Worcester Public Schools take up rezoning

I have put off writing anything regarding about this until we had, really, anything to talk about. As a result of this past week's Governance and Operations meeting, we now have a report from Dillinger Research and Applied Data, with preliminary recommendations. I thought that MassLive did a decent job outlining the big points of what is in it (that link is via Yahoo! so is not paywalled); the T&G also did five takeaways. 

The rezoning work is being updated on this WPS page, and this map (which I urge you not to try to examine on a teeny phone screen!) is what they're looking at right now. That also allows you to give feedback.

And while I am sharing useful information up front here, the rest of what they're planning this fall for meetings is this: 

Here are some initial thoughts from me (as usual, speaking solely as myself).

This is happening in Worcester tonight!

Worcester parents/guardians/interested denizens, and Central Mass in general: this is happening tonight at Clark! 

Colin Jones from MassBudget is coming out to present, I'm saying a word or two, AND there will be organizing for further action! 

When will we have the will? Updating the Commission for Latino Educational Excellence

Remember this?

Back in 2011, in response to a charge from then-Mayor Joe O'Brien  for a report on the conditions of education for Latino students in the Worcester Public Schools, the Mayor's Commission on Latino Educational Excellence released "Creating the Will: A Community Roadmap to Achieving Educational Excellence for Latino Students in Worcester" (which you can download here). I was among those on the Commission at the time; we were reconvened Friday for an update by Co-Chair Mary Jo Marion of the Latino Education Institute.

So why does this matter for Worcester?
Well, this is the Worcester Public Schools:

Disclosure: I actually looked for this in the FY19 budget. Oddly, it isn't there (?).
Demographic data from DESE District Profile from the October 1 report (2017)

The red area taking up nearly half the circle is our Latino students. Worcester also has the highest percentage of English learners in the state.
As Mayor Petty put it yesterday, the future of the city of Worcester depends on our Latino students.

The first thing that the update did was show us where we were at:

Okay, set aside 2017 MCAS which you can't just compare to the previous of anything: the gaps haven't closed, and in some cases have widened. There is nowhere that Latino students as a group are doing as well as all students.

One of the main things that stuck with me from the original report was, at the time, we were coming up from a full third of Latino students not completing high school in Worcester. So, how's that going?

This briefly came up yesterday:
trendline down on both, more steeply for Latino students, but not consistent over time.
Data from the DESE Profile for WPS

So, more and more of the kids are staying in school, and at least this year, Latino students are doing better than the city norm.

Both contining to head up, possibly with some gap closing recently
Data from the DESE Profile for WPS

Likewise, we have more kids graduating (this is the five year rate, so it only goes through 2016), and it looks as though the gap, at least recently, is shrinking between Latino students and all students.
At the same time, a five year 85.3% graduation rate means that more than 14%--in this case, 87 kids--aren't getting through high school in five years. And that's the most recent and best number.

Knowing of the gaps around college attendance and completion rates--a focus of the original report as well, as Worcester's economy is "eds and meds" as we say: the colleges and the hospitals--I checked in on our most recent numbers on that as well:

And clearly some other gaps that need attention here as well

And yes, Worcester has a well-regarded tech school--not everyone needs to go to college--but if you compare this to the top chart:

Yes, DESE has school profile pages as well,
though these you also can pull from the school budget pages of the FY19 WPS budget

This is much better, but it's not reflective of the district just yet.
What we don't yet have data on, but we're going to need to start collecting it, is access to upper level courses; the accountability system is going to want to know that all kids are taking such courses. They aren't--the only data I have here is eleven years as a WPS parent, but...--as yet.

The update, though, that really hit home for many of us, was this one:

This is LEI's slide, though the data is from DESE's district profile as well.

If you're a Latino student in Worcester, you have more than a one in ten chance of being disciplined.
A white student? That drops to one in eighteen.
If you're a Latino student, you're:

•  more than twice as likely to be out-of-school suspended
• nearly twice as likely to be in-school-suspended
• more than twice as likely to be emergency removed 

...than your white peers.
Emergency removal, incidentally, isn't covered under Ch. 222 quite the same way, and is widely regarded as a work around for reporting.

As always, if you're going to come on my page and argue that Latino students misbehave more, you can take that perspective elsewhere. The school official reaction, at least as voiced by Mr. Monfredo, was that it really comes back to the family.
No, it comes back to systemic racism.
I should note here that this parallels the data released by the U.S. Department of Education Civil Rights division two weeks ago, finding that disparities in student discipline continue to rise. You can find the Worcester discipline report here; it looks like this:

Upper left is enrollment; any variation between that and the other pie charts needs accounting. 

