“Scores have been increasing for both black and white students for the most part, but we do not see a lot of progress in closing the achievement gap,” Stuart Kerachsky, Acting Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, told reporters at the National Press Club on July 14.

In fourth-grade math, 15 states narrowed the gap, including many of the largest — California, Florida, New Jersey, Massachusetts and and Texas. But that was the highpoint. In eighth-grade math only four states closed that gap from 1990 to 2007; just three states narrowed the gap in fourth-grade reading; and no states at all showed any statistically significant improvement in the eighth-grade reading gap over the last two decades.

NCES used results from the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) that have already been published to do the new analysis. In the report, New York State does show slightly narrower gaps between white and black test scores in math and in fourth-grade reading since the early 1990s, but NCES did not find any of New York’s gains statistically significant. There was no real evidence of improvement.

Despite Chancellor Klein’s memorable claim a year ago that statistical significance was just a game, NCES significance tests are essential to analyzing and interpreting the changes in scores. NAEP tests are given to samples of students, and the results are subject to both sampling and measurement error unless they are subjected to significance tests. What the report shows is no progress in New York State in closing the black-white gap.

Ideally, NCES said, it wants to see both white and black achievement go up with blacks increasing at a faster pace. However, there were instances where gaps narrowed when white student performance stayed flat while black performance rose, or even when both groups declined but whites went down more. This was especially evident in eighth-grade reading.

“The stark fact is the gaps in school and life experiences that mirror gaps in school achievement are still with us like an uninvited guest who comes early and stays late,” said Paul Barton of the Education Commission for the States at this morning’s press conference. Commenter Hugh Price, a Brookings Fellow and Princeton professor, talked about generations of poverty and the need for rebuilding communities as well as schools.

No one said it, but NCLB was the elephant in the room. From 2002 to 2007, the law designed to disaggregate results and shine a harsh light on performance gaps did not succeed in remedying them. It may be time to actually support effective interventions instead of spending all the money to assign blame.

Thousands of years of social evolution, with all the gory sacrifices made unavoidable because of all manner of pig-headedness and false pride should have amounted by now to a more advanced civilization or at least a less nakedly greedy society. Yet radio hosts with one hundred million dollar contracts begrudge a worker laboring at two full-time floor-mopping jobs the means to obtain chemotherapy for her infant. Taxing them an extra dime would amount to redistribution of wealth and class envy, their two bugaboos of “socialism.”

And “socialized medicine” is to them treachery because it flies in the face of the free enterprise system that allows doctors to be more entrepreneur than healer. America is apple pie and their slice comes in portfolio form.

Let’s just called it “health care reform.” Many thousands of AFT members rallied on Capitol Hill recently to push for this moral imperative. The model has not been determined, but some kind of universal health care is vital. Hopefully it will be based on systems in place in democratic Europe.

Don’t believe the AMA’s false claims of inferior care in the “old world.” Longevity is higher, infant mortality is lower and in many other areas of comparison, the stats are more favorable to Europe. And if data-driven conclusions are accepted as measures for education and law enforcement, let them be relevant here too.

My friend’s wife had lung cancer and not a single doctor at Sloan-Kettering would accept his insurance, which is the most popular that civil servants have in NYC. And the insurance company reimbursed pennies on the dollar. He went broke and she died.

Anecdotal claims supporting all positions are available. But let me leave off by citing a typical situation that shows up the lie that in Britain, for instance, health care is rationed or denied to the elderly.

My 89 year old relative, who never worked and has no pension or significant assets, fell in her house, sustaining a fracture. She was in the hospital and then a facility where she got physical therapy and occupational training (!) for two months. Before her release, her house was evaluated and changes made to make it safer for her. She was issues an emergency pendant to summon first-responders. Twice each day she receives visitors from the National Health Service to check on her. One of them does her food shopping. The medical doctor pays house calls. Total charge: ZERO.

America has the wealth. There is no excuse. We do not have the best health care in the world by a long shot. We profess to value the life of all people but that value is calibrated to the depth of the money pocket. Let’s liquidate the hypocrisy, not the life’s savings of folks who have lived frugally and responsibly all their lives.

