Sunny Side Musings - Part Three

Slats needed to get to Lansing for what he described as an “urgent assignment.”  I didn’t inquire further.  Before he departed, we met at Frank’s Diner in Jessup.

“So why are you writing about the forum?  Is there any money in it?” he asked, perusing the menu.

“Not a dime. I am just trying to sort out how I want to vote,” I paused, “Oh, the sausage here comes in links, not patties, in case you were wondering,” I replied.

“Seriously?  So really I need to decide between bacon and corned beef hash, is that the deal?”

“Yep.”

“Well,’ he shrugged, “it might not be ideal, but those are some decent options.”

With that, he pulled out his phone to check his email.  I shifted my attention to my coffee and the notes I took.   Here are the final audience questions and responses from the Columbia Democratic Club’s Board of Education forum and my thoughts:

Audience Question Four:  How would you prioritize resources?

French: We need more feedback on this.  I lean more towards human resources.  Relayed the anecdote involving the teacher who wore a sign saying, “I am your best app.”

Furman:  The key consideration is, “What is in the best interest of the students?”  We need a balanced approach.

O’Connor: We need effective teacher development.

Vaillancourt: Apocalypse-scenario.  If all of the buildings were gone, teachers would be left, so it is about the teachers.

Altwerger:  Equity across the schools.  More school psychologists and counselors.  Keeping the facilities equitable.  Hiring and maintaining the best teachers, increasing their time for preparation.  Ten days on testing is ridiculous, money could be spent elsewhere, such as on arts and music.

Dyer:  Proper direction of the resources that we have.  Teachers should be where they are most needed.  I raised this issue before and was ignored for four years.  FARMS kids could have more experienced teachers, we need to move them around.  Start high school classes later.    

  

Spartan Considerations thoughts: I thought the incumbents delivered the best replies to this question, strictly in terms of connecting on a visceral level with the audience.  As usual, Altwerger gave a detailed, thoughtful answer (more head than heart).  Furman suggested a reasonable test and appeared to be focused on reaching a consensus, which may give voters an idea of the type of Board Member he might be, if elected. 

Audience Question Five:  What resources could you use to work together as a board

Spartan Considerations translation:  “So how can the new Board learn to act like adults and drop all of the public acrimony?”

Furman:  There has been contention for years.  We need to be in a position to work together.  Create “personal connections.”  There is no one workshop or program that will resolve these relationship issues.

O’Connor: “My personality.”  (Spartan Considerations chess notation: !?!).  I am a good listener. I take time to make decisions.  I work things through.

Vaillancourt: I would not define disagreement as contention.  The “Golden Rule” is missing.  We need to be respectful of each other.

Altwerger:  Respect.  Civility.  It should not be a matter of personalities.  The recent HCEA – Board contention led to a lot of “bad press that tarnished the system.”

Dyer: I believe in the “cacophony of democracy.”  Things can’t be done behind closed doors.  Open decisions, openly arrived at….this is part of having an elected Board of Education.  We worked to get this.

French: “Shock of shocks.  I agree with Allen Dyer.”  This is part of the rough and tumble of politics.  “No one Board Member has authority.” We deliberate in public.  We need to accept decisions that are made. Some people need to “let things go.”

Spartan Considerations thoughts:  Although the question was focused on the heavy matter of the seemingly sometimes dysfunctional working relationship involving multiple current Board members, this query led to one of the lighter moments of the evening. The French reply generated genuine laughter.  Of course her admonition that some needed to “let things go” was clearly directed at a fellow Board Member, which ramped up the tension in the room a little bit.

Dyer, channeling his inner Woodrow Wilson, delivered a thoughtful response.  In my estimation, O’Connor gave the riskiest reply, but it seemed consistent with her plain- spoken persona.   

Audience Question Six:  If the school day started later, won’t kids just stay up later at night? 

Spartan Considerations note:  With time running out, we entered the “rapid-fire” round at this point.  Candidates gave short answers, if at all, for the rest of the questions.

