NYC failed to collect $43M in penalties from school bus companies, audit finds

 

New York City failed to collect $42.6 million in penalties from school bus companies due to drivers’ failure to log into GPS systems as required, a new audit by city Comptroller Brad Lander found.

The GPS systems are supposed to allow parents to track when buses are about to arrive, as well as their kids’ whereabouts once they’re on board. But parents have complained for years that the GPS often doesn’t work. Lander said a lack of accountability is one of the problems driving the dysfunction of the notorious school bus system.

“For decades, our city’s school bus system has failed our students and families,” he said.

Lander said the system is plagued by “a real culture of underperformance from the bus companies and weak oversight by [the education department’s] Office of Pupil Transportation.” He called for a thorough overhaul of the school bus system, and said Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani should appoint a school bus czar to jump-start major improvements.

Lander’s audit comes after a Gothamist investigation found the city’s official data on delays and other school bus problems does not capture the full scope of the problem. The city relies on school bus companies to self-report incidents, like when they are stuck in traffic, get in a crash or don’t show up at all.

The city last month renewed an agreement with bus companies for the next three years despite the persistent problems, but pushed back against an even longer contract supported by the bus companies. Lander said officials must use that window to finally reform the system.

“With the shortened three-year contract extensions, City Hall has a unique opportunity to fix our schools’ dysfunctional bus system,” the comptroller said...

https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-failed-to-collect-43m-in-penalties-from-school-bus-companies-audit-finds

Look! It can be done: NYC Dept of Education lawyers grill deputy chancellor on ‘cover-up [accusations he covered up misconduct by two top execs, and then rewarded them with hefty pay hikes]

City Department of Education lawyers grilled First Deputy Chancellor Daniel Weisberg behind closed doors this week amid accusations he covered up misconduct by two top execs, and then rewarded them with hefty pay hikes, The Post has learned.

On Wednesday, DOE lawyers met with Weisberg and his chief executive, Christopher Groll, asking them to explain why they doled out salary increases to Amanda Lurie and her boss, Chief Enrollment Officer Sarah Kleinhandler, said a source close to the situation.

They also asked Weisberg whether he shared an explosive Office of Special Investigations report on the misconduct with Chancellor David Banks, the source added.

The meeting came days after The Post revealed the findings against Lurie, senior executive director in the Office of Enrollment, and Kleinhandler, who is accused of failing to supervise Lurie...

NYC DOE lawyers grill deputy chancellor on 'cover-up' (nypost.com)

Cuomo Orders NYC Hotspot Schools Shut Tuesday; Mayor Plans to Move on Biz Closures

 https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-proposes-severe-new-shutdowns-in-hotspot-zip-codes-starting-wednesday/2651506/

United Federation Of Teachers President Blasts NYC After 22 School Staff Members Test Positive For COVID-19: ‘We’re Doing Our Jobs, You Do Yours’

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — There are more concerns over the reopening of New York City Public Schools after more staff members tested positive for coronavirus Friday.

Frustrated and fed up, in a message to members, the president of the United Federation of Teachers blasted the city left and right.

“We’re angry, we’re frustrated, we have anxiety,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said.

He says the organization is upset that the COVID test results of many teachers haven’t come back in the 24-48 hours promised...

https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2020/09/11/united-federation-of-teachers-president-blasts-nyc-after-22-school-staff-members-test-positive-for-covid-19-were-doing-our-jobs-you-do-yours/#.X1zaZUPwCRg.twitter

Breaking: New York City Delays Start of School to Ready for In-Person Classes

New York City is delaying the start of its school year by 10 days, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Tuesday, as part of a deal to avert a teachers’ strike and calm principals and parents anxious about the start of in-person classes.

The city’s 1.1 million children will not have any in-person classes until Sept. 21. Most children will not start remote classes until that date.

The delay is intended to give principals and administrators more time to prepare for the most closely watched reopening effort in the country. School leaders, teachers, elected officials and union bosses have been raising alarms for weeks, with increasing urgency, about the system’s readiness for reopening.

New York’s school district, the nation’s largest, is the only one in a major U.S. city that is planning to reopen its schools in-person this month. Mr. de Blasio has insisted that classrooms would reopen this fall, a promise that has not been made by leaders of other big cities...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/01/nyregion/schools-open-coronavirus-nyc.html?campaign_id=174&emc=edit_csb_20200901&instance_id=21807&nl=coronavirus-schools-briefing&regi_id=69030530&segment_id=37275&te=1&user_id=5d9b4cfa875663665040837f3744d4a7

‘Our professional growth system is a hill to die on’

No mention of Pearson-MCPS assessments in this Gazette article.  What is Superintendent Joshua Starr hiding?

