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Blueprint for school overhaul unveiled
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Teachers' pay would be tied to performance, private charter schools could take over ineffective public schools and principals would gain power under a Clark County School District reorganization blueprint unveiled Thursday by Superintendent Dwight Jones.
The new superintendent's plan emphasizes high standards and efficiency so more resources can be directed to the classroom.
"The aim is to achieve a more laserlike focus on student performance," Jones told School Board members.
School Board President Carolyn Edwards praised Jones for his boldness.
"I applaud you for striking out from the shoreline and heading for the open seas," Edwards told Jones, who took charge of the district in December after serving as the Colorado education commissioner.
Many of Jones' proposals echo education reforms favored by business groups and promoted by Gov. Brian Sandoval and Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of public schools in Washington, D.C., whose advocacy group, "Students First," has called for ending seniority protections for teachers.
Rhee appeared with Sandoval at the governor's State of the State address in January.
Jones' plan calls for rewarding teachers based on performance rather than longevity in the system or earning advanced degrees. The plan describes redirecting money from the current teachers' salary schedule to an incentive-based system.
Jones said he wants to create "pathways to excellence."
For instance, the teaching staff at a school might get extra pay if their school meets an academic goal. A teacher might be paid "royalties" for posting an innovative lesson plan online.
Every time a teacher used the lesson plan, "the teacher (who wrote the lesson plan) would be rewarded," Jones said. "You'll get a check because excellence should be rewarded."
Ruben Murillo, president of the Clark County Education Association, which represents district teachers, noted that many of Jones' proposals would "require union action."
"I know a lot of our teachers would be very opposed" to replacing the salary schedule, Murillo said. "It's a traditional way of paying teachers so it's fair and equitable."
Murillo said he would have to speak with Jones about the proposals. Formal talks on a new labor agreement have not begun because the union and the district are waiting for lawmakers to pass a state budget, he said.
Jones said he is taking advantage of the economic crisis to look for innovation within the district, which is budgeting for a funding shortfall of $407 million in 2011-12. That figure may change as the state funding outlook changes.
The superintendent plans to cut one level of bureaucracy by eliminating area superintendents, who would be assigned to other positions.
Instead of the district's current system of maintaining four geographic regions, schools will be grouped in clusters called "performance zones." Principals would receive more independence if their schools show gains in student achievement.
The regional superintendents and their service areas had been in place for about a decade. School Board member Chris Garvey wondered where parents would go if they had a complaint about a school.
Jones and Deputy Superintendent Pedro Martinez said there would still be ombudsmen and structures of support.
Each zone will have an academic manager and a principal who is considered a mentor to the other principals.
There would be 12 to 20 performance zones. Each zone would have 20 to 30 schools based on a high school's feeder pattern.
Schools could leave their particular zone for the "autonomous zone" if they prove successful and demonstrate that they don't need oversight.
Under this system, "principals will have a lot more autonomy, but part of it is that principals will be expected to produce results," Jones said. "It's no blank check. Ultimately, results matter most."
If a zone is considered low performing, fewer schools will be included in the zone. These schools will have more oversight and access to more resources, such as the opportunity to hire new talent or tap professional development funds.
If these schools fail to improve over a period of time, Jones said there would be consequences, such as reorganization or having a private charter school take over.
But Jones also thinks that schools and teachers will be treated more fairly under the new Student Growth Model, which will be introduced in August.
The growth model takes into account where students begin academically and shows how much progress they make over time. Schools serving disadvantaged populations might show more gains than affluent schools.
Jones' plan is considered a "blueprint," and many of the details are still unclear.
Because the School Board received the plan for the first time Thursday, its members took no action on the proposal, which they plan to bring back for more discussion.
Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-374-7917.
