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What's the right to speak without the right to be listened to?
Submitted by DanJones18 on Sat, 04/25/2009 - 9:25pm.
When the district announced that they would be creating a 5 year strategic plan, they promised that it would be an open, transparent, and community-based process. I believed them at first. I even joined one of the strategic plan working groups- "Highly Effective Educators". I gave input, excited that the district was finally actively seeking out community input. After that process, which I felt really good about since we had come up with what I thought was an awesome and reasonable list of recommendations with clearly defined priorities, the district sent two people to meet with an organization that I'm a part of- The Philadelphia Student Union. My colleagues (other high school students) and I gave more input here. At this point I really was convinced that this administration was different, that the horror stories I had heard about life under Vallas and the horror stories I had been a part of under Brady were over. I knew Dr. Ackerman wasn't perfect but maybe she really was sincere about community involvement. And then the draft of the plan came out. Almost nothing from the Highly Effective Educators working group was a part of it. We had identified teacher equity and site selection as our top priorities, and neither was included. Nothing from the district's session with PSU was in the draft either. I was disappointed, but I thought that maybe the word "draft" would open opportunities for real engagement. I went to community meetings at schools, my working group reconvened, I was a part of another listening session as a member of City Wide Student Government. I got "engaged" every way I knew how. And that was just me. Student Union as an organization and other students as individuals spent countless hours trying to talk with the district. Our questions were ignored, marginalized and side-stepped. Our suggestions were faithfully written down and then ignored. When the revised draft came out (partly as a result of pressure exerted by PSU and other organizing groups) I wasn't surprised to see that again, none of the suggestions I had given or had heard given in any meeting I had been in were incorporated. In the end, Student Union and our allies did manage to get some of our issues addressed in the final version of the plan, although key language around the Renaissance schools and around teacher equity is still lacking. It was a bizarre experience, hearing Ackerman proclaim constantly that the plan was "all for the children", but then marginalize "the children" when we came to her door asking to be heard.
This is a long story to make a simple point: the right to speak doesn't amount to anything without the right to be listened to. We consistently demand "community processes" only to be given instead informational meetings and lip service. Since the various institutions in the city: school district, city government, etc. don't seem to understand what exactly a real community process looks like, maybe we need to be more explicit with them from now on about what exactly we are looking for. Simply put, we're looking for genuine dialogue. The only way to be sure that we have been listened to before we see the final result is to demand that we have a real conversation. Why aren't we able to give suggestions and then demand an answer as to why they weren't included? Maybe then some of the real motives behind including some ideas and not others would have to come out.
The district has another crucial "community engagement" process coming up with the Renaissance Schools, and this time we have to hold them accountable not just for "engaging" the community, but for respecting us as decision makers.
Dan Jones
Student Union has been at the forefront
of pushing a number of these issues, particularly around the Renaissance Schools plan. I think it became quite clear that there are a lot of reservations about the strategic plan overall and about the Renaissance Schools plan in particular. I don't doubt that the District and SRC will be forced to seek a lot of community input before they move forward. The key will be to keep the pressure on in multiple ways and to demand a clear and transparent process throughout. Thanks for your work!
Met the new boss, same as the old boss.
Why would you think Ackerman was any better than Vallas? They are both poltical-based decisionmakers as opposed to educators (I thought given Ackerman's teaching years she would be a little more sympathetic to teachers, ha!). Check out Ackerman's legacy out in San Francisco on Teacher Justice. She thinks she can do anything she wants and the public be damned.
Great post
Some questions: What do you mean by "teacher equity?" Can you explain more about what you were looking to see changed about the Renaissance Schools plan?
Teacher Equity and the Renaissance Schools
Right now there's a dynamic in the school district where the schools that are already doing well (schools like my school Masterman and Central) end up with the best teachers. The schools that need qualified teachers the most don't have the supports and resources necessary to retain those teachers. So what ends up happening is that struggling, "hard to staff" schools end up being used as "training grounds" for new teachers, but after a few years, once the teachers gain enough seniority, they leave the school or the district or the profession altogether. This leaves some schools with a huge concentration of highly qualified teachers and others with teacher vacancies, permanent substitutes, emergency certified teachers, and a high concentration of Teach for America teachers. There is no denying that teacher equity is a huge problem in the district, and is a major contributing factor to the difficulties faced by so many of our schools. Despite this and calls from their own working group, Imagine 2014 does not make any real attempts to address the issue. The Cross City Campaign for Public Education Reform has produced a platform for promoting teacher equity in Philadelphia that includes, among other reforms, Teacher Incentive Grants, which would be pots of money given to schools that are considered hard to staff that the school community would use to provide the supports and resources that teachers at that school are most lacking. Dr. Ackerman has claimed that teacher equity is an issue that has to be handled at the negotiating table and through weakening the PFT, but that is simply not the case. There are a number of reforms that could be implemented to improve the situation that do not require changing the contract at all.
As far as the Renaissance Schools plan goes, there are a number of issues. The most fundamental issue is the assumption that the plan is based on- that the district is incapable of running successful schools. This is obviously false when we look at schools like Science Leadership Academy, a recently built small magnet school at 22nd and Arch. It's just that the district has refused to provide neighborhood schools with the resources they need to succeed. The next issue with the Renaissance schools is that there is no guarantee that school communities that have conducted processes for designing comprehensive plans for transforming their schools, like the ones at West, Kensington, and Olney, will have those processes respected. If any of those schools end up on the Renaissance list, then the years and years of community planning could be thrown out the window. When asked whether or not the community process at West would be respected if it ended up as a Renaissance school, Dr. Ackerman replied that she hoped that West wouldn't be a Renaissance school, but would meet it's targets and become a Vanguard school so it could get the autonomy needed to implement its plan. This lack of support for community organizing and decision making has to be reversed. One more change to the Renaissance plan that Student Union and other groups are advocating for is the ability for school communities to reject all of the providers presented to them is none are suitable to the communities needs and instead go through an in-district whole school transformation process. Student Union has produced a platform for whole school transformation and has presented it to the school district. Lastly, the Renaissance schools plan has some inherent flaws that stem from its history. The plan is largely based on one from Chicago called "Renaissance 2010" (implemented under now education secretary Arne Duncan) that shut down 100 schools and opened 60 new charters. The results from the plan have been met with mixed results at best, and it has been met with fierce public opposition every step of the way. The plan also bears a striking resemblance to the diverse provider plan of 2001, which we know has also produced results that are not entirely favorable.
The basic concern from all this is that decisions about schools need to be made with school communities and not for them, and that schools need to be provided with the resources they need, not with new management.
Dan Jones
Dan: Great post. Thanks
Dan: Great post. Thanks for giving us your perspective.