What do Providence schools need? The school board apparently thinks it’s high priced consultants.
The Providence School Board is taking some heat after they unanimously voted to give a $5 million contract to a consultant to help turn around three low performing schools in Providence.
Jeffrey Hernandez, the CEO of National Academic Education Partners Inc., has been hired to help improve three Providence High Schools but reports indicate that he was highly criticized by teachers and parents for his work in a Florida school district.
School Board President Keith Oliveira is defending the hire. According to Oliveira, Hernandez was hired to implement a curriculum in Florida schools and his role in Providence will be different.
Image Palm Beach Post
That’s right, teachers, there’s no money for your pension, our school buildings are crumbling, but there’s plenty of money for corporate proponents of high-stakes testing (update below). And “highly criticized” is an understatement. The Palm Beach Post called Hernandez “the most despised person in the Palm Beach County school system.” But, hey, this time will be different!
It’s not clear how a change of role will make a difference. Hernandez was criticized for his “dictatorial” style, “one-size-fits-all” academic initiatives, and “Orwellian control over classrooms”:
The switch to “centralized” control, with Hernandez calling the shots, backfired because Hernandez was unable to gain the respect of most administrators and educators.
School Board members heard reports that Hernandez was condescending and annoyed principals by wasting their time in lengthy meetings where Hernandez refused feedback.
A so-called reformer who won’t listen, eh? Sounds a bit familiar. But more to the point, test zealots like Hernandez are what progressive like me have been warning about, especially for inner city schools (Projo link no longer available).
“At worst, schools have become little more than test-prep factories,” says Robert Schaeffer, executive director of the National Centerfor Fair and Open Testing, a group critical of standardized tests. “Entire curriculums are wrapped around test prep, narrowing the curriculum.”
And, he says, the children who most need a rich education — those who are poor, urban or English language learners — often get little more than “a thin gruel” of test preparation in their classes, a far cry from the intellectually stimulating coursework offered by private schools, which do very little standardized testing.
It remains to be seen what Hernandez will propose for these Providence schools, but his record in Florida of “testing students every three weeks” doesn’t bode well. And given this guy’s record, one can only hope he meets the same opposition here that he met in Florida.
Update: 4/2/2012 Note that because these funds are federal, the question is only of the Hobson’s choice faced by districts with struggling schools of buckets of cash for “testing on steriods” or none. This isn’t an issue directly affecting city budgets.
Just more reason to implement a voucher system and let parents decide what school to send their children to.
This cuts to the fundamental problem of progressivism. Not everything can be a simple balancing test decided by “experts” on a case by case basis. Society needs hard restrictions on government and many of them or it will inevitably result in the kind of incompetence, elitism, and abuses described in the article. Either you philosophically support government picking winners and losers or you don’t support it. Either you philosophically support top-down government control of the schools or you don’t support it. Either you philosophically support public policy set by the “intellectual elite” or you don’t support it.
Progressives want to have it both ways and support the strong arm of government ONLY when it is being directly used by “their people” to accomplish “their ends.” But the apparatus of government is far too complex and the incentives too perverse for it to actually be controlled in this way, so we end up with travesties like this.
The one thing government is and has always been wretched at is providing specialized services that fit individual needs, which is exactly what education is supposed to be. Private schools, by contrast, have become very good at this, including the uber-expensive private school your kids attend, Russ, while your progressive heart bleeds in the minivan each day for contributing to the racist, classist system you despise so much.
“Progressives want to have it both ways and support the strong arm of government ONLY when it is being directly used by ‘their people’ to accomplish ‘their ends.’”
It’s a bit more nuanced and certainly there are some radicals on the left who don’t, but, yes, that’s exactly what progressives want and in contrast to the right-wing meme that progressives are always for big and intrusive government. As Willam Blum said, we don’t want big government or small government; we don’t want more government or less government; we want government on our side.
