What Happened to Education Strategies that Promoted "Community Centered Pedagogy?"

 In the late 1980's and early 1990's, responding to a wave of violence sweeping through urban America, educators of color began proposing that public schools transform their pedagogy to enhance the self esteem and historical undersanding of young people in the hardest hit communities. They called for the transformation of social studies curricula to incorporate more Black and Latino history, for the creation of new public schools in which Black and Latino history were integral parts of the school culture, for the development of strategies to recruit more Black and Latino teachers, especially from communities that were most at risk.

There was a tremendous amount of energy and idealism accompanying this vision of Urban Education, and controversy as well. Supporters claimed these measure were necessary to save a generation of youth at risk; critics claimed they would intensify racial divisions, promote hostility to white  teachers and administrators and, in the most extreme cases, undermine patriotism and national unity.

 Fierce debates about such strategies occurred all through the 90's, but by the time  George W Bush had taken office, the critics had largely won the day. When No Child Left Behind was passed, its architects decided to base their vision of compliance and equity entirely on conformity to  National Standards which allowed little if any adaptation to community traditions.  The same approach was incorporated, in even more restrictive form, by
Barack Obama's "Race to the Top" which called for mandatory closing of schools which did not perform well on standardized tests as a condition for receiving federal grants.  Not only were inner city schools not rewarded or honored for adapting pedagogy to the cultural traditions of the communities they were located in, they were penalized for doing so if their efforts did not raise scores on standardized tests.

   The rise of  "standardization" as the centerpiece of national education policy, had a powerful impact on the charter school movement, which in its early stages, had proponents who tried to create schools incorporating community centered  pedagogy, and went out of their way to try to recruit teachers and administrators of color.  With startling rapidity, charters with that approach began losing ground, and most importantly losing funding, to charter chains such as K.I.P.P., and Success Academies, which saw student test scores on standardized tests as the centerpiece of their pedagogy and actually preferred inexperienced white teachers with little connection to the communities they taught in to veteran teachers of color who were the dominant teaching staffs in neighborhood public schools.

      Worse yet, the example of these charter chains was used as a sword for policy maker to hold over the head of public school administrators, warning them that unless they followed this model of pedagogy and teacher training, they were likely to see their schools closed, and their jobs eliminated.

     By the time of Barack Obama's second term in office, community centered pedagogy was so out of favor that no local school board in any major city dared promote it. High test scores on standardized exams, preferably those which incorporated the Common Core standards, were to be the sole measure of education equity anyone would take seriously.

    Perhaps it is time to revisit "the path not taken."  Punitive standardization has not promoted education equity, not in  New Orleans, not in New York, not in Washington DC, not anywhere. It has  not inspired students, it has not empowered teachers, it has not given families stronger connections to their neighborhoods.

    Perhaps it is time to bring back community history and recruit teachers and principals who see neighborhood cultures and traditions as an asset to their work rather than an obstacle to overcome in the pursuit of "standardization."

R.I.P. Avis Hanson "Teacher for Life"

One of the greatest teachers I have ever met passed yesterday evening. Her name was Avis Hansen and for more than 30 years, she was a teacher, English chair and advisor to the student newspaper at two Bronx high schools, Morris and Taft. . Among the many great students she mentored was Dr Clara Rodriguez, Professor of Sociology at Fordham University and an internationally known pioneer in Latino Studies. Avis Hanson's interview with the Bronx African American History Project, one of the most eloquent we ever conducted, will be in the book of the BAAHP's oral histories Fordham Press will be publishing. In it, she described how her West Indian family, looking for better educational opportunities for their children,found their way to a predominantly Jewish section of the Bronx during the Depression years when landlords began advertising vacant apartments to "select colored families." The neighborhood her family moved to, Morrisania, not only became her home for more than 20 years, it was the site of the high school where she got her first teaching position, Morris High School, which was a short walk from where she lived. As someone who knew poverty as a child, who knew discrimination, Avis Hanson welcomed students of all backgrounds who entered her classroom at Morris, provided they showed the same passion for learning that she did. She burned with a fire for knowledge and a passion for justice that lit up the lives of those fortunate to know her. Never married, Avis Hanson survived into her early 90's, still in touch with her favorite students and those she mentored.

RIP Avis Hanson. You embodied what it means to be "a teacher for life.

What a REAL Education Commissioner in NY would fight for

1. Restore the local diploma for high schools graduation for students for whom Regents exams are developmentally inappropriate. Let all young people who work hard and pass their courses get a high school diploma

2. Cut the length of exams in elementary school to 2 days with no more than 90 minutes of testing each day.

3. Eliminate the use of standardized testing to rate teachers, principals, schools and school districts. Use such tests for diagnostic purposes only to help individual students.

4. Enforce complete test transparency and end punitive test secrecy

5. Radically expand the number of consortium or portfolio schools in the state that are exempt from state tests and develop holistic strategies for assessing student performance

6.. Bring back vocational and technical education through out the state in collaboration with community colleges and local employers.

