There has been much recent discussion concerning the state of the New Bedford public schools. Most of the rhetoric has come from the Education Roundtable.
This group's remarks about the city's schools and its teachers are replete with distortions and misinformation.
However, I am especially troubled that the roundtable has not examined the performance of all New Bedford public schools. There has been one glaring omission in the roundtable's analysis: The Global Learning Charter Public School (GLCPS).
It is interesting to note that two members of the roundtable are affiliated with the charter school: Tom Davis serves as the treasurer of the board of trustees, and Stephen Furtado is the director of administration.
The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's (DESE) website reports that the Global Learning Charter School failed to meet Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in 2009 and 2010.
In 2008, the GLCPS met the AYP standards in only one of four categories.
The DESE assessment data indicates that over 40 percent of the GLCPS students scored in the "Needs Improvement" or "Warning" categories on the English/Language Arts portion of the 2010 MCAS. The Mathematics results were even worse with most of the school (57 percent) failing to demonstrate proficiency.
One has to remember that the Global Learning Charter Public School is a Commonwealth charter school. GLCPS operates independently of the New Bedford Public Schools and its teachers are not members of the New Bedford Educators Association.
Some members of the roundtable have publicly stated that the teacher's contract in New Bedford is an obstacle to quality education. If their flawed logic was correct, one would expect that all students at GLCPS would score in the "Proficient" category.
The data shows that this is clearly not the case.
In fact, we should expect the charter school to perform significantly better than my school, Roosevelt Middle School. Not only does GLCPS remove students that don't comply with their rules or expectations and send them back to the New Bedford public schools, the DESE reports that only 7.5 percent of the school is classified as "First Language not English" and there are no "Limited English Proficient" youngsters.
At Roosevelt, we readily accept the challenge of providing a quality education to a student body that is 39.7 percent "First Language not English" and 15.6 percent "Limited English Proficient."
Roosevelt also has a higher number (86.2 percent) of low-income students than the GLCPS (73.7 percent).
If the roundtable is truly concerned about the education of New Bedford's young people, the public should expect them to hold the GLCPS to the same standards as all other public schools in the city.
Chuck Lapre is a teacher at Roosevelt Middle School and is on the board of directors of the New Bedford Educators Association.
11 comments:
Great Job, Chuck.
It's about time that teachers are stepping up to the plate.
Why hasn't the Standard Times reported on this?
Great Job and Thank you Chuck!
Amen to Chuck Lapre's letter.
Has anyone seen the charter school web site? Many administrators for a small school. They also have a FULL TIME PR person. Wasted money!
this my opinion as parent...this roundtable is politically motivated. You have an exmayor thats testing the water to see if the public will embrace him. And You have the UIA Political Group that's running a candidate for school committee. God Help us!
It really is a sad state of affairs when groups such as this so-called Education Roundtable are calling the shots as to how the future state of education plays out in the City of New Bedford. The people who should be involved with making any changes are the educators who work with the students each and every day, and who put their heart and soul into their work -- not a few politically motivated people with nothing better to do than serve on these ridiculously transparent committees.
Why is the Global Learning Charter School being kept out of the conversation? You’ve got to be kidding!!!
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Chancellor is on the Board of Trustees of the Global Learning Charter School and although she is not on the on the education round table her employees Bruce Rose, Lee Blake, and Paul Vigeant are members of the round table. One might speculate that criticizing the charter school for its failures would not look good for the Chancellor, which in turn would not be good for their job security.
Round table member, Thomas Davis is the on the Charter School Board of Trustees and serves as its treasurer. Would a Charter School Trustee want his school in the spot light?
Charter School Director of Administration, Stephen Furtado, works for the Board of Trustees. I would say that Director Furtado would not be inclined to discuss the school’s failures since it might have an impact on his job.
According to the roundtable web site, the New Bedford Education Roundtable is a forum of individuals and organizational representatives concerned about excellence in educational attainment in the New Bedford Public Schools, however, when you connect the dots it looks like there may be another agenda in play.
Follow the money and you'll find the truth.
It appears that UMass Dartmouth is at the epicenter of the organized effort to discredit New Bedford's teachers.
Three university employees serve on the Education Roundtable: Paul Vigeant, Bruce Rose, and Lee Blake.
Much of the Roundtable's recent criticisms stem from the UMass Dartmouth Urban Initiative White Paper. Who was in charge of that group? The former mayor of Fall River, Mr. Edward Lambert. Yes, he was a UMass Dartmouth employee. It seems like the Dartmouth campus has become quite the "hackorama" for ex-politicians. Fred "I built a school on a toxic waste dump" Kalisz and now John Quinn have found lucrative positions at UMD.
Why would UMD, the seat of higher education in SouthCoast Massachusetts, be leading the charge against New Bedford's teachers?
Dr. Jean MacCormack, UMD's chancellor, is a member of the Global Learning Charter School Board of Trustees. Another UMD administrator, Ismael Ramirez-Soto, is also a trustee. Charter's Director of Administration is Dr. Stephen Furtado. He teaches educational leadership courses at UMD.
I believe Dr. MacCormack's goal is create more charter schools or an outright takeover of the New Bedford Public Schools. Just think of all the patronage jobs she could create with an extra $117 million.
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