An interesting and lively grab-bag of topics for your reading pleasure. With a key week looming for Denver Public Schools, many posts focused on our favorite urban district.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Written by: Alan Gottlieb
A new report released today by the Donnell-Kay Foundations provides a tough-minded and clear-eyed perspective on how Denver Public Schools should manage the upcoming school closure process. In a word: it's not just about saving money, it's about positioning the district for future success. A key excerpt:
Chronically low performing schools should be closed so that an array of new, personalized schools can be born to provide students additional high quality learning environments. The structure, culture, and operations of
Denver's lowest performing schools must change. No doubt that when DPS announces its intent to close schools, it will shake people's emotions and rattle their communities. But, it is a step that if handled with clear criteria, coupled with immense respect and support for affected families, could lead to dramatically increased opportunities for students.
Donnell-Kay clearly timed this report, Creating a Culture of Success: New School Development in Denver Public Schools, to influence the debate over school closures, which will swing into high gear Monday. That's when the list of proposed schools will be released. Let's hope that DPS leadership views this report as helpful to its case for closures, rather than an unwanted distraction.
The report urges DPS to emulate the
Chicago,
New York and
Oakland school districts in moving thoughtfully yet aggressively to open new schools, primarily middle and high schools. It also advocates for allowing multiple providers to open new schools. DPS Supt. Michael Bennet initially exhibited some reluctance to hand over control of significant numbers of schools to outside providers. But as time has passed, and the urgency of the situation (and DPS' inability to address it alone) has become apparent, Bennet has softened in this regard.
Another key recommendation in the report is to start planning now, but to wait until the fall of 2009 to open new schools. The district should hire principals a year ahead of a school's opening, to give them adequate time to plan and hire a staff, the report suggests.
DPS has a long history of rushing into things, and then expecting good results despite inadequate planning. The Bennet regime has exhibited some of this same tendency, driven at times by a sense of political urgency to go for the quick-and-easy.
This was certainly the case with the reopening of
Manual
High School, which was done in a manner so rushed that it jeopardized the school's future success. Fortunately, the new Manual seems to be off to a good start despite the district's refusal to allow adequate planning time to get the school reopened.
DPS is facing a dicey couple of months. The looming closure debate, coupled with the Denver Classroom Teachers Association's baffling decision to work against two strong incumbent school board members, puts the Bennet reform agenda at risk. Two months from now, we'll know whether DPS has a chance to join cities leading the urban school reform charge, or whether it will slip back into the pack of struggling, death-spiral districts.
Make no mistake: the stakes ARE that high.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Written by: Uncle Charley
The chip on DCTA's shoulder appeared to grow by several orders of magnitude yesterday, following a broadcast email from Superintendent Michael Bennet. As the Denver Post explains, Bennet offered several policy changes in hopes of winning teacher support. Among them are an extra work day to raise teacher earnings, fewer school closures than reported, and retention bonuses made available to teachers whose schools are closed.
The content of the offer hasn't upset union leadership as much as the way it was announced, as can be seen in the mass-distributed email DCTA fired back (no link available -- reprinted in full):
Following a meeting with DPS late this morning, we had tentatively set a time for Friday to return to the bargaining table with our teams. We were encouraged by the possibility of progress, and immediately began to call our bargaining team members.
Ironically, an hour later, an email came out from the Superintendent's office to all teachers addressing school closings and negotiations. This letter was in reaction to the powerful statements that teachers made who addressed the Board of Education last Thursday. We have gone forward in a respectful way, and we have honored the ground rules for bargaining.
We are extremely disappointed and dismayed that the District has circumvented the process once again. What is more distressing is that the Superintendent even raised an issue in his letter that has never been discussed at the table, retention bonuses for displaced teachers.
We are demanding that the District honor its commitment to the collective bargaining process, and make the time to negotiate with DCTA, which represents 3000 teachers and their students, so that we can move forward. [Emphasis added]
DCTA has cried foul, asserting that district leadership hasn't respected the bargaining process. But a serious question needs to be asked: if the district abides to the strict code of the bargaining process, how much harder will it be to implement real, effective reforms?
Showing bold and shrewd leadership, Bennet has issued a message to the public through the media. He is taking his case directly to the constituents he represents as the executive officer of the elected board of education, bypassing a narrow and powerful interest group. This kind of snub understandably irritates DCTA leaders, who are accustomed to a certain procedural advantage that comes in collective bargaining.
DCTA not only benefits from its protected status as a monopoly bargaining agent, but from its ability to make demands behind closed doors. Does the bargaining process allow public observation from taxpaying citizens to see what is happening to their funds through negotiations? Or observation from parents to see how negotiated policies might affect their children? The answer is No, despite the dubious claim that DCTA somehow represents DPS students.
Bennet chose to broaden his audience, and in so doing showed commitment to the larger goals of the district's reform plan than the narrow obligations of procedures. He has given DCTA chances to come aboard. But with responses like the one union officials sent yesterday, they risk looking petty and thus losing public support and relevance.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Written by: Visionary Teacher
I applaud the Denver Classroom Teachers Association's recent publication of Promoting School Success. The general ideas are decent, the overall goal is ambitious. Unfortunately, the report doesn't quite complete the job.