7. End the requirement that all tests in the state be aligned to the Common Core standards and end all contracts with for profit test companies. Go back to the system of having teachers and teacher educators devise state tests.

8. Prohibit cancellation of recess or physical education for test prep and work to promote play and physical activity among students

"Opt Out- Stop the Abuse" Message from an Educator in Upstate New York

The New York State Education Department released the student test data to the school districts on Friday, August 21, 2015.  I have spent two entire days entering student test data into the computer.  That is, I entered a 1, 2, 3,or 4 for specific students.  In many cases, only one student took the test.  What this means is that one student will determine a teacher’s growth score.  One student will be the deciding factor if a teacher is rated: developing, effective, highly effective, or ineffective.  One student.  Is this statistically sound?    Most would call this inhumane or even insane.  Is this ethical?

A teacher who may be a single working mom supporting her family stands to lose her income if deemed ineffective two years in a row.  We are fortunate to have some local assessments in place that may save her job----maybe.  It’s hard to plan for a family’s future when your job and entire livelihood lies in the balance.  This is an unnecessary amount of pressure.  Most would call this inhumane or even insane. Is this ethical?

So, what most people do not know is that these state tests DO NOT truly measure a student’s reading skills or math skills.  These tests Do Not measure a teacher’s effectiveness.  The tests have been purposely designed to reduce the public school teaching staff exponentially.  Most would call this inhumane or even insane.  Is this ethical?

I pride myself in knowing the students in my school.  I know their families.  I know their day-to-day performance in the classroom.  In many cases, I have known these children since Kindergarten.  I know their joys and their sorrows.  I know the teachers in my building.  I know their joys, their struggles, and their hardships.   I cannot help but think about all of this as I proceed with the mind-numbing task of entering a 1, 2, 3, or 4 into the computer system.  A numbers game with human beings, that I am being manipulated to participate in, coerced if you will.   This I know is wrong with ever fiber of my being, my heart and my soul.  I saw 2’s for students who should have gotten a 4.  They would have gotten a 4 if the test was written on their grade level, and if there were no trick questions with extremely close choices for answers.  I saw 2’s for students who read above their grade level.  That tells me that they are not test takers and/or the answers were so close that they may have picked the wrong one, or they may simply have run out of time due to the length of the reading passages.  I cannot analyze this, because, I do not have the test questions  nor do I have the answer sheets.  I cannot have a conference with parents and show them where their child needs assistance.  Most would call this inhumane or even insane.  Is this ethical?

How can I trust the validity of any of this?  How can I trust what the new Commissioner of Education dictates?   She is new to her position.  She has not yet earned the trust of New Yorkers.  I understand she has concerns about ethics. 

I think about the student who vomited on her test.  We followed protocol, and put her test in a zip lock bag.  She was escorted to the Nurse’s office, and needless to say, she did not finish her test.  I don’t have a test score to enter for her. These tests put several stakeholders under undue pressure.  Is this ethical?

I wake at 2:00 am and see the computer screen right before my eyes.  I can see all of the data, but what I really see before my eyes is unethical practices of the New York State Education Department. 

I consider the Commissioner’s comments that I am an extension, or an arm , if you will of the New York State Education Department.  I view all of these manipulations, and lies as abuses of power.  There, I said it.  Abuse.   Abuse of children.     Abuse of teachers.   Abuse of parents’ rights.  Malfeasance.   If I continue to blindly obey, and remain silent, am I an accessory to the abuse? 

I think about Maya Angelou’s quote:  “ I did then what I knew how to do.  Now I know better, I do better. “

In my humble opinion I feel, that we the people/ parents have the right to do better.

Opt Out.

Stop the abuse. 

It’s the principle of the thing. 

My moral compass tells me that the State Education Department and the new Commissioner are attempting to rule with an iron fist.  Personally, I feel that I have a responsibility to the taxpayers who pay my salary and to the children that are entrusted to my care.  Each and every child deserves to be treated with kindness, and handled with velvet gloves.

Truth to Power.

                                        

Six Good Reasons for Parents in NY State to Support the Opt Out Movement

1.Testing in the state has reached abusive proportions. Third graders in NY take six days of tests that are more time consuming than the LSAT's, the MCAT's, and the SAT's There are too many tests which take too much time

2. The mathematical forumulas used to rate teachers on the basis of the tests are wildly innacurate. Some of the best teachers in the state. at some of the highest performing schools have been given unfavorable ratings, prompting lawsuits which are likely to increase in frequency.

3. The tests have been so poorly designed that the state was forced to cancel the contract with the major test vendor- Pearson- replacing it with another company whose track record is barely better.

4. The use of testing to designate schools or school districts as "failing" and in imminent danger of closing or a state takeover has led to the transformation of all instruction into test prep in high poverty districts, and the cancellation of recess and school trips to create more study time for students.

5. The stress levels imposed by high stakes testing on students, families and teachers has reached such proportions that many have to seek medical care to deal with the anxiety

6. The inappropriate adminstration of tests to students with special needs, and to ELL students, has led to systematic humiliation of our most vulnerable young people.

