Obama's 'Race To The Top' Drives Nationwide Wave of School Closings, Teacher Firings

[HiPointDem]

86. And it's not only RTTT that carries out this 4-part program -- it's also SIG -- School Improvement

Grants:

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today announced that Pennsylvania will receive $141 million to turn around its persistently lowest achieving schools through the School Improvement Grants (SIG) program. These funds are part of the $3.5 billion that will be made available to states this spring from money set aside in the 2009 budget and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

"When a school continues to perform in the bottom five percent of the state and isn't showing signs of growth or has graduation rates below 60 percent, something dramatic needs to be done," said Duncan. "Turning around our worst performing schools is difficult for everyone but it is critical that we show the courage to do the right thing by kids."

School districts will apply to the state for the funds this spring. When school districts apply, they must indicate that they will implement one of the following four models in their persistently lowest achieving schools:

TURNAROUND MODEL: Replace the principal, screen existing school staff, and rehire no more than half the teachers; adopt a new governance structure; and improve the school through curriculum reform, professional development, extending learning time, and other strategies.

RESTART MODEL: Convert a school or close it and re-open it as a charter school or under an education management organization.

SCHOOL CLOSURE: Close the school and send the students to higher-achieving schools in the district.

TRANSFORMATION MODEL: Replace the principal and improve the school through comprehensive curriculum reform, professional development, extending learning time, and other strategies.

http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/pennsylvania-receive-141-million-turn-around-its-persistently-lowest-achieving-s

Pennsylvania got more SIG money the next year, too:

http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/pennsylvania-receive-215-million-turn-around-its-persistently-lowest-achieving-s

And here's how that played out in Philadelphia:

On January 27, 2010, the School District of Philadelphia launched the Renaissance Schools initiative. The initiative is aimed at bringing transformative changes to the District’s lowest performing schools in order to bring about dramatic improvement in student achievement.

Now in its third year, the Renaissance Schools initiative is aimed at bringing transformative changes to the District’s lowest performing schools by working with school communities to recruit and select individuals and organizations that have proven track records of operating and supporting high-achieving schools. (NOTE: IN OTHER WORDS, BY TURNING THE SCHOOLS OVER TO CHARTER OPERATORS)

There are three major components of the Renaissance Schools initiative:

- Identifying chronically low-performing District schools (Renaissance Alert Schools) that are not likely to achieve dramatic improvements without transformative change

- Identifying individuals and organizations that are capable and prepared to turnaround around failing schools in Philadelphia

- Empowering school communities to play an active role in the turnaround and ongoing support of their schools

In April 2012, the School Reform Commission (SRC) authorized The School District of Philadelphia to match Renaissance Schools with the following Turnaround Teams:

Cleveland Elementary = Mastery Charter Schools Inc.

H.R. Edmunds Elementary = String Theory Schools

Jones Middle School = American Paradigm Schools

Thomas Creighton = currently under review

http://webgui.phila.k12.pa.us/offices/r/renaissance-schools


And Pennsylvania got RTTT money TOO:


New turnaround target: 76 schools by 2012

Pennsylvania's application for a piece of the $4 billion federal Race to the Top money calls for Philadelphia to "turn around" 76 low-performing schools by 2012-13 -- eight schools in 2010-11, 40 the following year, and 28 in 2012-13. That is close to a third of all schools in the District.

Such schools will be required to adopt one of four drastic reform strategies approved by the US Department of Education...The mildest of these strategies calls for removal of the principal and intensive staff training. But no more than half of the schools in Philadelphia can use this model, according to federal guidelines. The harshest is closure. In between is "turnaround," replacing the principal and 50 percent of the teachers, and "restart," or hiring outside providers to run the school...

The District was scheduled to release details of the Renaissance plan this week, including a "request for proposal" for potential providers that want to operate "restart" schools. But that was postponed until after the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers votes Thursday on the tentative agreement reached between the District and the union. Turnaround and other aspects of Race to the Top have a huge impact on the contract, including aspects of how teachers are evaluated and compensated.

http://thenotebook.org/blog/102116/philly-set-get-least-118-million-if-pa-wins-rttt-competition

Harrisburg – Governor Tom Corbett today announced that Pennsylvania has been awarded $41,326,299 under the federally-funded “Race to the Top” grant program.

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=7234&PageID=1005857&mode=2&contentid=http://pubcontent.state.pa.us/publishedcontent/publish/cop_hhs/pde/single_web/no_workflow_requried/news_and_media/articles/governor_corbett_announces__41_3_million_federal_education_grant.html


Teacher layoffs in Philadelphia? You betcha!

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/09/15/04pbnk_tfa.h31.html

School closings? Damn right!

http://articles.philly.com/2012-12-15/news/35822509_1_school-closings-neighborhood-high-schools-ken-trump

No money my ass. Between June 2010 & December 2011 the feds gave Pennsylvania AT LEAST $400 MILLION -- ALL OF IT DIRECTED TOWARD THE ULTIMATE GOAL OF FIRING TEACHERS, CLOSING SCHOOLS, & CHARTERIZING SCHOOLS.