Unlike CCSD, Non-Broad Louisville Superintendent Thinks Outside the Box

One of the first actions that newly appointed Jefferson County (KY) Schools Superintendent Donna Hargens took was to downsize her administrative cabinet from 23 to 6. Sure doesn't sound like a Broad-Institute graduate's action, does it?

Nancy McGinley, are you paying attention? 

Hargens recently was quoted as saying, "We all know we've got to do things differently if we're going to get different results." The remark was in support of a radical solution to raise the academic success of students from "troubled neighborhoods": public boarding schools.

Lest you assume that Hargens heads some rinky-dink system, know that she oversees 155 schools in the county that encompasses Louisville. Hargens proposes to explore the possibility of creating two 150-student residential middle schools, segregated by sex, that will take "disadvantaged" students out of the climate that breeds failure. She's not blaming their lack of success on non-motivated teachers AKA the Charleston County School District.

While sequestering during middle school addresses only part of the culture of the street, that period is crucial for those, especially boys, who are on the cusp of alienation from academics. Hargens sees the prototype in a private residential school for boys, the West End School, now operating in Louisville. See http://www.westendschool.org/.

Public boarding school for the poor will be expensive, and maybe Jefferson County will be unable to find a solution that produces one. On the other hand, throwing $24 million of Other People's Money at an imagined problem won't produce McGinley's hoped-for results either.

"Dramatic" Step into the Past in CCSD

What seemed completely normal 50 or 60 years ago has returned dramatically: single-gender education. Now that virtually all schools at every level are co-ed, even the Citadel, the federal government has deemed that we may once again separate the sexes. [SeeMorningside Middle to Pioneer Dramatic Single-gender Program] I suppose that in another 50 years people will be pushing for co-ed education.

Of course, CCSD would not be making the effort without the threat of state takeover. NCLB strikes again!

Single-Gender Confused?

Friday's P & C contains a cheery article on the single-gender education being pushed by State Superintendent Jim Rex [Single-gender Classes Garner Good Results]. Never mind that the reporter doesn't say that these single-gender classes have been made possible by a relatively recent ruling allowing single-gender education in public schools. Never mind that we're simply returning to what was more common before such classes were ruled thirty-or-so years ago as "biased." As I've blogged before, everything old is new again.

But the Jim Rex's pick as leader-in-charge of forming these single-sex classes sounds a bit confused about what goes on in them. To wit,

"David Chadwell, the state's single-gender coordinator, said [. . .] another factor [explaining why improvement in student behavior got the weakest results] could be the manner in which teachers are approaching single-gender lessons, he said. A teacher instructing only girls needs to be prepared deal [sic] with the conversation and issues they bring into class, and a teacher of an all-male class needs to make sure students who are up and moving aren't out of control, he said.

Oh, no! Girls have "issues" and boys don't? Boys don't converse? Girls don't get out of their seats? Boys should be "up and moving"? All-male classrooms are chaotic? What is he suggesting?

By the way, the article's positive points concern how teachers, parents, and students FEEL about the classes, not whether the classes have affected ACHIEVEMENT.

Lipstick on a Pig: North Charleston's Middle Schools

Question: If you had the option to send your own children to a better-performing school, would you take it? Would you decide that your child's education is too important to experiment with based on promises from CCSD's administrators? Or would you take the chance that disciplinary and academic conditions in the failing school your child is slated to attend have changed? See Thursday's North Charleston Schools Courting Students.

For most of us, that's what's known as a "no-brainer."

NCLB in this case is working quite effectively! Parents who care are opting out of Brentwood, Alice Birney, and Morningside Middle Schools in North Charleston because, because--they can! Now ordinary, middle-to-lower-income parents have the choice that richer parents have opted for all along. How American!

The P & C doesn't like this situation, and neither does CCSD. Surprised?

In the story splashed across the front of Thursday's local section, the reporter makes no mention of NCLB. If you weren't paying attention to CCSD's situation, you might have assumed that students were going elsewhere in the district on a whim! Courrege's lead says, "Hundreds of North Charleston children opt to go to middle schools elsewhere in the district rather than trying the ones in their neighborhoods." The REST OF THE STORY appears in the back pages.

According to Patricia Yandle of the District office, "Each of the three North Charleston middle schools has at least 95 students who plan to transfer to other higher-performing middle schools next school year under the federal No Child Left Behind law. . . . Most of those students were incoming sixth-graders." Of course, the schools' principals want this cadre of parents to stay. These would be the most involved in their children's education. ALMOST makes you feel sorry for them.

However, changing "perceptions" about these schools is NOT what is needed. REAL change is! And it is happening, just too slowly for these parents. Losing students like these to other schools is causing CCSD to attempt change, as can be seen from the list of "goodies" held out to the parents like an olive branch--technology, arts-infusion, single-sex core classes. Does anyone believe these attempts would have been made without the pressure of NCLB?

When the so-called "rumors" about these schools stop, when their failing status under NCLB changes, THEN these students will return. Well, not these students. By then these will have graduated from other schools that are not failing.

Why Problems at Murray Hill Academy?

As the late congressman Everitt Dirkson from Illinois used to say: "A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." Actually, he probably said "billion," but fortunately CCSD doesn't YET fall in that ballpark.

What's happening at Murray Hill Academy (i.e., the Discipline School) doesn't make sense. No one in his or her right mind would question the need for such a school in CCSD, but its $9 million building will not hold the projected 432 students next year. The five-year contract to run Murray Hill Academy (previously known as the Discipline School) of over $3 million per year has been negotiated down to 328, approximately the number attending at the end of this school year.

Community Education Partners (CEP), the Tennessee-based private company that runs the school, has similar schools in Houston, Atlanta, and Orlando that do not appear to have suffered from revolving principals, high staff turnover, and extremely high dropout rates (200 out of 533 assigned this year). So what's different here?

Certainly the students in CCSD aren't harder cases than those in the urban districts listed above. Those schools must be faced with the same problems of expulsion, dropping out, and alternative home or private schooling that Courrege's article in today's paper attributes to the high dropout number.

Then there's the question of staff turnover and placement. CCSD cannot complain about lack of teacher certification when CEP clearly states it will use other qualified professionals when appropriate. However, if CEP did not provide a full-time mental health counselor as promised, did that shortcoming affect the contract? And then, why was it necessary to replace CEP's choice of principal in the middle of the year with a consultant from CCSD (and former Burke High School principal)? If the school "culture has been restored," as the director of CCSD's Office of Prevention and Intervention suggests, what made it go south in the first place?

CEP points out that the mix of students at Murray Hill differs from its other schools, but CEP deals with the students sent it by CCSD, so THAT phenomenon means that CCSD has selected a different mix. Was that the plan originally? Did CCSD have such a backlog of students needing expulsion that the mix this last year was skewed? Are "low-performing students with behavior problems" not being recommended to Murray Hill by CCSD unless they are on the verge of expulsion? Surely the school could be filled to the brim with them, if CCSD so desired. What percentage of Brentwood's students do you think would qualify? The selection process seems flawed--that's CCSD's management.

The P &C briefly mentioned "missing academic goals" as a concern regarding the program's effectiveness. Well, how do its academics compare to previous incarnations of "discipline schools"?

And why mix males and females together in the classroom if CEP's model calls for separation? Obviously, if CCSD wants to emulate the successes of other CEP schools, it should follow their model.

As for its previously having an average of 27 students per class, that number strikes me as rather high. Is that what CEP had planned for or what CCSD insisted upon? No one in CCSD is saying that CEP isn't following CCSD's lead.

So, who has the management problem?