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| Mo Green |
In case you forgot, he was the CMS general counsel and later deputy superintendent before being named to the top job in Guilford County Schools.
Not sure if this news would have any bearing on Green coming to Charlotte after Superintendent Ann Clark leaves in 2016, but here it is: Guilford County Schools has extended Green's contract through 2018.
The district also said that for the sixth year in a row, Green has turned down the raise owed to him in his contract. His salary is $250,000.
Here's what the school board chairman up there, Alan Duncan, has to say about him:
“Mo richly deserves any of the raises that have been offered to him, but yet refuses to take them in solidarity with the employees and what the employees have had to go through. That is a rare individual.
I hope people in the General Assembly are listening, because our schools are being handicapped by not having our employees get the type compensation which they are genuinely entitled with the very high levels which they perform, and our superintendent sets an example that it’s a team effort and a team needs to be rewarded, not just our brand new starting teachers.”
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49 comments:
Please come back Mo!!
I just took a quick glance at the academic performance of Guilford County schools. According the State Report card, these are the proficiency ratings for Guilford County Schools, 51.6% in English 2, 38.0% in Math 1, 48.2% in Biology. Some schools performed much better than others, this is the school system average.
The Best Schools @Best_Schools
Charlotte’s Hawk Ridge Elementary ranked #9 in “The 50 Best American Public Elementary Schools”
http://www.thebestschools.org/features/50-best-american-public-elementary-schools/
The common denominator is that all schools listed here, working with what they have, create environments that are highly effective at stimulating learning and fostering personal growth.
We paid attention to aspects of the schools that we believe help to create such effective environments. The schools on this list are not solely concerned with academics. In addition, these schools pay attention to variety, innovation, fun, and strong parental and community involvement.
With the Personalized Learning emphasis from their iPad Principal, it isn't a total surprise to see Hawk Ridge Elementary School on this list, because they eliminated homework and the previously mandated reading assignments at home every night.
What kid wouldn't have fun at this school? No homework, and no nightly reading assignment.
Whoo Hoo!! Sure sounds like fun to me...
9:28
I'm glad to see Hawk Ridge doing so well in a sea of schools that do not.
However, let's look at some stats.
Hawk Ridge is 72% White and 11% Asian. What does tha tell you?
Their classroom size is over 30 students per class. That's interesting isn't it?
With all the harping about classroom sizes, this school seems to do quite well not having 16 to 20 per class.
Perhaps this model should be used in all CMS elementary schools, right?
Wiley,
Stay tuned for HRES's performance grades that are due out tomorrow. Many are sweating the release of these grades as highlighted in today's CO article.
HRES took a hard turn away from the traditions its' first two principals worked hard to establish a couple years ago, and it's current principal has allowed it to become a test site for every newfangled educational experiment the CMS ivory tower folks can conger up.
The performance grades will either validate this new approach, or not. Many are waiting to see which it is...
Wiley,
Ironically, Hawk Ridge isn't even the highest performing Elementary School in CMS, as it was when it was awarded a Blue Ribbon Award in 2005. Providence Springs Elementary School now holds the distinction as CMS' best performing elementary school.
Hawk Ridge is without a doubt a high performing school. However, an argument can be made that this is due to the surrounding family demographics, not what takes place in the school's classrooms.
Why did Hawk Ridge get selected?
The school's willingness to blaze a trail into previously uncharted educational territory, resulting in the school getting lots of press, while many of the school's most experienced teachers are leaving for more traditional educational environments.
Wiley,
Bingo!
"Hawk Ridge is 72% White and 11% Asian. What does that tell you?"
The opposite is true about North Meck and Hopewell (despite where the schools are located)once white flight took place the culture changed and as a result the proficiency ratings at North and Hopewell fell substantially while issues with discipline increased.
Schools are a reflection of the student demographics. Despite what education reformers (Rhee) and people like McCray(CMS) would tell you. There is little wrong with our educational model with regards to methods used in the classroom by dedicated teachers. We need to stop blaming and attacking public schools, place the blame with those who are at fault! Schools cannot force a child to learn, it is our role as parents to teach those values to our children!
