A Current State Assessment of Public School Enrollment and Choice in Memphis. Prepared in August, 2015 by The Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..............................................................................................3 BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................4 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...............................................................................................7 FINDING 1: BARRIERS PREVENTING EFFECTIVE PARTICIPATION ...........10 1A) INFORMATION ON OPTIONS NOT REACHNG MANY FAMILIES ......................................11 1B) NEED FOR CITYWIDE SCHOOL FAIRS AND ENROLLMENT CALENDAR ..........................15 1C) NEED FOR UNBIASED GUIDANCE AND SUPPORT MAKING GOOD CHOICES ...................16 1D) LABOR-INTENSIVE CHOICE PROCESS .........................................................................18 1E) LACK OF TRANSPORTATION LIMITS REAL CHOICE .....................................................21 FINDING 2: LITTLE ASD / SCS COORDIATION ON ENROLLMENT ..............22 2A) UNHEALTHY COMPETITION .......................................................................................23 2B) LITTLE COOPERATION IN PORTFOLIO PLANNING ........................................................25 FINDING 3: OPERATIONAL INEFFICIENCIES .....................................................26 3A) MISSING OUT ON DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS .................................................27 3B) HARD FOR SCHOOLS TO PROJECT AND MANAGE ENROLLMENT NUMBERS ..................28 FINDING 4: LITTLE TRANSPARENCY IN ENROLLMENT AND CHOICE......29 RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................34 2 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice Acknowledgements This work was commissioned by the Achievement School District, and was made possible by the efforts of its staff. The content of this report was created with the guidance of an Advisory Group - a diverse array of Memphis stakeholders chaired by Malika Anderson, Deputy Superintendent of the Achievement School District and Jana Wilcox, Champion of the ASD Operator Advisory Council common enrollment working group. The following individuals served on the Advisory Group. We thank them for their ideas and support throughout this process: 1.   2.   3.   4.   Allison Leslie, Memphis Executive Director, Aspire Public Schools. Angela Hargrave, Director of Attendance and Discipline, Shelby County Schools. Anjelica Hardin, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Achievement School District. Candice Miller, Manager of Enrollment and Discipline, Achievement School District. 5.   Cardell Orrin, Memphis Director, Stand for Children. 6.   Chantavia Burton, Director of Portfolio Monitoring, Achievement School District. 7.   Chris Barbic, Superintendent, Achievement School District. 8.   Devonte’ Payton, Director of Student Recruitment and Enrollment, KIPP Memphis Collegiate Schools. 9.   Jana Wilcox, Chief Program Officer & Interim Executive Director: Memphis, Scholar Academies. 10.  Kelly Wright, Executive Director, KIPP: Memphis Collegiate Schools. 11.  Lydia Gensheimer, Principal, Charter School Growth Fund. 12.  Megan Quaile, Chief Growth Officer and Executive Director, Green Dot Public Schools Tennessee. 13.  Malika Anderson, Deputy Superintendent, Achievement School District. 14.  Nick Patterson, Deputy Regional Director Memphis, Scholar Academies. 15.  Sarah Martin, Charter School Growth Fund. 16.  Sherry Pitts, Logistics Coordinator for the Tennessee Family, Black Alliance for Educational Options. 17.  Tim Ware, Executive Director of the Achievement Schools, Achievement School District. 18.  Tom Marino, Executive Director, The Poplar Foundation. 19.  Tosha Downey, Director of Advocacy, Teacher Town USA. 20.  Tracie Craft, Deputy Director of Advocacy, Black Alliance for Educational Options. 3 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice We are grateful to all of the parents, administrators, and school leaders who gave their time by sitting for interviews: 1.   2.   3.   4.   Angela Hargrave, Director of Attendance and Discipline, Shelby County Schools. Anne Thomas, Director of Instruction, Pathways In Education Tennessee. Bob Nardo, Executive Director, Libertas School of Memphis. Bobby White, Founder/CEO Frayser Community Schools and Executive Director Martin Luther King Jr College Preparatory High School. 5.   Brad Leon, iZone Superintendent, Shelby County Schools. 6.   Candice Miller, Manager of Student Access and Discipline, Achievement School District. 7.   Cardell Orrin, Memphis City Director, Stand for Children Tennessee. 8.   Chantavia Burton, Director of Portfolio Monitoring, Achievement School District. 9.   Chris Barbic, Superintendent, Achievement School District. 10.  Dianechia Fields, Parent Coordinator at Aspire Hanley School. 11.  Dorsey Hopson, Superintendent, Shelby County Schools. 12.  Ginger Spickler, Founder and Executive Director, Memphis School Guide. 13.  Kahlmus Eatman, Memphis Director of Business and Operations, Aspire Public Schools. 14.  Malika Anderson, Deputy Superintendent, Achievement School District. 15.  Mike Brown, Principal, Westside Achievement Middle School. 16.  Sara Lewis, Youth, Education, and Community Advocate. 17.  Stephanie Love, School Board Director, District 3. 18.  Tosha Downey, Teacher Town Advocacy Director. 19.  Tiffany Futch, AAC, Achievement School District. 20.  Yetta Lewis, Chief Academic Officer, Gestalt Community Schools. We conducted three focus groups in which Memphis parents shared their experiences and thinking with us, and we are grateful to them for their time. The content of this report is shaped by those interviews and focus groups as much as it is by anything else. Background On the surface it appears that Memphians have a vast system of school choice. Memphis is an “open choice” city – families can access any and all public schools. At the time of writing, and according to Memphis School Guide1 website, there are 248 public schools in Memphis, and 33 more in the neighboring municipalities of Arlington, Bartlett, Collierville, Germantown, Lakeland, and Millington. 1 http://memphisschoolguide.org/ 4 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice Shelby County Schools (SCS) is the administrative body governing 222 of these schools. The bulk of SCS schools are “traditional’ schools, and function akin to a local, neighborhood, or zoned school. Families living in a designated area have the right to send their children to their local school. Families who prefer a school(s) other than their local school have several mechanisms through which to achieve this result, and no child is forced to attend their local school. There are 48 “Optional schools” within SCS, schools that function akin to Magnet schools – there are performance requirements that must be met in order to be eligible for an Optional school. There are also 43 Charter schools within SCS, authorized by the local School Board, that do not have attendance zones and that accommodate all students, subject to lottery results in the event of excess demand. As in every schools district of any size, not all public schools are good schools. Some SCS traditional schools fared poorly on recent performance evaluations, and 16 of these are now known as Innovation Zone, or iZone schools. These schools have additional resources to work with and certain freedoms from the traditional SCS administration. In 2010 the Achievement School District (ASD) was established in order to facilitate the process of turning around the lowest performing 5% of public schools in Tennessee, and those are predominantly in Memphis. When one of these schools falls into the administrative oversight of the ASD, it either directly runs the school or authorizes a charter to do so. At the time of writing there are 29 ASD schools, 24 of which are charter schools. A family that is zoned to an ASD school has the right to send their children to that school, but can apply elsewhere – just as if they were zoned to a traditional SCS school. As we heard several education leaders in Memphis say, “there are more choices now than ever before.” And yet, almost without exception, the stakeholders we spoke with say that the overall system of school choice in Memphis is deeply flawed – that it works somewhat well for the parents with the financial and other resources to participate effectively, but not for the poor and otherwise vulnerable families of Memphis. Most US cities are similar to Memphis in that families are not locked into a neighborhood school, and there are now many public schools to choose from. As we see in those cities, a large number of school choices does not mean that the overall system of school choice is healthy. Healthy school choice means more than the existence of schools that a family can access instead of the local school. School choice systems are healthy when they are fair, when they operate efficiently and produce efficient results, and when they are managed in a transparent manner. 