Des Moines Schools' Doubling Down on IB comes with a High Price

I am not a trained educator. But, I have been an education advocate for more than 20 years and as a former Des Moines school board member, parent and businessman who has been involved in economic development issues for even longer, I know well how important it is to fund the diversity of programs required to advance students across the learning spectrum.

I am proud of the education my three children have received as students of Des Moines Public Schools. They have excelled in ways I could have never imagined thanks to the creative teachers and sound programming available in our schools. My oldest son will head off to the United States Naval Academy later this year. He will tell you, as will I, he earned this honor in large part because he was a student of the outstanding Des Moines Central Academy. Connor is only one of thousands of Central students who have been able to go on to great things because of this proven, award-winning program.

Des Moines Central Academy

Central Academy is a district-wide program that challenges students to achieve in a learning environment geared to their abilities. Central Academy allows the Des Moines Schools to offer advanced placement, language and other classes in a centralized location to students from across the district. It would not be financially feasible for Des Moines to provide a similar level of instruction and learning if it were to try to recreate these classes at individual high schools. A dismantling of Central Academy would mean students at some high schools would have better access to some classes than would others who live across town. Yet, Des Moines Schools is on the verge of pursuing a plan to do just that.

Des Moines Schools is taking steps to offer fewer of the classes that have made Central a national education model in an effort to bolster the International Baccalaureate (IB) program that has had difficulty gaining traction in our district. Des Moines has struggled to recruit enough high school students to the IB program to justify the millions of dollars the district has invested in IB. The superintendent is doubling down on IB by shrinking a Central Academy that is working well so the district will have space and resources to gamble on the program that has yet to take hold in Des Moines.

Such thinking is wrongheaded.

Today, Des Moines Schools officials quietly started spreading the word Central Academy classes such as Environmental Science, US Government, and Statistics would be replaced with IB geared classes like Microeconomics, Computer Science, Art History and Spanish Literature. This is much more than a minor change in class offerings. If this plan is implemented, it will represent a significant departure in Central Academy’s focus and will result in a loss of accessibility to a core group of Advanced Placement courses for a majority of Des Moines high school students.

Few educators will argue against the merits of a well-run IB program. Its curriculum is also proven and many students across the globe have benefitted from it. But, the choice between IB and Central Academy is a false one. Building a successful IB program should not and must not come at the expense of Central Academy, a program that has a long track record of achievement.

The mission of Des Moines School is to create programs for students in every corner of the district. If the Des Moines School Board takes Central Academy apart in an effort to prop up its latest project of the moment, IB, the people of Des Moines will lose because our district will give up something remarkable in the process. Someday the Des Moines IB program may reach the student levels the District has promised it would, but if it does so at the price of Central Academy, Des Moines will be much the less for it.

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Added 2:10 p.m., 1/31/2014
Because blogs are living documents capable of being commented upon and, one could hope, evolving, I would like to update this piece based on some conversations I have had with others.

One teacher friend of mind pointed out "Every (DMPS) high school is offering AP Env. Sci. and Gov. and, in most cases, have more than one section of them! I can't speak to AP Statistics, but I know we have it at North (with multiple sections again). So it seems as if DMPS is trying to eliminate duplicate offerings, not trying to dismantle Central Academy. Many classes will still need to be offered there because they are not offered at the comprehensive high schools."

My friend raises a interesting point and one that forces me to consider one of my previous assumptions about accessibility to AP classes. If the classes being cut from Central are being made available at the individual high schools to the standards they have been offered at Central, I could see why DMPS may want to eliminate them at Central. But, we should not lose sight of the second piece of my statement, these classes have to meet the same standard they do at Central.

To that point, a student friend of mine chimed in with "At Central Academy the quality of education, teacher involvement, & peer competition is irreplaceable at a home school for those students who do want to get the best education the public school system can offer."

I thank these two friends and others who have challenged me on this piece, what I seek passionately (perhaps, too passionately at times) to protect at Central Academy is not any individual course offering or group of courses. I fight for the all too uncommon atmosphere Central Academy creates that helps students from across our district to highly achieve. If classes are being moved to home high schools to make room for IB or some other program and the classes fall even slightly short of the standard at which they have been taught at Central Academy, our district loses something valuable.

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Added 10:30 a.m., 2/1/2014
I have had the opportunity to talk to many teachers, students, district personnel and one school board member about this issue during the last 24 hours. The DMPS officials assure me this change has nothing to do with downgrading AP standards. The AP classes offered at the individual high schools will meet or exceed the standards set at Central. If true, this is welcome news. Time will tell, but I must say I am assured by their confidence and willingness to talk this through.

Let me end with something I believe strongly. It is crucial DMPS preserve and bolster Central Academy. It is a proven entity that has helped thousands of students achieve great things over the years. One glaring fault of Central is that there remain students in our district who do not take advantage of the programs offered at Central. However, this problem cannot be solved by offering a handful of classes in our individual high schools. Central offers a learning environment and camaraderie that, without exaggeration, changes the trajectory of many learners. The goal should be to grow this unique program by increasing the diversity of its student body, not break it apart and sending its pieces back to individual schools.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.

Put the Tissues Away. Closing Gateway School Makes Sense.

Des Moines School Board members may want to have tissues at the ready Tuesday night. Earnest well-coached middle school students and their sure-to-be-teary-eyed parents are planning to pack the meeting room in an effort to win at least four board member’s votes against the administration’s proposal to close the newly opened Gateway Secondary School housed at Central Campus. These families love the school. One can understand why they do. The 171 students who attend the shiny new Gateway enjoy the lowest student/teacher ratio in the district.

Board members should listen politely to the emotional pleas made by this acutely small minority of district parents and students, but they should base their decision on the facts. Closing Gateway is good for the district as a whole.

First, Gateway’s limited size means it costs over $700 more to educate a Gateway student than it does any other middle school student in the district. Second, Gateway was chartered to provide access to International Baccalaureate (IB) programming not available in neighborhood schools at the time. Making IB curriculum available at Brody Middle School solved that. With Merrill on the west, Meredith on the north, Goodrell on the east and now Brody on the south, middle school students in every corner of Des Moines have access to IB. Last, if the duplicative and tiny Gateway stays open, the district will be forced to spend more than $1.7 million to renovate space needed for vital Central Campus classes that could use the Gateway classrooms.