I believe HRES is on the list because of the demographics of the school and the number of board certified teachers that are there (or used to be there).
Wiley, what model? The model of having 72% white students?
3:32...
Yes, 83% White/Asian.
Surely we can do that, right?
Oh wait. CMS is only - at best - 30% White.
Scrub that idea.
anon 3:32,
now that's comedy!
The school mentioned has a 77% overall proficiency rating. That's a C grade. Is this the best CMS can come up with for Best Schools?
Providence Spring Elementary Student Demographics:
Student Demographics
•African-American ........5.6%
•White...................82.8%
•Hispanic.................2.8%
•Asian....................8.4%
•Other....................0.3%
•Economically disadvantaged students ........3.6%
Additional Facts*
• Per-pupil expenditure ..... $4,496
• Teacher-to-pupil ratio .......1:24
• Student-mobility rate ..........7%
Hawk Ridge Elementary Student Demographics:
Student Demographics
•African-American.............. 10.4%
•White..........................69.9%
•Hispanic........................6.4%
•Asian......................... 11.2%
•Other.............................2%
•Economically disadvantaged students ......12.8%
Additional Facts*
•Per-pupil expenditure $4,313
•Teacher-to-pupil ratio .........1:22
•Student-mobility rate.............9%
Wiley,
Based upon the student demographic data from past years for PSE and HRE, the model for success within CMS schools is to have double to triple the white population of the entire district at large...
Washington Center for Equitable Growth states "Children from low-income households will hear 30 million less words than a child from a high-income household before the age of 3. This means that low-income children are already behind their peers higher up the income ladder before school even starts."
This means we need to talk and read to our kids more, there's no way around these stats. This should be the focus of early learning in elementary schools.
Why hasn't anyone axed whatever happened to EBONICS ?
4:41....
You're being generous. The 32% White number is from 2012/2013:
From the CMS website Fast Facts-
(All data reflects information for the 2012-13 school and fiscal years unless noted otherwise.)
I'm pretty sure the number is now 30.8%, but it doesn't matter. The White percentage has been dropping for years and will continue that trend.
Wiley,
You are correct, the percentage of white children in CMS is dropping and will continue to do so. I know I keeping mentioning North Meck and Hopewell, but those schools are a prime example of what we are talking about. It's a darn shame to see this happening to our community schools, it really is. A co-worker in my office has two children, the eldest son graduated from Hopewell, but 5 years later the younger brother went to a charter. Hopewell had degraded so much and that quickly there was simply no way her second son was attending Hopewell, it's just plain pitiful and sad.
Folks, What's most scary about all these numbers is the disparity between the successful schools and the rest when you consider their per student spend.
The successful schools spend 50% of the CMS average per student spend.
Dunn
Taxpayers do not care about Green or that other jabroni you profiled last time. How about the waste, fraud and corruption going on daily within CMS ?
Just like the last posting stated. dig into why for years has the most sucessful schools in CMS received 3x less money for past decade. Follow the money or in this case the LACK of it.
"Children from low-income households will hear 30 million less words than a child from a high-income household before the age of 3. This means that low-income children are already behind their peers higher up the income ladder before school even starts."
Someone needs to tell the rap music industry they need to upgrade their vocabularies.
Anon 9:11pm.
"The successful schools spend 50% of the CMS average per student spend."
Just imagine how much more successful they'd be if they spent the CMS average per student.
Of course, we can't have that.
That would probably make the "performance gap" even worse.
So everything is fine as it is.
Until everyone catches up.
Or catches down.
Or leaves.
It is obvious that the "school" really has nothing to do with the success of the student. It is ALL about parent involvement. The "school" is either situated in a good socio-economic area or it's not. And it's certainly not about the amount of spending per student. If this weren't true we would not have busing and Magnet school advocates.
