Schools Get Graded -- & Shaken Up | New Haven Independent

Sections

Neighborhoods

Features

Legal Notices

Some Favorite Sites

Government/ Community Links

Schools Get Graded—& Shaken Up

by Melissa Bailey | Mar 16, 2010 7:51 am

(13) Comments | Commenting has expired | E-mail the Author

Posted to: Schools, School Reform

(Updated: 7:51 a.m.) One “failing” school, Urban Youth, will reopen as a charter; another, Katherine Brennan, as a reconstituted public school with a longer year and new rules.

The leaders of top-performing Davis and Edgewood Schools will get new flexibility to do more of what they’re already doing right.

And Principal Iline Tracey (pictured) got encouragement to continue whipping King/Robinson School into shape.

That was the word Monday afternoon as officials announced the first batch of long-awaited “grades” of city schools.

Mayor John DeStefano and Superintendent of Schools Reginald Mayo (pictured) made the announcement Monday at the John Daniels School on Congress Avenue.

The schools will serve as pilots for the city’s nascent school reform drive. Schools will be given individualized management plans—possibly including extra resources or different work rules—based on their performance.

The city picked seven schools as the first to be graded—and to undergo changes that will come to the whole system in coming years.

Principals and teachers from across town filled the lobby of the Daniels school to hear about the changes afoot. At the entrance of the bilingual school, a student held the door open and extended a greeting: “Buenas tardes.”

The New Haven schools’ announcement came on the same day that President Obama sent a proposal to Congress that would overhaul the No Child Left Behind Act. Obama’s new vision is closely aligned with the reforms unfolding in New Haven, DeStefano noted. Both models grade schools not only on student test scores, but on other factors such as attendance, graduation rates, and school environment. Obama’s education blueprint calls for rewarding top-performers and intervening with failing schools. So does New Haven’s.

“I don’t think there’s anything more fundamental to the health and well-being of this city” than school reform, said DeStefano in a short speech. He and Mayo unveiled what changes are in store for the seven pilot schools.

The Top 2 Tiers

Principals at the top-performing Tier I schools—Davis 21st Century Magnet School and Edgewood Magnet School—will be given more autonomy.

That means Lola Nathan (at right in photo), the principal at Davis, will have encouragement to build on the pioneering work she has done eliminating the racial achievement gap; recruiting and developing talent; involving parents in the school; drawing up individualized plans for each student’s improvement based on continual monitoring of test scores, in conjunction with teachers and parents; bringing back the “Comer” social-development method; and generally making it a fun place. (The Independent has been tracking Davis’s progress this school year; click here to read those stories.)

“It’s very exciting,” said Bonnie Pachesa, the principal at Edgewood (pictured with special ed teacher Deidre Prisco), “Not all schools are the same, and not all schools need the same resources,” she said.

Pachesa said she’d like to use her newfound freedom to run a more creative curriculum that’s less focused on the Connecticut Mastery Test. That means building on a partnership with the Yale Center for British Art, which is doing a pilot program with Edgewood students this year, she said.

Middle-ground schools will be placed in Tier II. Officials graded John C. Daniels and King/Robinson schools in this tier. Specific changes were not yet available for those schools. All Tier I and II schools must put together a new management plan before the spring.

“To me, it’s good news, because we’ve always been at the bottom of things,” said Principal Tracey.

Tracey is credited with whipping the King/Robinson School into shape after it formed through a merger in 2004. Under her leadership, the school graduated from a federal “low performer” watch list by posting double-digit gains on test scores several years in a row.

Tracey said she just found out Monday morning that her school had been selected. She shared the news with staff at a 3 p.m. meeting. They were “elated,” she said—because of how far the school has come. While students don’t post as high scores as Edgewood kids, they started at a different place, she said. They started out at rock-bottom. Now the magnet school, which focuses on the International Baccalaureate model of education, has earned some attention as a regional model. The school serves about 475 students in grades pre-K to 8. At least 35 percent of students come from other districts, she said.

Tracey said she told school leadership Monday to start coming up with ideas for how things should change in the fall at her school.

According to the new teacher’s contract, teachers in Tier I and II schools can vote to change work rules. Any changes need 75 percent approval by that school’s teachers. The superintendent and the teacher’s union leadership both have the right to reject any changes that they believe are not “in the best interest of students.”

