Category: Education

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Schoolpocalypse Part 2: Please, Please, Please 

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Hi all. We had a whole second and third explainer in the works, with the background on the school committee’s role and how they are elected. But, things are kinda bad right now. We may get to it at some point, but today, we wanted to just talk to everyone. And a few people specifically. 

 

Hi guys, It’s KT this time! Anyway, Jim Dowd’s dead, which is really rude of him, as I normally would have had him help me with this. But where we are as a city, things are so bad the current management of the Clam rolled me out of the closet I was hibernating in. So I guess I’m here on my own, just one mom hyperventilating into a pillow at you. 

 

 

For us parents, It’s been a long week. It feels like Covid times again, doesn’t it? Ah, nostalgia. Is your house filled with tiny boxes of chocolate milk and those mini powdered donuts like mine is? It should be. Go to your local school and get some free food. The staff is dying to see a friendly face and give you seven different small containers of apple juice, I promise. 

Yesterday seemed so full of promise for our school situation. The daily messaging from the principals changed from the divisive tone and seemed more inclusive, more wiling to work things out, less finger-pointing. The phrase “illegal strike” didn’t even come up once, nevermind the seven thousand times I heard it last week. At least, for the moment. The no-school call came late. The teams at the bargaining table worked until nearly midnight. It seemed like we could be a community again, instead of whatever this is. 

But today’s sentiment, and releases from the teacher’s union, on the heels of what seemed like a promising day yesterday with both sides working late and hard… that sucked. And that wording was decisive. Not inclusive. It was clear we were so far from the end. 

 

And it was the breaking point for me as a parent. I lost it. In the middle of a long work day, I absolutely became the screaming cowboy in the sky. 

So many other parents I know, the ones who have always been smart and reasonable and involved, echoed the sentiment.  The patience we had is gone. The goodwill is waning. We are tired, our PTO days grow thin, our spring vacation plans fading like the photo of Marty McFly’s siblings after he kisses his mom. We work hours when we can to catch up so our bosses don’t lose their patience with us. We have family chip in. But some don’t have family. Some don’t have any options at all. 

Our children are bouncing off the walls at best, and really struggling without school at worst. 

Right now, our frustration is because this all has seemed so fruitless. The teachers feel disrespected. They feel the paras have been disrespected. Their frustration turns to agitation.

Then there’s a rally outside the house of a school committee member who isn’t home. But her young kids are. And they see their teachers, and dozens of other teachers, outside screaming at them. The people they trusted.

Then Greg Verga gives the finger. The freakin’ M A Y O R.  Sure, it was meant for a guy that has more than earned a middle finger salute with his aggressive stance on everything and I’ll go down swinging on that. But everyone saw it. It stoked the flames. There’s a rally outside the mayor’s house. People yelling at 10pm. Things have gone from bad to worse.

And then the Facebook warriors take every piece of news, every photo, every comment that’s thirdhand from a guy who used to sell cigarettes to Greg Verga’s second cousin and repeat it as gospel truth. Even when it’s nowhere close to the truth. Even when it’s taken out of context to make the other side look bad. “You weren’t at the bargaining table!” Sounds terrible until it turns out they weren’t supposed to be and someone much better suited to hammer out a particular detail was. 

Here’s the thing: When you tell people to get mad, you are responsible for what happens when they get mad. 

Right now, the kids are watching and listening. They’re watching the union obfuscate the truth if it doesn’t fit the agenda, and refuse to take responsibility for any of the downsides of a strike that they voted on after 60 days of no contract (with, according the the Globe, suspect timing). They’re watching the mayor be petty. They’re watching the school committee hire a firm to write scathing emails every night. 

 This community is made up of fantastic caring educators, and also hard working committee members and administrators who care about this city, and both sides are stuck in a vicious cycle like when eagles lock their talons and fall to the ground in a death spiral.

It’s been…bad.

The timing is awful. We just lived through a fraught election cycle, and got no room to breathe. The parents, the kids, the city did not need this. But we were thrust into it, all the same. 

And it feels like tonight we’re on the edge of the cliff, where something big and bad looms if we aren’t pulled back. Like the city is a powderkeg ready to explode. Today was the first day I felt like something really terrible could happen from this, and someone could get hurt, accidentally or otherwise. People are that upset and whipped up, a mob unable to regulate. It isn’t getting better. It’s getting worse. But it doesn’t have to.

Right now we are lucky enough to have a school committee full of people who care deeply about our community, our kids, and, most importantly, education. They are our neighbors, our friends, our coaches. They care. To turn around and treat them like this is a continuation of the election and they are the enemy is not fair. It is disingenuous. It is ugly. Who will want this job when they are done? Who is going to run to be treated like that? 

