Roosevelt will use fed funds for ‘turnaround’

By Jennifer Anderson

The Portland Tribune, Jul 7, 2010 (8 Reader comments)

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It’s official: North Portland's Roosevelt High School will get the “turnaround” money it’s been hoping for.

Federal officials said Wednesday morning that Oregon would receive $34.4 million in school improvement funds to reform its lowest-performing schools starting this fall. Portland Public Schools gets a $7.7 million share of that, all of which will go to Roosevelt, which has shown mixed progress during the past few years since it’s adopted a small-school model.

The district had applied for the grant through the state Department of Education this spring. The funds will be split between the three small academies at Roosevelt and spread across three years.

Pursuit of Wellness Education at Roosevelt (POWER) will receive a total of $3 million; the Spanish-English International School will receive $2.4 million; and the Arts, Communication & Technology academy will also receive $2.4 million.

Roosevelt will adopt the federal government’s strictly defined “transformation” model of reform, which involves replacing the principal and improving the school through comprehensive curriculum reform, professional development, extending learning time and other strategies.

Districts could also choose to adopt three other models: “turnaround,” which involves replacing the principal and replacing at least half of the staff; restarting as a charter school; or complete closure.

Portland Public School officials are expected to announce the news on the steps of Roosevelt this afternoon.

Oregon’s share of the grant money will be split between 12 schools in seven school districts across the state that had applied and showed eligibility for the funds by having the poorest 5 percent graduation rates, test scores and other low performance benchmarks.

The largest share of the state’s grant funds, $12.6 million, will go to the Salem-Keizer district.

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Reader comments

Re: Roosevelt will use fed funds for ‘turnaround’

Rewarding failure. Welcome to Bama's race to the bottom. It's both poor and just as unfair.

"Bob Clark"

(email verified)

Wed, Jul 07, 2010 at 04:21 PM

Re: Roosevelt will use fed funds for ‘turnaround’

Ok, Bob. I'm tired of hearing all the catch phrases without any of the back up. How is this, "Rewarding failure?" And, since this isn't part of the Race to the Top money, how does this reflect anything that President Obama has in mind for education in the US? If anything this is more of an extension of the NCLB debacle that President Bush saddled us with (I'd be happy to share how well THAT program is working).

If you don't have any back-up, don't just spout off things that you hear from Lars Larson.

"Ray"

(email verified)

Wed, Jul 07, 2010 at 05:38 PM

Re: Roosevelt will use fed funds for ‘turnaround’

Ray, NCLB was a Ted Kennedy/Democrat bill all the way. Yes, Bush signed it but let's give credit where credit is due.

"Ron"

(email verified)

Wed, Jul 07, 2010 at 06:58 PM

Re: Roosevelt will use fed funds for ‘turnaround’

Ron, yes Kennedy was a rabid supporter, but democrats were divided. There was opposition on both sides of the aisle. I don't think you can call it a Democratic bill.

"ray"

(email verified)

Wed, Jul 07, 2010 at 09:18 PM

Re: Roosevelt will use fed funds for ‘turnaround’

Ray, in your orignal comment you blamed only Bush for NCLB. Let's be honest in our comments and share the blame. The Democrats were not exactly divided on NCLB. They voted 43 yes to 6 no in the Senate and 198 yes to 6 no in the House. The Republicans also voted in huge numbers for NCLB.