] PRESENT: COUNCILWOMAN DONNA REED MILLER, Co-Chair STATE REPRESENTATIVE LeANNA M. WASHINGTON, Co-Chair COUNCIL PRESIDENT ANNA CIBOTTA VERNA SCHOOL BOARD PRESIDENT PEDRO A. RAMOS, ESQUIRE COUNCILWOMAN JANNIE L. BLACKWELL COUNCILMAN W. WILSON GOODE, JR. COUNCILMAN ANGEL L. ORTIZZ COUNCILMAN MICHAEL A. NUTTER COUNCILWOMAN MARIAN B. TASCO SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER CHRISTINE JAMES-BROWN SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER RALPH BLANKS Yvonne Epps, Executive Assistant to Councilwoman Miller ALSO PRESENT: STATE REPRESENTATIVE HAROLD JAMES STATE REPRESENTATIVE LAWRENCE H. CURRY STATE REPRESENTATIVE W. CURTIS THOMAS STATE REPRESENTATIVE RON WATERS STATE REPRESENTATIVE MARK B. COHEN STATE REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MYERS STATE REPRESENTATIVE JEWELL WILLIAMS - - - VINCENT VARALLO ASSOCIATES, INC. Eleven Penn Center, Suite 600 1835 Market Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 561-2220 I N D E X Dr. Karin C. Bivins, Education Chair, Philadelphia Branch, NAACP------------------------------------ 316 Eugene Bivins, Former Organizer, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, American Federation of Teachers; Founder, Original Black Caucus, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers; Member, Executive Committee and Education Committee, Philadelphia Branch, NAACP----------------------- 325 Thomas Doyle, President, Local 1201---------------- 333 J. Wyatt Mondesire, President, Philadelphia Branch, NAACP-------------------------------------------- 343 F. Joseph Merlino, Project Director, The Greater Philadelphia Secondary Mathematics Project, La Salle University------------------------------ 349 Dr. Edward Robinson, The African Genesis Program--- 360 Reverend L. , President, Philadelphia Home and School Council----------------------------------- 380 Patricia J. Raymond, Vice-President, Philadelphia Home and School Council-------------------------- 390 Gloria Crittendon, Parent-------------------------- 394 Len Rieser, Esquire, Education Law Center---------- 398 Reverend Bruce M. ------------------------- 404 Sam Cook, Trustee, International Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, School Cafeteria Local 634---------------------------------------- 411 Lois Fernandez, President and Co-Founder, Odunde--- 418 Laura Fernandez Garrett, Teacher, Philadelphia School District; Coordinator, Barratt Middle School------------------------------------------- 422 Dr. Tom Gill, Professor, Department of Literacy, West Chester University-------------------------- 427 CEATRICE BEARD ------------------------------------ 450 JAMES PIERCE -------------------------------------- 458 BERNARD JOHNSON ----------------------------------- 462 INA JOHNSON --------------------------------------- 468 MARYLYN BURSE ------------------------------------- 472 DENNIS BARNABY ------------------------------------ 475 JANET FISHMAN ------------------------------------- 481 EMANUEL FREEMAN ----------------------------------- 485 - - APPENDIX - Prepared Testimony of: Eugene Bivins, Former Organizzer, Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, American Federation of Teachers; Founder, Original Black Caucus of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers F. Joseph Merlino, Project Director, The Greater Philadelphia Secondary Mathematics Project, La Salle Univeristy Glen Wilson, Assistant Director, Education Policy Studies Laboratory, Division of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, College of Education, Arizona State University James Pierce, Jr, Executive Board President, Comprehensive Early Learning Centers Americans for Democratic Action, Southestern Pennsylvania Chapter 9 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 P R O C E E D I N G S
Good morning, everyone. We'll be starting the hearing, so would people kind of please take their seats and quiet down.
Good morning. City of Philadelphia public hearing, Saturday, November 10, 2001, recessed from Thursday, November 8, 2001. Resolution 010642, authorizing -- this is a continuation from Thursday. Thank you.
Good morning. I just want to say good morning and thank everyone for coming. This is an important issue that we're facing here in our city. Nothing is more important than the future of our children. This morning in attendance we have Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller; State Representative LeAnna Washington, Chair of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus; School Board Member Christine James Brown; School Board Member Reverend Ralph Blanks; State Representative Harold James; Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell; Councilmember 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Wilson Goode, Jr.; Council President Anna Verna; and State Representative Larry Curry from Montgomery County. I don't believe I've missed anyone. We just want to proceed today. We want to make sure that everyone has an opportunity to be heard. I don't know whether people in the audience or any of the testifiers have an agenda in front of them, but we're going to give you no more than three to five minutes. You'll be timed. And please keep other people in mind. On Thursday we had 32 people to testify, and we had to reschedule many of those people until today. Does anyone have any opening remarks they want to make? REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: No, Councilwoman. I think we need to allow the community people to have an opportunity to make remarks, so I suggest that we continue on with the hearings.
Very good. Our first witnesses this morning are Dr. Karin Bivins and Eugene Bivins. Would you please proceed to the witness table, speak directly 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 into the mike, state your name and any other identifying information that you want us to know. Just a point of information. We do have people from the Edison Project in the room, so -- and as you know, as most people know, your comments are being recorded by a stenographer, so everything that happens here today, there is a record being made.
Good morning, members of City Council, Legislative Black Caucus, ladies and gentlemen, Members of the Board. I am Dr. Karin Bivins, the Education Chair of the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP. I come before you this morning to discuss the following reasons why you must do all in your power to prevent a takeover of the Philadelphia public schools by a private, for-profit educational corporation, and work to clean up the problems occurring within the administration of the Philadelphia public schools that have brought us to this crisis. The reasons why Edison Schools, Inc. must not be allowed to take over the public schools fall into three categories: fiscal reasons, 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 educational reasons, political reasons. We'll start with the fiscal reasons first. 1. Edison expects to gets a $50 million management fee off the top, plus 2 percent of the gross costs to run the District. That's 2 percent of 1.7 billion or 1.8 billion, depending on who you're speaking to. This will expand the possible costs to $90 million per year to the School District. The Inquirer of 11/2/01 states that according to Edison CEO Christopher Whittle, "A contract to run the city's 264 public schools would help the company turn a profit quicker" -- do you hear what he's interested in? Turn a profit quicker -- "maybe by next year and for the first time in its 10-year history." Does this sound more cost effective to you? Are they being hired to provide a better education for our youth, or are they being hired because the former and current Republican Governors want to help their Republican friend out of financial difficulty? This smacks of cronyism and corrupt practices. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 2. Areas where Edison costs the school districts more than anticipated include Clark County, Nevada, who had to pay Edison more than $8 million in overhead, in addition to $35 to $38 million per year to operate seven schools. There were cost overrides at Wichita; York, Pennsylvania; Perry County; Wayne County; North Carolina; and Dallas, to name a few. In Philadelphia they will be managing 264 schools. If they follow the same pattern of fiscal mismanagement, the overrides may be astronomical. 3. Edison claims to save the School District money by selling the Administration Building and replacing the custodial workers, cafeteria workers, and others, with contracts to outside agencies who pay minimum wages and no 18 benefits. They will then lease or rent more costly facilities to provide offices for the 55 managers they intend to employ, not to mention the hundred-thousand-dollar-plus salaries per manager. 4. We have gone from 8 to 6 District Superintendents, to 22 Cluster Leaders, to 10 AAOs. This is partly how the School District incurred a $216-million-plus deficit. What do you think the 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 deficit will be when the number is increased to 55? The airlines have done the same thing when they contracted out airport security to private companies who pay minimum wages and no 6 benefits. Their incompetence contributed to a series of lapses in security that led to 9/11. Is this what we want to happen to our youth? Minimum wages, inexperienced employees who could bring food poisoning to our youth due to poorly refrigerated or poorly heated food that was prepared off premises, resulting in such bacterial infections as botulism, salmonella and e-coli, to name a few often fatal infections related to improper food handling. I doubt if the Federal Government will bail the School District out the way they bailed the airlines out. Government bailouts seem to be for fat cats, not for poor, black and minority people. (Applause.)
The current government provides welfare for the rich, not for people like the custodial and cafeteria workers, who will lose their jobs -11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 (Applause.)
-- benefits and pensions they worked for and struggled so hard to get. They can't depend on welfare. What will happen to their children? 5. Do you think $7-per-hour workers will be able to handle the boilers, electrical units and other mechanical machines found in many of the school buildings, that are 60 to 100 years old, or the air-conditioners and other sophisticated machinery of the newer buildings in the Northeast? How many boilers have to blow up? How many other machines have to break down before someone realizes that you get what you pay for and that incompetent, minimum-wage workers will not adequately replace the trained, qualified building engineers that we currently have? (Applause.)
What are the lives and safety of our youth worth? What will it cost in ensuing lawsuits for damages resulting from the incompetence that Edison will create? If you think that it is cheaper to privatize, count again. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 The educational reasons: 1. Many cities have, or are, closing Edison schools, allegedly because of having low test scores, student behavior problems, leadership issues, poor student performance on state achievement tests, high teacher turnover, hiring teachers without background checks, and no evidence that the Edison model represents a superior educational program. Schools that have, or are, getting rid of Edison include Minneapolis public schools, Wichita, Lansing, Baltimore, Miami-Dade and others. 2. New York City had the good sense to run Edison out before they could take over five schools and were able to develop alternative strategies for improving the five schools which had low achievement. Parents at those schools were allowed to vote last March, and four out of five parents were against privatization. In Philadelphia, if the Mayor had approved City Councilman Michael Nutter's plan to put a referendum on the ballot for the November 6 election, we can conjecture from the outcries of the citizens that Philadelphia would have 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 overwhelmingly voted against privatization too. The political reasons: By law, education is a function of the state. Governor Schweiker has already stated that he does not intend to run for a full term, so he may not personally realize the political consequences of his actions if he ramrods Edison Schools, Inc. on the citizens and taxpayers of Philadelphia. However, his actions may create a backlash that will ensure that a Democrat will be the next Governor of Pennsylvania. Two other states have already switched from Republican Governors to Democratic Governors in recent elections, and other states that have experienced Edison's management may make governmental switches next year. In conclusion, the citizens of Philadelphia need to initiate measures that will ensure the educational reform of the Philadelphia public schools to prevent future takeovers by private, for-profit organizations. Thank you. (Applause.)
I want to explain why my 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 husband isn't here. It was his job to park the car. And I went to at least four different entrances before I found a way in. So I have a feeling that he's wandering around outside of City Hall. I do have his presentation here and, with your permission, I would like to read it. His presentation is totally different.
He does, when he gets here. You'll get them before the day is over.
He states: "Honorable panel, I am Eugene Bivins, Former Organizer for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the Founder of the Original Black Caucus of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers. I am presently an Active Member of the Executive Committee and the Educational Committee of the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP." He discusses some past problems that the the School District had, because his discussion is going to be dealing with the need for school 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 reform. "A. Principal Misfeasance and Nonfeasance. A principal -- and I won't read the name -- threw away new materials and said he could not help an Arab substitute teacher." Here he is now. I'll let him finish his speech. I'm glad he found his way. Give him a hand. I know he had to struggle. (Applause.)
Honorable panel, I'm Eugene Bivins, Former Organizer for the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, American Federation of Teachers, and the Founder of the Original Black Caucus of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, among other things. I'm presently active as an Executive Committee Member of the NAACP and the Education Committee of the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP. I would have to say that I don't know of too many people who are in love with the idea of public funds being used, or tax monies, school monies being used, to make a profit. So I want to make that clear from the outset. At the same time, riding here to make 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 my presentation on Thursday, I was listening to WHAT with Karen Warrington and she was taking a little poll: for, against, neither, or none of the above, or your own plan. I made a call to her. I told her that I personally would have to go for "none of the above" because you can't go wrong with the status quo, that has been going down for years and years, with the same old stuff. (Applause.)
