Let's see how the district's PR spokespeople spin their way out of these "setbacks for PPS" items:
- Backtracking at Madison -- To the cheers of students, the "small school reforms" at Madison High School have been abandoned. Recall that it was only a short while ago that the district was forced to reinstate the most vocal critic of Madison's autonomous "silo" schools, counselor David Colton, after his involuntary transfer.
- Boundary change boondoggle -- The district has also retracted the letters it sent out notifying unsuspecting parents their students had been assigned to Marshall, rather that Franklin, because of boundary changes approved by the school board back in ...2003!
- Another critical audit -- First there was the Portland/Multnomah County audit highly critical of the district's transfer policy (which the school board has yet to address.) Now comes an audit from the state slamming the district's English Language Learner programs as ineffective and in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
On a related note, word comes that yet another language immersion program is being proposed for Portland, this one French. And what's wrong with that, you'd like to know?
Well, I like language immersion. However, as I've written before, public immersion schools tend toward elitism insofar as they skim the best and the brightest from neighborhood programs. And that leads to further inequity, all on the public dime.
You don't think a FRENCH school would attract the upper crust of Portland?
Let's address the ELL problems, along with other equity issues, before diverting money toward the establishment of another language immersion program.
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