*Source: Gomes and Roosevelt Innovation School Prospectuses
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• The Design Teams have still not prepared impact statements describing how the "new schools" will affect the children and the faculty in the district. These statements are required by law.
• The Gomes and Roosevelt Innovation schools will siphon millions of dollars from the district’s budget.
• According to M.G.L. 71, 92, “Innovation Schools may retain any unused funds and use the funds in subsequent school years.” This law does not apply to other district schools.
6 comments:
If this passes it will harm our district but this time, the school committee and the mayor will have no one to blame but themselves. This time they won't be able to blame the teachers and the union for their lack of good judgement. The teachers have spoken and pollock and lavimento have shown that they don't care about teacher input.
They only care about those teachers who are advocating for these schools while they will create sweet jobs for themselves. Maybe Marlene's son can finally get a job. Patronage is alive and well in New Bedford Public Schools thanks to Marlene.
The point is made that "there are 44 innovation schools" already in Massachusetts, inferring that they are doing well and New Bedford is missing out. However, this is more than misleading and tells us little about the wisdom of pursuing the ACTUAL proposals put forward.
In fact, of the 44 other schools there is not one that matches the models proposed in New Bedford.
Why justify X based on Y, why argue for an apple based on the details of an orange?
Could it be that no analysis has been done? Afterall, the impact reports mentioned in the law were never even considered.
Could it be that the proposals were moved forward for public pressure, political, press, and PR reasons?
Is this why the NBEA were not fully represented on the final design teams- as required by the law?
Could it be that the proposals were moved forward because of the term "innovation," because it was "worth a try".?
Is this a rational basis for the use of $20-$30 million dollars?
Regardless of how many people use the public comment period to push for or against the proposals, these process questions deserve to be answered.
Returning to the 44 other Innovation schools, some sharp contrasts exist between Massachusetts operating innovation schools and the ACTUAL Esperanza and Renaissance proposals.
Of the 44, 10 are "new" schools and 34 are conversion.
Should we compare the “new” Proposals in New Bedford with Conversion schools statewide? Why? There can be no comparison. New is different than conversion they tell us. And they are right, since in 34 of 44 innovation schools in Mass. a faculty vote was held prior to approval.
The lobby behind the New Bedford proposals are this month using CSJ ( lead organizer Marlene Pollock), to collect signatures on form letters from New Bedford residents, to present to the school committee ( specifically, they say, mayor Mitchell) with the objective of denying a faculty vote on the Esperanza and Renaissance proposals.
In effect, the mayor and committee are asked to quickly endorse the ACTUAL proposals but ignore the faculty vote process that has succeeded in 20 other districts, in 34 of the much discussed 44 districts that have innovation schools.
But that leaves 10 other “new” schools, right? Surely they offer a justification for the proposals in New Bedford?
Again, looking at specifics can be revealing, especially when you are investing 20-30 million dollars. Actually looking at the 10 “new” schools shows that the “new” designation is used almost entirely for schools that remain unopened, limited secondary school pathways, on-campus college classes or online learning exclusively. This accounts for 9 of the ten “new schools”
After concerned faculty, the educators association and the community are told that 44 other schools “are doing this” and we need to follow suit, we are actually left with only one “new” school, the Roger Clap Community Academy, in Boston- where pilot schools have operated for over ten years with average results and above average resources.
And worse than that, this school did not occupy an existing facility, did not convert the operations of an existing school, it has its own building at 35 Harvest Street, Dorchester.
The truth is that of the much mentioned 44 other schools there is not one that matches the $20-30 million models proposed in New Bedford.
Let's face it, Marlene Pollock will not rest until she has destroyed our school system.
Most of the people who will sign the petitions don't even know what they are signing and most of them don't even vote. If Mitchell agrees to these schools he'll be pushing himself out of office which would be a good thing.
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