Mike Riley Leaving Bellevue
Big news from the Bellevue School District this morning --- Mike Riley has resigned as Superintendent.
- Bellevue schools chief takes national job (Seattle Times)
While I admired the fact that Mike Riley was able to create significant change in a short period of time (which is not easy to do in any large bureacracy), I know several Bellevue teachers personally who will be happy to see him go.
His implementation of a lock-step curriculum that took away much of teachers' creativity and freedom has frustrated teachers.
Comments
"pessimism and pettiness". It just kind of lets you know how his mind
really does work. I'm sure that disparagement included all the South Bellevue parents who spoke up (esp. in 2002), questioned the destruction of the Humanities and then the Honors programs, and generally questioned what was being traded away for his personal vision of "pushing more kids to achieve at ever higher
levels" (which was really aimed at "urban centers" all along). Too bad Bellevue didn't fit that model. He just made it fit, darn it!
Now we just wait and see who they bring in next? I don't know much about Karen Clark (his intended interim replacement). Will Bellevue residents/PTSA/parents have any say-so in the
process of selection?
Next, I am wondering how long it will take the Bellevue District to
recover from 'Rileyitis,' so we can finally actaully address the many specific problems we DO have.
Goodbye Dr. Riley and good riddance!
..His implementation of a lock-step curriculum that took away much of teachers' creativity and freedom has frustrated teachers.
It also lowered the WASL math 4th grade pass rate for African Americans to 25%.
Lock-step curriculum is one-size fits all. Unfortunately it does not fit all. This current trend in education toward more lock step teaching will not serve students very well. The top students receive insufficient challenge and those below average are usually grossly under-served. The lock-step from Bellevue should be resisted in Seattle.
Seattle's current Everyday Math pacing plan is an example of a lock-step curriculum.
The SPS has still failed to define the necessary skills that students are to acquire at each grade level. This deficiency means effective interventions are unfocused or non-existent.
Hopefully our new school board can bring a better focus to following existing school board policies.
I have always heard that Mr Riley was a highly regarded Superintendent.
I don't know anyone on the inside or any teachers so can't comment on a personal level, but from all outward appearances, Bellevue is smoking Seattle. I've known families that have left Seattle for Bellevue just because of their schools?
Interesting.
Anonymous at 5:40 AM said:
....but from all outward appearances, Bellevue is smoking Seattle.
Please look a little deeper. Let us compare something I shall call the difficulty number in regard to making high scores. Add the following percents: Black, Hispanic, Free&reduced meals, Special Ed, Bilingual.
Bellevue:~2.7~~8.1~17.1~11.2~~8.4
Seattle:~21.8~11.4~40.5~12.7~11.0
WA State:~5.6~14.0~36.8~12.7~~7.5
Tacoma:~23.0~11.9~54.8~12.9~~6.2
School District difficulty Totals
Bellevue:~~47.5
Seattle:~~~97.4
WA State:~~76.6
Tacoma:~~~108.8
Difficulty numbers for Seattle High Schools:
Hale 50.6
Roosevelt 56.1
Ballard 58.6
Garfield 69
West Seattle 85.5
Ingraham 99.8
Franklin 110
Sealth 136.5
Rainier B 152.2
Cleveland 164.7
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The Sums of Grade 10 WASL pass rates for Reading, Math, and Writing
Roosevelt 263.4
Bellevue 253.7
Garfield 253.5
Hale 241.6
Ballard 240.1
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Mike Riley intimidates teachers from speaking publicly about anything but adding to the positive spin.
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US Supreme Court case "Pickering vs. Board of
Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968)". This was a case in which a teacher
had been fired for speaking out against the Board of Education's
spending money on athletic fields rather than on education. In the
final paragraph of the US Supreme Court's ruling, you will find the
following: "In sum, we hold that, in a case such as this, absent
proof of false statements knowingly or recklessly made by him, a
teacher's exercise of his right to speak on issues of public
importance may not furnish the basis for his dismissal from public
employment." This is but one example of many, where the right to
free speech in public-sector employment has been upheld.
