Leonie Has questions about turnaround, phase out and next steps

 Leonie Haimson sent this to her listserve. If anyone has answers leave a comment and I'll forward them. Or email me.
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NYT story on the mediator’s decision below. I have so many questions about this whole matter still, which I would like people on the list to answer if they can.

The turnaround plans of course made no sense in the first place to me but then most of what DOE does make little sense.

http://www.nytimes.com/schoolbook/2012/06/29/city-loses-arbitration-on-staffing-for-24-turnaround-schools/

First, Al Baker, the new guy on the NYT education beat, writes:

The decision was a victory for the United Federation of Teachers and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. They argued that the plans to recast the 24 schools, known as turnaround schools, ran afoul of contracts and contrasted with more deliberative ways that city schools are usually phased out.

1. BUT is a phase –out really “more deliberative” or better in any sense?
Or is it worse, meaning ALL the teachers at the phase-out school can ultimately be excessed, and ALL the students in schools like Robeson and Jamaica suffer the damaging effects as the school is phased-out, including fewer services and classes year to year as the death-watch continues?

Also, as the “new” schools put in place of the phase out school exclude the sort of high-needs students in the original school, making the supposed “improvement” hard to judge – these same sort of at-risk kids are sent to other schools nearby, which then causes them to struggle and ultimately be shut down. Isn’t it better to keep the same kids in the building at least? If this strategy was merely an attack on the union in the first place, why didn’t DOE use the phase-out model for these schools? Is this still a possibility for the admin now?

2. Which leads me to this question: why did the DOE choose this version of “turnaround” rather than their usual “phase-out” – b/c of the fed funds in the SIG grants cannot be applied to phase-out schools? But Walcott said that even if they didn’t get SIG money they were intent on doing this anyway.

3. Or was the DOE prevented from choosing this model in the first place, because these 33 schools – now 24 schools -- many of them in Queens and at 100% utilization or more, are so vastly overcrowded and there are so few other large high schools left, the phase out model simply wouldn’t work? b/c as enrollment is reduced in these buildings at much lower levels, as the old school phases out and the new ones phase in (with enrollment capped at lower levels) there would be nowhere for the students who would have attended the original schools to go?

Also, Baker writes this:

The plans have included replacing all the principals, screening the existing staff and rehiring no more than 50 percent of it.

Yet nearly from the beginning, Walcott and those in charge of this process at DOE have said there would be NO 50% quota for firing or rehiring. King’s decision last week in which he said he would allow the granting of the SIG money only if at least 50% of the staff was replaced seems to contradict the DOE assertions.

So why did DOE insist otherwise? Was it b/c of the union contract that said at least 50% of the staff must be kept on? And if the idea was really to attack the union, what’s stopping the DOE from doing phase-out now? The idea as expressed above that this would cause even more chaos?

READ THE NYT ARTICLE BELOW

Mediator Halts City’s Plan to Overhaul 24 Schools

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June 29, 2012, 3:10 p.m.
By SchoolBook
9:05 p.m. | Updated
By Al Baker
An arbitrator on Friday halted a central element of the Bloomberg administration’s plans for closing and reopening 24 schools, saying its method for overhauling the staff at those institutions violated labor contracts.
The arbitrator’s decision, issued two days after public schools closed for the summer, was a setback for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s vision of how those schools, deemed as failing, should look beginning in September. It also put in jeopardy nearly $60 million in federal aid for struggling schools, officials said.
In a statement, the mayor and Dennis M. Walcott, the schools chancellor, vowed to appeal the decision, saying, “We will not give up on the students at these 24 schools.”
As a practical matter, the ruling by the arbitrator, Scott E. Buchheit, means that teachers and leaders at the 24 schools cannot be removed as the city had planned; they must be given the chance to stay at their current schools, even if the schools change names.
The city had been in the process of replacing half the staff at each of the 24 schools. The president of the United Federation of Teachers said that in doing so, the administration had incorrectly used a contract provision meant for hiring at new institutions.
Unionized teachers or administrators who have already left may continue in their new assignments if they choose.
The decision was a victory for the United Federation of Teachers and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators. They argued that the plans to recast the 24 schools, known as turnaround schools, ran afoul of contracts and contrasted with more deliberative ways that city schools are usually phased out. The plans have included replacing all the principals, screening the existing staff and rehiring no more than 50 percent of it.
The city embarked on the turnaround strategy after it was unable to reach an agreement with union leaders on a new teacher evaluation system that would apply to schools eligible for nearly $60 million in additional federal aid.
Separately, the state Education Department has required that a teacher evaluation system be in place for all schools by January. Any district that fails to meet that deadline could lose a 4 percent increase in state school aid, officials said. For New York City, that would amount to at least $300 million in state aid.
Last week, the state education commissioner, John B. King Jr., said he would approve the city’s turnaround plan, provided the city met the federal guidelines of replacing at least 50 percent of the staff at each of the 24 schools. Now, one option for the city —to get the state to release the federal aid — is to switch to one of the three other federal models for school improvement.
Michael Mulgrew, the president of the teachers union, said the “smart thing to do” now would be to get the 24 schools into a program to maintain their eligibility for federal aid. On teacher evaluations, he said, he preferred a system meant to help teachers “get better through their careers.”
Ernest A. Logan, the president of the union representing school principals and administrators, added, “The city can still get the money if they go back to another model and negotiate with us about the way to do it.”
Several analysts said the decision threw an already chaotic situation into further disarray. Principals at 6 of the 24 schools have already moved on. There are about 3,000 teaching jobs at stake and some teachers at the affected schools have already been reapplying for their positions. Others have moved on to new schools. New names for the 24 schools, some of which are among the city’s oldest, have touched off emotional responses in neighborhoods around the city.
Megan Hester, of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, said she feared the city’s struggling schools would not only lose support, money and staff development, but also suffer a trauma from the disruptions.
“They took a gamble by trying the turnaround model,” she said of the Education Department. “Looks like they lost .”
Here is the arbitrator’s decision: