THIS is interesting....

The leadership at NEA takes a stand AGAINST freedom of speech...

REG WEAVER, leader of the NEA, is sounding a lot like the oppressive and controling voice that teachers are coming together to resist.

Read more from the comments on the petition. Teachers are just plain sick of the inferior quality of a standardized plan. Our teachers want to teach. And our students want to learn.

Parents are beginning to see the reality behind the labels and rhetoric of NCLB.

What Reg doesn't seem to get is that you can't "teach" with your hands shackled and your mouth taped closed.

What on earth is he thinking?

If the leadership at the NEA had any intention of representing the teachers, they would solicit, NOT CENSOR, their voices.

Reg Weaver should go back to school.



Reg Weaver’s Memo and Educator Roundtable’s Response

The Memo

From: Anderson, Melinda [NEA] [mailto:MAnderson@nea.org]
Sent: Wed 12/13/2006 12:37 PM
To: State-Presidents [AFF]; State-Executive-Directors [AFF]
Cc: State-GR-Directors [AFF]; State_Affiliate_Comm_Liaison; VanRoekel, Dennis [NEA]; Eskelsen, Lily [NEA]; NCUEA President [NEA]; NCHE President [NEA]; NCESP President [NEA]; Daniels, Anthony [NEA]; NEAR President [NEA]; Executive Staff [NEA]; FieldOps [NEA]; GR.Allstaff [NEA]; PR.AllStaff; Billirakis, Mike [NEA]; Cebulski, Mark [NEA]; Crowder, Carolyn [NEA]; Marks, Michael [NEA]; Pringle, Becky [NEA]; Smith, Marsha [NEA]

Subject: Message from Reg Weaver & John Wilson: NEA *Does Not* Endorse NCLB Petition

Memorandum

TO:
State Affiliate Presidents
State Affiliate Executive Directors

FROM:
Reg Weaver
John Wilson

RE:
Beware: NEA Does Not Endorse Online NCLB Petition

We have important information to share about a group of education advocates/activists calling themselves the "Educator Roundtable." (www.educatorroundtable.org ) This new organization has posted online a new anti-NCLB petition -- A Petition Calling for the Dismantling of the No Child Left Behind Act. The group has just issued a press release (see text below) to officially launch its effort to obtain signatures for the petition.

Information about the petition and calls for signing it have been circulating on many email lists. Affiliates, NEA staff, and others are asking questions about the petition and whether or not NEA endorses it.

The short answer? Absolutely not.

While the initiators of the petition are well-meaning and share many of the same concerns we have with NCLB, the petition does not represent our views. It calls for the dismantling of NCLB and does not propose any positive changes or alternatives.

Please get the word out in your state that:

• Some of the petition's initiators have been critical of NEA and our efforts around NCLB.

• The petition is not consistent with NEA's Positive Agenda for ESEA or our messaging (see www.nea.org/esea for details).

• We would not want NEA affiliates to sign the petition or promote it. Instead direct our members and local affiliates to http://www.nea.org/lac/esea/index.html so they can email members of Congress about our Positive Agenda.

Have questions or need more information? Contact Joel Packer, Director, Education Policy and Practice Department, (202) 822-7329.

Thanks for all you continue to do to ensure great public schools for every child!

cc: State Affiliate Government Relations Directors
State Affiliate Public Relations Directors

Dennis Van Roekel
Lily Eskelsen
NEA Executive Committee
NEA Board of Directors

NCUEA President

NCHE President

NCESP President
Chair, NEA Student Program
NEA-R President

NEA Executive Staff
State ESEA Contacts

NEA Field Operations
NEA-GR Staff
NEA-PR Staff


The Response:



An Open Letter to the Rank and File Members of the National Education Association

Dear Fellow Educators,

On November 21, 2006 the Educator Roundtable launched an online petition drive to repeal the 2002 reauthorization of ESEA, the so called No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The response to the petition has been exceptional; in less than 30 days more than 20,000 signatures have been collected, all via the Internet without media support.

Unfortunately, the national leadership of the NEA has come out against our efforts to repeal this disastrous legislation, legislation that diminishes the professionalism of teachers, cedes local control of classrooms to federal and corporate manipulation, and, most distressingly, subjects our children to an endless regimen of high-stakes tests that provide little, if any, benefit to their lives.

