Division I regional track finals
Fenwick graduation 2012
Ponitz graduation 2012
Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > October
October 2007
Joe Lacey: This is what I’m about
Joe Lacey
Over at the DaytonOS blog, Mike Robinette interviews Dayton school board member Joe Lacey for 35 minutes in a video clip in which Lacey explains why he ran for school board and how he views his role on the board.
For those who are trying to figure out what Lacey is all about, viewing this video may prove helpful. Robinette asks a lot of good questions, which prompts Lacey to tell us his view of the board’s reform plan, what he thinks of Gail Littlejohn, who he believes would be good to replace her, how he came to back the challengers in the school board race, whether charter schools hurt the school district, why the thinks the DDN editorial board is critical of him and if he will seek re-election.
The post that goes along with the video tells about Lacey’s decision to step down from as treasurer of the Montgomery County Democratic Party and some of the politics going on there.
Check it out.
Permalink | Comments (30) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Obama talking more about education
Alexander Russo at This Week in Education has the scoop on Barack Obama’s take on changing NCLB during an MTV/MySpace forum.
Meanwhile, The American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education is hailing Obama for his effort to spare the Teacher Quality Enhancement grant program from elimination in the budget. The group’s president and CEO, Dr. Sharon P. Robinson, had this to say about Obama:
“Senator Obama is a true champion for education and is committed to ensuring that our nation has a supply of high-quality teachers.”
This post also appears on the Education Writers Association’s Education Election blog.
Permalink | | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
Stivers re-opens: The reporter’s cut
I spent Monday morning at Stivers School for the Arts checking out the rehabbed and expanded 100-year-old building on East Fifth Street. I must say, it is very nice. The original building looked better than I expected.
Overall it was not that different. Same stairs, woodwork and floors, although cleaned up significantly. The big change in the original building is the school library, which is in a huge space that once held the school’s mechanical room and a dance studio. It is very nice.
A big part of the new building was still under construction, especially the main gym (the auxiliary gym was completely done and in use) and a 600-seat theater that looked like it was going to be spectacular. But most of the classrooms were done. The office space and classrooms are wonderfully spacious. So much so that the classrooms in the old portion of the building really do stand out for their cramped space. The modern school is so much more roomy.
The single coolest feature of the new school were the musical practice rooms. These are nine soundproof rooms and they are amazing. Inside you can’t hear a sound from the busy nearby cafeteria. Outside, you can hardly hear the instruments at play. As I was standing there marveling while I watched a student and teacher soundlessly practice one-on-one behind a glass door, another teacher pointed me to the larger room at the end of the hall. I couldn’t believe it. There were 13 kids in there playing string instruments and I couldn’t hear a peep just a few steps away.
I touched on some of these features in the story I wrote, but it was cut down a lot for space reasons. I also was disappointed the paper didn’t use any of the pictures we took at Stivers (they used one from Rosa Parks Elementary.)
So I thought I would post the longer original version of my Stivers story and tomorrow I’ll try to post some pictures from our database. Click the “continued” link for the “reporter’s cut” of the Stivers story.
By Scott Elliott
Staff Writer
DAYTON — Stivers School for the Arts is finally home.
The still unfinished school re-opened for classes Monday at 1313 E. Fifth St. — the site where the school opened in 1908 — two months ahead of schedule.
“It’s going to be one of the best schools in the Midwest,” said Liz Whipps, who heads the arts program. “I’m sure about that.”
Stivers was one of two schools that opened Monday. The other is a completely new school — Rosa Parks Elementary School at 3705 Lori Sue Ave. Students from Cornell Heights Elementary School relocated to that site.
Stivers cost about $35 million for a renovation and expansion project that doubled the size of the building to 209,000 square feet for 850 students in grades 7 to 12. Rosa Parks will house 473 students in 73,000 square feet at a cost of $12.5 million.
It’s been a quite a journey for Stivers. The school was nearly closed and had to be shored up in 2000 to protect against bricks falling from the crumbling facades. After considering moving the school to the former Patterson High School, the district bought the former Julienne High School and moved the students there in 2005.
The early opening for Stivers was designed to save the staff from having to move in during the holiday break in December and it meant some portions of the building are not ready.
So the school is making due as construction continues in about a third of the building. The main gym and a 600-seat theater are still being built, along with some classrooms and other spaces.
Students didn’t seem to mind. The cited bigger classrooms, better bathrooms, a comfortable library and high tech classroom tools among their favorite amenities.
“It’s hard to visualize what is used to be like,” said Tay’lar Johnson, an 11th grader who went to school in the original part of the school in 7th grade.
The library sits in a sunken area of the first floor that used to hold the mechanical room and a dance studio.
“It’s the size of a college library,” Johnson said. “I can’t wait to go check out some books.”
One of the key features for the school’s musicians is a row of soundproof practice rooms for private lessons taught by adjunct staff. On Monday, teacher Lois Ramey instructed an 13-piece orchestra in the largest of the rooms. The music of the string instruments was sealed in and the clatter of the nearby cafeteria was sealed out.
Michael Howard, a theater student, said he can’t wait for performances in the new theater. The acoustics alone will have an impact, he said.
“When the audience can hear us well they pay attention more,” he said. “If they can actually hear clearly what you are saying they are less distracted by the action.”
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools, School Construction
Five board candidates make their cases
I’m a little late getting around to posting this, but I finally compiled some of the comments of the candidates for Dayton school board from their endorsement interviews with the DDN editorial board a few weeks ago. In Monday’s paper, I wrote a pretty basic preview story on the school board race. We’ve got just more than a week to go before the big vote.
There were separate interviews for the five candidates seeking the three four-year board seats and for the two candidates seeking a two-year term on the board. I already posted some quotes from Shirley Crisp and Stacy Thompson from their meeting with the editorial board.
If you follow the “continued” link, you can read some of what Mario Gallin, Lee Massoud, Jeff Mims, Nancy Nerny and Sheila Taylor said during there time at the DDN.
Also, for more from the candidates, go here:
—Candidates’ night at Macedonia Church.
—Candidates’ night sponsored by the Dayton Education Council.
—Dayton Daily News endorsements.
—More from editorial page Editor Ellen Belcher and the DDN editorial page about the race.
Nancy Nerny
Personal
—Originally from Columbus, she graduated from UD and stayed as a teacher in Dayton schools.
—Has been long time volunteer in the community in many capacities. Currently she tutors once a week at Loos Elementary School in Dayton
—Applied twice for open board seats but was passed over for Ronald Jackson and Jeff Mims
—Voted yes on the May levy
On school funding, Nerny said she had tried to start a non-profit to raise funds for Loos:
“I thought why not do it bigger? Why not get the community and non-profits involved in the district? If money isn’t coming from state, we have to look somewhere else. I thought this was something I could do to contribute.”
On school construction:
“I taught in old buildings and I understand why some of them need to be torn down. We’ve always had to compensate for what the building had and that’s not a big problem. It’s a matter of how you balance it. Instruction is No. 1. It has to be a place for kids to continually learn.”
On the district’s academic needs:
“I think personally the board has said money for instruction is back as the No.1 priority. That might work, but I would like to see it. Based on what I hear from the teachers, it’s not happening. Having less planning time is awful. They have lots more visits from middle management.”
Mario Gallin
Personal
—Married and serves as the guardian for two children, one of whom attend the district. Has been the guardian for as many as four children at a time over the past 10 years.
—First elected in 1999, she is the longest serving board member, seeking a third term, and the only candidate in the race who was previously elected.
—Voted yes on the May levy.
On the school board race:
“I have a sense this is the most political race we’ve had in a long time. We’ve had political boards in the past. I don’t think they served Dayton very well. My hesitation is we don’t need to go back there.”
On school construction, Gallin said, in most cases new buildings are better for the kids in terms of air quality, lighting, handicapped accessibility and security:
“I am sensitive to the historic nature of schools like Roosevelt High School. New building designs look to incorporate some of that history. As a school board member, you have to weigh what is in the best interests of the students and the community.”
On neighborhood schools:
“People believe we don’t have neighborhood schools but we have since 2002. Everyone wanted them, but then they didn’t want to move their kids out of the schools they were attending. In some cases, they just prefer that school. Or they want a school that is close to their day care or a relative’s house. Or they want the children on a bus so they won’t have to walk. We’ve found, for whatever reason, parents will chose a school that is farther from their homes.
