Job Opportunities for Progressive (NEW) Charter School In Jackson, MS

Friends and educators of the world, a close friend and founder of the school is calling for resumes and cover letters for teaching positions at Midtown Public Charter School (one of the first charter schools in Mississippi history) in Jackson, Mississippi for August 2015.

In the folder linked below there are three documents:

1. Teacher Position Announcement (Provides Position Details)

2. About Midtown Public (Provides a School Overview )
3. Midtown Public School Design (Provides Insights Into School Building Design)3. Midtown Public School Design (Provides Insights Into School Building Design)

Teaching certification is not required in Mississippi, so take a look and apply if you might be interested in making a big impact with an awesome team!

Here's the link of the file: http://bit.ly/1AG6svW

To get an application, Call Dr. Kristi Hendrix at 601-354-5373.

Massachusetts Governor's Office is looking for potential candidates to fill positions

A friend shared this with me, now I'm sharing it with you...

--
A member of the Diversity in Transition Committee is looking to provide Massachusetts Governor Patrick's successor with access to talented and qualified individuals from communities of color. The office is looking for potential candidates to fill positions in (but not limited to):

- Administration & Finance
- Business & Technology
- Consumer Affairs & Business Regulation
- Economic Development
- Education (K-12 and Higher Education)
- Elders Affairs
- Environmental Affairs
- Health & Human Services
- Housing & Community Development
- Labor & Workforce Development
- Public Safety
- Transportation

If you, or someone you know is interested, please upload resumes or LinkedIn profiles for review by our Committee to http://diversityintransition.com/apply.html . In the questionnaire, indicate whether you are interested in a position or serving on a board or commission within the new Administration. The Committee will organize resumes received and present them to the new Administration in November 2014. 

Please note that submission of a resume does not guarantee a job, nor does it act as an application to a position. Instead, it will help a resume stand out during the transition process and support a formal application in November.

Facebook page at www.facebook.com/diversityintransitioncommittee. 

Debriefing the 2013 Atlanta-Fulton Co. Election results

• one of my favored city councilpersons no longer has a seat (pretty bummed about that),
• a new member of the school board will be representing "me" (though was completely unimpressive/uninspiring when we spoke one-on-one),
• the mayor is still the mayor (silver lining), 
• municipal judges running unopposed (hmmmm.....), 
• FOUR former TFA'ers are now on the APS school board (#onedayall)
• turnout for my polling place was below 15%--shesh.

Full results can be found here: http://www.fultoncountyga.gov/county/election/results/ 

Judge Profits from Jail Sentences

The School-to-Prison Pipeline is real.  Education policy spaces are full of statistics, anecdotes, narratives, and campaigns to inform and correct for what happens to many, many students and youth, particularly our black and brown babies.

Well, here is a REAL account (so it seems) of a JUDGE that has allegedly been sentencing adolescents and teenagers to JAIL and PROFITING FROM IT.

It's sickening.  Deeply sickening.

Judge to serve 28 years after making $2 million for sending black children to jail

2:15 PM EDT

7/30/2013 by Amir Shaw   http://rollingout.com/criminal-behavior/judge-must-serve-28-years-after-making-2-million-for-sending-children-to-jail/

"Judge Mark A. Ciavarella, 63, serves as an example of why the private prison industry can do more harm than good. Ciavarella worked alongside owners of private juvenile facilities to ensure that the prison remained occupied. The more prisoners equated to more profits for the owners of the prison"

(Read more directly from the article.) 

August Trial Date for (first of many) APS Cheating Scandal Legal Proceedings

A judge has set a trial date for this August 2013 for the state to present its case against a defendant-former executive.  These charges are separate from the conspiracy case that envelopes most of the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal legal proceedings that are certain to come later.  As reported, this trial is for actions of intimidating witnesses.

Watch for yourself (courtesy of local news affiliate WSB):

DeKalb County Schools (Atlanta) -- Over 400 Applicants down to about One Dozen

When the State School Board decided that six members of the DeKalb County School Board (Atlanta, Ga) would lose their seats due to mismanagement, over 400 applications were received to fill those positions.  I wrote about it here and here.

News just in today?  A special committee tasked to recommend candidates to fill those seats should widdle that list down by the end of the day to about one dozen, or 2 for each seat, to be presented to the Governor.  Here's the article from the local WSBtv affiliate.

