Yes, hello? I’m calling to report what I think is a crime in progress…

Sep 27

jonpeltoEducation Reform, Malloy, Stefan Pryor, Steven Adamowski, Windham Stefan Pryor, Steven Adamowski, Windham 20 Comments

The activity of the “Special Master” who was appointed to oversee the schools in Windham is quickly becoming one of the most controversial developments in Connecticut’s education system.

Connecticut State Statute, Section 10-223e, was intended to allow Governor Malloy’s State Board of Education and his Commissioner of Education, Stefan Pryor, to, “assign a special master to administer the Windham school district’s educational operations and help it implement a plan to achieve adequate yearly progress (AYP) as a district in reading and math as required by the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.”

On May 5^th, 2011, the State Board of Education voted to make Steven Adamowski, Windham’s Special Master.” The motion was to, “to improve student performance in the Windham Public School District and to remove the Windham Public School District and its individual schools from the list of schools and districts designated as low achieving.”

The law was intended to, “improve” Windham’s schools, not “destroy” them. The law is actually about improving “reading and math” scores.

Instead, Special Master Adamowski, whose responsibilities have been expanded to also serve as Special Master of New London’s schools, has engaged in a reign of terror and destruction that appears to be far beyond anything even remotely permitted under the law.

While it is clear that some of Adamowski’s changes will undermine Windham’s community schools and hurt many of the community’s children, it remains unclear as to who, exactly, is being helped and who is making the money in this unwarranted attack on Windham’s public education system.

What is clear is that many of Adamowski’s actions have no relationship, whatsoever, to the concept of improving reading and math scores.

For example, let’s examine the incredible steps that Adamowski has taken to divert resources away from Windham High School, while using those resources to “reward” some and punish others.

In August of this year, Adamowski announced that he had negotiated a “deal” with Norwich Free Academy, which would make NFA one of six high school options for Windham students.

As part of his plan to “overhaul Windham’s schools,” the Special Master expanded the ability for some students to simply leave the district completely.

Adamowski’s deal would require Windham, one of the poorest towns in Connecticut, to pay the tuition for up to ten students to attend the privately run Norwich Free Academy. The tuition would be $11,020 per student, but the children would have to provide their own transportation for the 30 to 45 minute drive to Norwich.

Adamowski told one newspaper that, “he was charged with finding opportunities for Windham students, and forming a partnership with NFA fit perfectly with the goal of the Windham reform plan.”

Wait, What? The law says absolutely nothing that would remotely suggest that he was charged with finding opportunities for Windham students to go to high schools in other towns. In addition, syphoning off more than $100,000 a year from Windham’s school budget and giving it to NFA is hardly the mechanism for improving math and reading skills in Windham.

According to the reports, “it may only be 10 students now, but the new partnership between Norwich Free Academy and Windham High School has the ability to be expanded.” In fact, at a recent Windham Board of Education meeting there was talk of expanding to 25 students.

And bolstering NFA’s student count is certainly the goal of the school’s superintendent, David Klein, who told a reporter, “We certainly can accommodate more than 10 (students), but I would hate to put a number on it…We have 2,150 students enrolled this coming year. We’ve had 2,500 to 2,700 students in a single year in the past five to seven years, so we have the room and are looking to expand.”

It turns out that Special Master Steven Adamowski approached the privately run Norwich Free Academy in April, and the two parties successfully negotiated the plan to allow up to 10 Windham students to start at NFA this year.

But the story doesn’t stop there.

Putting aside the question of how children from low-income families would even get from Windham to NFA, is the broader issue of who gets to fill those slots.

What is known is that five Windham students started at NFA in August. Four were freshman and one, a senior, whose family had been paying the $11,000 tuition had the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. Now the taxpayers of Windham and Connecticut are now paying that student’s tuition bill as well.

But why those four?

And what about others who wanted to shift to NFA?

One parent found out, the hard way, that it wasn’t a question of whether you wanted to go, but who you talked to that made the difference.

The Windham family made contact with both NFA’s registrar and director of student affairs. Both said they were aware of the contract between the two districts and invited the family down for a tour. The perspective student was given an admissions package. One form, an affidavit confirming the student’s residency and that the Town Of Windham would assume the cost of tuition, required the signature of the superintendent of schools. Windham’s superintendent signed the affidavit and wished the student well at his new school.

Later that very day, the superintendent called the family and explained that a mistake had been made. She was withdrawing her permission and signature.

