It is hard to be sure who first had the idea that the way to improve schools was to fire the staff and start all over again.
When No Child Left Behind was written, it set an impossible goal of 100% proficiency, then set out a series of escalating sanctions for schools that were unable to do the impossible. The ultimate sanction–based on no research, experience, or wisdom–was to close the school. Fire everybody and close the school. Throw in the towel.
Then along came Arne Duncan, who gave the throw-up-your-hands routine a nice euphemistic name. He called it a “turnaround.” Sounds sweet and fun, not brutal. So now we have companies that specialize in turnarounds, and consultants who will show you how to do it.
In this post, EduShyster tells the stirring tale of two Boston schools that are being turned around for the second time! But this time, the state officials won’t make the same mistake. They won’t just bring in a whole new staff. No, indeed, they will hire “proven providers.” You can guess what that means. I bet it is a corporation that will make a whole lot of money and has a slender track record.
And so goes “reform.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
My aunt, who also happened to be my own 6th grade teacher a million years ago, has been an ESL teacher at the Holland for years and years. She was excessed last month and now, practically at retirement age, needs to go find herself a new job at another school. The Holland is located in one of the most poverty stricken, high crime neighborhoods in Boston. UP Academy is not going to wave its magic wand and perform any miracles here. This is a disgrace; it’s things like this that make me thankful every day I got out of the BPS.
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Here in Boston, The English High School, the oldest high school in the United States, was taken over by the state as a turnaround school three years ago, on the cutting edge of NCLB. That the school was not “highly successful” is indisputable – but it should be noted that the school department had programmed English High with huge numbers of ELL students, including many who were refugees from Somalia and had never attended school. Nearly all students met the federal definition of poverty; many were parenting while attending school.
The school had been moved from a badly designed building (students were supposed to move from class to class on escalators!) to a “repurposed” building across the city which had once housed offices for a gas utility. The rotation of Headmasters was a rogues’ gallery of people who might be associated with disfunctional leaders of third world nations – idiosyncratic, capricious, dictatorial. Many staff who could escape to better teaching positions did so, but there remained a core of excellent teachers struggling against long odds. Meeting AYP under NCLB was impossible.
The Boston Globe, generally supportive of any Broadish reform, published the following story, in 2012, critiquing the school department’s “turn-around” – pretty much they took any and all trendy solutions and threw them at the staff and kids.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2012/06/24/troubled_english_high_school_showing_little_improvement_after_three_tumultuous_years_under_untested_headmaster_sito_narcisse/?page=full
“At 33, Narcisse became headmaster of one of Boston’s 11 state-designated underperforming schools, giving him far broader authority than a typical principal. He was freed from strict union rules in hiring and firing and had the power to experiment boldly. Though he was supposed to consult with teachers and parents, both groups complained that, in practice, Narcisse launched major initiatives without involving them.”
After the disaster of the district “turnaround” the state took over English High. Under state receivership, not much has improved. So, the logical conclusion is that the state – which has not be able to “turnaround” English High – can remake New Bedford High school (see:http://edushyster.com/?p=4067) as well as the Dever and the Holland into schools of excellence by doing what has already failed – turn them over to inexperienced “operators” instead of career teachers with proper supports.
Though Massachusetts may lead the nation in scores, schools in the cities suffer from the same deforms as other systems serving poor, non-English speaking kids and the “remedies” are just as deleterious.
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Then along came Arne Duncan, who gave the throw-up-your-hands routine a nice euphemistic name. He called it a “turnaround.” Sounds sweet and fun, not brutal. ”
Have to disagree, Diane. That isn’t what it means and Duncan didn’t invent it.
“Turnaround” came from business. It’s a term for used for distressed commercial entities.
Here’s how it’s used. This is Bain Capital:
“Bain Capital’s primary objective is to grow and build great companies. We provide capital and experience to help companies in all phases of development achieve their full potential, and our track record has included many successful start-ups, turnarounds and carve-outs from larger corporate partners. Our strategy is based on five key elements: high quality people, vertical expertise, value-added support, global integration and aligned incentives.
Our companies have grown their revenues by more than $105 billion globally since our investment.”
