Mentor Eli Broad Reveals McGinley's Goals for CCSD

Let's not recruit another graduate of the Broad Institute!

Charleston County's last two superintendents have been graduates of that organization founded by Eli Broad with the purpose of improving urban school districts. However, Broad recently revealed his true feelings about urban schools.

According to Diane Ravitch,

The truth comes out. Broad has low regard for public education. He thinks it works best when technocratic managers make data-driven decisions, close struggling schools, and open privately managed charter schools. He likes mayoral control, not democratic engagement. He funded a campaign to block a tax increase to support public schools in California. He thinks poverty can be overcome by good management .

Gee, that sounds familiar!

Zucker Skewers ex-Supt. McGinley's "Excellent" Stats

Anita Zucker is no fool, and today's op-ed proves it.

Zucker is fully aware (unlike McGinley hangers-on) that, under the administration of Charleston County's ex-superintendent of schools, the haves prospered and the have-nots suffered. Not content to pat McGinley on the back for her gerrymandered excellent rating, Zucker analyzed the data.

So in CCSD 42 percent of low-income students read below grade level in the eighth grade.

So in CCSD 45 percent of black students read below grade level in the eighth grade.

These are horrendous numbers. Reading on the eighth-grade level is not rocket science.

Exactly what did the NAACP get for its undying support of McGinley? Headlines, perhaps, but no educational improvement for the black community.

Zucker even mentions considering the curriculum used at Buist Academy (International Baccalaureate) and Charleston Development Academy (Core Knowledge) as worthy of consideration for preventing this tragedy in the future.

Meanwhile, McGinley has rolled out her consulting services, no doubt hoping to grab some of those edublob dollars she was so adept at spending previously. Well, every district in the southeast would love to have these numbers, right?

Bill Gates Owns Common Core: How that Happened

According to Diane Ravitch,

Horton: Not a Conspiracy Theory: The Gates Foundation Bought Control of U.S. Education
by dianeravitch

A year ago, Paul Horton wrote a letter to Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, asking him to conduct hearings on the Common Core and Race to the Top, and specifically to inquire about the role of the Gates Foundation and the Broad Foundation in shaping federal education policy. Nothing happened. Now that the world knows that the Gates Foundation, working in alliance with the U.S. Department of Education, underwrote the creation and promotion of the Common Core standards; now that we know that Bill Gates bought and paid for "a swift revolution" that bypassed any democratic participation by the public; now that we know that this covert alliance created "national standards" that were never tried out anywhere; now that we know that the Gates Foundation's willingness to invest $2 billion in Common Core enabled that foundation to assume control of the future of American education: it is time to reconsider Horton's proposal. How could Congress sit by idly while Arne Duncan undermines state and local control to the chosen designees of the Gates Foundation? How could Congress avert its eyes as public education is redesigned to create a marketplace for vendors?

Public education IS a marketplace for vendors. Now one of them has cornered the market!

CCSD Proposal Highlights McGinley's Failures, Sales Tax

We will run out of fingers if we count the failed programs that have wasted millions of taxpayer dollars in the Charleston County School District under Superintendent McGinley's watch. Associate Superintendent Jim Winbush (who wouldn't sneeze unless McGinley recommended it)'s proposal of an alternative high school program for "at-risk" students is a case in point.

Just in case you've forgotten, McGinley's failed solution to the problem was the "discipline school." McGinley brought in the Broad-recommended edublob called Community Education Partners to set up and run the school. Not only was the company contracted to run it, but the $9 million school building was designed and built according to its specifications. As the reporter so quaintly puts it, when "the company didn't produce the expected results, its contract ended." That was more than five years ago.

Supposedly the gently-named Community High School would be more than a "discipline school." Board member Michael Miller rightly wonders if it would be a "dumping ground," since Chief Academic Officer Lisa Herring suggested perhaps 500 students would fall into categories such as lagging in high school credits, pregnancy, low test scores, and return from juvenile detention. This way, McGinley could show how Vision 2016 has succeeded by taking low-scoring students out of local high schools. Genius.

No doubt the proposed school will require, if not a new multi-million dollar building, at least multi-million dollar retrofitting of an existing building--all part of the new campaign to extend the one-cent sales tax.

NJ Broad-trained Superintendent Runs Amuck--McGinley Should Take Notice

Those familiar with Montclair, New Jersey, know it as a beautiful suburb of New York City with an excellent, well-integrated school system, hardly what passes in the minds of most as "urban." Nevertheless, some wiseacre school board hired a Broad-trained superintendent whose actions have set the whole town on its ear.

