Based upon the recommendation of its superintendent Johnny Brown’s administration, board members were apparently advised this would be a typical, slam-bam “you’re fired” hearing lasting just a few hours.

It is virtually impossible to overstate the sheer scope of the incompetence of a school district administration and school board that cannot fire a classroom teacher.  Personnel law in Texas is stacked against employees.   Even marginally prepared school district attorneys should be able to walk a district through a termination hearing, OR, get a district out of its shenanigans quickly.

However, when the dust settled in March 2010, the bumbling Pt. Athur administration and board had not fired Melonson.  In fact, the district paid his entire annual salary to stay home for the entire academic year.  It had paid him what he would have earned teaching in the summer school for the summer that is about to begin.  It paid his legal fees.

Rather than terminate the employment of Melonson, the district slithered back into its academic muck as this African-American math teacher and his white civil rights attorney Larry Watts humiliated the board, its administrators, and its law firm.  (It was fun and rewarding to help the attorney and Mr. Melonson achieve this result.)

The only reason that the district officials’ and representatives’ humiliation is not enshrined statewide for all to know readily was the common denominator of those powers to be in Pt. Arthur (the administration, the board, and the attorney) - institutional gutlessness.

Yes.  These organizational bullies armed with their access to the taxpayers’ treasury simply chose to buy their way out of maximum humiliation and professional disgrace by paying Melonson to stay at home for a year on the public’s dime.  As the noted philosopher Chicken Little once observed:  “Pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck, and pluck.”

In a perfect world, none of the players would have a job.  The Board would be recalled.  The administration would be fired.  The district would have another attorney.

Make no mistake about it.  The administrators’ puppet board could have gone through with its intentions of firing Mr. Melonson.  Why didn’t it?  The reason is very simple.  They ‘chickened out’ with very good reason.

In order to fire him, the district would have had to subject its superintendent Johnny Brown and his entire curriculum management team including the campus principal to extended under-oath examination before a hearing officer of the Texas Education Agency or a court of a law in some subsequent lawsuit.

The reason that Pt. Arthur officials were unwilling to take the risk of such testimony in a setting its board did not control provides interesting insight into the state of public education accountability in Texas.

There were two facts that came together to make this an interesting situation - a window into the mindset of some school officials.

For some truly bizarre reasoning captured only inside the remarkable brain waves of the district’s gurus in Pt. Arthur, the district decided that it would give two-year contracts to virtually all of the teachers in the district.

Not allowing that bizarre act to rest on its own laurels as a monument to educational malpractice and taxpayer abuse of  its citizens, Supt. Brown and his curriculum ‘leaders’ also decided to require virtually all 8^th grade students in the district to take Algebra I.

When civil rights attorney Watts asked me to assist him in this case on matters involving curriculum management and accountability in analyzing student academic performance, I made an early prediction.

That prediction was that Pt. Arthur would eventually fold like a cheap suit.  I advised Larry that in my assessment, the district would never let this one go anywhere; it would settle if their leaders and lawyer came to believe the public and the school community throughout Texas would become aware of the district’s bizarre actions in the name of education.  My advice was simply.  Let’s push for raw data that Mr. Melonson has a right to have.  Let’s get their people under oath.  Once there, if we ever get them there I advised, they’ll regret the day for the rest of their careers.

As it turns out, I was right. It was a rewarding experience to put my knowledge and skills to work in a practical way.  Working with Watts, it look like there are more opportunities on the horizon. 

Over just a couple of more columns, I’ll explain why the district capitulated and what it means about the public education system overall.  Can everybody say:  “Algebra”?   I really believe you’ll find this story interesting.

Why? It’s because she is a veteran public educator who until recently was fully engaged with her professional peers doing her very best to meet the educational needs of a diverse array of children who attend public schools.

Now, she is in the private sector having established both an innovative private school approach that uses independent online programs as alternatives to public schools as well as an academic diagnostic service that can help children perform better in public education.

“Private education is not for everyone, but unfortunately, public education is also not for everyone,” Pickering said. “The challenges confronting parents today have never been greater. That’s the bad news. The good news is that there are options and solutions.”

Pickering, who has earned four degrees including two masters, has been a classroom teacher, counselor and top level administrator. Because she has been in the private meetings with teachers and professional peers as specific children and specific issues are addressed, Pickering brings an extraordinary wealth of knowledge and insight into her new business venture.

When Pickering speaks about issues and problems confronting students in public education, she brings truth and professional credibility to the forefront.

“Let me be very clear. I am not an opponent of public education. I have spent my life working in it. However, the truth is that classroom teachers and counselors are the first to understand that public education is not organized to effectively deal with the full myriad of problems that students and parents confront,” she said.

“The era of accountability testing in Texas has forced public education to shuffle its priorities dramatically. Thousands of students have been lost in that shuffle,” she said.

“My business approach is based upon confronting two facts. The first is that there are children in high school even as early as their freshman year who have fallen behind in their course work and their grades to the degree that their academic or technical workforce training even in community colleges is in jeopardy,” Pickering said.

“The second is that there are children enrolled in all levels of school from elementary to junior high to high school who are struggling with their course work because they have been given passing grades when their mastery of actual academic skills is lower than their report cards reveal,” she said.

As it relates to the first group, Pickering’s Capstone Classical Academy has targeted three separate online high school degree programs that she offers to parents as an alternative to public education.

“Parents can order these online and correspondence programs by themselves, and their children can work at home alone with parental guidance or none at all,” she said. “I don’t recommend that except in the rarest of circumstances.” Her business “twist” is this:

“At Capstone, we have created a school environment where students come four days a week and their work is guided by certified professional educators whether it is language, math of all levels, or other courses,” Pickering said. “There are hard copies of instructional materials and we are totally focused upon guiding a student’s progress through academic mastery.”

