Union chief’s example of public school innovation flunks
On July fourth the National Public Radio affiliate at Western Kentucky University published a highly ironic article, “Charter School Concerns Voiced by KEA President.” Hopefully, our students are learning better ways of providing supporting examples than the one Stephanie Winkler, the head of the Kentucky Education Association, stumbled over in her interview.
Trying to counter the pressing need for charter schools in Kentucky, the article says Winkler claims that “public schools have the ability to get creative and tackle difficult education issues.” Winkler then offered Jefferson County schools as an example.
How ridiculous!
Only very recently, Jefferson County Public Schools gave up on its “School of Innovation” project in the Maupin Elementary School. The dysfunction in this school, which was supposed to be a high model of reform, was so severe that it is now listed as a “Priority School.” The crash of innovation was so loud at Maupin that even its School Based Decision Making Council (SBDM) lost its governance authority. By the way, the SBDM undoubtedly was controlled by some of Winkler’s union members because, by law, teachers hold the controlling vote in every one of the state’s school councils.
Even the chair of the Jefferson County Board of Education admitted that poor district leadership was a key player in the Maupin fiasco.
Jefferson County’s ability to successfully implement a special males of color academy is also very much in doubt. Jefferson County already has an all-male, high minority (only 34 percent white per the school’s 2016 report card) middle school, the Frederick Law Olmsted Academy North. This school continuously performs extremely poorly. The school’s Kentucky School Report Card for 2016 shows only 19 percent of the school’s students scored proficient in KPREP reading and just 18.7 percent met KPREP proficiency in math. For black students at the school, those percentages were only a truly abysmal 12.5 percent for reading and 11.8 percent for math.
Why would another all male school in Louisville suddenly do any better? After all, if Jefferson County knows how to make improvements for minorities in a single sex school, why didn’t it already happen at Olmsted North?
Jefferson County’s new proposal differs from the Olmsted Academy situation because there is a Frederick Law Olmsted Academy South for girls only. The proposal Winkler is touting, aside from still being unimplemented and therefor untested, has no counterpart provision for girls. Hence, the ACLU is on the prowl.
Thus, Winkler’s big example of innovation might wind up still born. How does that help students?
The truth is that if Kentucky wants real school innovation, it would do better to look to the state’s new charter school program to get it. Clearly, we are not getting successful innovation from the highly unionized public schools in Jefferson County. If you doubt that, just check out the very sad Maupin and Olmsted North stories for yourself.