Sunday, December 4, 2011

What do people want for CMS?

Trustworthy,  reliable,  intelligent and fair.  Those are top characteristics Mecklenburg residents are seeking in the next superintendent,  according to a preliminary report on what students, teachers and other adults said in an online survey.

This week the search for a new leader of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools moves into the face-to-face phase of engaging the public in a decision that will shape the region for years to come.  Read the plan here  --  and if you want to speak up,  attend one of the six forums taking place Monday,  Tuesday and Thursday.

The school board and its search firm plan to use the input to craft a profile that will help the board choose the right person for the job  --  and help candidates figure out what kind of community they're looking at.  The goal is to hire a superintendent in the spring,  with two or three finalists meeting the public before the board picks one.

24 comments:

DistrictSix said...

District Six has been overlooked for the last few years and we trust the CMS Board will take into account we will no longer be a training ground for new Teachers or a place that pays massive taxes and gets very little per student.

This is a new time to stop the falling values of our homes as our schools fall apart.

We are also stopping the flight of people who can easily afford to do so in order for builders to build cheaper homes for more massive developments such as apartments and high density housing.

Charlotte Mecklenburg needs areas in Charlotte Mecklenburg that entice people who want options such as we currently have to live.

The people we want to remain are finding neighborhoods of housing and amenities in surrounding counties and which are dying in Charlotte Mecklenbug as the leaders continue to focus on only one aspect of our County.

We have Larry Bumgarner willing to step up and work for District Six as our Representative, and we feel that in conjunction with our new leader at CMS, will protect and change the levels of payment per student and stop the usage of District Six as a training ground for Teachers.

All of this will shore up the values of our homes and protect the last vestiges of what is found in all the Counties just a few minutes away.

Wiley Coyote said...

It won't matter who the next Superintendent is.

There will be no change forward, only backward with the "new diversity opinion" legislated from the Obama White House.

Anonymous said...

I just wonder how these adjectives will be spun into "supports a non-research based testing for performance program."

1 If by Land 2 If by Sea said...

What kind of statement is made when many Charlotte Mecklenburg citizens can only speak their beliefs through an anonymous blog? The next Super should have the ability to discern truth and see beyond the cover-up approach so long practiced by CMS the insitution. The need for citizens to use an assumed name speaks for itself!!! CMS makes many citizens afraid of speaking and forces them to hide behind anonymity. Some of the founding fathers used pen names when inspiring the birth of our nation and this blog continues the practice. Keep it up fellow hornet’s nest neighbors!

Wiley Coyote said...

1 If by Land 2 If by Sea...

Thank you Paul Revere for your "non-anonymous" comment....

Anonymous said...

I'd like to see Chiquita raid CMS and steal every qualified middle and high school Spanish teacher thereby creating further chaos for whatever consists of leadership. At least the business community might appreciate teacher flight. Larry then, riding a white steed, could find charter schools for all the foreign language students in district six.

therestofthestory said...

To 1 If by Land 2 If by Sea, not neccessarily CMS though true for teachers and their families but then if you are just the public speaking out against this insanity, the CO runs to all the racists at BPC, NAACP, for their reaction to your comments and attempt to fuel any character assassination they can get by insisting they are "simply exercising their freedom of the press" (and to heck with your freedom of speech).

Anonymous said...

As we saw with the Carmel teacher who spoke out about the stifling heat during one of CMS' all too frequent AC breakdowns, speaking out in CMS risks your job. The system is full of people who maintain their learning area positions through the scalps of school-based personnel.

The non-reality based testing and evaluating made everything worse. I am just glad I got out a few years ago for the golden lands of Union County.

Anonymous said...

District Six: When your buddy Larry grows a bit thicker skin, then maybe, just maybe he can be a part of the conversation. But for now, any person who raises even the slightest disagreement with him gets rained on with sarcasm and middle-school like antics.

While some say that would fit right in with the current BOE, it most certainly isn't a good quality and easily gets him X'd off any list of D6 candidates.

Once Larry decides that other people are as smart as he is, then he has a chance to possibly be a legit candidate.

1 If By Land....: CMS isn't smart enough to consistently tamp down naysayers. Regardless of who gets hired to replace Gorman, there will be a large segment that will get riled and CMS will trip all over themselves trying to spin. And then BOE will follow suit.

We'll have to see how the 2 new board members play into various votes and from that, we'll see how the district races go in 2 years.

Imagine if breaking CMS into real sub-districts came to pass....

Anonymous said...

Chiquita brings 200 jobs while BOA and others lay off 200 jobs a day on the average. How many jobs have been lost here in the past 3 yrs in the banking sector? 30k? This does put everything into focus as an official banana republic and school system though. Great symbolism.

Chiquita has 30k workers mainly in South America on banana farms for a few pesos a week. Why not convince them to round up 30k illegals here and ship them to South America permanently to pick bananas? Heck take the whole family with them.

DistrictSix said...

Bumgarner presents facts and people dispute them, that is no dispute.

That being said, his character and business practices, are of truth and facts.

Maybe we do have a few who do not want this said out loud, but the majority of we who live in District Six have made our living and lively hoods from just this very approach to life.

Wiley Coyote said...

The pandering majority is still in place so it won't matter who is ultimately inserted into the District 6 seat.

.....not one bit of difference.

Anonymous said...

The majority of people I saw voting during the early voting period in District 6 were African-American women. I thought this was unusual in the South Charlotte Regional Library which primarily serves a white majority. If people in District 6 didn't vote than they have nothing to complain about. If the school board is supposed to reflect the racial make-up of CMS, than having three African-American women elected to the school board shouldn't be a shocker. Tim Morgan probably didn't do his constituents any service by advocating for an ill-conceived pay-for-performance plan and voting to shut down schools in low-income minority areas.

