Teaching is an Honorable Profession

In 1974, I was junior mathematics major at Carnegie Mellon University.  I had no idea what I was going to do after I graduated.  And senior year was about to begin.  When I thought about the different experiences I had as an undergraduate, the one that really fed my passion was teaching high school students in a summer Upward Bound program at the university.  My girl friend (who became my wife) suggested that this would be a great career for me... "Become a teacher... you love working with the students, you care about them and you have the ability to help people learn..." Teaching is an honorable profession. That fall I scheduled the appropriate courses for my senior year, student taught in the spring and became a teacher.

On a trip home to visit my parents, I proudly announced that I was becoming a high school mathematics teacher.  My parents thought I lost my mind.  "Are you crazy? You should be a doctor or a lawyer!  You have talent!"  My mother cried; my father stated sternly "you are selling yourself short".  At this point in my life when my parents told me to turn right I turned left... so I assumed I must have made a correct choice.

As a first year teacher I was up to my ears in learning how to become a quality teacher.  I paid little attention to the union, the administration, tenure, seniority and the politics of education.  I just wanted to get better fast.  I found that my college classes did little to prepare me for the challenges of teaching.  I also found that the school provided me with minimal support, it was sort of a sink or swim mentality.  Most of my colleagues worked in an isolated fashion. I was lucky if I found one or two colleagues who might give me some advice. After a few years, I grew as a teacher and received tenure. Pennsylvania school regulations stated that if I completed two successful years of teaching I would receive tenure. Tenure meant that I could not be fired unless I had two consecutive years of unsatisfactory performance.  Pennsylvania regulations also stated that I had 6 years to complete 24 post-baccalaureate credits and then I would receive my permanent certification.  Once those two requirements were obtained, I was good to go.

In 35 years in public education I have experienced teaching as a teacher of mathematics, a high school principal, a mathematics supervisor, a coordinator of instructional technology and CEO of a charter high school.  Here are some impressions:

• To this day I believe that teaching is an honorable profession. However, I realized very quickly that America does not agree.  This is reflected by the very low quality of teacher preparation programs, the low pay compared to other professions, the constant negative media focus on student underachievement, the attack on publically funded employees, the attempt to eliminate teacher pensions, the hatred for teachers unions.  
• Teachers unions were the best thing to happen to the profession.  When I entered the profession, teachers unions were just evolving.  Teacher salaries were pitifully low.  My starting salary in 1975 was $8,700, while my friend, who graduated from CMU in engineering, was starting at $36,000.  Benefits were minimal, nepotism was common, professional development was non-existent, class sizes were huge and the Principal (for better or worse) was the final word.  The union improved working conditions, provided a reasonable salary and assured teachers of due process during disputes. 
• Teachers unions were the worst thing to happen to the profession.  They lessened our perception, both internally and externally as a "professional".  Doctors, lawyers, accountants and other professionals are seen as highly educated, talented and worthy of both respect and compensation. Unions, by the specifics of our negotiated contracts with school districts, created the perception that we were laborers that work set hours, under very specific rules and are in an adversarial relationship with the administration. Unions focus on teachers, not on education and not on the students.  
• The vast majority of teachers are very caring individuals who are in the profession to help students move forward.  They truly enjoy working with children and their greatest compensation is not the salary, it is the thrill of success - students learning.  I'm not naive to think we would do this for minimal compensation, I'm simply saying our passion is learning.  

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Public Education in general and teachers in particular are currently under attack.  As I have articulated in many previous blogposts, the world has changed.  Since The Nation At Risk report in 1983, we are living in a world where education for all students aligned with the 21st century economy is necessary.  However, 30 years since the report, the institution of public education remains entrenched in its traditions.  There is a vested interest (financial and political) in maintaining the institutions that make up our traditional education system - School Boards, Unions, University Schools of Education, Book Companies, State Boards of Education, etc.  Since the "system" has not shown the flexibility or desire to change/reform/react to this new economy, politicians, business leaders and academics have entered the fray.

The most recent attempt to rattle the public education system was through the courts in a California suit about teacher tenure and seniority. Specifically this recent court ruling, Vergara v. California, attacked due process statutes that protect teacher seniority and tenure. The argument presented by the plaintiffs suggested these protections led to the retention of "grossly ineffective" teachers in schools with large minority and poor populations and thus violated the students' civil rights.  Similar arguments are being made in state legislatures around the country.

