Tuesday, December 17, 2013

CCSD's McGinley Attempts to Straddle BRIDGE She Created

Slick. That's the apposite adjective for Charleston County School District's Superintendent McGinley. No wonder she's in the running for CCSD's longest-serving top administrator.

Allegations regarding the district's BRIDGE program are flying fast and furious. Teachers are outraged. Well-known education experts such as Ravitch are taking pot shots on the national stage. Time to call a meeting.

According to McGinley's latest insights, "there might be another way" to assess good work by students. There might be an "adjustment period." There might be uncertainty over results from a new statewide test. McGinley needs a "better confidence level" than what she has now.

These statements follow upon the heels of a surprise pay raise for a top administrator who attended the Broad Institute just to learn how to implement the BRIDGE. After implementing a pilot program in CCSD to reassure teachers that the following year their objections would have been dealt with. Of supreme confidence that BRIDGE was the way to go. After all, McGinley in her quest for Race to the Top funds has guaranteed the feds that the district would use such a program. She never hinted that she had any idea of the mounting evidence that value-added scores were bogus. After all, CCSD's paying Mathematica more than a million for its take on the formula. That's OPM.

Michelle Rhee's StudentsFirst is the only local group vocally supporting BRIDGE. So you're not going to be surprised to find that Eli Broad gave that group half a million dollars in start up funds.

Your edublob at work. Now CCSD begs the feds to postpone what it asked for in the first place.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Conspicuous by its absence is your reluctance to provide your "spin" on the issues at James Island Charter School.

D20 parent said...

Staying on topic would help, Anonymous 11:33 pm, but I'll reply anyway. I would venture to say few have a spin, as you put it, on JICHS because most of us are dependent on the local paper to report the facts. So far we have heard very little in the way of facts or spin other than the county superintendent has final say over some employees at some charter schools. That is news but there has been almost no explanation from the paper or anyone else for that matter. I don't know enough to say anything except when trustee boards, school heads and football coaches are at odds, it gets expensive. Just ask those who have watched USC for the last 30 years.