Can We Talk EDUCATION?

We are always so distracted by the drama that constantly swirls around our school system and the attention that should be placed on quality education initiatives continues to get usurped by the latest news of the weird. I'd like to refocus our discussion back to education, specifically, The No Child Left Behind Act (or as they refer to it in 'The Simpsons' - No Child Left Alone). Although I agree with some of its premises and intentions, such as disaggregated testing data and early reading initiatives and I agree that it introduces an element of accountability into public school education, I still think that overall, NCLB and the fear of its repercussions has caused much damage to the way we deliver education in our system. I for one, would like to see it - and its stringent requirements dismantled once and for all.

Please read this very important blog entry at Schools Matter and then post a comment regarding how NCLB and AYP have affected your schools ability to focus on educating our children. (Some of you may even have positive things to say?!)

An Invitation from DeKalb Prep K-8 Charter School

The board of DeKalb Preparatory Academy, a new proposed K-8 charter school serving DeKalb County, invites you to an information meeting on

Tuesday, June 30, at 6:30 p.m.
at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church,
4882 LaVista Road in Tucker.

DeKalb Prep will provide tuition-free, hands-on, challenging, and personalized learning for children from across DeKalb County in grades K-8. The school expects to open to grades K-4 in fall 2010, and grow to K-8 by adding an additional grade each year.

If you'd like to learn more about DeKalb Preparatory Academy, please visit our website. I hope to meet you at the open house on Tuesday, June 30!

Sincerely,
Laura Crawley, Ph.D.
DeKalb County resident and founding board member of DeKalb Prep

What in the heck is going on here?

I’m confused. I need people to come to this blog to enlighten us. There are some things going in the leadership of DeKalb County schools that are perplexing and a bit shocking. Allow me to simply list them and hopefully you will fill the comment box with details regarding some of these issues. These are all events just from the 2008-09 school year:

• The Marine Corps Institute, after much attention, focus and debate, has been sidelined. The Marines have not signed the “Memorandum of Understanding”. Sadly, in order to make room for the marines, caught in the middle are over 40 children with highly special needs who were moved from their school (Heritage), where they were happy and thriving and merged in with Margaret Harris High School, another school for children with special needs. Now, these children face the prospect of attending school in the same small building their whole lives. And what is the plan now for Heritage? After all of the debate, it was finally ‘revealed’ by Dr. Lewis that he was only planning to use it for one year for the military institute anyway. So what will become of Heritage school and park?

• Pat Pope. All of a sudden, one day out of the blue last December, the DeKalb County DA stormed Pope’s office and confiscated her computers along with other work items. Dr. Lewis, who asked for the investigation, said he would reveal results in one week. Months later, we were told that the DA was very busy and the results would not be available until May. Now, it is nearly July. Any news?

• Cheating! We all know the story. The AJC revealed suspicious increases in test results last September for Atherton ES. Dr. Lewis vehemently defended the school’s results and leadership. Now, it has been proven, and apparently the principal and AP have admitted erasing students answers and changing them to correct answers – catapulting the school from the 10th percentile to the 77th. And so to respond, Dr. Lewis sent out a system-wide memo asking all 13,000+ DCSS employees to send these two cheaters a note of support. Has anyone in the system written one? What is the Board’s response to the scandal? Is anyone in the school system going to admonish these people for their behavior and hold them up as a warning to anyone else pondering such an action?

• Dr. Gene Walker, one of our newly elected school board members has immersed himself in a controversy so deep, I wonder if he can possibly render any effective decisions as a BOE member in the future. According to a report by Atlanta Unfiltered, his other role as director of the DeKalb Development Authority has created a huge divide among members of the BOE, inciting a majority of them to go so far as to file a lawsuit which originally named him in the complaint (the amended version deleted references to Walker). Walker was just about to take part in voting on a bond structure increase from around $20 million to $50+ million benefiting the Sembler Company, members of which donated around $20,000 to Walkers school board campaign. The vote was to have taken place on June 18th. The Board retained legal counsel on June 17. Walker recused himself from the vote. The remaining authority members voted to postpone the vote. What are we to do about a Board of Education who has plummeted so low into the abyss that they resort to lawsuits?

• Meanwhile, our school system as a whole continues to hold the label “Did Not Make AYP.” We have a bullying problem so bad that one family has claimed it drove their child to commit suicide. Yet, the $350/hour retired judge Dr. Lewis hired to investigate, found no evidence of bullying in her verbal (not written) report. We have an imbalance in school populations that leave some schools, like Lakeside, so crowded from transfers that they must bring in 22 trailers, while other schools like McNair, Clarkston and Towers as well as many elementary schools have hundreds of empty seats (totally nearly 4,000 empty seats.) We also boast new buildings with national recognition for being “green” (Arabia) while simultaneously, we have buildings with grounds so overgrown that homeless people have been found living on campus! (Cross Keys)

How can we ignore the disparities – not only in structure but in test scores and delivery of education? What is going on here? Has this billion dollar school system simply become too massive and wily to control? Is the system such a big spender, with so little oversight that the opportunities for corruption have flourished? Is there anyone with a strong focus on the future and a plan of action as to how we will get there? When I visit the school system’s website and look up the Strategic Plan, I find a one page description of a plan that was approved in 2006 and introduces the theme, “Premier DeKalb Schools - Setting the standard for Excellence through unity and purpose.” The page has a bit more information with some boxed text that reads, “The Strategic Plan will be reviewed with the full incoming Board of Education members January 2009. Dr. Sonja Alexander, Director of Professional Learning will lead the effort of the strategic plan review. Please monitor the website for continual updates.”

