A lot of the truths about education in this country were on display Saturday as I watched the Class of 2011 graduate from T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va. To me, none was more obvious than the fact that parents and family culture are the most important factors in a child’s education. It’s a fact that school administrators and the ever-expanding industry of “reformers” are loath to admit, lest they appear powerless in the face of the staggering academic differences among the kids who have been handed diplomas from America’s high schools this month.

Take Ben Goodwin and Emma Kemler, two of the best students in my senior English classes this year. Both are voracious readers who write with sophistication, insight and grace. Ben was accepted early to Bucknell, and Emma is going to Wesleyan. They are the kind of students whom teachers and administrators love to take credit for. But I know that neither I nor any other educator had influence on Ben and Emma close to that of their parents.

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Benefits of diverse school

There are Alexandria parents of the same educational background and financial means of Ben’s and Emma’s parents who think that it is child abuse to send a kid to T.C. Williams, a school where minorities are in the majority and 57% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch, and that has relatively low test scores compared with neighboring schools where property values freeze out the poor. What the Goodwins and Kemlers know is that a bright, motivated kid with vigilant parents cannot only get a first-class academic education at a school like T.C. but also a rich social education money cannot buy. It’s in vogue for reformers to blame the achievement gap not on poor parenting but more on poor teaching. New York City, encouraged by the Obama administration, is leading the way. Just last month, it announced that it will spend more than $25 million to devise special tests students will take to measure the effectiveness of their teachers.

Reduced to its simplest terms, the rationale behind the attack on teachers is this: Children born to single, semi-literate, poverty-stricken 16- or 17-year-olds can, with the right teachers, reach the same level of academic skill as children born to parents such as Ben’s and Emma’s. Teachers would love to have such power, but statistics and common sense show that with few exceptions, things don’t work that way. It’s laughable to see “reformers” berating the quality of public schools as they did when the Program for International Student Assessment results showed that the 15-year-olds in the U.S. ranked 17th among the 65 systems worldwide participating in the literacy test. Little mention was made of the fact that when the results were broken down by ethnicity, Asian-American students came in second in the world and white American students came in sixth. This too has to do with parenting, and a family culture that values education.I saw those same values in many parents of first-generation immigrant graduates. Take Joe Massaquoi, one of the few black males in my AP English classes this year. Joe is 6 feet, 4 inches and 230 pounds. He played football, basketball and lacrosse and will go to Marshall University on a football scholarship. Yet he defies every stereotype of the high-profile jock. His father came from Sierra Leone to, as Joe says, “live the American dream. He has always wanted me to have a better life than he did and knew education was the key.”

Surrogate parents can also play an enormous role in a child’s education. Filomena Reyes came here from El Salvador five years ago. I later discovered that Filomena’s home life was so intolerable that she went to a social worker who had her placed in a foster care home with Charlotte Spinner. ‘She never gave up on me’ “I always had a hard time with math, but Charlotte would sit with me every day to help me understand every math concept. She never gave up on me,” says Filomena, who will enter Old Dominion University in September. But whether it’s the home of Massaquois from Sierra Leone or the home of the Goodwins from Duke and Harvard Law, the role of parents is remarkably the same.”Growing up, it was just a fact of life in my house that school was the most important thing,” says Ben Goodwin, echoing Joe Massaquoi.

As I watched the graduation of our 634 seniors with 2,500 parents and family members packed into the gymnasium, I thought that one would be hard-pressed to find such a diverse gathering in such a small place. At least 77 countries were represented in that crowd. There were big-time Washington lawyers and lobbyists as well as parents from public housing and some who live in the shadows as illegal immigrants. And what many of their children had in common were parents who valued education — and who paved a brighter and wider path for their future success.  Patrick Welsh is an English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., and a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.

Parents Across America meets tonight at 6 p.m. at the downtown library on Wyman and Main, lower level. This is an organizational meeting to establish meeting dates and direction of the local chapter of the national grass roots organization.

