Report: Majority Support Charter Schools

This Washington   February 23, 2012  Erica C. Barnett

A new survey commissioned by the Washington Policy Center concludes that a majority of state residents—60 percent—say they support allowing charter schools in Washington State.
Obviously, that conclusion comes with a few caveats. The WPC is a very conservative think tank—they oppose bike lanes, regulations on business, and taxes—and previous polls by the group have been almost comically skewed to produce the desired results. (A poll on transportation taxes, for example, incorporated the priority of “reducing congestion” into every single question, asking respondents, for example, if they thought reducing congestion was important).
Their education analyst, Liv Finne, has a blog where she frequently argues in favor of charter schools. And some of the language in the questions below could be viewed as favorable to charter schools (“tuition free schools that take all students,” for example). Countering that last point, though, is the fact that Washington State voters have voted on charter schools (and rejected them) three times, so they’re fairly well informed on what charter schools are.
With those caveats in mind, here are the exact questions and the results; make of them what you will.
41 states & the District of Columbia have charter public schools, independent community- based schools that are tuition-free and take all students…Currently, state law bans such schools in Washington. After hearing this, would you support or oppose changing state law so charter public schools could be opened in Washington State?

Support 60 percent
Oppose 25 percent
Don’t Know 15 percent

Would you support or oppose allowing charter public schools to open in urban neighborhoods where state officials report traditional schools are failing to adequately educate low-income and minority children?

Support 64 percent
Oppose 22 percent
Don’t Know 14 percent

A few other things that probably skew the poll in favor of charter schools: Older people, who tend to be more conservative, are overrepresented, with 60 percent of the respondents over 55. Seattle voters, who tend to be more liberal, are underrepresented, at just 9 percent of state residents surveyed.

Democrat Hanauer: On Education, "McKenna Is On the Right Track, We Are Not"

Major Democratic Party donor and education reform advocate Nick Hanauer has responded to Washington Education Association president Mary Lindquist. Lindquist wrote an open letter to PubliCola yesterdaycriticizing Hanauer for denouncing the Democrats’ position on ed reform and announcing that he planned to meet with Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna.

Here’s Hanauer’s response to teachers’ union president Lindquist.

Dear Mary,

Thank you for your recent open letter to me and PubliCola. It will not surprise you to hear that I disagreed with some of it.

As a lifelong Democrat and committed progressive, I too believe that McKenna’s reflexive Republican positions on social issues, taxation, and the role of government are deeply misguided.

But if McKenna and Republicans are wrong in some areas, it hardly excuses us Democrats from being wrong on school reform. Here at least, McKenna is on the right track, and we are not.

Looking at the student achievement data, it’s absurd to assert that our public school system in Washington is sufficiently innovative or accountable. We may be headed in the right direction, but we aren’t in the right lane.

Other states that have aggressively tackled education reform are closing their achievement gaps. Meanwhile, while we resist meaningful accountability and innovation, our achievement gaps are widening.

It is my belief that the vast majority of Washington’s teachers care deeply about student outcomes, work incredibly hard, and are constantly working to improve their instructional practices. It is not classroom teachers who are afraid of change and innovation—it is their union.

I am not a teacher and would not presume to tell you how to teach. But in my experience as a business leader and entrepreneur, I have observed that all high-performance organizations share elements that are largely missing from our State’s public education system: relentlessly high standards, a culture of excellence, and a systemic commitment to innovation.

We have many great schools and excellent teachers in Washington. But we lack a coherent system that consistently delivers a high-quality education for all of our students—particularly our low-income students and students of color. As a result, signs of excellence are temporary: a consequence of the heroic efforts of individuals rather than the inevitable outcome of an organization built to deliver excellence all the time.

Great organizations recognize and encourage excellence. Those who are either unable or unwilling to do their jobs well are moved out quickly and are replaced by those who do. The alternative is a culture in which outstanding performance is resented or even discouraged, mediocrity is accepted, and low performance is tolerated.

Our educational strategies are fragmented. Our state lurches towards high standards, and then we have to fight back efforts to water them down. Case in point: The WEA supported a bill this session that would have weakened our high school graduation requirements.

No organism or entity can long survive if it cannot adapt to changing circumstances and challenges. Indeed, the hallmark of high performing organizations is a culture where innovation isn’t just tolerated; it is required and rewarded. And any organization that is not constantly changing is dying.