Here is a letter to the local paper that complains about some of Broad's policies. The complaints should sound familiar [reported by Diane Ravitch].

Ira Shor wrote the following letter to the editor of the Montclair Times to complain about the influence of the Broad Foundation in Montclair:

Dec. 29, 2013
Is Billionaire Eli Broad Running Our Schools?​
Why is the District refusing to release items regarding the Superintendent’s relation to the Broad Foundation? On October 31, 2013, I filed a request under NJ’s Open Public Records Act(OPRA) for documents regarding Supt. MacCormack’s financial disclosure that she received “more than $2000” in 2013 from the Broad Foundation. We need to know how much “more than $2000” Broad is paying her and for what services. Contrary to OPRA law, Mr. Fleischer, her COO, provided no requested documents and did not explain why he refused. OPRA requires district officers to meet legal requests in 7 business days or explain in writing why not. Mr. Fleischer had 35 days but provided no Broad items and explained nothing.

What is the Superintendent hiding? Who does she work for--Montclair’s families or billionaire Eli Broad and his campaign to standardize public schools? She attended the unaccredited Broad Academy whose “grads” follow Broad’s playbook, imposing one-size-fits-all curricula, endless bubble-tests, and high-priced consultants and testing technology. We have a right to know if she answers to Broad or to us.

The Superintendent and our Board have recklessly disrupted our good schools and squandered taxes on ridiculous subpoenas, while refusing to spend yet another huge surplus on things our kids need: smaller classes, foreign language, aides in all classes, librarians in all schools, instrumental music, and after-school mentoring for at-risk kids. Listen to our over-tested kids reporting fear and stress; listen to our under-supported teachers at monthly Board meetings; then, you’ll agree we should roll back the Broad agenda and its assessment train wreck. The refusal of my OPRA request joins other illegal refusals from Mr. Fleischer and the Supt.’s office. Stop hiding from those you should be serving. Open your books and files.
Ira Shor
302 North Mountain Avenue
Montclair, NJ 07043

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.

Ravitch's Blog Tears into Broad-Trained McGinley

I couldn't have said it better myself. In her blog criticizing the Charleston County School District's new BRIDGE program to use value-added scores to evaluate teaching, Diane Ravitch tells us what she really thinks:

"Surprise! The school leadership of Charleston, South Carolina, has come up with some stale ideas and branded them as “reform.”

"Nothing like copying what was tried and failed everywhere else!

"The district calls it a “new” program of teacher evaluation, pay for performance, and reconfigured salary structure BRIDGE but in fact it is the status quo demanded by the U.S. Department of Education.

"Every Broad-trained superintendent has the same ideas but is tasked with calling them “new” (when they are not), “evidence-based” (when they are not), and “reform” (when they are the status quo, paid for and sanctified by the U.S. Department of Education).

"Patrick Hayes, a teacher in Charleston, has launched a campaign to expose the destructive plan of the district leaders, whose primary outcome will be to demoralize and drive away good teachers."  [italics mine]

Funnily enough,  in this December 9th posting, Ravitch makes precisely the same points as I have in the last few months.

Too bad the CCSD School Board listens only to the Superintendent. When is it going to figure out that teachers are not the problem?

EdFirstSC Finally Comes to Its Senses over CCSD's BRIDGE

Blame Bill Gates and the Obama administration.

Even though EdFirstSC finally sees the train headed for the wreck, its spokesman tries to blame SC Education Superintendent Mick Zais for the genesis of value-added teacher compensation. Zais visited the Charleston County School District to discuss Superintendent Nancy McGinley's plan to change the way teachers are compensated. EdFirstSC's members must lean heavily towards teachers who are Democrats. Yes, Republicans want teachers to be accountable, but the machinations behind BRIDGE must be laid squarely on the shoulders of the edublob and the Obama administration, especially U.S. Education Department head, Arne Duncan. They're all liberal Democrats.

Blame McGinley for applying for Race to the Top funds and accepting them. Federal money always comes with strings attached, and she knew full well what they would be. As a result of winning the grant, the district must follow Common Core standards AND implement a teacher evaluation system based on the fatally-flawed value-added model pushed by the Gates Foundation and Arne Duncan. In preparation McGinley sent Audrey Lane to the Broad Institute just to learn all about the new teacher-evaluation system and then rewarded her with a nice fat retroactive raise. And the edublob, in the form of Mathematica, got a nice $2 million (of Other People's Money) contract to figure out how to make the system fair, a goal that even those mathematicians must know is impossible.

