At Tuesday night's superintendent search forum, the talk was as much about keeping a superintendent as hiring one.
In one classroom at Myers Park High, half a dozen people talked about what it would take to break the pattern of superintendents spending three to five years, rolling out reforms and moving on. One woman noted that when Gorman arrived in 2006, he said he expected to be superintendent until his daughter graduated from high school (somewhere around 2017). She speculated that he meant it at the time, but the job wore him down.
In the next room, the group was larger and the comments edgier. Several people asked board Chair Eric Davis about the search process. He said he was just there to listen, but eventually he joined in.
When Keith Hurley, who ran for school board this year, said the superintendent had been getting bonuses without accountability, Davis told him he was just plain wrong. Peter Gorman had specific performance goals, Davis said, and during the years of budget cuts Gorman declined a bonus even when he met them.
When retired counselor Dee Williams said the new superintendent needs to make eye contact when people address the school board, Davis and board member Richard McElrath talked about looking at monitors to get a better view of speakers.
Near the end, David Phillips talked about marketing Charlotte to superintendent candidates: "They have to select us, too. We have a house to sell. We have to put our best foot forward."
That's when Davis really dived in.
"I don't think we have trouble winning someone," he said. "We have trouble keeping them. Pete came with all this energy and openness and eye contact. Then he made some mistakes and we got mad."
Davis said CMS "made two terrible missteps last spring: That darn house bill and all the tests."
He was referring to dozens of new CMS tests created as part of performance pay, and to House Bill 546, drafted by CMS staff and introduced in the state legislature to let CMS launch performance pay without teacher approval. Both created backlash from teachers and parents, who complained that Gorman was overtesting students and eroding teachers' trust.
The CMS errors were compounded by negative public reaction, Davis said: "If we want someone who's going to stay with us, we have to support them when they screw up. ... We don't gain anything when we tear down our school system and when we bludgeon our superintendent at the public comment period."
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Davis: Charlotte's hard on superintendents
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43 comments:
So what you're saying is you need what has been in place the past 40 years - a yes person...
CMS is dying and has been dying a slow death for years.
No superintendent is going to keep that from happening until we have a complete overhaul of the mindset and approach to public education in this country.
The next superintendent will be facing much worse, especially if Obama gets re-elected.
By then, the whole "gerrymandering by legal diversity" garbage will be expected by the administration to be implemented and the whole system turned upside down again.
It would be nice if there was a way to turn off comments here like you can on charlotteobserver.com stories.
Anon 2:59...
And why is that?
What if we just don't allow any comments about anything, even comments you might make for whatever reason about any particular subject you like or dislike?
Suppression of free speech is more dangerous than any comment you might read and disagree with...
Besides, just read the story. No one is forcing you to read, agree or disagree with the comments or to make one yourself.
the Observer turns off comments when too many people violate the policy and Ann can delete inappropriate comments here.
Since mine was the only comment posted before you decided to play comment police, I take it you disagree with my assessment of CMS.
I suggest you make your own comments regarding the subject or to refute anything I said.
I don't care if you comment or not. I want to be able to hide comments on my end so that I do not accidentally read any more of your irrelevant, anti-public school, anti-government, anti-black people rants.
Avoidance of real life is why so many people seek the usage of intoxicants.
Or are you already ahead of this trend?
Perhaps you SHOULD read my "rants", or at least try to comprehend them.
Never have I said I was "Anti public education"...
Never have I said I was "Anti Black people"...
Never have I said I was "Anti government"...
I went through K-12 schools...my son went through CMS K-12 schools...
So if you've really ever read any of my posts, you would know where I stand.
The facts of the past 40 years and what is happening now in public education and government involvement in it is plain and evident.
It is your choice to discount and even refuse to believe them.
It is my choice to call out inept educrats and politicians to those facts.
Regarding your comment about Blacks, find ONE post where I have EVER disparaged Blacks. You won't find any.
