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Note from Caroline: The article I critique here was funded by a public policy institute, the New Media Foundation. Upon reflection, that seemed to me to warrant closer scrutiny from a media-criticism viewpoint. So I updated on May 10 it to add more detail.
The edublogs are buzzing about the May 10 New Yorker profile of Green Dot Schools and their in-your-face founder, Steve Barr (“The Instigator” by Douglas McGray).
The Green Dot charter school chain has grown in L.A. Unified and nearby districts to around 11 school sites – it’s a bit hard to count because there are multiple small schools in some sites. Green Dot has won attention for working with unions instead of around and against them, though it doesn’t offer seniority rights or serious job protection, so many union activists would view that as a bit hollow.
My husband, a veteran journalist, has always regarded my education activism with amused detachment and sometimes semi-joshingly plays devil's advocate with me. But unbidden, he read the Green Dot article and remarked, "Jeez, another bogus miracle story!" (I guess he has been paying attention to my kvetching over the years after all.)
To be fair, this article isn't gushing. I won't go into the parts about the personality cult of Steve Barr, similar to the personality cult of KIPP founders Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg. The larger-than-life legend-in-his-own-time stuff about Barr (who named his chocolate Labrador Jerry Brown, giving the "resistance" bloggers who keep tabs on the interconnections among the charter-school titans and their political and philanthropic supporters a new line to draw on their charts) takes up much of the article.
Summary: The existing Green Dot schools are highly regarded. They also benefit from the same huge advantage as other charters -- every student in them had someone in his/her life who cared enough about the kid's education to seek out a school and apply for it. So that rules out the entire "Incarcerated class" and the other kids who are at the highest risk and have the least support. Refreshingly, the article highlights this issue, a rarity in mainstream media coverage of "school reform."
As always, the question is: What if the traditional public school down the street also admitted only those students who, as LAUSD superintendent Ramon Cortines says, are "there because they have an advocate” – also known as the “deserving poor"?
The exception: The article focuses most on Locke High School, a badly troubled large school near Watts that Green Dot took over and reopened this school year (fall '08). In some special arrangement, Green Dot supposedly committed to enrolling the same students as the bad old Locke, without the usual winnowing and sorting for those who "have an advocate."
There are no test results or other outcomes yet, since Green Dot has run the school only since last fall ('08). The reporter focused on one girl who was reasonably enthusiastic about school -- and who (the reporter acknowledges) missed "several days" of school to "take care of family business" during the time the reporter was researching the article.
Green Dot did a lot of physical renovation and re-landscaping -- well, yeah, because they have a whole lot of money and don't have to spread it around a district of several hundred schools and hundreds of thousands of kids.
Wearing my media-critic hat, I question whether some of the reporter's "before" scenarios, from the pre-Green Dot Locke, are sound or effecive.
For example:
In the "before" scenario, the article describes "layer upon layer of bureaucracy. Locke had two full-time employees who painted over graffiti.”
My response: This raises several questions. Is that all those employees did? If so, does this imply that two employees were excessive in comparison to the need? How many employees are needed now, in the new Locke, to paint over graffiti? Is the point that two employees were excessive or that Locke now has far less graffiti? That's a valid point to make if so, but it's a different issue -- that doesn't jibe with characterizing the former staffing level as "layer upon layer of bureaucracy."
“Bathroom monitors were contractually limited to bathroom-related supervision.
My response: It's not clear whether this rule was to ensure that the bathrooms were continuously monitored or to protect the workers from being assigned to another task of an unknown nature. Neither possible rationale seems outrageous. In a large, rough school, bathrooms are notoriously dangerous as well as disgusting, and are vulnerable to especially destructive vandalism, so it's questionable to imply that such employees constitute a wasteful or frivolous "layer of bureaucracy." It’s not uncommon for children’s advocates to campaign for safe, clean, well-maintained school restrooms, as San Francisco's Coleman Advocates for Children & Youth has done. To those activists, this would be a valuable resource and a worthwhile expenditure.
“Locke often came in well under budget, yet students still shared textbooks, because the surplus was locked up in some unnecessary line item."
My response: I question the claim that the pre-Green Dot Locke ever "came in well under budget,” which is basically unheard-of in California public schools. As complex as our state's school funding system is, it would be well-nigh impossible even to apply such a simple concept as "coming in under budget." Also, the wording "locked up in some unnecessary line item" almost definitely refers to "categorical funding," which is money designated only for particular purposes. That's the way the state of California allocates a lot of our education funding. That type of funding is problematical to school districts and school sites -- and is one example of why our state's education funding mechanism needs to be overhauled and simplified --, but it doesn't constitute a "layer of bureaucracy" as intended by the author. A school administration can compensate for being hamstrung by categorical funding by having enough money to cover its other needs, as lucky Green Dot does.
