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I haven’t attended any of the middle college meetings so I may have missed something.  What will be different at Jefferson next year besides the fact that the name will change to “Jefferson High – Middle College for Advanced Studies”? 

According to a story in this week’s  Portland Observer, students will be able to take between 2 and 15 classes at PCC.  So what.  They can do that now.  What’s the objective of the middle college?  How will it help the lowest achieving students?

How is PPS preparing the students for PCC?  Students that are struggling at Jefferson will struggle at PCC.  I’ve worked with PCC students that met the writing requirements for the 2-year degree but they couldn’t write a sentence.  Just like PPS, Portland Community College will pass students on without them having the skills necessary for the workforce.  Who benefits?

The Jefferson plan seems like more of the same to me.

Superintendent Smith continues to cave to pressure from wealthier families.  I wonder what convinced her that the status quo was good for the “system”.

Has anyone been able to find the 2010 Census Data for neighborhood demographics yet?

Did you see that PPS fired the ESL Director this week?  What does someone have to do to get fired from PPS?

Think again.  (Thanks Bulldog 1 for the heads up)

Nice to see some support for parents.

As reported by Rob Manning for OPB.org on January 14, 2011:

“Portland school board members are seriously considering putting not one – but two tax measures on the May ballot.

Portland voters can already expect to see a $550 million measure aimed at building and renovating school facilities. And now school board members say they may also ask voters to renew an operating levy to help pay for teachers.

The district is looking at a bleak budget picture, and a five-year levy due to expire in a year.

School board finance chair, David Wynde, says renewing the levy a year early would increase local property taxes for next school year.

David Wynde: “There’s the potential for an additional $14 million of operating revenue for the district in the ’11-’12 school year.”

Wynde says the board is sensitive to the economic climate, and no final decision has been made about whether to put a second tax measure on the May ballot. But Wynde says “the district only has so many ways to deal with a looming budget gap.”

 And how many ways does Mr. Wynde think that Portland households have to deal with their looming budget gaps?

PPS has listed eight priorities for next year’s budget.  It is a nice effort, but is missing what it really takes to succeed. What is still non-existent in PPS is a definition of what constitutes a good education. Their programs are test driven with little thought given to what kids really need to learn beyond the testing criteria, one which is much too narrow and often destructive.  For instance, the Milestones milestones sound pretty good, but they are mostly measured in test results.

Some of their statements are too general. What does it mean to improve ELL and special education services?   Many of their past improvements did little to improve things for the kids themselves, but instead made things easier for the administration.

 And look at #6. We need to be doing a better job reporting test scores? What we need is a real measure of what constitutes a good education and work school by school to improve in those areas where we have fallen short.

Finally, each of these priorities can be construed to pretty much reinforce what we are already doing. In the end they will have no real effect on the myriad of problems plaguing the schools in low economic areas.  They would have been much better off with some specific things we were going to address directly – such as how to engage kids better in school, partnering with government agencies to set up wraparound programs, increasing funding for their own libraries, reconfiguring their expectations for what principals do and how they work within their own schools, sensible approaches to hiring, and ways to deal with that small number of teachers who should be doing something else. Lots of things would have a real impact. This priority list won’t .

I need to take care of a family emergency so I will be taking a 3 month break (January 1st to April 1st) from this blog. 

I would love to receive guest author contributions during the break.  Please email guest posts to me at carrie.adams@comcast.net.