RTTT (The Other Shoe)

Funds sought for school takeovers 

$500,000 needed to start state effort

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

State Superintendent Mike Flanagan on Wednesday re quested a $500,000 supple mental payment by April 1 for the Michigan Department of Education to set up a reform office as prescribed by the Leg islature in December.

Flanagan, speaking before the state Senate Appropria tions Committee, said the of fice would need about $1.7 mil lion a year. A reform officer, or deputy state superintendent, is to run the office.

The office would take con trol of the worst-performing 5% of schools — about 200 statewide. Flanagan said the creation of a reform district would mean that the Depart­ment of Education could end up with the largest district in the state. He added that the new laws are the “boldest” he’d ever seen.

The Legislature passed a school reform law in an effort to qualify for about $526 mil lion in federal money from the Race to the Top program.

“This will be the best invest ment this state has ever made. It’s going to profoundly change Michigan’s schools,” Flanagan said.

In response to a question from Sen. Irma Clark-Cole man, D-Detroit, about how the office would affect Detroit, which has a state-appointed emergency financial manager, Flanagan said that the gover nance structure in Detroit Public Schools will be an issue. More than half of the high schools in DPS are on the draft list of the worst-performing 5% of schools that are subject to takeover by a state reform of fice. The decision on whether to take control of those DPS schools — or ultimately close them — will be affected by whether the mayor, school board or state appointee will run the system after 2011, Flan agan said.

He also said he is optimistic about Michigan’s chances to get Race to the Top funding. Regardless of the federal fund ing race, he said, “these re forms were needed.” 

■ CONTACT CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY: 313-223-4537 OR CPRATT@FREEPRESS.COM

WHOOPS! SERIOUS REAL-WORLD REALITY-CHECK! (Of Course the Devil is in the Details))

2009 photo by SUSAN TUSA/Detroit Free Press

DPS emergency financial manag er Robert Bobb has signed an executive order ending social promotion, the practice of mov ing students up a grade when they have not passed their current classes.


Real life in classroom may hamper plan

I will call her Jane Doe. She has taught in the Detroit Public Schools for 17 years. She teaches third grade. And she thinks that ending social promotion in the city schools is vital — and fantasy. “THAT would be a miracle!” she wrote to me. 


I am sharing her story without using her real name because, like many teachers, she is afraid of losing her job if she complains about re forms in the school district, which has lost respect, resources and about 10,000 students a year for the past five. 


Hers was among hundreds of e-mails and calls I’ve received from teachers as I write about schools. Most agree that DPS’s problems are bigger than what Robert Bobb, the dis­trict’s emergency financial manager, can solve. 


Two Fridays ago, I wrote about a young woman who graduated from Denby High School in 2005 without being able to read her diploma. Last Fri day, Bobb signed an executive order ending social promotion, the practice of moving students up a grade when they have not passed their current classes.

The great irony is that nine years ago, I wrote about a woman who had graduated from King High School with out  being able to read at all. It is not a new phenomenon.

Only now, people are paying attention.

No control

So while people are paying attention, Jane Doe wants people to know what really goes on in a typical DPS elementary classroom.

“While Robert Bobb may desire to hold me accountable for my students, unfortunate ly this cannot be so,” she wrote.

“I have no control over the fact that little Johnny has gone to several schools this year alone, not to mention the 10 others he has gone to be fore he even came to my school … “I have no control over the fact that the adult in the family does not work with their child. 


I was a single parent for all of my children’s lives, and  am sick of this excuse. I worked long hours and did homework with them. My own parents also worked, and did this for me … “I have no control that Johnny’s parents don’t be lieve in his doing ANY home work.

“I have no control over the fact that Johnny’s parents tell me on the phone that they will discipline their child (when he is cussing, using inappropriate gestures, refus es to do his work, or (engaging in) other ridiculous behavior), and then stomp into the principal’s office demanding that I tolerate their little angel …!

“So, little Johnny is al lowed to run wild and run free ... at all ages!”

Age over academics

In September, the third grade teacher greeted her students: seven children were at the kindergarten level; 12 were at the first-grade level, and six were at a beginning second-grade level.

Jane Doe couldn’t teach third grade because she spent most of her time trying to teach 19 children how to read. She suggests that Bobb  survey district teachers to get their ideas. She said he would find that many agree with his goals, but not his methods.

For instance, she said, “Personally, I would like to put all of the K-5 children BACK into the grade they ACTUALLY should be in academically.”

Bobb plans to end social promotion with current pre kindergartners through third graders, not moving any up until they have mastered their current lessons. (He pledged to provide remedial help for older students.) But Jane Doe has other suggestions.

“It is interesting that other countries use ACADEMICS as a guideline. In the U.S., we group the children by AGE.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if  we came into this century and LOOKED at the individual and placed them according to their ABILITY?”

Jane Doe loves teaching, and she loves her students.

But she hates politics. So she wants Bobb to explain one more thing: “Just how do I get around a principal who wants to have the perfect statistics and school for ‘show’? ” She said if Bobb convenes a committee of teachers from whom to get regular input, she has a message for him: “SIGN ME UP!! SERIOUSLY!”

For now, she said, she must remain anonymous and anonymously wish Bobb good luck.

