On another post Anonymous wrote:
http://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/editorials/2013/12/28/Wilkinsburg-s-woes/stories/201312270069ions
The
P-G is now advocating TFA for the Wilkinsburg School District. The P-G
states that, "the Pittsburgh School Board unwisely rejected" TFA. Also
that Wilkinsburg would "provide a good local test of how TFA would
really perform." That would be really interesting to see
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46 comments:
In 1994 they brought in a "for profit company" to run Turner Elementary-- it was a disaster. Even then some in PPS were being lured by the $$, so Wilkinsburg saved us from going down the dark road.
Terms like "snake oil salesmen" and "robber barons" arent even close to how bad the venture philanthropists trying to kill public education and steal from children.
The saddest truth is that those mentioned in !:23 have been treacherously successful in Pittsburgh Public Schools. Whether it is being done, supposedly, at no cost or at EXORBITANT cost, the results have had a diabolical effect on student outcomes.
1994 to 2014 (twenty years) of holding children hostage with extortionist tactics and unfulfilled promises. And the beat goes on in Pittsburgh and Wilkinsburg with the powers-that-be in silent acquiescence.
Really, the PG Editorial Board should come clean on who dictates to them what to write. It is not even financially viable for TFA to come in and set up an office in Pittsburgh just to staff 2 positions in Wilkinsburg--a task that will net them about $10,000. Why would TFA do this? Just to get into Pittsburgh with the hooey that once here other districts will pay to work with them? That's a lot of maybe on which to base a strategy for bringing a business office into existence for TFA here. Also, it is less than transparent to assume emergency certifications are shocking. One should not assume this is an unusual or recent strategy of school districts throughout PA and the country as a whole. Most of your reformers, including TFA and Broads wouldn't even be in public education without those loopholes, including Arne Duncan who has absolutely no formal training as an educator beyond playing pick up basketball at his mother's after school center. Emergency certs are being given in schools and districts everywhere, including emergency certs for TFAs, who be definition are not yet certified when they renter a classroom, (Note: replacing uncertified staff with uncertified staff does not make a bad situation better.) to staff hard to fill positions or to put people with no qualifications into leadership tokes in districts. Pittsburgh Public's own leaders, including Roosevelt as well as much more respected leaders like Johnson Martin, had emergency certs granted to them so they could move into and administer areas they didn't train for and weren't certified in. Roosevelt had zero education beyond a few weekends with Broad to support his superintendent work and Johnson Martin was an elementary principal for years before the district pulled him to run CTE. Dara Allen is not certified at all in any student services area, for example, and is Chief of Student Services. Her Ph.D. Is in workforce development, not any type of social service or mental health or behavioral health discipline. She and her predecessor, Jan Ripper, who was a CTE Home Ec teacher, had state emergency certs, which are granted by the PDE at no cost, unlike TFA's $5,000 per candidate finding fee, which does not provide cert or emergency cert guarantees of candidates placed. TFA is not needed for emergency certs to be granted and doesn't necessarily provide more qualified candidates in instructing a given discipline even if the candidates did major in the discipline they are teaching. TFA has had many incidents where candidates who majored in the discipline they were teaching had to be pulled back out of the classroom because of the candidates' extreme incompetence and the harm they were doing to children. Sounds like Wilkinsburg doesn't have a very functional HR department and a safe schools problem. Those things won't be solved by TFA. Why not fix those problems immediately? Bet you could if you tried instead of running to the paper. Why is the PG so intent on promoting TFA? Is PG now a marketing/ad agency instead of a critical eye/critical thinking Thursday party observer? There's really no examination evident in this piece, just a heavy marketing message to take a simple solution that is sitting in front of you just because it's there. It is very disappointing that Pittsburgh as a major urban center cannot evidence a higher level of functional debate and reasoning in one of its major papers like the level of debate we see in the major papers of other cities--Chicago, NYC, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami. Time to grow up PG and stop writing like a high school newspaper. The University of Pittsburgh's Editorial Board and CMU's as well consistently show better reasoned and stimulating arguments than you do. Very disappointing. Pittsburgh, why do you hate your children and families so much that you stand for this terribly opportunistic behavior among your community leaders? Very disappointing.
How would Wilkinsburg be able to hire from tfa anyway, if its contract with existing teachers requires it to first hire back furloughed teachers whether or not they are certified in the area of need? And has Wilkinsburg done enough to encourage existing and furloughed teachers to go back and obtain certification in the areas of greatest need?
Cate Reed will end up back in Pittsburgh yet...
4:25 Contract or not, it wasn't going to stop TFA in PPS.
Why? The contract stopped the plan for new hires for the teachers center; how can Pps ignore its contract?
