Jefferson County Public Schools desperately needs the leadership and advice that Terry Holliday’s wingman, Montgomery County Public Schools superintendent Jerry Weast, has to offer. Not!

Here in Jefferson County, we love hypocrisy like a possum loves roadkill!

We have the Crapola-Journal yammering on and on about how diversity is so important that public school kids should spend hours a day on buses to mix up the races… on paper… in suburban schools.  Now, the C-J has the nerve to barf out a big, fat, glossy issue of HerScene that has, what, three black models in a sea of white skin and blue eyes?  My copy usually gets chucked into the recycle bin moments after it hits my front porch but I wanted to see if the C-J walks the walk.

They don’t.  So much for diversity at the C-J.

I won’t yammer on with more examples of “do as I say, not as I do.” Just scroll through some of the old Voodoo posts about the Crapola-Journal, JCPS superintendent Sheldon Berman and the teachers union and you’ll see what I mean.

Now, about the TerryJerry stuff…

Look at what Jerry Weast pulled on his school district!  It’s almost as good as JCPS superintendent Sheldon Berman’s diversity agenda but not quite.  Here’s a blurb about Weast cutting music programs and attempting to pull the rug out from under music teachers.  The worst part?  He accepted an award from the Maryland Music Educators Association.

Ugh!

Click on the screenshot to get catapulted to one of the best parent-run advocacy websites I’ve ever seen:

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Oh, boy!  It gets better!

While Jerry Weast is getting a pile of deposit slips ready for a $5000 per day gig as a consultant for Jefferson County Public Schools’ superintendent search, a whole bunch of MCPS librarians are going to get reduced from full-time to part-time employees.  Read the whole story here: Advocacy for School Media Specialists (Librarians) on the Web.

The story gets even better when you get to the retirement party invitation that describes the fundraiser to improve school libraries:

We also are honoring [Weast’s] service to our community by establishing the fund, Reading Is Elementary, to collect contributions for book purchases for the 131 MCPS elementary school libraries. Since he arrived in Montgomery County, Dr. Weast has talked about the importance of giving our children strong reading skills in the early grades. Our goal is to collect $1,000 for each of the schools so that we can provide our students with well-stocked libraries.

Ahh, there’s nothing quite like those self-aggrandizers who prop up cleverly-named advocacy groups or fundraisers when they’re really just promoting, well, themselves.

There is plenty of stuff out there about Weast cutting costs but not a single mention about eliminating overpaid adminstrators, paper-pushers, bean counters or whatever you want to call those people.  That means his advice won’t make waves and he’ll fit right in.

He’s as good as hired!

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If you like JCPS superintendent Sheldon Berman, you’ll LOOOVE Montgomery County Public Schools superintendent and future (maybe!) JCPS consultant Jerry Weast!

Sheldon Berman loves forced busing… and Jerry Weast loves forced busing!

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Here’s a little somethin’-somethin’ from an NPR interview on October 2010 with Richard Kahlenberg, from The Century Foundation, and MCPS superintendent Jerry Weast who were pimping the results of Montgomery County’s forced busing program that made them the darlings of the education zeitgeist.  Long story short, they used children who lived in public housing as guinea pigs for yet another social experiment where – SURPRISE! – the kids who attended low poverty elementary schools (read: white schools) did better than the kids who attended moderate poverty elementary schools.

Here’s an idea, Boy Geniuses – stop letting teachers pick their gigs.  Then you won’t have to hold young children hostage on long bus rides and you’ll even save some of the  taxpayers’ dough.  Wow!  Light bulb moment!!

See the NPR blurb below that basically says,

Well, the teachers pick their schools and the collective bargaining agreement has us by the ho-ho so we gotta put these kids on buses to get then to the decent teachers.”

Click on the screenshot if you want to see the entire infuriating interview called How Important is Economic Diversity?:

Yoo, hoo!  Terry Holliday!  JCPS doesn’t need to hire your friend as a consultant who is going to give us a bunch of bad advice, especially to the tune of $5000 per day for a maximum of 40 days.  Just for fun, let’s say Weast could mooch off of us for a year.  Then his equivalent annual salary would be over$1.5 million.  That’s just crazy.

