Bloomberg and Education: Hold him accountable
One reason I lean towards Gifford Miller (though I am still undecided) is that every time I hear him he strongly emphasizes education. Fortunately I have heard all the Dem candidates talke education in a forum in Park Slope that Bloomberg ignored, but the Dems all showed up (or, in the case of Fields, sent a representative). All of the Dem candidates (with Miller adding more detail than the rest, but otherwise saying the same thing) emphasized that Bloomberg's testing more and relying on the courts EVENTUALLY making Pataki and the state pay us the education funds they owe us is not good enough since it condemns our children who are now in schools to a poor education.
My personal experience is that the good schools are good not because of anything Bloomberg or Pataki is doing, but because the parents give time and money to help the school. I am hearing all the horror stories of 11 year olds having to go on Prozac because they are so depressed about the application process to get into Middle School. I am also experiencing the difficulty it is to get certified to teach science even when there is a school that wants you. I am looking for a job and I was considering teaching HS science at a new, small school in an underserved neighborhood, but I will probably not go into teaching because there is no way I can get certified in time for Sept and the process is so irritating that if I can find any other job I will.
So, the lesson is Bloomberg's claims of helping education in NYC is pretty much dead wrong. He has done some good, but his overall records is just as abyssmal as Pataki's...or Bush's.
THe group OurKidsCan'tWait.org is trying to get Bloomberg to put our tax money where his mouth is and to support EDUCATION rather than DEVELOPERS. To quote:
When he was elected, Mayor Bloomberg challenged you to judge him on his education record. Now, with a multimillion-dollar ad campaign, he's trying to sway your opinion.
But look at the simple facts: He has a clear opportunity to eliminate overcrowded classrooms and restore essential school programs, but he's poised to sacrifice a quality education for our kids so that he and other wealthy New Yorkers can have a tax cut.
If he can afford to shell out millions of dollars to tout his policies on TV, he can afford this existing income tax.
Fourth and fifth-graders may have improved their test scores - an achievement Bloomberg is broadcasting far and wide - but what about the other kids, the overcrowded classrooms, and the vanishing after-school programs?
We have a no-brainer solution. By extending the existing income tax on individuals making more than half a million dollars, we can generate $380 million a year to reduce class size, buy up-to-date textbooks, and build much-needed science labs.
But Bloomberg is more concerned about protecting the wealthy. Millionaires can vote, but our kids can't.
We have a logical way to maintain the gains we've made in the early grades and start addressing the funding crisis, before it's too late.
Together, we can get Mayor Bloomberg to listen.
Email Bloomberg to pressure him to support education .
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Parenting | Public Schools | New York City
Actually
Submitted by mole333 on 21 June 2005 - 12:48pm.
I have my Ph.D. But that doesn't seem to interest anyone! I find no one is very supportive. The school seemed eager to get me, but they offered no help. They did say they will still be interested in me next year if I get certified.
Teaching is not my first choice, though is one I am considering. My first choice would be to continue as a research scientist in lab...but Bush cuts to NSF and NIH make it almost impossible to find a job.
I think politics/public policy would be my second choice, but that is hard to break into and kind of uncertain.
Writing/editing (science oriented, preferably) would be my third choice. BUt that is even harder to break into.
Teaching HS would be my fourth choice. It is clear I could certainly get a teaching position in about a year if I focus on certification now. But given that this is my fourth choice, and no one has been very helpful in terms of getting certification (the teaching fellows program doesn't even respond to questions!), I feel like I should keep looking into the other options. My job ends in Sept, so I have some time, but I have been looking for months with no success. THis school in Brooklyn was the first place that actually seemed interested in hiring me!
fellows
Submitted by atomicBirdsong on 21 June 2005 - 2:22pm.
My girlfriend just graduated from Fellows. I am surprised by your comments. Although she did not think the training was real-world oriented enough, after a short summer program they did put her right into a classroom - teaching three math classes a day. All tuition covered, and salary, and since she had prior corporate experience she got a larger salary.
But you probably know all this. Their deadline for starting the cert process is late May..so its a little late to be pursuing this now I guess. I assume this is because they need to get people into summer classes because they throw you right into teaching in the fall. Maybe you can call and jump in late??
You probably know these links too, but I'll include them for the heck of it:
About getting certified through Fellows
NYState Cert Requirements
(this seems pretty clear, if lengthy, to me but I have not tried to get certified)
Hope that helps you or someone.
-Will
http://onNYTurf.com
Thanks!
Submitted by mole333 on 21 June 2005 - 2:50pm.
