So today's newspaper reminded me that it is the one year anniversary of the head of the Wake County Public School System, retired Brigadier General Anthony (Tony) Tata. If you have been reading my blog for over a year (and if you have been, bless you!), you know that I had my doubts about Mr. Tata. I doubted his experience, I doubted his political orientation, I doubted his former boss when he was head of operations in the DC Public School System (that is, Michelle Rhee)....but most of all, I doubted his bosses, or at least the Republican majority who voted him into office in a rather dubious manner right before Christmas of 2010.
So it seems only fair that I report my assessment of the man after a year on the job. And that assessment is ... relatively positive.
As I said at the time (in one of my most-frequently read blog post, Wake School Board Majority Should Be Ashamed), the Republicans on the Board did him no favor in the way they pushed through his appointment, seemingly in the dead of the night, with no public notice and some of the Democrats on the Board unable to attend a meeting called with 48 hours notice only days before Christmas. It was not an auspicious way to begin a job, and I did express my sympathy to Mr. Tata at that time.
However, I did review an interview he had, as well as his first statement after accepting the position, and found room for hope in both. He seemed like a nice man, a reasonable man, and, most of all, a man who knows that you don't win a campaign--military, educational, social, it doesn't matter--by castigating, blaming, and demoralizing your "troops" (what ever their actual jobs may be) on the front line.
So I've not met the man, so my assessment is based only on what I've seen going on in Wake County schools. I believe our basic political beliefs are not aligned. We probably have fairly different visions for how the children who attend Wake County Public Schools would be best served.
However, there is no denying that things have been so much more peaceful, respectful, civil, and hence, productive, in 2011 then they were in 2010. And I attribute a lot of that to Mr. Tata, since that is the major thing that changed between the two years (the elections were held in 2009 and the end of 2011).
Superintendent Tata has apparently been able to smooth the waters of the often fractious School Board--which to me is a big deal. I'm OK with people disagreeing--our entire political system is based on that reality--but the Board shenanigans had become not just a local, not just a statewide, but a national embarrassment (when Steven Colbert is making fun of you, you should know you've gone too far). Things have gone so much more cordially and low key in the past year, and I credit Tata with at least some of that.
I also really acknowledge Superintendent Tata for his efforts to reach out and talk with the community, even those who opposed his appointment. To me, this should be a given. Again, our system was set up with the idea that we might disagree, but that the majority would find a way to work with the majority. Sadly, that philosophy has been abandoned lately in our national politics. But it is great to see a School Superintendent who is trying to connect with all facets of the community, even those who disagree with his political orientation. (Although he hasn't, to my knowledge, met with the homeschooling community, although I think that could begin a very enriching dialogue that would benefit both sides.)
Along those lines, the agency that was threatening to withdraw accreditation from the WCPSS in 2010 has come again, and found things much approved. It upgraded our accreditation status to accreditation advised (subject to a few more improvements), and commented positively both on the Board's better behavior and Superintendent Tata's "stablizing influence." Again, as I stated in a previous blog post, this is a big deal to me.
Next, I'm pleased that things have been going along the lines that I advised in a blog post of a year ago, Four Pieces of Advise for Anthony Tata (and One for the Board of Ed). While he hasn't adopted all my words of wisdom....YET....he has stuck to one of my top ones, which was to abandon his conservative commentary that he maintained while he was working with the DC School System. Different place, different job, different sensibilities. According to the News and Observer, Tata has steadfastly refused to comment on military-related or other conservative topics, sticking strictly to talking about the Wake County School System. I'm sure it was hard, as an ex-military man, not to comment on, say, the death of Osama bin Laden. But the fact that he refused to do so makes him much more credible as the head of our school system.
Finally, he has produced. We have a plan, and a plan with enough information that parents can actually comment on and/or do something with. I don't necessarily agree with his plan. But at least it is something concrete and with enough specifics that parents can react to. From what I can tell--it is very confusing to dwell into specific details--I don't agree with the overarching philosophy, but it is beginning of a system that is more responsive to family needs and request. It is, at least, something to work with. With the way that the Board was acting in 2010, having something even nominally reasonable is a great accomplishment.
So all in all, I say pretty well done, Mr. Tata. I have issues with the school plans that you have produced. But I can still admire what you have accomplished, given the cards you were dealt. Of course, the election results last November shuffled the decks a good bit, so who knows what lies in our future. But at least things are operating on a more civil and reasonable basis, and we can all be glad of that.
PS--Do I agree with the Republicans who think we should be extending his employment contract already? No. Do I think the Democrats should (or will) kick him to the curb? No. He's made a good start. But let's see things play out a bit more before we decide whether he should continue to be Superintendent past 2014.
Showing posts with label Tata. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tata. Show all posts
Monday, January 30, 2012
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Will A Military Man Bring Peace to Wake County?
Well, we've gone several weeks now without news reports of Wake County (NC) School members being ugly in public to each other, or someone threatening a new lawsuit or other legal action against the Wake County Public School Systems, or extra police having to be hired to keep the peace during school board meetings. In most of the country--all those places the Washington Post education writer, Jay Mathews, is describing when he says-"over the years, I have found school board meetings to be as interesting, newsworthy, and uplifting as a trip to the dentist"--that is no big deal. But in Wake County, NC, where school board meetings over the past years have featured diatribes, insults, protesters, and arrests, it is remarkable enough that the LACK of angry rhetoric received coverage in the latest issue of Education Weekly, one of the largest national new sources on education.
To what can we attribute this new wave of tranquility wafting over Wake County? Could it be the spring-like weather we've been enjoying for the past couple of week? A holdover from our holiday of love, Valentine's Day? As one of the many who questioned the credentials of our new superintendent, I kind of hate to admit it, but I think it may be due to the arrival of retired Army General Anthony Tata as head of the Wake County Schools. Mr. Tata has certainly negotiated his entry into Wake County as smoothly as could be expected, and brings some hope that he may be able to navigate through all the bad relations that have tied up progress on the educational issues that divide this community.
I got some insight today on the whole embarrassing spectacle that has been much of the Wake County school board operations last year when I read a blog post by Mike Rose, a really wonderful writer and teacher who works at the School of Education at UCLA. In his latest post, The Meaning of Michelle Rhee, Rose looks at the continuing controversy over Tata's former boss, the head of the Washington DC public school system. The whole post is worth reading, especially if you are interested in the whole school reform business. However, I found this passage particularly relevant to the Wake County school system.
Writing about what Rose calls "weaknesses of current school reform," he said:
When I read those paragraphs, I thought "Exactly!" When the new board majority were elected in 2009, they came in with guns blazing, claiming a mandate to reform the system. However, they didn't seem to be very good shots, or maybe they themselves didn't know who they should be shooting. What they did do, though, was manage to antagonist everyone who didn't agree with their plans 100%--including, famously, one of their own board majority members, who switched her vote when when the board leaders wouldn't share their plans with their own subgroup on the board, let alone the public. And for those who seriously disagreed with their views, such as the NAACP, the board's own actions gave their opponents enough ammunition to bring lawsuits, accreditation questions, and even a federal civil rights review against their policies. Whatever value or new ideas these members might be bringing to the system got lost in all the smoke of the hostility, incivility, and hubris the new board brought to the deliberation about how we should be educating our children. And as I stated at the end of one of my previous posts, it seemed to me that the school board had forgotten that the public of Wake County are not their enemies--we are, indeed, their bosses.