Looks like the foundations are the ones that want to bring TFA into the city. Since the foundations now are paying for Peduto's hiring arm for the city, too, they are even more powerful. But they're not publicly accountable. This is a problem. All discussions become private instead of public. Foundation officers are not elected officials and should not be making or forcing governmental decisions behind the scenes. But it looks like that is what they are doing.
4:28 She never left....
Something is definitely fishy at the PG. The last editorial calling the new school board "preposterous" for rescinding the deal with TFA made it clear that the PG is just a mouthpiece for Lane and the Gates/ Broad agenda. Now they are not only suggesting sending TFA to Wilkinsburg, but having to get a little dig in by referring to the "unwise" desicion that was made by PPS. I can't really believe there is a person on the PG staff who is so in love with TFA to continue writing editorials promoting their working in area schools. Someone at the PG has a personal or financial stake in this.
A little off topic, but I found it truly twisted that Tarka had the nerve to write a letter to the PG praising the new board's decision regarding TFA. Really, John Tarka, REALLY??!!! Your love affair with Roosevelt along with your desire to promote your "progressive" image of a union president working alongside a superintendent got us all into this mess. The man who sold us down the river to Bill Gates, Eli Broads, and TFA can now praise the board for reversing this decision. Really unbelievable!
TFA should not even exist. I am a PPS teacher who has worked in many " hard to staff schools". They were hard to staff because the people in charge were incompetent. If a school is "hard to staff" there is a valid reason that needs to be addressed. It is a leadership problem.
Aspiring young investigative reporter could establish an extraordinary national reputation by taking on the decline of Pittsburgh Public Schools over the last eight years. What a web has been woven here with threads leading to very powerful 'leaders' and foundations that have practiced to deceive with the victims the most vulnerable among us, the children.
Thank you 4:07! Your background, your experience, your research, your depth of understanding so adeptly share has enlightened readers here with details not previously a part of this narrative on the corruption of education in PPS and other failing systems that have become deep pockets passing out free money on the backs of innocent children.
I also felt sickened when I read the letter in the PPG from John. Tarka How does he have the nerve to discuss anything in this district when he betrayed his union. If a teacher spoke up against any of the things he and the union were doing with Roosevelt, they cut you dead and would not help when you requested it.
Also how does Dara Allen still seem to be in the mix. I thought she lost her seat on the board. Who is always pushing her forward?
Retired Teacher and City Taxpayer.
I resolve in 2014 to get more parents to read this blog.
A question on certifications, if anyone obtains an emergency certification, aren't they required to get a permanent certification within a specific amount of time by completing the necessary work to become certified? Or, do certifications come in Cracker Jack boxes? Sorry to be flip, but back in '04 when NCLB was new, I know that is how certifications were explained to us.
Sorry to say, I can't support a TFA program because it is just one more thing thrown at the wall to see if it will stick and work.
Dara Allen moved from volunteer status as a Board Member to $120,000+ salary status as Assistant Superintendent. That is no small "push forward" for another PPS executive who received a "waiver" for the PA certification requirements.
Hi parent and parent friends--
Glad you are gathering others to come here. Yes, and emergency certification is temporary-unlike TFA -- they are often given to those who have full teaching degrees (i.e. interned with an experienced teacher). These people are career-changing within education. This isnt just a PPS thing. It was very common when many suburban districts got rid of "manual arts", home ec, and "business machines." Teachers took a study sabbatical, and retooled in a field that their district needed-- that way they kept their earned seniority. They were experienced teachers who simply ADDED to their certification. There was no big corporation involved. This is actually how the last round of furloughs got extra complicated-- many teachers are certified in fields that they had not been working in, during the past few years.
Keep asking questions, parents!
Talking about emergency certificates, let's be sure to include Allison McCarthy in the mix. Even though other qualified candidates applied for this curriculum position, they were sent on their merry way and she was granted an emergency certificate. Just another one of Jerri's girls and I'm betting the list will continue to grow. Is this new board paying attention to the why's and how's of these appointments?
As for Daria Allen, she is not qualified to be in charge of Student Services. Why are these high paying administrative positions being offered to person's who lack the proper credentials and experience to serve in these capacities? No wonder why PPS is in the mess it's in!
The story of what happened here 2005-present is astounding. I believe it will be told by a national news entity. This be so because no city bought into the Broad model to the extent, or length of time as Pittsburgh. Washington DC, San Diego, and other cities woke up quickly.
Many individuals, media outlets and institutions were either culpable or silent. The disasterous results are clear by any
measure utilized. District Broke, Schools still being closed(no strategy), the destruction of our base of experinced teachers and principals that will take a decade to rebuild,IF it can be rebuilt. Mark Roosevelt said it all when I question the appointment of someone who had not been a school for 25 years---"I am not a credentialist".
