Program Improvement: Schools torn apart in the name of reform
Volume 12, Issue 6 - March 2008
Stories by Sherry Posnick-Goodwin
Photos by Scott Buschman
“You may reapply for your own job.” Some teachers and school employees in California have already heard those chilling words — a result of the rising number of Title I schools and districts entering late-stage Program Improvement (PI) under No Child Left Behind (NCLB). It’s called “reconstitution,” and it’s tearing schools and communities apart.
 |
| First-grade teacher Laura Nilson works with Billy Nguyen at Slonaker Academy in San Jose. Nilson knows firsthand the devastating effects of Program Improvement. |
For those unfamiliar with the term, reconstitution is a so-called reform strategy embraced by some California school districts as a panacea for low-performing schools. Under NCLB, broad-scale replacement of staff — or reconstitution — is one of several options for schools that don’t make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) on standardized tests and enter Program Improvement status for four or more years. (Other options for the school include being closed, being converted into a charter, being taken over by the state, being managed by a private company, and a vague “other major restructuring” category.)
Under reconstitution, the existing staff reapply for their old jobs, with the majority not selected to return and transferred involuntarily to other district school sites — sometimes in different grade levels or subjects. Then new staff are hired, often consisting of teachers with less experience. When the school reopens in the fall, returning students are stunned to find that beloved teachers and school staff have for the most part been replaced by strangers.
The irony is that the overwhelming majority of California school districts are improving. Reading scores have increased 25 percent in the last four years, while math scores have increased 17 percent. In fact, even with the disturbing and unfair mandates of NCLB, only 96 school districts out of more than 1,000 and one county office of education out of 58 in California have been identified for program improvement under this flawed federal law.
Reconstitution happened this year in San Jose and Fairfield and within the past decade in San Diego, Oakland and San Francisco. Next year, reconstitution will take place in Pasadena; it is likely under discussion in numerous other districts as increasing numbers move forward in years of PI.
CTA predicted years ago that schools would use NCLB sanctions as a weapon to retaliate and discriminate against teachers and other school employees. Unfortunately, that prophecy has come true with devastating consequences for reconstituted employees. Some say they have been stigmatized, ostracized and turned down for other jobs and, through no fault of their own, are viewed by others as “damaged goods.”
In some districts, teachers reported that reconstitution under NCLB has been used as a pretext to discriminate against school employees who are active union members, as well as those who speak out against unfair policies in their schools or district. In at least one district, it appears that reconstitution has been used as a pretext to discriminate against teachers based on their age, color and sexual orientation.
"I don’t believe that reconstituting an entire school is the answer,” asserts CTA President David A. Sanchez. “CTA wants to work with legislators to develop real solutions for those schools that have been labeled in need of Program Improvement under President Bush’s flawed No Child Left Behind law. It’s important to recognize that all schools and school districts deserve assistance — not more sanctions. A one-size-fits-all approach to reform will not work. Improvement plans must be developed with input from teachers, administrators and members of the local community.”
Of course, reconstitution isn’t the only harmful action being committed against schools and students in the name of PI. Some schools have been closed and later reopened as non-union charters, with little regard for the rights of those who work there. Sometimes large schools are broken up into smaller schools — or taken over by private companies. The end result is often the same — a mostly new staff and traumatized teachers and students.
The guidelines of NCLB stipulate that transfers cannot supersede collective bargaining agreements governing areas such as transfer language. But that hasn’t stopped some districts from attempting to use NCLB to overturn contract language and void collective bargaining agreements.
--------------------
 |
| Terianne Bowser, from Henry Elementary School in Rialto, hopes that expanding the art program will help stave off full reconstitution at her school. |
Despite the fact that reconstitution is happening more frequently, there is no evidence that it works. In fact, research is showing that it does more harm than good.
The nonprofit, charitable foundation Center on Education Policy (CEP) has found that California schools that employed the “ultimate sanction” — replacing staff — were no more likely to increase the percentages of proficient students on state tests than schools that used other forms of restructuring. Standardized test scores have turned public education into a game of numbers. It’s quite clear that a test score is not the full measure of a student or of a school.
In the study “Beyond the Mountains: An Early Look at Restructuring in California” conducted by CEP, successful schools attributed their improvement to analyzing school data and tailoring interventions to meet the needs of individual students rather than reconstitution.
“We looked at reconstitution in general in Michigan, California and Maryland, and concluded that reconstitution frequently does not work,” says Jack Jennings, CEO and president of CEP. “There is no magic solution, and imposing solutions on schools doesn’t work. It has to be a cooperative effort where teachers and the schools and perhaps other experts work together to make changes.”
Often, says Jennings, teachers are insulted when chosen for reconstitution; they become distracted from teaching and spend a great deal of time deciding whether or not to reapply for their jobs. And sometimes excellent teachers are so insulted by the whole process that they choose not to reapply — and are then replaced by less experienced teachers.
“A school is an organism made up of lots of individual people,” says Jennings. “We have to consider how everyone works together at schools. Anybody who wants a simplistic solution is wrong, because there are no simplistic solutions.”
Dr. Jennifer King Rice, an associate professor with the Department of Education Policy and Leadership at the University of Maryland, has studied the phenomenon of reconstitution for a decade. Rice admits that initially — when she became one of the few to study the trend happening in several states throughout the country — she expected reconstitution to be a successful, cost-effective means of school reform.
“I’m an economist by training, and I tend to think in terms of human capital and restructuring,” says Rice. “I gave this policy the benefit of the doubt when I started. But now I’m highly troubled by the negative impacts that reconstitution has in terms of the human costs.”
After a decade, she has concluded that reconstitution often drives — or “repels” — good teachers from struggling schools.
“[Teachers] say, ‘I already have my hands full, and now they’re making me apply for my own job.’ For many it’s the last straw, and they say, ‘I’m outta here. I can get a job anywhere. I’m leaving.’”
King notes that the school may actually have lower numbers of experienced, certified teachers and may develop a high turnover of new teachers who come to the school because there is no core of teachers to maintain a school culture and stability. “With reconstitution, fewer people develop long-term ties to the school, which makes it easier for them to leave. They lack roots.”
People who do remain at the school site tend to be less productive than before, says Rice, because they are drained of enthusiasm for their job.
“Basically, reconstitution has significant and profound human costs — and we have yet to link it with student achievement,” says Rice. “Even when additional resources were invested in these schools, the school’s capacity to improve declined because there was a lack of a solid school culture for teachers to draw on. There was a lot of spinning around, running around and startup costs that were not calculated by policy makers.
In the UCLA Law Review, Los Angeles attorney Andrew Spitser predicted that schools will experience other high costs as a result of reconstitution — namely legal fees — as groups challenge this action and school districts become embroiled in legal battles.
“Significant legal liability may fall on those districts that choose reconstitution over NCLB’s less harsh provision,” says Spitser, a former teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District, who warned years ago that districts could be sued for using NCLB as a pretext to retaliate against school employees or to discriminate against them for their race or age.
“Those are exactly the kinds of things that this arbitrary rule allows opportunity for, because it is so vague and, in ways, potentially unconstitutional,” says Spitzer. “And in my view teachers are not the problem out there and shouldn’t get a raw deal.”