In my experience, though, the ones who are quickest to threaten aggression against others are those who have never had to actually live with the consequences of that action. It is generally the new recruits to the military who proclaim their eagerness to kill, not the older leadership who have had to kill and who have seen good people with whom they served be killed.
So I don't want to overstretch the whole gunslinger metaphor. I certainly don't mean to suggest that anyone involved in the school debate intended any physical harm to each other. But I am thinking that a man who has lived through the destruction created by physical violence may have the wisdom to help lift the system from its recent history of verbal turbulence.
Anthony Tata has made a good first impression on people. And the thing is, it didn't take much. He showed up and seems like a nice guy. He is willing to actually listen to people. He is looking for data instead of political positioning. He has maintained an open office policy, and says he looks forward to talking with people on all sides of the issue. It's not like it is brain science. Yet, compared to what has been going on for the past year, it makes him look like a genius.
But after reading Rose's analogy, I went back and read Tata's first statement to the community. In light of Rose's description, I found Tata's opening and closing paragraphs very reassuring.
To what can we attribute this new wave of tranquility wafting over Wake County? Could it be the spring-like weather we've been enjoying for the past couple of week? A holdover from our holiday of love, Valentine's Day? As one of the many who questioned the credentials of our new superintendent, I kind of hate to admit it, but I think it may be due to the arrival of retired Army General Anthony Tata as head of the Wake County Schools. Mr. Tata has certainly negotiated his entry into Wake County as smoothly as could be expected, and brings some hope that he may be able to navigate through all the bad relations that have tied up progress on the educational issues that divide this community.
I got some insight today on the whole embarrassing spectacle that has been much of the Wake County school board operations last year when I read a blog post by Mike Rose, a really wonderful writer and teacher who works at the School of Education at UCLA. In his latest post, The Meaning of Michelle Rhee, Rose looks at the continuing controversy over Tata's former boss, the head of the Washington DC public school system. The whole post is worth reading, especially if you are interested in the whole school reform business. However, I found this passage particularly relevant to the Wake County school system.
Writing about what Rose calls "weaknesses of current school reform," he said:
There is a belief in the tough, bold outsider, the gunslinger who will come in and clean things up. These gunslingers are often young, smart, quick on their feet, and very, very assured. But what comes with this character – a very appealing character for Americans – is a disdain for anything already in place, an unwillingness or inability to find the local good and take the time to learn local history. This attitude and bearing fits also with the technocratic dismissal of the old and the embrace of the new. A bad mix: the righteousness of the gunslinger with the naïve belief in the latest technology of reform.
The above suggests a Manichean view of the world; there are good guys and bad guys. You’re on the side of the good – and these days the bad are older teachers, teachers unions, ed schools, and pretty much anyone not on your reform wagon. Ms. Rhee is fond of saying that she and like-minded peers are in this “for the kids” and everyone else is simply looking out for their own adult self interest.
When I read those paragraphs, I thought "Exactly!" When the new board majority were elected in 2009, they came in with guns blazing, claiming a mandate to reform the system. However, they didn't seem to be very good shots, or maybe they themselves didn't know who they should be shooting. What they did do, though, was manage to antagonist everyone who didn't agree with their plans 100%--including, famously, one of their own board majority members, who switched her vote when when the board leaders wouldn't share their plans with their own subgroup on the board, let alone the public. And for those who seriously disagreed with their views, such as the NAACP, the board's own actions gave their opponents enough ammunition to bring lawsuits, accreditation questions, and even a federal civil rights review against their policies. Whatever value or new ideas these members might be bringing to the system got lost in all the smoke of the hostility, incivility, and hubris the new board brought to the deliberation about how we should be educating our children. And as I stated at the end of one of my previous posts, it seemed to me that the school board had forgotten that the public of Wake County are not their enemies--we are, indeed, their bosses.
In my experience, though, the ones who are quickest to threaten aggression against others are those who have never had to actually live with the consequences of that action. It is generally the new recruits to the military who proclaim their eagerness to kill, not the older leadership who have had to kill and who have seen good people with whom they served be killed.
So I don't want to overstretch the whole gunslinger metaphor. I certainly don't mean to suggest that anyone involved in the school debate intended any physical harm to each other. But I am thinking that a man who has lived through the destruction created by physical violence may have the wisdom to help lift the system from its recent history of verbal turbulence.
Anthony Tata has made a good first impression on people. And the thing is, it didn't take much. He showed up and seems like a nice guy. He is willing to actually listen to people. He is looking for data instead of political positioning. He has maintained an open office policy, and says he looks forward to talking with people on all sides of the issue. It's not like it is brain science. Yet, compared to what has been going on for the past year, it makes him look like a genius.
But after reading Rose's analogy, I went back and read Tata's first statement to the community. In light of Rose's description, I found Tata's opening and closing paragraphs very reassuring.
I am humbled to be selected as the next superintendent of the Wake County Public School System. I intend to focus the system's impressive resources on the academic achievement of our students and on closing the achievement gap in student performance. I will ensure our teachers and principals have the resources they need to deliver this improvement. One of my goals will be to energize all aspects of Wake County's very large, complex organization to operate at maximum capacity and minimum cost so that we can push as many resources as possible to where they belong -- the classroom.....
I believe I have the experience, heart, resources, and vision to help Wake County Public School System accelerate its drive to become a world-class education system. I will bring a primary focus to supporting schools and teachers so that they may achieve academic success for our children in the same way I delivered unrelenting support to our troops on the front lines as they served our nation. (emphasis added)
So in his first statement, Tata affirms what is good about what we've already got in Wake County--which is a lot, especially compared to many school systems. He talks about getting teachers the resources they need, not making everything their responsibility alone.
But most of all, Tata knows that you don't win a war by bashing the troops you expect to fight your battles. For so much of the school reform efforts, the entire focus is on demonizing the school teachers and their organizations--the very people WHO ARE GOING TO HAVE TO BE THE ONES to make whatever grand new vision of education you have ACTUALLY WORK.
If nothing else, I believe Tata knows that attacking the teachers and/or the parents is not the way to build a 21st century school system that will work for all the students of Wake County. That realization alone puts him ahead of many in the national school reform movement...not to mention some of his own bosses.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Stephen Colbert Coins New Word For Wake County School Battles
I used to think things couldn't get much worse for the national image of the Wake County School System than the very public rebuke of the U.S. Education Secretary.....but it turns out I was wrong.
Now Wake County has become the inspiration for Stephen Colbert's "Word of the Day" segment last night. My text can't do it justice, so just watch the clip and make up your own mind about it:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/371414/january-18-2011/the-word---disintegration
Thanks so much to my good friend Bridget for bringing this to my attention!
Now Wake County has become the inspiration for Stephen Colbert's "Word of the Day" segment last night. My text can't do it justice, so just watch the clip and make up your own mind about it:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/371414/january-18-2011/the-word---disintegration
Thanks so much to my good friend Bridget for bringing this to my attention!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Why Educate?
I was going to write something different today, but I was inspired by one of the comments from a previous post (see what power you have if you leave a comment?) to draw together some thoughts I've been pondering for a few weeks about what is the point of education. That was not her question; her question, posted in response to my post about the latest battle over whether or not our local school system in Wake County, NC should drop its accreditation rather than to submit to the questions posed by the accrediting agency, is how people can continue to deal with the frustration of trying to resolve the numerous issues that are dividing our community about the fundamental principles of our educational system.
