Jim Horn of Schools Matter pored through the 200-page document describing the plan for the immediate future of the Memphis public schools, and this is what he learned.
The Memphis schools will be merged with the schools of Shelby County, allegedly for efficiency. But in fact, the plan is to implement a massive transfer of students to charter schools.
By 2016, a mere four years from now, enrollment in charter schools will increase from 4% to 19%. This will happen not because parents or students have asked to be assigned to charters but because the planners want it to happen (one guess as to who devised the plan).
This will result in a handover of $212 million of public funds to privately managed charter schools.
That is, $212 million will be removed from the budget of the public schools and transferred to charter schools whose governance is private and not subject to local, democratic control.
The plan acknowledges that costs will be greater “due to loss of scale” and the introduction of multiple managers, but cost savings will realized by such measures as teacher layoffs and the replacement of experienced (expensive) teachers with inexperienced and less expensive teachers. If the teacher layoffs and other strategies are insufficient to save money, there is a contingency plan to add to savings by laying off 115 librarians.
The plan was devised by a “transition planning committee.” The secretary of the committee happens to be the executive director of Stand for Children (are you surprised?).
Tennessee is a state with a Republican governor and a Republican legislature. The state commissioner of education is Kevin Huffman, who previously worked for Teach for America (and yes, readers, he is Michelle Rhee’s ex-husband). The “Achievement School District,” which is taking charge of the state’s lowest performing schools, is run by Chris Barbic, a TFA alum who created the Yes Prep charter network in Houston.
It is simply mind-blowing to watch this small cadre of people who are associated with TFA, Gates, Broad, Stand for Children, and the Walton Foundation colonize and privatize America’s public schools. Who elected them?
Diane
P.S. In a comment to this post (scroll down to find it), a resident of Memphis who is also a director of Stand for Children wrote to disagree with Jim Horn’s description and with my reactions to it. This comment added the commission’s summary, linked below. I read it and did not see a justification for the large expansion of privately managed charter schools. If charter schools don’t get different results from public schools, as the preponderance of studies show, what’s the point of shifting over $200 million out of the public schools. Nor was it apparent from the commission summary why the public schools could not offer universal pre-K or the other initiatives here proposed. Then I noticed that the background work for the commission was prepared by the Boston Consulting Group, the same management consultants that recommended the privatization of 40% of Philadelphia’s public schools. I found that more worrisome than Jim Horn’s account. (Mitt Romney’s old firm, Bain, was a spin-off from the Boston Consulting Group.)
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is utterly horrifying.
What is horrifying is what has been allowed to happen in public education for so long. I am proud to see so many people Stand up and voice the hard work that has been taking place here in Memphis. I am proud to see our city and educational leaders working together to meet the needs of all students. ASD, Transition Team, Unified school board, and the community have all been working together to achieve an incredible goal through tough political times here in Memphis.There is movement to put an effective teacher in every classroom and effective leadership in every school.
It’s obvious that the push for charters and vouchers is moving fastest in the south. The result will be newly segregated schools. At what point will these schools violate the laws that were passed in the 1950’s and 1960’s? And at what point will our judges have to rule against them?
Will the handful of black students be enough to make these schools look “integrated”? We’ll see. Otherwise, the ghost of George C. Wallace might be making a return appearance in front of that schoolhouse door…
My guess is that we will see new forms of segregation, which will intensify and deepen current levels of segregation.
There will be charters that are even more racially segregated than the district in which they are located.
And there will be class segregation, with advantaged black students in some charters, and the poorest blacks left in public schools or segregated in very low-performing charters. This is the New Orleans scenario: class segregation.
What is particularly amazing about this is that (if memory serves), there was a push to allow Memphis students to attend more affluent schools in the rest of the county. They ingeniously figured out a way to increase segregation while transferring wealth in a reverse-Robin Hood fashion.
Diane, please familiarize yourself with the details of Memphis schools before making such accusations. It will be difficult for charters to make the schools any more segregated, racially or socioeconomically. Most of the schools affected are already 90+% African American and 90+% of students receive free/reduced lunch; some are 98-100% in both categories. Also, you should know that the charter schools opening this year through the Achievement School District (ASD) are not open enrollment, but are zoned neighborhood schools, so they are going to enroll the same students that attended Memphis City Schools. Parents in Memphis who live in the poorest neighborhoods have expressed a desire for options. Charter schools are not a panecea, but they do have a place. And poor parents should have options like their more economically advantaged peers.
We know from many studies that charter schools do not provide better education on average than public schools. What is the point of shifting so many students and dollars away from public education?
The re-segregation of schools, at least in North Carolina, has been going on since the mid-to-late 90’s. A judge’s ruling took many systems out from under the court order in place since the late 60’s. My county voted in a school board dedicated to eliminating busing. The results are clusters of schools grouped together in zones from which parents can choose, as well as a good number of “magnet” schools and a special “theme” for every school. Sound great? It is a farce, resulting in many.many schools that are almost all white and many others that are almost all minority and almost all economically disadvantaged. High-stakes testing results show that the achievement gap is widening. It is systemic racism supported by the white middle class.
Love your last line, “systemic racism supported by the white middle class.” Exactly. But no one will admit this out loud. Thank you for telling it like it is, in North Carolina, Florida, Wisconsin, Illinois, Louisiana, Tennessee, and across the country.
Who elected them? Who appointed them?
Apparently, I did. Sorry. The last thing I suspected was that he’d already been bought, and at what a bargain price.
I got an email from Team Obama recently, addressed to his “earliest supporters”, inviting me to participate in a fund-raising telephone conference call. I declined, but for once there was a box in which I could send an actual message to them, and I did that.
They’ve finally noticed that a lot of people like me, who maxed out on their contribution to his last campaign, are not donating this time around. I’m wondering if Democrats for Education Reform is in a position to make up the difference? Aren’t their corporate bundlers bundling as much as they are for the Republicans?
TFA, Gates, Broad, Stand for Children, and the Walton Foundation have a tax-free hand to buy whatever representatives we elect. They’ve hijacked the apparatus of our own government to compel us to consume their charitable interference and oversight, at our own expense. They attack our honest elected officials from behind their astroturf fronts.
This time, I’m sending any penny I can to elect local and state leaders who did stand up to them. I support people with integrity and courage, in their primary battles. When the “ground war” comes this fall, I’ll be phone banking, identifying supporters, reaching out to neighbors for democratic representatives who have stood up and spoken out clearly. None of those happens to be a Republican, but its surprising how many Democrats aren’t on the list.
Elizabeth Warren, I’d be glad to max out this time if you would use Ted Kennedy’s seat to defend our democratic governance and especially our public schools. That maximum contribution is a lot of money for me, though. I’m not going to waste it again.
Diane, your education on civics is out of date. Elections only matter if the corporatists can win them by swamping their opponents with money. Otherwise declare and emergency and ignore the will of the people.
I taught government for 13 of my 14 years teaching high school students. I found myself regularly having to poin out to them how the textbook model of government was bogus, and had been for some time.
Of course, as bad as the coverage of education is in the mainstream media, in some ways the coverage of government and politics is worse. We get inundated by the “conventional wisdom” of the chattering classes who talk to one another, who don’t see how wrong and in some cases corrupt and venal the people with whom they socialize are.
I live the DC area. Full disclosure – as you know I socialize with people who hold Federal elective office, are key players in campaigns, are key policy staffers, are lobbyists. I know how they think. Too many who originally enter the fray to make a difference find themselves becoming corrupted by the system, and becoming more oncerned with how they make a buck, or continue in office, afraid to stand on an issue as a matter of principle. It is sad.
The Achievement School District (ASD) was created at the state level as a means of replacing low-scoring schools with charters. If I recall correctly, 21 schools in Memphis City Schools will be converted to charters next year; Nashville has some as well, but not nearly as many. Being that Memphis in particular has a number of inner-city schools, I have no doubt the charter corporations are ecstatic about the possibilities.
The kids and their families will be resegregated into test prep factories with Stepford newbies following a script and corporate deformers at the helm.
Jim Horn obviously does not live in Memphis, TN. If so, he wouldn’t write such obsurd articles about Charter Schools “Stealing” education. Here is what has “Stolen” education in Memphis: A break down in the family and home and the bureaucratic thieves who are elected and non elected. There is not enough money that can be thrown into the MCS to fix what is wrong. The system is broken. The isssue is not about segregation. Anyone who lives in the Memphis area knows that the issue is corruption in the system. The consequences of squandering taxes and complete irresponsibility is why the outlying counties do not want any part of what has happened. As a parent, one of the greatest gifts is to be able to CHOOSE what will be in the best interest of my child.
It seems to me that the best way to deal with corruption is to arrest and charge the thieves, not to dismantle public education and hand it off to private entrepreneurs. But, then, I don’t live in Memphis either.
If your allegations are correct then why aren’t the authorities that be arresting, filing charges, etc. . . against said perpetrators. Your line of thinking comes right out of the deformers playbook.
