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Newark academic plan, similar to Youngstown, didn't succeed
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN
Twenty years ago, low academic performance plagued the Newark, N.J., City Schools, prompting a state takeover of New Jersey’s largest school district.
Detractors there say not much has changed.
And now, a possible parallel is being drawn in Youngstown.
For years, Youngstown City Schools clung at or near the bottom of Ohio’s schools based on students’ academic performance.
A law passed in late June by the Ohio Legislature and signed by Gov. John Kasich allows a state takeover of the city schools.
Brenda Kimble, city school board president, questions how the new law will help students.
“When I read the bill, I don’t see anything in there about education,” she said. “It’s about funding.”
In October, a new academic distress commission will be appointed in Youngstown. That five-member panel – three appointed by the state superintendent, one by the mayor and the fifth, a teacher, appointed by the city school board – will appoint a chief executive officer to operate and manage the schools.
That state-paid CEO will have broad authority. Though the city school board remains in place, it will be up to the CEO to determine what, if any, role it will play.
Both Newark and Youngstown school districts are urban, and poverty is rampant.
Charles Bell, who was a Newark City School Board member at the time New Jersey seized control, says that state’s motivation wasn’t children’s’ education either.
“My honest feeling is it was a means of political patronage,” he said. The state appoints the superintendent in that district – Newark has been through several – and locally elected board members were relegated to an advisory role, he said.
“Local people have no input, no say in terms of anything,” Bell said. “The local board loses all its power and its authority. They’re still a board, an advisory board. The superintendent can overrule anything he disagrees with in the budget, personnel or anything of that nature.”
On top of that, academics haven’t improved, he said.
“Any urban district has its own problems,” Bell said. “The socioeconomic condition of the people today is the same as it was back then.”
There were allegations 20 years ago of corruption, but no one went to jail, he said.
Adrienne O’Neill, former chairwoman of the Youngstown City Schools District Academic Distress Commission, was a superintendent in New Jersey at the time of the Newark takeover. She was asked to visit some of the Newark district’s schools.
She believes that one of the reasons the Newark plan didn’t generate academic improvement – and something the framers of the Youngstown Plan should be conscious of – is a lack of community buy-in.
“The person who is working the plan needs to have the support of the community to make the plan come to fruition,” O’Neill said.
Education experts agree.
Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative-leaning education think-tank based in Washington, D.C., said a plan has a better chance of succeeding if there’s a broader public will for change.
“Community groups, parents, grass-roots groups need to feel like they are part of the process,” he said. “They need to feel like they are being listened to and providing input.”
Changes to schools often aren’t popular, Petrilli said.
“If the community feels this was done to them, that’s a serious problem,” he said.
Thomas Humphries, president and CEO of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Chamber, is one of those involved in crafting the Youngstown Plan. He believes there is community support for the changes.
While those opposing the plan have been more visible and vocal, he said many including business people and clergy have called the Chamber, offering support.
“The feedback we’re getting is, ‘What do we have to do to help the CEO make this successful?’” Humphries said.
Under the Youngstown Plan, the CEO must convene a meeting of community stakeholders within 30 days to gather input on the academic improvement plan.
“The law has specific requirements for the stakeholders...,” Michael Sponhour, director of communication and outreach at the Ohio Department of Education, said in an email. “However, these should be considered minimum requirements. The CEO is responsible for convening the stakeholders for the district and buildings, so it will be the CEO’s choice. There is no required number of stakeholders. However, there is some required representation on these groups.”
The group must include educators, civic leaders and representatives from higher education and government service agencies, he said.
Kenneth Wong, chairman of the Education Department and director of the Urban Education Policy Program at Brown University, Providence, R.I., said it’s important to establish a state and local partnership to improve the chances of a state takeover succeeding.
He said it’s a good idea to have someone respected in the community as part of a team to work on the plan.
“The local community has to have buy in,” Wong said.
Part of that is acceptance by the teachers union, he said.
“From day one, it’s very important to sit down with the teachers union,” Wong said. “They have to be on board.”
Even those skeptical of the plan agree something needs to change.
“It’s worth trying, and I hope it works,” Petrilli said. “It may be just what Youngstown needs.”
Petrilli views Ohio’s value-added evaluation, the category on the annual state report card that determines if students have made at least a year’s worth of growth, is a fair measure even for high-poverty schools.
The district earned all D’s and F’s in value-added categories on the most recent state report card.
“If the schools are not making the grade, something is very, very wrong,” he said.