Michelle Rhee comes to Oakland, is greeted by protesters
By Katy Murphy
Tuesday, February 7th, 2012 at 9:55 pm in Uncategorized.
The well-known former chancellor of Washington, D.C.’s public schools spoke tonight at a private event organized by the Oakland Speaker Series at the Paramount Theatre.
Michelle Rhee, who founded the Sacramento-based advocacy group StudentsFirst in 2010, after leaving her chancellor’s post, has challenged many of the labor practices that are commonplace in the nation’s public schools, including seniority-based layoffs and placements.
With her new advocacy organization, Rhee now is trying to continue with some of the reforms that she promoted during her three years in D.C. (which were featured in the education documentary “Waiting for Superman”).
I’ll post a photo soon, but a large group of demonstrators picketed outside the downtown Oakland theater before the 8 p.m. event. Some of the protesters — those with tickets — were allowed inside.
Photo by Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group
I wasn’t at the event — no room for reporters who tried to invite themselves on the morning of! — but Rhee said she planned to discuss the ills of the nation’s public school system and her ideas for improving it. Betty Olson-Jones, president of the Oakland teachers’ union (and no fan of Rhee’s), was live-tweeting the talk. You can read her take on it here.
In a phone interview beforehand, Rhee said such demonstrations showed how passionate people were about the issues. “I would much rather, any day, deal with anger than apathy because it means people care,” she said.
What do you think about the ideas in the StudentsFirst policy agenda?
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February 8th, 2012 at 1:25 am
I don’t know a ton about the subject, but are the reforms that the labor unions are against the best for the students? There can’t be this much contention if everyone is looking out for the students.
February 8th, 2012 at 8:19 am
@Drew, Michelle Rhee is promoting fads backed by billionaires that actual educators and parents know are destructive to schools and harmful to students. These fads are invariable conceived and pushed by people with zero experience in or even contact with public schools and classrooms, who absolutely refuse to consult with or listen to actual educators. That’s the short version.
Katy, I was outside protesting. This is a small point in the scheme of things, but: Protesters could go in if they had tickets, of course. I moved up into the theater entryway while I was flyering the attendees as they arrived and was taken firmly by the elbow by a woman working for the promoter and moved off onto the sidewalk. She said the Paramount entryway was private property. Wrong; it belongs to the city of Oakland. (This was also mildly amusing as I’m 58 years old and she was considerably younger, and treating me like a defiant, potentially dangerous troublemaker. Which I suppose I am, but still.)
By the way, I was one of a couple of protesters who were answering questions about charter schools that were belligerently posed by an aggressively pro-charter (but very uninformed) woman who said she was from the Piedmont Post. She was joined by a man, apparently with her, who started questioning in the same vein, before they went into the speech. They both had very, very little and very poor information, and probably are even more badly confused now that they’ve listened to Rhee’s pack of lies, I mean speech. I gave the woman my card but neglected to get her contact info, and I’d love to be able to give her more information. Does anyone know who that might be, so I could get in touch with her through more direct channels than just the Piedmont Post’s general contact info? I am actually perfectly civil and not dangerous, and would do this by e-mail anyway.
February 8th, 2012 at 9:34 am
The “agenda” is just corrupt.
It’s more liberal BS with a cutting edge.
It claims to hold teachers “accountable” when children they are stuck with don’t perform. This agenda is founded on the nonsense that all children are alike and have the same capacity to learn – so when they don’t the teachers must be punished. This is exactly the kind of corruption that leads to organized score falsification/cheating rings in administration of the black school districts. This is the “agenda” that leads to colleges lying about their scores to cover their affirmation action failures.
So what we have is a NCLB mindset combined with a willingness to fire (no bones about this) teachers who don’t cook the books on their kiddies performance – or dumb down the classwork until their charges can appear to learn something.
Sorry – I’m black and I like to keep standards rigorous. The students can sort themselves out so when we do have an A student or an “honor” student we can trust them even if they are black. The alternative is to never take seriously any black candidate for anything.
I’m sure Michelle is a nice, polite person – but I can see how administrators like her set the stage for cheating scandals and then profess to be “shocked, shocked” when her administrators and teachers are caught cooking the books. It’s survival baby!
Let’s try it the old school way. Schools publish their standards and have different ones for different schools. Any students who doesn’t measure up to the standard of the school they attend get Fs – or Ds. If the GPA falls below requirement failing students are expelled (if they don’t transfer to a lesser school first). Teachers may or may not be retained based on availability of someone who can do better with similar students. All is well.
I understand Michelle is quite willing to fire black teachers. I am also. But other than that, I believe the “agendas” are quite different. And it seems to me that her (very PC) agenda is not going to improve the fates of black students in the Brave New World. It will make some people happy, infuriate the teacher’s union, and stir things up. She might even get rid of some incompetent teachers of all races at the same time.
But this is not going to improve black performance in public schools. It will improve the organized cheating in a hurry.
February 8th, 2012 at 9:38 am
By “improve the organized cheating” I mean it will increase it.
Under the agenda of this organization can you imaging the glee a teacher will have when they arrange to get a white/jewish/asian classroom of students? It’s bonus time!!!
February 8th, 2012 at 9:59 am
Thanks for clarifying the admission of (only some of) the protesters, Caroline. I wasn’t sure about that.
February 8th, 2012 at 10:17 am
Drew,
Start with the facts that we do know, Oakland Unified is at or near the bottom in performance relative to all California school districts, and has been in that range for decades(before reformers). Just think how much worse it would be if a handful of schools didn’t do so well. We often hear the familiar refrain that California is at or near the bottom in per child funding(alleged underfunding issue approx 8K per child) in this Oakland Unified district the expenditure per child is 11.5K per child, which is well above average in the US(and does not include taxpayers capital outlay). Next issue, alleged poverty and it’s effect on school performance.I say the real issue is bad parenting, and or decades ago creating a perverse system whereby irresponsible people get subsidized or free housing,money,food and actually get more benefits if they have more children. There are really only two issues on which the majority of poor academic performance lay, bad and or ineffective parenting(and or homelife which is not necessarily a money issue)and systemic incompetence of the educational system itself which rewards longevity(in and of itself) and has no true mechanism for accountability,effectiveness or encouraging improvement. The truth will be found in the numbers, and frankly the people in this country have no idea what true poverty is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC77oMoaWZE
2011 HHS Poverty Guidelines
Household Members
Yearly
1. $10,890
2. $14,710
3. $18,530
4. $22,350
5. $26,170
6. $29,990
7. $33,810
8. $37,630
February 8th, 2012 at 12:12 pm
We need to cap education budgets. If a student can’t learn within the budget we should stop spending more money on that student.
It’s absurd to throw away money in an endless pursuit of educating bad students. That goes double for the “special ed” bunch. Set a budget – and special ed may get more allowances, but when the limit is reached cut them off.
And no, we don’t need remedial ed in state colleges. End it. Expand internet offerings (especially for remediation), get rid of brick and mortar classes for remediation and related programs, and put the money on good students not the bad ones.
February 8th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
There is no question that the public school system is broken. Michelle Rhee may propose some controversial ideas but severe changes need to be made. I am not sure how familiar people are with StudentsFirst but they do have some good ideas. Feel free to check them out at http://www.studentsfirst.org/policy-agenda. Some of the labor policies regarding teachers that StudentsFirst advocate for change include: “‘Seniority Transfers’” which allow senior teachers to claim positions from other teachers regardless of their fitness for the position”; ‘Excessing rules,’ which dictate that the least senior teacher will be displaced whenever a school reduces the number of teaching positions; and ‘Last In, First Out (LIFO) layoff rules,’ which require districts to terminate the most recent hires when layoffs are required. The emphasis on seniority should not have the significance it does in regards to selecting teachers to remain in schools. I saw this first hand with my father who was a teacher at San Quentin prison. He was laid off due to budget cuts; education for prisoners one of the first things to go even though it is direly needed. The decision to keep teachers was not related to performance but seniority.
