NYACK PIE GOES NATIONAL ...

Enclosed you’ll find a recent edition of the National Coalition of Education Activists newsletter, ACTION, which focuses on parent organizing.

Nyack PIE is proud to be featured in this issue [see page 4], but more importantly, the newsletter offers some perspective on what is happening nationally as parents come together to fight for a first-class education for all.

We hope you’ll read ACTION and come away, as we did, feeling that Nyack’s issues are not unique but are of national importance.

... AND ON-LINE

Nyackpie.com is on the way! If you have ideas or time to contribute, give us a call. The website is currently under construction, but look for it soon.

If you have a child in the Nyack School district, you’ve received at least three mailings over the last few months, including one called Spotlight On Facts and a couple called Straight Talk.

This past December, the NAACP and PIE responded to this data with a five-page Status Report that included an appendix with a dozen specific questions. Among those questions were why the Administration will no longer make public information about in-school suspensions. A decade’s worth of data has shown that African-Americans are far more frequently disciplined in this way by being pulled out of class.

Ludicrous as it may sound, the Administration has refused to release these figures because this kind of discipline has been re-named "in-school supervision."

In the same vein, district data on hiring does not identify how many "black" teachers Nyack employs. Instead of that category (which is used in all student test data), the administration substituted "minority," thus increasing the apparent numbers by including Hispanic, Filipino, etc.

But, as the Status Report states, "what concerns us most is the spirit of the Administration’s response ...." For example, PIE and the NAACP recommended that Nyack look at other districts, such as Montgomery County, Maryland and Miami-Dade County, Florida, which are dealing with the same issue of minority achievement. "These districts," the Status Report went on, "use their data to 1) define the problem, 2) set bench-marks for accomplishment, and 3) involve teachers and the public in measuring progress towards specific goals."

From all the information in these professional reports, the Administration chose to focus on "the role that families and community play" in the problem. It is exactly this repeated desire to shift the blame that caused the district-paid consultant, Diversiteam, to describe Nyack’s Administration as "defensive."

The NAACP/PIE Status Report applauds the school board for hiring the consultants, forming the Task Force, and for publicly releasing data regarding minority achievement (a first). "We look forward to the day," it concludes, "when the Administration abandons its defensive position and joins other districts, nationally, in issuing ‘A Call To Action.’"

[If you would like a copy of the Status Report, just write us at Box 167, Nyack, NY 10960.]

BLOCK SCHEDULING

After receiving a petition with about a hundred signatures last Spring, the Middle School arranged for all 6th graders to have back-to-back English and Literature.

This means that if these teachers wanted to combine classes, students would get a chance to have 90 minute periods, offering the opportunity for longer projects, more hands-on learning, local field trips, etc.

Common themes have been decided on by the teachers. Now, it’s just a matter of moving forward!

If you’d like to help, have comments or suggestions, contact PIE or the 6th grade English and literature teachers.

QUESTIONS ABOUT READING

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A district-wide meeting on December 2, 1999 announced that Nyack has a brand new reading program.

If you haven’t heard, don’t be surprised -- lots of people missed it.

Those are just a few of the many questions that concerned parents and guardians are asking.

The program was apparently designed by district reading specialists and Assistant-Superintendent Mary Anne Evangelist. It’s meant to incorporate more sounding-out of words (phonics) than Nyack had before, while keeping the basic approach, known as Whole Language. That means homeroom teachers should be spending more time helping your children "de-code." It may mean more emphasis on correct spelling and less on reading for the fun of it. It almost certainly has a lot to do with the new 4th grade reading test mandated by the State. And it replaces a program called Reading Recovery which had been in place for a number of years and which has a very good track record internationally but is also very expensive: a few teachers working with only a few students at a time.

Is every district teacher now using this new program?

Not all children learn to read at the same age or in the same way. As the NAACP/PIE report found, when children have trouble learning to read, the help they get tends to differ depending on the color of their skin. Resource room has always had far more white children; separate special education classrooms are disproportionately black. Similarly, we’re now seeing that the after-school STARS reading program is overwhelmingly African-American.

Is the STARS program working?

There’s a 3rd and 5th grade ability test (called the Terra Nova) and the State test in the 4th grade, while K-2 reading is tracked by category, i.e. your child is Emergent, Transitional, or Fluent. Do you know which -- and why?

How can parents help with reading if they don’t understand how it’s being taught?

These are only a few of the questions regarding Nyack’s reading program. If you have more concerns, call the district -- or call PIE.

HOMEWORK

Do you sometimes wonder whose grade that is on the book report, your child’s or yours?

The role of homework is supposed to be to reinforce what has already been learned in class: less a nightly test with grades and more a review.

What, then, is the parent/guardian’s role supposed to be? The Nyack School District does have a policy. It reads, in part,

"The Board of education believes that parental involvement in students’ homework is essential to making homework an integral part of the educational program. Parents are expected to encourage and monitor homework assignments and, to the extent possible, provide conditions that are conducive to their successful completion."