But I think those are both really the same question, or at least, the same set of questions. Why does it matter? Who cares about education? What is it that education should be doing? Why care? Why educate?
So let me give you my perspective on this issue. As I've said before, I'm from the DC area originally, and between growing up there and spending most of my professional life there, I've met lots of important and significant people in many different realms (not the least of which is my father, who held presidential appointment-level positions under six? eight? different US Presidents, along with teaching in two universities and serving as a top-level executive in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York). But no matter how accomplished (or not), almost everyone I've talked to who has children tells me that their children are at least as important as, if not more significant than, whatever they have achieved in their professional lives. I think for most people, if you ask them the most miraculous moments in their lives, the top ones include holding their child(ren) in their arms for the first time--whether the children were naturally born, adopted, born through a surrogate, or whatever. For the vast majority of those of us blessed with children, other things fade in comparison with them.
Even those who haven't raised children themselves usually have a soft spot for children. Some chose to forego them because they thought they couldn't be the kind of parent they wanted to be, given their professional or other life situations. Others wanted to be, but things just didn't work out. And some just never felt the call that parenthood was for them. But that doesn't mean that such people don't care about and work towards the safety and well being of children. Because, as the saying goes, it DOES take a village.
So at least in the US, once you've got the child's basic food, shelter, and physical safety needs met, the next need we deem most important as a society is the child's education (we could make a good case here for children's health care, but we'll leave that for another post). But education is kind of a funny thing with us Americans. With our rugged individualism mythological past, we tend to think it is up to the parents to take care of feeding, clothing, sheltering, and providing medical care to their own children. But everybody wants to have some say in how the children are educated, since our historical analogy was education as a melting pot where all sorts of different cultures came in, blended together, and were poured out into multi-colored molds, producing components that fit together to build an ever bigger and better America.
So this is part one of the question--Why does it matter? Why deal with the frustration? Why bother? We care and we fight and we bother and we persevere despite frustration because, really, what else can be more important? Yes, we can do other things---we can acquire wealth, or fame, or accomplishment, or lose ourselves in hedonistic pleasures, or just surrender ourselves to staying in bed all day. Does any of that matter all that much in the long run? Most of us want to invest at least some of our energy in making sure that the next generation not only survives, but flourishes. And for many of us, the education system is the most tangible way we can do that (beside supporting the raising of our own immediate families).
So people have a high level of investment in the fact that education matters, not just for their own family, but for society in general. High enough that for many of us, at least, it is enough to forego the frustration and negative energy to continue to fight for what we believe.
This point of view assumes agreement about the importance of education and the future of "our" children. So our real issues, then, are about what it is that education should be doing.
I can't be a good advocate for the point of view of the current majority of the Board of Education--who, it is important to remind ourselves, were elected by a majority of the voters in Wake County. If there is every a reader from that side who would like to present that perspective, I would LOVE for you to send me a guest post, which I PROMISE to post (with full credit, of course).
Until that happens, though, I can only present my perspective and the things that inspire me.
As I've said before, we homeschool, and one of the reasons we do so is because I don't like the current commitment nationwide to evaluating education only by those things that can be rated by standardized tests. We are just starting a study of Dickensonian English history and literature, so when thinking of the present approach to education, I can't help but recall the opening passage to Dicken's Hard Times (his novel that deals most specifically with education):
'NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!'
Maybe it is my personality, maybe it is my education philosophy, or who knows...but I while I think facts are definitely important, there are other important things. As Albert Einstein says, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand." So facts teaches our children what we know from the past, but in the rapidly-changing world in which we live, preparing for an unknown future must be, I think, equally important.
(Note: Of course, this is not one of the battles that are even being debated in the ongoingly-contentious Wake County School Board public meetings. But perhaps we can get to it once we settle the issues about who should be going where and how we should distribute the resources and children of this county.)
Let me add a few links of other people who have asked this question about the ultimate role of education.
In honor of Martin Luther King's Day yesterday, here is a link to his article on this issue. Dr. King makes the point that it is not enough for education to make our children smart; it must give them character as well. He gives an example of a man who is an accomplished scholar within the realm of academia, but can still justify discrimination against people based purely on the color of their skin.
Then, in the Washington Post today, the president of Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia wrote a nice piece about the purpose of a liberal arts college education today. According to Dr. Christopher Howard, the role of COLLEGE (let alone undergraduate education) is to help today's students make sense of their individual experience with the world, past, present, and future. Dr. Howard calls for engagement, which he describes as purpose, passion, and calling, rather than providing them with specific skills, knowledge, or employment tracks.
One of the other blogs that I follow, a lovely site called Fairy Dust Teaching, kind of sparked my thinking along these lines with a post she had last month. She is a Waldorf-trained Kindergarten teacher, so she is the other end of the spectrum. But one of the thing she said in her post was:
I have a sticky note posted in the front of my lesson plan book that says, "A good education gives you goosebumps." It reminds me to not forget to add a little wonder and curiosity in the plan.
I love that reminder. I may not always get there, but I think that is a great goal to aim for. To read the rest of her inspirational notes, see her post on Why Educate?
I have one last reference to add. I have been reading the magnificent book, My Reading Life by Pat Conroy, a writer that I have adored now for about 20 year now. This book is like a Valentine's Box of Godiva Chocolates for literature, and each essay is like the richest literary truffle you could ever imagine. But Conroy is only the latest to write about the impact that an individual teacher made on his life. In his case, it was an English teacher whom Conroy describes as:
Gene Morris didn't just make his students love books; he made us love the entire world. He was the essential man in the lives of a thousand boys and girls who dwelled in the shadow of his almost unnoticeable greatness.
Conroy had one other fantastic quote from that essay that I must add:
If there is more important work than teaching, I hope to learn about it before I die.
And that, I think, sums up why we continue, despite the frustration.
But I think those are both really the same question, or at least, the same set of questions. Why does it matter? Who cares about education? What is it that education should be doing? Why care? Why educate?
So let me give you my perspective on this issue. As I've said before, I'm from the DC area originally, and between growing up there and spending most of my professional life there, I've met lots of important and significant people in many different realms (not the least of which is my father, who held presidential appointment-level positions under six? eight? different US Presidents, along with teaching in two universities and serving as a top-level executive in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York). But no matter how accomplished (or not), almost everyone I've talked to who has children tells me that their children are at least as important as, if not more significant than, whatever they have achieved in their professional lives. I think for most people, if you ask them the most miraculous moments in their lives, the top ones include holding their child(ren) in their arms for the first time--whether the children were naturally born, adopted, born through a surrogate, or whatever. For the vast majority of those of us blessed with children, other things fade in comparison with them.
Even those who haven't raised children themselves usually have a soft spot for children. Some chose to forego them because they thought they couldn't be the kind of parent they wanted to be, given their professional or other life situations. Others wanted to be, but things just didn't work out. And some just never felt the call that parenthood was for them. But that doesn't mean that such people don't care about and work towards the safety and well being of children. Because, as the saying goes, it DOES take a village.
So at least in the US, once you've got the child's basic food, shelter, and physical safety needs met, the next need we deem most important as a society is the child's education (we could make a good case here for children's health care, but we'll leave that for another post). But education is kind of a funny thing with us Americans. With our rugged individualism mythological past, we tend to think it is up to the parents to take care of feeding, clothing, sheltering, and providing medical care to their own children. But everybody wants to have some say in how the children are educated, since our historical analogy was education as a melting pot where all sorts of different cultures came in, blended together, and were poured out into multi-colored molds, producing components that fit together to build an ever bigger and better America.