February 8th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
@ JR, Where do you get the $11.5K per student number? I have been trying to get some clarity on this issue for years. I sat through a presentation a couple of years ago at my kids school (a hills school) and was told that the school only received approximately $3,000 per child. (I don’t remember the exact number but it was less than half of the 11.5 quoted by JR.) Therefore fundraising had to be stepped up and letters needed to be written to Sacto, etc. to do something about the lack of funding. This is why I am confused when I read that OUSD gets $11.5 k per child. That’s a lot of money.
Sorry. This has nothing to do with this thread re: Michelle Rhee. But I have heard so many numbers that I’m curious to know the truth.
February 8th, 2012 at 1:20 pm
The thing that strikes me about Michelle Rhee’s rapid trajectory to national prominence is that it’s based on pretty much nothing other than bluster and the fact that she’s been VERY heavily marketed, by no accident of course. I believe the corporate education reformers saw in Rhee the potential for her to become one of their primary mouthpieces — and not because of any qualifications other than physical attractiveness, an aggressive nature, and a good level of natural charisma. At the protest, an older gentleman confronted me to tell me I was “wrong” about the issues then one of the nest things out of his mouth when we started talking was that Rhee was an “attractive woman.” I said “who cares.” Kaya Henderson, Rhee’s successor in D.C., once said, “She is bold. I think really there are a lot of people who are measured and not willing to go out as far as she is…I’ve seen her shake her booty and get some cash over and over again.”
Rhee’s qualifications as an authority for education policy are extremely thin, but this hasn’t stopped her from being made into a huge celebrity by the media (who-knows-who is pulling those strings?). We are in a time when a lot of very powerful people are investing hundreds of millions of dollars and tons of energy into privatizing public education and demonizing teachers in order to bust the teachers union. For some, breaking the teachers union means that an organizing force for the Democrats has been destroyed. It is a fact that, over the past year, Rhee via StudentsFirst has totally aligned herself with longtime proponents of school vouchers and Tea Party politicians.
As far as Rhee’s claims about raising test scores in DC during her tenure of 3 years and 4 months, those claims are totally questionable, esp. considering the unknown impact of what’s being called “ErasureGate” (the discovery in March 2011 of high erasure rates at 103 of 168 D.C. schools during Rhee’s tenure; it’s still being investigated).
Under a program Rhee started in D.C., not only are the careers of principals and teachers threatened if they produce LOW test scores, they also *earn* huge bonuses if they can produce HIGH test scores. I can’t think of a better motivational program for tempting the average person to cheat to some degree.
I wish more people would resist the propaganda a bit more and stay very skeptical about all the reformers’ easily-unraveled claims.
[Sorry if this comment gets duplicated. The first one didn't seem to go through.]
February 8th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Drew started off the commentary by suggesting that there should be little controversy if we all want what is best for students. I am glad some people have already addressed some of the issues which lead to the many controversies surrounding education reform and have a couple more points to raise.
Firstly, I find it striking that the only three points which poster #8 mentioned as strengths of Students First are means of attacking teachers. I am not averse to examining seniority and tenure rules but I think that poster #8 has, like so many before him/her, fallen into the education reformers’ trap. What Rhee’s organization should really be called is Teachers Last because one of its main goals is to undermine teachers.
Secondly, it is increasingly evident that education ‘reformers’ like Rhee, Broad, Bloomberg, and Michael Milken (!) are not interested in reforming public education. They want to privatize it. They seek to destroy the current system in order to benefit with their own for-profit branches of education, which will be paid for by taxpayers.
They do not have to care about what this will do to public schools and the students whose interests they pretend to defend, because their own children do not attend public schools. The idealistic people who join Broad, Rhee, etc through a misguided belief that what ails education is lazy or ineffectual teachers and an arrogant idea that they can be teacher saviors are not going to save students. They are contributing to the end of public education.
February 8th, 2012 at 2:15 pm
All I see in the media and often on this blog is what the teachers and the union DON’T want. Perhaps it is all media-driven, but the perception is that the union is just anti- . Other than more money (i.e., a better funded educational system) because that is not going to be forthcoming, what reforms would the teachers and the union like to see that would make an actual and real difference here in Oakland for the students’ education? The current system isn’t working, at least here in Oakland. What reforms do the teachers and the union espouse? What is being suggested?
February 8th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Thanks for asking those questions. I’d also like to hear what kinds of changes you, as a parent, would like to see. (If you — or another OUSD parent — would be interested in talking with me tomorrow over the phone on this subject, send me an email at kmurphy@bayareanewsgroup.com and we can try to set up a time.)
February 8th, 2012 at 2:45 pm
One of the things that drives me nuts about us Americans is how we seem to be so hesitant to look at MOTIVE. We want to pretend that ideas or facts or policies or leaders are flat, straightforward things that can be handled easily with “common sense”.
What I mean by this is that: Most people in other countries I’ve lived in seem to have a much deeper understanding that their are forces at work deep beneath the surface of things, that we only see the surface and have to be able to see what is pushing things.
I’m not talking about fantastical conspiracies here, but the distorting force of money and power.
As Sharon so ably explained (she is always the smartest, best-informed commentator on here, imo), Michelle Rhee can only be understood as a front for powerful corporate and political forces.
The bind that teachers are in is that, except for parents and the children themselves, we are really the ONLY people in society that really care about the education of the nation’s youth. Yet, we ALSO care about ourselves, because we are human — and yes, this includes pay, working conditions and the dreaded job security.
Now, I do agree generally with Betty O-J and the OEA that “our working conditions are your child’s learning conditions” — but this doesn’t mean that sometimes union protections don’t, in the short-turn, sometimes hurt students. Examples: Higher salaries can lead to higher class sizes, and we all know some teachers are retained at schools who should not be.
But how can a teacher honestly negotiate or even communicate about these complex issues in an environment where ideas and policies are all fronts for a larger, completely cynical agenda systematically pushed by INCREDIBLY powerful political and financial forces?
Michelle Rhee would have us believe an idea like vouchers is just a good or bad idea on its merits and we should pretend it is not a bomb in a much larger war.
February 8th, 2012 at 3:30 pm
Katy,
Sorry for the off topic request, but can you supply us with a breakdown of how much funding is granted per child per school, as well? Perhaps you could post a short piece about how the funding differs and why. I recall that you gave us some figures a few years ago that included Hillcrest, Edna Brewer….and a number of other schools both hills and flatlands, elementary, middle and high schools. This topic comes up in a great many discussions on the blog, and could be quite informative! I remember being shocked at the differences between schools when I saw the numbers.
February 8th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Public education works everywhere I see good families. Oakland has a lot of single-family, broken homes. Spend $100,000 per pupil and it won’t change the bad habits (learned at home).
Switch the Teachers in Orinda with the ones in Oakland and my bet is that Orinda kids will continue to thrive and the Oakland students who are not invested in their education, will continue to waste their opportunity.
Michelle Rhee’s motives are clear as day. Union busting!
February 8th, 2012 at 4:54 pm
It’s a constant drumbeat of corporate-reform advocates (those in Rhee’s camp) that their critics have no ideas of our own. That’s not true, of course — it’s a canned attack line. It IS true that we don’t have simplistic “it’s a miracle!” insta-solutions and a slick PR machine to sell them.
The reason we don’t have magical miracle solutions is that unlike so many of the “reformers,” we’re parents and teachers who spend real time in schools, in classrooms, working with real kids. When you are in touch with reality, it’s not to easy to pronounce that this or that slick idea is the silver bullet.
From Parents Across America, here’s some of the vision shared by many of the protesters outside Rhee’s speech last night:
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/what-we-believe/
Interestingly, Alexander Russo, a pro-”reform” national education commentator, just posted an article declaring that the “reform” bubble has burst. And even though he doesn’t agree with us, he gave a nice capsule of the “reform” critics’ views:
“It’s also possible that educators and parents will gain enough momentum and power to start proposing and winning support for their ideas rather than merely blocking those of the reformers. These initiatives would likely focus on providing better social supports for at-risk students and improving the quality of training and support for classroom teachers.” (Russo is incorrect in indicating that we having been proposing our ideas; we haven’t been heard, due to being outshouted by the “reformers,” with their mighty PR/outreach hired firepower.)
http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3756870
February 8th, 2012 at 5:54 pm
OUSD Parent,
The chart per ADA is here, and to correct the number(opened an earlier year file) OUSD receives currently 11K per ADA, but it was 11.5 in prior years.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ds/fd/ec/currentexpense.asp
Someone is mis-informed(big time) or even lying when they are telling you 3K per child.
