Al Parish's 24 Years Not Long Enough

Did you ever hear such nonsense as from those who have bought into Andy Savage's "I didn't really know what I was doing" defense of "economist" Al Parish? It's hard to explain why some folks are still making excuses for him. I've even heard some blame-the-victim comments! Why?

Let me guess.

• Charleston isn't accustomed to business fraud on such a scale;
• Parish's defenders, such as the Metro Chamber of Commerce, can't accept that they were bamboozled;
• Even though Parish was "investing" in $4000 suits and trips to Ireland, they still think he meant to make money for them;
• Parish used his religious connections (church and Baptist College--excuse me, Charleston Southern) to defraud while many others use religious connections to generate business;
• He's a white male who is non-violent;
• Bankrolling his flamboyant lifestyle was worth it for the entertainment value?

Brian Hicks said it rightly in Friday's P & C:

Parish's greatest asset was not his gnome collection but his air of respectability. He worked for a Baptist college, he was the toast of city officials and the chamber of commerce, he was in the newspaper. He fooled everybody in town. But really he was just a lowlife in a purple jacket, a man who would rob not only senior citizens but his own friends and neighbors.

To Draw Attention from CCSD Board's Failures

The P & C is at it again. And why not? No news source in the Lowcountry will counter its propaganda. Well, The Chronicle might, but unfortunately it doesn't have much clout.

So it is that once again the local rag finds Arthur Ravenel's comments of a month ago to be front page news, complete with Board Chairman Douglas's sanctimonious posturing, while important new information gets buried in the back pages. Instead of headlining Ravenel's Comments Denounced, the news should have read " CCSD Finally Votes to Revoke SeaIslands Charter." But then the focus would have been on the Board's AND the Superintendent's failures instead of Ravenel's.

Let's not forget who bear the responsibility for encouraging this charter school in the first place.

One way that McGinley and her cronies could build a bit of "street cred" is to admit their mistakes. Why, if they like, they can even say "Mistakes were made," not naming themselves.

Not going to happen.

Tom Ravenel Convicts Himself in Interview

Self-serving whining.

That's what greeted Sunday's readers of the P & C as they read its interview with former State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel, smartly splashed all over the front page for maximum publicity.

Let Thomas speak for himself:

"Ravenel remains angry that he has to go to prison at all. If the case had been pursued in state court rather than at the federal level, he and his legal team contend he probably would have gotten a slap on the wrist and no incarceration time at all."

"I think what happened to me is that I went through a midlife crisis."

"[He] began running with the drug crowd because they were young."

"Contrary to public opinion, [cocaine]'s not that addictive," he said.

"He knows that he did wrong by using drugs while in elected office but says he deserved a break from federal Judge Joe Anderson."

"A first-time drug user should not go to prison," said Ravenel.

"His habit was mostly recreational, he says, buying sporadically and saving it for party times, although he said the frequency of his use increased."

A first-time user? Is he kidding? Not addictive? Really? Didn't get a break? Wasn't the amount he was charged with holding reduced from 400 to 100 grams?

Believe it or not, this whiner is so arrogant that he plans to run for office again in the future.

UPDATE:
Either The State's reporter asked more pointed questions in Columbia Wednesday than the P & C's, or The State was more interested in printing details (provided by Tom himself) of his usage:

He said the first time he used cocaine was during a trip to the Bahamas when he was 18 and a rising senior at St. Andrews High School.

At The Citadel, Ravenel used “a couple of times.”

Then, “I went 15 years without doing it” until a 1999 vacation in Aruba.

He told investigators he did not use again until a 2002 New Year’s Eve party.

By the spring of 2005, when he was in his downward spiral, Ravenel began hosting and attending parties in his Charleston mansion district where cocaine was common.

“Here, have a little bump,” he said other users would tell him. “Next thing you know, it’s ‘Do you have a bump?’ Then, ‘Let’s go buy a bump.’ That’s how it happened.

Does this mean we have the whole story now?

Delay, Linger, and Wait: Again with the Fire Report

Why do politicians make important announcements late on Friday afternoons? No, this is not a trick question.

It's to get bad news out when their audience is paying the least attention. Some won't even get the word until the following Monday, and by then the worst of the storm will have blown over (at least that's what politicians hope).

