Talking About Public Education (Part 2)

The New York Times published an article “N.Y.C. Children Held Ground in Reading, but Lagged in Math, Tests Show”, on September 28, 2022.  Reporter Troy Closson wrote “Less than 38 percent of third through eighth graders demonstrated proficiency in math, compared with about 46 percent of students before the pandemic, the last time exams were given to most of the city’s schoolchildren… When New York City students last took the tests in 2019, about 46 percent of them passed the math exam, and 47 percent passed the English language arts… But the relatively comparable 2018 and 2019 tests show gaps have remained steady between Black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian American peers.  Three years ago, there was a roughly 38-percentage-point gap between the pass rates of Black and white students on the math exam.  The difference held this year.  Overall, about 21 percent of New York City’s Black students and 23 percent of Hispanic students passed this year’s math exam, compared with 59 percent of white students and 68 percent of Asian American students… But parent groups, teachers unions, and some education advocates argue the tests are flawed and only provide a limited look at student achievement.”

The next day Success Academy Charter School network issued a press release headlined “Success Academy’s Black and Hispanic Students Achieve Proficiency Rates Double and Triple that of New York City Peers”, with a banner reading “Network Averages 76.4% Pass Rates in ELA (English Language Arts) and 82.7% in Math”.  The press release read “Despite declines from 2019 NY state exams, Black and Hispanic children at Success Academy (SA) achieve double, and in some cases triple, the pass rates of their district peers.  The network of almost 50 schools enrolling 20,000 achieved overall pass rates of 76.4% ELA and 82.7% Math… Among the Success Academy test takers this spring, 47.6% are Black, 32.1% Hispanic, 8.4% Asian, and 6.9% white.  About 76% are from low-income families.  The percentage of students scoring at the low [proficiency] Level 1 and high [proficiency] Level 4 of the state exams also demonstrated a sharp contrast between the city’s district schools and Success Academy.  Only 3.1% of SA students scored Level 1 in ELA, and less than 5% did so in Math, compared to 22.5% and 38.5% for district students, respectively.  At the other end of the spectrum, 32.8% of SA students scored Level 4 ELA and 56.3% in Math, compared to 22.3% in ELA and 19.2% in Math for district students… SA middle school scholars in grades 6-8 also saw strong scores:  in ELA, scholars in grades 6-8 at all 15 SA middle schools averaged pass rates of 88% or better; in math, five schools averaged pass rates of 90% or higher in these grades.  All Success Academy 8th graders took four Regents exams — Algebra I, ELA, Living Environment, and Global History and Geography — with pass rates of 93% or above on all four.”

Despite this extraordinary record of charter school achievement, on February 2, 2023 The New York Times ran a story headlined “Charter School Expansion Faces Tough Fight in New York”.  It read in part as follows.  “Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal to allow dozens of new charter schools to open in New York City has set the stage for a charged battle in the coming months over the future of the city’s school system.  The governor’s proposal opens the possibility that the charter sector could expand its foothold in the nation’s largest school system.  But charters, which have always faced fierce opposition from teachers’ unions and left-leaning democrats, face a turbulent road ahead, as the city’s public school system grapples with the loss of thousands of students and some of the dollars that follow them.  In New York City, ongoing fights over the sharing of school campuses with charters could further inflame the debate…”.

The Economist magazine weighed-in on this debate in their March 18, 2023 issue, as follows.  “Under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, debates raged across the country over how to close academic-achievement gaps between poor minority children and rich white ones… Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama both called education “the civil rights issue of our time”… Waving the banner of “school reform”, mayors and superintendents in the Bush and Obama years pushed not just for more spending but for more competition, data, and accountability.  They wanted to link teacher evaluations and pay to student outcomes, measured by new tests.  These reformers advocated shutting down bad schools and creating charter schools, generally unconstrained by union contracts, to invent new ways of engaging students.  Nowhere were the changes more radical than in New York’s system, America’s biggest with nearly 1.1 million students.  As mayor, Michael Bloomberg graded schools and replaced those rated as failing with hundreds of smaller schools and charters.  Some charters also failed, or came under fire for excessive discipline or cherry-picking students.  But many exploited their greater flexibility to pay teachers more, lengthen the school year and enrich the curriculum.  New York City’s charter students consistently outperformed those in district schools on the state’s standardized tests… Bureaucratic inertia and political resistance were always strong, and the backlash after Mr. Bloomberg’s tenure was severe.  To the ascendant progressives, in New York and nationally, reformers emphasis on choice and competition stank of capitalism and their emphasis on testing of racism; charters reeked of both.”

I have several observations on this public-education battle which may well be one of the most important determinants of America’s future.

First:  Success Academy (SA) is compelling repudiation of the oft-repeated canard that “standardized testing is racist”.  SA is enrolling black and Hispanic children from the same inner-city neighborhoods and family socioeconomic profiles as the low-performing New York City public-district schools, but the SA students are high-performers on the New York State standardized tests for language and math proficiency.  Rather than hiding behind the “standardized testing is racist” canard, New York City public-district school teachers and administrators should be held accountable for student performance deficiencies.

Second:  Success Academy and other charters face unrelenting opposition from progressive politicians, school administrators, and teachers’ unions in efforts to block charter school expansion.  But low-income children deserve schools which give them the training and self-confidence to achieve high performance standards.  Why are the teachers’ unions and their progressive political allies willing to sacrifice the educational interests of these children?  Why is there no progressive outrage at the abysmal performance of many New York City public-district schools?  Why don’t progressives celebrate Success Academy’s impressive achievements with low-income students of color?  Why do progressives always seek increased spending  instead of shifting public resources from low-performing systems to high-performing systems?

Third:  America should see this potential for excellence in educational achievement by low-income students of color as cause for optimism regarding our country’s future.  But we should also understand that the dreadful performance of many inner-city public schools is a dire threat to America’s future.  We cannot be a healthy democracy if large segments of our population lack basic educational competence.  I think the teachers’ unions, and the progressive politicians they support and empower, are leading many public school systems into an abyss of incompetence and underperformance.  The Economist was right in characterizing progressives’ resistance to school reform as driven primarily by political ideology — “To the ascendant progressives,… reformers emphasis on choice and competition stank of capitalism and their emphasis on testing of racism; charters reeked of both”.

What do you think?