Posts filed under 'Education'
At the January 26 Board of Education meeting that dealt primarily with the Gloucester charter school mess, Secretary Reville does his best imitation of Gibson in Conspiracy Theory. He notes “a number of attempts to distract us from the focus that we ought to have,” people who “[cloak] themselves in talk about de-politicizing the process,” “the well-worn tools of political assassination, innuendos, and threats of various kinds.” There are those who seek to “diminish the courage” and perseverance he has to do what’s in the best interests of children and to maintain the “integrity of the board.”
It’s bizarre, then, to watch a Republican Senator (Bruce Tarr), a Democratic Representative (Anne-Marie Ferrante), and the Inspector General Gregory Sullivan, who comes without party affiliation, all highlighting egregious errors and politicization of the process by the Secretary and by the Commissioner.
Tarr noted “deep flaws in the process,” a situation that “day by day becomes worse and worse and worse,” with “voluminous information that continues to come forward”. He bemoans the lack of integrity and the black mark this approval puts on what was “the best [charter approval process] in the nation.”
Ferrante notes (here and here) similarly “each time I appear before you… it gets worse and worse and worse,” that being blunt “the findings in the IG’s report are appalling,” “departure from procedure,” a commissioner who “mislead the oversight committee in Gloucester,” “shredding of documents.”
The IG notes (here and here) that the Board voted in support of the Gloucester application because they thought that the state’s Charter School Office (CSO) had recommended it, that the Board voted without knowledge that the CSO had found that the applicant group did not meet the criteria, and that the applicant had failed to meet two of the required criteria categories. He says the Commissioner should not only have disclosed the CSO’s view, but also that he has no authority to recommend a charter not meeting those criteria:
“The Commissioner will not recommend that the board awards charters to applicant groups whose applications do not meet the stated criteria for a charter in the application, as corroborated in the final interview of the applicant group by the charter school office.”
The Secretary did a great job in advancing the ed reform bill – probably the most important reform in education since 1997, when there was a lift in the charter cap and the creation of unionized Horace Mann charter schools. But on this one, they have made a real mess. And it is not partisan politics, as can be seen in the line-up of those providing testimony — an R, a D, and an IG.
If the Secretary is alluding to Pioneer, I’d simply say that we have been worried about the politicization of the Board of Education since day one. We are on record about this. We testified against the Art. 87 changes to create a Secretary position, just as he had in 2003 when then-Gov. Romney proposed something similar.
The messes he is dealing with in Gloucester and, now, in Brockton are his messes. We read about the midnight email the same day everyone else did in the Gloucester Times. The martyrdom thing is wearing thin.
February 3rd, 2010
Pioneer has always taken the view that the state should close failing schools (including charter schools). They should also take corrective action including perhaps closure when schools prove incapable of living up to fiduciary basics like handling money and reporting results honestly.
Some charter supporters have urged us to come out and support shutting Hughes down. Some are worried about the bad PR for charters. I am of a different view. If the facts demonstrate failure (academic or fiduciary), then, yes, by all means close it. But I know enough from all the work we do in Springfield and our other cities that you don’t jump to conclusions from Boston. The Hughes case is way beyond a “misunderstanding.” But will it require closure? Or is remediation (including punishments, firing and reconstitution of the board) possible?
It looks worse and worse for the school, but let’s wait a few more days for all the facts to come out. Jamie Vaznis and the Globe gives the department of ed’s line, and Jack Flynn of the Springfield Republican covers both sides of the story. More information needed.
Two points are worth making:
(1) There is no benefit to the kids in the school for this to happen. But having the story out there carries one benefit to those across the state who care about good schools. Charter schools are accountable, and this stuff comes out and there is action the state can take.
(2) Before the Guv shut the independent accountability office, dozens and dozens of district schools were cited each year for likely cheating to bump up MCAS scores. Did they merit a single news story? Did they get shut down? Were they subject to real corrective action?
You know the answer to that one. That’s worth a story. Perhaps Jamie Vaznis or Jack Flynn will write it some day…
January 25th, 2010
The Lowell Sun reported a week or so back that
Teachers Union President Paul Georges decried what he called “lies” from the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank, that linked charter-school funding to the state’s ability to qualify for Race to the Top funds.
“We do not need a bill to qualify for the money,” Georges said. “Massachusetts is in the top tier of two or three states.”
I am sure Mr. Georges is a nice man and is not a liar. That said, I would suggest better reading materials than MTA talking points. Fact is, with states across the country making hard reforms, Massachusetts cannot simply live in the past and expect its crown of laurels to remain in tact.
