Greeley CO District 6 Board's Best Chance at Real Change

It has been a while my friends. With twenty-six thousand reads recorded I always feel an obligation to continue to check up on the well-being of education in Greeley Colorado. Rarely however am I moved to write a new post but I appreciate your emails and calls nonetheless. These are important in filling in the details and movement in District 6.

I agree there have been some good changes made over the years and this must be acknowledged. Especially in the Board of Directors changes have been significant. Plus certainly the decision to not renew Lang's contract is the highlight of all that's good in education for the town of Greeley. The chance for a superbly highly qualified and competent Superintendent with the ability to construct a well-honed team lurks on the horizon. I hope the search is extensive and the interview process inclusive of a high regard for education rather than the political dogma and ideology which has gutted the possibilities of District 6 for so long.

However some disturbing news has reached me and raises some new concerns (the reason for this posts obviously) on this topic. As such I am urging citizens of Greeley to be vigilant on the process of hiring Ms. Lang's replacement. It means everything to your child's future that this process be fair, impartial, and objective--with a formal professionalism.

The selection of Mr. Eads to Interim Director is very troubling. As I blogged on some years past, http://greeleyville.blogspot.com/2010/01/financial-crisis-or-house-cleaning-for.html, for example or here http://greeleyville.blogspot.com/2009/10/part-iii-greeley-school-district-six.html as a second example; As an Interim Director with Mr. Eads tendency towards nepotism and favoritism, and I'll argue manipulation of the leadership of the Board of District 6 through the art of "Credentials over Substance", could lead to a very shaky hiring process when combined with other professional debris Ms. Lang left behind. That spells out an even bleaker future for District 6. It is time for the Board to be strong and do their own homework independently.

Emails and conversations have reached me from concerned parents who have brought some dubious actions into light--citing that those with long ties to District 6 are already feeling the tip of the sword Eads is presumed to have been given to wield. It is not a strong sign of Democratic leadership for the leader who climbs into the throne seat to first thing shed the school district of any person worthy of challenging, logically and reasonably, some of the poor positions and decisions that lurk in the District 6 history. In fact it is the sign of desperation to purge those who disagree or challenge one's authority.

To be fair, a strong and well-reasoned human resources executive, along with an objective Board of Directors should check this power surge. Sadly though these historical nepotistic trends in District 6 are not one of the positive changes the Board has driven. The wagons instead, have been circled, allowing those with questionable credentials to pick and choose their friends with even more questionable credentials and place them in high value jobs. An audit on these selective systems and managers would indeed I believe uncover a murky history or clear it once and for all.

Alas, for now, I will hold out that this newer Board will act fairly and objectively, ensuring that their Interim Director has no conflict of interest in selecting Ms. Lang's long term replacement or influencing the people who will choose that person. A truly professional process must be given the chance to thrive. While the local paper will remain a rubber stamp for the inappropriate, and some will argue, corrupt democratic shenanigans, there are twenty-six thousand others watching and reading as a force for doing what is it right--and above question. Democratic process in public institutions after all is a part of the whole job and the check and balance the public relies upon to curtail abuses of power.

I'll be one of those watching this with interest--keep those documents flowing; I'm reading with great concern; I still have family in D6 schools. :)

Should We Concentrate On Building Better Teachers in Greeley Colorado?

Greeley-Evans School District 6 is my idea of a good example. It is a "hiring" problem. But that's not all. The article below on Building Better Teachers shared from the New York Times talks about the problem in common terms we can all understand. Although that isn't the only reason it is a great article. The article looks at the complexity of the problem of measurement and attaching pay to that measurement. Very long but a worthy read for the profession, for parents, and for voters. It focuses the debate on change in a reasonable and identified target area.

I am thinking about the content a lot. For me a hiring problem, like the one I have described underlying Greeley District 6's problems (these are performance problems prior to the fall back in State and Local Taxes), is a management problem. To say that hiring a good Human Resources Director is crucial kind of undermines our common dislike of such people. And most people I know are just happy to have a warm personality in the job. But this job is so very important to a large organization and developing a productive strategy and atmosphere we should get beyond the stereotypes. I've had to do this job and I've got to say there is a good reason the personality types tend to be cool and distant. It also clarified to me why Unions are a good thing to have around as a check and balance. It is not a fun job when all the human drama in an organization gets dumped on your lap and, personally, I didn't find many rewards in it except I was forced to learn an abundant amount of regulations which come in handy. Along with the various methods large organizations use to shed nonperforming employees, measure performance, and how to build a rubric for, and assess, candidates for new positions. Oh, and I know how to read 'ERISA' language and understand the 401k statements before I went to business school. That helped in a course or two.

There are three million teachers in the United States. Unless the merit pay (or similar) idea is used I don't see how education expects to only attract the cream of the crop. As I have said earlier in this blog--some of your teachers are bound to be average. In fact the bulk are likely to fall under the curve.

I'm not convinced either that really low performing districts shouldn't start with the management and the semi-skilled ideologues running the show. Train the human resources department at least. The Director can help train the Boards.

I get the measurement idea but the most effective teachers have something beyond mechanized skills in their pocket. They have spontaneous innovation and a vast breadth of learned material to draw upon. This could be addressed by better education of teachers. I stayed in a fifth and sixth year, before it was "cool", to do so in order to take the courses they didn't make the teachers take. I took the advanced math, genetics, chemistry (the professor thought I was nuts enrolling in bonehead course when I didn't have to), and later pursued upper level economic courses.

Still I remember clearly one of the questions on the teaching credential test. It isn't much of a math test certainly. "If Sue bought a car in 1973 and Bob purchased a car in 1978, how much older would Sue's car be than Bob's in 1980?"

But I digress. On to the article. I'll post a couple paragraphs below from the beginning. And spread it around please.

"But when it came to actual teaching, the daily task of getting students to learn, the school floundered. Students disobeyed teachers’ instructions, and class discussions veered away from the lesson plans. In one class Lemov observed, the teacher spent several minutes debating a student about why he didn’t have a pencil. Another divided her students into two groups to practice multiplication together, only to watch them turn to the more interesting work of chatting. A single quiet student soldiered on with the problems. As Lemov drove from Syracuse back to his home in Albany, he tried to figure out what he could do to help. He knew how to advise schools to adopt a better curriculum or raise standards or develop better communication channels between teachers and principals. But he realized that he had no clue how to advise schools about their main event: how to teach.

Around the country, education researchers were beginning to address similar questions. The testing mandates in No Child Left Behind had generated a sea of data, and researchers were now able to parse student achievement in ways they never had before. A new generation of economists devised statistical methods to measure the “value added” to a student’s performance by almost every factor imaginable: class size versus per-pupil funding versus curriculum. When researchers ran the numbers in dozens of different studies, every factor under a school’s control produced just a tiny impact, except for one: which teacher the student had been assigned to. Some teachers could regularly lift their students’ test scores above the average for children of the same race, class and ability level. Others’ students left with below-average results year after year. William Sanders, a statistician studying Tennessee teachers with a colleague, found that a student with a weak teacher for three straight years would score, on average, 50 percentile points behind a similar student with a strong teacher for those years. Teachers working in the same building, teaching the same grade, produced very different outcomes. And the gaps were huge. Eric Hanushek, a Stanford economist, found that while the top 5 percent of teachers were able to impart a year and a half’s worth of learning to students in one school year, as judged by standardized tests, the weakest 5 percent advanced their students only half a year of material each year."

Greeley's Superintendent Ranelle Lang Interviews for Lincoln Schools Job

Ranelle Lang, Superintendent of Greeley-Evans School District 6 apparently had an interview this last Thursday for a new job in her native Nebraska. A couple of local papers have published some of her comments. I've posted a piece below and also provided the link to the entire article.

I've also heard back from the State on the comingling of Special Education funds. D6 is consolidating its Special Education programs. Special Education funds are often "restricted" funds and must be spent only to meet the specific needs given. Indeed both State and Federal funds must be spent on the intended purposes but they only cover 2/3 of the total expense. Local funds cover the remaining 1/3. Comingling funds then with general funds, to the extent of my knowledge, would likely then be difficult to trace and probably acceptable up to some degree such as funding the facilities. If anyone has anything additional on the topic, please feel free to call or post.

Here is the article on Ranelle Lang from Nebraska's Journal Star. Here is a second link to an earlier piece, looks like a public relations piece, on Lang interviewing in Nebraska.

"On recruiting a diverse staff

Lang said the Greeley district, which is more than 50 percent Hispanic, has worked hard to recruit a diverse staff. She's hired two principals whose native language is not English.

And, she said, the district has started a leadership group for non-Anglo teachers and those who speak two languages.

On creating minority partnerships

Lang said she meets regularly with members of the Hispanic community in Greeley, and the district has created alternative programs to work with a wide variety of students. The district also has opened a welcome center where families can go to get all their children enrolled in school.

"It's really important that every single student is welcome and accepted and they feel like school is a place for them."'

