In Jefferson County, Colorado, the state’s largest school district, there is an opening for a school superintendent.
Representative Mark Waller, who dropped out of the Attorney General’s race, has applied for the job.
Waller has no educational credentials. He has never been a teacher, a principal, a supervisor, or a scholar of education.
But all his references say he is a really swell guy who gets along with people and knows how to work well with others.
The previous superintendent left Jefferson County because the newly elected board majority is intent on eliminating public education and giving every student a voucher.
This apparently is no problem for Rep. Waller, because he can get along well with everybody.
But no high-performing nation in the world chooses educational leaders who have no professional education experience.
No airline hires pilots because they like to fly.
No hospital hires doctors because they get along well with people in every walk of life.
Only education is a field where someone would have a serious shot at a responsible position, despite lack of any professional qualifications.
I don’t mean to say anything bad about Representative Waller. I wish him well in his chosen realm of politics.
He should follow his dream and his experience.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The only profession for which you can get hired with no credentials and get fired from for having too many credentials.
And the only profession where people take supplies from home to bring to work!
Oh such bad people those teachers… haha
That observation says a lot.
The only profession that must run bake sales to make ends meet.
“We will know peace has been achieved when education is fully funded and the military has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber”
–Seen on a bumper sticker
Another reason the JeffCp school board turned over and the Superintendent resigned, according to my sources: they were adamantly pro-inBloom when most parents were very opposed to this data-sharing scheme. In general, according to my sources, the Democratic establishment in Colorado has been very adamant on the issues of data-sharing, testing, and the Common Core – which are increasingly unpopular among parents.
YUP, this is JEFFCO.
You are a little more than incorrect. InBloom wasn’t being supported by the old board, the requirements were originally designed by conservatives in the Cooorado House prior to their loss last year.
Common Core has been adopted by Colorado by integrating it with the state curriculum and requirements for graduation (another conservative bill), and the three new board members in JeffCo were elected on the promise of transparency and collaboration, both items they have completely neglected after being elected in violation of state law (CO sunshine Act requires access to public meetings, information about public meetings, and recordings of meetings between two or more representatives be shared for public input).
The current board cut off negotiations with the education association (which includes professional and non professional employees) requiring the JCEA to request Federal mediation. Colorado law already allows school choice to all parents seeking education in a public forum, including charters and magnets. The current JeffCo board is allotting $3.7 bil to expand charter schools, removing money from the general upkeep and safety of current public schools in order to prioritize charters. The board has also suggested paying for full day PreK with money earmarked for teacher’s, after the teachers voluntarily took pay decrease and negotiated no raises for 6 years with an increase in health benefit costs because of the recession.
Waller isn’t the only person being reveiwed for Superintendent who has a severe lack of qualifications. Former board member Laura Bogg (home schooled her kids), is a political advocate for dismantling public ed in JeffCo and assisted the three new members in getting elected. Ms Boggs is also being considered for the position. This is a lady who physically threatened the prior superintendent with violence and was censured by the previous board.
Spot on Leonie. The control of the State Senate will come down to two seat Dem seats in Jeffco and they’ll likely lodes their majority over ed issues, too.
If Rep. Waller doesn’t get the job, maybe they’ll give it to Andre Agassi or Armando Pérez (Pitbull).
My own once-good district is now under the control of an ex-military officer with no background in education other than teaching a few classes at a military academy for a couple of years. This propelled him into 2 high-level district assignments in 2 major urban school systems and got him the superintendent job in my district. He has done a great job of firing or driving out everyone who had the slightest bit of institutional knowledge and history or relationships with the teachers and students and replacing them with business-oriented yes-people.
Yes, this is what is wrong with American education in the US right now.
Yes, BOZOs are in charge.
I think we’re all bozos on this bus.
Hmm is his name Rick Mills any chance?
https://www.linkedin.com/pub/rick-mills/44/b08/43
http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=2336
Yes we “knew” him in Chicago.
Same teaching background as L.A. Superintendent John Deasey.
Such a shame, yet so true!
His qualifications are that he will see to it that the money goes into the coffers of private investors.