DeKalb County School Board Members OUT -- Governor Removes 'Em

Governor Nathan Deal of Georgia removed members of the DeKalb County School Board last week.  The news went national: Huffington Post.  I wrote about my thoughts in several previous posts: Another Atlanta district is on suspension -- UGH!

My thoughts haven't much changed-- it's an embarrassment.

According to Georgia news, Georgia governors have done this often.

The state's last three governors—Roy Barnes, Sonny Perdue and now Deal—have suspended or removed from office members of local boards of education in Spalding, Clayton, Warren and Miller counties when those districts' accreditation was threatened, in part, by dysfunctional behavior on the part of their boards. -- The Daily Report.

 Further, supposedly more than 400 people have applied to fill the school board vacancies. 

When you got prosecutors spewing prejudices...

A Texas prosecutor stood before a jury and asked them to make logical connections based on prejudices of what African-Americans and Hispanic people would do with a bag of money.

Have no idea where I was when this story first broke, but I'm reading about it now and it sickens me on sooo many levels.  Usually, I just list the link and ask readers to explore, but because of the gross miscarriage of power that has been entrusted in a prosecutor (presumably a representative of the people to seek justice), here's the text of the story.

I would make my own comments, but Justice Sotomayor has made the points that I feel in a way that is much more thoughtful that I would probably put together.  I've highlighted her comments in purple.

More after the break...

More on Superintendent Davis -- His Community Impact

Aside from the comments found in my earlier post, there's another perspective out there too -- about the positive community impact that Superintendent Davis's administration has made.  Here's how one of my neighbors put it in a public email thread to us all:

 OK- so maybe you think, I don't have kids in school, this really doesn't
matter [sic] to me.

You could not be more wrong:
-Take a look at your property tax bill: app. 45% is the APS school tax,
plus bonded indebtedness
-Property values are *directly* related to the desireability of local
schools: go a ahead and re-paint and put in granite counter-tops, but if
you want to be able to sell quickly and for a fair price, fix the schools.
-Crime/public safety are also directly related to the schools: good
schools keep after truants, a major source of mischief and mayhem, plus
they give their students marketable skills, so instead of being a drag on
society, they contribute to it.

Davis can be prickly, but he takes a dispassionate look at problems, and
that is something that is rare in schools systems, because politics ranks
so highly with most involved at the executive level. He doesn't care: he
came out of retirement to do this job, and while APS pays him well, he made
his money during a long, varied and successful career.

Surely the community gets a say, right?

More after the break...

Not Voting on Superintendent Davis's Contract Matters

The Atlanta school board is refusing to vote on whether Superintendent Davis' contract will be renewed.

Here's why it matters:

Superintendent Davis and former-Superintendent Hall were brought in during similar public expectations.  Both Dr. Hall and Mr. Davis were asked to improve APS from the low status many perceived it to have. However, as a necessity, much of Superintendent Davis’s initial efforts have been in direct response to shortcoming of the immediate past administration under Superintendent Hall.  Namely, the previous administration had ambitious plans for success without realistic corrections for failure. The Hall administration accepted the positive trends in ways that the Davis administration is now scrutinizing. Where Superintendent Hall put in place initiatives to spur educators to reach the height of performance, Superintendent Davis is enacting initiatives to discourage educators from dipping below performance expectations. Namely, Mr. Davis addressed five areas immediately upon assuming full superintendent responsibilities: (1) combating cheating, (2) rehabilitating the district, (3) restoring students, (4) employing administrative leave, and (5) applying relevant professional, employment, and criminal penalties. These strategies are likely considered to be sound approaches for managing education systems in the context of responding to crisis, but alone they are not likely to transform the district from operating as it had under Superintendent Hall.

          ...

[Superintendent Davis took] positive steps by cleaning up the environments that incentivized cheating behavior in the first place, and he is consulting with experts to put in place professionally sound organizational strategies. What is concerning, though, is that many thought that Superintendent Hall was doing similar things at the time she was managing the district—borrowing reforms and initiatives that the education community thought were effective.  After speaking with former APS employees [during my thesis research], there may be reason to believe that simply changing superintendents and tightening administrative policies may not on their own lead to sustainable solutions. Said more strongly, it is unclear that these new policies will actually result in environments where educators and decision-makers will actually be able to police their own environments.

