2/24/09

Plain Dealer

Thomas Ott

Cleveland schools announced an ambitious plan to turn around 10 troubled schools late last year, including Luis Munoz Marin school, where 94.4 percent of the students are economically disadvantaged and 46.4 percent have limited English proficiency.

CLEVELAND – Cleveland schools chief Eugene Sanders called out bad teachers and failing schools in a rousing speech early this month. Now it’s the teachers union’s turn to throw down.

Nearly four months after it was announced, the district’s plan to revive 10 of its worst elementary schools appears to be more talk than action, Cleveland Teachers Union President David Quolke said Monday. The schools, which could be shut down if they fail to improve, have not received what he considers significant new help.

“It looks like smoke and mirrors,” said Quolke, who plans to complain at a school board meeting tonight. “I don’t believe the commitment is as sincere as we believed it was going to be.”

The turnaround effort suffered a setback in December, when the district decided that Gregory Henderson, a new assistant superintendent in charge of the effort, was not the right person. Sanders demoted Henderson and transferred him to South High as an assistant principal.

Henderson’s successor, Assistant Superintendent Laura Purnell, said the district has beefed up the schools’ staffs with extra teachers and given several buildings their first assistant principals. Retired administrators are coaching the principals part time.

But she acknowledged that other changes are still in progress. A district team, assembled by Sanders and the union, will use data to determine what teacher training and other improvements each building needs. Building teams also will have a say.

In the end, Purnell said, teachers have to figure out what they can do together or as individuals.

“The teachers are their own resources,” Purnell said. “It’s not like you have to buy a new program or add a new body.”

She said schools already are showing academic gains. But the clock is ticking. The district could shut down buildings or replace their principals and teachers as soon as 2010.

Sanders alluded to the turnaround plan in his Feb. 4 State of the Schools speech. He also warned a small percentage of bad teachers to shape up or face removal.

The tone left union members angry, frustrated and disappointed, Quolke said. He said Sanders seemed to breeze past the union’s efforts to police its own and collaborate on school reform.

CTU, in its current contract, agreed to have successful teachers mentor struggling peers, Quolke said. The union also is letting new single-gender and other specialty schools hire their own instructors. And it brought in national experts from the American Federation of Teachers to help the turnaround schools.

“The mood is that Gene Sanders looks at teachers as part of the problem and not part of the solution,” Quolke said. “They are not being valued in terms of what they do on a daily basis.”

Sanders, whose relations with the union have been good, downplayed suggestions of a rift. He said improving teaching quality is a “national conversation” and he believes CTU wants to do its part.