“I care about my kids. It breaks my heart that most of my third-graders are even in this grade. All I can do is shut my door and teach.”  
■ CONTACT ROCHELLE RILEY: RRILEY99@FREEPRESS.COM 

“I HAVE NO CONTROL THAT JOHNNY’ S PARENTS DON’ T BELIEVE IN HIS DOING ANY HOMEWORK.” 
JANE DOE , a Detroit Public Schools teacher for 17 years

A SERIOUS Fellow, On a SEROUS Mission, DOING a SERIOUS JOB! SERIOUSLY!

Not more testing



If students are headed to college “without the critical-thinking skills, patience, and tenacity for even en try- level courses” and that this is “most notable in their writing,” then why are teachers being pushed just to teach to a multiple-choice test, whether it is the MEAP, the NAEP or any other acronym-laden, spit out- the-information test (“Fixing Michigan’s Schools,” Feb. 7)?


Multiple-choice, standardized assessments don’t teach children how to think creatively, how to syn thesize, analyze and make judg ments about information, or to build the tenacity to tackle realistic ongo ing projects such as those found in the real world. These skills are best taught using long-term projects that simply cannot be measured on a standardized test. Furthermore, these projects are far more captivat ing, thereby enhancing student in terest, achievement and even class room behavior.


We need to move away from stan dardized tests, not just entrench ourselves in them even deeper.


Sarah Jelinek


Warren


How pessimism fuels our greatest teachers

The people behind Detroit’s new est charter school think they’ve discovered the formula for great teaching — and one of the key in gredients may surprise you.

University YES Academy, a charter school that will open its doors this September to 125 Detroit sixth-graders chosen by lottery, is the first attempt to export the na­tionally recognized model pioneered by YES Prep Houston, whose seven campuses now serve 5,400 inner city students there.

The Detroit school’s first princi pal, a Cass Tech and University of Michigan alumna named Agnes Aleobua, says her academy will rise or fall on the strength of the 10 teachers she hopes to hire after a national search that began this month.

And she thinks she knows exact ly what qualities she’s looking for, thanks to a personality survey YES Prep Houston founders Chris Barbic and Jason Bernal conducted in an attempt to discover what the most successful teachers in their schools had in common.

“Surprisingly, one of the hall marks was a pessimistic outlook,” Bernal, now the chief operating officer of YES Prep Houston, told me during a visit to Detroit last week. A study by an outside consul tant found that YES Prep’s best teachers were significantly less optimistic than either the general population or their lower-perform ing colleagues, and concluded this pessimism led them “to take full responsibility for their actions and not to leave any outcomes to chance.” 

‘Supertraits’ of super teachers 

Aleobua, who spent five months in Houston studying the YES Prep model in preparation for the open ing of her own Detroit school, says good inner city teachers “are fixat ed on the possibility that things won’t work out for their students.”

“They’re pessimistic about the current system, which is obviously broken when it comes to educating low-income and minority students,” she said. “And there really isn’t hope for those students unless we create something very different.”

I’m not convinced pessimism is the right word to describe this sense of emergency. But it’s cer tainly a far cry from the “I’m OK, you’re OK” complacency that per vades many underachieving schools. This is more like “You’re light years from OK, but I’m not quitting until I’ve exhausted every trick I know to get you there.”

Indeed, a pessimistic outlook is just one of seven “supertraits” that distinguished the highest achieving teachers at YES Prep from their lower performing colleagues.

The same study found that top teachers were far likelier than their peers to be resilient, outspoken, perfectionistic and achievement oriented,  more comfortable direct ingthe work of others and less averse to conflict and competition. 

Just the beginning? 

YES Prep Houston’s founders agreed to help launch a Detroit school after a joint appeal from University Preparatory Academy founder Doug Ross and Gov. Jenni fer Granholm, who flew to Houston together last spring.

Ross, who persuaded Macomb County developer Wayne Webber and his wife, Joan, to bankroll Uni versity YES’ $6-million start-up costs, says YES Prep is just the first of several nationally recognized charter school operators he and Henry Ford Academy founder Steve Hamp hope to lure to Detroit, with an eye to expanding charter school enrollment here to 25,000 students by 2020.

Ross says he supports the initia tives Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb has undertaken at Detroit Public Schools and believes what he and Hamp are doing will ultimately buttress Bobb’s efforts to boost student performance throughout the district.

“What we seek to do,” Ross says, “is create a public marketplace for education where every student has good choices and where we hold every school accountable.”

And who knows? With enough high-achieving, perfectionistic pes simists itching for a good fight, maybe they can. 

DPS Goes DIGITAL! (Mission Accomplished!)

Posted: Tuesday, 09 February 2010 3:36PM Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Kicks Off Partnership with Detroit Public Schools