We need an examination as part of our recommendations to improve the School Board's operation, no matter who is in there, because you need a way of choosing better principals. He's the first teacher. (Applause.)
Some of the examples that we've had that they've chosen, even after I've told them what these people have done, include: 1. New materials thrown away, when he was a teacher. He threw his things away when he had to move his room. Brand-new stuff. I'd go over and take his trash basket and use it, ask him if he wanted his stuff, and he said no, he was 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 throwing it away. I worked in the same office, in the discipline office, with this same person. And one day we had an Arab substitute, and he told me and the NTA, if this Arab teacher had a problem, he said he just couldn't go down -- he couldn't find it within himself to go down and help him with an unruly class. This is the type of people we're hiring in the Philadelphia School District. Another principal, she's named in this particular -- I'm not going to repeat the name. She encouraged her staff and herself to throw balloons down on the kids, filled with water, down on the kids, on Move-Up Day, for seniors. Of course, this was all in jest. This was like being one of the boys, I guess, to her or one of the girls. I don't know which. She had some of her staff to say that -- and it was her staff that even told us that this happened. She had allowed four-letter words that appeared in her graduation yearbook. You may have seen that in the newspapers. We've had a vice-principal from 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Stawberry Mansion School, my old school, that I started teaching at when it first opened until 1980, to be convicted of sexual molestation. We had a principal -- he's named here -- arrested by the FBI. This was in the newspapers, so it's public knowledge. I still have the clipping. He was found with a kilo of cocaine. He told me, when he first got his job, he held a faculty meeting at his home and it was pretty hot, but he didn't have to do it in his underwear, which I'm told he did. He had a young boy, a foster child, who was seen at the meeting, and teachers say in his library were books on Satanism. Then we had a principal at the Penrose School disrespected parents all along. Because we had 85 parents to come out -- we have this on tape -- with their testimony of just horrendous disregard and disrespect for the pupils and the parents who wanted to address problems of molestation inside the school and outside, in the schoolyard. We have a human resource director, who is still there. Why he's still here I don't know. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 But personally last summer -- my wife and I run Black Caucus summer schools, and we tried to get -- we were short a Spanish teacher. They're short Spanish teachers all over. Would they allow -- I called and asked him could he help me with his pool, just give me a few names. It wouldn't have hurt him to have given me that. His secretary even said -- complained that she was mistreated. She called the NAACP because of his mistreatment to her. She didn't know that I was also one of his victims. The records of the School District -- as you know, there's a list of speakers, just like you have produced for this meeting on Thursday. I don't know if we have one today, but you still have that list. That list is -- there's a list made like that at every School Board meeting. Well, they used to, before the last couple of Superintendents came in -- that list would be part of the record to show who was present that day. Those lists are no longer put into the minutes. They haven't been for at least ten years, in the minutes. You could go read the minutes in 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 the Main Library on the Parkway, or you could go and read them in the Pedagogical Library. And, of course, they used to also maintain everybody's presentation, like this. We're not asking for that, but at least they could have the record complete with the speakers who showed up. (Timer sounds.)
Okay. Thank you. All right. I'm going to skip 9 and go down to 10. There's still no response on the use of phonics. Karin and I sat down with Dr. Hornbeck and his Chief of Staff, just two on two, and asked him about the infusion of phonics into the curriculum. And he said, "Well, if you bring me some evidence, I'll send out an electronic message to the principals that, you know, we have got the 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 evidence to come forth with a program using phonics." And so we got this evidence. In fact, I have two of them here. One is from Yale, and this one is an old foundation. This is the Weber Report: "Inner-City Children Can Be Taught to Read." This man went to about nine cities and he got four inner-city schools and he proved without a doubt the one thing that made these schools successful, the one thing that was present in the successful schools, was the use of phonics. I gave this to Mr. Hornbeck. (Applause.)
We also gave him this. This is 1998, Palm Beach Post. Newspapers in Philadelphia, a complete blackout on this study. Showed how an MRI -- the first physical evidence that phonics is taught and causes the brain -- when it's taught, it causes the brain centers, the learning centers, to develop. And that's what has happened in this report. These are available to you, when you want them. (Timer sounds.) 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642
All right, folks. I guess I've had it. Thank you. (Applause.)
In parting, I'd just like to say this one thing. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat the failures of the past. (Applause.)
We want to thank you, Dr. and Mr. Bivins, for coming in. They were here all day Thursday, until the end. (Applause.)
The part of the testimony that he didn't read, we're going to make sure the stenographer has it to put it in the record.
Before you begin, I just want to make note that we have been joined by Councilman Angel Ortiz, School Board President Pedro Ramos, and State Representative Curtis Thomas. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 (Applause.)
Good morning. Before I read my prepared statement, I would like to preface it with: I made my prepared statement purposely short, with the hopes that you would give me an opportunity to speak freely when I'm done. It's a short prepared statement.
Excuse me, Mr. Doyle. Do you have copies of your testimony?
Yes, I do. I handed them out the other day, but I do have additional copies.
Thank you, Chairpersons Miller, Washington, Council President Verna, Members of City Council, and all of the other elected officials here today, for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the students of the Philadelphia School District and Local 1201. We are here today to categorically deny the accusations and assumptions made by Edison, Inc. in their recent report to the Governor of Pennsylvania. Edison states on of its report that "the District can follow two broad approaches 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 to rectify its precarious financial position, reducing costs and increasing revenues." Well, isn't that easy? I guess we can all go home now and relax. Edison, Inc. has shown us the way. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Edison has no proven track record of success anywhere it has been. Edison has generated more losses -- $300 million in ten years -- than the School District's current deficit of $264 million. I also think that it is safe to say that public education in Philadelphia has been around a lot longer than Edison, Inc. has, and yet their loss numbers are higher. In a press release as recent as October 16, 2001 from San Francisco, their for-profit Edison Charter Academy ranks at the very bottom, 70th, of the San Francisco elementary schools rated on California's Academic Performance Index. This was based on spring of 2001 testing. While Edison was failing the students of San Francisco, its founder, Chris Whittle, and President, Benno Schmidt, Jr., were paid $296,636 last year. Mr. Schmidt has been given low-interest loans of $1.8 million, and he also gets $2.5 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 million if he loses his job, plus up to two years salary. We should all be so lucky. (Applause.)
Mr. Whittle has received more than $1 million from Edison for professional services since 1995. He also will receive a $5.6 million loan to buy one-and-a-half million shares of stock at $1.50 each. And, as we all know now, that share price has increased significantly since their involvement with the Philadelphia School District. Since its inception, Edison, Inc. has raised $232 million in private funding, serving 24,000 students. This is an investment of nearly $9,666 per student. If private investors were to put a similar amount into the Philadelphia School District, that comes out to over $2 billion. I would like to see our students have $9,000-plus apiece for their education. (Applause.)
I challenge Edison to produce those dollars. They won't because they can't. They can't improve test scores, but they can improve their profitability. Higher costs for 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 the districts in Goldsboro, North Carolina; San Antonio; and Dallas, Texas; Pontiac, Michigan; and thrown out of Sherman, Texas. The list goes on and on. Edison, Inc. goes on to claim they can save $650 to $700 million over the next five years. Those savings are in the categories of instructional personnel, noninstructional personnel, transportation benefits and procurement. Well, that covers just about everyone in the School District but Edison themselves. I guess Edison will teach the students with their 55 management personnel, who by the way, are replacing only 50 School District management personnel. Replace less with more, there's a cost savings. No wonder their deficit is so high. (Applause.)
Edison has distorted the cost figures for maintenance and cleaning. We maintain that BOMA's national average per square foot is $2.26. The School District's cost we believe to be $2.01 per square foot. That's cents per square foot 25 cheaper, times 29 million square feet. That is a 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 savings of $7.25 million just on the cleaning side. The maintenance side savings are just as dramatic. Edison claims they are going to invest $51 million of their own dollars into painting every school in the system. The last time the District painted a large middle school or a high school, I believe it cost approximately $700,000. Do the math, ladies and gentlemen. $51 million will paint about 72 schools, not 264. By the way, that was the price of an outside contractor, not Board employees -- (Applause.)
-- and Edison has already stated that they're going to contract out and contract out and contract out some more. The Local 1201 membership does it cheaper, faster and better than anyone else. (Applause.)
Remember, a short ten years ago the School District contracted out ten schools to two for-profit companies, three-year contracts. Within two years the Board canceled those contracts, and 1201 took the buildings back 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 for the above-mentioned reasons, and have had them ever since, without complaint. The Perks-Ruetter Report, as recently as 1996, said the District needed $765 million for repairs and maintenance, $130 million just for painting, an independent report; but Edison claims they will do it for $51 million. Please, please, please stop. (Applause.)
Edison is about profit. They will not help our students. They will not help the parents. They will cost more money. I ask you, do not allow this to happen and do not try to do it on the backs of the lowest paid, hardest working people in the system, the members of Local 1201. (Applause.)
And those are the members of Local 1201 who, by the way, have 96 percent of their children going to public schools. (Applause.)
Fight for the students, fight for the parents, fight for the employees, and we will fight with you every step of the way. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Thank you for your time. (Standing ovation.)
Could I please have your indulgence for another minute or two to speak freely? I'm better off the top than with prepared statements. Our people go to -- our people start work -- (Audience disruption.)
Excuse me, please. Our people report to work 5, 6 o'clock in the morning. Our transportation people are in the yard at 5 o'clock in the morning, warming up the trucks, the bus attendents come with them or they pick them up -- (Continued audience disruption.)
Can we have some order over here to the left, please. (Councilwoman Miller gaveled for order; continued audience disruption )
We would like 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 you to continue. Mr. Doyle, please continue.
Our people report to work 5:00 -- (Continued audience disruption.)
Ma'am, we're going to have to ask you to refrain from screaming out, or we're going to have to ask you to leave the chambers until it's your turn to speak. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: We have got to have order, or else you will have to leave.
You're scheduled to speak, and we want to give everyone the respect that we want to give to you too. We just need you to calm down. Let Mr. Doyle finish. Some of us have differences of opinion, and that's what makes the world go around. We're not all the same, but we must be respectful. Thank you.
Thank you, Councilwoman Miller. Our folks, as I started to say, they're reporting to work at 5, 6 o'clock in the morning. Our transportation people are there, warming up the buses, meeting their bus attendant, 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 picking up kids on the corners at their house, knowing these children, knowing the situations that they come from: that, unfortunately, a lot of these children do not have a breakfast when they come on the bus in the morning. Our people actually bring food onto the bus to give them because they know they're not getting it at home. They go into their own pocket for it. (Applause.)
And the transportation department gets the kids to school and home on time 99 percent of the time. Okay? (Applause.)
Our engineers go into the building 6 o'clock in the morning, turn the lights on, tour the building, check it for vandalism, damage, whatever; then go out to the schoolyard, in the dark, cleaning up the broken beer bottles, the crack vials, the syringes -- (Applause.)
-- from hypodermic needles, so the kids can have a clean and healthy schoolyard to come to before they go to class in 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 the morning. Our mechanics got to do repairs with spit and duct tape. I don't want to leave anybody out, but we -- (Audience participation.)
The school aides and bus attendants also, who work in the classrooms. (Applause.)
I'll wrap this up in a second. Like I said, we do it faster, better and cheaper than anybody. We will continue to do that. We are absolutely against privatization and the contracting out of the school system, of the students, of the members of any bargaining unit in the School District of Philadelphia. We support your effort. We will be there every step of the way. And I guarantee you, the Shaw School or any other school they're talking about, those bathrooms and rooms are cleaned; they're cleaned every night short of people. Thank you very much. (Applause.) 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642
Thank you, Mr. Doyle and Local 1201. Next we'll have Jerry Mondesire. (Applause.)