The District shouldn’t have opened Gateway in 2010. It did because doing so created the illusion of innovation and this helped to continue distracting the community from noticing school leaders lack the vision and courage to address our long festering middle school problem. Middle school is where the deficiencies of education come into bloom and most go perennially unaddressed. We can no longer avoid our failing middle schools. It is time for a comprehensive plan for educating students across the learning spectrum. To continue funding a token school serving 171 students would further hinder serious reform.

The former superintendent lobbied her school board heavily to approve the Gateway Secondary School in 2009. She was losing a battle to open a charter school she had promoted as groundbreaking – she eventually got the charter school, but that boondoggle has and can be discussed in another column. The superintendent needed a win and she pushed hard. The plans and rationale were scant for Gateway, but board members were told it was intended as an IB school and they quietly followed along as they usually did.

Fast-forward to today and we find a middle school serving less than 200 students while the others in Des Moines serve nearly 700. Worse, Gateway is off course. Students take high school classes like fashion design because funding isn’t available to offer the intended more appropriate middle years IB curriculum. That should be reason enough for the board to push to close the school.

Gateway costs more to operate than other schools. It is a duplication of existing neighborhood schools. It uses space needed for Central Campus classes attended by high school students throughout the district. And, Gateway has failed to meet its stated mission.

There will be 150 or so severely disappointed families should the school board accept the administration’s wise proposal to close Gateway, but it is in the best interest of the community and the families of the other 32,000 Des Moines students to let this pet project fade away.

Four years ago an administration disinterested in data and sound planning bamboozled the school board into voting for the Gateway School. On Tuesday, a different administration will present a well-thought and documented argument to close that same school. Here’s hoping the school board has the courage to make a decision based on facts and reason while seated in a room packed with people clutching tissues.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register essay.

Education Reform Starts with Teachers

The Iowa Task Force on Teacher Leadership and Compensation released a $150 million school improvement proposal Thursday. It’s an easy twenty-six page read which includes this prelude to the task force’s six goals:

“If we effectively compensate teachers; recruit and promote excellent teachers and provide support as they collaborate reflectively to refine their practice; create the political will and understanding necessary to remake the status of the teaching profession; give highly effective teachers opportunities to grow, refine, and share their expertise; and develop a clear system with quality implementation, then… student learning will increase, student outcomes will improve, and students will be prepared to succeed in a globally competitive environment.”

One might take issue with the statement’s structure, but it is hard to argue with its premise. Paying teachers more, recruiting high achievers, and improving collaboration and mentoring are worthwhile endeavors. They are hardly groundbreaking concepts. Teachers and non-teachers alike have been advocating these since about the time the first school was built.

The task force’s proposal should be supported, but let’s recognize the document for what it is. It is the latest in a long line of political manifestos written to give politicians an air of being concerned about education. And, it is substantially less than a blueprint for meaningful reform.

Most teachers do not get paid enough. However, it is important to address one undeniable fact before going further. The recruitment and retention of the best and the brightest into the field of education has less to do with salaries than it does with how teachers are treated. For starters, school districts have been firing teachers by the truckload in recent years to balance budgets. We lack the political will to keep education from the chopping block. Many of the very brilliant young people the task force says it seeks became trained educators in recent years only to be severed from the teaching profession by a blunt yet ruthless budget ax.

While the Task Force’s proposals have some merits, Iowa could make significant and more immediate gains if it took the $150 million proposed by this commission and used it to begin restoring the hundreds of teaching positions lost in recent years. Raising the starting pay of teachers is the right thing to do, but it will mean nothing if school districts have to fire teachers a few years down the road because coffers again run empty. We must restore schools and commit to innovation simultaneously.

Collaboration, mentoring, support and continuing education are as important to educators as they are in any profession. However, as long as activities meant to improve education result in teachers spending less time with students, they will bear insufficient fruit. In Des Moines the demand for teacher collaboration has resulted in a silly calendar structure that releases students from class ninety minutes early every Wednesday. These shortened days have an atmosphere of something much less than an actual learning day even before the dismissal bell rings, which leads many kids to call them ‘do-nothing-Wednesdays.’

The 180 day school calendar drives decisions. This has to stop. The better way to get teachers time for collaboration, mentoring and support is to start treating and paying teachers like the professionals we want them to be. Teaching is not a clock punching, do-the-time job. It is the craft of gifted people. Before we begin talk about lengthening the school year, which has merit, we need to lengthen the teacher contract year. A school day should mean students are in class learning. Do-nothing-Wednesdays and frequent teacher days need to end. This change in thinking has to start with teachers themselves and the unions representing them.

OK, I sense I have raised the ire of many teachers with my last comments. Let me clarify, teachers are among the hardest working people I know. They spend long hours at school and many more after grading and preparing lessons. I do not mean to diminish their effort in any conceivable way. On the contrary, teachers need to be paid and treated in a manner that will compel them to cease nitpicking about the calendar and the clock.

Recommendations from any and every education task force will only serve as talking points unless we recognize education reform means committing to spending money to provide teachers the tools, resources, support and ongoing training they need to do the job. This will require more than a onetime expenditure – it means a long-time ironclad commitment to spending.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.

Why the May 10 DMPS Board Meeting Matters

“The government is us; we are the government, you and I.” Theodore Roosevelt 

The last thing most of us want to hear is more about former Des Moines Schools superintendent Nancy Sebring’s sexually explicit emails. The emails provided insight into Sebring’s personal life, led to her hasty departure from Des Moines and ended her job in Omaha before it began. The emails painted a sad picture and made for uncomfortable reading. It is best to let the personal sections of the emails fade from public discussion.

However, the parts relating to Sebring’s professional duties shine light on significant dysfunction within the district. The school board had it backwards. It was allowing the superintendent to direct the elected board. This information should not be lost in the effort to put the salaciousness behind us. How the school board and individual members carried out their duties during Sebring’s tenure deserves thorough analysis. This includes the board’s handling of Sebring’s departure.