Support the AFT and all persons of good-will who are prevailing upon their legislators to enact, finally, a system that does honor to this nation’s legacy .

Students reserved the lowest scores for issues of respect.

Most students in my school:

• treat each other with respect: 4.8
• just look out for themselves: 3.7
• help and care about each other: 4.9
• treat teacherswith respect: 4.8 [1]

Only one other question, about hands-on learning, scored in the 4’s, possibly reflecting the consequences of the test-prep culture.

The average score for all other questions, meanwhile, was 6.8.

I doubt if disrespect is more endemic to NYC schools than elsewhere, but it is clearly a problem. It’s not that kids are nasty by nature. They aren’t. But we live in a solipsistic nation (see here for example), so that schools that don’t explicitly nurture respect and all the other civic values (like integrity, courage, and perseverance) tend not to see enough of them. And that leads to a host of problems, from bullying and the occasional fight, to the whole panoply of lower-level distractions that keep kids from doing the best they can in school. Ultimately, a lack of respect hampers student achievement and doesn’t bode well for our future citizens.

Of course, there are ways to encourage more respectful environments, and some schools have clearly done it. Middle schools are ground zero for disrespect, and yet look at the scores that students gave their schools at MS319:

Most students in my school:

• treat each other with respect: 6.9
• just look out for themselves: 4.8
• help and care about each other: 7
• treat teachers with respect: 7

So why do students feel so respected at MS319? Two things about this school stand out.

First, everyone works together. Last year MS319 was awarded the UFT’s School Partnership Award, which is given to schools that have nurtured a culture of collaboration. Teachers and parents clearly play meaningful roles in shaping the direction in this school takes, and that engagement is reflected in the school’s Learning Environment Survey.

Second, MS319 did for respect what other schools, driven by accountability worries, often will do only for tests: it made respect a top priority in the school. Here is a description of the “Adolescent Development Supports” available at MS319:

• Advisory: While the school formerly used a 15:1 advisory system for all students, the school now conducts advisory efforts in a more targeted and focused way two times per week for selected students based on evidenced needs.
  • All students participate in clubs that function like an advisory and are selected by each student based on individual interest. These include clubs such as a French club, basketball, women in sports, TICA (all girls Teenagers in Community Awareness), baseball, Japanese, sign language, and others. These clubs are held two mornings per week in the zero period for all students.
  • All advisory teachers meet on Fridays with the guidance counselor and pupil personnel secretary to add value to the content of the advisory work. This year Children’s Aid Society staffers will join this meeting.
• Uniforms: A progressive system of uniform use is in place for 100% of the student population. This progressive uniform-use model has sixth graders with fewer requirements, seventh grade requirements becoming more complex (e.g., jackets and ties added), and eighth grade being most complex and ‘professional’ looking (e.g., ties vary from other grades – they pass these ties to the seventh graders in a symbolic and emotional ceremony when they graduate).
• Student leadership: A student government system provides students with opportunities to express their wants and needs and help turn them into actions within the school.
• Mentorship and extra-curricular activities: An extracurricular baseball team addresses student need for male mentorship and is led by a male parent coordinator. There is a girls’ volleyball team conducted before and after school. Extracurricular academic programs are offered as well, including those for mathematics, science, social studies, literacy, special science inquiry (a 3:1 program), and track and field.
• Student incentives: Within the clinic model and in use in the school as a whole, an incentive program for students consisting of tickets is used to reinforce use of accountable talk, habits of mind, and improvement in performance. Tickets are in turn exchanged for prizes.
• School meetings and traditions: All students meet as a grade with the grade team advocate and have focus themes such as social justice, transition to high school, next steps in learning, and core value principles such as perseverance, achievement and excellence. At this meeting, students are selected for student of the month prize.
  • A Town Hall meeting is conducted once a week supervised by the mini-school (grade) team advocate and assistant principal, a variety of teachers and guests.
  • Career day, Valentines Day, math marathon, Poem in Your Pocket day and other events are celebrated to encourage engagement in the school community.

