Will MoCo Follow NYC Steps to Ensure Free Public Education?

A few weeks back on this blog, I wrote about my disappointment with the NYC school Chancellor Joel Klein who apparently let parents and PTSAs fund additional teacher aides in the classroom. The net impact of this practice was that school communities that could afford to pay for extra staff could bypass the Unions, the budget process, the screening and training requirements, and bring in whoever they wanted. Some schools advertised these positions on Craigslist.

NYC has now had a change of heart - after a complaint by the United Federation of Teachers, the teachers union that has, in the past, exercised its great powers to bring the city school system to its knees. Anyone else out there remember the 1968 teachers strike when Al Shanker and his troops kept schools closed until almost Thanksgiving?

Today, the NY Times reveals that Mayor Bloomberg directed an end to this practice. According to the Times:

Principals have been told that any such aides hired for the coming school year must be employees of the Department of Education, their positions included in official school budgets. . .
Supplemental fund-raising from parent groups has long raised questions of fairness. While the ability to provide extras — teaching assistants, books, computers and art supplies, enrichment programs — has helped keep middle-class families in urban public schools, it also can make it more difficult for schools in poor neighborhoods to compete.
And education officials and union leaders say that the informal system of hiring teaching assistants that has sprouted up over the past decade raised security concerns because it was not necessarily subject to the city’s screening process. “It’s hurting our union members, and to some extent it could be hurting kids because we don’t know how qualified they are,” said Ron Davis, a spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers, which filed a grievance in October about the hiring.

On July 21, 2009, the Montgomery County Board of Education's Policy Committee meets to discuss the issue of curricular fees in Montgomery County Public Schools. Despite the state law that, like the law in NYC, guarantees a free public education for students, here in MoCo we have been subject to a policy that allows those who can pay supplement their children's education. Thanks to MCCPTA (look for course related fees items) we already have a preview of what the policy may look like. For example, in high schools:

5. Will fees be the same throughout the county?
Response: Designated courses will have a maximum fee amount that may be charged (not to exceed the actual cost of the item). Schools will have the option of not charging any fee or charging up to the maximum fee amount allowed for a designated course. This enables school administrators and school leadership the autonomy to align their resources based on individual instructional programs and needs of each school.

And, more importantly, the Policy Committee agenda only provides 20 minutes for discussion of this item. And of course, the materials are not linked to the meeting agenda.

Can taxpayers in MoCo count on its school leadership to follow NYC's example and take a stand in favor of free public education?

Check back here for my next post - after the meeting.

School Fees and Union Busting

I admit - I am no longer enamoured of Joel Klein, NYC Chancellor of Schools.

Last fall, while we were fighting to enforce our rights to a free public education in Maryland, through our battle to eliminate school fees for textbooks and gym towels, NYC schools were faced with a similar dilemma.

However, like everything else in the Big Apple, its on a much larger scale, as indicated in this article from the New York Post. From the article:

The powerhouse parent groups boldly solicit donations - some accept credit cards and PayPal online - to bypass Department of Education rules, a Post investigation found. The PTAs advertise on Craigslist or at colleges and put $12-an-hour assistant teachers on their own payrolls - violating DOE policies and skirting union pay and benefit scales.

In the article, some parents admit that paying upwards of $500 as a fee to send their kids to these schools is a bargain compared to private schools - especially in NYC. Read further and you will see that under Mr. Klein's tenure - where smaller schools are often co-housed in the same building, one school may raise significant funding, while the other occupants? Too bad, how sad.

What is really striking about this piece is that the practice bypasses the unions and the hiring system in the school system. Advertising on Craigslist for a teachers aide? I am a product of the NYC public school system and grew up with a parent who toiled away at a NYC Title I school and still proudly carries her UFT card.

Am I disappointed.

First, with the Unions for putting up with this practice without a fight.

Second, for lawyer turned school system administrator Klein, who so conveniently forgets that it is his obligation to oversee the largest school district with a free public education.

And, most of all, with the residents of NY - who tolerate this practice.

Equity and a free public education are obviously far from reality in New York City.

This makes our PTSAs with their budgets in the $40,000 range look very modest.

Chatting with the Chancellors

Tonight I had the privilege of attending a program titled, "Can the New York City School System Serve as a Model for DC?" I was initially leery about attending - was it worth my time to brave the rainy rush hour traffic to attend a presentation where I'd have to pass through a metal detector to hear more eduspeak?

Absolutely.

The discussion with New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and DC Public Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was the best presentation on K-12 education I have heard in a long while. I've lived in DC, Maryland, and NYC, and moved to Maryland because of the schools. DC and NY may have more educational challenges, and, like MoCo, their educational leadership certainly has its share of detractors.

With the exception of the metal detectors, Bell HS is like your average MoCo school - no soap in the bathrooms, posters on the wall. The auditorium looked like Blair's.

But - the first noticeable difference was that the audience wasn't packed with school staff members with matching notebooks. Listening to the folks around me, I heard a variety of voices - some were in the educational world, others were members of the organizations sponsoring the talks, while others, like me, were somewhat tangentially related.

Second - no canned presentation by Ms. Rhee or Mr. Klein. The moderator, an educational consultant, opened up discussions with a few questions to the panelists, and both responded - without power points or notes.

Then the presentation was opened up for questions from the floor. Not the fill in your index card and we'll select the ones we think are appropriate variety of questions, prescreened or planted, but actual questions from the floor. Anyone who wanted to ask a question simply got on line and waited their turn.

So - what is my takeaway from tonight's talk?

We may have a school system that has fewer challenges than these districts, but what NY and DC have and what we lack in MoCo is a focus on the kids in the schools.

Here are some of the more memorable discussions from my notes. I wish I had a tape recorder, or could type faster, or a larger piece of paper on which to scribble, but here goes. Apologies in advance for any transcriptional or misquotes.

Mr. Klein talked about organizations that don't insist on accountability fall into disrepair and are nonperforming; accountability must be at every level with transparency. He also mentioned trimming the bureaucracy - if a position doesn't contribute to the kids, get rid of the position and move the money back to the schools. His goal is not a great school system but a system comprised of great schools.

From Ms. Rhee - the main resource is time. Three necessary elements of a strong program are human capital, choice, and a better infrastructure as measured by accurate data and good decision making. Mr. Klein added that mayoral control is also essential. Does this mean they welcome oversight?

Ms. Rhee also discussed that it was not merely enough to have programs like IB or Montessori unless these programs were implemented with fidelity. No "mini" or sounds like programs are on her agenda - do the real thing so parents and students get what is advertised.

Both stated that the status quo is probably their biggest obstacle in improving the school system and getting the students to minimal competency to meet the challenges of the future.

Ms. Rhee and Mr. Klein actually go and sit down with teachers and students. Genuine, authentic conversations, on a regular basis, sometimes with the press in the room, but not with the intent of a soundbite for the next day's paper.

And, at the end of the program, when the moderator wanted to cut short the questions to give the speakers time for closing thoughts, Mr. Klein cut in to say that he'd rather continue with the questions, since the folks had stood on line very patiently.

Wow.

Tangible results in the DC and NY City schools may not be apparent for a few years because change takes time. However, if I were sitting on a panel selecting a new superintendent for my kids school district, I would select the applicant who actually sits down and talks with kids on a regular basis.

This event was also covered on the Washington Post's Blog D.C. Wire: Rhee and Klein Talk Reform