I understand JCPS legal counsel has issued a “hands off” directive regarding oversight of external organizations.
And hand’s off is fine as long as principals and administrators are told the same thing.
But they’re not, and that’s problematic.
I understand that we are under intense scrutiny from the state. Criticism from the audit revealed that our board may have been overstepping in this regard. And we have an upcoming audit and we don’t want anything that could lead to additional state criticism that could potentially lead to state takeover.
I get that.
However, couldn’t excessive Redbook violations, election tampering, Inappropriate use/handling of funds, etc. also leave us vulnerable?
We’ve heard reports from some members who have been called “uncooperative” or “ineffective” when they refuse to do the administration’s bidding
We’ve heard reports of Nepotism, squatting in positions for decades, election tampering, cycling thru positions from school to district to state and back, sometimes in schools where they don’t have children, again, when there are authentic parents wanting to serve.
These organizations could be changing bylaws to allow them to extend term limits, hold clandestine elections and limit who can vote, while changing rules in order to shut out voices of authentic parents and volunteers.
These external organizations have access to our students and their families. They have access to district resources dedicated to them in terms of staff, office space, materials and production. are assured representatives can serve on committees, and are named in documents that govern the oversight of elections that can impact school policy and hiring.
They are not subject to open records. They could be holding vendor fairs in your schools, charging fees to the vendors and not delivering what is promised. Some could be manipulating external organizations to achieve financial means that are disallowed by school and district activity funds.
And they are holding inaccessible elections that are not democratic. For example, one organization’s state convention is this weekend, if you want to vote for officers, you have to pay a $55 registration fee, take time off work, drive to Lexington, pay another $129 in hotel fees, etc.
Who, I ask, is voting for these officers that are supposed to be representing all of us? Do they represent all of us? Or only some? What about our most vulnerable?
Some of these organizations are not racially reflective of district makeup, some of these organizations are pro charter, or at least not anti privatization.
We would to naive to not consider possibility infiltrators. We are allowing these organizations to use our kids to make money and push an anti public school agenda. These organizations should be focused on kids learning. How do we gauge their effectiveness?
Not every organization is bad. Not every volunteer is an infiltrator. Not every administrator is corrupt. In fact, 99% of them are good. But we’d be naive not to realize that some of them have found ways to exploit the system to their own advantage. To take advantage our our children, especially our most vulnerable populations.
And our board has been elected to represent us, and therefore protect us and our children.
And you have a handout from Redbook that says:
The school or district, with approval of the local board of education, may establish additional guidelines/requirements for the external support/booster organization.
This is in regards to the Valley High School state findings, that the current interim principal is not fit for the school.
I would have to DISAGREE with the findings at Valley High School. Mr. Gossett was giving the interim principal role just a few months ago, when our principal ran into some health issues. Mr. Gossett was the Assistant Principal of Valley High at the time. So who better to be put into the head role at the school. Mr. Gossett knows what these kids need, what works for them, and he has plenty of support from the parents to continue doing what he’s doing there at Valley. This would be a big mistake taking him from this role at the school. As a parent of a Viking I support him & all he’s done to make changes in the short period of time he has had this role. We will continue to make sure our voices as parents are being heard at JCPS.
It’s no secret, Bevin wants to bring charters to Kentucky, and it’s also no secret he intends to start in Louisville’s West End. He said so.
It’s also no secret, he’s been making plays from the #ALECPlaybook to accomplish this goal. From attacking pensions, to attacking teachers for standing up for their students, we’ve seen these moves play out in other states. From high-stakes testing and random CSI metrics that are used to label nearly half of Kentucky schools as “failing,” to “broken on purpose” cuts to funding and unfunded mandates, to deprofessionalizing the profession of education, to raising graduation requirements without raising the level of supports, to taking away parent and teacher voice, we’ve been experiencing the death of public education by 1000 cuts. They don’t even hide it, as most of these plays are even published on the ALEC website.
Following the most recent JCPS audit, it’s been made pretty clear: Given the opportunity, Bevin’s choice for KDE Commissioner, Wayne Lewis, have every intention of taking over JCPS, regardless of how our district completes the compromise’s corrective action plan.
Matt Bevin, Wayne Lewis, Hal Heiner, Gary Houchens … Not only are they long-time players in the education reform business, they are playing chess and using our students as pawns. They’re down to just a few moves left, and they currently have us in check. They may have been unsuccessful in obtaining their charter school funding mechanism for their third year in a row.
