July 27, 2009
by Steve Rawley
The Urban League of Portland has issued a State of Black Oregon report, with troubling statistics for black students.
The dropout rate for black students is twice as high as for white students, and black students face expulsion and suspension at twice the rate of white students.
The study paints a broad picture of black Oregonians “at the bottom of every meaningful social and economic measure,” according to an Urban League press release. “African Americans in Oregon have significantly higher infant mortality rates, are more likely to live in poverty, have higher levels of unemployment, are half as likely to own their own homes and are far more likely to die of diseases such as diabetes than their white counterparts.”
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
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July 21, 2009
by Steve Rawley
A member of the Oregon Assembly for Black Affairs (OABA) e-mail list asks this very pertinent question:
Can anyone…help me understand the benefits to Black students to be required to attend a high school with an impoverished academic program compared to other Portland public high schools just because the Black students live in the neighborhood of an academically impoverished school?
This question is in response to Carole Smith’s announcement of a high school system redesign that would balance high school enrollment by eliminating the ability to transfer between neighborhood schools (choice would be preserved in the form of district-wide magnets, alternative schools, and charters).
The ideal, of course, is that all neighborhood high schools would have equitable offerings, so nobody would be “trapped” in a sub-par school.
But there is a significant lack of trust in the community, which Smith acknowledges. In her press conference announcing the redesign last month, she endorsed the restriction of transfers “with this caveat: We cannot eliminate those transfers until we can assure students that the school serving their neighborhood indeed does measure up to our model of a community school — with consistent and strong courses, advanced classes and support for all.”
In my minority report on high school system redesign, I proposed exceptions to the “no transfers” rule for transfers that don’t worsen socio-economic segregation.
“In other words,” I wrote, “a student who qualifies for free or reduced lunch could be allowed to transfer to a non-Title I school, and a student who doesn’t qualify for free or reduced lunch could be able to transfer to a Title I school. This is a form of voluntary desegregation that is allowable under recent Supreme Court rulings, since it is not based on race.”
I’m not sure if this is the kind of caveat Carole Smith is talking about, but I believe the district has proven it cannot rely on the trust of poor and minority communities who have been disproportionately impacted by district policy. In addition to increasing integration in our schools, this would provide a critical “escape valve” for minority communities while the district demonstrates its good faith.
While our current system ostensibly offers all students the opportunity to enter the lottery to get into a comprehensive high school, only students in predominately white, middle class neighborhoods are guaranteed access to a comprehensive secondary education.
The propposed high school redesign is definitive step toward closing this glaring opportunity gap (even if the achievement gap persists).
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
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July 10, 2009
by Steve Rawley
Adrianne Jeffries reports in yesterday’s Tribune on the ways principals are using Portland Schools Foundation (PSF) Equity Fund money to restore cuts to classroom teachers and librarians, and even adding staff in the case of Benson High. This is possible for the first time since that fund’s inception under new rules brought by PSF CEO Dan Ryan.
Former PSF CEO Cynthia Guyer defends the old rules, and yours truly gives props to Ryan for moving things in the right direction.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
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June 24, 2009
by Steve Rawley
Carole Smith presents her high school plan on the steps of Benson High
In her boldest policy proposal since taking the reigns of Portland Public Schools, Carole Smith has endorsed a high school system design that would guarantee every student a spot in a truly comprehensive high school, eliminate the ability to transfer from one neighborhood school to another, and preserve all existing high school campuses as either comprehensive neighborhood schools or magnets.
This model, described by Smith at a press conference on the steps of Benson High School this morning as “simple, elegant, equitable — and a lot of work,” builds on the success of our existing comprehensive high schools, but will likely preserve small schools as magnet options.
Smith acknowledged the difficulty of gaining community support for such sweeping changes. “I know that many Portlanders — justifiably — don’t really trust the school district to make significant changes. They’ve seen faulty implementation and have felt burned by rushed decision-making — whether your experience is with Jefferson High School or the K-8 reconfigurations,” she said.
Documents describing the design in fuller detail were posted on the PPS Web site this morning. More details will be presented in September.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
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June 15, 2009
by Steve Rawley
Note: The Superintendent’s Advisory Committee on Enrollment and Transfer (SACET) was asked to study and report on the high school system redesign. The SACET report (67 KB PDF) was issued in May, with the full support of 12 of 14 members of the committee. One member supported the report with some questions, and one member, your humble editor, could not support the report.
There was no official mechanism within the committee to issue a minority report, so this report is an ad hoc response to the shortcomings of the SACET report. As a member of that committee, I bear a share of responsibility for these shortcomings, so this report is not intended as a personal attack on any of my committee colleagues who spent a great deal of time and energy on a report that reflects much that I agree with. Rather, it seeks to cover areas that SACET did not cover, and amplify their call for “a plan that has neighborhood schools as its foundation.”
