Learning to dream again

HARLEM
BY LANGSTON HUGHES

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode? 

One thing that I do periodically is I type "Worcester, MA" over at Donors Choose and I read through the requests. As I am typing this, that search yields requests like:

• a class set of novels
• a classroom carpet
• board games for indoor recess
• organzational supplies (like folders)
• tuba stands
• printer ink 

The most expensive items on there are class sets of Chromebooks, a document camera, a spotlight, and a physics instrument for measuring speed...nothing that's really an "extra" there.
When earlier this week I found several requests from Worcester come through my social media--for a tent for sports, for lighting--I checked to see if they'd been made as budget requests. Those that had were quickly told that there was no budget for these standard items.

And so, teachers and parents do what they have often done: they went to raise money elsewhere. 

In many, many cases, teachers and parents and even principals simply do not ask anymore. In recent years, the budget in Worcester relays a total amount of unfulfilled requests from principals; this year (it's on page 16 of the FY20 budget), that line totals $15.1M on a budget which totals $420M.

That $15.M, though, includes only 63 additional teachers, 18 support positions, and 15 school support positions, for a system of over 25,000 students.

It only includes $1M in urgent building repairs for a system of 50 buildings, the oldest of which date back before the Civil War, which has been funding facilities needs at 60% of foundation.

It has no increase in basic supplies, only $300,000 of furniture (for fifty buildings?!), and the $1.3M for technology includes the student information system (which I assume eats most of that).

A quick look around the system argues that the needs are ENORMOUSLY more significant than that. 

But those needs are not even being conveyed, not even in the meetings which ostensibly exist for exactly the reason of asking that question.

The answer has been 'no' so long that we don't even ask anymore.

I was thinking of this again last evening during the public testimony at last night's School Committee (which gets a glancing reference in Scott O'Connell's article here). While the testimony wasn't all on the same topic--some was on student discipline and some on district school committee representation--it had in common the explicit framing that far too many people have gone unheard in Worcester, particularly around the Worcester Public Schools, for far too long.
Is it, then, any wonder, as Hughes wrote in 1951, that those dreams explode?

We are, if all goes well, about to see an increase in funding for the Worcester Public Schools at a rate not seen since the early 1990's. It is the chance of a generation to make a real difference for our students.
But we have to ask.

The problem, which is of course much much bigger than the funding, is that people have gone unheard for a very long time. In many cases, they still are.

So why should they come and tell us what is needed?

We don't just have a funding gap. We have a trust gap.
The funding gap, we should see progress on this coming year.
To handle it effectively, though, we have to recognize and mend the gap in trust that leaves needs not only unmet but unspoken and unacknowledged. 

Worcester School Committee meets Thursday, May 18

You can find the agenda here.
While it does not appear until later down the agenda, in honor of the anniversary of Ernest Thayer's death, the Worcester School Committee will be doing a reading of "Casey at the Bat" as part of the meeting.
There are also a number of congratulations.

The report of the superintendent is end of cycle reports on the innovation plans of Chandler Magnet, Goddard Scholars, University Park Campus School, Woodland Academy, and Worcester Tech. Each of the schools is requesting a renewal of their innovation plans; remarkably, all that is being offered to the committee for this decision is 2 to 4 page charts. Most schools are requesting no change in their innovation plan. The one change that is being requested is from Goddard Scholars, which is asking to eliminate the "proficient" tier for the 4th grade MCAS, which is the sole determent of admission. They would thus be taking only "advanced" students. Interesting in that it more concretely sets the academy's emphasis on test scores, and does so in a year in which testing is through a new system. 

There are updates on restorative justice programs at Claremont Academy and at North High School.

The committee is being asked to accept an "Integrated English Literacy and Civics Education Grant" for $51,602, which surprisingly is actually for machine shop training (with an ESL component).

Mr. Monfredo is requesting a summer reading kickoff.

The committee is being asked to accept a number of donations to Tatnuck Magnet, to Woodland Academy, to Burncoat Street Prep, to Worcester Tech, to Canterbury Street, to Belmont Street, and to the administration (?) for the opening of school in 2017. They're also being asked to vote a prior year payment of $1,685.00 to WB Mason.

There is also an executive session on teachers' contract negotiations, a worker's comp case, and a grievance.

No liveblog; I'm off to cover MASBO's Annual Institute! 

For today

The Second Coming

William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer; 

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity. 

Surely some revelation is at hand; 

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.   

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out   

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi 

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert   

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,   

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,   

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it   

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.   

