Former Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Superintendent Peter Gorman isn't talking to the Charlotte media anymore, but he certainly has some interesting things to say as he makes the national rounds.
Lew Powell, a former Observer colleague, forwarded this recent item from City Beat, a Memphis, Tenn., blog. It reports on a confab between Memphis officials and Gorman (who now works for the education division of News Corp.), then-board Chair Eric Davis, former board Chair Arthur Griffin and an unnamed former CMS principal.
"The system won a national award this year for excellence in urban education, but this was not a butt-patting session," reports John Branston, a senior editor for The Memphis Flyer. Branston's report continues:
“Progress has been painfully slow, and at the rate we are moving in Charlotte it will still be 15 years before the achievement gap is closed,” said former superintendent Pete Gorman.
He urged the committee to “build a bench” of future principals and assistant principals from among promising young teachers; move good principals and five teachers as a group to the toughest schools but not against their will; give new leadership three years to turn around a school; give good schools more autonomy; measure improvement , not raw scores, so that even college-prep schools must show improvement year over year; pick a superintendent for the consolidated district sooner rather than later; give the schools with the poorest students the most money, and give the wealthiest schools the least money; and expect to move on if you are the superintendent that has to close schools.
“You can’t close schools well,” he said, adding that "to do the job well, I sometimes question if it's physically possible."
Gorman, as most Charlotte readers know, launched a push in fall 2010 to close about a dozen schools in 2011-12. He announced his resignation in June, just after the board approved a 2011-12 budget. Many of the newly-merged schools are now dealing with discipline problems, although the staff that remains to deal with aftermath still voices hope that there will be academic benefits.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Gorman: Close schools, pack your bags
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35 comments:
So, simple as that, it seems Gorman's plan was to leave all along, and the ushering of the school closings was his cue. Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but I don't think so...Go ahead and listen to his advice about distribution of funds to schools. I did, and that is why I moved my kid from the "rich" public school with inadequate books and media to a private school.
Am I psychic?
Or is it that it doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math on the latest test scores and that the elusive "achievement gap" won't be closed for another 15 years?
Over the past several months, I've said the same thing Gorman stated yet I received a number of posts condemning and refuting the same point.
Either people are too blind to get it or they have a different agenda which doesn't include acknowledging what we are doing in public education is not and has not worked for decades.
The one thing Gorman said I disagree with is the "giving of money" to schools, using the term "least and more".
Since we have no clue as to who the poorest students are, maybe he was just referring to "giving" as what we have done for years?
Give the money away with no validation process or accountability?
So will Pete send a Fox minion to your school district as superintendent (for a nominal fee) for five years and redistribute wealth with a for profit model? Seems like Fox media and Fox education want everything Rupert can get. Wiley, the achievement gap is a culture gap and will never be bridged, much less in fifteen years. At least Lew Powell escaped.
Anon 1:15....
In prior comments, I've included "if then" after stating it would take 15 years to close the gap.
You are also correct about culture being a factor in the achievement gap.
I've asked the same question as to why Hispanics are outperforming Blacks, when many speak little or no English. The gap is closer between Hispanics and Whites.
Yet day in and day out it's still the "Black/White Achievement Gap".
15 years? In your dream! In another 150 years, the gap will still be here.
Here's why the gap won't close---and if you think teachers should be held accountable for this or can turn this mess around--- you're a fool.
http://www.worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshh5Wy2gBfZNUpZ2p1N
"give the schools with the poorest students the most money, and give the wealthiest schools the least money". I'm a bit perplexed. What happened to all the protests/discussions about equality???
"give the schools with the poorest students the most money, and give the wealthiest schools the least money;"
Translation: Let those parents who are paying the highest taxes already, bear the burden for the costs of running the schools they attend while sending their tax dollars to other schools. Sound like a familiar "redistribution of wealth" agenda?
Always nice to see someone who fails in their job make a fortune speaking about what they couldn't do!
Hispanics are out performing Blacks in CMS, because in the past & possibly now CMS was offering summer programs for Hispanics, and those in low income areas. If your child needed extra enrichment and was in an area that was not in a low income area or Hispanic, you were out of luck. That's why I took my child out of CMS, and took his education in my own hands.
