July's School Board meeting was flavored by indignation over the just-announced intentions of the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) to close Miami Edison Senior High School and Miami Central Senior High School or convert them to charter schools. A press conference was held at 5:00 outside the School Board meeting, where UTD President Karen Aronowitz stood with students, parents, teachers, school staff, community leaders and elected officials to firmly advocate for keeping those schools open and public.
While this critical issue justifiably had emotions running high, it overshadowed a major issue that, unlike the Edison/Central controversy, is completely under the control of the Miami-Dade County School Board. M-DCPS plans to convert at least one of the closed ETS schools into a charter school, to be called the Franklin Academy, and to convert itself into the charter management company for that school. This issue, although discussed at great length during the meeting, did not get the public attention it deserved, and it is critical that we as public school faculty and staff know about this situation and keep close watch on it as it develops. To that ends, it is the first topic I will cover in this blog.
C-30: M-DCPS = charter management company?
Item C-30 was a request for School Board approval of six charter school contractual agreements and one amendment to the charter school contractual agreement. The major feature of this item was that one of the charter schools would be managed by M-DCPS.
Before debate among School Board members began, UTD Vice-President Artie Leichner spoke to the issue: "You know, I think back to when I was in the classroom, and a businessman from Miami, a guy named Jeb Bush or something like that, and Tee--not Tee Holloway, but T. Willard Fair--put together a charter school in Liberty City, and it failed. OK, well, that's just one failure, but it failed. I just thought that statistics are a very interesting part of all of our lives, you know, everything is detailed out to the littlest bit of data, so in the state of Florida, where 15 charter schools received an F, while 17 public schools received an F, only 15 charters out of 270, only 17 public schools out of 2280 public schools. Think about those numbers. 740% more likely to get an F if you're in a charter school. Our governor goes to a charter school to sign a bill along with his adviser, the former chancellor of the school system rated 51st in the nation, to advise the new governor of the school system rated fifth. He goes in and well, dang it, it turns out to be another one of those F schools! So I'm a little confused here about the priorities of a state that want to give all this money to create more schools with a significantly higher propensity to failure, and take away schools' money from the school systems that do one hell of a lot better job. Maybe it's just me, but it makes no sense."
Attorney for UTD Patricia Ireland took the microphone next, to bring up some vital questions to be considered before proceeding with the plan: "I'm here for United Teachers of Dade. Item C-30 includes a proposal for a district-managed charter school, which is listed now as Franklin Academy. The school district would provide administration, operations, food, transportation and perhaps other services for this charter school. That is what distinguishes this from all over charter applications that have ever come before you before. The district would be well-advised to do all due diligence before voting, and we submit to you that there has not been sufficient analysis of this proposal for you to vote on it today. First you need answers to many questions raised by this experimental structure with an untested entity, and here are just some of them. The law prohibits the board from charging for its approval of a charter school, but also from basing its approval on receipt of future payments. But this charter package is based on the district's receipt of 10% of the funds the charter school receives from the Florida Education Finance Program. Do you have counsel's opinion on whether this violates the law? Two, School Board rules prohibit charter contracts from being negotiated unless a facility has already been secured for the term of the contract. This charter contract was negotiated without facilities being tied down. You are only today being asked to negotiate terms of a lease for three district properties. Three, under state law, right now the district cannot be financially liable for personal injury, property damage, death or property claims for agents of a charter school, for their actions. By becoming management of this school, you would become its agent. Have you got counsel's opinion on whether you would lose your statutory exemption from liability?"
Upon her questioning, the conversation among the School Board members began in earnest. Somewhat disturbingly, board member Dr. Marta Perez seemed to be the only member with genuine reservations. "I have great concerns about this item and the way it was brought to us. I think this is a policy matter first of all; this is one of my concerns. The policy should be made by the board members, and this has been presented to us by administration, all cooked. I don't know how long it's been in the works, I don't know who thought of it, there are many questions, not only the ones raised by Ms. Ireland about the legalities but also about the assets of this school, how will that be run? I have also concerns that the board of directors is going to be former administrators who are friends of the administration and friends of ours. Friends of mine and friends of yours and how is that going to work? Do we have an ethical opinion about that? I'm delighted though that people that are retiring are going to do volunteer work; I think that's wonderful. I hear there are other retirees that are also doing this for free, and I only hope that if this is true, that it is for free, that this trend does continue. One of my major concerns is the possible conflicts of interest, because we provide oversight for charter schools, and now we're going to be the management company, so we're providing oversight for ourselves in charter schools run by very good friends of ours. If we want to be very transparent, I think first we should at least run this by the ethics committee to see and make sure that all of this is very well explained. I, on the other hand, realize that the Superintendent and the staff is very earnest in trying to find solutions for our schools. If this is done, it's another 'think outside the box, let's see what we can do,' and I believe in my heart that it's all being done with the interest of children. There's no question in my mind as to the intent. My concerns are the policy, the conflicts that may arise, and that we really have not had sufficient legal input about some of these problems. I understand that the Superintendent has again in his earnest postponed again today for one year to do this, but if that can be done this can be postponed a year--not a year, a month maybe--that way we can have all the discussions, all the legalities cleared, send it to the ethics committee, and make sure that we're on solid grounds, because there are issues that should concern us, and it is the board's ultimate decision, and we don't want in the future for someone to say, well, didn't you consider this?"