Lee Massoud
Personal
—Appointed in 2005 to an open board seat
—Had previously been on the board of the ISUS charter school and then became its chief financial officer
—Has primarily worked in banking, but after finishing an MBA at UD, she took at job with Miller-Valentine as director of finance.
—Moved into the city from Washington Township
—Voted yes on the May levy
On the importance of the city and the city schools to the region:
“We are a region. You can’t take any aspect of the region and have it lost or so broken without it negatively impacting the whole system. As a full community, we need to take responsibility for the education system in Dayton.”
On not seeking political endorsements:
“I think it’s a non-partisan race. It might hurt me, but its not a position I feel comfortable taking.”
On school construction:
“We had such dire conditions in schools that the money was made available for a very good reason. We have a budget for a master plan that is approved and we’ve got to live within that budget. We can dialogue about renovation and new construction, but the budget is what it is. If we start adding on, the increased costs are all on the local share.”
On the district’s academic needs:
“We can talk about unfunded mandates all week long, but we have to start with the premise that we all really want a quality education in this district for each child. We have to continue to move forward with what works. Those things that aren’t working need to change. The biggest indicator to me that some things are working is that we have increased enrollment in the younger grades in recent years.”
Jeff Mims
Personal
—Attended Dayton Public Schools as a child and graduated from Jefferson Township High School.
—Served in a special forces unit in Vietnam
—Returned to Dayton working as a janitor before earning a degree in art at Central State University and working as an art teacher and coach in Dayton schools.
—Served as teachers union president for five years and as a lobbyist for the Ohio Education Association for two years before returning as an administrator in the district.
—Appointed to the board this summer after retiring from the district in June.
—Voted yes on the May levy
On school construction:
“There are a lot of individuals who chose not to be around at the time we were deciding on these issues. we went every place and begged people for input. Why do people want to keep buildings? It seems to me that student achievement seems to be three, four or five things down on the list. A lot of the push is from people who no longer live in the district. I would have liked to have seen some combination of renovated versus new construction. But I am aware we do not get same dollar amount for renovation.”
On the district’s academic needs:
“I think we need to expand the perception of student achievement beyond the core subjects. Some of the things we have reduced, like art and music, have a strong relationship to science, reading and math. I am very concerned that we under educate our children if we do just that perceived core.”
Sheila Taylor
Personal
—From an Appalachian family that migrated from Tennessee and Kentucky to Michigan and Ohio.
—Was raised by a single mother in the Parkside Homes housing project in Dayton. By age five, she had lived in seven places. She attended Dayton Public Schools.
—Studied early childhood education at Sinclair Community College and Wright State University before working at the Daybreak homeless shelter. She is a licensed social worker.
—Later she worked as a pre-school teacher and ran her own day care.
—She now works the counter in traffic court.
—She has worked as a volunteer with labor and the Democratic Party on several campaigns.
—Voted no on the May levy
On why she decided to run for school board:
“I am running because I come from Dayton schools and I love my city. for 25 years I’ve watched families move into Dayton, purchase homes and leave when their kids are school age. I see it as merging my political involvements and the people I’ve got to know there with my love for children and love for community. I can be instrumental in helping. The public has a perception about Dayton Public Schools. I’ve been I don’t know all the facts but I know the public perception. They need to work at changing that. That will be my goal.
On school construction:
“A of the problem is the perception in the community. I am not sure people feel the board is open enough with them. As far as schools, they led the community to believe the focus would be on neighborhood schools. Now we have a boys and a girls schools. That doesn’t work and that is some of what the issue is.”
On the district’s academic needs:
“They need to look at the budget and how much can be drawn from management and waste and put into the classroom. They need to provide more support to teachers and in the classroom. They need to stabilize programs for special needs kids. They have to be more open in their communications with the community.
On the May levy:
“I voted no on the levy. I couldn’t afford it. I just bought a house that needs renovation and I’m doing it all myself. My budget did not allow me to add another $30 a month for a program that is not doing what the public needs it to do.”
Permalink | Comments (30) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Big Obama education plan coming in November
Barack Obama Friday rolled out a plan he said would greatly improve life in rural South Carolina and it included an education component.
Not only that, Obama said on a conference call that he would be rolling out a full education plan within a month:
“We’re going to be doing a roll-out of my education plan in much more specificity in the next two or three weeks. And we abide by my basic principle, which is we don’t propose any programs that we can’t pay for, so it will be structured in the context of other savings we have achieved elsewhere,” he said.
What will be in the plan? Well maybe the South Carolina proposal has some clues. In it he says federal dollars should be focused on rural areas to help with school construction. Look for a major early childhood education component, too:
“The federal government has to target where its dollars are going to make a difference,” he said. “Early education is an area where we think we can get a huge bang for the buck. The same is true when it comes to teacher pay tied to innovation in the schools.”
The Greenwood, S.C., Index Journal said Obama touted “partnerships between communities and state and federal governments” as “the only ways to adequately fund education.”
The post also appears on the Education Writers Association’s, Education Election blog.
Permalink | Comments (22) | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
Dann’s tactic: Is it working?
OK, I know a lot of people think Marc Dann is off his rocker with his legal maneuver to try to shut down low scoring charter schools, or maybe, as some say, he’s in the pocket of teachers’ unions. But consider this: perhaps at least do we have to acknowledge this move is achieving its goals pretty swiftly?
On Friday, I wrote about how Colin Powell Leadership Academy will close in January. Here is the chain of events. For five years, the school was rated in academic emergency but not much happened in terms of consequences. Then in September, Dann sues Colin Powell school. A couple weeks later, the school’s founder and superintendent was forced out.
Now less than six weeks after Dann’s first charter lawsuit, one of the schools has announced it will close. That’s pretty quick results. Dann’s lawyers never even had to set foot in a courtroom to achieve his goal for Colin Powell school.
Whether you think this is a good thing or not is a whole different discussion. And it remains to be seen how the other schools targeted by Dann respond.
But at least for Colin Powell school, Dann can say “mission accomplished.”
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Colin Powell charter school to close
The Colin Powell Leadership Academy, a charter school that is the target of a lawsuit by Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, will close at the end of the semester on Jan. 17.
Parents will be given the names of other schools, both charter and those in the district, that have a state report card rating of “continuous improvement” or better at a meeting this afternoon. More than 200 kids attend the school.
Colin Powell’s sponsor, Education Resource Consultants of Ohio, said the school’s three-member governing board, which runs its day-to-day operations, resigned and ERCO was not able to operate the school the rest of the academic year. Phyllis Brown, legal counsel for ERCO, said the governing board had failed to submit an improvement plan for the school and left the sponsor with too many problems to address.
“If board members had not resigned and left ERCO in this position, there were plans to demand the school provide a plan to address the academic emergency but there were no plans to close school in middle of the year,” Brown said.
Dann sued the school last month, arguing it failed to live up to its obligations to educate children and citing its low test scores over the past five years while the school consistently has been rated in “academic emergency,” the lowest of five state report card rating categories.
Less than a month after Dann’s action, the governing board parted ways with Colin Powell’s founder William Peterson in what was described as a mutual decision.
Brown said ERCO has been concerned about Colin Powell school’s troubled academic record and was pressing the governing board to make improvements even before Dann’s lawsuit. She said the suit had no impact on ERCO’s actions but “probably played a role along with other things” in the governing board’s resignation.
Last summer, ERCO has a similar situation with City Day Communit School when it dismissed the governing board and replaced it with new board members. The school continued to operate.
But Brown said the issues with the Colin Powell school are different.
“That was a totally different situation,” she said. “In this case we have school in academic emergency and on probation. The board was required to submit a precise improvement plan to get out of academic emergency. It is unfeasable to do what we did with City Day and bring a board in and expect them to get this to us. They already are past their deadline. It doesn’t seem feasible to bring new board in at this point.”
Operating the school until the end of the academic year also was not an option for ERCO, Brown said.
“We’re not in business of running schools and making board decisions,” she said. “If it were a month or two months to the end of the year that might have been feasible.”
Permalink | Comments (48) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
One candidate is blowing the doors off the field
The first campaign finance reports are out this afternoon from the Mongomery County Board of Elections for candidates seeking public office. This is an initial report. They will all have to file final reports after the election.