Typical educrat BS...Pete Gorman was always an idiot and always will be. He had no business leading CMS schools in the first place. This is the same genius that was going to move the administration out of the highest performing schools and put them in the lowest performing schools and then fire them if they didn't raise test scores. That resulted in many top teachers and administrators fleeing mecklenburg county for surrounding school districts.
The unfortunate thing is that the morons on the school board will hire another pete gorman and nothing will change.
These educrat types just don't understand that money is not the answer; Washington DC spends more money per student and has the smallest class sizes of any district in the nation, yet are 49th in achievement.
25% of the achievement gap closing last year was from the scores of the white students going down. I am sure the BOE is just proud of that.
3:59, what are your numbers on that? Last time someone raised this point I looked and white scores had not gone down, unless you count a fraction of a percentage point as a decline (I consider that an insignificant fluctuation, whether it's up or down).
Ann Doss Helms, it may hurt your feelings, but yes WHITE students scores are declining and it did happen last year. Here in NC and nationally. There is too much focus put on racial education gaps. If you take any student that wants to learn, he or she is going to have higher test scores, than a student that does not place value on education, whether they are Black, White or Brown.
CMS, whites went DOWN from 88.4 to 88.2. CMS blacks went UP from 51.6 to 52.2. Wake, whites went UP 87.4 to 87.9. Wake blacks went UP from 48.4 to 50.3. State whites went UP 78.7 to 79. State blacks went up 47 to 48.5.
So as you see, with all CMS's extra spending on blacks, they did not do as well as places with little to no extra spending and CMS whites were the only ones that went down.
You can not select with numbers to accept or ignore just because of your agenda.
Numbers are numbers, regardless of anyone's feelings. Last year 88.2 percent of white CMS students in grades 3-8 passed both reading and math, down from 88.4 percent. The pass rate on elementary and middle school science tests was 91.6 percent, up from 91.3 percent. Composite pass rate for white students on high school end-of-course exams was 94.2, down from 94.3.
Here's the kicker...
Are those the numbers before or after retests?
Wiley, both should be after retests. You have to go back to 2008 to get no-retest numbers on state report cards.
On the composite math proficiency before retests (3-8), AA were at 63% proficient and Whites 92%. A 29 point difference. After the retest, AA were at 71% proficient and Whites at 95%, a difference of 24 points.
So after the retests, the gap difference is 5 percentage points.
That is for 2010/2011.
What if we gave them two retests?
Tim wants his successor to work with the board while on the District Six seat.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/12/28/2871967/few-interested-in-district-6-seat.html
Right now, you have Moe, Larry and Curly signed up to run for the seat....
Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck...
Wiley, another 2 years of a 3 ring circus. I am just waiting to see what some of them suggest to Hugh about budget development.
I received the 24 volume set of the Complete Three Stooges for Christmas, from Curly to Shemp to Joe, so my comment about District 6 got jumbled up in my thought proccess for a second because there is a Larry in the mix....
Sorry Larry.
8:29, you do raise an interesting topic. Do you know there are actually quite a number of AA's doing quite well in school and professionally? And they have thrown off the yoke of poverty. So why do you think some are very successful and some can not seem to shake the yoke?
Would be a good topic over a beer.
So it looks like Pete's strategy was to put most of the district's resources into the worst schools. Why not treat all kids equally?
Good riddance Pete. Unfortunately I fear we can expect more of the same for this strategy though.
Anon 9:37...
Sometimes AAs are their own worst enemy...
Vilma Leake said:
Other elected officials call further verification efforts a “witch hunt” aimed at poor families. “Poor people don’t know how to steal from the federal government. They’re not smart enough,” said CMS school board member Vilma Leake.
Talk about a slap in the face, derogatory comment about the people you represent...
The Director of Project LIFT, an AA, says "I grew up just like many of these kids, so I feel morally and professionally obligated to work towards ending the dual system of education based on a child's zip code."....
She defines a child's ability on a zipcode?
