A lot of school news in the past few weeks to share:

School Safety
The District’s Safe Schools Advocate has been in the news slamming the District regarding its failures on ensuring safety – or should I say, some strange interpretation of it, since apparently he defines it as the number of students expelled from schools and closing “loopholes” like an appeal process, according to a yet unpublished report.

What he gets right: the climate is declining in schools, and options for getting troubled students help in time is as impossible as ever. Teachers, who have seen the loss of aides, NTAs vice principals, school-home liaisons and a burgeoning class size, ARE dealing with far more abuse with far fewer resources.

What he misses the boat on: his recommendations – expelling kids automatically, closing appeals processes, increasing the number of disciplinary school replacements and hiring a “discipline czar”? Anyone who argues that the solution to complicated issues of violence and climate is throwing out thousands of students onto the streets and closing appeals processes is not only short-sighted but irresponsible.

Stollsteimer could have made an impassioned and more nuanced plea about:
• boosting an overlap of city state and school district services to better address emotional, behavioral and mental health support and counseling outreach;
• providing an aggressive crisis intervention program for students involved in violent incidents, along the lines of the PA Dept. of Health's PIRIS program (which I hope to write about sometime);
• promoting an itinerant multi-racial, multi-lingual counseling team to address limited counseling services at schools;
• addressing accountability and achievement concerns with disciplinary school providers
• training teachers to intervene in bullying and violent incidents;
• strengthening school home connections;
• improving the focus on academics and support services at schools;
• reducing class sizes and improving professional development and support for teachers; and
• providing multiple outlets for children to express themselves through the arts, sports, recess, and extracurricular opportunities.

But nah, it’s easier to throw them out and forget about them right?

Or what about his recommendation to increase placements at disciplinary schools despite the fact that the District’s largest disciplinary provider Community Education Partners has been one of the District’s worst contracts, collecting $40 million a year and failing to account for any return to public schools. Estimates are that CEP has a drop-out rate close to 90%.

Stollsteimer is taking a complicated and challenging situation – the safety of our children and staff – and applying knee-jerk responses that barely address even short-term needs within schools. I’m no apologist for the District, but we deserve better recommendations than this.

Chester-Upland and the failure of privatization
Though not quite rising to the level of Dan U-A’s “embarrassingly out of touch” standard, this April 29th Inky editorial misses the boat about the problems plaguing the state-run Chester-Upland School District:

Chester Upland schools have been failing for years, producing some of the worst state test scores in the region.

But the bigger failure has been the state's takeover of the district, which since 1994 has done little to turn around the troubled Delaware County school system.

For years, a Republican control board appointed by former Gov. Schweiker made decisions that seemed designed to siphon off millions of district funds for charter schools.

Gov. Rendell finally gained control of the board last year and brought in his education team to correct years of neglect and mismanagement. But today, Chester Upland remains a poster child for all that is wrong in urban public education.

The Inky is right on about the miserable management of the state takeover, but suffers from short-term memory loss regarding the role of privatization and its impact on the current state of affairs in Chester.

A little history reminder: In 2000, the state took over Chester-Upland and brought in Edison Schools Inc. (the nation’s largest for-profit school manager) to run nine out of ten Chester schools. Edison ran its schools into the ground, bankrupting the system, charging exorbitant fees, and leaving schools in academic distress with high suspension rates and charges of failure to serve special needs students. In order to get rid of Edison last year, the state had to initiate a takeover of its own state-appointed school board.

Edison’s miserable performance was just one consequence of privatization; the other is, in many ways, far more sinister – the evisceration of internal capacity. In privatizing a majority of the schools in Chester, the state virtually eliminated the rest of the district then found it had no internal capacity to reclaim schools once Edison failed to accomplish what it said it would. Privatization in Chester never boosted a District’s ability to handle failing schools, it just allowed it to pass the buck to another entity. So when Edison sailed out, the District was left scrambling, leaving charters as the only option for communities. Charters, however, typically lack the appropriate infrastructure necessary to handle the needs of impoverished districts.

Why should Chester-Upland matter to us (beyond our empathy for our neighbors)? As we continue to grapple with privatization here in Philadelphia – facing many of the same problems including poor academic results and exorbitant management fees – we can’t forget the consequences of Chester’s experience. According to the School District, over 80% of the new money we’ve received in Philadelphia has gone towards charters and EMOs. Meanwhile, our District goes bankrupt, we struggle to keep teachers, and schools close for cost savings. The District however continues to promote privatization, guaranteeing EMO management for the next five years and potentially opening up more than 70 new “corrective action” schools to private management.

Graduation tests slammed
In January I wrote a post about the state’s proposal to implement “meaningful diplomas” by mandating state high school graduation tests in 10 subject areas for every child in the Commonwealth. Seems like that proposal is on the ropes according to a May 5th Inquirer story:

Close to 30 percent of the state's 501 school boards have passed resolutions opposing the test proposal. And 20 groups, ranging from teachers unions to the Pennsylvania PTA and the Pennsylvania State Conference of NAACP Branches, also oppose it.

According to House Education Committee Chair James Roebuck, the opposition isn’t along party lines; it pretty much angers anybody with direct involvement in schools. No one wants to see another battery of tests on top of the national, state and classroom tests kids are already subjected to. In Philadelphia, my fifth grader takes a “benchmark test” every six weeks! School life hasn’t gotten more meaningful for her. In addition, parents and school officials have concerns about discouraging young students early on with such high stakes testing.

The Inky, in an editorial that rises to Dan’s “embarrassingly out of touch” standard, tried to drum up support for the tests, arguing that:

Critics say the subject tests will discourage students, who will then drop out. Are they saying it's better to have students stay in school under the mistaken belief they are getting a real education?

Um yeah, it is actually better that students stay in school and that editorial writers should consider that, in a state where 95 percent of school districts fall below adequate funding levels, it’s the state that has the mistaken belief they’re providing a real education.

Meaningful diplomas don't get measured by tests; instead we need to focus on access to quality teachers, a full range of courses, a review of adequate and substantial facilities, and substantial tutoring and mentoring programs for struggling students.