Reply to Kaya Leaving; John Davis in as interim

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Do you all think PARCC results came in?  Last year's scores were really, really low. [/quote]

I saw the writing on the wall when Bowser started making the calls during the snowstorm. If Kaya had it her way, schools would not have closed. Not one single day. But Bowser took over and started calling the shots before the first flake hit the ground instead of allowing Kaya to do her "Wait and see then I'll make a decision at the last minute" approach.

It seemed to me she didn't completely trust Kaya or care for her way of doing things. And that Kaya didn't like having her authority usurped. I knew it was just a matter of time and told everyone who would listen that I didn't see Kaya remaining in the role too much longer or making it to her 2017 deadline.[/quote]

Bingo. They were never BFFs, like Gray and Henderson. They had to be convinced to play nice. Bowser was always clueless about education to begin with. When she demoted Henderson, the 2017 countdown sped up.

The question is not just who would want the job, but what really is the job moving forward? I'd take stability, equity, and continuity. For example, teacher contract, Cornerstones and foreign travel opportunities for all, and retention of top principals with the three-year contracts who can build attractive feeders plans together.

This is not a sexy, high-profile, White House frequent guest type of role. BTDT

My ideal, as a black parent EOTP, would be someone with Catania's smarts, tenacity, and front-line exposure to all kinds of schools in all wards. Obviously not Catania himself. Ideally someone with knowledge of the boundary and lottery issues. But there's no need to go back to that until we get the neighborhood schools in some type of stable model.

Could Davis be that Unicorn?[/quote]

Whoever it is, they should have the experience and credentials of an education leader. Someone with more than 2 years in the classroom, experience as a school leader, etc. And it definitely needs to be someone who ends the "Teacher Blame Game" that places all of the focus on "fixing" teachers and none on students. It needs to be someone who ends the malicious and political nature of DCPS, someone with INTEGRITY-not simply someone interested in looking good by manipulating data and skewing the facts. For goodness sakes, it needs to be someone who actually likes teachers. How in the world can you lead a school system and not like teachers? That's like leading a classroom but not liking students! Kaya played nicely and said all of the right things that suggested she liked and respected teachers, but her actions said differently most of the time.

For goodness sakes, the person needs to end Impact, revamp how teachers are evaluated, remove test scores as part of the teachers eval and make DCPS a place that doesn't see a mass exodus of teachers all year long. Someone who addresses the behavioral issues and violence in the classrooms, unties administrators' hands and allow them to 'deal' with these issues so that actual teaching and learning can take place.

It's the antisocial, disruptive, violent behaviors that go unchecked in the lowest performing schools that keep them from improving. Instead of coddling and accommodating the behavior, they need to address it head on. Create environments that are actually conducive to learning. That's one of the biggest things Kaya got wrong, as it remains one of the biggest challenges to teaching in those schools.

On the other hand, she is to be commended for providing libraries and art in the schools, textbooks and a curriculum. The pay that she likes to tout is nice, but it's not enough to keep teachers around through the school violence and behavioral issues and horrible school "leaders". And  of course improving the quality of courses and making advanced classes accessible to all kids was great. I also love that DC students are able to travel abroad.

But INTEGRITY, INTEGRITY, INTEGRITY is what DCPS schools need in its leaders.

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