Thank you, Madam Chair. And to the School Board Members, City Councilmembers, State Legislative Members: It's good to see you. This in fact is the first real public dialogue about so-called school reform that's ever been held in the City of Philadelphia. Thank God we've come here. (Applause.)
I just wish other members of the City Administration also were able to join us in the chamber this particular morning. I won't try to add any of the additional information that Mr. and Mrs. Bivins have given you, because they're the experts in the education field. I, as head of the NAACP, am glad to have this opportunity to talk to you just briefly this morning because we believe the privatization that is currently being talked about and proposed for the City of Philadelphia will be devastating to 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 our children and devastating to the work force now in the school system. (Applause.)
And we do not come here with empty hands. We do not come before you this morning as people who are johnny-come-lately to the problem. We do not come here as people who are trying to make a profit off of this system, as we have seen some of our politicians and some of our local businesspeople have. (Applause.)
Those of you who know anything about the history of our civil rights organization know that it was the NAACP which opened all schools, public and private, in this country in the 1950's. We also come to you as some of the original plaintiffs in the equity funding suit that was filed in Pennsylvania more than six years ago. So that we have a long history in this process. We have come here, though, to make sure that you know that we object to the privatization that is currently being talked about 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 because it would lead to the profit-making on the backs of 210,000 mostly black, brown and white school children. (Applause.)
Privatization is not synonymous with reform. A few politicians have tried to sell it that way, but there is no proof, just as in the case of trying to privatize the prisons across this country. The NAACP objects to the proposed plan on several fronts. And two of which the Bivinses spoke about, but I just want to add a little bit of emphasis to, is the lack of accountability. They told you about the $50 million a year that the Edison Company wants to make as its profit from running the school system. Yet, who is to measure them? Who is to measure whether or not they are making any real progress? The State wants to hire them. The State Secretary, Mr. Zogby, who we met with recently, has been the chief proponent of bringing Edison to our Philadelphia school system. Is he going to measure them? How can he measure the same people he hired? 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Are they going to give the City Council power to measure the progress of the Edison Company? Of course not. Secondly, there's been no real power sharing. Under the so-called School Reform Commission, the Governor would appoint the lion's share of the members of that commission. The last thing I want to talk about is balkanization. It's not an issue that I've heard about in the first day of testimony. But a lot of groups are trying to feed off the carcass that they think now exists as the Philadelphia School District. A lot of individuals -- political, business and others -- want to set up their own separate school districts. We want to make it very clear to this panel today: The NAACP objects to anyone trying to set up a separate school district, whether they be a black businessman, a black politician, a Puerto Rican Congressman, or -- it doesn't matter to us. Privatization, balkanization -- (Applause.)
Balkanization of this school system will lead to the destruction of the 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 concept of public education. Selling a public education to the lowest qualified bidder, in our eyes, is the first steps to cowardizing Philadelphia. We've already seen the legislation in Harrisburg regarding the Parking Authority. What's next, after they finish with the schools? The Housing Authority, the Redevelopment Authority, the airport? Powerful forces outside this city, too racist or too elitist to live here, still want to control the resources and the infrastructure of our city. Today they've come for our kids, 210,000 of them. And if we sit by and they take control of our future -- we say that cannot happen. Since 1909 the NAACP has refused to sit by, and in 2001 we again refuse, by any and all means necessary. Thank you. (Applause.)
My last observation. Of course, this thing is changing, you know, hour by hour, and minute by minute. Most of us woke up this morning to see that our Mayor has moved to his 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 office at 21st Street and has refused to talk to the Governor. We think that there has to be a conversation. And we urge this panel -- because you really reflect the broad panoply and diversity within the city power structure, both political and business, and you have ministers on the panel. We must begin the dialogue. So we urge you, as the panelists who have taken the effort to listen to our voice, along with all the other voices that will come before you this morning and you heard on Thursday -- we urge all of the parties to begin the dialogue. Let's begin it. The children are watching. Some of you, like me, have children in the public school system. My son asked me this morning, when he saw the news, "Daddy, what's going to happen to my class?" And you know what? I don't have an answer for him. And that makes me afraid. (Applause.)
Mr. Mondesire, I believe that you have spoken about the elements 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 that are here presently. I think Governor Schweiker should come down. (Applause.)
Since he was here yesterday, I invite Governor Schweiker to give us a call, to give us a call and come down and sit in that chair and face our questioning. I invite him to do that. (Applause.)
Maybe we could play the role of the United Nations and bring all the parties to the table, because maybe it's about time that everybody, both in Harrisburg as well as the second floor of this building, begin to listen to the voices that are in this room. (Applause.)
F. Joseph Merlino from La Salle University. Good morning.
Good morning. Council President Verna and Members of City Council, President Ramos and Members of the School Board and distinguished elected officials: My name is F. Joseph Merlino. I have 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 worked on math reform projects in Philadelphia public schools since 1989, when I was first employed as a program officer at a Philadelphia nonprofit education fund. Currently I am the director of a National Science Foundation project at La Salle University devoted to implementing systemic reform in secondary mathematics. We began this project eight years ago, with nine volunteer Philadelphia teachers in six high schools. Today we are training over 1500 math teachers from 120 urban and rural and suburban school districts in the Greater Philadelphia region. This region includes about suburban 17 districts, all of the Bronx high schools, Lancaster 18 City, and about two dozen Philadelphia public 19 middle schools and high schools. 20 My staff and I deal every day on the front lines of school change. Genuine reform in the classroom, where it touches kids in a positive way, is neither quick nor easy for schools to accomplish. In our project it takes 40 days of 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 professional development over four years to increase the capacity of a math teacher to really implement the Pennsylvania mathematics standards, plus a great deal of administrative commitment, support and managerial expertise. We think we have learned by now what it takes to make real change in the classroom and make it sustainable. It is from this base of experience that I feel compelled to be here today. At a cost of $34,000 per page, Edison issued its 80-page report on what is wrong with the Philadelphia School District. (Applause.)
But there are many things wrong with the Edison Report itself -- wrongs of omission. I will list three of the more serious omissions and why the State should not take over the School District or privatize it, and what the State should do instead. First, the Edison Report ignored a root cause of the staffing problems in the District. Quality teaching and administrative staff are the two most important factors in increasing student achievement, but a root cause of 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 these staffing problems is statewide funding inequities. (Applause.)
Allow me to illustrate this point with a story. Two people go to the supermarket. One is from a new bedroom tract housing development in Chester County. The other is from the East Falls section of Philadelphia. They both buy an identical cart of groceries worth $100. When they get to the checkout counter, the cashier asks each for their zip code. To the person from Chester County, the cashier subtracts $25. To the Philadelphia person, the cashier adds $25. (Applause.)
The Chester County person gets his bag of groceries for $75, but the Philadelphia person is charged $125 for the identical bag of groceries. This is how the State raises money to pay for education. The State is the cashier. The bag of groceries is the market value of a house. Zip codes refer to the school district where the 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 house is located. In the pursuit of the worthy goal of education for all, the State has created a perverse and unworthy way to pay for it: unequal property taxation to fund a state service. If you live in Philadelphia or the inner-ring suburban communities or any of the more than 200 small rural districts throughout Pennsylvania, you will pay a disproportionately higher amount of school taxes than the same person who lives in a more affluent area, such as Chester County, for the same market value of the house. The Philadelphia School District's looming budget deficit is not caused by cronyism, patronage or gross financial mismanagement, as some other urban districts. To its credit, the Philadelphia School District has been relatively free of such scandals, and the $2.7 million Edison study did not uncover any. (Applause.)
This deficit instead is caused by a structural imbalance in the way Pennsylvania State Government collects school taxes and the way it disburses it to all of its 501 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 school districts. This structural imbalance of taxes and disbursements means Philadelphia, rural and inner-ring school districts with lower-income people and high school taxes have difficulty raising taxes. By comparison, the outer-ring suburban communities, such as those in Chester County, enjoy healthy cash flows and lower tax rates. As a result, the rural and river school districts, such as Philadelphia, cannot raise enough money on their own to remain competitive with the Chester County-type meadow districts in attracting and maintaining good teachers and administrators. As the Edison Report highlights, Philadelphia schools are plagued by a "talent drain": high staff turnover and vacant positions. It also means that they have less resources to invest in teacher and administrative development. This forces Philadelphia to rely on long-term substitutes and undercertified teachers. Since the quality of schools and the tax rate are major considerations when young 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 families decide where to buy a house, the river and rural school districts become less attractive places to live. Their schools deteriorate, further depressing property values in a vicious downward spiral. At the same time, the meadow schools enjoy unprecedented advantages in feeding suburban sprawl and urban blight -- like warm tropical waters feed a hurricaine. The Edison Report omitted this fundamental cause of budget deficits and staff turnover from its study. Second, the Edison Report ignored a chief cause of artificially low PSSA scores. Edison and the Governor have used the District's seemingly low PSSA scores as a linchpin to justify the unprecedented plan to privatize the entire School District, as if nothing else could work to raise scores. I have lived through this tactic before. When David Hornbeck became Superintendent in 1994, he established a rigorous student achievement measure that would hold schools accountable for performance. The achievement measure selected was the Stanford Achievement Test 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 9th Edition -- a nationally recognized, normed, standards-based test. But when the test was administered, there was little notice given to teachers or preparation to students. Half the students did not even take the test. Yet, Hornbeck used these artificially low scores to justify his sweeping changes the next year. Later scores seemed to dramatically improve. Better curriculum and instruction in a year? Hardly. Principals and teachers began taking the test seriously, testing conditions improved, incentives were given. And guess what? Kids improved on their test.
Excuse me, Mr. Merlino. You might want to condense the rest of your testimony. You only have about two minutes left.
Okay. Essentially, what you have in the PSSA is: Kids were taking multiple tests at the same time. The Stanford 9 was the key test for the School District, not the PSSA. In my experience, people really didn't pay attention to the PSSA, and 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 therefore that's why you have artificially low scores. If you now pay attention to it, you will get a dramatic increase. That has nothing to do with curriculum instruction. It has to do with the fact that you're just paying more attention to it. (Timer sounds.)
Let me move on to the third omission. The third omission was that -- there are many strengths, accomplishments and lessons learned from the four previous Superintendents, the Boards, and the innumerable partnerships that already exist in the District. The omission of these strengths and accomplishments belies on the part of Edison either a fundamental absence of understanding or a cynical disregard for the highly complex, deeply contextualized, organic process of large-scale curricular change in schools that requires an uncommon degree of collaboration and subject-specific curricular expense. In short, they didn't say how they 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 were going to do any of this. Lastly, let me just put forth seven recommendations, very quickly. May I?
The first thing is: What the Pennsylvania State Government should do is establish an equitable taxation system. That's the root cause. And not only will you be helping Philadelphia, you will also be helping hundreds of small, rural and inner-ring suburban districts at the same time. If you must hire Edison, do it so they can have the State fund the information technology upgrade and management systems. Keep in place the current management team of Goldsmith and Farmbry and the ten academic area officers. Appoint a team to monitor the progress of these changes over time, and revisit school takeover options three years from now.
Thank you. We'll make sure that all of your testimony is submitted for the record. (Applause.) 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642
Dr. Robinson. I also want to announce that we have also been joined by Councilman Michael Nutter.
Madam Chair, just a quick point of information. I didn't see today, as we did on Thursday at the hearing -- are the executives of the Edison Company present with us this morning?
There is one person present, and another few people will be here. They're on their way.
Mr. Whittle could not come today. They were trying to readjust their schedules so they could join us. I knew that all ten members that were here on Thursday could not be here today, but there will be some representation.