Still, these reports offer interesting clues about how serious each candidate is, at least when it comes to running a traditional campaign invloving advertising and organization.
The reports for the Dayton school board race show one candidate is VERY serious about winning, raising more in contributions than the other six candidates combined.
Want to take a guess who it is before you hit the “continued” link?
It’s Lee Massoud.
Massoud has raised almost $19,000. The the other six school board candidates combined have raised $17,500. This is interesting because Massoud has taken what might be considered a risky strategy by declining to seek endorsements from political groups such as the Democratic Party and labor unions.
Massoud said she has declined to screen for those groups because she believes school board races should be non-partisan. Some would say that is a noble stand, but in this city the Democrats and unions are powerful electoral forces — so powerful it is hard to pass them by and still run a serious campaign.
But Massoud has done so. Hers is by far the most professionally run compaign. She has spent $16,600 with a political consultant that appears to have done survey research in addition to running her advertising and direct mailing efforts. No other candidate reported any spending with professional political advisors.
Among her contributors are associates from her employer, Miller Valentine, including James Walsh ($2,500) and Daniel Valentine ($1,000); other politicians including Dean Lovelace ($50), Debbie Liberman ($50), Judy Dodge ($50), Dan Foley ($50); former school board members Ron Jackson ($50), Doniece Gatliff ($25) and Gail Littlejohn ($100) and about half dozen current and former school adiministrators, including Deputy Superintendent Debra Brathwaite ($50) and construction program chief John Carr ($50).
The next biggest treasuries among the candidates are Jeff Mims ($9,337), Stacy Thompson ($6,502), Sheila Taylor ($3,205), and Mario Gallin ($2,100).
Barely in the ballgame are Nancy Nerny, with $540 raised and Shirley Crisp, who has not raised a dime. Nerny’s committee is actually in the red, having spent $2,515 on yard signs, flyers and mailings.
It appears Joe Lacey’s initial mailer for Taylor, Nerny and Crisp cost his campaign committee $535. He reported “in-kind” contributions to all three for $178. That is the only thing on Crisp’s report.
Mims’ report is interesting. He raised $4,987 in cash but also loaned his personal funds to the campaign in the amount of $4,150. Plus, he took a $2,000 loan from former Dayton Mayor Richard Clay Dixon.
The Thompson vs. Crisp race for the one two-year seat on the board is so far very lopsided. Thompson has spent about $1,650 on advertising and has the most cash on hand for the stretch run with $4,850 in the bank. Crisp, again, hasn’t raised or spent any money.
Thompson and Mims have strong support from contributor who have a connection to the school district (including current educators and retirees) and other polticians, although the majority of their contributions are small amounts from regular citizens. Mario Gallin’s biggest contributor is a relative from New York who gave her $1,000, about half her money. She also got $600 from labor unions and $100 from Gail Littlejohn.
About half of Taylor’s money is from labor unions ($1,700). Most of the rest comes from Democratic politicians like Tony Capizzi ($200), Nan Whaley ($50), Mary Wiseman ($100), Rhine McLin $(50) and Dean Lovelace ($25).
Keep in mind, the money in the school board race this time is a far cry from what was spent when Littlejohn and her Kids First allies were first on the ballot. Kids First spent $208,229 in 2001 to win all four open seats in a nine-person field.
In 2005, Kids First only spent $17,000 and challenger Joe Lacey managed to knock out Doniece Gatliff while spending $3,600 in a five-person field.
(NOTE: I’ve changed some language in this post to be clearer about who is giving the most to Mims and Thompson. The majority of their donors are regular folks but they also have strong support from eduators, administrators and politicians.)
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools, Schools and Politics
Postcards from Macedonia (Church)
After tonight’s school board finance committee meeting I went over to Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church on North Gettysburg Avenue for another candidate’s night featuring those competing for the school board.
For one thing, I was wondering who would show up.
Again, the event was a little short on challengers. Nancy Nerny and Shirley Crisp were not in attendance, but Sheila Taylor was, along with the four incumbents — Mario Gallin, Lee Massoud, Stacy Thompson and Jeff Mims.
I asked Taylor why she didn’t come to Monday’s DEC-sponsored and televised candidate’s night. She said she backed out because her dog is sick. The dog, she said, has cancer and she had to take it to Ohio State University for treatment.
The Q & A at Macedonia Church was mostly uneventful. But there were a few interesting moments.
For one thing, Taylor opened the program with this:
“I just want to clarify one thing first. The Dayton Daily News says I am Joe Lacey’s candidate. That is not true. I am my own candidate, a strong woman who makes my own decisions about what is best for the community as a whole.”
We spoke about this afterward. I compared the situation to the 2001 school board race. In that race, Gail Littlejohn was angry at the DDN editorial board because it kept calling her Mayor Mike Turner’s “ally.” Gail also insisted she had not endorsed Turner and considered her campaign wholly independent from Turner’s mayor run.
But Gail and Kids First did accept Turner’s endorsement, appeared in ads with him and campaigned with him too. Given all that, “ally” seemed fair.
I asked Taylor if she wasn’t splitting hairs. She has accepted Joe’s endorsement and permitted his campaign committee to buy ads promoting her. Certainly Taylor is correct that this does not mean she will support Joe on every issue. But she has allied herself with Joe’s general outlook on school issues, an outlook DDN’s editorial board has made it clear it doesn’t like.
On another issue, Taylor told the editorial board a few weeks ago that she voted against the district’s levy in May because she felt she could not afford it (Shirley Crisp voted no also. Nancy Nerny and all the incumbents voted yes.) Yet I noticed Tuesday she seemed to be proposing a lot of new spending.
In fact, at the end of the night I went over my notes. Taylor said she supported smaller class sizes, more adults in the classrooms, expanded special education services for more kids, free meals for all students, more counseling and social work services in schools, expanded pre-school and sports, music and extra-curricular activities that are open to all kids.
All those things together sound pretty expensive. In fact, the levy defeat forced larger classrooms, fewer adults in the classrooms, fewer counselors and deep extra-curricular cuts.
When I asked her about this, Taylor said the way to afford all these things was to keep more students, and therefore more money, in the district by persuading fleeing families to stick with Dayton schools instead of choosing charter schools and the suburbs. I said that sounded like a long term goal and not something that could be accomplished quickly. She responded that her proposals also were something of a long term wish list and that she did not mean to suggest all could be put in place quickly.
Speaking of charter schools, there also was a lot of talk at Macadeonia Church about them. And none of it was especially neighborly. All the candidates in attendance said charter schools were harming public schools.
This time, the comments that surprised me came from Lee Massoud.
Responding to a question about why charter schools are here in Dayton, Massoud said they are part of a wider privatization movement nationally that has targeted government spending on health care, social security and now education. She said it is no secret thtat there is profit in charter schools. Massoud said charter schools had “decimated much of the public education system.”
“Our tax dollars are funding other folks to better their personal positions,” she said. “As taxpayers we must be demanding of our legislators and demand accountabilty for our tax dollars.”
Those were strong words, especially since Massoud’s initial experience in education was as the chief financial officer for the ISUS Trade and Tech Prep High School, a charter school.
I asked her if she was thinking of ISUS when she said these things about charters. She said no, that ISUS was a true non-profit in her view and a fine program. In fact, Massoud just last week attended an event celebrating ISUS.
So how can Massoud speak out against charters while at the same time believe they can be a good thing?
She explained that in her view the key was accountabilty — that the state needed to hold charters accountable.
Permalink | Comments (64) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Cutting it close budget-wise
Dayton schools, which started last year with $23 million cash and a $190 million core budget, finished in June with just $827,000 in the bank.
That thin margin of error is not projected to change much for the next five years.
Treasurer Stan Lucas Tuesday presented a five-year financial forecast to the school board’s finance committee that showed a continuing squeeze on the district’s bottom line.
“For 2008 to 2112, we have a very closely aligned budget for revenues and expenditures,” Lucas said.
The core budget for this school year — for operating the district’s academic program — reflects $23 million in cuts, coming in at $167 million. The district’s total budget is down $31.7 million from the prior year after the May levy defeat.
Going forward, the forecast projects a balanced budget through 2112 but district carries over as little as 0.75 percent of the budget in cash.