Doesn’t it seem like the high-level goons in public education are trying to divert money from our children to line their friends’ and colleagues’ pockets?  Why isn’t this considered white-collar crime?

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JCPS students get shortchanged again: Plenty of money for a bloated forced busing scheme but not enough dough for textbooks

Here’s another grim story that Jefferson County Public Schools and the board of education don’t want you to know:  There is a severe shortage of textbooks.

How bad is the shortage?  Well, I’m not talking about a handful of kids in each class who have to work out a schedule to share a social studies or math textbook with a reading buddy.  There is such a severe shortage of textbooks at three middle schools that students are not allowed to bring their books home for subjects like social studies, math and science.  Highland, Myers and Frost are just a few of the schools.

No sharing.

No schedule to take books home and return them the next day.

No take-home books, period.  End of story.

Take a quick peak at the tab that lists the failing schools in Jefferson County and you’ll see…. Highland, Myers and Frost are on the list.  Surprise!

If you enjoyed school you probably remember reading your school books at home on your bed, studying ahead a little and, here’s a big one, ACTUALLY TAKING A BOOK HOME TO STUDY FOR AN UPCOMING TEST.

At one of those schools the kids aren’t allowed to bring home social studies OR math textbooks.  There just aren’t enough books to go around.  How few of them are there, you ask?  Well, there are enough books for ONE class – that’s about 30 kids.  So, one teacher has 30 books to share with four or five periods of instruction.  120 to 150 kids are sharing that set of 30 books.  Books are purchased about once every five or six years, by the way.

You can’t have a “sharing” schedule with four or five periods.  Think about that one.  If 1st period takes the books then 2nd through 5th are without a text book during instructional time.  If the last period takes the books, then the 1st through 4th period won’t have books.  What a mess.

Is it any wonder that these kids aren’t knocking it out of the park on standardized tests?  Their only resources to study at home are their hastily-written notes and maybe a worksheet or two. They get the luxury of studying a worksheet IF the teacher has the money to purchase copier paper – because most schools don’t foot the bill for that anymore either.  The claim is that teachers were wasting too much money on copies.

Stunning, isn’t it?

This isn’t really news, though.  Most of the schools revoked access to free copier paper several years ago.  Teachers have to pay for it or request donations from parents. So much for the teachers union insuring that teachers have access to the supplies they need. There is the occasional principal who realizes this is a really stupid way to save money so a few of them are using discretionary funds to provide copier paper to their faculty and staff.  Don’t get your hopes up.  There aren’t many of them out there.

I’m sure most of the principals are like mine – she’d rather squander money on catered meals for her staff from Stevens and Stevens than on copier paper.  For the record, Sheldon Berman graced our school with his presence for a Stevens and Stevens-catered event.  Surprised?

Back to this aggravating textbook situation.

Ask your friends who have kids at Collegiate, St. Agnes, Walden or KCD if their kids have a textbook for every subject.   You already know the answer.  Before you Google the tuition at those schools, keep in mind that the cost of educating a JCPS student works out to $10,000 per kid.  The costs are pretty comparable.

JCPS has a $1 billion budget and a fleet of 1200 school buses.  JCPS students have social studies and math scores that are among the worst in the state.  Many middle school students (and I’m guessing high school students, too) aren’t allowed to take social studies,science and math textbooks home.

What’s wrong with this picture?

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Another one bites the dust: So much for those great science scores that the PR wizards at Jefferson County Public Schools and the Crapola-Journal were gloating about

Get out your crayons, class. Today, you get to connect the dots!

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1. Here is the headline for a JCPS news release:

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2. If you missed the JCPS News Spotlight, here’s how the information shows up on Google:

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3.  As usual, the Crapola-Journal was thrilled to act as the no-questions-asked printing press for anything JCPS distributes to the media:

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4.  This is a good one.   Here’s what Dr. Diversity had to say about the scores:

“I commend the work of our teachers and the generosity of the [General Electric] foundation for helping us improve achievement in science.”

Get this:  The teachers union, Jefferson County Teachers Association, places so little value on science that elementary and middle school teachers were allowed to miss seven hours of a science module that was sponsored by General Electric.  This happened way, way back in 2006 but it lets you know how the teachers union feels about a subject with scores that are tanking nationwide. They don’t care about science which means they don’t care about our kids.