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Co. Tuesday held a day of service to symbolically launch 'Destination: Detroit,' a multi-year partnership with Detroit Public Schools to provide a unique integrated education solution that combines advanced technology, customized lesson plans and educator training and development that will improve student learning.  The one-day mass volunteer effort kicked off with an assembly at Douglass Academy for Young Men to rally 200 of HMH’s top executives, who heard remarks from Barbara Byrd-Bennett, chief academic and accountability officer of Detroit Public Schools; Rita Schaefer, executive vice president of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; and Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. Following the rally, HMH volunteers fanned out to work in 23 DPS schools across the city chosen based on need.  The volunteers will provide education expertise and assistance in critical areas, including professional development, reading and math tutoring, technology support, grant writing, adult literacy, library organization and building maintenance, among others. Additionally, HMH is donating more than 1,000 books to the district to supplement school library collections. 'Destination: Detroit' represents the umbrella name of HMH’s district-wide, integrated program that will reshape how the DPS approaches its curriculum, lesson planning and instruction of students to drive performance improvement. This program combines the entire portfolio of educational resources HMH has to offer, including instructional materials adapted for performance level, instructor professional development training and tools, a Web-based data system and a content management portal.  This is the first time HMH has provided such an integrated, thorough offering of resources, including embedding 10 full-time support staff in the district to manage the system. The DPS program is creating the new model for how school districts will educate in the future by looking at education as a process, not just a set of tools. The Web-based data system gives instructors real-time assessments of student performance, allowing instructors to more efficiently target lesson plans to skill level. The content management portal, called Learning Village, is the heart of the program where teachers, administrators, parents and students can access instructional content that is customized for student proficiency by HMH. It also provides learning resources as well as best practices and professional development materials. The benefits of Learning Village are already being realized across the country in other large school districts, but never before has HMH used it in such a complete integrated solutions package like the DPS program, who use it to help teachers evaluate students’ needs and teaching opportunities, track progress throughout the curriculum, and identify students at risk. “With the power of technology, new integrated offerings and tools can unite teacher training and assessment, and online curriculum content for educators, parents and administrators to support and enrich today’s generation of learners, said Barry O’Callaghan, CEO and chairman of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. “Our day of service is a critical first step toward this larger goal that will set in motion improvements across DPS.” HMH is committing to Detroit as a long-term customer by putting down roots in the city with a 10-person team to provide technical support, training and outreach. Additionally, the company relocated its executive internal strategy conference, originally scheduled for Austin, Texas, to Detroit on Feb. 10 to show employees firsthand the needs of its largest customer, Detroit Public Schools. The company booked 200+ hotel rooms for an average of 3 consecutive nights.  At an employee dinner Tuesday night at the Marriott Renaissance Center, HMH through the DPS Foundation awarded four $2,500 scholarships to deserving DPS high school graduates to apply towards college. “Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is committed to working shoulder to shoulder with Detroit Public Schools to foster a true community of learning for the betterment of Detroit’s children,” said O’Callaghan.  “Public-private partnerships such as this are a powerful way to accelerate progress in our country’s education system, as we hope to do for Detroit Public Schools.” More at www.hmhpub.com.

Fixing our schools 

Innovations help districts across U.S. make difference

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER 

Third of five parts

In Charlotte, N.C., the best principals and teachers are hand picked to lead the worst schools.

In Washington, D.C., the may or appoints the schools chancel lor.

In New York, Wisconsin and Florida, parents on public assis tance lose a chunk of their welfare benefits if their kids continually miss school.

These are some of the drastic solutions for schools with low stu dent performance, chronic truan cy and other issues affecting achievement. But the innovative changes have made a difference: Students are showing up for class and doing better on tests, and teachers are being held account able for making sure students succeed.

Would any of them work here? Education experts and observ ers say Michigan needs big, pro vocative ideas for turning around its low-performing schools and raising academic performance in general across the state. 


Big ideas for Mich. schools 

Solutions from other states can aid achievement

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY, ROBIN ERB and LORI HIGGINS

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITERS

As the state considers new standards for statewide testing of students, some also see hope for Michigan’s educational system in the sweeping reforms recently announced by the state. Others see promise in the state’s application for $526 million in Race to the Top federal funds, meant to stimulate innovative school reform efforts.

Still others say Michigan can learn strate gies from other states that have found ways to improve learning and accountability.

Here’s a look at how some of them could work, especially in the state’s largest dis trict, Detroit Public Schools.

BOOSTING ATTENDANCE IN SCHOOLS

On any given day in DPS, 16% of students are absent. The average high school student missed 46 days of school, and nearly 10% of high school students missed more than 100 days of school, according to district data.

Yet the district doesn’t have an atten dance policy, and teachers say that affects achievement.

Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, says he favors an attendance policy such as the one adopted in New York, where students are required to attend school 90% of the school year in or der to graduate.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said, for a deficit-ridden district such as DPS not to have a policy, because state funding is tied to the number of students enrolled.

In addition, under the federal No Child Left Behind law, schools nationwide face sanctions that could lead to a school closing if they don’t make annual progress toward academic and attendance standards.

Michigan should also consider a program under which parents lose public assistance if their children are chronically truant, John son said. That’s what New York, Wisconsin and Florida do, under a system called Learn Fare.

Wisconsin pioneered it in 1988. If a stu dent whose family is on public assistance misses 10 days of school, a monthly monitor ing system kicks in. If that student then has two unexcused absences, his or her family could lose a portion of their welfare benefits. Wisconsin’s program has appeared to close the enrollment gap between dropouts and school attendees by 41%, according to a report released last year by Thomas Dee, director of the Public Policy Program at Swarthmore College in Swarthmore, Pa.

SENDING THE BEST TO THE WORST

In Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, the best principals and teachers head to the worst schools.

And that may be the single most impor tant factor in turning around the district’s poorest performing schools, said Ann Clark, the district’s chief academic officer, who calls this strategic staffing “the most excit ing project I’ve worked on — absolutely.”
It works like this: Each year, the district identifies its poorest performing schools and its best school principals. Those principals are invited to head into those troubled schools — along with a handpicked team of seven teachers and support staff — to turn them around.

Principals are tapped based on their ex pertise: A principal with strong human re sources skills might be assigned to a school with a disgruntled or unhappy staff; a princi­pal with expertise in instruction might be sent to a school where students are falling behind in certain skills.