The rationale for this late news was that it turned out that Adamowski’s “deal” with NFA only applied to Windham students who were entering the 9th grade.

When asked, the Chair of Windham’s Board of Education wrote, “I understand that details of the contract between the Windham School District and NFA is being revised to be more specific and avoid future confusion.”

Wait, so there is an agreement but it is being revised?

Meanwhile, despite repeated requests, the agreement has still not been provided.

But the whole episode raises even more questions.

Special Master Adamowski’s role was supposed to be to help improve math and reading scores in Windham. By what authority is he negotiating deals to send some students to schools that aren’t even close to Windham?

And considering the issues of poverty, language barriers and racial isolation, Adamowski decides to negotiate a “deal” that the Town of Windham will pick up the $11,000 tuition bill but won’t cover the costs of getting to students to that other school?

And while it is certainly understandable that NFA wants more students and needs more tuition revenue, what is Adamowski doing taking scarce taxpayer funds and using them to send students to a privately run high school, at the same time Adamowski is making drastic cuts to Windham High School’s programs.

There are times when people use the word criminal when they mean it is a really bad idea and then there are times that something is truly criminal because it is actually illegal.

Considering what the Windham law actually says, how individual students are being treated, and what Adamowski is doing, it is hard to know, in this case, which is the right way to use the word – criminal.

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Apartheid First

Try to get a music class at Windham High School, which has a small but talented band–winners of first prize in a regional band competition last year, while individual students won in their areas. But this year, the Academy model will not allow for music. A student can choose a sport or an instrument, not both. Never mind that once a Harvard recruiter told me that when she pre-screens applicants, she always asks them, “What’s your sport? *and* what’s your instrument?” Harvard wants students who show a well-rounded background. Adamowski is turning Windham into an academically and culturally impoverished environment. When we speak of regional choice, Windham should be a choice for students who reside in the small towns of Eastern Connecticut, where there aren’t other High Schools. Windham High used to be that way. Cutting programs does not attract families. Emptying the halls of the school does not attract families.
Steven Adamowski publicly claimed at a Board of Education meeting last night that the Special Master legislation and the new ED Reform bill allow him to cut special deals for certain parents. I would like to know just where in the law it says that. In additon, the traditional choices for High Schools students–Tech, Vo-Ag, performing arts–have application procedures, interviews, open houses, visits to eighth graders, memos to parents, etc. But NFA is for a select group. Not to mention that the 25 students will bleed over $277,000 per year from Windham’s meager coffers.
- Magister
  
  Is this a method of appeasing/silencing vocal patents?
  - Apartheid First
    
    It’s a method of segregating and privatizing. Just ask Eli Broad.
- R.L.
  
  I believe physics is offered in only one academy in all of what is left of Hartford’s comprehensive high schools. Not too long ago, in the times before Adamowski, Bulkeley High School was the best in the city. There were true scholars graduating from it. Now…….I just looked at their course offerings on-line. They need to do an update.
  - jonpelto
    
    Physics is for losers! Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Earth Science.. any science… a complete waste of time. Why don’t they just face facts and teach the kids that the world was created in seven days, dinosaurs and humans co-existing on the 2nd or 3rd day and beyond that, if they want to learn science, they can watch the Discovery Channel.
  - Apartheid First
    
    Adamowski testified before the State Board of Education in June to trumpet his successes as Special Master to Windham. He decided to add a few personal flourishes, and so, in justifiying AP classes at Windham High School, he mentioned that when he went to High School, he did not get AP Chemistry, he was given Everyday Chemistry instead. By his own critieria, Steven Adamowski was not college-ready. In those days, his alma mater, Southern CT State U–a college–probably had open admissions, affordable tuition, and a low graduation rate (it was recently found to have a 19% grad. rate… ). And look at the illustrious career he has gone on to! Unlike the unfortunate Hartford students, with a school district in tatters and heavily re-segregated. Sure, students get accepted into some colleges, some bogus institutes, and a few online Universities which are happy to take a year or two worth of tuition for no return. This awful man has perpetrated so many crimes.
buygoldandprosper

Some get and some do not. Sounds like a lawsuit to me.
Perhaps the special master should touch base with The VERY SPECIAL MASTER,Dan Malloy,and use some of his “networks” to enroll kids in,say Chinese schools or Swiss schools. Transportation could be arranged…maybe some of Dan’s frequent flyer mileage?
Linda174

