The citizens of Massachusetts spoke loudly and clearly on November 8 when they overwhelmingly rejected Question 2. They don’t want more charter schools. They want strong and well-resourced public schools.
But the state of Massachusetts and the Boston school superintendent Tommy Chang have decided to close Mattahunt Elementary School despite the pleas of the parents and the local community.
The state Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester has threatened to take over the school, although state takeovers have seldom been successful at improving schools. Boston superintendent Chang says that the only way to save the school is to close it. Read that sentence over two or three times and see if it makes any sense to you. It reminds me of the saying during the Vietnam War that “we had to destroy the village in order to save it.” This is insane.
Test scores are low. Kids are poor. Why not come up with a strategy to improve the school? Chang, who worked for John Deasy’s in Los Angeles, seems to have no idea how to help the school other than to close it. Neither does Mitchell Chester.
Citizens for Public Schools writes:
Does Boston have to close a school to save its children from suffering harm at the hands of the state?
That startling question was the focus of nearly four hours of passionate debate last week, pitting 100 parents and other supporters of the Mattahunt School against Superintendent Tommy Chang.
In the end, the School Committee voted to close the school at the end of June to head off state takeover, even after parents said they were willing to take the risk and would join with the School Committee in fighting for their school.
The Mattahunt students are 95 percent Black and Latino, and over 25 percent English language learners. Many come from Haiti and have already experienced trauma and instability. School Department officials said 17 of the students came to the Mattahunt from other schools that the department closed.
“You would never do this in a white community,” said Peggy Wiesenberg, a white parent who came to support the Mattahunt parents…
All sides agreed that state intervention would be a tragedy for the children. Speakers said the state takeover of the Dever and Holland schools had hurt the children in those schools, using terms like “disaster.”
Have public officials in charge of education in Massachusetts lost their minds? Why would they close a school to avoid a state takeover that everyone agrees would be a disaster? Would they do this in a white neighborhood? Why are they treating these children like they are inanimate objects? Like they don’t matter? Like their well-being is unimportant? They are not doing this for the kids. Why are they doing it? What is the point? This is not education reform. This is community destruction and child abuse.
Where is the accountability for Mitchell Chester and Tommy Chang? They are guilty of educational malpractice. They should be held accountable.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I have a bumper sticker with a Molly Ivins quote: “It’s hard to convince people that you’re killing them for their own good.”
fmindlin,
Trump proves that Molly Ivins was wrong.
I suppose. I guess it’s the realization of that other slogan from my youth–“Better Dead than Red.” Lots of folks seem to have chosen death….
Diane: ” They don’t more charter schools. They want strong and well-resourced public schools.””
I think you’re missing the words “object to” prior to “more charter schools” though I’m guessing you may have, incorrectly intended: “want”. By far the most influential political opponent of Question 2 was Boston’s Mayor Walsh, who has vigorously promoted a plan for more charter schools, but on a slower pace than the most extreme scenario possible via Question 2.
My understanding is that there have in fact been some successful “turnarounds” in Boston to the credit of both city and state personnel.
As for this: “Speakers said the state takeover of the Dever and Holland schools had hurt the children in those schools, using terms like ‘disaster.'” as far as the Holland I would put more weight on the opinion of the school’s parent association members who seem to be vigorously supportive of the process at this stage, including leaders familiar with the school prior to the turnaround effort.
In respect to the Dever, I have certainly seen indication that Blueprint Schools, the agency charged with leading the turnaround, has struggled. Aside from wondering whether they were ready for the task I would wonder to what degree Blueprint’s ideal model that involves intensive tutoring has been permitted to be implemented by the teachers union… My impression is that the tearchers union here has generally held that funds are better spent on fewer tutors, who would be unionized, and more highly compensated financially albeit perhaps working in a less successful school. See for example:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2013/09/10/union-resistance-outside-tutors-bad-form/w3CjS4REyC4Ea5zmgzV20J/story.html
Perhaps others here have a better, more up to date understanding of that.
Would you care to list the successful turnarounds in Boston?
I am willing to be convinced, but I don’t know of any successful state takeovers.
I tend not to think in terms of “state takeovers”, Diane, as it seems that there are varying blends of federal, state and local involvement in each turnaround effort, with an increasing level of state involvement where initial efforts by the district are most severely unsuccessful in achieving desired results.
While I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable to comment on all the turnaround efforts, the first examples that came to mind of what are widely regarded as successful turnarounds in Boston are Orchard Gardens and Up Academy Boston (formerly Gavin Middle School).
