How should Nashville proceed?

In response to an article in the Tennessean on our superintendent, Pedro Garcia, calling for the public to improve schools, I recently posted this on a yahoogroup for Nashville PTO talk:

He was hired four years ago because of too-good-to-be-true test score gains in California.  Now, our budget is way up, morale is way down, and test scores are flat -- and he wants the public to make schools better?  Weird.

That drew this response:

Dave -- let's make this positive. Why should he not ask not the community for help to make the schools better?  I think it is high time the districts says it cannot do it by itself.  Parents or some significant adult in each child's life needs to stress the importance of education. Children need to come to school ready to learn.  The teachers cannot do this for the students.  I believe students need to be held accountable, too.

What would you recommend the district do to improve the schools. Bear in mind the NCLB testing mandates are in place at least for the foreseeable future. I do not see the district giving up its federal funding to get out from under the NCLB dictates.

FYI -- There was year-over-year improvement in test scores.  However, the three year trend was flat.

I know you served on the school board for four years.  I am truly interested in your thoughts about how the public schools can be improved.

Looking forward to your response --

And I replied as follows:

Elizabeth, I understand the desire to be positive.   But, when the patient is bleeding from a major artery, it's not a good time to talk about how clear his complexion is. 

#1 -- Decide if Dr. Garcia is the right person to lead this school system now.  He has failed in his promised improvements in student achievement, but those are promises we never should have believed anyway.  The disturbing question is whether he really believed them.  If he did, then we need to know how he has changed.  If he didn't, we don't need him. 

Assuming we get past that hurdle, does he have the liking, respect, and trust of principals?  Is he articulating a reasonable strategy for how we are going to move forward?  Can the individuals on the Board back him?  If he isn't, pull the plug and try again, hopefully without continuing to make the mistake of looking for a program implementer.

#2 -- Get a handle on morale.  The passion, engagement, and effort of teachers is the most vaulable resource of this or any other school system.  Almost all systems give lip service to this concept; virtually no systems act like it.  Unfortunately, the leadership (board and administration) has failed to implement a system that would provide good data on this over the past few years -- and such a system was possible.  Correct this now.

#3 -- Put the planning time back in the calendar and reinstitute lesson study.  I think Dr. Garcia should re-assemble the committee that launched that effort, he and Dr. Johnson should personally apologize for belittling and dismantling it, and ask that group to help resurrect it.

#4 -- The Board should start an immediate study of urban systems where the market share of public schools has dropped to less than 75%. Do we want to be like those systems?  If not, why not?  What does the Board plan to do about it?  We're hemorraghing kids and familes who can afford to get out.  That's not a good sign.

#5 -- I agree that getting the community involved is a good thing.  St. Paul has been pretty successful now over a number of years with a program of encouraging students to read 25 books per year.  They started it with a big community buy in that even included public leaders committing to read.  Sounds like a good idea to me.

#6 -- Bail out of the urban schools caucus.  Our budget has increased dramatically over the last four years and all we've got to show for it is more private schools, and more of our community's leaders' children in them.  Now is NOT the time to be saying that this Board, which has overseen that result, should be in charge of taxes.   

Secondly, if the Board was given taxing authority, it would be a political disaster.  The Council (and Mayor) would then be perfectly free to wash their hands of the whole issue and make pounding the schools a regular pastime since they would have no authority and therefore no responsibility.  Further, you'd see races for the school board turn on who would swear most profusely that under NO circumstances would they raise taxes.  If you liked the horn honkers, you'll love those board races. 

Finally, it ain't going to happen -- the politics are all wrong for a bunch of reasons.  So, by being involved, we generate hostility and lose credibility for no purpose.

#7 -- De-emphasize the strategic plan as a policy tool and go back to an Accountability Framework with no more than a dozen goals (fewer would be better).  Require a report from the Administation on ALL of them the first Board meeting in July, starting this July.  The current strategic plan has simply diluted accoutability into reams of action items and time lines and what not that virtually no one reads or pays attention to.  This is par for the course for such plans and we should admit it and move on to a more easily understood, remembered, and believed framework. 

Well, you asked; though I suspect few in leadership positions in this city would join you in that request!  As for your other points, I don't see NCLB as a hindrance to any of these steps.  Good teaching promotes good learning, and good learning, on the whole, will be reflected in the test scores. That will be enough.

Dave Shearon