No More Mysterious Executive Sessions in CCSD?

As a recent lead editorial noted,  "For years, numerous public bodies have been excluding people from meetings without clear and lawful reasons to do so. They use executive sessions to discuss things absent outside scrutiny."

Better pay attention, Charleston County School District. Looks like the SC Supreme Court has your number! 

The editorial continues, "A recent S.C. Supreme Court decision should change that. It says public bodies must give the public a clear idea about why it wants to go into executive session. And that reason must be among those set out in the state’s Freedom of Information Act."

This is how it’s been working: A school board, city council or other public body votes to excuse the public so members can discuss “contractual matters” or “personnel matters.”
That’s like telling someone to pack his bags because you’re taking him “somewhere.” He needs to know whether to take black tie or a bathing suit, but you’re not telling. . . . 

But the extra information the Supreme Court said bodies must provide could be helpful to the public’s understanding of the public’s business. People might have helpful information to share with their elected representatives. And people might just pick up on an impropriety.

No, really?

P & C's Cream-Puff "Interviews" of CCSD Superintendent Finalists

T'he P & C can really pick 'em. Our latest education reporter has absolutely no background in education unless you count graduating from Ohio State University, but she does have great lib-cred with a background at Mother Jones, etc. 

You would expect such a liberal reporter to balk at canned interview questions with the three superintendent finalists for the Charleston County School District, but maybe she doesn't know enough to think of her own. Two of these so-called "interviews" have appeared this week, and the third is to follow. The candidates sound as though they're filling out a questionnaire.

It's not what Deanna Pan asks; it's what she doesn't ask. The school board seems to have written the questions, which are the same for all candidates. Bland, bland, bland.

The intent of the questions seems to be to elicit uniform comments--what has prepared you to head this school district; how would you make relations with the school board harmonious; how would you improve diversity; do you like school choice; how important is standardized testing (my paraphrasing here). Nothing provocative, all eliciting similar prepared answers. 

How about these questions:

• In what ways could the district cut its administrative costs?
• Should non-academic factors be used for selection to the Academic Magnet and its ilk?
• How would your administration differ from that of the previous superintendent?
• Do you believe a national curriculum such as Common Core will benefit the district?
• Will you order a forensic audit of the district and throw open its books?

Claiming ignorance of the district is not a viable option. Why would any candidate not do her homework and sound that ignorant?

Then, there are some special questions for Herring: how does a year or two teaching in a private school classroom years ago prepare you to understand problems facing CCSD's teachers today? What did you learn from your handling of the punishment given to the student who disrespected your daughter and its consequent furor?

While it's pointless to review how these three were selected, you still must wonder why the district didn't skip all the fuss by promoting Herring in the first place. After all, that's what it did for Nancy McGinley. Now if Herring is selected, people will assume it was a foregone conclusion, and if she's not, the NAACP will be in full cry.

P & C's Favorite Letter Writer Slaps Down Charleston Teacher Alliance

Jody Stallings, head of the Charleston Teacher Alliance and award-winning teacher in the Charleston County School District, got slapped down last week for having the temerity to suggest that more classroom teaching experience should be required for a new CCSD superintendent. The designated slapper was Robert Harris, apparently a favorite of the P & C, since he's had at least three letters published on the editorial page since January. Name me someone else who isn't a present or former public official.

Basically, Harris set up a straw man to tear apart Stallings's opinion. Harris suggested that Stallings believes that only teaching experience of 15 years qualifies a candidate. Stallings meant nothing of the kind, and I'm confident that he will not be allowed three published letters to refute the charge.

The three finalists do not fit Stallings criteria, nor mine either, for that matter. No doubt more recent and longer teaching experience would benefit anyone's oversight of what today's teachers face. However, I don't need to hear personally from these three to know that they think alike on public education and its policies. And a "new" superintendent search won't fix that.

The system rewards group think. A candidate who "thinks outside of the box" will never be considered. Could it be that 15 years in a classroom might produce original thinking?

Heaven forbid! After all, what do teachers know?

Vox Populi? CCSD Board Says "Stifle It."

"The purpose of public comment periods is to allow the public time to express its views and concerns regarding proposed action to be taken by individuals, an organization, agency, or other entity that impacts the public at large."--ATA Standards & Guidelines [italics mine]

Evidently, for Charleston County School Board member Kate Darby, elected six months ago, thirty seconds is enough time for any comment from the public at the regularly scheduled meetings of the Board. Why would anyone want to hear more, such as the reasons behind a stated opinion? In fact,  it seems likely from her point of view that public comment is both annoying and unnecessary--and her time is too valuable to waste in hearing from the "little people," perhaps imagining herself more important as the daughter-in-law of a former mayor.

Cooler heads prevailed by cutting the two-minute rule to one minute. Gee, how kindly.

Here's an idea: let's contain the remarks of other Board members to one minute and Darby to thirty seconds. That would certainly make their comments more succinct.

CCSD Speaks with Forked Tongue on Taxes

"Nothing is certain but death and taxes."--Benjamin Franklin

The Charleston County School District believes that taxpayers have short memories. How else to explain its proposal this month to raise taxes only half a year after promising that extension of the "penny" sales tax would take care of its finances.

If you voted for that as a business owner, more fool you!

While our elected school board attempts to rein in spending, the truth is that no one is watching the store. The district's budget is now estimated to rise to $426 million next year. That's serious money! When will our state delegation recognize that one of the largest employers in the county needs more oversight? Would you believe that many school districts' budgets are overseen by higher authorities, such as county councils or state delegations?

Apparently it will take a major whistle-blower to effect a forensic audit of the district, a move its critics have advocated for decades. Well, acting superintendent Michael Bobby isn't going to support a true audit--as chief financial officer he has a horse in this race. We all know the district's budget is bloated--we just don't know how much.

But look, Bobby says, we were going to raise over $22 million in new revenue, but as a special price for you, it's going to be only $6.9 million! How can we complain about that?

Board members Tripp Wiles, Todd Garrett, and Michael Miller, who aren't always on the same side, are reluctant to go along, but they constitute only one third of the board's members.