I have no doubt that LAUSD -- along with any huge, troubled school district -- does suffer from the effects of "layer upon layer of bureaucracy" in many ways. It would have been enlightening to see some of those effects on an individual, struggling school, and to learn how a new operator remedied them. But none of these examples demonstrates that effectively, in my view.
Here, too, are comments posted by San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education Commissioner Rachel Norton -- a former New York Times reporter -- on her own blog. She goes into more -- and better-informed -- detail about the question of surplus funds' being "locked up in some unnecessary line item."
"I was startled by some of the reporting in this piece. For one thing, the reporter mentions as an aside that Mr. Barr had a school board member on his payroll to relay information about what transpired at closed meetings. That’s just a breathtaking lapse of ethics, not to mention the Brown Act, and if I were a voter in Los Angeles, I’d sure want to know who it is. But there’s no attribution or any other context to this accusation, and I find that suspicious.
"In addition, the writer says that Locke High School came in “under budget” but that students were still forced to share textbooks and do without other essentials. Basically, he is asserting that the high school’s impoverished and underserved population makes it eligible for state and local aid that is not being spent where it is intended to go; and where it is most needed. That might be true, but it’s a controversial assertion that deserves more explanation. School budgets and school finance are horribly complex, and budget decisions are more like art than science, with a hefty dose of political and philosophical bias thrown in. In other words, two different ways of budgeting categorical funds (meaning, funds with strings attached) from state and Federal grants might each be legally permissible, but end up with vastly different bottom lines at a particular school. It’s impossible to know why Locke’s budget was structured the way it was without knowing the assumptions behind the district’s budgeting mechanism. And without seeing a comparison between what was being spent at Locke before and after the Green Dot takeover, it’s impossible to know whether the improved environment at Locke is resulting from better budgeting or an influx of additional funds that were not available to LAUSD when it was in charge of Locke."
Post-takeover, the New Yorker reports: "Green Dot [has] blanketed the school with guards from a private security firm, club-bouncer burly, carrying handguns and pepper spray. ... Guards have occasionally displayed a heavy hand. Twice this year, they pepper-sprayed students..."
I wonder what public commotion would ensue if private security guards hired by a public school repeatedly pepper-sprayed white middle-class students. The outcry would probably be considerable if the guards were vendors for LAUSD, too, but charter-school Teflon protects Green Dot. If the new Locke gets credit for no longer needing two full-time staffers to paint out graffiti, as implied, it might have something to do with the armed guards with an itchy finger on the mace canister -- and by implication on the trigger too..
And here's the snippet from the article that Rachel Norton commented on above: [Barr] "started a citywide group called the Los Angeles Parents Union, an activist alternative to the Parent-Teacher Association, in the hope of mobilizing foot soldiers for Green Dot's escalating war against the district. He even put a school-board member on his payroll – ‘a mole,’ Barr said -- to report back on closed meetings."
"Escalating war against the district": That hardly sounds beneficial to our kids and schools. And as Norton says, it's highly unethical to pay a school board member to reveal information about closed sessions, and most likely illegal. Does the "whatever works" philosophy really justify that?
If this experiment succeeds, great, and we’ll all learn a lot. Perhaps this will be the one that will transform urban public education. Will it show us that what all our schools need is to be blanketed with burly private security guards wielding handguns and pepper spray? And wage escalating wars against our school districts? That's not a promising scenario.
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Comments
I was curious about the "Locke came in under budget" comment, too. What does that mean? It would be a serious job to figure out if any of our schools here in SFUSD come in "under budget" -- and would involve a fair amount of guesswork, estimation and extrapolation. In a system as large and complex as LAUSD, it's hard to take that one statement at face value without knowing what evidence the writer saw or the assumptions he made that caused him to make the statement.
I suppose if you allow the guards to carry guns and pepper spray, it gives them that touch of gravitas the unarmed city guards lack. Man, those students must be dangerous characters if you need guns to control them.
Still, even if you don't consider the horrendous implications of controlling teenagers with guns, it once again reinforces the apples and oranges, separate and unequal nature of the comparisons with real public schools.
For the benefit of readers outside San Francisco scanning these comments, Rachel Norton is a member of the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education.