Let's break this down with a quick local case study.  In 2012, the Pittsburgh Public Schools had to layoff over 300 teachers.  Standard operating procedure would be to layoff teachers by seniority (i.e. number of years in the system or in other words "last hired... first fired".) Pushback occurred from the community to take into account factors other than seniority. The argument between the district, the union, the foundations and the community played out in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  The fight came down to the need of the union to find a fair way to layoff teachers versus the need of the district to make sure the best teachers were retained. Ultimately, this becomes a question of how can you know when a teacher is doing a good job or not.  What made this discussion so frustrating, was that the union and the district had just spent two years using a $40 million Gates Foundation grant to create a national model for developing quality teaching in the classroom.  Both sides had worked on an evaluation model that would identify quality teaching.  But when the layoffs were to occur, the union defaulted to the contract and state tenure/seniority regulations.  The district wanted to use the new evaluation system in determining who got laid off.  This issue came down to basic mistrust between parties with the belief that the other side will always do the wrong thing.  What is the wrong thing?

When the district lays off higher priced teachers to save money (not because they are doing a bad job).  

When the union defends an incompetent teacher rather than encourages that teacher to get better or leave the profession.  

If the union and the district can't figure this out then the politicians and corporate  community will weigh in.

Amanda Ripley, a writer, author and reporter, recently wrote an article that provides a third way to approach the whole issue of quality teachers.  In her editorial, Train Teachers Like Doctors. she recommends an innovative method for selecting and preparing new teachers. Her approach is modeled after one implemented in Finland.  It eliminates the knee jerk reaction that is so predictable in education dialogue by focusing on who is chosen to attend schools of education and the nature of their preparation.

Unlike the brawls we’ve been having over charter schools and testing, these changes go to the heart of our problem — an under trained educator force that lacks the respect and skills it needs to do a very hard 21st-century job. (In one large survey, nearly two in three teachers reported that schools of education do not prepare teachers for the realities of the classroom.) Instead of trying to reverse engineer the teaching profession through complicated evaluations leading to divisive firings, these changes aspire to reboot it from the beginning.

The Finnish model is rigorous on two levels.  First, only the best, brightest and most motivated students are able to apply and be accepted into teacher preparation programs. Second, teacher preparation is much more demanding than currently exists in America. Courses are more rigorous, hands on experience in actual classrooms begins immediately upon acceptance into the program and student teaching time is doubled.

Ripley's recommendation is powerful on two levels.  It eliminates the standard adversarial dialogue among the existing constituents - districts and unions.  And it professionalizes the most important vocation - teaching.  She suggests that the way to break the current system's inertia and move education forward is to start at the beginning by getting the best and brightest individuals into the profession.  It is hard to argue with her approach.  Please read this article... It is excellent.  

A final point.  This discussion of teacher quality seems to always focus on minority students, poverty and the urban core.  Please note that any measure of education quality, whether it is test scores, college retention, an educated workforce, or customer satisfaction suggests that public education in America, in the cities and the suburbs, has fallen far behind the rest of the world.  We are talking about all teachers and all schools.  Focusing the argument strictly on poverty and the have nots, although of value, does not get at the overall state of education in this country.

I have had a wonderful 35 year career in public education.  Some failures, many successes and much learned.  Both my mother and father apologized to me many years later.  They were proud of my accomplishments as a teacher and very supportive when I opened a charter school.  But little has changed regarding our society's perception of teachers.  Now they are under attack. It is time to professionalize what we do.

We need to make teaching an honorable profession.  

A Charter School Story

This past week it was announced that Career Connections Charter High School (CCCHS) in Pittsburgh will close at the end of the 2013-14 school year.

Career Connections to Close

Career Connections was founded by the Boys and Girls Club of Pittsburgh and chartered by the Pittsburgh Public Schools in 1999.  The school focused on a real world educational experience through skill building, internships and an innovative student run store.  The mission of the school was to prepare students to be career ready upon graduation.  The school got off to a strong start in 2000 with both a career educator at its helm and the Boys and Girls Club as its partner.  The school opened in a building on Penn Avenue in Lawrenceville a few doors down from the Boys and Girls Club.

A number of events occurred in the early years of the school that caused some significant bumps in the road.  First, their founding principal, a talented public school educator - Joe Yavorka, passed away suddenly in 2004.  In 2006, under a new administration, they attempted to charter a middle school.  The middle school's charter application was turned down by the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS).  The state appeals board overruled PPS and approved the charter.  The opening of the school was fought by the Pittsburgh Public Schools on the grounds of facility infractions and they ultimately refused to recognize the charter. Career Connections decided not to fight the city and closed the middle school 3 months after it opened.  

At the same time the middle school issue was occurring (2006), the district was reviewing the Career Connections High School as their charter was up for a five year renewal.  The district alleged that the school was out of compliance as follows:

PowerPoint Presentation to the Pittsburgh Board of Trustees

Rather than revoke their charter, the PPS Board gave the Career Connections 6 months to address these concerns and reviewed it again in 2007.  The district approved the renewal in 2007 after the school fulfilled the requirements that the district demanded.  During the next five years the school struggled through leadership transitions, below average student achievement and a drop in student membership.  

