Open Thread Friday
Open Thread Friday - last one of the year on the last day of the year.
We could do a recap of this year - how did the first year of the NSAP work out? how long will the district pay attention to the audit response? how is curriculum alignment going? three levies down and now one more this year to go?
We could prognosticate on what's coming up this year: another audit report at the end of January, the NSAP transition plan for 2011, more alignment (this time for science and social studies), School Board elections.
My prediction is that the Superintendent will be gone by this time next year. Probably right after the school year ends. I think the Board has already started to see her as a liability and are getting very frustrated with her responses to their questions and her inability to make this district better (at least with the day-to-day operations).
Whether all four of the directors whose seats are up for election in November survive (and if they run again) is a good question. There certainly is a lot to hold them accountable for or to at least ask the question, "So what does accountability look like to you?"
While some of you worry over big money coming their way during the elections, I continue to say that School Board elections are different. Money just isn't going to cut it. Money can't buy votes (ask Bill Gates, Sr.) That these are incumbents certainly helps them but I see a lot of angry parents out there and if the editorial board at the Seattle Times will go thumbs down on a levy, I think there's a growing awareness (or at least restlessness) over the management and leadership in this district growing in our city.
So, now we see Peter Maier pushing back on the Superintendent and Michael DeBell (who isn't up for election) saying we need to slow down on the Strategic Plan. I see Sherry Carr being frustrated over the day-to-day operations of the district and Steve Sundquist very proud to be the president of the School Board. Okay Steve, you have power and a bully pulpit - use them. As for Harium, well, he is the wild card because he's the one I'm least sure about running again.
But it's a good thing to have openness on the issues troubling our district. The more people who understand them, the better. That's one of my goals for 2011 for more public awareness, especially among our other elected officials, about our district.
I still believe we can have a great district. We're a great city with lots of smart people and more coming all the time. In honor of the passing of Geraldine Doyle, the inspiration for the Rosie the Riveter poster created during WWII,
We could do a recap of this year - how did the first year of the NSAP work out? how long will the district pay attention to the audit response? how is curriculum alignment going? three levies down and now one more this year to go?
We could prognosticate on what's coming up this year: another audit report at the end of January, the NSAP transition plan for 2011, more alignment (this time for science and social studies), School Board elections.
My prediction is that the Superintendent will be gone by this time next year. Probably right after the school year ends. I think the Board has already started to see her as a liability and are getting very frustrated with her responses to their questions and her inability to make this district better (at least with the day-to-day operations).
Whether all four of the directors whose seats are up for election in November survive (and if they run again) is a good question. There certainly is a lot to hold them accountable for or to at least ask the question, "So what does accountability look like to you?"
While some of you worry over big money coming their way during the elections, I continue to say that School Board elections are different. Money just isn't going to cut it. Money can't buy votes (ask Bill Gates, Sr.) That these are incumbents certainly helps them but I see a lot of angry parents out there and if the editorial board at the Seattle Times will go thumbs down on a levy, I think there's a growing awareness (or at least restlessness) over the management and leadership in this district growing in our city.
So, now we see Peter Maier pushing back on the Superintendent and Michael DeBell (who isn't up for election) saying we need to slow down on the Strategic Plan. I see Sherry Carr being frustrated over the day-to-day operations of the district and Steve Sundquist very proud to be the president of the School Board. Okay Steve, you have power and a bully pulpit - use them. As for Harium, well, he is the wild card because he's the one I'm least sure about running again.
But it's a good thing to have openness on the issues troubling our district. The more people who understand them, the better. That's one of my goals for 2011 for more public awareness, especially among our other elected officials, about our district.
I still believe we can have a great district. We're a great city with lots of smart people and more coming all the time. In honor of the passing of Geraldine Doyle, the inspiration for the Rosie the Riveter poster created during WWII,
We Can Do It
Comments
The Superintendent will be out by the end of the year.
If someone (e.g. M. Debell) was telling me who to write apology letters to, I would quit.
I think a majority of the board want her to resign. They'd fire her but that is too costly and would make it difficult to hire a new superintendent. (Who would come to this buzzsaw?)
I'll also predict that the next Superintendent will get a pay package with a base salary near to and possibly north of 300K.
Finally, for my 5 to ten year predictions:
1. We'll have some type of choice with tie breakers back for high schools.
2. C. Mass will enroll in law school.
The oath of office each school director takes would seem to indicate she should be fired with cause immediately......
Trying to paint a rosy public picture of: "She left with two years to go on a $264,000+ contract the Board extended in summer 2010; seems 100% clueless." ... and we paid her to leave ... so come and work here its great. Here have a nice three-year $1,000,000 contract with little hint of any accountability likely.