Read about it at freedomkentucky.org:  JCTA as a special interest group: Spending your tax dollars.

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Let’s return to connecting the dots.

5.  If you manage to make it past the JCPS News Spotlight headline, this is what you’ll see:

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6.  TUDA.  Trial Urban District Assessment. JCPS students’ “peers” in this science assessment are urban school districts.

Jefferson County kids participated in TUDA with students from some of the lowest-performing school districts in the nation.  Detroit.  Los Angeles.  Phillie.  Chicago.  So Johnny, Katie and Krishna couldn’t rock the test even though they live in homes like this one:

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7.  Here is the racial breakdown of the 2009 TUDA fourth-grade test takers.  Notice that JCPS ranks #1 in percentage of white students.   At least we managed to knock it out of the park on that particular parameter.

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Also notice that JCPS has six times as many white kids as Chicago so why is anyone gloating about outperforming some kids whose parents grew up in Cabrini Green?  It just isn’t a fair comparison.

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9.  Here’s the racial breakdown of the eighth-grade test takers:

Have you ever heard Dr. Diversity complain about what a huge challenge it is to educate non-English-speaking students?  I sure have.  I’ve always had the impression that JCPS has a double-digit percentage of non-English speakers.  Well, the data shows that we’re not exactly swamped with these kids.  2%?  Come on.

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10.  Here’s how the U.S. Department of Education sums up the 2009 TUDA scores:

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The TUDA data was misrepresented by JCPS and the Crapola-Journal.  Our performance is nothing to cheer about, especially if kids from Noe or Meyzeek have their fingerprints on this test.

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Look at those racial percentages.  We have significantly more white kids than the other districts, five, six, even close to twenty times what some of the other districts have.  We should have left those other school districts in the dust since we had so many white, middle-class kids taking the test.  What happened?  Why can’t JCPS perform better than this?  Why can’t JCPS be honest about data like this so the community is aware that we are a school district that’s in a very serious crisis?

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Yeah, yeah.  I know the answer to that last question.

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So.  JCPS’ performance, with the help of a whole lot of white kids, was okay when compared with the crummiest school districts in the nation which basically means we’re one of the worst school districts in the nation.

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I wonder if  the folks at VanHoose Palace will roll that one across The Zipper.

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Here is a summary of the scores that pitted a bunch of our suburban kids against urban dwellers, like kids in the Bronx:

Suggestion for a new headline:

White, suburban kids help JCPS outpace a bunch of really crappy urban schools on national science test.

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Posted March 21, 2011 at 6:00 a.m.

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Linda Duncan tells Eugene, Oregon’s daily newspaper that Berman is one of the best education minds in the country. No, this is not April Fool’s Day.

Looks like the folks in Eugene, Oregon, are drinking the Kool-Aid.

And Linda Duncan is happy to work punchbowl duty.

Here’s what Duncan had to say for Mark Baker’s March 6th story in The Register-Guard, Louisville schools chief called “jewel”: Controversy over busing led to parting of the ways:

Linda Duncan, one of two school board members who voted against his contract not being renewed and a longtime high school teacher in the Louisville schools, said she believes Eugene will get a “jewel” if Berman is selected.

“If you take Dr. Berman, you’re getting, I think, one of the best education minds in the country,” Duncan said. “We just have a different political situation going on here right now. It’s just very high-charged, and he’s just kind of been caught in the middle of it.”

Just to clarify the situation for anyone from Eugene who might tap into this post, Dr. Diversity didn’t get canned because of his commitment to forced busing.  He got canned because improving academic performance was never a top priority.

Duncan still doesn’t get it.  Maybe someone out there will run against her in 2014.  Any takers?

UPDATE:  Don’t bother trying to post a comment on the Register-Guard’s latest Berman story.  They’ve eliminated the comments section even though they received over thirty comments for the first superintendent story.  Go figure!

Credits:  Thank you, Hawkeyed, for sharing the migraine-inducing article from The Register Guard.

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Sheldon Berman: “I was surprised” when I stepped on one, dinky Cocoa Puff and it made such a huge mess!