It’s the same type of illogical thinking that says that the teachers should be responsible for outing, identifying and getting rid of “bad” teachers. No, it’s not their responsibility whether legally or ethically. A “bad” teacher remaining in the classroom is the result of the administrators inaction and the teachers have no say/power over the administrators whatsoever. This is a misplaced assigning of blame/guilt onto the teachers and it is wrong, dead wrong!
Implications of fraud and corruption need to be followed up with action. As a whole, I have way more trust in the barely middle class teachers and staff of my public schools who treat children like growing people than I do for the wealthy who quietly maneuver behind the scene treating children like cogs in a money-making machine.
Missy – I very much appreciate your reply. I am a staunch supporter of public education for many, many reasons. What I see, to my dismay, is that the boat of public education moves slowly, slowly, with lethargy that is frustrating to a parent whose child is in the system for 12 precious years.
What the corporate “solution” offers is a quick, dramatic change which has been promised to fix everything. Sadly, I believe these corporations are best at showboating, not at full disclosure. They are able to make parents believe that an unsuccessful child must be a problem with the child, not the school, as their schools are “so successful.” Good luck, TN.
Is the 200 page document posted publicly? I would love to read it.
Concerned Suburb Mom
I will get the link and post it.
Please do! I want to be prepared when that sort of thing comes my way.
Thanks!
Charter schools, with their unelected boards, are necessary for implementation of global work force training. The elite from both parties, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, want to use our children as human resources to spin off profits for the global economy. Teachers and the traditional locally elected school board are a hindrance to acceptance of this shift from academics to socialist work force training, using the computer and its Pavlovian software. C.S. Lewis put it well when he said words to the effect “When training beats eduction civilization dies.”
The fact that the right and the left support this shift in emphasis from academics to work force training is proven by fact Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the Heritage Foundation and all other neocon groups, AND the globalist Council on Foreign Relations support charter schools.
It looks like we American teachers and parents are between a rock and a hard place. We have no one to whom we can turn to reverse this very serious situation.
This is the real danger. Thinkers becoming wage-slaves. Stratification will become further entrenched as wealth and access to true education become more concentrated.
Time for parents to take a stand. I equate this move to that of an old 1980’s corporate raider stripping a company of assets and then allowing it to wither and die. Same principle. Truly horrifying. The results will be worse, its not like charters have a sterling reputation or results. (How much money will need to be allocated in a few years when the state has to take over/ back the charters for non-performance?) No one is expendable but why layoff librarians unless you plan to cut books and libraries? More savings, and to paraphrase DC’s Kaya Henderson on Washington, DC’s layoff of librarians. The reading scores didn’t move and we didn’t get the ROI (return on investment) that we expected. Cripes! Lets get the pitchforks ready. Just in case.
As a resident of Shelby County, former teacher, parent, and director of Stand for Children in Memphis, I take offense to the unbased reflection you present here about the merger of Memphis City and Shelby County Schools.
The plan you speak of was intentionally vetted through over 14,000 people in the community and led by 21 community volunteers on the Transition Planning Commission. Yes, one of them was Stand’s Executive Director Kenya Bradshaw is a member, read about her here,
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/oct/09/child-advocacy-personal-for-director-bradshaw/?print=1
To speak as if this plan was plopped down on Memphis and Shelby County by outsiders is irresponsible. You can read all the minutes to every meeting at this site, as well as supporting evidence for decisions that were made in the plan. http://www.ourvoiceourschools.org
Perhaps Mr. Horn missed the parts about expanding to universal Pre-K, expanding access to AP and dual enrollement courses, developing a comprehensive community partnership to meet children\\’s needs both academically and wholistically, finding innovative ways to engage parents, the creation of a youth congress, and systems to target intervention services, especially around PBIS systems and socio-emotional learning?
Presenting the plan as a zero sum gain is part of the problem with the national narrative around ed reform. With this plan we have balanced accountability with supports that meet the needs of children.
Read the executive summary of the plan here:
Click to access Transition_Plan_Executive_Summary__June_22.pdf
As a communtiy we spent the past 9 months working on a plan that meets the needs of our students. Please talk to people that live somewhere and have experienced the process before making rote judgements.
Concerning your charter school comments, polling, surveys, and parent voices in Shelby County have asked for more choice and high quality options, otherwise the plan would not have incorporated the multiple achievement paths model.
We still have a long way to go, but we have a plan to begin to work to challenge an unjust system that involves a complex history of racial segregation, economic disadvantage, inadequate funding, and underperformance.
And it was not possible to offer universal pre-K or more AP courses or intervention services to students in public schools? It was necessary to hand over 19% of the students to privately-run charters? I don’t follow the logic.
Diane, the logic is that the plan is not all about charters, which is how you portray things. There are a lot of things in the plan (e.g., expansion of pre-K) that you would support. It is disingenuous of you to dismiss the entire plan because of one element.
Like it or not, charters are a part of the education landscape in TN — so much so that the State can even overrule decisions made by local school boards about their authorization, as was recently done in Memphis. As such, the inclusion of charter schools in the plan is necessary. And, at any rate, parents really do desire options.
Sure, some charter schools are not performing very well (and are, in fact, about to be shut down), but others are among the top performers in Memphis. The top performing middle school in the state, actually, is a charter school in southeast Memphis.
Forgive me if I have overlooked this in the flood of comments here, but I still don’t see where public school educators were involved at all in the plan to improve education in Memphis. Have we decided that teachers really don’t know what they’re doing after all? Has anyone asked them what might improve the schools in which they teach? Has anyone even asked if they would like to see their schools improve? Or are we just assuming that they don’t know and don’t care?
Teachers in Memphis and elsewhere across the country need to make a true “stand for children”; for ALL children.
First responses,
By top performing middle school what measurement are you using for “top performing”? How are schools compared and rated in Tennesee?
Top performing in terms of improving student achievement. They used a combination of TVAAS (value-added) and increase in TCAP (achievement) scores. You can read about it here: http://www.memphisdailynews.com/news/2011/nov/30/power-up/
I was wondering if it was based on standardized test results only, apparently so. I wouldn’t send my child to a test prep. facility and some of these schools spend too much time on teaching to the test….it is a drill and kill atmosphere.
The wealthy reformer types (Moskowitz, Kenny, Bloomberg – all NYC) do not send their kids to these schools…it is for OPC, as Diane coined, other peoples’ children.
Oh, I just re-read your letter and see that you are a director of Stand for Children. Got it.
Yes, Diane….there it was. I must give him or her credit. They proudly announced their affiliation. Possibly they are not aware of the SFC track record or am I being naive?
As soon as I read Stand for Children, aka Jonah Edelman, you lost me and I didn’t want to read anymore. For more on Jonah and his tactics read all about his trickery in Massachusetts. He is another vulture preying on our children all in the name of reform. Just another fraud!
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/disaster-capitalism-k-12-education-and-corp
And
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/140448-as-schools-struggle-to-get-better-is-selling-out-/?page=2#TOPCONTENT
I just read the summary of the full report. Thanks for the link: http://www.ourvoiceourschools.org/sites/346/uploaded/files/Transition_Plan_Executive_Summary__June_22.pdf
I see nothing in the summary to explain why 19% of the children in the Shelby County schools will be moved to new charter schools.
I also note that the work of the commission (whose names are not mentioned) is based on the recommendations of the Boston Consulting Group. This is the same management consulting group that offered a plan to privatize 40% of the public schools in Philadelphia.
The summary worries me more than Jim Horn’s report of it.
Diane
As a current public school teacher, a father of three little girls in public school, with no designs or political aspirations regarding testing/data/marketing/consultation….I will tell you more choice,high quality and less waste are on my wish list for all public school students. Here’s ways to channel the altruism of reform towards those goals: Get publishing/testing/data companies and profit seekers out of the business of democracy builders. Remove the bureaucracy of multiple levels of federal, state, regional organizations that interfere with communities, parents, students, schools and teachers. Drop all the testing-take the mega-bucks spent on testing and use it to help public schools set up some of those great programs that are being cut (because of “reform) in order to make charters look like the golden calf. Allow public schools the flexibility to design more individualized instruction instead of erecting hurdles of standardization.
Here, here!
I did not neglect the pre-K proposal. See here: http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2012/06/memphis-school-consolidation-means-more.html. I must admit that I am not from Memphis, even though I did spend almost 20 years teaching in public schools in TN–and the last two weeks in Shelby County eating pole beans, white corn, field tomatoes, and peaches. Some ‘cue, too.
While there, I was impressed by the corporate billboard campaign for the privatized pre-K for-the-poor plan, and no doubt some liberals will swoon at the prospect, even if it has to be paid for by “savings” from privatizing custodial and transportation services for a public school system whose mandate is to serve K-12.
The bigger story, though, is the support from those who are lapping up corporate foundation money, while turning their backs on children who will move from intensely segregated public schools to apartheid charters run by corporations. And you must look at the report cards of those charter schools in Memphis to see one ugly story after another: http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/10/tennessee-charter-school-data-gives.html.
