Notes from Sound of Ideas show May 23, 2012: Transforming our Schools
Host Mike McIntyre discusses the future of Cleveland schools with
Eric Gordon
, CEO, Cleveland Metropolitan School District
Tracy Radich
, Sergeant-at-Arms, Cleveland Teachers Union
Ann Mullin
, Senior Program Officer for Education, The George Gund Foundation
Mike McIntyre
introduces guests
Eric Gordon
,Tracy Radich, and
Ann Mullin
:Starting off the conversation is Eric Gordon.
Eric Gordon:
We need to find a way for our charter and community schools to beaccountable. Gordon expressed he is most excited about the alliance and collaborationbetween the city, the district and the union on the Civic Commons.Everyone has a role. No one has ever done that. They have ministers and teachers,and foundations, public school people and charter school people in a room together deciding what quality options are for the children. How can we connect families to thebest options? How can Cleveland schools be high quality? The district wants fewer andfewer bad seats for kids.Together we are trying to decide what is the right level of autonomy with some qualitychecks.The district is using quality standards but we need to be flexible about how we do it.Tracy Radich:
Mike McIntyre
says that David Quolke said the plan is a great opportunity for Clevelandschools. Tracy says it is a great opportunity. They were divided but at the end of theprocess it came down to quality education and collaboration. It is a collaborative effort.Teachers weren’t in the negotiating room so it is different for people who haven’t hadthat experience. Education of people who weren’t present is key.
Ann Mullin:
Mike asks, what is different about this plan?When you are in a room and you take off the labels of who is who and positions peoplehold and start to have conversations you get to a point where we say “we are inagreement”. There is common ground on these issues you can support teachers andhold them accountable for the work that you want them to do. We have a frameworkand now we think about what it looks like.Caller:Scottin Oberlin
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How many of people in the room have been in public school classrooms teaching?Public schools, private schools, charter schools have a business model. What kind of business can’t choose the raw materials coming in? Caller compares children to rawmaterials to make the point that children come in with varying levels of knowledge.
Mike McIntyre
Kids aren’t ready for the schools and the deep poverty in the schools is just one cause.Eric Gordon: Children are not raw materials, education is not a business, but it is aboutwhere you put your investment. It is about shifting learning. Learning has to be constantand time has to be the variable. We have to be flexible about the time. We need extrasupport and time and energy. It makes it all more important that we educate thosepeople.Tracy Radich: My goal for educating children is that my learning environment is safeand they can forget about things outside of the classroom. They can focus on learningand focus on being a kid. Education is a great equalizer. They come from a backgroundof issues and circumstances that are very difficult.
Eric Gordon
: At a classroom level, Tracy is a perfect example. She’s found mentors for every child. At the macro level, parents don’t’ know how to care for their children andadvocate for children, but it doesn’t mean they don’t want to. Parents care they justneed help about how to do it.
Mike McIntyre
: What about getting kids to school on time? We need a plan for that.Tracy Radich: It is all about communicating with students and parents. There was astudent missing school on Monday and Wednesday because her mom’s shift changedand she didn’t have a way to get to school. Once we found out the issue we could finda solution.
Mike McIntyre
: Let’s discuss the levy.Levy is necessary to fund the plan. Eric Gordon says the district is asking for anoperating levy, which will be different than previous levies that just filled the growinghole. The legislature is key to passing legislation. It is not fair to ask the community topay for something that is the same slow method from 1996. We have new rules of doingbusiness, gains will happen quickly. This levy will be a time bound levy, residents knowthey can hold us accountable. New rules for charter school quality. As of now Gordondoes not know the exact amount, but will continue to be transparent about the figureand what it means for residents of Cleveland.
Ann Mullin
: The levy is going to have to be hefty. A lot of the cost is due to dwindlingenrollment. We will support schools. We are going to deal with schools that are notworking. The sell is that this is not just plugging the whole. It is about high qualityschools in your neighborhood. We are going to invest in things that work immediatelyand long term. We have changed the rules of the game and made things more flexible.
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Eric Gordon
: Autonomy at school level, teacher quality and school quality are the mostimportant. We have talked about accountability but we haven’t given them the tools todo so. It is about moving the power into Tracy’s classroom. You just need to get the jobdone. If you can’t we need to do something differently. It’s not that we don’t have peopleto do this work, we just need to make it possible.Every one of us has to be accountable. We can’t cut our way out of this problem. Wecan sell all of the board property, but at some point we need more funding. We don’thave enough staff to do the things we want to do.The challenge with the unconstitutional funding is that no one thinks that we should putthis on the backs of our citizens. The problem is that states across the country havefound their systems unconstitutional, but no one has a solution. We are spending a loton the back end in prisons etc. we need up front money now.We're too late not to have serious cuts. We had to do this earlier and we didn't.Tracy Radich,: We are advocating around the rainy day fund. We will have to see howthe budget process goes and see how much is left in the pot.Caller Roxannefrom Shaker Heights:In terms of preschool issue- there were cuts to Head Start and kids are going intokindergarten without preschool. Why can’t we use corporate sponsorship to fundpreschools. Why can’t you have Key Bank preschool or Peter Lewis preschool. Whyhaven’t we tapped private funding.Key Bank, PNC, and GE that are great partners?
Ann Mullin
response: I can hardly think of a company in Cleveland that doesn’t investin schools. They have been briefed through Greater Cleveland Partnership. However,there is no replacing public funding. The corporate and philanthropic sector is a drop inthe bucket. Across Ohio foundations are working on this issue. Education is the # 1issue to be fundedCaller Kristin, Cleveland, Ohio:Parents are battling with ability or inability regarding accountability. She mentionsteachers who are cruising the Internet and that's discounted without challenge--really?Why? There ARE some teachers not doing their work. We keep teachers that are notputting in the effort because of seniority and losing good teachers. Teachers need torespect the children’ time.Is there a role for the parents input in evaluation?We are losing our best teachers--that's why we need to get rid of seniority.
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