Ann Arbor Schools Musings

Ann Arbor: Are We Operating in a Data-less World?

2013-05-16T23:15:00.001-04:00

I'm reflecting on the Ann Arbor school district's budget study session, and the recommendations that have come out of it.

And it just makes me wonder--are we operating in a data-less world?

It's a little hard to get a fix on exactly how much needs to be cut, and it does need to be cut. I might make some people unhappy by advocating for more cuts rather than fewer, but given the uncertainties in the budget that would make sense to me.

How do you go from needing to cut 20 million to 8.6 million. . . and then back up again. . .

In any case, I accept that there will be teacher cuts. [Speak to the legislators and tell them to restore funding to the School Aid Fund.] I don't have any trouble with cutting a staff person from the Pioneer theater program. [Have you seen how much money Pioneer Theatre Guild makes?] I accept that pay to play sports will cost more for my son next year.

But it seems to me that we are making decisions without data that the district should be able to provide.

For instance, I asked a couple of weeks ago, when the proposal to cut all of the Reading Intervention teachers came up, "But is the Reading Intervention program working?" [Not surprisingly, the Reading Intervention teachers say yes, and here is their web site.]

I argued, if the program is working, we shouldn't cut it, because early interventions for reading are important; and if it isn't working, we should have cut it earlier.

And then. . . the school board decides to cut it. . . in half. To my mind, this is the least satisfying thing they could do. Is the program working, or not? I am sure that there is data that shows that it is or isn't working. But maybe the data doesn't exist. If it doesn't exist, then that's a different problem. Cutting the program in half appears to show that you have no idea if the program is working or not.

The school board is deciding to cut high school busing. I think this is a terrible idea, at least in the mornings. (I saw an interesting suggestion to keep busing in the morning, and cut it in the afternoon--I liked that idea but I'm not sure if it is legal.)

But what I really want to know is this: how many low-income kids live in areas that are too far from their high schools to get there without high school busing? Many of the complexes with large numbers of low-income students are not on bus routes.

If we assume that most middle class kids would, in fact, be able to find a way to school (and I'm not sure that's true, but let's make that assumption), how many low-income kids would have trouble getting to school? I'm thinking, for instance, of kids who lives outside the bus lines at Scio Farms, Orchard Grove Village, or Lakestone (formerly Eagle Pointe) Apartments. How would they get to Pioneer or Skyline? What about kids who live in apartment complexes that are on bus routes--say, for example, Glencoe Hills? Would we pay for them to have bus passes?

Do we have this data? I would think we should use it to inform our decisions. Do the supposed cost savings account for paying for kids (at least low-income kids) to have bus passes? Does it account for some number of low-income kids dropping out? Do we even know how many kids we would put at risk of dropping out?

Where is the data?

Standing at the Creation of Public Schools in the United States

2013-05-15T23:59:00.000-04:00

This week it's the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks. In the Jewish tradition, we are all supposed to see ourselves as if we were in the Sinai desert, when the Torah (Five Books of Moses) was given to the Jewish people. That is because the Torah is foundational to Jewish understanding of Jews as a people. When Jews "see" themselves as if they were "present" at Sinai, it's as if a connecting strand stretches back thousands of years. It's not literally true, but it's a powerful image.

I know, you're thinking--but what does that have to do with education in Michigan?

In a recent conversation with Steve Norton of Michigan Parents for Schools, he said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that "some of the anti-public school people try to make it seem as if public schools were an idea hatched by hippies in the 1960s. Some of them believe that public schools are a recent innovation. And nothing could be further from the truth." No, he argues (still paraphrasing here), "public schools are foundational to our understanding of ourselves as a nation. Public schools helped create our nation, and our national identity."

I think that in order to argue for public schools, it's important to understand that public schools have a long, deep history in our country.

So here is a short quiz, and then some pictures of some historic public schools in Washtenaw County, and then the quiz answers. (No peeking until you've tried!)

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Sharon District #1 School from 1890 is located just outside Manchester on Pleasant Lake Road. Photo: Ruth Kraut

I couldn't find out too much about this school, but if you know some of its history you could put it in the comments. The Manchester Area Historical Society records for schools are at the Bentley Library, and District No. 1 was in existence from 1839-1952, according to the catalog. Take a look at the catalog here.

Blaess School in Saline is now located on the campus of the old Saline High School. Photo: Ruth Kraut

About Blaess School:

In 1836, a year before Michigan became a state, Lodi Township (north of Saline, MI) was platted. The present Weber-Blaess one-room school was built in 1867 in Section 17, on Ellsworth Road in Lodi Township. A simple wood structure was built on the same stone foundation as its predecessor, a log school that had burned a year earlier.

Read more here.

Quiz Answers:

1. The first public school in the country was Boston Latin, founded in 1635.

2. In 1827, Massachusetts passed a law making schools free to all children. (And yes, Michigan wasn't even a state then! Just testing you...). And even earlier, pre-Revolution, Massachusetts had the Old Deluder Satan Law which required schools to be established in towns with more than fifty families. By the way, Massachusetts is still a leader in public education in our country, funding public schools at something like twice the amount of funding that Michigan schools get.

3. In the 19th century, most states passed laws forbidding using public funds for parochial schools. (This largely started out because the mostly Protestant U.S. saw a lot of new immigrants who were Catholic moving in. Still--the issue of keeping public funding for public schools has a long, long history.) There is lots of interesting history around the education of African-Americans, Asians (particularly the education of the children of Chinese immigrants in California), and Native Americans (who were forbidden to be taught in their native languages).

4. The 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case was overturned by the Brown v. the Board of Ed. decision. However, you should read up on these other cases! Engel v. Vitale is about prayer in public schools; Tinker v. Des Moines features Ann Arbor's own Paul Tinkerhess and is a free speech case; and Hendrick Hudson Board of Ed. v. Rowley is an early special education case.

So, in sum--if we think of ourselves as being present at the founding of our nation, then we were surely present at the founding of our public schools. They are foundational to our national heritage. Stand beside them. And guide them. Protect them. And defend them.

Guest Post: The Meaning of an $800 Million Diversion from the School Aid Fund

2013-05-13T00:10:00.000-04:00

My friend Sascha Matish (who is also a co-chair of the Ann Arbor Open Coordinating Council) wrote me an email that was so clear that I asked her if we could turn it into a blog post. Lucky for the rest of you, she agreed. Here it is:

This week the Republicans controlling the Michigan state legislature announced their plans to divert $800 million of school aid funds to pay for fixing our roads and highways. This is after the state has already cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the school aid fund.

I keep thinking (yet not saying out loud) that this has to be as bad as it is going to get.

I am going to stop thinking that now.

Instead, I am now thinking that our biggest fear is actually true: Governor Rick Snyder and his fellow Republicans in the state legislature want to destroy public education as we know it so that Snyder’s friends in the private sector running online education and charter school companies can make a profit off our children’s education.

I may be a little off, but here is how it seems to have played out:

1. Cut K-12 funding.
2. Vilify teachers and enact drastic changes to how their unions can represent them and receive dues/fees from their members, in an attempt to weaken teachers’ unions.
3. Radically change the Emergency Financial Manager law so the state can take over any city, county, school district, etc., at any time with little to no input from the citizens of that city, county, district, etc.
4. Cut K-12 funding again.
5. Allow for an increase in the number of charter schools.
6. Pass “right to work” legislation in an attempt to completely disable the unions that will fight against steps 1 through 5.

7. Cut K-12 funding some more.

8. Don't do anything to address the increasing financial burden to school districts caused by the pension system for public school employees.
9. Create a work group (after the secret group was outed) to study the feasibility of "increased efficiencies" for K-12 education, including online education from for-profit companies not located in Michigan, and $5,000/pupil "value schools." Remind the public that “increased efficiencies” are needed, because of 1, 4 and 7.
10. Divert HUGE sums of money from K-12 education so we can fix roads that arebadly in need of repair, because that is where the money for road improvements should come from (sarcasm added).

Here is what I suspect the next step will be: Tell the public we have no choice but to follow through on the recommendations of the work group in step 9, on a large scale, in order to address our financial woes and our "failing schools," many of which are failing because the state decided to stop funding them.

I am beginning to think that Snyder planned this all along. There does not appear to be a way to stop him right now. Until Democrats get control of the state House or Senate, I don't know how we can. And, for a true believer in the public school system, that is what is so scary.

--Sascha Matish

Readers: Do you agree with Sascha that "I am beginning to think that Snyder planned this all along. There does not appear to be a way to stop him right now." Do you think there is a way to stop these shenanigans?

You Thought State Funding Couldn't Get Worse? It Can

2013-05-08T22:50:00.000-04:00

Eclectablog has an excellent post about the precarious state of the School Aid Fund:

Aptly titled "Michigan Republicans celebrate National Teacher Appreciation Week by voting to strip more school funding," it succinctly states:

As I reported yesterday, the Michigan House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure voted to eliminate the sales tax on aviation fuel. This bill is in addition toHouse Bill 4539 which if passed, will eliminate the sales tax on gasoline sales in our state. My piece said that this would take $770.1 million out of the School Aid Fund (SAF). However, that amount is only for the repeal of the gasoline tax. According to a statement by State Rep. Brandon Dillon, yesterday’s repeal of the aviation fuel tax will remove another $55 million . That means if both bills are passed, $825.1 million more will be taken from our kids’ schools.

Yes, you read that right. That, by the way, is in addition to the $1.8 billion dollars the School Aid Fund has lost since Rick Snyder took office.

Read the rest of his post here.

In the meantime, does anyone out there personally know Rick Snyder? Would you PLEASE PLEASE intervene and ask him to veto anything that takes more money from the School Aid Fund without replacing it with other funding?

Eclectablog concludes:

So, make yourself heard on this. Call your State Representatives and Senators and tell them to vote no on House Bills 4539 and 4572 and to fund road repair in an honest way. Here are some ways you can reach out to lawmakers:

Click HERE to go to a page with contact information for your legislators. MAKE THE CALL!

Click HERE to send a message to your legislator via the Michigan Parents for Schools website

Click HERE to send a message via the Tri-County Alliance for Public Education

Who is the Broad Foundation and Why Do We in Ann Arbor Care?

2013-05-06T00:37:00.000-04:00

The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation (rhymes with road) is a foundation that makes grants and is devoted to education, contemporary art, medical research and civic projects in Los Angeles.

By Dj1997 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

If the name sounds familiar, it might be because the new Michigan State University Art Museum is named after the Broads, who were major donors. Eli Broad is an MSU alum and the Broads made a $28 million dollar gift to the museum (which I am hoping to visit this year). The museum was designed by architect Zaha Hadid, and it looks spectacular. That's the nicest thing that I will say about the Broad Foundation in this post.

Until recently, I had no idea who or what the Broad Foundation was. I had seen on Pat Green's resume that she had been through Broad superintendent training. It's not something she hides; in fact she is quite proud of the fact that she was part of the first class of Broad Fellows and features that on her web site--but I didn't think at the time that the training meant anything in particular.

Now I know better.

The Broad Foundation is part of a group of foundations (include the Walton Foundation and the Gates Foundation) that are part of the so-called "education reform" movement--a thinly veiled movement to destroy public education. The Broad Foundation describes its mission as "“transforming urban K-12 public education through better governance, management, labor relations and competition,” and that sounds good, but in practice it is not.

