Community Forum: Selecting a New Superintendent

Montgomery County Civic Federation
Panel Discussion: Choosing a New Superintendent

PANELISTS
- Lyda Astrove, Special Education Advocate
- Emily Barton, Executive Director, Teach for America, DC Region
- Phil Kauffman, Board of Education, member of the BOE ad hoc group, Superintendent Search Process
- Neal McLuskey, Associate Director, Center for Educational Freedom, Cato Institute
- Fred Stichnoth, President, Gifted and Talented Association of Montgomery County



TIME: 7:45 pm
DATE: Monday, December 13, 2010
LOCATION: 1st FL Auditorium, County Council Office Building 100 Maryland Ave., Rockville, Maryland



Directions: http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/csltmpl.asp?url=/content/council/dir.asp

COB parking garage at traffic light at E. Jefferson Street (Route 28 East) and Monroe Street intersection (paid visitor parking available on first level).

Seneca Creek Charter School

Read about plans for the Seneca Creek Charter School HERE.

From their website:

Seneca Creek Charter School is applying to become a K-8 public charter school in upper Montgomery County, MD, with a focus on natural sciences, community-based studies, and outdoor education.

Our research-based EIC Model™ Curriculum (Using the Environment as an Integrating Context) will enable us to:

Encourage children to make discoveries for themselves (inquiry-based learning) and solve problems creatively
Offer integrated-interdisciplinary instruction that breaks down traditional barriers between disciplines
Use learner-centered approaches adapted to the needs and unique abilities of individual students
Structure the school day with plenty of daily outdoor time - incorporating the natural world into each discipline
Connect children with their community through service learning opportunities, and field trips
Offer small class sizes, which will allow for more tailored instruction.

VOTE FOR KAREN SMITH for BOARD OF EDUCATION

Many, many folks have been phoning and emailing, asking me who to vote for in Tuesday's general election.

I wholeheartedly support KAREN SMITH for Board of Education.

Here's her website: http://www.karensmith4boe.org

Don't forget: the general election is TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2!

Ten Thousand Thank Yous!

Although the "Campaign for Board of Education" is over, the campaign for fiscal responsibility, accountabilty, and a continuum of services in MCPS endures! I want to thank all ten thousand of you who voted for me!
Special thanks to the dedicated pollworkers, flyer distributors, sign displayers, folks who donated money, and everyone who called to offer encouragement and support. We went from zero to ten thousand votes in a short period of time, and while it didn't carry the day, I think we brought some visibility to our issues. Now let's take that energy and collectively move forward on the things that we think are important: restoring a full continuum of special education programs and services, ensuring that MCPS deals fairly and forthrightly with the community, and prioritizing school and child-centered services over administrative overhead.
Shout-out to the Young Activist Club at Piney Branch ES: don't be discouraged! Keep up the good work, and let us all know how we can help you in your continued advocacy to help our environment with your Dishwasher project.
Gratefully,
Lyda Astrove

Takoma Voice: My Dream Superintendent

From the online Takoma Voice: School Scene, by Sue Katz Miller, September 9, 2010:

My Dream Superintendent: Top Ten Qualities

What should the search process look like? What kind of Superintendent are we seeking? These two questions are closely linked. The biggest frustration many parents have with MCPS is the lack of two-way communication. So we need to seek out a Superintendent who is going to restore parents to their role as full partners in education, dismantle the fortress that surrounds the inner-workings of the Rockville bureaucracy, release data to the public, and recognize that the Board of Education is elected to represent the taxpayers in a system of checks and balances.

Read more of Sue Katz Miller's column by clicking HERE.

Sue Katz Miller's ideal superintendent is one who will collaborate with the community, be responsive and transparent, and who will recognize that the "one size fits all" classroom doesn't really fit all. Let's work together to find this superintendent in an open, public process.

Approve the Dishwasher Pilot Project! UPDATE!

Below is my article written on July 17, urging that the Dishwasher Pilot Project be approved. I've been wondering why the incumbent in my race opposes the Dishwasher Pilot Project, and now I know why. In a questionnaire, Ms. Brandman made the following statement: "Despite several attempts, however, we have not been able to reach a meeting of the minds on the actual costs and risks associated with their plan to install a used dishwasher. I am simply not willing to take a risk that children could be harmed."

Personally, I've had a used dishwasher in my house for 10 years now, and no children or adults have been harmed by using it. The statement of Ms. Brandman, above, is an insult to the Young Activist Club and their sponsors, and shows us to what abusurdities the incumbent will go to maintain the status quo. I reiterate my support for the Dishwasher Pilot Project, and think that the Board of Education should be encouraging innovative ideas like this one.


