A proposal to bring in nonprofits to run low-performing St. Louis city schools continued to draw criticism during a public hearing at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School on Saturday.
“The recommendation to contract out our schools for years to strangers is a disgrace and an insult to the community without compelling evidence they can do better than we can do,” said Bill Haas, an elected school board member.
Currently, the district is being run by the Special Administrative Board, or SAB. Its three members are appointed by the governor, mayor and aldermanic president. The elected school board has no oversight power.
St. Louis Public Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams introduced the idea during an SAB meeting this month as part of the “St. Louis Public School District Transformation Plan.” Under the plan, 18 schools with the lowest level of academic performance are grouped into a category called the “Superintendent Zone,” which Adams has been monitoring directly since the fall.
The plan calls for funneling roughly $6.4 million to the 18 schools that would pay for tutors, added social workers and teacher training. If one of the schools fails to show improvement during the coming school year, a nonprofit operator could be brought in during the 2015-16 school year and would have control over hiring staff and setting curriculum.
“These schools that we’re looking at have received three years of school improvement data, another year of support from the superintendent,” Adams said.
“They will receive, if the board approves this, another $6.3 million of support, as well. So, after five years of consistent support, am I looking at some other options? Yes, period, no ifs, no ands, and no buts about it.”
Mark Kasen, who teaches history at Vashon High School, said he’d like to have teachers from his and other schools in the “Superintendent Zone” meet with Adams on a regular basis to share best practices and strategies.
“My suggestion is that we find a way to engage the teachers with you directly to think about ways in which we can make this achievement that you want, and everybody wants, happen,” Kasen said.
Adams will present a final version of the plan to the SAB on April 10.
Teachers, parents and others spoke against a proposal to bring in nonprofit organizations to run low performing schools in the St. Louis Public Schools during a public hearing on Thursday evening.
Mary Armstrong, president of the local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, said a year simply wasn’t enough time for schools to move the academic needle before handing over operations to a nonprofit operator.
“If progress is being made, then give that time to take root and expand,” Armstrong said.
That was a sentiment shared by Valarie Williams, president of the St. Louis Public Schools Parent Assembly.
“You’ve got to give it at least three years to figure out, is this going to work?” Williams said. “What can I do differently? You have to give at least three years.”
After the forum Adams pointed to the Apollo 20 program in Houston, put in place during the 2010-11 school year, as an example where nonprofits have been able to move the academic needle.
The project is the brainchild of Harvard Economist Roland Fryer, who concluded in a paper published last December that the approach was working.
“Injecting best practices from charter schools into low-performing traditional public schools can significantly increase student achievement,” Fryer wrote.
A review by the Houston Education Research Consortium, a research partnership between Rice University and the Houston Independent School District, concluded that the approach yielded mixed results.
“Taken together, these strategies had positive effects on math gains but negligible effects on reading gains,” according to the report published last month. “The strongest evidence reported is from the small group, high-dosage tutoring, which we recommend expanding to include reading as well as additional grade levels.”
About 100 people filled the auditorium at Vashon High School during the forum, and Adams acknowledged that none of the speakers favored the idea.
“You’d have to be a fool not to listen to comments from credible people,” Adams said. “If I didn’t take their recommendations into some consideration, why even go through this process?”
Edited for length and reprinted with permission from news.stlpublicradio.org.