And just this week, the Obama administration, via Eric Holder, issued an order blocking South Carolina's new voter ID law, essentially saying minorities the porr lacked the ability to get an ID. They get government assistance, right? -
Attorney General Eric Holder exhorted people to oppose such efforts just days before the move.
"Call on our political parties to resist the temptation to suppress certain votes in the hope of attaining electoral success," he told a group at the LBJ Center in Austin, Texas.
An even stricter law in Indiana, however, was upheld years ago by the Supreme Court on a 6-3 vote. So now, 15 states require or plan to require photo IDs.
"The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law and the opinion was written by Justice John Paul Stevens, who as you know is one of the most liberal stalwarts of the Supreme Court," explained Hans von Spakovsky of the Heritage Foundation.
Several Democratic congressmen, as well as former President Jimmy Carter, have also argued in favor of photo IDs.
Nevertheless, South Carolina Democrats argue their state's law is just too onerous on minorities and the poor.
"They can't get a photo ID because typically you have to have a birth certificate to get an official state ID. Many people don't have the ability to pay the $35 here," Harpootlian said.
BUT, they can get benefits and currently bused to the polls TO vote...
You're right. It is way past time for that yoke to be shed.
9:37..."why do you think some are very successful and some cannot seem to shake the yoke"? I did not think any race was 100% of anything..wellllllllllll, ahhhhhhhhh, maybeeeeeee whites, but nobody else.
But to answer you question, Dick Gregory brought this to my attention..He went to see Frankestein and he scared and everybody was focused on Frankestein instead of the mad scientist who actually created Frankestein. The mad scientist made a monster of out of Frankestein..so you see, everybody is always focused on the black race instead of the REAL MONSTER!!
10:21, you prove my point. If there was systematic discrimination against AA's, then none would be sucessful.
And you are right about the REAL MONSTER. It is the collaboration between the federal government, politicans using the voting block and community organizers just looking for anything they can cry discrimination at.
Before the experiment ends CMS will be in ruins. Most of this in large part due to Gorman's plan of moving a "young" principal and five dedicated brown shirts with him / her. These young principals really have no clue how to run a school, get results and improve a school. However, what they do know is how to bend statistics in their favor. This was the one great lessson that Peter the Great taught them well.
By some of these comments (as has been the case for several months), it appears many people are not aware there is a BG and an AG and GDS is rampant....
I look forward to Pamela's return from China. Happy New Year to all my favorite ADHD (Ann-Doss-Helms-Diggin') bloggers!
Today's question to ponder:
Do young educated women hyphenate their names anymore?
http://www.shelbycountytn.gov/index.aspx?NID=2168
Here is the link of the meeting where Davis, Gorman, Anderson and Griffin spoke. Three of them are making huge money on the backs of public education. Gorman with Newscorp, Anderson with MeckEd and Griffin with McGraw Hill books. Davis is a tool of all three,
Happy new year to you, 1:38 a.m. (looks like some of you are using my blog to try to get to sleep!). Women hyphenating their names is so 20th century. We have a male reporter, Fred Clasen-Kelly, who hyphenated his when he married -- now that's cutting edge :-)
Its clear now that Sweet Pete was in wway over his head. His clone Eric Davis is next to go hopefully. Ann you will find that White kids grades have and will continue to fall as more white parents take their kids out of CMS. As we become a complete Title 1 district this will be clear. This current year that you dont have test data on yet , because CMS hides it 5% of our best students left CMS. Reason - parents cared and saw the mess CMS was becoming. How we treat teachers in some contries is called treason.
The problem that cannot even be acknowledged will not be fixed in 15, or 150 years.
No matter how much money you throw at it.
Get out. Or...
Ballantyne secede.
Ummmm.... if Ballantyne secedes.. it will still be in Mecklenburg County. Now, if you are talking about creating a separate school zone--that's a whole other ball of disaster waiting to happen. It's not like you can just keep AK and the other buildings that belong to CMS unless you have the funds to buy them all or lease them from the district... Will the teachers become Ballantyne City Schools employees? Easier said than done...
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