Former @mcps superintendent says, “the only decision that a superintendent gets to make on their own is a snow day.”

...Emphasizing that he was not commenting on the specifics of the situation in Montgomery County, Martirano said that school leaders do have the ability to challenge a board’s actions.

“Superintendents have particular rights that are defined in one’s contract that is negotiated with the board,” he said. “And if those contract specifics aren’t followed,” then there can be challenges on both sides. “If there are challenges with a board, the board has to be extremely communicative through a defined process” outlined in the superintendent’s contract, he added.

While the turmoil in Montgomery County’s school system has some parents wondering about school governance, Starr said parents should know that “the only decision that a superintendent gets to make on their own is a snow day.” The running of a school district, he said, is a collaborative effort between the board and the superintendent.

Most decisions, said Starr, are bound by state laws, district policies and contractual agreements with employees throughout the system. “There’s so many guardrails and so many strictures on the ability of a superintendent, or a board, for that matter, to make quick moves” on personnel issues...

https://wtop.com/education/2024/02/former-superintendents-when-school-boards-and-superintendents-clash/

Superintendent Jack R. Smith's Contract Has Not Actually Been Renewed

Contrary to what was reported on a Bethesda blog, the Board of Education has not actually renewed Superintendent Jack R. Smith's contract.

What the Montgomery County Board of Education actually did on February 10, 2020, was take a vote to renew his contract pending negotiation of mutually agreeable terms.  There is no document to sign at this time.

The actual Resolution passed by the Board of Education said that the contract would be renewed:

"...pending mutual agreement and

 approval of the contract terms."

https://mcpsmd.new.swagit.com/videos/40658?ts=451

At this time there is no agreement between the parties as to the terms of a new contract.  First the parties have to agree to the new terms, and then the actual contract has to come back before the Board of Education for a vote.

Superintendent's Evaluation Made Public

No, this did not happen in Montgomery County.  This happened in Baltimore City. 

Is the problem that Mr. Thornton has difficulty expressing himself, or is it that he has nothing to say?

In the self-evaluation that was part of his annual performance review last year, Baltimore City schools CEO Gregory Thornton frankly acknowledged that he hasn't been a very effective communicator. The malaise that has settled over the system he leads appears to bear him out. Gone is the sense of excitement and momentum for rapid reform that characterized the district just a few years ago. In its place is a sense of drift and lack of leadership at the top that would be fatal for Baltimore's reform effort if allowed to continue. The city school board must not let that happen...



Take a look at what the 10 page Evaluation document look like.

Kudo to the New Governor of NY

Andrew Cuomo has it right.  


NY, like many other jurisdictions in the nation, is facing a budget shortfall.  The Governor of NY has taken a bold step, and called on school districts to look inward before calling for bailouts from the states and the feds.  
Here is a piece of the news coverage from the NYTimes:

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said that school districts had enough means to withstand the decline in state financing, and pointedly suggested that they look at whether they are spending too much on their own bureaucracy.

More than 40 percent of New York State’s superintendents earn at least $200,000 each year in salary and benefits, Mr. Cuomo said.

“I understand that they sometimes have to manage budgets, and sometimes the budgets are difficult,” he said. “But why they get paid more than the governor of the state I really don’t understand.”

. . . 

“We have $500,000 school superintendents,” he told reporters after his appearance in Purchase. “We can’t pay those kinds of salaries.”

Leave it to a[nother] kid from Queens to cut right to the heart of the issue.


Read more about it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/nyregion/07cuomo.html?pagewanted=1&emc=eta1

Writing: the missing key to college success?

“American education will never realize its potential as an engine of opportunity and economic growth until a writing revolution puts language and communication in their proper place in the classroom. Writing is how students connect the dots in their knowledge. Although many models of effective ways to teach writing exist, both the teaching and practice of writing are increasingly shortchanged throughout the school and college years. Writing, always time-consuming for student and teacher, is hard-pressed in the American classroom. Of the three “Rs” writing is clearly the most neglected.”

Thus, began the April 2003 report by the National Commission on Writing. It was, for the most part, met with a collective yawn.

At the risk of dating myself, I must admit that my parents, one a teacher, taught me that grammar, rhetoric, and logical elucidation were the foundation of real learning. Yes, there was a time when writing was a much valued currency.

