Mr. President,
We really appreciate your inviting Principal Ricci Hall down to Washington, D.C. for your speech today on reforming No Child Left Behind. We here in Worcester are also very proud of University Park Campus School, of the work the students there do, of the teachers who inspire them, and of the administration that guides them. We also are always grateful to Clark University for all the assistance they render us there.
That said, Mr. President, you and your administration revealed your perspective today when you called UPCS a charter school.
UPCS is not a charter school.
While UPCS is now among Worcester's five innovation schools, the things that have made UPCS excellent are things the school achieved as a Worcester Public School: answering to a central administration, having unionized teachers, and much else that public education is often beat up about.
Guess what, Mr. President? They've done it, and done it well.
The school has had a vision--not only about kids going to college, but about kids having a well-rounded education on the way there-- and had some leeway from central administration to get there. With a strong assist from Clark, the school is now, as you said, " in the top quarter of all schools in Massachusetts" with a student body that has many of the struggles of urban populations everywhere.
You see, Mr. President, you don't need to toss out publicly accountable school boards, transparent finances, and bargaining rights to get there.
You do, though, have to have a vision, and it has to be for more than test scores.
Respectfully yours,
Tracy Novick
More on the President's plan once I read through it
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