BROOKLYN: Elected officials, Jumaane Williams, Kevin Parker, Rodneyse Bichotte and Josue Pierre convene a “State of Immigration, State of Emergency” session on 2/8 at 1401 Flatbush Avenue, to consider potential changes for immigrants during President Trump’s watch and how to prepare for same. For more info, call 718.629.2900 or email bgooding@council.ny.gov.
Meeting: Immigration State of Emergency Wednesday Feb. 8
Photo: Nathaniel Adams
Evaluating Teachers by Student Improvement
By Akosua K. Albritton
New York City still wrestles with the questions: Is it that Latoya cannot spell? Or is it that Latoya’s mother works two jobs and isn’t going to Parents’ Night? Or is it that Mrs. Franken has not set up a print-rich environment? Or is it that Mr. Dixon, the principal, is not even observing the classrooms in his building at least two times a week? The Board of Regents for the NYS Department of Education ponders these scenarios and periodically will draft another tool to assess teacher and school administration effectiveness.
The current assessment is the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) for use during the 2015/16 through 2018/19 school terms. There is a moratorium on using standardized tests for teacher evaluations during this period. The APPR uses external and internal professionals to observe classroom teachers and principals in elementary schools, middle schools and high schools. The educators’ teaching or leadership effectiveness is judged by using a four-scale rating system where the teachers and principals are deemed either:
Highly Effective (H): 90-100% of students meet or exceed Student Learning Objectives
Effective (E): 75–89% of students meet or exceed Student Learning Objectives
Developing (D): 60–74% of students meet or exceed Student Learning Objectives
Ineffective (I): 0-59% of students meet or exceed Student Learning Objectives.
The external professionals are trained independent evaluators. The internal professionals are district superintendents or other administrators that assess the principals. There is the option to use trained peer principals. Each school’s principal or other trained administrator assesses the classroom teachers. There is the option to use trained peer educators.
Dr. Sam Anderson, an education activist, and Lurie Daniel-Favors, general counsel for the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, were invited to offer their insights on the current version of principal and classroom teacher evaluation. Dr. Anderson believes independent evaluators will be better than the school principals doing so. In fact, he “would go a step further and have a panel of teacher peers, students and parents do the teacher evaluations”. When asked what work products ought to be used to assess schoolteachers, he responds more so to the expression ‘work product’: “First, I don’t accept the corporate phrase ‘work products’. Our children and educators are not products. Education is not a product like a new phone or new app. Teachers are supposed to develop a child’s whole intellect to their fullest capability– not ‘produce’ a loyal test-taking machine being molded for anti-critical thinking for the profit sake of Global Capitalism.”
“The UFT and the CSA have become fully incorporated into the privatizing process of public education. In addition, these two organizations have implicitly and explicitly embraced the school-to-prison pipeline model of education for Black and Latino children. Within this acceptance, they have either embraced or ignored the reality of the disappearing Black and Latino educators. This racist acceptance is a necessary part of the mechanism of privatization and is being replicated all across the US” is his concluding remark.
Lurie Daniel-Favors, Esq., contends [the schoolteachers] “ought to be assessed on performance but instead, they are looking at tests which are racially skewed. Rather than standardized tests, the students’ portfolios ought to be evaluated. The portfolios contain classroom exercises, student projects, class examinations and quizzes.
Given the three-year moratorium on using standardized tests for teacher evaluations, Daniel-Favors contends: “The tests are racially skewed and they are not a predictor of success beyond the test. They don’t predict the capacity for brilliance. “Standardized tests are flawed, reductive approaches to assessing intelligence.”
“Tests are great for students who have access to test preparation programs. Children demonstrate their intelligence in different ways. There is art and poetry, building and construction, and the sciences. If we’re moving away from exams to evaluate teachers, then move away from them for the students” are Daniel-Favors’ other thoughts on the value of standardized tests.
Daniel-Favors’ position on independent evaluators intersects Anderson’s: “The value of the independent evaluator is having a neutral party who has distance from the school. This distance permits not being swayed by interpersonal relationships within the school. This distance has its positives and negatives in that the independent evaluator does not know the school culture, kinship networks, nor has sufficient background knowledge about the culture of learning in that school. The independent evaluator can give the hard facts but is unable to develop a holistic picture of the learning experience in the building.”
New York City is not alone in expressing its challenge in fulfilling the APPR mandate. NYS Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said on June 14, 2016: “It is not just New York City. Across the state, school districts are voicing concerns. The concerns come from the prospect of hiring a large number of teachers to observe other teachers.”
On December 21, 2016 Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña, for the NYC Education Department, issued an extensive press release that includes details about the hardship waiver application. The chancellor intends to submit it by December 31, 2016 other points of the new rubrics for the Measures of Student Learning (teacher observations) and the Measures of Leadership Practice (principal observations). An update to this press release has not been publicized as of January 30, 2017.