Orchard Gardens
Click to access orchardgardencasestudy.pdf
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/04/23/leadership-loss-for-boston-public-schools/9hSVyGqkE9sISCs9pOHqfP/story.html
Up Academy Boston
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/09/22/failing-south-boston-school-turns-around/JbL9tu3wA2jJieC6IqYJuN/story.html
I spent time at the latter school a week or so ago at an event where 8th graders from there and from Up Academy Dorchester were getting advice on applying to schools for 9th grade, most of the advice being delivered by Up Academy graduates who are attending High School at any of about 20 district, charter and parochial schools in Boston. I was much impressed by what I saw and heard including enthusiasm of students for some district high schools that are not among the most sought after.
Outside of Boston, the efforts in respect to Lawrence, MA under the direction of a state-appointed Receiver seem generally to get positive reviews:
http://edpolicy.education.jhu.edu/wordpress/?s=lawrence
I keep hearing that we’re now in a Trumpian post-fact world, so here’s the hard truth behind Stephen B. Ronan’s “facts”.
Orchard Park Pilot School needed a turnaround because the school department bumbled its opening, despite the fact that as a pilot, it already had more flexibility in its staffing, budgeting, governance, curriculum, and scheduling than traditional Boston Public Schools.
The Boston Teachers Union proposed a staggered opening for the new school, beginning with K1 through first grade and grade 6. Charters routinely open schools this way. The union also suggested having teachers apply as members of teams. The rational was that opening an 800 student building in what was essentially still a construction zone with a staff who neither knew each other or any students would be detrimental to a safe, positive school climate. The unions’ recommendations were ignored.
An unmitigated disaster ensued and the school churned through 6 principals in seven years, until Andrew Bott was hired in 2010 to helm up the turnaround. Bott received national attention when he used funds to hire an art teacher and dismissed security personnel. Because the school’s success was measured by the almighty MCAS scores, each successive administration had ratcheted up the focus on test prep, leaving a terribly narrowed curriculum and a chaotic school climate.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/02/orchard-gardens-andrew-bott_n_3202426.html
Orchard Park became the focus of all the strategies of the reformistas, detailed by this report from The National Center for Time & Learning. The school day was extended. Teachers worked a longer day and had two more weeks of PD (with very little compensation). The outside agencies City Year and Citizens Schools were brought in to support the extra hours. The school got $3.7 million extra in funding. Test scores went up. (Unreported is the fact that the cohort of students who had initially been enrolled had moved through the school by this point and Bott was able to build up a more positive school climate beginning with the youngest groups.)
Click to access orchardgardencasestudy.pdf
(An aside: National Center for Time & Learning is one of several edu-businesses run by Chris Gabrieli, currently Governor Baker’s Secretary of Higher Education. Another of his undertakings is called TransformED, which purports to “measure” social and emotional learning by surveying students. https://www.transformingeducation.org
Yet another is Empower Schools, which seeks a vaunted “third way” of transforming schools filled with poor kids who don’t speak English as their first language. This is the consultant group Ronan mentions in the case of Lawrence. The turnaround at Orchard Park seems to have been an early iteration for this endeavor. http://empowerschools.org
Gabrieli is a relentless education gadfly whose multiple consulting businesses seem to present no conflict of interest to the current Republican administration of Massachusetts.)
But the story doesn’t exactly have a happy ending: it wasn’t sustainable. A year after this glowing review, star principal Bott left the Boston system, taking a less taxing assignment in the wealthy suburb of Brookline and is now superintendent of schools there. (The suburbs often serve as a stepping-stone for Boston educators; the suburbs appreciate how much they are able to accomplish with so little and educators thrive with support, predictability and adequate funding.)
“Too much of what good principals try to accomplish is still a battle in Boston. From shaping their own curricula to making sure a student can get on the right bus to school, it’s all way harder than it should be. There have been some improvements, sure, but principals still spend way too much time hacking through the bureaucratic thicket.