The school would be allowed to open now or before the opening of the school year; they would have up to a year to open. Something similar has apparently been done in Glades and Osceola Counties.
Dr. Perez brought up some very valid points. Many of the problems in this country, whether we look at the financial sector or environmental regulations, have arisen precisely because the ones making the rules and providing the oversight are the exact same ones running the businesses and profiting.
Board member Raquel Regalado brought up a separate but equally valid concern: hypocrisy. "I am not as concerned with the conflict of interest as with the possibility of the hypocrisy of some of this, and I'll explain. I've said this before. When we discuss charter schools, and the limited laws that have been drafted the same, the issue is always explaining to parents our lack of control over charter schools. The issue is explaining to parents why regular public schools and charter schools do not play by the same rules if we're all public schools. And the issue is every legislative session trying to see if Tallahassee will create a level playing field. So this approach of 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' I think is in response to our inability in the past to get the legislation on charters to be more in accord with what is occurring in our regular public schools. The fact that we are approving our own application and would be managing an entity that is quasi-related, I don't think it is that big of a legal issue because as a school board, all we can do is shut down a charter if something egregious is occurring. We have very little control over charters to begin with. And that's something that should be clear. I don't want people to think this is one of those situations where the fox is in charge of the hen house. We have little to no control over charters, and I think I can say that all of us sitting up here have explained that to our constituents who don't understand why it is that their children are expelled from charters, why it is that certain children are not admitted to charters, why it is that merit pay is not going to apply to charters, why it is that class size does not apply to charters, on and on and on when we talk about the policies we approve as a board and the fact that charters get to pick and choose. However, I think that as a board we should continue to legislatively demand that there be a level playing field. I think this provides an opportunity to show that charters can comply with what we are saying they should legislatively comply with. If we decide to do this as a board, can we say that the charter schools that we take over, that we are a provider for, will adhere to some of the rules that regular public schools adhere to, because we believe that charters should adhere to those rules, thereby setting an example in the world of charters, so that when we go to Tallahassee, it's no longer some amorphous demand that we're making as a public school system, but that we can physically say, these are the charter schools in Miami-Dade County which have voluntarily decided to comply with these rules. They're still profitable, they're still good, they're more like their public school sisters than anyone else, and everyone else should do it."
We can only hope that Ms. Regalado, whose School Board candidacy UTD endorsed, will insist in any forthcoming contractual agreement that employees at that charter school enjoy the same salary, benefits and contractual rights as all other public schools employees. Further, as the schools would be run by the district, should its employees not have the right to be members of UTD?
Dr. Helen Blanch, the Assistant Superintendent for School Choice, brought up the issue of underenrollment of students with special needs: "One of the areas that causes us probably the most heartburn is the fact that where we look at the number of children with special disabilities or handicaps, where we look at the students that are not the highest performing students, we don't see equal numbers being transferred into charter schools. We will absolutely ensure that in any management agreement we bring back before the board that things that are important to us morally, in the best interest of every child, is hard coded into that management agreement, because after all it will be our name attached to it."
Board member Dr. Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall asked the School Board Attorney, Walter Harvey, if the issues brought up by Patricia Ireland had been carefully examined from a legal standpoint. He responded: "The letter that we received regarding certain concerns, we reviewed that letter in detail and we saw no conflict of interest that was raised, at least on the face of the letter. We are very familiar with the ethics code, which is obviously created by the state legislature; we reviewed that very carefully; it contains at least 18 subparts; we did not see any potential violations that were stated there. With regard to former employees, former employees can contract with the district; there is a six-month limitation on that that we would observe, and that was fine; if any other individual involved in this transaction feels there is an issue they can always request an opinion directly from the state commission on ethics in Tallahassee, but I think that's been reviewed and we're fairly comfortable that there's no conflict of interest, at least on the face of the item, at least as we reviewed it. We're comfortable with it."
