Come out tonight!!!

It is your one chance to be heard, or at least seen!  Wear black to the board meeting tonight!  Speak up! Bring signs!  Ask questions!  Show up!  May the force be with you!

How d'ya like them apples?

This just in...
From Michael Pope, Connection Newspapers
In a drastic cut to Superintendent Morton Sherman’s proposed budget, Hartmann funded less than half of the requested money for capital needs. Although the School Board has yet to vote on a capital budget, the superintendent outlined a need for $372.6 million to meet the needs of growing enrollment by taking on five major new projects. Yet Hartmann included only $158.1 million in his proposal, setting the stage for a confrontation between the city government and the school system.


"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible."
— Voltaire


So for those of you who thought that one's credibility, or lack thereof, borne of sweetheart deals with consultants and spinmeisters had no bearing on our schools and students, think again.  There are real consequences to one's actions.  
-Voltaire

Thursday Night...

Parents, teachers, supporters,

At 7:30, this Thursday evening, the school board will meet to address the very issues (some of them, anyway) that this blog was designed to entertain and consider.  So many of you have written both passionately and sensibly about unreasonable, untested, unwanted and unrealistic initiatives that are being and will be imposed on teachers in our school system.  The nature of the programs and logic behind the changes being proposed falls far short of what we, as educators expect.  Meanwhile the number of these half-baked, hair brained schemes multiplies.  We, and our students, deserve better.  Your voice and your presence will make a difference.  Despite our generally passive and acquiescing nature, we teachers are not in any danger of recrimination when we speak out.  You cannot lose your job for being active in this effort.  

So...over the next 24 hours, submit questions that you would like the board and Sherman to address.  Sign up to speak at the board meeting, or get a friend/colleague to do it for you.  Write a letter/email to each of the school board members and the members of the city council.  A concerted effort, now, can restore sanity to our schools.  Inaction and capitulation will ensure more of the same insanity!

Speaking at Board Meetings

Any citizen may address the Board at any regular meeting during the designated period called "Communications and Addresses to the Board." Persons wishing to appear before the School Board are requested to contact the Clerk for placement on the agenda. A reasonable period of time, as determined by the School Board, will be allocated at each regular meeting for citizens to present matters of concern. Individuals will have three minutes and organizations will have five minutes.

Rosemary A. Webb
Clerk of the Board
Tel: 703-824-6614
Fax: 703-824-6611
rwebb@acps.k12.va.us

Sherman and Peabody...the cartoon!

The Time is Now!

Everyone who saw the extra thirty minutes without pay as a done deal (and there were quite a few of you), you must be feeling pretty prescient right about now.  alexandrianews.org has an extensive piece, making the point that Sherman will be exacting revenge for those of us who thought we lived in a democracy and expressed outrage that an extra half hour of crappy initiatives would be mandated for the coming year.
Now Sherman has admitted as much.  As Doc Martin once said, "The unctuous platitiudinizing eunuch" has spoken.  There is a poll on the alexandrianews.org website.  Not sure what good that'll do.

Better to plan on attending Thursday's School Board meeting (more on that tomorrow), think about working to the rule, and continuing to contact every news media outlet and elected official you can!

Voltaire

"I should like to know which is worse: to be ravished a hundred times by pirates, and have a buttock cut off, and run the gauntlet of the Bulgarians, and be flogged and hanged in an auto-da-fe, and be dissected, and have to row in a galley -- in short, to undergo all the miseries we have each of us suffered -- or simply to sit here and do nothing?' 
That is a hard question,' said Candide." 
— Voltaire

Be Careful, Be Very Careful!

"The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe." 
— Voltaire

Anyone interested in reading an appellate decision concerning contracts signed by Dr. Sherman during his tenure as superintendent of the South Orangetown Central School District can find the opinion here (http://www.counsel.nysed.gov/Decisions/volume39/d14274.htm).
The appeal, it should be noted was dismissed.  However, it was dismissed because, in part it lacked merit, was time barred, or not filed before the statutory period for filing had passed.  The trier of fact was forced to dismiss the claim, but still made clear his sentiments on the matter.  What is interesting is the language used by Commissioner Mills in his ruling.  In pertinent part, it reads:

There is no dispute that Dr. Sherman asked the district's attorney to incorporate the Foundation, and that Dr. Sherman and respondent Barbara Scheulen were members of the Foundation's initial board of directors. 

Although I am constrained to dismiss the Cimple contract claim as untimely, I am deeply disturbed that a contract in excess of one-half million dollars was signed without review by the district's attorney and apparently without formal authorization by the board, that the district contracted to pay a pre-performance installment of $195,000, approximately 35% of the entire contract, with no justification for such advance payment provided in the record, and that such fiscal practices were justified by the board on the basis of a purported need to put these services in place as soon as possible.

