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REL N

Accountability Lost : Education Next - 0 views

educationnext.org/accountability-lost

ADMS707 Niemeyer Boards accountability

shared by REL N on 17 Feb 11 - Cached
    • REL N
      REL N on 17 Feb 11
       
      Tried to identify confounding variables to increase the likelihood that any changes in voting behavior were due to school performance
  • incumbent school board members won a larger share of the total vote in a precinct when test scores in that precinct improved. We estimate that improvement from the 25th to the 75th percentile of test-score change—that is, moving from a loss of 4 percentile points to a gain of 3.8 percentile points between 1999 and 2000—produced on average an increase of 3 percentage points in an incumbent’s vote share. If precinct test scores dropped from the 75th to the 25th percentile of test-score change, the associated 3-percentage-point decrease in an incumbent’s vote share could substantially erode an incumbent’s margin of victory.
  • percentile scores had increased in the year preceding the election, incumbents won 81 percent of the time in competitive elections; in districts where scores had declined, incumbents won only 69 percent of the time.
  • ...24 more annotations...
  • significant relationship with precinct test scores and the absence of a relationship with district scores suggests that voters were more concerned with school performance within their immediate neighborhood than across the district.
  • all indications of a relationship between school performance and an incumbent school board member’s vote share vanished after the passage of NCLB in 2002.
  • None of these approaches yielded clear evidence of a link between school performance and voter behavior in school board elections.
  • the overwhelming weight of the evidence indicated that school board members were not being judged on improvement or weakening in school test scores.
  • School performance as measured by test scores may have helped determine which candidates sought reelection and which faced a challenger.
  • assess the relationship between test-score trends and incumbents’ decisions to run for reelection, and then to estimate the effect of test-score trends on the probability that an incumbent who runs faces an opponent.
  • incumbents may bow out in anticipation of being held accountable for poor test-score performance by schools in their district.
  • drop from the 75th to the 25th percentile of test-score change, our results lead us to expect that incumbents will be 13 percentage points less likely to run for reelection. In fact, 76 percent of incumbents sought reelection in districts with improving test scores; in districts with falling scores, only 66 percent did.
  • we failed to find any indication that incumbents in 2002 and 2004 based their decisions about running for reelection on student learning trends.
  • In these years, only 30 and 34 percent of articles, respectively, touched on test scores. The decline in media attention leads us to suspect that concerns about student learning trends probably did not stand at the forefront of voters’ or candidates’ thinking in the 2002 and 2004 elections.
  • “The PACT needs to be seen for what it is: a vehicle for politicians to say that they are tough on education (and educators). This may make for good politics, but it makes for bad educational policy.”
  • Reacting to the rising criticisms directed toward PACT, voters may have grown disenchanted with the state’s accountability system and removed test-score performance from among the criteria on which they evaluated school board candidates.
  • if most schools appeared to be average or better, parents may not have been prompted to hold incumbents accountable for poor school performance. Incumbents and potential challengers may also have become less responsive to scores when the testing regimen began to give nearly every school a passing mark.
  • School board elections give the public the leverage to improve their schools. If voters do not cast out incumbents when local school performance is poor, they forfeit that opportunity. As debate continues over components of NCLB, policymakers should consider whether it is realistic to assume voters will in fact use the polls to drive school improvement.
  • analyzed test-score data and election results from 499 races over three election cycles in South Carolina to study whether voters punish and reward incumbent school board members on the basis of changes in student learning, as measured by standardized tests, in district schools
  • According to a 2002 national survey, student achievement ranks second only to financial concerns as school board members’ highest priority.
  • the basic purpose of all school board activities is to facilitate the day-to-day functioning of schools.
  • Neither the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) nor the states impose direct sanctions on members of school boards that oversee large numbers of underperforming schools.
  • impact of school performance on incumbents’ decisions to seek reelection and potential challengers’ decisions to join the race.
  • All but 4 of the state’s 46 counties hold nonpartisan school board elections. Approximately 80 percent of school board members receive some compensation, either a salary, per diem payments, or reimbursement for their expenses. Over 90 percent of South Carolina’s 85 school boards have between 5 and 9 members, while the largest board has 11. And, as is common practice in other states, nearly 9 out of 10 South Carolina school districts hold board elections during the general election in November.
  • the most important difference between South Carolina and most other states when it comes to local school politics is the role played by the state’s teachers unions, which are among the weakest in the country.
  • South Carolina school boards are unlikely to be beholden to the unions, which should make the boards more responsive to the broader public.
  • examine whether voters are more concerned with student performance districtwide or in their local neighborhood, we computed two measures of average school performance to include in our analysis.
  • separate the effect of school performance from the effects of other factors that could reasonably influence an incumbent school board member’s vote share
  • REL N on 17 Feb 11
     
