Aaron Regunberg: Achievement First has Little Support in Providence
Friday, December 02, 2011
Last Monday, a broad-based coalition of Providence community groups sent a letter to Governor Chafee announcing their opposition to the implantation of a network of Achievement First Mayoral Academies in Providence. It’s a pretty long letter, but it’s effectively summed upin the last paragraph, which reads:
“Our repudiation of Achievement First is not an affirmation of the status quo nor is it a condemnation of all charter schools. The persistent achievement gaps that exist in our schools must be addressed, but no organization or methodology should claim to close those gaps while posting mixed academic results and undermining democratic processes. We implore your help in creating education policies, developed in conjunction with parents, teachers, students, and other local stakeholders, that help all young people enrolled in our public schools.”
These sentiments are followed by a list of signatories, whichI think represents a pretty broad swathe of Providence’s incredibly diverse community:
Bryan Principe, Providence City Councilman Ward 13
Carmen Castillo, Providence City Councilwoman Ward 9
Davian Sanchez, Providence City Councilman Ward 11
Kevin Jackson, Providence City Councilman Ward 3
Luis Aponte, Providence City Councilman Ward 10
Michael Correia, Providence City Councilman Ward 6
Nicholas Narducci, Providence City Councilman Ward 4
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization
West Side Public Education Coalition
Hope United, Hope High School’s Student Union
Margarita Arentsen, Hope High School PTO organizer
Kathy Crain, former Providence School Board President
Olneyville Neighborhood Association
West Broadway Neighborhood Association
Congregation of the Victory Outreach Center
D.A.R.E. (Direct Action for Rights and Equality)
Rhode Island Progressive Democrats
It’s On Us
Project FUTURE
Occupy Providence
Rhode Island People’s Assembly
Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island
Brown University Student-Labor Alliance
Save Our Schools Coalition
Coalition to Defend Public Education
UNITE HERE Local 217
Rhode Island Unemployed Council
District 1199 New England SEIU
Rhode Island Jobs with Justice
More Than Just Union Opposition
I wanted to post the list because much of the pro-AF rhetoric I’ve heard lately has attempted toframe all opposition to Achievement First as coming from the teachers union and as being against educational change in general (as if this one particular charter-management organization had a monopoly on change or choice). But reading this letter and looking at the signatories shows, on the contrary, that a significant chunk of the Providence community has a series of specific reasons for believing that bringing Achievement First into their city will be harmful to the public school system they want so badly to improve.
That’s a very different picture than you get from examining the side that has been at work for the past six or so months advocating in favor of bringing Achievement First into Providence. I attended AF’s presentation during last Tuesday’s Providence City Council Education Subcommittee hearing, and was struck as I looked around the room at the sheer number of people who are being paid to work full-time on this issue. There were two lobbyists from the Rhode Island Mayoral Academies, two lobbyists from RI-CAN, a couple folks from Democrats For Education Reform, and Achievement First’s own “Senior Director of Rhode Island Expansion” (yes, an organization that claimsto always put kids first uses its resources for positions like “Senior Director of Rhode Island Expansion”).
Do the math and you’ve got eight or nine full-time lobbyists; I don’t know how much they each get paid, but if it’s anywhere close to RI-CAN’s wages (according to their website, RI-CAN paid $782,000 in salaries this year), that’s literally millions of dollars worth of capacity going into this effort, much of it fromconservative-backed entities like Broad or Wal-Mart’s foundations.
That rankles me for two reasons. First of all, given their incredible resources, I find it crazy that the pro-AF side hasn’t been able to rally more support for their cause than they have thus far. I mean, I worked on Angel Taveras’ mayoral campaign, and we had fewer than eight people on staff up until a couple weeks before the election! Of course, the Achievement First forces have shown that they can turn out certain folks to speak on their behalf, and I’m sure they will do so again during the public hearings next week. But with as many paid staff as they have, these people should have the resources to pull out every AF-supporter in the city, meaning that if there truly were a significant grassroots call for this specific charter-management organization, we should be seeing an absolutely massive outpouring of support for Achievement First. But I haven’t seen that.
On the contrary, what I’ve seen has been a series of rallies, protests, and actions organized by community members in opposition to Achievement First, and that’s with a big old staff of zero. (As far as I know, even PTU hasn’t committed anyone to organize on this issue.) With eight or nine people working full time to oppose AF, I can’t even imagine the kind of mobilization we’d see.
Expensive Lobbying
The second reason this resource investment rankles me, however, is that it seems like a whole lot of money to bespending on lobbying, particularly in the middle of a district that’s closing schools and slashing services because of its financial situation. I can’t help but rememberthe protest that students at Hope High initiated two years ago against the elimination of a number of programs at their school. Students were told that these programs had to be cut because they were too costly—but those programs cost less money than is being spent right now to lobby in favor of Achievement First.
Thinking back on the Hope High School protests makes it even harder for me to understand the priorities of our current policymakers. I mean,in that instance there were hundreds of students begging the city not to eliminate a program that had improved their school (and that had, in addition, added to school choice in Providence by creating in Hope a distinct community with an arts- and technology-focus), and this grassroots cry was ignored. The cuts were made anyway to save a negligible amount of money—sound familiar? It’s a story that’s played itself out all over our city; again and again, successful programs in Providence have been eliminated because, supposedly, there hasn’t been enough money to maintain them.