Assuming the worst of intentions from the folks on the other side, and only assuming the best on your side, is never going to end this strike. It’s damaging, especially when it’s not just assuming these intentions, it’s also announcing them publicly to make people upset. 

Having hundreds, perhaps even thousands of people who haven’t been paying attention – until everything came to a screeching halt – believing literally anything without verifying the truth or understanding the backstory or the reasoning makes the problem worse and widens the divide. 

I want the teachers to get a fair contract so they stay here instead of jumping to a district where they can get more money, and benefits that keep them educating instead of moving to private sector jobs. Our educators are amazing, and there are so many teachers who have helped my kids in the decade I’ve been a GPS parent. But I also understand where our city is financially. The school committee is only given a specific amount of money to fund the budget. We need to address that. If a contract goes through and we can’t fund what we need, our educators face steep layoffs to stay within the budget given. That’s the truth at the end of the day. The problem of school funding is systemic and can not be solved in a few weeks by a handful of elected community members. 

I promise you, all of you on either side, that no one is trying to do their worst. At the same time, we all need to be doing better. Taking stock of where we are and how we can get to the end goal of a signed contract for our educators and paras with a reasonable salary the city can pay for in line with our peer districts. How we as a city pay for what we need- because the money we have right now is not enough. 

I do not say any of this to be patronizing to either side. I say it because I have been there – I once went through a divorce where everything seemed personal and disrespectful and I would not give in on anything because of my anger. No one could convince me that the righteous anger I felt was maybe not the full story. But time healed, and I moved on, and I realized – in that moment, I was unable to see the forest for the trees. I’m thankful for that gift of time, and that once it passed, it was clear our goals were more similar than we could have let ourselves believe in the thick of it. 

Being too far in the fight, entrenched for so long has clouded the vision of those tasked with coming to an agreement. Our words and actions matter. Finger pointing and declaring your side not responsible for any of this mess does not solve the problem. Every single person involved is part of the problem, and must also seek a mutual solution. There has been progress. Focus on that and let it guide you. 

Let’s get this done, unified, as a community. Please. Find a “good enough,” a “close enough”. For all the kids struggling with no one home to help them, for all the parents who cried silently in their closet today when they learned we weren’t done, for the teachers who miss their students, for Fiesta’s sake! – take a deep breath, forgive the words said in anger by the other side, stop saying them yourself, remember to use your indoor voice, and move forward, while we still can. 

GLOUCESTER GETS TINGLED IN THE BUTT

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Like pretty much everyone, we here at your The Clam are busy with things like stuff, life, work, and other assorted things. So, while we ARE working on a piece focusing on a serious subject, we thought that in the mean time we’d gift you with the most ‘opposite of serious’ thing that we could possibly come up with, inspired by Dr. Chuck Tingle himself.

Enjoy, and feel free to add your own. Chuck would want all his buckaroos to be in on the fun.

**Note – some of these are illustrated, some are not, because we are supposed to be working today and not dicking around with photoshopping hunks.

 

 

  • ‘THE GREASY POLE REAMED ME IN THE BUTT WHILE SHOUTING VIVA’

  • I’M HAVING A GAY AFFAIR WITH THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF A WARD 2 RECOUNT

  • ‘NOT POUNDED IN THE BUTT BY ANYTHING BECAUSE I SPENT 40 MINUTES IN LINE AT STARBUCKS’

  • ‘MY ASS IS HAUNTED BY THE GHOST OF JOHN HAYS HAMMOND, JR.’

  • ‘GOOD HARBOR BEACH FORMED A MAN OUT OF SAND AND SENSUALLY SLAMMED ME IN THE BUTT’

Your Helpful 2018 Ballot Question Clamsplainer: Question 3

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TLDR: Vote YES because we are not monsters

In 2016, after much drama, the MA Legislature passed a law giving the same basic protections to transgender individuals that are provided to most other groups. It’s a really short law (https://malegislature.gov/Bills/189/Senate/S2407/) and it basically says that if you’re a place that has segregated facilities based on sex, that people who have the appropriate gender identity can use them. Like, humans can use bathrooms and stuff. This is not hard.

That’s it. So let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you’re a transgender female (born male, but perhaps at a midway point in the transition). Let’s also say, inelegantly, but we’re trying to be as clear AF here, you still have your junk. You can still pee standing up.

This law allows said transgender person to go and use a women’s bathroom, where they can then go sit in a stall like the rest of the ladies would. Or in the case of the opposite, a person born female who is transitioning genders, they could go into a men’s bathroom (where they would also likely use a stall).