Here are the board members who need to hear from you:

Mrs. Cindy Bohn Coats

Board of Trustees Chair
75 Calhoun Street
Charleston, SC 29401
819-8205 (cell)
email 
Business Specialist
Term expires: 11/2018 - Elected: 11/2010

Mr. Chris Staubes
Board of Trustees Vice Chair
126 Seven Farms Drive, Suite 200
Charleston, SC 29492
577-2026 (work)
email
Attorney
Term expires: 11/2018 - Elected: 11/2014

Rev. Chris Collins
75 Calhoun Street
Charleston, SC 29401
813-0616 (cell)
email
Pastor/Business Owner
Term expires: 11/2016 - Elected: 11/2008

Mrs. Kate Darby
245 Indigo Bay Circle
Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464
566-6123 (cell)
email
Director of Administration
Term expires: 11/2018 - Elected: 11/2014 

Mr. Tom Ducker
2357 Sorentrue Avenue
North Charleston, SC 29405
532-9369 (home)
email
Retired
Term expires: 11/2016 - Elected: 11/2012

Mr. Todd Garrett
338 President Street
Charleston, SC 29403
408-8846 (cell)
email
Commercial Real Estate Agent
Term expires: 11/2016 - Elected: 11/2012

Rev. Dr. Eric Mack
75 Calhoun Street
Charleston, SC 29401
697-1447 (cell)
email
Pastor/Business Owner
Term expires: 11/2018 - Elected: 11/2014 

Mr. Michael Miller1660 Pierpont Avenue
Charleston, SC 29414
991-1969 (cell)
email
Business Owner
Term expires: 11/2016 - Elected: 11/2012

Mr. Tripp Wiles
184 East Bay Street, Suite 103
Charleston, SC 29401
718-0232 (office)
email
Attorney 
Term expires: 11/2016 - Elected: 11/2014

CCSD's Herring Needs to Skip Jargon to Communicate

Here's a bingo game teachers enjoy as they sit through hours of boring in-services. It comes in many versions, but all have a serious underlying message. Jargon in any field makes one professional sound knowledgeable to another, but often those same terms inadvertently impress audiences with the idea that the speaker is talking down. Such is the case with Dr. Lisa Herring's recent op-ed on "personalized learning." She responded to an article in which some teachers and parents worried about overuse of iPads in the early grades.

Nothing in Herring's essay will alleviate the concerns of those parents and teachers, since she intimates that she needs to explain "personalized learning" to them. Evidently, she does not consider their worries part of her desired "feedback from critical thought partners," although they seem to fall into the categories she names as "stakeholders."

"Building 21st century skills" for "today's global economy," Herring suggests, must cause these critical thinkers to "step outside of [their] comfort zone." She's not stepping out of hers.

Too many educational "fixes" have flopped for "stakeholders" to accept that professionals always know best.

CCSD's Constituent Boards Victims of Central Planning

Elizabeth Moffly's op-ed correctly points out that a 2007 law supported by our legislative delegation made the Charleston County School District's constituent boards into toothless wonders. This policy change negated traditional powers of what were originally independent school districts, a structure approved under district consolidation. CCSD touted the change as necessary to hold the superintendent responsible for her job.

Well, that worked, didn't it? 

Apart from playing musical chairs with principals, ex-superintendent McGinley appointed layers of bureaucracy to take that responsibility, writing her own evaluation form to guarantee her success. Centralized planning is always the refuge of liberals. Think of the school district in terms of the federal government (the Taj Mahal) versus the states (constituent districts). Does one size fit all?

If you are a liberal, the one-size-fits-all philosophy is self evident. Heaven forbid that local districts might have differing ideas about the worth of personnel or disciplining students.

Critics suggest that local power leads to cronyism.

Please, give me local cronyism over cronyism at the Taj Mahal!

CCSD Board Members Met with McGinley's Choice

Calling for the resignations of all white school board members in the Charleston County School District, the political "clergy" of Charleston (i.e., Joseph Darby and Nelson Rivers III) made themselves look foolish when black board member Eric Mack admitted that he too met privately with Gerrida Postlewait, one of the three originally named as superintendent candidates. Why were members Michael Miller and Chris Collins left out of the loop? As Collins states, he doesn't think the oversight was about race. He's right.

Michael Miller's comments to the reporter stop short, perhaps cautiously, of naming anyone as the instigator. His questions include how the members came to be in contact with Postlewait, whom Miller and Collins had never heard of at the time. As he says, "Someone contacted them in an attempt to familiarize them with a potential candidate."

Gee, who would be influential enough to do that?

If you look at who was excluded--Miller and Collins--the answer becomes obvious and probably is just as obvious to Miller and Collins. Postlewait is a friend of former superintendent Nancy McGinley, who is trying to affect the search so that her influence locally remains undiluted. Miller and Collins have not been enthusiastic supporters of the ex-superintendent. From the local paper's viewpoint, McGinley can do no wrong; hence, Miller avoids using her name.

Violations of the Open Meeting laws are nothing new in CCSD, as any close observer knows. Perhaps there was a bit of an over-reach this time. Entertaining, isn't it?

IPads: Could CCSD Find Better Uses for $20 Million?

Two years ago the Charleston County School District made this statement about its Department of Personalized Learning:

Charleston County School District is the recipient of one of only sixteen Race to the Top - District grants from the United States Department of Education in Cohort One (2012). As a national grantee, CCSD was awarded $19.4 million to transform traditional learning environments to learner-centered environments in our schools. With this funding, CCSD is supporting the continued development of a Personalized Learning system in 19 schools, with the vision of expanding this work to schools across the district. [italics mine]

As part of its carrot-and-stick approach, the US Department of Education required the district to implement Common Core. Here is another example of educrats pouring millions of taxpayer dollars into far-flung classrooms for unproven results.

Perhaps the educrats did not mean to sneer at present "traditional learning" versus "learner-centered" enviroments.Most teachers would respond, "I thought my classroom was already learner centered"!

Certainly, using iPads makes a school district look modern, with-it, and up- to-date.  Unfortunately for educrats, some of us can remember that computers in the classroom were the solution to individualized learning. Hey, it wasn't that long ago!

Guess what: after all the millions spent on computers and the required infrastructure, educrats cannot show they have improved student learning! On the other hand, various education-related companies (AKA edublob--can you say "Pearson"?) have grown fat.

As they did with computers, students may enjoy using another tech gadget, but is the role of the school district to spend millions on technology or to improve student learning? In a recent article on this topic, CCSD provides us with anecdotes from Goodwin Elementary but does not show us that overall student achievement has improved--with or without iPads. Now the Charleston Teacher Alliance has called into question whether increased use of gadgets actually increases student achievement and want more flexibility in the classroom.  Even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, another part of the edublob, couldn't find corroborating data.

Wouldn't those in the classroom every day have a better handle on what works? Not according to CCSD's director of Personalized Learning, Kristen Brittingham, who oversees but has never been on the front lines of teaching herself. Brittingham, whose career is all about implementing technology, confidently sweeps aside teachers' concerns. (I'm tempted to call her "Ms. Biggity.") Basically, her remarks boil down to, "Full speed ahead with our plans, We've got the money. Who cares about what classroom teachers think. They're probably just a bunch of middle-aged Luddites."

One important question for a new superintendent should be, "Will you take classroom teachers' opinions as seriously as those of specialized flunkies?"

Financial Transparency in CCSD

Charleston County School Board Members shed just a smidgen of light on the Byzantine expendures of the district in this week's op-ed.

Thanks to Todd Garrett and Kate Darby, we now know that Charleston County spends 25 percent more per student than Greenville County while paying its teachers and principals less. Ask yourself, has this top-heavy expendure on administration and special programs produced better results? Clearly, the answer is "no" if you judge by outcomes, as Garrett and Darby point out.

Further, the student-growth excuse for a tax hike uses figures that suggest the district will grow next year almost as much as it has in total over the last 15!  How much was paid to a consultant for that projection?

Garrett and Darby confirm the "implicit guarantee" made during the sales-tax extension that passing it "would ensure that we didn't raise taxes." Where did the idea originate that taxes should rise anyway?

