Harvey: Accountability enforcer

Her school ‘probation’ policy is seen as both a strength and weakness

By Todd Murphy

The Portland Tribune, Mar 15, 2002, Updated Oct 30, 2009

As Patricia Harvey was getting set to visit Portland this week, St. Paul, Minn., school and community leaders were busy themselves.

They were writing and delivering statements of praise for what Harvey has done the last three years as St. Paul schools superintendent. They were staging news conferences Ñ one with about 20 business and community leaders led by St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly on Wednesday Ñ pleading for her to remain as St. Paul’s superintendent. And they were jokingly telling Portland reporters how “awful” Harvey was, hoping school district leaders here might leave her alone.

The statements and news conferences reflect the support the former Chicago elementary school principal and district leader has garnered among community leaders since she took over the superintendent’s job in St. Paul in 1999.

Harvey helped persuade voters to approve a five-year, $22 million tax increase after St. Paul voters had rejected two similar proposals. She has begun changing district policy to stop promoting children to the next grade with their same-age peers when they haven’t learned what they need to learn. Her supporters say she has helped the district establish accountability programs for some of the district’s lagging schools, putting those schools on “probation” and fostering improvement in many of them. And she has launched a highly visible campaign to encourage each student to read 25 books a year.

“I believe her to be the best and the brightest in the nation, and it would be a huge loss in St. Paul if we were to lose her,” said Al Oertwig, St. Paul’s school board chairman.

Still, the effusive praise from some this week doesn’t change the controversy and criticism that Harvey’s policies have generated during the last couple of years Ñ criticism at times voiced by people who’ve just won school board seats.

The biggest focus of criticism has been the academic probation that Harvey’s administration imposed on 11 St. Paul schools in 1999. Teachers and others say it isn’t clear why schools were put on probation. And they say that after the probation was imposed, the district did not follow through with help it promised on improving the schools.

Teachers and others also have criticized teaching curriculums that they say have been forced on schools.

“They’re told what to do, it seems, hour by hour,” said Scott Sands, a parent with children in St. Paul’s schools who has been active at the schools. He says teachers are afraid to speak out about their frustrations. “It’s been very stifling, especially for our most creative and energetic educators.”

And while district officials have touted a move toward more site-based decision making Ñ including giving schools some power over parts of their budgets Ñ Sands said top district administrators are imposing more decisions than ever onto individual schools.

Sands was on the site council of a St. Paul magnet school for six years until last year. “It was much better before Pat Harvey came along,” he said. “We were able to make decisions. Now, we make no decisions.”

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