Des Moines Schools Blame Game with IA Dept. of Ed and DM Register

In my last blog I expressed annoyance with the Des Moines School Board for its apparent lack of knowledge of and, more specifically, concern about the troubling accreditation report issued by the Iowa Department of Education.  I concluded by calling the School Board an impotent body.  It appears I was wrong to single out the School Board.  Unfortunately, the Department of Education does not exactly stand tall with competence either.

My blog caught Superintendent Nancy Sebring’s attention.  Convinced my sole source of information had been the Des Moines Register, she invited me to coffee to lay out the facts saying “you need to know that there were serious factual errors in their reports (and editorial) regarding the accreditation report.”

I accepted the invitation immediately.  We spent nearly two hours reviewing the Iowa Department of Education’s findings, the school district’s responses, the School Board’s involvement and the Register’s coverage.

Dr. Sebring acknowledged the 19 specific areas of non-compliance in the report.  We went through most of them in detail and discussed how the District was addressing or planned to address each.  She wanted me to know the District was taking the matter very seriously.  However, the primary errors she pointed to were not made by the Register, but by the Iowa Department of Education.

Let me be clear, Dr. Sebring told me she believes the Register’s stories and editorial border on slander.  Dr. Sebring carelessly tosses around accusations of slander and conspiracy, but I do not immediately dismiss her charges.  In fact, they demand discussion and I will write more on this later.  Today, I am going to focus on the Department of Education.

One error made by the Department of Education rises above the rest.  Listed in the findings of the Department’s official report the District received on June 22 was Item 11 in the section titled Areas of Non-Compliance:  Chapter 12 mandates Des Moines Schools.  It said the District had yet to submit a signed assurance from the superintendent that two people who were teaching had been “removed from the assignment of teaching…and not paid for the teaching assignment” as of “April 7, 2011, the date the district was officially notified,” because neither person was “endorsed or certified to teach.”  Officially notified?  Perhaps not.

According to Dr. Sebring, an exhaustive search of District Email and paper files, and extensive discussions with staff and former staff indicate the Department never notified the School District two people had to be removed from teaching.  Further, Sebring told me she was baffled as to why the District was cited at all in the case of an assistant teacher who was teaching Chinese in an elementary school.  She claims the District had received oral approval from a state education official to utilize this person as a teacher before the school year began.

It seemed implausible the Department of Education would demand two people be fired without documenting each step of the process.  So, I asked the Department of Education for the dated transmittal documents and the original official demand the individuals be removed from teaching by April 7.  Surprisingly, there are no such documents.

The document the Iowa Department of Education provided as proof it had mandated two people be removed from teaching in Des Moines classrooms.

The Department sent me a copy of the preliminary report the Department claims was transmitted to the District and a copy of a hand-scrawled, undated note from a departing Education employee to her superior.  The note explains where on a computer the preliminary report was to be found and that, “This is the document given to Mike Munoz on 4/7/11.”  Munoz was a District employee who has also left his job.  The note was signed “Julie.”

Holy cats!  Thousands of dollars and countless man hours went into compiling an accreditation report showing 19 disquieting deficiencies in the Des Moines Schools.  In response to the findings, the Department demanded the District fire two employees without notice and the main documentation the Department can provide is a nearly illegible internal note proving nothing.

It’s a classic he said/she said argument of incompetence.

The Department’s apparent lack of internal documentation and controls in this case give credence to Dr. Sebring’s assertion the District might have received oral consent from the Department to hire the uncertified Chinese language teacher in the first place.  After getting a look at the shoddy way the Department of Education keeps records it seems possible.

I have been told Jason Glass, director of the Iowa Department of Education plans to attend tomorrow’s Des Moines School Board meeting.  No word on if he will address the report or the District’s accusations, but it seems likely.  One can only hope both the Department and the District will learn oral agreements and off-the-record chatter cannot stand-in for documentation and controls.

One has to wonder why the District didn’t demand something more than a handshake when seeking an exemption from state law to use an uncertified teacher in the classroom and why the Department would think the District would act on a document so clearly marked draft, even if it was handed to a District administrator as the Department purports.