Supposedly the earliest I could be certified is October. Of course the school needs a teacher in Sept. I have heard from about a dozen sources that there are "provisional" or "emergency" certifications or ways around it to get someone teaching ASAP, but if so I find no evidence of it.
My current plan is to keep looking for something else until the June 2006 teaching fellow's program. If I have no job by then, then I will see if I can use the teaching fellow's program to get into the same school that was interested in me this year. Problem with that is I may be unemployed for about 9 months.
ARE you kidding?!
Submitted by abraham on 21 June 2005 - 3:33pm.
Hard work by students, parents, and teachers are a given. But don't lump Bloomberg with Pataki or Bush! Bloomberg taking control of the city school system from the state was a huge step toward fixing a broken system that was never able to be fixed because control was in the hands of the state. And I mean huge! Bloomberg talks about education all the time. Don't go for Miller. And don't discount Bloomberg.
Hard work by teachers, parent
Submitted by atomicBirdsong on 21 June 2005 - 4:25pm.
Hard work by teachers, parents, and students is not so given. You didn't hear Klein and Bloomberg step up and say credit goes to the teachers and parents and students for putting in extra work on Saturdays and throughout the year when they boasted about the improved 3rd and 5th grade math scores. And you don't hear him saying the teachers really deserve a contract and a raise. (btw - he does this with the Police too - "best police around" he'll say. No contract for years. Fire too..."very nice job on 9/11 - courageous"...No contract, no negotiation, get to fires faster! Of course I dont find this suprising for a CEO type.)
No doubt take over by Bloomberg was a good thing. However it would be nice to see the Mayor apply the same urgency to school problems that he does to, oh say, building an Olympic Stadium...which we "Must Have". How about we "Must Have" smaller classes next year, or we "Must Have" more teachers, or we "Must Have" better teacher retention.
don't beleive the hype
Submitted by abraham on 21 June 2005 - 5:50pm.
Let's not get caught up in the hype here. What the mayor says that gets picked up in the the news in one thing. What he has done on education is another. I think mayor mike and the administration have been working very hard on education in the city and they have already accomplished more than any previous mayor. The reclaiming of the schools is one--city control of the schools was taken away under Mayor Lindsay. Ending social promotion is another. Fighting crime in schools is another. The list goes on and on.
The teachers contract issue is a rather complicated one that cannot be lost in polemics or rhetoric--from either side. And just giving a flat out raise is not necessarily the right answer. The UFT is fighting for more then just a simple raise. And I think the mayor is trying to do the best for the City and the school children. We need somekind of merit based system. And the other candidates think so too.
I Don't buy Bloomberg's Hype
Submitted by mole333 on 21 June 2005 - 8:13pm.
When nurses, teachers, firefighters and police all have trouble getting contracts, I figure something is wrong with the mayor. I am not saying that everything he has done is bad. I personally LIKE the smoking ban. But he has treated most city workers like dirt...yes, even our brave firefighters.
All I hear from him is stadium, stadium, stadium. And I hate his plans for my backyard--Atlantic Yards. He is dictatorial, doesn't listen to experts OR the community, and he favors big developers over basic city infrastructure. The subways are declining FAST in just the last few years. Well, if he and Pataki blame the MTA that makes no difference to those of us who now face more than an hour commute when it used to be 45 minutes. The simple fact of the matter is Pataki and Bloomberg are presiding over a system that is failing and all he talks about is the damned stadium and the olympics. Sorry, it makes no sense to me.
And the kicker was when he spent MY tax money to host the Repub Convention and MY tax money went to pay for security to keep me out of parts of MY city. No way, man! He has lost points with me for most of his term.
What has he done for education? Nothing!
Submitted by Liza Sabater on 22 June 2005 - 9:09pm.
But he has been FANTASTIC at keeping the wheels of schooling greased in NYC.
Look, if there were a serious discussion about education reform in this country, this city, this state, there would be serious discussion about :
(1) Compulsory full time attendance
(2) Parent and student directed education vs. fedral/state/local mandated curricula
(3) Expansion of trade and vocational education programs
Bloomberg has just done cosmetic work over all. "Progress" in schools that were failing was due to plans that were in place way before Bloomberg. They also reflect the learning of testing tricks that happens every time a new assesment plan is put into place. It takes about a school year for schools to learn how to teach to the test. Then the scores go up.
Testing has nothing to do with education or with learning. It just a way for educrats to pat themselves in the back. Learning can be marginally measured and passing a test is not a measure of future success as a citizen.
There are so many education styles like Waldorf, Sudbury, open classroom. But real alternatives in education and learning methods are only for the privileged few that can afford 20K a year to send their kids to the private schools that provide them.