Our schools are the antithesis of this. Where innovation is found, it is the result of heroism, not organizational intent. Where change happens, it is slow if at all, and is fought at every turn, usually by the teacher’s union.

The WEA can usually be counted on to resist change in most forms. Your organization has consistently defended the absurd “Last In First Out” seniority-based layoff policies. The WEA has resisted a requirement that student growth data be used in evaluations. The WEA has resisted including teacher evaluations in management decisions.

Thanks to leadership from Gov. Chris Gregoire, these provisions (that you fought two years ago when we submitted our Race to the Top application) have just been handed to you in the form of SB 5895. In testimony opposing this bill on Feb. 16th, the president of the Seattle Education Association said that students are not equipped to give feedback about teachers because some of them carry guns.

As I write, the new Seattle School Board—which WEA money championed—appears to be in the process of terminating the contract with Teach For America, a nationally acclaimed program that brings a very diverse group of the nation’s most talented college graduates to teach in low performing schools. This sort of behavior is irrational, self-destructive, and it undermines the cause that unions work to further.

12,000 students attend our South Seattle public schools. Where is the outrage about this state of affairs?

•4 out of 10 South Seattle 3rd graders meet reading standards

•2 out of 10 South Seattle black 4th graders meet math standards

•1 out 10 South Seattle black 5th graders meet science standards

•60% of South Seattle’s high school graduates need remediation when they get to community college.

Where standards are high, instruction is consistently great, and the supports are in place, poor kids are fully capable of achieving at high levels. We as a community bear responsibility for our under-performing schools: not only the parents and educators but also the politicians who create the laws that govern how we educate our children. And since in Washington State the majority of those politicians are Democrats, as a Democrat I think it is time for self-reflection. These abysmal results are difficult to frame in any other way other than abject failure. Defending the status quo that produced that failure is shameful.

This is really a moment of truth for education reform among progressives. Public schools are generally the most sustained, intimate experience people have of government, and that experience is way too often poisoned: not by teachers, but by the bureaucracy placed on educators.

Charter Schools

Public charter schools are yet another tool at our disposal for innovation and a way to put pressure on the larger institution to adapt and change. If we had real innovation in our public schools, then there might not be the need and demand for charter schools that exists today.

Business people have long had a name for this: “competing with yourself.” The best organizations do it because they know if they don’t, others will. Public charter schools are one way of doing that.

Public charter schools are not a panacea for fixing public education. But the good charter schools are successfully closing achievement gaps because that is what they are designed to do. These charter schools provide proof points that very poor kids can indeed achieve at extremely high levels. And they are enormously popular with parents.

And while it is true that many charter schools do not deliver better results than comparable public schools, it is also true that high quality charter schools run by experienced and excellent operators, like KIPP, kick the crap out of chronically low performing public schools.

It is also a fact that no urban district in the USA has closed its achievement gaps without public charter schools. Our state’s Democratic party leaders missed the memo that President Barack Obama, President Bill Clinton, the national Democratic party platform, the NEA, and the AFT all support charter schools.

You point out, correctly, that Washington voters have turned down charter schools three times. But please be honest and admit that the WEA spent massive amounts of money and organizing capital to secure these electoral defeats. In fact, in 2004 the Democratically controlled legislature passed a decent charter school bill, but the WEA could not stand that result. So you bankrolled an expensive referendum and vigorous No campaign. In a state where Eyman’s idiotic initiatives regularly garner impressive majorities, it’s clear that smart public policy isn’t always written at the ballot box.

The charter school bill that education reformers pushed this session (that the WEA and the Democratic leadership killed) was one that would have attracted high quality charter schools—the ones with an enviable record with low-income and minority kids. Can you seriously argue that the kids and families in South Seattle don’t deserve better educational opportunities?

My record as a proponent of more funding for our public schools is unassailable. I continue to believe that our public schools are grossly underfunded. But we need to invest in a system that recognizes and encourages excellence.

I have gotten lots of feedback from my recent letter and the overwhelming amount of it has been positive, particularly from public school parents. Many teachers disagree and argue that because I am not a teacher, I just don’t understand. But I have also heard from young, frustrated teachers who want to go further and faster for their students. They want to teach in a system where the needs of students—not adults—are prioritized. They want to move into the fast lane.

