Comments on: Is the PPS Equity Glacier Starting to Move?

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:54:18 +0000

I can’t speak for Steve B, but I think he’s saying you can’t say “we’re spending the same on students at Jefferson as we’re spending at Grant” and have it be okay. There has to be a recognition that poorer kids are more expensive to educate.

By: Rubycakes

Rubycakes — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:17:32 +0000

Steve B.

Can you say more about your statement, “that money is not the determiner of equity, but programs and meeting students’ needs”

I’m curious about how we get those programs and meet those needs without investing more resources (money),

By: Steve

Steve — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:51:10 +0000

Thanks for the reality check, Steve B.

Those are some excellent proof points, and far more nuanced than my broad stroke “equity now” battle cry.

What Carole Smith recommends for the transfer policy this month will be very telling. That will probably be the first real indication of whether the district is serious about equity or just trying to placate us with platitudes.

By: Steve Buel

Steve Buel — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 02:47:37 +0000

Steve, wouldn’t it be nice. But the administration is new and SFC and the members of PSF haven’t applied the pressure yet. It is nice you are getting off to a new year with such an optimistic attitude. I like to see it.

Here are some “proof points” to look for in your quest for a school board and school administration that are working toward equity.

1) An admission that money is not the determiner of equity, but programs and meeting students’ needs.

2) A serious attempt to bolster up the middle grades in the lower economic parts of the city.

3) A serious change in the hiring and teacher transfer process which doesn’t favor the upper middle class schools as it does now.

4) A guaranteed system which equitably distributes the new bond levy if it is proposed.

5) Defining what makes a good education (not the worthless and stupid vision statement) and trying to implement the missing parts in each of the schools.

6) A genuine addressing of the transfer programs and an admission that it is having disastrous effects on poor schools. Then following through with either eliminating it, changing it, or making sure the schools in poor neighborhoods are genuinely attractive and good places for kids to go to school.

Let me know when you see any of these. In the meantime, I am working under the same assumptions that the school district favors the same four attendance areas, Lincoln, Wilson, and parts of Grant and Cleveland.

I have offered help to the new superintendent on some of these issues. Same result as the last one. Zip response. I have offered help to school board members and offered to serve on committees. Same response as always. Zip. Ruth Adkins will usually return an email. Short and terse. The others will not. Same as always. Zip.

Of course, even a slight admission that there is such equity is a move in the right direction. Can’t hurt. And I have seen that too.