PA Charter Schools and Democratic Accountability

The School District of Philadelphia has decided to close 9 schools in an attempt to reduce the excess capacity by 14,000 seats.  Since 2000, the District has lost over 50,000 students.  And since PA approved charter legislation in 1997, over 48,000 students have enrolled in charter schools.

There is a clear connection between the loss of students to charters and the disinvestment in traditional public education, i.e. the closing of schools.

But charter schools can co-exist with traditional public school districts, provided that the state-level charter legislation is more teacher-friendly.  By involving more teachers in democratic educational reform, we are more likely to benfit from their professionalism, creativity and expertise.

Charter legislation in Pennsylvania is presently not that teacher-friendly in that it marginalizes teachers (and local unions) from the innovative charter school process: teachers who work at the school can't serve on the board of a charter school. Nor can they be members of the local bargaining unit. These two provisions exclude two important groups that could actually sustain worthwhile educational reform.

It could get worse.

According the the Education Law Center, PA state Senate Bill 904 and House Bill 1348 are designed to change charter school legislation so that there is actually less democratic accountability: 10-year renewals rather than 5, conversion of any school to a charter, and a state-level commission to directly approve charter schools.

If we're gong to revise charter school legislation, we can do better:

1. Charge the PA State Commission with explicitly helping LEAs, parents, teachers and unions study, modify and/or adopt effective innovations within the charter school networks.
2. Modify the oversight of individual charters to require teacher representation. If the argument has been that teachers have had little influence over the direction of traditional public schools, then teachers should be able to effectively influence public education through charters, if necessary.
3. Allow PA charter employees to opt-in to (or cooperate with) the membership of the local union's collective-bargaining unit. This will help the employees within a charter ensure due process. As for "seniority" that is associated with unions, charters should be explicitly permitted to retain site-based hiring (a provision that already exists within traditional public schools). Charters should also be required to design their budgets that do not penalize (or discourage) experienced teacher applicants due to their higher salary expectations.
4. Allow/encourage local unions (or their partners) to open and supervise charter schools. If the argument is that the LEA and it's policies hinder teacher effectiveness, then local unions should be able to manage charters effectively while maintaining union membership within the LEA.
5. Require that charter schools provide opportunities for teacher leadership through teacher-led professional development, peer evaluation, common planning time, and engagement-oriented (rather than compliance-oriented) administrative supervision.
6. The legislation should also be explicit about using "multiple measures of teachers' effectiveness" in determining faculty retention, teacher salaries, etc. Assessing teachers' effectiveness on high-stakes standardized tests is an incomplete and ineffective strategy. The use of multiple measures to determine teachers' effectiveness is in alignment with position statements by the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers and the US Department of Education's Blueprint for Reform - Reauthorizing ESEA.

It's time for more democratic accountability -- in all aspects of educational reform.

What do well-funded schools look like?

Below are a few things we could do to create well-funded, dynamic and engaging schools.  What would you add, take away or modify?

• Create smaller class size; I don't care what the research says, I just know I can be more effective when I can know fewer students more deeply.  Right now, I have 125-145 students, depending on the day.  When I taught at an independent school, I had about 60-80 students/day. 
• Build and maintain beautiful school facilities with a fully funded library, computer centers (or 1:1 laptops as needed), resplendent arts studios and athletic programs, well-funded class trips, and access to green space.  These sorts of things already happens in some schools, but it sometimes means we create privilege rather than cultivate democracy.
• Have healthy, sustainable and tasty lunch programs - free to all, including faculty and staff.
• Foster flexible teacher leadership so that individuals can have one foot firmly in the classroom (with benefits) and another foot in research-world (for policy, curriculum studies, or professional development).  Each school would formally have at least 1 such teacher leadership position for every 10 teachers, and the capacity for other positions to be created.

Education for Democracy is Patriotic

The more-than-adequate financial support of public education is an expression of democracy.  Unfortunately, public education is under-funded.  Teachers need to balance defense of the profession (How can we manage budget cuts?) with advocacy for students (How can we ensure smaller class size, for starters?*).

What can we do to help advance the idea of public education as a foundation for our democracy (assuming we agree)?

CLICK ON THE GRAPHIC below for an clearer image that helps me visualize the relationship between democracy and education.  Comments/suggestions welcome. [* The graphic was designed to map the US Department of Education's emphasis on "college" and "career" as sub-sets of critical and creative thinking. As Gretel points out in the comments below, critical and creative thinking are life-skills that exceed college and career. I agree. GDS - 10-18-2013.]

* What are some features of adequately-funded democratic education?  See subsequent post.

Reclaiming Choice

Gary Olberman, an effective advocate for progressive democratic education, shared an article from Forbes entitled "Why I Support the Teachers Unions."  One of many lines from the article that caught my attention:

• Once they take away job security and collective bargaining rights, what’s to stop them from taking away pay, benefits, and everything else?" 

There's also an interesting discussion about how school choice has been used to undermine public education.   I agree.

