Poorest performing schools in Jefferson County get lots of rookie teachers

Probably too many rookie teachers

Management of the turn-around of Persistently Low-Achieving Schools in Jefferson County looks awfully shaky.

The Courier-Journal reports that 60 of the 135 teachers brought in to the second group of the district’s schools to be tagged as Persistently Low-Achieving are first-year teachers with absolutely no prior experience. They are going to face a demanding task: working in some of the district’s most challenged schools with some of the district’s most under-served students.

In addition, 20 more teachers coming into these Persistently Low-Achieving Schools are just transfers from one of the other Persistently Low-Achieving Schools that were identified this year. That might just be moving problems around.

Clearly, not everyone is happy about this, including the new Associate Commissioner for the ‘District 180’ program, Dewey Hensley. Hensley – who has a great reputation for school turn-around in the Atkinson Elementary School in Jefferson County – said he is not sure the district has gone far enough in its efforts to fix problems in these low-performing schools.

Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday is also unhappy. He questions whether this large group of inexperienced teachers can raise performance fast enough to meet federal and state requirements.

I wonder if these new hire teachers are going to get the kind of mentoring they badly need as they start their classroom careers. With so many brand new teachers, it seems unlikely there are going to be enough experienced teachers in the school with the interest and time to do the job. After all, even experienced teachers in these schools will be facing some of the district’s toughest education challenges.

Swirling around on the periphery of all of this is the fact that at least some factors in the teacher restaffing action in Jefferson County may not be in compliance with House Bill 176 from the 2010 Regular Legislative Session. That bill established the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools program.

Among other things, HB 176 said union contracts could not interfere with the placement of teachers in these troubled schools. However, a report from the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability (OEA) indicates a Memorandum of Agreement between the union and the school district could indeed be interfering in ways the bill does not permit. Check out the OEA’s comments on page 40 of the report.

One thing seems pretty certain: we are going to be spending a lot of extra money in these schools, about half a million dollars a year per school, to turn them around. Somehow, it seems like more money by itself won’t be nearly enough.

Persistently Low-Achieving Knight Middle school recommended for principal, SBDM change

Superintendent Sheldon Berman clueless

The latest audit of a Persistently Low-Achieving School is out. This time the Knight Middle School from Jefferson County is in the spotlight, and the glare is pretty harsh. A few comments from the Audit:

• “The principal and school council have not demonstrated leadership that provides guidance and engages stakeholders within the school to meet challenges of struggling students in reading and math that address goals of No Child Left Behind.”

• “The principal has not ensured that teachers deliver student centered, rigorous, and differentiated instruction that meets the learning needs of all students.”

• “The principal has not fostered a culture of mutual respect between all staff members and students.” (My added comment: this is a guaranteed recipe for student failure. It fosters student violence and staff apathy)

• “The principal and school council have not established an organizational structure that promotes high student achievement and staff performance.”

• “The principal has not held all staff members accountable for their roles in improving student academic and behavioral performances to sustain continuous improvement.”

• “The principal has not engaged all stakeholders in decision making to develop a common ownership in the success of all students.”

As recently happened with the audit for Newport High School in Newport Kentucky the audit team is recommending that both the school’s principal and School Based Decision Making (SBDM) authority at the school need to be transferred. Given the comments above, the auditors really had no other choice.

Now, here’s the really sad part. Jefferson County Schools superintendent Sheldon Berman told the Courier-Journal:

“I was surprised at the deficiencies in how negative the audit was about leadership.”

Surprised? How can that possibly be?

Clearly, either the audit is totally fouled up, or Berman has not been paying attention.

Berman, of course, is on the way out. If the Jefferson County Board of Education wants to do the right thing in hiring his replacement, they need to spend some time looking over the audits for their Low-Achieving Schools. In fact, the board might want to invite members of the audit team to brief on what good schools look like. That way, the board can ask intelligent questions of the new superintendent applicants to see if those applicants know what a good school really looks like and how to not be surprised when a school isn’t measuring up.

More on the highly paid, low performing leadership at Newport Independent Schools

District lacks capability/capacity to turn high school around

Talk about a school district in chaos! Check this comment!

“The dysfunctional relationship among the local school board, superintendent, high school staff, school council and union is impeding the district's ability to meet the needs of the students.”

