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Nashville school's makeover shakes up teachers
What do you think of when you hear the phrase "fresh start"?
- deodorant?
- room deodorizer?
- pooper scooper truck?
- divorce counseling?
In Nashville, it means forcing a school's faculty to reapply for their jobs, and declaring that by definition, only 40% can stay.
Teacher Comment: As a teacher who worked at Ross Elementary, this article really ticked me off. How dare Register say that the reason our school was fresh started was because the faculty didn't collaborate with each other! Our teachers sent him and his support staff emails all year asking for help in regards to our new administrator and the bogus coaches logs but nothing ever happened. We had a reading coach and math coach who were paid to do nothing but walk the halls, never meeting with students, and when the teachers reported this misuse of public funds, Register still did nothing! Instead of fixing the problems, Register, Moorman, and Patterson decided to fresh start our school. The teachers at Ross love the kids, the community, and the school. We are totally being punished for voicing our concerns and see this fresh start as a way for METRO to get rid of the current administration without getting themselves sued!
Reader Comment: East was not just a good school making AYP in the midst of a struggling metro school system; it was a high performing school with high performing teachers. The teachers who were displaced included at least 4 heads of departments and several multiple teachers of the year. All with good evaluations and scores.
As stated in other comments the school is going to all honors classes. That decision seems to be able to have the effect of weeding out students. The teachers at East had previously been known for being able to take low performing students and advance them by frequently 2 or 3 grade levels. Some of the teachers who are leaving openly questioned the policy of going to all honors classes because they were committed to continuing to be able to impact lower level students as noted in the previous comments.
Thirdly, I do not know that it is in Nashville's best interest to take apart a highly performing school in a time when high performing schools are so hard to find.
Reader Comment: I definitely believe that ego is involved in taking apart a high performing school just to put it back together in the image of one man. . . . Students who are not honor level students deserve a good education and they were receiving that education at East before it was restarted. I would like to know where the East students who can't survive all honor classes will be allowed to go to obtain the education which they were receiving at East before the restructuring? . . .
By Janell Ross
On a Friday not long before the end of the school year, Michelle Greenfield got a list of four questions that changed the course of her teaching career.
Greenfield has taught at East Literature Magnet School for four years — every year since she graduated from Vanderbilt University.
Greenfield, who taught sixth-grade science and math last year, loves the school. She loves the kids. She loves the other teachers.
When Greenfield got the list, the questions were about the Paideia school model, a teaching and learning approach that emphasizes a blend of traditional teaching with classroom conversations and critical thinking and observation skills.
The answers Greenfield gave the school's principal the following Monday would determine whether she kept her teaching job at the magnet school.
To Greenfield, it felt as if East Lit and its roughly 65 teachers were experiencing a "fresh start," the term often used to describe sweeping staff and administrative changes made to try to improve poorly performing schools. Everyone — from teachers and principals to janitors and other staff — is typically asked to reapply for his or her job.
Teachers at East Lit and two other Metro schools — Ross Elementary and McGavock High — were asked to reapply for their positions this year, but Schools Director Jesse Register considers only Ross to be a true fresh start. The move at East Lit was prompted by school district officials' plan to convert the school to the Paideia method.
Register says the changes this year were made with good reason: taking the district closer to its goal of having a complete slate of great schools.
"I was not willing to wait for Ross to become a failing school," Register said. "And even though I would not consider making these kinds of changes at all the district's schools, because they are simply too disruptive, we made all of the changes that we did with the goal of creating great schools.
"We want all 140 Metro schools to be excellent schools."
'Bogus restructuring'
When Metro Nashville Public Schools decided to fresh-start five schools in the 2008-09 school year, an announcement was made and a news release issued. In most cases, the reasons were clear.
All but two of the schools had been tagged by the state as in need of improvement or had struggled with different measures of student performance for years before beginning to improve.
The difference between what happened that year and what the system did this year has caught the attention of the teachers union and left some teachers questioning their value to the district.
"In a real fresh start, only 40 percent of staff can stay; administrators are moved out and replaced, generally," Greenfield said.
"But with this bogus restructuring there are no rules, no structure to really follow. I think every teacher and parent in the district needs to be really worried because it seems like this is becoming the norm."
Teachers who reapply for their jobs and are told not to return are guaranteed placement at another school.
East Literature Magnet's teachers were asked to reapply because of a significant change in the schools' teaching approach, Register said.
'Revolving door'
At Ross Elementary, the district has struggled with a "revolving door" of principals and a lack of collaboration among the staff. This year, test scores at Ross slipped slightly. Late in the last school year, 21 teachers and administrators were asked to reapply for their jobs. Only three are returning for the next year.
Like Ross, the special education department at McGavock High School also suffered from staff collaboration issues, prompting the district to ask 18 teachers to reapply for their jobs. Eleven are returning. Register wasn't willing to be specific about just what impact the lack of collaboration between teachers and administrators had on the school.
Special education has been a focus area for the district. In 2008, state education officials launched a partial takeover of Metro schools. The decision followed five years of failing test scores and led to a bigger focus on special education students and on those trying to learn English.
What happened at East Lit was different, Register said. The staff changes were driven by nothing more than a program change. The school will change from a literature-focused magnet to one that employs the Paideia teaching model this fall.
Khristy King taught sixth-grade reading and language arts at East Lit for 16 years. It's the only school where she's ever taught. Like Greenfield, King says it's a school and an experience she loves.
She liked seeing "squirrelly" fifth-graders enter the school, then leave it as mature young men and women at the end of 12th grade. She enjoyed working with the school's diverse student body.
At East, about 74 percent of the students are black, about 1 percent are Asian and almost 3 percent are Latino. Twenty-one percent are white.
For each of the past five school years, King was regarded as such an effective teacher that a student teacher was assigned to her room to watch, help and learn.
King says she was among the 15 teachers not asked to return to East Literature this fall. The reason: Her answers to the Paideia-model interview questions lacked depth.
"I absolutely was so surprised," King said. "I just felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. I am just heartbroken.
"But I think one of the things that has bothered me most is that I didn't have any indication that I was on the chopping block — absolutely none — and had no legitimate reasons to believe that I would be."
Greenfield was invited to return. But the process and outcome seemed so messy and unproductive that she declined. "Why would I want to work in a school that treats people like garbage?" she said.
"There were very experienced, wonderful teachers who were not asked to return. There were people asked back that a lot of us could not believe. The decisions were so haphazard that it was hard to have any confidence in the decisions that were made."
Greenfield and King have found jobs at other district schools.
— Janell Ross
The Tennessean
2010-06-21
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100621/NEWS04/6210324/1970/news04
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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