Ms. Regalado brought up the question of profit within the school: "Since we mentioned the management agreement and negotiation of that, one thing I want to clarify is that even though we're talking about nonprofits, there is clearly a profit in charter schools, and I want to know, Mrs. Blanch, if we've considered what's going to occur with the profit for this foundation? Because I want to prove, number one, that there is a profit; obviously we're not going to be charging the exorbitant fees that charters charge themselves for leasing land, gimmick number one; to prove there's a profit and what we're going to do with this profit."
The leasing gimmick that Ms. Regalado refers to is a very common one used by supposed nonprofit charters to reap a profit: a subsidiary of the charter management company leases the building to the charter at absurd rates, pocketing a hefty profit while the charter school itself can say that it is nonprofit. I discuss this issue at some length on my personal
education policy page.
Dr. Blanch answered: "We're not anticipating that there's going to be a profit per se; whatever money is raised, it will be reinvested in these same schools. We would not be allowed to enter into any kind of agreement where we are making money that is then used for other purposes in the district. So any money that is raised through the lease that goes beyond paying the utilities, that will be reinvested. It can be reinvested in the school being able to purchase more computers, it can be reinvested in the school being able to purchase white boards, paint, so on and so forth. Every penny gets reinvested back into this same K-8."
Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, the architect of the M-DCPS-as-charter-management-company plan, insisted that the school would merely be a pilot program. "We would be foolish to move in any direction without studying the impact. How successful was it? Did students perform well? Did we serve communities well through this approach? And based on this clear analysis, and research, you the board would make decisions about where to go from here. It all hinges on the success of the students; nothing else makes a difference. What's being done here, what's being proposed here, is to provide one more viable option that elevates the performance of students. If we succeed, you're in the position of being able to make decisions about where we go from there. Expansion, creating additional opportunities, and if it doesn't, then in the free spirit of competition make that decision as well."
Dr. Tee Holloway agreed with the Superintendent that this could be a creative way of taking back the upper hand: "As the policy makers for the school district, if we're going to continually be victims, to sit here and watch the erosion of public education without having another option, another viable alternative, at least try it, then we would be ineffective in our roles."
Dr. Feldman addressed the letter the chair had received from UTD President Karen Aronowitz, in which she reminded them that as a public institution they were required to provide free and equal access to all children. The ensuing discussion among the board members and the School Board attorney affirmed that the district-managed charter would accept students with special needs students and English language learners.
Board member Renier Diaz de la Portilla, never losing a chance to show his support for privatization along his brothers' party lines, added: "I have heard comments I do not agree with regarding charter schools, that they are the erosion of public education; we have seen $224 million allocated that could be going to our kids. Well, last I checked, charter schools were public schools. Many of them are doing extremely well. How is that the erosion of public education? I don't agree that charter schools present any kind of depletion of resources from the school system; I believe they are part of the school system, and I believe that they enhance our public school system, and for that reason I have decided to support this item. Because I believe in innovation, and charter schools have been given the freedom to innovate, and because I believe our school system should not have its hands shackled, and should be able to innovate and enter into some kind of agreement whether it be a management agreement or the direct operation of charter schools, I'm in favor of that. Parity issues have been raised; I think that many charter school operators will raise parity issues of their own. They'll say that they don't have parity. Parity is in our favor, not in their favor. We talked about PECO funding. If you looked at item E-14 today, we have a discretionary capital outlay taxing authority that allows us to levy taxes for capital expenditures; charter schools don't. They get it in the state budget through PECO but it's a lot less per school than what we are able to raise through our taxing authority for public schools. So I'm not sure that--it depends what perspective you see it from as to whether there's parity or not. But at the end of the day I think we need to err on the side of innovation, and this is a proposal that I think will work given time. There could be some pitfalls down the line but the Superintendent has stated that there is the possibility that if we do encounter some obstacles this project could be delayed; I believe him and take him at his word. So I will be supporting this item based on the fact that it is an innovative idea."
Charter schools have been allotted a significant amount of PECO (Public Education Capital Outlay) money in this year's state budget, where as public schools have none.
Mr. Diaz de la Portilla's comments are ingenuous at best, as Dr. Perez immediately countered. Not only does he ignore the very high rate of failure among charters (though they are legally able to "cherry-pick" their students), but they are still receiving state money for maintenance of their facilities, while the School Board would be forced to raise property taxes to provide maintenance funding for traditional public schools. In a time of economic crisis, no School Board member would propose such a move.