The three online programs include:

1. Texas Tech High School Diploma/Course Credit Plan: Texas Tech is recognized as prestigious program. It is for those who want to pursue a high school diploma.  It is also for those who need to take one or two courses to “catch up” or “get ahead” in their course work. The college entrance SAT scores of graduates rank very well. The curriculum is rigorous. For those taking targeted courses, the grades transfer subject by subject back to any school district in Texas. A student graduates from Texas Tech High School “college ready.”

2. Ashworth College Prep High School Diploma: This program is also academically rigorous. It is accredited by The Secondary Association of Colleges and Schools. It is less expensive than the Texas Tech option. Students who earn this diploma can be expected to move into the college world.

3. Ashworth College General High School Diploma: This program is designed for students who have fallen behind in the course work and who or in danger of not graduating from public high school.  This is an academically solid program.  However, it does not include upper level math and science classes.  Thus, it is also effective for students whose career plans do not include the highest level math and science courses. Graduates of this program can expect to attend community college to pursue additional academic studies or move comfortably into workforce training programs.

“While these high school programs are ones for which we have students who currently enrolled and one that we expect to be the highest in demand, we also offer such programs with support for elementary and junior high students,” she said. “We also offer the Alpha-Omega Christian-based curriculum, for instance.”

The cost of all of these programs as well as our tuition fees are substantially less than enrolling a student in a traditional full-service private school, Pickering said. “Our goal is to help your child advance academically so we focus upon curriculum. We move your child at a pace that is based upon the accumulation of academic skills.”

“There are families out in the real world who know that their children (despite their report cards and despite their passing TAKS test scores) are struggling in school,” she said. “They know public schools are not working and they know they cannot afford a traditional private school. Capstone Classical Academy represents a financial middle ground that is absolutely dedicated to help students maximize their academic advancement.”

“We have developed a financial policy that is most convenient to families. Parents will buy the online curriculum program and materials directly from the providers. Our fees are based upon a monthly charge. We do not require long term contracts because we want parents to know that if they are not satisfied with the program, they can leave it without a continuing financial burden,” she said.

For the families of students absolutely dedicated to remaining in public education, Pickering has formed another company to give them the assistance they need.

“Except for the academically elite students or those who need a little boost to be able to pass the TAKS test, the modern classroom is one that has abandoned ability grouping to the detriment of the broader range of students,” Pickering said. “Classroom teachers talk about this privately, but there are obvious pressures on what they can say publicly and to parents.”

“The delivery of instruction to the majority of students in public education is an academic compromise that classroom teachers are forced to make because it is not possible to be the most effective in trying to reach students with a broad range of strong and weak skills in the same classroom,” Pickering said.

“That’s education’s dirty little secret that everyone in the system knows but won’t talk about publicly because it is not politically correct to do so,” Pickering said.

“There are hundreds of children at virtually every public school campus sitting in language, math, and other core subject classrooms today receiving instruction that is either ‘over their head’ or ‘too easy’ for their actual academic skills,” Pickering said. “It would be irrational to blame classroom teachers for this situation. They work in the real world, and they do the very best they can because they are dedicated to your children.”

“However, they are not miracle workers. There is no amount of differentiated instruction in a single classroom that can bridge the academic disparity of students that are sitting in too many of our public school classrooms,” Pickering said. “That strategy works in theory but is often overwhelmed by the reality of your child’s actual classroom.”

That’s why Pickering Assessments has developed three key approaches to help parents who students are in this situation. It primarily focuses upon students between the 5^th and 10^th grades but can be customized for students who are younger or older.

“These three programs are for parents who children who are dedicated to staying in public education by choice or because of financial considerations,” Pickering said. The three programs are as follows:

1. The ‘Red Flag’ Academic Audit: “The first step is to identify whether the instruction your child is receiving really targets actual academic needs. We can do that in a very cost effective, time-efficient way through the following steps:

a. Assessment of TAKS Test Results: “We will review your child’s most recent TAKS test results to evaluate what the State of Texas says your child does and does not know. We’ll look at the results academic objective by objective and reach our independent conclusions…

b. Assessment of Actual Classroom Work: “We will ask you to provide us with 2-3 weeks of actual classroom work your child has completed most recently. We’ll look at what has been tested and how your child performed…

c. Assessment of Actual Major Test: “We will ask you to provide us with a recent major test your child has taken. We’ll look at what has been tested and how your child performed…

d. Academic Gaps Testing in Math: “After reviewing the above, we’ll administer a brief but targeted test that will ‘audit’ perceived academic strengths and weaknesses…

e. Assessment of Reading Fluency: “The State’s TAKS test asserts a level of reading fluency for your child. We’ll administer a brief but targeted assignment that evaluates your child’s reading fluency…

f. Assessment of Writing/Grammar Skills: “We’ll administer a brief but targeted writing and grammar test. Most “TAKS Grades” don’t test these skills.

g. We’ll Report Our Findings To You: “This ‘audit’ is designed to put you on a schedule to make important decisions about your child’s academic future. It may be that you decide obtain a full scale nationally norm-referenced test. It may be that you want short term or even long term tutoring. We’ll help you give the information you need to start taking back control of your child’s academic future.”

2. Private Tutoring: “We can provide your child one-on-one tutoring in any subject by a certified professional educator.” There are no contracts to trap you into a financial burden that is not working for your child.