Student discipline should be a focus in every public education plan. The DCTA report sites the DCTA/DPS Master Agreement and state law, which both agree that teachers must be allowed to determine their individual classroom standard of behavior. It calls for assignment of disruptive students to alternative schools after their third infraction in their current school.
As a teacher who houses various students a few days a week from throughout the school after they're removed from their own classrooms, this sounds like a pipedream. Yes, each and every student deserves a quiet and safe learning environment. Schools currently serving low-income students have a high percentage of disruptive students. Promoting School Success acknowledges this high percentage, but does not offer a solution other than to have students attend an alternative school after their third infraction.
DPS does not have anywhere near the number of alternative schools necessary to accommodate these students. To carry out such a proposal would have drastic implications. Given that DPS and individual schools receive money and staffing allocations according to their student count, principals are under enormous pressure to maintain or increase their student numbers. If the third infraction rule were truly followed, our student population would decrease along with our pocketbook.
Very few of these behavior problem students truly need an alternative learning environment. Instead, individual schools and teachers need more support. Lower class sizes and intervention behavior specialists who are trained to work with teachers, parents, and students would better meet the district's needs. On site refocus rooms, staffed by trained professionals who only focus on helping these students learn in a regular classroom would be district money well spent.
This report also touches on student promotion. I echo Alan's concern in his earlier post; if students are retained, how are we serving them differently the second time around? How are they going to learn how to read this time?
There is a strong emphasis on using various test scores as a basis for retention. Some of these tests are individually administered and have a large teacher bias. Given the enormous weight placed upon these tests, teachers have cheated their scores to their advantage. I question whether using these scores as an indicator is an accurate reflection of whether a student needs to be retained.
Again, smaller class sizes and intervention reading specialists would better meet the needs of the students.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Written by: Sari Levy
I'm not an expert on Jonathan Kozol and I haven't read any of his books in quite a while. I've meant to, and have great respect for the guy, but I haven't. Therefore, I'm an under-qualified critic.
I have to hand it to any 71-year-old who goes on a hunger strike, even if he does sneak around with a flask of pink lemonade. What I don't understand is how Kozol's strike -- aimed at resisting reauthorization of No Child Left Behind " is going to narrow the cultural gap in this country. Based on a smattering of his recent essays, quotes, and interviews that I actually did read, I'm not convinced that the hunger strike is a good idea.
First, NCLB is likely to be reauthorized, whether Kozol starves or not, but with lots of changes, including ones that incent states to make testing more of a measure of critical thinking and less of an exercise in memorization. This miserable drill-and-kill curriculum of robotic ‘teaching to the test'” seems to be Kozol's biggest beef with NCLB.
Second, NCLB is not guilty of the things he says it is, at least not for the reasons he gives. That is, NCLB has not widened the cultural gap by engaging in testing frenzy that no rich white suburban parent would tolerate. Where is the evidence to support this?
Denver's cultural gap started long before the standards movement took hold. White flight into
Denver suburbs began at least as early as 1967, well before NCLB was twinkling in anyone's eye. Elsewhere, it has also been happening for decades.
The testing problem is also exaggerated by Kozol and others. At the LoDo Tattered Cover, he reportedly contended that impassioned, public service-oriented young teachers wanting to work in the toughest schools, [are] leaving the profession after only two or three years…they're not quitting because of the kids or their communities, but because of the pressures of NCLB. Really? This is why teachers are leaving? The pressure of NCLB? NCES says teachers actually leave because:
They experienced lack of planning time (65 percent), too heavy a workload (60 percent), too low a salary (54 percent), problematic student behavior (53 percent), and a lack of influence over school policy (52 percent).”
Kozol says teachers are under continual anxiety, the sense of being in a kind of state of siege, as well as the pressure to conform to teaching methods that drain every bit of joy out of the hours that their children spend with them in school. In the Denver Post, he calls NCLB-testing regimented terror This sounds overblown considering:
NCLB mandated testing, (CSAP in
Colorado), takes approximately 78 hours between the grades K-12, less than 1% of classroom time. If every bit of classroom time is spent on test-preparation, then I contend that some of the problem lies in the lack of creativity on the part of educators and a fear of penalties that are hardly every carried out.
One Response to Drinking the Kozol pink Kool-Aid”
- Ryan Says:
September 27th, 2007 at 8:44 am
This NCES study was done in 2001 (one year before NCLB was enacted). But just for argument sake I will address parallels post 2001. Lack of planning time, too heavy a workload and a lack of influence over school policy could all be effects of NCLB. More and more time is spent preparing for tests (heavy workload) each year, thus limiting the time that can be set aside for other subject matter let alone planning. From you: some of the problem lies in the lack of creativity on the part of educators and a fear of penalties that are hardly ever carried out. This sentence frames exactly what Kozol is against. Instead, he supports teachers who are creative and that are not afraid of these penalties. He isn't suggesting that they spend their time teaching to the test. Federal mandates most certainly lead to a lack of influence over school policy. As for teachers who are leaving because of low salary and problematic student behavior…Kozol is applauding those who stay in spite of that. From the NCES report: a greater percentage of out-of-field teachers than highly qualified teachers reported dissatisfaction with salary (62 vs. 42 percent). While his arguments tend to be more emotionally based than statistically, he is speaking from years of personal and shared experience. He is trying to get a generation of teachers excited about their profession and therefore can't be entirely at fault for using some hyperbole, be it very strong hyperbole.
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