“I have to say quickly we’re not a union state, we’re a right-to-work state,” Clark said. “But no one is forced to go.”

In fact, the initiative, now in its third year, has engaged teachers and school lead ers: “Now we’re at a place where principals want to be designated. … They’re intrigued and want to be part of a turnaround.”

Of 18 urban districts that took the nation wide National Assessment of Educational Progress test as part of a Trial Urban Dis trict Assessment in 2009, Charlotte-Meck­lenburg scored best in fourth-grade math and second best in eighth-grade math. The fourth- and eighth-graders in Charlotte’s school district outperform the national aver­age, as well.

ADDING TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY

Teacher accountability is inescapable at Charlotte-Mecklenburg — teachers and students are linked through ID numbers to an online database. The user’s identity— teacher, student, parent — determines what information he or she can view.

The system is comprehensive — for ex ample, a math teacher can search test re sults to see how his or her class performed as a whole on a certain test or test question, or how a specific student performed. The teacher also can access attendance and discipline records.

A principal can see how students per formed in a particular teacher’s class, which in turn helps measure teacher effectiveness. Tying performance to teachers can be tricky, however, because test results don’t account for the fact that not all students start at the same mark or learn at the same pace, said Sharon Lewis, research director at the Washington-D.C. Council of the Great City Schools. Still, it’s a solid start.

Tying performance to teachers estab lishes goals and tracks who is meeting them and who is not, Lewis said.

“Charlotte was one of the first districts to have a strong accountability system … and each year, they’ve gotten more sophisticated in the way they examine the data,” she said.

DPS expects to have the same online system accessible district-wide by fall, in hopes of using the data to improve test scores and teacher accountability.

The system allows the kind of teacher accountability that the state also is seeking.

Michigan’s Race to the Top application includes plans for a separate statewide data base that would allow the public to see how individual teachers’ students performed.

NARROWING TEACHER CERTIFICATION

Changing the way the state certifies ele mentary school teachers would contribute significantly to improving the quality of teaching in Detroit, said June Green-Rivers, who retired in July as executive director of literacy for DPS.

Currently, teachers can get certificates that cover grades K-5 or K-8.

“But that’s too broad,” Green-Rivers said. What ends up happening, particularly in frequently downsizing districts such as DPS, is that teachers who have taught one grade for decades might end up teaching a grade they have never taught and with which they have no familiarity.

Narrowing the certification — to K-3 and 4-6 — would address that issue, she said.

Green-Rivers said she believes the change is crucial because students who have teachers who are unfamiliar with the grade they’re teaching “are crippled for the rest of their academic career.”

DEVELOPING TEACHERS Under a $39-million contract with Hough ton Mifflin Harcourt, DPS has purchased a system called Learning Village that will allow teachers and parents to access test results and textbooks as well as data from lesson plans and professional development materials.

This should help teachers understand what was confusing to students and what should be done differently in instruction, said Barbara Byrd-Bennett, DPS’s chief academic and accountability auditor.

“This technology is an equalizer,” Byrd Bennett said.

DPS teacher Kimberly Kyff, named Mich igan Teacher of the Year in 2006, says Web based training could work well because professional development works best on an ongoing, consistent basis, instead of once or twice a year.

“The power of online development is that it provides teachers with needed flexibility, removing time constraints,” she said. “Per sonally, I stay abreast of new research through podcasts and other online tools.

Learning new ways to enhance your profes sional repertoire is always a good thing.”

Everyone in the district should be able to access the new system by fall.

Sean Vann, principal at Frederick Doug lass Academy, an all-boys school in the dis trict, said professional development should be consistent and varied. Last month, he sent his staff to spend a day observing teachers at some of the best private schools in the area, including Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills, University Liggett in Grosse Pointe Woods, the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Bloomfield Hills and the University of Detroit Mercy.

“They were impressed,” Vann said. “They saw that the successful schools are teaching skills and critical thinking.”

He also said there should be an exit exam for every grade, and teachers should be held accountable for their students’ performance.

LETTING THE MAYOR CONTROL SCHOOLS

In Detroit, some have debated whether Mayor Dave Bing should take control of the city’s schools. The mayoral-control model, which did little to improve achievement in Detroit from 1999 to 2005, has shown mixed results nationwide but is credited with con tributing to incremental aca demic gains in places such as Washington, D.C.

The District of Columbia Public Schools’ new chancellor, Michelle Rhee, has been lauded as a take-no-prisoners leader who has challenged unions, fired teachers at underper forming schools and imple mented new rules in daily op erations.

Rather than trying to please several members of a school board, answering to Mayor Adrian Fenty — and having his sup port — has enabled Rhee’s “attitude of just charging ahead,” said Jack Jennings, of the D.C.-based Center for Education Policy.

There and elsewhere, bullishness backed by the mayor may help school leaders plow through bureaucracy and step onto turf that others cannot.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has been a vocal schools advocate for years, telling voters in 1996 to “judge me harshly” if the schools didn’t improve. He appoints the school board, and more recently, he pushed for legislation that gives extraordinary pow er to the superintendent to overhaul the worst schools.

In Boston, eighth-grade math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam have risen by 16%, and fourth-grade math scores have increased by 18% since 2003.

The key might not be so much an issue of control, but that strong leaders share the same vision, said district spokesman Mat thew Wilder. “In any city where you have really educational innovations taking place, you have strong support from the mayor,” Wilder said.