Either Acting-Superintendent Bobby is disingenuous, or the Taj Mahal is feeding him a line.

Single-Member Districts for Dorchester D2 and CCSD

My husband's uncle, a retired British Army colonel, used to claim that he was "so far to the right, he met himself coming around the other end." Sometimes, however, the positions are not right and left but right and wrong. I remembered Uncle Stanley when I read of the activities of Louis L Smith at Monday night's Dorchester District 2 meeting in Summerville. Two minds with but a single thought!

"Single" is the word. Smith has correctly identified one of the stumbling blocks to a more representative school board. His group was prepared to stage a sit-in to promote single-member districts for DD2. Smith himself took the floor to state that the "current at-large method of electing board members is an elitist vestige of the Jim Crow era." A recommendation to bring up the issue with the state legislative delegation met with no support from the present board, who were all elected under the at-large structure. Go figure!

The board passed the buck by authorizing a letter to be written to "a community member" who had brought up the idea (Smith?) that the issue rests with the legislative delegation. Weasels.

To defend the present system, Board member Tanya Robinson stated her opinion in classic autocratic fashion: "each member of the board represents all children in the district, unlike single-member districts where board members represent only their areas, and the board becomes politicized as members fight for their slice of the pie." To put it more succinctly, each board member represents himself or herself and the deeper, more politically active pockets of the community, such as the Chamber of Commerce--in Robinson's case, perhaps the Junior League.

Amazingly (or not), Robinson sounds exactly like former CCSD board member Toya Hampton-Green, protege of Mayor Riley, who told Constituent Board D20 members that, even though she was elected for District 20, she didn't speak for them.

I share Smith's frustration over outmoded school-district structures. Let's not forget that CCSD's Board Chair, Cindy Bohn Coats, who ostensibly represents North Charleston, would not have won re-election without piling up votes in Mt. Pleasant that pushed her over the top.

DD2  http://dorchester.schoolfusion.us/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/478113/File/PIO/2015/District%20Office/Board.pdf?sessionid=7d86952c8e7acf360827599f364f2bf7

Notice anything?

CCSD Loading Up on Taxes to Coax New Superintendent

Evidently the local newspaper doesn't find it odd that an acting superintendent would continue to push for the Charleston County School District's taxing power to expand.

Perhaps its reporters have short memories and do not remember the promises made during the "Not a Penny" sales tax campaign. Of course, these may be the same reporters who didn't seem to know the difference between a penny sales tax and a one-percent sales tax!

While CCSD searches for a new superintendent, Michael Bobby has proposed raising property taxes on all but owner-occupied homes to cover "unexpected" operating-cost shortfalls. Now he's proposing an additional property-tax increase for all to purchase CCSD's private fleet of school buses. These proposals emanate from a district that promised, if the sales-tax extension passed, no more taxes would be needed. How times, and superintendents, do change.

The CCSD Board of Trustees should under no circumstances vote funds to purchase buses, no matter how old the fleet, until taxpayers and the board have hard figures on how much the district spends on busing. These numbers have been top secret in the past under ex-Superintendent McGinley's vendetta against neighborhood schools.

Further, until the State of South Carolina changes its mind on providing buses to school districts, CCSD has no business getting into the bus business.

So what's going on?

In recruiting a new superintendent, the present administration at the Taj Mahal wants to show that that person need not start his or her job with the unpopular proposal to raise taxes. This thought presumes that whoever is recruited will be another tax-and-spend liberal (probably true!).

What CCSD needs is not more taxes but a forensic audit that provides some light in the dark places where its present money disappears.

CCSD Should Ponder Palmetto Scholars Academy's Partnership

The Charleston County School District under ex-Superintendent McGinley forced Palmetto Scholars Academy (PSA) go to the statewide Public Charter School District for approval, knowing that CCSD's policies would prevent its operation. Now PSA has wisely taken advantage of a new law allowing "charter schools to set aside up to 50 percent of their enrollment for students with active-duty parents in exchange for locating on a military base"--in this case, Joint Base Charleston.

Here's another example of missed opportunity on CCSD's part. The idea of partnerships such as this one appears foreign to the Charleston County School District.  For $71,000 per year the Base will lease to the charter school almost 10 acres of land along Dorchester Road near Hunley Park where a new 45,000 square-foot school building should open to house a potential 500 students in January 2016. The new law guarantees enrollment preference to children of military personnel at the Base. The land for the school has been sitting vacant on the Base for years. Presently the school uses an old building on the Navy Base.

Despite CCSD's spite, PSA thrives as a school for gifted and talented, thanks to the ongoing efforts of its organizers. Maybe CCSD school board members should contemplate what's happening in their own backyard.

Darby's Confused Plans for CCSD's Burke High School

In Wednesday's op-ed ("Heed Burke's Past Lessons While Deciding Its Future"), the Rev. Joseph A. Darby typically wears his two hats--one as a presiding elder in the AME church, the other as first vice-president of the Charleston Branch NAACP. Darby seems to believe that "progress" is about to close Burke High School.

Never mind that Darby, who graduated from high school in Columbia, bases his Burke opinions on second-hand information. It would be nice, however, if he could separate politics from religion occasionally. Burke's fate will not be decided by the AME Church; his is a political opinion on a secular topic!

Darby is "concerned" by what he calls "the sudden interest in Burke" on the part of District 20 parents (that's the peninsula for those of you from off), a mixed group of black and white. This constituent school board wants to consider all options to improve what is a de facto segregated school.

Good grief, man! Don't we want parents to take an interest? And is this really "sudden" interest?

No, what really concerns Darby is that someone mentioned the word "charter." Further, somehow he equates the use of the phrase "proud history" with white takeover. Darby seems to forget that the High School of Charleston had its own proud history, and "progress" favored the all-black Burke over the originally all-white school. Darby fears that, given the majority of students living on the peninsula are white, somehow that majority will make Burke into something new. Well, an integrated school would be new for this decade.

Given its list of failures ad nauseum over the last  few decades, maybe something new for Burke isn't bad.

In his own version of "waving the bloody shirt," Darby reiterates the old "game plan" for Burke when established in 1911: to produce "cooks, maids, and delivery boys"--and how the school itself foiled that plot.  Instead of parroting the  past, how about giving that oft-quoted statement 10 minutes of critical thinking? Why would cooks, maids, and delivery boys need high school? Transmission over 100 years has garbled the past. Imagine that!

No one could quarrel with Darby's stated future plans for Burke as a center of excellence. If he ever wonders what explains the reluctance of white parents to send their children to "predominantly black schools" besides racism, he should contemplate the poor rating of every predominantly-black school in the county! Why would white parents with choices send their children to failing schools?  No parent wants his or her child to be an educational experiment, white or black.

Darby cites past lack of funding as the the root cause of Burke's demise. Unfortunately, if more money were the answer, Burke would have pulled out of its nose-dive years ago. His is a typical liberal solution to a much more complex problem.

Darby still lives in the past, where fifty years ago racist white parents avoided integrated schools and where more money was always the solution. Burke will not reach his goals based on those ideas.