The darkness drops again; but now I know   

That twenty centuries of stony sleep 

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,   

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,   

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? 

posted yesterday on Twitter by Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune

Not with a bang but a whimper*

*T.S. Eliot "The Hollow Men"

Tonight the Worcester School Committee votes on the new superintendent of the Worcester Public Schools. While there's been some reporting, the analysis on this has been weak, with marked exceptions of Clive McFarlane and (provided you can roll your eyes over the intro), of all things, GoLocal.
The School Committee conducted all four interviews on a single night, held the meet and greets on a single night two days later, and are voting a week later.
Not a lot of time for consideration in there.
As I said before, though, it's less the rush and and much more the lack of perspective that's the real worry here. The Committee wants someone who "knows Worcester"--I heard this referred to as the "did you shop at Spag's" test. Fine. All four of your finalists pass that one with flying colors.
What else?
Last week, CPPAC heard that the budget gap is in the vicinity of $20 million. That isn't going to magically vanish, and, yes, that's the first order of business for the new superintendent. Important to note that the interim contract for Dr. Rodrigues is through July OR the appointment of a new superintendent. 
We're one school away from being a Level 3, not Level 4 district. That, however, depends on getting Burncoat Prep out of Level 4 status and nothing else sliding. Given the way that such decisions are made, the only thing standing between Worcester and a few more Level 4 schools is continued assurance in Malden that Worcester is making progress. With Dolores Gribouski's retirement, June Eressey's going back to retirement, and who knows what happening with Dr. Rodrigues, Worcester's just lost most of those who have been doing this work at the district level successfully (Mary Meade-Montaque being the exception). If you lose DESE's confidence, there's literally nothing preventing Malden from declaring other schools Level 4. If you can't turn those around with the dwindling resources they're extending, well, welcome to the receivership club.
And if you think the state isn't looking at Worcester, you haven't been paying attention.
The district has a settlement agreement with the federal Department of Justice regarding how we treat our kids. Worcester just completed the periodic Coordinated Program Review, which now needs to have all the loose ends tied to make sure we continue to receive grants and aren't violating civil rights laws. The district is under federal and state scrutiny on dozens of matters and ultimately all that falls to the superintendent.
And that doesn't of course get into the day-to-day management of an organization that employes 4000 people and is responsible for the well-being and education of 24,000 kids.

It isn't pretty. It isn't photogenic. But it is absolutely the superintendent's job.

I saw today some comments that "overwhelmingly" comments from constituents were favorable about the search and the candidates.
Overwhelmingly what I've heard from parents and others across the district was that there was no point in weighing in, as the decision had been made months ago. Thus the terrible turnout at the meet and greet. "Why bother?" is what I have heard over and over again.

"Why bother?" isn't what a school district needs to be hearing from parents and community members.
Yet that is just where this superintendent search has left us.

Not with a bang but a whimper.

And again

All I can offer you tonight is Langston Hughes--

Let America be America again. 
Let it be the dream it used to be. 
Let it be the pioneer on the plain 
Seeking a home where he himself is free. 

(America never was America to me.) 

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-- 
Let it be that great strong land of love 
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme 
That any man be crushed by one above. 

(It never was America to me.) 

O, let my land be a land where Liberty 
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, 
But opportunity is real, and life is free, 
Equality is in the air we breathe. 

(There's never been equality for me, 
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.") 

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? 
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars? 

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, 
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. 
I am the red man driven from the land, 
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-- 
And finding only the same old stupid plan 
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak. 

I am the young man, full of strength and hope, 
Tangled in that ancient endless chain 
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! 
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! 
Of work the men! Of take the pay! 
Of owning everything for one's own greed! 

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. 
I am the worker sold to the machine. 
I am the Negro, servant to you all. 
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-- 
Hungry yet today despite the dream. 
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers! 
I am the man who never got ahead, 
The poorest worker bartered through the years. 

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream 
In the Old World while still a serf of kings, 
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, 
That even yet its mighty daring sings 
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned 
That's made America the land it has become. 
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas 
In search of what I meant to be my home-- 
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea, 
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came 
To build a "homeland of the free." 

The free? 

Who said the free? Not me? 
Surely not me? The millions on relief today? 
The millions shot down when we strike? 
The millions who have nothing for our pay? 
For all the dreams we've dreamed 
And all the songs we've sung 
And all the hopes we've held 
And all the flags we've hung, 
The millions who have nothing for our pay-- 
Except the dream that's almost dead today. 

O, let America be America again-- 
The land that never has been yet-- 
And yet must be--the land where every man is free. 
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME-- 
Who made America, 
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, 
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, 
Must bring back our mighty dream again. 

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- 
The steel of freedom does not stain. 
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, 
We must take back our land again, 
America! 

O, yes, 
I say it plain, 
America never was America to me, 
And yet I swear this oath-- 
America will be! 

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, 
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, 
We, the people, must redeem 
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. 
The mountains and the endless plain-- 
All, all the stretch of these great green states-- 
And make America again!

Poem for a Snow Day

Thanks to my sister in North Carolina for sharing this today.

SNOW DAY

by Billy Collins 

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow, 
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness, 
and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.

In a while, I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch
sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed.
the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with—some will be delighted to hear—

the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School.

So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.

And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.

--
Billy Collins, “Snow Day” from Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (New York: Random House, 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Billy Collins.