3. Acceleration Classes: The cost of private tutoring is a financial burden for many families. That’s why Pickering Academic Assessments has established its “Acceleration Classes.” The concept is simple. “We’ll group your child with one to no more than four other children whose skills are very similar. That will allow us to give your child the benefit of small-group tutoring that’s very close to private tutoring at discounted price.” Again, there are not contracts to bind your honest evaluation of effectiveness.

If you are interested in learning more about the programs or you want to review actual curriculum materials, “please give me a call, and I’ll be glad to visit with you and your child personally.”

Capstone Classical Academy and Pickering Academic Assessments are located at 515 Pin Oak in Katy. The phone number is 832-314-1400. Pickering can be reached at directors@capstoneclassicalacademy.com.

The limited, special offer will be available to the first 25 families who register their children for the academic assessment. Students must be currently enrolled in the 6^th through 10^th grades in public education, Jean Pickering said.

“Our “Classroom Instructional Audit” is designed to evaluate the actual current instruction of an individual student to determine if it is effectively targeting the real academic needs of that student,” Pickering said.

Pickering, a veteran public educator with 32 years as a classroom teacher, counselor, curriculum coordinator, or high level administrator, has recent formed this service in the private sector.

“In this audit, we will evaluate a student’s recent class work assignments including a major test or two and the most recent TAKS’ test results,” she said. “We will then administer our own brief but targeted assessment in math, reading, and writing to complete our evaluation.”

Pickering says her audit has a criterion-based approach to help parents decide if academic intervention programs may be needed.

Here are the elements of the “Classroom Instructional Audit:”

• Assessment of TAKS Test Results: “We will review your child’s most recent TAKS test results to evaluate what the State of Texas says your child does and does not know. We’ll look at the results academic objective by objective and reach an independent conclusion…
• Assessment of Actual Classroom Work: “We will ask you to provide us with 2-3 weeks of actual classroom work your child has completed most recently. We’ll look at what has been tested and how your child performed…
• Assessment of Actual Major Test: “We will ask you to provide us with a recent major test your child has taken. We’ll look at what has been tested and how your child performed…
• Academic Gaps Testing in Math: “After reviewing the above, we’ll administer a brief but targeted test that will ‘audit’ perceived academic strengths and weaknesses…
• Assessment of Reading Fluency: “The State’s TAKS test asserts a level of reading fluency for your child. We’ll administer a brief but targeted assessment that evaluates your child’s reading fluency…
• Assessment of Writing/Grammar Skills: “We’ll administer a brief but targeted writing and grammar test. Most “TAKS Grades” don’t test these skills…
• We’ll Report Our Findings To You: “This ‘audit’ is designed to put you on a schedule to make important decisions about your child’s academic future. It may be that you decide to obtain a full scale nationally norm-referenced test. It may be that you want short term or even long term academic assistance. We’ll help you get the information you need to start taking control of your child’s academic future,” Pickering said.

This limited offer is available to the families of the first 25 students who are registered to participate with the following restrictions:

• Parents or legal guardians must authorize participation in writing.
• Parents or legal guardians must accept the terms of participation which include access to confidential information including a student’s TAKS test results, classroom work, major test grades, and additional testing cited.
• Parents must agree to provide such material as well as abide by the schedule for additional testing.
• This offer expires December 31, 2009 or when 25 have registered to obtain the free audit, whichever comes first.

Capstone Classical Academy and Pickering Academic Assessments are located at 515 Pin Oak in Katy. The phone number is 832-314-1400. Pickering can be reached at directors@capstoneclassicalacademy.com.

There are five elements, which I will spell out in detail, that would create a perfect storm of educational reform in a community if they could be mustered in unison.  However, empirical history and harsh reality dictate that two of the five are either systemically unattainable or consistently unachievable.  These two - local news media and business community leadership - are generally lost causes unless ways can be calculated to ‘bully’ them into action.

The remaining three must function together if meaningful reform is to be forced upon a system that is dedicated to its own eventual implosion.  While the likelihood of successful reform has grown dim, it is theoretically possible to achieve.

These five elements take for granted that the Texas Legislature is fundamentally incapable of taking the lead in genuine reform–the kind that restores the academic integrity of academic classrooms.

The politics of public education in Texas is among the primary reasons that the academic integrity of education has been corrupted.

What the Legislature has allowed in its name has enabled academic corruption, dishonesty, and public misrepresentation of academic reality. The Legislature will never lead actual reform; it is destined only to follow community-based reform because its collective membership is politically and philosophically incapable of pursuing academic reform - preferring the appearance of reform as more achievable.

The system of public education that has evolved over the past three decades is pervasively powerful.  It distributes billions of dollars cumulatively in spending that fuels the political, statutory, and legal processes that preserve, protect, and reward those who distribute the dollars in the first place.

It is a circle of influence that is protected viciously.  National governments have militaries.  The public education bureaucracy, armed with abundant finances and enduring power, retain mega-law firms such as Bracewell and Giuliani.  In conjunction with powerful associations such as the Texas Association of School Boards and the Texas Association of School administrators, and others, the bureaucracy has placed a high priority upon protecting itself from penetration.

These institutions play a pivotal role in intimidating and bullying school board members into surrendering the “independent” part of a district.  Vendors who slop in the public trough of public dollars and  no-bid professional services are always there to grease the skids of an administration’s need during bond issues, or at conventions and other communal gatherings of educators.

Think of these forces protecting the educational bureucracy as you would the U.S. Army Rangers or the U.S. Navy Seals.

When reformers leave their communities and head to Austin in pursuit of reform, they are taking a garden hose to fight a forest fire.  At that level, there are simply no chinks in the armor of the system.  The political system is too corrupt, too entrenched and too vested to contemplate actual reform that will be meaningful in what happens in your children’s classrooms.  One can add to this the fact that powerful corporate interests that are enriched by public dollars also protect the ’system.’

