Thursday 12/14/06

Life is keeping me pretty busy. I'll make some quick comments on the following.

MNPS Chief Instructional Officer Sandra Johnson is, frankly, not well liked by many of our public education consumers. News in this morning's City Paper that she's up for a job anywhere else will be welcome.

Currently, Johnson oversees nearly all departments for the school district, answering only to Garcia.

And that's part of the problem for many parents. She wasn't accountable to the board and an obvious favorite of Garcia. If Glendale, Arizona wants her--God bless 'em.

“I think she’s done an admirable job and I certainly think it would be a loss to the district,” Thompson said. “And it may well be she has trained others enough to carry on.”

"Admirable?"--so there's one man's opinion. George is up for reelection in 2008. Let's see what tune he sings then.

LEAD Academy gets approval from the BOE. I'm very glad to see us get another charter school. This is an important option for some very needy students. MNPS isn't meeting their needs with what they have available--there is no good reason to keep there where they're not learning.

“A large part of the Pearl-Cohn district is in the district I serve,” [BOE member George] Thompson said. “My concern is how will we deal with maintaining Pearl-Cohn in the public school system if we’re going to help to populate a competing charter for that same population.”

Ask Sandra Johnson, George, she's been doing an 'admirable' job.

Actually, Mr. Thompson, the needs of the students should take precedence over saving any system. These students are not getting the education their parents were promised. We've got to try a different system. Regardless the board will protect the system despite the cost to students:

The board agreed to add language into LEAD’s contract to clarify the issue and guarantee the school would not drain the Pearl-Cohn cluster.

Pearl-Cohn cluster parents should contact the BOE members now and let them know how they feel about being excluded from a charter school that may very well be the answer to their child's education needs.

Traditional v. Balanced: Thank goodness the BOE members (well 7 at least) understood that a change was merely window dressing. That change for changes sake (a hallmark of public education) isn't beneficial for the children. Lacking any reliable evidence that the change will benefit the children and families the system serves it was given a thumbs down by the BOE.

“I hope tonight… that we don’t adopt policy simply to make a change and that we finally and permanently dump the balanced calendar matter into the dustbin of school board history,” Fox said. City Paper

Thank you, Mr. Fox. And for some illuminating information you may want to cruise over to the comments section of the Tennessean's article where "Magoo" posted the scores of local systems by calendar and it clearly shows that traditional scores higher. In our impatience and love for flash, glamour and NEW! we too easily abandon the boring and traditional forgetting that one of the reasons most traditions hang around is because they work. Sorry guys but it may be boring--but I'll take boring and effective over flashy and iffy every day when it comes to the essential education of our children.

Now maybe we can move that calendar all the way back to traditional and start after Labor Day and save some AC costs.

Cell phones for students--just not board members. This article in the City Paper Monday made me snort-laugh. After all the fuss the BOE went through over their cell phone use, the return of the phones, the vote over what equipment we could and couldn't have provided we now have MNPS handing out free phones to students.

The students have been allotted 500 minutes a month and all incoming calls are free of charge. Students are also encouraged to give out their cell phone numbers to fellow students to get feedback regarding district issues.

And what do we know about teens and allotted minutes? Let's see if teens are better than BOE members at limiting their minutes.

Irony aside, if this 'narc-phone network' works I'll be happy to pay the bill.

The Robert Bowers dismissal hearing continues according to yesterday's City Paper. It's these sorts of hearing that are exceptionally draining on BOE members. And it's these hearings that prove to me that the MNEA (Metro Nashville Education Association) is a union and not a professional organization. Yes, everyone deserves their day in court, but if MNEA were a true professional organization they'd be equally appalled that the unprofessionalism of some of their members and do some housekeeping of their own. Instead, if my summer dismissal experience and this current one are reliable indicators, they make excuses for the employee and point accusatory fingers at others in a desperate attempts to keep the employee employed--at the expense of children.

Bowers’ attorney Vince Wyatt implied during questioning of Mansfield that most of the errors were the fault of previous guidance counselors, not Bowers.

Then why wasn't Bower's complaining from the get go about the mess he'd inherited and why wasn't he begging for additional help?

It's time to work on the budget and so it's time to lead and stand. It doesn't look like Steve Glover understands that.

“I’m nervous about stepping out saying we’re going to cut this position or we’re going to cut these positions,” Glover said. “We’re really just so early in the game.” City Paper

Someone's got to start the process. I dearly hope there is a leader on that Board that will. Looks like Mr. Fox has taken over former BOE member Kathy Nevill's number crunching job for the BOE. Bless him and his calculator.

That's it for now, life calls.

Balancing the numbers

Bruce Barry at the Nashville Scene has being doing some number crunching. He's wondering why they don't add up.

The problem is that the cluster data do not match the overall data. The results released Friday by MNPS show the balanced calendar prevailing in nine of eleven clusters, in all but one case by a margin of at least five percentage points. This might give most board members the impression that their constituents favor the change by a non-trivial margin. But: How can there be such cluster-by-cluster support for the balanced calendar when the overall household poll showed an evenly divided survey result?

Here's the link to his Pith in the Wind post hosted by the Nashville Scene. You'll want to read the rest.

(Remember, I consider the Scene to be an adult publication. You never know what ad will appear in the sidebar to be forwarned.)

Balanced Calendar

Here's the .pdf of the MNPS calendar survey broken down various ways: family, staff, teacher, elementary, middle, high, cluster...

While the total response was 48 to 42% the more important response by families was 45 to 44%. Couple that with the staff preference that was nearly as close (45 to 47%) and there is good reason to wait. This just too close to make such a radical change without specific evidence that the change will actually benefit the children and their families. I suggest proponents come back when they have reliable data that shows this change will be an improvement in the lives of children.

