Survey on ... the Superintendent VS the Board?
Yet another in the series of odd surveys the district is putting out, here's the latest. At least, it is short but does require every question to be answered in order for it to register.
It's a all over the map. Questions about what you think are should be the priorities of the Superintendent and the district, questions about the new leadership and its role, etc.
Here are two of the odder questions:
Since the change in leadership, do you think the Seattle School District is currently headed in the right direction, or the wrong direction?
Which leadership - Superintendent or Board? That needed to be clear right up front but yet, you are left guessing. Also, Enfield has been on the job less than a year and the election just happened - it's not a great question to be asking at this point in time.
As you know, the Superintendent is hired by the School Board, who are (sic) elected by the voters. There are different ways a Board and Superintendent can operate. And of course the best model is the Board and Superintendent working together. But in general - if you had to choose - do you think it is better to:
Have a strong School Board that establishes the direction and sets policy for the district, with the Superintendent responsible for implementing the vision and policies of the Board.
Have a strong Superintendent who brings a clear vision to the job - with the Board primarily in the role of overseeing the Superintendent's performance and holding him or her accountable.
Again, who wrote this thing? Who is pushing this Board versus Superintendent power struggle? I don't want one stronger than the other. They have equal power (with the Board holding a bit more as they are the Superintendent's bosses in term of accountability).
I smell the strong whiff of Strategies 360 here along with the Alliance.
What is the purpose of this survey?
It's a all over the map. Questions about what you think are should be the priorities of the Superintendent and the district, questions about the new leadership and its role, etc.
Here are two of the odder questions:
Since the change in leadership, do you think the Seattle School District is currently headed in the right direction, or the wrong direction?
Which leadership - Superintendent or Board? That needed to be clear right up front but yet, you are left guessing. Also, Enfield has been on the job less than a year and the election just happened - it's not a great question to be asking at this point in time.
As you know, the Superintendent is hired by the School Board, who are (sic) elected by the voters. There are different ways a Board and Superintendent can operate. And of course the best model is the Board and Superintendent working together. But in general - if you had to choose - do you think it is better to:
Have a strong School Board that establishes the direction and sets policy for the district, with the Superintendent responsible for implementing the vision and policies of the Board.
Have a strong Superintendent who brings a clear vision to the job - with the Board primarily in the role of overseeing the Superintendent's performance and holding him or her accountable.
Again, who wrote this thing? Who is pushing this Board versus Superintendent power struggle? I don't want one stronger than the other. They have equal power (with the Board holding a bit more as they are the Superintendent's bosses in term of accountability).
I smell the strong whiff of Strategies 360 here along with the Alliance.
What is the purpose of this survey?
Comments
WV: "expests" I expests the survey creators have predetermined the results by the formulation of their questions.
A leaner District administration should push resources and authority down to the schools and then focus their efforts on what should be the smaller and simpler tasks of providing support for decisions made at schools and expanding what programs that work (that are popular and have high or improving results on objective measures like test scores) while cutting those that do not work (schools that are under subscribed and have low scores).
But this was yet another badly written survey that provided no way to say anything like that.
Superintendent Qualities
Peculiar.
Here's the address:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SPSSchoolBoard
As a piece of communications/PR, I think it's actually pretty effective. It graphically demonstrates that you can't have it all, and that even among the things that everybody wants, you can't do everything at once.
And, no, I don't think the survey is an Alliance or Strategies 360 conspiracy theory. That seems ridiculous and unless there is some type of information to prove it- I'd stop suggesting it.
my2cents
I noted that they had a lot of qualifying categories to check (family member of student in SPS, etc.), but not the one that the hundreds (maybe a thousand or more) of Seattle families who have children in private school need. I was forced to check "other" putting me in the same category as an empty-nester, childless adult, or person outside the District. That right there reduces the value of the survey.
A non-biased survey that is truly trying to determine public views always has at least one spot for "comments."
why dont you go and PROVE to us IT IS NOT a Strategies360/Alliance creation?
Several of us have spent a lot of time over the past couple of years, PROVING that Strategies 360/Alliance (funded by Gates) have been up to sneakiness...
The District has outsourced its work to both entities on many occasions...
AND a STRATEGIES 360 person is now the District's in-house head of PR/communications...
Why dont you put in the time and energy to prove us wrong and yourself right?
http://www.seattleschools.org/modules/cms/pages.phtml?pageid=189059&sessionid=2fb36410e86a7348edc763cc844ba37e&t
Do they pay any more attention to surveys than they do to feedback at meetings?
For example, if:
The majority of the respondents say the district is headed in the wrong direction, will be hard to ignore.
If respondents say the #1 priority is rigor, that will be hard to ignore.
Hope they publish the results!
Guess I don't see the conspiracy - just evidence of some "interesting" thinking - the whole sup/board power struggle question was odd - clearly someone out there thinks it's not possible to have a cooperative management? Or at least it's easy to interpret that question as "It has to be either or?" Maybe they just didn't think it thru - sometimes one does that when you are too close to a situation. Without knowing who is driving the survey's creation, it's hard to attribute motives.
hmmm...
But in what area? Everything is wrong? Academically? Administratively?