In education, the Broad Foundation is most notably known for the Broad Superintendents Academy--an alternative certification route to becoming a school superintendent. You don't need to start with a background in education to enter it.

To understand their reach, you have to read these statistics, courtesy of the Broad Center:

Forty-one academy graduates serve as school district superintendents, four as state superintendents, four as chief executive officers of charter management organizations and 12 as school district cabinet executives.

Ten urban school districts have hired more than one superintendent that has graduated from The Broad Superintendents Academy.

Ten percent of states have selected Broad Academy graduates to lead their state departments of education.

Across more than 50 urban school systems, 107 superintendent-level positions and 104 cabinet level positions have been filled by graduates of The Broad Academy since the program began in 2002.

More than 300 current and former Broad Residents are working in more than 50 urban school districts, charter management organizations and departments of education nationwide.

In our own state, John Covington, the head of the Education Achievement Authority--that unproven program which the state legislature is trying to ram through an expansion--is a Broad Center graduate. So too are the about-to-retire emergency financial manager of the Detroit Public Schools. ~~Oh, and so is Michelle Rhee.~~ And so is Shael Polakow-Suransky, who was raised in Ann Arbor and has been a lightning rod for criticism in the New York City schools.

[From the Perimeter Primate in the comments: "One correction. Michelle Rhee was never a Broad Superintendents Academy "fellow." But she did have regular contact with the Broad Foundation and even visited Eli Broad at his Fifth Ave. apartment in NYC in 2008. He clearly adores her.
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/36893/fund-and-games."]

So I wasn't too surprised to find that the Broad Foundation has recently bailed out Michigan's Education Achievement Authority to the tune of $10 million dollars. So we should not be surprised that they wrote an op-ed piece on April 28th in the Detroit Free Press about how great the EAA is. The truth is--and this is a pattern with the Broad Foundation--that they say they want data, but they only want convenient data. We actually won't have good data to evaluate the EAA until many years have passed. [I digress, but the initial data implies that the program can't run without additional money; that teacher turnover is extremely high; and that so is student turnover.]

In an article from Parents Across America, "How to tell if your school is infected by the Broad virus," they suggest several signs--many of which have come true in Ann Arbor in the short time that Pat Green has been here.

However, Pat Green is leaving, and I just want to note a few of these (although I recommend you read the whole article!):

Repeated use of the terms “excellence” and “best practices” and “data-driven decisions.” (Coupled with a noted absence of any of the above.)

Power is centralized.

Decision-making is top down.

Excessive amounts of testing introduced and imposed on your kids.

The superintendent receives the highest salary ever paid to a superintendent in your town’s history (plus benefits and car allowance) – possibly more than your mayor or governor — and the community is told “that is the national, competitive rate for a city of this size.”

Now, the good news is that Pat Green is leaving, and we in Ann Arbor have an opportunity to find a different kind of leader. And actually, you might think--well then we don't need to know about the Broad Foundation anymore.

Unfortunately, no. We do need to know about the Broad Foundation. There are a lot of links in this piece from the Charlotte Observer (h/t to CC for finding this), but this comment by the Perimeter Primate is particularly concerning:

PS: Ray & Associates is the superintendent search firm which recruited Gorman to CMS [Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools] in 2006.Carl Davis of Ray & Associates is also listed as one of the speakers for the Broad Superintendents Academy...
Two other firms, Jim Huge & Associates and Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, appear on the Broad Foundation's list of BSA training session guest speakers. I presume they are paid to appear.What needs to be investigated is if these particular superintendent search firms give preferential treatment to the Broad-trained candidates, in terms of presenting them to school boards.For instance, in the case of the Springfield (MA) search in 2008 conducted by Jim Huge, three of the four finalists were Broad fellows. http://www.springfieldcityhall.com/COS/superintendent-search-narrowed.0.html. . .

And then: This is an excerpt from an article about Durham’s superintendent search (started late 2009): “The board has search proposals from the North Carolina School Boards Association; Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates (Glenview, Ill.), Ray and Associates (Cedar Rapids, Iowa) and Jim Huge and Associates (San Francisco). ALL BUT THE FIRST WERE RECOMMENDED BY THE BROAD FOUNDATION OF LOS ANGELES. . .

How many school boards and members of the public realize that superintendent search firms may have their own agendas? (Emphasis added.)

In fact, as far back as 2006, the Broad Center was featuring Gary Ray, "whose Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based search firm, Ray and Associates Inc., has placed several Broad graduates as superintendents."

So here is the situation. We hired a Broad Center superintendent, using a firm that has worked extensively with the Broad Center, two years ago. The same firm is essentially offering their services for free this time. That is the same firm that I believe helped the school board arrive at the high salary they offered Pat Green. That is the same firm that posted the last position on the Broad Center job posting list.

Looking back at the mistakes we've made, and keeping us from making the same mistakes a second time, is critical. The board has just taken two excellent steps. First, they are offering the position at what I consider to be a more reasonable salary range (and just as importantly, it's a range, not a single number). Second, they discussed and decided not to post the position on the Broad Center job posting list.

Now, there are two more things that didn't happen last time, that should happen this time.

For one thing, during the last superintendent search, inclement weather forced the cancellation of site visits to the applicants' home districts, and they were not rescheduled. I believe that for any non-internal candidates, district site visits are essential. I think they would have told us a lot about the candidates. [For instance, what if someone had come to Ann Arbor this year and found out about the glass wall Pat Green had put up; about the requirement that everything be FOIA'd; about the rumors that she didn't work on Fridays?]

Second, now that we know about the Broad Academy, I'd rather we didn't hire anybody with those credentials. At a minimum, anyone with those credentials needs to be extensively questioned about their experience and agenda. It's not just that I don't agree with the Broad Center's agenda; it's that I don't think that most Ann Arborites do either. Further, and even worse, I don't think that the Broad Foundation is honest about their agenda. I believe that their agenda is to privatize, and profit-ize, public schools.

And since we're using a search firm that has been associated with the Broad Center in the past, it behooves us to be rather careful.

More on the Ypsilanti/Willow Run (YCS) Teacher Situation

2013-05-03T16:52:00.000-04:00

Update 5/4/2013 9 p.m.:

From the Ypsilanti Community Schools facebook page, from an anonymous Willow Run teacher:

I am a Willow Run teacher who was not hired back, although I met the criteria. I am a little shocked because I have always had very high evaluations and good feedback from other teachers, students and families. I was upset that none of my references were contacted after spending so much time getting them together. This preparation took hours and I am highly insulted. I am also upset because Emma Jackson was quoted saying that counselors would be available in each building. No one was at my building, and when I asked my principal he said he could call one if I needed it. (Emphasis added.)

Update 5/3/2013 6 p.m.:
@_KrystalElliott: Ypsi Community Schools offers positions to 171 of 258 teachers, 32 receive "call back" notices. 55 not offered positions

And one of those not offered a position was the Ypsilanti teachers' union head, Krista Boyer--from all accounts that I have heard an excellent teacher. Did that have anything to do with her being the head of the union?

In this post (which I will probably be adding to) I am just taking information from different things I've been reading over the past few days, many of which are rather troubling.

1. From the Ypsilanti Community Schools facebook page:

We have been forwarded yet another email from Bob Galardi, this one dated May 2, 2013:
"During this week I have received several inquiries about reference checks. A decision was made early in the process that we would not use references for selection. We thought we would check references for candidates that we were going to select. This is typically when references are needed. After further review we determined that reference checks on current employees would not be a productive use of our limited time. Because of the nature of this process we are not selecting unknowns - we know the employees we are selecting. It is almost as if we are transferring employees from one department to another and in that case we would not contact a reference."

This is, of course, a complete contradiction of his emails sent on March 21 & 22 and April 19. Moreover, this shows that the district is not the least bit interested in receiving input from the community when making these hiring decisions and that the district has no respect for the time and effort community members put into these recommendations. Listening to the community is, in Mr. Galardi's words, "not a productive use of our limited time." [Emphasis added.]

2. From the Ypsilanti Community Schools facebook page:

Excerpt from April 19 email from Bob Galardi:

"We will begin contacting references of top candidates next week." [Emphasis added.]

3.. From the Ypsilanti Community Schools facebook page:

This is an excerpt from a "Crisis Management" document emailed on May 1, 2013 from the district's administration to staff, explaining that references were to be included in the 20-point score on which hiring decisions were based:
"HOW DECISIONS WERE MADE
1. No current administrator or Board member of YPS, WR, or WISD, served on the interview committees. External consultants (comprised of retired educators and administrators) followed a process that was aligned to the teacher commitments that were adopted by the board. The process resulted in a score in four areas (application review, references, interview, and classroom visit) with a maximum of 20 possible points. . . . "

Mr. Galardi's explanation sent late last night appears to be false. While he justifies failing to contact references by stating that "A decision was made early in the process that we would not use references for selection," the above excerpt contradicts this, as does his own email from April 19. The above excerpt confirms that just two days ago, the district sent an email specifically stating that references were to be used in the hiring process. We now know they were not.
Mr. Galardi's explanation sent late last night appears to be false. While he justifies failing to contact references by stating that "A decision was made early in the process that we would not use references for selection," the above excerpt contradicts this, as does his own email from April 19. The above excerpt confirms that just two days ago, the district sent an email specifically stating that references were to be used in the hiring process. We now know they were not. (Emphasis added.)

4. From the comments section on this article on annarbor.com (I know! the Comments section!):

What Danielle failed to quote is that the teachers received an agenda at their "crisis" staff meeting this week with a sentence that read, "Most likely, everyone will be handling a message that will be shattering", and that Ms. Lisiscki's email stated, "Please be aware that if you withdraw your application for employment, you will be deemed to have waived any right to challenge the hiring process or hiring decisions." This is the REAL hidden agenda. The administration knows that the hiring process was shady at best and that many will have a lawsuit to file against the unfair hiring process that followed very few Human Resource guidelines and regualtions. This is also why another message was sent yesterday stating the number of teachers who will receive "maybe" letters has increased drastically! They will send out many "maybe" letters today so that they will not be challenged and FOIA'd to death by the "no" letters they had originally planned to deliver. This will also give Menzel the opportunity to tell the press that they handed out very few "no" letters, trying to make them look like good. Ypsi Schools recenlty attended a job fair, looking for teachers. My question, if the people who receive "maybe" letters today, end up not getting called back (which is most likely their scheme) and then the new district hires external teachers, what can "maybe" teachers do about it? Lawyers get ready! It is absolutely a shame how the 3 superintendents and the hiring team at WISD have manipulated, scared, and demoralized these fine teachers who have given their blood, sweat and tears to work in an urban district that has become increasingly high stress and low achieving over the years. (Emphasis added.)

5. From the comments on the same annarbor.com article:

Maybe A2.com and Reporter Arndt will keep a close eye on if Ypsilanti Community Schools hires "Teach for America" employees to "replace" the experienced teachers of both of these soon-to-be former school districts. There's a suspicion that this is what Menzel and Crew (including that so-called un-elected Board of Education) is trying to do.
"Teach for America" teach are paid a bottom basement rate, only are required to have a bachelors degree in ANY subject to teach, are not unionized and are used by various "charter schools" corporations to keep wages low and unionization out. Now, Ypsilanti Community Schools are supposed to be a "public school district" but their actions over the past year acts like "corporate top down" structure more than anything else.
Maybe at the press conference this afternoon Reporter Arndt can inquire if Menzel and the rest plan on hiring "Teach for America" employees. (Emphasis added.)