Greeley Colorado District 6 School Superintendent: Up to $16 Million in Cuts

Ranelle Lang, Superintendent of Greeley Colorado District 6 School system, has proposed that all department heads produce multiple budget scenarios preparing for cuts of anywhere between eight, ten, to twelve percent or more according to a letter distributed by email (so much for Ms. Lang's personal touch and consideration) to District 6 employees.

Strength is what we need locally over the next several months and even years. We have significant challenges. The State of Colorado, reeling from the recession, must severely reduce the amount of money for K-12 education. These cuts will result in us having to pare $9 million to $16 million from our budget for the 2010-11 school year.

Have those department heads been given any guidance on what to trim? Is the least favorite employee to go? Do they not see the need for this program or that? Out it goes. Who is Captain of this ship anyhow? Where is the strategic planning for the budget cuts? Is the public going to be allowed to determine cuts? "Let's lose educating all those poor and brown people because they are, well, poor, and brown." What a recipe for disaster.

What Ms. Lang doesn't mention is any culpability on District 6's administrative watch. Relying on the fact that people assume all school districts are facing cuts is not quite the same as illustrating the depth of the problem and the history of the problem in D6 schools. Where are the reserves Ms. Lang? In economic good times reserves are created to be spent to soften the blows in economic downturns. Will you be voluntarily taking a twenty percent pay reduction for your own part? Will Mr. Eads, the custodial worker turned manager of operations turned administrative mouthpiece, be turning over his spacious and elegant official digs to save facility costs? Will the administrative offices be closed and the paper-pushers be given a seat in the back of an overcrowded classroom? Will the expansive payroll department be moved to a smaller, less costly, outside facility?

My beef isn't that Colorado is facing a downturn, although Ms. Lang would be well advised to understand the nature and trends in the recession before writing about it, it is that not once, in this letter or any other pseudo communication does the primary mission of the District rule the pages. All signs point to the fact that the Board and Administration in place do not have the skills to be managing a sinking ship. A fully floating ship might be fine under their direction but the 'Shari Lewis Lamb-Chop approach' to fixing this situation is really hard to stomach.

Education. It is about education. Education is the goal here folks. Money is the tool to achieve the goal but the goal must still be met.

Will jobs be lost and will that impact the surrounding economy? Of course it will. It doesn't take a college degree to figure that out. But it does take some intellect, some integrity, and a whole lot of spine to ensure that the cuts made impact the outcome of the educational integrity of the school district in the least intrusive way. And it takes even more character than that to admit that D6 has created, with poor management choices, a much bigger problem than any other school district faces. The voters of Greeley shouldn't escape being chastised either.

This is what Ms. Lang isn't discussing--educational outcomes. She is discussing people. She is discussing shared sacrifice between the adults and she is discussing ways for the community to help balance the checkbook. She isn't discussing educational impacts. She isn't discussing the fact that each student in this district is going to pay a price much bigger over time than any adult will be likely to pay.

District 6 already performs dismally. What is 20% less efficient than dismal?

Ms. Lang needs to be challenged to prove she is worth the money paid. Stand up to the crisis. Demand that educational value be delivered. Hold classes on the field if needed. Go camp on the doorstep of the legislators. Send the kids in who will be paying the price of these cuts for years if not decades. Let them march on Denver. Make them visible so they too can be counted.

Extend the school district into red tape and then let the State explain why it demands the board fire you when you are doing your job of educating the public--and defend yourself with that fact. Is the State really going to subsidize those oil & energy company interests when it has education bills to pay? It is extreme but then again so is the situation and the voters of Greeley just don't get it. They are looking at the checkbook online rather than the objective. They are mad because the checkbook doesn't balance!

Who cares about educational quality?

Meanwhile, behind the curtains, the job is simply not being done--seeing to the education of the youth in this district even when the tools to do the job are not being provided. Get a backbone and make EDUCATION the priority. Do something.

Do anything besides disappear from view and write comfort letters while the executioner runs the guillotine 24/7. Superintendent is a leadership position. The job is to see to the education of the youth and to communicate needs to the community in a way that is clear, concise, and delivers an accurate assessment of needs and brings home the bacon. The community and the State's job is to fund the means to make it happen. The Board's job is to see Superintendents have the tools to do their own job. Put the consequences where they belong on these groups and not upon the backs of the very students without resources in the first place to fight the political battles.

We can fund the military complex but not education? We can fund prisons but not education? We can fund Wal-Mart but not education? What is wrong with this picture? Leaders need to point to the failings of the system not be a jockey on the horse that dissembles the education system for the underclasses. And sometimes it takes a whole lot of courage to stand up and point to the real priorities.

And, by the way, it would also be nice if Ms. Lang attended to the job in person instead of distant, touchy-feeling letters of heart felt consideration as heads of your organization are about to cut off other heads with the axe. Be real. Look the people in the eye and tell them that education is the most important thing to provide when cuts come calling. Look them in the eye and tell them that you truly feel for them while you spend your own corporate salary and Mr. Eads gives operational management suggestions for cuts that will effectively slaughter what remains of the quality of education in this district.

"I am also certain about this: Together we will figure this out. We have no choice given the cards we have been dealt."

Really? From behind a desk you are going to develop camaraderie with those who will suffer? Have you talked to the kids that are about to be thrown into larger class sizes, lose their favorite teachers, or will be turned away by their college of choice because they need remedial coursework just to be accepted? Have you commiserated with those teachers who had a contract forced down their throats or did you send Mr. Eads to do the dirty work? Go to the Greeley Education Association meetings and face the music like a professional should and bring Mr. Eads.

Okay, I'm done with this rant. You asked for my input Ms. Lang and I have given it. In the same cold impersonal way you've delivered your messages. In writing.

The Guillotine is Rolled Out For Greeley Schools District 6

Greeley's District 6 Administration and Board are in the process of organizing spring cleaning. Schools are being scheduled to be shut. Cameron will see its head roll. Jefferson is being merged. Just what that means I am not certain. It appears to mean that all the alternative students and "problems" will be stuffed into one school. Cuts are coming, to the best of my knowledge, to every area except the top run of administrators and to the middle-class white schools like Christa McAuliffe Elementary.

The kids who need the most attention, require specialized help, are lower performers in general, some from homes with fewer resources--rounded up and stuffed into one facility. What could go wrong? The newest teachers in, with the freshest skill set, may be the first out.

In the meantime it isn't clear how extensive operational cuts will be. The Operations Manager has been busy making recommendations and it appears the board is following his lead regardless of the impact on the quality of learning. Still no public appearance by Ms. Lang and her $200 thousand plus a year income.

Teachers have, or were, wearing black shirts to represent the day the Board enforced a contract upon them.

The local teachers union appears to be either overwhelmed or under performing. The mainstream media isn't covering it from a teacher's angle. The concept that the Union has been broken by the Board certainly is real from my own perspective. The public isn't likely to come to the side of the teachers when they have just dumped the plea for more public funds down the drain. And Greeley citizens as a whole do not seem willing to put pressure on the administration to make cuts across the board rather than to focus on some demographics that are not popular.

In general, it is pretty clear that the youth of Greeley are not a priority for the taxpayers. And, in my opinion, it is pretty clear that the Board, Ms. Lang, and Mr. Eads are using the opportunity to clean house. Heads on the chopping block will be the newly hired, political enemies, and any job where a highly skilled person is drawing a realistic salary and can be replaced by a common "Joe".

Of course the State is demanding cuts and probably demanding that a plan be developed and submitted to the State. Mr. Ritter, a pseudo-Democrat, is focused on the Republican agenda for the State budget even though he has decided not to be elected. We can only hope that someone will be reviewing this plan that has the guts to stand up for what is best for the education of the students.

You don't have to be a genius to figure out that if the State removes a million dollars or more from the local budget that it would serve to take out jobs which reduce incoming taxes even further which grows the problem instead of helping resolution. In the meantime while expenditures are being reduced the number of students requiring an education doesn't change. They are all still there at the doors waiting for their opportunity to enter the adult world workforce with a half-baked education and compete with other communities for real wage paying jobs.

All in all it is depressing. The future of Greeley has just been flushed down the toilet and the public doesn't seem too distressed or too informed. I think it is time to call in the State. It is time for parents to go sit outside the Governor's door. It is time to take the students along too and show them the political process and how it works when the government doesn't pay attention to the needs of the future and/or is willing to force certain segments of the population, without as much political power, to bare the brunt of poor ideology, planning, and the cuts that are the natural consequence thereof. The Greeley District 6 Administration and Board is obviously not up to the task, overwhelmed, and willing to make cuts not in the best interest of education but in the best interests of what an Operations Manager recommends. The top level administrator isn't willing to face the public or the bulk of the district's employees. The cuts have already been politicized and are likely to continue in that direction.

Just where is Ms. Lang the District Superintendent? Doesn't the public deserve to meet her face to face and have her explain her reasoning and position. After all Ms. Lang, so it seems, will be retaining her job and her contract. Shouldn't Ms. Lang have to look the teachers, staff, and operations people in the face and explain to them why they have been selected to have their careers pulled out from under them? Ms. Lang should earn those big bucks and take on the big responsibilities--regardless of how hard they may be.