I call out the NAACP and Kojo for what they are, antiquated blowhards who spend time and energy ranting about what they ain't gettin' instead of using that energy to help Black and ALL children succeed....
If you call that "anti Black, too bad.
St. Pete was never open; what you mistake for openness was him shrewdly assessing his allies and enemies.
His first misstep came in 2007 with hb966...you remember his first attempt to take CMS teachers off the pay scale for pay for performance. Don't remember that one? Well that.'s because he snuck it in to the legislature with no fanfare and nearly got it passed, until legislators wisely saw through him and added the part about teachers voting to accept the plan. Backfired on him.
He most certainly did screw up later by ignoring the teachers and parents, the people he was to help (teachers) and serve (students/parents). He made cms a data driven district then ignored the data to fit his pfp plan. (He funded a couple of studies which seemed to prove his point but hell, when you pay for it, it batter prove your point.)
He then hired the right reverend Andy Baxter to bs teachers about pfp. Mr. I Don't Know himself stalled and tried to use poor circular logic to prove how wonderful pfp was. Didn't matter that the rest of America knew otherwise, or that the data did not back him up.
He misunderstood the people of this district. He thought the docile southerners would roll over; well that didn't work. Parents and teachers rebelled, quite effectively I might add. His friends in the legislature didn't get him what he wanted. He was embarrassed and exited stage left.
Nobody beat him up or beat him down - all we did was force him to recognize the reality of his failed mission to have everyone drink the Broad kool aid. Tim Morgan drank it...yeah he is now irrelevant, period. Thanks for opening up a seat in D 6 to cancel you out. Eric you know you are out as chair...Unless you make a deal. Rhonda, look at the monitor during open comments not Facebook.
Out.
CMS needs a leader, TONS of leaders. Principals and teachers need to lead, not work from a checklist of approved behaviors. No one is entrusted to use the brains and skills and talents they have to move forward. I understand why this is. If everyone is treated the same way using the same procedure, maybe CMS won't get sued.
Why does that appear to be CMS' main goal rather than educating children? Children are not the same. They don't come from the same background, they don't have the same skills or talents, they don't have the same personality. They are ALL different, so why does any entity think it can be successfull treating everyone the same?!?!
We needs people who can LEAD, not simply follow a checklist. People who can make competant decisions when faced with issues like, 'Is this kid causing harm to the rest of the students by having a cough drop?' Apparently the people who work at CMS can't be trusted to make that decision. They have to refer to a system-wide policy for something so simple.
I don't understand why the employees of CMS don't get a fire in their belly and stand up and insist to be treated as professionals. The teachers and adminstrators all have degrees. Why do they bother with all that hard work if every movement and word that they engage in at CMS is scripted by someone else in another place that thinks this one way of doing something is best for every single child in the system?!?
Am I the only one that sees how disrespectful it is to employees to tie their hands behind their back and not allow them to use their talents and education for the purpose they were meant?!?!
I know I'm not, but our litigious society has driven some creative, intelligent, driven people who could makes worlds of difference to the growing generation away from educating because the way education is 'done' now has no resemblance to what is needed to actually educate someone.
I truly hope we can find a superintendent that will cut these shackles off of the empolyees and allow them to do what they trained to do and are passionate about. No one goes into education that doesn't want to make children's lives better. The baggage that goes with it is too heavy if they aren't driven to teach. They need respect and support, not checklists of do's and don'ts.
The reason people are not coming out to participate in the superintendent
search is because of the very words of Davis. In Gorman's words,"the crazy board" made the same mistakes by voting on the "bullying" policies that Gorman introduced. Another mistake closing schools and doubling classes is a mess! Go out to visit Reid Park and see nearly 60 kindergarteners sharing a room. Look at grades 4 and five also. How can learning take place?
The mistake wasn't closing schools.
The Mistake was building schools we didn't need and in the wrong places.
Mountain Island Elementary school was overcrowded before the doors opened and it is land-locked. Nowhere to go but up.
And we all know about Waddell.
