Glenda Walker-Simmons statement to the Board on the Jeff Design process
Here is Glenda Walker-Simmons of Jefferson HS PTSA's powerful statement to the Board on 1/23/06:
My name is Glenda Walker-Simmons. I am president of the Thomas Jefferson PTSA and a member of the Jefferson Design Team.
I am here this evening on behalf of the residents of the Jefferson cluster, whom you have been elected to serve. We are asking the board of education to suspend consideration of the vote of the Jefferson proposals before you this evening.
Upon review of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant awarded to Portland Public Schools and the Portland Schools Foundation, the Jefferson PTSA now BRINGS INTO QUESTION the validity of this entire design team process.
Well before the design team ever came close to rendering their recommendations, PPS and the Portland Schools Foundation made the following claims, in writing, to the Gates Foundation: “Whatever the configuration, it is anticipated that Jefferson will become a campus of VERTICAL SMALL SCHOOLS, with CO-LOCATED AND COMPREHENSIVE STUDENT SUPPORT SERVICES, and AN EARLY COLLEGE PROGRAM INTO PCCâ€, along with special programs for subgroups that need particular support, such as schools for African American males.
The grant states that Jefferson is a “large FAILING schoolâ€, and that it will be a PILOT, “combining the best of what we know about evolving to SMALL SCHOOLSâ€. It also documents PPS support for Charter Schools and school governance plans. Not surprising, since the Portland Schools Foundation awarded an SEI/Jefferson governance grant.
The Jefferson PTSA finds it quite disturbing that proposals the design team “ALLEGEDLY†created are the very plans our superintendent had already chosen as her desired results for Jefferson. The Gates grant was written long before the final decisions of the Jefferson Design Team. In fact, the creation of a community based Design Team is mentioned in the language of the grant itself.
The Jefferson PTSA can now substantiate its claim that the Jefferson Design Team process was nothing more than a farce to cover up what the Superintendent had stipulated long before the inception of the team, with callous disregard for the input of the families, parents, staff and students of our community.
Contrary to claims of overwhelming research and consensus, the design team meetings never established a formal decision making process, and many of the members rarely if ever attended the meetings. Vicki Phillips hand selected team members, hand selected each member to a specific subcommittee, determined exactly what the charge of each subcommittee was (which was consistent with what the grant says), kept subcommittees separated, and did not allow each subcommittee to share their findings with the rest of the team until the LAST meeting, with only minutes to digest; this meeting was closed to the public. The work of each committee was closely watched, guided and supervised by district personnel with a pre-set agenda.
The Thomas Jefferson High School PTSA demands that the school board POSTPONE its vote on the Jefferson proposals until the residents of our cluster have been surveyed, as is planned as part of the overall secondary redesign, also outlined in the grant, to ensure their right to have a public neighborhood school reflective of their choice.
This process was DISHONEST, and ORCHESTRATED, with PRE-DETERMINED outcomes.
The families were NEVER asked what they thought until after the decisions were made. The public input collected since these proposals were announced have been ignored and invalidated by the superintendent and the board of education.
This process bypassed the parents, and the questionnaire seeking input to create schools ALL our families would be proud to be part of – NEVER OCCURRED, as promised. This explains why team members and public citizens who have been critical of the proposals have been PUBLICLY DEMONIZED!
The Thomas Jefferson High School PTSA demands that the school board fulfill its civic duty to represent the wishes of the taxpaying residents who elected them to office.
We WANT a comprehensive high school with a wide array of curriculum choices – and equity. We do NOT WANT small, separate vertical or single sex academies. We WANT Tubman to remain a 6-8 middle school, the option afforded every other cluster in this city. We WANT the implementation teams to be representative of parents, students and staff, NOT another “COMMUNITY†team.
You were elected to represent US and educate OUR children. You were NOT elected to represent the Portland Schools Foundation, the Gates Foundation or the Superintendent.
Editor's note: Following testimony from Glenda and many others, the School Board voted unanimously to approve the Superintendent's proposals for the Jefferson cluster.
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Jefferson Redesign Process
The Portland Schools Foundation and Portland Public Schools authored/submitted the Gates grant, with desired/expected/eventual
outcomes being established/documented long before the Jefferson Design Team
made its "recommendations". In addition, other elements of the Gates grant, not included in the JDT proposals, have been funded by the PSF without public input or knowledge.
Specifically:
(1) The Jefferson Design Team was comprised of at least five current
or former members of the Portland Schools Foundation board of directors.*
(2) All but three adult members of the JDT were either current/past PPS employees and/or represent outside organizations with partnerships and/or contracts with the PSF and/or PPS.*
(3) Long before the JDT made its "recommendations", several of its
members were awarded grants for the Jefferson cluster by the PSF to carry out specific elements of the Gates grant, either as direct or actively-involved recipients.*
(4) The Gates grant stipulated that Jefferson will be a "pilot" program, a fact not revealed to the public.
