Where and how do you host a party for more than 17,000 people?
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials are about to figure that out. When The Broad Foundation awarded CMS the Broad Prize for urban education on Tuesday, at a Washington, D.C., ceremony attended by about 16 people from CMS, they learned there's a benefit not listed in all the news releases.
In addition to the $550,000 in scholarships for the Class of 2012, it turns out the foundation will pay for a celebration to honor teachers, principals and others who did the work that led to the prize. The foundation bases its decision on gains and achievement among minority and low-income students (read more about the selection process).
The foundation didn't mention a specific sum for the event, and CMS has no details planned yet. But chief spokeswoman LaTarzja Henry, who will be in charge of organizing the festivities, noted that the foundation knows how big CMS is (about 17,750 employees), and Broad isn't known for being tight-fisted. "The goal is to make it big and make it all-inclusive," she said.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
CMS plans really big party
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
55 comments:
How about providing teachers with a raise?? It's been at least 4 years now!
Are we really throwing a party because other urban school districts have been rated worse than ours?? Priorities, folks!!
I'm hoping someone will post the "cost" of the party.
I'm guessing it will be somewhere in the neighborhood of the award amount...
If ALL costs were counted, which, of course, we know won't be the case.
Gubmint spending at its best.
They'd better keep their costs below $30 a person or they'll spend more than they were awarded.
I'm hoping they factor in employee time into those costs.
"CMS isn't known for being tight fisted".....there is something to be proud of. First they lied, cried and moaned about how desperate they were, and all the layoffs to come.....then they go on a hiring binge and brag about how they have a reputation for loose spending!!!! Nice
Wait til budget time next year....we will remember.
I agree about giving them their raise they haven't had in 4 years.
We got kids without classrooms and having to learn in the hallways of their schools and these freaking morons want to celebrate?
Go to our school, Polo Ridge, and you'll find teachers using restrooms as offices.
Where the hell are CMS's priorities?
CMS should be ashamed, or at least modest, of getting the award, not proud or celebrating. It represents being a little better than the worse schools in the country. Historically about .6%, 45 kids out of about 7,600 grads will get the scholarships. The scholarships represent about half of what the kid will need to go to college each year.
After not having a raise in more than ten years I'm not ready to march for raises for teachers, and I suspect many are in the same boat as I. I think I'd drop give us a raise mantra.
That's great!...
Throw a party, pat yourselves on the back and give each other a "Hattabaughie" for winning the top prize of mediocrity.....
Congratulations.
http://charlotte.johnlocke.org/blog/?p=13793&__utma=1.882113111.1316619847.1316619847.1316626134.2&__utmb=1.1.10.1316626134&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1316619847.1.1.utmcsr=%28direct%29|utmccn=%28direct%29|utmcmd=%28none%29&__utmv=-&__utmk=166071614
But is that something we should advertise? In order to qualify, your school district has to be large, poor and failing. Large numbers of your students have to be poor, minority and failing.
Then to win, poor minority students have got to fail a little less compared to other kids who are failing in other large, urban districts in the state. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools scores have improved slightly in recent years. But our graduation/dropout rates, one of the key factors in who wins the Broad Prize, are actually WORSE than the rest of the state for minorities, the poor and overall. But since large, broke, failing urban school districts are only compared to other similar districts in the state, CMS looks fantastic, even though its students fail to graduate MORE OFTEN than those across the state as a whole.
Hence, CMS is failing, just not as badly as three other urban districts in the state it is competing against.
So we won $550,000 and we are going to have a party for 17,750 of CMS's finest. So that's 17,750 and +1's so let's say 35,000 give or take. And suppose it averages out to be $25 a head, that's $875,000!! So we're going to throw a party that will cost MORE than the prize money that is being awarded. That's pure genius.
Anon 1:32...
That's not how math works in CMS.
See, sample audits of the school lunch program show 60% of respondants don't qualify and the USDA itself says they overpaid benefits to the tune of $1.5 BILLION last year, yet CMS won't challange the USDA to do a full audit. Therefore, we waste millions of dollars on kids who don't qualify and they get mixed in with the ones who do and need the benefit, but the help gets diluted by a bigger portion sucking up overspent funds.
So for CMS or the benefactors to throw a party at a cost of half a million to a million dollars is chump change.
Yes, spending more than the prize won on a party is pathetic, but what's more pathetic is CMS won this based on fraudulent numbers of kids in poverty and labeled low income students.
That's what is pathetic.
Some of these comments made me realize my writing was not as clear as it should have been (sorry, filed and dashed to a lunch event). CMS is not paying for this party with government money, and it's not coming from the $550,000 in scholarships. The Broad Foundation has promised to foot the bill for the event, and Henry was saying the foundation is not known for being tight-fisted. I've rewritten to make those points clearer, I hope.