The one advantage, in all this mess, possible is that the people, to the best of my knowledge, who have been hired in the past for low wages based on ideology without the appropriate skills for the job, advanced on the basis of politics rather than educational best interests, could be forced to leave. The "good-old-boy network" could be dissembled in mass firings and rehirings only, unfortunately, the "good-old-boys" are doing the firing and rehiring.

Hence the call for the State to step in.

So the picture I paint here isn't pretty. The subject isn't getting the media and public coverage it deserves. The local fish-wrap is just an extended arm of the public relations sector of the District. Of course to be fair there isn't a good solution to be had and times are tough. But the cuts and changes are being driven less by the best interests of education than by political interests and naive extremist chopping block-watch-the-heads-roll maneuvering. That, or it is being driven by sheer panic and a lack of consensus on what to do. These administrators are over their heads and don't have the skills to deal with the situation in a fair and objective way. Special hires need to be made who have the background skills and objectivity for educational purposes.

Hence the call for the State to step in, again.

Which all leads me back to the supposition, how many times can I say it, it is time for the State to come in and take over the management of Greeley Colorado's infamous District 6. For the sake of the students, the classes in Greeley without political power, the future of Greeley itself, and also for the sake of the taxpayers. Somebody needs to do the real job, the whole job, and do it with the least politics and the maximum professionalism.

And where is Ms. Lang?

Negotiations: Greeley Colorado District 6 Teachers Get Thrown Under the Bus

Greeley Colorado District 6 school teachers got a parochial school lesson last evening from the District School Board when the Board basically decided on a package deal for the teachers. Teachers are howling and the Union is threatening action. It remains to be seen what can or can't be done. While it would be reasonable during an economic downturn to curtail cost of living increases it is a hard pill to swallow when federal stimulus funds are coming into the district and a recovery is well underway except in job creation. Top that off with the fact that the Consumer Price Index shows that what $1.00 bought in 2007 now costs $1.04 or a $50,000 salary in 2007 is worth 2,080.27 less than it was in 2007.

Of course the District is facing the same problem. It is going to have to spend $1.04 for every $1.00 spent previously and with property values sinking, the Tabor Act limiting tax increases not yet through the court system, and 3A swinging in the wind, I'd be sweating bullets too if I were on that School Board. Except that I suspect the State automatically adjusts the payments to the local schools for increases and, as I said previously, the state and local schools are eligible for stimulus funding. I've posted a couple of paragraphs on the federal money below taken from the Colorado Department of Education website. There are a few opportunities too, if I am reading the language on this page correctly, that District 6 should be applying for that could help with building attractive pay packages for high quality teachers and administrators in the future. Hope someone is on that and making it happen.

Overview

Congress designed the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund to prevent reductions in critical education and other services.

The Recovery Act allocates the following:

1. A one-time appropriation of $53.6 billion for the overall State Fiscal Stabilization Fund
2. $39.7 billion in Education State Grants for states to use first in restoring state support of primary, secondary, and higher education through 2011 to the greater of 2008 or 2009 levels, and $8.8 billion in Government Services Grants to support any public safety or other government services, including education
3. At least $4.35 billion to fund Race to the Top State Grants, which includes $350 million in Standards and Assessments Grants
4. Up to $650 million in competitive grants to LEAs or nonprofit organizations under the Investing in Innovation Fund

Funding

Colorado is expected to receive $760,242,539 in Recovery Act funding for its State Fiscal Stabilization Fund state allocation, which includes $621.9 million for its Education State Grant and $138.3 million for its Government Services Grant.

I'll write more on the negotiation topic when I get more information. I haven't posted too much on the topic as it is because to be honest it is difficult to tell facts from fiction and media hype. I've been in the middle of mediation before and it is not a whole lot of fun to have the media perpetuating panic points. For example, a mild one, I heard last week that the Board were secretly putting new contracts in front of some select teachers and telling them they should sign them and that the new contracts would allow the teachers to be fired at will once signed.

I sent that worried teacher back to dig for more details because it just sounded more than a little implausible that those details were correct. Every one is worried about the state of education in Greeley District 6. That much is obviously the truth.

Part II: Greeley School District Latino Levy Blues

My "tour guides" tell me it is hopeless. Greeley Colorado has acted conservatively since the first domesticated cow dropped onto the farmer's fields decades ago. Greeley's local systems will remain bound financially and ideologically by voters dedicated to shredding government involvement in just about anything. The current debate over the Greeley District 6 Mill Levy Override is just another notch on the conservative belt.

My response to this mindset is that I don't want to deal with labels. What creates a reasonable and sensible outcome for the citizens of Greeley still makes sense whatever lick-it-and-stick-it label one wishes to categorize it under.

If private industry could handle effective education without the profit interest driving every decision I'd be fine with that. If private industry could create an effective transportation system, that could service everyone at an affordable price, I'd be fine with that too. If the essence of community needs like energy, health care, and other minimalistic survival needs could be handled in the same way I'd agree with that too.

But private industry doesn't work well in the delivery of public goods (utilities, education, transportation, and so on) most simply because demand outstrips supply. Every person requires some regardless of ability to pay. Did it work better in 1940? Yes it did--much better.

There were less people to service. Less diversity of needs. Less developed complexity of needs recognized. The spiderweb of need just keeps spinning bigger as the population expands and society finds new ways to examine the threads. Supply, earlier in the century, could meet reasonable demand without a company having to become a megalithic gigantic-titantic bureaucratic system.

The investment in assets was reasonable in earlier decades and the costs to start up within the means of several companies. Competition could and did flourish. If you could put together the investment capital and had the management expertise on your team a person(s) could build a company to compete and turn a profit without government subsidies. Now the costs to enter the market are so high that competition is very limited and left to the "big guns" and their ever soaring needs to return a higher ROI to their investors.

And when the "big guns" can't do they are enticed through big government subsidies. The ultimate marriage producing the ultimate opportunity for corruption and inflated costs.

My point is that those days are gone. A centrally organized system, like the government, has to be used to create public systems like education because they have gone beyond the reach of the common working man and woman. And the only entity we have that can serve all the people (well most the people), most the time, without making decisions based on profit but on the good the economy receives from the value invested, is the government. (I can hear the boo and hisses from here.)

Not the prudent option for everything but the prudent option in this case. The way I look at it is that I can check big government by being a pragmatic and well educated voter. I can't check big corporate interests without being a big investor or a very powerful politician. Essentially, as a working class stiff, I am shut out when education, transportation, and other public goods are in private hands. I need these goods, my children need these goods, and these are the ladder to success in America. I, with others, can create much more effective regulation and oversight than any politicized federal agency by rallying like-minded people suffering like-minded consequences to vote out elected public officials overseeing any public system. The true beauty of democratic principles in action--equality. In private hands our youths' educational options are doomed to the powers of capitalism and the market forces. Not a pretty sight in my opinion.

My point here is that conservative politics do not preclude building a good education system. Managing the expense of the system is just prudent reasoning not politics. A dollar invested by taxpayers should show a dollar's worth of value at the very least. A dollar + over the long run if we are good at it. Managing the expense of the education system to cut off its blood supply so that less value is returned because it is a government based program is dubious reasoning and political ideology at its worst. It is snipping off your community nose in spite of its face.

So now it is 2009 and we all want to decide how Greeley District 6 will spend its money and whether it really needs more money to create the return investment expected (value to the community) by increasing taxes. Well how many local citizens really know how to manage and run a system this complex and this big? I don't. And I have management background and training. But I do know that I expect elected officials to hire the most qualified people available to do the job and I expect voters to keep a watch over whether that job is being done well or not.

The outcome is the pudding proof. And our pudding is on fire only it is not called a flambe.

In other words, so far the outcome is seriously lacking. The returns on the community investment, the value we are getting, are dubious at best.

Looking at the Greeley Mill Levy Override brings this issue square about in the face of Greeley citizens and taxpayers. If the objective is to create the most education value for the dollars invested then Greeley citizens and taxpayers certainly have every obligation to uncover why D6 performance continues to be sub par and that the plan being put forth by the Administration will remedy these issues just as fast as possible.

According to the Greeley Tribune this week Greeley District 6 School Board President Bruce Broderius infers that Greeley's low performance is due to specific low performers he'd like to be able to cut out of the test score statistics. I hope he intends to clarify this statement.

My response is that Greeley District Six has an obligation to all students and not just choice cuts the District would like to make. Additionally I've decided to take a look at some of the potential causes of the sub par performance of District 6 from my own perspective. I published a list in my previous post in this series. I'll take on the first four items here. Mostly because the first four are the easiest to answer.

• Is the performance problem related to the notion that Greeley is a unique district?
• Is the performance problem related to the collective IQ of the students?
• Is the performance problem related to the collective IQ of the parents?
• Is the performance problem related to the collective IQ of the community?

Really this is just one question. "Is it us?"