So the blame lies squarely on past school boards who spent like drunken sailors and fooled enough voters to vote for bonds...
Superintendents’' expected tenure is short in most school districts. Year 1 honeymoon. Year 2 new initiatives. Year 3 job search begins. If the intent is to keep a Super longer, how about a graduated pay scale increasing over a number of years to CMS benefit?
If Mecklenburgers want more than a superficial uptick in “education numbers” we need a superintendent who understands the depths of the district, is willing to make a long term commitment and who will question middle management mumbo jumbo rooted in turf, cover-up and kingdom building. The Board would also need a better more defined role in governance and matters of fiduciary responsibility.
A close look at CMS planning and support operations to improve service to schools, community stability and reduce the need for excessive middle management baggage would be a good start to overhauling CMS. Systems of management have a proclivity of defaulting to a paper chase focus, instead of in service practice.
BTW, Please take note that Wiley is sensitive about character observations made based on readng WC posts.
Davis is a poor leader clearly since he is going to these "open forum" meeting for tax payers to speak their peace at. He has interrupted old women in a very unprofessional manner. He has been clearly stressed since his buddy St. Peter has left him hanging in a learch. Tim , Rhonda and Eric can take their ball out to the playground if their still is one ! He spoke last night of no more schools and no more physical buildings. Just teach kids via Newscorp (St. Peter) technology online. Eric then we would have ignorant grown ups like you i leadership roles. Get a clue and grow a pair as your man Pete is gone move n like the rest of us. And dare you to bring in a "BROADIE" we will run him out of town.
Wiley -
Do you volunteer in schools? What are you doing for the children of this county? How are you helping?
CMS is lauded nation wide EXCEPT here. They were able to make EXCEPTIONAL gains in one the worst economic periods in recent history.
Many folks who have come here from other places around the country are amazed at the virtriol spewed at the local school system. We as a community HAVE to have a successful school district in order for business and enterprise to thrive.
Wiley - you simply can not discount the gains made over the past five years - they are irrefutable. Does this public system or any large urban system have a ways to go? Of course!
Again - i ask - what are you doing beside bi##hing and moaning? That's the easy way out. Go to your closest school and start helping!
Anon 9:03...
Gains? What gains?
In the past 5 years, CMS has made very little "gains"...
http://ftpcontent.worldnow.com/wbtv/CMS%202010-2011%20AYP.pdf
Show me these great gains.
Based on these "gains", it will take CMS another 12 to 15 years to close the same achievement gap they've been closing for the past 40 years.
Please explain why Mecklenburg County is 60% White yet CMS is only 32.2% White? Where are all these people clamoring to get into CMS?
I can assure you my coworkers avoid CMS like the plaque.
They live in Clover, Ft. Mill Union County, etc. and the ones who do live within Mecklenburg County send their kids to private school or Ardrey Kell.
One of my coworker's wife drives from Ballantyne to Kings Mt. everyday to teach because she refuses to teach in CMS.
CMS is lauded nationwide as being the best large mediocre school system in the US.
and Anon 8:48...
Feel free to give it your best shot at me.
I can assure you, I've been up against the best and you won't even come close.
Here is what I don't get: Why is it that the leaders of CMS feel the need to be "cutting edge" and "pioneering" from the educational policy realm. Jim Collins often uses the phrase that "good is the enemy of great". I often wonder if CMS couldn't be GREAT if we stopped all the rolling out of fads and jumping on bandwagons and parading around with Fed Gov educates for the sole purpose of being "seen" as a leader---instead of chasing prizes---focus on the homefront of OUR community and our students and be really, really GREAT at that... none of these kids could care less about any prizes we've won (except for maybe the handful who get some of the scholarship money this year)... but what is all of this for when it is missing the point of serving our community? The leader of CMS needs to be more focused on OUR community of students and teachers and not always worried about how we look to FedGov and crafting policy, etc.
Anon 9:30.....
I agree with your assessment, but the Federal government has too much of a stranglehold on public school districts for any superintendent to have much control.