Charters pick and choose their students and Green Dot is no exception. If they run it like an armed camp under marshal law (which they must to maintain some semblance of order), the hundreds of gang bangers and criminals will leave to go to ‘regular’ public schools leaving a core of stable students at Locke. The end result will be the same as if they excluded the gang banging criminal students from the get go. We face a societal problem not an educational one. Schools cannot fix the social ills that urban students face and until the underlying social issues are dealt with (and politicians don't want to deal with those issues), urban schools will only get worse. There is a reason why 50% of new teachers get out of teaching within the first 4 years. There are reasons why urban schools have yearly turn over rates among teachers of 60%. The working conditions in urban schools are horrible. They are dangerous and very stressful. If you don’t believe me, go teach at an urban secondary school in L.A. You will never truly understand until you do that.
Here are some statistics to ponder from L.A.'s Washington High School last year: 1 murder on campus, 900 criminal assaults (those were the assaults reported), scores of drug arrests, over 100 weapons seized, a student run prostitution ring busted on the third floor, and of course hundreds of threats against teachers and their property, and of course, the constant barrage of accusations hurled at teachers by students. Is anyone listening? Yes, conditions at urban school are this bad. Would you want to teach at an urban school?
And how is our illustrious media covering this education crisis? I offer this.......Our art teacher collects bottles and cans from street gutters and alleys like some bag lady in order to get money for art supplies. We also bring cans from home to help buy art supplies. TRUE! Our administration and a core group of teachers scour our community BEGGING for money to keep our music programs going. ALL 6 of our shop classes have been closed due to lack of money. Students at risk NEED THOSE PROGRAMS! Without shop classes schools have nothing to offer these students. NO WONDER THEY DROP OUT. DUH! I could give numerous other examples. And now the high and mighty Los Angeles Times does an expose' on junk food in the schools. DUH! Schools are selling junk food because they need the money to keep programs going. Junk food sells! Baked pretzels and water don't! It’s OK for the state to raise tax revenue by legalizing marijuana but better watch those nasty schools selling the junk food to make money to keep needed programs going. What a bunch of idiots at the Times. They strain a gnat and let a camel pass through.
Rachel Norton, who is not only an SFUSD Board of Ed member but also a former New York Times reporter, posted some further media criticism of this article on her own blog. Excerpts:
"I was startled by some of the reporting in this piece. For one thing, the reporter mentions as an aside that Mr. Barr had a school board member on his payroll to relay information about what transpired at closed meetings. That’s just a breathtaking lapse of ethics, not to mention the Brown Act, and if I were a voter in Los Angeles, I’d sure want to know who it is. But there’s no attribution or any other context to this accusation, and I find that suspicious.
"In addition, the writer says that Locke High School came in “under budget” but that students were still forced to share textbooks and do without other essentials. Basically, he is asserting that the high school’s impoverished and underserved population makes it eligible for state and local aid that is not being spent where it is intended to go; and where it is most needed. That might be true, but it’s a controversial assertion that deserves more explanation. School budgets and school finance are horribly complex, and budget decisions are more like art than science, with a hefty dose of political and philosophical bias thrown in. In other words, two different ways of budgeting categorical funds (meaning, funds with strings attached) from state and Federal grants might each be legally permissible, but end up with vastly different bottom lines at a particular school. It’s impossible to know why Locke’s budget was structured the way it was without knowing the assumptions behind the district’s budgeting mechanism. And without seeing a comparison between what was being spent at Locke before and after the Green Dot takeover, it’s impossible to know whether the improved environment at Locke is resulting from better budgeting or an influx of additional funds that were not available to LAUSD when it was in charge of Locke."
LA Gringo makes some excellent points. Having worked in an inner city school for many years, I can attest to how grave the situation really is. However, I would offer that the societal factors are deliberately ignored and the schools are deliberately kept in the conditions they are in. Low expectations and policies which allow children to behave horrendously are deliberately propagated to move public opinion away from public education and to a market model.
If anyone doubts there is a War On Public Education going on, the recent series in The LA Times reads like a 7-day hit piece on teachers, smearing ALL by implication, for the extremes of a tiny precentage.
Douglas McGray, author of the New Yorker article, sent me a cordial e-mail explaining that a colleague had fact-checked everything in his article.
I have a couple of responses to that, though. The points that Rachel Norton and I made aren't strictly subject to just the checking of hard facts. They require prior understanding of education issues.