WHAT’S GOING ON
By Victoria Horsford
POTUS 45/10 DAYS
The Trump White House has heads spinning. Trump will be known as the “Executive Order” President. His first executive order was for federal agencies to minimize the burden of ObamaCare, which was followed by more orders to suspend federal dollars to sanctuary cities, which could hurt New York, both city and state. Moreover, POTUS wants to streamline and expedite environmental reviews and pretty much put those departments on hold. He is eager to erect the wall on the Mexican border and has ordered federal agencies to put a hold on new regulations. His executive memoranda withdraws the US from the Trans Pacific Partnership and declares a freeze in hiring in all agencies to save the military. His reorganization of the National Security Council gives extensive power to adviser Steve Bannon, who many speculate is America’s “shadow” president. It is a lot of info to consume and digest during the administration’s first 10 days. For every newly introduced Trump action, there is a predictable reaction in streets across the country as people march and protest. A group of scientists plan a “March on Washington” to protest Trump’s antipathy to science. An agent provocateur, POTUS ended last week with an announcement that would restrict travel to the United States for citizens from seven Middle Eastern countries, all majority-Muslim nations. We stare and listen in disbelief.
The best-selling book in the United States last week was the George Orwell novel “1984”, about a dystopian autocratic society controlled by Big Brother who snatched all rights from its citizenry. I pray that our beloved USA is not moving in that direction.
I wonder what the Trump White House has planned for Black History Month!
NEW YORK
Scott StringerNYC Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office released a report,“Our Immigration Population Helps Power NYC Economy”, which is good reading about a prosperous sanctuary city; a copy of which should be sent to the US Congress and to the White House. NYC has 3.3 million foreign-born immigrants who live here and who come from 150 countries. Immigrants earn 32% of total earned income in NYC and represent 46% of the workforce. Immigrants from five Caribbean countries make up most of the city’s foreign-born immigrant population. Those countries and number of people from those venues follow: People from the Dominican Republic are the city’s largest foreign-born immigrant group with 453, 176; Jamaica is #3 with 185,681; Guyana is #5 with 140,340; Haiti is #7 with 91,595; and Trinidad/Tobago is #9 with 89,302. The report is based on figures culled from a 2015 American Community Survey. NYC’s population in 2015 was 8,550,405.
ARTS/CULTURE NOTES
Kudos to Dwight Rhoden and Desmond Richardson for the Complexions Contemporary Ballet’s 23rd season, which runs through February 5th. The show is a real “tour de force” for dance theater aficionados, especially Act 2 in “Stardust”, a ballet tribute to David Bowie.
Dwight RhodenOSCAR SO BLACK 2017: For the first time in the history of the Academy so many films about the Black experience made the short list for Best Film, “MOONLIGHT”, “FENCES”, “HIDDEN FIGURES” and “LOVING”. Black actors garnered more than a handful of nominations for performances as well.
Rhythmcolor Associates’ Kim Weston-Moran presented the Second Annual Evening in Appreciation of Trailblazing Women and Institutions in the Arts on January 29th at Art-NY, South Oxford Space, Brooklyn. The Trailblazer honorees included Marjorie Moon, Vivian DeAngelo, Linda Herring, Diane Stiles and Shay Wafer.
NEWSMAKERS
Jewel PlumberRIP: Dr. Jewel Plummer Cobb, 92, died. She was the first Black woman to lead California State University at Fullerton, and the first Black woman to head a major university in the Western United States. A college educator who worked at Sarah Lawrence and Connecticut College, she was being considered for the Hunter College Presidency in NY in 1979. However, race and sexism got in the way. Born in Chicago in 1924, she was the daughter of a medical doctor and an educator. She attended Talladega College and earned a degree in biology. She earned a master’s at NYU and a Ph.D. in cell biology at the University of Illinois. Her marriage to Roy Cobb, which ended in divorce, produced a son, Roy.
BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Harlem Fashion Week is a 4-day extravaganza at Harlem restaurants, businesses and cultural centers which culminates with a fashion show at the Museum of the City of NY, located at 1220 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, on 2/12. The brainchild of Yvonne Jewnell New York, featuring Kyemah McEntyre, Harlem Fashion Week brings NY Fashion Week glamour and brouhaha uptown for awhile! Proceeds from Harlem Fashion Week will be donated to the Big Goree Project to restore the Slave Mansion on Goree Island in Senegal. [Visit HarlemFW.com] The NY Fashion Week dates are February 9-16.
Community Works and the Interchurch Center presents Black History Month Celebration, Music and Exhibition. The celebration boasts music concerts, featuring the Impact Repertory Theatre, vocalist Lainie Cooke, trumpeter Joey Morant and talks on “Harlem’s Black and Jewish Music Culture, 1890-1930”, created by Harlem historian and Columbia University scholar John T. Reddick. Music and gallery talks will be presented on Wednesdays at noon in February at the Interchurch Center, located at 475 Riverside Drive at 120th Street, Manhattan. Complimentary admission. RSVP necessary. For more info, visit Community Works’ “Harlem is…Music” by e-mail @ Jtr2134@columbia.edu or call 212.459.1854.
