Three finalists for Commissioner of Education

 ...as reported by State House News Service shared by WWLP: 

The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education announced Tuesday that it will conduct public interviews Thursday with three finalists for the open Department of Elementary and Secondary Education commissioner job.

Board members will consider Jack Elsey, Lily Laux and Pedro Martinez.

Elsey previously worked as chief of innovation and incubation at Chicago Public Schools and as assistant superintendent at Detroit Public Schools. In 2022, he founded the Michigan Educator Workforce Initiative, which Massachusetts officials described as "an organization committed to addressing the teacher shortage crisis and building a more robust educator pipeline for Michigan."

Laux works as executive director of Economic Mobility Systems. Before that, she spent seven years as deputy commissioner of school programs at the Texas Education Agency, a role that involved overseeing academics and efforts to shift from a "compliance focused" approach to an "outcomes-driven" one, DESE said.

Martinez leads Chicago Public Schools, the fourth-largest district in the nation. He previously worked as superintendent of the San Antonio Independent School District.

You can find the Boston Globe report here, and Chalkbeat, which has a Chicago bureau, focuses most only Martinez here. 

please enjoy this sign left at an Orange line station in Boston after the march

I am going to strain to keep this post very straightforward, and I'll give some preliminary thoughts in another post.  

Commissioner finalists: Penny Schwinn

We have three finalists for Commissioner of education

Jeffrey C. Riley, superintendent/receiver of the Lawrence Public Schools
Angélica Infante-Green, deputy commissioner, Office of Instructional Support P-12 in New York State Education Department
Penny Schwinn, chief deputy commissioner of academics at the Texas Education Agency

Let's start with Penny Schwinn.

That's uncommon, all right!

You may see something about how the system of Uncommon Schools received this year's Broad charter school prize.
And when you do, you may want to go check out that--no other word for it--uncommon suspension rate they have over at our local piece of the system.

And I have to say that I find this speech from Secretary Duncan at their annual convention depressing; we have a Secretary of Education who has so little understanding of both research and systems.

Broad to NJ: you can have the funding if Christie stays in office

The recent forced disclosure of the terms of a grant received by New Jersey from the Broad Foundation had some interesting terms included. Among them:

• Chris Christie must remain as governor
• The number of "high quality" charter schools must go up by 50%
• If the state is forced to make the grant public, "it must give the foundation advance notice of such disclosure 'so that TBF may contest the disclosure and or/seek a protective order.'"

The Education Law Center, which forced the publication of the grant, is calling for an investigation.

Outgoing Brockton Superintendent Matt Malone to be next Massachusetts Secretary of Education

Matt Malone, last in the news when the Brockton School Committee voted 5-2 to end his contract despite there being one year left in it, will be Governor Patrick's next Secretary of Education. (That's him to the left of outgoing Secretary Paul Reville in the Globe photo.) He is a 2003 graduate of the Broad Academy.
The Brockton vote came after a June evaluation in which Malone was given a composite 2.77 out of a possible 5 score, and after what appears to be a contentious time (and an ongoing issue over residency, which is required of the Brockton Superintendent). Malone came to Brockton, hailed as a "rock star," in 2009 from Swampscott, where he faced a vote of 'no confidence' from the local teachers' union in 2008; you can find his response here. He also denied being a rock star. Malone came to Swampscott from a job as assistant to the superintendent in San Diego, where he worked on "school turnarounds." Before that, he was a headmaster in the Boston Public Schools, having first taught social studies and having begun his career in education as a paraprofessional.
He is a former member of the U.S. Marine Corps, and a graduate of Suffolk University and of Boston College.

Commissioner Chester at MASC/MASS

Commissioner Chester was the after-dinner speaker tonight at the Mass Association of School Committees/School Superintendents Conference. He'd brought along new deputy commissioner Alan Ingram, former superintendent of Springfield (and Broad Superintendents' Academy class of 2007). I livetweeted the question and answer session (most of them are tagged #Chester or #Ingram for who is speaking; start at the bottom and scroll UP), but I'll pull together a bit of a more coherent summary here.

The first question Chester was asked was on educator evaluation, namely, with all else that is on everyone's plate, can't we have more time to get it in place?
Chester passed this question off to Ingram, who said that educator evaluation is not another thing, but is tied into everything else (an answer that the audience appeared to find less than satisfying).