Dyer:  The science bears out that later starting times are better.

Altwerger:  Spoke about Circadian Rhythms of teenagers and that some kids are “more likely” to get in trouble in the early afternoons, in the window of time after they are currently let out of school.

O’Connor: We need to see more studies on this subject.  Wondered about the impact on the sports schedule.

Furman:  Said he raised the question of pushing the school day to a later start time back in 2002.  Believes that kids will go to bed at a “reasonable time.”

Spartan Considerations thoughts:  On a personal note, I had to chuckle at Altwerger’s response.  I was working on a presidential campaign back in ’99 and we focused on that early-to-mid afternoon timeframe as a potential danger zone, when teenagers were out of school but before their parent(s) came home from work.  Fifteen years later and society is still grappling with the same fundamental question.

Audience Question Seven:  By a show of hands, do you have any guns in your home?

Spartan Considerations thoughts:  I am not going to record the candidate’s responses here.  I thought the question was inappropriate for this forum.  It merely served to remind me that it would be challenging for Slats to be a candidate for public office.  His first instinct would be to invite the individual to knock on his door at an early hour of the morning so they could find out, up close and personal, if he owned any firearms. I commend the candidates for exercising the appropriate level of restraint on that question.

Audience Question Eight:  Common Core is state law, so how would you fix it (if at all)?

Spartan Considerations notes:  This was a great question because it compelled skeptics and advocates alike to recognize the world, as it is, and address the question based on the political and legal realities of the situation and not treat Common Core as an abstract concept.

Furman:  More funds should be spent on professional development.

O’Connor:  Spoke about the need for greater interaction, education between the PTAs and parents (French liked this idea).

Dyer: Students can’t be treated differently if their parents opt them out of high-stakes testing.

French:  When I hear a concern, I go to the Superintendent.  They are often “six months to one year” ahead in their thinking.  They [those in the HCPSS administrative offices] are professionals, they have a plan. Also, parents of 3^rd graders, all they know is Common Core.  The ones who are skeptical tend to be older parents.

Altwerger:  I have conducted a great deal of research on Common Core.  It was not field-tested.  It is not scientifically-based.  Gave an example regarding phonemes.

Vaillancourt:  We need to be honest about resources.  Talked about curricula, lesson planning.

Spartan Considerations thoughts:

French positioned herself as the Defender of the Current Regime on this question.  In terms of subject matter expertise, Altwerger again emerged as the candidate who articulated the most detailed reply.

Overall Forum Implications:

Of the eight candidates, I am still pondering which will receive my vote. I have ruled out two, leaving six as “possibles.” I hope to settle this question soon, preferably before Slats winds his way back to the Mid-Atlantic.  He doesn’t like to be in the States for more than a couple weeks at a time, so I imagine he will be back in our neck of the woods soon enough.

Stay tuned, as more will follow.

Moderately Spicy Wisdom - Part Two

I tracked Slats down around noon today.  He huffed that I shouldn’t have interrupted his meditation session.  I noted that he was lounging about in a booth, at Bonefish Grill off of Ritchie Highway, scarfing down Bang Bang shrimp. 

“Those activities are not mutually exclusive,” he remarked.

I brushed aside his pithy declaration while he handed me the lunch bill. Sighing audibly but apparently not harshing his crustacean-augmented mellow, I asked if he read my post from yesterday.  He nodded.

“Too long, right?  Too much detail for the format?” I inquired.

“Just give ‘em the feel of the room,” he replied.  “Fuck, they never give you enough napkins, do they?”

Both are solid observations.

So with that in mind, I will do the best I can in this, Part Two, featuring the first three questions from the audience.

1) Promoting school safety.

Vaillancourt was up first and had the most evocative response, calling for schools to follow the “El Al” model (engage in “profiling,” presumably of students or others associated with the school who might be showing warning signs of being a threat to others or themselves). 

Altwerger centered her comments on the movement of students between the portables and the main buildings. 

Dyer concentrated on protecting against suicides.