Quote from: Newport Independent District Leadership Assessment Report dated 04/24/2011 to 04/29/2011


Newport High School was recently declared one of Kentucky’s ‘Persistently Low-Achieving Schools.’ That means both the school and the district required leadership audits.

The resulting “Newport Independent District Leadership Assessment Report” dated 04/24/2011 to 04/29/2011, is now available on line.

Aside from the quote above, there is much cause for concern about how this district has been managed by Superintendent Michael Brandt, whose 2010-11 salary of $174,344.34 ranks him the seventh highest paid superintendent among Kentucky’s 174 school districts.

Out of 88 ‘Indicators for School Improvement’ examined by the audit team, the report cites a large number of areas, over 80 of them, where the district either has made only limited development/implementation of education reforms or essentially has yet to start the process at all.

Worst of all, the report says:

“District leadership does not have the capability and capacity to manage the intervention of Newport High School.”

It’s got to be time for a management change when the leadership can’t cope with its responsibilities with its high school.

Read more »

Finally: Some tough action in a Northern Kentucky Persistently Low-Achieving School

As we mentioned back in late March, after the US Department of Education determined that someone at the Kentucky Department of Education had taken too many KERA math classes and didn’t calculate the number equal to five percent of our schools correctly, two more schools had to be added to the state’s official list of Persistently Low-Achieving Schools.

Newport High School from the Newport Independent School District was one of those additions.

Now, findings from the resulting audit of Newport High’s staff have come in, and the news is rather stark.

Recommendation: Both principal Scott Draud and Newport High’s School Based Decision Making Council (SBDM) have to go. They both lack the ability to turn this chronically low-performing high school around.

Low performance in this school is no surprise. Newport has under-performed the rest of the state and especially other Northern Kentucky region school systems ever since KERA began.

What is a surprise is how this obvious situation was allowed to go on, unchecked, by the Newport District’s superintendent, Michael Brandt, and his local school board.

Brandt did have authority to replace the principal.

According to our analysis of the KDE’s Excel spreadsheet, “SUPERINTENDENT SALARIES (2001-02 THROUGH 2010-11 SCHOOL YEARS,” Brandt’s 2010-11 salary of $174,344.34 ranks him the seventh highest paid superintendent in Kentucky. That is over $56,000 higher than the state average salary for superintendents. Newport’s fall student membership for the same school year ranked it below the middle of the pack, with over 100 districts having larger membership (often loosely called enrollment) and only 66 having fewer students.

Learn more about how Newport’s school board ranked Brandt in our recent study, “Rewarding Failure,” on line here.

Courier’s opinions on ‘Fixing schools’ uninformed

A recent Courier-Journal editorial warrants an informed challenge. Putting it politely, the editor is seriously uninformed.

The major thrust of the editorial is that Jefferson County Public Schools are getting too much sniping from Kentucky Commissioner of Education Terry Holliday and his staff. Per the Courier, the local school folk in Jefferson County are all great souls, all interested in doing the right thing for kids.

The editorial claims:

“There is no evidence at all that any party dealing with the problem of low-achieving schools in Jefferson County — JCPS, state or union — is exhibiting ‘no regard’ for students.”

Please!

Fact: In December, 2010, the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability (OEA) reported to the Kentucky Legislature’s Education Assessment and Accountability Review Subcommittee that the Jefferson County Teachers Association and the Jefferson County School District entered into a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) on how restaffing in the district’s Persistently Low-Achieving Schools would be conducted.

However, the OEA says on page 40 of its report “Analysis of Collective Bargaining Agreements in Kentucky Districts” (read the draft version approved by the EAARS in December – the final has not been posted):

“While the statute clearly stipulates that ‘professionally negotiated contracts by a local board of education shall not take precedence over the requirements’ associated with the option selected, JCPS and JCTA entered into an MOA as to how the restaffing would take place.”

Basically, OEA says the MOA violated provisions in House Bill 176 from the 2010 Regular Legislative Session. That legislation created implemented the accountability program that led to the identification of the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools.

The OEA report also identifies a high level of inexperience in the teaching staff following restaffing in the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools. That was not the intention under HB-176.