So this is part one of the question--Why does it matter? Why deal with the frustration? Why bother? We care and we fight and we bother and we persevere despite frustration because, really, what else can be more important? Yes, we can do other things---we can acquire wealth, or fame, or accomplishment, or lose ourselves in hedonistic pleasures, or just surrender ourselves to staying in bed all day. Does any of that matter all that much in the long run? Most of us want to invest at least some of our energy in making sure that the next generation not only survives, but flourishes. And for many of us, the education system is the most tangible way we can do that (beside supporting the raising of our own immediate families).
So people have a high level of investment in the fact that education matters, not just for their own family, but for society in general. High enough that for many of us, at least, it is enough to forego the frustration and negative energy to continue to fight for what we believe.
This point of view assumes agreement about the importance of education and the future of "our" children. So our real issues, then, are about what it is that education should be doing.
I can't be a good advocate for the point of view of the current majority of the Board of Education--who, it is important to remind ourselves, were elected by a majority of the voters in Wake County. If there is every a reader from that side who would like to present that perspective, I would LOVE for you to send me a guest post, which I PROMISE to post (with full credit, of course).
Until that happens, though, I can only present my perspective and the things that inspire me.
As I've said before, we homeschool, and one of the reasons we do so is because I don't like the current commitment nationwide to evaluating education only by those things that can be rated by standardized tests. We are just starting a study of Dickensonian English history and literature, so when thinking of the present approach to education, I can't help but recall the opening passage to Dicken's Hard Times (his novel that deals most specifically with education):
'NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!'
Maybe it is my personality, maybe it is my education philosophy, or who knows...but I while I think facts are definitely important, there are other important things. As Albert Einstein says, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand." So facts teaches our children what we know from the past, but in the rapidly-changing world in which we live, preparing for an unknown future must be, I think, equally important.
(Note: Of course, this is not one of the battles that are even being debated in the ongoingly-contentious Wake County School Board public meetings. But perhaps we can get to it once we settle the issues about who should be going where and how we should distribute the resources and children of this county.)
Let me add a few links of other people who have asked this question about the ultimate role of education.
In honor of Martin Luther King's Day yesterday, here is a link to his article on this issue. Dr. King makes the point that it is not enough for education to make our children smart; it must give them character as well. He gives an example of a man who is an accomplished scholar within the realm of academia, but can still justify discrimination against people based purely on the color of their skin.
Then, in the Washington Post today, the president of Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia wrote a nice piece about the purpose of a liberal arts college education today. According to Dr. Christopher Howard, the role of COLLEGE (let alone undergraduate education) is to help today's students make sense of their individual experience with the world, past, present, and future. Dr. Howard calls for engagement, which he describes as purpose, passion, and calling, rather than providing them with specific skills, knowledge, or employment tracks.
One of the other blogs that I follow, a lovely site called Fairy Dust Teaching, kind of sparked my thinking along these lines with a post she had last month. She is a Waldorf-trained Kindergarten teacher, so she is the other end of the spectrum. But one of the thing she said in her post was:
I have a sticky note posted in the front of my lesson plan book that says, "A good education gives you goosebumps." It reminds me to not forget to add a little wonder and curiosity in the plan.
I love that reminder. I may not always get there, but I think that is a great goal to aim for. To read the rest of her inspirational notes, see her post on Why Educate?
I have one last reference to add. I have been reading the magnificent book, My Reading Life by Pat Conroy, a writer that I have adored now for about 20 year now. This book is like a Valentine's Box of Godiva Chocolates for literature, and each essay is like the richest literary truffle you could ever imagine. But Conroy is only the latest to write about the impact that an individual teacher made on his life. In his case, it was an English teacher whom Conroy describes as:
Gene Morris didn't just make his students love books; he made us love the entire world. He was the essential man in the lives of a thousand boys and girls who dwelled in the shadow of his almost unnoticeable greatness.
Conroy had one other fantastic quote from that essay that I must add:
If there is more important work than teaching, I hope to learn about it before I die.
And that, I think, sums up why we continue, despite the frustration.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Why Wake County Board Should Continue Accreditation with AdvancedED
All in all, it hasn't been a good week for the Wake County Board of Education.
After the first three days of the week being either early release, cancelled, or opened late due to ice, school were having a rocky week. Then Wednesday night, the Board had another public meeting filled with angry and concerned parents. This time the contention was over statements by some of the Board that they might just choose to drop their accredited status, rather than answer the questions being posed by AdvancED, the accrediting agency for the Wake system. The Board majority's compromise decision was to write a letter to AdvancED regarding the restrictions under which they would agree to cooperate with the agency's attempts to investigate charges of racial discrimination and improper board procedures lodged by the state's NAACP chapter. Less than 24 hours later, the Board received AdvancED's response, which was basically "Sorry, Charlie." I'm sure it was stated in more appropriate legalese, but AdvancED could have reduced it to the immortal words of the Jeffrey Rush character in my favorite movie of the moment, The King's Speech, when he said, "My game, my turf, my rules." That is, the whole point of accreditation is to have an experienced, unbiased, outside team of educational experts look at the operation of a school to assure the public of its quality (or alert them to lack thereof). They can't really do that if the schools they are examining tell them what parts of the system they can and can not look into.
Then, on Friday, the head educator in the entire country, the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, chose to single out Wake Country among all the public school systems in the country to question its commitment to racial equity. And this was not an off-hand comment captured on someone's iPhone; it was stated in a Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post expressing his concerns about the WCPSS as depicted in a Washington Post article that I mentioned earlier this week. (Click here to see the letter in the Washington Post.)
Although it may not seem like it, I really try hard to understand the point of view of the Republican majority on the School Board, and I do my best to see them in their best light. Nonetheless, I have to say that I think it would be foolish for the Board to continue down this destructive path towards non-accreditation. There are three major arguments against pursuing this course of action:
1. Lack of Accreditation Will Hurt Graduating Students
Accreditation is the accepted procedure for colleges to know you are coming from a respectable school system. Losing your accreditation--or voluntarily withdrawing from accreditation when under an investigation--makes the system look fishy. Board Chair Margiotta, in his ignorance?arrogance? I don't know, I'm having a hard time finding a more neutral term here, states that since Wake County is so big, he is sure that colleges won't stop excepting Wake County graduates. He's probably right--for schools in North Carolina. I'm sure there's no way that NC State or UNC is going to ban all Wake County schools from their campuses, nor will ECU or probably Duke or other colleges in the state. But that understanding of this special situation will fade the further from North Carolina the high school students are looking to roam. Some colleges, especially the highly competitive ones, have an automatic "kick-out" of candidates from non-accredited schools...one way to keep the numbers manageable. Will they go back and make an exception for Wake County students? I don't know, but if I had a child graduating in the next year or so, I wouldn't want to count on it.
Furthermore, there are some programs, loans, internships, and scholarships that have legal requirements that students graduate from accredited schools (sometimes with exceptions for homeschoolers). They don't have any choice about it--Wake County students will not be eligible for those. So, sure, if you have a child who graduates from Wake County, is only interested in going to a North Carolina college, and doesn't need these restricted loans or scholarships, whether the schools are accredited or not probably doesn't make that much difference. But I think there are a lot of North Carolina high schoolers who don't fit into that category.