(5) The two JDT members that persistently lobbied for "recommendations" based upon parent, resident and community input/reaction were labeled as lacking an "open mind" and encountered repeated false and/or personal verbal attacks upon their character.
(6) Public input throughout the JDT process was ignored. At the
culminating board hearings, the public's testimony (overwhelmingly opposing single-sex and separate small vertical high schools, elimination of middle schools, inequity etc.) was publicly discredited, then discounted by the
school board.
(7) The Jefferson High School PTSA alternate recommendations, based
upon public input/reaction, were dismissed by the superintendent and
board.
(8) The Jefferson High School PTSA has been a victim of retaliation by PPS for seeking to give voice to the groups they represent: parents and students - and for speaking out against the process and some aspects of the proposals.
*These situations imply conflicts of interest or appearance thereof. PPS's JDT member-selection criteria and the validity of the entire "community" process is called into question.
New Small Schools at Jefferson will be Vulnerable to Budget Cuts
As someone mentioned in an earlier post, there was public opposition to another reconfiguration of Jefferson, into separate, vertical small schools. One reason the Jefferson PTSA opposed creating vertical small schools was that "individual small schools are vulnerable to closure/merger due to inadequate funding" (note 5 on pg. 15 of the Jefferson PTSA recommendations submitted to PPS on 1/23/06).
I just found out that one of the four new vertical small schools that were created at Marshall High School in the 2004-05 school year (the Portland Academy of International Studies) was closed this year due to budget cuts. As reported in the Oregonian on June 13, 2005 by John Wilhelmi, "due to district budget cuts, Marshall Campus faces eliminating 13 staff - the equivalent of one of its 4 small schools. The personal relationships between students and teachers that were built this year must begin again for many of Marshall's students."
The Portland Academy of International Studies existed on the Marshall campus for just 1 school year before it was closed due to lack of funding. The district's insistence on reconfiguring Jefferson into vertical small schools, despite opposition from parents, teachers and students, seems particularly irresponsible during the current school funding crisis.
Letter to school board re: Heritage and the Jefferson Redesign
Sent the following to the School Board about the Heritage Foundation influence on the JDT. Co-Chair Wynde addressed the remark regarding the Heritage Foundation, and said it is a right-wing think tank and would be very far removed from the thinking of anyone on the Board or on the Jefferson Design Team." Unfortunately he was wrong. If he had read the "No Excuses" report that they used closely, he would have noticed that it came from a Heritage Scholar.
Anne
Dear School Board Members
At the school board meeting two weeks ago Director Wynde passionately denied any similarities between the political beliefs of the school board members and the philosophy of the conservative Heritage Foundation. I want to follow up my testimony with some more sources to back my assertion that the Jefferson Redesign was heavily influenced by Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute, two right wing think tanks.
Although I doubt your personal beliefs consciously align with the Heritage Foundation, if you look closely at the background information and the schools that were visited as part of the Jefferson redesign process you would be surprised at the direct relationship to Heritage.
** The design teams recommendations were largely based on their out-of-town site visits to nine schools that were chosen to a significant extent based upon "research" done by the Heritage Foundation and Manhattan Institute.
According to a 31-page PPS document entitled "Examples of Successful Secondary Schools", four of the nine out-of-town schools visited by the Jefferson Design Team were schools featured in a report by the Heritage Foundation titled "No Excuses: Lessons from 21 High-Performing, High-Poverty Schools." These Heritage Foundation-recommended schools were 1) a KIPP school in Houston; 2) another KIPP school in New York City, 3) Frederick Douglass Academy in NYC, and 4) the Crown School in NYC.
**On page 3 of PPS’s "Examples of Successful Secondary Schools" document, one of PPS's sources for selecting the schools to visit was a book by two senior fellows at the Manhattan Institute, "No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning" by Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstrom.
Here is a review of that book from Publishers Weekly:
The Thernstroms, senior fellows at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, deliver "a tough message" about how "to close the racial gap in academic achievement." Although the 48 graphs and tables, 566 footnotes and statistics galore may muffle the work's polemical aspects, the Thernstroms produce a case for standards-based testing and charter schools. Despite caveats (e.g., "Not all Asian parents and their children fit the stereotype... and Asian Americans are not actually one `group' "), the authors' assessment of success and failure attributes much to ethnic cultural factors. Family expectations and hard work lead to success for Asian-Americans, who embrace "the American work ethic with life-or-death fervor," while "the limited education of many Hispanic parents" and "their propensity to work in unskilled jobs that don't require a knowledge of English" underlie the poor performance of Latino students. African-American failure rests in "the special role of television in the life of black children and the low expectations of their parents." "Conventional wisdom" about improving schools (more money, improved cleanliness, smaller classes, etc.) is inadequate, they say. Title I and Head Start appear to have accomplished little, they lament, but Bush's No Child Left Behind (and its mandatory testing program) gets high praise. For the Thernstroms, ideal schools break from tradition and are liberated from such "roadblocks to change" as "hands-tied administrators" and unions. Enter vouchers (implicitly) and charter schools (quite explicitly), where the Thernstroms seem particularly taken by students chanting "answers-with claps and stomps and fists held high" and reciting "rules in unison."
