I’ve posted a review of the Mayor’s Week at Jefferson over at Metroblogging Portland.

After a decade of instability, ill-advised experiments in configuration, and massive outflow of students, Jefferson is left a shadow of its former self, with only 26% of neighborhood students attending, very few electives, and a core curriculum that barely provides students with the credits they need to graduate.

After a week of hosting Mayor Tom Potter, students, staff and community are buoyed by the possibilities. Now that the city’s attention has been focused on our school, exposing the gross inequities of Portland Public Schools for all to see, it’s time to take stock and move forward. Here are some of my broad-stroke thoughts about a Jefferson High that is Clean, Lean, and Mean.

Clean: There’s an old cliche when white people talk about black people. Belying subconscious racism, they’ll compliment a black person for being “clean” or “articulate.” So when I talk about Jefferson being clean, don’t get me wrong; that’s not where I’m coming from. I’m also not talking about the facility, which, despite the monkey business the district has played with custodial staff — first firing them, then outsourcing, then being forced to hire them back, then failing to staff at adequate levels, then trying to cut their wages by 30% — looks better than you might expect.

I’m talking about a clean start, with a new superintendent and administration who seem to get that the community wants a comprehensive high school in their neighborhood. Along those lines, Chief of High Schools Leslie Rennie-Hill and Jefferson principal Cynthia Harris announced at the school board meeting Monday a recommendation that two of Jefferson’s academies, currently representing the vast majority of Jefferson’s high school students (491 of 545), be merged in fall of ’08. This means Jefferson students will have access to all courses offered, which will also include more Advanced Placement (AP) classes next year.

As I said in my remarks to the school board Monday night, this is a just a small first step. But it is an important step in the right direction, after a decade of a failure to listen to the community. Let’s give them some credit for that.

Lean: Whoever designed the “10 minute tour” before the City Club meeting Friday is a genius. First stop: the library, where bookshelves are half empty. Next, the mothballed metal shop, which is now used as a sparsely-equipped workout room. Then a trip through the mothballed TV studio, the mothballed band room, and back to the once beautiful, now neglected auditorium. Not visited were the mothballed wood shop or auto shop, or any of the other classrooms that once offered electives and vocational education.

But lean also means an average class size of 18.1, allowing lots of individualized attention from a teaching staff that is 92.3% “highly qualified,” and with an average 11.5 years experience. You don’t get that at Lincoln or Grant.

Mean: Jefferson’s once comprehensive offerings have been cut closer to the bone than any other high school in Portland. And it’s not just electives like band or career pathways like TV production or industrial education. Jefferson students are barely offered the core curriculum needed to graduate. My friend Nicole posted the comparison of the number of courses offered at Jefferson and Wilson in a comment on this blog. I’m going to print it again here, because you have to wrap your mind around this to understand just how mean things have gotten:

I’m especially disgusted with the complete lack of music. This is supposed to be an arts magnet?

District administrators and school board members are fond of pointing out that “we have to get enrollment up” if we want to return comprehensive education to Jefferson High.

To this, I say bullshit!

Pardon my French, but we’ve got to start looking at the real cost of “school choice.” If we’re going to maintain open transfers between neighborhood schools, a policy that overwhelmingly benefits middle class, white families, we’ve got to stop making poor black families pay the cost. The real cost of this policy should be calculated on what it will take to offer core and elective classes at Jefferson like students at Wilson have, regardless of class size. Will this mean we pay four times as much per student at Jefferson? Ten times? I don’t know. But that, my friends, is the real cost of open transfers, and the district must start paying it.

Instead of being honest about this cost, they’ve been shifting it onto the young adults of North and Northeast Portland, who are paying in the form of lost opportunities that can never be recovered. This must end. Immediately.

Against these odds, and destroying the stereotype of black families not being involved with their children’s education, the Jefferson community is one of the fiercest, most protective, most cohesive school communities you will find anywhere. Throughout the Mayor’s week at Jefferson, I was blown away by all the Jefferson graduates I met who have stayed involved with the school, and the multi-generational connection these families maintain.

And this leads to one way Jefferson is mean that no amount of PPS neglect or malice can take away: the tradition of athletic excellence. This was on full display when the first-place class 5A Demos (10-1) took it to first place 6A Grant Generals (9-3) Friday night on the basketball court.