By Jane Hayes

When times were bleak, he was first to speak

Of the impoverished, lonely, and the meek

Seeking to change the education scene,

Russ was our ultimate, admirable dean

First to advocate common sense and truth

Always speaking for disadvantaged youth

At one with nature, family, and friends

Compassion, a helping hand he would lend

Loving thoughts, good humor, nurturing needs,

For those less fortunate, his heart would bleed

To those in despair, hope was clearly there

Need a volunteer? Russ was always near

To Ellis students, his book cart, such a highlight

Spreading his love and time, giving us insight

At schools, Mother House, and Womanspace

Mothers, children, babies he would embrace

His points of light and many a unique phrase

We, the better, for his common sense ways.

Russ knew great loss at the death of a son

Taught me, I was not the only lonely one

To loving daughters and beloved Adele

To his worldly presence we say farewell

Now lament the loss of this beloved one

For all his good deeds left undone

Through memories we now must cherish

So that this unique soul will never perish

Through his love and cheer we will always know

A truly special man lived, dear Russ Milano.

By Jane Hayes

When times were bleak, he was first to speak

Of the impoverished, lonely, and the meek

Seeking to change the education scene,

Russ was our ultimate, admirable dean

First to advocate common sense and truth

Always speaking for disadvantaged youth

At one with nature, family, and friends

Compassion, a helping hand he would lend

Loving thoughts, good humor, nurturing needs,

For those less fortunate, his heart would bleed

To those in despair, hope was clearly there

Need a volunteer? Russ was always near

To Ellis students, his book cart, such a highlight

Spreading his love and time, giving us insight

At schools, Mother House, and Womanspace

Mothers, children, babies he would embrace

His points of light and many a unique phrase

We, the better, for his common sense ways.

Russ knew great loss at the death of a son

Taught me, I was not the only lonely one

To loving daughters and beloved Adele

To his worldly presence we say farewell

Now lament the loss of this beloved one

For all his good deeds left undone

Through memories we now must cherish

So that this unique soul will never perish

Through his love and cheer we will always know

A truly special man lived, dear Russ Milano.

Requiem for Russ

By Jane Hayes

When times were bleak, he was first to speak

Of the impoverished, lonely, and the meek

Seeking to change the education scene,

Russ was our ultimate, admirable dean

First to advocate common sense and truth

Always speaking for disadvantaged youth

At one with nature, family, and friends

Compassion, a helping hand he would lend

Loving thoughts, good humor, nurturing needs,

For those less fortunate, his heart would bleed

To those in despair, hope was clearly there

Need a volunteer? Russ was always near

To Ellis students, his book cart, such a highlight

Spreading his love and time, giving us insight

At schools, Mother House, and Womanspace

Mothers, children, babies he would embrace

His points of light and many a unique phrase

We, the better, for his common sense ways.

Russ knew great loss at the death of a son

Taught me, I was not the only lonely one

To loving daughters and beloved Adele

To his worldly presence we say farewell

Now lament the loss of this beloved one

For all his good deeds left undone

Through memories we now must cherish

So that this unique soul will never perish

Through his love and cheer we will always know

A truly special man lived, dear Russ Milano.

Life in the Magical Kingdom of Camelot Inc.   by David Stocker     5/19/11

     We now acknowledge that LALA became a focal point of derision as a failed vanity program for LMS.  Costly?  How do you say- over the top? In fairness the cost of this experiment cannot be averaged in with the residual cost of operating the Page Park program.  It might be helpful to speak with some of the teachers or administrators at PP to understand what is working and what is not working about their program.  More than at most other locations, the teachers at PP are veteran teachers with Masters degrees and many credits. The consequence; they are more costly on average than teaching staff in regular schools. But I think if I had a violent or psychotic kid four grades behind, that was sent to PP for taking up one or two full time staff and destroying learning for 24 other kids I might be grateful that the highest qualified and most experienced teachers in the district were assigned to help. These are the most marginalized and troubled kids we have.  

     In reality it is a rare event for a parent to show up at a P/T conference. More likely, teachers get yelled at in the same language the kids use (wonder why) for bothering a parent watching TV at home with a phone call about their student’s behavior.  Indeed, these are the only teachers who are willing to face this group of students day after day.

     A fired veteran educator at 205 has recently documented medical proof of the increased physiological stress level and health risk incurred when treated in a degrading manner by the district.  Much of the intuitive and acquired practical knowledge has been stood on its head by contradictory LMS/BOE policy edicts making the job triple hard. Kids, parents AND the district are willing to blame the teachers here. Leaving them with no support, a compromised discipline code and under threat of closure. The district ought to consider that they have placed many at risk of PTSD from verbal and physical threats, not just from kids.  