The message needs to be: if you come here do the job as that is required by the job. If you screw it up, there will be no financial rewards for doing so.
Repeatedly violate state or federal laws and we shall have you prosecuted.
If MGJ is not fired with cause ... any buyout would be a gift of public money to her. She needs to be prosecuted not bought out.
In the private sector this would be like sending a large fee to Bernie Madoff in prison for his wise "financial positions" to which he allowed persons and parties to hold an interest.
This year has a theme, a motif: Expensive, disruptive, high profile changes that make headlines but won't have much positive impact.
Tops among these is the New Student Assignment Plan which worked reasonably well in most of the district (just as the old plan had worked reasonably well in most of the district). The NSAP didn't change the number of winners or losers, just a few of their names.
On the good side, I think the certainty people got from the NSAP was a very good thing and it brought a lot of new students to the District - more than they were expecting and most of them at schools that were already pretty full. I also think that the District did yeoman work to get siblings into the same schools. It wasn't easy, it wasn't in the Plan, but with hard work on a case-by-case basis they did it and got all but very few.
I think the problems with the NSAP - overcrowding in elemenetary schools in the Madison and Eckstein service areas, and the overcrowding at Eckstein and Garfield - were built into the plan. At Garfield the District planned it for a purpose and everywhere else the District regards it with callous disinterest.
Number Two on the Hit Parade definitely goes to the rollout of the Performance Management System. Wow! Was this ever a monumentally useless waste of money. We're spending millions (and making headlines) to identify problems we already knew about and spending millions (and making headlines) to take steps that won't work to fix them. Yet another stunning failure of Education Reform and Centralized Management. The Performance Management System (PMS) includes a new teacher contract that costs more and made national news, but doesn't promise any improvement, individual performance evaluations that don't bring any improvement, MAP tests that cost a fortune in money, time and resources and sounds like a big deal but doesn't bring any improvement, school segmentation and a re-allocation of Title I and LAP funds that costs a lot to administer and made splashy news but doesn't improve anything, school reports that cost money, and made headlines, but offer no improvement over the old reports, and a curriculum alignment effort that has decayed into Standardization so that it costs money and sounds good but doesn't offer any improvement. Headlines and money to re-organize the Education Directors into Executive Directors, but no reason to expect any change as a result of the re-organization.
The whole performance management effort is a huge expense and a terrific resume builder and headline maker for the superintendent but it don't do diddly for students.
One possible exception: the Academic Assurances, although less of a headline, might be real and will be good for the students who get opportunities they would not otherwise have seen.
Number three is the big splashly news of the change in Special Education Services and the much less splashy failure of the change in Special Education Services.
continued...
Number four is the creation of STEM and opening of five new schools (McDonald, Viewlands, Sand Point, Queen Anne, Rainier View). Again, hugely expensive. Again, big resume builder for the Superintendent. These changes, however, will help. All of these changes were positive. Of course, the District could have saved a lot of money if they had just allowed Viewlands and Rainier View to remain open but that wouldn't have made as many headlines. And, again, the District could have and should have opened Sand Point, McDonald, and Queen Anne a year earlier, but that was the year they were making headlines for closing schools.
I would like to recognize STEM in particular. It's still very early, but it appears that my worst fears for STEM were not realized. First, the school drew well, with about 236 freshmen. Second, it retained most of the class of 2013. Third, the school's demographic ratios didn't shift much and Cleveland actually has more black students this year (328 in the October count) than it had last year (320 in the October count). We don't have academic outcomes yet, and I haven't heard good or ill about how well the Project-Based Learning is going, but for now STEM looks very positive. The folks in the building are getting it done. Now if the high-level folks who were supposed to raise private donations for the school would just come through...
Number five story for 2010 was definitely the audits. Stinko! Included in this story is the resignation of the internal auditor (will that open position be filled?), the lip service response by the Board, the dismissive response by the staff, and the mumbled response by the press.
I'd make the money stories number six: state funding slashed, replecement federal funding, levies passed, new taxes defeated, budgets "cut". Big noise, big money, big headlines, but when it is all said and done, little change. For all of the talk about budget cuts and budget gaps, spending actual has increased slightly.
The only other story is the stuff that didn't get done. The District Dashboard reports that only about 60% of Strategic Plan initiatives are on schedule. No expansion of international education. No Vision for advanced learning. No effort to address the performance or enrollment issues in southeast schools. No alternative education review. No resolution on waivers. No oversight from the Board. No restraint on the growth of the Central Administration.