    Details about research on the impact school performance has on how people vote for school board members. The authors conclude "If voters do not cast out incumbents when local school performance is poor, they forfeit that opportunity. As debate continues over components of NCLB, policymakers should consider whether it is realistic to assume voters will in fact use the polls to drive school improvement."
Georggetta Howie

Obama seeks to make No Child Left Behind more flexible - 1 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2011012606752.html

Reform education NCLB Performance

shared by Georggetta Howie on 27 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Georggetta Howie on 27 Jan 11
     
    "Some Republicans are so skeptical of the federal role in education that they want to abolish the Education Department." Obama wants to replace the federal metric of adequate yearly progress, known as AYP, with more flexible measures that reward student growth. Yet it remains unclear how the government would force improvement of low-performing schools while getting out of the way of those that excel. Obama wants to replace the federal metric of adequate yearly progress, known as AYP, with more flexible measures that reward student growth. Yet it remains unclear how the government would force improvement of low-performing schools while getting out of the way of those that excel.
REL N

Quantitative Analysis in, Educational Administrator Preparation Programs - 1 views

www.edweek.org/...20schoolboards.h30.html

ADMS707 Niemeyer Governance

shared by REL N on 08 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • REL N on 08 Feb 11
     
    School Board members are still focused on student achievement over charter schools, performance pay etc. Hess article attached.
  • REL N on 08 Feb 11
     
    School Board members are still focused on student achievement over charter schools, performance pay etc. Hess article attached.
Georggetta Howie

Fixing Teacher Tenure Without a Pass/Fail Grade - 1 views

www.time.com/...0,8599,2044529,00.html

Tenure Teachers Reform Performance Union

shared by Georggetta Howie on 27 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Georggetta Howie on 27 Jan 11
     
    Proposal of doing away with tenure and introducing contracts that will reward based on performance not time served.
REL N

Charles Kolb: Educational Success: America's New Industrial Policy - 1 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...al-success-ameri_b_810464.html

ADMS707 Federal Resource-allocation

shared by REL N on 04 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • And we need to approach our education investment as we approach infrastructure or industrial policy.
    • REL N
      REL N on 04 Feb 11
       
      NOOOO! We need to better define the type of success we can achieve given that individuals are in different places at different times in their lives. We need to support people where they are and help them move forward in areas and at a pace that is right for them. If a 16-year old is able to perform well in a college program then that is where s/he should be. If a student is gifted in math and abhors and does poorly in history, then we should nurture her/his strengths and stop holding them to their social grade level in math and wasting their time and their passion drilling them in history. Ultimately, they will be happier, more productive, and more willing to contribute to society in a math-related endeavor.
  • "define success up." Our new industrial and competitiveness policy as a nation should be focused relentlessly on those talented young children and adolescents who show educational promise. We should double, perhaps triple, federal, state, and private sector resources that support gifted-and-talented programs in our schools. We should nurture this talent the same way some institutions nurture athletic talent. This approach is not elitism; it is smart commonsense.
    • REL N
      REL N on 04 Feb 11
       
      Yeah... I think we all saw what happened when we had a leader who was proud of getting "C's" in college. And, then we are not really sure if a "C" actually meant a "D-" but was given to ensure social promotion. I would not go to a surgeon who either did not want to go to medical school or was not able to succeed in her/his training. That is not elitism. It is more than simply common sense. It is effective data-driven/evidence-based decision-making. A person might be terrific and funny and caring (and perhaps rich and attractive too) but they should not be given a role beyond their knowledge and capabilities.
  • If such an exam cannot be developed within six months, then perhaps we really have wasted a lot of time over the last 30 years. Algebra in New Hampshire is not different from algebra in California. Reading skills and reading-level assessments should be the same in each state. Grammar doesn't vary across state borders, and gravity tends to work the same way everywhere. The governors are well-positioned to lead a national discussion about what our high school graduates should know and be able to do -- and then devise a test that measures the success of our young people in mastering what they need to know to be successful. The National Governors Association is already doing excellent work in this area -- but it has to move faster.
    • REL N
      REL N on 04 Feb 11
       