Mr. Taylor,
How do we get the story out there. I don't think it is too late, but we are running out of time. I am a teacher in my tenth year with the district. I started with a job I loved that evolved into something horrific. Teachers are being asked to do a job that is not humanly possible. Students are constantly being tested. We cannot possibly use the amount of data we are being asked to collect. Our students are coming to us and leaving us less prepared each year. Teachers are leaving in droves, and most of the ones who remain are on psychiatric medication (and I am not trying to be funny) Under PELA leadership, there is no discipline in schools. If teachers write a referral for student behavior they are put under a microscope. The students are suffering and scores are going down. I believe they are hiring board administrators with no educational background so they will not question the ridiculous things they are doing over at Bellefield. I feel hopeless as a teacher. I love my students and they need me but my mental and physical health is in danger in this sick environment that has been created under Roosevelt and Lane. We are forced constantly to do things not in the best interest of the chikdren we supposedly serve. We are forced to cover up horrible things that happen to children in our schools in the name of PR. Who can help us? To speak up is to put a target on your back and the union will not fight for us if it means ruffling too many board feathers. Who will help the students and teachers of Pittsburgh?
There have been many, many presentations given Alison McCarthy about a variety of initiatives in PPS.
The problem is she doesn't know anything about what she is presenting. The presentations are so full of errors and misinformation that you have to just shake you head in disbelief. Apparently no one else at Central Office knows the difference since she continues to do this. It is embarrassing which is the case at most presentations by CO administration. You can't help but wonder where they get their information or do they just make it up as they go?
Back to Wilkinsburg and hard to staff schools. I too taught in one of the most challenging schools in the district, but I had support from administration. If a child acted up in my class I knew that I could send them out to cool off without suffering repercussions. The result was that all I had to do was give students the choice between settling down in my room or going to an administrator and they always chose to get control of themselves and stay in my room. They did not want to have a heart to heart with a V.P. or dean. Bring back discipline, support teachers who want to teach, forget about these tourist teachers from TFA who get far more out of the experience than the children they are supposedly there to help.
Could part of the staffing problem be teachers having a sense that they are not safe going to and from certain school buildings, a problem that proposed security cuts would only worsen?
Racism is raising its ugly head again!
The way you feel about people (and yes they know it instinctively) makes you safe or unsafe even in the areas that some feel are "dangerous." They are not "dangerous" if those in that area know that you have their best interests at heart.
No most of us drove all over the city,, felt safe etc. 4:49 nailed it. Some students are really disturbed and being told that trying to remove them from the situation so they can regroup and other can learn is the wrong technique is just wrong for all students. Because no matter how well you deal with an incident-- you are still focusing on ONE student to the detriment of the others. It is just a fact.
And there isnt a feeling of safety among the other students when they have to again sit through a student who needs to act out. They know they should be getting the teacher's attention too!
Most of the innocent victims are African American; and, staff members expressing concern include African Americans. Better security for all couldn't hurt.
Sorry, its not more security that will solve the problems that anyone could cite in isolation. It is just NOT a FACT. Fear creates more problem than it solves!
Fear-stricken folks need to stay OUT of places that they fear to be IN.
They seem to be doing just that, resulting in unfilled positions.
Keep speaking Mr. Taylor,
The truth will come out. It will be news story or a college thesis. The Broad exeperiment must be studied.
I would have to agree that fearful teachers and fearful administrators (which many PELAs are -- afraid of both the students and the administration) are a problem. The schools have been safe in the past (and I hope they will be again).
The neighborhoods may not be safe for the children who live there, but the great majority of teachers used to feel safe in their buildings and parking lots and safe in that there was a reasonable person who understood discipline running the school.
Removing that latter bit of safety has made everyone feel less safe in the schools. Students, as much as teachers, rely on, act better, and learn better when there are going to be effective limits on their behavior.
There are not effective limits at most schools anymore.
I would say that even in this situation teachers fear far more for their own mental health than for their physical safety and rightly so.
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/10131081?trk=rj_em&_mSplash=1
If you want to get the story out there, then do it yourself. Go ahead an release an E Book. Put it up on Amazon and as a PDF. it would make a bit of a splash if you gather some PR.
Should we read anything into the linkedin job posting still being up on the site? The whole TFA situation reminded me of the Schenley closing, (pause here for a groan coming from the admin building at the mention of Schenley). Only TFA was not approved while the opposition to the closing was unsuccessful in keeping the school open.
Most initiatives get surprisingly little reaction. When there is an outpouring in opposition the administration would do best to listen to the community (Schenley, Burgwin, TFA, 7:10 start times).
Add single gender academies to the list.
Add going all-in to yellow buses and moving away from Port Authority.
What's wrong with port authority? It gives kids the opportunity to come and go to practices, clubs, etc whenever they need to be there. And, a missed bus doesn't have to mean an entire missed day.
