Early College High in CCSD's District 20 to Compete with Burke?

According to the P & C, "A new high school offering courses for college credit is set to open this fall in Charleston County, possibly at Trident Technical College's campus on the East Side of downtown Charleston."

Possibly? Isn't there a rather large totally renovated high school building barely in use only one and a half miles away? You know, the elephant in the room?

"Charleston County School District leaders say the planned Early College High School will put students on track to graduate high school with an associate degree or industry certification. Graduating with as many as 60 college credit hours already earned through Trident courses, students could save money on college tuition or head straight into a career."

"Basically we're blending high school and college into one," said Richard Gordon, executive director of Career and Technology Education. . . . The school could open in August with as many as 100 ninth-grade students attending classes at Trident's Palmer Campus. The school plans to add grades in subsequent years until it serves grades nine through 12. 

"Modeled after similar programs in Horry County, Berkeley County and Dorchester District 2, the Early College High School aims to attract first-generation college students and students who score between the 40th and 60th percentile on eighth-grade standardized tests. . . .Gordon said he would begin to "recruit like crazy" in middle schools as soon as the board gives the school and its location final approval. 

Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait said she hopes to expand the program eventually.
"Ultimately, it would be our goal to have an Early College on each of Trident Technical College's campuses throughout the district," Postlewait said. "I hope that we think about it as the first effort, not to exclude anyone."

The idea sounds great, but--are we giving up on Burke High School? Won't this program entice away those remaining students reading on grade level? Let's hope someone has thought this through completely.

CCSD's Suspension Stats Don't Tell the Tale

What difference does it make if one Charleston County school has recorded more suspensions than another? Are we to assume that the fewer the suspensions, the better the discipline, or what? Meeting Street Schools programs suspend more students: does that statistic mean that its students need more discipline or that discipline at those schools is Draconian? If there were no suspensions at North Charleston High, does that mean there was no discipline either?

Let's put this another way: would statistics matter if Mt. Pleasant Academy had a much higher suspension rate that Meeting Street @ Brentwood, or vice versa? Why?

Trying to make an issue out of suspension rates is a red herring. What really matters is learning. If "sweating the small stuff" leads to a better learning environment, who's to quarrel? Adherents can massage statistics to support almost anything. Keep in mind that old book, How to Lie with Statistics. It should be required reading for all.

Or as Darrell Huff puts it, "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics."

CCSD Needs New Evaluation of Principals, not Teachers

Evaluating teachers on improvements in student test scores will never work. Some states have already discovered that truth. You might as well plan to grade parents on their child's improvement. In fact, that might be a better measure!

Students are not widgets and schools not factories. The sooner school districts learn those facts, the better.

On the other hand, Charleston County School Superintendent Gerrita Postlewait cited some problematic causes of student non-achievement: "Some teachers have given all of their students As, even those who failed the End-of-Course tests, she said. Entire schools, including the now-closed Lincoln High, had an unwritten policy of never giving a grade below a 60." 

At Lincoln High a principal-who-cannot-be-named set a policy regarding grades. Teachers had no choice but to follow it. Our glorious past superintendent allowed the policy to continue or, more likely, with her horde of associate superintendents never knew what went on. Whose fault is that?

Teachers giving all of their students As have given up. Who are the principals-who-cannot-be-held-responsible who allowed this travesty of education to occur? Does CCSD employ principals who believe that everybody deserves an A regardless of achievement?

No one should wonder why the shortage of teachers continues to grow. When teachers have respect both in and out of the classroom that will begin to change. Of course, teachers need evaluation and advice. Apparently, on the front lines in CCSD principals have dropped the ball.

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/charleston-county-teachers-put-on-notice-by-surprise-evaluation-changes/

The Lowcountry's Glorified Remedial High School, Trident Tech

No one doubts the necessity of Trident Technical College. Its programs from nursing to policing are essential to the tri-county area. However, the failure of tri-county's high schools to educate their graduates has forced TTC to become what it was never meant to be: a remedial high school. 