After reviewing SB 24 which became 458 I do not recall any verbiage that speaks to moving select students to select schools based upon select deals with select parents as arranged by the very special and select MASTER. I wonder if this is a way of taking care of some of the more vocal, knowledgeable, well connected parents who can also provide their own transportation. How is this equitable if a student, who on all other merits would be accepted, cannott attend due to the inablity to arrange transportation? What are the criteria for acceptance? Good test taker? No diablities?
We appear to be robbing Peter to pay Paul. How can we send money to Norwich, while stripping Windham students of their opporunities for music, arts, etc..
There will be a new category for lawyers….the charter chasers as noted by another reader and now the equity chasers. Get ready Adamowski, Pryor, Malloy, Vallas……parents are rallying.
R.L.

This is what Adamowski does. This is what school “reform” in general does. Rather than addressing the issues and the needs of the students that struggle the most, for whatever reason, the “reformers” make nice schools for the higher academic students and concentrate the needy in the old schools. They have created heterogeneous classes, as the academy model can’t support AP, honors, academic, general, and basic level classes. They’re too small for that. The good lab equipment and materials go to the magnet schools with the better students. The old schools are left with a high concentration of students who should have been held back in age appropriate, academic level appropriate schools or classes and then, maybe when the student could read, or speak English, or heal from some horrible hurt, he could actually learn in a heterogeneous history or science class.
Now with the new score based evaluations coming, there will be an excuse to get rid of these old teachers who now suck because they’re students score low and don’t act right in class. These teachers, who before the Adamowski reign of error, had fine students coming out of their classes. They were students who didn’t just get accepted to college with thousands of dollars in debt and a bloated high school transcript only to flunk out in the first year.
Talk about criminal.
- Sleepless in Bridgeport
  
  Come on…….you must have stolen Vallas’ play book! He has already done so much damage to Bridgeport.
Linda174

Comment left on Philly blog in reference to the great reform efforts of Vallas in NOLA:

You can view the comment here: http://thenotebook.org/blog/125153/commentary-wont-back-down-wont-be-honest-about-school-reform#comment-39963

Here is the text of the comment: Who are you and where did you get this crazy information about New Orleans from? Are you aware that the definition of a failing school was changed so that the state could steal the vast majority of our public schools. The state then ran them into the ground for the express purpose of chartering the schools. The parents and community had no voice in this takeover. The definition of a failing school was then changed back which makes it look like they improved schools. They did not to the degree of only 26% failing as you indicate. The data is simply incorrect. The state is not reporting all of the data on all of the schools to arrive at the number you quote. What educational taxing district fund do you speak of? Give me the bill, act or revised statue of such legislation. As a member of the New Orleans community, very active in public education, I can tell you that the “community” was not empowered. Charter schools were forced on us, plain and simple.
Apartheid First

There is an agreement but you can’t see it. There is an agreement but it is being revised. There is a report about a school in need of serious repair and remediation, but we are waiting for a report to confirm what we should do. We have a report but it doesn’t say what we want/expect it to say. So we are waiting for another report.
And so it goes. Don Williams, Susan Johnson, Former commissioner George Coleman, Guv Malloy, Stefan Pryor, the CT State BoE: This is what you have wrought. Don Williams, chair of the ed committee in the legislature, don’t you have anything to say? You are up for re-election, as is Susan Johnson, who used to brag about her role in bringing the special master to town. What do you say? How are those magnets your relations attend?
http://www.facebook.com/people/Rich-White/100000066062155 Rich White

Vouchers for public, private, parochial, charter, and alt education!.Restore choice! Promote Freedom! The Free Market!
- R.L.
  
  Ignorance is bliss, huh Rich. Your simpleton plan is flawed, find a new one. Maybe Rush Limbaugh can come up with something for you.
- Linda174
  
  Restore sanity and intelligence for this bloviator! Lets all pray for his rehabilitation. Someone please let the goats loose.
Hartford Counselor

Next he will eliminate middle school counselors so families of grade 8 students won’t know about the choices.
Pingback: CT Essential Politics – Friday 09.28.12 - CT Devil's Advocate
KyleL

