Steve Dackin, who began his job as State Superintendent one month ago, has resigned. Questions were raised about his selection since he was chair of the search committee. Dackin said the controversy was a distraction from the work.
Anyone from Ohio want to shed more light?
Why do people run for school board in their local community?
It has never been a more perilous time to be a school board member. When the pandemic began, local school boards bore responsibility for whether to open or close schools, whether or not to require masks. Whichever decision they made, a sizable number of parents were sure to be angry.
School board meetings in some communities became scenes of outrage and heated exchanges. Then came the manufactured claims that schools were rife with “critical race theory” and inappropriate sex education, and school boards were again under fire. Extremists set a goal of seizing control of local school boards, but have been largely unsuccessful. Here and there, a local school board capitulated to or even led the cries for censorship and book banning.
But most local boards have remained steady as a bedrock of grassroots democracy. Ninety-five percent of school districts are governed by an elected school board. Privatizers and disrupters would love to abolish them all and turn the nation’s schools over to corporate management organizations. But as long as there are local school boards, they must stand for re-election and face the voters in their district.
Given the intemperate attacks on public schools, on school boards, and on our democracy, we owe them our thanks for their service to our communities.
Lawrence A. Feinberg wrote the following tribute to local school board members. He is a passionate advocate for public schools, who has served on his local school board in Pennsylvania for 22 years.
He writes:
“The short answer on why people want to run (for school board) these days is because we are out of our . . . minds.” That was my answer back in May of 2011, long before COVID, when the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Anthony Wood asked me why folks would consider seeking school board seats.
I first ran for the school board in 1999, and then five times more because I believe that public education is the foundation of our democracy and that our mission is to create informed American/Global citizens.
Asked a similar question on a League of Women Voters Zoom panel last month, my colleague, friend and former William Penn School District Board President Jennifer Hoff had a clear, concise answer: “the kids.”
Why would anyone want such a thankless, unpaid role? Here area few reasons:
• To get to shake hands with hundreds of graduating seniors who were in kindergarten when I was first elected.
• To hear elementary students speak eloquently and effusively at a public meeting about the character development initiative in their school.
• To read to elementary school students on Read Across America Day.
• To see and hear, year in and year out, innumerable opportunities and accomplishments for and by students in the arts, music, theatre, robotics, culinary arts, industrial arts, medical trades, community service, athletics, countless clubs and activities, student publications and academics.
• To listen to teams of students demonstrate and describe their science experiments.
• To watch our Best Buddies Unified Bocce team (that includes students with and without special needs) in action and to see them get statewide recognition.
• To see students learn to respect and value their similarities and their differences.
• To see our students register their peers to vote.
• To see our graduates move on successfully to college and careers.
• To marvel at the professionalism, dedication, patience and competency of administrators, teachers and support staff and their clear, constant focus on what is best for kids.
There is no denying that the past two years have not been easy for our school communities. For myself and most of my school director peers throughout the state, our attitude has been to assume that everyone has good intentions and wants what is best for their kids, and to treat others with the same level of respect, civility and dignity that we would like to be treated with.
A profound thank you to all Pennsylvania school directors for their dedicated volunteer public service to their students, communities, taxpayers and school districts.
Special thanks to all our superintendents, administrators, and principals, many of whom worked 24/7 throughout the pandemic in the face of immense challenges.
And thanks to all our teachers, aides and all staff – nurses, counselors, social workers, mechanics, bus drivers, custodians, office personnel, food service workers and librarians. Thank you!
Lawrence A. Feinberg is serving his 22nd year as a school director in Haverford Township, Delaware County. Currently board vice president, he served as board president from 2017 through 2021. He has been an active advocate for public education at the local, regional, state and federal levels.
This commentary was first published by the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
Denis Smith retired from the Ohio Department of Education, where he worked in the charter school office and saw fraud after fraud. Ohio’s charter schools (which the state calls “community schools,” which they are not) are unusually low-performing; a large number are failing schools.
Smith wrote about the scandalous selection of the new state superintendent in the Ohio Capital Journal.
Smith writes:
At its May meeting, the State Board of Education voted to employ Steve Dackin as Ohio’s new Superintendent of Public Instruction. But the hiring of the veteran school administrator has raised some concerns that require further reflection.
The state board’s decision occurred in the middle of National Charter Schools Week and prompted questions about the processes used in the appointment and the search that led up to the board’s action.
To those familiar with the behavior of some charter school boards, where the members are usually hand-picked by the school’s operating company and where tales of conflicts of interest and self-dealing are legion, the state board’s action will need to be more closely examined lest it acquire the same reputation of so many conflicted charter school boards.
