Buildings Don’t Teach Students

See this article and white paper from the John Locke Foundation, via the NC Education Alliance. A recent study showed that expensive buildings do very little to help teach students, the teachers do the teaching. Again, the question has to be asked why it costs so much more to build a school in Guilford County than in Forsyth County. Consider this as the GC school board prepares to ask you for more money, along with our Gov to support our schools.

E.C. 🙂

CMS Continues its Aggressive Reform Effort

See this article from today’s CLT Observer.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Supt. Gorman is replacing nearly 40 “ineffective teachers” because of low NCLB-mandated EOC exam scores. And Gorman is enticing teachers to apply for these suddenly-vacant positions by offering up to $15,000 signing bonuses. By the way, these positions are in highly-impacted high schools in Charlotte such as Waddell, West Charlotte and West Mecklenburg H.S.

Comments?

E.C. 🙂

Chicago School Students Make Big Gains

Again, an example of how a big-city-run school system is making big turnarounds.

In the 1980s, then-U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett called Chicago Public Schools the “worst in the nation.” What a difference 20 years make. In a Chicago Sun-Times article, some of the lowest performing public elementary schools in Chicago are now posting some of the largest gains, both in the city itself, and statewide. Illinois’ NCLB-mandated exams, the Illinois Standards Achievement Tests (or ISATs), have been called into question as a result of the recently-released test scores.

“State Board of Education officials insisted 2006 ISAT questions were as tough as 2005 ones, but admitted the introduction of color, lots of graphics that kept kids’ attention, and a new answer sheet that made it harder for kids to fill in the wrong bubbles may have helped,” the article says. 

“It could have improved gains, absolutely,” said Interim [public education] State Supt. Chris Koch, in the article.

From worst to first! That was the title of a book released a few years ago where the then-Continental Airlines CEO Gordon Bethune wrote about the massive turnaround of Continental Airlines. That same theme could be applied to some of our most highest-impacted schools in North Carolina, including the ones on Judge Manning’s blacklist. If this turnaround can be done in the nation’s third largest city, most certainly it can be done in North Carolina.

E.C. 🙂

AP: Bill Gates Lobbies for Better Schools

Bill Gates speaks again…and Congress is listening.

See this AP story where the father of all-things-Microsoft testified on the Hill yesterday arguing that better schools with higher standards and expectations are what’s necessary in America to prevent jobs from going overseas, along with immigration reform. He wants Congress to push for for higher educational standards and to make more challenging coursework available to students, the article says.

“Gates also called on lawmakers to give more resources and attention to improving the teaching of math and science – knowledge essential to many of today’s jobs,” the AP story says.

Comments?

E.C. 🙂

The Power of the Blog

Never would I thought that I would be running for school board. Never would I thought I would be writing an (almost) daily blog–I never thought I would find time to do it. But seeing how easy it is to wrap your personal thoughts around issues you care passionately about, it was a no-brainer.

I was talking about this with my wife last night about how powerful a force the local Greensboro-area bloggers are, and how many of them (Ed Cone, David Hoggard, Sam Hieb, among others) are changing the face of how news is delivered and how news is covered in Guilford County. We’re not a bunch of net-geeks, but rather seasoned, informed, concerned citizens who participate in the democratic process, and partly do it in an unconventional way…through blogging.

I’m proud that the Greensboro bloggers have welcomed me and this campaign through syndication, and as of today, this blog is now syndicated statewide. I want to welcome those of you reading this blog for the first time in the Triangle, in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, in Eastern NC, Western NC and the Coast.

This blog, and my companion website, deals with serious issues surrounding Guilford County Schools, the lackluster state of public education, educational issues, and how I plan to bring reform to GCS as a school board candidate in next year’s election.

I’m looking forward to reaffirming my commitment to you, my readers (and new readers), supporters and curious onlookers, to deliver timely news and comment and analysis of all things related to public education in Guilford County. It is my commitment to you.

Welcome. And thank you.

E.C. 🙂

Peyton Wolcott Supports This School Board Campaign

Review yesterday’s post on the idea of posting school system check registers online.

I said yesterday that I thought it was a very good idea. For any governmental body, the concept of transparency is good governing. And responsible governing seems to be a foreign idea to Guilford County Schools. The genius behind the idea of posting district check registers online is Peyton Wolcott, a national school reform advocate. Take another look at her site. Because she wrote in last night:

 “EC, just learned that you’re running for the school board in Guilford.  Congratulations on your decision to run. 

I have followed Terry Grier for some time now because of his involvement with ERDI.

On the far right side of my Reader Q&A you’ll find some pledges; the first pledge was one of the keys to our success in placing all five of our reform candidates on the local school board in May 2004.  (Things were so bad that in addition to the three spots coming up in normal rotation we had two resignations.)  www.peytonwolcott.com/ReaderQuestions.html

The idea of getting school districts to post their check registers online has really taken off since it began Oct. 1; if you’d be willing to commit to pitching this to your board and/or community I’d be happy to put a red diamond on North Carolina on my new map. 

Wishing you all the best.

Peyton Wolcott”

I added her site to my blogroll on the right-hand side of this page. Since my school board campaign is a grass-roots effort, I think we can bring this idea to GCS’ attention publicly. I publicly support this idea. And I plan to work with Ms. Wolcott to make that happen in the weeks and months to come.

Many teachers, again, have sent me e-mails complaining about lack of supplies at their schools and wondering where all of the money is going. Teachers and citizens have the right to know where all of the money is going.

I have made this a campaign promise to ensure that all GCS facilities have the supplies they need to operate. I still find it crazy that teachers spend their own money to supply soap for school bathrooms. There’s something very wrong with that.

E.C. 🙂