DOE PZ Turnaround Unit Completely Abdicates Its Responsibilities to CSD PZ SCHOOLS!

By Elizabeth Scheinberg

Disclaimer - these are my thoughts and mine alone and they do not represent those of the Christina School District or its Board of Education.

I'm pissed off and you should be, too. Not used that language from me? I save it for special occasions... And this one, it's real special!

Under our Governor and his former Secretary of Education, school boards across this state were bullied into signing an MOU that committed our districts to the colossol failure that is known as Race to the Top - a wickedly, under-researched education reform construct designed to enrich consultants and edu-businessmen. Those MOUs played a significant role in ensuring that Delaware was the front-runner for RTTT funding and the gleaming winner of a rich prize that transformed the universal right of education into nothing more than a competition, our children from students to lab rats. At the heart of this prize was grossly destablized schools, chaos, and discord. And in the end, many of those who led the charge into D.C. to win the coveted race, packed up and got the hell out of Delaware before the longitudinal data could call this program what it is - a cataclysmic waste of tax payer dollars guised as a grand prize.

And that's doesn't even come close to explaining why I find myself fuming at 11:00 pm on Tuesday night.

I am visciously angry because the Delaware's Department of Education's Partnership Zone Turnaround Unit has abandoned my PZ schools. ABANDONED! Eleven months ago, Christina's board - fewer than a quorum attended - was called into a meeting with then-Secretary of Education, Lillian Lowery to "discuss" our handling of our PZ schools. We had already gone head-to-head with the Gov. and DOE over deviations from the teacher selection process. This particular meeting produced one result that was measurable - we were directed by DOE to use the DOE PZ Turnaround Unit reports to measure the success of the implementation of our Glasgow plan. That document was specifically cited as our guiding tool when it came to decision-making. This was to be the PZ bible.

Following that meeting, Christina's Board moved and voted to make these DOE products public documents and place them for consideration on our website. These documents, by their very nature, are public documents and our action simply facilitated the public's access to the information that was driving our decisions, our planning, and our implementation.

Since this action, Christina has only received two such reports, when previously these reports were monthly and generated for each PZ school. As a board member in the midst of massive school restructuring/reimagining, who has been directed by the Department of Education to use this specific tool, I am livid because our Department has abdicated it's responsibility to our children. It was explained to our board tonight at our monthly meeting the DOE PZ Turnaround Unit will NOT generate any further reports to be shared with our board regarding our PZ schools. In fact, I have not received one DOE-generated report this school year. The PZ Turnaround Unit will operate as a resource that we can approach if we need them.

I voted no RTTT because I knew it would fail. Not because I had a gut feeling. Because I looked at the reforms it was based upon - Chicago - where the longitudinal data had begun to reveal that early initial gains from the models employed was temporary and short-lived. I voted no b/c my students did not need to be Mass Insight's or Jack Markell's or Lillian Lowery's lab rats. I voted no b/c the funds that could come from a winning application were never designed to expand the number of teachers in the system when clearly it is teachers and access to them that makes the difference for our children.

Tonight, a fellow board member is celebrating that we have been cast-off by the PZ Unit. I can't hide the small amount of pleasure that comes with knowing that my assessment of RTTT was on spot. But, more than I can find pleasure in this situation, I am outraged that the Delaware Department of Education Turnaround Unit Leadership and our current Secretary of Education have abandoned the committments made to the federal government when the office they now command submitted their award-winning tax-payer-fund-wasting education experiment.

Shame! Shame on them!

Category: 3 comments

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: Yes, I am ELATED at the news that the DOE and their completely broken Trunaround unity will be NOT monitoring us and NOT bossing us around with bad policy on a monthly basis. I am freking ECSTATIC at that!!!!

However, the state DOE got 59.5 million dollars of the 119 million dollars for RTTT, based in part, directly in the grant, to fund a Turnaround Unit with a chief and 2 deputies. They have replaced the departed chief and currently seek a deputy, BUT have decided to become an on-call support organization.

Talk about a phone that won't ring!

What a colossal waste of our tax dollars! That, I am mad about.

Staying out of CSD? Priceless.; December 12, 2012 at 12:12 AM
Anonymous said...: If a phone rings in Dover and the Turnaround team answers it, did it even ring?; December 12, 2012 at 10:16 AM
Mike O. said...: It was explained to our board tonight at our monthly meeting the DOE PZ Turnaround Unit will NOT generate any further reports to be shared with our board regarding our PZ schools.

Wow... I'm not sure I completely understand what went down, but it sounds very significant.

Does this mean you are no longer accountable for any PZ requirements? Or are you still expected to meet all PZ requirements, but without the reports?

Did they really stop the reports because you published them? Or was there some other reason?

The PZ Turnaround Unit will operate as a resource that we can approach if we need them.

Can you approach them and ask them to resume the monthly reports? Call them each month if you need to. Do you even WANT the monthly reports? Were they helpful, at least in the sense of helping you meet PZ requirements?; December 12, 2012 at 3:32 PM