In covering the search process and appointment of a new state superintendent of schools, the Cleveland Plain Dealer summarized the situation succinctly:
“Steve Dackin was vice president of the State Board of Education and led the search for a vacant superintendent position before resigning and applying for the job three days later. The deadline to apply was the following day.”
You don’t have to read that Plain Dealer paragraph again to realize there was something wrong in the practices of a state board that allowed a board member to conduct the search for a superintendent, resign so that he could apply at the deadline for the position, add his resume to those already received from other candidates, and then months later be hired for the very position he oversaw as vice president of the board and head of the search committee that was charged with filling the position.
If a public board is concerned about optics, its actions might demonstrate that in addition to suffering from myopia, it’s also tone deaf as shown by its hiring of the new state superintendent.
Catherine Turcer, who directs Common Cause Ohio, an organization which promotes “transparency and accountability in government,” also examined the process that led up to Dackin’s candidacy and had concerns.
“The thing that’s important about this is that we have as much transparency as possible so that we can understand what happened and whether he was attempting to get himself the job inappropriately,” she said. “Right now, we have a lot of questions and things look odd. It’s not enough to do the pro forma, ‘I put my resignation in before I applied.’ You dotted one ‘i’ but what about all the ‘t’s?’ she told the Plain Dealer.
The appointment of a new state superintendent during National Charter Schools Week drew praise from the state charter school lobby, including kind words from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an organization that promotes these publicly funded, privately operated, underregulated entities and, like the schools it promotes, is conflicted in its purposes. That makes Fordham a comfortable and perfect fit in the midst of charter world.
The conflict that is Fordham was described last year in the Ohio Capital Journal. Fordham serves simultaneously as a charter school authorizer, promoter, and so-called “think tank,” crafting studies that unsurprisingly promote public school privatization, which it calls school choice. But with all of its “think tank” research, apparently Fordham hasn’t studied one of the major design flaws in charter schools.
That flaw doesn’t allow the democratic election of board members by qualified voters in a community. Instead, in many instances we have seen self-dealing by hand-picked board members, conflicts-of-interest by operators, and all of the ethical issues that surround organizations that are not fully transparent in their operations.
The most classic example of this was seen several years ago, where the chairman of a charter school board was also a part-owner of the company which owned the building where the school was located. The school made an overpayment of $478,000 to the company without any board approval. A number of individuals associated with the charter school were indicted, including the school founder, his wife and brother, the board chairman and school treasurer.
Which brings us back to the recent action of the State Board of Education in choosing a new state superintendent.
Because of a history of scandal in the state charter school industry, where more than $1 billion in public funds alone went to ECOT in the largest online charter school scandal in the country, and where the wreckage of more than 300 closed Ohio charters have further depleted the state treasury due to lax oversight caused by few controls, the State Board of Education itself should not be acting like a challenged and conflicted charter school board with few rules, policies, or any sense of institutional memory.
Moreover, the enthusiasm for Dackin’s appointment expressed by the charter school industry and the Fordham Institute should also raise even more concerns.
As someone who has experience in providing oversight of charter schools as well as service on non-profit boards, it is my view that the processes used in the Dackin appointment are troublesome. For example, some boards have policies that require at least a one-year separation by a board member before applying for employment with the organization. Such a board policy protects an organization and lessens the possibility of a conflict or self-dealing situation by any member.
And what about the State Board of Education? Why isn’t there policy which prohibits the employment of a former board member for an extended period of time after separation from the board? For that matter, are there any state boards that have a “time-out” policy before a board or advisory committee member seeks employment?
The Ohio Ethics Commission and its three-page review of the situation before the state board’s hiring of the new superintendent was, to put it mildly, inadequate for the circumstances in the Dackin situation. The appearance of a conflict of interest or any ethical question related to actions that employ past board members recently separated from a public board should be a serious issue.
There is no doubt that the State Board of Education can do better at policy formulation and practice. So too can the Ohio Ethics Commission, which should start a discussion about strengthening its guidelines to go beyond minimalist interpretations of statute and offer more robust models to boards and public agencies that promote greater transparency and accountability.
After all, a state public board by its actions should not mimic charter school boards that love to receive public money but hate regulation.
Billy Townsend reviews the tenure of Richard Corcoran as Florida’s State Commissioner of Education. His main qualification for the job, aside from his time as chair of the education committee in the state senate, is that he loathes public schools. He once said that he wanted to see every Florida student in a charter or voucher school.