I'll just cut to the chase here and address the racism inherent in this discussion and one which many, including authority figures and media figures, are want to use to distract from the real problem at hand. Other districts in Colorado also have high minority populations and immigrant populations without the same performance issues. Additionally Greeley already receives more funding than other local districts, like Poudre, that show a 14% Latino population in their school district. Greeley has a 44% identified Latino population.

Greeley Federal Funds in 05/06 Per Student $845.

Poudre Federal Funds in 05/06 Per Student $562.

Greeley Local Funds in 05/06 Per Student $2,826.

Poudre Local Funds in 05/06 Per Student $5,274.

Greeley State Funds in 05/06 Per Student $4,376.

Poudre State Funds in 05/06 Per Student $3,257.

Okay, close your eyes. Let's take a closer look at what's happening in relationship to these funding dollars. Here come the numbers.

This section will look at a comparison between the Greeley District Six costs and that of the Poudre District. I use ratios to examine the numerical relationship below because Poudre had about thirty five thousand students in 05/06 while Geeley had a bit over twenty-four thousand. We have to compare apples to apples as much as possible and not oranges to apples.

Administratively District 6 with 24,809 students is running .0006 administrators per student while Poudre Valley with 35,630 students is running .0005 administrators per student. However District Administrative support in Poudre is higher at .0046 per student than Greeley's Administrative support which is at .0038. What entails District Administrator support can very widely between districts. One district might hire Vice Principal's for instance whose job duties are very isolated while others may hire for the same position and also assign teaching duties.

Essentially the above ratios are one indicator that Poudre School District is performing more efficiently, in general, than Greeley District Six. What it does suggest is that Poudre is doing more per dollar and returning more value per taxpayer dollar spent based on testing results.

In this regard it is understandable that the District Six Board and Administrators would want to defend its performance achievement by claiming the district has additional burdens of low performing students. In response I'd ask if the additional resources, both Federal and State, which have been received (see above) are meant to provide for this difference, in part or in whole--if the special need indeed exists. With these numbers it would be possible to construct a similar ratio for special instructional services and would give an idea how these monies are being used. If the additional revenue sources have been provided and special services are not being provided I'd imagine that would be a big issue. If there are additional monies and they've been allotted accordingly then there should be no reason to use the "underperforming" populations as a scape goat for general poor performance.

At present I do not have these statistics on LEP and/or IEP learners. If anyone wants to provide them I'd be grateful.

Personally I have no issue with seeing the variety of performance issues related with LEP students or second-language students as a subsection of performance. Unfortunately though these figures are not being reported by either Greeley District Six or Poudre to the National Statistics site or the NCES site is withholding this information. However Greeley District Six, according to the NCES site for 2005/2006, as I stated above, had about forty-four percent of students identified as being of Latino origin to Poudre's 14%.

It is a thin line between inferring that all Latino students are low performers and saying that students with second-language development issues are performance issues. That 44% percent figure means very little without accurate figures on which students are nonnative citizens or first generation immigrants. Racism is not something this District wants to actively promote anymore than it does tacitly already through exclusion of programs directed specifically at migrant and low performance students.

I don't see how anyone can live in Greeley and not be painfully aware of the racial stigma and divides which exist in this city. Programs that have racial implications, probably in the average Greeley citizen's mindset, have been banned, disingenuously dismissed, renamed, and a host of other politically opportunistic political tactics used to avoid creating the very programs that would hopefully address some of the nonperformance issues.

But you will be happy to know the school board is aiming to produce more charter schools which ultimately tend to serve the top performers.

The School Board isn't the only entity at fault here. The citizens of Greeley create this environment and, I'll argue a bit wildly, through their elected officials have institutionalized the scape goat mentality in order to give free reign to arguments keeping government and taxation minimalistic.

Guess what Greeley--It doesn't work in education. Education is an investment. The more you invest the more harvest this community will reap.

As investment examples, in 2005/06 Poudre paid out in salaries per student 24,185.00 Greeley paid out in salaries 17,547.5 per student. Greeley by comparison is running much lower in salary dollars spent per student.

Greeley looks on paper like it is the prudent investor but in reality the job just is not getting done. So which administration/community is the wiser investor?

It indeed may very well be that "we" are the problem. At least in part. But not in the way expedient local mindsets may think. While we probably don't suffer from lower intelligence quotients in general we do suffer from political ideologies applied with two wide a brush stroke. The problem may be the fact that the collective culture of Greeley is being harvested by our youth. And the harvest has turned out to be only "middlin' pickins".

I'll continue this conversation in Part III of this series. if you've got a beef with a statistic--let me know. It wasn't my favorite course.

Greeley District 6 School Board Election: Brave Souls Seeking Hot Seats

It is time for Greeley Colorado's District 6 School Board elections to take place. First out of the dugout are Doug Kershaw and Brett Reese. These are the new kids on the block. Judy Kron, Doug Lidiak, Linda Trimberger are existing members and already serving, whether elected or appointed, and are looking for voter approval.

I am not going to point to profiles for the candidates until I can find a good one for every one. The Tribune has minimalistic values they are using to describe the candidates. The District 6 website has profiles on the existing members. I'd like to give the new "kids" time to get their public relation materials up and out before I link to anything. Incumbents always have an advantage because they have name recognition.

In the meantime I've been trying to sort out whether the new alternative education high school Trademark West that just opened pulled a couple of hundred low performing kids off the progress reports for District 6. That certainly would help give a positive impression of the District. And, if it isn't true and the stats issued to the public are correct then that is a deflation of my argument that the District isn't putting a heck of a lot of focus on low-level performers.

But I will get into a heavier critique the closer to ballot day. Right now I thought it might be prudent to publish what voters need to be looking for as qualities and skills in their educational leadership. Good hair, good teeth, and over six feet tall really doesn't do it. I went to grade school and I know it is a popularity contest when running for a public position in grade school but it would be really nice if we could put bags over every body's head and just vote for the people who can get the job done. District 6 needs the community to do it's job. The kids graduating from District 6 need voters to get beyond the special interest politics and get as much support for effective management on board as possible.

I don't think there are many people around town who will argue that point with me.

So here is my first post in a series on Greeley's District 6 School Board election. this post will concentrate on the qualities suggested for effective school board members.

First a quick view of what the school board's primary responsibilities are all about. (If you have one to add to the list give me an email please).

• Set the vision and goals for the district (effective goal setting leads to objective achievement and objective achievement leads to vision achievement in both the short term and into the future. Basically it keeps the ship heading to the right port without wasting a lot of money trying to get to London by going around the Cape Horn, so to speak.)
  
• Adopt policies that give the district direction to set priorities and achieve its goals (In my personal view this is a key quality. A wily administrator can maneuver policies in front of a Board that will meet their personal agenda. While their personal agenda might, or might not, be a set of good ideas it is important that Board members have enough experience with management practices (not necessarily education specific) to watch out for this type of manipulation and truly ensure that the Board is making good policy decisions that work for everybody--management included, but concentrate on strategies that will achieve the best for the students and bring the vision into the right port.)
  
• Adopt and oversee the annual budget (A school budget isn't like your personal checkbook. It is a complex, dynamic, and complicated guide.)
  
• Manage the collective bargaining process for employees of the district (key to quality personnel and key to controlling costs--a double edge sword).
• Hire and evaluate the superintendent (The superintendent is key and the one in District 6 makes nearly $185,000 + perks. That's almost half of the base salary President Obama gets for running the leading nation of the free world. The board needs to expect, demand, and make accountable their employee for returning superior service to the community's education system which reflects the community's investment. The superintendent will set the tone and culture for all District 6 employees--including teachers. Not a small job in and by itself.)

Which leads us to a few statements on what type of skills and qualities will be required for the school board candidates to possess. There are many different regional and state views, recommendations, and discussions on the topic. One of the best resources I have ever used comes from Jossey-Bass. I have used this company's textbooks for other work as well and they produce a high quality product. If you have one, another skill or quality, to add, again, please send me an email or post a comment. Clicking on the top link will take you to one site on the topic. There are several with many ideas.

It takes a lot of work to build an effective school board. Time spent reading, studying, attending board governance lectures, building a good board governance policy, and simply understanding how a good board works together and delegates to its employee. Relating to the community generally comes with trial and error plus a witch-hunt now and again.

Functioning Cohesively as Group

A healthy decision-making process naturally flows from board members working together to fulfill their responsibilities. When school board members gel as a unit, they exhibit many characteristics of other well-functioning groups: a shared respect and trust that recognizes the contribution of each individual, a feeling of cohesiveness, shared goals for the board, able leadership within the board (often the board president), shared values, and agreement on the board's operating rules.

Exercising Appropriate Authority
In discussing their ability to act effectively, board members speak of the need to negotiate the delicate balance between exercising authority and supporting the school district's chief executive. Traditional governance wisdom suggests that you hire the best chief executive and then get out of his or her way. Board interviews indicate that it's not that simple. The superintendent's recommendation may be clearly contrary to the board's sense of what is important or supported by the community, or the superintendent may violate prior understanding of proposed action. In these are other situations, boards feel they must exercise independent authority.