Though I'm unsure about the demonization of "choice."  I think choice has been redefined, inappropriately, by some sectors within our society,  as a method to privatise public education.  But what if we reclaimed choice as an expression of democracy?

For example, why not advocate for teacher-led public schools that offer a variety of choices in terms of curricula, instructional strategies, community partnership, etc.?  One-size curriculum for all, where all students have to be tested on the same day, doesn't give teachers or students much choice about how or what or where they learn.

At the school level, effective teachers can provide choices for individuals within any particular curriculum.  Yes, we will study "cells as building blocks,"  but what are the myriad of ways that well-supported teachers can help engaged students choose how they develop, or experience, that scientific understanding?

And we've got to give teachers choice in the schools they serve.  In the larger districts, such as Philadelphia's, teachers are assigned without any consideration of "best match" to a specific community.  Students, parents and teachers should be able to interview prospective teacher candidates and then choose those that are best aligned with that community's pedagogical approach -- all in the name of democracy.  

We've got to develop the capacity of our schools to make smart choices that maximize individual freedom while also honoring collective equality (if not equity).  And if we can't trust our teacher leaders to do this, then we have a serious problem.

The Excellence Myth & Poverty in America

Over at transformED, Dan Brown discusses the impact of poverty on over 46 million Americans.  Part of the problem is that it's hard to be poor in America.  And when poor people go to school, it's often hard for them to learn well.  And when students don't learn well, teachers get blamed.  Dan argues that the "No excuses" mantra about teachers doesn't really address the debilitating violence of poverty.

I think Dan has also picked up on the myth of excellence. It's the same ideology that produced "Waiting for Superman," as if teachers just worked hard enough, everything would change.

Although individual teacher excellence is important, we also should look at lateral relationships, or capacity, or what some call social capital. If our society can help cultivate each person's or community's social capital, then kids (and teachers) will show up at school well-rested, well-fed, feeling safe, curious and nurtured, and ready to learn.

Poverty diminishes social capital in that people have little influence over their environment/surroundings (i.e safe neighborhoods, stable networks, access to healthcare, libraries, food, etc). If you're a teacher, your social capital is diminished when policy decisions happen without you, when PD is done to you, and when your creativity and initiative are smothered by standardized testing or teacher-proof curricula.

It shouldn't be a crime to be poor in this country, but it is. And families and children (and teachers) are punished for their proximity to poverty.

Effective Teacher Evaluation: Stuck in the Middle

According to an article in EdWeek, New groups giving teachers alternative voice, "...52% of teachers now have 10 or fewer years in the profession...."  Many of these new teachers are interested in new models of compensation, teacher leadership and career choices.  Not all teachers, regardless of their experience, agree on what it means to be an effective teacher.

Some of the newer teachers are finding their voices in new teacher advocacy groups, some of which are aligned within unions (see NEWTLA in Los Angeles) or outside of the local (see Educators 4 Excellence in NYC). Some of these groups receive funding from the Gates Foundation, while others do not.  It is arguable that E4E could be characterized as neo-liberal in its call for 1) teacher evaluation to be based on student growth and 2) the elimination of seniority.  Other groups, such as Teachers Union Reform Network, seek to integrate labor, professional and social justice models of unionism.  And as a member of Teacher Leaders Network, I've seen my own positions on educational policy be characterized as either too conservative or too liberal.

Some of our own colleagues may agree with some or all of these new teacher groups' platforms.

There is no clear political designation for these emergent groups, yet I would argue that our unions could be more communicative, both horizontally among members, and vertically between members and the union officers. For example, with Philadelphia's upcoming negotiations about the teacher contract (which expires in 2012), effective communication is a concern.  Where and when do teachers get to influence the direction of contract negotiations?

The issue of "teacher evaluation" is moving towards Philly, and it would be wonderful for teachers to have more of a say in what it could look like. In order to do that, we'll all have to do a lot more research on effective teacher evaluation policy.  If we're going to influence our union to cultivate teacher voice more often, then we're going to have to have concrete ideas that we can get out in the public discourse.

I'm delighted that some site-based unions will be taking a closer look at teacher evaluation. I wonder where Philly's Teacher Action group is.

What do you think is effective teacher evaluation?  What does it look like?  How can it be designed to foster student engagement, teacher voice, and professional growth?

18 year-old Advocates for Worthwhile Teaching

Check out Sinnea Douglas, a 2011 grad of Philadelphia's Science Leadership Academy (SLA), share her take on worthwhile teaching in the poem "When I become a teacher."

Sinnea started working with poetry in Matthew Kay's lunch-time poetry club at SLA in 2009.  By 2001, Sinnea and her buddies from Philadelphia's Youth Poetry Movement won the Brave New Voices International Youth Poetry Festival.

Rock-on Sinnea, you're beautiful.  And thank you!

(Thanks to Laurie Calvert from the US Department of Education for finding an opportunity toi share Sinnea's words on the teacher landing page at the ED.gov website.)