That doesn’t say anything about parents helping with homework. So, PIE has a modest proposal to test the homework policy. It might also provide some insight into the Minority Achievement Gap.

We’d be interested in hearing your opinion of what would happen if the playing field was leveled in this way.

We don’t really expect the district to implement such an experiment, but wouldn’t it be educational?

The above headline comes from a two part series that ran in the Los Angeles Times this past December. It begins,

Tens of thousands of students in California’s special education system have been placed there not because of a serious mental or emotional handicap, but because they were never taught to read properly.

The article goes on to say that these students don’t learn to read, are labeled "Learning Disabled," and then are failed a second time by Special Education. Looking at the problem nationally, the head of the Federal government’s research efforts in this area is quoted as saying:

Learning disabilities have become a sociological sponge to wipe up the spills of general education. It’s [for] children who weren’t taught well ..."

The L.A. Times article goes on to summarize the findings of both a state task force and the state’s director of Special Education:

Leading research now shows that the reading problems most of those [L.D.] students suffer from could have been reduced, or even avoided altogether, had they received systematic, intensive instruction as early as kindergarten in how letters represent sounds and how letters go together to form words -- the basis of phonics.

What happens to these students? The article points out they are three times more likely to have untrained teachers, twice as likely to drop out, and that fewer than 10% of students labeled "Learning Disabled" ever leave Special Education. [In Nyack, it was 9%.]

Who are these children? In Nyack, a third are white, more than half are described as "black," the rest are "other."

How do they get labeled? The Times attributed the improper placement of students in Special Ed classes to "misguided teachers and administrators" who either see smaller Special Ed classrooms as a better environment for struggling students or "as an easy place to dump students with behavioral difficulties."

How will this change? Right now, the new state tests and federal law is driving the change. Special Education students have to pass the same tests as "regular" students. That puts the pressure on to do away with a watered-down curriculum and to try to address students’ reading problems early and directly. To do so, teachers -- both in Special Ed and regular classes -- will need training.

UPDATE ON THE TASK FORCE

After three months of work, the Task Force for Equality and Excellence in education has come out with some thirty recommendations. As we go to press, those recommendations are waiting for the school board’s reaction.

The idea of a task force was first proposed by a community member after the district had received the NAACP/PIE report. In a board meeting at the end of June, 1999, the majority of the board voted to hire an outside consultant because it felt the Task Force would not be able to address the "achievement gap" issues on its own. Diversiteam was hired, had an informational meeting with the task force in August, and submitted its report in October. At first, the board and Administration tried not to release what has come to be known as the Tulin report; thanks to public pressure it was soon given out to the community.

So, it wasn’t until early November that the Task Force had its first real business meeting, appointed a steering committee, and began to review the Tulin report. Since then, the Task Force has moved forward without a facilitator -- without a fixed membership (the committee was open to all) -- without a budget -- and without being able to meet in private (Despite two votes by the majority of the Task Force requesting to meet without the Administration, the Administration refused).

We won’t reprint all thirty recommendations here, but highlight some of what we feel are the key items: 

---that the district should have "the ultimate aim of eliminating tracking K-12."  

---an "Undoing Racism Workshop" which would eventually reach all staff and PTA officers. 

---increasing staff development funds by 1% each year over the next seven years 

---a complete review of discipline procedures 

--- a complete review of Special Education procedures

The task force considered but did not end up recommending a "watch dog" committee to follow up on these recommendations. Instead, it calls for regular release of statistical information to the public, as well as regular community meetings.

But what is to guarantee that the district will follow through? Or, if they follow through, that these recommendations will make a difference?

Only you!

Since the beginning of the fall, PIE has been providing free tutoring to about a dozen Nyack/Valley Cottage students.

These range from first graders having trouble learning how to read to ninth graders getting help in Spanish.

What they have in common is that none could afford to pay for private help, the way many more affluent families do.

There’s the fifth grader who was assigned to special education three years ago because she was having trouble learning how to read -- the seventh grade male who has to fight peer pressure to stay serious about his math - the fourth grader who needs constant reinforcement of resource room strategies.

Behind these students, there are many more who PIE’s volunteer tutors haven’t been able to provide for ... but it’s a start.

If you can tutor -- or need help -- we hope you’ll get in touch.

TIPS... etc.

It’s an "interactive guide to learning disabilities" that includes information on learning disabilities and attention deficit disorder (ADD). There is a weekly research update and a KidZone, as well as links to state and national sites.

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If you have educational issues with a teacher, administrator or anyone else in the system, put them down on paper and make sure you get a written response. There are lots of state and federal laws that protect student/parent rights, but you need proof! And remember, you have the right to bring a friend/witness to any meeting. Call PIE if you need help.