South Bend schools' Plan Z hasn't earned a passing grade

DIALOUGE: MICHIANA POINT OF VIEW

By JOANNA (JO) BLACKETOR

In 2003, the graduation rate of the South Bend Community School Corp. was 52 percent.

ISTEP average results in 2003 place South Bend at 50.8 percent passing compared to the state's average of 70 percent.

South Bend's percentages of students passing ISTEP are presently at: Grade 3, 52.1 percent; grade 6, 53.1 percent; grade 8, 48.3 percent; and Grade 10, 49.6 percent.

If you are a black male in our school system, you have a 32 percent chance of graduating. Where are the other 68 percent?

I realize we have many challenges that many rural and urban school systems do not have, but I do not believe we are less academically able than children living in other parts of the country or other parts of our state. South Bend schools receive $11,000 per student while other corporations average $7,000 per student.

The question I will continually ask the superintendent, fellow school board members and myself is: What do I tell parents of children who are destined to a life of poverty because they have not been taught the skills needed to compete in the job market?

According to Superintendent Joan Raymond, in her comments in a June 21 Tribune article, "The results (of Plan Z) may not be realized for several years."

When can we hold ourselves responsible for improving our education system? 2005? 2006? 2010? What are we doing to ensure academic success for those students in transition during these several years?

The $51 million spent on construction and renovation is not the only reason that I did not support Plan Z. Another reason was the lost time and resources the administration put into this effort while moving hundreds of teachers and thousands of students for "reassignments." Instead, we should have focused attention on improving academic achievement. Plan Z was not focused on neighborhood schools, either, which is another reason I did not support it.

Raymond gave Plan Z a grade of "A." One academic year after Plan Z has been implemented, here is what I know:

·  No Child Left Behind. Raymond requested and was granted an extension in determining our "annual yearly progress" per NCLB, which is the baseline requirement. The waiver was granted because so many kids, teachers and administrators were "reassigned" under Plan Z. Kids were reassigned to different schools and the superintendent believed it was unfair to expect academic improvement because of those moves. What do I tell the parents of a child who got lost in that transition and dropped out of school?

·  Reading improvement. Last year, the teachers at Hay Primary Center took personal time (360 hours of training) and were provided support funding for the training by the Public Education Foundation, which is strongly encouraged and endorsed by James Wilson. His vision, along with the Hay teachers' tenacity and willingness to make personal sacrifices to be trained in Wilson/LIPS teaching methods, have made a huge difference for 148 children at Hay. Within six months, the children went from 12 to 18 months behind (in reading) to at or above their grade level in reading.

It is even more amazing to realize that the administration has not fully embraced and adopted this method corporation-wide. The present reading program (Balanced Literacy) was presented to the board as an overview for the third year in a row and there was no data provided to validate its success. That is not to say that those teachers trained in Balanced Literacy aren't passionate about teaching reading or seeing positive results, but we should be using methods that have validated data to show improvements. It is critical to the success of our kids to work toward reading by the third grade.

·  Lincoln Primary Center was recommended to be closed by the superintendent as a means to save the corporation money. The concern is that we went from 659 students attending Lincoln pre-Plan Z down to the present 305 students who now attend Lincoln. When looking at the demographics of the students who have left the building, there is some added indication that many low income students either have moved or are being bused out of their neighborhood (data available on the IDOE Web site). Or are we to assume that 359 students moved from the corporation?

What do we tell the single mom who lives two blocks from Lincoln when her child has to ride 45 minutes on a bus to school each day? Where will her children go for after-school enrichment programs while she is working? How does that complement learning and encouraging parental involvement?

·  Unmet building needs. The superintendent recently presented "unmet facility needs" with a price tag of $40 million-plus (a future bond was suggested). The good news is that there would not be a significant tax increase to property owners in South Bend since many of our bonds are completing their funding cycle. With the revised state property tax plan, many homeowners would greatly appreciate lower tax bills and may be hesitant to allow the corporation to "dip back into their pockets" to improve buildings without seeing academic improvements in fundamental benchmarks.

Independent of Plan Z, significant but isolated academic achievements have been realized as a result of the efforts of extremely dedicated administrators, teachers and parents focusing on a particular target area of achievement such as reading. Some gains have also been made when the corporation has used corporate-wide dollars to superfund a specific project. By simple definition, this is not fair to all students who expect an "equal value" public education that will be the foundation toward a standard of living above the poverty line.

I cannot give Plan Z a passing grade. We have not documented or quantified results while incurring facility, staff and student changes at a cost of $51 million dollars.

Joanna (Jo) Blacketor is a member of the South Bend Community School Corp. Board of Trustees and the District 7 Republican nominee for the Indiana House of Representatives.