City School Stories

Notes from the Field

by Frank Murphy on Jul 28, 2011

This Saturday, the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action will take place in Washington D.C. The rally, which will be staged at the ellipse, starts at noon.  Around 1:30 p.m., participants will march to the White House where the demonstration will continue.

Many readers will recognize that most, if not all, of the issues that we regularly discuss in the comments of the Notebook blog are represented in the march’s guiding principles.

In an earlier post on City School Stories, I wrote about the significance of this event and how it relates to the education reform turmoil currently occurring in the School District of Philadelphia.

Participating in this national demonstration is just one more way for public school parents, teachers, and students to express their dissatisfaction with the course of school reforms, not only in their local communities but throughout the nation as well.

Parents Across America, one of the sponsoring organizations of the march and rally, offers a wealth of relevant information on their website for anyone concerned about the current direction of school reform in our nation. PAA’s position papers are intended to be useful guides for teachers and parents who are committed to promoting policies that will help to strengthen public schools.

PAA also offers fact sheets including:

• Tying Teacher Salaries to Test Scores Doesn’t Work,
• a comparison chart of the relative success of reducing class versus using Race to the Top strategies, and
• a summary of independent polling information showing a drop in support of Obama administration’s education policies.

Hopefully, a good representation of our Philadelphia school community will be present in D.C. this Saturday. Will you be there?

Let us know how it goes and follow tweets about the march via the #SOSmarch hashtag.Save Our Schools March

Notes from the Field

Submitted by Timothy Boyle on July 7, 2011

We knew when Imagine 2014 was rolled out that the School District of Philadelphia was headed for a serious shake-up. There was a plan in place for, a theory of action on; the interventions schools that fared the worst on the PSSA (low-achieving in the parlance of our times) would receive.  The School Performance Index was supposed to be the metric by which turnarounds would be judged. Or so we thought.

The School Performance Index results came out, and speculation about which schools would be turned around began. Receiving a score of 10:10 meant a school was performing the worst compared to demographically similar schools, as well as the District schools as a whole. All schools rated 10:8 or worse made the Renaissance or Alert school list. Of the original 10:10 schools, only five became charters or promise academies. The other five schools were relegated to the Alert list. Thirteen schools were turned around however. Seven of the 10:9 schools and two of the 10:8 schools were included. Vague reasons like “neighborhood factors” and “school readiness” were given as the reason why some 10:10 schools were left alone while some 10:8 were turned around.

This confusing trend has continued with the Renaissance II cohort of schools. Read the rest of this entry »

Notes from the Field

Submitted by Katherine Simon on July 5, 2011

Katherine Simon is a grad student at Columbia’s School of Journalism.  Currently, she’s working on a radio series on cyber schooling.

Here’s a note from her:

“The story I’m trying to tell is looking at cyber from all angles — the possible benefits, the real success stories, but also, the potential drawbacks.

I’m looking for some former cyber school teachers and students.  So far, in my research, I’ve talked with a number of academics and policy makers who are critical of cyber schools because they say the education is not up to par.  However, all of the students, teachers and parents I’ve spoken with have been extremely happy with the education.  If you are a teacher, parent or student who hasn’t had the positive experience that’s advertised, please contact me at: katie.a.simon@gmail.com.  I want to make sure my story is balanced and accurate.”

Notes from the Field

Submitted by Frank Murphy on June 28, 2011

In March of 2011, the Seattle School Board voted to terminate the contract of its Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Marie Goodloe-Johnson.  This decision was made after the Board determined that Goodloe-Johnson had mismanaged a financial scandal involving a mid-level manager of the district.  An audit of the district’s finances had revealed improper activity in the district’s small business contracting program.

This marked the end of the tumultuous three and half year tenure of Goodloe-Johnson in Seattle. Extensive reporting of the many controversies that swirled around this Broad Academy-trained superintendent can be found on the Seattle Education blog.  This post, Ten + Reasons Why the Seattle Public Schools Superintendent, Dr. Marie Goodloe-Johnson, Should Be Fired With Cause, provides a comprehensive summary of her policy and program initiatives.

As I read this particular piece, I could not help but note the similarities between the actions of this Broad-trained superintendent and our own Broad-affiliated Superintendent Ackerman. They definitely share “ A Broad View” on how a school district should be managed. Both of these school superintendents have distinguished themselves as autocratic leaders with poor communication skills and a propensity for creating toxic work environments within their respective districts. Read the rest of this entry »

Notes from the Field

Submitted by Frank Murphy on June 23, 2011

The School District of Philadelphia is bucking under the demands of ill-conceived school reform policies and programs.  Since the inception of No Child Left Behind, the attempts of its leaders to respond to this federal mandate has not served the children of the district well. The over emphasis placed on use of student test scores to measure the success of the district and its schools, has disrupted student instruction, lowered teacher morale and shattered school communities.

Philadelphia is not alone in this struggle.  Districts through out the nation are undergoing similar trials.  Numerous other districts like Chicago, New York, Dallas, Seattle are facing budget shortfalls, school closings, teacher layoffs and the privatization of public schools.

