PURE Reform - Parents United for Responsible Educational Reform


Mission Statement	Announcements	Featured Topics	Three Year Review of District Initiatives	Questions About High School Reform	Blog	Links	Transparency Watch
November 17, 2008 PPS Public Hearing Kathy Fine Good evening School Board Members and Superintendent Roosevelt. My name is Kathy Fine. Tonight I would like to talk about the strategic plan generally and parental engagement specifically. Last month, Mr. Roosevelt released a draft of his 6 year strategic plan for public review and comment. I dutifully read through 65 pages and submitted 68 questions so that I could better understand this plan. While it is true that the administration did address some of these questions in the FAQ section of the Strategic Plan on the PPS website, it is also true that: 1) I was never contacted by the administration to be directed to this FAQ section, and: 2) nearly 2/3 of the questions were unanswered. I have attached a copy of my questions with those answered highlighted in yellow. The current Strategic Plan contains a large section addressing improved “customer service”. If any of you called a service provider with questions about their service and that provider answered only 37% of your questions and in doing that, answered the questions not directly to you, but in a forum that you could have easily missed, would you have considered that outstanding customer service? This raises the question “Is this administration really committed to community/stakeholder input?” Another section of the plan addresses increasing parent engagement. The administration has started “Parent Engagement Tuesdays” in response to the need to augment parent involvement in their child’s education. I attended one of these meetings, and it is clear to me that the administration has missed the boat regarding the urgency with which Parent Engagement should be addressed. The district’s methodology to increase parental participation involves getting the same parents that are already engaged and that attend Parent Engagement Tuesdays to act as emissaries by going back to their home schools and sharing with the other parents what they have learned these meetings. Does this mean that these engaged parents are supposed to be instructing other parents on reading to their children and good nutrition? How, when and where are they supposed to do this tutoring? The administration is ignoring a whole population whose children would benefit most from increased parental involvement. We need aggressive outreach and mentoring. We need to teach basic parenting skills starting before birth. Right now, implementation of Parent Engagement in the PPS looks good on paper, but in practice falls short. As I have stated many times in the past, I want nothing more than for meaningful reform to take place at our schools. People like me are not the enemy. We are doing our job as engaged stakeholders by participating in the reform process. We should have the ear of the administration. Please do not ignore us. NOTE: PURE reform wants to acknowledge that the a portion of testimony given at the November 17th public BOE meeting (above) was incorrect in asserting that the district did not notify us as that a some of our questions had been answered. On November 18th, PURE Reform discovered an email sent earlier by the district that directed us to the FAQ section on the district's website. Public Hearing November 17, 2008 Hello, I am Annette Werner with the PURE Reform steering committee. The first thing I would like to discuss tonight is parent engagement. I think that it is difficult to overestimate the importance of true parent engagement in the education of children. You can roll out Excellence for All, strategic plans, improvement plans and promises- but without parents you will lack a strong foundation on which to build. In fact, these programs may create in parents a false sense that the education of their children is entirely someone else’s responsibility, and that “excellence” is something that can be provided to their children regardless of what parents do or do not do. While a school system can cover for a small percentage of uninvolved parents, it is very difficult to make up for large numbers of uninvolved parents. Consider for example a classroom of 30 students where each student has a parent who devotes a half hour on a particular day to their child’s education. That works out to 15 hours, or the equivalent of two full time employee days- an expense that would in most cases be prohibitive. And so I ask the district to make a specific effort to communicate to parents, early and often, just how important they are to their children’s educational success. The Harlem Children’s Zone is known for involving parents from birth. It has been reported that President-Elect Obama is considering a Children’s Zone- type program for locations in 20 cities yet to be determined. PURE Reform will be requesting consideration of a Pittsburgh neighborhood to be among these locations, and we hope that the district will join us in aggressively pursuing any opportunity for Pittsburgh to be included. On a broader scale, I would ask the district to consider classroom newsletters as a tool for greater parent engagement. Attached is a good example of a newsletter sent to parents of 6th graders (these students happen to be in a private school). The newsletter provides specifics on what is being taught by this teacher (ie, it goes beyond “we are doing a research paper and learning about negative and positive numbers) as well as resources for further information. Parents could choose to receive the newsletters by email or regular mail (hopefully most would be able to choose email) and the newsletter could be sent on a monthly basis. For high school classes a different model could be developed to take into account these students’ greater independence. Overall, if parents receive from Day 1 strong acknowledgment of the importance of their role along with tools for involvement such as this type of newsletter, the result is likely to be much more fully engaged and effective parents. The other topic I would like to discuss briefly is standardized testing. State tests in particular now have high stakes attached to them. Schools may be closed, bonuses may be received or withheld, and jobs may even be lost, largely on the basis of the results of these tests. A recent article in the New York Times raises the issue of a possible result of these high stakes- a principal being suspected of altering test answers. While this new story involves the Charleston area, there have been third hand reports of issues in Pittsburgh. Some have commented that principals are put in a difficult position- they need to raise scores but not so much as to raise suspicion. For the protection of students, teachers and administrators alike, then, I would ask the Board and the district to review procedures, both for proctoring tests and for protecting the tests from the time they are taken to the time they are returned to the testing company, so that we can all rely on the results.