These superintendents have dropped out of the sky like pods from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and have a mission to accomplish which is to redirect the funds into the hands of a variety of “educational business enterprises.”
Don’t think for a second that this is happening only in “conservative” places as it is happening right here in our “most progressive” (most complacent?) town in the US.
Look at Arne Duncan. He was Super of Chicago Public!!! What a joke. Now he is telling the rest of America what to do in education. No experience, just a political hack. Tragic.
If the Republicans weren’t bought and paid for by the same monied interests that control the Democrats, Arne Duncan and the Common Core would be THE scandal of the Obama administration, not that red herring Benghazi.
How on earth are these posers getting superintendent jobs? I am not a teacher, but come from a family of teachers. You have to have certifications and qualifications and years teaching to go “up the rank” to v. principal, principal, superintendent. I get how the TFA zombies go through the fake/rigged Broad ranks, but I just don’t understand how the “unqualified on paper” are getting these jobs. Why aren’t the parents enraged? Why don’t the h.s. students protest? When does the madness stop?
The Foxes are guarding the hen houses, and killing off the hens, dismantling and sellig off the pens, and pulling a fast one on the farmers.
Think Arne Duncan
What’s worse is it’s exactly the opposite of what they’re telling public school students, that they need training in specific skills and persistence and “deep understanding” to succeed. Kids need those things. The adults running their schools apparently don’t. I don’t know why the kids can’t just wing it, too, when they grow up. All of these adults are.
The foxes are not only guarding the henhouse, they are selling the chicken and the eggs.
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
In Florida, the same is true…political experience and friends in high places earn one the job: http://www.pasco.k12.fl.us/superintendent/
We have many non-educators at the wheel here in Arizona! This is off track a little. I just watched “Meet the Press”. The guest today was Will I Am. He brought up education and the fact that mostly Blacks and Latinos are going to prison in this country. He also talked about how politics has interfered with jobs for more people. Will I Am has started an organization to help students in the ghetto he grew up in. Does anyone know if he is pro-charter or not? I really think someone needs to educate him on Dr. Ravitch’s ideas.
I need to correct one point. There is a Governor who hired a person who never taught in a classroom or was a school administrator. New Mexico’s Governor Martinez hired Hanna Skandera who worked for Governor Bush in Florida. That should tell you a lot about Ms. Skandera. It is amazing to have a Governor who knows nothing about how to educate children and who hired a person to be her Secretary of Education who only knows just a tiny bit more about education. What a Odd Couple. The Children, Teachers, School Administrators and People of New Mexico are paying the big price.
Why do people sit by and take it? All across America people just sit by and take it hoping it will change.
People sit by and take it because education in this country is not valued as sports and entertainment. And besides all those parents that are not involved in their children education are the ones that sit back and let the teachers take it.
Boob tube is why!
The propaganda machine works. Tv is the culprit. This is why they get away with lying. For example:
” Beyond that, the constant harping on alleged failure works as innuendo even if each individual claim collapses in the face of evidence. A recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that a majority of Americans know that more than eight million people enrolled in health exchanges; but it also found a majority of respondents believing that this was below expectations, and that the law was working badly.
So Republicans are spreading disinformation about health reform because it works, and because they can — there is no sign that they pay any political price when their accusations are proved false.
And that observation should scare you. What happens to the Congressional Budget Office if a party that has learned that lying about numbers works takes full control of Congress? What happens if it regains the White House, too? Nothing good, that’s for sure.”
Paul krugman
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/opinion/krugman-inventing-a-failure.html?emc=edit_th_20140505&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=50637717
We have this very same situation in CT! A Governor with no education credentials who hired a Commissioner of Education whose only pretense to education credentials is having been one of the founders of a charter school and a charter school advocacy group (ConnCAN) that now is trying to go national. Needless to say, there’s a tremendous push by these monied whites toward charterization of the minority urban districts, aided by the unlimited resources of the Billionaire Boys Club of Fairfield County and Wall Street. Whether Gov Malloy gets reelected or his GOP pro-charter opponent wins, the things here are only going to get worse. Not only are no education credentials required for the state’s Education Commissioner, but there’s even clamor coming from some towns and school districts, egged on by the charter cabal, to make it easy, quick, and legit for school superintendents and principals to come from any non-education background as well. Professional training and years of school-based experience be damned!