On a far more superficial level, several critics have poked fun at the claim in the article that Barr, dedicating himself to establishing Green Dot Schools, did "such damage to his finances that Costco revoked his membership." Costco, as anyone who has been a member knows, doesn't approve or "revoke" memberships -- this is not an exclusive club for which one has to qualify. You pay your fee and you're in. Superficial, definitely -- but that does call the fact-checker's effectiveness into question, and that's such a simple fact that a smart middle-schooler could check it (unlike the points Rachel and I questioned).
Re: 'Bathroom monitors were contractually limited to bathroom-related supervision.' Your response that "It's not clear whether this rule was ...to protect the workers from being assigned to another task of an unknown nature." You do not see how absurd it is that staff should be "protected" from "a task of an unknown nature"? Ie, from having a normal job? You don't seem to appreciate the backwardness of school unions and their enormous drag on the functioning of the school as a community that can get things done well and quickly. School failure to meet basic organizational competence, in part as a result of union rules (eg, promotion by seniority rather than ability), is a big reason why so many city kids fall through the cracks, and almost everyone who works in schools acknowledges this, except people so blinded by a pro-union sensibility that they cannot see the absurdity right in front of their eyes. To admit this is not to 'declare war on public education,' as some might absurdly claim, equating unions with public education, and conveniently removing students from the center.
Unions are not the problem. So called bad teachers are not the problem. California's stated policy through 9th grade is based on social promotion not subject matter competence. This must stop. Bad students and wacko parents are the problem. Students should get one shot to pass classes. If they don't, they should pay for each additional time they must take the same classes or attend summer school. Enough is enough. It's time to make parents and students accountable. They gravy train for students must stop now! You want to see change. Hold students and parents accountable and watch things turn around fast!
Bay Area Researcher, my point was that that unclarified bathroom monitor rule was a poor example of "layers of bureaucracy." We don't know the reasons for that rule, and without knowing that, we're simply left in the dark. I would have to disagree that being a bathroom monitor in a big high school full of disadvantaged kids isn't a "real job" -- I sure wouldn't want to do it; would you? It sounds way too "real" for me.
LA Gringo offers a common complaint: If they run it like an armed camp under marshal [sic] law (which they must to maintain some semblance of order), the hundreds of gang bangers and criminals will leave to go to ‘regular’ public schools leaving a core of stable students at Locke. The end result will be the same as if they excluded the gang banging criminal students from the get go. We face a societal problem not an educational one."
OK, first, more students returned to Locke after the summer than normally and the school has become orderly, so they did not purchase order at the price of excluding "hundreds" of the most needy kids. Second, maybe the most disruptive gangbangers *should* be excluded from public schools, that the majority of kids should not suffer year after year because a school cannot discipline or remove the most disruptive. Finally, of course this is a "societal problem," but we're talking about education and every year there are kids in schools who cannot wait until someone in power redistributes income, creates a jobs program, etc etc. We need to take action for the majority of poor black and brown children today, and Barr and the teachers who support him are right to move with that level of urgency and boldness. They are saving lives. Those who say we have to wait until we fix bigger problems are as bad as stalling govt bureaucrats.
After reading other posts for this Examiner, I have a question? doesn't your child attend on of those schools in SF that excludes minorities and loads up heavy on high scoring white and asian students to bolster it's obviously suspect staus in doing so? Didn't African American's invent Jazz, R&B, Rock n Roll, Soul and Rap? basically every american musical artform? where are they at SOTA? nowhere. African Americans did it outside the institutionally racist school your kid attends. what credibility do you have with these issues? none.
These are some really strange comments about SOTA.
For the record, SOTA and the Academy of Arts & Sciences at SOTA (which report test scores and enrollment as one school) are:
30.8% white
25.6% Asian
21.6 Latino
11.8% African-American
For the record, here are the figures for SFUSD. SOTA/Academy has a considerably higher white percentage and a considerably lower Asian percentage than SFUSD overall. SOTA/Academy's figures for African-American and Latino students are very close to district figures.
SFUSD
10.8% white
41.3% Asian
23.1% Latino
12.3% African-American
SOTA is considerably more diverse than the other Westside high schools, all of which are predominantly Asian.
(figures are from 2008-09, from the California Department of Education website)
To quote my son, it's about art, not bean-counting by skin color.
For the record: the Academy and SOTA are 2 separate schools on the same site and while it's politically correct to lump them together when talking about diversity, they are 2 separate schools that have unequal access and resources. The Academy is diverse and accounts for most of the latino and african american population you attribute to SOTA. SOTA is not. You are not being factual. THOSE are the facts not the misleading and disingenuous figures you cite. The only thing bizarre is your dishonesty and number games
I would like to ignore these strange comments, but I do need to correct misinformation.