The Biggest Challenge

Tier III has two categories: Tier III “improvement” schools will get extra resources and more guidance from Mayo’s office. Failing schools, dubbed Tier III “turnaround” schools, will be closed and reopened under new work rules.

Officials picked one school as a Tier III “improvement” school, not a “turnaround”: Barnard Environmental Studies Magnet School in West River.

By contract, teachers in Tier III schools have less say over the changes than teachers in Tier I or II.

Teachers who’d like to return to Barnard in the fall will face new rules: Eat lunch with students. Participate in an hour-long collaborative session with other teachers every day. Conduct “advisory groups” for students in grades six to eight. Establish student portfolios to keep track of their progress. Those portfolios will be monitored monthly.

Two other “turnaround” schools will undergo dramatic transformations.

Urban Youth Middle School, on Dixwell Avenue, will become a charter school next fall. The principal will be reassigned. A Stamford-based social service outfit called Domus will run it. It will have an extended school year.

So will Katherine Brennan School in West Rock. Brennan, too, will be reconstituted, but it will continue to be run by the public school system. Work rules will change. The school day will be lengthened to eight hours for students, eight and a half hours for teachers. Teachers will receive 10 days of professional development before the school year begins, two extra days during the year, and and two days of “reflection” at the end.

Two generations ago, Brennan was the site of an ambitious experiment of a different era: the launching in the 1960s of “community schools” that stay open into the night for kids and their parents to use.

For the three Tier III schools, teachers won’t get to vote on the changes above. By contract, management was allowed to dictate those changes, as long as they were handed down by Monday’s deadline. Teachers got packets with the new work rules Monday. Their jobs are guaranteed—but not at the same school.

Teachers at Tier III turnaround schools have about a month to decide whether they want to reapply to continue teaching in the same school, said Dave Cicarella, teachers union president. They’ll find out by the end of this school year whether they get accepted, or have to change schools. Along with the longer school days would come an increase in pay. All students will stay in the same school.

Cicarella met with teachers at Katherine-Brennan at 3 p.m. Monday, when they got the news about major changes afoot. A couple of teachers had issues with the reforms right away because the longer school days would conflict with their daycare needs, he said. The rest of the teachers were a mix of anxious and excited, he said.

Unlike in other cities, New Haven’s reforms have brought a new level of cooperation between the school administration and teachers union. Cicarella stood up Monday to applaud the plans.

The selection of the seven schools was a management decision, Cicarella said. But “these are decisions we participated in, and these are decisions that we completely support.”

Three main factors went into grading the schools: student performance on standardized tests, student growth on those tests, and student “engagement.” Mayo also looked at three qualitative factors, including whether the school has strong leadership and is ready to take on reforms.

The “Matrix” Revealed

In grading the schools, the most emphasis was placed on absolute performance on tests, then growth on those tests. School environment—defined by attendance and how students fared on a survey filled out by their teachers—was a smaller factor in grading the schools, said school reform czar Garth Harries.

Unlike other school districts, which use an A to F grading scale for schools, New Haven chose a 3-D matrix (pictured). It looks like a bunch of balloons, or bubbles, on a map. Tier I schools fall in the upper right-hand corner of that map; Tier III schools sink down below to the left-hand corner.

For example: Edgewood School had high test scores and high growth in test scores, so it landed on the top right corner, which is Tier I. Urban Youth had low scores and low growth, so it landed on the bottom left, Tier III. King-Robinson had high growth, but average test scores, so it landed in the middle, Tier II.

Click on the map to take a closer look at how the elementary schools fared.

No chart was provided for the city’s high schools. Harries said Mayo decided not to grade any high schools for the pilot project because they didn’t have a good way to measure students’ “growth.” For a detailed explanation at how the schools were graded, click here.

Starting in November, Mayo will issue grades to all 47 city schools annually.

Parents were informed of Monday’s news through a message from “School Link” at 5:30 p.m. Parents at the seven pilot schools will be invited to meet with staff about the changes at their schools in the last week of March, Mayo said.

Margaret Holmes, the parent rep from Urban Youth on the citywide PTO, said Monday evening she didn’t know any details about the changes in store for her 7th grader, but she welcomed the chance to make the school better “organized.”

For more coverage of the city’s school change effort, visit the Independent‘s school reform section.