Other stories were smaller but shouldn't be neglected: transportation policy changes, standardized bell times, centralization of nutrition services, and continued labor strife.
Per RCW 42.23.050, the superintendent's job is forfeit. The Board can fire her for cause and they don't need to pay her any severence.
I spoke to Don McAdams when he was in town for the Board Retreat and he told me that the Superintendent's failure to take an action that the Board voted to direct her to take is, by itself, grounds for dismissal. It has been nearly two years since the Board directed her to review and recommend revisions to Policy D12.00, but she has yet to lift a finger in that direction.
I'm not worried about replacing her. The District doesn't need and really shouldn't want - a superstar. All we need is a competent manager with strong administration skills. My choice would be someone who has experience managing professionals by delegating the bulk of the authority to the front line staff, running lean and efficient administrative systems, and focusing a flat central management structure on quality assurance and support.
How hard is that?
This line made me laugh, thank you for all your efforts. I hope you run for school board, your knowledge and humor is what is needed.
I have said this before, my children do well in SPS despite the direction the district is taking with our hard earned money, not because of it.
However, I am ready for a new direction, responsible management, money, staff and automony back into our schools.
Melissa, you're just the one needed to help turn the ship around!
"However, I am ready for a new direction, responsible management, money, staff and automony back into our schools. "
It is a vote for "Decentralization".
Hooray!!
MGJ will be gone.
MGJ has not shown an ability to manage a half billion dollar budget.
The board will be asking the state for increased funding. Yet, the district has proven to be incapable of handling assets. As a result, legislators will not want to give the additional funding to SPS. Our board cares about state funding. Can you see R. Carlyle going to bat for MGJ?? I think this is the tipping point.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to thank Melissa and Charlie for this blog. The blog has served as a source of information, education and inspiration.
Seattle has become a one newspaper town. Our newspapers have limited funding. I'm glad we have a place to turn for more information.
Thanks for being our watch dogs. Without you, I'm sure the city would look much different.
Looking forward to board elections.
Best wishes in the New Year.
Best wish
WS Parent
How hard is that?
Um. We had that already, more than once. The last one was Raj Manhas. You called him incompetent with the same self-righteous know-it-all attitude that you now reserve for MGJ. And before that, John Stanford. But he died early on, rendering such smug vitriol unseemly.
reader
Yup ... it does not matter who manages the money pit in its current form and it has not for quite a while.
The SPS has the wrong structure and culture. Change the entire structure not just the parts again.
Decentralization and the reduction of JSCEE budget to 35% of current levels over the next 5 years or sooner.
Get the decisions make by people who care enough to read research.
Get accountability and responsibility enabled with decentralization and each school with a Board of Trustees.
Waiting for SuperFraud:
Education Town Hall Meeting
7:00p.m. on Thursday. January 6, 2011
Thornton Creek Elementary, 7711 43rd
Avenue NE Seattle, WA
Hosted by:
Senator-elect Scott White, School Board members Sherry Carr and Peter Maier
YUP after only three and a half years of chaos and poor service ..... the Board has "already" started to see her as a liability. ..... What a fast acting group.
At least they raised her salary by 10% = $24 thousand at the conclusion of year 1 to give the illusion of progress.
They gave her a bonus of $5280 so kids might know the number of feet in a mile. Most places meeting 25% of your own goals that you constructed gets one fired. In the SPS they grade on the curve and 25% gets $5280 bonus .... and remember some of us thought those were budget restricted times.
They extended her contract on the day after the release of the highly critical State Auditor's Report.
They approved TfA by a 6-1 vote.
Central Admin spending goes up 67% and teaching spending goes up 28%. Annually District employs 110+ coaches for teachers at $10+ million .... offers essentially no plan for interventions and scores go down.
So when did these folks already "Catch On"?
Additionally- and this is just my opinion, but gauging from my experience and those I know who are starting families- those who are active & involved, are not going to wait for a rebirth of Seattle schools. If they are particularly lucky, they may live close to an excellent public school, or they may chose to move, or go private/homeschool.
I don't know what is going to make a difference in the district- & I don't necessarily think changing the board members are what is going to make the difference- however- I do think we need to get rid of MGJ ASAP & as it has been illustrated quite clearly, increasing salary, has not gotten us better superintendent candidates.
If they are doing it for the money, they don't have what it takes.
Period.
One of the places I would start- is increasing the districts association with supports like the parent co-operative preschools offered through city community colleges. For families that don't have extensive support/resources, or actually IMO for any family, the co-op preschools provide parent education, as well as an environment for children to learn developmentally appropriate skills.