Okay. I wasn't interested in necessarily the group of ten, but I was interested as to whether or not any of their top executives were going to be in the chamber today. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642
Yes. We did announce that earlier. One is here now, and others are on their way.
And let me just remind everyone, testimony today is timed. Our goal is to try and get everyone in today, and your time is from three to five minutes, give or take a few. Good morning, Uncle Ed.
Protocol having been established, good morning. I certainly salute my brother union people who are here today. (Applause.)
For the last 60 years, since I've been 23, privatization is like taking poison in a strawberry milkshake. You don't even know it's going down. Then, when it gets in, everything goes up. The prices go up and the profits go down. (Applause.)
I'm here today to represent the overwhelming majority of the school 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 population, which are the black children of Philadelphia. I have distributed the substance of my statement. Those principles which you're reading there are based on the following research: Dr. Earline Sloane, formerly of the School District of Philadelphia, did a research paper for her doctoral thesis, and her research paper was based on her analysis of the attitudes of teachers in the Philadelphia School District. She found that the teacher expectancy of black children was horrific, and she offered four behavioral interventional methods, which the School District refused to accept. There are two things necessary for children to reach the height of their human potential. The teacher and the school must have high esteem of the ancestors of the continent of their origin. That is why the School District has all the children to learn about the origin of the European children. That's why you have to learn about Aristotle and Plato and Galileo and all the rest of those Europeans. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 In addition, the curriculum must incorporate the contributions of those ancestors of those continents to major world culture. The first is the hatred and contempt of the intrinsic value of the children by the teachers and the whole school school environment. Over 90 percent of children cannot learn above the expectation of the teacher. Dr. Earline Sloane and I offered a proposal to the School District and the Board of Education to raise low teacher expectation. It was turned down by the Board. The low performance is even lower today, which we predicted. The contempt of the school children is understandable, since teachers are part of the society. Ruch and Zimbardo, in their "Psychology Today, says this: "The white man views the black man as a loathsome, alien organism, and that organism is to be rejected by the white body politic." Andrew Hacker, in his "Two Nations: Hostile and Unequal," says that 94 percent of white people have that contempt, and he questions the 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 other percent. I see no evidence that is addressed by Edison -- or anybody else, for that matter -- to address the low expectation of the teachers in the Philadelphia School District. And that gap, that achievement gap, is going to continue to be widening and widening, as it is today. Teachers must have high esteem also for the ancestors of the continent from which the students come for the students to reach the height of their potential. (Applause.)
Of equal concern is the curriculum. The curriculum must incorporate the contributions of those ancestors of the continent. We had a very dramatic success at the Leeds Middle School, and we taught the white contributions there too. For instance, we taught that algebra was created by a man named Amose, and we showed them his picture. Amose lived 3700 years ago in Africa, a black man, who described himself as jet black. (Applause.)
Now, those of you who 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 question the authenticity of that, I taught the whites teachers there at Leeds -- I said, "Get your World Book Encyclopedia and look up the history of algebra in the World Book." And it says that algebra was created by a black man in Africa 3700 years ago. (Applause.)
When I asked Mr. Hornbeck why couldn't the teachers be made to teach that simple fact, since all the children take algebra, he replied that the white teachers in the union refused and that the black teachers didn't raise a whimper. In 1969, Superintendent Shedd appointed me as Chairman of the Ad Hoc Commission to Infuse African and African American Studies in the School District of Philadelphia. He sent out a directive to all teachers that teach African history -- not African-American. African history. In 1994 the School District sent out another directive. They complained that they didn't know it. I co-authored a book, which I have right here, 31 years ago -- co-authored a book 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 called "The World of Africans and Afro-Americans," and distributed 14,000 of the books to all of the schools. I was on the truck that distributed them. And the teachers refused to use them, all of them. The teachers still refuse to teach African history. And please differentiate between Songhai history and African-American history, which is just a parade of personalities. African-American history is just a parade of personalities: Marian Anderson, Booker T. Washington. That doesn't do anything, not a thing. You've got to go back to the continent from which the children's ancestors came. (Applause.)
Hornbeck did not say, but he intimated, that the white fear would be that our children would dominate the field of academia, just as we dominate every field where the playing field is level: in basketball, track and field, football and baseball. Where the playing field is level, they were afraid that we would dominate the field of academia. African-Americans are the descendants of those brilliant Africans who built the Pyramids; 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 measured the span of the galaxies; created algebra, geometry, trigonometry and calculus; created scientific medicine; and, even under the bullwhip of this country, invented the electric railway system, the first successful open heart surgery, the camera that takes color photos of the surface of Jupiter, and the thousands of other creations adding to man's quality of life. If for the past 400 years our innately brilliant minds have not been brutally suppressed from flowering, who knows that perhaps the scourge of cancer would have been wiped out by us a long time ago, that heart disease would have been a thing of the past. (Applause.)
Don't even try to use that multicultural gambit. No other culture has had their history demonized as we have had ours. There are no motion pictures of naked Chinese or Jews running around in their Chinese or Jewish jungles, lorded over by a white Tarzan. (Applause.)
All other races can go home and get the histories of the old country from 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 their parents. Our grandparents, when babies, were snatched from the arms of their Songhai parents so that the knowldge could not be passed down to their children about our beautiful homes, two and three stories high, made of polished stone, sitting on tree-lined avenues in Songhai, in the city of Timbuktu in West Africa. I have been making scores of pleas, like I am doing right now, since 1945, before the Board of Education. That's 56 years. I get the same response today that I got for the last 55 years: a very nice smile and bowing of the heads, no action. But at least thank you for a polite, but cynical, smile. Please note that the Leeds experiment, with 285 children -- and they said, "Well, why don't you go to William Penn? We'll send you children under court jurisdiction, 300 of them. Can you turn them around in a short period of time, in five weeks?" The scores that you see there today were from outside computers, before and after. At Leeds School the seventh graders had created 385 offenses the previous year. When we introduced our 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 African Genesis Program, which is an infusion curriculum, those offenses were lowered. You see the stats there. And it's in the computer at the Board of Education, Department of Assessment and Accountability. Today you can see it. The same thing happened at William Penn High School, when we introduced -- it's nothing adversarial to whites. I think whites are just afraid that we're going to dominate the field of academia, as we've dominated all other fields. Thank you. (Applause.)
I'm doing great. Let me first welcome my frat brother and one of my heroes, Dr. Robinson, here. I want to just ask one question on the record, because we don't get a chance to do this too often. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 In terms of your recommendations over the years, in a perfect world, would you recommend that African culture be added to the curriculum or African culture be infused --
To white and black children. We took our video, which was a video showing the beauty, grandeur and sophistication of our African background to a white school district, and the attitude between the whites and the blacks soared beautifully, dramatically. So it's not adversarial to whites.
I wanted you to make that point: that you're not recommending it be added, but infused.
Oh, not added, like extracurricular activity, no. Added and infused. And I just want to add this. If you even ask me to do it -- this is not a sales pitch. I'm under contract already. We're training 3,000 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 children in the Dessert Club now in African history. (Applause.)
The Dessert Club takes children to Africa free of charge, Mr. Ramos, every year. The dramatic success of those children in behavior and academic performance is astounding. And we laid all these facts before Hornbeck, laid them all, from his own computer. So there has to be an infusion. And that's what we did at the Leeds School, an infusion type of curriculum. And I don't want to take your time, because I'm seeing those smiles. (Applause.) (Audience participation.)
Excuse me. He asked about pyramids. The pyramids are 47 stories high. Japan tried to duplicate the feat of my fathers. They got it 19 stories and the thing collapsed. America in 1974 tried to duplicate the building of a pyramid with 5,000 blocks of granite. They got it 18 stories and collapsed. We're the only people on the face of the globe who can build a pyramid. Thank you. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 (Applause.)
Thank you, Uncle Ed. Reverend Cortes. After Reverend Cortes, we have Arnold Hall, Gloria Crittendon and Patricia Raymond. We also are joined by Representative Ron Waters and Representative Mark Cohen. Good morning. Please speak into the mike, and remember the time limit.
Good morning. My name is Reverend Vulcher. I want to start by saying my name is Reverend Vulcher, as I have been accused of being a vulcher who wants to eat off the carcass of the system. So I think I should start by saying good morning and hello to the Council President, Councilmembers, States Representative Members and Members of the Board of Education. The one thing I do not want to happen in our city is for us to begin accusing each other of being vulchers. I happen to know the President of the School Board, Mr. Ramos, and I happen to know he 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 has suffered greatly through this process. I happen to know that he has been juxtaposed and torn apart by this process. And I think it is unfair for anyone, whether they are for reform, against reform, or for the status quo to try to demonize other people. So I want to begin by saying, this is about our school children, this is about how we will educate our school children, and this is how we need to have a civil conversation so that we can in fact reform a system that, no matter what anyone says, is clearly failing the vast majority of the minority children. And specifically, as I sit here before you, it is a genocide against Latino kids in this city. So I want to begin by saying, and in one sense, having to defend myself because it is politically incorrect to say we need reform. But I want to begin by saying and sharing with you some areas where Hispanic Clergy of Philadelphia and Nueva Esperanza -- how we have worked with the school system for over 20 years. Because we're not johnny-come-latelys. This is not a new conversation. We are behaving as if it's a 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 new conversation for reform. Hispanic Clergy and Nueva Esperanza supported Constance Clayton when she was first elected. We felt that an African-American leader, an African-American woman, would reform a system which was deeply failing minority children. It didn't happen. By the end of her term, we were battling her. D. D. and an approved dissertation topic could get those statistics. We fought three different School Boards so that we could have a new Edison High School. That war started in the '70s. I moved into the city in the '80s, in 1980. For eight years we fought for a new high school. When we finally got Edison High School, you know what they did? The trophies of Edison High School were moved all the way up into the Northeast. Why? Because those trophies belonged to white kids. They didn't belong to Hispanic kids, even though our school was called 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Edison and the trophies were won by Edison. We fought for Clemente Middle School for about six years. We closed down city streets because we needed a middle school. Why am I saying this? Because now we're going to be juxtaposed. Because we want reform, we are somehow vulchers, we are somehow evil people that don't want to work with the system. That is not true. We supported David Hornbeck, who we felt, as a clergyman and as a reformer and with his ideas for Children Achieving, would have success in this city. The Hispanic Clergy of Philadelphia and Nueva Esperanza completely supported him. We joined Rochelle Solomon with the Community Compact. We fought the state for more money. We fought for the setting up of clusters. Unfortunately, we were gerrymandered as Latino communities into three clusters, but that's a conversation for another day. But the David Hornbeck Children Achieving reform system meant that we had hundreds of meetings, in all types of forums, for over eight years. It got us higher dropout rates. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 In the 1980's, Hispanic Clergy of Philadelphia had a tutorial program and we worked with three elementary schools and National Council of La Raza in the Barrio.
In the 1980's, because Constance Clayton would not give us information, we put together a group that did a study of Latino middle school dropout rates, which we found to be 10 percent. That's 22 percent -- this was back in the 11 '80s -- 22 percent of our kids were dropping out of 12 middle school. To this date, we don't know and 13 cannot figure out how many of our children drop out 14 of middle school. 15 In the 90's, we did a study that led 16 to providing services at three Olney cluster 17 schools. We were working with Dr. Theresa Lemme, 18 who was the head of the Olney cluster. The 19 programs were successful, but the schools were so 20 overcrowded that we had to take the programs out of 21 the school because they needed the rooms we were 22 using at all times. Five years ago, Nueva Esperanza purchased a 150-acre campground outside of the city. We take children who graduate from 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 elementary schools -- Latino and African-American the majority, because that's what's in our neighborhood. We take kids from our neighborhood who graduate -- not through social promotion, but who have actually graduated. We take them for a week retreat, for one week, for the cost of $25. )
We also have hired Latino college students and African-American college students from Philadelphia to serve as their counselors, as role models, so they can see it is in fact possible to make it. The campground has been used freely by Philadelphia public schools in the Olney cluster for their science projects. They drive the kids out there. For four years we've done an abstinence program at Cayuga Elementary. (Applause.)