Well, it’s now July and I’m still monitoring and waiting for updates. Does anyone out there know anything?

Is It Time to Retire?

Is five years enough?

Is it time for Dr. Lewis to "move on" with his life?

A cursory look at the past five years shows ITBS scores across the board not discernibly different. No significant gain, nor loss. CRCT scores in Reading and Language Arts have increased impressively, with major decreases in Science, Math and Social Studies (most certainly attributable to major curriculum changes.)

Nearly 1,600 more students are taking AP tests, however the percentage of those students scoring a 3 or more has decreased nearly 6% and have plummeted in some high schools. Most puzzling is the extremely poor performance at high schools that have screamed for more and more AP classes -- for instance, Avondale 2.1% 3+ with 144 test takers, McNair Sr. 1.3% 3+ with 156 test takers. As a comparison, Lakeside had 45.1% 3+ with 811 test takers. Is the quality of the AP teaching staff equitable? Why aren't these students getting more out of the AP opportunity? Why add more AP classes until scores improve?

Dr. Lewis did have the courage to consolidate some schools and move some attendance lines. But, he also promised at the time that he wouldn't touch the lines again for at least eight years (answer to a question posed to him at a town meeting during first round of changes). And, here he comes again. With all the money spent of demographics, why couldn't all the consolidations have happened at the same time?

He oversaw the building of a state-of-the-art high school at Arabia Mountain. The verdict is still out, but so far the parents have not flocked to it as predicted by DCSS. Yet, he has also been on board for the Tucker project and others. Despite a very bizarre harrassing of his top construction manager, he seems to let her do her job and, thankfully, has not felt the urge to fire her.

Ethically, he has been questioned on expenses and car payments. The public still have no conclusions and he has not made any public explanation on why he should even be in this predicament.

Personally, he is a very warm and caring person. He is not a racist, and he truly does not like the north/south politics that the Board Members perpetrate. In many cases, he wants to do the right thing (end magnet busing), but does not seem to have the political muscle to get the Board to go along. He wants the best for DCSS, but does not seem capable of delivering it.

He and his staff have made some remarkably bad PR mistakes, most recently the publishing of the love fest memo. In this regard, his administration has truly "jumped the shark."

Dr. Lewis has more than 30 years with DCSS, his children are out of college, he has attained the highest office he can in DCSS. The assumption is that he should not struggle financially on the retirement payments he will receive.

A huge, warm, friendly retirement party is his for the taking. Is now the time for him to take it?

Today The Supreme Court Ruled that School Administrators Violated The Fourth Amendment Rights When A Strip Search Was Conducted Looking For Ibuprofen

Today the Supreme Court ruled that school officials violated the U.S. Constitution's Fourth Amendment Right that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures when an assistant principal ordered a strip search in Safford, Arizona, in 2003 of Savana Redding, who was in the eighth grade. Following an assistant principal's orders, a school nurse had Redding remove her clothes, including her bra, and shake her underwear to see if she was hiding ibuprofen, a common painkiller.

School officials did not find ibuprofen, which is found in over-the-counter medications like Advil and Motrin. Higher doses require a prescription.

An unverified tip from another girl who had Redding’s school planner and some ibuprofen pills had prompted the strip search. She claimed Redding had given her the pills.

Redding denied it and an initial search of her backpack and pockets did not turn up any ibuprofen. The assistant principal then ordered the strip search to be done in front of the nurse and his administrative assistant, both women.

Redding said, “She was embarrassed, scared and about to cry.” She said, “She felt humiliated and violated by the strip search.” Because of the pain and suffering this incident caused this young woman Redding's lawyers argued that a school official simply cannot order a strip search any time a frightened student points an accusatory finger at another student. Her lawyers also indicated that if the school wins, strip searches could become as prevalent as "the common practice of students tattling on each other."

According to the decision of the Supreme Court, the degree of suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion. The court apparently did not feel there was a significant danger to Savana or to others around her if she indeed had the over-the-counter drug to warrant the strip search. Without significant danger, the degree of suspicion did not match the degree of intrusion so the Supreme Court found that Savana’s Constitution Fourth Amendment Rights were violated.
Does this decision "place student safety and school order at risk by impairing the ability of school officials to effectively carry out their custodial responsibility,” or do some administrators need legal boundaries like this to protect the civil rights of individuals? Read the entire decision of our Supreme Court and then draw your own opinions and let us know what you think @ http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-479.pdf . The final vote or final opinion on this case by our Supreme Court Justices was that eight members voted that Savana's Fourth Amendment's rights had been violated by the strip search and one Supreme Court Justice voted or had the opinion that her Fourth Ammendment's Rights had not been violated by the strip search.

This young woman and her family stood up to the system. Regardless of your opinion in this case I do believe we all can agree that one person or one family in this case did make a difference. If this family had not taken a stand against this civil rights violation how many other children rights may have been violated? This case will have major impacts in the way school administrators search students. Our students really do not have many rights when they walk into the doors of our schools. Administrators have had the ability to do about whatever they wanted to do regarding searching students. Maybe it is time that some boundaries had to be been set.

Testing, Testing, Is Anyone Listening?

I thought I'd bring a little comedy into the blog. If you have 22 minutes to watch this episode of The Simpsons, you'll find it funny, and sadly relevant. There are so many spot-on satirical comments regarding the ridiculous elements of testing that you will start to wonder why we ever decided that all of this testing is a good idea. As the principal will show you, learning happens in the oddest places and much of our intrinsic knowledge cannot be tested.

Hilarity as only the Simpsons can provide. (Well, IMO anyway!)