Today in The Portland Tribune there was a letter from Terry Anderson, a retired city worker, taking me to task for my concerns about the Community Transitional School. For those who have not been paying attention here are the concerns (in brief) that I have raised:
Federal law states that the use of federal dollars on separate schools is illegal and advocates for the homeless – like the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth – argue correctly that separate schools do not offer the full range of services that public schools do...
Multnomah County, however, funds such a separate school instead of working to integrate students into the public system. The Community Transitional School receives over $52,000 from Multnomah County each year. Students at this private facility are not subject to the same testing as public school students and the Multnomah County contract provides no real measurable outcomes for the program to achieve. The Portland and Parkrose school districts, both with high numbers of homeless students, operate under-funded programs without county support…
When students at separate schools are tested the results are discouraging. Results released in December from the Pappas School in Arizona, the granddaddy of all separate schools and the model for the Community Transitional School, showed that homeless kids in that program fared worse than homeless kids in public schools in both math and reading in every grade level…
Multnomah County should pull their funding from the Community Transitional School immediately and invest that money in public school programs. The public schools could use the support and we know their programs actually work. If the Multnomah County Board of County Commissioners is unwilling to take this important step then I challenge them to re-write the contract and require that students at the Community Transitional School be tested along side public school students. I'm confident the test scores will be as low as those shown by the Papas School.
Anderson, who to my knowledge has followed none of the research done on this subject since she retired years ago from the staff of then-Portland City Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury, wrote that:
For those familiar with the school and Mr. Currie’s ongoing crusade against it, the only new factors in the controversy are that he has a new bully pulpit and that there’s a new sacred cow called “testing” or “empirical measurement” to be reckoned with.
A different vantage point would allow that the school offers a unique type of support and a measure of stability in young lives that are often continuously disrupted and fragmented. There is an affirmation and connection for the children at CTS that may be lacking in mainstream schooling. This kind of affirmation/confidence building is not reflected in comparative test scores.
The point is not that one approach is right but that an alternative should be available for these children and their families. Not only is county funding a good investment in young lives already at risk, but more support from the public and foundations should be available as well.
A little less self-righteous certainty and a little more compassionate awareness would serve the children better.
Ms. Anderson and her allies at CTS are afraid that my recent advocacy will result in CTS having to become accountable to the children and the tax-payers by quantifying what if any successful outcomes they can measure. The reality is that in other communities across the nation where separate schools have operated the students attending those schools fared worse in every grade and subject level compared to homeless kids in the public school system. Ms. Anderson might consider reading the data.
Separate is never equal. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. taught us that. Ms. Anderson ought to also consider reading Dr. King’s sermons and speeches for herself. Doing so might change her perspective.
As for compassion, I have so much compassion for these kids and their needs that I'm willing to go out on a limb even if it is unpopular with Ms. Anderson and her friends and demand that homeless kids get the very best education we can offer.