Yellow busses were used as activity busses. They were much better than Port authority. They took students closer to home than a PAT bus would. Missing a yellow bus does not mean the student has to miss a day of school. He/she can still catch a PAT bus at own expense, or walk. Missing a bus is still not a legal excuse to missing a day of school. And while we were talking about TFA and Wilkinsburg, an earlier post mentioned the Turner school. That was Jeremy Resnick's company. His mother was Judith Resnick from Pitt's LRC. I wonder if she has anything to do with all this mess? Just sayin'
Outpouring of negative reactions come with GRADES 6-12 in same building too, IMNSHO.
At the facitirs study public meetings there were more comments against 6-12 than anything. They will probably be undone eventually just like the ALA's.
Randall you hit the nail on the head. So many quality principals and teachers have exited well before their time. These professionals refused to carry the current administrations torch to no where. Our schools my not have been perfect but for the most part they were safe and led by competent leaders. We seasoned teachers designed lessons filled with strategies that assisted students. As for me, I had to retire. As a professional for 30+ years, I refused to use a canned curriculum that lacked creativity and the ability to motivate students to learn. Same old, same old methodology every day. Even I was bored! The last straw for me was when my principal retired and was replaced by a PELA. The students no longer towed the line and as much as the new principal thought he/she was doing a great job, we veterans quickly understood that we had lost an exceptional leader.
TFA may be off the table for PPS. But what remains is the inordinate number of consultants getting rich through lucrative contracts with PPS. Neguero's group at Perry actually hired, with contract funding, Dr. Michael Quigley who is a former Oliver teacher. He is to work with Perry. So money spent for nationally recognized help from Neguero is being provided by someone local. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to hire him directly? and what are they doing at Perry? they were paid for a whole year last year with no accountability for any results, or at least none that as been shown torrents. Unlike teachers there who failed to produce and were escorted out (one of the teachers who cared most on my opinion), Negueros group just keeps collecting a paycheck. Now there is rumor of a new branch of Perry which will be an isolated pair of classrooms where the most misbehaved students will be educated by a group of teachers. I would be willing to bet my non existent paycheck that most of these children will be of color. Another racist and segregated program that will increase the class sizes for everyone else as these chosen teachers will be reassigned to these classrooms while their students are reassigned to existing overcrowded classes.
Crenshaw saw the writing on the wall with this group and rightly refused to let them contract with Westinghouse for another year. Now I hear she is a mentor for the acting princal at Perry, Spadafore, after he allowed scheduling of testing that resulted in a riot. Sacco, a non PELA, would have not allowed that to happen. I hope for my daughter and all children there that Crenshaw is hired to get control this new guy lost and again shows Neguero to the curb.
Sorry Questioner 1:27, I should have been more clear. Going to yellow buses was a mistake. Bus passes were good for kids in so many ways and I for one, as just a citizen, was grateful a kid coming home from an away game at least had a way home or that a kid supporting himself had a way to a part-time job.
As far as Neguero and others, you don't have to know what the heck you are doing, you just have to be a big name and nationally recognized. The only people who know what really happens in pps buildings are the folks there everyday.
When you research Lane, Lippert, Reed, etc., they are all listed as being in the "Education Management Industry." That's the problem with education right now. It has become an INDUSTRY. It's all about making money and not about educating children. It's big business.
8:25am I would qualify your post by saying education is big business in urban cities. US education is working just fine in our wealthy suburbs. You don't see the hands of big business in the likes of North Allegheny (where Lippert applied and was rejected), Mt Lebo, Upper St. Clair, Fox Chapel, Hampton, etc. These communities have big business owners and partners and are well aware that big business does policies and methods do NOT belong in schools!
I amend my post 10:29. You are correct that it is urban cities. I moved from the City of Pittsburgh to one of the suburbs you mentioned and we don't have any of the educational "reforms/experiments" that PPS has. We actually have real education.
10:52 AM That's because those who head your school board actually understand the politics of big business because for the most part they are highly successful professionals of high economic means that don't get mesmerized or buffaloed by the likes of Gates, Broad, Walton, etc. These folks are smart enough to leave the task of teaching and learning to the professionals, teachers and administrators who moved up through the ranks of the profession.
PPS had a board that was pulled by the nose when Roosevelt came to town and now Lane. When you don't know where you're going, it's easy to just to follow and follow they did! Now let's see if our newly elected board members who have had experience in the classroom, as a principal and as a union leader are able to unravel the mess of their predecessors. It been shared that Colaizzi touts, "She has no idea what this board will do without her." She was so out of her league and never had the good sense to even recognize it!
It's time for those non experienced administrators to be shown the way out the door along with their failed PELA principals and directors. It's time to clean house.
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