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More pros and cons for charters and choice

As an advocate of public education,  I see little difference between the charter school option and school choice generally.  So for the purpose of this argument, I'll treat the two as synonymous.

For some parents, charter schools offer an alternative to what they view as the stifling orthodoxy of traditional public schools.  In districts that bow to the testing dictates of No Child Left Behind (like PPS), charters are refuges from excessive testing and the obsession with literacy and numeracy at the expense of a much broader curriculum that includes music and art and all the other areas of student learning that can't easily be assessed by a multiple choice test.

Some charters, then, --not all (like the Arthur Academies)-- are perceived as student centered.  And progressive.  That's a good thing.

Some say that charters are laboratories for innovation that can steer other public schools in the right pedagogical direction.  If true, that's also a good thing.  I have my doubts about the legitimacy of that claim, however, on two grounds.

First, to say that charters can influence what happens in traditional public schools makes no more sense to me than the notion that competition between schools results in better schools all around.  That's market ideology.  It doesn't work in the realm of education.

Secondly, as I wrote in a comment to the post on charters on PPS Equity, we already know what works to truly improve and reform K-12 education.  (Steve Rawley later noted that I "...took the piss out of that argument [labs for innovation], and I think he has a point… we already know what works; we just have to implement it.")

Here are some of the reasons why charters and choice fail the test of good public policy:

• They don't serve the common good.  They benefit some students --usually the more advantaged-- at the expense of others.

• Charters and choice concentrate good students with supportive parents in some schools, and leave others --the disadvantaged-- behind in less affluent schools.

• Despite the ruse of the "lottery", charters are selective primarily because they require a parent application.  That works to the benefit of motivated and informed parents.

• Charters can dismiss students who are behaviorally difficult.  (That may be more true nationally than in Portland.)

• Charters may be publicly funded, but they are otherwise private.  Charter school organizations are statutorily tax exempt 501(c)(3) corporations run by special interest groups, even though the groups consist --usually-- of "concerned" parents.

They are other "cons" to the charter school issue.  Suffice it for me now to conclude with a couple of quotes from Ockley Green parent, Rose, (a nom de web, I'm pretty sure, of a fairly well-known Portland writer.)  Rose has contributed much to the (again) record-breaking PPS Equity post, "Charters and PPS":

• "...you asked how charter applications are barriers to poorer families.

  "You have to think of this in terms of a parent without your resources. You clearly have a car, don’t work nights, have childcare, and speak English, and other abilities which make going to 4 mandatory meetings almost an entire year before your child might attend a given school a viable option.

  "Think about this process for a parent without those resources. There are many parents without cars, without computers, and with limited English." ...       

• "...school choice has stripped many schools of their wealthier students. Now Ockley is a largely poor minority school floating in a gentrifying neighborhood where most white parents send their kids Somewhere Else.

  "We don’t need to discuss how much this hurts a school and hurts the students left behind."

• "...I don’t see any way around the barriers imposed by school choice and charters. Someone will always be left out, and that someone will probably be brown, black or poor.

  "So the short answer is, we need to bite the bullet. We need to get rid of school choice."

What Rose says makes eminently good sense.  Let's bite the bullet on school choice.  And charters.

Charter Schools: The pros, the cons, the school board

At the Portland School Board meeting Monday evening, David Wynde pronounced that the test for any charter school application is whether the proposed school meets an obvious need. 

In the case of LEP, the charter high school under consideration, Wynde said the school was clearly serving students whose needs weren't being met by existing schools.  The school clearly passed the "need" test.

With all due respect to Director Wynde, isn't that more a commentary on the state of Portland's traditional high schools. especially the poorer schools like Jefferson, Roosevelt, Marshall and Madison, which have been so badly treated, reconfigured, mismanaged and "downsized" by top-down district mandates?  And isn't that the cause of public discontent with traditional schools?  Isn't that the impetus for the creation of alternatives like charter schools?

The small size of the Leadership and Entrepreneurship Charter High School --enrollment 217, about a third the size of Jefferson -- accounts for both its appeal and its ability to innovate, to remain flexible, and to stay student friendly.  Its tiny size also counters the notion that it meets the needs of the far greater number of students who are ill-served by traditional PPS high schools.

