Notes from the Field
Submitted by Frank Murphy, December 9, 2010
Several months ago at the school district’s request, consultants employed by textbook publisher McGraw Hill, created customized pacing and instructional guides for its Glencoe and Imagine It programs. These programs are currently in use in the district’s Empowerment Schools. The glossy, professionally produced documents are three hundred plus pages in length. Multiple copies were distributed to the teachers at each grade level in each Empowerment School. Throughout the summer and into the fall, paid consultants also conducted extensive professional development sessions for teachers on the use of these guides. Now, barely three months into the school year, these materials are being abandoned to make way for a newly mandated instructional plan for the Empowerment Schools.
This is just one of many examples of how basic district services are being outsourced by district leadership. This growing trend is a result of the strategies implemented by the last two district superintendents, Paul Vallas and Arlene Ackerman. As a result of their actions, important components of the school district’s infrastructure have been dismantled. The elimination of regional offices and more pointedly, the handing over of district schools to independent management contractors, are both prime examples of the Philadelphia School District’s movement away from being the provider of the city’s educational services to the funder of services being provided by other non-profit and/or for profit organizations.
The services provided by the district’s Chief Academic Office, including curriculum writing, teacher professional development and strategic planning, are also gradually being contracted out to vendors. The district’s 2010 budget book describes this office as providing organizational accountability and clarity to the instructional services being offered to children. Its focus is on providing services to the district’s school communities and achieving the goals of the School District of Philadelphia.
In the 2010 school budget, this office allocated $28, 498,078 for the purchase of professional or technical services. Two of its associated offices also allocated significant budget funds for use in purchasing contracted services: the Teaching and Learning Office allotted $9,468,414, and the High School Reform Office allotted $5,258,277. The amount of money targeted in all three of these offices for contract services represents the largest expenditure for any one-budget line in each of their individual budgets.
The large sum of money budgeted by the Chief Academic Office for the purpose of contracting services suggests that this office is turning over many of its responsibilities to independent contractors. The money that was expended on creating the now-discarded literacy-pacing guides most likely came from the Chief Academic Office’s budget. The extensive utilization of non school district agents to accomplish the instructional objectives of the district is a less than transparent process. It also draws into question what function the Chief Academic Office staff actually does serve in addressing student needs.
When the district begins to abdicate its responsibility to provide basic instructional services in this way it is in fact allowing its contractors to determine what is best for the children of the district. In this case, the taxpayers who fund our school district are denied the degree of accountability, customer service, and clarity that they would expect from the salaried staff responsible for providing an adequate educational program for the students of the district.
The primary objective of a vendor is to sell its products and services. When a vendor virtually takes complete control of designing, planning, implementing, and monitoring the instructional programs, as McGraw Hill has done in the Empowerment Schools, it is doubtful that the interests and needs of the students in these schools will supersede the interests of this corporation.
The frequent replacing of our instructional programs and services by the school administration in charge at the moment has significantly diminished the instructional continuity of our schools. This consistent practice of inconsistency has placed our children’s future at risk and has greatly wasted our limited public resources.
The current “mid-course” corrections that are planned for the Empowerment Schools are intended as the solutions to problems identified by the classroom teachers who are using the customized Glencoe and Imagine It pacing guides. The remedy offered by McGraw Hill is to use its programs in their entirety, a misguided response to legitimate teacher concerns about its limitations in providing an enriching literacy program. This raises question about the instructional expertise of the staff reporting to the Chief Academic Office. Why are they relying on their commercial vendors to make the instructional decisions in these schools?
epikeia
December 9, 2010 at 12:05 pm
It seems to me that the goal in this district (and eventually, in the country) is to remove all decision-making from the people who have the education and experience to teach children (teachers.) It is part and parcel of the move by the wealthy and the right to privatize everything. In the future, companies will produce and sell products that so-called “teachers” (low paid, drone-like warm bodies) will implement in the classroom. The programs will be flashy, attractive, carefully structured “lessons” (often computer-based) that will dazzle the public with their appeal. These programs’ “effectiveness” will be defined by their ability to raise standardized test scores, and validated by university researchers whose livelihoods depend more and more on their grant sponsors (guess who?)
Education as a corporate endeavor, teachers as assembly line workers, children as widgets — as a wise man once prophesized, all the children will then be “above average.”
iteachinphilly
December 9, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Teachers want consistency as much as their students. We get several messages from this: 1. administration doesn’t know what it’s doing so they’ll try everything 2. here comes another waste of taxpayer money 3. whatever they come up with, it won’t last, so just hang on until the next change.