*************

Youngsters today are definitely more aware of environmental issues than their parents and grandparents before them, who may have only hazy memories of the very first Earth Day in 1970. How many of us have had our kids remind us to recycle a can or turn out the lights when leaving a room?
The Piney Branch Elementary School Young Activist Club is taking environmental advocacy to a whole new level. With assistance and support from their local community, they have raised funds for a pilot project at their school to eliminate the use of polystryene meal trays, and replace that use with a dishwasher and reusable trays.
The current Board of Education continues to refuse to allow this pilot project to go forward. Why? The Young Activist Club and their advisors have addressed every possible concern, raised the money, and are ready to move forward.
If elected, the young environmentalists at Piney Branch Elementary School have my vote to approve the dishwasher pilot project. It's just the right thing to do.

Edison HS At Risk: The Importance of Vocational Education

Edison High School of Technology is Montgomery County Public Schools' well-regarded career and technology education program. Students who are accepted into one of the nineteen career-oriented programs spend a half-day at their home high schools, and the other half of their day working towards certifications in areas as varied as carpentry, plumbing, interior design, digital graphics, auto body repair, and more. Both students who foresee college in their future and those who anticipate entering the workforce after high school benefit from the highly-skilled and dedicated staff who help the students achieve success.
Why, then is MCPS trying to fundamentally change a program that is working? Theresa Defino, a Edison parent, said she learned at Back To School night at Edison this week that pending MCPS receipt of a grant, a plan to merge Edison with Wheaton High School would be going forward, and word on the grant was expected on September 15. She said she and other parents were "stunned" and they'd never heard a word about this.
In June, the Washington Examiner reported that word was leaking out to parents about the proposed changes. But since June, the Board of Education has not discussed the proposed changes in public, and parents wonder what exactly the changes to the program will be that are being discussed behind closed doors.
No more surprises. Any proposed changes to this vital, necessary vocational program should be presented to the public well in advance of any Board of Education discussion or vote. At this point, it isn't even clear whether the BOE will get a vote on the proposal. The public has the right to have the future of Edison High School of Technology discussed thoroughly in a public forum with input from parents, staff, students, and community employers. And the fact that MCPS applied for a grant to change the program? MCPS must make the grant application public as soon as possible, so that the community knows what MCPS has been planning all along.

No More Rubber Stamps!

Lyda Astrove: Board Must Consider Fiscal Realities

Gazette, Wednesday August 25, 2010, by Andrew Ujifusa, Staff Writer:

"A special-education advocate for 15 years, Astrove said she was motivated to run this year in part due to the conflict between the school board and the County Council this spring, when the board threatened to sue the council over $33 million in cuts proposed by the council. Although the situation was resolved without the lawsuit being filed, Astrove said it showed board members' inability to deal with new, more austere fiscal realities and its detachment from the rest of the community.
"I don't think really they understood the significance of the county's very valuable triple-A bond rating," Astrove said, referring to the rating that allows the county to borrow money at low interest rates."

(...)

"In addition, Astrove said the Board of Education has spent too little time debating budgets and contracts presented by Weast, and also has failed to adequately consider public input and concerns. In contrast, Astrove said she preferred the approach used by former board member Blair Ewing (a school board member for 22 years). She recalled watching him and others debate fine points on the budget for hours at a time."

To read the complete article, click HERE.

Jerry Weast Retires

Today, Superintendent Jerry Weast announced that he will be retiring when his contract expires at the end of June 2011. I wanted to hear how he would summarize his tenure at MCPS: the aspects he was proudest of, whether he had any regrets, and his advice for the next superintendent. Therefore, I went to the press conference at the Carver Center. Never one to miss an opportunity to hold a press conference, Jerry Weast spoke about his service for thirty years as a superintendent, and repeatedly expressed pride in his employees. He stressed that he felt like he had empowered staff to have the commitment to close the achievement gap, and that while we were not there yet, the staff was ready to go to the next level. He advised the next superintendent to “fight for every dollar you need, and fight hard.” If critics disagree, Weast said, “quit responding to everything that comes at you.”

