Achievement First Mayoral Academies Receive Preliminary Approval

Apologies for the sporadic recent posting - amped up demands at work and home have limited my time. Happy to have a few minutes now to to note - as all locally who care already know - that yesterday, the Rhode Island Board of Regents voted to preliminarily approve Achievement First's Mayoral Charter schools application. The vote was 5-4 - more details online via various news outlets, including WRNI's Education Blog and the Providence Journal.

RI Regents Achievement First Mayoral Academy Hearing Tomorrow, 4:00pm

Tomorrow, the RI Board of Regents is hearing public comment on the proposal from Achievement First to start two Rhode Island Mayoral Academies charter schools in Providence as part of its monthly meeting (meeting agenda here), which is scheduled to take place from 4-6pm at the Rhode Island Department of Education, Room 501, 255 Westminster Street in Providence. Arrive a half hour early (3:30pm) to sign up for public comment.

Family and community engagement: less is more

Would you like to go to a meeting? Because, man, do we have them this week. Tonight, tomorrow night, and Thursday night are full of meetings and hearings related to the Achievement First Mayoral Academies charter school application that's been submitted to RIDE. Tonight, there's a Providence City Council education subcommittee hearing at 5:30 at City Hall (more info here). Tomorrow and Thursday night, the Rhode Island Board of Regents is holding hearings in Providence, tomorrow at 6pm at Kennedy Elementary School, Thursday at 6pm at Alvarez High School (more info, respectively aligned along some sort of spectrum here, here, and here). And that's just what's happening in Providence related to this one particular topic.

In Providence, it's also Open Schools Week for elementary schools, which means that families interested in public elementary schools are likely taking time off work or away from other responsibilities to visit schools. I'm spending evenings and lunch hours getting ready for and giving tours of MLK Elementary, where my kids go to school. This is great! But again, this week? With everything else? Too much.

Read on for schedule-related bitching and moaning, if that's your pleasure...

While I'd be way crankier if there were no hearings or publicly available information, I am sufficiently cranky with all of this happening immediately, right now, one after the other, especially since there is no actual rush as far as I am aware. As Tom Hoffman points out, the deadline for charter applications is four months away. There's ample time for various public entities to schedule hearings in ways that allow families with kids (or any of you out there who may work evenings or just otherwise have plenty going on) to plan to attend. After a strenuous bout of childcare wrangling, I think I'll be able to attend tomorrow night's Regents' hearing at Kennedy but that's it. And I am blessed with a daytime job, fairly easy kids, a car, and a spouse who supports my desire to participate. 

Generally, I regard myself as a fortunate person, especially when it comes to being able to be involved with the schools in my community. Though I work full time, I have enough control over my time to be able to spend time in schools. I have been able to form meaningful relationships with other family members, staff members, students, and administrators. I feel like I am able to contribute to conversations about what's happening in education in Providence and beyond in a variety of ways - in conversations, in public forums, on this blog, in my East Side Monthly column, and in my professional life. And as a member of the dominant culture who speaks English and feels happy and at home in school settings, I am well aware of my privilege and access, and happy to use some of it to ask that we think about ways to schedule hearings and opportunities for family and community involvement that support that involvement. 

When possible, I hope that the various towns involved with this proposal, along with RIDE, communicate with each other about when hearings are happening, and try to make sure they don't happen on weeks when there are other big district-wide events such as Open Schools Week. I have no expectation that all of us can attend everything, but this week's event pile-up is way beyond possible for most regular folks. 

In order to have consistent, inclusive family and community involvement, we really need better planning. Too many events, while better than too few, create their own frustrations that could be avoided by better planning. Moving forward, let's look at the various demands on folks' time and try to schedule them in ways that are possible for the largest possible group of people. 

Report on 11/29 Providence City Council Hearing on Achievement First's Mayor Academies Proposal from Richard Purnell

The following report comes from Richard Purnell, a parents of a Providence Public School student who was able to attend the Providence City Council's Education Subcommittee's hearing on Achievement First's proposal to establish two Mayoral Academies in Providence to serve student from Providence and surrounding municipalities. Commentary/clarifications from me are in brackets [like this]. Many thanks to Richard for this report! 