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State competency exams must be developed for all academic courses currently offered in middle and high schools. Tie the final exam scores to report card grades the will accompany the student to secondary trade/technical schools and colleges and universities. Place the burden for individual successes in classes on students and their parents with only the final state exit exam grades being recorded on final transcripts that may accompany students to post secondary education programs. Utilize quarter grade reports as merely progress reports and make quarter these grades stand for somethings besides recoding 'warm bodies occupying seats in a classroom. Forget and outlaw extra-credit work, make up of work long past due, place a time limit for turning in actual assignments with the consequence for failure to do as a F-grade on the progress report card. Stop watering down teacher efforts to develop and enforce high standards of expectations with regards to quality and quantity of homework, grading standards and expectations of attendance and behavior. Make an education something to be proud of, and desired, not a perpetual joke. Students are responsible for their own education, make that the national goal, not the no child left behind b.s. currently be advanced in our schools. Teach students that a good education is to be prized and valued dearly, and it will, in most cases, determine their lifetime success level. Just as we should teach students to 'dress for success' they should likewise, 'educate themselves for success'.
I had a college professor whose favorite saying in class was, "There is no free lunch." That is true in life as well as education be it learning math, English, computer operations,etc. Energy and effort must be expended to earn an education. Input of individual effort in earning an education be it a high school diploma or a doctoral degree requires effort and energy; the result and goal is proportional to the effort expended in the process. Slackers get less of an education than those who truly apply themselves to the best of their ability and the limits of their natural abilities. In our local schools today parents have placed overemphasis on grades for the sake of grades, not the accompanying quality of education. Many parents want their kids to be A-B students in every course when it is obvious that many are incapable of such high achievement. Parents and students insist on less daily homework, no weekend or holiday assignments, easy work, cushy tests on subject matter not studied with earnest effort to master the subject(s), and above all else time for socialization and after school sports activities. The push for higher and higher (i.e., easier grades) comes from the politically correct myth that every child will be capable of doing collegiate level academic work. No one believes that their child might best be suited for janitorial work,a barber, a beautician, a mechanic, a cook or other technical school level professions. We have reduced the nobility of blue collar work to that of some unwanted curse. It has become far more fashionable to encourage and reinforce your child's dream of being a 'super jock' with some fanciful professional sports career and million dollar salary than to even consider the possibility of a career in a blue collar job requiring post secondary education or technical school training of some type. "There is no free lunch". and as Harry S. Truman stated: "Education is what you get after you know it all."
One thing this 'blueprint plant to improve local education' does not do is to hold students accountable for their own education. The state has already given tacit approval to watering down graduation exit exam standards one more time. When will the state of Nevada demand that students must pass specific exam requirements without an addendum of exceptions to their own rules? If 'Johnny SuperJock' cannot read, write, spell, do math or complete other curriculum test achievement standards then he should not get a diploma that certifies him qualified for college entrance. Let him and/or his parents spend their own additional monies, not our tax dollars, to assure him of tutored re-education where he has academic weaknesses. Now we send these allegedly qualified students off to college 'to play football' but find that they must be enrolled in remedial courses. The latest RJ story of a high school 'superjock' dreaming of a college football career but being given an exception exemption in one or more state exit achievement exams is exactly what is wrong in Nevada today. If he can't write an acceptable essay for his high school diploma what makes school officials believe he will be able to do much better in college once he dawns his college football jersey? If he didn't get the job done after 4 years of high school what the hell makes him believe he will do it in college? If he couldn't pass they then he needs to hire a tutor with his or his parents money, then and only then will education mean something to him and his parents.
Treat education like the end products, student educational achievement, like a factory commodity like Del Monte Beans and that is exactly what you will get. Students turned out like uniformly packaged, duplicate products. Treat teachers like factory assembly line workers each with a quota to produce; kill initiative, inventiveness, originality and most of all pay incentives and you will have a substandard result greater than is alleged in our schools now.Ah, the conservatives and ultra radicals have it all figured out, that is how to really kill public education: reduce teacher pay, eliminate teaching experience and academic background as a key element in hiring, promise some undisclosed, but future merit pay raise based on overall school and student acheivement. Then, include eliminating tenure and experience as a basis of retention, promise a voucher system for school choice to parents and you have the perfect answer and plan for destroying and ending public school education. Add to this the criteria of 'no new taxes' and the public education doomsday bomb has been set in motion that will not be reversible.