Comments

posted by: N E Shipley on March 15, 2010 4:13pm

Katherine Brennan is generally paired with the Clarence Rogers Schools. Will both schools be turn-around schools, or just the upper grades that are housed in the Brennan building?

posted by: fingers on March 15, 2010 4:50pm

Where are the high schools? Come on. We need some sort of place to start.

posted by: nht on March 15, 2010 7:35pm

Brennan and Rogers will both be turnaround schools. They are counted as 1 school.

posted by: Threefifths on March 15, 2010 9:10pm

This is Union busting.

Obama Acts Like Reagan 1981, the Union-Buster
Posted Tue, 03/09/2010

The president has signaled loudly and clearly that he and education secretary Arne Duncan have a “‘final solution” for public education. Like Ronald Reagan, Obama is portraying the unions as a threat to the national welfare. “The fundamental logic of Obama’s so-called Race to the Top program, is to break the teaches unions.”

Obama Acts Like Reagan 1981, the Union-Buster
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
“Obama is is going after the teachers unions with a hatchet – just like Reagan went after the air traffic controllers.”
President Obama’s endorsement of the firing of the entire faculty and staff of a Rhode Island public school is reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s crushing of the air traffic controllers union, nearly three decades ago. Back then, President Reagan made an example of a union that had supported his presidential candidacy, firing its members and ultimately decertifying the union when it went on strike. The move sent a signal to the bosses in all sectors of the U.S. economy: the president – the U.S. government – is on management’s side, and unions are a considered a threat to the general economic welfare.
Last week, President Obama sent the same kind of signal to teachers unions, when he cited the Central Falls, Rhode Island, school shutdown as an example of the “accountability” he is demanding of poorly performing schools – which invariably means poor, non-white schools. Teachers union leaders appeared to be shocked by Obama’s language and tone – but they shouldn’t have been. The Rhode Island mass firing was not substantively different than the wholesale sacking of teachers and abrogation of their union contracts elsewhere in the country. The fundamental logic of Obama’s so-called Race to the Top program – a multi-billion dollar competition to show which states are most willing to fire teachers, shut down classrooms and replace them with charter schools – is to break the teachers union. If the teachers want to save their union, their dignity, their contracts, and the institution of public education, they will have to break with Obama. Because he is going after them with a hatchet – just like Reagan went after the air traffic controllers, despite their having supported his 1980 candidacy.
“Obama takes Bush’s No Child Left Behind scheme to its logical, blood on the floor conclusion.”
Obama’s hatchet man and basketball buddy is Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who envisions waves of school closings, teacher firings and charter school openings for the next “five or six years.” That sounds like a kind of “final solution” for teachers unions – and for public education.
Obama’s plans for America’s classrooms are even more aggressive than George Bush’s policies. Obama takes Bush’s No Child Left Behind scheme to its logical, blood on the floor conclusion: corporate education without the encumbrances of organized teachers. Obama’s anti-union vision is more ambitious than that of the old arch-reactionary, Ronald Reagan, who destroyed a union of only 13,000 members. The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association have combined memberships of over 4 million. They have the capacity to fight back, to make this president back off. But, like so many others who drank the Obama Kool Aid, they are in denial, refusing to believe that they backed a union-buster who is making teachers the scapegoat for America’s historical failure to serve the educational needs of all its children.
Private teacher training outfits are turning out young and hungry replacements for todays teachers, anticipating a huge turnover in public schools as Obama swings his hatchet. Teachers need to revolt against this administration while they still have a union to fight for them.

Next get rid for the H1-B Teachers.

Techies Out, Teachers In: U.S. Schools Recruit Indian Instructors
Shifting U.S. labor needs create social adjustments at home in India
by Pacific News Service, PNS

Just when the demand for Indian high-tech workers dried up, sending thousands of Indian engineers back to India, American school administrators are bringing Indians in, seeking to end a teacher shortage.

With Indian tech workers no longer wanted in the United States, the buzz here is all about teachers.

A shortage of up to 700,000 teaching instructors in the United States has drawn U.S. school administrators looking to plug the gap to India. The reasons, according to the recruiters, are the same ones that caused high-tech companies to hire Indian engineers during the dot-com boom: Indians, they say, work well and work hard for salaries that are low by U.S. standards. And their knowledge of English is good enough to teach American kids.

George Noflin, principal of Greenwood High School in Greenwood, Miss., visited India recently and interviewed 85 teachers. He hired three for his school. “The quality of teachers in India is unbelievable,” Noflin says.

