Forget the Economy: CCSD Board Sinks to New Low

I hate profanity. If anyone called me a bitch to my face, I'd probably slap him. My father, who as a former Marine probably knew plenty, never used profanity at any time around me when I was growing up. Arthur Ravenel, Jr., revealed to me by his choice of words to a woman that he is no Southern gentleman, but then I never thought he was. I am still offended by any profanity that I hear used by my peers and can't even imagine the duress I would need to be under to use it in the classroom. There.

That said, can we get real here?

Monday night's CCSD School Board meeting was a classic of its kind. [See New Behavior Standards for Members Proposed]. It's politics, folks. This is appeasement of our lovely, ineffective NAACP, as represented by Dot Scott. Why, if the new policy were made retroactive, Hillery Douglas himself would be in the dock! I'll support the policy when every student who calls a teacher a bitch will be sent to Murray Hill Academy or expelled. That will be a cold day in hell.

The Meyers faction is proposing to use its 5-4 majority to expell ELECTED members of the Board who oppose it, pure and simple. Ravenel not only opposes them; he has the contacts to do it effectively. [BTW, there was a time when I wouldn't have believed that I would ever defend Ravenel!] You don't really believe this is about bad language, do you? If so, please see me later about my bridge in Brooklyn.

We have yet to hear from CCSD's new attorney on the legality of the Board's ousting an elected member. Frankly, until I hear otherwise from state sources, I refuse to believe it. Even Meyers admitted that taking such action would be a "'zoo.'" Zoo? It would be a witch hunt! Can you imagine the trumped up charges that would routinely appear in attempts to get those who don't "go along to get along" with Meyers?

This is about intimidation of members who choose to disagree. The P & C is happy to go along with it. If you read the article carefully, you will see that Ravenel's original outburst concerned failure to put an item on the Board's agenda. It states, "He also told McGinley he'd have her job if she didn't put a certain item on the school board's agenda, according to McGinley's account." Our wonderful newspaper neglects to mention what that item was. Can you guess what?

It was approval of arrangements for CSMS to use the Rivers campus. If the item had not been added to that agenda, CSMS would have lost out on using the campus. See, the plot thickens.

Let's Hear NAACP's Scott on Sea Islands Failure

Would you believe that Charleston's chapter of the NAACP is now calling for Governor Sanford to remove Arthur Ravenel, Jr., from the CCSD Board of Trustees over Ravenel's use of language? As reported by local TV stations, Dot Scott is at it again.

Some things that don't bother Scott and the other officers of the NAACP:

• de facto segregated schools in District 20 (on the peninsula);
  
• under-the-radar busing of white students out of District 20 and black students in to make segregation possible;
  
• the CCSD Superintendent's foray into charter schools as part of changing Murray Hill Academy represented by the monumental and expensive failure of Sea Islands YouthBuild;
  
• the failure of CCSD to provide programs at Burke High School desired by its parents;
• overloading of resources on Buist Academy as a magnet school while withholding same from Charleston Progressive Academy, an almost all-black magnet school only two blocks away; etc.

How could Ravenel's remarks possibly be as damaging to CCSD as these failures? It's all politics, folks. As long as the majority on the CCSD board aligns itself with Dot Scott, we can expect more of the same.

YouthBuild Builds at Last: CCSD Soap Opera

The long, sad odyssey of Sea Islands YouthBuild Charter School seems to be coming to a resolution, if a temporary one. Today's P & C reports that the school finally has a building. [See Sea Islands YouthBuild Home at Last ]

At the end of the school year. The school managed to dodge the cut-off of district funds several times during the year [see several postings on this blog], but this summer the CCSD School Board will be forced to choose: is it going to fund this school in the future or not? Has the school met its obligations to remain in good standing?

Comparisons have been made between Sea Islands and the new Charter School for Math and Science over the last few months. It's time to take stock. The two charters certainly have been treated differently by the CCSD School Board; that's because, leaving aside differences in their missions, these two charters are entirely different in genesis, motivation, and parental involvement. Perhaps there are some lessons to be learned.

