District Dossier - Education Week

Deadly Tornado Crushes Oklahoma Schools

2013-05-21T02:50:50Z

At least two schools were destroyed and children were among the fatalities today after a massive tornado struck the Oklahoma City area, multiple news outlets were reporting.

The huge twister that tore through the suburban community of Moore, Okla., killed at least 51 people. It wasn't yet clear late Monday night how many children and adults in the two elementary schools that were in the storm's direct path were killed or injured. Rescue efforts remained underway Monday night to search for and dig out people buried in debris.

The Associated Press reported that the tornado ripped the roof off Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, and that children from the school were among the dead.

In a press conference Monday night, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said, "Our hearts are broken for the parents that are wondering about the state of their children that had been in the schools that have been hit today," Gov. Fallin said. "I know that there are families wondering where their loved ones are."

Briarwood Elementary School in Moore also took a direct hit from the tornado that clocked 200-mile-per-hour winds and remained on the ground for as long as 40 minutes, the AP reported. No injuries were reported at that school.

Both Briarwood and Plaza Towers are part of the 23,000-student Moore school district, which is Oklahoma's third largest system.

- Lesli A. Maxwell

Chicago School Closure Protests Head Into Third Day

2013-05-20T11:45:25Z

After two straight days of organized protests around Chicago, teachers, parents, and students are expected to continue marching today against the city school system's plans to shutter up to 53 elementary schools at the end of the academic year.

The Chicago Teachers' Union and other activists helped organize the three days of protests against the closures, which the city board of education is set to vote on this Wednesday. The union has been stridently against any of the slated closures, and last week it filed two federal lawsuits on behalf of parents alleging the district's plan discriminates against black students and special education students.

That news came on the heels of recommendations from hearing officers—who were hired by the school district—that 13 of the schools on the closure list not be shut down because the receiving schools for those students are no better. Local polls have also found a majority of city residents oppose the plan—which would amount to the single largest shuttering of public schools in a major U.S. city.

And the school district took another big blow over the weekend in a Chicago Tribune story that revealed that district officials may have selectively used data to justify their closure decisions.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has said that closing the schools is necessary to address a $1 billion deficit.

- Lesli A. Maxwell

Philadelphia Teachers, Students Protest 'Doomsday' Budget Cuts

2013-05-17T15:50:19Z

UPDATED
Staff and students in Philadelphia are protesting a Draconian budget proposal that would leave many schools without arts or music, without secretaries or aides, and without libraries in the 2013-14 school year. Dozens of teachers gathered near a high school this morning to protest, according to NBC Philadelphia, and students in the 138,000-student district are planning a walkout for later today.

More than 1,000 students were expected to walk out of school at noon, said Beth Patel, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Student Union. Students plan to meet at the school district and walk to City Hall, where Philadelphia's city council is hearing testimony on the impact of the proposed budget cuts, she said.

The student union supports but did not plan the walkout, Ms. Patel said. Students coordinated the event over social media and via word of mouth.

The city's schools are bracing for the "catastrophic" budget laid out by Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. last month. The district is also planning to close more than 20 schools.

Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter has proposed a tax increase on liquor and cigarettes in order to raise money for public schools, including charters, in the city, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The district is also hoping for more state funding to help close its $304 million budget gap.

Students in the district staged a different walkout earlier this month. NBC Philadelphia profiled a few of those student activists.

In other notable news from Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Public School Notebook reports that more than 50 of the district's 218 schools will have new principals this year, due to a combination of hirings, firings, retirements, and charter conversions.

Philadelphia is not the only city that's seen large student and teacher protests this year. In Chicago, students refused to take state tests in April in order to protest massive school closings. Last month, in Newark, students walked out of school to protest proposed budget cuts there. And earlier this month in Raleigh, students protested state funding proposals for public schools in North Carolina.

Update:
In Philadelphia, NBC is reporting that more than 2,000 students showed up to protest the budget. The Philadelphia Public School Notebook has a Storify about the protests.

