Parent-activist warns parents, educators in Sumter

Forewarned is forearmed, and long-time parent-activist Ceresta Smith, now of Charleston, rang the alarm in Sumter on Tuesday -- and her remarks were covered by the Sumter Item.

Is the "public" being taken out of public schools?

That was the topic of a public talk given Tuesday in Sumter, sponsored by the South Carolina Education Association and the Sumter Education Task Force.

Ceresta Smith, a longtime educator now in Charleston and activist from Florida's Miami-Dade County School District, told an audience of about 50 at the North HOPE Center that moves across the nation to require more standardized testing in schools limit the curriculum and hurt students, and ultimately will result in schools in poorer, largely minority neighborhoods being shut down and replaced with privately run, profit-seeking charter schools with no accountability to the community. It's up to parents, students and teachers, Smith said, to resist test-based curricula.

"Our children are being robbed, slowly, of a free, quality public education," Smith said.

Somebody say Amen.

ESC has been ringing this bell for more than a year now, and the clapper is worn and bent. What a joy to see what's blooming in Sumter, with parents and classroom educators collaborating to create progress.

To watch the video of Smith's presentation, click here.

Smith's talk was co-sponsored by the Sumter Education Task Force, a community-based group that supports public education in Sumter County.

"We're a vast, diverse district that is awash with different talents," said Task Force member Nickie Williams. "Some of us have kids in schools, some of us do not. Some of us are educators, and some are retired from education. But what we all have in common is that we feel we should support public education."

"It's not just about my three children in the school district," said Parrish Rabon, the Task Force's vice president. "There's no profession I have more respect for than a public school teacher."

When someone accuses Smith of being a troublemaker, even her bosses in the school district, she responds, "I'm a parent, and I pay taxes."

"What makes a democracy a democracy is that everybody has a voice," Smith said.

Democracy is inconvenient that way. Sure, it would be much simpler if the evolving aristocracy had total control and told us all what we would do, and where, and for whom, and why, and for how long. Thankfully, however, that's not America.

And thankfully, Sumter is illustrating what can happen when parents join forces with classroom educators.

Smith's background is in Miami-Dade County, Florida, and she shared with Sumter parents and educators news of what occurred during her time there.

Smith told of teaching at a high-performing Florida school in a high-income area where "students applied themselves, and we had the educators and facilities to work with the students who didn't." When she was moved to a low-performing school to help turn it around, she said she was "shocked at the inequity."

Teachers were required to follow a tightly scripted curriculum, usually with outdated and below grade-level materials. The curriculum, she said, gave students little choice in their courses and no chance to exercise critical thinking, problem-solving skills or collaboration, because "these are the courses being tested."

At the time, Florida schools were operating under the A+ Plan introduced by Gov. Jeb Bush, with similar requirements to those later introduced nationally by No Child Left Behind. The plan, Smith said, introduced constant testing - a baseline test at the beginning of the year, an interim test, a winter test, a spring test, even a post-test assessment. Teachers spent weeks of class time just preparing students for the next test.

"These kids were going to college ill-prepared,because they'd never done any writing or challenging reading," Smith said. "They were taught test-taking, and that's about it."

Smith thinks the push for standardized testing and test-based assessments is being pushed by the publishers of testing materials and others who want to undermine public education.

Absolutely so. Billions of dollars are spent now on "supplemental educational services," the term of art invented by the Bush administration in the so-called "No Child Left Behind," which means that those corporate giants who produce these "services" and products are reaping billions of dollars in profit -- on the backs of children enrolled in public schools.

Tests are not only used to evaluate students, but also their teachers and entire schools.

Hear that, South Carolina educators? That's what's coming. Our state superintendent just filed an application for a waiver from NCLB last month, and this very principle is the bedrock of his waiver application: Using test scores to give letter grades to teachers and schools.

At one point, Florida legislators wanted to increase the rigor of testing by requiring 25 percent of students, including special-needs and English-as-a-second-language students, to achieve a top grade. Otherwise, the school would be graded as "failing" and face sanctions, including the possibility of parents voting to shut the school down and replace it with a privately managed charter.

This little scheme is called, cleverly, "parent trigger." Watch for it -- it's coming to South Carolina, too. And you'll get to see a big Hollywood film about it this fall, too, presently titled "Won't Back Down."

Powerful stuff, isn't it?

Billions of dollars are diverted from public schools, weakening their foundation. Budget cuts leave thousands of teachers out of work, and classrooms packed, raising parents' doubts and fears about the quality of education available there. Emphasis on high-stakes standardized testing leaves creativity and critical thinking by the wayside. Thanks to these cuts and diversions, school quality is eroded, and the hardline new grading system labels schools "failing" year after year after year, until finally, parents can pull the "parent trigger" and turn that "failing" school into a charter school, directly dependent on the same profit-making, corporate supplemental service providers who pad lawmakers' re-election chances.

And, before you can say Oscar, there's a big Hollywood production about the failure of America's public schools.

The plan was all the more galling, Smith said, because, even though high-performing schools also struggled to meet standards, the worst performing schools are located in low-income minority communities.

"We've been told that poverty doesn't matter when it comes to education, that a compromised ability to eat well doesn't matter," she said. "But it turns out the schools with the most low-income students are always the ones with the worst teachers."

Ceresta Smith and Sumter Education Task Force, meet Steve Morrison and Abbeville v. South Carolina. I think y'all are already well-acquainted and may not have known it.

This time, communities protested the proposed changes. Parents, teachers and administrators traveled to the state capital in Tallahassee to lobby against the measure. Activists managed to get the "parents empowerment" provision dropped and changed underperforming schools from an automatic F to a one letter-grade drop.

Now Smith wants to see more community activism to reverse the course of the country's schools. She's co-founded the United Opt Out National, a movement that encourages parents to opt their children out of punitive testing, as Smith has done with her own daughter. From March 30 to April 2, she will participate in an education march on Washington that will seek to occupy the headquarters of the federal Department of Education.

Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna.

Thank you to Ceresta Smith, to Nicole Williams and Parrish Rabon, to the Sumter Education Task Force and the South Carolina Education Association. When what you've accomplished in several months is replicated in the counties surrounding Sumter, and the next ring of counties, and the next, we'll see change finally come to South Carolina.

I'm proud to see it.

The SCEA releases Sumter public forum summary

For the past two weeks, I've been waiting diligently for the Sumter Item to publish its coverage of the Sumter parents' and educators' public forum. Feedback from ones who attended the event said that the Item covered the event, but that its reporter left halfway through, after conversation turned toward a critique of the Item's coverage.

Specifically, it seems that the Item covers abundantly the administration's perspective but offers slim pickings for those straining to hear parents' and educators' points of view. I'm no expert on the Item's coverage, but its regular readers commented heavily here and here and here and here and here and here.

Perhaps to prove the point of its critics, although it reprinted the administration's written responses to individuals who spoke at the January 23 board meeting, the Item hasn't published anything about the public forum. Which is sad for several reasons, the greatest of which is that reportedly a good number of Sumter parents and educators spoke up and shared a lot of pertinent information, aired some searing and painful grievances, and pleaded for answers. One would expect that a hometown newspaper would cover such a meeting with gusto.

But one would be wrong. For the past couple of weeks, it has been as if that conversation never occurred.

Until today, that is -- and the news has come not from the Item, but from the South Carolina Education Association, which sponsored the event. A summary of the conversation has been posted at the association's website, and it reflects in great detail many of the notes sent here after that evening.

Parts of the summary are long and dense. But its introduction quotes SCEA President Jackie Hicks saying, "Goal 1 is to listen to you, to collect information, and to summarize that information. Goal 2 is to hear from you what actions you want to see taken during the coming months and years."

During the next two hours, a number of important issues and concerns surfaced, were clarified in detail, and were documented for future action. Out of this dialogue came the following digest of questions and comments, as voiced by parents and educators alike. The particular sources of these were not necessarily identified during the forum and are not identified here, as some of the attendees remain fearful of retribution in their workplaces. Instead, as president of the state's largest association of education professionals, which includes superintendents and other administrators, certified school district employees and education support personnel, Jackie Hicks presents these questions and concerns on behalf of those attending educators and in collaboration with those attending parents.

Which likely means that, under the rules governing the Sumter board's meetings, no response will be offered unless parents and educators raise specific issues and questions from it, then wait for the administration's responses in writing -- which, obviously, will now be published online by the Item, since the Item has established that precedent.

I'll keep watching for that.

So here it is:

COLLABORATIVE BALANCE
Sumter School District is in a period of significant transition. Hiring a new superintendent alone would have required a period of transition. Consolidating two school systems alone would have required a period of transition. But the combination of a consolidation and a brand-new administration demands that the entire community take special care to participate in a collaborative balance throughout this transitional period.

Parents and educators want Sumter School District to succeed and to see their community thrive. They want to participate in a collaborative balance through this period of transition, but their participation is being impeded. While School Improvement Councils appear to be functioning, Teacher Advisory Councils have been diminished during this school year. Only one teacher representative per school is allowed to participate at TAC meetings, speaking for only three minutes, with a requirement to submit questions and responses for prior approval. Parents and educators believe this does not allow for an open dialogue and exchange of information and ideas, and it does not represent a collaborative balance with the district.

Good point. In a balance, no one voice has an outsized influence, and no voice is minimized. Everyone has a role to play -- including parents, educators, administrators and elected leaders.

CONSOLIDATION
Consolidation of the Sumter School District is an accepted fact, but its impacts have not yet been fully realized and a period of transition continues for both parents and educators. One of the advertised benefits of consolidation was to be an elimination of duplicative positions, facilities and work, ultimately resulting in a reduction in personnel positions and associated facility costs, and a savings to Sumter County taxpayers. Yet there is no sign that duplicative positions, facilities or work have been merged. Instead, costly new administrative positions have been added at the district office.

Questions:
(1) Can the board demonstrate that it has merged positions, facilities and work, to save taxpayers revenues as promised?
(2) If so, what is the total savings from consolidated positions, facilities and work?
(3) What is the total cost of new positions created since the effective date of consolidation?
(4) As the superintendent's contract is a public document, can it be made public?

