Just over 200 Charlotte-Mecklenburg teachers have performance and/or misconduct problems bad enough to merit warning letters, and almost 700 more relatively new teachers don't meet the standards to earn tenure, according to a report Superintendent Peter Gorman sent the school board today.
The tally comes in response to school board questions about the standards being used to evaluate teachers and decide who's in line for performance-based layoffs.
The weekly report to the school board also contains this nugget from Chief Operating Officer Hugh Hattabaugh: 345 teachers from schools that will close next year applied for transfers to other CMS schools, and less than half of them -- 153 -- got offers.
To answer an anticipated question: No, I don't know what all those "special meetings" on Gorman's calendar are.
In an unrelated item, the school board decided earlier this week not to change the structure or terms of the board, which now has six district members and three at-large representatives serving staggered four-year terms. They tapped planner Mike Raible, the district's latest go-to guy on all things complex and controversial, to draw new lines for the electoral districts based on 2010 Census data. He'll bring back options for board discussion and approval.
The school board decided not to focus on creating boundaries that coincide with county commissioner districts. However, at the end of the process they will confer with county folks and, if the two plans look similar, see if they can make minor adjustments to keep the lines the same.
"It may be better than we go down parallel paths and find that our destination may not be all that different," Rhonda Lennon said.
That's a wrap for this week. If you're reading a schools blog on Friday evening or the weekend, you're probably hard-core enough to look forward to Sunday's paper, when I'll have an in-depth look at CMS's quest to crunch teacher value into a number. There's a school-by-school list of how effective each faculty looked based on the 2010 CMS formula (no listings for individual teachers).
Friday, March 11, 2011
Teachers in trouble and school-board lines
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21 comments:
This school board will soon be history, part of it anyway. They know nothing, do nothing and let Dr. Gorman wreck our community. Justice will be served this fall.
"minor adjustment"? There's no such thing as a "minor adjustment" when it comes to CMS.
Thinking it may be time for Ann to take a relaxing vacation. Go swim with some dolphins or something.
When are you folks going to report about the kids who are the real ones loosing out here?
It seems the main focus of CMS is always the teachers. None of which are that great. Of course look who they have to work for! BOE is more than a joke and so is the CMS curriculum.
Get back to basics the four R's. Put ethics and discipline back too THEN you can start to complicate things again.....
TO anon 6:05pm wouldn't it be nice to wake up and hear, Gorman fired, entire BOE has been let go and our kids will now be the focus at CMS... starting today!
I suggest all of you who want Gorman fired look at the past few Supers who weren't much better, possibly worse.
As my Mother says, "would you rather deal with the devil you know or the devil you don't know?"
Also...
In an unrelated item, the school board decided earlier this week not to change the structure or terms of the board, which now has six district members and three at-large representatives serving staggered four-year terms.
Why would we be surprised at inaction by the BOE?
They're pros at doing nothing.
Hopefully, some of these board members won't have to worry about redrawing lines because I hope they get voted out.
Your publishing of a school by school comparison using the voodoo statistics of "value-added" is exactly why all of this is such a BAD idea. I hope you are doing some independent research and not just following the press releases from Gorman and his PR department.
This is for the comment at 6:28. Contrary to what you believe, there are some absolutely fabulous teachers in CMS! My 8th grader has been blessed with many over the years and I thank them profusely for all that they did for her and continue to do for others!
Why does everyone continue to blame Gorman when the entire country has had to cut teachers and jobs related to education?
Wiley,
How far do you want to go back? "I knew Frances Haithcock and you sir are no Frances Haithcock. I knew Eric Smith and you sir are no Eric Smith. I knew John Murphy and you sir are no John Murphy. I knew Peter Relic and you sir are no Peter Relic. I knew E.E. Waddell and you sir are no E.E. Waddell (research this one) I knew Craig Phillips sir and you are no Craig Phillips." Etc., etc., etc. Mr. Pughsley was an interim...(and the BOE) I'll give you that one. The current super is more and more the devil we will never know. His supporting cast will continue throwing cowpies in the wind hoping they'll stick somewhere or find a grant to puff the resume.
I hate Teach for America. I wish Wendy Kopp had never written her stupid paper... a paper by a college student who had never been a teacher thinking she knew all there was to know about teaching... All of these reformers like Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Wendy Kopp have never spent a substantial amount of time in the classroom... Arne Duncan and Peter Gorman... again... the same... I'd love to put Wendy Kopp in the middle of one of our toughest schools for the year and see how she fairs... It's funny that all of these teacher are "in trouble"... but everyone is OK with hiring people who have to have all of their lessons handed to them by veterans, are given the plum classes in these "inner city" schools and aren't subject to the same evaluation measures as everyone else. The system is on the verge of collapse... thanks to visionaries like Kopp and Rhee and Duncan... Gorman is a pansy riding the coattails of fad-induced delirium...