5 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice There are only a few cities whose school choice systems function in a fair, efficient, and transparent way. These cities – Denver, New Orleans, New York City (for high schools only), Newark, and Washington DC all have one thing in common: they unify their public schools into one administrative system of enrollment and choice. This is known as Unified Enrollment (some call is Common or Universal Enrollment). Since these first five cities implemented Unified Enrollment (UE) systems, several other cities have been inspired to begin design and implementation of UE, including Camden, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, and Oakland. Achievement School District leaders have been open about their concerns regarding the school choice system in Memphis and since May of 2013 they have been participating in the informal network of UE practitioners, attending UE conferences, holding meetings to discuss the viability of various UE strategies, and bringing IIPSC principals in to share UE theory and practice with ASD and SCS administrators. The ASD has advocated for the design and implementation of a UE system for Memphis, a system that would be designed with SCS as a partner. Design and implementation of a UE system, however, turns out to be quite challenging because of the complex politics involved. In May of 2015, the ASD retained The Institute for Innovation in Public School Choice (IIPSC) to conduct an independent, third party assessment of the current state of enrollment and choice in Memphis. The idea is to produce something of stand-alone value, a report that describes the key problems and potential solutions in clear and actionable terms, in the hopes that it will aid ASD in its call to action for enrollment and choice reform in Memphis. IIPSC approached this work with three key objectives: 1) To engage with a broad range of stakeholders, sharing and receiving information about enrollment and school choice; 2) To describe the current processes students and families use to access the various schools in Memphis, and compare these processes to national best practices using the guiding principles of equity, efficiency, and transparency; 3) To work with stakeholders to identify and consider the feasibility of the key potential solutions, including a UE system. Please note that ASD invited SCS to partner in this project, but SCS declined to do so. We mention this because A) it explains why almost no SCS administrators are included in the group of stakeholders we met with; and B) it limits our ability to describe certain aspects of Memphis school choice with the kind of detail we typically employ. Methodology The Achievement School District formed an Advisory Group to guide IIPSC through the process of stakeholder engagement and to advise and support in analyzing the material gathered during research. The Advisory Group met three times in an official capacity during this engagement at intervals of approximately one month. 6 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice Neil Dorosin and Gabriela Fighetti of IIPSC held over 20 meetings with Memphis stakeholders – school and network leaders, leaders at the ASD and SCS, people representing community, civic and advocacy organizations. We also held three parent focus groups at which we met with a diverse set of 18 parents, with the assistance of Bridges, Memphis Lift, and Memphis School Guide. Stakeholders were promised privacy during these meetings – no one’s name is attached to any quote or idea without that person’s permission. Stakeholders were asked to describe their experiences and thoughts about public school enrollment and choice, to explain the challenges they face or see others face, to assess the larger system of choice in Memphis, and to offer their ideas for potential reforms. The findings in this report emerge entirely from the interviews we conducted with Memphis stakeholders, and through meetings and discussion with the Advisory Group. Executive Summary There are many challenges with the current state of public school enrollment and choice in Memphis, and stakeholders agree that actions must be taken to improve the situation. There is consensus about the following findings: 1) There are significant barriers that can prevent Memphis families from participating effectively in school choice. 2) There is little coordination between the Achievement School District and Shelby County Schools in enrollment operations and portfolio planning. 3) The current system suffers from important operational inefficiencies that are negatively impacting families, schools, and the two administrative bodies. 4) There is little transparency regarding enrollment and choice operations in Memphis. Recommendations ASD has invited SCS to participate in the design and implementation of reforms that are within the Unified Enrollment framework. Thus far SCS has not shown as much interest as ASD in moving forward with these reforms. Without SCS participation, there can be no UE system in Memphis. Education administrators across all sectors should work 7 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice together to clarify SCS’ position on this – will SCS be a part of a UE system design and implementation in Memphis? The following recommendations, when taken together, can be seen as a large part of what would need to be done in order to move towards a UE system: 1) Make it easier for families to participate in choosing a school for their child: a)   Ensure that information on the system of school choice in Memphis is simply explained, and reaches all families. Lift the veil of mystery surrounding the ways of choosing a school in Memphis. b)   Ensure that all Memphians have the opportunity to attend a city-wide school fair and have the opportunity to access unbiased guidance on selecting a school, including the chance to meet with a guidance counselor. c)   Replace first-come, first-served as the mechanism by which children are admitted to schools via the General Choice Transfer process and the Optional school process. Replace this with a published set of application deadlines. d)   Create a single application that families can use to list all of their public school choices, in the order of preference. Make it possible for a family to apply to any and all schools without being physically present in order to do so, understanding that for some schools with academic or performance criteria, additional paperwork or an in-person interview may be required. 2) The Achievement School District and Shelby County Schools must collaborate more closely and effectively in the business of portfolio district administration. a)   Build or purchase a state-of-the-art data management system for all public schools, and for systems of schools to use in their enrollment and choice operations. b)   ASD and SCS should collaborate on managing the portfolio of school choices in Memphis, and work together to create enrollment projections, and to sensibly plan the opening, closing, and replication of schools. 3) Ensure that school choice processes in Memphis are completely transparent. a)   Generate reports that simply and accurately describe the inputs and outputs of school choice. 8 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice b)   Create and advertise a simple accountability mechanism for families to access. 4) Explore options for improving access to efficient transportation in Memphis. If this final recommendation is not implemented, much of the previous recommendations, if enacted, will not achieve their potential impact. 9 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice Findings Finding 1. There are significant barriers that can prevent Memphis families from participating effectively in school choice. Healthy school choice means more than simply the opportunity to apply to schools that are not the local neighborhood school. Healthy school choice systems facilitate participation in choice, and are possible when all of the following is readily available to all families: 1) Easy-to-understand information about all public school options, the choice policies and admissions criteria that help to determine enrollment opportunities at each school, and a published list of important admissions calendar dates. 2) A series of school fairs and a published schedule of open houses at schools so families have the opportunity to interact with school staff, see buildings and campuses, and make informed selections. 3) Supports in identifying schools that best fit their children’s needs, including some form of independently derived objective measurement of school quality, and access to an enrollment or guidance counselor. 4) A simple and user-friendly process for applying to and expressing preferences among schools. 5) A notification system that offers families the assurance that their application will be processed and informs them promptly of results. 6) Reasonable transportation options that allow families to access preferred schools, should those schools not be the local school. The current state in Memphis falls short in all of the above areas, and as a result there are many families – particularly those who are most vulnerable – facing significant barriers to effective participation in school choice. We met with and interviewed parents and education leaders in Memphis and almost universally, people expressed regret and frustration over these problems. Following is an assessment of the current state in Memphis against the above benchmarks. 10 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice 1a) Information about school options and the system of choice is not reaching many Memphis families, particularly poor and vulnerable families. The landscape of school choice in Memphis is vast. Complex strategic thinking is required in order to fully grasp the opportunities and challenges, and to formulate a good strategy. Most of the stakeholders we met with say that there are too many families who do not understand the system of choice in Memphis. This is the theme upon which the greatest number of stakeholders spoke and agreed, and it might be considered as the most basic problem that Memphis must address. Consider the following quotes: “Many parents are not engaged enough to exercise choice. People have more choices than ever before, but parents don’t understand their options and just pick their neighborhood schools. The people who would benefit the most from choice: we haven’t figured out how to engage with them yet.” A Shelby County Schools administrator. “We don’t have enough parents living in the 27 attendance zones where our schools are who know about our schools. There isn’t enough information about schools – there are too many registration dates, too many processes. We need to build a system that offers meta-level enrollment information, and parents’ need must drive this system.” Chris Barbic, Superintendent, Achievement School District. “I correspond with families all the time and I keep hearing “I had no idea.” They don’t know that there are choices. ASD has the opportunity to spread the word here and explain choices to families. I think that the district should play a role in this – in explaining what a portfolio district is, and how choice works. Parents must be educated, if they are ever to take advantage of the choices that we are providing.” Chantavia Burton, Director of Portfolio Monitoring, Achievement School District. “In Memphis most people are aware of what their zoned school is. But many vulnerable families don’t know that they can choose something else.” Ginger Spickler, Founder and Executive Director, Memphis School Guide. “I heard about schools through word of mouth. There is no organized way to get information on schools.” An ASD parent. “My niece is coming to Memphis and I spoke to 6 different administrators at SCS and got 6 different answers about how to enroll at schools! I still don’t know the answer to the question.” An SCS parent. 