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.

An Open Forum...

Fellow Undergrounders...we are both dismayed and heartened, today.  Dismayed by the audacity of the administration to schedule two very important meetings at a time when so many of us are hard at work, attending to parent/teacher conferences and local teacher meetings, but heartened at the following statistics concerning this blog site:

Pageviews by Countries United States 7,940 Canada 56 United Kingdom 17 Oman 9 Germany 5 Mexico 2 Italy 1 Thailand 1

Around the city, the country and the globe, word of the oppressive conditions in ACPS has spread.  Later this weekend a critically important posting will be made.  Check back soon for further information.  Keep the faith, stay strong, remember that it's ultimately about the students.

In the meantime, here are a couple of posts on washingtonpost.com that detail our plight (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/educational-leadership/the-mess-in-arlington-schools.html)
...keep the fliers, the calls to your elected officials, your letters to the editors coming!

Point of Clarification...

To those of you who yell 'foul' (and there have been exactly five of you, including two PTA Presidents, two assistant principals and one anonymous griper) simply because we call ourselves The Underground...to those of you who decry any mention of Nazis and the attendant adjectives and metaphors, we say, "Get a life!" Do you boycott every network that aired the Seinfeld Soup Nazi episode?  We are the children and grandchildren of soldiers who fought the Nazis in World War II.  No, we do not equate what is happening in the classrooms of Alexandria with what happened in the ghettos of Europe.  At the same time, no one is forcing you to read our blog!
We contend that you miss the point and obscure the issues when you focus on our literary devices to the exclusion of all else.  Focus your energy on the very real use of propaganda by the administration.   Mind the censorship of a school email system that has no problem allowing emails that pitch pharmaceuticals, sexual enhancement devices and fly by night diploma mills, but freaks out at the mere mention of a superintendent who cuts salaries, benefits, and morale even as he fills his own coffers and those of his friends.
W-2's were distributed to teachers this past week.  Many of us saw a reduction in our salary over last year's even as millions were wasted in ACPS.  In his video presentation, Sherman claimed to be poor with numbers and used his own smarmy, simplistic method to explain how well off we'd all be under his leadership.  He has used precious resources to wine and dine the already well-to-do (see Paige Cunningham's three-part series).
True, he is not Adolph Hitler.  But is that the standard that we want for the superintendent's position??? What a resume builder...Choose Me!  I'm not as bad as Hitler!


We have heard from hundreds of you who are prepared to make your opinions known.  The time is coming...the power of the written and spoken word is strong.  It is up to you, in the face of censorship to spread the word, continue to call the school board and city council.  Keep those leaflets and letters to the editor coming.  We will be heard.

District A

• Mimi Carter
• Sheryl Gorsuch (Vice Chairman)
• Helen Morris

District B

• Yvonne A. Folkerts (Chairman)
• Arthur E. Peabody Jr.
• Marc Williams

District C

• Ronnie Campbell
• Blanche D. Maness
• Charles H. Wilson

Dr. Morton Sherman Superintendent Tel: 703-824-6610 Fax: 703-824-6699 superintendent@acps.k12.va.us

Rosemary A. Webb Clerk of the Board Tel: 703-824-6614 Fax: 703-824-6611 rwebb@acps.k12.va.us To reach the Mayor and Members of City Council by phone, call 703.746.4500

Who is the Underground??

How often, in your life, are you a part of something profound...a movement bigger than you and, at the same time, not about you?  How often are you called to do what's right, not because it is convenient, but because you have the responsibility to stand up for a worthwhile cause.  Without resorting to hyperbole, the ACPS Underground is a movement in its nascent stages, modeling itself after the many underground or resistance organizations opposing the oppressive regimes throughout the world. Ahhh, what the heck...let the hyperbole flow! (My apologies to a great writer, Terese Pencak Schwartz, author of Irek from the Underground.) Wearing either stolen ACPS name tags or just plain ugly suits, these homemade soldiers were the ACPS Underground -- the resistance fighters of Sherman-occupied Alexandria...  Really, though, while the risks are far less, the cause is just.  We members of the underground seek no reward other than our common goal--to rid the school system of greed and pecuniary/monetary driven policies--to teach our children with a compassion and common sense approach that can only be fueled by teacher driven decisions, to elect an independent-minded school board and to restore teacher morale.  Fathers, grandfathers and young boys fought side by side with only red and white armbands for identification. They came together to defend, as best as they could, their beloved homeland. They concealed their precious cache in cemeteries and hospital grounds. The city schools are where our teachers work, by day, most fearing to express their disdain for an administration that values them not at all.  After school we emerge and rendezvous with fellow underground members.  We meet with parents and citizens of Alexandria.  We use the internet as our conduit for information.  We organize at bars and each others' homes.  And we meet at bars. After school we gather in classrooms, careful to write our thoughts on dry erase boards, lest someone be listening over the intercom system.  Sometimes we meet at bars. The city sewers became their staging area, their Headquarters and their passage ways. The younger ones -- teenagers worked as liaisons, running through the sewers smuggling supplies and passing cryptic messages and orders. We are everywhere.  We are ever-increasing in number.  More than 4,000 page reads, here, yesterday alone.  We are multiple bloggers and blog sites.  We are TRT's and members of the ACPS finance department.  We have the support of at least two principals.   And you are the underground...every time that you refuse to teach to a test, every time you refuse to use Sherman's meaningless vernacular, every time you rip down a Habits of Mind poster or toss out a Lucy Calkins writing series, every time that you refuse to engage in teaching practices that do nothing to further your students' progress, every time that you and a colleague conspire to do what is right...YOU ARE A MEMBER OF THE UNDERGROUND! http://youtu.be/fFX6-xhet7U Through the wet stinking sewers they moved like rats in sewage that was sometimes chest high. "We would have to dismantle our weapons," says Borowski, "and carry them along with our ammunition over our heads so they would not get wet." But we will not remain hidden and secretive forever.  A critical mass is building.  Our clandestine operation swells.  Soon the sewer rats will emerge from beneath 2000 North Beauregard Street to be heard! Update-We are now blocked from ACPS email! You are so afraid of our teachers knowing the truth, Mort!  Shame on you...you trade in misinformation, all the while keeping the truth from our employees.  If you have nothing to fear, open up the server and let our message be heard!

Important Information...Our blog is about to be blocked!

We have learned from an inside source (see comments to Disclaimer) that ACPS will soon block this blog. A shame that the first amendment stops at ACPS Administration's doors.  We understand that not all of you want to receive emails related to this site...delete them.  As teachers, we receive solicitations for all sorts of unwanted products and services in our email.  Heck, most of the 'true ACPS' mailings are unwanted.  Just delete any invitations to view acpsunderground.blogspot.com  We've only received two complaints, to date.  At the same time, we received more than 2,000 page reads today, alone, and we are read in Canada, Mexico, Italy and the UK!  We urge you to check the site frequently, to Google us at acps underground...and to comment with regularity.

Voltaire
"Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies." 
(Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan.)" 
— Voltaire

Disclaimer

The bloggers of ACPS Underground wish to make it clear that, while this blog is an amalgamation of teacher opinions, one of our colleagues with the name of Voltaire has played no role in the development, writing or publishing of the material. We understand that ACPS has begun blocking Voltaire related email. We apologize to our fellow teacher for any hardship we may have inadvertently caused. Voltaire was the pen name of Francois-Marie Arouet, a French writer known for his great wit and support for reforms of oppressive institutions.