Global Strategies

“Equity” bureaucracy will not improve the educational outcomes in Portland Public Schools

Creating a new “Equity” bureaucracy will not improve the educational outcomes in Portland Public Schools. In her guest Oregonian column titled “We must tackle inequities in Portland Public Schools,” Angela Uherbelau, unfortunately, suggests just that (here, page A15):

….  Portland Public Schools could do this by embedding a permanent change agent within the district. An equity reform team headed by a chief equity officer could provide a constant through line for transformation, ensuring that the district equity policy adopted eight years ago becomes an effective, meaningful document…..

More equity bureaucracy will not make the hard decision PPS needs to make to improve student educational outcomes.

To do so, in my opinion, PPS needs to:

1. Integrate the schools. In Portland, residential neighborhoods are segregated by family income and race. This creates set of rich kid schools and poor kid schools. Research show that the educational outcomes of poor kids improve when they are integrated into school with more rich kids. PPS can do much more income integrating of its school by how it set the attendance boundaries of schools. It would mean, however, that not all students would attend their nearest school.
2. Create a teacher workforce that reflects the demographics of its students. This means many more teachers of color and bilingual teachers. And, since PPS does not control the general supply of teachers, it means pushing the State of Oregon (State scholarships, TSPC, schools of education) to significantly enlarge the training of teachers of color and bilingual teachers. It means shifting some state funding from current schools to training future teachers. Research shows students do better when they have teachers that look like them.
3. Expand bilingual education to all students. Research shows that dual language immersion programs are the best method for non-English native students to learn English. They are also the best way for English native students to learn a foreign language. Research shows both groups of students, non English native and English native, score about one school year ahead on eighth grade reading tests. And dual language immersion programs, especially Spanish in PPS, provide a means to integrate students by race and income.
4. Create high school study abroad opportunities and other travel experience programs for all students. Give low income students some of the same opportunities more affluent students enjoy.
5. Stop overbuilding high school enrollment capacities and put more funding into out of school learning opportunities like mentorships, apprentice programs, and out-of-school online learning.

Can Oregon afford a complaisant, do nothing House Education Committee?

Does Oregon really need the current House Education Committee? With a stagnant education system do we really need an education committee controlled by the teachers union to protect the current education system from change (except for more funding)?  I am worried.

(1) At the Committee’s first hearing with leaders of all the main components of Oregon’s education system testifying, the Committee members all failed to ask two questions which would have set a tone that the Committee was willing explore shaking up Oregon’s education system.

The two submitted and ignored questions were (here):

Question 1: The global economic and geo-political environment is changing significantly. Do you think Oregon’s education system needs to change significantly to adapt to this new and evolving global environment? If so, what changes?

Question 2: The 2018 Oregon Educator Equity Report documents that 39.4% of Oregon’s public school students are “ethnically and/or linguistically diverse” while only 10.7% of Oregon’s teachers are “ethnically and/or linguistically diverse.” Is it important to close this gap between student characteristics and the characteristics of the teacher workforce? If so, how long should it take to close the gap completely?

(2) Consider what Willamette Week wrote about the Committee’s chair (here):

Want to feel gloomy about the prospects of any big push to improve public education in this state? Ponder this: Rep. Margaret Doherty is the highest-ranking Democrat on the House committee that oversees schools.

Doherty, 67, seeking her fifth full term in Salem, is a former Milwaukie High School teacher. She's also a former Oregon Education Association representative (a "union goonette," in her self-effacing words). As chairwoman of the House Committee on Education, she appears to be putting her expertise to preserving the status quo.

(3) Here is the Committee’s agenda for 1/30/19. It shows lots a complacency, a bias towards small, current system maintenance issues rather than a willingness to explore ways to shake up and improve the current system.

Can Oregon'students and its future afford a do nothing, status quo education committee? No.

"Where ther Monsters Dwell"

Books: I read “Where Monsters Dwell” by Jorgen Brekke. From Goodreads (here):

A murder at the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia, bears a close resemblance to one in Trondheim, Norway. The corpse of the museum curator in Virginia is found flayed in his office by the cleaning staff; the corpse of an archivist at the library in Norway, is found inside a locked vault used to store delicate and rare books. Richmond homicide detective Felicia Stone and Trondheim police inspector Odd Singsaker find themselves working on similar murder cases, committed the same way, but half a world away. And both murders are somehow connected to a sixteenth century palimpsest book—The Book of John—which appears to be a journal of a serial murderer back in 1529 Norway, a book bound in human skin.

