Mamie Till Mobley

"There was an important mission for me, to shape so many...young minds as a teacher. God took away one child but...(gave) me thousands. And I have been grateful for the blessing." Mamie Till Mobley

Monday, April 4, 2011

Attendance a problem in the "turnaround" Buffalo schools

I had to read the Buffalo News story, "Buffalo Plans to Move 200 Teachers" a few times wondering how it's all going to play out. Yet,  the teachers and administrators being removed seemed fearful of what's going to happen to them concerned and troubled by the drastic changes. And the children left behind fearful as well in a building where half of the staff  will be  gone, having to adjust to a cadre of new teachers they don't know. Compounding the problem are the 15-minute interviews teachers have to submit to in order keep their jobs to stay  in their schools, presenting a lesson to a principal that might not be at the school because their jobs have been posted too.
The school reform plan the Buffalo Public Schools chose for seven of its persistently lowest performing schools required they remove the administrators and half of  the teachers as stipulated in  guidelines of the U.S. Department of Education. Why this one chosen? Don't know except the Deputy Superintendent  Folasade Oladele was quoted in this same Buffalo News article saying it came from the input of the joint school intervention team  that earlier  reviewed the schools.  Dr. Oladele told the News, "one recommendation said that unless there were structural changes in these schools that affected teachers and administrators, they did not believe these schools could be changed." 
Yet, those involved making the "turnaround"  decisions from central administration in city hall remain intact, a  school leadership team that many say is the cause of the structural problems in the district. A building administrator wondered when the Buffalo Board of Education would likewise review these folks and start asking the same questions. What about them? Who turns them around?
But "turnaround" has taken on a different meaning here as a teacher   anonymously spoke to the Buffalo News education blogger Mary Pasciak  said how a city hall administrator told them they had to "step up" if they want to be agents of change and "willing to work 12-to-14-hour days" if they want to keep their jobs. And some of the teachers in these schools pointed out that other issues are involved here such as poverty, the high number of students in special education classes, and lower attendance rates as examples they cited in the Buffalo News article. For example,  teachers believe that "in many of the struggling schools, student attendance tends to be very low. In one school, during a recent two-week period, for instance, attendance ranged from a low of more than 25 percent of students absent on a given day to as many as 55 percent absent on another day."  The Buffalo News published a data base of the attendance rates of other districts and Buffalo Schools. Here are the attendance rates of the seven persistently lowest achieving  Buffalo Public Schools. The question is of what benefit is it to "turnaround" a school with persistently low attendance rates  when the district laid-off most of the attendance teachers in 2005?







Buffalo
Bilingual Center
89%
89%
89%
Buffalo
Harriet Ross Tubman Academy
89%
88%
90%
Buffalo
PS 37 Futures Academy
89%
90%
90%
Buffalo
Buffalo Elementary of Technology
88%
82%
89%
Buffalo
East High
84%
83%
80%
Buffalo
Burgard Vocational High
76%
78%
74%
Buffalo
Riverside Institute of Technology
76%
74%
77%

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Whitney Tilson (3rd background)

Whitney Tilson (3rd background)
"Let’s be honest: we need a lot more well-off, well-educated white folks with a personal stake in both charter schools and education reform in general if we’re going to take reform to the next level, both politically and operationally.Whitney Tilson, hedge fund manager and major funding angel for the school privatizing Democrats for Education Reform, thinks there’s not enough rich, educated white folks.( Preaprez) click photo to his blog.

Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan
U.S. Secretary of Education, click photo