11 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice “The knowledge is constantly changing for us as education professionals! We have to empower parents with that knowledge so they can make the best, most informed decisions. Right now this is our biggest problem – parents do not understand their options, what they have access to, the rules of choice.” Mike Brown, Principal, Westside Achievement Middle School. “As the number of choices expands it is more confusing for families. There is a need for clear information explaining schools and choices to families.” An ASD School Operator. “Parents do not have access to information about their choices, and another group of families do not understand the value of having the information. We need an objective source of information that is also sensitive to culture in Memphis.” Sara Lewis, former School Board President. “There is a lack of clarity around the ASD – what it is and what it does, and why. Parents don’t know the difference between ASD and SCS.” Anne Thomas, Director of Instruction, Pathways In Education Tennessee. “There used to be a registration day on the Tuesday before school starts, all schools had a registration day. The only schools that operated outside of this registration day were Optional schools. It’s different now, and how does that information get out? How do families learn how to get into one of the many charters? Sometimes it’s a completely different registration process.” Kahlmus Eatman, Memphis Director Business and Operations, Aspire Public Schools. “Most of parents' information seems to be by word of mouth. We could benefit from a clearer and more accessible source of information to help families make school choices. Many people are poor, tired, working hard, and are not sure they can trust all the changes within the conventional school system, let alone ASD or charters. Many people do not even understand how all these options work.” Bob Nardo, Executive Director, Libertas School of Memphis. “Families get information from the media, which reports negatively on charters and negatively on the ASD – “takeover is bad.” Families do not have real information on their choices.” Tiffany Futch, AAC, Achievement School District. “Parents don’t understand what their choices are – they don’t know what an ASD school is. They’ve heard negative things and they’re scared. Parents panic when their school gets taken over. We need to do more to help families understand their rights. The options are there but the majority of families who would exercise 12 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice school choice aren’t doing so because they don’t understand the options and the processes.” A Shelby County Schools adminisrator. A report entitled “Making School Choice Work” published in July of 2014 by The Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE)2 finds that parents site ‘understanding which schools their children are eligible for’ as the most important barrier making it harder to choose a school for their child. This is clearly a problem families are facing in Memphis. To be fair, the problem of reaching the most vulnerable families in a city with easy-tounderstand information about the system of school choice is not something that any city has fully solved. There are vast challenges inherent in explaining complex information to an un-savvy consumer, and we do not mean to say here that it is the fault of ASD and/or SCS that there are uninformed Memphis families. That said, it is clear that there is a lot of room for improvement in the way both ASD and SCS are communicating about enrollment and choice. In some respects, this is not surprising; it is merely the natural outgrowth of a decentralized system. There is a disincentive for SCS, for example, to tell parents about ASD schools, and vice-versa. Or for administrators at an ASD school to ensure that its families understand the Optional school application process. In both cases, doing so would not be in their best self-interest. For families, though, the distinction between the different administrative bodies and authorizers is less important. Parents are looking for the best school for their child, regardless of who runs it. For families, not having the information in one easy-to-access place doesn’t make sense. We spent time on both the ASD and the SCS websites and were not able to find a clear, user-friendly, and complete explanation of school choice processes. The ASD site includes a link to a Student Handbook3, and this explains eligibility, priority, transferring, and other enrollment issues. It is well composed and complete, although new law will require some updates. An un-savvy customer might not find this link, however, if they go to the ASD homepage looking for information on how to enroll in an ASD school. And more importantly, the information in the handbook it is not conveyed in a way that is accessible to all Memphis families, particularly the most vulnerable families whose education attainment might not be great enough to allow them to read and process the information. The SCS website offers a link to a Student-Parent Handbook4, which offers enrollment policy in the impenetrable language a lawyer might use when writing a legal brief. 2 http://www.crpe.org/publications/making-school-choice-work http://achievementschooldistrict.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/2015-16-ASD-StudentHandbook.pdf 4 http://www.scsk12.org/uf/webadmin/foundation/academic/files/2015/studenthandbook.pdf 3 13 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice Information on registering for school is easy to find – it appears on the homepage via a prominent link to Student registration5. Information, registration forms, and other materials can be accessed here if a family wishes to enroll their child in their local school or in the SCS school they attended in the previous year. But there is nothing on the SCS site that we could find that explains the choice process as a system – that explains all of the options. For example, it required a good deal of searching the SCS site to find information on how to select schools other than the local school. The information is found via a link on the Students and Parents page, in the Resources sidebar, under the heading Student Policies6. Again, this is written in dense legal language. We had to read some paragraphs several times in order to understand their meaning. Information on SCS Optional schools is offered via a link contained within the Students and Parents page. This page7 offers the most complete and informative information that we found on enrollment and choice, including details on the actual number of transfer spaces available, by grade level, at each Optional School. The best source of information on the system of school choice in Memphis is Memphis School Guide, a relatively new website that offers tools such as a list of all Memphis and neighboring municipal schools that can be filtered by school type, administrative body, and other helpful variables. It offers links to each school that contain information on program, performance, location and other factors. This website is the only one we found that offers information on the entire system of choice in Memphis. Within the Read the Guide link there is a link to a page that explains the various districts and school types in Memphis8. There are links to pages where the General Choice Transfer process is clearly explained, and to other important information about options and eligibility. Finding these pages could be a bit easier, but the site is young and will surely adjust over time. Memphis School Guide is a great step towards providing the information that families need, but more work must be done to inform all Memphis families, including the most vulnerable families. Some of that work will not likely happen via a website, rather requiring in-person communications. That said, it is incumbent on ASD and SCS to put their “best foot forward” in this regard, and the simplest way to do that might be to collaborate closely with Memphis School Guide and to promote that site as the focal point for information about the system of school choice in Memphis. Here are several school and enrollment guides that we suggest should be considered as among the most effective at gathering and presenting information about schools in a city: 5 http://www.scsk12.org/uf/webadmin/foundation/registration/ http://www.scsk12.org/uf/policy/files/files/6000-1/6002%20School%20Admissions.pdf 7 http://www.scsk12.org/uf/optional_schools/ 8 http://memphisschoolguide.org/guide/districts/ 6 14 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice •   Denver Public Schools publishes a “School Choice Enrollment Guide9” that explains the school choice process, offers advice on selecting schools, and lists and briefly describes every public school. •   My School DC publishes an online guide10 to the public schools that participate in the Washington DC common enrollment process. The guide explains in great detail the application and choice process, the enrollment process, the mechanisms by which applicants are prioritized for admission to schools, and briefly describes all participating public schools, including statistics on school quality and data that is updated weekly on seat availability at each grade level. The website also includes links to Washington DC schools that do not participate in the common enrollment process. •   The New Orleans Parents’ Guide publishes an annual Guide to Public Schools11 that explains the application process, offers advice on selecting schools, and lists and briefly describes every public school, including those few that do not participate in OneApp, the common enrollment process used in New Orleans. •   The New York City Department of Education offers several publications meant to inform families about their school options and about the choice process, including The Directory of New York City Public High Schools, and High Schools at a Glance.12 •   Newark Public Schools offers the One Newark Enrolls13 website containing information about applying, about participating schools, about the matching process, and more. 1b) Memphis needs a set of citywide school fairs and a single source for information on enrollment and admissions calendars. It should be possible for a family to devote one day together to learning about all school options by meeting with representatives from schools. This would require all public schools to participate in a citywide school fair, and would also require a vigorous communications effort in order to ensure that information about the fair reaches all families. In the absence of a well-run citywide school fair, it is up to individual families to access the information they need. There is a need to address these issues in Memphis. Consider the following quotes: “Schools know how to explain what makes them unique, and can market themselves effectively to families. But it is cumbersome for families to get this information. They have to go to each school to get the information. We give out a form that says ‘here are the schools, by grade, and here are the phone numbers – 9 http://schoolchoice.dpsk12.org/ http://www.myschooldc.org 11 http://www.neworleansparentsguide.org/files/NOPG2015%28ENG%29.pdf 12 http://schools.nyc.gov/ChoicesEnrollment/default.htm 13 http://newarkenrolls.org/ 10 15 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice call them if you would like to enroll.’ But this is not enough.” Malika Anderson, Deputy Superintendent, Achievement School District. “Families should have the opportunity to go to a fair with all charters, SCS schools, and ASD schools. This would make it easier for families to gather information.” Kahlmus Eatman, Memphis Director Business and Operations, Aspire Public Schools. “There is a fair and all schools can participate, but not all schools do participate, and North Memphis families, for example, don’t come. We end up going door to door in North Memphis.” An ASD School operator. “You can get information from other parents or from the news media. You can try to get information from schools but they won’t be that open with you because they don’t want you to leave the school. You can get information online now too at Memphis School Guide. But we need a good school fair too.” Dianechia Fields, Parent Coordinator at Aspire Hanley School. 1c) Little is offered in the way of guidance, and families are largely left to their own devices in determining the subset of schools that represent good choices for their child. Choosing the right school for a child is a complex endeavor and involves consideration of factors such as safety, distance from home, education quality and content, availability of services for language learners and/or students with disabilities, and more. Many families would benefit from support in determining the subset of schools that represent a good fit for their child, and this help should be available in all forms, including, but not limited to: written materials, technology aids, and access to an enrollment counselor. While all Memphians might like to have better guidance supports, the greatest impact of this problem is felt among the most vulnerable families whose zoned schools are low performing schools and who might benefit most from guidance in selecting the right options. Saying that families need help making choices is not a criticism of families, or of the system of school choice. It is a point of fact – finding the right school for one’s children is a complicated thing for anyone to do, and supports are needed when people are not equipped to do this on their own. Currently, there is little or no access to these supports in Memphis. Consider the following quotes: “Being active as a parent you get information on choices, but it doesn’t come to you easily. We aren’t getting enough resources from the system to tell us if a school is a good school.” An ASD parent. 16 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice “I’m not college educated – I don’t have the know how to find out how to get a good school, to help my son achieve as high as his potential.” An ASD parent. “I started Memphis School Guide because parents are confused about their options and how to navigate – there was no info on what is a good school or how to get a good school for your child.” Ginger Spickler, Founder and Executive Director, Memphis School Guide. “Understanding all of the choices is confusing for parents, and how do you gauge how good a school is and whether or not they should choose it for their kids? Right now it is the State website for value-add and proficiency, there is Memphis School Guide, and Great Schools. School leaders could use help in organizing information about themselves for families. People know about the good Optional schools, but they don’t know beyond that how to assess school quality. We should have an easy to understand rating on schools and then use schools and other city infrastructure to make sure that information reaches everybody.” Cardell Orrin, Memphis City Director, Stand for Children Tennessee. “The school performance framework is a good start for unbiased information but that is political. We need an un-political platform to gather and share information on school quality.” A Shelby County Schools administrator. “Neither ASD nor SCS does a good job of promoting the good schools that they do have. Freedom Prep has great results, for example, but you never hear about this. We serve a lot of kids who didn’t do well in their past school – drop outs, adults, etc. People find out about our school via word of mouth. We do a mailer, two television commercials, ads in the Galleria Mall. Recruitment is something we do for ourselves, ASD doesn’t do it for us. We have to have the conversations that are necessary to inform people about our school.” Anne Thomas, Director of Instruction, Pathways In Education Tennessee. “You’re going to have to work pretty hard to get information on school performance. Parents need help understanding school quality.” Brad Leon, iZone Superintendent, Shelby County Schools. “Families are not participating in choice and people think it’s apathy but it’s other things. Grown ups with limited education levels struggle with advocating for their kids, do not understand the importance of choosing the right school.” Tiffany Futch, AAC, Achievement School District. “We need a school-based approach to sharing information in Memphis so that students hear about what is a quality school, how to choose wisely. Memphis School Guide is one good source and I’m hoping that they’ll print it out and host a 17 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice citywide school fair. We need to do more to help families identify quality." Tosha Downey, Teacher Town Advocacy Director. 1d) The actual application processes in Memphis are labor intensive and serve to disadvantage already vulnerable families. The process of applying to schools should be simple and straightforward. Best practices nationally include Unified Enrollment systems in Denver, Newark, New Orleans, New York City, and Washington DC where families can use a single application to list all of the school they like, in the order they prefer them. There is more than none administrative body for public schools in those cities, as in Memphis, but they are unified in their application and enrollment processes. This allows all families the convenience of using one application instead of many, and one calendar instead of many. It levels the playing field for families in the sense that it removes many participation barriers – families no longer need to appear at each of the schools they might prefer for their child, for example. It allows schools and administrative bodies to have access to real and nuanced data about the demand for schools. In Memphis there are several “published” application processes that appear to occur every year: •   “Registration Day” when families can use an online system to indicate that they will return to the school they attended during the previous year. This process also allows families new to Memphis to enroll in their local school. •   Optional school process via which families can camp out for tickets, distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, which allow them to apply to Optional schools. •   General Choice Transfer process when families can use an online system to request an SCS school that is not their zoned school for the following school year. Seats are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. •   Eligible Circumstance Transfer process in which families can cite a variety of circumstances that require a transfer from one SCS school to another during that same school year. Families can also simply appear in person at a school they like and ask to enroll their child, and stakeholders say that a lot of enrollment occurs this way, particularly among the poorer populations in Memphis. These processes, alone and together, fall short of best practices in critical ways: Registration Day – The basic question we ask here is, ‘why is this necessary at all?’ Registration day would appear to be a mechanism for SCS schools to determine whether their students form the previous year will remain at their school for the coming year. Best practices do away with this process by instead assuming that students will continue at 18 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice their current school unless they fill out an application to attend another school. This kind of operation is only possible in a Unified Enrollment system, however, as application data filters through one pathway. Registration Day has been made more convenient for the majority of Memphis families with the recent introduction on an online registration system. Some families who do not understand the process and others without reliable internet access are vulnerable to losing their spot at a school by not registering on time. Optional schools – these are some of the highest performing and most popular public schools in Memphis. Students must meet performance standards to be eligible for these schools. But some of the Optional schools are popular enough that they will not have space to accommodate all eligible applicants. For as long as anyone can remember, each year families camp outside on the street in the hopes of getting a spot at these Optional schools. Seats (now tickets) are allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis, and so there are families who will arrive to camp out many days in advance. It is easy to criticize this process, as it is an arcane and blatantly unfair way of distributing scarce seats at high quality schools. And in fact, this process is often and regularly criticized. We will not mindlessly pile on here in this report. Instead, we will recount what appears to be the prevailing sentiment among the education stakeholders we met with: the camp out process is embedded in Memphis culture as an intentional mechanism for allocating the most highly coveted Optional school seats to more privileged families. It is a process that is intended to distribute public school seats to only a segment of the Memphis population. General Choice Transfer – this is also a first-come, first-serve process, and it therefore effectively concludes 10 minutes from when it begins, at exactly 10:00 AM on a morning in late February. Families are encouraged to ensure that they have a reliable internet connection, and can use computer terminals at libraries and other areas if need be. Firstcome, first-served is simply not a fair way to distribute a scarce good if we understand that a large segment of the population cannot be as “fast” as others. It is akin to asking two parents to race to a school and whoever gets there first gets the seat – but giving one parent a bicycle and the other parent a car. If both have cars, then first-come, first-served is reasonable (although still not an elevated mechanism for distribution). In Memphis it is widely understood that many families are equipped with bicycles in what is largely a car race. There is widespread misinformation about these processes and who is eligible to use them, what they are used for. Many families do not understand that they can participate if they wish to, and others do not understand the totality of the system, and think for example that camping out is necessary to attend any school other than the zoned school. 