Meanwhile, in Dallas, students at Madison High are protesting a new principal evaluation system that could lead to as many as 50 new principals in the district—and the layoffs of some much-loved school leaders, the Dallas News reports. My colleague Alyssa Morones reported on some of the pushback on the superintendent's plan earlier this week.

- Jackie Zubrzycki

What's the Best Background for a Superintendent?

2013-05-15T21:00:12Z

The school district in Wake County, North Carolina, which is the largest in the state and encompasses the Raleigh metro area, named four semi-finalists for its superintendency last week, according to the Raleigh News & Observer. The school board's chair, Keith Sutton, said that all four of those candidates are "veteran educators."

The district will release the names of finalists publicly for the first time since 1995. The board hopes to have a new superintendent in place by the time Stephen Gainey, the interim superintendent, leaves in July.

I wrote about the search for new district leaders in 17 noteworthy urban school districts, including Wake County, for last week's issue of Education Week. Each of those searches brings up its own set of questions. In Wake, one is whether districts are more or less interested in candidates for the superintendency who have not worked in school districts before.

The last permanent superintendent in the Raleigh area, Anthony J. Tata, was a nontraditional candidate (a former brigadier general) trained by the Broad Academy. He was dismissed by the district's school board, which was politically divided, after twenty months last fall, and is now leading the state's department of transportation. The school board now in charge is different than the one in place when Tata was fired.

When we spoke a few weeks ago, Keith Sutton, the chairman of the school board, said that while the board would not rule out a candidate who has been a successful superintendent elsewhere, it would prefer to hire "someone who has an education background, someone who's been an administrator."
Of course, the traditional/nontraditional question is not the only thing at play in Wake or in any big district. But I was curious about whether there were any patterns in superintendents' backgrounds.

For years now, the pipeline of superintendents has contained both traditional educators and those who have come to school systems from the military, business, and elsewhere, says Kenneth Wong, a professor of education at Brown University. "There are a lot of superintendents coming through alternative certification programs like the Broad Academy," he said. "My sense is that it's likely that these searches are going to continue to rely on this mixed pool."

At least in Indianapolis and Prince George's County in Maryland, those leading the search said they are open to leaders with less direct education experience. According to the Indianapolis Star, both traditional and nontraditional candidates have already applied for the job in Indianapolis.

Mike Casserly, the executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, said that overall, "in the last 15 years, the number of traditional versus nontraditionals, insiders versus outsiders, has stayed generally pretty consistent, with the exception that there's been a slight increase in number coming from inside of their own district."

But Dan Domenech, the executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, said that he had noted a slowdown in the hiring of nontraditional superintendents, "primarily because the nontraditional superintendents haven't had any greater success than traditional superintendents." He also said, however, that it can be hard to lure the best people in the district to such a challenging and public job.

I also spoke with Neerav Kingsland, the executive director of New Schools for New Orleans, and Andy Smarick, a partner with education consulting firm Bellwether. Both suggested that struggling urban districts need a different kind of leader altogether—one who's intent not on "fixing" the district, but on reducing the size of a central office and changing its role to give schools more autonomy. Kingsland calls this kind of leader a "Relinquisher", and says that this kind of strategy is different even than what districts have seen from so-called nontraditional leader. As of yet, however, there is no "Relinquisher's Academy," and it's not clear what the market for one would be.

But, as we begin to hear who will be running the districts featured my article this week, it will be interesting to note whether Domenech's observation holds true—that districts are looking more to veteran educators to fill top leadership spots—or whether we see a new round of "nontraditional" folks—or whether we see something else altogether.

- Jackie Zubrzycki

Chicago Teachers' Union Sues District Over School Closure Plan

2013-05-15T20:50:07Z

Chicago's teacher's union today filed a pair of civil rights lawsuits in federal court on behalf of local parents to stop, or at least stall, the city school system's plans to shutter 53 elementary schools at the end of this school year.

The lawsuits come one week before the city's board of education is scheduled for a final vote on closing the elementary schools that are mostly located in neighborhoods on the city's South and West sides. The lawsuits focus on the impacts that the district's school closure plan would have on African-American students and those enrolled in special education programs.