Connecting to the Community
The board serves as a liaison between the district and the community. An effective board understands what the community wants and explains to the community what it believes to be in the best interest of children.

The process works both ways. The long-established tradition of local control of education is based on the value of the community shaping its schools and of the schools "belonging" to the community. This close relationship contributes to greater community participation in the education of its children and interest in how the schools operate. Even in the context of current times, which see a decline in the number of households with school-age children, fewer volunteers, and a diminishing respect for public schools, interest in education is intense.

As communities become more diverse, so do their values. Building understanding and support becomes an increasing challenge. The board's role in explaining actions to the community and ensuring consideration of all points of view becomes increasingly important.

Working Toward Board Improvement
When boards talk about effectiveness, one area they center on is self-improvement. This shouldn't be surprising. Forty percent of board members have three or fewer years of experience. They say in interviews that it takes them two years to understand their board roles well enough to be fully effective. Furthermore, it is through ad hoc, unplanned contact with other board members and the superintendent that they learn much of what they know.

Acting Strategically
Board members discuss and resolve issues that are central to helping children learn. They plan systematically and for the long term, taking into consideration the needs and concerns of internal and external constituents, all the while balancing reality and politics. They match plans against results. They organize responsibilities and authority between superintendent and the board to adjust for strengths and weaknesses. Boards that can accomplish these tasks can deal effectively with crises, especially when they have no choice but to act.

Now all we need to find out is if each candidate can fit this bill. I'll try to find email addresses for the new candidates and see if I can get statements from them. I can get the incumbent email addresses from the District 6 website and I'll forward this posting to each one also in case they would like to respond. I'll have to work for the other two emails. In the meantime if someone has got 'em.... please pass the potatoes via phone or email. Thanks.

Greeley Colorado District 6 Mill Levy: Jane's Thumb Critique

The District Board has decided, formally, to put the Greeley Colorado District 6 school improvement mill levy onto voter's ballots this coming fall. While it is a pleasure to see the board president, Bruce Broderius, begin to come to terms with district image and reputation it is not yet clear $16 million dollars more going into the general fund is going to provide effective solutions. It is a beginning. But there are more questions to be asked and answered before the Board hits the Greeley streets to hawk this tax to the voters.

Jane's Thumb Critique on the "ups" and "downs" of the District's proposal follows. The Board has shown some improvement on answering surface questions and beginning to address some big picture issues but there is still more to go in the way of discussing accountable management practices, realistic student performance issues, and talking about that management elephant in the waiting room.

*The language above each critique below is taken from the Greeley District 6 Board's proclamation.

...TO BE DEPOSITED IN THE GENERAL FUND OF THE DISTRICT AND EXPENDED FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES, INCLUDING:

Jane Thumbs Up: The money must be expended for educational purposes.

Jane Thumbs Down: Once this money goes into the general fund the final accountability that the $16 million raised is spent in exactly the way it was sold to voters gets a bit murky. It is a common discretion of General Fund uses. Let's say, for example, that there is already $16 million being expended from the General Fund that goes to all the categories of expenses listed below. When asked for proof of where this money has been expended it is a bit too easy to hand over the old list of expenditures and say that $16 million was spent on these items. Technically true, if misleading, unless the designation is new expenditures. Rather an easy distinction to request but one often forgotten once the ballot passes. Citizen committees assigned to oversight are a comforting idea but generally toothless if they are politically appointed citizens or gutless because the citizens do not have the management background to look for general funding manipulation. (See the blog Colorado Spending Transparency for more background). Of course, political oversight, may also leave open the discretion to spend this money on real places of need. These are the place that most voters never understand the need of, or approve, because voters tend to focus on emotional issues.

• PURCHASE TEXTBOOKS, COMPUTERS AND OTHER INSTRUCTIONAL
RESOURCES REQUIRED BY STUDENTS AND TEACHERS FOR HIGHLY
EFFECTIVE, HIGH-QUALITY ACADEMIC INSTRUCTION;

Jane Thumbs Up: Each student should have their own textbook. It is a sense of identity and it is a sense of pride in knowing the community cares enough about their education to support it.

Teachers should be trained and the rapid advance of technology into the classroom requires continual training--especially for the aging teachers who haven't been brought up in the technology world. Sorry for the age crack but it is true. Not a personal slight just a matter of circumstance.

Highly effective, high-quality academic instruction is a great buzz term for selling this deal to the public. Looking at the foundation and kicking the tires is even better. These terms imply a fiscal relationship in the purchasing process. The Board is indicating that management is going to make the most cost effective choice possible that produces high-effective, quality results. Therefore the assumption is that the Board has created a governance rubric that will allow them to follow up that management has done what has been indicated, and, the objectives have been met. Just what were those objectives anyhow? Specifically. I'd like to hear more about that rubric. Let's keep this in mind when those test scores get released the next three years.

Jane Thumbs Down: Textbooks are on their way out. Kindle and other technology programs that will replace the need for a textbook are on there way in. These are not deployed in Greeley Colorado yet so the Board's request still makes sense. But the Board should also keep in mind that it will need to come back in half a handful of years and ask voters for the money to change those textbooks into individual technology devices/readers.

Current training for teachers, from what I have seen of it this summer, is weak and often of a lesser value quality than it should be. Plus teachers often skip out on these trainings, talk, or snooze through them. The trainings, some of them, are not taken very seriously likely because they do not add quality and useful content to the teacher's repertoire. This can stem from a variety of causes including teacher burn-out and apathy towards management. On the other hand there is management's apathy toward paying for valuable content and lack of investment in making a high quality training plan that can be an issue also.

For example of low value content, the selected trainers are on a circuit and have a comfortable job security. So spending the first two hours of class making sure everyone in the room is introduced in a friendly congenial way may be a nice intro but in the meantime, with teachers in the room paid and presenter all paid, just how much does it cost the district to have their teacher's introduced to each other? (I have heard one instance of this particular abuse has been curtailed so let it serve as a past example).

Also, placing first-year teachers into course room training with fifteen-year experienced teachers may not produce the greatest benefit per dollar to the taxpayer. The entire concept of effective teacher training programs in District 6 may need to be closely reexamined for benefit return. The experienced teachers can tell you what they need and what is useful but that shouldn't be the only component certainly. Teacher's may not like having to go into intensive training during their summer breaks. Most are in mental health retreat mode so they can come back next fall. A good plan is going to consider all these factors first and then add in what the State guidelines require for additional funding. Innovate. Try something that works. It needs improvement.

I'd like to know what type of technology investment Greeley's Board is considering and who their consultants are, etc. Let's not repeat the entire Coca-Cola debacle again and sell the district's kids and teachers out to corporate interests. The overall management of District 6 doesn't instill confidence that these decisions are being made for the betterment of the educational performance of students It is much more likely that there is a strong foundation for political brownie points with the community and general ease of making the job of education easier for those working. (Which isn't a bad idea--again just not the one being sold to get the money). What are those outcome objectives for educational value again? Convince me that this management is credible. Please! Then I can go back to writing my specialized personal rants.

• SUPPORT COLLEGE, ACADEMIC, CAREER AND VOCATIONAL PROGRAMS
TO PREP ARE STUDENTS IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY FOR THE FUTURE;

Jane Thumbs Up: A priority to install, develop, and maintain if effective high end, high wage paying jobs are going to come into Greeley. People with effective education and/or experience want to know that their own bright little stars have an avenue for educational success in the area without having to drive to Denver to get said access. Feeder programs, considering the amount of established higher education vehicles we have in the community, just make sense to bond together a community relationship of healthier life-long learning processes and investment in our own community assets.

Charter Schools and advance placement programs will get the loudest most active community members off the political backs of the District Board and management. They will feel their kids are serviced.

Jane Thumbs Down: This isn't very helpful to the lower performers in the school district and those at risk of failure all ready. And this does seem to be the area where District 6 still needs to improve according to Schoolview.org.

I haven't seen anything in this dedicated proclamation that directly addresses the need for overall improvements in math or reaching out to those segments of the community whose entire best interests are likely not being served by the school system. Just buying computers and giving teachers additional inservice training does not create effective high quality math instruction and performance. It doesn't do much specifically for incorporating application of science and the arts either.

It does add informational access to Internet content. That, in and of itself, should not count as improvements in learning. Paying high quality well trained math and science teachers who know how to use computers might be a step in the right direction and then they can help train and service other teachers for integrated support in language, science, art, and technology. Okay, well anything approaching this type of plan, would be acceptable. I haven't seen anything like it.

Pumping money into the high-end performers does not serve the entire community. I don't think I can repeat this enough. It will please the middle-class parents stuck withmost of the bill that is true. But it will not fix what is broken in District 6. And once the higher end of education in this community is better served who is going to stand up and be an advocate for the rest of the system.