The eagerness of school board members to get LEP to fix its financial problems --it hasn't paid its  monthly PERS obligation since last July, for example-- so that the board could eventually re-grant its charter was palpable at Monday's meeting.  Ruth Adkins gushed that she hoped LEP would quickly get its financial troubles behind them so that it could "grow" to serve an even a greater number of students.

But there's the rub, isn't it?  As I wrote in a comment to PPS Equity,

"...if charters were to become as large and diverse as the typical neighborhood school, they would instantly lose their appeal to those –most, anyway– who seek an alternative to traditional public schools."

Charters as they now exist meet the needs of a relatively small number of students (and parents) who want out of traditonal programs.  But they do very little, by their very nature, for the vast majority of public school students.  In other words, they do little to promote the common good.  And isn't that the mission of a public school district?

As Steve Rawley, the eminence grise* of PPS Equity, said in a comment to the same post,

"...some charters might get some students access to the kind of pedagogy you passionately seek.

"I just don’t see how they advance the cause for all students."

*(By which I mean head honcho and resident genius.  Steve isn't old enough to have gray hair.  Not much, anyway.)

School news, local edition

First two items from Seattle, our neighbor to the north.  

A lawsuit has been filed challenging the proposed Seattle school closures, alleging "that closures will unfairly affect a large percentage of poor children and students of color."  The Seattle activists are one hell of a lot more active than their counterparts in Portland, who never got around to an actual legal challenge to the closures and consolidations a few years back..  I wish the Seattle crowd well.

And speaking of testing (previous post), I recently got an e-mail heads-up about the suspension of two teachers who refused to test students with severe disabilities at parents' request.  The Seattle District claimed that the teachers "...were out of compliance with state and district policy."  (Those suspensions come on the heels of the suspension of Carl Chew for refusing to give the tests to his entire class.)

Now that's carrying testing mania to extremes.

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In Portland "old" news, it seems that the odd Adkins/Regan school board alliance has come under attack for attempting to influence the course of development in the Pearl District rather than leaving it solely for the market to determine.  Setting up public school classrooms to encourage more families to settle in the Pearl is something the school board  has no business doing.

Disregarding the politics of urban renewal and the Portland Development Commission, the strategic placement of neighborhood public schools to attract families has long been a policy embraced by the city and the school district.  I see no reason to object to it in the Pearl as long as kids actually live there, and as long as family-friendly housing is a reasonable prospect.  

I'm no expert on urban renewal, but some have argued that the original proposal for the Pearl was to "build a wide range of housing", and to include schools in the mix.  Perhaps, but whatever the case, to me it's silly to claim, as one commenter on Blue Oregon did, that

"...a school in the Pearl is nothing more than a way station for very wealthy, small families until their children get to 3rd or 4th grade, at which time they'll move."

That presumes that all families prefer dwellings with large lots and room for kids to play.  If that were the case, there would be no schools or school children in Manhattan.  Or San Francisco, for that matter.  

Let me reiterate that I'm not convinced the school board decision to lease space for classrooms in the Pearl District was a good one.  As I wrote in my original post, the nearby non-charter schools in the area, especially Couch, would be ideal for children of the Pearl.

But Couch, unfortunately, is not currently a neighborhood school.  It houses Metropolitan Learning Center, a magnet for the entire district.  Perhaps the board should consider returning Couch to its neighborhood status.

School news

Nationally, neighborhood school closures and the creation of charters to replace them continue at an alarming pace.  Take Chicago, for example.

Just last week, the Chicago Board of Education voted unanimously "to close, phase-out, consolidate or re-staff 16 schools."   The teachers' union called the move a "union-busting" tactic, which it probably is since the school closures reduce, yet again, the ratio of unionized traditional public schools to non-union charter schools.  Next to New Orleans, Chicago, home to Obama's new Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, is the charter school capital of the nation. 