The first suit filed on behalf of four parents, alleges that the district's plan violates Title II of the American with Disabilities Act by not allowing for enough planning time and transition for special needs students who have Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs.

The second suit also contends violations of ADA because special education students in schools slated to close would be uprooted and placed in unfamiliar environments without proper supports. Likewise, special education students in "receiving" schools would have their environments disrupted by an influx of students from closed schools, the suit says. The closure plan also discriminates against African-American students, who constitute the vast majority of students who would be affected by the closures and assignments to new schools, the suit claims.

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the CEO of Chicago's schools, released a statement saying the lawsuits "demonstrate that union leadership is committed to a status quo that is failing too many of our kids. Thousands of children in underutilized schools are being cheated out of the resources they need to succeed. It's time to give these children the opportunity to attend higher-performing welcoming schools and put them on a path to thrive."

The union's lawsuits come on the heels of recommendations from a panel of retired federal and state judges who urged the district to halt the closings of 13 schools that are currently in the closure plan. The judges were hired by the school system to conduct public hearings on the closure plan and make recommendations.

Chicago's school closure plan is considered the largest ever to be undertaken by a single district in one year. The plan has sparked a pitched battle that has included numerous protests from students, parents, the teachers' union, community members, and local clergy.

Meanwhile, in the District of Columbia today, a federal judge rejected the claims of plaintiffs that the planned closures of 15 schools would violate the rights of black, Latino, and special education students.

- Lesli A. Maxwell

Broad Foundation Names Three Finalists for Charter Schools Prize

2013-05-15T14:30:53Z

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation today named three of the nation's best-known charter-management organizations as finalists for its national award for top-performing charter schools.

Achievement First, KIPP Foundation, and Uncommon Schools will be in the running for Broad's top charter award, which is only in its second year. The winner will be announced in Washington in July during a national charter schools conference. The Los Angeles-based Broad Foundation has been honoring top urban school districts since 2002.

The three finalists are among the largest and most established charter-management organizations in the country. The KIPP charter network, with 125 schools in 20 states and the District of Columbia, enrolls more than 41,000 students. Achievement First, with 22 schools in New York and Connecticut, enrolls 7,000 students. And Uncommon Schools, with 32 schools in Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York, enrolls 8,000 students. All three networks serve mostly black and Hispanic students from low-income families.

Just like its prize in urban education, the Broad Foundation relies on a review board to study student achievement data and select finalists based on overall performance and progress toward closing achievement gaps. For the 2013 finalist selection process, the board pored over data for 27 urban charter networks. (Chris Swanson, the vice president of Editorial Projects in Education, the nonprofit that publishes Education Week, is a member of the review board.)

The winning network will receive $250,000 to support its efforts to prepare students for college. Last year's winner was YES Prep, a Houston-based charter network.

- Lesli A. Maxwell

And So Ends the Seattle Testing Boycott Saga—for Now

2013-05-14T20:04:42Z

Guest post by Ross Brenneman

Day 145. Soft blows the breeze of change.

On December 21 of last year, the teachers of Seattle's Garfield High School staged a boycott of the Measures of Academic Progress test, a low-stakes, district-mandated assessment that the faculty claimed to be unfair. In response to that concern and the ensuing districtwide protest, Seattle superintendent José Banda vowed to form a committee (right out of Emergency Public Relations 101) to study what to do with MAP.

Teachers' concerns included that the test, a computer-adaptive assessment, did not align well with standards and took up too much time on the school computers. Also, since teachers didn't know what the test covered, they believed it shouldn't have been used as part of performance review.

This week, Banda emailed the district with his office's plan of action, based on the committee's findings. For at least the 2013-14 school year, those actions include:

Continued use of MAP for students in grades K-8

High schools may now opt out of the MAP test, but must "submit a plan to the district that specifies how they will assess and monitor the progress of students who are below standard in math or reading."

Administering MAP in the fall and spring, instead of winter and spring, though having the option of a winter test, if so desired.

Not using MAP as the sole decider in determining a student's academic career. (MAP's creator, the Northwest Evaluation Association, has for the length of this process been adamant that MAP is but one tool schools can use to design programs.) This was more or less the focal point of the report.