If Obama gets re-elected, look forward to a new round of "busing" and boundary changes to achieve "diversity".
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/guidance-ese-201111.html
Wiley -
Your basing your argument on AYP scores?? A proficiency scoring rank that says that ALL children will be grade level proficient in two years (2014)?? That's 100% of ALL students.
Where is a business in this country that has such impossible goals?
Have you looked at the schools in terms of academic growth? Actually looking at students at where they are at the beginning of the year compared to the end? That is where real and meaningful progress has been made. Growth models measure real and meaningful progress. AYP is a political pipe dream.
You mention the achievement gap. Real and substantial progress has been made in CMS. Has the gap closed enough? Not by a long shot. Yet - you are asking CMS to cure the ills of poverty. African Americans in this county and in most CMS schools, for the most part, comprise the biggest number of students living in poverty. Research OVERWHELMINGLY indicates that school readiness and success in school is largely determined by exposure to print media, vocabulary and other experiences such as travel, visits to museums, etc.. This is what your local CMS school is up against when many of the students begin school. I don't think anyone in CMS is resting on their laurels though - folks realize that they have to try to overcome these obstacles.
Wiley - Are you doing anything to help the neediest of children in this county?
I am white. I grew up in Charlotte. Do you think your barometer of CMS' "whiteness" is an indicator of the system's success? Your co-workers and others flee because they are ill informed and/or look at going to school without poor people. They clamor for charters or private schools where they think they are receiving something better. Have you ever delved into the actual curriculum?
CMS can not off set the effects of poverty. Charters, particularly in suburban areas, can easily claim higher test scores when they do not have to offer transportation or free and reduced meals. One charter school in my area (Davidson) weighs students heavier in the lottery if a parent is able to volunteer ten hours a week. How many CMS schools would love to have that luxury??!! Also - what an easy way to exclude two working parent families and ensure a high SES student body!
Again Wiley - I don't care about what your co-workers are doing. What are you doing? The fact is the majority of the kids in this county can not attend charter or private schools. A viable public school system is essential for this community. Again I ask - what are you doing to help?
Hard on superintendents?!!?
The last one didnt even have at teaching license to teach in NC.Try teaching 40+ in every class.Give me a break Davis and come into some classrooms.This whole process is dog and pony show anyway.Good luck in your recruitment process.Few want the kool aide you are serving.
The last superintendent treated teachers like a rented mule while he and his wife attended every black tie dinner in Charlotte. Davis, you are a JOKE!
If you want to avoid plaque, brush your teeth.
plague
Anon 10:15...
I base no argument on AYP, only to show you the actual Annual Yearly Progress over the past 4 years which is dismal.
The Achievement Gap is what educrats constantly whine about, which currently is 29 points - 24 with the retests. Again, at that rate, if ever, it will take 12 to 15 years to close it.
You cannot refute the demographic makeup of CMS and the constant attempt by groups to "diversify" CMS. That's the mantra for 40+ years.
You're obviously blinded by what goes on around you. Do you not believe the Obama administration won't push for school boundaries to be redrawn to "diversify" elementary schools to try and achieve some utopian racial integration without busing? And at the same time, push for income integration?
It's coming.
The "whiteness" indicator is permeated throughout public education and has been for decades. It's not MY mantra, it's educrat and government speak. It's what THEY compare as to success of Blacks and other minorities.
What do you think the achievement gap is about? Black versus White. Hispanic versus White. It's been that way for 40 years.
My co-workers are not ill-informed by any means.
They made decisions for THEIR children as I did with mine and you yours.
With instability, inept BOE members, constant turmoil within schools, crime and yes white flight, black flight and brain drain, why would they want to send their children to CMS schools?
Our Mayor took his kid out of CMS. Cannon doesn't send his kids to CMS schools so why don't you ask them the same questions?
Every year, at the beginning of the year when our son was going through K-8, we told his teacher that if there was every a field trip planned or other function that cost money and he or she had a child that couldn't afford to go, we would pay their way.