The projected budgets going forward assume programs that were cuts for this year will not return. That means a continuation of longer school days, larger class sizes and fewer extracurriculars, Lucas said.
It also means one-time adds back into this year’s budget — such as high school busing, adjunct arts faculty and middle school sports — will disappear for the next four years. Those cuts were restored this year after outside funds were raised to pay for them.
Only a levy can reverse all the cuts, Lucas said.
State law requires the board to pass the five-year forecast by month’s end. It will meet Tuesday to vote on it, board President Yvonne Isaacs said.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Incumbents trumpet successes at forum
Three challengers for Dayton school board all skipped Monday’s televised candidates night, leaving the incumbents two hours to tout their accomplishments.
The event, produced by students at the Patterson Career Academy, was sponsored by the Dayton Education Council, a parent and community support group for schools and shown live on the cable television.
Council President Les Weller said all seven candidates were invited. Challenger Nancy Nerny declined the invitation, he said, and Shirley Crisp, another newcomer in the race, pulled out today citing a back injury. Sheila Taylor, the third challenger, called shortly after Crisp and said she wasn’t coming either.
Reached at home, Crisp said she she simply needed to rest an injured her back. Taylor and Nerny could not be reached for comment.
The four incumbents — Stacy Thompson, Mario Gallin, Lee Massoud and Jeff Mims — took questions from the council, the studio audience and callers. They trumpeted the board’s efforts to give kids more choices, improve instruction and build new schools.
In response to a question about the graduation rate, Thompson said it had jumped to nearly 80 percent from less than 50 percent. She said new options like single gender schools, an academic magnet high school and a technology design program have helped keep kids in school.
“We need to ensure that we have programming in place to meet the needs of our students,” she said.
Gallin said a question about parent involvement raised a key issue. She said new initiatives with churches and businesses will help, as will finding new ways to communicate with district families, such as e-mail and church bulletins.
“We have challenges on that front,” she said. “We have to get people to understand we need their input and involvement.”
When a caller asked for examples of the board’s successes, Massoud cited steady enrollment the past two years after several years of steep losses to charter schools.
“That tells me people are still believing in us and entrusting us with their children,” she said.
Former board member Doniece Gatliff, asked from the audience how the candidates would support the board’s goals. Mims said they must unify to make a difference for kids.
“If we can’t unify ourselves to challenge those who are not working in our best interests then I find it difficult to believe others will jump in and support us,” he said.
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Challengers are no shows at candidates night
The Dayton Education Council’s big candidates night has just begun live on DPS -TV — the school district’s community access cable channel. The four incumbents are here. But none of the challengers showed up.
DEC chairman Les Weller said Nancy Nerny told them some time ago she could not attend. Shelia Taylor and Shirley Crisp, Weller said, initially accepted invitations to attend but today called to say they would not attend.
He didn’t say whether this was coincidental or if they were, for some reason, boycotting. I’ll try to get more information and let you know.
UPDATE: Sorry. This is being broadcast on the district’s cable station — DPS TV — not the city’s cable access channel. I’ve updated the post to reflect this.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Obama’s “in your face” move in California
(Obama works the crowd in LA Saturday)
Maybe Latino women voters, who make up a huge chunk of California’s Deomcratic constituency, didn’t pay enough notice last week when Barack Obama said student aid should be available to the children of illegal immigrants.
So Saturday he made his point again a bit more vividly.
Obama visited LA’s Garfield High School — the setting for the famous movie “Stand And Deliver” in which inspiring teacher Jamie Escalante pushes Latino kids to test success in math — and delivered an even more pointed critique of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s college aid veto.
“Instead of driving thousands of children who were on the right path into the shadows, we need to give those who play by the rules the opportunity to succeed,” the LA Times reported he said in his speech.
This post also appears on the Education Writers Association’s Education Election blog.
(Image credit: LA Times)
Permalink | Comments (5) | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
Lots of school board talk (must be an election coming up)
Can you tell there is a school board election a few weeks away? Just read our editorial pages every day. We’ve already discussed DDN’s endorsements and Ellen Belcher’s column about Joe Lacey.
But don’t overlook former state school board member Thomas Gunlock’s commentary. Gunlock says he was right earler this year when he say Dayton schools’ performance would slip and that the district, overall, was performing poorly. You might recall that Superintendent Percy Mack was livid after Gunlock’s prior commentary.
I know Tom reads Get on the Bus. Here’s my question for him. OK, you say Dayton schools have problems. Not many would argue with that. But your commentary was missing one big thing — solutions. What can be done to get urban schools performing better? Do your former colleagues at the state board of education or those in the legislature have any role?
Meanwhile, school board member Joe Lacey responds to Belcher’s criticism with a letter to the editor in which he takes issue with some of the details of her column.
And Belcher is back today with a commentary about Gail Littlejohn’s legacy. In essence, she says few have accomplished as much as Littlejohn did as school board president. Belcher’s lists Gail’s biggest accomplishments as professionalizing the board, getting a good superintendent in place, passing the school bond issue and redirecting more money into the classroom.
I think that is a good list.
People forget what this board was like before she got here in 2002. The board was very political.
For example, the board went two decades without closing a single school even though enrollment plummeted 25 percent. Why? Because everytime they talked about closing one, someone on the board had a political interest in keeping that school open. So nothing would happen. As a result, it cost more money to operate more building space than needed and that bled money from the classroom over to the operations side. Spending, over time, went pretty far out of whack, for that and other reasons.
Littlejohn put an end to that. Under her leadership, the board closed more than a dozen schools and pushed spending on academics from 47 percent of the budget to 66 percent.
Belcher listed Littlejohn’s most serious failures as the Reynolds purchase and her inability to forge a closer partnership with Mayor Rhine McLin. Both are examples of Littlejohn’s biggest vulnerability — sometimes she had a tendency to misjudge the politics around her actions.
In 2001, she made the mistake of beliving that because Mike Turner looked like a better candidate for mayor that he would win. So she accepted his endorsement and they campaigned together. Underestimating a McLin running for office in this town is never a good political strategy. It took a few years for their relationship to recover when McLin become the new mayor.
And Littlejohn did not see the political downside of the Reynolds purchase until much too late, long after the deal was done. The community resentment toward that purchase is hurting the board badly today.
In conversation with me last week, Littlejohn added better relations with unions as an unachieved goal. To extend this a little, I’d say overall the board did not connect well enough with employees.
They actually got more buy-in for their reforms than they get credit for. Many employees were sick and tired of the old ways of doing things in the district in 2001. But some of the blame that came the board’s way when times got tough the past few years showed they did not nurture that early connection with their workers effectively enough.
One unadressed question now is who will replace Littlejohn? Can they get anyone like her in terms of ideas, clout and energy? What do you think?
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Belcher: Democrats risking school board “debacle”
Editorial page editor Ellen Belcher today criticizes the Democrats for some of their endorsement choices for Dayton school board.
This follows Sunday’s editorial in which the paper endorsed the incumbents in the race.
The editorial from Sunday represents the joint opinion of the editorial board here at the paper. But editorial writers like Belcher also, at times, write their personal views of the issues in columns under their own names.
As with the editorial, Belcher’s column is critical of board member Joe Lacey, giving some of the specifics Joe asked for in the comments here recently as to why she believes he is viewed by some, including the editorial board, as a disruptive or counterproductive force on the board.
GOTB readers here had lots of questions about Sunday’s editorial. Do you think Belcher’s column answered them?
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Dayton still near the top for charter schools
Dayton is still the nation’s biggest charter school city outside of New Orleans, but now it has company at the top.
An annual study by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools shows New Orleans has the nation’s highest percentage of schoolchildren attending charter schools with Dayton ranking second.
Dayton had been No. 1 for several years prior to Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in 2005. New Orleans has slowly been rebuilding its public schools, mostly with independently run charter schools. About 57 percent of kids there attend charter schools, which is actually down nine points from last year but still far beyond Dayton at 27 percent.
Dayton’s percentage dropped one point from last year as charter enrollment has held steady here at about 6,000 students for the past three years.
That allowed other cities to catch up. Washington, D.C., and Southfield, Mich., are now tied for second with Dayton on the Alliance’s ranking.
