September 2011 Archives

From guest blogger Nirvi Shah:

It wasn't until 2000 that the federal Department of Justice filed its first lawsuit in a peer-to-peer racial harassment case, said Kiran Ahuja, the attorney who filed that suit.

She was recounting the case during the Education Department's second annual national conference on bullying. The gathering is a reminder of the administration's continued focus on the subject.

In the case, two black students attending a predominantly white high school in the Sullivan County school district in Tennessee complained about years of unchecked harassment. The harassment culminated in an incident where a classmate wrapped a chain around one black student's neck and choked him, while another classmate wearing a KKK T-shirt looked on and yelled racial slurs.

The two black students found the school district indifferent to their complaints.

Ahuja, now director of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders grew up in Savannah. Her own experiences helped her understand how challenging it can be to be a person of color in the U.S., she told conference attendees.

Eventually, the federal government reached a settlement with Sullivan County in which the school district agreed to compensate the students, hire an expert to evaluate its policies and procedures for preventing, identifying, and remedying harassment and discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin; conduct a school climate assessment, develop a plan to prevent, identify, and remedy harassment and discrimination, and provide an education and training program to inform and instruct teachers, staff, and students about the school district's policies prohibiting harassment and discrimination.

Ahuja went on to note that the nation's Asian community grew the most of any racial group over the last 10 years, increasing in size by almost 50 percent. The slurs she heard as a child, like "dot head," "chink," and "slant eyes," have been joined by "towel head" and "cone head." Anti-Muslim sentiment has surged since 9/11, she said, and despite Asians' long history in the U.S., "we are still the new kids on the block."

She recalled the settlement last year of a case at South Philadelphia High School where in 2009 about 30 Asian students were attacked and 13 were sent to emergency room. The attack followed months of other incidents at the school. And those were the ones the school new about. Among some Asians, there is sharp resistance to reporting harassment or bullying, she said.

And for Sikh and Muslim students, "bullying is the rule, not the exception," said Amardeep Singh, who serves on Ahuja's commission.

He shared the story of Jagmohan Singh Premi, who was punched in the face by a fellow student who was gripping a key between his knuckles. Although steps have been taken to address the problems at the school, Singh said the principal's initial reaction was that the student, who wears a turban, "has had some issues with 'that ball' on his head."

After Ahuja and Singh spoke, several students from across the country shared their own stories of harassment and threats, some of which they continue to live with. Among them were a beauty queen, a Native American girl, a girl with an illness, and a Vietnamese student.

Next month, Ahuja will be a part of a bullying prevention summit in New York that will focus on Asians and Muslims.

"This is a place to start asking the really hard questions," Ahuja said to the crowd. "Not just how do we deal with it. If we think about truly eradicating [bullying], what has to happen?"

Posted by Christina Samuels at 8:51 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The Kansas City, Mo., school district, which was thrown into leadership turmoil late last month when Superintendent John Covington resigned abruptly to take a new position in Michigan, will have its accreditation revoked by the state in January.

The Missouri State Board of Education voted unanimously today to take the action, which it explained in a press release:

"While this decision was an extremely difficult one for our board to make, we believe it is the right one," said Peter Herschend, president of the State Board of Education. "This action may feel like a set-back for the district, but this decision is not totally unexpected. We will work closely with the district's leadership and staff and continue efforts to improve student achievement. Our work requires a laser-like focus on classroom instruction."

Commissioner [Chris L.] Nicastro indicated the department will be working with KCMSD and the community to identify a process for providing immediate assistance and monitoring progress. She will bring a recommendation to the state board at its December meeting.

By state law, an unaccredited school district has two full school years to demonstrate a sustainable level of academic progress. Should this not occur, the district will lapse and the State Board of Education must intervene.

The state action was exactly what some observers in Kansas City feared would happen after Covington's announcement that he was resigning. He will run an educational authority in Michigan that will oversee the state's lowest-performing schools. The former superintendent instituted major changes in his short tenure in the 17,400-student Kansas City district, including cost-cutting initiatives that closed more than two dozen schools. Those actions won him praise, and for a short time, before learning of Covington's new job, district leaders were scrambling to find a way to keep him from leaving.