We were also involved in activities throughout our son's education at CMS so spare me the "what have you done" rhetoric.
You ended your comments with this:
The fact is the majority of the kids in this county can not attend charter or private schools.
Why should that matter? Why should private schools or charters matter if CMS is SO great?
A viable public school system is vital.
The only problem is, the Federal government and educrats are flushing it down the toilet year after year.
We have no clue who really is "economically disadvantaged" because the Feds won't allow school systems to fully audit the lunch program, which drives every other program and dollar within public education.
Until we have full accountability and get a true number of those who qualify for the benefits and we can target monies to them to help them succeed, nothing will change.
But you keep dreaming.
I live in the real world.
Charlotte hard on superintendents?!
How about its treatment of teachers?
10:15 your perceived guilt is showing.
You Parents will never understand how wrong they were in all they did for you?
But sadly, sometime the Conservative View is correct.
Eric the truth of the matter is, oh forget it, I will talk to you tonight at Vance.
Anon 12/17/11 @10:15pm,
You asked this question and made this statement:
"Are you doing anything to help the neediest of children in this county?"
"One charter school in my area (Davidson) weighs students heavier in the lottery if a parent is able to volunteer ten hours a week."
I know the first was directed at WC, but I'd like to answer it for myself.
I have a child in CMS, and I recently sub'd in another class while the teacher had a meeting with potential new admin hires.
I volunteered to run for the SLT, was on the ballot, but didn't win last year. I will try again this year.
I volunteer in my child's classroom. I have another child in preschool, and I volunteer there, as well.
I am attending the "superintendent" meetings held this week across the County.
I have attended CMS Board of Education meetings. I have watched CMS Board of Education meetings on-line when I am unable to attend in person.
I have a Facebook page dedicated to following CMS as an education advocate.
I am a member of the PTA.
What do YOU do?
To address your other statement regarding a Davidson charter school. Are you referring to Community School of Davidson or Pine Lake Prep? Because if they ARE weighing the lottery in that manner, they're violating the rules of the lottery, which is supposed to be completey random and anonymous. PLEASE do tell which charter school you were referring to... and I'll follow up with the appropriate agencies.
Perhaps if CMS hired a local person who had limited interest in building a resume which would support her/his moving on to a bigger system AND a greater interest in building CMS and the city, it would help. Then again, perhaps not.
I need to buy Pete a beer one night and find out why the following happened. When Pete first came here and started going to schools, he commented on how the suburban schools were suffering from overcrowding and lack of supplies and resources. He mentioned we needed to get some new facilities in the suburbs. By the end of his first year, he had quickly changed his tune and started denigrating the urban teachers.
Who go to him to make him change his tune?
TROTS...
Pete is gone.
That horse is dead and buried.
We have bigger fish to fry coming up in the next few years if Obama gets re-elected and he pushed his new "diversity" in education agenda.
(part 1)
You really have to wonder the comments made by the beguiling Wiley Coyote. In previous comments Wiley has taunted the “ liberal spewing editors at the Observer.” He’s opined that one should “Never donate to ANY environmental group.” One of his favorite rants is the reduced/free lunch program; he claims that there must be tens of thousands of people “gaming the system.”
Of course, Wiley also spews out such conservative tripe as this: “public education has to stop being the failed social experiment that has been going on for 40 years...the entitlement mentality will no longer rule everything that currently paralyzes public education.”
Wiley claims that desegregation (he likes to flaunt the term “busing”) has “failed miserably.” But that’s simply untrue. In one of the most comprehensive studies of desegregation efforts in the 1960s and 1970s, the RAND institute found that nearly 90 percent of studies which avoided two serious methodological errors “found positive effects of desegregation” and that “the effect of desegregation, when measured properly, is a gain of about .3 standard deviations (about one grade-year). Moreover, as Linda Darling-Hammond was written, desegregation coupled with Great Society investments paid serious dividends: “By the mid 1970s...gaps in educational attainment had closed substantially...large gains in black students’ performance throughout the 1970s and early ‘80s cut the literacy achievement gap by nearly half in just fifteen years.”