This attitude and strategic approach takes the heat off the Board for performing but may gut the quality of the system on the low-end performers so deeply that the District is left with some very broken barrio-type schools on their hand. Once abandoned these poor relatives to the magnet schools have the ability to fester more gang activity and youthful discontent and racial divisiveness within the community unless brilliantly, and I do mean brilliantly, managed. Hence gains made to bring new families and jobs into the city will be eroded. Do you, the Board, really want to go here just so your neighbors will be nice to you in the grocery store lanes again? Or do you have a plan for the lower end of the students we haven't seen yet that is effective?

• ENHANCE THE SAFETY AND SECURITY OF STUDENTS, STAFF AND SCHOOL
PROPERTY;

Jane Thumbs Up: I can't argue with this. Just don't make it a prison camp, k?

Jane Thumbs Down: I can say that by improving on the cultural relationships within the school district, bringing in higher quality teachers with better pay, and educating the public about the real issue with gang activity, school-bullying, racism, etc., it would lower the future need to expend on these resources. Effective progressive minded management can lower these costs. Putting locks on doors an alarms in classroom are bandages used once the problem becomes out of control. Treat the disease with our dollars so we need less bandages please. Training the parents on how to bridge the cultural divide is also a good idea--but I don't envy the Board that additional bucket load. Better strategic community-based planning can work--even if Fox News keeps making everyone scared out of their minds that their kid is about to be kidnapped, sliced and diced, or hit by a drunken bus driver--regardless of the real statistical chances.

• ACQUIRE, OPERATE AND MAINTAIN BUSES TO IMPROVE STUDENT
TRANSPORTATION;

Jane Thumbs Up: A regular cost required by every district as their population expands. Is District 6's population growing? What are the projections? We want our kids safe. Does this mean you will be paying bus drivers with the money?

Jane Thumbs Down: What proportion of these funds are going where? Why can't more kids walk--it is healthy. Oh that's right, the bullying and Fox News paradigm. Ride bikes? A bike safety initiative or more bike pathways--City Council might buy into this pie. Okay, well then what happened to the depreciation schedule? Why can't these buses be replaced? Just what operational expenses will be covered.

______________________________________

And there you have it. Keep asking the good questions and you'll have better accountability from the public servants. Throwing shoes at them during town hall meetings isn't nearly as productive.

Just my opinion folks. Keep those emails rolling in--they make the hamster work harder for lunch.

A Review of Greeley School Performance and SchoolView.org--the new Colorado State parent data tool

The new Colorado school report site Schoolview.org is a hit for the State overall. It isn't perfect but it is a start in the right direction. That is kind of the same thing the State is saying about teaching--identifying trends over time are important in accessing the real quality of your child's education and how your community schools are performing.

Jane Thumbs Up

1) You don't have to be a genius to go to this site and use it and get some information from it.
2) You can see how the specific school you are looking at is doing in math, reading, and writing. Then you can compare it against another school anywhere in the state. This is boon to people looking to relocate with families. It is also a boon to companies looking for a supporting workforce.
3) It makes the educational process appear to be more transparent to the taxpayers footing the bill.
4) It has the potential to improve even further.

Jane Thumbs Down

1) So far I haven't found a list of key terms used. A search on the site search bar brought up common terms that are not helpful nor readily accessible in the specific tool. But this may just be an oversight. The problem will be highlighted below as I write about some of Greeley District 6's data points. It is difficult to know with 100% certainty what terms, used in a school context, like PCI (Performance Cost Index) actually mean to parents and what type of data it reflects and how it should be applied. Frequently it is politically expedient to use confusing terminology. Being transparent is a good ideal. (Being really transparent can be politically deadly. But then that is the whole ideal of being accountable. Perhaps the good folks behind the tool are more governmental and less political and will fix this oversight soon or maybe I am overlooking it to begin with.) If I can't figure it out beyond an educated guess--there is a lot of other folks who are going to struggle. It is nice to look at the little bubbles on the site and be told a school is performing at 41% above proficiency level but parents still need a context for what that means. Especially if they are coming from a District like Greeley where math is one of the most dim performers. (Oh, and where, is the bilingual version for all the nonEnglish speaking parents and grandparents whose children are frequently on the short end of the performing and funding stick in Colorado yet a significant portion of the population? In the political graveyard no doubt...but I digress.)

What does the term "Developing" entail? What do all the acronyms mean? Data is a start. Meaningful data is good. Understandable Meaningful Data for the Public should be the objective.

2) This tool will create new focus on math, reading, and writing. Yes, good for the politicians, not nearly as great for the future of education on the whole. Education is about a lot more. Science is crucial. The Arts (see my previous post) are crucial. There are other areas that have been gutted from the public schools over the past decade in a time where problem solving skills and application of education have become increasingly meaningful. Have we resolved to just give the public a minimal effort or have we resolved to educate our future workforce to meet future economic expectations? If Colorado intends to create a highly skilled workforce and place an emphasis on Green jobs--math, science, and the Arts (innovation and creativity) are crucial to meet that aggressive agenda. Colorado Governor Bill Ritter will need to do more to push Northern Colorado schools, and voters, in that direction. A good start would be in showing how far behind some Districts tail in this regard.

3) There are mixed feelings on rallying political support for gauging the school district as a measure of what has been accomplished over the course of a year (a small segment of time) rather than the final statistical outcomes as a whole (commonly referred to as "teaching the test"). On a generalized surface this implies that a teacher of fifth grade getting a class in at the beginning of the year, as a whole performing at a third grade level (as compared to appropriate incoming fourth grade proficiency), should be rewarded for a year's worth of student growth. So if that teacher elevates the largest portion of this class to a fourth grade level she/he has technically done the job. If she/he elevates the students beyond, say to the expected exit of fifth grade level of proficiency by the end of that year, she/he, some say, would deserve a bonus for going beyond the minimal expectations of the job.

This concept has mixed results. It is much more fair to teachers who are receiving children performing at lower levels and working their tails off to try to get these kids up to speed so to speak. It does reward the higher quality teachers for performance and is a form of merit pay for increased skills. But at the same time it takes some of the heat off the administrators for producing educational outcomes that are at proficiency. As well it could give a green light to average teachers to make only the average anticipated effort. (The lowest performers would be easier to identify though. Although in my experience the really low end performers in education get weeded out during student teaching and first year teaching. Sadly, often the high end performers leave too--but for other reasons like dismal pay, etc.) Essentially, the measure of performance over time concept as compared to specific outcome, gives the political cover to the education system to say "Well, look how much we did do..." rather than "We have done a stellar job and met all our objectives of education."

If you have ever been the parent of a teenager you should recognize this deep dark black hole of new-age logic for what it is. A double-edge sword to say the least. One I'd say we have already seen used here in Greeley based on the comments of District 6 covering the performance figures released yesterday.

What will the District Superintendent tell this year's, and probably the next three years' worth, Greeley District 6 graduates and their families about their education when they don't have the competitive skills they need--especially in math. "You should be thankful we are working on it. Come back in a few years and we may get it right." Heck there is a computer engineering whiz on the Board--what is he going to say? "I got my math background in another state. Greeley Colorado will get there some day and then, you too, can be just like me."

On the other hand the high-end teachers sensitive to public outrage at the overall performance and ready to burn out from overwork, underpay, and exhaustion may find some relief in being able to show that their individual efforts are floating the entire boat--if individual classroom data is ever allowed to go public.

4. Finally, this tool still does not give solutions to the public citizens with the least resources unless they have the ability and funds to relocate or move their child to a better performing school. It will give them the ability to see, instead, the specific failures of their school district and to watch as parents with resources relocate and move their students to higher performing communities. Without resources hiring private tutors isn't a reality either. Of course these parents will be able to complain to the authorities in charge but without political representation or community power (especially in the case of minority groups and immigrants) the complaints will fall on deaf ears. You don't have to own a crystal ball to figure out that this tool also has the power to erode poor performing inner city and barrio schools even further. Let's hope that isn't how it works out.

On to the specific Greeley District 6 Data.

I took a further look at it this morning. See my earlier post. The hole in funding the Board is going after to fill with the Mill Levy tax is obvious. I am assuming national stimulus funds are not aiming for the same per pupil funding deficit. While the State makes up some of the shortfalls in per pupil monies they do not cover the entire amount. Basically Greeley performs lower economically than the surrounding areas and property values are lower. In Colorado 60% of property taxes go to local schools. Therefore, I am assuming, the shortfall of locally dedicated funds. Of course these figures will not take into account any of the recreational facilities and other cultural learning activities put in place by the Greeley City Council that integrate and support the educational system. A higher tax base means more funding essentially.

What makes me curious though, again before I submit to endorsing the mill levy request, is the ROSI statistic (Return on Spending Index). Greeley's is 18.1 after being adjusted for student needs and geographic costs. Essentially those adjustments tend to level out the comparison between school districts with diverse populations and locational needs. Denver's stat is 14.7. Greeley appears to pump more money into core instructional expenses for less results if I am interpreting the data correctly (see my point about listing terms and acronyms above). That would give room to the idea that a higher score on the ROSI means lower performance for higher costs. Which, again, goes back to the administrative accountability I have posted on earlier.