2. AdvancED is NOT Your Enemy; They Could Even Turn Out to Be Your Best Friend
AdvancED is not reviewing the operation to come in and tell the Board what to do or to tell them how to assign students to schools. AdvancED is supposed to be like a mediator or arbitrator; someone from the outside who can look at the issues with an impartial eye and give a ruling on which side is right. For months now, the NAACP, leading the charge for many other critics, has charged that the Board acted against its own established procedures and agreed to a policy that will lead to racially discriminatory education. The Board responded that they followed the correct procedures and have their arguments about how the new school assignments will benefit all students in the county. The NAACP has one set of statistics backing up their side; the Board has another set backing up their contentions. Whose figures are right? Were procedures followed or not? The latter question, at least, seems like there should be a simple yes or no answer to it. But we have been given no answer, nor even a suggestion of how we are going to achieve such an answer; instead, we have month after month of each side arguing over the same points and making no headway in proving their points.
Enter AdvancED. THAT is their job--to answer that question (among others). If the Board REALLY believes they have followed the appropriate procedures, and they REALLY believe their statistics are more valid than the ones of their critics, they should welcome AdvancED to come and tell the public, The Board is right, they did things properly, and their figures are appropriate. If AdvancED backed up their decision, that would take a lot of the wind out of the sails of the critics. Maybe we could even move on and get something accomplished. However, as I stated in an earlier post, this is not the first time that the Board majority acts like people outside their own ranks are out to get them.
3. Guess What? You're Going to Have to Answer those Questions Even If You Drop Your Accreditation
Let us not forget that this fight with AdvancED is not the only regulatory problem the Board has on their plate. The U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights has not just one, but TWO, investigations of Wake County pending--one for racial discrimination, another for sexual discrimination (in interscholastic sports). And while you can chose to drop your accreditation rather than answer those pesky questions from AdvancED, you can't just opt out of a Civil Right discrimination suit brought by the US government....a suit that will be bound to ask all those same questions and MORE.
This is where Secretary Duncan's letter is so significant. As I've said before, I grew up in the Washington DC area, so I am fluent in DC-ese. Therefore, allow me to translate this letter. This letter is a warning to Wake County not to try to blow off and bluster through these discrimination complaints. There is NO WAY Secretary Duncan would mention Wake County in that context without someone in his office having checked into the case and decided that there were legitimate reasons for concern that the system was racially discriminating.
So the Board can stick their heads in the sand if they want and force AdvancED to leave--at the expense of Wake County graduates. But you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be at least an investigation, if not a lawsuit, coming from the federal Office of Civil Rights. And refusing to cooperate with AdvancED will make the suits in DC even more suspicious that there is something rotten in the county of Wake.
The best thing the Board could do for the schools, the public, and particularly for ITSELF is to get out of its own way and cooperate with AdvancED. But will it? As my Magic 8 Ball says, "Cannot predict now."
PS--
On a happier and less complicated note--today is my son's 12th birthday! Happy Birthday to Him! But it makes me kind of sad to think that this is the last year before he turns into a teenager...
After the first three days of the week being either early release, cancelled, or opened late due to ice, school were having a rocky week. Then Wednesday night, the Board had another public meeting filled with angry and concerned parents. This time the contention was over statements by some of the Board that they might just choose to drop their accredited status, rather than answer the questions being posed by AdvancED, the accrediting agency for the Wake system. The Board majority's compromise decision was to write a letter to AdvancED regarding the restrictions under which they would agree to cooperate with the agency's attempts to investigate charges of racial discrimination and improper board procedures lodged by the state's NAACP chapter. Less than 24 hours later, the Board received AdvancED's response, which was basically "Sorry, Charlie." I'm sure it was stated in more appropriate legalese, but AdvancED could have reduced it to the immortal words of the Jeffrey Rush character in my favorite movie of the moment, The King's Speech, when he said, "My game, my turf, my rules." That is, the whole point of accreditation is to have an experienced, unbiased, outside team of educational experts look at the operation of a school to assure the public of its quality (or alert them to lack thereof). They can't really do that if the schools they are examining tell them what parts of the system they can and can not look into.
Then, on Friday, the head educator in the entire country, the U.S. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, chose to single out Wake Country among all the public school systems in the country to question its commitment to racial equity. And this was not an off-hand comment captured on someone's iPhone; it was stated in a Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post expressing his concerns about the WCPSS as depicted in a Washington Post article that I mentioned earlier this week. (Click here to see the letter in the Washington Post.)
Although it may not seem like it, I really try hard to understand the point of view of the Republican majority on the School Board, and I do my best to see them in their best light. Nonetheless, I have to say that I think it would be foolish for the Board to continue down this destructive path towards non-accreditation. There are three major arguments against pursuing this course of action:
1. Lack of Accreditation Will Hurt Graduating Students
Accreditation is the accepted procedure for colleges to know you are coming from a respectable school system. Losing your accreditation--or voluntarily withdrawing from accreditation when under an investigation--makes the system look fishy. Board Chair Margiotta, in his ignorance?arrogance? I don't know, I'm having a hard time finding a more neutral term here, states that since Wake County is so big, he is sure that colleges won't stop excepting Wake County graduates. He's probably right--for schools in North Carolina. I'm sure there's no way that NC State or UNC is going to ban all Wake County schools from their campuses, nor will ECU or probably Duke or other colleges in the state. But that understanding of this special situation will fade the further from North Carolina the high school students are looking to roam. Some colleges, especially the highly competitive ones, have an automatic "kick-out" of candidates from non-accredited schools...one way to keep the numbers manageable. Will they go back and make an exception for Wake County students? I don't know, but if I had a child graduating in the next year or so, I wouldn't want to count on it.
Furthermore, there are some programs, loans, internships, and scholarships that have legal requirements that students graduate from accredited schools (sometimes with exceptions for homeschoolers). They don't have any choice about it--Wake County students will not be eligible for those. So, sure, if you have a child who graduates from Wake County, is only interested in going to a North Carolina college, and doesn't need these restricted loans or scholarships, whether the schools are accredited or not probably doesn't make that much difference. But I think there are a lot of North Carolina high schoolers who don't fit into that category.
2. AdvancED is NOT Your Enemy; They Could Even Turn Out to Be Your Best Friend
AdvancED is not reviewing the operation to come in and tell the Board what to do or to tell them how to assign students to schools. AdvancED is supposed to be like a mediator or arbitrator; someone from the outside who can look at the issues with an impartial eye and give a ruling on which side is right. For months now, the NAACP, leading the charge for many other critics, has charged that the Board acted against its own established procedures and agreed to a policy that will lead to racially discriminatory education. The Board responded that they followed the correct procedures and have their arguments about how the new school assignments will benefit all students in the county. The NAACP has one set of statistics backing up their side; the Board has another set backing up their contentions. Whose figures are right? Were procedures followed or not? The latter question, at least, seems like there should be a simple yes or no answer to it. But we have been given no answer, nor even a suggestion of how we are going to achieve such an answer; instead, we have month after month of each side arguing over the same points and making no headway in proving their points.
Enter AdvancED. THAT is their job--to answer that question (among others). If the Board REALLY believes they have followed the appropriate procedures, and they REALLY believe their statistics are more valid than the ones of their critics, they should welcome AdvancED to come and tell the public, The Board is right, they did things properly, and their figures are appropriate. If AdvancED backed up their decision, that would take a lot of the wind out of the sails of the critics. Maybe we could even move on and get something accomplished. However, as I stated in an earlier post, this is not the first time that the Board majority acts like people outside their own ranks are out to get them.