Four years ago we started a charter school, the Planning Forward Charter School. We have been open for two years. We have 320 children. We just won a national award, by National Council of La Raza. And people 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 from all over the country come to see how to open a charter school, here to North Philadelphia and the Hispanic community, if you're going to open one that's majority Latino. The anecdotal information: For 7 years Nueva Esperanza has done mortgage counseling. 8 The number one hindrance for Latino families to buy 9 a house in North Philadelphia is a Number 9 on 10 their credit report, due to debts that they have 11 taken and not paid back to Temple University and 12 Philadelphia Community College. 13 And you know why that is? They got a 14 high school diploma from a Philadelphia high school, normally Edison or Olney. They go to Temple, they go to Philadelphia Community College, believing that they have a high school diploma. But after a year and a half and $10,000 of debt, they have to drop out because they can't read. (Applause.)
But then on top of it, on top of the fact that they cannot read, they have to drop out, and now seven years later they come to our office and they can't buy a $40,000 house in North Philly because they have 9's on 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 their credit report because of the debt they have because we failed them when they were in school. (Applause.) (Timer sounds.)
I'm almost done. Nueva Esperanza has created a junior college with Eastern University. And in this junior college this year, one of our students, which we were very proud of and we recruited out of Edison High School and we brought him in -- he was the honor student from Edison High. When we got him into our school, we found out that he cannot read. Local area high schools have got to improve. Our community schools have got to improve. (Applause.)
I am friends with and I know personally just about every political leader that's in this room and everyone who serves on the School Board. It is not about their integrity. This is about our children. It is time for a change. (Applause.) 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642
I want to end with three statements. There are things we will never know. I don't know how much of my 40 percent Latino male unemployment rate is tied to the failure of our schools. I don't know how many of our Latino children are in jail because of our schools. I don't know how many of our kids are on drugs because of our schools. I will never have the money to pay for the study that will prove it, but I will tell you this: I want reform. We need reform. It's killing us. (Applause.) REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Thank you Arnold Hall, Gloria Crittendon and Patricia Raymond. And is Len Rieser here? Please state your name and your organization.
Madam Chairwoman, while our guests settle in, just a point of information while Reverend Cortes is still in the room. Reverend Cortes, and just for the 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 record, I'd like to invite you Monday morning to pick up something that I'll refer to as the Policy 102 Report, which provides disaggregated data for student achievement over the last five or six years. And if you make the effort to look into that, you will look at the facts about Latino student achievement over the last five or six years, to substitute the anecdotes that you shared with us this morning. In fact, the graduation rate has achieved 10 percent under that Hornbeck program that you spoke about. (Applause.) REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: You can start.
Good afternoon. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Instead of reading your whole testimony, could you summarize that for us, please.
I will make the strongest effort, Madam Chair. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Thank you. MR. : Madam Chairs, members of the Committee and others gathered here 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 today, my name is Arnold Hall, for the record. I'm a parent. And as it happens, I'm President of the Philadelphia Home and School Council. And with me here are two other parents, one a member of our Home and School Council, and another parent of a public school student: Ms. Patricia Raymond, one of the Vice-Presidents of Home and School, and Ms. Gloria Crittendon. I open my remarks, first of all, to give a heartfelt thanks to you. Thank you for giving your time now to hold these hearings that have given an opportunity for many, like myself and the thousands of parents represented by the Philadelphia Home and School Council, to give our voice, concerns and opinions on behalf of our children in the public schools of this city. Organizationally we carry no data base on income levels or class social levels. We keep no record base on the ethnicity or otherwise demographic breakdown of our members, except to note that we do, and must, represent the whole of that which this district in our city is comprised of -- and we do, as we have been doing so, in 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 existence for more than a hundred years. We know that we are a vital part of the life of this city and our children are its future. We seek not to separate nor to segregate them, nor see them relegated to a status that would. Madam Chairs and Members of this Committee, as a parent -- and I speak here now as a parent of children who are and have been students of this Philadelphia School District, the two eldest who are graduates, both from the Martin Luther King High School, and are doing well. The middle son, who attended the Cook-Wissahickon, the Ada Lewis Middle School and then Parkway Northwest Program, has struggled through his life with sickle cell disease. He is currently in the hospital, having undergone an operation again yesterday, which is my reason for apologizing to you for this not having been typed out, et cetera. B. Day Elementary School and into and through the Ada Lewis Middle School, and is now in his second year at the High School of 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Creative and Performing Arts, suffering primarily in his personal agony that they have no football or otherwise contact sports for athletic competition and development. As a grandparent of several and some who are currently in our schools and as an uncle of quite a few more nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, I have had enough experience just on a family basis in enough of our schools to have a fair fix on the history, shape and condition, as well as accomplishments and applaudable efforts, as well as obstacles to successes and noted failures there. I have been involved, and continuously, through the whole of these past many years as a volunteer, from early morning until late night and on an overwhelmingly nearly daily basis. I am not alone in that way. Many of our volunteer member parents and friends and many of our home and school associations have done the same. No money, no pay, whether respected or otherwise, just dedicated and committed, and there. Not always in great numbers, but in faithful giving and seeking engagement and support for the best of 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 our children. So I am not about to sit here and be misunderstood as pleading a case of supporting the status quo. We are the first to have known and worked for change, and change is for the better.
We have been a part, by some representation, of working to bring changes in meaningful and accountable ways through our advocacy and engagement in the professional development models, on the School Council Development Committees, on the criteria-based Monitoring Teams, or the new School Safety Committee, the Truancy Comittee, through presence and representation on the Fiscal Committee, the African-American Joint Studies Committee, Support of the Arts Program Committee, and others pertaining to health, behavior and otherwise. Yes, we have been involved. We have been engaged, but not enough. Yes, we do recognize need for change, and we are determined to continue to work for change. But now to the matter and nature of this proposed change that is before us. We from Philadelphia Home and School Council must say no, 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 and we say so because we do possess common sense. We do place a value on common courtesy. We do want our children to understand the value of respect. And we know when we are looking at a pig in a poke. On the matter of courtesy and the value of respect, we know as parents and resident taxpayers and citizens of this Commonwealth that we, along with all the other citizens of this city, were not respected in the manner that this and these lateest actions have come about. Though brought by tactics of unscrupulous and schemed agendas of members of a legislative body to carry the mantle of being legal, we know in this city it was to the disrespect of its citizenship, not the least of which are our children. On the matter of common sense, it takes not a computer scientist to look at a very visible record of nonaachievement and underaachievement of this private, for-profit organization, some of which I shall read, but I'll omit the reading of it for the consensus of time. From here, from the attached documents that I was only able to make copies for the two 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Madam Chairs, for your perusal -- and hopefully I can get copies for the rest of your team today -- that this is not a company, nor the company, that I would want to entrust my or other children's educational futures to. )
They have simply and honestly blown it in too many other places. They have been dishonest about achievement gains in too many other places. They have been improperly evasive about the status of their contracts and positions in too many other places. They have been unable to hold to their proposed past proposals and contracted figures in too many other places. This is not to say that they, as with others who have entered the charter school business, may not be able to make a success out of or in a school somewhere. But that is not what we are talking about in this highly unethical report and proposal. We're talking about a city and a system with the lives and educations of over 200,000 of our children, the students and overall management of all the employees and other entities 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 and problematic areas of needs and support that this involves. They have never run even as much as a system this size or the size of one of our former clusters. (Applause.)
They have never managed anything near the size of our system, maybe never really met with it. They just don't have the capacity. They don't have the experience, and unknown still is where will any real and otherwise meaningful accountability be wrought. (Applause.)
And in a timely enough fashion to be effectively helpful for our children that are here now. I believe that we are all deserving of a genuine restart to the conversation and negotiation of a necessary and deserved plan and means of supporting our schools through equitable funding and responsible, as well as respectful, oversight and monitoring in all areas. I believe that as we should teach our children, we the adults should learn first and 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 teach by example -- (Applause.) REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Mr. Hall, you have one minute.
Thank you. -- that where we have met with sizable impasse brought by the failures in respect and lacking of dignity to the human spirit, we should be willing to come together, acknowledge same, and begin anew in a spirit of truth and expectation of a common and higher ground. We as parents do seek to be involved and engaged for our worthy base of knowledge, experience and God-given responsibility for our children. We, as representatives of the Philadelphia Home and School Council, do say to you, to the Mayor, to the Governor and to the legislative body, that we seek to be meaningfully and wholly involved. That means at the table. And we do pray there will be a table and not just a take-over or a rake-over. (Applause.)
I am closing. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 I would refer all of you to the remarks of Mr. Phil Goldsmith, that I have given you copies of and presented to the Board, of November 5, and to the update for Mr. Paul Sokoler of the Philadelphia School Notebook, on the schools, of Edison, as I've given copies of to the two Madam Chairs today. The time is now for a new beginning, not to be held hostage because of past verbage and any other lesser based reasoning. The time is now for the State to give an opportune relook at the empowerment plan that it accepted, after much hard work here. The time is now to give sustained funding, while a relook and serious effort to bring about a more fair and responsive funding formula is arrived at. The time is now to say we do hold dear the children of our Commonwealth, both here and elsewhere, and we do seek the respect and support the families of this city as true members -- REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Mr. Hall?
Yes, Madam Chair. That closes me. Thank you for this opportunity. And I pledge to you my sincerest and continued support 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 and prayers. May we all pray for peace and prepare a table for our people. Thank you, Madam Chair. REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: Thank you.
Good day, Honorable Members of City Council and distinguished guests. My name is Pat, and I am proud to live in Philadelphia. But I'm really, really tired of all the Philly bashing that is being done by our politicians in Harrisburg. (Applause.)
To hear them talk, we in Philadelphia are the scourge of the earth. Well, we're not going to sit back and take it. We need to show these people that we are a force to be reckoned with. I have been a volunteer with the School District since 1987. Since that time I have experienced many so-called changes in the way we do things. And the bottom line is that Philadelphia public schools need changes, need reforms. But at what cost to our children? Why should the schools of Philadelphia be allowed to be operated by a second-rate company 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 that has not proven themselves? Would you leave your children with a second-rate babysitter? (Applause.)
Would you allow your children to play on second-rate playground equipment? Would you feed your babies spoiled food? Is that all that our children are worth? If you abide by our Governor's decision, then the price tag on each child who attends public school is $12.87 each. Do the math. Edison was given $2.7 million to audit the system that houses approximately 210,000 students. The worst part of this whole scenario is that the State appears to be paying Edison for the burden of handling our children. Is that the message that we really want to give our children? And let's talk about our children. Has history proven that we've really done such a bad job? Why doesn't anybody talk about all the good that goes on in our Philly schools? (Applause.)
We boast many prestigious alumni, with more coming up every day. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Yes, our buildings need repair. Yes, our books and equipment need upgrading. But have you looked around town lately and seen all of the beauty that is Philadelphia and its children? How many business executives and corporate CEOs can boast a public education? How many politicians can boast a public education? You probably would be surprised to find that many more than you thought possible are products of public education. (Applause.)
I am proud to be a Philadelphian, and I am proud to be an American. But when we, the very people who are honored with the privilege of raising and educating our children, put a price on their heads and use them as political ploys, I feel like I am living in a very foreign land. (Applause.)
Hey, that's a thought. We should put the emphasis on education that many of the Asian countries do. Many people are happy about the decision on our new stadiums. I say shame on Philadelphia for not putting the emphasis 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 on public education that we put on our sports teams. (Applause.)