The Sumter School District's website doesn't offer information of this sort, so far as I can tell.

PARENT SUPPORT FOR EDUCATORS
Parents of students enrolled in the Sumter School District support their public schools and support the education professionals who serve their students in those schools. Parents have declared that Sumter's public school teachers inspire them and their children daily with optimism and a drive to reach and serve every child, regardless of their circumstances. They agree that public education is the most critical element for healthy communities. They understood that consolidation would be a period of transition, and that the transition would include "bumps" or missteps. But they assert that the condition of their school community has not improved through the period of transition, but has instead worsened.

As a result of their concern, interested parents organized themselves and continue to meet and communicate under the name of "Sumter Education Task Force." These parents are conducting their own outreach throughout the community, which included outreach to educators, and outreach for aid from, and collaboration with, The SCEA. These parents are making themselves aware of what educators are experiencing professionally and economically. They are aware that educators in Sumter have had no increase in compensation in recent years and, in fact, are losing income without a cost of living adjustment. They know that restricted supply funds force instructors to supply classrooms from their own resources. They know that salary stipends for coaches, club advisors and others at the school level have been cut, and teachers advised to take a percentage of organizational accounts to make up the difference, while they believe stipends at the district office continue to be paid.

Parents want public education to be at the forefront of Sumter County's priorities, and they want more to be done to preserve the professionalism of Sumter's classroom instructors and education support personnel. They recognize that anxiety throughout the education community has reached a fever pitch, and those who attended the January 23 board of trustees meeting observed the tension and anxiety apparent at that event.

I've never heard of asking educators to take part of the salaries out of student organization accounts, but that's what some correspondents reported after the Monday night conversation. One characterized it as "stealing from students" and chose to forego the stipend.

The next segment, titled "Discipline and School Safety" clearly engendered some angst.

To educators outside Sumter: Do these described conditions sound familiar to you, in your own school districts?

Discipline and school safety have surfaced as major issues of concern to parents and educators. Parents and educators agree that no one should have to enter classrooms, hallways, gymnasiums, locker rooms, bus stops, common areas or any other spaces on school property in fear of what may happen to them there. Parents state that their desire to know their children are safe is their primary reason for considering to remove their children from the Sumter School District.

Many parents are hearing reports from their children, across grade levels, that published discipline policies are purposefully being ignored. Among other things, they report that unruly students are being allowed to verbally assault teachers and menace other students without fear of discipline or expulsion. Unruly students are heard to describe the discipline policies and referral forms as just "a piece of paper."

Parents have learned that administrators are instructed not to intervene to stop student fights, and they are "mortified" that children can be attacked and not protected by adults.

Parents and educators agree that sufficient monitoring of student behavior is not the issue, as professionals are posted throughout schools during school hours. Rather, the issue is full implementation of published student discipline policies. Rules and policies are stated in a student handbook. A discipline test was administered at the beginning of the school year, and students were required to earn a perfect score on these tests to demonstrate knowledge of the published policies.

There is a general awareness among students and educators that some students attending their schools engage in violent criminal activity and in drug trafficking, and have been charged and convicted of these offenses, of which some school resource officers and others are aware.

There is likewise a general awareness among students that school administrators have been ordered not to discipline, and especially not to expel, some students or groups of students defined by race, gender or other descriptors, and that the rationale for this order is to reduce the district's discipline rates. A specific rumor has circulated that the district office has ordered school administrators to reduce discipline cases by 15 percent across the district.

The argument that disciplinary actions have been curtailed in order to reduce the district's discipline rate is being taken seriously because the superintendent's previous employer, the Atlanta Public Schools, widely publicized its success at reducing its reported discipline cases in recent years.

Parents and educators want to know that students and professionals who work in Sumter School District are safe from harm, and that no professional should be intimidated, pressured, or fear losing their employment for reporting violations of published discipline policies by students and by administrators. Signs posted in the schools advise students to report incidents of bullying and other misbehaviors to educators, but both parents and educators feel that the adults have nowhere to turn when the bullying occurs to them, either by misbehaving students or by district administrators who refuse to address these issues. Educators are concerned that principals can no longer defend them.

Questions:
(1) How has the administration addressed discipline during this school year?
(2) Is it true or false that the district leadership has ordered school administrators not to expel any particular students or group of students, defined by race, gender or any other descriptor?
(3) What specific communications or instructions, written or verbal, regarding student discipline have been issued by the district office to school administrators?
(4) Will the district superintendent and board chairman state unequivocally that there has been no order, nor is there any expectation, that discipline cases will be ignored in order to reduce such cases by 15 percent, or by any other specific percentage?
(5) Will the Sumter Board of Trustees consider adopting a "whistleblower" policy that protects school district employees from punitive action when they report violations of published board policies regarding student discipline? If so, will the board allow an independent committee of parents and educators to draft the policy, with input from the board attorney?
(6) Will the Board of Trustees state publicly its support for the professionalism of its teaching workforce, and its respect for school district employees at the school level?

After reading this, I can think of some more questions of my own.

Is there no state law to protect education professionals from convicted criminals in their workplaces?

What is a district's obligation to notify educators that violent criminals are enrolled in a school?

If it's a matter of weighing a minor student's right to attend school against everyone's else right to safety, don't we have alternative schools for this very purpose?

Does Sumter not have an alternative school?

And does not South Carolina provide educational opportunities for juveniles in its penal system? I believe it does; there are certainly teachers who teach incarcerated minors.

What liability does the district bear if a student or educators is assaulted, or worse, by a student who has already been convicted of a violent crime? Could not the district face liability as an accomplice? Has this happened anywhere?

I am especially gratified to see it suggested that an independent commission be allowed by the board to draft a "whistleblower" policy. If one doesn't exist in other districts already, Sumter can be the leader in this case.

In fact, without regard to a school board's decision, what stops parents and educators from drafting their own policy and lobbying to have it codified by the legislature? Who in their right mind would oppose protecting individuals who expose misbehavior?

The next two segments, "Restricted Communication" and "Threats and Intimidation," reflect a large portion of the commentary left by correspondents to earlier notes about Sumter.

RESTRICTED COMMUNICATION
Communication, and the restriction of it, represents a fundamental issue of concern for Sumter parents and educators.

Educators say they have been told unequivocally not to contact or speak to district office staff, district board members or the district superintendent. They've been told not to contact the state department of education unless the matter concerns their own re-certification.

It may still be true that teacher salary schedules posted online do not accurately represent compensation, and ones seeking clarification cannot find clear answers. At least one instance of miscommunication, or lack of communication, caused financial challenges for school district employees, when the new paycheck schedule of the merged district was not clearly communicated to everyone.

THREATS AND INTIMIDATION
Parents and educators believe that threats and intimidation against professionals, whether initiated or tolerated by the district administrators, have no place in Sumter School District. They observe a growing atmosphere of fear among educators, including school-based administrators, in their school system.

It is alleged that at least one educator's employment has been threatened for emailing the district office for information about the payroll schedule.

It is alleged that educators have been warned not to approach district administrators or elected officials.

It is alleged that at least one educator has been warned about having "a target on my back" for speaking out about educators' concerns.

Parents and educators do not want their school district to engage in or support negative behaviors, including intimidation and threats, toward school district employees. School district employees have suffered several consecutive years without pay increases, and have been subject to furloughs, and have been forced to purchase school supplies out of personal funds, and have had restrictions placed on their instructional supplies, including copying, at school.

Educators are fearful of losing their employment, or of having effective departments and teams divided, in retaliation for raising these important issues. Parents and educators agree that these professionals do not deserve to be treated as if they have no value to the school district.

Why should a professional educator not be allowed to communicate with his or her employer, for whatever reason? Are we not adults? And professionals? With credentials that qualify us for the work we do? Have we no rights?

This is, I must repeat, reflective of the underlying ideology in South Carolina's right-to-work-for-less and related laws. Workers, regardless of their professional credentials, continue to be treated in our state as second-class citizens. If what is described by these speakers is accurate -- and I'm curious to learn if these described orders were actually issued in writing -- it suggests we haven't learned much in the past three centuries about recognizing and honoring humanity in one another.

If my paycheck isn't delivered on time and I suffer economic consequences as a result, do I not have a right to understand when the district will deliver my paychecks in the future, so I can avoid future economic consequences? Should I be fired for asking simple questions of the administrators who have the answers? How absurd.

And do we all not, as a matter of basic American civil rights, have a freedom to speak without having our employment status dangled precariously before us?

Professional educators across South Carolina have suffered quite enough at the hands of a miserly legislative majority, predisposed against public education and educators for ideological reasons. They don't need additional dangers, toils and snares to threaten their well-being and livelihoods from their district office. Thankfully, there are a good many school districts, and administrators, who treat professionals professionally.

Now, although "Sweet 16" once looked like the major issue among folks in the district, it apparently was just one side of an iceberg -- still significant, but not the whole magilla.

SWEET 16
Classroom instructors are subject to mandatory evaluation under ADEPT. Implementation of the new evaluation model, Sweet 16, has inspired tremendous anxiety among Sumter's educators, who see the model as redundant and unnecessarily stressful. Some of the stress stems from knowing that anyone can walk into a classroom at any time to conduct the detailed new "audit" or evaluation; under the best of circumstances, unannounced visits cause disruption to a class, no matter how unobtrusive visitors may attempt to be. In addition, documents used to introduce the model contained numerous errors, which didn't inspire confidence in educators who are subject to the new "audits."

Comments made by presenters and widely reported among educators ("We will coach you up or coach you out") were interpreted as unnecessarily antagonistic and threatening, rather than collaborative or constructive. A rubric associated with the model wasn't delivered to some educators for weeks after its introduction, though they sought and requested the document from their direct administrators.

Underscoring this anxiety is the awareness that Sweet 16, in its present form and as presented to Sumter's educators, does not exist and has never existed elsewhere in the United States. While research may exist to support various pieces of the model, and while the component parts of the model may sound appealing and represent best practices generally, the model in its packaged form has never been implemented, tested or studied.

