Florida ranks all public schools

If you think people get competitive about school quality in Charlotte,  check out the latest from Florida,  a state that already grades schools from A to F.  The Florida Department of Education is now ranking all schools from highest to lowest,  based on test scores in the lower grades and additional factors,  such as graduation rates,  for high schools.

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Gov. Rick Scott touts the ratings as a boost to giving students a world-class education that points them toward successful careers.  Meanwhile, a teacher union leader decries the idea of rating schools "like shampoos" and says that test scores provide "very accurate measures of the size of the houses near a given school and the income levels of the people who live in those houses."

Back home, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is still working through its school-data problems.  Board Chair Ericka Ellis-Stewart and Vice Chair Mary McCray were planning to talk with interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh today about how to deal with inaccuracies in the latest school progress reports.  CMS had originally planned to release corrected reports Friday; the public information office now says it will take longer.

Ellis-Stewart, McCray ran low-cost campaigns

Ericka Ellis-Stewart and Mary McCray spent less than $15,000 each to win countywide seats on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board, final campaign finance reports show.

That's a sharp contrast with the previous at-large election in 2007,  when the three winners spent $21,000 (Joe White) to $58,650 (Kaye McGarry).  The 2007 crew also pulled larger vote totals,  with first-place McGarry logging 59,392 votes to Ellis-Stewart's 35,341, the top tally in 2011.

A lot changed in those four years.  A lingering economic slump made fund-raising harder.  The field of candidates doubled,  from seven in 2007 to 14 in 2011.  Voter turnout slumped,  from 24 percent to 16 percent.  The most recent race had no incumbents,  while all three 2007 winners already held the seats.  And the local Democratic party broke with tradition this year by endorsing candidates  (Ellis-Stewart, McCray and Aaron Pomis)  and mobilizing voters for the school board race.

Ellis-Stewart,  who ran her own campaign,  apparently spent $13,900 on her campaign.  She didn't fill in the column for the running tally,  but that's the total from her three individual reports. That comes to about 39 cents a vote,  compared with 45 cents to 99 cents for the 2007 winners.

McCray, who finished second,  reports spending just over $11,000,  or about 42 cents a vote.  Third-place Tim Morgan,  who already held the District 6 seat,  spent just over $23,000,  or about 93 cents a vote.

Elyse Dashew,  who finished fourth,  was the race's big spender, reporting about $42,100 in expenses (about $1.79 a vote).  The school board race is nonpartisan,  which means there are no primaries and no parties listed on the ballot.  But Dashew,  who is unaffiliated,  was likely hobbled by having no political party pushing her candidacy.

Going into the 2011 school board campaign,  there had been speculation that it would take around $50,000 to win a seat.  That was fueled partly by Eric Davis'  District 5 campaign in 2009;  he spent just over $58,000 to win a decisive victory over one opponent, at a cost of about $3.26 per vote. 

Churches renting schools: CMS says amen

The U.S. Supreme Court recently sided with New York City officials who say letting churches worship in school buildings violates the separation of church and state.  But Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools doesn't plan to change its practice of letting churches rent space after hours,  officials said this week.

The subject came up during an update on the district's  "community use of schools"  program at Tuesday's school board meeting.  CMS leaders acknowledged the ruling,  but said they don't believe it precludes CMS from continuing to count houses of worship among the  "educational, recreational, civic and cultural activities"  considered acceptable.

"We treat it the same as Mrs. Smith's yoga class,"  said Guy Chamberlain,  the associate superintendent in charge of buildings.

Board member Tim Morgan said he's relieved,  because many south suburban churches count on renting space in schools during their start-up years,  then moving into their own facilities when they can afford it.

In another mop-up item from Tuesday's meeting:  The proposed cell-phone stipend that generated so much buzz on this blog over the weekend was removed from the agenda.  No word on if or when it might reappear.

CMS bonds in 2013?

After a long recession-driven slump in school construction,  Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools officials laid out a $1.86 billion 10-year plan for school construction and renovation Tuesday.

Planner Mike Raible said the first slice of that plan could go before voters in 2013,  although county officials could also find other ways to provide money.  The last bond vote was in 2007,  when voters approved $516 million.

The plan includes just over $1 billion (in today's dollars) for building 52 new schools,  $717 million for major renovations at 113 schools and $96 million for smaller improvements at 32 sites.  That's 56 percent for growth,  39 percent for renovation and 5 percent for the smaller projects.

Board members got a two-inch-thick book laying out the individual projects, but that hasn't been released publicly yet.  It's the specifics that spark public debate,  as staff and the board decide which projects go to the top of the list.

