Jefferson

[Introduction by Amanda: One of the many reasons I support Ruth Adkins for Portland School Board is that I believe she has broad and deep understanding of what’s happening and what’s needed at Jefferson High School, from the grassroots perspective. The Oregonian‘s recent editorial about the departure of Principal Leon Dudley for the rest of the school year only scrapes the surface of the issues that should be on the table. The following outlines some of many more. Reprinted from the GetInvolvedWithJeff listserve, with permission. Bold emphasis mine.]

Last week’s Portland Observer article “Public Schools Divided by Race” provides one more example of Portland Public Schools’ (PPS) leadership blaming the Jefferson community for the school district’s failure. School Board Member Dilafruz Williams suggests that it is the community’s fault that Jefferson is less diverse than the surrounding neighborhood, when it is a documented fact that school district policies have increased racial segregation in PPS schools. A 2006 audit by the City of Portland and Multnomah County found that the PPS Transfer Policy has increased segregation of PPS schools, even while the surrounding neighborhoods have become less segregated. The audit also found that the transfer policy has weakened lower income and minority schools.

Charter school director Stephanie Hinkle commented in the same Portland Observer article on the top-down approach to education at Jefferson. However, Ms. Hinkle seems unaware that the top-down reforms (reorganizing Jefferson again into separate academies, narrowly focused curriculum, 6-12 grade configuration, and single-gender programs) are being imposed by the school district and are NOT supported by Jefferson neighborhood families, or by educational research.

PPS says that the goal of the Jefferson Redesign was to increase enrollment and student learning at Jefferson; and that a Community-based Design Team recommended this latest reorganization of Jefferson.

Facts:

* PPS and the Portland Schools Foundation applied for a grant from the Gates Foundation in September 2005 to divide Jefferson into separate schools, months before the Jefferson Design Team made any recommendations.
* The Jefferson Design Team NEVER recommended dividing Jefferson into four separate schools – the Superintendent did.
* Jefferson was returned to ONE high school in 2006 at the insistence of the Design Team, yet PPS continues to operate it as separate schools, and plans to add two more – schools that are NOT recognized by the Oregon Department of Education.
* Hundreds of parents, students, teachers and community members spoke out at public hearings and in writing to oppose splitting Jefferson into separate schools and to suggest better ways to strengthen Jefferson.

* Research does not support the claim that dividing high schools into small separate schools increases student achievement, but research does indicate that such reorganizations can actually be detrimental to student learning.
* Research strongly supports the need for reforms to have community buy-in and support in order to be successful.
* Small learning communities can be created without dividing into small separate schools, and Jefferson already had small learning communities in place for 9th and 10th graders before the latest reorganization.

* Jefferson was making above average increases in test scores in recent years prior to the School District proposal to reorganize it into four separate schools.
* Curriculm offerings for students in the small high school programs at Jefferson, Roosevelt, Madison, and Marshall are extremely limited compared to course offerings at other PPS high schools in wealthier, whiter neighborhoods.

* Students are often assigned to the small high school programs based on space not student interest.
* The small high schools at Roosevelt have become segregated by race.
* One of the district’s proposed “Jefferson Academies” will not even be located in the Jefferson cluster, since PPS moved the Boise Eliot attendance area, where Harriet Tubman school is located, OUT of the Jefferson attendance area and into the Grant cluster.

* The School District put Jefferson on notice that it may close Jefferson in a few years if enrollment doesn’t increase, and then adopted a plan to divide Jefferson into small separate schools that were overwhelmingly undesired by Jefferson community families.
* Small, narrowly focused high schools are susceptible to closure – one of the four small schools at Marshall was closed one year after opening due to PPS budget cuts.
* PPS has many more requests to transfer OUT OF small high schools with a narrow curriculum focus, and INTO high schools with comprehensive course offerings.
* According to PPS demographic data from 2005, there are more high school students living in the Jefferson community than any other high school neighborhood, but a huge percentage of those students transfer to high schools in other neighborhoods with more curriculum offerings.
* Approximately 2/3 of black students and 3/4 of white students in the Jefferson neighborhood transfer to other high schools.

Jefferson neighborhood families want the same thing for their children that families in other PPS neighborhoods want for their children. The School District is forcing top-down “reforms” at Jefferson that are making the school less attractive to students of all racial and economic backgrounds. I won’t be voting for Dilafruz Williams or any of the other school board members who are up for re-election in May.