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Crosscut Writes to the Board

Interesting piece from Crosscut about what they would tell the Board. David Brewster has a 6-point plan. Some of it is fine, one point is a "no and hell no" and the last one just made me smile.

Here would be my suggestions for a deeper surgery:

1. Continue Susan Enfield in her role as chief academic officer. She is doing a good job and is not implicated in the scandals, but she does not have the financial experience to be full superintendent, at least for now. Me: I'm not sure I agree in total but maybe it would have been better to get an outside person. If Dr. Enfield stays on permanently, she might not be as tough as an outsider interim.

2. Name as interim superintendent a highly respected figure in town, with strong management experience, to spend a year or so in rooting out incompetence, creating robust accountability and reporting structures, and finally getting to the root of all the financial flubs. This should be someone along the lines of Jim Sinegal, Orin Smith, Martha Choe, John Stanton, Virginia Anderson, Anne Levinson, or Bob Watt. Maybe but I don't know any of these people well enough to trust them (except Anne Levinson). Me: Thank goodness he didn't put Norm Rice here.

3. Make the resulting administration an example of lean management practices, rolling back deeply all the redundancies, unneeded programs, and padding in the central office. Me: yes, yes, yes.

4. Use the coming year as a chance to put in place some serious educational reforms, creating a powerful task force with members from the Gates Foundation, the UW College of Education, national foundations, and others to make Seattle a leading example of one or two key reforms along the lines of the Gates/Arnie Duncan idea of getting more students in front of the best teachers. Not every reform idea: just two or three that make a difference and where Seattle could (with Gates funding) lead the nation rather than dragging behind in the rear. Me: Seattle can do better with some conscious thought about what WE need as a district. Gates has not proven they know any better than anyone else what works. I have almost no trust/faith in what Gates money would lead it to. No.

5. Offer the teachers' union a full seat at the table of reform, hoping that they can get on board the train of good solutions rather than continue to resist change and incur more public disapproval. Also find a way to bring some pressure, such as helping along the growth of new leadership for the union, such as Teachers United, and giving this group a place at the table. Me: well, they did sign a new contract that has a new four-level agreement so I think they are on-board. As to new leadership, that's really up to the teachers, no? I think they would sniff out any teacher group that has the backing of outside interests like TFA.

6. Fully engage local media in this crucial exercise of reinventing out school district, with much more extensive and continuing coverage of the positive developments and the debate. You can certainly count Crosscut in.

That last one - pretty funny. For several years now, this blog has been writing and arguing and discussion and informing in all directions.

Seattle media, please, do join us.

Comments

wseadawg said…
Such Paternalism frightens me. Please sit down and be quiet Mr. Brewster. You're speaking from your rear again.

Too much of his opinion piece is "get on Board with Michelle Rhee and Arne Duncan who are doing great things.."

Really? Really Mr. Brewster? Duncan, Gates, and Rhee are the Wile E. Coyotes of School Reform if ever there were any.

We parents had better seize the opportunities to inform Mr. Brewster and Co that his attitudes and beliefs are exactly what brought MGJ here in the first place.

Time for the reformers and central administratores to take a "hands off" policy toward strong, successful programs and start supporting teachers, parents, and school communities instead of getting back on the endless merry-go-round of so-called "reforms." Try replicating what we already know works, for once! Sheesh!

Every crisis is indeed an opportunity, isn't it? Watch all the know-it-alls come out of the woodwork, never missing an opportunity to deify themselves, all for the sake of "the kids." Yeah, right.
wseadawg said…
By the way, Ed Schultz's show in MSNBC last night spelled out exactly what all this anti-teacher/anti-union rhetoric is all about: Privatization. If you didn't see it or aren't a fan, it's still worth watching, and reiterates what many on this blog have been sounding the alarm about for several years now.

We may have bad teachers, but they are few, and we don't need wholesale repeal of collective bargaining, merit pay, or expedited terminations to get rid of them. We need leadership! And that, my friends, is what has been lacking in SPS! Time to shine the spotlight where it belongs. That goes for the Board, the Superintendent, the principals and everyone in JSCEE. Real Leadership. No more magic-bullet toting snake oil salesman.
Bird said…
Any idea who's going to fill Kennedy's position?