      f we stopped the gaming in elementary and middle school testing and relied on the teachers and administrators to implement effective local testing and take appropriate actions to ensure learning, we would have more resources (time, money, people) to develop appropriate and resonable assessments at the high school level. These must be based on higher order thinking and include essays, video-taped dialogues/presentations, and some simple answer tests. The evaluation should be done by humans outside the local area and care must be taken to ensure inter-rater reliability. This is done in other countries as well as in the states with the IB diploma programme. It is do-able and the graduates will be well prepared and confident that they can move forward. Our initial pass rates may not be as high as we would like, and we need to be prepared to accept that some students may take more than 12 years or choose to take a less rigorous set of exams; however, we will have a higher level of success overall and our students will be much better prepared as citizens and workers.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • We need to change our approach from preventing failure to promoting success.
  • In late December 2010, the Education Trust reported that nearly 25 percent of high school graduates taking the U.S. Army entrance exam cannot answer basic questions in math, science, and reading. Some of the questions were pretty basic: "If 2 plus x equals 4, what is the value of x?"
  • all children can learn, not all children are ready to learn at the same time. If some of our classrooms have disruptive students, these students should attend other classes until they become serious about learning.
  • And finally, we should learn from the French, who for decades have had a baccalaureate exam that is a prerequisite for advancing to post-secondary education. In France, the "bac" exam is typically taken by 17- and 18-year-olds, but if a student fails the exam, he or she can take it again -- even later in life. The "bac" serves two purposes: it sets a standard for what French high school graduates know and can do, and it serves as a moment of consequence for French young people: they cannot move forward until they have proved their proficiency.
  • In several states, where testing has been adopted, we find large discrepancies between how the states report their children's performance on "No Child Left Behind" tests and the often much lower performance found by the objective National Assessment of Educational Progress.
  • resources we've squandered. We need a more tough-minded and focused approach that identifies, nurtures, and rewards success
  • REL N on 04 Feb 11
     
    I'm not sure how I feel about this blog. Part of me says "Oh no!" while the other part says that we need to make education accessible but we would be better served to go with a more individualized approach. Right now it feels as though we often cater to the lowest common denominator which is not fair to anyone. Can we learn something from the operations concept of mass customization? Educators--feedback please!! I'd love to hear what your experience tells you r.e. these issues.
  • mirabilecp on 05 Feb 11
     
    I am intrigued if not in full agreement with this piece by Kolb. He makes good points about a national baccaulaureate exam...it's true, algebra is algebra, grammar is grammar, in all 50 states. Some of our colleagues would disagree that we need primarily focus on the best and the brightest and that those who are not ready to learn should be sequestered until they are (paraphrasing here). He says, "We really aren't serious as a nation when it comes to education," but I think that we are fast approaching a time when (I hope) it becomes a primary focus of our political debate (from Candy).
Roger Mancastroppa

Does Whole-School Performance Pay Improve Student Learning? - 0 views

educationnext.org/e-pay-improve-student-learning

ADMS707 reform education school democracy

shared by Roger Mancastroppa on 06 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Roger Mancastroppa on 06 Feb 11
     
    The article reflects a study we looked at in 704. The study results were poorly written and due to the limitations of the system, etc., it seemed poorly prepared and implemented. That said, some relevant data emerged.
REL N

63% Say It's Too Hard To Get Rid of Bad Teachers - 0 views

www.rasmussenreports.com/...ard_to_get_rid_of_bad_teachers

ADMS707 Niemeyer Tenure Student Achievement

shared by REL N on 13 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • REL N on 13 Feb 11
     
    New poll captures discontent for teacher performance and public schools.
stephlennon

Ohio Case: The 'Rosa Parks Moment' For Education? - 2 views

www.npr.org/...osa-parks-moment-for-education

adms707 federal democracy education Lennon

shared by stephlennon on 04 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • stephlennon on 04 Feb 11
     
    The punishment does not fit the crime, but if there is such a strong correlation between zip code and achievement, who can blame a Mom for trying?
  • REL N on 04 Feb 11
     
