It’s simple.  The  kindergarten to 5th graders are expected to be the Department of Defense’s (DoD) future workforce.  PPS has a contract with the DoD Starbase supplying them with mini recruits.  In 2008 Congress appropriated $20,203,000 for the program which is available in 34 states.  This year PPS received $350,000 of it.

The DoD Starbase website states: “DoD STARBASE students participate in  challenging ‘hands-on, mind-on’ activities in aviation, science, technology, engineering, math, and space exploration.  They interact with military personnel to explore careers and make connections with the real world.  The program provides students with 20-25 hours of stimulating experiences at National Guard, Navy, Marine, Air Force Reserve and Air Force bases across the nation.”

The real world includes white kids but you won’t find too many of them in the Department of Defense marketing materials.

Starbase targets “at-risk youth” which they define as “students at risk are those who have characteristics that increase their chances of dropping out or falling behind in school.  These characteristics may include being from a single parent household, having an older sibling who dropped out of high school, changing schools two or more times other than the normal progression, having C’s or lower grades, being from a low socioeconomic status family, or repeating an earlier grade.” 

I’d love to see the data that PPS used to help Starbase identify those students.  First of all, aren’t a lot of military kids living in single parent households while one or sometimes both parents are fighting in the war? 

Does PPS track dropout siblings?  Changing schools two or more times?  Does it count when it’s PPS that keeps closing schools in poor schools then reassigning kids?  Does that put those students at risk?  Do kids even repeat classes anymore? 

Starbase and PPS aren’t identifying individual students based on the characteristics mentioned above.  Schools are being identified through socioeconomic status and race.  PPS tracks both of those. 

Check out the presentation on the DoD’s plan for the future and you’ll see that students of color are disproportionately represented in their program.  The Portland schools participating in Starbase are schools with high percentages of minority students.

One of the stated goals of Starbase is about increasing drug awareness and prevention.  If PPS is serious about supporting at-risk youth, administrators might try looking across the river.  It’s widely known that students on the west side are struggling with drugs and mental health problems.  Why aren’t they being enrolled in Starbase classes?  Is it because they are wealthier white kids?

One look through the DoD Starbase 2008 Annual Report makes it clear that Starbase is a recruitment program.  The report also talks about the need to engage kids early because they lose interest as they near middle school age.  Here are some items from their post-program assessment:

• Military bases are fun.
• I am enjoying coming to a military base.
• The military base is a good place to work.
• Military people do lots of different things.

What do any of those questions have to do with math and science skills?  But then that’s not the real goal of the program.

Just when I think PPS can’t do anything more despicable to poor kids, I learn about something new.  The most appalling thing is that Starbase isn’t new to PPS.  The superintendent and board have known about this for years.

Years ago the Education Crisis Team brought a coffin to a protest before the school board.  Protesters carried signs saying that the district was handing poor kids a death sentence.  People thought it was extreme.  Maybe it wasn’t extreme enough. 

At the time Education Crisis Team leader Ron Herndon was quoted as saying   “This may not be the kind of parental involvement you want us to have, but this is the kind of involvement we need to have”.  Amen.

Take action: Call or write PPS Board members to demand that PPS terminate the contract with the Department of Defense immediately.

To teachers in Title I schools:

What are the needs in your classroom or at your school that haven’t been met because of budget constraints?

 “Why does the district want to rebuild Whitaker if the overall enrollment is declining?  While it is true that the district’s overall enrollment is dropping, it is not dropping at the same rate throughout the district.  Current and projected enrollment figures show there is a continued need for a middle school in the Whitaker-Adams area.  Whitaker Middle School students now are in temporary locations at the former Rice Elementary School and the district’s Lakeside property, which had been slated to be sold.”  PPS What’s Developing at Whitaker Adams

There must be a huge need for a middle school in that area now that Rice, Lakeside AND Tubman middle schools have closed.

In 2005 the PPS Board passed a resolution setting aside half of the proceeds from the sale of Washington High School to rebuild Whitaker.  How is that sale of Washington High School going?

In 1998, I joined a multiethnic activist group called the Community Monitoring Advisory Coalition (CMAC).  The group was led by longtime activists Ron Herndon, Richard Luccetti and Halim Rahsaan. 

My first CMAC committee assignment was writing the history of the struggle to improve public education for minority children.  That was quite an assignment for me considering that I come from a poor white background.  I’d rarely left my neighborhood.  Needless to say the paper was a collaborative effort. 

I’m in the process of updating the Two Decade Struggle for Public School Children because it is now over a decade behind.  

I get pissed when I read through the history now because so much of what was fought for has been lost.  Here’s an excerpt from the paper:

In 1979 the Black United Front began working against a school desegregation plan that was very harmful to Black children and discriminatory in its implementation.  Using a study by the Community Coalition for School Integration, the Front protested the forced busing of Black students from their communities while White students were allowed to attend neighborhood schools.  School district policy prevented Black teachers from teaching at schools in the Black community.

There were no schools serving grades 6-8 in the Albina neighborhood where the majority of Portland’s Black children lived.  All middle school aged children were mandatorily bused into other neighborhoods.  School officials tried to put as few Black children as possible in as many White schools as possible.  In 1977, 44 students from the Eliot neighborhood were bused to 20 different schools.  This abusive practice of busing and scattering Black students occurred at every elementary school in the Black community. 

