Regular School Board Meeting for June 14^th, 2011

In honor of Flag Day, Board Member Pat Deutschman gave a wonderful presentation about the history of Flag Day using  Superintendent Himmel’s flag collection that was displayed  around the board room. This collection included one sewn years ago by Mrs. Deutschman’s Cub Scout Troop.  Ms. Deutschman then had new Eagle Scout Derek Mangelsen and his scout brothers lead out in the national anthem.

The board received an update on the Lecanto cafeteria project, learning about its  color selections and serving area décor.  The cafeteria is scheduled  for completion on or about the middle of August 2011.

At the meeting we  had many wonderful presentations again this month.  (This is always my favorite part of the board meetings.)  Derek Mangelsen was honored for achieving the rank of Eagle Scout.  Derek’s Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project was a garden project at Rock Crusher Elementary school which is also Derek’s former elementary school.  Gail Grimm, Director of Professional Development & Community Services, recognized four aspiring teachers with the Aspiring Teacher Scholarships.  This program provides $ 1,000 scholarships for non-instructional personnel in Cirrus County public schools who are pursuing a degree in education.  This year’s recipients were Rachel Miller of Renaissance Center, Dawn Diaz of Citrus Springs Elementary, April Head of Rock Crusher Elementary and Marsha Wallace with the District Service Office.  Amy Mangan, Community Relations Officer with Progress Energy presented the Progress Energy K-12 Grant in the amount of $25,000.00 to the Citrus County Education Foundation.  Lastly, the Board recognized the Elementary Tropicana Speech winners and listened to their speeches.

Dr. Michael Geddes, Director of Technology and Information Services, provided an update on the computer rollout at our schools and throughout the district.  Dr. Geddes shared that his department and Dell have refreshed 7,002 new computers. Those that weren’t refreshed were traded out for newer computers.  What this means  for our students and staff is that  we now have the best of all systems available. In most cases this means that staff and students will be using Windows 7 and Office 2010.

Ken Blocker, Executive Director of Business Services, (and recently promoted Assist Superintendent of Business Services) provided budget updates and answered board questions regarding the current district budget.  The board  approved nineteen “TERM” (for 2011-2012 school year only) Supplemental Academic Instruction (SAI) Teacher Aides,  with one for each elementary, middle, and high school and Renaissance Center.  The board approved one Social Worker “TERM” (for 2011-2012 school year only) for the Renaissance Center.  This person I believe was and is important to the continual improvement of the programs at the Renaissance Center.  Lastly, the board approved  eighteen “TERM” (for 2011-2012 school year only) Teacher Aides for the elementary, middle and high schools.

This was also a bit of a bittersweet board meeting as it was Assistant Superintendent Mary Curry’s last board meeting.  Ms. Curry is retiring and her last day in June 27^th.  Ms. Curry has been critical to our school district’s success over the last many years.  My own family has directly benefited from Ms. Curry’s talents as Ms. Curry was the founding principal at Citrus Springs Middle School where my wife teaches and where  my son is a student.  Ms. Curry’s positive impact on that school is still evident today.  Many former and current principals credit Ms. Curry for CSMS’s successes then and now.  Ms. Curry will be nearly impossible to ever fully replace and we are a better district because of her love for students and their learning.

Our next meeting is a School Board Workshop on Tuesday, June 28 at 9:00am.

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Florida School Board Assoc. Spring Conference 2011

Thursday and Friday I attended the FSBA.  I was excited to attend workshops and continue my training as a certified School Board member. I was very excited to listen to keynote speaker Dr. Diane Ravitch, Research Professor of Education& Historian of Education, New York University. On Friday morning the speaker was Vicki Phillips from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Last and perhaps most importantly for the conference was the Legislative Review from the FSBA’s presenters.

