How much was revealed last night at Capital School District’s Board Meeting?… The discussion began on the governor’s takeover and charter switch planned for 6 schools up north.
The first particle of discussion was in the “way” the DOE was handling Red Clay and Christina. Board member Lindell indicated the basis for these decisions is test scores, but the DOE has been known to make errors in the past….
Lindell and Superintendent Dr. Thomas spoke about Capital’s graduation rates having many errors in the past, but once the DOE officially publishes these numbers it is difficult to fix. No one knows what will be published until it is already done. Anyone can substitute any thing they want, before it goes to publishing….
This raises concerns over all credibility of these numbers. Tests are taken, scored, and tabulated by outside interests. The results then sit in the Delaware Department of Education… who then releases them in bulk once all tabulations are complete. What stops the DOE from creating any result it wants for purposes it wishes to fulfill, such as those that may help influential friends, but ruin children in the process?
Schools and districts must accept what they are given. For once published it is impossible to fix. If the DOE were deemed to have no subtle political agenda, but to consider its job being to give the most accurate snapshot as possible, there would be no reason to doubt the data. But when you have an administration like this one tied as close as it is to Rodel, an administration that has a very narrow extreme and hostile political agenda, and one that has so far used secrecy, obfuscation, and false facts to achieve those means, then all credibility in that organization and in the data it emits, is now suspect……
What if the scores for these six schools were really in the 50’s? And not the 10’s and 20’s? What if the scores of East Side Charter were really in the 50’s? And not in the 60’s and 70’s we were led to believe? Who would know?
We have to look at impact evidence. If these scores being reported for these schools were legitimate, there could be no way that 97% of Delaware’s teachers could be rated as highly effective…. Those not, at 3%… based on these scores, could be at best only 261 teachers spread across this state who were rated as NOT highly effective… That small amount would only fill just one half of all our charters, which would be the most likely place one would find them…. Leaving the other half of charters and EVERY SINGLE ONE OF DELAWARE’S PUBLIC SCHOOLS FULLY STAFFED WITH TEACHERS WHO BY THESE VERY SAME TEST SCORES ON EACH CLASS BASIS, WERE ALL RATED HIGHLY EFFECTIVE… Yet the same scores were used to show the very schools they work in to be in grave danger….
Does something not right stand out to you? It certainly appears that since teacher data can be verified (teachers know) but schools and district data banks are too large to be verified by anything other than faith, that the school numbers were simply created out of thin air, and made-up to achieve the purpose of mis-characterization….
Due to the short time frame given us on the MOU, it now seems obvious that an injunction be immediately sought before Sept. 30th in order to stay the execution of this plan, until we can get verification on these numbers whose validity now seems very suspicious. … In that court process, if so ordered by a court who can wield a heavy hand and levy penalties of contempt, we can get the information either verifying this action or denying it, in real time, and not have it ignored by the DOE as is frequently done in every single other FOIA request….
Legal action now seems to be a citizen’s most expedient way to go. I recommend trying this in Federal Court since manipulation of educational records is now a Federal crime, and since there would be less mechanization attempting to stop this process, than would be found within a friendly state-run justice system,
Later, Lindell again stated he wants parents to be able to have the choice to opt-out of standardized testing. He stated that if special education parents have the choice, all parents should. The only apparatus that allows students not to take the upcoming Smarter Balanced Assessment is the legislation passed through Senate Bill 229 in Delaware, which allows for the most severely complex special education students to have an alternate test. New legislation needs to be passed and signed before the Smarter Tests begin in April that guarantees every Delawarean parent the right to opt their child out of the test…. It will then be up to the DOE to sell parents on the benefit of the test. If they cannot do so, parents should have first right of refusal…
But as it stands, if we cannot trust that the DOE is even giving us correct test scores, it is far too fast to make what the Governor called “catastrophic changes to the status quo”, when perhaps there is nothing broken after all….
As all school boards and all 19 Superintendents already well know…. The DOE has made similar mathematical errors in the past….
Concerned parents and protective organizations need to file suit immediately… And opt out….
kavips 
5 comments
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September 18, 2014 at 4:44 pm
Jacob's loving father, Kevin Ohlandt
Kavips, where did you get all of this from? 🙂
September 18, 2014 at 4:52 pm
kavips
Oh, I see you reported the same as well! … I just extended it to it’s natural implications….
September 18, 2014 at 5:08 pm
John Kowalko
Perhaps I should attend the Capital District Board meeting and deliver this statement that I made at the Red Clay Board meeting last night.
John K.
First let me thank the Board, Supt. Daugherty, the administrators, the teachers and parents of Red Clay for all they do for public education and the children of Delaware and for allowing me to speak before you this evening.
I’ve never spoken before this Board since my 25th District is composed entirely of the Christina School District, but tonight I must relay an important message with a great urgency so that you and all the stakeholders in Red Clay might be forewarned regarding an ongoing threat to the autonomy, responsibility, and authority that this district and all school districts in Delaware are currently granted by Delaware law.
