New life for New Leaders in Charlotte

After a major setback earlier this spring, Charlotte's New Leaders program is coming back fresh with an infusion of private money from Project LIFT, says Executive Director Eric Guckian.

New Leaders is a 12-year-old national program (originally known as New Leaders for New Schools) created  to develop urban principals with the skills and drive to make transform struggling high-poverty schools. Superintendent Peter Gorman announced its partnership with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools in 2008, with promises that it would put more than 50  "highly talented and motivated new principals"  into local schools in six years.

In March, interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh blindsided New Leaders backers with the announcement that he planned to drastically cut back spending midway through the effort, saying CMS was spending too much money and had gotten only a handful of principals. Not long before, Hattabaugh had renewed a partnership agreement, but changed his mind when federal money that helped pay for it dried up.

Being publicly proclaimed a poor investment of taxpayer money was a serious blow, Guckian says. He credits his local board, the national organization and a panel of local philanthropists for not only keeping the local project alive but helping it develop a new focus on making classroom teachers better leaders.

"While it was indeed a hardship that the district reallocated our funds, other partners and supporters have made clear that there is strong and diverse community support for our work here in Charlotte," he said in a recent email.

Guckian says it was CMS leaders,  not his group,  that pitched New Leaders as a sort of principal factory.  The partnership with Project LIFT,  a philanthropic coalition which aspires to pump $55 million in private donations into nine west Charlotte public schools,  will put five principal trainees into LIFT schools while  providing leadership training for 40 teachers a year.  Those teachers could move into administrative posts or exercise their skills while staying in a classroom,  Guckian said.

"In addition to the LIFT partnership, we recently learned that the Women’s Impact Fund will be supporting us at $100K,"  Guckian noted.  "As you may know, grants from the Women’s Impact Fund are voted on by hundreds of influential women in Charlotte, so it’s a really nice vote of confidence from across the community."

A digital science boost

With all the buzz about digital learning, one of the biggest questions is how much educational bang schools can get for their electronic bucks.  Discovery Education, a vendor to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools,  has released a study showing its interactive science lessons contributed to significant student gains in high-poverty CMS classrooms.

Discovery Education provides reading passages, videos and virtual labs to get students engaged in scientific exploration.  For instance, fifth-graders studying insect life cycles would look at photos of insects such as butterflies, grasshoppers, beetles and dragonflies. The teacher would get them to talk about different ways those insects grow, and to make predictions about how each changes during its life cycle. Students would watch a digital video on metamorphosis.

CMS uses federal Title I money to provide Discovery Education digital science lessons for all its highest-poverty schools (75 percent or higher), along with training for teachers in how to use those lessons.  But participation wasn't required during the study years (2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-12),  so some teachers in Title I schools opted out.

The study compared results on state fifth- and eighth-grade science exams for students of 457 Title I teachers who used Discovery Education, 295 Title I  teachers who did not and 538 teachers in lower-poverty schools that didn't use Discovery Education. Researchers found that the Title I teachers using the program saw eighth-graders go from 38 percent passing to 57 percent, outperforming both other groups by significant margins (Title 1 non-users went from 19 percent to 32 percent passing, and the non-Title I group went from 41 to 43 percent). The results for fifth-graders weren't as dramatic, but the Title I teachers using Discover Education saw the biggest gains in two years.

The study factored in the benefits that some of the Title I schools got from support provided through CMS' Achievement Zone and/or the strategic staffing program, and there still appeared to be benefits attributable to the digital program.

I'm always cautious of drawing oversimplified conclusions from numbers, especially a study done by an interested party.  But this does seem to reinforce what CMS and many thoughtful commenters have been saying:  Technology can be a helpful tool when it's combined with good training and enthusiastic teachers.

It's a bird! It's a plane!

Superintendent Heath Morrison may need to move faster than a speeding bullet to deliver on a statement in a recent email to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools employees: "I intend to visit all schools in CMS during my first three months."

I asked him about the mathematics of that plan.  CMS has 159 schools.  He starts work July 1.  School starts Aug. 27, which gives him 24 days with students and teachers in school by the time his first three months end in September.  He's already been visiting during interviews and follow-up trips to Charlotte,  but even if he knocks 39 schools off the list before the starting bell,  he'd have to hit five schools every school day to meet his goal.

Morrison says his plan is ambitious but not impossible: "I have already visited many and have another visit in June. There will also be summer programs and back to school events in July and early August. Don't forget Saturdays in August and September. I may not make it, but the effort and intent is important."