As many parents and educators have conducted their own research, and have asked for aid from state and national agencies to understand the model's origins, they have concluded that the model is not a legal mandate representing state or federal law, and that it may represent an experiment whose purpose they cannot determine.

Further, district office representatives have stated in media reports that Sweet 16 will not be used for the purpose of evaluating instructors, yet the structure of the new "audits" purposefully evaluates instructors.

Finally, although Sweet 16 was promoted as costing nothing to the district, the staffing for Sweet 16's required "audits" represents a substantial cost. Many staff members who were not originally hired to conduct "audits" and evaluations under the new Sweet 16 model are now doing this work, which leads to several questions.

Questions:
(1) When staff members are redirected to conduct "audits" or evaluations under the Sweet 16 model, is their previous work no longer being done?
(2) If their previous work is still being done, who is doing that work?
(3) Is "auditing" the best use of these staff members' time, given the skills for which they were originally hired?
(4) Are all of these staff members qualified to "audit" or evaluate classroom instructors?
(5) Can all documents related to Sweet 16, from "audit" or evaluation forms, to rubrics, PowerPoint presentations and other materials, be posted online for review by educators and parents, as soon as possible?
(6) Can all research supporting the Sweet 16 model in its present form, as introduced to Sumter educators and to which they are now subject, be posted online for review by educators and parents, as soon as possible?

"We will coach you up or we will coach you out."

In order to become an educator in South Carolina's public schools -- unless one slips in through Teach for America or another side door, directly from the private sector -- a body must have graduated high school, graduated from an accredited college or university, and earned a teaching certification. In order to continue teaching in our schools, this professional must suffer through a torturous first few years, then maintain his or her certification through regular coursework, seminars, trainings and other educational opportunities every several years.

And that's without pursuing advanced degrees; if a body chooses to improve his or her credentials and career earning potential, they must earn a masters degree, and perhaps a terminal degree in their field, from accredited colleges and universities.

None of which is a cakewalk.

So I understand perfectly the offense taken by educators who are told, "We will coach you up or coach you out."

How about, instead, helping educators and parents to organize behind a movement to demand sufficient funds from the legislature to guarantee every child access to a great education? And how about addressing the root problems that stymie a family's ability to support a child's education: unemployment, poverty, poor nutrition, domestic violence, lack of access to books and other literacy resources, and lack of access to early childhood education?

How about, instead of threatening educators with, "We will coach you up or coach you out," you say to educators, "We will support your work, come hell or high water, and demand that those in positions of power treat you with the respect you deserve." It's only speculation, but I bet that would guarantee you a workforce that would follow you to the ends of the earth.

But there's more:

TRANSPARENCY AND RESPONSIVENESS
Parents and educators alike believe their community and school district are strong and have tremendous potential that can be realized through collaboration. But they are frustrated at what they interpret, in their words, as a lack of transparency and responsiveness, an attitude of condescension and superiority, equivocation, secrecy and restricted communication. They say that district leaders are not listening to them. They say that district leaders have not given them straightforward answers to direct questions, especially but not exclusively around the new teacher evaluation model.

(For example, they have asked for research, not jargon that supports the Sweet 16 package in the form that it was presented to Sumter County instructors. From so many existing models of instructional evaluation, why was this model developed and chosen? And is it truly useful to give students the option of choosing serious writing or drawing a picture?)

The recent decision to invest sole authority to negotiate and finalize deals regarding property sales on behalf of the board and district was cited as one example of a "power grab" that doesn't reflect the will of the community and which illustrates a "code of secrecy, a veiling of the district office." All of these examples leave parents and educators interpreting that district leaders "do not care" what others think and feel.

FINANCIAL PRIORITIES
As Sumter County taxpayers, parents and educators are asking for clarity regarding the district's financial priorities and policies. There is a perception that in a time of financial strain, the only members of the community suffering cuts to resources are educators and their students. While perception may vary, it is reality that the board of trustees approved a budget granting the district's highest-ranking administrators lucrative salaries and benefits. As one parent noted, "The superintendent is driving a new Jaguar. How am I not supposed to be offended?"

Questions:
How do these reflect a consistent set of priorities and policies?
(1) Educators were delivered a 40-page document to introduce and begin implementation of Sweet 16, yet copying for their classroom instructional needs has been curtailed.
(2) Supply funds to educators were taken, then reduced amounts were given, while district administrators have negotiated large salaries, taken well-publicized travel and used district funds to buy food and other goods for district office purposes.
(3) Educator positions were threatened with reduction without implementation of a furlough; yet new district administrators were added to oversee implementation of a new teacher evaluation model.

The superintendent has stated to school-based educators his opposition to stipends for coaches, band directors and club advisors.
(1) Are stipends still being paid to coaches, band directors and club advisors?
(2) Is it true that coaches, band directors and club advisors were told to take a percentage of their stipends for this year from student organization accounts?
(3) Are stipends being paid to district office staff members and/or to board members?

Is that true? A Jaguar?

I acknowledge that choices are choices, but it's hard to ignore a Jaguar.

Here's what Wikipedia says about the economic landscape of Sumter:

The median income for a household in the county was $44,167, and the median income for a family was $48,970. Males had a median income of $41,083 versus $37,162 for females. The per capita income for the county was $45,657. About 13.10% of families and 16.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 23.60% of those under age 18 and 16.40% of those age 65 or over.

Just sayin'.

INFLUENCE OF BROAD FOUNDATION IDEOLOGY EVIDENT
During the process of researching the new teacher evaluation model and the superintendent's unqualified support for it, parents and educators have made themselves more aware of the Eli Broad Foundation, the Broad Institute, the Broad Superintendents Academy and its graduates. Parents in Sumter have been in contact with leaders of parent groups in other cities and school districts where Broad graduates now lead, or temporarily led, their districts.

Additionally, they benefited from reading Diane Ravitch's "The Death and Life of the Great American School System." They agree among themselves and with Ravitch that they oppose the Broad philosophy of dividing teachers and communities, and of instituting top-down, management-oriented school administration.
Parents and educators are concerned about the change in their community's culture since the introduction of this mode of thinking. Thanks to media coverage of Broad graduates and their records in other cities and school districts, they recognize that the cultural changes they observe occurring in Sumter have occurred in those other places too.

From their research, dialogues and observations, they conclude that the new teacher evaluation model, the perceived effort to reduce reported discipline cases, the restrictions in communication and the consolidation of power at the district office are reflections of the top-down, command-and-control tactics advocated by the Broad Institute. They question whether these tactics and this philosophy of school administration is the best and most appropriate one for Sumter School District.

Parents and educators pack the Sumter board meeting

The review by the Sumter Item of Monday's Sumter County board of trustees meeting was interesting for what it said and what it didn't say. After reading numerous emails from parents and educators in the area throughout today, I went back to re-read the Item's coverage before offering commentary.

The comments of parents and educators continue to be enlightening, and they're attracting the attention of other educators around the state.

A little research into the ideology and reach of the Broad Foundation and the Broad Superintendents Academy sheds a great deal more -- and very valuable -- light on the matter.

The Item's coverage begins,

More than 160 teachers, nurses, principals and other members of the community came out for Monday's meeting of the Sumter School District Board of Trustees.

Some may have been there for the student and staff recognition, but given the response during public participation, many were there to share solidarity as six people came up to speak about SWEET 16, financial questions and communication concerns. One state teachers' association leader said she was there to represent those fearful of speaking out.

Per board policy, the members could only receive information Monday.

"Within 48 hours, the superintendent will respond in writing to every individual who addressed the board," said Shelly Galloway, spokesperson for the school district.

Correspondents explain that, perhaps as a matter of board policy or custom, anyone hoping to speak to the board was required to complete and submit a personal information card in order to be added to the speaking order.

From the dozens of emails that have addressed this school district and its issues alone during the past week, I've seen clearly that education professionals, in particular, feel intimidated and are fearful of retribution for speaking out, even to some mid-level administrators in the district. It stands to reason, then, that being asked to submit a personal information card before speaking to a public board might add a layer of anxiety to the situation.

And, by board policy or custom, only 15 minutes is allowed for public participation on the agenda. I'm sure that accommodation might be made if many more citizens ask to speak to the board at these meetings.

But it sounds as if this sort of meeting, or its agenda, is not designed to encourage input from the public. It clearly isn't designed to yield answers to citizens' questions, as it appears that none were given. Helpfully, the Item quotes the district's public information officer's explanation that speakers are given responses in writing later.

If 200 interested citizens packed a district office to hear questions put to their publicly-elected board of trustees, whose policy is only to hear questions and concerns but not to respond except in writing, and except directly to those who speak, then I imagine that the nearly 200 interested citizens may have left the building feeling unsatisfied.

Except that this isn't exactly what happened.

However, Randolph Bynum, vowing his committment to the Sumter district, said after the regularly scheduled meeting that he was not approached beforehand and some of the information shared was not factual.

Obviously, I believe in a free press. But if the board's policy is to respond to questions and concerns only in writing and only directly to those who raised them, how came the superintendent to answer those concerns to a reporter after the meeting? If policy might be bent to speak to the reporter, might it just as well have been bent to offer a response to the gathering of 200 interested citizens?

On one hand, it's a small thing. Reporters ask some questions and publish some answers. On the other hand, only six speakers reportedly addressed the board, so written responses will be sent only to six individuals -- not to the 200 interested citizens who packed the district office in hopes of hearing questions asked and answered. A little more information, freely shared, might go a long way toward resolving questions in a circumstance as charged as this seems to be.

For this service, from this perspective, we should thank the Item for asking the questions that it did. But in reporting the superintendent's view that "some of the information was not factual," without pursuing to learn which information was accurate and which was not, the report leaves citizens as much in the dark after the meeting as before the meeting.

The onslaught of public participation, he said, appeared to be an effort to incite those fearful of the unknown.

"Incite" is a loaded word. Its definitions include "to stir up" and "to persuade (someone) to act."