-----------------------
The above is routinely ignored by many school district administrators who visit teachers who talk with reprisals.
Mike Riley knows how to make his district look wonderful from outward appearances. If you would compare Bellevue with similar suburban districts outside Boston(Brookline etc.), Chicago(New Trier etc.), New York city(White Plains etc.) you would find Bellevue below average.
It appears that Superintendents are judged on marketing ability rather than providing an appropriate education for all. Mike Riley's lock-step curriculum fails to realize there are no standardized students. Unfortunately the lock-step fad appears to be the next coming wave in education. The great American brain robbery continues.
Unfortunately US education has become more about making administrators look good than effectively educating students.
Helen Schinske
meant to say "ratio" not "ration"
=)
We want more AP classes
We want IB classes.
We want hi WASL and SAT scores.
We want a low drop out rate.
We want a high percentage of college bound students.
Bellevue accomplished this.
Mike Riley helped accomplish this.
No wonder nobody wants the Superintendent jobs in Seattle, can you blame them? You are all thankless vultures.
I want more academic options for students, not more AP classes.
I don’t want the WASL at all.
Bellevue’s improvement in WASL scores did not amount to improvements reached by other districts.
Bellevue’s drop-out statistics were manipulated. Ask the district how the drop- out rate was counted ten years ago versus how it’s counted today. If you add up all of the drop-outs reported by each school district across the state, it will not equal the number of drop-outs that the statereports as a whole.
There is a shortage of skilled and technical laborers in well paid professions that don’t require college degrees. See recent Times articles.
What Bellevue accomplished is by deplorable means, including extortion and intimidation. Refer to the policies imposed on students with regards to the supposed “optional” AP exam. In short, the policy is: pay for and take the exam and receive favorable treatment with respect to class grade. Ask any teacher who has ever publicly spoken out against Riley.
Please don’t resort to name calling; it’s childish. It’s the same tactic that Riley uses.
I like a flexible curriculum, but not at the expense of rigor. I have had children in an alternative school in Seattle (a highly regarded alternative school), and the curriculum was so loose and fluid (flexible) that they often flowed so off course that they missed covering the basics. When you have a fourth grader who doesn't know the 12 months of the year, or a 5th grader that doesn't know his times table, you have to wonder if giving this type of autonomy to teachers is always a good thing. In my opinion it depends on the teacher. If you have a great teacher they generally do OK with a flexible curriculum, the problems come when you have a poor teacher or a very new teacher. It can be disastrous. In that case one could only wish for a more standardized curriculum.
Second, you mention you want more options,not more AP classes. Are AP classes not an option? They are certainly in demand across the district. In fact Ingraham and now Sealth recently added the IB program. Families in north Seatte are shying away from Hale because they don't offer any AP or IB classes. The people are telling the district that they want more, not less, AP/IB classes. You're right there are many great paying skilled trades, and kids that want to go that route certainly have that option. Riley didn't force anybody into college. He said that he would like every student to take at least 1 (ONE!!!) AP class. Sounds reasonable to me.
And what about the kids, like mine, who will go to college? Shouldn't we do everything possible to prepare them and make sure that they will be able to "get in" to the ever more competitive Universities? I think the answer is yes.
And by the way, please give specific examples of both the "extortion" and "intimidation" that you claim Bellevue used. I'm very interested.
Was Clinton a bad president because he had an affair? By the same measure, Rudy Guiliani is on his 3rd marriage (a result of cheating on his 2nd wife)and is estranged from his kids (who won't talk to him). Would he be a lesser president? Did Mr. Riley's alleged behavior make him a worse superintendent? If people in power make rationalizations for bad behavior or judgment in their private lives, does it spill over into their public lives?
Yes, I would say that a person's character in his personal life is going to spill over into his professional life. A liar and a cheater is going to be a liar and a cheater in whatever he/she does.