Still, top-down control can be tricky, especially in a state like Michigan, where teachers unions and local school boards have long set the pace for issues such as curriculum. In Detroit, the state Legislature would have to approve a mayoral takeover.

Bing has said he would take control of DPS if Detroiters showed their approval by vot ing in favor of an advisory question on a ballot.

“You get a lot better buy-in when local people have a say in … decisions,” said Jen nings, at the Center for Education Policy.

REQUIRING PRESCHOOL Early childhood experts say a key to im proving academic achievement in Detroit is ensuring that children come to kindergarten prepared to learn. And that means they need to attend a quality preschool program.

Some states are pushing for universal preschool, which would guarantee a head start for every child. Michigan, though, is moving in the opposite direction: Funding for state-run programs was cut this school year.

Still, there might be a way to give more youngsters access to those programs, said former lawmaker Matt Gillard, who is now a consultant with the Lansing-based Early Childhood Investment Corp.

He said Michigan’s pre school programs mostly are separated into three catego ries: programs that are paid by federal Head Start funds, those paid with Michigan Great Start Readiness Program funds and those programs for which par ents pay tuition.

Low-income parents can’t afford some of the tuition based preschools; parents who can afford tuition don’t qualify for high quality schools that take dollars generally reserved for children at risk of starting school behind.

By merging the programs, tuition dollars could help offset some of the costs for chil dren in the subsidized programs. It’s not truly universal preschool, but “we might get close,” Gillard said.

Short of universal pre-school, there’s a need to make sure existing programs have teachers with specific training in early child hood development. That’s because preschool shouldn’t be about babysitting — it’s about laying a foundation for kindergarten, said Paula Wood, dean of education at Wayne State University.

It’s not that children need to know how to read, it’s that they should understand that books hold words and words convey mean ing. And they should know how to weigh options and know that decisions have conse quences, Wood said. “The research is so clear on the long term benefits,” said Karen Paciorek, profes sor of early childhood education at Eastern Michigan University. “It is one of the best things you can do.”

A quality preschool program, Paciorek said, teaches kids how to solve problems and work with others.

One Michigan preschool program has provided some of the best evidence of how much impact a quality program can have on disadvantaged children: Over the course of more than 40 years, research on children who attended the Perry Preschool in Ypsi lanti has found that the students not only were more likely to graduate high school and perform better academically than their peers who didn’t attend a similar program, but later in life, they were more likely to be employed and had higher salaries.

ALIGNING TUTORING AND STANDARDS

Federally funded small-group and one-on one tutoring is offered in many DPS schools, but gets poor grades from parents because test scores have not improved, according to teacher and parent surveys obtained by the Free Press.

The fix is easy, said Wesley Ganson, for mer principal at Trix Elementary in Detroit.

To make effective use of the money and time, the state and school district need to require that the tutoring is aligned with district, state and Michigan Educational Assessment Program test standards. The tutors should also be certified teachers, he said.

In DPS, 43 of the 172 schools must pro vide tutoring services. That’s because the federal No Child Left Behind law requires schools that receive funding for programs for low-income students — but fail to meet federal standards for three or more years — to use a portion of those funds to provide free tutoring.

The fees can cost up to about $2,000 per student per year.

The state approves the companies that can provide the tutoring, and parents choose the company that they want to tutor their children.

It sounds good, but in practice, it hasn’t made a significant difference in achievement or standardized test scores.

“A lot of times, there are people just do ing it for the money and it’s not always the best fit for the children,” said Ganson, who’s also executive director of the DPS Center for Student Advocacy. “You need the cream of the crop to work with these at-risk young sters who are already failing, already behind.” 


Detroit schools 

Faculty, officials protest testing 

Some say Bobb might gain control

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER 

Teachers, parents and school board mem bers wary of a new standardized test being administered this week in Detroit Public Schools tried to halt the testing Monday.

Some teachers said they were afraid that the test would be used as a political tool to help DPS Financial Manager Robert Bobb lobby the state Legislature for academic con trol over DPS.

“For such a test to have been imposed by a financial manager who is not an educator … without giving anybody else a chance to re view the test, it’s a stick for him to use against the students and teachers to further degrade and then privatize our public education sys tem,” said Joyce Schon, an attorney repre senting some of the teachers. Even though the teachers rallied outside DPS’ administrative offices, the test went on in some schools Monday.

“This is a standard practice across the country,” said Steve Was ko, a spokesman for DPS. “Are the critics, self-fo cused on their adult needs, not interested in knowing what students are learning and using that information to improve teaching and learning? What are they afraid of?”

Bobb, the state-appoint ed emergency financial manager for DPS, is in a political and court battle with the school board over academic control of the district. A Wayne County judge has said academic authority rests with the board, but Bobb has lobbied the Legislature to create a law to give him academic control. School board President Otis Mathis sent Bobb a letter on Friday requesting that he “cease and desist” making academic deci sions, “specifically, administering this bench mark assessment.”

Tracy Martin, the deputy chief academic and accountability auditor for DPS, said the test will be used to determine whether stu dents are progressing toward MEAP stan­dards and the higher standards set by the Na tional Assessment of Educational Progress for fourth and eighth grade.

Without the testing, “we’re kind (of) just going blindly,” she said. “You absolutely need to have regular ongoing formative assess ments.”

Last year, DPS students scored the lowest in the nation in the 40-year history of the NAEP.