Meanwhile, under the present administration and policies, a proud high school goes down for the count.

Burke's Future on the Line in CCSD

What should happen to a high school that has failed, failed, and failed over the last dozen years? At times the state has threatened its takeover.  If you asked Senator Lindsey Graham, he would say, "Close it."

Closing Burke High School is not an option. When Charleston County's districts were consolidated as part of an order to integrate black and white school systems, Burke survived because of its long, proud tradition as a black high school. With the demise of the High School of Charleston, it became the only public high school on the peninsula (District 20). It has continued to have the strong support of its graduates.

So, what went wrong? Certainly its buildings are more than adequate, but the school has slid on the slippery slope of high-achieving students (both black and white) transferring to high schools where the course offerings, such as foreign languages, prepare them for college. Enrollment, despite transfers in from other parts of the county, continues to plummit.

Parents and taxpayers in District 20 are exploring whether turning Burke into a charter school makes sense. Certainly removing CCSD guidance from the everyday business of Burke has the potential to improve recent dismal outcomes.

How could a charter school be worse?

Graham: Close Failing Schools to Improve Education

Lindsey Graham's remarks to the SC GOP convention this weekend perfectly exemplify interfering where you don't know what you're talking about. Graham called for failing schools to be closed in order to improve education.

Did Graham even understand that he's calling for closure of neighborhood schools in majority black neighborhoods? Somehow, I doubt that. His idea doesn't seem quite so smart when stated in those terms. And what would make those closures guarantee better education for the students involved? No answer. Did the closure of such schools in the Charleston County School District improve education or improve statistics?

Say, ex-Fraser parents, how's that working out for you? 

Remember how ex-Superintendent McGinley promised to track students affected by her school closures to make sure they were getting a better education? Believe me, if the ruse had worked, we would have heard about the results.

Closing failing schools improves the stats for the superintendent, a trick apparently taught at the Broad Institute. McGinley is still touting how she improved the district, while not revealing how her statistics improved with her closing of neighborhood schools.

Would you believe that, despite McGinley's efforts and her go-along-and-get-along Board of Trustees, Charleston County still has the five lowest-performing schools in the state.  Or, maybe that's because of McGinley's policies. When you contemplate the economy of Charleston County and then compare it to the rest of the state, you can reach only one conclusion regarding CCSD: malpractice!

Stick to foreign policy, Lindsey!

CCSD's Never Seen a Tax Hike It Didn't Like

Acting Superintendent Michael Bobby believes that Charleston County taxpayers are so stupid that they've forgotten the promises the Charleston County School Board made during the not-a-penny one-percent sales tax extension campaign. You know, the one about no property-tax hikes.

Suddenly, Bobby believes CCSD's income from property taxes will not cover the growth of spending in the district.

Really?

His complaint is that the list of owner-occupied homes is growing too fast and taking away tax dollars from the district, which he predicts will have the highest number of students ever next year.

What's wrong with this picture?

1. The predicted 50,000 students, "highest ever for Charleston County schools" is not, I repeat, not the highest number ever served by the county. Prior to consolidation, enrollment in total was well over that number.
2. The district contributed to the problem two years ago when it made its "tax swap" that reduced taxes on owner-occupied homes.
3. How much of the reduction in revenue has been created by tax-increment financing (TIF) districts agreed to in several areas of the county?
4. "Extra" expenses enumerated by Bobby include a step-increase for teachers (hardly a surprise!), making Orange Grove into a K-8 school (aren't students pulled from other schools? Isn't one West Ashley middle school slated for closure?).
5. What is the taxpayer to think of an extra $10 million for "fringe benefits and materials and supplies"? 

Really, what does the latter include--two IPAD's for each student?

Board members Garrett and Collins voiced skepticism over the need to raise property taxes and vowed to review ways to cut expenses. 

Let's hear from the rest of the School Board: Cindy Bohn Coats, Chris Staubes, Kate Darby, Tom Ducker, Eric Mack, Tripp Wiles, and Michael Miller.

Their email addresses and phone numbers are found at http://www.ccsdschools.com/Board_of_Trustees/Members/ .

Baptist Hill Principal's On-the Job Behavior Needs Investigation

How could a "Star Principal" in the Charleston County School District be guilty of allowing black students to bully white and Hispanic students and teachers and keep her job?

Kala Goodwine, darling of former Superintendent Nancy McGinley, had bounced around districts from Holly Hill to Summerville, finally landing in McGinley's domain. Under her administration Goodwine was awarded a bonus during difficult financial times in CCSD because McGinley made her principal of Morningside Middle, then nominated as one of the worst schools in the nation. Thanks to Goodwine's willingness to take "combat pay" for a difficult job, McGinley later named her as principal of Baptist Hill/Middle School.

Goodwine has lost the confidence of the school's constituent board, but apparently that's not a negative with the district's Lisa Herring and James Winbush, who also got their jobs from the ex-Superintendent. Constituent boards lost any real power they had under McGinley's watch.

Haven't we been down this road before? Apparently only when pending lawsuits begin to cost the school district big bucks will the Taj Mahal pay attention.

Atlanta's Test Cheating and Charleston County's Principal MiShawna Moore

From an earlier posting:

Who else remembers the glory days when Sanders-Clyde made great strides in its test scores? Why, [former Superintendent] McGinley was so impressed that she made its principal head of two schools [Sanders-Clyde and the now closed Fraser] simultaneously. [McGinley] supposedly had no clue regarding the scandal that finally came out of the closet--organized changing of answers on the tests. And the principal was allowed to escape to a district in North Carolina.

Hello! This is exactly what Atlanta's school leaders were convicted of.

Before the sad results of cheating at Sanders-Clyde came to light (thanks to a state investigation, not our local district's), one local reporter lauded Principal MiShawna Moore as the "Miracle Worker":

 She obsesses about the possibility of Sanders-Clyde's scores dropping while Fraser's improve or of Fraser getting only slightly better while Sanders-Clyde's scores worsen. That thought makes her sit in her office on weekends and cry. Last year, she cried for four days when she realized Sanders-Clyde missed an excellent rating by just 33 students.
 She fears what the media and community will say about the schools, and she sees any blame as resting squarely on her shoulders. She worries about teachers feeling disappointed because they already have suffered so much scrutiny and criticism.

"Cried for four days"? Juxtapose those compliments with the expose that followed. Evidently, what she really worried about was getting caught.

She was caught but maintained her innocence.  The evidence? "The state released Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test results [in 2009] that showed massive drops in test scores at Sanders-Clyde, a high-poverty downtown school previously recognized for its students' impressive achievement. The test score decline coincided with stringent district oversight of the school's testing, a first for the school." Moore claimed that decline occurred because strangers were in the classroom. Yeah, right.

Whatever happened to MiShawna Moore? After about a year in North Carolina she, believe it or not, returned to Atlanta, where she grew up. You can't make this stuff up.