This new system will never be fair to teachers or students. Look at the abundance of research on just this topic that Duncan, and McGinley, choose to ignore. Going after these funds and implementing the value-added compensation system in CCSD is McGinley's personal effort at her own "race to the top."

If you think testing is overrated and too important now, wait till teachers' jobs hang on these unfair results.

In CCSD, Broad Graduates Take Care of Their Own Audrey Lane

It couldn't wait. 

It was so important to reward Audrey Lane for her attendance at the Broad Institute, where she learned all about the components of BRIDGE, that fellow Broad-graduate Nancy McGinley insured an almost 19 percent raise for her prior to the district's own salary study report. And the raise is retroactive for 10 months.

Well, what can we expect in a district where at least 30 employees rack up more than $100,000 each and when the superintendent says "Jump" the Board of Trustees say "How high"? Needless to say, none of the most highly paid are teachers, who everyone agrees are the most important component in educating any child.

BROAD "a non-profit" = edublob at work 

Shock & Awe in CCSD: Close Burke; Put in 2nd Mt. Pleasant HS

It's brilliant! Whoever came up with this outside-of-the-box idea should be running the Charleston County School District instead of Nancy McGinley!

Over the last 40 or so years, Burke High/Middle School has become a buzzword for failure. In hindsight, the die was cast when the powers-that-be determined under consolidation that the white High School of Charleston would close, and the black Burke High would take both black and white students, a tactic destroying any loyalty that white parents as graduates of the former would have for the new school district. Burke not only became the lone high school on the peninsula; it retained its name and loyal following. Probably this agreement was worked out between the fed's attorney, Gregg Meyers(later an influential member of the CCSD School Board), and the NAACP.

Superintendent McGinley's box of tricks that she learned at the Broad Institute have failed her and failed her. No one has confidence that Burke can become an integrated school under the present circumstances. By petitioning the constituent board for transfers, droves of parents have made the choice to send their children to high schools that have the advanced and career programs that all students deserve. As a result, about half of eligible students living on the peninsula attend Burke. It's easy to accuse these parents of racism, but the cause is one of district mismanagement after a stupid initial decision.

No one has confidence that Burke can even retain its recent standing as "average," a rating based largely on better record keeping and last-minute cramming. Other signs point towards the inevitable downward slide. The current principal, Maurice Cannon, does not sound as though he is a solution but actually part of the problem. His perception that Burke's students do not pay attention in class nor do their work because they don't like some of their teachers is asinine. The school clearly lacks good leadership; we all know who controls that variable: Superintendent McGinley.

When you have Arthur Lawrence, a Burke graduate and long-time community supporter of Burke, calling for the shut-down of the school, you know the situation has reached a nadir. Lawrence wants to close Burke and all its programs and take the overflow from Mt. Pleasant's overcrowded Wando High School into the building as a new Mt. Pleasant High School while the district builds the new facility for Mt. Pleasant. Why, look! That means that "Burke" will have an integrated student body and the programs that are impossible to sustain under the present structure.

Now, the NAACP won't like this because Dot Scott doesn't want an integrated high school; she clearly wants a de facto black high school on the peninsula. Of course, she lives in West Ashley.

South Carolina Education Association Meets to Denigrate School Choice

Who is the SCEA, and why is it making such wild accusations at a North Charleston meeting of a senate panel? It's a liberal organization that fulfills the part of a public school teachers' union in a state where there is no teachers union. And it's hysterical over the idea that a tax-credit bill promoting some minor school choice will pass the South Carolina senate.

How hysterical? Here's a direct quote from the president of SCEA, Jackie Hicks: "“This seemingly innocuous measure opens the door to subsequent pro-segregation laws diverting taxpayer money to the private sector.” This attitude matches up well with that of Joseph Darby, who believes that every move to support choice is really a Ku-Klux-Klan-like plot to segregate schools. No doubt Darby agrees with Eric Holder, who wants to take choice away from black students trying to avoid failing schools in Louisiana.

These people live in la-la-land. How much more segregated could schools such as Burke High/Middle and Charleston Progressive Academy be? Would you please take the beam out of your own eyes?

