Have You Heard is a new podcast series from Jennifer Berkshire (Edushyster), one of the handful of edubloggers who does the work of a real journalist.
For her first episode, she and blog partner Aaron French have traveled to Philadelphia to talk to some Opt Out activists who are not suburban white soccer moms, but urban African-American parents. It's a group that has been largely invisible in mainstream coverage of the opt-out movement, in particular because the narrative of the Testocrats has been that the Big Standardized Test is an important civil rights tool, opposed only (as famously suggested by Arne Duncan) a bunch of white suburban moms who are mad that the BS Test reveals their children to be less brilliant than they supposed.
But Philadelphia activists like Robin Roberts, Will Thomas, Shakeda Gaines and Tonya Bah reveal another picture.
Their growth as opt-out activists has been gradual, in part because Philly school authorities denied that opt out exists in PA, that parents have no such rights. The first time Gaines took her opt-out letter to the school and was denied. Says Thomas, "They'll look you right in your face and make you believe that what you're feeling isn't real."Yet Pennsylvania clearly has an opt out law on the books, allowing any parent to opt out of just about any educational activity based on religious objections-- and there is no requirement for them to explain the nature of that religious objection.
These parents see the stakes as large, and throughout the interview it becomes clear that they see the issue of testing as part of a larger assault on their schools. Schools that are already on starvation budgets still keep the testing no matter what the budget cuts. Resources are lost. Thomas asks if children doesn't do well, is there a program that says "Let's assist them." Is there money set aside to "empower" that school? No, he says. They close it. Your child is bussed out.
Bah says that students, teachers and parents have a right to be part of the decisions about the school. And that's a recurring theme for these activists-- the view that the BS Testing juggernaut is part of a mechanism for dismantling local schools and silencing local voices. "We will have a community of people that merely follow directions. I'm not interested in that type of community." Opt out is a way to demand that schools are centers of learning, not of testing.
There's much more to hear, though the podcast clocks in at just over 19 minutes. Give it a listen right in the space below, and then if you like it, make a contribution to the work that Berkshire and French have set out to do.You can catch my full-on pitch right here.
This is a great podcast to share; it's clear and understandable and fair and even people who haven't been closely following the issues will still see clearly what is going on. Take a listen, then share it with a friend.
Showing posts with label Philadelphia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Philadelphia. Show all posts
Friday, February 5, 2016
Monday, October 5, 2015
Can Philly Super Do His Job?
Today the Daily News in Philly ran an editorial declaring, "Let Philly Schools Chief Hite Do His Job." The editorial writer is pretty much full of it; nevertheless, I agree that Hite should get to do his job. In fact, I wish somebody would make him do his job.
The issue at hand seems to be that Superintendent Hite is getting ready to privatize some more of the Philly school district. Some of the charter operators being brought in include Big Picture Foundation of Rhode Island and the ever-delightful Renaissance schools.
I could get into the issue of charters taking over public schools, or the track record of these particular operators, or the history of Hite and the Philly district. But I don't want to draw attention away from the most striking part of this story.
The superintendent of a major public school district is turning public schools over to charter operators.
The union says that the schools are failing because they've been starved for resources. The Daily News, saying that these schools stunk even in flush times in Philly, calls out other factors--
In fact, the thread that binds all of the schools on the list is that they are failing to educate the students who attend them. Their test scores are lower than low, some have experienced high turnover of principals and leadership staff, some have problems with school safety.
Well, if that's true and these schools have been mismanaged, led poorly, and not given the tools they need to succeed, then Hite should go right to the top, stomp into the office of the person who has the power and responsibility to-- oh. Wait a minute.I know that Philly schools are their own special kind of mess, but isn't Superintendent Hite the guy who is responsible for the failure or success of those public schools?
Help me understand. How is this NOT like the Senator Jerkovich from East Blattsfogel calling a press conference to say, "The senator from East Blattsfogel is doing a terrible job, and I think somebody should impeach him right now!" How is this NOT like the CEO of General Widgets declaring, "The management of our West Oshwoggle plant is terrible. They don't have enough support from the main office, so the only choice is to sell it to another company." How is this NOT like the head of a cafeteria announcing, "The food here is terrible, so we're going to bring in McDonald's to provide lunches."
