Thursday 12/05/08

MNPS Budget:

MNPS BOE member Gracie Porter (District 5-East Nashville) “I certainly am not a proponent of having classroom teachers cut from the budget.” (via City Paper)

She's walking a tight rope here, as are several BOE members. Porter is careful here to mention classroom teachers but she's well aware of the fact she got about 75% of her campaign money in 2004 from the unions that will be insisting not one job be cut. It's time to repay that war chest.

The Tennessean is suggesting that "One option on the table includes allowing all employees to take pay cuts so that no layoffs are necessary." Obviously, they didn't run that by Metro Nashville Education Association President Eric Huth. Wonder if the MNPS BOE would consider walking in solidarity with the staff and take a cut themselves? Actually, they could start by brown bagging it instead of eating catered meals at district expense.

And those of you combing through the budget and financial commitments should not overlook the obligations regarding health and retirement that contracts with those unions have committed us to. It's not just GM/Ford/Chrysler that have been hampered by those.

New Director of Schools:

The Board interviews the three candidates this weekend in the Board Conference Room. The first interview starts Saturday from 9 to 11, the second from 11:15 to 1:15 and the third one on Sunday from 4 to 6.

I'll repeat what I said a year ago, let's leave Chris Henson as Superintendent--if he'll agree to it. THIS is not the time to bring in someone new when our situation is so tenuous with the State of Tennessee and the whole applecart could be tossed over in just nine months. I see no sense in taking a chance on an understandably limited pool of applicants in a rush to get someone in the job.

If qualified candidates were scared off by the pitiful open records laws in this state then let me suggest we just go whole hog and bring back elected superintendents. The answer is not to pull this huge decision back into the shadows but to bring it fully into the light.

Nashville Board of Education members also have been advised by [consultant] Attea to avoid commenting on individual candidates. So school board members were hesitant to speak in much detail as to their perceptions of the quality of the applicant pool. (via City Paper)

This annoys me and is typical of the way the MNPS Board operates. It provides convenient cover and short circuits real discussion between the public and their elected representatives at a time when their input should be considered. I think voters and parents need to know what our BOE members think about these applicants and their qualifications.

And we don't need to be taking advice from this fellow:

"I've never heard of these people, and it is my job to know everybody," said James Guthrie, chairman of Vanderbilt's department of educational leadership. "Maybe one will just come in and dazzle us — we need to be dazzled now." (via Tennessean)

I'll repeat myself. We need a hard worker who will put the actual education of the children first. If they're good at helping the community understand what that entails and how their need for flash and dazzle is a distraction to the core mission---so much the better.

Stakeholders and money

Bit and pieces that have collected over the last couple of weeks.

Stakeholders: The City Paper editorialized on 4/7/08 in regard to the number of people running for the MNPS BOE and how several current members got on the Board with 'business' support:

That being said, there is not only a debate that needs to take place about where the schools are headed but also what has the quality of the board’s stewardship been sine the 2006 elections.

It happened again, chatting up another citizen while waiting to give blood they sheepishly admitted they occasionally watch Channel 3 and the BOE meetings. Then they shake their head and make a comment about how unbelievably inept the BOE is and then they tell me what numbers their child has for the lottery to magnet schools. Their zoned school isn't an option.

Frankly, the Board's stewardship has been lousy. They have failed over and over again to hold their only employee responsible for the failures in the district. They gave him pay raises and extended contracts. No one who voted to keep Garcia at the helm of MNPS should be reelected. As the current candidate list stands the only person we can actually hold accountable is MNPS BOE member Ed Kindall (District 7-Downtown-Glencliff) as MNPS BOE member Gracie Porter (District 5-East Nashville) has no opposition and MNPS BOE member George Thompson ( District 1-Bordeaux) and MNPS BOE Chair Marsha Warden (District 9-Bellevue) have wisely decided to move on. Kindall has been on the board for nearly a quarter of a century. He's got a lot of explaining to do.