William Blum can speak for himself. I realize that such a Utopian ideal is impossible to achieve in practice. Even if “my group” (whatever that is) was successful in hijacking the reins of government for a brief period through some sort of popular momentum, the power, perverse incentives, and political realities would quickly corrupt any noble intentions. And after we increased the scope of government to correct whatever we perceived as “the problems,” those same terrible instruments would then be available to the opposition when they took control back from us, which is what the hiring of this consultant illustrates perfectly. If it were some progressive group, or Alfie Kohn, then you would be applauding the contract it because it would be “your guy” calling the shots. But it happens to be somebody you don’t like, so you oppose it. This is progressivism at its core, but it’s not an intellectually and morally principled standpoint – it’s just a utilitarian weighing based on the circumstances to further your own Utopian ends. Libertarians, for the most part, realize that in order to be free of this kind of unjust imposition, you must extend the same courtesy and not impose on others. This is why a true market in education would be so beneficial – it would allow both of us to have the types of schools that we want. But you’re not happy with that – you want everyone to accept your progressive vision of education and no other visions are allowed.
“it’s just a utilitarian weighing based on the circumstances to further your own Utopian ends.” Yes, that annoying habit of supporting only what I think works and rejecting what doesn’t, all to further the crazy, utopian idea of quality public education. As for libertarians, I’m with this one… “A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest.” Thomas Jefferson (to Joseph C. Cabell), 1818 January 14.
I thought you had grown out of your Jefferson quote spamming phase. I don’t know how many hundreds of times we have to tell you that we don’t care what he put in his letters.
Yes, what does Jefferson know about libertarianism anyway? I can’t help but note the irony of that comment immediately following one suggesting that it’s progressives who allow no alternative visions.
Your quotes are fatiguing because they are simply not relevant to anything. Nobody brought up Jefferson or made an issue of what his views were on public education or any other matter. It’s a logical fallacy to constantly appeal to his authority on these issues.
Nobody brought up libertarianism either, but that didn’t stop you, did it?
The libertarian argument would be more convincing if it weren’t for all the successful government-run education systems around the world, including those that we’re supposed to compare unfavorably to.
I don’t think you’ll find many who would claim that public education *can’t* succeed, and each country is a very different case. I think a market in education is generally the most efficient and effective model, and certainly in the United States where that type of system is more fitting for our overall culture and economy.
When you look at the successful public school systems in Europe or Asia, they sure as hell aren’t using the “progressive”/constructivist education model, although that really has to do with methodology within the schools. In any case, I would put our private schools up against their public schools any day.
Finland’s education system is the most effective in the world and has absolutely no trace of any private enterprise in it. Just well-paid, effective teachers and the only measurement they use is random sampling. I guess in some ways, it’s utilizing our private education system’s example of not being tested on anything.
Agreed, but some things to consider:
- Finland doesn’t educate illegal immigrants like we do in the United States
- Finland is a homogeneous country with a strong sense of community and shared responsibility
- Teachers in Finland have to meet far more rigorous standards than teachers in the United States
- Unions and labor laws don’t play the same role in Finland that they play in the United States (protecting the jobs of all teachers, no matter what)
“When you look at the successful public school systems in Europe or Asia, they sure as hell aren’t using the “progressive”/constructivist education model…”
Actually, the model in Finland is quite progressive. To focus on the other differences while ignoring that is to ignore the elephant in the room.
Ravitch: Why Finland’s schools are great (by doing what we don’t)
– quote –
I was asked about current trends in U.S. education, and Finnish educators were astonished by the idea that our governments intend to evaluate teachers by their students’ test scores; that made no sense to them. They were also surprised that we turn children over to “teachers” who have only a few weeks of training and no masters’ degree. They did not understand the idea of “merit pay.” They are paid more if they do more work for the community, but they can’t understand why teachers should get a bonus to compete with one another for test scores. Since they don’t have comparative test scores for their students, our practices don’t make sense to them. Nor do they understand the benefits of competition among teachers who ought to be collaborating.
The current crop of corporate reformers get very upset by any mention of the Finnish model. They refuse to believe that a nation can have great schools without relying on high-stakes testing. They insist that Finland cannot serve as a model because it lacks racial diversity; but they fall silent when one points out that Finland has the same demographics as Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, and Norway, yet gets superior results. I am troubled by this “lacks diversity” argument, because it implies that African-American and Hispanic children cannot benefit by having highly experienced teachers, small classes, and a curriculum rich in the arts and activities.
Here’s an interesting contrast: We claim to be preparing students for global competitiveness, and we reward mastery of basic skills. Our guiding principles: Competition, accountability, and choice. Finland has this singular goal: to develop the humanity of each child. Isn’t that a shocking goal? Their guiding principles: equity, creativity, and prosperity.
