NYC Public School Parents: Carranza's new gig with IXL Learning, and its defective and stressful product that DOE has paid millions for & subjected NYC students to use

NYC Public School Parents: Carranza's new gig with IXL Learning, and its defective and stressful product that DOE has paid millions for & subjected NYC students to use

Carranza's new gig with IXL Learning, and its defective and stressful product that DOE has paid millions for & subjected NYC students to use

In the NY Post today, Sue Edelman wrote an expose of an ed tech company, IXL Learning, that recently hired former DOE Chancellor Richard Carranza two weeks after he left office.  As I was quoted as saying, 

"I have no gripe about Carranza getting whatever job he can after the stressful experience he was put through in NYC. However, he shouldn’t be working to promote a product with such distressing impact on kids...No district should use it."

Why did I say that?  Check out the abysmal parent reviews of this product at Commonsense Media, including this comment: “IXL is an absolutely disgusting method of teaching children.”  

Check out the even worse student reviews, like this one: "I think that IXL, is the worst site ever created. My teacher gives us lessons daily, and it's pure torture. Shouldn't this be illegal because it is considered child abuse?”  

Or this one: "Ixl causes kids a lot of stress and anxiety. it is a terrible learning website and i really don't recommend it. i come home crying everyday because of ixl. please, please save your children from this devil website! PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF! i have even thought about leaving my school so i wouldn't have to do it. i HATE it. so much."

I have never seen such terrible reviews for any ed tech product.  

IXL also gets very poor privacy ratings from Commonsense Media, earning a "WARNING" and a low grade of 69: CONTINUE READING: NYC Public School Parents: Carranza's new gig with IXL Learning, and its defective and stressful product that DOE has paid millions for & subjected NYC students to use

NYC Educator: Farewell from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: Farewell from the Chancellor

Farewell from the Chancellor

Dear Colleagues, 
 
Today is my last day serving as New York City’s Schools Chancellor, and I write to you to both say goodbye and to express my gratitude for each one of you. 
 
During the last three years, I have made about a million bucks, and haven’t paid a dime in rent. And honestly, my expense account has covered just about everything—travel, meals, donuts, unnatural acts—you name it. Your generosity and fortitude have surpassed my expectations.
 
We have been through unimaginably turbulent times together, and yet have achieved so much for our children. I don’t think anyone wants a laundry list, and honestly, I haven’t put a quarter in a laundry machine in years. Whether it’s shirts, underwear, suits, socks, ties, or whatever, they just appear cleaned and pressed. I don’t even know who does them. But yeah, you know, the children.
 
And, of course, together we took on the COVID-19 pandemic, completely reinventing what it meant to teach and learn in New York City’s public schools. I remember when you brought me 108,000 signatures asking that we close buildings. I said, hey, bring me 108,00 signatures of epidemiologists, because hey, my job was on the line and screw you all if that’s what it takes.
 
Every one of you, no matter the role you play, makes a difference in the lives of the City’s public school students. Please never forget that helping our school system reach its full potential and lifting up our children is not the job of one person. Unless you, of course, because that’s your job. Tomorrow I won’t have a job. I’ll take my million bucks CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Farewell from the Chancellor

Farewell, Carranza | JD2718

Farewell, Carranza | JD2718

Farewell, Carranza

Yesterday was Richard Carranza’s last day. He won’t be missed.

Sadly.

Because he arrived with good intentions. He arrived with a good attitude. He seemed friendly towards teachers.

But he was probably not ready for New York City, and definitely not for the NYC Department of Education.

His hires were semi-qualified cronies, and insiders pushed on him by City Hall. Anything he attempted bogged down almost immediately. Moving through the DoE bureaucracy is like trying to walk through a river of molasses. And ham-fisted de Blasio was calling many of the (wrong) shots.

We expected much change on instruction for children whose first language is not English. And there was the issue of school segregation…

On ESL, a leader who gets it!  Ready to undo the lousy policies he inherited! (from the state, but also how the city coped with it). Where’s the progress? Where? Nowhere.