6. From the comments on the same annarbor.com article:

First, Danielle Arndt (article author) writes in the comments:

The current breakdown of teachers in both districts was not readily available. I was told by Scott Menzel this information is being prepared for tonight's press conference. So I hope to be able to answers these questions for readers in this evening's report. I do know, and it was included in an earlier article, that about 330 internal candidates in total from both districts applied for spots. (Emphasis added.)

Then, a commenter says:

If you would ,like information regarding projections go to the consolidated schools website and look at their consolidated budget funding for teacher professional development and it show that 240 teachers will be allowed 15 days of professional development over the summer. The question remains who will these teachers be if they have a large amount of "Maybe" offers dependent upon enrollment. Based on that document it seems they have already made decisions based on enrollment and enrollment trends. Are the teachers who are given maybe letters going to have priority over external applicants? If the district begins to accept external applicants then we can only assume that they are going to fill positions that the "maybe" internal applicants could be filling which then harkens other questions about the purpose of this process and if it was really designed to retain current good teachers. (Emphasis added.)

Teacher Terminations, the Ypsilanti Community Schools, and Staff Appreciation

2013-05-02T23:00:00.001-04:00

Hiring and Firing

Friday is going to be a hard day in Ypsilanti and Willow Run.

Teachers. . . all those teachers who were pink slipped earlier this spring. . . will get their final papers, which will tell them if they've been hired; not hired but could be hired later if student numbers permit; or not hired ever.

And you might think, "Well that's too bad, but it's prudent of the new district to not hire too many teachers back, because who knows how many students will join the new Ypsilanti Community Schools." Sure, I understand that. It is prudent. Although originally I had heard that 80% of the teachers would be re-hired, more recently I have heard that it will be a much smaller number.

Unfortunately, late breaking news that I have gotten says that the new YCS district did not follow its own process in hiring teachers.

From the Ypsilanti Community Schools Supporters facebook page, I learned that:

An email from Bob Galardi on March 22, 2013 to teachers said:

References - We will be reviewing over 250 applicants. Some applicants have submitted numerous references. Our plan is to contact references personally. We can't call everyone you have listed. With that in mind we will contact three (3) per candidate. We will use select three from the references on your application unless you wish to specify three you'd like us to contact.

However, numerous teachers are now saying that not a single professional reference of theirs was contacted.

Teachers are also saying that they were not allowed to submit letters of recommendation during the interview process.

What does all this mean? If these claims are substantiated, I would guess that it means the new Ypsilanti Community Schools will find itself in a morass of litigation, and that is not a good way to get started.

Also--apparently tonight--the night before these notices are going out--there was a special meeting on ideas for how to help the teachers through this. Really? The night before, and YCS is just now convening a meeting on how to help the teachers?

In a great irony, Staff Appreciation Week is next week.

Readers:

Many of you are at schools where the PTO or another group has a plan for staff appreciation. (At Ann Arbor Open, at least one plan involves providing a lot of pies to the staff.) You can participate.

Alternatively:
Take this opportunity to write a note to a teacher telling them what you like about their work (or about them as people).
Take this opportunity to write a note to a custodian, front office staff person, principal, or other staff person.

And in Ypsilanti and Willow Run on Friday and next week especially, remember--a kind word will go a long way.

Of Water Street Seed Bombing, Ypsi MIddle School, & the State of Michigan's Education

2013-04-30T23:08:00.001-04:00

Mark Maynard has organized a "seed bombing" of the Water Street property in Ypsilanti. For tomorrow--May Day!

May Day of course has multiple meanings:
The first day of May
A festive holiday
A day for labor equality
A distress call

What's nice about this Mark Maynard post is that it addresses the first day of May, the festive-ness of the day, and a distress call for the State of Education in our State.

Mark starts this post like this:

I skipped breakfast this morning and headed over with Jeff Clark to make seed bombs with 7th and 8th graders at Ypsi Middle School. It was an incredible experience. The kids were enthusiastic, inquisitive, and just all-around awesome. And, thanks to their hard work, we now have over 500 seed bombs prepared for Wednesday’s big May Day event… I just wish that I could start every day discussing the environment, native plants, and community activism with energetic young people. It was seriously inspiring… And, it looks like some of them will be peddling their bikes over on Wednesday, so that they can join us as we collectively work to reintroduce native species on Water Street, and transform a desolate, weed-filled wasteland along Michigan Avenue into a thriving commons. Here are a few photos.

He continues:

It’s worth noting, I think, that these kids very much wanted to come as a group to Water Street to walk the site, help remove invasive species, and see what we were planning firsthand. Unfortunately, however, due to budget cuts, and the district’s reliance on private buses, they couldn’t make it. (I’m told that they would have had to pay $300 to use a bus for the day.) So, we did the best that we could to make them a part of the process, given the parameters. Last week, we shot video of the site and sent it to their teacher, so that they could get a sense of what we were doing, and, today, Jeff and I went into their classroom to show them how to make seed bombs, while talking with them about everything from the history of May Day to colony collapse.

Given the feel good nature of this post, this probably isn’t the right place for me to launch into a tirade about the systematic defunding of public education in Michigan, but I really do think it’s criminal that these kids, and their incredible teacher, Tonia Porterfield, lack the ability to even make it across town to work on a project that would tie together so much of what they’re learning about in the classroom, from the real life application of math (in laying out the site), to the importance of species diversification.

Read the rest of the post, and see all the photos, here.

Check out the Ypsilanti May Day schedule here.

But Is It Working?

2013-04-28T10:02:00.004-04:00

One of the proposed casualties in the administration's list of budget cuts are the district's 10 FTE of reading intervention specialists. The reading intervention specialist positions (mostly .5 FTE each in the district's elementary schools, I believe) were established several years ago to identify elementary school children who were reading below grade level, and to provide more intensive support to them to help them catch up to their grade level.

In my opinion, this is extremely important work. Probably the most important thing that schools can do is make sure that students read well.

So my question is this: Is the reading intervention program working? Is it pulling kids up to grade level?

I know that we don't have a research study set up, with cases and controls, but if those at-risk students were not catching up before, and they are now, then we can likely attribute the success to the reading intervention specialists.

And if they are succeeding, where we have not before? This is not a cut that I want to consider.

And if they are not succeeding? Then we should have cut that program in any case (and probably we should have cut it earlier), with or without any budget cut discussions.

Is this program working? Shouldn't that be part of the discussion?

What Is, and What Is Happening With, the "Education Achievement Authority?"

2013-04-25T23:07:00.001-04:00

Kudos to Michigan Radio for some excellent work on education in Michigan in general, and an excellent series on the Education Achievement Authority in particular.

First, you might want to listen to

The Education Achievement Authority, Part I: An Introduction to Michigan's "Reform District"
"In this first of a three-part series, Michigan Radio takes a look at the Education Achievement Authority--which could be coming soon to a school near you."

The Education Achievement Authority, Part II: A Tale of two EAA Schools
"Governor Snyder is leading a controversial effort to create a statewide district for those struggling schools. Right now, that district—formally known as the Education Achievement Authority, or EAA--is doing a kind of pilot year in Detroit. How well is that working out? The answer to that question depends very much on who you ask."

The Education Achievement Authority, Part III: True Reform, or a Questionable Experiment?
"In the eyes of Governor Snyder and its champions, the EAA is the best way to assure that schools don’t linger in failure for years on end. In the eyes of critics, it’s already a failed experiment that threatens the very heart of public education in Michigan. In the final installment of a three-part series, Michigan Radio takes a look at both sides and what the future might hold."

Learn more about Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton's Freedom of Information Act request to the EAA:

Jack Lessenberry's Op-Ed on Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton's initiative (Michigan Radio)

Cynthia Canty's interview with Ellen Cogen Lipton (Michigan Radio)

Here is Ellen Cogen Lipton's own write-up about her request on the Bridge Michigan web site.

And guess what? She finally got the FOIA'd documents!
You can find them all here.

And I LOVE this post by Jack Lessenberry:

Jack Lessenberry's Op-Ed: Education for Education's Sake
"What Flanagan said that bothered me so much was this. 'Most of us in education have grown up with an ethic that was something like this: Education for Education’s Sake. That’s just silly.' Well, excuse me, Dr. Flanagan, but no, it’s not silly. There’s nothing wrong with education for education’s sake—if that means teaching people how to think, and how to learn."

In my opinion, that's what we're fighting for!

Michigan's Government Gives Skunks a Bad Name

2013-04-22T00:01:00.000-04:00

I know, you're thinking, "How is it possible for Michigan's government to give skunks a bad name?" After all, everybody knows that skunks give off that awful smell when threatened. And everybody knows that saying "He's a real skunk" is an insult. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, a skunk is a person who is regarded as obnoxious or despicable.

But Chad Livengood* of the Detroit News reported on April 19, 2013 that

A secret work group that includes top aides to Gov. Rick Snyder has been meeting since December to develop a lower-cost model for K-12 public education with a funding mechanism that resembles school vouchers.
The education reform advisory team has dubbed itself a "skunk works" project working outside of the government bureaucracy and education establishment with a goal of creating a "value school" that costs $5,000 per child annually to operate, according to meeting minutes and reports obtained by The Detroit News.

The news article goes on to say that

The group had one educator, Paul Galbenski, an Oakland Schools business teacher and Michigan's 2011 Educator of the Year, but he left the group.
"It really kind of looked like for me that they were discussing a special kind of school being created outside of the Michigan public school system," Galbenski said. "That's when I started questioning my involvement."
Records show the group has strived to remain secretive, even adopting the "skunk works" alias, which dates to defense contractor Lockheed Martin's secret development of fighter planes during World War II.
In January, participants were instructed in a memo to use "alternative" email accounts. Records show Behen [Ed. Note: David Behen, Snyder's Chief Information Officer**], Davenport and two other Department of Technology, Management and Budget employees have since used private email addresses to correspond. (Emphasis added.)

That's right, just because it's "easier," Michigan's Chief Information Officer is using private email addresses to correspond on circumventing our state constitution. [The Michigan Constitution says public monies can't be directed toward private schools.]

Behen said he and the other four state employees are mostly working after-hours on the project with Friday evening and Saturday meetings.

Isn't weekend work standard for cabinet-level employees in government?

"Why are we using private email addresses? Because it's just easier," Behen said. "There's nothing secret or anything about this."
McLellan [Ed. note: secretary of the Mackinac Center's Board of Directors and author of the Oxford Plan] said the other participants are justified in using private emails.*** "Well, they should," he said. "It's not a government project." "Isn't a skunk works by definition unorganized, backroom?" he asked rhetorically.

I don't know much about the reference to the "skunk works" referred to in terms of Lockheed Martin and WWII fighter planes, but I do know something about some of the other definitions of skunk, the definitions of skunk as a verb. To wit, from the Fourth Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (referenced at wordnik.com) :

v. Slang To defeat overwhelmingly, especially by keeping from scoring.

v. To cheat (someone).

v. To fail to pay (an amount due).

In other words, members of this secret group--and by extension, the top levels of Michigan's government--are hoping to skunk us [and let's be clear--by us I mean supporters of public education, education of the people, by the people, and for the people].

They are hoping to skunk us, by defeating us overwhelmingly and keeping us from being proactive.

They are hoping to skunk us, by cheating us out of funds due to public education.

They are hoping to skunk us, by failing to pay public schools their due.

Taken from the Missouri Dept. of Conservation web site.