One of the MC-A columnists on Sunday tried to make the case that the plan is the best anyone could expect, as it represents the 70-30 black-white split from merged county and city systems. But the reality will be much different, with all black charter schools in the inner city and majority white schools in the county.
Waiting the wings there, too, is the possibility of a total balkanization of Shelby County, with another 6 school systems proposed to represent the outlying leafy suburbs. Part of the rationale for these proposed new systems is racial, of course, but there are those in the Germantown and Collierville who feel totally left out of the plan as devised by Stand, Broad, and Gates. I can’t say I blame them for trying to preserve their public schools, even if they are lily white. If the referenda fail, or if Shelby County is able to stop them legally, you can be that the next move in the leafy suburbs will be to create all-white charters, which will immediately make Shelby County Commissioners forget all of their resegregation concerns previously expressed.
In terms of the all the documented minutes from those public “input” meetings spread over the County, I believe it is still the Secretary who preserves the public record of those meetings. In this case, the Secretary of TPC was Stand’s Executive Director, Ms. Kenya Bradshaw.
I’ve just about had it. This latest news from Tennessee is obscene. I’m going to gather a group of teachers and administrators and parents and students. Together we’re going to form out own chain of charters. Not sure of the specifics. We’ll strive to provide a private school education at public school prices. We’ll target students and parents who are tired of schools turning into testing factories.Tag line/catch phrase? Old School Schools with Student Centered Teaching. We’ll develop your child into more than a testing drone.
Count me in up north.
Memphisedu,
You wrote, “Concerning your charter school comments, polling, surveys, and parent voices in Shelby County have asked for more choice and high quality options.”
I just took a few minutes to peruse the three summaries of listening sessions found here: http://www.ourvoiceourschools.org/listening-tours/
So far as I can tell, the “choice and high-quality options” the students and parents mentioned pertained to optional schools/gifted programs, vocational programs, and special education. Being that charter schools aren’t mentioned anywhere among the common themes of the sessions, I’m assuming they were not among stakeholders’ biggest requests or concerns.
Moreover, the Achievement School District was devised at the state level. Families in Memphis had no input.
It doesn’t appear memphisedu is returning to defend his or her position. Maybe the national SFC has stifled them..can’t go off script I suppose.
Linda-
I have worked with a group of parent and educator leaders/members of Stand every other mon. night since July 2011 from 5-8 o clock, to work through what our community driven priorities in the merger plan should be. This is what we call community organizing, it is a fundamental tenant of the work we do at Stand, and an essential component of our work in Memphis. This group of parent leaders along with over 1000 community survey respondents informed our organization’s platform around the merger. Is this the community driven script you assert I cannot go off of? These leaders researched the platform, adovcated for it at public meetings, and held elected officials accountable to the process of creating a plan that will create a “world class education system” for their children. We may disagree on what that system looks like and how we get there, but I do not have to defend my position to you.
If anyone turns up any community and non-corporate vocalization of support for privatization of custodial services, transportation services, pre-K services, and 20 percent of the students in Memphis in apartheid charters, let me know and I will post an apology to any of these good people.
But you already did defend your position. The long response that you sent from your cell phone was posted this morning. Be on the alert for the true intentions of SFC.
Jim, very few people actually want to privatize custodial staff. But you face a financial situation where you have to make sacrifices in some areas to pay for services you want elsewhere. The custodial piece will save millions of dollars, which can then be directed into the classroom.
Extra money will not go into the classroom if it is a profit charter or a charter management company. It will go towards the “administrative costs” where the pad their salaries so they can claim “non-profit” status.
Linda, if the concern is that money doesn’t make it into the classroom, then the solution is better oversight. At any rate, one of the biggest complaints you hear in Memphis already is that the administration is bloated and overpriced. True or not, it shows that charters are not alone in this concern. But, again, the solution is better oversight and regulation.
Yes, I agree. However, their are hefty salaries here in the northeast for the CEO’s of thee charter management companies…$300,000 to 400,000 and their spouse has a job, too. Together they are making more than 10-15 teachers combined. It is obscene…but it is all for the children.
This cost-saving rationale is a red herring, and if you know anything, you know that. The same argument has been used elsewhere by the Broadies, most recently in Tennessee by the misleader of Knox Co. Schools, Jim McIntyre. The citizens of Knox Co. looked the same bs claims and soundly rejected it.
The new planned school system in Memphis would have no deficit if you were not trying to pay for the $212 million that will be dumped into the laps of charter operators over the next 3 years, and if the Plan were not trying to pay for a top heavy privatized pre-K plan that is outside the mandate of the new system.
As for choice for the poor parents of the intensely-segregated and malignantly neglected schools of Memphis, since when is an apartheid corporate-run total compliance school with no public oversight a real option? What are you guys smoking at these meetings?
To Jim from 8:34:
A red flag to me is the head honchos and planners rarely send their kids and grandkids to these schools. As Diane has said….it is something for OPC…other peoples’ children and apparently it is especially fun to experiment on minority children.
These charters and experimental schools would never fly in wealthier communities in any state. Parents would not allow it. The other worry is their only measurement for success is standardized test scores which then leads to test prep, testing, testing the sample test, and on and on and on…..resegregated test prep factories.
Jim, the charter argument is getting old. Even when the local school board rejected charter applications on financial grounds, the State overruled and forced approval. If you don’t like charter schools, then your fight should be with the State rather than the Transition Planning Commission. The TPC had to take into account the expansion of charters that the State is pushing.
Also, the comment about other people’s children is disingenuous. No one would choose to send their kids to the schools currently operating in Frayser or South Memphis or North Memphis. Decisions about these schools are already being made by people who don’t live in those neighborhoods and don’t send their kids to those schools, but I don’t hear any cries about “other people’s children” there.
Children in these schools aren’t given the same opportunities that their peers in Midtown and East Memphis and Germantown are given. People are already making decisions about other people’s children, and the decisions they are making are immoral. You should keep that in mind as you hurl invectives at those trying to change the status quo.
“Children in these schools aren’t given the same opportunities that their peers in Midtown and East Memphis and Germantown are given. People are already making decisions about other people’s children, and the decisions they are making are immoral. You should keep that in mind as you hurl invectives at those trying to change the status quo.”
Indeed. These people who have neglected to do anything to improve public schools for the poor would be no more likely to send their kids there than they are to send them to the apartheid charter chain gangs. It takes an utter lack of imagination to pretend that these are the only two options available to poor parents. Did theTPC consider magnet schools, which have proven to increase diversity, rather than decrease diversity as do the charters? Did they consider
any incentives at to increase socioeconomic integration, or did they roll over and play dead for the corporate charter reformers.
Speaking of disingenuous–to blame the State for this mammoth community wedge that Stand, Gates, and Broad is shoving down the throats of Memphis parents is pure hoakum. Not even the the TFA plant, Kevin Huffman, could imagine that 25,000 kids would be enrolled in Memphis charters by 2016. That’s pure corporate overreach.
Mr. Horn,
You’ve mentioned Magnet Schools and question why Memphis and the TPC doesn’t try those. Thats a very, very good question. You see, if they use Magnet Schools, they actually have to let everyone attend, expanding the facility to accommodate the student body. Instead, Memphis went with “Optional” Schools, where parents have to wait in line in hopes that their child is accepted into the limited capacity.
I would be glad to tell you all you want to know about it.
Would you like that?
I’m old enough to remember the Memphis desegregation bussing in the 60’s and early 70’s. There was a serious white flight to the private schools as they bussed blacks into Memphis schools where the better teachers were and bussed the whites out to the poorer (lesser quality teachers) county schools. What a mess! Now, it appears the powers to be want to segregate again by creating more chater schools which (in the Illinois) has not proven to be any better than the public schools.
I agree with Diane. The $ earmarked by a select (unqualified) few can be better used to help strengthen the public school system. There is always merit given to learning skilled trades for some. Every student is not going to college. A basic academic education still should be provided even to those students learning a skill or trade. We all need to comprehend what we read, communicate in several different ways, and contribute to society in a positive fashion! Liberals and their grand ideas!!!
21 volunteers developed this plan that was developed with the children’s needs in mind? How many of these 21 are public school teachers?
I work at a school in Louisiana which will be part of the new “Achievement Zone” in 2013. None of my teachers (or myself) were asked if we wanted to be a part of it.
It broke my heart to deal with parents who had no options for their child. I heard their sad tales of their child in the Memphis City Schools where they were bullied or physically assalted on a regular basis becasue they would not join a gang. Some of these children wanted to success in school but were harassed for trying. SO WHAT IS WRONG WITH VOUCHERS AND CHARTER SCHOOLS?