He's probably right about the effort.  After Peter Gorman made his high-profile entrance in 2006,  I remember hearing grumbles from staff at schools he hadn't visited.  And Morrison makes a good impression in face-to-face meetings.

Classroom Teachers Association President Judy Kidd tends to be skeptical of politicians and officials. She says when she first read Morrison's line about being "a teacher on special assignment,"  it sounded phony.  But after meeting him recently, Kidd said Morrison strikes her as genuine. 

Board member Rhonda Lennon hosted Morrison and a group of north suburban parents and community leaders Friday night (joined, she says, by a few south Charlotte folks).  "He took time to talk to each family who was here -- and they shared the good/bad/ugly about their experiences at CMS,"  Lennon posted on Facebook.  "It was truly amazing watching Heath interact with the students and talk to them about their schools and personal academic accomplishments."

Morrison chooses South Meck zone

Soon-to-be Superintendent Heath Morrison and his family have a contract on a home in the Rea Woods neighborhood in south Charlotte, which means his daughter will enroll as a 10th-grader at South Mecklenburg High.  His son, who will be in seventh grade, has South Charlotte Middle as his home school. But Morrison says Zach is interested in auditioning for Northwest School of the Arts (there was no waiting list after the first magnet lottery, so it shouldn't be hard to find a spot for the superintendent's son).

I asked Morrison if he'd chosen schools, then found a home in the desired zone.  He said he left the home-shopping to his wife and daughter.

Morrison is in town to present his entry plan,  which includes efforts to make sure all neighborhoods and groups  have a voice in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools decisions.  He's having dinner tonight with school board member Rhonda Lennon and some of her constituents from the north suburbs, and lunch Saturday with Carol Sawyer and Pamela Grundy from Mecklenburg ACTS, a group that's focused on equity for high-poverty urban schools.

Here's Morrison's schedule for this visit:

Thursday, May 24, 2012
6:45 pm Meeting with Dan Habrat

Friday, May 25, 2012
7:00 am Meeting with cabinet
8:15 am Kim Brazzell/Teresa Shipman/Vincent Smith – Orientation
10:00 am Meeting with Ericka Ellis-Stewart
11:00 am Press event with Board
11:40 am Meeting with Tom Tate
1:00 pm Principal interviews
2:00 pm Meeting with Eric Davis
3:30 pm Meeting with Mayor Foxx
4:45 pm Meeting with zone superintendents
6:00 pm Meeting with Rhonda Lennon
7:00 pm Dinner meeting with Rhonda Lennon and northern parents, businesses, etc.

Saturday, May 26, 2012
7:30 am Meeting with Ann Clark
9:00 am Meeting with Joyce Waddell
10:30 am Meeting with Richard McElrath
12:00 pm Meeting with Pamela Grundy and Carol Sawyer
1:45 pm Meeting with Sheila Shirley
4:00 pm Meeting with Tim Morgan
6:00 pm Meeting with Amelia Stinson-Wesley

Omaha paper: Learn from CMS

Like Charlotte, Omaha, Neb., has a large,  urban school district with a new superintendent.  It has tried a battery of programs to solve academic failure among its low-income and minority students.  A team of reporters at the Omaha World-Herald set out to find districts that seem to have answers,  and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is one of seven they're highlighting in a series running this week.


"Leaders of the Omaha Public Schools have tried everything from shrinking class sizes to busing kids between schools to waging political fights for more funding — only to see many of its most disadvantaged students scrape bottom on the latest Nebraska state achievement tests,"  Joe Dejka, Jeffrey Robb and Paul Goodsell write. "Yet, elsewhere in America, some school districts battling similar, entrenched poverty produce significantly better results. A select few districts outscore their urban peers on state and national tests, win national prizes and attract researchers and educators eager for a glimpse inside their playbooks."

The Broad Prize and CMS' performance on the "nation's report card" exams played a role in the decision to highlight CMS as a success story.  The findings won't be much of a surprise to those who follow CMS, and the reporters acknowledge the district has hit snags,  such as a backlash to increased testing.  But it's always interesting to see the district through others' eyes  --  in this case, a "virtual field trip" to glean the best lessons from across the country.

$4,800 for London networking

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools board Chairman Ericka Ellis-Stewart was on the plane for the ill-fated Chamber of Commerce trip to London last weekend.  But the cancellation due to airplane mechanical problems may have been a blessing, because Ellis-Stewart has already spent most of her travel allotment for this fiscal year.

