I recently wrote a post about how the NYC DOE kills schools. It does this because it wants their real estate. It wants to place four or five small schools or charter schools in its building or find another use for the building. So the DOE starts the killing process first by calling the school a “failing school,” which causes many students and families to avoid it. Then the DOE cuts back on resources and staffing and programs, because the school has fewer students, and it plunges the school into a death spiral. i have heard from many teachers who were immersed in this horrible scenario, but unable to stop it. Several from John Dewey High School and Jamaica High School have told me what is happening at these once estimable schools.
Here is another story from someone caught in the middle as the authorities seek ways to sink a school:
| Jamaica H.S. is not alone in this regard. I work at The H. S. of Graphic Communication Arts in midtown west Manhattan and the DOE has done everything in its power to close this school. We are a CTE school who have students from all 5 boroughs on our roster. We do not get to pick and choose who our student body is but we accept with open arms so many of the students that no other school wants. We have worked very hard to improve attendance, graduation rates, and test scores but every time we improved, the DOE raised the levels needed to achieve a good school rating- surely, we do want to do better but the DOE has pre-determined that our school, also in a VERY desirable location, should close. They have lowered our incoming class each year, added one, two, then three schools to the “campus” and made us a “turnaround model” school last year, basically telling parents “Do NOT send you children there,” even though our student body, parents and staff members all agree that we do a wonderful job under the worst of circumstances. Mayor Bloomberg and the DOE lost that battle in the courts BUT they have won the battle because so many schools that were good places for students, have been turned into schools that are now fighting to stay alive and having difficutly in doing so. It is a sad day in education when non-educators not only think they know what is best, but try to force their views and ways upon those of us who know differently! |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Paradoxical Logic of School Turnarounds: A Catch-22
by Tina Trujillo — June 14, 2012
In the 1955 classic novel Catch-22, Joseph Heller chronicles the absurdity of the bureaucratic rules and constraints to which a conflicted Air Force bombardier and others are subjected. Each character lives under the absolute, yet illogical, power of these policies. The Obama administration’s current school turnaround policy is a catch-22. This policy mandates that low-scoring schools fire principals and teachers and change schools’ management. Such reforms engender the exact conditions that research has linked with persistent low performance—high turnover, instability, poor climate, inexperienced teachers, and racial and socioeconomic segregation. In this way, the policy presents potential turnaround schools with certain impossible dilemmas, or catch-22s, because implementation is likely to lead schools back to the original problems that the turnaround was supposed to solve.
Full article: http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=16797
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I retired last June, after nearly 38 years of teaching at M. L. King Elementary School, in Hartford, CT. ,one of the poorest mid-sized cities in the nation. As I listen to the President, educational leaders, media commentators, and many in the concerned public, I am always distressed by the degree of blame and scorn heaped upon “failing” city schoolteachers and their “obstructionist “ unions. While I believe that the expressed concerns regarding the state of education in our poorest communities are valid, the solutions seem to be leaving many of our most vulnerable students even further behind.
I began my teaching career with a Masters in Urban Education, from Columbia University. Over the years, I earned 90 college credits beyond my masters, all in efforts to improve instruction. My last year of teaching, as in most other years, I was at school daily until 5, 6, 7, or even 8:00 PM. In addition, I took work home at night, and over the weekend as well. There are countless other teachers just like me. With all of our training, experience, and effort, we faced “failure” on a daily basis.
With the advent of “magnet”, and “charter” schools, I watched the population of King School decrease by more than half. It had been, for years, a stable community school, with parents, children, and sometimes grandchildren being taught by the same teachers who spent their entire professional lives serving this community. Out of district families often requested special permission to attend the school. Over time, the student population of King School has decreased by more than half, with numbers of students leaving to attend “choice” schools. Unfortunately, many, if not most of the students and families who left, were those who had greater economic, educational, emotional, and social advantages. It takes time, knowledge, and energy for parents to apply to these choice schools. The application process is now on line. Those families without time, computer skills, or even basic literacy are excluded. Those students left behind require more resources, yet in the current decentralized, competitive school model, they receive far less.