Jill, here’s a list of the TPC members: http://www.ourvoiceourschools.org/commissioners/
As I mentioned above, though, the TPC didn’t develop the Achievement School District. The idea originated with the state’s pursuit of RTT money through their First to the Top Act: http://www.tn.gov/firsttothetop/TNASDSuperintendentjobdescription.pdf. When I read it a few seconds ago, I noticed they cite Louisiana’s achievement zone as a model.
The ASD foundation is in Memphis, though, because of the low-performing schools in the state, Memphis has the most: http://www.achievementschooldistrict.org/its-time-in-tn/.
According to this article http://www.chattanoogan.com/2012/4/3/222975/Achievement-School-District-Draws.aspx, the ASD’s goal is to convert the lowest performing 5% of schools in the state and have them within the top 25% in five years. I scoured the ASD’s website to find clarification on whether performance will be based on value-added or raw scores, but I didn’t find anything.
And, then, I’m left wondering a few things:
If the ASD doesn’t achieve their five-year goal, what then? Do charters continue to run the schools?
What if some, but not all schools meet the goal?
What if the ASD does, in fact, meet its goal? Will the state then convert another 5% of schools to charters? And, if so, how long will the process continue? After all, even among a set of high-performing schools, there’s still a bottom 5%.
Dear Mrs. Ravitch,
My name is Kenya Bradshaw, I am the TN Executive Director of Stand For Children. First let me thank you and Jim Horn for your analysis of the Transition Plan that the Transition Planning Commission developed for the Merger of Memphis and Shelby County Schools although I disagree with your attempt to use one data point as an attempt to showcase the flaws in the plan. I believe that you both should highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the plan and let us know. But to call out one item lacks journalistic integrity and does not offer a fair prospective to the people who read your blogs. To do an in depth analysis of the process I would urge you to read the over 10,000 pages of documents every member poured through or read the transcripts of the over 400 hours worth of meetings. I would also ask that you research the history behind how this happened and read Professor Daniel Keil’s report on schools in Memphis and Dr. Marcus Polhman’s recent book on education in our county then come visit Memphis.
I was humbled to work with such committed people who came up with recommendations such as instituting a service learning model so that all students complete at least 40 hours of volunteer service prior to graduating, expanding Art, Music, Pre-K and STEM courses, and a parent advisory board to help engage more parents at every school. My summary in no way does justice to the recommendations so I would urge others to use the link about to read them.
Charters:
Charters are already a part of the landscape in TN. We projected for what the reality of our current educational landscape forecasts and also took into account the Achievement School Districts growth. First let me say that all schools in the ASD are not charters some schools are directly run by the state. Personally as a native Memphian I was unsure of what this meant for schools initially so I reached out to Chris Barbic and I must say that he exceeded my expectations. He CARES about not only what happens with the schools data numbers but what happens to the children in the community and the community as a whole. One of your commenters said that parents and teachers did not have a say in this process. I must completely disagree since I attended the first round of community sessions when the ASD team meet with parents. I also know that they meet with every staff member and solicited feedback about what was working and what needed to improve and offered each the opportunity to return to MCS if they did not want to be a part of the ASD. I ask that others just also give them a chance because I do not see any of the people complaining running to get their children into these schools. This work is personal for me because my zoned schools fall into the ASD and it directly affects my family. My family deserves better schools than the current options that are available to them. As an avid supporter of public education we must work to improve our system as a whole and charters in my opinion serve as a tool to improve schools. Charters are not the enemy of public schools and public schools are not perfect. As a nation we should stop painting the picture that it is one or the other if you support charters you hate traditional public schools. I support strong public schools and strong public charter schools and will work to hold each group equally accountable.
Stand for Children:
I am not only an employee of Stand for Children I am also a proud member and came to this organization through its grassroots advocacy to advocate for school funding in Chattanooga, TN. I then became a community organizer then worked my way up to being the ED. I am a first generation college graduate who returned to Memphis to work to improve the system that I LOVE and graduated from. If I ever felt that anything I was doing was not in the best interest of children my moral convictions would not allow me to proceed. At my core I believe that you are a brilliant woman and deeply care about what happens to all children but I do believe that you are unfairly targeting our organization and painting everyone who works in “education reform” with the same brush. Judge us fairly.
I work with some of the best people in the country and they spend their lives working to support and build parents up to let them lead on redefining what needs to happen for children in our communities. They don’t believe that we can wait to improve outcomes for children and neither do we.
If you are interested I would host a meeting for you in Memphis or anywhere TN to hear parents stories about what has been happening in education. I assure you that these will not all be sad pity stories because great things are happening at many schools across TN. But our parents as do we believe if there is any school that is not providing a solid educational foundation to children we should advocate to change that.
Come meet our organizers and members hear about our work and then fairly judge us.
I would also like to extend an offer for you and Mr. Horn (Please share the invitation with him) to talk to me or any other TPC member Please let me know if either of you are interested. I believe that our Country should be watching what happens in Shelby County.
(Lastly please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors I am typing on my phone and the small screen is making it hard to proof)
Kenya Bradshaw
TN Executive Director of Stand for Children
kbradshaw@stand.org
Lots going on here. Ms. Ravitch, I’d been hoping that Memphis would cross your desk, but I don’t think we’ve got it quite right here yet.
In terms of the educational industrial complex, the web is intense. Turns out we have two Edelman sons in the mix here. Ms. Bradshaw, of course, works with Jonah. But Josh is the Gates Foundation point person here as well.
The TPC people, in fact, have a number of career educators in their midst, including the former president of the Shelby County Education Association and a current SCS principal. The law that created the TPC was “written” by TN Majority Leader Mark Norris, and also allows for the withdrawal into municipal districts. In the event that the merger had to happen, the TPC was supposed to effectively cut out Memphis representation, despite the fact that Memphis makes up the vast majority of the population in Shelby County. So the old MCS school board appointed 5, the old SCS school board appointed 5, the County Commission appointed 5, both former school board chairs, the County Mayor, one each from the Governor, Lt. Gov, and Speaker of the House. It’s a weird mix of career educators, political cronies, and “reformers” like Ms. Bradshaw and Staley Cates, a local financial wizard and philanthropist who funds private religious schools in bad neighborhoods and loves charters. My theory is that he started these private religious elementary schools (minimal tuition, and on a sliding scale) because it was so hard to get approval for charter schools here.
I don’t think the charter school thing can be laid at the feet of the TPCers. They’re supposed to deal with merging the budgets, and have to account for grant funding cliffs, enrollment changes, etc. The reality here is that with a new R governor, and a fully R state legislature, the rules for charters are changing. While approval authority still rests with the school boards, the big state change under the new regime was to lift the “cap” on charter schools (which was 90 for the whole state), and to remove the enrollment restrictions (previously limited to failing students, students from failing schools, and low-income families).
Charters in Tennessee are here to stay, but the “unified” school board (made up of the entire old MCS and SCS boards + 7 new appointees from the county commission) only approved a few new charters for next year, in spite of a huge increase in applications). So the denied applications, denied under a provision on negative financial impact on the overall system, appealed their denials to the state. The state Treasurer found that the district will not experience a negative financial impact, and Commissioner Kevin Huffman approved them. Most don’t have enough time to open for 12-13, but they’ll be here for the first year of the merged district, 13-14. That makes 14 new charters as of 13-14, in addition to the 2 that the unified board approved for 12-13. And don’t forget that the applications aren’t even in for 13-14. I think the TPC was correct to try to account for the projected enrollment in charters, and given the rise of the ASD (and the charter mgmt orgs they are bringing in – more just announced) – the merged district will have a loss of enrollment, and corresponding loss of funding. I don’t take the TPC’s work necessarily as a value statement on charters.
I have to respond to Mr. Jones above too – he’s not exactly right. Memphis City Schools (MCS) and Shelby County Schools (SCS) have been separate for 100 years or so. Back in those days, SCS was a podunk rural district and the people of Memphis agreed to increased taxation to improve the educational offerings to the (white) children in Memphis. When busing came along, Memphis children were not bused out to County schools – they were two different systems. Busing in MCS worked just like it did everywhere else – kids from white neighborhoods were bused to black neighborhood schools, and many more kids from black neighborhoods were bused longer and farther to white neighborhood schools. There was no busing across systems, and even in the 70s, the premiere city schools were much better than the premiere county schools. That has shifted, and the county schools are now generally better than the city schools. Of course, we’re only talking about the difference between a 4% college ready rate (MCS) and a 20% college ready rate (SCS).
I hope to see some analysis of the big changes regarding teacher evaluation, and hiring/retention/transfer surplus. Again, it’s not just the TPC – the reality in Tennessee is that last summer the state legislature eviscerated tenure protections for teachers and eliminated collective bargaining. Add in BCG and their TFA backgrounds, and we’ve got “mutual consent” for all hiring and no protections from bad principals in the recommendations. Reliance on TVAAS, Sanders’ proprietary value added logarithm, gives a false veneer of science and math and data to the entire teacher effectiveness discussion.