• Sea Islands was encouraged by 75 Calhoun to form under the well-meaning guidance of a former employee of CCSD and friend of 75 Calhoun in order to meet the needs of older at-risk students who would no longer be eligible for Murray Hill Academy because the district changed its policies regarding Murray Hill. The students targeted for YouthBuild were unlikely to have much parental support or involvement in its organization.
  
• Charter School for Math and Science started as a grass-roots effort among parents of District 20 students who were discouraged by their choices of failing schools. From the beginning, it seems, the CCSD board was miffed that it did not control the actions of this group.
  
• When the CCSD Board of Trustees approved YouthBuild, it failed in its duty to these needy students by trustingly accepting the word of its organizer that a facility that would meet state standards was available for use. Such was not the case.
• The CCSD Board of Trustees never trusted CSMS in any regard because it hated the idea of a charter high school downtown, with members repeatedly hinting that its organizers were racists. Strong grass-roots support among all races downtown won over public opinion.
  
• The lack of a building and monthly perambulations of YouthBuild from pillar to post, coupled with lack of busing, guaranteed a major reduction in the number of students in attendance. Meanwhile, the district continued to pay funds based on initial numbers of students. Records of attendance were not made available to the district when requested.
• When CSMS organizers saw the old Rivers High School building sitting vacant and requested its use, the School Board attempted to quash and/or gain control over it by suggesting exorbitant rent, then raising the number of millions needed to bring the building up to standards (never mind that the building had been vacant for a very brief period) to a ridiculous figure.
• Perhaps as part of its agreement with CCSD to keep getting funding despite its not following the rules, Sea Islands did not ask for space in public school buildings, although certainly such space exists. Now it has signed a three-year contract to rent an old warehouse that students themselves will renovate.
  

According to Larry Blasch, chairman of YouthBuild's board, "the school will spend another $30,000 improving the space so it can clear state and local inspections and be occupied by students." So the space will finally meet requirements just as school is getting out for the summer?

Given that expenditure and the signing of a three-year contract, it seems reasonable to assume that the fix is in, even though the Board will be not updated in regard to continuing its support until its meeting later this month.

Taxpayers deserve to know what CCSD has gotten for their money in regard to students at YouthBuild: How many credits have been earned per tax dollar? How many diplomas?

And has CCSD learned its lesson?

Too Embarrassing: YouthBuild and CCSD

Is Renee Chewning of Sea Islands YouthBuild Charter School calling Randy Bynum, Chief Academic Officer of CCSD, a liar?

How else to interpret her remarks in response to the findings of CCSD's team visit to her hapless charter school. [See School board votes 8-1 to keep YouthBuild open.]

This failed attempt at assisting those overage students who were not allowed back to Murray Hill Academy is like a nightmare that won't go away. See my analysis

Another Sea Islands YouthBuild Update?

Space for YouthBuild? That's Easy

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: CCSD & First Baptist Johns Island

CCSD has failed in its oversight of tax dollars and students. According to Tuesday's article, "the school district has given the school $347,000 this year and will give $73,000 more." Talk about throwing good money after bad! This sum that is approaching half a million dollars is going for a school where maybe 10 students will show up on any given day.

It's March. The school still does not have a state-approved building, and yet the board went against its own previous requirements for one, voting to continue funding this charade of a school.

Of course, given the P & C's tender feelings towards the CCSD school board, the announcement was hidden on page 6 of the local section of the paper. Even the reporter stated, "School officials' accusations about the lack of learning, supervision and safety at Sea Islands YouthBuild Charter School were so serious that school board members debated Monday whether they should close the school." Debated, yes. Did nothing.

Are we to assume that the school board doesn't trust Mr. Bynum? That his statements that he did give a report to Chewning, saw an unsupervised table saw being used, and could not find attendance records are all lies, lies, lies? Why have an Academic Officer, then? We could save the money.

Another Sea Islands YouthBuild Update?

