The plan has a name — and a promise of more freedom for successful principals to hire and fire their own teachers.
Schools Superintendent Reginald Mayo (pictured) and Mayor John DeStefano offered those initial details at the Board of Education Monday night of their much-anticipated plan to revolutionize public education in New Haven.
They dubbed the still-in-progress plan the “Portfolio School Initiative.” And they called for a new chapter to be opened in the educational chronicle of the city.
Saying city schools need a breakthrough, not incremental change, they outlined a sharp turn away from the top-directed central board’s control to increasing autonomy in a three-tiered system of schools based on performance at every level.
Click here for recent mayoral remarks on school reform, which he has made a centerpiece of his re-election campaign after opposing calls for similar steps in past years.
DeStefano and Mayo promised Monday night that their new approach — which will depend in part on upcoming negotiations with the teachers union — will catapult the New Haven Public Schools to be the best-performing urban district in the nation by 2015.
A chief measure of that, said Mayo, will be for every school in the system to gain some 20 points on the standardized CMT and CAPT scores. That would align New Haven’s 47 schools with Connecticut state averages and in the process dramatically reduce racial and income achievement gaps, he said.
The 3 Tiers
In the first of a three-tiered system, top performing schools’ principals could “have a school day of 12 hours if they wanted.” They will control their budget and their curriculum, staffing, and even fundraising, all of which are now tightly and uniformly controlled by central headquarters.
The second-tier schools, which, Mayo said, would likely be the majority in the system. They will receive support from the central office to try to elevate them to the first tier. That help would include performance incentives. But the plan, in inchoate form, did not specify whether that would mean merit pay for teachers or other such controversial innovations.
Most of these issues will be hammered out in negotiations with teachers and administrators. The mayor said those talks are already occurring.
“This is going to be a completely transparent conversation,” he said.
The third or bottom tiered schools will receive the most central office intervention. Turnaround experts will be called in if necessary. If these schools continue to fail, Mayo said, shutting down and potential chartering is a possibility, with the city supervising the charter school,
Here again details offered were sketchy. But even the prospect of city-supervised charter school is a dramatic philosophical departure from the mayor and board’s previous fraught relationship with New Haven’s successful Amistad Academy and other Achievement First schools.
So far officials have not described the metrics by which succeeding and failing schools will be measured. That’s one key question — how completely to rely on test scores.
Board member M. Ann Levett (pictured with the mayor BOE member Michael Nast) said, “As we begin this conversation, we shouldn’t scare people about school closings.”
Mayo confirmed that shutting down a third-tier school is the last resort, and that replacing principals and other staff and other interventions would be tried first.
“What’s really key here,” said Mayo, “is that we are doing things in a highly differentiated fashion, school by school. Up to now, for example, professional development for all the schools tends to be the same. No longer.”
Board member Carlos Torre praised the plan calling it an “IEP” for schools. An “individual education plan” is fashioned for a kid with academic or behavioral troubles.
The mayor also said that another key goal will be to figure out a “true” meaning for the drop-out rate and reduce New Haven’s, whatever it is, drastically. Equally key, he said, will be to motivate kids and their families to greater engagement in their education.
DeStefano’s Promise
“I actually think,” said the mayor, “that large incentives are needed to make this work at all levels, especially with the kids and their families.”
As part of the buy-in the mayor called again for what he termed “the New Haven Promise.”
Any kid who works hard, earns the grades, behaves, and gets into college should not be denied the chance to attend because of lack of money, whether the school is Gateway or Yale, DeStefano said in describing the “promise.”
“Listen,” he said, “how does a smart city create wealth? Some build sports stadium. I think you’re smarter if you reduce drop outs, get more kids in college, and make sure they have a quality high school education in New Haven so that in college they do well to, not take remedial courses, are able to get a good job, raise a family, contribute to the city’s life.”
He called for new surveys to track just how New Haven high schoolers are doing in this regard.
Mayo’s Challenge
As the initiative called for higher achievement at all levels, especially among school leaders,the superintendent was asked what he foresees as his personal challenges.
“It’s going to be hard for me to relinquish control,” he answered, which he’ll have to do as tier-one schools gain autonomy. “But I’ll be really involved in the tier-two schools, giving support, but on a new kind of basis. Also with those low-performing schools.”
Mayo said the district has increasing trouble recruiting administrators. Top-flight leadership at the administrative and principal level is a sine qua non for success.
He said that in order to drive the Portfolio Schools Initiative, he is looking to hire one or perhaps two people with specific experience in dramatically renovating school systems.
“I mean how do we get to the next step? What are our metrics for measuring a tier one, two, three school?”
Even as he relinquishes control in the new vision, Mayo said, “I’m the driver.”
The educational sea change in Washington, said both the mayor and superintendent, were in no small measure a motivator for the new vision for the schools. (Click here for a story on the visit to the new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.) At stake is $5 billion going to the states and an additional $500 million available for the districts like New Haven to compete for.
“In our conversations with Arne Duncan,” said the mayor, “I sensed a real sympathy and understanding for mayorally led school change.”