Washington public schools are not delivering the kind of results that families in this state deserve and our economy requires. The WEA’s efforts to stop any of the changes needed to transform our system puts you and the politicians who support and enable this intransigence on the wrong side of kids, families and history. I urge you to change course. You can be sure that I and other committed Democrats are urging the elected officials in our party to do so, with or without you.

Wealthy citizens who argue that a successful democracy is possible without them paying their fair share of taxes are self-serving and misguided. You and I will always be on the same side in our fight for equitable taxation and adequate funding for education.

But a teachers union that argues that public schools don’t need to change, that teachers should not be held accountable for student achievement, and that there is no room for competitive pressure in the education system is equally misguided and self-serving.

I hope you will consider that.

Respectfully,

Nick Hanauer

Senate Passes Stricter Teacher Evaluation Bill

Originally published by Publicola

The senate passed a compromise teacher evaluation bill this afternoon, 46-3. Republicans and moderate Democrats had been pushing a teacher evaluation bill for a couple of sessions now, but liberals had balked, echoing union concerns that it was unfair to teachers, who’ve already seen K-12 funding cut by $2.5 billion during the recession and who have already been working on district-by-district pilot projects to determine evaluation criteria.
Liberal senate education chair Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe (D-1, Bothell) killed an initial pass at the bill sponsored by Republican Steve Litzow (D-41, Mercer Island) and Democratic Sen. Rodney Tom (D-48, Bellevue) earlier this session.
However,  Sen. Ed Murray (D-43, Seattle), with an eye on counting moderate Democratic and Republican votes necessary to pass his budget, resuscitated the bill, triggering negotiations between the reform contingent and the opponents.

“It used to be a debate about whether or not to use the info. Now, it’s about exactly how do we use the info. This is a huge step forward.”—Sen. Steve Litzow

The sticking point between the two sides was the use of student performance data in teacher evaluations. The so-called reformers—Litzow and Tom—wanted the legislation to mandate that student performance data be used in teacher evaluations; a reasonable metric, they contend, for a profession that’s about educating students. Opponents, backed by the teachers’ union, objected that “one size doesn’t fit all” school districts, and said there’s no uniform way to use student achievement as a metric.
The sides compromised by mandating that student data must be used while also leaving local districts in control of deciding how much weight student performance will have in evaluations. The bill does dictate some guidelines—student growth must be a “substantial factor” in at least three of the eight criteria that go into evaluating teachers on a new grading system that rates teachers from one to four. (It used to be a two-tiered system—satisfactory and unsatisfactory—by the way.)
Additionally, the evaluations themselves must be a factor in hiring and firing and placement of teachers—not just seniority. Reformers like Litzow originally wanted the evaluations to be “a primary” factor, but he was happy to compromise. “It used to be a debate about whether or not to use the info,” he said after the vote today, “now, it’s about exactly how do we use the info. This is a huge step forward.”
Rich Wood, spokesman for the teachers’ union, the Washington Education Association, complained that the union was left out of the negotiations and didn’t see the bill until a few hours before the vote.  He said: “This new legislation must not derail, short-circuit or otherwise interfere with the evaluation pilot work that is already underway, and educators must be allowed the flexibility to meet the unique needs of students in their local schools.”
However, he added diplomatically: “Some of what’s in the Senate teacher evaluation bill is good … if used correctly, student growth data can help teachers strengthen their teaching to meet the needs of their students.”
Senators from both factions voted for the bill with a note of skepticism. Sen. Tom, who wanted stricter guidelines, warned, before voting yes, that the legislature needed to oversee the local districts to make sure the evaluations were legit. And liberal Sen. Sharon Nelson (D-34, W. Seattle, Vashon), who also voted yes, warned that reforms didn’t work without funding.
The WEA’s Wood seconded that point, concluding: “This bill ignores the real crisis facing our K-12 public schools—the Legislature’s failure to amply fund K-12 schools as mandated by the state Constitution.”

We Can Learn From Mercer Middle School

The remarkable turnaround at Asa Mercer Middle has School Board members paying close attention. The school's success could significantly influence policies across the district.

By Brian M. Rosenthal

Seattle Times education reporter

For years, Beacon Hill's Asa Mercer Middle School languished as one of the worst in the city.

