New Woodburn Community School

THE EMPEROR AND THE OFFICIAL LINE

The hypocrisy of Mon Schools superintendent Frank Devono is impressive. The Dominion Post reports today that

“Only six of Monongalia County’s public schools met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) last school year [on the WESTEST]. But the top administrator said that is not a reflection of the education those schools are providing…. [Superintendent Frank Devono] said No Child Left Behind, the federal program that mandates the testing criteria, is outdated and needs to be revised. ‘This is not a true measure of the success our schools experience,’ he said. ‘This is no indicator of the excellence within our schools.’

Superintendent Devono’s dismissive comments about the tests come in light of Mon Schools’ failing 2010-2011 test scores. Contrast this with what Superintendent Devono said about these tests a mere two years prior to 2010, to begin the 2008-2009 school year, in his report “CSOs, WESTEST 2 and Crossing the Digital Divide“:

“The results of cumulative assessments such as the WESTEST 2 and NAEP indicate more than student achievement of CSO’s [WV Content Standards and Objectives]. They’re also yardsticks measuring our ability to reach our students – sometimes across that digital divide – through rigorous instruction delivered with relevancy to their ‘real world’.”

No wonder that Superintendent Devono would want to play down last year’s failure of 12 of the district’s 18 schools to meet the AYP standards, a 67 percent rate, significantly worse than the state’s 52 percent rate of school test failure. Even more discreditable, Mon Schools’ Superintendent and the clueless school board, over strong popular will, decided to permanently get rid of two small schools that happen to be two of the six schools that did meet the AYP standards: Woodburn and Easton Elementaries. According to the Dominion Post:

“Twelve of Monongalia County’s 18 public schools (66.7 percent) failed to meet AYP during the 2010-’11 school year, compared to just four (22.2 percent) in the 2009-’10 school year, the state DOE said.

“The schools that did not meet AYP are Brookhaven Elementary, Ridgedale Elementary, North Elementary, Mountainview Elementary, Mason-Dixon Elementary, Mylan Park Elementary, Mountaineer Middle, Westwood Middle, South Middle, Clay-Battelle High, Morgantown High and University High. Those that did meet AYP are Easton Elementary, Suncrest Primary, Woodburn Elementary, Cheat Lake Elementary, Skyview Elementary, and Suncrest Middle.

“Statewide, 363 of 692 schools (52.46 percent) failed to meet AYP in the m recent school year, compared to 128 of 694 schools (18.44 percent) in the prior year.”

And so it is that, basically, according to Superintendent Devono, the tests mattered in the past but not anymore, not given these latest results, which show exactly what we reviewed here yesterday: the value of small neighborhood schools. Mon Schools’ three smallest elementaries account for half of all the schools in the district that met AYP standards: Suncrest, Easton, and Woodburn, the latter two to be closed permanently and consolidated into Eastwood elementary on the Mileground next year – an unpopular, anti-educational, and unsafe move. Meanwhile, little Suncrest Elementary has repeatedly been threatened with closure. It’s as if Mon Schools delights in being obstinately anti-educational.

Let’s take a closer look at the data, which is quite revealing. Of the schools that passed the AYP tests:

1) three are the smallest schools in the district (Woodburn, Easton, Suncrest);

2) two of these small schools have the most impoverished students (Woodburn & Easton); these two schools did well presumably in significant part because they are small, since low-income correlates inversely with academic success, nationwide; and

3) the schools with the most affluent students (Cheat Lake Elementary, Suncrest Elementary & Suncrest Middle) did well presumably in significant part because wealth correlates with academic success, nationwide.

Finally, Skyview Elementary also met standards and would appear to be the sole outlier to schools having a small student body or relatively affluent students as factors that account for academic achievement.

This sample size is of course not large enough to have any scientific meaning, but it is suggestive and in line with the best knowledge of careful professional research.

But according to the Superintendent who has been pushing for and building big consolidated schools over the past half dozen years:  these tests that he lauded a few short years ago are “not a true measure of the success our schools experience.” They can’t be, otherwise his policies and views would be shown to be pathetically and outrageously wrong. “This is no indicator of the excellence within our schools.” Whether or not the tests have as much value as they ostensibly do is not the point. The point is the hypocrisy toward the tests by the top administrator of Mon Schools, the existence of which calls into serious question once again both his competence and any minimal level of professionalism.

And the school board not only turns a blind eye, it echoes the Superintendent, applauds him, and pays him top dollar with big multi-year raises. One incompetent and unprofessional hand feeds the other. It’s as if the Superintendent gets paid to defy and oppose with the maximum amount of manipulation the public for which he is supposed to work.

Such is the typical sorry state of officialdom where no organized public exists to enact the popular will.

Only three years ago: “The results of cumulative assessments such as the WESTEST 2 and NAEP indicate more than student achievement of CSO’s. They’re also yardsticks measuring our ability to reach our students – sometimes across that digital divide – through rigorous instruction delivered with relevancy to their ‘real world’.”