--excerpted from my Master's Thesis, CRITICAL INCIDENTS IN EDUCATION:
USING REFLECTIVE PRACTICE TO CREATE SUSTAINABLE SOLUTIONS AFTER A SCHOOL DISTRICT CHEATING SCANDAL

So what am I trying to say?

I'm trying to say that Superintendent Davis may have been just what the doctor ordered to restore order in Atlanta Public Schools.  However, it is doubtful that he is what is needed to push APS to become a district that thrives on its own successes and evaluates its own shortcomings.  For all his well-deserved praise and accomplishments (seriously, no sarcasm), it's fair to say that Superintendent Davis never expected himself to be APS's long-term superintendent.

Nor should we.

But that doesn't mean that his contract must end THIS year.  There is a strong case for keeping him on long enough so that the search for a new APS superintendent isn't rushed.  Renewing Superintendent Davis' contract for another year may provide an opportunity for a meaningful administrative transition and introduction of the new leader to Atlanta's community.  It may signal a maturity and stability that APS has lacked.

You see, APS does not just need someone to stop the bleeding and prescribe the medicine-- APS needs a long-term caretaker.  Someone who helps the district regain its strength and envision new opportunities.  And, most importantly, APS needs new administration’s policies grounded in an APS specific context.

So, am I for or against Davis?

Because I am interested in the long-term stability and PROSPERITY of Atlanta Public Schools, I must be for Superintendent Davis -- he had undeniably done GOOD for the district.  I am ALSO for a predecessor to take the reigns, after an appropriate transition, and build upon the stability Davis has brought.

Anyone know any names of potential candidates that have come up in the superintendent search?

Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal – An Overview in Lieu of the 400+ Pages of Special Investigators’ Report

Main Question

In light of the Governor’s Special Investigators’ Report (“Report”) on alleged cheating in Georgia school districts, what issues need to be addressed in Atlanta Public School System (APS) to overcome systemic failures?

Short Answer

The Governor’s Special Investigators’ Report details organized and systemic misconduct on the part of Atlanta Public School System officers, administrators, staff, principals, teachers, and educators.  The Report found mismanagement, poor oversight, and a lack of ethical behavior as it relates to state testing on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (“CRCTs”).  It identifies failures in leadership at both the district and school levels and links cheating outcomes to dysfunctions in APS organizational culture. 

Discussion

I.                   Background

a.       Why was the Report Written?

b.      Who Authored the Report?

c.       How was the Report Compiled?

II.                Content

a.       What are the Report’s Main Findings?

b.      How Does the Report Detail These Findings?

c.       Does the Report Name Educators?

III.             Conclusions and Policy Recommendations

a.       Where Does Responsibility Lie?

b.      What Issues Need to be Addressed to Overcome Systemic Failures?

c.       What Does the Report Mean for the Truancy Intervention Project?

Educators are People, too.

One of the top reasons why I think education could benefit from organizational culture literature is captured by this blog post in Education Week: "10 Reasons Your Educators are Resisting Your Change Initiative."  Educators are people, too.

I was reminded of the humanity and "regular"-ness of teachers when I visited my old school a couple of weeks ago.  I heard people continually satisfied with the progress of their students.  I heard people continually frustrated by the oversight and underappreciation.  I heard teachers sound like employees in other organizations-- wanting the basics of transparency, agency, and respect.  It cemented my thoughts that leadership is really powerful (and can rob shining stars from their brilliance over time).

Exam Week and Education Pauses

In the middle of exam week now and the only two on the horizon both tie together my excitement for law and students-- one Child, Family, and State 8-hour exam and one mediation paper on IDEA voluntary mediation provisions. However, I'm most excited reminding myself that I have articles and blog entries waiting for me on my Google Reader from my weekly education clippings. Which begs the question, "Am I going in the wrong direction?"

Of course, I'll strongly defend with a "no, there is no 'wrong' direction." I hardly think that Ms. Wright Edelman or Mr. Klein knew exactly where they'd be careers later when they graduated from the nation's top law schools Yale and Harvard, respectively. But, I'm sure they find daily passion that they are right where they were always meant to be grinding it out for children and students. 

That's the direction I want to go in. So I gotta get through these last academic tests to start the journey. Ok, back to the books.