Aside from being an ineffective way to educate children, the new educational culture of NCLB is patently destructive. Our children, in lieu of being prepared for contributive citizenship in our democracy, or even being prepared for the world of work, are being reduced to nothing more than passers of minimum competency tests. Your teaching is being judged only on whether you can bring your lowest performing students to meet the lowest of expectations on simplistic reading and mathematics tests, at the expense of all else -- including your best and brightest. For what purpose then does public schooling exist? Do we school to help all children develop into critical, reflective, engaged participants of their communities, or do we school to try to meet the expectations of ill-informed legislators and lobbyists who clearly have no interest in your children?

Considering the dire consequences unfolding for public educators, students, their families, and the communities housing them, one would think that the NEA would be the foremost voice of opposition to NCLB. Instead of demanding that America's classrooms be free from corporate intrusion, the NEA's leadership offers a watered-down approach seeking only to mitigate a few of the law's more egregious effects.

For the past four years the NEA leadership has failed to see the proverbial forest for the trees and, in so doing, has failed the very teachers it purports to represent. Now, when concerned educators and their supporters organize themselves to oppose reauthorization of the law, we are denied out of hand by the leaders of an organization that should be our greatest ally. Sadly, we have arrived at a time when the leadership that once protected our interests is willing to dismiss them in order to protect its own.

In contrast to their policy, the members and supporters of the Educator Roundtable, now 20,000 strong, are acting in the original spirit of unionism, organizing many small voices into a meaningful wave of self-advocacy. The Educator Roundtable asks teachers and their supporters to speak openly about the impact of the No Child Left Behind Act. We encourage everyone with a stake in public education—and that is everyone—to begin “a ferocious national debate that doesn’t quit” about what we want for public education and what we want for our children and our future.

In order to allow this broad debate to carry forward towards real education reform, we seek to end the current format of ESEA. We do not want to simply and stubbornly oppose the law without proposing “any positive changes or alternatives,” as the NEA leadership accuses us, but we must establish an environment where open debate is possible—an environment free of NCLB—to move beyond the original ESEA to the betterment of our children rather than the destruction of public education. The key to this effort is, of course, openness, amongst ourselves, with the public, and with the millions of disenfranchised educators both within and without the NEA.

While it appears that openness is not the policy of the NEA leadership at present, we hold faith that the rank and file members of the NEA are able to think for themselves, and we encourage them to read our public statements and to sign our petition. It might comfort them to know that many union members are sitting at our roundtable; several have been paying dues since the late 1960s. We hope you recognize that when leaders make mistakes, their supporters must make tough decisions, holding leadership accountable for the paths they choose.

It would be a different country if more Americans learned to do so.

The NEA has chosen to initiate a national campaign to discredit our organization, urging their members not to sign the petition. We believe that teachers, union members or not, are tired of being told what to do, when to do it, and how it is best done. If you share our belief, we urge you to join us by signing the petition calling for and end to NCLB.

The Educator Roundtable is an organization made up of teachers, parents, students, and educators with a shared vision for our public schools that preserves the ideals of vibrant and meaningful teaching and learning. We join the thousands of teachers who find it impossible to stay silent in the face of the destructive path of NCLB, and we will not be deterred by the leadership of an organization that ignores the voices of its own members.

Please direct all inquiries to Dr. Philip Kovacs, Director of the Educator Roundtable, at www.educatorroundtable.org.

A Petition Calling For the Dismantling of the No Child Left Behind Act

Here it is...it is our time to speak.

SIGN IT, SIGN IT, SIGN IT...

To: U.S. Congress

We, the educators, parents, and concerned citizens whose names appear below, reject the misnamed No Child Left Behind Act and call for legislators to vote against its reauthorization. We do so not because we resist accountability, but because the law's simplistic approach to education reform wastes student potential, undermines public education, and threatens the future of our democracy.

Below, briefly stated, are some of the reasons we consider the law too destructive to salvage. In its place we call for formal, state-level dialogues led by working educators rather than by politicians, ideology-bound "think tank" members, or leaders of business and industry who have little or no direct experience in the field of education.

THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT:

1. Misdiagnoses the causes of poor educational development, blaming teachers and students for problems over which they have no control.

2. Assumes that competition is the primary motivator of human behavior and that market forces can cure all educational ills.

3. Mandates data driven instruction based on gamesmanship to undermine public confidence in our schools.

4. Uses pseudo science and media manipulation to justify pro-corporate policies and programs, including diverting taxes away from communities and into corporate coffers.

5. Ignores the proven inadequacies, inefficiencies, and problems associated with centralized, "top-down" control.

6. Places control of what is taught in corporate hands many times removed from students, teachers, parents, local school boards, and communities.

7. Requires the use of materials and procedures more likely to produce a passive, compliant workforce than creative, resilient, inquiring, critical, compassionate, engaged members of our democracy.

8. Reflects and perpetuates massive distrust of the skill and professionalism of educators.

9. Allows life-changing, institution-shaping decisions to hinge on single measures of performance.

10. Emphasizes minimum content standards rather than maximum development of human potential.

11. Neglects the teaching of higher order thinking skills which cannot be evaluated by machines.

12. Applies standards to discrete subjects rather than to larger goals such as insightful children, vibrant communities, and a healthy democracy.

13. Forces schools to adhere to a testing regime, with no provision for innovating, adapting to social change, encouraging creativity, or respecting student and community individuality, nuance, and difference.

14. Drives art, music, foreign language, career and technical education, physical education, geography, history, civics and other non-tested subjects out of the curriculum, especially in low-income neighborhoods.

15. Produces multiple, unintended consequences for students, teachers, and communities, including undermining neighborhood schools and blurring the line between church and state.

16. Rates and ranks public schools using procedures that will gradually label them all "failures," so when they fail to make Adequate Yearly Progress, as all schools eventually will, they can be “saved” by vouchers, charters, or privatization.

While any one of these issues is serious enough to warrant discarding No Child Left Behind, the law suffers from all of them. The number of signatures on this petition should be a clear indicator to state and national policy makers that it is time to move beyond this harmful, highly restrictive law.



Sincerely,

The Undersigned

more thoughts on testing...

Here is an excellent essay and reference on testing issues, also posted on Susan Ohanian's wonderful website at: www.susanohanian.org





Ohanian Comment: I've sat in on classes at Dan Drmacich's school, and I've talked to parents and students. It's a school that nurture's students and teaches them well.


Comments from Annie:

This thoughtful review of the NY Regents test and supporting education process pertains to every state in compliance with NCLB policy.

Simply substitute your state’s name for “Regent” and the following list (excerpts from the essay by Dan Drmacich, principal, School Without Walls in the Rochester School; Standardized tests can send students who fail into tailspin) provides a perfect data sheet for advocacy against NCLB reauthorization.


From the essay:



The purpose of testing should be to help students grow academically, not to coerce higher test performances through public scrutiny and humiliation.

Volumes of research prove that subjective teacher assessment is a much more accurate predictor of student success than any single standardized test score.

The goal of having all students score above average on any standardized test is impossible.

Ironically, the very tests used by our state to measure student results prevent equality of performance.

Standardized test scores do not give the public an accurate picture of how well schools are preparing students as citizens and leaders.

The emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing is creating a culture of failure among many students, especially in urban areas.

Students who are poor, who are from English-as-a-second-language families, who have special education needs, who desire to have a vocational education or who have unique interests or learning styles, have suffered under the one-size-fits-all Regents education process. Even those students who do well on Regents tests suffer because they are often denied the opportunities to focus their studies on areas of personal interest, citizenship and other lifelong-learning skills.


Standardized tests can send students who fail into tailspin


by Dan Drmacich

The drumbeat of our state Regents testing policy and our federal No Child Left Behind Act echoed loud and clear in the Democrat and Chronicle's Sept. 22 and Oct. 12 stories on test results. Reading between the lines of the scoring data and accompanying stories of how schools are focusing their curricula to help students pass Regents tests leads me to several critical conclusions:


Students in families with higher family incomes generally have higher test scores than those from poorer families. One of the many critical reports substantiating this conclusion is the 2003 Metropolitan Life Teacher Assessment that low-income children have at least 16 critical variables to deal with that negatively impact test scores. These include family dysfunction and children entering kindergarten with low vocabulary levels.