Michael Klonsky notes that Michael Scott was brought back in by Mayor Daley to "clean up the mess" left behind by Duncan.  It seems he's been "pouring over" documents to justify the school closings.   Klonsky  points out that an honest examination of those documents would reveal that "many more than 6 of the schools proposed for closing, were indeed doing quite well", not "failing" the students as Scott claims in his newspaper commentary.

And speaking of urban districts run by mayors --never a good idea-- Michelle Rhee is still on the rampage in Washington D.C.   Chancellor Rhee threatens to fire teachers wholesale in violation of the teachers union contract:

"We are going to be moving people out who are not performing."

And what does Rhee mean by "performing"?  Test scores, which are (limited) measures of student performance, not of teacher performance.  Rhee would replace the non-performers with recruits from Teach for America and the D.C. Teaching Fellows program.  How would that improve things?

It would "put teachers with higher SAT scores into the classrooms."

Good plan, Chancellor Rhee.  Good plan.  Everyone knows that the smarter you are, the better teacher you'll be.  Who needs pedagogy?

Adkins and Regan form an odd alliance

Portland School Board members Ruth Adkins and Bobbie Regan authored a joint statement, appearing in today's Oregonian, defending the board's decision to lease space for public school classrooms in the Pearl District.  (You can also read it here.)

Why an odd alliance?  As part of their defense, Adkins and Regan mention ongoing efforts to improve "achievement for all students" by meeting current challenges, one of them being the transition to K-8 schools.  Prior to her election to the board, Ruth Adkins was an outspoken opponent of both school closures and radical school reconfiguration and consolidation, including the merging of small K-5's with middle schools.

Bobbie Regan, on the other hand, was a stalwart backer of the Vicki Phillips' scheme to close and consolidate schools.  Phillips' primary justification for the K-8 transition was that such schools would raise student achievement.   She  reasoned that since kids in elementary schools score higher on math and reading tests than middle school eighth graders, the K-8 model must be better.

I've pointed out, as has Peter Campbell, that the argument is specious at best.  In his latest post Campbell writes,

"...the National Assessment of Educational Progress ... reveals that test scores typically go up, plateau, and then fall around middle school. This is due to the fact that (1) basic skills drilled into kids when they are in the younger grades are not transferable because (2) the tests get more difficult as kids get older and the test prep they were given as younger kids no longer works."

Of course, test scores have little connection to actual student learning, so the "achievement" issue is entirely beside the point in debating the merits of K-8 schools. 

Most of the chatter on the activist e-mail lists, the ones I read anyway, opposes the Pearl initiative, and K-8 schools.  I don't necessarily, although I do think the K-8 transition was poorly planned and badly handled.  Worse, it hasn't been a district-wide policy.  Middle schools have largely disappeared from the poorer parts of town, but still exist in more affluent areas, namely on the West side and in the Cleveland cluster.  

If achievement is the issue, it's no wonder that poor students have been singled out for the Phillips' reconfiguration experiment.  Poverty is the most accurate predictor of how well students score on tests.

I think this comment from Jconnor on the O's Adkins/Regan letter accurately sums up the deeper problem with  district policy and the troubling and persistent inequity of educational opportunity between poor and affluent schools:

"...I do not believe that you are sufficiently committed to success for all students because you (meaning the entire school board) continue to institutionalize failure in the guise of the disastrous PPS 'choice' policy that demonstrably drains poorer schools of their best students, millions of dollars, and needed programs. It feeds on racist stereotypes and is, even now, wrecking [sic] incalculable damage on Jefferson, Roosevelt, Marshall, and Madison High Schools.

"Ms. Regan has been part of this ill-considered effort from the beginning. Ms. Adkins, by now we had expected better leadership from you.

"Strong neighborhood schools for all children with equal opportunities for all are the foundation of the city we all want to live in. Please make it happen."

Spin these, PPS!

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.  

That's one down, three to go --Jefferson, Roosevelt and Marshall are still saddled with the Gates/Phillips-inspired small schools model.

• 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! 

Poor Marshall.  It seems nobody wants to go there.

• 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.

Is PPS covering up plans for school closures?

(Guest post by Lynn Schore and Steve Linder)

The Portland Public Schools board and district administrators appear to have deliberately concealed possible plans to close several schools in order to avoid "a big backlash" and to ensure support for their facilities recommendations and future capital bond measure. 