When will this insanity stop?
As a teacher, I can only hope the hiring committee will have the discernment to select a candidate who is not only a people person but also has the appropriate qualifications.
The hiring committee is the School Board, three new members (elected in November) favor a non-traditional or military background candidate. Despite the fact that the hiring firm they’re using held several public forums and put out a community survey (which came back with the highest response rate the firm has EVER had) on the characteristics/qualifications they’d most like to see in a Superintendent. One of the highest priorities was someone with a background in education, forums emphasized AT LEAST 10 years in the classroom. The new board members are COMPLETELY ignoring that.
Maybe you don’t mean to say anything bad about him, but I will. Where does he get off thinking it’s in any way appropriate even to ask for this job given his complete and utter lack of any training or knowledge about how to do it? I don’t want him to suffer a horrible illness or anything, but the arrogance it takes to think you should be able to supervise people doing something you don’t know the first thing about is astonishing–except that every one of these education deform advocates shares that arrogance.
sethkahn: even an old dead Greek guy couldn’t capture the full extent of our predicament—
“Whom the god would destroy, they first make mad.” [Euripides]
He forgot to add that once mad, they would be promoted far above their level of incompetence [Peter Principle] and put in charge of the rest of us.
Failure is no impediment to them continuing to ply their particular inabilities. As Paul Vallas famously put it:
“I go in, fix the system, I move on to something else.”
Link: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Paul-Vallas–213999671.html
😧
Just take a look at the state of education in Oklahoma where a dentist was hired as state. Superintendent of Education.
Out TEA (Texas Education Agency) Commissioner Michael Williams is the former Railroad Commissioner. The closest association he has with education is his parents were teachers. I suppose Perry didn’t want his commissioner to have an actual reasoned opinion about the agency he manages like the former TEA Commissioner Robert Scott had the audacity to do. Schools suffer under stifling standards and assessments while TEA goes unchecked because of laws and rules dictated by our legislators and Pearson.
No one questioned this year when 5th and 8th grade reading and math scores were released that the passing percentages did not bump up to the expected 67% for reading and 66% for math. TEA, with no questions or oversight, decided to keep last years passing averages. Scores did not improve from last year even as TEA is boasting improvement.
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/news_release.aspx?id=25769810861
Not if the passing percentage is only 56% for reading and 54% for Math. If they had used the expected Level II passing averages then only 63% of Texas students would have passed the reading/math tests. Not the “nearly” 80% TEA quietly promoted. No one questions TEA or “We measure what we treasure” Williams.
Perry was on “Meet the Press” talking accountability. When all these decisions are made in back rooms to better manipulate “data” to promote their agenda — what accountability? Where is their accountability for decimating education in Texas.
Read this virtually ignored press release about next year’s 5th grade math STAAR tests.
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=25769810943
So, it is really important to pass the test unless TEA says it is not important and the district can then determine if a child in 180 days of learning has proven mastery of content as opposed to the all important one day testing event. I love that they will give the child a score but they may take that score back when they finally determine what the score should be.
Meanwhile, Texas is in going to have to revive teacher evaluations to include VAM to maintain their exemption from Common Core. I am absolutely certain this is something Texas will embrace. Teacher accountability is an easy distraction from the money and power grabbers that know nothing about education nor do they care.
It’s kind of disturbing from either perspective, because apparently he didn’t have a real commitment to being a competent, serious attorney general, either.
“So much for that law and order thing I was dabbling in. The polling doesn’t look good.”
This has been going on in New York City for two decades, with occasionally hilarious results, e.g. Cathy Black. Curently Carmen Farina is the first educator to hold the chancellor’s chair in quite a while. Welcome back, educators.
I hope this doesn’t duplicate.