3. Guess What? You're Going to Have to Answer those Questions Even If You Drop Your Accreditation
Let us not forget that this fight with AdvancED is not the only regulatory problem the Board has on their plate. The U.S. Education Department's Office of Civil Rights has not just one, but TWO, investigations of Wake County pending--one for racial discrimination, another for sexual discrimination (in interscholastic sports). And while you can chose to drop your accreditation rather than answer those pesky questions from AdvancED, you can't just opt out of a Civil Right discrimination suit brought by the US government....a suit that will be bound to ask all those same questions and MORE.
This is where Secretary Duncan's letter is so significant. As I've said before, I grew up in the Washington DC area, so I am fluent in DC-ese. Therefore, allow me to translate this letter. This letter is a warning to Wake County not to try to blow off and bluster through these discrimination complaints. There is NO WAY Secretary Duncan would mention Wake County in that context without someone in his office having checked into the case and decided that there were legitimate reasons for concern that the system was racially discriminating.
So the Board can stick their heads in the sand if they want and force AdvancED to leave--at the expense of Wake County graduates. But you can bet your bottom dollar that there will be at least an investigation, if not a lawsuit, coming from the federal Office of Civil Rights. And refusing to cooperate with AdvancED will make the suits in DC even more suspicious that there is something rotten in the county of Wake.
The best thing the Board could do for the schools, the public, and particularly for ITSELF is to get out of its own way and cooperate with AdvancED. But will it? As my Magic 8 Ball says, "Cannot predict now."
PS--
On a happier and less complicated note--today is my son's 12th birthday! Happy Birthday to Him! But it makes me kind of sad to think that this is the last year before he turns into a teenager...
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Article Gives Background on Wake County Public School Politics
I have been writing a lot recently about the current politics surrounding the Wake County Public Schools, particularly in regards to the appointment of new Superintendent, Anthony J. Tata. But I haven't gone into the background of the whole situation much. For those of you who don't know how we got where we are today, there is an article in the Washington Post that I think does a great job of trying to give an unbiased description of the political issues the school system is struggling with now.
The articles is entitled "Republican school board in N.C. backed by tea party abolishes integration policy." The web link is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011107063.html
(Note: I don't know if you can get directly to the article by clicking above; you may have to create or sign into your Washington Post account in order to read it.)
The articles is entitled "Republican school board in N.C. backed by tea party abolishes integration policy." The web link is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011107063.html
(Note: I don't know if you can get directly to the article by clicking above; you may have to create or sign into your Washington Post account in order to read it.)
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Four Pieces of Advice for Anthony Tata (and one for the Board of Ed)
I worked in DC for an educational association and for other educational companies for close to 15 years before moving down to North Carolina, and my father still lives in the District of Columbia. Therefore, I have a lot of information on the DC schools, both past and present. I have been following closely Michelle Rhee's endeavors, along with her downfall with her one-term mayor sponsor, Adrian Fenty. But there hadn't been much media coverage of Rhee's COO, Anthony Tata. He had generally been described as hard working, action oriented, and politically conservative (an anomaly in HEAVILY Democratic Washington). Most praised him for his focus on organization and logistics, but there were some who questioned his people skills. Michelle Rhee has been quoted as saying, "He's not a touchy-feely guy who will hold people's hands."
As I said in my first post, I want the new Superintendent to succeed, even if he wouldn't have necessarily been the one I would have picked (of course, we have no idea about the other candidates). So I thought I would offer General Tata the following advice, based on my experience with both the DC and Wake County Schools.
1. Capitalize on Your Fresh Food for School Lunches Initiatives
Let's face it, experience in ordering textbooks and making sure the lights work doesn't sound that impressive for the man who is supposed to be running North Carolina's largest school system. (Of course, the people here don't know the history of how horrible the District schools were at even the most basic tasks and what accomplishment that was compared to some of your predecessors.) Plus, one and a half years isn't really enough time to make many major improvements in an organization like the DCPS. But one thing you can point to is the improvement that you made in the school system food service, and especially the trial programs that are to begin this fall in using fresh, locally-produced food for the meals cooked in a few experimental foods. The whole locavore, natural foods movement is really big in this area, especially among the demographics who may be the most critical of your political leanings. Making them aware of your efforts to create healthy, locally-produced food for the DC children may reduce some of the resistance to your appointment.
2. Stay Off the Conservative Blogs, TV Shows, and Other Commentator Opportunities
Look, I get it. You've got strong opinions, you've got a lot of experience, and you want to share them. As you've famously said, after risking your life to protect Constitutional protections like the right to free speech, you would like to engage in some free speech yourself. And so your contract allows you the right to continue your "after hours" work as a political commentator as long as you don't identify yourself as the head of the Wake County schools. But just because you've got that right doesn't been you need to exercise it. I promise you, if you do, you will set off a firestorm each time you appear on one of those shows, and that is NOT something you need (see my first post in this series for details).
I know that Rhee (not a media shrinking violet herself) said that your political work didn't interfere with your work with the schools. But, Tony, you're not in DC anymore. It's not going to work here because:
One thing you really have going for you is that you've got great teachers in this school system. Maybe not all of them, but most of them are dedicated, capable educators. It's not like things were in DC, where the school system, like all the city government, had large numbers of staff who got their jobs through political chronyism. Believe in your teachers, get to know your teachers, and listen to your teachers. Given your lack of instructional or academic leadership experience, you need to earn their trust. Touting the highly controversial and not-yet-proven teacher assessment system Rhee launched in the DC schools (as you do in your WCPSS statement) is not a good way to get them on your side.
4. Fix the Planning Office
Another thing you talk about in your WCPSS statement is the fact that your academic training institute, The Broad Superintendents Academy, will do three free audits of your choosing as part of their support of you as a graduate. I don't know how I feel about that, since I don't know enough (yet) about the Broad Center to determine whether I want their input or not. But if they are going to do anything, have them help you figure out how to do a better job of planning. Simply put, the citizens of Wake County are tired of having their children's education being a constant revolving doors of schools as they get reassigned every other year. I know this is a high growth area, but there are lots of high growth areas--I grew up in one--and I've never seen a system where children are moved around so frequently. In my opinion, that is the single biggest problem for the general population in the Wake County schools. Fix that, and you may even be able to go back to your night time commentator gig!
Finally, I have one free piece of advice for the majority on the Board of Education
You Have Your Man. Now Back Off and Let Him Do His Job.
When I worked with the educational association, I dealt with hundreds of educational boards. I've studied board theory, and even contributed to a book about the subject. And the classic wisdom is that Boards set the vision, establish the policies, determine the budget...and everything else is up to the staff. Boards DO NOT gather up the data and try to come up, on their own, with the specific operational plan about what communities should go to what schools. Of course, we all saw how well that worked....
So, please, stick to doing your job, which is plenty hard enough. Leave the implementation to the General. After all, that is why you hired him.
Oh, and by the way, one other small reminder. They way you have been acting lately, you are treating the public like we are your enemy. We are not your enemy. We are not even your customer. We are your bosses. And we remember that, even if you do not.
As I said in my first post, I want the new Superintendent to succeed, even if he wouldn't have necessarily been the one I would have picked (of course, we have no idea about the other candidates). So I thought I would offer General Tata the following advice, based on my experience with both the DC and Wake County Schools.