The committee report recommends renewing use of MAP for the upcoming school year, but also suggests a new task force dedicated to finding assessment alternatives for 2014-15 and beyond. (Yes, a committee is recommending a new committee. This will surely please the Committee Committee.)

The 31-member task force included a roughly equal distribution of administrators, district leaders, teachers, community members, and parents, as well as a librarian and a student. One of the boycott's leaders, Kris McBride, sat on the committee, as did Garfield's principal, Ted Howard, and one of Garfield's students.

While Banda had initially pledged to suspend teachers who did not administer the test earlier this year, he later decided not to do so, and instead had the school administration give the test.

What actually happens in Seattle now, though, is almost irrelevant outside Seattle. National groups quickly seized on the boycott as a means to protest all high-stakes testing (against the stated—if not necessarily actual—intentions of the boycotting teachers). In turn, the backlash against testing has extended to a backlash against the Common Core State Standards, as some opponents say that they go hand in hand. This creates an unusual alignment with conservatives against common standards, as some conservatives believe them to be a de facto federal mandate. (One day we'll make a giant diagram of who believes what.)

(Kidding: We already did.)

But the central committee finding, that a standards-aligned MAP test can be a useful tool for testing student growth at the K-8 level, will surely please the NWEA. It also means that MAP would theoretically continue to play a part in teacher evaluation, which the report did not specifically address.

Here's the full Seattle committee report. Or, if you want, here's the abridged version.

Ross Brenneman is a contributing writer for Rules for Engagement.
You can also follow Ross Brenneman on Twitter.

- Ross Brenneman

Pushback Against Dallas Superintendent Continues

2013-05-14T19:05:00Z

From guest blogger Alyssa Morones

Dallas school district superintendent Mike Miles' new principal evaluation system continues to draw ire from the community, reported CBS in Dallas. Shouts for his removal can be heard echoing across the city, from parents and south Dallas community activists to the head of the Dallas NAACP, Juanita Wallace.

The source of most of the complaints is the Destination 2020 plan, which, in an effort to improve Dallas schools, focuses attention on principal performance with its Principal Evaluation Plan. The plan implements a new principal evaluation system, 40 percent of which is based on student test scores, that would lead to the firing of principals who receive poor evaluations. Dozens of community members protested at the school district's headquarters earlier this year.

Linda Isaacks, the executive director of the Dallas School Administrators Association, said she is looking for a compromise from Miles with respect to the principal evaluation process. While she isn't calling for Miles to step down, she told CBS that principals "want to feel they have a process, so if they disagree with their evaluation, there's a process to question it without fear of retaliation."

County commissioner John Wiley Price and council member Carolyn Davis have also joined the chorus, along with three co-chairs of the Dallas Achieves Commission, Arcilia Acosta, Pettis Norman, and J. McDonald Williams, who penned a three-page letter spelling out their frustrations, reported the Dallas Morning News.

The letter questions Miles' process for reforming Dallas schools and his alleged failure to reach out to the Dallas Achieves Commission, which was created under former superintendent Michael Hinojosa to implement reforms in Dallas schools.

While the co-chairs took no significant issue with the Destination 2020 improvement plan, they said they "do object to the apparent abandonment of the Dallas Achieves implementation plan and to the closure of the Transformation Management Office function," which was a team of district personnel and Achieves project members created to spearhead this implementation.

They go on to say, "We are also deeply concerned about the processes by which you are going about making these changes, and their consequence," citing Miles' quoting of Arne Duncan's call for "disruptive change."

"Disruptive change does not always produce good results," read the letter.

Miles responded with his own letter addressing the commission's concerns and expressing a wish to meet to further discuss the issues they raised. (Miles has not been available to respond to EdWeek's requests since last Friday for further comments.)

While the superintendent's plan has been controversial, a growing number of districts are linking principals' evaluations to student achievement. In a May 29 webinar, we'll talk with district leaders from Hawaii and Chicago, two districts that are also developing plans to put in place principal evaluation systems that draw on student test scores.