In 2012, five years later, the school's charter came up for renewal again.  This time the charter was revoked by the district, revoked by the state appeals board, and the school was finally closed when the Commonwealth Court approved revoking the charter.  The district's claim was the school had poor achievement, a poorly documented curriculum and did not offer an alternative to existing programs in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.  

This is the point in the discussion where charter school critics often say, "charter schools are no good"; or "charter schools just take money out of the system"; or "what we need is to rely on our public schools".  If it was only that easy.  If you read the article in last weeks P-G, you will find students and staff that are deeply saddened by the school's closing.  And if you look at the school's results, it is clear they were struggling to raise test scores.  What the district found 7 years ago (lack of curriculum, lack of innovation) remained.  SO THE SCHOOL WAS CLOSED.  

Now that is a new concept... closing a low achieving school.  The charter school law states specifically that this can be done... and has been done across the state.  Thus the charter school law provides real accountability to improve education or lose the school. How does that work with "public schools"?  What happens when your neighborhood school is mediocre, has low achievement and/or is out of compliance with federal, state or local statutes. NOTHING. The public school can go on in that manner for decades. The only recourse for the community is to try and change the school board and hope they can "reform" the school.  The only recourse for families with school age children is to move to a new community (if they can afford it), pay to go to a private school or attend the underachieving neighborhood school.  

Let's take a look at all of the high schools in Allegheny County and see how they did on the PSSAs compared to Career Connections Charter High School.  This data is compiled from the Pennsylvania Department of Education website from the 2012 PSSA scores and Title I Free/Reduced Lunch measure of poverty.  In this table, the schools are ranked from best to worst using the combined percentage (Reading and Math) of students in 11th grade who were proficient or advanced on the PSSA exam. This means that if all the students were proficient in 11th grade, the total score would be 100% Reading plus 100% Math for a total of 200.  Mt. Lebanon was the highest at 183.8.  Schools in yellow are charter schools.  The last column represents the percentage of each school's student body that receives a free or reduced lunch due to low income.  

What conclusions can we draw from this data?  What questions do you have?  

1. In general, test scores are highly correlated to income.  The schools with the least amount of poverty have the best test scores, those with the most poverty have the worst test scores. No surprise.   

2. Charter schools on average work with extremely poor populations (65% <=> 86%).  That is also true of City of Pittsburgh schools and MON Valley schools.  Basically this is a product of middle class flight to the suburbs.  

3. Which schools are high achieving?  Are you more impressed by North Allegheny HS (179.2), the 3rd highest achieving school (with the least amount of poverty at 3.7%) or by City Charter High School (164.5) as the 10th highest achieving school (with a majority of students in poverty at 65.7%?) 

4. Which schools are under achieving?  Are you more upset by Woodland Hills (116.9), the 34th highest school (64.3% poverty) or South Allegheny the 47th highest school (43.4% poverty)?  

5. In fact, the bricks and mortar charter schools tend to outperform the public schools with the same level of poverty (Propel Homestead vs. Westinghouse; Career Connections vs. Wilkinsburg; Northside Urban Pathways vs. Clairton).  

6. The Cyber Charter schools are performing quite low in any comparison.  

One might conclude that charter schools are attempting to provide innovative programs to poor, at-risk students with some success.  One might also conclude that there is a lot of variability in the suburban schools.  And one might notice that the Pittsburgh Public Schools has magnets (schools of choice) that are successful and comprehensive schools (neighborhood schools) that are not.

And what about Career Connections Charter High School?  They ranked 45th out of 61 schools. They had higher achievement than 16 schools.  Let's look at those 16 schools.  

• 6 are City of Pittsburgh Public Schools
• 4 are Suburban Public Schools
• 6 are Public Charter Schools
• 2 are Bricks and Mortar schools with open enrollment
• 1 is a Bricks and Mortar school (Academy) for adjudicated youth
• 2 are Cyber Charter Schools
• 1 is a Charter School (Spectrum) for severely disabled youth who are ranked last because they don't take the PSSA

So Career Connections lost its charter and is out of business... what about the 16 schools who ranked below them.

10 are district public schools and are here to stay.  They never get reviewed and are never closed down.  The only exception occurred in Duquesne School District.  Duquesne High School was academically and financially bankrupt and two neighboring school districts were forced by the state to take the Duquesne High School students.  

6 of the schools that achieved lower than Career Connections are charters. These charters get reviewed annually and are rechartered or lose their charter every 5 years.

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I am not defending Career Connections Charter High School.  Frankly, I don't know enough about their program to determine whether they should have had their charter renewed. However, their closing raises three key points in the education dialogue:

1. Only Charter Schools have true accountability.  Every five years they are reviewed and brought up for rechartering.  They can lose their charter just as Career Connections did and close.