     The decision to engage Camelot Inc. to provide services for the disciplinary student population will be before our BOE soon.  This act, recently come to Illinois offers few benefits to district 205 yet it will represent a major charter incursion towards the goal of 30% market share in Rockford forecast by Bingham, a win for local proponents of privatization and a financial windfall for the vulture capitalists. BOE members who appear to have yet to do a simple Google search tossed softball questions to the Camelot sales reps reading from their powerpoint (as if we could not..?) at the Education Committee meeting May 16. They were not able to discern among their own data the difference between students in their behavior program and those who were in a (Roosevelt type) credit recovery program.  This appeared to frustrate Makulec and Powers who repeatedly reminded them that 205 does not need a credit recovery program. The higher success rates of teens voluntarily returning to complete school obscure the more relevant numbers regarding disciplinary students.  Camelot, proposing a grades 3-12 program, admitted they have little experience with elementary students. It’s hard to see how they can do better than our own staff.

     The real cost of subcontracting this educational component to Camelot is deceptive because a certain amount of the cost (those expelled from the kingdom) will return to 205, the larger social cost will be buried in the escalating engagements with the juvenile and criminal justice system also a boon for private corporations paid for by taxpayers.  Page Park School was created to relieve our regular schools, to get the staff cost, real, and time equivalent cost off the books for our regular schools and referrals off the documentation of the home principals.  

     Camelot’s bid excluded the costs of a staff nurse and building maintenance. This led Makulec to ask what other significant costs may have been omitted from Camelot’s proposal….like maybe security, and food services. Camelot’s common refrain was “ Well, in our other contracts district’s pay that.”  Camelot proposes to do a better job than Page Park with only 1 staff per 17 students. The school serving up to 150 students would have five additional staff including two team leaders, a CEO and a social worker.

     These were the problems immediately evident with the proposal, but behind that are troubling questions not asked by board members about the for profit company’s history of mishandling students and finances in Pennsylvania where a Philadelphia charter district official committed suicide amid an expanding Federal investigation of missing funds. Also very murky is the former incarnation of Camelot’s founders as a company named Brown Schools of Texas, where children reportedly died from rough handling by staff.

     The notion that Camelot can take care of all our discipline problems in 205 has moved swiftly from an idea, to a proposal, to an exclusive presentation arranged for Camelot sales reps. Camelot’s methodology actually sounds like it was plagiarized from 205’s own Fresh Start Behavior Modification Program launched in 2004 by veteran special ed. principals David Rossi, and Dan Hofeditz, It ran successfully until it was summarily discarded by Sheffield in the autumn of 2010. Using our own successful model did not pay dividends to friends of Sheffield.  Camelot’s rapid expansion in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Illinois is championed by none other than Paul Vallas, the man who brought us LaVonne Sheffield. With friends like this, we don’t even need to think it through.

     Passing it off to Camelot is another application of rouge to make our district look better than it is. Talk about data driven, …the data show that there is no actual cost relief, but a well documented risk of private enterprise taking advantage during the years of minimal fiscal and programmatic scrutiny.

     How could Camelot do this for less per student, earn a profit, avoid costs of health administrators and maintenanc, abandon the most problematic and deliver this service cheaper to us. All with a staff ratio that is half the current ratio? Bizarre.  Who will handle these kids when ten of them go off at once?  According to their own staffing description, a simple fist fight would take out almost half the available personnel.

“This new learning amazes me Sir Guinevere!”

Monty Python, Spamalot.

     Has any Board member spent a day at Page Park? or any visitor from Camelot for that matter?   Maybe they know it all, but there was no silver bullet evident as they read their own flimsy sales powerpoint to the Education Committee. For sure Camelot doesn’t add up.  Anyone willing to click on google can find out the more unsavory aspects of Camelot’s history, their modus financial, scholastic, and behavioral.

     Trying to cheap it off on Camelot is a sleight of hand that will come back with a vengeance. This makes about as much sense as beating a needle exchange program into the ground for puritanical reasons and risking another AIDS outbreak. It may be a wreckage, but it is our wreckage. The answer is not in the magical kingdom.  We should ask what about our society is, in effect mass producing these kids. Families and Parents need help.  One way or another Rockford will pay the cost. The question with Camelot: are we willing to pay it twice?