    I disagree with two of the comments in the article... The first was made by the City Council President: ""The young lady was wrong, she should not have tried to take her kids to another school system,..." I do not think she should have falsified the records; however, I do not think that it was wrong to try to find a way to get equal access to a quality education for her children. I also disagree with Don Domenech's interpretation of SES data. While research has found a correlation/relationship between SES and student achievement, I think his statement that "the correlation between student achievement and zip code is 100 percent," is misleading. The average student achievement may be higher in more affluent zip codes but that does not mean 100% of the students perform better. There are still students who struggle or drop out. I think the data speaks more to the family SES. It is true that better facilities and access to more materials and technology provide a higher likelihood of academic success, but I think that some of the student's personal/home factors have a bigger influence. If you send a child who is hungry, has to take care of siblings and/or work to help support the family to an affluent suburban school, that student will not automatically perform better. There are no absolutes and I feel his statement that "The quality of education you receive is entirely predictable based on where you live," is misleading. The "quality" of some of the "inputs and processes" may be better but because success in education is complex and dependent on more than simply the school, the outcomes are not guaranteed based on zip code.
Roger Mancastroppa

ERIC - Education Resources Information Center - 0 views

www.eric.ed.gov/...simpleSearch.jsp

superintendent resources education adms707 school

shared by Roger Mancastroppa on 06 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Roger Mancastroppa on 06 Mar 11
     
    The school board and superintendent set up the groundwork for instructional reforms. They turned to the Council of the Great City Schools to look at how well the district's instructional program was meeting the academic needs of these English-language learners and newcomers. The study shows how a program considered excellent that performs very well, can still miss students with limited English speaking skills. The report shows how the school district missed the fact that many of these folks even existed, let alone began building programming to meet their needs. Most important are the strategies that offer the students a chance to join mainstream and improve their achievement. 
Roger Mancastroppa

Raising the Achievement of English Language Learners in the Buffalo Public Schools - 0 views

www.eric.ed.gov/ED511361.pdf

adms707 education reform school states boards superintendent

shared by Roger Mancastroppa on 06 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Roger Mancastroppa on 06 Mar 11
     
    The school board and superintendent set up the groundwork for instructional reforms. They turned to the Council of the Great City Schools to look at how well the district's instructional program was meeting the academic needs of these English-language learners and newcomers. The study shows how a program considered excellent that performs very well, can still miss students with limited English speaking skills. The report shows how the school district missed the fact that many of these folks even existed, let alone began building programming to meet their needs. Most important are the strategies that offer the students a chance to join mainstream and improve their achievement. 
REL N

Rhee faces renewed scrutiny over depiction of students' progress when she taught - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...AR2011021007240.html

ADMS707 Niemeyer Test Scores Rhee

shared by REL N on 16 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • REL N on 16 Feb 11
     
    The principal for whom Rhee worked said that there was "clear evidence of actual, knowing falsehood" in statements Rhee made about the magnitude of improvement in test scores for her students. Frederick Hess, who was not involved with that school or its faculty said : "There's simply no way with these data to say anything, good or bad, about Rhee's teaching performance,"
  • REL N on 16 Feb 11
     
    The principal for whom Rhee worked said Rhee's statements about the magnitude of improvement in test scores for her students were "clear evidence of actual, knowing falsehood." Frederick Hess, who was not involved with the faculty or school responded "There's simply no way with these data to say anything, good or bad, about Rhee's teaching performance,"
REL N

Why America's teachers are enraged - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

ADMS707 Niemeyer Teacher-evaluation reform states politics

shared by REL N on 24 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Right-to-work states do not have higher scores than states with strong unions. Actually, the states with the highest performance on national tests are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and New Hampshire, where teachers belong to unions that bargain collectively for their members.
  • One must wonder how it is possible to talk of improving schools while cutting funding, demoralizing teachers, cutting scholarships to college, and increasing class sizes.
  • REL N on 24 Feb 11
     
    If everyone agrees that teachers are important... why do they think that demoralizing them will improve students' experience and performance in school?
REL N

No Effects Seen in NYC Schoolwide Pay Program - Teacher Beat - Education Week - 1 views

blogs.edweek.org/...choolwide_pay_program_sho.html

ADMS707 Niemeyer Pay for Performance

shared by REL N on 10 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • REL N on 10 Mar 11
     
    Latest research from Harvard indicates that pay-for-performance did not effect student achievement or other measures. Questions about the effectiveness of the design of the bonuses still linger.
REL N

