How schools develop reputations

Historic sports photos disappear from APS elementary | www.wsbtv.com
An Atlanta substitute teacher is frantically searching for a collection of historic photos.
The folder of photos, which feature iconic African-American sports heroes, disappeared after he gave a presentation to students at a southeast Atlanta elementary school.
"Your pictures come up missing, it's disheartening. I mean, it breaks my heart," said Jackie Brown.

You have to get almost to the end of the article before the school is identified: Dobbs Elementary, on the south side in the Thomasville area. You can't miss it: It's right there on Jonesboro Road, and it looks like a well-appointed prison. In Thomasville, where the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary is located, that means it looks like it belongs.

Brown said he showed the photos to two classes at Dobbs Elementary School last month. After the second class, he placed the folder of 30 photographs back into his briefcase and went to the restroom. He discovered them missing when he arrived home. "There is no way I misplaced them. I showed those photographs 15 minutes before they went to lunch. I had them and now, they're gone," said Brown.

I don't know why they bothered to "investigate" since Brown didn't notice his pictures were missing until he got home. But I do know why he's making such a tearful emotional appeal to get them back: It's really the only chance he has. But it's a slim chance, since the students in the Dobbs / Thomasville area are not known for their compassion.

On the other hand, some folks don't read the news at all

Is the CRCT as stressful for teachers as kids? | Momania: A Blog for Busy Moms [ajc]
I noticed a trend on my Facebook feed this week – many of the teachers are talking about how stressed they are about administering the CRCT.

Really? You noticed that? Have you been reading the news at all? There were 180 teachers on leave after allegations of multi-year organized cheating and falsifying results of the CRCTs. Schools statewide have been doing nothing else for the last two weeks but administering CRCTs. What does it take to get your attention, Mom?

But the cluelessness of the blog author is surpassed by the reader comments, which I should know better than to read on any blog. (Except mine, of course.)

• I wonder how others, who are in high-stress jobs, deal with the fact that we receive no press or sympathy as it relates to our jobs?
• Second blog on CRCT this week. I am just sayin’.
• Something is broken when a friggin’ elementary school test gets THIS much press.
• Does anyone know when the CRCT started?
• I can’t imagine a teacher being concerned about being accused of cheating if they are not cheating. 

So, all accusations are true, then? Can you imaging a teacher being concerned about being threatened with losing her job if she doesn't cheat? Happened every damn day in Atlanta. Probably where you are, too.

And yes, I do know when the CRCT started, and a quick Wiki search would have told you, too. 2000.

Job security at all costs

APS educators criticize reassignment process | ajc.com
Some of the estimated 700 educators who must reapply for jobs following a massive redistricting and restructuring say Atlanta Public Schools is making a mess of the restaffing process, and unfairly leaving veteran educators vulnerable.

Looked at another way: APS teachers expect and demand a level of job security unheard of in any other industry.

The Atlanta Federation of Teachers wants teachers and staff affected by school closings to be given first priority for job openings throughout the district. The group believes teachers should be allowed to name their top three choices, and that performance and seniority should be used in determining new job placements.

The Atlanta Federation of Teachers is a union, so of course they would say that.

A school scheduled to close because it's running at half capacity is doing so because every student who can go somewhere else is going somewhere else. There might be a reason for that. APS wants to be sure they're not rehiring the reason. This seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Now, given APS' history of heavily politically influenced hiring and promotion practices, I can understand why teachers might be skeptical that APS is actually, sincerely, honestly looking to rehire the good teachers. But I'm not prepared to assume that the teachers in failing schools are completely blameless and deserve priority in re-hiring.

Vanessa Cox lives across from Woodson Elementary, which under the redistricting will split with Grove Park Elementary so each school has three grades. As a result, teachers at both schools must reapply for their jobs.
Cox, who has children and grandchildren attending APS schools, feels it’s wrong to displace teachers, especially those who have been on the job for decades.

Well, if a second-grade teacher follows her kids to another building, is that "displacing" her? Shouldn't that be described as keeping her job?