When a new teacher comes to Nevada and realizes that their entry salary may be all that they will ever receive unless their school achieves progress at some pre-set level I doubt many will stay longer than one or two years. Years ago the CCSD sent recruiters on visits, actually well paid vacations, to Germany, Spain, Mexico, South America, The Philipines, Japan, India to seek out teachers; they returned with many to fill empty local positions and are finding out that many of those teachers are not hanging around...Why? Because the salary and benefits have been reduced to the point that they cannot survive in our local economy with their minimum wage-benefit packages being offered them.Now the new education reform plan is being pushed into reality there will be an even larger exit of many outstanding teaching cadre who will not wait around to see if they are every going to get a pay increase. Those that have pushed, begged, pleaded, cajoled and wrangled for this reform will soon get exactly what they want, but may not have dreamed of...schools lacking in even qualified teachers in greater numbers than ever before. There will be little educational improvement in the CCSD over the next 2-4 years and four years from now every taxpaying parent can ask themselves: "Is it better now, or was it better before?" " Is my kid getting a better education today, or was it better before Jim Gibbons and Brian Sandoval's 'no new taxes' and new 'education reform plans'?How good will be this dream of the radical conservative element and the likes of the RJ four years from now? George Bernard Shaw said it best about such mindless, unimaginative thinkers "You see things as they are and you say why? But I dream of things that never were; and I say, why not?
Many are applauding this 'new education improvement plan' without fully realizing the impact on our schools. We are still overloaded with administrators despite the appearance that many of their jobs are being eliminated. There are still far too many 'make work' administrative positions like mentors, mangers, directors, special consultants, advisors, overseers,etc lining their pockets with 6 figure salaries and having two-bit responsiblities for what they earn; many are double-dipping "pigs" feeding once again at the public trough enhancing their retirement packages with these jobs. Eliminate 50% of all administrators and their 'make work' positions. No school really needs more than two efficient and professional administrators principal and vice principal. It was done prior to the 60's and it can and needs to be done again! Students need certified teachers, textbooks, supplies,etc not more administrators sucking the tax treasury dry day after day.
Education in Nevada is now like a puppy sucking at the teats of a dead dog. We are on the brink of educational disaster. All of the conservatives, independents, ultra radical right wingers, media sources like the Review Journal and 'talk radio' have wanted to eliminate public education ever since Richard Nixon; now, they have almost achieved their goal in this state. It won't be long now and they will have it exactly like they want it...then, watch out! Hell is coming to Nevada!
This is an excellent article on school reform that appeared in the RJ last Sunday. http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/a-different-kind-of-school-reform-122412609.html
They got rid of vocational education and tracking. They then test all students here in the US and then tell us that we are 17th and 25th in the world in math and science. They forget to tell us that the kids on the academic track are the only stidents tested in these other nations that are supposedly ahead of us. Someone called it the "Big Lie." We need reform because we are so far behind these other nations. Let's test only the kids in accelerated classes and see how they measure up against the rest of the world. Well, that would not fit into the agenda. The fact that the teacher unions and the Democrats are not refutting and discrediting the "Big Lie" makes me suspicious of their motives also. It would not surprise me if union leaders and Democrats had their hands in the cookie jar with Rhee, Bush, Klein, Murdoch and Gates.
What IS this? Lake Wobegon? Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average? Let's face it folks! Some of you are just plain average. Some of you are below average. Some of you are above average. When are we going to accept the fact that not all children are college bound? Want to see an improvement in test scores and graduation rates...bring back vocational education! And while you are at it...bring back the outsourced manufacturing jobs.