Miscelaneous rambling while enjoying the victory

dan dempsey said...

After the hearing I said: Keith you must be kidding me. we live in a State with a constitution and yet we can't hold people to abide by it. Keith said ... Maybe we can and maybe we can't.

Ahearne had stated that Article IX is probably the most favorable for winning cases of this type of any state. Yup, ours is the best. In NY and Wyoming this strategy had already worked. Hey, If Ahearne says our constitution is better were are going to win.

We were supposed to get a decision on or before Feb 12... Ahearne was victorious by 10:30 and I thought hot damn we have a real chance to win this thing on the 12th. I started an encouraging letter to Marty after reading the Times article. I sent my email hoping to give her some hope that things were looking better. After sending it, I opened an email from her that said:

...OMIGOD We WON!!!!

Marty had not written any press release drafts as we were expecting a decision next week.

I find it interesting that Ahearne won at 10:30 and we won around noon.

I was so disgusted and angry at that NTN decision last night ... Melissa W. and I were spitting nails together in the JSCEE lobby... discussing the ludicrous reasons given by the gang of four for their votes.

Watch the board meeting from Feb 3...

The district need not waste time on a "Discovering" appeal because they will NOT win...more on that shortly.

They need to carefully examine Judge Spector's decision and look at the NTN decision because that one will be harder to defend than the Math decision if we decide to take it to Superior court.

A new day has dawned... sorry directors you need to make decisions based on evidence. Take a look at last night. I sent them piles of evidence in the form of letters graphs and charts. Listen to Paul Dunham, and Meg Diaz and even me. Listen to KAY S-B's analysis of what she found... then listen to the gang of four explain their votes. If we take this into superior court, it is game over they ignored all the evidence choosing to buy for $800,000 assistance to copy ineffective NTN programs, while reducing funding to 31 schools that average 54% low income.

Read article IX .. this is slam dunk game over if Meg or whoever wants to take this into Superior Court.

Note: I am not* an attorney and readers should not consider my opinions legal advice or base any of their actions solely upon my opinions.

You can READ About WHY* the district will not be successful in an appeal here.
2/5/10 1:07 AM
dan dempsey said...

Due diligence and NTN?

Not even close.

What did they want to accomplish and how did they expect to accomplish it?

It seems from all the obscure messages they had no idea about much of anything or how to accomplish it.

Here is what I would have done.
#1 find out what the community wants. They did not even ask the principal about STEM.

#2 If I thought I wanted Project Based Learning, I would analyze why.

Because I hear its good stuff and lots of folks do it just will not cut it.

Next I take 60 seconds to look it up in "Visible Learning" .. closest I can come is "Problem Based Learning". So I read the description... sure seems like fundamentally the same thing.

Effect size is really really low 0.15 I am now worried. But Gates Foundation says if you want PBL and STEM look at NTN. So I go to NTN and find 41 schools with 6 in CA. That is encouraging as I am really good at finding data in CA and CA has great data.

I look through the 6 schools demographics the one most like Seattle is NT Sacramento 43% Low Income and 16% ELL. Great they have been running since 2003. Then I look at scores. They really suck. Confirming Hattie's effect sizes once again. So let's try the one closest to Seattle BizTech in Portland (not a demo school) its no good either. OK lets look at that list of demonstration schools. Geezee Louise that poor NT Sacramento is a demonstration school as in a cut above. About half of the 41 are demonstration schools. So I pick the one near Denver ( for a moment I flash on Carla Santorno - help me) I recover from thought and get Data for NT Welby ... man this school must be among the worst in America and its a demonstration school.

At this point I am done.... there is no way I am wasting my time looking at any more of these. Meanwhile Board members are taking trips to these schools .. you must be kidding ... Nope they went to NT Sacrmento expecting to be looking at a STEM school and got there and it wasn't ... WHOA talk about an incompetent staff.
======================

But Seattle is really serious about this. So I start compiling stuff to send to the board to convince them to make a rational decision. I send them piles of really crappy results and I don't cherry-pick if I find good stuff I send it. I want them to have all the information needed to make an intelligent decision. I do not want them worried about is this really correct am I getting the full picture. I sure as hell wish they would ask those kinds of questions of staff.

Anyway like I said... if anyone cares to take this into Superior Court it is won... game over.

Once again no evidence. 98% graduation rate. So Cleveland is planned to have 250 per class ... WOW they actually thought that graduation rate meant something.... At the Cleveland open house I pointed out that at NT Sacramento 11th grade classes were doing good if they were 70% of the 9th grade size. So 250 x .70 does not equal 250 so where is that 11th grade class of size 250 coming from?

Once MGJ and the CAO understand the question I get this:
This school will attract talented kids they will be transferring in at 11th grade..... well Peter believes about 82 kids will be coming down from Ballard so what do I know.

Oh they also mentioned all these wonderful supports they are going to have, so kids won't be dropping out. Clearly if they think that 250 9th graders are going to produce 250 seniors, well they clearly need to get out more or switch medications. I think they really thought that 98% graduation rate meant what I thought it meant until I started looking at actual cohort classes and following them. Later Paul sent me the really cool formula they use to generate that worthless number. I think it may have come from the National Center of Educational Statistics, sounds good but clearly is not. Shouldn't the name of the stat have some connection to reality? Apparently not.

As usual staff did a shoddy job and the majority of directors will not hold anyone accountable.... but Judge Spector will. I suspect that most any judge will hold them accountable because this one is easy. Judge Spector did a lot of working reading and analyzing. She asked great questions at the hearing.

This one will be much easier.... because the board has hardly any evidence on which to base a positive vote and there are mountains they chose to neglect that shouted REJECT this proposal.
2/5/10 1:54 AM
dan dempsey said...

gavroche,

I loved your district motto.

They need a stamp that puts a line through:

Every student achieving ; Everyone accountable

and underneath it prints
"Arbitrary & Capricious"

"and only accountable in Superior Court"

SPS stationary needs this ... how much to have one made in a rubber stamp shop.

How much additional for an "MG-J" monogrammed model?
2/5/10 2:02 AM
dan dempsey said...

Three years ago a teacher testified at the Everyday Math adoption.

The board made their arbitrary and capricious choice. {not so found in court: because we had not figured out how to do this yet.}

The teacher said they will regret this as it will implode in three years.

I will raise up Singapore and bury them.

The teacher will be nameless ... hmm .. wonder what school that teacher was from and where they are teaching today.... I'll never tell.
2/5/10 2:08 AM