I don't expect many or even most children to be reading when they enter kindergarten, but they should have the tools handy when they are ready.
http://www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/download/csr_files/brief_ics_succession_Dec10.pdf
http://www.crpe.org/cs/crpe/download/csr_files/375_crpe_brief_performance_Nov29.pdf
Actually southmom your child could have gotten into any high school in the entire district this year, except for Roosevelt, Ballard, and Garfield. Every other high school took every student that applied, and did not have a waitlist. I understand the need for a high performing high school in your own neighborhood. Everyone should have that. But to say that your kid was forced into the worst schools in the city is just not true.
You could have gotten in to Franklin, Sealth, West Seattle, Ingraham, Hale, STEM, NOVA, or Center.
And I believe (but could be wrong) that Roosevelt cleared their entire 9th grade waitlist this year, so your child might have gotten into Roosevelt too!
I can't tell you how many times Tracy Libros has told me a waitlist moved 10, 20, 30 spaces because 2 weeks in the school year, parents decided they didn't want to move their children. It happens more often than you think.
It turns out the that number is:
from a link on the district home page.
8th graders leaving middle school ready for high school math =
8th graders earning a C or better in an on-track or advanced math course. On-track course is Math 8; advanced math courses are Algebra 1B and Geometry B.
Apparently, earning a grade of C or better in an on-track or advanced math course in 8th grade is a poor indicator of whether a student is on track to succeed on the State Math Assessment in grade 10.
============
An interesting correlation shows up when the 8th grade OSPI math pass rate is divided by the Prepared for high school Math number.
Here are the schools followed by their 2008 and 2009 Prepared for High School math percentage and then this is followed by Prepared % /WASL Pass rate%.
Note the two schools with the most inflated math grades in the district were Denny (1) and Aki (2)
Of course it could be argued that the WASL was not much of a math test:
Denny 87 90 0.39
Aki 64 64 0.49
hamilton 76 81 0.63
Madison 76 86 0.66
Mercer 74 64 0.68
Diatrict 76 78 0.70
McClure 75 82 0.74
Whitman 79 81 0.75
Eckstein 96 91 0.81
Washington 83 92 0.85
So let us take a look at the 2010 MSP results and divide those into ready for Algebra:
Aki ready 73 0.48
Madison 85 0.66
Mercer 86 0.66
Denny 76 0.68
Diatrict 80 0.76
McClure 72 0.77
Washington 83 0.79
hamilton 77 0.81
Whitman 83 0.90
Eckstein 92 0.91
The good news about this grade inflation vs. OSPI math score is that it improved in 2010 .... notice Denny above
Aki is now the only big outlier.
and the average of these middle school factors in 2010 was .74 vs .67 in the avg of 08 & 09
(I have not looked at k-8 scores)
District 8th grade average went from 0.70 to 0.76
similar to the 0.67 to 0.74 for the middle schools above.
Also note in 2010 an 81% a 90% and a 91% WOW that ready for high school number may even be getting close to being true at 3 schools.
Looking at Aki and many of the others, it is getting really difficult to see this every school becoming a quality school under the NSAP, maybe the quality of deceptions will increase.
NOTE: in 2010 Aki 73% and McClure 72% as the two lowest ready for high school math numbers
but Aki's pass rate was way lower than McClure's
Aki 34.8/73 = 0.48
McClure 55.3/72 = 0.77
The wild part is it looks like Denny might have resisted the past grading give away as pass rate went from 40.1 to 51.9 and that ready for high school percent went from 90% to 76%
40.1/90 = 0.39 and 51.9/76 = 0.68
===========
At any rate Director M. DeBell's quest for more meaningful reporting of numbers ..... is not looking good with this ready for high school math report.
--------------
Aki Kurose has the distinction of having the next lowest MSP pass rate for 8th graders in 2010 and by far the most inflated math grades in 2010.
Keep in mind this was brought to you courtesy of the Southeast Education Initiative that 8th grade class had been at Aki for the entire three years of the Southeast Education Initiative. WOW would they have done worse without it?
So much for every school a quality school and money making a difference.
If you look at the only four schools in 2010 with a ratio below 0.76, you find three of the four have the highest level of low-income students.
School - ratio - % free and reduced meals. ;% passing MSP
(1) Aki K. 0.48 - 82.3%; 34.8%
(2) Madison 0.66 - 43.8%; 56.2%
(3) Mercer 0.66 - 75.4%; 57.0%
(4) Denny 0.68 - 65.4%; 51.9%
So the SEI only funded Aki Kurose and Aki has the highest % of Low income. None of these middle schools have a Black population above 30% except Aki's is 50%. Only 2 middle schools have a white population below 25% ... Akl = 4.1% and Mercer = 5.1%
Aki has by far the lowest MSP math pass rate accompanied by the most inflated grades.