Again, given APS' history of heavily politically influenced hiring and promotion practices, it is equally wrong to assume that teachers "who have been on the job for decades" are any good at what they do. Nothing personal, Ms Cox, but teachers don't work for Woodson Elementary, they work for APS. If they are any good, they're needed, and they'll have a job in the fall.

Or am I being unrealistically optimistic?

Can something have more than one center?

Principal at center of APS cheating scandal resigns | ajc.com

I suppose what I'm objecting to is the headline, not the story itself. Although, I do have a lingering worry that having resigned, Christopher Waller faces no further sanctions. Certainly there's no sign in this story that the PSC or the DA is moving on his case.

But how can Waller possibly be at the center of a scandal that extends beyond the school of which he was the principal? Is he strongarming teachers at other schools into fudging their CRCT results?

Well, possibly, given the "school reform team" structure that makes him a senior principal on a team that includes the principals of the elementary schools that feed into his. I confess I never understood the purpose of the SRT model, other than to make its directors absolute rulers of their fiefdoms.

In 2006, Waller's first year at Parks, the percentage of eighth-graders who passed the math section of the CRCT rose from 24 percent to 86 percent. By 2007, Parks was meeting 100 percent of its goals set by the district.

Makes you wonder how anyone could accept these numbers with absolutely no skepticism. No teacher, no principal, is good enough to go from 24% to 86% to 100% in three successive years. (The correct phrasing should be that "the percentage...appeared to rise" and that Waller "reported that he was meeting 100 percent of its goals." The report, it must be remembered, questions these numbers, and the fact that they are wrong is a key piece of evidence.)

The AJC has been shy about pointing out that the vast majority (though not all) of the cheating was found in SRT 2, under the influence of SRT director (assistant superintendent) Michael Pitts. His name is conspicuous by its absence from this circus thus far, except in the original Bowers / Wilson report in which it is said that he, like superintendent Hall and most of the SRT directors, "knew or should have known" what was going on.

In the Hall-era APS, success is never questioned, however unrealistic -- and whistleblowing is not tolerated, however deserved.

And now it will really get messy

APS testing coordinator accused of organizing cheating | ajc.com
During the first day Friday of what is expected to be a two-day tribunal, former and current teachers at Atlanta's Usher Elementary School pointed a collective finger of blame at Donald Bullock Friday as the mastermind behind test cheating at that school.
At Usher Elementary, Bullock, according to testimony, collected completed tests then gave them back to some teachers so they could change wrong answers to right. Some teachers said Bullock pressured them to cheat. Others said they refused to cooperate.

This is exactly what I feared had to happen. Teachers who were threatened with vaguely-defined, career-ending consequences have to testify, publicly and by name, to the actions of a testing coordinator. Three named teachers share similar stories of a man who made it clear what was expected of them. The coordinator's lawyer says, of course, that his client did nothing wrong.

Were I a wagering man, I would bet money that when his turn to speak comes, he will claim that he, too, was a victim pressured to achieve the numbers on which someone else's bonus depended. That may even be true.

"I was approached and asked if I wanted to make sure that my children did well," Smith said, pausing frequently to compose herself or wipe away tears. "I didn't really answer. And then (Bullock) was there with my tests. He knew a lot about me. He kind of used that as leverage. He said I could be replaced. I was a non-tenured teacher."

...When the cheating scandal broke and APS's Blue Ribbon panel investigators asked teachers about cheating, Smith said she lied to them. "I didn't want to get anyone in trouble," she said. "I thought if I denied everything, it would just go away."

That's going to be a popular refrain.

Maybe someone has been reading this blog: At last, actual numbers! Thanks, AJC!