Opting Out is the most effective strategy we have to force governments to reduce the level of testing in our schools, and remove the "high stakes" which have filled our schools with anxiety and stress

Please feel free to share these with parents, teachers, principals, superintendents and school board members

How Broken Windows Policing Leaves Large Numbers of People Unemployable

  The other day, one of my friends and tennis partners, a criminal lawyer, gave a chilling account of what a good part of his law practice involves. Many of his clients, he said, are working class people who have been arrested for non violent crimes ranging from shoplifting, to possessing small amounts of drugs, to passing  bad checks,  to getting in bar room brawls, to arguing with police when stopped for DWB or WWB ( Driving or Walking While Black). What he tells these clients is that they are paying him to make sure that they won't have an arrest or conviction record that will show up on background checks. And why is that worth it? Because employers simply won't hire people, even for entry level jobs, if they have criminal convictions on their record.

   I left this conversation extremely upset. Not just because it confirmed what i knew about criminal records disqualifying people for employment-I knew this from unsuccessfully trying to help young men who had recently been released from prison find jobs-but because this disqualification covered even people who were arrested for non violent offenses who would never spend a day in jail, a group whose numbers have been growing astronimically in the last few years because of "Broken Windows Policing."

    In many parts of this country, it is the official policy of police departments to arrest people en masse for  minor non violent offenses. In New York City, the stated logic of this policy is to prevent more serious crimes and to engage in searches which take guns off the street; but in many other communities, such as Ferguson Missourri, a side effect of the policy is to  fine local residents in such proportions that it helps balance strapped city budgets. In any case, it is now official public policy to maximize arrests for non-violent offenses and to promote police officers based on the number of such arrests they make through a computerized system called Comstat.

   Now put two and two together. Basically, we have a system of police governance whose major side effect is to render large numbers of people unemployable!!!

   And who are these people? Are they college students who possess or sell drugs? Or wealthy people who smash their luxury cars? Overwhelmingly, the people arrested for these offenses are poor people and people of color, especially young men of color.

   Is this really just? Is this really fair? Is it in the national interest to conduct public policy in a way that renders a high proportion of young men of color unemployable?

   We need to challenge this on two fronts. First, take a hard look at Broken Windows Policing. And second, look at how backround checks are used to disaqualify people for employment for conviction of non violent offenses.

   if we don't we are heading for an explosion. We may be at that point already

The Terrible Price of Fearing for Your Child's Safety- A Very Personal Response to "Between the World and Me"

This review essay was originally written for "Jewish Currents"

Let me say at the outset that I cannot be objective in reviewing Ta-Nehisi Coates new book, "Between the World and Me," which is addressed to his 15 year old son, who burst into tears when learning that the Ferguson  Grand Jury refused to indict the police officer who killed Michael Brown.   I have a 11 year old bi-racial granddaughter who is  the light of my life- she is beautiful, smart, athletic  with a great future.   But when Michael Brown was killed, the first thought that came into my mind was “Thank God she is not a boy.”  No grandfather should think such thoughts, but those are the thoughts Black parents have to think every day. Because as Coates reminds us,  Black bodies, for as long as we have been a nation,  have littered the pathways that whites have walked toward their version of  “The American Dream,” and even today, the life of a Black person can be snuffed out if he or she is in the wrong place and the wrong time and those who do the killing will rarely be punished.

  The image of America as a nation whose progress has been built on the exploitation and murder of Black people is not going to win any popularity contests in mainstream political discourse. There are historical works, such as Edward Baptist’s "The Half  Never Been Told," which provide concrete evidence for such an argument, with a tone that is less confrontational, and with a less pessimistic vision of the American future.

   But what Coates does, with unmatched clarity, is to describe how Black parents, and children, and entire communities have been traumatized by the fear that  Black life is cheap and could be sniffed out at the drop of a hat with little recourse from  the law because the law is complicit in its devaluation. And he does so in a way that may be more effective than an historian or a sociologist presenting data because he takes us into the mind of a parent terrified for the life of their child, a perspective any parent can readily identify with

Here is how Coates  describes this fear to his son. There is no distance in his writing. Just imagine what it takes to address your own child this way:

“I am afraid. I feel the fear most acutely when you leave me and in this I was unoriginal. When I was your age, the only people I knew were black, and all of them were powerfully, adamantly, dangerously afraid….

“It was always right in front of me. The fear was there in the extravagant boys of my neighborhood,  in their large rings and medallions, their puffy big coats and full length fur collared leathers, which was their armor against the worlds. . . . I think back on those boys now and all I see is fear and all I see is them girding themselves against the bad old days when the Mississippi mob gathered around their grandfathers so that the branches of the black body might be torched, then cut away. The fear lived on in their practiced bop, their slouching denim, their big T-shirts, the calculated angle of their baseball caps . . . .

