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Obama offers cash for turnaround schools

Kara Rowland

President Obama on Monday said the U.S. must get a handle on its high-school dropout crisis even if it requires firing principals and teachers at failing schools - a move vehemently opposed by the nation's largest teachers union.

Mr. Obama said his administration will dole out $900 million in "turnaround grants" to fledgling schools that take radical steps to improve as part of an effort to ensure the U.S. turns out the highest proportion of high-school graduates in the world by 2020. At stake, he argued, is America's global leadership in the 21st century.

During his address to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Obama praised a decision last week by a school board in Rhode Island to fire the faculty and staff at Central Falls High School, where only 7 percent of 11th-graders passed state math tests.

But that move - along with much of Mr. Obama's turnaround plan - was harshly criticized by the American Federation of Teachers, a Washington-based affiliate of the AFL-CIO, which endorsed Mr. Obama's presidential bid in 2008.

"We know it is tempting for people in Washington to score political points by scapegoating teachers, but it does nothing to give our students and teachers the tools they need to succeed," AFT President Randi Weingarten said.

Ms. Weingarten pointed to a 2009 report by Rhode Island's education commissioner that blamed challenges on leadership instability and not deficiencies among the staff.

Last year Mr. Obama listed education as one of three big issues he wanted to tackle, along with health care and global warming. But global warming legislation is stalled and health care is on rocky ground, leaving education one promising area in which he might be able to make quiet bipartisan progress.

Over the next five years, 5,000 of the nation's worst-performing schools will be eligible for assistance under the administration's turnaround grants program. To receive the funds, participating schools must either replace their principals and at least half of their staff, close and reopen under new management, close for good or completely transform themselves.

"We know that the success of every American will be tied more closely than ever before to the level of education that they achieve," Mr. Obama said at the event hosted by America's Promise Alliance, an advocacy group headed by former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his wife, Alma.

Before taking drastic steps such as ordering mass layoffs, Mr. Obama said governments should first work with principals and teachers to "find a solution."

"We've got to give them a chance to make meaningful improvements," he said. "But if a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn't show signs of improvement, then there's got to be a sense of accountability."

Mr. Obama's proposal comes on top of $3.5 billion his administration has committed to addressing failing schools, particularly high schools with graduation rates below 60 percent. He noted that more than half of those who fail to graduate are blacks and Hispanics.

Mr. Powell's organization is sponsoring a 10-year campaign, dubbed "Grad Nation," to ensure that 90 percent of current U.S. fourth-graders graduate high school on time.

Though he cautioned that government cannot do it alone, Mr. Obama said the public sector does have a responsibility when it comes to education.

"Government can help educate students to succeed in a college and a career. Government can help provide the resources to engage dropouts and those at risk of dropping out," he said. "And when necessary, government has to be critically involved in turning around the lowest-performing schools."

Reading material for Mr. President...

From Walt Gardner's "Reality Check"

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Draconian Measures at R.I. High School Are Misconceived

By Walt Gardner

Whenever I attend a social function, I'm invariably confronted by other guests who can't understand why schools have gotten so bad. They are angry and frustrated. Truth to tell, if I hadn't taught for 28 years in a public school, I would probably feel that way too because the media are notorious for their coverage of all that is negative in the world of public education.

The latest incident along this line took place at Central Falls, R.I. on Feb. 23, when the Board of Trustees of the state's smallest and poorest city voted five to two to fire the entire teaching staff, guidance counselors, three assistant principals and principal of the high school. The reason given was persistent low test scores and a graduation rate of 48 percent.

The purge is the favored tactic these days to turn around failing schools. The stated rationale is that such draconian steps are necessary when all else has failed. But there is far more here if readers are willing to approach the matter with an open mind.

The fact is that all else has not failed because all else has not yet been tried. If Central Falls is even remotely similar to other communities where poverty is rampant, students bring to class huge deficits that schools serving affluent students simply do not face. As a result, teachers in Central Falls are forced to perform what amounts to triage on a daily basis before they can begin to teach their lessons.

This concept is rare in suburban schools, which are populated by students from upper socioeconomic backgrounds. Therefore, when the bell rings, teachers in these schools can get down to teaching subject matter - not be forced to attend to extraneous factors. I don't deny that students from affluent families have their serious personal issues, but I doubt that they come to class malnourished and exhausted on a regular basis.

I began to appreciate this reality when I had an 8:00 senior composition class. One of the students continually dozed off while the other students worked on their assignments. When I asked him after class why, he told me that he was exhausted because he had to work on the docks until late at night in order to bring home extra income. I verified his explanation.

Now imagine if I had a class composed mainly of these students, rather than just one. What chance would I have to teach them? And should I be held accountable when I failed to produce evidence showing progress, let alone proficiency? Yet this is precisely what is taking place in schools across the country that serve large numbers of disadvantaged students.

That's why teachers in Central Falls are being scapegoated. Factors beyond their control are largely responsible for the school's sub-par results. It will be interesting to see what their replacements can accomplish with the same students over time. And if the new hires don't do significantly better, will they too meet the same fate? If so, how many times will the process be repeated before the futility of this strategy is finally acknowledged?

