Foster Shares Education Mission: “Best Interests Of The Children”

In her most comprehensive speech as a mayoral candidate, Democrat Mary-Jane Foster Monday night delivered her education platform during an address at Gallery 305 on the city’s East Side, calling for a city charter revision establishing a “blended board of education, five members appointed by the mayor according to guidelines that include geography, diversity and experience among other criteria, and four elected by the residents of Bridgeport.” Such a move would require voter approval.

Asserting her call for the state to appoint a special master to oversee city schools in lieu of mothballing the Bridgeport Board of Education, Foster offered a series of specifics and proposals for education reform including parental partnerships, job training for school security, family resource support and “A citywide virtual high school … with our area universities or with a partner such as Charter Oak College. This approach will be effective at reducing our dropout rates by offering course remediation and the opportunity to take courses outside traditional curricula, such as those traditionally offered in vocational high schools.”

Foster’s entire speech below:

Thank you for joining me today. By now I guess you all know I am on a mission–a mission to alert people that democracy–with a little “d”–democracy has been subverted here in Bridgeport. And who would have guessed it would happen at the hands of the mayor? As the next mayor of Bridgeport, I will respect the right to open, honest dialogue and the right of every citizen to vote.

When I heard the incumbent assert, without qualification or condition, that the people of Bridgeport don’t need a voice in our children’s education, because enough of them don’t turn out to vote or enough of them aren’t citizens or enough of them are former offenders, I was outraged.

It fueled my determination to demonstrate, to communicate that I have the leadership qualities and consensus-driven values his words and his deeds so dramatically lack. It occurred to me, when the Commissioner of Education came to Bridgeport to explain the state’s actions, that he went to various groups–religious leaders, the Bridgeport Regional Business Council, the City Council, State legislators, BPSS, to try to persuade everybody of the appropriateness of his actions–all before taking his case to the parents. And that meeting was a product of negotiation–it was not on his original schedule. That’s outrageous. Make no mistake: as I release my education plan today, I come to the parents first. Why? Because I’m a parent, I’ve raised 2 children, I know firsthand that no one cares more about the welfare of my children than I do. We want the best educational opportunities possible for them; we, more than anyone, know how important education is to their futures, and to that of the community they’ll inherit. The fact that we love them means that at some point we want to see them self-determined and independent.

Preparing our children for the exploding world of the future has to begin before they ever reach the school doors. I was the co-chair of Success by Six for almost 7 years. It is a national United Way initiative where the driving motivation is bringing local resources to bear to make sure every child, beginning at birth is ready for school. What sense would it make to turn our primed and ready children over to a public education system controlled by outsiders, no matter how well-intentioned they may be? With the active engagement of parents, other community stakeholders, and the Bridgeport Public Schools, my administration will ensure that our children are prepared for school, and that our schools are prepared for them!

Serving on the Board of Teach For America, I’ve learned about education reform–training teachers to be change agents, shepherding them through two years of the program, then sending them out to make a difference and recruit others. So far, Teach For America has trained more than 20,000 teachers to be dedicated education reformers–in my administration, Bridgeport children will be taught by a corps of teachers–whether Teach for America or other teachers, and we have many, many fine ones, determined to eliminate educational inequality.

A top priority of my administration will be education reform and improving student achievement. Education reform must include an effective teacher for every classroom, a great leader as our principal for every school, and support systems and resources necessary to provide educational opportunities to a diverse student population. Bridgeport Public Schools administrators will be required to develop fully and formalize these goals; parents will have a voice and the right to review the goals so they’ll be able to guide and assist in their children’s education.

We must ensure equity in education when we distribute and allocate resources, rather than pitting one neighborhood against another neighborhood and having the parents of some wondering why their child was shortchanged in comparison to others.

Every child has the right to cutting-edge texts and the latest technology. In a Foster administration, politics will no longer intrude on the educational system; our children are our future, our children are our greatest asset. They need an education that supports being competitive in a technology-driven globalized economy–that will be critical. The Mayor’s office will not intrude on the public schools to use it as a source of political patronage. Rather, as Mayor my role will be to represent you, as parents and voters, in creating and maintaining the synergy that will require commitments from all stakeholders: the Mayor’s office, the Superintendent, the Board of Education, teachers, parents, AND children to meet the challenges and educationally empower generations to come. Together, we will create a new paradigm that will attract both corporate investors and philanthropists to a workforce that’s prepared and eager to jump start progress.

