A couple of weeks ago I expressed sadness at the recent endorsement by the teachers’ union of candidates opposing both incumbents up for re-election for the board of the San Antonio Independent School Board, including board President Patti Radle.
I described the board as the best in the 40 years I have covered, off and on, SAISD governance. It was, admittedly a low bar. Going back to the 1970s, the board provided great fodder for a columnist’s offerings: stories of comedy and outrage.
But today’s board’s performance would merit praise even if many of its predecessors weren’t so inept and corrupt. Acknowledging that the district has long underperformed, the board has enthusiastically supported an almost dizzying array of efforts initiated over the past four years by Superintendent Pedro Martinez and his staff.
My earlier column described the district’s attempts to employ the proven success of economic integration in improving the performance of students from low-income families without pulling down the performance of students from affluent families. With the district’s neighborhoods heavily segregated economically, the only way to do that is with magnet schools and in-district charter schools that draw students from throughout the district and beyond.
While these efforts appear to be working well, I noted that the district’s success could not be limited to the lucky lottery winners of slots in the district’s magnet and charter schools. Radle and Martinez make a good case that they are not. Traditional neighborhood schools, the backbone of the public school system, are getting a lot of attention.
At the top of the list, said Radle, is bringing in new principals and stronger faculties to poorly performing schools.
“We have replaced many of the principals,” said Radle. “Often before, it was just shuffling principals around rather than a real analysis [of] what the community needs in a principal. We are committed to very strong leadership in the campuses.”
In addition, the district is upgrading faculties in low-performing schools. Traditionally, veteran teachers have, not surprisingly, preferred teaching in successful, often more affluent, schools.
“We used to have a high percentage of first-year teachers,” Radle said.
Throughout the district the best teachers have been identified as “master teachers.” Beginning in 2017, the district was able to place, partly with bonuses, 125 master teachers in its 33 lowest-performing schools. This year that number has grown to 217 master teachers – giving the lowest-performing schools an average of 6.6 master teachers compared to an average of 4.3 at the district’s other schools. The district hopes to expand the program further.
For the first time in many years, SAISD has art teachers in every elementary school. Studies show art programs improve students’ overall performance and, not incidentally, increases school attendance. State funding per school is based on average daily attendance. Including middle and high schools, 79 percent of students are involved in arts programs.
“We’re also making sure that these are neighborhood schools,” Radle said. It used to be that if the grade for one of a family’s several children was full, that child would be sent to a nearby school. The district has worked to end that practice.
Other initiatives include:
- An aggressive expansion of successful dual-language programs. They are in 45 schools now and three more will be added next year.
- A $7 million grant will provide high-speed fiber networks for internet use in all SAISD schools. In addition, all the district’s buses have been rigged for Wi-Fi, with the county’s BiblioTech digital offerings available.
- A Verizon grant that provides iPads to 3,100 students and 190 teachers.
The most important change among these and others, of course, is the effort to improve the leadership and teaching staff at low-performing schools. Are the efforts working? It’s too early to make any long-term findings, but the district points to a number of indicators.
Some 85 percent of students are graduating from high school on time, up from 81 percent in 2015. Of last year’s graduating class, 54 percent of college-goers enrolled in a four-year university, up from 40 percent for the Class of 2015.
The district claims that if current standards were applied in 2016 and 2017, 35 of the district’s schools would have been rated “improvement required” by the state. Last year, 16 SAISD schools received that rating. The number of students enrolled in these schools went from 35,089 in 2016 to 8,206 last year.
By the same measures, the district says the entire district would have been given an “F” in 2016 and a “D” in 2017. Last year it earned a “C.” Much improvement is needed, but the trend is good.
Martinez has broken a lot of eggs in his almost frenetic efforts to do two difficult things: attract affluent families who have sent their children to private schools for decades and more recently to charter schools, and meanwhile improve the traditional neighborhood schools. Not all of his innovations will be successful, but many of them will be.
What we know is that the less-ambitious attempts at reform weren’t getting the job done. The teachers’ union is understandably upset at the impact on some teachers. But the results so far argue that we must give the district’s current leadership more time.
All but 1 percent of SAISD’s students come from families that earn less than the median income. Some 61 percent are in the bottom quartile, earning less than $34,160 a year. If the district can become a model for educating students with such challenges, it will do a great service not only to the students, but to Texas and the nation.
Y’all they say r the good points that everyone to hear but they don’t tell you that do language starts from pre-k to second grade and then they will add a grade every year how does that work for a lot of people in the neighborhood. Especially being a taxpayer having to elementary one at one corner one at the other corner.