Now let's talk about the "we" who have been a part of this whole educational dilemma. Over the last years, I personally have 8 logged more hours on a yearly basis as a volunteer 9 for my local school and on a city-wide basis than a 10 lot of people do on paying jobs. 11 You multiply that by the thousands of 12 parents, grandparents and more doing the same 13 thing, and you've really got to wonder why none of 14 us were given the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process for the future of our children. Judge Doris Smith thinks we're capable. How about you? (Applause.)
Why should we allow the very entities that have been criticizing and degrading Philadelphia and our schools the ability to "save us"? We in Philadelphia have not been quitters in the past. Why start now? Without raising taxes, I am sure we can come up with a viable solution to our education 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 crisis. It's time we made the State of Pennsylvania pay up or shut up. These political games have got to stop. Thank you. (Applause.)
Good afternoon. I address you ladies and gentlemen, and I address the good minds that we have left in us because in instances like these there is a very big temptation to hand over our good minds and to be handed back a nub. But even a nub can recognize that something is not right. Deep within us we tremble and we shake with the truth because we know something is not right. Yesterday I had occasion to take my grandson to the emergency room at Chestnut Hill Hospital because he was suffering an asthmatic attack. He's 16 years old, a very big guy, but when you're fighting for your breath, you don't feel very big. His mother had to come up from Center 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 City, but I was the one called. I took him to the emergency room. And he's very capable of answering the questions that they asked him. However, he needed someone in his corner, someone to interpret some of the big words and prejudiced approach of some of the physicians. And we have all been there at times. (Applause.)
The physician was adequate, but he had an arrogance about him. The questions that he asked he did not like the answers to. They were the truth, but he didn't like them. So he tried to undermine what my grandson was saying. I sat there, listened and observed. My presence there helped my grandson because what he was saying was the truth, but the physician kept questioning the truth of it. My presence there helped to restore my grandson's confidence. He didn't expect me to sell him out. (Applause.)
I'm sure many of us at times have been in family situations when we were growing up where our parents, or whoever the 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 caregiver was, had to make some serious decisions, serious decisions that caused them to sacrifice at times, to eliminate things at times, and even to consider many different options. One of them them may have been selling out. Selling out was never very seriously considered, but it was one of many options. Even family members, the church community, neighbors, or whoever came to offer their help and assistance, if they came with even a hint of causing the family to sell out, their help was dismissed, rejected, because it would mean that their integrity as a family would be undermined. They would no longer resemble who they were. (Applause.)
I'm caused at this time, in my good mind, to question why someone or some group, if they want to help, has to take you over, which is so close to sounding to me like taking you out. (Applause.)
I'm also reminded in history -- and perhaps if this Edison group comes in to take over, to infuse, that they will take us 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 back to some historical facts. Historically, before slavery came over here, there was a group of people that went over there and caused our brothers to sell us out. (Applause.)
They were told that this would be a good thing for you, and so our ancestors were kind of fooled into kind of selling us out. That's how the slavery ships got over here. Just one aspect of history. Another aspect of history is, a group of new colonists were trying to be taken over by the few who wanted to think, do and control the many: a little thing like taxation without representsation, no free trial, little things like that. Those colonists refused to be sold out. Today we are the United States of America. (Applause.)
We have to be careful to use our good minds, to question alliances that are new and questionable because our good minds tell us, uh-oh, watch out. Someone who comes in and promises they will take care of everything for you, it will be okay, we have to question. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Finally, I would like to say: Remember that nonsense, emptiness and trickery spell n-e-t. A net that can be thrown over our heads, entrapping us, and also allowing our children to peer out and say, "Mom, dad, adults, why didn't you do something?" Don't be caught in the net. Thank you. (Applause.) REPRESENTATIVE WASHINGTON: We have been joined by Councilwoman Marian Tasco. Our next testifier is Attorney Len Rieser from the Education Law Center, followed by Bruce Edwards from the Urban Leadership Council. LEN RIESER, ESQUIRE: Good morning -- or maybe good afternoon by now. Thank you very much. I represent the Education Law Center, an advocacy group concerned with public education. We have years of experience, at this point, 22 working with families on public school problems. 23 We have worked with some of the families of people 24 here in this room today. We know the Philadelphia 25 schools very well. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 I think that one thing that's become very clear to me, through the six or so hours of this hearing that I've sat through, has to do with who is involved in the process of getting us to the point where we are talking about a State takeover and privatization of the entire management of the District, not just a few schools. None of us, so far as I can tell -- that is to say, I know the unions weren't involved. I know that the State Department of Education didn't contact Arnold Hall. I don't think the legislators who voted for the takeover contacted the various other organizations that have spoken here today. I know that the Governor certainly didn't contact us, nor did any of the consultants working for him. And there comes a point where you wonder how a plan can be developed in a way that misses the input of all of us who have been working hard to improve the Philadelphia schools. (Applause.)
Our view is that a plan that's developed that way does not have a chance of success. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Edison is right about some things. I don't think any of us here were surprised to learn after that expensive study that the District needs better management, greater accountability, enhanced professional development and so forth. The problem, as we knew long before Edison told us, is that we could only do so much about those things if we do not make a sustained investment in our school system. Investment means obtaining enough resources. It also means using those resources to carry out a plan that we stick to for a sustained period of time, instead of engaging in political attack and counterattack and a game of throwing the bums out every chance we get and substituting something else. We disagree with Edison that our schools need all new management or a drastic shift to private operation. What our District needs, instead, is the resources that would enable it to improve, committed leadership on the part of the City, the District, school employees, the community, a plan to which leaders would be held accountable, and then some measure of 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 depolitization, peace and quiet. The job cannot be done any other way. (Applause.)
We see no reason to believe that any of these things will be accomplished by means of a State takeover or the breaking up of the District or a massive shift to for-profit management. These are, to us, at best, diversions and, at worse, another dangerous deferral of our dreams for Philadelphia kids. (Applause.)
Finally, Mr. Merlino spoke well to the State funding issue, and I want to make a point that so far I've only heard him make in this chamber. Philadelphia's leaders, in our view, have got to recognize that our funding problem will not be solved through a Philadelphia-only approach, whether it's through negotiations or a hostile takeover. I heard this first from Representative Kathy Manderino I don't know how many years ago. She was right. It will not happen. And we don't understand why anyone in the Administration or 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 anywhere in Philadelphia has ever supposed it could. The fact is that we need to find a solution. The only solution we can find will be one that works for all of the poor districts in this Commonwealth. We need to join forces with other poor rural and urban districts -- and there are plenty of them -- that are working right now to get our legislature to enact a new equitable statewide funding system. If that sounds idealistic, consider this: Legislators all over the state, including many rural Republicans, are making statements and introducing bills that would move us to a system that would provide more money for public education and that would also more fairly distribute that money. They need our support. By mid February, a bipartisan legislative committee, the Select Committee on Public Education Funding, will offer recommendations for a new funding system based on nine principles. I'll spare you seven of them, but I'm going to mention two. The first is that funding for all 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 schools should reflect those of the state's most successful schools. (Applause.)
The second is that State Government should "pay the substantial majority" -- and I'm quoting here -- "of the total cost of public education." (Applause.)
These are serious proposals. There are actual models on the table. And this is, in our view, the only real answer for Philadelphia or for any of the state's many poor districts. And it has nothing at all to do with takeovers, privatization or any of the supposed remedies being urged on us. I ask that this Council, which has led the way in inviting, finally, some public input into these issues, insist that our local leaders, State Representatives and our Governor join with those such as, just to name a couple, Representatives Nicholas Micozzie and Mario Civera, both Republicans from Delaware County, who are working this fall on proposals for statewide funding reform. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Let's work on that. Let's insist that that effort be made before we talk about State control, privatization and so forth. If the Governor and our other leaders would put their energy now into funding reforms that could muster statewide support, rather than a drastic, untried "fix" -- and I put that in quotes -- that divests Philadelphians of control and makes us part of a huge for-profit experiment, our children truly would have something to be hopeful about. Thank you. (Applause.)
Good morning. First of all, let me say that I will be very brief. I know that often preachers are considered long-winded, but I will be very brief. There is a written statement. Pardon it not being stapled. It's two pages, very brief. I'm here today on behalf of a 33-year-old organization.
Excuse me, Reverend. Will you identify yourself for the record, please.
My name is 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Reverend Bruce M. Edwards, and I am the proud President of the Urban Leadership Council. The Urban Leadership Council is an organization that comprises some 200 community-based organizations throughout the city and in some of the suburban areas. The Council has existed since 1967. And many of our groups deal with day care and after-school programs and mentoring initiatives, along with many other things that they do on meager resources. And so I come here today to add our voice to that of Dr. Bivins and the NAACP and many others to categorically say that we denounce the Governor's plan and we urge a repetitioning to the courts for proper redress in the matter of taking over this city's public school system. Very specifically, because we do have some knowledge here, we're outraged. We are angry at the manner in which the Edison Company was selected to do a study of this city's School District in the first place. There was no competitive bidding and now, with no competitive bidding, Edison is poised 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 to become the management agency for the entire school system. It is nearly unbelieveable that this government spent $2.7 million of taxpayers' money to study a system that had no shortage of studies in the first place. (Applause.)
$2.7 million, with no new recommendations for improvement and no new considerations for how we can move forward. You know, it's really sad. It's almost shameful, because prior to the election of our current Mayor, John Street, I sat in a meeting that he called as President of the City Council -- he called it an Education Summit. The best minds in the city were called together to find out what we were going to do about public education. And here we now have our Mayor taking up shop at 21st and the Parkway, as if he never had a meeting in the first place. (Applause.)
It is shameful. It is disrespectful. It is, as a preacher, I must say, ungodly. This state's historically poor 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 funding of the school system is not the only problem, though, that we all know that we have. It's been said over and over again here -- I stayed here until 8:30 the other night. If I had known you all were going to end at 7 o'clock, I would have stayed until 9:00. I was 8 trying to hang with Dr. Bivins, but my legs -- 9 which are not quite as old as hers -- gave way on me and I had to go. But you know, when I go throughout the neighborhoods and deal with our groups and I look at the crumbling buildings and know about the disciplinary problems and the inadequate tools and the underpaid teachers and the lack of staff support, all of that is what makes us get to the point where we find ourselves today. The public school system is simply that. It's a public system. It is about the general public's welfare and the functioning of the public. (Applause.)
What we have discovered is that the back-door dealing and political payoffs that have led us to this point 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 are additional indicators as to how we find ourselves in this room today. (Applause.)
You know, many of our member groups, we went to these schools. I am a graduate of Mastbaum Vocational Area Technical High School, as they called it. I graduated there in 1968. I called that school the other day. We were trying to get a book done, and I called the school to see whether they could maybe take on our book as a project, as an educational mentoring kind of a project, and they told me they didn't have that going on there anymore. When I went to Mastbaum, I was a member of the marching band. I asked them about that. They said they didn't have music at Mastbaum anymore. Well, the question then is, what do we have in our schools right now? (Applause.)
I was here. I was impressed with the 13 Edison people who stood before you and gave their pedigrees. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 And I was really impressed with our legislative officials. And I'm so proud of you. We sometimes have some disagreements, but I've been saying it since your hearing how proud I was just to be in the room and see you stand and state your case strongly and truthfully. It's a proud moment for those of us who you lead. And I will report that back to our groups, just how proud I am of Donna Miller, LeAnna Washington, and the rest of you, for allowing at last the public's voice to be heard on this issue. (Applause.)