Next, with the PARCC testing for students requiring heavy use of technology in assessment, how are districts to fund this additional tech? Will there be assistance from the state?
Chester took a very long time to answer this, explaining a great length what PARCC hopes to be, why he thinks it's necessary, and so forth. Remember, he is chair of PARCC's Governing board. Eventually, his answer was that DESE has been in conversations with the state treasurer's office; Treasurer Grossman oversees the Mass School Building Authority. Chester is very hopeful that MSBA will fund the technology needed for PARCC out of their funds (remember, MSBA has a dedicated cent of the sales tax in Massachusetts). (I will say that I have heard elsewhere that MSBA is, to put it kindly, skeptical, but I hope that one of us thinks to ask MSBA when they're here later this weekend.)

The next question dealt with the new college and career report that the state has issued: will the state be funding that, or will it be an unfunded mandate?
Chester spoke at some length about pilot programs (including a 9-14 program that leads to an associate's degree and vocation certification), documenting and evaluating what was already being done, and so forth, before commenting that this "is not an agenda mandate; it's a 'here's what's possible mandate." (and no, I don't know what that means, either)

The current president of the superintendent's organization is Paul Dakin, Superintendent of the Revere Public Schools. He asked about meeting (and funding to meet) the needs of the "newcomers" to his and other cities: immigrants of upper age grades who need much assistance. He furthermore asked how we are to do so without compromising the high standards that Massachusetts sets, and without making it look as though we are slipping as we serve a more varied population.
Ingram cited changes in teacher training as being most important, and he also specifically cited Brockton as a place with good practices in handling this. Also, he talked about families needing to be connected to community resources. 

When asked about the end of the Race to the Top funding, Ingram spoke at some length about RTTT being "an unprecedented opportunity" and about how much money it was. He talked about the need "to build capacity," not pay for "positions and people," and the need to monitor investments wisely. At this point, Chester jumped in with something I need to ask about: setting aside funds within RTTT for a sustainability effort?

Dakin spoke of the contrasting needs of districts under the new ELL teacher training regulations: some districts need to train hundreds of teachers, some only a few. How can this best be managed? Chester suggested training with other districts or dropping other professional development to do this instead. The comment was made that one way DESE could assist would be to take some of the regulatory reporting off of districts plates, to audience applause. This was rejected, after a discussion of the changes that had been made this past summer, and we were told that Chester is "committed to customer service." No editorial comment.

When asked what two or three reforms made the biggest difference in student achievement, Ingram said having "high expectations" which he further commented doesn't cost much. Chester thought this was a good answer, and further answered about reorganizing classrooms, likening them to egg crates (does he mean egg cartons?), where we put one teacher and so many kids in each classroom. He suggested thinking more creatively about teacher assignments. He further commented that he had great hopes of the new student evaluation of teachers, commenting that students are good at identifying good teachers. At which point, an educator at my table responded, "And I never, in all my years in the classroom, thought of THAT!" which summed up much of the reaction from the audience on much of this, I would say.

And that's it for this evening!

Jean-Claude Brizard is out in Chicago

Late yesterday, the news broke that by "mutual agreement," Jean-Claude Brizard has resigned as Chief Executive Officer*of the Chicago Public Schools.

Brizard left a position in Rochester, NY to take the job in Chicago less than a year and a half ago, after a contentious period there. It appears that the Chicago teachers' strike in which Brizard was largely absent as an actor caused his downfall.

Somewhat remarkably (and no, I'm not being sarcastic), Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who is currently the acting Chief Education Officer and will be stepping up to Executive Officer, is a former teacher. Byrd-Bennett also does not plan to replace anyone in the Education Officer position, performing the function of academic leader personally.

And speaking of Brizard, the latest edition of Rethinking Schools has a piece on Broad Academy graduates (which went to press prior to this announcement).

*Chicago does not have a superintendent, and, in fact, has had several CEOs who have not been qualified to be superintendent. It appears that they may finally be getting one.