Instead of requiring the same levels of testing performance from all students and publicly ranking schools that have minimal control over testing outcomes, wouldn't it make more sense for the state and federal governments to promote individual student growth and development? This change could be partially accomplished by never making test results public. The purpose of testing should be to help students grow academically, not to coerce higher test performances through public scrutiny and humiliation.

State and federal education departments also need to rely on more authentic, valid assessments, such as the number of books students comprehend, oral presentation results and portfolio demonstrations. Volumes of research prove that subjective teacher assessment is a much more accurate predictor of student success than any single standardized test score.


The goal of having all students score above average on any standardized test is impossible. Few educators, politicians and even Board of Regents members understand that test writers construct standardized tests for the purpose of creating a wide range of scores, with roughly half the test takers scoring above average and the other half below. One might conclude that the public has been snookered into believing that education reform through testing will lead to more students scoring above average on state tests. Ironically, the very tests used by our state to measure student results prevent equality of performance.


Standardized test scores do not give the public an accurate picture of how well schools are preparing students as citizens and leaders. Many New York state citizens who were poor test-takers have had successful college careers and hold prominent professional positions. Others have gone on to successful vocational careers and demonstrated success as leaders, parents and neighbors. Research has shown that success is not so dependent on IQ as it is upon an individual's EQ (emotional quotient). Characteristics, impossible to measure on standardized tests, such as leadership, perseverance, listening skills and compassion, are far more accurate predictors of success. More than 700 colleges have recognized this research, and consequently made the Scholastic Aptitude Tests optional for student admission.


The emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing is creating a culture of failure among many students, especially in urban areas. Imagine for a moment how a student might feel with a curriculum dominated by test preparation, a routine many students find not very interesting. Also, consider how some students might feel after their low test scores are shared and compared publicly to those of higher-scoring students. Some students may be learning to feel hopeless.

Students who are poor, who are from English-as-a-second-language families, who have special education needs, who desire to have a vocational education or who have unique interests or learning styles, have suffered under the one-size-fits-all Regents education process. Even those students who do well on Regents tests suffer because they are often denied the opportunities to focus their studies on areas of personal interest, citizenship and other lifelong-learning skills.

Each person who agrees should voice his or her concerns to school district officials, state and federal representatives. Only through active citizenship can we create an education system that truly meets the needs of our students and our society.

Drmacich is principal, School Without Walls in the Rochester School District.E-mail him at Daniel.Drmacich@RCSDK12.org.

— Dan Drmacich
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
2006-10-18

it's back to school night...already?

As usual, nothing has changed and everything has changed....

Walking into my daughter's new principal's opening speech, the one that sets the tone for the year to come was a little bit creepy...He was at that moment telling the audience how by putting their children into AP classes, they are cashing in on a SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLAR savings in their future college costs.

I considered going directly to him and asking for a check since nothing of the kind is true in reality for my daughter or her friends, all new freshman students this year. As a matter of fact, and with a great deal of good sense, my daughter is enrolled in several classes she could have "skipped over" but it is not like her to want to lose out on the opportunity to study subjects she feels are important in a manner that offers depth, and with a knowledgable, prepared, and enthusiastic teacher...

The teachers have changed...There is a huge influx of shiny new faces. They are bright, enthusiastic, new, young teachers. My daughter loves them. And I can see why. For that, I am grateful...but I can't help but worry how they will fare. I am selfish enough at this point to hope they at least fare the year.

My soul still aches for the teachers who surrendered; the veterans. I never seem to shake off the memory of a teacher going to a Board of Education meeting here several years ago, holding up a white flag, and quitting on the spot...it still bothers me. I miss seeing the carriers of light--the kind of teacher who boldly speaks up, even if it is provocative or controversial; they are gone now, fired.

The teachers who stick around look sort of wounded, really. It saddens me to know how reluctantly they keep their jobs to survive mortgages and raising families, keeping retirement plans intact, but how much they have given up and given over... The changes robbed them of their joy....