– end quote –
I find it ironic that you would quote Diane Ravitch, since she is a well-known critic of progressive/constructivist education. She slams it every opportunity she gets in her writings and interviews. You should also know that she is a self-proclaimed fan of private Catholic education, which has a lot more in common with Finnish schools than our public schools do. The problem, she says, is that she doesn’t know how to scale it to the entire U.S. – especially in poorer areas where English literacy is low.
While I agree with her on many principles, my main problem with Ravitch is that she seems most comfortable in the role of a shill – she tailors her message to whoever the audience is and has found the public union crowd to be a very powerful and lucrative set of allies at the moment. But at the same time, she calls for reforming tenure, evaluating teacher literacy, requiring stricter standards for teachers qualifications, and getting the worst teachers out of the classroom. She conveniently doesn’t mention these things in front of the roaring union crowds she now attracts.
You find it ironic. I find it apropos. First off, her position on progressive education is more nuanced than you make out.
See In Defense of Diane Ravitch.
But she’s also an educator who’s changed her mind after seeing the deleterious effects of standardized testing. We need quite a few more people like her to speak out.
As for lucrative? What’s clear from payouts like one just handed to Hernandez , there’s much more money in riding the crest of this wave than in swimming against that current. I have a lot of respect for someone willing to pass up these kinds of contracts to do what one thinks is right.
That’s kind-hearted of you, Russ, but please don’t worry yourself too much about Diane Ravitch. As far as I can tell, she is doing quite well for herself and has a full calendar booked with union speaking engagements. Don’t expect to hear her more “nuanced arguments” expressed at these events. Hey – a person’s gotta eat…
You can attack standardized testing all you like. I’ve never advanced it as a solution to anything.
-I don’t know about the illegal immigrants thing (not sure what relevance it has).
-I’m not sure what role the homogenous culture issue has to play. I know it’s constantly used as a reason why we can’t have a nice social welfare system, but frankly, I doubt that if the United States were all one homogenous culture that any privatization proponents would drop their opposition to social programs.
Furthermore, Finland isn’t really that homogenous; there are ethnic Finns as well as ethnic Swedes in Finland, plus a host of other ethnicities. If anything, the Swedes in Finland are stronger than any ethnic group in the USA, since they have an entire legitimate political party devoted to their culture (and language), something which you don’t see from any ethnic group in the USA (in fact, no ethnic group would dare form something like the Swedish People’s Party).
-This may be true about standards, but those standards are administered differently. Finland’s stated goal is equality of education for its students. So that should further hammer away at your homogenous culture point; equal education is a surefire way to lead towards a more homogenous culture. Furthermore, teachers aren’t constantly being evaluated on the test scores of various students.
-As far as unions go, they may not play the same role, but they play an even stronger role. Teachers are not only fully unionized (none of this Teach for America or charter school’s don’t need unionized teachers nonsense), but have a large amount of autonomy in the classroom, to the point they can choose their own textbooks. Without the high-stakes testing, they don’t even have to teach to the test.
I think it’s pretty clear that the Finnish model utilizes virtually none of the “reforms” called for by those which to adopt the charter school model (a bastardization of what charter schools were meant to be) or the privatization model. Just good ol’ fashioned investment in education and services.
It’s relevant because a huge portion of illegal immigrants haven’t had a basic educational foundation and don’t speak English so our education system gets sucked down trying to compensate and bring them up to speed. Even legal immigration is much harder in these European social democratic countries – they guard their benefits very closely.
Homogeneity is relevant because socialization of services and public safety nets work best in cultures that have a high degree of trust and feel like the people receiving the benefits are fundamentally like them. When you have what is viewed as a permanent underclass of people that is perceived as “different” from the classes above it, and is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as being dependent, lazy, or hopeless, it breeds a huge amount of resentment and dysfunction. I’m not just talking about racial self-association, although that is certainly a factor as well.
Unions may be prominent in Finland, but they don’t serve the same function of making all teachers impossible to fire, buying politicians, and raising pay at all costs. If they had NEA leaders acting like thugs threatening politicians, getting arrested, and running around with bullhorns like Crowley, Liedecker, Rainone, etc., the Finnish public and teachers wouldn’t tolerate it for a second.
