The high school redesign process is a mess but I have to wonder if that’s intentional.  Closing the achievement gap isn’t that complicated.  The district has had many opportunities to work towards closing the gap but failed to do so.

Here’s a list of some of the opportunities that the district has missed for better serving low-income and minority students:

• failure to follow through on recommendations from mediation between PPS and the Education Crisis Team
• failure to use almost $3 million in 2008/09 Title I funds intended to be spent on improving the educational program for poor kids
• failure to use at least $500,000 annually in school level Title I funds for the last decade
• a failed district audit of legally required Supplemental Services for struggling students
• over two decades of failure to comply with civil rights laws for English Language Learners
• decades of unchanging disparities in student discipline, special education, and talented and gifted rates

It’s widely believed that Zeke Smith is running the district now.  What does Zeke know about closing the achievement gap?

Zeke was the Portland Schools Foundation’s Director of Community Engagement in 2007 when they identified Astor, Clark, Faubion, Vestal and Woodmere as  Excellence in Education Award winners for being high poverty schools that were closing the achievement gap.  At that time the Portland Schools Foundation reported:

There is remarkable consistency in the research on the essential elements of schools that are closing the achievement gap – it doesn’t happen by chance.  Six key factors need to be in place for schools to make significant gains:

• high expectations
• leadership
• quality teaching
• ongoing professional development
• community engagement
• accountability

What?  Where does it mention equity in access? Is that  the 7th key factor?

It seems to me that the absence of the 6 key factors in this week’s high school resolution was the reason that board members Williams and Gonzalez opposed the resolution.

Show me a resolution that includes a detailed plan for ensuring those 6 key factors are in place and I might be able to get behind it.

Sourced from: Cheating in Class. Used by permission.

POWER Academy at Roosevelt had $24,962 in Title I funds remaining at the end of the 2008/09 school year.  So imagine my surprise when reviewing their 2009/10 Course Guide and I read:

Under Oregon law, students cannot be required to pay a fee for classes that are part of the regular school program. However, in some instances, you may be asked to make a contribution for certain classes where additional learning materials enable the school to expand and enrich those classes. Certain science lab expenses and art class supplies are examples of classes where your contribution can make a difference in the quality of the class. You are not required to pay the requested contribution in order to enroll in the class. POWER Academy is only able to offer these enhanced learning opportunities for students because of your support and contributions. We appreciate your commitment to our instructional program and

Roosevelt is 81% free and reduced lunch but Lincoln is only 10% free/reduced.  Why does Roosevelt ask for donations but Lincoln does not?  Why doesn’t Roosevelt use their Title I money to fund the programs?

Sourced from: Cheating in Class. Used by permission.

STARBASE and the district’s claim that there’s a need for this particular program or that it’s an effective way to teach science is weak at best.

In 2001, PPS was awarded a $4,964,861 five year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant  with these goals:

1. to enable all of the district’s diverse student enrollment to meet rigorous K-12 standards in science and mathematics and prepare for postsecondary education and future careers;
2. to increase the district’s capacity to develop, support, and sustain teacher and principal leadership;
3. to engage families and the community in supporting improved student performance in science and mathematics and improved access to high quality, inquiry-based educational opportunities; and
4. to establish ongoing collaborative partnerships with higher education, business/industry, policy makers, and other key stakeholders in support for exemplary, research-based teaching and learning in science, mathematics, and technology within the context of a large and diverse urban district.

In a 2004 PPS grant report, PPS makes the following claims about the NSF program:

• In science, NSF schools made a gain of 6% in 5th grade, 6% gain in 8th, and 9% gain in 10th grade, compared to district growth of 4%, 4%, and 9%.
• Minority students improved in science in the NSF schools faster than whites.  The percentage of 5th grade African American students who met standards increased from 36% from 47%, compared to whites that increased from 79% to 81%.
• Hispanic students have traditionally not performed well in math and science.  This year, many of them improved particularly in science.  In NSF schools, the number of Hispanic students who met standards increased from 37% in 5th grade to 46%, from 25% to 34% in 8th, and from 20% to 27% in 10th.