We’re all aware of the huge controversy resulting from the State being invited to take over the Bridgeport Public Schools by the Board of Education at the behest of the incumbent Mayor. To be clear for any of you who may not be sure of my position, and to reinforce and emphasize it for those of you who are–I do NOT support the State takeover of Bridgeport Public Schools! I believe it amounts to a stunning abandonment of the very responsibilities the Mayor and Board of Education are elected to uphold and an egregious violation of our constitutional rights that disenfranchises us as voters. I support a plan whereby the State would change course and appoint a Special Master to take over the public schools with the accompanying monies to effectively manage the schools. I have asked the Governor, the Acting Commissioner Coleman and the General Assembly to rescind their actions and instead give us a Special Master and the requisite funding to make change real in our schools.

Drawing on the recent case of the State’s takeover of Windham schools I believe we are entitled to 12 million dollars for the just administration of the City’s school system from the State of CT. In addition, I reiterate my call for the Superintendent to resign as a significant step in the right direction; AND, more importantly, in order to get the systemic change that will propel our children forward I need your help in electing a new Mayor.

As Mayor, I’ll request charter revision that will establish what I’m calling a “blended” board of education. Five members will be appointed by the Mayor according to guidelines that include geography, diversity and experience among other criteria, and four elected by the residents of Bridgeport. I’ve studied both the Mayoral control model and elected boards of education, and I believe this is an appropriate compromise that will serve our city and our children. I have been reluctant arriving at the mayoral control model but I have come to believe that a mayor has to lead change and ultimately be held accountable for change. I am not afraid of being held accountable. The ambitious reform agenda I’m proposing necessitates a more hands-on, responsible approach. I believe allowing the Mayor to appoint five members of the Board of Education will give Bridgeport stability and focus.

At the same time, I recognize that the people’s voices need to be heard and their informed opinions cultivated, and that dissent must be welcomed in the democratic process. We have had a six-to-three split in the elected Board now that doesn’t allow for the transparency necessary to make the right decisions for our kids. I will welcome dissent and insist on transparency. That is the reason I would never support an all-appointed Mayoral-controlled Board of Education.

In the end, governance reform provides the leadership–but we all have to be a part of change.

Here is my thinking, my agenda for changes that are needed here in Bridgeport.

One, I believe we need to adopt a portfolio schools approach that will allow for the diversity of schools Bridgeport requires. I would welcome having our neighborhood schools alongside more magnet schools, charter schools, innovation schools, and alternative schools. For instance, I would like Bridgeport to host the State’s first charter school run by a teacher’s union. This mixture of schools will give our children and parents the options needed to make the right choices for their children.

In our matrix of schools we need to adapt New Haven and Hartford’s and other districts’ models of grading school performance. In this way, we can evaluate the best performing schools and those that are underperforming, and give the right amount of autonomy to school administrators or provide greater oversight. This performance measurement should take into account test scores and create a list of important metrics–including parent, student and administrative input that will establish whether or not a school is moving in the right direction and in which areas growth and achievement the schools are increasing or decreasing. This type of system must be transparent and have the community’s buy-in and support. Only that kind of collaboration will allow the City of Bridgeport to move to reconstitute or close a school if it continually fails. No longer should any parent or child wonder if closing a school is political or done for budgetary reasons. Schools should be closed or reconstituted because that is what is in the best interests of the children only.

I believe Bridgeport should be a pioneer in blended learning, that we should be at the forefront of allowing students to learn in every possible setting. In my opinion, we currently have too few alternative school settings. We need to investigate bringing back night school as a way of addressing the dropout rate and to institute online learning in middle schools and high schools. A citywide virtual high school can be set up with our area universities or with a partner such as Charter Oak College. This approach will be effective at reducing our dropout rates by offering course remediation and the opportunity to take courses outside traditional curricula, such as those traditionally offered in vocational high schools as well as newer, cutting edge offerings such as Chinese or other languages, technology or arts courses that we could not afford to offer in our “traditional” classrooms.