Check out the Ella Fitzgerald centennial. OnStage @ Kingsborough at Brooklyn Community College presents its 2017 Spring Season featuring vocalist Croatian-American Thana Alexa accompanied by the Israeli 12th Night Jazz Quartet for a jazz tribute to the First Lady of Song Ella Fitzgerald on February 10th at 7 pm. [Visit onstageatkingsborough.org]
Kyemah McEntyrThe 20th Annual Wall Street Project Economic Summit convenes February 15-17 at the Grand Hyatt New York Hotel, located at 109 East 42nd Street, Manhattan. The Wall Street Project was founded in 1996 by Rev. Jesse Jackson to challenge Corporate America to end the multibillion-dollar trade deficit with minority vendors and consumers. The Economic Summit is attended by American and international elites who participate in the SUMMIT Agenda of power lunches/dinners and panels/discussions which run the gamut from Education, Technology and Health Care to New Trends and Emerging Alternatives in Asset Management, “Generational Diversity: HIP-HOP and Millennials”; plus an International Investment Forum: Global Opportunities with reps from Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, and South Africa. [Visit rainbowpush.org]
One Hundred Black Men of NY hosts its 37th Annual Education and Scholarship Black-Tie Awards Cocktail and Dinner Gala: Harnessing The Power of Leadership and Community on February 23rd at the Sheraton NY Times Square, located at 811 Seventh Avenue, Manhattan. Proceeds from the gala will provide scholarships for the Eagle Academies in NY and Newark, NJ and for other public school students. The black-tie gala honorees are J. Russell George, Inspector General, US Department of the Treasury; William Hawthorne III, SVP Diversity, Macy’s Inc; Cara Walker, Eagle Academy Foundation Board Member; and Dr. James B. Milliken, City University of NY Chancellor. [Facebook: 100BlackMen]
A Harlem-based media consultant, Victoria Horsford can be reached at Victoria.horsford@gmail.com.
Coaches’ Corner
1 /29/2017
Atlantic Shore Christian Vs. George Westinghouse HS
Coach Mike Hutchens – Atlantic Shore Christian, Chesapeake, Virginia
It was a solid game in our area, we don’t get a lot of the physicality in the game, so we love the physicality in the game. It was an adjustment for us. It worked defensively for us. I felt that our guys (Atlantic Shore Christian HS) played very well defensively. I think the defense and pressure was what helped us get the win. For the changing defenses, back and forth. In Virginia, the officials want the players to check with hands and feet. Sometimes we will get officials like we had here in Brooklyn, with the players playing more physical. But in Virginia, the officials will not let the players play too physical. Coach Mike Hutchens thinks that the officials want the game played like the NBA–offensive and not defensive. The games in Virginia are more fluid-like, and are conducted more like the NBA.
Atlantic Shore Christian: 55
Coach Dequan Batts – George Westinghouse H.S.
We were down early, 11-3, and I felt like we could not come back from it. We went into halftime down 3 points, and the kid doubles, and we let the kid from Atlantic Shore Christian shoot a 3-pointer, and we were down 7 points. Our team this year, it was hard for us to score, so we have been having low-scoring games. This is a 55-point game where I had a kid at the line, at the end, to push the game into overtime, and we couldn’t. The team is very aggressive, I feel Atlantic Shore wanted to win more. I was saying in the locker room, both of my guards are 5-5 or 5-4, maybe 5-6. The guards on the other team may be 5-6 or 5-8 with more body frame. It was easy for my guard on the shoulder to get to the basket. It was a very physical game, and for the other team. They were very physical. What killed us was a lot of turnovers and a lack of intensity. Communication was also a big thing in today’s game.
George Westinghouse: 53
Kate Clifford Larson on the New Tubman Photo: “Yes! It’s Real!”
Some readers questioned the authenticity of the newly found image of Harriet Tubman scheduled for auction by Swann Galleries on March 30, and displayed in last week’s Our Time Press.
Our friend Elizabeth Rankin-Fulcher checked with Kate Clifford Larson, author of the 2004 bestseller BOUND for the PROMISED LAND – HARRIET TUBMAN: Portrait of An American Hero , who immediately responded by email:
She looks so dignified, proud, and confident. She is so young, so beautiful! Love her clothing!
No one has seen this image before. The photo would have been taken between 1865 and 1868. Tubman would have been 43-46 years old.
The photo album in which it is contained was owned by Quaker abolitionist and close Tubman friend Emily Howland.
So, the provenance is impeccable! I hope the Smithsonian gets it!
Thank you for letting me know! You are eyes and ears on the ground!!
Kate Larson also serves as a special consultant to the National Park Service on Harriet Tubman, reports Rankin-Fulcher. (Bernice Green/Legacy)