Through sheer hard work, the Demos forced turnovers, grabbed rebounds, blocked shots, and capitalized on scoring opportunities all night to defeat the Generals in front of a packed house that included the mayor. This kind of spirited effort by students, supported by a cross-generational community, is emblematic of why Jefferson will not just survive, but will once again be something all of Portland can be proud of.

Jefferson is rising.

Like many PPS parents, I’d like to know which school would be best-suited for my children. How do I determine this? Ideally, I’d be able to look at a single document that lists all of the schools in PPS on the left and the offerings (art, music, etc.) at the top. In addition, there should be a column next to each of the offerings that lists the amount of time devoted to each offering, e.g., “3 times per week for 45 minutes.” This should be all programs in all schools, not just the FTE levels for the various offerings.

Finally, there should be a column that lists information about recess and the amount of time devoted to it at each school.

Cynthia Gilliam (Director, Office of Schools) sent me a document (21 KB PDF) several weeks ago, outlining the various FTE allocations in the district for PE, music, art, technology, dance, drama, second language, library services, and counseling services.

The information in the document is useful, but it’s not complete. It’s also misleading. While I may be able to surmise what the offerings are at each of the schools based on the information provided in this document, I have no idea how often they are offered. Nor do I have any information about recess. Moreover, the document does not include programs that are funded beyond the district, e.g., through school foundations and other private means of funding.

In other words, if you took this document at face value, you’d assume that Chapman — for example — had no arts program because it has zero FTE allotted to art. Yet Chapman students benefit from an artist-in-residence program. You might also assume that, because Chapman has no FTE allotted to drama, that no drama instruction exists at the school. Wrong. K-2 students at Chapman are currently working on a musical production of Cinderella. Chapman has these programs because a large percentage of Chapman parents are wealthy enough to contribute to the school’s foundation. Yet, according to the district data, these programs don’t even exist.

Cynthia Gilliam, Sarah Ames (the district’s Senior Strategic Communications Officer) and Nancy Hauth (a district Resource Specialist affiliated with the enrollment and transfer office) all said the district could not provide this information. Ms. Gilliam said there are lots of elements that parents want to know about, including the ones I’m interested in. She used this as a way to justify the argument that since there are so many things that different parents want to know, there’s no way to satisfy everyone. Ergo, the information is not compiled and not released publicly.

But surely Ms. Gilliam’s response provides an even greater justification for making all of these elements publicly available and easily readable. In other words, why not create a single, comprehensive source of information that includes things like level of teacher experience, the square footage of the classroom, the curriculum materials, class size, diversity, achievement scores, discipline data and school climate, as well as information about enrichment offerings — art, music, etc. — and recess?

Here’s the thing: all of these pieces of information exist. Ms. Ames acknowledged that the information is available, but it’s all stored inside each principal’s head. She said that the district asks a lot of the principals in terms of reporting, and she woudn’t want to burden them with an additional task.

Her solution to the problem? I contact each of the 60 or so principals myself.

While it’s certainly conceivable to visit and/or call the 60 principals, it’s not terribly practical. But if I felt like my requests would get responses, I’d be glad to do this (even though the district could do this much more efficiently and, presumably, would be part of a district employee’s job description). But let’s face it: it’s extremely unlikely that a principal of a school that my daughter does not even attend will bother responding to my request. Why should they? Principals have lots more important things to do.

There are, admittedly, a large number of things that parents need to know about each school. I understand that the information changes year by year and often differs from grade to grade within a school. The information is also, admittedly, complex. But the district underestimates the capacity of concerned parents to make sense of the information, essentially deciding for them that they would not be able to understand it. This is, at the very least, a gross assumption and, at worst, offensive and patronizing.

Ultimately, it’s simply a matter of putting all the pieces together in one place.

So why doesn’t PPS take the time and make the effort? Why does the district tell parents like me (and presumably other parents) to do this work, either by calling each of the 60 principals themselves or by going to the Celebrate PPS event and visiting each of the 60 booths? I’m going to the Celebrate! event, and I’ll bring my spreadsheet to collect data. But I doubt I’ll be able to cover all 60 by myself in the time allotted. And I also doubt rather seriously that I’ll get straight answers in the context of this event, which is essentially a giant sales and promotion event for each school. But I’m still going. Just not expecting much.

If the PPS administration would like to perform a valuable service to the community and offer information upon which parents can make informed choices for their children, then I strongly suggest they make the information I requested available. If the district is committed to “choice,” then information needs to be made available so that parents can make informed choices. An informed choice cannot be made without information.