Anon 8:15...
All educrats perpetuating the staus quo...
Eric Smith, architect of the taxpayer black hole Bright Beginnigs...
Nothing has changed and quite frankly, I wouldn't want to be any of them....
Glad you know them so well...
With a system like we have, attracting the current type of person we do, then the very same system being the hiring decision makers, can only be a very poor bunch of characters judging the character of characters to begin with anyway.
Larry,
How true!
Can you find out any details about whether all IB trained Davidson IB teachers received an offer to move to Alexander and whether this included art and music instructors? Everyone is relieved that Dr. Karney will be the principal, but we would like some indication that the strong faculty of DIB is staying together as well. Thanks.
Tying Teacher Salaries to Test Scores Doesn’t Work--- PFP is what is killing the CMS budget, nevermind the additional testing that will cost taxpayers $1.2+ million just to support PFP. Wake up parents...let the sleeping giant awake! Gorman has done this program in at least one other district and drove it into the ground!
http://parentsacrossamerica.org/performancepay/ and http://www.mecklenburgacts.org/petition/
I think this is a very sad time for most children to be going to school in CMS. I know that not all of the teacher are bad ones, but some of the problems should be lain at the feet of the parents.
Get your students to go to school for what its intended for, learning! It is not meant to be a social hour and the total lack of respect for adults is also appalling.
I had an opportunity to substitute in one of CMS's schools and was very disheartened about what I saw and heard come out of some of the students mouths. I am currently homeschooling a student, who is leaving CMS and it is a wonder that she passed her previous classes. She is a good student and has self-learned most of what she knows for failure of the teacher's in teaching.
Get focused on what the kids need and leave the politics for the politicians. Get them up to date books and bring back teacher's aides, if you are gonna leave so many students with one teacher.
I am a college graduate, with multiple degrees, and I don't see a lot of kids with that option right now.
On DIB faculty: That was discussed at the last board meeting. It was a bit confusing. If I understood it right, they said those with IB training did get to move to Alexander but the rest did not automatically get spots. If you really want to know, the March 8 meeting is web-archived here:
http://www.cms.k12.nc.us/boe/Pages/SchoolBoardMeetings.aspx
to anonymous at 9:18 am--Would you mind telling us what district that is that Dr. Gorman ran into the ground. I know that his previous district was Tustin in California. According to their webpage they seem to be doing pretty well--95.6 graduation rate in a very diverse district.
I didn't leave the original comment about Gorman's previous district, but if you look closely at their website, there are quite a few differences between Gorman's previous district and Charlotte. Also, remember he hasn't worked there in five years. If you look closely at their data, a lot of their improvement has happened in the last few years...since he left. Further, that district only has 29 schools. The demographics are also very different. The student population is almost equally divided between Caucasian and Hispanic students. The beginning teacher salary is considerly higher than CMS. They have half-day Kindergarten, etc, etc. One other note of interest, if look at Gorman's resume, his total classroom teaching experience is less than three years. No wonder tenure, longevity, the skills gained from many years of teaching experience, etc mean so little to him.
So if it's not Tustin which district did he run into the ground?
I did notice the differences between Tustin and CMS. But I was looking for evidence of a district that had been run into the ground. If that had happened there under Gorman I think it would have been pretty miraculous for it to have completely recovered in 5 years.
In April 2006, Pete Gorman was appointed superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, and he began leading the district's 150 schools and more than 126,000 students in the summer of 2006. He previously served as superintendent of the Tustin Unified School District, a school system with over 20,000 students and 29 schools encompassing the City of Tustin, as well as portions of Irvine and Santa Ana in Orange County, Calif. Prior to assuming this position, he served in various capacities within the 150,000-student Orange County Public Schools in Orlando, Fla., including area superintendent, chief information officer and chief operating officer for business and finance. Gorman also served as assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction with Osceola County Public Schools in Florida and as principal of Lyman High School with Seminole County Public Schools in Florida. Gorman received a Bachelor of Arts in education from Michigan State University, a master’s in education and a doctorate in education from the University of Central Florida, and an M.B.A. from Rollins College. He has completed post-doctoral work at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Teachers College at Columbia University. Gorman is a graduate of the 2004 class of The Broad Superintendents Academy.
all Gorman did was spend a very large amount of our hard earned tax dollars on public relations, and create a mast (and highly paid) administrator organization chart so it'll look like all this is someone's fault, and not his. He's was a big spender, did nothing but ruin what was remotely positive within CMS. Are the students better off from all of Gorman's ideas: no
Remember when we all had a choice where our children went to school? That's long gone.
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