Educrat Spearman Opposes School Choice Program for Special Needs

In 2011, MollySpearman in an op-ed in The State newspaper declared, “SC can’t afford fool’s gold
of private school subsidies.” In this editorial, she argued that private schools wouldn’t accept
students that the credits would help.

How's that working out for you, Molly?

Of course, Molly was a lobbyist for Democrat Inez Tenenbaum for a number of years. She claims she didn't vote for the former state superintendent, but she did contribute money to Tenenbaum's campaign. Could Spearman be a RINO? Nahh.

When the School Choice bill for special needs children passed the SC House for the first time in
2012, Spearman, while serving as the Director of the SC Association of School Administrators,
said “This isn’t going to do anything to improve our education in this state. At a time when we
can’t fulfil our state requirement for public schools, we’re diverting resources to places where
there is no accountability, where we aren’t sure the type of education students will
receive.”

http://janesharp-schoolboard.com/2011/04/05/excellent-oped-posting-by-molly-spearman-on-private-school-subsidies/

Looks like this year's race for state superintendent of education is between tweedle-dee-dum and tweedle-dee-dee.

As Long as We Need to Restructure Burke

Now that Burke High School (among others in CCSD) has failed to meet AYP for six years, it faces restructuring, according to NCLB. May I remind you of some highlights of Burke's trials over the past 18 months? I'm sure many readers can add the tribulations of the many previous years.


Let's begin with June of 2006. Burke was almost taken over by the State Department of Education, Inez Tenenbaum then Superintendent. It had failed to implement recommendations made by the state review board during the previous year. What happened next? Promises, promises! In fact, Mayor Joe Riley promised at the time to make (and I quote!) Burke "'a renowned national model for excellence.'" Goodloe-Johnson promised that, after a string of six principals over seven years, the new one would do the trick.

Barely three months later, the P & C (of all sources!) broke the scandal that Burke has been used as a dumping ground for troublemakers from other schools in CCSD. [See my posting of You Can't Make This Stuff Up! for details.] Is anyone on the school board following up on these questionable transfers? What percentage of Burke's students do not live in District 20? Do these transfers continue? How about telling us how many students who live in District 20 are bused to CCSD high schools in other parts of the county? Now, that number would be revealing.

Of course, in May of 2007 CCSD held its famous $77,000 meeting at Burke regarding the use of the Rivers High School building. During that meeting (and at various times since) CCSD has hinted that Burke may get an "AP Academy" or other speciality program. As it is, Burke doesn't even offer enough world language courses to qualify students for USC or Clemson, not to mention other deficiencies in its course offerings.

If plans exist to improve Burke, it appears now that the Superintendent will spring them by surprise upon the residents of District 20. Is she going to meet with District 20 constituents (especially PARENTS) to ask what they would like to see with the restructuring of Burke? Surely that's an important step that needs to be part of any restructuring!

Meanwhile, Burke has plenty of room in its practically-new building.

Why not take all those applicants to Academic Magnet who will be rejected for the coming year's class but meet the old generic standard and create a second "academic magnet" at Burke?

Don't like that?

Why not take all 75 students from Sea Islands YouthBuild Charter (who don't have a school building) and create a spectacular building trades program in the space at Burke?

Don't like that either? What about replicating some vocational programs now at Garrett and offering them at Burke?

Most importantly, what does the downtown community as a whole see as the best solution for Burke? And I'm not talking about NAACP officers who live west of the Ashley!

We Still Have Tennenbaum to Amuse Us

Saturday's Newsless Courier provided yet another chuckle for those of us who are underimpressed with the sayings of former State Superintendent Inez Tenenbaum. Apparently Berkeley County invited her to speak to their educators (at a "district staff development workshop").

After congratulating South Carolina on its showing ("approaching" average) on the NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress), Tennenbaum pouted that "critics only harp on [italics mine] the state's low SAT scores and abysmal graduation rate."