As you consider the veracity of that brutal conclusion, consider the predestined-to-fail efforts of the conservative Dr. Jim Leininger, who has poured literally millions of dollars down a political rat hole believing that fundamentally ignorant legislators knew enough about the substance of public education to ‘deliver’ him vouchers.

Setting aside his ill-conceived notion that vouchers automatically translates to better public education, he should realize by now that Austin is an impenetrable political fortress, protected by conservative, liberal, Republican and Democratic politicians who all share the shame of the past 20 years of fraudulent academic accountability.

The five elements of reform also acknowledge that the local school board’s role as a viable independent entity (in holding a superintendent’s administration accountable) has given way to the intellectual equivalent of a holy matrimony where the two have become one.

Individually and collectively, school board members and boards as a whole do not think in terms of holding a superintendent (and thus the leader’s entire administration) accountable.  Board members have been inculcated to believe that they and their administrators must ride a unicycle - with the superintendent in charge of the guiding handles while the board members sit in a subservient position.

The likelihood of electing a school board armed with the knowledge and self-motivation to change this relationships is a years-long process.  There are few if any school boards ready now to lead a reform effort, and, like the Legislature, boards will only follow community-based demands.

As protective as most school boards are with their administrations, organized community efforts must target the school board with a sustained effort to ‘break the model’  of acquiescent ‘accountability’ typical boards have created.

So what are the five essential elements of reform that will be covered in more detail over the next several columns?  Reform groups must develop a working strategy that accomplishes the following:

Taking a slightly closer look at the last two elements - the news media and business organizations.

An effective strategy will have to find ways to make it “journalistically impossible” for the news media to avoid covering a group’s major issues.  There are some practical ways to do this.  As far as the business community is concerned, a group will need to bypass the leadership and go directly to the rank and file members.

An group that is successful in developing strategies to achieve the first three elements of reform will almost certainly improve their chances of improved performance regarding the last two elements.

This series on the five essential elements of reform will now discuss each of the five in much more detail.

The 5 Essential Elements Of Reform - 2

One common denominator of why public education watchdog groups rise and fade so quickly is the low-hanging fruit of the system’s abuse they target almost exclusively.  To be certain, supporting business efficiency and opposing financial abuse of taxpayers should always be a part of an agenda.  However, it will never be enough to change the powerful developments that are destroying the academic integrity of your children’s core subject classrooms.

• Forcing school districts to post check registers and financial audits online
• Exposing administrative abuse of district-issued credit cards, excessive travel, or claimed perks of the job
• Creating public outcries that block a particularly stupid decision
• Rallying public ire at any given issue of the moment
• Producing the momentum for across-the-board budget cuts to save a penny or two on the tax rate

A 100% success rate on any of these kinds of issues and dozens more that could be cited will do absolutely nothing to improve the quality of education that the district organizes and delivers to your children’s classrooms.

Groups often focus their anger upon these issues because they are absolutely the easiest ones to confront.  In the scheme of things rated on a scale of 1-10 for impact on actual education, these issues rate towards the bottom.  In truth, they barely rate at all on this standard.

Let’s be more blunt.  A group that forces a district to post its checks online or to back away from spending $5 million on artificial turf for fields at individual high schools, for instance, will do absolutely nothing to resolve the helter-skelter, hodge-podge organization of core subject classrooms that puts children of vastly different academic skills into the same classroom at the same time.

Therefore, the most important ingredient in an education reform movement should be the actual reform of education.  The more the focus is upon the assistant or deputy superintendents of instruction is the more a group is likely to have positive impact on the children’s education.

There should be no misconception about this. This is a dramatic challenge, and very difficult to accomplish.  The curriculum and accountability management side of public education works under the radar of most community groups except in superficial ways.

The superintendent of schools becomes a major roadblock between a school board and accountability for such administrators.

If you go back into the archives of George Scott Reports, you will find specific columns actually proving this in Katy.  We asked for specific reports that had been prepared by the district to document the empirical effectiveness of administrative-directed and board-approved curriculum initiatives.

We forced the district to acknowledge time and time again on one curriculum strategy after another that such documentation of program effectiveness “did not exist.”

There was a major math and science task force report presented to the Katy school board in 2007.  Proof of its effectiveness did not exist.  The district is huge into the Professional Learning Community.  Give us some proof of performance, the public information request said.  Responded the district, it “doesn’t exist.”

Show us some empirical evidence that your strategy of team teaching or collaboration through vertical teams were improving student academic performance.  Such proof doesn’t exist said the district.

These kinds of issues and strategies are at the very heart, soul, and bone-marrow of the quality of education your children are receiving.  Yet, most watchdog groups are too intimidated by their initial lack of knowledge on these subjects to learn more.

Certainly, school board members quickly become ‘children of the corn’ types of automatons by allowing themselves to be browbeaten by their superintendents into believing they are not capable of independent thought upon these subjects.  Moreover, school board members are ‘trained’ to believe that it is not within their job description to challenge the details of curriculum initiatives because it would involve them in administration rather than policy.

That’s why this system of public education has deteriorated so dramatically.  It is why your children’s academic futures are genuinely at risk.

Here is a fact.  The academic integrity of significant and increasing numbers of core subject classrooms have been fatally compromised if the standard is creating organizational units in which classroom teachers can deliver genuine grade-level instruction.  This language means that in districts such as Katy, there are still students who are receiving a world-class education in extremely effective classroom units.  However, even in districts such as Katy, these numbers are dropping.