I’d be with you, except that we have mounds of historical evidence that contradicts exactly that premise, and you ignored my point that Finland is actually fairly heterogeneous in terms of ethnic identities, which undercuts your whole pro-homogeneity argument.
Italians, Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, etc., etc., virtually every immigrant group has been viewed as ethnically inferior to the ones before it, with all your points about the “permanent underclass” being thrown in. And yet all have benefited from a robust public education system, one that largely assimilated them all. The only way out of such issues is to educate everyone together.
Furthermore, nations that have high degrees of trust also are the ones with greater income equality, achieved either through market forces or tax forces. So we’ve got a factor correlated with two other factors.
To be clear, I’m not “anti-immigrant” or “pro-white” or anything like that. I don’t care what somebody’s race or former nationality is. I’m just saying that if you poll and interview people from these European countries, they tend to support their social programs because they perceive the people being helped as fundmentally like them. In other words, they feel like they’re giving somebody who happens to be temporarily in need of a helping hand and expect the same in return if they find themselves out of work or in otherwise in need. In America, a much more common view, held rightly or wrongly, is that there is a permanent dependent underclass of people who have lived off government checks for generations, hold the upper classes in contempt, make no real attempt to find work, scam the system through fraud and disability any way they can, and wouldn’t know how to live if the checks stopped coming. Once a week or so, I walk to a McDonald’s in DC on my afternoon break to buy a $1 cup of coffee and there are 20-30 middle-aged people in soiled tee-shirts just hanging around there shooting the breeze at 2pm, so I understand where this perception comes from.
I have no problem with people who come here legally. Actually, I wouldn’t have any problem with people who come here illegally either, except that they get various forms of public services and welfare without paying income tax. The European countries realize that any welfare state that doesn’t tightly control immigration will go bankrupt in short order. We seem to think that we’re in a position to give away free services to anyone who finds themselves on our soil. As our massive National debt can attest, this is not the case.
As dubious as I am about this guy — and I’m very dubious — it is worth pointing out that this is probably federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) money that’s being spent, and it is fairly difficult to spend that money in a way that is truly constructive and fits the requirements of the law. Especially in a high school. And at this point, because of the scale of SIG, turnaround consulting is a sellers’ market. There were never that many people with a real track record of success in this kind of thing to start with, and now I’m sure they’ve all got way more work than they could ever handle.
Anyway, point is, this money couldn’t be used to just hire more teachers, add music class, keep schools open, etc.
Yes, my understanding is that this is federal money. That’s the point: there’s tons of money but for all the wrong things.
It basically puts the city in a position where they no longer need debate whether this is money well spent, so long as it’s funded. It’s not our money after all. Pay no attention, Providence. Move along.
You dress up the issue in broader terms as irresponsible spending on a “high-priced” reform consultant, but you have acknowledged (or at least implicitly acknowledged) above that you’d have no problem with this if it were some progressive group or expert of your choosing. In other words, your message is really just “more power for us, less power for them,” and there is no principled point to your article at all. The libertarian argument is more principled because we oppose this kind of spending and top-down, one-size-fits-all control even when we agree with what the person has to say.
That only makes sense if you’re not familiar with what progressives education reform actually looks like. Progressive reform resists conformity and standardization.
But if there were a “top-down” movement to promote bottom-up driven process improvement in our schools, then I suppose you’d have me there. I’d support that. (Notably that is how actual continuous improvement works in industry)
You’re not making the correct distinction. It’s top-down because you want all public schools run in X format and following Y criteria as mandated by government accord to your “progressive experts,” such as Kohn, etc. It makes no difference what the specific format and criteria are, or how student-focused they are - it’s the one-size-fits-all public educational model mandated by a central government authority that makes it top-down. Libertarians want parents to be able to choose the type of school their children attend, including progressive-model schools and other types of schools. You and other progressives oppose this kind of school choice and do not allow for this variety of competing methodologies – you want all public school children educated using “your” model and nobody else’s.
The more central point is that you don’t have any real problem with “what” is being done in this article, you just have a problem with “how” it is being done. So to point to things like cost in the title and first paragraph is disingenuous, because you have no real problem with the cost or bringing in these kinds of consultants - you just want them to be “progressive” experts instead of whatever other kinds of experts. You are presenting it as a principled stance when really it’s just utilitarian to advance your own ideology.