Martin said the test will not be used to evaluate teachers or determine good schools from bad. She said students are not expected to set aside time to study for the tests.

Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers union, said confusion and paranoia would’ve been minimized if the test had been explained to teachers before hand. 

| CONTACT CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY: 313-223-4537 OR CPRATT@FREEPRESS.COM 

EVEN THOUGH TEACHERS RALLIED, THE TEST WENT ON IN SOME SCHOOLS.

FIXING OUR SCHOOLS 

Kids need more than teachers can give

DPS educator says most are ‘raising themselves’

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER 

Second of five parts 

On a recent Wednesday, only 11 of the 29 stu dents enrolled in Karanji Kaduma’s second-hour environmental science class at Pershing High School in Detroit showed up. He didn’t know where the rest were, but he said some of the stories of their homelife could make a grown man cry.

“When middle school hits, parents’ hands go off. These kids in my classroom — most have no cur fews, go to bed when they want to go to bed; they don’t have any particular time to do homework. They’re raising themselves,” said Kaduma, who has lost six former students to gun violence.

Some students would be better off if they were raised in school, he said.

“I wish they would do a boarding school, grades 6 12, and make it separate sex,” he said. “I guarantee you’ll see a huge improve ment.”

Detroit Public Schools students face challenges that, arguably, are un matched in magnitude and depth when compared with those of their peers in neighboring districts: 81% of them are economically disadvantaged, and many have parents who don’t take a keen interest in their schoolwork or a vocal stand about the quality of the education they are receiving.

DPS students also learn in overcrowded classes — packed with at least 10 to 15 more students than research says is beneficial. Their textbooks often arrive months after the first day of school. And with teaching ranks having shrunk from 7,000 to 5,000 since 2006, remaining educators often are required to teach outside their area of expertise.

DPS teachers say they know these students need more than they can realistically offer. 


What it’s like inside DPS

Over whelmed teachers try to overcome challenges

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

Teacher Karanji Kaduma is glad thousands of people have volunteered to tutor Detroit children through the DPS Reading Corps program. He says it’ll give them a peek at what life is like for students and teachers in the Detroit Public Schools district.

In the state’s largest school district, teaching kids is not just about academics. Teach ers are overwhelmed, trying to help students cope with the kinds of social ills affecting children in almost every urban district in the country: Abuse, violence, poverty and absentee parents top the list.

Kaduma, 33, a science teacher at Pershing High School in Detroit, said some of his students will be the first in their family to graduate from high school. He wants to see something bold happen to stop the dropout cycle in the dis trict. He suggests a boarding school for kids in grades 6-12.

“People don’t understand there’s a culture of people who have lived like that for genera tions,” he said of dropouts. “Does that mean they deserve less? Does that mean they should be judged? No. People on the outside have so many ideas of what should be done, what’s not being done. But they don’t know what the hell is going on because they haven’t been here.” 

Environment holds kids back

He says he knows the board ing school concept would be expensive. “But some of our kids need to be in a boarding school to be in a situation where they can only concen trate on school.”

Some of his students agree. “Some people need those types of schools because some people have bad lives at home,” said Banicka Robinson, 17, a ju nior at Pershing.

Former Mayor Kwame Kil patrick floated the idea in 2008 of creating a public boarding school on Belle Isle, but the plan never gained enough sup port. The school would have steered students toward ca reers relating to waterways and oceanic studies.

Kilpatrick’s idea was based on the work of Carl Taylor, a Michigan State University professor, and his brother, Vir gil Taylor, who have worked with urban youths.

They envisioned a boarding school framed by military regi men and discipline. It would be isolated from the chaos of the streets. A team of teachers, counselors and even a physical education teacher could work with students on their academ ics, health and social skills.

And parents would have to stay away for a while.

“I think the problem that a lot of people don’t want to dis cuss is that a lot of kids would do better without their par ents,” Carl Taylor said.

Perhaps today, a scaled back version of the idea could transform a troubled school, Virgil Taylor said.

Certainly, the state isn’t in a position to financially support a 24-hour facility with dormito ries and a round-the-clock staff. But why, he asks, couldn’t an existing school pat tern itself after a military acad emy, demand the same aca demic and physical work and instill the same sense of com munity and self-confidence?

It could give its students what they lack, he said.

“Rigorous physical training is part of the disciplinary pro cess, sure. But it’s not so much about discipline,” he said. “It’s a question … about code of con duct and honor system.”

The nation’s only two col lege- preparatory public boarding schools are in Wash ington, D.C., and Maryland, op erated by the Washington based SEED Foundation. The nonprofit bills the schools as “a comprehensive solution to the challenges facing urban stu dents.”

It costs $20 million a year to operate both sites. But the schools have showed results since opening in 1998 and 2008, respectively — 97% of gradu ates have been accepted to col lege, and 75% of last year’s graduates were first-genera tion college students, accord ing to the foundation’s annual report. 

Layoffs create instability

Regardless of whether boarding schools are in De troit’s future, Kaduma says se rious attention needs to be put on ending the revolving door through which teachers come and go because of layoffs and budget cuts.

A chemistry class on his floor has had several substi tute teachers for the last month, he said.

The inconsistency led many students to skip class, and made it improbable that the students learned much, he said. Only five students were in the class during fifth period last Wednesday.
“These are children who are going to be in control of the world someday. If you don’t plan for it, they will be the per manent underclass.” 