Dr. Diane Ravitch was appointed to public office by both Presidents of the United States George H. W. Bush and his successor Bill Clinton. Ravitch was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education. Secretary of Education Richard Riley appointed her to serve as a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which supervises the National Assessment of Educational Progress; she was a member of NAGB from 1997 to 2004.  She is the author of a book I highly recommend, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (New York: Basic Books, 2010). While she originally supported No Child Left Behind and charter schools, Ravitch later became “disillusioned,” and wrote, “I no longer believe that either approach will produce the quantum improvement in American education that we all hope for.” In the major national evaluation, 17% of charters got higher scores, 46% were no different, and 37% were significantly worse than public schools, she said. High-stakes testing, “utopian” goals, “draconian” penalties, school closings, privatization, and charter schools didn’t work, she concluded. “The best predictor of low academic performance is poverty—not bad teachers.”  During the Q&A session when asked about ‘teacher merit pay’, she responded, “The subject never dies, and NEVER WORKS!”. Dr. Ravitch shared extensive data that shows that charter schools who are playing a big part in siphoning public school funds to their schools are not performing as well as public schools.  She shared  that the propaganda movie, “Waiting for Superman” is  misleading;  one of the schools featured in the movie has a less than 30% high school graduation rate (from middle school through graduation). Dr. Ravitch spoke at great lengths of Finland’s approach to education and public schools.  Normally I don’t agree with the approach of comparing the USA public school system to other countries.  Why? Because we are not a country that “skims/creams” only some students for higher education.  We believe (rightly so) that all students should have the opportunity to freely choose their future.  We also educate all students, not just a select group, and we test and publish all of our students’ scores.  This is not generally what other countries compared to the USA do.  But Finland is the exception.

One of the training sessions I attended was “Empowering Effective Teachers” presented by Stephanie Woodford, Director of Evaluation and Compensation for Hillsborough County Public Schools.  Hillsborough won a large Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant.  This grant involved developing an overhauled teacher evaluation program which included AP merit pay system.  This system includes a model of evaluating teachers with 30% based on peer teachers reviews, 30% on administrative/supervisor reviews and 40% on student performance data.  The program is impressive in how they are improving teaching strategies and collaboration but it is important to point out that Hillsborough’s program is exempt from the new “Student Success Act” [SSA] (aka: SB 736).  SSA requires that 50% of a teacher’s evaluation and pay be based on student performance.  Furthermore, it is clear that the system that Hillsborough has developed is costly.  SSA provided no additional funds to implement the program and in fact has cut funding for education for next year for Citrus County by near 8% or $11,000,000 less for next school year.

Vicki Phillips is the Director of Education and College Readiness for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Her presentation  included encouraging schools to use more emerging technologies and asking  schools to stop asking students to “power down technology to learn” and rather ” have students power up!”.  I have concerns with the Foundation’s approach to “fixing” the student learning problems in our country because a large part of the Foundation approach includes more charter and virtual charter schools which I believe is not in the best interest of our students, communities and country.

The conference ended with a Legislative Review.  Florida Senator Bill Montford, a former teacher, principal, superintendent and champion for public school education in our great state, began the session sharing about how challenging it was from his perspective.  One presenter after another spoke about how rough a session this was and how different this session was.  SB736 (“Student Success Act”) was talked about at great lengths but many critical questions still exist about how to implement it.  Budget reductions in education and increased funding  to charter schools, along with  broader laws to enable charter schools to open was another concerning  issue that was addressed.  The next legislative session begins early next year on January 10th, 2012.

While at this conference it was at times difficult to not be angry with what the legislators have left us with. They have inappropriately and incorrectly targeted public education and public school teachers as bad and ineffective.  I do not and will not accept that belief about our Citrus County schools.

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“I had the honor of being at Dr. Ravitch’s speech this week at the FSBA.  She was amazing!” ~Thomas

Educator and author Diane Ravitch battles the system she helped to build

By Tom Marshall, Times Staff Writer, In Print: Thursday, June 9, 2011

Diane Ravitch has never been one to mince words.

Twenty years ago, she was an outspoken advocate for more standardized testing, more accountability, less fluff in the classroom. As an assistant secretary of education under President George H.W. Bush, she helped launch the back-to-basics movement.

These days her language is still fiery. But Ravitch, a research professor at New York University, now aims her ire at a different target: all those ideas she used to champion.

“Particularly in Florida, it’s a disaster,” she said during a visit Wednesday with the St. Petersburg Times editorial board. “What we are doing is killing creativity, originality, divergent thinking. All the things we need in the 21st century are what we’re squeezing out of a generation of children.”

In a speech today at the Florida School Boards Association annual meeting in Tampa, Ravitch plans to continue her full-throated campaign to “save public education” from its obsession with testing.

“This is institutionalized fraud,” she said, referring to the phenomenon of ever-rising scores. “Because we are graduating just as many kids who can’t read as we did 10 years ago.”

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE OF STORY…

CLICK HERE TO READ STORY: A weekend interview with Diane Ravitch on teachers, testing and Florida’s progress

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