Here’s what happened at last night’s Christina’s School Board meeting:
With two days remaining before a threatened state takeover of its three inner-city schools, the Christina board delayed action on the state’s priority schools plan – but it gave Superintendent Freeman Williams permission to work with education officials on a compromise.
Department spokeswoman Alison May said officials there were willing to extend the deadline for negotiations – at least for the moment. Gov. Jack Markell has said he will close those schools down or hand them over to charters or other outside operators if the district and state can’t agree.
The board’s move comes after the Department of Education rejected draft plans the district had crafted after months of meetings with parents, teachers and others in the schools’ communities.
“At the highest level, the plans propose continuing the work that is already underway at the schools, which we know has not been effective,” May wrote. “The plans propose supplementing the current work in minor ways, which we do not believe will be transformative for students.”
Before continuing, let’s break this down. First, Gov. Markell will not close these schools down, so he should probably drop that bit of nonsense. Charter and privatization have always been the end game for these Priority Schools (It’s actually more than the end game, it’s the entire point of this), so let’s stop pretending that closure is on the table. It isn’t… unless someone wants to tell me where the children attending the closed schools would go? And while the MOU doesn’t have much to say about the children attending these schools, they do, in fact, actually exist.
Second, let’s deal with this quote: “At the highest level, the plans propose continuing the work that is already underway at the schools, which we know has not been effective,” May wrote. “The plans propose supplementing the current work in minor ways, which we do not believe will be transformative for students.”
But, is this true?
A comprehensive review of Christina’s Stubbs and Bancroft elementary schools, conducted by the University of Delaware and commissioned by DDOE, released a report in early December indicating that these schools are making significant progress in a range of categories under their current leadership. In fifteen areas, including School Leadership Decisions, Curriculum and Instruction, and Strategies for Students Who Are at Risk, both schools received the highest possible evaluation.
This is a report (DASL) commissioned by the DDOE that they never mention. What is Alison May basing her statement on? Not the report her department commissioned. I understand why DDOE wants to ignore these findings. If they addressed them then they would actually have to change their mindset and their MOU; They would actually have to deal with the complicated issues facing our high poverty schools, drop their corporate fantasy of overpaid CEOs running our schools, stop blaming teachers who are on the front line with these kids and their families every day, start fighting for needs-based funding of high poverty schools – many (high poverty schools) of which didn’t exist until the legislature embraced Choice, Charters, Neighborhood Schools Act and Magnets – and simply consider trying smaller class sizes.
I said this in October, and I’ll say it again. “What’s infuriating is that we begin these discussions pretending we’ve actually tried to help these schools. We haven’t, and the State and Districts are both guilty of this. It isn’t as if the State and District are saying, “Hey, we tried smaller class sizes, putting more teachers in the schools, implemented equitable funding, added resources like wellness centers, school psychologists and put back programs such as TAG, Technology, Reading/Math specialists, Arts, etc. and these schools are still struggling so now we need to try something different.” They can’t say that because they never did that.”
Now, suddenly, everyone is supposed to believe that the powers-that-be care about these schools? If they cared they’d have a track record of their efforts helping these schools. Can anyone show me what the DDOE, our Governor and Legislature has done to help these schools prior to labeling them Priority Schools? Serious question, btw.
Back to last night’s meeting:
State officials also say Christina’s rules for the turnaround don’t give principals enough flexibility from the district to overhaul their schools’ budget and operations, allowing them to “propose” changes instead of implementing themselves. Christina’s plan also does not allow principals as much authority as the state wants when it comes to hiring school staff.
Other changes Christina has proposed, like extending the school day by 30 minutes, aren’t ambitious enough to make a dramatic difference, the state argues.
Two things.
1.) What is wrong with principals “proposing” changes to the district? Why shouldn’t changes be reviewed? Principals having free reign, with no oversight, is the charter school model. Go ask the families of the now closed Pencader Charter, Moyer Academy, Reach Academy, etc. how they felt when the state closed (slated for closure) their schools and they had nowhere to turn, no district to appeal to, a Charter School Network that threw them under the bus rather than fight for them. I’ve had those conversations. It’s time for DDOE, our Secretary of Education, Governor and elected officials to do the same.
Also keep in mind that the state took over Moyer – How’d they do? Oh, it’s closing? – and stepped in to help and oversee Pencader’s turn around. Is Pencader still open? Nope. Not to mention, even with the state “being there” Pencader ended up costing tax payers over 300,000.00 (additional monies) due to more financial mismanagement – and this happened on the DDOE watch. Go speak to these families and ask them how they feel about DDOE. If you think Priority School parents are angry… you don’t know the definition of angry.