“I heard the fear in the first music I ever knew, the music that pumped from boom boxes full of grand boast and bluster.  The boys who stood out on Garrison and Liberty up on Park Heights loved this music because it told them, against all evidence and odds, that they were masters or their own lives, their own streets, their own bodies. . . .

“ And I saw it in my own father, who loves you, who counsels you, who slipped me money to care for you. My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away. Everyone had lost a child, somehow, to the streets, to jail to drugs to guns. . . .And now they were gone and their legacy was a great fear”

     In all of African American memoir literature, and in all memoir literature I know of, there is no comparable passage  to this written to speak to one’s child.  Can you imagine what depths of despair it took for Coates to write this?

      This is a book which sees nothing but continuity between the slave ship, the overseers whip, the slave market auction, late night rapes and seductions, the mass murder of black union soldiers, Black Codes and the Night Riders,  Jim Crow Laws, lynchings and prison farms and  today’s  toxic mix of ghettoization, the drug war, stop and frisk, and police murders of unarmed Black men and women. All of these Coates suggest, so that white people can feel virtuous and secure and able to say the violence was all in the past or that black people’s marginality is their own fault. When in fact their entire society, which they proclaim has been a beacon to the world’s peoples, was based on murder and theft


       Is this world view credible?  Yes, but it is also incomplete, especially when considering economics.. Over the last thirty years, the exportation of jobs, the destruction of unions, and the financialization of the economy, coupled with wage compression and a housing and credit card bubble, have brought unprecedented economic insecurity into the lives of working class and middle class whites.  Coates talks about the American Dream as though it is still intact for most white people, when it is in fact quickly slipping out of their grasp. He erases distinctions between white elites, who are monopolizing the nation’s wealth, a still secure upper middle class, a floundering and shrinking white middle class, and a white working class which is steadily being driven into poverty and insecurity, and is, in some places, intermarrying and/or becoming part of extended families with Black and Latino working class people stuck in the same predicament/ And this is hardly accidental.  Coates, who grew up in inner city Baltimore, attended Howard University, and found his career in a world of insurgent, and counter cultural journalism where the whites he would meet were liberal intellectuals, had little experience living with, or working with working class or blue collar whites, and it is not surprising their angst, rage or confusion about their declining status has little place in this book.

       But though Coates book may erase distinctions between whites, and underestimate the ways class and economics shapes current forms of white privilege, his descriptions of how Black people have internalized the multiple traumas  they have suffered and how they fear for their children at a time when state violence against and police harassment of black people is an ever present danger have an authenticity that cannot be reduced to statistics.

      Coates stories, of the Baltimore community he grew up in, of his family he visited  in the South, of  his friends at Howard,  of the people he lived with in New York’s inner city neighborhoods show a people who are vibrant, resilient, creative and at times brilliantly insightful, yet can never shake off the fear that something terrible could happen to them at any moment. And no one can from outside can say that is not real!  How could you, in the wake of the deaths of Travon Martin, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and now Sandra Bland?

     And Coates has a story that for him, puts these contemporary deaths in terrifying context, a story that helps carry the narrative of this book through to its conclusion. The subject is a fellow student from Howard, Prince Jones,  who became his close friend even after successfully winning the affections of a young woman Coates was in love with.  Jones was chased down and murdered near his own home  by a Prince George County  narcotic detective even though he was unarmed, and had no criminal record. The police officer who killed Jones was Black, most public officials  in the country were Black, and  yet no criminal charges were filed in Jones death. If Jones, a popular talented student at a Black college could die this way, Coates concluded, what Black person would really feel secure. It would be no exaggeration to say Jones death left Coates with something approaching PTSD, whose symptoms recurred with a vengeance in the wake of the police murders that have taken place during the last two years

  Significantly, the book ends with a meeting Coates had with Prince Jones mother, a well respected physician who grew up in a black working class family in  Louisiana.  She is calm, dignified, yet permanently scarred by what would have to be called the worst tragedy that could ever befall a parent, the premature death of a child, made all the more horrible that is was done by agents of a government that is supposed to represent her, and protect her and her loved ones.

This is how Coates interprets the outcome:

“And she could not lean on her country for help.  When it came to her son, Dr Jones country did what it dies best- it forgot him. The forgetting is habit, is yet another necessary component of the Dream.  They have forgotten the scale of the theft that enriched them in slavery; the terror that allowed them, for a century, to pilfer the vote; the segregationist policy that gave them their suburbs. They have forgotten, because to remember would tumble them out of the beautiful Dream and force them to live down here with us, here in this world.”

    At a time when the Dream is seeming out of reach to more and more Americans, of all races, the experiences Coates describes must be confronted in all their complexity and tragic power. The pain of Black parents and Black families feeling their children are unnecessarily and unjustly at risk must be heard loudly and clearly. It must never be pushed aside because some think it inconvenient.  Until we address it, we can never say we are making real social progress.
Coates book  makes sure we will never forget that perspective. For that we should all be extremely grateful

    I want to end with something that took place in one of my classes at Fordham during the fall of 2014. We had just heard the news that the Grand Jury in Ferguson had declined to indict the police officer who killed Mike Brown and the class wanted to talk about it. One of my students, a beautiful, brilliant white student from Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn who taught hip hop dance in local schools raised her hand. I called on her and this is what she said. “When I heard what the Grand Jury decided, I couldn’t sleep, so I called my Black friend. I told her, “I am so angry about the verdict I can’t sleep.” She interrupted me and said “ You have the luxury of being angry.  You’re white. We are terrified.” People in the class started crying, They got it.

