Student
behavior and disciplinary issues are not the main reasons so many Rochester
public schools are failing; ineffective teachers and problems with developing
the curriculum are. And only 30 percent of poorly performing schools are
functioning well enough to make the improvements they need to make.
Those were
some of the conclusions that a group of educational consultants, most of them former
superintendents, reached after assessing Rochester schools.
The
consultants’ findings were presented at the Rochester school board’s Excellence
in Student Achievement Committee meeting yesterday. District officials hired
the consultants to examine Rochester’s “priority” and “focus” schools: those that
are performing in the lowest 5 percent statewide or are showing signs of reaching
that level. More than half of the city’s schools fit the criteria.
The
consultants were asked to both diagnose problems in the schools and provide
corrective recommendations to get removed from the state’s “priority” and
“focus” designations. The consultants spent 3000 hours observing classrooms in
49 Rochester schools. They assessed six areas: leadership capacity, school
leader practices and decisions, curriculum development and support, teacher
practices and support, student social and emotional health, and family and
community engagement.
The major
finding was the need for teacher improvement, Dan Lowengard, the former
superintendent of Utica and Syracuse schools, said. Students were not engaged,
he said.
“We didn’t
see discipline in the classrooms as a major problem,” he said.
Too many teachers
are isolated in their classrooms rather than working in collaboration with
stronger, more effective teachers, Lowengard said. While many district teachers
are exceptional, he said, many others needed professional development. And many
of the teachers who most need the professional development choose not to pursue
it, he said.
The critique
drew sharp criticism from Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers
Association.
“This is
more of the fix-the-teachers narrative, and it implied that teachers are not
accountable, when they’re the most accountable people in this whole mix,”
Urbanski said in a phone interview earlier today.
The
consultants said nothing about the district’s problems with spotty student
attendance, management issues at both central office and in the schools, or the
ravages of concentrated poverty, Urbanski said.
“Their
conclusion about student discipline would make most teachers in Rochester
question what planet they’re from,” Urbanski said.
Some board
members were also skeptical of the report’s findings. Board president Van White
said he was concerned that the report was too complicated to be useful. And he
said that district’s problems are not limited to teacher effectiveness.
Caterina
Leone-Mannino, the Rochester district’s executive director of school
innovation, said the report’s recommendations would be used to develop a plan
for school improvement in each of the low-performing schools. And the plans,
which have in the past been written to comply with the state’s mandates, will
be more of an interactive document used daily to measure progress and implement
changes as needed.
In the past,
such plans “sat on a shelf and collected dust,” she said. “This is a shift for
us.”
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2014.
How many more studies and plans do we need? It seems that no one has a clue what to do. No one is ready to role up their sleeves and just work on the basics. The taxpayers are getting tired of all the nonsense. How can a CO administrator say past plans have only sat on a shelf and gathered dust! Isn’t it her job to see to implementation? Enough already. Disband the District and absorb it into adjoining Districts. That is the only hope now to stop this madness.
I’m sick of being criticized. I wish I could be someplace where parents instill value in education rather than value in the latest iphones and video games. Let’s tie benefits to student achievement and maybe more parents would get their kids to school. Let’s reinstate out of school suspensions so we can actually teach the kids in our classes that WANT to learn. Kids come to prek not even knowing their real names….yet it’s always US that are ineffective. I’ve been teaching 18 years and bust my butt DAILY. I’ve had it with spending MY money buying supplies for kids with the latest Jordans. The sense of entitlement is ridiculous. Anybody that wants to criticize should come in and teach for one week. They won’t come back. I’ve had it!
Just before I began a long summer of trying to get a substitute teaching job in this area, many decades ago, I got another job and it turned to be a another career. I am so glad I did not become a teacher.
The public’s lack of respect for one of the most critical roles in our society is appalling and delusional. It’s appalling because the public won’t do what it takes to adequately fund and support teaching. It’s delusional because teachers are those who educate and train the next generation, who will define the next generation.
I salute all teachers; no one becomes a teacher unless they are fully committed to the next generation.
Dear City Newspaper, You have let me down. I have always valued your approach, your honest reporting, your integrity to tell the truth. The headline alone reads like most main-streamed media reporting on education. This like so many articles on education, implies that once again teachers are to blame, because of course we have to blame someone. I expect this kid of reporting from some publications, but not you.
Someone with authority needs to look into the wasteful spending by Vargas and the School Board on their consultant studies that either come up with the wrong conclusions (like this one) or come to conclusions that the teaching staff was already telling you about (but chose to ignore it and hire a consultant). Meanwhile the students of this district suffer as you fumble for answers.