The integration initiatives were way overdue. He rolled out de Blasio’s specialized high school initiative about as clumsily as he could have. But that was de Blasio. They caught allies off guard. They angered CONTINUE READING: Farewell, Carranza | JD2718

NYC School Chancellor Leaves: The Toxic Intersection of Mayoral Control and Mayoral Politics | Ed In The Apple

NYC School Chancellor Leaves: The Toxic Intersection of Mayoral Control and Mayoral Politics | Ed In The Apple

NYC School Chancellor Leaves: The Toxic Intersection of Mayoral Control and Mayoral Politics

Richard Carranza, the New York City School Chancellor unexpectedly announced he was leaving his position.

The cognoscenti were not surprised, for months the chancellor and the mayor have been dueling; it was only a matter of time before the chancellor packed it in.

Highly effective leaders select subordinates and give them the authority to carry out their role. Interestingly a number of the mayoral hopefuls had major roles in city government: Kathryn Garcia was the NYS Sanitation Commissioner, Sean Donovan the HPD (Housing Preservation and Development) commissioner and Maya Wiley, the mayor’s counsel, all served with distinction. Micromanaging schools has a sad and long history; mayors claimed credit for positive education news and blamed and fired chancellors to deflect bad news.

Unfortunately from day one the mayor attempted to keep a tight rein on the Department of Education. He selected Carmen Farina, a retired Department deputy chancellor and friend to temporarily fill the job; she stayed for de Blasio’s entire first term. Farina’s one major initiative, the Renewal Schools, pumping mega dollars into the hundred lowest achieving schools was a dismal failure. Read here.

Renewal’s ideas were untested, and, almost from the start, the program was hobbled by bureaucracy and a tight timeline imposed by a mayor eager to show on a national stage that schools could improve without censure, CONTINUE READING: NYC School Chancellor Leaves: The Toxic Intersection of Mayoral Control and Mayoral Politics | Ed In The Apple

NYC Educator: Hail and Farewell from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: Hail and Farewell from the Chancellor

Hail and Farewell from the Chancellor

Dear Colleagues,
 
I hope you and your families are keeping safe and healthy, not that it would have anything to do with me or my actions. I’m writing today with some important news.
 
After three years leading the DOE, I will be stepping down as Chancellor at the end of March. Why wait until the new person comes in and get fired?
 
I am full of mixed emotions to leave the DOE family, because this is one heck of a gig. I mean, it beats working for sure. I am in awe of the huge salary. The work we have done together has given me a free house for years, and it truly sucks that I’ll soon be back to paying rent.  But hey, I’ve picked up a million bucks over the last three years, and expensed every cent that went out, so I’ll be cool.
 
When I started at the DOE in April of 2018, it was with a mission and a purpose: to help our system reach its full potential, so it could lift up as many children as possible in the way that only public education can.  Of course, once Blaz decided the schools had to stay open even after Broadway closed, I let them stay on in COVID-infested schools, along with you guys, while I sat in my office and played with the free paper clips.
 
Throughout my career, my guiding light has been the belief that public education is the most powerful equalizer for our young people. Public education anchors communities, and I left the buildings filthy enough that they felt like anchors to one and all. Public education makes it possible for a child who is poor, or who lives in temporary housing, or—in my own case—who doesn’t speak English when they enter the public school system, to catch COVID, and bring it home to his or her family. Truly, it is public education that expresses equity for all, except for those who, like me, can afford to send our kids to private schools that aren’t crumbling and CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Hail and Farewell from the Chancellor

Richard Carranza resigns, Meisha Porter to be new NYC schools head - New York Daily News

Richard Carranza resigns, Meisha Porter to be new NYC schools head - New York Daily News

NYC schools head Richard Carranza resigns, Meisha Porter to become system’s first Black woman chancellor

Richard Carranza, the New York City schools chancellor who ignited fiery conversations about race and segregation in education and oversaw the seismic shift to remote learning throughout the coronavirus pandemic, will step down March 15 after a three-year tenure, Mayor de Blasio announced Friday.