But if the district continues to keep this information from the public, then the public is justified in assuming that the district has something to hide. If there are inequities in the offerings at the schools, the public needs to know what they are so they can do something about it. Keeping them hidden virtually guarantees that nothing will be done.

Peter Campbell is a parent, educator, and activist, who served in a volunteer role for four years as the Missouri State Coordinator for FairTest before moving to Portland. He has taught multiple subjects and grade levels for over 20 years. He blogs at Transform Education.

Here are my prepared remarks delivered to the Portland City Council Wednesday at Jefferson High School.

Good morning, and welcome to my neighborhood high school. I am truly honored to be here among some of Portland’s best and brightest young adults.

I appreciate the symbolism of City Hall coming to Jefferson High, and I would like to take the opportunity to focus your attention on a serious issue facing our schools and our city.

Eighteen months ago, auditors from the county and city issued a report on the Portland Public Schools student transfer policy. Their audit found the policy not only failed to mitigate ethnic and socio-economic segregation in the district, it actually made the problem worse. To date, the school board has not fully responded to this audit, which was a condition of the Multnomah County I-Tax.

As a parent of two young children in the district, I found this audit somewhat startling, and began to do my own investigation last summer. Using the district’s enrollment and transfer data, I found that segregation is just the tip of the iceberg.

It turns out that this transfer policy, which allows students to freely transfer between neighborhood schools, taking their funding with them, is responsible for a massive shift of public investment away from our neediest neighborhoods and into wealthier parts of town. In the 2006-07 school year, this amounted to a $43 million divestment from the parts of town that most need investment.

This is made worse by the fact that the district follows it with school closures and draconian program cuts, leaving us with a two-tiered system of public education. This inequity has reached a level that cannot be tolerated by a city that prides itself on equal opportunity and diversity.

I put together a report to the school board in September, and I’ve brought the final draft to share with you today. This report shows this pattern graphically, and recommends an equitable solution.

The reason I’m talking to you about this is that we have two governmental bodies with overlapping jurisdictions, whose policies are effectively working against one another. On the one hand, we have PPS policy that is divesting from our neediest neighborhoods and fragmenting communities by undermining neighborhood schools. On the other hand, we have valuable work being done by Commissioner Sten and the Bureau of Housing and Community Development, to try to reverse some of these effects.

We are clearly working at cross purposes.

So I’m asking you, as policy-making professionals, to exert influence on your partners at Portland Public Schools. They are unpaid volunteers, and they don’t necessarily have the policy expertise that you have. They need help and guidance to correct a policy that continues to divest from the neighborhoods we should be investing in.

The report I’ve given you and the school board outlines a sensible, phased plan to return balance to the school district’s public investment policy and bring it in line with city policy goals. I urge you to take the time to read it, and lobby the school board to do the right thing. Let’s end a system that punishes children based on the color of their skin and the neighborhoods they live in.

Here are my prepared remarks to the Portland Public Schools Board of Education, delivered January 14, 2008 regular meeting at Jefferson High School.

Thank you for being here, and welcome to what I would like to be my children’s high school.

We’ve finally reached a clear consensus within the district that Jefferson needs to be a comprehensive high school. This is what the Jefferson community has been asking for for years. It is refreshing to finally be on the same page, and I think we should recognize that this new openness springs from the administration of superintendent Smith, as well as from the Jefferson administration.

But let’s be honest. This is a very small first step, even if it is in the right direction. We need to make sure we have the proper momentum to carry through when the eyes of the city are no longer upon us.

Comprehensive doesn’t just mean tearing down the walls between the academies. And it doesn’t just mean adding a couple of AP classes.

To most of us who went to public high school, comprehensive means a school that serves the full range of students, from vocational education through advanced placement. And not just that, but exciting and interesting electives too.

You don’t have to look far for this kind of school. Wilson High has it all. Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland and Franklin look pretty good, too.

But here on this side of town, and in a crescent from St. Johns through outer northeast and into outer southeast Portland, we might as well be living on a different planet. The district’s transfer policy divests over $40 million annually from these parts of town, leaving us with gutted programs and shuttered neighborhood schools.

This school district is fraught with intolerable, glaring inequity. And Jefferson High School is ground zero for that.

In spite of this, we have some of the most creative, resilient students in the city at Jefferson. They are doing it by sheer force of will, because this city can’t see fit to provide them with the opportunities it offers students in wealthier neighborhoods.

