Earlier I posted a story about an elementary school in Massachusetts where the principal fired the security guards and expanded the arts program….and, voila! The school miraculously improved.
The title was, “Could This Be True?”
Sadly, it was not true.
According to our friends in Massachusetts, the principal fired most of the teachers and the enrollment of the school changed, raising its socioeconomic profile.
No miracle.
Here is a comment from EduShyster:
“Barack Obama visited this school just last year–although the principal’s decision to bulk up the arts budget was not the lesson that BO was there to promote. Before Principal Bott got rid of the security guards he got rid of 80% of the teachers. And unlike other schools in Massachusetts where slash-and-burn turnaround efforts have produced very little, test scores at the school have risen, making Orchard Gardens what Arne Duncan might call a SIG-sess story.”
ChemTeacher added this comment:
“Let’s ask Deborah Meier. She has some understanding of the pilot schools in Boston. According to the video, the school originally opened as an empty promise, and the art and music equipment was left in storage.
That was for the old Orchard Garden Children. After those children were replaced with higher socioeconomic children, somebody finally thought of hiring art teachers.
“The new Orchard Gardens replaced a failed, dysfunctional public housing development with a mixed income community of over 200 units of affordable family housing in an inner city neighborhood. ”
http://www.dhkinc.com/Housing/public_housing/9606A.asp
The moral might be that we need integrated, mixed income communities, or maybe we can just hire art teachers right away. I’m worried about where the old Orchard Park children are, and do they have art and music there?”
ChemTeacher added:
“This is not necessarily a heart-warming story. Please read the link I posted above. The scores rose because they moved out the old, low-scoring population. Firing teachers didn’t raise the scores. The only way corporate reformers know to dramatically raise average scores is to cheat, or to raise average socioeconomic status. Art and music will save children’s lives and souls, and eventually pay off for their community and nation, but it won’t necessarily work standardized-test-score miracles.
“My guess is that the school was prepared and equipped specifically for the new affordable housing development, and that’s why the arts and music curriculum wasn’t launched until after the old community was gutted.
“Affordable housing” doesn’t mean low-income.”
Another Massachusetts reader sent this story, of a school that got $4 million in federal grants, extended the day from 7:30 to 5:30 pm, and hired a new staff of data-driven teachers. If Arne Duncan wants to give $4 million to every low-performing school, maybe he will see big change. If they all fire 80% of their teachers, where will we find new teachers? And how destructive is that to the teaching profession? Or is that what he wants?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“If Arne Duncan wants to give $4 million to every low-performing school, maybe he will see big change. If they all fire 80% of their teachers, where will we find new teachers? And how destructive is that to the teaching profession? Or is that what he wants?”
Yes, this is what Duncan, Obama, and their anti-public trust politician friends want all the way.
And as they are succeeding, Obama will be rewarded by his pro-charter school sugar mommy Penny Pritzker, who will be handing over a $35 million dollar ocean front manse in Hawaii when he retires.
Imagine: 80% of these Massachusetts school teachers lose their jobs (and let’s remember how Obama LITERALLY clapped at and commended the teacher firings in Little Falls, Rhode Island when he had NOT ONE MOLECULE of a clue about who was and was not “effective” and what the school population there was really like), and HE gets a water front home for himself and his ghetto-turned-Harvard-lawyer-turned-Imelda-Marcos wife Michelle.
Obama is anything but someone who advocates for the average person in this country, and he is worse than any other president because he completely poses as something he is not. . . . He is depraved.
And his Penny’s not at all from Heaven.
This describes a Manchurian Candidate.
Great metaphor!
Correction: I meant “Central Falls, Rhode Island” . . .
Everything from Rod Paige’s Houston Miracle forward has been “too good to be true”. Double-talk, forgeries or outright lies, take your pick. Still, all the propaganda need not be one-sided. Why not fight fire with fire? I’m going to keep circulating this video like I believe it really happened. It’s as real as anything else at this point…
How about if the security guards became artists and musicians and nobody got fired? how about if we conferred status on teachers and low income students?
