The superintendent of schools in Franklin County, Vermont, “blasted” the faculty and administration of the high school for resisting innovation. He demanded a faster pace of change because the school is not making progress towards the NCLB goal of 100% proficiency,
The school’s proficiency rates are about the same as the state average.
Can’t help but wonder how many schools in Vermont will hit the goal of 100% proficiency.
I wonder what leadership manual recommends blasting the people you count on to do te work.
UPDATE: Jersey Jazzman did some research and found out that this superintendent was a principal, never a teacher, and that he has taken a leave of absence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Good grief. He would do well to read a little Bob Sutton (as should a lot of school leaders): http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/
What, exactly, does this foul-mouthed superintendent want his teachers to do?
He launched a prototype for some sort of vaguely defined “flexible” system. OK: how about seeing how it works before jumping head first into a radical restructuring of the school?
BTW, if you are judging your high school on 11th grade standardized tests, you most likely don’t know the first thing about teenagers. 16-year-olds loathe those tests – they’re up to their ears in SATs and ACTs and APs and their teachers’ tests. The last thing they care about is another state assessment.
This vulgar fellow might have a lot more credibility with his staff and the community if, instead of yelling at them, he presented them with a well thought out plan.
We seem to be awash these days in “school leaders” who get angry at everyone else because THEY don’t know how to actually lead.
I have an excellent bit of advice for the teachers at this school. They should join forces with the parents and insist that the superintendent model instruction for the teachers. In this way the teachers can find out how to get 100% profiency and everyone will be happy. They can videotape the superintendent teaching high school classes and then sell the DVDs around the country. Then all the schools in the U.S. will have 100% profiency! I am so proud of myself for thinking of this!
Oops: Proficiency. Sorry!
Linda, you are so right. I have decided that if a supervisor ever expresses dissatisfaction with my teaching techniques, I will honestly request that they demonstrate how it is I should be teaching … Not just tell me … Show me.
This just happened yesterday in our Las Vegas valley schools, if they didn’t turn it around they would be replaced.
I too teach for Clark County. You don’t hear our fearless superintendent bragging about last year’s turn around school test results do we? We hear change takes time, unless of course, we mere mortal teachers are involved, then it better happen now!
He must have read the same manual as an administrator in my district who can not understand why we aren’t further along in the curriculum. Apparently it’s because we’re not trying hard enough, not because they are small children and you can only pour so much information into them in the course of a day. I am not a slouch and I work my students hard, but by God, they are seven years old! They cannot go full-throttle all day long. More administrators need to leave their air-conditioned offices and spend time in the trenches. If they can do better, they can replace me. Otherwise, leave us alone!
Oh, my goodness:
http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20121205/NEWS02/312050022/-1/NEWS/Franklin-superintendent-taking-leave-absence
“The Franklin Central Supervisory Union school board voted Wednesday night to accept Superintendent Robert Rosane’s request for a leave of absence.
Supervisory Union Special Education Director Julie Regimbal is to serve as acting superintendent at Rosane’s rate of pay, the board said following the vote that occurred as 9 p.m. approached.
Earlier, in front of a full house at the school board meeting, several speakers urged that the outspoken superintendent be fired. About 100 people were present at the session.”
I feel a post coming at my blog – stand by…
What a perfect example of an edubully: insults and makes outrageous demands of others but checks out when the going gets tough! As a TA who worked with many teachers, I can vouch for the fact that he wouldn’t have made it through one day at the schools I worked at.
Even a barely adequate teacher has more backbone than this leader wannabee.
More on this guy:
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2012/12/great-moments-in-reformy-tantrum.html
Guess what? He was NEVER A CLASSROOM TEACHER.
I know, you’re just shocked…
Sounds like he’s looking for the kind of attention that will hoist him onto the big-money reform train.
I wish I could say I were shocked and appalled, but this is unfortunately how it goes in the world of edukation these days.
Excuse my innumeracy, but in the ” real world” that reformers always love to tell us about, isn’t “100% proficiency” (whaever that is) a mathematical impossibility?
Not mathematically impossible at all – if you define proficiency as ‘adequate’ and assume basic competence and effort (e.g. in military training where all recruits become proficient in some sense). It’s only mathematically impossible if you take a vast population and test everyone on some challenging target and expect somehow to avoid a bell curve. But as Bloom said, in education a bell curve is a sign of failure.
That doesn’t excuse his idiocy; just answering your question!
All standardized tests are normed on a bell curve. All bell curves have a bottom half and a top half.
It is mathematically impossible to close the achievement gaps using a bell curve.
And I demand that we end inequality—NOW.
deb
Good idea Deb. I think I’ll demand 100% employment…now!
It’s a funny idea–to order someone to come up with something that’s never been thought before.
Can/Will #RTTT chart a BOLD enough course to innovate new and increasing numbers of children in poverty? How does he propose to educate the new poor who are hungry daily? How does one innovate poverty from the psyche? http://video.pbs.org/video/2306814133 …
And as we all know, innovation is REALLY likely to happen in a text-heavy, NCLB focused,pressured environment.
When guys like this get into power, I always wonder why they don’t have problems with their email not working, their parking spot being used to park the dumpsters, and their keys not working, especially in the executive bathroom.
A person should never ask another person to do something that they wouldn’t/couldn’t do themselves no matter what position they hold.
“I am ordering you, and the administration, to innovate and reflect based on data. … If the current model is working, and the measures are wrong, prove it. The overwhelming evidence is that your practice is not working,” said Franklin County Superintendent, Robert Rosane.
It used to be that the burden of was on the reformers. Reformers like Rosane have somehow shifted the burden of proof onto the defenders of traditional school. It is “Guilty Until Proven Innocent.”
I love the phrase “flexible schedule.” When spoken by the employer, it almost always means “work more hours.” It almost never means “work the hours that make sense.” Many of these types of jerk bosses are fine with a teacher grading papers until midnight or coming in a 7 to tutor, but they are not fine with the same teacher spending their prep. period at home with a sick kid. Flexible, my behind. Thank goodness I work for a superintendent who gets that personal and professional life has to be balanced.
Here’s the latest on the carnage Rosane left.
http://www.samessenger.com/node/4171