Get used to a 3-6 voting block. Wiley is right. It doesn't matter who is appointed to the District 6 seat.

Anonymous said...

Larry could be a good candidate for the 6 seat. However, Tim Morgan wants a "groomed puppet" in that spot and its Boylun so thats who is getting in. He has lobbyied for the seat and done time with Chamber folks so his shoe fits. Is he the best one for the position NO , but will Tim get him the votes since he contributed to Tim's most recent campaign YES. Will he vote with Tim once on the board yes. Will he be frustrated in 2 years completely. Can he run a campaign to get re-elected NO. The downtown folks love this guy and think Tim does a great job in 6 seat so its a foregone conclusion. This deal was signed 4 months ago. Granted nobody in district 6 even know their new rep thats a whole other matter. The guy is not a politician thats why he did not run this past election. CMS is on the fast train to nowhere.

Anonymous said...

Long ago, when the superintendent survey was first available online, I asked why all the standardized testing in every high school course and in elementary schools (CMS tests, not the state EOCs or EOGs) was not listed as an issue? I asked Ann to look into the organization that made the survey, and to find out why such as important issue (a major issue at the school board debates) was somehow left off. I heard nothing.

Now that the results are out, it is no surprise that over-testing is not on the list of important issues. It is what drove me to pull my kids out of CMS last year and send them to private school. I would love to put my kids back in CMS and avoid private school tuition, but I won't until all the excess testing goes away.

When I told the principal at my local elementary school that I was pulling my children out because of the testing, she said she would miss my children. I said, "I understand. They are good kids and they enjoyed it here." She replied, "No, you miss my point. I will miss their good test scores." This says it all. It needs to stop.

Anonymous said...

Amen and ditto to anon 2:35 above. I had to do the same thing for my freshman, after seeing what my CMS junior, and now senior, has been dealt.

Anonymous said...

Exactly great point with a principals qoute. That same person will NOT hold a kid back even though its needed , because its a strike against the school. That school needs your kids dearly for their good grades and parental support. Both of which are gone so Billy Gates company can sell us a testing system that does nothing for performance of our children ! CMS spent $1.26 MM on this product last year and we lost 3% of our best students. Our test scores will drop 5% this year since we lost 3% of our best students. Thanks St. Peter !

Wiley Coyote said...

Anon 2:49...

Pete Gorman had only a small part with people leaving CMS and test scores.

The decline is ongoing and will continue, no matter who the next Superintendent is.

The problems come from within CMS in all areas, local and state government, the Feds.

If you want to have any glimmer of hope saving public education, Barack Obama and his moronic education chief Duncan need to be voted out of office, otherwise, get ready for busing to achieve integration redux....

Anonymous said...

We need a super who doesn't cave in when parents cry about diversity. We need the super to keep the boundaries as is for many, many, many years to come. Parents need to work with their kids and stop blaming others. Knowledge isn't gained by osmosis, but through indiviual work and effort.

Ann Doss Helms said...

2:35, not sure if you're the person who emailed me about the questions, but I did blog about that a month ago and quoted that emailer:
http://obsyourschools.blogspot.com/2011/11/next-cms-leader-lots-of-public-opinion.html

I actually got a very similar reaction from a Gaston County high school teacher a few years ago -- she told me how happy she was to have my son because he'd do well on the tests no matter what! She actually turned out to be a good teacher, but I was taken aback by that comment.

Anonymous said...

Taxation with Representation

This would be a nice change to the wasted millions into the black hole of no results.Make the lost performing schools into a vocational training center.Show some leadership and be prudent stewards of OUR money.

Anonymous said...

Jeesh. Here in Raleigh just be glad you dont have our forth coming problems after the extremely obese Rev Barber of the NAACP with millions in funding from unknown sources (White House?) got a majority of liberals on the Wake School Board to reinstitute what looks like renewed busing redrawn school districts and the removal of neighborhood schools. What a terrible mess.

Wake Raleigh is now being enundated with tens of thousands of minority transplants seemingly from NYC Harlem and other hellholes like Detroit Chicago Philly etc who are quickly changing the demographic landscape here and obviously will destroy our once excellent school system like they did the squalor concrete jungles they came from. They all scream for more diversity.

Wake is a large county but many are now moving to surrounding counties in droves. Chatham and Franklin are the most popular.

Wiley Coyote said...

Anon 6:43...

To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher's definition of socialism, which states: "the trouble with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money"...

"The problem with diversity in public education is you eventually run out of one race"...

CMS is 41% Black and 16% Hispanic and only 32.2% White, yet there are those who continue to rant and rave about the lack of "diversity" within the system.

Democrat Libertarian Terry Michael said:

"Six Degrees of Liberal Racism"

"Left liberal hallucinations about rampant racism are fed not just by indoctrination of the young on college campuses, but by almost daily news "reporting" that demands we see everything from individual medical conditions to public school test scores and access to the internet through the prism of race and ethnicity. All of these disparities can be traced to economic and educational achievement differences among individuals, arbitrarily grouped into demographic cohorts by those who demand we imagine racism as a master narrative explanation." In fact the "diversity industry" is a vast and profitable enterprise in itself.


Ans now the Obama White House is expanding this mess...

Anonymous said...

6:43.

Funny how I've seen this same scenario played out pretty much my entire life.

I grew up in Birmingham, AL and we "flew" before I became a teen
back in the late 1960's.

Look at that place now...

It wasn't the last time, though, and I fully expect to do so again when the conditions warrant.

At least this time I was smart enough to look ahead and settle outside CharMeck after looking at the demographic/crime trends.

Those maps they have now are a lifesaver.