Get Schooled

By SET

June 27, 2007 12:04 PM | Link to this

A lot of handwringing for a place that serves 36 kids. Tell us how many dollars per student they spend compared to the other schools?

And when you are comparing numbers that small, stats are relatively meaningless. The students might have placed on the tests without any input from the school. I am very familiar about cherry picking candidates for a program to make sure the stats are artificially high. All you do is keep out or get rid of any candidate that presents a risk of not passing the test.

And I notice that they had a lot of students that got lost…

I know nothing about this school but I know this game very well.

I believe local choice is normally the best. And if the locals choose to terminate this school - it’s their business.

By OldSchool

June 27, 2007 12:08 PM | Link to this

Perhaps what the school needs is a business office dedicated solely to the business end of education. That would free up the principal to oversee the education end. I’d really hate to see the school closed when there are folks out there who could fix what actually needs fixing.

And frankly, I don’t see that a lack of textbooks is all that bad. Many if not most are flawed, dumbed down, or better as references. If you have teachers who are allowed to teach, you just might get creative and challenging work that is grounded in the real world and just what eager learners need.

Instead of locking the doors, aren’t there corporate angels out there who could step in and restructure the school and make it work? Time, talent and effort are needed here, not educrats and naysayers.

By mmm

June 27, 2007 1:12 PM | Link to this

Time to shut this one down.

If charters are to be judged on merit, this one has failed.

It may be sad to watch the final breaths, but prolonging what needs to be done will only make it more painful.

By Gail

June 27, 2007 2:42 PM | Link to this

I saw the APS board meeting a while back when they were talking about closing it down the first time. At that time, it seemed that the school was doing okay in terms of enrollment. Then, the issue seemed to be that KIPP had disassociated themselves from the charter and it was floundering as a result. They appeared to have parental support then and seemed to be asking for a chance to keep it going.

What was annoying about it was the APS attitude toward keeping the school open. If I’d been in the room, I’m sure I could have cut the negativity coming from APS with a knife. It was clear to me from my living room couch that APS had absolutely no intention of letting that charter school continue.

Maybe the parents gave up because of APS’ attitude and the negative publicity. There was some press at the time that the school would close. In fact, I was surprised to hear that it actually hadn’t closed. It’s hard enough to get current parents to commit to a school that might not reopen, let alone trying to get new parents to bring their children.

I agree with SET that 36 kids is not a big enough sample, but they claimed the same kinds of test results back when the school had many more students.

By catlady

June 27, 2007 2:50 PM | Link to this

36 students does not even qualify as a SUBgroup for NCLB, does it?

By Tony

June 27, 2007 3:24 PM | Link to this

For those who want to apply “free market” to education, this school has failed and should close. There should be no obligation on the part of the board of education to bail out the school. Charter schools are not going to provide solutions to improving education in America - commitment from families to the importance of eduation will make the difference.

By jim d

June 27, 2007 3:42 PM | Link to this

Didn’t a lot of folks start bailing out last year due to the talk of closing the school down?

I’m not sure what the answer here would be but feel strongly that if the school can’t make it—they should close it. Charters can only work if they remain unincumbered by the public school system.

By thomas

June 27, 2007 4:23 PM | Link to this

APS should close down Achieve. Most charter schools are garbage. don’t you understand? Most of these ridiculous charter schools are garbage and doomed to failure. Don’t you understand that? Don’t believe the hype.

Many of these schools come about because they think they can do a better job than the people with DECADES of experience and a $_LOAD more money. The ONLY charters that are successful are the public “charter” schools. These are schools that, by all intents and purposes, are public schools that are operated by public school systems, and everybody pretty much operates under public school rules, curriculum, and procedure.

Cobb County has several charter schools. They are in great shape. Do you know why? They are almost indistinguishible from any other Cobb County school. Clayton County has two charter schools- Unidos Dual Language Charter School and Lewis Academy of Excellence. Unidos operates out of a Clayton elementary school in Forest Park. They operate under almost the same rules and procedures as any other Clayton, save for the dual language curriculum. The Lewis Academy operates, EXCUSE ME— OPERATED, out of a Riverdale church. They have had one problem after another since opening two years ago. All kind of crazy things— failed fire inspections, not paying teachers pension dues, not conducting background checks on employees, on, on, and on. Unidos, on the other hand, is in great shape and growing. In fact this PUBLIC charter school may even over take the school it is housed because of its success.