Oh please
Submitted by Liza Sabater on 22 June 2005 - 8:51pm.
It's such a joke.
Please, explain to me how is he not accountable to the SED? Because last I heard, he is. Everybody in the state of NY is accountable to the SED, the one single enemy of education reform in the state.
Leave education decisions to the parents? Of course not, it would affect the unions and the perks they get from them!
Leave assesment decisions to each school? Of course not, it would affect the bureaucrats jobs and the ability to get perks!
Michael Bloomberg's "take over" of the city schools is a fallacy. It's a hoax. There is no such thing because NYC public schools are still accountable to the State Education Department and the Board of Regents.
So tell me, how did he "took over" city schools. The system has not changed. It actually has gotten harder to get any education discussion not involving traditional schooling thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act.
So no. Michael Bloomberg has not been good to education in NYC because his policies have nothing to do with education and all about schooling which are two completely different things.
Get the Repug out. A vote for Michael Bloomberg is a vote against education and a vote for schooling. Plain and simple.
Why? Prove your point
Submitted by brooklynben on 22 June 2005 - 11:41pm.
While we can agree that mayoral control over the schools is a step in the right direction, you don't make any strong points here against Miller. Or even for Bloomberg. All Bloomberg did to get control was not be as mean and nasty as Guliani.
Good Heavens!
Submitted by LarryInNYC on 21 June 2005 - 10:55pm.
You know, there are a lot of problems with education in New York, and the system has a very long way to go. But when I read nonsense like this post I really feel that there's no hope -- people will always put their political cart before the horse of childrens' education.
You talk about personal experience, but I have to question what personal experience you have with NYC public schools. So much of this sounds like it came from a Gifford Miller tax-payer funded press release.
(For the record, I have daughter in kindergarten in Harlem, in a school within a school program my wife and I helped to found and I myself am a product of the District 6 public schools.)
Bloomberg's reforms of the school system have been earth shattering. They haven't always been _good_, and in many cases it's not clear whether he's going to be successful in the end (the bureaucratic inertia is unbelievable), but at least he's trying to do something! You can question his effectivness, but to question his (and more especially, Klein's, a Democrat from the Clinton administration who could be making five or ten times what he's making in his thankless job) dedication to the effort is silly.
As for the state funding issue, it was my city council rep, Robert Jackson, who led the fight with the Campaign for Fiscal Equity. Now, having won in the courts, you seem to want to give up without forcing the state to disgorge the enormous sums of the money the City has coming to it.
If you had to choose someone who would do better, of all people Gifford Miller? It's hard to figure out how he's interested in educating children in Harlem when he seems most interested in _poisoning_ them by locating a major waste transfer facility directly adjacent to the largest park in Harlem (Riverbank) just to avoid having it in his backyard.
Although perhaps it's possible you were taken in by his phoney City Council mailing, 17 Seats, sent to every household that might vote for him, using tax money not disclosed as campaign funds? That could be a math problem -- if the city has X dollars, and the City Council President steals $500,000 (or whatever the amount was), how much does the city have left?
Now, as regards teaching in the city schools -- no school will offer you a job without certification. In our program parents participate in the hiring of teachers, and we wouldn't even look at you without significant classroom experience (I don't mean you in particular, we're an elementary school). Why? Because teaching a subject, particularly in the demanding environment of the city's public schools, is not the same as understanding it or practicing it.
No one is going to help you get your certification because that is _your_ responsibility. Unless you have a reasonable amount of education training already, it's completely reasonable it should take you a year to learn what you need to know to teach in a public school -- and to learn if you have also personality traits and strength of character that it takes.
My wife is a teacher (in addition to serving on the Steering Committee for our program). She has a Master's Degree in Education (as do many teachers, by the way) in addition to an Ivy League degree in Engineering. Which do you think the school's care about? (She used to teach in a ritzy private school, where they _loved_ the Princeton degree, by the way, and they will certainly take you without certification). If you want to be a science teacher, you're applying for a _teaching_ job. You should be a qualified teacher when you go to the interview.
Teaching in the New York City Public Schools is a tough job. If it's really your fourth choice, I would think seriously about working harder to get a spot in one of the first three.
Sorry to be so snarky, but it really gets my goat that we stand on the cusp of a revolutionary improvement in public education in New York and it looks like we may have to give it up simply because Mike Bloomberg felt it necessary to bypass the Democratic Party machine and buy himself a spot on the Republican line.
Goodness Gracious!
Submitted by mole333 on 22 June 2005 - 7:31am.