Let’s be clear. The students are not failing at Jefferson. Jefferson is not a failing school. This district and this city have failed Jefferson and its community. The segregation and inequities are obvious to anybody who cares to look. As the policy makers responsible for this, you should be ashamed for Portland.

Yes, let’s start by tearing down the walls that currently constrain our students in academic silos. But let’s also tear down the much larger wall in this city that separates rich from poor, black from white, the haves from the have nots.

This is not Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. This is Portland, Oregon, 2008.

I think I speak for most of my neighbors when I say: We’ve had enough. The time has come for real change in the way we distribute our public investment. Let’s start with Jefferson, and make it a model, comprehensive high school we all can be proud of. But let’s keep the ball rolling in the Roosevelt, Madison, and Marshall clusters as well. We need equitable, strong, comprehensive schools in all of our neighborhoods, not just the white, middle class ones. The time is now.

It all started with this comment right here on this blog:

“You know, Hockeygod, it just struck me that something missing from your latest edition of the map are the CHARTER SCHOOLS. How many of THOSE are in the red zone???”

As regular visitors know, Steve’s red-and-green maps unleashed a firestorm of debate about the district’s transfer policy and equity in the schools. Most of the debate has centered on the neighborhood-to-neighborhood transfer issue, which has probably been exacerbated in the parts of town, especially North and inner Northeast, that have been hardest hit with neighborhood school closures. These same parts of town, interestingly enough, are now home to more charter schools, former charter schools, and charter school proposals than any other part of town. Hence the map with the color-coded dots. If you look at where schools were closed and where charters were opened, you might just question whether it’s all coincidence. For purposes of this article, I will be focusing primarily on the Jefferson and Roosevelt Cluster areas.

A quick rundown on the closed neighborhood schools in those areas, which are represented by red dots on the map:

1. Kennedy School (K-8), 5736 NE 33^rd. Closed in 1975. Sold to the McMenamins in the 1990’s.
2. Columbia School (K-8 until 1969, then 4-8), 716 NE Marine Dr. First closed in 1978. Reopened from 1981-83 for grades 6-8. Then used from 1983-86 as temporary housing for students whose neighborhood schools were being renovated. It has since been used as district offices and a county-run alternative high school.
3. Adams High School, 5700 NE 39^th. First closed in June 1981, but reopened in 1983 as Whitaker Middle School. Closed again in 2001 when the building was condemned due to environmental hazards. Children were dispersed to “Whitaker Lakeside” (see below) and Rice Elementary Schools, neither of which was particularly close by the condemned site. (Had Kennedy not been sold, it would have been the nearest and most sensible choice.) Adams was torn down last year; the District is planning to sell off a portion of the land.
4. Meek Elementary, 4039 NE Albert Ct. Closed in 2003. Has since been remodeled and reopened as Joseph Meek Technical High School, the current incarnation of Vocational Village School (which, interestingly enough, previously occupied another closed elementary, Glenhaven, on NE 82^nd Ave. That location was sold to a veterinary practice!).
5. “Old” Whitaker (originally K-8), 5135 NE Columbia Blvd. First closed in 1981 and children relocated to Columbia School (see above); leased to MESD for an alternative HS until it was reopened in 2001 as “Whitaker Lakeside” (6-8), due to the condemnation of the “new” Whitaker (see above). Closed again in 2005, when students were “consolidated” at Ockley Green, over 4 miles away. Currently the home of an alternative HS once again, this one operated by NAYA, a social services agency for Native Americans. The Oregonian reported that NAYA intends to buy the building within the next three years.
6. Kenton Elementary, 7528 N. Fenwick. Closed in 2005. Now a Catholic high school via long-term lease, which is why it is shown with two different colored dots on the map.
7. Applegate Elementary, 7650 N. Commercial. Closed in 2005. The District claims to be looking for a tenant but declined offers from at least two charter schools.
8. Eliot School (K-8), 2231 N. Flint. First closed in 1984; children sent to Boise, which we know as Boise-Eliot today. Remodeled and reopened in 1985 for the relocation of Harriet Tubman Middle School, a neighborhood/magnet hybrid, which had been temporarily sited at the current da Vinci Middle School from 1980-85. Closed again in June 2007 and reopened in September as an all-girls 6-12 focus option academy.
9. Clarendon Elementary, 9325 N. Van Houten. Closed in June 2007.