A runaway bestseller in Norway, Where Monsters Dwell has since sold to over fourteen countries. Where Monsters Dwell is the most awaited English language crime fiction debut in years.

Richmond, Virginia

Trondheim,Norway

"Curse of the Pogo Stick"

Books: I read “Curse of the Pogo Stick” by Colin Cotterill. From Goodreads (here):

In Vientiane, a booby-trapped corpse, intended for Dr. Siri, the national coroner of Laos, has been delivered to the morgue. In his absence, only Nurse Dtui's intervention saves the lives of the morgue attendants, visiting doctors, and Madame Daeng, Dr. Siri's fiance. On his way back from a communist party meeting in the north, Dr. Siri is kidnapped by seven female Hmong villagers under the direction of the village elder so that he will-in the guise of Yeh Ming, the thousand-year-old shaman with whom he shares his body-exorcise the headman's daughter whose soul is possessed by a demon, and lift the curse of the pogo stick. Colin Cotterill is the author of The Coroner's Lunch, Thirty-Three Teeth, Disco for the Departed, and Anarchy and Old Dogs, featuring seventy-three-year-old Dr. Siri Paiboun, national coroner of Laos. He and his wife live in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where he teaches at the university.

Do "culturally responsive programs" mean Spanish DLI programs?

From the Oregonian article “Portland grad rates improve; Latino success trails state average” by Eder Campuzano (here):

The district still lags behind Oregon in success rates for its Latino students. Statewide, 74 percent of Latino students enrolled in public schools across the state earned a diploma in 2018 versus 72 percent in Portland.

Guerrero and school board Vice Chair Julie Esparza-Brown said the district is focusing on culturally responsive programs to raise those rates.

and

Roosevelt, with the highest Latino population of any Portland high school, awarded diplomas to nearly 69 percent of those students. Only Jefferson performed worse, at 67 percent.

Guerrero said district leadership is turning to a “comprehensive set” of strategies to pull those rates up.

“There’s no silver bullet,” he said.

What the various PPS spokespeople did not say was (1) that PPS needs to add ten Spanish dual language immersion programs (see here) and (2) that the State of Oregon needs to invest substantially in training and certifying more bilingual Latino teachers (see here). There are no “culturally responsive programs” for Latinos without more Latino teachers.

"The Little Stranger"

Books: I listened to the audiobook “The Little Stranger” by Sarah Waters. From Goodreads (here):

One postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country physician, is called to a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house, once impressive and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. Its owners—mother, son, and daughter—are struggling to keep pace with a changing society, as well as with conflicts of their own. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become intimately entwined with his.

 

"Heads You Win"

Books: I listened to the audiobook “Heads You Win” by Jeffrey Archer. From Goodreads (here):

With a final twist that will shock even his most ardent listeners, Heads You Win is #1 New York Times bestseller Jeffrey Archer’s most ambitious and creative work since Kane and Abel.

Leningrad, Russia, 1968. Alexander Karpenko is no ordinary child, and from an early age, it is clear he is destined to lead his countrymen. But when his father is assassinated by the KGB for defying the state, he and his mother will have to escape from Russia if they hope to survive. At the docks, they are confronted with an irreversible choice: should they board a container ship bound for America, or Great Britain? Alexander leaves that choice to the toss of a coin . . .

In a single moment, a double twist decides Alexander’s future. During an epic tale of fate and fortune, spanning two continents and thirty years, we follow his triumphs and defeats as he struggles as an immigrant to conquer his new world. As this unique story unfolds, Alexander comes to realize where his destiny lies, and accepts that he must face the past he left behind in Russia

Legislature: Two question for Oregon educational leaders

Letter to members of the House Education Committee:

At your 1/23/19 committee hearing, you will have leaders of Oregon’s educational system before your committee. If appropriate, please ask them the following two questions.

Question 1: The global economic and geo-political environment is changing significantly. Do you think Oregon’s education system needs to change significantly to adapt to this new and evolving global environment? If so, what changes?

Several examples of  forecasts of ecoomic GDP in 2030.

(a) From Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-08/world-s-biggest-economies-seen-dominated-by-asian-ems-by-2030?cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business&utm_medium=social&utm_content=business&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic

(b) From the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnIl212tBPk.