It's not clear that the state board's accreditation decision would have been different had Covington stayed. Kansas City met only three of 14 academic standards needed for state accreditation this year. In 2010, the district had met four standards, so the academic trend in the district was already heading in a negative direction.

However, a leadership vacuum can't be helpful as the district attempts to recover its academic standing. And in the meantime, Missouri law allows students in an unaccredited district the right to transfer to another school system. However, a challenge to the law is currently tied up in court.

In a statement, the Kansas City district leadership said that as it teaches its students to "be resilient and bounce back from setbacks," the district will do the same.

"Student achievement remains our top priority and we will couple with this, a focus on restoration and recovery of our accreditation status," said interim superintendent R. Stephen Green.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 6:52 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

By guest blogger Stephen Sawchuk

Boston, Central Falls, R.I., and Sacramento, Calif. will join a handful of other of other school systems to receive funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to set up collaborative relationships with charter schools within their borders, the Seattle-based philanthropy announced today.

The basic idea behind the initiative is to better integrate charters and traditional public schools to create an exchange of best practices, and to ease tensions about such issues as facilities and supports. The districts still have to formally apply for the Gates funding, but they can win up to $100,000 once they do. (Editorial Projects in Education, the nonprofit that publishes Education Week, also receives Gates Foundation support.)

The new districts join ten others that received Gates Foundation funding last December for similar compacts. Those districts are Baltimore; Denver; Hartford, Conn.; Los Angeles; Minneapolis; Nashville, Tenn.; New Orleans; New York City; and Rochester, N.Y.

Under the new funding, Sacramento officials will work together to create a "blended" school that integrates online and face-to-face learning. They'll also deal with school facilities access, among other issues.

Leaders in Central Falls, R.I., will work with five charter schools to develop a common admission lottery; common assessments aligned to the Common Core State Standards, and a shared teacher evaluation and support system.

The district has been in the news due to a rough relationship between school superintendent Frances Gallo and the city teachers' union. The city of Central Falls recently declared bankruptcy, and its finances, including those of the school district, are currently in receivership; the receiver, Robert Flanders Jr., removed Gallo and others from teacher contract negotiations after the talks reached an impasse.

In a conference call with reporters, Gallo said those developments would not affect the compact with the charter schools.

Finally, the Boston compact will include giving charter schools access to its special education professional development and school-leadership training with Harvard University. The partners will also develop an initiative to increase writing skills at the middle-school level.

The Gates Foundation's criteria for the compacts did not include winning approval from teachers' unions.

The Boston participants noted that they're committed to working through the rough spots in the new partnership.

"This is like a plane taking off, you're in flight, you can't now turn around," said Kevin Andrews, the chair of the Boston Alliance of Charter Schools. "We hope to have a nice long ride with one another. It may get a little rough in places, but we'll smooth out because we have very good captains flying the plane."

Posted by Christina Samuels at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Robert Archie Jr., the chairman of the Philadelphia School Reform Commission, and fellow commissioner Johnny Irizarry stepped down from their posts today, effective immediately.

Mr. Archie made the announcement through an email sent from his public relations firm, which was published in its entirety at the Philadelphia School Notebook blog. In the letter, Archie said that Mayor Michael Nutter should have a chance to carry out his educational programs with a new set of school leaders. (The Philadelphia Inquirer also has a story on the resignations.)

The SRC has five members, three of whom are appointed by the governor of Pennsylvania, and two who are appointed by the city's mayor. Both Archie and Irizarry are appointees of the mayor. The commission serves in the same management role for the 154,000-stduent district as a school board.

Philadelphia media have reported that Archie was under fire for his role in pushing for a particular charter operator to manage a low-performing high school in the district called Martin Luther King High. Archie and State Rep. Dwight Evans have ties to Foundations Inc., a Moorestown, N.J.-based company. However, a parent committee supported Mosaica Education Inc., a New York City-based charter operator.

The board eventually voted for Mosaica, but the operator walked away after a private meeting with Archie and Evans. Foundations also took itself out of the running, and Martin Luther King High is now receiving intensive services from the district and is not operated by a charter.

The mayor's chief integrity officer has been investigating Archie's role in the charter school situation because of Archie's previous declaration of a conflict of interest in votes concerning Foundations. The report has not been released.

Former Philadelphia School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, who said she was pressured to support Foundations as a charter operator and has cited that situation as one of the reasons behind her August resignation, said that she worked well with both Archie and Irizarry.