Classroom teachers are the first to know it.  The fact of the matter is that mid-level administrative curriculum specialists, most of whom are extremely dedicated professionals, know it as well.

These folks are forced to work in an environment that is imposed from above, and most are doing the best they can to make it all work as best it can.  From the federal government to the Texas Legislature to the Texas Education Agency to your local school board to your superintendent to your high level curriculum administrators, they are all key players in a sick system that is destroying public education.

The truth of the matter is that these developments have gone on for so long, and they have become so inculcated into the ways things are done that genuine reform of public education has grown less likely to even be achievable.

Having written that, there are specific things that can be done to help your children while re-establishing some management accountability over curriculum and accountability measures in your district.

Despite what members of your board may have been told they are allowed to believe, the school board does have some independent authority to take actions that would help.  Right now, school board members don’t generally think they have such power; they would not really know what to do if they concluded they did have power; and they have no organization of parents or citizens demanding that they exercise such power.

A community has limited choices here. It can choose among:

1. Adopting a posture that there is really no problem while concluding that people like me are crying wolf
2. Staying on the sidelines far removed from engagement on these issues
3. Taking the battle directly to your school board over an extended period of time on issues of educational substance (Don’t worry about school board elections as much as you focus upon school board performance.)

From a practical standpoint, the third option above will never materialize in a community without an effective watchdog organization.  Movements are always about initial leadership.  Sustaining movements is always about issues, revitalized leadership, and consistent agendas.

Here’s a one-question litmus test about evaluating a watchdog organization: which action would be most important to your children?

1. Blocking $5 million of spending on artificial turf
2. Forcing your school board to demand that its administration produce an empirical based report demonstrating the effectiveness of vertical team conferences in improving math performance at the district’s junior and senior high schools. A part of this demand would include an opportunity for private citizens organized by the watchdog group to directly engage the administrators who produced the report with questions in front of the school board.

If your answer is the first, your group will never be successful.  It will never produce serious educational reform in your school district.

The second answer is the only correct answer.  It is the hardest answer. The truth of the matter is that the likelihood of a community group dedicating itself to such an aggressive, important role is not great.

Moreover, the second answer is just one tiny step of changing a community’s attitude about what is and is not really important. It is a daunting challenge.

The entire educational bureaucracy has successfully engineered a scam it has foisted on school boards and many rank and file citizens including far too many parents.  The scam basically reads as follows:

“We are the experts.  We have the doctorates.  We know what is best for your children.”  Don’t question us is the borderline-explicit message.

So, if a watchdog organization is to be effective, it must prepare itself to become informed on issues that for the most part have always been left to the “experts.”  The group’s leadership must, at a minimum, do the following:

1. Determine and identify individuals it can trust to ‘crack the code’ of curriculum administrative arrogance
2. Determine an effective initial agenda that includes a specific curriculum-accountability project
3. Develop a specific public information request that focuses like a laser beam to get information that really advances your first project
4. Implement an effective communication strategy to the general public

George Scott Reports is prepared to help any community organization in the state develop such a strategy.

However, let me suggest now that the first step any organization must take is to find a way to engage classroom teachers in private discussions about the reality of their classrooms. The fact of the matter is that there will be no reform in your school district unless and until your group finds a way to understand what classroom teachers know and take for granted.

Expanding a group’s agenda beyond the low hanging fruit of business abuse into the bone marrow of what is really wrong with what has become of a deteriorating public education system is the most important step in achieving reform.  Without this commitment, no other steps really matter, and no watchdog organization will have any real ‘bite.’

The 5 Essential Elements Of Reform - 3

Perhaps this will be the most controversial theme of the series “The Five Essential Elements of Reform,” because it is going to take everyone to task for what’s happening to classroom teachers - including classroom teachers.

Here is a fact of life in Katy I.S.D. in particular and public education almost everywhere.  One of the single most hostile work environments that exist in any American workplace is the public education classroom.  Classroom teachers are among the most ‘bullied’, white-collar professionals in the United States.

They are the victims of arbitrary and capricious top-down management from their real bosses at central administration (much like principals and assistant principals can be).  To many irrational, mantra-drive conservatives, classroom teachers are often the focal point of all that is wrong in public education.  I simply don’t accept that.  Moreover, that’s not a defense of every bad teacher of which there are many.

Teachers’  bosses give them classrooms filled with students having a range of academic skills from ‘Jethro Bodine’ of the old Beverly Hillbillies to students who are actually at grade-level and ready to learn more.  That’s just the start of it.

Their ‘good public policy’ idiot bosses above tell them:

• Differentiate your instruction!
• Make vertical teams!
• Make horizontal teams!
• Collaborate!
• Use strategies such as:
  • Think, Pair, Share!
  • Jigsaw!
• Operate as a Professional Learning Community: traditional schools emphasize teaching but PLC emphasizes learning!

And, by the way, when Jethro does not turn in his homework - or finish his classwork - do not give him an ‘F!’ Give him another day.  And, when Jethro doesn’t turn in the work for a second day, call his parents.  If he doesn’t turn it in for the third day, give up your duty-free  lunch hour, and make him do it in front of you.  Never mind that forcing teachers to give up their lunch hour is against the law; our kids don’t get zeros and our kids don’t flunk without an act of Congress.

And, by the way, when teachers are planning on using their conference period to grade papers, plan lessons, contact parents, or any of the hundreds of other things teachers need to do to prepare themselves every single day, they get an order from an administrator telling them they have to attend a departmental meeting to “collaborate” all on orders from public policy idiots at central command!