The evidence of a cover-up comes in an e-mail exchange last year between board member Ruth Adkins and District Chief Operating Officer Cathy Mincberg. 

In an e-mail dated 1/08/08, Mincberg writes "...we are pulling all options (i.e. Hayhurst, Rieke, Maplewood, Gray) off the table.  It is our feelings that now is not the time to vet such ideas." 

Adkins responds,

"Thank you Cathy that is great news -I do think that any closure discussion as part of the formal options would have generated a big backlash and really distracted people from focusing on the facilities process."

Adkins goes further, suggesting that an outside consultant raise the idea of school closures "to get it out in the open."  She suggests

"One thought --In seeking that balance between full disclosure and not freaking everybody out, perhaps at the meeting, Bill (DeJong) could verbally refer to this idea as a side note, something like, 'also here's another thing we put out on the table for PPS staff and community to consider, just something to think about as you move forward' --While  being very clear (as Doug helpfully clarified today) that these meetings are very much DeJong giving their input as outside experts, not district reps at this point."

How is DeJong giving "input as outside experts" if Board member Adkins is putting the words in his mouth?  Bill DeJong, the highly paid PPS facilities consultant, is being told what to say so closures can be discussed without it appearing to be a school district recommendation "at this point."

Doug Capps, a district representative, reiterates this point in a follow-up 1/08/08 e-mail to the consultant, Bill DeJong:

"...note the important role you can play in 'raising possibilities' (such as the SW option) as our outside expert/creative thinker... . We feel the same way about all of the 'other possibilities', that this coming from you, there is both credibility AND the message that this is our consulting team speaking, not a PLAN of the district."

According to the 12/10/08 PPS FAQ sheet, "By next fall, the district will decide when to refer a capital bond  to voters."  The FAQ sheet does not shed any light on possible school closures in Southwest Portland or city-wide.

PPS has further raised suspicions about their facilities intent by making wholesale changes to the Surplus Property Policy in 2009, while claiming that the sale of schools is "not imminent."

We demand timely and full disclosure regarding school closures and high school "reconfigurations."  Anything else demonstrates utter disrespect to the citizens of Portland, especially the PPS students, parents and employees.

Slow learner

At the last school board meeting, David Wynde warned that

"...in real terms, we have cut the level of funding for K-12 education in this state for almost two decades."

He went on to say that school budgets are being reduced from a "grossly inadequate level of funding."

That's an admirable acknowledgment. And oh so true.

Flash back to 2003, when Wynde first ran for the school board with the backing and blessing of numerous local movers and shakers.  His platform?

"Responsible financial management that our schools need."

Very little, if anything, was said about the "grossly inadequate level of funding" for schools from the state by either Wynde or any of the other winning candidates that year, despite clear evidence of underfunding in the twelve years since the passage of Measure 5.

That same year, 2003, I also ran for the school board.  The first plank of my campaign platform was this:

"I support  --adequate funding for schools."

The "responsible financial management" advocated by Wynde and other board members included the hasty closure of several neighborhood schools, a move which saved the district little money and alienated many parents.

(Wynde ran for re-election in 2007.  His Voters Pamphlet statement still said nothing about funding.  He promised instead a "commitment to equity and opportunity."  That promise has yet to yield any visible results.)

Go the 'full monty', Bobbie Regan

Bobbie Regan's op-ed piece in today's O argues for keeping the No Child Left Behind law --after "fixing its flaws."  She's wrong.

The law needs to be abolished.  Wiped off the books.  Its flaws cannot be "fixed."

Regan's argument itself demonstrates the futility of 'fixing' the law.  She says that NCLB's transparency and accountability are good things.  We can keep those, while jettisoning the law's 'rigidity' and its 'punitive' approach.  I question how its possible to make school accountability anything other than punitive.  Accountability, especially for teachers and school administrators, is by definition punitive.

How do you hold someone accountable without the threat of some form of punishment?