Gazette:  Starr: Standardized tests shouldn’t grade teachers

...According to a Dec. 31 story in The Washington Post, Starr’s opposition to Obama administration school reform programs, particularly a plan to evaluate teachers through standardized tests, might have cost him a job offer. The Post reported that U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan lobbied newly elected New York Mayor Bill De Blasio not to hire Starr. The city school system has 1.1 million students and 1,700 schools.

Anyone for a Free Public Education? or to quote Time Magazine, "Can a PTA Bake Sale Save a Teacher's Job?"

Here is a link to a Time Magazine article and follow-up to my earlier post on the efforts of NY City schools to tamp down the private fundraising by parents.

My favorite paragraphs?

Yet even Korach will admit that the one major issue with relying on parents to help pay for school essentials is that it exacerbates inequities that already exist between well-off school districts and those with lesser means. "We're not naive," he says. "You couldn't do what we do in other communities."

Randi Weingarten, longtime head of the New York City teachers union and now president of the American Federation of Teachers, has long seen schools beg parents for additional help, handing out lists of classroom supplies that need to be purchased. To ramp that up would only "punctuate the haves and have-nots," says Weingarten. "It leaves the nagging feeling of, What does that mean for kids whose parents aren't able to fundraise like that?"

Can a PTA Bake Sale Save a Teacher's Job?

Will MoCo Follow NYC Steps to Ensure Free Public Education?

A few weeks back on this blog, I wrote about my disappointment with the NYC school Chancellor Joel Klein who apparently let parents and PTSAs fund additional teacher aides in the classroom. The net impact of this practice was that school communities that could afford to pay for extra staff could bypass the Unions, the budget process, the screening and training requirements, and bring in whoever they wanted. Some schools advertised these positions on Craigslist.

NYC has now had a change of heart - after a complaint by the United Federation of Teachers, the teachers union that has, in the past, exercised its great powers to bring the city school system to its knees. Anyone else out there remember the 1968 teachers strike when Al Shanker and his troops kept schools closed until almost Thanksgiving?

Today, the NY Times reveals that Mayor Bloomberg directed an end to this practice. According to the Times:

Principals have been told that any such aides hired for the coming school year must be employees of the Department of Education, their positions included in official school budgets. . .
Supplemental fund-raising from parent groups has long raised questions of fairness. While the ability to provide extras — teaching assistants, books, computers and art supplies, enrichment programs — has helped keep middle-class families in urban public schools, it also can make it more difficult for schools in poor neighborhoods to compete.
And education officials and union leaders say that the informal system of hiring teaching assistants that has sprouted up over the past decade raised security concerns because it was not necessarily subject to the city’s screening process. “It’s hurting our union members, and to some extent it could be hurting kids because we don’t know how qualified they are,” said Ron Davis, a spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers, which filed a grievance in October about the hiring.

On July 21, 2009, the Montgomery County Board of Education's Policy Committee meets to discuss the issue of curricular fees in Montgomery County Public Schools. Despite the state law that, like the law in NYC, guarantees a free public education for students, here in MoCo we have been subject to a policy that allows those who can pay supplement their children's education. Thanks to MCCPTA (look for course related fees items) we already have a preview of what the policy may look like. For example, in high schools:

5. Will fees be the same throughout the county?
Response: Designated courses will have a maximum fee amount that may be charged (not to exceed the actual cost of the item). Schools will have the option of not charging any fee or charging up to the maximum fee amount allowed for a designated course. This enables school administrators and school leadership the autonomy to align their resources based on individual instructional programs and needs of each school.

And, more importantly, the Policy Committee agenda only provides 20 minutes for discussion of this item. And of course, the materials are not linked to the meeting agenda.

Can taxpayers in MoCo count on its school leadership to follow NYC's example and take a stand in favor of free public education?

Check back here for my next post - after the meeting.

School Fees and Union Busting

I admit - I am no longer enamoured of Joel Klein, NYC Chancellor of Schools.

Last fall, while we were fighting to enforce our rights to a free public education in Maryland, through our battle to eliminate school fees for textbooks and gym towels, NYC schools were faced with a similar dilemma.

