Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Friday, August 29, 2008

I'm not sure if you've read the big education news from these parts but the Clayton County public schools became the first school district in nearly 40 years to lose their accreditation. Reading the news reports and some of the citizen reaction at various media outlets has been pretty interesting. In short, most of the problem stems from the long term behavior of the school board elected by the citizens of Clayton County. The board has shown over and over again that it has no ability to act in a way that is legal, ethical or proper; even when appropriately advised by its own legal counsel. This has led the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to revoke the accreditation of the entire district which, depending on who you talk to, will have various impacts on the students and staff of the district. I guess what I'd like to do is give my two or three cents worth about the crisis in response to what I've read and from my understanding of and experience in education.

One of the protests that we're hearing a lot from people who I think are probably in denial about a lot of this is why someone is punishing the kids for something the adults (there's debate on whether that's the board or the voters or the "evil" SACS people or the Governor) have or have not done. My answer to that is that the kids have already been punished and continue to be punished by the dysfunctional school system in which they reside. What SACS has done is to wield about the only club they have left to get the adults to do something that will make things better for those who have no power. The truth is that on objective measures such as the SAT (and our own internal testing here at Gordon) the students from Clayton county perform worse as a group than the students from any other county in the state. Given that Clayton County is a suburban district outside of Atlanta with significantly greater resources both in terms of personnel and finances than most rural south Georgia counties, this says a lot about the culture of learning (or lack thereof) that exists in the schools. Because of the actions of the board, the schools don't do a good job of teaching their students (on average) and the removal of accreditation is basically an acknowledgment of that fact and a way to get the self-absorbed adults to change what they are doing. I hate it for the kids but, to be honest, they and their parents should know what the quality of their education is worth.

One of the questions I hear a lot from students at the College here is how the board's behavior affects the quality of education in the district. That's a complicated thing but the way I explain it is that a local board of education's job is to review and set policy, establish priorities and evaluate the administrators they have hired to implement those things. The board in Clayton vastly overstepped their role by going into specific schools to influence hiring and firing decisions (often in such a way to bring personal benefit to themselves or members of their families), to enforce or, more often, circumvent policy and to steer purchasing contracts in ways that didn't benefit the district but did line their pockets (or, again, the pockets of their family members or political supporters). All of these actions undermines the authority and morale within the upper and middle level management of the district. Principals and assistant principals become afraid of taking a stand on issues because they fear losing their jobs if a board member decides to take a personal interest in their decision making. The strategic priority at that level of school management goes from what's best for the school at large to "cover your ass". One of the biggest results of this (which I've culled from conversations with numerous teachers in the Clayton schools) is that administrators are no longer willing to stand up for teachers in disciplinary decisions and in areas of academic rigor. All it takes is for one angry parent to know one board member in some way for the administrator (or in some cases, the individual educator) to be called up on the carpet and be told to ignore some policy or overlook some infraction or find another place to work. Once that happens, everyone is looking over their shoulder, avoiding risk and confrontation and taking the easiest road possible. In education here in Georgia, that means giving everyone B's so they get their HOPE scholarship and trying not to make the students angry. The results of this are obvious.

So where does Clayton go from here? That's the $64,000 question (now there's a dated reference). The Governor, on recommendation of a state judge, has removed the last four members of the board that brought on the sanctions that haven't either resigned or been forced out. A couple of the seats have been filled through a special election a couple of months ago but the Clayton County school board basically consists of two or three people right now who have had almost no training on what it means to act in an ethical or proper manner. The other seats won't be filled until the November elections and the new members of the board may not be seated for a few weeks after that. In it's latest report explaining it's decision, SACS said that one of the biggest issues the district faces is that it hired it's interim superintendent improperly and that it gave him more power to run the district than is ethical or allowed by state law. In other words, they have said that the district will not regain its accreditation until this superintendent is either removed from his office or his contract is significantly rewritten to bring it within the bounds of the law. This is something only a legally constituted board can do and that doesn't really exist at the moment. So for the next two months, Clayton County's schools will be run by a super whose job description is illegal and whose power to run the district is illegitimate.

I think I understand what happened here. The guy wanted to have the power that Paul Vallis in the New Orleans recovery district and Michelle Rhee in the Washington DC schools have in order to move quickly to reform the Clayton County schools. In each of those cases, the voters chose to cede their local authority to the respective state boards of education in order to remove conflict of interest. Both Vallis and Rhee still have to report to duly elected governmental authority. Clayton's voters have not elected to do that and the board wrote a contract with the super that gave him all their power to set policy and priorities. That's not going to work and it's got to get fixed if SACS is going to reaccredit the schools. To his small credit, the super has suggested that he would be open to revisiting his contract (very big of him I think-given that he negotiated the original contract that has gotten the district into this bind in the first place).

All of this assumes, of course, that once elected, the new board will be able to get along and move quickly to address the issues SACS has cited; eight of the original nine of which still remain. Given the history of elected school official in Clayton County this isn't nearly as obvious as it might seem. There's a really good chance that the members of the board will spend as much time pointing fingers and laying blame rather than getting the training they need in ethics and how to be a proper board with proper boundaries. This will especially true if voters elect individuals that have ties to previous members of the board or their actions. Clayton basically has until May, about 5-6 months after the full board is elected, to make a fairly significant amount of progress. If that doesn't happen then SACS will close the window on the short process of regaining accreditation and the school district will have to start from scratch; a process that will take between 2 and 3 years assuming a functional institution.

As of now, the exodus of students out of the county and district that was a slow but meaningful flow is beginning to become a flood. Reports from yesterday told of stories of parents taking their kids out of school in the middle of the day in order to find a solution in an accredited school as soon as possible. I expect that you'll see the teachers begin to do the same as soon as they are able since they no longer accrue years towards retirement in the state's teacher retirement system and any professional development credit they might have gotten from within their own district is no longer valid. As these teachers go to other sites to earn those credits they'll see their colleagues going about their business without the stress of having your life controlled by the specific actions of nine or ten people far removed from them. Other districts will move quickly to hire the best master teachers from Clayton to replace their own retirement or attrition losses; a process made easier as classes are eliminated in Clayton due to declining student numbers. Any missteps by the new board or any waffling or further equivocating on the part of the superintendent will only serve to speed up the process. From this point forward, the district has to be transparent in everything that it does. There is no more trust and no more grace on the part of teachers and parents towards the district at this point as so everything now happens in a low trust environment. One of my biggest concerns right now is that the first statements by the superintendent following SACS' announcement do not show that he understands this. He wants the parents and teachers to wait out the storm but, as of right now, they don't trust that the boat is seaworthy enough to survive it.

I think if the voters were smart and objective they'd introduce a ballot measure to cede the authority of their locally elected board to the state board until such a time as the district can get itself righted and reaccredited. Such objectivity is rare in local politics however (which is why it took Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans to achieve that sort of change), especially when there are racial overtones as is the case here.

I'm torn as to whether this is for the better or the worse. If the loss of accreditation leads the citizens of Clayton County to do better by their students then I think people will look back on yesterday as the first step towards a solution. If county devolves further into backbiting and despair, then this is just another step on a long downward spiral such as those experienced in New Orleans and DC. I hope it's the former but only the citizens of Clayton County can really decide.

Thanks for Reading.

Grace and Peace.

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