In 2005, just 13.8 percent of its eighth-graders passed the state science test — 20 points below the district average. Scores in math (33.1 percent passing) and reading (55.9 percent passing) weren't much better.

With enrollment shrinking, many regarded Mercer as another example of a grim pattern seen in schools nationwide: high diversity, high poverty, low achievement.

Six years later, Mercer has shattered that pattern. It's still diverse and poor, but test scores are skyrocketing. Mercer kids now outperform the city average on almost every measure, especially among African Americans, English Language Learners and students receiving free and reduced-price lunches.

And as for that eighth-grade state science test? Last year, 84.3 percent passed it.

So how did this regular public school manage to turn itself around so dramatically?

The story behind Mercer's success is neither short nor simple, administrators, teachers and parents said.

It involves a strong principal, a collaborative group of hardworking teachers and a heavy use of data to constantly tweak instruction. There have been some bold moves, such as scrapping the district's mandated math textbook in favor of a specialized curriculum built to the same state standards.

But the school maintains its success is due mostly to a simple belief in the ability of all its students.

"It's not glamorous," said the current principal, Susan Toth. "It's not a silver-bullet story or a piece of magic."

But it is important — important enough that Seattle Public Schools is carefully studying which parts of the Mercer model can be replicated. In fact, the lessons from the Mercer story may significantly influence district policy in 2012, several School Board members said.

"Other schools need to observe Mercer. We all need to observe it," said Betty Patu, a board member representing Southeast Seattle. "They are clearly having success, so how can we implement this at other schools?"

"We teach urgently"

Bob Ettinger stood in front of his eighth-grade science class last Wednesday at a critical point in a lesson on evolution.

He had already walked students through the basic principles of common ancestors and mutation. Now he asked them to use a list of characteristics of whales, salmon and hippos to figure out which animals are more closely related.

It seemed improbable, but the list showed whales and hippos as having the most traits in common. But when Ettinger announced those animals were the most closely related, the kids were dumbfounded.

"Oooh!" they exclaimed. "What! Why!"

The grasp that Ettinger held his students in represents part of the core Mercer teacher philosophy: Lead with energy and joy. Move quickly. Respect students and ask them to work hard to meet high expectations.

As sixth-grade language teacher Gretchen Coe said, "We teach urgently."

To do that, the teachers rely on data. Many give a mini-test at the end of every class to zero in on parts of the lesson that need further review.

They also use data to identify struggling students early and place them into a structured intervention plan. Those students get extra instruction tailored to their needs. The focus is on core subjects, sometimes at the expense of classes such as social studies.

Most important, teachers work together. The faculty is grouped into teams that meet weekly to discuss individual students and coordinate lesson plans, and all of them gather for a full day every two months to discuss broader strategies.

That adds up to much more planning time than at most Seattle schools, said Cathy Thompson, assistant superintendent for teaching and learning.

The use of data, aggressive intervention and collaboration are all part of a vision implemented by former principal Andhra Lutz.

Described by colleagues as a "force of nature," Lutz arrived at Mercer in 2004 and pushed teachers to buy into the vision, which she learned during a fellowship with the KIPP charter-school network.

The style didn't please everybody. Some teachers felt Lutz would make their life difficult if they disagreed, said Olga Addae, a former Mercer teacher who is now president of the Seattle teachers union.

Lutz denies that, but says she did seek to attract a like-minded team.

"It wasn't about getting rid of teachers," said Lutz, who left last year to work for KIPP in Washington, D.C. She and her administrative team "really worked in collaboration with the teachers and really thought about what they needed to be great."

The push for success has also received outside help.

A grant from the Nesholm Family Foundation funded a literacy-coach position (which Toth held before replacing Lutz as principal), and Seattle's Families and Education Levy supported after-school programs.

At the same time, the school initiated dozens of home visits to increase parent involvement.

The effort to engage parents was "very positive," especially for immigrant families, said Adrienne Hidy, president of the school's PTSA.

"The families at Mercer from the get-go are welcomed into the school and then it kind of builds upon itself," said Hidy, whose son is in the eighth grade.

Rethinking math lessons

The most talked-about aspect of Mercer's success is its decision to essentially form its own math curriculum.