Shamash,
Title One funds are the same as welfare or food stamps. All are the government's attempt to "compensate" those who fall behind.
Per student expenditure compared to per student performance highlights the continuing failure of the growing United "nanny" States of America.
It all begins and ends in each family's home.
Anon 7:15,
Sadly I happen to agree with much of what you stated, I wish I could say I don't. I do not wish to diminish the role of a great teacher because our two children have seen many during their years in Kannapolis City schools. However, teachers, no matter how dedicated, are not miracle workers. Teachers have little control or influence over what transpires in the home of their students.
If the parents don't see the value in a good education for their children, whether those parents themselves are educated or not, the schools that serve such families will reflect that philosophy.
The liberals want legislation to force parents to immunize their kids, yet no one say anything when parents that fail to properly parent their kids keep having kids.
We celebrate the "Best Schools" and throw more and more money at the failing schools, yet ignore why they're failing to begin with...
Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools prepare to receive letter grades
Critics say the grades are unduly low to schools with high percentages of low-income students, who tend to perform worse on standardized tests.
How many times have you heard people like Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, Joel Klein (remember him?) and other so-called reformers say that poverty doesn’t matter, that poverty is an excuse for poor teaching?
I have always believed that poverty imposes tremendous burdens on students and their families: hunger, homelessness, lack of medical care, illness, etc.
The best evidence of the difference that poverty makes is SAT scores. The poorest kids have the lowest scores, the most affluent have the highest. The difference from bottom to top is nearly 400 points. To be exact, it is 398 points.
The Wall Street Journal suggests a new name for the SAT: the Student Affluence Test.
What does the SAT measure? Family income and family education.
Those with vast resources of their own probably think that poverty is a personal defect rather than the inevitable result of an inequitable tax system.
THE GREAT DIVIDE - No Rich Child Left Behind
Here’s a fact that may not surprise you: the children of the rich perform better in school, on average, than children from middle-class or poor families. Students growing up in richer families have better grades and higher standardized test scores, on average, than poorer students; they also have higher rates of participation in extracurricular activities and school leadership positions, higher graduation rates and higher rates of college enrollment and completion.
WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE GRADING SCALE?
In this first year, schools were graded on a 15-point scale, meaning scores as low as 85 merit an “A,” as low as 70 receive a “B,” and so on.
In following years, the grading will switch to a 10-point scale. Had that scale been used this year, 64 schools would have received failing grades. Some of those schools got “C” grades this year.
Another 29 schools would have received a “D” under a normal 10-point scale.
Schools that receive a “D” or “F” must inform parents by letter.
It's interesting how NC is grading their schools differently then they're grading their students...
anon 1:05PM,
If what you are saying is correct, then CMS is going to be sending plenty of letters. I have to ask, what is the purpose of sending such a letter to parents who's kids are attending a failing school? What a stupid concept!
If those parents cared whether or not their child is struggling, those schools wouldn't have received such a poor rating in the first place. Furthermore, they probably will treat that letter just as they do their child's home work folder, they will not even open it, give me a break!
1:05
Look on the bright side; over 80% of CMS students are graduating, with fewer teachers, teacher assistants, less money and larger class sizes.
Right?
Even the $55 million in private funds and the Zumba classes helped West Charlotte get a D and meet expectations.
Really does any of this matter? So my son's school gets an 85 (A), which in the REAL world is a B-, who do they think they're kidding. This sounds to me like all the kids get a trophy just for showing up so they feel good about themselves(or is it for the parents and administrators to feel good).
There are committed, hard working, good teachers at all of the schools. But they can't perform miracles, it takes the parents to do that!
incentive
inĖsen(t)iv/
a thing that motivates or encourages one to do something.
a payment or concession to stimulate greater output or investment.
Can anybody tell me what the incentive is for the day to day frontline teacher ?
Incentive…..to retire early…cost of living raises with Social Security are better than virtually nothing from the state the last seven years. Why anyone would even consider teaching here as a career is absurd. Fortunately, changing future teacher's minds is pretty easy in this state.
