A Story about Integrity

Being away from the action (and doing some amount of long distance driving), I've had time to ponder Maria Goodloe-Johnson and her actions (or inaction as the case may be) in the last week.

The Story of the Lost Integrity (or Did I Ever Have It in the First Place)?

Once upon a time you're hired for a leadership position. You're hired to come in and make big changes where everyone, from top to bottom, is accountable. You even have a phrase created and put it at the bottom of every single business sheet of paper. Something like "Every student achieving, everyone accountable."

You come in and turn this way and that and create a great deal of churn that looks like action but when the foam dies down? Not so much. Years pass.

Suddently, you are told that an investigation is occurring around a program under your leadership. Wait, make that two investigations. Must be serious, right? You talk to the investigators but for the life of you just don't remember much except for what the record shows you did or did not do.

The news breaks about the program and that it likely had malfeasance and deception occurring over a long period of time during which you were in charge.

This strikes at the very heart of your integrity as a leader. You have worked very hard on both schooling and training to be this leader. You are considered by some a top contender in the country for this kind of job.

Now both investigations find that you had no malfeasance on your part but that as the leader, you are responsible. It's something along the lines of "The buck stops here." You also happen to be out of town when the newspapers hit the stands.

But you issue only a statement saying it's not good this happened but that it's someone else's fault and none of your own. So lots of people are unhappy and your integrity is still on the line. What do you do? Well, it's a problem to come back but wait! You could send a lawyer. You could do phone interviews, streaming video interviews or even Skype. In short, you could do something because this is your life's work, your educational investment, your integrity.

Instead, you sit back, far away and (presumably) out of reach to most people. You wait and watch.

Now, it's interesting because these charges were not a blindside. You had been talking to investigators for months and knew this would be coming out. You were not well liked by many employees (in fact, in one division, 98% of them voted no confidence). You had previous financial audits that showed the business you ran was poorly run with only cursory oversight. Your customers - parents - most had lukewarm to harsh feelings towards how you ran the business.

What to do? Aren't you a little tired of this place? Feeling boxed in? You know that you haven't done anything illegal and therefore you (1) aren't going to be prosecuted for anythingin court and (2) can't really be let go with cause. Maybe, just maybe, it's time to move on. After all, people in your position change their jobs with great regularity.

So you wait some more and boy, are people mad. They are especially mad because you aren't taking the slightest responsibility. But you did your job and if they don't like it, who cares?

It's not looking good. The oversight your job has, a board, is looking like they won't support you. The other business types who have been your champion (and virtually your only support) aren't exactly trying to protect you. Well, that decides it.

But wait! You are not going to fight back at all? What about pride, integrity and well, the next job?

Well, you are getting a full year's salary for doing nothing. You are not going to have to come back and face your detractors (how annoying would that be to have to sit through one last meeting with all those horrible people staring daggers at you). And you can actually say you "did" things at this job so there's something to put on the resume.

Done and done. Integrity only gets you so far and where you want to go, it's just baggage.

The End

She was not "lynched" from her job. (I know and respect Don Alexander as an elder of the Seattle African-American community. But he is wrong or misinformed about the details.)

She KNEW this was coming. She knew from talking to investigators from both investigations that it wasn't looking really good. She reverted to her training (and her nature). Her training told her to always be large and in charge (or "never complain, never explain). Her nature is to never admit fault or being wrong. (Instead of "oh the humanity", in her case it's "oh the hubris.")

Things did happen faster than she likely thought and as well, sadly, her mother fell ill.

I know she probably spoke to the Board members. I know there were negotiations (that failed) with her lawyer and district lawyers.

But not one public peep to save her job or her integrity. Who does that?

Maybe she will slink back to town to get her stuff and take a couple of quiet meetings with the Alliance and Don Nielsen and whoever else she feels she has to speak to about this crisis.

I think I used the wrong word. I'm not sure Dr. Goodloe-Johnson thought this was crisis at all, least of all to her. I think she might think it was the catalyst to her exit but not a crisis.

Where is her integrity in all this?

I think if you think about it long enough, you have to realize that she never intended to fight back. She never intended to come back. She just didn't care enough to do so.

Integrity? You sure don't need it where she's going so it's on to the next big thing.

I always said I believed she never really cared about this district and this behavior proves it.

Comments

ArchStanton said…
Well, I just typed a couple of (IMO) thoughtful paragraphs only to have blogger take a dump with them *sigh*. I'll try to recompose my thoughts, but first I'll drop these 'shops for your amusement before all the serious conversation starts:

All The Superintendent's Men
http://tinyurl.com/6ckyu4b

Sleepless In Seattle
http://tinyurl.com/64dlsft

/I think I'm done taking jabs at them for now...
Jet City mom said…
Melissa- you forget " she doesn't lose any sleep".

I can't fathom being so separate from how I operated in the world that my behavior didn't affect my family or my inner being.