While the district requires middle schools to use Connected Mathematics Project textbooks, Mercer decided those books were too reading-intensive for its large number of students whose native language isn't English. So school officials decided to supplement the district model with whatever resources they thought would best help students meet state standards.

"We didn't scrap it entirely," said Chris Eide, who taught math at Mercer last year, noting the district books were still used when deemed valuable.

The central administration was largely unaware of Mercer's approach, School Board member Kay Smith-Blum said.

"They did it sort of undercover," she said. "They just did what their kids needed."

The results were clear: The number of students passing the state math tests more than doubled, to 70.8 percent, during Lutz's tenure.

Other scores have also spiked. And while a gap still exists between the scores achieved by white students and students of color, the difference is significantly less than it is districtwide.

The gains have not gone entirely uncontested.

Some skeptics say Mercer's population has become less diverse in recent years and underperforming students have been pushed out through suspension and expulsion.

The numbers show scant evidence for either claim: The percentages of black and Hispanic students, as well as students on free and reduced lunches, have all increased since 2005. Suspensions and expulsions dropped 60 percent.

Many have noted state tests have gotten easier, especially in science. That is probably true — scores have risen dramatically across the state — but Mercer went from performing significantly below the district average to significantly above it.

Even Addae, the union president, acknowledged Lutz appears to have achieved her mission of transforming Mercer into a high-poverty yet high-performing school.

Ripple effect

While Mercer's turnaround is still in progress, the striking success it has already achieved is leading to changes around the district.

Next month, fellow Southeast Seattle middle school Aki Kurose is planning to implement Mercer's aggressive-intervention model, said Michael Tolley, the executive director overseeing both schools.

"Every school is different in terms of the needs of the students," he said. "But there are specific strategies that can be replicated."

Meanwhile, a School Board committee is working to adopt policies that would give schools more flexibility in curriculum and instruction.

And some officials are thinking bigger still.

Board Vice President Michael DeBell said Mercer is likely to prompt district leaders to rethink their emphasis on a standardized curriculum across the city.

"I think Mercer is a case study for the idea that what is adopted at the district level may not always work for all children and we have to give our schools the opportunity to find out what does work and apply it," DeBell said. "It proves that every school can be a successful school if given the right tools."

Seattle schools may scale back goals despite gains

While Seattle Public Schools students performed better than the year before in most areas that the district has identified as critical, the improvements are too slow for officials to realistically believe they will meet the goals of their strategic plan by 2013, its final year.