And in a way, they have already halfway succeeded, cutting out $1.8 billion in school aid funds since Governor Snyder came to office, and making all school districts across the state feel extremely pinched, budget-wise.

So I do feel that this group is giving skunks a really bad name. After all, when does a skunk release that malodorous vapor? When they feel threatened. They do that to keep predators from attacking, not to harm others.

The "skunk works" people? They are more akin to demons than skunks.

*Kudos to Chad Livengood for some excellent investigative reporting.

**David Behen used to be Washtenaw County Deputy Administrator.

***And I'm really hoping somebody will be putting in FOIA requests for all these private emails that members of Governor Snyder's staff are using for public activity.

Checking for Plagiarism

2013-04-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

Last year, a friend of mine who was doing adjunct teaching at Eastern Michigan University posted on Facebook that in a class of 30 students who had just turned in papers, she had realized that five of them (5!!!) had turned in papers that they found on the internet. At least some of them downloaded the same paper! All of them had B or better averages before they turned in their final papers...

In any case, plagiarism is a problem, whether you teach middle school, high school, or college, and the Electric Educator (John Sowash) has a post with some suggested tools for checking for plagiarism.

He writes,

A free, simple, alternative that I have been using for several years is "The Plagiarism Checker" from dustball.com. Paste in a bunch of text from a suspect paper and The Plagiarism Checker will quickly perform a Google search of multiple portions of the submitted text."

Read the rest here.

Budget Forums: Three Down, One to Go

2013-04-18T23:53:00.000-04:00

The school board is holding budget forums, open to all. I went to the Clague budget forum. I got a report on the Slauson forum. There was one this week at the library that I haven't heard about, and the last one is on Saturday 4/20/13, 9-11 a.m., Scarlett Middle School. If you haven't gone yet,
think about going to this one!

Both at Clague and at Slauson, common discussion items included:

1) The importance of keeping class sizes from getting larger;

2) The importance of keeping Community and Roberto Clemente. Especially there was discussion about Roberto Clemente, and I'm quoting from a comment I got on this recent blog post:

I attended the budget forum at Slauson last week, and quite a few people spoke about some issues related to moving the Clemente program into Pioneer. One of them is the use separate entrance idea raising specters of "separate but equal" segregation. Another is the fact that the wing they are proposing to use is already used, so those classes will be displaced, increasing class sizes at Pioneer and/or eliminating some electives. All these people thought Clemente was valuable but that Pioneer was not the best location.
Interestingly (in light of the critique of central admin arising from your superintendant survey), the board members seemed completely taken off guard by these critiques. It seems they had accepted the building evaluation report at face value, but nobody had bothered to talk to Pioneer staff to see if that vision met up with lived reality.
Back to your analysis: the thing that strikes me about the "off the bus routes" component of the vision is that Pioneer seems the worst location to achieve that goal! You can ditch school and walk to all sorts of 'interesting' places from there, and catch numerous buses. Skyline, on the other hand (which was being offered as a better alternative b/c of less overcrowding) is relatively isolated. Isn't the only bus that serves it, the special bus (18A?) that goes out there because students need transportation? Even Huron is more isolated than Pioneer.

3) A few people brought up the importance of maintaining transportation services, particularly for low-income kids. For instance, without bus service, how would kids get from Carrot Way (north side) or Scio Farms (west side) to school?

4) Appreciation for the teachers and other staff that agreed to compensation reductions.

5) Revenues: The board members spent far too much time, in my opinion, discussing the AAPS Educational Foundation. (That's a topic for another blog post.)

But other possibilities discussed included:

6) a county-wide enhancement millage. One failed last time (although it passed in Ann Arbor, it did not pass county-wide.

7) at the Clague discussion someone brought up the possibility of a recreation millage. That could be just proposed in Ann Arbor. Saline has one.

Well, neither of those millages will be passed in time for this year's budget.

As far as cuts go, things I heard (and remember--it's been a couple of weeks) were:
--go back through past years' suggestions
--take a look at cuts other districts have made to see if they would be appropriate for us; why reinvent the wheel?
--cut administration
--engage principals and teachers in their ideas for cuts
--cut testing

There also was some discussion of whether Ann Arbor gives "extra" special education services (beyond the minimum required) and should reduce them to save money. I don't have any kids with IEPs, but parents who do, I suggest that you weigh in on this!

I felt a big piece of the discussion is this: what are you willing to give up to protect class sizes and transportation?

Does anyone want to write in the comments what was discussed at the library meeting?
Do go on Saturday to share your ideas.

Finding a New Superintendent: A Four-Legged Stool

2013-04-16T23:39:00.001-04:00

If you want to know what other people think we should look for in a new Superintendent, take a look at these survey results. I agree with 80-90%% of the comments there.

For myself, I've been visualizing what I want in a Superintendent. And I've been visualizing a four-legged stool.

Yes, I drew this myself. It took forever!

For the next Superintendent, I think we need:

1. Obviously, we are looking someone with educational leadership/curricular knowledge. I personally am looking for someone who is concerned with supporting teachers and principals and who seeks feedback from them. I am looking for someone who is not interested in testing as a goal (for the purposes of evaluating students or teachers), but rather sees standardized testing as something to be limited. I'm not interested in another Broad-trained Superintendent. I never wrote about how Pat Green was trained as a Broad Superintendent (or what that means), although I had plans to do so. In fact at the time she applied I had no idea what that meant, but now I do, and you can read a little bit about Broad Superintendents here and here.

2. Second, we should be looking for someone with good communication skills. We need someone who speaks and writes well; who will spend time in the schools; and who wants to be open, accessible, honest and transparent to parents and taxpayers. [No, they don't have to do whatever people want; but when there is a disagreement they have to be able to articulate and explain.]

3. Third, at this critical time, we need someone with excellent financial skills. AAPS is a large organization, and we need someone who is comfortable managing large budgets and, even more critically, comfortable with leading longer-term financial planning.

4. Last, and definitely not least, I think we need someone who is familiar with Michigan politics. We need someone who understands Michigan's current educational climate and has experienced it. We need someone who is willing to lead as a political advocate for Ann Arbor schools and all public school districts in the state. We need someone to say that our districts are worth funding well. We need someone to say that (for instance) the education bills around the EAA and teacher evaluation, currently in the state legislature, are misguided and poorly-thought out. In this regard, Clarkston Superintendent Rod Rock, Oakland ISD Superintendent Vickie Markavitch, or Bloomfield Hills Superindent Robert Glass (who by the way, came from the Dexter schools) are modeling the kind of behavior I'd like to see from our next Superintendent.

So--anything else?

What about internal candidates? A few names have been suggested to me, of both current Ann Arbor staff and recently retired staff people. I guess if the board wants an interim person, then a recently retired person with a lot of experience might be good--especially if they had retired from Ann Arbor, because right now the "cabinet" is pretty green. Also, if we were to find a good candidate for the permanent position who was very local--internal to the district as a staff person or parent already--I think that would make the transition easier. If Saline's experience is any guide, an internal candidate would likely stay longer and be more successful. And if the candidate is not internal, let's at least look locally!

But minimally, I think the board should at least start with the intention of hiring a Superintendent who has been working in Michigan. I would suggest we only expand that geographic boundary if an initial search didn't turn up good candidates. Remember, it only takes one good candidate. [These folk tales make the same point poetically.]

Finally, let's talk about pay.

I'd like to see the board offer a salary range, rather than a fixed amount. Let's have that range start around $160,000, and top out where Pat Green's salary is, $245,000. I know, $160,000 is less than Todd Roberts was getting three years ago, but all that does is allow the board to be a big shot and not pay at the bottom of the range. And also, let's be careful about what goes in the Superintendent's contract, too.

What other criteria are on your mind?

Part IV: My Commentary on the Superintendent Resignation

2013-04-15T00:01:00.000-04:00

First of all, if you want to read what other people think, take a look at these survey results:

Part I: Did you have personal experiences with Pat Green? Based on those experiences, how did you feel about her? Can you give concrete examples?
Part II: Do you have any thoughts/ideas about why Pat Green is leaving?
Part III: Looking to the future, what qualities do you think are important for the next superintendent?

Obviously, I don't agree with every comment in the survey, but much of what was written resonates with me!

Could I see that this was coming? No. I didn't necessarily think Pat Green would stick around for five years, but I was surprised this happened so quickly. However, the school board was about to begin the Superintendent Evaluation. In fact, I think that we can likely trace her resignation to this, as noted in the Ann Arbor Chronicle on March 27, 2013:

Earlier that evening [March 20th], the trustees met in closed session with Green to go over her interim mid-year evaluation. Because it was an informal evaluation, the board did not release an official statement.

So do I tie Pat Green's resignation to this event? Yes, I do.

[And by the way, thanks once again to the Ann Arbor Chronicle's detailed reporting--thanks especially to Monet Tiedemann and Jennifer Coffman, present and past Chronicle education reporters. If you would like to support their work, you can do that here.]

Certainly board members had heard from plenty of residents about communication issues. I imagine they had heard from plenty of teachers and administrators about her lack of engagement with the schools.

Publicly, at that same March 20th meeting, board member Christine Stead had suggested they use the evaluation rubric from the Michigan Association of School Boards that looks at these practice areas:

The rubric Stead presented was developed by the Michigan Association of School Boards (MASB) and contains suggestions for rating superintendents as ineffective, minimally effective, effective, or highly effective in 11 categories: relationship with the board; community relations; staff relationships; business and finance; educational leadership; personal qualities; evaluation; progress toward the school improvement plan (SIP); student attendance; student/parent/teacher feedback; and student growth and achievement.

At least to me, Pat Green seemed very weak in community relations; staff relationships; educational leadership; evaluation; and student/parent/teacher feedback.

Recent Ann Arbor Chronicle articles gave other hints of trouble (beyond the criticisms about Pat Green's lack of communication with parents, teachers, and principals). At the March 13, 2013 meeting, the Student Intervention and Support Services report was met with a marked lack of enthusiasm. Again, per the Ann Arbor Chronicle:

While trustees were appreciative of the report, their feelings were best summed up by trustee Andy Thomas’s concerns: Trustees were “struck by the complete absence of any metrics” in the report and were disappointed by the absence of clearly defined goals and next steps.

[Oh--and by the way--the lack of data here leads directly into a conversation about how, whether, or when the district can/should reduce certain types of support for students with IEPs. Without data, how can you decide if you're doing the right thing?]

At that same meeting, in a discussion of the Roberto Clemente program (and the administration's recommendation to move the program to Pioneer), board trustees had this to say:

Several of the trustees were appreciative of the work that went into the report. Lightfoot, however, was troubled to have the “same suggestions we had last year.” Thomas said he had hoped the board would receive an evaluation of the effectiveness of the Clemente program. . . The trustees did have some concerns about the future leadership of Clemente. Forty percent of the projected savings, Thomas noted, came from the elimination of the principal position. He was skeptical of Flye’s assertion that the real value of Clemente had more to do with individual teachers and what goes on in the classroom than with the leadership of the school.

And after the February 27th meeting, the Ann Arbor Chronicle reported the following:

1) On start times:

Alesia Flye, deputy superintendent of instruction, reported on the results of the district-wide survey on school start times. . . Trustees seemed unimpressed by the survey and the recommendation. Susan Baskett said she found the survey confusing and suggested the committee reach out to experts when crafting future surveys.