My favorite quote comes from Kathi Regalbuto, who reports herself as a "former Berkeley County educator and parent of children who attended public and private schools": she states that "private school vouchers are 'a retreat from our collective responsibility to educate our children' in public schools."  

"Collective responsibility"? Speak for yourself. You're not speaking for parents. Their private responsibility is to get the best education possible for each child, even if that means a private school. Make your own children guinea pigs, if you wish.

EdFirstSC put in its two cents as well. According to its leader, Drayton Hall teacher Patrick Hayes, the evil one, Howard Rich, of New York, is funding conservatives who support school choice. Maybe Hayes hasn't heard yet of Bill Gates and Eli Broad on the other side? And the League of Women [read: liberal] Voters agreed that Larry Grooms's efforts are designed to avoid "a free and quality public school system" in South Carolina.

Maybe these ideologues were in the majority at the meeting, but they don't represent the majority of parents.

Unlike CCSD, Non-Broad Louisville Superintendent Thinks Outside the Box

One of the first actions that newly appointed Jefferson County (KY) Schools Superintendent Donna Hargens took was to downsize her administrative cabinet from 23 to 6. Sure doesn't sound like a Broad-Institute graduate's action, does it?

Nancy McGinley, are you paying attention? 

Hargens recently was quoted as saying, "We all know we've got to do things differently if we're going to get different results." The remark was in support of a radical solution to raise the academic success of students from "troubled neighborhoods": public boarding schools.

Lest you assume that Hargens heads some rinky-dink system, know that she oversees 155 schools in the county that encompasses Louisville. Hargens proposes to explore the possibility of creating two 150-student residential middle schools, segregated by sex, that will take "disadvantaged" students out of the climate that breeds failure. She's not blaming their lack of success on non-motivated teachers AKA the Charleston County School District.

While sequestering during middle school addresses only part of the culture of the street, that period is crucial for those, especially boys, who are on the cusp of alienation from academics. Hargens sees the prototype in a private residential school for boys, the West End School, now operating in Louisville. See http://www.westendschool.org/.

Public boarding school for the poor will be expensive, and maybe Jefferson County will be unable to find a solution that produces one. On the other hand, throwing $24 million of Other People's Money at an imagined problem won't produce McGinley's hoped-for results either.

Deja Vu on CCSD's Failing Schools

Burke. North Charleston HS. Stall HS. Sanders-Clyde. Burns.

"No Berkeley or Dorchester County schools were in this group," according to today's newspaper. Really? Don't you wonder why CCSD has the honor of five schools located on the peninsula and in North Charleston that have achieved the notoriety of the Palmetto Priority List? (Why, the list doesn't even include all of the failing schools that district administration has shuttered instead of improving over the last few years!)

Despite her training at and assistance from the Broad Institute, Superintendent McGinley has now proved she doesn't have the qualities and wisdom to "fix" the problem. Who else remembers the glory days when Sanders-Clyde made great strides in its test scores? Why, McGinley was so impressed that she made its principal head of two schools simultaneously. She supposedly had no clue regarding the scandal that finally came out of the closet--organized changing of answers on the tests. And the principal was allowed to escape to a district in North Carolina. Isn't it lucky?

What McGinley has managed to accomplish is new and/or expensively remodeled buildings that should be showplaces for learning. The building program has also been a boon to construction firms. Not to teachers.  Not to students. If a state-of-the-art building could fix these schools' problems, we would not be talking about them now.

Burke's and NCHS's Failures McGinley's Fault

Regardless of her credentials from the Broad Institute (or maybe because of them), Superintendent Nancy McGinley of the Charleston County School District simply does not know what to do with Burke and North Charleston High Schools. If it weren't for NCLB, she wouldn't even care. As it is, that embarrassing time has rolled around once again: the threat of a state takeover.

Incompetence can be defined as tinkering with the edges of a poorly-understood problem and calling that success. Thus, in her latest statements McGinley points out how she has cut the number of failing schools in the district. True, by closing them. What does that prove?

Back in mid-June, McGinley gushed in an op-ed about how these two schools were really "dream-making 'opportunity centers."" She complains of the short-sightedness of those who think schools with unconscionably high dropout rates should be labeled as "at risk" or "failing." After all, she points out, some students do achieve and graduate!

Later in the month, NAACP vice-president Joe Darby echoed this drivel in a similar op-ed. He and the NAACP should be ashamed of themselves.