Billy Townsend details his multiple failures. Be sure to open the link and read to the end. Watch the video, where Corcoran wrestles with his son on a brick floor, then throws him into the end of the pool, with the boy’s head barely missing the concrete coping. What an educator.
Townsend writes:
Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran’s general leadership incompetence defines him far more than his trolling.
The Department of Education’s corrupt, ongoing institutional collapse under his three-ish years of leadership testifies to what he would have done (or will do) to any college or university foolish enough to make him a president.
Any “business” he might start that doesn’t grift public money or collect and/or spend other people’s political donations is going to fail — if he runs it.
But Corcoran did have two great talents in his short, happy public life:
It’s difficult to evaluate Corcoran’s record as Speaker of the House and Education Commissioner because he had no real governing goals or ideology beyond self-interest and the perception of personal dominance in the moment.
Just mesmerizing the child-like DeSantis into paying him $276K for three years is a massive personal victory for Corcoran. One has to acknowledge that.
But under Corcoran’s “leadership,” Florida continued Jeb Bush’s catastrophic, longstanding failures of student test score growth, if that’s what you care about. He continued to shovel tax money and tax-sheltered corporate money into Florida’s “Endtimes Academy” style voucher schools, ignoring the 60 percent 2-year drop out rate of our signature voucher program. And he continued to worsen Florida’s teacher and education worker capacity shortages by making education work as miserable and poorly paid as possible.
But in all that, Corcoran’s not special. He’s just a mainstream Florida leader who talks a little more trash. All of that education failure is openly tolerated and/or celebrated quietly by the private interests that actually run Florida — your Disneys and Publixes and FPLs.
Anybody else DeSantis would have appointed would have indulged the same neglect and general grifting. It’s the institutional story of the last 25 years. Until that changes, you’ll get the same institutional results.
Jill Underly is the state superintendent of education in Wisconsin. In this article, she responds to the demands in red states for “parent rights,” which is usually premised on the belief that teachers are “indoctrinating” their students and can’t be trusted.
Superintendent Underly writes:
Dr. Jill Underly is the Wisconsin State Superintendent, and she offers thoughts to parents and teachers facing the current attacks by legislators.
Like you, I know what it means to be involved with my children’s education, and I love it.
But I look at the way politicians talk about parental involvement, and I don’t recognize it. Family engagement isn’t about yelling at school staff or suing your school board if they don’t do exactly as you demand.
It’s also not asking caregivers to homeschool or pay for private tuition if they feel unheard or unseen.
Family engagement is about having a real conversation about – and with – our children.
Like you, I build relationships with my children’s teachers, I reach out when I need to, and they know they can call if they need to.
As a parent, I love my children’s school, and I see the ways our district works to involve all families and the entire community, and how the entire community supports our school.
It’s an exchange, because what matters most to all of us is what we all have in common: our children.
Of course, this isn’t what politicians mean when they talk about protecting parental rights when it comes to children’s education. Rather, they’re talking about micromanaging curriculum and preying on our parental emotions during a traumatic time, all with the ulterior motive of placing suspicion on educators by weaponizing lessons about difficult topics, or by placing blame on schools for a pandemic they did not cause but are nonetheless supporting our children through.
As to my fellow educators, you and I all know that this isn’t the first time that politicians in this state have gone after teachers.
And as a former civics teacher, I know that teaching the history of this nation cannot – and should not – be done without tackling difficult topics.
Families know this and support these opportunities for our schools to engage our children to become critical thinkers and critical consumers of information. We want our students to grow up and be active participants in democracy, and that means they need to know how to examine their past, think critically about their present, and make informed decisions about their future.
I’m tired.
Like you, I’m tired of the pandemic. I’m getting tired of this winter. And I’m really, really tired of politicians pitting parents against teachers when our children are the ones who get hurt in the end.
Because they’re the ones who matter most in this conversation and who matter most for the future of our state. And that conversation – how to best meet the needs of our children and students – is one I’m excited to continue having as a parent and an educator, and to lead as your Wisconsin State Superintendent.
Jack Ross of California-based Capital & Main posed the question: Will Alberto Carvalho, who was recently hired away from Miami-Dade public schools to become the new superintendent of the Los Angeles public schools, expand the number of charter schools in L.A.?
At Carvalho’s first press conference, the first question to him was about where he stood on charter schools. This issue has prompted billionaires like the late Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, and Reed Hastings of Netflix to pour millions into school board races. The current board has a 4-3 pro-charter majority.