For my former students, it's an easy reply. Travel. Now, often, far away, and use your second and third languages to succeed where you'll be paid and appreciated.
Communist
Monopolistic
System
Incentive? There is absolutely ZERO incentive for a teacher. CMS is awash with inept employees from Tower to the trailers.There is no incentive for those who work hard and excel.Their reward is doing 1.5 to 2X the workload for less money. Intrinsic rewards do not buy food and medicine for the employees children.
Competitive Competence
"Not sure if this news would have any bearing on Green coming to Charlotte after Superintendent Ann Clark leaves in 2016 "
Come on Dunn. Stop your half lie rhetoric BS. Since when does signing a contract have anything to do with somebody quitting any job and going elsewhere?
Did you look at his contract? Does it say he cant resign before its over unless he dies or gets ill? Is there a non-compete clause for a certain time after he quits? Get real.
What about Morrison's contract? Is there a non-compete clause after he was bumped by the Battle and McCray liars? Battle is a snake in the grass and just got a big raise but refuses to discuss it even though by law he is required to make everything public?
Dunn needs to force Battle to go public with that big 100k pay raise at the same time of the 1/4 cent tax increase and Morrison being rubbed off using lies about bullying ...
CMS 3rd world student grades were lower than the state of NC ? And Battle and McCray fired Morrison ?
Just released NC test results clearly shows the infamous CMS "G A P" getting bigger and bigger so that means more and more billions as Battle and McCray quietly celebrate at their success.
Come on Battle and McCray. Speak up. Taxpayers demand an answer. Public servants cannot hide anything or ignore the law as a certain someone in DC does routinely.
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2015/02/05/5493904/charlotte-mecklenburg-schools.html
bj
The latest Observer editorial regarding the new school letter grades is comical and to use their one word description about the grades as compared to their shock and dismay that the legislature would approve such a thing - Surprise.
Is anyone surprised the Observer would continue to support the status quo and use the same lame talking points to push their agenda?
The Observer and other leftists always argue that race, income and zipcode shouldn't "dictate the outcome of a child's education".
Okay, let's all agree to that. If that were the case, then my call for eliminating all references to race, income diversity and zip code would be exactly what those lefty, status quo types would like to see, right?
Wrong. All they do is act like a dog chasing its tail over and over again, repeating the same rationale against race, income blah blah blah, then use it to say that's why those schools and students underperform. You know, because White, wealthier kids live in a different zip code, have different skin, etc. even though those "low income schools" get a lot more funding and scrutiny than other schools. Eh, but let's don't talk about that little tidbit of info.
So which is it Observer?
Then you have the current Chamber (let me reserve my name for him) head coming out and doing what they and others do to try and put some spin on a bad issue by using code words like "context" and "growth".
Okay Mr. Chamber head, please explain how all those tens of millions we've dumped into say... West Charlotte over the last decade, have gotten them out of the hole they have been in?
The fact is, West Charlotte is still in the same hole, because if you use a decade as "growth" to get a D, then we need to disassociate the Chamber from Charlotte, because if Charlotte were to use your model, Charlotte would be 1/3 of the size it is now.
Wiley, What I find interesting is that, as you have probably noticed, the theory of why kids aren't succeeding in school has changed lately, at least on the Observer editorial pages. The new mantra is that low income kids are behind before they even start school. What a surprise to the rest of us! So poor performance may no longer be blamed on 1)lack of diversity (i.e. the end of busing), 2)lack of funding (oops--it turns out that suburban schools don't get all the goodies, as we had claimed for years), 3)uncaring, unmotivated teachers (probably wasn't such a good idea to blame everything on the teachers).
The Equity Committee for years tried to prove that all of CMS's woes were caused by the 3 points I listed above. Most members were absolutely adamant that a child's background had nothing to do with their educational outcomes, except for the fact that they did not attend school in a high income area. Of course, I don't yet see anyone apologizing for demonizing suburbanites and teachers over the years and for causing strife and angst in both low and high income neighborhoods.