The state of Texas Education Agency (TEA) commissioner is a former Railroad Commissioner with no educational background except his parents were teachers. I suppose Perry didn’t want another commissioner like Robert Scott thinking he could have an informed opinion about his job. Michael “We measure what we treasure” Williams does his boss’s bidding and plays the party line. When they released the 5th and 8th grade reading/math scores this year, they quietly reported improvement of “nearly” 80% passing. They didn’t include they did not bump the passing average as expected, or if they had only 63% of 5th graders would have passed the reading and or math tests. When you only have to make a 56% to pass a test, I do not think that shows progress. Why does no one hold TEA (and Pearson) accountable for the mess they have made of education? The money they waste? Yet, Perry was on “Meet the Press” today talking accountability. Ridiculous.
The reformers have done their job well to not only undermine educators and education but for building an attitude that only they can save education. People with no experience or training think they know more than those that do. It show as lack of respect for the institution and those that use their skills to practice it.
Obama and Arnie Duncan could help improve this situation as they are doing with teachers. If the Administrators do not have proper educational certifications for an accredited educational institution, then the state would lose ALL federal funding immediately. I believe the problem would never exist again. Now that was simple, so what is our next issue?
Your solution totally flies in the face of the neoliberal/neocon belief in the “smartest person in the room” theory which relies on membership in that elite group of Ivy League graduates and inheriting mucho wealth to bestow expertise in all things.
Diane, as an historian you probably have a better read on this than I do. When did the academics in the field of education decide to cede their professional territory to those who are/were economists, psychologists, liberal arts professors, or finance experts?
I know it goes back in my lifetime at least to E.D. Hirsch, who, as an English professor, decided to step in and tell all education professors that all their research, their theories, their experiences, and their classes were wrong and he knew better than they did. He got a little pushback but no major challenges. Then there was Hanushek, the economist, who decided he knew more about education than actual professors of education.
If someone say, with a PhD in education history, wrote a paper and/or book decrying the state of say, meteorology research, teaching, and practice, I’m pretty sure the uproar from the scientists who specialize in meteorology would cause the Earth to move.
I know from my doctoral studies years ago that education has always suffered from an inferiority complex, being accused of being a “soft” science and having its research methodology questioned and mocked. Is that why most professors of education just sat back and let the outsiders completely take over the field?
This hiring trend of bringing in outsider “experts” has to be connected to the fact that the academics of education largely sat silently by and let the barbarians in the gate, so to speak, with nary a peep of protest. It also seems to have something to do with the fact that people like Marzano and Danielson, who have no proven track record and popped up out of nowhere with huge amounts of funding have become the “leaders” and experts du jour.
And then we get people like Linda Darling Hammond, whom I used to like and trust, pushing such horribly demeaning and humiliating theories as her insistence that teachers need to be monitored by outsiders who are not practitioners constantly walking into their classrooms and interrupting their teaching to “observe” them while collecting largely spurious data in order to tell the actual practitioners how to do what they do.
If this “continuous improvement” model (meaning you can NEVER achieve success) is so necessary and valuable then why aren’t surgeons, attorneys, accountants, and musicians constantly being followed, observed, and critiqued by outsiders who are not practitioners telling them how to do their jobs better? It’s all ludicrous and accepted as sensible and necessary for teachers. Why? Where are the Marzano and Danielson outsider experts of medicine? accounting? business? music?
It’s so through the looking glass that it boggles the mind and I know that it would not fly in any other field or profession. Why does it thrive in education?
The reformers and Danielson are frauds. But so are many education school professors. E.D. Hirsch is not. And he is not an “outsider”. He was an English professor at Yale, and then at UVA. I recommend that you read The Knowledge Deficit before you denigrate his contributions again. I believe that the ed establishment snake oil has made us vulnerable to this ed deformer take-over. We’ve exchanged one snake oil for another. E.D. Hirsch has the real stuff.
I have read it. Still consider him an arrogant outsider. Sorry I’m not a true believer. I’ve tried his approach. Some good but no magic bullet and still some racism involved. He never figured out why he was not greeted as a savior. English is not the same discipline as Education.