He will be replaced by Meisha Porter, who currently serves as executive superintendent for the Bronx. Porter will become the first Black woman chancellor of the nation’s largest public school system.

Carranza’s departure will take effect a year to the day after the hectic Sunday last March when officials shuttered city school buildings in an unprecedented response to the growing threat of COVID-19

A year later, roughly 250,000 of the city’s nearly million public school students are attending in-person classes.

City officials say Carranza is stepping aside by his own accord, and doesn’t have a new position lined up. The schools chief has suffered a brutal personal toll from the coronavirus, losing multiple family members to the illness, he’s said on multiple occasions in recent months. CONTINUE READING:  Richard Carranza resigns, Meisha Porter to be new NYC schools head - New York Daily News

NYC Educator: The Chancellor Responds to Current Events

NYC Educator: The Chancellor Responds to Current Events

The Chancellor Responds to Current Events

 Dear Colleagues,
 
Like so many other days in the past ten months, yesterday we experienced an alarming and frightening moment that was unprecedented in our lifetimes. And l have to tell you, I was relieved to see the breach of the U.S Capitol, I was absolutely certain that something like this would make you think about something other than my forcing you to work in the worst epidemic any of us have ever seen.  I am hopeful that such incidents redirect your sadness and anger. I’m tired of reading nasty crap you guys say and write about me. I’m just doing my job, man. 

I was equally disturbed by what I saw as the response of law enforcement, who apparently allowed the entry and later the peaceful dispersing of these violent rioters. If I drive you guys to strike, it won’t look like that at all. I’ll ask the police to drive vans right through the lot of you. There will be rockets red glare and carnage ahoy. The city cops endorsed Trump, you know.

My heart breaks to know that our young people have witnessed this violent assault on people, property, the rule of law, and on our democracy itself—If we do it here in New York, we’ll endeavor to cover it up much better than they did in DC. The best response at this time, as I see it, is to open all the school buildings, give a lot of CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: The Chancellor Responds to Current Events

NYC Educator: More Brilliance from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: More Brilliance from the Chancellor

More Brilliance from the Chancellor

Dear Colleagues,
 
This has been a year of new challenges and difficult choices, for you at least. I myself have to choose every day whether to sit at the desk in my home office or stay in bed and watch videos. With no guidance whatsoever from me or any of my six-figure flunkies, you’ve had to reinvent the wheel, or more likely, drive a car on which we failed to provide wheels.
 
Today I am writing with an update on another fundamental pillar of our system: how to make our students believe we’re offering everyone an elite education when we are, in fact, not doing any such thing. This notwithstanding, I certainly hope this takes your mind off the raging pandemic and my pig-headed insistence on opening schools as positivity numbers explode everywhere.
 
We’ve been clear from the start we would ignore the impact of the pandemic as much as we possibly could. Otherwise, why would we be closing restaurants and opening schools at the same time?, We’ve decided to rationalize doing so by suggesting doing otherwise CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: More Brilliance from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: Another Letter from the Chancellor

NYC Educator: Another Letter from the Chancellor

Another Letter from the Chancellor

Dear Colleagues,
 
As we approach the end of the calendar year, I am reflecting back on some of the events of 2020. We have confronted uncertainty and pain together, working as a community dedicated in service to our city’s children. Because their safety is paramount, we took a principled stand and vowed to close schools as soon as the positivity rate reached 3%.
 
It goes almost without saying that we backed off on that stand as soon as public pressure began. I took some hard criticism—the hardest, perhaps, of my lifetime, and of course I backed off my principles completely. We have all worked incredibly hard to protect our children and our communities from COVID-19, and continue to do so.  That’s why we’ve now tripled our threshold for closure to 9%, and when it hits that, we’ll read a few nasty op-eds in the Post and raise it again.
 
But the difficulties of this year extend beyond the coronavirus crisis, of course. This has been a watershed year for the struggle for racial justice in this city and country. Rest assured that we at the DOE will make you travel through COVID infested trains and buses no matter what color you are. We don’t care what religion you are or what CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Another Letter from the Chancellor