In the list below you will see the district budgets compared, Oakland unified has a much larger budget than comparable districts.
http://californiaschildren.typepad.com/californias-children/2010/07/the-list-cas-most-fiscally-unsound-school-districts.html
http://californiawatch.org/k-12/spending-far-equal-among-state-s-school-districts-analysis-finds-10567
Get all the info and make up your own mind.
February 8th, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Cranky,
It’s kind of strange how you bring up the issue of the distorting force of money and power, you are absolutely correct, and no single entity is politically as forceful or powerful as the CTA & NEA.
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_2_california-unions.html
http://educationnext.org/the-union-label-on-the-ballot-box/
http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/opinions_on_education/54478.html?print
http://educationnext.org/a-union-by-any-other-name/
February 8th, 2012 at 6:26 pm
@NextSet,
“It’s absurd to throw away money in an endless pursuit of educating bad students.”
Wow. I’m deeply disturbed by your comments. How can you suggest that we give up trying to educate “bad” students? You bring up a valid point that lower-performing students generally require more resources to teach and support, however, your egregious claim that students who are struggling to learn be written off is a total shame.
All of the studies show that if we only “put the money on good students not the bad ones” then we will be paying a MASSIVE amount of public money for them later on when they are the struggling members of our society (potentially incarcerated, homeless, on welfare) because you wanted to deny them an education – simply because they had challenges with learning or behavior.
February 8th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Oaklander,
I don’t agree with Nextset, but you must admit that a good portion of these low performing kids actually write themselves off(much as their parents probably did). Not to worry though, we have a safety net to catch most of them(the very same one their parents and grandparents have been resting in).
February 8th, 2012 at 10:17 pm
Who says that Oakland public schools are failing and are still the worst in the state? Has anyone really looked into this claim in the last few years? I have not done research to prove or disprove that claim, but I began thoroughly examining OUSD schools, private and charter schools in 2007 preparing for kindergarten in 2009. I still research thoroughly as my child’s school is constantly threatened with closure despite it’s high scores and success in many areas. The closures had me digging deeper, gathering facts and information and even driving out to many schools and just looking. Without the goal in mind of proving oakland public schools, overall, as worthy of saving thats exactly what I see. There is a reason OUSD keeps getting the “Most Improved Urban School District.” acknowledgement” for two (or is it three, Katy?) years now. My experience is somewhat limited given I am exposed to mostly grammar schools.
Test scores have gone steadily up over the years, everyone’s “most important” barometer. Even schools that have dropped one year have generally not dropped as far as they rose 5 years ago by any means. And they usually rise again. Of course, not every school has improved —but most have.
Another thing I noticed: Oakland is a city of innovators, working with scratch and claw and so are the schools. I don’t feel like our teachers “teach to the test” (well, many, many Charters seem to only do that). I feel like they bring their own individual style and method to a broader scheme and are making it work in spite of a system that is more and more stacked against them as we go. A lot of fantastic innovation and energy, imagination and thought—individual and cooperative— is going on in the classroom. They teach the subjects and they teach concentration and the test scores bettering are one result. We don’t know what other positives are taking place….yet. I wonder when the last time many of the regular mud slingers at Oakland schools (and Oakland in general) have set foot in one of our classrooms?
I see test scores up.
I see teachers really collaborating and focused, almost with steel resolve, on educating thstudents. The teachers in Oakland are in constant talks with one another on startegies—-teaching strategies. Often in light of budget cuts. You’d think they all they concentrated on was CYA with what you often read in the comments here.
I see a lot of on-site administrators focused on teamwork, providing tools, strategies, battling for their schools and, again, innovating. I see administrators putting their schools first (and the district often does not like it).
Sometimes I wonder if all the “schools are failing” is, in part, rhetoric to promote the privatization of public schools? Maybe we have not seen the results of the reforms that have taken place, but only for a few years.
As to the argument “its bad parenting. It’s irresponsible people, not poverty.” and what not. How convenient to ignore the facts: there are less than 15% of the blue collar jobs there once was 30 years ago in this country. Those jobs might have required a high school diploma or not. The menial labor wages have also not risen in 20—TWENTY— years. The part-time job I had as a receptionist in a hospital when I started out in my 20s paid $14 an hour, no bennies. That job was posted a couple years back and is still $14 an hour and I am 44. Yes, if people want to succeed in life these days, they need more than a college degree. And how are those with no means supposed to do that? And how can anyone finger point when they are unsuccessful? Its convenient to cry, “They’re just lazy!” because that makes it not your problem. This is a common theme on the right, is it not? If people would just pick themselves up by their bootstraps like I did when I came up (in a world with A LOT more opportunity for low income people and everyone, frankly).
Remember the other union that is as powerful as the Teacher’s Union in California? It’s the prison guard union. Yet no one ever bashes prisons or prison guards like they do teachers. The folks over-seeing the hundreds of thousands of young people and lobbying hard to make sure sentences are longer, more prisons are built, more people are incarcerated and more jobs with higher pay for doing this are enacted are treated like saints while we step all over people who have chosen to educate our kids knowing they would never be well off and would be bashed repeatedly by their own government throughout their careers.
February 8th, 2012 at 10:36 pm
Oaklander – You will learn that the “safety net” is worthless in a superinflation. Moreover lavishing money on failing students does nothing to keep those students out of prison or an early grave. We must run prisons and public coroner crematoriums cheaper. What I’m saying is that CA is spending more on social welfare – wildly more – and that is going to end. No I’m not worried that my policy will ruin us because the kiddies will cost more if we don’t double down on thie worthless “education” – I don’t buy any of that as fact. I believe our Kansas City Experiment spending creates more screwed up kids. It’s not the money. Education does not need any more money. It can do with a lot less and a lot of policy change.
I believe schools such as OUSD as currently run actually increase the number of failing students. Reverting to “old school” tactics would (in my experience & opinion) reduce the rate of prole students in prison or prematurely dead. When it’s sink or swim time, people are more apt to take lessons. When schools are run for the happiness of the students they don’t worry about their lessons.
When public safety and infrastructure are collapsing no one – no taxpayers – will throw away money trying to recreate the Kansas City experiment. School Districts will be forced to live within a budget and that budget will be slashed. If the districts persist in turning out unemployable products their budgets will be slashed again.
You see, it doesn’t matter if we cut education budgets for schools no one is willing to hire the products of. If the schools want continued funding they must produce with the funding they are given. If we are going to have a bunch of students who read at the 3rd grade level we should never have spent “education” dollars on those students in the first place.
Stop coddling failing students. Stop permitting them to sit with good students. Stop validating their lifestyle. You will soon see improvements.
February 9th, 2012 at 5:50 am
I agree with Parent in OUSD that there are many great things happening at the elementary school level in Oakland. I have also done a significant amount of research as well and find that many OUSD elementary schools do an excellent job of educating and developing their children. The weak link, as I see it, is at the middle school level. Not to say that there aren’t any strong public middle school options in Oakland. Montera and Edna Brewer are two that come to mind as schools that are making solid gains. And Claremont Middle School is improving as well. But the drop out rate at many of the Oakland high schools is still abysmally high.
I don’t think that teachers get the support they need to plug the holes that exist in Oakland schools. Teachers are expected to be parent, counselor, nurse, psychologist and police officer in addition to teach the curriculum to increasingly larger classes. This is not going to work in the long run. So I think this is why there is concern among OUSD parents. Sure, great strides have been made but when children are ready to take the next step from elementary to middle school, and from middle to high school, confidence drops.
I could care less about Michelle Rhee. But she sure creates a stir when she comes to town! But If schools were strong — she wouldn’t be an issue.