Sounds like operations at district headquarters is a total shambles. That seems to me to be equally important.
wseadawg said…
Bird: I'm with you. Who can come in, assess the situation, stop the bad things, get the books straight, ensure all school level needs that can be addressed are, and can right the ship, before they start talking about what color to paint the new offices and what new Ed Reform initiative they should try now? Time to sanely prioritize.
Rahm Emmanuel said "never waste a good crisis." I think some might believe this is a good excuse to quickly get new things in place (misdirection).

I'm not going to waste this time either. I'm going to push and push in all directions for a new day for the district. I am fortunate enough to have gotten the attention of the Mayor and City Council because I called out the crisis two weeks before it occurred. I'm hoping that credibility might allow them to listen to others than the usual suspects.

I think that we need a good solid outside person who knows operations to run the district. I just don't know who but it's someone who has to be part manager and part sheriff.

The word has to go out now at headquarters that things are going to change and change in a big way.
Anonymous said…
Bob Watt? (civic pr flack/muckety muck) Virginia Anderson? (used to be at Seattle Center) Choe?!?! (ex city council now at - watch for it - Gates Foundation. And all the rest of Brewster's names?....

No no and hell no. These are all Brewster's personal civic connections going back as far as when he owned the Weekly. And they know nada about the district. Just like Brewster himself.

Brewster no doubt has Seattle's best interests at heart. But he hasn't covered anything about SPS at Crosscut in depth. And no, a couple of opinion pieces by his friend and nice guy ex-SPS-board member Dick Lilly don't count as coverage.

If Brewster wants a place at the table, and this goes for every Seattle politician, promoter and glad hander about to crawl out of the woodwork -- then show the community and the teacher corps, through showing up at our schools and our district mtgs and proving knowledge by writing something factual about the actual operations of our district -- that you have some validity about that which you speak.

Otherwise just sit down and stop spouting. This is the time when the community of parents and district watchers and teachers can say with all certainty that we are much more well informed. Our opinion counts. A lot more than Brewster's and his ilk. Blech.

-skeptical-
Sahila said…
You do all know that Crosscut got $400,000 from the Gates Foundation recently, to push ed deform issues?

Sue and Dora wrote about it on Seattle Ed 2010....

Now is the time to be very careful and vigilant...

Dont take anything put forward for granted as being in the best interests of our kids and community...

Gates/Broad etc are not going to give up just because their plant has to leave town in a hurry...
anonymous said…
Some people think Broad/Gates style reform is in the best interest of the children. Not saying I do. Just saying that opinions differ, and just because Brewster's opinion doesn't match up with yours, Sahila, doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't have the children's best interest at heart.
wseadawg said…
The folks in the article are a who's who of people most likely to accept and support pre-packaged, magic bullet solutions (except for S.U. Alum Sinegal - Long live Costco!). They'll do so repeating slogans like "Best Practices" and "Not Reinventing the Wheel," when, in fact, they'll be buying square wheels based on cherry-picked, suspect data and research, especially from my alma mater UW of late. I do not like the direction the UW Education college and especially the Center for Reinventing Education's "researchers" have taken lately, and I believe the S.U. College and Professors, by and large, have their heads in the right place vs. UW. UW is certainly publishing a lot lately, while it seems S.U. is actually doing.

Let's listen more to Diane Ravitch and a whole lot less to Arne Duncan if we want to improve things.
Sahila said…
@Guppy.... why pick on me?

I'm just saying follow the money.....

Which I have been saying for 2.5 years... and look at the lovely little incestuous nest of bird poop we have uncovered in that time....

MKGJ and her pals ignored the first rule of successful skulduggery - never poop in your own nest...
wseadawg said…
Guppy: Good point, but there's a lot of momentum that follows the Gates money and its hard to turn a wrong-way train around once it gets going. Case in Point: MGJ.

I've railed alot against Gates/Walton/Broad/Duncan, not because I don't appreciate that they want to help kids. I believe they do. But they wind up having too much influence, especially from a Board and SI who genuflect to every latest whim from the Gates Foundation, and much of what they do actually displaces other successful programs and steers time and resources away from classroom time, and toward ever more MAP testing, for example.