Respectfully, the comments of dozens of parents and educators suggest that the implementation of a complex new teacher evaluation instrument has done much "to stir up" feelings about the new direction it represents. If that's the case, citizens may have needed little persuasion to act; drawing attention to the time and date of the meeting may have been all that was necessary.

Barney Gadson was the first person to speak and only one in support of SWEET16, Systematic Way to Ensure Effective Teaching 16, the instructional assessment the district has implemented to help design professional development.

"As my grandmother once said, if you keep doing what you've been doing, you keep getting what you've been getting," he said. "We want all children to have the best education possible, and we want to help the teachers be better, which in turn helps the students and the community. I support you and what you're doing, and so does the group that follows me. Press on."

The Item doesn't identify the speaker as an educator or parent, as it clearly identified the remaining speakers; the information might have been helpful to understand his perspective. Readers are often more skillful at discernment than is credited.

Parent Nicole Williams, however, said she is not impressed by the instructional evaluation tool. Williams said she and her followers could not find SWEET 16 being used in any other states.

"I think most of us can agree if I take various parts in cars and put them together into a Frankenstein vehicle, I can put 'Cadillac' on it, but I can't use the safety standards for the vehicle," she said. "Where is the research that backs it?" She wondered if SWEET16 would benefit teachers.

She also is concerned about the board being "good stewards of finance resources." She gave a couple of examples of the district's spending on fabric and dry cleaners asking how those "improve the education" for the students.

Williams's observation that "Sweet 16" doesn't exist outside Sumter County is valid, so far as internet search engines can tell. Her concerns, and the concerns of another parent who spoke, about district finances ought to be easily proved founded or unfounded by posting finance policies and line-item budget reports, with details, online. After all, we're talking about public revenue being expensed by public employees. Aren't budgets and budget reports considered public documents?

The Item reports,

Jackie Hicks, president of the SCEA, said she was speaking because many teachers were afraid to speak, something she said is currently prevalent in the district.

She quoted one teacher as saying, "This year has been horrible. My love for teaching has been tested. The extra busy work has interfered with planning interesting activities for the students. The amount of work I take home has affected my family. The extra money has affected my finances. At the beginning of the school year, teachers were heard and dared to be vocal, but more and more I'm seeing silence take over. I'm tired, disappointed and hopeless."

She also voiced members' concerns about the Broad Academy's involvement with Sumter County, the four furlough days and no raises for teachers in three years.

Superintendent Bynum is a graduate of the program that identifies and prepares leaders to go into urban school districts and improve education. Some area teachers and community members are distrustful of the Broad philosophy and it could come into play locally.

But the report didn't mention what many -- many -- correspondents have characterized as the most charged moment of the meeting, with words like "prolonged applause and a standing ovation" after hearing a teacher's perspective as part of Hicks's remarks.

Last week, two Republican presidential primary debates were held in South Carolina, and in each of them, comments by former Speaker Newt Gingrich earned standing ovations. Multiple media outlets during the course of the week highlighted the ovations as unique in the history of presidential debates, and coverage of the candidate and the primary race uniformly featured references to them.

So it's striking that after a meeting that drew a packed house, during which the single instance of a standing ovation occurred -- and "sustained" applause appeared to release pent-up emotions of crowded parents and educators -- in response to a teacher sharing the pained perspective of another teacher aloud, that event didn't rate a mention in the next day's edition.

Perhaps it's enough that the article included Hicks's report that 75 percent of her members in Sumter County had "contacted her office with complaints."

Two months ago, a poll showed that 75 percent of Americans agreed with President Barack Obama's decision to withdraw American troops from Iraq. In today's political and social climate, it's difficult to unite 75 percent of a group to take an action or agree with a policy. But the Item's coverage suggests the decision to withdraw American troops from Iraq, and the decision to implement a complex new teacher evaluation instrument, accomplished the same difficult goal. That's significant.

The report returns to additional observations that bend the board's policy on answering speakers' questions directly in writing rather than aloud in its public forum.

Bynum did have a few thoughts after the meeting as did Chairman Addison.

"Quite a few things were untrue and had no factual basis, especially the finances pieces and the SWEET 16 not being researched," Bynum said.

Again, neither the Item nor the superintendent identified which concerns raised by speakers were true or untrue, but he emphasized the general topic of "finances pieces" and "'Sweet 16' not being researched."

If research exists to support "Sweet 16" in the form that the administration has implemented it, it seems clear and obvious that education professionals and parents would appreciate to see and study that research. They seem not to be asking for research that supports the model in any component parts, because "Sweet 16" is a package and has been delivered to education professionals as a package, not as a collection of component parts from various schools of thought in teacher evaluation.

In the interest of answering many questions, the administration might consider posting its supportive research online in a prominent space on the front page of the district's website, making it easily accessible to all.

"I'm sure every parent and every teacher knows if a student doesn't understand it the first time, you reteach it. What extra research is required? ...

Whether the superintendent intended to mean that education professionals didn't understand the presentation of "Sweet 16" in its initial delivery and must be re-taught, or that parents don't understand the model and must be re-taught, the impression is clear and unfortunate in its condescension.

Even if he was referring to "reteaching" as a routine instructional strategy in a classroom, and meant to say that this strategy is one of the fundamental elements of the "Sweet 16" instrument, the reference is misleading. Re-teaching as an instructional strategy is an old one; even student teachers are familiar with it.

Again, "Sweet 16" is a package and was delivered to education professionals as a package. Thus, it's reasonable to expect that the package has been tested and researched, unless this is, as many parents and educators believe, simply a complex and stressful experiment being imposed without input from parents and educators in Sumter County.

He also thinks the teacher associations should have set up a meeting with him beforehand instead of bringing their concerns first into the public forum.

"That piece tonight was choreographed to incite people that have a fear of the unknown, although SWEET 16 should be known to everybody and comfortable by now," Bynum said. "In my opinion, if they were serious about their concerns for the district, they would have scheduled a meeting with me and my cabinet. The goal was to use a public forum to help increase membership."

Responding to the reference to a "fear of the unknown," one correspondent posted the following comment today:

First of all, I was not there because of the fear of the unknown. My fear is very well known and established through the accounts of daily life at school told by my own children. Mr. Bynum, DON'T YOU CALL MY KIDS LIARS! Second, his repeated remarks about setting up meetings with him beforehand and/or meetings with him and his cabinet that would not be public forums...that,in my opinion, validates exactly what we are hearing from the teachers....that they are NOT TO CONTACT THE SCHOOL BOARD! We as parents are the public and the school board and Mr. Bynum and his CABINET serve the public taxpayers. DO NOT TRY TO SQUELCH COMMMUNICATION THAT WE DESERVE TO HEAR! This is not about a Fortune 500 company with a private board of officers! HOW DARE YOU??????????? This is about our children! I hope everyone reading The Item article can read between the lines and see what he is really saying. And one last thing....Who is the EVERYBODY that should know and be comfortable with Sweet 16 by now???? Surely he is not referring to the parents/taxpayers because it is news to us! We need people to contact the school board and stand firm behind our teachers. Our kids are liars and our teachers ARE NOT LIARS! WE NEED TO BE INCITED AND EXCITED!!!!

As this comment is reflective of several dozen that followed publication of the Item's report, it would appear that a great deal is known, and that citizens are reacting to what they know more than to what they don't know.

He said another piece "confounds" him.

"Some people who never wanted me here in the first place are trying to drag out all types of information to alienate or subvert initiatives in place," Bynum said. "Broad's Superintendent Academy doesn't have a brain washing instrument. You don't come out of it after 10 months and want to destroy every school you enter or alienate teachers. It is the finest superintendent academy in the country. Superintendent graduates who have been in place three or more years, their districts outperform districts of similar size of non-Broad graduates. Lastly, Broad had absolutely nothing to do with SWEET 16."

It is reassuring to learn that the Broad Foundation and its programs did not develop the "Sweet 16" instrument; but the question left by that knowledge is amplified by it: Who did?

Finally, the claim that Broad Superintendents Academy certificants "outperform" their counterparts who do not hold Broad certificates has been examined by Education Week magazine, as reported in its June 7, 2011, edition.

There is little or no independent research evaluating the impact of Broad Academy graduates on all the districts where they are placed. The foundation itself looks at five measures of student achievement for academy superintendents who have been in place for three or more years, including students’ academic-proficiency levels, achievement gaps, and graduation rates. The foundation then compares those measures with those of demographically similar districts in the state and with state averages.

Based on its calculations, 65 percent of graduates who have been serving as superintendents for three or more years are outperforming comparison groups on raising state reading and math test scores, closing achievement gaps, and raising graduation rates.

Education Week examined a small slice of performance in six districts with long-serving Broad superintendents: reading and math scores on standardized tests for 3rd graders and 8th graders. In most cases, the results on that measure were mixed, even within a district.

When billionaire businessmen take over public education

A number of correspondents have referred to billionaire Eli Broad and the influence of the Broad Superintendents Academy in American public education over the past decade, and have asked for more information on the topic.

So, what follows is a digest of coverage of the man, his ideology and his training programs for superintendents, principals and other administrators. It's only a sample, by no means a comprehensive report.

You'll want to pop some popcorn and grab a Coke before sitting down for this.

From education researcher Diane Ravitch in 2007, in the earliest days of her change-of-mind about so-called education reform and the tactics of "reformers":

I have been doing quite a lot of soul-searching these past couple of years. I don’t think it is because of age, although one can never be too sure about that. I think I am reconsidering first principles because of the very topics that you hit so hard in your latest letter. Living in NYC, I see what happens when businessmen and lawyers take over a school system, attempt to demolish everything that existed before they got there, and mount a dazzling PR blitz to prove that they are successful.

Lest anyone think that what you described is purely a NYC story, consider this: I hear from various people who participated in the judging for the Broad Prize that NYC will win it this year. This is not much of a surprise. When Joel Klein was first named chancellor, Eli Broad held his annual prize event in NYC and handed Klein a huge dummy check and predicted that one day soon this would be his. The $1 million hardly matters to NYC, which has an annual budget that approaches $20 billion, but the prestige is what the city is after. It desperately wants the confirmation from Broad that its new regime has succeeded.