Here's a recent bio:

Dr. MiShawna Moore joined Families First in November 2011, as the Program Coordinator for School Success. Prior to coming to Families First, MiShawna served as an Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction, a principal, and teacher, where she earned “Teacher of the Year” and the “Community Motivator Award”. Since returning to Atlanta in 2010, MiShawna has mentored several pre-service teachers, taught parenting classes in the community and volunteered with numerous agencies. MiShawna holds a Doctorate degree in Educational Leadership from Walden University, where she concentrated in Teacher Leadership, and holds three Master level degrees in PK-8 Education, Educational Administration and Supervision and Higher Education and Administration.

She's "mentoring pre-service teachers"? Good grief!

Perhaps you need to look to Geraldine Middleton, a former associate superintendent in CCSD. She's the person who gave Moore a job as an assistant superintendent in Halifax County, NC when Moore was under fire, pointing out that nothing was proven. According to Middleton, "MiShawna D. Moore, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction is working to communicate with the public and staff about student test scores and the meaning of the numbers. Moore is currently designing and implementing new programs to bring up student test scores and to get the staff and community more involved." Well, that statement can be viewed through the prism of her experience at Sanders-Clyde!

Once she had hired Moore in 2008, Middleton became embroiled in a data-driven scandal in North Carolina, After stating repeatedly she would stick with Halifax, she escaped to Chicago in 2009 with a $160,000 job, "one of the highest paid and most powerful" in the Chicago school system. That's Chicago. Need I say more? By 2010 Middleton was under fire there for her "data"  and left. Now she's an educational consultant in North Carolina, using "data" to turn around schools.

At least in Atlanta the students injured by this cheating have gotten some justice. The same cannot be said for those in the Charleston County School District, especially the Sanders-Clyde students and parents who were fooled into believing they were achieving.

It was all on McGinley's watch. Data-driven, indeed.

Why No Diversity in Charleston County's All-Black Schools?

Academic Magnet High School is 15 percent nonwhite. Unsurprisingly, that 15 percent met the same standards as white students. We could argue that AMHS shouldn't exist, since it skims the cream off CCSD's other high schools, but the decision to open it (for Gregg Meyers's daughter) was made decades ago, and now CCSD has one of highest-achieving high schools in the state.

That didn't happen by accident. The school takes the highest-achieving applicants from Charleston County--and some from other nearby counties, who take the places of Charleston County students because they scored higher and know how to work the system. The school has a long waiting list, most likely containing some nonwhite students.

Undoubtedly, some students living in the Burke attendance area attend AMHS. Burke High/Middle School, at nearly 99 percent nonwhite, circles the drain even as you read. This year's graduating class is the smallest ever. Its attractive modern buildings are not even half full, even with middle-school students counted. It rates below average today, and the state nearly took it over several years ago. Even so, a large chunk of its students--all nonwhite--do not live in Burke's attendance area. Some have accused CCSD in the past of "dumping" nonwhite students from other high schools into Burke when they have caused trouble elsewhere.

Now CCSD plans to hire an "executive director of diversity and inclusion." Why do I suspect that white applicants need not waste their time applying? More importlantly, why does the district need to pay probably $100 thousand for another edublob layer to shoulder the "right" choices? And what choices will those be--to freeze out top-scoring students from AMHS because they are white? Weasels.

What AMHS parent Charlisa Pugh and The Coalition Pastor Thomas Dixon (both from out-of-state, by the way) call "education assassination" is a two-way street. White students and teachers are routinely bullied in CCSD's de facto segregated schools. Sanders-Clyde on the peninsula greets white visitors with a beautiful Jonathan Green mural showing only nonwhite faces. CCSD routinely excuses rude and demeaning treatment of whites as part of nonwhite culture--how racist can you get?

While CCSD  teaches AMHS students racial stereotypes to avoid, how about  its holding nonwhite students to the same standards of classroom behavior, including language? It might cause some white parents to rethink their choices.

Until the county figures out how to challenge nonwhites even in mostly nonwhite schools, the disparity in AMHS percentages will continue.

Until the county figures out how to treat whites in mostly nonwhite schools, de facto segregation will continue to grow.

Bungled CCSD Superintendent Search Puts Enemies on Same Side: Against

What new atrocity could the Charleston County School District perpetrate that would cause Joe Bowers, Dot Scott, and this writer to be unanimous in our rejection? It's known as the "superintendent search" but should be called the "McGinley continuation."

Last week the CCSD Board of Trustees announced the selection of three candidates for the post: Acting Superintendent Michael Bobby, Superintendent of Academics Lisa Herring, and former Horry County superintendent Gerrita Postlewait. What's wrong with that?

Why do I surmise these were the names put forward by former superintendent Nancy McGinley?

First of all, selection of either Bobby or Herring provides a continuation of the McGinley era, one we do not fondly remember. The third selection, Postlewait, most likely the sacrificial lamb, is undoubtedly a McGinley crony well-known by every superintendent in South Carolina.

Far be it from me to insist that we fund a national search: these candidates do have connections to South Carolina. However, is this the best that South Carolina can do for one of the most highly paid superintendent positions in the state?

To be an effective superintendent, the person in charge needs to know what goes on in today's classroom. Despite claims to the contrary, the education of children is not a business proposition. We are not a factory producing widgets, nor are parents "customers." Michael Bobby has no academic qualifications as superintendent. He majored in math and (maybe) got a teaching certificate in Ohio at a college that remains unnamed. Before becoming a financial officer, he taught in high school almost thirty years ago. His academic credentials do not even qualify him for financial chief. As I  said about the departure of former CFO Kennedy in 2007:

• Does he hold an MBA?
• Is he an accountant?
• Does he have any specialized financial training beyond undergraduate courses?

As for superintending education, can he appreciate how different the classroom is from thirty years ago? Does he have any academic background at all in eduction?

Lisa Herring has similar problems, although more relevant teaching experience. She clearly decided she would become a school counselor after teaching a few years. That's her area of expertise. What qualifies her for chief academic officer except she was in the right place at the right time? One would hope that last year's fiasco over her failure to recuse herself when her daughter was insulted by a student at the School of the Arts--and then imposing an unusually harsh punishment--was a learning experience. We don't know.

Finally, Gerrita Postlewait has made a political career of being superintendent. The edublob has fallen all over itself in congratulating one of its own. If she's ever been in the classroom, she's hiding it now. Horry County is upset that she left them with school board governance that many consider anti-democratic, not responsive to either teachers or parents. Wow, sounds like just what CCSD needs!

We all have differing reasons for saying that the triumvirate stinks. Will anyone own up to
creating this list?

Moffly a Dragon? So Says Brian Hicks

"For her final curtain call, she brought down Superintendent Nancy McGinley." Former Charleston County School Board member Elizabeth Moffly tops Brian Hicks's list of politically-incorrect people.

Think of that imaginary (?) list as a guide to those who won't go with the status quo and are not cowed by liberals or Brian Hicks. Why, even though Moffly's left the school board, she's "still trying to influence education." The horror of it all!

No doubt Moffly wished she could get rid of McGinley by herself. Don't we all? A majority of the board's members voted McGinley out--with plenty of good reasons that start with the dismal results of Vision 2016. Hicks instead persists in the myth that McGinley is a saint fired over the Academic Magnet fiasco. It's the standard liberal line.

