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New York Choose Schools to Receive Dictated Curriculum


Chancellor Joel Klein rattled parents and principals alike yesterday with his new list of the city's top schools - bringing quick relief to the chosen few and triggering an angry outcry from the rest.
"This is beyond unfair. It is outrageous and a crazy selection process," said Peter Casanave, a parent at the School of the Future in Manhattan, a staple of many of the city's best-of lists.

The 208 choices were based not just on test scores, but also on poverty levels and other factors - slighting dozens of higher-performing schools.

"It's a form of affirmative action," said Chester Finn, undersecretary of education in the Reagan administration. "Educators want diversity, so they won't go with a strict meritocracy because you wouldn't end up with the mix you want."

But others saw the list as a way to recognize schools that are making strides against tough odds.

"It is a fair approach," said City Councilman Robert Jackson (D-Manhattan), a former school board member. "You can't have one district for white, middle-class students and another for everyone else."

Schools on the A-list win freedom from the standardized reading and math lessons that the city's 992 other schools will have to adopt in the fall.

Despite the chancellor's assurances that the curriculum is meant to help, not punish, almost everyone saw the list as a measure of status and success.

Schools among the elite put up posters, and principals started telephone chains to spread the good news to parents.

But at other schools, the backlash already has begun.

"If we have to follow the mandated math program, it will eat up all the time we use each week for our arts program," said Jonathan Willens, a parent leader at Middle School 51 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, which was recognized by the state as one of the most improved schools in New York this week but did not make Klein's list.

Three standards

Education brass knew they risked angering a slice of the city with the list after Klein set three admission cutoffs to avoid a collection of schools made up primarily of middle-class whites and Asians.

Roughly 40% of the students in the chosen schools are largely black or Hispanic.

The chancellor dropped the bomb the day before a week-long holiday and then lay low - limiting his comments to a written statement that told unhappy schools to appeal the decision.

The minimums were based on poverty rates and the number of special-education and non-English-speaking students.

Affluent schools could make the list if they had a combined passing rate in reading and math of 140. Moderately poor schools made the cut with a combined rate of 125, while very poor schools gained admission with a combined 110.

At Public School 51, a primarily Hispanic school on Manhattan's West Side, barely half the students passed math exams. But the school was rewarded for bringing up its reading passing rate to 59% from the 20s in six years.

Schools also could get on the list if they were among the 20% of schools within 10 points of the cutoff scores - a method designed to reward improving schools.

The shifting target meant the Nest+M elementary school on Manhattan's lower East Side made the list with a 58% reading pass rate and 42% math, while PS 130 in Bayside, Queens, with an 83% pass rate in both reading and math, did not.

Still, some of the city's poorest districts were locked out: 5 in East Harlem, 7, 11 and 12 in the Bronx and 13, 19 and 23 in Brooklyn. And middle-class districts such as 2 in Manhattan, 26 in eastern Queens and 31 in Staten Island dominated the choices.


— Alison Gendar
Ed chief taps top 208
New York Daily News
Feb. 15, 2003
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/59906p-56105c.html

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