Five Ohio school districts are among the top ten biggest charter school cities. Besides Dayton, Youngstown is tied for third, Toledo is fifth, Cleveland and Cincinnati are tied for sixth and Columbus is tied for 10th. Michigan also has five school districts on the list, including Detroit, which has the most total students in charter schools among the top 10 with 29,455.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Breaking News: Littlejohn leaving Dayton
Littlejohn
Gail Littlejohn, the attorney and corporate vice president who pushed a massive reform as a member of the Dayton school board the past six years, will resign tonight.
Littlejohn has accepted a job in Houston working for the Don McAcadams-run Center for the Reform of School Systems. McAdams is best known for leading the Houston school board through its own major reform in the 1990s, which helped set the ground work for wider school reform in Texas. George W. Bush regularly used Houston as an example of reform done right as governor in Texas and then as president while shaping his signature education reform, known as No Child Left Behind.
After Littlejohn’s Kids First team of candidates swept four of seven school board seats in 2001, the board hired McAdams as a consultant. Later Littlejohn worked as a consultant for the center in other cities. The center, which focuses on the 100 largest U.S. school districts, is expanding its business to serve smaller districts. Littlejohn will be a senior vice president for program development, working with school boards on reform efforts.
Littlejohn said she was approached by McAdams at the start of the summer and considered the move for months. She began working with the center officially two weeks ago.
The school district as a whole accomplished a lot on her watch, Littlejohn said. It is up to the voters now whether they want to continue to make strides toward better educated children in Dayton, she said.
“Ultimately the city has to decide what kind of school district they want and they are responsible for electing the right people to ensure they get that school system,” she said. “The district has shown this community what we can do with tremendous focus and a lot of support. I think community is at a place where they have to decide to support that hard work.”
She said the incumbents are the right choices this time around.
“I support the incumbents because they get it,” she said. “The understand reform efforts and the hard work and the importance of having a united board around a few important things that have to do with kids.”
Littlejohn said Kids First reform effort accomplished more faster than anyone expected.
“I think we accomplished, with the help of hundreds of people, a lot more anyone thought we would,” she said. “What I also learned is really how complex educating children really is. The systems are very hard to change and to move.”
Her most important accomplishments, she said, were professionalizing the school board and bringing critical community leaders back to the table to help address the district’s problems.
Back in 2000, there were few professional people serving on the board and many of the city’s biggest corporations and foundations had backed away or were rushing to support charter schools in an effort to try to put the school district out of business, if possible.
Littlejohn said she had two regrets.
One was that she did not push harder to have a consultant study the district operations well prior to the levy to see where any savings could be made. The district is now working to undertake such a study. Outside recommendations for changing the business operations of the district well before the levy might have helped the district ask for a smaller amount.
The other was that she was not successful in getting the districts unions engaged in the reform process.
This is the end of an intriguing era in Dayton schools. Board President Yvonne Isaacs is the only remaining Kids First member and Littlejohn takes a lot of political and community clout with her as she leaves town.
A lot changed during the last six years in the school district. What is your reaction to Littlejohn’s departure?
Permalink | Comments (23) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
DDN Edit board picks incumbents
The Dayton Daily News today endorsed the four incumbents in Dayton’s school board race and was pretty hard on Joe Lacey, calling him “disruptive.”
The editorial argues that the incumbents have superior qualifications, but also says the challengers’ association with Lacey hurts their candidacies. And the editorial bluntly states that the challengers’ election would empower Lacey on the board and harm not just Dayton but the entire region.
Those are strong words.
I know Lacey is a regular GOTB reader, so I anticipate he will have a response here. What about other regular GOTB readers and school board watchers? What is your reaction to the editorial?
Permalink | Comments (50) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Labor secretary lauds ISUS charter school
Elaine Chao
Daniel Daugherty dropped out in middle school and spent two years living with his father and not knowing what to do with his life.
Then a friend recommended the ISUS Trade and Tech Prep high school to his father. Now he’s a high school graduate, working for the school and hoping to become an electrician.
On Friday, he found himself standing in front of 100 people on a stage along side U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao.
“They treat you more like an adult and they challenge you,” he said of the school. “It makes you want to learn more.”
Chao picked ISUS to visit Friday from among 96 groups nationwide who will receive federal YouthBuild grants, which are designed to provide job training and employment opportunities.
The school, Chao said, was a perfect fit for her vision for YouthBuild, which was just moved from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to her office. She handed the school’s founder, Ann Higdon, a check for $550,000 and promised a second installment for the same amount.
“This funding will allow ISUS to continue helping young people access training and skills they need to build a brighter future for themselves,” Chao said.
ISUS is a charter school started in 1999 with the idea of teaching dropouts construction trade skills while helping them finish high school. ISUS enrolls about 175 students in Dayton.
Construction trades students learn in the classroom and on job sites. ISUS has built and renovated homes in two Dayton neighborhoods. Students also earn stipends of $12 to $30 a day if they come on time and prepared.
But the program is costly at more than $14,000 per student. It receives about $6,000 in state aid and raises funds through grants and contributions to fill the gap. YouthBuild has been a key partner, having given about $3 million in prior grants to the school.
Al Dunn, a retired manufacturing chief executive and chairman or ISUS’s board of trustees, praised Higdon for building a program that has made a difference.
“ISUS’s success that we celebrate today reflects what one person can do with a dream and with vision, courage and determination.”
Higdon said contributions like the YouthBuild grants and a $1.6 million gift from the Mathile Foundation have helped expand the program to build more houses.
“We have been able to really do something because of the investment,” she said. “But this all started with young people working hard.”
(Image credit: Peace Corps)
Permalink | Comments (28) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Obama: Let illegals get aid for college
(Obama campaigning Tuesday in Londonderry, N.H.)
On Tuesday, Barack Obama called on California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger not to veto a bill that would make illegal immigrants who graduate high school eligible for college aid.
Schwarzenegger has vetoed a similar measure once before. Obama co-sponsored a similar measure when he was in the Illinois legislature.
Also check out this story from a Georgia-based writer which makes a passing reference to Obama’s education positions but compares the Democratic senator to Ronald Reagan.
This post also appears on the Education Writers Association’s Education Election blog.
(Image credit: AP)
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
Study: Private schools don’t raise student scores
(Students at Chaminade-Julienne, a Catholic school founded by two religious orders, wrap Chirstmas gifts for senior citizens last December.)
A new study of over 12 years of test scores and student data shows no advantage for poor urban children who choose private high schools over public schools.
The study was conducted by the Center on Education Policy, a group run by former Democratic congressman Jack Jennings that supports public schools. It looked at 1,000 urban students nationwide.
The results echo other recent studies but are different from the conclusions of prior research, which found private schools raised test scores.
The center took the recent studies, which controlled statistically for the impact of family factors, a step further by looking at student scores over a long period and examining where some of the kids ended up later in life. In most cases, private school graduates had no advantage.
“Instead, it appears that private schools simply have higher percentages of students who would perform well in any environment based on their previous performance and background,” Jennings said.
Harold Wenglinsky of Columbia University, the author of the study, said his findings suggest parents and home life have even more powerful effects on school achievement — and the schools have less influence — than is commonly believed.
Parents, he said, may expect too much if they believe a private school education by itself better prepares kids academically.
“The higher performance at private schools is more likely a reflection of the collective resources and support that these parents bring to the school than to factors intrinsic to the school setting,” he said.
Dayton school board member Jeff Mims, a former legislative lobbyist on behalf of urban public schools, said the finding show public schools are not inferior. The former Dayton Public Schools art teacher and soccer coach said many former students went on to successful lives.
“Regardless of where they come from or what school went to, they found a way to be successful,” he said. “Urban children, in a lot of cases if someone turns light on early enough, they fight harder to get where they are going.”
The profiles of successful people, Mims said, do not always include top-rated schools. What is common in those profiles is opportunities seized — top grades, perfect attendance, leadership in clubs and organizations and success in athletics, art or music.
“It’s those opportunities we need to duplicate for other students,” he said.
One exception in the study hit close to home for Dayton.
Wenglinsky found students that attended a subset of Catholic schools — those run by religious orders within the church — did show positive academic effects.
Thanks in part to the influence of the University of Dayton, which is run by the Marinanist order, religious orders have played a role in Catholic education here.