So it should come as no surprise that it was late on Friday afternoon, only a few hours ago, that Mayor Riley, who no one doubts has political skill, announced that the long-awaited requested panel investigative report on the fatal fire at the Sofa Super Store will now be delayed until the middle of June.

The middle of June. For a report that originally was supposed to come out in December. Actually, what Riley said was, "the panel's report could be released over the summer, but he refused to commit to a definite timetable." Now the excuse is a wait for the results of two federal probes.

You know, Joe, at this point people are beginning to murmur, what has he got to hide?

Riley's Golden Goose, or Running a City with Illegals

How many P & C readers got indigestion over Saturday morning's headline, Company's Goose Cooked After Bird Killing? Plenty, I'll bet. While our state legislators pass an immigration bill at a speed somewhere between dead slow and stop, let's look around.

Once your friendly neighborhood teenager had a nice income in the spring mowing lawns. Now those nicely manicured lawns are worked by illegal aliens employed by temporary services.

Once the City of Charleston employed workers to care for its parks. No longer. Now it employs illegal aliens procured by temp agencies. And they certainly cost less than any legal workers who might, after all, complain about their rights under the law. Sweet, isn't it? That allows Mayor Riley and his friends to state that they had "NO IDEA that gambling was going on in this establishment," to paraphrase Casablanca. Right.

Doesn't it make you wonder what other parts of city government are employing illegals? How about other cities? Other city contractors? Staffing 2000 isn't the only temp agency to use illegals and claim that they're all legal. The agency is only one step up from using slave labor.

Those poor workers probably thought they'd enjoy a nice roast goose. Does it make you angry to think that Charleston has knowingly exploited the evil situation this country now faces? Knowingly because South Carolina has one of the lowest percentages of legal Mexicans (and other Latin Americans) in the country, and Staffing 2000 has provided its so-called legals for nine years? What did they do, round up every poor but legal Mexican in the entire state?

To use the excuse that the City just noticed that Staffing 2000 is not on the list of state-approved contractors is just plain nonsense. We all know what's going on here.

CCSD Budget: Do Board Members Really Know?

" The Perfect Storm." The 2009 CCSD school budget has mandated obligations--such as increments in teacher salaries--and other expected operating increases, along with decreased revenues.

Those of you who have followed the progress of CCSD Superintendent McGinley's series of budget forums, attended one or more of them, and/or viewed the pertinent videos on the CCSD website know that those presentations have been long on promises and short on details. McGinley has been promising the impossible (an excellent education for every child next year! We wish!) while preparing the public for serious cuts to programs.

Does the School Board get a copy of a line-item budget for discussion? Does CCSD's Board of Trustees have any more details of the budget than the general outline doled out to the public?

Well, if they don't, they are operating in the dark, apparently the atmosphere that has been preferred by 75 Calhoun.

How about some questions to clarify the elements of the "storm":

• What was the total budgeted expenditure for each of the last 5 years?
  
• What was the total number of students served for each of the last five years?
  
• What were the total revenues from "local" sources for each of the last 5 years?
• What were the lump sums for these from all other sources, including "state," "federal," and "all others" for each of those years?
• Show all the estimates for the same figures for the coming year, taking care to reflect or explain any "adjustments" for things like non-typical "losses," "gains," or changes in the law such as "property tax relief."

Is that really too much to ask, especially for elected board members who vote on the budget?

CCSD Alert: Principal Suspended

Too late for Saturday's paper (naturally), CCSD announced the indefinite suspension with pay of Eric Vernold, the principal of North Charleston High School. According to News Channel 4, it's over a "personnel" issue. Some details will follow presumably at Monday night's School Board meeting.

According to the P & C's on-line version,

"Schools Superintendent Nancy McGinley said it was a personnel issue and that she could not comment further on the circumstances of his leave.

School officials are doing an investigation, and an assistant principal is temporarily charge of the school, she said. She hoped to have more resolution to the situation by Tuesday.

Vernold was in his first year as principal at North Charleston High."

North Charleston High School started this school year without a principal because McGinley failed to replace David Colwell, its previous successful two-year principal (who had also worked at the school the previous 18 years), after Colwell took an out-of-state job. We hope he didn't leave because of an unfriendly attitude on behalf of 75 Calhoun! The school was also short of two assistant principals in August! Why?