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Comments

I have been asked to provide action plans for those of my students who did not do well on the interim assessment designed to determine if kids are on track for the state tests in May. Besides the fact that (a) the questions were not always good, (b) they were assessing stuff I had taught several months back and I did not stop to do a review for a test that was not to be counted as a grade for my students, those who did poorly (a) have poor attendance records, and (b) don't consistently do their work. I control neither factor - both are in the hands of their parents. And since parents (a) get printed progress reports halfway through each quarter; (b) get printed report cards at the end of each quarter; (c) get an automated phone call home if the kid does not show up for first period; and (d) have online access to our grades and attendance for their children, when are they going to be held accountable for their responsibility? I cannot even make a kid stay after for extra help because of activities and transportation issues.

So the answer is? Blame the teacher, right?

By the way, my students tend to do very well on outside tests. Sometimes they pass the state test even though they fail all four quarters with me. So it is not that I am not doing my job.

Posted by: Ken Bernstein | March 1, 3910 8:24 AM

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Walt:

If you look at this as a "product liability" issue, teachers (alone) are being held liable for the failure of their students. If this matter were judged by a court, teachers would likely be exonerated, as they have far too little influence over factors that influence outcomes. You've pointed out only one set of factors, but there are many more. Family dynamics is probably the most significant.

If one looks at this situation as one would a scientific experiment, one would have to say the cause has not yet been isolated. There are far too many "uncontrolled variables" to ascribe any cause/effect relationships.

In this case and in the case of Manual High School in Colorado, the "leadership" has been given or has taken dictatorial power. They don't have to lead, they can command. That alone is a radically different variable.

We will need to watch carefully what is done in Central Falls. If the "new" staff is given resources appropriate to the need, they will have advantages denied the "old" staff. That would make the results more a function of additional resources than a different staff.

Posted by: kmort | March 1, 3910 12:57 AM

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I have to wonder how much media attention will be paid to efforts to hire staff to replace all those who were fired. Beyond that, how much follow-up will we get from the media when the students...who will not be replaced...fail to turn into academic superstars. Will the school board be held to account, or will they just get away with an "Oops"?

This is not just an effort to scapegoat teachers because the society is failing and the school board does not know what else to do. This is one step in an effort by the foundations run by major US corporations...like the Gates Foundation and the Eli Broad Foundation...to access the hundreds of billions of dollars spent each year on public education. Having already pillaged the rest of society these corporate thugs now want to directly control public school funding, de-professionalize teaching, turn classrooms over to Teach for America missionaries, and extract as much profit as they can from the sale of whatever they can to the schools they will control. What progressives and the teacher unions fail to understand is that the president and his secretary of education (who applauded what was done in Rhode Island) are a big part of this effort to take over public education.

Posted by: Rich | March 1, 3910 1:05 PM

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Rich is right. This is not about improving education for the Central Falls students. It's about privatizing the public schools so the corporate types can get their hands on the money. Scary!

Posted by: Linda/RetiredTeacher | March 1, 3910 2:24 PM

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I agree with the previous comments. And, I would like to extend kmort's idea: "...They don't have to lead, they can command..."

"Command" is the operative term here, as in "command and control." From wiki: "Command and control, or C2, can be defined as the exercise of authority and direction by a properly designated commanding officer over assigned and attached forces in the accomplishment of the mission."

It's militaristic.

And, should we be surprised to find Eli Broad's educational leadership program has a special focus on "command and control" strategies? From the Broad Team Effectiveness Laboratory:

"...they work on modeling and conducting research on 'command-and-control' team structure and performance..."

http://broad.msu.edu/management/lab

I can't help but wonder what these venture philanthropists have cooking in their labs. It's time for full transparency. The public needs to know exactly how Broad's "educational leaders" are directed.

Until then, March 4th!

Posted by: le1212 | March 1, 3910 2:50 PM

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Walt,

kmort raises a decent point:

"If this matter were judged by a court, teachers would likely be exonerated, as they have far too little influence over factors that influence outcomes."

But I think it could properly be litigated, not as a product liability case, but as a matter of the teachers' "property interest" in their continuing employment. If that interest has been damaged by official actions that are without support, then they deserve to be reinstated. If the officials knew or should have known that their actions weren't grounded in good social science, then they might be held personally liable.

I'm no lawyer, nor do I contend that some teachers in our urban schools are not execrable. But not all of them are, and none of them deserve to be fired for matters that are beyond their control. Where are the much maligned teacher unions on this one? Why do we never hear about legal challenges to any of these cases?

Posted by: bsmith | March 1, 3910 3:03 PM

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To examine legal, we might consider relations to "constructive discharge." Are early retirements truly voluntary, or are they response to impossible demands and workplace stress? Retire or die of stress.

Posted by: le1212 | March 1, 3910 7:12 PM

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I,too, am wondering why a case like this would not be litigated. This terribly unjust action would afford great publicity for a razor-sharp lawyer. It seems to me that it would be fairly simple to prove that the test scores and graduation rates are related to socio-economics and not to teacher performance. There is a mountain of evidence to support this and testing experts mostly agree.

Walt, do you know if lawsuits are being considered?

Posted by: Linda/RetiredTeacher | March 1, 3910 7:39 PM

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This is heart breaking. I graduated from public high school 20 years ago and was able to get an education that took me to an Ivy League college. I teach at American schools overseas where most of my students are even more privileged than the average suburban student. I am totally out of touch with the problems the article talks about; it makes me wonder what has happened to the world that I grew up in. My heart goes out to the children and teachers of Central Falls.