A few veteran teachers seem okay; they have obviously convinced themselves that working within the present oppression is yet another educational trend. They might have convinced themselves that they can work around the policies, or that it is okay to work within them. I dunno, I know my child's perception is that "adequate" is not enough. And I agree, naturally.

Our new superintendent is busy "visiting every school in the district." He already seems to have engaged his team of people who never seem to have any of the complaints crucial to me or the other parents or kids or teachers I know. He is already armed with his head-nodding, invisable to me, clan of such people in firm agreement with how great things are going and how much the policies of standardization and beefed up testing have proven "progress" in our schools.

Ugh...

I still mourn our loss of opportunity; we could have hired a superintendent who would refuse to engage in such a horrid, destructive policy. We could have done better. We were so close....

With one child out of this stressful experience and one child right in the middle of it, I search for positives. The high-schooler is remarkably insightful and hard-working. Her teachers really see and respond to her and her fine qualities. As usual, most of her time outside of school will be devoted to endless worksheets and test-prep. The little remaining time, I hope, will be spend with an eye on her sister and the wonderful experiences she is having after high school. There is still a lot to look forward to. And we will steal her away from her burden with distraction and opportunities to learn with joy and purpose...and help her to choose sleep when enough is enough late at night...

So soon it will be autumn. Time to mark the phases of our lives with the sights and sounds and smells of another season...

I stare at the pictures of them when they were little...the girls have grown from beautiful babies, into amazing children, into wonderful teens, so quickly, it now seems...and so much has changed...and so much has not.

The Not Welcome Mat On Our School Doorstep

In the few days since I wrote this essay, another school board member has announced his intentions to run for a political office. I expect that in the future, other board members intend to cash in on their experience and resulting name recognition and, perhaps, favors owed, and also enter the political arena.

None of this is surprising, but all of this is disheartening. There is a certain flair and stained dimension to the decisions made by a public representative when they are tied to a political goal.

In our case, the decisions to move ahead toward expansion of IB and AP programs, supported by elite parents who believe the programs are the key to a better experience for their public school children, is an example of this. This decision is not informed. It lacks the perspective of research that questions the academic value of these programs.

In a frantic quest to seek out popularity, and possible future votes, our school board ignores the less vocal, less prominent citizen and their input. Perhaps a less powerful potential lobby would rather see these portions of our budget go toward improvement of our school infrastructure. Perhaps we would like to see money directed toward teachers, toward smaller classrooms, toward lessening the financial burden of parents to fund supplies and books and fieldtrips. Maybe we want the funds directed toward the development of quality learning choices that are not owned and monopolized by the College Board or McGraw Hill or Houghton Mifflin.

Something to ponder, if you are at all inclined, is this--no matter who you are--we are all being hurt by this merger of politics, business, and education, and so are the children, their teachers, our schools. And it will be a much easier trip back up the mountain now than if we allow them to take us all the way down....

Let's say "no" together. Think about it....




The Not Welcome Mat On Our School Doorstep

I have to step outside of my usual line of comments occasionally and write from the mind of my very own spirit. I am but one little voice in a small community on the eastern seaboard. This is my heritage, this is my soul; this is my place on this earth. I will tell you why I preface this essay this way. It is because I do not want you to think that I speak from any where else but my heart, which is composed, primarily, of the salt and sand and marsh and lush green farms and heron and crustaceans which decorate my life of rich color and beautiful earth banking up against the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

Although our immediate community is small and surrounded by a mostly rural but also growing suburban sprawl, our towns are small, including our downtown, which happens to be the capital of the state. Our county is large and it is as diverse as the land that it covers. We have a population that grew out of the city shipyards just outside of Baltimore city and we spread all the way toward the influence of Washington, DC, our county line drawn maybe 20 miles at most from its heartbeat. And in between, and to the east, our little communities and towns curl all through the coastal regions of the bay and our rivers. In the southern part, which is where I live, the towns grew up around the waterways and bay, lots of farming, lots of boatyards, lots of water-based industry. And by industry, I mean salty fishermen and crabbers and oystermen, who spend their lives out on the water, season after season, providing us with the food that the ever abundant bay has delivered to our tables for generations.

