December 18, 2009
by Steve Rawley
Citing a new Oregon law that goes into effect January 1, Portland Public Schools IT administrators have sent an e-mail to staff reminding all “PPS Blackberry users” that they must use hands-free devices when talking on the phone while driving. Users who have lost the headset that came with their Blackberry may get a new one from the district.
Peer-reviewed studies published in both the New England Journal of Medicine and the British Medical Journal show a four-fold increase in the risk of collision when drivers are engaged in phone conversations, and that hands-free phones are no safer than hand-held. Another study, published in the journal Sage, shows that “the impairments associated with using a cell phone while driving can be as profound as those associated with driving while drunk.”
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
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December 18, 2009
by Steve Rawley
Joseph Malone and Carla Randall, principals of Grant and Madison High Schools respectively, penned an op-ed in today’s Oregonian in support of the principle behind the high school redesign: equal educational opportunity.
Echoing Deputy Superintendent Charles Hopson’s speech to the City Club last month, Malone and Randall argue that opportunity should not be determined by race, income or ZIP code as it currently is.
Malone and Randall blame the current state largely on the district’s open transfer enrollment, an issue explored extensively on this site.
Malone and Randall ask:
What drives these inequities? Enrollment. In Portland’s open-choice system, it’s easy to flee some schools for others. Declined enrollment overall multiplies the effect. Schools that lose students, lose teaching staff, which means skimpier choices for kids. The risk? High-flyers leave, courses are diminished, parent involvement declines and students struggle.
It’s refreshing to hear district administrators openly repudiating the “school choice” policies the previous administration defended until the end, but troubling that so far these reform efforts are only aimed at the top four grades of a thirteen-grade system. School choice continues to drive dramatic inequities in the K-8 grades, too.
Also troubling in the high school plan, besides a nagging lack of details of analysis done to support planning (or, perhaps, the lack of analysis altogether), is the thinking around special focus options. At one point, planners were talking about having a third of high school students in special focus schools, meaning lower enrollment (or fewer in number) community high schools. Because of the lack of detail on how schools will be targeted for closure or conversion to focus options, rumors have consistently swirled in advance of every community meeting, with the latest, at Franklin, drawing upwards of 2000 concerned community members.
In perhaps unrelated news, Malone announced his resignation, effective at the end of the current school year, in e-mail to Grant parents yesterday. This has added fuel to the rumor mill, with parents wondering if he knows something the rest of us don’t.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
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December 18, 2009
by Steve Rawley
Lili Taylor has posted a poll on her blog: “Do you think the PPS administration has already decided which high schools to close?” So far, 100% of respondents have answered “Yes.”
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
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