So is this the plan to make every school a quality school ... dump in funding or not and then pretend that the grades mean something.
Prepared for High School Math
with OSPI Pass Rate below for Blaine 8th gr.
2008 . 2009 . 2010
` 72 ~` 62 ~ ` 67
70.2 ~ 58.2 ~ 69.2
So ratio avg. for 08 & 09 = 0.96
and 2010 ratio = 1.03
-------------------
Meanwhile Madrona wins the "Super Grade Faker" award for 08 & 09
2008 . 2009 . 2010
` 51 ~` 100 ~ ` 91
24.4 ~ 15.2 ~ 42.6
So ratio avg. for 08 & 09 = 0.26
and 2010 ratio = 0.47
Special distinction for 2009 for that 100% ready for high school math and a pass rate of 15.2%
ratio = 0.15 for 2009
----------------------
Pathfinder gets an honorable mention in the 08 & 09 faker category with:
2008 . 2009 . 2010
` 91 ~` 90 ~ ` 90
40.4 ~ 25.5 ~ 50
So ratio avg. for 08 & 09 = 0.36
and 2010 ratio = 0.56
====================
K-8 Results
So here we go for 2010 results from k-8
So let us take a look at the 2010 MSP results and divide those by ready for High School Math.
First number is "ready %" then (pass rate) and last number is the ratio.
Note with the exception of Catherine Blaine all these k-8s look very suspect in how math grades are determined.
C. Blaine 67 (69.2) ; 1.03
TOPS 83 (54.7) ; 0.66
Salmon B 98 (59.5) ; 0.61
J. Adams 71 (41.2) ; 0.58
Pathfinder 90 (50) ; 0.56
Broadview T. 85 (46.3) ; 0.54
Madrona 91 (42.6) ; 0.47
AS #1 0 (35.7) n/a
Orca 0 (14.3) n/a
Not a single word about how that "making every school a quality school" is going.
That was the basis for the NSAP; but it seems to have been completely forgotten. Is anyone surprized by that?
reader
Yup ... It is pretty difficult to find someone competent for the task of SPS Superintendent and same seems to apply for most Director spots.....
That lets us know that the Structure is defective. The system needs to be restructured in a decentralized way with both support and accountability for principals.
Admittedly evidence based decision making in the current form would be a big step in the right direction. None of that has been happening in the SPS for a long, long time.
The current directors like to pontificate about how "site-based management" (decentralization) was Bad. Therefore, centralization is Good.
That logic has some assumptions built in, like that the centralizers can get their act together. I can't really speak to the fact that Stanford, Olchefske, Manhas were centralizers or not but certainly the conventional wisdom is the latter two couldn't get their act together.
So decentralization looks attractive now, not so much because it's inherently Good but that we have a centralizer who's pretty awful at running things.
Site-based management, to me, was kind of a golden age. However, I'd be willing to do the centralization experiment if it could be done well. Do people think it is possible to do well? What would you have to do? Do any other districts do it, or are they all nightmares of reform?
The current regime is centralizing authority which is just no way to manage professionals. Professionals need to be allowed to exercise their professional discretion. They need the kind of management that Joseph Olchefske promised, but did not provide: loose on the How, tight on the What. Give them an assignment and a relatively open field to determine the means, but rigidly insist on mission accomplishment. If they don't get the job done, then come in and either dictate a method, replace them with someone who can get the job done, or change the system if that is the obstruction.
"How hard is that?"
Pretty hard!
I don't really think Site Based Management has any place in our public schools. It leads to obvious inequities and dissatisfaction about choices often don't matter.
reader
What has she done?
What credit does she deserve for the implementation of the New Student Assignment Plan?
What credit does she deserve for the Capacity Management Project?
What credit does she deserve for the Southeast Education Initiative?
What credit does she deserve for the Performance Management System?
What credit does she deserve for curricular alignment or the changes in transportation and nutrition services?
Let's give her the credit she has earned for positive changes. Go ahead and list them.
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/432807_education05.html
Unhappy Parent.
No pressure there...
Unhappy Parent
sss.westbrook@gmail.com.
This is wrong and needs daylight.
The message here is that you can predict all you want, but MJG has three people in her agenda - Herself (breadwinner), her husband (in school) and daughter (who is in SPS and needs a stable transition to another district).
Which contractor was this?
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