Inverness Research Associates conducted annual evaluations of the NSF grant.  The October 2006 final report states:

In our view, the Portland USP can readily claim success with developing greater teacher leadership capacity for math and science education improvement in their district. Their theory of action – of how to achieve increased capacity – was sound. First they focused on creating change “from the bottom up,” instead of from the top down. The USP also sought to make lasting changes to teachers’ beliefs, recognizing that ultimately the individual is the unit of change. Changes that reside within the individual teacher, that is – their ways of thinking and teaching and learning vis-à-vis math and science education – are, therefore, lasting legacies.  Schools come and go, and staffs and principals and reform foci also shift frequently in large urban districts. Given that reality, seeking to create changes from the bottom up, and individual-to-individual, are strategies that promise a greater likelihood of sustainability. Also when robust vision, commitment and skills reside locally at the school level, the work of improvement in math and science is more likely to continue in spite of district change. Finally it is important to point out that teacher leadership capacity does not disappear. It is a renewable resource, a districtwide (though often invisible) asset that can be harnessed and directed for worthy purposes.  The development of indigenous teacher leadership is, therefore a wise, ecological model for improvement.

Inverness Research Associates’ final report indicates that the program was a big success.  The conclusion is too lengthy for a blog but these are the highlights.

Given the relatively small scale of the USP investment, roughly $20 per student per year, it has reaped enormous benefits, leaving behind a host of tangible and intangible assets in the district.  To name the most significant of these assets are: a well-honed, highly respected and very experienced leadership team for math and science; a district-wide group of teachers and teacher leaders committed to math and science improvement; a cadre of classroom teachers with vastly improved skills and knowledge in math and science teaching, as well as skills and knowledge about how to work together to provide and continuously improve high quality programs for students; systems and structures organized to deliver and maintain curricular materials; a strategically designed, well-crafted professional development program; a clearly articulated and commonly held vision for high quality math and science education which lends coherence to efforts for improvement at multiple levels of the system; and finally, the accumulated good will and success of the USP effort which enables people to continue to work hard and with optimism toward their shared goals even in difficult circumstances.

So given PPS own data and reports and an evaluation conducted by an outside organization, the NSF program was effectively closing the achievement gap in math and science and PPS could have easily sustained the effort for $20 per year per student.

Why is PPS now offering up the very same groups of kids supported by the NSF grant to the military for a mere $300,000 in a weak, non-sustainable so-called science program?  Have they dismantled the infrastructure that was so effective for poor and minority children?

It just makes my point in the previous post that PPS is unwilling to close the gap.  The bottom line is that PPS poor kids are the district’s contribution to the war efforts.

Sourced from: Cheating in Class. Used by permission.

It’s bad enough that PPS screws poor kids out of an even marginally adequate education but to use poor kids in their plan to close schools is shameful.

That said, there may or may not be a need to close schools.  District administrators are so dishonest it’s hard to know what’s the truth.

Last year 63% of white students and 35% of black students were on track to graduate in 9th grade.  On track being defined as earning 6 or more credits with grades C or above by the end of their freshman year.

There was a 31% difference in Math and 27% difference in the English state test results between white students and the lowest subgroup.  African American students continue to be suspended or expelled at almost 3 times their population rate.

Other than changes in school assignment, what’s in the high school redesign plan to address the achievement gap?

PPS administrators would rather shake up entire communities than try smaller, common sense approaches to closing the gap.

Here’s a radical idea worthy of trying….school principals could USE the federal Title I dollars allocated for their schools.  Even crazier…they could use it according to their School Improvement Plans.  That’s the plan that they were supposed to have created in collaboration with parents and staff.  According to a PPS Title I-A Report dated 1/26/10:

Each school is required to complete a School Improvement Plan that contains strategies to increase the student achievement of educationally disadvantaged students.  The plan must include a needs assessment, prioritization of needs and SMART (student-centered and specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound) goals for the school.

Who from PPS administration has followed up on the School Improvement Plans?

For years, PPS Title I school principals have failed to use the Title I money allocated for improving the academic program for disadvantaged students.  Title I funds are allocated annually.  Historically, the amount remaining at the school level at the end of the school year has been between $500,000 and $750,000 collectively.

Scott leads the list of schools with unspent Title I funds.  In 2007/08, Scott had almost $73,000 remaining at the end of the year.  The amount left unspent in 2008/09 decreased to $49,674.  Even so, less than half of Scott’s black students met benchmarks in reading or math.