By mmm

June 27, 2007 4:24 PM | Link to this

Tony—I was with you until you said that charter school are not going to provide solutions.

All charter schools won’t succeed any more than all start-up businesses succeed. And if they are innovative, well not every idea works in practice—sometimes because the idea is bad, and sometimes because the people are not committed or competent. So I’m not terriblly surprised that when you average all the “experiments” together nationally the overall track record academically is about the same as the average for traditionally schools. Even so, they typically have no funding for buildings, so they scrounge and short-change the funding in other areas, yet still manage to do as well as traditional schools.

What is know, is that nationally there is much higher parental satisfaction levels. How much of the lack of commitment from families is a result of being repeated rebuffed by an establishment that doesn’t want real involvement, only passive acceptance and PTA fundraisers. Chartering might be a vehicle to re-inspire those families presently without hope or a voice.

By mmm

June 27, 2007 4:33 PM | Link to this

AAHHH! forgive the typo’s above.

By mmm

June 27, 2007 4:38 PM | Link to this

Jean Cohen is a reasonable person.

By lynn d

June 27, 2007 6:47 PM | Link to this

The problem with urban school systems is that the alternatives are soooo bad. Should this school stay open? Probably not, if simply for the reason that the enrollment is so small.

But for all the imporvements that the City of Atlanta school system has seen at the elementary level, there has not been the same level of improvement for secondary school.

The children who are most widely being failed in American public education are minority students. Innovation is what is needed to solve some of these challenges (given that widespread societal changes aren’t likely to happen quickly) and charters are the best vehicle for this.

Nationally, KIPP works wonders — but it does seem to be a model that is hard to sustain.

By Lee

June 28, 2007 8:53 AM | Link to this

Seems to me that charter schools are a flawed concept due to the fact that they haven’t cut the umbilical cord to the public school system. The host school system has a vested interest in seeing the charter school fail. If the charters were successful, then people might question why the traditional public schools were failing so miserably.

By the way, APS should know a thing or two about failing schools.

Should this particular charter school be closed? Sounds like it. I agree with SET’s analysis, I’d be interested in knowing the per student cost of running this school.

In it’s most base form, charter schools are merely another way to try to group by ability. That part I agree with. Until you get the powers that be to recognize that it doesn’t make sense having the future valedictorian sitting in the same class as a borderline retard, the public schools as we know them will continue to fail.

By Truth Filter

June 28, 2007 9:26 AM | Link to this

Sorry, folks, but the naysayers of charter schools on this blog have no idea what they are talking about.

Charter Schools — like all schools — are as good as the people who run them and the people who teach there. What Charter Schools CAN do is require parental involvement, which traiditional public schools can’t do. And, they can be more innovative because they aren’t bound by many of the school laws.

There are some charter schools showing amazing results. KIPP Acadmy in South Fulton, for instance, serves 100 percent minority students who are free/reduced lunch, but their test scores and academic achievement are excellent.

Yes, there are some bad charters, but don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater! Charter schools are a good option…

By mmm

June 28, 2007 9:42 AM | Link to this

I wish we would cease using “charter” as a noun and expecting all the associated political baggage to be part of the identity of the school.

“Chartering” is a verb that identifies a process of creation a new public school. The strength of the particular school is really about the mission and competence of the individuals involved. We should be able to close any school, public or private, which has no positive mission or competent staff.

By WhatWillBridgetDo?

June 28, 2007 11:21 AM | Link to this

So is Bridget an “education reporter” or a publicist for Atlanta Public Schools? First the puff piece on Carver, then this. But she continues to ignore FALSIFIED FEDERAL DOCUMENTS from South Atlanta High (they said they had no “major discipline incidents”, yet Atlanta police records show they were called to the school over fifty times!)

Bridget has also in her alledged role of “education reporter” ignored APS’s numerous and documented legal violations of state law O.C.G.A. 20-2-753 as well (which require administrators to set up a Tribunal hearing when a teacher alleges an assault by a student)

Also ignored by Bridget, are APS’s routine violations of O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.5 et seq. which allow teachers to file grievances over matters such as APS violating teachers’ rights in regard to Tribunal hearings.