However, like everything else in the Big Apple, its on a much larger scale, as indicated in this article from the New York Post. From the article:

The powerhouse parent groups boldly solicit donations - some accept credit cards and PayPal online - to bypass Department of Education rules, a Post investigation found. The PTAs advertise on Craigslist or at colleges and put $12-an-hour assistant teachers on their own payrolls - violating DOE policies and skirting union pay and benefit scales.

In the article, some parents admit that paying upwards of $500 as a fee to send their kids to these schools is a bargain compared to private schools - especially in NYC. Read further and you will see that under Mr. Klein's tenure - where smaller schools are often co-housed in the same building, one school may raise significant funding, while the other occupants? Too bad, how sad.

What is really striking about this piece is that the practice bypasses the unions and the hiring system in the school system. Advertising on Craigslist for a teachers aide? I am a product of the NYC public school system and grew up with a parent who toiled away at a NYC Title I school and still proudly carries her UFT card.

Am I disappointed.

First, with the Unions for putting up with this practice without a fight.

Second, for lawyer turned school system administrator Klein, who so conveniently forgets that it is his obligation to oversee the largest school district with a free public education.

And, most of all, with the residents of NY - who tolerate this practice.

Equity and a free public education are obviously far from reality in New York City.

This makes our PTSAs with their budgets in the $40,000 range look very modest.

Chatting with the Chancellors

Tonight I had the privilege of attending a program titled, "Can the New York City School System Serve as a Model for DC?" I was initially leery about attending - was it worth my time to brave the rainy rush hour traffic to attend a presentation where I'd have to pass through a metal detector to hear more eduspeak?

Absolutely.

The discussion with New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was the best presentation on K-12 education I have heard in a long while. I've lived in DC, Maryland, and NYC, and moved to Maryland because of the schools. DC and NY may have more educational challenges, and, like MoCo, their educational leadership certainly has its share of detractors.

With the exception of the metal detectors, Bell HS is like your average MoCo school - no soap in the bathrooms, posters on the wall. The auditorium looked like Blair's.

But - the first noticeable difference was that the audience wasn't packed with school staff members with matching notebooks. Listening to the folks around me, I heard a variety of voices - some were in the educational world, others were members of the organizations sponsoring the talks, while others, like me, were somewhat tangentially related.

Second - no canned presentation by Ms. Rhee or Mr. Klein. The moderator, an educational consultant, opened up discussions with a few questions to the panelists, and both responded - without power points or notes.

Then the presentation was opened up for questions from the floor. Not the fill in your index card and we'll select the ones we think are appropriate variety of questions, prescreened or planted, but actual questions from the floor. Anyone who wanted to ask a question simply got on line and waited their turn.

So - what is my takeaway from tonight's talk?

We may have a school system that has fewer challenges than these districts, but what NY and DC have and what we lack in MoCo is a focus on the kids in the schools.

Here are some of the more memorable discussions from my notes. I wish I had a tape recorder, or could type faster, or a larger piece of paper on which to scribble, but here goes. Apologies in advance for any transcriptional or misquotes.

Mr. Klein talked about organizations that don't insist on accountability fall into disrepair and are nonperforming; accountability must be at every level with transparency. He also mentioned trimming the bureaucracy - if a position doesn't contribute to the kids, get rid of the position and move the money back to the schools. His goal is not a great school system but a system comprised of great schools.

From Ms. Rhee - the main resource is time. Three necessary elements of a strong program are human capital, choice, and a better infrastructure as measured by accurate data and good decision making. Mr. Klein added that mayoral control is also essential. Does this mean they welcome oversight?

Ms. Rhee also discussed that it was not merely enough to have programs like IB or Montessori unless these programs were implemented with fidelity. No "mini" or sounds like programs are on her agenda - do the real thing so parents and students get what is advertised.

Both stated that the status quo is probably their biggest obstacle in improving the school system and getting the students to minimal competency to meet the challenges of the future.

Ms. Rhee and Mr. Klein actually go and sit down with teachers and students. Genuine, authentic conversations, on a regular basis, sometimes with the press in the room, but not with the intent of a soundbite for the next day's paper.

And, at the end of the program, when the moderator wanted to cut short the questions to give the speakers time for closing thoughts, Mr. Klein cut in to say that he'd rather continue with the questions, since the folks had stood on line very patiently.

Wow.

Tangible results in the DC and NY City schools may not be apparent for a few years because change takes time. However, if I were sitting on a panel selecting a new superintendent for my kids school district, I would select the applicant who actually sits down and talks with kids on a regular basis.

This event was also covered on the Washington Post's Blog D.C. Wire: Rhee and Klein Talk Reform