The problem with the TPC, as far as I can tell, is that there is little understanding of the national debate, and the code words, and the reform movement. So a number of things ended up in the recommendations that sound fine on their face, but that are red flags for those of us concerned about the direction of education “reform”. Waiting anxiously for more analysis.
“The problem with the TPC, as far as I can tell, is that there is little understanding of the national debate, and the code words, and the reform movement.”
Exactly. I view the TPC as simply the public front of a plan developed by Stand, Gates, and Broad, and sold by the TPC, who have been made to believe that their “input” means something other than to their loved ones. Their sad little list of priorities made it into the PLAN, but the work was done by pros, not these poor souls who have been hooked into this mess. Gates set up this political love fest with his $90 million for Memphis in 2009, along with his assistance to TN for their eventual win of the $501 million RTTT prize.
Anyone who believes that TPC is anything but a shell and a shill, well, what can I say.
Great summary of what’s going on here in Memphis and state-wide. Given the TPC’s numbers regarding the expansion of the ASD, I’d love to see the Dept of Ed’s figures indicating that such an expansion wouldn’t hurt the traditional schools in the district.
Diane,
I am a big fan of yours and I am glad that you are paying attention to our city. However, I feel that you have misrepresented what is in fact happening here.
I am an educator in Memphis who has taken an active role in the decision to merge our two districts, MCS and SCS. I listened to every school board meeting online and read every article published about the issue. I participated in several groups comprised of parents, teachers, and interested community members to discuss pros and cons of a potential consolidated system. I helped organize a community forum, not to advocate one or the other side in the debate, but rather to inform our citizens of both sides of the issue. And I guarantee you that charter schools had nothing to do with the conversation on either side. This was a local issue that has a long history, completely unrelated to current national trends.
During the consolidation discussion is when I first learned about Stand for Children. I was suspicious because I had read your diatribes against the organization, but they were the only group in the area taking a neutral position. A representative of the local chapter served on the panel for the forum I helped organize, and he was the one who kept bringing the conversation back to the kids rather than politics. I witnessed this same strategy at other forums around town. The local chapter had voted to educate the public and advocate for kids without taking a stance on the issue of consolidation, and they gained my respect in the process.
I joined the local chapter of Stand for Children soon thereafter, but not before I drilled them about their autonomy from outside benefactors. I was assured that the local members (comprised of teachers, parents, and others in the community) were the ones who made decisions, and I have found that to be true. In fact, there is a concerted effort on behalf of the staff to ensure processes and decisions are member-driven. Also, the membership makes similar assurances; for example, because I am on the Endorsement Committee, I had a call from a member last week asking about the process to make sure that it was member-driven and transparent.
Thus, I would ask that you consider what we are doing locally, without dismissing our work out of hand because of your thoughts about what other chapters have done or because of what you think of the national founder or because of what you think of the groups who help fund our work. Whatever you think of them, they are not dictating what we are doing here, and I would ask that you consider our work on its own merit.
So what are we doing? The main issues that we are currently working on are as follows: making sure that every child is ready for school (extending pre-K since fewer than 50% of kids in Memphis attend pre-K), creating a world class district that will ensure that every child is college and career ready upon graduation, building opportunities for parent and community engagement, and making sure that there is an effective leader in every school and an effective teacher in every classroom. We are also working on educating the public on these issues, advocating on behalf of these issues, electing officials who support these issues, and holding all elected officials accountable to these issues.
Are these issues you can get behind? I would certainly hope so.
Stand for Children is a leading organization in the drive to turn our public schools over to corporate corporations.
You should read more about it.
Ask why more charters when charters do not have a better record than the schools they replace.
Why no job protections for experienced teachers? Will they be free to teach evolution or will they be fired?
Nice way to avoid the content of my post, Diane. Memphis is not DC, NYC, LA, Chicago, or Ohio. No matter what you think about what has happened there, this is something very different. And I wish that you would look at the local narrative instead of forcing your standard national narrative onto us. I don’t care to argue with you issues not related to Memphis.
When you look at the local context, you will see that charter schools are being forced upon districts by the State. The school board here recently rejected a group of charter applications, but the State went over their head and approved them anyway. Thus, any plans for the new consolidated district had to take that into consideration, no matter the TPC’s thoughts on charters — and you should know that the suburban leaders here are not fans.
That said, it’s easy for you to bash charter schools when your child is not zoned for a failing school. That the situation I face as a parent, so I understand the need for other options. Until and unless you take into consideration how little choice parents in neighborhoods like Frayser have, you shouldn’t condemn schools that give them hope. Are charters perfect? No, the neighborhood schools in some places in Memphis are terrible — and that’s the reason there is demand for charters.
And how will you feel if the charter that gives you choice is no better than your neighborhood school? That is what has happened nationally. Are you unwilling to learns rom the experience of other cities? If not, then keep believing that Memphis is so different that it is a brand new world, where every child will escape from bad schools to great charters. That’s the narrative, but it hasn’t happened anywhere else. Talk to parents in New Orleans; a lucky few got theirs into high-performing charters, most did not. The one choice the New Orleans parents do NOT have is a neighborhood public school. And 79% of the charters were rated D or F by the state last year. Now that Jindal owns the state education department, we can expect improvements in the scores. But that has no bearing on what is happening in Memphis. Nor does anything happening anywhere else.
You really should read past what you have been told. This is the beginning for SFC, not the ultimate goal. What happens in other states is coming to you eventually. Getting rid of seniority, job security, basic rights will all be taken away for your teachers. You will be left with a revolving door of at will temps who will focus primarily on test prep and stay at max five years and then repeat. This does not build a professional community where teaching and learning is a priority that is respected and cherished. Maybe you are the one who cannot see the forest though the trees. You really should check out SFC’s record in Masachusetts.
Best of luck to you, your children and your community. Stay informed.
Excerpt:
Soon after agreeing to Patrick’s reforms, though, SFC broke away from the pack. Claiming that the measures weren’t bold enough — specifically, that principals, superintendents, and school boards should have more if not all power over teacher evaluations and firing — the group paid more than $300,000 to gather signatures to advance a unilateral proposal in the form of a ballot initiative. The compromise that’s likely to pass the state legislature in July is less severe in its stripping of union controls, but the fact remains that SFC is the new education power broker on Beacon Hill, and that its agenda represents the will of corporations — not the grassroots.
Read more: http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/140448-as-schools-struggle-to-get-better-is-selling-out-/#ixzz1zf8hgIbn
Quality charters have a place, and the key to ensuring quality is accountability — shut them down if they aren’t good. Power Center, KIPP-Memphis, and some others are doing great jobs. There are others that I won’t name that aren’t, and there is pressure to close them.
And the answer if you don’t like charters is to improve neighborhood schools. When I first started teaching, our school was losing students to a charter school down the street because they were putting out a better product. However, with new leadership we were able to change that equation in just one year and started to get those students back. Sadly, most neighborhood schools in Memphis aren’t doing that.
Some of the best charters have low scores, not high scores, because they choose to serve the students with the greatest needs.
I am unimpressed by high scores. They may be the result of attrition, skimming, or test prep. Not good education.
Five of the seven candidates Stand for Children endorsed for the upcoming school board elections in Memphis are vocal proponents of the Teacher Effectiveness Initiative, the program Memphis City Schools established with the $90 million grant from the Gates Foundation: http://stand.org/tennessee/action/elect-education-champions/reginald-porter-district-6.
There are components of the TEI I’m fine with, but I staunchly oppose creating a pay structure that awards pay increases based on teacher performance (i.e. value-added measures) when the imprecision of value-added measurements has been widely documented and when the overhauling of the pay structure involves eliminating additional compensation for experience or advanced degrees.
I’d like to hear the candidates’ ideas specifically regarding the TEI’s and Transition Planning Commission’s recommendations concerning teacher compensation.
“I stanchly oppose creating a pay structure that awards pay increases based on teacher performance…” I know, I cut you off. But that sentiment is EXACTLY why communities are looking for go-around options for public education.
Teachers are professionals. They should not be treated like unskilled laborers whose only path to pay increases is based on seniority. I would argue that teachers’ seniority should be valued, but so should results in the classroom: students’ passion/commitment to school, a teacher’s ability to engage the kids, etc. You worry about nebulous measures of “value-added.” Welcome to the real world, my friend. As an engineer, I can assure you that pay-for-performance is never as concrete as you would like it to be. And like teachers, we engineers aren’t working with an eye on getting a raise. We are working to create a good product that will add value to our sphere of influence. Sometimes that effort is rewarded, sometimes not.
A friend (with 10 yrs teaching seniority in one state, 3 in her new state) was given a state-wide award for her strength in elementary science, then RIF’d a few weeks later at the end of the school year. REALLY? We are so worried about senior teachers we can’t reward & acknowledge actual teaching achievement?
Katie, my sentiment is expressed in the entirety of my previous response. In cutting out over half of my response when quoting me, you distorted my sentiment.