1. Capitalize on Your Fresh Food for School Lunches Initiatives
Let's face it, experience in ordering textbooks and making sure the lights work doesn't sound that impressive for the man who is supposed to be running North Carolina's largest school system. (Of course, the people here don't know the history of how horrible the District schools were at even the most basic tasks and what accomplishment that was compared to some of your predecessors.) Plus, one and a half years isn't really enough time to make many major improvements in an organization like the DCPS. But one thing you can point to is the improvement that you made in the school system food service, and especially the trial programs that are to begin this fall in using fresh, locally-produced food for the meals cooked in a few experimental foods. The whole locavore, natural foods movement is really big in this area, especially among the demographics who may be the most critical of your political leanings. Making them aware of your efforts to create healthy, locally-produced food for the DC children may reduce some of the resistance to your appointment.
2. Stay Off the Conservative Blogs, TV Shows, and Other Commentator Opportunities
Look, I get it. You've got strong opinions, you've got a lot of experience, and you want to share them. As you've famously said, after risking your life to protect Constitutional protections like the right to free speech, you would like to engage in some free speech yourself. And so your contract allows you the right to continue your "after hours" work as a political commentator as long as you don't identify yourself as the head of the Wake County schools. But just because you've got that right doesn't been you need to exercise it. I promise you, if you do, you will set off a firestorm each time you appear on one of those shows, and that is NOT something you need (see my first post in this series for details).
I know that Rhee (not a media shrinking violet herself) said that your political work didn't interfere with your work with the schools. But, Tony, you're not in DC anymore. It's not going to work here because:
- Now you are the top dog, not the COO, which, frankly, nobody knows. But to your community, you are now the face of the Wake County Public Schools, even if it doesn't say that under your picture when you are speaking on Fox News.
- In DC, you were part of a minority so small that it is almost endangered--a conservative working for the highly Democratic city government. The people you served weren't threatened when you expressed opinions different than their own. But in closely split Wake County (which is represented in the US Congress by both the liberal-leaning Democrat David Price and the Palin-endorsed Republican Renee Ellmers), you are risking antagonizing large portions of your community, even though you are not speaking about educational matters.
- Finally, politics is Washington's favorite sport. Everyone eats and breathes politics, so of course your personal opinions were going to come out. But it's not like that here. For many people, talking about politics is more like talking about your sex life--not something a respectable person does on TV.
One thing you really have going for you is that you've got great teachers in this school system. Maybe not all of them, but most of them are dedicated, capable educators. It's not like things were in DC, where the school system, like all the city government, had large numbers of staff who got their jobs through political chronyism. Believe in your teachers, get to know your teachers, and listen to your teachers. Given your lack of instructional or academic leadership experience, you need to earn their trust. Touting the highly controversial and not-yet-proven teacher assessment system Rhee launched in the DC schools (as you do in your WCPSS statement) is not a good way to get them on your side.
4. Fix the Planning Office
Another thing you talk about in your WCPSS statement is the fact that your academic training institute, The Broad Superintendents Academy, will do three free audits of your choosing as part of their support of you as a graduate. I don't know how I feel about that, since I don't know enough (yet) about the Broad Center to determine whether I want their input or not. But if they are going to do anything, have them help you figure out how to do a better job of planning. Simply put, the citizens of Wake County are tired of having their children's education being a constant revolving doors of schools as they get reassigned every other year. I know this is a high growth area, but there are lots of high growth areas--I grew up in one--and I've never seen a system where children are moved around so frequently. In my opinion, that is the single biggest problem for the general population in the Wake County schools. Fix that, and you may even be able to go back to your night time commentator gig!
Finally, I have one free piece of advice for the majority on the Board of Education
You Have Your Man. Now Back Off and Let Him Do His Job.
When I worked with the educational association, I dealt with hundreds of educational boards. I've studied board theory, and even contributed to a book about the subject. And the classic wisdom is that Boards set the vision, establish the policies, determine the budget...and everything else is up to the staff. Boards DO NOT gather up the data and try to come up, on their own, with the specific operational plan about what communities should go to what schools. Of course, we all saw how well that worked....
So, please, stick to doing your job, which is plenty hard enough. Leave the implementation to the General. After all, that is why you hired him.
Oh, and by the way, one other small reminder. They way you have been acting lately, you are treating the public like we are your enemy. We are not your enemy. We are not even your customer. We are your bosses. And we remember that, even if you do not.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Who Is Anthony J. Tata?
Because, unfortunately, the Wake County School Board chose to conduct the superintendent search in complete secrecy and with no opportunities for public input, the question on the minds of most of the Wake County public is, "Who IS Anthony J. Tata?" There are three major aspects of his life that have mostly come to our attention:
- He is a retired Army Brigadier General and a West Point graduate with a distinguished military career, including a deputy commander stint in Afghanistan;
- After a 10 month training program, he became head of operations (which covered supplies, facilities, technology, and food services) in the DC Public School system, where he served for 19 months;
- He is a conservative writer and commentator for such conservative media outlets as Fox News and Breitbarts Big Hollywood blog (the blog that edited the speech by Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod to make it sound like she was racist, when the entire video showed her statements were not racist at all).
It is the later two points that are issues of contention among the concerned constituency. There hasn't been a lot of talk--yet--about Tata's record with the DC Schools (more on that tomorrow). There has been considerable concern, however, that someone with less than one year of training in educational administration and less than two years of actual experience working in a school system--and in a completely non-academic capacity--are not sterling criteria for running the 17th largest school system in the country.
But perhaps even more debate has taken place over Tata's conservative positions on TV and print. He has criticized President Obama multiple times on various issues, and has stated his support for such conservative candidates as Sarah Palin (whom he called "much more qualified to be president of the United States than the current occupant of the White House") and Tea Party activist Christine O'Donnell (who know...the one who denied that the First Amendment required separation of church and state and who knew she opposed a lot of the liberal Supreme Court decisions, except she just couldn't think of anything in particular). Such statements by Tata has generated a rerun of the presidential election of 2008 (or a preview of 2012?) among the letters to the editor in last Sunday's News and Observer.
However, before we all jump to conclusions, let's let the man speak for himself. I found this clip from his appearance on the NBC Today show:
While this is really mostly a puff piece, I think he comes across as sincere and a
pretty nice guy.
pretty nice guy.
Next, we can look for his statement about his life and his qualifications that was posted on the Wake County Public School System website. He makes a legitimate point that being in the Army involves a lot of different educational experience, albeit at the secondary and postsecondary level.
Here is a link to his review of Sarah Palin's book, which is where he explains why he thinks she is more qualified to lead the country than is President Obama. I don't happen to agree with his reasoning, but at least he also has nice things to say about Hillary Clinton. In fact, it seems that his support for all three women--Palin, Clinton, and O'Donnell--is based on their decisiveness and assertiveness.
This gives us some clues about what he will respond to as School Superintendent. However, it also raises some concerns that he will give educational deliberation its due. Let's hope that he realizes this might be a blind spot for him, particularly within an educational institution, and doesn't always jump to action without consideration for the complex and interrelated factors involved in such a diverse system as we have in Wake County. And, on the upside, the man is obviously not a sexist.
But at least these primary sources give us some insight into the man who will be running our school system in February 2011.
Here is a link to his review of Sarah Palin's book, which is where he explains why he thinks she is more qualified to lead the country than is President Obama. I don't happen to agree with his reasoning, but at least he also has nice things to say about Hillary Clinton. In fact, it seems that his support for all three women--Palin, Clinton, and O'Donnell--is based on their decisiveness and assertiveness.