At the risk of sounding naive, how does shelling out $5 million for a consultant during tough budget times in which jobs are being cut benefit anyone associated with Providence schools? It’s the equivalent of high-powered lawyers who are the only winners in a divorce.
It’s so reminiscent of Carcieri spending $15K on a lawyer from out of state to file a friend of the court brief in an SSM lawsuit – he really couldn’t find a competent conservative lawyer in Rhode Island who’d do it for less? Reminds me of a former co-worker’s observation about outside experts: “They’re experts because they’re from more than 50 miles away.”
David,
That would appear to be the way of the Democrats. How many times did Cicilline go outside Rhode Island for design plans? It’s a laugh that you would only use a Carcieri example to highlight it.
Russ,
What exactly have progressives put forth as reforms?
One thing to note is that when you’re doing something that is demonstrably harmful (like focusing on high-stakes testing or performance reviews), simply stopping is an improvement. Peter Scholtes said it’s like telling someone to stop banging their head against a wall and having them ask, yes, but if we remove the wall what will I bang my head against?
I’ve posted descriptions of progressive education before. Here’s something a little diffferent that is maybe more helpful for parents…
“What to Look for in a Classroom”
I never understand why our lack of homogeny is an issue in education discussions….unless you think this country has never, ever provided a decent public education. It seems the more common complaint is that the state of public education today is not what it once was - but we have always had the same “problem” of a heterogenous society and high immigration rates. It must have been even more difficult during our grandparents’ time when the immigration rate was even higher and the students spoke many more languages.
My skepticism about charter schools is that if they’re so great, why wouldn’t we institute their program in every school for every student? The idea of schools competeing for students seems extremly cynical when one has to win a lottery to go to a “good” school and we just don’t give a damn about those who don’t win. Charter schools have an interest to massage their results by kicking out or not accepting those who don’t perform to the highest degree; just fix the whole damn system.
This only really came to my attention after the politifact article today. But I cannot understand how this is not a bigger story. The guy is currently under investigation for deleting public records. He admitted fault for discharging sick time illegally and had to pay restitution. He’s nothing but another rich, mustachioed swindler.
Is Angel going to blame this one on David too? After all, I’m sure there was no pressure to have his appointed school board vote unanimously to drop $5.3 million on one man, right?
And where is the leadership from either Gist or the Governor on this? I mean, this is a district that just fired all of its teachers because it was broke. But it has $5,300,000 to spend on this slick shyster? So what, so he can park his tax-free yacht in John Kerry’s old spot?
Really?
Am I the only one whose blood’s boiling at this? At Providence, a city with outrageous property taxes, that’s trying to change hundreds of years of common law and tax not-for-profit institutions, that is begging for more money from the state, that is reneging on labor contracts, we have the money for a $5.3 million consultant?
No one person is worth that. No individual can turn around an entire district like that. Batman couldn’t do it for $5.3 million dollars. This guy can’t either.
Where’s the oversight? The press clearly isn’t covering this enough. There should be a political price to pay for wantonly wasting money like this. It borders on criminal. And often it is. Hence all the investigations.
Oh and before we get to the “you can only use the School Improvement Grant for these consultants” argument, read about all you can do here and see the guidance here.
This only really came to my attention after the politifact article today. But I cannot understand how this is not a bigger story. The guy is currently under investigation for deleting public records. He admitted fault for discharging sick time illegally and had to pay restitution. He’s nothing but another rich, mustachioed swindler.
Is Angel going to blame this one on David too? After all, I’m sure there was no pressure to have his appointed school board vote unanimously to drop $5.3 million on one man, right?
And where is the leadership from either Gist or the Governor on this? I mean, this is a district that just fired all of its teachers because it was broke. But it has $5,300,000 to spend on this slick con man? So what, so he can park his tax-free yacht in John Kerry’s old spot?
Really?
Am I the only one whose blood’s boiling at this? At Providence, a city with outrageous property taxes, that’s trying to change hundreds of years of common law and tax not-for-profit institutions, that is begging for more money from the state, that is reneging on labor contracts, we have the money for a $5.3 million consultant?
No one person is worth that. No individual can turn around an entire district like that. Batman couldn’t do it for $5.3 million dollars. This guy can’t either.
Where’s the oversight? The press clearly isn’t covering this enough. There should be a political price to pay for wantonly wasting money like this. It borders on criminal. And often it is. Hence all the investigations.