Untitled Document

News-Sentinel, The (Fort Wayne, IN)

October 31, 2006

Edition: FINAL
Section: LOCAL SECTION
Page: 1L

Parental apathy - or just poverty?
FWCS deals with low turnout at meetings.
Author: Kevin Leininger, kleininger@news-sentinel.com

Article Text:

If your kid's school was placed on academic probation by the state, wouldn't you want to know why - and demand to know what school officials planned to do about it?

But when Fort Wayne Community Schools hosted a meeting for parents of the 8,328 students in its 11 probationary schools, just 100 parents showed up. Could that have something to do with why those schools are on probation in the first place? Schools must teach, after all, but only students can learn. And students learn best when their parents value education enough to pay attention.

For school officials, the poor turnout poses a dilemma: They were clearly disappointed by the lack of attendance but want to avoid blaming parents.

So Chief Operations Officer Doug Coutts explained the problem in socioeconomic terms.

"In families struggling with poverty, parents may both work at low-paying jobs or even two jobs. Or you may have a single parent. If it comes down to attending a school meeting or working to put food on the table, the parent will work," he said.

And, of course, if parents are working, they won't be reading to their children or helping with their homework, either.

The statistics seem to support the connection between poverty and academic achievement, or the lack of it. Of the 11 schools on probation, almost all are at or near the top when ranked by the percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals. (See chart.)

And when there are exceptions to that ranking, other demographic factors may be at work, Coutts said. At South Wayne Elementary, nearly half of students moved at least once last year, playing havoc with academic continuity. The mobility rate at Lakeside Middle School was 33 percent. And about 8 percent of the students at Maplewood Elementary list a language other than English as their primary tongue - an impediment to doing well on state-mandated English-language tests.

Even so, many schools with high poverty rates and percentage of non-English-speaking students aren't on probation - meaning their staffs must be doing something right. And it should be noted that North Side and South Side high schools - both recipients of multimillion-dollar renovations - have not translated their top-notch facilities into widespread academic excellence.

But let's grant Coutts' thesis: Poverty, mobility and poor English skills complicate learning. The question remains: What can be done about it?

At Study Elementary, he said, a parental support group - "not the old PTA" - helps moms and dads help their children. And, he added, schools could consider rearranging their schedules to be more user-friendly to working parents.

On the other hand, if parents are too busy to attend meetings or help with homework, will they really have time for a parental support group?

Life is inherently complicated and unpredictable, but some of the guesswork can be removed by doing certain things - and, just as important, doing them in the proper order.

If you study and stay in school, you're likely to get a better education. If you have a good education, you're likely to land a better-paying job. If you get married before having children, you're less likely to be poor. And if you delay having children until you're emotionally and financially prepared, those children are less likely to be poor - or poorly educated. And, of course, everyone benefits if children are proficient in English.

That's not blaming parents for their children's lack of academic success. It's simply the truth, and no one - least of all educators - should be afraid to say so. The first obligation of parents is to put the well-being of their children first.

"Some of our best teaching is done in those schools with poor ISTEP (test) scores," Coutts said, and I have no reason to doubt him. "I wouldn't trade the efforts of our teachers in some of those schools for anything."

But good teaching, clearly, isn't always enough.

Kevin Leininger's column appears in The News-Sentinel every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Leininger has been with The News-Sentinel for more than 27 years, 11 of which were as an editorial writer. The column reflects his opinion, not necessarily that of The News-Sentinel, and discusses issues affecting Fort Wayne. To pass along ideas or feedback, contact him at kleininger@news-sentinel.com, or call 461-8355.

FWCS schools with the most low-income students
These schools in the Fort Wayne Community Schools are ranked by percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals. Schools in bold are on academic probation.

School Percentage Enrollment
Elementary schools
1: Adams 94 334
2: Fairfield 94 604
3: Washington 94 228
4: Abbett 92 305
5: Study 88 330
6: Bloomingdale 88 343
7: Dr. Levan Scott Academy 87 262
8: South Wayne 85 360
9: Nebraska 83 271
10: Franke Park 72 613
11: Harrison Hill 69 579
12: Northcrest 68 508
13: Maplewood 67 429
Middle schools
1: Kekionga 78 590
2: Miami 75 723
3: Portage 71 654
4: Lakeside 71 595
High schools
1: South Side 65 1,521
2: North Side 58 1,547
3: Wayne 58 1,025
4: Elmhurst 57 1,018
Source: Fort Wayne Community Schools

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DATE: Sunday, April 23, 2006
EDITION: Final
SECTION: A
PAGE: 1A
SOURCE: By Krista J. Stockman The Journal Gazette