This gives us some clues about what he will respond to as School Superintendent. However, it also raises some concerns that he will give educational deliberation its due. Let's hope that he realizes this might be a blind spot for him, particularly within an educational institution, and doesn't always jump to action without consideration for the complex and interrelated factors involved in such a diverse system as we have in Wake County. And, on the upside, the man is obviously not a sexist.
But at least these primary sources give us some insight into the man who will be running our school system in February 2011.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Wake School Board Majority Should Be Ashamed
While most of us have been enjoying holiday merriment over the past couple of weeks, there has been a significant development regarding the education of children in Wake County, NC. On Thursday, December 23, the Wake County School Board announced that they had hired retired Army Brigadier General Anthony J. Tata to be the new Superintendent of the Wake County Schools. Tata comes to run the Wake County school system, which is the 18th largest school system in the nation, after 10 months of training in school system management at the Broad Superintendents Academy and 19 month overseeing purchasing, food services, technology, and other support services for the District of Columbia Public Schools (which is the 71st largest school system, with less than half as many students and two thirds of the budget of the Wake County system).
So while there are reasons to be concerned with Tata's ability to serve in this position, I'm trying to keep an open mind about him until we get to hear from him directly and see him in action. And certainly I want him to succeed in improving the education for the nearly 150,000 student for whom he will be responsible. But one thing that I am clear about is how poorly the majority coalition on the Board has handled his hiring. Their arrogant and exclusionary behavior in selecting Tata has not done the guy any favors in being able to serve the entire Wake County community.
The first misstep by the School Board majority was the timing of the hiring process. They announced his selection TWO days before Christmas. Coming from DC, I know this is the oldest trick in the book. Politicians ALWAYS wait until the week before Christmas to announce something significant--as long as it is BAD news. Divorcing the faithful spouse, admitting to an extramarital affair or an illegitimate child, announcing a stint in rehab--that's the kind of news that public officials release right before Christmas in the hopes it will get lost amidst the distractions of the holiday.
In this case, they made it even more of a slap-in-the-face to the teachers in the Wake County schools by waiting until the day after their last workday in 2010 to announce his hiring. Also, they rushed this decision through on an emergency meeting of the Board that gave the members--or, at least, the minority members-only 48 hours notice (and one them was already out of town for work). They refused to delay final action until their regularly-scheduled meeting on the first week of January in order to allow some public comment on this decision.
And what was their rationale for this rush to hire? Board Chair Margiotti claimed that they had to move right away to assure they could get the man he said was the strongest among the three finalists. Well, to that I say, POPPYCOCK (insert your own expression of indignation here). I've still been reading the national education news over the holidays, and I didn't hear about any other similar job that might have attracted Tata that was awarded before January 4th, the date of the next Board meeting. In fact, when DC Superintendent Michelle Rhee left the system (after she had publicly campaigned for the Mayor who hired her, who then lost, and the new Mayor decided he didn't need a school superintendent who had been attacking him among his constituency), she assured the public that the rest of her team would be staying in place until the end of the school year to assure continuity for the DC schools. (Tata says that he agreed to stay, unless he got the Wake County job...so, basically, agreed to stay unless he got another job, in which case he was going to abandon ship as well.) The bottom line is, there is no sign that Tata would be snatched away by some other school system had the Board waited for an additional 12 days.
So to my mind, in handling the decision in this manner, the majority of the School Board admitted the following:
Oh, and maybe that they think that we are a bunch of fools who will buy a ridiculous explanation like that and that even if we were distracted over the holidays, we're not going to raise our concerns now.
So I really feel sorry for Anthony Tata. Being a School Superintendent of such a large and diverse public school system is a really tough job at the best of times, and this is far from the best of times. The Wake County public is more divided than ever, the fiscal situation means that he is going to have to cut budgets and order layoffs, and the system is under investigation by both a federal civil rights unit AND by the regional accreditation agency. He didn't need to be thrust into the job in a way that was sure to antagonize, and perhaps even galvanize, those who don't see eye-to-eye with the Board majority.
So good luck to you, General Tata. You're going to need it. And shame on all those Board members who acted in such a way as to make your nearly-impossible job even harder.
So while there are reasons to be concerned with Tata's ability to serve in this position, I'm trying to keep an open mind about him until we get to hear from him directly and see him in action. And certainly I want him to succeed in improving the education for the nearly 150,000 student for whom he will be responsible. But one thing that I am clear about is how poorly the majority coalition on the Board has handled his hiring. Their arrogant and exclusionary behavior in selecting Tata has not done the guy any favors in being able to serve the entire Wake County community.
The first misstep by the School Board majority was the timing of the hiring process. They announced his selection TWO days before Christmas. Coming from DC, I know this is the oldest trick in the book. Politicians ALWAYS wait until the week before Christmas to announce something significant--as long as it is BAD news. Divorcing the faithful spouse, admitting to an extramarital affair or an illegitimate child, announcing a stint in rehab--that's the kind of news that public officials release right before Christmas in the hopes it will get lost amidst the distractions of the holiday.
In this case, they made it even more of a slap-in-the-face to the teachers in the Wake County schools by waiting until the day after their last workday in 2010 to announce his hiring. Also, they rushed this decision through on an emergency meeting of the Board that gave the members--or, at least, the minority members-only 48 hours notice (and one them was already out of town for work). They refused to delay final action until their regularly-scheduled meeting on the first week of January in order to allow some public comment on this decision.
And what was their rationale for this rush to hire? Board Chair Margiotti claimed that they had to move right away to assure they could get the man he said was the strongest among the three finalists. Well, to that I say, POPPYCOCK (insert your own expression of indignation here). I've still been reading the national education news over the holidays, and I didn't hear about any other similar job that might have attracted Tata that was awarded before January 4th, the date of the next Board meeting. In fact, when DC Superintendent Michelle Rhee left the system (after she had publicly campaigned for the Mayor who hired her, who then lost, and the new Mayor decided he didn't need a school superintendent who had been attacking him among his constituency), she assured the public that the rest of her team would be staying in place until the end of the school year to assure continuity for the DC schools. (Tata says that he agreed to stay, unless he got the Wake County job...so, basically, agreed to stay unless he got another job, in which case he was going to abandon ship as well.) The bottom line is, there is no sign that Tata would be snatched away by some other school system had the Board waited for an additional 12 days.
So to my mind, in handling the decision in this manner, the majority of the School Board admitted the following:
- That they expect Tata to be considered "bad news" by much of the community;
- That since they had the votes they needed, they didn't care whether the minority members on the Board were there or not;
- That they didn't care about the teachers' reaction to their new school leader; and
- That they don't care about the public's reaction, or think that public concerns need to be addressed or even considered.
Oh, and maybe that they think that we are a bunch of fools who will buy a ridiculous explanation like that and that even if we were distracted over the holidays, we're not going to raise our concerns now.
So I really feel sorry for Anthony Tata. Being a School Superintendent of such a large and diverse public school system is a really tough job at the best of times, and this is far from the best of times. The Wake County public is more divided than ever, the fiscal situation means that he is going to have to cut budgets and order layoffs, and the system is under investigation by both a federal civil rights unit AND by the regional accreditation agency. He didn't need to be thrust into the job in a way that was sure to antagonize, and perhaps even galvanize, those who don't see eye-to-eye with the Board majority.
So good luck to you, General Tata. You're going to need it. And shame on all those Board members who acted in such a way as to make your nearly-impossible job even harder.
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