Why isn't it treated like a Crisis?

Even though our military has only been engaged in battle in the war on terrorism for less than 6 years since 9-11, the media and the public refer to the current situation as a crisis. Our military units win each battle that they fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, and enemy casualties average about 10 times higher than our own. However, Americans like to see immediate results. We want our military to win and win quickly - no excuses.

Should we treat our public education situation as a crisis? If not, why not? Should we continue to accept excuses, or should we demand quick results?

As the war in Iraq approaches its 4th anniversary, the American public wants to see immediate solutions for victory. It is not acceptable to most people for the military to blame the insurgents for the continuing fighting, nor to use the changing nature of warfare as an excuse. We want our military leaders to develop solutions to the military problem right now. We pay them to adapt to their changing environment and to provide answers. Very few people doubt the public’s right to question our elected and military leaders over military matters because they work for us. We say that we can support our troops while still opposing the conduct of the war. While the facts show that the military is suffering the lowest casualty rate of any war in history, we do not minimize our casualties because every single life matters. We do not accept excuses for failure.

When the government decides to raise taxes or impose new business regulations, the business lobbies jump into action. They organize to protest this governmental intrusion on their bottom line

As our public schools pass through their 4th decade of slow decline against national and international standards, we make no demands of our educational leaders. We allow them to tell us that students and parents are to blame for their failures and that the nature of education has changed. We always grant them their demands for more money and their pleas for more time. If we question the performance of our schools, we are told that we are attacking teachers; we cannot support our teachers if we oppose the conduct of our schools. While the facts show that many high school graduates cannot read well or perform basic math, we brag that we are average, and we praise our educational experts for only failing to graduate 30%-40% of our kids each year. We accept any excuse for failure.

While the business community has to continually reach further across the country or the globe to find qualified employees, and as their bottom line is continually impacted by high school graduates who cannot add or subtract without a computer, the business leaders remain silent on educational issues, calling them political.

Can D11 not do much better than it is doing with the nearly $500 million that the public gives to it each year? Doesn't every parent have a right to expect a first class education for his or her children, and shouldn't those who call themselves educational experts be held accountable for educational results today and not at some hypothetical point in the future?

The educational battle has been fought for decades, and there are no clear signs of improvement. Until the community decides that a crisis exists, and until the community decides that it is time for the the high paid administrators who claim to be experts to actually develop a plan for victory, then those signs of improvement will never come.

The Brain weighs in

Cesar Chavez Charter school, one of the highest performing public schools in Colorado, was recently approved to open 2 new schools in Colorado Springs. Cesar Chavez ended up receiving approval from the state chartering authority after D11 administrators and board members placed roadblocks in its way.

D11 board member John Gudvangen was one of the lead opponents of Cesar Chavez. The school is known for helping minority students in Pueblo, so Gudvangen could not think of a reason to offer his support. Additionally, his labor union handlers would not authorize him to support the school because charter schools are not unionized, and the labor union does not receive political funding from charter school teachers. The Gazette reported on Gudvangen's response to the approval of Cesar Chavez by the state:

D-11 Board President John Gudvangen said it was probably better for the state to hold the schools’ charters than the district because it won’t tap district resources, but he said the district and the academy are not adversaries.

It won't tap district resources? Really, John?

For every student who chooses Cesar Chavez over a D11 school, D11 will loose about $6500 annually. Looks like a loss of resources to me. If Cesar Chavez had been chartered by D11, each student that came to the school would add to D11's student count. D11 is funded based on total student enrollment. D11 would have received money for each student who enrolled in Cesar Chavez and business services would have received money for administering the charter school.

Cesar Chavez will undoubtedly be one one of the highest performing schools in Colorado Springs, and D11 will not be able to claim it as its own. The attitude that people like Gudvangen display about charters that tend to help minority students is not surprising. His ally Lois Fornander was previously quoted in the Gazette when she criticized the Parents Challenge organization, which is run by Steve Schuck. Fornander was not impressed with the organization because it only helps a handful of kids each year, and those kids happen to be poor and minority. This racist/elitist attitude is very common among those who run D11.