- Lesli A. Maxwell

Detroit's Emergency Manager Law Challenged—Again

2013-05-13T21:17:32Z

A law that allows the state's governor to appoint emergency managers for cities and school systems in Michigan is being challenged by the Detroit branch of the NAACP.

The NAACP, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, is suing Michigan governor Rick Snyder, saying that the emergency manager laws have had a disparate impact on voters of color and have deprived voters of their ability to elect municipal and school leaders.

More than half of the state's African-American population is governed by an emergency manager, according to a press statement from the NAACP. Only 1.3 percent of white residents live in areas that have been put under state control. Emergency managers are currently in charge of the cities of Allen Park, Benton, Detroit, Ecorse, Flint, and Pontiac and the school systems in Detroit, Highland Park, and Muskegon Heights. The emergency managers are appointed by the governor rather than elected or appointed by elected school boards.

In the lawsuit, the NAACP highlights the fact that the Detroit school board has been permitted to serve "in solely an advisory capacity."

The lawsuit, filed in a district court in Michigan, says that cities with similar degrees of fiscal stress—the determinant of how a city is put under emergency management—but higher proportions of white residents have not been put under emergency management.

The NAACP also released a letter to Gov. Snyder and a number of other state leaders that included a list of suggestions to help remedy the budget situation in Detroit, including reinstating a residency requirement for city employees.

Detroit's emergency manager announced earlier today that the city itself is close to broke, according to the Associated Press.

An earlier version of this emergency manager law was rejected by voters during the general election last November (you can read this blog post for more background). But a new law allowing emergency managers was passed this spring.

In Detroit, the largest school system affected by these laws, the challenges and invalidation of that emergency manager law meant that Roy Roberts, who had been appointed to be the Detroit school district's emergency manager, was in a more-restricted role, emergency financial manager, for much of this school year. When the new law passed, Roberts assumed full authority as emergency manager again.

Roberts announced his resignation earlier this month. Gov. Snyder is currently determining who will be the next emergency manager for Detroit's public schools.

Since 1999, Detroit's school system has only been under the control of an elected school board for three years. The state is directly running another group of schools in the city under the auspices of the Education Achievement Authority.

- Jackie Zubrzycki

Pennsylvania District Rejects Charter-Conversion Plan

2013-05-09T19:33:43Z

In York, Pa., school officials rejected a plan that would have converted the entire district to charter schools in favor of one that sets strict performance measures while maintaining a school board, the York Daily Record reports.

The 5,000-student School District of the City of York was classified as financially distressed by the state's department of education last summer. A chief recovery officer, David G. Meckley, was appointed by the state and tasked with creating a recovery plan for the district. A quarter of the district's students are English-language learners and 23 percent are special education students

One plan floated for fixing the district's finances involved converting all of its schools to charter schools. YorkCounts, a group run by the York County Community Foundation and comprised of local business and foundation leaders, had examined reforms in other cities and initially recommended the charter plan. (You can see some of its analysis of the situation in York City here.)

But, last week, after a spring of debate, 15 of the 19 members of an advisory committee tasked with helping Meckley develop a plan for the district decided to go with a plan that involves setting performance goals for the district rather than converting to charter schools. Meckley brought that proposal to the board last week.

Here's an executive summary of that "performance-based community education model."

The plan involves a shift to site-based management and creates a school advisory council for each school, based on Philadelphia's Renaissance Schools model. It also involves the creation of "small learning academies" at the district's high school, among other changes. It keeps the school system's board intact. But schools that fail to improve can be taken over by an "external education provider."

Another idea Meckley has suggested involves consolidating the district with nearby school systems.

York City's school district had been called out by a state auditor for misusing taxpayer dollars in 2011. In Pennsylvania, Chester Upland, Duquesne, and Harrisburg have also been deemed to be "in distress."

The 7,000-student Harrisburg district seems to be taking a different approach to its recovery plan: That city's recovery manager has proposed tax hikes and is set to unveil a plan to restructure the city's schools later this month, but no all-charter approach has been suggested in the Keystone State's capital city.

