Fowler-Finn fights to stay in charge of schools

Alex Bloom

The Cambridge School Committee Tuesday night chose to schedule a closed-door executive session to debate the contract situation of Superintendent Thomas Fowler-Finn. Committee members feel a public meeting may “have a detrimental effect” on the committee’s bargaining position.

“That’s the way it’s always been,” said committee member Luc Schuster. “Does that mean that it’s the most appropriate way to do it? No.”

The committee went into executive session to discuss hiring an attorney for the purpose of helping the committee understand the superintendent’s contract.

At the meeting, tempers flared over a Report Card Task Force assembled to explore options around standardizing report cards to reduce the variability of cards from school to school. Committee member Joe Grassi berated the superintendent for avoiding the issue of creating a standard report card for the whole district, accusing him of not guiding the task force and not reducing the bloated number of 64 report cards for a 13-school district.

“I’m at a loss at this point,” said a visibly angered Grassi. “I just wanted to register that with you — you choosing not to deal with this issue. You were paid to make those difficult decisions.”

The board will have to take action on Fowler-Finn’s contract in the next few weeks. Fowler-Finn’s current contract is for four years and will expire in August 2007. The school committee must give notice of intent to renew by Aug. 20. The contract will automatically extend a year through Aug. 2008 if the school committee has given no notice, although it is likely that the committee will schedule a public meeting to vote sometime near the deadline, since all votes must be made in public session.

Nancy Walser is the only school committee member to call for a complete extension of the superintendent’s contract.

“Tom is different for Cambridge,” said Walser. “He’s holding administrators, principals and teachers accountable. It’s a new thing for Cambridge.”

Walser listed many of Fowler-Finn’s accomplishments, which include the Instructional Leadership Improvement Program, a program with Dr. Richard Elmore of the Harvard Graduate School of Education in which Elmore meets with Cambridge administrators to develop education strategies. Fowler-Finn’s initiatives have also led to a Cambridge citywide Science Festival led by MIT, which will take place next year.

“People say he doesn’t have vision,” said Walser. “If that’s not vision, I don’t know what is.”

Walser also credited the superintendent for getting the school district removed from “Watch” status by the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability (EQA). Walser did concede that the superintendent has had trouble dealing with personnel and needs improvement in that area.

“In this business, you can’t be effective and not be controversial in some way,” said Walser. “That being said, I have talked to Tom about how I feel that we’ve gotten through the woods in some respects. Now we can relax and take our time to be more inclusive of some people’s ideas.”

“You don’t just kick superintendents out if you don’t like their style,” said Walser. “Managers have to work with employees and help them with their strengths and weaknesses.”

Grassi and Fred Fantini, who have combined for 37 years of service on the school committee, are pushing for a one-year extension and made their intentions public in a letter to the Cambridge Chronicle on July 13.

The members cited that Fowler-Finn helped Cambridge Rindge and Latin (CRLS), the district’s only high school, regain accreditation after the New England Association of Schools and Colleges revoked it in 2003. CRLS has since made vast improvements in the graduation rate, as the class of 2006 graduated at 95 percent, compared to 78 percent three years ago. Grassi also noted that politicking has not been a problem during Fowler-Finn’s tenure.

“A lot of politics have been removed from the day-to-day operations of the school district — that’s essential for us to run a professional school system,” said Grassi.

A few members have taken issue with the superintendent, including Mayor Kenneth Reeves, the chairman of the committee, and Patty Nolan. Reeves and Nolan have both publicly criticized Fowler-Finn for his poor relations with staff and the community, with Reeves most notably referring to him as a “tyrant.”

Grassi and Fantini mentioned in their letter that Fowler-Finn’s “inability to work productively with the Cambridge School Committee as colleagues” was their most important concern.

Schuster, a teacher, mentioned that he has spoken with educators in the district whom he highly respects and has received mixed reactions about the superintendent.

“When I ask them about the superintendent they almost always do a sort of ‘on the one hand’ and then ‘on the other hand,’” said Schuster. “The community is really divided on the superintendent.”

Nolan has also disagreed with the EQA’s report, which lauded the school district for meeting or exceeding 85 of its 88 educational standards, as opposed to meeting a mere 58 three years ago when it was placed on “Watch,” and praised the district for being on the right track.

The report, Nolan argued, also indicates that Cambridge sits three points below the state standards for African Americans in Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) testing and that the district as a whole was outperformed by the state in each and every grade level subject area.

“To be honest, I don’t know why some are promoting this report,” Nolan said. “It states a very clear lack of achievement.”

The district did report a rise in overall MCAS testing from 71 percent passing in 2002 to 79 percent in 2004 and held steady at 79 percent in 2005. Nolan argued though that passing is not proficient, as only 42 percent of the district’s student scored proficient or better, down from 44 percent in 2004, a three-year high.

Grassi, Fantini and Nolan would like to see better tenth grade testing numbers, which have Cambridge up two percent in passing in English and Language Arts (ELA) but down three percent in passing in mathematics. Nolan wants to see more pronounced improvement, since close to 20 Massachusetts school districts improved by five or more percentage points in ELA and more than 30 districts went up by five or more percentage points.

Nolan did not make her voting plans public prior to the meeting, choosing to deliberate further over the motion presented by Grassi and Fantini to extend the superintendent’s contract for one year.

Schuster has yet to take sides.

“I honestly haven’t decided how I’m voting on the contract,” said Schuster, commenting that the Committee, which has met in executive session to discuss the contract only once prior to last night’s meeting, has not deliberated long enough to form a plan of action.

“That’s just not enough time for seven people with very different opinions to come up with what our course could be for maybe the next four years,” said Schuster.