Never mind that this action butt-kicks state law.  Never mind that the public policy idiot school board members in Katy endorsed a legislative proposal to try to change that law in the current session of the Legislature while permitting the law to continue to be broken in Katy I.S.D.   When central command snaps their fingers, teachers must respond even if what they are required to do subtracts from time they have to give to most of their students.

When too many kids in a class are not succeeding academically because they act up in class, don’t turn in their homework, and don’t work to succeed, teachers are expected to find a way to pass the vast majority of these relatively few but highly disruptive students anyway.

And, if they don’t pass the particular kids, they often get summoned to the office to explain why.  Summon a teacher once, they get the message.  No future summons are needed!

Parents should not think that these abusive personnel policies directed towards the rank and file classroom teacher help the majority of children who are there to work hard, to learn and to have some fun in their school years.

Professional abuse.  Intimidation.  Corrupt academic standards imposed too often.  So, to whom does the teacher turn for support?  Their gutless, wimpy teacher groups?  Nonsense.

Of them all, the ATPE is the most gutless and worthless to their members.  The ATPE, the largest group in Katy I.S.D., ought to be leading the way helping teachers file literally thousands of grievances against the administrators of this district.  Oh, that’s right - the ATPE has administrators as well as teachers in the group.  The ATPE could stop the majority of this nonsense in one semester, but its institutional gutlessness rivals the school board’s.

If there were ever a need for Gayle Fallon’s group to become active in a suburban Texas school district, Katy I.S.D. would be exhibit A.

So, what does this have to do with reform?

The thesis of George Scott Reports is that the classroom is the single most important organizational unit in public education.  Everything else is distant by comparison.  The integrity of too many of those classroom units has broken down - academically, organizationally and managerially.

Watchdog groups that want to reform public education have a gigantic pathway to success.  It begins with establishing diplomatic relations with classroom teachers.

As evidenced by even the current school board race, incumbent and challengers seeking election to the school board have gone through this entire election cycle without saying, writing or perhaps even thinking one substantive thought that would change the condition of reality in the classroom.    They spout intellectual drivel such as “better communications” or “experience” as if it means something.  One candidate in particular is about to set a Guinness Book world record by running three consecutive campaigns of the most inconsequential, vacuous nature.

The fact of the matter is that classroom teachers possess chapter and verse of what’s happening in their workplace, why it is happening, and the impact it is having.

Reform groups that want to succeed must find a way to open communications with classroom teachers to begin developing the knowledge base they will need to confront administrative reform.

Reform will not and cannot and shall not happen without engagement of classroom teachers.

On the other hand, classroom teachers should recognize that this problem has grown because they have allowed themselves to become intimidated by a process over which they have more control than perhaps they believe.

Nobody or no group can help you if you are not willing to help yourself.

You have about a month left in school.  Here are three things you should do to be better prepared to deal with these issues next year:

1. DEMAND: A specific plan of action should be developed now and over the course of the summer to be implemented at the start of next school by your professional organization.  The plan should deal with explicit strategies including providing legal support for teachers who file legitimate grievances that are within the parameters of the plan and/or state law.  As necessary, the plan should include a commitment by the statewide organization to assist implementation.
2. CHANGE LEADERS or CHANGE GROUPS: If your current group will not make the commitment to do this, change leaders or change groups.  Your current group is not the only place to get professional insurance.
3. SEND LINKS TO GEORGE SCOTT REPORTS: As strange and ironic as it may seem, a political conservative who believes that public education’s best days may be behind it is probably your single best friend in this community.  Your school board is not.  Your administration is not.  The last watchdog group in Katy was run by political idealogues who preferred the pursuit of  philosophical mantras to intellectual substance.  Although I am a vicious critic of what public education is becoming in many ways, I remain strongly committed to its reform or restructuring.  What you and I know is that reform cannot be achieved without restoring your standing and wresting control away from the high level administrators who abuse you professionally every day you come to work.  So, please use your private emails to send links of this column and my website to your colleagues.  You have to trust someone.  You can trust me to protect your confidence.

This character trait or flaw depending upon one’s perspective became evident to me in my first official ‘run-in’ with the bureaucracy of public education near the end of the first semester in the 1990-91 academic year in Houston I.S.D. (HISD)

That’s when the president of the Houston Federation of Teachers (Gayle Fallon - then and now) contacted my boss at the nonprofit, public policy research organization where I worked as a senior researcher.

Fallon’s plea was at once simple and extraordinary. In words more or less, she told my boss that the new superintendent in HISD was literally trying to destroy the career of inner-city principal Thaddeus Lott who ran Wesley Elementary School.

Wesley is located in Acres Home. Its children were virtually all black and were almost all on the free and reduced lunch program. These were the faces of children doomed to fail academically in numbers the system had become too willing to accept as ‘expected.’

Fallon’s call was extraordinary for two reasons.

Lott ran a school in a way that most teachers’ unions abhor. He was authoritative and demanding. Classroom teachers generally knew within weeks or months whether they could survive the environment. Many did not.

Lott was the exact kind of principal that one would expect the head of a teachers’ group to beg a new superintendent to fire. He was not the kind of principal that you would expect a leader of such an organization to go outside the educational fraternity and ask a group funded by major industry to help save.

However, it was the second reason that prompted Fallon to seek our help.

In words more or less, she told us that more than half the teachers that were assigned to the campus could not stand Lott; could not work there successfully; and left as soon as they could.

However, she said, Lott was a brilliant principal. He was dedicated to teaching reading the old-fashioned way – phonetic-based instruction. He used Saxon math. Children were ability grouped. They were drilled in basics. Most of their children left kindergarten as readers – not sight-word memorizers. When they walked to cafeteria at lunch, they walked in lines. They were quiet and respectful.

