NORWALK, Conn. – A new English Language curriculum for Norwalk’s public elementary schools was finally agreed to Tuesday in what Board of Education Chairman Mike Lyons described as the “most important vote” that has been taken during his time on the board.
Superintendent Manny Rivera’s recommendation to go with Houghton Mifflin’s Journeys curriculum for children up to grade 5 – and hold out Core Knowledge as a possible alternative for the youngest children in up to two schools – was approved by seven of nine board members, with Migdalia Rivas and Shirley Mosby abstaining. This followed more than an hour of skepticism and resistance from Rivas and Mosby, ending finally with Rivas telling Rivera he had to listen to her as the parent of children who have suffered through the fault of the school system.
The selection of a new curriculum was the topic of controversy more than a year ago when a committee of teachers and school administrators butted heads with BOE members. Norwalk Public Schools Instructional Specialist Jean Evans Davila preferred Reading Street, a Pearson product, and considered Journeys a close second. Then-BOE member Sue Haynie and others favored Core Knowledge. The impasse was resolved in August when Rivera recommended not rushing things to get a curriculum in place by the start of the 2013-14 school year.
The resultant plan includes a recommendation to to offer a pilot program with Core Knowledge (CKLA) as an optional alternative — in one or two schools — for kindergarten, first and second grade classrooms.
That was the sticking point.
Rivas made a motion to separate the issue of a Core Knowledge pilot program from that of approving Journeys as the city-wide curriculum of choice. Mosby seconded that. It eventually failed 5-4, with Sherelle Harris and Rosa Murray joining Mosby and Rivas on the losing side.
After the vote, Rivas explained, in response to a question from Harris, why she thought separating the ideas was preferable, as shown in the video below. She said Rivera’s previous comments about an application process or the criteria for a pilot program are not on paper, not even in the minutes of the last meeting.
“I will not know if every elementary school had the opportunity to apply for this,” she said. “I will not know what is the criteria, how they will select the school for the pilot … The thing is now I have no way of knowing, it’s all jumbled together. I don’t know who is doing what, who is accountable and what is happening to these children.”
Rivera responded by repeating things he had said in the March 4 board meeting.
“To be very frank I believe I stated this and if it wasn’t clear or captured I will say it again tonight. The expectation is that yes, I would administratively develop the procedures, the process, the criteria and put that out and expect that any school that is interested would address a lot of that criteria,” he said.
Other board members said it was important not to micromanage the school system, to let administrators do their jobs.
Artie Kassimis said he voted for Rivera to become superintendent a year ago because of the approach Rivera said he would use to approach to decision making, with risks minimized. He said Rivera had done that in recommending a curriculum.
“The risks are being reduced as much as possible,” Kassimis said. “Everything has a little risk. With that said, for the past five years the K-5 curriculum to me has been like a big lazy river. You jump in and wherever the current goes – and a lot of kids have popped their tubes on the way and have drowned. They still can’t read. I think it’s time for us to get out of the lazy river, get a curriculum that is going to do something, move forward, that’s going to mean something to our kids.”
“I almost think that anything you can come up with is better than what we have now,” Harris said. But detecting problems and intervening when necessary is important, she said.
“We need to be able to galvanize the teachers and to stand behind this,” she said.
Lyons said a safety net is a good idea, but should be particularly applied to Journeys as the scientific data shows Core Knowledge is better. He quoted from studies showing that minority students do very well with Core Knowledge. The studies are attached below.
The work of Rivera and his team is amazing, Lyons said.
“This is a real inflection point for the school system,” Lyons said. “We can vote against this, which is a vote to maintain the status quo, keep doing things the way we’ve always done them. As has been described at length tonight, what we have been doing hasn’t worked. Or we can say it’s time to make a dramatic step forward, not settle for incremental little changes. Make a big change, work some innovation into it. Yeah, take some chances, but we’re taking chances using Journeys just as much as we’re taking chances with pilots with Core Knowledge. … Anytime you try something new there are going to be risks. An intelligent person does not say I’m never going to do anything because there are going to be risks. An intelligent person takes calculated risks.”
Rivas said it wasn’t about micromanaging. The school district failed her as a parent, she said.
“My children are a product of what is not working and I can speak on that,” she said. “I can speak on my children being spoken to badly and being discriminated against in schools. I can talk about an administration that has not helped. I can tell you how special ed is. I can tell you about ELL. … It can’t continue this way.”
Leave a Reply
You must Register or Login to post a comment.