But conservatism reared its ugly head and “the United States backpedaled in the Reagan years, cutting the education budget in half, ending most aid to cities and most supports for teacher recruitment and training while also slashing health and human services budgets and shifting costs to the states.” And, of course, Reagan piled up huge deficits and debt, cut taxes for corporations and the rich while increasing them – multiple times – on the working class, and morphed the U.S. from the world’s biggest creditor nation into its biggest debtor. The supply-side policies of Reagan, Bush1 and Bush2, couched in what Wiley might call the
“capitalist, free market thing,” transferred huge sums from public treasures to private bank accounts in a socialism-for-the-wealthy Ponzi scheme.
Wiley recently posted a link to a “study” on “poverty versus test scores and how poverty can't explain the low scores away.” The problem is that the “study” comes form conservative ideologues Paul Peterson and Eric Hanushek. Peterson and Hanushek are not objective researchers; they are doggedly partisan conservatives.
(part 2)
Peterson recently blasted critics of Michelle Rhee, resorting to blaming typical conservative scapegoats, unions and the “liberal media bias,” rather than facing the facts. Rhee presided over a massive cheating scandal while chancellor of the DC public schools. A USA Today investigation found that more than half of all D.C. schools had irregular erasure answer patterns on tests, and " the odds are better for winning the Powerball grand prize than having that many erasures by chance,” and "for a school to be 'lagged' for possible cheating a "classroom had to have so many wrong-to-right erasures that the average for each student was 4 standard deviations higher than the average for all D.C. students in that grade on that test, meaning that " a classroom corrected its answers so much more often than the rest of the district that it could have occurred roughly one in 30,000 times by chance. D.C. classrooms corrected answers much more often.”
Eric Hanushek, the conservative economist, touts all of the conservative, corporate-style "reform" ideas for public education: school vouchers, more standardized testing, valued-added teacher evaluations, and "accountability." There is little if any research to support these initiatives (and much to reject them), but that never gets in the way of Hanushek or his brethren.
Hanushek has been caught fudging (and this is the polite term for it) his "research" on class size and achievement. He dismissed the results of Project STAR, the rigorous, well-designed Tennessee state study that found significant achievement gains as a result of small class size in early elementary grades,
because "the kids were not tested before the program began." Yep. Hanushek dismissed a methodologically rigorous study’s conclusions because researchers didn’t test kids BEFORE they even entered kindergarten.
This is the kind of nonsense and the kinds of people that Wiley Coyote tries to pawn off on the public to support his own ideology. Wiley keeps insisting that if Obama gets re-elected bad things will happen (Boo!). Does he not recall all the stupidity that transpired during eight years of George W. Bush?
(Note to Wiley: You DID vote for Bush, right? Twice? And by the way, you need only look nearby to Raleigh to see an example of where busing did indeed work...until Tea Party Republicans worked their myopic “magic.”)
Interesting read Democracy...
Tripe filled with many assumptions about me and where I stand on issues, many false.
Busing DID fail. Busing led to the downfall in public education today, whether you want to bring your head out of the dirt and agree to that fact or not.
Seperate but equal rightly had to be dismantled, but the one thing government could not control is where people lived or whether they sent their kids to private or parochial schools.
I have NEVER, ever spoken against desegregation, so you are totally incorrect in your statement.
All busing did until the end was drive people from the system. That's a fact you cannot dispute.
You obviously haven't looked at what the Obama administration is proposing, which is essentially a return to gerrymandering the system under the new term "diversity" to again, achieve integration, whether it be racial or income.
Your sheeple rants going off on tangents about Reagan and Bush add nothing to the subject or who I voted for. It's immaterial.
Like most liberal democrats, ignoring the facts is a trait.
My "rants" regarding the school lunch program and the verifiable fraud that permeates it are spot on. It's too bad you can't understand what $1.5 BILLION dollars in waste from the USDA into the program means.