Chris,
I’m glad you read The Knowledge Deficit and acknowledge some merit in it. Cognitive science shows that knowledge stored in long-term memory is THE essential ingredient in good thinking and reading and writing. See Daisy Christodoulou’s great new book Seven Myths about Education for a synthesis of the research. Ergo, schools need to focus on transmitting knowledge. Freire, Rousseau, Dewey and their education school disciples who discount the role of knowledge are simply wrong and have unwittingly hobbled the minds of a lot of Americans. Knowledge is power. The education schools have promoted an ignorance curriculum that falsely promises to build critical thinking and creativity. Common Core continues that sad tradition.
Never get off your soapbox Ponderosa. Taking a pro-knowledge stance and being challenged by educators means we are so far down the rabbit hole we may never find our way out.
Does a rational argument against teaching content knowledge even exist?
I keep wondering the same thing. When are upper middle class parents and/or their children going to start to protest openly and get media attention to this destruction of their public schools by private school people and their interest in making tons of money off this destruction. I believe our only hope lies in doing what the Pilgrims and Puritans did. We need to sail somewhere far away so we can start our own system that works for our families. So let us consider our options: we could buy a huge area of Alaska or Iowa (I thought I saw where Iowa is losing citizens at a steady pace.); We could buy some land in Western Australia; Or we could colonize the Moon or Mars. Please vote for your choice or write in other options. We need to act soon if we are going to save our children’s future! This will be a great adventure for all of us.
A good place to begin is at the top. Impeach Obama and Eric Holder. Reinstate the Glass Steagall Act to end the derivatives trade, break up the too big to fail banking cartels and stabilize our banking system. Put Jamie Dimon, Lloyd Blankfein, and John Corzine in jail for cheating and fraud. Put high tariffs on Chinese goods entering the country. Put people back to work by manufacturing something other than weapons and pharmaceuticals so that our GDP can be based on life sustaining products instead of death and disease maintenance. End the “New Markets Credit” scheme begun in 2000 which has incentivized unscrupulous investors to get into the education “marketplace.” End EB-5 which incentivizes foreigners to invest in U.S. charter schools and bring many foreign teachers here to work (when we have U.S. teachers out of work.) Make TFA illegal by passing a law which bans people who have only been “trained” for 5 weeks from teaching in any school. Stop giving tax breaks and grants to charter schools. Shame all politicians who promote charter schools. Widely publicize what has been the result of the privatization of education in Chile to demonstrate what will happen here if we continue down the “charters offer more choice” road.
Wake up and realize we are no longer living in a republic where our legislators actually represent us. Realize most politicians are bought off hacks who create laws which they exempt themselves from. Realize there is a small group of elite billionaires who want to control the earth and everyone on it. Call them out. Do not comply. We out number them and we are more creative. Sunlight is an excellent disinfectant. Let it shine in all the dark corners of corruption. Speak out loudly when you are asked to go along to get along. Do not comply. Run for office. Take back the seats of power from the sell outs looking to secure their own golden parachutes.
And don’t forget….start by impeaching Obama. Nothing good can happen while he remains in office. He has been placed there to bring the U.S. to its knees. His policies and lack of leadership have devastated our economy, our infrastructure, our manufacturing sector, our housing and land ownership, and now the education of our children.
Or we could do nothing and watch the TPP bring free trade to a level that will end all unions in the U.S., our land be “fracked”, our water squandered, our resources sold to China, all of our roads become toll roads, our schools become privatized, our Constitution become meaningless, our leaders become dictators and our children become dumbed down, drugged out, unemployed paupers who are “world citizens” under the thumb of the U.N. instead of sovereign citizens of a free republic with a unique Constitution designed to protect the rights we were born with.
Excellent post. I hope all who have ears can hear. Bravo.
Hilarious, hysterical, comical, and ultimately, tragic and horrible and catastrophic.
Our country will pay dearly if we don’t get the right people into power . . . . .
We dearly need the procedure or the guideline of how to begin, to proceed and to achieve successfully whatever that Dawn Hoagland eloquently, logically, sensibly and passionately suggests. The world is looking up to all educators and lawyers in America to lead the way in order to preserve humanity and to exemplify what it takes to be the world leader in civil right movement.
Thank you Dawn for your eloquent expression. A want2be teacher and lawyer from Canada.