Changes at Broad

Hat tip to Ken Libby and Stan Karp for their rundown of the latest Broad Foundation changes, coming from a board meeting memo (obtained under the New Jersey Open Public Records Act). There's a lot here, most of it horrifying, so go read it; the part that particularly leapt out at me is the changes planned for Broad Academy training:

In addition to drawing from a larger pool, the memo proposes significant changes to the training program. In the past, roughly two-thirds of Broad Academy training was dedicated to “core knowledge” (e.g. “instruction 101” and “school operations”). The remaining third was divided into “reform priorities” (including “educator effectiveness,” “innovative learning models,” “accountability,” and “school choice”); “reform accelerators” (“change management,” “political navigation/stakeholder management,” “public contributions,” and “communication”); and “systems-level management” (“providing strategic frameworks,” “theory of action,” “applied learning projects”).
The proposed plan greatly reduces the time spent on “core knowledge” of school systems to less than 10% and instead puts much more emphasis on “reform priorities” (40%), “reform accelerators” (30%), and systems-level management (nearly 20%).

Remember, what Broad purports to be training here are superintendents, state education commissioners (whatever they're called), and other people who run school systems. They are now going to be required to have even less educational experience than they do now, and spend less than 10% of their time learning about education before being "qualified" to run a system.
Wow.
The only way to stop this is to insist on hiring people with educational backgrounds and experience. Broad can train, but at the end of the day, it's the states and the districts that hire.

On philanthropy (or not)

Excellent article in The Awl regarding the billionaire philanthropists, their perspective:

that business is good at measuring and achieving set results and goals, while government mysteriously lacks such abilities; that business is pragmatic, efficient and uninterested in ideological point-scoring; that every institution would benefit from being "run like a business"

..and their influence on everything including (part VI) education:

 ...the funders of education reform seek nothing less than the wholesale retooling of public schools, at a time when the nation’s school budgets are stretched to the breaking point. And the writing on the chalkboard grows clearer by the minute: Their market-based educational reforms don’t work.

If you thought Eli Broad was scary now...

...what happens if he gets his hands on the Los Angeles Times?
h/t Diane Ravitch

You can't make this stuff up

Remember Charlotte, NC? How they added 52 tests? How they then used some of their Race to the Top money to try to sell the idea to parents?
Secretary Duncan says “Charlotte-Mecklenburg is a model for innovation in urban education.”
And sure enough, they're this year's winner of the Broad Prize for Urban Education.

Buying your good opinion

It seems that Charlotte-Mecklenburg (NC) has decided that it isn't that little matter of 52 new tests; you just need some convincing!

A school district that is a finalist for the soon-to-be announced $1 million 2011 Broad Prize for Urban Education is embarking on a public relations effort — funded with U.S. government and Gates Foundation money — to end public opposition to its school reform program, which includes a slew of new standardized tests.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District in North Carolina is using Race to the Top money — which wasn’t intended to fund public relations efforts — and $200,000 in Gates Foundation money for the campaign.

Sure doesn't sound like what it was supposed to be for, does it? Oh, but wait:

Hamilton said in a subsequent e-mail that he understands the role of the public relations specialists to be “to provide supports to stakeholder groups re: what the content and different elements of the new teacher evaluation system is… what the components are, how it will be used…”

Right, because that's the highest and best use of $150,000 a year for the next three years.

As for the Broad Prize, yes, Worcester's superintendent will be out of town this week for that award, for which the finalists this year, along with Charlotte-Mecklenburg, are Broward County in Florida, Miami-Dade County in Florida, and Ysleta in Texas.

I can't better the closing Strauss has:

So, here’s where we are: Lots of money for standardized tests, so that teachers can be evaluated by the results, and lots of money to convince the skeptical public that that bad assessment system is really a good one.

Behold the face of modern school reform.

If they had a million dollars...

The Philadelphia school district is now having to come up with the full $905, 000 cost of former superintendent Arlene Ackerman's buyout package, as the donors have now backed out:

The furor prompted the donors who had originally pledged their support to withdraw their contributions, according to a statement from the Philadelphia school system:

From the start, the School Reform Commission sought to keep the public cost of this agreement to a minimum. But the public concerns about the use of anonymous private donations led almost all donors to withdraw their pledges to contribute to the Philadelphia's Children First Fund. The SRC, accordingly, asked the Philadelphia Children's First Fund to return any donations it has received in connection with our request of it to accept funds on behalf of the district for this purpose. As a result, the payment to Dr. Ackerman does not include payments from anonymous private donors. Instead, all funds to Dr. Ackerman are public dollars from the Philadelphia School District.