The shocking statistic that ninety percent of high school graduates entering TTC must take remedial math should shake up our local school boards. That percentage doesn't even count the graduates who don't meet TTC's low entrance requirements! 

Where's the outrage? 

These students, who by and large come from the lower economic rungs of our local communities must now pay for classes to learn what they should have learned in high school for free. 

How about a class action lawsuit against the school districts of Charleston, Dorchester, and Berkeley Counties? Where are the PI attorneys when we need them? These students must shell out dollars they probably have borrowed and delay entering the work force, with accompanying delay in wages, to make up deficiencies their high school diplomas promised they wouldn't have.

Don't kid yourselves. It's our loss as well as theirs. 

CCSD's Hollinshed and Caesar's Wife

A decade ago when chairman of the Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission, current Charleston County School Board member Kevin Hollinshed used his county credit card to pay for an upgrade to first class and Indianapolis Colts tickets. After an Ethics Commission investigation cleared him, partly because the commission had no written policy on credit card use, you would think that he would be extra careful not to run afoul again. Not so.

Hollinshed's excuse for not filing his financial information in his 2016 campaign for School Board is that it's the computer's fault. Somehow all the information he entered on line did not appear in the records kept by the State Ethics Commission. However, no campaign reports from Hollinshed were ever received. You can miss a "button" to click once, but if you miss it every time, something else is wrong. If the school district had never notified him of his non-compliance, would he ever have reported?

No one is suggesting Hollinshed had nefarious contributions for his campaign. Slipshod records are more likely. That doesn't bode well for his oversight of spending as a board member. 

Keep in mind what's going on next door with the Berkeley County School Board. Its members had no idea, no idea what was happening to funds over the course of several years. It's not a pretty story.

"Caesar's wife must be above suspicion." Let's hope Hollinshed takes notice that he now has two strikes. What will people think if there's a third?

Berkeley County School District Soap Opera Continues

We now learn that BCSD's former treasurer's brother-in-law's firm was financial advisor to the district. Thomas continues to cooperate with the FBI. He hid cost overruns in the building program by dipping surreptitiously into reserves. And no one knew. They are shocked, shocked!

Well, someone knew. Cost overruns or kickbacks? And why did it take persistent FOIA requests to uncover the dirty deeds? Does not the school board have some fiduciary responsibility?

We haven't heard the last of this iceberg. Inquiring minds still ask, "Why is it the FBI and not the IRS leading the investigation? Money laundering? Interstate transfer of funds? Kidnapping?

All we need next are sex, lies, and videotape.

Hold SC Governors Responsible for Education

Have you ever seen anyone run for governor without promising to improve the dismal state of education in South Carolina? Me neither. That focus is the result of voters wishing to see improvement, what else? The reality is that the governor of South Carolina has little authority, if any, over our state's education.

However, again this year our state legislature has the opportunity to give the governor more power. Why would it want to do that? So that whoever is governor can take responsibility for the state education department by appointing its superintendent. What possible advantage derives from a superintendent independent of the state's governor?

Right now, the state superintendent of education runs independently for office on a party ticket the way the lieutenant governor used to do. That process makes the superintendent beholden to political supporters who may not support the governor's agenda. Yet the voters still believe the governor has the responsibility for what happens.

The governor should appoint the state superintendent as is done in 36 other states. It's time to modernize our statewide political system.

CCSD: Capital Sales Proceeds Should Not Fill Operations Budget!

The Chicora "Graded" School building deteriorated for years while owned by the Charleston County School District. That was then. The present CCSD administration actually pays to maintain unused buildings, or at least, it gives that impression to taxpayers. A case in point is the Archer campus downtown, claimed to cost $18,000 per year to maintain. 

