Some districts, thinking that they have latched on to new thinking, have adopted the idea of a portfolio model.
This means that they pretend that their community’s public schools are akin to a stock portfolio. They keep the winners and “dump the losers.”
This is truly a dumb idea. It turns out that the “loser” schools are the ones serving the children with the highest needs, who get the lowest test scores.
Closing their school doesn’t help anyone learn to read, doesn’t help immigrants learn English, doesn’t help children with disabilities.
But some exceptionally thoughtless district leaders have adopted this as the newest, most indispensable fad.
As it happens, there was a discussion at AERA about the portfolio model
One of the panelists explained what it was, and another–who has the ear of the district’s power brokers–endorsed the idea of “dumping the loser schools.”
Mark Gleason, CEO of the Philadelphia Partnership Schools, said it was time to dump the “loser schools.”
And that is what his organization advocates. It has said nothing about the massive budget cuts that the Philadelphia schools have absorbed.
It has been silent about the systematic stripping of the public schools by Governor Corbett and the legislature. It has thrown its weight behind the idea of charter schools and stripping teachers of due process. Then policies of the PSP are no different from those of the extremist rightwing ALEC.
“You keep dumping the losers and over time you create a higher bar for what we expect of our schools,” Gleason said Friday while speaking on a panel at the American Educational Research Association conference, which has been held in Philadelphia over the last week.
Last year, Philadelphia closed 24 schools in the wake of massive state budget cuts and the rapid expansion of charter schools.
Parents United for Public Education leader Helen Gym said that Gleason held “extremist” views on public education.
“Mark Gleason is not an educator, and I think that’s one thing that should be pretty clear. He has been a relentless promoter of questionable reform models that have really wreaked havoc in other places. And he has unprecedented access to the Mayor’s Office of Education, to the School District, to push his agenda,” she told City Paper.
PSP, which issues large grants to schools that it wants to see expanded and lobbies policymakers, has become a lightning rod for criticism by public-education advocates since its 2010 founding. The group backs the expansion of charter schools and frequently opposes the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. It has quickly become a major force in city education politics, thanks to millions of dollars of funding from The William Penn Foundation. Controversially, PSP’s board includes conservative figures Janine Yass, the wife of voucher-advocate and investment-fund manager Jeffrey Yass, and Republican powerbroker Chris Bravacos.
Someday, our policymakers will look at ideas like portfolio districts and review the havoc they have created. They are hurting children. They are destroying communities. They should stop calling themselves “reformers.” They are destroyers of the lives of children, families, and communities. Mark Gleason, I mean you. Have you no shame?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
There is a special place in hell for people like this. Labeling schools and children as “losers” is unconscionable. I simply cannot fathom how these people are so cruel and nasty and unfeeling.
Exactly where does Gleason advise Philly to “dump those losers”?
Are some children not worth educating?
This is how the article begins:
“Philadelphia School Partnership CEO Mark Gleason set off a deluge of criticism after he called for the School District to close “loser” schools.”
This is the portfolio model. Dump the loser schools. Someday all that will be left are winners. Except it has never happened. It just destroys public schools and replaces them with charters that can push out the low-performing kids.
This is truly an alarming concept reminiscent of Hitler’s cleansing of misfit children, and his attempt to build his Master Race. Watching the Broad Academy business model-trained Charter CEOs and Superintendents as they cleanse our public schools, it is chilling to see this same kind of mindset in America. What will happen to all the Special Ed and ELL students left behind?
An earlier version of this approach developed in NYC. It involved
a. Creation of some elite magnet schools that use admission tests b. Allowing some teachers in East Harlem to create schools within schools in East Harlem, sometimes in empty or underused district buildings, sometimes in large schools that were not doing so well. c. Allowing some educators to create new options in various parts of the city (aka New Visions schools d. Taking buildings like Julia Richman building and allowing groups of educators to create new options within the building. This sometimes also involves, as it does at Julia Richman, bringing in some agencies that can help support students and families This is an intriguing schematic that shows what developed at Julia Richman: http://www.jrec.org/layout2.html
What are you on about? Nothing in what you listed is anything about “dumping” “loser” schools. Cripes.
This term seems to be used in a variety of ways. K Quinn’s post @11:31 p.m. links to a U of W site about districts having a portfolio of schools for students to choose from, which is what I think is how Joe Nathan was understanding the term portfolio.