Last week the Iowa Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on my behalf. I was somewhat hesitant to sign-on to this case. I knew it likely I would be ducking clichés. Throwing mud balls, stirring the pot and beating a dead horse were a few that came to mind. It was Teddy Roosevelt’s quote that convinced me to go forward. Government is you and I. If we look the other way – fail to challenge when we think something is wrong – government will no longer serve us, it will serve itself.

The lawsuit asks the Court to review the audio recording of the closed May 10 Des Moines School Board meeting. When there is a significant question about the legality of a closed meeting, a citizen has two choices; take the public body’s word it obeyed the law, or ask for an independent review. The only entity capable of such a review under Iowa law is the Court.

The school board met in closed session for 80 minutes on May 10. Following the meeting, board president Teree Caldwell-Johnson announced the board would be accepting Sebring’s resignation, which had been received the previous day. We were told the board had also discussed the appointment of Thomas Ahart as acting superintendent, even though the board had taken action months before to name Ahart to the position automatically in the event of a vacancy.

The public notice of the meeting stated it would be closed under this section of the law; “to evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointment, hiring, performance, or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual’s reputation and that individual requests a closed session.”

So, here’s the problem. The meeting was called after Caldwell-Johnson had confronted Sebring about the emails and, according to Caldwell-Johnson three weeks after the May 10 meeting, “Dr. Sebring offered to submit her resignation within the first few minutes of my initial conversation with her.” Moments after the May meeting, Caldwell-Johnson said the board did not discuss Sebring's performance, and Sebring was not being considered for appointment, hiring or discharge. Caldwell-Johnson contended the discussion was about Sebring's decision to speed her departure. Caldwell-Johnson went on to say this, “I don’t know if it {the meeting} would have caused anyone any harm. I think it’s just a procedural thing.”

Since Sebring’s appointment, hiring, performance, or discharge was not being considered, the board lacked the ability to discuss her resignation in private. If it did, Caldwell-Johnson’s procedural thing is, in reality, an illegal thing.

The lawsuit acknowledges discussion of Ahart’s professional competency would be appropriate under the law. But, remember, the board met for and hour and twenty minutes. It is a fair guess most of that time was spent discussing Sebring, not Ahart. More important, it is a good possibility the board spent that time planning how to handle the fallout. Elected officials cannot meet in private to plan a political response, even when the topic is dicey.

An employee can seek a closed session if he feels his reputation might be needlessly harmed. But, a public body cannot close its doors just because it feels talking on the record may harm board members’ political interests.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as an essay in Des Moines CityView.  

Des Moines Schools New Map Deserves an ‘Incomplete’

Des Moines Public Schools is considering redrawing attendance maps for middle and high schools. This should be good news. It is not. The schools in Des Moines face unequal problems with disparate access to resources. Unfortunately, the District’s proposed boundary plan is window dressing designed to hide its most vexing issues.

The District’s new plan creates feeder patterns for its high schools – all students at one middle school should proceed together to the same high school. Currently, some middle schools feed more than one high school. It is said the new plan will make it easier for educators to better hand-off students from one level to the next, especially those with special needs. According to District communication, the new feeder system will create more consistent learning environments and better coordination of student records, thus improving student performance. In fact, it does little to none of this.

The plan impacts so few families and students one has to wonder why the District is bothering to go through the map drawing process at all. In a district of some 32,000 students, school officials admit the new map will only impact approximately 600 students, or less than 2% of the total student population. This is hardly a huge change in the landscape. Worse, the plan does next to nothing to address the inconsistency of learning opportunities at what are the haves and the have nots of Des Moines’ middle schools.

Educators across the country track poverty based on the number of students who qualify for the free and reduced lunch program. Simply put, a school with a high free and reduced lunch population faces more challenges when it comes to teaching and learning. Free and reduced lunch numbers are an accurate indicator of a school population’s need for educational assistance and funding. Des Moines officials acknowledge this fact, so it is baffling why they did not try to draw a map that would more equitably distribute students at middle schools throughout the District.

At 34%, Merrill Middle School has the lowest number of middle school students on free and reduced lunch. All other seven non-magnet middle schools, those impacted by the DMPS map, today have free and reduced lunch numbers above 54%, with Harding Middle School ringing in at a staggering 87.9%. While the new map might potentially lower Harding’s number over 10% to a projected 77.3%, the changes at the other schools range from a 4% decrease to a 4.7% increase. Shockingly, Merrill’s number declines to 33.3%; while a short 2 miles away Callanan Middle School will see its numbers rise from 72.8% to 77.5%. The trend at these two schools has been heading the wrong way for some time. In 2008, Callanan’s number was 57.1% and Merrill’s was 37.8%.

The Des Moines School District redrew its school boundary map based on the concept high school feeder systems create consistency in learning. But, DMPS avoided making eye contact with the elephant in the room. Most of the kids we are failing, those who drop-out or will fall short of their potential, are highly mobile. Their economic situation forces them to move frequently during their school years. A feeder system won’t help most of them. Des Moines’ problem is not that it lacks a high school feeder system. Too many kids are being lost to an outmoded and lopsided middle school formula.

In order to meet the needs of today’s students, school districts must rethink the way they educate. Middle schools are the weakest link in the educational chain. They will remain so in Des Moines until this school board and its administrators address the issues head-on and begin to offer bold leadership. This means scrapping the do-nothing boundary changes Des Moines is proposing and working with the community to make what will undoubtedly be difficult decisions.

It is time to fix a school system where a couple of middle schools have most of the advantages and the others have the lion’s share of the problems. Tweaking the map isn’t enough.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.

Moving Forward – Sebring is Gone. The School Board is Not.

I filed a request with the Office of Citizens’ Aide/Ombudsman to investigate the 12:00 p.m., May 10 closed meeting of the Des Moines Public School Board. This is the link to the letter to the Ombudsman and this is the link to the attachments I included with the letter to the Ombudsman.