Ann Battes, a deputy superintendent for the Cincinnati Archdiocese, said schools run by religious orders emphasize their guiding values, such as community service, leadership or humility, and inspire in students a sense of mission.
Students leave those schools with academic skills and with something extra that may help them succeed.
“Everything we do is through a lens of faith,” she said. “How we approach problems and relationships should be impacted through our lives.”
Battes said she did not believe the study’s conclusion that private schools did not enhance kids academically.
“I think our public schools are doing a fine job,” she said. “I support them and want them to do well. But for Catholic schools it is hard to measure some of the intangibles.”
UPDATE: Read more about the study at the Center on Education Policy’s Web site.
(Image credit: Chris Stewart, DDN)
Permalink | Comments (12) | Categories: Private Schools
New levy tactics emerging
(Voters casts ballots at Kettering’s Southdale Elementary School in May.)
Last week, I got a letter in the mail from Kettering school Superintendent Bob Mengerink on school district letterhead, like probably all Kettering residents, reminding me to vote on the district’s 4.9-mill school levy this November.
We all get these letters when a levy is on the ballot. But this was different.
The letter told me about a change in voting laws “that will make it much easier for you to cast a ballot on the Kettering Schools levy” and promised this change could help me avoid “bad weather, long lines or driving to your polling place.”
Mengerink says voters are no longer required give a reason to request an absentee ballot, that anyone can now request to vote absentee at any time for any reason and cast their ballots by mail. Enclosed with the letter were two copies of an application for an absentee voter’s ballot.
This, it seems to me, is pretty smart politics. It is an attempt to eliminate the most common excuses for why people who are supportive of schools don’t vote — that they didn’t have time or they forgot to vote on election day. If you vote ahead of time, there is no chance you will miss your chance to go to the polls.
It’s perhaps especially smart for Kettering, where Mengerink told me recently that lots of parents didn’t vote when a similar levy was on the ballot in May.
We saw something similar in Dayton in May. That district tracked down parents who were not registered to vote, gave them the papers to get registered and then gave them the application for absentee ballots. In Dayton, they credited this effort with a significant gain the number of absentee ballots cast in favor of the district’s levy compared to prior elections.
Smart politics, maybe, but some might see this as getting closer to crossing the line into overtly campaigning for the levy. School districs are supposed to leave campaign activities to their levy committees.
What do you think of this new levy tactic to sign people up for absentee ballots?
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: Schools and Politics
Oakwood: Where debate is tougher than football
Mary Jo Scalzo
Oakwood Superintendent Mary Jo Scalzo hopes today’s voters in her district will follow their historical pattern of backing school levies this fall.
In the past 26 years, voters have passed 17 of 18 tax levies. In November, the schools will be seeking a 6.5-mill levy that would raise $2 million a year and cost the owner of a $200,000 home $398 a year in new taxes.
Even with the long, successful track record, Scalzo said she is taking nothing for granted. The levy, she said, would guarantee the district could maintain programs and approaches that are working well.
“Our students are truly a team,” she said. “There is a culture of achievement around our students and a sense of cooperation and partnership among the families, residents and the staff that has been in place for decades.”
Oakwood schools are well known for being No. 1 when it comes to test scores and wealth in the Miami Valley, but they also top a more unexpected list —- the district has one of the fastest growing student bodies.
Over the past the past 13 years, Oakwood’s enrollment has jumped by about 675 students — up 45 percent — to about 2,175 today. But unlike other growing districts, hardly any homes were built in the city over that time.
More families are moving in, Scalzo said, and the increased demand for Oakwood schools coincide with the rise of state report cards in Ohio, spreading the word about the district’s success.
“Report cards helped publicize to other people in the area what everyone in Oakwood already knew,” she said.
The district has about 150 teachers and 200 total staff and a budget of about $21 million. Scalzo said some elements of the program are expensive to maintain, especially small class sizes in early elementary grades and 15 Advanced Placement classes at the high school.
In a district where the debate team has to have cuts every year but the football team does not, AP courses are valued, she said.
“We have an AP latin class with just eight students, but our community to date has said they believe it is important to offer Latin 1, 2, 3, 4 and AP Latin,” Scalzo said.
A levy defeat would probably cause cutbacks, she said, but school leaders don’t want to think about those possibilities yet.
“We want to be positive,” she said. “We don’t have a doomsday scenario. But we know Oakwood’s education system would change dramatically without this levy.”
(NOTE: The DDN’s editorial board endorsed Oakwood’s levy on Sunday.)
Permalink | Comments (35) | Categories: Schools and Politics
Obama loses AFT, gets Chicago teachers
Looks like while EWA was putting me to work in Milwaukee Chicago teachers endorsed Barack Obama, according to Alexander Russo at This Week in Education. This is on the heels of the American Federation of Teachers’ decision to endorse Hillary Clinton earlier in the day.
We’re still waiting on the National Education Association, the other big national teachers union.
This post also appears on the Education Writers Association’s Education Election blog.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
Issacs: Bad charters harm all schools
Yvonne Isaacs
Dayton school board President Yvonne Isaacs told a meeting of education reporters from across the country Saturday that an education crisis in Dayton at the advent of charter schools helped prompt major reforms, but charter schools in some ways harm the district’s ability to educate kids.
Isaacs spoke at a seminar examining the impact of school choice sponsored by the Education Writers Association in Milwaukee on a panel with David Harris, the former charter school director for the mayor of Indianapolis and Greg Richmond of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers.
With about 30 percent of schoolchildren attending more than 30 charter schools, Dayton is second behind only New Orleans for the size of its charter school movement. Over the nine years of charter schools in Dayton, Isaacs said, the district has lost $283 million that was transferred to charter schools, which she said have overall scored lower than traditional public schools.
“”It would not have cost us nearly that much to educate 6,000 students, we believe,” she said.
Harris and Richmond argued that charter schools have been a good education reform.
“Overall, I think charter schools have had a very positive impact on the education landscape in Indianapolis generally and also on the school districts,” Harris said. “We have empowered quality people to create quality new options.”
Isaacs described the election of the Kids First team to the school board in 2002 and the reform it launched — replacing the superintendent, shifting spending toward the classroom and creating new choice options within the district.
“Choice in education can be good, but quality education choices for children must also be good for kids to become successful adults,” she said.
Bad charter schools have harmed all schools, she said.
“The underperformers have diluted resources for all public schools,” she said. “They robbed thousands of students of the education they deserved.”
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Milwaukee is to vouchers as Dayton is to charters
If you’re interested in school choice, don’t ever pass up a chance to visit Milwaukee.
The city has 17,000 kids using vouchers to attend private schools — the largest and oldest city-based voucher program in the country — and it also has a thriving charter school sector. But it is best known as the voucher capital of the nation, much the way Dayton has come to be known for charter schools.
Milwaukee also just a darn nice city to visit. Nice people. Lots of fun places to go and things to do.
So when the Education Writers Association asked me to come here and speak to reporters about strategies for covering charter schools, I jumped at the chance. They also invited Dayton school board President Yvonne Isaacs, who presents later this afternoon.
The program Friday included a tour of some choice schools in Milwaukee. I’ve done tours like this in other places, including Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Michigan. They are always enlightening. We had one especially inspiring visit to a school called the Milwaukee College Preparatory School.
The school began as a Marva Collins concept school (using the teaching strategies of the famous Chicago educator) and has evolved into a K-8 program that seeks to place its graduates in top high schools in Milwaukee and prep schools around the country.
Principal Robert Rauh is a former teacher in a prep school who wanted to take the high expectations and rich curriculum he was used to into poor neighborhoods and challenge low income kids to achieve.
He had lots of great examples of individual success stories. He told of a girl who was overweight with terrible buck teeth with a no positive parental role models. After school leaders paid for braces she lost 60 pounds and became a top student. And there was the story of the girl who lives in foster care at an intersection ranked among the most dangerous in the city. Her oratory before a group of visitors from a national non-profit group was so moving one of the visitors paid for her to attend a fancy prep school in California.
How fancy? Get this. Each kid gets their own HORSE to care for and ride for four years of high school!
As we passed a courtyard, some of us were looking out at the beautiful playground with grass that was too green to be true but looked very real. Is that FieldTurf, the stuff pro sports teams are installing in their stadiums today, I wondered?