The McGavock cluster was far more in favor of a balanced calendar than any other: 54 to 36%.

Faculty preference was solidly behind the balanced calendar. 71 to 25%. (We don't yet know if those were just MNEA members that voted or if every teacher got a vote.)

Balanced wins--again

The results are in. The balanced calendar wins in this attempt at determining the preferences of families using the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools. Remember this attempt to set the 2008-2009 calendar must still be voted on by the MNPS Board of Education. That's scheduled for December 12.

Next to weigh in--the Chamber of Commerce, the TEA and the SEIU, et al.

While the press release points folks to the MNPS website--I don't see any comprehensive information there yet.

MEDIA RELEASE

Contact: Woody McMillin
woody.mcmillin@mnps.org
(615) 259-8405

MNPS releases results of calendar survey

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Dec. 1, 2006) – Metro Schools today released results of its telephone survey of families and staff regarding their calendar preference for the 2008-2009 school year.

MNPS provided three opportunities for families and staff to vote – Nov. 16, Nov. 17 and Nov. 20. In addition to calls to English-speaking families, the survey was recorded and issued in Spanish. After a home was designated as having received the survey call by a household member answering the phone, that number was not called again. Homes where calls were unanswered or answered by machine were redialed on the second and third nights.

Because the district’s call-home system automatically sorts phone numbers to eliminate duplicates, homes with multiple employees and/or students were called just once. MNPS has a total of 58,945 “unique” telephone numbers associated with staff and students of the district. For survey purposes, this also allowed MNPS to peg one vote per family.

During the three-night period of the telephone survey, MNPS made 95,814 total calls to its 58,945 unique phone numbers. A person answered the survey call at 42,215 homes. Of those 42,215 calls, a total of 23,000 households choose to register a calendar preference while 19,215 chose not to respond. It is important to note these 19,215 were logged as "no response" because they listened to the entire message or a large portion of the message before disconnecting from the call.

The overall survey results show:
Balanced 11,216 48.8%
Traditional 9,655 42.0%
No Preference 2,129 9.3%
Note: percentage affected by rounding

Results have also been sorted based on preferences by families, faculty, staff, tier and cluster. Complete charts are posted on the school district’s website, www.mnps.org.

These survey results will be included as information for members of the Board of Education to consider as they decide which school calendar to adopt for the 2008-2009 school year. That discussion is set to go before the Board at its Dec. 12 meeting.

This is the second time the district has polled families regarding their school calendar preference. A paper ballot survey conducted in December 2005 yielded 10,942 family responses, with 43% preferring balanced, 38% preferring traditional and 19% having no calendar preference.

***
Metro Nashville Public Schools provide a range of educational opportunities to nearly 74,000 students in Nashville and Davidson County. The governing body for MNPS is the Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County Board of Public Education, a nine-member group elected by residents of Metropolitan Nashville. For more information, please visit www.mnps.org.

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MNPS BOE Agenda Packet for October 24,2006

I never did receive the agenda packet for the last meeting so I was plesantly surprised when this week's arrived in the mail. I've uploaded a .pdf of the 61 page document to my website.


There was, however, a bright purple page announcing:

This is the last Board Agenda that will be U.S. mailed. The agenda will be posted on the MNPS website at http://www.mnps.org/Page23.aspx when it is delivered to the Board of Education.

Full agenda packets will be available in the Board Administrator's office at 2601 Bransford Avenue, Nashville, Tennessee, 37204 if you prefer to pick one up.

I've written asking if the agenda uploaded to that website is merely just the agenda or if it's going to be the entire agenda packet. I'll let you know what they say. I think they should create an e-list subscription of folks who want to receive that entire agenda packet in .pdf format.

Highlights from this 10/24/06 agenda include:

Both the 9/26/06 and the 10/10/06 minutes are included for approval.

The 10/10/06 minutes include an overview of the Science & Math School at Vanderbilt for MNPS students to begin in the Fall of 2007. This would be a one day a week session according to the minutes.

"Big Picture School, geared toward students who are potential drop-outs, high-risk students, etc." was introduced at the 10/10/06 meeting and this upcoming meeting includes the awarding of a contract "to provide the necessary expertise and services to enable MNPS to open a Big Picture School in 2007." Cost is somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000. I'm not fond of $50K in monetary slop. The new Director of the Office of Reform and Innovations will evaluate this on a monthly basis to determine it's usefulness.

The 1Point Solutions (no surprise their website is down) scandal, political scandal, scandal touches our MNPS staff and so the BOE will consider moving that service to Fringe Benefits Management Company. Maybe someone should check their political contributions record before approving this contract. [UPDATE: maybe there won't be much consideration by the BOE as this item is on the consent agenda. That means unless one of the BOE members pulls it there will be no public discussion Tuesday evening.]

The school calendar is up for discussion and the balanced calendar isn't dead. Interestingly the SEIU and the Steelworkers have indicated their opposition to a balanced calendar but failed to appear at a meeting about it. According to Dr. Garcia's District Calendar EE-14 report:

Representatives from SEIU and the Steelworkers were invited but did not attend the meeting in which agreement was reached on the balanced calendar. In a previous meeting, SEIU and the Steelworkers indicated their opposition to a balanced calendar based on the time without pay being spread throughout the year rather than all in the summer. Their concern is about the loss of earnings during the summer for less than 12 month employees. the administration, MNEA and the parent [representative] unanimously recommended that the Board adopt the balanced calendar for 2008-2009 due to the many advantages in all aspects of the calendar.

Both a traditional and a balanced calendar are provided for review.

And it is a new day. Former BOE member George Blue's self-evaluation system is being replaced by a debriefing asking: What did we do well? What could we do better? What would you wish we do at our next meeting?

Again a .pdf version of the 61 page agenda packet can be found at KayBrooks.com here.