Why does the Rivard Report publish Mr. Casey’s commentary at the top of their daily newsletter? Mr. Casey’s pieces clearly take a political position, and are very plainly intended to frame privatization in a positive light. Does the Rivard Report have an elitist agenda? Or are their journalisits too incompetent to tell fact from fiction? Put real news first. Put Mr. Casey’s opinion last. Else the impartiality of the Rivard Report should be in doubt.
Change is so difficult. As a graduate of the SAISD, I am thrilled that they are attempting to make the changes necessary to improve the district. As a real old-timer, I remember when Jefferson AND Brackenridge were producing students prepared for college.
If change needs new principals and teachers, perhaps those being replaced can find new energy to reflect on why they were replaced.
I am anxious to see new models develop for public education. If was no need for change, the number of charter schools in San Antonio would not be multiplying.
This was in no way a response to my questions. Did you even read them? I appreciate that you think that SAISD is making the right moves, but I asked why this commentary is given priority in the Report’s daily newsletter. Could you please address that? Do you feel as though the Rivard Report can do this and still maintain it’s impartiality? Because it seems like favoritism and the advancement of an agenda to me.
The correlation between (public) school needs and the rise of charter schools is quite inappropriate, in my view. The charter school movement has its own agenda which does not necessarily align with student and family needs…this is not a secret.
Jay Q. Brax pay attention. Comments are made sequentially – not necessarily to the preceding comment.
Let us not kid ourselves . Graduation rates are meaningless unless they reflect comparable “college readiness rates”. As I understand our SAISD college readiness rates are very low. Perhaps another benchmark of success would be college graduation rates six years after of those SAISD graduates that enrolled in four year colleges .
So, what are the SAISD college readiness rates and are they getting better and what are the college graduation rates of our SAISD graduates that went on to college?
It is a combination of the unions AND the administration that has created such problems in school districts over the decades. As a former educator it has made me sad to see poor teachers retained because unions pushed not to have them fired and principals would not do their job of properly evaluating them, giving them due notice, and eventually firing them is they did not do their job. Instead, the poorest teachers are “fired” by being assigned to classrooms filled with the poorest students because their parents are less likely to complain.
Teachers unions and school administrators need to keep in mind how the auto unions ran the American auto industry almost into the grave by not realizing that there is a limit beyond which their stand is not sustainable and results in failure.
Furthermore, to find problems not just in the teaching staff, but in the administration, too, school systems should consider having a system of upward evaluation in addition to the downward evaluation systems that are traditional so that unions and administration members can better learn where their problems are. Parents should be allowed to submit evaluations of teachers and principals of their children’s schools. Teachers should be allowed to evaluate the principals and the coordinators of the programs in which they teach. Principals should be able to evaluate the vice-superintendents and the coordinators who work with them from above. Coordinators should be able to evaluate the vice-superintendents and the superintendent. Vice-superintendents should be able to evaluate the superintendent. In all the cases, the evaluations should go to the administrator ABOVE the level of the person being evaluated who would communicate the tallied results downward each level.
It is apparent you do not know that history of the unions or their role in keeping exploitative economic forces at bay. No, I am not a member of a union nor have I ever been a union member). I just happen to have had a really good education. I am a keen observer of events that have played over a long period of time. And I have been an educator for many years. What you are proposing here is both biased (in regard to unions) and complex beyond reasonable implementation (evaluations etc). Think simplicity and elegance. not complexity and chaos. Ask students…they know what is needed.
In fact, I hear a recent student is running for a Board position. Who is that? Let’s talk to that person. RR? Can you reach to out to this person for an editorial????
@Blackbird there was a community forum this past Saturday and Rivard Report was present. The student running for the position did not show up to be heard. Hopefully he shows up at the next one. I too think it’s important for others to hear why he is running.
The incumbents are Patti Randle (District 5) and Christina Martinez (District 6), for those interested.
I’m sorry, It’s Patti Radle.
https://www.saisd.net/main/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4109&Itemid=336
Something must be done to produce graduates who are truly educated and workforce ready. SAISD isn’t the only district with this problem, but for SA this problem impacts our future…uneducated and unskilled is not a good place to be if you want to be s vibrant, world class city. Most educators will tell you that way too many students graduate-by any means necessary- without actually having basic literacy/numeracy/technology or life skills…but the districts look good when grad rates are high, Also the philosophy of heterogenous grouping was one of the worst things to happen to education. In theory it sounds good, in action no students were served by it. (One teacher cannot effectively teach numerous levels of ability in one class , in one45/50 class period.
The city needs to do its part to make education a priority…or we will remain a low skill, low wage city…with an additional million of the same.
