The state education law that gives superintendents of the lowest-performing public schools the power to make significant policy and staff changes, sometimes without the approval of their school boards, is flawed, says Adam Urbanski, longtime president of the Rochester Teachers Association.
Receivership won’t help superintendents, including Rochester schools Superintendent Bolgen Vargas, confront the challenges they face, he says.
If the superintendents fail to meet improvement goals approved by the State Education Department, an outside receiver such as a SUNY college or university could take control of the schools. And that’s a mistake, Urbanski says.
“It’s predicated on the assumption that outsiders know best how to fix our schools, which is false,” he says.
Receivership is largely driven by the perception that teachers unions are standing in the way of reform. But Urbanski says that there are talented teachers in the challenged schools.
“The main reason [the schools] are in receivership is because the district has neglected them for years,” he says. “They don’t have the resources.”
Earlier this year, State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia released a report identifying “struggling” and “persistently struggling” schools. There are three persistently struggling schools in the Rochester school district — East High, Monroe, and School 9 — and Vargas has just one year as the receiver to turn them around. He has two years to turn around the struggling schools.
“I’m confident we are going to meet the growth targets for those schools,” Vargas says. “We’re making significant strides, but we’re not claiming victory here. I’m just saying we’re doing the right things and going in the right direction.”
Despite his issues with receivership, Urbanski says that the RTA is working with Vargas to meet the State Education Department’s expectations and head off an outside receivership. Teachers agreed to longer instruction time, for example, in all of the failing schools, Urbanski says.
If the state was serious about turning around failing schools, he says, it would be mindful of the student population in those districts and provide proportionate resources to support the social and emotional needs of students. And it wouldn’t permit the high concentration of poor, special education, and English language learner students seen in some of Rochester’s public schools, he says.
Receivership’s shortcomings are part of the bigger problem, Urbanski says, related to the controversial Common Core curriculum and test scores.
This article appears in Oct 7-13, 2015.
Nothing changes until the cultural crisis is redressed and parents and so-called black community leaders are held accountable for allowing failure to be a normality in the so-called black community.
Indeed, “parents and black community leaders [need to be] held accountable for allowing failure to be a normality in the black community,” but when it comes to the education of our children, parents and black community leaders are NOT the only ones who need to be held accountable — so do the overwhelming majority of so-called “teachers,” “administrators” and support staff — many of whom are straight-up pimping our children, and our community — by not living up to what it really means to be educators; not really fighting for what they know our children need — the way they organize and fight for their raises, and fight to ensure that they are not evaluated unfairly, and fight to make sure police remain in our schools — so that when our children say “boo” to them, they will be arrested (on the spot), and fed into the school-to-prison-pipeline, which teachers and administrators own stock in. With regard to “failure [being] a normality in the black community” (not only in Rochester, and across New York State, but throughout this thoroughly racist, white supremacist-based nation-state (in every direction — North, East, South, and West) — we must remain mindful that this is NOT JUST ONE, BIG, COINCIDENT. Instead, it is A HISTORICAL ISSUE AND PROBLEM. That is to say, it did NOT fall from the sky; grow from the ground, or roll in from the sea — IT IS NOT NATURAL. Instead it is largely the cumulative result, and product of centuries of intentional, wicked, evil, socioeconomic, sociopolitical, and sociocultural engineering via systemic, racist, institutional policies, practices, rules, regulations, and laws, and benign, systematic, neglect, which continues until this very day. I’m NOT saying this to let the Black Community off the hook. You’re right — we simply need to get our shit together — period., and as you noted, getting our shit together should begin with Black Leadership. However, if appropriate Black Leadership does not exist, then we must produce it. No one can; no one will save us, but us. On the other hand, others must also be held accountable. There certainly is enough blame to go around., and the Black Community does NOT bear all of the blame — nor all of the responsibility.