Then there’s the money problem. Federal funds are poured into the worst schools, but not the slightly-better-than-worst ones, creating an us-vs.-them climate that wears principals down. The federal spigot shuts down when a low-performing school turns around, forcing principals to scramble to close the gap and safeguard the gains. Then there is this: Budget cuts loom for all district schools, which will turn up the heat on everyone.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/04/23/leadership-loss-for-boston-public-schools/9hSVyGqkE9sISCs9pOHqfP/story.html
UP Academy isn’t exactly a shining beacon of light either. Unlocking Potential got a no-bid contract to take over the Gavin Middle School, despite having no previous experience in such an undertaking. Perhaps it was because Mayor Menino’s fixer, Michael Kineavy, was a member of the board. (Menino, as seems to be an affliction of modern politicians, had an email problem; Kineavy disappeared them: http://www.mass.gov/ago/docs/press/boston-email-report.pdf)
First, UP set about recruiting a better test-taking population. They were given private school department contact information for students already enrolled in accelerated programs in other schools and set about getting parents to change schools. Also the Gavin had long housed a program for multi-handicapped students, whose low test scores of course contributed to overall lowered scores for the school.) UP raised a stink by trying to divest itself of these students and force them to go elsewhere. In the end, the program remained in the school building, but the kids are not considered a part of UP Academy.
But by far the most egregious transgression UP committed was to put a student in a private vehicle, without parental knowledge or permission, and deliver her, wearing her school uniform, like a package, to the doorstep of a nearby traditional public school. This was so outrageous an act that even the notoriously pro-charter Boston Globe reported it in a tone of shock.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/01/03/debate-swirls-about-academy-record-retaining-students/5TRlJNVeJ9F0pdDmdsabjM/story.html
As to the Dever School, perhaps it is the best illustration of the folly of having school reform run by ideology instead of slow, steady improvements dependent on well-funded research based policies.
The Dever is composed of some of our poorest kids, whose families are victims of generational poverty. Their parents themselves lack education and, certainly, social capital. Many are Puerto Ricans, who due to economic circumstances often toggle between island and mainland schools. This has an impact on school population stability and also presents a challenge because school in Puerto Rico is conducted in Spanish, so children need to be functionally literate in both English and Spanish. As citizens, Puerto Rican kids are entitled to schooling which is appropriate and can support their continued education – they need to be bilingual to succeed.
The very first step taken at the Dever by Blueprint – with the approval of DESE – was to dismantle the two-way language approach. This is based on a belief that our English language learners are deficient – they’re too stupid to be bilingual. Two-language immersion is fine for middle class kids, of course! But poor kids just need to learn English. Every scrap of research for at least the past 40 years (and common sense) has shown that you must build on the child’s first language literacy skills to develop the same skills in their second language. Imagine what it’s like to spend a day in school as a first grader who doesn’t speak English when you cannot comprehend what goes on around you and no one addresses you in a language you understand.
This same absurd policy is in effect in Springfield, Holyoke and Southbridge, all systems taken over by DESE, each with a sizable Puerto Rican population.
What turnarounds and takeovers amount to in the state of Massachusetts is a large-scale experiment on the most vulnerable populations of children. It is driven by ideology and by the businesses of politically connected educational entrepreneurs who endeavor to raise their own profiles while kids are deprived of an effective education.
It is shameful.
Those interested in exploring Up Academy Boston’s successes who are unable to spend time at the school or with its students might find this at least somewhat useful:
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/accountability/report/school.aspx?fycode=2016&orgcode=04800405
And thanks, Christine, for the link to the AG’s Report exonerating Kineavy…
Langhoff: “The very first step taken at the Dever by Blueprint – with the approval of DESE – was to dismantle the two-way language approach. This is based on a belief that our English language learners are deficient – they’re too stupid to be bilingual. Two-language immersion is fine for middle class kids, of course! But poor kids just need to learn English.”
I find it difficult to square that analysis, Christine, with this June 2014 Memorandum from the Commissioner shortly prior to the turnaround where he was responding to the Boston Teachers Union’s appeal of the Dever Elementary School Turnaround Plan:
Click to access dever-commissioner-memo-bese.pdf
In that Memo, the Commissioner, among other matters, defended his decision to terminate the dual language program, specifying its dearth of positive results, while writing:
“I believe there are five strategies that are most likely to result in both short term gains and long-lasting improvement: accelerate all students’ language development and literacy in English and provide families with the opportunity for content-rich Spanish language development for their students; improve instructional quality and maximize time for core instruction; use data to drive instruction; establish a culture of high expectations and college and career readiness; and hire and cultivate a high-performing faculty. The strategies’ effectiveness will be enhanced by the school’s emphasis on using both school and external partner resources to address students’ educational, social service, and other needs in order to facilitate students’ learning.