2. Clearly one set of test scores is not adequate to measure a school's achievement.  The data points out that poverty is a huge variable that has a severe effect on achievement. Ignoring poverty in comparing schools is simply mean spirited and and a self-fulfilling prophesy. Do you really believe that the Mt. Lebanon School District - its faculty, programming and organizational structure - would obtain the highest achievement if they worked with a population where 80% of the students lived in poverty?   

3. This whole discussion comes back to the issue of "school choice".  If every American family had access to a quality education we would not have a problem with education in America.  The PSSA proficiency data above has a range from 29.6 to 183.8 out of 200 (excluding the two special needs schools).  Some schools in Allegheny County are great and some are terrible and many are just OK.

When you read the Post-Gazette articles about Wilkinsburg or Career Connections, you find children and families desperate for a quality education.  The parents at Career Connections left the city schools and chose a charter school for their children.  That particular choice is now gone.  The students will go back to their neighborhood school, or to a magnet or charter school, or will move.

The political left sees the school choice movement (charters, vouchers) as an attack on public education and an attempt to bust the unions.  The political right sees school choice as a methodology for using market forces and entrepreneurism to force change in large bureaucratic school systems.  What is telling from the chart above is who is taking advantage of the charter school movement.  When charter schools began, critics said they would take the best students, the cream of the crop, and leave the rest for the public schools to contend with.  In Allegheny County, the charter schools work with the poorest families, adjudicated youth and special needs youth.  So do the schools in the Mon Valley and Pittsburgh.

Both the left and right are wrong.  This is simply about equity. About parents trying to find a good school for their children. And lower income families wanting equal opportunities for their children.  I would make an argument from the chart above, that there is a class war going on in Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and America.  You can say whatever you want about Career Connections, but I tell you this... these were good hearted people who were attempting to provide a quality education to students who have very few options.  It's a shame they did not succeed.  The same goes for the students in Wilkinsburg, Clairton, Duquesne, Braddock, McKees Rocks, etc.  What options do they have?  I guess as long as you don't live in Wilkinsburg, that's not your problem.    

What to do about Wilkinsburg - Part 3?

In two previous blogposts, I wrote about the state of education in Wilkinsburg, PA.  The first was a background piece on the town and the second proposed strategies for providing our youth with a quality education.  The premise of these strategies was that you could not "fix" the district, but would have to develop a brand new methodology for educating our students.  Those posts occurred early in March.  Here are the news headlines from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that have transpired in the last 60 days since those posts.  

Wilkinsburg School District truancy officer has assault record ...  (Mar 7, 2014)

Former Wilkinsburg program director accused of stealing 3-D printer ...  (Mar 9, 2014)

Wilkinsburg's woes: Troubled district has a new embarrassment ...  (Mar 11, 2014)

Former Wilkinsburg school official held for court on theft charge ...  (Mar 13, 2014)

Wilkinsburg school board to resume meeting - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Mar 27, 2014)

Wilkinsburg school board votes to fire superintendent - Pittsburgh ... (Mar 27, 2014)

Welcome change: Wilkinsburg schools were due for a new leader ... (Apr 1, 2014)

Now point out positive aspects of Wilkinsburg and its schools ... (Apr 1, 2014)

Wilkinsburg substitute superintendent optimistic in tackling truancy ... (Apr 6, 2014)

DA conducting forensic audit of Wilkinsburg after-school program ... (Apr 16, 2014)

Details of PSO's upcoming Wilkinsburg Community Concert (Apr 23, 2014)

Wilkinsburg after-school program overcomes rocky year - Pittsburgh ... (May 1, 2014)

Wilkinsburg addresses chronic truancy issues - Pittsburgh Post ... (May 4, 2014)

Wilkinsburg schools consider possible curriculum changes ... (May 8, 2014)

Wilkinsburg School District finds $65,000 in sick days errors ... (May 21, 2014)

Pittsburgh Public Schools hires Wilkinsburg leader as deputy ...  (May 28, 2014)

Wilkinsburg school board 'disappointed' after superintendent's ... (May 29, 2014)

Wilkinsburg budget cuts teachers, expands courses - Pittsburgh Post ...  (May 30, 2014)

18 articles in a two month time period about one of the smallest districts in Allegheny County.  Obviously, the Post-Gazette feels this is an important topic, or that readers are interested in what happens in Wilkinsburg, or "train wrecks" sell newspapers.  We are served a steady diet of bad press, gross incompetence and doom about our schools.

Let's look at some background to these stories and what is currently going on in the school district.  There is a local advocacy group in our town called Neighbors Unite Wilkinsburg.

Neighbors Unite Wilkinsburg (NUW) is a non-partisan, grassroots effort whose mission is to encourage Wilkinsburg residents’ participation in local government.

