PrintNCLB restructuring: Where little thought
meets less money
“Makeovers, Facelifts or Reconstructive Surgery: An Early Look at School Restructuring in Michigan” focuses on how corrective action is playing out in that state. Michigan was chosen because it has a well-established accountability system that was in place prior to enactment of NCLB. That’s crucial because, under the federal law, school-restructuring sanctions trigger when a school fails to make adequate yearly progress (AYP) for five consecutive years based on state benchmarks. (States such as Idaho and Nevada currently have no schools in restructuring since their testing and accountability systems are relatively new.)
“So far, replacing principals and staff is by far the most popular restructuring option in Michigan, selected by an overwhelming majority (63 percent) of the 101 schools in the state undergoing restructuring,” the CEP report observes. Just 15 percent of these schools adopt an external school-reform model to guide their restructuring efforts, and only 14 percent hire state-trained coaches for staff at these schools. Appointing governing boards to take over restructured schools was favored by 12 percent of the schools, while none of the schools opted for the other two NCLB-approved restructuring paths: opening as charter schools or suspending the principal’s office.
“Regardless of the approach pursued, many school and district officials said that they do not have enough resources to restructure their schools,” the report stresses. “Despite the $45,000 implementation grants that the state awarded to schools with approved restructuring plans, many school officials report that they do not have enough Title I dollars to fully implement their plans and are relying instead on general operating funds.”
The findings of the study certainly come as no surprise to educators across Michigan. “The report clearly shows how expediency has trumped sound planning when it comes to school restructuring under NCLB,” says AFT vice president David Hecker, who is also president of the Michigan Federation of Teachers & School Related Personnel. “Playing musical chairs with building staff has become the option of choice at too many restructuring schools, while more thoughtful approaches such as building-level coaching are not being considered. Of course the entire list of options does not include some of the best vehicles for improving student achievement, such as lowering class size. And the money devoted to turning these schools is woefully inadequate.”
One restructuring option that seems promising, but vastly underutilized, is coaching. The model used in Michigan was developed by educators in the state and “does not bring in ‘experts’ to ‘fix’ schools but instead brings in trained educators whose facilitation can help schools fix themselves,” the CEP report stresses. To design and implement the model, the state awarded a grant to a collaboration of 13 different organizations, including teachers unions, parent groups, higher education institutions and professional organizations to create the Alliance for Building Capacity in Schools (ABCS). The coaches trained through this model have been reporting some success in helping schools foster real improvement.
“Makeovers, Facelifts or Reconstructive Surgery: An Early Look at School Restructuring in Michigan” is available at www.cep-dc.org/fededprograms/Michigan_Nov2004.pdf. The report will be updated annually.
NCLB policies leave safe, orderly schools behind
The No Child Left Behind Act has a provision aimed at keeping schools safe and orderly, but many teachers in Baltimore worry that the law is being implemented in ways that are throwing cold water on their efforts to bring class to order.The problem stems from a requirement in the law that schools deemed to be “persistently dangerous” must give students a choice option to attend other schools in the district. The states are responsible for developing criteria for what constitutes an “unsafe school,” and Maryland has opted for a benchmark based on the number of times students are suspended for violent acts such as assaults and setting fires. This summer, 15 Baltimore schools were told they were one year away from being designated as “dangerous” buildings, and the result has been that these schools are under pressure to simply cut back on student suspensions—rather than to fix the problems that led to suspensions in the first place. School officials maintain that they do not encourage building-level administrators to take the student suspension option off the table, but school staff insist that’s precisely what’s happening.
“In school after school, we’re being told the same thing. The children are sent to the office with a referral, and they come right back,” says Marietta English, president of the Baltimore Teachers Union. “Teachers have been discouraged from referring kids to the office, children think that nothing is going to happen when they act out, and the way the law is being misinterpreted has the discipline piece backward.”
Pat Ferguson, chair of BTU’s school safety committee has been fielding complaints from dozens of teachers, and late last year the union made several recommendations aimed at curbing what she calls a “systemwide problem” with school discipline in the NCLB era. “Before it was just a few principals” who would lean on staff to keep incident reports to a minimum. “Now we’re hearing about this from everyone,” and it’s taking a toll on the teachers, she warns.
“We hear from teachers who are burnt-out over discipline now, teachers who are afraid to go to work because the environment isn’t safe,” Ferguson reports. “It’s time to do what we should have done all along: Be consistent and enforce the rules that are in place.”
