Critics of the new Wake County school board majority are in an uproar over Del Burns' resignation as superintendent.
As noted in today's article, Burns' surprise resignation announcement was met with shock by all sides. But for those fighting the new board majority, the shock was mixed with fear about what would happen without Burns at the helm.
"It makes my stomach hurt. It frightens me as a parent," said parent Vickie Adamson, who was ruled out of order by board chair Ron Margiotta for saying Burns left because he was unhappy.
School board member Carolyn Morrison said Tuesday afternoon that she hadn't "stopped shaking" over the news of the resignation. Morrison had hired Burns for his first teaching job in Wake in 1976.
"You can read in between the lines," school board member Keith Sutton said of Burns' reasons for leaving. "I think he said what he felt."
Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker said Burns’ resignation is a signal that the new board majority should slow down. School board member Anne McLaurin is Meeker’s wife.
“The new school board majority needs to rethink its approach to everything,” Meeker said. “The current threat to our school system from the new majority is a major issue for all of us.”
Comments
What about the fact that
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 16:03 — jenmanWhat about the fact that he's on a 4 year contract. From what i understand, we would have to pay him out if the BOE fired him. Are there no repurcussions for him not following through?
As long as he gives 90 days
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 16:14 — KeungHui (author)As long as he gives 90 days written notice he can leave before June 2013. He would have had to pay a $30,000 penalty if he hadn't given the 90 days notice. Most supts. have their contracts extended each year up to four years in advance as job security. If the board had bought his contract out he'd have been owed 18 months salary.
thanks for the info.
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 16:53 — jenmanthanks for the info. Interesting.
This makes his resignation
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 12:07 — woodstockThis makes his resignation even more welcome. Clearly, he was unwilling to work with the new BoE and help them implement the long-overdue and much needed changes the voters demanded.
....
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 12:02 — SideburnsThanks, Keung. When will this little tidbit be reported?
So, he's stirring the pot with his decision to say he's resigning rather than retiring. Resignations are much more dramatic I guess.
Slash and burn ... how much
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 11:23 — user12345Slash and burn ... how much more damage will the Newbies cause ... this is looking like a long down hill spiral costing us more and more .... given that 95% of the parents are happy with the school system the new board is take chances to satisfy the other 5%.
user, I have to admit, I
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 12:49 — shearertwuser,
I have to admit, I was surprised that 95% of the parents are happy with the school system and was even beginning to revised some of my thinking with regard to how fast certain changes should be made. Since then, however, I've dug a little deeper. I've begun to express my surprise at the survey results to a number of people only to find out that many of them believe that although they are NOT satisfied with the system, they fully understand how their answers on the survey could have been interpreted that way. You see, many parents are still very nervous about how their children may be reassigned and to what school. Many believed that their answers on the survey may lead to a reassignment that is WORSE than their current situation. So they answered SATISFIED just to prevent reassignment to the unknown, not because they're actually happy with the system. There is no doubt many people ARE happy with the current system, many of those, however, have one child, kids in HS only or their kids are in the magnet program.
So Basically You're Saying That
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 20:15 — chaboarda) the new board couldn't be bothered to take the time to design a survey that would *accurately* capture parental opinions
AND
b) Parents DON'T TRUST the new board enough to even give them information.
Sounds like a pretty long way to stretch to avoid the fact that 95% results are hard to argue with - indeed given the sample size are strong enough to overcome (for purposes of determining majority view) pretty much ANY bias due to bad methodology.
Not to mention a pretty bizarre set of argumnts to ve using to try to SUPPORT the untrusted board that ordered and ok'ed the survey.
Analysis
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 13:43 — SDR256This is why analysis of the data is so critical. Misinterpretation is so easy.
"95% of the parents are happy with the school system"
As I understand it, the 95% response was in reference to a question of satisfaction with your assigned school outside of calendar considerations. Therefore, it would be incorrect to interpret that 95% of respondents were satisified with the school system. It would also be incorrect to interpret from this question that 95% of respondents are satisfied with their assigned calendar. Also, the fact that one family could submit several responses gives some question to the percentages.