The Front sponsored two successful boycotts of Portland Public Schools in 1980 and 1981 to press demands for a new desegregation plan and a middle school in the Black community.

Tubman Middle School was opened in 1983 but only after the firing of Superintendent Blanchard (BESC is named after him), partially because of his unwillingness to work with Black parents and intervention by a mediator from the US Department of Justice.

Sadly Tubman closed in 2006.  Where is the Albina neighborhood’s middle school now? 

One of my favorite poems is a long poem called The Intervals by Stuart MacKinnon.  In it MacKinnon talks about not letting the effort of generations drop. 

Portland Public Schools has taken advantage of the fact that some communities have been asleep.  PPS has changed school boundaries and reconfigured, consolidated and closed schools in poor communities with little resistance.

By just about every measure (achievement gap, dropout and discipline rates, under and over representation in TAG and SPED, teacher diversity, and equitable opportunities) Portland has gone backwards.  Hard fought gains have been lost.

PPS is about to change school assignment policy at the high school level, redraw boundaries, and close schools.  They say that they’re making the changes in an effort to create equity.  Nothing in their history makes me believe that.

PPS administrators can’t be trusted to do the right thing for kids unless forced.  Hell, they don’t even know it’s about kids.  They think it’s about them.  Parents and community members need to get involved now.  Before it’s too late.

Superintendents come and go 

If history repeats itself…. Superintendent Smith will last just long enough to get board passage of significant changes but she won’t be around to implement them. 

What do you think?  How long will  Superintendent Smith last?  What will her legacy be?

Shortly after the district’s poisoning of children and staff at Whitaker Middle School was exposed, then Superintendent Scherzinger submitted an opinion piece to the Portland Tribune (6/19/01). 

His op-ed was in response to the Radon issue but it offers valuable advice for you now as you forge ahead on yet another redesign experiment.

Please pay particular attention to the information in bold. 

PPS

Seattle School District

If people have any doubts about the direction that PPS is heading, they only need to head north 175 miles.  PPS and the Seattle School District have so much in common.   

Seattle School District converted some K-5 and 6-8 schools to K-8s.  PPS followed (sort of…it’s half-assed and still in limbo).  Both districts have parents and staff complaining about lack of support in the transitions. 

The Seattle School District closed and consolidated schools.  Portland followed. 

The Seattle School District contracted with DeJong to develop enrollment projections.  Those projections were met with skepticism by parents and board members. 

In Portland, DeJong partnered with Magellan Consulting to complete a facilities assessment for PPS.  More skepticism.

Both Seattle and Portland love to hire Broad graduates.  They pop up like new Starbucks.  Broad graduates are supposedly hired for their business expertise.  That expertise has played out to be disastrous for public education.     

In 2009, the Seattle School District developed a Student Assignment Plan which changed attendance boundaries and the way in which students were assigned to schools.  Portland is in the middle of a high school redesign plan which also affects boundaries and student enrollment. 

The Seattle School District closed several schools in 2009 due to declining enrollment.  They expected to save $3 million per year.   Just one year later they find themselves in need of buildings.  The cost to reopen 5 of the recently closed buildings is $47.8 million.  Not only was it a foolish financial decision but it disrupted the education of children.

Will PPS follow? 

At a time when the Portland Public School board voted to unanimously back measures 66 and 67, it seems strange that the PPS  Human Resources Department would list the Portland Business Alliance (PBA) as one of its Resources. 

Willamette Week  recently reported that companies were funneling large amounts of money through the Portland Business Alliance to defeat the two tax measures. 

As part of the effort to defeat measures 66 and 67, the PBA took out two ads in the Voter’s Pamphlet opposing the tax measures.

Right now working class families are paying more than their fair share of taxes to support essential services in Oregon because so many wealthy corporations are only paying $10. 

PPS board member Bobby Regan urged the public to support measures 66 and 67 saying “  “If we really value education, we have to view education as an investment in our kids, in our future work force and in our state. We have to begin reinvesting in our future, and although this is not the perfect measure, I would encourage you to vote yes.”

Exactly who is the  Portland Business Alliance  a resource for?

I am so done with PPS’ constant renaming of things.

Integrated Services covers Talented and Gifted (TAG), English Language Learner (ELL) and Special Education (SPED) students.  What does the general population get?  Non-integrated services? [Read more →]

How progressive is Oregon?  

In 1989, (ODE had to go way back to make the numbers look bigger) 2.1 percent of Oregon teachers were minorities.  Ten years later the number increased to 4.1%.  Today…5.5%! 

That’s right, in almost 20 years Oregon has only increased diversity in the classroom by 3.4%. 

Compare that to the change in the student population.  The minority student population was 11.2% in 1989 and it’s 29.8% now. 

The gap between the percent of minority students and the percent of minority teachers has become wider. (Oregon Statewide Report Card 2008/09)

It’s no wonder that students of color continue to suffer from disproportionate rates of discipline, over-representation in special education and under representation in gifted programs.