The number of Indian tech workers heading to the United States has dropped sharply compared to previous years. The high demand for teachers comes as thousands of Indian H1-B visa holders—a temporary, specialized work visa—in the United States are returning home.

The teaching shortage in the United States is attributed to the profession’s low regard, dismal pay and high turnover. “No one wants to teach these days,” Noflin says.

According to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, a third of new teachers in the United States leave the profession within three years—and half leave after five years.

Survesh Rudra, a middle-level Indian government official, recently returned to India with his son after a yearlong scholarship in America. His wife chose to stay after she was offered a teaching job in Texas.

“There is a new-found respect for the teaching community,” says a New Delhi public school teacher, for whom the “prospect of earning dollars opens up new vistas.”
“Because she has more than five years experience, her salary is more than $35,000,” Rudra says. “That’s dismal by U.S. standards, but great by Indian.”

In India, Rudra’s annual salary would not be more than $2,400, with little ability to save. Even accounting for the high cost of living in the United States, Survesh Rudra says, his wife can still save a minimum of $12,000 a year. Indians, especially women, Rudra says, are great savers. If his wife can hold onto her job in America for three years, her family will be able to afford a reasonably good lifestyle in India for the rest of their lives.

Indians leaving to teach in the United States look somewhat different than the tech workers who headed west for green cards, U.S. citizenship and possibly American wives. The teachers are predominantly housewives who take up teaching jobs not only for the money, but to accompany their kids to school and keep themselves mentally occupied.

“There is a new-found respect for the teaching community,” says Sunita Saxena, who teaches at the Delhi Public School Vasant Vihar, in New Delhi, and has been on several teaching stints to the Middle East. “For many of us who have been seen as people who barely contributed a supplementary income, the prospect of earning dollars opens new vistas.”

However, there is a flip side. A few years ago, a shortage of teachers in the United Kingdom encouraged a large number of recruitment agencies to hire teachers from India. But soon the demand dried up, and the teachers found themselves without jobs or stuck in appalling working conditions as they entered other employment to support families back home used to the largesse from abroad. Many ended up being deported.

In fact, despite their happiness at being back among family and friends, Indian tech workers returning from the United States have had difficulty adjusting to significantly lower salaries—typically 25 percent of what they made in the United States—and the resulting lifestyle changes. Many would return to America if given the chance.

But for now, it seems that Indian teachers have nothing to fear. The teacher shortage in America is huge. The writing is there on the blackboard for all to see: techies out, teachers in.

posted by: Kevin Buterbaugh on March 15, 2010 9:34pm

I think it is great that we are trying to improve our schools. All children deserve a good education - meaning that they are prepared for their adult lives whether that means a career that requires college or some other career.

However - the more I read about the reform the more I see a lot of paper work being generated. Constant testing, monitoring, planning etc will require people to do it. Will teachers be given time to fill out all the reports required of them? Are we going to hire more people to perform all this additional paper work? Will the amount of paper being generated take resources away from the classroom?

Accountability is important - but to get it we often create bureaucracy and in the end that leads to less accountability and less responsiveness.

Yet - something surely needs to be done with New Haven’s schools - too many students drop out, too many graduate unprepared for future careers and so - I am pleased to see that an attempt is being made to change things.

posted by: notice on March 15, 2010 9:56pm

They changed the chart over night. The Y axis used to be GOAL…now it is proficient. You know what you need to get in order to get proficient on the Math CAPT….12 points out of 48.

posted by: jjray on March 15, 2010 10:53pm

...

And another thing… every item named as part of the reform plan falls on the laps of underpaid, overworked teachers. Where is the responsibility of the parent and the overpaid administration? The teacher can not make school reform happen on their own.

I think this is just another attempt to get more money from the government with some half baked plan that won’t be fully implemented. The students that learn the most are being encouraged and helped at home. Teachers alone cannot educate while receiving little support from administrators and parents.

posted by: RichTherrn on March 16, 2010 8:12am

jjray, both charts are available at the New Haven School Change website, School Reform Documents . They are nearly identical.