NUW endorses candidates for office, either on Borough Council or the School Board, who are progressive, reform minded and want to improve Wilkinsburg in some substantial way. To their credit, NUW has helped to obtain a majority on the Borough Council that have made substantial improvements in our community regarding trash removal, fire protection and creating a community development corporation.  Last November they were successful at supporting progressive candidates for school board. Four new school board members endorsed by NUW were elected and one of these new board members became the president of the board.

We are already beginning to see the results of this new board.  They have done a large amount of research into the district's financial condition, its operations and its academic needs.  As the articles state, they fired the current superintendent (after only one year in the district,) dismissed a consulting firm that was doing very little for a lot of money, engaged financial and program audits, worked on HR issues, agreed with the union to a new contract and put in place an academic plan that includes more higher level classes and a consolidation of the middle and high schools.  One of their best moves was to hire a talented acting superintendent from the local Intermediate Unit to clean house.  She was making great headway, but after just a few months she took an assistant superintendent job in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.  So the good news is that they are trying to clean up this huge mess; the bad news is they don't currently have a superintendent and are only beginning to understand the depth of incompetence and dysfunction in the district.

As this is going on, the Post-Gazette is publishing articles (almost daily) about corruption in the borough.  Here's another headline from this week's paper:

Wilkinsburg schools report more costly bookkeeping lapses, June 10, 2014 9:59 PM, by Mary Niederberger / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

It never ends. Ok... I get it.  We are a crummy little town that is used by the media to demonstrate how poor people and people of color can't get their act together.  We are the poster child for everything that is wrong with the inner city, with minorities and with local government.  After the 18 articles were published, this editorial was printed last Sunday in the Post-Gazette.

Lesson learned?: Positive steps in Wilkinsburg may improve schools 

Teachers in the Wilkinsburg School District have swallowed a bitter pill in the form of a new contract that could be a prescription for improvement.  The Wilkinsburg Education Association ratified the agreement with the district despite the fact that it means up to 18 teachers could lose their jobs. The contract permits merging the staffs of the district’s middle and high schools, which will allow more flexibility so the same teachers can provide instruction to students on both levels. In turn, that will make room for honors courses in four subjects and, in the future, some advanced placement courses.  Failure to provide enough challenging material for Wilkinsburg’s best students has been just one of the many problems that plague the financially strapped district. This step in the right direction is a good one, and the union and board members are to be commended for making a difficult choice.

In recent years, the leadership of the Wilkinsburg district has too often failed to make decisions that put students first. Despite test scores that are the worst in Allegheny County and among the worst in Pennsylvania, the district’s failed oversight meant unconscionably high rates of absenteeism while money was being wasted on an extravagant staff retreat and ineffective outside contractors. A new school board majority that took over late last year has cancelled those contracts and fired the superintendent, all for the good. So, too, was finally reaching a new contract with its teachers, whose last pact expired in August 2011. The new deal and the revamped curriculum that it provides is a worthy effort, but Wilkinsburg has a long way to go before all of its problems can be healed.

This editorial has pushed me over the edge.  

I've lived in this borough for 34 years and now the P-G is throwing us a bone by saying that the Board produced a "worthy effort".  Then, just in case we might get big-headed over this great accomplishment they alert us to the fact that "Wilkinsburg has a long way to go before all of its problems can be healed."

What a miserable, cynical and worthless bromide this editorial is.  Decades of earmarking Wilkinsburg for Section 8 housing, decades of real estate redlining, decades of white slum landlords who cashed in on their parents homes and turned us into a transient, poor community with the worst school district in the state.  Decades of no supermarket, no fresh food, no hardware store, no movie theater. The highest taxes (by millage) in the state and the worst school district. Try and find that story in the P-G archives.

Wilkinsburg has been the whipping boy of Allegheny County since the late 1960's when white flight occurred.  Rather than address the issues brought on by white (middle class) flight, our town was used to confirm stereotypes about "the bad element"; and to provide a rationale to the middle class for why they had to leave the city; and to make a final profit off of the aging housing stock.  The P-G never focused on the white power brokers, real estate agents and banks who were pulling the strings.  P-G... go ahead and run your articles, but don't patronize us with your editorials.  You're not willing to tell the full story.  You haven't earned the right to pass judgement.

So where does that leave us in terms of educating Wilkinsburg youth.  As much as I respect the efforts of the new school board president and board members, I believe they will fail at trying to "fix" the district.  It is time to consider moving on.  I will repeat my recommendations as to what we should do in Wilkinsburg:

1. Charter the entire school district and eliminate the existing schools; or 
2. Give each student a voucher to attend another school district or charter school; or 
3. Merge the district with Pittsburgh.

The charter school law allows you to bootstrap an effort to create quality schools without the baggage that existing schools have.  This has been done in New Orleans.