No matter how angry you may be about CMS for whatever reasons, please read the blog post carefully. It says, "In addition to the $550,000 in scholarships for the Class of 2012, it turns out the foundation will pay for a celebration to honor teachers, principals and others who did the work that led to the prize."
Got that--Broad is paying for the celebration and the quote was not that "CMS is not known for being tight-fisted", the quote was "Broad is not know for being tight-fisted." Ann, maybe you should make this clear to all, as everyone so far seems to have misunderstood.
CMS has many problems but one of the biggest problems--community trust--is partially a cause of continuous negative publicity and the willingness of some to criticize CMS no matter what.
Two components from the Broad "simulation tools" segment:
actual % FRSL - Percent of students in the district eligible for Free or Reduced-Price Lunch (FRSL).
predicted % proficient - Predicted percent of students in the district meeting state standards, based on the performance results for all districts in the state and their percent of students eligible for FRSL.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A tool using bogus data.
Gotta love it.
Well, looks like we piggy baked, Ann. Thanks for the clarity.
OMG. Reading these comments just show how stupid some people are. CMS isn't paying for the party. The foundation is. It's not coming out of the prize money either. Its called reading comprehension, Please slow down and reread the article!
by the way... Teachers arent the only ones going without ANY pay raises in the last 4 years! Almost everyone (Except Assistant Directors and above) has gone without pay raises. My current pay is at the same level when they readjusted it down in 2007 claiming we were all "Over Market"
1:57, thanks for backstopping me and helping explain. I guess there's a reason we have people read our stories before print publication! The first version was perfectly clear to me :-)
Let's see....all teachers and teachers assistants I KNOW have not have raises in years. We are working more and everything around us is going up in costs. We, though, are still making the same we were 4-5 years ago. We need a raise, not a party that not 3/4 of the employees will NOT attend.
WAIT A MINUTE, WAIT A MINUTE
Memo from the Ed Center.
First:
There is the requirement for a busing plan to the party for all the folks needing transportation.
Second:
The party will have to have weighted participation.
Third:
Before and after the party there will need to be testing.
(optional: portfolio method)
Last:
Everyone gets to watch a brilliant PowerPoint.
Bolyn McClung
NextSuper.com
Pineville
GAWD I'm glad I woke up & left N Carolina to go back to civilization. Phenominal difference.
I hope the date does not interfere with the date of my super duper sweet 16 party I am throwing for myself.
http://youtu.be/IBLWPmk52pE
Yay for our "urban" school district that continues to ignore the "suburban" taxpayers that fuel some of the district's most successful schools. Our class sizes are greater than and per pupil spending less than the intown schools yet folks seem to complain there is no equity for intown schools. Can't have the party at our elementary school...no room with 1300 kids in a facility built for 750 that added 30 trailers to house 3rd-5th grade. Don't have it in the one computer lab where 2 classes meet for their technology special. One class sits at the computer and the other class sits on the carpet. Yet, the county commissioners voted on a construction schedule that will put gyms and a new theater auditorium at high schools before any new construction to address growth.
Wow, you people are real downers. Certainly there is work to be done, but if the successes are not celebrated then morale takes a hit, and it gets more difficult to get out of bed in the morning to do what needs to be done. The celebration is paid for by private funding, and is "earmarked" for the celebration. Thus, it is not your money to decide how it should be spent. Can you not simply be happy that some needy students in our area will find some extra financing for their college educations? Can we not show somw encouragement for our CMS staff and supporters to keep going in a positive direction? Please. If I could decide how everyone should spend their money, well...let me just say that I would not be typing this right now.
Anon 4:02...
Read this excerpt from the Chicago Tribune and the Eagle Forum regarding the school lunch program and why the Broad "prize" is a shame and a sham. The reason being is that every bit of data is bogus and based on fraud. This is one article of many that shows what lengths school districts across the US will go to in order to beef up their coffers:
...Clearly schools have numerous incentives besides "good nutrition" to bulk up the numbers of students receiving free and reduced-price lunches. Most school administrators are probably pretty savvy with regard to maximizing available funding, but if they are new to the game, the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) and its affiliates stand ready to help.
According to the Philanthropedia website, FRAC "leads national efforts to improve and expand the reach of programs such as food stamps, school lunch and breakfast, after school and summer food, and the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program." FRAC has been instrumental in driving legislation and filing lawsuits that have expanded food stamp and other food programs to millions of people since 1970.