You raise the question about Bill Clinton...who I voted for. I think he was a good president, yes, but it certainly did taint my opinion of him after the whole affair. Giulianni....a joke. I most certainly hope the public looks at his most intimate of relationships to extrapolate what kind of president he will be. If you aren't honest, truthful and loving to the people closest to you why would anyone think you'd be any different anywhere else?
As far as Mike Riley...he certainly tooted his own horn and just dismissed his detractors...of which there were many. Whether he was a good superintendant or not I guess is up for debate.
Actually, in the eyes of the Seattle School District, "rigor" has a very peculiar definition: one of the pages on the district site mentions "key qualities associated with rigor (i.e., complexity, ambiguity, emotional response, and provocativeness)."
Might explain something about why TERC and Connected Math were chosen ...
Helen Schinske
Thanks to that posting to indicate that Seattle Schools at least attempts to clarify what it's doing when it uses the word "rigor".
The current definition of "rigor", according to Miriam Webster on-line:
1 a (1): harsh inflexibility in opinion, temper, or judgment : severity (2): the quality of being unyielding or inflexible : strictness (3): severity of life : austerity b: an act or instance of strictness, severity, or cruelty
2: a tremor caused by a chill
3: a condition that makes life difficult, challenging, or uncomfortable; especially : extremity of cold
4: strict precision : exactness
I have a question: When English students in Seattle schools are asked to know the definition of "rigor", which definition are they expected to know, the standard English definition, or the one according to the Seattle School District? My next question would be: Should schools practice what they expect students to learn?
My point is that school districts ought not to be creating their own definitions of commonly used words such as "rigor". To do so can be misleading when such words are used in communications with people not accustomed to the Seattle Schools' definition.
Furthermore, I don't see how anyone can extrapolate "ambiguity", "emotional response", and "provocativeness" out of the definition of "rigor" as provided in a standard English dictionary.
The discussion around whether schools should administer rigor leads to the question of exactly what our schools should be doing for our children. Our constitution, Article IX, Section 1, states that the paramount duty of this state is to provide a public education. I think that it's important to note that the constitution says nothing about having to make things harsh, cruel, severe, complex, or provocative for our students. The provision of education to me simply means that schools must impart upon students the information and skills needed for them to conduct their lives as members of a community.
In my opinion, the increased attention on rigor is a cop-out on the part of schools because it focuses on students' responsibility to learn rather than on schools' responsibility to teach. Too often have I seen my kids doing school work that is made difficult only for the sake of difficulty without adding value to the lesson being taught. Yet, schools take credit for such busywork on the premise of "rigor".
The district's definition appears to be based on the need for children to learn to grapple with complex topics, to accept that not everything can be spoonfed, that some subjects are inherently messy and upsetting. While in its origins that's a reasonable and desirable goal, trying to codify such expectations goes completely against their spirit and lands you in absurdities.
Helen Schinske
To give an example: one of my kids' teachers (I think it was my son's kindergarten teacher) labeled the table groups in her room with the names of the continents. When she gave instructions to line up, or some such task, when she didn't want the whole class rushing for coats at once, she'd send them off by "Asia, go get your coats now ... All right, now it's Australia's turn ..." and so forth.
Those kids ended up knowing the names of the continents cold, no question. That did, to my mind, constitute "rigor" in a way that a much more "academic" approach (e.g., worksheets, admonitions to parents to have the children "work on their continent names") would not necessarily have done.
Incidentally, children who already did know the names of the continents were not bothered by this approach, and not made to do busywork by it.
Obviously not all tasks lend themselves to this kind of little trick, but my point is that rigor is not necessarily a question of strictness, of detailed rubrics, tough grading, etc.
Helen Schinske
Rigor doesn't always come in the same rote flavors. It can come any way that works for kids. And if there is a way to engage children and foster a love of learning instead of the dreaded pile of two hours worth of homework, then I say...yahoo!
if your kid was put in Robinswood, then you have a bad kid. There are plenty of parents that think their kid is a little angel....get a clue.
As to Riley leaving the district, he at least was a strong leader, and very respected around the region. He helped make Bellevue a great school district.