I love philanthropy and appreciate it very much, but despite its best intentions, it becomes problematic when it interferes with, blocks, or misdirects resources away from the classrooom in favor of data collection or more prep time for teachers instead of MAP testing (talk about "drill and kill" by the way).

Its the "means" of achieving reform, improvement, change, etc., that matters and we need to exercise more care and concern when Gates desires conflict with our own.
Salander said…
Brewster's comments offer nothing new.

He is simply parroting the manifesto of the Reformers.Boring and redundant. As an English teacher I would mark it with a failing grade.

Demonstrate with data any improvements in student learning as a result of all the money spent on the last few years of reforms.

There might then be some credibility to the movement's claims that it is all about the children.
Anonymous said…
Gates Article

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-stager/who-elected-bill-gates_b_829456.html


Public School Parent
Meg said…
The rationale that Goodloe-Johnson provided for the communications protocol was that board members would get consistent information and senior staff would know who knew what (it even said on page 59 of the auditor's supporting documents "the Superintendent works hard to ensure that all board members have the same information." I'm willing bet she did), and that it was important for executive management to know whether board members were looking for systemic issues or just seeking clarification. Does that line of reasoning sound like a total crock now? Yes, absolutely.

The timing was kind of brilliant - it was in late February 2009, as the closure process was moving into the "design team" phase. I'm guessing that unless an issue was visibly on fire, board members were not going to ask too many questions right then. The closure process was exhausting.

Does that let them off the hook? No, not completely, and I'll add that I find Sundquist's about face particularly galling, since at January and February budget meetings he was encouraging other board members to only ask clarifying questions and to take staff recommendations on the budget (despite knowing a criminal investigation was being launched). But I think it adds some nuance. In winter 2009, the board didn't have substantive reason to think that the Superintendent was not being forthright with them.
Unknown said…
At least he left Norm Rice, Dino Rossi, Joel Horn, and Cheryl Chow off the list.
dan dempsey said…
I first met BOB WATT on Cyprus Island (near Anacortes), where he was working at Secret Harbor Farms school for emotionally disturbed teenage boys. He went on after teaching elsewhere to become Director of Youth Eastside services. He is currently a VP for Boeing. Bob has experience working with youth ans well as managerial expertise. I have not seen him in years. ... This suggestion of BOB WATT for Supe is worth investigating.


I definitely am not interested in more advocates for the "Ed Reform" agenda.

This ridiculous that the "Interim Supe" is a 24 hr Intro/Action item.
Kathy said…
Meg,

Pertaining to Sunddquist- "since at January and February budget meetings he was encouraging other board members to only ask clarifying questions and to take staff recommendations on the budget (despite knowing a criminal investigation was being launched). But I think"

Couldn't agree with you more.
Sandy Blight said…
GROSS PAY - $125,000
Superintendent MGJ relied on Holly Ferguson to write and revise all Board Policies.
Small Business Works was a stale board policy that Holly Ferguson needed to revise.
Holly Ferguson did not do her job.

GROSS PAY - $110,000
Second: Superintendent MGJ relied on Roy (Ronic) Lirio to clean up financial records. Ronic failed in his job and he was rewarded with a new job that whose title was obscure at best - Strategic Management Manager. Ronic should have reviewed the role of the Small Works, but did not. Ronic did not do his job.

GROSS PAY $130,000
John Harman Duggan was expected to provide reliable financial statements. To this day, Seattle Schools does not have a set of reliable financial statements. John Harman Duggan did not do his job.

(These numbers are close estimates and maybe more if you includeded benefits. )
Anonymous said…
Please be reminded that Crosscut last year received $400,000 from Gates and that according to their editorials, they support charter schools.

Also, if you listen to the KUOW mindless conversations, as the one that I heard today, by local "journalists" who act like they know what's going on within SPS but don't know #!*!&@, these folks do not have any idea what's going on as was highlighted by the fact that none of them on KUOW today had any idea that the vote to oust GJ was unanimous which means that they didn't even bother to watch the school board meeting before voicing their ignorant opinions on radio today to hundreds if not thousands of Seattle residents who consider themselves "well informed".

I wouldn't even bother with whatever those ignorant writers have to say but would recommend that the rest of us who do know what's gong on contact our board members and inform them to what is happening in the trenches and what works and what doesn't.

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