This hasn't been improving. This should horrify us. And the other thing that should horrify us is this:

Photo I took yesterday; I'd link to the article, but the T&G online archives don't go back that far.

The date on that article? 1972.
What were the parents asking for? Many of the same things we talked about yesterday: district leadership reflective of the district; coordination and conversation with parents; student supports through counselor and others; thorough translation services; bilingual education as a real and supported option; district attention to (2017 language here) implicit bias. 

As I pointed out in my post on the strategic plan, the demographics of the district don't appear to be driving any of the conversation as the district looks forward. The discipline disparities are called out in the plan as publicly proposed thus far, but the remainder of what it means to be a majority student-of-color district with a plurality of Latino students is not acknowledged.
And if we don't acknowledge it, we certainly can't plan for it.

Seven--or forty-six--years on, we still need to create the will.

Worcester Strategic Plan Community Briefing

What we have so far is here. 

View of the room at 6; a few more people came in 

"it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Blog post title taking its cue tonight from the report's reference
Posting as we go, which won't be 'til after a bit
Kathleen Smith, superintendent of the Brockton Public Schools, is here with her Chief Budget Officer Aldo Petronio and three members of her school committee
Petty: very interested in what's going on in Brockton
Binienda reviews the premise of the McDuffy case and the foundation budget
Smith speaks of the Leading the Nation event this morning and Jami McDuffy of whom they're very proud
"all means all" from Reville

City of Champions in the Heart of the Commonwealth

Tomorrow night's presentation for Worcester School Committee, which also has Brockton's numbers, is now posted.

 The gaps are breathtaking.

 Maybe we should sent the state a bill?

And of course, because those are non-negotiable costs...

And so on through the budget...

Open questions in Worcester

Since we have a moment this early dismissal day, here's a few things I'm wondering about the Worcester Public Schools:

• It's March. Weren't we supposed to have a strategic plan in February? 
• And speaking of plans, whatever happened to the facilities master plan?
• Does North High have a principal yet? 
• As a district that is majority children whose first language isn't English: do we have a new ELL director yet? I haven't seen one. 
• Relatedly, are we going to talk at all about the MAJOR demographic shift that's happened in our majority Latino school district's leadership, or are we going to ignore that we have shifted to a reeeeeeally white (and female) central leadership? 
• Have we had any discussion of the failed model the Worcester Public Schools are following on active shooters? 
• For Doherty to be accepted into Feasibility, there must be a building committee. Who's on it? When are they meeting? 
• About three years ago, WPS spent a boatload of money on getting everyone to Office 365. Now all of a sudden we're switching over to a Google universe. I don't have strong opinions in either direction, but can we at least acknowledge that we seem to have burned a bunch of money and then changed our minds? 
• And finally because I JUST found this online: are we ever going to talk about the Comprehensive District Review from last January? This is basically DESE coming in and checking on what's up. That would seem pretty crucial.

UPDATE: I no sooner posted this than Scott O'Connell, the T&G education reporter, tweeted back: 

I've had the same questions. What I've been told this week: strategic plan likely in April, same for facilities plan. No change to North High situation - Maureen Binienda still temporary principal, Dyer status to return still a ?

— Scott O'Connell (@ScottOConnellTG) March 21, 2018

As for ELL manager, I've got a story coming out tomorrow. But screw it, nothing yet there, either (although maybe an announcement soon?)

— Scott O'Connell (@ScottOConnellTG) March 21, 2018

So: read Scott tomorrow on the ELL director. And we'll see if his questions get answers on the outstanding ones.

UPDATE #2: Here's the article to which Scott was referring. I'll put some thoughts on that in an additional post.

FBRC Must See TV: POSTPONED

Responsibilities take me elsewhere tonight, but if you are NOT planning on being in Holden with me to hear about advocacy, can I suggest you check out tonight's Worcester School Committee meeting at 7? Maybe more like 7:15ish.
You can find the livestream here.

Here's why I say that: Worcester has been talking about the inadequacies in the foundation budget since...2013? Brockton was the city that brought first McDuffy and then Hancock against the state. They're two of the three (the third is Springfield) largest victims of the state's continued inaction on this. And both Brockton and Worcester are at the table tonight.

I hear there's new numbers.
If you're following the foundation budget, I'd watch Worcester tonight.
Regrettably, I will NOT be able to liveblog this, but I'll catch up as soon as the video is posted!


