At last, movement!

It has been a busy week for APS.

APS firing process could begin next week | ajc.com
Educators accused of cheating in Atlanta Public Schools could be notified as soon as next week of the district's plans to fire them, Superintendent Erroll Davis said Friday.

About damned time.

A state investigation released in July accused 180 Atlanta educators of cheating; about 120 remain on the payroll at a cost of $600,000 a month to the city school district.
The report said cheating took place in 44 schools. More than 80 educators confessed. All of those named in the report were placed on paid administrative leave by the district, although many have chosen to resign or retire as months have passed with almost no action by APS.

Well, why hurry? APS seemed content to continue to pay them while they dithered.

Davis said the district is now ready to move forward because attorneys have access to the evidence needed to build a case against the accused. The Fulton County District Attorney's Office, which is conducting a criminal investigation, has agreed to let the district view evidence.

About damned time.

The district is under pressure to resolve the cases before May 15, the deadline for deciding whether to renew teaching contracts.

You mean you could just do nothing and let the accused educators go? Well, great! What's the problem?

Nonrenewal is tantamount to firing.

Huh? Not in any other industry, it's not.

Firing teachers is an expensive and complicated process that could take months to resolve. Teachers with three or more years of employment can only be fired for eight allowable reasons. The teacher can request a tribunal hearing to decide whether the charges are warranted. The decision can be appealed several times, up to the state Supreme Court.

What a sweetheart deal the educators have. (See previous post, specifically "90 educators have what is commonly termed tenure".)

But wait. If it's so damned difficult to fire a teacher with cause, and "failure to renew contract" is the same thing as "fire", then why were teachers so terrified under the previous regime that the SRT Directors (deputy superintendents), or their lackey principals*, would passively fire them by simply not renewing their contracts? Doesn't tenure (or "what is commonly termed tenure", which makes it sound like this isn't what would be called "tenure" in any other context) protect you from that, too?

Supporters of these protections say teachers need a shield against unwarranted accusations.

"Supporters" = teacher unions, I get that. But if these protections work so darned well against a new broom trying to sweep clean, why weren't these teachers equally well protected from the corruption of the previous administration?

There's an awful lot of story here that hasn't been explained yet.

* "Lackey principals" = principals who threaten to slash a test administrator's tires if they don't falsify CRCT scores. I don't think "lackey" is too strong a word. I'm told that isn't all of them, and I suppose that's probably true, but how can we know?

Running out the clock, year two

Teachers named in cheating case may get another year contract | ajc.com
Atlanta Public Schools might have to offer new employment contracts in May to 90 educators implicated in the cheating scandal because of job protection rights built into state law.
...School officials say the since 90 educators have what is commonly termed tenure, the district must offer them another yearlong contract or be prepared to show why they are letting the educators go.
...The district is spending about $600,000 per month to pay the salaries for the 120 educators named in the report who did not resign or retire.
..."[Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard] is certainly aware of our needs to get all of this done before we enter in period where we have to issue new contracts," APS Superintendent Erroll Davis said.

This will be the second time they've drifted into a year of being paid for not working, since the accusations hit last year right after the accused were offered contracts for 2011-2012. Sorry, parents, but it looks like crime does pay after all.

We might even have to let 'em back into their classrooms, because we can't afford to pay 'em not to teach.

Where are the kids?

APS Redistricting: Who Actually Goes To Their In-Zone Schools - East Atlanta, GA Patch
We looked at the numbers to see where the children of East Atlanta Patch actually go to school at the elementary grade level.

Not surprisingly, schools in better academic standing had higher attendance rates from in-zone students. Mary Lin Elementary in Candler Park for example, has 586 students zoned for the school, which includes the Inman Park and Lake Claire communities. Ninety-five percent — 560 students — of all kids zoned for Mary Lin attend the school.

In comparison, Ed S. Cook Elementary, a poor-performing school, has 458 students in its attendance zone, which includes Cabbagetown, Reynoldstown, Capitol Gateway, Summerhill, and a portion of Grant Park. But only 53 percent, or 245 students zoned for Cook actually go there.

There must be some missing factors here -- perhaps private schools, since APS only cares about those charter schools it hates so much -- but looking at the numbers as presented (difficult to read, impossible to save despite being presented in spreadsheet format), there may be a significant number of kids who aren't going to any school.

Assuming I'm wrong about that, the number of kids going to schools other than the one they're zoned into is still far larger than I thought it was. This shouldn't have surprised me, given the number of parents I found standing in line to request what was then called an administrative transfer back when I had kids of elementary school age.

What really surprises me, though, is that the other neighborhood Patches aren't running the same numbers for their respective areas. If I were the AJC, I'd consider assembling a "school shopper's guide" for about this time every year (because you should already be thinking about where your child will go next year).

Ripples

Cheating allegations follow former APS official | ajc.com
Millicent Few, who once served as APS' chief of human resources, was brought in by well-known Superintendent Paul Vallas to serve as a consultant in Bridgeport (Conn.) Public Schools, a 20,000-student district. But the district severed ties with Few on Tuesday after she had two days on the job.