At the end of this post is a letter from a union official documenting these issues. I know the union has sent similar documentation to the AJC in the past. I don’t expect most to plow through all of it but it’s posted for one reason. It shows that Bridget as a reporter, and the AJC as a newspaper have FAILED the public in regard to reporting on the city schools. And before Brigdet offers up some feeble response about “stories that we have covered” ask yourself WHY hasn’t she or the AJC followed up on the falsified discipline data at South Atlanta, and WHY haven’t you seen ANYTHING on APS not following state law when it comes to teachers being physically assaulted, and their rights to Tribunal hearings being trampled?

The story is is out there for anybody who wants to see it; the question is, What Will Bridget Do?

From www.theteachersadvocate.com Beverly Hall, Superintendent

Atlanta Public Schools

130 Trinity AVE, SW

Atlanta, GA 30303

Dear Superintendent Hall:

Enclosed is a copy of [name redacted]’s third grievance filed against Principal Patricia Wells at Carson Middle School. The first two grievances which [name redacted] filed against Principal Wells apparently evaporated into the Bankhead air. It appears that this third grievance has also thinly vaporized from Bankhead toward I-285 and Lowery Boulevard. [name redacted] tells me that she still has not received any response to this grievance. [Just yesterday, [name redacted] called in to tell us that Principal Wells sent him a letter about actually holding a Level One Hearing – Great! Progress! – but [name redacted] says that the letter arrived at his house on June 6, 2007, informing him that his hearing was on June 6, 2007. Hmm. Is there any hope for Carson Middle School?] I do not know Principal Wells. I would not recognize her if she were eating at the Busy Bee or at Paschal’s, but what I do recognize is the same lawless pattern for which Atlanta Public Schools (APS) is so egregiously known. APS is a law unto itself. Although the laws for the other school systems are passed and codified a couple blocks up the street from your palatial 8th floor office in the Taj Mahal, your fiefdom apparently does not bother itself with such mundane matters as the grievance law (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.5 et seq.) or the sick leave law (O.C.G.A. 20-2-850) or the duty-free lunch law (O.C.G.A. 20-2-218). I guess that you brought down to Georgia some of the mores which you may have exhibited during your tenure in New York, New Jersey, or, perhaps, Jamaica. It disheartens me to know that the school system whose logo is “Resurgens” has descended to such anarchic depths. On July 8th, 1999, I spoke at the board meeting when you were first introduced to the public. I welcomed you to Atlanta and told you that you thought that you were coming to Atlanta, but that, in reality, you were coming to Kosovo, Northern Nepal, North Korea, or Rwanda. (You can reread my comments on the MACE website by going to www.theteachersadvocate.com and perusing the contents of the Archive section.) In that article, I compared the Atlanta Board of Education members as vacationers enjoying a nice Bahamian cruise, sipping and enjoying umbrella-clad daiquiris – while there is all kind of chaos and confusion occurring down in the engine room. Water is gushing in from the Caribbean Sea, and the nice cruise ship is inexorably sinking while the poor, naïve “board members” blithely enjoy their sweet drinks and their vacuous chats on the top deck. If an uninitiated visitor appeared at one of Atlanta’s Board of Education meetings, he or she might be quite impressed. After all, the board members are so polite and chatty with one another and invariably give you unanimity in all your requests. (I presume that your colleagues at the National Superintendents Association are gleefully or, rather enviously, impressed that you “control your board.”) I presume that from watching the board members’ polite comportment that this same visitor would have no idea that sexual harassment lawsuits spring up from time to time, that teachers are beat up routinely (with the administration ignoring as usual the requirement to set up a Tribunal with the student whom the teacher alleges either assaulted or battered her as directed by O.C.G.A. 20-2-753), that cursing out a teacher is so routine that if a teacher complains to the administration that she does not think it appropriate that she is called a “b***” or “ho” on a regular basis by miscreant students whom the administration not only fails to discipline for such deviant behavior but will actually write up the teacher for poor management, put the teacher on a Professional Development Plan (PDP), and eventually give the teacher an unsatisfactory evaluation and a non-renewal of her contract. It is much easier to get rid of a teacher who expects a modicum of discipline from the students and at least a scintilla of support from his or her administration. Of course, your apparent self-perceived mission is to seal off any information of what really goes on in the schools from “your” board members. You can keep them happy with crushed iced water at the school board meetings, with snacks between the regular meetings and the executive session meetings, with color-coded, thick school board minutes, and, of course, with the many traveling perks. This appears to work swimmingly for you – just as it did for a time with Canada and your homeboy, J. J. All