In New Orleans, major school district closes traditional public schools for good (Washington Post)

"But in New Orleans, under the Recovery School District, the Louisiana state agency that seized control of almost all public schools after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in 2005, the traditional system has been swept away." 

The only difference between New Orleans and Wilkinsburg is that New Orleans was devastated by a natural disaster that wiped the schools off the map and Wilkinsburg's disaster was man made.  You can imagine that a proposal to charter the district will inflame existing organizations that advocate for the status quo such as PASBO, PSBA, PSEA, PaFT and PASA. We know this because it happened once already in Wilkinsburg.

In 1994 the Wilkinsburg school district was in the midst of its slide into mediocrity.   A number of passionate citizens successfully ran for the school board to address the issues. When they proposed redesigning Turner Elementary School, the Wilkinsburg Education Association (local teachers union), as well as the National Education Association, fought these new ideas.  

Out of frustration, the district solicited organizations nationally to come in and run the school.  This potential loss of teaching positions engaged the local and national union.  The first event the union organized was a presentation by the head of the Nashville Education Association who was invited to speak in the district about the evils of Alternative Public Schools, Inc. (APS), a company the school board was considering.  After the meeting, I went up to the Nashville speaker and asked "why doesn't the union take the lead in this?  Come to Wilkinsburg and help us create a quality district that meets the needs of all of our students." He stated to me, "that is not our responsibility as a union, that is the responsibility of the school district." 

When it looked like Wilkinsburg would hire the private company to run the school, the head of the National Education Association, Keith Geiger, came to Wilkinsburg to speak.  

The school board went on to hire the private company.  Board members received death threats, slashed tires and constant abuse.  It was an ugly fight.  Look at the picture above. 250 white educators (most from outside of Wilkinsburg) protesting in Wilkinsburg and listening to the national president of their union, while one black child hands out leaflets at the rally. What's wrong with this picture?  

It's 20 years since Wilkinsburg's experiment in privatization.  The Turner School Initiative began with a great deal of controversy and passion.  Once the school board contracted with APS, it became a legal fight in the courts between the district and the union.  The case worked its way up to the state supreme court and then back down again.  Three years after the school opened, the courts shut it down.  It was too early in the school choice movement, and too early in the quality urban education movement to succeed. In fact, it was closed by a Common Pleas Court judge when he found it to not be consistent with the 1997 charter school law that just passed in Pennsylvania. The court battle took its toll on the district. After Turner School was closed and returned to its previous status, the district slid into last place in achievement in the state.  

There are very few successful models of cities or ring-suburbs that have been able to achieve a recovery to their glory days.  In Pittsburgh, the list is long: Wilkinsburg, Duquesne, Clairton, McKeesport, Homestead, Braddock, Rankin, Pitcairn, Wilmerding and on and on.  Wilkinsburg has a leg up on all of these areas.  We have one of the best locations in the county with close proximity to downtown, excellent public transportation, outstanding housing stock at very low prices, proximity to local universities and a main street business district that gets a huge amount of traffic.  Young people are beginning to locate here to take advantage of all that we have to offer.  But in terms of education, we are the worst.  

Charter the district.  Focus on the students.  Give up on fixing the current model.  It's dead. It's time to move forward and create a community whose passion is to nurture our youth. Imagine. 

School as a PUMP or a FILTER - Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids

City Charter High School (City High) served some really bad lunches during its first 8 years. I know... I was the person who negotiated the contract to provide those terrible lunches. A little bit of mystery meat, tater tots, a small dollop of applesauce and that standard school lunch vegetable - ketchup.   At the time we were so busy getting the school up and running that we put an expedient lunch program in place. The meals were prepared off site, delivered in the morning and warmed up at the school.

Traditional School Lunch

64% of City High's students are eligible for a federally funded free or reduced lunch.  This represents about 370 City High students. The eligibility requirements are based on family income.  The chart below shows the guidelines for the 2013-14 school year.  Note that the federal government provides the school with $2.95 for each free lunch.  Unfortunately, during the early years at City High, only 250 eligible students actually ate a school lunch, meaning over 100 students turned down a free meal.  The other 240 non-eligible students either packed a lunch or didn't eat.  The only day when everybody ate lunch was Wednesdays when we had commercial pizza delivered.

Our school lunch program was run by two wonderful ladies (both had children who attended our school) - one full time and one half time.  The net cost to the school, after the federal subsidies, a small amount of revenue, the cost of food and the cost of personnel was $36,000.  That was the final cost to the school to serve lunch to about 40% of our students. We did our best at the time, but our best wasn't very good.

At the end of 2010, two important events changed our lunch program.  Through a massive effort by the White House and Congress a new law passed regarding school lunch programs. The person whose passion for quality nutrition helped to push through the federal law was Michelle Obama.