 Ti-Nahisi Coates book has that same power. It should  make us cry, and want to so something about the policies, and institutional patterns, that make Black parents, and Black families feel so very vulnerable, and so very alone.

Some Tough Questions for Teach for America and the Charters

The dominant woldview of Teach for America, along with the most popular charter school chains - Success Academices, K.I.P.P., Uncommon Schools etc- implies that low income communities are "toxic" and that for young people in them to succeed, they must be insulated from all surrounding cultural influences and choose as role models and institutions to aspire to people and places far away from where they live. That is why such programs actually prefer teachers who have no connection with the communities they live im, teach for a short time, and concentrate on drilling students for tests whose symbols and cultural references have no connection to the neighborhoods students actually live in. It is also why these programs and schools promote draconian behavior codes which lead to the massive expulsion of rebellious or non-conforming students and families.

To challenge these programs and institutions effectively, we must challenge their worldview as well as their pedagogy and educational philosophy

Here are a couple of questions that might guide this

First, are low income families any more "toxic" in terms of values and impact than the hedge fund managers and real estate developers who fund charters and TFA who have monopolized obscene portions of the nation's wealth while promoting policies that lower wages, cut government budgets and promote gentrification of neighborhoods

Second, does regarding local communities as "the enemy" prevent you from incorporating valuable cultural resources into the school culture, ranging from music, to historical knowledge, to traditions of heroism and resiliance, that might make school communities more joyous and nurturing and inspiring places

Third, does the massive expulsion of non conforming students and families, along with the preference for short term teachers from outside, rather than teachers for life from the communities schools are located in, divide neighborhoods vulnerable to real estate speculation and displacement and prevent them from uniting to defend their children from abusive police practices, the drug war, and other policies which marginalize and stigmatize young people of color

We owe it to our children, all children, to ask these tough questions

Underlying Conditions Which Give Traction to "Black Lives Matter"

Black Lives Matter, as a movement, emerged from police killings of unarmed Black men and women. But powerful underlying trends that have been around for some time give the movement traction. Among these trends are:

A drug war which has led to levels of incarceration of non-violent Black drug offenders which have destroyed entire communities and are utterly disproportionate to the actual role of African Americans in the nation's drug business.

The militarization of the nation's police, as a result of both the drug war and the "war on terror" which have led to young people of color being pinned into their own communities, and occasionally their own housing projects, by aggressive policing.

The widespread adoption of the "broken windows" theory of policing, reinforced by data driven methods of evaluating police performance, which lead police to aggressively confront people of color when walking, driving, taking public transportation, entering or leaving schools, if it appears that non violent infractions of the law might be taking place

The massive closing of public schools in inner city communities, over the objections of local residents, which has led to the destabilization of neighborhoods, the firing of thousands of teachers of color, and the enrollment of young people of color in charter schools which engage in intimidation and expulsion of students who
don't conform to the draconian disciplinary policies these institutions adopt

Housing and development policies which have forced people of color out of neighborhoods they have lived in for generations, pushing them into suburbs and rural areas where they have few amenities, few institutions which reflect their traditions and which often contain police forces hostile to their presence.

These trends have gone unchecked for the last 20 years, supported by politicians of both parties, and have not slowed down in the slightest during the years of the Obama Presidency.

It is any wonder that young people have become incredibly frustrated with leaders inside and outside their communities who do not address their concerns.

Next Step for the Opt Out Movement- Demanding Public Schools Exempt from State Tests

If you want to restore idealism to the teaching profession, win back the confidence of the nation's parents, and expand the recruitment of teachers of color, one sure fire way to do this is start opening "test exempt" public schools in communities where parents and teachers demand them, either by opening new schools or giving test exemptions to existing schools.

There are already high schools like this in New York City- called "Consortium Schools"- which use teacher developed assessments to chart student progress, and they are extremely popular with students and parents. It is time to expand this experiment to middle schools and elementary schools, and spread it around the nation.

It is hard to put in words how much excitement and hope this will create among the nation's disillusioned parents and teachers, who have been leaving public schools in droves. Imagine- a chance to unleash teacher and students creativity; end the humiliation and abuse of students with special needs; give the arts, play and exercise their rightful place in the school experience; and allow flexibility in assessing student talents and performance.