"Harp on": "To talk or write about to an excessive and tedious degree; dwell on."
[definition courtesy of the online freedictionary.com]

Let's see--what would be more important to the futures of South Carolina's students--

Their NAEP scores or their SAT scores? Their NAEP scores or graduation from high school?

Duh.

Thanks, Jim: I Needed That

Here I was thinking that I wouldn't have any more silly comments to blog about since Inez Tenenbaum left office as State Superintendent of Education.

Silly me.

Having been in office not even a month, Jim Rex has made the following comment to the media:

"The state is 'dangerously close to having a demoralized and compromised teaching force,' partly because public schools are criticized."

Really? Well, first, I'm not really sure what he means by "compromised" here.

The Free Online Dictionary defines the word as "A term applied to classified matter, knowledge of which has, in whole or in part, passed to an unauthorized person or persons, or which has been subject to risk of such passing"

Teachers are "classified matter"? Surely not. Mr. Rex appears to need to check his diction.

That they may be "demoralized" seems more likely; however, teachers do not get that way from "public schools [being] criticized." They get that way from incompetent administrators, non-supportive principals, and non-existent discipline. Mr. Rex apparently still has much to learn, since he mentions none of these demoralizing factors.

So, does Jim Rex think the situation will improve if people stop criticizing the public schools?

Pu--leeese!

ACT Results: We Did It! Forty-ninth out of Fifty-one!

Try http://www.act.org/news/data/06/states.html . You'll need to go there to find out what the state Superintendent knows full well but did not put into her press release. That would be the press release that was the basis for

"State scores improve, but national average still a tough ACT to follow," by Mindy B. Hagen and Diette Courrege, The Post and Courier, Wednesday, August 16, 2006, Local & State section, below the fold.

http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/Stories.aspx?section=localnews&tableId=102602&pubDate=8/16/2006

"Focus on the positive" must be the message from the editors to reporters, or "follow the superintendent's lead." Otherwise, why would I be forced to go to the ACT website to find out which state South Carolina ranked above in its wonderful accomplishment? You won't find it on the website of the state's department of education. To its credit, the Newsless Courier did report that SC was the 49th of the states. And reporters don't write the headlines.

Gee, I don't see why we shouldn't brag about it--we beat those dummies again! That is, the ones in the District of Columbia and Mississippi! Yes, 49th out of 51.

Now, I know that apologists will say that these results are so low because so many of our students take the ACT (that would be 39 % of graduates this year), but the fact is that in some states well ahead of the national average 90 to 100 % take it. And why did we beat Mississippi? It turns out 93 % took the ACT there. Does anyone really think that, if 93 % of OUR graduates had taken the test, we would have come out ahead of them?

Or, maybe some will say that our results are so low because so few of our students take the test. GET SERIOUS! The ones taking the ACT are not going to be at the bottom of the class! Students who score below expectations on the SAT are encouraged to take the ACT because it is more of a measure of what the student actually has learned, rather than aptitude.

Exactly. It would be nice if the Newsless Courier reporters would report ALL of the story. Well, if the editors would let them.

There's always hope.

More Appropriate Headline: "A Band-Aid over Melanoma"

"State board leaves Burke in school district's hands," by Diette Courrege AND "Trouble on 'A-Team': Engelman departs," by Schuyler Kropf, The Post and Courier, Thursday, August 10, 2006, front page, above the fold.
http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/Stories.aspx?section=localnews&tableId=101778&pubDate=8/10/2006
http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/Stories.aspx?section=localnews&tableId=101787&pubDate=8/10/2006

It's hard to say which of these stories dealing with the future of public education in Charleston County is more disheartening.

1. Is it worse that Joe Riley, after being mayor of Charleston for 30 years, during which time Burke High School has gone from a poor high school to an abysmal one, has the temerity to suggest NOW that he will make it a "renowned national model for excellence" so that it will not be taken over by the state? or
2. Is it worse that the self-named "A-Team" running for the CCSD school board promising true reform turns out to be headed by "good ol' boy" Arthur Ravenel, Jr., who somehow believes that making millions mixing real estate and politics and having his name on a bridge gives him the right to be the new school board chairman?

