Part 2: When Will Katy I.S.D. Parents & Community Institutions Say Enough Is Enough?

This column is Part 2 of our reporting upon and analysis of Katy I.S.D. training sessions that require classroom teachers to be pulled from their classrooms during the academic year, only to be replaced by significant numbers of uncertified substitutes.

LINK TO PART ONE

How many certified Katy I.S.D. teachers have been pulled out of their classrooms during the academic year and required or ‘encouraged’ to participate in District hosted or sanctioned training programs, while being replaced on those days by uncertified substitute teachers?

The certified classroom teacher is the single most valuable asset that a school district has.  Your child’s certified classroom teacher is one of the most important persons in your life for every year that you have a child in public education.

It is unspeakably incompetent and further tragic proof that your Katy I.S.D. School Board’s self-imposed, acquiescent ignorance extends to its abject failure to have any process in place that allows it to answer that question with immediate precision.

Parents should understand what this issue is NOT. It is NOT about training.  Every corporation or organization of any size sponsors training of its employees.

However, it is not unreasonable to expect that an extensive training program would have measurable goals associated with it as well as premeditated standards of post-training accountability.

Since the mission of public education is to produce the highest quality of educated student as possible, the only relevant way to evaluate the training is to evaluate improvement in student academic performance.

You have a legitimate reason to question the competence of a school board that does not have such a system in place. It is an egregious failure of its responsibilites for a school board to fail to evaluate its superintendent of schools on the effectiveness of any program that takes certified teachers out of the classroom during the academic year.

Parents have a right to expect a school board to evaluate its superintendent for the effectiveness of curriculum-based initiatives in terms of improvement in student academic performance.  Anything less is breach of confidence.

Here’s my question to parents.  How long are you going to tolerate this from your school board?

This issue of training that is symbolized by the December 2 training session for middle school teachers is a bay window into the inner workings of a public school district.

It is about curriculum management philosophy run amok.  It is about curriculum administrators who have become so self-absorbed in self-righteous self-importance that they think they must have invented the classroom.

Katy I.S.D. is a school district that made a decision to abandon six days of classroom instruction due to Hurricane Ike.  (For the record, I understand that decision even if I do not agree with writing off all six days).

Yet, with six days of instruction literally blown away, your school board and your administration continue to pull certified teachers out of the classroom during the academic year and replace them with uncertified substitutes.

This is nothing less than unrestrained administrative arrogance, enabled by equal amounts of unrestrained tolerance by a school board that is unable or unwilling to do its job of oversight.

This situation is not going to change until the parents say they have had enough, or until the institutions of this community assume a leadership role in reform.

We are going to address these institutions’ roles later this week.

        

         

NEWS RELEASE: In The Wake Of 6 Days Missed Instruction From Hurricane Ike; KISD Keeps Pulling Those Teachers Out Of The Classroom: Part 1

 

Katy I.S.D. pulled 43 certified junior high math teachers from 12 different campuses out of their classrooms on December 2 so they could attend a district-training session on block scheduling, held at the Leonard Merrell Center.

Students in the 43 classrooms were taught that day by 6 substitutes who had no college degree, 25 substitutes who had college degrees but no teacher certification, and 12 substitutes who were certified teachers but not necessarily in math. (The District did not provide the subject of certification of these teachers.)

District patrons may well want to remember that six days of instruction time were lost during the current 2008-09 academic year because of Hurricane Ike.

The information on the December 2 training session was provided at no cost to George Scott Reports (GSR).  However, the District wants to charge $648,000 to provide GSR with comprehensive data which would allow a substantive analysis of the District’s overall employee training program.

The District estimates that there have been 12,000 training sessions since 2006, although that statement did not clarify whether these were sessions just for teachers or all training sessions.

The information sought and provided regarding the December 2 training session of junior high school math teachers included the following:

• The name of the classroom teacher
• The campus of the classroom teacher
• The pay grade of the classroom teacher
• Confirmation of certification status
• The name of each teacher’s substitute
• The pay grade of each teacher’s substitute

Although we have the names, GSR does not include the names of the teachers or the substitutes in its report.  “It was important for us to get real names.  It is not journalistically relevant that we report the names,” Scott said.  See table here

The District’s initial response to GSR verifies what was sought.

“On December 2, 2008, we received your two separate requests for records.  After discussing it with you on the phone, your request was narrowed to be a request the following information for the current school year (PIR 08122554-40) and the 2007-08 school year (PIR 0812255-40) to include “the training sessions that are the subject of the requests are for those involving classroom teachers and only those held during the academic year which required classroom teachers to be pulled from their teaching duties to receive the training.” To include with each request “names of the teachers and substitutes as well as certifications and pay grades are integral parts of the requests.”

“The District will provide a computer printout of training sessions in a very condensed format that will not permit serious, qualitative analysis of the training sessions,” George Scott said.

Here’s the portion of the District’s response that verifies this.

“I have not received the number of trainings held each year but have been told there are approximately 12,000 trainings in the system since 2006 for approximately 4000 – 5000 a year. Some of these trainings may not meet your criteria as set out. To find this out, individual trainings will need to be pulled and assessed.