Have you ever driven past that building? Built in 1936 for black elementary students, it has undergone renovations for use as "swing space" as the district spent its way into multiple new buildings unhampered by lack of capital funds. Now CCSD hopes to sell it and the city block it occupies. The sale of the Laing School property in Mt. Pleasant for $12 million has the administration salivating for more. 

Just a simple query before the district starts devouring itself: into which budget did the $12 million go? In the past, such windfalls (if you can call them that) ended up in the operations budget. How about this one? In other words, is the desire to sell off surplus buildings seen as a money-saving gesture or as a way to build up the operations budget?

As any savvy investor knows, living off capital leads to disaster in the long run.

Shame on CCSD and North Charleston over Chicora

The building rots while politicians twiddle their thumbs.

How did the deterioration of Chicora Elementary School happen? Who dropped the ball and allowed thieves to scour all copper from the building? Who allowed the building to deteriorate to its current dilapidated state? Why has nothing happened to secure the building since the City of North Charleston took possession from CCSD?

No one should evince shock over the Charleston County School District's allowing the building to crumble. That's the modus operandi of CCSD regarding older schools. However, why has the City of North Charleston allowed the building to sit as "an eyesore and a threat to public safety" in the middle of one of its neighborhoods? Apparently Mayor Summey has other priorities, such as golf courses.

A reputable organization has proposed a plan to renovate and reuse the almost century-old building, when no one else has come forward. And the City delays.

Do we really need more foot dragging?

How to Spend $40 Million on Charleston County Schools

Gerrita Postlewait may rue the day she asked administrators for ideas on spending an almost $40-million-dollar "windfall" due the district after the termination of a special TIF. It's bad enough that one educrat proposed hiring the district's own "journalist." Now Luther Seabrook's Letter to the Editor points out that after saving $18 million by closing an all-black school, the district feels no compunction to address the needs of black students with the much larger $40 million. He points out that the district caused hardship for the affected students.

Actually, the Charleston County School District causes hardship for every black student stuck in a district school with lower expectations for achievement. These students enter high school doomed to fail if standards are raised there. Seabrook's suggestion for spending the millions on "reading and learning" laboratories in each of CCSD's failing elementary schools should rank high on the Superintendent's list of priorities. 

Shouldn't it?

See http://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-failing-schools/

Berkeley County School District Puzzles

New Jersey's evenly-balanced political-party split used to provide so many political scandals: as power switched sides, opponents threw corrupt politicians to the wolves. Now I'm beginning to wonder the same about the Berkeley County School District.

Its battle over the Yes4Schools fiasco has played out in the courts for several years. Now we are treated to the resignation of the BCSD chief financial officer, who somehow forgot which account was designated for several hundred thousand dollars. Oops!

But wait!

Its financial officer, who also oversaw capital expenditures, seems to be cooperating with the feds. He hasn't been charged with anything yet. And it's not the IRS that's unhappy: it's the FBI! 

Gets stranger, doesn't it?

Does anyone in Berkeley County believe the recent resignation of its school superintendent is not connected with these financial misdoings? 

This scandal could have occurred in the Charleston County School District, if forensic audits proposed over the last decade had gone forward. Instead, multiple players were let off the hook. Maybe they knew where the bodies were buried!

Let's Hear from CCSD's Board Members Who Support Garrett

One man stands alone, or so it seems from the silence surrounding Todd Garrett's call for action in the Charleston County School District. Are the rest of the Trustees too cowed to speak? Are they, as the following Letter to the Editor suggests, merely "cookie-cutter" members happy to keep the system running as poorly as it does?

http://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-school-standards/

CCSD's Garrett Throws Down the Gauntlet to Administration

What is the current definition of insane? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results? Well, Charleston County School Board member Todd Garrett has asked that insanity to stop,

His message? Why do we still have so many failing schools and "At graduation, only 3.7 percent of our black students and 38.6 percent of our white students meet the Gold Work Keys level that Boeing requires to apply for a position" or attend Trident Tech. Why after so much money has been spent in the district?