An honest budget. To make these changes and invest in our schools we need to have an honest budget. We need to reallocate our resources from patronage jobs, streamline administrative positions, and resource our schools more effectively. The budget that was not voted on but referred to the State is unacceptable. What should have happened when the Mayor and Superintendent became aware almost a year ago that we would have a major budget deficit this year is that they should have been dealing with it last year. That way last year’s budget would have taken some hits so this year’s budget did not become Armageddon. Like our state, this city is going to have to ask for significant sacrifices–but sacrifices that are shared by all. And sacrifices that are evenly shared in a transparent fashion. As an alternative, for instance, this mayor could have negotiated with the unions for concessions and made the appropriate cuts so that we would not be put in this situation with the current deficit. Now, Bridgeport faces dire budgetary decisions which we need not have faced. It is unacceptable not to have nurses in our schools, not to have guidance counselors and social workers for our kids. It’s clear that there is no equity in how we finance our schools. Under a Foster administration, I would rather cut the municipal side of the budget and deliver equitable services to all our children than to face these disastrous cuts with which Finch has saddled us.

The sad part is our teachers, principals, parents and children do not know what will befall them this school year which is now just weeks away … This is no way to run a school system-–more than that, it is outrageous. With your help, a new mayor will bring stability, collaboration and the change required for sustained growth.

I will reach out to the teachers’ union and ask them to partner with me and insure that our teachers are the motivated and effective in their classrooms. My hope is that together we can adapt New Haven’s model to Bridgeport’s circumstances and reach a similar agreement on teacher evaluations and outcomes, and that we can take that same approach to make sure that every principal embodies the attributes of a leader for his or her specific school.

Last, but most importantly, it is critical to collaborate with the parents so that everyone is heard. In addition to the United Way’s Success by Six early childhood initiative, Teach for America and the Fairfield County Community Foundations work in education, I have been an angel to the Columbus School for pretty much the last 7 years. I’ve watched a school where, at one point, 65% of their kids don’t speak English at home, 11% of their kids are learning disabled, the district is the poorest school district in the state with the highest crime rate of any school district in the state. The commitment of the principal, the teachers and every one of the social workers changed the potential outcomes. As a result I have become a huge proponent of family resource centers, home school coordinators and ESL programs for parents. We need to do more for our non-English speaking parents and more effectively use our Title one monies to increase our ability to communicate with all parents. We need to do everything in our power to insure our schools welcome any parent in our community that faces obstacles of language or cultural barriers. This is not about parent involvement it is about parent engagement.

We need to make find a way to expand the family resource centers … and put them in every school … I recognize that what is happening outside school impacts a child and that the whole neighborhood impacts a child, that is why we need to make sure that family resource centers continue to be a critical part of helping our schools deal with the complex problems of life. Let our schools become the safe, secure place where families come to educate their children and themselves. Let us be the very best we can be–by doing that, we will educate our children, we will be a community that embraces all and every single one of us. Our community will rise.

We need to respect the new school governance councils and parent district boards, and expand our use of parent surveys so that we can be accurate and instructive on how to improve our schools and move forward.

We especially need to implement training for our school security staff personnel and overhaul how this is managed and give the principals in each school more authority to insure that their school environments are safe and conducive to learning. And by the way, truants will not be tolerated. I will partner with the Bridgeport police to be sure that kids hanging out on the street come to school. Period. End of Subject.

Is this just the beginning of what is needed to be done? You bet. Many of you probably have more ideas and more innovative ways to look at the problem and I am open, I am eager, I want to hear to all suggestions and ideas. This needs to be a community conversation. The sad truth is Bridgeport has too many failing schools. We are considered a dropout factory. We must reform and I believe the opportunity is now.

Can we continue with Mayor Finch? In his testimony and position on the State takeover I think he gave us his answer. He had the opportunity to come to the people of Bridgeport and lead … to show his plan and lead. But he chose not to … he gave up. Instead he went to Hartford and did back room deals and what did he tell them on record? That Bridgeport parents didn’t vote, we were all illegal … or we had quote … past lives that prevented us from participating in the process. The fact of the matter is Bill Finch cannot be trusted. He enjoys telling you about how he is a parent, has kids in the system and cares about education reform but I submit he has been in public service for 15 years or more and what does he have to show for it in education reform?

At the end of the day, we may agree to disagree on parts of an education reform plan, but know this … I will work with you and collaborate with all parties and together we can make Bridgeport a gateway of education excellence … we can pioneer on a number of fronts … and we can yell and scream too … but together … I will have and we can have the interests of the children at heart. This is my pledge to you. Thank you.