As we noted to legislators on Monday (here and here), from May onward, the president and the US Secretary of Education have been very clear and very consistent in calling for the lifting of charter caps, whether in June:
“We are fighting this on a state by state battle, that’s the battleground. Places like Rhode Island that are
thinking about under-funding charters are obviously going to put themselves at a huge competitive
disadvantage going forward. So we don’t think that’s a smart thing for them to do, and we’re going to
make that very, very clear.”
Or July:
“States that don’t have charter laws or put artificial caps on the growth of charter schools will jeopardize their applications under the Race to the Top fund,” Duncan told reporters last month. “Simply put, they put themselves at a competitive disadvantage for the largest pool of discretionary dollars states have ever had access to.”
Or December:
“I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of progress and reform we’ve seen already, before submitting a dime… The amount of progress, the amount of change we’ve already seen — 48 states working on common standards, lots of charter school restrictions going away.
Yes, that’s December 2009. Mr. Georges and Massachusetts will need to wake from their slumber.
December 23rd, 2009
The Chicago Tribune editorial page ran an incredible piece just before Thanksgiving. I will give much of it to you below, but you have to promise to watch the video I am linking to.
We watched an interesting YouTube video the other day. It was brought to our attention by state Sen. James Meeks, the Chicago Democrat who is also pastor of Salem Baptist Church on the South Side. We think our readers should check out the video. It’ll open your eyes.
Meeks, who chairs the Illinois Senate Education Committee, has been in a war with the Chicago Teachers Union since he had some tough things to say about public education in a Tribune essay and in a speech at Rainbow Push.
The CTU responded with a vow not to give him another dime in campaign money until he apologized. Meeks promptly wrote a check for $4,000, giving back every dime the union had already given him.
No apology.
You have to love this guy. He’s genuinely looking out for kids and doesn’t back down to pressure.
Back to the video. It shows the top lawyer of the National Education Association, Bob Chanin, speaking at the NEA’s annual meeting in July. Chanin was retiring. This was his swan song.
Chanin makes unmistakably clear what the highest priority is for the union. Hint: It’s not the education of your kids.
Chanin closed his nearly 25-minute speech by explaining the influence of the NEA:
“Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power.
And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year, because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees.”
Oh, it gets more interesting.
“This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing dropout rates, improving teacher quality and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary. These are the goals that guide the work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights and collective bargaining. That simply is too high a price to pay.”
Too high a price to pay for educated children. Chanin got wild applause from thousands of NEA members at the San Diego Convention Center for his remarks.
We tried for several days to get NEA officials to explain those remarks. We wanted to ask if the rest of the union leadership believed that kids ranked behind collective bargaining on the teacher priority list. We’re still waiting to hear from them.
We know the answer the Chicago Teachers Union gave the Rev. Meeks: Cross us and we’ll choke off your money.
Meeks plans to introduce a bill in January that would give the kids at Chicago’s lowest-performing schools a choice. It would give kids at 15 high schools and 48 elementary schools a voucher to pay for another school.
He plans to push to remove the cap on the number of charter schools in Illinois. The legislature raised the cap this year. But there should be no cap at all.
…
The video can be seen by clicking here. Pioneer fights the same “adult” interests here in Massachusetts, and we make no apology for pushing a reform agenda. Shame on the NEA for opposing it. Shame on the MTA and AFT for trying to block up the charter school bill.
The truth is, we will get more charters now, or we will get more over the next few years. The problem is that the unions have pit themselves against the interest of kids — inner city kids. With a good education, many of these children would grow up and start businesses, make money and lead to the redevelopment of their communities.
For now we are stuck. A year or two, or even five, may not matter to adults. But to a first- or second-grader it’s an eternity, and it will likely chart the course of their destinies.
December 3rd, 2009
Laura Crimaldi of the Boston Herald has done a good job reporting on the Governor’s frustration with what he perceives as the House’s lack of urgency in pushing for the creation of more charter schools.
Of course, I want to see urgency, but today’s report just, well, it shows the Guv to lack a little self-reflection.
“The problem is we’ve been waiting more than a decade,” Patrick said during a visit to the Excel Academy Charter School. “We’re talking about our kids who have been stuck in this achievement gap for well too long.”
He added: “It is a little frustrating to me that this has waited until the last minute.”
Look, I am really appreciative that the Guv gets it now on charters. I really am. But this is a bit much. Think of the Guv’s timeline on ed reform, where he has shown no urgency at all. Only with the RTTT funds did he see the light. And the problem is that he may have pushed us back too far to get it done on time.