I didn't appreciate the District Superintendent's push to single out the higher performance stats in her statements covered by the Tribune. Mark Twain would have been proud though. The deficiencies in math in the district are fairly appalling and giving parents a shell game approach to being seriously factual about the problems faced doesn't lend credibility to the Supe's management skills or long term planning strategy but certainly will score brownie political points within the staff and authority figures. I like to see educators leading the education system not politicians.

If anyone can help me out on clarifying these terms I'd appreciate it. I think I'll drop a letter into SchoolReviews "contact us" link and see if I get a reply. Overall this is one of the better, more user-friendly, approaches I have seen from a State in regards to making data accessible to the public. It needs some "fixin's" but it is a beginning.

*On another closing note. If you click on the stimulus funding link on the CDE Home page there are several options where the State does a better job than most of trying to lead citizens through the funding maze. I noted, if correctly, that stimulus funds can be used for technology and for teacher compensation. The Mill Levy has been initially directed toward technology funding with a complete dismal of the idea of teacher pay. At present I believe teachers were requested to forgo their cost of living increases this year. Perhaps the District is just creating plan B for technology funding at their teachers' expense? District 6 Union Representatives take note. District 6 missed their targets on LEAs. Perhaps this should be a focus in the future?

• Teacher Incentive Fund
  • Awarded to LEAs, state education agencies (SEAs), or partnerships of an LEA and/or SEA and at least one non&8208;profit organization, to develop and implement performance&8208;based teacher and principal compensation systems in high&8208;need schools, defined as schools with more than 30 percent of enrollment from low&8208;income families.

A Handy Dandy New Tool for Greeley Citizens

Here is a handy dandy new tool. Thank you to the Denver Post for helping roll this out. I am just getting into looking at Greeley District 6 data and the usefulness of the stats. This system has much more recent statistics. But it is less user friendly to make quick comparisons across years. One has to look up what the term "developing" means, etc. One particular area to note other than reading is math. Math dropped. Science isn't included. So much for the high tech jobs coming to Greeley any time soon. Schoolview.org

The Greeley Tribune has all the positive stuff from the District interpretation of the data. So I'll post a few of the not so nice indicators from the site just to keep them all "transparent".

Professional Development and School Support (PDSSP):

• District did not make AYP for Reading: Use this link to access Reading Resources - pdf
• District did not make AYP for Math: Use this link to access Math Resources - pdf
• Visit the PDSSP web site for additional resources

One thing I'd already like to ask is if the administration only makes 84% of their targets then can we give them just 84% of their pay? There are some debates ongoing about having teacher bonuses paid on progress over time rather than hitting a stationary target performance on each year's testing. Hence the State's new tool is a great idea in that regard. It makes much more sense to assess a teacher on progress made than on having to bring students up to grade level in one year who perhaps haven't been performing during the past five years.

My guess is that the concept of rationing out administrative pay on a similar measurable basis wouldn't be well received. No doubt.

I read statements made by the District Administration glorifying the achievements gained. These should be acknowledged. Perhaps not with the open arms the District Superintendent would like but nonetheless she is correct that steady gains are a step in the right direction. I guess she is overlooking the areas, like math, that suffer. The new strategy they are calling implemented may need some additional tweaking.

And I'd still like to see the District expenses and the strategic plan.

New CSAP data tool gauges student achievement - The Denver Post

No other state has a data cruncher quite like it, and at least two states — Massachusetts and Indiana — have expressed interest in using the model for their own.

Beginning at 11 a.m., the public will be able to click on a new website, schoolview.org, to delve into how well their school, district and state are doing at pushing achievement and growth.

Greeley Colorado Should Not Abandon Arts in Public Schools

Greeley District 6 Schools are lagging far behind the rest of the state and fingers are being pointed at the physical assets of the school as a culprit. Indeed it may be. But it is not the only weasel lurking in the woodpile and probably not the most significant one either. I've already addressed the administration's marsupial tendencies in other posts.

Mill-Levy for Greeley's District 6
District 6 Negotiations: Just A Slice Out of the Middle
Greeley District 6 Performance Check
Greeley District 6 School Report Card is Out of Date

Now I'll head into the topic of a well rounded education, specifically, the slow, methodical, elimination of public arts programs in local schools cloaked in the name of "we don't have the funds". Out goes Baby with the bathwater.

Here are some of the ideas on why curriculum and well trained/paid teachers to teach it should come back onto the table as a funding priority. Yes, even when we all know, the Grinch has stolen Christmas and it isn't even September yet.

Emotional intelligence is a significant aspect of the overall intelligence of the individual. Emotional intelligence is the overall ability to interpret, make reasoning choices, and apply the lessons learned in math, reading, writing, and science class. In other words the tools being obtained by our children during daily classroom teachings are not powerful enough in, and by, themselves to provide the skills needed to become a well-rounded productive citizen. The ability to understand how, when, and where to apply each tool, how to combine the tools effectively, has to also be learned.

You don't get this by teaching the kids how to pass the state exam so your teacher can be better paid and the administration gets off the accountability hook. It comes, most significantly, through a well maintained and developed Arts program.

Sixty years ago these skills were mostly taught at home. Families spent significant time together working side by side in family businesses, pulling together to get dinner on the table each night, and ensuring that their children had increasingly difficult opportunities to avail themselves of to teach responsible decision making and accountability. It is why you got scolded when you were six for not getting up to feed the cows at 5 AM but got cold water thrown on you at twelve for the same. Grandma, Grandpa, siblings, and cousins, were also often within earshot to help direct. My Grandmother walked around with a bucket of ice water in her hands I think for quite a while.

In modern times we are less the nuclear family and more the community family. Each household faces a much more complex world and an increasing battle on keeping up with new complexities, such as technology and accessible travel and communications, being added every day. Of course, being an agricultural based community, the ties to the nuclear and extended family remain strong. It only takes a drive across the big prairie to understand that farming families depend on each other and close neighbors to get their work done and make it through another year. Yet, even in the farming community, the adults, themselves, have a lot on their plate to incorporate into their emotional intelligence and toolbox before they can begin to teach these skills to their children. It is the same in the more urban areas. The technology revolution and population growth has left stretch marks on all brains and all aspects of our lives.

So the burden on the educators and the larger community is to either take up the slack in education and teach more about emotional intelligence or to take up the consequences and accountability for ignoring the youth's needs. Certainly, as initially indicated in the mill levy details, technology resources, transportation, and books will help the situation but without a well rounded inclusive curricula and teachers who can teach it effectively--including music and the Arts, the improvements made by taxing the local population may be less than the expected return those taxpayers will be anticipating.

There will be hell to pay in the future whether or not taxpayers approve the tax.

Yet the emphasis should not only be on the Greeley School Board's decision. These members are supposed to represent the best interests of the community and perhaps the message coming in from the surrounding community is a little less than clear or all inclusive. When people have been left out in the cold for too long they tend not to venture out for fear of frostbite. Building a comfortable venue and inviting all parties to the table should be a priority.

I spoke to a woman the other day in Margie's Java Joint downtown. She was enjoying the tasty coffee but lamenting missing her favored Starbuck's pricing. As a parent of three she was stressing over how to get each child into the optimal private school at some point. She laughed when I asked if she had considered putting these children into local District 6 public schools. The drive to a decent private school didn't matter to her. The cost impact of private education on her middle-class salary didn't matter to her. The lack of her children growing up in their own social community didn't matter either.

What mattered is her perception that her children would receive a better education in a private school (regardless of quality oversight) than the one they could receive in public schools. In her explanation, saying how she still supported public education but clearly it was for other people's children, she focused on the hope that more charter school options would pop up under the stimulus funds. In return I explained to her how charter schools tend to create larger class and social divisions in a community unless they are properly managed. Hence some children get improvements in education but others go neglected.

"Whoosh" the vitriol that came back burned past my ears and left my own coffee swirling in its cup.

It was at this point she launched into an unanticipated tirade about how we, the public, should be educating "her" children first and not thinking about "those" kids from other cultural backgrounds. She expounded on how "those" kids take up scarce resources that "our" children should have. She particularly emphasized how much benefit her children gained from the arts and music classes integrated into the curriculum in private schools and how the influx of "others" had robbed the local schools of meaningful education. For ten minutes the woman justified the portion of the family's income going to private school to save on after school "enrichment" class expenses. Then she justified the inattentiveness to education of other mothers as the consequences for a decline in public education. The fact that, in her family, the mother was home half the day and had monetary resources for child care, health care, Starbucks, and after school education didn't appear to enter the judgmental equation on other parental abilities. Nor did it effect the direction of where the consequences of declining public education deservedly should fall.

I won't go into my reply here. Just suffice it to say the conversation finished shortly thereafter.