19 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice It must also be said that the stakeholders we interviewed often stressed the high level of intense poverty in Memphis, and spoke about how this impacts participation in school choice. We raise this issue not because we think a different set of enrollment and choice processes can alleviate the problem, but because it is a factor that appears to be important in Memphis, and yet the “published” process that exist tend not to account for this extreme poverty. In sum, in Memphis it is skilled, labor intensive, and time consuming work for families to make themselves aware of all of the public school options, and resource intensive work to actually apply to attend a school of choice. This is inherently unfair, and for vulnerable families it is a barrier to participation. Consider the following quotes: “In July parents see the closest school to their house and they walk to it and ask to enroll their kids. They’re told ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ who knows.” An ASD School operator. “The camp out system is classist and exclusionary. It’s January and 13 degrees outside. Some people cannot participate in that. We need to replace the people who run the Optional system at SCS, but it takes political will and courage and those things are not there. If we are really concerned about educating everyone, how are we still using a camp out system? We can split the atom, translate Sanskrit, and micromanage the economy. Why are we still using a camp out system?” An SCS parent. “Both of my kids have been at the same school since pre-K. But every year I have to fill out a thick packet of enrollment papers with the same repetitive questions. And for each child. Imagine a family with 4 or more kids? I chose the school for my child because it is the closest school to my house. If I wanted another school I’d have to go camp outside to get an application and I cannot do that.” Dianechia Fields, Parent Coordinator at Aspire Hanley School. “Memphis is trapped in poverty. Online registration doesn’t work for our poor families. There are people in Memphis without telephones. How many poor people can take off work to sleep in a tent to get a school? Why should you have to do that to get into a few Optional schools?” Sara Lewis, former School Board President. “We had 1,400 parents come in for help with online registration last week and so many of those parents are illiterate – they couldn’t read the material. We have vulnerable parents who cannot do this on their own.” A Shelby County Schools administrator. 20 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice “A single parent with 6 kids cannot have the time to send them to different schools. These folks are focused on feeding and clothing their kids. School choice is not the immediate issue here.” A Parent and a volunteer at Knowledge Quest. “ASD schools are required to have trained personnel to act as advocates for students who do not have parents to represent their interests. We see lots of people trying to enroll kids in school without any documents. We see families without proofs of residency and other paperwork. We see kids living with Aunts and other people who are not their guardians. If kids are supposed to receive special education services, it’s hard to know what services to give them – people who are not guardians cannot sign the special education agreements.” Anne Thomas, Director of Instruction, Pathways In Education Tennessee. 1e) Memphis does not currently offer the transportation services necessary to support an open choice system. This issue inconveniences all Indianapolis families, but it has an outsized impact on some of Memphis’ most vulnerable children and has led to a system where socio-economic status has an outsized impact on a family’s ability to participate in school choice. Stakeholders in Memphis (and nationally) universally advanced the notion that school choice is not meaningful without transportation supports. Consider the following quotes: “Charter schools, optional schools, these are a choice for some – those who can do it. It’s a function of transportation. Until the neighborhood schools are good schools we don’t really have choice.” Bobby White, Founder/CEO Frayser Community Schools and Executive Director Martin Luther King Jr College Preparatory High School. “Transportation and resource issues make it hard to get to schools of choice. If you’re truly committed to open choice, you have to be committed to providing transportation.” An ASD School operator. “Transportation is the main point – if there is space, you can enroll in any SCS school, but you have to be able to get there. This makes it very hard in a choice market. If we want a stronger choice market, we’d have to invest more in transportation.” Brad Leon, iZone Superintendent, Shelby County Schools. “Memphis Area Transit Authority needs to be at the table. It’s not a true option if you cannot access it. We have to focus on a hub like downtown and build transportation networks from there.” Chantavia Burton, Director of Portfolio Monitoring, Achievement School District. 21 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice “There is a history in Memphis with busing, and a hesitancy towards busing here. We have to overcome that hesitance and enable city-wide transportation if full parental choice is going to be real.” Kahlmus Eatman, Memphis Director Business and Operations, Aspire Public Schools. “It’s hard to get to school sites and to learn about choices because of a lack of transportation – some buses don’t run at night, there are childcare problems, late FedEx shifts, people without cars.” Tiffany Futch, AAC, Achievement School District. “We don’t have mobility and independence here – we are lacking efficient transportation for students. There is no infrastructure to accommodate real choice. There are 2,000 church buses sitting unused during the week – we could repurpose them as school transportation. We have to be willing to be creative to solve this problem.” Tosha Downey, Teacher Town Advocacy Director. None of this is to say that families are not participating in school choice in Memphis. Despite these barriers, there are thousands of families navigating these systems and enrolling in schools outside of their neighborhood school. The concern shared by Memphis stakeholders is in regard to the families who are left out of choice. There is a widely held perception that choice in Memphis is a reality for only a segment of the population. Finding 2. There is little coordination between the Achievement School District and Shelby County Schools in enrollment operations and portfolio planning. The establishment of the Achievement School District was undoubtedly an event that disturbed the natural order of education administration in Tennessee. A competitor was created to challenge SCS for control of the lowest performing schools. In theory, moving the management of the lowest performing schools to the ASD should raise the quality of schools in both ASD and SCS, as these bodies must produce results or lose their schools, funding, and maybe even their viability as organizations. Competition is supposed to make them both stronger, leading to better product for the consumer. Administrators in both the ASD and SCS are true in their intent to best educate the children and families of Memphis. Optimal performance requires healthy collaboration in certain aspects of this work, and this is widely acknowledged. And yet, stakeholders we spoke with almost universally said that this collaboration is not happening, and that they see critical problems as a result. 22 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice It is natural in this kind of situation for the established entity to feel threatened by the new one, and we are not ignoring that as part of the essential nature of this. In relating stakeholder thinking on this issue we hope to move beyond what could be perceived as a naïve suggestion that ASD and SCS “get along” better. Instead we hope to describe several concrete opportunities for more effective collaboration, and to point out some of the unhealthy aspects of competition. 