Defending School Report Cards, Over a Chorus of Boos

[Peter Farruggio <pfarr@cal.berkeley.edu>]

Inspiring story.  Our work to expose the 
standardistas' lies is paying off.  Notice that 
the city councilmembers are aware of the bogus 
nature of standardista propaganda.  Kudos to the NYC parents group!


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/11/nyregion/11grades.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin

December 11, 2007


Defending School Report Cards, Over a Chorus of Boos

By 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/jennifer_medina/index.html?inline=nyt-per>JENNIFER 
MEDINA

The architect of the city?s new system that 
assigns grades to public schools faced fierce 
criticism yesterday at a hearing before the City 
Council?s Education Committee, whose members 
blasted the evaluations as unfair, reductive and a maze of statistics.

For three hours, council members sharply 
questioned the official who designed the system, 
James Liebman. His testimony was repeatedly 
interrupted by boos and hisses from dozens of 
parents in the packed room. Many of them held up 
fliers with the letter F printed in thick black 
ink, a sign of their displeasure that they aimed at the television cameras.

Some council members said the grades relied too 
much on standardized tests and did more to harm schools then to help them.

?There has to be a way to break this down and 
make it helpful and useful to parents,? said 
Robert Jackson, the chairman of the Education 
Committee. ?I want to know basic things, like are 
students performing well over the years, about 
school safety and class size, and how much parents are involved.?

Mr. Liebman spoke in detail, with flourishes from 
a PowerPoint presentation. He staunchly defended 
the system, although he said he would take the 
critiques seriously. He left open the possibility 
of altering the system to assign more than one grade to each school.

But the hearing was most remarkable for its theatrics.

After Mr. Liebman finished speaking, several 
parents gathered outside of the council chambers 
with boxes filled with protest petitions 
containing nearly 7,000 signatures, hoping to 
present them to Mr. Liebman in front of the 
television cameras. But Mr. Liebman, whose title 
is chief accountability officer of the Education 
Department, ducked out a side door, leaving 
parents to chase him out the back of City Hall to 
behind the Education Department?s headquarters at Tweed Courthouse.

There, several education officials ran in circles 
for several minutes to avoid Jane Hirschmann, the 
director of Time Out From Testing, an advocacy 
group, as well as parents and reporters.

Later, in a telephone interview, Mr. Liebman said 
he had not deliberately avoided the parents and 
had followed the direction of his staff in 
leaving the building. By the time Ms. Hirschmann 
and others were outside, he said, ?it didn?t look 
to me like it was going to be a productive conversation.?

Ms. Hirschmann said she was ?completely in shock? 
by Mr. Liebman?s behavior. ?I think it shows 
total distain for all our concerns,? she said.

During the hearing, Mr. Liebman repeatedly turned 
to a recent poll by 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/q/quinnipiac_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Quinnipiac 
University as evidence of widespread public 
support for the system, which assigns schools a 
grade of A through F. In that poll, 75 percent of 
the public school parents who knew the grade of 
their child?s school said they thought the 
evaluation was fair. But of the 1,007 voters 
polled, only 143 were public school parents.

?If you?re telling me that the average person 
understood the report cards because the 
Quinnipiac poll said so, that?s not reality,? 
said Lewis A. Fidler, a councilman from Brooklyn.

Mr. Fidler said most parents who had children in 
schools that received A?s and B?s were largely 
satisfied with the grades but had done little to 
understand the complicated methodology.

?I?m sure your intentions are good, but I have a 
lot of problems,? Mr. Fidler told Mr. Liebman. He 
compared the report cards to fantasy football or 
baseball ­ collecting a wealth of statistics to 
create a conclusion that ?does not reflect what is going on in the field.?

?I wish we could just teach,? he said, prompting 
a round of applause and whoops from the audience. 
?I don?t think you?re being fair about who is 
being stigmatized. You?re glossing over that.?

Councilman John C. Liu pressed Mr. Liebman about 
whether the grades were based primarily on a 
one-time test. Mr. Liebman emphasized that for 
elementary school students, there were two tests: 
one in math and one in reading. And he said that 
each test was drawn out over three days. But the 
lengthy explanation left Mr. Liu exasperated: ?Is it or is it not one test??

Without missing a beat, Mr. Liebman responded, ?Life is one test!?

The room exploded with boos and hisses, while 
several council members tried to suppress their laughter.

Once the crowed quieted, Mr. Liebman labored to 
explain that the grades were not made up of ?just 
one test; it also has to do with surveys, it has 
to do with attendance.? He said that the state 
tests were fair because they showed whether 
students were proficient in a variety of skills in each subject.

When Councilman 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/y/david_yassky/index.html?inline=nyt-per>David 
Yassky said the system created a ?false sense of 
precision,? Mr. Liebman emphasized that he 
expected to make changes before the grades were assigned next year.

?I?m taking very seriously the suggestion of 
grading various categories,? he said, responding 
to the suggestion that the city use multiple 
grades for each school. ?It is something we?re certainly taking a look at.?