McGinley has had plenty of time to turn around these high schools; obviously she doesn't know how. If it weren't for CCSD Board members who follow her in lockstep, the Board would have voted her out of her position long ago. 

The person most responsible for the poor performances of both schools is the Superintendent. Prior to reaching that position, she was chief academic officer. Once named superintendent, she has appointed the district supervisors and the principals. They are her responsibility and she has blown it.

Whether the state takes over the schools, a private organization such as KIPP is called in, or these schools go charter, McGinley has shown she should not be trusted with the education of the students in and headed for these schools.

But of course Wando, Buist, and the Academic Magnet continue to do well. Apparently that is all McGinley supporters care about.

Think Differently on CCSD Board of Trustees

It's time for serious thought on the duties of school-district boards of trustees.

Scandals at Enron, HealthSouth, Tyco, and Worldcom point to the problem of outside directors not knowing enough about the corporations' accounting practices to fulfill their duty as watchdogs of management. What past corporate managment sought was directors of outstanding achievement in fields not directly related to its business whose names would look good on the masthead and who would feel "honored" to serve as figureheads. We have suffered the end result. Perhaps with Sarbanes-Oxley directors will treat their duties as more than honorary.

You may already have spotted the similarity to the Charleston County School District and its Board of Trustees. When school districts were small and handled what CCSD would consider "chump change" now, having trustees (i.e., "outside directors") who viewed their positions as honorary or believed that finding problems within the "system" would hurt the community or were hand-selected by the superintendent (i.e., "management") to run for "election," were relatively harmless in the damage they could wreak. Not so today.

It is past time for the CCSD Board of Trustees to grasp the enormity of their duties. The last element needed in a newly-appointed member to the Board is sycophancy, nor will the presence of an additional dilletante ameliorate a difficult situation. Think of the responsibilities of Superintendent McGinley as gravely as those of Enron, if you like. Hundreds of millions of your tax dollars spew out of 75 Calhoun every year, affecting every corner of the district and your taxes. If its Board of Trustees is as ignorant of how this money gets directed and spent as were the outside directors of Enron, it must share the liability when the bubble bursts--and it will at some point, just like Enron or the housing market.

For Maria Goodloe-Johnson, the bubble finally burst in Seattle last March. We have no reason to believe that her management style, nor McGinley's, was any more effective during her tenure in Charleston.

Maybe, just maybe, Seattle's board took its role as watchdog more seriously, especially in regard to finances and auditing.

McGinley's Tale Tests CCSD's Gullibility

Throwing up a smoke screen in front of her every action has become such a habit for CCSD Superintendent Nancy McGinley that she can't manage a bit of candor when the truth would help her credibility.

That's what most readers should take away from the P & C's Saturday story, McGinley to Stay in Charleston. If Courrege wrote the lead, "McGinley flew to Houston on Friday to interview with the Houston school board that's looking for a new superintendent," that's what she thought also.

McGinley would have the public believe that she simply wanted to share the Charleston success story (!) with the search firm hired by the Houston School Board looking to replace its superintendent and had no intention of actually interviewing for a job that pays twice what she makes now. The Houston Chronicle was confused about this being a job interview. The moon is made of green cheese, also.

This much is true: her plane was rerouted to Austin, causing a delay that made her miss her interview. She learned about the Houston article. She may have learned other facts through the grapevine, such as that she was being interviewed only because of the recommendation of the previous superintendent, her "friend" from the Broad Institute, or that her interview was pro forma because the School Board really wants a black replacement for its present Hispanic.

Abe Saavedra! The name brings back sweet memories of Corpus Christi, his post prior to Houston. I won't rehash his shenigans there except to point out that he hired Maria Goodloe-Johnson. You all remember her, right? These three Broad Institute graduates make quite a triumvirate. If McGinley should leave, one hopes another won't be shoved down our throats.

Another reason? Why would Saavedra leave Houston at the ripe old age of 58 without another superintendent's job on the horizon? One Houston blog may have had the answer last February:

". . .he's made more than his fair share of bungles. Board members have sometimes seemed blindsided by his proposals -- like cutting transportation for magnet schools or combining whiz-kid high school Carnegie Tech with the much rougher Worthing.

"He'd been on thin ice for a while; it seems the ice finally cracked. " [See Houston - Hair Balls - Abe Saavedra Is Leaving The Building.]

In another of those bizarre coincidences, the name of Houston's school board chairman is Greg Meyers.