Finally, I will conclude, but I have just three questions. I thought that the Honorable Councilman Wilson Goode and the Congressman Chaka Fattah asked some questions that were most pertinent. And what really amazed me was -- and it saddened me too -- we paid $2.7 million for 13 people who couldn't answer a question. Well, I just want to throw a couple more at them: What are or what were, what were and what are, the basic terms of the initial contract agreement between Edison and those who they 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 contracted with? I imagine, the Governor or the former Governor of our state. Have you seen the contract? Has the public seen the contract? Who are the subcontractors? In short what I'm asking is, who got paid? (Applause.)
My next-to-the-last question and I'll be gone. I get revved up, I'll start preaching. (Laughter.)
Until now -- and again, I said we're grateful. But until now, why has it taken us this long and we had to get to this point before there's been any public input, any grass-roots involvement, in this process? Why is it always a top-down strategy as opposed to a bottom-up strategy? (Applause.)
You know, the Scripture teaches me that we raise up children, we don't squash them down. Raise them up and they will go in the right direction, so says the Bible. Finally, who really stands to gain 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 from all of this, the children of the city or those who see an opportunity to advance themselves -- (Applause.)
-- those who either seek political power or those who seek to fatten and secure themselves financially? Thank you very much. (Applause.)
Sam Cook, Local 634. And after Sam Cook we have Louise Bovell, a concerned citizen. And we want to recognize that we have been joined by State Representative John Myers. (Applause.)
Good afternoon. First I want to thank Council President Verna and Education Chair Miller, all the members of Council that are present and other elected officials. When I walked in the Council at 10:00 a.m., I looked around and thought this is a healthy group. Nobody here looks hungry. I thought they all looked like they had a good breakfast and are prepared to go about their business and hopefully have a successful day. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 My name is Sam Cook. I am the Trustee of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union International. I'm here to speak on behalf of our over 2100 School District employees who are represented by the School Cafeteria Local 634. (Applause.)
m. would be an important time for almost every one of our members. m. is important to all of us as we sit here, well fed and prepared for a successful day, it is also an important hour for the kids. For many people the term "cafeteria worker" conjures up the image of some nice old lady standing before them in a uniform, head covered with a hair net, handing out a carton of milk or juice to a long line of kids pushing trays across the food assembly line. And once that mental image evaporates, they never give the job or the responsibility another thought. Maybe it's a good thing we do our job. It gets done well. Because it gets done well, it becomes a routine that you can count on and soon give little thought or notice to. It's like the 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 morning paper showing up at your door in the winter. Because it's there, you don't give a second thought about the time and trouble and effort of how the paper got there. It's just there. , breakfast in the schools would be over and the seamless preparation for lunch would be well underway. We serve some form of breakfast in 90 percent of our city schools. Our members are the first staffperson many kids see each day. For most of the kids this is the first nourishment they receive that day. m. are getting their first breather. And they are greeting their colleagues, the noontime aides who are just arriving to assist with providing lunch. We do lunch. Every school in the system gets lunch, including the satellite schools. All kids get lunch. Some pay. We handle payment. Some free. We match a face with a written list of 300 or 400 or more. Some subsidized. We check them off a written list too. But they all get it, just like the newspaper: 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 The noontime aides first report for the school's recess period. They're the ones responsible for the kids' security during recess. Then leading up to and immediately following lunch, they are responsible for overseeing the kids in the hallways. And as you'd expect, noontime aides are responsible for safety, security and order in the cafeteria during lunch. , our utility workers have unloaded the delivery trucks. They have stowed and stored the cases of milk, juice, water and cereal. , they have provided their supervisor with food and supply orders for the next few days. They've finished the first round of kitchen cleaning and are busy refitting steam tables, reloading utensils, trays, napkin dispensers, and the like, to prepare for lunch. , one of the women -- and 90 percent of our members are women -- has been to the union medical center for care and actually found an OB/GYN available to treat or examine her. That wouldn't just be a good day. That would be a rare day. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 She'd be back in time to clear tables, to stop fights, to wipe noses before the second lunch serving we do at many schools. Or maybe because there was no doctor, she'd take a few moments, as so many of our members do, to pick up supplies to decorate the cafeteria, to make the setting more pleasant and enjoyable for the kids. And decorations for Halloween, for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanza don't come out of the School District budget. The cost comes out of our members' pockets. Or maybe because there was no doctor, she would have time to stop at the bank to deposit her biweekly portion of her $7,000 a year salary. By 2 o'clock, the noontime aide is headed home. So are most of our members. They are all part-time employees. They are 90 percent women, predominantly African-American, about 13 percent Hispanic, and they are long-term employees. Our members work on an average 20 hours a week. 71 an hour. 95 an hour. They make from $7,000 to $19,000 a year. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Food service personnel get District health care, but noontime aides only get the union's limited health care coverage.
They can come to the Hotel and Restaurant Employees medical facility and see a doctor, if one is available. They get no hospitalization coverage. All members get some form of dental, prescription and vision provided for by the union, and it's limited too. That's what they get. On the other side of the coin, the kids get one, more often two, healthy, nutritous meals that allow their heads to focus on learning, not their stomachs on yearning. They get to see a face they recognize, a face they are comfortable with. They get protection and security. They get a helping hand with the runny nose and the bloody nose. And we do this in the summer too. The Edison Report says that Edison can get the school system out of its financial fix by reducing costs and increasing revenues. All of our members live here. Their kids and their grandchildren go to the public schools. They can neither afford reductions as employees nor tax increases as parents and guardians. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 The Edison way won't work for our members. There's no more blood in our stone. I implore you, on behalf of the kids and our members, to consider alternatives. For our members, your long-term employees, there are few alternatives for employment. They have demonstrated their dedication. Please reward them with a demonstration of appreciation to the people who care about the kids more than their personal profit. You owe it to them. On their behalf, thank you. )
Lois Fernandez and Laura Garrett. After Lois we have Lee Talbert. Is he here? (No response.) 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642
Good afternoon. In a sense, I am honored that you're having this hearing, but I'm dismayed. My name is Lois Fernandez, Co-Founder and President of Odunde. (Applause.)
I hope I don't get too emotional. My sister just told me, "Don't." But you know, it's been a long struggle. I'm 65 years of age. In 1968 the Kearney Report said that we are moving towards two separate and unequal societies. Here we are. They have the nerve to tell us that they want to -- that is, I believe, the Edison people -- they want to split this system. I support public schools. I'm a product of public schools and so are my children. And I'm not dumb, neither are my children, and many of us sitting here. The Kearney Report said we're moving towards two separate and unequal societies. Is it 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 worth splitting the School Board for the 60 schools they're going to take over? But the other schools are going to remain in the system. Am I in error about this? Didn't they say that the language schools, the Northeast, untouched? Separate and unequal. I make no qualms about that. (Applause.)
We're talking about racism. It's white and black. All right? We cannot allow them to split this system you all are in. Stand up, goddamit, and fight them. (Applause.)
I'm angry. The fight has been long. I took my daughter to fight the School District in 1980. She was six, seven years old. We were on the picket line because the teachers were on strike. We picketed in the 60's. You all remember. And I said, here I am again. You know? And I'm saying, we're in trouble. We can't allow nobody to take away public education because that's the end for us. (Applause.)
We play into it. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 We've been bamboozled. We've been took. We've been had. We cannot buy into it. Our schools are in trouble. That's no 5 secret. Hornbeck came back down to our schools, and I was there at Audenreid when he said we need to Keystone Audenreid and Olney because they were in trouble. This is about five, six years ago. But Keystone died. He saw it. The problem is nothing new. The violence and all the disruption that's going on in our schools must be stopped. (Applause.)
We must use the holistic approach. Our children are in trouble, and so are our teachers. They cannot teach when there's violence going on in the schoolyard and in the classroom. (Applause.)
So I say to you, get serious; don't bullshit. Let's talk about the real deal. If we're going to correct this problem, let's look at it straight up front. Support public schools. There is a remedy. We don't have to 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 reinvent the wheel. There are successful schools. There's Masterman, there's Central. What are we talking about? There's private schools that are successful. The remedies are there. We must adopt them. But we must give support to our teachers, to the principals. Parents must take responsibility. (Applause.)
We must line up. We community groups, we have to go into those schools. Don't go past them. Go in and see what teachers are faced with. Spend a day, spend an hour, go into our schools. It's sad. I will not let no 14 young person go for me, because us ought to know they ain't thinking that damn fast. (Applause.)
But we cannot go on emotions. We cannot go under rhetoric. We must get down to business. So I say to you, those of you from the State Representatives, Council, get serious. We've been to the School Board many years ago. You all remember. I got thrown out. The thing is, let's make a commitment to our children. Make a commitment to public 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 schools. We cannot let the Governor take over. Oh, no. We're in trouble. Because again it becomes separate and unequal. We allow ourselves to be bamboozled in, but we cannot allow that. And so I say to you, as a citizen who cares about public schools, do something. Give the remedy. Ask the Mayor for his plan. I have not seen it. I support public schools, but give me a plan. Don't tell me just to support you without a plan. And I say to you, Pedro, I support you, but give me a plan for success for our children. (Applause.)
I yield to my sister, a teacher in the School District for over 30 years. (Applause.)
I listened to a former speaker, and he asked for the characteristics that I believe I have always exhibited --
I'm Laura Fernandez Garrett. I'm a teacher, I'm a 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Coordinator at Barratt Middle School, 16th and Wharton. I am a dedicated teacher. I'm well educated. I have self-esteem and, most importantly, I have high expectations -- have had them, have them today and will always have them -- for my students. I teach so that my students can go anywhere. And if I give them an A, they will show an A in California, in Massachusetts, in Texas. (Applause.)
Let me spin a yarn to you. Five years ago I was demonized because I refused to lie. I failed 94 percent -- and, Pedro, I know you remember me -- 94 percent of my students because they could not read. I went to the Board and testified. The Board came back to me and told me I needed to be remediated. My former students, some of whom are doctors, engineers, lawyers, wrote and said, "You don't need to remediate Mrs. Garrett. You need to replicate Mrs. Garrett." (Applause.)
If I have one skill that 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 God has given me, it's the ability to teach. I can teach anyone, as long as they have two things: they're sane and they sit still long enough. (Applause.)
The students that came to me six years ago, and continue, are so low when they get me -- I'm not God. I never said that. I can teach, without a doubt. They were so low, I took them where I could take them, but they still were not passing. Was this upsetting to me? You better believe it. But I refuse to lie. You know how many teachers came to me, even on my way out of the Board, and said to me, "You have guts, because I couldn't do it in my school because my principal would not allow it." Five years ago I did this. I was in the front of the newspaper. Every major media was in the yard at Barratt waiting for me to come down. The only other time any media was in that yard was when we had the rape, the first rape in the United States. And I continue to work at Barratt. Why? Because I'm needed at Barratt. We have dedicated teachers. Am I the only teacher that has 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 dedication? No. There are many teachers all over this city. There are many at Barratt exactly like me. Has anybody asked me? And I saw the handwriting on the wall five years ago. You know, here comes Edison, here comes the President of the United States, here comes the Governor. I knew it then. I could have told you then what the remedies were. Nobody asked me. They wanted to have me remediated. What gave me the temerity, the audacity, the guts to say my students are failing? Because it was the truth. And it's time somebody stood up and had the guts to say it. Is there an action plan for our system? Hornbeck may have had a plan, but he was cut out when he had the guts, the temerity, to say black children in this system were being shortchanged by the State. (Applause.)
Now the State comes and says they can do the job. Can they do the job for 212,000 students? Absolutely not. Take it from me. Can Edison do it? No. 25 Let me ask you a question. Has CEP 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 done it for our disruptive kids? The answer is no. 3 What's the answer? Has anyone really asked the people who know, the educators who are on the front line every day? No. 6 Can I give them -- hey, look, I can run this system. I know what the hardships are. I know what teachers go through every day. No. Part of the answer is, educators need to be asked. We are educated. You know? (Applause.)