It's a close call, but I have to go with # 2. After all, in the case of Burke, we have a DEMOCRATIC mayor putting on a good show for a DEMOCRATIC state supertintendent. If you believe politics wasn't a factor, well, you must have fallen off the turnip truck yesterday! But more importantly, the status quo will be changed ONLY by a change of personnel on the CCSD school board and in the state superintendent's office. Certainly not by Joe Riley, who has no control over what goes on in the school district!

AND, politics was also the factor for the "A-Team," the "Republican" slate in this non-partisan election. "Non-partisan" is a joke, and all those involved know it. It's "pig-in-a-poke" voting. This expression refers to buying a bag supposedly holding a valuable pig while trusting that the unseen pig actually exists. When the sucker opens the bag, it turns out to hold ... a worthless[substitute some worthless animal here].

For those of you not familiar with South Carolina before it elected its first Republican governor in a century, it used to be that all white folk were Democrats, Southern ones that is [think of Dixiecrats], with only a few "Post-Office Republicans" (liberal) hanging on by their fingernails. That's when Arthur Ravenel, Jr. was a Democrat. Now, the large majority of whites in South Carolina have moved into the Republican Party with the rest of the conservatives in the country. In fact, for most offices in the state, you must now be a Republican to get elected, and thus Arthur Ravenel, Jr. is a Republican. But, he's still a good ol' boy who believes that Charleston should be run by the same small group of old Charlestonians and their hangers on. That belief is the true cause for the public disagreement between him and Sandi Engelman.

Is there any way to fix the train wreck? Not this year. Talk about counting your chickens before they're hatched--arguing about who's going to be board chairman even before running, much less before being elected?

Whence my quote, "a Band-Aid over melanoma"? That's from the only sensible member of the state school board (one out of 12!), Ron Wilson, in regard to the district's presentation of how it will fix the Burke problem, "smoke and mirrors," he rightly names it. Apparently he CARED that Marvin Stewart, chairman of the downtown constituent school board, presented a "unanimous vote of no confidence in Charleston administrators." Why should anyone pay attention to them? They only live in the district and send their children to Burke!

By the way, if you are wondering who these state school board members are, apparently four of the 17 did not vote. Were Terrye Seckinger (Isle of Palms), Kristin Maguire (Sanford's appointee), Patsy Pye (Summerville), and Joe Isaac (Pawleys Island) voting "Yes"? Or were they too timid to be there?

If so, let's hold these lackeys of the state superintendent responsible! They're appointed by your legislative delegation. You can email them at http://ed.sc.gov/agency/stateboard/page296.html .

It's 1958 at the National Governors Conference!

"No easy fixes for states: Education," by Diette Courrege, front page of The Post and Courier, Monday, August 7, 2006.

Yes, it is true that when the U.S.S.R. launched Sputnik (I heard about it at a friend's house in West Oak Forest when the story broke), a vociferous hue and cry emerged to get students into science. And a generation of astrophysicists (none from the Charleston public schools that I know of) emerged (although many through necessity have now transferred to other scientific fields), but to suggest that America's inability to "attract and graduate students in science" constitutes a new phenomenon is just plain wrong. And, poor preparation in math and science at the high school level has always been the cause!

The Newsless Courier's take on a Sunday session at the National Governors Association meeting might as well have been printed for the 50th meeting in 1958 as for the 98th this weekend! Who knows, maybe a bit of digging would show that the same comments and solutions recommended in 1958 have been re-proposed in 2006.

