TOPICS:

Subbing Life: ... substitute teaching in the California public school system. Includes some thoughts on California Charter Schools.

Eduspeak: 'The use of acronyms and abbreviations to further the cause of American education.'

Posted: May 12, 2008. 5:42 p.m.

Today I subbed for a California charter school. It was a disaster.

Charter school's were designed with the thought that they would provide an alternative to the "traditional" school systems for parents, students and teachers. What has occurred in California to charter schools is that districts and county office's of education have taken over their development, which has resulted in their retraditionalization. Now, there's an eduspeak term for you.

Here's another glitch: in the olden days, charter school (CS)developers would petition a local school district, or a county board of education, to develop a charter school. The petitioners were required by the state board of education to go through the entire process before, if denied, they could appeal to the state. Today, districts and counties have become the petitioners, while dissuading individuals and non profit organizations from entering an historical, yet successful, process. The glitch is that petitioners had to go through a process that districts and counties don't have to. Thus, they are virtually petitioning themselves, and then authorizing themselves. Oversight is circumvented. Now, historically speaking, there were a few rubes who came into the CS process and got large grants to develop a CS and then because of their incompetence -- or patent dishonesty -- mismanaged the money and left the taxpayers wanting. I was even told by a state CS rep. that there had been cases where a group of developers got the start-up grant funds and actually disappeared with the money. But, these were exceptions, not, mind you, an excuse for districts and counties, and even the state, to withdraw the philosophical support for more teacher-parent involvement in the education process.

Anyway, in the case of the particular CS I'm referring to below, the district, over the objections of their own teachers, and countless parents, chose to close an existing, neighborhood middle school and turn it into a K-8 charter school. Not only that, but the CS was actually the dream of a teacher and her principal at the former middle school, but the plan was confiscated by the district: the principal was subsequently dismissed from her position at the middle school and was not allowed to become the director of the new CS. No explanation was offered by the district.

[Please see the sidebar to the right.]

This particular school was designed as an "Expeditionary Learning" (EL) program. It was chartered in 2006, and opened in the fall of 2007. Teachers were to be trained by the Outward Bound organization that is somehow affiliated with EL schools. I'm not sure what the affiliation is, exactly, other than the districts pay a tremendous amount of money for training and oversight. It's not working at this particular charter school, and no amount of "we've been very successful in other schools" and "it takes at least two to three years for expeditionary schools to mature" mitigates my suspicions that the district plan was to close an existing middle school and an under-supported charter school was the vehicle.

Background: The student population of one of the district middle schools was declining, therefore average daily attendance (ADA) funds were decreasing. The district said it wanted to shut down the school. Parents and teachers voiced their objections, to no avail. To solve the problem, the principal and several teachers began writing a petition to keep the school open -- as a charter school. The idea was to provide area parents with an alternative to no school in their area. Charter schools receive planning grants and implementation monies to fund their development. In this case, the district hired a California-based "charter school development" association to take over the development of the charter petition process. The middle school principal -- who did the initial research and writing of the charter -- was fired from her job, and a district employee took over the lead petitioner position of the charter school -- who now tells anyone who will listen that "I wrote the charter petition." No, she didn't. I read the petition, and it was almost a word for word boilerplate of other petitions that the development organization has literally sold to other CS developers. There were grade issues -- the former middle school was to become a K-12 school -- but many of the teachers of the former charter school have moved on to other jobs because they no longer wanted to be part of this district CS. At least two of the CS's original teachers, after having received EL training, have since left the school -- leaving the school with untrained EL staff. One added element: administrators informed me that they could not "find a math teacher," which I doubt, so are using a distance learning teacher from another location in another county. It's not working: the students are not receiving adequate math instruction via their distance learning television monitor. Another added element: teachers at the new charter school were not allowed membership in the state teachers' union.

At this point, current teachers are unsure of their future with the school, classes have not risen to parental expectations, the sponsoring district has severely under funded the program, and the worst part: the kids hate it. How do I know? Because they tell everyone who is willing to listen. And, who is getting blamed for their lack of academic progress and lack of discipline? The students, of course.

[A former CS administrator recently told me: "The teachers (there) do not feel vested in the program."]

Subbing is not pleasant there, and it's not because of the kids. The administrator has refused to discuss the situation with me. Instruction is, even in a "traditional" sense for the 6th through 8th grades, impossible. And the expeditions? As one seventh grader told me when I asked if his class has been on any expeditions: "Oh, they blew that off long ago." It will be interesting to see the school's recent state testing results.

This situation is considered a horrific mess by teachers in the district, and a bane to the parents who put their faith in the district administrators. This is another example of school boards and administrators failing to provide an adequate learning environment for their students, their parents, and their teachers. And I suspect that EL is simply one more example in a long line of pseudo education organizations that have made a ton of cash off of our failing public school system.

Sidebar:

I know perfectly well that there could be a perfectly plausable explanation if you asked the district what actually happened. The problem is that when you talk with teachers and parents in the district they don't have that explanation. The district is beyond accountability in this matter.

Also, an administrator for the district claimed to me that she had written the charter for the school. She hadn't. I'm certain. I can prove it. ljh.