Parents need to be given the responsibility, a charge, for their children, and their children behave. (Applause.)
Finally, the community, both that which is verbal and that which is sitting in the corner hoping to God that if this system is taken over -- they're the silent majority. They need to bone up. They need to come out of the closet. They need to be held accountable. Because our system is predominantly black. Because our system is predominantly black, that doesn't mean that our system is inferior. No. What is inferior is the fact that 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 we don't have all of the things that we need. At my school right now we need science books, we need other books. Our books are old. Our computers are not working. Anybody in there asking us? No. They're paying $2.7 million for somebody to come and give you 9.5 pounds of paper, and I could have told them in five days. Tell me what's wrong. (Standing ovation.)
Thank you for your testimony. An announcement. We've also been joined by State Representative Jewel Williams. I'm not sure whether Lee Talbert was here. (No response.)
After Dr. Gill, Ceatice Beard. You're after Dr. Gill.
My name is Tom Gill. I am a Professor in the Department of Literacy at West Chester University. I'm also proud to say 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 that I work with community groups that have worked so hard in Southwest Philadelphia in literacy, such as Healthy Family/Healthy Life and other groups. I want to thank City Council, the Black Caucus and other representatives in the School Board for allowing me to speak today. I would like to address the all-important issue of the Philadelphia School District's reading program and reading achievement in relation to Edison's report and its recommendations. I have been a classroom teacher of English and reading and a reading professor for over 30 years. For the bulk of my career, I directed a field-based reading program for the University of Virginia, a leader in reading research and practice. It became apparent to me, as it has to the reading field at large, that we have come to understand the process of learning to read and its instruction sufficiently so that if certain proven principles were applied all children could become fully literate. These principles are those which are followed in successful suburban schools every day, 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 but have never been applied fully or effectively in inner-city schools. These principles are, first, that children must do copious amounts of reading in order to become fully literate. Second, that the materials a child is given to read must be a level of difficulty in accord with his or her present level of literacy: not too easy, not too hard. Third, that phonics and spelling instruction is necessary but, like reading, must be in accord with each child's current knowledge of how letters work in words. Fourth, that children must receive guidance from a knowledgeable teacher while reading and writing in small groups. Fifth, that reading progresses in a common systemic and developmental way for all children, but that children proceed at varying rates, not according to race or socioeconomic factors, but depending upon individual propensities and the degree to which the materials and instruction are of a goodness of fit with their current literacy levels. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 And sixth, that a good instructional program provides a balance of reading, writing, phonics and being read to. Now, this is known. This is known to be true. The question is, why haven't these principles been applied in all school districts? Across America, at any one grade, approximately half the students read and spell at grade level or above, while one half reads and spells blow grade level. That all traditionally have been taught at grade level has resulted in approximately half of all adult Americans today being functionally illiterate. In most suburban schools, about 75 percent of the students read at grade level or above, while percent read below grade level. 18 Therefore, if grade-level instruction is provided, 19 the vast majority of students, given suburbia's 20 small class size and credentialed teachers and 21 aides, have their literacy needs met and score well 22 year after year. 23 However, in most urban schools, 24 particularly those serving the inner cities, and in 25 many rural schools, only about 25 percent of the 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 students read at grade level or above, while about 75 percent read below grade level and fall further behind the grade-level goal each year. The reason for this is simple: Suburban children tend to be raised in literacy-privileged households where they are read to and given direct experience with print for over 1500 hours before ever stepping foot in kindergarten, while children from literacy-impoverished homes enter kindergarten having been read to less than 50 hours. Since the American reading curriculum has evolved to fit well the literacy privileged, instruction is on their current level and they progress well.
However, literacy-impoverished children enter the same curriculum without the prerequisite knowledge literally years behind. Now, before we do what most do, which is we blame parents or take false pride in reading to our own children, we need to remember that it was less than 150 years ago when in much of this country it was against the law to teach African-Americans to read. You reap what you sow. And it is only relatively recently 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 that all children of the working class, black and white, attended school en masse. Their parents couldn't possibly read to them. And when these children came to school behind, they failed and were labeled slow learners and their parents as uncaring. These children, in turn, could not make progress through school, as they were continuously given reading materials at their frustration, rather than their instructional, levels. And the cycle continued, and continues, from generation to generation. In the reading field, we call this the Matthew Effect, from the Biblical Matthew, as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Six years ago, I joined the faculty of a public instruction, West Chester University, rooted in teacher education, with a program focused on inner-city literacy. I knew from study and direct experience that if the proven principles of literacy learning and instruction were applied that inner-city children could become as literate as their suburban peers. The School District of Philadelphia 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 had newly established what they call the Balanced Literacy Framework for its elementary schools. This framework was, and is, based on the proven principles of literacy learning and instruction. In my six years here, we have established an on-site masters in reading for teachers in Catharine and Longstreth Schools in Southwest Philadelphia, schools which serve some of the lowest-income families in the city. There West Chester professors not only hold graduate classes after school, but we work with the teachers in their classrooms each day. We also use these schools and our masters program teachers' classrooms as a training ground for our undergraduates who wish to become city teachers. We have kept careful track of the progress of the school children in these classrooms. The hoped-for progress in reading in suburban schools, given everything they have, is a year per year. At Catharine and Longstreth Schools, in the classrooms we have been working with, the progress of the students has averaged over a year's growth each year. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 I have read Edison's report on the status of Philadelphia's schools and, as others have reported here, find many accurate findings and logical recommendations. However, in the area of literacy, I believe their finding to be incorrect and I have grave reservations about their recommendations. , Edison's finding was that the city's schools lacked a uniform reading program. This simply is not true. The Balanced Literacy Framework is a District program. Within this program many different sources of reading material can be used, but there are common, all-important threads. First, each teacher must directly assess all of her pupils four times per year to determine each child's reading and phonics needs. Second, instead of one basal series being adopted and used in accord with grade level, which is the practice that has caused such poor reading achievement in Philadelphia and other urban areas, that the school purchase for each grade a range of reading materials in accord with their pupils' needs and that the teachers level these 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 materials and use the range needed for differentiating instruction in their classrooms so that they can get optimal growth. Third, teachers within their heterogeneous classrooms group children for small group and independent work according to their assessed needs.
To pull this off has required, and will require, a great deal of professional development work to give teachers the skills and support they need, as well as the material. However, fitting a wide range of children with appropriate material according to their wide range of needs is not just one way to promote literacy for all. It is the only way. None of us has become literate without this condition being met. It is just obviously far easier to accomplish when the children are on grade level and when the class size is small, as is true in suburban schools. Edison's recommendation is that one of three unnamed reading programs be used universally across the city. It is important to understand that Edison itself has no reading program of its 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 own. And they do not claim, rightfully, expertise in literacy learning and instruction. When a system or school contracts with Edison, the reading program is farmed out to one of three providers. One provider is the Open Court basal reading program. When this is the choice, all children are placed in the grade-level basal and the teacher follows the script in the manual -- exactly the approach which has resulted in such widespread failure in the past and which is in conflict with the basic principles of literacy learning and instruction proven by research and agreed to by authorities in the field. Edison's second option is the Reading Mastery program. I believe they've got that going in Chester. This is a retread of the old DISTAR program, which has been around since the 60's. It is heavily scripted and includes little contextual reading and lots of skill-in-isolation work. The type of skill work it promotes has been widely accepted to be inappropriate, to the extent that for years Title I money was not even allowed to be spent on it. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Edison's third option, though, Success For All, is a more interesting program. Success For All was created by Dr. Robert Slavin of Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Slavin is a psychologist, not a reading specialist, but he realized the power of placing children in reading material according to their true reading levels, rather than by grade level. However, Success For All itself has serious deficiencies when compared to Philadelphia's Balanced Literacy Framework. To its credit, Success For All requires that the 90-minute daily reading and language arts block class size be reduced to 15 pupils. However, to do so, paraprofessionals, aides, librarians, physical education teachers, et cetera, have been required to reach these 90-minute blocks. Therefore, the program has had to depend on a very detailed, scripted manual to provide instructional guidance. It is well documented that only a knowledgeable instructor can produce optimal gains in literacy. If good instruction could be scripted, we would have no need for teacher 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 training and I, for one, would be writing scripts rather than studying and working with current and future teachers in Southwest Philadelphia. If scripts were the best way to go, why aren't suburban teachers using them, instead of their judgment and expertise? For all intents and purposes, Success For All invests nothing in teacher training and professional development. The premise is that the teachers in failing schools cannot learn what is needed to meet their pupils' needs and, therefore, must be given teacher-proof materials. Universally there is no such thing as teacher-proof materials. Our teachers can meet our students' needs if their needs for support are met. Further, to Success For All's credit, it does group children, students, by their instructional reading level and provides reading material at their instructional rather than grade level. However, this is done by what is called the Joplin Plan, wherein children are placed in instructional level groups regardless of their age, a practice with obvious problems. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES.
010642 Further, instruction is accomplished by the teacher teaching to the whole group at once, again a practice believed not nearly as effective as small group instruction. How then does Success For All make the gains which it can demonstrates? It has made them in areas where the past practice has been to place the students in grade level, rather than instructional level, materials. If Philadelphia were still doing that, I would be the first one to say to consider Success For All as an option. But Success For All is a program of last resort. It is a concession when a school district has given up on being able to give its students the same opportunities suburban children have. And my next sentence here I wrote says, "This is not the case in Philadelphia," but to be honest with you, I don't know. Bernard, is it the case in Philadelphia? Do you know what I mean? I don't know. Are we still committed to do that, to do the right thing, to get our children the same quality education as suburban schools have? 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 I would welcome the opportunity to compare the progress of the children in a well-developed Balanced Literacy Framework setting with similar children in Success For All. Why, then, hasn't our Balanced Literacy Framework shown results? Well, in fact, it has. First in the slow, very slow, but steady, rise in SAT9 scores and, more importantly and dramatically and accurately, in the more direct and accurate measures of informal reading inventories, running records and spelling assessments in the classrooms that do have instruction in accord with the core literacy learning principles and the Balanced Literacy Framework. Again, I have seen results in literacy growth which far exceed what Edison's report or Slavin's report in Success For All. There are significant problems in showing the immediate and dramatic growth on the SAT9 and PSSA measures that everyone so wants. First, it must be remembered that the Balanced Literacy Framework is relatively new at 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 six years old. In a time of severely restricted funds, which, of course, is the bottom line to all of this, massive professional development efforts, by their nature longitudinal, have had to be implemented and maintained. Second, huge numbers of new and varied books have had to be purchased. For a student, any student, to make a year's progress in reading in a year, that pupil must read with the teacher's guidance at least three stories each week. In addition, the student needs to read three additional stories that week independently, at their independent level, like with the 500 Books Challenge program, as provided materials. That comes to that student to over 200 stories a year. With so many students at so many different levels, the task and the time and the commitment from the highest levels are needed just to procure and organize the materials, and that problem becomes apparent. Third, in addition to the need for time to procure books and provide professional development is the problem of the SAT9 and the PSSA measures themselves. 11/10/01 - EDUCATION - RES. 010642 Again, most of Philadelphia's inner-city school children enter school far below grade level. By third grade, most are two years behind. I have data that shows children making over a year's progress per year. However, both the SAT9 and the PSSA only include grade-level passages when they test. Therefore, if a child is a second-grade reader at the beginning of the fourth grade, but makes a year's progress that fourth grade level, the end of the year measure consisting only of fourth-grade-level passages will show none of this growth. It is a fallacy that this improvement would necessarily move this child's score from, say, below-basic-2 to below-basic-1, or vice versa. When the test is at your frustration level, where your score falls is more due to chance than any improvement you've made towards the goal.