By Brian M. Rosenthal

Seattle schools improved in almost all measurement categories last year, but the gains were small enough that the district is planning to scale back its achievement goals, officials said Tuesday.
The announcement came during a presentation of Seattle Public Schools' annual scorecard, which compiles districtwide and school-by-school reports of test scores, graduation rates and attendance numbers, among other data.
While this year's scorecard showed the district made improvement toward 18 of its 23 goals last year, officials acknowledged the progress was too small for all but three of those goals to be achieved by 2013, the year targeted by a strategic plan adopted in 2007.
Meanwhile, the scorecard made clear that while Seattle students overall continue to improve — and to outperform students in other parts of the state — there remains a large gap between the achievement of students in wealthy neighborhoods and those in poorer areas.
In some subjects, the percentage of students on free or reduced-price lunch who pass the state tests is half that of other students. A similar gap exists between students of color and white students. While the district has made it a priority to reduce the gap, it continues to exist and in some cases is widening, according to the data.
"We are seeing some gains, but it's not enough," Interim Superintendent Susan Enfield said, summing up the scorecard. "And, frankly, we're not on track to meet our goals."
Enfield's presentation at Wing Luke Museum prompted a standing ovation from the crowd, which included city officials like Mayor Mike McGinn, district leaders like School Board President Steve Sundquist and representatives from various community and education organizations.
Several attendees and speakers praised the district for its progress, especially on its high-school-graduation rate — which increased to 73 percent from 67 percent in the year before and 62 percent in 2007. Enfield called that rate a "tremendous point of pride."
Significant progress was also seen in third-grade reading test scores (with 79 percent passing, up from 75 percent the year before) and 10th-grade science test scores (with 53 percent passing, up from 47 percent the year before).
"I can tell you and anybody in this city that when you choose Seattle Public Schools, you get a quality education," proclaimed City Councilmember Tim Burgess in his remarks.
Yet, in many ways, the scorecard left as much cause for concern as it did for optimism.
• Scores slipped in a handful of categories — including the percent of students prepared for a four-year college — 61 percent, compared with 63 percent the year before).
• Most of the improvements that were made were small.
• Perhaps most notably, the achievement gap showed no real sign of shrinking.
Students of color did perform better on state reading and math tests, but so did white students — maintaining the achievement gap. And the gap actually grew significantly for one group, Native American students, who were the only group of students to perform worse on tests than the year before.
"There are obviously lots and lots of issues — about the achievement gap and so forth — where we haven't made the progress we need to and we have a long way to go," Sundquist said.
Some community leaders expressed concern about the announcement — tucked into Enfield's presentation — that the district would reconsider the goals set in 2007.
The goals, made as part of a strategic plan spearheaded by former Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, targeted 23 categories that were key indicators of student success, said School Board member Michael DeBell, who was on the board when it passed the goals. The targets were seen as achievable based on past progress and high levels of state funding, he said.
As recently as last fall, when the last district scorecard was released, Goodloe-Johnson and other district officials insisted that the goals were reachable.
They are no longer realistic in part because it's a "very different economic reality," Enfield said Tuesday.
"We need our goals to be challenging but achievable," she said. "If we know we might not meet the goals and we may not be able to do all that we set out to do in 2007, we need to revisit it."
Some community members said scaling back the targets would send the wrong message to students.
"I think before we shift those goals we should have a very serious conversation about why we're not making more progress," said Robin Lake, associate director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. "I don't think talking about the lack of new resources is the right direction. This is our new reality, and we have to figure out how to make progress in it."
The conversation about scaling back the goals will begin in January, Enfield said.

New UW Study Links Student Scores to Teacher's College

By: Donna Blankinship
Associated Press

The academic progress of public-school students can be traced, in part, to where their teachers went to college, according to new research by the University of Washington Center for Education Data & Research.
But the center's director, Dan Goldhaber, cautioned that the study is just a first step toward determining what kind of training — not where the training occurred — best prepares teachers for excellence in the classroom.
Even so, it's the kind of information U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan would like every school to have access to, and that's why he recently announced a new program to use federal dollars to pay for similar research.
Washington state schools are among the first to see which teacher-training programs seem to result in the best student test scores, but 35 states now have the means to do similar research, according to the Data Quality Campaign, a national organization formed by education and business groups to track state progress on collecting data about students and schools.
Where teachers are credentialed explains a small part of the variation of teacher effectiveness, Goldhaber said, with the best way to pick out a great teacher still being a visit to his or her classroom.
Still, the findings of this study, which focused on in-state schools, and a similar report published in Louisiana in early 2010, are meaningful. They both found that the differences between the best and the worst teacher-training programs were as significant as differences between teachers at different experience levels or with different class sizes.
"Improving teacher training has the potential to greatly enhance the productivity of the teacher work force," Goldhaber wrote in the report.
The study examined which education schools were tied to better student progress, without naming any particular aspect of training that the schools did differently.
Duncan announced his new initiatives earlier this month to identify the best teacher-preparation programs and encourage others to improve by linking student test scores back to teachers and their schools of education. The federal government also plans to give away millions of dollars in scholarships to send students interested in teaching in-demand subjects like science and math to the best teacher-training programs.
Carrie Black, a middle-school math teacher in Rochester, Thurston County, says she could have used a lot more time practicing her skills before taking over a classroom on her own and she doesn't think she could ever have learned enough about how to keep control in class.
Black got her initial training at City University and did graduate work in middle-school math at Walden University, an online program not included in the study.
Goldhaber's study ranked City University, a private school, right in the middle of teacher-prep programs, with a score closer to the top schools for math — University of Washington, University of Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran, Seattle Pacific and Western Washington — than to the schools at the bottom of the math list: Northwest University, Antioch University, St. Mary's University, Seattle University and The Evergreen State College.
The ranks are different for reading scores, with Walla Walla University at the top with the University of Washington — closely followed by Western Washington University, Seattle Pacific, the University of Puget Sound and Washington State University.
A Bellingham English teacher who got his credential from Western had similar issues as Black: too much theory and too little practical advice on how to actually work in the classroom. Todd Hausman said the theories he learned as best practices were completely impractical in the real world, but it took him a few years to figure that out and to have the confidence to abandon those ideas.
Even though their respective schools did well in the study, both Black and Hausman said they would, in retrospect, like to see changes in teacher-preparation programs, including more hands-on training.
Hausman says student teachers should be immersed in a school for at least a year.
"You learn more in a week at school, than you can learn in an entire academic semester," he said.
"Classroom management is a hard one to teach," said Black, a regional Washington teacher of the year last year. "It is like trying to teach someone how to ride a bike by reading instructions. It is different with each class."
She said classes also don't prepare teachers for the stress of the job or for the amount of work they'll do at home each night.
The dean of the top-ranked University of Washington College of Education found the study results interesting but cautioned against giving too much credit to the rankings.
Student test scores should be a part of how teacher-education programs are evaluated, Tom Stritikus said, but he says there should be multiple measures.
"What we're really after here is changing and improving practice," Stritikus said.