2a) The competition between ASD and SCS to enroll students is undermining the abilities of both entities to produce optimal results, and often takes on an unhealthy character. Stakeholders spoke of administrators routinely giving out misinformation to families, of sending hard-to-educate children from one district to another, of overt and covert attempts to undermine enrollment operations. This sort of thing is easy to understand in the context of the highly competitive environment – enrollment is essentially a zero-sum game. That said, these behaviors and activities are not justifiable because when district administrators and school officials are independent actors, each working on their own to recruit students, this can undermine efforts to best serve students and families and to improve school quality across the system of public schools. As one stakeholder memorably put it, “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.” Consider the following quotes: “SCS didn’t explain to me that Frayser was being taken over by ASD, how that would work. I had to ask the teachers and it turned out they didn’t have a school bus so I sent my daughter to Delano instead, an Optional school. No one notified me that Frayser High School would be turned over to a charter operator. Teachers at the old Frayser were spreading misinformation. Other high school staff were coming over and told football players that there would be no sports at the new school! There have to be meetings with parents, ASD and SCS together to explain the issues and the situation, to share information properly. There has to be a place for families to ask questions.” Stephanie Love, School Board Director, District 3. “It’s hard to get everyone on the same page and to act together towards common goals, like planning for sustaining schools, managing the numbers together, helping ASD to get the numbers quickly enough to be a functioning district, helping SCS retain the kids it needs to continue to provide good services. Competing for market share isn’t bad, but optimally they’d work together to plan. SCS needs to accept that the charter schools they authorize exist, and that the ASD exists.” Cardell Orrin, Memphis City Director, Stand for Children Tennessee. 23 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice “The relationship with SCS is pretty good but there are certain instances of big problems. For example they did a zoning change with Valentine and now some of their kids are zoned to Klondike, an ASD school. Valentine allowed their general education to continue at Valentine, but their special ed kids were told ‘you have to go to Klondike.’ SCS misinforms parents or doesn't make their options clear to them. We send out materials that advertise all schools, but SCS advertises only their schools.” Candice Miller, Manager of Student Access and Discipline, Achievement School District. “Mid-year choice transfers from ASD schools to SCS schools are not generally accommodated without safety or other major reasons, like the family moved into another neighborhood. But since ASD schools have no midyear transfer restrictions, other than space availability, we commonly enroll ASD-eligible students transferring from SCS schools at any time of year just because parents want to move. This can result in more students experiencing challenges in their home schools transferring in the middle of the year out of SCS schools and into ASD schools more often than the other way around... because they can." Malika Anderson, Deputy Superintendent, Achievement School District. “It’s hard to fill the ASD North Memphis schools. The SCS strategically communicated to families of Klondike that the school is closed and that they should all go to Valentine. We were phasing into Klondike, calling it Klondike Prep Academy. Families in grades 4 and 5 thought we were closed!” An ASD School operator. “We applied and planned to co-locate so that families could have two options within one under-used building, and keep their children together. But relatively late in the game, SCS decided not to co-locate with ASD anymore. I acknowledge their reasons, but some families with siblings in grades we won't cover this year at Brookmeade didn’t even know they could come to us because of what they heard from the district, while others understandably did not want to send their children to two different locations during our phase-in.” Bob Nardo, Executive Director, Libertas School of Memphis. “I would love to see a common transportation system. Durham Transport provides busing for almost every student in Memphis. Schools like Dunbar, Bethel Grove, Charjean, and Hanley all have their own crazy bus routes. A simple solution is to create more efficient routes that serve families at all of those schools, but I don’t know if SCS or ASD charter schools would be willing to go along with this because it would make it easier to take students away from the 24 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice zoned school.” Kahlmus Eatman, Memphis Director Business and Operations, Aspire Public Schools. 2b) The Achievement School District and Shelby County Schools are not collaborating effectively on portfolio planning. Stakeholders say that there are more schools and more seats than are needed in Memphis right now. There is concern around lack of accountability for system-wide planning decisions. The perception is that decisions are made to suit administrative needs and not to best serve Memphis’ families. The decision by one governing body to increase or decrease the number of seats available in a grade, or to close or open a school, impacts the other schools around it. Although the governance systems work independently, their decisions have ramifications beyond their own system. Stakeholders spoke plainly about the need to create shared data systems so that ASD and SCS administrators can have live-time access to enrollment information, and can work together to enroll, track, and be accountable for students. Clearly there are politics, rational self-interest, and other issues that are challenging to effective collaboration between SCS and ASD. Again not wanting to be naïve, there is a point when these challenges must be overcome so the two administrative bodies can work together towards the common goal of improving the quality of all schools in Memphis. Consider the following quotes: “There are too many schools that are not being held accountable for the education of our children. There are 6 options in Frayser, including ASD, SCS, charter, nonpublic, and each makes their own rules. We have too many options and not enough quality - poverty is a billion-dollar business. There must be a school/community improvement plan that is authored in ASD, SCS, and Board partnership.” Stephanie Love, School Board Director, District 3. “There is no real partnership, no real trust. Politically it’s tough to sell collaboration with the ASD because ASD really means ‘takeover.’ We need people in the community to generate the political will and capital to get to a Unified Enrollment collaboration with ASD. Better coordination is needed. We have more operators and more seats than we need – we have schools that are vastly underutilized.” A Shelby County Schools administrator. “We need quality schools in all areas. That would require all of our school districts and operators to work together to plan to fill that need together. But now, even within SCS, they haven’t structured the district to do that with their own charter schools, never mind uniting with ASD in that effort.” Cardell Orrin, Memphis City Director, Stand for Children. 25 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice Sometimes you have to prune back to encourage healthy growth. Consolidating some schools may help fix the imbalance in some places, enabling us to deploy resources to really improve the schools we need rather than over-stretching them. There are about 17 public schools in Frayser, but numerous are under-enrolled, so we may not need that many until the neighborhood is further along in rebounding. For instance, we had two middle schools here, Westside and Georgian Hills, but some people wonder if SCS developed a third one just to avoid both of the middle schools potentially going to the ASD.” Bob Nardo, Executive Director, Libertas School of Memphis. “We have little visibility into the number of seats open at a given time – there is no live-time update of utilization. This was the first year we experienced full schools. As a district, we cannot and don't turn away zoned students – if you are zoned, we are required to place you in your neighborhood school and if it's full, provide guaranteed placement and transportation to a nearby equivalent school. We need real time information about how many available seats there are in all schools near the student, regardless of district, to help parents find good school choices for their kids. We just don't have that right now." Malika Anderson, Deputy Superintendent, Achievement School District. “SCS does not come to the table to meet on ASD school turnaround. SCS is always invited, but they never participate – they offer no real information. A parent asks ‘when the ASD takes my school and phase-in is the model, where will my 7th grader go next year?’ SCS answers ‘Once ASD makes their plan we will draw the lines and let you know.’ Parents feel frustrated that they’re not getting answers. ASD/SCS collaboration is needed in planning.” Tiffany Futch, AAC, Achievement School District. “ASD should have more input into school projections, in determining a formula. Right now it’s the operators who do the numbers. We should look at numbers of zoned kids with SCS and plan for that at a minimum.” Candice Miller, Manager of Student Access and Discipline, Achievement School District. These inefficiencies can make it very difficult for schools to plan, program, and staff appropriately for the school year. When schools do not hire appropriately, it is students that get impacted. When school administrators are unable to create student programs in a timely manner or estimate class sizes with any degree of confidence, it is students that are affected. 26 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice Finding 3. The current system suffers from important operational inefficiencies that are negatively impacting families, schools, and the two administrative bodies. Efficient school choice and enrollment operations should include the following features, at a minimum: 1.   Schools make capacity available, by grade, according to a district-wide plan. 2.   Students/families can state their school choices, in their order of preference. 3.   Seats at schools are allocated according to student preferences and published priority policies at schools, and in a manner that maximizes the degree to which student choices are accommodated, without violating priority policy. 4.   Schools are equipped with demand and results data that allows them to project their actual enrollment and hire appropriate staff with a reasonably good degree of accuracy. 5.   