Education Week: At-Risk Kids Treated as 'Gifted' Perform Better, Study Finds - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...28mct_ncgifted.h30.html

NIemeyer ADMS707 Reform

shared by REL N on 07 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • A U.S. Department of Education evaluation of a North Carolina program shows that when at-risk students are taught as if they are gifted and talented, they are likely to perform better academically.
    • REL N
      REL N on 07 Apr 11
       
      Well duh! Imagine how many more students could have been helped if we redirected the money that was spent to "prove" what we already knew to increasing the reach of the program!
Tara McDaniel

Education Week's Quality Counts - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...ityCounts2011_PressRelease.pdf

shared by Tara McDaniel on 28 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Tara McDaniel on 28 Jan 11
     
    Report Awards State Grades for Education Performance, Policy; Nation Earns a D-plus on Achievement, Some Movement Seen On Reform Initiatives Despite Recession
REL N

United States Education Dashboard - 1 views

dashboard.ed.gov/default.aspx

Federal ADMS707 Metrics Results

shared by REL N on 04 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • REL N on 04 Feb 11
     
    On-line tool providing lagging indicator education results.
  • REL N on 04 Feb 11
     
    In corporate strategy we said that our dashboards provided business intelligence for real-time decision-making. I commend this effort but I do not think that the metrics are granular enough or that the data are available quickly enough. While an interesting attempt/first step, I see this as an on-line collection of "rear view mirror" performance. We have not really captured leading indicators. Rather, this tool makes it easier for us to review our lagging indicators. We can get a clearer picture of our deficiencies/gaps, but I'm not sure how this will help inform timely and effective decision-making.
REL N

E Pluribus Unum? : Education Next - 0 views

educationnext.org/e-pluribus-unum-2

ADMS707 Federal CoreStandards

shared by REL N on 07 Feb 11 - Cached
  • And that content should be married to national standards of “proficiency” in these subjects at these grade levels, and joined to national exams by which we determine how well and by whom this is being accomplished.
    • REL N
      REL N on 07 Feb 11
       
      It is interesting that VA has chosen to stay out of the Core Standards frey--not because the state Board of Ed doesn't agree with the concept but because they feel that VA's SOLs are superior and more rigorous than a national core might be. Interestingly the VA performance in the chart below hovers closer to the poor end of the spectrum... not the superior end.
  • attempting to avoid bias by including everyone’s biases only generates more problems.
  • I’d probably install Core Knowledge in the primary and middle grades and the International Baccalaureate (IB) in high schools.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • having these things vary from state to state produces mediocrity, cacophony, waste, duplication, and confusion (see Figure 1). Survey after survey makes clear that (if the question is asked correctly) parents favor national standards and tests. Instead of letting “That’s the first step toward a national curriculum” serve as a conversation stopper, let’s deploy it as a conversation starter. Let’s acknowledge that “curriculum,” loosely defined, is supposed to be aligned with standards and appraised by assessments.
  • Let me note, finally, that I’m unimpressed by Meier’s “habits of mind” alternative to content (see below). It’s wonderfully seductive, but the serious psychologists with whose work I’m acquainted (see, for example, “Reframing the Mind,” check the facts, Summer 2004) don’t put much stock in this Howard Gardner–originated proposition that youngsters can learn skills devoid of content. It’s the absence of essential core content from her view of schooling that lies at the heart of our curricular disagreement.
  • We boiled it down to five “habits of mind” that we claimed (somewhat pompously) underlay all the academic disciplines as well as the mental and social disciplines needed for living in a complex modern society: (1) How do you know what you know? What’s the nature of your evidence? How credible is it? Compared to what? (2) Are there other perspectives? What affects our points of view? How otherwise might this be seen? (3) Are there patterns there? A sequence? A theory of cause and effect? (4) Could it be otherwise? What would happen if? Supposing that x had not happened? and (5) Who cares? Why does it matter? As you can see, they blend into each other and, in a way, just define a mind state of skepticism and informed empathy. It suggests having to take seriously the idea that one might be wrong, and so could others. We added “habits of work” like meeting deadlines and being on time and “habits of the heart” like caring about one’s impact on others.
Phil Riddle

Temporary Segregation - 1 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

segregation by income

shared by Phil Riddle on 30 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • Phil Riddle on 30 Jan 11
     