Vernold replaced Colwell in October in the midst of a complete breakdown of discipline at the school. We could argue that waiting until then for a permanent principal was not the wisest choice on McGinley's part. Supposedly, Vernold's experience in a rural high school in upstate New York made him qualified for the job.

I always wondered why.

Budget Storm?: CCSD Transparency Needed

A "Perfect Storm" of a budget process this year for the Charleston County School District, at least according to its superintendent? How about a Perfect Opportunity?

In coming weeks we will begin to hear about what must be cut from CCSD's operating budget. No one will like it. Superintendent McGinley has already prepared the way with her budget "forums" in various parts of the district.

Needless to say, this process has been long on promising an "excellent" education for every child in the district, and short on details of how this miracle will be accomplished next year for the first time ever! The video of McGinley and the Power Point presentation on the CCSD website have little detail beyond stating that we will have less to spend and more bills to pay in 2009. These public "forums" appear to have been designed to be as nonspecific as possible while meeting the minimum requirements for public hearings. Why hasn't the School Board pointed out to McGinley how misleading and ultimately undermining of public confidence such a process is?

No one in the community will trust the budget process until CCSD's expenditures are transparent. Here is CCSD's opportunity to begin regaining trust by starting, as a reader has suggested, with a truly independent forensic audit of the entire financial operation. Not only does the District have the need, it's the perfect time with a new Chief Financial Officer just come on board.

Several years ago the last one, limited just to cell-phone usage, saved about a million dollars in the first year by plugging the holes in the system allowing expensive and duplicate contracts while being unable to prevent abuse of the equipment by some CCSD employees.

Here's the opportunity to take the same approach with the bus system, food services, concessions, facilities management, copy equipment, etc. CCSD could save many times annually what it recovered on the cell-phone system.

A good forensic auditor wouldn't cost CCSD a dime. The auditor's work can be paid for by a reasonable and relatively small percentage of whatever money it actually recovers for CCSD and whatever is documented as saving the district in the first year after it identifies measurable waste and how to stop it.

Okay, so that won't solve this year's problems. It's a start.

Copycat Bomb Threat at Academic Magnet

Allow me to put Tuesday's report about a bomb threat at Academic Magnet in context. I will simply make a few substitutions in the article as it appeared. [See Police at Magnet High After Threat ]

[Substitutions are in italic bold.]

"Extra security officers patrolled Bishop England High School over the weekend and Monday after a bomb threat was discovered.

School officials found writing in a boys' bathroom on Thursday that warned about a potential incident at the Daniel Island school on Monday, said David Held, Bishop England's Principal. Bishop England staff and Berkeley County Police checked the school twice during the weekend, and police monitored it overnight Sunday, he said.

Although the searches turned up nothing suspicious, the school increased security Monday, Held said.

Several police officers were at the school to monitor students as they arrived and watch for any potential problems, Held said.

School Principal David Held did not send a message to parents Monday morning, instead choosing to make an announcement to the students to let them know what was happening.

Officials made an announcement about the threat and assured students they were OK. If officials thought it safe enough for them to be in school, three-fourths of the student body said, they felt safe being there.

Several classes had deadlines for their research papers on Monday, and many teachers and some students speculated that was why the day was targeted."

That was before the Easter break. Rumors spread like wildfire through text messaging. It worked for the 200 or so students who did not attend Bishop England that Monday. Maybe officials at AMHS should investigate a connection.

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.

CCSD Teacher Coaches: Another Failed Idea

Sometimes you wonder--what were they thinking? Then you remember, they probably weren't thinking at all. They were simply responding to stimuli from NCLB to get those failing schools up to standards.

What else would explain taking more than 60 experienced teachers out of the classroom to make the lives of teachers IN the classroom more difficult by increasing the paper workload? Or assigning individual teacher coaches to "coach" entire faculties of larger schools? Or asking teacher coaches to "coach" outside of their academic areas?

The answer, of course, is that these *bright* ideas come from those administrators who have spent little, if any, time in an actual classroom teaching an actual academic subject.

Thanks to budget problems (!), as reported in last week's P & C, these missteps may be on their way to the dustbins of history in CCSD. Ask yourself, would CCSD's Superintendent McGinley have continued this ineffective program that has been costing the district (by my estimate) roughly $300,000 per year if there were no budgeting problems?

