Unusual Agenda Setting

The December 20th issue of the Nashville City Paper had a front page story on a mother, Kanaan Dopp, who wants better options in Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) for her profoundly gifted (140+ IQ) son.  She has succeeded in getting this high on the agenda of our Director of Schools.  How did she do this?  Through careful documentation that this was a high-priority issue in accordance with goals and objectives set by the school board?  Nope:

Dopp’s mission landed on Director of Schools Pedro Garcia’s radar after she recently found herself in line ahead of him at the Nashville airport.

Since telling her story, Dopp has spoken to Garcia’s cabinet and parent advisory council and inspired a trip to Denver where public funding pays for a gifted program in every school.

Denver has an urban school district like Nashville’s with 72,000 students and a diverse student population.

Metro Chief Instructional Officer Dr. Sandy Johnson said the trip for a five-member Nashville delegation was paid for with professional development funds that are sometimes used for seeing firsthand what other schools are doing.

“You have to look outside if you’re going to grow as an organization,” Johnson said, adding they recognized the need to do more in the area of gifted education.

Weird.  How many CEO's of companies with a $500 million plus budget set their agenda and go flying off across the country based on a conversation in an airport line?  If this was such an important problem, why wasn't it already on our agenda?  And why can we go look at excellence elsewhere, but ignore it in our own back yard?  Or, was it that this fits the bill for administrative passion?  It's a "program" they can control, rollout, and manage.  It's a "feather-in-the-cap" kind of thing that they can point to when applying for that next job.  That's a lot sexier than focusing on teacher engagement and improvement, student culture, and other tougher but more meaningful problems.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I do think some (not all) really gifted kids struggle in normal school environments and could benefit from more association with peers more on their intelligence level.  This could be a good program.  Should it have priority on leadership time?  I doubt it.  I suspect those who've spent their careers in MNPS working with (and fighting for) gifted students (Beth O'Shea, for example) could have put together a team and come up with a proposal.  But, of course, that would have meant passing on the glory.  Regardless, it's a weird way to run a school system.

Comments

[aschoolyardblogger]

Um, in my local Denver area district when you become an administrator you automatically get a health club membership and personal appearance coach. One of the meetings the principal I worked with loved most was the one where his sinus doctor told us all how to keep our noses clean. Not really, he told us about viruses or something. The folks in our district fly all over looking at things. Then they come home and say they are doing them. You can do something in one classroom for one hour, get it videotaped or let a visitor come in and you are doing it. It is a scam those in the know in education cover their own eyes with. It could be that the folks in Nashville are just getting on the party circuit.