At the district level, Title I underspending looks even worse.

For the 09/10 school year, the district was allocated $18,883,118 in Title I-A funding and $14,569,092 in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Title I funding.  In addition the district carried over $2, 845,562 from the previous school year for a total budget of $36,297,772 for this school year.

It’s not likely that the district will use the almost $3 million carried over from last year because the 09/10 allocation is even higher than last year’s.

The carryover from 08/09 includes $180,000 for optional parent engagement and $1,200,000 for AYP School Support.  What services could have been provided with that?

The amount remaining at the end of the 08/09 school year for each Title I school is listed below.  Amounts listed in () are negative amounts meaning those schools overspent:

Astor $6,544

Beach $7,562

Boise Eliot $4,954

Chief Joseph $31,476

Clarendon $54,882

Humboldt $(629)

James John $7,739

Markham $2,628

Rosa Parks $8,833

Ockley Green $(358)

Peninsula $16,493

Sitton $10,761

Arleta $16,149

Atkinson $32,306

Bridger $5,936

Clark $27,829

Creston $9,316

Faubion $5,280

Grout $13,788

Kelly $4,876

Irvington $(988)

King $33,178

Lee $11,023

Lent $(5,064)

Lewis $10,261

Marysville $8,438

Rigler $39,088

Roseway Heights $4,535

Sabin $9,573

Scott $49,674

Vernon $7,402

Vestal $13,806

Whitman $6,864

Woodlawn $2,142

Woodmere $14,874

George $11,956

Beaumont $11,505

Hosford $19,669

Lane $3,378

Jefferson HS $33,896

BizTech $31,351

ACT HS $17,500

SEIS HS $9,764

POWER HS $24,962

PAIS HS $4,380

Renaissance HS $26,784

So you see, PPS has had the money to improve the quality of education provided to poor children but they’ve failed to use it.  They’ve also failed to include all of the required partners in creating School Improvement Plans.

In addition to the problem with Title I spending, PPS lost $617,000 for English Language Learner students because they failed to comply with civil rights laws.  English Language Learner students are also kids at the bottom end of the achievement gap.  PPS had more than 20 years to comply with the Office for Civil Rights findings but failed to do so.

Now, we’re expected to believe that PPS is sincere about closing the achievement gap.  Not a chance.

Sourced from: Cheating in Class. Used by permission.

Last night I decided to write Superintendent Smith to share my concerns about the high school redesign.  I discovered that the Superintendent is also difficult to find on the PPS website.  It used to be that you could find the Superintendent’s link attached to many of her statements.  Now, they all link to the Communications office.

Below is my note to the Superintendent and the response that I received from Sarah Carlin Ames (PPS Public Affairs representative) less than an hour after I sent my email:

Carrie,

I’m helping Carole respond to some of her many e-mails.

You are absolutely right that it’s going to take a multi-faceted effort to truly confront our achievement gap. We know that effective teachers, excellent curriculum and support are all critical, along with a structure that better meets student needs.

We need to keep moving on all of these fronts. I am cc’ing Xavier Botana, our chief academic officer, because I know that he agrees. We have not resolved how to meet the needs of English Language Learners to the standards we should, at any level. We are continuing our equity work and engaging in “courageous conversations” about race, and working to change our institutional practices that fail to educate so many of our students and which consign too many students of color to special education and define too many as discipline issues.

The community school program we have described is important, however.  It allows all students better access to challenging courses, IB and AP, no matter where they live — opportunity we have denied many. It commits every community school to offer programs such as AVID, and to offer on-line credit recovery, credit by proficiency and other support to help students keep up and catch up. It increases the counselor services (not enough, but a start) and commits to working with community partners to offer other wrap-around services on-site. We also plan to incorporate lessons (and perhaps staff and programs) from our small schools into our focus school strategy — so that our focus schools truly meet the needs of different learners, and don’t become boutique schools for a self-selected elite.

There is no one silver bullet in closing the achievement gap — but by offering a community comprehensive school with a broad range of challenge and support in every neighborhood, along with well-designed focus schools, should be a positive step forward in a multi-pronged approach.