In the ongoing saga of the building-less Sea Islands YouthBuild Charter School, as of January 24th, the following information appeared in the P & C:

Charter officials are negotiating almost daily on a multi-year lease, and they hope that will be finished by the end of next week [Note: that would be by February 1st]. Two state agencies also must sign off on the building, and that hasn't happened yet. Chewning [the director] hopes students will be able to move into the new site by the third week in February.

For those of you who might have forgotten, CCSD closed Murray Hill Academy to older students, while agreeing to expand YouthBuild into a charter school to accommodate them. YouthBuild's director promised a suitable facility without having one, and CCSD Board members didn't verify that it did.

These shenanigans have resulted in the following headlines:

• August 22, 2007: "Students Start from Scratch" (spin about its lack of equipment);
  
• September 8: "Charter School in Jeopardy";
• September 12: "YouthBuild Charter Officials Perplexed by Board Directive"(can't understand why charter would be yanked if it doesn't have a building);
• September 13: "YouthBuild Told Why It Must Close";
• September 22: "Johns Is. School Evicted";
• October 5--"District: Charter Won't Get Funding";
  
• October 16--"Panel: Give Charter School 90 Days";
• October 23--"Charter School Given 60-Day Reprieve";
• October 25--"Jury Could Decide School Eviction Case in 2 Weeks";
• November 7--"YouthBuild Charter School, Landlord Reach Agreement";
  
• November 9--"When School Suffers, Students Do Too";
• November 24--" Charter School Requests Services";
  
• November 25--"Charter School Students to Study at Home While Facility in Limbo";
• December 27--"YouthBuild Still Without School Site"; (the end of the 60-day reprieve?)
  
• January 24, 2008--"Charter School Has Temporary Site for Classes"(after spending two weeks at a Boy Scout facility on Wadmalaw Island).
  

Are we actually going to hear next week about YouthBuild's new permanent facility? Are even 20 of the original 75 students left in the program after these months of confusion? Is the CCSD School Board still keeping track?

Finally, how much money has been given to the school so far, and is it accounted for?

"First Take the Log out of Your Own Eye"

Not again!

The Reverend Joseph Darby again opines on the P & C's op-ed page in response to an editorial supporting legislative efforts to allow public charter schools to use public school buildings (already the policy in many states). As is his wont, he strongly implies that the new Charter High School for Math and Science is really a plot to introduce segregation to downtown Charleston, when in reality it is a plot to introduce integration to downtown Charleston.

See Tie measurable diversity goals to free rent for charter schools .

Nothing will be gained by another reasoned response to such willful disregard of the facts. Clearly, the Rev. Darby has an ax to grind, and for whatever reason, the P & C sees fit to provide the grindstone whenever Darby wants it.

Notice what is part of his argument here:

". . .the Charter School for Math & Science is a 'start up' charter school that simply wishes to claim a public building and not pay its way. Should the school district choose to allow them to do so, then the same thing should be done for all future and existing charter schools, like the YouthBuild Charter School.

YouthBuild has had considerable struggles in finding and paying for operating space. Should the Charter School for Math & Science be given a free building, then the same should be done for YouthBuild.

Gee, I haven't heard Darby call for "diversity goals" for YouthBuild.

The reasoning here just doesn't hold water. YouthBuild is in its horrible circumstances because CCSD encouraged it to take on students who the district determined would not return to Murray Hill Academy [for reasons having to do with failures in its McGinley-selected for-profit administration]. The CCSD Board of Trustees was so anxious to have these students at YouthBuild that they didn't look too closely at YouthBuild's director's assurances that a suitable facility had been arranged.

Unlike the charter school under discussion, YouthBuild has never asked for use of a public school building. You might ask yourself why. Obviously that is a solution to its housing problems, as I have said before, and such space does exist.

But don't hold your breath waiting for Darby to call for "diversity" in YouthBuild's classrooms. The de facto segregation in District 20 and in CCSD's other charter schools is part of the outmoded racist thinking of the Charleston branch of the NAACP: under the present segregated conditions it can wield greater power (and get long op-ed pieces into the P & C).

Who cares what's best for the students involved, black or white? Maybe the organizers of CHSMS?

P & C Discovers the Education Blob!