The humorous description of our little downtown is this: Annapolis is a drinking town with a sailing problem. The handmade sign at the foot of the bridge over our very own South River in my little town says: “A Riva Derci.” That’s because we live in a place called Riva.

I had to bring you here to tell you my thoughts.

Our little appointed school board is remarkably representative of the variety of citizens who have found their homes here in this region. We have the representative from the very urban feel of the part of our county closest to Baltimore and the representative from the very rural feeling, southern parts of our county. And we have representatives from the many flavors of our regions in between them.

I have not found a “friend” in my community representatives on our school board. Why is that? I don’t know if I can explain why that is, and this is why, perhaps, I am moved to write about it. I think that there is a divide that is created, for one thing, by the process of their appointment by the governor. There is a process of community input and candidate selection but honestly, it seems to me to mimic an election. With this process, many voices are left out, candidates too. Because, here, it is likely that although you might be part of a community association, or civic group, or church, you may, like me, not feel exactly welcomed by the type of member the group attracts. Does that make sense to you?

I guess what I am saying is that it feels, from the start of this process, that the average Joe or Annie is excluded.

The political atmosphere of the board members selection goes through a nominating convention and then finalists are presented for appointment. In our local paper, the coverage makes it clear who the candidates are by identifying their political affiliation; no, not directly, but it is clear. Although the governor is not tied to these candidates in his appointments, it is often quite clear, by popular reputation and by local information, who, based upon the political party affiliation of the current governor, he will choose.

Is this so different from your town?

And so, from the beginning, the citizen, who will help color the choices and doctrine and policies in our schools is usually not my gal or guy; they are not my representative. These are the people who will in time select our school superintendent. And I can bank, likewise, on the choice they make not feeling like my choice. So, when I visit my child’s school, or have an area of interest for discussion or debate over the policies of our community schools, I deal with an administrative staff that is governed and controlled by the leadership not of my choice or selection.

This is part, I think, of a growing apathy for the directions of our community schools. The schools do not feel like they belong to us. And the greater the involvement of the higher, more remote government and politicians, the greater the gap becomes; our schools no longer represent our ideals, our perspective, our choice or our satisfaction. We are no longer a part of the decision-making process.

Now, I read in my local paper that our school board president has decided to enter the race to become our district delegate. This, of course, is no surprise. The school board, as an entity that has evolved in the political arena as a stepping stone into local politics, is not a new occurrence. What is new to me, though, is the announcement that he is running on the Democratic ticket. Why I should be surprised, is unsettling to me. There are several reasons. He was appointed several years ago by our Republican governor, he is recognizably influenced, heavily, by our business community, and he has followed through with unquestioning devotion to the policies of NCLB.

Traditionally, in our region, there has long been a Democratic stronghold. That, of course has changed as we now have a Republican governor. But, I have to tell you that all the boundaries that I thought I knew have blurred in perhaps a transition of culture and folk life that once defined not just our little place but lots of other regions and locales across our nation. Now, I can’t recognize the politicians through the forest of the politics. And now, I can’t tell who is competent to make decisions in our schools or who is there to campaign for a future career in politics. And now, I can’t feel comfortable that anything that happens in our schools is not in part being driven by a political campaign or goal or power.

So, that is how it feels in little Riva these days. My children go to schools that are stages on which political theater is showcased. Our meetings are political soap boxes. Our policies are political doctrine. Our children are only commodities, and their performance is simply another political chip to bargain with.

This is not Lake Woebegone, not at all. This is small-town America high-jacked by a powerful political agenda. And, even if you pay attention, and I promise you that I do, whatever you thought you knew may very much turn inside out before you realize it. It happened here. It will happen there too.

I will not say that I have lost the will or the spirit or the intention to fight this destructive force on our schools and on our sacred, special place on this earth where life should be brimming in opportunity, steeped in history and open to the future; I have not yet lost hope. But I do know, that without the voices of my neighbors, without the voices of our teachers, without the courage and drive to recapture a place where we all should feel comfortable and included, in our schools, we will not , perhaps, have this chance for long.