About 18 months ago, I was invited to meet Eli Broad in his gorgeous penthouse in NYC, overlooking Central Park. I hear that he made his billions in the insurance and real estate businesses. I am not sure when he became an education expert. We talked about school reform for an hour or more, and he told me that what was needed to fix the schools was not all that complicated: A tough manager surrounded by smart graduates of business schools and law schools. Accountability. Tight controls. Results. In fact, NYC is the perfect model of school reform from his point of view. Indeed, this version of school reform deserves the Broad Prize, a prize conferred by one billionaire on another.

From Worcester, Massachusetts, in 2011:

Since 2002, its Superintendents Academy has been preparing educators and others from careers outside education to become superintendents of schools. Unfortunately many individuals who complete this 10-month executive-management program remain completely unaware of the unique challenges faced by teachers, administrators, students and school committees.

Broad Superintendents Academy graduates are brainwashed into believing that charter schools are superior to traditional public schools, high-stakes standardized testing is the only way to measure the progress and achievement of students and schools, and merit pay for teachers will result in higher student test scores. However, much of the educational philosophy of the Broad Foundation, long considered to be anti-teacher union, has been discredited by national studies.
...
Whatever you think of charter schools, standardized testing, teacher unions and merit pay, be skeptical of a billionaire’s master plan for the education of our children. Advocate for local control of our school system. And recognize that, while the mayor and some school-committee members look the other way, the Broad Foundation is pushing a Trojan horse into the Durkin Administration building.

From Seattle, Washington:

Many of us have discovered the Broad Foundation’s presence within SPS and have requested an explanation for why they are here and what their objectives are. In the summer of 2009, we met with Harium Martin-Morris, one of the school board members, to discuss our questions and concerns. He said that he would request a “white paper” from our superintendent, a Broad Superintendent’s Academy graduate and now on the Board of Directors for the Broad Foundation, about her goals and the presence of Broad graduates and residents within our school system. We never got that white paper and Mr. Martin-Morris never explained why we never received that information.
...

The first Broad manifesto stated that the following is all that the state should require as credentials to be a principal and/or superintendent:
"For would-be principals, the state should require a bachelor’s degree, a careful background check, and passage of a test of basic laws and regulations pertinent to the principal’s job, including health and safety standards, special-education requirements, Title I funding regulations, etc. (The test may come after a person is provisionally hired and trained, as described below.) For aspiring superintendents, we believe that the state should require only a college education and a careful background check."

From Broward County, Florida, by way of Seattle, Washington, in 2011:

The following article should be a red flag to you about hiring anyone who has anything to do with Bill Gates or the Broad Foundation.

I would highly recommend that you personally vet each candidate even if it’s a quick Google search, for instance with the candidate’s name and the words “broad foundation”. If there is no connection, great, then continue to check out their credentials, if there is a connection, do not let this candidate pass “Go”.

From Dissent Magazine, winter edition of 2011:

the Broad Foundation, gets its largest return on education investments from its two training projects. The mission of both is to move professionals from their current careers in business, the military, law, government, and so on into jobs as superintendents and upper-level managers of urban public school districts. In their new jobs, they can implement the foundation’s agenda. One project, the Broad Superintendents Academy, pays all tuition and travel costs for top executives in their fields to go through a course of six extended weekend sessions, assignments, and site visits. Broad then helps to place them in superintendent jobs. The academy is thriving. According to the Web site, “graduates of the program currently work as superintendents or school district executives in fifty-three cities across twenty-eight states. In 2009, 43 percent of all large urban superintendent openings were filled by Broad Academy graduates.”

The second project, the Broad Residency, places professionals with master’s degrees and several years of work experience into full-time managerial jobs in school districts, charter school management organizations, and federal and state education departments. While they’re working, residents get two years of “professional development” from Broad, all costs covered, including travel. The foundation also subsidizes their salaries (50 percent the first year, 25 percent the second year). It’s another success story for Broad, which has placed more than two hundred residents in more than fifty education institutions.

In reform-speak, both the Broad Academy and Residency are not mere programs: they are “pipelines.” Frederick Hess, director of Education Policy Studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, described the difference in With the Best of Intentions: How Philanthropy Is Reshaping K–12 Education (2005):

"Donors have a continual choice between supporting “programs” or supporting “pipelines.” Programs, which are far more common, are ventures that directly involve a limited population of children and educators. Pipelines, on the other hand, primarily seek to attract new talent to education, keep those individuals engaged, or create new opportunities for talented practitioners to advance and influence the profession.…By seeking to alter the composition of the educational workforce, pipelines offer foundations a way to pursue a high-leverage strategy without seeking to directly alter public policy."
...
Can anything stop the foundation enablers? After five or ten more years, the mess they’re making in public schooling might be so undeniable that they’ll say, “Oops, that didn’t work” and step aside. But the damage might be irreparable: thousands of closed schools, worse conditions in those left open, an extreme degree of “teaching to the test,” demoralized teachers, rampant corruption by private management companies, thousands of failed charter schools, and more low-income kids without a good education. Who could possibly clean up the mess?

All children should have access to a good public school. And public schools should be run by officials who answer to the voters. Gates, Broad, and Walton answer to no one. Tax payers still fund more than 99 percent of the cost of K–12 education. Private foundations should not be setting public policy for them. Private money should not be producing what amounts to false advertising for a faulty product. The imperious overreaching of the Big Three undermines democracy just as surely as it damages public education.

From the advocacy group Parents Across America, in 2011:

This summary is designed to help parents and other concerned citizens better understand the Broad Foundation’s role in training new superintendents and other “reform” activities, and how the foundation leverages its wealth to impose a top-down, corporate-style business model on our public schools. It is time for communities to become aware of how this major force works.
...
The signature effort of the Broad Foundation is its investment in its training programs, operated through the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems and the Broad Institute for School Boards. The Broad Center for the Management of School Systems is the larger of the two and consists of two programs: the Broad Superintendents Academy and the Broad Residency in Urban Education.

The Broad Superintendents Academy runs a training program held during six weekends over ten months, after which graduates are placed in large districts as superintendents. Those accepted into the program (“Broad Fellows”) are not required to have a background in-education; many come instead from careers in the military, business, or government. Tuition and travel expenses for participants are paid for by the Broad Center, which also sometimes covers a share of the graduates’ salaries when they are appointed into district leadership positions. The foundation’s website boasts that 43 percent of all large urban superintendent openings were filled by Broad Academy graduates in 2009.

The Broad Superintendents Academy’s weekend training course provides an “alternative” certification process which has come to supplant or override the typical regulations in many states that require that individuals have years of experience as a teacher and principal before being installed as a school district superintendents.
...
The Broad Foundation also supports a broad range of pro-charter school advocacy groups, as well as alternative training programs for non-educators who want to work as teachers and principals (Teach for America, New Leaders for New Schools).

In addition, the foundation offers free diagnostic “audits” to school districts, along with recommendations aligned with its policy preferences. It produces a number of guides and toolkits for school districts, including a “School Closure Guide,” based on the experiences of Broad-trained administrators involved in closing schools in Boston, Charleston, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, D.C., Miami-Dade County, Oakland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Seattle.
...
The foundation also helps sponsors media events (a PBS series on the “education crisis” hosted by Charlie Rose, the series Education Nation on NBC, etc.). These programs help promote for Eli Broad’s vision of free-market education reform.

In addition to using his foundation to effect change to American public education, Eli Broad has made personal campaign contributions to candidates who are favorably disposed to his preferred policies, even down to the local school board level. In this way, he has helped influence the selection of superintendents who are aligned with him ideologically, even though they may not be Broad Academy graduates.
...
Broad and his foundation believe that public schools should be run like a business. One of the tenets of his philosophy is to produce system change by “investing in a disruptive force.” Continual reorganizations, firings of staff, and experimentation to create chaos or “churn” is believed to be productive and beneficial, as it weakens the ability of communities to resist change.

As Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, a proponent of this philosophy has said, “…we can afford to make lots more mistakes and in fact we have to throw more things at the wall. The big companies that get into trouble are those that try to manage their size instead of experimenting with it.”

A hallmark of the Broad-style leadership is closing existing schools rather than attempting to improve them, increasing class size, opening charter schools, imposing high-stakes test-based accountability systems on teachers and students, and implementing of pay for performance schemes. The brusque and often punitive management style of Broad-trained leaders has frequently alienated parents and teachers and sparked protests.

Several communities have forced their Broad-trained superintendents to resign, including Arnold “Woody” Carter (class or 2002), formerly of the Capistrano Unified School District; Thandiwee Peebles,(class of 2002), formerly of the Minneapolis Public School District; and John Q. Porter (class of 2006), formerly of the Oklahoma City Public School District.

A number of other Broad-trained superintendents have received votes of “no confidence” from the teachers in their districts, including Rochester’s Jean-Claude Brizard (class of 2008), Seattle’s Maria Goodloe-Johnson (class of 2003); Deborah Sims (class of 2005) while Superintendent of the Antioch Unified School District (CA); Matthew Malone (class of 2003) while Superintendent of the Swampscott School District (MA); and most recently, Melinda J. Boone (class of 2004) Superintendent of the Worcester Public Schools (MA).
...
Eli Broad is a wealthy individual, accountable to no one but himself, who wields vast power over our public schools. Parents and community members should be aware of the extent to which the he and his foundation influence educational policies in districts throughout the country, through Broad-funded advocacy groups, Broad-sponsored experiments and reports, and the placement of Broad-trained school leaders, administrators and superintendents.

Parents Across America considers Broad’s influence to be inherently undemocratic, as it disenfranchises parents and other stakeholders in an effort to privatize our public schools and imposes corporate-style policies without our consent. We strongly oppose allowing our nation’s education policy to be driven by billionaires who have no education expertise, who do not send their own children to public schools, and whose particular biases and policy preferences are damaging our children’s ability to receive a quality education.

From Parents Across America, also in 2011:

How to tell if your School District is Infected by the Broad Virus

Schools in your district are suddenly closed.