"Up until recently, actually, until the stuff with Martin Luther King [High], I can't think of anything negative I would have ever said" about the board, said Ackerman, who said she learned about the resignations when a reporter called to ask her for comment this afternoon.

"As a person, I think [Archie] is a good man and he meant well," said Ackerman, who received a $905,000 buyout when she left the Philadelphia school system. "Certainly things began to unravel with me and Bob Archie over the King issue. I think that was the beginning of the end for me, and it may have been the beginning of the end of for him."

Posted by Christina Samuels at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Despite a judge's order to return to the classroom, teachers in the 28,000-student Washington district have continued a strike, now in its fourth day. Edweek.org's Teacher channel has a story on the situation, as does the local Tacoma News Tribune, which has a package of articles, including reaction from the lawmakers and a history of the dispute on its site.

The teachers say they are striking because the school district wants to increase class sizes and institute staffing changes that would allow the district to shift teachers around capriciously. The district contends that the changes it wants to see are necessary to deal with budget cuts.

Both sides have dueling websites, where you can compare and contrast the teachers' perspective to the school district's updates. Both sides appear at this point to be unwilling to budge.

So far, the strike action has proved to be popular with teachers: 87 percent of the total union membership voted to start the strike, and after a judge issued an order requiring them to return to work, 93 percent of teachers voted to keep to the picket lines anyway.

But will the teachers garner the same level of support in the community, especially in an era of persistently high unemployment, and the economy in the doldrums? That will be an important factor to watch, especially if the strike drags on.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

A strike at the 28,000-student Tacoma, Wash. district has moved into its second day, with the district planning legal action to get teachers back in the classroom.

School started Sept. 1 for the Tacoma district, which is the third largest in the state. The teacher contract expired August 31, though the sides have been negotiating since the end of May.

The teachers and the school administration say that the negotiations hinge on three issues: a proposed increase in class sizes, salaries, and a new policy for teacher transfers.

The school district's take on the union demands is that the union is being unreasonable when the district is facing funding cuts from the state.

The teachers' union has its own website that offers its perspective on why the negotiations have come to an impasse. The union says that the district is pushing to use "subjective and discriminatory" criteria in reassigning teachers, and that the union wants to hold salaries steady or risk losing teachers to surrounding districts that pay more.

This strike is the first in the district since 1978, and the school district has moved to file suit against the union's leaders, according to an article in the Tacoma News Tribune. They claim that public employees are not allowed to strike, under state law. A hearing on an injunction that would compel the teachers to return to work will be heard this morning.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Middle-class schools are underperforming and are forgotten in current policy debates, according to Third Way, a think tank that bills itself as an advocate for moderate political ideas.

The report, released Monday, says that while lawmakers are focused on creating programs to help the lowest-performing schools, "middle-class" schools pay teachers the least, have the highest teacher-student ratios, spend the least per student, and produce an unimpressive percentage of college graduates.

The report defined "middle-class schools" as those where more than 25 percent, but less than 75 percent, of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches. According to the think tank, about 26 million children fall into this category, compared with 14 million "upper-income" students, and 8.5 millon "lower-income" students. The median household income for communities served by middle-class schools is $51,739, which tracks very closely with the median income of the nation as a whole ($49,777).

When looking at the achievement level of these schools, though, some differences stand out immediately. For example, on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the "nation's report card," most students in middle-class schools are able to meet a basic level of proficiency, but struggle to reach a "proficient" level.

In the 2009 NAEP test for 4th-grade reading, 66 percent of students at middle-class schools achieved a basic level of competency, but only 30 percent were proficient. (Compare that with 84 percent and 51 percent at upper-class schools, and 45 percent and 14 percent at lower-class schools.)

The report also looked at other indicators, such as graduation rates. Eighty-four percent of students at middle-class schools graduate with a diploma, 38 percent immediately go to college, and 28 percent earn a degree by age 26. That compares with 91 percent, 52 percent, and 47 percent for students at upper-income schools, and 68 percent, 29 percent, and 17 percent at lower-income schools.