And so the 'business community' referenced above has decided that more community input is necessary. But they didn't mean community community. They meant special interests community. Again from the City Paper we learn that several entities have written the mayor and BOE expressing their desire to help find the new schools director.

The letter was sent March 27, and was signed by leaders of the Chamber, IMF, Metropolitan Nashville Education Association (MNEA), the local NAACP chapter, Service Employees Union, Steelworkers Union, Stand for Children, and Nashville Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Seems to me several of these entities have already put their money where their interests lie and have, essentially, bought and paid for their representation on the board. See Gracie Porter's contributors in 2006 as an example. <<<----- What we need is some vetting by parents and taxpayers. We need some specific statements from the candidates. We need a person who is an excellent administrator first and then someone who can work with the educators, parents, the council and citizens. Oh, and the Metro Council (those that hold the purse but don't have the authority to direct its spending) also wants a voice in the process. As quoted in the City Paper on 4/8/08

Council member Jim Gotto said, “It is fine and well for all of these individuals and groups to want to give [board members] input, but board members, you make the choice. You’re going to have to live or die with who you choose.”

Ah, but that requires some accountability by the voters. Which is something that has been sorely lacking.

MNPS budget: CM Emily Evans (District 23) has a series of lessons regarding the Metro Budget. Here's the link to her MNPS overview.

The Director of Schools, Chris Henson spoke at great length tonight about getting input from the schools themselves on how to improve and working to eliminate top-down decision making. This notion that the people that spend each day with your child are best equipped to decide what they need to get the job done is irrefutable and represents a cultural change that can only bring us good things. Chris also said that not every school needs the same thing.

Which fits very well with this City Paper article of 04-18-08.*

In accordance with what has been asked of the district by the Tennessee Department of Education (DOE), Metro schools will soon submit “action plans” on a quarterly basis that will monitor student performance and play a role in school funding. The plans complement the annual School Improvement Plan structure, which is already in place but in the process of being overhauled.

At some point we've got to recognize that each school, each district isn't the same. The Central Office is too far removed from the front lines to mandate how every dime of this money is spent. Schools have got closets full of 'central office ideas' that are going to waste because they don't fit that school's population or are yesterday's hot idea. We have got to hire great principals who, like the superintendent should be, more managers (and teacher mentors) than educators and let them manage their portion of the budget as their student needs warrant. I believe that will create better neighborhood schools AND create a cadre of experienced administers that can move up that career ladder and mentor the next generation of principals.

Things are looking up: It's looking like between Interim Director Chris Henson and the State DOE some major improvements are being implemented in MNPS. Throw in the obvious relief as expressed by many folks including today's Rex in the City

Principal hiring procedures are now what they were before Garcia arrived; the district is now completing school improvement plan forms using the same template as other districts in the state — MNPS had its own form during the Garcia administration — and district leaders have been told in plain language to shut down the “culture of fear” pervading many Metro schools.

and things haven't looked so good for MNPS in almost a decade. If Henson keeps this up and we get through this BOE election season in August we should seriously consider offering him the job--if he'll take it.

MNPS website still quite frustrating. Some sub-domains would be handy.... http://www.MNPS.org/Board, /Schools, /Budget. No one remembers numbers. Where's Interim Director Chris Henson's page? Why can't the BOE member page also include info on their district...or at least a link to that separate page that MNPS provides?


*[Man I HATE that the City Paper doesn't include a date on their articles. If no one comments you've no idea when it was published. I finally found the date by searching for the article. Thankfully, they've finally started including dates there.]

Education legislation

The state legislature is making some progress toward making information more accessible to mere citizens. They've still got a ways to go before catching up with some other states but I'm thankful for forward progress. I'd like to see the companion bills listed together. I'd also like to see an e-mail subscription service that would automatically e-mail a citizen when a bill is filed (or action is scheduled or taken) that is on their 'watch' list.

For our purposes here bills filled that touch on education issues can be scanned from this web page. It sure beats the heck out of reading through the summaries of some 1500 bills filed each of the last several years. This format will make it much easier for moms and dads to scan and discover where they may want to impact the system. The more eyes that look at these and discuss the back stories and connections the better off we'll all be. So when you've got a few minutes and a warm cup of your favorite beverage scroll through these. Also be mindful that the summaries may not be completely accurate and you may want to actually review the legislation.