The good news is that Cesar Chavez won approval in Colorado Springs. Students of all colors and backgrounds will have an excellent school to attend if they so choose. Congratulations Dr. Hernandez and Cesar Chavez.

Way Ahead of the Game

One of the scare tactics that opponents of those of us who were elected to the D11 Board in 2003 use is that we wanted to "privatize" our public schools. The fact of the matter is that we simply wanted good quality schools no matter how we got there. The labor union goal is to have massive numbers of union paying members to keep the massive political machine greased. Student achievement is not a priority for labor union leadership. The union proudly possesses a political game plan but does not possess an academic game plan. That is very telling.

Another dirty word used by status quo advocates in D11 is "reform." The D11 administration and labor union leaders are wed to the current situation in D11. Nobody makes anybody work too hard and nobody has to worry about being held accountable. The word "reform" sends shock waves through the hearts of the most incompetent D11 employees.

Andrew Romanoff is the leader of the Colorado State House. He is a Democrat. The following article was published in the Denver Post on December 14, 2006:

Romanoff favors adopting landmark education overhaul
By Jennifer Brown Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Last Updated:12/14/2006 08:37:32 PM MST

Colorado should take the lead in major education reform, borrowing from a landmark national report that calls for high school exit exams and dramatic increases in teacher pay, state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff said Thursday.
The report, heard by a bipartisan panel of lawmakers and educators in Washington, D.C., says America is failing to prepare its students to compete in a global economy.
It calls for ending high school for most students after 10th grade, when they would take "rigorous state board exams." Those who pass could choose to go directly to technical colleges, and the best students could stay in high school to prepare for entrance into elite universities.
The change would save nearly $60 billion nationwide, a third of which would pay for preschool for all 4-year-olds and low-income 3-year-olds, the report says.
The savings also would go toward training and deploying teachers recruited from the top third of high school students going to college.
The report, from The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, also calls for a complete revamping of education funding.
Independent contractors, operating under contracts managed by local school districts, would run public schools.
Romanoff, D-Denver, a panel member, said he plans to set up a task force of educators and parents to develop a Colorado version of the plan, which would require constitutional and legislative changes.
Sen. Peter Groff, D-Denver, said he would push for an audit of the state's public-school system and propose plans to address the national report.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-954-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.

Peter Groff is a Colorado State Senator - President Pro-Tem of the Senate. He is a Democrat. The following comes from a news release posted from Groff's office on December 20, 2006:


State of Colorado
Denver
ZACH KNAUS Senate Democrat Media Office
Communications Specialist Capitol Building Room 249
303-866-3181 Denver, Colorado 80203
Fax: 303-866-4543

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Zach Knaus
Wednesday, December 20, 2006 303-866-3181
303-956-8300 cell

GROFF TO INTRODUCE LEGISLATION
DIRECTING AN AUDIT OF COLORADO’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS

DENVER—Today Senator Peter Groff (D-Denver) announced his intention to introduce legislation directing Colorado to conduct an audit of the state’s public schools and urged state leaders to commit themselves to acting on its findings.

“It is time for us to ask ourselves how we are doing as a state in meeting the needs of our children and what we can do to make sure all our young people succeed in the future,” said Senator Groff. “I believe that leaders in government, business, and most important, parents and people in our communities, will acknowledge that the time has come for dramatic change.”

The proposed audit of Colorado’s education system would include all levels of P-16 education system (preschool through post secondary education and training), with an emphasis on the public K-12 system...

The audit would be conducted by an independent, third-party entity or consortium with expertise in evaluating academic outcomes, educational finance, program offerings, policy, and governance structures. Through this audit, Groff said, Colorado can learn about our schools, their performance, spending on education, the educational options and programs available, and the opportunities for change.

Here you have 2 leading Colorado Democrats calling for privatization, change, and an audit of the public schools. Is there another recall election waiting in the wings?

Eric Christen, Willie Breazell, and I have been calling for an audit of D11 for 3 years. The best that we could achieve due to the stonewalling of status quo board members is the hiring of an internal auditor who happens to be a D11 employee. A lot of independence there. She is controlled by full time staff and is not allowed to perform any thorough audit of the district.