Only 20 years! That's all it took for the P & C to read the entrails of the "education blob." That sobriquet, coined by then-Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, describes non-profit organizations feeding at the public trough in the name of advancing education.

Saturday's paper finally provides coverage of the finances of Heritage Services, showing how (as I have stated previously in this blog) non-profit does not mean "non-profitable" to those involved. [SeeSex-ed nonprofit banks heavily on public funds ]

There's politics involved? Gasp!

Whether you are against abstinence-based sex education or not is immaterial here. What everyone can agree upon is that public funding of non-profits (and even for-profits) needs to have more oversight and transparency. Those who pay attention to CCSD's administration can easily rattle off the call letters of many--CEN, CEP, NTP, etc.--that remain shrouded in mystery as to effectiveness per dollar spent. Why do I suspect that Heritage is not alone in its important political connections, family business salaries, and lack of accountability to the taxpayers?

Maybe because I didn't fall of the turnip truck yesterday?

Reality Check: $14 Million Elephant in the Room

Does anyone with an office in the Taj Mahal EVER admit a mistake?

If the results of CCSD's hiring of Community Education Partners (CEP) also portend the results of Superintendent McGinley's newer plans, we're in real trouble here. The P & C 's article Tuesday regarding Murray Hill Academy was as polite as it could possibly have been, given the circumstances of this major fiasco. Probably CCSD school board members at Monday's meeting also veiled their comments.

It's time for a reality check here.

1. Would CCSD have hired CEP if then-Chief Academic Officer McGinley had not recommended they do so (probably at the urging of her Broad Foundation helpers)? NO
2. Did McGinley assume that Charleston's problems were analogous to Philadelphia's? YES
3. Did CCSD spend $5 million to "warehouse" perhaps a total of 600 students over a period of 2 and 1/2 years? WOW
4. For this princely sum, did CEP ever provide an effective principal and enough certified teachers for students to get credits? NO
5. Did McGinley negotiate a contract with CEP that required students to attend for 180 days but now claim that is too long to be effective for CCSD's students? YES
6. Did the building never reach capacity because CCSD didn't assign enough students? YES
7. Was the $9 million building built specifically for CEP according to its specifications? WHAT FORESIGHT
8. Did CCSD assign fewer than 70 students to that new $9 million building this fall? YES
9. Is McGinley suggesting rooms in this specially-built school be used for office space? YES
10. That would be because the Taj Mahal has grown too small for all its bureaucrats or because it is falling apart? WHO KNOWS?

This list could be longer, but what would be the point? According to McGinley, "Charleston has been fortunate to have the company run Murray Hill." What does she think would happen if she admitted a mistake? Would the sky fall? Or would community members begin to be more confident that she's leveling with them?

More importantly, how can we hold CCSD more responsible for spending in the future? Just think of all those lovely building and renovation projects Bill Lewis has on the table and his escalating estimates for the renovation of the old Rivers High School building. Is anyone watching the store?

Fix Dropout Rate? Start with Preschool

Most of us read with interest CCSD's latest attempt to address the dropout rate among African-American males [see Retreat's goal: Help black male students in the P & C's Sunday edition]. The actual rate is a secret (if anyone actually knows, which I doubt), but if the overall dropout rate hovers around a horrible 50%, can we assume that for black males it is close to 75%?

The participants recommended several ideas that Randy Bynum, Chief Academic Officer, promised to take to CCSD for possible implementation, obfuscation, and/or the circular file. However, the remarks made by Lee Gaillard, interim principal at Murray Hill and former Burke High principal and coach, made the most sense. Among other comments, Gaillard suggested that "the community needs more dialogue and follow-up on this issue"; that he "remembers intense local discussions in 1975 about violence in schools that ended after a few years, and now it's 2008 and the same problems still exist"; and that [too?] "much of the discussion focused on middle and high school students, and he'd like to see more talk about what could be done for preschool and elementary-aged students."

So it was with interest that I read this column in today's Washington Post. Note the comments about what [statistically] has worked. CCSD must seriously keep track of the effects of its various programs. Too often "fixes" have not been shown to produce the desired results.