A less expensive way to do this would be to withdraw your requests above and request a list of trainings with dates and times and number of attendees for the years in question. Upon receiving this data, you could determine which trainings you would like the list of names for. I could then give you a data base of all teachers with the information requested.

The substitute list would be a little more difficult as it is a separate system and each individual day would have to be pulled. Then I could get a list of all substitutes with their daily rates on it. You would have to cross reference the data.  This is much like the way I did it this time for you. It took approximately 3 hours to gather all the information and another hour for me to put it together for you.  

The cost for the list of trainings only (including dates, time, and number of attendees) will be $45.00 or less. I will waive the overhead charge. The list will contain every training the District has done since the system was put in place. I can remove the ones prior to the dates on your request if you would like.”

 “This project started with a limited objective to try to find out how often classrooms teachers were being taken out of the classroom during the academic year,” Scott said.  “The second part of the project was to determine if there were any standards of evaluation put in place by the District’s Board,” Scott said.

Scott said GSR became aware of the December 2 training session because there are a growing number of classroom teachers throughout Katy I.S.D. (particularly math) who have discovered that “my report is not their enemy.  As they read my columns, classroom teachers are coming to understand that part of my effort is to help them.”

 “This conference was apparently particularly offensive and demeaning to some math teachers, who balked at initial instructions from their administration that they were going to need to attend,” Scott said.  “Teachers were apparently told that there were 50 slots that needed to be filled.  It is interesting to note that only 43 teachers are shown as having attended.”

 The basic materials that were distributed at the December 2 session are provided in PDF format by the link below.  The session and the materials were purportedly designed to enhance teachers’ ability to handle block scheduling more effectively.

Link to agenda and overhead slides for training

Block scheduling is created when an individual teacher has the same students for the equivalent of two consecutive classes, in either the same subject (math) or correlated subjects (reading and language).

Consistent readers of GSR know that the Report has used the Public Information Act of Texas to force the District to acknowledge in writing that it has no management process in place to evaluate the effectiveness of its curriculum initiatives (such as differentiated instruction, teacher-teaming, block scheduling, Professional Learning Community, KMAC, etc. ).

 “We have published the handouts from the session for three basic reasons.  The first is to allow the public to walk inside the top-down management shoes in which classrooms teachers walk,” Scott said.  “The second is to give you a first hand look at the kinds of material that public education curriculum administrators call “training”.  The third is to encourage classroom teachers to keep calling and writing me.  I may be the only real advocate you have in this town.”

“This District is allocating literally millions of dollars in taxpayer resources on instructional philosophies and training for which there is no evidence that these efforts produce improved student academic performance,” Scott said.  “I am sensing a growing unrest among teachers in Katy I.S.D. at the kind of hostile working environment that the Katy I.S.D. School Board has allowed to be created.”

“It is becoming increasingly clear that the Katy I.S.D. School Board does not believe that it has any role whatsoever to perform in holding Supt. Alton Frailey and his administration accountable for its curriculum and training initiatives,” Scott said.  ”I am still waiting to discover one important indication or one relevant piece of information that would contradict that conclusion.”

 “I hope that citizens in Katy will begin calling the local newspapers and encouraging those publications to rediscover the concept of journalism,” Scott said.  “It is apparent in the District’s response that GSR has struck the tip of the iceberg.  It sure would be valuable to have print newspapers actually practice real journalism.”

“Because we have come across the tip of the iceberg with the Dec. 2 training session, we are going to pay for that condensed version of the 12,000 training sessions,” Scott said.  “Who knows where that will lead?”

READ PART 2 OF THIS REPORT

KISD- Classrooms to College, Part 1

The average composite score on the math and reading tests of the college-entrance SAT exams among the 2006 graduating class of Katy I.S.D. was 1088.

That would place the average graduate of the District comfortably within the bottom 25% of the enrolling freshman class at the University of Texas at Austin. Or, stated another way, it would place the average graduate of the District in the top 25% of the University of Texas Permian Basin

That, of course, would not account for the 20% of the graduates of Katy I.S.D. that didn’t take the SAT test.

What is tragic, sad, bordering on pathetic, and of tremendous concern to genuine academic reformers is that there is no evidence that the Katy I.S.D. School Board has demanded even the most superficial analysis of this kind. For this benign neglect, the School Board should be ashamed.

There is one thing I’d like to state right up front: As a matter of personal philosophy, I believe we can all take pride in each the following types of student:

• A conscientious student who perseveres and graduates from any college with any degree.
• A high school graduate who does not pursue higher education, but enters the job force - perhaps with technical training -  works hard and honestly, starts and raises a family, and very often achieves more than those who pursued the college option.
• A globally competitive student who attends and graduates from Harvard or one of the many elite programs that are now routinely offered at many state universities (ranging from the University of Texas and Texas A&M to the University of Houston).

I have no right, no reason and no interest in establishing the parameters of what your ambitions for your children are. However, I do want to help you obtain the information you need to represent more effectively your children in a system of public education accountability that systemically deprives you of the kind of data you really need.  I have great respect for students who pursue any of the above paths. Read more

What is an ICS classroom? Why does it matter to you?