When are we going to make students responsible for their learning. When are we going to make parents responsible for their kids actions. Yes, there are a couple rotten apples in teaching but most of us do kill ourselves to teach and make sure our students learn what they need to. We can do all we can but until students take responsibility and the patents make their kids responsible foot school work, nothing will change. I’m offended when people assume we are doing nothing. In still waiting to see these call studies include my classroom. In a very passionate teacher that works very hard to deliver a lessons that makes sense and that include a connection to real life applications to have a student tell me that since he does not need the class to graduate,he’s doing nothing, or have to wait for students to put their sell phones away because we are not allowed to take them from them. Lately when I try communicating with patents they get mad because we are calling them to talk about their kids behavior.
Again, until patents, teachers, administration and the community work together to address these issues nothing will change. We are in this together and teachers alone are NOT the only issue here.
Here we go again… “Students were not engaged.” That concerns me also as a teacher, though… Teachers are not miracle workers! We can only wear so many hats at a time: teacher, counselors, behavior interventionists, peer mediators, secretaries, statisticians, data analysts, social workers, nurses, cheerleaders, custodial workers (yes, all of us clean) thats on top of: creating meaningful differentiated & culturally relevant lessons/activities daily, that take hours to plan…
If a student was not engaged did these people ask the students, “why?”
Maybe they did not sleep at home the night before or do not have a “home”. Maybe they were up late watching their babies or siblings b/c their parent was at work. Or maybe they were up late playing video games bc that’s what teenagers do w/o parental involvement. Maybe they have not been encouraged to go to school for days or weeks, so they feel lost and just shut down. Did they eat breakfast, did they have to wait for the bus in the freezing cold or are they drenched with sweat from the walk to school on a 90* day? Do these students fully understand English? I could go on & on…
These observers can judge us & “think” they know the answers but the problem (student engagement) lies deeper than what most teachers have to offer. City school teachers do not have a level playing field compared to other districts. 99% of the teachers I know work extremely hard at educating their students and preparing them for the “real world”. They go above and beyond to motivate, encourage and support students with all of their needs (not just learning). I don’t have the answer to this problem discussed in the article though I’m absolutely positive that I do not agree with it.
If a definition of insanity is repeating the same ineffective behavior and expecting a different outcome then we have truly reached crazy time. It is time for radical change, no more tinkering around the edges.. By all the measurements we have,; teacher and administrator morale, student and parent engagement, test scores, and community patience and involvement , we are sinking fast. A perfect storm is upon us. It is time for NYSED, the Mayor, or an independent management organization to step in and take charge. The current Superintendent and School Board just cannot do it despite all their best efforts. Dissolve the District, if possible, and spread the pain and problems. These are radical actions I realize. Politically unpopular yes. Time has run out. Today’s test scores only add more bad news on top of everything else. Let’s stop demonizing the teachers and make a real change. It will take courage on the part of the politicians. Anything less is just more window dressing and the windows are all broken!
How many years of school did you go to in order to be able to write this article? I think we need to send you back. There should be a law stating that all forms of press related news reporting has to be backed by research based studies. It should be illegal to lie to the public about the very people who made it possible for you to do your job!!!
I suggest that *City* do intensive interviews with ten city teachers – give them anonymity so they can speak freely – about how they think city schools could be improved.
I bet you’d get more solid, realistic assessments from those who are doing the impossible job of engaging and educating children who don’t show up for class or do schoolwork, who don’t have parents who take care of their basic needs, and who worship a media culture that scorns education as “acting white.”
Could the lack of engagement be credited to the common core curriculum that is much too difficult for many of the students who are lacking the background knowledge and foundational skills necessary for successful learning of the material? Especially for math!? This is compounded by the fact that RTI within most City schools, especially those in most need, is poorly managed and rarely carried out at all.
How much did they pay for this $@?!. This article was about as sparse as Christmas in 1933. Where was the data? What are the names of the schools that were visited? How did they collect the data? What day is it? How many fingers do I have up? Really City? I don’t want to come down on you but what the heck is going on? Your other articles or there lack of, is prominate. Like that ’80’s Wendy’s commercial ” where’s the beef?”
The headline on this article is, in my view, a misreading of what the educational experts said. It says “many teachers are not up to par.” What I heard is that in every school they studied there were two or three teachers who had students who were engaged while the other teachers had students who were not engaged. Teachers are isolated in their individual classrooms. Their suggestion was to take a long term view of teachers sharing and learning from each other. They criticized the way schools work not the quality of the teachers. Professional development programs and activities in the past are not very useful. Schools need to give time for teachers to work with and learn from each other. This will not change things overnight, but blaming teachers and closing schools based on test scores is counterproductive. Our schools will get better slowly as school administrators, teachers, parents, and students work together.
Why is Urbanski still around? WHY?