Category: ELL/LEP
February 22, 2010
by Carrie Adams
I’m glad that so many people are able to see through Superintendent Smith’s disingenuous claim to be redesigning high schools in an effort to close the achievement gap and address equity concerns.
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.
Carrie Adams blogs at Cheating in Class.
31 Comments
February 12, 2010
by Carrie Adams
I’ve heard from teachers and central office office staff that Superintendent Smith stays behind closed doors and only her “team” is allowed access to her. The superintendent is invisible to most people. When the Superintendent appears at public meetings, she’s always reading from a script. She presents and announces but she doesn’t just talk.
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.
Carrie Adams blogs at Cheating in Class.
25 Comments
November 11, 2009
by Kenneth Libby
Earlier this week, the Oregon Department of Education released report cards for the state’s schools. The scoring system is a new formula that, in my opinion, actually makes testing even more high-stakes. I’m not sure that’s beneficial to our children, teachers, or schools. Here’s a run-down of how this new scoring mechanism works, courtesy of The Oregonian :
A school’s achievement index shows how well it succeeds at teaching reading and math, on a scale from 0 to 133.
A school gets 133 points for every student who exceeds the grade-level standard in reading or math, 100 points for students who meet the standard and 100 points for students who begin far below grade level and reach an ambitious growth target.
For students who neither meet benchmarks nor the growth target, the school gets no points. For minority, special education, limited English and low-income students, the score is doubled — 0 out of 266 possible if the student falls short,200 if he meets, 266 points if the student exceeds. The score for each student is averaged into a schoolwide index. Elementary and middle schools must score 90 points to be outstanding; high schools must score 80 points. A score below 60 lands an elementary or middle school in need of improvement; a score below 50 does that to high schools
Here is a summary of the correlation (not causation) between the new index scores, percent of students qualifying for free and reduced lunches, and percentage of ELL students (via PASW, formerly known as SPSS). These data tables and graphs looked only at the 56 traditional elementary schools and K-8 schools. No, I’m not a statistician – but there’s an awfully strong correlation between the variables.
And a graph of percent of students on F/R lunch (x) vs. index score (y):
And percent of ELL students (x) vs. index scores (y):
And poverty (x) vs. ELL students (y):
Sourced from: Our Global Education
Kenneth Libby is an independent education researcher and a recent graduate of Lewis and Clark's Graduate School of Education and Counseling. He writes about national education issues, testing and philanthropy on Schools Matter and Global Ideologies in Education.
Comments Off on Charting the correlation between poverty, ELL, and state report cards
October 23, 2009
by Steve Rawley
Fox 12 TV is reporting that Woodmere Elementary School in southeast Portland will begin charging parents late fees when they pick up their kids more than ten minutes after the final bell. For every each ten minute block after the first ten, parents will be charged $5, the equivalent of $30 an hour.
Woodmere students are 57 percent non-white. Eighty percent qualify for free or reduced lunch, and 34 percent are English Language Learners. Fox 12 reports that the district will study the program and consider implementing it at other schools.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
11 Comments
November 14, 2008
by Steve Rawley
There is a school district, of similar size and demographics to Portland Public Schools (37,789 students, 42% minority, 33% free and reduced lunch, 16% ELL), with less funding per student than PPS, that manages to maintain strong and equitable neighborhood schools and a vibrant school choice program.
All of its neighborhood K-5 schools have music, P.E. and a library (staffed with a certified media specialist).
Options start in the middle grades (6-8), with every student assigned to a comprehensive middle school. Every neighborhood middle school offers world languages and elective options in the arts such as band or orchestra, choir and art. All middle schools also have after-school activities.
If a family is not happy with their comprehensive middle school assignment, they can choose from one of three K-8 schools, or one of several schools specializing in the arts, health and science, environmental science, an international school, or a school for highly gifted students.
As with the middle grades, every high school student is assigned to a comprehensive high school, each offering a broad and deep selection of advanced placement classes, world languages and electives, including fine arts (instrumental music, theatre, art, etc.), business, technology, etc., and each offering a wide variety of after-school programs.
For students looking for options not available in their assigned high school, choices include continuations of the middle grade arts, international, and health and science schools, as well a high school focused on science and technology and a “small school” focused on individualized instruction, independent learning, and real-world experience. They may also enroll in an International Baccalaureate program.
How do they do it?
- Their system is grounded in neighborhood-based attendance. Neighborhood schools are strong enough and offer enough of a comprehensive curriculum to be the first choice of the vast majority of families.
- Choice is limited to option schools; neighborhood-to-neighborhood transfers are only allowed in exceptional circumstances. With schools sized according to attendance area, they are able to maintain funding and programming.
- Schools are considerably larger than schools in PPS (with K-5s around 600 students, middle schools 1000 and high schools 2000), with the trade-off of comprehensive curriculum in every neighborhood school.
And what’s the school district? Beaverton.
It is remarkable how well-planned, consistent, fair and equitable Beaverton is. They actually have a well-designed system of K-12 education, with a well-thought out curriculum guaranteed to every student in every neighborhood school that is as good or better than the best of the best in PPS.
Compare and contrast this to the shameful, utterly disorganized state of Portland Public Schools, where this kind of schooling is only available in the whitest, wealthiest neighborhoods.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
11 Comments
August 6, 2008
by Steve Rawley
The Sentinel reports today that the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has opened an investigation of Portland Public Schools based on the complaint of Marta Guembes on behalf of limited-English proficiency (LEP) students at Madison, Marshall and Roosevelt.
In a letter to superintendent Carole Smith dated July 15, 2008, the OCR notifies PPS that it is under investigation for violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, specifically for:
- failing to provide LEP students the services necessary to ensure an equal opportunity to participate effectively in the district’s educational program; and
- failing to provide information in an effective manner to the parents of LEP students concerning their children and school programs and activities.
The choice of schools is illustrative of the segregation that reflects the concentration of immigrant populations in schools that form an outer ring in Portland, exacerbated by high out-transfer rates of white, middle class students to schools in whiter, more affluent neighborhoods.
Marshall, in outer southeast, is 22.9% English language learners (ELL), Roosevelt, in north, is 19.1% ELL, and Madison, in outer northeast, is 14% ELL.
Of the other high schools in Portland, only Franklin has more than 10% ELL (10.2%). Jefferson is 8.6%, Benson 5%, Cleveland 4.1%, Wilson 3.4% and Lincoln 1.2%.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
3 Comments
