A very non-liveblog of School Committee: superintendent's report

Apologies for the late posting on this: DAB does have wifi, but it's password-protected (maybe they'll let me have a password after I get sworn in?).

Jumping right into the meeing--there is no flag in the conference room, so we couldn't pledge allegiance, anyway. Taking out of order the superintendent's report, as she's using that as a setup for the budget talks that will form the major part of the meeting.
She's reporting on her progress this fall in meeting her goals under her entrance plan:

list of meetings over the course of the fall
"huge goal of school committee": greater parental involvement
meeting quarterly with Worc Interfaith
"never finish reviewing" practices, programs, resource alignment
districtwide communication plan: how do we tell our own good news?
redesign of monthly principal meeting for leadership improvement
"held most accountable" in issues around student achievement
governance practices--future retreats with School Committee

Current state of WPS:
19 of 44 schools designated as underperforming based on 2009 MCAS results (Jim Collins: Good to Great)
13 are priority schools
39 of 44 schools failed to meet AYP benchmarks for 2009 (again by MCAS results)
benchmarks go up every year (ELA is 90%; math is 84% pass rate)
2008-09 dropout to 5.1 from 4.7%
50% of students met growth targets on MCAS for 2009; good news and bad news
Let's note for a moment how many of these things have to do with MCAS as a measure of the schools. Aside from the mention of dropouts, there is no other measure of success used here for WPS.

MCAS comparison chart over past 3 years (note that this is comparing three succeeding classes):2007 33% ELA proficient or above; 2008 30% proficient or above; 2009 35% proficient or above
(then several succeeding slides doing the same thing or 4,7,8. 10th grade MCAS scores...no mention that these are different kids, much talk of "showing growth...direction we want to be going in...progress")
make sure that the 10th grade improvement isn't as a result of the dropout rate (those kids leave and the grades go up)

"moving from a compliance system to a performance based/results system
"doing what we ought to be doing and checking those things off...compliance isn't enough anymore; have to get the associated results, some of which we just reflected on"
cohesive leadership team "so the public has confidence in choosing the Worcester Public Schools
"working through how we work together as a team...still a work in progress
seeing our efforts within standing committees to move forward pending agenda items; "to clear the slate"
increase student achievement while closing achievement gap...ultimate goal...ongoing report...superintendent reports at every meeting
focus on common framework for improvement
improve public trust:regular and ongoing meetings with various stakeholder groups
key reports on WPS website to improve "understanding around the thought processes we're engaging in"
climate focused on improving student achievement (continuous improvement model):leadership and learning (gets everyone involved so everyone knows what we're doing)
contract with the Leadership and Learning Center (each department to move forward with student achievement): this is a hired consultant, apparently (website is sort of boilerplate; I'll keep poking on this)