This is the pet idea of the CRPE – aka CRAP – at th University of Washington.
http://www.crpe.org/research/portfolio-strategy
the
Ick! U of W used to have a renowned education dept. Now they’re giving legitimacy to corporate garbage. Garbage in, garbage out.
I was present during this AERA session. I, too, wrote down what Gleason remarked as “dumping the losers,” and I can safely say that his remarks were received by so much vocalized dissent that I swear he was about two steps away from being dismissed from the podium by the audience. His fervent support for portfolio models is disgusting, heartless, and completely disregards many of the systemic issues facing Philly schools and other urban schools for that matter.
It should be noted however, that one individual effectively and appropriately captured the audience’s attention during this discussing panel. Hiram Rivera From the Philadelphia Student Union poignantly addressed every one of the issues related to Philadelphia school finance and governance by speaking for the students of Philadelphia. His discussion expressed how the foundational structures of Philly schools are having a detrimental effect on students, especially for African American and Latino/a populations. The true heroic voice for public education that day was Mr. Rivera, and his words will never escape my memory from that session. His words fueled the inspiration I needed to continue my journey to contest educational reforms, such as those that Mark Gleason spoke of, that support social hierarchy and promote inequity.
This pre-supposes that Mark Gleason considers himself a “winner”. I think that claim is certainly open to debate. 🙂
I teach at a school in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada that would meet Gleason’s criteria as a “loser” school. It is a school that is located in the middle of a social assistance housing development. But, it is, also, my favourite teaching assignment that I’ve had in my 26 year career. I love these kids and I love providing shelter from the storms of their lives for 6 hours a day. These kids have so much going against them, it is a minor miracle that they even make it to school each day with smiles on their faces. But, they do. They require so much compassion and nurturing and good role-modeling. Which we give, along with ABCs and 123s sprinkled in. I find it hard to believe that there are people so callous as to simply discard these kids as if they were rubbish. They may have it tough in life but, they are good kids at their core and they deserve better than what the Gleason’s of the world have in mind.
I recently wrote a blog of my own about my school and how deeply the children are affected by poverty. The blog post was for a writing challenge called the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge and can be read here, if you are interested in a peek inside the lives of children at a “loser” school. http://cobourgcobbie.blogspot.ca/2014/04/f-thank-goodness-its-fridayor-not.html
Thanks, all! Keep fighting the good fight, Diane!
A new school doesn’t solve the problems of underachieving students. Better to spend the money on small class sizes and extra resource personnel, then to create a whole new format. Ultimately, these kids need to learn.
We know that poverty affects learning. Why aren’t we utilizing our resources to investigate ways to resolve this problem? Forget all the nonsense and put the child as the number one priority.
I was present at this session. Fortunately, I can attest that Gleason, and his disgusting remarks, was about two steps away from being dismissed from the podium. The real hero during that discussion was Hiram Rivera from the Philadelphia Student Union. His poignant speeches told of the malevolent effects that Philly school funding and governance had on the students he works with every day. Rivera’s passion is a true inspiration for change in Philly as well as the rest of the country. Rivera reminded many of us about the unjust inequities that pervade educational school systems and their heartless supporters, such as Gleason, who promote them.
Thank you for your very kind words!
Mark Gleason simply speaks what is in the hearts of the leaders of the self-styled “education reform” movement aka “the new civil rights movement of our time.”
I refer readers of this blog to a recent discussion [among several] about “grit” and “determination.”
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/03/31/katie-osgood-dont-change-our-kids-change-our-world/
Then remember what one of the shiniest stars in the firmament of “education reform” wrote recently about people who are worried about the abuses attached to high-stakes standardized tests:
[start quote]
“Okay,” the opt-out crowd replies, “what about kids who are stressed out and suffering from anxiety because of standardized tests?” You know what? Life can be stressful; it can be challenging. The alternative is to hand out trophies just for participating, give out straight A’s for fear of damaging a kid’s ego — and continue to fall further and further behind as a country. I reject that mind-set.
[end quote]
The op-ed by Michelle Rhee in the Washington Post, 4-4-14, can accessed through—
Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/04/06/michelle-rhee-still-doesnt-get-it/
So let me get this straight: cage busting achievement gap crushing innovators are now finally openly admitting that when it comes to taking on all comers like public schools do and persevering no matter how “challenging” and “stressful” it is, they’ve come up with a solution that makes perfect ₵ent¢ when viewed through the prism of $tudent $ucce$$:
Give up. Surrender. Don’t even make the effort.