There will be those who say that such an experiment dispenses with "accountability" and makes it impossible to determine whether these schools serving their students well, but that is only because they see test results are the only important data. However there are other forms of "data" that may be even more meaningful in determining whether such schools are succeeding. Here are a few:

How many teachers apply to teach in these schools when they open?
How long do teachers stay at these schools once they begin operations?
How much turnover is there among students in these schools? Are there less student suspensions than in regular public schools and charter schools?
What are the graduation rates of students who begin in these schools? Do a higher percentage of students stay in these schools till graduation- at whatever level- than in regular public schools and charter schools?
And finally, how do the college admission and retention rates, and job placement rates of students in these schools compare to those in regular public schools and charter schools?

An overemphasis on testing, data collection, and national standards has created unprecedented levels of demoralization and resistance among parents teachers and students. Here is an opportunity to use all that energy to revitalize teaching and learning and turn schools into places where everyone wants to be rather than centers of stress and abuse

Do we dare to propose this and fight for it?

I hope the answer is yes.

PS Text exemption means exemption from State Tests. Teachers in these schools can, when appropriate, administer tests to determine student skill levels provided they are not used to intimidate or humiliate any class or category of students.

The Key to Great Teaching is Finding the Genius in Every Child

After 50 years of teaching , my greatest accomplishment has been persuading my students that their voice matters, giving them the opportunity to have their voice heard, and helping them sharpen their means of expression, be it in written or spoken form, so that voice reaches people more effectively. None of those objectives can be achieved throughstandardized testing. Starting with my first courses for high school students in the Columbia Upward Bound Program in 1968, I have sought to inspire and empower students through a pedagogy that involves reading and research, lots of writing, discussions and debates, and opportunities to express ideas through poetry, music, theater, film or other forms of artistic expression.

These methods work. My students, many of whom came from families of modest means, have become teachers, social workers, attorneys, architects and planners, musicians, film makers, police officers, leaders of businesses and founders of non profits, even mayors of small cities. Over a hundred have become professors, and more than 50 have written books.

But virtually ever lesson I have learned in lifetime of teaching and coaching has been discarded by current policy makers. Rather than finding the spark in every student, and organizing skill development around that quest, we are trying to force students to adapt to abstract standards far from their experience, drilling them till they reach it, and intimidating and humiliating them if they don't, can't or won't.

The genius in every child should be the basis of our pedagogy. It is there, waiting to be discovered, Its forms my vary. It may come in writing, in speech or song, in mechanics and invention, in things that can be built or repaired with ones hands, in athletic talent, in compassion and empathy.

You can smother that genius through drilling and testing, You certainly cannot find it, nurture it, or help it find its most appropriate means of expression.

How the Community Schools Concept Was Implemented in Holyoke, Mass- A Critique. Guest Post by Gus Morales

FSCSs in Holyoke: A Panacea for our Schools?

Prior to state receivership, the Holyoke Public Schools (HPS) implemented a large number of programs and worked with an assortment of contracted consultants and organizations on school turnaround efforts.  Commissioner Chester provided the most recent brief summary in December of 2014, listing America’s Choice and the District Management Council as the most recent partners, each with particular focus and approach (http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/docs/2015-03/item7-Timeline.pdf).  We agree with the assessment that these programs and partners did not produce the intended results, even if these results were narrowly defined as improved standardized scores.  Significantly, teachers have been overwhelmed by the quick switches from one program and one partner to the next. Teachers have not been meaningfully consulted about the various approaches based on our expertise and knowledge of our students.  These new initiatives have garnered additional resources, often without a public accounting, and a general lack of rigorous outside evaluation.  It is in this context that we approach the topic of family and community engagement today, focusing on the Full Service Community School model (FSCS), the District strategy for family and community involvement being implemented at four of our schools so far.

Full Service Community Schools (FSCSs) developed as a strategy of service coordination intended to break down silos and allow for collaboration between agencies serving children at their schools, thus facilitating providing all of the support services children need in one location. Inspired by the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone, championed by the Coalition of Community Schools, and embraced by federal and state education leaders seeking to meet the needs of low-income children, the approach was an attractive one for reform-minded school administrators and their community partners in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

The Harlem Children’s Zone approach has been difficult to replicate in other locations around the country because it was an intensive one that involved working with children before they entered school.  The approach began by engaging the parents or caretakers in the home and obtaining support services for families very early in the children’s lives, and most distinctly, by delineating a specific concentrated geographic area for concentrated delivery of coordinated services.  Children 0-3 and their parents participated in Baby College; children from 3 to 5 years of age in the Path to Promise program, and only children winning lotteries participated in the charter school Promise Academies. There is debate in the literature about the success of the Harlem Children’s Zone as measured by children’s outcomes, but there is considerable agreement that the approach is very difficult to replicate.

The national FSCS advocacy organization known as The Coalition for Community Schools identifies the following five conditions for effective learning environments upon which full-service community schools are designed and built: “1. The academic program is characterized by high expectations, challenging courses, and qualified teachers; 2. Students are engaged in learning before, during, and after school – wherever they are; 3. The basic needs of young people and their families are met; 4. Parents, families, and school staff have relationships based on mutual respect; and 5. Communities and schools partner to ensure safe, supportive, and respectful learning environments for students and to connect students to a wider community.”  (Eccles, J. and Gootman, J.A., Eds. Community Programs to Promote Youth Development. Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2002, p. 15).  Putting aside for a moment the question of whether the FSCS approach actually produces measurable academic and socio-emotional outcomes, one would be hard put to argue that these five conditions upon which FSCSs are to be built existed or exist in any of the four FSCSs  in Holyoke.