Another field where the leader need not have any experience is the military. Usually this is seen as an advantage.
With the exception of the President, who is the commander in chief, WHO in the military is a leader without military experience?????
As I said in my original post the leader is not required to have experience. The commander in chief is the leader. Do you think it is a good idea that the commanding officer of the military is not required to have any military experience?
TE,
“Do you think it is a good idea that the commanding officer of the military is not required to have any military experience?”
Yes and no!
I have never understood why a superintendent wouldn’t need to have been in the shoes of the teachers and administrators he is leading. This has happened in California as well, and an administrative credential is no longer a requirement for a superintendent.
My question is this. Are there any state superintendents (or commissioners) who are actually on the right side of the testing issue? I’m in shock at how many (even in Washington state) seem beholden to the Reformist party line.
What Governors are on our side? I know a little about California, and I know the Governor of Virginia had an extremely sensible viewpoint of ending grades for school which typically only serve to damage communities.
So much of this makes so little sense. Where is the media?
The “media” is owned by 6 corporations, headed up by people who are totally on board with “reforms.” They can no longer be counted on as the fourth estate. We have no main stream muckrakers any more. That is why we have flourishing blogs and online broadcasting programs to get at the actual truth of the situation.
I threw out my TV about 6 years ago. I don’t miss it. I suggest you do the same. It is there to brainwash and mesmerize and distract you from any real mission you should be on. Just toss it. Saves money on cable bills too.
The blogs (including — especially including! — this one) have been amazing. Heartening.
Of course, “their” next move is going to be to effectively shut down the internet by allowing companies to charge money for speed so that people without money will have sites that take all day to download one post and things like that. They already passed that legislation. I don’t know how long it will take to start implementing it. We need to develop alternative ways to communicate now. Do you remember the “Committees of Correspondence?” Maybe we will need to revive that. Anyway, human creativity is always stronger than the boot. We have that advantage.
The urban districts in my state may talk like they dislike the tests but local Chambers of Commerce love to boast successful scores. Competitive districts find such attention intoxicating. My district is considered a “destination district.” They are selling the dream and people of buying.
I have wondered why the press is so passive. This week the TEA put out a letter about next year’s 5th grade math test that looks like an absolute mess. Only one newspaper covered the story. Is everyone so busy with their personal lives they are ignoring the inept fools running education? And I don’t mean teachers. Scary times.
A few years ago, I had to show to the personnel division of my school system that I am “highly qualified,” i.e., am teaching in a field in which I have appropriate training. Meanwhile, several people were hired from a career switchers program. I have to jump through hoops to prove that I should be able to keep my job, yet others are hired who are not qualified for their position. Is it any wonder that schools, and teachers in particular, are presented negatively so often. Conflicting messages abound, such as, “Teachers need rigid standards so that they can be accountable” and “Anyone can be a teacher.”
So, true. You got that right… but Diane, ‘everyone knows that anyone can teach.”
There is no respect for the profession, because it few understand what learning looks like, or what it really takes to enable kids to learn. The media gets to define that. The result is the country lets charlatans lead the narrative, so why not let politicians run the schools.
Sigh!
hope you are feeling better!
That is why 5 weeks of TFA training must be ridiculed at every opportunity. If people understood that when reformers say “charter schools offer choice”, what you will get is a TFA dupe perhaps they would not be so enthusiastic.
Either Ms. Ravitch only gets limited information or doesn’t really care about reality. The parents and citizens of Jefferson County Colorado got rid of our Union only bias in our School District, Superintendent included. Thank you New School Board for carrying out our wishes. Sorry no one here is talking about vouchers either besides those that liked our previous Union only input School Board. As a historian I think you might understand resistance to change but as you so well pointed out in other articles it has been the Federal Administration who leads the fight against our great teachers. How about stopping them in their process to ruin our educational system?
Thank you Ms. Ravitch for your amazing research and consistent voice in the media on this issue. Please keep writing and speaking so that in 15 years we don’t have an “Enron” like scandal with taxpayer dollars that were supposed to be spent on children but ended up in offshore accounts while our students lost ground in a privatized education system.
Christy,
Well-said.