I know, I know.  We were just recovering from Berman’s manifesto in this past Sunday’s paper and those sadistic editors at the Crapola-Journal hit us over the head with ANOTHER sympathetic piece about JPCS superintendent Sheldon Berman.  Sheldon Berman:”I was surprised” when contract wasn’t renewed was yesterday’s hardhitting news story in the C-J.  What else did Berman pony up?  “I was surprised” it was raining outside, shoes got wet?

Is it just your imagination or is the C-J giving an awful lot of ink to a guy who received the business end of a no-confidence vote?  Yes, they’re giving him lots of ink.

When will this end, you ask?  Never.

Just get used to the really sad, sputtering of the Courier-Journal editorial staff (channeled through education reporter Toni Konz) to convince us that we’re a big bunch of meanies for not appreciating Berman.  I fully expect at least two or three Berman articles every week until he hits the road on June 30th.

Next up, we’ll see more gritty coverage about Berman:

Sheldon Berman: “I was surprised” when my bread went stale because I forgot to put the twisty-tie back on the bag

Sheldon Berman: “I was surprised” when onion ring was found in my fries from Burger King

June 30th is almost here and we won’t have Berman to kick around much longer.  Let’s just sit back and enjoy these silly little Berman stories from Toni Konz while we can.  As for me, I’m planning to carpetbomb the guy with lots of stinging criticism before he leaves.   Too much fun!

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Tales of subversive behavior: Why the Jefferson County teachers union president Brent McKim needs to take an ethics class then crawl under a rock. And stay there.

Dear Jefferson County Teachers Association,

You’ve had a nice run for quite a long time here in Louisville.  Under Brent McKim’s “leadership” you’ve ruined plenty.

I know your upcoming June 30th break-up with JCPS superintendent Sheldon Berman is going to be a six-hanky ordeal, he’s been such a great BFF to you guys.   You’ve been allowed to run amok and always get what you want just like those awful little booger-pickers at the Disney Store  – tearing up displays, screaming for some cookie cake at Great American Cookie Company and always getting what they want.

And that’s just what you’re like.  Brats.

You and Berman, hand-in-hand, have been human wrecking balls in this community.  But, you, teachers union, you are the worst.

You demand salaries based on years worked not based on performance.  And you receive that.

You refuse to eat lunch in the lunchroom with the kids.  You demand a breather in the teachers lounge.  And you receive that.  Then you’re vexed when bullying is such a problem.  Guess what?  A whole lot of bullying happens during lunchtime that wouldn’t happen at all if there were two tables of teachers eyeballing those kids.  But I get it.  You’re not babysitters and I’m too old school.

You demand Oaks Day off.  Check!

You demand a day off during the St. James Crafts Fair, as I like to call it.  Check!

You have Professional Development Days that count as work days – and the work is sooo demanding.  Imagine staying awake trying to listen to a couple of presentations by some eggheads who want to yammer on about improving academic performance.  YAWN!

You want 50 minutes of planning time a day.  You want that in the contract.  Check!

You don’t want to follow Kentucky statutes regarding limits on class sizes.  You want a few extra kids so you can make an extra hundred bucks per kid.  We’ll put that in your contract, too!

You don’t want those rotten little kids in your classroom until they absolutely HAVE to be there.  Those days of kids getting to school, wandering to their classroom and working quietly or socializing are over.  I get it already – you’re not a babysitter. You want those kids penned up like cattle in the gym or auditorium until five or ten minutes before school starts – AND YOU WANT IT IN YOUR CONTRACT.  Check!

You want, want, want.  Check, check, check!

When all of that wasn’t enough, you decided to create your own political action committee called Better Schools Kentucky. Now you can take advantage of the state’s election laws and spend as much money as you want on a candidate who will support your personal agenda.  You.

Better Schools Kentucky is pure genius because you endorse candidates for the school board ($100,000 to $350,000 per candidate if they have an opponent) which lets you guilt them into voting your way 100% of the time.   Plus, if any candidate comes along with the gall to pitch some fresh ideas, those endorsements will be enough to stomp him come Election Day.  Oh and that fifteen-page questionnaire for board of education candidates who want your endorsement really weeds out the lightweights – not a single question is about educating children and not a single candidate has had the nerve to call that into question.  That questionnaire sure did rub 84WHAS’s Mandy Connell the wrong way because she fumed about it during an interview with a board of ed candidate, but who cares?  She asks too many questions anyway!