Lots of schools have isolated programs. What emerges from a close reading of this description is that MS319 has vision, a focus, a plan. And that kind of commitment has paid off: over the past four years, ELA passing rates have moved from 20 to 60 and in Math from 34 to 67.

The pieces needed to create more MS319’s are not yet in place in NYC, but they do exist: good teachers, willing communities, systems (computer systems, organizational structures) that could be put to the service of creating better school cultures. But ours is a top down world. Putting the pieces together will take leadership that is willing to both provide the supports needed to create great environments, and willing as well to signal that this ought to be a focus, consistently, in our schools.

So I’ve been hibernating for a little while, getting used to the idea of being a classroom teacher for the first time. (Pet peeve: When my students found out I would be going to the classroom, they all said, “You’re going to be a real teacher next year?” I kept explaining, I’m a real teacher now, I just don’t have my own classroom!)

Slowly and painfully, I am getting used to the idea. Bonuses: No more coverages or suspension room ever again!

Many of the first grade teachers had their students write letters of greeting to their second grade teachers (hello, that would be me!). They are too cute not to share, and so here they are. I’m preserving their spelling and grammar, so you’ll just have to do your best to decipher them like any good second grade teacher would.

“Dear Miss Brave, I am so exited to be in your class next year. because you were are writing. [Note: She remembers when I was her kindergarten writing cluster teacher! Awww!] Let me tell you about myself. My favirit subject is sincese I love to do some fun things. math is fun becaue we have game day on Friday. I am very smart and Ms. S Loves me because I am grat I am I best in class Ms. S does not want me to leve. I Love to read ficshin books. I am a grat sutint I never miss behave with teachers. I allwes do a grat job. I am reading K level books. [Note: She will be a higher reader in September of second grade than many of my AIS second graders were in June. That's going to take some getting used to!] I am in a hihtg level. I am prod of myself. you will love me. you will never get mad at me. trust me I will not miss behave. I am a hard waking gril.”

“Dear Miss Brave, I am so ecxited to meet you. [Note: He already knows me. Obviously he doesn't remember.] I hope you are nice I wonder how the classroom would look like. Let me tell you about myself. Ms. S said that I beahave somtimes. my favoret subject is gym. because it is a fun subject. I am so excited to be in your classroom. you are so lucky to have me because I am in J books I promise I will beahave and wont get in truoble.”

“Dear Miss Brave, I am so exsided to be in senkent grad nexst year. Let me tell you about myself. I love to read and I’m in level I and reading is so fun deacause you get smart and I like reading none fickshine because you lern stuff. I Like to wite beacus I like to wite nonefickshine. I like math cuase I like to add and take away. and I will Love to learn my hole life and I think wordwork is giong to de hard beacaus we are going to spell harder decaus we are going to be smarter. I like social studies beacause I like to larn more and more and more evey day cause my parents want me to and I will Love to learn evry day and I will try to be on time evrey day and be here evrey day exsepd whene I’m sick.”

“Dear Miss Brave, I am so exsited to be in your class. I am so happy to be in 2nd grade. I was student of the moth one time and wrod master too. let me tell you about myself my favreit subjuct is gym and art I love gym cuse I like haveing fun and I love punting and makeing suff and when I am sad I just sing it makes me flle so much buttr I love to wite poty and I love to read nonficshin in math I love doing adoing with base ten blocks and I like taping out songs in wrod worck and I am a good child I do not get in troble and I do not bring a toy to school”

“Dear Miss Brave, I like to read do we read a lot in second grade? [Note: She has no idea...] I’m so glad that I’m going to sectond grade. When are we going to second grade? I hope I have fun at second grade. What class are we going to be in. In 3 more days is the last day.”

“Dear Miss Brave, I am so glad that I’m going to secont grade with you! I’ve always wanted to go to secont grade and you look petty and when is your birthday and I am 6 years old and I love you and I love science because sceience is my favrite thing to do and writing and reading and math and word work is my favrite thing to do I love everything to do Do you like everything to like science or writing or reading or math or word work to”

“Dear Miss Brave, I like Art becus I can make crafs I bo not like word work we have to sand out all day in word work. my favorite book is maelia beloomer it is a boot a gril that bus not wunt to wer a dig drss. my favorite colr is Red I will see you nex yer.”