Funny story, Rauh said. He got a call one day from a supporter of the school who knew the commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig. He had been telling Selig, who was a wealthy car dealer and owner of the Milwaukee Brewers about the school and Selig was intrigued. College Prep is in the very neighborhood that Selig had grown up in years ago when it was primarily Jewish. He wanted to come visit.
Rauh agreed, but privately worried that the kids wouldn’t have much in common with the wealthy baseball man. He was wrong. Selig stayed an hour passed the planned time, talking with students and answering their questions. At the end, he told Rauh he wanted to do something for the kids.
And that’s how a small charter school in one of the worst neighborhoods in Milwaukee got a FieldTurf playground.
(Image credit: www.wisconsinharbortowns.org)
Permalink | Comments (13) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, My Favorite Posts
School board candidates: Out of touch?
Dayton-based blogger David Esrati, writing over at Dayton OS apparently doesn’t like the campaign literature of some of the Dayton school board candidates.
And I think I agree with Esrati’s chief complaint.
Neither of the mailings he got — one from Lee Massoud and another one from Joe Lacey’s campaign committee touting challengers Shirley Crisp, Nancy Nerny and Shelia Taylor — had much concrete information on them and, most annoying to Esrati, neither had a Web address for those who wanted to find out more information about them.
This is 2007. Do any of the seven school board candidates even have a Web site? I couldn’t find one for any of them with a Google search. None of them have pointed me to one. I think Esrati is right. If you are running for office in 2007, you should have a Web stie.
Candidates — if you’re out there and you DO have a Web site, point us to it! If you don’t have one, why not? It’s not costly and it is an easy way to let people know what you’re all about.
And there is plenty of room on the Web to explain where you stand on the issues, unlike an 8.5 x 5.5 flyer.
UPDATE: Stacy Thompson has a website with some good basic background information about her and her views on some of the issues.
Also, You can read Nancy Nerny’s statement from December about why she wanted the job when she applied for an open seat back then. And you can find info on Thompson and Crisp from their visit with the DDN editorial board here.
One commenter already pointed out that we haven’t heard that much from the candidates about their positions on the issues. Candidates, here are some questions to answer on your Web sites as a guide:
—Are you pleased with the progress of the district’s five-year academic reform effort? If so, why do you believe it is working? If not, what would you do differently?
—Do you think the district is well managed? Give examples of good or bad decisions by the administration (not the board).
—Do you share the school board’s vision for the district? Tell us what you agree with about the board’s vision or how your vision differs.
—Tell us your view of how to balance the need for improved learning environments with new schools versus the community’s desire to preserve it’s history by keeping old schools open.
Permalink | Comments (30) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
Charter suits suggested by unions?
The Columbus Dispatch yesterday reported that an Ohio Education Association lawyer in May suggested the idea to Attorney General Marc Dann’s office that Dann could challenge the status of charter schools as charitible trusts. The OEA has been a strong opponent of charter schools for years.
The e-mail conversation occurred during settlement talks regarding a lawsuit that OEA and its Dayton affiliate had filed against the state challenging the legality of charter schools. When Dann last month announced he was seeking to have the “charitable trusts” for low performing charter schools dissolved, closing the schools, the unions dropped their suit.
As a result, pro-charter groups, like the Washington, D.C.,-based Center on Education Reform are blasting Dann, saying he is doing the bidding of teacher’s unions. In the Dispatch story, Dann’s spokesman said the OEA suggestion is a coincidence — that his office had been considering taking this action against low scoring charters five months before the e-mail conversation with the unions occurred.
Does this news alter your view of Dann’s approach to charter schools?
Permalink | Comments (11) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Peterson out as charter superintendent
William Peterson, superintendent of three Dayton charter schools, resigned Tuesday in what the sponsor of the schools called a mutual decison.
Peterson founded three Dayton charter schools — the Colin Powell Leadership Academy, Arise Academy and Peterson Entrepreurial Training School — plus a fourth school in Cleveland over the past six years and served as superintendent over all of them. His wife, Diane, was the operations manager for the schools. She also resigned.
Phyllis Brown, an attorney representing Education Resource Consultants of Ohio, which sponsors the schools, said both sides agreed the Petersons should resign at a board meeting Tuesday night.
Colin Powell last month was targeted by Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, who sued seeking to close the school for chornic poor performance. It was the third Dayton school Dann has sued.
Peterson declined comment Wednesday but said the schools would issue a statement shortly.
Peterson is a former University of Dayton football star and was a teammate there of Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted. His other school is the Cleveland Academy of Scholarship Technology and Leadership Enterprise, also known by the acronym CASTLE.
Permalink | Comments (14) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice
Julienne decision on hold, candidates meet
The city plan board today tabled its discussion about changing zoning for the former Julienne High School, asking the school district to meet with neighbors and alumni and develop a plan to address their concerns. We have a story in Wednesday’s DDN about it.
Meanwhile, after an uneventful school board meeting, I went to a candidates night at St. Mark’s Church in east Dayton where the seven candidates for school board spoke. All of them did very well and it was a polite and thoughtful audience. Questions centered around the district’s finances, construction plans and neighborhood schools.
There were no bombshells or big moments. The challengers criticized some of the board’s decisions and spending while the incumbents defended their actions. But I did learn some things.
Board member Joe Lacey was there. He was passing out cards promoting three challengers — Shirley Crisp, Nancy Nerny and Sheila Taylor — paid for by his own campaign committee. Lacey told me he printed the cards because he wanted to support those candidates.
The card reads:
“Save Dayton’s Historic Buildings! Bring Fiscal Responsibility to our School Board! Vote for Change November 6.”
I also learned this week that the county Democrats have endorsed challenger Sheila Taylor along with incumbents Jeff Mims and Stacy Thompson. They did not endorse a fourth candidate, even though four seats are open. This means they passed on Nancy Nerny and Mario Gallin. Lee Massoud did not seek the Democratic endorsement.
Backing from the Dems is very helpful to a candidacy in Montgomery County. The Democrats have a strong network and are closely allied with unions, which have their own strong networks, get out the vote efforts and candidate promotion machines. That endorsement is meaningful.
Finally, I learned that the incumbents are not running together this time. Massoud, Mims, Gallin and Thompson each has his or her own campaign committee and treasury. Massoud said they did so partly because they perceived some negative reaction the last time the Kids First team ran together.
Still, I have to think this move handicaps the incumbents. Wouldn’t their collective buying power for ads, signs, etc., be greater if they were running together? For Kids First, four candidates pooled their money and went to big donors to raise lots of cash that they then spent on television and radio ads and mass mailings.
Will any of the candidates be able to buy TV commercials on their own? Meanwhile, at least one challenger has the endorsement of the Democrats, and the significant support that comes with it.
Taylor and Lacey are allies. Taylor looks like she is going to be a formidable candidate, thanks to the Democrats. Meanwhile, Crisp and Lacey are friends. Crisp and Thompson face off for a single board seat. Neither is widely known in the community, although Thompson has the Democrats behind her.
Still, the possibility that Lacey could have two new friends on the board by January stands at least a realistic chance. That could tilt the board to a 4-3 divide on some key issues, which would dramatically change the dynamics of the school board.
Sounds to me like this will be a pretty interesting race.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: School Construction
Bricks vs. Kids, Round 1
OK, I got your attention with that headline. It was intended to be humorous.
Later this afternoon, the city plan board will consider the arguments for changing the zoning around the former Julienne High School, the first step that could lead to its designation as historic, which likely would block Dayton Public Schools from tearing it down.
In today’s paper, my colleague Joanne Huist Smith and I followed up with the Ohio School Facilities Commission and the neighbor and alumni groups opposed to the demolition plan after school board member Joe Lacey said the district was wrong or exagggerating some points in making it case for a new school.
The OSFC largely backed the district’s claim that renovation would be much more costly than a new building and some of the opponents expressed a willingness to at least discuss a partial demolition. Click the “continued” link for the whole story, including what did not make the paper due to space constraints.
In talking about this yesterday, a thought occurred to me. The portion of the building most “historic,” in terms of its connection with the saint-in-waiting Dorothy Stang, may be the chapel and the convent. If nothing else, perhaps those structures could be saved along with the auditorium and some of the building facades. I am not sure the classroom space is either very useful for the new school or especially historic.