the millions which were never accounted for in the E-rate program can soon be forgotten – if some of the board members’ relatives are given jobs in the school system and some of the board members can eat enough meals at tony institutions such as the 191 Club. Oh, how far the 191 Club is from Carson Middle School! As far as the Piedmont Driving Club is from the Blue Flame Lounge! But, hey, I digress. MACE has attempted to turn your attention to the “gangsta” status of APS in various ways (letters, pickets, etc.), but then it dawns upon me that you are probably keenly aware of this dubious status since the buck is supposed to stop with you. In our 1996 magazine, we ran a front page article entitled “Teacher Abuse is Epidemic,” with an Atlanta middle school picket featured on the front page. In 1997, the front page headline article of The Teacher’s Advocate! was entitled “APS: Teaching in Hell!” In a photo on the front page of a picket at the old APS headquarters on 210 Pryor Street, one of our lawyers was holding a sign which stated, “Discipline is out of Control!” The next year, 1998, the front page headline was entitled “Chaos in Atlanta Schools!” We featured another MACE picket at the old APS headquarters on 210 Pryor Street with the late Rev. Hosea Williams and me in the photo leading the picket. In 1999, MACE had you featured on the front page of its magazine with “Dr. Hall, Welcome to Kosovo!” emblazoned across the top of the front page. MACE had a nice photo of you (I took that very flattering photo, I might add) with a caption reading, “Will Dr. Hall be more of the same?” There was a photo of me addressing the Atlanta school board with the caption, “How can the school board justify breaking the Georgia laws?” Well, I am here to report to you that you have not only been “more of the same,” but in many respects, you have been quite worse than your predecessors. In any event, for your edification – if you care to know how the law works and if you are not too lazy to read this – here is an explanation of how State law works as regards teachers filing formal complaints. MACE has attempted to resolve incidents between administrators and certificated teachers through the State-mandated grievance procedure (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.5 et seq.); however, the bureaucrats operating within APS have apparently decided to shoot down this process illegally rather than to abide by the mandates of the law and to allow the teachers to have a fair hearing – or, any hearing, for that matter! – and “resolve problems at the lowest possible organizational level with a minimum of conflict and formal proceedings so that good morale may be maintained, effective job performance may be enhanced, and the citizens of the community may be better served,” as the law requires (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.5[a]). The law requires local school boards “to implement a simple, expeditious, and fair process for resolving problems at the lowest administrative level” (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.5[b]). The grievance law, passed by the Georgia General Assembly and signed into effect by Governor Miller in 1992, states clearly that “the complainant shall be entitled to be heard, a right to present relevant evidence, and a right to examine witnesses at each level” (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.8[4]). The law also clearly states that all a complainant needs to do to initiate a complaint hearing is to put the request “in writing and [shall] clearly state the intent of the employee to access the complaints policy” (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.8[1]). The law further states that “a complainant shall not be the subject of any reprisal as a result of filing a complaint under this part” (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.8[11]). Another feature that you are no doubt aware of is the law’s requirement that the board of education, “when hearing an appeal from a prior level, shall hear the complaint de novo” (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.8[7]). A de novo hearing means that the board itself, not a tribunal composed of the administration’s handpicked flunkies, must hear the complaint. This Level III is not an appellate review of the evidence presented at Levels I and II; it is indeed a new hearing. That is the definition of a de novo hearing. The law requires the elected members of the board to hear this matter. This is the opinion of Lauren Buckland, Hearing Officer for the State Board of Education, and the opinion of Gary Wolovick, former Legal Counsel for the Georgia Department of Education (“Appeals Before the State Board of Education,” Institute of Continuing Legal Education School Law; Procedures and Practicality, June 18, 1993, p.4). This is the opinion of Matt Billips, the attorney who drafted the language of the grievance bill which was passed into law in 1992 (“Reply Brief In Opposition To Brief In Support of Fulton County Board’s Use Of Hearing Tribunal,” Before Hearing Officer Patrick W. McKee, March 2, 1993). The law is clear: A de novo hearing before the school board is required. A tribunal hearing is not permissible. This brings us to the last point that MACE will address on the grievance policy. The policy states: “Nothing in this part [law] shall be construed to prevent a local unit of administration [defined earlier as a local board of education] from adopting