But now we can afford to bring in a corporate-backed, out-of-state charter-management organization that will drain off millions of dollars from the rest of the district? Seriously, where are our priorities?
But I guess that’s what all the lobbyists are for.
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Comments:
kathryn schafer
2:47am on Friday, December 02, 2011
I see great promise in high-quality, affordable online education. I believe online learning from High Speed Universities can challenge students to learn deeply, apply the content to their current and future careers and life goals, and challenge current assumptions and worldviews. All of which increase engagement and could lead to higher graduation rates.
Travis Yowley
8:36am on Friday, December 02, 2011
I read that 4 of the Achievement First schools did not make AYP last year. Didn't Mayor Taveras close down the only middle school in Providence that made AYP last year???? If I'm not mistaken it was that small learning community at Bridgham Middle School. What was the point of that Mr Mayor?
john paycheck
9:21am on Friday, December 02, 2011
every year there are 1000 applicants that apply to classical high school. less then 300 are accepted. so the rest have to attend hope, mount pleasant, central, pick a charter school or pay to attend private school.
so don't you think these 700 students would flock to first achievement to avoid the other schools.
surprise surprise--organized labor and all the pols supported by it that had a big hand in creating the school system mess- and you can decide for yourself how succeesful its been
my bet is the students and the parents will be fighting to attend first achievement.
have to try something different, the past standard mo has failed miserably.
Roger Williams
9:50am on Friday, December 02, 2011
Surprise! In a state owned by public sector unions, there is "broad opposition" to AF that goes "beyond the teacher's unions". Well yes, I suppose all of the rest of organized labor in Rhode Island is against the idea of ceding an inch of union control of the Rhode Island school system too, but that still doesn't make it a bad idea. AF does not need to be perfect, but merely better than the rest of Providence's almost comically inept and inefficient public education system.
Aaron Regunberg
11:23am on Friday, December 02, 2011
John Paycheck, I agree with you that the powers that be in Providence do have to try something different. I just believe that the 'something' should be properly supporting public education and all the examples of positive innovation we've had in Providence, rather than bringing in a big-box charter with questionable methods, a questionable record of serving the highest-needs students, and a questionable record of academic results (have you seen AF NY's 2010 scores...they scored worse than 65% of their peer schools, and though I don't believe test scores actually say all that much, it's the measure AF folks use the most).
Did you go into Hope when its innovations were in place? Or Lima before its wraparound services were cut? There are school communities that are doing really positive work, but we need to be supporting their methods and expanding them across the district, not sapping the system of its resources in ways that are going to make this positive work even harder to accomplish in the future.
Aaron Regunberg
12:28pm on Friday, December 02, 2011
Also, it's funny how in the comments folks are still repeating the 'it's only the unions' line. Kathy Crain dedicated her entire tenure on the SB trying to get more concessions from PTU, and eventually resigned because the most recent teachers contract didn't ask for more. DARE, Project FUTURE, MLK PTO, etc.--these are all groups that have had major disagreements and policy differences than the teachers union. And they also happen to believe that AF is bad for Providence.
Gary Arnold
1:31pm on Friday, December 02, 2011
Are the schools in Providence doing a good job, as in educating the students? It is a matter of record, NO.
Bring in a little day light it might shed some light on a better way for our students not our union members.
kathleen crain
1:47pm on Friday, December 02, 2011
The Mayor's own Senior Advisor on Education told a parent that, if she had children, she wouldn't send them to Achievement First. That speaks volumes! Everyone agrees that the Providence Public Schools are broken. But the answer is not trying something new, shiny and expensive for a few at the expense of the many. Let's put our resources into the schools that we have!
john paycheck
4:57pm on Friday, December 02, 2011
the mayors own senior advisor??? you mean the mayors pal that needed a job and replaced brady???
yeah, she probably wouldn't send her child to achievement first.. she would use her $100k salary to send her child to private school. she has choices...
what about those that dont have choices??
and the city and the unions have had plenty of time and money to fix the schools. times up.out with the old, in with the new...
and won't it be nice to have this capitalistic thing called" free market competition"
dont you think that will make unions and teachers think they better start improving alot faster or there will be another achievement first school to replace their school.
Travis Yowley
6:54pm on Friday, December 02, 2011
Sounds to me that you want to bring in a educational company that is doing no better than what you have now Johnny. That's a brilliant idea!
Gary Arnold
7:33pm on Friday, December 02, 2011
Seems like a lot of negativity towards adding to our educational capacity and making a fair comparison. I have experience with one of the charter schools and it is very impressive. The input I got was there was no legacy overhead that had to be managed that wasted time and resources and they could focus on the kids. The students all performed above expectations and proficiency ratings. Guess it's who you talk to and what their motivation is.
Michael Trenn
8:02pm on Friday, December 02, 2011
I did not see the Ward 8 Council Person among the "concerned signatories." That is where Gilbert Stuart Middle School is. I also don't see any parent organizations from the West End there, eoither. What I see are a bunch of political hacks and hackish progressives,along with unions, trying to maintain a union monopoly that has existed in that area since the Catholic schools closed. The children in that area, as well as those in the suurrounding municipalities, are being ill-served by the current union education monopoly. Give the students at least a chance to excel. Don't be bigots, they can do it.