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Capitol Hill and the Seattle Shadow School Board

Seattle Public School Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson is probably not enjoying the city’s summer vacation. As the School Board prepares to vote this Wednesday whether to extend her contract past its 2012 expiration date, there has been a wave of no-confidence votes by teachers in the schools she oversees. We checked in with school board member Kay Smith-Blum, representative for Capitol Hill’s District 5 and a resident of the neighborhood, about the situation.

“For me the most important factor with any leader in our district is student achievement,” said Smith-Blum. “Our current numbers reflect a significant problem in math and science, particularly with our populations of color.  Preliminary numbers presented at the end of the school year do not show significant progress on most levels,” Smith Blum said.

Smith-Blum said she was also concerned that the superintendent shows strength in “positive interactive engagement and building relationships which increase our ability as a district to access all possible support from our community.”

When it comes to community, Goodloe-Johnson is having a rough go of it thanks to a group calling itself the Seattle Shadow School Board which has been especially critical of the superintendent. Group member Sahila Changebringer posted information about the Shadow group’s effort to CHS last week:

The majority of community comments include calls for the sacking of the Superintendent and point to her many failures, from the $48M school closure/re-opening fiasco (which for Capitol Hill families included the closing of two schools – TT Minor Elementary and Meany Middle School – despite the District’s own reports that the neighborhood would see an increase of school-aged children of anywhere between 31-100% between 2008-2012), to her continuing conflicts of interest to degradation in services provided to Special Ed children and to the mismanagement of funding for the Native American program, threatening its continuity.

The post goes on to report that the group is not only asking the school board to not renew Goodloe-Johnson’s contract — the post says the group also wants her fired “due to her ineffective leadership, poor decision making and management of Seattle schools on so many fronts.”

Critics also take issue with the superintendent’s position on the board of a standardized testing company. As reported by Publicola.com earlier this year, Goodloe-Johnson sits on the board of directors for the Northwest Evaluation Association, a Portland based non-profit who was hired to “administer a k-9 diagnostic test known as MAP (Measure of Academic Performance)” for SPS for the 2009-2010.

Seattle Shadow School Board’s Changebringer expresses discomfort with this partnership.

“Would corporate shareholders allow an executive to have this sort conflict of interest in the private sector?  Probably not, but we are letting it happen in Seattle Public Schools,” said Changebringer.

School closures and the process of shuffling programs around the city due to budget constraints have also been an issue, Changebringer claims.

“If anything the closures in north Seattle and Capitol Hill have created a huge lack of options for an increasingly large number of kids entering elementary school,” Changebringer said. “The district ignored the fact that there was a baby boom five years ago or that these places are becoming gentrified.”

The finger pointing has also been directed at the school board.

“At some point the school board decided that it didn’t work for the people, but for the superintendent,” argues Charlie Mas, parent and former school board candidate.

“I believe that the job of the school board represent the public and provide oversight, and I don’t think they are doing either,” added Mas.

Mas predicts that the July 7th vote will go in Goodloe-Johnson’s favor.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the school board will extend her contract,” said Mas.

You can learn more about the Seattle Shadow School Board here: http://seattleshadowschoolboard.pbworks.com/

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No to Goodloe-Johnson, Yes for
No to Goodloe-Johnson, Yes for
13 years ago

Yes, the Board will extend her contract. They love a superintendent who is racist and has no problem supporting charter schools against public schools and wants education privatized.

Stacy Lawson
Stacy Lawson
13 years ago

I’m not huge fan of Dr. Goodloe-Johnson’s, but I’m not sure that sacking her is the answer either. Districts do better with consistent leadership, and we’ve lacked consistency for years. The board and the Superintendent need to work together and not in opposition as was the case with Raj Manhas who was in my opinion a good superintendent with a crippling board who didn’t get a chance to work his vision. Manhas could not close schools because the board didn’t support his decision. The question that I have is whether or not this school board can do something to help G-J. I’d love to see her have a bit more time with a contract that spells out expectations and ties performance to pay. How about a low base pay contract with goals and objectives spelled out. What’s happening now in the school district is a result of a confluence of politics, budget, changing demographics, and a school board and a director not aligned. Let’s work with G-J, push her on her weak points, pay her based on performance, and take some time to decide if she can do the job if she has clear directives. As I said, I’m not a huge fan, but I think continuing to exchange leadership with hopes that it’s just the superintendent who is broken misses the mark. This is in part a system problem.

dorainseattle
dorainseattle
13 years ago

I will be giving this testimony tonight at the Seattle Public Schools’ Board of Directors’ meeting regarding the performance of our school superintendent:

Good evening.

