Maya McFadden photo / Thomas Breen file photo
Rev Kimber: New leadership needed. Mayor Elicker: More funding needed.
New Haven needs a new plan — and new leadership — in order to improve abysmal student reading levels.
The Greater New Haven Clergy Association issued that plea Wednesday during a press conference at which Newhallville pastors laid into the Board of Education, New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) administrators, and the mayor after a recent report showed that 84 percent of third-graders are reading below grade level.
That presser took place at First Calvary Baptist Church at 609 Dixwell Ave.
The clergy association held the press conference in response to this past Monday’s Board of Education meeting, which included an end-of-year report on the district’s reading, math, and science data.
Those scores represented a slight improvement from district’s mid-year report, but still remained dramatically low. (Click here to read more about that recent district report.)
Rev. Boise Kimber, Pastor John Lewis, and Pastor Donarell Elder led Wednesday’s press conference.
NHPS end of year math and reading data shows how many kids scored proficient or above.
With the 2022 – 2023 school year starting in less than a month, Kimber declared the crisis a result of failed school executive leadership and an outdated academic curriculum.
“There is no sense of urgency to teach our kids how to read and how to do math,” Kimber said.
He said the district should provide the community with a follow up on what its plans are for the next school year after presenting on the end-of-year data at the most recent Board of Ed meeting. (See below for comments from the NHPS spokesperson about the school district’s plans to improve reading and math scores, as well as comments from Mayor Justin Elicker about his calls for greater state and federal funding for New Haven’s public school system.)
Kimber said the local public school district is “plagued” by low academic scores as well as by chronic absenteeism.
The clergy’s demands on Wednesday were for school “leadership [to] get off their butts” and work with community to come up with a plan and share that plan with teachers, parents, and students.
“We cannot have in New Haven a first class institution which is Yale University, a first class teacher college which is Southern Connecticut State University, and still not be able to teach our kids how to read and deal with math,” Kimber said.
Watch the full Clergy press conference above.
Kimber credited the Board of Ed’s secretary Ed Joyner for chairing the board’s Teaching and Learning Committee. He said Joyner has “tried his very best to deal as an expert with this district on teaching and learning and he’s been turned back.”
Without a plan, he said, students are “on their way to be unproductive citizens in our society.”
Kimber added that the lack of academic improvements citywide will only result in increases in other major social problems, like gun violence, in the near future.
“The mayor is marching around with the chief of police talking about violence, and our kids will become victims of violence if we don’t do something about it,” Kimber said. “You think we’re in a crisis with violence. We’re in a crisis with education.”
Kimber suggested the district use the “best 21st century teaching model” to allow teachers to help students improve next year.
He also suggested that the district invest funds in re-creating the learning hubs that popped up around the city during the Covid pandemic’s peak when public school classes were entirely remote. First Calvary’s learning hub was led by veteran retired educator Lola Nathan. The small group based hubs helped improve more than a hundred students’ learning, Kimber said.
In one of his more dramatic calls to action on Wednesday, Kimber called for the resignations of the entire Board of Education as well as of the NHPS superintendent. He said the clergy association is considering filing a class action lawsuit against the board “for not teaching our kids properly.” And he said that the Board of Ed should start meeting in person again rather than continuing on Zoom, so that members of the public can more easily interact with school leaders.
“We’re in trouble in New Haven,” he said.
Kimber’s critique of the district’s reading scores, meanwhile, took place against a backdrop of a larger controversy about how NHPS teaches students to read. Claiming that the old way of teaching doesn’t need to be overhauled, officials including the superintendent and several board members have pushed back against a new state requirement that all schools move from“balanced” to more phonics-based“structured” literacy in the face of new brain research on how kids learn to read.
Elicker: "A Lot Of It Goes Back To Funding"
In response to Kimber’s press-conference critiques, Mayor Justin Elicker — who sits on the Board of Education and has appointed three other members to the board during his time in office — said that Covid has exacerbated the achievement gap. He said the pandemic’s impact on public education is a national crisis that requires more funding to resolve.
While recognizing that the district’s academic scores were still too low even before the pandemic, Elicker said he’s taken the issue as a very serious concern during his mayoral terms. He cited the city’s increase in funding for youth programs with $1.5 million in federal pandemic-relief aid last summer. He also pointed to the recently approved city budget, in which he proposed a $5 million increase to general fund money sent to the Board of Education. (The final Board of Alders-approved budget knocked that schools budget increase down to $4.5 million.)
