Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Friday, May 19, 2006
Saving old schools
Jean Booker climbed the concrete front stairs of Jefferson Elementary School for the first day of kindergarten in 1931, beginning a remarkable 62-year journey through Dayton schools as student, teacher, principal, administrator and school board member.
At my urging, that trek ended where it began when we met in front of Jefferson on her last week as a school board member in December of 1999. I had this idea to interview her back where it all began, but even I was amazed as Booker, then 73, led me through the school to the very room where she first sat down at a desk to learn, rattling of intricate details of what it was like then and who was there.
She remember her teacher’s name, what she wore, what part of the room she stood in when she recited from the book. Most remarkable, Booker rattled off the names of all her classmates and pointed to where they all sat. Her descriptions of what school was like in her day were a real history lesson. Here’s just a small taste from the story I wrote:
“…she got her diploma from Roosevelt High School on June 7, 1944, the day after the Allies invaded France on D-Day in World War II. “I remember the faculty on the stage were all crying because so many of the boys were over there,” she said.
Booker went on to teach for 18 years at Roosevelt, the school that I’ve been writing about for the past week as school officials decided and finally announced yesterday they would tear it down and replace it with a new school bearing the Roosevelt name.
After two years of agonizing about what to do with the 83-year-old Dayton landmark, the school board ultimately decided not to preserve it in one of the most difficult decisions I’ve seen board members make in seven years covering Dayton Public Schools.
The core question with Roosevelt, and with many old schools today, is when are they important enough to save rather than raze in favor of more modern schools? I have a three-step test for evaluating a school’s significance while keeping sentimentality in check that I thought we could try out on Roosevelt today.
One of the tricky problems in judging the value of an old school is the question of its historical significance. It’s the first thing everyone says when an old school is targeted for replacement — that the school is “historic.” Most of the time, schools are not truly historic places in the sense that they played a direct role in history — such as a history book event actually happened there. But occasionally school buildings are key sites in the history of a city or area.
What’s more common is that old schools have what I call “emotional significance.” That is, the school played no actual historical role, but was so deeply ingrained in the life of the community that sustaining it has real value to a large number of people.
Many buildings are emotionally significant to small numbers of people. For instance, few of us would like to see the houses we grew up in torn down. But not all schools engender this feeling for large numbers — a school with widespread emotional significance isn’t as common as you might think. It’s most often found in particularly close-knit communities.
Finally, there’s architectural significance. This is a little out of my league, since I’m no expert on architecture. But unique designs or buildings that evoke the history or peculiarities of a place are worth saving.
So let’s run Roosevelt through the test.
Historical significance
Did Roosevelt play a direct role in history? I think all sides agree that you could make a strong case that it did for Dayton.
When Roosevelt opened, it’s 300,000 square foot size was huge on an almost unheard of scale. On its first day in 1923, the school was one of the very largest in the country.
And as Dayton, and America, changed, Roosevelt’s experience almost perfectly tracked some of the most important changes. For instance, the school was all white when it opened in a white neighborhood on West Third Street. But by 1950s, demographics had begun to change and a third of the students were black. School leaders struggled with the new reality, initially separating kids by race for activities like swimming and sports until after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
Even so, black and white students from that era say they forged friendships across racial lines. And many of Dayton’s future leaders say their views of race relations were shaped by both good and bad experiences at Roosevelt High School. Eventually the school, like the school district, became majority black before it closed in 1975.
(Note: Is it a little ironic that Roosevelt, a name that came to represent painful integration that ultimately conquered racial segregation, will be the name of an all-boys school — segregated by gender — in the future?)
Emotional significance
My colleague Ben Kline tells my a story that perhaps best sums up the kind of impact Roosevelt’s looming shadow had on many lives in the west Dayton neighborhood where it sits. He has a friend, August Brunsman, who still recalls the day the school opened. Brunsman told Ben he remembers the school cost $1 million to build, a huge sum in 1923. Throughout his life, anytime the figure $1 million came up, he thought of Roosevelt. “Roosevelt was my first concept of what a million dollars looked like,” he told Ben.
I know there are strong emotional ties to the school for both folks who grew up in the neighborhood and from those who attended Roosevelt. Although I am a bit surprised that there hasn’t been more community reaction to the talk of tearing down Roosevelt. School board President Gail Littlejohn told me yesterday she’s gotten more phone calls in favor of a new school at that site than opposed to tearing Roosevelt down.
Architectural significance
While I’m certainly not qualified to judge Roosevelt’s architectural value, I don’t think there’s any debate that the school is a marvel. The uniqueness of the building for its time alone is probably enough to qualify as architecturally important. And its detail and sturdiness are a testament to the hand-crafted artisanship of the builders of its era.
The bottom line is that Roosevelt does seem to be a rare school in that you can make a pretty good case for its significance on all three measures. I’m not usually sentimental about schools. I think too often schools aren’t upgraded or replaced because people get emotional about keeping them the same as they once were. And in the meantime, today’s kids can suffer in poor learning environments. But in this case, it’s hard to argue with those who want to preserve the school.
