Seaking of the Titanic, Time to Shuffle the Deck Chairs
Shown below is the new School District 11 Central Administration Organizational chart. A couple of interesting items should stand out. The names are hard to see, but if you save the picture in Paint or some other picture viewer, you will be able to see them more clearly.
First of all, terry Bishop just spent $12,000 tax payer dollars on a Gazette ad in which he explained to us that D11 is a school district on the move. Everything is heading in the direction of greatness, he said, and the Gazette and I were wrong to criticize his or the district's performance. He had completed 24 of 25 tasks (or was that 1 of 25 tasks? It all depends on the day), and the academic performance of the district almost changed from its flat-line performance of the past 10 years. This begs the question - why change anything?
Looking down the left side of the chart you can note that Terry Bishop once again has 5 Executive Directors beneath him. When I was on the board, we were able to force the administration back to 3 EDs. We instituted an administrative hiring freeze to force the administration to justify these types of hires, and they could not justify them. The current board and administration have disregarded that hiring freeze and have gone back to the days of hiring administrators just because they are old friends.
Where do these Eds fall in the chain of command? In other words, who do the principals report to and who evaluates the principals? When we instituted the employee evaluation system, which the current board and administration have ignored, we ensured that the superintendent was to be the evaluator of the principals. What role do these EDs play and how have they helped to improve the performance of the district? You will never find an answer to those questions.
Note that Terry Bishop's friend Michael Poore has been placed in charge of Educational Support Services, which includes Curriculum and Instruction. Poore was the principal of Mitchell High School for several years. During his time at Mitchell, that school was the lowest performing high school in the city. There were no initiatives by Poore to improve that school. yet he is being placed in charge of not Curriculum & Instruction, Special Education, and Grants. Poore has no expertise or experience in any of these areas, yet we are supposed to believe that somehow these changes will improve D11.
Mary Thurman, who has been in charge of instruction for the past 6 years, is now simply a babysitter for Human Resource Director Dave Schenkel. Rather than remove Thurman from the payroll for failing to bring any improvement whatsoever to the district's academic performance, Bishop moved her to a job that really has no description. She continues to be a Deputy Superintendent receiving a six figure income, yet she has no responsibilities. Human Resources (under Dave Schenkel) has officially carried the responsibilities that are now listed under Thurman. Interestingly, administrators say that if this is some attempt to force Schenkel to properly perform his job, it isn't going to work. Thurman does not have a reputation as someone who can hold anyone accountable for anything, so it is not clear how she is supposed to get Schenkel to do the job that annual audits show he has never done.
While Thurman was in charge of academic instruction in the district over the past several years, hundreds of students have dropped out of school, and thousands more have received diplomas even though they have not received an adequate education in reading, writing, or mathematics. Why does Thurman, or any other under performing employee, deserve to remain on the public payroll? She has not obtained her goals during any of the years that she has worked in D11, and now she is being rewarded by being placed in a job with no metrics or measurements on her performance.
As is so common in public education circles, the deck chairs are being rearranged with no specific logic or reason for making the change. What academic goal will be obtained by this reschuffling? This is nothing but another resetting of the clock by Bishop. In other words, Bishop has shuffled a few people around who have not performed their jobs well (whatever those jobs were supposed to be) so he can now publicly state that he has key people in new jobs, so they just need a few years to get their feet on the ground and he promises, he really really promises, that in those few years, you will see some great things happening in D11. In a year or so, when nothing has improved since the corp problems in the district have still not been addressed, the new superintendent will shuffle his high paid staff around and start that clock all over once again.
Don't get me wrong. It is a good thing that Thurman is no longer responsible for academic growth in D11. She simply had no idea how to tackle that beast. However, you don't hold someone accountable for failure by shuffling them across the room and handing them the same salary (plus bonuses) that they were making when they failed to perform. In the real world, that is not accountability. In education circles, they can pretend that it is.