I arrived at the council's meeting room on the third floor of City Hall a little before 5 pm -  in time for me to see them setting up some folding chairs in the "back" of the room by the windows. Pretty soon it would be SRO. Linda Borg [the Providence Journal's education reporter] was front and center, Angela Romans [Mayor Taveras' Senior Adviser on Education] was nearby, and the scene was being taped [by Jessica Jennings] for the perennial documentary on educational progress in Providence. I took one of the chairs by the window, which gave me a pretty good view but - as it turned out - poor acoustics. Around 5:03 pm, I watched Councilor Zurier bring the room to order and convene the meeting with a declared quorum, knowing that I would have to leave around 6:00 pm. 

Councilor Zurier explained that this was going to be conducted as an information-seeking meeting and that people would have several other opportunities soon to express their views about Achievement First (AF). Following a presentation by AF, there would be an opportunity to ask questions. He explained that there were time constraints associated with the meeting and told us what the order and manner of questioning would be, with members of the education subcommittee going first, councilpersons next, and the public last.\ 

The City Councilors I could clearly identify from my vantage point were Councilors Matos, Yurdin  Narducci  Solomon, Correia, Jennings, Principe, Zurier, and (I think) Salvatore. Others may have been there and I did not see or recognize them. I had heard from Councilor Jackson the day before that his presence would be required elsewhere at the time of the meeting, but that he would have wanted to attend. The principal spokesperson for AF at the meeting was Reshma Singh. She was assisted from time to time by a woman, Christine Lopes, and a man, whose name I later found out is Bill Fischer. 

For an "exact" account of what transpired, I have been told by City Clerk Anna Stetson that minutes of the meeting will be available in a couple of weeks, at the earliest.  I would also recommend Linda Borg's article in the November 30th issue of the Providence Journal for a fine synopsis of important exchanges that took place [sorry, can't find it online]. What follows will be some impressions, reactions, and afterthoughts regarding what I was able to witness over the sirens and other street noises that competed with the proceedings from where I sat. 

I was impressed with the manner in which Councilor Zurier conducted the meeting and the efforts councilors made to present salient issues to the AF spokesperson. There were a few instances when things had to be "ushered" along by the chair, but this was carried out in a considerate manner. The presentation by AF was coherent and polished; there were handouts, but I think they were only available for the subcommittee members. Perhaps when I get the minutes I'll be able to obtain the handouts also. 

One reaction I had was to AF's response to a question about their reputation for not encouraging or engaging parents in the "operation" of their schools. Basically, what I heard them say was that there would be a parent on the mayoral board and that would seem to satisfy that demand. 

Another reaction was when Councilor Principe was questioning Ms Singh about the recent news that four AF schools in Connecticut had not made their AYPs. Her response was to point out that these schools had made great progress in test scores, but that they just were not great enough to bring them over the mark set for acceptable performance. AYPs, she said, were incredibly complex to fathom and she had recently spent considerable time familiarizing herself with them. What needed to be focused on, she said, were the great strides made by the students. I'll let the reader reflect a little on where we have heard that response before and how it was received. I also wondered about the impetus for really digging into understanding AYPs being failing to attain them. I suppose you really don't have to understand what it is you are supposed to be attaining until you don't attain it. 

Councilor Principe's concentration on AF's failure to make AYPs seemed to have a very valid query: Why should a community that has schools with passing AYPs in some of its schools need to import an organization with failing AYPs when it can look to its own successful schools for answers?
One thing I was hoping to hear brought up was the low numbers of students projected to be in the classes their two schools will contain. So lower class sizes and fewer of the more challenging students gets presented as raising the bar of education in Providence. On a somewhat related note, I thought wouldn't it be grand if Walmart gave Providence (instead of AF) $250,000 for each of two elementary schools it opened with "176 students the first year."  I got those numbers from an article by Linda Borg, which seemed to be based on responses from AF. I wondered at the time why it said two schools the first year when elsewhere they speak of opening a school in 2013 and the second in 2014. There's a lot that needs sorting out (as in deeper educational thinking) here. 

So, to wrap things up for now, the more I see folks dig into the inner workings and long-term implications of the AF way of looking at what it has to offer Providence's needs for closing its achievement gaps, the more it looks to be a facade.  The path to school reform in Providence needs to be paved with more than good intentions and hyperbole. I sincerely hope more of us will get out to these hearings on the AF proposal and think critically about what is being offered as a solution for one of our most important issues:  the true condition of our public schools and what it is compared to what it should be. --Richard Purnell

Final Achievement First note of the day: per this AP report that ran on Channel 10's website, the Warwick School Committee voted last night to opposed the creation of the Achievement First Mayor Academies that would draw students from Warwick, citing concerns about cost and lack of familiarity with Achievement First.