    For me, the most interesting aspect of this article is the continuing segregation of students in our schools by income. It also have a brief summary of what has happened in the Wake County Schools
  • mirabilecp on 31 Jan 11
     
    Not entirely opposed, we might need to try it to see if it works...I recall reading how Justice Clarence Thomas chose to support public funding to private relgious schools (some might say unconstitutional) in order to create a way for African Americans to leave poorly performing urban public schools. Sometimes, you have to make a choice between a rock and a hard place.
stephlennon

Website on Funding for Gifted Education - 0 views

www.davidsongifted.org/...StatePolicy.aspx

ADMS707 education states gifted

shared by stephlennon on 11 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • stephlennon on 11 Feb 11
     
    Interesting that "Special Education" allegedly means higher-than-average and lower-than-average performing students. Yet the funding for some states does not even exist!
REL N

A Board's Eye View : Education Next - 0 views

educationnext.org/aboardseyeview

ADMS707 Niemeyer Boards reform

shared by REL N on 17 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • “Code of Conduct for School Board Members.” This was intended, wrote the superintendent, in recommending the code, “to set standards for how the Board interacts with itself.” Sounded like sex to me. But the preoccupation with board member behavior was the result of the long-standing tension between the democracy represented by elected officials who oversaw the schools and the professionalism of those hired to run them. The superintendent was definitely attempting to tip the balance in favor of the pros. “We will not attempt to exercise individual authority over the district’s operations, staff, or personnel decisions,” read one of the rules he was proposing for us. Another: “We will not express individual judgments about the performance of the superintendent or staff. . . . We recognize the value of the chain of command. When approached by staff, constituents or the public, we will channel all inquiries to the administrator.” I e-mailed the superintendent, “Is this a joke?” He called and laughed lamely.
    • REL N
      REL N on 17 Feb 11
       
      "... the preoccupation with board member behavior was the result of the long-standing tension between the democracy represented by elected officials who oversaw the schools and the professionalism of those hired to run them."
  • “We should let people know we are looking for quality, of course, but not to the point of advertising outside official channels.”
  • the board never reviewed other major expenditures, such as the installation of a new computer system.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • I asked the superintendent how a new asphalt parking lot was installed at the Greenport School without board approval–or even a bid or a notice or a need. He informed me that a bid wasn’t necessary for a job worth less than $10,000.
  • no clarification of what any of this meant–or cost. Don’t ask. “Mandated” was the knowing word from veteran board members.
  • almost 16 percent of the children in the school district were disabled, almost double the national average.
  • more than 350, were either “emotionally disturbed,” “learning disabled,” or “speech impaired.” These were the kind of catchall categories that allowed a district to dispose of many problem children–in Hudson those children were mostly black–with expensive baby-sitting.
  • over the next several months as I learned that the district had been running a deficit for several years. In fact, the state comptroller’s office, which oversees the fiscal integrity of all state and local government agencies, had conducted its own audit and found the same thing: “overexpenditure of budgetary appropriations and the overestimation of revenues.” Money was being moved around, from one fund to another, which was also against the rules, the comptroller noted. And when auditors had asked for records, they couldn’t be found.
  • the school board was not where the biggest battles would be won or lost.
  • The teacher union president, normally a regular presence at school board meetings, stopped coming so that he wouldn’t have to answer my questions about what was being done to improve things that his teachers controlled. (He had already stopped responding to my phone calls and letters.)
  • the debate was as much cultural–and racial–as educational,
    • REL N
      REL N on 17 Feb 11
       
      The author was frustrated that the board refused to discuss the academic mediocrity in the schools and then he realized that "the debate was as much cultural-and racial-as educational,...."
  • “Mandates” and laws sprouted acres of explanatory weeds–most of them unnecessary. No one ever read the original “mandate.”
  • no one seemed to know why the “Parent/Family/Community Involvement Policy” was necessary, but it was assumed that it was required by some Oz-like authority, passed through the policy-writing machinery at some school board association office, and sent to us for our “approval.”
  • No one else on the board expressed any hint of having read it. And I was beginning to discern a pattern: the more written, the less understood.
  • REL N on 17 Feb 11
     
    A concerned parent joined the local school board in hopes of improving the academics. After 6 frustrating months he resigned from the board believing that "the school board was not where the biggest battles would be won or lost."
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