You receive everything you want.  So, why have you decided to resort to subversion in the past few months?

I thought it was really mean when you started bad-mouthing then-Jefferson County Board of Education Chairwoman Debbie Wesslund in union newsletters last fall.  Not once.  Not twice.  But many, many times to grease the skids for the person you were buying lining up to replace her.

It was really unprofessional when you were spreading misinformation about the Board of Education in those union newsletters, too.  It was so bad that during a Board of Education meeting Wesslund had to ask Dr. Berman to step in and make sure the union’s misinformation campaign was stopped.

You really gave the union a black eye when JCTA president Brent McKim recruited a candidate named David Toborowsky to replace Wesslund.  We all know that story.  Sofa, Thieneman, Dooley’s Bagels, Troubleshooter Eric Flack delivering that menacing school quiz, Tobo shooting back that having seven million addresses was his personal deal, etc.

The second black eye came when McKim, Berman and Toborowsky had some shady meet-and-greet/strategic management meeting in Berman’s office.  Big no-no!  It was so shady, Wesslund filed a complaint with the Board of Elections.

Now, you’ve been doing even creepier stuff like propping up Board of Education member Linda Duncan when she went on her PR blitz to get a re-vote on Berman’s contract.  What she did was unprofessional.  It added more dysfunction to an already dysfunctional school board.  You, along with the Crapola-Journal, are contributing to the public perception that JCPS and the schools board are a bunch of inefficient bureaucrats who aren’t qualified to manage a hot dog stand.

So, you couldn’t save Berman with Tobo.

You couldn’t save Berman with the help of your friends at the C-J.

You couldn’t save Berman with Duncan’s tireless media campaign for a re-vote on his contract.

Look at what you’ve done now so you can, maybe, hire Berman’s doppelganger.  You voted for JCTA president Brent McKim as the teacher representative of the superintendent search committee.  Guess what?  He’s not a teacher.  Not by any stretch of the imagination.  He shouldn’t have been on the committee that picked Berman.  How did that happen?

The little old ladies who work at Deer Park Baptist Church’s Mom’s Day Out provide more academic instruction than McKim does – which is none.

JCTA, you’ve worn out your welcome.  You’ve been overindulged for a very long time.  And your bad behavior has been tolerated by all of us.  Look north for your future.  Wisconsin.  Ohio.  Indiana. Your future looks very, very grim.

The way to save yourself is not with gimmicks,  subversion or finding a superintendent who will act as your apologist.  You need to step up and educate these kids because Louisville has heard excuses for long enough.

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Whoa! JCPS superintendent Sheldon Berman phone-interviewed for a job in a district that has charter schools? I thought he hated charter schools.

Mark Baker of the The Register-Guard reports that there are three finalists for superintendent of Eugene School District:

They are Darlene Schottle, superintendent of Kalispell Public Schools in Kalispell, Mont.; Sheldon Berman, superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools in Louisville, Ky.; and Michael Munoz, chief academic officer of Des Moines Public Schools in Des Moines, Iowa.

Eugene School Board members interviewed candidates by phone last week. The three finalists will be in Eugene for a community forum on March 8. Before that, school board members will visit all three finalists in their communities.

Eugene, Oregon, sounds perfect for Berman.  The ultra-liberal folks will absolutely love his commitment to diversity.  There aren’t enough black kids who can be carted all over town like luggage to make a dent in minority enrollment numbers so the district won’t have to fool with the unpleasant task of forced busing.  Win-win!  Ideologues unite!

Uh-ooh! So many JCPS parents have delivered blistering anti-Berman tirades in the Register-Guard’s comments section that those board of education members in Eugene may be reconsidering Berman’s eligibility for job at this very moment.  Here’s another problem for Berman – Ms. Schottle was named Montana’s Superintendent of the Year in 2009.

My money’s on her.

Let’s talk about charter schools for a sec.

