What if we hold a meeting and nobody shows up?
This is an anomaly that will never occur in the Charleston County School District, thanks to planning on the part of our district officials. [See Residents Offer Feedback in Wednesday's P&C]
The reporter seems befuddled over lack of opponents to Superintendent Nancy McGinley's plans presented at her "town hall" meeting at Burke High School Tuesday night: "Some of the school district's toughest critics and most- challenged schools are on the peninsula, but it seemed that most of the approximately 50 residents who gathered at Burke High were supporters of the district."
Diette, McGinley always recruits a good crowd of supporters. She probably uses the "or else" method. During last year's round of meetings, her opponents learned what a waste of time they are.
These are PR meetings, not opportunities for change.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
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Thanks to McGinley and others who have drained downtown schools of any remaining resources and potential, those parents and teachers that had any "get up and go" have already "got up and gone" somewhere else. To attend such sham of a meeting would have been a couple of hours poorly spent listening to McGinley and her paid supporters giving testimony at a mutual appreciation society meeting.
I find it a gross insult and outrageous misrepresentation for Mr. Benton, the Burke High School principal, to have stood before those few non-CCSD employees present and pat himself on the back for an accomplishment that didn't exist. McGinley probably gave him the script ahead of time. He has no shame. He said the school currently supports 7 AP courses and expects to offer 10 next year. Then added that Burke didn't offer any AP courses a couple of years ago, as if to give measure to "his" accomplishment. (Oh these people are all so about just themselves.) He conveniently forgets to mention that the people responsible for the school's on-going failing status and reduction of course offerings over the last couple of years are his employers. For the most part these same people were in attendance at the meeting on Tuesday comprising at least half the audience.
For the record, Burke has offered AP courses in the past, but these were taken away by CCSD and its misguided administrators. It also offered as many as 3 foreign languages at a time, but CCSD has now reduced this to one. There is even some question as to the qualifications of the teachers provided for this class. Tell us, are the middle school students at Burke given the same course offerings with teachers of equal qualifications as Moultrie Middle or C.E.Williams Middle. The answer is NO and McGinley isn't going to receive or answer any questions about facts like these.
Can anyone at CCSD offer proof that Burke's current AP cources are genuine AP courses with certified AP teachers? I doubt it.
Can anyone above offer proof of what they say, or are you simply performing the same sort of back-patting of which you accuse Benton, except yours seems to be pats that you know the truth as no one else.
For the record, I am no fan of Mr. Benton, Dr. McGinley or her cronies.
Though asked many times for proof by downtown parents, McGinley has yet to provide proof that these are true AP courses taught by certified AP instructors.
If Memminger teachers and McGinley's office didn't want to do the extra work or provide the extra resources to become certified IB instructors in her proposed partial magnet, it is doubtfull that the administration has done much more to bring substance to her proposals at Burke.
She's all hot air. Like most of those who run(down) our public schools, she doesn't like it when her presentations aren't taken at face value or she's asked to provide proof.
She has tried to cover over a host of failures at Burke, mostly of her own making. Try this one on for size. Please provide the name and qualifications of every teacher for the 8th grades at Burke during the 2007-08 and 2008-09 school years. Look hard at the following courses: Spanish, science/biology and English. If the course existed at all, the teacher wasn't certified in the field being taught or the class had three or more teacher turnovers before the year was out. How can students get credit for couses they don't have? How can an at-risk school teach core subjects without appropriately qualified teachers for core academic courses? Benton knew this happened and said nothing. McGinley knew this was going on and didn't object.
Nobody's getting answers to those questions. They won't get answers as long as McGinley can hold her puppet shows. She calls them "conversations", "engagements" and "town halls". These events are the same in her mind. These are carefully planned sales events that have nothing to do with engaging or educating the public.
Until the local press and the public push for answers, she will continue to avoid the questions. If proof is what you want, then ask McGinley to provide it. So far she hasn't. She has yet to explain what became of so many of the programs she introduced to great fanfare only to quietly pull the plug on them later. She hasn't so much as provided a reasonable assessment of the actual costs or measurable objectives for any one of them since she began.
Schools are required to state whether or not AP courses have passed the AP audit...simply call guidance at Burke, and ask which of the courses are being taught by certified personnel.
Courses may be taught by a non-certified (endorsed) AP instructor for a period of one year, after which instructors are required to be trained and endorsed.
Because of teacher mobility/ transience, courses may be taught by new persons each year.
I find it hard to believe that a phone call to Burke will not find you these answers. In fact, I would expect Dr. McGinley to not know who is endorsed, and who is not. That would mean signnificant micro-managing.
Ask. Then if you get a run-around, you have a gripe. You might be surprised.
Further,
I really do not think Dr. McGinley has a significant impact on schools, positive or negative.
Schools are reflective of their community's success or failure. When schools became an object of blame for performance, parenting was excused. Schools were, therefore, required to be more permissive of poor student behavior and decreasing responsibility for actions.
No Child Left Behind allowed the upper tier of community school students to leave, bringing with them their predominantly higher test scores, and allowing the "failing" school's average test scores to decrease as a result.
Before that, the magnet concept allowed SOA and AM to skim the top 3-5% of each school. These were your AP kids. These are your stability.
Unfortunately, the community refuses to acknowledge that schools are merely symptoms of the greater problems the community has. They are not culpable.
Unless the public actually visits the schools, observes classes, listens in the halls, sees the gross disrespect for teachers by students and parents alike, they will continue to believe in the fable of the failing school.
I don't see where Dr. McGinley's PR meetings have any impact on that.
Then why is she continuing to stage them?
She stages them because it's all about her record and her future employment. It has very little to do with schools, students, teachers and academic success on a level that is below CCSD's administrative track.
It's true CCSD was cherry picking its best "test takers" for politically well placed magnet schools. This began long before NCLB was introduced as another fix not properly matched to the problem. CCSD has never been committed to neighborhood schools...except to keep "those" kids from attending "our" schools. The shrill cries of Buist defenders today are so much like segregationist warnings of years past.
McGinley would rather move kids than invest in existing schools in the neighborhoods where they are now. No wonder parents (and teachers) continue to vote with their feet. They have beaten well worn paths to the exits.
Some would argue that McGinley should be doing more than a little micro-managing at Burke. Don't be fooled. She hand picked its entire staff. A superintendent should be held accountable for a school that continues to fail to meet basic or even minimum standards. If she is not aware of the qualifications of AP or foreign language teachers in a failing school, she is still responsible if the employees are poorly matched to their positions. It's a fact, the system she runs continues to play games with the academic options offered to those with the greatest need and the least political clout. Unfortunately, few will question her about the inequities she tolerates. She been her long enough to take ownership of quite a few failures.
She will micro-manage a photo opportunity as if she's running for office. As for knowing what's it like in the trenches (for teachers, students or parents), she has no clue. She also has no solutions. After more than five years she still doesn't know these communities. She can, however, recite statistics that have little or nothing to do with the challenges and opportunities that exist here.
If the schools are not culpable, then the people who run the public school system most certainly are culpable.
I agree that McGinley's "interface" with the community, just like her leadership style, has no appreciable impact on public school success. Too bad. So what is she really doing for us?
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