*Humboldt was also targeted for closure in the recent past; concerned citizens lobbied successfully to keep it open, but the District is now talking about absorbing it into the Jefferson campus. (Didn’t we ring around that rosy back in 2005 when Vicki Phillips proposed making Jeff into a 7-12 school and parents overwhelmingly rejected the idea?)

The reason given for all of the above closures was “declining enrollment.” I acknowledge that a few on the list are not recent, but I believe that the fallout from those closures of decades ago is still with us today, so that is why I have included them here.

And now a rundown of the charter schools in this area, represented by black dots:

1. McCoy Academy (6-12), 3802 NE MLK Blvd. Formerly a private alternative school before reopening as a charter in 2000. Closed in 2002 for failing to fulfill its charter.
2. Trillium K-12, 5420 N. Interstate Ave. Opened in 2002.
3. Self-Enhancement Inc. Academy 6-8, 3920 N. Kerby. Opened in 2004.
4. Portland Village Public Charter K-8, 7654 N. Delaware. Opened in 2007.
5. Ivy School 1-8, 4212 NE Prescott. Application recently rejected by the Portland School Board; future uncertain. Organized by board members of a private Montessori school located around the corner from the proposed Ivy site.
6. New Harvest K-12, 7025 N Lombard. Application recently rejected by the Portland School Board; future uncertain.

*Although two proposed charter schools listed above have been rejected by the school board, they do have the right to appeal to the State Department of Education; I do not know whether either group has plans to do so. I would be grateful for any responses to this piece that include updates on these proposed charters. The addresses given here for those schools represent their proposed locations.

**The former Victory Middle School charter, sponsored by the State Department of Education, was located at 4824 NE 20th Ave. from 2003-2006. Like McCoy Academy, its charter was revoked due to lack of fulfillment. (Details may be found here.) While the Portland School Board deserves credit for repeatedly denying Victory’s charter applications, I am making mention of Victory because of its contribution (along with the other charters listed, as well as numerous other factors that deserve articles of their own) to the demise of neighborhood schools in this area.

The green dots on the map represent private schools; I asked Steve to include them here as a reflection of the local school-aged population, school closures notwithstanding. While it is true that private and charter schools do not have a limited catchment area as neighborhood schools do, it is also true that the majority of any school’s enrollment will come from within a 3-mile radius. With that in mind, what was the rationale for opening 4 schools (6 if you count the Catholic school at Kenton and the NAYA school at Old Whittaker) in the same area you closed 9? Obviously there must be some children in those neighborhoods that need schools nearby! (What was that about “declining enrollment” again?)

Other rationales might be discerned in how charter schools differ from neighborhood schools (and most other public schools):

1. Charter schools can set their own admissions criteria and thereby select their student bodies. Neighborhood schools must accept all children who live within their catchment areas, regardless of abilities or needs.
2. Charter schools are allowed to deviate from curricula established by the local school district as long as they outline their plans in their charters. Their “success rate” is then measured against the charters.
3. Charter schools are funded at 80% of the per-pupil rate of other public schools. The charter is expected to fundraise or do without the other 20%, which the school district is allowed to keep. Thus, they are cheaper to run than regular public schools.
4. At other public schools, all teachers must be certified by the state. At charter schools, only 50% of the teaching staff must be certified; the school can set its own hiring criteria for the other half. So, theoretically, half the teachers at charter schools don’t even have to be high school graduates.
5. The employees of a charter school are not required to join the local union that represents all similar employees in the district. (This affects not only teachers but also secretaries, custodians, etc.) Therefore, the charter school is not required to honor any union contracts in effect in the district. Consequently, charter school employees are usually paid less than their counterparts and may not have benefits such as sick leave or health insurance.

This last point leads me to my charge of union busting. Take a look at the map: close 9 neighborhood schools, open 4 charters, have union-free schools and save $ because half the charter teachers don’t have to be certified and will work for peanuts. Do it in the part of town where (you assume) people are least likely to protest. To be fair, the way the state law governing charter schools is written makes it difficult for the District to say no—and the state can overrule them when they do, as they did with Victory and Southwest Charters (see above and below).

Now, I am not a conspiracy theorist (as a few have charged), nor do I think that charters should be banned. As with most programs, individual charters may be the best match for some children and their families, and I firmly believe they deserve a place, right along with focus options, alternative schools, and other programs that do not fit into the neighborhood school model. In other words, I believe that charters, like focus options and alternative schools, should be supplements to, not replacements for, neighborhood schools. What concerns me is how many of these charters have been crammed into one part of town right on the heels of multiple neighborhood school closures and upheaval within the remaining schools. It’s hard not to consider, even if only for a moment, that PPS was using “declining enrollment” as an excuse to close union schools and replace them with non-union schools.