Even the teaching ranks look different at these schools. Though the average teacher at a middle-class and upper-class school have about the same amount of experience—13.6 years and 13.8 years, respectively—teachers at middle class schools get paid thousands of dollars less, on average. A teacher at an upper-class school earns an average of around $54,000, and a teacher at a lower-class school earns an average of around $50,000—both higher than the $48,400 salary for a teacher at a middle-class school.

The report states:

Among parents of school-aged kids in middle-class jurisdictions, there is a strong belief that these schools are educating students at the highest levels. More than seven of ten parents with children in the public schools grade their kids' schools as either an A or a B, and nine of ten parents of school-age children expect their kids to go to college.

But that is far from the reality. Middle-class schools are falling short on their most basic 21st century mission: to prepare kids to get a college degree.

The think tank plans to offer suggestions in the coming months that will offer policy solutions intended to help middle-class schools. Do you agree with Third Way's contention that these students are mostly ignored by policy makers?

Posted by Christina Samuels at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

The anonymous donors who pledged to pay part of the costs for Arlene Ackerman's buyout package have withdrawn their support, leaving the Philadelphia school district shouldering the entire $905,000 cost.

When Ackerman and the district's School Reform Commission parted ways last month, the agreement announced then was that the district would pay $500,000 and donors would pay $405,000 into the Philadelphia's Children First Fund, a nonprofit organization that provides grants to the school district. Funneling the money through the nonprofit would allow the donors to remain anonymous, the district maintained.

"I wanted to make sure there was as minimal as possible public exposure," said Mayor Michael Nutter at a press conference after Ackerman's resignation Aug. 24. He said he "made a few calls" to get private donors to support the buyout fund.

But the arrangement immediately prompted suspicion. "From our standpoint, it's just not good policy to have private individuals bailing out the government. The public has the right to know if there are any favors being exchanged here," said Zack Stalberg, the president and chief executive officer of the Committee of Seventy, in an interview with Education Week after the agreement was announced. The Committee is a Philadelphia good-government advocacy group.

Jack Wagner, the Pennsylvania state auditor, pledged to audit Ackerman's buyout agreement and others that had been approved in other districts in the state.

The furor prompted the donors who had originally pledged their support to withdraw their contributions, according to a statement from the Philadelphia school system:

From the start, the School Reform Commission sought to keep the public cost of this agreement to a minimum. But the public concerns about the use of anonymous private donations led almost all donors to withdraw their pledges to contribute to the Philadelphia's Children First Fund. The SRC, accordingly, asked the Philadelphia Children's First Fund to return any donations it has received in connection with our request of it to accept funds on behalf of the district for this purpose.

As a result, the payment to Dr. Ackerman does not include payments from anonymous private donors. Instead, all funds to Dr. Ackerman are public dollars from the Philadelphia School District.

In a statement, Stalberg said "It's good that the public doesn't have to worry who is anonymously underwriting this deal and why." But, he added, "Philadelphia has been tarnished by a controversy that stems from a secret deal that should never have been attempted in the first place."

The district should now consider whether the entire agreement should be nullified, Stalberg said. The buyout agreement included a clause that neither side—Ackerman or the School Reform Committee—are allowed to disparage the other. But Ackerman has given several interviews since her resignation, including one where she offered critical comments about the district's chief financial officer.

According to the Philadelphia School Notebook blog, however, the district has decided not to pursue that option. The article quotes a district insider as saying "We just want her to go away."

Posted by Christina Samuels at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

District Administration magazine has an article out this month on superintendent salaries, based on research compiled by the Alexandria, Va.-based Educational Research Service, which has been collecting this information for nearly 40 years. The average superintendent salary was $161,992 in 2010-11, up from $159,634 in 2009-10. From the article:

Salaries of more than $225,000 were seen in districts with enrollment levels of more than 25,000 students, the salary survey states.

"An outlier for a salary may be $300,000 for large city school systems, and there aren't too many of those," says Dan Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Superintendents (AASA). "If we're looking at $300,000 as the high end, that same person in the private sector leading a company of that magnitude would be making well over $1 million—that's just a fact."

As the AFL-CIO reported in its 2011 Executive Paywatch, CEOs at companies in Standard & Poor's 500 Index received, on average, $1.09 million in 2010. If you factor in stock options, bonuses, pensions and deferred compensation earnings, their income jumped to $11.4 million—a 23 percent increase from 2009. Cash-strapped school leaders saw, on average, a 1.48 percent increase from the $159,634 earnings of last year, and that's without other benefits and perks, according to the 2010-2011 salary survey.