Class sizes prevent 1-on-1 help

Detroit Public Schools offi cials are still reeling from net ting the nation’s the worst math scores in the 40-year his tory of the National Assess ment of Educational Progress (NAEP), an aptitude test backed by the U.S. Depart ment of Education.

Last year, during a visit to DPS before NAEP scores were released, U.S. Education Sec retary Arne Duncan was dis mayed by the district’s low achievement; he called it “ground zero” for public edu cation.

Teachers and other experts say the district must find ways to provide Detroit’s challenged youths with one-on-one atten tion through smaller classes. Many support uniform, high standards within the state. But they say state standards and DPS guidelines dictating the pace of lesson plans do not take into account the high number of students who need remedia tion.

“We’re seeing differences and problems that we never have before,” said Marsha Sak wa, a nationally certified teacher at the Detroit School of the Arts who was honored as a Wayne County Teacher of the Year in 2006. “There are some practical solutions to this problem that I think would lead to some serious achieve ment — if the class sizes were reduced, and you put in a sea soned, accomplished teacher. It’s common sense.”

But the district’s deficit of more than $219 million is a bar rier to hiring more teachers to reduce class sizes. Last June, 400 teachers were laid off.

In Michigan, teachers’ con tracts dictate class size. In De troit, it is supposed to be lim ited to 25 students in grades K-3, 30 in grades 4-5 and 35 in grades 6-12, but teachers com plain of classes in excess of 40. “They’re absolutely right. We’ve got to do something about class size,” said Robert Bobb, DPS’s emergency finan cial manager.

Bobb has started the pro cess by requesting state per mission to use federal money earmarked for programs for low-income students to be able to hire more teachers.

The state has granted DPS a waiver to use these funds to hire elementary school teach ers where the goal is 17 stu dents per class, based on re search proving effectiveness of smaller classes in lower grades, the Michigan Depart ment of Education said. 

Rules don’t let kids catch up

The district also started a sweeping new mission this year — the DPS Reading Corps. The program has at tracted more than 4,500 volun teers who will spend at least an hour a week tutoring pre school children one-on-one in an effort to boost literacy.

That’s the kind of attention all students need, teachers say. In lieu of that, the curricu lum needs to allow teachers the flexibility to set a pace for students who need extra help — more than 8,700 of 95,000 students flunked a grade last year.

“Yes, a consistent and rigor ous curriculum and standards are key to educational suc cess,” said Nina Hawkins, a teacher at Bunche Elementary in Detroit who won the 2006 Milken Family Foundation Na tional Educator Award, a $25,000 prize given to 100 in novative teachers each year.

“Unfortunately, state stan dards assume that all children come to school on an equal playing field,” said Hawkins, who is also a nationally certi fied teacher. “This is not true, especially in our urban set ting. … Many students fall be hind from the beginning of the year.”

It would help if teachers could replace lessons that are not tied to any state standard, she said.

“I do find that in almost ev ery academic subject in the re quired curriculum, there are objectives that could be left out. … We have a plethora of requirements for every sub­ject, and our children are not given the time to master any thing before the pacing charts demand that we move on to the next objective.” 

Parents need teaching, too

Even in the toughest econo my, educators said, if students came to school prepared to learn — fed, rested, read to and motivated — half the battle is won.

So many schools find that in order to help students be learning-ready, they must help the parents.

Edrire Wilson, principal at Mason Elementary in Detroit, said that she has had to help families get food or assistance getting heat and utilities re stored. Just in the last few weeks, one of her families with five children and another with eight had utilities shut off. The parents are proud, but the chil dren, especially smaller ones, will unwittingly tell it, she said. Also, schools can and should use funding designated for programs for poor children to hire social workers or coun selors to assist students suffer ing from abuse, neglect or emotional trauma, she said. Right now, most DPS social workers float between several schools.

“You need a lot of one-on one with some children. A teacher can’t do all of that,” she said.

Wilson would like to see Saturday enrichment classes, like the ones offered at Car stens Elementary.

Carstens, on the city’s east side, is one of the state’s top performing schools among those with a large number of low-income or disadvantaged kids.

There, about 98% of kids qualify for free or reduced price lunch. School officials plan to start Saturday classes in about a month, said Abby Phelps, an education specialist at the school who also helps parents identify resources for issues such as utility shutoffs and legal representation.

In the past, the school’s Sat urday sessions have included enrichment programs such as academic games, etiquette, chess, modern dance and a kis wahili foreign language class.

“A lot of parents don’t have money to take their children anywhere on the weekend, and this is a safe place,” Phelps said. “It’s an alternative for parents who can’t let their kids stay after school during the week” for tutoring.

Carstens also has a pro gram called Parent University year-round, in which parents are taught how to advocate for children — something lacking in DPS — and how to engage elected officials, balance household budgets and help students with homework. About two dozen parents take part once a month, Phelps said. “We teach them how to be part of the change process, and it really works,” she said. “We make annual yearly progress because our parents grasp it, and our kids accelerate.” 

| CONTACT CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY: 313-223-4537 OR CPRATT@FREEPRESS .COM. ROBIN ERB CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT.
“STATE STANDARDS ASSUME THAT ALL CHILDREN COME TO SCHOOL ON AN EQUAL PLAYING FIELD. THIS IS NOT TRUE.”

NINA HAWKINS, an award-winning teacher at Bunche Elementary in Detroit



How 1 teacher changes lives

Old-school educator showers students with attention

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER 

In 1998, math teacher Doug las Carey spoke at the funeral of one of his former students— a 17-year-old boy shot and killed in front of a party store near Hutchins Middle School on Detroit’s west side.