The parents who are helping organize these charters probably don’t even realize that they’re party to any union-busting, because all they are thinking about is getting a school back in their neighborhood to replace the one they lost, and opening a charter gives them a means to do that. For further evidence, consider these: Leadership and Entrepreneurship Public Charter High School (LEP) at 2044 E. Burnside is near the former Washington-Monroe HS, which was sold for condos in 2007. Over on westside, there’s the new, state-sponsored Southwest Charter elementary, spearheaded by a group of families from the now-closed Smith School. (They wanted to lease the Smith building, but the district refused; that building is still empty today.) And in Southeast, you’ll find the Arthur Academy Charter elementary halfway between the now-closed Wilcox and Youngson Schools. (Youngson was later reopened for special ed. programs; Wilcox is leased to an alternative program.) Prior to Arthur Academy, the same building housed the Garden Laboratory Charter, which lasted only one year. Lastly, the PPS School Board recently rejected a new charter application for inner Southeast, not far from the now-closed Edwards School (which is currently leased to MESD for a Head Start program). And it’s not even confined to Portland; check out this story from Lincoln County.

I should add that PPS is not new at union-busting activity. Back in the 90’s, both Jefferson and Humboldt were “reconstituted” in violation of the teachers’ contract. And in 2003, PPS teachers agreed to work 10 days for free just so they could keep their health insurance benefits intact. I believe it was that same year that the custodians’ jobs were outsourced. This last issue has recently made the news again because the District is adding insult to injury with their abominable “negotiations” of the custodians’ contract. Whether we want to face it or not, charter schools provide a convenient way for the District to weaken the unions in the name of saving money and offering more “choices” to families that can manage the logistics.

Now, there are plenty of folks out there who are probably thinking that weakening the unions is a good thing. For that matter, why not just do away with them altogether? Think of the money that could be saved on wages and benefits, money that could be used to hire more teachers and shrink class sizes, just the way the charters are doing! I’d like to take these folks for a walk down memory lane:

Teaching did not become a unionized profession until the 1960’s: rather recently compared to many other fields. Prior to then, the teaching force was comprised almost completely of women (it is still majority women today, but a smaller majority), not because women are collectively better at teaching or like it better, but because a man could not support a family on a teacher’s salary then. Teachers of the pre-union era had little in the way of health or pension benefits unless they were married to someone else who had some. They didn’t even get a real lunch break because they were expected to eat with and supervise the children during the lunch period. They could be fired for getting pregnant. For that matter, they could be fired without cause or due process. I could go on, but I hope you all get the idea.

So, to all of you anti-union folks out there, I’d like to say, GET REAL! How many college graduates would be willing to work under such conditions today? The fact that teachers now make a living wage, health benefits and pensions is directly due to union advocacy nationwide. When charters start having difficulty hiring college-educated, state-certified teachers, maybe they’ll persuade the state to reduce the requirement from 50% to 40%. Over time it could be reduced to 30%, 20% and so on. In the meantime, unions will have ever greater difficulty bargaining for living wages and benefits because the public will be saying that it just costs too much, and if the charter school teachers don’t need that much money, why should anyone?

The current proliferation of union-free charter schools has opened the door to send the teaching profession on a U-turn to the 1930’s. Is this the direction in which we want to send the teaching profession in the future? No living wages even with a college education, no job security, no benefits? Is that the message we want to send to today’s children who might want to grow up to be teachers?

Didn’t think so. And, finally, it looks as if the Portland School Board might be starting to agree. They rejected the last four charter applications they reviewed.

Zarwen is a parent, taxpayer, former teacher, and frequent commenter on education blogs.

At the risk of sounding naive or overly optimistic, signs continue to appear that some Portland Public Schools administrators (if not the school board — yet) are starting to “get it” on issues of equity.

We’re going to look through the equity lens on what we’re offering. And we’re going to stay focused on what kids need. Is every school one where you would send your niece or nephew? Is every classroom a place you would put your own kid? If the answer isn’t yes, we have work to do.

— Judy Elliot, Portland Public Schools Office of Teaching and Learning. (Melton, Kimberly. “IB and AP not as easy as ABC” The Oregonian, Monday, January 31.)