All of the above occur in a compact timeframe, and almost all choice and enrollment operations are concluded well in advance of the end of the school year. These ideals are not realized in the Memphis system and we assert that this is largely a function of the decentralized administrative structure that is in place. The impact of operational inefficiency in Memphis can be seen in several ways: there is no accurate measurement of the demand for schools, it is difficult for schools (and administrative bodies) to accurately project enrollment numbers, hire staff appropriately, or stabilize registers, and the entire enrollment and choice process takes too long to enact each year. 3a) Administrators in Memphis are missing out on opportunities to collect and use data to measure demand for schools, to project and stabilize school registers, to hold schools accountable for proper implementation of enrollment policy, and ultimately, to wisely implement school opening, turnaround, and closure strategy. Thousands of families in Memphis every year make decisions about where they want to send their children to school. There is no systematic and complete collection of the data that expresses the choices families are making, the results they receive, and the course of their enrollment throughout each annual cycle. This type of data is collected in Denver, New Orleans, New York City (for high schools), Newark, and Washington DC. With this data, the following types of analysis is possible: •   How many children choose a specific school, and at what preference level? •   Which public elementary (or middle or high) school in a specific neighborhood receives the most 1st choice applications? The most overall applications? •   Are families who are zoned to a school choosing that school, and at what preference level? 27 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice •   What schools experience the greatest degree of mid-year transfer out of the building? What schools are their former students transferring into? •   Describe the demand for 5th grade seats among students with IEPs and who are classified as high incidence/low needs – what schools are they asking for and at what preference levels? •   What schools experience a mid-year net gain of students with IEPs, and what schools experience a net loss? •   Which schools lost the fewest kids mid year from their grade 9 register? •   What are the best options regarding a space to open a new school, so that it is likely to receive the greatest level of demand? •   Which are the schools that should be targeted for support and intervention plans due to low demand levels? •   Is there a need for more seats serving a specific population in a specific neighborhood (for example, does neighborhood “X” need more seats for kids whose first language is not English)? •   What middle schools need more outreach in order to further support their students in applying to Optional selective schools? •   Which public schools are operating at a minimum of 90% utilization rate? These are examples of the types of questions that administrators might ask as they think through critical planning decisions. In Memphis, many of these questions cannot reliably be answered and this is, in part, because the data is not being collected in order to answer them. As the ASD implements operations to comply with the new legislation regarding its enrollment zones, this could become a particularly poignant issue. Consider the following quotes: “We should use real demand data to inform what we make available for families in different neighborhoods. We know that Midtown families wanted a STEAM middle school, but who is asking Frayser families what they want? Should there be a STEAM in Frayser? Or something else?” Ginger Spickler, Founder and Executive Director, Memphis School Guide. “Aspire at Coleman had more than anticipated demand – it was full. Eligible students from out of the zone, and a few from in the zone, who were enrolled before the start of school had to be transferred to another school to make room for late-enrolling zoned students in the first week of school. In order to prevent this from happening, we have to know the enrollment preferences of Memphis parents." Malika Anderson, Deputy Superintendent, Achievement School District. 28 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice “In order to monitor compliance for the new enrollment legislation, we need to know who is applying to schools, are those applicants zoned to priority schools, and who is being turned away, in order to guarantee that all neighborhood applicants are properly accommodated. We need more visibility into the data and a zoning tool would help.” Chantavia Burton, Director of Portfolio Monitoring, Achievement School District. 3b) School leaders are having a very hard time managing their enrollment numbers. This is a data collection and management issue, but equally or more it is an operations issue. There are different processes by which families can access schools, and ASD and SCS are not collaborating to measure demand and movement across administrative bodies. There is no way for a school leader to have a firm sense of exactly which students will matriculate at their school – children can be offered a seat at multiple schools, and there is no way of tracking these offers, the response to each, and the corresponding changes that should be made to available capacity at schools. School leaders commonly report opening with unstable registers that are not in line with projections, and speak of the high degree of movement into and out of their schools. Consider the following quotes: “We miss our numbers – I projected for 420 kids in our building but we got 250 at the beginning of the school year, my first year at the school. We really struggled last year because of this. But every day we had more kids coming and we finished the year at 380.” Mike Brown, Principal, Westside Achievement Middle School. “Given the growth of the ASD and SCS charter school sector, it is difficult to account for changing enrollment patterns, and to project enrollment accurately.” Brad Leon, iZone Superintendent, Shelby County Schools. “It’s hard to know how many and which teachers to hire, how many uniforms to have on hand, how many lunched to prep. At two of our elementary schools, only about 30% of families handed in ‘intent to re-enroll’ forms. Some are moving to a new area, others are just shopping, and for some it is the ‘culture of waiting.’” Kahlmus Eatman, Memphis Director Business and Operations, Aspire Public Schools. “Coleman as a school is rational – they fill their seats as kids come in. If they are out-of-zone kids they’ll get bumped if even one zoned kid shows up in August. Coleman won’t risk not filling, it makes more sense to have kids get bumped from 29 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice their perspective.” Candice Miller, Manager of Student Access and Discipline, Achievement School District. “We have capacity for 300 at our Frayser campus and have 206 enrolled; 160 enrolled right now at Whitehaven, which also has capacity for 300. At the end of 2014 we had 168 at Frayser. In July, half of the kids came in and the rest trickle in in August. Decisions on staffing are made early in the school year – pulling teachers in reply to the 3rd week in August snapshot – that was my experience at Memphis City Schools before the merger, anyway. But that’s too early, and then if the school does wind up filling, that same school needs teachers.” Anne Thomas, Director of Instruction, Pathways In Education Tennessee. Finding 4. There is little transparency regarding enrollment and choice operations in Memphis. Transparency is a necessary feature of a healthy enrollment and school choice system. Parents, school leaders, administrators of school systems, and leaders at partner organizations all have a right to clarity on the process inputs and results they produce. Cities that maintain fully transparent enrollment and school choice systems are characterized by the following: 1) Data indicating capacity and seat availability at all public schools is readily available throughout the school year. 2) Results data from previous years is published and readily available, including numbers of students admitted to schools, how many applied but were rejected, and what sorts of priorities were used to break ties among applicants and admit students. 3) Families can access the story of their child’s application results – if their child is rejected from a school(s) they can access data that explains this result. 4) School leaders have easy access to reports that describe the exact nature of demand for their school – numbers of applicants at each preference level, what types of applicants they are getting (neighborhoods of origin, services required, feeder school of origin, for example). These reports are updated rapidly, especially during the peak application season. 5) School leaders have easy access to the story of their admissions results – the number of matches made to their school by grade level, data on the group of 30 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice students admitted to their school, and the group that applied but were not admitted (should that be an issue). 6) System administrators and partner organizations have easy access to systemwide data that allows for comparative analysis of demand for each school, and to see up-to-date results at each school. 7) System administrators can explain any and all results, and relate them to operations within the annual cycle of enrollment and choice. For example, if a child is enrolled at a public school, system administrators can explain how and when that child came to enroll at that school. 