Although these 2 leading Democrats are a couple of years behind Christen, Breazell and myself in their recommendations, I welcome their constructive input into the education debate. The labor union leaders and administration big-wigs must have been appalled when these positions became public. It takes a lot of courage for Democrats to acknowledge that our public education system can improve. They will likely be attacked as traitors and blasphemers.

Now that the D11 board consists of 5 empty vessels who insist that nothing needs to change in D11, this could add an interesting twist to their situation. These liberals have spent 3 years fighting against improvement because it was pushed by conservatives. How will they respond now that their own party has awakened to the reality that we just are not keeping up with the Jones's, or Kishnu's, or Yi's, or Yamamoto's?

Credit where it is Due, and Responsibilty, too

The status quo forces in D11 took offense when we reformers pointed out that there was steady growth in D11’s performance over the past two years. They claim that it was the hard work of staff that resulted in this improvement. I agree.

It was the paid teachers and administrators in the buildings that caused the growth in the academic measurements of D11. How could the board have had anything to do with that growth if the staff was performing the work? For the first time in the history of D11, beginning in November 2003, some of us on the board focused on academic performance during board meetings. The administration realized that the board was finally serious about ensuring that the district actually performed its primary mission, which is educating children. While past boards under weak leaders such as Lyman Kaiser sat around and developed talking points for why D11 could never possibly be a high achieving district, we demanded answers as to how we could improve. High paid D11 administrators would certainly never have pressured subordinates for improvement without pressure from the board. With pressure from above, staff worked hard in the buildings, so they own the improved results.

To complete the “ownership of results” equation, in addition to owning the successes of the district, paid staff members also own the failures of the district. I have detailed dismal math, reading and graduation statistics in earlier posts. Instead of working overtime to develop solutions to these problems, the administration typically develops talking points and excuses to explain these problems away. The most common source of blame for poor performance is the parents. Parents fork over ½ billion dollars annually to D11 to educate their children, and then they are blamed for all the failures of the district.

If administrators and teachers want credit for the good, which they should, then they need to be held accountable for the bad, which they are not. It is much easier for a school staff to blame the board, or to blame central admin, or to blame the parents for problems rather than to develop a game plan for improvement.

An example of a school that has bucked the “pass the buck” trend is Bates Elementary. That staff decided that they were going to serve their community, not their central admin masters. They worked together to pick the best curriculum and teaching techniques to serve their students. In the process, Bates leadership has refused the advice of central administrators on different occasions because they knew what to do to improve their school. That type of perseverance and focus on their student population has resulted in a school that has shown dramatic and sustained improvement over the past several years. The kids were the winners. That type of ownership of school performance is what site based management is all about.

Another example of ownership of results by staff is the Doherty and Doherty feeder schools reaction to our first math town hall in February 2004. Math leaders from Doherty and Jenkins immediately moved to adopt proven math text books after that town hall. Their willingness to move quickly without waiting for orders from above is exactly what ownership is al about. They did not like their results, and they did something about them.

Will D11 staff take responsibility for the many areas that need to improve in the district, or will they once again hide those weaknesses like they did prior to November 2003? With a new board whose members each have publicly shown no desire for improvement, it is hard to imagine anyone being held accountable for anything. As long as the new board gets along, student achievement can once again become a passing thought.

Annie blows a gasket

Recall organizer and head cheerleader for mediocrity Annie Oatman-Gardner made a public spectacle of herself Friday at the Clerk and Recorder's office downtown. She loudly announced for all to hear that if Eric Christen survives the recall vote, she will sue the County Clerk if he publicly releases the name of the replacement candidate running for Christen's seat who receives the highest number of votes. County employees had to remind Oatman-Gardner that she was living in a country called the United States, and that public elections in this country were, well...public! (It was rumored that Oatman-Gardner was later overheard on the phone with Howard Dean, asking advice on what to do when somone calls your bluff on the lawsuit threat).

It is interesting that Oatman-Gardner is even concerned about a Christen win on Tuesday. Her issue, of course, is that she wants her puppet John Gudvangen to use his power as board president to appoint another liberal to the board when the board accepts Christen's resignation. Should someone other than the Chaos group's candidate receive the highest votes, these people do not want the public to know that Gudvangen will try to appoint someone other than who the public chose.

