What should the strategic plan be looking at?

I have more to say about the strategic plan, its process, its make up, its history, and so forth than I would ever put in a single blog post, but let's start tonight--in honor of the first public input session that had more than 48 hours of notice--with what should, I think, be considered.

I would just note here that this should have been the first question: 

• what do students/parents/teachers/staff/Worcester residents think should be considered in the strategic plan? 

This shouldn't be only what we are getting to after six months of private meetings.

The first one is easy: the Worcester Public Schools budget this year is about $388M.

Those numbers are now a couple of years old. Thus start with the fact that we're running the school system at something like 4/5ths of what we should be. 

Quite honestly, if you don't start there, it's impossible for me to take you seriously. Funding impacts literally every single thing we do, and if you don't get that, then you don't get how school systems work.

The second starts with this piece of data, which you will rarely hear referenced in the city: 

The Worcester Public Schools are a majority children of color system, and they have been for some time. This occasionally gets raised when we talk about the demographics of the staff, but otherwise rarely is mentioned. Not only is the faculty majority white: the administration is overwhelmingly so, and the upper levels of administration have gotten much more so under the current administration (this is one of those articles that one might expect to be written when looking at changes in administration; it hasn't been). The School Committee, of course, was and remains entirely white. I have no patience--nor should anyone--with the "I don't see color" line. The research on teachers working with children of color is overwhelming. This isn't just about demographic change in leadership and in the classroom; this is about recognizing and being willing to grapple with the changing demographics of the city. As has recently been said in another context: that means talking about and changing who does and does not have power.

Oh, and that strategic planning board? Stunningly white. Also, nearly all primarily English speakers, and a bunch don't live in the city. But please tell us how "diverse" it is.

What's next? I'd argue that the above is part of the explanation for the disparity in discipline in the system, as the T&G reported earlier this month.  Economically disadvantaged students, students with disabilities, and students of color all are being disciplined at rates out of proportion with their enrollment in the school system. Those then are among the reasons for...

...disparities in graduation rates. Run your eye down that third column and look at the rate for ELL students, for students with disabilities, for Latino students. If you follow the link, you can look at the five year rate. The thing is, Worcester's done well at high school graduation rates; we have a lot to be pleased with. The question is how we make that more true for everyone.

Connected to several of the prior issues, but most especially the second, is the ongoing question of Worcester's selective admission programs. I've covered this more than once on the blog, most recently in March in talking about the new academy at Burncoat Middle, and at enormous length when we did the exam school report. We like to pretend that selective admission schools that admit based on test scores (or include discipline) are meritocracies. This is a lie. Rather than dealing with that, Worcester has without introspection and with little deliberation simply expanded them. That doesn't best serve Worcester's kids. Who are we serving? Where? How? And how are we deciding that?

Much of the above, you may note, leads back to the question of qui bono or who benefits. For whom do we run the Worcester Public Schools?
Take another look back at the strategic planning committee, and note the dearth of students, parents, teachers, and anyone-other-than-business-leaders-and-administration, and ask yourself: For whose benefit are we running this strategic planning committee?

See you Wednesday night at Doherty.