The panjandrums of perfect prose propel us on flights of fantasies away from a world increasingly populated by the “nattering nabobs of negativism.” Yes, that last phrase was the triumphant concoction of the late William Safire, the phrase-parsing wordsmith for the New York Times' Sunday magazine column on language usage. Writers are painters with words, capable of eliciting feelings of ecstatic pleasure or downright consternation.

Take George F. Will’s recent Op-Ed on denim, which included the following: “Writer Daniel Akst has noticed and has had a constructive conniption. He should be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He has earned it by identifying an obnoxious misuse of freedom. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, he has denounced denim, summoning Americans to soul-searching and repentance about the plague of that ubiquitous fabric, which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche.” Yup, you can even get verklempt with words.

At its very best, writing has overturned oppression, incited revolutions, and transformed society. Yet, it remains an art form accessible to a privileged few. Shouldn’t a public education system, marketing itself as a great equalizer, show a robust commitment to writing?

Yes, I know that MCPS does have curricular components dedicated to writing. However, I believe that we need a system-wide, uniformly implemented, well-defined writing program. One of the missing “keys” to college readiness is, in my opinion, writing at a skill level appropriate for success in the SAT writing section.

To use words from the College Board, writing to “organize and express ideas clearly; develop and support the main idea; use appropriate word choice and sentence structure,” not to mention writing mechanics such as proper “diction, grammar, sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, proper word usage, and wordiness,” should be part of any self-respecting public school curriculum.

Writing is no longer a pleasure for the privileged, it is a practical necessity. So, let us celebrate our teachers who value writing and advocate for a separate, robust writing curriculum.

Finally, a confession—I wouldn’t have written this piece if not for the requests of two teachers, one who wished to remain anonymous, and the other Mrs. V. I dedicate this piece to you and hope that you know you are appreciated.

The Next Superintendent: The Humanities--Art and Music

Every Child is an Artist

--Pablo Picasso

In reading the Parents' Coalition’s Second Annual List of Course Fees I see that art classes are costed out and not free at the Montgomery County Public Schools. Let me repeat: our children who are artists are not allowed access to a free public education. They must pay to take their coursework, while children who are budding scientists or mathematicians receive a pass; their education is free. Our musicians too must pay a ‘dry cleaning’ fee at some schools in the county. Their education is not free either.

This discrimination against our children whose focus is on the Humanities is nothing new at MCPS. It still has the power to shock of course.

Our next superintendent must be an individual who values ALL of our children. She or he must be of some intellect, enough to recognize the humanity and value in Art and Music and the important role both play in our lives.

I am currently reading, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, by the noted physician, Oliver Sacks. His focus in this fascinating book is on the interaction of neurological conditions and music, such as musical hallucinations; amusia, the loss of the ability to ‘hear’ music as a comprehensive whole; perfect pitch; the inter-relationship between music and Parkinson ’s disease; music therapy, and the like. We know now that music is hardwired into our species, as is art. Archaeologists working in Europe have identified what appear to be the earliest musical instruments, some 40,000 years old. Similarly, art works that date to at least 30,000 years ago have been discovered throughout caves in Europe.

Stripping our public education system of art and music takes a toll on the lives of our children and our civic life; the quality of life we enjoy in Montgomery County will be lost if we continue down this path of public policy. Our next superintendent must be a person who values all our children, including the artists and musicians among them.

WPost: Superintendents Out of Town

The Washington Post is reporting on D.C. Area School Chief's Perk that Refreshes: Travel. The Parents' Coalition website chronicles the travels of MCPS Administrators on the Weast Watch page of its website.

What the article doesn't go into is what the Superintendents were missing when they were out of town. For example, Superintendent Weast has missed Board meetings and events such as graduations and the Superintendent's Performing Arts Award Ceremony when students would actually have had contact with their school system's chief. Last year Superintendent Weast traveled out of town to receive a "Tech-Savvy" Award sponsored in part by Promethean. Later in the year thousands of Promethean Boards arrived in MCPS classrooms.

As a follow up to this article, how about an article on how much time Superintendent's spend in schools with actual students? How many Superintendents have ridden a school bus with students, eaten lunch on the floor in a high school (no room in cafeterias), used a student restroom, attended a P.E. class on a field, or gone back stage for a performance? How many public school students have ever laid eyes on their school superintendent?