Calling value-added measures “nebulous” is kind. Consider this piece http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/leading-mathematician-debunks-value-added/2011/05/08/AFb999UG_blog.html or Gary Rubinstein’s five-part analysis of NYC’s value-added system http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/.
The fact that engineering and other professions use similarly nebulous pay-for-performance structures doesn’t strike me as an argument for using them in education. It’s an argument for getting rid of such structures and replacing them with something more effective: http://www.voxeu.org/article/why-performance-related-pay-should-get-sack.
And I say this as someone who has enjoyed strong value-added scores.
I’d be foolish to contend experience or further education alone guarantee professional growth. In education, as in any other profession, there are people with varying degrees of experience who would be better served finding a new career. But as a twelve-year teaching veteran, I can attest to the value of experience. Much of my growth as a professional, though—more savvy approaches to engage students, improved collaboration with colleagues, the ability to mentor new teachers, stronger communication with parents, more patience with difficult students, etc.—cannot be measured on multiple-choice tests my students take every spring.
Jason – Thank you for your response! I am actually on your & Diane’s “side,” I was just pointing out that your lead in that sentence is what people latch on to & why they feel justified in abandoning our public education system.
The big problem with “pay-for-performance” in education is that so far, it has become “pay-for-test-scores” which is a complete fallacy, for numerous reasons, but here I do not feel compelled to preach to the choir. I remember in high school feeling sad that lives were determined by the Bac. score, but here we are, following that thread ourselves, instead of valuing teachers and valuing children growing into independent, thoughtful beings.
My response was meant to be a cautionary check that we not give fuel to the anti-public education movement by seeming to be blind to problems in our current system. The best school I worked in valued new teachers, valued experienced teachers, and valued open dialogue, but that was accomplished in spite of contracts and mandates, not because of them. And it was a public elementary school.
Your comments about Stand for Children in Memphis couldn’t be more off the mark. To a person, the Memphis staff of Stand are thoughtful, committed, respectful, and respected members of our community. Throughout the merger process, Stand has worked diligently to provide balanced and nuanced information to the public about what was happening in a very complex and fast-moving process. No other local organization (besides maybe the Transition Planning Commission itself) has done more to ensure that this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a world-class educational system in Memphis is not wasted. It has been a long haul, but their dedication and energy have never flagged. As a parent, I have participated in many long meetings at the Stand office during which we researched, debated and voted on the recommendations that Stand would make to the TPC. Ms. Bradshaw, Stand’s Tennessee director and a member of the TPC, held regular conference calls for Stand membership before key votes so that she was sure she was truly acting on behalf of the members she represents.
This has been, and will continue to be for some time, a difficult time for our community. But for the first time since moving to Memphis almost two decades ago, I am optimistic that we have a plan to ensure that every child — from the most vulnerable to the most privileged — has an opportunity to get a good education. I would ask you and Mr. Horn to be more respectful of the good people who have worked so hard to bring us to this point and will continue working to see it through. If you have constructive advice for how we should proceed through the coming days, we’re all ears, but your blanket criticisms are tired and unhelpful.
I won’t even bother responding to your comments about charter schools, the ASD or TFA because I know it won’t make a dent. I will simply say to my many smart, committed friends working in these organizations that your hard work and success with your students does not go unnoticed by those of us on the ground in Memphis and we are eternally grateful for what you’re doing for our most at-risk children.
Diane,
I’m a first time reader of your blog. You advocate for equity in public school education with a powerful and experienced voice.
However, you are way off base regarding Memphis SFC. I am a MCS parent (my white daughter attends an 85% African American elementary school) and Stand member. I chair our endorsement committee. I’m on vacation and am supposed to be playing in a creek with my daughters right now, so I’ll keep things brief.
Despite your misgivings, we are going to give charters a shot in Memphis for a few years. I know they aren’t a silver bullet. After three years, if they don’t perform at least as well as their corresponding neighborhood school – we’ll can them. We are up for change here in Memphis – radical change. So we are welcoming Chris Barbic and Gestalt and Rocketship and anyone else who wants lend a hand. They’ll be governed by a charter compact that will keep them plenty accountable to local citizenry. Local parents and citizens will also serve on their boards, so please don’t worry that educational democracy is on the wane in Memphis.
We are feeling great about the TPC plan. The plan that was devised by some of the most experienced and respected public education minds in our city. It is another example of local democracy in action. The folks from BCG did a great job of typing up what we told them to write.
As for that subversive Kenya Bradshaw, I can assure you – she wouldn’t know how put on the wolf’s clothing. For the two years I have been a Memphis Stand member, she has had a running policy of not allowing the paid Stand staff members to vote in ANY of our deliberative processes. It was just recently that I asked for paid staffers to vote in our nominating process, because I thought those staff members also deserved a vote b/c they are also parents and local citizens.
I can recall countless situations wherein we have been debating a topic or policy and I have had to beg Kenya and her staff to insert their personal views. Frankly, we respect her life story and her professionalism and we want her input – but she ALWAYS reminds the group that this is our group and that we should vote our individual desires. She bends over backwards to foster an environment that empowers local parents and citizens to have complete control of Stand Memphis. She is creating a group of racially, socially and economically diverse leaders in public education. Scary, huh?
Ok, I’ll stop. You have devoted your life’s work to public education and I admire that. I don’t know you and haven’t read one-tenth of this blog. I imagine we agree on a ton. But your criticism of our very democratic local process and more importantly, your criticism of Stand Memphis/Ms. Bradshaw demanded a few creek moments.
Chris
Chris said:
“Despite your misgivings, we are going to give charters a shot in Memphis for a few years. I know they aren’t a silver bullet. After three years, if they don’t perform at least as well as their corresponding neighborhood school – we’ll can them. We are up for change here in Memphis – radical change. So we are welcoming Chris Barbic and Gestalt and Rocketship and anyone else who wants lend a hand. They’ll be governed by a charter compact that will keep them plenty accountable to local citizenry. Local parents and citizens will also serve on their boards, so please don’t worry that educational democracy is on the wane in Memphis.”
So let me see if I understand: If the corporate charters can maintain the test scores that got the public schools labeled as failures, then the charters get a vote of confidence after three years. What a plan for radical change!
And where is this 3 year stipulation written? Is this poetic license, or is there something in writing in the Plan that states this?
The most radical thing that I see about the unfolding Memphis debacle is that the malignantly neglected public schools will now be run and governed by corporations looking to go on the public payroll. Who made this decision to create a massive corporate welfare scheme in Memphis? Do you want to pretend that it was unpaid volunteers who demanded that 25,000 Memphis students be turned over to unregulated charter school operators by FY16. Please!
As for parents on the boards of these apartheid charters, parents are selected based on their willingness to go along with the CEO, once known as the school principal. Democracy does not exist without elections, and charter boards are not elected in any way that a democracy would recognize as a legitimate election.
And, oh yes, the Compact, the one written by the Gates Foundation and that is now being pushed by unemployed career politicians in Memphis. Obviously, you have not read the Compact, or you would not suggest that there is any public oversight or regulations in the Compact.
Chris said:
“We are feeling great about the TPC plan. The plan that was devised by some of the most experienced and respected public education minds in our city.”
Please say more. Who were these most experienced and respected public education minds that want to get rid of experienced teachers where experienced teachers are needed most? Which great minds want to change the state law so that teachers of closed schools have no job security? Which great minds in public education decided it was prudent to bankrupt the new system by turning over $212 million to corporations to run schools that are no better, and likely worse, than the ones being replaced? Which great public educator decided to marginalize the suburban parents who want to maintain the integrity of their public schools? And which great public education mind wants to create a corporate pre-K system that, purportedly, will be paid for by privatizing transportation and custodial services?
The rest of your letter tries to pretend this is about defending the integrity of Kenya Bradshaw. Ms. Bradshaw is another pawn, and whether or not she recognizes her relative unimportance in this corporate power grab on a massive scale is not the issue. In the end, she is doing what she is paid to do, which is to give the appearance of giving voice to parents. Unfortunately, those voices are irrelevant to what is happening in Memphis as Gates, Broad, and the Walton Foundation move in for the kill.
Jim, what would you do in Memphis? You and Diane have spent a good bit of time arguing against the plan the TPC, together with concerned citizens, have created. But the reality is that close to 70 schools in Memphis are in the bottom 5% of the state (meaning that they are eligible for the Achievement School District, and it should be noted that the ASD is separate from the TPC).
With so many failing schools, and so many chronically failing schools, why not try every option available? These schools have not improved despite an influx of resources. Nothing the district has done has worked, with the result being that underprivileged students attend schools that are not meeting their needs.
Does this situation satisfy you? If not, then we need to try something new. And the Multiple Achievement Path model proposed by the TPC offers different types of schools that give parents options. Charter schools are just one path, but the path that most excites me is the one that gives neighborhood schools more autonomy.
On the subject of charters, I’ll keep saying this until someone listens… blame the State, not the TPC. When the State overrules decisions made by local school boards, it’s not the fault of the local leaders. All the TPC did was take that into consideration in their plan.
