black students

Education reform, for some of us, is full of tough calls. And for some of us, there can be particular agony in the gray area where race, poverty and both types of accountability – parental choice and regulatory – intersect.

Last week, the school board in Pinellas County, Fla., voted 4-3 against their superintendent’s recommendation to begin the process of closing a charter school in the city of St. Petersburg. The Imagine elementary school, serving predominantly low-income, African-American kids, had just earned its third F grade in four years of operation because of painfully low standardized test scores. Only 29 percent of its students were reading at grade level, according to the state test; only 13 percent were reaching the bar in math. Only one school in the district had performed worse – another charter – and the board had already voted to shutter it.

In the case of Imagine, the board was knotted by a a number of entangling factors, including a vote two months ago – before the release of school grades – to renew the school’s contract. Before the second vote, nearly 20 parents, teachers, administrators and company officials pleaded with the board to keep the school open. They were passionate, thoughtful, respectful – and collectively powerful. We thought their comments were worth sharing, and we excerpted a number of them below. (You can see the speakers on this video here; their presentations begin just before the 41 minute mark. The board debate begins at 3:18:39).

As you weigh the pros and cons, a few points to keep to mind: Black students in Pinellas perform worse than black students in every other urban district in Florida. The number of charter schools has grown rapidly in Pinellas, but not in neighborhoods with large numbers of low-income families of color. The district still isn’t home to a known quantity like KIPP or YES Prep with a record of success with minority kids. And the school board, like many of its counterparts across Florida, recently passed a resolution critical of standardized testing.

Here are the excerpts, edited for length:

Qiana Scott, parent: “You can’t make a decision to close down an institution that is there for the kids based on a standardized test. Because all of our kids are not standard. Kids learn differently. They are taught differently. And at Imagine, that is something that is definitely recognized. So the teachers take that extra time and the extra care to say, “You learn this way, I will teach you the way that you learn best.” So therefore, our kids are learning. It definitely hurts a lot of the parents and a lot of the staff because everybody has worked so hard all year, and to hear that Imagine could possibly be closed down – that’s like splitting up a family. And that’s what we are at Imagine. We are family.“