Even strong supporters of FSCSs contend that, “We believe that community schools should be seen as vehicles for education reform; therefore, improved learning and achievement must be a long-term measure of the effectiveness of this growing movement. In addition to test scores, learning and achievement related indicators include rates of attendance, promotion, graduation, suspension and expulsion for example. It is important to note that community schools are designed to affect not only educational outcomes but other outcomes as well. Such outcomes include improved social behavior and healthy youth development; better family functioning and parental involvement; enhanced school and community climate; and access to support services. These outcomes have value in and of themselves, in addition to affecting educational outcomes.” (Evaluation of Community Schools: findings to date, Joy G. Dryfoos, Hastings-on-Hudson New York, 10706. Downloaded from http://www.communityschools.org/assets/1/AssetManager/Evaluation%20of%20Community%20Schools_joy_dryfoos.pdf quotation from page 2).

While more analysis is required to determine all of these different outcomes for the four Holyoke Public Schools FSCSs, one place to begin is by tracking publicly reported MCAS data.

MCAS Data Kelly School, FSCS since 2012

Year	ELA Proficient	ELA NI/W	CPI	Math Proficient	Math NI/W	CPI
2010	19	81	56.3	13	85	48.4
2011	20	78	54.3	10	88	45.2
2012	18	82	51.9	11	87	43.2
2013	19	81	52.5	17	77	54.0
2014	14	85	49.7	19	77	51.8

MCAS Data Lawrence, opened as FSCS 2013

Year	ELA Proficient	ELA NI/W	CPI	Math Proficient	Math NI/W	CPI
2013	-	-	-	-	-	-
2014	10	90	46.6	17	83	47.1

MCAS Data Morgan School, FSCS since 2011

Year	ELA Proficient	ELA NI/W	CPI	Math Proficient	Math NI/W	CPI
2010	14	86	49.0	6	93	35.6
2011	22	78	56.9	12	88	45.3
2012	22	78	54.7	12	86	43.7
2013	20	80	52.2	13	85	44.0
2014	19	81	53.9	11	88	44.1

MCAS Data Peck School, FSCS since 2009

Year	ELA Proficient	ELA NI/W	CPI	Math Proficient	Math NI/W	CPI
2010	22	77	58.9	13	84	51.9
2011	26	74	63.9	19	76	58.5
2012	21	77	60.1	19	76	61.8
2013	20	79	61.8	22	71	60.4
2014	17	82	49.4	15	82	47.8

Source: MADESE profiles.doe.mass.edu

To provide a fuller picture, detailed data on the suspension, discipline referrals, attendance rates, and many other indicators at Peck/Lawrence, Kelly, and Morgan FSCSs over the past five years is needed.  A full accounting of all grant and local funds expended on the FSCS approach over the past five years would complement this analysis, along with interviews with students and parents not selected by FSCS staff and conducted without school-based nor central office personnel present, perhaps by ESE liaisons or by a bicultural bilingual researcher independent of current FSCS higher education partners.

Careful analysis of MCAS data, suspension and discipline data, attendance data, and an objective examination at the state of student and parent engagement in the FSCSs could help answer the mounting questions of community leaders not receiving sub-contracts under FSCSs, of parents, and of teachers not under the supervision of FSCS principals. Have the best intentions and very large investment in the FSCS model produced its desired outcomes in Holyoke? To ask this question is not in any way to discount the tremendously valuable work of community partners nor to discourage a system of cross-agency collaboration intended to wrap services around students at school. Nor is it to tarnish the individual work of teachers, paraprofessionals, counselors and other staff members at the four schools in question.  Rather, it is to highlight the urgent question of how the socio-emotional needs of students might be met to best support improved academic and life outcomes for Holyoke students.

There are many models for socio-emotional learning and support. The MA Model of Comprehensive School Counseling is a research-based K-12 guidance counseling approach endorsed by MADESE and by MASCA:

http://www.masca.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=116&Itemid=117

The MA Career Development Education Benchmarks Crosswalk with the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks is a useful tool for aligning guidance to Curriculum Frameworks:

http://masca.org/images/mamodel/final_ma_model.9.21.06.crosswalk.pdf

Much has been written on the importance of socio-emotional learning and the need to implement guidance in PK-12 education and much has been documented by experts on the subject of Comprehensive School Counseling in the Commonwealth.  Implementing comprehensive counseling was recognized as an urgent need in Holyoke.  However, it ended up taking a back seat and suffering from greatly reduced funding as Adjustment and Guidance Counselor caseloads continued to increase while the time scheduled to offer actual guidance decreased.  (From Cradle to Career: Educating our Students for Lifelong Success.  Recommendations from the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Task Force on Integrating College and Career Readiness. June 2012. http://www.doe.mass.edu/ccr/2012-06BESEReport.docx).