#1: Accept the wisdom expressed by Jean Anyon when she said: Fixing poor schools without fixing poor communities is like trying to clean the air on one side of a screen door. Parents with jobs and a hope for the future make better parents.
#2: Challenge the notion that the TPC seems to have embraced: Segregation now, apartheid in the future. Charters, whether for profit or non profit, have been demonstrated to have a segregative effect, even in intensely segregated communities. If you want to see the research, email me at ontogenyx@gmail.com. Why embrace segregation, both economic and racial?
#3: Accept the core findings of the Coleman Report 45 years ago, the same ones that have been demonstrated time and time again when school systems use socioeconomic integration and magnet schools to mix lower and middle class students in the same classrooms. Who you go to class with is more important than resource allocation or teachers, when you able to mix low income students with middle class students. Poor kids flourish, as do middle class students when you have the professional development and community leadership to embrace the possibility of integrated living. Until housing patterns change through housing vouchers and other programs that Shelby County avoids the best we can do is in the schools.
#4: Focus on rebuilding public schools, rather than shutting them down and opening charters that operate on the Wall Street model: big salaries for CEOs, no oversight, no worker rights or benefits. The State, which marches to the tune of the Billionaire Boys Club, does, indeed, embrace charters, but the TPC had a chance to recommend something else. The handful of charters the State approved over the local vote is insignificant to the 25,000 students that YOUR plan turns over to corporate welfare schools.
#5: Devise a pre-K plan based on the most successful education program in the history of the nation: Headstart. Instead, you are headed off into another corporate welfare scheme to pay private companies with public dollars.
#6: Preserve the public jobs in the inner city of Memphis for custodians and bus drivers, where jobs are needed the most. The amount you plan to save will come at a tremendous cost to these school community members, and there would be no deficit if you weren’t planning to give away $212 million to charter operators and another unspecified number of millions to pre-K companies.
#7: Have educators and community groups from the City and surrounding towns constitute the majority on the TPC. Invite educational scholars to participate in the planning, rather than lawyers, political scientists, economists, and every other profession other than educational researchers and scholars. as well as sociologists and psychologists.
#8: Disinvite the Broadies and the Gates people, as well as Edelman’s franchises and the Hyde Foundation. Get educators to devise an education plan.
Jim, I appreciate your thoughts and agree with a lot of what you say, but there just aren’t many positive details.
re: #1. Improving the communities in which these schools are located would be terrific, but schools can’t magically create and give parents jobs. City, county, state, and federal governments need to step up on that. Blaming bad neighborhoods and parents is part of the problem and a big part of why we’re in the situation we’re in. Schools have to educate children no matter where they live or who they live with.
re: #2. You are going to have a hard time convincing me that our schools could be any more segregated, as the schools in question are already 98-100% minority and poor. I’ve seen the research, but how does it apply to the situation on the ground in Memphis? There are many in our community who have been trying to maintain segregation (economic, if not racial) for years, and you are going to have a political disaster if you try to get poor kids to go to school with middle class kids. This is why the consolidation is so controversial. I would love to see it, but a very large segment on our population is still in flight mode, and the way to solve this is through housing and development policies that invest in our city rather than further eastward expansion. To blame the TPC for this is just wrong.
re: #3. I completely agree, but the situation is a little more complicated than you make it seem. Take the north Memphis community of Frayser, for example. There is an Optional elementary school there, and the result is that they “skim” most all of the top students from the neighborhood, which has a profound effect on the other schools. (The district has refused to put an Optional middle or high school in Frayser, meaning that those students have to leave their neighborhood when they turn 12.) Add to this that most middle class parents from other parts of town would not dare send their kids to school in Frayser and have indicated a strong desire not to integrate with poor kids, no matter what kind of school it is, and the result is further skimming. Memphis still has bitter memories of forced busing during integration, and so transporting kids into other neighborhoods is also a non-starter here. Until housing and development policies are changed, this terrific solution is going to be difficult to achieve.
re: #4. This is a big part of the TPC’s plan — specifically, the Multiple Achievement Paths model. Bringing in the best talent and giving those leaders/teachers autonomy is a huge step in the right direction with regard to building our public schools. In TN, charters are not their own LEAs, but rather fall under the umbrella of the district (hence, they are public schools), so it’s the district’s job to negotiate good contracts and then hold them accountable just like other schools. Most of the students projected to be served by charters will be in the ASD, which the TPC has no control over, but had to plan for. And the State has indicated that it will force charters into Memphis, so it makes sense to include them. But, for me, as a parent, it’s all about providing options to parents. Optional, magnet, and charter all help in this regard.
re: #5. You should know that Stand for Children is the loudest voice in Memphis when it comes to universal pre-K, and this is the #1 recommendation from the TPC. Headstart has a presence here, but there just isn’t enough funding for it right now. Seeking some private funding makes sense. The city Mayor has expressed a desire to use some of the money the city currently pays MCS, to fund pre-K expansion, after the consolidation. Stand is leaning hard on him for to make that happen, but both Stand and the TPC and pushing for universal pre-K regardless. As for the “private care centers” mentioned in the plan, these are already part of the landscape, so it only makes sense to include them.
re: #6. First of all, MCS already contracts out for busing, so the only change here is with the SCS schools (1/3 the size of MCS) migrating. As for the custodial services, SCS already contracts out and saves money doing so, which is why this option was taken. It was labeled a “hard decision,” but one that had to be made to free up money for classrooms. One board member stated that the primary focus of our schools should be that of education our kids, not providing jobs to adults. It’s hard to disagree.
re: #7. This has nothing to do with the TPC. The State legislature stipulated how the members of the TPC would be appointed. There are those I would have liked to see on the TPC, but it’s hard to argue against who’s there. These are respected members of the Memphis/Shelby County community who were appointed because of the voice they bring to the table on the issue of education. And it’s odd that you claim that there were no educational scholars involved because there were; not all ed scholars are located in our ed schools — some are lawyers, political scientists, economists who focus within their sphere on education.
re: #8. It’s hard to argue that educators didn’t have a voice in the plan. I would have loved to see more educators and parents on the TPC, but again it’s hard to argue against anyone chosen. And the public had plenty of opportunity to be part of the process. There were at least 14 listening sessions where TPC members gathered community input, and there were feedback opportunities as parts of the plan were released. Parent, teachers, and interested community members spent countless hours in the Stand for Children office reading and talking about the plan, then giving feedback, for example. Look at what actually happening, and you will see that no organization, no matter how much money they have provided, has dictated the contents of the plan. This was a real community effort. All that said, what does an educator or a parent know about drawing up contracts with a busing company? That’s when you need someone with business experience. Educators aren’t legal experts either, which is why you need a lawyer — and specifically someone who knows ed law. In other words, you wouldn’t want the TPC strictly composed of educators — and I say that as an educator.
Katie, I think you and I are on the same page. When I’m averse to performance pay, it’s when, as you noted, it’s “pay-for-test-scores.” Unfortunately, that seems to be what the bulk of performance pay ideas from reformers center on.
I hope you had a great 4th of July and are surviving this intense heat wave. I would like to respond to your posts regarding Memphis City Schools and the Transition Planning Commission (“TPC”) report regarding the new Unified School System.
I am a Memphis City School parent, and have been an active member of the Memphis chapter of Stand for Children for a few years now. I serve on two committees, have served as Team Leader for Snowden School and am also a Parent Ambassador, tasked with speaking to parents and the public about the Teacher Effectiveness Initiative taking place in Memphis City Schools.
Like you, I have concerns regarding charter schools. However, I am deeply frustrated by your response to the TPC’s recommendation regarding the potential role charter schools may play in the new Unified School System in Shelby County, Tennessee.
First, the title of your blog post – “Theft of Memphis City Schools,” was fairly harsh, intending to create panic or alarm others. Since you’re an educator, I would of thought your approach would have been one of problem solving, rather then an alarmist. My husband says you do this, because, as an author, you need to sell books, and creating controversy, is a way to do this. I don’t agree with him, but still, I am saddened by your approach, as it does not reflect an attitude of wanting to work with others of differing opinions and beliefs to solve a complex problem. Instead, it appears to be an “us” against “them” mentality.
During my time working as a parent volunteer with Stand, I have never seen Stand embrace the “us” against “them” mentality. Nor have they encouraged any of their members to do so. Instead, what I have seen with Stand, under the leadership of Ms. Kenya Bradshaw and Mark Sturgis, is a problem solving approach, and more importantly, a strong ability to bring contrasting opinions to resolution.
I don’t have to tell you that public education is under attack in this country – am sure you are well aware of that. But here in Memphis, are challenges are numerous, and at times very overwhelming. Because of the high private school enrollment, a lot of parental engagement and resources are missing from the public schools. Basically, public education in Memphis has been an “after-thought” to the business leaders and elected officials in Memphis for many years now.
