March 18, 2008
by Steve Rawley
Average teacher experience (in years) in Portland Public Schools: 14.2
Number of schools with average teacher experience of 12 years or fewer: 17
Number of these schools in the Jefferson, Madison Marshall and Roosevelt clusters: 15
Number of these schools in the Cleveland, Grant, Lincoln and Wilson clusters: 0
Number of schools with average teacher experience of 16 years or more: 21
Number of these schools in the Jefferson, Madison, Marshall and Roosevelt clusters: 5
Number of these schools in the Cleveland, Grant, Lincoln and Wilson clusters: 15
Source: PPS
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
4 Comments
March 18, 2008
by Steve Rawley
Fred Stewart has responded to the PPS Equity candidate questionnaire, with a good historical perspective on the PPS transfer policy, magnet programs, and equity.
Comments are open on Stewart’s page.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
Comments Off on Election ’08 — Fred Stewart
March 18, 2008
by Steve Rawley
On the theme of equity, which has become a very popular word at PPS, I’ve been thinking more about the K-8 transition.
The locations of the remaining middle schools seems to be entirely capricious, which is typical of the entire K-8 transition, but, not surprisingly, the only two clusters to lose 6-8 schools entirely are clusters hit hard by the enrollment drain of open transfers: Jefferson and Madison.
Ironically, these two clusters have unique issues that could have been avoided entirely if they’d kept 6-8 options.
In the Jefferson cluster, Chief Joseph only has room for Pre-K-5, and there is no place for sixth graders to go, besides one of the K-8 schools or the 6-12 gender-segregated academies at Jefferson. Robert Gray, on the west side, has been the default middle school for Chief Joseph for years. Why should these kids have to take TriMet across town for middle school?
We also could have avoided this problem by keeping Kenton open, instead of merging with Chief Joseph. The Kenton building, now leased to a private religious school, could have housed K-8 or a comprehensive 6-8.
In the Madison cluster, the K-8 schools are too small to house eighth graders, so they’re sending them to Madison. These students may be lucky compared to eighth graders at schools like Beach, in the Jefferson cluster, where there were five eighth graders enrolled last fall.
So I ask again: where’s the equity in all this? Why are students in the Jefferson and Madison clusters denied not only comprehensive high schools, but comprehensive middle schools, too? How is it equitable for the Cleveland and Wilson clusters to have two comprehensive middle schools and comprehensive high schools, while our Jefferson and Madison cluster kids get nothing?
Pushing ahead with the K-8 transition is moving us away from equity, not toward it.
Here are the middle schools by cluster:
Cleveland: Hosford, Sellwood
Franklin: Mt. Tabor
Grant: Beaumont, da Vinci Arts
Lincoln: West Sylvan
Marshall: Binnsmead, Lane
Roosevelt: George
Wilson: Gray, Jackson
Jefferson: none
Madison: none
Thoughts?
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
17 Comments
