Archive for the ‘low-performing schools’ Category

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Short Term Savings, Long Term Losses

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Daily, articles describe the fiscal problem for schools.  Tuesday, February 23, 2010, a San Francisco Chronicle front page headline stated “Over 900 pink slips likely for S.F. schools,” the largest, distressed district in the bay area.

CA suburban middle school

CA suburban middle school

Today, Wednesday, February 24, 2010, the Wall Street Journal front page reported disaster for San Mateo County school districts, elementary to community college, affecting high and very low-performing schools with layoffs up and down a beautiful part of the San Francisco peninsula.

The superintendent of well-to-do Lafayette School District states “districts across the state are increasing class sizes, decreasing the length of the school year, eliminating professional development, and eviscerating art, music, athletic and summer school programs.”  See “Complacency has added to our crisis in education” by Fred Brill, San Francisco Chronicle, February 19, 2010.

The catastrophe for students is the procedure whereby huge cuts balance a short term budget, i.e. layoffs aka RIF-reduction in force.

“Increasing class size” means teacher layoffs.  “Eliminating professional development” means teachers providing the service disappear.  No “art, music, athletics and summer school” means RIF.  Furthermore, furloughs and decreases in the number of school year days forewarn that teachers decamp in hopes of a better salary elsewhere-maybe to booming Wyoming.

It may be that school districts are caught in the middle of the state’s fiscal debacle, especially in California.  However, Jeffrey Pfeffer in ‘Lay Off the Layoffs” Newsweek, February 15, 2010, quoted a head of human resources, “If people are your most important assets, why would you get rid of them?”

It’s a business quote, let’s be honest, not a school district’s.  First thing that will come to the reader’s mind is school districts are not businesses.  Agreed.  This blog often says that.  Nevertheless, think about why layoffs sabotage the goals for student achievement.

Immediately, the unemployment benefits that the county will pay cuts into money available for schools.  Money spent when people are rehired cuts into supposed savings.

Next, morale of the remaining staff goes down.  Teachers are redistributed, and there is a direct and indirect cost to resettle in a different school, much less learn the “school climate” at the new location or new grade level.  That’s why the strongest schools have few teachers moving in and out and students remaining at the school from grades K-5.

Another indirect cost is loss of institutional memory.  Especially in low-performing schools where young teachers are often the first to be sent packing, every year the few remaining teachers must spend at least a month of instructional time training new teachers who inevitably are brought in as student demographics shift.

Next, productivity is reduced.  Fatigue sets in.  With substantial layoffs, too few teachers must take on extra duties that had been distributed among more employees.  They get sick.  More teachers take days off and the district must pay for substitutes-another cost.

This blog has no “magic bullet” to avoid projected layoffs for 2010-2011, other than to hope more stimulus money is authorized by Congress.  However, state and local school boards should think “long term.”

How about working through the county to gain volume and thus reduce the substantial cost of supplies per school district?  Right now each school district makes deals, not nearly large enough in volume to save the money required.

The state department of education should advocate for the revised federal health care plan, thus cutting costs for teacher benefits and Medicare, after salaries a major cost to school districts.

County boards of education should strongly advocate for combining small districts into one larger district to save the cost of multiple superintendents and district personnel.  Maybe the goal should be 10-20,000 students per district.  Contentious, but cost-cutting.

Finally, this blog has advocated for the proposal developed two years ago “Getting Beyond the Facts: Reforming California School Finance” that suggests a plan to reorganize the funds available to the state so that money is allocated where it’s needed.

Why should teachers (and so students) be the first to pay the price for a poor economy and state inability to manage its finances?

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Posted in California budget crisis, community colleges, layoff notices, low-performing schools, public schools, school finance reform |
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Pink, Pink, Red, Pink

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

It’s February and that means everything is pink and red hearts and flowers on worksheets, corridor walls, and windows facing the playground.  Whether learning Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s famous poems for Black History Month or receiving tooth brushes to encourage every child to brush his teeth and keep his gums pink for Dental Health Month, it’s still cheery pink handouts that are taken home.