When public employees started referring to themselves CEO’s, as Duncan did in Chicago and ed reformers do all over the country, that was probably a good indication of where this was headed 🙂
http://www.baincapitalprivateequity.com/about/strategy#sthash.XcvnTsVh.dpuf
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Churning, whether of teachers or schools, is highly profitable, allowing waves of new programs, false panaceas and opportunists to come in, bark orders, and then disappear before the ugly consequences emerge.
Much of so-called education reform is about churning, since the more throughput there is in every facet of the system, the greater the need for (know nothing) experts to swagger in and play off the mistakes of the previous naked emperors.
It’s like a dishonest stockbroker who needlessly trades your account, in order to increase their commissions: the throughput is needless, and often destructive, but lucrative for those who control the levers.
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Michael Fiorillo: game, set and match.
You have described in a few words the essence of the rheephorm dog chasing its own tail while putting on the appearance of actually accomplishing something.
This casts new light on Paul Vallas’ statement:
“I go in, fix the system, I move on to something else.”
Link: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Paul-Vallas–213999671.html
In other words, it’s like giving a patient a dose of a medicine that only makes the underlying condition worse—but convincing the patient and/or those in charge that because the first application didn’t take that the dosage needs to be upped and reapplied, process repeated until the patient [in this case, public education] dies.
Then they tell everyone that the fault must lie with everyone but those who recommended, provided and administered the fatal Edutoxins!
Accountability, sometimes. Responsibility, never.
It seems the self-styled education reformers never heed Dorothy Parker’s sage advice:
“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.”
Although apparently they do follow this other, er, observation by her:
“The two most beautiful words in the English language are ‘cheque enclosed.’”
$tudent $ucce$$, anyone?
😎
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Sorry, this isn’t about this post, but I am so outraged I had to share this. Have you seen this video? http://www.azcentral.com//video/?source=nletter-#/News/Arizona+schools+chief+plugs+private+schools+in+robocall/40280768001/35150280001/3189066053001
Arizona’s State Superintendent of Public schools is sending robocalls to mostly low income parents inviting them to get scholarships to go to private schools. He is doing this through the Goldwater Institute. Can we recall him? I can’t believe he can do this legally. But, he is doing it. OMG!
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The situation in Boston is shameful, but it is no surprise, given the anti public ideology of the Commonwealth’s education agency. What will be critical is what, if anything, Mayor Walsh, a strong supporter of public schools and the BTU to support and protect these two schools. Importantly, he was elected with the strong support of the BTU and the Afro-American and Hispanic communities. We shall see whether he will ‘walk the walk’, or just walk away.
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There was a time in Massachusetts, circa 2002, when the Dept of Ed implemented the first turnaround process. It bears little resemblance to the ubiquitous NCLB turnaround process we have today.
My K-8 school was one of the first to earn the “honor” of being designated a turnaround school. I was one of about five staff members involved in the turnaround process which included the principal, a central office administrator and the parent liaison (yes, we were lucky enough to have such a person on our staff).
What we did was spend a week holed up in a hotel conference room (sleeping at home) with representatives from the DOE where we carefully analyzed all sorts of data, not just MCAS, and we made suppositions about what we thought the data told us. Then we collectively determined what we thought we had the most leverage to affect, set some goals and put together the first ever school improvement plan.
It was an empowering process. We were all on equal footing. As a math teacher I was shown great respect for my analysis of the data, understanding of the curriculum and challenges teaching ELL students math. All of us were seasoned professionals and the DOE staffers were smart, helpful and generous. While the DOE staff is still there it’s been a different animal since NCLB.
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“Principals get to hand pick their talent” hahahah!! Who wants to work in this environment? Surely not top of the line educators. What a joke! The same stale rhetoric. I don’t understand how parents allow this bs to happen. Thank goodness for for-profit miracle workers in education. Where would these schools be without exploitive, clueless charter companies? This is all so dumb.
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Where is the new mayor on all of this? Doesn’t Boston they have an appointed school committee. In NYC the new mayor has let everyone know his position on charters, public education and the funding for preschool. In the State of the City for NY it was very clear his position on every issue, there was no difference to what he ran his campaign on. I thought people elected a progressive mayor in Boston apparently it appears to be the status quo. Why is he not being asked to account for this nonsense. What is the school board doing, Be interesting to try this activity in the rich areas.
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