“Dear Miss Brave, I am so happy to be in your class because you are so fun. [Note: That's what he thinks now. Ask him again in October.] Let me tell about my self I sometimes I behav bad and I help cids and I come to scool late and I have bloblus with my hands and I like writing and math and gym and luch.”

“Dear Miss Brave, I’m so glad to be in your room I hop I lrn los of new dings in 2nd grad Let me tal you auput my salf wal I cun good and dab unitul but mapy if you put me with good kids ul pinv [Note: I'm pretty sure he means, "I can be good and bad, but maybe if you put me with good kids I'll behave -- thanks for the tip!] My forvat attivut [favorite activity?] is math wulam utitpicrasy and I’m funy I like rideing and wrading so as wal math and you are liky to hav me kus I I’m a cute little boy.”

“Dear Miss Brave, I am so Happy to see Miss Brave and I seed you in the KindrGrden. Let me tel you odout my self. my favorite period is Reading in Reading is fun! I get more levels. I read chapter books only at home.”

“Dear Miss Brave, I am so exited to go t second grade because I will be very smart at second grade. Let me tell you about my self I love reading I am in level K! I also love writing. Did you know I can be very quiet. I like to play with my friends.”

“Dear Miss Brave, I am glad to go to your class Im glad to have you do my 2 grad techer. I like Majik Tree house I like to Draw What do you like to do?”

It was standing room only, overflowing with those who had come to say goodbye to and celebrate the leadership of Randi Weingarten, who was stepping down as UFT president.

Negotiations between the UFT and the city over pensions resulted in a big win — since approved by the June 24 Delegate Assembly — that preserves the union’s age 55 retirement plan and restores the traditional post-Labor Day school start for members.

The UFT and the Green Dot New York Charter School signed an agreement that UFT President Randi Weingarten said “is based on a very basic premise: Teacher professionalism is the surest path to sustained student achievement.”

The UFT gave away $1 million in scholarship awards 4 to the young men and women of the city’s public schools.

Current and former students recognized their teachers for doing that little something extra in New York City public schools as part of the second annual “Thank a Teacher” campaign.

There was an urgency at the 46th annual Retired Teachers Chapter Luncheon on June 8: an urgency about the precarious economic times we’re living in.

There were wise old sayings circulating at the UFT’s 23rd annual School Secretaries of the Year Gala Awards Luncheon, such as: “You don’t mess with school secretaries.”

Two years ago, English teacher Mary Ciccaroni was approached by her Forest Hills HS principal about ways to improve school spirit and morale.

Ratcheting up pressure on city officials to do the right thing as they finalized the new city education budget, the UFT won back two key programs — Teacher’s Choice and Provider’s Choice — whose continued funding was at risk.

The UFT’s There Is No Excuse campaign is turning a spotlight on special education violations citywide.

Well, since you asked, absolutely yes.

GLSEN has done admirable work in diversity education, and Jennings has been nominated as the new Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education for the Department’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, so the Family Research Council is out for blood. Jennings spoke at last spring’s Representative Assembly of NYSUT, and gave an absolutely dynamite speech.

If you agree that he is fit to guide your children, you might want to sign the GLSEN petition in support of Jennings.

UPDATE: A Fact Check at Think Progress demolishes the Family Research Council’s slanders against Jennings.

[If the embedded audio player is not working, you can listen to the segment here.]

Last week, I told New York City educators that I was stepping down from the best job I have ever had, leading the United Federation of Teachers. Last summer, after being elected president of my national union, l knew this day would eventually come but it was still hard. Why? Because there is always more to be done.

One of the most rewarding (and exhausting) things about working in public education in New York City is that it is the best laboratory in the world for trying new things. We have the most diverse student population in the world — 1.1 million kids from every kind of household, economic background and skill level. More than 150 languages are spoken in our schools. The 80 thousand teachers in our schools make up the best teaching force in the country in one of the toughest, most watched school systems there is.