The reporter states that "[it's] a complex problem," probably mirroring the comments of the attendees. The complexity comes from how schools are controlled. States now (and have always) determined their own standards. That's a minimum of 50 sets of standards. "Think tanks and foundations" can propose national academic standards until the cows come home, or the next "Sputnik" appears, but as long as students are captive to attending the nearest public school that is captive to nonpartisan school boards and liberal state bureaucracies, standards, regardless of how high they are set, will make no difference.

Here's the statement that set my teeth to grinding:
"South Carolina has gotten a bad rap for achievement, but education officials point to studies that show that the Palmetto State's academic standards are higher than those in some other states."

Please don't insult our intelligence! Nameless "education officials"? Such as our State Superintendent, who apparently to this day still believes that Wisconsin high school graduates need only 13 credits versus South Carolina's 22?

If South Carolina's academic standards are higher than any state that you know of, I'd like to know it so that I can send that state a condolence letter.

It All Begins to Make Sense: Segregated Schools

"Burke in takeover cross hairs: State verges on taking control from district," by Diette Courrege, The Post and Courier, July 13, 2006 AND

"Equality: A difficult lesson," by Steve Reeves, The Post and Courier, January 10, 2005

As a teacher I should have learned long ago never to take anything for granted. Silly me, I thought that, while I was living elsewhere in the late 1960s, the Charleston County School District had been desegregated! And, in fact, in January of 2005, the Newsless Courier ran an article about the 50th anniversity of Brown v. Board of Education "that outlawed segregation in public schools" and mentioned City Councilman Wendell Gilliard's transferring in 1969 from formerly "all-black Burke" to "all-white Rivers High."

Was Gilliard being facetious when he said, "Even today, you go into public schools and look around, you see that we still have a long way to go"? Yes, Mr. Gilliard, we've gone backwards. In 1969 Rivers still had some white students.

Since they were sitting in all-black classrooms, what went through the minds of students at Burke High School and Rivers Middle School on that January 2005 day when, exactly at the time the ruling was handed down, "the landmark court decision was read aloud by local schoolchildren"?

Part of the article mentioned interviews with those who "never got the opportunity to attend a desegregated school." Do you think the reporter saw the irony of his words? Probably not.

Today's article on Burke continues the dismal record of the CCSD and probably did not surprise anyone who has been paying attention. Courrege writes,

The trigger for Burke . . . was that the school failed to act on improvement recommendations from an External Review Team.

Teams visited 56 schools statewide, including nine locally, that rated unsatisfactory within the past two years. The team assessing Burke found that the same problems cited in December 2005 still were ignored in May of [2006]. It was the only school where that happened [italics mine].

Goodloe-Johnson, the CCSD Superintendent, points out that the school has had six principals in the last seven years, and she posits that the NEW and seventh principal will fix its problems. No one envies him his job.

Marvin Stewart, of the District 20 constituent school board (yes, the same one who made all the fuss about Buist) "attributed the school's failure to years of neglect from the county school board and previous superintendents as well as inadequate resources and a lack of parent involvement." Yes, and I'll bet the neglect dates to when Burke became a majority black school. Goodloe-Johnson calls it "high-minority," the understatement of the article! As far as I could determine, Burke has had no more than 1 or 2 white students in the ENTIRE school per year in the last five years. Same goes for Rivers. These ARE segregated schools.

As the earlier article states, equality IS a difficult lesson. Goodloe-Johnson is confident all can be "fixed" when she meets with the State Board in August. She may be correct, since Tennenbaum is the lame duck State Supertendent (she who thinks that Wisconsin requires only 13 credits for a high school diploma).

You would think that a black superintendent would take the problems faced by Burke and Rivers more seriously. On second thought, I guess not when she's a liberal bureaucrat.

Maybe being the first individual school in South Carolina to be declared in "a state of emergency" is just what IS needed.

That's assuming that in November a Republican wins as State Superintendent, of course.

Fifty-first out of Fifty--Now That's Progress!

"Reports fuel graduation rate debate: State puts priority on getting students through high school," by Diette Courrege, the Post and Courier, June 21, 2006.