Sarah Carlin Ames

PPS Public Affairs

>>> “Carrie Adams” 02/10/10 9:39 PM >>>

Dear Superintendent Smith,

Your introduction to the resolution states:

“Let’s look at Cleveland, Grant, Lincoln and Wilson , our largest schools, and the ones that routinely post the highest aggregate test scores. At those four schools together, 70 percent of white students enter 10th grade on track to graduate. But only half as many - 36 percent - of their black students are on track.”

If those schools have the resources that we’re now saying all of our schools should have and yet black students are not doing well in those schools, maybe there’s a different kind of problem.

Has the district identified why black students at those schools are not doing as well as white students? What is the high school redesign team’s plan to address that?

How does the proposed high school system design address the district’s decades long failure to serve ELL students?

What’s in the high school design to address the over-representation of black and hispanic student discipline rates?

What’s in the high school design plan to close the achievement gap?

Carrie Adams

Sarah Carlin Ames deserves credit for her responsiveness and for working 24/7 but as you can see, my questions still haven’t been answered.

So why is the Superintendent being shielded from the public?   Why doesn’t she speak for herself?  Does the board have so little confidence in her ability to lead the district that they allow the Communications department to speak for her?

Note:  I originally published this post with a different title.  After second thoughts, I feel it was a mistake.  The point of the posting remains….the public needs to hear from the Superintendent in her own words.  We’ve heard enough canned public relations speeches to last for years.  Parents are long overdue for some candor, honesty, integrity and sincerity.

Sourced from: Cheating in Class. Used by permission.

It’s simple.  The  kindergarten to 5th graders are expected to be the Department of Defense’s (DoD) future workforce.  PPS has a contract with the DoD Starbase supplying them with mini recruits.  In 2008 Congress appropriated $20,203,000 for the program which is available in 34 states.  This year PPS received $350,000 of it.

The DoD Starbase website states: “DoD STARBASE students participate in  challenging ‘hands-on, mind-on’ activities in aviation, science, technology, engineering, math, and space exploration.  They interact with military personnel to explore careers and make connections with the real world.  The program provides students with 20-25 hours of stimulating experiences at National Guard, Navy, Marine, Air Force Reserve and Air Force bases across the nation.”

The real world includes white kids but you won’t find too many of them in the Department of Defense marketing materials.

Starbase targets “at-risk youth” which they define as “students at risk are those who have characteristics that increase their chances of dropping out or falling behind in school.  These characteristics may include being from a single parent household, having an older sibling who dropped out of high school, changing schools two or more times other than the normal progression, having C’s or lower grades, being from a low socioeconomic status family, or repeating an earlier grade.”

I’d love to see the data that PPS used to help Starbase identify those students.  First of all, aren’t a lot of military kids living in single parent households while one or sometimes both parents are fighting in the war?

Does PPS track dropout siblings?  Changing schools two or more times?  Does it count when it’s PPS that keeps closing schools in poor schools then reassigning kids?  Does that put those students at risk?  Do kids even repeat classes anymore?

Starbase and PPS aren’t identifying individual students based on the characteristics mentioned above.  Schools are being identified through socioeconomic status and race.  PPS tracks both of those.

Check out the presentation on the DoD’s plan for the future and you’ll see that students of color are disproportionately represented in their program.  The Portland schools participating in Starbase are schools with high percentages of minority students.

One of the stated goals of Starbase is about increasing drug awareness and prevention.  If PPS is serious about supporting at-risk youth, administrators might try looking across the river.  It’s widely known that students on the west side are struggling with drugs and mental health problems.  Why aren’t they being enrolled in Starbase classes?  Is it because they are wealthier white kids?

One look through the DoD Starbase 2008 Annual Report makes it clear that Starbase is a recruitment program.  The report also talks about the need to engage kids early because they lose interest as they near middle school age.  Here are some items from their post-program assessment:

• Military bases are fun.
• I am enjoying coming to a military base.
• The military base is a good place to work.
• Military people do lots of different things.

What do any of those questions have to do with math and science skills?  But then that’s not the real goal of the program.

Just when I think PPS can’t do anything more despicable to poor kids, I learn about something new. The most appalling thing is that Starbase isn’t new to PPS.  The superintendent and board have known about this for years.