Ross wrote:
So where does Carvalho stand? During his 13 year tenure in the Sunshine State, the number of charter schools in the south Florida district rose from 65 to 145 (while more than 30 charter schools also closed). More campuses were converted into magnet programs offering specialized education in subjects like robotics, computer science or performing arts: In 2010, around 41,000 Miami students attended magnets, and by 2019 that number had risen to more than 72,000. The Miami magnets, however, are operated by the school district and not by private owners. “I have always been a proponent, and dramatically expanded, publicly offered, accountable choice in Miami-Dade public schools,” Carvalho said at his press conference, referring to his investment in public magnet schools. “In Florida, charter schools are enabled by Florida statute, and school boards, by and large, do not have great latitude in the approval of charter programs.”
Carvalho liked the story so much that he tweeted it with a comment:
Alberto M. Carvalho@MiamiSup Publicly accountable choice, under the leadership of representative boards, that serve all children, regardless of their diverse abilities, not profits, is a model that has worked well. Will L.A.’s New Superintendent Expand Charter Schools? @capitalandmain
Right below Carvalho’s tweet was a response from Carol Burris, executive director of the Network for Public Education.
Opposed to for-profit @miamiSup? Why did largest for- profit Academica more than double # of schools in your district?
Academica is a huge for-profit chain based in Florida that is unusually avaricious and highly political.
The board of the Los Angeles Unified School District has hired Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of the schools in Miami-Dade, too PPP become superintendent of the Los Angeles. Carvalho has served in Miami as superintendent since 2008. Mayor Bill de Blasio tried to hire him in New York City in 2018, but Carvalho backed out after the appointment was announced.
Alberto Carvalho, who has led Miami-Dade County Public Schools since 2008 and is among the nation’s most experienced and admired school district leaders, has been named the next superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, district officials announced Thursday.
The Board of Education made the announcement after a special, closed meeting. In recent weeks board members have interviewed and deliberated over candidates in a series of closed sessions.
In coming to L.A. Unified, Carvalho, 57, moves from heading the fourth-largest K-12 public school system in the country to the second-largest, taking on one of the highest-profile and most challenging posts in public education…
Born in Portugal, he came to the U.S. at age 17. Carvalho learned English as a young adult and quickly worked his way up from construction and restaurant jobs as he attended Broward Community College. He later won a scholarship to Barry University and enrolled on a premed track. He excelled academically, but took a hard turn in his career path when, in his mid-20s, he interviewed for a teaching position at Miami Jackson Senior High. He was offered a job the same day, a Tampa Bay Times profile reported in 2019.
After four years in the classroom — teaching physics, chemistry and calculus — he became an assistant principal. The superintendent at the time was so impressed that he brought Carvalho to work downtown without his having been a principal. Carvalho oversaw federal programs and later became the district’s chief communications officer. He gained further experience by overseeing grant administration and lobbying state officials.
Under Supt. Rudy Crew, Carvalho launched several initiatives, including a Parent Academy and a School Improvement Zone, focusing on schools with low academic achievement.
After becoming superintendent, Carvalho eventually filled a gap in his resume, serving as a principal. He put himself at the helm of a new campus called iPrep Academy, a pre-kindergarten-to-12th-grade magnet school “designed to promote respect and responsibility among the students and staff,” according to its website. All students are required to take honors classes.
Jan Resseger is puzzled that Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot selected San Antonio Superintendent Pedro Martinez to lead Chicago’s public schools. His experience and views overlap with those of Arne Duncan, for whom he served as Chief Financial Officer. Parents and teachers wanted the next superintendent to be an instructional leader. Martinez has no experience as a teacher or a principal. He represents the failed ideas of corporate reform. Twenty years of test score driven decisions—closing schools and replacing them with charter schools— should be enough.
She writes:
For WBEZ, Chicago’s best education reporter, Sarah Karp introduces Pedro Martinez: “Turning to a non-educator with deep Chicago ties, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot named former Chicago schools official and a current San Antonio schools superintendent Pedro Martinez as the next CEO of Chicago Public Schools. Martinez, who was born in Mexico and raised in Chicago, will be the first permanent Latino leader in the school district’s history… Martinez worked as CPS’ chief financial officer under former CEO Arne Duncan… Martinez is an accountant who has been called ‘analytics heavy.’ And in San Antonio, he has expanded charter schools as well as partnered with private organizations to take over failing schools. These ideas have been popular in Chicago, but they have fallen out of favor in recent years… Martinez has never taught or run a school as principal. And, thus, in choosing him, Lightfoot is rejecting the input of parents and others who said they wanted someone with a strong instructional background with ‘boots on the ground’ experience… Martinez is a graduate of the Broad Superintendent Academy training program. Critics say the Broad Academy promotes school leaders who use corporate-management techniques and that they work to limit teachers’ job protections and the involvement of parents in decision-making.”
