Programs and More Programs

Two sets of pilot programs and experiments were discussed during the most recent Guilford County Schools Board Meeting...but we've been down this road before, haven't we?

As a matter of fact, during my campaign, I called for a moratorium on any new programs being introduced because there are just too many. And the last meeting was no exception.

This week's Rhino Times:

...the school board then passed, by an 8-to-2 vote, a motion by Garrett to approve an experimental program to increase pay to attract teachers to low-performing schools. School board members Garth Hebert and Nancy Routh voted against the proposal. School board member Deena Hayes was absent.

The experiment, to be run by Mathematica Policy Research of Princeton, New Jersey, will supplement the pay of highly qualified teachers willing to move to low-performing schools by $10,000 a year for two years, and will give highly qualified teachers already working in those schools $5,000 a year for two years. The experiment would be funded by federal Title II money.

The experiment will fund six to eight teachers at about six Guilford County schools, who together would teach about 1,000 students.

The school board put off voting for the program at its Nov. 19 meeting, with board members saying that approving a new program with a lame-duck school board wasn't a good idea.

School Superintendent Mo Green strongly supported the proposal Tuesday night, saying it also had the support of central office administrators.
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But Board member Amos Quick makes some interesting points, as he continues to be quite concerned with the stability of principals, especially in his district. And I can't say I disagree with him, either.

More:

The school board member who questioned the experiment most strongly was Quick, who called it shuffling deck chairs on a sinking ship.

Quick said that the experiment would address only teacher pay, leaving the schools with other problems, such as a high rate of principal turnover. He also said the problem would overlap with the school system's Mission Possible program, which provides similar pay supplements to attract teachers to low-performing schools. He said the school board should guarantee the pay increases until the affected students graduate.

"If not, it is just an experiment," Quick said "And, no matter how pretty you paint it, you're experimenting with kids, and I just don't like it."
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But the Board was far from being done last Tuesday evening. Next up was a debate on pushing a pilot program to improve academic performance at six schools, despite what the Rhino calls "widespread confusion among administrators and the principals at those schools over what the program would do."

Rhino Times:


Administrators say the pilot program would link Smith and Dudley high schools, Jackson and Hairston middle schools and Wiley and Washington elementary schools in an attempt to replicate academic and school environment improvements recently made by some principals, including LaToy Kennedy at Wiley Elementary School, Sharon Jacobs at Washington Elementary School and Rodney Wilds at Jackson Middle School.

The proposed program is an outgrowth of the work of the school board's Achievement Gap Committee, which is charged with solving the nationally intractable problem of relatively low academic performance among black male students. The committee members start with the inarguable thesis that a good principal can make a difference at a struggling school. They continue to the less obvious idea that the results of a good principal can be systematically replicated at other schools.

School board and committee member Nancy Routh cited the example, from a few years ago, of a principal who turned around one Guilford County school, but whose success the school system never tried to replicate.

Routh said that no one even looked into why that one principal succeeded where others had failed. "She said to me, 'You know, no one ever asked me what I did,'" Routh said.

Members of the committee say they don't want to see the same thing happen to the success Kennedy, Wilds and Jacobs have achieved, and that they want to extend the improved academic performance of those principals' students through the students' middle and high school years.

The committee members say they want to build an environment at all the pilot program schools similar to that at the three schools. Among the tactics the committee members cited were a focus on discipline; a commitment to reading; a tough love relationship with parents that requires them to make sure their children don't arrive at school late or leave school early; higher expectations for teachers, parents and students; and a welcoming attitude toward students that makes them want to be at school.
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Hmm....shouldn't this be taking place at ALL of our schools? Focus on discipline? Commitment to reading? Punctuality? High expectations for all involved? Am I missing something here?

Not only that...isn't this another version of Springboard? Whatever happened to Springboard? Springboard focuses on making sure the academics of the elementary grades are aligned with the middle school grades and continue onto the high school level. Springboard allowed some schools to go in and track elementary school students getting ready to progress into the feeder middle schools, and continued to follow them to their feeder high schools. It was all supposed to be aligned and uniform.

There are entirely too many programs, some are being duplicated and results are inconclusive. Teachers and students suffer.

E.C. :)