Hey, that’s what I’ve been saying for almost a year now! And what my friends at the NSA have been saying for much longer!

Of course actions speak louder than words. The proving ground for the district’s intent on equity issues is Jefferson High School, the poster child for PPS inequity.

District administrators are clearly getting out ahead of the school board on this. Board members continue to insist that we need to increase enrollment at Jefferson before we can increase the program offerings there.

But with Jefferson administrators receptive to the community consensus of “if you build it, we will come,” and administrators sounding like concerned parents instead of ideologues, the school board will eventually have no choice but to fall in line behind us. (Honestly, who could think “come and we will build it” has any hope of success after all the broken promises at Jefferson?)

Another district administrator who’s saying the right things is Zeke Smith, Superintendent Carole Smith’s chief of staff, who asked parents at a recent Jefferson meeting for “proof points” that the district could implement by fall 2008 as signs that the district is serious about making Jefferson work. You mean the district wants to not only listen to parents, but actually implement their suggestions?

Now that’s a breath of fresh air. Let’s make sure that wind continues to blow and brings real change and real equity for the children and young adults of Portland.

Sounds lofty, eh? Well, I don’t have all the answers, but now that I’ve got your attention, I’ll tell you there is a growing consensus about what we need to do.

Over the last decade or so, the once proud, comprehensive Jefferson High School has been allowed to stumble through a combination of malign neglect, massive out-transfers, and corporate grant-funded experiments that amount to a pattern of institutional racism. Enrollment now stands at around 600, with a catchment area population of around 1,700. The student population is disproportionately black and poor, and their educational opportunities are starkly limited compared to the wealthier, whiter students who live in the Lincoln, Grant, Cleveland and Franklin clusters.

What remains of Jefferson is a segregated, balkanized, underfunded shell, carved up into four separate academies that benefit neither the black community nor the larger North and Northeast Portland area Jefferson once served.

The attendance area of Jefferson is the most diverse in Portland. There is no single ethnic group in the majority. Imagine if the school looked like the neighborhood, with a focus on unity and understanding. This is exactly what Portland (and the world) needs right now. Imagine Jefferson CommUnity High School, where every student has the same opportunities as children at Lincoln or Grant, and then some. Imagine a championship athletic program, world-class performing arts, and a rigorous academic program that serves the full range of students.

Portland Public Schools and the City of Portland have a moral, ethical, and legal obligation to offer the young adults of North Portland every opportunity that is available elsewhere in Portland. There is a growing cross-community consensus that Jefferson needs to be returned to its comprehensive roots. There also appears to be a growing openness on behalf of the district to really listen to the community, admit mistakes, and move forward.

Let’s not beat around the bush. It’s going to cost money — a lot more than the district is currently spending — to bring Jefferson back to its once proud status.

There are two ways to pay for it (assuming we’re not getting any new funding any time soon): by phasing out neighborhood-to-neighborhood transfers (the biggest source of the current inequity), or by shifting funding and resources away from schools like Lincoln, Cleveland, Franklin and Grant. The former makes the most sense, and would be the most equitable, but we can’t force students back to Jefferson without first rebuilding it. That means the latter is required, at least in the near-term.

At this point, I don’t care how we fund it; it is imperative that we create a school with equal opportunities for our most disadvantaged students. It is not fair to punish students who chose to attend their neighborhood school as opposed to playing the lottery and commuting on public transit to school. The transfer policy states that students have a right to attend their neighborhood school, but is silent on the fact that this gives extra privilege to students who live in the wealthiest neighborhoods at the expense of the rest of us. I propose an amended policy statement to the effect that every student has a right to attend their comprehensive neighborhood school.

It’s important to define comprehensive, of course. So here’s what I’d like to see:

• a rigorous academic core
• business education
• vocational education
• college prep (A.P.) in all disciplines
• special education
• foreign languages
• performing arts (dance, theatre, band, orchestra and choir)
• visual arts
• athletics
• journalism (TV, newspaper and yearbook)
• science
• technology

The district excuse that Jefferson doesn’t have the enrollment to fund these things can no longer stand under the bright light of public scrutiny, especially given that it is district policy that has allowed — and even encouraged — enrollment to drop so low.

I propose we immediately fund Jefferson at a rate at least two times the district average per student, and return a full slate of electives, foreign languages and performing arts beginning in the 2008-09 school year. I also want to see the firewalls between academies softly and quietly dismantled, to the extent that students aren’t limited in their academic options based on a choice they make in the ninth (or sixth) grade.