...Few resigned from APS in July shortly after state investigators released a scathing report alleging cheating took place at 44 Atlanta schools and involved about 180 educators. Few, who joined APS in 1999, is accused of illegally ordering the destruction or alteration of documents and making false statements to investigators.

The article goes on to point out the resemblance to Kathy Augustine's situation in suburban Dallas, but also points out a big difference: Few was only intended for a short-term consultant's job. She wasn't being considered as a full-time employee, nor for a position of leadership or management.

But the big similarity, and the one that attracts my attention, is the fact that neither system could be bothered to do a Google search on their candidate's name before putting her on the job. The Atlanta situation (and Few's name) was all over the news, so it's not like information would have been difficult to find.

I'm seeing two possibilities. One: The education industry is a big social club, and membership in one chapter qualifies you for membership in all of them. She's already got her credentials: Further investigation would be... rude. Two: Few's actual sin (and Augustine's, and Hall's) lies not in her unethical actions, but in getting caught.

I'm thinking that many educators really don't see an ongoing need to change they way they do business in response to so many of them getting caught gaming the system.

But of course she hasn't actually been found guilty of anything.

"Leave our school alone" / "I wish I could"

APS Redistricting: Superintendent Gives His Take On The Debate - East Atlanta, GA Patch
"I'm not sure what purpose is served by sending me 100 copies of a standardized position paper, without adding anything to it," [Superintendent Errol B.] Davis said in the meeting at APS' central offices Downtown. "I just want to hear the argument."
..."I'm not in any way bound by what the demographers have put out there."
...Davis said he understands parents' concern regarding how the redistricting may affect educational quality.
It's the underlying theme behind what Davis said has been a common refrain from parents, namely, to leave their school alone.
"My answer to that is I wish I could," Davis said.

It's not a job I envy. There's no way to make everyone happy: It may not even be possible to make anyone happy.

The facts are these:

• Some schools are overcrowded: Others are "under-crowded". Atlanta is badly in need of redistricting.
• The current preference is for larger elementary schools: The economics of building maintenance encourages it. However, many existing school buildings are very small by 21st-century standards. Most simply cannot be renovated or expanded. For some the issue is financial due to age, or state of repair (especially currently idle buildings, which have been vandalized and/or plundered); Others are limited by the size of the land parcel on which they sit.
• The school district can't force children to live where the empty classrooms are. But transporting children to more distant schools creates transportation problems, as well as neighborhood cohesion issues.
• The capacity of the building determines the size of the zone it serves. The areas that need the most expansion are those that have the least room for it.
• Every parent recognizes that redistricting is a difficult proposition, and generally understands the reasons why. Yet they are all saying "Make up the difference somewhere else: Leave my child's school alone."

There's one more elephant in the room I haven't mentioned: Some schools suck. It's no secret that this is true, and it's no secret which ones. Addressing that issue means identifying, and actually openly stating, why they suck. For some it's simple understaffing. For others it's incompetent teachers (not necessarily all, but it doesn't take many to drag the whole school down). For some it's incompetent administration.

And for some, and here's the one nobody wants to say, it's the nature of the neighborhood from which the students come. I do not accept that these students are not teachable. I do suggest that they require a different approach. The nature of the system is that the teachers with seniority and experience, the teachers best able to cope with difficult students, can use their seniority to escape from the environments in which they are most needed.

I'd like to say that this has nothing to do with redistricting... But no attempt at redistricting will be successful if the problem isn't addressed.

After you, Alphonse / Oh, no, after you, Gaston

More APS educators barred from classroom | ajc.com

Five educators accused of cheating in Atlanta Public Schools have lost the license to work in a classroom, a state ethics committee decided Thursday.

The five, whose names were not released, violated ethical guidelines set up by the Professional Standards Commission, which certifies and monitors Georgia educators. Four teachers received two-year suspensions and the license of one test coordinator was revoked.

A total of 16 educators out of about 200 have been sanctioned as a result of the Atlanta school cheating case. Punishments have come slowly because of concerns the work of the PSC would complicate an ongoing criminal investigation.

Dear Professional Standards Commission: Piss or get off the pot.

The district attorney is clearly not interested in prosecuting these cases. You look like cowards waiting for the DA to do your jobs for you. No one can fault you for pulling the credentials of anyone actually found guilty of criminal charges. And you must be dreading the prospect of being sued by any teacher whose license you revoke who is later found innocent. Looks like you have no confidence that you can make your case for unethical conduct that skates by a court of law.

Seems to me that making tough decisions like that is why they pay you.

Seems to me that the difference between "unethical" and "illegal" is why the Professional Standards Commission exists in the first place. If all you're going to do is rubberstamp a document handed you by the courts, then you're just redundant.

And isn't there some kind of "open records" law that requires you to name names when you take an action?

Sixteen out of "about 200". This is pathetic.