Excellent NYTimes Column on Test-Baed Promotion

[Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>]

         TEACHING US A LESSON
 New York Times Column -- March 19, 2004
                by Bob Herbert

If you take a wrong turn, and you're too stubborn to listen to people 
who know something about the terrain, you will end up a long, long way 
from your intended destination.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg took a wrong turn this week when, in an arrogant 
and ugly display of power, he bounced three members of the city's Panel 
for Educational Policy because they were going to vote against a new 
promotion standard that will likely result in thousands of additional 
third graders being held back.

Just hours before Monday night's vote, Mr. Bloomberg fired two of his 
own appointees to the panel and engineered the dismissal of the member 
appointed by the Staten Island borough president. Three new appointments 
were hastily made, and the newly constructed panel held its vote before 
a stunned and furious audience at the High School of Art and Design in 
Manhattan. It approved Mr. Bloomberg's policy change, 8-5.

The mayor can look in the mirror now, flex his muscles and congratulate 
himself on being a tough guy. But what he cannot honestly say is that 
his latest theatrics were in the best interests of the city's schoolkids.

Listen up: It is not a good idea to allow children who are not learning 
to simply walk out of one grade and into another without any kind of 
intervention. But the question of what to do about youngsters who are 
not learning is enormously complex. And the answers won't be found in 
the politically charged impulse to hold back third graders on the basis 
of a test score, or by publicly humiliating thoughtful individuals who 
are serious about trying to help children.

For some reason Mr. Bloomberg felt the need to tell the press that one 
of the women dumped from the panel had been crying. And in a reference 
to failing third graders, he told a radio audience: "Yes, they may cry a 
little bit. But children in the third grade cry a lot, and it's part of 
the growing-up process."

It's not just third graders who could do with a little growing up.

"Mayoral control means mayoral control, thank you very much," said Mr. 
Bloomberg. It came across as a sneer.

What is happening under mayoral control is that politics is playing a 
bigger role than ever before in the management of the school system. Mr. 
Bloomberg benefits politically from the third-grade retention plan in at 
least two ways:

There is substantial public support for holding back failing students, 
whether it helps kids or not. (It's not widely known, but New York City 
already holds back about 5,000 third graders each year.) And holding 
back a few thousand additional third graders this year will inevitably 
lead to higher scores in the benchmark fourth-grade tests next year, 
which just happens to be a re-election year for Hizzoner.

Meanwhile, the mayor's political opponents are already crafting plans to 
use his management of the schools (and especially this week's 
heavy-handed tactics) as a campaign issue. The system is becoming more 
polarized, not less. More directly political, not less.

Politics aside, what the mayor and his handpicked chancellor, Joel 
Klein, seem not to understand is that whatever their personal vision 
might be, the management of the New York City school system has to be a 
cooperative effort. There are 1.1 million children and more than 1,000 
schools in the system. Mr. Bloomberg may have the legal powers of a 
dictator when it comes to the public schools, but if he insists on using 
that power to actually behave as a dictator, he is doomed to fail.

The third-grade retention plan was initially designed to hold back 
youngsters on the basis of a single test, a truly unconscionable 
practice. That caused such an outcry, and the Panel on Educational 
Policy objected so vociferously, that it was changed. Youngsters will 
now get a second crack at the test, and there is an appeals process.

It's still an exercise in futility, however, and a lousy approach to 
school reform. Anybody can hold a kid back. The tough part is teaching 
the kid to read. There are many programs and policies that have proved 
over several years to be effective in educating big-city children. A 
fair question to ask is why Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein, given such an 
array of choices, have so stubbornly thrown their weight behind a policy 
that has failed again and again and again.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/19/opinion/19HERB.html