Garrett holds the district's feet to the fire: either produce different results or let an outside organization take over those schools. 

See 
http://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/commentary/demand-results-from-ccsd/

Go get 'em, Todd!

Will CCSD's New "Journalist" Present More Fake News?

It was nice while restraint lasted, but what else could the Charleston County School District do when it had accumulated an embarrassingly large deficit? Now that CCSD expects almost $40 million in "new" revenue, Board Chair Kate Darby enthusiastically supports hiring its own "journalist."

Well, we all must make choices with our funds, but Paul Bowers has pointed out that's the same as the "cost of two first-year teacher salaries." 

No doubt Darby would counter with "who needs more teachers?"

Should we quibble over the definition of "journalist"? "Journalist," "PR flack," it's all the same, right? The educrat who proposed and named this position, Erica Taylor, should be fired. She already has a budget of nearly $1,7 million and 16 employees. Apparently that's not enough for her. She's even requested another $55,000 (another potential teacher) for  "Aggressive PR Efforts (complete District rebranding, town hall meetings, etc.)" and $50,000 (another potential teacher) for "Parent, Teacher, Business, Student Cabinets." 

You would assume that the district has experienced poor relations with our local rag. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The P & C has bent over backward for years to present the district in the best possible light in order to assuage the worries of potential homebuyers from out of state. Frequently it has published the district's press releases verbatim.

In case you're wondering, Taylor envisions "This person will assist in telling the stories of the greatness of our 87 schools and programs, nearly 50,000 students, 5,500 teachers and unique educational offerings." 

Taylor has further grandiose plans--creating a television show and the district's own news channel. No doubt she sees her role as big chief in charge.

Well, why not? When you ask educrats to spend money, they can always find a way. The district should be asking this overstaffed department how it can cut costs instead. As Board member Cindy Bohn Coats asked, "how many people does it take to put out a press release?"

Maybe some of that money could find its way into the classroom and actually affect students.

Nah. Silly me.

Feds Should Stay Out of Public School Bathrooms

They weren't in our school bathrooms before; why should they be now? Was there an outcry from the states asking for the feds' "protection" in bathrooms? No. 

In the past hundred years of public schooling, the feds have not entered school bathrooms unless crimes were being committed. The system worked. Getting all knotted up into a tizzy over what has been undeniable trampling on states rights, counties rights, and school districts rights is silly. Let principals and parents work things out. If parents feel their children are deprived, they can always contact the ACLU and fight it out in court.

This whole problem results from people who want to regulate our lives because they think we are incapable of doing so ourselves.

Moultrie's Jody Stallings Hits Another Home Run on Teaching Standards!

From the Moultrie News:

Teacher to Parent - Are the common core replacement standards any better?
By Jody Stallings Special to the Moultrie News Feb 22, 2017 Updated Feb 22, 2017   (1)

Q. As a a parent, I was not a fan of the Common Core Standards and was happy to see South Carolina get rid of them. Are the replacement standards any better?

A. Nope. Now, that’s not to say that the Common Core standards were good. At best, teachers were ambivalent. Some really loved them. Others thought they were terrible. So I’m not suggesting that we revert back to those. All I’m saying is that the new state standards are like Britney Spears circa 2007: they have serious issues. One of the worst is that they are a ruthlessly complex scattershot of completely incomprehensible gibberish.

In "Walden," Henry David Thoreau said, “Simplify, simplify.” The writers of the S.C. Standards didn’t get that message. Most teachers believe learning standards should be highly rigorous but also simple and clear. This helps students learn, teachers teach, and parents know what the heck is going on. Overwrought complexity, on the other hand, breeds chaos, confusion, and costliness.


As an example, the state standards for my eighth-grade English class list 147 discrete learning items. For this article I tried to find the exact number of actionable phrases (things like “students will analyze poems,” “learn what a verb is,” “identify metaphors,” etc.). I got up to 192 before I stopped counting. My back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that there are about 252 such standards, just for an 8th grade English class. There might be more.