While other board members such as Carlos Curbelo and Raquel Regalado insisted that it would be a pilot program rather than a runaway train, and that there would be time to iron out the details in the contractual agreement, Marta Perez once again urged caution: "Remember, Ronald Reagan said trust, but verify. This is policy. If this comes from us, we are ultimately responsible, and I share the chair's frustration to hear this was approved a month ago by the charter review committee. My concern again is that if that happened a month ago, once we approve this, the train is out of the station. This is going to probably happen. So, because it's policy, and because I do want to support this, I would request the Board that we postpone this till next month's meeting. By that time, we will have had the policy discussion. I think the board rule should be the cart before the horse. We should have the board rule and then we can have the--whatever--become the management company, if that is the way the board as policy wants to proceed. I move that we postpone this item till next month."
The motion was not seconded so they moved to vote on the item. Everyone voted in favor of item C-30 except Dr. Marta Perez.
There are many concerns in this for public school employees. One of the biggest concerns is whether this will be come a trend. Will schools closed or threatened with closure, such as Miami Edison or Miami Central, be turned into charters managed by the district? Charters have been used and can be used as a union-busting tool; this could be a dangerous precedent for the district to set. Converting public schools to charters, while maintaining their control over these schools from downtown, would weaken UTD's base and bargaining power. It could, in effect, down the road, mean the district gets to pursue the goals and programs they want without having to honor employees' collective bargaining rights.
While this is just a first step, and there will be many more to go before we can know exactly what kind of precedent this will set and whether the experiment will continue or expand, all employees need to be very aware of what is going on and ready to keep an eye on it. I will keep you informed.
H-16 Regarding the threat of closure of Miami Central and Miami Edison
This very heated issue was not to pass under silence during the School Board meeting. Dr. Feldman presented a good-cause item, H-16, to voice unwavering support for Miami Central and Miami Edison High School in staying open and public.
Dr. Feldman introduced his item: "It's very appropriate that we started our day with a monologue from
Roots and then followed with the song 'Don't Rain on My Parade.' This is what's happened with two of our schools, possibly three, but definitely two of our schools. I want to take a moment to publicly and fervently affirm not only my support but all of our support for three local schools that have made amazing strides, that had the backing, support and interest not only of this school board but also of their own communities, for whom all of them is at stake now. Three schools who continue to make strides to meet an ever higher bar, an ever farther finish line, an ever more-distant goal, one that changes while adding additional barriers each year. These schools, where we have seen steady improvement resulting in accountability grades of C, are now facing the possibility of D grades as a result of recent mandates of our state. While I'm not opposed of setting a high bar for all our students because they are capable of rising to it, I do feel that schools like Edison, Central, Holmes and some others who face documented and unique challenges as far as student language and economic barriers, and who have proven to be steady increasing and improving education for all of their students, deserve our respect, our support, for doing what others have not done for them. Now it appears they face the danger of state sanctions, and I cannot stand by just as you can't and watch these students and communities who are rightly and justifiably proud of their achievements in essence be told they are not good enough and have not done well enough. Well I say that's not true. Not only is it not true, but that negates all the work our teachers and students have done. For instance, at Miami Edison, the graduation rate is projected to increase to 72%, which is a 23% increase over the last two years. The reading proficiency of their students has improved ten points from 5 to 15%. Math has improved twenty-eight points to 41% and science proficiency to 22%. That the percentage of students increasing in accelerated courses has increased by 26 percentage points to 45% of students who are now college-ready in reading and have increased their points by 70 percent. This is not done by magic and it's not a miracle, it's hard work by parents, by community, by students and teachers. As if that wasn't good enough, we look at Central. Since 2008, reading proficiency has improved, since 2003 math has gone up to 47% proficiency, there are more students at Central that are succeeding at higher rates. The college readiness in reading for them is projected to be 77%. In 2008-2009, 11% of students were enrolled in accelerated courses and passed them, while in 2011 almost 70% of students enrolled in them are expected to pass. I support the district's intent to appeal the state's sanctions against these schools, and will support any effort by this board to voice their support for these schools. We heard this morning a very passionate plea by not just the community and the school but also by one of our board members, the board member of that particular area, Dr. Bendross-Mindingall. We've heard from everyone. We will not have those doors closed. I would ask our board to approve resolution 11-092 of the School Board of Miami-Dade County, Florida, authorizing the chair to submit a letter of support and the accompanying resolution on behalf of our school board to the state board of education, requesting that an approval of the appeal be granted that the district be enabled to continue implementing its improvement process without closure of these schools or interruption of services to these communities."