Seattle School Board considers firing superintendent

Seattle School Board President Steve Sundquist said Friday the board is considering firing Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson or buying out her contract in light of a report's findings that she didn't do more to stop rampant misuse of public money in a district contracting program.

By Linda Shaw and Steve Miletich

Seattle Times staff reporters

Seattle School Board President Steve Sundquist said Friday the board is considering firing Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson or buying out her contract after a report found she didn't do more to stop rampant misuse of public money in a district contracting program.

In an appearance before The Seattle Times editorial board, Sundquist said the findings in the newly released report "certainly undermine my confidence in the effectiveness of the management."

Sundquist declined to comment when asked if the school board was in buyout discussions with Goodloe-Johnson, but said she is working with an attorney.

"All options are on the table," Sundquist said.

Goodloe-Johnson could not be reached for comment. School staff say she is with her mother, who is hospitalized.

Sundquist and board member Michael DeBell expressed outrage over the loss of up to $1.8 million in questionable expenses, saying their concerns included a finding in the report that district employees did not believe they could report problems to superiors without reprisals.

DeBell called it a "culture" problem.

Sundquist said the board likely would announce at a public meeting Wednesday its decision regarding the superintendent and Chief Financial and Operations Officer Don Kennedy, Goodloe-Johnson's hand-picked choice for the job.

In a report released Friday morning, Seattle lawyer Patty Eakes concluded that Goodloe-Johnson and Kennedy had limited knowledge of irregularities in the small-business contracting program primarily aimed at helping companies owned by women and minorities.

Eakes, a former King County prosecutor, also found no evidence that anyone told the superintendent of their concerns about the program or its manager, Silas Potter, beyond an unfavorable review of the program in 2009 that led the district to reprimand Potter and strip him of part of his authority to award contracts.

Still, Eakes concluded that because Goodloe-Johnson knew about that report, she should have done more to ensure that the program was properly supervised.

Goodloe-Johnson, Eakes said, trusted Kennedy to oversee the program, and Kennedy delegated oversight responsibility to Fred Stephens, the former executive director of facilities.

That led Kennedy to miss warning signs that Potter was misusing district funds, Eakes' report said. Stephens, she said, failed to oversee Potter despite "numerous warning signs that additional oversight was warranted."

Eakes was hired by the district in December to determine management's role in problems with the small-business program.

Her report follows a special investigation by State Auditor Brian Sonntag's office that turned up $1.8 million in payments by the small-business program that provided little or no public benefit. The office's activities are also the subject of a secret criminal investigation by the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

DeBell said Friday the program strayed from its mission to boost the pool of qualified contractors and provide long-term financial benefits to the district.

"It became instead a cronyist sort of operation that then, somehow, was not given the due diligence from management to address those issues," he said.

Eakes, speaking to the Times editorial board Friday, said she found that program largely benefited African American firms, and she heard from many employees that they would be accused of racism if they didn't support it.

That impression came from Potter, she said, but from Stephens as well

In her report, Eakes said she found no evidence that Potter awarded any personal-services contracts as "hush money" to silence opposition from the African-American community about school closures and the lack of minority contractor working on district projects.

"The information we received was hearsay," Eakes wrote.

She said she could find no witnesses with firsthand knowledge of those accusations.