Oatman-Gardner is playing perfectly from the Democrat party playbook - threaten to sue early and threaten to sue often. Whether you win or loose, sue someone. Sue someone over campaign finance filings (unless it's the liberal candidates); sue someone over the election results; and now, sue someone if they release the election results.

Relax, Annie; you've spent $314,000 in public funds on this recall effort. You have it all wrapped up, don't you?

Lesson from a dead soldier

The bar graph in the December 5th Gazette that compared the school accountability reports (SARs) of the area school districts showed that 2/3 of D11 schools are "average" or "below average." Those results come after 2 years of growth in the district (this shows you the damage that recallers Mary Ellen McNally, Norvelle Simpson, Lyman Kaiser, and Karen Teja did to the district during their time on the board). Of course, we are told by those who favor the status quo and those of our administrators who earn 6 figures each year that the reason for this mediocre performance is that we have too many poor and minority students in D11 as compared to surrounding districts. Income level, we are told, indicates the performance capabilty of a child.

I found this information on the World Bank web site dealing with per capita income ranges for different countries:

Per capita income $876–$1,675

Ukraine $1520

In the metro section of the December 9th Gazette was the story about the Ft. Carson soldier who died in Iraq. His name was Yevgeniy Ryndych. The story says that:

"The Ryndych family moved from Kiev, Ukraine, in 1998. Yevgeniy attended high school in New York, though his brother said the teen wasn't challenged by the curriculum.

"The high school in America was too easy," Ivan Ryndych said.

While we continue to pretend that being an "average" (or below) district is good enough, this young soldier from Ukraine highlighted what is terribly wrong in this country. We sit back fat and happy, close our eyes, and pretend that we can continue to be a great nation when we won't even take our responsibility to educate our next generation seriously. The high schools in Ukraine put the high schools in one of our most progressive states to shame, and the per capita income of the Ukraine is about 30 times lower than that of New York state.

Three cheers for average.

Lack of Integrity on Display

One of the recall supporters made a mistake Friday afternoon by calling in to the Joseph Michelli radio program. Recall organizers and supporters have been instructed to steer clear of public forums. The recallers have depended heavily on lies, slander, and deception to push their effort forward, so they do not want to be in the uncomfortable position of having to discuss issues publicly.

During the Michelli show, on which Sandy Shakes and I were appearing, a caller who called herself "Ellen" called the show. "Ellen" said that she was angry over the fact that Michelli was allowing us to appear on his show. She claimed that Michelli never allowed the Create Chaos group to appear on his show. She continued to babble on about fairness. Michelli, who is well liked, respected, and the most listened to afternoon drive-time radio host along the front range, was not about to listen to "Ellen's" nonsense.

Michelli told "Ellen" that he was not going to allow her to call his show and lie about him over the airways. Listeners of Michelli know that he is a very level headed and fair radio host. This attempt by "Ellen" to change reality was a little too much for the normally calm Michelli. Listeners of Michelli also know that he not only allowed recall organizers Mary Ellen McNally and Norvelle Simpson to appear for 2 hours on his show, he also begged the Chaos side to debate Eric Christen on his show. They refused out of fear. They claimed that Christen knows too many facts and that they would be unprepared to discuss facts.

Michelli and his listeners understand very clearly now what we have been dealing with for 3 years on the D11 board. The recall organizers are pathological liars, and we thank "Ellen" for allowing the community to see that fact. For people who wonder why there is very little trust on the board, we have been dealing with board members who conduct themselves just like"Ellen." I include John Gudvangen, Tami Hasling, and ex-board member Karen Teja on that list. Anytime that anyone brings an idea to the board that these people oppose, they immediately resort to lies as to motive, intent, and effect of the proposal on the district. We thank "Ellen" for highlighting, once again, how far the status quo side will go to keep D11 down.

D11 fights off quality charter

A combination of anti-charter D11 administrators, board members, and union leaders have teamed up to cause Cesar Chavez Charter Academy to pull its application to become a D11 charter school. Cesar Chavez is one of the highest performing schools in Colorado, so naturally it is a threat to status quo leaders in D11.