8) System administrators are held accountable for ensuring that published policies are adhered to, and that the results of enrollment and choice reflect this. These ideals are not achieved in the current Memphis school choice system. A decentralized administrative structure is a challenging environment from which to create a fully transparent system. But the “opaque” status quo is not being sufficiently challenged and there is little trust now between families, schools, and the school districts. Stakeholders regularly speak of a passive or (active) intentionality behind the current opaque system that involves prioritizing affluent families, and institutionalizes mechanisms for keeping different types of children separate from one another. It is important to remember that these problems are incredibly hurtful, and are accepted as truth whether they are actual or perceived. Individual schools in Memphis have a lot of autonomy in shaping their enrollment. This extends beyond the published choice processes such as their annual lottery, GCT or the Optional school choice programs, and into the school year. Schools have the incentive to remove hard-to-educate children from their registers before testing day and it is widely reported that schools use various techniques to do just that. The administrative sectors in Memphis should work to agree upon a set of policies and operations around mid-year transfers, long-term suspension, and expulsion, and then share accountability for enforcement. Until this happens, some schools will continue to be able to use these tools without transparency. This opaque environment hurts families but it also has critical implications regarding the ability for school systems to carry out their mission to improve their schools and remove or replace low performing schools with quality schools. When a school puts up good performance numbers, administrators need to be able to be sure that the school did so because of the education value it added to families rather than because of its proficiency at using subtle enrollment manipulations to shape its enrollment. 31 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice Consider the following quotes: “There is lots of preferential treatment given to people to get into schools.” An ASD Parent. “We had to camp out, but I didn’t get the school, we were on the waitlist. But I knew people and I talked to the principal and eventually after talking with her I convinced her to let my kid in.” An SCS Parent. “It’s all about my privilege and my free time. What about the parents who do not have that privilege?” An SCS parent. “With so many different enrollment systems for different types of schools, and so little visibility into them, it's impossible to know if they're all being conducted fairly. It all seems pretty mysterious to most parents I talk to.” Ginger Spickler, Founder and Executive Director, Memphis School Guide. “We don’t yet have a process for evaluating equity in our operators' enrollment processes until after enrollment actions have happened. We have no way of knowing if some students are encouraged to enroll elsewhere or if we're doing something intentionally or unintentionally that makes it harder for some students to enroll unless we receive a parent complaint or if the overall proportion of enrolled students in a particular subgroup is significantly off from neighboring schools. For example, we’ve had a neighborhood middle school tell families that they need to show up at an orientation and write a brief essay in order to enroll. This created an unintentional enrollment barrier for some families, and we required the school to stop. Right now we cannot audit every application and verify that we are making it as easy and equitable for all eligible students to access our schools as we intend to."Malika Anderson, Deputy Superintendent, Achievement School District. “Parents of kids with high needs like autism, or emotionally disturbed kids, they show up and say that the other school, and this can be their SCS zoned school, told them they have to go to an ASD school.” An ASD School operator. “I want honesty from our school leaders, councilmembers, and Board members – take the politics out and consider the citizens of the city, provide better service to families, not only in some zip codes.” Dianechia Fields, Parent coordinator, Aspire Hanley. 32 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice “Kids who have been expelled or are multiple discipline problems are routinely turned away from area secondary schools and it’s under-the-table. When SCS expels a kid they are remanded to an alternative program but no one tracks expelled kids and they might not show up for a year!” A School Leader. “There are plenty of seats but people don’t know about it. Most schools in the General ChoiceTransfer process will accommodate you – more than half of them don’t fill. You can get a seat in them if you just ask.” A Shelby County Schools administrator. “There are some kids that schools don’t want. They’re measured on performance and some students get opted into or opted out of a school. Counseling them out or the threat of expulsion, even just harassing the family. It’s a hard situation and the schools are not serving the learning needs of some of these kids. This is an unspoken and problematic reality.” A School Leader. 33 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice Recommendations Given what we have heard from the stakeholders we have spoken with, it is obvious that the system of school choice in Memphis is not working for all families, particularly those that are most vulnerable. The recommendations below, when taken as a group, represent much of what needs to be done in a city to move to a Unified Enrollment system. That being said, it is not enough for ASD alone to implement these reforms. For a UE system to generate the benefits that it is theoretically capable of generating, SCS must also be a part of this implementation. To date, SCS has expressed less interest than ASD in moving towards a system of UE. We want to be clear about our recommendations here: every attempt should be made to welcome SCS to work with ASD in the design and implementation of a UE system. But if those attempts are unsuccessful, a UE system will not be possible in Memphis – UE will have to wait until SCS is ready to participate. ASD should continue to work with SCS leaders and education reformers fro other sectors to clarify SCS’ position on this critical matter. There are, however, things that the ASD can implement on its own, in the event that SCS does not wish to participate. The ASD can begin on its own by implementing recommendations 1a (ensure that complete systemic information gets to all families), 1d (move to a single application and timeline for all ASD schools), 2a ((purchase a data system that allows for all of the necessary functionality, and that can accommodate SCS schools when they eventually choose to participate), and should follow that with 3a (reports that ensure transparency). Following are the recommendations that IIPSC proposes for Memphis stakeholders to consider in enacting enrollment and choice reform: 1) Make it easier for families to participate in choosing a school for their child: e)   Ensure that information on the system of school choice in Memphis is simply explained, and reaches all families. Lift the veil of mystery surrounding the ways of choosing a school in Memphis. Collect and display, in the simplest terms, the options available to families who do not wish to send their child to the local school. In order to participate fully, families must understand all of the options and how they relate to one another, and ASD and SCS should cooperate to ensure that this information is clearly explained and available to all. f)   Ensure that all Memphians have the opportunity to attend a city-wide school fair and have the opportunity to access unbiased guidance on 34 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice selecting a school, including the chance to meet with a guidance counselor. Competition is fierce to enroll students, and it is important to guarantee an unbiased source of information to families, including information on school quality. g)   Replace first-come, first-served as the mechanism by which children are admitted to schools via the General Choice Transfer process and the Optional school process. Replace this with a published set of application deadlines. First-come, first-served is inherently unfair, and there is no longer a rational reason to accept this as an enrollment mechanism. Continuing with it should be seen as an intentional act to make it more difficult for underresourced students to participate and to access schools of choice. h)   Create a single application that families can use to list all of their public school choices, in the order of preference. Make it possible for a family to apply to any and all schools without being physically present in order to do so, understanding that for some schools with academic or performance criteria, additional paperwork or an in-person interview may be required. It has been established that multiple applications and multiple admissions process do not best serve families (or schools). ASD and SCS should collaborate to replace all processes at individual schools with one unified application process. 2) The Achievement School District and Shelby County Schools must collaborate more closely and effectively in the business of portfolio district administration. c)   Build or purchase a state-of-the-art data management system for all public schools, and for systems of schools to use in their enrollment and choice operations. If at all possible, parents/guardians should be able to access the system in order to search for and learn about schools, and to submit applications. The data management system should function as the official system of record for the purposes of day-to-day enrollment. The data management system should allow for easy updating of student records, realtime updates of seat availability at schools, processing of enrollments including new arrivals, and transfers between schools as a result of matching systems. d)   ASD and SCS should collaborate on managing the portfolio of school choices in Memphis, and work together to create enrollment projections, and to sensibly plan the opening, closing, and replication of schools. The ASD exists, and isn’t going away. It is time for ASD and SCS to work 35 IIPSC Innovation in Public School Choice together on these critical matters, the way any healthy and functioning system of schools must do. 3) Ensure that school choice processes in Memphis are completely transparent. c)   Generate reports that simply and accurately describe the inputs and outputs of school choice – participation rates, demand for schools, choice results in GCT, Optional, and other processes, matriculation rates, mid-year transfer rates, and more. Make these reports available to the public. d)   Create and advertise a simple accountability mechanism for families to access. There must be a simple way for families to register an inquiry or claim with administrators, and to expect a response in a reasonable amount of time and that provides the needed explanation of choice results. 4) Explore options for improving access to efficient transportation in Memphis. If this final recommendation is not implemented, much of the previous recommendations, if enacted, will not achieve their potential impact. 36