I contend the Des Moines Public School Board improperly went into closed session on May 10 to discuss political strategy on how to best handle the resignation of Nancy Sebring.

In the minutes, hours and days following the meeting, the board president and District officials misled the public to why Sebring resigned. They have subsequently said they did so because the truth would come out eventually. It is not up to public officials or employees to decide when and how the truth surfaces.

As interim superintendent, Thomas Ahart should make every effort to end the controversy surrounding this matter. He should rescind his request for a closed meeting and the School Board should release the recording of the entire session as soon as possible.

Should Mr. Ahart refuse to rescind his request, all portions of the meeting should be made public that do not involve Thomas Ahart’s performance, appointment, hiring or discharge. The public has a right to evaluate the matter free of the changing filters established by self-interested board members and DMPS employees.

The quickest way to dispense with the swirling controversy Nancy Sebring left behind is to open all of the records. This would allow the public to reach an informed decision about how to best move our community forward.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.

School Board Should Conduct Search in the Open

The Des Moines School Board is losing its superintendent. Nancy Sebring is off to the greener pastures, well, at least the higher salary of Omaha. The Board needs to hire a replacement. Arguably, this may be the most important task a school board must undertake. A board and its individual members are wise to seek advice and guidance from many different sources. The Des Moines Board did that this week. From whom they sought the advice is as revealing as the advice itself.

Phil Roeder was chairman of the School Board in 2006 when Nancy Sebring was hired. Roeder oversaw the process and shortly after Sebring assumed her duties, Roeder resigned his board seat to become one of the School District’s spokespeople. Roeder may have some valuable advice for the Board, as long as all involved remember Roeder is providing input on how his next boss should be hired to replace his current boss, who he hired. I am not suggesting a conflict of interest. Sebring was impressed by Roeder and decided to hire him after he hired her, a happy coincidence. It may not be a conflict for Roeder to be involved now he is on the District payroll, but the Board should keep his advice in perspective.

So, let’s take a look at what Roeder said. “This board, the seven of us were joined at the hip, figuratively, for the length of time it took us to select a superintendent.” He stressed the importance of the Board appearing to the public and applicants to have a united front. Only the board president should speak to the media. He urged the board to have bold and robust conversations internally (to be read, behind closed doors). And, perhaps the most troubling line, “There’s nobody going to tell you this time around that you’re doing it right or wrong. It’s self policing.”

The board can only speak in a unified voice if they agree to what that voice will say in secret or delegate the entire process to one alone among them. Roeder is right, by speaking in one voice and keeping the bold and robust discussions about what the Board is doing out of public view, no one will have any idea whether the Board is handling the search well or not.

The community should be concerned that one of the paid communicators of their school district advised the elected school board to keep debate over how and who to hire as the district’s next leader out of the public’s earshot. There should be no internal discussions.

An elected board should not shy away from discussing important matters in public, especially something as crucial as the hiring of a superintendent. Self-policing is not good enough. The public needs to make those calls.

There is a difference between reaching a consensus and speaking with a unified voice. Our school district faces a multitude of problems and opportunities. Too many students fail to achieve, budgets are critically tight and we need to fight tooth and nail to ensure some of the best teachers and programs in the country stay where they are, in Des Moines. Everything the Board needs to consider and debate should be said out loud and in public. The community and potential applicants need to have the full picture.

The seven elected members of the School Board will do the community a disservice if they lock the doors and hash things out alone.

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Note: I served on the School Board and was on the same ballot with Phil Roeder and two others when I ran for reelection for one of two seats. I was one of two who lost and Mr. Roeder was one of two who won. I believe I lost that race because I have a propensity to say things out loud, but I admit there are likely many reasons voters chose others over me. I guess what I am saying is while I see my comments about Mr. Roeder as objective, if one preaches openness as I have, he should be willing to share all of the facts and let the reader decide for himself.

Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.

That’s what he said, umm, she said

I receive many interesting comments and questions from readers. A great number result in my having insightful conversations with people who challenge me to look at something from an entirely different point of view. After writing a guest essay for the Des Moines Register about how the Des Moines School Board should approach its search for a new superintendent, I received two somewhat similar emails challenging my use of the pronoun ‘she.’ The first suggested I made a grammatical error, an all-too common possibility for me. The second intimated something darker, inequality. I decided to let the latter one rest for a while before responding.

After eleven days, the writer inquired if I had been on vacation and asked for a response. I was mildly embarrassed I had made him ask twice. He claimed to be considering applying for the position of superintendent in Des Moines, but he said “your phrase, ‘She will be a champion…’ took me aback. I find it troublesome that a former DM school board member would exclude the male population in one quick stroke of the pen.”

He asked two questions:

1. Is this attitude also shared by the current DM school board members?
2. Would a male have to fight an uphill battle to be considered as the person who could provide the DM school district with the management it so desperately needs?

My response follows:

My apologies for not responding sooner. Unfortunately, I cannot put off my tardiness on a vacation. I have only the day-to-day distractions of life to blame.


First, allow me to say, I do not speak for any group, especially the school board. I am one guy with an opinion – my wife might tell you I have those in abundance.


With that in mind, I will answer your first question this way; there has been only one female superintendent in the history of Des Moines Schools. This hardy suggests an institutional favoritism of the female gender. Keep in mind the majority of current school board members were not on the board when the last superintendent was hired, so it is also fair to assume past actions are unlikely to provide much indication what this group will do. I would point out the process and the outcome will be determined solely by the board, so you will have to evaluate the members individually and the group as a whole in order to determine whether the process will be gender-equal. I would be shocked/surprised/mystified if it was not.


As to my word choice, I will suggest you have read far too much into it. Unlike other languages, English is explicit in gender for the third person singular pronoun. A long accepted practice suggested the use of the male version of the pronoun in cases such as my essay. That rule seems a bit slanted for modern writing. Further, I find the use of ‘he/she’ cumbersome and ‘they,” well, is just incorrect. Sometimes I alternate ‘he’ and ‘she’ when writing to balance things. When there is not an opportunity to alternate gender pronouns in equal numbers in a piece, I figure there is little harm in erring on the use of the female version since that gender has been slighted for so very long when it comes to word usage (and in many other ways). I hope that helps demonstrate my use of a single word had nothing to do with the point I was trying to make in my essay.