This is regarding the performance evaluation of our superintendent, Dr. Goodloe-Johnson, who is also a board member on the NWEA board of directors as well as the Broad Foundation.

What I have seen over the last two years as a parent in the Seattle school system is a disconnect between the decisions made by the superintendent and what our community needs.

There has been little to no understanding as to how our neighborhoods are growing and how we relate to the communities that we live in. There has been and will continue to be growth in the Central District and the Capitol Hill areas and yet schools were closed last year.

We had a budget deficit of $35 M last year and yet our superintendent hired additional staff while teachers were laid off, most of them Broad residents.

We take pride in our alternative school programs that have no equal in the United States and yet some of those programs have been dismantled rather than supported.

At first glance one would think that the actions of the superintendent don’t make sense, but they actually do. There are two different agendas at play in Seattle. There are the goals of the true stakeholders in our schools, the parents, students, teachers and our neighbors who understand what is needed in terms of education, smaller class sizes, clearly defined and consistent wrap around services, adequate materials and books and a safe and comfortable environment in which to work.

But there is another agenda at work as well.

This is from the Broad Foundation’s annual report for 2009 written by Eli Broad:

“The election of President Obama and his appointment of Arne Duncan…the U.S. secretary of education, marked the pinnacle of hope for our work in education reform. In many ways, we feel the stars have finally aligned.

With an agenda that echoes our decade of investments—charter schools, performance pay for teachers, accountability, expanded learning time and national standards—the Obama administration is poised to cultivate and bring to fruition the seeds we and other reformers have planted.”

There is a clash of agendas and values between what Eli Broad and Bill Gates think is best for us even though neither has any experience in public school education and what we know will work. Class sizes do matter. No, schools should not be closed, principals fired or half of a teaching staff removed because a school is “Low Performing”. It takes money that can be counted on on a consistent basis, not one time bribes to the top, to ensure that each student receives the education that has been promised. It takes a commitment to those schools, students and families to work through the issues that face some of these children every day. You don’t just close schools. That impacts the lives of everyone in that neighborhood and shows a lack of faith in those families that are impacted the most.

And no, we don’t want our teachers to teach to the test.. Performance pay is based on test numbers and if merit pay happens in Seattle, our children will lose out on a well-rounded education and the opportunity to develop their creative and critical thinking skills.

We need someone sitting next to our School Board President who shares our goals and values not someone who was placed in Seattle to carry on the dreams and hopes of a wealthy few. Then the stars will have truly aligned for us in Seattle.

Charlie Mas
Charlie Mas
13 years ago

Stacy Lawson’s comments need response.

She wrote: “The board and the Superintendent need to work together and not in opposition as was the case with Raj Manhas who was in my opinion a good superintendent with a crippling board who didn’t get a chance to work his vision. Manhas could not close schools because the board didn’t support his decision.”

It is true that Raj Manhas and the Board worked in opposition, but let’s remember who works for whom. The superintendent works for the Board – not the other way around. So the superintendent should have gotten with the Board’s program. It is the Board, not the superintendent, who should have the Vision. If he’s not doing what the Board wants him to do – and he didn’t – then he is NOT a good superintendent.

Also, read the report by the blue-ribbon committee he formed, the CACIEE. The whole first half of the report describes how Raj Manhas did a perfectly dreadful job as superintendent and utterly failed to fulfill any aspect of the job. He was NOT a good superintendent.

Also, don’t say that Board didn’t close schools because they did. They closed several.