A respondent could - simultaneously - be relatively happy with the academics, UNhappy with the calendar, and STILL respond in a way that would hope to give them more stability because they didn't want to move again. Giving parents some options within their local sphere as in the community schools model, would address a large set of these seemingly contradictory incongruities. Also, a better survey that captures the key details of unique family views and analyzes them into patterns would be a better way to come to conclusions. Trying to boil it out into YES or NO to confusing questions is not the way to do it. Better to have a lot of more detailed questions, or to be clearer about what you are trying to get at.
Was there an overall question that asked how happy the respondent was with the overall school system? I missed that one.
I congratulate the board for making the attempt to listen to parents. But this survey was seriously flawed. Let's not make it worse by extrapolating conclusions that aren't there.
Has staff released a conclusion document associated with this report, or only the detailed findings? A professional summary report would be in order here so that the public stops spinning on what they think it means. Those who designed the survey would be in a much better position to conclude whether it got at what they were looking for or not, and just what that was afterall.
Not the purpose
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 15:25 — supportwcpssThe purpose of the survey, as directed by the Board, was not to determine satisfaction with the system. It was a calendar survey.
So we can all agree that the Board failed miserably on the execution of this survey. Or is this where you can't possibly blame them and throw all the blame on the staff. I'm waiting on that one. the fact is the buck stops at the Board and they screwed it up.
As for the results, you can't just say 'bad survey' and throw it out. There are real results even if you choose to ignore them. What is ironic is that if the results would have been flipped none of you would have poked holes.
And as doe sheartw comments - There were 40,000 surveys filled out - Are your opinions based on the same 5 people you always complain too...
support, I think you're
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 15:38 — shearertwsupport,
I think you're 100% correct. The purpose of the survey was to determine people's opinions with regard to calendar choices. Perhaps they failed, prehaps they succeeded, I'm not sure. It will probably take a professional in the survey arena to figure that out.
I'm simply pointing out that the interpretation that the survey suggest 95% of the folks are happy with the system (per user) is INVALID. You seem to be seconding that opinion. Thanks for the support, support. Pass that info on to user.
Not sure
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 15:46 — supportwcpssYou almost made it all the way through a civil post but couldn't hold to the end.
If you want to wordsmith user's comment for the sake of being combative that is your choice. The fact is a lot of people are happy in the school they are in. I think the results show the school they are in is the most important thing for them independent of distance, calendar, etc.
Overal, without nitpicking the survey, I think it shows us all there is a balance across our community as to what people want and no one, including the new Board, wants to deal with that balance. They just want to sling mud, tell people they are wrong, ask them to prove their side, and so on.
Right now I see no hope for any successful change. The Board will run roughshod over everything to the point that piss 8% of the people who come out for the next election and we then have a seesaw effect. I applaud Ms. Goldman and Mr. Sutton in some respects for at least getting anywhere close to the middle. The rest are just dug in and not moving on both sides.
Your Last Paragraph Has The Unfortunate ring Of Truth
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 21:00 — chaboardexcept....things are actually even WORSE than you say.
There will be no "seesaw" in the next election no matter how badly the board pisses off the public because none of the 5 in the majority will be up for re-election then. It will be TWO cycles before any of them can be thrown out....even though it's pretty clear NOW that they do not have anything remotely resembling the clear support of the public.
And by then it will be too late - they will have totally destroyed the school system through a combination of blind ideology, raging incompetence and utter contempt for the public. Basically we've now got George W. Bush at the local level. And no way to get rid of him for YEARS.
Not that bad
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 22:15 — supportwcpssI meant the next go around with them in 4 years. I actually don't think it will be that bad because basic buracreacy will set in and no matter how much they want to, things will move slowly.
There will be no "seesaw" in
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 21:52 — Eric_BNot true. Ron's seat is up for election in 2 years.
Soo....
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 14:50 — Bob_SconceIf it sheds any light, I believe we said we were generally satisfied in response to that question. But, that doesn't mean I support the past board's policies.
Nicely put SDR. I bet
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 14:49 — shearertwNicely put SDR.