2) About trimester vs. semester high school scheduling:

Stead said she was confused about the work of the committee. She said she thought they were looking into trimester versus semester scheduling because some parents had brought concerns about the kinds of gaps that occur in the core subjects. There was no data on the impact of the magnet programs. If magnet programs were so important and valuable, the board needed to see that data. If this was only about the budget, then the report that had been submitted was fine. But if they were trying to figure out which model was best, and if they had substantive data that showed the trimester model worked better for students, then they should move all of the comprehensive high schools to trimesters.

The trustees took issue with the way the charts broke down the additional costs associated with Skyline. Thomas said he had assumed that the higher cost of Skyline could be attributed to the trimester system, but based on the information presented, nothing showed that it was more expensive to run trimesters than semesters with a seventh hour. The increased cost of Skyline came from its lower enrollment number and its student-to-teacher ratio.

Nelson said using the actual enrollment and the actual FTEs obscures the analysis rather than helps it.

4) More on high school scheduling:

Several of the trustees thanked the committee for the “prodigious amount” of work that went into compiling the information. . .While Lightfoot appreciated the work, she was concerned that “the folks on the front line” haven’t really provided the board with solid recommendations. . . Stead had some sharp words for the committee. She said four members of the committee wrote to the board to ask to have their names removed from the report, saying the report does not represent their opinions. She argued the report did not represent the collective work of all members of the committee.

5) Budget Shortfall

Allen was joined by Hoover in presenting the second quarter financial report... The board was upset to learn that the district was nearly $2.5 million over budget for FY 2013 and needed to adjust the original budget.

So, in summary, what I believe happened is this: the board had high hopes for Pat Green's financial and educational acumen, and they were willing to pay for it. However, she came into the community with many key positions vacant, and she had to get to know a new community. It took Pat Green a while to fill those key positions, and to get oriented to the district, and the first year was filled with many new beginnings. I think it's a good thing that there was no rush to judgment.
After 18 months, the board had heard from many people about Pat Green's lack of communication skills. They also began to get full reports and data from the new administration--and what they saw was much less than they expected. Thus, a harsh mid-term evaluation led to an off-the-record discussion about resignation, and that explains the very short "retirement letter" from Pat Green, as well as the letter from Deb Mexicotte--about which my friend said, "It was a fawning letter, and it looked like it took a long time to write. It looks like the kind of letter you write when you are creating a 'no harm' exit. Deb Mexicotte must have known about the resignation for a while."

And all of this, I must emphasize, is just me reading between the lines. You might draw different conclusions. By the way, I'm not asking anybody to confirm or deny anything. I don't think it would be helpful to the district, or to the people involved. There is a reason that personnel decisions are generally not subject to the Open Meetings Act. Soon, look for a post on what we should be looking for in our next Superintendent. In case you haven't noticed, it's a key position.

By the way, don't be too hard on the school board. Setting aside the fact that they are practically volunteers, I think we should recognize that if Pat Green had, in fact, been the "whole package" the Board thought she was when they hired her, we wouldn't have minded her high salary (at least, not very much).

What Should We Look For in a New Superintendent? Survey Results, Part III

2013-04-14T21:56:00.001-04:00

Forty people took my survey! Here are the results. I've split them into three parts. Part III is the post you are reading: Looking to the future, what qualities do you think are important for the next superintendent?

Part I: Did you have personal experiences with Pat Green? Based on those experiences, how did you feel about her? Can you give concrete examples?

Part II: Do you have any thoughts/ideas about why Pat Green is leaving?

And then there is what you could think of as Part IV: My Commentary.

Part III: Looking to the future, what qualities do you think are important for the next superintendent?

Vision, gets A2.

Someone who will stay a while and will see assessment as an evil that must be minimized, not voluntarily expanded.

Clean up the building principal ranks.

Lower pay. Knows the district. Can hit the ground running. Can listen to what teachers have to say. Is willing to work with the diverse community but also the diversity of programs. Understands how to foster better teaching and more investment from the community.

Someone who is clearly not one step away from retirement. Stop the revolving door. It hurts the district.

An in house candidate?

Superintendents who are nearing the end of their career and who are likely to retire are the sorts of people who might not last a long time in the superintendent's job.

Someone who comes up with solutions, not excuses as to why we can't do something

Internal candidate or local leader. Someone who will lead the district, rather than manage. Collaboration is key.

Transparency, working with the community, interaction with teachers and parents.

Experience with AAPS.

Perseverance, local ties.

We need someone who will use the "bully pulpit" to reach out and engage the community, as well as be active in advocacy to preserve our local public schools. We need someone who can take on the AAPS "culture," separate good from bad, and fix issues of leadership and trust.

Someone more invested in the community.

Hire from within, or at least nearby. Find someone who knows AA, knows the mess of Michigan politics, and isn't trying to impose some model they developed elsewhere without knowing about this community and what our priorities are. And who won't run when the job proves to be difficult.
I would also appreciate it if the hiring process took into account more of the superintendent's philosophy and education background. How about we recruit the Clarkston Superintendent?

Communication, visibility, toughness.

See above. [Ed. Note: I think commenter means his/her earlier comment as to why Pat Green is leaving. The comment related to the large size of the impending budget cuts.] Someone has to get the entire city behind the fact that public schools are under a heavily funded, coordinated siege from big-business, school privatization interests. Everybody needs to man the ramparts or they will take down the public schools and children will be force-fed their ""education"" in office parks, at computer terminals administered by minimum wage attendants. Think McDonalds. All special programs such as art, theater, sports, special ed, film-making, etc., will be served a la carte for extra $$.
If you look at the education-related companies with public stock, they are involved in testing prep (Kaplan- the Wash Post! no wonder they get great press coverage..), charter schools (K12, BASIS, CSMC, Edison, NHA, etc), food service, maintenance contracting, ""education"" software (News Corp!!). If you wonder why the curriculum has gone so far toward standardized testing, look who's making money in test prep; If you wonder why school lunch programs are stuck in the 60's, look who's making money shoveling that crap at our kids; if you wonder why all the big ideas involve computers in the classroom, look who will make money getting rid of teachers; and so on...
Someone needs to step forward and make people understand that this is what is happening and that everyone needs to pitch in or there will be no stopping it.
In the early 70's, think tanks were staring at, what is now, a $500b education budget and started scheming to get their hands on it. 40 years later...

Don't be bullied by the BOE.

Someone who knows Ann Arbor, who has risen from the ranks, perhaps. Someone who is communicative and is a willing part of the community. Someone who REALLY wants to stay for 8 years or more.Don't spend thousands of dollars on a consultant to help with the search, either.

Someone who knows the district's history, is truly involved and engrossed in the community, someone who has teaching experience, someone who is truly an advocate for teachers and students, not just testing.

Strong commitment to educational equity. Long-term commitment to community.

Great communication skills (not just sending out e-mails) - making very public appearances, recording videos of short inspirational talks, being visible in ALL schools, making some clear decisions, and not being afraid to cut administrative and superintendent pay.

"Man" of the people, good with finances.

Commitment to the community, understanding of Michigan education system and funding models (cuz we are weird).

Visible leadership in the community. Visionary leadership.

1. continue line item accounting - it just seems reasonable.
2. good people skills - listening, communicating, directing.
3. willing to talk about the achievement gap so that our whole community understands why it is important to them to reduce/eliminate it. We need to really keep communication open about this - especially when we need to start making some deep cuts.
4. coordinate with the AAEF to fund X and Y so that class sizes stay small and we can keep our ""specials."" for example, in budget talks, say ""we can't raise taxes to pay teachers, but we can give money to AAEF so that they can pay our Media Specialists so our schools have this valuable teacher resource."" We do this for 3-5 grade spanish, why not with other programs?
5. It would be great if the new superintendent could tap into the resources in our community that are willing to get involved, but just historically get shut down. Parents in the schools are a good thing - statistics show that involved parents = higher achieving students. Our communities most valuable assets are not the dollars we make, but the skills and expertise that we can share.

Able to serve as an intermediary and a translator between the public and the AAPS staff. Ability to offer some resistance to the tendency to technocratically manage ("Balasize") the district as a collection of abstract assets and liabilities.

Someone who is familiar with the Ann Arbor School district. Staff at all levels have made sacrifices in the recent past so the students would not feel the cuts (pay cuts, wage freeze, specials and support teachers taking on two or more buildings, etc). With each change of Superintendent and School Board that is getting forgotten.

Pat Green Resigns: Survey Results, Part II

2013-04-14T21:25:00.000-04:00

Forty people took my survey! Here are the results. I've split them into three parts. Part II is the post you are reading: Do you have any thoughts/ideas about why Pat Green is leaving?

Part I: Did you have personal experiences with Pat Green? Based on those experiences, how did you feel about her? Can you give concrete examples?

Part III: Looking to the future, what qualities do you think are important for the next superintendent?

And then there is what you could think of as Part IV: My Commentary.

The question we're addressing in Part II is, as I put it, the rumor/innuendo question:

Do you have any thoughts/ideas about why Pat Green is leaving?

She realized she was not a good fit with "culture " here.

Because she can, and she didn't really ever want to be here.

You have people like the principal at the Dicken that does very little that you need to deal with and justify their high salary.

She is facing resistance and hostility. There are too many overpaid people at Balas who are not listening to ideas and challenges. She has fostered that, and now there is mutiny afoot from within and from the community. There are also a huge number of problems that would take a greater commitment than, perhaps, she is willing to give.

None.

She is a good person who values education, and doesn't want to be the one to do the cuts.

To spend more time with family.

She doesn't even live here?

She did a poor job.

She was overly confident when she was hired. Her management style was inconsistent with AAPS culture and she refused to work with AAEA and AAAA. She left when it was obvious she was not achieving her goals and could not be successful in AAPS.

She has to make hard decisions on budget cuts and is already unpopular--so decided to retire so she didn't get booed out of town.

Didn't want to face the fallout from upcoming budget cuts?

She recognized very early (probably six months in) that she wasn't actually a good fit with the board and the community. It's a community that – outside of AAPS – doesn't call her (or anyone other than physicians) "doctor." She didn't care for the fact that she was expected to make herself available and accessible to the community. Meet with upset parents?? Not something she felt was part of her job. Mexicotte's letter, in its commentary on Green's involvement with the community, was generous to the point of creating fiction. Green stayed just long enough not to make it completely embarrassing for herself and the district. This way it was only somewhat embarrassing.

No idea. There's no doubt that the job would really suck right now. No one wants to preside over the dismantling of a great school district. And with the main problems in Lansing, there's not a whole lot we can do from here. The board may have lost confidence, or they all may have decided that she has become too much of a lightning rod. So she'll be responsible for the massive cuts, and someone new gets to take on the rebuilding. Or there's always family/health issues.

She has lost community support because she appears to be inaccessible to many parents and teachers. She hides behind her minions.

It's a really hard job. I think the board hoped that by paying her a LOT more than her predecessor she would feel obligated to stick around while the state guts public education. If you don't have any connection to the community it is easy to leave.

Not what she signed on for. Tough budgets, lots of scrutiny, lots of vocal parents with conflicting goals, the whole Skyline white elephant in the room.

"If I had to guess, I'd say she probably felt cutting the budget a further $17-20m was not doable without massively unpopular layoffs and cuts to programs and closing schools. She'd already gotten an icy welcome from the townsfolk and so the landscape ahead probably looked akin to scouring the Shire.
That said, I saw no evidence of her being any sort of transformational leader. Not of the sort that will be necessary to keep public schools together under the massive multi-decade right wing privatization machine.