Today:  “This is not a true measure of the success our schools experience… This is no indicator of the excellence within our schools.”

So no problem then to get rid of the proficient small schools, such as Woodburn and Easton. And to repeatedly threaten Suncrest.

The Emperor wears no clothes. Yet again. Read the rest of this entry »

TO HELL WITH EXCELLENCE; LET’S BUILD A CONCENTRATION CAMP ON THE MILEGROUND

They don’t care.

Either that or they are monstrously incompetent.

When deciding to close and consolidate Woodburn Elementary and Easton Elementary into the polluted and dangerously sited consolidated Eastwood Elementary (on the smash-and-crash racetrack that is the Mileground road in Morgantown), Superintendent Frank Devono and the Monongalia County school board ignored studies showing that small neighborhood schools are of exceptional educational benefit to students of low income, who make up very many of the children of the affected schools. Board President, at the time and current board member, Nancy Walker even doubted that the mass of research was accurate. These school officials seemed wholly unconcerned and entirely proud of their ignorance and anti-educational action. What wonderful qualities to have in ostensible leaders of education.

UPDATE: And now is the news that the Dominion Post reports about the results of testing in the county next door to Monongalia: “Only Preston County’s three smallest schools met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) last year.” And virtually the same results held in Monongalia County.

Monongalia County and neighboring Preston County combined have 30 public schools. In those two counties combined last year, the 6 smallest public schools passed the AYP tests. Only two other schools passed, which means that 22 of the larger schools failed. To recap: the 6 smallest schools passed, 22 of the larger schools failed, 2 other schools passed. Next year, Mon Schools intends to close two of its smallest passing schools to combine them into a larger school (Eastwood), against the public will and best knowledge. It’s anti-educational, just as we have been saying for years now. And it’s otherwise stupid, lousy, and dangerously wrong.

For a long long time we have pointed out that:

an overwhelming body of research shows that small neighborhood schools offer superior education and experience. Small neighborhood schools:

improve student learning…reduce the achievement gap between poor and affluent students and minority students and whites…cultivate better student attitudes…cultivate better teacher attitudes…reduce discipline problems, truancy, and drop-out rates…better engage parents in their children’s learning and foster closer parent-teacher relationships…encourage walking to school and this improves children’s health and active engagement in learning… (Save Our Neighborhood Schools: Lawrence, Kansas)

In 2009, University of Virginia researchers noted, in accord with the large body of research, “large schools no longer are regarded as the panacea for America’s educational challenges. Many of the problems of public education, from low student achievement to high dropout rates, are being traced to large schools….”

In defiance of best knowledge and practice, the Monongalia County School District has pursued consolidation, and by stealth. No notice about possible school closing went home to parents through their schoolchildren until long after the SBA consolidated school grant had already been awarded. Many parents remained unsure of what was going on. While everyone agrees that new schools at good locations are necessary for both Easton and Woodburn elementaries, the overwhelming majority of those who publicly expressed opinion have been opposed to the consolidation.

And now the pathetic tragi-comedy that is the school board and administration of Monongalia County Schools comes full circle for a family with a child at Mountainview Elementary, “So My Daughter Can Leave Mountainview Elementary To Go Where?“:

This weekend, my family received a letter. The letter told us that Mountainview Elementary [one of the largest elementary schools in the state] was considered a failing school. This conclusion was reached as a result of the controversial No Child Left Behind Act. NCLB is a stupid piece of legislation that replaces learning to think with learning to regurgitate rehearsed answers that will satisfy standardized tests. Still, Mountainview is failing to achieve even that.

Part of NCLB allows us to send our daughter somewhere else if openings are available, and in this case, we were offered two schools that are succeeding in preparing students for standardized tests: Easton Elementary and Woodburn Elementary. At this point, you’re probably saying that those two schools sound familiar to you, and they should: our school board voted to close both as soon as possible. So, to recap:

-My daughter’s consolidated elementary school apparently sucks.
-Our options for other, more successful schools that she could attend and which are better at satisfying national education policy are going to be closed to create more consolidated schools that are precisely like Mountainview Elementary.

Which brings us back to the non-controversy that was the closure of Easton Elementary and Woodburn Elementary. Sure, parents in both neighborhoods stood opposed to such a decision, but that didn’t stop our current Board of Education from voting [unanimously] to close both schools, despite the apparent fact that both are doing a better job than their larger, consolidated counterparts. That didn’t stop them because the MCBoE doesn’t care about communities in our around Morgantown, they don’t care about children, and they certainly don’t care about education.

It’s long since time for the entire school board and the top administration at Monongalia County Schools to be entirely replaced, for many reasons, including the fact that best educational knowledge continues to fall on their deaf ears. Read the rest of this entry »