Looks like all is fine and dandy.

However, as my BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment) consultant says when I ask for advice, it’s year 2 problems of which suddenly you are aware.  The first year was such a rush.  Now you worry about the girl who won’t finish her work and keeps begging for help without following the steps you’ve laid out and reviewed over and over to avoid this problem.  It seems I’ve tried every ‘trick’ in the book.  For instance, I ask how she’s feeling when I see her working well with her partners, but the one that has worked best is the old-time stickers on a card for specified behaviors that goes home weekly for reward time at the computer and so on.

I’ve mentioned the money difficulties for my district and they are not any better.  At every budget meeting, in fact, more funds disappear.  The second year teachers have all been told to expect “pink slips” and it’s only February.

I’ve been reading about the lickety-split passage of education legislation by the legislature in order to pick up federal funds as if $700 million is going to save California.  We know schools need every penny, but the teachers in my district have been warned that the money will not appear at our door.  Our students are high-achieving and most of the money is for the lowest of the low-performing schools.

It is amazing though.  My father passed on that an acquaintance in Los Angeles, well-versed in education issues, said that so many states have already revised their education legislation, it’s one of the biggest positive moves brought on by the Obama Administration in the past year.  I wonder how long before such news hits the media.  Or is it only the complainers who will be heard.

Still some of the legislation and some of the money will foster changes to teacher evaluation and changes to the pay structure I’m already used to.  Honestly, in these days of recession one advantage of teaching is a salary and benefits that can be counted on.

I know that several large school districts like Washington DC have had completely new evaluation plans handed out by the superintendent with no negotiations from the teacher’s union.  I can’t imagine that will happen in California.

There is, however, the plan to revise California standards and benchmarks which is a good idea.  But when we talk at lunchtime, we all know it will not be next year that the standards are ready or that evaluation changes will be negotiated, much less that pay will be determined by how high your evaluation ‘number’ is.  And who decides, the state, the district?  That’s a red hot issue.

June?  With the pink construction paper already gone from the supply room in February, is that an omen of where I’ll be?  One of 102 teachers from my school district standing in the unemployment office, laid off, pink slip in hand?

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Posted in California budget crisis, low-performing schools, public schools |
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Another Day, Another Look at Charter Schools

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Now that California, one of many states, has raised the cap on the number of charter schools allowed to apply for licenses each year, it’s time to look again at the realities of the charter school controversy.

California elementary charter school

California elementary charter school

Why do some praise charter schools as the savior of education in the United States?

Why are others cautious, if not outright antagonistic?

The charter school movement came to life in 1988 in Minnesota with the idea to design schools with “renewable licenses to innovate, free of most school district rules.” (John Merrow, “When Roads Diverge…”edweek.org) In 1992 the first charter school opened in Minnesota, followed soon by California after passage of the Charter School Act of 1992 and which now is #2 in the list of schools chartered.

Still charter schools have not, so far, swept over the country.  Let’s look at more numbers.  There are 4000 charter schools in 40 states and DC with 1.3 million students.  Minnesota has the most schools and California in 2009 has 700 charter schools out of 10,000 public schools with 4% of the 6.3 million students.

Even so, Michelle Rhee, superintendent of Washington DC schools, Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor of Los Angeles, and Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York, all are doing their best to restructure their school districts by closing low-performing schools and reopening with smaller charter schools, often in the same building.

Why so?

Money.  State regulations for licensing charter schools have been revised in pursuit of federal Race to the Top funds geared mostly toward low-performing high schools, a desperate problem in large urban areas.  Limited data available does show that charter high schools outperform similar traditional high schools.  In addition, in California at least, charter high schools attract more disadvantaged Hispanic students, one of the groups the state must target for academic help.

Strong teachers and administrators who want to get away from the system of traditional public schools with union contracts that were needed for a long while, but now restrict change, love the idea of starting over with a new school.

In addition, high-performing charters are small schools (average 350 students) with longer school days and year, more time devoted to English language study, a clear academic mission, a moderate discipline policy.  Those schools do well on the assessments to ensure a license renewal.