I pray for her & I mean that sincerely.
ArchStanton said…
What I had started to say was that I thought that it was strange how she never really seemed to confront the situation. Didn't try to defend herself. Didn't try to save face. Didn't apologize. Sent out that odd letter on Wednesday evening that didn't even acknowledge what was happening to her. It seemed like she was sticking her fingers in her ears, closing her eyes and saying, "na-na-na-I-can't-hear-you" in a desperate 'if I ignore it, maybe it'll go away' attempt. I will be fairly surprised if she makes a public appearance in Seattle anytime soon.

I can understand how it might look to someone who has not been paying attention to what's been going on in SPS, but no, it was not a lynching. It didn't happen outside of the legal process - the board upheld her contract and gave her a quarter of million dollars on top of it. People get fired without cause all the time. As Melissa and others have pointed out, this wasn't a surprise to her - Pottergate had been brewing for a little while and there had been plenty other reasons for the community and eventually the board to want to wash their hands of her. Furthermore, there are enough African-Americans and other minorities that are happy to see her go that it would be hard to say that race was the motivation for getting rid of her.
Anonymous said…
Well Put Melissa....Spot on....Full of the truth! ----- JS
Unknown said…
I'm with you on this. Even if her mom is sick, so was this community, this school district, her job. And she had a moral responsibility to show up and take the heat. It's not like she couldn't afford a first class red-eye to come here for 1 g-ddamned day and face up.

Broad Foundation training.

Indeed.
Unknown said…
Also suggests, as she sits across state lines, that she has an idea this will end up with charges directly against her.

The alacrity, most unusual for this board, also suggests they are concerned to get it over with.


What else is out there on this, waiting to be uncovered?
MAPsucks said…
I wonder if she starts her new job at NWEA Monday. Her ethics would line up nicely with theirs. Use insider connections and spin yarns about what your MAP test can do. And make a salary at this "non-profit" even higher than what she was making here.
Chris S. said…
You know, a resignation would have also hinted at a glimmer of integrity. But no, she had to bilk us out of another quarter-million plus.
Dorothy Neville said…
Chris that is so true. A resignation or even a negotiation to reduce her severance would have shown grace.

I do wonder what will happen to her next. With the publicity here and Charleston's public outcry that similar things happened there --- she really squashed a forensic audit? Before this scandal, she might have been able to justify it as simply something that only half-crazed ill informed people were demanding and the cost was unjustified. After the Seattle scandal, she cannot really get away with that explanation.

Anyway, with all this press, I find it hard to believe that another school district will hire her. So that leaves the ed-reform corporate world. But her lack of management exposes or embarrasses Broad Foundation promotional material. Didn't they already protect a Broad superintendent post scandal? That led to negative press. Will they do that again? It can and will be used against them.

And ed-reform? Remember that argument from Dan Goldhaber?(I think it was him) In favor of using test scores to assess teachers, he said that doing it too soon before we know how to be statistically valid would set back ed reform, because it would backfire and become politically unfeasible to reinstate.

Anyone who watches the Feb 11th Town Hall will see where the ed-reform conversation is in Seattle after four years of MGJ. (and now we all know why she didn't attend and why she wasn't part of the taped interviews. She already knew the scandal was going to hurt her chances of staying in Seattle.)
Trapped inside said…
Arch

You got it.

And it continues.......

It is in every one of her hires who remain at SSD PLUS Mr. English who fit right in.

His office "door" is right next to what was Ikeda's.
Michael H said…
ArchStanton:

Those are really good!
Michael H said…
@Trapped Inside: "His office "door" is right next to what was Ikeda's."

Maybe thats because Ikeda was his boss???

So his office door is right next to Noel Treat's. Does that automatically taint Mr. treat? And Joy Stevens is two or three doors away from Ron's. Does that taint her?
Trapped inside said…
No Michael

No one else is "tainted" but English was in a deeply as either Potter, Stephens or Ikeda.

I appreciate your posts (especially checking that communication part of MGJ's contract) but if you know the truth about the last 4 years, you know what I am saying.

Please don't "enhance" my words to absurd levels. I'm just stating what I KNOW.

Can't we all just get along? Dorothy save me!
somewhere said…
I believe "trapped" was alluding to a state of mind rather than the actual physical location of offices - there are certainly lots of questions still to be answered, and time will tell who else might have had knowledge...
Trapped Inside said…
Hope so "Somewhere", hope it all comes out.

Yes, and I was cracking cute with the "doors as defined by Castaneda" deal that I guess I posted on the other thread.

Guess thats what I get.
Of course there have been some at this blog who believed that MGJ's end game was to create a lot of movement (not necessarily accomplishments), a few "got this done" to put on the list but basically just run the district into the ground.

Why would she want to do that? Because the end game might be to be able to say that the district needs a total shake-up and we need charters, transformation schools, community schools, etc. In short, all the ed reform.

It's hard to bring in new stuff if you are already working hard and showing some results. If your district has been drifting downward and you can help accelerate that progress so at the end you have a district "in trouble", it certainly would help any group(s) interested in a bigger picture plan.

Beware of anyone of the usual suspects and their "ideas" of what should happen next.
ArchStanton said…
Michael H said... ArchStanton: Those are really good!