I find your second question troubling, albeit the answer simpler. Your persistent exploration of the possibility my use of the word ‘she’ might somehow indicate a widespread bias toward gender suggests, at least in this case, you may be focusing on the wrong issues – one might say you appear to be focusing on the trees and not the forest. What I was attempting to say, in part, in my piece was the schools in Des Moines need a leader willing and capable of problem solving, creating a vision and building consensus to move forward on that vision. If the next superintendent were to spend too much time parsing the words of others, I would fear he (although he could just as equally be a she) would fail to have much success. If this is indeed your case, the uphill battle you face is unlikely to have anything to do with your gender.


Thanks for writing and best wishes.

I hope my response satisfies people of all genders.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register online essay.

Need new mold for next Des Moines superintendent

The Des Moines public school district is looking for a new leader. After serving as superintendent for six years, Nancy Sebring has accepted a position in Omaha.

As a parent of three Des Moines school students, I am excited about what placing new talent in the top education post could mean for my community. The search is among the most important local endeavors of the day, and we are wise to give serious thought about the tool set we want the next superintendent to bring to the job.

I was proud of our schools before I served on the school board a number of years ago. However, my concern about those critical and costly areas where our schools fall short has increased over the years.

Too many kids are pushed through and out of school without ever coming close to reaching their potential. Like a troubled student who gets an “A” in English and an “F” in math, Des Moines has a complex and disquieting track record.

We need an education chief who understands the importance of supporting what is working, and yet capable of challenging while simultaneously motivating the community to join in drastically changing a system that all too often fails the kids who need our support the most.

Nearly every teacher, administrator and school board member can cite the facts and figures. The number of those in poverty is increasing. While a varied population speaking numerous languages brings a beautiful cultural diversity and enriching worldview into classrooms every day, the price of teaching this multiplicity of students wreaks havoc on an already fatigued budget.

Add to this the constraints the Legislature and Congress place on schools and teachers with test-centric policies and one begins to wonder how schools accomplish anything.

If Des Moines wishes to maintain its current standing and pursue only modest successes as it has in recent years, it would make sense to conduct a search similar to that of Omaha or Boulder, Colo., the other district where Sebring applied. These districts wanted administrators who knew how to make the type of gains that would avoid controversy. They found exactly what they sought.

If Des Moines wants to regain its once proud standing as a district boldly making progress in every corner, the school board needs to pursue a different kind of candidate.

Other districts hire administrators who will keep the buses running on time. Des Moines should hire an education CEO more interested in advancement than appeasing the risk adverse.

Such a fighter will be articulate and possess a commanding personality. She will be a champion for those whose voices cannot be heard, as well as an advocate for the already achieving. This superintendent will know innovation looks less like a charter school or another token program and a lot more like a wholesale redesign of a middle school formula that has not been altered significantly in 50 years.

The next superintendent needs to come from a different mold, but I fear the school board is following the tired path trodden by so many others. Last week, members decided it would cost $150,000 to $200,000 and take until July 2013 to find a replacement. As the 50 percent of McCombs Middle School sixth-graders who scored proficient in math in 2011 could tell you, this 15-month search will be equal to 20 percent of the 72 months Sebring was in Des Moines.

That is too long. One only need review the rich contract the school board approved less than a year ago to keep her from bolting — that did not work out so well — to understand why they feel they face this drawn-out process. School boards have driven up the price of education talent and complicated the hiring process.

Many find it acceptable to put things on hold until the next generally accepted superintendent-bidding season comes to close next July 1. It isn’t.

The talent we need may not be constrained by — or be willing to break free of — this old-school way of thinking. It was frustrating to hear the board president say, “For us to even think about doing something between now and July 1 is penny-wise and pound-foolish.”

I understand the board’s desire to conduct a thorough and thoughtful search for a visionary and effective superintendent. But, Des Moines has much to offer a person interested in embracing success.

If the person we seek is different, the search should be different. Let’s not postpone for a moment finding a new kind of leader for a school district that could be exceptional.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com 
This entry was first published as a guest essay in the Des Moines Register.

The Politics of School Reform

Governor Terry Branstad and his Education director, Jason Glass, deserve credit for initiating a statewide discussion about education.  Although they illustrated there are no quick fixes for Iowa’s schools, some good will come of these sessions.  Most every idea discussed carries a heavy price tag at a time when the state has precious few dollars to spare.

Iowa is better off than many states, but it continues to walk a thin line.  Many Iowa students are achieving, but far too many are not.  Gathering people around the table to discuss our problems is a good start.  Solving them will require an overhaul of public education the likes of which Iowa has never before contemplated.

The Branstad proposals released in October mainly focus on student testing, teaching quality and things like the length of the school day.  The answer does not lie in more testing or simply adding class time.  We have to rethink how and what is taught.  And, dare I say it; we need to give educators a larger role in determining policy.

The Testing Myth
It is important to test students, but the questionable Bush Leave no Child Behind policies, the Obama Race to the Top competition, or Branstad’s recent proposals all offer testing as some mysterious panacea for American schools.  Testing doesn’t improve learning, just as monitoring your blood pressure won’t improve your health.

A high blood pressure reading helps pinpoint a problem.  Improving your health will take effort and that starts by changing diet and increasing exercise.  Testing in the classroom is the same.  Testing provides an indicator of how students are performing.  Improving learning starts by changing how and what subjects are taught, and increasing rigor in the classroom.  Your blood pressure won’t go down faster if you monitor it more often, and kids won’t learn better if we test them more.

In 2011, testing has become so important in the classroom it overshadows the most important aspect of learning.  Teaching students to think and apply subject matter often takes a backseat to helping students successfully parrot information by filling in bubbles on a standardized test.

The School Calendar is a Small Part of the Problem
Just as Iowans can count on a congressional election every couple of years and one for president and governor every four, they can count on at least one candidate talking about our antiquated school calendar during every campaign.  Every election cycle we hear about how the school year is based on an outmoded agrarian calendar.  We are reminded kids are not needed in farm fields anymore and how we lag behind other countries in the amount of time students spend in the classroom.  But, the passion for doing anything about this dwindles as the election fades in the rearview mirror.

