In the most recent school year, Cleveland’s schools — the second largest district in Ohio — ranked 608th out of 611 school districts on the state’s performance index. It’s no surprise then that, since 2000, with the introduction of vouchers and charters, enrollment has shrunk by 30,000 students as families have left the city’s underachieving schools for better educational opportunities elsewhere.
Allowing trends like that to continue doesn’t lead to revival and renewal. It’s not acceptable and must be changed. For Cleveland to be a global magnet for economic growth, families, children and communities must have the opportunity to fully participate in an improving quality of life. Essential to that are, of course, strong schools.
Achieving that is why a broad-based, bipartisan coalition came together to conceive and support the Cleveland Plan. The Cleveland School District, Cleveland Teachers Union, American Federation of Teachers, city of Cleveland, Cleveland and Gund foundations, Greater Cleveland Partnership, Breakthrough Charter Schools, national education leaders and a host of Cleveland’s civic and clergy leaders developed the ideas and momentum to make change possible.
Not surprisingly, many were initially skeptical. What helped bring people together behind the plan, however, is the simple fact that, without exception, the plan puts children first.
Do students at a particular school struggle with reading? The district’s best reading teachers could be deployed there to help them catch up. Could children benefit from the extra teaching attention of a longer school day or a longer school year? It could happen more easily now. Is an organization sponsoring charter schools that siphon taxpayers’ money without delivering good results? That sponsor will not operate in Cleveland.
The reforms may sound like common sense, and they are, but even changes that are desperately needed can be difficult to make. Fear of the unknown can paralyze even those in need. By carefully and patiently listening to and working with the community, teachers, parents and members of the General Assembly, however, eventually the value of the Cleveland Plan’s reforms secured the support needed to become law. It’s a case study in how different people with different views can come together to get something important done.
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The U.S. Senate just voted 91-9 to send a bill that would keep the government running until March 18, while slashing about $4 billion in spending, including eliminating a number of education programs. President Obama is expected to sign it.
The bill would scrap all funding for the rest of the year for the $250 million Striving Readers program, and the $66 million Even Start program. The administration had wanted to see those programs consolidated into a new, broader, $383 million funding stream aimed at improving literacy. Now it appears there may be a lot less available money for that effort.
The measure would also get rid of all funding for the rest of the year for the $88 million Smaller Learning Communities program, which was slated to be funneled into a broader program aimed at improving educational options.
And it would scrap the Leveraging Educational Assistance Partnerships, or LEAP, program, financed at $64 million.
The bill also would defund a lot of programs that are right now classified as “earmarks,” meaning money directed at one particular program or project. That includes a number of national education programs, such as Teach for America, the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, National Writing Project, Reading is Fundamental, and the Close Up fellowship.
Yesterday, a group of 11 senators, including Sen. Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, sent a letter to the top Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee saying that these programs shouldn’t be lumped in with traditional earmarks, which are usually special pet projects lawmakers request just for their districts.
That’s not the case with the education programs, the senators wrote. “These programs are nationally structured, with many years of bipartisan support,” they said. “They benefit millions of individuals and families in a majority of states, districts, and regions throughout the country.”
But the letter may have arrived too late to make much of a difference, at least on this short-term bill. The measure the Senate passed includes the cuts.
The really tough part is just beginning. As you probably remember, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill recently that would finance the federal government for the rest of the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. That measure included some major education cuts, $5 billion in all.
I really fear with all these education cuts, that even with being willing to move out of state for a full-time teaching job — I won’t find one. And at 28, that will mean having to leave teaching. That’s not something I want to do, but I need healthcare, and I need to be able to support myself.