Although respondents assert that Dr. Sherman was authorized to "sign" the contract on the board's behalf, respondents provide no evidence of such authority or the means by which such authority was delegated to Dr. Sherman.

The Facts, Voltaire, Just the Facts....

"Dare to think for yourself." 
— Voltaire

As you read just some of the allegations made against the ACPS Superintendent's Office, and the evidence, think for yourselves, ask yourselves, "What do I believe?"

ALLEGATION: Longer Days. A longer day (thirty minutes, in fact) was implemented last year for a major portion of the school year (as a result of Snowmageddon)  and almost every school in the system still failed to make “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP).  

EVIDENCE:  The school division as a whole did not make AYP, again.  How about it, teachers...did your school make AYP?  Please comment.


ALLEGATION: Failed Standards. This is the second year that the school system has failed to meet its “Adequate Yearly Progress” (AYP) as mandated by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. 

EVIDENCE: The school division as a whole did not make AYP.  Did your school make AYP?


ALLEGATION: Data Manipulated. The two middle schools were split into five ‘schools' in order to ensure that the population in the subgroups will not be large enough to be included in AYP data.

EVIDENCE: The middle schools were divided into five schools.  It will have the effect alleged.  ACPS denies this was the rationale for the change.  What do you think?  Why the change in structure?


ALLEGATION: Costly Initiatives - Failed. Here are some of the initiatives put into place by the Superintendent since coming to ACPS: Columbia Teachers College Writer Project, Skillful Teacher program, Skillful Leader program, Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program, International Baccalaureate Program, Habits of the Mind, Mind Up Individualized Achievement Plan, Open AP Enrollment, Increased Algebra I Enrollment..
What do all of the above initiatives and many other initiatives within ACPS have in common? Not a single one of them has been repeatedly and continually assessed to determine their effectiveness on student achievement in Alexandria. So naturally, in the course of gathering good scientific data, Alexandria’s Superintendent wants to add yet another variable into the equation of public school student achievement. Acknowledging that “time is a variable,” the Superintendent wants to increase the school year and day before first assessing the effectiveness of the initiatives already in place in ACPS. This notion is one that even the youngest of Alexandria’s public school students would immediately recognize as foolish and scientifically flawed. There has to be at least a few controls to the Superintendent’s experiment. Time should be one of those controls. The school day should not increase nor should the length of the school year increase until the already implemented initiatives can be evaluated. Why the rush to make dramatic changes to the school schedule which will impact the amount and quality of family time, local business staffing and revenue, teacher compensation and workload, facility maintenance and operating costs, transportation and scheduling logistics, specialized services to students, extracurricular activities, school athletics, tutoring, sports camps, vacations, childcare, and many other important community concerns ignored by the Superintendent?

EVIDENCE: This is a partial list representing some of the initiatives that have been put in place.  We have seen little research  demonstrating their efficacy in ACPS.  To date, the teachers (affiliated with our blog site)  being asked to implement these initiatives have seen no routine method for assessing the effectiveness. 

ALLEGATION: Insufficient Data. Lacking was a draft calendar of the proposed 2011-2012 school year so parents, students, and teachers could plan accordingly. Lacking was a clear timeline outlining the increase in school days and hours from one academic year to the next (the community was led to believe the plan just called for two additional days and 30 extra minutes to be added). Lacking was an economic impact analysis showing how the increased time proposals would affect local businesses reliant on high school student employees. Lacking was a clear plan outlining how the extra time would be utilized within the schools. Lacking was a fiscal impact analysis of how the increase in hours and days would affect Alexandria’s cash-strapped budget. Lacking was information about how the increase in time would impact students’ intellectual, cognitive, neural, social, or moral development. Lacking was a legal analysis of the impact to federally mandated IEP services. Lacking was information as to the impact of the longer school days on Alexandria’s special education students (Alexandria has over 1,660 special education students). Lacking was a means of assessing the effectiveness of the proposals. Lacking was survey data from parents, students, and teachers (the community was led to believe that teachers were in favor of the added time). Lacking was research from a multitude of sources supporting either the lengthening of the school year proposal or the addition of 30 minutes to the school day proposal. Thursday night’s debacle was just another notch in the Backpedaling Superintendent’s belt of poor planning, haphazard implementation, and utter lack of collaboration. Over the past two and a half years Alexandria has watched the Superintendent backpedal or attempt to explain hastily laid out initiatives such as: T.C. Leadership New Middle School Model Jefferson Houston Public-Private Endeavor Math and Literacy Coaching Models Early Childhood Program Extended School Day Extended School Year.

EVIDENCE: Unlike years, and administrations past, there was no draft calendar presented.  No economic impact analysis nor outline of the nature described was/has been provided. Lacking was any legal study..ok, point well-taken.  Everything, as mentioned in this allegation as lacking was, in fact, lacking.