February 9th, 2012 at 6:53 am
Well, @OUSD Parent, the issue is that Rhee’s policy aims at blaming, punishing and deprofessionalizing teachers and privatizing schools.
“If schools were strong” — well, the chief factors keeping schools from being strong are our nation’s very high child poverty rate — the highest in the developed world — and our schools’ low funding given the crushingly high demands on them.
So the “if schools were strong, this wouldn’t be an issue” comment doesn’t really address a situation in which Rhee is pointing the blame in the wrong direction, with billionaires pouring immense amounts of funding into her dishonest and malevolent campaign to do so.
February 9th, 2012 at 7:09 am
@CarolineSF. I get it. I am perfectly aware of what you’re saying. I’m on your side. Not the Rhee/privitiization side. That doesn’t change the fact that our schools (especially the urban schools) are in crisis. I still believe that if there was more support and that if our schools were stronger (the middle and high school levels especially) the proliferation of charters, the flight to suburban schools and private schools, the thrusting of figure heads like Rhee into the limelight wouldn’t be happening at such an alarming rate. I’ve stuck with the public schools and support the teachers and schools in every way I can. Things have worked out fairly well for me and my family. However, I have many friends whose children have suffered in OUSD schools and have made other choices. So what I’m trying to say is that until things get better people like Rhee and alternative choices with schools (privates and charters) will look attractive to families.
February 9th, 2012 at 9:06 am
When Nextset and others talk of bringing ” old school back” coupled with OUSD parent pointing out that the drop out rate in high school is high, I would remind that Old School involved more support staff for teachers that is simply gone. There needs to be truancy officers in every school. There needs to be counselors at every schhol. There needs to Physical Education at every school. Teachers need assistant teachers. Parents need strong resources for their adult sized kids after school, before they get home from work.
This is not revolutionary. Nextset constantly remarls about the lack of discipline. Its not just that schools have dropped discipline because they’re too PC (although aren’t we happy teachers are no longer paddling as they did when I was a kid?). Its that the discipline enforcers have been cut and are replaced by outside contract paper pushers that show up at schools sites with crates and crates of ideas and startegies that staff are expected to implement with little to no support and that changes every time the wind blows.
February 9th, 2012 at 9:25 am
J.R., of course unions are a source of money and power. And of course their own institutional agendas will shape (and, yes, distort) their positions and communications.
However, I think unions are more honest: They are representing their members. Folks like Rhee, Broad and Arne Duncan claim to be representing “the kids” only, refusing to acknowledge the monied interests they are repping.
February 9th, 2012 at 10:18 am
Parent In OUSD,
Where is the money for all of this going to come from? The taxpayers are beat to the socks supporting those who are down on their luck. Over time the truth has always been that no matter how much money gets pumped into this black hole of an education system, the results don’t change much. It all starts and ends with parental responsibility and modeling(not just people who breed kids and don’t care for them, those are not parents), and of course capable,dedicated,caring teachers are a necessity as well. I agree with you that there are too many paper pushers, but I guess some incompetent people need jobs too(and that’s a good place to hide them).
February 9th, 2012 at 10:36 am
Cranky,
Unions are more honest? When they forcibly extract(by law)billions of dollars from taxpayers funneled from teacher pay, even if the teacher does not join the union? The mafia could not have set up a better deal than that(and you say this is honest)? An endless stream of money mandated by law all legal(but not moral). I am no fan of Corporations, but they do make their own money, which is not taken from someone else. They sell goods and services in the open market where people are free to choose who they buy from. Corps can fail,go out of business and lose everything if they don’t perform and provide what people want and need. These are market forces at work, which make sense and are proven over time. Just a reminder, over half the jobs in this country are created by small business not corporations(just so people will realize that our collective destiny is not controlled by the nefarious CORPORATION(SATAN in disguise).
February 9th, 2012 at 10:37 am
JR—exactly! Nextset’s point is that we should “go back” to old school style. I went to California public schools in a city. In middle school we had PE everyday, an elective everyday (mine was orchestra) an after school center, a truant officer, a detention center and all of it was free. My school was full of single mothers on welfare including my own (who worked full time most of her life) and most people came out pretty good. Of course, the ones thy only graduated high school and dint go on to college could find jobs. Of course the ones that couldn’t afford private universities had the option of conti hung an affordable public higher education.
But fortyis generation, perhaps it is only that they are just lazy.
February 9th, 2012 at 10:39 am
Thanks for clarifying, @OUSD Parent.
Just one other point — I understand that parents are often attracted to charters and I understand why (and privates too when that’s an option). But I don’t think Rhee herself has support from families. Her StudentsFirst operation claims some vast number of supporters, but it has won many of those with deceptive petitions on change.org and Care2 — petitions with titles about supporting good teachers that unwary people sign (I’ve been duped into this myself, and am thus listed as a supposed supporter of StudentsFirst), which are actually about blaming and punishing teachers. How many of her supposed supporters were deliberately tricked into supposedly signing on as “supporters”?
A hallmark of Rhee’s tenure as chief of D.C. schools, beyond the massive test-cheating scandal, was her mass firings of teachers and principals. In my view, that’s not a strategy that most parents would support. Responses to that strategy include the comments “You can’t win a war by firing on your own troops” and “you can’t fire your way to success.” (I think these are both from Diane Ravitch.)
February 9th, 2012 at 10:43 am
I second On The Fence’s request. I would love to see that OUSD per school, per student budget report again. It would answer so many questions. Please try and dig it up for us. Thanks
February 9th, 2012 at 11:09 am
Cranky,
Your union is calling, and they want more money! They wouldn’t want to be late making payments on those
http://www.aaeteachers.org/index.php/blog/469-union-dues-on-the-rise
http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2011/05/are-teacher-unions-gouging-teachers.html
http://educationnext.org/the-long-reach-of-teachers-unions/
http://www.aaeteachers.org/index.php/blog/476-2011-nea-convention-higher-dues-obama-endorsement
February 9th, 2012 at 11:28 am
@CarolineSf
“You can’t win a war by firing on your own troops” and “you can’t fire your way to success.”
In the military they kick out people(discharge) who are ill suited for military life and responsibility. In the Marines, the expectations are high and they do not lower them just to have enough warm bodies. The only way to succeed is to have high standards, and having a large percentage of students who are below proficient and thus require remediation in high school and college is not high standards, its not even average.
http://www.ed-data.k12.ca.us/App_Resx/EdDataClassic/fsTwoPanel.aspx?#!bottom=/_layouts/EdDataClassic/Accountability/PerformanceReports.asp?tab=3&level=06&ReportNumber=1&County=1&fyr=1011&District=61259#top
You can’t really blame poverty because the below proficiency rate is approx triple the poverty rate. That is truth in numbers.
February 9th, 2012 at 2:23 pm
Actually, that’s inaccurate, J.R.
The percentage below proficient in OUSD in 2010-11 was 55% in English Language Arts and 54% in Math (and of course that’s dismaying). But the poverty rate, based on the number qualifying for free/reduced-price lunch, is 70.3%. And, by the way, the income required to qualify is really, really low — far below the actual self-sufficiency/subsistence level.
Low achievement is absolutely, directly connected to poverty. Move those same teachers to Orinda and watch them suddenly become highly effective (except possibly the newbie TFA temps with a 5-week crash course who Michelle Rhee believes are the ideal teachers for low-income students).
Again, no, you don’t help schools succeed by attacking, blaming and punishing teachers for the intractable problems caused by poverty. Aside from being a test-cheater (and an outrageous resume-faker too — she is one brazen liar), Rhee is just plain wrong.
February 9th, 2012 at 2:37 pm
I have been giving a lot of thought to “equity” and “fairness” and how much we spend on students and the types of “machines” that we have instituted in schools that are very difficult to get rid of and do not advance student academic achievement.
Testing costs a lot of money. It is the test booklets, the testing companies and computerized scantron forms. Testing in a multiple choice fashion does and does NOT give an idea of student learning. Students can become good test takers on a multiple choice test without necessarily knowing the material and there is no penalty for guessing at the answer with a minimum 25% probability the answer will be correct on any given question. Then there are the district “benchmark tests” that are given about every two or three weeks in one or more areas of instruction.
