Happy Holidays! You don't matter.

WCPSS just responded in writing to a complaint filed with AdvancED - the organization that accredits our high schools. In the original complaint, the Wake County Taxpayers' Association asserted that the liberal group Great Schools in Wake (GSIW) is basically pulling the strings on the School Board. Considering 3 of our current Board members are members of GSIW, it's not really a hard puzzle to put together.

GSIW wanted to end the choice plan. Done.  
GSIW wanted to go back to base assignments. Done.
GSIW hated Tata and wanted him fired. Done.
GSIW wants diversity quotas in assignment. Coming in the 2014-15 assignment plan. 

Not surprisingly, WCPSS claims in their response that the Choice plan was not dropped due to "extreme influence" from GSIW but due to the "...many complaints they received from constituents...". That's quite an ironic statement since the overwhelming majority of people who spoke out against the Choice plan wanted MORE choice and better defined neighborhood schools. Instead, the Dems on the school board voted to end choice and move backwards for a "do over" of past assignment plans. 

So, did the Democrats on the School Board really vote to drop the Choice plan because people complained? C'mon. Parents complained for years under the old assignment plan about reassignment, lack of stability, odious options and mandatory year-round to no avail. Maybe it's who you are - not what you're complaining about. Or maybe the Democrats on the School Board don't give a damn about what parents want - just what they (and GSIW) want.

Take, for instance, a reply from Kevin Hill - who was the Board Chair that led the charge to fire Supt. Tata without cause. In an email reply to a constituent in regards to Tata's firing, Hill said:

"My main and overarching concern is the institutional culture of the WCPSS.. I have 30+ years being part of that culture and I cannot let it erode further."

Protecting the institutional culture of WCPSS? I thought Hill was elected to serve the people of Wake County -- to listen to the people; to represent the people - not the school system.

Add this to Hill's email in which he calls parents selfish and arrogant, and it's very clear that you don't matter - you never did and you never will. Hill's head is buried in 30+ years of a culture that treats parents like the enemy and our children as pawns in a science experiment gone wrong. And he is making policy decisions to protect that culture - with complete disregard for what parents want. That makes GSIW very, very happy.

But let's not stop there.  

Back in April 2012, Jim Martin sent an email to all Board members discussing the parent survey about the Choice plan. (Yes, there was supposed to be a survey.) Once again, in true fashion, Kevin Hill replied - but only to Martin:

To: James Martin/Superintendent/WCPSS@Staff
From: Kevin Hill/Superintendent/WCPSS
Date: 04/30/2012 03:08PM

Subject: Re: Assignment Plan Survey

Jim,

I do not believe we need to survey parents at this time . . . . We can talk.

Kevin L. Hill, Chairman
Wake County Board of Education
District 3
Email: KLHill@wcpss.net
Vmail: 919.850.8867
Fax: 919.841.4377 

 

"We can talk" for Kevin Hill is code for "Quit sending me stuff in writing. Let's just deal with this privately." Martin concurred and Hill sent back this warning in his reply:

From: "Kevin Hill" <klhill@wcpss.net>
To: "James Martin" <jmartin4@wcpss.net>
Date: 5/1/2012 8:36:47 AM
Subject: Re: Assignment Plan Survey

At this point, I believe the oft repeated phrase "Just say no," would be appropriate. We will waste money and the 95% (?) who did not participate will say they love the plan. The survey would simply become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Kevin L. Hill, Chairman
Wake County Board of Education
District 3
Email: KLHill@wcpss.net
Vmail: 919.850.8867
Fax: 919.841.4377  

The Board Chair was so convinced that parents would say "they love the plan" that he refused to survey them. That's right. He refused to ask parents of Wake County about the Choice plan because he already knew the answer - and he didn't like it.

Now, go back to the beginning of this post - where the Board majority tries to convince the public that the Choice plan was dropped due to complaints from parents and GSIW has no influence on their decision. It's getting harder to believe, isn't it?

Bottom line - the Democrats on the School Board believe your opinion about choice, stability and the school assignment for your child is irrelevant. 

But, you've already learned that. I hope.

Out of focus

Let me start out by saying that I believe assignment - and how students are assigned - should have nothing to do with achievement. For decades, the solution to addressing student achievement in WCPSS was always to fall back on student assignment. If a school wasn't performing, students were moved to other schools to make the school "healthy" once again. That solution didn't actually do anything positive to the education of those who were moved - you simply can't make a child smarter or perform better just by reassigning them. But, it made some people feel good. Really good. It was a cheap, feel-good way to perpetuate the awards for diversity and the perception of "no bad schools". It also, however, created much unnecessary instability, did nothing to improve achievement and ticked off many parents royally.

WCPSS was on its way to untangling assignment from achievement with the new Choice Assignment Plan. All parents were given choice - with a mix of proximity, calendar, and magnets. All families were promised stability at every school level and a predictable future as their children aged up. Plain and simple - this plan provided what parents wanted for their children and families -- and had little to do with raising achievement.

As a result of this new focus, Supt. Tata and his staff have worked to understand the educational needs of different schools and students and have implemented academic solutions to address achievement -- and we are now seeing very successful results. Just last week, the NC Department of Public Instruction released performance data for Wake County schools -- and the results are incredible. There have been gains across the district - at many schools and subgroups. (You can look up your school here.)

So, rather than fret over the demographics of a school and how to create and maintain a utopian mixture of students, it's obvious that our focus should remain on how each school population could be served better academically. We've seen the success - and it could be only the beginning.

Instead, however, the School Board has thumbed their noses at parents and chose to direct staff to link assignment with achievement once again. They didn't even wait to see how many more successes could be achieved. The new Choice Assignment Plan has been nixed (without even getting a chance) and we're moving back to "healthy" schools, set aside seats for certain types of student, limited choice and quotas for every school.

Back to a system that believes assignment and "diversity" will magically increase achievement. In reality, it will only serve to make the Democratic Board members feel good about themselves. After all, that's all it's done in the past.

And now for something really scary...

As I talked about in my last post, the WCPSS Board majority is raising the dead.

Yes, the horrors of nodes, multi-year reassignment plans and assignment quotas are on the verge of a unwanted return.

And that's not even the scary part.

A parent from Kevin Hill's district wrote to him with concerns about changing the new Choice Assignment plan. In his reply, Mr. Hill stated: 

"I agree with the following: 'Parent choice' proceeds from the belief that the purpose of education is to provide individual students with an education. In fact, educating the individual is but a means to the true end of education, which is to create a viable social order to which individuals contribute and by which they are sustained. 'Family choice' is, therefore, basically selfish and anti-social in that it focuses on the 'wants' of a single family rather than the 'needs' of society."

Say WHAT?!

Kevin Hill, the chairman of the Wake County Board of EDUCATION, does not believe that the purpose of education is to provide individual students with an education?!

Hill believes your children should be used "to create a viable social order"?

O.M.G.

Yeah, read that again...and again...until it really sinks in. 

It's hard to believe Hill actually admits that he doesn't think education is about educating at all. But, after years of pretending otherwise, he did. 

So, the jig's up.

It is now clear that this new Board majority isn't out to help you or your children. So, you can quit emailing them about not getting your 1st choice, or not liking your feeder pattern, or your disgust over their sneaky midnight vote to revive the old assignment plan. It does not matter.

What matters to them is what part you and your children will play in their socially-engineered agenda.  To them, you, your family and your children are just pieces of their societal puzzle.

And we should be very scared.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/06/20/2150093/change-in-wake-student-assignment.html#storylink=cpy