2.) Can we please stop treating the families in Priority Schools as a monolith. Extending the school day isn’t the right choice for everyone. Most schools started 2 hours late today, and not everyone was happy about that. So extending the school day may not be right for everyone. I’m not necessarily against a longer school day, but to keep tossing this around like it will solve the problem is as lazy as school uniforms.
Red Clay is guilty of this as well. I wrote about it here. The only people who would consider Warner and Shortlidge a campus are people who have never walked between Warner and Shortlidge. It’s typical “sit around a conference table at district office” thinking. May I suggest that those that came up with this idea take that walk today?
One last thing about the News Journal article…
Though Red Clay’s rules eliminated the two most controversial items in the state’s original proposals: $160,000 minimum to pay the new principals and forcing all teachers to reapply for their jobs, it did leave much of the rest intact.
Why no, no it didn’t. The most controversial item in the MOU is the threat of closure, converting to charter and privatization – and that will never be removed since it’s the entire flippin’ point of the MOU.
Exceptional Delaware breaks it down (If you’re not reading this bog, you should):
At the Christina School District Board of Education meeting this evening, the board announced the Delware Department of Education has set new strict guidelines regarding their memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the priority schools. The DOE gave Christina three options in regards to their very limited choices:
1) Approve their existing MOU which the DOE has already said is not approvable.
2) Develop a negotiating team made of 3 members of the board, the superintendent, and other members hand-picked by the superintendent. This team would have to meet with the DOE by 1/9 (Friday) and agree to a memorandum of understanding. The DOE would no longer give feedback on the plan. If the sides were not able to come to an agreement, the district would have the opportunity to choose one of the three turnaround models-turn the school into a charter, school closure, or turn it over to a management company. If the two sides were able to come to an agreement, the Christina Board would have to vote on it at their 1/13 meeting.
3) If no action is taken, and all items are tabled, the turnaround models would again be the only option.
Okay. There was really only two choices. 1.) turnaround model (charter or privatization), or 2.) Do what the DDOE says and delay the turnaround model. Please notice how all roads lead to charter conversion and privatization.
Question: If the DDOE would no longer give feedback on the plan then how would Christina and the DDOE reach an agreement? And what’s with the rushed schedule (again – this entire thing has been rushed) and the fact that this schedule will violate the open meeting law? Is DDOE above the law? Can they force Christina to break it?
You know, most school board members have real jobs and might not be able to clear their schedules for a long (and it will be long) Friday meeting. Will Penny Schwinn clear her schedule – because she had better be free all day on Friday. If she’s not, then Priority Schools aren’t her priority.
In terms of where this negotiation meeting would be held, a twisted yet hysterical part of the meeting came when board member Harrie Ruth Minnehan read DOE Chief Proficiency Officer Penny Schwinn’s hours of availability during the next two days. The longest block of time she could provide was two hours, but only if they met in Wilmington, between 9-11am on Friday. Yes, I can see how bad the DOE wants to negotiate in good faith…
I plan to monitor Penny’s schedule. I expect it to be 100% cleared for Friday – with every slot labeled for Christina. I also expect the meeting to go well into the night – that no one leaves until an acceptable deal (for both sides) is done. Mark Murphy and Jack Markell should be there as well. Either this is a priority, or it’s not. If you threaten to close, charter or privatize public schools then you need to be at the table helping to make this work. No more delegating, since, obviously, that doesn’t work. If it worked then Christina wouldn’t have had months of meetings with parents, teachers and community members only for the DDOE to shrug and say, “Nah.” Unless… their real purpose was to always say Nah?
I do know that there is probably no stopping this – let alone actually doing it right. Because if we did it right then these schools wouldn’t privatize and/or become charters. Which defeats the true purpose of Priority Schools.
In closing, let’s look at one of the schools Markell, Murphy and DDOE keep holding up as a success – East Side Charter.
Nelia Dolan left this comment on Kilroy’s:
The greatest proficiency gains made in East Side Charter that everyone is touting was carried by a single cohort of students that went from 62 students in the third grade (2010/2011) to 29 students in the 5th grade (2012/2013).
Unless you can look at the gains of each individual student, then the possibility that the students who left the school were ones that did not perform well enough to meet standard is too great to ignore.
What difference does it make if the student body engineering is happening on the front end or somewhere in between?
I guess losing/counseling out over half of your student body is one way to raise test scores.
And about those tests… Brace yourselves for a massive explosion once the Smarter Balanced scores are released this summer. On the bright side, we’re going to have a lot more Priority Schools. Boom!