Textbook companies charge huge amounts of money for the textbooks, but also for the teacher guides, training and the answer guides for student workbooks. Then there is the “professional development” in which we pay $1,000 – $2,000 per school day for someone to come in and “train” teachers to use the curriculum.
After school programs that provide “mentors” are huge business and there is a period of a half hour to an hour in which a “homework club” type atmosphere exists at a school. The “mentors” are usually, but not always high school graduates, sometimes speak academic or proper English and sometimes are going to community college or even a four year college. While the “mentors” themselves are paid little, the companies make a lot of money for these after school programs. Sometimes the mentors know how to do the homework and sometimes they do not. They are not equipped to teach, yet they are providing “those activities that middle class students have access to such as science workshops, art, music and sports.” Yet, the mentors do not have science, art, music or sports education background. (This is where Title 1 money is used – accounting for about $3,000 or more per student.)
My solutions:
Teachers must design assessments that have students filling in answers to open ended questions, writing essays for tests, matching terms, creating diagrams and giving answers to math problems. Teachers must be willing and able to grade these tests. Eliminating testing in the district – AND – having teachers take over the responsibility of assessments of students would save about $500 per student. Give the teachers another $6,000 per year, but make sure that each child is assessed appropriately and those assessments are discussed with the principal each month in a teacher-principal meeting to address student learning.
Eliminate text books for students. Teachers must devise curriculum based on the state standards. They must create meaningful activities that give students practice and must make sure the students learn the material to bring them up to STANDARD by year-end. They may re-teach, use hands on materials, but they must do what they have learned how and are being paid to do – read the standards, interpret them and create meaningful learning activities which allow all students to achieve grade level standards. Hold teachers accountable for learning, allow them to teach, do not force them to sit with trainers. The money saved from textbooks and trainers should be allocated for the teachers as they see fit in buying classroom materials for learning objects that have been arranged and demonstrated to the principal. Principals are also accountable for student learning.
We know from the research that “mentors” cannot teach as a classroom teacher does. Hire teachers to teach art, music, provide help for after school homework help and tutoring. The principal of a school should be responsible for coordinating the activities. This is part of the job of managing the learning at a school. Coaches should be hired for sports and those coaches should teach skills of the game, body conditioning and nutrition. Coaches should be certified PE teachers.
We have stopped allowing teachers to teach. The union has stopped holding teachers accountable for knowing and performing their craft – often siting in hearings that the “teacher was not trained . . . ” in differentiation, using the new textbooks, the culture of the schools, etc. Teachers on not animals, they do not need to be trained. As professionals they must acquire and maintain top level knowledge and rigorous practices of teaching, then stay abreast of changes in the technologies and pedagogy. This is what professionals do – this is what every other professional career is responsible for doing.
Finally, hold principals accountable for meeting with the teachers at least weekly – in larger schools it would be with a vice principal and the principal monthly. Principals who have students at a school who are not learning should be gone. Just as teachers who do not teach students should be gone.
Give professionals the money they need, the freedom to buy resources. Allow parents to select teachers for their children as we allow parents to request schools for their children. Teachers who teach well will have students who want to attend. These requests should be first come, first served.
So, in my reading, I have found that in schools in which these policies exist, students have a higher outcome in all subject areas. Students are prepared in elementary school for the rigor of middle school and high school. Parents are more satisfied and teachers are more satisfied over their career. Teachers are treated as professionals. Principals are treated as professionals. Students learn to think and to write and to learn.
February 9th, 2012 at 4:11 pm
CarolineSF,
I have already posted the numbers differential between actual poverty numbers and the bogus free reduced lunch numbers. The free/reduced lunch is in no way shape or form poverty numbers(my own kids just miss qualifying for free reduced lunches) and we aren’t even close to poor. The actual poverty numbers are here:
http://www.city-data.com/poverty/poverty-Oakland-California.html
February 9th, 2012 at 4:18 pm
No, you’re misinformed, J.R. I’ve been a parent volunteer school food advocate here in SF for nearly a decade. The cutoff for the free/reduced lunch is very, very low — far below the official self-sufficiency level (the level at which a family can actually survive without some kind of help, government or charity). You’re misreading the information.
I have to say that trying to claim that very poor people aren’t poor is exceptionally callous.
February 9th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Here’s information on the cutoff for receiving free/reduced-price lunches compared to the self-sufficiency standard. This is from 2010, in San Francisco.
Sample family: Income cutoff for free/reduced lunch eligibility: $40,793/year.
Self-sufficiency standard: $52,500/year.
http://sfusdfood.org/cna/onepager.html
► A family of 4 with two adults each working 40 hours per week at jobs paying SF’s minimum wage, barely qualify for reduced price meals for their children.
► The cutoff for eligibility for this family in 2009-10 is $40,793, but their 40 hour work weeks at SF’s minimum wage of $9.79 an hour earn them $40,726; one extra day of work per year would disqualify the children from receiving school meals.
► According to The Insight Center for Community Economic Development, the self sufficiency standard (amount of income necessary to live without government assistance) for this family of four in SF is about $52,500.
February 9th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
And the poverty figures you give are for the general population, but the relevant percentage is the figure I gave — the percentage of children in OUSD who are living in poverty, as defined by the cutoff for free/reduced-price lunch. If you define poverty as falling short of the self-sufficiency standard, as any non-cruel person would do, the percentage is higher.
February 9th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
Parent in OUSD: In my school we never saw a truant officer. There was a Dean of Boys and a Dean of Girls. Perhaps at some point that was combined into a single position. The “Dean of” handled all the student discipline. Presumably the Principal handled teacher and staff discipline.
If your GPA fell too low you were expelled. If you were insubordinate (beyond what they expected – considered rational) you were expelled. If you got in one too many fights your were expelled. If you stopped coming to school you were expelled. They were expelling graduating seniors 2 weeks before the graduation ceremony. It happened to a close friend. They did warn you and your parents… He didn’t believe the warning and persisted in truancy or cutting class.
Not many people were expelled by there was always somebody dumb enough or self destructive enough to get it every semester – let’s say at least 2 people a year. Others would transfer out ahead of expulsion – that was more common. This was not a large school. It was a Bay Area public High School.
So no, you don’t need a large support staff to handle discipline. You can even get by without the paddling. You only need a group of teachers complaining about doofus and a Dean Of Students who can count the demerits, days out, GPA or whatever it is to arrive at the last nerve.
It is very simple really.
Every one of us knew of someone kicked out of school. When it happened you never saw them again. There was no question it could happen to anyone who crossed the well defined line. We didn’t want to get kicked out of school and have to go to the continuation school. We had nothing but contempt for the people who went to that school. We stayed on our side of the line.
Oh, and I think a pregnancy was an express trip to Continuation School. Sluts were not tolerated. Students were sexually active, that’s not the point. Anyone who brought their sexuality onto the campus and spread it around (and I mean even verbally) were expelled. That kind of behavior was Continuation School behavior. Vulgarity, etc, was grounds for expulsion. By that I mean conduct indicating the child was hypersexual or in any way sexually pre-occupied. The school was not a rehab or remedial place – Continuation School was for that. Ditto suicidal ideation or actions. Just try that, and you’re gone.
It was a good school. A lot of work got done. The teachers and staff were happy. The students were proud to go there. We were accepted to very good colleges.
February 9th, 2012 at 6:46 pm
Catherine,
Here are the actual numbers, as much as you wish it were not so. I realize that you wish everyone could be taken care of cradle to grave, but it’s just not possible. There is nothing more cruel than having children that you cannot care for. I am currently trying to find numbers for the various homeless coalitions in the bay area, and their budgets, so you can see that throwing money at problems never works. San Francisco spends 300-500 million per year on the homeless, and it doesn’t do them much good but it’s great for the poverty pimps out there who make a living at it.