This report refers to the “Three Big Ideas” (592 KB PDF) as presented by the Superintendent’s team. This minority report is also available for download (124 KB PDF) –Ed.
Introduction
The Superintendent’s Advisory Committee on Enrollment and Transfer (SACET) was asked to study and report on the “Three Big Ideas” for high school redesign. The three models were presented in broad strokes, with no analysis to support how the models would lower dropout rates, increase graduation or narrow the achievement gap.
The SACET report took note of these shortcomings, but failed to substantially analyze specific information that was given. The committee also failed to supplement given information with readily available data.
Specifically, SACET did not examine the three proposed high school models in light of:
- the clearly stated enrollment and transfer implications of the models,
- the number of campuses that would likely remain open with each model, and
- comparisons to existing high school models in the district and their successes and failures.
The committee also questioned the urgency of the process, which would seem to indicate a failure to appreciate how grossly inequitable our current system is. We don’t, in fact, currently have a “system” of high schools.
This lack of a central system (along with other factors, such as the school funding formula and allowance of neighborhood-to-neighborhood transfers), has led to the statistical exclusion of poor and minority students from comprehensive secondary education in Portland Public Schools.
Therefore, it is of tantamount importance that we immediately begin implementing a system that eliminates race, income and home address as predictors of the kind of education a student receives in high school.
For the first time since massive revenue cuts in the 1990s began forcing decentralization of our school system, we are envisioning a single, district-wide model for all of our high schools. That is a remarkable and welcome step toward equity of educational opportunity in Portland Public Schools.
The focus of this minority report is on the three factors listed above: enrollment and transfer, number of campuses remaining, and comparisons to existing high schools.
Analysis of the Models
Special Focus Campuses
Large campuses (1,400-1,600 students) divided into 9th and 10th grade academies and special-focus academies for 11th and 12th grades. Students in 11th and 12th grades must choose a focus option.
Enrollment and transfer implications This model would more or less keep the existing transfer and enrollment model, and depend on an “if we build it, they will come” model to draw and retain enrollment in currently under-enrolled parts of the district by focusing new construction in these areas (per Sarah Singer).
School closure implications This model would support 6-7 high school campuses, leading to the closure of 3-4.
Comparison to existing schoolsThis model would draw on the “small schools” models that have been tried with varying degrees of success at Marshall and Roosevelt, and which have been rejected by the communities at Jefferson and Madison. It would also use the 9th and 10th grade academy model that has been successful at Cleveland.
Neighborhood High Schools and Flagship Magnets
Moderately-sized (1,100 students) comprehensive high schools in every neighborhood, with district-wide magnet options as alternatives to attending the assigned neighborhood school.
Enrollment and transfer implications This model would eliminate neighborhood-to-neighborhood transfers, as well as the problems that go with them: self-segregation; unbalanced patterns of enrollment, funding and course offerings; and increased vehicle miles. School choice would be preserved in the form of magnet programs.
School closure implications As presented, this model would support 10 high school campuses, requiring none to be closed.
Comparison to existing schools This model most closely resembles the comprehensive high schools that are the most successful and are in the highest demand currently in Portland Public Schools.
Regional Flex
The closest thing to a “blow up the system” model. The district would be divided into an unspecified number of regions. Each region would have a similar network of large and small schools, with students filling out their schedules among the schools in their region.
Enrollment and transfer implications Transfer between regions would be eliminated, allowing sufficient enrollment to pay for balanced academic offerings.
School closure implications Most high school campuses as we know them would be closed or converted, in favor of a distributed campus model.
Comparison to existing schools This model would draw on both small schools and comprehensive schools currently existing in our district, but as a whole would be more similar to a community college model than any existing high school model in our district.
Recommendation
It is understood that these models represent extremes, and that the ultimate recommendation by the superintendent will likely contain elements of each.
That said, the Neighborhood High Schools model is the closest thing to a truly workable model. If used as the basis of the ultimate recommendation, that recommendation will stand the highest political likelihood of winning a critical mass of community support.
Specifically, the neighborhood model:
- is responsive to high demand for strong neighborhood schools;
- supports a broad-based, liberal arts education for all students, but does not preclude students from specializing;
- balances enrollment district-wide, providing equity of opportunity in a budget-neutral way;
- preserves school choice, but not in a way that harms neighborhood schools;
- reduces ethnic and socio-economic segregation by reducing self-segregation;
- takes a proven, popular model (comprehensive high schools) and replicates it district-wide, rather than destroying that model in favor of an experimental model (small schools) that has seen limited success in Portland (and significant failures);
- preserves the largest number of high school campuses;
- involves the smallest amount of change from the current system, causing minimal disruption in schools that are currently in high demand;
- is amenable to any kind of teaching and learning, including the 9th and 10th grade academies and small learning communities; and
- preserves room to grow as enrollment grows.