Top Allen schools pay teachers more
Salary disparity present across districts

Teachers at the top-performing schools throughout Allen County are paid nearly $10,000 more a year on average than those in the lowest-performing schools.
Schools with the poorest passing rates on last fall's ISTEP+, the state's standardized test, have some of the lowest-paid teachers, according to a Journal Gazette analysis of state data. The struggling schools also have higher percentages of minority students and children who come from low-income families, while the highest-performing schools are primarily filled with white middle- and upper-class students.
In individual school districts, the difference isn't necessarily as obvious. Schools in Northwest Allen and Southwest Allen school districts, where the populations are largely white with few students from low-income families, vary little in average salaries. Even among Fort Wayne Community Schools, which has a large at-risk population, the difference in pay between the highest- and lowest-performing schools is not as great as in East Allen County Schools, where the trend is particularly stark.
One of the greatest differences in the county's two largest districts is how they handle teacher requests to change buildings. East Allen uses a system based solely on seniority, while Fort Wayne uses a combination of factors.
The result, for East Allen, has been teachers at the district's highest-performing school, Cedarville Elementary, earning $55,427 a year on average, while teachers at one of the lowest-performing schools, Prince Chapman Academy, are paid $40,545 on average.
Cedarville, with students in kindergarten through third grade, has a student population that is 95 percent white and only 6 percent from low-income homes. Prince Chapman, a middle school, is 90 percent minority, and 41 percent of students come from low-income homes.
Superintendent Kay Novotny said district officials are aware of the differences at the highest- and lowest-performing schools. The biggest factor for the disparity in pay is the experience of the teachers, she said.
After teachers have enough seniority they often want to move out of the more challenging schools - those where students sometimes come to school hungry, tired and unprepared to learn because of their home lives - to a school that is perceived to be better because students come from more affluent families, she said.
"All of us like to be in a situation where we feel like there's success," Novotny said.
Cathy Paff, president of the East Allen Educators Association, said it takes a special teacher to stay in a school building with a large number of at-risk students when they have the option to teach in a more affluent area. Having veteran teachers in schools where students have extra needs is a good idea, but she wouldn't want to force teachers to stay anywhere.
"I don't think it's fair to them to make them have to stay there," Paff said. "Putting older teachers in there may not be any better. To teach you have to have stamina. I don't know if there is a good solution."
EACS officials and the teachers union tried to come up with a solution during the last contract negotiation in 2004. Teachers who spend several years at Meadowbrook, Village and Southwick elementaries, Prince Chapman Academy and Paul Harding High School are now eligible for extra pay.
Teachers who commit to staying with one of the schools and receive outstanding evaluations will be given a $1,000 bonus after the third contract year and $2,500 after the sixth year. But in the first year, just 15 teachers signed up for the bonus. There are about 175 teachers at the five schools where the bonuses apply.
"We have at least come to the point where we recognize there are some challenges there that you may not have in other classrooms," Novotny said.
But, she said, more may need to be done to encourage teachers to stay in the schools with the most at-risk students because high turnover in teachers makes long-term achievement difficult.
It takes new teachers time to establish classroom routines and settle into their roles as teachers, Novotny said. She said new teachers need more support from principals and often spend many hours at school negotiating all the new demands on their time.
As teachers settle into their roles, however, some of the routine functions take up less time and teachers can focus more on what students need to learn, she said.
"As a brand-new teacher ... you have a lot to learn. The more challenging the school, the more difficult it is," Novotny said. "We'd like to have a balance whether you're looking at gender or age or experience level. ... Ideally, you wouldn't have all your veteran teachers in a building and all your new ones in another."
Eugene Harper, an attorney who works with a think tank in New York for education reform, said the New York Supreme Court determined that such a stark imbalance of teacher experience at schools prevented some kids from getting a good education.
"Inexperienced teachers are in the inner-city schools; they're low-paid, inexperienced and not as good as your seasoned, more experienced teachers who are in your higher-end school districts," Harper said.

Finding a balance
For FWCS, efforts to find a balance began years ago when the district switched from a seniority-only system to a system where a number of criteria have to be met before a teacher can move to another school. District officials consider seniority, qualifications needed for the new position, the needs of a particular building and an agreement between the teacher and principal.
The result has been a smaller difference in the average salary between the schools that performed the best on ISTEP+ last fall and those that performed the worst. The average difference between the top-five and bottom-five schools was about $4,000 for the 2004-05 school year.
Harper said Fort Wayne's system is a far better way to place teachers than using seniority only, but he has argued that where teachers are placed in a school district shouldn't be allowed to be negotiated at all in collective bargaining between unions and school districts.
"In the private sector there are certain things that are not permissible subjects of collective bargaining," he said. Generally, only wages, benefits and working conditions are negotiated.
"The question is whether or not the public officials have a responsibility to balance things out rather than negotiate with the union," Harper said.
Steve Brace, president of the Fort Wayne Education Association, said the multi-criteria system has served Fort Wayne well, even if teachers don't have as much control over where they teach as they do in East Allen.
"I think that seniority has to be an important part of it," he said. "But I would not go back from where we are now. I don't think a seniority-only basis is good for schools. It's not good for a system when you end up with all new teachers (in one building) and all veteran teachers (in another). There's a mix that's needed."
Superintendent Wendy Robinson said it's important to keep teachers happy, but it's also important to keep them where they are needed.
Brace said another reason for the balance is the district's school choice and desegregation policies.
"Our schools are pretty much balanced all the way across the system in all forms - free and reduced lunch, racial, ethnic - all of these things because we do have school choice and we have a desegregation program," he said. "I think in some systems you have teachers as they become more veteran teachers go to schools they might consider higher performing than others."
Having a balance of veteran teachers and new teachers is a good idea for all schools, Brace said.
"Veteran teachers can mentor and help and inspire new teachers, and new teachers can bring some enthusiasm," he said. That mix helps create a strong school with the ability to focus on achievement, he said.
Robinson said teachers in Fort Wayne become attached to their schools and often don't want to leave.
"People own this district. They absolutely are committed," she said. "I know whatever challenges we might have, people are committed."
kstockman@jg.net

CAPTION: Novotny

ILLUSTRATION: 'Salary achievement' table, Page 4A (can be viewed on microfilm)

Lyn Winchell
Text Librarian
The Journal Gazette
260-461-8258
lwinchell@jg.net