Even top-performing schools, alternative schools, schools for the gifted, are inexplicably and suddenly targeted for closure or mergers.

Repetition of the phrases “the achievement gap” and “closing the achievement gap” in district documents and public statements.

Repeated use of the terms “excellence” and “best practices” and “data-driven decisions.” (Coupled with a noted absence of any of the above.)

The production of “data” that is false or cherry-picked, and then used to justify reforms.

Power is centralized.

Decision-making is top down.

Local autonomy of schools is taken away.

Principals are treated like pawns by the superintendent, relocated, rewarded and punished at will.

Culture of fear of reprisal develops in which teachers, principals, staff, even parents feel afraid to speak up against the policies of the district or the superintendent.

Ballooning of the central office at the same time superintendent makes painful cuts to schools and classrooms.

Sudden increase in number of paid outside consultants.

Increase in the number of public schools turned into privately-run charters.

Weak math text adopted (most likely Everyday Math). Possibly weak language arts too, or Writer’s Workshop. District pushes to standardize the curriculum.

Superintendent attempts to sidestep labor laws and union contracts.

Teachers are no longer referred to as people, educators, colleagues, staff, or even “human resources,” but as “human capital.”

The district leadership declares that the single most significant problem in the district is suddenly: teachers!

Teachers are no longer expected to be creative, passionate, inspired, but merely “effective.”

Superintendent lays off teachers for questionable reasons.

Excessive amounts of testing introduced and imposed on your kids.

Teach for America, Inc., novices are suddenly brought into the district, despite no shortage of fully qualified teachers.

The district hires a number of “Broad Residents” at about $90,000 apiece, also trained by the Broad Foundation, who are placed in strategically important positions like overseeing the test that is used to evaluate teachers or school report cards. They in turn provide — or fabricate — data that support the superintendent’s ed reform agenda (factual accuracy not required).

Strange data appears that seems to contradict what you know (gut level) to be true about your own district.

There is a strange sense of sabotage going on.

Superintendent behaves as if s/he is beyond reproach.

A rash of Astroturf groups appear claiming to represent “the community” or “parents” and all advocate for the exact same corporate ed reforms that your superintendent supports — merit pay, standardized testing, charter schools, alternative credentialing for teachers. Of course, none of these are genuine grassroots community organizations.

Or, existing groups suddenly become fervidly in favor of teacher bashing, merit pay or charter schools. Don’t be surprised to find that these groups may have received grant money from the corporate ed reform foundations like Gates or Broad.

The superintendent receives the highest salary ever paid to a superintendent in your town’s history (plus benefits and car allowance) – possibly more than your mayor or governor — and the community is told “that is the national, competitive rate for a city of this size.”

Your school board starts to show signs of Stockholm Syndrome. They vote in lockstep with the superintendent. Apparently lobotomized by periodic “school board retreat/Broad training” sessions headed by someone from Broad, your school board stops listening to parents and starts to treat them as the enemy. (If you still have a school board, that is — Broad ideally prefers no pesky democratically elected representatives to get in the way of their supts and agendas.)

Superintendent bypasses school board entirely and keeps them out of the loop on significant or all issues.

School board candidates receive unprecedented amounts of campaign money from business interests.

Grants appear from the Broad and Gates foundations in support of the superintendent, and her/his “Strategic Plan.”

Local newspaper fails to report on much of this.

Local newspaper never mentions the words “Broad Foundation.”

Broad and Gates Foundations give money to local public radio stations which in turn become strangely silent about the presence and influence of the Broad and Gates Foundation in your school district.

THE CURE for Broad Virus:

Parents. Blogs. Sharing information.

Vote your school board out of office.

Boycott or opt out of tests.

Go national and join Parents Across America.

Follow the money.

Question the data – especially if it produced by someone affiliated with the Broad or Gates Foundations or their favored consultants (McKinsey, Strategies 360, NCTQ, or their own strategically placed Broad Residents).

Alert the media again and again (they will ignore you at first).

Protest, stage rallies, circulate petitions.

Connect and daylight the dots.

From Norm's Notes, in 2011:

In all, 21 of the nation’s 75 largest districts now have superintendents or other highly placed central-office executives who have undergone Broad training.

But as the program has risen in prominence and prestige—758 people, the largest pool ever, applied for the program this year, and eight were accepted—it has also drawn impassioned criticism from people who see it as a destructive force in schools and districts. They say Broad-trained superintendents use corporate-management techniques to consolidate power, weaken teachers’ job protections, cut parents out of decisionmaking, and introduce unproven reform measures.

One of those critics is Sharon Higgins, who started a website called The Broad Report in 2009 after her school district in Oakland, Calif., had three Broad-trained superintendents in quick succession, each appointed by the state. She said she grew alarmed when she started seeing principals and teachers whom she called “high-quality, dedicated people” forced out. She contends in her blog that Broad superintendents are trained to aim for “maximum disruption” when they come to a district, without regard for parent and teacher concerns.

“It’s like saying, let me come to your house and completely rearrange your furniture, because I think your house is a mess,” Ms. Higgins said, adding that other parents around the country have reached out to her to complain about their own Broad-trained school leaders.
...
...the foundation often tweaks the academy curriculum to keep it up to date. However, since its inception, the basic format for the program is a 10-month fellowship that brings participants together for six extended weekends in different cities. Tuition and travel expenses are free.

The program is designed to be a concentrated introduction to the many issues that superintendents face, and Ms. Lepping provided more than two dozen content threads that are revisited over the course of the fellowship year, including labor relations, targeted student interventions, data-management systems, management for continuous improvement, and school board relations.
...
Broad fellows also get continuing, on-the-job mentoring from experienced professionals, can call Broad experts in to evaluate district issues, and are part of a network that allows them to reach out to one another for advice on thorny district-management issues.
...
What the Broad fellows see as a program that provides mentorship and continuing support, their detractors see as a sign of a takeover.

“What I see happening is that they colonize districts,” said Diane Ravitch, an education historian who criticized education venture philanthropy in her 2010 book The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

“Once there’s a Broad superintendent, he surrounds himself with Broad fellows, and they have a preference towards privatization. It happens so often, it makes me wonder what they’re teaching them,” said Ms. Ravitch, who co-writes a blog on Education Week’s website.
...
There is little or no independent research evaluating the impact of Broad Academy graduates on all the districts where they are placed. The foundation itself looks at five measures of student achievement for academy superintendents who have been in place for three or more years, including students’ academic-proficiency levels, achievement gaps, and graduation rates. The foundation then compares those measures with those of demographically similar districts in the state and with state averages.

Based on its calculations, 65 percent of graduates who have been serving as superintendents for three or more years are outperforming comparison groups on raising state reading and math test scores, closing achievement gaps, and raising graduation rates.

Education Week examined a small slice of performance in six districts with long-serving Broad superintendents: reading and math scores on standardized tests for 3rd graders and 8th graders. In most cases, the results on that measure were mixed, even within a district.

And, from National Public Radio, an interview with Eli Broad himself in December 2011:

Ryssdal: There's a tactful way to ask this question, and then there's the expeditious way to ask this question. And so I'll go straight to that way: For all your experience, for all your resources and your success, what do you know about education?

Broad: Well, I know that we aren't getting the job done. I'm looking at student acheivement. I don't see it growing rapidly -- it has too. And how do you change it? You change it -- in my view -- by having better governance, better management -- whether it's the superintendent or the principal. You've got to have better teachers, paid more money -- incentivised -- but held accountable.

Ryssdal: You'll forgive me if I say that sounds spoken like a businessman.

Broad: Well, I'm not sure that some of the things you learn in the world of business, or in government, or in other non-profits can't be applied to education.

"Standing ovation" for teacher's perspective at Sumter meeting

Early feedback from tonight's Sumter Board of Trustees meeting reports that Jackie Hicks, president of the SCEA, carried the perspective of Sumter's classroom professionals to the table, a perspective that earned applause and a standing ovation from approximately 200 parents, educators and others. Writes one commenter tonight,

THANK YOU JACKIE HICKS for coming to our board meeting to say what we can't. The applause and STANDING OVATION tells you all you need to know about what's happening. Please stick with us through this, I think it takes a teacher to understand what teachers suffer. I don't know many of us who can afford to represent ourselves and risk losing our job. Thank you to the SCEA for representing us all.

But it's also clear that many more speakers like Hicks are necessary to continue bringing attention to educators' concerns.

Only one speaker on the public participation list spoke in favor of "Sweet 16," the complex new teacher evaluation instrument. Others reportedly drew attention to expenses on the district's credit card, including one "at a truck stop in Manning on New Year's Eve." Though the questions were raised, no answers were offered in response.

And one parent delivered copies of the educators' comments left at Educating South Carolina's blog posts on "Sweet 16" for board members.

Still, there's no indication that the board will respond publicly to what it heard. If the Sumter Item reports on the event, it'll be recapped here.

In the meantime, feel free to post your own feedback to what was said and heard, what you'd like the board to take into consideration, and what action you hope to see the board take.

UPDATE:

I attended tonight and was amazed at the indifference given to obviously conerned parents - who, I might add, showed the patience and restraint of Saints. When we leave this earth, our lasting legacy will be the children we raise and leave to run this country. Granted, education MUST start in the home, but educators see, interact with, and mentor our children when we cannot. How can they gain parental assistance if they cannot even gain the respect or trust of the administration? Dishonest, unethical, and narcisitic attitudes will not solve our problems. We collectively must forge on to win the day. National attention (Oh, say Bill O'reilly) might be able to cut through the spin zone to make an impartial observation. Here, however, I believe that will be hard to do.

Educators in Sumter: What does "Sweet 16" mean to you?

Is it a birthday party for a 16-year-old girl, a social spectacle to draw everyone's attention?

Is it a bag of empty calories, coated with sugar or chocolate, to create a lot of activity but really making you sluggish?

Is it part of March Madness, a stage in a process of elimination?