Believe it or not, Jefferson administrators are open to these ideas. They are relieved that the glaring inequities are a concern to the community at large. They understand that the biggest struggle is with the district, specifically with funding.

Our two-tiered system of high schools belongs in the Jim Crow south of the past, not in a city that prides itself on its diversity and civic-mindedness. It’s time to move past the debacle that was the Jefferson redesign under Vicki Phillips. It’s time to come together and demand equitable opportunities for our children, no matter where they live.

It is refreshing to be on the same side of an issue with the entire school board. The Portland Public Schools board of education unanimously voted down all four charter applications in the current cycle last night (with Sonja Henning absent).

Following a rhetorical lead by David Wynde, who enumerated the myriad choices already available in the district and explicitly rejected an absolute free market approach, several board members made sweeping statements in opposition to increasing the competition for our neighborhood schools. One might get the sense (if one were an optimist) that the pendulum has reached its maximum free-market position and could conceivably begin to swing back.

In the interest of equity, let’s hope so.

At several points during the discussion of the four proposals, board members expressed concern about the schools being able to provide “comprehensive” education to their students. I hope the irony isn’t lost on the board members that this is a concern for the students of Jefferson boy’s academy, not to mention all the other “small schools” that were carved out of the formerly comprehensive Jefferson, Roosevelt, Madison and Marshall.

Also on the agenda was the facilities plan, and some prep work for floating a capital bond.

Here’s a preview of my position on any new construction bond: I will not support any PPS bond unless and until the board articulates a goal of a comprehensive high school in every neighborhood. I will actively campaign against a bond that sets in stone the narrowly-focused academies at schools in our working class neighborhoods.

I seriously hate to sound like a libertarian, but until this board and administration demonstrate a commitment to equitably distributing what they’ve already got, I will fight against any further revenue.

Let’s forget about the Portland Public Schools’ radical transfer policy for a moment. I know I’m sick of talking about it, and we know the school board has delegated their policy-making responsibility to their brand-new superintendent to ponder for a few months. (In other words, nothing’s happening on that any time soon.)

Let’s forget about race, too, since prominent members of Portland’s black community don’t have a problem with a certain level of racial isolation in our schools. It’s never been about race for me anyway (but race is an indicator of economics, the real issue).

I’m also really bored with the charter schools debate. This is about policy, not personal choices.

So let’s talk about equity. If certain elements of Portland insist on a little piece of privilege at the expense of not only the working poor, but also an increasing segment of the middle class, let’s just take that economic issue head-on.

Portland Public Schools are grossly inequitable.

At the macro level, we have nine neighborhood high schools, spaced relatively evenly across the district. Of these, five are traditional, comprehensive high schools. The other four are split into small academies with extremely limited educational opportunities.

All of the comprehensive high schools are located in the wealthiest parts of Portland. All of the limited high schools are located in the poorest parts of Portland.

At the micro level, neighborhood elementary schools have dramatic differences in program offerings, sometimes within the same ZIP code. One school may have all the “extras” — PE, music, counseling, library, technology specialists — while the next school over has none of these, and more kids in the kindergarten room, too.

Of course school choice is supposed to address this problem, giving parents the “right” to attend a school across town if their neighborhood school doesn’t have the programs every child needs. We know that choice has instead exacerbated the problem, but I promised I wasn’t going to talk about that.

Any policy maker without a tin ear to equity would insist on a policy that seeks to reduce inequity in Portland Public Schools. If we are going to keep a radical transfer policy that causes inequity, we are going to have to invest in remediation in the form of much higher spending per student in the clusters with high out-transfers.

We’ve got to insist on an equitable school in every neighborhood. That means all nine clusters have a traditional, comprehensive high school, and equivalent enrichment programs at all neighborhood elementary schools. If anybody thinks they can do this without seriously reforming the transfer policy, I would give them my full support in trying.

Ultimately, we have to acknowledge that neighborhood-to-neighborhood transfers need to be seriously curtailed, if not banned entirely, to sustain equitable schools in every neighborhood. But evidently that’s too farsighted for some to grasp.

So I’m up for putting some pressure on Carole Smith to propose a plan to remedy the gross inequities the transfer policy causes as a part of her report to the board in January. (I will be writing a letter to Smith soon, and posting it here.)