...here we go again

With only days left at her interim post, our temporary superintendent has made a decision to facilitate a massive reorganization. The timing seems suspicious since our newly chosen superintendent starts on July 1st...

Specific to our high school, our principal, Dr. James Hamilton has been at this position for 19 years. To include him in this upheaval seems cruel and uncalled for in light of the probability that this coming year would, perhaps, by his own choice and schedule be his last before retirement.

But in a temporary tenure marked by her preference toward the appearance of "status quo" and following press reports that her resigning predecessor was the master of too much change, too fast, Dr. Mann has announced this change, effective in only 3 more days...



http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2006/06_08-26/TOP

Mann shakes up leadership at county's high schools

RYAN BAGWELL, Staff Writer

June 8,2006

Interim county schools Superintendent Nancy M. Mann transferred scores of principals yesterday in one of the largest personnel shake-ups the system has seen in years. Sixty administrators were either transferred or promoted by the school board and Mrs. Mann, including half the principals of the county's 12 high schools.

Robert Ferguson, president of the union that represents county principals, said the moves seem like good matches.

"Change just to make change isn't good, but change to make an improvement is," said Mr. Ferguson, a Chesapeake High School assistant principal who will move to Old Mill High.

Mrs. Mann's directive swapped Severna Park Principal William Myers with South River's James Hamilton, two longtime administrators who are highly regarded in the school system.

School board President Konrad M. Wayson said Mr. Myers' transfer gave some board members "heartburn." But school officials said it was an amicable move.

"I'm sorry to see him go in Severna Park, but I'm sure the folks at South River will be happy to see him," school board member Michael Leahy said.

In another swap, Northeast High Principal George Kispert will lead Old Mill High next year, and Kathy Kubic,Old Mill's Principal, will head to Northeast.

Mrs. Mann said Old Mill's growing diversity and recent problems - including a gun brought to the school in April - prompted her to swap Mr. Kispert's longtime experience for Ms. Kubic's two years at Old Mill.

"I would say I have grown quite fond of the Old Mill High School community," Ms. Kubic said. "We were moving in the right direction, but I look forward to Northeast High."

North County High Principal Patricia Plitt will take over for Chesapeake High Principal Harry Calender, who is retiring. And Frank Drazan, an assistant principal at Broadneck High, will replace Ms. Plitt as principal of the struggling school in Glen Burnie.

"There are a lot of challenges, but there are a lot of real positives, and that's what I'm hoping to do, is to bring people to work toward those challenges," he said.

Mr. Drazan is a 30-year veteran educator who has been at Broadneck for the past five years. He said yesterday he'll try to raise parent involvement when he starts at the school next week.

Ms. Plitt, who taught for years at Chesapeake High and sent her own kids to the school, had wanted to return there for some time, Mrs. Mann said.

"We make these changes yearly," said Mrs. Mann. "It's nothing new."

Lisa Leitholf, Annapolis Elementary's principal, will lead Folger McKinsey Elementary in Severna Park. The school was named a national Blue Ribbon School of excellence last year.

Alison Lee will leave Folger McKinsey to head Broadneck Elementary. And Susan Myers, an assistant principal at Brooklyn Park's Park Elementary will take the reigns of Annapolis Elementary.

All of the administrative personnel appointments will officially take effect June 15, the day after the last day for teachers.

Mrs. Mann will step down at the end of this month to make way for incoming superintendent Kevin M. Maxwell, a community superintendent with Montgomery County schools. He'll start a four-year contract July 1.

The transfers end a relatively stable time for principals in Anne Arundel schools that administrators enjoyed under former superintendent Eric J. Smith's tenure.

Under Dr. Smith, 43 principals were shuffled around at this time last year, 16 were handed new jobs in 2004 and 29 were moved around in 2003.

School board members were cautiously supportive of yesterday's moves.

"I'm relying on her to know what's best for the system," school board President Konrad M. Wayson said. "Where she sees deficiencies in some areas, she's moving strong candidates in there."

the finalists have been chosen...

here they are...the 3 finalists for our next superintendent...



many thanks to our effective school board for your committment to the community. once again, you are right, this is very much a trio who represents our ideals.