I don’t intend to dwell on the difficulties that districts and their managing teams are burdened with, exacerbated in part by the failure of this Administration and Legislature to adequately restore funding cuts that have resulted in the disappearance of many legitimate and helpful programs that give all public school children access to learning opportunities.
I do, however, hope to sound the alert regarding an insidious and misrepresented attempt to wrest the authority and ability of the Board, administrators and teachers to properly educate our children under the guise of unproven education reform contrivances such as the recently announced “priority school within the partnership zone” plan from DOE. Due to a lack of time and the complexity of this proposal and the process used to force it I will not get into a detailed account of how offensive it is for this plan to dishonestly present itself as some type of enhanced funding mechanism available to failing schools (that designation is also debatable) and minority and socio-economically disadvantaged student bodies when almost all of the money will not reach the classroom. It should not be lost on you that this roll out and offering of money is intended, in my opinion, to encourage public pressure be placed on the districts if they dare to reject or even question the validity and effectiveness of this plan.
Perhaps most upsetting to me and hopefully to you as elected representatives of your taxpayers and the children and families in your district is the fact that this unholy deal that DOE and the Administration is offering with this ultimatum, couched as an MOU, will put pennies on the table that will not reach the classrooms or children and will cost the districts and taxpayers dollars to access.
More offensively, there has been an incessant drumbeat of negativity in public and through media manipulation, falsely claiming that the districts are incompetent, educators are failing, and administrators are bereft of ability and traditional public schools are abject failures. This dishonest message is resonating with an unknowing and unaware public and is used as a propaganda tool to demonize public schools and encourage a move to privatization or state takeover. Wait until you try to counter that false propaganda in order to pass your next necessary and legitimate referendum.
Finally, please allow me to summarize. This DOE process of unilaterally crafting a plan with absolutely no stakeholder input or dialogue and then presenting it piecemeal to separate stakeholders, in what can best be described as an isolation booth type atmosphere, is exactly the failure to communicate and be transparent that DOE has foisted upon local districts in the past in their ambition to coerce and intimidate local elected governance into submissiveness, assuring that the myriad of flaws will go unquestioned and unchallenged.
I will be available for any dialogue and discussion outside the confines and time constraints of this public meeting.
You should be aware that in the context of a legal and moral definition of a “Memorandum of Understanding” this contrivance, unilaterally crafted and composed by DOE is not an MOU. It is nothing more than an ultimatum comprised of unproven and false presumptions demanding an unconditional surrender of the authority and responsibilities you are legally vested with. A legitimate MOU is a contractual agreement put in writing which has been discussed and composed by all stakeholders before it is submitted to a demand for signatures. It is a product of compromise, dialogue and clarification of facts and intentions between and including all affected stakeholders.
An MOU is an agreement between two or more parties. It is a voluntary agreement where the parties reach a common understanding based on a collaborative process. It is impossible for an MOU to be imposed unilaterally by one party.
If the Executive Branch attempts to unilaterally impose an MOU on another party as legal requirements, then those requirements are actually a regulation. Regulations, however, must be authorized by the Legislature to give the Executive the authority to impose them. There are also well-defined procedures for the Executive to pass regulations, even after being granted the authority.
If the Executive Branch claims the terms of the MOU are not legal requirements or that it is not attempting to impose the requirements unilaterally, then, at best, the MOU is merely a proposed MOU. A proposed MOU still needs to be approved by both parties before it has any effect or legal authority. If only proposed, then the MOU would need to go to the school boards before engaging any school board employee at all about the specifics. Discussing a proposed agreement with employees or staff members of the other party is wholly inappropriate, especially when the proposed agreement is an MOU, which is meant to be a collaborative effort between the two parties.
Until and unless DOE, Secretary Murphy and the Governor are willing to engage in an honest and frank dialogue and negotiation with all the stakeholders, before crafting such a potentially damaging agreement and insisting you sign onto it, I am strongly advising that the Board, the Superintendent, and DSEA reject this proposal out of hand and demand that DOE return next year to engage in a meaningful dialogue with all parties which could result in an effective and legitimate MOU agreement that will benefit and not harm Delaware’s public school system and children.
Please note the one unadulterated reality here. Refusing to sign the MOU may not stop an ill-advised State takeover of these schools but signing the MOU will guarantee that the districts and boards will have no legal recourse or appeal when there is a takeover.
Respectfully submitted,
State Representative John A. Kowalko Jr.
25th District Delaware
September 18, 2014 at 5:13 pm
Jacob's loving father, Kevin Ohlandt
email me, kevino3670@yahoo.com I have to tell you something
September 18, 2014 at 5:18 pm
Jacob's loving father, Kevin Ohlandt
I completely agree with your stance Mr. Kowalko. I said the same thing to the DOE today but in a much shorter, not so nice version!