• Number of final resignations/retirements that have been received since late February: 24 
• Number of tribunal hearings that have been completed: 2 
• Number of letters sent to educators outlining charges and the district’s intent to terminate: 34 
• Number of hearings still scheduled: 21 
• Number of employees who have resigned or retired since receiving charge letters: 11 
• Number of employees recommended for termination but not yet acted upon by the school board: 1 
• Number of employees whose whose resignation is pending: 1 
• Number of employees who declared an intent to retire but not yet made it official: 1 

They also face possible sanctions from the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, the agency that licenses teachers. On Thursday, The PSC recommended 19 revocations of licenses and 48 suspensions. One suspension was for one year, 47 were for two years.

The bullet points total 95 educators. The PSC has revoked or suspended the credentials of 83 educators: I assume the two lists overlap, which leaves 12 unaccounted for. The PSC, APS and the District Attorney each have a role to play here, and action from one doesn't preclude action by either or both of the other two. Nor do I know how this compares with my own scorecard, above.

Still looking for the Dirty Half-Dozen, though. Two of them may be out of reach, but I want to see the heads of the other four roll, at least as publicly as the teachers they terrorized into being unwilling co-conspirators.

See also: Teacher lashes out against accused APS test coordinator | wsbtv.com

These may be the droids we're looking for

67 APS educators accused of cheating barred from classroom | ajc.com
A committee for the Georgia Professional Standards commission, which certified and polices educators, voted to take action against 67 Atlanta educators implicated in a widespread cheating scandal.
The committee recommended 47 teachers for two-year suspensions. One teacher was given a one-year suspension, and 19 educators in leadership positions, such as principals and testing coordinators, were recommended for revocation. The PSC as a whole will vote around noon whether to uphold the action taken by the committee. [ADDENDUM: They did.]

Well, Merry Christmas at long last.

"Educators in leadership positions, such as principals and testing coordinators"? I had no idea a "testing coordinator" was considered a leadership position. I'm guessing some of them might be just as surprised by the designation.

But you know which names I'm looking to see here, and I have no confidence they are among this 67 that the PSC is now willing to address. The big cheeses, Beverly Hall and Kathy Augustine, appear to have escaped retribution, but that leaves the four ex-SRT Directors, Sharon David-Williams, Michael Pitts, Robin Hall and Tamara "Go to Hell" Cotman. They are the ones who sanctioned and sustained the "culture of fear and intimidation" that led to 180 educators being suspended pending hearings. Many of the 180 are, if not exactly innocent, at least victims and unwilling co-conspirators. They don't deserve to have their lives ruined.

Wait a minute.

A revocation [of teaching certification] will make it difficult for an educator to work in another public school in Georgia or another state...

Wait just a damn minute. Make it difficult? I thought you had to have PSC certification to teach in public school. Make it difficult?

From 13 to 7

Atlanta School Board votes to close 7 schools | ajc.com
Originally, 10 schools were slated for closure, but the board decided to close Parks and Kennedy middle schools and Capitol View, White, Cook, East Lake and Herndon elementary schools.

Which is to say, the Stantons (D.H. and F.L.) and Towns got reprieves. If the parents stay active, the wake-up call might have done some good. The overcrowded schools that were in no danger of closing have phenomenally strong parent involvement: The half-capacity schools threatened with closure, well, don't. (Insert crickets here.)

Now, that's a short synopsis for a nine-hour meeting. To be fair, the board did have other business to discuss. There was a little bit of "have security escort this man outside" excitement.

The board did guarantee that everyone who'd signed up to speak would have an opportunity to speak. Unfortunately, the board had no way to screen for people who actually had something to say, and could say it in a way that made sense. Darn that democracy. You can sometimes get the "participation" part, but the "educated" part is trickier. On the other hand, who can the APS blame for that?

It's about race? Really?

Protest over proposed D.H. Stanton Elementary School closing grows heated | 11alive.com
Someone also passed out a flyer that has jaws dropping, even in their own neighborhood.

It's a glossy, professional-looking flyer depicting Superintendent Erroll Davis in a Ku Klux Klan robe. The title reads: "They erased answers. I erase Black schools."

On the flyer, Davis holds a large pencil marked with "No. 00 white schools closed."

The flyer includes pictures of the Atlanta School Board. Davis is African-American, as are seven of the nine school board members.