Despite all of these disadvantages, Martin Luther King School teachers have demonstrated marked improvement on test scores for two consecutive years. They are no longer considered a “failing school”. Yet in spite of these efforts, teachers were recently told that their school will be shut down. Not immediately, but phased out over three or four years. King School will be replaced by a charter school. Teachers will gradually be laid off. The nine teachers who are being cut this year have been informed that they might not have the option to transfer to another Hartford Public School. It seems to me that we have stepped through the looking glass, with all reason and fairness having evaporated.
I can’t help but compare my teaching experiences to those of my sister, who works in a nearby suburban school. She earns more money than the teachers in Hartford. She works in a brand new building, with state of the art equipment. While she is a hard working teacher, she works far fewer hours. She does not have to deal with an enormous amount of paperwork documenting her efforts to improve instruction for large numbers of academically deficient students. Her students are overwhelmingly well cared-for, and it is highly unlikely that any of them have encountered drug dealers or traumatic violence in their neighborhoods. These children have, for the most part, grown up with respect, and in turn, have been taught to respect others, particularly their teacher. She has a wealth of supplemental materials she may need, at hand. She’s never had to spend her own money on crayons, markers, copy paper, or other critical supplies. When school begins in the fall, she is treated to a teacher’s luncheon, provided by the school PTA. She has well-educated parent volunteers in her classroom every day, to assist her students while she delivers small group reading instruction. At holiday time, she comes home with bags full of gifts given to her by the children, and their parents. At the end of the school year, she gets expensive gift certificates, cooperatively given by the parents in her class, as a thank you gift for all she has done. Most importantly, she is not blamed for her students’ failure to meet proficiency. They are usually all at, or above proficiency. She is a member of a teacher union that bargains for improvements in teachers’ pay and working conditions (amount of preparation time, additional duties, etc.). It is a source of counsel and support, should she be harassed or mistreated.
Many teachers in Hartford are presently trapped, due to an economic situation which has resulted in few teacher openings, but this will soon change. The “baby boom” generation of teachers is about to retire, and cities and towns will be in competition to hire the best and the brightest. It doesn’t take an Ivy League education to see the stark disparity in the respect afforded teachers throughout the state and the nation. When my generation entered the ranks of teachers determined to fight the “War on Poverty” in our cities, we understood that resources were unevenly allocated, and we’d no doubt have to work harder than our suburban counterparts. At the same time, we worked collaboratively with administrators and, for the most part, received respect (if not appreciation) from the society at large.
In this brave new world of high stakes testing, and teacher accountability (note that there is little to measure parent, community, or student accountability), I fear for our most vulnerable children. Who will choose to subject themselves to the very vulnerable position of teaching in our poor urban districts? The disparity in pay, resources, and most importantly respect, will lead teachers to more stable careers in suburban school districts. Our city children will be left further and further behind. The tragedy of lost potential will only be magnified.
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There are many of us in Connecticut who know and admire people like the Connecticut retired teacher who posted her story here. Sadly, many of our elected officials and policy makers are not among those who appreciate the extraordinary devotion and commitment these teachers have made. Connecticut’s largest in the nation achievement gap is primarily a result of the very issues this teacher has pointed out. Suburban schools that are well funded and provide their students with the resources necessary and our urban schools which are left to whither on the vine. Instead of coming to grips our unwillingness to address the impact of insufficient resources, poverty, language barriers and unaddressed special education needs, our policymakers take aim at our teachers and unfairly dismiss their effort and destroy their profession.
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Conn’s achievement gap reflects the unusually high scores of suburban whites.
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As long as we have very, very wealthy suburbs and very poor cities, we will always have a gap in CT.
The only narrowing I predict will be due to the performing students leaving public schools because of the constant test prep and the scores of the students left will decrease due to drill and kill/boredom.
So the gap will narrow but not not because the bottom scores rise significantly, but because those high scores begin to decrease.
Yeah! The politicians and self appointed reformers will hold a press conference to announce they closed the achievement gap. NOT!
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I have a pencil test for reading the socioeconomic well-being of a school. When I returned to teaching, I eased my way in back in to special education in a well-off district. My special ed students seldom had pencils, so I always ended up buying some until I noticed how many were on the floor around school. I didn’t have to buy pencils anymore. Every day I would troll the halls for a new stash. When I began teaching in a very poor district, I had to resort to buying them again. There weren’t many on the floors anymore. The students picked them up or didn’t drop them! My students still seldom had pencils.
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