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Both the Heritage Foundation and the Manhattan Institute are strong proponents of charter schools, and school vouchers. For more information on Heritage go to http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/bg1848.cfm
Is one or more of the small vertical schools at Jefferson/Tubman going to become a charter school modeled on a "No Excuses" Heritage/Manhattan-model (uniform dress, strict discipline, focus on testing, anti-teachers union) - perhaps to be managed by SEI which was awarded a Jefferson "Community Governance" grant last year by the Portland Schools Foundation? Time will tell, but the latest decisions show a disturbing slide towards privatization.
[The PPS "Successful Secondary Schools" document is available on the PPS Jeff design team web page http://159.191.14.139/.docs/pg/10452, and the Design Team’s presentations to the community of the school Site Visits are available on this Web page http://159.191.14.139/.docs/pg/10449 ]
I look forward to your responses on this and apologize for the delay in getting this to you.
Anne Trudeau
Neighborhood Schools Alliance
Major school changes; Lack of Process; Kids as guinea pigs
An article by Abby Sewell in the March issue of the Portland Alliance talks about the lack of process and other concerns that parents had about the Jefferson Redesign "process". I think this story is relevent to anyone concerned about using Portland students as guinea pigs for unproven educational models.
Here's an excerpt from the story:
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Many people also pointed out that Jefferson was already divided into two smaller academies the last time the school was reorganized: the School of Pride for grades 9 and 10, and the School of Champions for grades 11 and 12. The academies were created just last year.
The NSA submitted a statement to the school board prior to its vote on the redesign proposal, saying, “[With the creation of the School of Pride and School of Champions] test scores were increasing, staff and students were engaged, and there was positive momentum. Abandoning this effort and starting all over again-with four separate, vertically organized schools spread over two campuses-will be very costly and makes little sense.â€
The NSA suggested that, instead of entirely rearranging Jefferson again, the school board should focus on strengthening the existing academies, adding more courses and extracurricular activities.
Glenda Walker-Simmons, president of the Jefferson Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) is an alumni of the high school herself and has two children who have graduated. She also sat on the Jefferson Redesign Team, whose members were chosen by Superintendent Vicki Phillips.
Walker-Simmons believes that what the school needs is not a total reorganization but a strengthening of its existing programs.
“Jefferson desperately needs a computer technology and AP science program, as well as additional college preparatory arts programs, like music, band, and drama,†she said.
She and other PTSA members have also questioned the process by which the redesign plan was created. At the Jan. 23 school board meeting, the PTSA submitted a demand that the vote on the redesign proposal be postponed until residents of the area could be surveyed for their opinions on the proposed changes.
A questionnaire to be distributed around the neighborhood was supposed to have been a part of the design process, but it was never carried out.
Walker-Simmons stood before the school board and said, “This process was dishonest and orchestrated, with predetermined outcomes. The families were never asked what they thought until after the decisions were made.â€
She believes that Superintendent Phillips had already made her decision about Jefferson’s fate before the design team was created and long before any proposal was submitted to the school board..
In September 2005, before the design team had made any recommendations, Portland Public Schools, along with the Portland Schools Foundation, had submitted a grant application to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, saying, “Whatever the configuration, it is anticipated that Jefferson will become a campus of vertical small schools.†The application spoke of Jefferson as a “pilot school†for a new model of teaching, which would include small, single sex academies and the elimination of the traditional middle school/high school division.
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As a parent, concerned citizen, and taxpayer this concerns me greatly because the educational research does not support the conversion of Jefferson into multiple new small schools. As the Jefferson PTSA pointed out in its alternative recommendations to the School Board on 1/23/06, "The Gates Foundation, which has awarded large grants for breaking large high schools into vertical academies, has recently reported that there is no conclusive evidence that small vertical schools improve student achievement, and in some cases it can be detrimental. (Seattle Times, 10/20/05; The Oregonian 12/4/05 & 12/13/05)"
It seems to me that PPS is converting Jefferson into separate vertical small schools because Gates-model "small schools" come with money attached to them, not because they are proven educational models.
In the Winter 2006 issue of Education Next Paul T. Hill a professor of public affairs at the University of Washington describes current Gates Foundation initiatives like this:
"The Gates Foundation doesn’t know whether it’s current initiatives are right, but it wants to learn from them, and it expects to adapt in light of experience…[They] are still looking for the breakthrough education program—the instructional method, the way of organizing a school, the way of using money—that will lead to dramatic improvement in outcomes for the most disadvantaged children in America. It expects to make some messes along the way."
Comforting isn't it?
Here's a link to the Portland Alliance article:
http://www.theportlandalliance.org/2006/mar/schoolchanges.htm