In Sumter, thanks to a new superintendent with an interesting record, it's the new instrument being used to evaluate instructors and schools. It looks a lot like ADEPT, given all the "performance dimensions" and "teaching expectations," and given that these "dimensions" and "expectations" are all cross-referenced with ADEPT and the model promoted by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

(Which makes me wonder: If teachers satisfy the "dimensions" and "expectations" of the "Sweet 16," which is cross-referenced with the evaluation model given to national board certification candidates, shouldn't these teachers collect the same state stipend that's given to national board-certified teachers? Just a thought...)

When a teacher in Sumter emailed to ask if I'd heard of this "Sweet 16" scheme, I was clueless. An education professional there shared the new administration's powerpoint -- a hefty, 33-slide monster larded down with tightly-packed text, which is precisely what experts say one shouldn't load onto a powerpoint presentation -- and I've read and re-read it carefully, leading to substantial eye-strain. I don't recommend it to others.

But I certainly understand now the consternation of education professionals in Sumter who will now be subject to it. To put it mildly, the Politburo couldn't have done a better job. For example, each "element" of each "performance dimension" "expects" each teacher to "exceed expectation." Might Joseph Heller have been consulted in its creation?

Shouldn't one expect a professional to "meet" expectation, and reward the professional for exceeding it? What's to reward if your expectation is that every professional exceed expectation?

As foolish as the whole thing sounds, I wonder if it actually represents a sinister motive. As I read the thing, there is an exceedingly narrow path to meeting all the dimensions, elements and expectations; there's only one way to get it all right. But there are innumerable possibilities to fail.

Demand that a professional juggle four balls, recite the Gettysburg Address, blink the lyrics to "Singin' In The Rain" in Morse code AND pedal a unicycle, all while standing on her head and smiling, and I suspect the professional may miss a letter or two of the Morse code when she gets to "I'm happy again!"

Candidly, it sounds like a plan invented by a middle-manager to subjectively fire teachers.

A natural question occurred to me: So where did this plan come from? That's when this became interesting.

Here's Mary Porter, who is not a teacher in South Carolina, but who sheds a little light on Sumter's new "Sweet 16":

I am a chemistry teacher at a low-income public school which has been horribly impacted by Broad's interference.

The "Broad" in question is California billionaire Eli Broad.

Although Broad admits he doesn't know anything about how to teach, the business model he imposes on public schools demands that his "trained" administrators come into our classrooms and force us to follow "standards-driven" teaching practices, supposedly to raise test scores. My district can't provide working heat, light, or running water for my under-equipped lab, but we pay hundreds of thousands to the consulting businesses he promotes. The real drive behind his manipulations is the marketing plan for the useless "services" and products provided (at public expense) by his for-profit entrepreneurial "partners."

Edu-business entrepreneurs hide under a layer of fake non-profits set up by "philanthropists" like Broad and Gates. Broad brags he's "not beholden to public opinion", meaning that, because of his wealth and the political power it buys, he is not accountable to the public. Believe me, Broad won't increase my pay at all. I get up at 5:30 every morning to dedicate my life, a day at a time, to teaching real chemistry. My students go to nursing schools, universities, state colleges and community colleges. When they enter the military, they do well enough on the ASVAB to qualify for specialist training. None of that is due to Broad's business model, though, and I won't promote his agenda. So my administrators have to decide that I'm not a leader.

Another educator, Michael Fiorello, notes the origins of Broad's fortune:

It's revealing that Broad earned the first of his many fortunes building gated communities and subdivisions in white-flight suburbs of Southern California. Originally named Kaufman and Broad, the company is now known as KB Homes, the stock of which is a major part of his foundation's endowment. So, a fortune created by federally- subsidized housing inequalities is then channeled into a tax-exempt foundation that funds the dismantling of the public schools and creation of a separate-and unequal education system. It's almost like a perpetual motion machine, as designed by Mephistopheles.

And Ms. Porter completes the picture:

The other half of his fortune came from his AIG stock - yes, he made another killing on those same defective mortgages, as AIG bundled them into derivitives. He donated most of his AIG stock at its peak to his own privately-controlled education foundation, which dumped the stuff. By the time the crash came, he was out and we educators are trapped under his billions. He also rebuilt New Orleans for Bush - you know how that went.

The housing stock is worse than underwater, now. He brought in cheap drywall from China for his developments, and the walls are now exuding toxic hydrogen sulfide gas which corrodes the wiring and poisons the occupants. The problem surfaced first in Florida, because of the heat and humidity. It's hard to say how many houses are affected, because of course he lies to evade responsibility, but the number keeps going up.

So Eli Broad, according to people who have considered his background, is a business tycoon who is successful at amassing personal fortune.

Is he an educator? No. Even he says he isn't.

Earlier, he’d explained his interest in the way school systems are run: “We don’t know anything about how to teach or reading curriculum or any of that. But what we do know about is management and governance.”

“We’re often accused of having too much influence in education,” Broad said. “I’m not sure how you’d restrict that.”

Yet Broad is heavily involved in education through his nonprofit organization, the Broad Foundation, which trains school boards and administrators -- not in curriculum or instruction, but in management.

What does this have to do with Sumter's "Sweet 16"? We're getting to Sumter, but we have to stop in Georgia first.

With a student population of about 3,000, Pebblebrook High School is the largest high school in Cobb County, Georgia, located just northwest of Atlanta in the community of Mableton. It's home to the county's only performing arts magnet program.

But during the school year of 2004-05, a new principal and the high school's journalism teacher clashed over the school's student newspaper, an award-winning production managed by student reporters and editors. We know this because of what happened at the end of the school year, and because dozens of email communications between the principal and the teacher were made public.

The stories of the involved parties differ: The principal said he had to make budget cuts, and the journalism teacher said the principal had balked at the newspaper's content and at being questioned by students. A reasonable person reading the emails could conclude that the principal was clearly irritated that the newspaper didn't cast him, his decisions and the school in a favorable light -- they weren't "cheerleading" -- and that he delayed meeting with student reporters for as long as possible.

When things came to a head, the principal blocked publication of the student newspaper, cut its funding from the budget, and cancelled future journalism classes. In response, the student journalists opened a weblog, posted all of their content -- including the dozens of internal emails -- there, drew the attention of the Atlanta-area major media, and sought legal support from a First Amendment legal services organization in Virginia.

However, in June 2005, before that issue was resolved, that principal was appointed "Area Assistant Superintendent in the Cobb County School District, the second largest district in Georgia with over 106,000 students in 113 schools." In this new position, the former principal would oversee "17 schools, over 19,000 students, 1,500 staff members, and a $120 million budget."

The contentious former principal and powerful new Area Assistant Superintendent's name was Randolph Bynum.

Very soon, the Atlanta Board of Education was undergoing training in "leadership strategies" offered by a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles, California. Its press release, dated June 27, 2006, announces that the newer members of Atlanta's board were among the 29 board members from 11 urban school districts across the nation trained by the organization. The focus of the training, the release states, was "how to improve school board governance in order to achieve dramatic increases in academic performance for all children." The training lasted six days and was delivered in Park City, Utah.

The organization that trained these school board members was the Broad Institute for School Boards.

The administration of Cobb County schools must have been satisfied with trainings delivered by the Broad Institute in 2006. In 2007, Area Assistant Superintendent Randolph Bynum attended the Broad Institute's separate training program for superintendents, called the Broad Superintendents Academy. Though it is not a degree-granting organization, the Broad Superintendents Academy announced that Bynum "graduated" as part of its "class of 2007."

Within a year, in August 2008, the Broad-trained Bynum was promoted again: This time, he became Associate Superintendent for High Schools in the Atlanta Public Schools, "a district with over 49,000 students in 103 schools." The Broad Superintendents Academy was so proud of its "alumnus" that it published a press release on the announcement.

Bynum had clearly landed a plum role in a significant location. During the past decade, Atlanta Public Schools had earned a reputation for stunning improvement in student achievement, reflected in tremendous gains in student test scores.

That was Atlanta's reputation, of course, until the spring of 2011. In the span of a few weeks, celebrated superintendent -- indeed, national 2009 Superintendent of the Year -- Beverly Hall announced her resignation, and state authorities announced findings of a massive investigation into a widespread cheating scandal. Two of its conclusions, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "A state investigation found former Atlanta schools superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides either ignored or destroyed evidence of test cheating across the district." And, "Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible."

It got worse.

Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.

For years — as long as a decade — this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests. The scores soared so dramatically they brought national acclaim to Hall and the district, according to an investigative report released Tuesday by Gov. Nathan Deal.

In the report, the governor’s special investigators describe an enterprise where unethical — and potentially illegal — behavior pierced every level of the bureaucracy, allowing district staff to reap praise and sometimes bonuses by misleading the children, parents and community they served.

The report accuses top district officials of wrongdoing that could lead to criminal charges in some cases.

The decision whether to prosecute lies with three district attorneys — in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas counties — who will consider potential offenses in their jurisdictions.

For teachers, a culture of fear ensured the deception would continue.

“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t.

The voluminous report names 178 educators, including 38 principals, as participants in cheating. More than 80 confessed. The investigators said they confirmed cheating in 44 of 56 schools they examined.

The investigators conducted more than 2,100 interviews and examined more than 800,000 documents in what is likely the most wide-ranging investigation into test-cheating in a public school district ever conducted in United States history.

And just as Atlanta's meteoric test scores had attracted national attention, so did its scandal.

The 55,000-student Atlanta public school system rose in national prominence during the 2000s, as test scores steadily rose and the district received notice and funding from the Broad Foundation and the Gates Foundation. But behind that rise, the state found, were teachers and principals in 44 schools erasing and changing test answers.

One of the most troubling aspects of the Atlanta cheating scandal, says the report, is that the district repeatedly refused to properly investigate or take responsibility for the cheating. Moreover, the central office told some principals not to cooperate with investigators. In one case, an administrator instructed employees to tell investigators to "go to hell." When teachers tried to alert authorities, they were labeled "disgruntled." One principal opened an ethics investigation against a whistle-blower.
...
"The [Atlanta] teachers, principals and administrators wanted to prove that the faith of the Broad and Gates Foundations and the Chamber of Commerce in the district was not misplaced and that APS could rewrite the script of urban education in America and provide a happy, or at least a happier, ending for its students," writes the AJC's education columnist, Maureen Downey.