11:42
AND... they can't blame pre-K because it is now known pre-K does nothing beyond the 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade for those who go to a pre-K program versus those who don't. In fact, some aspects of it were found to be harmful.
In 2010, HHS released the findings of the Head Start Impact Study, which tracked the progress of three- and four-year-olds entering Head Start through kindergarten and first grade. Overall, Head Start had little to no positive effects for children who were granted access.
For the four-year-old group, compared to similarly situated children not allowed access to Head Start, access to the program failed to raise the cognitive abilities of participants on 41 measures. Specifically, the language skills, literacy, math skills, and school performance of the participating children failed to improve.
Alarmingly, access to Head Start for the three-year-old group actually had a harmful effect on the teacher-assessed math ability of these children once they entered kindergarten. Teachers reported that non-participating children were more prepared in math skills than those children who participated in Head Start.
Head Start also had little to no effect on the other socio-emotional, health, or parenting outcomes of children participating in the program. For the four-year-old group, access to Head Start failed to have an effect for 69 out of 71 socio-emotional, health, and parenting outcomes.
If politicians can't blame skin color, income and zip code, they have nothing left but to actually start looking at the parents and kids themselves.
Doing that underminds over 40 years of telling people you are victims, you need government and we're here to help you, when in fact, all they have done is hurt them.
I am growing tired of people who think they know what is best for my children, when they have no idea of what they are talking about, especially politicians. Clueless politicians are the last people I want involved with my child's education. Seriously, when was the last time you actually met a honest politician?
I think I will trust my children's principals and teachers with what's best regarding education. In conjunction with a loving and supportive home, this strategy has worked very well my family so far.
anon 11:42 and Wiley,
My children attend a fairly diverse school system, diverse in culture,race and socio-economics. I would have to say from my observations, the kids who tend to struggle the most are the poor kids. Like so many others have stated, education does begin in the home. I think many of the poor kids are behind before they even start school.
This is my argument against grading schools and rating teacher effectiveness, socio-economics is not taken into consideration. Teachers may be saintly people, but they are not miracle workers.
I agree with Wiley in that it is important the parents, whether they themselves are educated or not, want their children to better themselves through education. If the parent doesn't value education then how is a school/teacher supposed to overcome that deficiency?
WASTED FUNDS
Communist
Monopolistic
System
Can anyone tell me why CMS is wasting taxpayer money and time / effort to create a school evaluation grading system that is different than what the State just put out?
Remember under Gorman the millions (12)of dollars spent on test creation and testing that was dropped a year later in favor of the tests created by the State?
Does anybody have any distate for this waste of OUR money? Can you ask the hard questions Dunn?
Competitive Competence
3:59
That's up the same alley of Ann Clark being able to "find money" to hire teachers if the state doesn't pay for them.
Superintendent Ann Clark and Shirley said that if the money from the state comes up short, CMS will find money to pay the teachers elsewhere instead of laying them off.
Read more here: http://obsyourschools.blogspot.com/#storylink=cpy
...and they call Thom Tillis stupid.
what really irritates me about all of this, we are giving the parents of low performing students a pass, a get out of jail free card if you will. When the heck are we going to start holding those folks accountable and regarding them for a start! After all, we are spending a fortune trying to educate their children. Send them a letter or two to let them know how bad they suck as a parent!
Teachers and Alicia
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/truck-driving-may-be-america-s-most-popular-job--182859840.html
Run don't walk to your nearest truck driving school !
Ole Mo Green
and there isnt even a statue of him in Las Vegas
So it's Saturday morning, get your kids off the video game and read to them, cook together, take a walk and talk. These are the habits of successful families and kids. This isn't rocket science.
Turning down a raise, while symbolically admirable, is not that great when you have a salary that makes you a 1 percenter. All I remember about Mo in Charlotte is spending all his time investigating sports teams for eligibility and other issues. Would the actual people of Greensboro care to weigh in on his six years there?
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