Ms. Regalado reiterated that a closure would come from the state and not the district: "One thing that is important to mention is that most people don't understand how our educational system works and the impact that the state board has, and sort of where we end and they begin. And of course one of the concerns is that the community is going to feel that we haven't done everything in our power, which is actually quite the opposite, so I really hope that everyone takes the opportunity to voice their concerns about what's happening at Edison and Central."
Board members Carlos Curbelo and Dr. Dorothy Bendross-Mindingall equally voiced their support for these schools and vowed to do everything in their power to make sure they stayed open. The principals of Miami Central High School (Renina Turner) and Miami Edison High School (Pablo Ortiz) spoke about their commitments to their schools and in continuing the progress.
Superintendent Carvalho announced: "I'll say once again the commitment I've made to the community at this point: that the crown of Spain has a better chance of reclaiming Florida than of us in any way, shape or form shutting down Central and Edison."
The motion carried unanimously.
Due in large part to the outcry among parents, students, community leaders and elected officials, the state Board of Education has granted the two schools a one-year reprieve to make more progress before making a decision to close. However, none of us should feel confident that that is the end of the problem or the last we will hear about closing those schools. As UTD President Karen Aronowitz brought up during the public hearing, for-profit charter school management companies with many friends in high places are all too eager to get their hands on those schools now that they have been turned into state-of-the-art, high-tech facilities at enormous expense to taxpayers. We must not fall victim to their ploys and must remain vigilant that these schools remain public and open to their communities.
During the public hearing, Mrs. Aronowitz said on this matter: "Today I flew in early from Washington, D.C., when I learned of the possible closures of Edison and Central Senior High School. United Teachers of Dade recognizes the progress that students of Edison and Central have made, due in large part to the efforts of our teachers and school support professionals who work with students every day. For the Florida Department of Education and the Florida legislature, it is never enough. July 19, the Florida Board of Education will meet in Tampa to decide the fate of these two schools. I agree with the Superintendent. I too will fight to keep Central and Edison open as public schools. Public schools that are producing successful students every day, public schools that are working to provide the resources that our struggling students need. I spoke with U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan yesterday, and was touting the success of Miami Central and his recent visit there. I told him that the very school he was praising is being threatened with closure. Now that Miami Central has it's long sought-after state-of-the-art facility, state officials want to swoop in and hand it over to their friends and cronies. Our tax dollars paid for that facility; the same is true for Miami Edison Senior. After finally upgrading and refurbishing that facility, they want to take that school too. This is not about kids and progress. This is about taking public schools away from our communities. It is now up to us. It is not enough that we speak out in July. We must continue to stand together through July, August and September, as long as our public schools are threatened, to ensure that public schools remain just that: public schools who accept all children. I will be asking leaders of our community to join me in Tampa when the Florida School Board meets. They must see us there as they make their decision."
A-1 Superintendent's Announcements: State accountability school grades
The Superintendent began his announcements with: "It's paradoxical that at a time when we're celebrating the sustained increase of performance district-wide, at a time when we've celebrated the number of schools receiving school performance grades of A and B having increased, and the total number of F schools decreased, we're also having to contend with these issues regarding Edison and Central. But let's suspend that and just provide the community and you the board the opportunity to see the presentation of the school accountability grades. Ms. Gisella Fields."