However, in the last few years, Stand has been able to change that “after-thought,” mentality into a “we-must-fix-this-now” mentality. I attribute this to Stand’s ability to work with a very diverse climate, displace the “us” against “them” mentality, and continually empower it’s membership to be engaged in this change. So for once, after forty some years, progress is beginning in Memphis with the public schools. I can honestly say, that progress is because of Stand.
Stand for Children has played a destructive role in Illinois and Massachusetts and has aligned itself with the interest of Wall Street, not local parents.
I wonder why the Boston Consulting Group was brought to Memphis to tell you how to privatize your schools.
As a parent, aren’t you just a little bit troubled that a management consulting firm with no education expertise (I think they rely on Margaret Spellings) is redesigning education in Shelby County?
blah, blah, blah-blah-blah. It is hard to tell if you are being intentionally dense or just a good professional dissembler.
I think this comment discredits any good points you may have made and, as a result, discredits Diane’s post that relies on your thoughts. Seriously, is this the way to have a mature debate about issues that matter?
I think the topic has been exhausted. Best of luck and at least you have other resources to refer to when you need them later.
It is not debate that you are after but, rather, a way to put attention on anything other than the corporate plan for Memphis schools that you will defend to the last dollar, regardless of the facts on the ground or the possibilities that other communities have made real and that your handlers ignore.
You would like to discredit any position other than the one your promulgate, the exposed corporate takeover plan of Memphis schools, which is a plan built upon principles of containment, segregation, and behavioral neutering of poor, urban children. As such, your plan represents an updated version of the social engineering that the eugenicists of the early 20th Century were so excited about. Rather than biologically sterilizing the poor, however, the fascist oligarchs of today who are behind this self-serving post-Katrina model seek to behaviorally neuter the children of the poor and to impose a form of learned helplessness. Those children who don’t learn to march to the new “work hard, be nice” mantra will be discarded back into the public school to prison pipeline, while having been indoctrinated to believe their failure is no one’s fault but their own.
The same arguments and the same phony community involvement were seen in NOLA following Katrina. The good news is that the scam has been exposed and shall remain so. When do you plan to name the new Broad-trained superintendent. Oh, I forgot. There will be a national search, and there will be more community meetings before that can happen. Really.
Diane – here in Memphis, there is no evidence that Stand is aligning itself with Wall Street. I can not answer your question regarding the decision to use Boston Consulting Group; I do know the TPC was faced not only with educational questions/issues to resolve, but also business/operational decisions.
That being said, we, as public school parents in Memphis, are looking for solutions, not controversy. We have enough controversy already regarding public schools, and the merger with the county school system. Though you may find this hard to believe, Stand and the TPC have been the bright light so far in this entire process. Am sorry I can’t sling mud at them, as you have. I really don’t have any to sling. Really.
Give it time..you will. Check in with your teachers periodically if they are still around. They use the grassroots support and once they capture, they pounce onto their next move. Just be informed and on the alert….
They are good at looking for desperation and then moving from there.
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/news/140448-as-schools-struggle-to-get-better-is-selling-out-/?page=4#TOPCONTENT
An article from a few days ago on the Achievement School District schools in Frayser: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/jul/02/achievement-school-district-recruits-students-in/
This passage struck me:
“While Barbic doesn’t say this publicly, the trick is getting parents with some means — financial, mental or simply a working mode of transportation — to enroll their children with him. Without them, his three Frayser schools could quickly fill up with behavioral problems and disengaged parents, death for reformists needing to hit an early success out of the park.
“Those families that understand the importance of education and have the capacity to do research, they are making other choices. They do have options,” said Rev. Anthony Anderson, executive director of Memphis Business Academy charter school, also in Frayser.
“Those are the families the ASD doesn’t want to lose. They have to do this groundwork to keep those families in the system, otherwise they’ll end up with something in Frayser that is going to be a challenge.”
I want bright, driven kids from impoverished backgrounds to have access to quality schools that allow them to flourish and find paths to success. But, likewise, I want difficult, non-academically-minded kids to have access to schools that provide them with paths to success as well.
They always cream from the top and then there is an agreement parents have to sign. Also, to reduce the kids from leaving when they get older (In Boston..there are public high schools you have to be accepted into with an acceptance test and you can enter as early as 7th grade), they will not accept the younger siblings if the older one leaves. So you are sentenced to stay there or others in your family are not allowed in. I also know of a charter high school that will arbitrarily use an attendance criteria and require you repeat a school year, but they apply it here and there and usually to the kids who are behavior problems and do not keep up with their work. They are hoping you will leave and transfer back to the public high school and then they magically give you credit for the year if you leave.
They have many ways to weed out who they don’t want when recruiting and then have many way to “counsel” kids out.
They measure success by test scores only and it is a drill and kill atmosphere.
They definitely do NOT want a challenge from the kids or the parents.
I’m not comfortable making blanket assessments of charters. I have three good friends who work at a local charter. From discussions I’ve had with them and from a few occasions I’ve been to the school, I know the students have a far richer educational experience than drill and kill test prep.
I would agree, though, that a number of charters practice the selective approaches you mention. Attrition rates, lower percentages of SPED and ELL students, and strict discipline policies bear that out.
KIPP, Achievement First, and Uncommon Schools are viewed as the top charter chains, and most others attempt to emulate their pedagogy, management, and their total compliance behavioral sterilization techniques.
They now have a teacher prep program in NY to prepare “teachers.” Please have a read here at the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/is-filling-the-pail-any-way-to-train-teachers/2012/07/04/gJQADViVOW_blog.html
Wow! That was depressing. Did you watch that video? I can’t believe they post that as an example of good practice.
Sorry but that was not teahing and learning. That was following cult
Iike procedures. Why not put the kids in small groups and let them have the same discussion. Then all are participating and all are thinking, from that clip only 2-3 were actually thinking and answering. All you know for sure is that the rest of them know when to wiggle and point – this is a rote skill, even a deaf kid could figure out what to do just by looking around the room. This video was embarrassing, but I wonder if these teachers even know any better. Sad actually.
Look for rigorous classroom discussion, which should be called blatant classroom indoctrination…I would get my kid out that school very quickly.
http://www.relayschool.org/videos
@Jim Horn, First, I simply lend my support to what Martha, Ginger, Chris and others have said in strong support and recognition of SFC Memphis and the TPC’s overall efforts. Although not nearly as dedicated as they are, my wife and I are also proud members of SFC and proud parents of MCS students. Second, for whom are you such a redundant, shrill, patronizing mouthpiece? That answer would inform us all re your own bias and puppetmaster(s). Although from the opposite end of the spectrum, your dogged repetition of the same extreme, sensational talking points ad nauseum remind me of the stomach-turning “right-wing nut job” Tea Partiers who have seized control of the Republican Party, grinding our Congress to a practical standstill and rolling out state legislation that is simultaneously depressing, disturbing and sometimes draconian. Education – like all of the issues critical to our country and our communities’ future – is complex. To make progress and affect positive change, complex issues require nuanced, open-minded deliberation focused on reaching realistic solutions. Such solutions will necessarily require compromise, and often there will be winners and losers. I suspect the answer to my question above may place you and yours in the latter group. Obviously, this is a blog favorable to your views and, in and of itself, it’s a great example of the First Amendment in action. However, your extreme criticism of SFC Memphis and the TPC – and the individuals who serve in those organizations – is, like death panels in “Obamacare,” false (i.e., a lie). And your dogma is offensive, tiresome and non-productive. That being said, I share some of your concerns about the role of charter schools in Memphis and elsewhere, and their propensity to distract from funding and improving public education. Regarding Memphis, however, I do not share your apocalyptic view, and I am confident in the TPC’s and the Unified School Board’s good faith, as well as in SFC Memphis’s – our – intention and ability to hold them and other relevant government officials accountable.
For someone who is entirely bamboozled by the propagandists of SFC (Stand for Corporations), which gets it political and financial support from the same corporate foundations that now run your incredible shrinking school system, I can understand your consternation and suspicion of someone who clearly doubts the wisdom of the economists and lawyers from the Gates, Broad, and Hyde Foundations.
Unlike the SFC and its propagandists, professional influence peddlers, and political money shovelers, I have no corporate, union, think tank, or any other funding outside of my paycheck from Cambridge College. My blog, Schools Matter, doesn’t even post ads. I think you will find my views are quite my own–and well researched.
I am a Tennessean by birth with almost 20 years experience in Tennessee public schools, and I am committed to returning the public schools to the control of the public, rather than the Business Roundtable and the Billionaire Boys Club. I am also committed to those unfortunate “losers” that you summarily dismissed as part of your zero sum game that functions to maintain power and privilege for those who already have it.
You have been very specific about the area we might find agreement, but your blanket statement that I am a liar with no specifics to back it up speaks for itself.
And if I may add, that’s not a very Christian attitude, Mr. Leopard, and certainly not the kind of verbal behavior I would expect of a Southern church man like yourself. I am appalled, I tell you. Appalled.