Two Pigs In A Poke

Last night WXXI aired the documentary “180 Days” which, as the preview says, “tells an intimate story of Washington Metropolitan High School (DC Met) and its first graduating class.”

The film begins with the administrator rallying the teachers. At the end of the speech, one of the teachers comments, “Only 180 days to go.” Before the students arrive, the staff feels defeated. There are no signs of passion in the teachers that can be used to motivate and inspire the students to become passionate about learning.

The students of this high school are troubled teens with less than reputable backgrounds. These young men and women are introduced to a system of education that is likened more to a correctional facility than an institution of learning.

The adults speak to the students as though they are criminals. No respect is given to the fact that they have returned to a system that offers them little more than they have already been given.

We hear testimony from these young adults that is filled with doubt and despair. There is no passion in their voice when they speak about their future.

Rochester City School District Superintendent Vargas unveiled his 2013-14 budget proposal last night as well. More time in the classroom for students, pre-k, and reduced class size. None of the proposed plans include moving toward a child centered education that concentrates on the educational success of the child as the primary function of the district.

There are no plans to teach respect of self and others. There are no plans to discover, develop, and direct the gifts and talents of all of our students. There are no plans to teach the child instead of teaching to the test.

Teachers and students will still be evaluated by arbitrary measures that inhibit true learning. As Commissioner Powell pointed out, “He’s (Vargas) being very pragmatic in going after the political landscape and grants (money) that the governor wants to dole out.”

Our children will not be educated successfully until we successfully direct the focus of education on our children.

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It’s Alive, But Not Living

Education: The process of educating or of being educated; the knowledge and development resulting from an educational process; the methods of teaching and learning; an instructive or enlightening experience.

Schooling: Instruction in school; training, guidance, or discipline derived from experience.

It is clear that the schooling our children receive at the hands of the Rochester City School District does not lead to their successful education. The process of education the district chooses to support year after year has proved to fail our children again and again. Our children are not receiving the proper instruction, training, guidance, or discipline.

Superintendent Vargas has fewer than fifty days before another school year begins and this community has seen no drastic change in the process of educating our children. The “status quo” that was so vehemently opposed by former superintendent Brizard seems to be all that returning students have to look forward to.

Our educational leaders are like mad scientists, refusing to recognize that the race to the top is fixed and that the only outcome to the four, State accepted, methods of change is more failure. They continue to sew together the inanimate aspects of education, changing schools, school names, school programs, school instructional times, and shuffling the personnel deck, failing again and again to create educational success for our children.

This Frankenstein method of education kills the spirit of learning in our children at the elementary level and then uses all of its energy and resources to enliven students’ will to succeed, through false hopes of college and career readiness, with the promise of graduation. The result, rampant violence in the streets caused by ignorance and fear.

Concentrating on graduation rates while ignoring the educational death of our youngest children is insane. Once the will to learn is dead there is little anyone can do to revive it. It is incumbent upon the citizens of this community to come together and fight the madness controlling the system of education.

Being alive is not living. Living is being happy to be alive.

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United We Fail

If you had the opportunity to read the open letter to teachers from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan then you now know that he “consider(s) teaching an honorable and important profession, and it is my goal to see that you are treated with the dignity we award to other professionals in society.” He also understands that we “believe that responsibility for educational quality should be shared by administrators, community, parents, and even students themselves.”

Because of this, Secretary Duncan “want(s) to develop a system of evaluation that draws on meaningful observations and input from your peers, as well as a sophisticated assessment that measures individual student growth, creativity, and critical thinking.”

A must read response to Mr. Duncan’s letter comes from Rick and Bill Ayers titled, “How we can Show Teachers the Love” in the Bill Ayers blogspot.

No one is debating the fact that everyone in education must be held accountable for their part in the success or failure of children to be educated. However, to determine the proficiency of teachers within a system of education that is inherently inefficient and ineffective does more to exacerbate the problem than it does to solve it.