This system is very similar to the K-12 system in Beaverton, which has a very strong system of choice without neighborhood-to-neighborhood transfers.
The transfer and enrollment aspect of this model is its most compelling feature.
We have learned definitively that when we allow the level of choice we currently have, patterns of self-segregation and “skimming” emerge. These effects are aggravated by the school funding formula and a decentralized system. Gross inequities in curriculum have become entrenched in our schools, predictable by race, income, and address. These factors have also led to a gross distortion in the geographic distribution of our educational investment.
Clearly, in the tension between neighborhood schools and choice, neighborhood schools have been on the losing end. A high school model that includes neighborhood-based enrollment, while preserving a robust system of magnet options, is a step toward rectifying this imbalance.
We’ve also learned (through transfer requests) that our comprehensive high schools are the most popular schools in the district.
As we have experimented over the years with non-comprehensive models for some of our high schools, the remaining comprehensive schools have been both academically successful and overwhelmingly popular. The small schools model, while it has much to recommend, has been implemented in a way that constrains students in narrow academic disciplines, flying in the face of the notion of a broad-based liberal arts education.
There is certainly nothing wrong with small learning communities, but a system that requires students to choose (and stick with) a specialty in 9th or 11th grade is unnecessarily constraining.
A comprehensive high school can contain any number of smaller communities, including 9th and 10th grade academies. Older students may be assigned to communities based on academic specialty, but that shouldn’t preclude them from taking classes outside of that specialty.
The Neighborhood High Schools model clearly does not do everything – our district will remain segregated by class and race. But it would move in the right direction by eliminating self-segregation and beginning to fully fund comprehensive secondary education in poor and minority neighborhoods.
The enrollment and transfer policy could be further tweaked to help reduce racial and socio-economic isolation, as well as to alleviate community concerns that the reduced transfers will lead to poor and minority students being “trapped” in sub-par schools.
To this end, neighborhood-to-neighborhood transfers could be allowed, so long as they do not worsen socio-economic isolation. In other words, a student who qualifies for free or reduced lunch could be allowed to transfer to a non-Title I school, and a student who doesn’t qualify for free or reduced lunch could be able to transfer to a Title I school. This is a form of voluntary desegregation that is allowable under recent Supreme Court rulings, since it is not based on race.
Conclusion
All of these models show creative thinking, and, most importantly, a strategic vision to offer all students the same kinds of opportunities, regardless of their address, class, or race. The importance of this factor cannot be overstated.
While none of the models specifically addresses the teaching and learning or community-based supports that are necessary to close the achievement gap and increase graduation rates, they all are designed to close the opportunity gap.
But only the neighborhood model hits the right notes to make it politically feasible and educationally successful: strong, equitable, balanced, neighborhood-based, comprehensive schools, preserving and replicating our most popular, most successful existing high school model, and keeping the largest number of campuses open. The choice is clear.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
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June 11, 2009
by Steve Rawley
Reported on both KPTV television and KXL radio, a nine-year-old boy reported he witnessed a possible rape in the restroom of his K8 school, only to be accused of lying by school staff.
Portland Public Schools officials have piled on with further denial, claiming the alleged perp couldn’t have been in the restroom because he hadn’t signed out of class.
PPS has closed most middle schools in poor and minority neighborhoods over the past few years, converting elementary schools to K8s. Most middle schools in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods have been allowed to stay open.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
13 Comments
May 29, 2009
by Nicole Leggett
Dear Super Team,
I honestly feel that you missed some very clear issues that were expressed at the May 16th meeting.
You can not complete a diverse high school system redesign with out first addressing why it isn’t fair to begin with. The lines that are drawn for our schools need to cross the River. The wealth that lives in two schools should be spread around. Not only so more school have access to more involved parents, but so the students on the West side have access to a diverse community to learn in. Being able to relate to people of differing cultures is best taught young. That is a privilege that is being denied to those children now. In a 21st Century world we all need access to each other to grow to support our city, state, country, world.
Along these lines, it is past time to give neighborhood schools their neighboring enrollment back. It’s time to picture the school down the street as equivalent to the one across town. All it needs is you to make it your neighborhood school. What makes schools better is putting your children and your energy into it. It was clear around the room that neighborhood-to-neighborhood elementary transfers must end. But if honest concerns over quality of education aren’t addressed at the district level this can’t work. We thought that was the job of the K-8 reconfiguration to resolve. Where are the latest audit of K-8 course offerings for this year and next years planning?