The timing of this piece is fortuitous: I just wrote an article about how the provisions of superintendent contracts can sometimes lead to large buyouts like what we've seen recently in Philadelphia with Arlene Ackerman. She was asked to resign and her contract allowed her to receive $905,000, which was paid for with public and private funds.

But let's talk about Domenech's point, which is that a person with the same level of responsibility in the private sector would be making millions. "In public education, you're supposed to take a dozen eggs and a slab of bacon for your compensation, and apologize for doing that," joked Colin Cameron, the director of professional development for the Confederation of Oregon School Administrators, when I interviewed him for my article.

So is it fair to complain about superintendent salaries when their jobs are so expansive?

Posted by Christina Samuels at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Kathy Augustine, a former top administrator in Atlanta Public Schools, had just started her new job in the DeSoto district in Texas when news broke of a widespread cheating scandal in her former district.

The board placed Augustine on paid leave from the $188,000-a-year position, and since early August has been trying to work out an agreement to part ways. On Friday, the board voted to terminate Augustine's contract after her one day of service—but it is not releasing any terms of settlement without a public-records request. From WFAA-TV, the ABC affiliate in the Dallas-Fort Worth area:

Five of the six board members in attendance voted to accept the voluntary service agreement from Kathy Augustine. Kenzie Moore, the board's vice president, voted against the agreement.

But afterward, the publicly elected official refused to say why.

"We'll speak through one voice," Moore said, pointing to board president Warren Seay.

Seay did not disclose how much Augustine's severance cost taxpayers.
When pressed, he said the district is transparent, but that the Attorney General would have to order that figure released.

"As soon as we get the go, we're certainly a transparent organization and so that will be public information at that time," Seay told News 8.

The investigators' report from Atlanta suggested that Augustine, who served as deputy superintendent for curriculum and instruction, knew or should have known that teachers and principals were altering test sheets in order to boost scores. In a statement to the school board, Augustine unequivocally denied knowing about widespread cheating.

Posted by Christina Samuels at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Leave a comment | Recommend

Call this A Tale of Two Philadelphia Superintendents. Was it the best of times, or worst of times?

After Arlene Ackerman resigned as superintendent of Philadelphia schools earlier this year, she launched a Youtube channel that included a laudatory video she said was meant as an opening to her back-to-school rallying speech for school principals.

Ackerman ditched that video, instead deciding to enter the auditorium to the strains of "Is It a Crime" by soul singer Sade and delivering a defiant speech. "Is it a crime to stand up for children instead of stooping down into the political sandbox and selling our children for a politician's victory?" she told the crowd Aug. 18. Five days later, she was out.

But now former Superintendent Paul Vallas, Ackerman's direct predecessor, said he takes exception to the idea that Ackerman walked into a district in disarray in 2008 and turned everything around. In an emailed letter to Education Week, he lists his own record of achievement.

"I'm not making comments about one person's record. I just feel an obligation to defend mine, and that of my team," Vallas told me before he was to board a plane to Haiti. He served in Philadelphia from 2002 to 2007 and then worked as superintendent of the Recovery School District of Louisiana before resigning early this year to work on rebuilding schools in Haiti, which is still struggling to recover from last year's earthquakes

Some choice quotes from the letter, which claims the video takes "major liberties with the truth":

• "Ackerman inherited a budget that was balanced, and had been for two years prior to her arrival."
• "In addition to leaving the district financially healthy in 2007, my team left the district with a fully funded $1.7 billion school construction program."
• "Dr. Ackerman inherited a district where high school test scores had risen for five consecutive years upon her arrival."
• "Dr. Ackerman inherited a system that included the nearly 60 new charter schools we opened and provided with unprecedented support."

Today was the first day of school in the 155,000-student district, and it's safe to say that there is some controversy fatigue, particularly after Ackerman launched a media offensive after her resignation that included an interview with Education Week and Philadelphia media outlets, blaming political maneuvering for her ouster.

But Vallas said he's not trying to stir up any more problems. "This is the age of the Internet. When something goes out unresponded to, then it kind of takes on a life of its own."

I have a call in to Ackerman for her comments.

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