Dropout Solutions That Work

By Jay Mathews
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 15, 2008; 10:08 AM

I am starting this column with a chart, something journalists are never supposed to do. I found it on page 179 of a new book with one of those titles, "The Price We Pay: Economic and Social Consequences of Inadequate Education," that scholars consider necessary but discourages readers. I beg you to stay with me, because this particular chart is surprising and important (I have changed the format slightly to make it easier to absorb).

Table 9-1. Interventions that Demonstrably Raise the High School Graduation Rate

(Intervention -- Extra high school graduates if intervention is given to 100 students)

1. Perry Preschool Program (1.8 years of a center-based program for 2.5 hours per weekday, child-teacher ratio of 5:1; home visits; group meetings of parents.) 19 extra graduates.

2. First Things First (Comprehensive school reform based on small learning communities with dedicated teachers, family advocates and instructional improvement efforts.) 16 extra graduates.

3. Chicago Child-Parent Center program (Center-based preschool program: parental involvement, outreach and health/nutrition services. Based in public schools.) 11 extra graduates.

4. Project STAR: class size reduction (4 years of schooling in grades K-3 with class size reduced from 25 to 15.) 11 extra graduates.

5. Teacher salary increase (10 percent increase, K-12) 5 extra graduates.

This list is the work of Clive R. Belfield of Queens College of the City University of New York and Henry M. Levin of Teachers College at Columbia University, editors of the book and authors of the chapter in which the chart appears. Belfield and Levin are among the best of the economists who are doing some of the most promising research on how to fix schools.

Dropouts are probably the biggest and least soluble problem in high school. About 30 percent of ninth graders don't finish high school in four years nationally. That figure rises to 50 percent in our poorest neighborhoods. Few school systems are doing much about it, in part because there is so little information on what should be done.

Yet the five programs listed in the chart do work, based on solid research, Belfield and Levin say. The bad news is those were the only programs of proven value they could find after examining hundreds of articles and reports. They wanted programs whose results had been rigorously evaluated and had proven to produce significant increases in graduation rates. They found, instead, "few experimental designs with random assignment, few quasi-experimental studies with strong design to ensure equivalent groups for comparison, and few rigorous statistical and econometric methods to identify effects of interventions." [italics mine]

Notice something else: Only one of these five programs is something that high school educators can do, even though they are the people getting most of the blame for our high dropout rates. Some critics say I should not be putting high schools with high dropout rates but superior college preparation programs on my lists of best schools. The chart buttresses my view that the fine educators in those schools deserve a break on this issue, since most of the effective anti-dropout programs start long before students reach high school.

Each of the five solutions identified by Belfield and Levin is interesting. All should be on the top of every presidential candidate's agenda, and indeed many of them are, at least in a general way. The first and third most effective methods are preschool programs, something many candidates support. The Perry Preschool Program began in Michigan 40 years ago. It has the rare advantage of data on its participants' subsequent lives that extends to the present day. The Chicago Child-Parent Center program had a similar long-term focus, following its participants up to age 20.

Some presidential candidates also support reducing class size, which is what Project STAR in Tennessee, the fourth-ranked program, did. Some candidates call for raising teacher salaries, the effects of which were revealed by the fifth-ranked study, by Susanna Loeb and Marianne E. Page.

But the one effective high school program, breaking dysfunctional urban schools into small learning communities, is not discussed very often on the campaign trail. That program, First Things First, was carried out in Kansas City, Kan. It was part of a national switch to smaller high schools that is drawing a great deal of support, including millions of dollars from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Belfield and Levin spend much of their chapter calculating which of the five methods was most cost effective. First Things First won that race, with benefits 3.54 times greater than its cost. Next in line were the Chicago Parent-Child Centers (benefits 3.09 times greater than costs), the teacher salary increase (2.55) , the Perry Preschool Program (2.31) and the class size reduction (1.46).