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot selected Pedro Martinez, Superintendent of the San Antonio School District, as the Windy City’s public schools.
Martinez is a “reformer.” In San Antonio, he was known for his obsession with data and commitment to opening charter schools. He is a graduate of the tattered Broad Superintendents Academy. He is chairman of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change. Chiefs for Change brings together superintendents who share the test-and-punish ideas of the failed corporate reform movement (closing low-scoring schools, opening charter schools, relying on high-stakes testing, evaluating teachers by test scores, collecting data about everything, distrust of unions, etc.).
Martinez is a graduate of the Chicago Public Schools. He holds an M.B.A. from DePaul University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. And, of course, he is a graduate of the Broad Superintendents Academy. He worked for Arne Duncan as Chief Financial Officer when Arne was Superintendent in Chicago. He was “Superintendent-in-Residence” for the Nevada Department of Education. Prior to that, he was superintendent for the 64,000-student Washoe County School District, covering the Reno, Nevada area.
Like Arne, Martinez was never a teacher or principal.
In the education world, currently controlled by a coalition of billionaires and the rightwing think tanks and legislators they finance, public schools have some valuable friends. Among them are the National Superintendents Roundtable and the Schlechty Center. If your school board is looking for a new superintendent who believes in public schools, these are the go-to sources. They are the anti-Broadies. Since James Harvey, the Director of the National Superintents Roundtable is retiring, the two organizations are merging. Jim Harvey is a member of the board of the Network for Public Education.
Here is their press release:
The National Superintendents Roundtable will merge with the Schlechty Center this fall
Seattle, WA – The National Superintendents Roundtable and the Schlechty Center have entered into a partnership to merge on September 30, 2021, bringing two veteran, non-profit organizations together under one roof to better serve school superintendents. The Schlechty Center will provide a legacy home to the National Superintendents Roundtable after its founder, Dr. James Harvey, retires at the end of the year.
Both organizations have spent decades delivering professional development and strengthening relationships among superintendents. The Roundtable, the successor to a Danforth Foundation network established in 1992, has operated since 2006; the Schlechty Center was founded in 1988 and its Superintendents Leadership Network was established in 1997. Both organizations believe fiercely in the value of public education.
The National Superintendents Roundtable and the Schlechty Center’s Superintendents Leadership Network will maintain their own names, membership, and programming, with opportunities for superintendents to join in some activities together.
“The Roundtable is delighted to become part of the Schlechty Center. There is great synergy between the two organizations. Dr. Phillip Schlechty was one of the giants of American public education over the past 50 years. The Roundtable is honored to be associated with his name,” said Harvey, the group’s executive director.
“The Schlechty Center is honored to become the legacy organization chosen to carry forward the excellent tradition and impact of the National Superintendents Roundtable. One of our cornerstone beliefs at the Center is the critical role of superintendents as moral and intellectual leaders. We are truly excited to broaden our interaction, design, and facilitation of deep learning with superintendents from across the nation. The impact of bringing together our cumulative 150 voices around the key issues that all leaders face in public education today will be high leverage for the field,” said Dr. Steve McCammon, president and CEO of the Schlechty Center.
Harvey will retire in December and assist the Schlechty Center part-time to facilitate a smooth transition in 2022. McCammon will become the Roundtable’s new executive director on January 1, 2022, in addition to the continuation of his role as president and CEO of the Schlechty Center.
About the organizations:
Based in Seattle, Wash., the National Superintendents Roundtable (superintendentsforum.org) is a community of 90 school superintendents committed to just and humane schools. Besides bi-annual conferences focused on policy and social factors in education, members take study missions to learn how other nations organize their school systems. The Roundtable also conducts research—adding to the conversation about U.S. school performance overall.
Based in Louisville, Ky., the Schlechty Center (schlechtycenter.org) is a private, non-profit organization that partners with education leaders to nurture a culture of engagement in their organizations, with the ultimate goal of increasing profound learning for students. Schlechty Center staff consult with school district leaders on strategic planning, school improvement planning, systems design, and the design of professional learning and classroom experiences for students. The Center’s Superintendents Leadership Network is a fieldtrip/experience-based network that draws on Schlechty frameworks and learning organization theory to build organizational capacity to focus on engagement at all levels.
Contact
National Superintendents Roundtable: Rhenda Meiser
(206) 465-9532, rhenda@rhendameiser.com
Schlechty Center:
Nicole Bigg
(502) 931-3046, nbigg@schlechtycenter.org
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