It is important to remember that the majority of these reform changes are coming about BECAUSE the teachers have pushed for it in their contract. Trust me, we are all going to be working very, very hard, parents, teachers, administrators and community.
-Richard Therrien
-NHPS Science Supervisor

posted by: David on March 16, 2010 9:59am

3/5 -
Did you even read the article? There will be no firings and teacher jobs are guaranteed within the school system at Tier III schools. The teachers union president is quoted in support of the plan. If this is union-busting, then they are doing a terrible job at it.

fingers -
Also read the article, this is the pilot stage where they left off high schools to make sure they had the metrics correct. It is admirable to want to get it right before making sweeping changes.

Kevin -
Where do you see paperwork? More teacher development days and needing to eat lunch with kids is not paperwork. They are necessary steps to take in order to bring low performing kids up. If you don’t want the challenge, go to a different school. Paperwork generally implies inaction and red-tape whereas what is presented here is anything but.

jjray -
Teachers will have to work more. It also says in the article that for the longer school day, they will be compensated more. The Mayor has asked for more education funding for this purpose and has been pilloried for it. Again, the teacher’s union president is all over the article in support or this plan. Again, I urge you to read the article before commenting.

Bottom line to anti-reformers, this is major progress, a major step forward and is a harbinger of more good things to come.

David

posted by: concernedwestvilleres on March 16, 2010 10:14am

The problem is we still view the schools as the ultimate education source. Education involves the schools and parents working together to ensure children receive a proper education. When parents perceive this isn’t happening, the well-to do parents shift their kids to the private schools. The middle class parents either move to the suburbs, ensure their kids are in magnet schools or the best schools, or home school. Poor parents leave their kids in the school and hope the school can get it together or let their kids be as they are.

To blame the teachers and school solely for the failure of students to learn to read and do math is fallacy. Yes, there are terrible teachers in the district and they should be sent to a new career- maybe greeters at Wal-Mart or something. However, a very large majority of teachers are competent and solid teachers. They should not bear the blame for the failure of parents and society. Many parents can help their kids learn but many others can’t. A child learns to read in school and goes home and the parents are illiterate so there is no reinforcement. Or the child goes home to a family where English isn’t spoken as a first language and there is no reinforcement. Or the child goes home to an empty house because the parents work two jobs due to poverty. These are the children at high risk and the children the system needs to focus upon.

I’m glad Lola Nathan is doing a great job at Davis. Why can’t the district take what she is doing and apply it across the district. Why can’t the district take what is working and apply it across all the schools by training teachers, principals, and parents? Instead of shutting and reconstituting schools let’s import what is working in Magnet Schools and the high performing non-magnet schools (Hooker and Hale for example) and apply these across the board in the district. Instead of making Urban Youth a charter school, let’s find a way to encourage the kids (many who have behavior issues and who have been troublemakers) to learn.

Maybe we need a reward system for learning. If you work and do well you are rewarded with having a job (unless layoffs come) and in good times raises. College students are rewarded with diplomas and hopefully jobs when they graduate. Why not reward public school students whether through cash or gifts? Reward improvement and give the kids incentives.

DeStefano’s reform is not likely to work. I hope it does do well for the sake of our kids but I don’t see it working. Let’s try real reform that doesn’t blame but helps.

posted by: Threefifths on March 16, 2010 5:45pm

David on March 16, 2010 9:59am

Did you even read my article. Read this.

The fundamental logic of Obama’s so-called Race to the Top program – a multi-billion dollar competition to show which states are most willing to fire teachers, shut down classrooms and replace them with charter schools – is to break the teachers union. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who envisions waves of school closings, teacher firings and charter school openings for the next “five or six years.” That sounds like a kind of “final solution” for teachers unions – and for public education.
Notice That sounds like a kind of “final solution” for teachers unions – and for public education.

This is happing here in new haven and across this country.Check out Arne Duncan when he ran the Chicago schools.

Obama picks school-privatizing union-buster for Education Secretary

Educational justice advocates are understandably displeased with President Elect Obama’s appointment of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) CEO Arne Duncan to the position of Education Secretary in the next White House.

As the Chicago public school teacher Jesse Sharkey notes, “In the past couple years, Duncan has been turning public schools over to private operators - mainly in the form of charter and contract schools - at a rate of about 20 per year. Duncan has also resuscitated some of the worst ‘school reform’ ideas of the 1990s, like firing all the teachers in low-performing schools (called ‘turnarounds’). At the same time, he’s eliminated many Local School Councils (LSCs) and made crucial decisions without public input…Charter schools and test-score driven school ‘choice’ have been the watchwords of Duncan’s rule in Chicago”.