These are the estimates of two economists crunching their numbers on computers, not the real life experience of teachers, parents, students and taxpayers taking these ideas and using them in their own communities. Their situations are likely to be different from those of the schools covered in these studies. Belfield and Levin point out that there may be other good programs that reduce dropouts, but the research on them is not good enough yet. This is a start. Where we go next depends on how serious we are about solving one of our worst social problems.

Space for YouthBuild? That's Easy

So reports the P & C:

• Still no facility for Sea Islands YouthBuild Charter School on Johns Island.
  
• McGinley supports continued attempts to find space.
  
• The Superintendent is totally sympathetic to the needs of these "children."
  
• Instead of beginning the new semester on a school campus, the students will undergo leadership training at a Boy Scout camp on Wadmalaw Island. . . .
  
• Yada, Yada, Yada

But WAIT!

If McGinley is so sympathetic to the school, why not give it space in St. John's High School? Let's have a school within a school. It's been done elsewhere, and I understand there's plenty of room. She is quoted as saying,

"We don't want to see children out on the streets or in jeopardy. We will try to support them, on behalf of children, with getting a stable facility. I don't know what that means yet. I don't want to see the students shipped around or scattered and not having some place safe."

Especially since the 17-year-olds (a good portion of the student body) are now barred from Murray Hill Academy under this year's contract.

She owes them.

Discipline and Murray Hill Academy

Done: Construction of a new single story 48,000 square foot facility [Murray Hill Academy] for Community Education Partners (CEP) under contract to CCSD for 432 students on a 10.5 acre site located on Bonds Avenue in North Charleston. The facility has four learning centers, each with three conventional classrooms and one reading/math/computer classroom. Project scope was increased to include a 4,000 square foot community space for use by the Murray Hill neighborhood and the North Charleston Recreation Department. [Description from CCSD website]

No mention on the website of the cost of this building, but we can safely assume millions.


But on CCSD's website, this school built for 432 students has 63!

CCSD's website link to Murray Hill Academy's website is dead.

The principal listed for Murray Hill on CCSD's website left the school in the middle of the 2006-07 school year. It's now the end of October. Wasn't Lee Gaillard appointed interim principal? Is he still there? Why isn't his name?

Is it true that overage students from Murray Hill were "transferred" to Sea Islands Youth Build Charter School on Johns Island? The one that needs a building? Is that why so few are at Murray Hill today?

Are CCSD students being expelled instead of being sent to Murray Hill?

Has Murray Hill solved its problems (of last year) with uncertified teachers?

How many students is CEP required to take under its contract with CCSD? McGinley lowered the number last summer, but surely it isn't under 100 at this point? Or, is it?

Mismanagement? Waste of taxpayer dollars? What do you think?

CEN's Big and Little Shots: Who's Playing in CCSD

Not too surprisingly, the Board of Directors of the Charleston Education Network (CEN) is comprised of big shots, money bags, and even the occasional educator.


Jon Butzon, its executive director, reports to a chairman, co-chairman, and 24 directors. Since the tax reports of 501(c) organizations (such as CEN) must be available to the public, through a helpful reader I am able to provide the names of these mysterious eminences, at least as of two years ago. Perhaps you can add some pertinent information to my groping attempts to identify all of them.

1. Neil C. Robinson, Jr., a lawyer with Nexsen Pruett, a director who states he is a founder and past chairman of CEN on the firm's website;


2. John Barter of Kiawah Island, listed as past co-chair, on the Board of Directors of Spoleto Festival USA and Board of Investors of the Noisette Company;


3. James Etheredge, vice-chairman for operations, has an MUSC email address;


4. Wilbur Johnson, lawyer with Young Rivers Clement;


5. Sybil Fix, former education reporter for the P & C;


6. Katherine Duffy, of Katherine Duffy and Associates, a marketing research firm, former director of the Palmetto-Lowcountry Health Systems Agency;