So for perhaps the first and last time on this blog, I will approvingly cite Michelle Rhee:
I REJECT THAT MIND-SET.
Really!
Not Rheeally!
😎
P.S. Dee Dee, Mark Gleason is the answer to your rhetorical question: “Have they no shame?????”
One of the main tenets of the reform (hate to use that word ) in Finland was to make all the schools good schools. And they have achieved that. What are we doing?
Agreed. And Finland does offer some options among different kinds of schools because the country recognizes that there is no single best kind of school for every youngster, every family and every educator. Part of educator respect in Finland is to give educators opportunities to create some distinctive schools.
Yes, and they do it all without charter schools – imagine that!
And I can also attest to his support to “dump the losers.” Shame on you, Mark Gleason.
Why do these baffoons have to complicate situations by creating eccentric schemes to get attention? Their true intentions begin to reveal itself when they start tripping up on their own words (i.e., dump the loser schools…). Now, porfolios have taken on a new purpose and meaning. It used to be that students would collect their best work to show growth. So now we have a different kind of portfolio that we submit our worst evidence, so we can shut down a school. Only a baffoon could…
Speaking ob buffoons, we never hear of the milliions of FAILED businesses and dumb ideas generated from B-schools. We only learn of the magical successes.
The proportion of businesses that fail are much larger than those that do not. Maybe we should start a website – Failed Businesses and Failing Business Schools and note all their dumb ideas.
You keep raising the bar, and pretty soon the few above it get to have all the stuff that used to go to those under it!
Wow… education sure is a “business” these days… “CEO’s” run school districts… our students are human CAPITAL… “learning is DATA-DRIVEN” and now our students are considered “STOCKS” that make up a portfolio. What next.. teachers will be called “investment brokers”????
I read this from the article and it sickened me, “”The term is borrowed from Wall Street,” Socolar said in his panel remarks. “You hang on to the successful companies in your stock portfolio and you dump the losers. Proponents here talk about it in terms of replacing low- performing seats with high-performing seats.”
All I can picture are “dumps” ( the dumps we know as a trash sites but Hoovervilles comes to mind) where the poor fail to thrive and lack basic necessities. By Socolar and Gleason’s reasoning, hospitals could improve too by ridding themselves of the sick!
low performing = poverty… and it is pretty obvious
I am reading a factually dense book called “The American Way of Poverty” by Sasha Abramsky and it boggles me how quickly this nation is on the downslide but those megabillionaires illegally running it DO NOT SEE IT or worse yet DO NOT CARE TO SEE IT.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/how-to-turn-an-urban-school-district-around-without-cheating/275681/
Is Cincinnati a better model?
“The core of Cincinnati’s remarkable success is a data-driven collaborative strategy to promote good teaching and learning in ways that reject almost all of the current fashions of school reform.
A good example of Cincinnati’s approach is an elementary school-focused program that launched in 2009 under newly promoted Superintendent Mary Ronan. Called the “Elementary Initiative: Ready for High School,” it has focused on revitalizing the district’s 16 worst-performing elementary schools, some of which had been struggling for more than a quarter century. At the outset of that effort, administrators conducted an audit of those schools to evaluate the sources of their problems. What the auditors found was that a wide variety of instructional approaches (Montessori, Success for All, Direct Instruction, etc.) were not being followed as designed in classrooms. They also saw that many of the schools taught English for less than 45 minutes a day, that teachers were partial to whole-group instruction instead of breaking the class into smaller groups, and that testing data was not being used for any practical purpose.
Deputy Superintendent Laura Mitchell, who leads the elementary initiative, worked closely with other administrators and “lead teachers” who were enthusiastic about revitalizing the schools to develop a new research-supported curriculum and approach to instruction. Those changes included 90-minute blocks of literature-rich units, small-group activities with teachers rotating among students, and reorienting teachers’ and administrators’ approach to test results, so that they could be used as diagnostic tools for identifying particular areas in which students need greater support.”
It’s Ohio’s highest performing big big city district, and they seem to have gone on a very different path than the Cleveland/ Columbus/New Orleans/Detroit/ Chicago/Philadelphia model.