As you have said, quality of high school course offerings has to be universal. But as the students explained, the specific educational offerings must to vary to offer specialized learning to motivated youth. So perhaps the idea is to have elementary education equalized and neighborhood focused. But to compliment this idea have an open specialty transfer process at the high school level. Where your neighborhood high school offerings are the same and if you aren’t interested in a magnet program you attend your neighborhood high school. But with the aid of publicly provided transportation, students would be free and able to choose a specialized course offering housed in another school. This would end the Kindergarten scuffle of worried parents that don’t feel comfortable with the feeder pastern of their neighborhood school.
More than anything it was expressed that the highest level of quality education should be offered to all children in all zip codes. Thank you for all of your efforts. Please continue to involve and inform the community at large as we proceed together towards a better tomorrow.
Nicole Leggett is a Peninsula K-8 Parent.
6 Comments
May 22, 2009
by Steve Rawley
Nineteen schools are eligible for non-competitive grants under the Portland Schools Foundation’s streamlined formula, reports Jennifer Anderson in the Tribune today.
Under the new rules, these schools will not have to write competitive grants. The will automatically be awarded funds if they submit the proper paperwork along with a school improvement plan.
The eight eligible high schools include: Madison, Benson, Franklin, Roosevelt Campus, Jefferson High School/Young Women’s Academy, Leadership and Entrepreneurship Public Charter High School, and Portland International Community School and Alliance High School (both alternative schools).
The 10 eligible elementary and K-8 schools include: Scott, Woodstock, Lee, Lent, Clarendon-Portsmouth, Clark at Binnsmead, Rigler, Ockley Green, Sitton and Bridger.
One middle school – Beaumont – is eligible for the grants.
Steve Rawley published PPS Equity from 2008 to 2010, when he moved his family out of the district.
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May 12, 2009
by Stephanie Hunter
I attended the school board meeting this evening where they discussed the new discipline policy. Apparently this policy has not been updated since 1977 with the exception of the the drug/alcohol policy. This draft policy is a significantly different and far more uplifting and proactive than the current policy. I believe in positive behavior supports and this is stated in the wording of the policy several times and I could not be happier. I would like to note that Ruth Adkins publicly addressed the use of the word disruptive in the current policy as being a racial code word and also the fact that the data shows inequitable discipline practices. Ruth noted that this draft policy includes the tools and resources that the staff have been requesting.
Public comment will open on this tomorrow and I will post a link in the comments section when it opens. There are only 21 days to comment and then policy will be adopted I believe June 8th.
Some positive highlights of this draft policy:
- Discipline should be equitable, timely, fair, developmentally appropriate, and match the severity of the student’s misbehavior. (Behavior consultants call this “reasonable response”)
- A positive, respectful, and inclusive school climate is the mutual responsibility of district staff, who are expected to create and environment for student success using principles of positive behavior support and cultural competency in managing student conduct. It goes on to also include the student, family, and community.
Another board member brought up a point about principals having discretion to make decisions in unique situations. I will comment on needing more clarity here because I do not agree with a principal making decisions that are counter to policy because I believe this is too much of a slippery slope. Positive behavior supports covers unique situations and I am concerned that there are any loopholes that may allow for actions that are questionable or abusive.
Once I post the link be sure to get your comments in and also comment on discipline and behavior in general.
Stephanie Hunter is a behavior consultant and the parent of a student at Ockley Green. She is active in local and statewide advocacy for children and adults with disabilities, which she writes about on her blog Belonging Matters.
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May 4, 2009
by Steve Buel
Saturday I woke up to this quote by Carole Smith in Anna Griffin’s column in The Oregonian: “It can’t be that where you live determines what kind of education you get, but that’s what we have right now.”
The significance of this statement can hardly be overstated. When board members or school leaders have talked about the equity issue in the past they have always said things like, “There is an equity problem.” or “We need to work to be more equitable.” or any other of many generalized statements. But Smith’s statement is black and white. The schools are not equitable because if you live in a more affluent neighborhood we are giving your child a better education and this is not right.
There it is folks. Step two is complete. First the school leaders recognized there was a problem. Now they have defined the problem.
Where should they go from here? This is what I think.
The district needs to define what equity means. But it can’t do that unless it defines just what a good education entails. How can you know if education is equitable unless you are able to define what a good education is? (Of course, you need a definition which can be layered and prioritized since Portland Public Schools does not always have the money to reach the goal of a good education.)
So a clear definition of what a good education in PPS is at every grade level is necessary first. Then we can evaluate the district in terms of equity, which is the 4th step.
And the final step in this process is to eliminate the inequities which are hindering some children from receiving the good education PPS has defined.
Then we hold the party and afterwards all get busy on the other problems.
Steve Buel has taught in public schools for 41 years. He served on the PPS school board (1979-1983) and co-authored the 1980 School Desegregation Plan. He has followed PPS politics since 1975.
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