Dianne Ravitch, a prominent advocate for public schools, describes the negative consequences of No Child Left Behind and the Race to the Top Initiative on local districts in this recent posting on her website.  It is a must read for every educator, activist, and concerned citizen who is alarmed by the course that our national leaders have plotted for public education. Read the rest of this entry »

Notes from the Field

Submitted by Angela Chan, June 14, 2011

Angela Chan has been a teacher with the School District of Philadelphia for the last 8 years. She started her career as a first grade teacher.  For the last four years she has been teaching 3^rd grade.

Today’s post contains an excerpt from a presentation she made as speaker at TAG’S second annual Curriculum Fair and Citywide Summit.   In this address she described the challenges which Empowerment School teachers face as they grapple with the expectation that they implement a mandated curricula and focus extensively on test prep activities.  She also discusses the impact this new instructional reality has on her students and fellow teachers.

As an Empowerment School, we implement the mandated scripted Corrective Reading and Math programs, and just this year, the largely Direct Instruction program, Imagine It!, replaced our balanced literacy program.  So over the last two years, we are contending with curriculum that is becoming more scripted, instruction that is largely teacher-directed, and an increasingly relentless focus on standardized test preparation. The mandated scripted and direct instruction programs are supposed to address our students’ deficit in basic skills and they are supposed to help schools improve test scores, but what they really cause is a narrowing of the curriculum that takes time away from in depth study of themes, and a stripping away of teacher agency, as well as the devaluing of teacher expertise that is crucial to truly meeting the needs of students.

It is in this type of environment that teachers and students are striving to take back the teaching and learning process and to minimize the harm caused by mandated curriculum. Read the rest of this entry »

Notes from the Field

Submitted by Frank Murphy, June 8, 2011

Last Thursday I published a post in which I requested that Arlene Ackerman listen to the voice of reason concerning her budget priorities for the upcoming school year.  Specifically, I suggested that she redirect the Title One funds targeted to support an eighteen-day district wide summer program, to restore funding for a full day kindergarten program.  Interestingly enough, the next day (to the surprise of Mayor Nutter and Ackerman’s other political supporters) she decided to use Title funds to do so.

Now that was an easy solution.  It was so easy in fact that you have to wonder how many other of the radical cuts she has proposed could be restored by her merely reordering her spending priorities. Read the rest of this entry »

Notes from the Field

Submitted by Timothy Boyle, June 7, 2011

The only thing more popular than turning failing public schools into charters or linking student test scores to teachers these days is STEM education. Gaining momentum for several years now, the combined teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics is one of the current darlings of the Department of Education.

Individually teachers know what all of these disciplines are, and I think the average teacher has varying degrees of comfort teaching them. The Planning and Scheduling Timeline we follow emphasis 21^st century skills and an effort has been made to incorporate the STEM idea into our curriculum. At our most basic level, elementary science teachers are trying to follow packaged curricula of companies like Science Teaching for Children (STC) of Full Option Science System (FOSS). Those with the equipment, expertise, and most importantly time to teach science can go even further.  I’d like to take one lesson I’ve taught recently and identify how it meets the goals of STEM. Read the rest of this entry »

Notes from the Field

Submitted by Frank Murphy, June 2, 2011

In a time when the School District of Philadelphia faces an enormous budget gap, it seems that Arlene Ackerman is still undeterred from pursuing unnecessary expenditures.  The $2.75 billion budget approved by the School Reform Commission yesterday still includes funding for a summer school program.  This is one of several budgeted activities (along with Promise Academies, Benchmark testing and contracted services) that have been challenged by parents, educators, advocates and some local elected officials.

None of these individuals are theoretically questioning the appropriateness of conducting a summer school program, per say.  The issue in this case is one of priorities.  When tough decisions must be made in deciding what we can and cannot afford in fiscally hard times, an eighteen day summer program serving a small percentage of the district’s students isn’t an item at the top of many people’s “to keep” list.  Certainly, using limited precious dollars for summer school certainly pales in comparison to offering full day kindergarten classes all year long.  But full day kindergarten unfortunately is one of the programs being cut, while summer school is left intact in the budget that the School Reform Commission has voted to approve.

In defense of her decision, as noted in this Notebook post, Ackerman implied at the SRC budget adoption that research on the effectiveness of summer school programs show benefits equivalent to that of kindergarten and early childhood education programs. This is quite a claim. Read the rest of this entry »

Notes from the Field

Submitted by Frank Murphy, May 31, 2011

Across the state of Pennsylvania, school district administrators are struggling to grapple with the painful process of reducing services to the children whom they serve.  They do so in response to the billion-dollar reduction in state education funding proposed by Governor Corbett.  Cutting full day kindergarten classes is one of the most troublesome of options on the reduction list of some district leaders.

This will mean that an effective and proven strategy for assisting young children to build the prerequisite skills that they will need for future literacy achievement will be denied them.  Any individual who purports the belief that all children should have access to a high quality instructional program should consider this possibility as unacceptable.  Indeed, I would think that the corporate school reformers and their political allies who dominant America’s educational agenda would be right on top of this serious problem. They claim that they are on a civil rights crusade to save every child from the ill effects of an inferior educational experience. Read the rest of this entry »