Thanks for putting out the correction right away. However, this has nothing to do with the fact that the arts dramatically improves student performance. Yesterday I went to a California Joint Committee on The Arts with Chairman Senator Curren Price and Vice Chair Assemblyman Ian Calderon with one of the best set of panelists I have ever had the privilege to listen to. The meeting was “Undereducate-Overincarcerate: Can the Arts Help to Turn this Around?” There is a large book produced on this. It was also videoed and live streamed on the internet so there must be video copies also. If you call Senator Price’s or Assemblyman Calderon’s offices I am sure you can be provided this information.
If this works in the worst environment in prisons it will certainly work in schools where humiliation also is the cause of many problems. The arts helps to make you a whole person with a different perspective on your life and that of others. It is called “Thinking Outside of the Box.” Even Boeing, Northrup-Grumman and JPL believe in this and have grants for the arts. The Boeing lady we listened to say that they believe that children need the arts from birth. I agree. I have a friend, Antonio Villacis, who runs the “Community School of the Arts Foundation” in L.A. and is now in 18 schools where they have taken out the arts and he has reinstated it along with exercise for students, parents and teachers with Zumba. It has made large changes in behavior and performance where instituted. He now has this program in a special education school for the medium to highly disabled students and I have seen and talked with the students and school psychologist and it really changes their lives. Truancy is down, behavioral problems in school are down, performance is up. What more could you want and attitude is also up.
We believe at CORE-CA that especially in poor performing schools that the arts is a methodology to improve the learning capability and understanding of students and to increase their self worth. We are working tirelessly to this end. Today I was at a Town Hall which was put on by Congresswoman Karen Bass which was about “African-American Students in Crisis” and I brought up using the arts to help with this situation especially with the male students who are in the most trouble. I also brought up again the fact that many teachers are being falsely accused of crimes including child abuse and also illegally terminated. As a result three more teachers came to me after the meeting was over and luckily my friend Lenny Isenburg and his lawyer Ron Lapekas who is handling these cases were there and I made sure they connected with them. How can teachers really teach if they are afraid that if someone says boo and falsely accuses them and they will be illegally terminated with their and their families lives being ruined just so that the district can bring in a TFA clone? This happens especially if you are high time, high salary scale and just about to vest in lifetime benefits. Lenny has a data base of over 600 now. He can be reached at lenny@perdaily.com.
Works every time.
Hire a new Principal
New Principal fires Teachers.
New principal recruits highly gifted students with supportive parents
Gets rid of (in an extremely sneaky manner) the poverty-stricken, less fortunate students ..( A case that I know of is a paper the student should have signed by a certain date but the students were notified by an 8 font poster on the wall of the school..maybe not that extreme but definitely the intent was to make sure the low performing students would not meet the deadline to attend the school)
Next year….high scores..Principal accused of Miraculous Growth..
What an absolute crock of nonsense.
AND ALL BECAUSE OF A TEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hey Kid…(in a so called advanced class)
What is 1/3 of a dollar?
Kid..75 cents
Teach..Explain please
Kid..3 quarters in a dollar.
Teach..Next question
Tester: Hey Kid..Bout how much is 1/3 of a dollar?
A. 3 quarters
B 3 quarters, one nickel and 3 pennies
C 1 quarter, one nickel, and 3 pennies
D 2 quarters and five nickels
or A $.03
B $.33
C $3.33
D $33.33
A bit more about this school’s “turnaround”. When it was first opened, the Boston Teachers Union recommended that students be assigned gradually, beginning with a kindergarten and first grade class for the elementary component and a sixth grade for the middle school. Central administration ignored the suggestion, assigning students to all grades.
Some principals at other schools, some lacking principles, got rid of their most “challenging” students by suggesting to parents that they might consider moving their children (and their challenges) to the brand new school which would open in the fall.
The BTU also suggested hiring teachers who applied to work as teams. Instead, the School Department assembled a staff, many of whom were new hires, who had never worked together previously. The school also had a longer school day than most, and many uncompensated hours of extra “professional development” requirements for teachers, both during the school year and in summer. So the “best” teachers from across the city weren’t all that interested in taking on such an uncertain task.
As the cherry on top, the first several principals hired were inexperienced newcomers. No surprise then that the outcome was chaotic.
I have to say, I’m extremely disappointed, Diane. Extremely! Now, I’ll explain why…
I’m a teacher in the field of fine arts (instrumental music). Currently, I teach private lessons and am periodically hired by directors as an independent instructor for various ensembles. You could say that I’m regularly active in at least two programs and also substitute teach (again, instrumental music) in other schools around the area. To put it bluntly, your assessment of the story is crap.