The budget deficit. She referred to the elephant in the room. Realign the attendance areas so that kids could go to their neighborhood schools reducing the need for many bus routes. BOE wasn't willing to listen to her. She was fighting an uphill battle.

Really don't know, but how nice she got to pad her retirement fund by 55k in two years! I want a job like that. Seriously, I don't know why except that she couldn't take the heat. And what's with Mexicotte's fawning letter? Did she write it or did Pat Green?

She seems old and tired, and frankly if I was her, I wouldn't be up to the challenge in a community that I have no ties to. There's really no repercussions for her leaving - she's at the end of her career. There doesn't seem to be any ethical issue for her in regard to not filling out her contract of 5 years or ditching AAPS in this crucial moment.

Ann Arbor turned out to be harder than she thought. Too much micro managing (not a good fit for her monarchy like style) and too much bad news from the state legislature and governor.

Tough to work with the board, didn't like the commute back home to husband, not looking forward to implementing budget cuts.

No. But polished, professional folks don't just up and leave like this, so there is a story to which we are not privy.

I wonder about the relationship with the board of education - were they really so supportive of each other? I also sense she did not have the backing of the central administration and other district employees. It is hard not to be liked.
I am worried about a future selection. I think we need someone that can hold their own against the BOE - they are powerful and coordinated and there should be a check and a balance for them. Elections do this to some extent, but we also need more qualified people willing to run. This of course is a whole 'nother topic!

Nope. I have no doubt she wanted to retire, as she claims. Whether that means she was never truly that invested in the community or the job... that feels plausible, but I have no evidence that it's true.

Teachers showed they were willing to take a pay cut for the students in the district. Once the "what pay cut will you take" ball was in the administrators' court she decided to pack it in.

Pat Green Resigns: Survey Results, Part I

2013-04-14T20:50:00.000-04:00

Forty people took my survey! Here are the results. I've split them into three parts. Part I is the post you are reading.

Part II: Do you have any thoughts/ideas about why Pat Green is leaving?
Part III: Looking to the future, what qualities do you think are important for the next superintendent?

And then there's what you could think of as Part IV: My Commentary.

But first, Part I of the Survey:

As you can see, 2/3 of the people who responded had never seen Pat Green in person or had only seen her from afar. By the way: I didn't take the survey, but if I had, I would have said I had only seen her from afar: at Skyline's graduation; at a budget meeting; and at school board meetings. But I have never spoken directly with her. In other words, don't take not having seen her as a sign of being disengaged with education in the Ann Arbor school district. I think it only highlights her lack of communication with people outside a limited circle. I have met several of her cabinet members multiple times.

You can see that 20% of people who responded had no opinion about Pat Green's work. Nearly all of those (7/8) were people who had never even seen Pat Green in person. On the other hand, 2/3 of the people who responded had a somewhat negative or very negative opinion of Pat Green.

Only two people who had regular contact with Pat Green responded. However, I think it's important to note that those two people had very positive feelings about her.

Can you give any concrete examples of why you feel the way you do?

Very Negative: She didn't really know how to talk about anything other than Pat Green.
Very Positive: She was hired by a bunch of special interest Board Members. Support their cause and you do fine. Green felt that every student was important and no special interest group is more important than the group as a big hole,. She had the integrity to make that point known and that upset the special interest people. Same thing happended to Todd Roberts.

Very Negative: Her tenure there has been problematic as she is one of three people at the top that have no experience with AAPS, and instead of getting to know the district and variety of programs, she has spent a great deal of time running things from the top. Additionally, she was hired in at too large of a pay package, that is the fault of the school board.

Somewhat Positive: She told someone I know that she supported the arts. She seemed engaged at the school board meeting.

No Opinion: The district's information sharing politics were centralized, making it necessary to submit formal FOIA requests when making routine requests for information. I don't see that as a step in the right direction.

Somewhat Negative: "The story about using a ""peace flag"" to reduce discipline infractions. The raises given to administrators. The inability to balance the budget. The exorbitant salary that returned mediocre results."

Somewhat Negative: Did not work with AAEA and AAAA [Ed. Note: teachers' union and administrators' union]. Did not understand A2 culture.

Very Negative: Lack of interaction with parent and community. New testing requirements that are not clear

Somewhat Negative: "Discipline Gap," accessibility, disjointed communication

Somewhat Negative: Asking various departments of the administration to give annual reports to the board was well conceived but poorly executed. These reports were implemented by claiming large chunks of board meeting time for their presentation. Guess what: AAPS board members can read (reportedly). The reports should have been distributed publicly via BoardDocs a week in advance. Board members could be expected to do their homework. Five minutes of overview plus 10 minutes of board questions at the meeting. That way you don't have meetings that last until 3 a.m.
Her letter was poorly executed. She portrayed the decision as just the normal course of events. If you leave 2 years into a 5 year contract, I think you owe some kind of acknowledgment that, things didn't go as intended. At least say: I had intended to stay longer, but ..."" and fill in something fluffy if you like after the ""but ..."" But her resignation letter should have at least owned the fact that this was a premature departure.

Very Positive: I thought she was really committed to addressing some of the problems AAPS faces, especially with regard to serving the most vulnerable children. (Bringing James Comer here was a strong signal.) I also thought that she gave AAPS a much-needed shaking up.

Somewhat Negative: She hides behind jargon. Often to misdirect her real meaning.

Somewhat Negative: She was a lousy listener--the meetings I attended, all she did was talk about herself. Her role at these meetings was to hear from a specific community of parents (she was not invited to give a presentation) but they never got a word in edgewise. I felt steamrolled. When I compared her to how Todd Roberts interacted with the same group of parents, I was not impressed by her. She had her agenda and didn't listen to anyone else. I actually supported some of her agenda (emphasis on Positive Behavior Plans for discipline, for example) but because there were plenty of things that she advocated that I disagree with, I knew that I wouldn't be heard. I found it hard to work with someone who wasn't willing to listen.
I do think she did a decent job advocating with Lansing, but they are such a bunch of nutjobs that even a steamroller doesn't have much effect.

Somewhat Negative: The invisible woman. So, she has stood and waved at Bands in Review, but that's about all I can say about her, other than her willingness to take a pay cut/forego a raise, whatever that was. It could be the decline of local media that contributed to her invisibility -- we all know the Dotcom would rather highlight car crashes that get clicks -- but in contentious times the superintendent needs to be out front.

No Opinion: I think she had a very high bar of expectations as soon as it was learned how large her salary was going to be. Then the fact that she was not an Ann Arbor local added to a sense that the board believed that the local pool of talent and ideas was insufficient. This put a chip on the shoulder of Ann Arbor and she carried that into the job.
She never shook the façade of being aloof- but that impression of her may have been due to the fact that, not being local, she didn't know anybody.

Somewhat Negative: Her starting salary, I blame the BOE mostly for that. Took over 6 months to appoint a principal to Pioneer.

Somewhat Negative: My sense was that she wasn't communicative to staff and to families. I don't recall the issue exactly,but I remember her response to a question regarding an issue re:AAPS was that the questioner should just FOIA for an answer. I also thought she was way over paid, that the board shouldn't have bumped the salary up so high. Then it came out that she was the highest paid Superintendent in the State! Not good. I was surprised to read that she hadn't spent time in each AAPS building. Seems like it should be a priority for most Superintendents. Finally, I know this is petty but she parks in staff-only spots where they hold the AAPS board meetings. Parking is free on the streets, and even if it wasn't AAPS would pay for parking.

Somewhat Negative: I'm a teacher in the Ann Arbor Public Schools District, and I struggle to come up with positive, long-lasting things Pat Green has done for our district. She may have visited our school once, but I only recall seeing her from afar.

Somewhat Negative: I have negative impressions simply based on 1) I haven't seen much in regard to fiscal decisions made, 2) She did not advocate for transparency, and 3) Balas still spent much money on retreats and food deliveries while some teachers are buying their own supplies.

Somewhat Negative: I have not heard of her looking to actual teachers for any input on running the district.

Somewhat Negative: She didn't/doesn't seem to have a very open approach to sharing information.

Somewhat Positive: Based on conversations with Dr. Green, she was positioning Ann Arbor not only to take a leadership role in the county but also to provide income-producing services to other Districts and ultimately to position Ann Arbor for a leadership role if consolidation were inevitable.

Very Negative: 1. Non-transparency of her administration. This includes meetings that continue into the wee hours to make decisions, information available only through the slow process of FOIA,
2. A good leader gets everyone on board so they can be cheerleaders of your vision. She failed to do this. For example, the ""discipline gap"" - giving school administrators the education adn training to discipline effectively within the new guide lines and so that they could educate thier communities about why the district is changing course with discipline would have been helpful.
3. She did not seem to have a relationship with the BOE or any principal or teacher that I know. The position is ""political"" and unfortunately, you must do some hand shaking in this position. She didn't seem to be very good at this.

Somewhat Negative: She seemed to be a very top-down manager--you can construe this as "empowering" her subordinates, or as removing herself from the day to day hurlyburly, but I would prefer to see a more hands-on, more collegial and less hierarchical management style.

Very Negative: Dr. Greene did not put effort into trying to be a part of the Ann Arbor community. She physically had a wall built around her office area at Ballas and never lived in Ann Arbor. She flew home weekly to be with her family. One wonders if she even worked a full week in order to fly back to be with her family.

AAPS Superintendent Pat Green Resigns. What Do You Think Of That?

2013-04-11T21:32:00.000-04:00

This evening the district sent out a letter from Pat Green, stating that she is retiring.

Here is Pat Green's letter.

The district also sent out a (very gracious) letter from AAPS Board Chair Deb Mexicotte about Pat Green's resignation.

Here is Deb Mexicotte's letter.

Ever since I read an article from Propublica about using embedded Google forms to, in their words, "help power your reporting," I've been wanting to try one.

I'm curious about what you think about Pat Green's resignation. Are you sorry to see her go? Happy? Indifferent? Take my short survey! [Update 4/14/2013, 7 p.m.: I have closed the survey.] I'll share the results.

[Update 4/14/2013: 11:55 p.m. Read the results here:

Part I: Did you have personal experiences with Pat Green? Based on those experiences, how did you feel about her? Can you give concrete examples?
Part II: Do you have any thoughts/ideas about why Pat Green is leaving?
Part III: Looking to the future, what qualities do you think are important for the next superintendent?

Determinative Architecture and the Roberto Clemente School

2013-04-07T20:27:00.003-04:00

Is determinative architecture even a term?

I'm trying to use a phrase that says that architecture can determine a building's uses. Take your nearest cathedral. The architect tries to give you a soaring, celestial feeling with those high arches and stained glass windows.

An interior northeast view of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain. By Jnolan14 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Now imagine how classes might flow in a school built in the sixties or seventies with partial walls and everyone facing into a central pod for a media center. (This could describe the new part of Ann Arbor Open or Logan Elementary.)

Logan Elementary, picture from a2schools.org, Ann Arbor Public Schools

Compare that to the high walls and solid building of Eberwhite, Bach, or the oldest part of Ann Arbor Open at Mack. Not only are the halls and classrooms much quieter than in the "open" structure, but the building itself also causes teachers and students to act differently.