Again, what is the purpose of the survey? Not "to get input" - what is it they are truly trying to find out?
for example: what does "rigor" mean?
more testing?
from Merriam Webster online:
Definition of RIGOR
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
5
a obsolete : rigidity, stiffness b : rigidness or torpor of organs or tissue that prevents response to stimuli c : rigor mortis
Examples of RIGOR
They underwent the rigors of military training.
the rigors of life in the wilderness
They conducted the experiments with scientific rigor.
a scholar known for her intellectual rigor
Origin of RIGOR
Middle English rigour, from Anglo-French, from Latin rigor, literally, stiffness, from rigēre to be stiff
First Known Use: 14th century
Related to RIGOR
Synonyms: adversity, asperity, hardness, hardship, difficulty
Antonyms: flexibility, gentleness, laxness, mildness
When MGJ was super I felt the general direction of the district was headed in was not good. With Enfield as super I feel the general direction the district is headed in is the right direction.
That's not to say I think everything is going great in every department, but generally speaking, and overall, I think things are going well.
my2cents
A friend of Seattle
How would one even know which families do or do not own a computer?
nsf
A take home in every students backpack. Translated in the appropriate language, of course.
Or, through school PTSAs
Just the way they used to do it in olden days.
I just had a bit of an epiphany about the reson for that last question. Is it an attempt to decrease the board's power before the new members are seated?
Explain the timing too - Sharon Peaslee's late-breaking lead.
Too conspiratorial? Or the simplest explanation? It's my understanding that written policy defines the superintendent as "directed by the board" and to change that is really a pretty radical and undemocratic proposal.
You have to wonder.
Let's get real here. This district is tossing around in bed with the Alliance, LEV and the others, while the teachers go to work every day like a bunch of peons and your kids are gearing up for the next round of MAP tesing.
I find it disgusting that people on this blog are advocating for the hiring of Enfield who has already proven herself to be two-faced and a liar, both in emails and at the board meeting. She was protecting the nameless One that was alluded to by her ethics coach, Jon Bridge.
I no longer teach in Seattle but have good friends who still do. They deserve so much better than this.
--and so do your kids
I would imagine that it would be difficult to ensure "one vote per person" if they simply put a link to the survey on the SPS website. But maybe someone who understands how these things work could weigh in?
No Chris, mirimac will remind you that not everyone has a phone. Calls are bad as are emails.
We must only use kid mail. But I'm not sure that is fair either because not all kids have backpacks.
nsf
thanks for asking that question... I too was wondering...
Did you ask for Director Carr to email you a link? Was it sent out in an email to all her constituents? I've received no such link from my Director. Hmmm.
Either way (you asked for it and received the link via email, or Director Carr sent it to all HER constituents but not others, and other Directors didn't) it skews the results, either towards involved people such as yourself who ask for things, or towards sectors of the city that got the email from Carr.
Very odd. Where's MY email?
Link to Seattle Times Story:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016817276_statebudget21m.html
Question No. 5: How should I assess the school board? If I answer that I'm happy because two dreadful incumbents have been jettisoned, will that be construed as an endorsement of the board's pathetic performance over the past four years?
Question 8: Could somebody please add a choice that says "Just because the direction of the school district has improved since MGJ was canned, that doesn't mean it's good."
Question 9: Does "professional development" mean "top-down enforcement of instructional practices on teachers using mathematically unsound textbooks"? Or does it mean "giving teachers meaningful opportunities to implement traditional math? Does "increasing rigor" mean establishing ALO's that aren't a mere joke? Or is it code for the C-average graduation requirement?
Question No. 10 says "the district cannot do everything at once." It's a question of false choices. Can't we replicate programs like Schmitz Park math and simultaneously close the achievement gap? Can't we expand create more option schools and simultaneously mitigate the NE capacity disaster? (Why weren't Jane Addams, Sand Point and MacDonald re-opened as option schools with attractive programming e.g. language immersion, Spectrum or traditional math?)
Question No. 11 Should the new superintendent have expertise in capital planning and management, or perhaps expertise in advanced learning?
I suspect this survey is politically motivated and will be spun by the education privatizers.
And yet I responded anyhow. I'm just that desperate to believe that my opinion counts.
there's me, in my naivete thinking that the board, as our representatives, creates policy on what and how the district IS, based on what we, their masters want for our children...
then the super implements that policy...
and the board supervises her implementation and makes sure she is carrying otu the wishes of the people...
Just like government with a big "G"...
oh wait - that aint working too well, now, is it???
What with all those lobbyists buying up the congressmen and senators and getting what they want for their bankers/special interest groups, rather than what we want...
Now, where have I seen that play out close to home, I wonder???
For those who dont know me, heavy sarcasm alert...
yer a jeeniues! Of course, by phone! Why didn't Mr. Elway expert say that?!
Dur!
I found this survey very odd. I don't know what they are going to do with the answers. The questions were so vaguely worded that the answers won't give you a clear idea of what the recipient intended.
-And So it Goes
--Lisa, but too lazy to log into Google
I thought the survey was decent and would have chosen to have a strong SI with the board providing oversight if I thought that they would actually follow through in firing a rogue SI and not have it cost half a million.
I agree with others that at least they are asking for feedback.
if you assume the most duplicitous, under handed, condescending, arrogant, elitist, power hungry motives of the well paid cliques running billy's messaging merry go rounds, you will rarely be wrong.
if you were good enough to be 1 of them, then you wouldn't be you, you'd be 1 of them.
How Great Thou Art
Which branch should be eliminated/or have more power...Executive/Legislative/Judicial?
We are currently in a situation without these checks or balances...and the question is how best to make it worse?
Baffled parent
This is as close to a completely meaningless evaluation instrument as is possible. It measures essentially nothing.
How writing a list of 20 goals passes for an evaluation instrument could likely be explained only by the Superintendent and the Board ..... going where no one has gone before ... voyaging through empty space.