CMS provides $5,150 a year in travel money for the chair and $3,100 for other members.  Ellis-Stewart took office (and the chairmanship) in December,  about halfway through the budget year that ends June 30.  She had a tad over $2,800 to spend,  and had already used all but $283 on two trips to Raleigh and a National School Boards Association conference in Boston (see the board's spending as of Monday here).

The chamber's trip to London cost $4,800 for public officials. Ellis-Stewart said Tuesday that she had been talking to other board members about letting her use their unspent travel money.  It's not clear whether she'd gotten that money lined up,  or even whether CMS had actually paid the bill.  Rhonda Lennon, who had the biggest chunk of unspent money (just over $3,600),  said Tuesday that Ellis-Stewart asked her Saturday, the day the flight was supposed to depart, to help cover her cost.  Lennon said she declined. She said was concerned about CMS officials spending money beyond what's budgeted, especially while they're trying to get additional money from Mecklenburg County commissioners.

It's not unheard of for board members who don't travel much to offer some of their budget to those who do. Richard McElrath  --  who, like Lennon, has spent nothing so far this year  --  transferred just over $500 to Vice Chairman Mary McCray this year.  Nor is it unusual for board members to join other public officials and executives on the chamber's annual visits to check out business, economic development and government in other cities.  Eric Davis went to Seattle with the group when he was board chair last year.

But the overseas trip and the expense it entailed was unusual.  During the last budget year,  CMS board members spent only about $12,500 of the $29,950 allotted for travel,  with individual spending ranging from nothing for Lennon to $3,847 for Davis (see the 2010-11 travel report here).

Ellis-Stewart said Tuesday she thought the trip was valuable because of the opportunity to network with business leaders.  At a time when CMS is working to build public-private partnerships, "it's good to have them on your side,"  she said.

Lennon was skeptical.  "You can buy a whole lot of lunches for $4,800," she said.

New era of testing, ratings in NC

Say goodbye to the year-end exams and the N.C. school labels we've gotten to know over the past 15 years, where schools are rated from "low performing" to "school of excellence" based on the percent of students who pass exams. The state will issue its last "ABCs of Public Education" report this summer. Next school year will bring a new set of tests and a new "READY" accountability system.

It's part of the state's Race to the Top push to make testing more meaningful and comparable to other states, while holding schools accountable for a wider array of results and using student results to rate teacher effectiveness.

A lot of this will sound familiar to those who followed Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' efforts to forge ahead on these fronts in 2011. Remember the 52 new tests that drew so much outcry? The state Department of Public Instruction is working on 90 new tests (officials prefer "measures of student learning") to ensure that there's data for teachers in all topics. New versions of high school End of Course exams and year-end language arts, math and science tests for grades 3-8 are also in the works.

State officials who updated me recently say this isn't just about newer and more tests, but better ones.  The "bubble in the right answer" format that has drawn so much criticism will be replaced with online tests that include some open-ended questions. Teachers should get results faster than they do with paper tests, and testing software can offer a more refined gauge of student knowledge by adjusting the level up or down as students get answers right or wrong.  (Next year is a transition year, so it's unlikely all of this will be in place right away.)

The new exams are also designed to reflect the move to national "common core" academic standards, which are supposed to push students across the country to higher-level learning.

The school labels that have graced banners on high-scoring schools since the 1990s will be gone after this year.  So will the promise of  "ABC bonuses"  for principals and teachers based on growth ratings. Those rewards, which provided up to $1,500 for high growth, disappeared from the state budget when the recession kicked in.

There's no money budgeted for a new statewide bonus program, said N.C. Race to the Top Director Adam Levinson, "and none in the foreseeable future."  The state is using Race to the Top money to provide bonuses for teachers with high effectiveness scores at 118 of the state's lowest performing schools, including some in CMS.

After 2012, high schools will be rated on graduation rates and performance on the national ACT college-readiness test, as well as pass rates on the new state exams.

The state is also working on "value-added" ratings of individual teachers,  based on three years of test data. Those individual ratings aren't designed for public release, officials say,  but two consecutive years of low scores could lead to dismissal.

"We're certainly not intending for that to be anything but part of the personnel file," Levinson said. "This is about helping teachers and principals grow and get better."

The change in testing also means that CMS and other N.C. districts will essentially push "reset" on gauging academic success and failure. Scores almost always fall when new tests are introduced, and North Carolina is likely to follow that pattern in 2013, says Angela Quick, the state's deputy chief academic officer. The good news for incoming Superintendent Heath Morrison and the school board:  A climb in subsequent years is almost as predictable.