I bet user brings up the 95% number at least 1000 times over the next 6 months even though any intelligent individual can see the flaw in that logic. It took me a couple of weeks for it to sink in but user's so smart, he should have figured it out in just a couple of hours.
User, please help me out here. Why are you so consumed with putting out misleading arguements such as this and the "whole" school scores, etc? Do your arguements not have merit of their own without spinning the data and misleading the less informed?
Problem solved
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 14:49 — g88ky07User should be crowned the next Super! Or maybe Whaler, since he feels he has all the answers!
Correct.
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 14:23 — NWRaleighMomI responded as satisfied on a school survey. I felt that different response would be unfair to principal and teachers in our school who work very hard with limited resources they have.
me too.
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 15:40 — jenmanme too.
Thanks for the sanity.
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 13:49 — woodstockThanks for the sanity.
95% of parents is not the
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 11:56 — red_balloon95% of parents is not the same as 95% of voters. Also, if 5% i.e., 7000, are dissatisfied, and if you assume 80% of the dissatsified showed up to vote i.e., 5600, then you can't reconcile the purported level of satisfaction with the number of votes garnered by the new BOE members i.e., the level of satisfaction is at odds with the vote for change.
Red ... the only people who
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 13:16 — user12345Red ... the only people who really care about the schools are people with kids in school ... the 95% happy people ... voter without children in school for the most part could care less about the school ... that is why they don't show up for BOE elections ... their concern is just not paying taxes ... as long as the schools are acceptable (e.g. NCDOE has not sanctioned them), at the lowest possible cost than all is fine... red, Ron called in all of his friends to rally and support the new board from Taxpayers and JL (where I think he is on the board) and no one showed up ... people don't care
Now, I just feel sorry for
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 11:41 — woodstockNow, I just feel sorry for you. You are not even attempting to remain rational.
I did not know Burns on a
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 09:40 — shearertwI did not know Burns on a personal level to speak to his character so I will not. I can say, however, that the priorities and values he set for this school system are completely against my core beliefs. With that I wish him the best....
Moving forward....the moaning and whining by Meeker, Anne and Sutton has absolutely made my day! Its now time to begin a search for someone who is interested in educating all children in the county. They absolutely MUST be from outside of WCPSS and possibly NC. Time to start working on the short list. Put you blogger research hats on and dig in. The new superintendent will be the most important individual in the future of WCPSS and the futures of both ED and NED children in Wake Co.
Burns is gentleman and was
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 08:24 — woodstockBurns is gentleman and was an effective administrator for many years, but it cannot be denied that his narrow-minded focus on status quo principles and inattention to low-income students helped facilitate the landslide victories enjoyed by the new BoE members.
I never understood why Burns was so reluctant to express his opinion or display his passion. What is his passion? Even in his resignation speech he was tepid and lacked clarity. I hope he does well, but it was time -- past time -- for him to go.
This is a serious question, honest
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 11:54 — festus"...inattention to low-income students helped facilitate the landslide
victories enjoyed by the new BoE members"
Was poor performance by low-income students *really a key campaign issue for all five members of the Board majority? Or were they and their supporters mostly driven by 1) reassignment resentment, 2) magnet resentment, and 3)long commutes to schools? Because I am under the impression from this blog that 1, 2 and 3 were much discussed but low-income performance has really only appeared since opponents of this new board raised the specter of resegregation after the election.
To explain: I was out of town last year and tried to keep up by reading this blog
and the N&O.
but low-income performance
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 15:35 — jenmanbut low-income performance has really only appeared since opponents of
this new board raised the specter of resegregation after the election.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Concerns about low income students' performance was around before campaigning even began. As Bob mentioned, we were all led to believe that reassignment for diversity & magnet programs were helping low income kids and low income schools. After people started finding out that wasn't the case most of the time is when they really started questioning the 'diversity policy'.
