Held to answer

Portland public schools are still looking for a bridge to the 21st Century. Or some magic guidelines to show them the way.

Or a white paper. Or another study on “welcoming, warm learning environments.”

A lot of school districts are apparently looking for the same thing.

“All you have to do is a Google search,” said Melissa Goff, who’s in charge of teaching and learning for the Portland school district.

She’s right. A Google search on welcoming, warm learning environments turns up 32.5 million hits. Portland Public Schools will add to this electronic junkyard with the help of a group called the Long Range Facilities Plan Advisory Committee.

Goff spoke to the committee this week. The group includes at least 35 members in business, trades, neighborhoods, public agencies, special-interest organizations and meets at least once a month at various schools.

They are expected to produce a report that the school district can use as a campaign tool if it seeks another school bond. The last bond attempt, for $548 million, failed in May 2011.

When Goff spoke to the committee this week at Hosford Middle School in southeast Portland, she talked about the challenges of teaching Generation Z – those born between 1994 and 2009.

“These kids are not just tech savvy, they are tech reliant,” she said. By 2014, all school testing will be done online.

Goff said that when her daughter gave up texting for Lent, the girl had trouble adjusting to talking on the phone.

“They are visual learners and perceive learning as a game. … They prefer seven-minute chunks of attention span.” Goff called these “chunk activities.”

Kids like to move around in the classroom instead of sitting at a desk. They need to be critical thinkers – not just memorizers, she said.

As these meetings often go, the hosting school’s principal and a panel of teachers also made brief comments. Then meeting facilitator Gerald Reifert (of Mahlum Architects) led the committee in an hour-long exercise, in this case establishing 14 guiding principals.

Things like: “We must create learning environments that nurture, inspire and challenge our students, places that allow learning to flourish beyond the walls.”

And: “We believe that our school buildings and sites’ primary purpose is to support the district’s educational programs… .”

And: “Our school facilities will be inclusive of the communities that they serve and open and accessible to all for community use… .” (One of the committee members suggested adding words to the effect that “voters are important to us.”)

The two student representatives on the committee – Patrick Stupfel and Kevin Truong – showed no signs of becoming restless as the discussion droned on well after seven minutes. In fact, Stupfel offered one of the more cogent criticisms, objecting to the “fluffy” words.

What is it about educators and their love of white papers and studies and acronyms and verbiage? They are like people who spend hours perfecting their daily to-do lists as the day dwindles, leaving little accomplished except a finely designed to-do list.

Some committee members seem to know this. During their Jan. 31st meeting at Rosa Parks Elementary School in northeast Portland, member Angela Jarvis Holland of the Northwest Down Syndrome Association noted, “There is a fatigue in our community. … Tolerance for task forces or conversation is thin.”

Yet school administrators talk and listen, talk and listen. When the bond failed last year, Supt. Carole Smith immediately launched community “listening sessions.”

While she appears confident and capable, Smith and her well-paid managers live in their own publicly funded, private bureaucracy. They mean well, but when they listen, what do they hear?

At a Jan. 10th  meeting held at Jefferson High School, Truong referred to “our neighbor in Vancouver” and pointed out that when school officials there look at the long term, they notice which schools are functioning the best and invest in those.

“When they are presenting for bonds, they can use all these good schools. People will probably vote for it,” he said.

Committee member and parent Michael Verbout replied, “As much as I admire our friends in Vancouver, I would not want to emphasize the higher-achieving schools.”

Truong had a point. People do not want to waste their money on something that isn’t working.

Portland school officials should put away their white papers and read Larry Norton’s oldtownperspective blog.

Norton examines the results of the Bonneville Power Administration’s 21st annual Regional Science Bowl. For high school, first place went to a Vancouver high school, second to a Bellevue, Wash. high school and third place to a home school group in Salmon Creek, outside Vancouver. First place for middle school also went to a Vancouver school while two Portland schools (including an academy for high achievers) took second and third place.

Norton studied whether there were measurable “success” factors.

“I submit that there is nothing in the data to suggest that success of these students was because of the school metrics like class size, ethnicity, etc. … (T)he photos of the winners, at least two of the photos, suggest culture makes a difference, and in some way it does, because it is arguable that some cultures seem to value education more than others… .

“I would argue that it is the intangible high expectations of teachers, parents, and students that make the difference. … The fact that home-schooled students did well in the Science Bowl adds validity to my argument.”

That home school group’s victory was no fluke. Several years ago when I worked at the newspaper in Vancouver, our regular announcements about the local winners of National Merit Scholarships and competitions such as the Science Olympiad often included home-schooled students.

For years the Vancouver district and its neighboring Evergreen and Battle Ground school districts have partnered with parents who want to home school. Not all of these parents opted out of public schooling for religious reasons. Many of them wanted their children to focus on learning without the negative distractions found in schools – and the parents didn’t mean the buildings and other physical structures.

Yet the Portland school district wants this committee to focus on facilities.

At its Rosa Parks meeting, the committee watched a slide show of new and remodeled schools. One elementary school in Texas was designed along the concept of a children’s museum. An Illinois school was built around a library and science lab. Some schools had no structured classrooms and lots of open space.

Committee member Lydia Poole, representing Portland Association of Teachers, wondered how the kids in those schools were doing now. “If it is not going to help the students… .”

Committee member and parent Lakeitha Elliott also wanted to know the educational outcomes in those schools. “If you say we need new buildings, what is the impact on learning?”

A good question that deserves an answer with a minimum amount of fluff.

– Pamela Fitzsimmons

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Helplessness and the Status Quo