Or would the taxpayers of CCSD be told how the program is paying off? Of course, the P & C article neglects to mention whose idea these coaches were, but the reasonable guess is McGinley herself. Wasn't she Chief Academic Officer? Too embarrassing to remember, I guess.

CCSD Sets Up Experienced Teachers to Take the Fall

Nice to see my friend Cyndi on the front page of the P & C, rather than the usual poseurs who claim to be making a difference. She really is. I may need to change my category to "sung" heroes. [See Seasoned teachers wanted in struggling schools.]

Would you believe that CCSD officials have never tried before to point more experienced teachers towards working in its failing schools? What can I say? They admit it themselves.

The reporter is a bit confused about the difference between an experienced teacher and an NBCT--but I'll let that one pass. At least we finally have the statistic that CCSD has been hiding (where its NBCTs are working): "Only 36 of the county's 293 National Board Certified teachers [. . .] work in schools rated unsatisfactory on the state report card."

Now, why would that be? Hmm. Maybe because the incentive money that comes with NBCT certification doesn't require any such commitment from those teachers? I've pointed out previously that a stipulation to work for a certain period in an under-performing school would spread some of that state money to the schools that really need those teachers. I guess the state legislature doesn't want to upset the education apple cart.

In the "Ripley's Believe It or Not" category, we have Superintendent McGinley, who now wields the power to place teachers that was taken away from the constituent boards, pleading that experienced teachers volunteer out of the goodness of their hearts--no other reward, mind you--to go from the relatively tolerable environments they are now in and dive into the great unknown.

Except it's not the great unknown. What's known is that these schools have great difficulty in keeping faculty year after year. You don't need to teach in one of these schools to know why. Just look at some of the comments on the above-referenced article in the P & C's online edition. For example,

As a Nationally Board Certified teacher who has taught in a "failing" school for the last 7 years, I can tell you why good teachers do not stay in these schools. The paperwork required of these teachers is punitive, many of the administrators are not effective, the students are disrespectful and disruptive, and the teachers can drive down the street a few miles and work in a school where they don't have to deal with any of these things--for the same pay.

All of that being said, a good teacher in one of these schools CAN make a difference. My students consistently score well on tests--and they love to learn--despite where they come from. Not everyone can teach in these schools, but if you have the "gift" and can do it--those kids need you!

If you haven't taught in one of these schools, how do you know "you have the 'gift'"? Does being a highly effective teacher in another environment guarantee it? What happens if you don't? Even the head of the New Teacher Project (yes, let's not forget them--the ones who got paid so much by CCSD for failing to recruit the number of new teachers they promised) said he hadn't previously heard of "such an organized emotional appeal." It comes with a recruiting video but not much else.

Some comments did make sense. Even Daly (of the NTP) pointed out that "the district should make those schools worth wanting, . . . . Schools need to have strong team cultures and good academic instruction so that high-performing teachers will want to go there and stay."

And Kent Riddle, chairman of the Charleston Teacher Alliance, "said the district should focus on the bigger issue of why low-performing schools lack quality teachers. School officials should ask teachers why they leave such schools and evaluate whether those issues are ones they can address."

Ask the teachers? What a novel idea! Certainly McGinley doesn't have any firm ideas in mind other than emotional calls to the altar. Her theorizing about financial incentives and guaranteed jobs held in the school left behind is simply pie in the sky by and by.

Next we know, experienced teachers in the district will be blamed for not heeding the call.

NOTE: For a taste of what goes on in Sacramento, California, see Why couldn't they find the teachers they needed? post of March 1, 2008

The Statistical Case Against Buist's Lottery

All but the most optimistic residents of District 20 of CCSD and their friends were unhappy but not surprised by Judge Scarborough's ruling concerning the lawsuit against Buist Academy's admissions policies. If he had ruled in their favor, it would be the first sign of a break in the wall. [See County Board Wins Buist Battle in Saturday's edition of the P & C].

However, if 75 Calhoun thinks that residents of District 20 will simply go quietly into the night--well, another case is yet to be made. Of course, the plaintiffs should go ahead with their appeal of this one, but if the courts refuse to interpret the rules to mean what they say, the statistical route remains. It's time to pull it into shape.