By the time the state's findings were announced and the media spotlight burned on the district office, Atlanta's Associate Superintendent for High Schools was already gone, having just left town. On April 25, three hundred miles to the east, WLTX in Columbia reported this news:

The consolidated Sumter School District board has approved Randolph Bynum as the first superintendent the new school district has ever had.

"We want to have community schools in the farthest areas of the county to be along the same lines as mainstream Sumter schools," explains Ernest Frierson, a former board member and one of the residents at Monday night's meeting.

His concern was heard from others who stood at the podium, as well. Their meeting was held near Mayesville, a more rural area of the county. "One of the things that concerns us is that we have a lot of Pre-Kindergarten to 3rd grade children in that community who have to travel a long distance to be educated," Frierson says. He's hopeful the new superintendent will address those concerns.

Not all members of the board agreed on hiring Bynum, the final vote was five to two. But, it was a decision Chairman Larry Addison was pleased with.
...
Bynum is currently Associate Superintendent in Atlanta. Addison and others felt he's up for the challenge of bringing the two districts together. Of course, along with the help of those already in place. Says Addison, "We've got two good districts with a lot of good talent, a lot of good people."

The contract that the board approved will begin July 1st. It's currently a three-year contract with Bynum earning $175,000 a year.

Nice work, if you can get it. While other high-level administrators in Atlanta knew their secret activities were about to become public knowledge, Bynum had landed a choice escape from the taint of a cheating scandal -- and he happily told the Sumter Item of his glee.

Randolph Bynum was excited to learn he would be the first superintendent of the Sumter School District. "If you had been in the Bynum household last night, there were two people but it sounded like 50," he said Tuesday morning. "It's a fulfillment of a dream for me to be part of an outstanding community like Sumter."

Respectfully, it strains credulity to suggest that one who had been an associate superintendent in one of the nation's largest school districts at a time when it outshone the nation in improving test scores had "dreamed" of becoming superintendent in a much poorer district with a much lower profile, many fewer students and fewer schools, and where

The median income for a household in the county was $44,167, and the median income for a family was $48,970. Males had a median income of $41,083 versus $37,162 for females. The per capita income for the county was $45,657. About 13.10% of families and 16.20% of the population were below the poverty line, including 23.60% of those under age 18 and 16.40% of those age 65 or over.

We might speculate that part of the excitement was knowing that the Sumter Item has a fraction of the resources of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, so the wattage of media scrutiny of its schools superintendent is naturally much dimmer.

Bynum wasted no time announcing his resignation to the Atlanta media, who noted the coincidence of his leaving alongside the Atlanta superintendent and other administrators.

Atlanta Public Schools has lost another high-ranking official: Randolph Bynum, the city district's associate superintendent for high schools, was named this week as the new superintendent of schools in Sumter County, S.C.

Bynum officially starts July 1. APS's deputy superintendent for instruction, Kathy Augustine, was picked last week as a lone finalist to lead the suburban DeSoto Independent School District in Texas. Both of their departures coincide with that of Atlanta Superintendent Beverly Hall, who will leave the district June 30 after a 12-year tenure.

And just that quickly, the cheating scandal in Atlanta broke wide open, and news of the state's findings reached Sumter, leading the Item to publish this note:

The Atlanta Public School system has been making headlines for a cheating scandal, which led some Sumterites to ask if the new superintendent of Sumter School District was involved.

Randolph Bynum said neither he nor his two new cabinet members also from that school system, Cassandra D. Dixon for chief teaching and learning officer and Lisa M. Norman for chief curriculum and accountability officer, were involved.

It's a brief note, not quite the same as hard-hitting investigative reporting, but let's look at it carefully.

The Atlanta Public Schools enrolled 55,000 students, making it smaller than our Greenville Public Schools (70,210 students) but larger than Charleston County Schools (about 42,000 students). Students enrolled in the newly-consolidated Sumter school district totaled about 16,400 as of its December 8, 2011, report to the state Department of Education, which means that the Sumter consolidated district is comparable in size to Lexington-Richland District 5, which ranks 16th in the state by student population.

If Dr. Penny Fisher, superintendent of Greenville's schools, has a "Cabinet," I cannot find mention of it on that district's website, although she has an organizational chart that certainly reflects the needs of a 70,000-student district. Likewise, I cannot find any evidence that Dr. Steven Hefner, superintendent of Lexington-Richland District 5, claims to need one; nor can I find evidence that a district of Lexington-Richland 5's size needs a detailed organizational chart. Maybe it has one, but it isn't advertised online.

Yet Bynum has not a "leadership team" or even "administrative team," but a "Cabinet." That's fine. People use different words to mean the same thing. Presidents and governors have Cabinets and superintendents have administrative teams, but what does it matter that a superintendent likes to call his administrative team a Cabinet? It's word choice. It's a small thing.

And does it matter that Bynum differentiates between a "Senior Cabinet" of seven administrators and an "Expanded Cabinet"? Of course not. Still, the words are there on the superintendent's organizational chart, prominently placed on the district website.

Which was established and circulated on July 11, ten days after his arrival.

And which includes the names Dixon and Norman, who are presumably the Cassandra D. Dixon and Lisa M. Norman named in the Sumter Item, the two Cabinet members that Bynum brought with him to Sumter as media scrutiny illuminated the cheating scandal of that city's school system.

Further, they are presumably the same Cassandra Dixon and Lisa Norman whose names appear on the title slide of the administration's powerpoint presentation co-introducing (with Joan Sagona and Cornelius Leach, respectively) the complex new evaluation tool called "Sweet 16" to Sumter's classroom teachers.

It would seem that Sumter's recent consolidation and need for a new superintendent, and the willingness of Sumter trustees to hire the new superintendent's Atlanta staff alongside him, were fortuitous circumstances indeed for a new superintendent and two of his seven "Senior Cabinet" members. Can it be that the district office on Wilson Hall Road has a "Cabinet Room" now?

And did the Atlanta Public Schools use "Sweet 16" before the new superintendent and his aides brought it to Sumter? Is it a product of the Broad Foundation, in part or entirely?

Sumter is truly a wonderful place to live and work. Unless, now, you're an education professional who teaches, and you're now subject to "Sweet 16."

The Sumter Item, understandably supportive of its new school district and hopeful for its new superintendent, published an introductory message from Bynum on August 14. After re-reading the email correspondence of Bynum and the Pebblebrook High School journalism teacher in Mableton, Georgia, from 2005, one can't help but imagine that Bynum would have appreciated the same acquiescence from student journalists then that he's receiving from Sumter's mainstream media today. In it, he did not mention "Sweet 16."

The Item did publish a note on September 16 announcing the introduction of "Sweet 16."

SWEET 16 is not a birthday party Sumter School District is planning.

Systematic Way to Ensure Effective Teaching 16 is an instructional audit system aimed at improving professional development by observing 16 elements of classroom teaching. According to paperwork in the board packets, the "framework enhances the skills of classroom teachers to direct the new work of standards-based learning in order to lead the state in improving student achievement."

Let me translate: No Child Left Behind taught teachers to "teach to the test," no longer to teach to educate. Since the implementation of NCLB, however, new research (especially by an analyst named Robert J. Marzano, whose work is now the flavor-of-the-year in several states) has shown that "an effective teacher enhances student learning more than any other aspect of schooling that can be controlled."

So the new goal, thanks to NCLB, which is still in effect, and the work of Marzano, is that we have to make every teacher fit a predetermined definition of "effective," then make that teacher teach to the test.

Voila! Improved student achievement -- accomplished by tough-as-nails administrators with minimal resources and a teaching workforce judiciously weeded and beaten into submission.

Except that, as classroom educators understand, that isn't how children learn.

Google "Sweet 16" and "teacher evaluation" and you'll discover that the program exists only in Sumter County, South Carolina.

Google "Robert J. Marzano" and "research" and you'll find that Marzano himself, underneath all the gobbledygook, only identifies nine "essential instruction strategies for effective teaching."

In market economics, buying a nine-piece product and repackaging it as a 16-piece product is called inflation; this is a concept that business tycoons understand, which suggests that there's a thick slice of Broad Foundation philosophy sandwiched together with Marzano's strategies in "Sweet 16."

Are Sumter County's teachers about to suffer under a hyped-up evaluation system that the board of trustees didn't know they were buying, and don't really understand?

This is a lot of information to digest, but here are some questions to ponder:

What kind of influence will the Broad Foundation and Broad-trained administrators seek to impose on a developing rural and suburban district like Sumter?

Did the selection committee of the board of education know all of the information that is publicly available and easily accessible on the internet about the new superintendent before choosing him? If so, how did they plan to respond when the baggage from Mableton and Atlanta arrived on their doorstep?

Should those who cover education for the Sumter Item get in touch with education reporters from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to better understand the new superintendent's history and style? And to better understand who was imported alongside him?

Should a fuller discussion of a complex and unique new evaluation tool be conducted in public before it's implemented, especially if it's designed to replace existing evaluation systems and subjectively remove educators from their livelihoods?

Should Sumter's classroom professionals and parents find out more about the Broad Foundation's philosophy and history in public schools, and about their new superintendent and his Cabinet, and about the origins of "Sweet 16," the complex new teacher evaluation tool that their board of education has agreed to impose on them?

Should educators and parents in other school districts pay close attention to what's happening to their counterparts in Sumter, to be prepared when the same phenomenon occurs under a different label in their own communities?

NOTE: For educators who've arrived at the post for the first time, a follow-up to it is found here.

To those who have posted responses and who have wanted to post responses, be aware that you're not alone -- and that educators across South Carolina, and now outside the state, are becoming aware of your circumstances. The best solution will come when educators feel free to organize themselves, supported by parents and community leaders, and take charge of our education professions, as is the case already in many other states.

Teaching is the most important job in America, and our state and communities should move heaven and earth to ensure that the knowledge, experience, commitment and passion of education professionals is respected, supported and rewarded, every day.