French briefly discussed mental health, positive intervention strategies and “civility policing.”

Furman promoted the idea of a card access system for students, teachers and administrators as well as stepped-up anti-bullying efforts.

O’Connor said that she was not opposed to metal detectors in the schools, but that further research should be conducted (she called for additional studies more than once over the course of the evening).

Spartan Considerations thoughts:

Furman had his best moment of the night on this point.  He was both knowledgeable and confident in his response. 

Given credit where it is due, Dyer’s answer started out heart-felt and fluent.  But then he made a joke about how some folks like to “protect against asteroids” instead of focusing on more likely risks.  Why that moment for a comment like that?  It’s like he decorated a Christmas tree beautifully and, as a final touch, put a roll of toilet paper where the star should be. 

French’s reply was a little thin, felt a bit soft, for someone with her years on the Board.  She could have articulated some concrete solutions here.

2) Vision 2018: Where is the schedule? Where are the milestones?  

This is where some under-stated fireworks occurred.  The first two to respond to this question – Altwerger and Dyer – both agreed that it was a good vision but was light on specificity/progress.  Both thought that the Vision was being “sidetracked” (Altwerger) or “diverted” (Dyer) by issues pertaining to Common Core.

And then French spoke, holding up what she noted was a progress report issued by Superintendent Foose’s office.  She stated that the report contained a “tremendous amount of data” (presumably regarding the schedule and milestones) and that “implementation is underway.”  Giles, from the audience, also chimed in with a remark to the effect of “We have a date/We have dates.”

Furman commented that he was “glad we have this,” in a way that indicated that he was not aware of the public availability of the data that is said to be in the report.  He said there needs to be an implementation plan with hard deadlines, but there should be “flexibility” when needed to help meet the goals.

O’Connor re-iterated that she would be a full-time Board Member and that she would be going to the schools, presumably to check on the implantation of the Vision 2018 strategic plan.

Vaillancourt, in a not-so-veiled shot, wryly noted that, “we are good at coming up with the right words, but I want to put them into action.”  Zing.

Spartan Considerations thoughts:

This was fascinating.  The original question seemed simple enough, is there an on-track implementation schedule with specific milestones or not?  I deem it likely that every candidate on the stage performed their due diligence and studied up on Vision 2018, yet we appear to have a significant information gap.  Some believe there is forward movement and that the data exists and is publically available, while others do not believe that to be the case.  There should be a clear-cut answer here.  Who is wrong or misinformed? Is someone over-stating their position or willfully down-playing the amount of information that is available/progress made?     

3) Dual enrollment/remediation/Common Core-PARCC longitudinal tracking

So a heavy in the MD higher-education space came in to ask about the connection between K – 12 and collegiate performance.

Everyone said favorable things about dual enrollment.  There were no significant points of differentiation there. 

Dr. Freeman Hrabowski’s name was evoked by two of the candidates (French and Furman).  The former discussed his name in connection with UMBC scholarships for Howard County high school graduates, the latter in a response that focused on finding ways to help students bridge the gap (transition to college successfully? My notes are difficult to decipher here).

The rest of the conversation generally evolved (or descended) into a positioning exercise on Common Core, with Dyer and Altwerger stating their concerns:

Dyer: “fancy, expensive Common Core testing”

Altwerger: “I believe in high expectations,” but different learners learn at different rates, CC is “inflexible” and there needs to be a “local set of standards so teachers can meet the needs of the students they teach.”

French supports Common Core, believing it will help eliminate “inequities” in achievement.

O’Connor stated that she liked that Common Core was “trying to make it an even playing field” but also thinks that “more studies are needed.”

Spartan Considerations thoughts:

Your thoughts on who fared best on this multi-part question probably have more to do with your perspective on Common Core than anything else.  From a sheer communications perspective, Vaillancourt got a bit tangled up in her comments on remediation but no one tanked the question.

Well, it was shorter than Part One.  The forum was quite informative. 

Stay tuned, as more will follow.