UPDATED: Brockton couldn't make it, so this report was POSTPONED, I'm told.

And speaking of budgets...

...another round of congratulations is due over at the Finance and Operations offices...

Today we received word that for the 5th consecutive year the @worcesterpublic received the @ASBOIntl Meritorious Budget Award - the highest award for school budget presentation and transparency and commitment to sound fiscal management practices. Kudos to the Fin&Ops team! pic.twitter.com/q3xEsTRdsL

— Brian E. Allen (@Brian_E_Allen) February 28, 2018

"Heart of the Commonwealth, represent!"

I'd always recommend you read Charlie Pierce in Esquire, but today's column has both some nice reflections from his father's time as a Worcester Public School administrator:

My father worked in what were then called “inner-city” schools. When he left the classroom—he actually taught fourth-period Bio—he became the vice-principal on whom disciplinary matters fell. He was notably tough, but he also was a realist. He had a running feud with one phys-ed teacher whose class was scheduled for the first thing in the morning. He kept sending kids who fell asleep down to my father’s office. The first thing my father asked them was whether or not they had had anything to eat that morning. If the answer was no, he’d give them some money and send them to a diner down the street. Then, he’d wait for the gym teacher to come down and yell at him. “Charlie,” he once told me, “You can’t teach a hungry child. It’s pointless.”

...as well as a great analogy on how the high school students are taking on the fringe right:

But the real high comedy has been to watch the conservative intelligentsia embark on a serious fool’s errand—namely, trying to battle with educated teenagers on social media. I mean, don’t any of these people have kids between the ages of 10 and 20? This is like the Redcoats marching back to Boston from Lexington and Concord. They’re taking fire from behind every tree and every stonewall, and they’re getting slaughtered on platforms they’ve probably never heard of.

But go read it all. 

There's a Worcester strategic plan meeting next week

Parents received a push on a strategic plan meeting next week on Wednesday. It's January 24, 2018, at 6:00 pm at Claremont Academy. No word on childcare, transportation, or translation. The agenda is:

AGENDA: - Opening Remarks: The Process to Date
- Focus Groups
- Reports from Focus Groups
- Adjourn

Assuming this means the group breaks up into focus groups, this appears to mean at least there is a set time for public input this time. The issue (and if you've been in these rooms, you've seen this one coming) is it's the "break people up into groups and make them set priorities" meaning that not all things make the final list. Not every voice is actually heard.
It also means the troublemakers can't find each other and organize.

I can't go as next week (as you may be picking up from other posts) is jam-packed with state things: the Board of Ed, the Governor's budget, the Rennie Center's annual report, and Commissioner interviews. 

Article on OML complaint on the strategic planning process

Scott O'Connell writes about the Open Meeting Law complaint around the strategic planning committee. The only comment I'll make is this:

People are generally free to attend the committee meetings as well if they ask to, Mr. McGourthy added. “We’ve never said no to anyone who wants to participate.”

...is a pointless offer if nobody knows when or where the meetings are!

I did speak to the AG's office before Thanksgiving, so they're working on this, still.

Worcester meetings this week

Three Worcester school-related meetings this week:

• There's a meeting at 7 pm tonight at Burncoat High School on PCBs. 
• There's an accountability subcommittee meeting tomorrow night at 5:30. There are three agenda items: an overview of how accountability plans are changing for this year; a review of last year's testing (multiple backups; check the agenda); and a review of the new transportation position (which is a weird place to do this; transportation is part of Operations). That's in the fourth floor conference room at the administration building.
• There's a full school committee meeting on Thursday. If I get a chance, I'll do a full agenda review, but it looks like the main item is a review of the literacy changes (report of the superintendent; no backup as of Monday). Otherwise, congratulations, donations, and payment of prior year invoices...not much there. There's an executive session posted without an detail. 

No liveblogs: I'm elsewhere this week! 

For all our kids

from Worcester

You asked why we have a school committee

The final question we received at last week's CPPAC Worcester School Committee candidates' forum was what the purpose of public education is and why we have a school committee.
We received a resounding answer to the latter last night.
The final Worcester City Council At-Large forum was last night, and, while I didn't attend, both Tom Quinn of Worcester Magazine and Nicole Apostola liveblogged it. The topic was public safety, which, bearing out my truism that everyone wants to be on School Committee in an election year, kept swinging around to schools.
And, boy, were there some terrible answers.
Let's be clear about police in schools:

Like many social programs that are motivated by a sense of urgency to do something about a perceived crisis situation, this program has grown dramatically without the benefit of scientific evaluation. No rigorous study to date has demonstrated that placing police in schools promotes school safety. Our study finds no evidence that increased use of SROs decreases school crime.

