Friday, June 24 is the last day of school in Providence

An update to my "when's the last day of school?" post from earlier this week: this morning, Providence Public Schools posted to its Facebook page with the announcement that the last day of school is indeed Friday, June 24.

School registration and assignment in Boston

Last month, the Boston Globe ran "Getting In," an extensive series of print and video features on the experience of families going through the process of registering their kids in the Boston Public Schools. Those of us who are veterans of PPSD registration will note obvious differences, of course. Not the least of these differences is that the polices and practices of school registration and student assignment are clear and transparent.

That's not to imply that Bostonians themselves are delighted with BPS - as parents and others state over and over, their kids need better schools citywide. But what seems to be clear is that the registration process itself isn't a factor that contributes to people's frustration or abandonment either of the system of their work to advocate for their kids, and I cannot confidently say that about PPSD's registration and assignment processes.

Here's the link to the entire series: http://www.boston.com/news/education/specials/school_chance/index/. Fascinating reading.

When's the last day of school in Providence?

No, really. Last day of school for the 2010-2011 academic year in PPSD? Not yet decided (or at least not yet communicated). Nor is the first day of the 2011-2012 academic year. This inconveniences and frustrates, well, pretty much everyone: families, employers and co-workers of PPSD parents, community-based summer program providers, teachers and other professional staff, the district itself, the many tens of thousands of us who are directly or indirectly affected by the public schools. Huge ripple effect.

Whatever people are responsible for determining this, get it together. I know it's related to union/district negotiations. You'd think that all involved would want to score some easily-earned good will and make these two dates known so the rest of us can get on with our lives.

Happy Spring Break!

Hey, it's spring break. Happy vacation, teachers and kids. Happy Passover, happy Easter, happy spring! Go enjoy the sunshine, get some sleep, have fun. School resumes Monday, April 25, 2011.

not just Providence, of course

School closings, probable or actual, are happening in many communities nationwide, and in an attempt to understand how this phenomenon is playing out elsewhere, Philadelphia's approach has come up in conversations frequently this week.

Philadelphia's plan to close some schools and restructure many others has been covered in its excellent independent Philadelphia Public School Notebook publication (which is what Providence Schools and Beyond wants to be when it grows up). Depending on your views and values, there's a lot to not love in Philly's proposals. I myself think that the suggestion that small schools don't serve kids well and aren't cost-effective is dead wrong.

But there's a lot for us to learn from Philadelphia's more deliberate approach to school closings and restructurings, particular the fact that the proposal is to take 18-24 months to roll out the restructuring plan and its acknowledgment that closing schools needs to be done but not for quick financial gains. From last week's Notebook story on the plan to close and restructure schools:

The draft plan released on Thursday, which Nunery described as a “work in progress,” is a response to the District’s 70,000 empty seats, hodgepodge of grade configurations and program offerings, and widely varying building utilization rates.

Currently, the District enrolls roughly 155,000 students and uses about 67 percent of its building capacity, officials say. By 2014, enrollment is expected to drop to 145,000, but the District wants to reach 85 percent utilization, which would mean shedding over 40,000 seats.

Although the District is facing a projected budget shortfall of $629 million next year, officials said the primary goal of the “rightsizing plan” is not to narrow the gap, and cautioned against expecting major savings resulting from the plan.

"Even though the economic impact would help us, it would be better if the communities are stronger," said Nunery.

The full plan, which will detail all of the proposed closures and other changes, is now expected to be made public in October. That timeline will allow for three months of public comment before the SRC votes on the plan in January 2012.

Philadelphia's timeline: discussion starts in April 2011 (actually, it's been ongoing prior to last week), plan announced in October 2011, SRC (their school board) vote in January 2012.

Providence's timeline: teacher firing and proposed school closings announced February 23 2011, schools proposed for closing named March 14, 2011, school board vote April 25, 2011.

Anyone who wishes could and should feel free to find fault with the Philly/Providence comparison. But it's hard to appreciate that the timeline of Philadelphia's plan to make more efficient use of its facilities operates at a scale that allows for community organization, education of folks in school communities who otherwise would have no meaningful opportunity to understand what's happening to their children and their neighborhood, time for decisionmakers and stakeholders to get up to speed--just more time for all of it, and more clarity about why changes need to happen and their significance (or financial lack thereof).

Let Diane Ravitch wake up your dozing skeptic

From the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, read Diane Ravitch's "Miracle schools, vouchers, and all that education flim-flam" to become a more educated and skeptical education journalism consumer. Ravitch's overview of the questions reporters should ask when writing about standardized test scores within schools, districts, and states, as well as charter/school choice issues, and more tell us what we should expect from education journalism and should push you to question unresearched and unsubstantiated claims of the successes of any particular policy.

Ravitch demonstrates that education reporting is necessarily complex. The effects of disregarding that complexity have contributed to the current testing-centric policy conditions that have made it so difficult for meaningful teaching and learning to happen everywhere and e specially in schools that serve students most in need.

Breakfast and more, in and out of the classroom

For the next East Side Monthly column, I am planning to write about the pros and cons of PPSD's new breakfast in the classroom program, which is what it sounds like: free breakfast in the classroom at the start of the day for all PPSD elementary school students. ProJo coverage of the program's launch in January is here. If any readers have anything you'd like to say about the breakfast in the classroom initiative, positive or negative, on the record or off, please let me know. I am still sorting out my own thoughts about its various advantages and problems.

While mulling this over, I saw this piece on the choices that schools make about the food that they serve kids--and the choices that they prevent--by Valerie Strauss in her Washington Post Answer Sheet column. Definitely worth a read if you're interested in policies and practices around food and nutrition in schools.