November 17, 2008

PPS Public Hearing

Kathy Fine

Good evening School Board Members and Superintendent Roosevelt. My name is Kathy Fine. Tonight I would like to talk about the strategic plan generally and parental engagement specifically.

Last month, Mr. Roosevelt released a draft of his 6 year strategic plan for public review and comment. I dutifully read through 65 pages and submitted 68 questions so that I could better understand this plan. While it is true that the administration did address some of these questions in the FAQ section of the Strategic Plan on the PPS website, it is also true that: 1) I was never contacted by the administration to be directed to this FAQ section, and: 2) nearly 2/3 of the questions were unanswered. I have attached a copy of my questions with those answered highlighted in yellow.

The current Strategic Plan contains a large section addressing improved “customer service”. If any of you called a service provider with questions about their service and that provider answered only 37% of your questions and in doing that, answered the questions not directly to you, but in a forum that you could have easily missed, would you have considered that outstanding customer service? This raises the question “Is this administration really committed to community/stakeholder input?”

Another section of the plan addresses increasing parent engagement. The administration has started “Parent Engagement Tuesdays” in response to the need to augment parent involvement in their child’s education. I attended one of these meetings, and it is clear to me that the administration has missed the boat regarding the urgency with which Parent Engagement should be addressed. The district’s methodology to increase parental participation involves getting the same parents that are already engaged and that attend Parent Engagement Tuesdays to act as emissaries by going back to their home schools and sharing with the other parents what they have learned these meetings. Does this mean that these engaged parents are supposed to be instructing other parents on reading to their children and good nutrition? How, when and where are they supposed to do this tutoring?

The administration is ignoring a whole population whose children would benefit most from increased parental involvement. We need aggressive outreach and mentoring. We need to teach basic parenting skills starting before birth. Right now, implementation of Parent Engagement in the PPS looks good on paper, but in practice falls short. As I have stated many times in the past, I want nothing more than for meaningful reform to take place at our schools. People like me are not the enemy. We are doing our job as engaged stakeholders by participating in the reform process. We should have the ear of the administration. Please do not ignore us.

NOTE: PURE reform wants to acknowledge that the a portion of testimony given at the November 17th public BOE meeting (above) was incorrect in asserting that the district did not notify us as that a some of our questions had been answered. On November 18th, PURE Reform discovered an email sent earlier by the district that directed us to the FAQ section on the district's website.

Public Hearing

November 17, 2008

Hello, I am Annette Werner with the PURE Reform steering committee. The first thing I would like to discuss tonight is parent engagement. I think that it is difficult to overestimate the importance of true parent engagement in the education of children. You can roll out Excellence for All, strategic plans, improvement plans and promises- but without parents you will lack a strong foundation on which to build. In fact, these programs may create in parents a false sense that the education of their children is entirely someone else’s responsibility, and that “excellence” is something that can be provided to their children regardless of what parents do or do not do. While a school system can cover for a small percentage of uninvolved parents, it is very difficult to make up for large numbers of uninvolved parents. Consider for example a classroom of 30 students where each student has a parent who devotes a half hour on a particular day to their child’s education. That works out to 15 hours, or the equivalent of two full time employee days- an expense that would in most cases be prohibitive. And so I ask the district to make a specific effort to communicate to parents, early and often, just how important they are to their children’s educational success.

The Harlem Children’s Zone is known for involving parents from birth. It has been reported that President-Elect Obama is considering a Children’s Zone- type program for locations in 20 cities yet to be determined. PURE Reform will be requesting consideration of a Pittsburgh neighborhood to be among these locations, and we hope that the district will join us in aggressively pursuing any opportunity for Pittsburgh to be included.

On a broader scale, I would ask the district to consider classroom newsletters as a tool for greater parent engagement. Attached is a good example of a newsletter sent to parents of 6th graders (these students happen to be in a private school). The newsletter provides specifics on what is being taught by this teacher (ie, it goes beyond “we are doing a research paper and learning about negative and positive numbers) as well as resources for further information. Parents could choose to receive the newsletters by email or regular mail (hopefully most would be able to choose email) and the newsletter could be sent on a monthly basis. For high school classes a different model could be developed to take into account these students’ greater independence. Overall, if parents receive from Day 1 strong acknowledgment of the importance of their role along with tools for involvement such as this type of newsletter, the result is likely to be much more fully engaged and effective parents.

The other topic I would like to discuss briefly is standardized testing. State tests in particular now have high stakes attached to them. Schools may be closed, bonuses may be received or withheld, and jobs may even be lost, largely on the basis of the results of these tests. A recent article in the New York Times raises the issue of a possible result of these high stakes- a principal being suspected of altering test answers. While this new story involves the Charleston area, there have been third hand reports of issues in Pittsburgh. Some have commented that principals are put in a difficult position- they need to raise scores but not so much as to raise suspicion. For the protection of students, teachers and administrators alike, then, I would ask the Board and the district to review procedures, both for proctoring tests and for protecting the tests from the time they are taken to the time they are returned to the testing company, so that we can all rely on the results.