In York, a final plan will be presented to the district's board on May 15.

Want to keep up with school district and leadership news? Follow @district_doss on Twitter.

- Jackie Zubrzycki

NYC Leadership Academy Takes National Stage

2013-05-09T14:25:00Z

From guest blogger Alyssa Morones

The NYC Leadership Academy has been working to improve school leadership since its inception in 2003, but now the organization is hoping to further its mission of improving student achievement through school leadership with a new website and national campaign.

The NYC Leadership Academy is a nonprofit that works to develop effective student-focused school leadership, particularly for high-needs schools. Today, one in six of New York City's principals is an academy graduate.

The academy emphasizes hands-on and job-embedded learning, practical skills, and self reflection; coaches and supports current leaders; and works with school systems to design programs and strategies to improve their school leadership pipelines.

The Leadership Academy has partnerships with school districts, state education departments, universities, and nonprofit organizations nationwide in 24 different states.

"We help design programs specific to each school system's location and help them develop their own training programs," said Vivan Brady-Phillips, a spokeswoman for the academy.

But the learning and development isn't a one-way street.

"Every time we work in a new place, we learn from our partners and they learn from us," said Brady-Phillips. "We want to continue that dialogue."

The organization's new website, www.TakeChargeofChange.org, not only seeks to expand this national outreach, but also intends to highlight how school leadership can affect student academic achievement.

Brady-Phillips said, "We wanted to be able to share the story of the work we've been doing and make a statement about how focusing on school leadership practice influences a school's success and creates conditions that enables teachers to be more successful."

NYC Leadership Academy CEO, Irma Zardoya said that despite the positive feedback the organization has received from school systems it works with, "when they talked to other people about it, they didn't recognize us or know who we were. This is an effort on our part to cast a wider net."

- Lesli A. Maxwell

Budget Woes Mean No School in Buena Vista, Mich.

2013-05-08T05:52:55Z

There was no school in Buena Vista, Michigan Tuesday or today because of an ongoing budget crisis. The tiny district—it had 27 teachers and about 400 students, as of the fall—laid off most of its staff and will not reopen for the rest of the school year unless the state intervenes, the district's website says.

The district has been in dire financial straits since 2011, but recently, Buena Vista, near Saginaw, took about $580,000 from the state for a program that students were no longer attending, according to mLive.com. The state department of education is withholding payments to Buena Vista to recoup that sum—which means the district will be unable to pay employees in the meantime.

Students and parents in the district say they are upset and confused. A statement on the district's website says that the Buena Vista does not plan to rehire staff to finish the school year. School was supposed to end on June 13.

Earlier this week, teachers offered to work without pay for the week, but the district's website says doing so would present legal problems.

Superintendent Deborah Hunter-Harvill is meeting with state officials today. The Associated Press reports that Buena Vista is in the process of declaring a financial emergency, which could lead to a state-appointed emergency manager coming to Buena Vista to help solve the budget woes. The district could also merge with a nearby school system.

In Michigan, three other school districts—Highland Park, Detroit, and Muskegon Heights—already have state-appointed emergency managers.

The district's crisis isn't just financial: None of the students in the district achieved proficiency on eight of eighteen of the state's 2012 standardized tests, local news reports say. The district's enrollment has also dropped from about 900 in 2010 to less than half that this year.

The Chester Upland school district near Philadelphia stopped paying its teachers last year, and a district in York, Pennsylvania has also been considering drastic options in the face of a budget crisis, the Huffington Post reports.

Want to keep up with school district and leadership news? Follow @district_doss on Twitter.

- Jackie Zubrzycki

Andrés A. Alonso, Baltimore Schools CEO, to Resign

2013-05-06T15:15:21Z

Andrés A. Alonso, the hard-charging chief executive of Baltimore's city schools who pushed an aggressive reform agenda that helped move the long-struggling district out of the bottom academically, will leave the district June 30, The Baltimore Sun reports. Alonso, who was hired in 2007, will have served six years, the longest tenure of any Baltimore schools chief in recent years.