Scanning this page it looks like BEP is going to be a hot topic and this bill from Rep. Mike Turner (D- Nashville) catches my eye:

*HB0052 by *Turner M.

Education - Deletes provisions for value added testing and performance education. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 1.

The Abstract summarizes *HB0052 as introduced.

I consider Value Added information essential to knowing how well public education is doing. Tennessee had a healthy jump on the NCLB requirements because we had value added already up and running. What we need is access to more of the Value Added information, specifically teacher scores, not less. And this from a man who wanted homeschoolers to be tested.

And elected superintendents of schools, a perennial favorite is back again:

*SB0589 by *Burks. (HB0661 by *Hill, *Ford.)

Education - Permits election of director of schools and outlines specifications. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 2, Part 3 and Section 49-2-203.

HB0948 by *Winningham. (*SB0578 by *Burks.)

Local Education Agency - Permits election of director of schools and outlines qualifications. - Amends TCA Section 49-2-203 and Title 49, Chapter 2, Part 3.

This is a curious one:

*SB0198 by *Harper.

Local Education Agency - Authorizes legislative body of Davidson County to appoint a certified teacher as a non-voting member of the Davidson County school board. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 2, Part 2.

It's not like Jayme Merrit, MNEA President, hasn't already put the school board on notice that she wants three minutes to speak at every BOE meeting, or that there haven't been enough 'former' educators on the Board already. If the Metro Council wants to appoint someone to be their eyes and ears at the BOE they are free to do so outside of the state legislation. And what's the purpose of making sure it's a certified teacher?

And I'm wondering why partnering with the local police department is insufficient:

*SB1451 by *Tate.

Education - Requires department of education to study allowing LEAs to create school district police departments. - Amends TCA Title 49.

And here the LEA gets to skim money off the top of a charter school's budget:

*SB1447 by *Tate.

Local Education Agency - Authorizes the LEA to retain, as an administrative fee, 5 percent of the state and local education funds that otherwise would be allocated to a charter school for processing information required by the state department of education with respect to such school, including reporting student enrollment data, teacher certification data, insurance and retirement data, and budgetary information. - Amends TCA Title 49, Chapter 13, Part 1.

and more on charters:

*SB1865 by *Johnson.

Schools, Private and Charter - Removes the prohibitions on converting a cyber-based school to a public charter school and on creating a cyber-based public charter school. - Amends TCA Section 49-13-106.

This has to happen. We're very far behind this education innovation in other states. I know that one homeschooling organization is going to be afraid that this will 'lure' homeschoolers back to public education and is concerned that parents may not understand that their children will be 'public schoolers' and not homeschoolers but we need to focus on the needs of children. It's past time for Tennessee to offer this. They are certainly cheaper to operate than a brick and mortar school and provide some alternatives that can benefit many families and their children. This could be a legitimate alternative for some of our students expelled as a result of zero tolerance for starters.

Elected Superintendents

Add Cumberland County to the list of folks who want to go back to allowing citizens to vote on who gets the superintendent of schools job. From the Crossville Chronicle:

The Cumberland County Commission voted 12 to 5 to urge the General Assembly to amend state law and allow counties the option of electing a director of schools. (snip)

Lynn Tollett, 3rd District commissioner, said the residents of the county had spoken on this issue in the August election.

"Contrary to what Commissioner Cramer has said, you can either elect a director of schools directly or indirectly, as we did in August by changing the school board," Tollett said. "What we're voting on tonight, this is nothing except asking our legislative body in Nashville to give Cumberland County the voice that Cumberland County folks can go to the polls and vote do we want to do this. And then it turns around and the people have their say."

The resolution states a request for a referendum to re-establish the office of an elected director of schools must pass the county legislative body by a two-thirds majority. A referendum could then be placed on the regular August ballot for consideration by the voters.