The fact that the superintendent and the RTA President are pleased Rochester is receiving national attention for agreeing to a teacher evaluation system for the sole purpose of receiving “race to the top” funding while supporting a $10 million program that has no evidence of success, is a testament to the deep seated systemic problems within education.

Superintendent Vargas and President Urbanski should collectively agree to reject “race to the top” funding while working together to create widespread, fundamental change within the system of education that concentrates, not on the money, but on the child.

Rejecting “race to the top” funding in favor of supporting the movement toward changing the system of education for our children would be something to be proud of, not kowtowing to a political bullying tactic to appease the business community.

It’s time to stop following the money and begin leading the children.

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What The Shrek

From the film Shrek – “Onions have layers! Ogres have layers. . . We both have layers!”

Ogre – a monster in fairy tales and popular legend, usually represented as a hideous giant who feeds on human flesh. A monstrously ugly, cruel, or barbarous person.

It is surprising how much the Rochester City School District has in common with an ogre. According to Superintendent Vargas, the district also has layers, multiple layers, each lacking internal accountability. Dr. Vargas stated at the last budget deliberation meeting that since coming on board that it has been difficult to get to anyone who will take responsibility for anything.

One very important question asked by the Board was, “What is the size of the Superintendent Employee Group (SEG) in 2012-13 vs. [the] previous year?”

The response, “SEG positions will change from 46 FTEs in 2011-12 to 45 FTEs in 2012-12. The position that was eliminated was the Special Assistant to the Superintendent. Of the 45 FTEs, 9 Executive Assistants will be classified as Exempt positions rather than SEG positions, which is a change that took place in 2011-12.”

This is a perfect example of the “layers” that cause our district to be the hideous giant that it is, whose monstrous cruelty feeds off the educational flesh of our children.

For years we have been employing adults, paying them $90,000 dollars and more, to create layers upon layers of bureaucracy for parents and community members to strip away only to find that no one is willing to take responsibility for the failure of our children.

Millions in educational dollars are spent yearly to employ these “experts” when those same millions can be used to hire teachers to provide early childhood education and lower class size at the elementary level, giving our children the best opportunity available for educational success.

Add to that the layers upon layers of dollars wasted on the district’s post failure, failing programs, which operate without any true measure of accountability, and the fairy tale becomes a stark and frightening reality.

We must work together to vanquish our city of the ogre that is devouring our children’s future.

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We’ve Come A Long Way Baby

There is no doubt that the committed and continuous efforts of this community’s education activists have had a positive influence on our system of education.

Parent liaisons sit on School Board committees, though seriously flawed, there was a superintendent search process. Board meeting resolutions are posted on the district website before the meeting and the community can now receive answers to budget questions they’ve asked with answers made available to the public.

There have been many other improvements that have come about due to the determined efforts of a few yet relentless advocate groups in Rochester. As the dealings of the district become more transparent the responsibility of this community will become more significant in the movement towards the necessary and drastic changes that must be made in our system of education.

During the last budget deliberation meeting Board members finally realized that it is inefficient and costly to continue to fund programs that are and have been failing. The I’m Ready program was called into question, a program this community has been protesting since it’s inception, along with other post failure programs such as NorthSTAR and Young Mothers.

The struggle, however, is far from over. With Board members approving the All City High program without a set budget whose latest cost was nearly $10 million dollars supporting ten administrators, 117 teachers and 42 support staff for 1,000 students, this community cannot afford to rest on its laurels.

To approve a program that has no definitive plan of success, at a cost of $10,000 per student with a 6:1 student staff ratio while our kindergartens are crowding twenty to twenty-five, five year old children in a classroom with one teacher is unconscionable.

Superintendent Vargas said that the district budget should reflect the ideals and beliefs of its leaders and this budget speaks volumes. It does not address positive changes in early childhood education or the necessity for lower class size at the elementary level.

We must continue to work together to restructure and realign the priorities of this district so that they concentrate on our children before they fail.