Among the questions raised Tuesday:  Will CMS continue expanding its preK-8 model by building schools designed to combine those grades?  CMS already has more than a dozen schools that combine elementary and middle grades,  including eight preK-8 neighborhood schools launched this year.  Planners say the 10-year plan includes some opportunities to build more,  including one slated for Huntersville.

All clear on change now?

At a retreat Friday, all nine members of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board gave the district's search firm the strongest possible signal that they want the next superintendent to be a "change agent,"  rather than a hold-steady leader.  The next day they realized they should define what kind of change they want.

They followed up in a conference call with Jim Huge of PROACT Search Tuesday evening.  Huge told the board his definition of change agent:  Someone who is  "totally dedicated to continuous improvement" and would make change within the board's theory of action.  "They will not make change for change's sake,"  Huge added.

The board agreed,  and went on to approve a job profile that PROACT will post  (I'd share a link, but I'm not seeing it on the CMS or PROACT websites yet).

I suppose superintendent profiles are a bit like online dating  --  the descriptions tend to be broad and idealistic,  and you only find out about chemistry after meeting face to face.  Once the public starts meeting finalists,  we may get a better sense about the "change" questions on many people's minds:  Will the next leader change student assignment?  The way money is distributed to schools?  The way schools are structured?  The way students are tested and teachers are evaluated?

In other Tuesday news,  the board started talking about a 10-year construction and renovation plan,  with the possibility of a bond referendum in 2013.  I'll post more about that soon,  but unfortunately,  CMS did not immediately share either its summary presentation documents nor the 2-inch-thick book of specific project plans with the public.  The public information staff is working on that and promises to have at least the summary linked today.  It's not ideal,  but I supposed if there's ever a time when some slowness is understandable,  it's one when the district is dealing with a principal's suicide and the resignation of a top data official.

Good classroom observations aren't easy

Classroom observations can be a vital part of a good teacher evaluation,  but only if the people doing the observing have been well trained and tested to prove they know what they're doing.

That conclusion, from the latest Measures of Effective Teaching report, won't come as a shock to teachers,  who have long complained that too many administrators do rushed or biased observations.  Nor does it surprised Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools leaders,  who are working with the researchers funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to figure out how good teaching can be measured.  Chief Academic Officer Ann Clark says principals have been watching videos of classroom lessons and scoring them to develop their skill as classroom observers.

Districts across the country are trying to figure out how to recognize, recruit and reward teachers who can make a difference with kids.  Efforts to gauge effectiveness with number-crunching  --  such as CMS'  rollout of value-added ratings last year  --  have hit resistance.  But as the latest report indicates,  it's not easy to watch teachers in action and rate them, either.

Judy Kidd,  president of the Charlotte-based Classroom Teachers Association,  raised that concern when CMS and the state of North Carolina rolled out new reports on ratings of teachers in all schools, based on a new state evaluation form.  She said she doesn't believe administrators are familiar enough with the new system to deliver solid ratings.

The CMS Talent Effectiveness Project and the state Department of Public Instruction are both moving toward evaluations that will incorporate good observations, value-added ratings based on test scores and other measures of effectiveness.  And the national researchers taking part in the MET study  (which includes CMS teachers who have volunteered to be interviewed and observed)  are trying to provide guidance.

Questions from a data flub

All of us who work with numbers know how easy it is to make a mistake.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools made one last week when it posted inaccurate (and still unexplained) results for a new on-time graduation-track calculation,  then was slow to recognize the error.  Late Friday,  interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh pulled the school progress reports offline, telling the school board in a memo that "several issues of data accuracy have come to light."  The reports will be reposted Feb. 3 "after the data has been fully audited,"  he said.

The incident poses some serious questions for a district that prides itself on being data-driven on everything from education strategies to accounting for public money.

Some numbers lend themselves to a common-sense reality check.  It's like stepping on a scale: If it's five pounds off, you might believe it.  If it's 50 pounds off you know the scale is broken.  For anyone familiar with high schools,  numbers showing fewer than 2 percent of all students have ever flunked a grade are a clear signal that the scale is busted.

Hattabaugh and his officials are facing questions about why they didn't catch the problem.  But I'm wondering about principals who got their school reports almost two weeks before the error went public.  At many of those schools,  the bogus numbers were wildly out of sync with reality.  Did anyone say  "Hey, this can't be right"?  If not,  are principals so overwhelmed by central-office data that they've stopped caring whether numbers are accurate and meaningful?  If so,  were they unable or unwilling to let their superiors know there was a mistake?

I asked Hattabaugh about that during the weekend school board retreat.  "They were probably just thrilled that it was a good number,"  he said, smiling.

I don't know if he's right.  But if his school leaders are happy with glowing but false data,  the problem goes deeper than a central-office flub.