So their attention shifts to JCPS. Once Lewis takes over JCPS, he and he alone will serve as the decision-making authority, replacing our elected board. He will have the ability, among other things, to convert existing schools, anywhere from Manual to Shawnee, into Charters. No funding mechanism required.
Here’s how we can stop them. Stay with me.
Lewis was chosen by the Kentucky Board of Education.
This quote, from former KBE Member Roger Marcum is telling.
“Bevin and Heiner are running the Department of Education. As long as (Wayne Lewis) is willing to do what they are telling him to do, everything will be fine.”
Roger Marcum, a former chairman and eight-year member of the education board
The Kentucky Board of Education was appointed by Bevin.
The Senate has to confirm the most recent of Bevin’s appointments, and they have yet to do so. These include Hal Heiner and Gary Houchens.
The senate has waited until the final day of session to confirm these appointments. In fact, the resolutions were not even filed until the veto period started. If we reach midnight on March 28th without these being called for any vote in the Senate, or the resolutions fail, these individuals will come off the KBE and cannot be put back on for at least 2 years.
Stop the resolutions, Stop KBE, Stop Lewis, Stop Bevin, Stop Charters in Kentucky. Are you still with me?
Help our Senators understand how they hold the last line of defense against a state takeover of JCPS, and the final barrier between local control of our public schools and profit centers for out of state investors. Contact them below:
Here’s a Twitter thread from JCPS Parent Rob Mattheu @LouSchoolBeat regarding the KBE appointees.
I think it’s time that we start asking “what’s in it for Kentucky’s Board of Education”.
Gary Houchens is one of several on this Bevin picked board who is tied together through corporations made to support privatization. /1 pic.twitter.com/DdxgGyv75r
Gary Houchens and Hal Heiner are scheduled to be confirmed on the last day of the session. Both have publicly been tied to Wayne Lewis for years and have attacked our public schools. They do not deserve to serve our children.
Here’s another thread from Rob, this time about Wayne Lewis’ (lack of) qualifications.
THREAD ALERT! Wayne D Lewis has had it in for public schools for quite awhile. His name has been on my radar for many years with several others intent on destroying public education as we know it. So here are some links with his ties to privatizers and worse. /1
Please email ALL KY Senators here and ask them to please support public education in Jefferson County, and to please do everything in their power to not let these resolutions to confirm KBE appointments pass.
To the JCPS School Board: “Stop School Closures/Mergers in Black, Brown and Poor Communities; New Construction Should Not Be Based on Current Student Assignment Plan; Student Assignment Plan Should Come First!; Gather Authentic Community Feedback; Fight the State Takeover!”
JCPS is scheduled to be audited again in the Fall of 2020, where another state takeover recommendation is imminent. To prevent this from happening, an authentic, community-supported student assignment plan must be developed, we must prevent the closure of schools in black, brown and poor communities, and we must stop the dangerous merger of schools with high concentrations of poverty and trauma, including our two alternative schools, all of which further feeds the privatizers’ agenda and fuels the pipeline to prison.
Our current JCPS school board was elected by this community and is accountable to its voters. This power is at risk of being stripped away when the state returns to audit the district in the Fall of 2020. A state takeover of JCPS will enable a handful of state leaders who are intent upon executing their financial backers’ plan, against the will of the voters. These state leaders were not elected by us and they are not accountable to us, and there will be nothing we can do to stop this assault, unless we take action now.
We challenge our 7 elected-members of the JCPS school board to support the following:
Stop the closures and mergers of schools in black, brown and poor communities. Recognize this for what it is: an attack on public schools that serve our most vulnerable populations, straight out of the privatizers’ national playbook.
Look for opportunities to fight for equitable solutions for students in black, brown and poor communities. Seek to develop and finalize an authentic, community-supported student assignment plan before moving forward with any new construction based on the current, inequitable, student assignment plan. The committee’s ability to bring the board meaningful recommendations should not be restricted by decisions made prematurely, without their input.
Listen to the concerns of those serving our most vulnerable populations. Do not move forward with the dangerous consolidation of MDA and Breckinridge Metro. Put stakeholders on the renovation committee for Shawnee. Be intentional about using data gathering techniques that seek feedback from our most affected, most disenfranchised community members. There is currently no onramp for meaningful community input.
The Kentucky Alliance holds their People’s Agenda meetings every Sunday at 1:00 PM at the Carl Braden Center at 3208 W. Broadway. We invite the community, the media, and JCPS board members to come and participate in the dialogue, so that community input from the most affected community members is intentionally sought and incorporated into the final student assignment and facilities plans.