Shocking how an opinion piece is currently the featured article for the website. Is the Rivard Report a legitimate journalistic outlet – or is it designed to protect only incumbents? Let’s all document instances where the Rivard Report uses its commentary and news articles to bolster incumbency.
Rick Casey,
What are your credentials in education??? Seriously. We all know what is happening in SAISD and with the superintendent. “Low-income” students are the justification (serious problems with, but that is another story that will not be published in RR), but not the actual reason for the changes planned for SAISD community. The REAL reason (and we all know it) is the planned development and gentrification that will actually push out the low income and leave all the wonderful changes in the school for the “new kids.” The reason for your continual “editorials” is to provide PR for these changes that will benefit all the developers. The so-called “underprivileged” students in SAISD do not need a “better education” to figure this out. They know it. They get it. So what doesn’t the privileged get it? Why don’t you get it, Mr. Casey? I think you and the RR need to take some classes in reality from the residents here on the West Side……. that is if you are truly serious about your concern for the welfare of this community.
All the complaining about the mere existence of an “opinion piece” seems designed to avoid addressing the substance of Casey’s op-ed. And it’s clearly labeled “Commentary” at the very top so there is no subterfuge here about that.
Instead of attacking the legitimacy of an opinion’s existence, argue the substance of an opinion. Good grief.
No doubt, the district has made great strides, but why does the new model call for one principal to oversee two schools? The proposed model is, on one hand, an attempt to offset the creep of non-district charters. This is a worthy goal. And yet, the way in which the plan calls for “networked school” principals to oversee more than one school is deeply problematic in my view.
The justification for this change is that, under the new framework, a lot of the cumbersom work that goes into administering a school will devolve to a non-profit agency. Ideally, this is supposed to give the principle more autonomy from the SAISD bureaucracy (like charters have, but still within SAISD). And yet, whatever time and thought this would free up for the principal is effectively cancelled by the fact that they will be (and in some cases are) overseeing two schools. To think that this will not result in a loss of principal quality/oversight is a huge policy oversight in my view. It signals a lack of coherence at the level of policy design.
Principals succeed when they are able to mobilize teachers, students, and parents at the granular level. The new model forgets that principal success is created through intimate knowledge of and engagement with *a* school. Neither Superintendent Martinez nor any member of the SAISD policy team has yet to provide a suitable explanation for how being a principle of two schools is a good thing that will improve learning outcomes and community involvement.
Sadly, I foresee a system in which vice-principals will be stuck in their new roles as principles-in-effect. Yet, despite being “on the ground”, VPs will still lack the authority to make effective decisions about kids, teachers, and spending. Indeed, many of these hard decisions will still have to be fed through an overextended and increasingly out-of-touch multi-school principle. What gives here? Why is having a multi-school principle so crucial to this model? If SAISD is looking for a compromise, I suggest keeping the non-profit led learning network and getting rid of the networked principal idea.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with being ambitious. Perhaps what is needed, then, is a less heroic approach to principals and to school-reform generally.
One “turn around” school district in Texas earning heavy praise these days is the Dallas ISD, under the leadership of Dr. Michael Hinojosa. Since 2015, when the Accelerating Campus Excellence (ACE) program first went into effect, teacher and student retention, as well as individual campus grade reports have improved dramatically.
Dallas ISD rewards its best teachers with handsome raises if they commit to teaching in the district’s high-poverty, low-performing schools. According to http://www.the74million.org, an excellent website covering education reform, these teachers earn a $2,000 signing bonus, and a retention stipend of $6000 to $15,500 per year depending on how they measure up based on a variety of performance criteria, including student evaluations and test scores. (I’m not a fan of merit pay, but this approach at least demands that teachers, as part of their evaluation, work as mentors and leaders at the schools.) The highest-paid teachers can earn $90,000 per year. I applaud our House Representative Diego Bernal’s efforts to replicate the ACE model, with local autonomy, throughout Texas.
Infusing highly-effective teachers into these districts is a start, but not a panacea. Before signing these contracts, these ACE teachers made sure these school principals and assistant principals have their backs. In contrast to the other schools in the Dallas district, these ACE schools have also hired many psychologists and counselors to provide emotional and mental health support for all students. Everyone must be on board and work as a team.
And, yes, ACE also costs a lot of money, about a million dollars per school.
Will the state increase its share of the costs to fund education, and will local taxpayers be willing to cover the difference (now and in the future)? What cuts such as expensive football stadiums, athletic teams, and extracurricular activities are we willing to do without?
Unfortunately, the skimpy reforms outlined for SAISD in this commentary—modest bonuses, limited number of teacher transfers, and an expanded art program—are not comprehensive and intentional enough. It’s a start, I admit, but the dizzying array of initiatives may end up stifling any meaningful progress.