East Harlem — The city Department of Education's school grading system, which has led to surprise high and low scores and the planned closure of some "failing" schools, received an F for frustrating and a C for confusing from advocates and lawmakers in a City Council hearing to examine the grading process last week.

Council's education committee heard from a top DOE official, city Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, education advocates and others on Dec. 10, five weeks after grades for some 1,200 schools in the system were made public, and at the end of a week when the first school closures were announced. The hearing ended with Councilmembers, parents and other stakeholders still wondering why all 14 schools slated to close are in the some of the city's poorest neighborhoods, confused about what the school “report cards” reflect about a school’s quality, unclear about what factors the reports weigh and reward, and baffled at how some schools identified by the city and state as “top-performing” or “proficient” could have earned Fs and be destined for closure.

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Helen Zelon
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On top of that, many resent that they learned about the closures “by flyers stuffed in backpacks,” as Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum testified at the hearing, rather than being involved in the decisions.

“The Department should not make these decisions without input from parents and the larger community,” Gotbaum said, maintaining that despite legal obligations to “consult stakeholders before making changes,” neither community district education councils (CECs) – the parent/community panels that oversee local schools – nor other parent bodies were invited into the decision-making process this fall.

Representatives from the principals’ and teachers unions were not at the table, either. “They do not consult with us,” testified Ernest A. Logan, president of the principals’ union. “They make their own decisions and notify us. We’re informed after the fact.”

Committee chairman Robert Jackson, a Manhattan Democrat, confronted James Liebman, chief accountability officer of the DOE’s Office of Accountability and the main architect of the progress reports. “Were CECs consulted prior to the determination of the closings?”

“CECs were not consulted before the announcement. They are being consulted now,” after the fact, Liebman said. “The Chancellor and the School Leadership Team have the responsibility and the obligation to step in ... [in cases of] severe educational failure,” he testified.

Some parents and school leaders view this as the latest sign that their voices don’t count. Judging from the scene at the Council hearing, they’re not wrong: After a three-hour hearing, parents and advocates were permitted to address the “panel,” which by then consisted of Chairman Jackson, a legal counsel monitoring the proceedings, and 13 empty chairs. Councilmembers, eager to tangle with Liebman while television cameras were rolling, had left the chamber, one by one.

And Liebman himself ducked out a side door after his testimony in order to avoid petition-bearing activists from Time Out From Testing, a statewide coalition opposed to "excessive" standardized tests, plus a phalanx of waiting reporters.

“Seven thousand petitions signed by parents in opposition to the report cards, and he knowingly took the opposite door,” said Donna Nevel, of the Manhattan-based think tank Center for Immigrant Families, who was there with the Time Out group. “The pretense is that he cares what parents think. It couldn’t be clearer from his actions.”