Turning around a high poverty, troubled school
My colleague, Erica Green, wrote yesterday about Gilmor Elementary, and the city school system's failed attempts to improve it after the board severed ties with Edison, an outside company that had operated the school for many years.
Gilmor has been one of the lowest performing and highest poverty schools in the city for more than a decade. I can remember visiting on the first day of school years ago when the line of parents standing to register their children was long and moving slowly. There was in that line a palpable sense of discouragement and frustration.
The fact that Edison and other school leadership failed to make any real or lasting improvements over time is a testament to just how difficult the work of turning around the worst failing schools can be. Yes, Gilmor has seen some slight improvements for a year or two in test scores, but those improvements soon evaporated.
The system will try again this year, but studies and experience have shown that just firing all the staff doesn't work.
Baltimoresun.com's 
Comments
In the article, Dr. Alonso referred to the use of the climate survey in the reorganization of Gilmor. What about using the survey in other schools as well? We answer that survey every year. I have yet to see any response to the surveys that we have completed. I don't think that anyone reads them except the principal which doesn't help as most of the comments are directed at her and nothing happens. What a joke!
From LIz:
If anyone would like to look at the results of the climate survey for a particular school, here's the link: http://www.bcpss.org/webapps/cmsmain/webui/institution/BCPSS_Climate_Survey?action=frameset&subaction=view&uniq=njca40&mask=/institution
Posted by: vetern teacher | July 7, 2010 6:08 AM
I looked at my school and several other elementary schools results. It seems strange to me that so many schools have strait 100's for staff results. I realize some elementary staffs are small, but they are definitely not monoliths.
I'm wondering if very few teachers responded to the survey, which was transitioned into an online survey. If so, is a response group of say 3 (one school had responses that were all neat divisions into thirds) really statistically significant?
I'm a little concerned about major decisions being made on the the basis of this survey.
Posted by: Sara | July 7, 2010 12:38 PM