Maybe an outside funding source be found to save the chapel and convent? That limited project might not be prohibitively expensive. Then perhaps new learning spaces could be built, incorporating the existing facades and the auditorium, by the district and OSFC? That way the chapel and convent, which are not very useful as school space anyway, could serve as a Dorothy Stang museum or some other community purpose. And the instructional space could be all-new but bear a likeness to the old school, serving the district’s needs.
Just a thought.
Scott Elliott and Joanne Huist Smith
Staff Writers
DAYTON — The city school district may choose to renovate the former Julienne High School building rather than replace it with a new building, but the cost for that project likely would be far higher, a state school construction official said Monday.
The city Plan Board meets this afternoon to consider amended zoning for Julienne, which would allow for it to receive protection and historic status.
Rick Savors, Ohio School Facilities Commission spokesman, said school districts can choose to renovate old buildings even if the state recommends a new school, as they have with Julienne.
But the state will share fewer costs on renovation projects, he said. There are three major limits — the state only not fund more space than is needed, it will not pay more than the cost of a new building and it will not pay for spaces that don’t conform to its guidelines. Savors said state evaluators literally will walk through the building and decide what rooms or spaces it will co-fund.
Those limits, Savors said, will raise the district’s cost for the project.
“There would be a significant cost in dealing with renovation of this building because of the excess square footage,” he said. “In some instances renovation works and in other instances it does not. Generally, we find the costs escalate.”
School board member Joe Lacey said not enough creative thinking has been applied to Julienne. Costs could be held down by selectively razing some parts of the building while saving others. He said the 2002 state evaluation of Dayton schools showed many could be rehabilitated at a reasonable cost even though the state recommended replacing nearly all of them.
“Historically, some renovations have come in at a lot more but it could be for other reasons,” he said. “These estimates I am looking at are all I have to go with. They show renovation costing less than construction.”
Savors said the 2002 estimates were designed only to guide decision-making for replacing schools.
“When we think the cost of renovation exceeds two-third the cost of a new school we normally say to take it off line,” he said. “We don’t just look at a building from a structural standpoint. We look at the educational efficiency of the building. Does it work for the way we educate students today?”
Mark Suda, president of the Five Oaks Neighborhood Improvement Association, said he would entertain discussions with the school district on rehabbing half of the Julienne building, then demolishing the remainder for new construction.
That doesn’t mean the Five Oaks Neighborhood or the Julienne Alumni Association will stop their campaign to gain protective historic zoning for the 1928-era building.
“We don’t have a whole lot of trust this will happen, if the building doesn’t get HD-3 historic status, that it won’t be gone in a couple of months,” Suda said.
Suda suggested that since the building — with cloisters of small practice rooms — worked so well as a swing building for Stivers Hill School of the Arts, that it should be converted into a feeder school for Stivers, one of the district’s most successful programs.
Plan Board Member Donna Martin will be absent from the dais when the Plan Board votes on whether to amend the zoning map for Julienne. Martin said she has a vested interest in the case. She wrote the preliminary nomination for Julienne’s nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. She’s worried that the Plan Board will postpone the case to give city staff time to speak with neighborhood groups. While on the surface that sounds like a good idea, it could open the door for speedy demise of the structure.
“The fear is that the school district will demolish the building before it goes to City Commission,” Martin said. “The FROC Priority Board, the Landmarks Commission, the Five Oaks Neighborhood, the Ohio Historic Preservation Office…All of these people have weighed in already.”
Martin said all voted in favor of preservation.
John Carr, the district’s construction chief, said demolition is expected in early spring and that the district couldn’t move faster than that because of the need to remove asbestos and take other prepatory steps before razing the building.
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Catholics: Charting the way forward for all schools?
In today’s DDN, there is a big story about how the Catholic schools have banded together to chart their collective future.
For those of you who are not Catholic, it may be hard to appreciate what an accomplishment this new collaborative is. The church has a long history of fragmented authority when it comes to its schools. Over 100 years here, a tradition emerged in which each school operated very independently and the churches guarded that independence. They have long been wary that collective school efforts would lead to the local church losing control of the ability to direct its own school.
This new cooperation by Catholic schools got me thinking about the implications for the public school sector in Montgomery County.
The demographic trends and fiscal realities of Catholic schools, hastened by competition from charter schools in Dayton, helped pushed Catholic schools to finally all decide that it is in their interests to move forward together. The collaborative includes all the Catholic schools in Montgomery County plus a few in Greene and Miami counties.
I wonder if the public school districts are taking note. They operate much the same way. There is little collaboration or collective planning among school districts, despite similarly intense financial and demographic pressures.
Bro. Raymond Fitz, former University of Dayton president, told me a high concern for Catholic schools is that they continue to serve their mission in the inner city — offering a quality Catholic education to anyone who wants one, Catholic or not. This is important because the urban Catholic schools have been under increasing pressure. Last year, five schools combined into two buildings at the elementary level and Chaminade Julienne, the only inner city Catholic high school, had layoffs because of an enrollment drop.
Again, urban public education has similarly troublesome issues. Fitz said as a condition of participation in the collaborative, suburban Catholic schools and parishes had to commit to the notion that the urban presence is important. I wonder if the county’s public school districts could ever make such a commitment?
Frankly, I never thought I’d see Catholic schools connect on this level. The usual pattern is lots of talk about ideas like this but in the end most of the individual schools have dropped out before committing to anything. Fitz said he thinks Dayton’s collaborative could be a national model if it works. He is not aware of another city-suburban Catholic partnership like this.
But the Catholic school effort this time had pretty strong leaders — Fitz, retired CEO Franz Hoge and Fr. Dave Brinkmoller, who serves as sort of a captain of the local pastors in the area, have strong credentials and a lot of persuasive power.
Who could lead such an effort on the public school side of the fence?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Categories: Charter Schools and School Choice, Private Schools, Schools and Politics
Catholic schools chart bold new vision
Scott Elliott
Staff Writer
DAYTON — Catholic education leaders today said Catholic schools would work together more cohesively than ever before in hopes of securing their future.
With the formation of the Catholic Education Collaborative, the 21 Catholic schools and 27 parishes of the Dayton Deanery Monday hope to increase their collective buying power, fund-raising prowess and academic achievement while setting a joint vision for the Catholic schools in the region.
“The Catholic Church cannot solve its issues on education at individual parishes and schools,” said Bro. Raymond Fitz, the former president of the University of Dayton. “They have to work together to solve problems.”
Primary goals will be securing Catholic education in the center city and guiding when and how schools will partner and potentially consolidate or close, depending on demographic trends.
Under the plan, the collaborative will be a stronger, more interdependent partnership of Catholic schools, which have operated in Dayton for most of the past century as a loose network of self-governing, church-based operations.
The Deanery includes all of Montgomery County and parts of Greene and Miami counties. Ann Battes, superintendent of Catholic schools in Dayton, will also be president of the collaborative.
“Catholic education has always excelled, but the benchmarks that were used historically no longer works — local benchmarks,” said Franz Hoge, retired Dayton area managing partner for the Coopers and Lybrand accounting firm. “We need to be comparing to other countries. We’re great now but we’re looking at a different level of excellence.”
The collaborative will be led by a board that includes Fitz, Hoge and Fr. Dave Brinkmoeller. They envision some Catholic parishes turning over management of their schools to the Collaborative within two years.
“We realize there will be some reconfigurations that are going to be needed in the future,” Brinkmoeller said. “We’re not at the point yet where we have the information to know what the next moves will be.”
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Private Schools
The kids love Obama
(Obama at NYU)
Barack Obama continues to be a hit with the college set, speaking last week to an excitable crowd of 24,000 at New York University.
Obama again delighted the crowd by ripping the cost of college in a speech that touched on Iraq and health care too.
In other campaign news, Obama and John Edwards said in last week’s New Hampshire debate that they would be comfortable reading the book “King and King,” which has same-sex relationships as a theme, to their young children and would support its use as part of a school curriculum. Hillary Clinton also gave less enthusiastic support for the book, the subject of a controversy when a second grade techer read it to her class in Massachucetts.
The three were criticized by Mitt Romney, who in a statement said he opposed the use of such a book in school.
This post also appears on the Education Writers Association’s Education Election blog.
(Image Credit: Washington Square News)
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Tracking Barack Obama