Question 2: The 2018 Oregon Educator Equity Report documents that 39.4% of Oregon’s public school students are “ethnically and/or linguistically diverse” while only 10.7% of Oregon’s teachers are “ethnically and/or linguistically diverse.” Is it important to close this gap between student characteristics and the characteristics of the teacher workforce? If so, how long should it take to close the gap completely?

From the 2018 Oregon Educator Equity Report at http://education.oregon.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/5039972_CEdO_Educator-Equity-Report_2018-WEB-v6.pdf

Using data from the above chart and report, I have calculated that Oregon needs 9,100 more linguistically and/or ethnically diverse teachers to have a teacher workforce that matches its students.

 

Questions for Lent Principal

Letter to the PPS Board:

On your January 22 Board meeting agenda you will have presentations by the principals of four schools. Lent will be one of them. If appropriate, please ask the Lent principal the following questions?

1. Do you consider yourself Latino or Hispanic? Do you speak Spanish?

The student population of Lent is 48.9% Latino. Following chart has October 2018 data.

Among PPS elementary schools, Lent has the third highest percentage of Latino students.

2. Lent apparently has one strand of Spanish dual language immersion and one strand of non-immersion (English only) classes. Is that correct? What problems, if any, do the two single strand programs create?

October 1^st data, 2018-19

3. Why does not the Spanish immersion program at Lent enroll most of the Latino students in the neighborhood? Why does Lent enroll more out-of-neighborhood Latino students than in-neighborhood students? Why only 3 slots for neighborhood Latino students (and only 2 filled in the last lottery)? Are there problems convincing Latino parents that their children will learn more English in a dual language immersion program than in a non-immersion (English only) program.

Lottery result for 2018-19

4. Neighboring schools in SE Portland have significant numbers of Latino students and no Spanish dual language immersion programs (The Bridger Spanish DLI Program is closer to parts of the Harrison Park neighborhood). Why, in your opinion, are not more of these Latino students in Spanish DLI programs? If Spanish immersion expands in SE Portland, could Lents become an all Spanish immersion school?

5. The Oregon report card for Lent shows that Lent has 48% Hispanic/Latino students with 32% Hispanic/Latino teachers, and 24% White students with 63% White teachers. Are those figure currently accurate? What problems do you have recruiting and keeping Hispanic/Latino teachers?

Update 1/23/19

The Board did ask a few questions of the principal. The Lent principals presentation starts at 2 hours zero minutes. Board questions begin at 2 hour 12 minutes and ends at 2 hours 23 minutes.

"The Hell of Good Intentions"

Books: I read “The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy” by Stephen M. Walt. From the NY Times review by Jacob Heilbrunn (here).

.... In Walt’s view, “despite minor differences, both liberal and neoconservative proponents of liberal hegemony assumed that the United States could pursue this ambitious global strategy without triggering serious opposition.” But the very steps that America took to enhance its security, Walt suggests, ended up undermining it. He reminds us, for instance, that George F. Kennan warned in 1999 that NATO expansion eastward was a “tragic mistake” that would, sooner or later, ignite Russian nationalism. Under Vladimir Putin’s leadership, Russia became a revanchist power that launched cyber attacks on the Baltic States, seized Crimea, invaded Ukraine and interfered in the 2016 American presidential election. In Walt’s telling, “the energetic pursuit of liberal hegemony was mostly a failure. … By 2017, in fact, democracy was in retreat in many places and under considerable strain in the United States itself.”

Walt reserves his greatest ire for what Barack Obama’s adviser Ben Rhodes dismissively referred to as the “Blob,” or Washington’s foreign policy elite. Some of his vexation is personal. He reports that the advertisement he signed attacking the invasion of Iraq has disappeared into the foreign policy memory hole: “In the 16-plus years since the ad was printed,” Walt observes, “none of its signatories have been asked to serve in government or advise a presidential campaign.” Walt’s own zest for intellectual combat, though, can lead him into rhetorical overkill. “Instead of being a disciplined body of professionals constrained by a well-informed public and forced by necessity to set priorities and hold themselves accountable,” Walt writes, “today’s foreign policy elite is a dysfunctional caste of privileged insiders who are frequently disdainful of alternative perspectives and insulated both professionally and personally from the consequences of the policies they promote.”....