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Philip Kurian teaches mathematics at Simon Gratz High School and is a contributing writer for the Notebook.
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Budget crunch, evaluation spell downfall for four managers
Contracts with Small Schools Transition Managers were terminated after they got mixed ratings.
by Philip Kurian
After spending $4.5 million on two rounds of contracts, the School Reform Commission (SRC) cut from its current budget four for-profit managers who were supervising the transition at 12 newly formed small high schools. District officials assert that the work can now be done in-house.
When they were adopted in February and March 2005, the contracts sparked controversy over whether these companies were the best way to provide support to new, small high schools. Just 16 months later, in May, they ended up on the chopping block as results were mixed and money became tight.
The rise and fall of these “small schools transition managers” represents an interesting illustration of the process of contracting out and what might prompt the District to pull the plug on a set of contracts.
Hired at the outset of the District’s comprehensive Small Schools Transition Project, the four private managers - Kaplan, Princeton Review, ResulTech, and SchoolWorks - were charged with providing professional development and other consultative services for most of the District’s newly autonomous small high schools.
One compelling reason the District offered for the contracts with outside providers was the short-term, transitional nature of the work.
Intended to help ready the small schools for the 2005-06 school year, the original contracts totaled $1.8 million, or $150,000 per school. These contracts were renewed in November 2005 through last June, to the tune of $225,000 per school.
At the small high schools, reviews of the transition managers’ work were mixed; while some praised the support provided, others continued to question the choice of these firms and their expertise and effectiveness in transitioning small schools. An English teacher at Sayre High School, Ashley Branca, lamented, “Princeton Review tried to teach us pedagogical strategies, but they offered only out-of-touch consultants to teachers.” She added, “We never knew when they were coming to our classrooms.”
The SRC resolutions proposing the contracts with the four companies provided no evidence of an open search for the best possible transition managers, nor was there written rationale in their “justification” section for why these particular companies were appropriate for this job. The SRC heard critical public testimony questioning why these companies were chosen over nonprofit organizations like the Coalition for Essential Schools or The Big Picture Company that specialize in small schools.
But Gregory Thornton, District chief academic officer, told the Notebook that the small schools transition managers were “a wonderful opportunity to link principals with for-profit organizations to learn about how they transition in the marketplace.”
“We didn’t want an EMO relationship,” he said, but explained that the District did want to have partnerships with business. “One of the ultimate things,” however, “was whether they could help schools meet adequate yearly progress (AYP).” Of the 12 schools managed by the four providers, six made AYP in 2006.
The SRC did develop a clear list of objectives for the transition managers and authorized a $75,000 District contract with Next Step Associates for project oversight. Led by Cassandra Jones, the District’s former executive director of leadership and learning, Next Step was responsible for implementation and evaluation of the project, along with development of community engagement and partnership plans for selected schools.
A scoring rubric designed by Jones looked at which managers and which schools met each of 20 standards set out in the contracts, covering areas from community engagement to caring climate to college visits. She found that each of the managers fell short of compliance on at least five of the standards. Scoring the lowest was ResulTech, which fell short of full compliance on half the standards and in six areas had missed targets at all its schools. Princeton Review, paid the largest sum of $1.5 million, fell short on nine standards, with all its schools failing inspection on four. Kaplan and SchoolWorks achieved the most objectives, according to the rubric.
Thornton said the managers were cut not only to save money, but also because Jones’s internal report showed that “a couple of them really made a difference, and then there were those that didn’t.” Even if the funding was restored, he said, “I wouldn’t be recommending that all of them come back.”
“Now we’re doing those things internally,” Thornton noted.