The DCSS Office of School Improvement is spending $4,400,000 annually in salary and benefits on the Parent Centers. The Parent Facilitators are supposed to be ensuring parents have the skills that will give their children the support that is conducive to educational success. Yet year after year, fewer and fewer of DCSS Title I schools are making adequate yearly progress.
The Parent Centers were established in 2005 the year after Dr. Lewis became superintendent. He immediately put Audria Berry in charge of the centers as a "school improvement" initiative funded with federal Title 1 dollars, of which DeKalb brings in $128 million annually.
At $4,000,000+ in salary and benefits annually, taxpayers have spent $24,000,000 on these Parent Centers since their inception.
It is interesting to look at the highly paid members listed under title Parent Coordinator in the state Salary and Travel Report.
One of them is Zepora Roberts daughter ($76,495 in salary and benefits), one of them is Frankie Callaway's daughter ($61,775 in salary and benefits), and there is even a Guillory in there ($81,095 in salary and benefits). Not one of them is listed as a certified teacher at the Georgia Certification site although Ms. Callaway's daughter has an expired paraprofesssional certificate.
[BTW - Ms. Roberts daughter made $4,300 more in salary in 2010 than in 2009 and up $8,000 since 2008 during a time of frozen staff and teacher wages.]
We have little reporting on this initiative other than their own in-house newsletter. There are NO statistics on how many parents this group sees. NO tracking of results. Absolutely NO accountability in an area that should be producing academic progress, not academic decline.
The ineffectiveness and lack of accountability of these expensive Parent Centers must be audited and investigated for results.
sources:
State Salary and Travel audit 2008,2009,2010
http://www.open.georgia.gov/
Georgia Certification: https://www.gapsc.com/Certification/Lookup/look_up.aspx
DCSS newsletter:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CBwQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dekalb.k12.ga.us%2Fnewsroom%2Ffiles%2Fnr_06_08_05.pdf&ei=Zr3vTdrNGoqCtgf-weCXCQ&usg=AFQjCNF85xt_LZTBMFkqkQEealSl5BGJjQ&sig2=_rLp2k4kLznlZ9gyRi4nRQ
Showing posts with label school improvement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label school improvement. Show all posts
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
The Office of School Improvement: An Oxymoron
Since 2003-2004 – for 7 years! – DCSS has NOT made AYP. In 2003-2004, 18 of 132 DCSS schools (14%) did NOT make AYP. Fast forward to 2009-2010. Fifty (50) of 133 DCSS schools (37.6%) did NOT meet AYP!
That’s a 23.6% increase in FAILING to meet basic requirements!
Since the Class of 2010 entered middle school – and earlier – DCSS students with learning needs have NOT gotten the help they needed from the Office of School "Improvement." These students have graduated further behind than when they started. Millions of dollars have been spent on friends-and-family and useless "programs" without ever addressing the real problem, straightforwardly and effectively.
So, that naturally raises the question: Why do the folks charged with school improvement still have jobs?
If you or I had failed so spectacularly at our jobs we would have been fired. The people in school improvement got raises!
That’s right. Raises.
According to Open.Georgia.com, between 2008 and 2010 (the only documentation publicly available), Employees in school improvement enjoyed an average raise of 7.5%.
Umm … Teachers? How much of a raise did you receive during those years?
Did these employees lose DCSS’s retirement contributions during that time period? How many days were they furloughed during that time period?
Five (5) of the fewer than 30 employees in the "Office of School Improvement" on the payroll in 2010 received more than $100,000 per year. Another 15 "improvement" employees received from more than $50,000 all the way up to just under $95,000. This includes a data entry clerk paid $50,532, an administrative assistant (1 of 5 administrative assistants in a department of fewer than 30 people) paid $51,561 and two accounting associates each paid more than $52,000. Most of it paid with federal Title 1 funds – It looks like federal funds have become a playground full of money trees!
===
Thanks again to Sandy for her great research on this subject. This was originally posted in the comments of her post entitled "FOUND! DCSS Has The Money for Education Excellence"
That’s a 23.6% increase in FAILING to meet basic requirements!
Since the Class of 2010 entered middle school – and earlier – DCSS students with learning needs have NOT gotten the help they needed from the Office of School "Improvement." These students have graduated further behind than when they started. Millions of dollars have been spent on friends-and-family and useless "programs" without ever addressing the real problem, straightforwardly and effectively.
So, that naturally raises the question: Why do the folks charged with school improvement still have jobs?
If you or I had failed so spectacularly at our jobs we would have been fired. The people in school improvement got raises!
That’s right. Raises.
According to Open.Georgia.com, between 2008 and 2010 (the only documentation publicly available), Employees in school improvement enjoyed an average raise of 7.5%.
Umm … Teachers? How much of a raise did you receive during those years?
Did these employees lose DCSS’s retirement contributions during that time period? How many days were they furloughed during that time period?
Five (5) of the fewer than 30 employees in the "Office of School Improvement" on the payroll in 2010 received more than $100,000 per year. Another 15 "improvement" employees received from more than $50,000 all the way up to just under $95,000. This includes a data entry clerk paid $50,532, an administrative assistant (1 of 5 administrative assistants in a department of fewer than 30 people) paid $51,561 and two accounting associates each paid more than $52,000. Most of it paid with federal Title 1 funds – It looks like federal funds have become a playground full of money trees!
===
Thanks again to Sandy for her great research on this subject. This was originally posted in the comments of her post entitled "FOUND! DCSS Has The Money for Education Excellence"
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