Aliyya Swaby Photo
Caraballo: That’s all we got for the money?
Taking charge of the Board of Education, Mayor Toni Harp Tuesday night unveiled a 10-point education plan to boost dismal state test scores — and suggested the district use the millions of dollars in unspent state grants to get it started.
Alarmed by students’ dismal Common Core-aligned test results, Harp oversaw her first meeting, at Martinez School, as the board’s newly elected president.
Her 10-point plan would gather money and support from the city, district and community to fill gaps in the reading curriculum, buy computers for each classroom and implement targeted interventions at the lowest-scoring schools.
Recent low scores on a state Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) exam fueled much of Tuesday night’s discussion.
At the same meeting, board members pressed the facilitators of a $53 million teacher-performance grant to explain why the money didn’t result in higher test scores. Two of those facilitators — both from the teachers union — warned the board not too put too much stock in exam results, especially since students are adjusting to a tougher test.
The state Department of Education released scores at the end of August showing that 29.1 percent of New Haven students are on track for literacy and 13.5 percent are on track for math, compared to 55.4 percent and 39.1 percent statewide. Students in grades 3 through 8 and 11 spent five weeks taking various parts of the test this past May.
Board members early this month struggled to agree on a response to the news. Soon after, Mayor Harp took over as board president — which one of her peers and two of her political opponents have called a “conflict of interest.”
Harp said Tuesday she was troubled to learn recently that a group of teachers and administrators had indicated students would have done poorly on SBAC tests even with top teachers. There are “many people responsible for teaching and learning in the district who believe [students] can’t learn at grade level and beyond,” she said.
She wants to inspire struggling students as Board of Ed president, instead of perpetuating a “self-fulfilling prophecy that teaches our kids they cannot learn,” she said.
During a public comment session Tuesday night, parent advocate Florence Caldwell pointed out that Harp will be responsible for shaping the district’s budget as board president and then for deciding whether to approve it as mayor, echoing criticism Harp received at a Monday mayoral campaign debate about her dual roles.
“I don’t envy you when it’s budget time. Do you fight yourself and say, ‘I need more money for the Board of Ed’?” Caldwell asked.
Harp continued to brush off those concerns, arguing she is no more ethically tied up as president than she had been as a board member. “I have to vote on a budget here anyway. I don’t think I will be in a different position,” she told the Independent after the meeting. As president, she will have “more of an intimate perspective” of the district’s budget process, which ultimately could be better for the schools, she said.
Her basic 10-point initiative includes a couple of city and district efforts already in progress, including redesigning alternative schools and getting more educational support for students who have been expelled. Harp also promised to get computers in every single classroom, using the capital budget.
She proposed a couple of pilot programs that would require district funding — such as Saturday technology academies and extended-day mentoring periods.
New Haven has not spent $2.6 million of a state Alliance District grant, more than any other recipient district. That money could be used for these specific reforms, she said.
Board member Alicia Caraballo, the only person to vote against the mayor taking the board presidency, called it an “excellent plan” that includes “things we are currently doing.”
Superintendent Garth Harries missed Tuesday’s meeting for personal reasons, but sent a message “welcoming the mayor’s urgency” in developing the initiative.
A sketch of the mayor’s (pictured) plan follows:
1. Create a plan to make sure students learn to read in early grades, including interventions for those not at grade level.
2. Create a “Blue Ribbon Reading Commission” of education experts to “identify and respond to gaps in curriculum, instruction and assessment” and get families and community organizations involved in improving students’ reading skills.
3. Implement Saturday technology academies, in the school with the lowest SBAC score, so students can practice digital and gaming tools aligned with Common Core’s curriculum.
4. Extend the school day in at least two schools, to add in-school periods focused on mentoring and social-emotional supports.
5. Increase capital investment in classroom computers, to get schools that performed poorly on the SBAC needed technological upgrades.
6. Redesign alternative schools, which educate overage, undercredited high schoolers not succeeding in traditional educational models. (Click here for more on that.)
7. Increase the number of daily hours of instruction expelled students receive from two to four. Include “an online learning component and the inclusion of social and emotional supports.” (Click here for more on that.)
8. Make a specific plan to identify and enable mentors for students among community organizations and leaders.
9. With direction from teachers, build a model for the Board of Ed to review best practices within the district, “school by school, classroom to classroom.”
10. Ask the state for SBAC results before the end of the school year instead of late summer, to allow for planning time before students get back to the classroom.
Judging Talent Results
Meanwhile, board members questioned Tuesday night whether the district is spending its five-year $53.4 million federal Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) grant in a way that will get results in student performance. The grant allows schools to offer exemplary teachers and administrators paid opportunities to lead their peers in specific skill areas.
The debate hinged on one question: With two years of funding left, how can the district tell whether the plan is working?
Board members were looking at SBAC scores as an indicator of results. The grant’s facilitators said the true indicator of success is the increased focus in school buildings on teacher and administrator collaboration — much harder to measure.
“No other district got the money that we got, certainly not in Connecticut, and the best we can do were the scores we got?” said Caraballo. Once the grant runs out, she said, “we got an issue.”
A “talent council” of three administrators and three teachers oversees the grant. New Haven Federation of Teachers (NHFT) representatives Dave Cicarella, Tom Burns and Pat DeLucia represent teachers on the council. School Administrators Association representatives Cheryl Brown and Keisha Hannans as well as district science supervisor Richard Therrien represent administrators.
A chunk of the grant money — about $3.5 million per year — goes to $5,000 stipends for high-performing teachers to take on expanded roles as “super tutors,” “curriculum facilitators,” “student support facilitators” and “teacher facilitators,” said Burns, NHFT vice president, to the board Tuesday.
He urged members not to judge the grant’s success by the SBAC scores, but by the boost in teacher development and collaboration. “We’re doing well, doing very well. We were supposed to fail the SBAC,” he said.
NHFT President Cicarella agreed. “Every time we have a new test, there’s a learning curve,” he said. “No one is happy with the test scores, but to make all of our decisions based off the test scores” is a bad idea.
Sound School senior and student board member Kimberly Sullivan pointed out that students also showed low SAT scores that mirrored SBAC scores. “If they align with test scores that are new, it is alarming,” she said.
Caraballo compared the stipends to private sector “bonuses for doing excellent work. When we are providing so much in terms of stipends, I’m confused about why we are not doing better,” she said. “We talked about collaboration in 2009. I’m more interested in what’s happening now.”
The stipends are not bonuses, Cicarella said, because they pay teachers “additional money for additional hours.” Some of the results of those stipends, he said, are “very tangible.” Curriculum facilitators redesign school curricula and write tests — “deliverables” that can be assessed.
The board and the public have repeatedly asked district officials to get them a list of names of individuals who have received stipends through TIF, how those people were evaluated and what was expected of them. In response, district leaders put together a binder full of documents and made it available to the public in the district’s talent office.
Caraballo said she wants a direct response, not a stack of papers: “I’m not buying it. I’m not interested in big binders.” Burns promised to get her the information by Friday.
Not the dreaded 'Blue Ribbon Committee'....