Watch the video of the guest speakers from Tuesday night’s @JCPSKY board of education meeting here.
Speakers at Tuesday night’s JCPS Board meeting included Dear JCPS officers, Tiffany Dunn, Gay Adelmann and others. They addressed the state takeover, putting students first, and the proposed policing of JCPS students. Here is the text from Ms. Dunn’s speech:
My name is Tiffany Dunn. I’m a national board certified ESL teacher at a wonderful school, Lassiter Middle.
At our November 13th faculty meeting we were told by our administration,
“We are operating as if we are already under state control.”
This was said twice for emphasis.
My question to you is, “why?”
JCPS parents, teachers, and stakeholders fought hard and made it clear we had no interest in being controlled by a privatization-minded, predatory state board of education and commissioner. We succeeded, but only to have our district wave the white flag anyway?
What does “operating as if we are already under state control” look like, you ask?
Our professional learning communities have been hijacked. We have district personnel sit in our meeting every single week. Instead of having collegial conversations about student learning, we are being forced to give common assessments. On the same day. No matter where we are in our teaching. And then analyze the contrived data as if it’s legitimate.
We’re also being told we have to do project-based learning – the SAME project as our PLC members. Have any of you looked at the research on PBLs? It’s dismal. John Hattie has it at a .15 effect size – what does this mean? To be considered effective – a strategy should be at least .4. PBL effectiveness even falls behind charter and religious schools, which not surprisingly, weren’t much better.
This type of control is not only attack on teacher autonomy, it’s an attack on student learning.
Along with the classroom control, we have become obsessed with MAP testing and student data. We are losing precious class time to assess students. Most appalling is that ESL and ECE students are being denied their reader accommodation on the reading portion of the MAP test.
So, these results aren’t even reliable or legitimate! Next Tuesday, our school is having a reward day for students based on MAP growth. We are losing two more class periods of instruction. Less than 1/3 of our 6th grade students qualified.
I ask you, “Why are we using test data for rewards? What are we trying to accomplish? Shame students into learning? As if they’re trying to do poorly?”
Wayne and his cronies want nothing more than to see us fail – it fits their narrative and it will line their pockets. Following a takeover agenda will only get us one place – taken over. It was and always will be the end goal.
Instead, JCPS needs to align itself with research-based strategies, not data mining. Teachers should be treated as the experts, not babysat by district and school administrators.
Below is the text from Gay Adelmann’s speech:
I sure hope that teacher does not experience any retribution for speaking up for her students tonight.
No teacher should ever experience negative consequences for doing what’s best for their students.
And that includes our teachers who speak out against these threats of privatization and excessive testing and everything that goes along with it.
Dear JCPS,
My name is Gay Adelmann. I am the co-founder of Dear JCPS and Save Our Schools KY.
In May of 2016, I stood up here and told the current board chair he needed to put the interests of our students ahead of the interests of privatizers. He didn’t listen. And he’s gone now.
In August of 2016, Dear JCPS cofounder Erin Korbylo stood here and told Dr. Hargens that we gave her a vote of no confidence because she worried more about what business leaders thought than about doing what was best for students. She’s also gone now.
In fact, the first time I spoke to this board was in 2013. Before Dr. Pruitt was even the commissioner. Only two of you are still here. And here Wayne Lewis comes in from nowhere, telling you how to fix JCPS. And you jump through every hoop he sets for you.
Don’t worry about them. The superintendent reports to this board, this board reports to us – the voters. Our students are your customers. The customer comes first. Not Frankfort, not business and chamber leaders (who probably don’t have kids in our schools), not these disingenuous Alec-funded fake grassroots groups.
Because no matter what you do! It’s a shell game. It’s a moving target. They’re going to find a way to say our schools are failing. So you might as well do what you know is right.
Not only did voters keep out the privatizers out of our district, we pushed back on a state takeover and charter school funding. While we weren’t pleased with the compromise, because we knew it would lead to more of the same, living in fear of being taken over
You’ve gotten a two year stay of execution. Use it.
Spend it doing what’s best for students — especially our most vulnerable. Not jumping thru hoops for unqualified, outsiders with a privatization agenda.
Here’s something I don’t think the community understands.
What may be fine for mainstream students, like many of ours, is not fine for our most vulnerable. ESPECIALLY when you have a district of CHOICE!
I did not realize this until I saw it first hand as a Shawnee parent.
When you have choice and diversity, two things we TREASURE, you cannot allow them to use these qualities against us and destroy our district in the process. Fight back! Help them understand.