- June 01, 2007 – Governor Patrick Unveils Vision for Next Phase of Education Reform
- Feb 26, 2008 – Paul Reville, then-Board of Ed chair appointed by Gov. Patrick, and Board of Education rejects proposed SABIS-Brockton charter school that would serve over 1,300 students. SABIS is a proven charter provider that runs a successful, minority majority charter school in Springfield.
- March 11, 2008 – Governor Patrick Names Paul Reville Secretary of Education
- June 11, 2008 – Gov. Patrick/ Sec. Reville first float “readiness school” idea with Globe. Orginal design is to freeze charters in districts that take up readiness schools.
- February 2009 – The Guv makes his first proposal to expand charters but with so many poison pills for charters as to get no backing whatsoever.
- July 16, 2009 – Governor Patrick Pushes to Improve Public Schools: Joined by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan at the Museum of Science in Boston, where he unveiled his plans to raise the charter cap (without so many strings).
Again, glad for the Guv’s change of heart, but he can’t change history. He was slow to act, and he has to shoulder much of the blame for the inability to get this done before the end of the session.
We need strong education leadership on the Hill. Sen. Rob O’Leary is, it strikes me, a potential heir to that role. Let’s hope.
Sixteen years after the landmark Education Reform legislation, 100,000 inner city kids remain in failing schools. This is no time to point fingers. Rather, it is high time we get 27,000 more slots for inner city kids in great schools.
November 19th, 2009
The Senate is going to be debating a bill that on the face of it lifts the charter school cap. But it is deeply flawed. Some of it goes back to the Governor’s first proposal on charters in February 2009. With the Race to the Top fund in the balance, he showed leadership in changing his view in July, when he issued a proposal that maximizes the possibility of receiving federal funds and (1) doubles the number of kids in charters, (2) leaves the rest of the existing in tact, with a framework to ensure that charter operators redouble their efforts to enroll special needs and English language learners.
The Senate Ways & Means bill under consideration is deeply flawed. It undermines several key drivers of the Massachusetts charter school model, which has proven very successful.
(1) It seems that for-profit charter operators are prohibited. Also, charters that have proprietary curricula will not be able to charge if a district seeks to “replicate” of any part of that curriculum. Question: What about the SABIS school in Springfield? It is one of the top urban high schools in the nation? Are we really saying we don’t want more SABIS schools? That’s not a smart provision.
(2) The lottery system for student admissions is changed. The bill goes beyond defining what is a good marketing effort for special needs and English language learners. It establishes, in effect, quotas for these select groups. That is not fair, because charters serve a much higher number of African-American and Hispanic students (50 to 22%) and low-income students (44 to 30%) than district schools. Question: Do other states do this? Answer: Not that I know of.
(3) The bill changes the charters’ accountability around academic excellence. Charters create a culture of learning and goals based on excellence. But by requiring that charter schools backfill any open seat created by a student transferring out of the charter, they put at risk the mission. Take an 11th-grader who joined the charter school in the 9th grade. The child starts a couple of years behind, but catches up with the additional attention and the school’s culture of learning. By the 11th grade, the child is at grade level or better, and he has passed the MCAS. Still he may feel like transferring back to the district if he falls behind in class and senses that he may be held back and required to repeat the year at the charter. In that case, he might transfer back to the district school knowing that the district schools will socially promote him.
Question: Should charters have to take an 11th grader on its waiting list to make up for that student? That’s what the bill calls for. But it is a mistake because any non-charter child transferring in will likely not be prepared for 11th-grade AP classes. Rather than this, the Senate should either leave the current system in place or require that charters take students in their “entry year” of operation; e.g., for a high school, it would be 9th grade.
Question: Why not simply require that districts set a date-certain for any returns from charter schools and abide by charter school decisions on whether a student should fail not. That would take away the temptation of giving up on academic excellence in a charter, for the students mainly attrite from charters to districts because they know the district schools will socially promote them.
(4) Equitable funding. The bill would put 20% of charter funding in a separate line item subject to annual appropriation. Given the next two years, that’s like telling charters that cuts are imminent. Such an outcome would set us back to pre-1993 Education Reform Act days.
My takeaway? Go back to the Governor’s proposal.
November 16th, 2009
I have been at a meeting in North Carolina with budget watchdog and fiscal conservative groups for the last two days. Lots of great ideas, but clearly being from Massachusetts sets you apart from other folks in some ways.