Moffly's proposal to the county GOP of breaking up the school district has too many pitfalls to be realistic, but she has, as Hicks concedes, "started the conversation" about a deeply flawed organization. On the other hand, Charlie Lybrand's Letter to the Editor in Friday's paper makes salient points. He proposes to give the eight constituent boards the clout they have lost under McGinley: the chair of each constituent district becomes its member on the CCSD Board of Trustees and is elected by his or her district rather than by the county at large. Mt. Pleasant could no longer select who represents North Charleston, as happened during the last election. Lybrand also proposes three at-large members, although he doesn't explain why the necessity.

I would add an additional caveat: that these positions become partisan, with those on the ballot revealing their political affiliations. Liberals (Democrats and Greens) and conservatives (Republicans and Libertarians) do not share the same ideas on what should happen in public schools. Having parties vet the candidates would prevent the election of the more egregious narcissists. Members would be required to represent something other than their own self-aggrandizement or sub rosa sponsorship by mayors or the Chamber of Commerce.

Where do Democrats hang out in a Republican district? on the nonpartisan school board, of course. Why is the race for mayor of Charleston nonpartisan? so that a Democrat can be elected. No Republicans are running. That fact reveals the effect of "nonpartisan" on the mayoral race. Why would the CCSD Board of Trustees be any different?

McClellanville Wants a New High School

Will the Charleston County School District spend over $7 million to renovate a high/middle school for a student body that has averaged around 120 for the last decade?

Will CCSD instead spend nearly twice that sum for a new building on the St. James-Santee campus?

In the first instance the district would spend nearly $60,000 per student; the cost per student for the second soars over $100,000 per student.

There has to be a better way--and there is!

  McClellanville Constituent Board member Joseph Bowers thinks a new building in a new location is the way to go. Bowers is pitching consolidating the constituent districts for McClellanville and Mount Pleasant to have one district serving all of East Cooper.
  By consolidating the two constituent districts, Bowers said, enrollment could be more evenly distributed at high schools across East Cooper, allowing for more equitable educational opportunities.
  “We have a population problem (in McClellanville),” he said. “There is no way there will ever be the population base out here under the circumstances to continue supporting (equitable) education.”
  But for [Constituent board chair Thomas] Colleton the issue isn’t just about having a new building, it’s about finding a way to break the cycle of poverty of the students in McClellanville, which he feels conditions in the current school only perpetuates.
 “A new school closer to (Awendaw) could open up the door to more opportunities for students,” he said.

Couldn't have said it better myself. A new high school in Awendaw would solve so many problems.

Let's see if CCSD has any common sense.

CCSD Equates Teachers with Students in Make-up Day

Students lose a day off when they make up bad-weather days in Charleston County--it's the law that they must receive 180 days of instruction. So why not teachers?

The anonymous proposal put forth by the Taj Mahal met with disgust and disdain. Teachers were told that they would lose a day of personal or sick leave or vacation to make up a day when the district told them to stay home. What a great financial ploy to have teachers "foot the bill" for a day off. Made sense to Acting Superintendent Michael Bobby. Where was the proposal to do the same to administrators and Bobby himself?

Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed among CCSD school board members as teachers rebelled against this ridiculous demand, and the trustees voted to "forgive" the day in the interest of "morale."

Ah, yes. Balancing the budget on the backs of teachers. The now-dead proposal in the administration's January bulletin has become an orphan that no person will claim.

Deconsolidate CCSD? Depends on Who Gets the Goodies

Rumbling near the surface of discontent, especially in Mt. Pleasant, is the idea that the district is too large, too long, and too distant from its five original constituent areas. Given the way that those areas have developed in the last 40 years, deconsolidating brings up some disquieting questions.

1. Does North Charleston get the magnet schools now located there? the Academic Magnet? School of the Arts? Military Magnet?
2. Does the peninsula (District 20) get to keep Buist for its own students?
3. What happens to the charter schools?
4. With no industry to speak of and fewer large retail establishments, does Mt. Pleasant get the short end of the stick on sales taxes needed for operating expenses?
5. Ditto North Charleston. Does it get to keep all its tax revenues for its schools--even raising teacher salaries to be the highest in the area.

How about diverse schools? Will the Office of Civil Rights condone the breakup of a district formed to encourage integration? Will an oversight entity distribute the taxes according to the needs of the new districts and cpunty-wide magnets? Doesn't that sound like what we have now?

Talk about a can of worms!

Timely James B. Edwards Civics Bills in Legislature

Should South Carolina's high school graduates demonstrate the same knowledge of our government as immigrants being granted citizenship? Who could disagree?

Try stopping a teenager on the street and asking those basic questions. You'll get your answer.Try it for yourself here:
 http://www.al.com/news/mobile/index.ssf/2014/07/are_you_smart_enough_to_pass_a.html

Bills are now in committee in both the House and Senate of South Carolina. The civics test would not prevent graduation if failed; it would, however, reveal which classes are teaching students to understand our government. Email your representatives now.

South Carolina Senate Delegation Sean Bennett, District 38 Paul G. Campbell, Jr., District 44 George E. "Chip" Campsen III, District 43 Raymond E. Cleary III, District 34 Lawrence K. "Larry" Grooms, District 37 Marlon E. Kimpson, District 42 Clementa C. Pinckney, District 45 Paul Thurmond, District 41 South Carolina House Delegation Robert L. Brown, District 116 William E. "Bill" Crosby, District 117 Wendell G. Gilliard, District 111 Stephen Goldfinch, Jr., District 108 Jenny A. Horne, District 94 Harry B. "Chip" Limehouse III, District 110 David J. Mack III, District 109 Peter M. McCoy, Jr., District 115 James H. Merrill, District 99 Samuel Rivers, Jr., District 15 F. Michael "Mike" Sottile, District 112 Leonidas E. "Leon" Stavrinakis, District 119 Mary E. Tinkler, District 114 J. Seth Whipper, District 113

Gasp! Reporters Discover CCSD's Segregated Schools!

If you really want a quick run-down of de facto segregation in the Charleston County School District, I recommend the left-hand subject column of this blog. What you will discover is that, silly me, for my first five years back in Charleston after more than 40 living in various parts of the country, I actually thought CCSD's schools were integrated! It's a subject that our local paper has chosen not to explore--until now.

The Jonathan Green mural at Sanders-Clyde and the school's curriculum specializing in the history of slavery are a case in point. The mural greets children as they enter--but only black children, since no white faces appear. This message seems appropriate for a segregated school. Well, Sanders-Clyde does have one white student; evidently, CCSD administration never planned for any more. Meanwhile, fully 40 percent of its 720 students have transferred in from other schools. You can't insinuate, as Parker and Hawes do, that only white and not black parents request voluntary transfers based on race. They aren't making these choices based on the school's performance.

Learning of these statistics, what conclusion can you reach except that many black parents want a segregated school? If you know of some other reason, please comment. "Convenience" is the buzz-word for voluntary transfers, and CCSD does not provide transportation.