Oddly, the amount of instructional time has decreased recently.  If one adds up the minutes lost to school days shortened to balance tight budgets, being released early every Wednesday so teachers can plan, the switch to block scheduling in high school (block schedules gives more minutes per period, but fewer total minutes per subject) and the amount of additional time designated for taking standardized tests; my kids have lost weeks of instructional time compared to their counterparts a few years ago.

It is one thing to talk about keeping school open longer during an information session with constituents, doing something about it takes political capital few elected officials have and tax resources few are willing to commit.

Thomas
The sad truth is adding time in the classroom and developing the perfect evaluation tools would have minimal impact.  What and how we are teaching needs to change even more than time spent doing so and how students’ knowledge is tested.

Visit my daughter’s middle school and you will understand the depth of the problem.  Wander the halls long enough and you will encounter one child who embodies the issue.  I’ll call him Thomas.  He is a hulking man-child large enough to play linebacker for the Bears.  He is generally kind, always talkative and a handful for any teacher tasked with trying to reach a class full of adolescent hormone-pumping near-teens.  Thomas has difficulty sitting still, will never go to college and is unlikely to develop the tools he needs to make it through the most basic classes required to graduate from high school.  Most class periods, Thomas’ teachers give in to his restlessness and allow him to “go to the bathroom.”  Thomas routinely roams the halls unquestioned for countless minutes every day.  While he is out there, his teachers have the ability to better focus on teaching the rest of his class.

Thomas is sacrificed, so others can learn.

Middle school is the dirty underbelly of our school systems.  Even though the problem began long before many students reached the middle years, it is there students like Thomas begin to be squeezed from the system.  In a perfect world, there would be a learning environment better suited for students like Thomas.  While it is an oversimplification to say we operate a one-size-fits-all public school system, even the greatest defender of our current schools will admit we do not have the alternatives required to help every child reach his potential.

Political Will
As does Governor Branstad, the Des Moines Register deserves some credit for adding to the conversation by publishing an ongoing series about education reform.  It is important for students, parents, teachers, political leaders, business people and the public to have honest discussions about fixing our schools.  Far too many children are failing to learn in Iowa schools and we need to put our heads together to find the solutions and, most important, build consensus for funding a fundamental change in public education.  The payback will be worth it, but the cost to do this correctly will be immense.

Until we commit dollars and political capital in equal measures to creating alternative learning environments aimed at reaching students at every part of the learning spectrum; we will continue to see schools fall short of what we expect from them.  If the school calendar is considered antiquated, the curriculum model we continue to follow for our schools must be called ancient.

Students like Thomas, students headed to college and students destined to become skilled laborers require different things from school.  It won’t matter how many minutes or days are added to the school calendar, or how many tests we administer; as long as we allow students like Thomas to fall through the cracks and do not provide teachers the resources they need to reach every student, we will never have a school system capable of performing as it should.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.

Board of Ed Ignoring Danger in Rush to get High School Students Online

Ask any teacher and he will tell you every child learns in a slightly different way. I like to say this is due to the unique way each person is wired, which is why I leave it to professional educators to explain the science of learning. Let’s just say it does not take a PhD in education to understand that just because one student – or the majority of students, for that matter – finds success in a classroom environment where lectures, textbooks and repetition are the standard doesn’t mean all will.

Fortunately, we live in an age when technology can advance education in ways our grandparents could have never imagined. However, Iowans should be skeptical about the Iowa State Board of Education’s rush to expand a program that allows high school students to gain credit for online courses.

Online learning may be the newest, fastest growing educational paradigm, but not everything shiny and new proves to be effective. A little caution is prudent. Many of us remember the classrooms-without-walls schools built in the 1970’s that were supposed to stimulate teaching across classrooms. They turned out to be noisy places filled with distracted students and frustrated teachers. After spending millions of dollars retrofitting walls in buildings coast to coast, most of these environments do not exist today. Online courses, too, have shortcomings to be considered before they are adapted too widely.

I do not mean to diminish the important role online learning can play when it comes to meeting the needs of technologically savvy students. Online courses can provide students with more flexibility. Obviously, student success should be based on what is learned rather than how much time is spent in the classroom. But, academic rigor is all too often lost when a student participates in online classes. Many of these courses are more about completing assignments than helping students apply the subject in the constructive and meaningful way their counterparts in other educational environments are. Talk to students who have taken these courses and you come to understand online classes are more like checklists than they are comprehensive education.

I know a student who struggled with traditional high school Spanish. Yet, She was able to click off the online courses with little effort in a fraction of the time estimated in the course literature. She did not learn Spanish. She instead found a way to get credit in an unsupervised environment without mastering the subject. I recognize this example alone does not condemn online learning, but it illustrates why we should be skeptical about moving students out of the classroom and distancing them from the nurturing assistance of a teacher. Learning is a give and take that is hampered when educators and students separated by computer screens are both judged by the number of completed assignments as opposed to what the students learn.

Board of Education member Max Phillips summed up the Board’s concern about Iowa lagging behind other states when it comes to the number of high school students taking classes online. Phillips said, “Twenty-five other states have more students than we do in virtual learning. We need to learn, but we don’t need to go slow, because our students are already behind.”

Nope. Iowa should not chase Texas because the Lone Star State has more students enrolled online than Iowa does. Iowa needs to develop learning programs that help its students achieve. If another state is doing something to improve learning proficiency, Iowa should learn from it. Processing more students through an automated checklist is not worthy of emulation. Providing the best education for every student is, regardless of how they learn.

Online learning has many benefits especially when it comes to supplementing what is learned in a classroom under the guidance of a professionally trained teacher. However, there is a clear and present danger when Boards of Education rush to embrace a new educational theory like online learning because it is the hot new thing. Replacing the thoroughness of a comprehensive education with an all-too-automated online environment will do more harm than good.