December, 2010, White House Executive Summary.  The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 represents a major step forward in our nation’s effort to provide all children with healthy food in schools. Increasingly schools are playing a central role in children’s health. Over 31 million children receive meals through the school lunch program and many children receive most, if not all, of their meals at school. With over seventeen million children living in food insecure households and one out of every three children in America now considered overweight or obese, schools often are on the front lines of our national challenge to combat childhood obesity and improve children’s overall health. This legislation includes significant improvements that will help provide children with healthier and more nutritious food options, educate children about making healthy food choices, and teach children healthy habits that can last a lifetime.

The second event was that City High was moving to a new building and had to decide how we would provide lunches in that facility.  This would be an opportunity to get our lunch program right. And if I dragged my heels or cheaped out our effort, I would be held accountable by my extremely militant, very competent, healthy and "won't take no for an answer" Assistant Principal who demanded a quality lunch program.  Thus, I had the opportunity to cost out a state of the art lunch program and learn from the economics and nutritional stories that evolved.

Start up costs for a quality nutritional program are not insignificant. The cost of building the kitchen and fixing up the existing cafeteria in the new building went to the landlord. I'm guessing he spent about $250,000 on the room, including water, sewer, plumbing, electric, walls, ceilings, lighting, etc.  Most schools already have this in place.  We then purchased about $200,000 in equipment to build a fully equipped production kitchen.  The kitchen had a walk in refrigerator, freezer and a dishwasher.  We were able to get a grant from the Heinz Endowments to pay for much of the equipment.  We then hired a chef, who hired a sous chef and kitchen worker and the two women who ran our kitchen previously.  Thus the staff went from 2 to 5.  We worked with the chef to create a menu that was healthy, locally sourced and freshly made.  So what does a newly designed, chef-run, nutritional program look like?

1. We serve a daily breakfast that is nutritional and supported through the federally subsidized nutrition program.  
2. We serve three lunches daily.
3. There are two lunch lines, ala carte and full lunch.  
4. The ala carte offerings include:
1. fresh salads with homemade dressings
2. wraps, both meat or vegetarian, with fresh greens on pita bread
3. yogurts with fresh fruit
4. fresh fruit juices and 1% milk
5. fresh homemade soup
5. The full lunch offerings include:
1. lunches made with no fried food, no french fries or tater tots
2. lunches that include a protein, multiple vegetables, fruit
3. drinks included water, fruit juices and 1% milk
4. fresh homemade soup made daily on site
5. bread often baked on site
6. desserts prepared on site
6. There is an emphasis on creating low sugar low salt meals that are well balanced nutritionally.  
7. We offer a vegetarian option daily.  
8. Students run a recycling program for the cafeteria.
9. There are no vending machines in the school.  

When the school opened in its new facility in January, 2011 the students had a new cafeteria and food service program to contend with.

On the first day back, all students received a free lunch and experienced the new menu. At our parent night, all the parents had a chance to sample the new menu.

Within a few short weeks, an astonishing thing was happening. We were serving over 375 meals daily, and for the first time, staff were buying lunches at the school.

As time went on, and the menu was refined, the number of meals served increased to close to 500 meals per day.  Students were actively engaged in the cafeteria. Teachers bought their lunch at the cafeteria and purchased quarts of soup to take home.










Students enjoyed the food, even new foods they had never tasted before.  Imagine high school students eating Lentil Soup... or Butternut Squash Soup.







So here's the best part from a nutritional perspective:

• 80% of the meals are made from scratch, feeding approximately 500 students a day;
• Fresh fruits and veggies are used daily;
• Minimal frozen or processed foods are used;
• Use of raw proteins (most schools won't attempt this due to unskilled labor);
• Soups, sandwiches, potatoes and salads with house-made dressings totaling 9 meal options daily;
• Minimal disposables; 
• Seasonally inspired cycle menus featuring comfort foods, regional cuisines and dishes that challenge and educate the urban palette; and 
• Local sourcing is used whenever possible.  Here are some menu facts:
• Five Cheese Pizza - house-made whole grain dough and sauce with cheeses made in Pennsylvania.
  Spring medley Pasta - 51% whole grain penne with fresh bulk italian sausage, local cherry tomatoes, broccoli and onions in a light garlic sauce.
  Cajun Tilapia - Farm raised tilapia with Louisiana born spices, Yukon gold over baked potatoes and a house-made southern sweet corn muffin.
  BBQ Chicken - Gerber's Amish Farm, Ohio raised chicken breast topped with house-made sweet and spicy BBQ sauce, caramelized onions and cheddar cheese served with corn on the cob and Grandma's cornbread.