Keep in mind there are only 180 days of school, and 10 of those are set aside for testing these very standards. Just when are teachers supposed to teach all of these things?

That assumes, of course, that you really want us to. As I mentioned, not only are there far too many standards, many of them are totally unintelligible. Here’s a verbatim example:

“Integrate an information (cueing) system that includes meaning (semantics), structure (syntax), visual (graphophonic), and pragmatics (schematic) to make meaning from text.”

And you thought you had trouble getting your child to pick up his socks. Try getting 120 eighth-graders to integrate graphophonics into their information (cueing) systems.

I’ve been around a while, so I happen to know that back in the day the above standard used to go by the single word “Read.” But imagine being a brand-new teacher struggling with 30 wild, wired pre-recess eighth-graders reading on a fifth-grade level, and you are charged with getting them to “integrate a (cueing) system that ..." — Oh, you get the idea.

And let’s consider the thousands of perfectly intelligent teachers who don’t have the faintest clue what that standard means. Educational administrators will say, “That’s okay. We’ve hired professionals to train teachers to learn it. Plus we’ve purchased some wonderful programs to help them teach it to their students.” You can probably hear the cash register already.

That training and those programs are expensive. Really expensive. A few years ago, CCSD alone spent $5 million to train its teachers in the Common Core standards, and those were a cakewalk compared to the new ones. This reveals one possible reason why the new standards are so plied with indecipherable jargon: Someone has to make money, and it sure ain’t teachers. (Pardon my grammar. I was just trying to be graphophonic.)

What’s the solution? Listen to Thoreau: Simplify, simplify! Our students (and teachers) are being overwhelmed by educational standards that have little practical connection to real life. We need to get back to basics. Course standards should be able to easily fit onto a single page and should be decipherable by any parent.

This would eliminate the need to spend money we don’t have on expensive consultants we don’t need to instruct teachers who are leaving the classroom in droves how to teach standards that make no sense to students who deserve much better.

The great computer scientist Edsger W. Dijkstra described simplicity as a tremendous virtue, “But it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.”

Indeed it does. Much to the detriment of our students.

Jody Stallings has been an award-winning teacher in Charleston since 1992. He has served as Charleston County Teacher of the Year, Walmart Teacher of the Year, and CEA runner-up for National Educator of the Year. He currently teaches English at Moultrie Middle School and is director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance. Please send your questions to him at JodyLStallings@gmail.com.

Why New Principals in February, CCSD?

Why change horses in mid-stream? 

The Charleston County School District just announced four new principals who are taking their positions this month. Shouldn't these decisions be made in the summer before school starts? It makes you wonder if somehow they forgot.

On the other hand, perhaps the principals signal a new rigor in standards in the four schools affected--Burke High, Stall High, North Charleston High, and Northwoods Middle. Note that these schools do not dwell on the heights of success at present. 

Let's also hope that Henry Darby, who also sits on the County Council, has lots of energy. He's going to need it for both jobs.

CCSD's Postlewait's Frank Appraisal not a Solution

What else could be concluded from the poor performance of former Lincoln High School students at Wando this year? Yes, lower expectations for poor, mainly black, students have permeated the Charleston County School District for decades.

Now what?

The superintendent has taken the first step: identify the problem. The second step should be to find out exactly how widespread the problem is. 

The third? Propose a solution.

Low expectations do not begin in the eighth grade but in kindergarten. It will be interesting to see how the district addresses the problem. If it can arrive at a solution, millions will cheer.

Let's See What DeVos Can Do

Here is a cogent voice for moderation regarding the new Secretary of Edication.