University of Illinois at Chicago education professor Kevin Kumashiro notes that Duncan’s Chicago policies have been “steeped in a free-market model of school reform” that feeds the drop-out rate, increases segregation, and does little if anything to increase student achievement. “Duncan’s track record is clear,” says Kumashiro: “Less parental and community involvement in school governance. Less support for teacher unions. Less breadth and depth in what and how students learn as schools place more emphasis on narrow high-stakes testing. More penalties for schools but without adequate resources for those in high-poverty areas.”

Privatization, union-busting (charter and contract schools operate union-free), excessive standardized testing, teacher-blaming, military schooling, and the rollback of community input on school decisions - these are the interrelated hallmarks of private school graduate Arne Duncan’s six and a half years at the helm of CPS. It’s all very consistent with the legacy of his predecessor and mentor, the roving urban schools chief and leading privatization enthusiast Paul Vallas.

It is little wonder that Duncan recently won the support of the leading Republican New York Times columnist David Brooks….

Ask youself how did Domus get the contract to run Urban Youth.When did the bid go out.I bet they are not union.In fact I check them out. the board is load with corporate vampires.

Stephen Baker: Chairman and President Cushman & Wakefield

Nancy Fertig and Beverly Neal: Co-Vice Presidents

Jonathan Rather: Treasurer Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe

Joseph Paquin: Secretary Community Volunteer

Mary Barneby UBS

Curt Battles Jones Lang LaSalle

Martin Brennan Nomura Securities Intl

Tomn Kreitler C.P. Eaton Partners

Dave Craver Lone Pine Capital

Rick D’Avino GE

Peter DiMartino Community Volunteer

John Driscoll Medco Health Solutions

Kevin Gentry Gentry Capital Services

Charlie Hannigan Caxton Associates

Gregory Hayes Day Pitney LLP

Jean Jean-Baptiste Domus Alumni

Tom Kreitler C.P. Eaton

Noah Lapine David S. Lapine Inc.

Lillian Lewis Community Volunteer

Sandra Long Pitney Bowes

Malcolm MacLean Mercury Partners LLC

Allie Marks Community Volunteer

Pat McCartney Emmet, Marvin & Martin LLP

Clif McFeely Future Five

Rob Minicucci Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe

Nagi Osta NAGI Jewelers

Cathy Ostuw Community Volunteer

Mary Q. Pedersen Community Volunteer

Greg Quental Bear Stearns

Mary Rauscher Community Volunteer

Marion Schmeelk US Trust Company

Frank Vitiello Vitech Systems Group

Peter von Gal RHI Entertainment

No david I am for school reform as long as you keep the corporatist out!!!

P.S. Check out this corporatist on the board.

Greg Quental Bear Stearns

Notice Bear Stearns.May be this board memeber will give a class to the students on how to get bail out money from the goverment and not pay it back.

posted by: Hood Rebel on March 17, 2010 12:42am

This plan might not be perfect, but it’s meaningful a start. Community organizations, families, churches and others ought to be addressing family stresses and family issues and School Districts ought to be addressing children’s educational issues.

Yes there are extremes in every school. But you don’t give up on the bottom tier! The school district has now put a reform plan on the table. Those who don’t like it, go ahead and propose plan B, or C, or D. Put a clear plan out there and engage the community. There is some very good literature that supports the BOE reform efforts and I am hopeful.

posted by: Tom Burns on March 17, 2010 12:51am

Hey three-fifths——-I believe we spoke on the phone once—- I don’t know who you are, but thanks for all your posts which bring to light the national movement to end public schooling—you are right on and we will be pushing back to give all of our children a chance at a great education—
Did everyone already forget what happens when the business model takes over—-AIG, Enron, Colonial Realty, Silverado—on and on——but the rich wish to get richer through public funds and the takeover of education—this has been going on for at least twenty years (A Nation at Risk) Please support our public schools now or plan for the business model of executives making millions while cutting the jobs of (the little guy/gal)-you and me—the everyday workers. They do this even though they are utter failures as leaders of their companies—-
Here is my hope with the transformation we are undertaking in New Haven——that it is not like all the other fads that have come and gone before it and that through collaboration and ingenuity we get it right this time—-for if we do we can fend off those who wish to do us harm—
As we proceed—it will become apparent whether we are doing this REFORM for the kids or for some other reason——Tom
—-

New Haven Independent

New Haven Independent Login Form