Is Getting Rid of "Ineffective Teachers" THE Panacea to Education Reform?

Firing all those bad teachers hasn't helped Riverview Gardens scores. Oops.

From the St. Louis Post Dispatch letters to the editor August 19:

Absolutely failing students

Regarding "First day of school, report cards are in" (Aug. 14): Well, I guess all those bad teachers were not the problem at the Riverview Gardens School District after all. Since the state of Missouri hijacked the district two years ago under the auspices of No Child Left Behind, firing dozens of dedicated, experienced teachers, what has been accomplished there? Riverview Gardens' test scores are the absolute worst in St. Louis County, and the district's measurable academic achievement surpasses that of only a handful of the city's charter schools. One might suppose it's on the upswing, but the article on MAP scores tells us, "Riverview Gardens ... had a decline in the percentage of students passing communication arts, to less than 18 percent." The district has only 4 of the 10 points needed to gain accreditation.

What is going on in Riverview Gardens? This is not just "another unaccredited district," as the article identifies it, but rather a ward of the state of Missouri. The state, under the leadership of Riverview's former superintendent, Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro, is absolutely failing in its duty to the students there and needs to be held accountable for its educational neglect. This abject failure warrants more than a paragraph.

What's really behind this second year of abysmal scores that all of our state taxes are paying for?

Lisa M. Hummel • University City

Former teacher at Riverview Gardens

Riverview Gardens is now under the authority of the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and appointed a 3 member board for the school's daily operation.  This district had many problems including incredible corruption by the superintendent who plead no contest on two counts of felony theft and three counts of tax fraud.    The St. Louis Post Dispatch article noted in 2010 three particular issues plagued the district: 

The 6,500-student district in north St. Louis County lost its accreditation in 2007, the result of financial problems, low student achievement and corruption.

We wonder if DESE and Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro has an answer to Ms. Hummel's question.   Should DESE and the 3 member board , like some fired teachers, be deemed "ineffective" and deserve termination?  Why are the fired "ineffective" teachers in Riverview Gardens blamed for low student achievement...and the low (and lower) student achievement still exists two years later?

Maybe Wendy Kopp's Teach for America teachers with their 5 weeks of experience haven't been as effective as hoped in Riverview Gardens to improve test scores:

Placement schools range from North County's Hazelwood, Riverview Gardens, and Normandy School Districts to more central locations like the St. Louis Public Schools.

Could we have a serious discussion from DESE, Chris Nicastro and state legislators about the reasons (note the plural of "reason"...it's not just that a school needs "great teachers") why abysmal scores are unchanged or trending downward?  Why is there only reform that creates mandates pushed by special interest groups?  These groups take money funneled through taxpayers and meanwhile, education "reform" can't move test scores for some schools.  Could it be that getting rid of the "bad" teachers isn't the only problem plaguing failing schools?

 

Turner Decision Sends MO Legislators Back To the Drawing Board

In an unusual ruling yesterday judge David Lee Vincent III ruled in favor of the Clayton School District saying that students did not have the right to transfer to accredited districts for free. The ruling hinges on the last two words in that sentence. Judge Vincent said that the Hancock Amendment, which prevents the state from creating unfunded mandates, makes it impossible for school districts to comply with the student transfer law (which had already been ruled valid in previous court cases)  because it places a financial burden on receiving school districts. If schools were forced to comply, Vincent wrote in his 16-page decision, it “would overwhelm area school resources to the extent of adversely impacting local districts. To no ones surprise, it all boils down to the money.

Judge Vincent had heard one of these cases before. He ruled in favor of the school districts in 2008, but the state's high court overturned his ruling two years later and sent the case back to him for trial.  Some definitive legal argument had to be made, because the list of unaccredited school districts is growing. St. Louis city schools were first, followed by Riverview Gardens and Kansas City school districts.  The legislature has been working on legislation to address the problem, like allowing adjacent districts to annex unaccredited schools which was being considered in Kansas City. They also were working on a possible business tax credit option that would allow some of the public school students to go to private schools on scholarships paid for by local businesses.

Yesterday's ruling provides more scaffolding upon which to build a solution, but the full answer is still as clear as soup.

There are now stronger calls for the complete dismantling of the KCSD which has been deemed incompetent. But St Louis is under the governance of a three-member Special Administrative Board (SAB), which has a member appointed by the Governor, one by the Mayor of St. Louis and one by the President of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen, and those hand picked individuals did not save St. Louis schools from unaccreditation. 

Watch for the next rallying cry to have school districts turned over to mayoral control. Mayoral control of school district matters is not unique. New York City, Boston, Cleveland and Washington, D.C., are among the cities giving ultimate responsibility for their schools to their mayors.  

Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson has chosen Breakthrough Charter Schools as his ticket out of poor city schools. D.C. Mayor Gray has developed the public charter school board and committed an additional $25.7 million to help those schools next year. The D.C. Public Charter School Board currently oversees 52 public charter schools on 93 campuses serving more than 29,000 students living in every ward of the city.  Public charter schools now serve approximately 39% of all public school students in Washington, D.C.

Mayor Bloomberg has pushed for increasing the number of charter schools in NYC for years. Most recently he pushed for, and got, teacher ratings to be made public, including ratings of 217 charter school teachers. [In a weird twist, one of the purported benefits of charter schools is their high teacher turn over. This is supposed to indicate a more efficient system that identifies bad teachers earlier and gets rid of them faster than public schools.]

Given this history with mayoral control, in our current education reform environment, it is not unreasonable to see people lobbying to give KC and STL mayors governance over their school districts. And when that happens, look for a push for charter schools in both cities. We will be watching to see which hedge fund managers, entrepreneurs or wealthy capitalists are salivating at the cities' borders waiting for their chance to meet with the mayor to get their charters open.