First as to my possible teaching career. Thanks for the advice. You confirm the attitude I find despite the claims by politicians that they will do anything to get good teachers. Just FYI, I have considerable teaching and mentoring experience over the past 20 years. It just has never been my PRIMARY job title.
My experience with the NYC public schools involves having a kid in school, having to look into schools when we bought an apartment, and looking into the horrible process Bloomberg has put in place forcing every 5th grader to go through a process similar to college applications. I'm sorry, but Bloomberg talks alot and orders people around and accomplishes little.
At NO POINT did I say we shouldn't force the state to give us the money Pataki has refused to give us. But should our children have to WAIT for the court system? NO! Forget the damned stadium and the Atlantic Yards Arena that is inappropriate for the neighborhood and put the money into schools NOW! That is what every Dem candidate advocates to varying degrees (not all are against the Atlantic Yards project...that is one place I disagree with Miller). The Dem candidates seem to recognize that we have kids in school NOW who need to be helped. Bloomberg is too dictatorial, too blinded by his own power, cares too little for the opinion of parents and is too beholden to developers.
I DON'T BUY BLOOMBERG'S HYPE!
Lots of teaching jobs around
Submitted by atomicBirdsong on 22 June 2005 - 10:11am.
Your account of getting a teaching job is not accurate.
you wrote:
Now, as regards teaching in the city schools -- no school will offer you a job without certification. In our program parents participate in the hiring of teachers, and we wouldn't even look at you without significant classroom experience (I don't mean you in particular, we're an elementary school). Why? Because teaching a subject, particularly in the demanding environment of the city's public schools, is not the same as understanding it or practicing it.
--
NYC will put you into a school and set you up teaching multiple classes immediately following a summer training course. And as I am sure you are aware a summer training course is not really going to help you with teaching in the more challenging NYC public schools. As I mentioned in my other post above, if you have a good work background, and you are in math or science, NYC will pay for you to get a Master's degree and give you a fulltime full pay union teaching job immediately before you are cerified and before you have earned your degree.
Links:
General Information:
TeachNYC.com
TeachNYC.com for Career Changers
NY State Requirements
Specific Certification and Masters Degree Programs in NYC:
http://www.nycteachingfellows.org/ - New York City Teaching Fellows
http://www.top.cuny.edu/ - Teaching Opportunity Program
http://www.teachforamerica.org/flash_movie.html - Teach for America
http://http://www.tc.columbia.edu/ - Teachers College
http://education.nyu.edu/ - New York University
http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/education/ - CUNY - Hunter College
http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/Education/new/ - CUNY - Queens College
http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/education/index.htm - CUNY - City College
http://www.lehman.edu/deanedu/middlehs/ - Lehman College
http://www.bnkst.edu/index_flash.html- Bank Street College of Education
http://www.stjohns.edu/academics/graduate/education - St. John's University
(links sourced from a page that is part of my site but created by a NYC teacher: http://www.onnyturf.com/tiki-index.php?page=Education)
With all due respect...
Submitted by Xray the Enforcer on 22 June 2005 - 11:28am.
My fiance (he's a calculus teacher) is going through this process right now, and it sucks ass. I would never cousel someone to go into teaching in NYC if they have a low bullshit threshold. Because it flies fast and thick, especially in the ill-equipped, horribly organized "Teach While We Educate You" programs. Pleh.
"It's a sad little wreck of a chromosome."
--JA Marshall-Graves on the hamster Y chromosome
NYC aint Greenwich CT
Submitted by atomicBirdsong on 22 June 2005 - 1:34pm.
Well, I only know something about this (as I said above) because my girlfriend just graduated from Fellows and is a math teacher for two years now. And I think I also said earlier that the prep courses of Fellows is not strong. The original post only asked for information about getting certified, and the post I last replied too said you could not get a teaching job without being certified and this is not entirely true. If you want to get teaching right away Fellows gives you an "all expenses paid", "no certification required" path.
Now if you want 16 students in a class, time for a Starbucks, 2 cell phone calls and a smoke NYC is going to fail you every day of the week. In that case you should dial 203 for your lifestyle fix. But if you want to learn something about innercity life, teaching in NYC, it seems, offers you an endless rollercoaster of enlightment. The education is in the teaching.
Who wants Greenwich?
Submitted by Xray the Enforcer on 22 June 2005 - 4:56pm.
It's silly to assume the only thing skeptics of NYC Fellows program want is a cushy teaching job in CT. I come from a family of teachers. I've had much success teaching science to elementary kids, to high school kids, to university students. I know the time and dedication it requires to be a good one. I just don't have much respect for the punitive "get yer certification or fuck off" attitude that exists in the NYC school system.