Let's not forget that federal government policies after World War II started the move from the peninsula to the suburbs as it granted returning veterans VA loans only on new construction. Talk about unintended consequences! But it's ridiculous to suggest that white movement off the peninsula in the seventies and eighties caused downtown schools to re-segregate: the population on the peninsula has remained (and increased) as majority white since the sixties.

It is remarkable to think that the only high school in this majority-white downtown has merely one white student; it's even more remarkable to realize that nearly 30 percent of Burke's students have transferred from other zones. Again, what gives? It's not the lure of its football team!

Parker and Hawes also try to make the case that Berkeley and Dorchester counties lack these fully segregated schools. They cite that Dorchester District 2 "doesn't have a single school lacking in diversity." Of course not: it has Dorchester District 4 to take that position!

Berkeley County is a different story. Traditionally a rural and black population, only in the past 30 years has it developed as a suburb--and new construction disperses whites from Ohio into the diverse mix. The Charleston peninsula has an entirely different, and much older, history.

Mentor Eli Broad Reveals McGinley's Goals for CCSD

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

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

According to Diane Ravitch,

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

Gee, that sounds familiar!

Bobby Needs to Come Clean on CCSD Over-Payments to Axxis

Superintendent McGinley may be gone, but her methods linger on in Acting Superintendent Bobby's high-handed treatment of the Charleston County School Board of Trustees.

First of all, Axxis, the diversity consulting firm that was so helpful in the watermelon incident, was hired without advice or consent of the board, one of several no-bid or single bidder contracts McGinley entered. The maximum ceiling for its consulting was $50,000. Nearly $69,000 later Bobby asked the school board to extend the contract by $48,000 while keeping it in the dark about the overrun.

So, is CCSD paying up to $98,000 or $117,000? Is there any hope that the board will ever rebel at this kind of deception?

Who Are the One Third at CCSD's Mt. Pleasant Academy?

One-third of the students at Mt. Pleasant Academy, roughly 190 students, can relax. They need not worry about being sent back to their zoned schools, ever. This despite the fact that zoning lines for the school will shift next year because of overcrowding.

You could say that Mt. Pleasant Academy is overcrowded because a third of its students are voluntary transfers. Makes you wonder about the necessity for rezoning!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Murray-LaSaine: Cleaning Up McGinley's Mess

You can't fool all of the people all of the time.

That's the lesson ex-Superintendent Nancy McGinley should take from the mess of misunerstanding she and her minions in the Charleston County School District administration created. In order to pacify objections from black families at Murray-LaSaine, she initially gave them the impression that parallel traditional classes would continue after a new Montessori program was established. When it became clear to them CCSD had scheduled these classes to be phased out, they loudly rebelled.

What was she thinking? That these parents didn't really care? that they didn't have enough clout for their objections to make a difference?

While the tempest roared, McGinley backed down and allowed as how parents had indeed been promised continuation of traditional classes by someone or someones unnamed. Then she left under a cloud.

The local rag wants to make this uproar all about race, but is it? Objections to Montessori by those opposed have yet to be articulated in the paper. Why do more black parents want traditional classes?  Do they have some basis for believing their children will achieve more in a traditional classroom?

According to one source,

"the Montessori environment lacks structure and instructions, while some children function better in more structured and more guided environments. Likewise, lack of completion in the classroom may lead to certain problems if a child enters a more competitive environment. Besides, some kids need more discipline than others, so they benefit from extrinsic, rather than intrinsic motivation.  Lastly, the Montessori Method suggests individual work at one’s own pace which leads to restricted social interactions with other kids in class. (http://www.bestkiddy.com/5-parent-montessori-method/)

Are these possible shortcomings the basis for the furor? Or do those whose families have been in the school's attendance area for generations believe they are being shoved around by more affluent newcomers who don't know what their children's best interests are?

Regardless, despite the racial divide at Murray-LaSaine, the new school board reneged on McGinley's promise: traditional classes will disappear.

New GED Discourages Dropouts from Certification

When you think of the GED, what ideas come to mind? I remember the disaffected boys and pregnant girls in my high school classes and hope that somehow they managed to get a GED and further education after dropping out in the tenth or eleventh grade. More recently, I worry about students I knew who failed one or two senior-year courses and never went to summer school to finish.

Until I did some research, I didn't know that the GED was created for returning WWII veterans who had dropped out of high school. Prior to that, no such test purporting to represent equivalence to a high school diploma existed. Maybe it's time to get rid of it.

Now that Pearson has purchased GED testing (don't get me started), it costs twice as much, must be taken on computer, and is aligned to the Common Core (which dropouts were not exposed to)--all aspects turning it into a real money-maker for Pearson. Its customers are unlikely to be among our most affluent citizens.

Supposedly it now measures the "real-life" skills needed for further education. Gag me with a spoon.

Such a test does not measure the real life skills that determine a person's success in higher education. Motivation? Time-management skills? Personal problems? The very parameters that cause students to drop out will never appear on such a test. Instead, the new tougher GED practically guarantees failure and a large outlay of money for those trying to turn around the trajectory of their lives.

Since the "new" GED appeared, passing rates have plummeted.

A few states have rebelled against the Common-Core loaded GED. Since South Carolina's legislature rejected the Common Core, it should allow other tests as substitutes, especially the HiSET sponsored by ETS and the Iowa Testing Service. This test answers the objections above, and SC would not be alone in rejecting homage to Pearson.

Time for change.

CCSD Must Identify Priorities for Academic Magnet High

Is diversity the top priority for Charleston County's Academic Magnet High School, or academics?

This sounds like a rhetorical question until you look at the recent treatment of AMHS by administrators and the CCSD School Board. The watermelon episode has allowed those who believe that the school is too white and affluent an argument for changing admissions policies. Nevermind that no evidence exists to suggest that if more than one black player had been on the football team its actions would have differed. In fact, the evidence suggests otherwise.

Delayed letters of admission to the school sent shock waves through the AMHS community as it realized that perhaps academic standards were about to be "watered down" in the name of diversity. Several issues are at hand that affect the composition of entering classes. They include few applications from black students, more qualified applicants than the school was built to handle, less rigorous preparation in all-black middle schools that must deal with poorly prepared students from all-black elementary schools, and the lower socioeconomic status of many black students.

At present the admissions process ranks students according to strict criteria that include exactly what you would expect--all focused on academics. They are admitted "in order of their score on a 15-point rubric." This year 518 applied, 312 met the minimum standard, and the top 200 were accepted. More students pplied who did not meet the minimum than those who will be entering next year's class.

If you think basing admissions on strictly academic standards doesn't favor the more affluent, better educated families in Charleston County, you've got your head in the sand. Some enterprising reporter (no hope that he or she would be employed by our local rag!) needs to survey freshman parents to see what percentage have advanced college degrees. Is it more than half?

Skimming the "cream of the crop" off CCSD's other high schools has already damaged their academics. Someone made the decision (was it Gregg Meyers creating AMHS for his daughter?) that the results would be worth it. If another magnet high school based strictly on academics for admission were created, the rest of CCSD's high schools would suffer accordingly. If a lottery selected student #312 but not student #1, would that be an acceptable result? What about if it rejected student #2? It's easy to see where this is going.