Elicker that the city will soon invest $10 million of federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) funds towards setting up youth centers across the city, boosting early childhood education, and supporting youth-focused nonprofits. The mayor also highlighted the Board of Education’s investment in extending its summer programming over the years to address gaps for students academically, socially, and emotionally.
“A lot of it goes back to funding,” he said.
He expressed hopes that the Clergy Association will commit to advocating for education funds at the state level.
Pastors: If Something's Not Working, "Scrap It"
Pastor Donarell Elder
As a former special education teacher for 11 years, Pastor Donarell Elder of Way of the Cross Bible Way Church said he’s never seen such divisiveness between school district leaders and educators.
“The child should be the focal point,” he said. “If all they are is at odds, then the child is not the most important issue.”
He agreed that the school leaders should consult educators about what works and solve the crisis through an “all-hands evolution.”
“If we can go to the moon, don’t you think we should have some expertise that we can help our children with?” Elder said.
Pastor John Lewis.
Pastor John Lewis issued a message to parents Wednesday morning.
“Just because your child is doing well, your friends might not be doing as well,” he said.
As a faith leader, Lewis said, he’s tired of burying youth from gun violence in the community, but that problem won’t be solved until the education crisis is addressed.
He called on other faith-based organizations to also step up and demand better for youth from the school district. He described churches as a “surrogate parent” that must advocate for the youth.
“When you see something that hasn’t been working you need to scrap it,” he said.
Emily Hays File Photo
Darnell Goldson.
Board of Education elected member Darnell Goldson was in attendance at Wednesday’s clergy press conference. He said he thinks the clergy’s critique is correct.
The district hasn’t been dealing with the reading crisis urgently enough, he said.
Kimber and Goldson agreed that previous city leaders like former Mayor John DeStefano Jr. and Superintendent Reginald Mayo would have provided impactful leadership and action to address such concerns.
“I don’t know how you announce those scores then next week go on vacation,” he said.
While Goldson has fought for several years on the Board for Education for such issues like increasing educator wages and reducing the school district’s deficits, he said he would be willing to step down from the Board if it meant the students would benefit.
“Maybe it’s time for new blood to come in with new energy,” he said.
NHPS: Addressing Learning Loss = "Urgent Priority"
Reached after the press conference for comment, NHPS spokesperson Justin Harmon provided the Independent with the following response to concerns raised by the clergy on Wednesday:
Addressing student learning loss attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic is an urgent priority for the New Haven Public Schools. Adding to the urgency is the long-term challenge of equalizing educational opportunity for every student in the district.
Data from the most recent academic year reflect learning loss attributable to many factors, and in particular, interrupted learning. After a long period of remote instruction, we had 54 percent chronic absenteeism for the school year just ended. While reading and math scores showed marked improvement over the course of the 2021 – 2022 academic year, they began and ended at a level below what had been the norm prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. As will be seen when the State of Connecticut releases its comprehensive data for districts across the state, New Haven is not alone in experiencing these losses.
In both reading and math, we are pursuing teaching approaches that enable us to target instruction to individual students, to ensure that they not only progress, but make up lost ground.
In the coming academic year, we will pilot comprehensive reading programs that meet the new state legislative mandate and, based on how our students are faring, we will adopt a new program for the district.
Based on our current data, New Haven Public Schools has developed an enhanced reading plan that will be shared with staff to receive further input. We continue to focus our instruction on the components of the science of reading: oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, letter name fluency, reading comprehension, and reading fluency. We will commence the year for the early grades with an intense focus on oral language, phonemic awareness and phonics.
Professional training for staff will be intense and ongoing. We continue to collaborate with the state department of education to receive training for staff.
Regular reports to the Board of Education on the progress of our plans will be disseminated. We also seek the engagement of all members of the New Haven community in supporting our students and teachers with the work ahead in the new school year.
Schools can only effectively teach students who want to learn. Students that are uninterested in learning are nearly impossible to teach. Helping those students who do not want to learn or who are struggling to conjure up the desire to learn is primarily the job of those students' families and community institutions like churches. Schools are responsible for instructing students. Expecting schools to also be responsible for inspiring students to want to learn (i.e. to take on the surrogate role of families and community institutions like churches) will require raising more tax revenue to fund schools/teachers, longer school days, and dedicated and highly motivated teachers. Not an easy task.