                                                                                                                                        David Stocker

If you have attended a school board meeting or have watched from cable access channel 20 over the last couple of years you know who Russ Milano is. Anyone that had the opportunity to meet and speak with Russ found him to be a man with a high level of self control, immense knowledge, and genuine warmth. You knew Russ, because he would regularly draft 2 minute commentaries and deliver them to board members and RPS205 stakeholders during the communication and petition portion of our Rockford public school board meetings.

Russ was open about his concerns with the direction Rockford public schools had taken and spoke often about his frustrations with the RPS205 leadership that had plotted this course. But, on the night our recent superintendents resignation was accepted, he suggested to several planning to speak negatively about the outgoing school leader that this was not the time. Russ used his precious two to instead give praise to Alice Saudargas (then only 94) that had recently lost her bid for reelection. Russ echoed that sentiment at the last school board meeting he attended stating that he would miss Alices warm smiles as the board member that sat closet to the podium he had spoken so often from at the administration building at 201 S. Madison Street.

Russ provided me with me a May 11th email he had sent to a current school board member. I am comfortable sharing it publicly because knowing Russ he would have delivered it personally from the podium at room 7 of the Administration, or as he hoped, in a venue that would accommodate the public. Per Russ, No more meetings a 201 Madison- Ever.

Russ Milano- You have the Education Committee now and we are going into the 2nd year in which Title 1 funds will not be used for teaching children who need extra help. That is how it is meant to be used. The last Superintendent stripped the funds out of the schools where it was needed most and spread only some of it to the rest but kept most of it in the Administration building and used it to issue contracts and purchase orders to consultants and vendors. When are you going to start to return those dollars to the purpose they were intended extra assistance for the poor and disadvantaged? Schools like Ellis, Lemon and Haskell etc had their available resources reduced significantly. Those dollars went downtown. The past Superintendent spent those millions of dollars on something. Are we ever going to find out what? That is why you started to see me at every meeting. Not just my wife but the injustice of stripping needed resources from these schools.

Just as Russ will miss Alices warm smiles, we will surely miss his. Please join me in taking on the Title 1 funding challenge for him. God bless you, Russ Milano.

Comments by Doug Clayburg

            Editorial Column

            Paula Coulahan

It’s The Parents, It’s The Parents,  It’s The Parents

When Dr. Dennis Thompson was Superintendent of the Rockford Public Schools, I was just beginning my teaching career. He spoke at the new teacher training which was held in the auditorium of my alma mater, Jefferson High School. His speech was called “It’s The Teacher. It’s The Teacher. It’s The Teacher.”  His point, of course, was that the teacher makes all the difference in the classroom and in the success of the students.

            While teachers agree that it’s all about setting the right tone in the classroom and teaching students to value education, I think most also agree that sustained student success depends on the emphasis that parents put on education. It’s the parents. It’s the parents. It’s the parents.

As a former classroom teacher in the Rockford Public Schools, I recruited a dedicated group of family volunteers every year. Parents, grandparents, aunts, and even cousins gave many volunteer hours, which allowed me to conduct Literacy Centers better while teaching Guided Reading, host special classroom events and awards ceremonies, plan holiday celebrations, and carry out messy science experiments and pumpkin carvings. These activities are much more successful with parent participation. More importantly, parents get to take an active role in their child’s education and that forms a bond.

It will take much more of this kind of parent and family involvement to keep classrooms running smoothly in the near future. With budgets coming up short, personnel reductions, and an increase in class sizes, it will “take a village” to continually improve the quality of education. Local employers should allow parents to use a fraction of their time each year to volunteer in a school of their choice. The quality of education and the quality of business in a community are always connected, and many businesses in Rockford have already formed successful partnerships with schools.   

The Rockford Public Schools debacle, over the past year and a half, brought out the best in dedicated parents. I admired the investment that parents made in their schools and, ultimately, in their community. As impassioned speakers at School Board meetings, parents, students, and community groups such as Watchdogs for Ethics in Education, were the only voices of reason in what has amounted to the corporate raiding of our school district. Their efforts undoubtedly kept some school buildings open and contributed to the departure of Dr. LaVonne Sheffield.