In small print at the bottom, the flyer says, "Designed by Nathaniel Dryer, Organizer -- Going Against All Odds for our Young People."

Peoplestown residents told 11Alive News Friday morning that the flyer was not created by a parent and they do not support it or agree with its message.

Redistricting is supposed to help solve overcrowding on the north side and empty seats in the south side. It's put some of Atlanta's oldest African-American communities in the crosshairs.

But Davis has said race is not an issue.

Has 11Alive read "Julius Caesar"? Are they trying to sound like Mark Antony? "For Davis is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men."

Let's see. Atlanta is a majority-black city, with a black mayor and a majority-black city council.

Atlanta Public Schools' board is majority black. The superintendent is black. Senior administrators are majority black. The APS work force is overwhelmingly majority black, principals, teachers and support staff. Certainly the system student body is majority black.

And this guy thinks it makes sense to portray the APS board and superintendent as the KKK?

Assuming that this is an opportunistic publicity stunt (which it almost has to be), what audience is Dryer actually looking for?

I'm tempted to say it's not APS' fault that the schools on the white side of town are at or over capacity, while the schools on the black side of town are running at two-thirds to half or less. In fact, in a manner of speaking, it is APS' fault. Sometime in the Hall administration (if not before), someone decided that APS' primary mission was to keep teachers employed, regardless of merit. The way to do this, they apparently concluded, was to put these inadequate teachers in schools APS had already decided would never be academic showcases, because they were full of project kids, and we all know they're not educable, right?* But the appearance of putting up the effort would save jobs.

If I thought this KKK flyer would direct some attention to this still-unaddressed phenomenon, I'd be all in favor of it.

But as it is, it still makes zero sense to close the schools that are overcrowded. Obviously you close the ones being abandoned by the kids the census says live there, but whose parents are getting them into a different school by any means necessary. (Thanks, Malcolm X.) Some request transfers, knowing that means they have to provide transportation to their alternate choice school. Some lie about their mailing address. Some "send the kids to live with an aunt." Some, I'm convinced, just don't go to school at all, because Mom (they're mostly single-parent households) has decided that no school is still better than that school. (And maybe she's right.)

The only solution that makes sense is to close the schools that the parents are staying away from. It's a shame they can't just call them "schools that suck", or the flow of student movement would be a lot easier to understand.
____

*  You know I don't actually believe this, right? The problem isn't that they can't learn, it's that no one really expects them to. But children always learn. Sometimes what they learn is not what you meant to teach them. With conduct like this what are we teaching them? That Real Society does not care for them, has no place for them, has no use for them.

LATER: Flyer About APS Superintendent Stirs Controversy | CBS Atlanta: "Dryer says he didn’t mean for the flyer to have racial undertones..." I don't know how a black man can throw the KKK into an argument in a way that doesn't have racial undertones. Is he stupid or does he think everyone else is? I'll stick to my first impression: Opportunistic publicity stunt.

Two? Just two?

APS redistricting plan: a tale of two schools | 11alive.com
Parents at Coan Middle School were all smiles on Sunday after Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis removed their school from his final school closing list.
..."I think district leaders are making a mistake," said Kevin Lynch, president of the Peoplestown Association and the father of a two-year-old girl. "We're not pleased about it."
Parents in Peoplestown are new to this fight.
Their neighborhood elementary school, D.H. Stanton, was added to the final closing list on Saturday night without any warning.

Only a reporter who hasn't been following the ongoing Battle of APS Redistricting could conclude that it comes down to "a tale of two schools", making it sound like it's a choice between closing a middle school and an elementary school.

And, about the "without any warning" scare: this is a warning, not a final decision. This is only the list that, barring new information and subsequent changes, the superintendent will present to the board. We're still a long way from a "final closing list." There are still a couple of weeks and a full battery of neighborhood meetings before the superintendent reports to the board, and there's no guarantee that the board will do what the superintendent proposes. (Although, admittedly, odds are they will.)