The older part of Ann Arbor Open at Mack. By Dwight Burdette (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

When my oldest son was in kindergarten at what was then Bach Open School (at Bach), the kindergarten/first grade teacher had a very large room. There was plenty of room for a very large set of blocks that were a kid favorite.

I took these from daycaremall.com. Those large blocks looked something like these.

Between my son's kindergarten and first grade years, the Open School moved to Mack. The classrooms in the newer part of the building were much smaller. Goodbye blocks :(

The Roberto Clemente Building

The Roberto Clemente program was conceived of in 1973 and became reality in 1974. Its original name was the Alternative School for Disruptive Youth [Flattering! I'm sure that attracted lots of kids!].

Early on the name was changed to honor Roberto Clemente, the Pittsburgh Pirates player who died in a plane crash on his way to a humanitarian mission in Nicaragua after the devastating 1972 earthquake. [Fun factoid about my family--my oldest son early on adopted Roberto Clemente's number as his own for his baseball jersey, and my youngest son has followed that tradition. That's #21, in case you didn't know.]

The Roberto Clemente program was located way out of town for many years. According to this history, it was located at Meadowview Elementary on Textile Road in Pittsfield Township. I remember wondering if the building was even within the school district boundaries.

Roberto Clemente School, built in 1994; taken from the Pittsfield Township Historical Society web site

Plans for the current location were developed in the early 1990s, and the Roberto Clemente school building opened in 1994. When the plans were developed, Joe Dulin, the principal and founder, had in mind one key trait: class size. Knowing that there was a risk that class sizes would rise, he intentionally worked to keep the room sizes small, because he believed--and, I should say, still believes (he has spoken recently at a school board meeting) that small class sizes are the key to the school's success. Make the rooms small, he thought, and you can't really make the classes too large.

They also, intentionally, built the school off of bus routes.

Roberto Clemente is a school where many of the kids have failed in other school settings. Roberto Clemente is a school where many of the kids come from low-income households, thus it is a Title I school. Roberto Clemente is also a school with many kids who qualify for special education services. All of those things add to the per-pupil cost of the school, which today is approximately twice that of the comprehensive high schools. (Title I designation and special education funds though, are revenue streams into the school as well.) But undoubtedly, the key reason that the school's per-pupil costs are so high is that the classes are so small--and the school itself is small.

Class sizes are generally 15 kids or fewer, and. . . here is the kicker. . . if the school wanted to lower their per-pupil costs, they would need to make the class sizes larger. The classrooms, however, are meant to fit class sizes of 15 students or fewer. The architecture determines the use.

You see where this is going, right? It's a bit of a Catch-22. In order to be successful, the classes need to be small, but in order to lower the schools' costs, the class sizes would likely need to be larger. Yet the current building structure will not allow that (at least, not without significant renovations).

If the school were to move, would the class sizes balloon? Would the school (or in this case, the program) still be able to effectively serve those students?

Joe Dulin's plan seemed like a good one in 1994 (pre-Proposal A). With the threat of the program's elimination or with potential plans that the school be moved to Ann Arbor Tech or Pioneer, does it seem like a good plan now?

Parents, Schools, and the Personal is Political Question

2013-04-03T23:59:00.000-04:00

For a while now I have been following Leonie Haimson (yes, following on twitter and getting her email messages). Leonie Haimson is the executive director of a New York City group called Class Size Matters. Sure, New York City is nothing like Washtenaw County, and New York City has a mayoral control system--which really sucks if you are a parent trying to have some input into the school system!

Still, I'm interested in New York because I'm interested in New York, and obviously. . . most obviously. . . class size does matter. So today Leonie Haimson sent out an email that she titled "A Personal Note," and I want to share it.

Dear parents:

I haven’t written much about myself or my family on my blog or in these newsletters; however, I am doing so now because GothamSchools [ed. note: link] is intent on writing about me, my organization Class Size Matters [ed. note: link], and about the fact that my son entered a private high school this year. I told their reporter Geoff Decker about this in the fall, in the midst of a longer, off the record conversation about many things, and ever since, whenever I have contacted him about possible stories, he has brought up this issue instead of more important ones. I myself don’t think it is either particularly interesting or relevant, but since he is intent on writing about the situation, and said he intends to compare me to Michelle Rhee, who also sends one of her children to private school, I decided I should explain why I think our situations are quite different.

I had kids in NYC public schools for a total of 15 years; my daughter attended public schools from K-6^th grade; my son K-8^th grade. My record of advocacy and my continued work in this area should prove my commitment to public school children. The private schools they attended have the sort of small classes that I believe all children have the right to receive. It is a parent’s responsibility to find a school that they believe best fits their children’s needs; and for that reason I have never criticized Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Rhee or anyone for sending their own children to any school, whether private, charter or public.

So I thought this was really interesting because it mirrors some of the issues I've been thinking about in regards to Washtenaw County schools, in particular in Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor.

In Ann Arbor, when the Community High School lists came up, several people I know immediately began discussing on facebook whether they should look at private schools or other schools. Some of them had older kids in the comprehensive high schools, and some of them didn't, but had heard things they didn't like.

In Ypsilanti, I have several friends and acquaintances who are working hard to make the new Ypsilanti Community Schools a success--they are on committees, they are going to meetings. And yet their children are already in private schools, charter schools, or schools of choice in other districts. We saw this also in the school board candidates for the new YCS school board, some of whom had children in charter schools. All of them desperately want the Ypsilanti Community Schools to be a success. But for their own kids? They felt they needed to make a different choice.

One of them said to me, "I feel guilty, but I don't know what YCS will look like next year, and I had to act now."

Ultimately, we as parents are responsible for our children's education. That is our responsibility, and generally, we don't get do-overs when it comes to our kids' educations.

Ultimately, our individual choices--taken collectively--can harm our efforts for public schools.

Should we judge these choices?

I sort of do. I sort of judge them as making the smart parenting choice. Most of these parents don't come to, or take their, decisions lightly.

I sort of judge them as selling out.

Mostly, I sort of respect that a parent's gotta do what a parent's gotta do as a parent--even if in the long-term it hurts the work they are trying to do in the larger community.

Yes, the personal is political, but let's not forget that the personal is, first and foremost, personal.

And here Leonie Haimson gets to the key point:

What I have criticized is when powerful and wealthy individuals send their children to schools that feature very small classes, lots of art, music, etc., and little or no standardized testing, but then advocate for an entirely different kind of education for other children. The evidence is crystal clear that all kids benefit from smaller classes, but especially poor and minority kids, and yet these children are LEAST likely to have access to them. The efforts of the corporate reformers mentioned above who have advocated for increasing class size, especially in large urban districts, while ensuring that their own children are provided with small classes is wrong. I will continue my life’s work to try to improve the opportunity for all kids to be provided with small classes, as well as adequate and fair funding, an end to high stakes testing, and a voice for parents in decision-making, and to call out hypocrisy wherever I see it.

And guess where we see that hypocrisy? Right here in Michigan, where Governor Snyder is doing the exact same thing.

David Arsen, MSU School of Education professor and school finance expert, takes this on in a terrific (and long) "Open Letter to Governor Snyder." (Read the rest of David Arsen's letter here.) In this excerpt, in the section titled Trust Your Judgment, he writes:

My hunch is that you [Gov. Snyder] have a pretty good sense of what makes for a good school. You had the opportunity to send your own child to excellent public schools [Ann Arbor schools], but chose Greenhills School, a wonderful private school in Ann Arbor. It is selective. The school has attractive facilities and grounds, a student-faculty ratio of eight and an average class size of 17. Greenhills strives to provide a wide range of stimulating and challenging classes. Teachers and administrators take pride in the school’s democratic decision-making; it’s not top-down.
Annual tuition for Greenhills is nearly $20,000, and, as you know better than I, that doesn’t cover all operating costs. If the trend line for Michigan public school revenues looks like a frown, then the one for Greenhills looks a bit more like a smile.
I don’t question your choice. But this is what puzzles me. Students at Greenhills do not take standardized tests until they apply to college. The school’s educators sympathize with their public school colleagues whose professional lives now revolve around tests.
Greenhills does not accept credit for online classes, nor offer classes for credit in the summer. It takes a firm position against students taking courses at other institutions, including colleges or universities, unless they have already taken the school’s most advanced course in a subject. Greenhills students don’t graduate early, but rather all together at a spring commencement. The school is designed around remarkable physical spaces devoted to “forums” for students in each grade to meet, deliberate and socialize.
The school has a thoughtful rationale for these decisions: it wants students to interact with one another and faculty to establish a durable and supportive community. I try to imagine how the families and educators at Greenhills would react if they were forced to operate under the rules embodied in the Oxford proposal and HB 5923.

So whatever your personal choices, let's keep working for those same ideals for all children: small class sizes; public programs; parents being able to work with school officials and professionals; no high-stakes testing.

Five Pieces to Read Over Spring Break

2013-03-31T22:19:00.005-04:00

It's spring break, and I thought I would give you a few things to read!

1. Local superintendent (well, sort of local) Rod Rock from Clarkston got featured in Diane Ravitch's blog for an awesome letter he wrote to his staff. It starts out,

I know that I write often to you and I hope that you will tolerate one more rambling (at least until the next one). Also, I may have said this already to you, so I apologize if this is a repeat.
When my daughter, Haley, who is now a freshman at MSU, was in third grade, she stood one evening in our tiny, outdated kitchen, leaning against the wall next to the refrigerator and cried. When we asked her what was the matter, she said that she was certain she wouldn’t do very well on the MEAP test the next day and that she didn’t want to let anyone down.
At that moment, I said to her that no test will ever define her. I said that she is Haley Rock and that she is talented in many ways. No matter how she performs on any test at any point in her life, I stated, she will always be Haley Rock and possess many talents. No test, person, or relationship, I reiterated, will ever define who she is or what she is capable of becoming...

And it gets better from there. Read the whole thing here. And as Diane Ravitch says, "Don't you wish there were more like him?"

2. Seattle Schools Superintendent Jose Banda has said that he will not discipline the teachers who worked to oppose the MAP testing.

Seattle schools supt. Jose Banda has backed off on his promise to discipline teachers who boycotted the MAP test and has additionally agreed to scale back the use of the MPA with students. The teachers at Seattle's Garfield High School had boycotted the administration of the MPA, saying it was a waste of money and "child abuse."
In a message to all school staff, Banda stated that the "community" had had a discussion. By changing around those staff who were required to administer the test and using some other doubletalk, Banda was able to continue supporting the MAP. But buried down in his memo a recounting of an unprecedented amount of teacher resistance and parent boycott. "We did see a higher than usual number of high school students and families who opted out of taking the test," Banda wrote. "Districtwide, a total of 459 parents and 133 students opted-out. Of these opt-outs, 265 parents (58% of total) were from two district high schools (Garfield and Ingraham), and 129 students (97% of total) were from one high school (Garfield)..."

Read the rest at substancenews.net.

What is particularly interesting to me about this is that the parents and students were opting out of the test. Ann Arbor parents have been asking for the right to opt out of the NWEA MAP test, which is in no way state mandated. For a few more days you can still sign the "Stop Overtesting" petition.

3. Title IX blog has a post about transgender students at women's college. There is some very important information buried in there:

I am, however, concerned about the role Title IX has played in public debate generally about single-sex colleges and transgender students. Here in Northampton, our local paper ran a story this week in which the President of Mount Holyoke College, a women's college in neighboring Amherst, said that admitting someone who is not legally female would remove women's colleges from the Title IX exception for single sex colleges: “We’re constrained by the law,” Pasquerella said. “If someone is not legally female, we can’t admit them and keep our federal funding.”This is not correct, for two reason. First, Title IX does not contain an exception for single-sex colleges...