Top charters really have tried to innovate.

K-5 Conservatory Lab Charter School in the Boston area led by Diana Lam, long time administrator, uses a curricular model called Learning Through Music to support students who must improve their academic achievement.  Teacher contract innovation also is a goal.  A management team is designing the pay formula based on 5 levels of teacher performance, each level geared to identify a teacher as s/he becomes more experienced.  In addition, the teachers collaborate, using the Cycle of Inquiry model to assess, analyze, and modify teaching strategies.

City Arts and Technology High School set in a working class San Francisco neighborhood is one of Envision Schools, a non-profit group of model charter high schools.  The curriculum is rigorous, students collaborate on learning projects, and support is available to ensure all 365 students do well on state exams.

What’s wrong?

Nothing, except those exceptional schools are having difficulty being replicated across the country and time is of the essence.  For instance, in California, elementary charter schools are less likely to serve minorities, English Language Learners, and low-income students.  The schools are small, not reaching enough children.  Studies of outcome data for many charter schools have not shown better results than traditional public schools.

Often said, the parent buyer must beware.  Disinformation has been generated about charter schools, emphasizing their good qualities, denigrating perfectly good public schools, and hiding the fact that 14% of charter schools lose their licenses, just like traditional public schools fall into the low-performance abyss.

Finally, a number of professionals associated with the education field see charter schools as a way to privatize education, paid for with public money.  Others who praise charter schools do so because they hope to drag down teachers’ unions that are accused of holding onto a fixed pay structure which offers no incentives to excel.

Looking again?

Teacher’s pay structure is being re-evaluated, but the public must support the thousands of public schools looking for a model to help students achieve, instead of antagonizing the very highly-qualified teachers needed to close the achievement gap.

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Posted in Race to Top, cycle of inquiry, highly qualified teachers, low-performing schools, public schools |
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What’s the Answer?

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010
a California high school

a California high school

Amazing in itself, two bills (SBX5 1 and SBX5 4) passed January 7, 2010, in the California legislature and were signed by Governor Schwarzenegger, aiming to get $700 million from the federal Race To The Top (RTTT) funds.

What will that money be used for?  Most of the California education world only expects it to shore up the fiscal crisis, allowing legislators to say “See, we didn’t take any more money from schools.”

Such manipulation does nothing to address the real crisis in California, the governor and his party’s refusal to consider taxes, the Democratic majority’s inability to pass legislation anyway because of the supermajority (2/3) needed by the legislature and/or from the voters in an election for any tax or finance legislation.

Meantime, the onslaught against teachers continues, pay cuts, furlough days, increases in student/teacher ratio, all of which really are to the detriment of students for whom RTTT funds are supposed to benefit.

Round and round we go, where we stop…

Actually, anyone who studies school reform knows where to stop.  At schools in deep failure, low-performing on exams; poor, poor, poor facilities; unsupported teachers; distracted parents consumed by pay and food for their children.  Whether tax haters like it or not, systemic failure needs money to reverse itself.  This blog has reported suggestions to reorganize without cost, but in the end, it’s dollar bills, used effectively and efficiently.

The legislation is geared to help the lowest-performing schools turn around, but two big issues dominate the legislation.

First, a bill component allows the linkage of school data to teacher evaluation, an ongoing concern with many competing ideas to put such a system in place. Randi Weingarten, AFT president, on Tuesday, January 12, 2010, offered a model in which teachers and other school personnel are part of the team designing the plan.  In the California legislation, collective bargaining is part of the process.

Second, the bill establishes a commission to update the state’s student content standards, not revised since the mid-1990’s.  No plan for teacher evaluation or changes to state testing would occur until the standards are revised.

Another aspect of the legislation has received strong support and strong condemnation. The provision allows parents to petition and state officials to force a school district to overhaul bad schools.

It’s true already that California State officials take over school districts, from community college to urban K-12.  Sometimes parents develop a charter school, so that’s already happening.  What will likely cause the uproar is allowing students to choose any school in the state to attend.