The OEA report further says:

“As recognized in the Greater Louisville Education Report, ‘staffing provisions in the teacher union‘s contract need to be altered to insure the distribution of quality teachers can be more equitably spread across high and low risk schools’ (p. 7). Since this report was published in 2009, it appears little progress has been made to address the distribution of teachers in the district. JCPS‘ draft version of the 2011 Comprehensive District Improvement Plan does not include any policies or programs related to teacher distribution or transfer provisions.”

Imagine that! Louisville’s own education report called for staffing changes two years ago, yet the union continues resisting these badly needed improvements over two years later. How is that in the interests of students?

So, it is clear the Courier’s editor is far off base in claiming there is no evidence that parties in Louisville are not interested in students. When obviously needed changes go unmade for years, and laws apparently are being violated in the process, it looks like the education crowd in Louisville – not Kentucky’s education commissioner – is the problem.

And, the commissioner is right on target in getting firmer about the chronic lack of progress in Kentucky’s largest school system.

And, maybe, the education challenges in Louisville extend to the editor at the Courier, who apparently didn’t do his or her homework with the OEA report, or even his hometown created Greater Louisville report, either. As long as the editor runs cover for those who stand in the way of kids getting the experienced teachers they need, he becomes part of the problem, too.

Sorry Mr. Jefferson County Superintendent: It just isn’t so!

Jefferson County Superintendent talking mush about turning around low-performing schools

Fantasy:

“I just don't think the transformation model is effective in producing immediate, dramatic change. It may have some long term benefits, but they are really long term.”

Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Sheldon Berman, quoted March 29, 2011 by the Louisville Courier-Journal

Fact:

As I discussed in this blog back on March 2, 2011, we now have early evidence from the recently released PLAN and EXPLORE scores for the first group of 10 schools to be designated as Persistently Low-Achieving Schools. Trend arrows on the far right of the table below (click on table to enlarge) show the Composite Score trend in each school between 2009-10 and the 2011-12 school years (PLAN and EXPLORE are given early in each school year).


The trend arrows show that three of the four NON-Jefferson County high schools made improvements in their performance after they adopted the “Transformation Model” for school turn-around.

In sharp contrast, the majority of the Jefferson County Schools, all of which choose the “Restaffing Option,” showed declines in scores.

Only one Jefferson County school using the “Restaffing Option” in this list showed improvement.

So, if we are talking about evidence of fast indications of progress, the data shows the Jefferson County superintendent does not have “the right stuff.”

Most would call the Lawrence County High School’s one-year Composite score jump “dramatic.” Many would also consider Leslie County High School’s one-year improvement notable, as well.

So, I’ll go with Commissioner Terry Holliday on this one. Holliday is also recommending the “Transformation Option,” which ties teacher evaluations and compensation to student performance. Keep in mind, the commissioner has been able to look at other during-the-term testing results that have not been released to the public in addition to the PLAN and EXPLORE data above.

By the way, I don’t care if the teachers union in Jefferson County doesn’t like the “Transformation Option.” It is time to do something for the kids instead of the adults in our schools. It seems to be happening in places like Lawrence County and Leslie County.

More Persistently Low-Achieving Schools identified in Kentucky

Feds: Kentucky Department of Education didn’t identify enough

Sending a clear message that the US Department of Education is fed up with schools that persistently perform poorly for students, the Kentucky Department of Education was recently directed to add more schools to the official Persistently Low-Achieving Schools list to comply with federal requirements. Apparently, the department had engaged in some of that ‘KERA math’ and didn’t correctly calculate the number of schools that had to be identified to meet the federally required percentage figures.

The two added low-achieving schools, Knight Middle School in the Jefferson County Public School District, and Newport High School in the Newport Independent School District, bring the state’s total number of low-achieving schools to 22. Here is the full list:








Jefferson County now has 13 of the 22 Persistently Low-Achieving Schools in the entire state, or 59 percent. The district has less than 20 percent of the students, however.

Check the Courier-Journal's coverage here.

Is education failing to truly remove unsuccessful principals?

There has been a lot of hue and cry in the press over the past year as public school accountability measures required by the federal government have been kicking in across the nation.

Here in Kentucky, for example, we have seen a number of school principals removed from the current schools of assignment under the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools program created by House Bill 176 from the 2010 Regular Legislative Session.

But, the Associated Press is now raising a question – where are the ousted principals going?

