No Surprises in Survey Results

The results of the survey conducted by the School District are in. And they are pretty much what you would expect to see. People like their teachers and their schools and want the superintendent to pay attention to teachers. The focus is almost entirely on what happens in the classroom and everything else fades into the background.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Maybe certain groups in town will now stop blaming teachers for every last thing and start supporting them. That's what the city wants, even if the leaders of those groups are pulling down hefty salaries to say otherwise.

LEV and Stand and the borgs at "teachers don't matter" Alliance for Education can take their ed reform and stuff it.

And they can take their TFA cult with them.

"One of Those 81 Percent Who Voted Satisfaction With Our Teachers"
mirmac1 said…
Contrast Crosscut love note with Publicola's . Is this the same survey?
dan dempsey said…
WOW ... Crosscut

Does not even report the survey results accurately.
Anonymous said…
More than double the North W/E respondents verses the South W/E respondents.

l@l dad
Charlie Mas said…
Holy Cow! Crosscut really, really got this wrong.
Anonymous said…
to "one of the 81 Percent..."

I'm certain the charlatans will be taking credit for ... improving the teacher corps ...??

Giving props the MGJ puppets, and their strategic plans du week, and their merry go rounds of 6 figure a year managers ...??

Blaring from the rooftops about how great things would be if their ivy'd friends could run all their opportunity gap rackets ...?

The DFER LEV SFC A4E PFL CRPE KIPP KOPP ...CRUD and CRAP crowd do NOT get their fat paychecks from losing on the messaging front.

Expect a coordinated misinformation campaign spinning this to their advantage, and it is a good bet that the campaign will be effective.

Oh yeah, and from the SEA / WEA ... you can expect something late, something lame, and something forgettable.

PoliticsAin'tBeanToss
Anonymous said…
As a teacher in SPS, it's nice to see that the families we serve are positive toward us. It's a hard job as you all know and I feel honored to do it every day (even the super long days as most are).

I wish we could all concentrate the majority of our efforts into teaching. Unfortunately most of our staff meetings are spent dealing with what the district is or isn't doing that we have to respond to and not how we can improve what we know needs to be done. We are constantly in crisis management and not able to use our professional efforts to where they need to be turned.

-Teacher in SPS
I did ask about why - for the question of strong Board versus strong superintendent - why there wasn't a third choice "equally strong".

Elway said that they knew the majority of people would vote for "equally strong" which would tell the Board little so they left it out. Okay, but I'm not sure leaving it out gave you the clearest picture of what people truly care about and I do not believe it is the superintendent having more power than the Board.

Michael DeBell was at this press conference and he seemed a little down. He said he was disappointed that Dr. Enfield was not staying.

He also got a little testy when I asked him how come Lynne Varner got the preliminary results. He said because she asked for them. (Duly noted - ask and ye shall receive. Except that another member of the press HAD asked for them and couldn't get them. Clearly Varner had some in to get them early for her editorial.)

Both DeBell and Elway were unattractively playing dumb as neither could recall how much this survey cost (although DeBell said it was part of the cost of the superintendent survey).

Reading thru it, I think that Dr. Enfield was starting to build support but in lieu of any actual action plan from her and her decision to leave, who knows if she would have been a good superintendent for the district?
Anonymous said…
DeBell, Carr, HRR and (to a now lesser extent) Smith Blum act like groupies whose favorite band is breaking up. The favorite band is each other.

During the streaming school board meeting tonight, Carr interpreted Enfield's 37% favorable rating as overwhelming support. She and HRR begged her to "reconsider and stay." Sounds like your holiday
party person had insight, Melissa.
37% percent approval doesn't give Enfield much clout for telling the board not to conduct a search.

The new jargon-speak is "this work" as in--we need to keep doing
this work and focus on the work.
DeBell, Enfield & Co. are yuppie-comfortable together because they recognize the "you're one of us" in each other. Thank God, Betty Patu and, now Sharon Peasley, (probably, not ironically, because she's a screenwriter) break script.

Maybe we'll get a superintendent who talks straight, treats teachers like professionals, and isn't into doing (along with the board) quid pro quos with Lynne Varner. Oh, the horror!

--enough already
Pallas said…
Research like this costs anywhere between $50K - $100K, which kind of frosts me when it's not done well.

They could have easily put a sliding scale in for the strong board/strong super question that would allow respondents to choose somewhere on the continuum.

Also, do not get me started on the report--no one in MR would ever group 'neutral ratings' with the N/A (aka not available--folks who didn't answer the question) because they are not the same.

And, why in the world did they include 46% respondents who have no affiliation with SPS? Granted it's nice to know what the general population thinks, but ~1/2 your sample are people who probably are not super informed.

(sigh)
Patrick said…
37% is taken as an endorsement? In elected office, 37% approval means you should not seek re-election and retire to spend more time with your family.
dan dempsey said…
Very interesting comments above.

So how much of this is the usual PR drivel to make the Board and the District look good and how much is on the Up and Up?

Here is today's letter to the Directors.

Enough Already wrote:

"DeBell, Carr, HRR and (to a now lesser extent) Smith Blum act like groupies whose favorite band is breaking up. The favorite band is each other."

Given the "Four's" supposed support of Enfield and definite support for TFA it appears these four folks have a continuing disregard for evidence and the law.

HMM, DeBell, KSB, and Carr all repeatedly voted for TFA. (along with Maier and Sundquist)

I was thinking that HMM should be recalled.... perhaps he is not the only one.
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