In a statement, Stalberg said "It's good that the public doesn't have to worry who is anonymously underwriting this deal and why." But, he added, "Philadelphia has been tarnished by a controversy that stems from a secret deal that should never have been attempted in the first place."

You know your district is dysfunctional when... UPDATED

your superintendent stops speaking to your chief financial officer.
Things are continuing to be lively in Philadelphia, with the now-fired superintendent going on a large media swing to blame, well, pretty much everyone else for what's gone wrong. She's been encouraging parents to quit the system, as well.
The media and others are calling for more information on what she's saying, and they also want to know just who anted up for nearly half of her termination pay, information the mayor has refused to release.

UPDATE: And now Philadelphia's Children First Fund, which apparently solicted the donations for $405,000 towards her severance package, is having its tax-exempt status investigated by the IRS. You can't be a charity and solict funds to an individual "for her sole benefit."

Ackerman's out

The Commission took her dare.
But don't worry, because she's nearly a million dollars richer.
As always, The Notebook is worth reading on it all.

Neither here nor there

Springfield Superintendent Alan Ingram (Broad class of 2007) cannot be compelled to return the $30,000 granted him by the Springfield Public Schools for moving expenses, the city's legal council has found, despite his never having moved to the district.
The side letter seems pretty clear to me...

Philly Superintendent on her way out?

EdWeek reports that it appears that the superintendent of Philadelphia's public schools, Arlene Ackerman, may be on her way out.

With Philadelphia superintendent Arlene Ackerman facing a potential cheating scandal, a $629 million budget deficit, and evidence of contracts being steered toward unqualified companies, lawmakers in the city are reportedly trying to negotiate her departure.

Unfortunately, it may cost the district $1.5 million. (Not that keeping her in office is a bargain.)
Yes, there's a Broad Academy connection: she was Superintendent in residence before she came to Philly, and she is a past member of their board.

"for wide [is] the gate, and broad* the way...

that leads to destruction..." (Matthew 7:13, KJV)

It looks like both Los Angeles and Chicago are joining the Broad superintendents' club:

• John Deasy, Broad class of 2006, will be leading the Los Angeles Public Schools coming there from--wait for it--the Gates Foundation (he was brought into LAUSD two years ago with the expectation that he would take over, 'though it appears that not all are happy with that).
• Jean-Claude Brizard, Broad class of 2007, will be leading the Chicago Public Schools, leaving Rochester, NY, where the teachers overwhelmingly voted "no confidence" (by ballot) this past February. As this due largely, it seems, to an autocratic, non-consultative manner, one holds little hope that parents in Chicago will feel any more listened to than they currently do.

*I should point out that Eli Broad, and thus the Foundation, pronounces this to rhyme with "road," but it seems singularly appropriate, nonetheless.

They're at it again

Remember how Providence laid off  fired all of their teachers (under the leadership of Tom Brady, Broad class of 2004) as their solution to closing their FY12 budget gap?
Looks like this is becoming the latest "corporate ed reform" hot idea, as Detroit, under the leadership of Robert Bobb (Broad class of 2005) has just laid off all of the city of Detroit's 5,466 public school teachers. Bobb says he also plans to void portions of the existing contract (which he can now do under Michigan state law).
I don't know that I am capable of the appropriate levels of sarcasm to point out exactly how much this will make people want to teach in urban systems, want to stay in urban systems, and want to become part of the community surrounding public systems.

Hmmmm...

Hayes, a vocal critic of Sheffield, is a founding member of the Watchdogs for Ethics in Education, or WEE.
She and other members of WEE have filed several requests for information from the district under the Freedom of Information Act. If Hayes is elected to the board, she doesn’t want to have to continue that practice. Saudargas and board member Jude Makulec have resorted to FOIA requests in recent months to obtain information...

From the Rockford Register Star, Rockford, IL, where the superintendent is  LaVonne Sheffield, yes, Broad class of 2002 and where they not incidentally are having a school board election today that in part has been focused on her tenure there.

And speaking of FOIAs, no, I haven't forgotten ours. I'm reviewing the WPS documents around Goddard, and I'll post on them later this week.