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In today's Mid-Morning Magazine interview with UIA's, Renee Ledbetter, illuminated anything, it is that the concept of a small autonomous school component in the city of New Bedford is an 'Occupy NBPS' movement. Throughout the 40 minute time slot, also featuring a student from NBHS (who, due to her age as a minor, I will not name), the proponents offered little clear understanding of their platform. At one point, the discussion led to the possible earmarking of a small autonomous school as a Performing Arts school, a Poly-Tech school or even a Trade school. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but we have those within our city's educational offerings already. The Pulaski school has long since been following a Magnet School theme of Performing Arts; the new Lincoln school is a STEM school and we have to look no farther than GNBRVTHS to find trades.
Ms. Ledbetter, when questioned by New Bedford resident, Eddie Johnson, relative to the misunderstanding of the wording used by The Standard-Times when it seemed to suggest that a recent vote taken by the NB School Committee to study the proposal offered by UIA, was cagey at best. The debate centered around the word "commitment". Ms. Ledbetter, as many grassroots activists are when confronted with facts, deferred the point. Facts simply muddy the waters of change. I personally wish that Mr. Johnson, himself, would sit longer with his thoughts prior to speaking out on important topics, but I do believe his heart is in the right place. After 4-5 minutes of valuable air time taken up by Mr. Johnson, he simply hung up. This is paramount to taking your ball and leaving the playground when the call might not go your way.
Two more callers thoughts were permitted in succession. One, a gentleman who suggested he knew how he felt about the subject of small autonomous schools, was unable to cite any information he had gleaned on the topic, and another who identified himself as the product of private education and felt compelled to weigh in on the benefits of his experience in his own form of small autonomous schooling. Let's not kids ourselves.... Jesus runs some mighty fine autonomous schools in the world, and He's a pretty good friend of mine, but He's outside this conversation for a reason...
Finally, Lou St. John was heard from. I admired the fact that he got right down to business by asking a series of pointed questions substantiated with fact. The old adage holds true every single time.... No lawyer asks a question unless he already knows the answer....
Lou immediately called upon the NBHS student to divulge why she, a NBPS student would not have availed herself of a small autonomous school that already exists within our city, The Global Learning Charter School. Her answer belied the fact that she was not rife with facts. She answered that she did not want to engage in a lottery-based system to gain her knowledge. Lou's answer quickly ended the young woman's response. The fact is that the GLCS has no lottery necessary for a student her age. They are underpopulated and would gladly welcome her to the ranks of their diminishing returns...
Phil quickly stepped in and suggested what he should have already done, an open-air conversation between Ms. Ledbetter, who has obviously welcomed the role as spokesperson for this movement, and Mr. St. John. Lou immediately accepted the invitation. Ms. Ledbeter was not as quick, instead suggesting that she should go back and speak with the UIA. Lou then noted that there was no one for him to check with and again thanked Phil for the opportunity to go head-to-head with the UIA.
And now... your thoughts?
1 comment:
It is supposedly crisis time in New Bedford's school system. If that is the case, then why are we entertaining the UIA if we are supposed to be focusing on improving all schools? The idea held by some school committee members, by the newspaper, and by far too many leaders is that any new idea is worth trying on, just because. That is not how truly effective change happens. In fact, the overload of "great ideas" is how we got into this mess in the first place.
Also, it is clear from Renee Ledbetter's comments, and the starry eyed ideas of the UIA's child reps, that SAS is promising all things to all people.
Ledbetter has said that students will have one on one attention in a SAS. How can that be guaranteed? Why are we moving forward based on a promise of a school fantasy, rather than looking at the numbered autonomies (1-5) in a school and asking how and why those should be in place at all schools and to what degree?
The UIA also make much of experiential learning and innovative curriculum that these schools can employ. However, the experience in New Bedford with GLCS and Alma delMar shows that curriculum promises have not come to pass. No one is knocking down the public system door with a curriculum silver bullet or an experiential learning idea that changes scores overnight. Again, they are engaging in fantasy and promises, selling SAS as all things to all people.
We should discuss the autonomies and freedom that schools need and we should also discuss basic content and curriculum need, but locking in the autonomies in a guideline document written by one Boston based consultant and making vague curriculum promises is merely an exercise in distraction, deigned to get UIA guidelines passed.
Not only is this UIA proposal likely to deny services to the majority of our schools in the future, it is already denying us a real conversation on our 20 plus school sites, the effective and less effective.
The truth is, our most effective schools are already small autonomous schools, in practice not policy. They are schools that already exist and have creative leaders who listen to central office but use their own judgement. They have teachers who listen to leaders but then act based on their students' needs. They are not schools where people sit back and say the union contract or the central office have to do something before they will do the small and large things that our best schools are doing daily for kids and families.
This SAS project in its current form doesn't even start a conversation on school improvement and responsibility. All it does is give up the superintendent's and school committee's responsibility and focus to a well organized group who have zero educational experience or expertise. This is why the two attorneys on the committee voted against it.
However, the guidelines were approved, with the votes of a joint School Committee -UIA member, and a School Committee- UIA associate ( I recall committee meetings where a member would abstain from a vote granting field approval to their baseball league - but neither of these members saw fit to do the ethical thing?).
Going forward, any project that meets these UIA proposal guidelines will mean a change in the structural dynamic of all of our schools. This is the only way of carving out 2-4 SAS that will have priority in terms of funding and logistical support. This prioritization will be necessary because the UIA proposal outlines school size limitations, per pupil costs that must be shown, exemption from transportation costs( i.e. exemption from SEI and sped student populations) and more.
This is the two tier system that the union is warning of. Meeting the UIA standard for these schools inevitably takes from other schools. And the school committee has endorsed this pre ordained outcome, and worse, given up any say in that, based on the vote last week.
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