Ms. Fields ran through a history of the school accountability grades: "This chart takes you back to 1999, which was then the inception of the school grades. The fact that the FCAT expanded to multiple grade levels later in 2001 eventually by 2005 including all students because they did not want the children with disabilities or language difficulties to be excluded, so all children were included as part of the school grade. In 2007 in an attempt to make sure no child was left behind they added the rule regarding the lowest 25, making sure those students were also making gains. Last year, as you know, was the first year our high schools received a new second 800 points which constituted enrollment in advanced academics, IB, participation in accelerated coursework, participation in college entrance exams, as well as the graduation rates. Forthcoming for next year will be the inclusion of the end-of-course exams that were administered this year as part of the baseline. To talk about the exam for this year, as we all know the 2011 FCAT was a new test, with the new generation Sunshine State Standards, in addition to that there were changes in the accountability model, that is the passing scores were raised, for example in writing the score was raised to a 4.0 as opposed to a 3.5, the FCAT reading and math measured in most grade levels, the new 2.0, our 9th graders as well as any child in middle school enrolled in algebra participated in the algebra end-of-course exam, and geometry and biology will be forthcoming in 2011-2012. Lastly, the inception of computer-based testing, which was part of this year's test grade graduation requirement and a component of math, so every child who took the 10th grade math test this year for graduation took it as a computer-based assessment, and that was actually part of the school grades. The percentage of schools that were classified as an F decreased from 3% to 1%, but mostly we went from having ten schools that were graded as a performance of F last year to only 5 schools, with Miami-Dade's contribution to those F schools only representing 1% of the entire population of the schools graded in Dade County, and that means 3 schools only in Miami-Dade received a final grade of F. On the other end, the percentage of schools that received a grade of A or B increased from 68% to 70%, and although that only indicates a 2% increase, that's f19 schools. Last year, Miami-Dade had 16 schools that received a grade of A or B, and this year we have 235, 70%, of our schools that received an A or a B. In addition to that, the majority of our high schools did not receive their school performance grade, but of those schools that received the points for the first 800, 80% of the high schools scored in the top tier of points. That is under the differentiated accountability formula and that is the highest-performing category, so we have high hopes that that will turn into more A's and B's in the fall when we receive the second 800 points. I think the culmination of these results is that despite the fact that we were imposed with a new test and new standards for which teachers had minimal time to adapt and change their curricular program, despite the fact that we had end-of-course tests in certain grade levels and kids were taking 3 or 4 tests during the FCAT component, and on the computer for some of our middle-schoolers, despite the fact that in high schools math grades only were incorporated for 10th grade because the 9th graders were participating in the end-of-course algebra, despite the fact that the FCAT writing bar was raised, we still had 82% of our schools that maintained or improved their grade. So the fact that 82% of our schools were able to hold their points, not reduce their grade, considering all the changes that occurred this year, is in fact a wonderful way for us to end the year...to celebrate."
Board vice-chair Dr. Larry Feldman questioned the process: "Honing in on one piece, that is the computer testing our kids took. My question would be: how did it go? In other words, did everyone have the computers necessary to be able to do this? Did it in fact work? Were there any glitches we need to be aware of? And part B, when our students use them for the end-of-year testing, did it cause a ripple effect where other kids in the school were not able to utilize these particular computers and for how long?"
Ms. Fields responded: "Overall, considering the problems we had last year as part of the pre-testing we did, the process itself went very very well. We had the computers, we had the infrastructure, the IT people were there to respond to any questions, we did not have any labs that went down or loss of testing time. The fact that the scores dropped a little bit in 10th grade, we are attributing that a little bit to the use of the computer, having to take the test on the computer; it was a new format for children, and although kids got to practice ahead of time on a system created by Pearson called Impact, we feel that next year they'll have more experience because they'll have more practice utilizing some of the tools that were on the computer-based testing. So overall I think that the testing went well both for 10th grade and for the end-of-course algebra. Did it affect some of the instructional time? I believe so, obviously because we had to shut down labs, particularly during the end-of-course because that was a longer period and it was untimed, kids could have the entire day to complete the testing. Because it was a baseline and because it will be used for setting the standards, we wanted to make sure all children had enough time, to make sure they went through the two 60-minute sessions, though we had kids who went through the two 80-minute sessions that took even longer. So yes, during the month of May, there was an impact, particularly at our high schools, where there were thousands of kids being tested where labs had to be sort of shut down and not used for some of our industry certification exams. That will improve because we have gotten better; the infrastructure was there; I believe we got a lot more rolling labs; we will have a little bit more of an extended period to test; and it won't be our first year, so the scheduling of the students and the time used, we've learned from now how to be a little bit better and a little more efficient in terms of the schedule."
This is not entirely true, however. I teach at Hialeah High School, and I happen to know that the system crashed in our school on one of the testing days. Fortunately, the scores and data were retrieved, but it caused a panic among students, faculty and administration, as well as a setback in the schedule, resulting in more instructional time lost. I would be interested to know if other schools experienced similar problems that the district is now denying.
Dr. Feldman continued his questions with one about curriculum as relating to testing: "I read recently an article from some other school districts outside of Florida, that they were reviewing their curriculum across the board and they noticed they still had a section in their instructional program that talked about handwriting and things of that nature, and they were replacing it with computer instruction beginning in third grade. Do we have any programs we specifically install in our elementaries and middle to get kids ready and knowledgeable and ready to do all the kids of cross-referencing they need to do for these tests when they get to high school?"
