based on student and school needs as it is to build a playlist based on songs bought from Apple’s itunes store. That should worry schools, school districts and families. After all, the major music companies found that they were powerless in the face of Apple’s online music-shop monopoly; just imagine where inBloom leaves schools and school districts, which will provide the raw data for those educational innovations.

While inBloom itself is a non-profit, one of its expressed aims, as the NYT points out, is to “bolster the market for educational products.” The K-12 education software market alone is estimated at $8 billion according to the Software and Information Industry Association. Murdoch, however, has pegged the education-technology market, which also includes hardware and networking technology, at $500 billion.

And while information gleaned from individual students is supposed to provide the vital information need to develop and hone products, schools will pay dearly not only for the products that are made possible by inBloom, but for using the portal itself. As Leonie Haimson notes, starting in 2015, inBloom says it will charge states and districts between $2 and $5 per student each year for storing data on the site.

Nor do technology companies need inBloom in order to innovate and “customize” software. As part of New York City’s technological push during the Klein years, the city purchased masses of software for online learning. As the largest urban education market, that presented a unique opportunity to examine, and customize products to, the needs of city kids. Yet, one of the major complaints about the NYCDOE portal and the education software available to New York City public schools was that most software developers did nothing—and the NYCDOE did not use its clout to force them—to tailor programs, which were originally designed for the home-school market, for the needs of inner-city kids.

Common sense suggests that states and school districts should be championing both the educational and privacy interests of their students—especially if they want to benefit from the technology synergies of products like inBloom. But that doesn’t seem to be happening—at least not without considerable public pressure—in part because of the close ties between government officials and industry.

Consider the strange case of Louisiana, where Joel Klein’s former NYCDOE deputy, John White, is the superintendent of schools. This article describes a remarkable string of email exchanges among White, Amplify/Wireless Generation, the Gates Foundation and New Schools for New Orleans, a leading charter-school gatekeeper. It shows how the close ties among state officials and the private sector led Louisiana to become one of the first to give inBloom access to all of its student’s data. Four months later, following widespread protests, Louisiana removed the kids’ information from the inBloom database.

Meanwhile, during the last legislative session, the New York State legislature failed to pass bills that would have protected student privacy.

Indeed, New York has a history of making hasty education decisions. It was one of the first states to push through a new “common core”-focused standardized test last spring. The assessments were rushed through before teachers had any meaningful training in the new standards and before students had much exposure to them. The result was much anguish on the part of students, families and teachers; a huge drop in test scores without much apparent benefit; as well as an open rebellion by principals.

As the NYT suggests in its inBloom article, schools and parents should be both aware and wary:

“Ms. Bates of inBloom said it was important for school districts to define their own legitimate uses for their students’ data and to develop policies to manage them.

“’We don’t have all the answers,’ she said.

Concludes the NYT: “Educators, in other words, are on their own.”

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