Keep trying though, maybe one day you'll get at least half of what I believe and stand for correct.
and by the way Democracy...
Here's a few things to read...
One tidbit from that link:
http://www.adversity.net/special/busing.htm
"Charlotte became ground zero for a noble but failed social experiment forced upon the country by the Supreme Court.
"In 1971, Charlotte became ground zero for a noble but failed social experiment forced upon the country by the U.S. Supreme Court. In its historic Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg school decision, the court permitted racially segregated school districts to begin busing in order to achieve integration.
"What began as an effort to remedy the grave wrongs of state-sanctioned racial segregation has turned American society -- black and white -- on its head. The neighborhood school concept, with the pride and solidarity it engenders in a community, has been badly damaged for the last three decades.
"Most observers of the recently concluded trial over busing and admissions to magnet schools believe Charlotte-Mecklenburg stands on the verge of a ruling that will declare its school system ``unitary'' and free it from court ordered desegregation plans.
"While some are predicting dire consequences if Federal District Judge Robert Potter abolishes busing, the evidence throughout the country suggests that busing has not accomplished its goals and, in fact, has had many negative consequences.
"Years after a Kansas City court implemented busing, black students in integrated magnet schools performed no better than blacks in neighborhood schools. San Francisco spent more than $200 million [on busing] following a 1982 court order to end school segregation, but a 1992 study led by Harvard Professor Gary Orfield, who supports busing, found black and Hispanic students lacked ``even modest overall improvement'' [as a result of intrusive court-ordered busing.] A National Institute of Education report could not even find a single study showing black kids fared appreciably better following a switch to integrated schools.
"...In fact, it is patronizing to think that minority students need to sit next to a white student in order to learn. Many black leaders, from Wisconsin State Rep. Annette Polly Williams, a Milwaukee Democrat, to Cleveland Mayor Michael White have come to that conclusion and led efforts to end busing.
"...Busing teaches our children a terrible lesson. Rather than eliminating racial discrimination, busing promotes it by teaching children that the government should treat them differently on the basis of their race." (Charlotte Observer 08/12/99 by Marc Levin and Ed Blum)
WC, the point is finding out who is really pulling the strings at CMS. You remember the black county commissioner several years back that said in a meeting that he had goten a call and the BOCC did not need to worry about approving bond money to build suburban schools?
Remember everyone that Charlotte's busing order came from a case where a child was not allowed to attend his neighborhood school. All he and his parents wanted was for him to attend the neighborhood school. And using this case, look what has happened to public education in this country. So rather than fix the factors, school boards got so caught up in adjusting black nonblack percentages for student assignment, education went by the wayside.
TROTS,
We all know local politicians and "community leaders" play games within their own little universes.
Educrats are notorius for it. They really have little control over policy and funding.
You'll get an Eric Davis who'll come up with a program like Bright Beginnings that doesn't work and wastes over $20 million per year, or a Gorman who'll jump on the testing and teacher pay bandwagon. All those things do is cost money, don't work and muddy the water.
Whoever is pulling the strings at CMS really doesn't matter because it's the same lame, failed string that has been pulled forever.
The Feds, the State and the County ultimately control the vast majority of the string.
Trots, St. Peter changed his tune as soon as he visited the Charlotte Chamber for that money/influence talk. They will do it too the next super as well. They want puppets to sell CMS to the prospetive businesses willing to take state/local tax dollars to relocate. The CHamber needs the super on board to give bs numbers on education so these folks will relocate. Chamber makes them future promises ie. Petes new job via News corp. This will continue as Eric Davis (Wells Fargo sponsored), Ericka Stewart ( Chamber MOney to her campaign) , Timmy Morgan (Brother Bobby runs CHamber) , Boylun Mclung (Tims replacement in dist 6 CHamber mandated this will happen). The Chamber needs 1 more vote for a majority and they can buy that no issue just ask Allen Tate ! Ask this question to Chiquita who is handling their corporate relocation ? Allen Tate who funds Morgans CMS Campaign Allen Tate !! You cannot make these riddles up.