“Blueprint and I recognize the value of multi-lingualism in preparing students for college and career readiness in today’s multicultural world, and are committed to preserving a focus on multilingual education at Dever. The skills acquired in learning an additional language are valuable to prepare students for college and careers, and have been shown to enhance cognitive development, which helps support student learning across all content areas. Therefore, effective language development is at the center of our model for Dever’s turnaround and the rapid improvement of academic achievement for its students. We also know Dever serves families from diverse cultural, economic, and linguistic backgrounds and look forward to celebrating this diversity every day in Dever’s classrooms, curriculum, and school community. In addition, the Dever will offer a content-rich Spanish language instructional program for families that want this instructional approach for their children.
[…]
“Mobility and attrition rates at the school have been high. For instance, of the original 40-student cohort who entered the two Dual Language classrooms at Dever in Kindergarten in 2009-2010, only 14 currently remain at the school as 5th graders. In addition, approximately 15-20% of Dever students transfer in or out of the school throughout the year, preventing them from interacting with the dual language model for a full school year.
[…]
“This spring, Boston Public Schools called all 385 Dever families (calls placed in English and in Spanish), offering the opportunity to transfer their children into another BPS dual language program beginning in School Year 2014-2015, as the Dever program is being discontinued. Twenty-nine students’ families went to BPS Welcome Centers and requested dual language opportunities for their students at other BPS schools next year. BPS made individual phone calls to the families of all 29 students to discuss alternate options within the district. Of the 29 students, 17 were placed at other district dual language schools, eight students’ families ultimately chose for the students to remain at Dever, and four students will transfer to other BPS non-dual language schools next year.”
Stephen, you lost. 62% of the voters in your state turned down Question 2. No more charters.
You lost, Stephen. By 62-38%
Christine:
“Also the Gavin had long housed a program for multi-handicapped students, whose low test scores of course contributed to overall lowered scores for the school.) UP raised a stink by trying to divest itself of these students and force them to go elsewhere. In the end, the program remained in the school building, but the kids are not considered a part of UP Academy.”
By contrast, the Boston Globe article that Christine linked to:
“Wilder also said that pupils with severe disabilities who attended a specialized program at the Gavin were not enrolled at UP Academy because the School Department wanted to retain control of that program, rather than giving oversight to a private company.”
The School Department apparently wanted the specialized admission SPED program to continue indefinitely and recognized that as being incompatible with UP Academy’s admissions process which would be required to be lottery-based going forward.
“They don’t want more charter schools. They want strong and well-resourced public schools.”
Right? Obviously not getting the message.
It’s so funny because they probably could have GOTTEN the charter expansion if they had included ANYTHING AT ALL to benefit public schools, but that never even occurs to anyone in ed reform. It’s unimaginable, apparently.
Your “movement” probably has a problem if people believe you are actually out to destroy schools. That might be a tip-off you’re headed off a cliff 🙂
Diane, the concern that Superintendent Chang expressed is correct: the school would be taken over by the state, and the record of the state with individual schools has been ranged from disasterous to concerning. The school district was out of options (the Board of Ed this coming Tuesday has both the Mattahunt and Springfield High School of Commerce, which received the same message, on their agenda. I assume this will be the announcement of state takeover). Either the Boston School Committee voted to close the school or the state would take them over. All other options had been exhausted already.
To the question of if this would happen in a majority white school: no, because the state accountability system isn’t set up to ever declare such a school failing.
I don’t blame the superintendent or the school committee for this one. But we as a state have certainly failed the kids and families of the Mattahunt.
Tracy,
Sometimes people follow rules that are nonsensical. This is an example.
Since Question 2 was defeated by a margin of 2-1 here in Massachusetts, the privateers have been spinning hard enough to make Rumplestiltskin’s victim look like a slouch.
On November 15, we were treated to this little gem from the pro-charter Boston Globe:
“It’s time to hold the vocal opponents of Question 2 — the Boston Teachers Union, Mayor Walsh, and City Councilor Tito Jackson chief among them — accountable for the continuing failure of the Boston Public Schools. They need to level with constituents and make some hard choices. They must immediately take responsibility for their past inaction and work to fix a broken school system with the same zeal they worked to oppose more public charter schools.
They would do well to start by looking at the city’s high-performing public charter schools, which educate the same underserved children with far superior results, for what very clearly works.”
The writer, Scott Oran, goes on to excoriate the Boston Public Schools, ignoring that they’ve been lauded as one of the best public school systems in the nation. The Globe also ignores the fact that Oran, in addition to his duties as Chair of the Board of Trustees at Brooke Charter School (17% suspension rate) is also a Managing Director of Dinosaur Capital Partners with 26 years of local and national real estate experience as he kvetches about Boston having “excess” school property.