First up, Race to the Top money and how Kentucky totally lost out on a big chunk of cash because SOMEBODY was too stubborn to include charter schools- this is from Kenny Colston on cn2 politics:

Kentucky struck out again in its quest for a huge pot of federal education money, and state officials are blaming the missed opportunity on leaders’ failure to allow charter schools.

“We did improve. Our score went up from last time. But the place we never got points was charter schools,” said Terry Holliday, Kentucky’s education commissioner. “If we have had charter schools, we would have gotten the money.”

We also have this from Jim Warren at the Lexington Herald-Leader:

A key blow might have come from Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday, who told education committee members Wednesday that Jefferson County — the state’s largest school district — “definitely” would withdraw its support if charter schools were included. Jefferson has seven struggling schools.

So, Berman and the board of education didn’t just squander JCPS’s chances of Race to the Top money, they blew it for every school district in the state.  That’s what happens when you let the teachers union boss you around.

Berman was quoted in the C-J as saying, “Eugene has a lot of good ideas.”  Eugene has three charter schools.  Has Berman figured out that charter schools are a good idea?  Let’s hope so.  I’m not the biggest fan of charters (too many stories out there about financial abuses) but I say anything that gets parents excited about education and more involved in their kids’ lives is ALWAYS a good thing.

How on earth did Berman end up on Eugene’s short list?  Well, the search firm is Ray and Associates.  ‘Nuff said!

Here’s the link to the Register-Guard story:  Eugene School Board chooses three finalists for superintendent: The finalists from Montana, Kentucky and Iowa will join in a public forum.

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If Jefferson County Public Schools board member Carol Ann Haddad says no, the answer is NO!

We’re all completely tired of hearing about JCPS board member Linda Duncan’s circle of love with the teachers union, Brent McKim and the Crapola-Journal to round up support for her BFF, JCPS superintendent Sheldon Berman.

Carol Ann Haddad says there will be no re-vote.  Let’s move on.

Here are Duncan and Berman at the JCTA rally at Fern Creek.  JCTA wants a do-over on House Bill 176 because they don’t want information about failing schools to be made public.  How’s that for teachers trying to pull a major CYOA?

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JCPS superintendent Sheldon Berman and your Board of Education eliminated the Director of Math and the Director of Science to make way for THREE(!) pricey and cheesy administrative jobs. Unbelievable!

Gee, I thought it really stunk when the principal of my kids’ school used school funds to pay for a catered luncheon from Stevens and Stevens the same year parents were asked to purchase seven books for their kids because the school district didn’t have the dough.

Anyway, after I read the Jefferson County Board of Education meeting minutes for December 10, 2010, I realized I really need to stop with the pity party.

Here’s the link to all of the craptastic details: Board minutes for 12/10/10.

I made it to page six and had to stop reading.  There sure was a lot of money being thrown around.

Executive Director JCPS Gheens Academy Instructional Leadership/Student Assignment was eliminated and turned into TWO six-figure jobs!  One of the new six-figure jobs is Executive Director JCPS Gheens Academy for Curricular Excellence and Instructional Leadership.  Go back and re-read that.  Looks like the same job title but they’re different.

The second, new six-figure job throws more money at forced busing, it’s a student assignment position called Executive Director of Student Assignment, Health and Safety.  The Director of Math and Director of Science positions were eliminated to cover the costs of the new positions.  They are getting rid of three positions and adding two with no savings to the district.  It is, as Eckels or Berman insist in the minutes, “a wash.” 

Update:  On 12/10/10, the Jefferson County Board of Education also approved a new position called Coordinator SIG School Assessment.  SIG = School Improvement Grants.  This position is needed to handle the mountain of paperwork that will be generated by all of the failing schools.  Paperwork is more important than science and math, ya know.

Okay.

Here’s some funny stuff from the Gheens website:

You’ve Arrived!

Welcome to JCPS Analytical and Applied Sciences

Striving to strengthen mathematics and science instruction by deepening the implementation of the K-12 math and science curricula. This website will include both District and outside resources to support math and science learning.

**eyeroll** Who wrote that?  Mojo Jojo?

Well, I guess JCPS may as well give the Director of Science and Director of Math positions the heave-ho since students don’t really need help with math and science.  Right now, they need miracles.

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