EdAction
Maple River Education Coalition PAC
105 Peavey Rd, St 116
Chaska, MN
55318
952-361-4931
http://www.EdAction.org
E-mail
October 29, 2001
The following article on Small Learning Communities was submitted many weeks ago to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Its author was given several assurances it would be printed. It never has been. On the other hand, there have been numerous articles and editorials/columns presenting Small Learning Communities in the most positive light.
It is amazingly difficult to have the other, well-documented, legitimate view presented. There is no fairness and balance. There seems to be a concerted effort to silence the opposition and ban the public dissemination of information important to a reasoned discussion.
In her column of August 28th, St. Paul Superintendent Patricia Harvey misrepresents what Small Learning Communities are all about. Supt. Harvey gives the impression that the reason for organizing St. Paul schools into Small Learning Communities is to raise academic achievement. The "St. Paul Blueprint for Better High Schools," the school district’s own plan for Small Learning Communities, however, clarifies that the real reason for the Small Learning Communities is to organize schools around six career clusters.
The real purpose for reorganizing all St. Paul schools around Small Learning communities is not to raise academic achievement. The reason for Supt. Harvey’s reorganization is essentially to turn our high schools into job training centers.
| Background -
In 1999, St. Paul got a new superintendent of public schools, Patricia Harvey. She came from the NCEE (National Center for Education and the Economy) where she worked closely with its president, Marc Tucker. This is the same Marc Tucker who authored the infamous "Dear Hillary" Letter, and the same NCEE that figures prominently in all phases of the federal takeover and restructuring of education, employment, and the economy, now underway. With virtually no media coverage or public notice, the key legislation had already been passed at the federal level, with corresponding legislation quietly passed here in Minnesota. The public was in the dark. Patricia Harvey was brought in to actualize the radical new system into Minnesota, with St. Paul as its centerpiece. Under her direction, a number of focus groups were held to "gather input" from the public, after which the St. Paul "Education Blueprint" was created and published. It lays out a plan effectively identical to the one given nearly a decade ago by the NCEE and Marc Tucker. The Blueprint displays many of the goals and tactics of the new education radicals. (See Decoding St. Paul's 'Education Blueprint') Small Learning Communities are the big promotion right now across the country. See the U.S. Department of Education website for starters. They tell you it is for
The big question: Are 8th graders required to choose a career pathway in order to move into a small learning community? If the answer is yes, then you have forced School-to-Work, and, yes, career tracking. |
Major questions need to be raised about turning all of our high schools into job training centers. For example, how many 13- or 14-year olds are ready to choose their careers? How many of them can foresee their future talents, interests and potential? Isn’t it better to give students of that age a broad program of general education that equips them to choose from a wide variety of careers when they are ready?
Supt. Harvey says that students do better academically when they have been placed in Small Learning Communities. The problem with her argument is that the type of Small Learning Communities where academic achievement improves are those organized around academic achievement, not around careers. For that reason, Supt. Harvey’s statement that career Small Learning Communities will improve student academic achievement is questionable, at best.
If we really want to raise the academic achievement of our children, why don't we adopt those models that have actually been proven to work? One such model is the Frederick Douglas Academy, a small public school in inner city Harlem in New York. Eighty percent of its students are from low-income families, 79% are African-American, 20% are Hispanic and 1% are white or Asian.
When it comes to academic achievement, their students' scores are almost off the charts: 93% passed the U.S. History Regents (compared to 58% across the city), 95% passed the New York State exam (citywide average, 54%), the pre-calculus passing rate is 87%, etc., etc. Overall, Frederick Douglas Academy ranked 12th out of 235 schools in New York City. Unlike St. Paul public schools, large percentages of graduates go on to Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Duke, Lincoln, Xavier and many other quality universities and colleges.
Did Frederick Douglas Academy accomplish this with the Supt. Harvey solution of Small Learning Communities organized around career clusters? Definitely not! Frederick Douglas Academy may be small, but this public school has nothing to do with career clusters. According to the Frederick Douglas staff, they use a knowledge-based, liberal arts education where students are pushed to their limits. It is an education that inspires wisdom and maturity, where students thrive so they can succeed in life.
If this is what Patricia Harvey were promoting, all of us would have reason to applaud.
David Thompson
Executive Director of the Maple River Education Coalition
DavidThompson@mcleodusa.net