Thanks! Someone posted in another thread how hard it was to find a picture of Don Kennedy. Boy, they weren't kidding! I got that one from a screencap of a boardmeeting. Talk about a low profile. I'm starting to think of him as "Don Kennedy, International Man of Mystery".
seattle citizen said…
Excellent point, Melissa. We've been discussing thst possibility for a couple years here, that maybe the point is to make such a mess that charters, union-busting, TFA etc are the ONLY supposed answers.
The blatant propagandizing nationally over the last couple of years supports this theory: "Failing schools! Unquality teachers!" It's obvious that the usual players want to polay up the bad and ignore the good, so actually contributing to the "bad" (or not caring if there's churn, chaos and disruption) fits right in.

Maybe she's complacent because she knows that as the Machine continues to roll over the country, it will create more opportunity for Broad tenets and jobs she could apply for. Maybe not this year, maybe not next, but as this horrible Reform machine churns up the nation, maybe she is complacent because she knows it's all part of the plan, and if she just waits a bit, lays low, she can rejoin Broad or Gates or Duncan or NWEA shortly. Heck, she'll probably get a raise.
Diane E. said…
Right on! As a parent, it is hard to always know what really happens.. how much of the bad policy making, timing, perceived incompetence, etc is the fault of MGJ, the Board, lack of funds, etc.. however, how she has publically handled this situation makes it pretty clear that she lacks integrity.

I do keep wondering, is there any scoop on her mother's situation? Is her mother end-stage cancer? Or did she break a toe? I tend to think it’s more the later, and being out of town is an easy excuse (more excuses, right?) but I don’t want to pass judgment if her absence truly is a family crisis?
StepJ said…
As far as integrity… I wonder more about the Board of Directors vs. she who is now gone. Not because her lack of integrity is troubling – only that it seemed quite apparent from early on that it was something she did not possess.

I wonder about the timing of contacting the County Prosecutor. Was it only because of the audit? Was it because of the audit and the pending election for four of them? Was it because of the audit, upcoming election, and also a tip from the ST that they were investigating? Did they realize when the ST made things public they would need to have a good alibi as to their oversight, and then contacted the Prosecutor?

Or, did they realize that with the audit and the public testimony of Melissa and others that things would come to light. They realized they could no longer cover for, she who is now gone, and some of their body (Directors) tipped the ST, so the ST would cover the story, leading to a public outcry, which would give them the public support to oust her?

I am not convinced that all of the Board Directors took action from a launching point of Integrity.

If they start to require data, research, and transparency prior to making a vote I may start to change my view. For now, something does not seem quite right.

I am not the greatest at politics, but I do have a good sniffer. There is still a whiff of eau de deception in the air, and I don't know if we are up or down wind of the Board.
gavroche said…
Seattle Citizen...

Maybe she's complacent because she knows that as the Machine continues to roll over the country, it will create more opportunity for Broad tenets and jobs she could apply for. Maybe not this year, maybe not next, but as this horrible Reform machine churns up the nation, maybe she is complacent because she knows it's all part of the plan, and if she just waits a bit, lays low, she can rejoin Broad or Gates or Duncan or NWEA shortly. Heck, she'll probably get a raise.


You know, SC, I don't think so. I think Ed Reform is getting discredited. The fall of Rhee, the plummeting approval ratings of Bloomberg in NY in part because of the Cathie Black fiasco, all the data that's coming out disproving Ed Reform policies (Merit Pay, Charters), the vile teacher-bashing that's being spotlighted in Wisconsin which has now reached the popular culture consciousness thanks to Jon Stewart, and now the firing of Broadie Goodloe-Johnson make me think that the Ed Reform Machine is collapsing under the weight of its own arrogance and mendacity.

Who would hire Goodloe-Johnson with the reputation she now has? I'm now even sure Broad will want her.
gavroche said…
OOPS. Meant to say: I'm NOT even sure Broad will want MG-J.
Anonymous said…
I think the upcoming Family Levy had a lot to do with the timing of the firing.

Po3
Sahila said…
this all went down too smoothly...

Seattle Times playing along nicely...

MGJ away and playing schtum... just meekly accepting her payoff

Susan Enfield waiting in the wings...

All the major players pretty much offscene...

All parcelled up and tied with ribbons in less than a week in the public arena...

Broad/Gates havent given up... and they've got this covered - any fool could see this was coming from six months or so ago...

MGJ will tidy up her personal affairs here in Seattle and will reappear on the public deform scene within six months, with more status and more money...I guarantee it...

And she'll be excused cos "she was not a part of this scam"....

I would believe that things are going to be different if there are:

a major drop in the super's pay

a full forensic audit of the entire district (worth every penny to once and for all establish a clear, transparent, solid baseline for future operations)

a full housecleaning at central admin....

quarantining off all lobby groups and deformists from having more influence in the district than parents and teachers do....
another mom said…
Maybe it is just me but perhaps Dr. G-J's silence was due to her legal team advising her to not say one word. She knew this was coming because the lawyers were in the midst of negotiating a settlement It was in her best interest $$ and reputation wise to remain quiet. Remember even though we all know the reasons why, the offical record is that she was fired without cause.

WV= tweeter -how choice!

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