The Struggle Continues…
Howard
Either Urbanski has a failing memory, or a severe change of heart, or most likely he thinks we have forgotten that he was the very architect of the concept of “Receivership” in the RCSD? Or has he forgotten I’m the “Last Man Standing” that was a victim of his 1989 ‘Franklin Receivership?” In 1989 Urbanski and then Superintendent McWalters orchestrated and implemented a race-based plan to remove the majority of “troublesome” white teachers and replace them wholesale with black teachers after the teachers revolted following two years of mismanagement, horrendous treatment, race baiting and down right bizarre behavior by Kay McClenon Royster (an uncertified, unlicensed Principal with virtually “0” teaching or administrative experience, who coincidentally was the Wife of McWalters’ PhD. Advisor at the UofR). After leaving Rochester McClendon-Royster had the honor of being fired for incompetency in a series Assistant Superintendent and Superintendent jobs nationwide, earning her the #1 ranking on a now defunct website titled “Carpetbagging Administrators:Passing the trash from coast to coast.” It was called the “Franklin Receivership” and white teachers (and this was McWalters’ deposition testimony under oath in a Federal Civil Rights case) went through a three round farce of an interview process before being rejected, while black teachers were simply asked to “raise their hand” before replacing their white colleagues. White teachers were told by Urbanski and McWalters that if they were not chosen that they were to never reapply to return to Franklin, as they would never be allowed to return, I, of course, ignored the directive. Five of us (each an elected RTA Representative) filed several class action grievances that Urbanski promised to “expedite.” Two and a half years later, and only after Urbanski ordered the racial staffing grievances removed from the list, the remaining grievances went to arbitration. Imagine our shock to hear RCSD witness after witness, from the head of the Parent group all the way up to and including McWalters himself testify that the initial plan, the time frame, all the specifics and every detail was in fact Urbanski’s idea. Of course when it was time for the RTA to rebut, Mike Harren, the RTA attorney refused to put Urbanski on the stand, despite our outrage and protests, informing us that RTA lawyers “did not represent teachers”, rather they represented the RTA as a union and would not put Urbanski on the stand because “it was not in the best interest of the union!” Arbitrator Daniel Eischen ruled the entire “Receivership” was illegal and non contractual and ordered every teacher “impacted” returned. Urbanski tried to avoid following this ruling and order maintaining that I was the only teacher to return, because Eischen had further ruled that the RTA and RCSD had conspired and taken additional steps to remove me and had therefore essentially violated my rights. According to the RTA, being involuntarily transferred on the basis of race did not impact a teacher! So I ask you, is it a change of heart, a failing memory, or a mistaken belief that no one was still around to remind teachers and the public of Dr. Urbanski’s real bekiefs concerning “Receiverships?”
A correction, as I re read the Arbitrator’s decision, it was DANA Eischen, not David.
I have just returned from Rochester, having visited my family. My sister had saved the paper to show me the article on the inner loop reconstruction. Perusing the rest of the paper, I noticed an article representing comments by Adam Urbanski, where he warns that a receivership turn over to the SUNY system is ill-advised. Frankly, Mr. Urbanski is at the minimum is unenlightened and misinformed. Or, he is in CYA mode to keep his local teacher’s union intact. Let me explain.
I live in a New Orleans suburb. Post Katrina, the local teachers union wanted to keep all of the NOPSD schools open and fully staffed, when the majority of the students had been evacuated. The high school populations that had been evacuated were allowed back into the city, and set up in residence dormitory situations so they could continue their studies. Te resultant test scores were terrible! The state decided to supercede the NOPSD and turned several of the middle and high schools over to the LSU system. For fairness, even the administrations of each school were changed to be run by LSU, operating autonomously from the NOPSD schools. The schools were run completely with non-union teachers and administrators. Their performance was outstanding, with the highest per-student test scores in decades. The disparity between the union and non-union schools were so embarassing to the unions that they sued to retake control of the schools by the NOPSD. The lawsuit failed, and the district is still split today. We just passed our 10-year anniversary of the storm here in New Orleans, and the literacy rate of the students have been raised significantly.
This is not about race, because the majority of students in the City of New Orleans are African-American. I have attached a website address, which shows current performance by the school district, still comprised by LSU schools and NOPSD schools in juxtaposition. Do your homework on this issue. You must decide whether or not to succumb to pressure f the union, or to focus your attention on the quality of the education of your children.
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2011/03/study_finds_most_new_orleans_c.html