Even as non-experts, parents and educators with any background in child development will easily understand that In PK-3rd grade young children should be engaged in learning to name and express emotions as they develop emotional self-regulation. Once students are 4-5^th/6th graders they need support to develop the self-efficacy and self-advocacy needed to interact positively with others while becoming increasingly independent and responsible learners and citizens.  At the 6^th/7th-12th grade stage addressing adolescent issues and helping students plan for college and careers through readily available MAESE tools is a critical guidance moment. 

The PK-5^th/6^th grade socio-emotional learning is the foundation for secondary guidance work focused on preparing students for college and careers. While the Mass GRAD Initiative and other work by many sectors produced an uptick in the Holyoke high school graduation rates recently, any teacher can attest that HPS students’ socio-emotional issues tremendously affect their learning and can lead to disengagement and/or discipline problems that interfere with teaching while contributing to students dropping out even before they enter high school.

Careful study of the FSCSs conducted by objective outside evaluators selected by Dr. Zrike and MADESE staff, not by invested administrators, could help identify promising practices while freeing up funding to support the neglected Guidance Counselors, to implement the MA Model of Comprehensive School Counseling in all Holyoke Schools, and to support the socio-emotional learning increasingly linked to academic outcomes.

Extrapolating the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ) approach via the community school movement into Holyoke’s FSCSs is extremely complicated due to the specific student profile of the Holyoke Public Schools and local conditions.  Even public schools neighboring the HCZ did not match the composition of the HCZ charter schools: “And comparing the student populations at Promise Academy with those in the nearby regular public schools is an apples-to-oranges matchup: The HCZ schools serve significantly fewer high-need learners, like special education students or kids who are learning English. For instance, only 6 percent of the third graders who look the 2007-08 English test at the Promise Academy had disabilities, while disabled kids made up 30, 40, even 60 percent of the test-taking pool in open-enrollment schools in the district. Only a handful of students at the Promise Academies are English-language learners, compared with 14 percent in schools citywide. And the students who attend HCZ are selected by lottery, which may in itself shape the schools’ population: Unlike open-enrollment neighborhood schools, the lottery requires a measure of parental initiative that benefits HCZ students in other ways” (Helen Zelon, “Is the Promise Real: The Harlem Children’s Zone Becomes a Template for National Change,” City Lights 34:1. March 2010. Download from http://www.phoenixworks.org/PLSC240/Zelon.pdf  quotation from page 14).

Finally, the process of decision-making, the leadership, hiring, and community representation in Holyoke’s FSCSs leaves much to be desired and has taken place mostly outside of the formal channels of decision-making.  Holyoke’s Latino residents have been largely excluded from paid positions in the FSCSs. All past and present FSCS Managers have been white and of European descent.  There is a growing feeling that an authentic parent voice is largely absent in these schools.

The Holyoke School Committee was not part of the decisions about which schools would be declared FSCSs.  The planning processes held up at each school as highly participatory were essentially designed by the principals with a paid consultant and with the participation of community agencies whose directors and employees, with a few exceptions, do not live in the City of Holyoke and who do not have children in the Holyoke Public Schools.  Finally, the FSCSs have become closed systems in which community partners are vetted by very few individuals. Expanding the partnerships to meet evolving student and family needs has proven very challenging and the process is not transparent.

We imagine that given the publicity and funding the FSCSs have received, Dr. Zrike and our MADESE liaisons may be surprised by the questions presented here. They do not know that a culture of fear exists around questioning any of these decisions or even evaluating the FSCS model. The favored position of FSCSs in our District and in our school administration, as well as in our City Hall, has cut off discussion and close examination.

The following pending questions for further research have been submitted by Holyoke residents and HPS employees:

1. Has the large amount of funding spent on FSCS had any impact on increasing achievement and/or closing the achievement gap? Where is the data to support any such gains?

2. How has the focus on allocating funds to the FSCSs impacted district instructional budgets with regard to class size, staffing, and support for needed instructional programs?

3. Exactly what amounts of federal, state, and private grant funds and local funds have been spent on FSCSs in Holyoke?

4. Were funds traditionally set aside for summer school, family literacy, and other enrichment programs diverted to FSCSs?

5. Is the FSCS model clearly identified as the District model? How was this decision made?

6. Of the people employed by the FSCS programs as managers, how many are Latinos? How many live in Holyoke?

7. How many Holyoke parents are involved and what benchmarks are used to measure their engagement?

8.  How many people of color are part of the decision making either as employees, parents, or community partners in the FSCSs? How many are Holyoke residents?

9. Of the FSCS sub-contracts, how many have gone to organizations based in Holyoke? Is there a list available?

10. How many of the college students placed in volunteer and internship positions in the FSCSs are graduates of Holyoke High School or Dean Technical Vocational High School? What percentage are enrolled at HCC? What percentage are Latinos/as?