Kansas City: Close Half its Schools?

Kansas City wants to close half its public schools

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City was held up as a national example of bold thinking when it tried to integrate its schools by making them better than the suburban districts where many kids were moving. The result was one school with an Olympic-sized swimming pool and another with recording studios.

Now it’s on the brink of bankruptcy and considering another bold move: closing nearly half its schools to stay afloat.

Schools officials say the cuts are necessary to keep the district from plowing through what little is left of the $2 billion it received as part of a groundbreaking desegregation case.

Buffeted for years by declining enrollment, political squabbling and a revolving door of leadership, the district's fortunes are so bleak that Superintendent John Covington has said diplomas given to many graduates “aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.”

Kansas City is among the most striking examples of the challenges of saving urban school districts. The city used gobs of cash to improve facilities, but boosting lagging test scores and stemming the exodus of students were more elusive. Like other big-city districts, it finds itself struggling to become more than just the last resort for large pockets of poverty in the urban core.

Some districts like Boston and Cleveland have tried busing in students from other neighborhoods, while others such as Chicago have built magnet schools with specialized facilities and curriculums.

The latest possible solution for Kansas City is the plan Covington submitted to the school board last week that called for closing 29 out of 61 schools to eliminate a projected $50 million budget shortfall. Covington also has said he wants to cut about 700 of the district’s 3,000 jobs, including 285 teachers. The school board vote is Wednesday.

The proposal has stunned the community.

“It’s crazy,” said Donnell Fletcher, the father of two girls, ages 4 and 12. “I just hope that with all the changes that they are planning on making, that the kids are the ones who are the most important and that hopefully they will get the resources and the education they need to be successful.”

When Fletcher, 33, was a teenager, he transferred from a posh private school in the city to attend a showpiece of the desegregation plan, a high school with a high-profile fencing program. He, like many, wonders where the money has gone.

This year alone officials expect to overspend the $316 million budget by $15 million and if nothing changes, the district will be in the red by 2011.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

continues … Kansas City wants to close half its public schools – washingtonpost.com.

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1. 

   Eiko says:

   03/09/2010 at 8:22 am

   Schools’ New Math: the Four-Day Week
   By CHRIS HERRING

   A small but growing number of school districts across the country are moving to a four-day week, in a shift they hope will help close gaping budget holes and stave off teacher layoffs, but that critics fear could hurt students’ education.

   State legislators and local school boards are giving administrators greater flexibility to set their academic calendars, making the four-day slate possible. But education experts say little research exists to show the impact of shortened weeks on learning. The missed hours are typically made up by lengthening remaining school days.

   Of the nearly 15,000-plus districts nationwide, more than 100 in at least 17 states currently use the four-day system, according to data culled from the Education Commission of the States. Dozens of other districts are contemplating making the change in the next year—a shift that is apt to create new challenges for working parents as well as thousands of school employees.

   The heightened interest in an abbreviated school week comes as the Obama administration prepares to plow $4.35 billion in extra federal funds into underperforming schools. The administration has been advocating for a stronger school system in a bid to make the U.S. more academically competitive on a global basis.

   A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Education said in an email that she couldn’t comment on four-day weeks in specific districts. But “generally, we are concerned about financial constraints leading to a reduction in learning time.”

   Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, was critical of the shift. “The budgetary pressure makes doing more reform more difficult,” she said in a statement.

   Some schools, meanwhile, say they are turning to the four-day schedule as a last resort. In North Branch, Minn., school Superintendent Deb Henton said her 3,500-student district, facing a $1.3 million deficit, is simply out of options.

   “We’ve repeatedly asked our residents to pay higher taxes, cut some of our staff, and we may even close one of our schools,” she said. “What else can you really do?” Despite a “lot of opposition” from parents, she said, the district is set to adopt a four-day week for next school year.

   A new law in Georgia allows schools a choice between a 180-day school year “or the equivalent.” Hawaii officials last October introduced 17 mandatory “Furlough Fridays” for state public schools. In Minnesota and Iowa, districts are drafting proposals for their state boards of education in hopes of implementing four-day schedules next school year.
2. 

   Eiko says:

   03/11/2010 at 8:24 am

   UPDATE:

   Kansas City board OKs plan to close nearly half of schools
   March 11, 2010 6:02 a.m. EST

   The Kansas City, Missouri, school board voted Wednesday to close 28 of the district’s 61 schools.
   STORY HIGHLIGHTS
   Kansas City school board approves plan to close 28 of 61 public schools
   Superintendent says ‘right-size’ plan is needed to save money, prevent declining enrollment
   Critics say closures will drive residents away from school districts

   (CNN) — The superintendent calls it the “Right-Size” plan,” but many Kansas City, Missouri, residents say it’s plain wrong.

   Superintendent John Covington called for the closing or consolidation of almost half of the city’s public schools. A divided Kansas City school board voted Wednesday to approve the downsizing.
   A packed room of people watched the board make its historic move after weeks of debate and years of declining enrollment. Some parents voiced their anger, while some students cried.
   “I have an 8-year-old and a 6-year-old that will be going to school with 12th graders. I find that very inappropriate. I don’t feel my children will be safe,” Deneicia Williams told CNN affiliate KSHB-TV.

   “I feel like I have nothing, I have no high school legacy. I feel like I have nothing, nothing to go back to,” said Prince Jones, a senior, who will be part of the final graduating class at Westport High School.

   Covington proposed the “Right-Size” plan arguing that the financial future of the entire school district was at stake. The plan shutters 28 of Kansas City’s 61 public schools, cuts 700 jobs and saves $50 million to help reduce a burgeoning deficit.

   Some called Kansas City’s measures draconian but school districts across America, hit hard by budget cuts, have been struggling to make ends meet.

   They have had to make tough choices between closures, program cuts, bus route cancellations and layoffs of teachers and staff. Schools in at least 17 states have opted for four-day weeks.
   Covington said the closures were the first phase of “right-sizing” a district where enrollments have plummeted from over 35,000 in the 1999-2000 school year to about 17,000 in 2009-10.
   “Closing schools is hard – and it is tough on the community,” Covington said recently in remarks posted on the superintendent’s Web site.

   “Closing schools and making the remaining schools much stronger academically is unquestionably the right thing to do for kids,” he said. “Keeping all of the schools open with too few children in them is draining the resources we need to improve the education of all students.”
   But four of the nine board members disagreed with Covington.

   “I deserve the right to make a rational decision based on facts, and we were never given facts about student achievement,” Cokethea Hill, who voted against the closings, told KHSB.
   Some members of the public showed up Wednesday to air their last-minute appeals.
   “What I’m asking you today to do is to give our children justice,” said Ron Hunt, a community activist.

   Others worried that school closures would lead to deterioration of communities and drive residents out of the district.

   “The blighting of the urban core is scandalous and shameful,” said Sharon Sanders Brooks.
   Covington is slated to discuss the school closings at a news conference Thursday morning.