But, let’s remember, one entity’s ineptitude does not excuse another’s.  The fact the Des Moines School Board had not received or read the State’s report did not stop one board member from saying, “I believe the school district is addressing each and every one of these issues.”

The School Board did not read what the Department of Education had written, and the Department apparently does not put in writing that which needs to be documented.

Looks like education officials in Des Moines and Iowa could both use a Viagra type infusion of competence.

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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.

Middle School is like a Chris Rock Joke

I decided to write this morning’s post at Gateway Market in Des Moines. I wanted to escape the office and pound out something insightful about last night’s primaries in Colorado and Connecticut. I thought Gateway would be a quiet place to write. I was wrong. The place was packed with people and it was hard to concentrate on other states with so much of Iowa and Des Moines talking around and to me. (The blueberry muffin was mighty tasty though.)

Max Knauer was chatting to some folks about his campaign for the Broadlawns Medical Center Board of Trustees, there were Democrat campaign staffers at one table, business folks at a few others, and Des Moines School officials were meeting with a representative of the United Way over coffee in a far corner. A few people stopped at my table to talk about politics and the world. Next to the rain, the main topic was the state of our schools. The approaching start of the school year and yesterday’s rushed vote by Congress to send money for education to the states had many asking, “are we getting our money’s worth from education spending?”

Iowans take pride in our reputation as an educational leader. Much of this reputation is justified, but the high standing is partly due to the fact schools in other parts of this country are failing miserably. Comedian Chris Rock has a classic bit he performs about low expectations; calling yourself a good dad because you take care of your kids, or a good person because you never went to jail is ridiculous. You are SUPPOSED to do the former and NEVER do the latter. Those are minimum standards. The fact most Iowa kids graduate high school, or that most do pretty well in the long run are shockingly low standards when one deconstructs Iowans’ school pride.

In the coming days, students all over Iowa will return to the classroom and teachers will renew the battle to inspire and educate. More than one politician will make strong statements on the campaign trail about his commitment to education and, with teary eyes, try to demonstrate his unwavering commitment to public schools. I won’t paraphrase Chris Rock’s expletive laced comment, but a public servant is supposed to support education. The question to be asked is, “what exactly will you do to support education?”

Yesterday’s passage of the $26 billion aid package for schools will pay for many things. Some teacher jobs will be saved and a whole lot of money will change hands, but will our schools be any better? No, but they won’t be any worse. That, my friends, is not good enough. The middle school curriculum in Des Moines and across the country has not changed much over the years. Every year countless kids walk out of junior high school for good as we collectively look the other way. Most students stay – most of them survive middle school. As Rock would say, “they are supposed to!”

Middle school teacher Andrew Rasmussen will soon be standing in a classroom trying to get through to a bunch of hormone pumping eighth grade social studies students. Last spring, he and his fellow educators were unable to think about much beyond the minimum. They held their breath hoping they wouldn’t lose their jobs in the next round of budget cuts. Finances are a bit better today, but it won’t last. The future still looks grim, but it could be worse, right?

I focus on middle school because we pay the least amount of attention to the middle years and, most important, this is when the most kids are lost to the system. Mr. Rasmussen wants the District to reinstitute a Middle School Study Committee to look into ways to improve junior high. Des Moines has done this before. A lot of noise was made about the committee and recommendations were made with a great flourish. In the end, not much changed in Mr. Rasmussen’s classroom or ones like it all across the city. This time, let’s form the committee and follow through with what comes out of it.

To be successful, the proposed middle school committee must be formed with a clear mandate and have the support of the school district administration, school board, parents and the community. Here’s hoping we can do something more than shake our heads over coffee, or pat ourselves on the back for being better than Alabama or Mississippi. Let’s urge our school leaders to listen to Mr. Rasmussen and create a plan to do more than create a committee to make ourselves feel better. Perhaps we can move beyond a Chris Rock punch line and doing the minimum when it comes to public education.

(Another blueberry muffin would be wrong, wouldn’t it?)

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