Pittsburgh Org. to Report on School District Equity

A Pittsburgh Public Schools watchdog group, A+ Schools, has begun another effort to gauge and report on consistency in the city’s middle schools and high schools. Executive Director Carey Harris unveiled "School Works" today, a program that Harris says will address inequities across the schools of the district.

Harris says it’s undeniable that different schools in the district have varying successes and failures, and the question is why. A+ Schools is asking for volunteers to take a one-hour training session before interviewing various principals on the conditions at their schools. Harris says interview questions will be based on local and national research and haven’t yet been determined.

Harris says the idea is not to compare schools. “Information will be reported on a system-wide level, not by individual schools. So, for example, we might say x percent of high schools reported y, not Langley said this and Allderdice said this. Individual schools or groups of schools will not be graded, so this is not that kind of evaluation,” says Harris.

Harris says the immediate goal is to get into schools and start interviewing principals by mid-October. She says from the information they receive, they will organize public meetings and advocacy groups by January of 2010. Harris says from there, she would like to branch out and begin to ask teachers, parents, and students the same questions posed to the administrators.