Our own Meyers version was already blowing more smoke:

"Board Vice Chairman Gregg Meyers said McGinley's actions tell him that she has such little interest in moving somewhere else that even a job paying more than double what she earns here isn't of sufficient interest to bother with an interview if there's a small inconvenience involved.

"'I don't think this trip means anything,' he said."

Why the subterfuge? Who would blame McGinley if she took a job paying double what she gets now? Let's just hope that she doesn't pull an Abe Saavedra on us and work this "interview" into a raise to keep her here.

Does it ever occur to these people that a little honesty would go a long way towards restoring their credibility?

Put the Edublob on a Diet in CCSD!

The Post and Courier finally caught up with this blog on Wednesday regarding CCSD's payments to outside consultants, i.e., the edublob. [See District Paid $25K to Consulting Firm] The discovery concerns money paid to the hapless consultant who bore the brunt of McClellanville's fury--over its inability to be heard at one of Superintendent McGinley's so-called public input meetings. Not that I'm sorry for the consultant. Or McGinley either.

A commenter on the on-line version of the article sums up the situation quite nicely:

Nearly every "public hearing" I attend these days is being run by some group of hired consultants. They pay some people to talk. They hand out forms, which we fill out. We almost never see the tabulated results. We sit down at little tables in "focus groups" to fill out more forms. We don't see the other group's forms. The one thing that never happens is that we get to stand up and say what we think and our neighbors get to hear it. There isn't going to be a "Give me liberty or give me death" oratorical moment where a leader emerges from the community. They don't want new leaders, they want to stay in control.

The entire purpose of all of this is to keep representative democracy, free speech and republican government from working. It insulates the decision makers and eventually wears the public down. It is a corrosive attack on the First Amendment, free speech, peaceful assembly and the right to petition the government, the core function of our public process.

I'm all for lectures, discussions, focus groups and surveys, but in the end the rubber needs to hit the road where the public is heard. Those people in McClellanville were right to rebel. We owe them a lot for derailing the process. We should rebel more often.

Being Broad-trained urban superintendents, McGinley and her predecessor Goodloe-Johnson learned this process well. In fact, in Seattle right now, the process is mucking up Seattle's problems in much the same way, closing schools without a clear plan for quality in sight.

Oh, I know: "Excellence is our standard." Explain how that dovetails to the seventh-and-eighth graders at Charlestowne Academy who are forced into failing schools from a successful one or to seventh-and-eighth graders at Charleston Progressive Academy who must proceed from a building (Courtenay) that accommodates middle-schoolers to one that doesn't or, again, to a failing school, or both.

Yikes.

CCSD's Love Affair with Broad Ending?

The Charleston County School District's new chief academic officer will be a 29-year resident of Charleston instead of a hired gun trained by the Broad Institute, as were Superintendent Nancy McGinley, who served as chief academic officer prior to her promotion; Randy Bynum, fleeting academic officer under McGinley; and Maria Goodloe-Johnson, former superintendent.

Doug Gepford, who has served in several different roles in the district, recently as overseer of verifying addresses in the district and culling the infamous Buist waiting list, has been appointed. Let's wish him good fortune.

What the P & C Should Ask Board Candidates

Good spread in the Post and Courier in Sunday's edition; however, many questions asked of candidates were either inappropriate or inane. [See 9 Candidates Vying for 5 Seats as well as pages 6A-7A of the print edition; questions and answers do not seem to be on line]

Question 1: What grade would you give current schools Superintendent Nancy McGinley? Why? Unless the candidate has a history with McGinley, it's better not to answer this one. The question is designed to identify McGinley supporters.

Question 2: What should the board's role be when it comes to the superintendent (i.e. would you support a more hands-on board that is involved in the district's day-to-day operations or a policy-setting body that would set overall agendas for the superintendent to implement)? This is not an either-or situation. Most candidates realized that the answer must be somewhere in the middle. Poor question.

Question 3: Should the School Board set specific expectations for the school district in terms of measurable objectives, . . .? If not, why? If so, can you give specifics on the expectations you would set. . .? Any specific objectives must be in an area that the district can't fiddle. For example, SAT scores can be raised by discouraging weaker students from taking the test; graduation rates can be raised by ensuring that students graduate by their raising earned grades or disappear down the memory hole or are shunted into district-created charter schools that are off the books. Only tests that can't be locked in a closet overnight are eligible for consideration. Poorly-worded question. Who's going to support non-measurable objectives?