The Iowa State Board of Education needs to focus more on results than expanding the number of students taking online courses for the sake of being in on a fad. Outsourcing learning in cyberspace holds certain risks for Iowa’s students. The Board needs to let teaching professionals drive the educational process by allowing them to utilize all the tools available. Regardless of how each of us is wired, teachers are the ones who are best able to guide students down the path of learning, whether in a classroom or with the aid of a computer. There is a difference between learning and giving students credit for jumping through online hoops.

Questions of Des Moines schools' nepotism shouldn't have to be raised

Steve Johns, who has been vice principal and activities director at Des Moines' North High School since last summer, was recently selected to be the new East High principal.

Johns appears to be well qualified. He will surely earn his new salary -- an increase of some $32,000, or 36 percent, over what he was paid previously.

The school needs strong leadership following a tumultuous few months. The principal brought in from out-of-state after last year's national search abruptly resigned as something resembling a staff and parent revolt began to take shape in response to his leadership, or lack thereof.

Johns has the credentials, and the district followed its normal procedures in his selection. The problem isn't Johns. We all hope he is up to the job.

The problem is the school board's governance model. It provides scant oversight of the superintendent, and district policies and procedures do not do enough to prevent problems that could arise from potential conflicts of interests.

In reporting Johns' appointment, this newspaper pointed out Johns is the boyfriend of Nina Rasmusson, Superintendent Nancy Sebring's twin sister. Moreover, Johns and Rasmusson own a home together in Ames. The paper reminded readers that Rasmusson was similarly named to head the district's charter school last year.

The district drafted a response to Johns' hiring, explaining a committee of six teachers and an administrator interviewed three candidates and recommended two to the selection committee.

The selection committee, consisting of six teachers, two community members, two support staff members, and Bryce Amos, the executive director of the district's northeast region, ultimately selected Johns. Sebring sat in as a nonvoting member.

There was no word if the superintendent asked questions, made recommendations or winked at the committee during key moments of the meetings.

Amos reassured the Register the committee -- not Sebring -- had the final call when it came to selecting Johns. He dismissed any conflict with, "There's other employees in the district that have relationships with each other. There was no pause at all when that decision was made."

I bet Amos didn't pause, nor is it surprising he didn't have strong feelings about nepotism. His wife, Sherry, was named principal of McKinley Elementary last year. It is reasonable to assume Amos would have gotten an odd look from his boss if, while sitting across the table from nonvoting-member Sebring, he had suggested nepotism should disqualify her sister's partner.

According to the district statement, Sebring told the staff at East, "One of the finalists may be someone in a relationship with her sister." I will assume the selection committee even knew which finalist had the relationship. Of course, one could argue the disclosure of the relationship may have helped Johns more than it hurt. Sometimes disclosure does not remove the conflict -- it shines a little light on it.

The district wanted to stress that Johns is qualified and his tenure at North marked a turnaround for the school, but it went too far. The district statement noted the uptick in this year's testing results at North as evidence. It is unclear what a vice principal and activities director can do to increase the collective score of an entire student body in math, science and reading in his one year on the job, but let's not get sidetracked by that now.

An isolated case of nepotism is to be expected among 5,000 employees. However, it is a little hard to believe that in about a year's time the twin sister of the superintendent, the sister's partner and the wife of the guy to whom the partner will report is each a special case.

For a school board that adopted a governance model limiting its oversight of management decisions, primary responsibility for ensuring the integrity of how the district hires and how employees are managed falls entirely to the superintendent. When the superintendent repeatedly sits in the room and witnesses others select and then supervise her relatives and the relatives of her subordinates, it is understandable why some begin to raise questions.

Instead of firing off defensive statements about their actions, the superintendent and staff need to avoid the appearance of conflict in the first place. Sebring and her staff are unable to be both the managers of a public institution and the sole arbitrators of what is proper. The school board and the public must do so. The first step would be for the school board to accept more responsibility for governing and setting school policies.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com

This entry was first published as a guest editorial in the print and online editions of the Des Moines Register.

Open Letter to the Boulder, Colorado School District

A few people in Boulder, Colorado found me through Internet searches and contacted me seeking my opinion about Des Moines Schools Superintendent Dr. Nancy Sebring who is a candidate for superintendent of the Boulder school district.  I also received an inquiry from the local newspaper.  Answering their questions was a revealing process, because it caused me to think about where our schools are heading and what I would like to see from the school board and superintendent, regardless if Nancy Sebring leaves or not.  Below are some of the questions I was asked and my responses.

What is your overall impression of Nancy Sebring? – Nancy Sebring is talented, articulate, well prepared and capable to lead a school district facing some of the toughest educational challenges.  More over, she has always struck me as a person of integrity.  While I disagree with some of her decisions and I feel a few have been somewhat damaging to our school district, I regard her as competent and well intentioned.  I recognize that statement may seem contradictory, so allow me to explain.

On both a personal and professional level, Nancy Sebring has always been fair and honest.  She has a firm grasp of her field of expertise, education, and has the toolset required of a solid leader.  In short, I like and have always trusted her.

However, Dr. Sebring has surrounded herself with people who tell her what they think she wants to hear instead of what she needs to hear.  Compounding this, Dr. Sebring has spent far too little time in the community searching for solutions with parents, teachers, students and others.  She has operated in a “we know best and are doing a great job” vacuum.  Dangerous for any leader, for an educational leader these management weaknesses can have long-lasting and far-reaching effects.

Des Moines Schools Superintendent Nancy Sebring may depart for Boulder, Colorado. Regardless, now is a good time to evaluate where our school district is headed. (Picture of Lincoln H.S.)

How has Dr. Sebring performed in her position ion Des Moines? – I am intentionally going to focus on some of Dr. Sebring’s failings in this answer more than her strengths.  I do so not to dissuade the people of Boulder from considering her as a candidate.  She may be a very good one.  I do so, because in order for Dr. Sebring to reach her potential in Boulder, she will need to improve upon what she did in Des Moines and should be prevented from making the same mistakes.

The Sebring team has been too willing to seek out and implement new programs and policies aimed more at short-term PR appeal than actual and lasting change.

