Breakthrough in legal dispute over black students in Pinellas

To boost black student achievement, the Pinellas school district will keep better tabs on performance, offer more specific strategies and interventions, and strengthen lines of accountability, according to a memorandum of understanding between the district and plaintiffs in a long-running legal dispute.

The district also promises to spend more money.

The agreement, signed June 26, is the latest development in the still-simmering legal fight over integration of Pinellas schools. And it’s the first sign of progress since January 2006, when mediation began over allegations that the district was not following through on an August 2000 settlement agreement.

"It’s significant,” said Watson Haynes, co-chairman of a community group that is advising the plaintiffs’ lawyers. “We really haven’t had the school system, as long as we’ve had this court order, really finally say we’re going to do what’s right by black students.”

“It’s a good beginning,” said School Board member Mary Brown.

The memo is not an admission that either side violated the settlement; nor does it end the mediation. But if approved by the School Board and U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday, it could change how much attention and help black students get in Pinellas schools.

The memo requires every school’s improvement plan to detail the achievement gap between black and white students; to spell out instructional strategies that will narrow it; and to identify which school-based officials will be responsible for making the changes.

It also says the district will “equitably” spend money to improve black student achievement, which “shall mean that certain schools and programs will receive proportionately higher funding than other schools or programs based upon needs demonstrated through verifiable data.”

The memorandum is a spinoff of Bradley vs. the Pinellas County School Board. Lawyers for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, concerned about stagnant black student achievement, pushed for mediation in January 2006.

The memorandum was signed by superintendent Julie Janssen, School Board general counsel Jim Robinson and two attorneys for the plaintiffs, Enrique Escarraz III and Roger Plata. It must still be approved by the School Board, which is expected to discuss it at a workshop Thursday, and by Judge Merryday, whose 2000 order formally ended the Bradley case.

Ron Matus, state education reporter

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Comments

[What's in the water]

Until Pinellas examines "what's in the water" so to speak, all our children suffer. No matter what their color.

Environment is a very, very powerful enabler or inhibitor of success.

[Understanding what makes success]

It seems there is confusion about what it takes to succeed.

It's not just about work ethic. In fact, success has a whole lot to do with luck, the design of the "system" in which one must perform and even birth.

Read what the academic research says about success: http://www.gladwell.com/outliers/index.html

[?]

Are teachers only supposed to use certain "specific instructional strategies" on black students and use other "specific instructional strategies" on white students?

[Ms. Pencil]

This just sounds like more paperwork and a way to blame teachers when students refuse to perform. I'm disturbed by the racism in this county, from white to black and black to white. I've had students from all races/backgrounds perform well when the desire to succeed is there. And I've had students from all races/backgrounds cuss, threaten, physically assault and refuse to perform for all kinds of reasons. I don't have a solution to these problems, but I don't think this is the solution either. We seem to be trying to put a band-aid/quick solution on a large open gaping wound of a problem that did not just happen overnight.

[longtime teacher]

It doesn't matter whether you are black, white, brown or green (yes, Kermit the frog said "it isn't easy being green" either...) - to the Pinellas County School Board: PERMANENTLY REMOVE the students who are discipline problems from the classroom. Until it becomes a "privilege" rather a "right" to sit in a classroom, it becomes increasingly more difficult for teachers to teach and for children to learn. I've seen the attitude change for the worse every year - students who once "respected" the educational system now are joining in with the discipline problems for the attention it garners from the teachers and their classmates. In addition, I know that PARENTS are a main consideration in achievement - supportive parents who make sure the work is done at home and is understood are the key to a student's success and achievement. How about REQUIRED homework - very little money is needed for that!

[teach]

Hey rebel yell,

Need to blame the Uhurus, the active NAACP, and the amount of hate in the black community towards whites. This definately filters into the Pinellas Schools. How do you expect teachers to deal with such insolence in the classroom? It filters in every day. Many of these kids expect that everything should be handed to them or they scream, shout, and throw tantrums. Wrote twelve referrals on one. Administration is too scared of lawsuits and repercussions to do anything about these kids or their parents. Do you really blame them? Never saw students with such bad reverse racism(against whites) as I've seen in this county. Never saw it this bad in Hillsborough or Dade County.

[jwt]

Minority students DO have a chance!!! I do not know of one colleague that doesn't want to teach ALL students!! When students come to learn--they can.
In most cases--those who make the effort do well--Irish/Scot/English American, Latin American, African American and anyone!

[formerAfAmpinellasteach]

How about the African American parents stepping up to parent their children so teachers have a fighting chance to help these "underachievers." Throwing more money at the problem with welfare and other social programs hasn't done much for putting these families back to work or helping them to be more productive in the lives of their youngsters. What do you think throwing more money to educate already enabled, lazy minority youngsters is going to do? This is a family and community problem, not an educational problem for the majority of these African American youngsters.

[terminator]

rebel yell:
you should get back to your single wide out there in Mango as you don't know much about this conversation.
did you shoot some possum for breakfast this morning?
heard your wife (er...cousin) got a black eye last night cause she didn't get your grits right.

most black kids do worse in Pinellas and every school district in the US because most DON'T CARE about getting an education! They'd rather be listening to rap crap, playing the thug life and rejecting any type of authority.

wake up and get your head out of your doo doo hole there feller!

