Mar 15, 2007 11:57 AM
When principals are experienced classroom teachers and gifted leaders who know enough to collaborate with staff, empowerment works. But when Empowerment Schools are run by martinets or drones, teachers are demoralized and the results don’t work for students or their parents.
That was the point made by UFT Special Representative Janella Hinds and a panel of teachers who testified at a City Council Education Committee hearing on March 5 on the Empowerment Schools, which are so named because principals are supposed to get more autonomy, additional funding and more budgetary control on the condition that they sign performance agreements.
“The Department of Education has proclaimed this program ‘mission accomplished,’ but that is premature,” said Hinds. “The DOE must devote the time and effort necessary to improve Empowerment before expanding it.”
Under Chancellor Klein’s most recent announced reorganization, principals must choose among three different types of support organizations, including the Empowerment model, for the next school year.
City lawmakers warned against expanding the program when the jury was still out about the success of the 322 Empowerment Schools this school year.
“We’re still looking for results,” said Queens Councilman John Liu. “You keep touting the success, and we don’t see the success.”
Nadelstern, the chief executive of the school system’s Empowerment initiative, spent two hours answering the lawmakers’ pointed questions.
Hinds said the UFT had mixed feelings about the Empowerment initiative.
On the positive side, she said, Empowerment Schools, which must adhere to the UFT-DOE contract, have more freedom from the bureaucracy and, as a result, could have the flexibility to design education plans tailored to the academic needs of their students and to make hiring and budget decisions that reflect their students’ needs.
But a lot depends on the existence of a collaborative school community, she said.
“The term ‘Empowerment’ has left some administrators with the impression that they are free to make unilateral decisions,” Hinds charged. “And although that gets stopped, the damage is done.”
Hinds complained that not all principals consulted with their school communities before opting to become an Empowerment School and numerous principals did not share information. And she contended that many special education students in Empowerment Schools are not receiving mandated services.
“The union is investigating reports that the mandates listed on Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for special education students and the needs of English Language Learners are not being met — particularly that small self-contained classes are giving way to team teaching and inclusion classes,” she said. “We have also received allegations that principals are asking teachers and psychologists to change IEPs in order to stretch school dollars.”
Among the teachers testifying, Beacon HS Chapter Leader Kerry Dowling said Empowerment worked in her school because “our staff, in collaboration with the administration, has had a chance to really work together to set goals, plan curriculum and design assessments. We design our own professional development based on the needs of the students and of staff.” She insisted that “empowerment works when administrators, such as those at Beacon, are experienced educators with years of classroom practice” and warned that if empowerment was granted to inexperienced principals, “it could be a disaster.”
Mark Otto, a special education teacher
at Manhattan’s Facing History School, credited his principal as largely responsible for the school’s successes. “Not only are teachers and staff consulted when decisions in the school are made, but we are active participants … The success of Empowerment Schools is largely dependent on the character and vision of the principal in each school.”
Carol Griffin, a 2nd-grade teacher and chapter leader at PS 71, said her school had always been “high functioning, with strong commitments from staff, parents, local business leaders and community activists,” but she insisted the school could use “more external support from the empowerment network leaders.”
Valerie Dudley, chapter leader at Manhattan’s Kappa II School, who submitted written testimony since she was unable to appear, said the downside of her school becoming an Empowerment School was “a collapse of communication between our administrator and the teachers. Two of the biggest problems flowing from that collapse have been retreats in the level of safety and a decline in the commitment to professional development.”
Kimberly Tai, a science and physical education teacher at the Accion Academy in the Bronx, said becoming an Empowerment School had not changed her middle school for the better. The paperwork requirements have not eased, new teachers still do not have mentors, and resources remain scarce, she noted.
A veteran math teacher, “fearing that the DOE has vindictive tendencies,” submitted anonymous testimony scoring the DOE for “retain(ing) control of the school’s most critical functions, including instruction and curriculum, through its Accountability Office.” The teacher also wrote that the vaunted extra school funding was a zero-sum game. Principals will be spending their added empowerment dollars “on services they formerly received without charge — such as summer school, the arts, and assistance with budgets.”
Steve Quester, the chapter leader at the Brooklyn Children’s School, credited “a strong partnership between administration and faculty” for his school’s ongoing success. That partnership, he noted, pre-existed the school’s joining the Empowerment initiative.
“We have a principal and assistant principals who trust and respect teachers, paras, and related service providers; they also hold us to high standards,” Quester said. “The result is that teachers, paras, and related service providers in our school trust and respect children, and hold them to high standards. That’s why I say that it’s not ultimately about which management structure the DOE picks.”