2011 HHS Poverty Guidelines
Household Members
Yearly
1. $10,890
2. $14,710
3. $18,530
4. $22,350
5. $26,170
6. $29,990
7. $33,810
8. $37,630
—————
Free reduced lunch guidelines
Household Members
Yearly Monthly
1. $20,147 $1,679
2. $27,214 $2,268
3. $34,281 $2,857
4. $41,348 $3,446
5. $48,415 $4,035
6. $55,482 $4,624
7. $62,549 $5,213
8. $69,616 $5,802
February 9th, 2012 at 8:15 pm
JR:
I think you were talking to Caroline. These numbers have nothing to do with my posts.
February 9th, 2012 at 10:20 pm
Yes, that jibes with my figures, @J.R., which were for a family of 4.
Whether or not I wish everyone could be taken care of from cradle to grave is beside the point.
My point is that the majority of OUSD students live in poverty, and that that correlates directly with low academic achievement.
February 9th, 2012 at 11:09 pm
Nextset,
Sounds…..great?
February 10th, 2012 at 7:50 am
Catherine,
Yep, sorry!
February 10th, 2012 at 9:06 am
Parent in OUSD: I wonder if my description of High School sounds harsh to current ears. We certainly didn’t think so at the time. The reason so few people – one or two a semester – got kicked out is that people transferred out if they weren’t able to function within the rules because of the certainty of expulsion.
If you failed to perform the Ds and Fs started flying. That alone resulted in non-functional students leaving voluntarily for less rigorous schools.
I’ve been thinking about this again. OUSD is the Continuation School – it’s the school where there are no standards, where the students don’t have to perform, and where the school will try to kiss you and make you happy. OUSD will try to feed you if you fail to bring your own lunch (or breakfast?). I don’t believe my school had a cafeteria or food service anytime in the 20th Century. If you fail and neglect to bring lunch you don’t eat – that’s your problem not theirs. My school was not there to parent or to feed students or to particularly mollify, cater to, or comfort the students. They never pretended otherwise. OUSD does.
OUSD is not a school. That’s not their thing. They are very much into deception – they deceive the students into thinking they are in a school, that they are “educated”.
Granted there are OUSD students who can educate themselves if they have a place to read. And in between refereeing fights and drama some of the teachers can provide educational coaching while the good students educate themselves. But it’s not their primary assignment.
Or maybe it depends on which school within OUSD you go to. What do I know anyway. All I see is the published stats indicating the black students (as a group) are unable to read and write. And the white students (as a group) don’t attend OUSD for high school.
Continuation School.
Brave New World.
February 10th, 2012 at 10:11 am
Caroline,
Once again, the numbers for free/reduced lunch are not poverty numbers, or even close to it.
February 10th, 2012 at 10:26 am
Caroline,
Time to post evidence for you position, here is mine, with more to come:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/01/02/1949537/lunch-data-debate-growing.html
The only thing it really means as far as Oakland is concerned is that 30% of the parents(taxpayers) are subsidizing 70% of the parents.
from the post about school lunches:
“FUNDING NOTE: Most school lunch programs operate without the support of a school district’s general fund. They must survive on food sales, combined with federal reimbursement funding from the National School Lunch Program and grants.
FOOD STATS: More than 70 percent of OUSD schoolchildren qualify for a federally subsidized meal, according to the feasibility study. OUSD serves about 6.6 million meals a year, including breakfast and snacks”.
February 10th, 2012 at 10:41 am
More evidence…..
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/756
http://educationnext.org/fraud-in-the-lunchroom/
http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/measuring-poverty-in-education-policy-research/
February 10th, 2012 at 10:52 am
Unions were built and fought for by the workers themselves because of the predations of employers, from wage slavery, the company store and the hazards of the workplace. You pretend they are some alien leech on the workers if you like, but history doesn’t support you.
We could flip the old red-baiting “Love It Or Leave It” script onto conservatives like you: If you want to live under lassez faire capitalism and pay no taxes, the Third World is waiting for you with open arms.
February 10th, 2012 at 11:57 am
Cranky,
What was once borne of necessity has been perversely twisted into a power struggle for self enrichment through threats,intimidation etc(political, and otherwise)instead of merit. in short cranky those people were fighting for their lives, and these days people are fighting for their ride on the parachute destind for an ultra soft landing on the couch. All this paid for by the blood sweat and tears of private sector workers who have minimal protection if any. Fair right?
February 10th, 2012 at 2:08 pm
So JR, now you acknowledge that I’ve disproved your original figures, which you inaccurately claimed showed that only a small % of Oakland schoolkids like in poverty.
Now you’re trying a new tack, claiming that the figures are false b/c families lie about their income to get free lunch. There just isn’t much I can do about that claim.
If you say poverty is much lower than claimed and the numbers DO lie, I don’t really have a way to respond. It’s hard to argue with the truly heartless.
February 10th, 2012 at 2:09 pm
Some people might say that OUSD’s students are more “needy” that those in the schools I attended – and therefore OUSD had to feed them, comfort them, and perhaps provide medical clinics or whatever.
Well actually in my class I remember kids whose parents divorced, were alcoholics, were hoarders, were mentally ill (with Rxs and periodic confinement). This didn’t dominate the the class but they were there. These kids were treated the same as everyone else. If they asked for help the counselors would do what they could. More often they merely moved out of their parent’s home into the home of a classmate. Some of them moved into the basements of their parent’s home and took meals at the homes of classmates.
The school never pretended to “be there” for anyone, that wasn’t their role. The Police Department was at their own building, so was the Welfare Office. Call them if you need them. Fix your own problems – ask for help where it was available.
I think everyone survived pretty well all things considered. Some died in Vietnam or maybe turned out badly with a drug and alcohol problem that was controlled during school years. If it wasn’t controlled they’d be expelled.
It was a good school. We certainly learned not to expect the school or the government to fix our problems.
I wish the OUSD kiddies had such a school. I believe they’d turn out far better than the stats I see now.
Oh – we had college track and we had bonehead track. If you couldn’t cognitively handle college prep you were put into survey courses and could graduate with few UC Entrance Requirements done. But you had the same diploma. Perhaps you were better at Art or Theater or something like Music. There was Print Shop and Wood Shop. All of us took Driver’s Ed and Training. Everyone got a driver’s license around age 16.
February 10th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
One can argue that free lunches stifle maturation and self reliance. Perhaps it would be best to eliminate the programs. Sell $2 TV dinners for those who can’t get their own lunch. Serve Water.
Tell the kiddies that nobody owes you lunch – learn that lesson well.
February 10th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Nextset,
Since the 60′s and 70′s we have carefully built a system of dependence(welfare,food stamps, section 8 and so forth) and it actually encourages multi-generational dependence from people who have neither the will or the skill to survive in the world. As long as the are taxpayers to get the money from, this will always be so. Quoting one especially memorable public comment speaker “No closing schools, you just need to get the money from the state(taxpayers)”. Typical perpetual adolescent dependent with no clue about work,pay for services rendered, and taxes.
February 10th, 2012 at 4:58 pm
“Cranky,
What was once borne of necessity has been perversely twisted into a power struggle for self enrichment through threats,intimidation etc(political, and otherwise)instead of merit. in short cranky those people were fighting for their lives, and these days people are fighting for their ride on the parachute destind for an ultra soft landing on the couch. All this paid for by the blood sweat and tears of private sector workers who have minimal protection if any. Fair right?”
Not sure where to begin with this. Unions were always about power — you organize together so all the little fish can stand up to the big fish and then negotiate. Political, economic and violence power were used on both sides, it was tantamount to war. Never was that pretty.
As for the soft parachute stuff, I think you might be thinking of civil service or cops or firemen? I guess I can’t relate because I just don’t think being a single parent in the East Bay and making 42K after 6 years on the job is all that cozy/comfy for the hardest job I’ve ever had.
Sometimes I long for my days in the private sector, with the air-conditioned rooms, the working copy machine with free paper, the free coffee — and the 401K matching, the 4-10 % annual raises, the working technology…
February 10th, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Cranky,
Believe it or not, this is about more than just you. 42K is not the worst considering that pay is not based on a full year and don’t forget the bennies, yes those cost the taxpayer plenty. In the pubic sector we are stuck with you(unless you either kill,molest or do great bodily harm to someone. In the private sector, if the boss doesn’t need you, you’re gone just like that!