7. Lee Gaillard, former principal of Burke High School and present interim principal at Murray Hill Academy;


8. Edwin Halkyard, former president of the Charleston Symphony Orchestra;


9. Thomas Hood, president of First Financial (better known in Charleston as "First Federal");


10. Robert Lurie, retired founder of Bright Horizons Corporate Day Care, who lives on Kiawah;


11. Cathy Marino, also of Kiawah, active in Gibbes, Etc., and WINGS;


12. Elizabeth Marshall--no clear information available;


13. Sara Davis Powell, professor in C of C's School of Education;


14. Allan Rashford, M.D., downtown practitioner whose patients include former police chief Reuben Greenberg;


15. Retired Bishop (and former chairman) S.K. Rembert of the Reformed Episcopal Church;


16. Joseph P. Riley, Jr., who needs no introduction;


17. John Thompson, whose name is so common that no reliable identification can be made here;


18. Ruth Baker, another activist in community affairs from Kiawah;


19. Nella Barkley, director of Crystal-Barkley and first general manager of Spoleto Festival USA;


20. Johanna Carrington-Martin, co-chairman previously identified here;


21. The Rev. Willis T. Goodwin, chairman of the Charleston Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance;


22. Alicia Gregory, identified as Secretary, also on the board of directors of the Children's Museum along with Robert Lurie, its president;


23. Paul Hines, Co-chair of the Blue Ribbon Education Committee that opposed the A-team in the last school board election;


24. Rita O'Neill, General Manager of Channel 5;


25. Theron Snype, Minority Business Enterprise Manager for the City of Charleston and CCSD school board candidate in 2004;


26. Elisabeth Oplinger, former principal at Memminger Elementary.

In 2005 CEN listed its address as Capers Hall, Room 330. In that year it received almost $93,000 in "public support," $65,ooo of which went for Butzon's salary as the only employee.

Considerable overlap exists between this group and the members of the Charleston Planning Project for Pubic Education (C3PE) that produced a year-long study of public education in Charleston County in 1998. That organization's work was described by the Charleston Business Journal as

"the Equity and Excellence Study funded by private donations generated through a volunteer committee, the Charleston Planning Project for Public Education. C3PE is an education planning group consisting of business leaders and educators who are dedicated to the overall improvement of Charleston County schools."

Is that study the blueprint for the Charleston Education Network?

Who calls the shots in this unwieldy committee of 26?

Who decides what policies to push?

Where does more than $92,000 in "public support" come from?

What are Butzon's qualifications for sitting in on CCSD meetings?

Why does CCSD list CEN under "parent" organizations?

Any and all answers will be appreciated!

P & C Discovers the Broad Foundation!

Only three months after my posting on the Eli Broad Education Foundation and its production of urban superintendents Abelardo Saavedra (for Corpus Christi), Maria Goodloe-Johnson (for Corpus Christi and then Charleston), and Nancy McGinley [see my post of April 5 on "Roving Opportunists"], the P & C broke the news last Monday that the foundation has provided "substantial" resources to CCSD!

Clearly the editors need to pay more attention to this blog. Perhaps their attention was raised when CCSD appointed its THIRD graduate of the Broad Foundation's fellows program for urban educators, Randy Bynum, Sr., who was in its Class of 2007.

The Broad Foundation is active in many other cities, too, including Portland, Oregon. An on-line weekly newspaper, wweek.com, identifies its goals: "to create competition by starting publicly funded, privately run charter schools, to enforce accountability by linking teacher pay to student test scores, and to limit teachers' say in curriculum and transfer decisions." Whether true or not, this list sets up some interesting queries for CCSD. Portland parents are mainly unhappy about the closing of neighborhood schools in the name of progress.

Googling into the efforts of Broad-trained personnel will certainly turn up some disgruntled, in fact, ranting, opponents of the foundation, especially after it joined forces with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. No doubt many, if not all, of these unhappy districts (such as the one in Christina, Delaware), like CCSD, had many problems waiting to be solved when these supers arrived. But Broad's philosophy (and follow-through) should raise some yellow flags (notice I didn't say "red").

