June 21, 1999

By Facsimile: 561-479-1226

Dr. John Murphy

Desegregation Monitoring Committee

Eighth Floor

1211 McGee Street

Kansas City, MO 64106

Dear Dr. Murphy:

I have enclosed for the Desegregation Monitoring Committee the final report of the plaintiff schoolchildren on school visits made to twelve KCMSD schools from late April through mid-May, 1999, as a part of plaintiffs’ annual monitoring activities. Last year plaintiffs and the DMC conducted parallel school visits using virtually the same observational criteria. These reports for 1999 use similar criteria and can be used in comparison with reports from earlier years to indicate progress of the KCMSD toward meeting its court-ordered obligations to eliminate inferior education opportunities for its students while closing the black-white achievement gap.

The plaintiffs’ report this year concerns twelve schools, or about one in six of KCMSD’s non-alternative schools. In the past, KCMSD administrators have recognized that these reports and the DMC’s reports are generally reflective of conditions in most KCMSD schools and have stated that they know of no data to suggest that the reports do not reasonably well document the quality of teaching and learning in KCMSD schools generally. We expect that to be the case again this year.

In addition, these reports have each year been welcomed by the principals and teachers at most – but not always all – schools that were the subjects of the reports. Most school leaders find these annual reports to be useful in focusing attention and efforts on needed improvements. To advance this usefulness, we intentionally do not identify individual teachers whose teaching activities are described in the reports. A copy of this report is provided to each school that was visited by us this year. I would hope that the KCMSD would make copies available to all schools on the chance that principals at the other schools would see some reflection of their own situations in these reports.

As you know, the KCMSD achievement gap is quantitatively measured once a year by standardized test results. Qualitative reports are based on the assumption that if the KCMSD is doing all that is practicable to implement the new curriculum and reform teaching and learning in conformance with the KCMSD curriculum and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education suggestions for improving learning, then the educational achievement goals are likely being advanced. Thus, we conclude, these qualitative reports and the reports from last year, show that the KCMSD has made some important movement toward meeting its ordered goals. On the other hand, these reports establish that much remains to be accomplished before it can be said that the KCMSD has done all that is practicable to attain its achievement goals.

These reports find that the KCMSD’s new, in 1996, core curriculum is still not consistently implemented in all KCMSD classrooms. In fact, there are schools where it is not significantly implemented at all while in others curriculum implementation seems dependent on teacher initiative and, not surprisingly, many teachers have not implemented it. Similarly, professional development did not uniformly benefit from the district professional development plan since its adoption was delayed until January, 1999, and it remains substantially unimplemented. There is hope, however, that the stimulus of the district plan will have beneficial effects next year.

Only at one school, McCoy School, did our visits reveal school-wide and systematic implementation of the KCMSD curriculum using good teaching practices, aided by appropriate professional development. In the eleven other schools, the progress ranged from none at all to moderate implementation but, after more than two years of delay, any level of implementation other than complete is unacceptable and harmful to those children who need the educational stimulus the curriculum and good teaching would provide.

Unfortunately, plaintiffs conclude that after three, or even four years, of focus upon Lincoln College Prep and Ladd Elementary School, virtually no progress has been made in improving teaching and learning at those schools. It seems apparent that even with changes in principals at those schools, no significant changes have been effected and both schools remain far below their potential levels of achievement. Plaintiffs urge the DMC to press the issue of reconstitution of those two schools with KCMSD officials until that reconstitution takes place. While some good teachers struggle daily at these schools to improve teaching and learning, others do not, making the schools impervious to school-wide reform. The KCMSD has at hand talented personnel capable of making the decisions as to which staff to invite back and which to send elsewhere.

Reconstitution now is especially critical since the KCMSD will not likely have a new superintendent in office before mid-summer at the very earliest, and possibly not before mid-August, just before schools open. That would be too late to reconstitute these two schools and, besides, the new superintendent would lack the knowledge and information now possessed by the DMC and would be subject to substantial pressures to maintain the status quo for another year while he studied the matter. That would be manifestly contrary to the best interests of the students in those schools. Another lost year, another year of missed opportunities, another year of chronic bad teaching, will add to the crippling harm suffered by these students who deserve the improvements that are available, known, practicable, and reasonably uncomplicated to implement. While the DMC remains the final authority, with the capacity to act for the benefit of the students and improvements in achievement, it should act where the KCMSD fails. This is such a case, and it is an urgent one. When a new superintendent is in office, the DMC and the parties should permit the superintendent to do his job without our interference – or the political interference of the school board. But until then, someone, and it is the DMC, must address the decisions that must necessarily be made now lest default continue to harm the students and learning that for years has been evident to all at those two schools.

At the recent hearing with the Court and the school board, no one defended KCMSD’s failure to make improvements at Lincoln but neither did anyone suggest an alternative to reconstitution that offers a realistic hope of securing the reforms that are practicable by September. Only if the DMC exercises now the authority that it possesses can the urgent reforms in teacher staffing be in place by September.

Yours very truly,

Arthur Benson

/AB

Encl.

cc: The Honorable Dean Whipple, Judge

Desegregation Monitoring Committee

Mr. Scott Raisher

Ms. Kathy Walter-Mack

Mr. Michael Delaney

Mr. Charles Brown

(letters by fax and mail; reports encl’d by mail only)