supplementary rules and policies not inconsistent with this part [law] that grant additional substantive and procedural rights to the complainant with respect to this part [law]” (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.9). At MACE, we have always attempted to abide by the letter of the law and to inform aggrieved teachers to do the same. We have always informed teachers of the law and their rights under the law. We have encouraged aggrieved teachers to file a complaint under the State-mandated grievance/complaints law and to try to resolve the problems, as the law says, “at the lowest possible organizational level with a minimum of conflict and formal proceedings so that good morale may be maintained, effective job performance may be enhanced, and the citizens of the community may be better served.” When one of our teacher-members, however, files a grievance in writing and states the statute, policy, rule, regulation, or written agreement which, according to the teacher, has been violated, misinterpreted, or misapplied, the bureaucrats (or, educrats) in APS, start playing bureaucracy and firing off letters to the teachers, telling them that they have not provided “enough details” for their grievances to be processed, if they even respond at all. [Incidentally, APS added an illegal fourth level to the grievance process, thus adding an obstacle for the teacher having his or her complaint heard by the school board.] The bureaucrats keep dragging their heels, keep requesting more information, and keep making rulings on the pleadings which is against the law. Remember: The process is mandated to be simple (translated: the teachers do not need to be lawyers), expeditions (translated: quick, not tendentious), and fair (translated: certainly not tilted toward defending the administration!). Also, if the law says that teachers need only to (1) state in writing that they are accessing the grievance process and (2) cite the alleged rule, policy, etc., violation, misinterpretation, and/or misapplication, then any additional burden that the bureaucrats impose on the teachers is a violation of that law’s provision which clearly and unequivocally states that any additional features of a local school board’s grievance policy (additional to the State’s minimum requirements) must “grant additional substantive and procedural rights to the complainant,” not to the administration (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.9). There is not a provision in the law which states that if a teacher’s grievance representative consistently and thoroughly exposes the egregious mechanizations and manipulative, retributive, and punitive undertakings of the teacher’s administrator, then the school system’s bureaucrats have a free hand to violate the law and refuse to process the grievances wherein the administrators may be proven to be unprofessional and unethical. Remember: Teachers, by law, have a right “to be heard, to present relevant evidence, and to examine witnesses at each level” (O.C.G.A. 20-2-989.8[4]). As you probably realize by now, MACE will always fight vigorously for its teachers-members. Every time educrats refuse to process a grievance, MACE ends up picketing at the school or at the school system’s administrative office or at school board meetings. MACE is going to expose the cavalier violations of the law. MACE is not going to shut up. MACE will continue to agitate and irritate until the educrats decide that they will act like civil adults and will sit down at a level table and discuss the complaint that a teacher brings, alleging a violation, misinterpretation, or misapplication of a statute, policy, rule, regulation, or written agreement. MACE would think that educrats would be eager to know such information, but it pains MACE to realize that the truth of the matter is that APS bureaucrats basically have fortress mentalities – wherein they do not want to be disturbed by the realities of what is really happening beyond their walls. It is as if they are really afraid of the truth, and, anyone who disturbs their cute and convenient notion (especially after it has been spoon-fed to the school board members) of what is really happening in the schools is really “radical” and should not be listened to. Meanwhile, the educrats keep drawing their huge salaries (and benefits to boot!) and the children keep suffering.

Respectfully:

John R. A. Trotter, Ed.D.,J.D.

Chairman

Copy: J. Anderson Ramay, Jr., Esq., MACE Members, Board of Education, APS Members, Board of Education, State of Georgia Cheryl Freeman, Employee Relations Officer, APS Patricia Wells, Principal, Carson Middle School, APS Kathy Cox, State Superintendent of Schools Sonny Perdue, Governor Glenn Richardson, Speaker of the House Thurbert Baker, Attorney General Floyd Toth, Executive Secretary, PSCls

By Snarky

June 28, 2007 5:45 PM | Link to this

Hey Whatwill…

Nice Unabomber manifesto. Paragraphs are our friend! Try them.

Snarky

By WhatWillBridgetDo?

June 28, 2007 6:29 PM | Link to this

Snarky,

I DID use paragraphs in my comments. But I see your point about what I attached at the end. (I merely added it to document how Bridget and the AJC have failed their readers)

I don’t expect Bridget to come on here and explain why the AJC has ignored these stories (because A] it’s inexcusable and B] I’m sure she wants to keep her job) but at the very least she could tell us where reporters go to blog so we could get the FULL story.