Does that mean the board is making the wrong decision? That depends on your perspective. Board members argue that at least their approach is a sure bet to bring revitalization to a neighborhood that desperately needs a break. That’s why I’ve said all along this is a tough, tough call.
What would you do if you were on the school board?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools, My Favorite Posts
Charters not following the law?
A coalition of charter school critics, led by the Ohio Federation of Teachers, has released a new study of Ohio charter schools and how they comply with state laws. Here’s their summary. Let me know what you think::
Although charter schools are defined by Ohio law as public schools, those operated by educational management companies claim their teachers are not public employees. Charter schools are required to have independent, non-profit boards, yet boards assembled by management companies exercise little independent oversight.
A new study of the four largest charter school chains provides new evidence that many Ohio charter schools do not operate as public schools, contrary to state law. The research, conducted by the Braddock Organization, reveals that charter schools are tightly controlled by their management companies, which prefer secrecy over public accountability.
The research refutes assertions by a charter school attorney in oral arguments before the Ohio Supreme Court. On Nov. 29, 2005, Chad Readler of the Jones, Day law firm, told the Court that charter schools “…carry every indicia of a public entity.� (*Transcript of Nov. 29, 2005, Ohio Supreme Court hearing on Case 2004-1688, Ohio Congress of Parents and Teachers v. State of Ohio Board of Education et al.)
But, charter schools operated by National Heritage Academies, the Leona Group, Summit Academy Management and White Hat Management (the largest operators of charter schools in Ohio) refused to provide public information when requested by Braddock. All but 2 responses to 71 public information requests came from management company officials or attorneys, not the charter schools themselves. All consistently declined to provide contracts of teachers employed at the schools. Each said the teachers are employees of the private management company and not public employees of the schools themselves. Therefore, they responded, information about the teachers’ contracts is private.
One board member also noted in his response that contracts of teachers employed at the school are unavailable even to its board members.
Yet, the schools make contributions to the State Teachers Retirement System (STRS), a pension fund for public school teachers, in apparent contradiction to these claims.
The Ohio Supreme Court recently ruled on a similar public records issue. On April 6, the Court ruled that the records of private or nonprofit entities are public when the services they provide are the traditional province of government and financed with public money. The ruling was made in a case that dealt with the public records of Oriana House, which operates private corrections facilities funded by public tax dollars.
Private management companies will receive a majority of the nearly half billion tax dollars the state pays to charter schools this year.
In an effort to determine whether charter school boards exercise meaningful oversight of the schools, Braddock researchers requested minutes for charter school board meetings held in 2005. The documents provided reveal a pattern of boards assembled and controlled by management companies rather than by independent boards.
The Leona Group
The Leona Group’s chain of charter schools includes 6 in Ohio that enroll 1,027 students. Contrary to the requirement that each charter school be run independently, one superboard controls operations for all of Leona’s charter schools in Ohio. This superboard conducted business jointly for all of Leona’s charters in one session, including the 6 currently open for business and 3 more that are in the planning stages.
Summit Academy Management
Summit Academy Management’s chain of charter schools includes 19 in Ohio that enroll 2,250 students. Contrary to the requirement that each charter school be run independently, one superboard also controlled operations for all Ohio charters run by Summit Academy Management. Unlike Leona’s joint session for all charters, Summit’s superboard appears to have convened and adjourned each charter’s business, holding several meetings in succession on the same day.
National Heritage Academies
National Heritage Academies’ chain of charter schools includes 9 in Ohio that enroll 3,510 students. Contrary to the requirement that each charter school be run independently, National Heritage charter board members overlap, with the same group of people conducting business for multiple National Heritage charter schools. Several board members appear to be interchangeable, serving on multiple boards for short stints throughout the year.
White Hat Management
White Hat Management’s chain of charter schools includes 34 in Ohio that enroll 16,000 students. White Hat runs one superboard and several smaller groups of people who serve on the boards of multiple White Hat charter schools. More than half of White Hat’s charter school board members serve on the boards of multiple schools. Three members serve on 18 different White Hat charter school boards, one member serves on 17 different White Hat charter school boards, one serves on 10 different boards, and three serve on 9 different White Hat charter school boards. Eighteen members serve on 2, 3 or 4 different White Hat charter school boards.
“It’s clear the public has no voice in these schools,� said Tom Mooney, chairman of the coalition, commenting on Braddock’s findings. “No one but the company CEO has any say.�
PTA Executive Director Barbara Sprague said, “Charter schools were called community schools in Ohio to signify that they would establish closer ties to the parents and community. They were to be less bureaucratic and more autonomous than traditional public schools. But these schools are just the opposite. Board members represent the management companies, not the community or parents.�
“The central concern of the League of Women Voters of Ohio about community schools continues to be accountability to the tax-paying public,” said Carol Gibson, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Ohio.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