I know the NYC mayoral candidates visited their schools during the election.
Is Cincinnati an alternative to closing schools and getting rid of elected boards and mass privatization and all this misery and chaos? I imagine this approach is expensive. They have “wrap around” services at low income schools, but why is Cincinnati never used as a model?
http://www.cvent.com/events/2014-coalition-for-community-schools-national-forum/custom-37-670d825cb9434edfa13c21bf8a07871f.aspx
Too, they’re holding a coalition for community schools in Cincinnati this week and the sponsors (at the link) are not the usual suspects- no Walton or Broad, and they’ve invited Reverend Barber to speak (NC) and he’s a public school supporter.
Are Cincinnati’s efforts to improve public schools different than the national ed reform approach we’ve seen in city after city?
I don’t know. I’m asking. Is this another model, one that improves public schools instead of privatizing the district?
One of several strategies that Cincinnati Public Schools used to produce considerable progress was the co-location in schools of various social service agencies and organizations.
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/11150746.html
New York City and a number of other cities also have used this strategy. Some of us see this as part of an overall, valuable set of strategies to help students and families.
But that isn’t the portfolio model, Joe, and you know it. We’re all familiar with the portfolio model. It’s New Orleans. Privately run schools. Philadelphia would actually be one step further, because Mr. Hite sees no difference between a Catholic school and a public schools according to the piece.
Cincinnati isn’t a portfolio model. It’s different than Cleveland, Columbus, Chicago, New Orleans yet it’s the highest performing big city district in Ohio.
They’re having a conference there this week on this model, and I notice none of the big ed reform orgs are sponsors.
Why is that? Is it because this model doesn’t rely on their preferred approach? I thought ed reformers were looking for methods “that work”?
Methods that work and also reach the privatization goal? Methods that work as long as those methods are just like New Orleans?
Why don’t ed reformers ever promote the Cincinnati model when going into these cities? Why is always New Orleans?
I don’t think they’re “agnostics” at all. I think they prefer a privatized school system.
Chiara, Cincy is a district that offers a variety of options…including Montessori elementary schools, a Montessori junior senior high school, plus a elite magnet school that uses an admissions test (Walnut Hills), an arts focused secondary school, and other options.
The city also has some chartered public schools.
A variety of people working on improving schools view the community school idea as part of what many schools should do. There are great examples of district and chartered public schools that share space with other organizations, often social service agencies.
Here’s a link to a publication that describes some of the district & chartered public schools that are using the community school approach being discussed in Cincinnati.
Click to access saneschools.pdf
Also, I would point out that the “portfolio” model seems to be expanding to further blur the line between public and private and include private and religious schools.
You’ll recall we were all told at the outset of ed reform by Democrats that this was not about vouchers and private schools, that charter schools were “public” schools yet now that last public-private distinction seems to be evaporating too:
“I think the portfolio model also stands out in Philly because of the move by Philadelphia School Partnership and some local officials to welcome Catholic and private schools into the portfolio, and to downplay the distinctions between public and private schools,” Socolar said. “So, for instance, Mayor Nutter has said that debates about public versus private versus charter are ‘esoteric’ and don’t matter to children.”
This is a privatized system that they’re proposing. The last fig leaf ed reformers had was the exclusion of private schools, and now even that thin cover is going.
There is no difference between this approach and Milton Friedman’s plan to privatize US public schools.
Please stop doing things to hurt our children! Come into my classroom and help me to find ways to continue to enrich the lives of my curious, creative, caring cognizant, children.
The other day while reading about Divine Rulers my brilliant minded sixth graders brainstormed and began comparing and contrasting the President of the United States, freedom, and Democracy of the present.
Apparently many of my students are aware of the meetings, ads on television and discussions within their homes about public education so this topic was also brought up and discussed. The students began debating about whether or not free public education would remain in our country.
The classroom abrubtly became silent after one of my beautiful, innocent sixth grade students sadly asked “with the way that our country is becoming and people only caring about themselves, why would anyone ever want to have children?”
Needless to say, my heart is broken from the knowledge that our 10 to 12 year old children would begin to think this way.
I know this a crazy idea, but ed reformers could look at another city other than New Orleans when “transforming” schools.
It’s a little nutty to insist this “portfolio model” is “local” and “grassroots driven” when they are dropping their preferred New Orleans model into cities all over the country.
