Tuesday, July 20, 2010
President Obama with Education Secretary Arne Duncan
For someone who lost her job because of President Barack Obama’s education plan, Joyce Irvine is being a really good sport about her situation. But that doesn’t come as a surprise to those who know the Vermont elementary school principal who has worked tirelessly to give children the best education possible.
Irvine, the head of Integrated Arts Academy at H.O. Wheeler elementary school in Burlington, was removed from her position so that her school district could qualify for $3 million in federal stimulus funds. Her termination was the least disruptive option among the choices offered by Washington under the Obama administration’s program to improve schools. Because Wheeler enrolls many recent immigrants and special-education children, they tend to score low on the standardized tests required by the administration’s Race to the Top retooling of President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind program.
For a school district to qualify for funding, schools like Wheeler with low test scores either have to shut down, become a charter school (which Vermont doesn’t have), remove the principal and half the staff or just fire the principal and transform the school. Irvine had already overseen the transformation of her school, which is filled with poor children, so she willingly went along with the last option.
“Joyce Irvine versus millions,” she told The New York Times. “You can buy a lot of help for children with that money.” Meanwhile, Irvine has been moved to a lower-paying administrative position as school improvement coordinator.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
A Popular Principal, Wounded by Government’s Good Intentions (by Michael Winerip, New York Times)
Comments