When you treat students as data (in the aggregate, the average, the statistic, instead of the wet clay that they are), you learn to manipulate it to give you what you need to make Frankfort happy, instead of giving each student what they need individually to “reach their full potential.”
Our most vulnerable students are the ones who end up being used as pawns to make the data look good for the adults.
We know that these practices are abusive. They’ve told us! Resist doing what you know is harmful. Give exceptions – fight back – for schools with high needs populations. For vulnerable students. Because what works for the mainstream often throws our most vulnerable students under the bus. And we’re losing a generation of kids.
If any elected official has a problem with our district cutting back on this state-mandated abuse, let them say so publicly. So we know who to vote out next time.
Put students first. Not in aggregate. Not the averages. Not data points. Not the mainstream.
All students, especially the most vulnerable.
Support excellent teachers like Ms. Dunn. Allow her to do what she knows to be best for her students, and everything else will follow.
Thank you.
If you have a message you would like to submit to Dear JCPS, please email moderator@dearjcps.com.
Public school advocates such as myself do not disagree that Kentucky is graduating some of its students with fewer skills than should be considered “college-ready.” However, adding more requirements to graduate, without adding resources and supports to ensure they can meet these goals, is tantamount to adding more thermometers to a patient’s care and expecting that to make them well.
In fact, peers in other states tell us that this tactic has been implemented in their schools, not as a means to improve outcomes, but as a means to perpetuate the “failing schools” narrative, to justify further attempts to privatize public schools.
Most students, like my son, had little difficulty meeting the requirements before, and would sail through these new standards as well. However, what is not being taken into account is the harmful effects they will have on our most vulnerable students. It’s already happening in our lowest performing schools, and these new requirements will only worsen their plight. Opportunities to “game the system,” and “teach to the test” will escalate, vulnerable students will continue to graduate unprepared and now they will lack the basic certification that allows them to gain real world experience, further feeding the pipeline to prison.
Please delay this decision until you can visit a school like the one my son graduated from, and talk to impacted students, teachers and families. Instead of adding another means to measure what we already know, lets introduce more opportunities to intervene in the student’s academic career, EARLY AND OFTEN, so they are more likely to succeed.
Thank you for your consideration,
Gay Adelmann
Parent of graduate of Shawnee High School (one of the “lowest performing” schools in the state)
Send your email here: http://www.saveourschoolsky.org/2018/10/02/tell-kbe-to-delay-vote-on-new-high-school-requirements/
With the vote on new graduation requirements looming, several educational organizations and leaders have already named specific concerns with many aspects of the Kentucky Departments of Education’s proposal. The issues they’ve identified should be sufficient to at least pause the approval of the proposal. But, the debate has become one over details which often implies a concession to the main premise. In other words, the Titanic’s course may be approved because we’ve been focused on the deck chairs.
Most agree that we need to find ways to help our students be better prepared for the next stage of life. However, we are not asking whether setting the minimum requirements for graduation is the appropriate place for this conversation. Minimum requirements should be achievable by all within our current system. A diploma should be work, but it only needs to show that a student has completed the minimal course work requirements, as our current system does. Colleges and employers all look at test scores, resumes, previous experiences, portfolios, recommendations, etc… in addition to a diploma. It’s neither necessary nor should a diploma have to carry the weight of having to certify that a child has preemptively completed the additional training, education, or development that may be required in the future. A diploma is a noble accomplishment, but it should not represent our highest expectations of education.
In fact, it is a best counter-productive to set the policy and practice for reaching our highest goals though minimum requirements. When we do, we shift the burden that should belong to adults onto children. Figuring out what type of teaching and learning most engages and challenges our students, and then training and preparing educators to implement it is an adult problem. Creating learning experiences for students that are both personalized, but also equip them for a diverse world and an unknown future is an adult problem. Finding ways to stretch the teenage need for instant gratification towards long term decision making and investment is an adult problem. Marshalling the resources, funding, and connections to facilitate authentic workplace and research experiences for students is an adult problem.
I know many hard working adults in education, and I think most would say that we are making progress on the problems above, but they are by no means solved. Our schools still don’t have sufficient or equitable access to resources. Our teachers don’t have access to the full training and support necessary to truly transform practice. Our policies aren’t always fair, up two 21st Century standards, or in the best interest of students. Solving these problems is the real work of raising expectations. Of course, children need some measure of responsibility and personal investment when it comes to their futures. But, the proposed graduation requirements takes this too far. We should never create a policy that holds children accountable for things adults should be working on.