Within classrooms, teachers could actually further divide the children into groups, and they would work independently on their lessons while the teacher reinforced instruction with others.

There was no wasted motion.

Over time, Fallon explained, the Black man Lott had developed a hard-core group of teachers (many White) who found this school to be a haven of the kind of school they remembered.

Importantly, Fallon said, Lott let teachers who could not fit in go without trying to destroy their personnel files with bad marks. I remember her saying that she had teachers who could not stand the man and teachers who would ‘fight to the death’ for him.

Fallon approached us because she chose to help those teachers who would ‘fight to the death’ for him preserve Lott’s oasis. Whatever policy disagreements I may have had with Fallon over the years are insignificant compared to the respect she earned by the courage of her intervention.

So there I was spending the day on the campus at Wesley in November of 1990. Lott and his key lieutenant Suzie Rhymes took me into the classrooms from kindergarten through the fifth grade.

I felt like I had been transported back in time to West Columbia Elementary School. There were my teachers: Mrs. Roper, Mr. Earle, Mr. Springer, Mrs. Grandstaff, Mrs. Avery and Mrs. Sloan. It was like a time warp with one exception: all the kids at my elementary school were White, and all the kids I was seeing at Wesley were Black.

As the day developed, I had an opportunity to visit with Lott and Rhymes about why Fallon had asked my business organization to intervene to see if we could save this man’s school.

What I learned was this:

1. HISD’s new superintendent Joan Raymond did not approve of phonetic based instruction. She imposed a one-world sort of view of reading instruction upon the entire district that frowned on Lott’s use of SRA Direct Instruction.

2. When Billy Reagan was superintendent, he encouraged principals to use programs that worked at their respective campuses. He had budgeting procedures in place that gave principals flexibility to buy instructional materials for their preferred programs. Because of Lott’s success at Wesley, dozens of other elementary campuses in HISD were using the program. Thus, scales of efficiency in purchasing worked to these schools’ benefit.

3. Under Raymond, this flexibility was taken away. One by one, the other campuses in HISD gave in to the pressure. The program that flourished under Billy Reagan was literally dying on the vine. Lott and Wesley were in effect the ‘last man standing.’

4. Because the instructional materials budget was essentially taken away, Lott used what little discretionary money he had been assigned to buy new workbooks, but it was far short of the dollars needed to keep the program alive and effective.

5. So, breaking every copyright law known to mankind, Lott used his copy paper budget to duplicate lessons from the original books so that his teachers would have ‘fresh’ materials to use in their classrooms. (There was a deep understanding of Lott’s heroics and a lot of corporate winking and blinking involved in this. In other words, there was no danger of a lawsuit, but I would have lied to get on the jury had one come.)

6. Lott had become resigned to the fact that this would be his last year as a principal. He had been forced by his administration to drive on the shoulders of the road. He knew his program was headed towards the ditch. He said he hoped to be able to close out his career and get his retirement numbers working in the district’s warehouse.

7. So, by the time I arrived at his campus that day with the first semester not finished, he only had a few reams of paper left in his annual budget. He didn’t even know how he was going to keep the program flowing in the second semester after kids came back from the Christmas holiday.

8. As I was preparing to leave that day, Rhymes looked at me and said something that I remember virtually word-for-word almost 20 years later as if she had said it an hour ago: “Mr. Scott. A lot of people have come to this campus and heard what you heard and have seen what you have seen. We don’t really expect to ever see you again, but thanks for coming.”

It is one of only two times in my career that I left a ‘job site’ fighting back tears unsuccessfully. Those tears lasted about two minutes and morphed into righteous indignation and resolve.

It was the first time that I had been forced in a profound way to come to grips with what was happening at our inner-city schools. It was the first time that I had to internalize just how self-righteous, arrogant, autocratic, sinister and evil public education bureaucrats could be. It was the first time that I had come face to face with the inherent gutlessness of what had become of the modern school board’s willingness to hold superintendents accountable.

By the time I got back to the office in 30 minutes, the initial rescue effort had been devised. It began with a go-ahead from my boss.

The top priority was to join Lott as a co-conspirator in his violation of copyright laws. Lott needed reams of paper, and by gosh that was easy.

My first call was to my friend in Katy. Malcolm Smith was principal of Nottingham Elementary School. I explained the situation to him and asked if he would conduct a drive among his students, teachers and parents. I think it took less than 30 seconds for Smith to say yes.

It was an unbelievable response. Smith and his school community not only gave paper, they gave pencils, pens and books. They gave clothes. They gave Christmas gifts wrapped in packages. They gave Wesley a semester worth of academic survival. They gave Lott and Rhymes and their teachers renewed faith that maybe someone really did care.

My first trip back to Wesley was with truckloads of things more valuable than the things in the trucks. It was an emotional reunion with two people who helped change the way I look at the world of the public education bureaucracy.

These were heroic people who had been abandoned by the system. My message to them was very basic: “The public will not let you lose this battle. Your job is to keep being heroes. My job is to make sure that people know it.”

The next task was a little harder but did not take long. I have not talked a whole lot about my research group. However, its membership included many of the biggest corporations of Harris County.

We were able to produce a $10,000 grant to the school in fairly quick order. So with Malcolm Smith’s support and $10,000 in cash, Lott’s program was taken off financial life support. He could see the end of the year, but not much farther beyond that.

Perhaps this is the appropriate time to let you know that all of those Black kids at Wesley whose economic conditions were not really good performed at the same basic level as students at West University, River Oaks, and other silk-stocking elementary schools on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and the Stanford Achievement Test, both national standards.

