I read this morning’s Seattle Times piece on Seattle Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson with interest. I guess it could have been the title of the piece – “Seattle Schools Superintendent Sets Ambitious Agenda” – OH!
How I do love an ambitious agenda. A couple of things from the article worth noting: accountability. In this new age of public school accountability, Superintendent Goodloe-Johnson does not demur. “Accountability is the key to success in anything we do….We can all dream, but if we want outcomes for kids, then we’ve got to work at it.”
I could have wept. The words “accountability” and “kids” occupying the same space? From the mouth of the school district leader? My tax dollars at work!
Anytime an adult in the system wants to hold other adults in the system accountable for the kids, I’m in.
Here’s the other thing I thought was interesting: I guess it was in the name of balance that the article focused a goodly amount on the Superintendent’s detractors. In particular concerns that “she’s shifting too much money to the lowest performing schools.” And, “her certainty that her approach is the right one.”
Um, could the folks who want her to be uncertain about her approach please raise your hands? What gives? Do you follow a leader who is rudder-less? As for investments into low-performing schools, help me find the alternatives. Additional instruction time costs money. Additional professional development costs money. New tools and technology cost money. We can continue to ignore that what we’ve been doing in the lowest-performing schools isn’t working, or we can re-shape those schools, invest in their leaders and teachers and “hold them accountable.”
Leadership is all about accountability. Setting a clear path forward, investing in people and systems and focusing on what works just might get the job done. In any case, it’s a good start.
Do not trust the Times’ reporting on the dissent in Seattle Public Schools or the superintendent’s critics. The reporting was done in a way to marginalize, trivialize and discredit the folks who aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid that the superintendent is ladling out.
If you like accountability – real accountability instead of just talk about accountability – then there is no way that you can be a fan of Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson. She talks a lot about accountability, but she doesn’t do anything about it. She has been superintendent of Seattle Public Schools for over three years. Can anyone name even three instances of accountability in all that time? Can anyone name even one?
If the LEV is going to be credible as a leader of a revolution seeking transparency, accountability, and engagement, then there is NO WAY that you can be a fan of Dr. Maria Goodloe-Johnson’s administration in Seattle. Oh, wait. That’s right. The LEV is not credible in that role.
After you read the article in the Times, Chris, read the reader comments. Then tell me how much you like the Superintendent’s vague agenda.
Here’s one thing I like, Charlie: I like that we have company in the “I want accountability” camp. Just so we are clear, am I super excited by the results we are seeing in Seattle right now? NO. I’m actually not even smallish-ly excited, as our achievement gap continues to grow, pinning kids and their families into poverty for all time, if not corrected. Dr. Goodloe Johnson is talking the talk. That’s a start. Walking the walk is going to be where the rubber meets the road. I’m willing to give it one more year. Let’s see if the scaffolding being put into place actually holds – or better, lifts – the system up, or if it continues to crumble under its own weight. I know where your bet is.
Chris, my hand is so over my head it’s in outer space.
We want accountability. I can name you multiple times that this Superintendent has NOT been accountable. She is all talk on that measure.
Most parents have NO idea what the Strategic Plan is (the basis for all her actions) and NO idea what it will mean for their children.
We should talk because Charlie Mas and I know this district better than most. That 12 schools, in a matter of weeks at the end of the school year, plus at least 2 parent surveys have no confidence in her leadership should tell you something.
Accountable? How come, year after year, the Board has to tell her that her public engagement is poor and yet she does NOTHING to change it. That’s not being accountable when both your bosses AND the parents tell you how poorly you do in a very public area and yet we get this “tell it to the hand” attitude.
Chris, here’s what I thought was interesting about the article in the Times. The superintendent said that she didn’t want to talk about corporate-sponsored Education Reform; she wanted to talk about “How about kids being successful, how about kids being challenged? How about providing interventions to close the achievement gap?”
Well, how about those things?
Regarding kids being successful, she has dismantled advanced learning program.
Regarding kids being challenged, she has outlawed differentiation to preserve fidelity of implementation and vertical curricular alignment.
Regarding interventions, she hasn’t implemented any. She was going to promise some, but they were largely dependent on elementary school counselors, and she got rid of them.
Regarding closing the academic achievement gap, she has chosen the inquiry-based pedagogy for math which has exacerbated the gap.
So let’s talk about what she wants to talk about and what you want to talk about and what I want to talk about. And when we do, we will see that she is all talk.
You’re going to give her one more year? Is that fair? She says that she needs another five to eight to show results. As for me, I’ve seen her for three years already and I’m done with her delays, deferrals, and deceptions. She claims that 82% of the Strategic Plan projects are on schedule, but almost NONE of them are. She promises accountability but doesn’t provide any. She promises engagement but doesn’t provide any. She has not kept a single commitment to a single community in the whole time that she has been in office. I’m done with her. She is failing at her job and failing badly. She has all of the authority she needs to implement her stated agenda – and she has usurped more besides – but she has failed to deliver.
Chris, stop listening to what she says and start looking at what she does. If you want accountability, transparency, and engagement, she is not your ally.
Chris, I think it’s funny that you think it is the weight of the system that is causing the collapse yet you want to rely on the system to lift things up.
The change will come when the role of the central administration is defined. What do we want the District’s central administration to do? And what DON’T we want them to do?
I want them to provide centralized services when those services are commodities and can achieve economies of scale. For example, HR functions, facilities maintenance, data warehousing, and transportation.
I want them to provide quality assurance. The District should have some way of confirming that the students who need support are getting support. I’m talking about individual students – not schools. The District should have some way of confirming that the students who need additional challenge are getting that challenge. The District should have some way to confirm the quality and efficacy of programs. Yet the District not only isn’t doing these things, the District isn’t even interested in doing these things.
The District should also be fulfilling a compliance role, confirming compliance with IDEA and other laws, confirming compliance with grant agreements, confirming compliance with District Policies. Not only doesn’t the District do this, the District isn’t interested in doing this.
Instead, the District is mandating a lot of things that would be better determined at the school or classroom or student level. Such as what books to read in high school language arts classes. Such as when fourth grade math teachers should be on page 58 in the textbook. Such as how many students should be waitlisted for Spectrum (the number isn’t zero).
The system is a tool. In the right hands and used for the right purpose it can be a constructive force. In the wrong hands and used for the wrong purposes it is obstructive when it isn’t outright destructive.
The system is now in the wrong hands and is being used for the wrong purposes. That is what the revolution should be about. I’m sorry that you don’t see it.
You and the LEV can try to run out in front and lead this march, but it is already underway and you don’t seem to know where the front is. It’s in this direction: a smaller central administration with a more narrowly defined role. A School Board that acts less like cheerleaders and more like auditors. A district leadership that cares less about internal politics and more about kids. A district leadership that sees students instead of schools. A district leadership that can distinguish between statistics and reality.