Community Letter on Achievement First's Providence Mayoral Academies Proposal

As I mentioned in the previous post, on Monday, November 28, a coalition of Providence City Council members (Bryan Principe, Ward 13; Davian Sanchez, Ward 11; Kevin Jackson, Ward 3; Luis Aponte, Ward 10; Michael Correia, Ward 6; Nicholas Narducci, Ward 4; and Carmen Castillo, Ward 9; community groups and citizens delivered a letter to Governor Lincoln Chafee that described their concerns about Achievement First's proposal to open two Mayoral Academy charter schools in Providence in 2013 and 2014 to serve students from Providence and surrounding communities. Click here to view the letter on Google Docs.

Meetings and hearings on Achievement First's application to open Mayor Academies in Providence

Regular Providence Schools and Beyond readers will know that for much of 2011, citizens of Providence, Cranston, and other municipalities have been debating the merits and detriments of a proposal from charter management organization Achievement First to open two Mayoral Academies in the coming years to serve K-12 students. Following the Rhode Island Board of Regents’ rejection of a version of the proposal to open the schools in Cranston to serve students in grades K-12 from Cranston and Providence, Achievement First resubmitted the charter application with a view to open the schools in Providence in 2013 and 2014 to serve students not only from Providence and Cranston but also (name other surrounding towns). That proposal is front and center in Providence this week.

Yesterday, a coalition of Providence neighborhood associations, parent organizations, student organizing groups, private-sector unions, community organizing groups, and public officials (including the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School Parent-Teacher Organization, of which I am a member) announced its opposition to the establishment of a network of Achievement First Mayoral Academies in Providence. The coalition held a rally and press conference at the State House and delivered a letter to the Governor expressing its concern about and lack of interest in the prospect of Achievement First’s establishment of the Mayoral Academies in Providence. Click here to view the letter on Google Docs. The group used Facebook to organize - if you want to join in, go here: http://www.facebook.com/events/245049805555073/. The Brown Daily Herald covered yesterday's protest nicely here.

More Achievement First news, this from Councilman Sam Zurier’s Ward 2 email newsletter: tonight (Tuesday, November 29) at 5:00pm, the Providence City Council’s Education Subcommittee will hear a presentation from representatives of Achievement First, which has applied to operate a mayoral academy charter school in Providence.  Members of the City Council will ask questions, including questions submitted from the public. Councilman Zurier did not say this, but I would guess that you cannot be there, as I cannot due to work obligations, he may accept questions via email or phone calls.  The hearing will take place in Providence City Hall, 25 Dorrance Street.

Next week, on Tuesday, December 6, the Providence City Council Education Subcommittee will hear the School Department’s projection of the financial impact of the new charter school if it is approved.  I’ll share the time when it’s announced.

Both of these Providence City Council Education Subcommittee Meetings precede next week’s Rhode Island Board of Regents’ hearings on the proposed Achievement First Mayoral Academies. WRNI’s Education Blog reports that the hearings will take place as follows:

• Wednesday, December 7, 6:00pm, Robert F. Kennedy Elementary School, 195 Nelson Street in Providence
• Thursday, December 8, 6:00pm Dr. Jorge Alvarez High School, 375 Adelaide Avenue in Providence

Please - whether you're avidly opposed to or in support of Achievement First--and especially if you want to know more--do what you can to learn about the financial, social, educational and other impacts these schools may have on our city. Come to the hearings and sign up for public comment - make your views known. 

Teach-in: How Would Achievement First Impact Our Community? 10/19 7pm

Am surfacing from this month's blog break to let people know about an event of interest this week.

On Wednesday, October 19, from 7:00-9:00pm, the Coalition to Defend Public Education is sponsoring a teach-in entitled "How Would Achievement First Impact Our Community?" to offer a forum to discuss issues surrounding the soon-to-be-proposed Achievement First Mayoral Academy in Providence. Hear from parents, educators, community members, and others who will voice their concerns and discuss ideas for the way to truly improve and defend public education in Providence and in Rhode Island. The forum will be held at St. Michael's Church located at 239 Oxford Street in Providence.