Now, before you stop reading, let me say that I'm not going to bore you with statistics here. My point is that many high-profile lawsuits have been won on such data, the most obvious one being against the tobacco companies. The legal reason for that warning on each pack of cigarettes is the statistical correlation between cigarette-smoking and cancer, not scientific or medical evidence (although I'm sure by now some exists).

You can see where I'm heading with this. A statistician should be able to take the addresses of each student of Buist for the last, say, 10 years, and show that it is statistically impossible to arrive at the composition of its student population as it has stood over that decade without finagling and malfeasance on the part of officials "testing" with the YCAT and running the "lottery."

In other words, based on CCSD's use of four lists for kindergarten, a statistical case can be made that the number of Buist students living in District 20 should be within a certain range if CCSD has followed its own rules. Needless to say, CCSD officials, especially Janet Rose, have done everything in their power to avoid handing over the numbers. Thanks to FOIA, they can't hide forever.

Now that Doug Gepford supposedly is culling the waiting lists for Buist, will its "lottery" also be run transparently, or will we again have "trust us, the unknown number beside your child's name didn't come up." [If you want to see how its lottery "works," see my blog of last March, Gambling by the Numbers: Magic Tuition Money.]

Superintendent McGinley's integrity is on the line here.

Education Non-Profits: Profitable for Some!

Politics and money and sex.

Wow! Can you imagine a more volatile mixture? Yet that's exactly what we have with the Heritage Keepers program being used statewide and in Charleston County schools.

It's NOT new. It wasn't just adopted this year. Questions have been raised about the selection of this particular nonprofit for YEARS. Questions have been raised about how the program presents itself and who benefits from its contracts. Questions have been raised about its political protectors.

In fact, every red flag you could think of has been raised in regard to this "non-profit" that receives millions of dollars from the taxpayers of South Carolina and seems to have local political links.

Apparently, the P & C has finally decided that the issue merits newsprint in Tuesday's edition.

[See Character Program Questioned].

Let's see. So the SC House is poised to approve a five-member oversight committee for "abstinence-based programs." Why stop there? What about oversight of the rest of the non-profits in the education blob that are swilling at the public trough?

And CCSD's response to questions about the program? "The school district also has asked the state Department of Education for guidance, said Tamara Kirshstein, the district's science and health curriculum coordinator." Now, we don't know how long Ms. Kirshstein has held that position, but after years of using the program, isn't asking for guidance NOW a bit late?

Pathetic, isn't it? Or it would be if it weren't our tax dollars being wasted.

CCSD: You Thought We Were Going to Follow Our Policy?

Clearly what CCSD needs is a Chief Obfuscation Officer, such as the one suggested for the New York City Schools [See DOE Announces New Administrative Positions]. Then slip-ups like the one below wouldn't occur.

Board trips over policy on expenses

By Diette Courrégé

The Post and Courier

Friday, January 11, 2008

Charleston County School Board members haven't followed their policy to publish their expenditures and share what they learned with their colleagues.

The school board approved a policy that requires it to publish the yearly expenditures for its members each August, but the board failed to do that last year. The Post and Courier began asking for that information in early October and submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for it in late November. The district supplied the information in early December and provided more details later that month.

Board member Gregg Meyers said it was inappropriate that a Freedom of Information Act request was needed and that the information should have been available in August. He said he planned to let the superintendent know the district should follow the board's policy.

School board Vice Chairwoman Nancy Cook was chair of the board until November. She said she forgot the board was supposed to make this information public, and district officials should have reminded the board about this. The board doesn't have anything to hide, but this disclosure wasn't on her radar, she said.

"They should've been on top of that," she said.

School Superintendent Nancy McGinley said she wasn't aware of the policy's requirement until recently, and the responsibility to ensure such a report was generated would have fallen under the chief financial officer. She said that she relies on the heads of district departments to follow policies and that this issue wasn't brought to her attention. [Note: And the chief financial officer said, what?]

Job description for this new CCSD official could be modeled after the one [satirically] proposed by New York parents:

"Chief Obfuscation Officer: Heads the PR Department division responsible for explaining all DOE restructuring issues to the public."

Add to this administrative position the responsibility for explaining the School Board's arcane financial decisions and unequal treatment of District 20 and North Charleston, and I think we've got a winner.