Thanks
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 21:13 — festusAppreciate your perspective, jenman. It does seem to me that there has been a subtle shifting on this blog since November toward highlighting past problems with poor students' underperformance. At least compared to August-November. I am one of the majority of parents in Wake County (I believe, it is hard to measure this when most polls have been push polls) who support diversity in the schools. I am also concerned about poor performance among lower income students, and I see this as the one area where supporters of diverse schools can work with supporters of neighborhood schools. Clearly those scores have to improve. My concern of course is that segregating the poor kids into a handful of schools will worsen, not improve, their situation.
Festus, I do agree that we
Thu, 02/18/2010 - 11:14 — jenmanFestus,
I do agree that we can work together on low income performance. I also think that there is a difference between supporting diversity in schools and supporting the current diversity policy. I support diversity but there are so many things wrong with how its being done. Finally, there was a poll done by PPP that showed the majority of people do not support the current diversity policy. I don't think it was a push poll at all--it was done by Dean Debnam of PPP so if anything, he would have pushed it towards favoring the policy.
I enjoy talking with you here on the blog. I think we agree more than disagree--we just have different methods of getting where we both want to be.
Honest Question
Thu, 02/18/2010 - 13:54 — supportwcpssDo people even know what they diversity policy is when they answered the question? In general I would guess the answer is no, or a false assumption of what it is supposed to be.
And from your posts, I think we actually agree that we should have something in place but maybe not the way it has been implemented.
Keung posted a link to the
Thu, 02/18/2010 - 16:31 — jenmanKeung posted a link to the wording of the poll back when the results were reported. I think they said 'busing for ses diversity'. I'm pretty positive busing was in the wording.
Good question.
I share your concerns. I
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 21:50 — carson79I share your concerns. I agree that people highlight low income kids doing bad more now than they used to, but I don't think it's because the didn't know before (come on people havent heard of the nationwide achievement gap?) or that they got a visit from the ghosts of Christmas past and future. I don't know why it is, they are not even right about it half the time - saying 38% of enloe ED kids graduate? I think one of the ladies repeated that 20 times on the blog and it was not true.
I think the poor performance was used as a weapon to tear down magnets and current assignment patterns.
"inattention to low-income students"
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 13:33 — Athey01I think its safe to say, at least on a blog...the academic performance of low-income students is not a high priority. If so, what is really going to change with a neighborhood school approach? What specific program has been identified? Other than J Tedisco, has any other person on the new majority even broach the subject? What campaign promises were made to address low-income students? Reassignment and magnet schools are the really concerns. Anything else is strictly window dresssing, in my humble opinion.
Unless or until you have a specific plan to address low-income students, you will never receive any support from the pro-diversity group.
Unless or until you have a
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 19:20 — jenmanUnless or until you have a specific plan to address low-income
students, you will never receive any support from the pro-diversity
group.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No matter what we do we will never have the support from the pro-diversity group. There's too much politics involved. Now individual people within that group, yes. But the group as a whole? never.
Unless or until you have a
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 19:20 — jenmanUnless or until you have a specific plan to address low-income
students, you will never receive any support from the pro-diversity
group.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No matter what we do we will never have the support from the pro-diversity group. There's too much politics involved. Now individual people within that group, yes. But the group as a whole? never.
Ok, Then Change The Focus
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 21:16 — chaboardForget the politival aspect and recast the claim in terms of the kids:
Until you have a specific plan to address low-income students, you cannot reasonably or believably claim to care about low-income students. (Particularly when you DO have a plan that inarguably will isolate a whole lot of them together in schools perfectly set up to fail).
So far there's been nothing more than vague hand-waving about "more resources". In an environment where they are already $20 million short on cash and climbing, so everyone knows there will not BE "more resources".
If you wonder why a lot of us think the new board doesn't give a damn...it's because they've never even so much as hinted at any concrete proposal to indicate that they do.
Until you have a specific
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 21:52 — carson79Until you have a specific plan to address low-income students, you cannot reasonably or believably claim to care about low-income students. (Particularly when you DO have a plan that inarguably will isolate a whole lot of them together in schools perfectly set up to fail).
If you wonder why a lot of us think the new board doesn't give a damn...it's because they've never even so much as hinted at any concrete proposal to indicate that they do.
Thank you very much for posting this...I couldn't agree more with the sentiment .