This is a huge contradiction. If they want a New Orleans model in every city in the country they should say so, instead of all this smoke and mirrors about “choice!” and “innovation!” that always ends up the same way: The Portfolio Model.
New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, Newark. They’re all the same approach.
Maybe we could all save a lot of time if they announce they are putting in the New Orleans Model when they arrive and then we have the debate. Just cut to the chase. Obviously, their minds are made up or we wouldn’t see this exact same “idea” in every city they parachute into.
Chiara, do any of your Superintendents or other administrators in Cincinaatti have a past history with the Broad Superintendents Academy?
Chiara,
There is no debate. It is all top down management.
I want names! We have to make any association with the Broad Superintendents Academy known so we can make the connections of exactly who is hijacking public education!
A recent post by Michael Hudson from Naked Capitalism has some dense technical economics, but it concludes with a quote that, I believe, summarizes what is going on:
“Whereas governments plan to uplift living standards, protect the weak, promote greater economic equality and tax wealth in ways that promote rising productivity and prosperity, financial planners reverse this program in an economic counter-Enlightenment by untaxing wealth via a tax shift of the fiscal burden onto labor and pursue related anti-labor policies… And whereas progressive governments aim at maximizing domestic employment and economic potential, financial planners aim at maximizing the price of real estate, stocks and financial securities relative to wage levels. The danger of an economy following a road to serfdom thus lies more in dismantling government and turning its planning power over to the financiers than in empowering democratic governments pursuing progressive economic policy, tax policy, fiscal policy and monetary policy.”
Translation: the hedge fund managers who are gambling on for-profit charters want to disable democratically operated publicly funded enterprises and turn them into profit centers. Here’s the link to the entire post, which somewhat sarcastically describes the process: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/04/michael-hudson-r-rentier.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NakedCapitalism+%28naked+capitalism%29
Oh, I thought this was called the ‘Chicago’ model.
“Joe Nathan
April 7, 2014 at 7:36 am
Chiara, Cincy is a district that offers a variety of options…including Montessori elementary schools, a Montessori junior senior high school, plus a elite magnet school that uses an admissions test (Walnut Hills), an arts focused secondary school, and other options.
The city also has some chartered public schools.”
Joe, you’re acting as if this is the same approach as a “portfolio” district. It isn’t.
Again: Detroit, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Columbus Cleveland. That’s the model.
Why aren’t ed reformers supporting and promoting the Cincinnati model? It “works” and it isn’t New Orleans. Where’s the huge media promotional campaigns we’ve seen out of New Orleans? Where’s the celebrities? Where’s the CEO’s?
If ed reformers are acting in good faith, and support public schools, why are they plunking down the same privatization strategy in every city? Why no love for Cincinnati among Rhee, Bush, Duncan, and the whole private sector crew? They should be thrilled. Public schools that went in a different direction from ed reform and thrived! What a great model to look at and learn from!
I think they ignore this city because it doesn’t fit the POLITICAL frame they are promoting, which is The Miracle of New Orleans. We saw the same thing in Union City, NJ. That was an inconvenient success story too.
I’m arguing that you’re cherry-picking, using the charter schools you prefer as models and ignoring the public schools that don’t fit the script as “failing”. That’s not “public policy” and it ain’t “rigorous” either. It’s politics.
Look, this is UNFAIR to public schools. If we are going to lavish praise on (certain, cherry picked) charter schools, public school deserve the same respect and kudos. Why don’t they get it from ed reformers? I think it’s because they have a POLITICAL agenda.
“Joe Nathan
April 7, 2014 at 7:36 am
Where are the big flashy ed reform orgs, Joe?
Cincinnati is having a forum on their “community schools” idea. I posted the link to the sponsors.
Where’s StudentsFirst, TFA, Jeb Bush, Walton, Gates, Kasich, Broad, the Dell Family and the rest of the tech titans? I’m sure they could use a coupla million dollars down there in those schools.
This is a success! Why not “scale it”?
Is the problem that that they didn’t follow the ed reform script to get there? Is that why they’re scraping for sponsors? It seems to me you’re only backing CERTAIN “winners”.
Chiara,
The corporate reformers have no interest in discovering successful public schools to use as models. Their goals are to eliminate tenure, seniority protections and retirement pensions. They use their reform malarkey to obfuscate their privatization mission.
Bunch of sheep, who don’t know shit.