And here's the best part from an economic perspective:

• Even though we are now serving twice as many meals, the net cost to our budget is only $70,000 (versus $36,000 when we were serving mediocre meals to only 250 students daily.)  
• 500 daily meals and 180 school days has us serving 90,000 meals a year at a net cost of $70,000.  
• Another way of saying this is we currently spend 78 cents per meal (over and above the $2.95 provided by the federal government) to provide an amazing program for students, many of whom live in poverty.  
• With over a $9 million overall school budget, that comes to  less than 1% of our budget.  A small price to pay to feed a quality breakfast and lunch to our students.   

So who could argue with providing quality nutrition for our children?  Well, if you've been reading the news recently, here's the answer to that question.

May, 2014, Time Magazine. House GOP Eyes Option for Schools to Skip Healthy Lunches

House Republicans floated a proposal Monday to give schools the ability to opt out of program championed by First Lady Michelle Obama: healthy lunches. The House Appropriations Committee’s 2015 agricultural budget proposal would allow cash-strapped schools to receive a temporary waiver from the U.S. Department of Agriculture healthy lunches standards. The standards, which were created following the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, require school lunch programs to ramp up offerings of fruits and vegetables, while placing caps on sodium, trans fats and calories in cafeteria food. The Maryland-based School Nutrition Association, which has asked Congress to allow schools more flexibility under the nutrition standards, says the standards have caused a financial burden for some of the 55,000 school nutrition professionals it represents.

Yes, that's right, we need to keep feeding our children high sodium, high sugar crap because four years after the legislation was passed, a number of districts are struggling.  A deeper look into the "struggle" unveils the dark side of the school lunch discussion.  At the center of this controversy is the School Nutrition Association.

June, 2014, Washington Post. Catherine Rampell Op-Ed. Kids hate school lunches? Let them eat cake.

...(the new guidelines) were also implemented with strong support from the School Nutrition Association, a lobbying group that represents school food professionals.  Now, four years later, the association has changed its tune and is lobbying Congress to gut the new nutritional requirements by letting districts effectively opt out of them altogether. Judging from a House Appropriations Committee vote last week, Republicans look eager to push through the lobby’s demands.

Rest assured, the School Nutrition Association says this alimentary about-face has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that half its revenue now comes from industry sources, as its spokeswoman recently told The Post. Or that the biggest sponsors of the organization’s most recent annual convention included PepsiCo, Domino’s Pizza, Sara Lee and Schwan Food, which reportedly sells pizzas to more than three-quarters of America’s 96,000 K-12 schools. (Pizza, remember, counts as a vegetable serving for school-meal purposes, thanks to the last time Congress decided to improve school nutritional standards.) Or that corporate members comprise a third of participants in the association’s annual legislative conference.

Basically, the new nutrition guidelines are cutting into the profits of companies that provide the traditional chicken fingers, tater tots and other processed products that our high in sodium and sugar.  When the School Nutrition Association makes their argument to allow waivers to the new guidelines, they try to obscure the issue by stating that children don't like fresh fruit or vegetables, or don't like whole wheat bread products. They claim the fresh food goes into the garbage and lunch sales are down, thus schools are losing money.

The School Nutrition Association finds a completely different reaction than what City High experienced with its lunch program. I don't doubt that some school lunch programs are not working.  This occurs in schools where the adults have not bought in and are critical in front of the students.  The process of change cannot occur without local advocates passionate for their lunch programs to succeed.  In fact, over 90% of school districts report that moving to the new nutrition standards has worked.  So there is a huge gap between what SNA states and what the majority of school districts experience.  Meanwhile, we are now in a position where Congress is considering going backwards in order to placate the large, corporate food industry.  Sometimes I think we hate our children.

Quality School Lunch

The school lunch program, like any educational endeavor, is an opportunity to teach students and broaden their perspective.  Our country has poor eating habits that lead to problems with obesity and poor health.  Implementing a quality lunch program helps students to understand that what they eat is important.  And it can change students' behaviors when given an opportunity to learn about eating a balanced diet. Providing a quality school lunch is using school as a PUMP to help all of our students to be healthy and self-aware regarding diet and lifestyle.

Moving back from quality standards to the old model is treating school as a FILTER. This is where the system gets ugly.  The Federal School Lunch Program was created to provide meals for students in poverty.  It has becoming apparent, that some members of Congress feel the quality of those meals should suffer to help the school lunch industry.  If you are really cynical, you believe this is an attempt to maximize profits on the backs of poor students. There is money to be made via a government program that caters to the needs of the poor. And that is what the new law threatened.

In America, the most bountiful country in the world, it is a sad state of affairs that we have such a high level of poverty.  When our country decides to provide low income students with a quality lunch (and breakfast) and an education on nutrition, it represents a commitment to helping all people live a quality life.  When our country caters to an industry that refuses to change and improve their product, it sacrifices its people in the name of profit.

C'mon folks... let's get this right.