This banner headline appeared in Wednesday's Local and State section above the fold.

Now Guess: how many paragraphs does the reader need to wade through to get to the "reports."

Well, we know from paragraph 2 that they are "independent,"but it takes NINE more (and shuffling to page 5B with the Obituaries) to find out what the reports said! Those intervening paragraphs essentially lay out the state Superintendent's arguments that the "reports" should be dismissed.

Is it my overactive imagination, or is the reporter an apologist for the Superintendent?

But...Surprise! Surprise! The "debate" is NOT about how South Carolina underreported its graduates. No, shocking as it may seem, South Carolina underreported its dropouts! Whereas SC reported last year that ONLY 25 percent of its students were not graduating, that figure turns out to be more like 40 to 47 percent. For Charleston County the dropout rate (let's call it by its name) is 54 percent.

I'm not making these statistics up for dramatic effect. They're real.

Charleston County's Academic Officer "said she didn't want to argue about where the state or school district ranked." She characterized the rankings as being "in the bottom half." How about the bottom ONE PERCENT? A mathematical reality check here.

If the Post and Courier took itself seriously in reporting NEWS, a banner headline on the FRONT page would have read, "Future looks dim for Charleston County: More than half our children drop out." What do you think would have been the reaction if it had?

By the way, the reports came from Education Week, a national educational publication, and from the U.S.Department of Education.

And what were the Superintendent's points? Her ace-in-the-hole is that SC requires 24 credits for a diploma, "3.5 more credits than the national average." As Tenenbaum says, "'You can imagine how [states with lower totals] rates are going to be higher. We're proud that a high school diploma in SC means something.'"

As opposed to one from New Jersey, the state rated first? This is such a specious argument that I hardly know where to begin, but I'll try.

1. Everyone agrees that most dropouts occur on the ninth-grade level. You mean, a 14-year-old looks at the requirements and says to himself, "Wow, I can't get more than 20 credits [the national average], so I might as well drop out now."
2. The number of credits required does not affect the dropout rate in any meaningful sense. That would be only for high school seniors who do not pass enough courses to get the diploma and do not go to summer school.
3. The total of credits does not reveal how difficult the courses are to pass, nor does it reveal what core requirements are included. Apples and oranges again.
4. Tenenbaum does not seem to know that the lower total credits number does not reflect requirements added by local districts in states where local districts have more control. Case in point: Wyoming ( which along with California and Wisconsin) requires 13 credits to graduate. The Wyoming deputy state superintendent of public instruction "said the report is misleading because...each district imposes an additional 12 to 15 credits." That means Wyoming's graduates have earned MORE credits than SC's, while the state ranks 22nd instead of last and has a gap of only 3 percentage points between its own calculated graduation rate and that of the report. SC's gap was more like 20 to 25 percentage points.
5. New Jersey, the highest-ranked state, also requires more credits than the national average, 22 on the state level. Surely Supt. Tenenbaum does not suggest that those two credits make up the difference between first and last places? And, since I have lived and taught in New Jersey, I know that many districts do the same as those in Wyoming--add additional requirements.
6. Being fifty-first out of 50 states means that all of the usual suspects--the District of Columbia included--are doing a better job. Back in the dark ages, when I was in high school in Charleston County, at least we could count on Mississippi or Georgia to be worse off! No more.
7. Blaming the community is no excuse. Calls for "collective ownership" of the dropout rate will go unheeded as long as bureaucrats gloss over the problem and newspapers bury embarrassing statistics with the obituaries. New Jersey has Newark, Elizabeth, and Camden--big cities with big problems, not exactly garden spots of the Garden State in any way. It also copes with more immigrants speaking more languages than the average person can list, not merely Spanish. It's first. Seriously, how many people think that "the community should be empowered and assume some responsibility...when they see a 13-year-old in the mall" that should be in school? Are truancy laws enforced? Are parents held accountable?

No true progress will be made as long as we pretend the elephant is the size of a mosquito.