How is this NOT like somebody whacking themselves in the head with a hammer and declaring, "This really hurts. I guess I'll have to have somebody cut my head off."
Is Hite impotent? Clueless? Because there are only a couple of possibilities here.
Possibility one: Hite has no idea how to fix the problems in those schools, no clue how to staff them, no inkling of how to get them the resources they need. So he's going to bring in charter operators to do what he doesn't know how to do himself. In which case the question really is, can Hite do his job?
Possibility two: Hite knows exactly what those schools need, and he has identified these charter operators as takeover candidates because he believes that they will provide what the schools need. In which case, if he knows what needs to be done, why can't he can do it himself?
It would seem that the Daily News' question is misplaced. It looks to me like it's not a matter of letting Hite do his job, but rather the challenge of getting him to do his. I don't know if he's clueless, powerless, or simply unwilling to do his job. But a superintendent's job is to safeguard, support, and strengthen the public school system in order to serve all the students in the district-- not to throw up his hands and abdicate his responsibilities by selling off the pieces of what should be a community resource so that somebody else can make a buck.
The issue at hand seems to be that Superintendent Hite is getting ready to privatize some more of the Philly school district. Some of the charter operators being brought in include Big Picture Foundation of Rhode Island and the ever-delightful Renaissance schools.
I could get into the issue of charters taking over public schools, or the track record of these particular operators, or the history of Hite and the Philly district. But I don't want to draw attention away from the most striking part of this story.
The superintendent of a major public school district is turning public schools over to charter operators.
The union says that the schools are failing because they've been starved for resources. The Daily News, saying that these schools stunk even in flush times in Philly, calls out other factors--
In fact, the thread that binds all of the schools on the list is that they are failing to educate the students who attend them. Their test scores are lower than low, some have experienced high turnover of principals and leadership staff, some have problems with school safety.
Well, if that's true and these schools have been mismanaged, led poorly, and not given the tools they need to succeed, then Hite should go right to the top, stomp into the office of the person who has the power and responsibility to-- oh. Wait a minute.I know that Philly schools are their own special kind of mess, but isn't Superintendent Hite the guy who is responsible for the failure or success of those public schools?
Help me understand. How is this NOT like the Senator Jerkovich from East Blattsfogel calling a press conference to say, "The senator from East Blattsfogel is doing a terrible job, and I think somebody should impeach him right now!" How is this NOT like the CEO of General Widgets declaring, "The management of our West Oshwoggle plant is terrible. They don't have enough support from the main office, so the only choice is to sell it to another company." How is this NOT like the head of a cafeteria announcing, "The food here is terrible, so we're going to bring in McDonald's to provide lunches."
How is this NOT like somebody whacking themselves in the head with a hammer and declaring, "This really hurts. I guess I'll have to have somebody cut my head off."
Is Hite impotent? Clueless? Because there are only a couple of possibilities here.
Possibility one: Hite has no idea how to fix the problems in those schools, no clue how to staff them, no inkling of how to get them the resources they need. So he's going to bring in charter operators to do what he doesn't know how to do himself. In which case the question really is, can Hite do his job?
Possibility two: Hite knows exactly what those schools need, and he has identified these charter operators as takeover candidates because he believes that they will provide what the schools need. In which case, if he knows what needs to be done, why can't he can do it himself?
It would seem that the Daily News' question is misplaced. It looks to me like it's not a matter of letting Hite do his job, but rather the challenge of getting him to do his. I don't know if he's clueless, powerless, or simply unwilling to do his job. But a superintendent's job is to safeguard, support, and strengthen the public school system in order to serve all the students in the district-- not to throw up his hands and abdicate his responsibilities by selling off the pieces of what should be a community resource so that somebody else can make a buck.
Friday, September 11, 2015
PA: Sub Privatizing Bombs
Philadelphia schools joined the ranks of school districts that figured they could save a buck by sub-contracting their substitute teaching work to a private company. Then, Philadelphia schools joined the ranks of school districts that found out they'd made a mistake.