Years ago the Education Crisis Team brought a coffin to a protest before the school board.  Protesters carried signs saying that the district was handing poor kids a death sentence.  People thought it was extreme.  Maybe it wasn’t extreme enough.

At the time Education Crisis Team leader Ron Herndon was quoted as saying   “This may not be the kind of parental involvement you want us to have, but this is the kind of involvement we need to have”.  Amen.

Take action: Call or write PPS Board members to demand that PPS terminate the contract with the Department of Defense immediately.

Sourced from: Cheating in Class. Used by permission.

In 1998, I joined a multiethnic activist group called the Community Monitoring Advisory Coalition (CMAC).  The group was led by longtime activists Ron Herndon, Richard Luccetti and Halim Rahsaan.

My first CMAC committee assignment was writing the history of the struggle to improve public education for minority children.  That was quite an assignment for me considering that I come from a poor white background.  I’d rarely left my neighborhood.  Needless to say the paper was a collaborative effort.

I’m in the process of updating the Two Decade Struggle for Public School Children because it is now over a decade behind.

I get pissed when I read through the history now because so much of what was fought for has been lost.  Here’s an excerpt from the paper:

In 1979 the Black United Front began working against a school desegregation plan that was very harmful to Black children and discriminatory in its implementation.  Using a study by the Community Coalition for School Integration, the Front protested the forced busing of Black students from their communities while White students were allowed to attend neighborhood schools.  School district policy prevented Black teachers from teaching at schools in the Black community.

There were no schools serving grades 6-8 in the Albina neighborhood where the majority of Portland’s Black children lived.  All middle school aged children were mandatorily bused into other neighborhoods.  School officials tried to put as few Black children as possible in as many White schools as possible.  In 1977, 44 students from the Eliot neighborhood were bused to 20 different schools.  This abusive practice of busing and scattering Black students occurred at every elementary school in the Black community.

The Front sponsored two successful boycotts of Portland Public Schools in 1980 and 1981 to press demands for a new desegregation plan and a middle school in the Black community.

Tubman Middle School was opened in 1983 but only after the firing of Superintendent Blanchard (BESC is named after him), partially because of his unwillingness to work with Black parents and intervention by a mediator from the US Department of Justice.

Sadly Tubman closed in 2006.  Where is the Albina neighborhood’s middle school now?

One of my favorite poems is a long poem called The Intervals by Stuart MacKinnon.  In it MacKinnon talks about not letting the effort of generations drop.

Portland Public Schools has taken advantage of the fact that some communities have been asleep.  PPS has changed school boundaries and reconfigured, consolidated and closed schools in poor communities with little resistance.

By just about every measure (achievement gap, dropout and discipline rates, under and over representation in TAG and SPED, teacher diversity, and equitable opportunities) Portland has gone backwards.  Hard fought gains have been lost.

PPS is about to change school assignment policy at the high school level, redraw boundaries, and close schools.  They say that they’re making the changes in an effort to create equity.  Nothing in their history makes me believe that.

PPS administrators can’t be trusted to do the right thing for kids unless forced.  Hell, they don’t even know it’s about kids.  They think it’s about them.  Parents and community members need to get involved now.  Before it’s too late.

Sourced from: Cheating in Class. Used by permission.

Seattle School District

If people have any doubts about the direction that PPS is heading, they only need to head north 175 miles.  PPS and the Seattle School District have so much in common.

Seattle School District converted some K-5 and 6-8 schools to K-8s.  PPS followed (sort of…it’s half-assed and still in limbo).  Both districts have parents and staff complaining about lack of support in the transitions.

The Seattle School District closed and consolidated schools.  Portland followed.

The Seattle School District contracted with DeJong to develop enrollment projections.  Those projections were met with skepticism by parents and board members.

In Portland, DeJong partnered with Magellan Consulting to complete a facilities assessment for PPS.  More skepticism.

Both Seattle and Portland love to hire Broad graduates.  They pop up like new Starbucks.  Broad graduates are supposedly hired for their business expertise.  That expertise has played out to be disastrous for public education.

In 2009, the Seattle School District developed a Student Assignment Plan which changed attendance boundaries and the way in which students were assigned to schools.  Portland is in the middle of a high school redesign plan which also affects boundaries and student enrollment.