Days later, reflecting on the boy’s violent death, Carey asked his Hutchins students to write about their most trau matic experience. Of his 35 eighth-graders, 24 wrote of horrific tragedy — relatives who had been stabbed, shot, or imprisoned, or who were sui cidal, abusive or had died of AIDS.

One wrote of five family members being murdered.

Carey, 57, said the exercise crystallized his belief that De troit Public Schools students with rough lives need one-on one attention to help them fo cus on academics.

Carey is old-school — he has visited students’ homes to talk to their parents and has also found subtle ways to encour age them, handing out pencils with inspirational messages on them, for instance. For high school graduations, he has of fered silver dollars on silver ropes, makeshift medals of achievement.

Keenly aware of racial sus picions, the burly, white bearded Carey, a retired U.S. Army sergeant, reaches his students — nearly all of whom are African American — through their interests. He makes gestures to explore their world — such as allowing them to teach him the stanky leg, a popular dance.

“They need … the positive, loving attention of caring adults,” he said of his students. “Never have I had a more diffi cult and demanding job.” 

Breaking from the program

Carey, who has also led the school’s nationally competitive chess team, is a bit of a rene gade, too. He’s outspoken about what he thinks are the keys to success for students like his.

Rather than sticking with a district program that requires teachers to teach regimented lessons on a week-by-week pacing chart, Carey said he has taught at a level where a stu dent could grasp certain con cepts before moving on to the next.

With a class in which 42% of students flunked at least one grade, it is the only method that builds competence and confidence, Carey said.

“How can you teach equa tions to a kid who can’t multi ply?”
he asked.

Carey, who has been teach ing at the school for 12 years and is now taking a medical leave of absence, said students were put at a disadvantage last fall when he became one of ma ny teachers assigned mid-se mester to teach outside of his expertise as a math teacher.

He was given two English classes this year. He also con tends that students should re main with one teacher for sev eral consecutive years for con sistency and a greater chance for one-on-one attention.

Of the 35 kids who stayed in his class for much of sixth through eighth-grades, 80% graduated high school, com pared with the district’s grad uation rate of 58%. 

Going above and beyond

Former students said the attention Carey gave made them feel smart and impor tant.

Velma Jackson, 22, said that when she was 12, she already had been through several fos ter homes. She’d curse at Car ey and disrupt his class.

Until one day, when he took her aside and asked why she was so angry.

“I have to take care of six other kids, and I’m 12,” she told him. He offered her an ear. “He told me, ‘You can be a child now. When you’re in school, you’re just a child,’ ” Jackson recalled. “I love Mr. Carey be cause he took so much off me.” Mark Mc Donald, 22, who grew up without a father and traveled to Ohio with Carey as part of the school’s chess team, said Carey was a father figure: “He went so over and beyond.” Over the last decade, Carey and two longtime volunteers have raised money and taken dozens of Hutchins students around the country to compete in national chess tournaments. With Carey gone, Hutchins’ chess program is in limbo — in need of funds and volunteer support. 

Nurturing wildflowers

In a four-ring binder Carey made chronicling his first three years of teaching at the school, he described his stu dents as “wildflowers” grow ing in Detroit’s tough neigh­borhoods.

One of this year’s wildflow ers is sixth-grader Kenneth Peoples, a 11-year-old with mild autism and a 7-year-old’s be havioral pattern. Carey taught him to play chess and gave him one-on-one math help. Ken neth, who had never earned better than a D in math, earned a B.

“There wasn’t a light there before, and when the light clicked on, then we had a dif ferent child,” said Kenneth’s mother, Dawn Ringo. “I appre ciate that more than anything a person could give me as a gift.” 
| CONTACT CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY: 313-223-4537 OR CPRATT@FREEPRESS.COM


BOARDING SCHOOLS CAN HELP SOME KIDS

Students there during the week

By CHASTITY PRATT DAWSEY

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER 

The nation’s two pub licly funded boarding schools pride themselves on having rescued hun dreds of at-risk students. The school in Wash ington, D.C., serves 332 students, and the school in Baltimore serves 160. They opened in 1998 and 2008, respectively. Students attend clas ses on campus during the week and go home on weekends. Tuition is $35,000 per student; special state laws grant the publicly funded $25,000 boarding por tion.

Supporters say it’s a small price to pay, com pared with the costs as sociated with children at risk of ending up in the penal system as juveniles and then adults. These schools will lead to cost savings long-term, said Cheye Calvo, chief ex pansion officer for the nonprofit, Washington based SEED Foundation, which operates the schools.

To enroll in the Mary land school, students must show they are at risk of failing at other schools or incarceration. A law signed in 2006 se cures annual operating funds for the school, which is open to all stu dents in the state. The school cost $50 million to build.

The Washington school is a publicly fund ed charter school and ad mission is based on a lot tery. It cost $26 million to build.

“There are some kids who don’t have the fami ly support structure to be successful,” Calvo said. “We’re trying to give them a path to change the trajectory of their lives.”

SEED is making plans to open a school in Ohio, and officials from New York City, Indianapolis, Miami, Tennessee and New Orleans have shown interest in starting boarding schools, Calvo said.

If Detroit wanted to explore the possibility of a SEED school, political and philanthropic lead ers would have to push for a new law to fund it.

“It takes people who are willing to push the envelope,” he said.