I've been to grad school once already [chemistry Ph.D.] and I sure as shit would not go back, not even to be a teacher in this town (which I would otherwise be very interested in doing). Not Greenwich, CT, this town. NYC, with the long hours and the metal detectors, and the urban strife and the outdated lab equipment.
Which is a bit of a shame, because last time I checked, NYC schools were still eager for math and science teachers.
I'm not criticizing your girlfriend's choices (and I'm actually really happy that she's making the effort and becoming a teacher in a society that doesn't value them all that much) -- or harping your informational posting for mole3333, which is just that, quite informative.
I merely have a deep skepticism of the whole cert process -- and a fair bit of empathy for mole3333's situation.
"It's a sad little wreck of a chromosome."
--JA Marshall-Graves on the hamster Y chromosome
If he already has a friggin PhD, why the need for an MA?
Submitted by Liza Sabater on 22 June 2005 - 9:44pm.
This is what is sooooo wrong about the whole hiring process in NYC.
But again, what can you expect from a schooling system that is not interested in open education methods? That's what the whole mentoring program at the time I was in the system (this was 1990) was supposed to be. I had not one mentor. Nobody. And I was supposed to go to a school that was PAID to assign me a mentor. I did not know this until AFTER I quit.
Teaching was not an issue though, nor conflict resolution or anything like that. It was the friggin amount of stupid paperwork they make you do on a daily basis that was gruesome. And the fact that I was teaching kids that were basically functionally illiterate in Spanish; needless to say illiterate in English --and they did not have enough resources to teach these kids to read in either language. So here I am a bilingual "History" teacher, making up to 3 different curricula --no, not lesson plans, but actual curricula-- in my classroom for the different levels of reading I had in each group.
There is no amount of MA busy work in education that can prepare you for that. Needless to say, I bolted and ended up teaching 7 years in college. I miss teaching college once in a while. Public school in NY? Never.
It's not the kids who are a problem, it's the frigging system, period. Schools have become a fetish, not a means to getting an education.
Earth-shattering?
Submitted by Liza Sabater on 22 June 2005 - 9:26pm.
How?
You're equating mandatory testing with learning? You're equating schooling with education?
This is the reason why I consider NY to be one of the most backward states in the country when it comes to education. What we have in place are schooling policies, not education policies.
The NY education law is such that it puts the state above the interests of parents and children. The state has a "compelling interest" in specifying how, when and where children go to school not get an education.
That's why when the Campaign for Fiscal Equity took the state to court, the state argued that it was only responsible for the minimum amount of education necessary for a teenager to get a job at minimum wage. As the state law is written that is absolutely right.
If the CFFE were really interest in education reform, real education reform, it would work to change the education laws in this state. The money is necessary for schools to be managed but true educational reform has to come from within the law itself : Of redifining the role of the government in relation to education; switching the focus from schooling to learning; and expanding the role of other institutions such as libraries, museums, research centers, vocational and trade programs.
No, the changes are not earth shattering AT ALL.
the schools need competition and decentralization
Submitted by Bill Seitz on 24 June 2005 - 3:15pm.
Bloomberg was right to get the BoardOfEd bureaucracy ripped apart, but unfortunately has just centralized power rather than pushing power and accountability outward.
The current system will not ever get better from sinking more money into it, or trying harder.
There needs to be more options available for parents to seek real alternatives, and the schools that get left behind will need their management replaced.
http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/EducatingKidsInNyc
http://webseitz.fluxent.com/wiki/z2005-06-24-PatakiMoreIndependentSchool...
YES!
Submitted by Liza Sabater on 24 June 2005 - 3:23pm.
How can there ever be "17 chairs" only in a classroom if the policies are only school centric and only meant to use parents more as volunteers than active participants in their children's education? You don't need to be a homeschooler to want to have more of a say of what, where and how your kids learn.
Mole333: I agree the cert pro
Mole333: I agree the cert process is frustrating, and I gave up on it also. You probably know there are alternative routes to certification. Here is one lead that specifies some of them: http://www.cicu.org/community_service_06.php
Most schools are so desperate for good teachers that they will hire you with the blessing of the district, and then point you toward a number of programs to help you get officially certified. Although the Fellows has gotten the most press, it is by no means the only route, nor the simplest. The union is also a good source for info if you are still interested.
The other major promise Bloomberg has made is to eradicate homelessness in five years. And so if he is re-elected, he must also be held accountable on that score.
I hope you won't give up on the teaching. My understanding is that you certainly do not need to be officially certified to teach in the classroom. I am assuming you have your B.S., of course.