Question 4: Would you support increased funding for schools (i.e. a tax raise)? Why/why not? Another poorly thought-out question. It should be, Should the state legislature vote to increase the state sales tax? Would you lobby for that? Do you think Charleston gets its fair share based on the present formula? Would you be willing to lobby in Columbia to change that formula?

Question 5:Do you think public education is adequately funded in Charleston County? If so, why? If not, what should happen? Hello, here is a function of the state legislature again. Question is inappropriate as worded.

Question 6: For the past few years, the school board has directed officials to scrutinize and improve 10-percent spending annually. Are there any areas that should be off-limits, and are there any areas that the board should be digging into more deeply? Please provide examples. Of course, the question is written as though the board wants to increase spending by 10 percent annually; what the interlocutor meant was that the board hopes that 10-percent of the spending in the area scrutinized could be eliminated! The notion that just part of the budget should be scrutinized is rubbish on the face of it. Would you want a teacher to grade a student based on 10 percent of that student's grades? The question should have been, Are you in favor of annual zero-based budgeting? Are you in favor of posting district expenditures on line? Do you favor the board's scrutinizing 100 percent of the budget every year?

Question 7: Would you support giving new charter schools space in school district buildings? Why/why not? The premise is invalid. Why would they need to be "new"? What possible reason would there be for not doing so? Is there any underutilized or vacant building that a charter school would not want to use?

Question 8: What is the district doing or not doing for charter schools that you would like to see change? Should have been worded, Should the district's policy of deliberately sabotaging non-district created (for relatives of board members) charter schools be reversed? Should the school district employ relatives of board members as administrators in its charter schools?

Question 9: Under what conditions would you support closing, consolidating or restructuring schools in Charleston? One assumes he/she means in the entire school district--poor wording again. The question covers too many possibilities: what is "restructuring schools" anyway? Is that adding a new wing? Making it into a charter school? More fuzzy thinking.

Question 10: Which school board candidates are you going to vote for in this election? Say what you mean! Who's on your team? Do you want the way the present school board does business to stay the same or do you want a change in its relationship with 75 Calhoun?

Let's add the questions that should have been asked:

11. Are you willing to reverse the unwritten policy of always building schools much larger than the ones being replaced? If not, are you willing to vote against neighborhood schools so that constituents know where you stand?

12. Are you satisfied with the transparency of CCSD's multimillion-dollar building program in its contract negotiations and expenditures?

13. Are you willing to adopt the policy that no one who has ever set foot upon a Broad Foundation campus will ever again be employed by CCSD?

14. Are you willing to adopt a discipline policy that holds principals accountable for enforcement? Perhaps a cell-phone to each teacher & policy that, every time a principal sends a misbehaving student back to class with no action, that principal will have 24 hours to justify his or her behavior to a committee created by the school board or be publicly humiliated.

15. Are you willing to investigate the burgeoning busing in CCSD that involves moving non-magnet or non-NCLB transfers out of their attendance zones? Are you ready to determine if the hours, not to speak of the dollars, spent busing these transfers can be justified?

Oh, yes. I'm confident there are more questions out there.

CCSD's McGinley: Surfing as Metaphor

That cream puff I had for breakfast today was so sweet that it nearly made me sick. [See Q&A with Charleston County Schools Superintendent Nancy McGinley.] By itself it would have been fairly sweet, but then I just had to have a second helping! [See McGinley Lets Waves Carry Stress Away.] Maybe I should save the P & C for dessert after dinner.

When you think about it, however, perhaps surfing is a fitting metaphor for McGinley's leadership in CCSD during her first (and maybe last) year as superintendent. She's here for the ride. Her "leadership" takes the form of scouting CCSD to see which wave is the strongest (that would be the five-person tag team of Meyers to Douglas to Jordan to Hampton-Green to--usually--Moody), then applying the latest appropriate educational jargon (and sometimes Broad Foundation solutions) to whatever issue is at hand. There's no doubt she means it when she says that she wants to make CCSD an excellent district; that's her career on the line as well.

Under the waves, it seems, a possible rip current is brewing. What happens if, for example, voters replace Douglas with Kandrac and Hampton-Green with Stewart? Of course, that's why she negotiated a three-year contract. Election day will tell, but if McGinley's supporters are elected, prepare yourself for the closure of more than one elementary school in District 20 and continued prevarication over Buist.