Speakers will include Caroline Apgar, New Haven teacher and graduate of Teach for America, Jennifer Davey, Cranston parent, Tom Hoffman, blogger on education issues at tuttlesvc.org and Providence parents and teachers.  For more information, contact the Coalition to Defend Public Education at 401-400-0373 or email coalitiontodefendpubliced@gmail.com.

If you're on Facebook, there's an event page for the teach-in here.

Thoughts on the Achievement First Mayoral Academy proposal, charter schools, and in-district public schools

I have refrained from opinionating about the pros and cons about the proposed Achievement First Mayoral Academies because I have not wanted to join what feels like one of two sides:

• those that doggedly flog and endorse the proposal and seem to indicate without a great deal of critical thinking that charter schools = excellence (and in-district public schools = mediocrity)
• those who vehemently resist the AF Mayoral Academies proposal and seem to indicate without a great deal of critical thinking that charter schools = evil conspiracy

As is usually the habit of truth, the reality is likely in murky gray, and really, who wants to go there in one's free time? Much easier just to pick a side, to go with a group. But I cannot. After many months of resistance, it's time to pull on the hip waders and slog through.

I'm a huge fan of many charter schools. I've worked for many years at the Coalition of Essential Schools and seen many extraordinary charter schools in action and in collaboration with many in-district public schools and independent schools. I served on the board of a charter school in San Francisco. I entered my oldest child into the lotteries for three charter schools when we moved to Providence and am very up front about the fact that if he had been selected for a spot at any of the three, he and his brothers would likely be there. It's worth noting that in every instance, these schools are "independent" charter schools that emerged from their communities for specific purposes and are autonomously run by their own boards. They're not "Mc-Charters" operated by large charter management organizations that import a model that's not connected to the school's community.

That's why I wholeheartedly support most of Rhode Island's existing charter schools. At the very least, I support their existence and in some cases, think that the work they're doing with kids is great; that said, I don't at all claim to be familiar with them all.

And I have not ever felt that my support of well-run, community-based charter schools takes away from my ardent support of public schools in general and the Providence Public Schools, where my kids and 20,000+ of their peers, are students. Our schools--already urgently in need of improvement and already benefiting from considerable assets and investments--were sorely battered and bruised this past school year. We need to do all we can to address shortcomings and build on our strengths. I am passionately in it for the long haul as a parent, a community member, and, to the extent that it's useful, education professional, to do just that. A strong public school system that serves all kids in all neighborhood with the highest levels of quality, caring, and equity is absolutely imperative. It's maddening and frustrating that I or anyone else would even have to assert that, but of course we must, over and over and over.

Now that Mayor Taveras and the Providence School board have endorsed the proposal to create the Achievement First Mayoral Academies that will serve 900 Providence students, we will need to amplify the volume of that statement radically. I report these developments not with outrage but with urgent questions about the ways the opening of Achievement First Mayoral Academies will affect students who remain enrolled in Providence's public schools. Here are a few:

• How will the Achievement First Mayoral Academies will be an asset to all current and future PPSD students (as well as Cranston's public school students)? Will there be collaborative relationships and knowledge sharing established such as that between the Learning Community and Central Falls Public Schools? Or is this strictly a competition? 
• How will students be recruited and selected so that the newly opened charter schools don't skim off the "cream of the crop?"
• How will the schools' culture, governance, curriculum, approaches to discipline, and other elements reflect our community's hopes and dreams for our children? How much room is there in the Achievement First model for local input?
• What will be the real long- and short-term financial impact on Providence Public Schools' budget and students?
• How will the newly opened charter schools avoid the effects of (re)segregation that has been the effect of many charter schools nationwide? Evidence abounds for this: see reports from Minnesota, California, and Florida for a sense of this effect.

These are questions that should apply to all existing and future charter school that enroll Providence students. They are questions that I expect elected and appointed policy makers to ask and to insist on evidence that demonstrates that all students in Providence will attend better schools as result of these proposed new charters.

School Board and City Council education subcommittee meetings this week + more

Week before school starts and it's all PPSD-related meetings meetings meetings. Here are a few that have hit my post-vacation radar:

Tonight - Monday, August 22

Providence School Board Meeting, 6:30pm, 797 Westminster Street, 3rd floor: The School Board will meet to discuss a number of issues including the potential participation of Providence in the Achievement First Mayor Academies being proposed for Providence and Cranston. School board meeting agenda available here. Arrive early to sign up for public comment if you have thoughts on any of the agenda items or if something else PPSD-related is on your mind that you want on the record.

