Saying that "we need to know the truth about what's happened in our schools over the past eleven years," UFT President Michael Mulgrew today called for the next Mayor to appoint a "Truth Commission," a panel of independent experts who will investigate the results of DOE policies such as closing schools and co-locations, along with the realities behind administration claims about test scores, graduation rates and the racial achievement gap.
"When this Administration wants to impose a new policy on our schools, or to score a political point, they just make the numbers fit," Mulgrew said, adding that the commission should have "the authority to obtain the facts from within the school system, and then get the facts out to the public, without interference from the Mayor or Tweed or any of the stakeholders."
While the Mayor has repeatedly claimed that during his administration the racial achievement gap "has been cut in half," most outside experts say test scores show that the gap is essentially what it was when he took office. The mayor has also taken credit for an increase in the high school graduation rate, but has been unable to explain why the number of college-ready graduates is dramatically lower than the graduation rate, particularly in many of the new small schools created during his administration.
Noting that the administration has taken credit for shutting down nearly 150 schools, Mulgrew said, "The public needs to know how Tweed goes about justifying the destructive step of shutting down a school. Is the decision based on facts? While we're at it, I'd like someone to prove once and for all if there's any truth behind this Administration's perverse idea that closing schools somehow results in student success."
Mulgrew recommended that the commission investigate how the closing schools policy resulted "in so many high-needs children landing in so few schools, leaving the staff with too few resources to meet the needs of these students and the challenges they face."
He also urged that the commission review the DOE's responses to hundreds of Freedom of Information requests that have yet to be fully answered, noting that the DOE fought for years to hide emails between City Hall and Chancellor Cathie Black before finally being forced by the courts to make them public.
"What a shock it was to learn that her appointment was never about education. It was about getting a good quote from Oprah," Mulgrew said.
Mulgrew recommended that the next administration develop a rational plan to reorganize the school system, "and the first order of business must be to take on the useless Division of Law and Accountability, whose mission it seems is to find new and infuriating ways of making paperwork and red tape the enemy of teaching children."
"It's time to drain the swamp," Mulgrew said, "with the millions of dollars that Tweed pours down that black hole, we could instead restore the system to the education-focused model that we all know it should be."
"Another major challenge that confronts the next Administration is the DOE's absolutely absurd policy on standardized testing," Mulgrew said, noting that currently a child's admission to a gifted and talented program, a specialized High School or another type of school is solely on the basis of a single standardized test. "Changing this policy must be one of the first orders of business for the next administration, because the quality of the work that children do throughout the 182-day school year is more important than how they perform on a single high-stakes test. "
Mulgrew announced that the Community Schools program supported by the union, along with the Trinity Foundation, the Partnership for New York, the One Site Foundation and the New York City Council, would expand from its current six schools to 15.
The six schools now offer a range of services, including free vision screening and glasses for elementary school children, GED classes for young adults, wellness programs for families, and food bank deliveries for people in need - as well as many other services.
"The goal is to make a school the center of the community. Because, if you create a way for people to feel invested in their local school, then they'll commit themselves to making sure that their school is a success. It enables us to put the public back into our public schools," Mulgrew said.
The union also presented its John Dewey award to children's book author and actor Henry Winkler. Winkler's tv production company has created family and children's programming that deals with social issues such as adoption, child abuse, teenage drunk driving, and young people coping with divorce, Winkler has also co-authored a series of children's books based on his struggles with dyslexia and is a founder of the Children's Action Network, which provides free immunizations to hundreds of thousands of children.