The new board members have
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 21:58 — Eric_BThe new board members have been in office less than 3 months. Let's give them some time. Personally I have heard many suggestions from them. Here are a few ideas that have been put out there:
I have to say here that
Thu, 02/18/2010 - 11:07 — jenmanI have to say here that these ideas are more than we've seen from past BOEs and WCPSS admin. (WIth the exception of Eleanor Goattee who was a huge supporter of TAP and thought it should be expanded). Otherwise the only solution ever offered was busing.
I think that the formation of the at risk achievement taskforce is a big step. Before it was all about busing the kids to create healthy schools, ignoring the fact that the low income kids still weren't performing as well as they should.
The ideas listed are going to take time and/or resource that
Thu, 02/18/2010 - 07:30 — Athey01are not currently availabile. I'm willing to wait for a specific plan; However, I'm unwilling to move forward with other initiatives until I see the plan. I'm from Missouri.... I'm not buying until I have seen the cow.
Ok, that's the 2nd foul word
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 21:47 — g88ky07at least, that you have used. When will others call "cha cha i'm bored" out?????????? How dare we have to put up with your foul tone!
All of the above. The 3
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 12:13 — loriacAll of the above. The 3 year plan really woke up many voters - we were told to 'suck it up for the common good', ie making sure no school was above 40% F&R. As voters like me started to dig into this, we learned that the Policy 6200 drove reassignments that caused a lot of problems for people, but did little to help ED kids. That was the wakeup call - along w/ the results (poor ED test scores and graduation rates).
The magnet resentment was really helped along by magnet students attending BOE meetings, drawing attention to the superior offerings of their schools while they were truly only interested in diversity. Meanwhile, many non-magnet schools have few or 0 electives.
Ah yes!!!
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 12:57 — choice4allThey hid them well and then ripped away all support for the children. And the title 1 funds were spent where? Good for D Prickett for asking.
Now if you are in a Magnet well then you get it all. And the non magnet Middle schools have ZERO electives. The magnets? well they have 2 schools within those schools. Now thats fair and equal~sarcasam off~
Seriously why is the focus on the resign..er..retirement (whatever it is) all about that he helped the ED? And remind me how he helped? when they only hid them? Everyone else has to take a back seat?
To many, the 54% graduation
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 12:10 — woodstockTo many, the 54% graduation rate for economically disadvantaged students in Wake County was key. It helped quantify the ineffectiveness of the many of the failed school policies Burns help orchestrate.
"To many, the 54% graduation
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 13:05 — user12345"To many, the 54% graduation rate for economically disadvantaged students in Wake County was key. It helped quantify the ineffectiveness of the many of the failed school policies Burns help orchestrate"
Bull .. 98% of Wake county residents have never heard of nor care about 54% .... it was a marketing point by WCSA only that probably won't change under the Ron either ...
Hmm...
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 13:13 — Bob_SconceI don't know if everybody knows the 54% number. But, I do think that they know that the district is throwing families into disarray over a diversity policy that's failing the students its intended to help. It's OK to say "I'm sorry, we have to reassign you AGAIN, but you should know that it's doing somebody else a lot of good.", but when it turns out not to do any good at all, then people, understandably, get angry.
So
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 11:58 — Bob_SconceThose are all interrelated. Reassignments, the magnet policy and long school commutes are all driven, at least in part, by the district's policy of scattering low-income students across the county like peanut shells on a parade ground. If that policy was actually effective at helping low-income students, then there probably would not have been as much resentment for those policies.
Also, you forgot Wacky Wednesdays. That was a very clear indicator of how out-of-touch the past board was to the needs of families.
Dr Burns did the right thing
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 08:27 — Voice_of_Reason_I hope the school board finds a new superintendent from outside of WCPSS. I think this is important to be able to see things in a fresh light. I also hope for one that has business experience, not necessarily a lifelong educator. In addition, when they make the new contract, I hope pay is tied to performance.
Months from now, a new
Wed, 02/17/2010 - 08:04 — red_balloonMonths from now, a new superintendent will be in place. With a new BOE and superintendent, 2010 promises to be a watershed moment in the history of WCPSS.