“Open enrollment” offers that possibility.  RTTT suggests that open enrollment policies to allow students to transfer out of schools that fail to raise state test scores high enough, quickly enough, will help.  Bruce Fuller, education and public policy professor UC Berkeley, says it’s just shifting chairs around on the sinking Titanic. (SFChronicle, January6, 2010)

Sounds good for the student, but what about the transportation costs, the cost to the receiving and sending school districts.  Who puts up the money to make it happen?

While teacher’s unions have been wading in to advocate for a number of these provisions, after making sure their objections have been heard, the California Teachers Association (CTA) is adamantly opposed to the “open enrollment” part of the legislation.

It’s not hard to imagine the unintended consequences of the proposal.  It will bring chaos to many school districts, like schools with high transient rates and low test performance, without offering any model for improvement.

Is that the answer to fix failing schools?

(Image by SHM)

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Posted in American Federation of Teachers, California Teachers Association, Race to Top, community colleges, low-performing schools, program improvement, public schools, school reform |
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What It Takes

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

With hoopla about grants for Race To the Top, in an effort to turn around high schools in dire need of help; gung-ho proposals about grants for elementary schools; and constant brouhaha over teacher’s union opposition to change, it’s just plain great to see an article about a school that has actually succeeded.

Not only succeeded, it’s in a low-income pocket of my neighborhood on the San Francisco peninsula, known for high-flying salaries and mega-homes and students who expect to go to Stanford, UC Berkeley, or an Ivy League university.  Leroy Anderson Elementary reached the goal of every elementary school with “at risk” students-an Academic Performance Index (API) 800+.

Reading the article “Learning to Teach to Bridge the Achievement Gap” by Phil Yost, New York Times, November 20, 2009, the qualities of a successful school filled the page.  The article covered highly-qualified teachers willing to pursue the achievement goal, dedicated administrators, curriculum changes shown to improve the capabilities of low-performing students, known successful teaching techniques, regular consistent assessment and analysis, and parent inclusion.

Why can’t all elementary schools with low test scores do what Anderson Elementary did, even in California, the land of no money for schools?

Certain requirements are only inferred in Yost’s article which must be present or developed in the effort to close the achievement gap in a school.

First and foremost, a cadre of teachers, who know the goal and stand by it, must agree to stay at the school.  They understand the difficulties to overcome and will not back away or obstruct.  The teachers are expected to be leaders, listened to by the administrators and asked to research and help organize the curriculum changes that will be needed.

Second, the school needs administrators who are determined to see the change through.  They must be partners with the teaching staff in developing and/or preparing for the reading/language arts and math models.  They must not give up when students don’t improve right away.  They must hold off district personnel who want to try the next big thing.  They must be relentless in the consistency of the program, but watch constantly to improve what isn’t effective.

Third, in spite of what one reads about improvement possible even when the funding picture is bleak, it helps to have a district office on the side of the school.  To turn around a school, it’s good to be a small school in a small district, easier for district personnel to keep in mind the issues the school faces.  (Moreland School District has 5 elementary schools and 1 middle school with about 4000 students total.)

When parents at the school need a program, as at Anderson, to learn English and parenting skills to support their children, the district must have helped find the money.  When teachers say they will tutor students after school, the district will find the money.  When the school principal wants professional development time set aside to analyze test data that drives the curriculum, the district doesn’t put her off, but finds the money.

Finally, when Charles Weis, Santa Clara County Superintendent of Schools (where Anderson Elementary is found), makes general statements about knowing which schools need help and how to help them, it’s not good enough.  If he’s on the side of school reform in low-performing, “at risk” schools, is he working with the district superintendents, the teacher’s unions, and school boards to set a time table for change and not back down?

Jonathan Alter in “Teddy’s Rightful Heir” Newsweek, November 9, 2009, suggests that is happening at the federal Department of Education.  “He (President Obama) and Arne Duncan are showing some Chicago muscle….”

Do what it takes.

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Posted in Academic Performance Index, Arne Duncan, Race to Top, highly qualified teachers, low-performing schools, program improvement, public schools, school reform, successful schools |
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