One of the best examples of parent outcry was when the Gifted Program hit the chopping block. That was a turning point. While it became clear that inciting parents is the key to change in our schools, parents exceeded my expectations as an educator and community member. I am pretty certain that they exceeded Dr. Sheffield’s expectations too. The group of protesters was relatively small, but loud enough to be heard and they made a difference. 

Still, personnel and programs continued to be put on the chopping block with no basis for elimination, except a phantom fifty million dollar deficit that we still can’t put our hands on with any certainty. Once community groups and parents got involved, there was a new level of recognition that taxpayers need to take responsibility for public schools and remain vigilant.

When groups of parents from many schools became vocal, it also set an example of civic responsibility for their children. Showing that community action can make a difference is an important part of educating children. Without these efforts, we would cultivate only apathy and raise children who would be an easy mark for the lack of ethics that is being displayed frequently in the field of Business and, more recently, in Education. I hope students will remember what they and parents achieved or attempted to achieve together. I hope those parents will continue to teach their children that, as Irish musician and activist Bono says, “In our freedom, we slumber.”

Most importantly, the battle to save educational programs and to keep schools open is not over just because some of the players have exited the stage in Rockford. Parents will find themselves speaking out for their children throughout their school careers. Awareness and constant advocacy have to become the norm. Communities have to stand their ground and not let schools fall into the hands of the unscrupulous. It takes “guts”. It takes everyone. It’s the teachers. It’s the administrators. It’s the business people. It’s the legislators. It’s the parents. It’s the parents. It’s the parents.

Paula Coulahan is a former teacher in the Rockford Public Schools who lost her teaching position in the first round of budget cuts in 2010, one day from being tenured. Coulahan has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism/Public Relations from Northern Illinois University and a Master of Arts in Teaching Children (MATC) from Aurora University.

In Defense of Sanity

by Jane Hayes

She came to Rockford in April 2009 with an autocratic leadership style that nearly destroyed our school district, divided our community along racial lines, and certainly eliminated morale throughout our schools. Sorry, this taxpayer never proclaimed her as a savior because of her chaotic leadership style, inequitable and costly decisions, and impersonal demeanor and outbursts. Crafting academics was her visionary plan, hardly! Craftiness, however, was her forté.  Equity for children? How is that possible without an orderly school environment? Without discipline and respect, there can be no academic gains, order, or responsible learning environment in the classroom or throughout the schools. Permissive acceptance of double standards and privileges for favored students or staff members was more her status quo. Ethical behavior? Hardly, when those who were in power abused that power and misused the public trust. Does this really surprise anyone? LaVonne Sheffield did not respect us: the taxpayers, community, parents, students, or staff either!

I, for one, question her fiscal responsibility that led us from a 100 million dollar surplus in 2009 to deficit spending, closing schools, obliterating teachers and principals. I question her centers for learning when serious discipline incidents went unreported and some students and staff were allowed a more permissive privileges than others who were held accountable if they challenged her leadership. I question her love for children fueling her as an agent of change when her style of change nearly destroyed our district, divided our community, and negatively affected so many children throughout the district.

Yes, I am a detractor of Dr. Sheffield, but as a retired educator, I always yearn for academic reform and improvement and don’t consider that as an adult-oriented agenda. I consider common sense and educated views as being the only logical course of progress for education. In fact, the so-called vocal minority certainly became the vocal majority, as evidenced by the turnout at the board meetings to counter illogical cuts made to established personnel and schools that proved their merits. Yes, I am a vocal critic of the damage done to our schools and the trail of tears she imposed on us. Yes, I am a critic of those still in power who drank from her Kool-Aid!

However, I do believe this newly elected school board will make a difference and I will support their efforts. Your work as board members can be overwhelming at times, but you need to know that the citizenry will more likely support your decisions if they are made transparently and you have included the community in the process of making changes. We need to trust each other again. However, if you do no act openly and engender my trust, I will be a vocal critic of you as well. You see, I am part of the solution, as I trust you to be. In defense of sanity, I will continue to be a watchdog for ethics in education.

Meanwhile, thanks to the taxpayers’ dime, she, who will not be named, is riding around our streets in her new red Porsche with Von2 license plates. God help the community she visits next!