[andrea]

i am interested in how the additional monies will be spent....on more ineffective programs? i don't mind spending money to help "at-risk" students but unless we understand the problem, i am skeptical of the results. i DO like the ideas of making these students' achievement part of school improvement plans.....but, like kim, i believe some of the other groups (gifted, female students) also deserve this type of support/accountability built into the educational system. in all, i'd like more details about how this is going to be implemented and how we will also address the other under-served populations.

[rebel yell]

Where do all the racists on this blog come from? If they are teaching in Pinellas-that says a lot about why black kids do not do well in our schools. Remember the data clearly shows blacks in the Pinellas school system not only under-perform compared with whites in Pinellas, but blacks in Pinellas under-perform when compared to blacks in surrounding counties.

Get the facts straight. Blacks in Pinellas do not stand a chance.

[publicschoolteacher]

Try this:
Eliminate the black students who are behaviorally unsuccessful (high # of referrals/suspensions) from your data, and then tell us how they compare to the rest of the students. I bet those kids are seriously skewing the results.

[?]

I'm white, but from Africa. Does that mean I am an African American?

[bruno]

I can't wait for the parents of a gay kid to file suit.

[??]

Bob- I wondered... A few years ago, I had girl in class whose parents immigrated from Egypt. Why wasn't she African American?

[terminator]

Johnny:
well put

Bob: you seem like a byproduct of the NAACP's poor culturally disadvantaged negro intensive study class!

[teacher and taxpayer]

Spending more money is useless, especially when there isn't any. There are already good programs in place to help struggling students. Make the most of what we already have.

[Julia]

Oh boy is this not the answer. More paperwork for teachers! Give them more freedom to work w/ the kids. Use a sensible, straight forward curriculum. More $ is not the answer. Low income schools already receive more funding anyway. More will do nothing.I also agree challenging higher performing/gifted students needs to happen.

[Bob]

Hey Johnny - Africa is a contient, not a country. Ever hear of Egypt? Africa! Obviously you are a product of Pinellas County schools.

[Equality works in all directions]

This is ridiculous. Are we comparing apples to apples? Are we comparing low performing black children with low perfrming white, and high to high? Are we comparing low ses to low ses and high ses to high ses? I think the results would be different if we looked closer. I also think that those who have posted so far, saying that it is cultural could be right. Not saying that ALL black kids are hindered, but what is the at - home culture? How many of these kids we are studying go home and are helped with homework? Are the parents communicating with school? Is the communication supportive (or blaming)? These studies are too vague for us to justify throwing money at the problem.

[Johnny]

Nothing will work, the problem can never be fixed. Look at Africa, the country has never been known for inventing or discovering anything that benefits society. The problem is simple, it's cultural. We need to find a way to stop holding back the best and brightest in the name of racial equality. There will never be true racial equality, history says so. You can throw all the money you want at the problem, it won't fix it. We must start focusing our attention on the brightest students or we will continue to lose our technological superiority. Stop wasting resources on students that have no desire to learn. There's plenty of work that requires no brains. If you stop the entitlements and made EVERYONE work to eat there would be less problems. There ARE winners AND losers in the game of life, stop pretending everyone can win.

[Kim]

What is going to be done to advance white students? Female Students? Students who can be challenged more and are not? Spend the money on students who are working hard and succeeding. Also...how about measuring the economic gap? The professional gap? The parent involvement gap? I've known many intellegent, well raised black people who've excelled at school. I suspect the color of thier skin is not the defining factor in thier acedemic performance.

[terminator]

what a crock of sh*t. Glad I don't work in Pinellas but if I did I would have told your lilly livered board what a bill of goods they were being sold.
This will do nothing to improve education for anyone.
These statistics are already available at the federal, state and local level due to requirements of NCLB, A+, A++ and new accountability measures recently implemented.
All it will do is create more paperwork for Pinellas educators who will have to document every black kids every move and then be blamed for the fact they and their negligent parents could care less about learning.
You may as well have taken the money and gave each kid in the hood a twenty.
The Pinellas District is "dumb and dumber"

[D]

Why don't we make ALL schools follow the "fundamental" school principles instead of just limiting it to a few select schools? All parents with children in public schools MUST be engaged in their child's education. MUST attend a certain number of parent-teacher conferences every semester, MUST sign off on their children's homework every night, etc. Just as the state has the responsibility to provide an education, the parents have a responsibility to be involved in that education.

[Pete]

Blacks are always pulling the race card, yet their performance in school is deplorable, their performance in society is criminal, and then they have the nerve to complain they don't get good jobs and alway send up in jail. Study hard, learn the English language, and don't touch what doesn't belong to you or is illegal. There's the recipe for success.

[flateacher]

What are the parents of these students going to do?

[right. it's the schools' fault.]

How about: To boost black student achievement, the parents of black students will keep better tabs on performance, offer more specific strategies and interventions and strengthen lines of accountability?

[Tim]

Spending more money will solve the problem won't it?