I am sure I am not the only teacher concerned that children are no longer being taught handwriting--specifically cursive, which many of my high school students do not know how to read, let alone write--in favor of learning to take multiple-choice tests on computers.
Ms. Fields answered that the students were being given test-taking practice through the Pearson system, but that so far there were no changes in instructional curriculum. We should never lose sight of who has profited so immensely from the accountability movement; the name Pearson always brings that to the forefront of my mind. Between writing the tests, selling the software systems to administer them, scoring the tests and providing the "practice software" for the tests, Pearson has cashed in big, at the expense of teacher and staff salaries and materials for classes. We have to question who else is benefiting from this? It certainly does not appear to be children.
Dr. Marta Perez brought up the cheating issue: "Congratulations; the achievements are amazing, given the cutbacks. My question is that there are two schools that were accused of cheating, I think...was it two?"
Ms. Fields responded: "There were four schools that had irregularities in terms of the anomalies regarding erasures. Those schools have been flagged as incomplete by the Florida Department of Education. There is one charter and three traditional schools. The idea is that the state hired a company called Caveon to do a statistical analysis on erasures, so if there is an analysis done that indicates that certain kids in a school or in a classroom have too many erasures from wrong to right or vice versa, that can generate a flag. Enough of those flags can cause a school to be reviewed. So those schools are incomplete; we are in the appeals process right now; we will complete the investigation and at that point the state will decide whether to release a grade or not."
Dr. Perez persisted: "The odds are staggering that these amounts of erasures, and I also have read that there was a major scandal in Atlanta regarding cheating, and what assurances do we have or what do we have in place to make sure that our process is pure?"
Ms. Fields insisted that there is no problem with our process: "We have a very detailed test security manual, and in addition to that we have a very detailed training that we do with our test givers. The anomalies that are being flagged this year are not any different from prior years. Yes, every year there has been a class, or a school, or a group of kids that are flagged for erasures, or patterns--sometimes you have students who have the patterns for the same responses and sometimes those responses are the same wrong answer, and that generates a flag that something happens. This is not new to Miami-Dade; for the past ten or fifteen years we've always had anomalies. This is bigger for the state because of the new company they hired, and because they are going broader, so more schools were flagged this year. You are correct: Philadelphia is under investigation, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C. There was an article this week that spawned hundreds of schools passed many years with irregularities. In Florida we've been pretty adamant and vigilant about this and I've been doing it for many, many years."
Then, Dr. Perez expanded the question to virtual schools: "The other question is the concern about the virtual schools and virtual classes and the requirements...What is happening there?"
Dr. Sally Shay of Program Evaluation responded to the question: "The fact that the legislature has eased the requirements of class size in terms of which courses actually need to meet class size will reduce our need to utilize online instruction as we did last year to meet class size. We put in place a lot of procedures--there's a whole procedures manual that principals have received so that only students who select to be as a choice in a class online will be placed in them, so you will see a lot less frustration in terms of how our schools are utilizing the virtual classrooms this year."
Dr. Perez plunged further into the issue of cheating: "Have you heard anything about that a student will pay another student to go and take classes for them, the virtual classes, that kind of cheating and all--have you heard anything on that?"
Dr. Shay answered: "That's the first I heard: the way we used them in our school system, they were during the school day, and there was a teacher assigned to that class to monitor them." I laughed out loud upon hearing this. Students have access to their virtual classes at all hours, and I have heard too many stories to count from my students about cheating going on. We all know that cheating happens even when there is a teacher in the classroom, doing her best to monitor everything going on; what happens when that element is removed?
Ms. Regalado then redeemed herself for her charter school vote by linking the standardized test cheating scandals to the merit pay legislation that has passed: "Since the topic of cheating came up and we mentioned certain states--there is an entire chapter in Freakonomics about this, and it's something that happens at a national and state level, especially when you tie pay to test scores. This is an unintended consequence of something that was started many years ago, and for people who think that merit pay is the solution to all of our problems, they should look into what has occurred in other states with cheating, because it is an unintended consequence, and everything from the erasures to the last 20 questions, where if you get the last 20 right every single time the odds are that something is amiss. It's nothing new. In virtual schooling, when we do it in our school system, I think it's very easy to see what's going on: virtual schooling is a tool that has been created for home schooling, and we have no idea what's going on at home. The parents could be taking that class for all I know. And I understand that home schooling is something that's very important to a lot of people, but let's just be clear. Who's watching what? And our ability as a district to control certain test scores."