Here’s the thing that I don’t get about this whole situation, I graduated from Windham High School in 2008, and it prepared me very well to pursue a college education. I received two bachelor of science degrees and I am currently pursuing a doctorate degree at UCONN. That was only 4 years ago people, and it’s sad to say that in 4 years the administration has plummeted or destroyed some of the best aspects of Windham High School.
When I attended Windham, I was involved in a whole variety of activities, soccer, DECA, track and field, student council, the national honor society, and a few other activities. I have heard recently that the school has implemented school uniforms, what is that going to do to help a student’s education, except limit the student’s freedom of expression. Yes some outfits are outrageous and trust me I have seen them all, but a simple dress code will do. Another subject that upsets me is that those same programs such as DECA that taught me to interact and balance priorities in a professional manner are being cut or “phased-out” of the education system.
Directly discussing the education “re-structure” is even worse. The removal of honors courses is a huge mistake and under sight by the administration. No matter what the administration may think that integrating the classes will work to bring the struggling students up to the level of more prepared students in the class, this system is bound to fail. With my experience of teaching college-level students I have found that when group work is assigned, there is a direct tendency that when the groups are random that the hard-working students end up doing the majority of the work and the less-motivated students do very little and don’t benefit from these groups at all. When the groups are separated “randomly by me” (when I break them up into groups based on exam scores and don’t tell them) there is a group or two that is better, inherently, but there is much more interaction throughout the different groups because there is no way the non-motivated students could complete the work unless they interact and work on it. So, back to the issue, when the honors classes and level 3, 2, and 1 classes are combined it will not bring the struggling students up, and in fact it will hold the more-prepared students back. There will be no way that the classes could cover enough material nor move at the pace necessary to prepare the students for college or better their education.
I also need to note that not all students will/want to pursue college, so you can’t base an education system based on that fact, that is what honors courses are for and work to achieve that goal. Also, I went into college with 18 college credits that I achieved from Windham’s partnership with UCONN to provide college-level courses in high school as well as AP courses. If Windham’s education system gets any worse these courses might not be able to be offered because the partnering colleges might feel the structure is not up-to-par to offer these credit. I should note that these courses were even more informative and challenging than courses I took freshman year at college.
What the Windham High School administration and Board of Education needs to do it to forget about “restructuring”. The system they had was good, they need to focus on using the system they had and reaching out to more students to motivate them to do well in school. The best way to do this is through their teachers, coaches, and counselors. My high school teachers, coaches, and counselors were ALWAYS supportive and their dedication to helping me learn and succeed is how I got to where I am now. They don’t need “special masters”, numerous secretaries and “administrative staff”, and extra police officers in the school (sure there was a fight or two, but there was less violence and illegal activity in the high school than what I was exposed to freshman year of college). They need change at the bottom levels, they need more teachers, coaches, and counselors; how often does the special master or the administration interact with the students….very little). And honestly while these administrators are getting outrageous salaries to do nothing, the teachers are paid among the lowest in the state. How can you attract new talented teachers and keep the current talented teachers, when their peers in neighboring districts are compensated better and have less of a challenge on their plate (they don’t have a dysfunctional education system to deal with). Thus, they need to offer more incentives to keep the dedicated teachers in the district and attract new bright minds, not offer six-figure salaries for administrators that have little interaction with the students, they just dictate and don’t have a first-hand view like the teachers do.
- Apartheid First
  
  Thank you so much for posting. I know many excellent graduates of Windham High School and many excellent current students. It is insulting to hear the Special Master characterize these students as all “low performing” and in need of improvement. In “reform” circles, administrators and State Boards of Education often exaggerate drop-out rates, test scores, etc. They try to create a market for their dismal, robotic reforms.
  The good and best things about Windham High School that you mention *are* being cut. Adamowski is bent on ruining the Windham public schools so as to make room for charters, privateers, Broad-foundation administrators, standardized test regimes, etc, etc. Adamowski, with the blessing of the BoE and the state, is bulldozing these ideas in and ushering the best teachers and students out. Look at what he did in Hartford! The current superintendent, Kishimoto, was his disciple, and she is now under fire for the awful “academy” model Adamowski implemented. Student SAT scores in Hartford are extremely low–these are the students who “grew up” under the Adamowski reign of error.
  You are also correct about college readiness. A High School diploma has always been the most important prerequisite for college admission. Schools can do no more, and, unless they are going to finance college for everyone admitted, they cannot require it.
- Apartheid First
  
  I was just reminded that the Hartford Courant welcomes op-ed pieces each week from young adults, often college students. You should try submitting some of this to them. Warning: They are for the most part completely bought and sold on school reform, and they always gave Adamowski tons of positive spin. They absolutely adored him, about as much as now-convicted former mayor Eddie Perez did.

Wait, What?