Anon 5:34
To your point, you see now how the Charlotte Observer is getting ready to drag Cogdell through the mud about that his job. The CO must have been fine with it until he unseated Jennifer with the help of the Republicans and now they are ready to throw him to the wolves. Denigrating people who do not support their liberal agenda is their way; their expertise. If they were licenced by the FCC, they would be put out of business. They are as guilty of the slimey use of taxpayer dollars as any politican. This is why all BOCC funding of community groups must stop. Jennifer and gang were just up to helping as many friends and voter blocks to feed from the taxpayer trough.
TROTS, I've had no personal involvement in the Cogdell coverage, but my impression was that the info came out when George Dunlap raised it at this week's meeting. Dunlap may have been motivated to reveal it because he was upset with Roberts being unseated, but I'm willing to bet that reporter Fred Clasen-Kelly was motivated by checking out an allegation made from the dais.
Where are you getting the idea that the Observer uses taxpayer money? That's the first I've heard of that.
Without competition from another daily major news source, lack of oversight allows the Observer to operate as they wish
Those who have accepted it and moved on and away from this source are much happier.
The tipping point comes nigh.
The reason so few people attend these in-person superintendent search functions is we don't trust our points of view will be recognized. CMS has shown its willingness to ignore parents, teachers and students via unnecessary testing, unfair layoffs (not prompted by the budget when money is "found" later and teachers are not rehired).
What was the original subject? Oh, yeah, "is Charlotte rough on superintendents?" It's a fact nationally that the tenure of school system leaders, particularly ion large districts, tends to be very short - less than 4 years if memory serves. I was no fan of Czar Peter, but he was doing an impossible job. Everybody is watching and everybody has an opinion, as I'm sure you noticed on your way down to my little soapbox. But then, anyone applying for this job knows it comes with a target for his/her back.
Anon 10:15... I base no argument on AYP, only to show you the actual Annual Yearly Progress over the past 4 years which is dismal. The Achievement Gap is what educrats constantly whine about, which currently is 29 points - 24 with the retests. Again, at that rate, if ever, it will take 12 to 15 years to close it. You cannot refute the demographic makeup of CMS and the constant attempt by groups to "diversify" CMS. That's the mantra for 40+ years. You're obviously blinded by what goes on around you. Do you not believe the Obama administration won't push for school boundaries to be redrawn to "diversify" elementary schools to try and achieve some utopian racial integration without busing? And at the same time, push for income integration? It's coming. The "whiteness" indicator is permeated throughout public education and has been for decades. It's not MY mantra, it's educrat and government speak. It's what THEY compare as to success of Blacks and other minorities. What do you think the achievement gap is about? Black versus White. Hispanic versus White. It's been that way for 40 years. My co-workers are not ill-informed by any means. They made decisions for THEIR children as I did with mine and you yours. With instability, inept BOE members, constant turmoil within schools, crime and yes white flight, black flight and brain drain, why would they want to send their children to CMS schools? Our Mayor took his kid out of CMS. Cannon doesn't send his kids to CMS schools so why don't you ask them the same questions? Every year, at the beginning of the year when our son was going through K-8, we told his teacher that if there was every a field trip planned or other function that cost money and he or she had a child that couldn't afford to go, we would pay their way. We were also involved in activities throughout our son's education at CMS so spare me the "what have you done" rhetoric. You ended your comments with this: The fact is the majority of the kids in this county can not attend charter or private schools. Why should that matter? Why should private schools or charters matter if CMS is SO great? A viable public school system is vital. The only problem is, the Federal government and educrats are flushing it down the toilet year after year. We have no clue who really is "economically disadvantaged" because the Feds won't allow school systems to fully audit the lunch program, which drives every other program and dollar within public education. Until we have full accountability and get a true number of those who qualify for the benefits and we can target monies to them to help them succeed, nothing will change. But you keep dreaming. I live in the real world.
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