In accord with their mission, FRAC provides a manual to help school administrators "optimize" federal reimbursement rates and "leverage additional funding" by maximizing the number of students who receive free and reduced-price lunches.
An example in the manual shows how schools that miss the opportunity to classify just 75 students at the free rate and 25 students at the reduced-price rate forgo $63,090 in federal reimbursements over the course of one school year.
One way FRAC advises schools to "aggressively" qualify students for free meals is to use "direct certification" for students already receiving food stamp benefits or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Those families need express no interest in free school lunches to be signed up for the program; all the school has to do is provide student enrollment information to the food stamp office, which will match up the names and add those students to the free lunch list. Homeless, runaway and migrant children are automatically qualified as well.
For families not already receiving government food assistance, FRAC tells schools how to conduct a "campaign to collect meal applications from the remaining student population."
One suggestion is to offer prizes, such as a "$500 office supply gift card to schools that collect over 90 percent of their meal applications," or to give "sporting event tickets to classrooms" with a high application return rate.
FRAC also suggests making the application for free and reduced-lunches "accessible" to parents by filling the forms out with as much student information as possible before asking parents to complete them. Schools should also work with community groups to promote the lunch subsidy program and have applications available in all languages spoken by the parents, according to FRAC.
With or without tips from FRAC, schools are enrolling millions of kids in the subsidized program. Taxpayers forked over $9.7 billion during fiscal year 2010 for the National School Lunch Program.
On a typical school day, 31.6 million children sit down to a school cafeteria lunch. Twenty million of them — that's 63% — receive free or reduced-price lunches.
Will 63% of American school kids really go hungry if taxpayers don't feed them? Or are there what economists call "perverse incentives" in place that reward schools for signing up as many kids as possible for free or reduced-price lunches? (Chicago Tribune, 4-11-11 and 4-12-11)
This is why public education is in the toilet and will continue to remain there until we say enough is enough...
I too am ashamed of my actions.
Why are we not pretending this farce is not a time of joy and celebration?
Why not just fall in line and make people think that failure and drop out rates that should be making us gag are adequate?
Why not just say the spending over the last fifty years plus has been great based on the outcomes?
I just am not sure why?
I guess I can not bring myself to do that, I guess it is because I have seen first hand, time after time, that we could send the kids to alternative schools and they would have a much better chance at a future.
So thanks for bringing me back to reality.
Sometimes it takes a stranger to get you to focus on just what it really important.
Not the parties or or the politics or the social programs.
Just the Future for the Kids.
@Ann... I understood who was paying for the party the first version.... I heart my English degree!
Larry,
I'm not sure how much more plain and to the point you can make it.
...yet there will be those who say "HOW DARE YOU!"
A pay raise for teachers? Let them eat cake!
Latarzan Henry
Need two more PR people to sell the PfP plan at over $100,000. She is a helluva party planner however.
Need more cake and cowbell !!!
Nobody at CMS or Broad said, "Mission Accomplished." The award, and the nominations from earlier years, were recognition that the district was making progress. The progress is very slow, but it is still the right direction. That cannot be said for most large school districts. Nor can it be said for many districts in general. Teachers and principals have done a great job, and they have done so without pay increases, and in an environment where they have watched many of their peers go through the RIF process. If the money isn't there for proper compensation, I think it is a great idea to at least have some sort of recognition for great work.
Anon 5:08..
The latest data, released a few weeks ago, showed the "achievement gap" had closed to within either 24 points or 29 points, whichever you want to cite. The difference in the two numbers is you get a 24 point gap after the EOG retests.
That "achievement gap" is between Blacks and Whites, yet Hispanics outperformed Blacks and the "gap" between Hispanics and Whites is less than Blacks.
See the issue here?
For YEARS, the "achievement gap" has been about Blacks versus Whites, still is, but now all of a sudden Hispanics are outperforming Blacks - and many speal little to no English.
At the rate the "achievement gap" has closed over the past 4 to 5 years, it will take another 12 to 15 years for Blacks to catch Whites, if then.
I guess the definition of "progress" is like diversity, it depends on who you ask.
HEY
I dont need RECOGNITION!
I need money to pay the rising cost of every BILL my family has to pay!
I will wait to party after the November elections when the influence of Trent and coach Joe will be eliminated. I will cheer as when Gorman announced his resignation when the dynamics of the board change, Tim Morgan finds out how little people think of him, and the move to slow down our headlong plunge into over- testing is slowed to a halt. Will be happy when the board orders the superintendent to remove h546 from consideration, though those who know (not the delusional school board "furtive five") realize the bill is DEAD.
Take the money for the party and hand out that many more scholarships.
How many scholarships will go to WHITE students?