UTD Vice-President Artie Leichner spoke on this item concerning accountability: "It's the first day of Mr. Smith's kindergarten class, and all the little children are piling into the room, and he says, OK let me teach you the most important word that you're going to learn about for the next 12 or 13 years: it's called accountability. Everybody repeat it to me. A--what's an A? Oh, OK, anyway. So what they're learning is the most important thing is they have to be accountable for something, and they go to first grade and they're accountable and they go to second grade and they're accountable and their teachers are accountable and the person who takes them to school is accountable and everybody is accountable for everything, except the people who sit in Tallahassee and make the rules: they're accountable for--maybe occasionally they read the bills before they pass them, maybe they analyze and figure out whether or not there are unintended consequences or perhaps even intended consequences to their actions, to pass a bill in a committee to determine that students can only take two classes a year through Adult Ed to recapture their credits and destroy graduation rates throughout the district, when the kids need this stuff and they're accustomed to having it available, and de-fund it as part of their lack of accountability to the constitution that requires they provide an adequate funding to public schools? They're only accountable every couple of years when they come up for reelection, but by that time, nobody knows exactly what it was they were accountable for because it was never part of the message that gets out. All that ever gets out is all these horrible negative campaigns, that this one did this and that one did that. So accountability is only supposed to be for kids and for teachers and for what goes on in the classroom; nobody's accountable. If you've never been up to Tallahassee, you should do it, at least once, and talk to the newest legislators, or even the veteran legislators, and ask them to explain the bill they're voting on. Ask them if they've ever read the bill they voted on. Many times they'll say, 'Well, I'm not sure about that one, I'm looking at that one, because it's in my committee, but that one's not in my committee.' Well, how do you decide how you vote? 'This is a good thing for kids in a school, or this is a good thing for a county or a school system. Well, I'm accountable for somebody who's in leadership, and tells me what to do, who tells me how to vote and that's how I make my decision. I'm a robot and do what I'm told, because if I want to be in leadership two years from now, I have to do exactly what I'm told to do.' We need to start holding these people accountable, not for nasty comments or bizarro advertising but we need to hold them to accountability for what they voted for."
Public Hearing: 3% pay cut for public employees
Artie Leichner spoke again during public hearing, this time on the upcoming 3% pay cut for public employees, which many of us will not start feeling until our first paychecks in September. "Earlier, I talked about accountability and holding the legislature accountable. This is an ominous month for public employees. For the first time since 1974, public employees are being asked to contribute 3% of their salary toward their retirement. These moneys were never gifts. This was funding that was taken out of the bargaining pool, out of the money that was available to be used for current salaries, and diverted into preparing for people's futures and what happens when they no longer can work. The money was set aside. It was set aside in 1974 as a non-contributory plan. It remains a non-contributory plan because the exact language from that plan says that the rights of members of that retirement system established by this chapter are declared to be of a contractual nature, entered into between the member and the state, and such rights shall be legally enforceable as valid contract rights and shall not be abridged in any way. In other words, it is a contract, and a contract binding on both parties. I don't recall ever receiving a letter from the state of Florida saying, Artie Leichner, would you agree to give up your contractual non-contributory retirement plan, because we want to fill the budget--it has nothing to do with your retirement, but we want to fill a budget hole that you had no responsibility for creating. I didn't receive that letter, I didn't sign off on it, nor did any of the people I represent or any other public employees in the state. In other words, they have broken a contract with every single public employee in the state of Florida. The Florida Education Association launched a major lawsuit and requested injunctive relief, that moneys be set aside so that in the event they win the lawsuit, which I have every belief they will, the moneys will be able to be taken out of that set-aside and returned to the employees plus interest. However a judge, accepting the argument from the state that basically said, We will pay them if we're found to be the losing party in this suit, said, without ruling on the merits of the case itself, the judge said, all right, we won't set aside the money. People, this is the reality. The reality is, you have a contract for this; it has to be honored. Whether or not the judge agreed to put aside the money, the state of Florida, every single day that you do not have that money back in your pocket, is creating an obligation that they owe you. Let's hold them accountable and expect them to give it back."
Indeed, the contractual language is there, and FEA has filed this lawsuit. I will keep you posted on any developments or outcomes in that as well.
We have many issues to stay vigilant to, and at least one more legislative session with the same legislators. This is no time for complacency, whether with our School Board, Superintendent, State Board of Education or legislators. It would be a wise use of summer time to contact any or all of those people and let them know you are watching their every move.