To assist them in succeeding, Broad-trained fellows have resources available to them that support their training, and Goodloe-Johnson took full advantage of them. According to Courrege's article, the "foundation has spent more than $100,000 in the district." Thus,

"--The foundation will provide McGinley with a strategic support team of superintendents and leaders who will come to Charleston periodically and work with her on any issue she picks.
"--The foundation paid for an outside expert to come in and look at the district's communications department to see what could be better, and it will do the same for the district's information technology department.
"--The foundation has paid for Jim Huger, an independent consultant, to lead school board workshops.
"--The foundation covered expenses associated with executive coaches for Goodloe-Johnson in her first years as superintendent and McGinley, just beginning her tenure.
"--Brenda Nelson, the school district's new director of community outreach, will apply for the Broad Residency in Urban Education program, which involves two years of management training.
"--The foundation, with the Council of the Great City Schools, gave an $18,500 grant to the district to review operational or instructional processes and capacities for change."

Board members Hillery Douglas and Nancy Cook and training-participant board member Ray Toler are quite satisfied that the foundation's support "has done a good job" in helping schools.

But I'm wondering about the outside consultants. One aspect of Broad Education Foundation training encourages participants to explore the expertise of other national organizations to address specific problems in a district--for example, the New Teacher Project (or Teach Charleston) to recruit teachers for hard-to-fill positions and Community Education Partners to run Murray Hill Academy. No doubt there are other nonprofits either under consideration or in effect. So far the jury is out on whether the money spent on these consultants will reap rewards.

In addition, what are the qualifications of Randy Bynum, Sr., to be chief academic officer, other than being a Broad Fellow?

Try Googling "Randy Bynum."

Why Problems at Murray Hill Academy?

As the late congressman Everitt Dirkson from Illinois used to say: "A million here, a million there, and pretty soon you're talking real money." Actually, he probably said "billion," but fortunately CCSD doesn't YET fall in that ballpark.

What's happening at Murray Hill Academy (i.e., the Discipline School) doesn't make sense. No one in his or her right mind would question the need for such a school in CCSD, but its $9 million building will not hold the projected 432 students next year. The five-year contract to run Murray Hill Academy (previously known as the Discipline School) of over $3 million per year has been negotiated down to 328, approximately the number attending at the end of this school year.

Community Education Partners (CEP), the Tennessee-based private company that runs the school, has similar schools in Houston, Atlanta, and Orlando that do not appear to have suffered from revolving principals, high staff turnover, and extremely high dropout rates (200 out of 533 assigned this year). So what's different here?

Certainly the students in CCSD aren't harder cases than those in the urban districts listed above. Those schools must be faced with the same problems of expulsion, dropping out, and alternative home or private schooling that Courrege's article in today's paper attributes to the high dropout number.

Then there's the question of staff turnover and placement. CCSD cannot complain about lack of teacher certification when CEP clearly states it will use other qualified professionals when appropriate. However, if CEP did not provide a full-time mental health counselor as promised, did that shortcoming affect the contract? And then, why was it necessary to replace CEP's choice of principal in the middle of the year with a consultant from CCSD (and former Burke High School principal)? If the school "culture has been restored," as the director of CCSD's Office of Prevention and Intervention suggests, what made it go south in the first place?

CEP points out that the mix of students at Murray Hill differs from its other schools, but CEP deals with the students sent it by CCSD, so THAT phenomenon means that CCSD has selected a different mix. Was that the plan originally? Did CCSD have such a backlog of students needing expulsion that the mix this last year was skewed? Are "low-performing students with behavior problems" not being recommended to Murray Hill by CCSD unless they are on the verge of expulsion? Surely the school could be filled to the brim with them, if CCSD so desired. What percentage of Brentwood's students do you think would qualify? The selection process seems flawed--that's CCSD's management.

The P &C briefly mentioned "missing academic goals" as a concern regarding the program's effectiveness. Well, how do its academics compare to previous incarnations of "discipline schools"?

And why mix males and females together in the classroom if CEP's model calls for separation? Obviously, if CCSD wants to emulate the successes of other CEP schools, it should follow their model.

As for its previously having an average of 27 students per class, that number strikes me as rather high. Is that what CEP had planned for or what CCSD insisted upon? No one in CCSD is saying that CEP isn't following CCSD's lead.

So, who has the management problem?