But the reporter who really thinks this is a "tale of two schools" is invited to talk to the staff and parents of the other twelve schools what were on the original list of 13 recommended to close (Coan was on that list, now apparently "saved"), plus Towns Elementary (which wasn't on that list, but is now recommended to close).

I say "staff and parents" without including "students" purposefully, since some students can be counted on to plead with puppy-dog eyes that "the only school we've ever known" remain open, and others would cheerfully dance on the rubble of a school, with absolutely no care for whether the grown-ups thought it was a Good School, or how much money it cost to keep open.

But I may be expecting too much of staff and parents to hope they'll think of the system's best interests. Certainly the system has not historically shown much interest in thinking of theirs.

Best of a bad situation

APS to close 10 schools under plan for new boundaries | ajc.com
Atlanta Public Schools will close 10 schools and eliminate about 5,500 of 13,000 extra seats under the final redistricting proposal released Saturday by Superintendent Erroll Davis.
The proposal, which goes to the school board for a vote on April 10, reduces the number of elementary and middle schools with less than 450 students from 38 to 17. The plan also organizes schools in a "cluster" format, where groups of elementary schools feed into the same middle and high school.

The "school cluster" idea, where each high school anchors a group of middle and elementary schools that feed into it, seems so obvious that I have to wonder why APS wasn't already doing it. Previously, elementary and middle schools were organized into four "School Reform Teams", and all city high schools were in their own, separate Team. This led to a mess where vertical continuity didn't exist. Even within an individual school, some elementary students moved upward into one middle school, some into another. Madness.

But I realize that reorganization is not what this announcement is about: That decision has already been made, and about time too. This is about closing schools. And really, there are very few surprises in this final recommendation. Most of the schools that are scheduled to close have been named on most of the previous drafts, although there's a little variation in exactly where the new zone boundaries are drawn.

Here are the surprises:

STAYING OPEN:

• Coan Middle
• Humphries Elementary
• Thomasville Heights Elementary
• Whitefoord Elementary

Coan's parents mounted a vocal opposition to closing the school and using the building as a "6th grade academy" extension of Inman. Coan survives, sort of, because the Coan students will temporarily be at the (closed) East Lake Elementary building, because of the domino effect of temporarily closing Jackson High for renovations in 2012-13 and moving the student body to the Coan building. In 2013-14, Jackson and Coan return home.

Whitefoord remains open, and will get a few of the displaced Cook students, whose building will become the Inman 6th grade academy instead of Coan. If you've seen Inman Middle, you know they just don't have any room for nearby expansion. And as we've heard over the past two months, not one Inman parent will willingly send a child anywhere else. We'll see how they feel about their 6th graders being sent to Cook.

Thomasville Heights and Humphries are just plain mystery gifts. They were on every list to close. I've heard speculation, possibly unworthy, that Thomasville remains open because no other school will take their students. The Cook kids's influence will be diluted between Centennial Place, Hope-Hill, Parkside and Whitefoord: There's no similar provision to be made for Thomasville Heights, which appears doomed to be the APS' bad example.

And Humphries remains open, it appears, for the opposite reason: Although smaller than APS would like, they're performing so much better than the other schools in their cluster. Sometimes you just don't dare fix something that doesn't appear to be broken.

CLOSING:

• D.H. Stanton Elementary

D.H. Stanton (don't forget the initials: There's an F.L. Stanton as well) wasn't on any of the previous lists to close, but many of its parents begged Davis to close the building before it collapsed.

See also:
East Atlanta Patch: Davis' Final APS Redistricting Plan: Keep Coan Middle And Whitefoord Elementary Open
APS: Superintendent’s Final Redistricting and Closure Recommendations (PDF)

LATER: Oops, I seem to have neglected a couple of surprises, schools that were on one list all along, now moved to the other with no warning.
STAYING OPEN: Boyd Elementary
CLOSING: Towns Elementary
Given where they both are (northwest Atlanta, near Douglass High), it could be as simple as a flip of the coin between them. Just as it could be that D.H. Stanton must die that Thomasville Heights might live.