Another commenter has information about the $30,000,000 in reserve Brooke has for expansion.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/11/15/now-time-fix-bps/ZXmfWNaeUQMpTEzxqssPnK/story.html?outm_content=bufferaa6bd&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#comments
The Lowell Sun on November 20 treated us to a profile of three young people at a charter school, failing to say that the school’s dropout rate is 56.9%.
http://www.lowellsun.com/todaysheadlines/ci_30588617/success-stories-abound
And to round things out, DESE will be holding 5 hearings at the beginning of December to begin the process of opening 4 more charter schools.
The voters spoke, but it seems few in power are listenng to what they had to say.
Boston Public Schools are working on implementing a strategy to improve student performance in all schools. We do not have a perfect strategy in place so the failures hurt. It is a mistake to globalized from a particular case. If we had autonomy to address the issues at the Matta hunt, or time, we may have chosen a different approach. With limited time and resources, we are following a reasonable strategy to serve the community. We need to focus on getting more resources so that we can improve the performance of level 3 and 4 schools.
I would appreciate any clarification in respect to what kind of increased autonomy would have been helpful in respect to the Mattahunt. I’m guessing that you mean autonomy of the district relative to state requirements, but perhaps you mean autonomy of the school’s leadership in respect to burdensome district, union and state requirements. Any detail about the obstacles and how they were preventing progress would be appreciated. Thanks.
Stephen,
On November 8, the voters of Massachusetts made it overwhelmingly clear that those “burdensome district, union and state requirements” their public schools must adhere to are quite okay, thank you very much, by a margin of 2-1.
We turned down the offer of more charters where teachers need not be certified before standing in front of a classroom full of kids.
We said no to more charters where teachers receive demand notices for “liquidated damages” because they change jobs:
http://massteacher.org/news/archive/2016/malden_charter_school_seeks_damages_from_teachers_for_changing_jobs.aspx
We said no to more schools where repeated suspension of kindergarteners is no big deal (unless it gets reported) – 68 of 117 at UP Academy Holland.
http://learninglab.legacy.wbur.org/2016/02/03/school-network-with-most-kindergarten-suspensions-says-it-will-stop-them/
Massachusetts – and Boston – have the best public schools in the nation and one of the highest rates of unionized teachers. The voters understand that teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions. They are not on board the privatization train of evisceration of burdensome requirements.
I think you may be jumping to some unwarranted conclusions there, Christine.
For example, you write: “We said no to more schools where repeated suspension of kindergarteners is no big deal (unless it gets reported) – 68 of 117 at UP Academy Holland.”
Up Academy Holland was not encompassed by the ballot question as it is not a Commonwealth Charter school. In fact it’s not a Horace Mann or any other kind of charter school. It’s a Level 5 district school whose state-managed turnaround status, with Up Academy named in 2014 as the Receiver, is entirely unaffected by the ballot question.
Perhaps you are suggesting that voters were confused and that some thought that the ballot question was focused on district schools like the Holland. That’s plausible. Confusion abounded. We’ve discussed that here, including inaccurate information knowingly included in the Save Our Schools materials.
I voted early at the Strand Theater in Uphams Corner… Very long wait for those in line outside. For hours, walking up and down the line was a woman with a No on Two T-shirt and a microphone. Over and over and over, at disconcertingly high volume, she told us to vote no, and interspersed that with telling us again and again and again that when a child goes to a charter school, the charter school gets the money from the district for the child’s education, but then when the child wants to go back to a district school the charter school keeps the money, there’s no money to educate the child at the district school… he/she will be left “out in the street”.
And then on election day I was at the polls at City Hall, holding a sign for another campaign unrelated to Q2, and I got into a conversation with the hard-working, passionate person who was representing the No on 2 campaign. I asked her her view and she immediately launched into how it seemed unfair to her that when students go to a charter school the school gets the money but when a child leaves part way through the year the district school isn’t fairly compensated for educating the child the rest of the year… at least she didn’t mention kids “out in the street”…
My guess is that union representatives distributed that misinformation to teachers along with other incorrect information, e.g., about attrition and college persistence. Can you confirm or deny that? If you’re not sure whether or not that’s the case, would you be willing to join with me in investigating whether or not it is?
As I hope you yourself know, according to our state department of education, “For students who attend the charter school for less than the full year, the tuition payment shall be reduced based on the number of days of enrollment.”
http://www.doe.mass.edu/charter/governance/adminguide.doc (page 74)
And adjustments are made quarterly (page 75).
p.s. Congratulations to you on all your contributions to the O’Bryant school’s well-deserved, impressively excellent reputation.