Schools: Bitter pill may be no cure

For Plainfielders, the long-expected shoe has dropped.

The state monitoring system's review of the Plainfield School District was released yesterday (report here). The news is bad, if not grim.

Bernice, wearing her reportorial hat, did the front-page piece for the Courier this morning. Of the five categories of measurement, the Plainfield district scored from a low of 8% (Instruction and Program) to a high of 61% (Operations Management). The story has a table comparing Plainfield with Asbury Park, Camden, Irvington, Elizabeth, Trenton, Jersey City and Newark.

Camden has the lowest scores, and Asbury Park is most similar to Plainfield's assessment profile, with the other districts doing considerably better. It is worth remembering that the Camden school district is run by the state.

The Ledger story cites a different block of schools: Elizabeth, Essex County Vo-Tech, Lakewood, New Brunswick and Plainfield.

It is worth noting that New Brunswick, a neighboring community sharing many of Plainfield's urban characteristics and also an Abbott school district, fared quite differently from Plainfield.

NJ QSAC Reports -- 2007
	Plainfield	New Brunswick
Operations	61%	100%
Personnel	38%	78%
Instruction	8%	42%
Governance	11%	89%
Fiscal	32%	58%

There is certainly going to be much to look over and mull over in the coming months as the Board, the District's administration and the taxpayers digest the report and divine its inner meanings.

Boards and administrators that respond to these QSAC reports by wrapping themselves in talk of 'being about the children' risk being viewed with the same disgust as those political scoundrels whose first refuge is to wrap themselves in the flag.

I am not only disappointed, I feel betrayed.

In 1998, when the Plainfield schools were first decertified, I was appointed to the first citizen review committee by the late Dr. Annette Kearney, then Superintendent of Schools. There were clear guidelines about what needed fixing and we toiled at it in good faith.

Under the leadership of Dr. Larry Leverett, Plainfield was within an elephant's whisker of full certification.

How, in such a short period of time, could we fall so short?

Some say the state changes the rules of the game as it goes along, and this may be partly the case.

But how could the Instructional component, for one, change so markedly that Plainfield only scores an 8%, while New Brunswick scores 42%?

And in Governance, where one would expect the Board to have almost absolute sway, how can Plainfield come in at a measly 11%, when New Brunswick shines at 89%?

Certainly there are going to be a lot of questions and there will need to be a lot of answers.

But I am beginning to understand the point of view of those who complain that, from top to bottom, from the State to the local Board and school administration to the NJEA, we are faced with a system that consistently throws up barricades to prevent significant change and improvement in the system.

Starting with an oppressive, top-heavy and onerous culture of administration, 'school reform' has turned out be anything but.

We need to recall it is 'PUBLIC education' because it is PAID FOR by the public, and is supposed to SERVE THE PUBLIC by preparing the community's youngsters for lives of productive citizenship.

If we cannot fix that part, maybe we need to look at other solutions.

---

More info --

• On the schools --
  
• Courier: "Failing marks for Plainfield schools; NJ aid required"
  
• Ledger: "State monitors give 7 districts weak marks"
• NJQSAC: "Evaluation Team Review: Plainfield"
  
  
• On the State's DOE --
• Ledger: "Audit doubts school monitor capabilities"
  
• NY Times: "NJ Education Dept. Has Problems, Audit Finds"
  

-- Dan Damon

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