The Seattle School District closed several schools in 2009 due to declining enrollment.  They expected to save $3 million per year.   Just one year later they find themselves in need of buildings.  The cost to reopen 5 of the recently closed buildings is $47.8 million.  Not only was it a foolish financial decision but it disrupted the education of children.

Will PPS follow?

Sourced from: Cheating in Class. Used by permission.

I’ve never forgotten my first visit to Whitaker Middle School in June 2001.  It was shortly after Willamette Week broke the story  The Poisoning of Whitaker.  The Willamette Week story exposed a long history of radon poisoning along with other indoor air quality concerns at the school.  For about 10 years, PPS administrators failed to adequately address building conditions or to inform staff or students of the health hazards.

The first thing I noticed when entering Whitaker School (Pictured in the Cheating in Class banner) was that the cove base had been removed from along the bottom of the walls exposing mold.  There was a solid, thick, black line that ran parallel to the walls.  I realized as I got closer that it was a trail of dead ants which ran the full length of the hallway.  It looked as if someone had sprayed for ants but didn’t bother to clean up the dead ants.

It was during that visit that a staff member gave me a sample of what appeared to be a mushroom scraped from the wall in a special education classroom.  The building smelled awful.  I later learned that the smell was probably coming from a squirrel that had died in the basement.

I am not an environmental health and safety expert.  I’m a mom.  A mom who recognizes mold when I see it.  Whitaker clearly had a mold problem.

Still, PBS Engineering and Environmental who had been on contract with PPS for years, had produced report after report stating that there wasn’t an indoor air or mold problem.  They even produced a report the same month of my visit saying that “ventilation of the spaces tested appears to be adequate with respect to the ventilation parameters monitored and the particulate identified in the laboratory reports.”

In July 2001, Whitaker was vacated and later determined to be too toxic to renovate.  After spending $700,000 on maintenance for the vacant building over the next few years, PPS administrators decided to demolish the building.

The PPS board voted to borrow $2.1 million for the demolition in August 2006.

Well PBS may have missed the boat on the mold problem but they weren’t going to miss out on their share of the demolition dollars.  PBS oversaw the decommissioning of several underground storage tanks, hydraulic lifts and water wells.  They also developed erosion control and grading plans.

According to the PBS Engineering and Environmental project website:

“The Whitaker School project is a good example of how PBS incorporates their multi-disciplinary structure into a successful project.  Led by the Sustainable Design Group, all four PBS service areas - Engineering, Environmental, Health and Safety, and Natural Resources – brought this project to successful completion.”  It sure did!

You’d think that PBS would count their winnings and move on but no…they’re still providing services to PPS.  Their annual contract was amended on 10/12/09.  They continue to receive about $450,000 annually.

The Whitaker situation raises a question about potential conflicts of interest.  But that’s not new for PPS.

In 1998, PPS contracted with KPMG to conduct a comprehensive performance audit.  At that time, the district claimed to have solicited four firms to submit bids to perform the audit but only two firms responded.  KPMG’s proposal was incomplete.  The only mention of costs was a handwritten note at the bottom of a letter.  The note estimated costs at $300,000 – $350,000 with formal cost estimates to be sent at a later time.  The district didn’t follow their own Request for Proposals policy.

KPMG came up with 230 audit recommendations.  The most controversial being the recommendation to close 13 schools.  An Oregonian analysis conducted shortly after the audit found KPMG’s numbers to be inflated.  Many of KPMG’s findings are still in dispute today.

Research into KPMG’s background suggests that KPMG might have been motivated by their desire to profit from PPS closures.  KPMG was a partner in a for-profit education management company.  They used public school system audits to gain entry into schools.

KPMG was actively involved in pushing charter school legislation, vouchers and privatization.  It makes you wonder why the PPS board would have approved a contract with a company hostile to public education.

Now we have Magellan.  The Magellan website states:

Magellan K-12 is a specialty consulting firm providing services to education clients nationwide.  The firm is focused solely on the K-12 marketplace and provides Educational Adequacy and Suitability Assessments.  The firm develops educational standards and specifications, architectural programs, site selections, enrollment projections, geographic information systems, economic models, bond programs, and construction implementation plans.

