Listen! Are those wings? Maybe a cackle or two? I know! The chickens just came home to roost! Superintendent McGinley now has the power to replace principals without consulting constituent boards; that means she also has full responsibility for what happens. And she's ready to roll.In today's P & C McGinley hints of changes coming in administrative positions due to schools' failing performances on the state's report cards. Although the article points out that 25 schools are now rated "unsatisfactory," as usual the number is not put into context. That would be (roughly) a third of the county's schools.
Never mind that "more than half of the county's schools" have had their principals in place for less than three years, let's shuffle them again! That must mean those who have been in place for three years or more at unsatisfactory schools get to move, since McGinley promises a three-to-five-year window to prove effective leadership.
The dirty little secret is that the district has been preparing for this round of musical chairs. Schools such as Burke and North Charleston High that have been rated failing for six years MUST be restructured. No one expected a miracle to occur this year, and it didn't. The choices left to CCSD under NCLB are:
- replace all administrative professionals or
- bring in an outside agency to run the schools or
- make them into charter schools [yeah, likely] or
- have the state take over the schools [ditto].
Whatever changes McGinley makes, she will be held responsible now for the results. Well, that's assuming that three-to-five years down the road McGinley is still Superintendent.
Jordan's quoted comments pose an interesting dilemma for McGinley: she wants the Superintendent "to put those highly successful teachers [and principals] with students who need it the most," namely, those students in unsatisfactory schools where teacher turnover is high.
McGinley's got the power; does she have the guts?
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4 comments:
As they say, 'Be careful of what you wish for.'
Goodloe proved that regardless of the law the put constituent boards in line to have a say (and little more than that) in choosing school principals, the superintendent & the county board could ALWAYS trump them. The D20 Board just expressed its 'say' in louder terms than most. Now that the law has been changed and the boards have been silenced. The charade of who was really in charge of these appointments all along has been eliminated. It's all her show now...principals & teachers.
Is this going to just be musical chairs with mediocre leaders? If she wants new blood, 25 new principals & the salaries they'd command would be a tall order. CCSD is still playing budget games with lower paid 'interim' administrators. If these people are qualified, don't they deserve the respect & salaries equal to the task? How long does CCSD plan to keep cheating these people? What message does that send about stability in the schools that need it most?
And finally, when they announce that top performing teachers will be reassigned to low performing schools, will they be faced with the same mutiny that the US State Department experience when it tried to force its employees to accept positions the new embassy in Baghdad? The teacher turnover & failure of the Burke Middle A-Plus program in 2005-06 should be a warning to McGinley. Constantly repeating top down changes doesn’t work and they certainly don't take root very easily.
What I see ultimately is an expansion of the pool of experienced teachers leaving Charleston County who will be seeking jobs in the adjacent counties and among local charter schools. Bring it on!
Call me Ghostryder.
I think we get what we pay for . Dr. McGinley is a joke. She is about appearance and nothing more. She is not truly concerned about a student's education. She is concerned about how she looks. Why have we not tried to reproduce the success of a Jeanne Moore or Ashley River Elementary in all the failing schools. Why are we not doing it now? It is simple why we do not do so. We have a lot of educational dinosaurs in the system who are not creative enough to keep up with a dynamic curriculum that is required and is used in a Arts based school and they resist any change. Sure if we asked them to do the Rote base system of learning. They are great at that and this is fantastic for an assembly line education. This system was great for the 19th century and most of the 20th Century. But we are past that. We are in the 21st century and we need a more fluid and dynamic work force who are able to adapt to new situations. The old school teachers cannot keep up because they do not want to get out of their comfort zone. Yet they ask, no demand their students to work out of their comfort zones to learn everyday. I think teachers should lead by example. Model the style of learning that is needed in todays school. We have teachers who seem to stop learning the moment they get their degree. We put an image and a piece of paper over true ability to teach. I have know educational Doctors who were bad at their subject but were able to do the academic work to get their Doctorate. But they were hacks and then they turn around to teach the next generation of students and teachers. Dr. McGinley is all about appearances than anything else. She was the point person to the A+ program and it was doom to fail before it started. But no one cares about that. Did she take any heat over that. No. She got a promotion. Which seems to be the philosophy of today. Reward mediocrity, instead of punishing it. If the same kind of effort at Burke Middle and Brentwood by the 75 Calhoun administration had been tried at a school like Buist. There would have been a revolution due to the fact that the promises made to the parents and teachers of Burke and Brentwood Middle were broken once again. Dr. McGinley was responsible for that. She was in charge of that. Wished she would have gotten the job in Cleveland. Time will tell and show how wrong she is for Charleston. As long as we are more worried about taking a test and not truly educating the students of Charleston. We will always fail. If our lives depended on taking a test to dictate our destiny. Why do we bother living? Life is more than just one test. People like Dr. McGinley are like this. Let's use the NCAA football hunt for a National Champion at the Division 1-A and !-AA levels. People like Dr. McGinley want a mythical champion that is used in Division 1-A, some team that looks good on paper and should not have to prove it because they look good on paper. What we need is the NCAA Division 1-AA playoff system in which the winner is found by earning it on the field and that the team who wins does not necessarily look good on paper. There is more to life than looking good on paper. You cannot calculate heart, persistence, the ability to overcome obstacles, vision, determination, intelligence to adapt to new situations, desire, and any other intangible. As long as we continue to pick people like Dr. McGinley, we will always have a system that ignores a lot of students. Those on top will get all the attention and those on bottom will too, but those in the middle will be left to fend for them self which is shameful. We should be teaching to all students. But we get what we pay for. You buy a dog and pony show and you get a dog and pony show. Thats all I have to say about that.
Man, I like you, Ghostryder.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Where have you been?
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