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Off To A Good Start

While it may seem that there is a great deal of opposition to the appointment of Bolgen Vargas as our new superintendent, it must be made clear that the major objection was to the process not the outcome.

Rochester has always been a “give him a chance” community. And, now that Dr. Vargas has been given the position, it is up to him to prove he deserves our support.

Recently Superintendent Vargas met with former Interim Superintendent William Cala to discuss plans to continue moving forward with Dr. Cala’s Regional Academy school concept. Regional Academy “was conceived on the basis of research supporting the de-concentration of poverty in urban centers as a keystone issue.”

The plan was developed while Dr. Cala was our interim but was not supported by the Brizard administration and was put on hold. Four years later, Dr. Cala seems hopeful that the Regional Academy will become a reality. Dr. Cala wrote, “What makes this meeting different, is that for the first time (in my opinion) there seems to be an inch of progress with RCSD.”

The Regional Academy by no means solves the systemic and endemic problems we face in our district however it is, by far, a more positive step forward for the district than the post failure programs that are currently at the forefront of its plan of success.

Since Dr. Vargas is able to see the validity of this type of program, it is quite possible that this community might see a stronger concentration of effort on early childhood education that would include lowering class size at the elementary level, expeditionary learning for all of Rochester’s children, and a greater emphasis on the child as a citizen not a standardized test score.

The biggest difference between public school and private or charter school is structure and discipline. Let’s hope that Dr. Vargas has the ability to bring both to his cabinet, Central Office, and ultimately to his schools.

The focus is our children. The hope is for success. The plan is to support that success.

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To Be Or Not To Be Superintendent

*A correction must be made to “Engaging Parents”, classes have not begun and any interested parents may contact Willie J. Robinson, Jr., Office of Parent Engagement, (585) 262-8362 or email, willie.robinson@rcsdk12.org

If there was any doubt concerning the validity of the superintendent search process it should be abundantly clear to everyone that the process was nothing more than a ruse to placate the community.

Once again this community has allowed the “powers that be” to shove their decisions down our throats with the hope that it will be better next time. Meanwhile our children suffer the “slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune” at the hands of political pirates who would sell our children’s futures to insure theirs.

This is not about Bolgen Vargas, this is about the incalculable lies that have been told throughout the superintendent search process that ended with the appointment of Bolgen Vargas. This is about the countless number man-hours invested by this community in a process that we hoped would value our commitment. This is about spending $40,000 dollars in educational dollars to produce a superintendent that we already had. This is about a Board of Education that does not possess the strength and integrity necessary to be the voice of the people while having the arrogance to blatantly state that what the community wants doesn’t matter.

At the risk of sounding redundant, not their problem. And, if we have a problem with it the question is, “Will we take arms against this sea of troubles, and by opposing end them or will we grunt and sweat under a weary life letting conscience make cowards of us all?”

We are being bullied while telling our children they should stand up to bullies. We tell our children to reach out and help those who are attacked while we won’t help each other in the fight for better education. We are teaching our children that bullying doesn’t stop when you become an adult, you just ignore it and hope for the best.

Our children will fail if we give them no reason to succeed.

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Funding For Failure

Interim Superintendent Vargas has introduced the proposed 2012-2013 budget. There are some minor concerns, there are major concerns, and there are some serious questions.

The minor concern is the “cut and paste” nature of department and program descriptions. Page 200 of the proposed budget states, “This sector is supervised by the Deputy Superintendent for Teaching and Learning who reports directly to the Superintendent and is a key member of his Management Cabinet.” Since we no longer have a deputy superintendent it is clear that the budget document was not thoroughly examined.

The department of Teaching and Learning is a major concern as their proposed budget, is $33,325,791 with Academic Support receiving the bulk of the money, $21,251,602, and FTE’s, 163. Academic Support provides support to schools, not children.

Another major concern is the $26 million Title I Federal ESEA NCLB grant money. This is $26 million dollars, with the exception of approximately $690,070, spent on Ela and Math coaches, Accountability Support, and Administration. As well, all of the $10 million Title I SIG is spent on secondary education, nothing on elementary education.