Once again…one stop shopping.  Magellan can identify problems with PPS facilities, make recommendations about renovations and new construction, and manage all projects.

Not surprisingly many of the PPS staffers involved in today’s questionable contracts are the same people who brought us PBS Engineering and Environmental and KPMG.

I agree with the little girl.  There’s a fungus among us.  What do you think?

Sourced from: Cheating in Class. Used by permission.

Title I Overview

This is the part of No Child Left Behind that supports programs in schools and school districts to improve the learning of children from low-income families. The U.S. Department of Education provides Title I funds to states to give to school districts based on the number of children from low-income families in each district.

US Department of Education Audit of ODE

The US Department of Education audit on Oregon’s Title I program in 2008 produced many findings centered on accountability.  Among other things, there was an almost complete absence of oversight in how some Oregon districts handle services to private school children.  The findings listed below are taken directly from the Title I report (emphasis mine).

Finding (1): The Oregon Department of Education (ODE) has not ensured that its LEAs (school districts) maintain control of the Title I program for eligible private school children and their families and teachers. For example:

• As part of the process for selecting a third-party provider in PPS, private school officials meet with potential providers without district officials present.
• PPS provides its third-party providers with a list of possible criteria to use to select students for services, but leaves it to the third-party provider and private school officials to decide which criteria are actually used.
• PPS gives the third-party provider and the private schools the responsibility of deciding the types of services (i.e., reading or math) that students selected for services receive and how the services will be evaluated.
• In Woodburn School District (WSD) the private school officials develop the plan for services, the selection criteria, and how the services will be evaluated.

Finding (2): The ODE has not ensured that its districts have consistently met the requirements for consultation with private school officials regarding: (1) the method or sources of data the district will use to determine the number of private school children from low-income families residing in participating public school attendance areas; and (2) the evaluation of the Title I program for private school children.  PPS tells interested private school officials to report free and reduced priced lunch data in October without first consulting with them concerning the different options that may be used to obtain data on low-income students.  PPS’s affirmation form does not include this topic.  In both PPS and WSD the third-party contractor designs the evaluation of the Title I program for private school children.  Neither LEA has determined in consultation with private school officials how the Title I program for private school children will be evaluated, what the agreed upon standards are, and how annual progress will be measured.

Finding (3): The ODE has not ensured that its LEAs have consistently exercised proper oversight in awarding contracts for the provision of Title I services to participating private school children.  A contract that PPS has with a third-party vendor to provide services to participating private school children did not have enough detail to enable PPS to determine that the Title I statutory and regulatory requirements are being met.  The contract has not broken out the specific amount for administration, instruction, family involvement, and professional development that the vendor is charging.

PPS’ handling of Title I services to private school children is the equivalent of handing private schools a check and walking away.  Where is the accountability for that?  Unfortunately, this is typical of how PPS manages its money.  District staff consistently argue that questioned expenses are just a small portion of their budget.  They don’t get it that the pennies add up.

The PPS 2009/10 budget includes $20.2 million in Title I funds PLUS $14.5 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds.  PPS reports that the ARRA funds will be targeted towards: standards and assessment; data systems; teacher effectiveness; and support for lowest performing schools.

Schools need the money but they need to use it effectively.  Don’t let the district piss the money away.

Parents:

TAKE ACTION – You have a right to know how your child’s school is spending their money.  Find out if your child’s school is a Title I school.  If so, here are some questions (ask any or all) that you should ask your school principal:

1. How much has the school been allocated in Title I funding?
2. How much in funds did the school carryover from last year?
3. Who was involved in completing the School Improvement Plan (SIP)?
4. Request a copy of the School Improvement Plan or schedule a time to review it.
5. Is the school required to provide supplemental services (individualized help for struggling students)?  If so, who is the provider?  What services are provided?
6. Is the School Improvement Plan and budget aligned?
7. What parent involvement activities are included in the School Improvement Plan?

Don’t worry about whether you’ll understand all of it.  Most parents don’t understand it.  You’ll get it over time.  The important thing is to ask questions and always follow-up.

If you need help with any of the information you collect, you can email me by going to the About page or you can post questions on this blog.  There’s a very supportive online community of parents with tons of expertise and various perspectives.

Sourced from: Cheating in Class