February 10th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
My husband worked 36 years in the private sector, then took a buyout during a period of downsizing and became a teacher. He says it’s by far the hardest work he’s ever done, not even comparable. His ex-co-workers (he was a newspaper reporter) sometimes buy into and promote the “teachers are lazy slackers” story — he says they have no idea.
February 10th, 2012 at 6:17 pm
@Nextset and J.R., the National School Lunch Program was fully realized after WWII (it had existed here and there previously), specifically because the military had found that so many recruits and draftees were malnourished. It was a national security issue.
February 10th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
Caroline,
Your union eyes are mis-reading, I have never said that teachers are slackers(most are good, some are average, and a few a treasures). The one’s we need to worry about first are the incompetent,habitually absent, ill tempered, and yes unmotivated teachers(they cost us so much more than the average,the good and the great).
February 11th, 2012 at 7:11 am
I’m not a union member, though I would be happy and proud to be one.
The overarching message from the corporate-education-reform sector is that teachers are lazy slackers.
February 11th, 2012 at 9:26 am
Last night, our dog woke us up alerting that someone was “doing something” at our front door. There we discovered a woman, I’d say about 60, stuffing papers through our mail slot. She was mortified that she had woken the inhabitants at the wrong house—-the other gray house with the blue door on the street. She was a public school teacher bringing paperwork to one of her students at 11:00pm on a Friday night, in the rain. Such a lazy siphon on the public at large!
Nextset: what you seem to be missing is that the complete and total intolerance of your school life did produce intolerable outcomes for society. Your solution for the troubled 10 year old who disrupts class, has no parents packing a lunch, never does classwork much less homework is to Get Rid Of Him. Where exactly does he go? What happens then? You’re right, OUSD is teeming with kids who are under-prepared to actually be productive in school for themselves. Kick them all out! Simple!
Well, we do have those large human storage facilities that cost a great deal more than public education and have produced a more powerful public sector union than educators. One of the reasons is people with your viewpoint of “disruptive” children as garbage to toss will vote to fund mulit-billion dollar prison complexes yet never, ever vote to fund that wastebasket of public education.
February 11th, 2012 at 11:29 am
A commentary relevant to the discussions of problem students and bad behavior:
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/02/kelly_flynn_tackles_the_learni.html?cmp=SOC-SHR-FB
February 11th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Parent in OUSD,
“One of the reasons is people with your viewpoint of “disruptive” children as garbage to toss will vote to fund mulit-billion dollar prison complexes yet never, ever vote to fund that wastebasket of public education”.
Once again, emphatically Oakland Unified gets 11K per child in funding. This is above the average in the US, and more than all countries.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_spe_per_pri_sch_stu-spending-per-primary-school-student
You are completely wrong!
February 11th, 2012 at 1:32 pm
Parent in OUSD,
The reality is that the apple never fall far from the tree. That is the major problem, and we have made it worse over 3-4-5 decades. Yeah, just keep handing out money,food, housing etc, that will fix everything. Tongue firmly in cheek.
February 11th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
J. R.- You emphatically say over and over again our schools get 11,000.00 per child – that is what we are supposed to get from the state, that is what the law says we should get, agreed. That is what all the web sites say. The reality is we have been getting south of 6000.00 per child for years, last year our school’s working budget was 1,956,225 divided by 430 children (approximate number +/- 10 kids, I don’t remember our exact census) that gave us a whopping 4549.36 per child. And the best part is that schools that have surplus dollars, because our principals are really good with money, are continually being threatened with having our money taken to help schools running in deficit (even if they get the extras, like title one).
This number came straight off of the Spring financial reports of OUSD through the district portal. It is the number our principal gets to use to pay teachers,and buy supplies, and that is about all we can do because it isn’t very much money.
Please stop saying that we get 11,000 per child because it isn’t so. The legislature keeps voting to under fund schools to the tune of 40-50% of what the state law says we should get (11,000) – they budget the money, then take it away.
February 11th, 2012 at 7:18 pm
Elp,
I am not just saying that, I am posting the links with the numbers. It is not my opinion, the numbers are what they are. If you want to talk about reality, those numbers don’t even begin to address the total financial picture of this state meaning the bonds(interest on those), along with pension obligations, and the interest on those. The financial chasm is much deeper than anyone wants to admit(a little OT because we need some perspective here). When the state stops putting up those numbers, then I will stop repeating them, but not until then. Taxpayers are pretty tired of it by now, and maybe in November we will actually see how they feel about increased taxes. Until then………..
February 11th, 2012 at 9:51 pm
JR- Elp is actually right, and very well-stated I might add. The scenario Elp described is almost identical to my childrens’ school. At our SSC meeting, we learned of another school that received so much categorical funding, they didn’t know what to do with it- already bought a new computer lab with computers to fill it, already created a science lab, etc, etc… Our school doesn’t get that categorical funding– Instead, we are being asked to bring clorox wipes, toilet paper, and pencils, since the school ran out of money for anything but salaries (after getting rid of half the office staff and all but one p/t cleaning person/janitor.
February 11th, 2012 at 10:54 pm
Here are some additional facts:
http://www.ibabuzz.com/onassignment/2011/09/07/a-closer-look-at-spending-and-test-scores-in-east-bay-schools/#comments
February 11th, 2012 at 11:48 pm
elp,
Here is more reality about just how massive the Oakland Unified budget is(numbers have to be adjusted downward just like all other districts)because the numbers are a few years old.Here is a relevant snippet:
“Overall, OUSD’s budget is larger than those of most districts its size. This is due to the large amount of restricted or categorical funding that OUSD receives. Restricted and categorical funds are reserved for specific purposes determined by the state or other government entities”.
http://publicportal.ousd.k12.ca.us/199410102104342143/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=57082
February 12th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Parent in OUSD: You seem to have reality problems.
I’m not saying we march failing kids to a firing squad. I believe that’s what you would like to point out.
Re-read my stories of what a real school was like. Screwed up or failing children were expelled or encouraged to transfer to Continuation School. That’s where the social workers and vocational counselors were. They were not in my normal school.
Continuation School is where the handholding and social services work to keep the children who could not function in a normal school from going to prison (or a state hospital). I worked in one of these schools on occasion when I was briefly a sub teacher during the Bar Exam. I have a grad student friend now who works occasionally in a locked juvenile facility in the Bay Area. Other friends and relatives have worked Special Ed and Special Needs schools. The failure children need services and can be trained and programmed – just not in a normal school. You cannot have a good school – one that my family would be willing to put a child into with professional aspirations – also running a corp of delinquents and non-functioning kids.
The complete unwillingness of OUSD to terminate failing students – doubtless due to racial reasons – creates madhouses that are unfair to both students and staff. When you won’t fail anyone you can’t run a real school.
And it’s the Black schools who have to live like this. Good White Schools don’t tolerate crazy.
OUSD needs to run separate campuses for functioning and disfunctioning students and keep them physically separated. SF does this with Lowell High. This way even Black Students have a chance to go to a real school – one that doesn’t force them to accept failures as normal.
You may wish to perpetuate the current policy – wonder why? White students and high functioning minorities certainly will not go as the demographics of OUSD clearly show. So exactly who are you protecting – or helping. There is also the point that lower order students are harmed by keeping them with higher functioning students. They are different and do best when they are trained for what they do best which is not exactly Calculus. Running them alongside brighter students creates frustration and rage.
February 12th, 2012 at 6:12 pm
Great discussion! The passion shows that people still care…
Michelle Rhee is correct, the schools are failing- not all the schools, but many of the urban ones, like Oakland’s. This should not be controversial. No Nextset we cannot go back to “the good old days ” of your youth, as the Black family structure is no longer there. but we can find bits and pieces of what works and cobble together a successful system. This will take political will and an alliance with the unions. So far, it is a no go. How long can unions stonewall?
I don’t buy the argument that teachers are excused from high standards because of poverty, and I am impressed by the statistics posted here that the below proficient rate is FOUR times higher than the poverty rate. Teachers take their students as they find them- in poverty, with family problems, or learning deficiencies. That is part of the gig. Do firemen complain about fires?
