Delaware

Wilmington Education Advisory Committee Weighs In On Priority Schools

The letter inside was sent to Governor Markell yesterday. It is asking for the same thing most of us are asking – to slow down the process because more time is needed.

One thing is clear. The more people learn about the Priority Schools Plan the more they ask for more time before implementation.

The time frame is what frustrates so many – it simply cannot be taken seriously. The problems facing these schools are complicated, and ones we’ve ignored for years. Sadly, there is nothing in those MOUs that address, let alone acknowledge, the real issues facing these schools. And longer school days, getting rid of teachers and bringing in new “school leaders” (I hate that phrasing, btw) doesn’t address the very real challenges these children, and the schools serving them, face every day.

I stood on the steps at Warner when the Priority Schools plan was unveiled and, when the announcement was over, I walked away shaking my head. By the time I got home I realized that the main priority of the plan was the consequences of failure; that the only thing carved in stone in the MOU was the loss of our public schools. The time frame all but guaranteed that outcome. Hopefully, this letter will help slow things down.

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Christina’s Plan For “Priority Schools” And Last Night’s Meeting

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.

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