Gov. Beshear, Kentucky legislators, teachers' unions and their highfalutin' consultants just can’t resist dictating education policy and operations. There are major problems with this approach:
1) Most are amateurs on turnarounds and creating education performance excellence.
2) They can’t implement their theories or be held accountable for results.
There is an alternative to amateur hour. The meddlers left a magic wand in the KRS 160.346 transfer of authority. Persistently low-achieving schools can have School-Based Decision-Making councils' powers, duties and authority transferred to the superintendent or commissioner!
Forget giving it to the superintendents -- remember Jefferson County Public Schools' Superintendent Sheldon Berman's totally ineffective performance. Superintendents have overseen their failing schools year after year after year. Too often, superintendents are rewarded for failure.
Put the star in the game. Commissioner Holliday is a proven pro with proven results. Put all the meddlers’ experience together and you won’t match his bio.
His Iredell-Statesville (North Carolina) schools won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Education Excellence in 2008. Look at the winning application. Pay particular attention to the criteria depth of thinking, the integration of approaches and the metrics. Haven’t seen that level of thinking coming from the governor, legislators, teachers union, consultants or the site-based decision councils, have you? Why? They don’t know how.
Kentucky governors, legislators, teachers unions and consultants have had their 20-plus years of glorious theory and spinning unacceptable results.
Now it’s time to give Commissioner Holliday the magic wand. Forget about getting along. Getting along will keep Kentucky kids continually looking up at others learning more and snatching their opportunities.
1) Most are amateurs on turnarounds and creating education performance excellence.
2) They can’t implement their theories or be held accountable for results.
There is an alternative to amateur hour. The meddlers left a magic wand in the KRS 160.346 transfer of authority. Persistently low-achieving schools can have School-Based Decision-Making councils' powers, duties and authority transferred to the superintendent or commissioner!
Forget giving it to the superintendents -- remember Jefferson County Public Schools' Superintendent Sheldon Berman's totally ineffective performance. Superintendents have overseen their failing schools year after year after year. Too often, superintendents are rewarded for failure.
Put the star in the game. Commissioner Holliday is a proven pro with proven results. Put all the meddlers’ experience together and you won’t match his bio.
His Iredell-Statesville (North Carolina) schools won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for Education Excellence in 2008. Look at the winning application. Pay particular attention to the criteria depth of thinking, the integration of approaches and the metrics. Haven’t seen that level of thinking coming from the governor, legislators, teachers union, consultants or the site-based decision councils, have you? Why? They don’t know how.
Kentucky governors, legislators, teachers unions and consultants have had their 20-plus years of glorious theory and spinning unacceptable results.
Now it’s time to give Commissioner Holliday the magic wand. Forget about getting along. Getting along will keep Kentucky kids continually looking up at others learning more and snatching their opportunities.
2 comments:
It's so much more comfortable the way they have it structured now. Everyone has an out. No one is accountable. The teachers union can dictate and they aren't even in the management chain.
I agree. Let Commissioner Holliday blaze the path to the top. I looked at the application. Impressive!
Stu Silberman, Fayette County Superintendent, has been named the executive director of the Prichard Committee for getting along. Stu is a wonderful PR person, academic celebrity, and proven leadership loser. Now he will be advising Commissioner Holliday on doing what he could not do when he had all the controls in Fayette County. What a shame that someone that could not get the job done on closing learning gaps will be in a position to spin academic nonsense to legislators and the KDE. But he will follow a long line of advisors and academic theorists who have no record of exceptional results except for bowing to the union and getting along in the community. Another blow to KY kids.
Maybe Commissioner Holliday can have hearing problems when the Prichard Committee head comes calling.
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