(emphasis mine throughout this post)
That's the conclusion of "Police Officers in Schools: Effects on School Crime and the Processing of Offending Behaviors," which uses the National Center for Educational Statistics annual report to evaluate programs. 
And if you're looking for solid, peer-reviewed research about what effect police in schools in fact have, that's about all you're going to find, as has been pointed out, more than once.
But perception! we're told. Okay:

However, little is known about the long-term or concurrent effects that the presence of uniformed officers might have on students' feelings of safety. For example, although the presence of an officer may provide peace of mind for administrators and parents, we cannot presume that students view officers as their allies or defenders. The presence of uniformed officers can, in fact, breed a sense of mistrust among students and hence adversely affect school climate. Indeed, some preliminary evidence suggests that physical surveillance methods (metal detectors, searches, and security guards) can predict increased disorder.

Likewise, the American Bar Association's reflects:

Although police officers and metal detectors may create the appearance of safety for some, research studies and experiences have shown that these policing tactics, instead, have a serious detrimental impact on school communities. The American Psychological Association and others have found that these practices do not improve student behavior and that they drag down academic achievement, breed distrust in the school community, and result in the criminalization of youth—particularly youth of color—for minor misbehavior, like “disrespect.”

What does happen when you have police officers in schools? More arrests for offenses that don't lead to charges, and more disorderly conduct charges:

Controlling for socioeconomic status, the researcher found that there wasn't much difference in serious crime between the schools that had SROs and the schools that didn't. Students at policed schools were much more likely to get arrested than students at unpoliced schools, but they weren't any more likely to actually be charged in court for weapons, drugs, alcohol, or assault. (In other words, students at policed schools were much more likely to get arrested in cases where there wasn't enough evidence to actually charge them with a crime.)

And, yes, that absolutely happens out of proportion with the racial makeup of the public school system, as reported by the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights:

While black students represent 16% of student enrollment, they represent 27% of students referred to law enforcement and 31% of students subjected to a school-related arrest. In comparison, white students represent 51% of enrollment, 41% of students referred to law enforcement, and 39% of those arrested.

 As for those who would cite the spending of the Springfield public schools:

While all three districts appear to overuse “public order” offenses as a justification for arrests, Springfield had significantly more such arrests than Boston or Worcester, as well as a much higher overall arrest rate than either of the other two districts...
While there are undoubtedly many reasons why there are more public order arrests in Springfield than in Boston or Worcester, it appears that the manner in which Springfield deploys police officers in its public schools is a contributing factor. Springfield is the only district that has armed, uniformed police officers from the local police department stationed in selected schools for the entire duration of the school day. These officers report to the Chief of the Springfield Police Department, not the Springfield school district.

The above is from "Arrested Futures," the spring 2014 report from the American Civil Liberties Union about criminalization of students in Boston, Springfield, and Worcester (prior, one should note, to Worcester having full time police stationed in our schools). That's absolutely necessary reading to anyone who opines on police in our school system.

And that's the point, really: if you're going to be making public policy on this--which the City Council does not--you need to do the homework. Too many candidates clearly have not. And last night? Twenty-four hours after Spring Valley? Several of them lost my vote. You don't get a pass on this.

I'm just relieved that they aren't setting public school policy.


For more on this, I'd highly recommend "Education Under Arrest" from the Justice Policy Institute.

Summer week links round-up

Summertime, so I'm not posting as often. Some things you might like to read:

• This Atlantic article about why some schools are getting rid of their iPads is a worthwhile read, as we have conversations around what technology we invest in. As always, it's not about the technology; it's about what we're doing with the technology. 
• Guess where kids best learn executive function? Not in the classroom. 
• I've been largely staying out of the Campbell Brown/Whoopie Goldberg/insert-person-who-doesn't-understand-due-process-here dustup, but here's a good response on why due process matters and is in the best interest of kids. 
• You may or may not have been following what's going on in Boston around the Dearborn Middle School; either way, here's a good update on that.
• And if your kids are in the Worcester Public Schools, you may well know a lot of this, but read on for why you should choose the Worcester Public Schools!  

Christmas shopping?

If you have an alumna/us of the Worcester Public Schools on your shopping list, you might consider this:

From the Vintage Worcester Tee Shirt Company 
(with whom, no, I have no connection)