Philly gave the contractor a $34 million contract, and then-- well, back before school started, they had barely 10% of the bodies they needed. I didn't run the story at the time because it was before the start of school, and sub rosters always grow once people decide they really aren't getting a job this fall. But now the school year is started, and Philly still has a measly 300 subs on the roster. The company says it has maybe 500 in the pipeline. The school district says once the year gets going, the demand is in the neighborhood of 1,000 per day.
The district hired the company after only being able to get a "fill rate" of about 66%. The company is not even close to that-- and if they don't hit 90% by January, it will start costing them money. They are mystified. Reporter Kristen A Graham quotes one of the honchos
"We've hired a good number of district originals, and many of them are just not accepting jobs," Murphy said. "Frankly, we're a little unsure why."
Source4Teachers is the outfit, and they already handle about 200 districts. Operating out of Cherry Hill, NJ, their chirpy website includes some darkly ironic rotating headlines.
We need tomorrow's teachers today.
We need them today because we didn't find out about the absence till today. The company has complained that they don't get enough lead time on what needs to be filled, though they've certainly got plenty of lead time on the 99 unfilled teaching jobs, or the maternity leaves, or the long-term illnesses. If all other Philly teachers could plan their illnesses ahead of time, that would be very helpful.
They also need tomorrow's teachers because if they get more people who aren't actually teachers today, it will help fill the ranks with people who don't mind that this outsourcing has pushed sub jobs out of the union.
Begin a great teacher career. Or resume it.
Retirees who subbed in Philly used to make $242.83 per day. Now they make less than half that. Not that $110 is peanuts, but did Source4Teachers really think that a 53% pay cut wouldn't cause some retirees-- who don't actually have to work-- to rethink subbing?
In fact, all Philly subs took a pay cut. Source4Teachers thinks the old scale was too high and that the new rates ($75-$90 for uncertified, $90-$110 for certified) are closer to the going market rate. That may be true, but all pay being roughly equal, subs start looking at other factors that make subbing at a school more or less attractive.
And beginning a career? It's true that subbing was once a way to get your foot in the door, but I can't help noticing that Philly can't even fill the positions it has. And that many other states (the ones that aren't as actively starving schools to death as Pennsylvania is) offer ample opportunity to begin a career.
In today's classroom, there's no substitute for experience. Especially yours.
There may not be any substitute for experience, but Source4Teachers is certainly looking for it, looking hard for any sorts of warm bodies to grab some clearances and get in those classrooms. And while there may be no substitute for experience, as we've already seen, that doesn't mean they're ready to pay for it.
So, what lessons here?
This seems like a pretty straightforward lesson in how the free market works. You can't find people to fill a job. You must make the job more attractive. Source4Teachers and Philly schools have, in fact, made the job less attractive.
That's particularly problematic for substitute teaching, a job that is difficult to use as a real means of support because the work is low-paid, irregular and unpredictable. If a district really, really wants dependable sub coverage, the solution is simple-- hire permanent building subs. But that would mean a real salary with benefits, and the real problem is that districts want to have a solid, dependable stable of subs without having to actually pay for it.
With its move to sub-contract, Philly wasn't looking to get a better stable of substitute teachers-- they were looking to get a cheaper one. Now they get to learn one of the oldest lessons in the book-- you get what you pay for.
Philly gave the contractor a $34 million contract, and then-- well, back before school started, they had barely 10% of the bodies they needed. I didn't run the story at the time because it was before the start of school, and sub rosters always grow once people decide they really aren't getting a job this fall. But now the school year is started, and Philly still has a measly 300 subs on the roster. The company says it has maybe 500 in the pipeline. The school district says once the year gets going, the demand is in the neighborhood of 1,000 per day.
The district hired the company after only being able to get a "fill rate" of about 66%. The company is not even close to that-- and if they don't hit 90% by January, it will start costing them money. They are mystified. Reporter Kristen A Graham quotes one of the honchos
"We've hired a good number of district originals, and many of them are just not accepting jobs," Murphy said. "Frankly, we're a little unsure why."
Source4Teachers is the outfit, and they already handle about 200 districts. Operating out of Cherry Hill, NJ, their chirpy website includes some darkly ironic rotating headlines.
We need tomorrow's teachers today.