First of all, terry Bishop just spent $12,000 tax payer dollars on a Gazette ad in which he explained to us that D11 is a school district on the move. Everything is heading in the direction of greatness, he said, and the Gazette and I were wrong to criticize his or the district's performance. He had completed 24 of 25 tasks (or was that 1 of 25 tasks? It all depends on the day), and the academic performance of the district almost changed from its flat-line performance of the past 10 years. This begs the question - why change anything?Looking down the left side of the chart you can note that Terry Bishop once again has 5 Executive Directors beneath him. When I was on the board, we were able to force the administration back to 3 EDs. We instituted an administrative hiring freeze to force the administration to justify these types of hires, and they could not justify them. The current board and administration have disregarded that hiring freeze and have gone back to the days of hiring administrators just because they are old friends.
Where do these Eds fall in the chain of command? In other words, who do the principals report to and who evaluates the principals? When we instituted the employee evaluation system, which the current board and administration have ignored, we ensured that the superintendent was to be the evaluator of the principals. What role do these EDs play and how have they helped to improve the performance of the district? You will never find an answer to those questions.
Note that Terry Bishop's friend Michael Poore has been placed in charge of Educational Support Services, which includes Curriculum and Instruction. Poore was the principal of Mitchell High School for several years. During his time at Mitchell, that school was the lowest performing high school in the city. There were no initiatives by Poore to improve that school. yet he is being placed in charge of not Curriculum & Instruction, Special Education, and Grants. Poore has no expertise or experience in any of these areas, yet we are supposed to believe that somehow these changes will improve D11.
Mary Thurman, who has been in charge of instruction for the past 6 years, is now simply a babysitter for Human Resource Director Dave Schenkel. Rather than remove Thurman from the payroll for failing to bring any improvement whatsoever to the district's academic performance, Bishop moved her to a job that really has no description. She continues to be a Deputy Superintendent receiving a six figure income, yet she has no responsibilities. Human Resources (under Dave Schenkel) has officially carried the responsibilities that are now listed under Thurman. Interestingly, administrators say that if this is some attempt to force Schenkel to properly perform his job, it isn't going to work. Thurman does not have a reputation as someone who can hold anyone accountable for anything, so it is not clear how she is supposed to get Schenkel to do the job that annual audits show he has never done.
While Thurman was in charge of academic instruction in the district over the past several years, hundreds of students have dropped out of school, and thousands more have received diplomas even though they have not received an adequate education in reading, writing, or mathematics. Why does Thurman, or any other under performing employee, deserve to remain on the public payroll? She has not obtained her goals during any of the years that she has worked in D11, and now she is being rewarded by being placed in a job with no metrics or measurements on her performance.
As is so common in public education circles, the deck chairs are being rearranged with no specific logic or reason for making the change. What academic goal will be obtained by this reschuffling? This is nothing but another resetting of the clock by Bishop. In other words, Bishop has shuffled a few people around who have not performed their jobs well (whatever those jobs were supposed to be) so he can now publicly state that he has key people in new jobs, so they just need a few years to get their feet on the ground and he promises, he really really promises, that in those few years, you will see some great things happening in D11. In a year or so, when nothing has improved since the corp problems in the district have still not been addressed, the new superintendent will shuffle his high paid staff around and start that clock all over once again.
Don't get me wrong. It is a good thing that Thurman is no longer responsible for academic growth in D11. She simply had no idea how to tackle that beast. However, you don't hold someone accountable for failure by shuffling them across the room and handing them the same salary (plus bonuses) that they were making when they failed to perform. In the real world, that is not accountability. In education circles, they can pretend that it is.
What has your $1 million dollar Tim Gill school board said about this reschuffling? That's right - absolutely nothing. While they are busy getting along, your tax dollars are being wasted on an administration that smells more and more like the not-so-good Burnley years.
posted by Craig Cox | 1:39 PM
2 Comments:
Good data. I see Bishop has totally sold his soul to incompetent BOD in D11. Any list of what metrics will be used to determine whether or not these overpaig babysitters are doing their jobs? Nevermind.
Yes, nevermind. "Accountability" on the lips of a D11 administrator is a meaningless word when you have a school board like the current board made up of members who have no interest in what is taking place in their own district. If the board has no interest in accountability, why should the staff have an interest?
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