I waited to hear Jerry Weast mention the 12% percent of MCPS students who receive special education services. One student out of every eight in MCPS has an Individual Education Plan. But while Weast touted his accomplishments with students of every race, ethnicity, and poverty status, he was silent as to special education students. Why? Perhaps it is because his record doesn’t stand up to scrutiny in that area. Of the schools that failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), most of them fell short because of special education. During his tenure, Jerry Weast decimated the full continuum of special education programs and services while the current Board of Education stood by and let it happen. It is not surprising, therefore, that he didn’t mention progress for students with disabilities among any of his accomplishments.

The lagging achievement of students with disabilities is a problem that our county cannot afford to ignore any longer. We need to establish a true continuum of high quality special education programs and services. We must involve parents and families in the decisionmaking process about the education of their children with special needs, and our schools must be held accountable for providing the required services. And the new Board of Education needs to find and hire a superintendent that will give special education the attention it has long required.

Gazette Endorsement

Thank you to the Gazette for recognizing me as one of the "clear choices to move on" through the Primary Election on September 14!

With two children with disabilities having attended county schools, Astrove is a strong advocate for those students. She also says the school board must mend its relationship with the County Council after the threat of a lawsuit over the schools' budget.

You can read my "candidate profile" and watch the one minute video HERE.

The MCPS Budget

Over 2 Billion dollars. Montgomery County residents are spending over two billion dollars a year on our public schools.

Everyone says they want more money for our schools, but the current economic realities are that there will be no more large increases like there were in past years. These are tough financial times in state and local government, and relief is not just around the corner. In the past, MCPS always threw more and more money at problems, but this solution is no longer available. We need to spend SMARTER. The incumbent school board knew that Mongtomery County faced a billion dollar budget deficit, and their solution? To sue the citizens of Montgomery County: a shakedown of our citizens for more money to spend on a bloated bureaucracy, robbing ordinary citizens of money desperately needed for other county services. The incumbents refused to do the hard work of carefully examining expenditures, and instead voted unanimously to take the easy way out and sue the citizens. I’ll do the hard work on your behalf, and insist that MCPS be more responsible with your tax dollars.

To that end, I also pledge to bring forth a topic at the Board table that has been swept under the rug by the incumbents: the crushing, and ever increasing, cost of employee benefits. Today, more than one in every five dollars spent by MCPS goes to pay for employee benefits. There is room to save money while at the same time ensuring a healthy workforce.

In addition, no sitting Board member has ever questioned the necessity of the 1,400 American Express Purchasing Cards held by MCPS employees, or demanded answers as to why these credit cards are being used to throw office parties and luncheons for administrators. Why are tax dollars are paying for meals at expensive restaurants like Addie's and Il Pizzico for central office personnel? Wasteful spending by MCPS is the FIRST place cuts should be made, and the current Board members haven't done the work to root it out, and stop it.

Teachers spend too much of their own money on classroom supplies. We owe them an appropriately stocked classroom, with the tools their students need. We don't owe the Executive Leadership Team catered lunches once a month. If we "spend smarter," we'll have the money for things we really need for our schools.

I Support School Vegetable Gardens

According to the Washington Post:

"Last October, Donna Marchick, a program administrator at the Department of Facilities Management, informed teachers at Maryvale Elementary School that food was not permitted to be grown on school grounds.

"As you know," she wrote, "food-bearing plants attract pests. Maryland law restricts the use of pesticides on school grounds. Therefore, planting of food bearing plants is prohibited by MCPS."" To read the full article, click HERE.

The "vegetable garden ban" is just another instance of the incumbent Board of Education failing to show common sense! MCPS allows teenagers to play school-sponsored tackle football, but won't allow elementary aged children to grow some fresh tomatoes and peppers, citing "liability concerns?" Ridiculous!

There are no good reasons to ban school vegetable gardens, and many, many good reasons to support and embrace them. The Montgomery Victory Gardens group has sent a letter to Dr. Weast, outlining the health and educational benefits of vegetable gardens to our students, and offering help and assistance. Our schools should be in the business of promoting healthy nutrition. What better way to start than with vegetables children grow themselves?

Crossway Community's Proposed Charter School Is "Ready for Prime Time"

Today, I visited the Crossway Community in Kensington, MD. Prior to the current Board of Education’s rejection of Crossway’s application for a charter school, I was unfamiliar with their work. A representative from Crossway took me on a tour of their spacious facility, and explained their existing program components: a residential program for young mothers seeking to turn their lives around, a Montessori preschool program that serves their children as well as children from the community, and a program to bring cultural and civic events to their facility, in order to foster intergenerational learning.