The questionable expense of the NorthSTAR program, listed in the 2011-2011 Final Budget as $20,601 per student, is entered in the proposed budget as actually costing $24,568 per student for the 2011-2012 school year. Last year we were asked to believe that this was a legitimate expense. This year we are asked to believe that for the 2012-2013 school year, servicing the same number of students, 250 projected enrollment, 130 students served daily, the district can provide the same necessary services with half the staff, from 38 FTE’s to 19, with less than half the budget, from $24,568 per student to $11,098 per student.

The RCDS has several post failure programs that, all tolled, service approximately 53% of the entire student population at an average cost of $3,309 per student. Given our current graduation rate, 51%, 47% of which made it without extended services, these post failure programs are responsible for only 4% of our graduated students.

Our children deserve more than budgeted failure. It is important to help those that are failing. However, it is more important to lead our children to success.

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The Times They Are A Changing

Transparent: Free from pretense or deceit.

The School Board will meet tonight at 6PM in Room 3A to discuss and vote on the amended All City High proposal. This proposal was tabled at the February business meeting and taken off the agenda at the March meeting.

A public meeting was held on March 5, for which comments, suggestions, ideas, and alternatives were to be collected, disseminated, and used to amend the proposed plan to better suit the needs of the students to be enrolled in the program. However, there was no follow-up community meeting to review the amended proposal.

Jean-Claude Brizard touted the necessity of the district to be transparent. Interim Superintendent Vargas has expressed the same sentiment. Board President Malik Evans said that this district is committed to being transparent.

Actions speak louder than words! It is very clear that our educational leaders do not fully understand the meaning of the word transparent.

The RCSD is not a transparent entity. They have not had to be. In the past they have operated without care or concern for public opinion because very few citizens have bothered to object to their dealings.

The Board must realize that things are changing. The community is becoming involved, and it is time to move out of the comfort zone of community complacency and realize that the only way to provide for the excellent education of our children is to be truly transparent in the process of educating our children.

We cannot afford to “race” after Federal and State educational dollars by failing to properly educate our children.

We cannot afford to shut out the very people we are supposed to engage in the process of educating their children.

We cannot afford to create the illusion of transparency but must begin to scape the opaque sludge of deceit off the process of decision making to clearly see that it will take all of us, the entire community, working together, to produce an efficient, effective, and excellent system of education for our children.

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All Children – Not All City

Tomorrow the School Board will meet to consider Interim Superintendent Vargas’s proposal for an All City High plan which is meant to serve an unidentified number of students that this district has already failed to educate.

This program was a collaborative effort between the district and the Rochester’s Teacher Union. A committee was formed “to identify issues student’s face in our traditional schools and propose[d] solutions. Each member of the committee identified the ingredients of their ideal school. Each committee member was asked to invite a parent or community member who is interested in our children’s future. Each parent and community member shared their vision and their experiences in regards to our traditional educational process. At each site the schools will utilize innovative scheduling and staffing to create smaller learning communities on the two campuses.”

District staff and teachers created a program and then asked one parent or community member to “share their experiences” not be involved in the process.

A key component of the program is the “Family of Five” theme. “All staff will have office hours 3 times each week for 1 hour totaling a minimum of 3 hours each week and every staff member will be assigned 5 students to mentor and guide.”

Students will be assigned a “family” that will have less than an hour a week to address their mental, physical, emotional, social, and financial concerns.

At the DPC meeting Monday, Commissioner White pointed out that there were several problems with this program. Students, parents, teachers, and community members have pointed out that there are many problems with this program.

Our children don’t need another program that serves the needs of adults. There is no doubt that we have an obligation to find a way to solve the problems for students created by a system of education that initially failed to educate them. However, employing more adults is not the solution.

If the progenitors of this program did not deem it necessary to involve students and parents from the beginning of the process, how valued is their participation in the process?

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