White or Black, many of these students who receive scholarships will attend a community college, where they'll be taught by part-time instructors. So, for all those who think teachers deserve a raise, how about at least a full-time job for community college instructors?
Retain the HUMAN CAPITAL !
Do you actually believe that any of the best and brightest on these scholarships will go into education?
5:38, the scholarships aren't based on race. I watched them award the scholarships last year, when CMS got $250,000 for being a finalist. There were white kids in the group.
Okay...white kids in the group...How about an acutal demographic breakdown of the $250 last year and the $500 this year. Honest data would be helpful to all citizens.
"White or Black", say what...Doesnt the report show the main reason we won was because of the growth of the HISPANIC student.
CMesS wins the Broad award and throws a party. Just another walk in the cake.
This lets throw a party now mentality reminds me of when the Gates Foundation gave money to the Olympics. Part of that money was spent on training which involved traveling to far away locations. The mentality of more than one (not the one that has been there forever) of the principals was disgraceful. All one of the females was interested in doing was shopping and taking advantage of the free trip. Her lack of social class and upbringing was evident. Broad should give the "party funds" to the CMS homeless students and not to a bunch of freeloading big shots in CMS eating cake.
And seriously, who would waste their time going to something like that? I am way too tired after teaching all day to go to that kind of function. It will be attended by all the useless downtown staff.
We saw these principals whooping and hollering at the announcement of the prize. Cheerleaders. There ain't no party like a CMS party.
No raise in 5 years, 600 teachers RIF'ed who helped "make the grade", can't afford to buy an new outfit for the celebration "shin dig". Hmmmmmm....where can I sign up to be a "server" and make some great tips from all of the Educrats? I promise not to spill hot coffee on them. (fingers crossed behind my back)
Our teachers and principals serve our kids - the greatest investment we can even conceive! They deserve a one time event to celebrate. Yes it may cost a lot but aren't our kids worth it? When was the last time - we simply said THANK YOU to our educators? These have been tough times for our schools with looming cuts, incresases in class sizes, and reduction in services. They deserve far more than Broad can afford! Yes a raise would be nice - but that's not even close to this cost. Yes more teachers would be nice - but that not even close to this cost. So lets feed them, bring the music, and pop open a few bottles of wine. THEY DESERVE FAR MORE !!!!!
Looks like the morning Bobcats game for middle schoolers will now be for Broad celebrants. I hope the crowd likes Lunchables, while the box seats are occupied by you know who. Arne and the suits will be here from DC. I'm sure CMS Communications and their connections can find ways to divert funds a la the CIAA.
Taking power through the use of trinkets is not a new practice. Free spin doctors, free parties, a very few scholarships. What does it take for corporations to buy the direction of CMS? Apparently, less than one percent of the tax payer’s annual funding of CMS. I say let the people party in celebration of seceding intellectual direction to the leadership of outside interests. Then find a superintendent from within who will follow the wishes of the local taxpayer and not the corporate elite.
Aren't CMS's achievement numbers down?
Given the current state of the Union and the second largest party next to the Broad party to come - the DNC - Democrats desperately need talking points, nationally and for NC.
I took my telescope out to see which planets were in alignment but I couldn't find any. So the only other explanation for the Broad Prize and Ray Lahood coming to give Charlotte a lot of money for a streetcar line ($256.00 per INCH)is talking points for next years convention.
Imagine Obama and Foxx on stage, grinning ear to ear talking about how GREAT CMS is, even though Foxx doesn't send his kids to CMS schools and winning the Broad Prize of Mediocrity.
Imagine Obama and Foxx on stage, oh heck throw Perdue in the mix, talking about being progressive and having vision for a streetcar that will produce no sustainable jobs, costs $256 dollars per inch to build and we still don't know how we're going to fund the thing each year to the tune of $1.5 million dollars.
What I can't imagine, is the next wonderful thing NC will win in the next 11 months.
And when will this party be held??? Probably when school is in session and most employees can't attend. It will be for the big wigs and the principals and ap's will leave the school to go to it. Yes....the little people who actually work will be AT WORK...
Your writing was perfect. It was the people who didn't take the time to actually read the entire article that don't understand it or misunderstand.
But I do agree that the money should go to the employees....not a party.
September 21, 2011 9:09 PM post: AMEN! If a third party wants to fund a celebration for our teachers and staff....BY GOD, THEY DESERVE IT! I'm married to a teacher, and know first-hand the hours they put in "off the clock"... YAY CMS!
The rest of you freeloading ingrates can move back to Detroit!
Winning the Broad Prize is like being named the cherry on a poop sundae....
Post a Comment