We need them today because we didn't find out about the absence till today. The company has complained that they don't get enough lead time on what needs to be filled, though they've certainly got plenty of lead time on the 99 unfilled teaching jobs, or the maternity leaves, or the long-term illnesses. If all other Philly teachers could plan their illnesses ahead of time, that would be very helpful.
They also need tomorrow's teachers because if they get more people who aren't actually teachers today, it will help fill the ranks with people who don't mind that this outsourcing has pushed sub jobs out of the union.
Begin a great teacher career. Or resume it.
Retirees who subbed in Philly used to make $242.83 per day. Now they make less than half that. Not that $110 is peanuts, but did Source4Teachers really think that a 53% pay cut wouldn't cause some retirees-- who don't actually have to work-- to rethink subbing?
In fact, all Philly subs took a pay cut. Source4Teachers thinks the old scale was too high and that the new rates ($75-$90 for uncertified, $90-$110 for certified) are closer to the going market rate. That may be true, but all pay being roughly equal, subs start looking at other factors that make subbing at a school more or less attractive.
And beginning a career? It's true that subbing was once a way to get your foot in the door, but I can't help noticing that Philly can't even fill the positions it has. And that many other states (the ones that aren't as actively starving schools to death as Pennsylvania is) offer ample opportunity to begin a career.
In today's classroom, there's no substitute for experience. Especially yours.
There may not be any substitute for experience, but Source4Teachers is certainly looking for it, looking hard for any sorts of warm bodies to grab some clearances and get in those classrooms. And while there may be no substitute for experience, as we've already seen, that doesn't mean they're ready to pay for it.
So, what lessons here?
This seems like a pretty straightforward lesson in how the free market works. You can't find people to fill a job. You must make the job more attractive. Source4Teachers and Philly schools have, in fact, made the job less attractive.
That's particularly problematic for substitute teaching, a job that is difficult to use as a real means of support because the work is low-paid, irregular and unpredictable. If a district really, really wants dependable sub coverage, the solution is simple-- hire permanent building subs. But that would mean a real salary with benefits, and the real problem is that districts want to have a solid, dependable stable of subs without having to actually pay for it.
With its move to sub-contract, Philly wasn't looking to get a better stable of substitute teachers-- they were looking to get a cheaper one. Now they get to learn one of the oldest lessons in the book-- you get what you pay for.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Boston Consulting Group: Another Dark Horseman
Word went out today that immediately after Arkansas decided to make Little Rock Schools non-public, the Walton family called a "focus group" meeting "in conjunction with the Boston Consulting Group. This is worse than finding the slender man in the back of your family portrait. For a public school system, this is finding the grim reaper at your front door. And he's not selling cookies.
The Boston Consulting Group is often referred to as " management consulting group." That's not entirely accurate. BCG is one of The Big Three consulting groups-- the other two are McKinsey and Bain. People love working there, and the people who work there are recruited heavily from the very toppest universities. These are the guys that Fortune 500 companies call for help making money. Forbes lists them as America's 112th largest private company. Gutting and stripping school districts does not even require a tenth of their power or attention. They are officially scary.
Read up on BCG and you find they have mainly three big claims to fame, and all of them are deeply bad news for public education.
The Boston Consulting Group is often referred to as " management consulting group." That's not entirely accurate. BCG is one of The Big Three consulting groups-- the other two are McKinsey and Bain. People love working there, and the people who work there are recruited heavily from the very toppest universities. These are the guys that Fortune 500 companies call for help making money. Forbes lists them as America's 112th largest private company. Gutting and stripping school districts does not even require a tenth of their power or attention. They are officially scary.
Read up on BCG and you find they have mainly three big claims to fame, and all of them are deeply bad news for public education.
This is the growth-share matrix, used to help a corporation to decide how to allocate resources (aka how to figure out which losers could be starved out). Sound familiar?
The experience curve is even simpler. The more a task is performed, the lower the cost of performing it. In other words, if you can reduce a process (manufacturing, service, whatever) to a series of simple tasks that will be repeated over and over, you can reduce the cost of the process. Sound familiar?
This advantage matrix lets us divide businesses into one of four types in order to figure out which strategy best lets us cash in. For instance, when a business is scaleable but hard to do differentiation in, the answer is volume volume volume. Sound familiar?
