Delaware State Commissioner Mark Murphy is stepping down.
“Many legislators, the teachers, administrators, and parents had lost confidence in Secretary Murphy, but he had the confidence of the man who mattered, Jack Markell. The DSEA [Delaware State Education Association] voted no confidence in his leadership. Legislators complained about the strong arm tactics to force through Common Core. Parents rallied and protested the Smarter Balanced Assessment. He had been called out of touch, but he claimed his efforts led to significant achievements.”
Murphy was a strong proponent of Common Core and Race to the Top. He was one of the few remaining members of Jeb Bush’s shrinking “Chiefs for Change.”
Until recently, the Chiefs included Gerard Robinson (FL), Tony Bennett (IN, FL) , Chris Cerf (NJ), Mike Miles (Dallas), Deborah Gist (switching from RI to Tulsa)), Janet Barresi (OK), Kevin Huffman (TN), Stephen Bowen (ME), and Chris Barbic (Tenn). All are gone, although Gist is still a “Chief” as district superintendent in Tulsa.
The only two original members left are John White and Hannah Skandera, neither of whom is popular with educators or parents.
The original Chiefs for Change was funded by Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Wow.
I think John White can be classified a natural disaster. New Orleans got hit twice, and insulted by the dunderkind vunderdunker.
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He is another one that will walk away with a big payoff and get a job in a “non-profit” education reform factory, right?
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These guys seem to have better than golden parachutes, they have platinum plated jet packs.
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Officially, Mark Murphy did resign. Non-officially, he got the boot. He wasn’t communicating with Delaware Governor Jack Markell about the state’s failure to give one of it’s largest districts the priority school funding the state promised them. It didn’t help the Governor resides in this district…
Both Murphy and Markell have led Delaware through Common Core hell, a Smarter Balanced Parent Opt-Out legislation veto, and a very public and messy priority schools mess that was a p.r. mess for the Governor’s office and our DOE. The state manipulated data to say our graduation rates were higher. They also crafted an assessment inventory scheme to counter our parent opt-out legislation. Despite the vast majority of our legislators supporting parent opt-out, our education reform Governor vetoed the bill in July.
The state is currently holding onto the Smarter Balanced results and has plans to use teachers as scapegoats for the horrible scores because teachers helped create the test. Which they didn’t. They gave ideas for possible questions, but they didn’t provide the psychometrics and the confusing lingo for the questions. Furthermore, the DOE wanted to meet with all of our legislators one-on-one for consultation on the SBAC results and they won’t release the results until mid-September.
In the Spring, the unions from the two largest school districts in the state gave Mark Murphy a very public vote of no confidence, followed by the Delaware State Education Association and the Delaware Association of School Administrators. Mark Murphy came from Maryland after a year or two as a special education teacher, and then a gym teacher, principal, and than off to corporate education reform jobs for a few years. There is pending legislation in our Senate to make sure our Secretary of Education has better credentials than Murphy. Having seen the man in action numerous times, he was very clumsy and awkward with social engagement, even going on a local news show stating “Parents aren’t allowed to opt their kids out of tests.”
The entire state of Delaware is breathing a collective sigh of relief about Murphy’s exit.
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Many in Dallas thought that Mike Miles’ inclusion in the Chiefs for Change nonsense was a way to ease him out of Dallas–a kind of face-saving thing for him.
The whole city was tired of him, corruption scandals and the mean-spirited attacks his people waged against teachers daily.
The Broad types overplayed their hand; they overestimated people’s tolerance for psychopathic levels of cruelty. They poisoned their own well.
I truly pity whichever city Miles is foisted upon next. I pity their children and their parents and their teachers.
I would vote for Donald Trump before I would vote for Jeb Bush–the root of all of this evil. Miles, by the way, ran twice as a Democrat for Senate (and lost). Party labels are for the peasants; these reformers have one loyalty: money.
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Chris Cerf, as of July, is Newark, NJ state-appointed Superintendent. He left NJ DoE $141K Commissioner job for Amplify in 2014; picked by Gov Christie for $250K position.
Cerf, according to Bob Braun’s Ledger 8-18, did not attend the first School Advisory Board meeting since he was named (it was his wedding anniversary).
His predecessor–and 2011 appointee–as NPS State Supt, Cami Anderson, last attended a School Advisory Board meeting in January 2014/18 months ago.
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This guy was a TOTAL DISASTER for public education in Delaware.
HIS LABEL : FAIL
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