Rhee was on the right track. Raise teacher pay in a tradeoff for higher teaching standards (and fire the slackers) Pay the high performers more, and use teachers (not consultants) to teach other teachers. Even if you don’t like it, it’s going to happen.
February 12th, 2012 at 6:54 pm
makeitgoaway: You know, poverty has absolutely NOTHING to do with failing in school.
Poverty also has nothing to do with Rape, Armed Robbery and Murder.
Really.
Those who want to circulate that drivel are those who want to accomodate anti-socials. I don’t accomodate these people. Known too many of them.
I’ve also know and known of way too many “poor” people who behaved and guess what – they didn’t end up poor. We are still seeing this with “poor” immigrants. Now the 2nd generation immigrants are a different issue. Once they get “Americanized” in bad public schools and have the government interfere with parental discipline you do see bad behavior creep in. And the bad is different for the boys and the girls.
I refer you to Banfield’s “The Unheavenly City”. Best thing I ever read while at UC Berkeley. Jack-booted Law Enforcement works in controling lower class bad behavior that if left unchecked will turn a city into – Detroit… Oakland’s Mayor really needs to read Banfield. It would help her be be less “confused” all the time. She wonders why all her appeasement isn’t helping things. Banfield explains – and recounts – that any appeasement of anti-socials makes them worse. The way to have a city that works and is safe is to have absolutely no appeasement of criminals. As for the students acting like criminals – it’s the same thing exactly. You just remove them from the scene (normal schools), permanently. And those who remain can have a civilized school.
Back to Rhee. I tend to agree with some of her critics that she is either an opportunist or is being used to dump on the teachers while at the same time holding the “chillun” sacrosanct. As a result you get wholesale cheating by teachers and staff (guaranteed by NCLB anyway) with no real improvement in ghetto schools.
So although I find her an interesting personality I unfortunately have to conclude she bodes us – no real improvement in ghetto schools.
The only way to turn ghetto schools into real schools is to cull the herd of bad students even before you cull the bad teachers. The bad students are a far bigger problem. No one wants to say it because they are too PC – and are willing to run the schools off a cliff rather than to say a discouraging word.
February 12th, 2012 at 7:01 pm
PS – I do not believe in Zero Tolerance. The decision to remove someone is predicated on a reasonable belief that they don’t belong in toto. There is such a thing as the last nerve though. I might keep someone who had a gun/Xanax/whatever while removing others. Just my point. A public school is usually too cowardly now to make these decisions subjectively for fear of being called racist or something. To each his own. The point is that disruptive, defiant or illiterate kids have special schools for them to be in not the normal ones.
February 13th, 2012 at 9:42 am
Nextset,
Nobody said that poverty has nothing to do with failing in school, rather it is not as big a factor as people want to make it. To add to the skewed perception, people toss in phony poverty numbers(FRLP)which BTW serve a dual purpose:
1. Subsidize lunches for already massively subsidized people.
2. Districts get extra taxpayer money if a certain percentage of the population is on (FRLP).
This program could be unnecessarily wasting billions of dollars each year on multiple programs that use FRLP to determine poverty.
http://educationnext.org/fraud-in-the-lunchroom/
Everyone should look into this, and post all relevant data and findings.
February 13th, 2012 at 9:57 am
Here’s more,
Only required to check 3% of applications.
http://www.joannejacobs.com/2011/07/nj-auditor-free-lunch-errors-skew-aid/
http://www.blackinformant.com/uncategorized/taking-a-closer-look-school-lunch-program
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/01/04/retired-chicago-teachers-improperly-collected-over-1-million-report/
http://www.netnebraska.org/extras/statewide/pers/lunch.html
February 13th, 2012 at 10:23 am
Ann,
“At our SSC meeting, we learned of another school that received so much categorical funding, they didn’t know what to do with it-”
Blame it on the same corrupt educational system that pays crappy teachers just as much as great teachers(more the unions fault than anything), how fair is that?
LAUSD is one of the worst school districts in the country, and yet they are one of the best funded, and to add insult to injury, every single Californian who pays taxes(all 50% of us) also pay off the interest(matching dollar for dollar) on their massive bonds which are in the billions. Neat huh?
http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Blogs/59.php
May 21st, 2013 at 5:42 am
Michelle Rhee has endlessly expounded on her thesis that unionization of teachers is the central barrier to improving student performance.
To the extent she has used her self-promoting road show to focus discussion and centralize debate on this subject, she has misled parents and educational reformers. At worst, unions from time to time have supported non-performance as a part of the status quo, maintaining tenure for demoralized and/or low skill teachers kept in place by administrators using tenure rules who don’t want to rock a community’s boat.
The central issue is motivation and helping parents create a family,home and school environment that fosters learning, motivation, and presents resources for learning achievement and advancement. Consistent, fair, rational discipline balanced with adequate recreational play and leisure opportunities surely must be apart of the formula.
All kids are educable, though there is measurable variation in learning capability and retention. All people similarly have capacity to be imaginative and creative. Measurement of objective aspectsoflearning performance is important, since it helps us assess and evaluate needs and performance, progress, and deficits or further challenges versus accredited performance benchmarks.
In Rhee’s “Rheevolution,” there is excessive and extreme reliance on standardized test scores,on tests and methods developed by self-serving organizations interested in product and service sales rather than students. Too much anecdotal evidence and strategy is taken in from funding sources who lack expertise in education though they may have the best intentions.
Though she is a registered Democrat, she dismisses the significance of any politics in educational matters.
There is excessive almost dehumanizing regimentation, standardization, and pseudo-competition. Though she extolls herself as the best friend of the urban and rural poor in their quest for educational excellence for their children, she fails to identify and implement the models that MEASUREABLY best provide it: Sidell Friends, and Harlem Childrens’ Zone.
So, now, she has brought her “Rhamblin’ Shamblin’ Rhoad Show” to Oakland. Be certain it includes an assortment of spectacles calculated to infuriate and shock, to titiliate and tempt. Also expect she will not explain those test scores being investigated in her last salaried position back east.
Finally,expect she will shed no light on any of the schools that are the embodiment of the standards she should be focusing the dialogue upon. To please her bipartisan moneyed old school tie sponsors, she will focus everything on resentment against allegedly lavish teacher pay and benefits (rather than on overpaid administrators and consultants and wasteful charter schools), on Draconian discipline, on nineteenth century myths of education.
So while the pupils (and families) blessed with access to the standards and learning resources and environments sustained at places like Sidell Friends and HCZ continue to excel and progress towards Ivy League opportunities, the rest of us are relegated to prefab education factories run by the leather booted Mistress of Firm But Decisive discipline? I hope and pray not.
May 21st, 2013 at 6:20 am
As the late Hizzoner, Chicago Mayor Richard J Daley once famously said, “It’s easy to be a critic. How many trees have you planted?”
I would similarly challenge Michelle Rhee to return full-time and permanently to the PUBLIC SCHOOL classroom at regular pay and tenure status, and make her working conditions the learning environment of perhaps thirty kids from the toughest areas of Detroit or Gary Indiana.
Where the proverbial rubber meets the road, we’ll then be enabled to use IMPACT to evaluate what she has wrought, and assess pupils’ further needs.
May 21st, 2013 at 11:13 am
If only people worried about education(and more importantly this lousy welfare system that encourages out of wedlock births and consequently the destruction of the family unit)as much as they worry about the self aggrandizing opportunist Michelle Rhee, we would really gain some ground educationally. People have bought into the lie that kids having a school, teachers, material and a curriculum is not enough. They forget that everything else is(and should be) the responsibility of the parents, and when these children fail the fault lies mostly with the parents. More money(Governor Browns new wealth re-distribution scheme will not work. You could give them 30K per kid and LAUSD(for example) will still be at or near the bottom.
Like it or not taxpayers cannot make the world more fair and equal for these kids, the parents bear full responsibility for bringing the kids into the difficult situations that they face. There is another agenda here, Jerry has plans for that money(don’t you just love it when someone who lives off your tax money proceeds to re-distribute it at his whim)?