Local accountability?

A new report from Mass Inc walking through some thinking on local accountability for Gateway school districts was released yesterday; it's available for download here. You may have caught yesterday's Commonwealth Magazine article essentially arguing that there hasn't been any.
While I, too, greeted the notion of some new version of something called accountability, particularly for Gateway districts, with a sigh, there is a shift that could be happening worth talking about.
I was on a panel about this yesterday at the State House, and for me, part of this was putting it into context: we've replaced No Child Left Behind with the Every Student Succeeds Act federally, around which much of the conversation was in sum a sort of "Back off" message. That doesn't, of course, mean that testing isn't still very much the largest part of school and district measures from the federal level to the state level. But putting other things in for accountability and making the school report cards broader would seem--we hope--to open a conversation around what we want schools to do and be.
I don't know that we have those conversations.
I think it's also worth highlighting how poorly Gateway school committees reflect their student bodies.

And how competitive those races have been.

Mass Inc argues that this means we need new models of school committees--not, they propose, mayorally appointed committees, of which a review of the research reveals no real advantage--but of hybrids with seats set aside for local organizations. The answer, though, to not enough democracy, as revealed by who serves, is not less democracy; it's fixing the democracy we have for it to function more representatively.
The report talks about site councils, which I agree are one of the great unfulfilled items of the 1993 ed reform law. Reading through the law, it's striking how much time and energy and money have gone towards the other parts--the funding, state standards, MCAS, charter schools--with none on site councils. The model, though, was clearly to take the authority that famously was devolving to the school level and not put that solely under the judgment of the principal. Having then parents who are elected by other parents at a school who have done policy and budget at the school level creates a pipeline to school committee candidacy.
It would mean, though, that we have to want it: we have to genuinely create a table for this converation that is everyone's table for these conversations. Is that something that Gateway city leadership is really ready to do?

re: local accountability

I'm on this panel next Wednesday marking the release of a new MassInc report on local accountability. I'd tell you to come, but I hear it's sold out! Do check out the report once it's out; it's one of the more heated discussions, I think, in Massachusetts education, and this is an addition to that discussion.

UPDATE: Oh, and speaking of which, check out the school or district report cards, which DESE posted this week, as well as Rob Curtin's thread from this morning. I highly recommend going in and checking out discipline, access to courses, dropout and graduation data disaggregated by race, income, special ed status, and English learner status. We have some things to work on.

Mass Inc "Community Conversation on ESSA and School Accountability"

Forman, Mass Inc.
Gateway Cities "Vision for Dynamic Community-Wide Learning Systems"

• early education
• social and emotional growth
• college and career pathways
• newcomers

"we haven't seen the kind of resources that Gateway City leaders feel are necessary"

"Third Way" coming

If you're on MassInc's email list, you may have gotten an invitation to "The Emerging Third Way: Blazing an Optimistic Path Ahead in K-12 Education." They're featuring both the federal and the state secretaries of education.
What's this Third Way? Per the literature from Empower Schools*:

• convergence on "best practice" for which they cite school controlled hiring (and cite charters) and extended day (ditto, though ELT predates charters in MA)
• collaborative alignment with charters: HELLO, single enrollment system!
• "empowerment zone" as in Springfield, where the state has a larger amount of power than it does anywhere in the state that isn't under receivership, and, again, where the "charter-like" powers are being cited as an example

That...doesn't sound like a "third" way to me. That sounds like the currently pushed way. 

*While Chris Gabrieli is the chair, the list goes through The New Teacher Project and charter associations.

"Chapter 70 and Local Education Funding"

at the Worcester Registry of Deeds for the WEC/Research Bureau presentation on the Chapter 70 formula and local education funding. With Luc Schuster from Mass Budget and Policy, Ben Forman from MassINC, Tom Zidelis from the City of Worcester, and Brian Allen from the Worcester Public Schools.

Funding Public Education (in Worcester)

Not one, but TWO upcoming presentations from the Worcester Regional Research Bureau:

Funding Public Education 

Each year, the Commonwealth calculates a Foundation Budget that establishes minimal levels of education funding in individual cities and towns across Massachusetts. Simultaneously, local officials work to identify and allocate funds for public schools. Join The Research Bureau and the Worcester Education Collaborative to learn how state and local funding for public education is determined. 

Part I: Chapter 70 and Local Education Funding 

November 12, 2014 - 7:45-9:00 a.m. 

Worcester County Registry of Deeds, 100 Front Street, Worcester 

Panelists: 

Brian Allen, Worcester Public Schools 
Benjamin Forman, MassINC & Gateway Cities Innovation Institute 
Luc Schuster, Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center 
Thomas Zidelis, City of Worcester 

Timothy McGourthy, The Research Bureau, Moderator 

Part II: Balancing the Needs of the Schools and the Needs of the City 

December 3, 2014 - 7:45-9:00 a.m. 

MCPHS University, 25 Foster Street, Worcester 

Panelists:

Edward Augustus, City of Worcester 
Melinda Boone, Worcester Public Schools 
June Eressy, Worcester Public Schools (ret.) 
Mayor Joseph Petty, Worcester City Council & Worcester School Committee 

Jennifer Davis Carey, Worcester Education Collaborative, Moderator

Deceived or better informed?

You may have seen today's Boston Globe article reporting:

Nearly half of voters in 11 Massachusetts cities give their public schools a grade of A or B and just 12 percent rate their schools D or F, according to poll results released yesterday.

Mass Inc, which did the survey of 400 voters in "Gateway Cities" across the state, immediately pivots to MCAS scores and claims that locals don't know what they're talking about:

“The concern coming from these poll numbers is that many residents in Gateway Cities may be uninformed — or in denial — about the significant hurdles facing these schools and students with closing the achievement gap,’’ John Schneider, executive vice president of MassINC, said in a statement.

Or perhaps, Mr. Schneider, they're better informed than you are, as they judge by more than MCAS scores.

An invitation not to get

So here's an invitation that I didn't get: it seems that MassInc is hosting "The Gateway Cities Education Summit" here in Worcester on February 4 at the Beechwood Hotel. The description says that it:

will bring together policymakers, practitioners and elected officials towards the shared goal of improving education in the state's Gateway Cities

Well, that would certainly seem to include the elected school committtee for the City of Worcester. And yet, somehow, I certainly haven't been invited!
I suspect somehow it isn't that my invitation has been lost in the mail. A quick read of some of the organizations involved:

• MassInc
• Mass Business Alliance for Education
• Stand for Children

...makes me think that "invitation only" is quite intentional.
Just remember that when you read the write-ups on February 5, eh?