Berthiaume: "I'm sorry...had I known...I would have sat stone faced."

Statement of MCPS Board of Education member Laura Berthiaume on February 9, 2009, during Board of Education discussion of resolution to vote on MCPS FY10 Operating Budget
(transcribed from webcast at 1:25:57)

Once I pass my vote on this proposed budget, the budget will move forward and I will support it as it will be the decision of the whole board, which I will be obliged to support. To be on the team means to support the team position, and I will. But I do not believe that to be a team player means to sit mute when the play is being called, or to fail to vote in good conscience yea or nay, or to fail to explain my vote on how the play should be executed and so I am going to do that now.

First, I want to say that I am disappointed that the Board was unable to have the benefit of the evaluation of the Learning Center transition before acting today. The resolution before us specifically approves the 2010 Special Education staff plan as proposed. I don't know how the Board can effectively provide oversight on, or input into, a special education staffing plan when it is missing vital information on whether or not one of the major moves in how we provide special education services over the last two years has in fact worked for the special education students receiving those services. This is the equivalent of buying a "pig in a poke".

Second, I do not agree with the Board's current approach to the budget. As this stands, it does appear that a majority of the Board is committed to passing the Superintendent's budget without change. Apparently on the theory that the federal, state and county numbers at this time are uncertain and furthermore that to change anything at all is to somehow invite the County Council to change the numbers in the eleven categories as set forth in the resolution. The uncertainty as to the federal and state numbers can be rectified, as I believe we are going to entertain a motion to amend, to take up those considerations in April, rather than in June. At that time those state and federal numbers will be certain. I hope and encourage the Board to support that motion.

The uncertainty as to the county number is present every single year. To take the position that the Board will always support the Superintendent's Budget in February, without change or until it comes back from the County Council, lest the Council interfere with the budget, effectively means that every February the Board will always accept the Superintendent's recommended funding. By taking this position the Board is agreeing to basically limit its role to behind the scenes advocacy for priorities that may, or may not ever receive public exposure. And furthermore, is largely agreeing to limit its role to that of cheerleader for the budget. What is left to be decided in June is solely whether anything will be restored, not whether anything that perhaps should have been cut was not in fact cut.

Keep in mind that our inaction now does in my opinion effectively doom the Middle School Magnet Consortium and the Reading and Staff development positions, because teachers will need to commit to positions for the next school year and many will chose to take new positions or leave the system, rather than bet on an uncertain restoration of the cuts.

It seems to me moreover that a failure by the Board to actually evaluate and make appropriate changes to the proposed budget now is in fact itself an invitation to the County Council to meddle. If the Board will not do its own business as a body that is supposed to oversee the school system budget, and do so in a representative fashion for the best interests of the students, taking into account public testimony, then I see no reason why the County Council should hesitate to do our business for us. Beyond this it seems to me that to take this approach to the Budget wastes an awful lot of time and effort, both by the Board and by the community at large.

If it is the Board's intent to always support the proposed Budget in February, as is, with no changes, and then to make changes around the edges only in June after the County Council has adopted its budget, then perhaps we should just have the Superintendent present the budget to the County Council directly in February. Let our PTA's and parent's advocate directly to the Council. For it is clear we'll take no action right now as a result of the public's advocacy. And perhaps not very much action at a later time. After all, it will always be true that the school system as a whole will have moved ahead by June on the assumption that 99% of the Budget is a done deal. It seems to me to be inefficient and unseemly to sit in front of a crowded room in January full of people who think that their pleas will result in action now, if we know that no changes will be made. To raise hopes and expectations when the reality is that there is no hope is unfair.

As I left one Budget hearing I heard one parent say to another that the Board seemed to be moved by the stories that we heard of the children in the MPAC program. And there was real excitement in that parent's voice. I was the Board member who responded so enthusiastically. To that parent, I'm sorry. Sorry I responded so positively to your story. Had I known how misleading my reaction was, I would have sat stone faced.

In sum, if the Board will not do its job, then I will cast my vote against the budget because I believe we have a job to do. After I cast my vote, as I said, I will support it once it passes. But I encourage the Board to take this up again in April and to do its job now. Thank you.