BCG's arrival in Little Rock is unsurprising; they've been around the education block several times. They were in the news just last week when Parents United finally won a long court case to be allowed to see BCG's super-duper secret plans for Philadelphia schools, drawn up way back when Philly was first turned into one of the nation's largest non-public school systems, run by state-appointed executives rather than an elected board.
A major feature of BCG's plan for Philly seems to be standard for them-- close this bunch of schools, and open up some nifty charters. In other words, cut off resources to the dogs. As a top consulting group, BCG doesn't come cheap-- their consulting fee in Philly was reportedly $230,000 per week. That's just under $33,000 per day. That's a little less than the starting salary for a teacher in Philly. Per day.
BCG has proposed a similar program in Memphis. Reportedly Cleveland, Seattle, Arizona, and New Orleans have also felt the loving BCG touch. BCG also has close friends in the charter world, with several folks hopping back and forth between BCG and the board of KIPP. BCG joined up with many of the big players (Gates, Joyce) to form Advance Illionois. And they helped write North Carolina's Race to the Top bid (all these painful details and more can be found in this 2012 article at The Common Errant). Strive in Cincinnati-- that's BCG, too. And last fall, they were spotted doing development planning for Connecticut's education sector.
A year ago, BCG teamed up with the Gates Foundation and the Harvard Business School; for their first magic trick, they produced "America's Education System at a Crossroads: New Research and Insights on Business-Educator Partnerships in PreK-12 Education." (If that language sounds vaguely familiar, it could be because Arne Duncan's Big Important Speech about ESEA reauthorization was entitled "America's Educational Crossroads"). The BCG "report" put forth three recommendations:
• Laying the policy foundations for education innovation: Business action is urgently needed to ensure Common Core State Standards are actually put into practice, for example.
• Scaling up proven innovations: Business leaders can partner with educators to scale up innovations that are already showing results.
• Reinventing the local education ecosystem: Business can help educators set and implement comprehensive strategies to upgrade education in specific cities and towns.
• Scaling up proven innovations: Business leaders can partner with educators to scale up innovations that are already showing results.
• Reinventing the local education ecosystem: Business can help educators set and implement comprehensive strategies to upgrade education in specific cities and towns.
Yeah, that all sounds familiar, too. Their second piece of reportage, "Partial Credit: How America's School Superintendents See Business As a Partner" (because why talk about teachers-- these kinds of important dealings don't involve The Help who will do as their told when it's time to tell them), offers some concrete advice:
“Strengthening our schools is a
big challenge. To get this job done, we must all work together. From
designing new classroom tools to engaging with businesses, our educators
must not just be included in the process, they must help lead it,” said
Jeff Raikes, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
That all reaches a fuller pitch in "Lasting Impact: A Business Leader's Playbook for Supporting America's Schools" (another BCG-Gates-Harvard joint production). It starts with an introduction that quotes the "rising tide of mediocrity," stops at "fortunately, we don't have to settle for incrementalism any more" and barrels down to more detailed discussion of the three strategies listed above.I may take you on a more detailed tour of this twenty-seven page tome, but for the moment, I don't have the heart to add one more gloomy chapter to this dark tale. Suffice it to say that it is a veritable bible for the corporate reformster.
Bottom line? Say a little prayer for the formerly public schools of Little Rock, because BCG is in town and they're sharpening their axe.
Friday, August 16, 2013
Bad News from Philadelphia
The news from Philly today is that the SRC (the government appointed board that replaced the elected school board about a decade ago) has okayed suspension of various school code rules, most notably the seniority rule. So now they can hire back whatever teachers they wish. Want to bet that the list is short on teachers near the top of the pay scale?
We've seen how academic "crises" can be used to break open public schools. Philly and Chicago show how a financial crisis can be used as well.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/SRC_suspends_seniority_other_rules.html
For bonus points, want to guess how long it will now take them to "solve" the crisis, now that they have the rules changes that they want?
We've seen how academic "crises" can be used to break open public schools. Philly and Chicago show how a financial crisis can be used as well.
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/SRC_suspends_seniority_other_rules.html
For bonus points, want to guess how long it will now take them to "solve" the crisis, now that they have the rules changes that they want?
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