Is this an isolated incident in Greeley? Maybe. Maybe not. I know I have seen it, heard it, watched it voted on, in other communities. Private schools, and charter schools, come with increases in property values around the school. They become a "snob-factor" socially for identifying those with means (who arguably care enough to get their child into the 'right' school). Which drives which, the entry of private schooling drives higher property values or higher property values drive private schooling, remains to be seen or researched in my case. But one thing that goes hidden underground underneath various forms of passive racism and social elitism is that all children need access to a quality education for America to sustain its power and advantage in the world economy.

I'd add on to that the negative long term effects of a tacit transfer of well rounded curriculum to private and charter schools, where kids still get daily access to the Arts and are tutored in the arts of emotional intelligence. This budding and building trend in creating new societal distinctions further isolates the general public access to an effective education. In turn, the availability by income, often is used for an argument to advance other needs above and beyond the basic castration of a well rounded education. The kids coming out of this public education system are our future workforce. Who is going to argue that above and beyond the teacher's being paid well and above and beyond the need for buses, books, and technology--the very essential structure that it takes to apply educational learning to real life situations has been gutted.

In fact, it would appear, the Greeley community has signed onto this political and strategic gutting in the name of "saving money" and encouraging the free market system of survival of the fit and wealthy.

Certainly the middle-class Greeleyite in the coffee house will not be arguing at the Board to look at the forest instead of the trees. Certainly the administration isn't going to go there. How politically unchaste it would be to bring up that there is a bigger problem in Greeley than just fiscal per pupil spending. A strategic design problem? No way.

So how do we get Greeley citizens to look at the forest if the authorities are political self-interested cowards? Well that self-interest is something everyone has so it would be a likely place to start the conversation. Specifically, the self-interest that it is socially impolite to talk about the real problems in public. The conversation needs to be started is the same one that the community should be having with itself behind closed doors and is already having with their neighbors. This is the one that leaders need to bring out of the closet and into the open.

Here let me put it in baser terms. Forget the Arts for the moment. Let's roll up the sleeves and take on the basics. If the argument is why should the productive individual support educating those with lesser means, including the indigent, the immigrants (legal and illegal), the solution to private self-interest is rather simple. By educating those with lesser means the community, state, and nation will produce more productive adults and results in the community leading to less support needs in the future. That is an effective control on the future cost of societal needs to all taxpayers. Invest now to save later. Education influences health, income production, and healthy interactive citizens in a community.

In my view, leaving those with less behind is rather like shooting the community in the foot today to hobble it tomorrow. It is an investment that should not be overlooked. Pay today so you pay less tomorrow and the community quality of life rises for everyone.

In the Supreme Court's decision, Brown v. Board of Education, Separate is Not Equal may have been based on race in 1954 but is it any less valid an argument for the social consequences when it is based on economic classes? Greeley historically has been very insular in its decision making process. Special interests have held power for a very long time and they are going to argue, and raise money, to keep it this way. The real question is whether Greeley Coloradoans can rise above the past to embrace the future they need to protect their families, their state, and their nation from continued decline.

Business in America will need highly trained and skilled workers to compete. The third world economies will have the competitive edge in textiles and other less skilled labor. It already does. Those jobs aren't coming back--we have to make new ones using American advantages of capital, land, and technology. That requires an educated workforce. Greeley must remain competitive or it will end up rotting from the inside out.

From Elaine L. Chao, Secretary of Labor, on American Labor Force in the 21st Century

The skills gap. Our economy is making an unprecedented transition into high-skilled, information-based industries. This has created a disconnect between the jobs that are being created and the current skills of many workers.

Our demographic destiny. In just a few decades, we will have a growing class of retirees and a shrinking workforce. In addition, there will be an increasingly diverse group of Americans entering the workforce, bringing with them the need for truly new ways of organizing and managing work.

The future of the American workplace. Anyone can tell you that this is not our parents� economy. The average 34-year-old has already worked for nine different companies in his or her brief career. Around 10 million people work away from their corporate office at least 3 days a month. As people sort out the new priorities of financial needs and family life, they all face the same new concerns: A career move that leaves behind health care coverage; abandoning pension benefits before they are vested; renegotiating with each new employer the balance between work and home.

District 6, whatever the driving forces are, is not serving the best interests of the community in creating an effective and quality learning environment for Greeley's children let alone the adults who require ongoing education. That needs to be fixed. Could that mean new taxes? Sure. Could it mean new administrators or school board members? Sure. Could it mean new leadership for the City Council? Of course. But it also means that the community has to begin to act as a living breathing dynamic community--rather than as a bedroom community relying on the more progressive communities around Greeley to service Greeley's true needs.

I don't think the woman in the coffee shop is what all of Greeley is about. It would be nice though to see the rest of Greeley turn out and take an active interest in building an education system for the entire community and demanding accountability from the one they already have. The rest of Greeley isn't talking much in public. You don't have to have a child in school to understand the long term impact on quality of life in Greeley Colorado if improvements are not cultivated now.

Debating the District 6 Board on the use of the mill levy proposal would be a good beginning to raising the level and quality of debate on these issues.
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Now where was I? Oh yeah, discussing the importance of Art in the curriculum. Well maybe I'll have to leave my special interest discussion go for another day.

Below is the interview that started the hamster turning the Jane brain wheel and some clarity on statistics about education and poverty. I have no explanation why the wheel went off course and landed on my "It Takes a Community" track. Maybe someone slipped a carrot into Hammy-Love's pellets.


Derek E. Gordon, Executive Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center and former senior vice president for the Kennedy Center, discusses the place of the arts in a comprehensive education.

ARTSEDGE: Why Arts Education Matters

Q: How can one defend the role of arts in education when so much emphasis is placed on standardized test scores?

A: It's always interesting to look at the schools that have the highest test scores on standardized tests. Generally you will find that the arts are a part of their curriculum. Now, is that just a coincidence? Or is it part of the environment that makes the students more successful in their efforts to learn and compete on standardized tests?...

And he continues:
Q: The Kennedy Center's Arts Education Vision Statement asserts, "The arts are a critical and essential part of the education of every young person in America." Why is this true?

A: The arts are an essential part of American culture as a whole. It is very important that every young person comes into direct contact with the arts—not only as a passive observer, but also as an active participant.

The arts are also a great equalizer in terms of economic and social discrepancies. They have a way of leveling the playing field, allowing individuals to progress in life more effectively. There is also a lot of research that addresses the impact that the arts have on cognitive learning skills. For example, learning to play the piano can aid in developing mathematical skills. Visual arts and dance can affect the spatial perception of students—particularly young students.

Q: What value does arts-based learning provide to students?

A: The arts encourage learning as a process of discovery. We want every student to be a researcher who is asking probing questions—not only demonstrating their knowledge, but also testing and defending the assumptions that they are making. This is something that artists do all the time.

Also, when you look at early education practices, you see that they are filled with arts activities, because they offer the most basic and immediate ways to connect to a young mind. The arts challenge students of all ages, and engage them in a way that is often more kinesthetic, and perhaps more emotionally satisfying, than the "traditional" approach to teaching a text.

Elliot W. Eiser is a professor of education and art at Stanford University and the author of The Arts and the Creation of Mind.

The arts also teach that neither words nor numbers define the limits of our cognition; we know more than we can tell. There are many experiences and a multitude of occasions in which we need art forms to say what literal language cannot say. When we marry and when we bury, we appeal to the arts to express what numbers and literal language cannot. Reflect on 9/11 and recall the shrines that were created by those who lost their loved ones- and those who didn’t. The arts can provide forms of communication that convey to others what is ineffable.

Some enlightening statistics from Childstats.gov

Children in low-income families fare less well than children in more affluent families on many of the indicators in this report.³¹ Compared with children living in families that are not in poverty, children living in poverty are more likely to have difficulty in school, to become teen parents, and, as adults, to earn less and be unemployed more frequently.^32,33 This indicator is based on the official poverty measure for the United States as defined in Office of Management and Budget Statistical Policy Directive 14.³⁴

• In 2007, 18 percent of all children ages 0–17 lived in poverty, an increase from 17 percent in 2006. Compared with White, non-Hispanic children, the poverty rate was higher for Black children and for Hispanic children. In 2007, 10 percent of White, non-Hispanic children, 35 percent of Black children, and 29 percent of Hispanic children lived in poverty.^2,31
• As was the case for all children, the percentage of related children with family incomes below the poverty threshold was higher in 2007 (18 percent) than in 2006 (17 percent). The poverty rate for related children has fluctuated since the early 1980s, reaching a peak of 22 percent in 1993 and a low of 16 percent in 2000.
• The poverty rate for children living in female-householder families (no spouse present) also fluctuated between 1980 and 1994; it then declined between 1994 and 2000 by more than the decline in the poverty rate for all children in families. In 1994, 53 percent of children living in female-householder families were living in poverty; by 2007, this proportion was 43 percent.
• Children in married-couple families were less likely to live in poverty than children living in female-householder families. In 2007, 9 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared with 43 percent in female-householder families.
• Related children ages 0–5 were more likely to be living in families with incomes below the poverty line than those ages 6–17. In 2007, 21 percent of related children ages 0–5 lived in poverty, compared with 16 percent of older related children.