PISA scores come out tomorrow

...and Jersey Jazzman is celebrating.

"The winners of a rigged game should not get to write the rules"

Earlier this fall, at one of the community meetings running up to the election, I was asked something like the following question:

Children who come to this country as immigrants are required to take the MCAS in English long before they are fluent in English. A tenth grade student, an immigrant, required to take the MCAS and knowing well that he was unable to understand, let alone fluently respond to, the questions on it, refused to take the test. Because the tenth grade exam is required for graduation, he was required to sign a legal form in English that he understood what he was forgoing. What is your response to this?

My response is that it's definitely unethical, possibly illegal, and absolutely immoral.

But Dylan Garity says it better than I:



h/t Upworthy and all the people who posted this on Facebook this week!

This time for sure: Worcester School Committee meets tomorrow!

The Worcester School Committee has a meeting tomorrow night. You can find the agenda here.
Due to the cancelled meeting on March 7, the entirety of that agenda has been carried forward to this week. We now add to that:

• reporting out on the Finance and Operations meeting AND the joint meeting, both held on Monday.
• a couple of additional items filed by members. Mr. Foley's items requesting that the city auditor look at transportation and administrative fees mirrors Councilor O'Brien's of Monday night, which already went off to the auditor. Mr. Monfredo is calling our attention to "Poem in Your Pocket" day on April 11 & 12. We're sending around several congratulations (Go, Cougars!). And Ms. Colorio is requesting that the School Committee be included in "WPS: All" emails, because, oddly enough, we aren't.

7 pm Thursday night at City Hall! 

One Today

The following is the poem Richard Blanco wrote and recited at yesterday's Presidential Inauguration. Along with being a civil engineer, Blanco is a teacher, thus the school-related imagery. 

One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores,
peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces
of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth
across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies.
One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story
told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.

My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors,
each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day:
pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights,
fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows
begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper—
bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us,
on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives—
to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did
for twenty years, so I could write this poem.

All of us as vital as the one light we move through,
the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day:
equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined,
the "I have a dream" we keep dreaming,
or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won't explain
the empty desks of twenty children marked absent
today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light
breathing color into stained glass windows,
life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth
onto the steps of our museums and park benches
as mothers watch children slide into the day.

One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk
of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat
and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills
in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands
digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands
as worn as my father's cutting sugarcane
so my brother and I could have books and shoes.

The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains
mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it
through the day's gorgeous din of honking cabs,
buses launching down avenues, the symphony
of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways,
the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.

Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling,
or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open
for each other all day, saying: hello, shalom,
buon giorno, howdy, namaste, or buenos días
in the language my mother taught me—in every language
spoken into one wind carrying our lives
without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.

One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed
their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked
their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands:
weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report
for the boss on time, stitching another wound
or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait,
or the last floor on the Freedom Tower
jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.

One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes
tired from work: some days guessing at the weather
of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love
that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother
who knew how to give, or forgiving a father
who couldn't give what you wanted.

We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight
of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home,
always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon
like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop
and every window, of one country—all of us—
facing the stars
hope—a new constellation
waiting for us to map it,
waiting for us to name it—together.

The Schoolboy

The Schoolboy by William Blake I love to rise in a summer morn, When the birds sing on every tree; The distant huntsman winds his horn, And the skylark sings with me: Oh, what sweet company! But to go to school in a summer morn, — O it drives all joy away; Under a cruel eye outworn, The little ones spend the day In sighing and dismay. Ah then at times I drooping sit, And spend many an anxious hour; Nor in my book can I take delight, Nor sit in learning's bower, Worn through with the dreary shower. How can the bird that is born for joy Sit in a cage and sing? How can a child, when fears annoy, But droop his tender wing, And forget his youthful spring? O father and mother, if buds are nipped, And blossoms blown away; And if the tender plants are stripped Of their joy in the springing day, By sorrow and care's dismay, — How shall the summer arise in joy, Or the summer fruits appear? Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy, Or bless the mellowing year, When the blasts of winter appear? "The Schoolboy" by William Blake, from Songs of Experience, 1794. Public domain. This came through via The Writer's Almanac today, and I thought it appropriate.

Worcester School Committee Thursday

The regular meeting of the Worcester School Committee is tomorrow night at 7pm at City Hall. You'll find the agenda here. (or not...the page isn't loading. To be fixed)
Up this week:

• the Superintendent's report is on the dropout rate, which, as you may have heard, went down this past year. The backup has charts and graphs with more information.
• we've got recognitions for Dr. Leonard Morse for his work as the Public Health Commissioner. We've also got Bank of America coming in in honor of their $50,000 donation.
• Teaching, Learning, and Student Supports subcommittee report is coming back.
• a response to a question on summer programs
• items asking about the special education parent survey, the STEM initiatives, and Poem in Your Pocket day.

The Bridge Builder

Here's a link to the poem that the Superintendent quoted tonight in speaking of those leaving the School Committee.