For instance, establishing a charter school for at-risk students has gathered headlines and accolades, but when one realizes that, at its very best, this small charter school will help an extremely small percentage of Des Moines students who are lost to today’s system.  It is painfully obvious that the amount of energy, resources and effort expended on the charter school would have been better spent attempting to tackle issues faced by students on a broader scale.

Oddly, Sebring’s apparent desire for PR wins stands in conflict to a certain, albeit occasional, display of overconfidence.  In my opinion, the fact her advisors and her school board allowed Dr. Sebring to see her twin sister hired as the charter school’s leader is a sign the Sebring team has not exactly operated with the broader interest of the public in mind or recognized the PR damage doing so might inflict.

On a larger scale than the charter school, the amount of money, time and sweat her administration has poured into establishing an International Baccalaureate program sounds impressive, until one understands that this program was rolled out while staff and programs at the majority of Des Moines schools suffered severe and drastic reductions during the same period.  The harm done by these cuts to the majority of schools will impact a much larger percentage of our student population than the new IB program will ever touch.  Dr. Sebring is not to blame for the budget shortfalls, but she ignored the most serious issues in favor of flashy new programs to distract the public.  Said simply, the implementation of the IB program was more show than substance.

Has she had much luck at creating consensus on divisive topics? - Dr. Sebring too often seems more willing to lecture than participate in a dialogue with people who wish to forward reasonable ideas in good faith.

An example was evidenced last fall.  Our weekly paper ran an opinion piece suggesting a way to save money on computer software.  In it the paper referred to the District budget language as arcane (it is).  Sebring fired back a defensive response for publication suggesting that if the writers could not understand the language of the budget, they should have asked for help.  Sebring missed that if a budget is hard-to-understand, her team should work to make it less so, and she completely failed to address the very point of the editorial, a recommendation that had potential for significant savings.

Through the narrowest of lenses, Dr. Sebring has met the objectives of her job in Des Moines.  She has pleased a supportive school board focused more on cheerleading than pursuing innovation.  And, there have been no major scandals or acts of mismanagement on her watch.  But, when one pulls back for a wide-angled view, a slightly different picture emerges.

It is not enough for a superintendent to please her school board.  She must seek out ideas; honestly and thoroughly evaluate what is working and what is not in classrooms across the District; and offer solutions that may not have been sought by her volunteer board, but are essential to improving education.  She must lead and to do so, she must engage in a broader community discussion, develop a comprehensive vision for the District and unflinchingly take responsibility for building consensus.  Sebring has not done that enough here, but I would like to think if the ground rules mandated she do so, she would make an outstanding superintendent.

Do you have any final thoughts? – I cannot say if Dr. Sebring would be an ideal fit for the Boulder job.  I do feel she is up to the job and under the right circumstances might be an outstanding choice.  Should Boulder select Sebring as their next superintendent, I would advise they only do so after they establish some very specific ground rules.  Mainly, she must step outside of the cocoon many superintendents construct for themselves.  That has been her one failing here.

Should the school board in Boulder select Dr. Nancy Sebring, they will have won a capable, honest and well-prepared superintendent.  When she is at her best, she is exceptional.  Her errors and missteps in Des Moines are due in part to the school board and her willingness to go for easy wins while ignoring the larger and more difficult issues, and in part to the fact that Dr. Sebring did not engage the broader community in the conversation.  She has the tools to create a strong educational vision and the personality to build consensus.  In Des Moines, too often she has chosen to lecture instead of lead.  Because of that, she has yet to reach her remarkable potential.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.

Hey, kid, want a free laptop? The Selling of a Des Moines School

My daughter had to miss the review for tomorrow’s math test today.  Des Moines Public School officials thought a sales pitch by the folks from the new charter school would be a better use of some Callanan Middle School students’ time.  The pitchers wanted to make sure the Gifted and Talented kids and English Language Learners knew they were equally welcome to apply.  Just like late night infomercial hucksters, the sales team had a strong closing message for the kids, “every student accepted at our shiny new school gets a completely free laptop of his or her very own.”

The problem, I don’t send my children to school to get sold to, I send them to learn.

Des Moines School Officials are Selling their Charter School to a Live Student Audience Near You

The new charter school has been plagued with controversy since before it opened its doors. Organizers of the charter school spent a great deal of time during a school board meeting in 2009 selling the board on the concept.  Only after every member of the audience left, save one dedicated Drake journalism student, did the superintendent reveal the picture was not so rosy and the funding was not secure.  And, the supposedly independent group overseeing the charter school hired Des Moines Schools’ superintendent Nancy Sebring’s twin sister without – “wink, wink” – knowing the relationship.  Since then the Des Moines Public School District has appropriated resources to create this new charter school in extremely difficult economic times.  And, it is rumored the school is shy of the enrollment numbers that were promised, which leads to today’s recruiting session.

But, enough about the charter school.  Even if the place were a raging success, it is not appropriate to take kids away from learning time to hear a sales pitch; especially one their parents know nothing about.  When it comes to deciding which school is appropriate for a child, at a minimum, an attempt needs to be made to get the information to the parents first.

District officials are quick to point out a charter school operates independently from the public school district and a charter school is exempt from many public school restrictions.  Therefore, it is no more appropriate for the charter school to recruit students during the school day than it would be for a private school to do so.  (Should Merrill Middle School be able recruit at other schools for its International Baccalaureate Program?  Should the private Bergman Academy present to public school students about its educational model?)

No matter how I look at this, this official school assembly smells.  My daughter missed valuable class time the day before her math exam.  The charter school was allowed open access to recruit public school students, providing it an advantage over every other public school in an open enrollment enabled district as well as every other private school. Parents were not informed of or involved in the charter school sales session, meaning they have to get the information from their children in a silly game of catch-up.  Teachers lost more minutes teaching and students lost learning time.

Admittedly, I am skeptical when education administrators roll out a new program that takes resources from existing programs.  When the new dream project flounders and these same administrators try to sell directly to students, I get concerned their priorities really are out of whack.

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Graham Gillette can be reached at grahamgillette@gmail.com

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.