This isn’t a story claiming the school has performed a miracle. There are no claims being made that art education improves test scores. Watch the story here:
http://dailynightly.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/01/18005192-principal-fires-security-guards-to-hire-art-teachers-and-transforms-elementary-school
Review: Prior to 2010, the student body of the school pretty much did what it wanted to and looked nothing like a school at all – but rather a prison. The principal decided instead of putting money into security, he’d use it to fund arts education. This has so far had a profound effect on the culture of the school (among other things they have implemented, this appears to be what Bott’s believes has done the most to help the school overall). That’s all. No big idea reformy-ism. No “Arts Education raises test scores!!” shenanigans. The culture of the school was low before this, and Botts claims this was one of his best decisions of the many (possibly bad ones) he’s made.
Now, we can take that for what it’s worth, or we can go grab our pitch forks and hoist NBC up on a stake and burn it to the ground for making a big deal out of reporting on the success of arts education in school reform. But turning this into… what was it… oh yeah:
“According to our friends in Massachusetts, the principal fired most of the teachers and the enrollment of the school changed, raising its socioeconomic profile. No miracle.”
Yeah, well, in the systems where I work, there is a shocking difference between schools with well-supported arts programs and those without. Socioeconomic profiles aren’t set in stone, and most schools aren’t doomed to the fate of the economic conditions of their communities. In one school work in, the arts program has been well-supported for over 80 years and has drawn the attention of parents in higher socioeconomic areas. They decide on the school for their child BECAUSE the school has a well-supported arts program. It’s a public school as well with a terrific program.
And down the road, in the less funded school system, there is also an arts program that is well-supported and a community that is much lower in the socio-economic ranking. Oh, and THAT school actually OUTPERFORMS the higher-funded program in testing, scoring, student achievement, and so on. A third school in the area, one with considerably less funding in arts education, is coming up on it’s second low-performing year. Its principal is rumored to be completely unreliable to deal with and has no interest in further investment in that school’s arts program. A magnet school in the same area has invested in arts education, but it micromanages its teachers to death and make the work environment awful. There has been a choral teacher vacancy at that school since last year. It was filled briefly, and now it is vacant again. That school is currently in turnaround this summer.
Now, I’m not saying arts education is the only thing to look at. It is not, in itself, a miracle cure for education. But it deeply betrays my sense of trust in your judgment that you callously throw it out after only glancing at the enrollment and socioeconomic profile.
You know, it seems to me that looking at enrollment and socio-economic factors without taking into account that teachers are actually continuing their contracts, that the 6th principal hasn’t left, that there are students actually speaking positively about the environment of their school and that they enjoy being there… it almost seems a bit petty of you to suddenly dump all of that because of how they arrived at that point. As a teacher in the arts who supports you and thinks highly of your work in education, I’m really disappointed. I don’t teach anywhere near that school. I don’t know any of those teachers or what they think. I’d actually appreciate if you could follow up on this with some feedback from them (if you can). It would mean a lot to know you might take another look at this before concluding, “Oh, well OF COURSE it got better, look at the ENROLLMENT and the standard of living…”
Yeah, that’s not how it works in my area. I’m actually in the schools and see it. You’re welcome to join me sometime. I’d be happy to show you around and introduce you to my colleagues in arts education who can share their experiences as well. There is legitimacy to how arts education affects the quality of the education environment. Botts appears to understand that, and he should be praised for making a good decision out of possibly many bad ones he’d likely admit he’s made in attempting to make it a better place for learning. It doesn’t legitimate the firings, the turn-around, or standardized testing. It’s not about any of that. It’s about the kids. They need it, and your judgment on this is wrong… in my very humble opinion.
Sorry, I just had to get that out there, Dr. Ravitch. Otherwise, I still adore you and think you’re wonderful!
I worked in 2 urban schools with very similar populations, however one had more minorities. The first school that had 50% of white students and the rest minorities from the hood. The white students were quite poor and rowdy. Long story short – officer in every hallway, administration no where to be found and kids were awful. School 2 was 95% minority, mostly black, no cops and administration ruled the school, it was heaven most days. The problem is most urban schools count on police and security guards, rather than developing administrators who back their teachers and set firm rules in place for students.