Cesar Chavez is highly populated with minority students, particularly Hispanic students. Due to its phenomenal academic achievement rates, it is attracting students of all colors from all around Pueblo. School Director Dr. Lawrence Hernandez wanted to open another campus in D11. He vowed to make this school as high performing as his Pueblo campus. Cesar Chavez was going to locate in the southern area of D11 where minority students are generally not well served.

Why would anyone oppose an opportunity to have a top-notch school in our district? The Colorado Springs Education Association labor union objects to charters in general because charters are not unionized. The labor union views everything in terms of political funds. Their leadership has no interest in whether or not minority students are being educated. If the teachers are not paying union dues, then the union leadership will automatically oppose the school. It is not about kids for the union leaders.

D11 administrators oppose charters for several reasons. First they will claim that charters drain money from the neighborhood schools. Their concern is not that parents will have a quality school for their children, but that the district continues to receive state funding by trapping kids in poor performing schools. A high quality charter school also has the effect of highlighting the fact that minority and poor students CAN actually learn. The administration has built a legacy of failure on the backs of poor and minority students. It needs to be able to blame poor performance on the color of a student or the wealth of the parent. If Cesar Chavez came into D11 and succeeded, administrators would be left without an important excuse for failure.

As for board members, John Gudvangen, Tami Hasling, and Sandra Mann had their seats purchased for them by the labor union and their left-wing allies. If the union directs them to oppose a charter, then they will dutifully do so.

A vote was never cast for or against Cesar Chavez, so what was done to dissuade the founders from locating in D11? Sources from Pueblo D60 say that John Gudvangen and Tami Hasling have been in contact with D60 board members to try to find ways to undermine Cesar Chavez. Here you have a school that has proven to be able to educate minority kids, and these two wealthy white board members have been actively attempting to undermine the school. Sources from within the CSEA labor union say that union leaders were rallying their forces to muster a large presence at the now cancelled December 6 BOE meeting. This large presence was an attempt to intimidate board members into opposing Cesar Chavez. It is not clear whether the union leadership was going to invite their AFL-CIO colleagues for more muscle power.

The administration's contribution to the "No on quality education" effort was led by short timer Doris Caine. Caine has been a part time employee for several years now after retiring from D11. She has been the primary charter school representative for D11. According to several sources around the D11 community, Caine has been speaking very harshly of Cesar Chavez in an attempt to drum up opposition to the school. Once again, having a school that could successfully educate poor and minority students is just too threatening to bureaucrats who just really don't want to work very hard.

Rather than fight people in D11 who do not view quality education as all that important for minority students, Dr. Hernandez chose to submit his charter application through the state chartering authority. What this means, of course, is that Cesar Chavez will take even more D11 students when it opens, but now D11 will receive no state dollars for the enrollment, nor will it receive credit for the excellent test scores.

The fight for mediocrity continues in D11.

It's All in the Headline

The December 5th Gazette summed up Sharon Thomas' year in D11 with one simple headline - and they probably don't even know they did it. The headline says:

"Educator's new job all about the money."

The actual story was about Thomas' new job with the American Numismatic Association Money Museum, but the headline could certainly be written with regards to Thomas' time in D11.

As everyone knows, Thomas worked a golden parachute into her superintendent contract with the school district to ensure that she would receive big money when she was fired, a task that she worked hard to achieve. After doing little more than occupying a chair in the D11 superintendent's office for a year, Thomas walked away from D11 with $425,000, thanks to those who recklessly brought her into the district. To put that into perspective, Thomas received 10 times the average D11 teacher's salary for being fired for incompetence.

Members of the Numismatic Association should beware. An August Gazette article detailed some financial problems that this organization has had that were due, in part, to the actions of the outgoing Director of Education at the association. This Director, also an attorney, hand picked Thomas to be his replacement.

D11 had a healthy financial reserve balance prior to Thomas' arrival. That reserve balance has disappeared. Thomas took $1 million from the district's general operating fund to cover the cost of g0lden parachutes for herself and her deputies. D11 spent over $1 million on legal billings from Thomas' old law firm, HRO, during Thomas' reign. This was well above past billings, despite the fact that the Board changed the billing contract to save money.

If I belonged to the Numismatic Association, the headline itself would make me nervous, and rightly so: for Thomas, it's "all about the money."