I oversimplify, of course, because we are the Clam, and we like to break things down this basically, and often we’ve had a couple of beers when we’re writing these things. Gender is, we now know, far more fluid that this simple example, and trans people are on a continuum. It’s about far, far more than where your junk is.

Well, there’s a certain ultra conservative minority out there who thinks that being transgender is an abomination unto the Flying Spaghetti Monster or something. And they are seizing on the natural fear and squickishness most of us feel about bodily issues and sexuality to raise FUD on this. They call it “the bathroom bill” to minimalize it, and they try and raise the specter of hairy, bearded, clearly male people wearing dresses so they can hang out in women’s bathrooms and commit unspeakable violations.

Image result for worst website in the world

You can go through the actual Bible to see how wrong these people are or, you know, take your cues from their website design skills. Heck, it may not even be up at any given time.

I’m a politician, so I’m not going to say what I want to about that premise, but it’s total B*$%&@#(!!. Period. Men are not going to use this to make criminal behavior legal. It’s also not going to affect very many people at all – but those it affects gain a massively positive benefit. It basically legalizes them in public.

On a personal side, I know a number of people who are transgender. On both sides. You wouldn’t know it looking at most of them. Heck, you probably wouldn’t know it about any of them unless they told you. One of my friends was born female and began to transition a couple of years ago. He now looks more badass than I do, and has a better beard. I may be a bit jealous. His wife is someone he met and married when he was physically female, and she is a wonderful person who has stood with her wife (and now husband) throughout – because sexual orientation may be one thing, but plumbing is just plumbing. Love is bigger than that.

This message of tolerance brought to you by the good people at Love Plumbing & HVAC, LLC

So in other words, I’m proudly voting “yes” on Question 3 in order to preserve the protections that a small class of people in this Commonwealth need in order for them to safely survive in our increasingly crazy-ass society. If you are so heartless as to want people who look like women but don’t yet have 100% of the plumbing (or, conversely, people who look like badass men but need to pee sitting down – and forcing them into the ladies’ room) hooked up to have to use a men’s bathroom, well, first of all you’re not someone I want to know. Secondly, take a good look in the mirror. And then vote “yes”. Because the only way this ballot question could be clearer is if there was a checkbox for “Duh”.

On education: from Josh Turiel, the Clam’s Token Elected Official

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(even if he is from Salem, not Gloucester)

Question 2 is on the ballot this fall, and charter schools are a massively polarizing issue even among the left of progressives that tend to make up the Clam’s braintrust and much of our readership. Many progressives and liberals are on different sides of this issue. In short, Question 2 proposes to allow the creation of up to 12 new charter schools per year. Those schools would favor districts in the bottom 25% of statewide districts.

Advocates paint this as an issue of improving access to quality education for our most vulnerable students and families (a large proportion of whom favor charter school expansion). Opponents see this as taking away resources from our already struggling public schools and an attempt to privatize a public good.

In many senses, they are both right. Full disclosure though, after 9 years in our city’s public system my own son opted to attend Salem’s charter school for high school and we allowed that (a decision that spawned much Facebook abuse from some of Salem’s “characters”) and supported his decision. I’m a fan of our public schools, and I have done a lot to support them, but I’m no longer a public school parent.

My own opinion on this ballot question is that charter schools themselves are neither good nor bad per se. Gloucester had a very bad experience with their charter school, which was poorly run and wound up being closed down. Salem’s has been very positive with Salem Academy Charter – ranking in the top handful of schools statewide and well-managed.

In a perfect world, the presence of a charter school in a district can be used to spur innovation and growth in the public school district it lives in and gets students from. In practice, though, the district shuns the charter, and the charters take an elitist attitude over the rest of the district.

Dudes, you get your kids by lottery. They’re the same group the rest of the district gets. If you game the lottery, you ought to lose your charter. Period. I think some of this split has to do with outcomes, though. And that bugs me more than a little.

Education and knowledge are important in today’s world. But progressives tend to over-value secondary education. And they undervalue the use of actual work – the kind where regular people make and fix things. Charters are popular with many because they send a lot of kids to college. Well, college isn’t all that. If you have a career path that’s not served by college, then maybe it doesn’t make sense for you. Maybe the best answer is a trade education (something sadly neglected in today’s world), combined with an apprenticeship. Maybe it’s a general liberal arts college education. Maybe, just maybe, it’s a specialized college education combined with a postgraduate education in a specialty (law, engineering, architecture, medicine, whatever). And maybe I’m biased as a college dropout who went on to a career in corporate IT management before starting my own company 13 years ago.

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But anyways. The important thing is for every kid to have the best outcome for that kid. Not just whatever the workforce need is, or whatever is perceived to create the Renaissance Person. So, ultimately I do support charter schools as a solid educational alternative that ideally should be part of the educational system.

