It stands in stark contrast to what has worked for Cleveland Schools. They were performing so poorly (Academically & Financially) that they went under state control. The state demanded the administration be changed and passed laws that would allow it to take place. (Previously, the school board was an autonomous body, loaded with cronies and political hacks - the city and county government did not have the legal power to take them on, and the state constantly bowed out when asked to intervene prior to the schools going into receivership) The Schools were put under the Mayor's control by referendum, with a administrator appointed by the mayor, and a board made up of a mix of elected and appointed members. Her (Barbara Byrd-Bennit, superintendent) first order of business was to get a levy passed, and she did through a strong community outreach program. She outlined specific goals and strategies and the system for measurement - at the same time she appealed to the parents to get involved with the schools. It hasn't been all rosy for her either - she closed a bunch of the older schools and pissed a lot of community activists off, fired non performing teachers and got sued by the union (she won) and then the East High Gym roof collapsed, leading to a city wide school building inspection that turned up so many violations that a bond issue had to be passed for repairs. through it all she kept to the academics and progress has been made - not much, granted, but test scores and college admissions are up, the dropout rate is down and they continue` the trend over time.
Meanwhile, the state legislature passed the charter schools and vouchers, which take money directly from the school budgets in the districts that they are established in. The thing about the vouchers, though, is there is nothing in the program that specifies that schools must take them, so all the suburban local districts refused them, leaving the Catholic schools holding the ball. Not in and of itself a bad thing, considering many of the Catholic schools were about to go belly up themselves, but that was the basis for the lawsuit that reached the supreme court, which lost. The charter schools situation is getting to the point that the state is considering a new entity to oversee them, creating more bureaucracy.
Re: Kvetching-Testing to fail...everyone left behind
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Where once We the People held capitalism’s leash, now we wear the collar.
It stands in stark contrast to what has worked for Cleveland Schools. They were performing so poorly (Academically & Financially) that they went under state control. The state demanded the administration be changed and passed laws that would allow it to take place. (Previously, the school board was an autonomous body, loaded with cronies and political hacks - the city and county government did not have the legal power to take them on, and the state constantly bowed out when asked to intervene prior to the schools going into receivership) The Schools were put under the Mayor's control by referendum, with a administrator appointed by the mayor, and a board made up of a mix of elected and appointed members. Her (Barbara Byrd-Bennit, superintendent) first order of business was to get a levy passed, and she did through a strong community outreach program. She outlined specific goals and strategies and the system for measurement - at the same time she appealed to the parents to get involved with the schools. It hasn't been all rosy for her either - she closed a bunch of the older schools and pissed a lot of community activists off, fired non performing teachers and got sued by the union (she won) and then the East High Gym roof collapsed, leading to a city wide school building inspection that turned up so many violations that a bond issue had to be passed for repairs. through it all she kept to the academics and progress has been made - not much, granted, but test scores and college admissions are up, the dropout rate is down and they continue` the trend over time.
Meanwhile, the state legislature passed the charter schools and vouchers, which take money directly from the school budgets in the districts that they are established in. The thing about the vouchers, though, is there is nothing in the program that specifies that schools must take them, so all the suburban local districts refused them, leaving the Catholic schools holding the ball. Not in and of itself a bad thing, considering many of the Catholic schools were about to go belly up themselves, but that was the basis for the lawsuit that reached the supreme court, which lost. The charter schools situation is getting to the point that the state is considering a new entity to oversee them, creating more bureaucracy.
Where once We the People held capitalism’s leash, now we wear the collar.