Another reason why it's wrong to suggest that Title IX prevents Smith or Mount Holyoke from considering transgender students from admissions is that the statute does not incorporate a legal definition of sex. Therefore, even if the statute did require Smith to "traditionally and continually" admit women, the law does not prevent Smith from considering transgender women to be women. In fact, the law in other, analogous contexts may be bending toward a definition of sex that would require such inclusion.

Read the full post here.

4. Cheating around high stakes testing in Atlanta made the New York Times this week. If you haven't already read this article, I recommend you take the time. And then ask yourself, what would make teachers and superintendents cheat like this? Oh, wait, I gave you a clue. . . high stakes. . . we need to keep saying NO to high stakes testing.

5. Last, but not least, there is a terrific list from Nancy Flanagan of "Ten Things Legislators Should Know and Do When Making Education Policy." There is a lot of good advice there--and not just for legislators, actually, but for parents, teachers, and taxpayers as well.

She starts out,

A couple of days ago, I had coffee with Betsy Coffia, who ran last November--unsuccessfully--for a seat representing the 104th district in the Michigan House of Representatives. Coffia and I had never met, although we have several mutual friends. We found each other on-line, in a Facebook argument over Detroit Public Schools' Emergency Manager. She liked what I had to say, and suggested we meet.
It was a great conversation. Coffia plans to run again, and asked lots of questions: What did I think about cyber-schools? Charter chains? The value of early childhood programs? Well-known education non-profits in Michigan? Although she worked for a time in a Head Start program, she admitted there were lots of theories and ideas in education policy she found murky.
Then she said this: Wouldn't it be great if there were a guide for legislators to making useful education policy? So here it is:

Read the rest here.

Ann Arbor: Important Budget Forums

2013-03-27T14:41:00.000-04:00

You know the space on this blog is valuable, right? Maybe not in terms of money but in terms of those intangibles, like prestige and idealism.

And I'm telling you this because there are some really important budget meetings coming up. They are "informal" meetings with school board members, and I really hope you will show up for at least one of them! And that's why I'm using this important space with these budget announcements!

They start tomorrow night, Thursday, March 28th, and they go into April. The AAPS budget for next year has a big deficit--the schools need your help and ideas.

I had a conversation with Christine Stead (school board member), and I asked her--I had some ideas from the past that I don't think got much attention, should I still come? She said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Yes, and bring those ideas back as well." So I will! Plus I might bring a few new ideas too.

Note that there are meeting times in the evening, during the day, and even on a Saturday! They are trying to accommodate different schedules, and that's a good thing. Please don't pass up this opportunity.

From the School Board:

Community Dialogue Meetings on the AAPS Budget

The Board of Education of the Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) invites members of the community to participate in one or more meetings on the AAPS financial situation. The District must cut $17-20 million from the general operating budget in the coming year due primarily to the decisions of state policymakers. The Board would like community input to develop the principles we should follow in making cuts, and strategies to lessen the need for such cuts in the future.
The Board of Education is encouraging two-way communication with the community and board members will be in attendance to engage in conversation. The format is such that open discussion will occur. The content of each meeting will depend on the interests and questions of the attendees. We anticipate discussion will include topics such as:

Potential measures to increase AAPS resources
Ideas for improved practices in AAPS
Discussion of respective value of various programs and services
Ideas for measures that would lessen the negative consequences of budget cuts

Community Dialogue Meeting Schedule:

March 28, Thursday, 7-9 pm
Clague Middle School, Media Center
2616 Nixon Road, Ann Arbor
Board members expected to attend: Andy Thomas, Glenn Nelson, Deb Mexicotte

April 9, Tuesday, 7-9 pm
Slauson Middle School, Media Center
1019 West Washington, Ann Arbor
Board members expected to attend: Christine Stead, Glenn Nelson, Deb Mexicotte

April 16, Tuesday, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm
Downtown Ann Arbor Public Library – 4^th Floor Conference Room (A)
343 South Fifth Avenue, Ann Arbor
Board members expected to attend: Irene Patalan, Glenn Nelson, Deb Mexicotte

April 20, Saturday, 9-11 am
Scarlett Middle School, Media Center
3300 Lorraine Street, Ann Arbor
Board members expected to attend: Susan Baskett, Glenn Nelson, Deb Mexicotte

Additional community forums will be scheduled in early May to discuss the draft AAPS budget for 2013-2014.

How Cool Is This?/My Head Is Going to Explode

2013-03-22T19:55:00.003-04:00

How Cool Is This?

From the BBC News:

So it's here. School Report News Day 2013 is upon us - and about 1,000 schools are due to take part, making the news that matters to them.
They will appear across BBC News - on TV, radio and online and on regional news programmes.
The project is now in its seventh year, and is bigger than ever. School reporters are in Canterbury to witness the enthronement of the new Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, and we also return to the Olympic Park in London to examine the legacy from the 2012 games. And there's more - the BBC School Report website has full details of the range of topics being covered.
It is all a far cry from when we began. A small team started School Report with the aim of giving teenagers the opportunity to make the news they thought mattered. Giving them hours of BBC airtime was nerve-wracking, but it proved to be a success.

Wouldn't it be great to have something like this across the nation in the US?

My Head Is Going to Explode

And then on the other hand there is this, from a Michigan Parents for Schools facebook post:

Just wanted to call everyone's attention to something new: Rep. Lisa Lyons, who gave us the EAA bill, recently introduced a bill which would exempt real estate property from the State Education Property Tax. That would remove something like $1.8 BILLION from the School Aid Fund. (It would mean that no one, homeowner or business, would pay the 6 mill SET on their real property.)
What, exactly, is the agenda here? We need to make this known. The bill has been assigned to the Tax Policy committee, and we'll be watching closely. [Ed. Note: This is HB 4452]

Yup. My head might explode. Who thinks of these things, and why? Do they hate kids?

What the #@$%^ Is Going On In Lansing?

2013-03-20T23:27:00.000-04:00

The Michigan EAA Bill (HB 4369) is likely to be voted on Thursday for its third reading.

According to Michigan Parents for Schools:

Well, it's back. Last Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Lisa Lyons introduced the new version of the "EAA bill" - that is, a bill which would make the Educational Achievement Authority a permanent state school district and expand its authority greatly. Rep. Lyons (R-Alto), who also chairs the House Education committee, then scheduled hearings on the bill (HB 4369) for the following day. As a result, those of us who hoped to speak up about the bill had less than 24 hours to read the 60 page document and draft our reactions.

It was quickly voted out of committee.

Again, from Michigan Parents for Schools:

Dear Friends,

These are strange times. Many lawmakers insist on seeing the world as a set of simple, black and white, problems. The answers are clear, and those who know the right thing to do should brook no opposition. If you disagree with me, you simply cannot have anything of value to say. And there is never, ever, any reason for me to consider the possibility that I might be wrong.

Last Wednesday afternoon, we saw some incredible examples of this kind of thinking as the House Education Committee took final testimony and then voted on the EAA expansion bill (HB 4369). Citizens, educators, experts and even other legislators who spoke in opposition to the bill were treated by some committee members with what can only be called contempt. . .

If you want to see what I mean, check out some of the hearing videos that MIPFS is making available to the public - in particular those from this past Wednesday.

Video links: http://vimeopro.com/mipfs/eaa-bill-hearings-2013 (March 6th)
http://vimeopro.com/mipfs/house-edu-hearings-and-vote-on-eaa-bill (March 13th)

Pay special attention to the question and answer period after the testimony, if there were any questions at all. See what the dialog on this issue is like...

What's still wrong with the bill?

Everyone admits that what the EAA is trying to do inside its schools is a kind of experiment. They are using untried techniques and strategies heavily based on technology. Will it work? Who knows? But the bill makes the EAA a statewide authority before we have even seen one year's worth of evidence that what they do is working. And once they get the go-ahead, the EAA never has to prove to anyone that their system works.

The whole system depends on sweeping in and taking over an individual school, tossing out all the people who work there. This kind of "restructuring" has a lousy record in the rest of the country. Instead, we could provide leadership and support to districts and schools, helping them make long-term changes and getting buy-in from students, parents, teachers, administrators and the community. Most successful school turnarounds have used this kind of strategy instead. Why doesn't Michigan?

Finally, there's a lot of stuff in the bill that has absolutely nothing to do with helping struggling schools. Recall that the original version of this bill was linked to other proposals to permit storefront, selective admission, and other questionable types of charter schools and to dismantle funding for community governed public schools. Those proposals haven't gone away, and you can still see their footprints in the current EAA bill.

For example: why does the bill explicitly allow school districts to hand over the running of their schools to some other body, including the EAA? Why does the EAA need to be able to create new charter schools in districts run by emergency managers? Why does the EAA need authority to create a new charter school in a 2-mile radius of a struggling school they are supposed to be helping? How do these things help kids who are struggling? The answer is that these provisions are really designed to position the EAA to chip away at all local, community governed schools.

And that's the point. While I am sure that many of our lawmakers have the best of intentions, the EAA isn't really designed to help struggling schools and districts turn around. It's designed to slowly dismantle our local public schools under cover of "helping the kids." It's designed to be a place where schools from local districts go and never return. (The EAA Chancellor himself said that EAA schools which "graduate" might simply "go off on their own." What does that mean?) It's designed to break the bonds between school and community.

The EAA is designed, in short, to help take education out of the hands of local communities. As parents, apparently we know what's best for our children until we step into the voting booth. We will become consumers, rather than owners, choosing from among options others are pleased to offer, hoping to find a place for our children. Our communities, who have built and nurtured our public schools for generations, will have no choices at all.

According to Save Michigan's Public Schools, in today's debate on the floor, common sense amendments were voted down. For instance:

Rep. Lipton proposed two amendments, including one that would give the EAA expansion a five-year sunset. This would require an evaluation of the EAA system before it could be continued after five years. Republicans refuse to adopt it.

Rep. Brinks' amendment would put the EAA under the authority of the elected state Board of Education. Republicans refuse to adopt it. Brinks also proposed the EAA be subject to the Freedom of Information Act - that too has been voted down. WHY?!

That's the bad news. So please--contact your representatives! And not just your representatives, but all of them!

Michigan Parents for Schools action link

Now this next bit of news I find rather interesting (h/t to Jack Panitch)--I'm not sure this is so bad--I'm also not sure it is good--but the news item comes from Gongwer News Service:

Committee Considers Repealing Common Core Standards

The bill (HB 4276 ), introduced by Rep. Tom McMillin (R-Rochester Hills), would rescind the State Board of Education's 2010 decision to adopt the Common Core, an initiative coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

Those supporting the bill said Common Core does not give parents and teachers in the state enough input about the curriculum.

Emmett McGroarty also said the curriculum was largely pushed by the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation and two other private foundations that came up with the standards without input from parents or local teachers...

Mr. McMillin said if the state does not like a standard within the Common Core, it will not be able to get out of it...

Melanie Kurdys, a local schools advocate and former local school board member, said if the state were to repeal Common Core, it would then stick with the curriculum as it is now and create a committee with content experts, local teachers and parents, and come up with a state-led curriculum.

"So we remain in the control of our destiny," said Ms. Kurdys, an unsuccessful Republican candidate in 2012 for the State Board of Education.