Melissa Bailey Photo
The school board will decide by March 15 which two failing schools to close — and it claims it will make the decision in a way that the public can watch.
Mayor John DeStefano (pictured) laid out a series of decisions that have to take place in the next six weeks to keep the city’s school change campaign on track.
The Board of Education must decide by March 15 which low-performing schools will be closed at the end of the school year, DeStefano announced at Monday’s school board meeting. The deadline is set down in the teacher’s contract, which was ratified last October, he said. The contract lays the framework for an ambitious plan to cut the dropout rate in half, eliminate the achievement gap in five years, and turn around the city’s poorest-performing schools.
The plan includes ranking schools into three tiers. Top-performing schools would be placed in Tier I and given more autonomy. Low-performing schools will be placed in Tier III. Some schools in that tier will be dubbed “turnaround” schools. Those will be closed and reopened under new management, possibly as charter schools.
The school district plans to rank an initial six to eight schools on March 15, the mayor said. The schools would be given improvement plans to take effect next school year. DeStefano said he’d like to see two schools placed in Tier I, two in Tier II, two turnaround schools and two others in Tier III. The schools in the top two tiers would be given more autonomy. The turnaround schools would be closed at the end of this year and reopened in the fall.
The students would be allowed to stay at the turnaround schools. The teachers will have to reapply if they wish to continue teaching there. If they get rehired, they face the prospect of new work rules, which could mean a longer school day, along with more pay. The district has promised to let teachers know by March 15 which schools will undergo this transformation, so they have time to decide whether they’d like to be part of it.
“We’re not going to miss a deadline,” DeStefano said. “We’re not going to give anyone a reason to step back from this aggressive pace” toward school reform.
In the next six weeks, the school board has a lot of work to do, he said.
Before it can decide which schools to close, the board has to come up with a way to rank them. Before ranking schools, it has to find a new way to measure student performance. And by April 15, it must come up with a way to tie teacher evaluations to student performance.
The major pieces of the reform are being hashed out behind closed doors by three small committees, each one comprised of teachers, administrators and parents. Each committee — on reform, school surveys and teacher evaluations — must reach a consensus and make a recommendation to the school district on how to make forward. While the reform drive has been hailed nationally, observers say its success will be contingent upon whether those committees can reach a consensus on major changes in the classroom and school district.
Parts of that verdict will emerge in February, when a lot of work must get done.
Melissa Bailey Photo
The Reform Committee plans to decide by Feb. 22 on criteria for grading schools. Then Superintendent Reggie Mayo (pictured) will decide which schools to include in the initial ranking. He will pass on that recommendation to the school board, which must vote by March 15, DeStefano said.
DeStefano noted that the main work of school reform is taking place behind closed doors. He said he’s heard from many people who’d like to take part in that decision-making process, or would like to open the reform committee meetings to the public.
When the decisions fall on the school board’s lap, DeStefano said, the final deliberations must be made in public.
If there isn’t an in-depth discussion in public at the school board, DeStefano said, “there will be large segments of the New Haven community that will think we are not discussing this at all.” He urged an “open, transparent process.”
Melissa Bailey Photo
Board member Alex Johnston (pictured), CEO of the education watchdog group ConnCAN, called for setting up a subcommittee of the board that would better scrutinize the reform proposals. Selase Williams, the provost at Southern Connecticut State University, said he’d like to see a resource of information so that board members can read up on individual schools before they’re faced with deciding which ones to close.
The board decided to increase the number of full board meetings over the next six weeks so that they can get their work done. Meeting agendas will be posted here on the district website.
Race To The Top
In other news, Johnston reported some potential good news in the campaign to find $100 million to finance the sweeping reform plans: While New Haven has poor chances of benefiting from the first round of federal Race to the Top grants, it may benefit from a new third round. President Obama last week added $1.3 billion to the $4.35 billion initiative, which was already the largest pool of discretionary funding ever allotted for education reform. The first round of grants are given to states, which pass the money on to cities. The federal Department of Education plans to make the third round available directly to cities, Johnston reported.
“They know that there are districts that are in states that may not win Race to the Top,” Johnston said.
New Haven is already planning to apply for direct funding from the federal Invest in Innovation (i3) program, but that probably wouldn’t be more than $5 million, Johnston said. New Haven would be well-positioned to win more than $5 million in the third round of the Race to the Top, he said.
DeStefano said he got the same impression in his meeting with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in Washington, D.C. on Friday. He was among 10 mayors who met with Duncan as part of a meeting set up by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Others hailed from Philadelphia, Seattle, Berkeley, Sacramento, and Nashville.
In the room, there was a “general acknowledgment that none of those districts is as well-positioned as we are” to undertake a successful school reform drive, DeStefano declared.
Some previous stories about New Haven’s school reform drive:
• Watchdog: State Lags In Race To The Top
• Reform Drive Looks Beyond Test Scores
• She Made Time To Get Off Work
• New Leaders Sought For City High Schools
• Report Card Night Revamped
• Parents Challenged To Join Reform Drive
• Where Do Bad Teachers Go?
• Reform Committees Set
• Mayo Extends Olive Branch
• School Board Makes Mom Cry
• Next Term Will Determine Mayor’s Legacy
• Reading Target Set: 90% By February
• Teacher Pact Applauded; Will $$ Follow?
• Mayor “Not Scared” By $100M
• Useful Applause: Duncan, AFT Praise City
• Reformer Moves Inside
• After Teacher Vote, Mayo Seeks “Grand Slam”
• Will Teacher Contract Bring D.C. Reward?
• What About The Parents?
• Teachers, City Reach Tentative Pact
• Philanthropists Join School Reform Drive
• Wanted: Great Teachers
• “Class of 2026” Gets Started
• Principal Keeps School On The Move
• With National Push, Reform Talks Advance
• Nice New School! Now Do Your Homework
• Mayo Unveils Discipline Plan
• Mayor Launches “School Change” Campaign
• Reform Drive Snags “New Teacher” Team
• Can He Work School Reform Magic?
• Some Parental Non-Involvement Is OK, Too
• Mayor: Close Failing Schools
• Union Chief: Don’t Blame The Teachers
• 3‑Tiered School Reform Comes Into Focus
• At NAACP, Mayo Outlines School Reform
• Post Created To Bring In School Reform
• Board of Ed Assembles Legal Team