Education is now front and center in our city’s agenda and will increasingly take center stage at the national level. Policy makers are beginning to understand what leaders like President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg did long ago — that we can’t have a strong economy, a strong city or a thriving nation without public schools that work for all kids. Governors are stepping up, as well. In response to our call for national standards, 46 members of the National Governor’s Association recently came out in support of common standards for our schools.

This focus raises the stakes on all of us — we all must perform at the top of our game to ensure that we are building a better future for our children. And a key ingredient to ensuring that our schools work as we continue to shape education policy is teacher voice. Teachers must be respected, treated as the professionals they are, listened to and cultivated for their expertise. For far too long, the debate around education was divided into camps where the so called “reformers” mistakenly and simplistically blamed teachers and their unions for all that ails the schools. Fortunately, led by the example of President Obama, as well as the multiple advances the UFT negotiated with Mayor Bloomberg, including ways to recruit, support, retain and reward great teachers and schools these false categories are beginning to dissolve and teachers and their unions are being appropriately looked to as a key part of the solution.

Teachers are also a vital part of the link between the community and the school, and the work we have done in that regard in New York City is the accomplishment of which I am most proud. Parent and community engagement in the schools cannot be manufactured by a think tank or dictated by a superintendent. It has to happen person by person and it takes time. And it doesn’t happen without teachers and principals fostering those connections.

If any link in the public education chain doesn’t include a teacher’s perspective — from idea generation to policy implementation to parental and community engagement — the chain breaks down. As educators, we know that schools with the most collaborative work environments thrive. We need to expand that spirit to the policy development level as well — sharing ideas, strategies and experiences so that the policies we develop for our children are put through a rigorous, real world process to determine their effectiveness.

When I started this job, I wanted to make every school a place where educators wanted to work and that parents wanted to send their kids. We aren’t there yet, but we’ve made a great deal of progress. It’s been an honor to serve New Yorkers and to represent their teachers. I will carry the lessons I learned from you with me to Washington to work nationally to ensure that every child in America has the opportunity to have a great public education.

The signers and co-chairs of the report included the current Secretary of Education (Arne Duncan), and two Assistant Secretaries of Education from the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations (Tom Payzant and Susan Neuman). Just as important were the major national figures in education who are more familiar to New York teachers, including Diane Ravitch, Pedro Noguera, and Rudy Crew.

At the time, the report generated quite a bit of press and more than a little controversy, especially since BBA was calling for a look at all the outcomes we want for children, as opposed to the politically simple focus on math and reading scores that has fetishized our classrooms – the test question dissections, the introduction of test prep as a “genre study,” and the promotions, graduations, and cash rewards for children based on tests, tests, tests. Since BBA was asking for something more inspiring than that, some people saw the report as a repudiation of testing, a backing away from accountability.

Now, however, BBA has come out with School Accountability — A Broader, Bolder Approach, which offers a framework for how school accountability policies can be improved to measure the aspects of education recommended by the original task force. (Full disclosure: I was a member of BBA’s accountability committee.) Taken together, BBA’s recommendations read as a kind of remedy to the distortions created under the current system. Once again, the committee included Tom Payzant, Susan Neuman, Diane Ravitch, Richard Rothstein, and Pedro Noguera, but there were new signers as well, like Christopher Cross who serves as a consultant to the Broad Foundation and is a senior fellow with the Center for Education Policy. This is a diverse group, but the group spoke with one voice when it came to making much-needed changes to accountability policies across the states. Among the recommendations:

• An expanded role for a low-stakes NAEP tests in more subjects and skills;
• A federal system to coordinate and disseminate data regarding all the gaps that influence student achievement (How healthy are our children ? How much do they know about history and art?);
• Better testing and in-school evaluations (“inspectorates”) carried out by independent professionals who can determine how well the school is addressing the full range of underlying factors that influence student achievement, including factors like safety and supports. These more sophisticated evaluations might occur every three years (BBA calls for flexibility and experimentation), and must be monitored and revised as the models develop.

Accountability will probably be part of school cultures for a long time to come. And in an accountability culture, schools tend to focus only on those things for which they are held accountable. Since that is the case, we need to put into the equation the things that teachers know will make a difference. BBA offers one way to do that, and a way to change the face of education in our schools.