The underlying --and more important-- issue is the total reliance of NCLB on test scores, primarily reading and math test scores, to determine how well students are learning, teachers performing, or schools themselves functioning.  Even Regan's fix --measuring improvement rather than meeting arbitrary benchmarks-- is test score reliant. 

Let me repeat what I've written here many times:  Standardized test scores are neither adequate nor appropriate measures of student learning.

Regan also argues that somehow, under a revamped NCLB, schools will begin teaching more art and music.  I disagree.  As long as test-based accountability is in place, that won't happen.  Those held accountable --teachers and administrators-- will still do everything possible to get test scores up.  They have no choice.  Test scores are their fate, and teaching to the test will remain the most important* component of a school's curriculum.

But there's an even more pressing issue confronting Portland Public Schools.  Regan and others on the school board like to pretend that reforming NCLB will somehow ease pressure on the district to allow neighborhood school transfers.  It won't, not as long as the district itself encourages school choice through its transfer policy. 

Therefore, when I urge Bobbie Regan to go the 'full monty', I mean more than lobbying for abolition of No Child Left Behind.  I also mean ridding the district of its transfer policy which has done much more damage to the district than any misbegotten federal legislation.

This latest post on PPS Equity makes the argument powerfully.  And this comment on the post implies that the school board, including Bobbie Regan, is complicit in the district's inaction on rectifying the inequities caused by choice and transfer:

"PPS currently has absolutely no incentive to fix the transfer policy... .

"Anyone who thinks that the superintendent’s Transfer Policy Committee is going to be allowed to recommend policy reforms for the system is seriously deluded. If PPS wanted to change the transfer policy they would have. Waiting over 2 years after the transfer audit to even form a committee to study the issue is the ultimate delaying tactic, not progress."  

*  (The emphasis on test scores has even taken a bite out of recess time for primary students.)            

Trudy and the Flynn-Blackmer audit

In a recent post, I suggested that school board member Trudy Sargent ignored testimony presented by John Wilhelmi and Sara Allan about the reality of school segregation in Portland.  Trudy's comments would lead us to believe that the neighborhood school assignment system was responsible for the increasing concentration of poor and minority kids in all but four of Portland's high schools.

She also ignored the audit of PPS' transfer policy prepared by Suzanne Flynn and Gary Blackmer.  The audit stated quite bluntly:

"In addition, we found that the District’s schools were less diverse in terms of low income and minority representation than would be the case if all students attended their neighborhood schools. We concluded that the transfer system has not increased diversity in schools, but actually reduced it."

If you believe Flynn and Blackmer when they say that, "if all students attended their neighborhood schools", schools would be far less segregated by class and by race, then you might think that a discontinuation of neighborhood to neighborhood school transfers would be a good thing, not only for diversity, but as a stabilizing influence on school enrollment.

Trudy concluded quite the opposite.  God knows how many of her board colleagues, wedded to school choice, agree with her.

I bring this up again because the Tribune has an interview up with Gary Blackmer, who just announced his retirement as Portland's city auditor.  The interview doesn't mention Blackmer's audit of the school district.  But fortunately, my pal Lynn Schore reminded readers of Blackmer's PPS connection in a lengthy comment to the article:

"For example, more than $10 million in taxpayer dollars were spent for the auditor to perform three audits of Portland Public Schools. The most critical of those three was Blackmer's audit of the PPS Transfer System, and his trenchant analysis of the segregation which results from it."

The Flynn-Blackmer audit, Lynn continued, "...proved what parents always knew: that our neighborhoods are much more integrated than our PPS schools, because of the PPS transfer policy."

On a related note, Lynn sent along this map of neighborhood housing affordability.  It appears from the map that one of the least affordable and most "gentrified" neighborhoods in inner Southeast Portland corresponds to the attendance area of the popular Sunnyside Environmental School.  Sunnyside Environmental is one of Portland's focus option schools. 

Most of the spots --80%-- at such focus options are reserved for neighborhood residents.  It appears that, rather than chancing the transfer lottery, many well-off parents are moving into the neighborhood, thereby driving the cost of housing up.

One might justifiably conclude, then, that another of the unintended consequences of school choice is neighborhood gentrification, and the further demographic stratification of Portland's schools.