FEBRUARY 7, 2017
Statement on Confirmation of Betsy DeVos as U.S. Secretary of Education

By NEAL MCCLUSKEY  

It is gratifying to see Betsy DeVos confirmed as the next U.S. Secretary of Education. This is not because the federal government should attempt to push school choice—it should not, except in the District of Columbia and for families connected to the military—but because the opposition to now-Secretary DeVos was so unfair to her, and to the research on educational freedom. The reality is that research indicates charter schooling works in Michigan, DeVos’s home state, and specifically in Detroit. It shows that families of students with disabilities, rather than somehow being victimized by school choice, are empowered and immensely satisfied with it. And logic and evidence show that private school choice, rather than imposing ideas on people, frees them to get what they want for their children without forcing it on others.

It is also gratifying to see DeVos approved because she stated repeatedly in her confirmation hearing that education decisions should be left to state and local governments. Constitutionally, that has things absolutely right: the Constitution gives Washington no authority to govern or “oversee” American education, as Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) put it, which means such rights remain with the states, or with the people. And 50-plus years of increasingly intrusive federal meddling in education, with ultimately no visible academic improvement to show for it, brilliantly illustrates the wisdom of that decision.

Now let us hope that the Trump administration sticks to the constitutionally-constrained federal role—even on school choice—that Secretary DeVos has repeatedly endorsed. 

Teachers Know Why Teachers Leave the Profession: Hint, It's not Low Pay!

The following appeared in the Moultrie News, written by the head of the Charleston Teacher Alliance. 

Teacher to Parent - Why teachers leave

By Jody Stallings Special to the Moultrie News Feb 1, 2017 

I read in a recent Post and Courier editorial about the shortage of teachers and the problems with teacher retention in our state. Is this a real problem and what might be some ideas to correct it?

I read that, too, and I thought the P&C’s editorial was welcomed fresh air for what has been a closeted matter for a long time. While it is not a burning issue in all schools, it is a serious problem in many places, and there is no doubt it is hurting thousands of students.

As director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance, I interact with teachers all over the region, and from what I hear, the primary reasons they leave the classroom come down to three critical issues:

1. Student discipline. Across the state, teachers and principals have not been given the power to enforce basic rules of behavior, and I’m not just talking about gum chewing and running in the halls. I routinely hear from teachers who have been assaulted, cursed at, threatened, and terrorized by out-of-control classrooms. Far too often the students in these situations are treated with tenderness while the teachers are blamed. Teaching in many schools has devolved by stages, from instruction to daycare to containment to survival. Until teachers and principals are empowered to get their classrooms back in control, the profession will continue to bleed talented, intelligent educators.

2. Parental support. From the moment teachers step into the classroom, they are warned that they will be held accountable for raising the test scores of all students. They are also warned that they must do so without the expectation of parents’ help. While most parents are supportive of their children’s education, too many have forgotten their responsibilities. They do not discipline their children. They do not make them study. They do not encourage them to listen to their teachers. Instead, they blame teachers and the system for failing them. Teaching is hard enough when everyone is behind you, but when the people who have the most influence on students are not supportive of your efforts, exasperation and fatigue can take root, and teachers will abandon the profession.

3. Administrative power and teacher discretion. Because districts are becoming increasingly top-heavy with administrators, teachers are being forced to implement prescribed (and usually unsuccessful) programs and teaching methods. Teaching is an art, not a science, and when you exchange a teacher’s palette and canvas with a dime store paint-by-numbers set, the effects on the teaching profession are predictable. In addition, districts continue to slam teachers with grotesque amounts of paperwork, replace instructional time with unnecessary testing, and cram more and more students into already packed classrooms.

I’m no genius, but I am a teacher, and my advice to those at the state level is that if you really want to keep teachers in the classroom, you might pay attention to why they’re leaving in the first place.

Jody Stallings has been an award-winning teacher in Charleston since 1992. He has served as Charleston County Teacher of the Year, Walmart Teacher of the Year, and CEA runner-up for National Educator of the Year. He currently teaches English at Moultrie Middle School and is director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance. Please send your questions to him at JodyLStallings@gmail.com.