According to The Sun, Alonso will move back to the Northeast to help care for his aging parents in New Jersey and to teach part-time at Harvard University. Alonso, an immigrant from Cuba who was an English-language learner, is a Harvard-trained lawyer whose first job in education was as a special education teacher in Newark, N.J.

Tisha Edwards, a former social worker and chief of staff to Alonso since 2009, will serve as interim CEO, The Sun reports.

In his run as schools chief, Alonso, using broad authority granted to him from the city's appointed school board, ushered in sweeping changes designed to move a district that had seen little to no upward trajectory academically in decades and was on the verge of being taken over by the state of Maryland. He shut down, or overhauled, chronically underperforming schools and brought in more school choice for families. He also started a new funding formula that allocated money to schools based on their students' needs and put principals in much greater control of their budgets and launched an aggressive effort to reduce chronic absenteeism among students.

Out-of-school suspensions, which hit a high of 25,000 in 2005, plummeted under Alonso, who ordered a top-to-bottom rewrite of the district's code of conduct and tasked one of his deputies, Jonathan Brice, with developing an array of alternatives to out-of-school suspensions that is now considered a model for other districts.

In more recent months, Alonso has been locked in a fierce conflict with the city's principals' union.

Part of that tension stems from the CEO's uncompromising stance on testing integrity since district and state officials found signs of possible cheating on Maryland's state exams at one elementary school in 2010. More problems were uncovered at two additional schools in 2011, and Alonso went public with the allegations. His approach—in major contrast with how cheating allegations were addressed in districts like Atlanta and the District of Columbia—led the principals' union to accuse Alonso of being overzealous and using too-thin evidence of cheating to get rid of school leaders.

Andrés Alonso speaks with Principal Rhonda Richetta at City Springs Elementary School in Baltimore during a tour of the school in 2009.
--Stephen Voss for Education Week-File

- Lesli A. Maxwell

Newark's Board Votes No Confidence in Superintendent, Renames Itself

2013-05-03T15:49:44Z

Last week, Newark's superstar superintendent, Cami Anderson, was the subject of a no-confidence vote from Newark's school board, The Star-Ledger reports. And on Wednesday, the city's council voted for a moratorium on new public school initiatives, arguing that some of the changes that have taken place in the school system don't have a basis in research.

The Newark school district is under state control, so the school board does not have the authority to fire Anderson. The city council also has no direct authority over the schools. But the votes are evidence of a growing rift between Superintendent Anderson and the state officials who are responsible for Newark's schools and city officials who are frustrated by the lack of local control.

At the same meeting, the board voted to reclaim the name "Newark Board of Education" for itself. Its official title, per the state board of education, is the Newark Public Schools Advisory Board, and that will remain its name, according to the state.

Anderson has garnered national attention for her work in Newark—she was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2012. The Newark school system received a $100 million donation from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. One of the initiatives that money is set to fund is a new contract that involves performance pay for teachers.

But the Star-Ledger reports that the board is not pleased with what members perceive as Anderson's unwillingness to compromise: "The vote is intended to send a message to the superintendent that we're not satisfied with her work," said Antoinette Baskerville-Richardson, the board's chairwoman. "When we request important information from her, we don't get it, and she refuses to compromise on her version of reform."

The school board is also unhappy that Anderson has not attended many of its meetings.

The city council's moratorium, meanwhile, calls for a halt to new reductions in staff, budget cuts, new charter and public schools, and the closings of schools until there has been more analysis about how these changes will actually affect students.

Earlier last month, the board did not approve a $1 billion dollar budget proposed by New Jersey governor Chris Christie for the district. Students in Newark also gathered to protest the budget last month. The lack of board approval does not nullify the budget proposal.

Anderson explained in an editorial that the budget, while difficult, is necessary in order to "right-size" the district, which has seen a drop in enrollment and declining revenues. She said that the process might involve some layoffs, particularly at the central office level. She also says the district needs to standardize its enrollment procedures and reduce the number of needy students concentrated in certain schools and reduce punitive discipline policies, among other changes.

Newark's board of education has been petitioning the state to return the district to local control.