These are the facts: Currently, School of the Arts and the Academy of Arts & Sciences at SOTA are legally the same school that share official demographics (per the state of California and SFUSD), one site budget, one school site council, one API, etc. Disaggregated demographics aren't even available (I don't have access to them). Students are technically part of one or the other -- the admissions processes being different -- but the schools are legally one entity. A comparable situation has existed for many years at Clarendon, a nearby SFUSD elementary school that's two separate schools but legally one entity, so this isn't a unique, out-of-the-blue structure.
SOTA and the Academy do have officially separate classes and schedules -- SOTA students study their art in the afternoon -- but there's a lot of crossover. But, as I say, in all the respects I mention, they are legally one school.
The SOTA administration is moving to change that and make them separate schools, for reasons that are largely intended to support and enhance the Academy.
I would question whether the Academy is overall "more diverse," but it probably does have more low-income students, because there's no doubt that studying an artistic discipline in preparation for an audition requires resources. Even with many scholarship programs available, parents have to seek them out. Part of the reason the Academy was created was to provide students with access to strong arts programs without requiring them to audition.
Here are the demographics for SOTA the year before the Academy started. The Academy opened with a 9th grade in 2005-06 and is about to graduate its first class. SOTA demographics the year before that, 2004-05:
White 36.1%
Asian 25.6%
Latino 15.4%
African-American 11.3%
The white percentage has dropped somewhat, but SOTA was a diverse school then too. The Academy was INTENDED to bring in more low-income students, including students of color, so that's hardly shocking.
Hmmm...As a parent who toured SOTA/Academy some of these commenets are correct and not easily dismissed. the SOTA art classes have great spaces in the buildings, lots of supplies, very little diversity in the students and seemingly protected status. the Academy has dismal spaces for their "art programs" inappropriate spaces really, a science looking storage room for visual art? SOTA enjoys large well lit art rooms. It was my understanding that Academy students are not allowed in Sota arts classes. And one would have to be color blind to not see the difference in diversity between the two schools if you visit their art classes. Is this what you all talk about when you talk about access and diversity? hmmmm
1. SOTA students are diverse. I gave figures in my previous post. Currently they are not disaggregated from Academy students, but I also gave figures for SOTA the last year before the Academy started.
2. Some Academy students participate in SOTA art classes by special arrangement; for one thing, the Academy has academic classes in the afternoon while SOTA has arts. The Academy also has its own more-general arts programs. A lot of students who want to study art aren't interested in the intense single focus of SOTA's programs, in which students study their own arts discipline (trumpet, dance, visual arts, creative writing etc.) 2-4 hours every afternoon.
3. The two schools share the same funky facility. Some rooms are nicer than others. The SOTA Band and Orchestra rooms are functional but windowless and rather stark, as is the SOTA Vocal room. The Instrumental Music sectionals (separate sessions broken out by instrument) are held all over the place, including percussion sectionals in an unused shower room in the gym building. I've seen string bass and trombone sectionals held in the cold, windy quad, where string ensembles also rehearse. Jazz classes are in the cafeteria. Parents kick in money for the supplies in all the SOTA arts disciplines (non-mandatory, via voluntary donations to the PTSA and the arts disciplines themselves).
The notion that one school has "better" facilities than the other is inaccurate and misinformed.
I work at Locke and can tell you that we do not bully or pepper spray our kids. The notion that this is the only way one can get "our" kids to learn is sensationalized at best and RACIST at worst. My students are brilliant and when held to high expectations by teachers and administration, they learn! Due to structural inequalities in our educational system along with all the other societal pressures that Latino and African American students in Watts have to fight against, many students come i
with low basic skills. This is NOT due to their lack of intelligence or lack of parent support.
I also would like to clarify which kids we 'take' at Locke. We do not filter or have a lottery for out kids. We are a neighborhood school and take all kids. Including the students who are labeled "gang bangers and criminals". If you taught and interacted with these "gang bangers and criminals" on a daily basis, you would see that they are normal kids who are products of their environments. Yes
Yes, teaching here is tough and draining, but when you have one of you "gang bangers" articulate the difference between a Chicano and Latino in a well written paragraph, it is ALL worth it.
Come on campus and ask "these" kids if they see a difference in Locke and their middle schools, or ask students that were here last year if the school culture and environment has improved. I guarantee you that the majority of the students will say that Locke has improved, and not due to the constant threat
of armed security guards and pepper spray.
It was the New Yorker article that reported Locke students' being pepper-sprayed.
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