So Question 2 should be a no-brainer, right?

Wrong.

At the same time that charter schools are (I believe) a good part of the system, there’s a growing movement among both “education first” liberals and “privatize everything” conservatives to turn more and more of our educational system over to charters – and there’s also a growing movement to turn charter schools into a for-profit industry. I really don’t like that. As I mentioned above, in Salem we had a positive charter experience where community members basically brought the Salem Academy Charter into existence. Gloucester tried to do the same, but never was able to get their school onto a solid footing and has been without ever since.

basically the GCACS

Basically the Gloucester Community Arts Charter School

Since that time we set up an in-district charter for troubled students (New Liberty Innovation School, which transitioned this year away from being a charter and back into the system), and Bentley Academy (formerly the Bentley School – the school whose problems were what brought the Salem district into Level 4) was a political football – an incredibly divisive topic driven at least partly by the use of the aforementioned private charter companies to get the ball rolling.

Also of note is something that is both a fact and a misleading fact. Yes, money is taken away from a district when those students leave for a charter school. But it’s not like that money just vaporizes, “poof” into the sky. The Mass Taxpayers Foundation (a fairly centrist policy group) put out a study this past week saying that charters aren’t a drain on traditional public schools at all, and though I quibble over a few findings (mostly in the below paragraph, having to do with fixed costs), we are in a state where the “dollars follow the student” system is applied to ANY public-option school. Including School Choice districts (like Hamilton-Wenham, which has brought in large numbers of out of district kids), vocational schools like Essex Tech, and of course, charter schools.

That money is given to the charter school to educate the child. Basically, the same total pool of money educated the same total pool of kids. This said, there IS a cost to the public schools for this. We are not in a true competitive market with schools (not should we be). But public schools have to staff teachers, maintain and operate buildings, provide transportation, and manage all sorts of fixed costs that stay the same if the enrollment goes up or if it goes down a few percent. So if the Chapter 70 money from the state that goes into the school foundation budget equals $7500 per pupil (not an exact figure) and 300 students go to the city’s charter school, that equals $2,250,000 assessed from the city.

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Hahahhaa oh god it’s true sweet fuck

That $2.25m becomes the basis of the charter’s budget – it’s still going to educate your community’s children – in addition to any other grants or funding that school is able to obtain. But depending on things, your regular public school didn’t shed $2.25m in costs. Yes, they did have some costs come out. But not that much.

In their infinite wisdom, the Legislature came up with a funding formula to make up those costs to the district that loses to the charter. Which they don’t fund. Where the argument gets more traction in my view is in an overall comparison of school finances. And this is one of the fundamental flaws in charter school development nowadays  and the whole “for profit” charter school industry. Public schools in many communities are struggling. There are a lot of reasons for this. Demographic shifts. Special education requirements and costs (this is one of the loopholes many charters use – they have more leeway to send children with extensive special education needs back to the public school system). Increasing costs of owning/managing school buildings. Often restrictive teacher union contracts. The failure of the state to keep up with costs in their foundation budgets.

One more common objection to charters is that they aren’t overseen by elected school committees. Well, not every community elects their school committee (most notably in Boston, but regional vocational schools also appoint their school committee members as well). More importantly, charters don’t operate in a vacuum. They all appoint a board of trustees who have that oversight role. If they fail to do it, the state can (and in a few cases, has) stepped in to take oversight or even close the school. Massachusetts is good at this.

But charters aren’t all sunshine and roses. There are threats to the model, and that is a good reason to not just run away willy-nilly and build charter schools everywhere. And this is where the money is. An entire industry has emerged to build charter schools that run like a business, not like a community. And the financial companies and foundations (like the Waltons of Wal-Mart fame) with ties to the for-profit charter businesses are putting plenty of money into the MA fight. On the No side for big bucks is the MA teacher’s union – many of the charter schools are non-union so that’s an obvious place to defend.

The entire battle is a cluster. There are people who would rather see Trump in the White House than see a single new charter school. In our state, we’re doing better than most when it comes to charter management and oversight. But there’s also long waiting lists for charter schools all around the state, especially in districts where the schools are lower-performing.

Personally, I’m voting NO on Question #2, because I like having more brakes on the charter school system. I think there’s room to expand. But not much, and not quickly. And I also think both sides have a long way to go before we can get to a happy medium and run charters the way they can make the biggest difference for the state as a whole.

But our priority has to be on improving our public schools. That’s where the bulk of the resources should be going, that’s where the bulk of the kids are (and should be) educated, and that’s where the rubber meets the road.