Parents Advisory Council meeting, 6pm, Family Resource Center, 379 Washington Street: The Parents Advisory Council (PAC) is a gathering of representatives from all Providence public schools. If you are interested in joining the PAC to represent your school, please join us! I have been a PAC member for several years and will be representing Nathan Bishop Middle School during the coming year.

Tomorrow night - Tuesday, August 23

City Council Education Subcommittee meeting, 5:30pm, Providence City Hall, 3rd floor: The School Department will report on issues related to the reopening of school, including the length of the instructional day, assignment of children from closed schools and the teacher "match" process.

Wednesday, August 24

Rhode Island Jobs for Justice Cranston parent rally, 5pm (or perhaps 6pm) onward: A series of rallies is planned in Cranston for families in that district to stand up for their schools. May be of interest to Providence folks with an interest in what's happening with the proposed Achievement First Mayoral Academies. More details here at Tuttle SVC.

No Achievement First Mayoral Academies Regents' vote this week

WRNI's Education Blog has posted the news that the RI Board of Regents won't be voting this week on the Achievement First Mayoral Academies proposal to create charter schools in Cranston to serve Providence and Cranston students. The vote was to have taken place at 11:00am on Thursday, 6/16; now the vote has been postponed (no date announced) and Thursday's Regents meeting will include a hearing on the charter proposal.

If you're able to attend, the Regents meeting will take place in room 501 at the RI Department of Education (RIDE), 255 Westminster Street, Providence. Sign up for public comments is at 10:30.

Achievement First Mayoral Academies hearing in Providence, June 9, 6pm, Alvarez High School

For those who may be following the progress of the Achievement First Mayor Academies proposal to open a charter school to serve Cranston and Providence students, please note that there will be a hearing in Providence on the matter on June 9 at 6 p.m. at Dr. Jorge Alvarez High School, located at 375 Adelaide Ave. in Providence.

For those who would like learn more about the Achievement First Mayor Academies charter school proposal:

• Here's the latest ProJo article on the Achievement First Mayor Academies charter school proposal.
• Here's a list of concerns about the proposal compiled by local blogger Tom Hoffman (and here's the link to his blog post that originally presented that list, if you prefer your PDF links in their native habitat).
• Here's a Cranston Herald op ed by RI-CAN head Maryellen Butke that clarifies the way the Achievement First Mayor Academies would be funded.
• Here's where you can find the proposal itself on RIDE's website

Providence people, please try to attend the hearing next week on Thursday, June 9, 6 p.m. at Dr. Jorge Alvarez High School, 375 Adelaide Ave. I am exceedingly frustrated that I cannot go; I have a the final meeting of the PPSD Parents Advisory Council group, of which I am an active member. This hearing is an opportunity to express whatever views you may have about possible impact this proposed charter school, which would serve up to 900 students from Providence.

Achievement First Mayoral Academies updates

I am doing little more here than saying "what he said" and pointing you to Tom Hoffman's Tuttle SVC blog for information about public meetings scheduled this week and next on the Achievement First Mayoral Academies charter proposal. The meetings are scheduled for on May 26 and May 31, 6pm each time at Cranston City Hall. For more info, read Tom's post here. Also worth reading are Tom's questions to RIDE about the application.

For those who may not be following the issue, this affects Providence public schools because the new charter schools that would open as a result would accept students from Providence. These students--and their per-pupil funding--would leave the district. This may be great news if you believe that the Achievement First will provide a better education than PPSD could offer. I am not opposed to charter schools as a way to offer high-quality options, but I don't know enough yet about the ways these schools would serve our city's kids (and Cranston's kids) to determine their value.

Given the possible impact (the schools will serve 2,000 kids!), we should be able to learn much more about these schools than the charter application indicates, and should be able to benefit from a process that allows the publicto comment on a full application rather than the current incomplete version.

Achievement First Mayoral Academy charter application per Tom Hoffman

Pressed for time, I am not going rehash but rather will simply direct you to the recent posts that Tom Hoffman has made on Tuttle SVC blog about the significant problems that the Cranston Achievement First Mayoral Academy, which is currently in the form of a RIDE charter application, would present to all involved. The related posts are recent; scroll down to check them out. Tom also wrote up his thoughts for Common Ground magazine; flip digitally to page 4 for that.  Much appreciation to Tom for surfacing what certainly does seem like a bad deal for all involved.