It turns out most are quickly finding jobs – right back in education administration. In some cases, they are serving again as principals.

It’s an awfully strange way to make changes that might really boost student learning.

Jefferson County may be picking the WRONG school turn-around model

Education Commissioner Terry Holliday made an interesting comment during hearings in the House Education Committee yesterday about House Bill 476.

He said there are encouraging early results since turn-around actions began in Caverna High School, Lawrence County High School, Leslie County High School and Metcalfe County High School. These schools are part of the ten schools in the first group of Kentucky Persistently Low-Achieving Schools.

The commissioner gets to look at some testing data that hasn’t been released to the public, but the education department did just release results from the fall administration of the EXPLORE and PLAN tests from the ACT, Incorporated, so I decided to see if Dr. Holliday’s comments were borne out in those tests.

Short answer – yes, they are!

Here is an updated listing of scores for the first group of 10 Persistently Low-Achieving Schools, which were identified in spring of 2010. This listing now includes the two middle schools, as well as the eight high schools I showed you a couple of days ago (click on the table to enlarge).


Notice that in three of the four schools Dr. Holliday cited, there has been an improvement in the Composite Score since last year. In fact, the improvement in Lawrence County High and Leslie County High are quite impressive. The fourth school, Metcalfe County High, held scores even.

Now, look at the other schools, which are all found in Jefferson County. Only one high school, Fern Creek, experienced a score increase from 2009-10 to 2010-11. Only one maintained its score. Four schools, two high schools and the two middle schools, all saw declines in scores.

Now, consider another of Dr. Holliday’s comments. He pointed out that while Jefferson County has exclusively chosen to use the “Restaffing Option” to try and turn around its low-performing schools, all four of the high schools outside of Jefferson County picked the “Transformation Option,” instead.

The Transformation Option doesn’t require a wholesale shakeup of school staffing, but it does put teachers in the troubled schools on a more accountable basis, requiring their evaluations and pay be linked to their students’ performance. The Jefferson County Teachers Association hates that idea and would rather see teachers shuffled all over the place, where they can continue their ineffective teaching, and paying union dues, largely unnoticed.

In any event, one of the ideas behind the Persistently Low-Achieving Schools program is to try different approaches to reforming problem schools to see what works best. While the data above is certainly insufficient to start drawing any conclusions, it is exciting that a real difference in the approaches selected may already be appearing. By the time next year’s group of low-performers is identified, we will hopefully have more data. Perhaps that will encourage Jefferson County to try another turn-around option in some of its schools so we can see if some other factor accounts for the differential results we see in the table above.

Early PLAN performance trends mixed for Persistently Low-Achieving High Schools

Kentucky’s first round of 10 Persistently Low-Achieving Schools was identified in early spring of 2010, nearly one year ago. Eight of the 10 schools are high schools, so I thought it would be interesting to see how these schools did on the fall 2010 PLAN test administration.

Of course, the innovations being introduced in these schools haven’t had nearly enough time to show much impact, but it is still interesting to take a baseline look.

Here are the PLAN score trends from 2009-10 to 2010-11 for each of the first group of Persistently Low-Achieving High Schools. The far right column summarizes the one year trend in the Composite Score for each school (click on table to enlarge).


Overall, two schools actually had slight Composite Score declines while two stayed static, and four showed a score increase. Two of the four schools with an increase in score had a rather notable increase, 0.8 points or more.

Again, I would not make much of these trends, as the schools had not had much time to make changes when the PLAN was given, but there are causes for both optimism and caution here.

However, all of these schools still score below, sometimes very far below, the Kentucky-wide PLAN Composite average, which was 16.7 in 2010-11. And, the Kentucky average lags a national norm average set back in 2005 by 0.8 point, as well.

There is one other item of note. Schools are supposed to test every 10th grader, so the number of students taking the PLAN should closely agree with the enrollment in that grade. What is interesting is that in almost every school in the listing, the number of 10th graders tested dropped between 2009-10 and 2010-11. The number of students tested rose only in two of the schools.

Statewide, across all grades, enrollment only dropped very slightly from 652,071 students in 2009-10 to 651,025 students in 2010-11, a drop of about 0.16 percent. All of the schools with drops shown above had much larger percentage changes in the same time interval.