For people who have wondered about the references to the insidious nature of No Child Left Behind and what it all means, this year may be D-Day for more than a quarter of Philadelphia's public schools under NCLB guidelines.
More than 70 schools in Philadelphia are in Corrective Action 2 (CA2) status, which means they failed to meet federal standards of progress 5 years in a row (I listed the schools below, according to the www.paayp.com website). Some of these schools have been in CA2 status for five years, making it a decade of disappointment for those students and families. Under federal No Child Left Behind guidelines, any school in CA2 status for more than one year must be restructured, and this year, the feds are putting pressure on districts to act.
NCLB generally offers three options:
• Complete management restructuring of schools;
• Privatization;
• Turning CA2 schools over to charters
As we all know, Philadelphia under the state takeover has engaged in all these efforts already with limited success.
Privatization
For half a decade, Philadelphia has supported one of the largest systems of private and for-profit school operators in the nation. Four out of five independent studies of these schools (also known as Education Management Organizations-EMOs) have found that privatized schools generally do not outperform district schools despite having received more than $100 million in additional “management fees.” At least one of the studies has raised concerns over appropriate delivery of mandated ESOL, bilingual ed, and special ed services at these schools. Only one of the five studies showed favorable results for the EMOs, but it was partially paid for by Edison Schools Inc., the largest EMO provider in the district. When EMO contracts expired in June 2007, the District by default decided to renew all the EMOs, with one Commissioner explaining that the District didn’t have the capacity to take schools back under district control.
Charters
The District currently has 60 independent charter schools. Concerns have been raised about accountability and review of the academic progress of the charters, but in general, the biggest barrier to charters and the CA2 schools is capacity. Only a handful of charters have the financial backing, administrative capacity, and academic results to take on the CA2 schools. None of them have the capacity to take on a significant portion of the 70+ schools.
Restructured Schools
The School District founded an Office of Restructured Schools in 2002 at the same time that it opened up district schools to private operators. ORS managed a portion of schools with similar demographics and academic struggles as schools turned over to EMOs. The District invested significant resources and professional development into those schools in order to provide a comparison study group. A study by RAND/RFA (see here: http://www.researchforaction.org/publication/details/262) found that not only did ORS schools outperform EMOs, but they also outperformed regular District schools in terms of rate of academic progress. Inexplicably, the District dismantled ORS in 2005, but even so, those schools formerly under its purview continued to show gains even the year after.
Why should we care?
Even if you don't have kids in public schools, or your child's particular school isn't on the list, consider a few relevant issues:
1. Almost all the comprehensive high schools are on the CA2 list, directly impacting graduation/drop-out rates, jobs and employment, and the future of our city’s most important assets. Are charters and privatization the only options we want to give them?
2. EMOs and poor funding systems for charter schools have put an unbearable financial strain on the District. Are we willing to see more money poured into a massive expansion of these systems?
3. EMOs like Edison Schools are angling for access to broaden their contracts, despite what almost any observer would call significant failure. Can we continue to tolerate failing EMOs which continue to have minimal oversight and accountability for the neediest and longest suffering of our schools?
4. No public process has been set up for community, school, parent, or staff engagement on the future of the CA2 schools. So far, this is primarily a District run plan (which has not yet been announced).
In renewing EMOs, dismantling the Office of Restructured Schools and failing to communicate to schools and parents about a schools' status under NCLB, the District and School Reform Commission has shown tremendous lack of capacity and public engagement on the impact of NCLB on our schools.
Fortunately, when adults fail, we've got an amazing crew of resourceful youth to step in. This Wednesday, October 17 at 1 p.m., at the Board of Ed, 440 N. Broad Street, members of the Philadelphia Student Union are taking a proactive stand and demanding that parents and students be at the table on any discussion involving restructuring of schools and NCLB. Parents United for Public Education is also supporting the effort.
Join Philadelphia Student Union on Wed., Oct. 17 at 1 p.m. It’s our schools and our kids.
SPEAK OUT on CA2 Schools
School Reform Commission
440 N. Broad Street (just south of Spring Garden)
1 p.m.
Call 215-400-4040 by 4 p.m. Tues. to testify.
Unofficial List of CA2 Schools (www.paayp.com)
Schools in CA2 status, 5th year
Bluford
Clemente
Clymer
Cooke
Dunbar
Edison HS
Gillespie MS
Harding MS
Jones, J.P. MS
Mastbaum
Munoz Marin
Penn Treaty MS
William Penn HS
Potter Thomas
South Phila. HS
Stetson MS
University City HS
E. Vare MS
Schools in CA2 status, 4th year
Vaux HS
Bethune
Bryant
Carooll
DeBurgos MS
F. Douglass
Feltonville Schl. Of Arts & Sci.
Fitzsimons Acad.
B.Franklin HS
Harrity
Hill
Hopkinson
Bartram HS
Kenderton
Locke
Mann
Marshall
Morrison
Pastorius
Peirce
Pepper MS
Pickett MS
Roosevelt MS
Turner MS
Webster
West Phila. HS
Schools in CA2 status, 3 years and below
Ethan Allen
Bache Martin
Blaine
Cramp
Drew
Edmunds
Fels HS
Fitzpatrick
Frankford
Germantown HS
Gratz HS
Holme
Hunter
Jackson
King HS
Lincoln HS
Ludlow
Meehan
Northeast HS
Overbrook HS
Pennell
Roxborough HS
Shaw MS
Smedley
Southwark
Stearne
Swenson HS
Geo. Washington HS
Great post. To see that
Great post. To see that virtually every neighborhood high school is on that list is nuts.
Student Union Action on Weds
That list is really incredible.
On Weds the Student Union is having an action at the School District at 4pm 440N Broad St.
Details at PhillyIMC. Here is a video of some of the students talking about their involvement:
The spector of privitization
Here's a link where you can download a short essay by Jonathan Kozol that was in the August Harper's about how very very real the privitization threat is.
privatization and our schools
There is no specter of privatization in Philly. We are the test market and living reality of it.
It's one of the reasons parents fought so hard last spring around the renewal of the EMOs. The District renewed all the EMOs, despite overwhelming indication of failure at a cost of $12 million in additional management fees. At a time of grave deficit it highlighted the reckless use of public dollars.
But our failure to kick out the managers had less to do with will, politics and finances, than with the other evil side of privatization -- eviscerating internal capacity. In privatizing our curriculum, professional development, management, disciplinary schools and the like, districts like Philadelphia found they had lost the internal capacity and staff to retake the projects when, inevitably, the private managers failed to accomplish what they said they would.
One of the reasons the SRC voted not to kick out the managers this year was because they had no Office under which to reclaim our schools. So privatization never boosted a district's ability to handle failing schools, it just allowed it to pass the buck to another entity. And we'll continue seeking other entities over and over, until we decide whether we're going to do this right by our kids or not.
One of the efforts we're proposing is to analyze the successes and limitations (and there were plenty) of the Office of Restructured Schools (ORS) to determine how best to utilize district resources and how we need to change reform appropaches in failing schools.
New York Times and NCLB
From today's New York Times: the impact of No Child Left Behind on schools across the nation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/16/education/16child.html?ex=1193198400&e...
Not on our watch-District to decide on CA2 schools
From today's Daily News: http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20071017_Worst_schools_face_fates....
Please note the quote from Edison Schools:
An official at Edison Schools Inc., which now manages 20 city schools, said that, despite its critics, the for-profit New York company is interested in taking on more schools come fall. *
If you can't attend the SRC meeting today, please consider writing a letter to the editor: views@phillynews.com.