Crossway applied to form a charter school serving young, elementary age children, using a Montessori methodology. The BOE rejected their application, calling it "not ready for prime time." But the classrooms I visited were spacious, structured, and organized. The facility is large enough to accommodate increased numbers of children. My tour guide explained that children who originally may have come from a chaotic home environment were found to thrive in the order, exploration, and skills development inherent in the Montessori program. There was even an outdoor vegetable garden, where the children assist in growing tomatoes and peppers.

I walked away saddened that the incumbent Board members voted to deny the children of Montgomery County the chance to participate in this type of rich educational experience. It did not escape my notice that Crossway was a short distance away from Oakland Terrace Elementary School: a school that is so overcrowded that MCPS is sending kindergarten children to the basement of a middle school for their education. Families in Montgomery County who believe their children need a nurturing, developmentally based school program deserve the opportunity to choose this educational alternative.

Why Recess and PE are Important

As an advocate, it saddens me every time I get another call or email from a parent who is distressed that their child has been "kept back" from recess again. Usually, if the parent finds out at all, the reason given is that "the child chose not to finish his/her work" or that the child "chose to misbehave."
I believe that children in general do want to please adults, and do want to finish their work in class. If s/he didn't finish, are we looking at whether the child understood the directions? Understood the concepts? Maybe s/he has an undiagnosed or underserved learning disability and needs extra time to finish. Maybe they stayed up too late the night before and are having a hard time focusing this morning. In any event, keeping children in from recess seems more like a punishment than a Positive Behavioral Intervention or an effective instructional strategy. You can be sure, though, that the kids just see it as a punishment.
And why are Recess and Physical Education so important? The increase in childhood obesity is so alarming that our schools should be doing all we can to promote health and fitness. We've reduced PE time in our elementary schools, so that sometimes the only time during the day a child gets an opportunity to run around outdoors is during recess. For some kids with disabilities, recess may be their only opportunity to interact with typically developing children. PE and Recess are valuable time periods to start kids down the road towards long-term healthful habits.
pssst: Dr. Weast: there's a study out that finds that recess even contributes to academic achievement! Read it HERE.

The Seven Keys Assembly Line

I oppose MCPS's current trend towards one-size-fits-all education. Ever since the winter of 2006, when the plan to eliminate the Secondary Learning Centers for students with disabilities was developed behind closed doors and with no community input or notice, MCPS has been on an inexorable path towards uniformity in all aspects.
But children are not widgets to be put on the "Seven Keys" assembly line. Should your child take "Algebra 1" in eighth grade because a glossy brochure produced by a $10 Million dollar public relations department tells him to? Or should parents make that decision, along with input from their child's teachers about whether their child has actually mastered the necessary skills leading up to that course.
The bottom line, of course, is that there can be no "one size fits all" in education. By trying to force all children onto the same assembly line, we are guaranteeing that they won't all achieve their unique potential.

Our Next Superintendent

One of the most frequent questions I have been asked lately is about the Board of Education's role in selecting the next Superintendent. I have some definite ideas about the qualities I would like to see in our next Superintendent. He or she should:

(1) Have a local community focus, rather than concerning himself/herself with national image.
(2) Be a hands-on manager who visits schools on a regular basis for the purpose of serving the constituency.
(3) Be someone who works with the community, and doesn’t surprise them with the latest plan to eliminate a program or close a school.
(4) Be willing to be completely transparent about the day-to-day financial dealings of the school system.
(5) Be an educator who encourages his/her staff to value insight and input from parents on the education of their individual children.

The selection process for our next superintendent should be as open and public as possible. What qualities would YOU like to see in our next Superintendent? Please email me at LydaforBOE@hotmail.com with your thoughts.

Then....and Now

In the fall of 2007, I was honored to receive the local "Autism Hero" award from Autism Speaks at their annual "Walk Now" on the National Mall.

Here's an article about my efforts in the community that was published in the Washington Examiner.

In the last two and a half years since that award, my sense of urgency has only increased. Families of children with disabilities continue to need choices, options, possibilities for their children's future. And so do families of intellectually gifted children, kids with art and musical talents, and all the kids everywhere who have varying gifts, strengths, and needs. With your help, I hope to start to reverse the current trend towards "one size fits all" education that has brought us the "Seven Keys," where kids are railroaded along a pre-determined track. Do you feel that same sense of urgency: that we need to act NOW to get our school system back on track to be a flexible, responsive entity that is more interested in your child than in his MSA scores? Please email me at LydaforBOE@hotmail.com and let me know what YOUR concerns are!