One example is how Governors have used their stimulus money. When I discussed with them how we cut deep into our education budget and plugged the hole with stimulus dollars, they said, hey, your Governor’s being fiscally conservative. I disagree because I think you have to prioritize education. The Governor definitely does, as I have noted, if he wants to assert, as he did in a recent video (now pulled?), that he has made “extraordinary efforts to invest in… education.”
I cited a report from the US DOE’s Inspector General criticizing three states for using the stimulus funds in a way that was not intended in the stimulus legislation. Massachusetts was one of the three. (See the OIG’s memo and the Federal OESE’s response here.) I concluded:
The Patrick administration has not done anything illegal but the feds don’t like it.
Well, I have to amend that statement. Some of the feds don’t like it. The USDOE’s Inspector General does not like it, as is evident in the report. But, as Libby Quaid of the AP wire reports, Secretary Arne Duncan has given the Governor’s cuts his blessing.
“The Education Department is reassuring the state of Massachusetts it does not agree with an internal watchdog who suggested the state was using economic stimulus money improperly. The department’s inspector general had singled out Massachusetts and two other states, Connecticut and Pennsylvania, for using stimulus dollars to plug budget holes instead of boosting aid for schools.
‘We’ve looked at this pretty carefully,’ Education Secretary Arne Duncan said. ‘Massachusetts has done nothing wrong or illegal.’”
Note: I never said anything illegal was done. What I said was that it wasn’t right for Massachusetts. I stand by that statement no matter what Secretary Arne Duncan, who is doing a great job, says. I stand by that statement no matter what my fiscal conservative friends say.
We have always been proponents of doing hard things like raising the cap on charters, strengthening standards, and putting back in place accountability for all schools, especially including failing district schools. (I think people know well we are also for harder things like fixing the pension system, etc.)
But fund the schools and don’t position us in front of a massive cliff when the stimulus money is gone. And, folks, it’s (for all intents and purposes) gone.
November 4th, 2009
From Marc Kenen of the Mass Charter School Association comes some good news.
The new MCAS growth model analysis shows that charter public schools are producing very strong academic gains for their students statewide (see the data at the Boston Globe online):
* In Grade 6, charters represented 9 of the top 10 growth districts in math and 6 of the top 10 districts in English;
* In Grade 8, charters represented 7 of the top 10 growth districts in math and 4 of the top 10 districts in English;
* In Grade 10, charters represented 5 of the top 10 growth districts in both math and English.
October 28th, 2009
Whitney Tilson passes on additional news from RI. Given that the state department of education certifies schools of education, RI Education Commissioner Gist also raised the minimum score required to get into RI teacher training programs.
“cut score” required to enter the teacher training program at all RI colleges. We previously had the lowest cut score in the country, tied with Guam. To set the new cut score, she asked her staff to research who had the highest in the country, and learned it was Virginia. So she set our cut score one point higher than theirs.
From Jennifer Jordan’s report in the Providence Journal:
It’s going to get harder to become a teacher in Rhode Island.
Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist, who has made teacher quality the cornerstone of her three-month-old administration, is raising the score that aspiring teachers must achieve on a basic skills test required for admission to all of the state’s teacher training programs.
Currently, Rhode Island’s “cut score” ranks among the lowest in the nation, alongside Mississippi and Guam. Gist wants to raise it to the highest…
Gist says she intends to transform “the entire career span of a teacher,” including who is allowed to train to become a teacher, the rigor of the programs, mentoring of new teachers, support and training for veteran teachers, and the reward of higher pay for high performance…
Gist and her staff reviewed other states’ cut scores and found Virginia’s to be the highest in reading, math and writing. Gist set Rhode Island’s score one point higher than Virginia’s in each subject, saying she wants to make Rhode Island’s education system the envy of the nation.
Again, if we think we are going to swim through to federal funds on the Governor’s relationship with the President, I think we are in for a rude awakening.
October 28th, 2009
In a recent post, I pointed to the new Commissioner of Education in RI, Deborah Gist, and her moves to remove seniority from decisions about teacher hiring and deployment.
(Springfield, MA, is the only other place in the Northeast to be trying hard to address this issue. And while the contract in Springfield is great, I am not at all sure where implementation is.)
Take a listen to the Dan Yorke show on WPRO for both Commissioner Gist’s view and NEA-RI Executive Director Bob Walsh’s reaction.
Kudos to Dan Yorke for pressing his guests and his civility. Really great stuff.
Note to the Chairs of the Education Committee, Marty Walz and Bob O’Leary: Lots of other states (even RI) are making some really hard decisions in order to get into pole position on the RTTT Funds.
http://630wpro.com/Article.asp?id=1561788&spid=18040
October 28th, 2009
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