New Jersey also recently took over the school district in Camden. The state also has some authority over school districts in Jersey City and Paterson, two other districts previously taken over by the state. A new leader for the Camden school district has not yet been appointed.

Cami Anderson, chief of the Newark Public School system, during a news conference in 2011 at Science High School in Newark.
--Julio Cortez/AP

Want to keep up with school district and leadership news? Follow @district_doss on Twitter.

- Jackie Zubrzycki

Detroit's Emergency Manager Will Step Down

2013-05-02T21:47:59Z

Roy Roberts, the emergency manager of the 50,000-student public school system in Detroit, will step down from his position on May 16. Roberts, who is 74, is retiring after two years in the position.

In a letter to the school district's staff, Roberts says that the responsibilities of William Aldridge, the district's chief financial officer, will be expanded to include top administrative duties. Aldridge has held multiple positions in the Detroit public schools. Roberts' successor will be appointed by the state.

"I have made a recommendation to Governor [Rick] Snyder, but it is clearly his decision," Roberts writes.

Both Roberts and the governor said that while the district faces challenges, it is improving. Roberts says his two years as emergency manager have been the most rewarding of his career.

Roberts was appointed in May 2011. He succeeded Robert Bobb as state-appointed emergency manager. He was an executive in several automobile companies before coming to Detroit's school system.

In a video statement, Gov. Snyder gives no hints as to who might be the next emergency manager, but says he is focusing on continuity and stability for the districts and hopes to have someone in place as soon as possible. "We're going to have a great school system in Detroit and have success with wonderful students," Snyder said.

Roberts' authority as emergency manager was just restored in March: He had been the district's emergency financial manager for much of this school year while one state law involving emergency managers was dismantled and then another one was put in place.

Along with his letter to employees, Roberts released a progress report on his tenure as emergency manager.

He cites several financial and academic accomplishments, including an improved graduation rate and a reduction in the district's deficit from $327 million to about $72 million. He says that the district still needs to improve student achievement, attendance, policies, and procedures—and "customer service at all touch points."

In a recent meeting, according to district spokeswoman Michelle Zdrodowski, officials from the Michigan state department of education indicated that the district would soon come out of its "high-risk" status due to "across-the-board improvement." The status has not yet been lifted. The district had been deemed high-risk about five years ago due to financial mismanagement and poor academic performance.

Roberts' contract would have expired on the 16th, Zdrodowski said.

The report Roberts released lays out his initial goals as emergency manager:

Fix an ineffective and inefficient school system in order to properly educate students;

Eliminate a crippling deficit; and

Make a difference in the lives of Detroit's school children.

But the Detroit Free Press is also reporting that Roberts apparently told a closed meeting of union and school board members that his instructions upon appointment had been to "blow up" the school district. From the Free Press:

"When he said, 'I'm stepping down,' all of our mouths just dropped," [said Keith Johnson, the president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers]. "I can't say it's a bad day. I can't say it's a good day, because we don't know who's coming next."
Roberts also told those gathered that when he arrived at the school system, he was told to "blow up" the district and dismantle it, Johnson said.

"Blow it up—those were his exact words," Detroit School Board member Tawanna Simpson confirmed.

At a news conference today, Roberts said the governor never instructed him to dismantle the DPS, but factions from Lansing to Detroit, from community members to educators, had wanted him to make wholesale changes in the system and "blow it up," figuratively speaking.

"They had totally given up," Roberts said. "But we can make it work."

That's loaded language in a district where the lack of local control, the future of the public school system, and just how well (or poorly) the schools are doing have been points of contention. The growth of the charter school sector and a new state-run district, the Education Achievement Authority, that runs 15 schools in Detroit have exacerbated concerns about the lack of local say in schools. The city's schools have been notoriously low-performing.

The school district announced a new strategic plan last month that focuses on community-based schools and avoids shutting down two dozen schools.

Photo: Detroit schools emergency manager Roy Roberts is interviewed in Detroit in 2011. The state-appointed emergency manager plans to step down when his contract expires this month.
--Carlos Osorio/AP

- Jackie Zubrzycki