CCSD's Vocational Partership: Read Between the Lines

Waaah! We don't have the proper classrooms to offer career classes at our high schools! But to make up for it, we're thinking creatively about the needs of students in the second half of the 21st century!

That, in its essence, is the response of Bob Olson, CCSD bureaucrat, to a successful partnership between West Ashley and Garrett Academy coddled to completion by a dedicated guidance counselor on his vacation last summer. In the program 19 West Ashley students manage to take career electives at Garrett.

The headlines are about its success [see Career school partnership sparkles]. However, towards the end of the article, we learn what that success means to current CCSD students.

If not for the dedication of a guidance counselor and officials at West Ashley, even this pilot program wouldn't have gotten off the ground.

According to Epstein (the WA guidance counselor), "West Ashley is the only high school in the district that has made this agreement with Garrett a reality, and . . . it's not because downtown district officials were pushing to make it happen." [Note: I hope Epstein's job is secure!]

Instead, CCSD is pushing for pie in the sky, by and by.

"Olson said officials don't have any concrete plans to grow the partnership but said they are looking at other ways to create more options and choices for students." [Nameless officials? Other ways for next year? Don't hold your breath.]

CCSD never imagined that a need would arise for career courses in its other high schools.

"Some of the trade programs need specific types of buildings and can't be housed in traditional classrooms." [Duh. How old are West Ashley, Burke, and Wando High Schools? Did the buildings they replaced have any suitable classrooms? Was the subject even on CCSD's radar screen when these new buildings were planned? Have communities asked for such programs in the past? Yes.]

Where are plans to add programs that don't need specialized settings?

According to Olson, "[nameless] officials are evaluating schools' course offerings, buildings and the community's needs to see what needs to be done in the future." [Ah, yes, the future.]

How about NOW?

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.

Deja Vu in Seattle: Supt. G-J's Vague Ideas

For the full story, check out the blog, Can't Connect the Dots from Save Seattle's Schools.

Isn't it time that we see something more concrete from the Superintendent? For a person who talks about clear, objective, measureable goals, we've only got a lot of vague ideas so far.
* Isn't she supposed to spill out a whole package of plans for improvement in January?
* She has put the word accountability into just about everything, but I've yet to see anyone held accountable for anything.
* She says that accountability means that Seattle Public Schools understands our data and we use it to set performance targets for the district, school and classrooms.
So where are these performance targets? Are they secret?

Top 10 Education Problems: Sound Familiar?

Washington Post Education writer Jay Mathews was interviewed in Friday's paper. He was asked, "What do you see as the top ten concerns in education?"

Here is his response:

1. Low standards and expectations in low-income schools.
2. Very inadequate teacher training in our education schools.
3. Failure to challenge average students in nearly all high schools with AP and IB courses.
4. Corrupt and change-adverse bureaucracies in big city districts.
5. A tendency to judge schools by how many low income kids they have, the more there are the worse the school in the public mind.
6. A widespread feeling on the part of teachers, because of their inherent humanity, that it is wrong to put a child in a challenging situation where they may fail, when that risk of failure is just what they need to learn and grow.
7. The widespread belief among middle class parents that their child must get into a well known college or they won't be as successful in life.
8. A failure to realize that inner city and rural schools need to give students more time to learn, and should have longer school days and school years.
9. A failure to realize that the best schools--like the KIPP charter schools in the inner cities---are small and run by well-recruited and trained principals who have the power to hire all their teachers, and quickly fire the ones that do not work out.
10. The resistance to the expansion of charter schools in most school district offices.

Interesting list, isn't it?

Ahh, Just Wait till It Catches Fire

According to Saturday's P & C, "The engine compartment on a 1995 Thomas school bus caught fire Friday afternoon as it rolled down Interstate 26 westbound" on its way to pick up students from Stall High School.

"Last year, the state temporarily sidelined all 2,000 of its 1995 model buses because of a fire risk after a loose battery cable started a blaze that engulfed a Richland 2 school bus. An analysis by The Post and Courier for a March series "School Bus Breakdown" found entries for dozens of fires on 1995-model buses."

"Maintenance records show that the bus that caught fire Friday has been sidelined numerous times for mechanical problems, including twice for smoking [italics mine]."

Any further questions?