Some of us remember the machinations that have accompanied the lottery at Buist Academy. Amazingly enough, its lottery always found the children of school board members, prominent members of the community (such as Mayor Summey's grandson), and Buist teachers. Remarkable, isn't it?

If the process of applying to AMHS is "daunting," as one parent stated, that is an easy fix.

Fix it.

CCSD must decide if it wants its banner high school to be purely academic.

If not, students whose parents did not attend college or students who are on free or reduced lunch are the logical place to begin. Why not analyze the 206 students who applied but did not meet the minimum standard to see if a "bump" for them on either basis would have made a difference. Same for the cadre that met the minimum but were not admitted in the top 200.

Get some cold, hard facts before monkeying around with a very successful school.

C.C. Blaney: Magnet Status to Lure White Students to CCSD

It's a shame. If the Charleston County School District really wanted diverse elementary schools (read, "integrated"), it would reinstitute tracking!

I know, I know. Tracking has been the third rail of educational philosophy for the last couple of decades. Instead, CCSD is laboriously trying to deal with the problem of white flight by creating magnet schools. Students will end up tracked by school instead of by class.

C.C. Blaney is the case in point. In the early 1990s the school had nearly 400 students enrolled. By the spring of 2014, it had fewer than 200 students and was rated Below Average, with 94 percent of its students on free or reduced lunch. This year the building sat vacant as its students were divided between two other schools; ex-Superintendent McGinley was only too happy to remove it from her stats on failing schools.

Blaney will end up with the same "diversity" problem as Academic Magnet under the present circumstances. CCSD must up its game with the many defacto segregated black schools in the district. Until it does so, no true magnet school will be as diverse as Charleston County citizens would hope.

Will Diversity Ever Come to Burke High School?

Amid all the concerns in the Charleston County School District, ex-Superintendent McGinley decided to move "diversity" closer to the top of the list. Hence, the hiring of a "diversity expert." Evidently, diversity is the new buzz-word for quasi-quota systems (nod to the Oscar furor). 

Diversity spokesmen are now making the case that the admissions process of the Academic Magnet High School prevents diversity. The presumption is that in order to function in a multi-cultural society, students at AMHS must attend classes with a larger percentage of black students.

What about the students at Burke High/Middle? Shouldn't someone be concerned that, in order to function in a multi-cultural society, its students must attend classes with a larger percentage of white students? McGinley threw several half-hearted bandaids at the problem of 99% black enrollment at the school, but she (and the school board) was never really serious. 

Many in the community wish to continue Burke's tradition as a black high school. What would Martin Luther King, Jr., say about that goal?

Take Her Back, Please, Pennsylvania!

Please make ex-Superintendent Nancy McGinley the next Pennsylvania Secretary of Education! She has all the necessary political skills (never mind that our local rag thinks she's not a politician). We would be so happy to not have her eminence grise hanging over our lovely Lowcountry.

Don't let on to Governor-elect Wolf what happened in Seattle to the last superintendent who was hired away from Charleston County School District.

Angel Oak Parent: Every Child Deserves a New School

You've got to be kidding. Here in the traditional Lowcountry, where tourists flock to gawk at centuries-old buildings, the Charleston County School District's actions have convinced parents that every child should, by right, learn inside a brand-new school building.

That's the take-away from the gripes of Angel Oak Elementary parents, who see that Mount Pleasant is getting more new schools than Johns Island. According to Stanley Heydrick, whose wife is the PTA President, ""Our kids deserve what all the other kids deserve, a new school and resources that are up to date."

Nevermind that CCSD will spend over $9 million to renovate the 38-year-old school (Good Lord! It was built in medieval times--1977!), parents want the district to spend at least twice that to erect an entirely new building. After all, the present one is "aging."

By this logic, 40 years is too long for a school building to be in use, renovated or not. Don't you wonder where the cut-off is? 30 years? 20? 10? Maybe it's already time to replace the "aging" Wando High School building!

Parental complaints about leaks and cockroaches are legitimate. However, the problem is not the building's age, but CCSD's usual neglect of proper building maintenance. How did those downtown mansions survive for centuries?

CCSD: Forced to Repeat the Past with $8 Million School?

Sometimes I wonder how long the collective memory of the Charleston County School District really is. Can it be true that those now proposing a "new vision for alternative education" in a nearly $8 million dollar building have any passing knowledge of past attempts at such a program? Spokesman for the proposal is Jennifer Coker, whom the paper neglects to identify as principal of Daniel Jenkins. She certainly knows (or should know) how CCSD reached this point. It isn't a Turning Point!

What purpose is served by constructing a multi-million-dollar building when at least two present (and fully renovated) high schools--Burke and North Charleston--have more than enough room for the proposed 200 students it would serve?

Put that way, the answer seems obvious: CCSD must deliver new projects to keep its building contractors in the money. No wonder Michael Bobby approves.

Get a grip, folks!

Diversity or Divisiveness in CCSD's Future?

According to some die-hard McGinley supporters in the school district, we need to pay a diversity expert from Ohio what the average family in Charleston County makes in a year--$50,000--to make sure we are diverse.

Trouble is, Kevin Clayton hasn't a clue how "diversity" should be handled in the district. If you don't believe me, all you need do is review what happened when the Academic Magnet football team started smashing watermelons instead of footballs. We need more murky messes like that around here. 

Actually, firing James Winbush along with dropping Clayton's contract would go a long way with quelling animosity in the district, if that's what the Charleston County School Board has in mind.

Let's not throw good money after bad, folks!

Glimmer of Hope from Spearman's Interview

It's no secret that SC Superintendent-elect Molly Spearman was not my choice to head the Education Department. Being director of the state Association of School Administrators suggests too cozy a relationship with the edublob.

However, Spearman's recent remarks about the importance of principals show an unexpected perspicacity. She pointed out that "in order to keep great teachers in schools, you first have to have a great principal." Amen to that! Anyone who's ever taught in a classroom will strongly second that notion.

Ah, but as usual, the devil is in the details: what makes a great principal? It's not advanced degrees or bureaucratic bootlicking.

Gushing Editorial on Charter Schools Ignores McGinley's Biased Role

Ask anyone about former superintendent Nancy McGinley's support for charter schools, and you should get a tirade. Though the community wholeheartedly supported the Charter School for Math and Science, Superintendent McGinley and her NAACP lackeys were determined to crush it from the beginning. 

Today's editorial welcoming the Allegro School on the peninsula makes the point in the most mealy-mouthed way possible: "Charter schools weren't initially welcome in Charleston County. Educators in traditional schools saw them as a threat to their funding and attendance." Educators? Read "Saint McGinley."

Despite McGinley's doing everything in her power to stomp on it, CSMS enjoys the success predicted when it began as a grass-roots effort. No worries about diversity there. How about the rest of the district?

P & C Ignores Inequities of EdFirstSC Salary Expose

Teachers get less money under the new salary system; educrats get more. P & C, cheerleader for "Bring McGinley Back," chooses to ignore reality that CCSD did not follow recommendations of its expensive salary study.

See the following:

Losing Ground