The next phase of the operation began as soon as students returned from the Christmas break. Week by week, my group asked important people in the community to go to Wesley and see the place and meet the people and observe the students.

We took important people from the business community there by the dozens. One person was former Lt. Governor Bill Hobby. In a previous life, I had organized a political tour for suburban and regional media interviews for him one day in one of his campaigns. He seemed pleased with the results.

I will never forget the day that former Gov. Hobby toured Wesley. It was the day that I knew that some how and some way, we would save Lott and save his program for as long as he was there.

As Gov. Hobby was talking individually to some of the first grade students, one student brought him a copy of the Texas Almanac. From the body language, I guessed that the student just wanted to show the governor the book.

Rather, the first grader opened the book and began reading the passage in the almanac about Gov. Hobby to Gov. Hobby. Even if it was beautiful stagecraft by Lott and his first grade teacher, the student had to be able to read to make the scene complete or even work.

Gov. Hobby left that day. Soon thereafter, he penned an opinion piece in The Houston Chronicle. The day at Wesley had made its impression.

As the spring TAAS testing approached, there was‘cheeriness’ at the campus that I am told had been missing for years. We knew through back channel sources that the renewed attention that Lott was receiving was creating additional animosity at the central administration.

In addition to outstanding performance on the national tests, Wesley’s children were on the same page with the TAAS tests as the silk-stocking schools. As the program became revitalized at Wesley, central seething apparently grew even bitterer.

As the day of TAAS testing arrived, I was in my office working on other matters. The frantic call from Rhymes came. “They have raided us. Administrators have stormed into a teacher’s classroom; disrupted the test administration; and basically accused her of cheating on the TAAS.”

An anonymous source, they were told, had called the central administration asserting that a teacher at Wesley was using inappropriate materials during the testing to boost her children’s scores.

By the time I reached Wesley, the administrators had scoured the teacher’s room; confiscated and reviewed materials; and determined rather quickly that they had stepped in a big pile of their own abundant manure.

The progress of the year seemed over. Lott and Rhimes were angry indeed. However, the reaction was really one more of frustration and fear about what was to come next.  They couldn’t believe it. They just didn’t believe they could catch a break.

Because of quirks in my personality and my way of looking at the world, I was laughing in anger unlike the tears of anger that marked my first visit many months before this. This was the moment that the previous months had been about.

It was about laying the foundation to tell an administration where to stick it; where to go.

“Are you kidding? God has literally smiled upon you. We’ve have just won. Call Melanie (Markley) at the Chronicle. We are going to have a story on April 15, 1991 in which you will be confirmed as the only honest people in the United States of America. They have stepped in their mess kits, and we are going to make sure they don’t wipe the crap off of their shoes before it dries.”

Melanie’s story was beautiful. It was accompanied by a picture of Lott, Fallon and me. It was that picture and story that caught the eye of an executive producer for ABC’s Prime Time Live.

Months later, one of the best segments of that show’s history told the story to a national audience with now Fox News’ Chris Wallace as the anchor. Superintendent Raymond was on her way out of town. Lott’s program was revitalized.

There’s a personal side to that story that developed years later.

A few years later, my oldest daughter was about to graduate from the University of Houston. She had reached the point where she was going to do her student teaching at an elementary school in Houston I.S.D.

She sought permission to do this assignment at Wesley. However, the ‘honcho’ that made those assignments would not approve the request. Rather, she was going to have to perform her assignment at a ‘whole language’ school in HISD.

I have had kids in college now for a total of 17 years including their post-undergraduate years. For the first and only time, ‘daddy’ intervened with his daughter’s full approval. I called to set an appointment with the UH official who ruled my daughter could not do her student teaching at Wesley.

Armed with all of the sugary-sweet, condescending, patronizing, and self-delusional self-importance that one expects of a curriculum administrator on philosophical steroids, she explained her decision to me.

“We want our teachers to be exposed to all kinds of teaching philosophies,” she said.

Meetings like this don’t generally last long when I am involved.

That this intellectual mush came so early in the meeting was all that I needed, and in words more or less I said:

“No. That’s not true. What you want is for your students to be exposed to everything but phonetic based instruction. Your decision is not acceptable nor is it defensible because it is based upon a philosophical bias against teaching kids to read in a particular way. I’ll tell you what I am going to do. I am going to go before the Board of Regents of the University of Houston. I am going to take an opinion column with me that was published in The Houston Chronicle a few years ago. I am going to start reading it to the Board. Maybe you ought to read it yourself before I go to the Regents and before you make your final decision.  Be sure and read the byline.”

The author of the column I was going to read was that written by Bill Hobby, who had become the Chancellor of the University of Houston.

Shortly thereafter, my daughter was told of the ‘compromise’ that would allow her to perform one-half of her student teaching assignment at Wesley. She later became a lead teacher at that school. She eventually became a training teacher when Lott formed his own company and recruited her professional help.

For awhile, she traveled the country visiting inner-city schools in major urban environments teaching teachers how to teach reading.

My experiences at Wesley changed my viewpoint on public education bureaucracy. In the two decades that have followed, the systemic academic abuse of teachers and students has become far worse by administrations that are more powerful than ever.

Accountability testing has disguised the magnitude of the problem; curriculum administrators have become even more empowered; school boards have become even more aloof from reality; classroom teachers have become even more burdened and abused; politicians have become infinitely more useless; and parents seem to have become more conditioned to accept public policy lies.

There are other experiences that forged my current approach towards the public education bureaucracy. As I build up to the previously mentioned April 30 announcement, I’ll also share some of those experiences.